Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Hopeley Gertis, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Edmonton, Nerry, District 4, LaSeth Panowitz, District 5, and Council Chair, Deborah Fakes Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John LeHommad, and District 8, Richie Floyd. district date, Richie Floyd. Good afternoon everyone. I welcome you to the July 11th City Council meeting. Can we please begin with the roll call? I'm here, Floyd. Gertis, here, Abbott, Montenegro, here, Hannahweitz, here, Exander. Here, here. Thank you. Now we will have our pastor Clark Hayes leave from Mount Pilgrim Missionary about the church who will provide us with an invocation. Can we please stand followed by the pleasure of allegiance. Almighty God, we are humbled that you have allowed us to come together this day. We are humbled that you are continuing to lead us in the great work that we must do to serve this present age our calling to fulfill. May we honor one another by keeping an open mind to the truths that we need to hear in the hearts of the people. May we discern your will so that we can lift up all that need lifting up and Lord God made the work that we do. Brand you glory, we pray, amen. I'd like to leave this to the fly, let 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, Pastor Haysley for coming and providing that invocation for us today. I do need to make an announcement. We are rescheduling the public hearings for the Vesting Development Agreement and the CR8 in-town plan of amendment ordinances from today's meeting to the July 18th and the rezoning application has been rescheduled to the August 1st Council meeting. So now we have an approval of the agenda. Council members, we have an agenda before us. I entertain a motion for approval if no changes. Approval. Second. Now that we have a motion and a second, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tell in an ounce of votes. Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Council members, we have a descend agenda before us. I entertain a motion for approval. I'm sure we do have one card. Oh, you do have one card, okay? So, Marcus Davis, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to it. City Council. Excuse me. Good afternoon, council. My name is Marcus Davis. I work with Blue Sky Communities on the acquisitions team. And I'm a private resident of the city of St. Pete and we're just super excited for the opportunity to bring a new community here. Here on behalf of the St. Pete Housing Authority as well as Blue Scott to thank staff for their recommendation and here for any questions that you may have. Thank you. Could you state your address please? My address is 3951 34th Street South. Thank you. Move approval. Thank you. Thank you. Move approval. That's all on the car. And okay. So now that we have a motion is reprimately seconded, can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes? Just one moment please. Okay. Now that our present council members have voted can you please tell in and out some votes. Madam Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we will go into our awards and presentations and our first award will be presented by our Vice Chair Gertis. It is the ADA Day Proclamation. Vice Chair Gertis. Thank you Madam Chair. And I am joined by Lendell Bright and Anita Dreyer from our team here at the city, Matt Walker from Miracle by the Bay and members of our Capi citizens advocating for persons with impairments and other distinguished guests. And if they join me, I'm going to have you hold that one, Doug. This is one of the greatest honors I get during the years to present this proclamation chair and mayor, I want to thank you for the opportunity both to serve on Cappy and to be a part of this proclamation for American with Disabilities Act Day. This amazing group of people that we have, not only Cappy members, but our persons with impairment throughout our community, that community, continues to amaze me on a daily basis. The work that they do throughout this city, throughout this county, throughout this state, throughout this country, I was told by Matt earlier, he was invited to Nashville to be on a podcast. He politely declined. But that's how popular he is these days. And if you were able to see the email that was sent out earlier this morning, Matt was on Good Morning America yesterday morning with Michael Schreahan. And I'm going to brag on Matt for a little bit, not because he loves the same sport I do, but because of the work he does in our community and bringing our disabled community together with the game of baseball. And so over a five minute period, good morning America highlighted the work that Matt and Miracle by the Bay does here in St. Petersburg and was celebrated across the country yesterday morning. And I got to watch it last night at about 9 p.m. and my wife had to ask me what was wrong because I was sniveling like a little baby. I'm gonna try not to do that today. Yeah. And so, and the mats keeping me honest. And so, that is just a small portion and Matt thank you for the work that you do. That's just a small portion of the amazingness that happens in our city every day. And to be able to be a small part of that, to be able to be the conduit in which our copy and City Council administration communicates and to be able to see us move the needle on a monthly basis and to see our copy members and this community move the needle on a daily basis is absolutely amazing. It is humbling and it is something we should celebrate not during a day, not during a week, not during a month, but the whole damn year. And so I am very proud to present this proclamation both to Matt and to our copy. And it goes. Whereas July 26, 2024 marks the 34th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. And whereas the ADA has improved access to government services, programs, transportation, public places, communication, and information technology. And whereas the city established the committee to advocate for persons with impairments, Cappy, in 1972, with the purpose to serve as an advisory group who would advocate, advise, and formulate positions on issues facing persons with impairments, and provide advice and guidance relative to affairs, concerns, rights, and special needs of persons with impairments to ensure their full participation in the city's facilities, programs, and services. And whereas, Cappy has advocated and funded many services, including closed captioning of all city council meetings, handicap accessible aluminum docks for the St. Petersburg Sailing Center, closed captioning related to disasters and emergencies, beach wheelchairs and ADA training for city staff. And whereas, the City of St. Petersburg has a long standing commitment to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and continues to strive to provide programs and services to all segments of the community. Now, therefore, I, Copley Gertis, Vice Chair of City Council, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby declare July 26, 2024, Americans with Disabilities Act Day in St. Petersburg and call upon all residents to recognize that understanding and compliance with the ADA is the surest means to guarantee equal opportunities for all. Thank you. And quickly before I ask Lindell or Matt if they'd like to speak council in front of you you have a flyer talking about the 34th ADA anniversary celebration on July 28th 11 to four which by the way Matt has taken over and put on with over 18 vendors, money donated, silent auction, 50-50 raffle. And it's going to be an amazing time on July 24th. And I'm sure Lindell will talk about it, but you have that information in front of you. And I invite you all to attend with me and Chair and Mayor, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. First, I want to thank Council, you know, and then the ADA in the University of Quaid for the City, it is so much honor to work with all that captain there, and how much they give out, make my job a lot easier as Ford making sure. But I want to give you the few minutes with Matt, because I've been working with Matt for the last seven years. This young man has more energy than able by the person. Okay, yeah, a amount of force he puts out for every day, so I don't know. I got it, I got it, I got it. He's got it. He's got it. He's got it. Got it. Got it, man. Yep. Well, well, good afternoon, well good afternoon, council. My name is Matt Walker. I'm the president and CEO of Miracle by the Bay. We are located at 1810 Maryland Avenue, Northeast St. Petersburg, 3703 for the record. On behalf of myself and the entire communications team of Miracle by the Bay, we encourage you to come on out July 28th, not the 24th, that's a correction on the record please. That is the 28th, I'm sorry to... I'm sorry. I got to have one best self. Yeah, yeah. But on behalf of myself in Lindell S. Bright and Anita J. Dreyer. We want you to notice we are working tirelessly with Sean M. Druin and the City of St. Petersburg and with your support we've been able to successfully successfully obtain new vendors, new city services and everything. I actually just got a voicemail from a consumer looking for services while I was sitting in here. So that is the power of the ADA. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. to push their button, but you know that I was not going to let you leave without thanking you and Matt and vice chair girders for bringing this proclamation to us and me sitting on the panelists county persons with disability counts. So this means so much. First of all, let me say thank you. This was a great way to start this council meeting. Because when I see and I hear, and I look at the joy and mad eyes, after that nothing else matters. After that, nothing else matters. Because you look at his limitation, that we call limitations, but he calls his uniqueness. And I want to thank him so much for being here. So with the invocation, having met here, and what you have consistently done, and vice chair, Gertis, really takes all of this to heart. And that's what it takes is for us to make sure that those that need us are there, they're there for us. And I want to appreciate it, and thank you for bringing this proclamation. Great way to start. Thank you, Lindell there for us, and I want to appreciate it. And thank you for bringing this proclamation. Great way to start. Thank you, Lindell, for all that you do. Thank you. Applause In our next proclamation, we'll be presented by our mayor, Kenneth T. Welch, and it's the Duke Energy Day, celebrating 125 years. Thank you, Madam Chair. First, let me thank Matt and Lendell and Kathy. Thank you all for your great work, Matt. I've been curious on how to correct the vice chair for a while, so. Okay. For showing me how to do that. And vice chair, Gertis, just thank you for your passion. You could hear it in your comments and just thank you for your leadership on this issue. I appreciate it. It is a great way to start the meeting, Madam Chair. So the Chair, Council, members of the St. Pete team, our members of the public. It's great to be back with you again and I'm excited today to recognize one of the oldest corporations in our city, and a major employer and community partner. Duke Energy has been in service to St. Petersburg and Central and North Florida for 125 years. It is nearly as old as the city itself. But history is important, and before the company was Duke Energy, it was Florida Power. And Florida Power, along with the then St. Petersburg Times and a few other businesses, really were the core St. Peace business community for a long time, especially in the 80s when I was growing up. They let a number of efforts, including the pursuit of Major League Baseball. Now, some may remember that Florida Power Corporation and its affiliate progress energy companies really employed many staff and executives of color way before diversity and leadership in the corporate workplace was a mainstream discussion. In fact my first full-time corporate job after college was with Florida power. And ironically, they were recruiting at the highest of seven hills in Tallahassee now. A few people know what I'm talking about. But they were actually at FAMU recruiting the summer that I was graduating from graduate school. And so ironically, I was hired 200 miles away to come back home to my hometown and work a mile from where I grew up. And I worked there for 14 years in accounting and IT and systems administration. Now during that time I got to know many of the employees afford a power now Duke Energy from CEOs like Andy Hines and Jack Critchfield to the lineman in the field. It's Tom here because I know Tom could relate to this, if he's watching Assistant City Administrator Tom Green. My first job was as an auditor. So I got to call lineman and Perry and Longwood. Guys and Gail's have been working 12, 13 hour days and say, you know what, I see you're a receipt, but I don't have a receipt for that Wendy's chicken sandwich. I'm gonna need to get that. And I need an authorizing signature as well. So needless to say, I got to hear some interesting dialect from all across North and Central Florida, but over time I got to actually meet a lot of these employees and really understand how hard they work every day in communities across the state of Florida to bring power to our homes and businesses and to help us recover from the inevitable storms. Those are the folks that make up Duke Energy. Fast forward to today and Duke's energies headquarter in downtown St. Pete and ploys more than 640 people, resulting in an economic impact of $80 million annual. Duke Energy and its foundation annually return more than $2 million to the community in the form of donations, grants, and volunteer hours. They also provide a $400,000 annual sponsorship of the Mahaffee Theatre for the Arts and have a great lineman workforce program in partnership with the Urban League and St. Pete College that provides training and jobs that I think are about $60,000 to start for linemen. It's a great example of how we can improve our workforce and many other community initiatives. This proclamation recognizes the milestone of 125 years of service and commitment to our city. So I want to invite Duke, energy president, Florida, Melissa, Satius, and government community liaison, Jeff Baker, and other members of the Duke team to join me at the podium as I read the proclamation. Can y'all come on up? You got the document? One is. Okay. Listen. Join me. Thank you, sir. All right. Here's the parking. And it reads, whereas on July 18th, 1899, St. Petersburg Electric Light and Power Company, later to become Florida Power Corporation, Progress Energy, and now Duke Energy Florida. And I did read the notes somewhere at one point for a short time it was Pinellas County of power corporation, progress energy, and now Duke Energy Florida. And I did read the notes somewhere at one point for a short time it was Pinellas County power as well. Received at State Charter signed by the Secretary of State and Governor to power the lives of customers. And whereas Duke Energy Florida had quartered in the heart of historic downtown, and its legacy companies are nearly as old as the City of St. Petersburg, which demonstrates Duke Energy's longstanding history of service, dedication, and investment to and in this community. And whereas for 125 years, Duke Energy Florida and its legacy companies have remained a powerful economic engine, community champion, and provider of safe, reliable, and increasingly clean energy to approximately 2 million customers across 35 counties, including 160,000 customers in St. Petersburg. And whereas approximately 3,800 employees of Duke Energy, Florida, join our first responders and local emergency services personnel as they head into storms while other seek shelter, who in their spare time volunteer thousands of hours and make significant contributions to support the programs and organizations that strengthen and uplift the St. Pete community and environment. And whereas Duke Energy Florida, its foundation and employees continue to build and nurture the places we call home through millions of dollars of local grants, sponsorships, donations, and economic development efforts that are making a difference in the community and helping St. Petersburg thrive now and well into the future. Now therefore, I can atti Welch Mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, do hereby declare Thursday, July 18th, 2024, as Duke Energy Day in St. Petersburg and call upon residents to recognize this incredible milestone of 125 years and celebrate Duke Energy's everlasting commitment to the St. Petersburg community. Thank you, Council Members. This is a great, great honor to be here today. For a kid who grew up in St. Petersburg, I went to Perkins, Medallon, Northeast, St. Pete, Jr. College, Eckerd College, USF St. Pete, and started at then Florida Power Corporation when I was 19 years old and to think that these almost 40 years later that I get to stand in front of all of you and represent an incredible workforce behind me is still kind of awe-inspiring to myself. We are privileged to be able to serve the people of the City of St. Petersburg. As the mayor said, we've really grown up together. I can tell you my years of working as a government community relations manager and other roles that I've had here. Working with the City of St. Petersburg has made us a better company. And for that, I am extremely grateful. And while we are innovating and changing and moving to greener technology every single day, it's one of our number one priorities along with reliability, resiliency, it is truly the people of our company that make the difference. And I am incredibly proud that they call St. Petersburg home in many, many ways. And they have grown up here, and they continue to work here. And so I've been with the company almost 40 years, and I'm kind of one of the younger ones. So with us today, we have a few people, just a sampling that represent those who are keeping the lights on for our customers in the city of St. Petersburg. Behind me we have Tony Salvarezza, who today is celebrating 47 years of service. Tony is responsible for the operation of our solar units and all our other generation sites. We have Shane Norman, who is here from his alignment in St. Petersburg, William Long, who runs our St. Pete operating center where I started. Melvin Philpot, 43 years, our neighborhood energy saver program. Debbie Chris, in the meter department, in another 43 years. So it is that kind of talent and people don't stay just for the paycheck. They stay because of the commitment they have in their hearts for our customers and our communities. And I think that does differentiate us, but also it differentiates us is the relationship that we have with leaders like all of you. So we are incredibly grateful for your time, your dedication that you give to the city and to also helping to make us better. We look forward to continuing to serve the city and as I said get better and who knows what the next hundred and twenty five years will bring but among these employees behind me we represent about three hundred and twenty years of service service so with that I thank you stay safe. Councilmember Floyd thank you I just wanted to take an opportunity while all the Duke energy people were here to say we've been going through in our health energy resilience and sustainability committee getting information about how our partnership is gone. And I just wanted to advocate for us while you are all here to be able to say, look forward to continuing to get that. I hope that you hear what we've been up to and help us along in that process. And then the only other thing I'll say is, I'd also hope that you would continue to look at where your profits stand versus other communities, other corporations, public power corporations, and maybe see if you can advocate for some relief for our consumers. But I'll leave it there today. I just wanted to advocate for the city a little bit while I had your audience. Thank you. Thank you. I also remember Drisco. Thank you. I just wanted to give a special message specifically to the frontline line workers, the lineman who you know during it right here we are in the in the midst of our already active hurricane season and whenever we have a storm approaching our city our area It always gives me some comfort and encouragement and hope when I drive by the tropical field parking lot and see it full of due trucks ready to go. As others are taking shelter and keeping their families safe, you all are leaving your families behind, leaving your pets behind. And when we talk about our first responders and how important they are to us, that's you. That's you as well. And so I am just grateful for the work that you do when things go wrong to get us back up and running again. So I just really appreciate that. I know that our city appreciates that quick response at the times when we need it the most. So thank you. And a big shout out to Melvin, who is amazing with our neighborhoods. Thank you. Thank you. The best dressed man in the company, right there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The best dressed man in the company, right there. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you to everyone for coming and letting us read these proclamations for you. And thank you for all that you do. Thank you. Now we'll move on to our open forum. Clerk, can you please read the rules? If you wish to address City Council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items, listen on the agenda. Please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open form sheet. Oling City residents, owners of property, business owners in the city or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open form must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open form or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address city council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address City Council through the Zoom meeting you must use the raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star nine on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When is your turn to speak you will be unmuted and ask to state your name and address at the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation use, 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 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. Madam Chair, I want to call the speakers to at a time. When you hear your name call, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Ray Tampa and Kerry Mueller and Mueller. Please go to either podium. We have three minutes to address City Council. the head. Good afternoon. Madam Chair. And fellow council members. City administrators. Certainly I appreciate the opportunity. I have to name in your address first. Okay. Ray Tampa, 5501, 80th Street, North St. Petersburg. Lifetime resident. In an interview with the catalyst magazine dated December 20, 2021, outgoing city administrator, in the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at the city of New York, and I'm looking at a lot of projects right now. I'm in discussions with developers and different cities are calling me. I'm a deal junkie. I love good deals. Putting the puzzle together, I also love public private partnerships dot dot dot end of quote. I offered this clip because Mr. DeLow lent his expertise to the current discussions by thoroughly examining the development agreement point by point and concluding quote, no development agreement is perfect but no city deserves an agreement this bad end of quote. A council member made this statement quote, we have a responsibility to get this right end of quote. Certainly the deal wasn't right at the time that statement was made. So the question is, what has changed about the deal that suggests you all have gotten this deal right? By your own admissions council members, you all haven't gotten all the information needed to make informed decisions regarding this deal. There were questions about the sustainability of the stadium posed by two or three of you. As a matter of fact, one council member seemed tired of the drip, drip, drip of pertinent information. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Really appreciate it. Good afternoon council. My name is Carrie Mueller and I live at 1147 James Avenue South in the Campbell Park neighborhood. And I recently served on the Community Benefits Advisory Council and I stand by my no vote that the community benefits are grossly and adequate compared to the substantial public investment. This deal is not about who is for or against a new baseball stadium. It's about a corporate welfare scheme to transfer 65 acres of prime downtown real estate to Stoost, Dermberg. Raise Hines will only pay $4 million a year for the real estate for a maximum of 50 million in the first 12 years. In addition, taxpayers will be responsible for contributing $142 million of tax dollars from the downtown CRA to subsidize the infrastructure of a private real estate development. The developer can opt out of the affordable housing by paying liquidated damages equivalent to 10% of the cost of building an affordable housing unit. The developer won't have to pay for the land until it buys individual parcels. And it won't have to pay property taxes until individual buildings are put into service. The estimated property tax revenues need to be adjusted significantly downward to account for that. In addition, the renderings of the development no longer apply. The minimum development and the development agreement are all that matters. The project has 30 years to be completed. And only 333,000 square feet of various types of real estate has to be built in the first 10 years, half of which has to be built in the first ten years. Half of which has to be class A office. Just for reference, the orange station that will be located at the Old Police Station will be 125,000 square feet of class A office. So we can expect the equivalent of two of those types of building, which are two mid-rise office buildings to be built in the first 10 years along with 130 room hotel and 650 market rate residential units. That's it. That's all the property taxes we're going to be earned. The professional poll completed by Mason Dixon shows that the public thinks this deal is unfair, that it should be renegotiated, that there should be a vote, and that a new appraisal is needed. The Mason-Dixon poll is posted online and available to the public at nohomerun.com. This is not a project for the community or to benefit the public. The community benefits are window dressing and they're not a gift or contribution from the developer. They're a payment and loot for the land. City Council vote no on the raised high-end steel. Don't approve the largest subsidy on MLB history and obligate taxpayers to $686 million in debt. Thank you. Next two cards please. I want to introduce them. I want to call them in. It says Allen Dale United Methodist Church. Please state your name and address for the record. And you will have three minutes to address Council in a mutual self. Allen Dale United Methodist Church. We only have 30 minutes. So can we go on? Can you call the next two speakers? Tom Tito and Dalasteen Ossonson Please go to either podium state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council Thank you council members for the opportunity my name is Tom Tito. I live at 622 12th Avenue South Like to offer a few comments Mainly I'd like to ask you to please vote no on this deal. Needs improvement. I support a lot of what was said by Carrie Mueller by notehomerun.com. By the Sierra Club. I don't need to repeat what they've said, but they've given you great information. The contract has been out about 10 weeks. It's been revised, but the main points have not been approved. Improved. I think a majority of council members want this to be Lead certified, but the new contract just kind of says we like that, but it's not A firm requirement. Council members said he would love to see more affordable housing. I think most of you would love to see more affordable housing. I think most of you would love to see more affordable housing, but it's not required. I think Miss Mueller just said, you're getting about 10% of the housing you're talking about. The $1,250 might be $125. The museum is still a maybe, but the discount for the cost of the museum I believe is still on the land. So you're paying for a museum that may not be a certainty. The open space and parkland section is a question is the city paying for 14 acres but requiring 10. Months ago my council member supported changing the team's name to the St. Pete race. And I think that's a great idea. I just wonder what happened. Was there a dollar of value given to that change? It's fantastic promotion. Reminds me of what happened in Miami. The Florida Marlins became the Miami Marlins. It's possible. It could be done. The team in Miami had a need for a stadium. They were playing out in the sun and the rain. They got the same architect we have. The stadium didn't really help their attendance. But they did honor the city of Miami, which supported them with the name change. I think some of the politicians who supported that were out of office now. So it's pretty much that's my point. And please do this right. We've talked about it for 17 years. Now we've had about 10 weeks to look at this contract. Let's give it a few more months if you need. Maybe do it right. Thank you very much for your consideration. I appreciate it. Hi, my name is Darla Austinson. And I'm at 29, 2015, Avenue South in Melton Heights. I'm here today representing the Alliance for Sustainable Landscaping, a collection of experts in eco-friendly landscaping practices. We are asking that you add the letter before you to the agenda for the next hers committee meeting. The letter details the reasons we are requesting that ordinance 16.40.060.3.1D. Be largely emitted from the code and to meet with the committee to discuss recommendations that might accomplish the purpose stated in 16.40.060.1.1, which is in part to encourage the design and use of plant material, which reduces watering requirements, for example, with less St. Augustine sawed and with more planting of drought tolerant plant materials. In other words, practice Florida friendly landscaping, which is also protected by state law under statute 373.185. As written, the code requires homeowners wishing to practice Florida friendly landscaping or wildlife habitat management to employ a landscape architect to a right a management plan a Service that landscape architects would not typically offer to homeowners creating a $3,000 or more financial barrier to practice Florida friendly landscaping or wildlife habitat management This is the exact opposite of encouragement further more the code currently requires the management plan to be approved by IFAS, calling upon them to take a role in code enforcement, which is inappropriate. The code is already being enforced. There is an outstanding case against at least one resident of St. Petersburg, who is an under employed single mother with a screech all living on the property that she has managed as a wildlife habitat for decades without issue until this new code became active January 1st of 2024. She received her violation notice January 4th, 2024, the first work day after this code appeared. As written, the code is effectively a prohibition on Florida friendly landscaping, which is not allowable under statute 373.185. We can help you create a code that aligns with the city's eco-friendly goals and the state law, but first we need the harmful existing language removed. This letter was also emailed to all of you on June 26th. Is it possible to get a response on this of some kind within a week? Yes. Yes. Thank you. And thank you all for your time and consideration. Next to speakers, Madam Chair, Madison, Rice and Warren, Willingham, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address City Council. Hi. three minutes to address city council. Hi, I'm Madison Rice 3245 Jackson Street North. I'm going to make some comparisons between this current proposal and some previous proposals that we received for this site. Midtown included 28 and a half acres of open space and included hidden parking garages with no on-street parking. The current proposal includes less than half the open space and allows for street level parking. The Midtown proposal included 10,000 housing units total with some available for sale to promote generational wealth. This proposal only includes 64 hundred units and all our rentals. Midtown was going to spend 93 million on infrastructure and we are now going to spend 142 million of our tax dollars not including debt service on infrastructure for a private developer. This proposal doesn't hold up when you compare it to the others that we've received. Why and how did we end up here? In the RFP, the mayor's top priorities for this development were things like affordable housing and honoring the history of the gas plant district. But after picking raised hines, the top priority is now, keep the raise and st. p at all costs. Does this seem like a great place to be when you're negotiating the largest deal in the city's history? I went to all of the CBC meetings and I can see how these people are really hard to negotiate with. You don't become one of the largest developers in the world without playing hardball, but there is a city employee who I literally thought that he worked for the raise based on the way that he was like, effusively speaking about how great their proposal was and how great raise hind are, but he literally worked for the city. He's one of the people who negotiated this deal for us. And these are the people who advocate for how we spend our tax dollars on this deal. And during those meetings, Councilwoman Figg Sanders kept saying like, words are words. We need our promises in writing, which I totally agree with. But we have this agreement in writing now and the protections for the city are laughable. There's a lot that we can improve on. Like someone mentioned earlier, all of the upfront financial risk falls on the city while raise hines makes how much return on their investment. Do we even know? Did we even ask them? Do we have that information? How much will they make by selling the team if this deal is approved? Can we get out of this deal? I don't think so. I haven't seen the new development agreement because it's hidden in next week's agenda. This deal is the best thing that ever happened to the raise and I urge you to reject the development agreement. Thank you. Warren Willingham, 3245 Jackson Street North, 3374, lifelong St. Pete resident. God, what an incredible deal exclusively for the raise. People came out early in this process and demanded affordable housing at the core of this project. It was paid lip service and then we chose a proposal with the worst affordable housing numbers. The amount of affordable housing is abysmal, especially compared to superior proposals like Midtown or Sugarhill or probably most of them. Residents asked for mixed income or affordable housing, but all we get is a little pinky promise of a few affordable units on site, and then a few more off-site, lovely. We already fell for the stadium grift once before. We now have decades of research showing that public investment in stadiums does not ever break even. Baseball is fine, but subsidizing the raise to this extent will be an economic burden for generations. Let's not fall for the sunk-cost fallacy of, oh no, look at all the work we've done. We can't deny the deal now. The stakes are too high. Please don't push this economic disaster through out of convenience. I urge you to vote no and go with literally any other developer from that RFP or make the deal make the raise come back with a deal that is substantially different and actually benefits a city. Or hell, just one big park. It's at least not lighting our money on fire. Our city is successful on its own. Let's not fall for this. Please deny this. Your kids and grandchildren will thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next to Speaker's Madam Chair, Abdul Kareem Ali in Loretta Raymond. Please go to either podium. Raymond, please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. What's your time remaining? 14 minutes and 28 seconds. Thank you. God be with you. Madam Chair, Vice Chair, members of council administration, I don't really need a big introduction but put a record. I would just say my name is Abdul Kareem Ali and I serve as president of Tampa Bay Area Muslim Association and also a member of NFA Tampa Bay. I'm here today to really talk to you a little bit about interpaper Tampa Bay. And later, Vice President will come and give you. Your Honor, record is the recording. I need you to give your address, please. Big five. I need you to give your address, please. My address, I'm sorry. My address is 4005. Sorry about that. 4005, Court to S. Ways South. St. Petersburg. Are we straight now? Yes, we are. Very good. Here as a member of Interpaid Tampa Bay, and some of you is familiar with Interpaid Tampa Bay and some of the work that we do here in the city. I know Chair and Councilman John Muhammad have attended some of the events to myelistic in a page service We have annually there, but hopefully today the rest of you will be bear with me with what be about Like to just say we have members who come in a paper Tampa Bay here today, and if you would just please stand Thank you so much. Okay. And I will just walk to close by saying we are very happy to be here and hopefully vice president will speak later and he will tell you more about interfaith Tampa Bay. Thank you so much. God, please be with you. Good afternoon. My name is Loretta Riemann and I live at 2336 12th Street North St. Petersburg. I have lived in St. Pete and been a member of St. Paul's Catholic Church for over 40 years. At St. Paul's I am a member of the Fast Justice Ministry and also a member of our St. Vincent de Paul conference, which provides direct assistance to neighbors in need. Whenever possible, Vincentions go and make house visits to meet with the college in person, respecting their dignity and assessing how we can work together to meet their needs. Most requests are because someone's budget is so tight that a single financial emergency puts them into delinquency for their rent or their utility bills. In one case, we recently visited a woman who was working as a tax accountant and paying $1,700 a month for a one-bedroom mobile home. The mobile home was old and was not insulated well and our electric bell had more than doubled. Another was a disabled woman whose son had just graduated from high school and was working at Michaels, but his hours were cut recently. He's looking for another job, but that small loss and income put them in a financial bind. Over the last two years, this woman's rent had increased $500 a month. With the average rent of a one-bedroom apartment in St. Pete at $1800 a month, families who make less than 80% of the AMI, or 69,000 a year for a family of four would be paying over 30% of their monthly income on rent. When you add in all the other essentials, food, utilities, transportation, healthcare and childcare, it's just not feasible to live within this city in that budget. And that's just for a one bedroom apartment. A family, a friend of mine was just at the hospital and she did an informal survey of all the nurses who were waiting on her and helping her. And she learned that all of them lived outside of the city and traveled a significant distance because they couldn't afford to live here. We celebrate the council member Floyd in the House Land Use and Transportation Committee for taking the initiative to prioritize this income level. And we are looking forward to a resolution being passed that reflects this. Our neighbors in need are struggling to make ends meet. They deserve better. City Councilors, we are looking to you and to your leadership to prioritize housing for families making 80% or less of the AMI. You have the power to make this happen. Thank you. Next two speakers, Madam Chair, Jane, Scott and Janine Lessman, please go to I the podium. State your name and address for the record. And you will have three minutes to address City Council. Go ahead, Miss Scott. Go ahead. You can start speaking. Go ahead. Hello, my name is Jeanine Lessman. I'm at 5138th Way South here in St. Petersburg and I'm following up on the comments made by Darla Ostensen. I'm here to speak on behalf of the Alliance for Sustainable Landscaping and I'm beginning my 25th year at Eckerd College in the Department of Marine Science and Biology. I'm commenting here regarding the landscape code change that has negatively affected the ability of a homeowner to practice Florida-friendly landscaping by requiring the employment of a landscape architect to write a management plan and submit it for approval. It's already accurately asserted that it's a financial burden to homeowners and that there's a lack of proper expertise and procedure to prove such plan. As an educator, I and other educators spend our careers, not only educating our students, but also our neighbors and communities on Florida-friendly landscaping principles. We are passionate about sustainable and affordable living in St. Petersburg. In teaching, we utilize our city parks where our taxes are usefully promoting these principles, where we highlight the park's educational interpretive material and rangers. Boyd Hill, city park sells Florida friendly native plants on site for residents to utilize in their landscaping. Our city landscaping code needs to support the educational message we the city already invest not counteract this investment now made by the city and our supporting community members. Looking to our future please let us continue educating on what are the aesthetics and principles of Florida friendly landscaping to promote sustainable efforts in our densely populated city, including through our city code. Thank you very much. Hello, Council. James Scott, PIPPY 318, 6th Street South. Good to see you again. I am going to say something that might be a little bit divisive today. I want to speak on item D2, the Declaration of Proclamation of July 18th as Duke Energy Day. To many of us, that is a very tone deaf and out of touch proclamation. And I'll explain why. For starters, I'll work with Duke staff. Duke is a lot of really good people who work for Duke. There's Duke Energy, the people, and there's the corporation. Some facts. Duke is the third largest utility in the US, or $77 billion market cap. It's the fifth most expensive in the US. With one of the pursuing one of the highest profit margins of utilities, they're trying to add another 800 million plus to our rates this year, in the next three years I apologize, and they are 47 of 53 in offering energy efficiency to our to their customers. And short, they don't look out for rate payers, they don't look out for the vulnerable, and they make their money off of a building power plants and infrastructure. They're a profit-making entity, Duke Energy is not our friend. They use our money to lobby. They give money to campaign cash to elected officials and politicians. They give money to the behalf of America, well, said. And $2 million of donations. That's our money. They're spending to lobby us and our elected officials. And every time I open my 10-way time zap, I get a Duke energy ad. Those are our money. They're spending to lobby and propagandize us. So while people struggle with paying their bills, Duke Energy is slow walking the energy transition and look at short rakers. That is a canary in the coal mine. We're ground zero. Big corporations that pollute like they do are a massive part of the problem. They are not taking the seriously, our cities declared values and our declared goals around climate energy. We, they are so far from that. Duke energy is not our friend. The HERS committee is engaging with the questions of where we're at with our energy and where we're going. And that means the conversation on a franchise agreement and also Duke is grappling with the bad press around rates and whatnot and here we go as a city giving them their PR department on a platter exactly what they've asked for. So Duke's plan is not aligned with our plans. The mayor's plan on his policy on energy evidently is not a progressive one. So I would say that council please lead on energy policy and the city of St. Pete. Please get an energy analysis about a franchise agreement what it would mean for our city to meet its goals and to make a more affordable energy system and the city of St. Pete. And we have two big decisions in 2026 that franchise agreement and the mayor's race. Thank you. I'm sure we have enough time for one more speaker of this portion to open for them. Susan McGrath, please go to I the podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. Good afternoon, Council. Susan McGrath, 2732, Burlington Avenue, North. One second, I'm looking for some of my notes. I didn't know if I was going to make it today. I'm here to speak to the Reigns Highens Agreement, and I know you hear about this all the time. I just wanted to highlight to begin with the broad swath of community partners that I know you have received input from who stand in solidarity and support with this plan. One that particularly spoke to me, which I only have time to share one line from one partner, is feeding Tampa Bay. And most everybody knows who feeding Tampa Bay is because they serve some of our most marginalized residents and citizens of our city. And we also saw how important they are during the pandemic and every day since that when struggling families need their resources. And FeedingTam Bay said, we believe the rays and their partners are poised to actively create intentional, equitable initiatives that will pave the path to housing, small business development, employment, and educational opportunities. And there's more of that, of course. So there's two sides of this. There's two sides that have issues with the plan, right? There's this side. And I got a message from someone I very much respect who said, we can do so much more. We can add X, Y, Z, all really great grand things. But I'm like, OK, and then we have this side. Some folks today have spoken to both that are concerned about the cost. There's a major, this is an expensive plan. There's major cost within. And people are rightfully concerned about that. But there comes a point where there has to be a happy middle. There has to be things that we can deliver on this plant and a cost that we can manage for our residents. And so one thing that particularly speaks to me, while I have a few minutes, is the Cardigy Woodson Museum. And I know I'm running out of time, but in a time when black education is not being done the way it should in our state, I'm going to celebrate that movement. So it's not going to be the end all, be all of everything, but it's a good plan. And I know you'll support it. Thank you. And by the way, if I have time, my union brothers or sisters are here and I stand with them in solidarity on apprenticeship programs. So thank you. Okay. So now we're going to go ahead and close open form and we're going to remove we're going to move on to reports and we're going to go to Item F1 which is the fiscal year 25 mayors recommended budget presentation and joining us this mayor welch and budget director Liz McCoffee. and budget director Liz McCoffee. Thank you, Madam Chair and Council. We'll give a couple of seconds for the room to clear. Well, you can't see me, so that's a bonus for you to start with. I was just making a joke. You can leave the lights down. Actually, you probably need to take them now so we can see the PowerPoint. Good evening, Madam Chair. Councilmember is along with our budget team. I'm really honored to join you today to present my recommended budget for the fiscal year 2025. As in previous years, I'd like to highlight some of our collective priorities funded in this recommended budget and take the opportunity to thank our team, our administrators, our budget team, our city departments, council and the public for your collaboration in the development of this budget. The annual budget process is an opportunity for our city to fund its priorities to innovate and to respond to new challenges while meeting the critical service delivery responsibilities of city government. Make sure we close those doors. Now city council knows our budget process begins early in the year with an important discussion about Council and community priorities. We hold budget workshops with City Council and a budget open house with the community. Those meetings are opportunities to hear from the Council and our community on what most important funding priorities are. The budget you have before you, hot off the presses, is a result of that process and seeks a balance of community impact, sustainability, and equitable investments in our city. Now I often mention the Stewart Principal named after former City Council Member and County Commissioner Bob Stewart, which states that our needs are infinite while our resources are finite. It means that we can never fund every worthy program or service in any city budget. So we work to balance our fiscal resources with our diverse community needs in a way that is equitable, sustainable, and impactful. The budget process is centered on ensuring our resources are deployed within our five pillars for principal progress, including housing opportunities for all, environment, infrastructure, and resilience, equitable development, arts, and business opportunities, education and youth opportunities, and neighborhood health and safety. These pillars reflect what we do in the community. These pillars are guided by six principles for accountable and responsive government, including in touch leadership, inclusive governance, innovation, informed decision-making, impactful investments in services and intentional equity. These principles guide how we govern. Before I hand this over to our ace, our budget director, Liz McCovsky, I'd like to highlight a few items aligned with those pillars and principles, from the recommended budget. First, once again we have seen strong growth in our citywide property values, allowing us to include in our budget recommendations a reduction in the FY25 milled rate from 6.4675 to 6.4525 mills, a reduction of 0.015 mills. Additionally, we are maintaining our contribution to the economic stability fund at $500,000 to better position ourselves to address potential future challenges. Finally, we will be recommending to a future BFNT committee meeting that we modify our fiscal policies to increase our target for the general fund balance from 12% of the annual appropriation to 14.67% on the way to a goal of 16.67% or two months of the current year appropriation. And that's in order to align with government finance officers' association recommendations for best financial practices with respect to reserves. The second area I'd like to highlight is housing. This is one of our pillars and we continue to invest in a development and preservation of housing opportunities with an emphasis on housing for those making 80% AMI or less. As part of the 10 year housing opportunities for all plan that began in 2020, to date we have 2148 multifamily rental units completed or in process towards a goal of 3200 units. With an overall goal of 7800 units including accessory dwelling units, single family lots for new home construction, and home ownership opportunities. City administration and city council recently celebrated some of these successes at a grand opening and ribbon ribbon cutting for the 16th square town home project by Namaste homes, the N O'Vare grand opening, and the groundbreaking for the gravel road development near Lakewood Elementary which will prioritize affordable housing for teachers and city employees, and for the scourway lofts to development among other affordable housing for teachers and city employees, and for the Skyway Lofts to development among other affordable housing developments. Housing highlights from our recommended budget include 500,000 to continue funding both the city employee housing assistance and citywide rebates for residential rehab programs. The recommended budget will also fund a new program in the Code's Compliance Department to assist citizens in addressing larger code violation repairs that are ineligible for current housing CRA or NTeam programs and continue funding for a citywide tenant eviction assistance program. Under the Environment, Infrastructure, and Resiliency Pillar, the FY25 recommended budget includes funding to strengthen our mitigation efforts and response to wet weather events that have impacted the city-wide stormwater utility system. This funding will provide additional personnel and support services and operations and maintenance, as well as increase funding in the five-year stormwater CIP to address immediate localized flooding capital projects and additional stormwater projects within the CIP budget. A note of special thanks to Councilmember Gabbert and Montenegro and Administrator Claude Tancersley and his team. Thanks to their efforts, we added a storm drain maintenance team mid-year during this current fiscal year after receiving community feedback and recommendations after storm events and at the recent resiliency summit which was held in February. Under the equitable economic development arts and business opportunities pillar, the recommended FY25 budget provides funding for economic development initiatives including small business grants and programs at $300,000, the St. Petersburg Economic Development Corporation at $150,000, the greenhouse at $150,000, gross smarter economic and workforce development incentives program at $100,000. And there's also a $200,000 included for a new city-wide workforce development programming program. And 220,000 for our four main street business organizations. Also included in the recommended FY25 budget is new and increased funding for the arts. 550,000 is allocated for the city's arts grants program, which is a $50,000 increase over the FY24 adopted budget. New funding program in FY25 includes $250,000 for the palladium, which would be year one of a four year commitment, and there were strong council support in your priorities for that. $50,000 for arts micro grants. $50,000 to fund programming at the warehouse arts district association. $20,000 for sole fest and $10,000 for this BIFS 50th anniversary. We continue to develop and refine our programs in support of our education and youth opportunities pillar. The recommended budget continues funding for my brother and sister's keeper program at $199,500. I was just wondering why not just 200. But youth development grants at $450,000. The mayor's future ready Academy, which we're really excited about in Feistra Guter. She joined me for the graduation. Where six of the nine graduates of the first cohort have now moved on to full-time jobs with the city of St. Petersburg. And that's making an impact. That's funded at $500,000. The budget continues funding for hidden voices, which includes job readiness and soft skills at $100,000. Our year-round youth employment skills at $100,000. Our year round youth employment programs at $500,000. Literacy and steam programs at $500,000. And the reads to me program at $50,000. You'll also find within the budget additional funding for our parks and recreation facilities, which as you all know are the best in Florida, according to the Trust for Public Land. So I got that in so we don't have to have Mike Jeffrey say it one more time. We continue to make investments in safe and healthy neighborhoods, including the call program, community assistance and lively A's on body, one cameras and fire cadet programs. Within the fire rescue department there are eight additional full-time fire fire paramedic positions at $628,000. I'm rounding the thousands this included as part of the three-year plan to bring the department position count up to staffing the staffing multiplier within the county and additional full-time fire lieutenant position at $121,655 is also included for headquarters to manage logistics and EMS related training. These positions will be funded by the county if approved by the EMS authority. Now in each of our pillars we encourage innovation and that applies to the safe and healthy neighborhoods pillar as well. We continue to seek new and impactful ways to increase neighborhood safety and to connect youth and families to positive opportunities and resources. As I reported to you earlier, we've created a new youth care program through the St. Pete Police Department. Our new community impact and safety liaison in the Office of Equity is a key partner in that program, which is focused on breaking the cycle of crime among our young residents through early intervention and comprehensive support, counseling, and family services. The program is aimed at applying resources to address the root causes of crime in partnership with our police department and our social service partners. During FY 24 we started our safe summer program. The program in partnership with the Office of Equity, Community and Richmond Administration and St. Pete Police Department engages children and youth in the community encouraging them to be to make positive choices and to take advantage of the opportunities that the city and our partners provide for families and youth. The program kicked off with the Block Party and provides youth outreach events every Friday at Lake Vista Recreation Center. One of the things we hear is there's nothing for the kids to do. They'll get in trouble. This is available every Friday at Lake Vista. Funding for this program will continue in FY25 and the recommended budget includes additional funding for the safer neighborhoods for all programs at $231,000 and community impact grants and programs at that same amount, including the development of a faith community partnership which will be coordinated by our faith and community justice liaison. We also recognize that a healthy city is vital to our success. The recommended FY25 budget maintains the city's Healthy St. Pied initiative with a $1 million allocation for the program. We've also included $245,000 to continue the Healthy Neighborhood Store Program, which was previously funded through the American Rescue Plan Act. And there is one more thing. I'd like to speak about our innovative and in touch budget initiative. Even under the Stewart Principle of Limited Resources, I think we still should seek new ways to explore innovation and inclusive governance as it relates to our budget. So out of our budget discussions emerged an idea, which may have been fueled by chocolate and mountain dew, Liz, and Rob. And the question was, well, why don't we ask the community to weigh in on a project that would address a key need in the community, and would foster community empowerment and participation in our budget process. And so the Innovative Equity Project initiative was developed. And the response from the community was tremendous, with more than 1,200 residents voting on these projects. With a dedicated budget of up to $1 million, various departments spent time collaborating as teams and fine-tuning proposals for projects that prioritize innovation, inclusivity, and equity and align with our pillars for progress and our governing principles. The five projects were, Cover Saint Pete, a roof replacement program, Ford together, a youth crime prevention program, Swim Smart and Library Lockers, a swimming and literacy program. The fourth was Dream Big Day, an MLK Day of Service. And the fifth was Wash, Water Assistance for St. Pete Homeowners, a program to assist homeowners with their utility bills. So St. Pete residents voted for their top choice and the winner is, should have a drum roll here, but we don't. Okay, there we go. The winner is forward together, a youth crime prevention program. Now the goal of the forward together program is to ensure St. Pete's youth have achievable pathways to success and provide a supportive safety net to enable better choices and prevent future crimes. It is an important initiative designed to address, again, the root causes of youth involvement in crime and to steer those young folks to better paths. With the primary focus on youth age 12 to 17, this program will emphasize intervention and violence reduction utilizing outreach, mental health, and human services programs. I want to thank everyone who participated in this process and I look forward to implementing and reporting on the impact of this program going forward. And as I conclude I want to comment on our city team. City Council knows well that we have an outstanding team. Throughout the budget development process and line out reviews, their skill, commitment, and focus on our pillars and governing principles consistently produces a budget that we can be proud of. And one that reflects our shared priorities and it here is to the highest professional standards. This budget supports the work of our city team as they provide essential services and the infrastructure required for our city to thrive. So Council, the budget is now in your hands. I look forward to your review of the FY25 recommended budget and thank you for your collective partnership in empowering our St. P team, continues to set the standard for public service in the United States. After all, we are St. P. I would now like to turn it over to our ace, our Director of Budget and Management, Miss Liz McCosky. Liz? Right now that we have all the exciting stuff out of the way I'll go through the technical piece of this presentation. Okay, good afternoon chair and members of City Council. You just heard some comments from Mayor Welch on the FY25 recommended budget and on the next few slides I'll go over some more details including some of the major changes since the preliminary budget was presented this past spring. The mayor's recommended budget contains a proposed milled rate for FY25 of point of 6.4525 mills which is a reduction of 0.015 mills from last year's milled rate and a quaste to a saving of just over half a million dollars. This rate will bring in 218.4 million and Advalorum revenue, which is an increase of 10.4% or 20.6 million over the FY24 adopted budget. And the recommended general fund operating budget overall increased 28.8 million or 7.9% over last year. As we discussed earlier in the budget committee, the whole in our open house, the key areas of investment plan for FY25 budget are aligned with the mayor's five pillars for progress. For the education and youth opportunities pillar, there's funding to continue programs such as the mayor's future ready academy, the year-round youth employment programs, and literacy and steam programs. Under the equitable development arts and business opportunities pillars, we look to fund the continuation of our economic and workforce development in arts programs, while adding funding for new programs, including a new city-wide workforce development programming, and arts micro grants program. Under the neighborhood healthy and safety pillar we're continuing to fund neighborhood and public safety programs like the call program and the mayor's tree many grants. For the housing opportunity for all pillar they'll be funding to continue our progress on the 10 year housing opportunities for all agenda and provide resources for social service programs. And finally, in the environment and infrastructure and resilience pillar, their preliminary budget will have funding for projects that protect our environment and prove our city infrastructure. Some key investments on the capital improvement side of the budget are water and storm water infrastructure, affordable housing land acquisitions, assignments to public safety training facilities including both K9 and Fire Rescue, the Enoch Davis replacement, and Fleet facility. There's also funding for bridges, sea walls, sidewalks, streets and road improvements, multimodal transportation and pedestrian safety improvements, recreation centers, parks and library improvements, and improvements at various city facilities and for neighborhood partnership grants and enhancements. Some of the major changes to the FY25 budget since the preliminary version that was presented earlier this year can be found in the executive summary section of the recommended budget book starting on page 3. And some of the recap is included on the slide. We've added funding for safe summer and community impact programming. In the CIP budget we've included funding for the Coliseum, Ballroom, Floor, and Substructure Upgrade Project. We've included funding to continue the Healthy Neighborhood Store Program, which is currently funded through the American Rescue Plan Act funding. There's funding for traffic cabinet signal replacement, funding for the Solfest event. There is also a reorganization of the Veterans, Social and Homeless Services Division from the Housing and Neighborhood Services Administration Department to the Housing and Community Development Department. There's also in the CIP budget included funding for the Business, District Placemaking and Streetscaping Project and funding for Infrastructure to be determined. On the operating side, there was funding for infrastructure to be determined. On the operating side, there was funding for nine new positions throughout the city. One full-time position was included in the economic and workforce development department, and that was an economic and development analyst. A housing and development coordinator, full-time position was included in the housing and community development department. A human resources special list position was added under the Human Resources Department. There was two full-time library one positions in the library department. A 4-stee four-person position in the Parks and Recreation Department. A victim assisted specialist in the police department that was previously funded by a grant. It's now funded through the General Fund. Our Public Works Administration added a senior operations analyst and in the stormwater pavement traffic operations an accountant one position was added. In this next section we'll give a quick overview using tables and charts and graphs to illustrate the city's FY25 recommended budget and these tables are also included in the FY25 recommended budget book in the executive summary which has been posted on the city's website. The total FY25 recommended operating budget revenue for the city for FY25 is $901.5 million. The charges for services makes up the largest revenue category at about $384.1 million or $42.6% of the revenue budget followed next by taxes at $288.1 million or 31%. The FY25 recommended operating budget totals $900.5 million and is 9.4% higher than the FY24 adopted budget. The public works administration, which includes the enterprise funds of water resources and storm water, is 31.6% of the total budget or 284.3 million. The Public Safety Administration comes next, which includes police and fire rescue departments at 25.7% of the total operating budget or 231.7 million. And if you notice there's a difference in the operating expenditures amount on this slide and the operating revenue budget on the previous slide And that's due to revenue received in funds that is not completely appropriated in the plan in the year it's received The tax increment financing funds and the economic stability fund are some of these examples where there's revenue coming into the fund But we don't have corresponding expenditures For the general fund revenue budget the total is 393.338 million. The General Fund Revenue comes from various sources and are shown on this chart. The largest single source of revenue for the General Fund is the taxes category, which includes advalorant property taxes, and there's 288.123 million or 73% of the budget. The intergovernmental revenue category comes in next and includes revenues like the half-scent sales tax and that's the second largest source of revenue at 11.1% or 43.8 million. On the expenditure side, the budget for FY25 is also 393.338 million. The city's general fund is categorized into six administrations and the single largest general fund investment made by the city is in the public safety administration, which is 52.7% of the budget. The general government administration makes up the next largest category at 19.8% and some of the departments in this administration include the budget finance legal and human resources departments. And third in the General Fund investment is the quality of life type programming provided by the Community Enrichment Administration at 16.8%, which includes parks and recreation and the library's department. Looking at the General Fund expenditure budget by expenditure type, the single largest expenditure category in the General Fund is salaries at 185 million or 47% of the total budget. Benefits makes up the second largest category at 19.5% or 76.8 million. Combined, these two categories make up 66.6% of the total general fund budget. For our capital improvement budget, we have a total budget of 198.74 million in capital projects for FY 25. And looking at the five year plan from FY 25 through FY 29, we have a total of 994.128 million in capital projects throughout the five year plan. And in closing, the first public hearing on the budget is planned to be held on September 12th, 2024. And the second hearing and September 26th, 2024. Both will be held at City Hall and council chambers at 6 p.m. And information on the Mayor's Recommendate budget is available on the city's website. And before I conclude, I'd also like to thank my budget team that's here with me today. They do a great job. Thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Very informative. I appreciate you. Now we're going to move on to our next report with your item F3. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We do have a card on now. Okay. William Kilgore, please go to I the podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address City Council. Hi everybody. William Kilgore. I am at 2550, 28th Avenue North. And I'm an organizer with the St. Petersburg Tenets Union. I just wanted to speak on the budget. One thing I'm just gonna call it out right now. There is a zero dollar increase for the call program. $1.6 million zero. I just checked the budget just dropped online. I noticed it in the preliminary budget that was released back in May. That's crazy. When you consider the fact that call has been so successful you've had probably the best thing I think this city has done in a long time, maybe ever. You know, I was part of those protests in 2020 and folks were out, there's a lot going on in the country and that was something Saint Pete, I know that was Mayor Krizman who implemented it, but you know, Mayor Welch has been carrying it out and carrying it out. But you know, in good faith, and this has been a great program, but at this point, now not funding that when the police are getting a $12 million increase, and none of that's going to call, are you kidding me? And see, this is what happens is we get these reforms like this and then we kind of just cap it out. We don't ever take the next step. We don't ever try and take it a step further. I know there's a neighborhood health and safety liaison and some other things that have been added, but there's no reason not to boost calls budget. We've been asking for that for a long time We're talking about you know a couple hundred thousand dollars here a couple hundred thousand dollars there Increases over the past couple years, you know, but we're giving all these this grant money and these corporate handouts business handouts You know handouts for these work force gross smarter You know just giving these tech firms free money just for hiring positions of people who don't even live in this city, people like me. It's not benefiting me. It's not creating jobs for most low-income people. So I just have to call that out because it's egregious. I think a lot of people have been watching the trough right now and they haven't really been paying attention to the budget But you know that that is a huge shortcoming here and and I That needs to that needs to change something needs to change between now and September and there needs to be more money for call So thank you all very much. I like you know ranting a little bit, but I appreciate you listening. Thank you Thank you anymore cars. I'm sorry I miss, but I appreciate you listening. Thank you. Thank you. Any more cars? I'm sorry. I missed that. That is it. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I started this a little bit during a gender review, but I figured I'd just get it out here. When you live in this city, you have to pay for services to the city to live here. There's two major ones. One is your ad valorem taxes and the other one is your utility services and you have to pay for both of them and makes no difference that one is a direct fee for service because the other one is also a fee for service. They're the same thing. And every year we go through this process and we choose to cut the one that impacts property owners directly and raise the one that impacts residents directly. And so when I made this comment last year, if our goal is to use some of our budget resources to lower the cost of living in a blanket way, then it would make more sense to just keep the military the same and lower the impact on utility fees. Utility fees are paid for by people who live here. Renters pay the utility fees. Home owners pay the utility fees. Business owners pay the utility fees. Property taxes are paid for by the property owners who don't necessarily live here. There's been an expose in the times over the past few weeks about how much of our property is owned by Wall Street. They are the ones who are reaping the benefit there. If you're a large property owner, you might not even live in this city. Maybe you do live in this city. Doesn't matter, you're going to receive a disproportionate impact from the milledrate decrease. When if our goal is to lower the cost of living in the city, I think we should look at keeping the millage the same and lowering the utility rates because they're going up a lot every year. And I'll give an example, if you're a senior on a fixed income in a senior facility, you don't pay the property taxes on that facility. Sure, maybe some people could make an argument that the owner of the facility pays property taxes and they might pass along the savings. Well, if you think they're passing along the savings, I have a bridge to sell you because no one is going to. We all know. We know what happens when you give a tax break to the people at the top. They don't pass it down to working people. And so I just want to continue to advocate and hammer home that point that I don't think that the way that we're trying to cut the cost of living in the city is equitable. And I would like for us to acknowledge that and change course. And it's the second year in a row that I've articulated this. And this year I feel very strongly about it so I just put it out there I look forward to our budget discussions going forward and with that I will finish thank you chair. Thank you council member Martin Ehring. Thank you madam chair thank you mayor for presenting your budget to us and Liz in the whole budget team. I took a quick glance at the executive summary after we received it late this morning. And I appreciate what you've done with adding a, I do disagree with Councilmember Floyd on the military reduction to me. It's a very very modest military reduction and I want to I propose one myself. I believe that strongly that that's the path that we should be on. I also believe in making sure that we're adequately funding our reserves. So I proposed a higher contribution to our economic stability fund. And we'll have these discussions. We'll have one-on-one meetings with our budget people and go through this entire budget. And just for the public watching, this is our budget. It's the biggest thing that City Council does. budget and just for the public watching, this is our budget. It's the biggest thing that City Council does. It's where the City Council gets, I mean, the power articulated in the charter when it comes to the power of the purse falls on City Council. So the mayor proposes the budget, City Council approves the budget and I look forward to working with our team to make sure that we continue to be good fiscal stewards for the residents of St. Petersburg. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Mayor, for the presentation at the beginning and thank you, Liz, and your entire team for all the work to get us to this point. I wanted to address Mr. Kilgore, his comments and share an echo in that concern. One of the things that I had asked for in my budget, MIMO, was an increase in the call program. Very, very important service, I believe, to our residents, to our city, and really innovative work that we've been heralded for for doing in the face of everything that happened in 2020. I'm looking at the budget now, which to Councilmember Montenegro's point, we just got this morning. Been a busy day. We've been in committees all day, but we have it here. And so I've pulled it up. And to Mr. Kilgore's I'm not sure if it's going to be the last one. I'm not sure if it's going to be the last one. I'm not sure if it's going to be the last one. I'm not sure if it's going to be the last one. I'm not sure if it's going to be the last one. I'm not sure if it's going to be the last one. I'm not sure if it's we have a one on one, this is something I want to dig into. I want to understand what goes in the line item of fiscal services at 73% of an increase when the call program is flat. And you have a lot of council members here that care deeply about this program, want to see this program succeed, want to see this program really quite honestly grow and I don't know how we do that with a flat budget in that item. So there's probably lots of other things that we can have conversation about because budget requests from council members are long and we understand it's a balancing act. But Mr. Cooper brought this up so I went right to it. I saw it. I share in the concern and certainly want to have more conversation about that. Absolutely. And council member, if I could, Madam Chair, if I could just address that very quickly. We did have an increase last year in the call program. And that we entered into a three year agreement with the provider at that level. So, we're under the agreement at that level for the next two fiscal years, 25 and 26. So just because we're at an agreement at that amount, does that not mean that we cannot make a proactive decision to increase that budget item and give more money to that program? Well, it does not, but I just wanted to provide clarity that we increased a last year to include two new staff people to expand the program. And I see that now. Yeah. So I just wanted to provide clarity that we increased it last year to include two new staff people to expand the program. And I see that now. Yeah. So I just wanted to point that out and clarify that. Okay. All right. Well, I hope we can continue discussion on this item. And so thank you Madam Chair. I'll leave it there for now. Thank you. Nice chair, Garnace. Thank you Madam Chair. Liz, this is probably a question for you or Tom. The mayor the mayor mentioned increasing the general fund target reserve from 12 I think to 14 and some change and then trying to get to 16. Is that is is that a new gas be requirement or recommendation I guess not requirement? It's one that we've been trying to work for the last couple of years. So if you remember we started at 5% we've been slowly trying to get to that 16.67. So they went from 5 to 10 to 12. And so in August when we come to BFNT with our fiscal policies recommendation, we're going to recommend going up to 14.67. And so we can get closer to that target. OK, so if it depends on if it's approved by City Council. Okay. I guess in my head I thought we went from five to 10 to 12 and that's where the recommendation was. I guess I didn't realize that 14. I'm not against it. It just caught me off guard a little bit. Yeah. It's two months, which is 16.7 and we had, we knew it take take a couple of years to get there. Okay. This is like year three of a four or five year plan. All about it. I think part of the reason I wanted to bring it up, Council Member Montenegri is, in general, I agree with you about the Economic Stability Fund, but that makes me feel better about the Target Fund if we're not gonna do it at a million for economic stability. And so, to me, it's kind of one or the other. I totally understand you're feeling on it and I'm sure we'll talk about it in a couple of weeks but I'm glad to hear that. For some reason that totally escaped me but I'm happy to get to the to the two months. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. I'm looking at the timeline so clearly there are some of us who have changes that we want to have made but we don't have another opportunity to talk about this. We have today and then we've got first reading. I've always been in favor of having a committee the whole meeting in between this point and first reading so that we can hash this out, because there are things that all of us want that are not in there, and there are things that perhaps we individually want that we could come to an agreement on for this. And then, there are other things in here that have been put in like the major changes that are listed in the presentation that I've never heard anything about. And yet there are so many of the things that I and we ask for that are not in there. And so I just, I don't know how anyone else feels about this, but I don't like us having to be kept in silos because we cannot talk outside of a public meeting to have these one-on-ones and then come to first reading and have to take that scalpel to fix the budget to where we want it and need it for things like the call program. I'm after this meeting, I'm not going to know how councilmember Gabbard's conversation went because I can't be there and I can't talk to her. I want that fixed. If I could. I want to follow up on my question from the committee of the whole, from the operating budget portion on increasing the rents for our marina live-abords and for the slip rentals at the municipal marina. And I threw a fit about it. That's got to be fixed. I don't want us to have these conversations with walls in between us because of sunshine law. I want us to all talk about and if we're doing it now, then give me a recess and I will make some notes and we're going to go to town on this right now. Certainly appreciate your comments council member and I know that council sets their own agenda and their schedule but just from the administration's point of, with the timing and everything we've been working through, we're very happy to have a committee of the whole meeting on the budget. We're very happy to do that if you would like. Thank you. I appreciate that. And while we're at it, I wanted to let everyone know. I've been giving some thought and having some discussions with folks since the governor made the very unfortunate decision to cut all arts and culture funding in the state of Florida and the impact that it has on some of our local or arts organizations it is a really really tough position. I have looked for a while at the concept that other cities have adopted as a policy to dedicate 1% of the budget every year to the arts. So this 1% for the arts concept is something that's happening in other cities. And I would like us to put together a plan, a roadmap to get to that. It would be very difficult at this point in the game to go to 1% of this year's budget and get right to it. But kind of like our clean energy goals, things like that, I would like to, and I think I'll just do a new business item. But for this year, I want to see how we can increase that. But then I want us to put together a plan in subsequent meetings to get to 1% for the arts. So it would be incremental. But I just wanted to let y'all know, I'm sure that everyone is upset and has just a lot of consternation about what happened in Tallahassee for our arts organizations. I think that we can't fix it all, but I think it's a call for us to step up a little bit more. So I'll be bringing that forward soon. I'm very happy to hear that we have agreement that committee of the whole meeting to discuss this and hash everything out is there and I appreciate that from the administration. Thank you. Vice Chair Gurdes. Thank you Madam Chair. And just quickly, just because you brought it up, Council Member Driscoll, I have a one-on-one with Brian Lowak regarding TDC funding for Creative Penalists on my one-on-one agenda with my next one-on-one with a mayor to discuss how to get nimble there with the TDC. I really, I'm all for a path to try to do that. I mean, you know me, I'm a big art supporter. I do think that a lot of this, we'll call it a undue burden, could land there rather than on us. So I'm happy to update the next time we're all together. I'll have an update, not only from a one-on-one with Brian, but my next TDC meeting is next week, and I'm sure we'll be talking about that. I had a one-on-one with Creative Penelis. And so I think there's ability to hopefully bridge that gap with TDC. There's funding there. There's some ability to be flexible and nimble. In my opinion, significantly more nimble than we're able to be to bridge that gap. And so, having you brought it up, I just wanted to let you know there are some conversations going on to try to help bridge that gap for Pinellas County and St. Pete. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I want to thank Council Member Jistko for bringing that up because I was sitting here when we were reading It's like wait a minute. How many are we gonna have a chance to talk? I mean it really took me somewhere because there was some things that I did want to discuss in the budget as well So thank you for Making that offer to see if we can have additional conversation in the sunshine about some things that we would like to see in the budget That's not in the sunshine about some things that we would like to see in the budget, that's not in the budget. And so I'll get with Janie so we can kind of work and schedule that. And that is a good point because the next time we will get together, we'll be here on the dice again for the first reading. So thank you Councilmember Driscoe, because as chair, you have to speak last. So I'm glad you brought it up. So we will hash those that time and those dates out so that it's feasible in order to meet that requirement. Seeing no other requests to speak, we're going to move on now to our next report item. Thank you so much for that report. F3, which is a resolution approval in the purchase of an area or truck. If you would like to. And joining us is our Acting Operations Chief Richard Gomalak. Did I say that correctly? Good. All right. Good afternoon. Madam Chair, Council, Administration, Mayor Welch. Madam Chair, Council, Administration, Mayor Welch. Appreciate the time speaking with you all this afternoon. For those I haven't met, my name is Rick Gomlick. I am the Acting Operations Chief. Again, appreciate your time today. Just a quick rundown of a very short presentation I have for you all today. I just want to discuss the grant that we received. I would like to go over some thank yous for the people that are involved in getting that for us. And then I'd like to show you how the money was spent on it. And then we'll take a quick look at the vehicle. So with that, I'll figure out how to move this along. So I'll just give a real quick synopsis. Oh, Excuse me. So the city submitted a request for $300,000 towards a new ladder truck ahead of the 2024 legislative session. On July 1, 2024, the Division of State Fire Marshall within the Department of Financial Services notified the city of the Successful Grant Award to provide financial assistance to purchase the 2024 Pierce Tractor Drawing Area Truck. The city is eligible for the full funding amount of $300,000 with no matching requirements on the city's behalf. So some special thanks. We want to definitely thank, kind of go out of order. This bill was sponsored by Representative Lindsey Cross and Senator Darryl Rieson. I was also made aware that Mayor Welch and Councilmember Hannah Witts traveled to Tallahassee to advocate for us. So we appreciate that as well. The Southern Group is also a partner in securing the funding. And then a very special thank you to David Thompson, who did the grant writing for us. So we appreciate it. I had not met David until this morning. So I met him at their previous meeting, and I went up the thank him for getting us the money. And he said, no, no, no, that's the easy part. And I'm like, no, us spending 300,000 dollars is easy. You getting us $300,000 is a difficult part. So we appreciate that. So just a breakdown of the funding for this particular vehicle. 1.19966 dollars came from the penalty for sorry, Penny for Penelos. The grant money accounted for $300,000. And then we also spent $844,252 from the fleet replacement fund for the vehicle. So the grant total for this vehicle was $2,343,918. I know we've talked about communication before I heard Councilman Gertis mention it. I just want to compliment everyone on how well that departments communicate. So one of the things besides the grant that we got was our ability to pay early for this vehicle. So just getting permission to pay early for this vehicle saves the taxpayers $355,408. So I know there's a lot of questions about money and how it's spent and bureaucracy, but I just wanna compliment our council administration mayor on how well they work and so let the people know that not only are we buying good equipment as we can provide the best service, but we're doing it in a prudent manner, so they should be very happy with that. So we'll move on quickly to the tiller truck itself. So this is a very different vehicle than we've ever bought before. This is kind of like the old hook and ladder truck from back in the day. A lot of Metro cities have vehicles like this, and with the St. Pete being a progressive proactive city, we try to mirror that as the fire department as well. So we know that we can't really grow out a whole lot. So we're growing up. It's very evident from our downtown skyline and how things look. So what we try to do is come up with a vehicle that's going to be great for the downtown area, which is where this vehicle is going to go at the master station downtown. There's a couple of things that this vehicle has that are typical trucks don't. If you think about it, it's like a fifth wheel RV. So it's able to move a lot better in tight corners. From the alleys we have, from the construction that goes on, this vehicle will be able to get around the city a lot better. So tractor drawn areas are highly maneuverable because of the fifth-wheel articulation and unique ability to steer the reel of the trailer independently. It's a hundred seven foot ladder which will be the highest ladder that we are the the longest ladder that we have. This will have great greatly improved visibility. The way a tiller truck is designed, it allows a tiller operator to set higher than the driver, which provides a second set of eyes in several critical situations. So the person who steers at the back of the vehicle will sit higher than the front, which is a great vantage point for us as we approach accident scenes, they're able to communicate, and you get a picture, a better picture all the way around. So it assists with crossing through traffic intersections, traffic and road blockages on route, setting up at emergency scenes, managing wires, downs and other obstacles. And then the most important thing would be the tighter turning radius. That's a lot easier to move around. Another thing that's very important, it's a lighter vehicle as well. So with this being a lighter vehicle, we would hope there would be less wear and tear, less fuel costs, and less maintenance in the future. So that's just a real quick synopsis of the vehicle. And if you have any easy questions, I would love to answer them and any difficult ones. Chief Bassett is right behind behind me so we'll read it up. Okay I see no request to speak so thank you for that wonderful presentation. Thank you very much. That was real easy wasn't it? First one done thank you. River Pryville. Second? Yeah. Okay let me catch up. Got to buy it right? Yeah okay. I was like let me catch up. But thank you so much for that. So now that we have a motion and the second floor pool, this is resolution. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that our present council members have voted, can you please tell in and out the votes? Madam, Chair of the motion to approve agenda item F3 passes unanimously with council members Driscoll and Mohammed Bean absent. Thank you so much. Now we'll move on to F4 which is another resolution approving the first amendment to the contract with Ajax Paving to expand the scope of work and presenting that is our engineering director Mr. Bergesh. Praman. Hi Mr. Praman. Hey council. How are you? I'm great. Premon. The council. How are you? I'm great. Pleasure as always. Great to be back. I'm great to see you all. Here to give just a quick update on a contract that we're requesting approval on. And I don't know if I can do this, but before I start, I wanted to know if Council Member Montenegro wanted to add anything before I get started. And, Madam Chair. Yes, Council Member Montenegro. Thank you. I pull this item and thank you, Reg, for putting this presentation together. This is a good news item, but there has been a lot of talk about 60-second Avenue and why this part of our city hasn't been repaved. It's kind of a complicated issue, and I go to a lot of neighborhood meetings when people ask, and I talk to them about all the different factors that are going on with the 62nd Avenue. And if you've been down that part of St. Petersburg from first street to buy a ground-a-bull of hard, the streets in very, very bad condition. And there's complicating factors of why it got to that point. Part of it has to do with the brej is going to get into this but it has to do with the 40th Avenue breach construction, the Shore Acres Rec Center, other projects within Shore Acres and we had to keep 60 second Avenue open so just wanted to give it a little bit of context and brej is going to give us some more details to them. Thank you, ma'am. A little bit of technical difficulties. I'm going to resend it again. Okay. So, and thank you for pulling this Councilmember Montenegro is good news. It doesn't indicate that you did that. So thank you so much for that. And hopefully I can buy congestion of time. Are we ready with our presentation? Right now. for just enough time are we ready with our presentation? Are you coming to sing? No. But while we're waiting for a projesse to give the presentation ready, I do want to point out as he will show and as Councilmember Montenegro alluded to, under projesse's leadership as our engineering director, we're more and more looking at how can we do our projects the right way and do it right way once rather than coming out and doing it over and over and over again. And this is one of those situations where it's a complicated mishmash of utilities, roadways, there's other construction projects going on and they've come up with a program to make sure that we do this project right in a way that Honors the community but also make sure that we're not tearing up the road multiple times in a short period of time So that's a very important point It's to why the program is set up the way it is and it looks like he has this presentation All right. Thank you so much for that Mr. Tinkersley. So today we're presenting a military servicing of 62nd Avenue North. And I'm going back to some of the comments from earlier as far as budgeting and processes. You'll see the sequence of how we laid out these projects, not only minimized impacts within the community, but also maintaining services to the community, but also being physically responsible as we are implementing these projects so we don't have to go back again. So a little bit of memory flashback, I'm not a scary one, but going back to 60 second Avenue, why we didn't really start that project earlier. And this dates back to the 2016-17 timeframe. second avenue why we didn't really start that project earlier. And this dates back to the 2016-17 timeframe. 40th Avenue Bridge has a KMF replacement. There's only those two main connecting corridors for that entire community, essential services, delivery, school buses, even residents going and coming from work or school or anything of that nature. 60th Second Avenue news and primary route. 22nd-hand news to the south was the other primary route. Now let's look at all the projects that also transitioned within that period. And again looking at that 2016 period moving forward, we had 40th Avenue Bridge. Immediately after that we had the Shoji because Rex Center, then the Shoji because Rex and Watermean Replacement, and you see that progression of projects. So we're not only paying attention to the criticality, but also trying to sequence those projects to mitigate impacts. That is primarily why we did not elevate 60 second-hand, I have to start to resurfacing. Why? Because of the amount of additional axel loading of traffic on that roadway. Plus, we also knew that school was coming up for construction. And that's where you transition all the way down and then we finally get to the project number eight. Project number eight is what Claude alluded to. A program, a program of projects where we start focusing on the immediate and how we're also connecting all these additional utilities within one corridor. So you see hatched in there's the gray black hatching which is the 62nd Avenue Paving. That we are already planning to do in this month. Weather permitting we are getting some rain, so resurfacing is dependent on weather. So it's late on this month we will be behaving at roadways section. And phase 1b leads to the next sequence of project. Now this RFQ is already in development, looking to head the street very shortly. Now phase 1b will be the infrastructure improvements along 60 seconds. So I'll just skip ahead to phase 1b. So what we'll conduct the roadway and utility upgrades of 60 seconds will also be doing what we call the a part of the wet weather force mean installation along 60 seconds. We'll also be doing roadway improvements, we'll be designing so while we're paving 60 seconds, we'll be designing these improvements to construct on the rest of 60 seconds. Immediately once we start constructing 60 seconds, the larger scale improvements, we then move on into the designing of Phase 2, which is first street. So that's how we see all these projects start into fall together in a larger sequence, a bigger picture. It's almost like that mosaic. You see these individual pieces of glasses, but as you step back, that's where you see the picture and how it all fits together. So that really given you all that understanding of how those sequence of these projects evolve. It's not that we're not being attention to them, but it's really is we're trying to be cognizant of the services and how we also assign and prioritize the projects. And with that, I ask for approval. I'll move approval. Okay. Thank you. I just want to see if we can one-haired comments. Councilmember Montnier. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair want to see if you can one-head comments. Councilmember one year. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Brege, for kind of explaining that. Like I said in the beginning, complicated project. You've got force mains from the north, from the south. You've got 40th Avenue Bridge. You've got the Shoraker-Ferrick Center. You've got force mains going being put in throughout shorykers and all all the time all that was going on you had two routes in and out of shorykers 62nd Avenue 22nd Avenue that you had to keep keep open and the residents that used that roadway have been very patient and I'm glad that we are able to kind of explain why it took us a while to kind of get to this point. And to you know supplement your point we were sequencing down to the shutdowns on the left left station for the replacement at that force mean. We had to sequence that when we can do shutdowns on the bridge, when we can do shutdowns for water tines, the jet those lines across on the water main on Shoikers Boulevard. So you're completely right. We couldn't just shut down all these routes. We had to continuously, you know, I had to say, it played traffic up as we were maneuver vehicles. And also it's along a school route. So it's it's a tremendous amount of volume. Yeah, well thank you for explaining it to us and kind of showing to the public all the different factors that were involved. So thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I enjoyed the presentation. It was really interesting. I just had one quick question that I hate to do to you, but is there any sort of time frame you're hoping for this? The resurfacing is going to start in the end of this month. Okay cool. All right and then you know any idea how long? It's good street road shot so we're looking at two and a half weeks approximately to finish being in. Oh well it should be quick again it's weather dependent. OK. We all get knees off to noon showers. If the base is too wet, we really can't put the ass well back down. We run a risk of unraveling. OK. All right. That's a rapid timeline, though. So I appreciate it. I've spent some time in that neighborhood in those neighborhoods over there. And yet, I see what you're getting at. So thank you. OK. neighborhoods over there and yet it's I see what you're getting at so thank you. Okay seeing no further requests this week and you please open the machine for voting. Council members please cast your votes now that our president council members have voted can you please tell and announce the votes. Madam Chair the motion to approve agenda item F4 passes unanimously. Thank you pretty much thank you. So now we're going to recess the City Council and convene a CRA and we're joined by our economic development manager, George Smith. How are you, Mr. Smith? So after new Madam Chair, Council members, I'm George Smith, economic development manager for the South St. Petersburg CRA. Economic Development Manager for the South St. Petersburg R.A. We are presenting for your consideration amendments to the Affordable Single Family Homeownership Program. We are requesting that you recommend and that City Council approves amendments to the affordable single-family home ownership program and the addition of the Rapid Roof Replacement sub-program. The affordable single-family home ownership program was approved by City Council in 2018. This program provides down payment, closing costs, assistance for first time home buyers, rehab assistance for owner-occupied homes, funding for barrier-free mitigation, and funding for homebar education, credit counseling, and foreclosure prevention. The assistance offered is restricted to households whose income is less than 140% AMI. All CRA residential programs are administered by the Housing and Community Development Program. We're seeking to amend the program's rehab assistance component by increasing the maximum assistance from 45,000 to 60,000 for owner-occupied households. We're also seeking approval to add the Rapid Roof Replacement Subprogram. This program will offer funding for the replacement of roofs and to repair damage caused by the leaking roofs such as ceilings, soft bits, fascias, and walls. The Maximum Award is $20,000 and is restricted to owner-occupied residential units with the household income of 120% AMI or less. This is a pilot program in partnership with Foundation for a healthy St. Pete. The Foundation has committed $200,000 to this initiative and we are proposing to also commit a $200,000 match. This pilot is only for properties with active roof code violations. The funds offered are treated as a forgivable loan, which means that if the recipient remains in the home for five years, the funds will be forgiven. This chart is the most recent income, in the case of most recent income limits for Pinellas County and was published on April 1, 2024. There are 96 active roof code cases in the CRA as of May 1, 2024. 37 of those cases are on our occupied residences. So we are requesting that you recommend and that the City Council approve the amendments to the Affordable Single Family Home Ownership Program in the addition of the Rapid Roof Replacement Subprogram. Thank you and we're available for any questions that you may have. Thank you. I see no requests to speak. Oh, there we go. Council member Martin Earing. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, George, for the presentation. I do have a couple of questions about this. In the backup material, you have exhibit three. a couple questions about this. In the backup material, you have exhibit three. And I've got some questions on page two of the exhibit three. And it kind of walks through some of the changes to this program and the different amounts of funding that people can receive. Can you remind me how much funding could a individual receive? Because if you add up all these different programs, I mean it's quite a bit of funding. So you've got the down payment and closing cost assistance, the rehab assistance, the very free mitigation. Can somebody like apply for all of that? Who have? I get afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm like our assistant director, housing, community development, and thank you so much for your question. What happens is that they won't, an individual can't receive all of those. The purchase assistance program is different from the rehabilitation program. So somebody who has applied for purchase assistance cannot then turn around and apply for rehabilitation assistance. We have it written in the program guidelines that they have to have been in that home for a period of at least up to three to five years before they could possibly apply for the rehabilitation. And then we would have to take a look at some things because when someone applies for the purchase assistance, our rehabilitation officers are reviewing everything with that home that has to do with the surveys, everything that has to do with it. And if there's any repairs that need to be made, those have to be made before we grant the purchase assistance. Okay. So what we could possibly see is a situation as an individual who would receive the $20,000 for the roof repair. But when we get into the home we're going to see what we see a lot right now which is it's much more than just the ceiling and the roof and the soft and the facade that's damaged. You've got wall damage, you have flooring damage to the point where we would have to remove the floors, remove the choices and put brand new down for safety reasons. And so what we can do is we compare that 20,000 with the 60,000 rehabilitation dollars. If needed we could also do an accessibility grant in that, and that would be the additional $5,000. And that's all the further we could really go, unless it is a very bad situation, which we have had a few homes that are. And what we would do is we staff those situations and say, okay, is there any way we could add state funding in addition to the CRA funding? And that's something that we staff together jointly. We include the director, myself, George, the rehabilitation officers and the finance officers, and we sit down and we talk about the case. And we say, is this something that we can save? We oftentimes have to pull codes into those discussions also. Sometimes they're homes that we can't. And from there we have to go to the building inspector and say there's nothing we can do, there's nothing codes can do. But other times we are able to do an awful lot of good by saying yes, we can take an extra 10,000 from ship, put it onto that 60,000 and that 5,000 and we can make this a safe healthy home. Okay. Thank you for that. So the other couple other questions that I have, George mentioned is presentation about if somebody gets the funding for this roof replacement program, they've got to be in the house for five years. Yes. And what happens if they sell the house before? They would have to pay that. They'd have to pay back the funds. And that's what the majority of our loans. Now why this is different is that this is only a five year period. Our loans do a 10-year period, where they need to be living in the home for 10 years before they could sell the home. If not, those funds are back its bad, it's part of our mortgage. They would need to pay back those funds. Okay, so they'd have, they would have to give out some of their equity that they have in their homes. And the only people that qualify for this roof replacement program are people that have had code violent by my own. That is correct. That is correct. But this is the pilot program and we want to see how we do. I want to help people in need, but I also just question sometimes, you know, if you have and keeping their home up in another home owner is wasting their money on other things. You know, it just, you know, it doesn't seem fair. How do we deal with that? Because the majority of what we're finding, I would say 90% of the individuals we are assisting are over the age of 65. They no longer have the means to repair their homes. Either they physically can't do it, they financially cannot. We've recently had a situation where the family was suddenly that she would just meet them outside of the house. In the past two, three years, she would never have them inside the home. And then for a few days, they didn't hear from her and they were quite concerned when they found her. It was in a very serious situation because the home had deteriorated so much. And they did not know. She was ashamed. This had been her home for 30 years. And when they found her, they got her the medical care that they needed. They removed her from the home immediately. They went in and took care of the inside of the home and contacted us and said, we've done all we could. Could we please, can you assist us through the outside? And we did everything we could. Okay. And she returned back to her home and is living, she's living a healthy stable life. And it's wonderful that we're able to do this for her residents, especially our senior residents. Okay, all right, thank you. Thank you for answering my questions thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Councilmember Muhammad. Thank you Madam Chair and George thank you for the presentation. Oh man always impress with your responsiveness because these are you know conversations that we have and we've had multiple conversations you know even before I got on council and after and and I just like to watch how you take those conversations and turn them into actions and of course working with the rest of the team and the staff but I really appreciate that and really just going back through a lot of what I say right now is probably just going to be comments and so not a lot of what I say right now is probably just going to be comments. And so not a lot of questions, but the Councilmember Floyd brought me a button this morning from the People's Budget Review. And that was really my entry into this aspect of organizing and really policy work. And to have that button today just kind of blew my mind and got real sentimental about it. And the CRA was a part of that. You know, we had some advocacy work that we were doing, but we always found that there were programs and ideas that they didn't have the resources to be able to implement them. And so the team and the group got together and said, how can we develop something that will allow us to be able to fund these ideas? And so to see the CRA, the work that you're doing, with the things that are happening with it now is really just amazing because I remember that conversation about like, well, how do we pay for it? There's not, you know, so being able to take the tax dollars and use the TIFF in the way that it was designed, being historic outside of doubt, like all of those things and to be able to see these types of programs come forward is definitely appreciated. We know that homes and home ownership, you know, and again, looking at the approach, like there's funding for acquisition, but then we start seeing that there's issues with maintenance. And so now we're dealing with acquisition funding and also dealing with maintenance funding and really being responsive to those needs. You know, seeing how insurance costs and what that's doing to people's disposable income. So you might have saved money, but when you get that notice that your insurance went up, that money that you saved is now accounted for. Chalker costs all of the things that we're dealing with as a community does not necessarily speak to somebody's irresponsibility. It's just a reality that I don't have it. And resulting in a co-compliance violation is another thing that you have to deal with that piles on. And so the partnership with the Foundation for Health and St. Petersburg, their responsiveness and being able to help address that is just something that's commendable, I applaud it. I do like the five-year timeline because I'm aware of those ages and five years to 40-year-old is different. Then five years to somebody who's 65 or older, which is 90% of the people that are being served by the program. And so I really appreciate your responsiveness. I'm happy to support this effort and we like to move approval. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to tag on to that because you highlighted it. You certainly have read it in the materials, but for those who are watching and who are here in the room with us, we're really thankful. You really highlighted how community building works and how city doesn't do this alone. This program really is happening because the foundation for healthy St. Pete under the leadership of Dr. Kenyka Tomlin came to us and said, what kind of programs do you have but aren't getting the uptake that you could? And we talked about roofs of being a problem here in our community, particularly with hurricanes and resiliency issues. And you highlighted this point, right? We talk a lot, we think people need financial literacy where you can't make literacy happen when there just isn't enough. And so a lot of our programs to be good stewards of our city dollars require reimbursement. But when you don't have the money to outlay it in order to get the city dollars, foundation for Healthy St. Pete said, let us help solve that problem. And so you already highlighted that, but for those who aren't seeing the materials and reading them, I just really wanted to thank Dr. Tomlin and her staff for coming to us and saying, how can we amplify the work the city is already doing? Where are their gaps? What are you seeing in the CRA where we can make a difference? And that's what you have before you. And so we're really thankful for her support of this. Thank you. Thank you so much. Council member Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, George, for the presentation. I'm going to mention something I mentioned before. You may remember. In Exhibit three, the consistency with South St. Petersburg redevelopment plan the data there is outdated. It talks about when the St. Petersburg redevelopment plan, South St. Petersburg redevelopment plan was developed, right? The data used was back in 2012. Then we're looking at data from 2016, which shows that the percentage of households with housing costs exceeding 30% of income was 53%. It should say South St. Petersburg and 38.6% in the city. That should be higher today based on new data. We've updated obviously the income limits in attachment one and obviously the awards are being increased but I think it's helpful to show that it's very needed in the area and I think once you get that data updated it's going to help cause so that that was just my two cents on that. Appreciate that we'll make that change. Thank you. Thank you Councilmember Drisco. Thank you So I just want to make sure I understand with these two different things one of them for the homeownership program the limit is 140% AMI. That is correct for the overall program as the umbrella. It may be other programs that within that, that have a restriction that is less than 140%. Okay. And this particular one is 120%. That's what I, yeah, now I, now I get it. So something else might be 140 or, yeah. The facade grant program is 80%. Okay. And then the the the roof the rapid roof replacement is a pilot program at what point will you take a measurement to see how it's going? We'll see how fast we get through the first 400,000 which would be the 200,000 from the foundation and our 200,000. We'll do an assessment at that time in coordination with the Coves Department. See where they stand. Talk over the administration. Talk over the foundation and see if they would like to make an additional investment and administration will make the recommendation of us and then we'll implement it. Great. It's early July now. Do you think that maybe just after the first of the year in January, you could just give us a five-minute update on what you have found in the first six months? You're glad to. I love that. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Gabbert. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Gabbert. Thank you, Chair. And thank you so much, George, for the presentation. Sorry, I had to step out for just a second. I rushed right back because I said to LaRetta as I walked by, I don't want to miss what George has, because you always bring us something good and something good for the residents that you serve. So thank you so much. You know, I've certainly am supportive of the increase and the maximum for the rehab program, but I really, really am impressed with the replacement of the roof program. I know, you know, pilot now looking forward to getting that update because Amy, you must have been reading my notes before I came up here because resiliency was the issue that I wrote down with insurance, the way that it is in the state of Florida. We already know that many people, especially those elderly that you speak of, who have paid off their homes, they aren't carrying insurance anymore because the cost is so great. Or when they get that notice that says your roof has reached a certain life Now you have to replace it and they don't have the means to do so I've gotten one of those letters before and I know they give you a very short window of time to be able to replace or else They will drop you and that is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night because I worry about the residents that I know are not properly insured because when everything is gone, they will not be able to replace it. And so a program like this, it might seem small to some but can make all the difference in the world to others. So, and Dr. Secler, thank you for the story that you shared about the resident. I've recently had a personal situation with someone I know who was in a very similar situation. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad to so much. I also want to concur with what everyone is saying. Mr. Smith for the presentation. But more importantly, I am looking at the dollars and I look at how well they're being spent. But I also remember when the South St. Pete C.I.A. started. And it was nowhere near the budget it has now. And we have been so diligent with putting the money back into the community in which the CRA was established, the partnership between the city and the county. And it's programs like these, and Councilmember Gabbert shared what I was gonna share in regards to insurance. A lot of these seniors do not have the insurance because they won't ensure their homes. I just went through that with the property next door to ours. And if the roofs are not up to par, the windows were not up to par. And hearing what I heard coming from Tallahassee with citizens who is our major carrier, looking to drop policies now and needing any reason to drop home owners I am so glad to hear that 90% of those that we are servicing are our seniors Because seniors have a special place should be in all of our hearts And wanting to ensure that they remain in their homes So with that being said, I know we have two different items. There's one and two in the resolution, but we do have a motion and a second, so we can go ahead and take them both attorney Williams. We need to take them separately. We need to take them, that's what I thought. I thought we would. Always one resolution, but it has it. The RA and then separately will be the case. Okay so I just want to make sure that it has two items in the resolution. Well that, yeah you do that but it's okay. Okay I just want to make sure because I know we have it out of CRA but I just want to make sure. Okay so thank you so we have a motion and a second. I see no further requests to speak. Council members would you please cast your votes. Seeing that all council members have voted can you please tell in and out the votes. Madam Chair the motion to approve agenda on them. CRE to pass unanimously. Thank you so much for that still stay stay there stay there. So now we're going to adjourn as the CRE and we convene a city council with our continued reports of F2. Never provoked. Okay that was quick. Seeing no further requests to speak it was councilmember Drisco and Hanowitz Seeing no requests to speak can you please open the machine for going for F2 Council members cast your votes now that all president council members have voted can you please tell an Announce the votes? Madam Chair the motion to approve agenda item F2 pass it voted. Can you please tell an announcer vote? Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F2 passes unanimously. Thank you. Next we will move to legal repealing the preemptive major construction project and contract requirements. Chief Assistant City Attorney, Mr. Neem Williams. Thank you Madam Chair. This is the first reading for three ordinances which repeal the disadvantaged worker, apprenticeship and wage requirement ordinances for St. Petersburg. As a result of the passage of House Bill 705. And that bill has an effective date of July 1st of this year. House Bill 705, amended section 255.0992 of Florida statutes, which already prohibited the state from requiring that contractors do a number of things, including paying employees of predetermined wage, providing employees a specified type amount or rate of benefits, controlling limiting or expanding staffing or recruiting training or hiring employees from a designated restricted or single source. House Bill 705 amended that statute to add two words to the definition of public works projects, local or, which then made that statue applicable to local funds. City, county funds, spent with contractors. So now cities and counties are prohibited from requiring contractors to do those things. Pays certain wages, require contractors to control, limit or expand staffing or requiring contractors to control, limit, or expand staffing or requiring contractors to recruit, train, or employ employees from a designated restricted or single source. The legal department is meant to discuss the effect on our ordinances of House Bill 705 and we have determined that the apprenticeship requirements, disadvantaged worker requirements, and raised requirements are preempted by the statute in reviewing the statute and the legislative history, which actually specifically references the city of St. Petersburg's apprenticeship ordinance in relation to the passage of this bill. Additionally, this week we received an order in the case of the Florida chapter, Florida Gulf Coast chapter of associated builders and contractors versus the city of St. Petersburg where we had a circuit judge find that those ordinances relating to apprenticeships and disadvantaged workers were unconstitutional and preempted by the state. We do have the ability to appeal in those case. In that case, we have not discussed it. We just received it this week so we don't have a determination by the city on whether or not we will appeal at this moment. But regardless of that case, we have determined that the state law, the passage of House bill 705 with signature by the governor does preempt us with those requirements and therefore you have before you those repeal ordinances. Okay, thank you. I need to read the title. Yes sir. Maybe separate or together or together. You can read them all together and we can vote on them for first reading together if that is the pleasure of council. Proposed ordinance number 587H. An ordinance repealing division 7 of Article 5, sections 2-6-1 through 2-264 of the City Code relating to major construction project Requirements for Employing Apprentices and Providing Effective Date. The Public Hearing for this item is on August 1, 2024. Propose Ornus 588H. An Ornus Repealing Division 8 of Article 5 sections 2-268 through 2-270 of the City Code relating to major construction project requirements for employing disadvantaged workers and providing an effective date. And the public here for this item is also on August 1st. Post-ordinets number 589H in Ornus repealing sections 2-277 of Article 5, Division 9 of the City Code relating to responsible wage for certain construction contracts, amending section 2-275 of Article 5, Division 9 of the City Code to remove provisions relating to responsible wage for certain construction contracts and providing an effective date. And the public hearing for this item is also on August 1st, 2024, and we do have cards regarding this item. I'll call them to at a time, Madam Chair. First two speakers, Brian Nathan and Jim Junoco. I believe that is a Juneco. Please go to theEDA podium. State your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address the council. Good afternoon, Brian Nathan, 1401, ninth Avenue North St. Petersburg. I represent the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for both Tampa and St. Pete. Since I got word of this being on the agenda, I've been reading the statutes, the bill, your ordinance, backwards and forwards, and pretty much until my eyes bleed. The statute council referenced, doesn't mention apprentices anywhere in it. It says recruit, train, and something else I'm forgetting. Your ordinance doesn't reference a single source. It says you'll get apprentices from registered apprenticeships. There are union apprenticeships for all the trades. There are non-union apprenticeships for all the trades. The ordinance also mentions a laundry list of other places to get trained people who are in training programs to satisfy the requirements of that apprenticeship ordinance. That I just fail to see how it obviously is in a single source and obviously isn't restricted. I don't know what they mean by designated, but it isn't pointing to any particular organization or place of training in your ordinance. So How does the apprenticeship ordinance yet preempted when it doesn't satisfy those requirements is laid out in the statute? I would love to have a further discussion with any of you if you want to talk about this. I personally would urge you to vote no, but if you can't do that, delay. Ask for further information from your council. How is this actually going to play out? Because I've talked to people in Tampa, people in Miami who also have ordinances, not all that dissimilar from yours. They're not doing anything. Their city councils have not taken them up, they're not on the agenda. My best guess is they are looking exactly at this city council to see what you do. How is this gonna play out? Again, it took several members of this council several years to get this ordinance passed Are we gonna throw the baby out with the bath water at the first sign of trouble and I'll yield back the rest of my time Thank you Good afternoon Jim Genneco International Union of Operating Engineers 1401 9th Avenue North Doos paying member of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 487, where the Union Crain Operators that you see every day reshape in the city's skyline. And we have a robust training and apprenticeship program, registered apprenticeship program, as do all of the unions that have joined me today. And I want to remind you all that we have been a good faith partner of the city with this ordinance since the inception since the conversations first came about and we didn't sue you want to point out that we weren't the ones who sued you we don't just talk about being all about apprentices and then turn around and sue you for requiring apprentices to be on the projects. If we would talk about apprenticeship, but then sue you for requiring apprenticeships, I would hope that you would realize that that math is not mathing. Something's not connecting there. So, but allow me to just emphasize the fact that the city's legal department just said that you do have the ability to appeal the recent circuit judges decision. And I would say that you not only have the ability to do so, but you have the duty to do so. You have the obligation to fight like hell and not just roll over and repeal this ordinance. You should appeal, not repeal. You have 30 days to appeal the recent decision instead of just rolling over and repealing. Repealing it is doing a disservice to the workers of this community and that's who you represent. Don't let this alphabet lobbyist construction group push you around anymore. They have thrown up barriers to this ordinance all along, lobbied in Tallahassee to pass anti-worker legislation because they can claim to be all about apprentices, but who they represent is right there in their name. The unions represent workers. We represent the working class as always. So don't do a disservice to your residents. Don't repeal this thing. You've got the ability and the obligation to appeal the decision and fight and stand up I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing to do. I believe it's a very important thing Vigilano and Randall King. Please go to either podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address city council. I'll go first, and I'm Randall King. I'm the business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and also Gulf Coast Building Trade Council President, 1401, 9 ninth Avenue North in St. Pete. I wanna just echo what my colleague, Jim Zineco, pointed out is that this is a rush to judgment here over a couple of things that have happened to gone into effect. I wanna read the staff analysis of the bill, 705 that your attorney has referenced. With certain exceptions, these restrictions do not apply to public works projects that are locally funded. So there is an exception to this recent bill. It goes on to the effective bill. The bill allows a county or municipality to prevent a certified license or registered contractor, subcontractor or material supplier or carrier from participating in the bidding process based on the geographical location of the company headquarters or offices or residents of its employees. If the county and municipality is a sole source of funding for the public works project, nowhere and it doesn't mention the apprenticeship ordinance at all. I implore you to delay or to kill this outright as my colleague, Brian stated earlier, the rest of the state is looking because this is the year the first one to try to make a move on this. It's going to have an effect statewide. Hold up. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Mark Vigiano. I live at 4816 14th Avenue North. The training coordinator for local 123 plumbers and pipefitters in Tampa Bay area. And I'm here to speak today against moving forward with the scheduling of this, of the repeal of this ordinance and also to speak in favor of appealing the decision of the circuit court judge. The ordinances referred above ensure that a certain percentage of jobs and people on those jobs receiving city funding will be met with apprentices and into credit at apprenticeship program, or in the credit at apprenticeship program. I brought a study with me that's found the following, productivity is 14% higher when you're using a credit at apprenticeship program. Projects that use the mix of union and open shop labor have 8% better productivity than popper shops that use open mix of union and open shop labor have 8% better productivity than popper shops that use open shop labor. The use of union labor reduces the total cost of projects by an average of 4%. Union craft labor and form and have demonstrated a significantly higher level of skills versus open shop labor. Projects are 40% less likely to experience the skilled labor shortage when labor union labor is sourced and projects use a mix using a mix of union and open shop labor saw benefits from the presence of union labor in each of the measures of performance versus projects that employ solely open shop labor. None of these things should really come as any sort of surprise. You know, everyone that's here has devoted their entire life towards apprenticeship and bringing up a next generation of workers in an industry where we have six people retiring for everyone coming back in. And I believe the city of St. Pete has a duty to spend the taxpayer dollars in a responsible and economic way and the hard to hire ordinances, what I've called it, is a step in that correct direction. To repeal the ordinances saying that we're willing to build city infrastructure with workers who are performing skilled labor while not ensuring that those skilled workers have received the education required to perform the work properly or efficiently. Exempting this ordinance is going even further than the preemption bills going on in Tallahassee. HP 705 would only preempt local ordinances of the. I'll skip forward from that. forward from that. I urge the City Council instead of focusing on the short-term gains of a lower labor cost to focus on building with qualified educated and protected craft workers. Like the other people mentioned, Miami is looking at us and we have a choice here and I really hope that you represent your constituents well. Thank you. Thank you, anymore cards? Well, more cards, Madam Chair, Theresa King. Please go to Ithapodium. State your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. Thank you, Theresa King. Excuse me, Theresa King address. That was the necessary piece of information. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry and the construction trade council. I am in Tallahassee every session, and I have watched the associated builders and contractors do everything in their power that they can to stop a community from lifting its citizens out of poverty, out of being able to be trained locally. This staff analysis that my colleague, Renoki, mentioned was created after session. And it specifically addresses that the local restrictions do not apply when they are locally funded. What we are looking at, and I'm very apply when they are locally funded. What we are looking at, and I'm very disheartened to hear that the Associated Billers and Contractors turned what they had originally lost in their case to sue this city for lifting up its citizens and turned around and took it to a higher court, to a higher judge, specifically to diminish your ability to lift your citizens out of poverty, to give them an education, to give them training when the staff analysis of Tallahassee specifically does not address apprenticeship programs. Public Works Project does, and preemptions of Public Works Projects haven't changed. The two words local and or are the only thing that change, and it does not limit your ability to have this ordinance. The only ability that you are restricted to do today is fight the government law that the ABC has placed upon you. It is disheartening that they do not want you to have the ability to make your citizens grow your infrastructure work needs right here in your own community. It's heartbreaking. So if we have to repeal, I urge you, I beg you to do that. Do not let them set a precedent across the whole state by the eyes that are being watched today. You are the mouthpiece of whether they win or whether the citizens of Florida and your growth wins. Thank you. No more speakers. Thank you. Councilmember Gabberir. Thank you, Chair. And first of all, I want to start by thanking all of the members of our trades and our union representatives for being here today. And also thank you to those who reached out to me yesterday. Great conversations, as always, and always love the collaboration of working with you. Because you are true advocates for the support and support that you have. I would like to thank the community for the support that you have. I would like to thank the community for the support that you have. I would like to thank the community for the support that you have. I would like to thank the community for the support that you have. I would like to thank the community for the support that you have. prudent. You are bringing us something that you believe will protect our city, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate all of you. However, today, I am not ready to do what you're asking of us. We just came back from break. We have had really no time other than these few phone calls I was able to have yesterday to Consult with our stakeholder group who worked tirelessly with us with all of you to bring these ordinances forward And if there is anything that we can do within the letter of the law to continue to support our workers I want us to find ways to do that and I don't think we can do that by just knee jerk sending this to public hearing at the beginning of August and repealing these ordinances and saying, well, we're done. I just, to me, that just does not sit right in my soul. And I cannot support us doing this today. Ultimately, we may have to. But I believe that we need to have a conversation in a committee that goes through some of these points that people brought up today. Things that I have read, the bill summary that I read. I want to truly understand what the wording of certain exceptions means. I don't understand what that means and I want us to have that conversation. The bill maintains other abilities when we are the sole source. I wanna understand what that means. I wanna understand the implications of the ruling that came to us on Monday of this week and like what that could mean to contracts that we have already executed. If there is any sort of implication. The final statement of the Bill analysis says that there does not appear to be any fiscal impact to governments. Well, there's certainly a fiscal impact to the people who break their backs every single day to build our city and take care of our city. And so for me, I would love to hear from my colleagues about the temperature of taking this to a PS and I committee first before we have any vote here on this dius. I am not prepared to vote on this today. I also have great concern. We are often the leader in this state. When it comes to progressive legislation and doing what's right for people, I don't want us to be the leader in taking steps back. And knowing that our other municipalities who have passed similar ordinances are not moving forward with anything right now. It does also give me pause and I just want to have more time to do the exploration I think that this warrants. So colleagues I will leave it there for now. I would love to hear what you all think about potentially moving this to a committee and tabling it for today. Thank you councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I'll just start out with saying that the core question that Council Member Gabbard just posed, I'm right there as well. These ordinances were years in the making. There are some of the political origins for myself getting involved. I know Council Member Muhammad as well same thing. And so to come back from break and get into a meeting and be have a repeal of it put right in front of me is very discouraging and disheartening. And I have some things in here that I don't fully understand, particularly like sole source supplier and how that relates to apprentices or disadvantaged workers. And the appeal thing I just found out today as well about us losing the case. So I'd love to have more discussions about that. But actually the biggest thing that gets to me is that I did see in one of the bills that legal cited a sunset on responsible wages, and it seems like that can continue until 2026. And so it doesn't even feel like our responsible wage might not be impacted immediately, but we might be able to still at least get some more juice out of the orange for a little bit. And so I would feel more comfortable just having another discussion on this to just uswage those concerns at the very least. And so I see other people cute up to speak, so I'll listen. I'll just go. Thank you. Thank you for those who spoke on this item. These ordinances have been worked on for a long time, improved over the years. I mean, it started before I was on City Council. And you stood with the people then. I think 2016. And when I started on City Council, we started talking about making them better and used to with us then. And I'm really grateful and proud that you're standing with us now as we try to figure out what to do next. And we will do something next. We've got to figure out what that is and what it can be. The biggest question today is what can we do? That's what I thought when I got, when I was told about all of this. But that question hasn't been answered yet and I would like to have that answer before we take away all of this work because maybe there is something that's salvageable within it. A lot of questions came up today that I'd like to get the answers to. And a lot of questions came up today that I'd like to get the answers to. And I'd like to find out more about what Miami and Tampa are contemplating. So I want to look into that and talk to some counterparts there and Jim maybe we can talk about that. But I'm wondering, what are the risks? What is the risk if we hold off on this? While we get a better understanding of what we're doing. Is it, is there great danger in having a committee meeting, having a PS9 committee meeting soon to talk about what the options are. Great danger. That's a great way to describe it. I'll just say typically, as you all know, that as soon as we as a legal department feel that ordinances are preempted, we bring it to you the next council meeting after that is figured out we did what with tennis rights we've done that with a number of other ordinances so to answer the question why now that's the typical way we handle it because of the notice to the public of provisions which we have determined not to be valid nothing you do with do is without risk. I will say that we can't determine whether or not someone will sue us for not moving on the repeal of ordinances. We don't know what that looks like. But if you're asking, is there a very high risk of us being in violation of some law by not doing it today. I can't say that it is and I can't say that it isn't. There's no law that specifically says if you don't repeal an invalid ordinance that there is some consequence legally to that. The reason why we bring it to you right after we feel it is preempted is because of the notice issue to the public. Okay and if we decided as a council that we want to appeal does that basically hold this in place until that's decided. King can comment on that. We do not see how we can repeal and appeal. The legal department did not bring this because of the court case. I just wanna make sure that's right. And it's too sick to go, right. Two weeks ago, this backup was prepared to bring this information to you because of our reading of the case. So, all right, Put that to this side. Putting that to the side, can't you comment on the legal case that he was in the front? Okay. If I will, I'll give you just a brief background of what I'm doing here today. Ken McCollum, obviously, City Attorney's Office. I've been handling this case since 2019 when the lawsuit came in from Florida Gulf Coast chapter of ABC against the city, suing on the three respective ordinances claiming that they're unconstitutional and preempted. There's been a lot of litigation. Some litigation was a little slowed during the COVID period when the court system was working at a snail's pace. It picked up again in the middle, HB 53 was passed, which kind of altered some of the items in here. But ultimately what happened was the circuit court judge here in St. Petersburg ruled a year or so ago in a very brief order finding for the city, but with any factual basis. And so ABC took it up on appeal. All right. And under the new summary judgment standard in Florida, I'm going to get into the weeds here on the legal stuff. But under the new summary judgment standard, there'm gonna get into the weeds here on the legal stuff. But under the New Summary Judgment Standard, there's a requirement that the trial court have details and findings as to why they got to the decision that they made. So it went up to the second District Court of Appeal. We had oral arguments, full blown appeal. Both sides agreed on the same set of facts that we were dealing with. There's nothing in contention about what we're dealing with. And the court was concerned about the order being so brief that they couldn't rule on. And we said, well, hey, we're here. There's a lengthy oral argument. Let's hash it out. We're both in agreement that all the information's in front of you. The court is very interested in the case. But ultimately, when they issued their opinion a number of months later, their opinion was, look, we can't look past our summary judgment rules. That's a sticky place for the court to be. So it was sent back to the trial court judge here a few months back here in St. Petersburg. As the process took its path, the trial judge then looked at everything again. And I should note that when the case came back from the second DCA, there was a separate order indicating that in their opinion it looked like attorney's fees were going to attach to this case. What's the significance of that? It's very rare for an appellate court to do that. It's kind of a signal to the trial judge that if this comes back again in favor of the city, the court's going to overturn it. I mean, I've been doing this a long time when you've seen an order like that from the appellate court. That's the message. I don't know how the judge got to where she got, and that was the reason or not, but ultimately, Monday afternoon, while I was eating my lunch, and my emails came in, I got the order from the court. 14 pages, overturning, all the ordinances find them. No, avoidance stricken based on unconstitutionality under the Florida Constitution and being preempted. That is the order that came in from the judge here locally. So these ordinances, they're gone. The ones that were on the books previously. Can we appeal? We haven't talked to administration yet about this issue. It just came in. We're not barely 72 hours since this order came out. There's obviously a lot going on. Administration is aware of this. Everybody's still contemplating their moves. I really don't want to get into a discussion in open court about the merits of the case and where we think this is going to go because it's still active and open along with all these fee provisions. But I can tell you that we're still considering it. And usually in cases of this nature administration makes the call with our advice as to what we should do going forward. So that's kind of where I'm at today with all of this. I'd Janine's more handling the actual writing of the ordinances and where we are with the repeal on it. That's the 10,000-foot view of where I am with all this. Thank you. I think that's the most I've ever heard you talk at one time in a public meeting. Don't get me going. I can talk all day. Do we, so it, it's just everything is just so fresh apprentices is not specifically mentioned, is there something that we can hang on to from this? And I do trust your work always, both of you. But I think something that's important is something that so many of us have worked so hard on. That did not go... I mean, it's not like it was a quick and easy decision that this all was wrong and we had to get rid of it. There was a winding path, right? Well, maybe we should have a little bit more winding path of our own and take our time to figure this out. Because we've come too far with this to only come this far. And I think one way or another, there's got to be a plan that we can put together or some action that we can take to at least honor the spirit of this and really find other ways to meet this goal legally but we don't know what legally is right now so I would like to take more time. I don't I wouldn't mind that PS9 meeting. I'll wait in here for mothers or wait to hear for mothers and then if you can help us with some options that would be great. Thank you. Thank you Councilmember Muhammad. Thank you Madam Chair. Just a couple of questions. And I just want to be clear, there are no legal deadlines that mandate that we do this, right? There's no, like they don't have a timeline that says legally by this date you have to repeal this ordinance. There is no timeline set. The ordinances are in our legal opinion. That's why we recommended the repeal preempted. And so there's no timeline necessarily by the legislature within the bill. Okay. And a lot of my questions have been answered. So I'll just weigh in on discussion to delay, of course. My engagement around this began in 2017 with the new deal for St. Pete. And I remember, I think Councilmember Driscoll is running at that time. And we met at a candidate form. And that was one of the questions that we put to candidates is would you support this ordinance? And so going back to the yes and all of the other things that have happened there has been a lot of advocacy a lot of support a lot of work with the unions to get to this point and what at this point I'm risking being redundant but to have all of that work be done and then to come back in fresh from a break to have to decide to undo it. I'm not comfortable doing that right now. I would support referring this to a PS and I committee so that we could review which parts of the ordinance are not affected by the preemption. I think that would be the thing that I would like to really be clear on what we're doing when we have this meeting is look at, you know, what aspects of it and really do that full deep dive to say, okay, because we did that with some other ordinances when we look at the aspects of it that are preempted and then being able to salvage what we can from it. And then everything else that I wanted to say has been said and it's been a long day already. So I want to thank you and thank those who came out to speak in this and thank you for offering continuing to offer your subject matter expertise in this to quote something I hear Madam Chair say off times we don't know what we don't know. And so to have that support consistently over time, it's definitely appreciated. And so I would be in support of not taking action and referring us to PS and I or any other committee if that's the will of the group. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. Council member Hanowitz. I moved up for some reason. I was excited. Everybody want to me to talk. It's amazing. That doesn't happen all the time. First of all, I thank everyone for being here. This is not something that anyone likes to be clear. We're being preempted by the state. They're trying to preempt this by the state. At simple as that, they've been doing this for how long? On every issue. And it's very frustrating. So we share everyone's frustration. And there's nothing better than local control in terms of what we do. And every time we turn around, they're taking away from us. So when I look at this, and I just want to ask legal a few questions and I understand my colleagues trying to understand where they are at this legally because it can be complicated. You have two issues. You have the legislature preemption which obviously the House bill that passed and then you have the case and you had an order that just came down a couple of days ago, which is a pretty lengthy order. It's not a short order. It's pretty lengthy. So I can understand and appreciate my colleagues need for clarity on this. What I want to ask legal is number one, in terms of the preemption. Is there anything? I mean, we can have a committee meeting. I just, is there anything based on the ordinance that you see can be saved based on the preemption that you have seen? Not the ordinance is written. Right. Because it preempts you from requiring contractors to control or limit or expand their staffing and recruitment or hiring of employees from specific sources. And I think it will be helpful if we have this meeting for people to understand, I guess, in terms of the analysis of how you get there because I understand when people see, well, there's an exception, right? Or when there's local dollars used? And why doesn't that apply? Right? And we've had questions that have been asked and that I don't want to get into the weeds in terms of illegal analysis on all these issues right now because we can I I understand it but But I think that's going to be helpful if we're going to have that discussion. The other issue I want to talk about is in terms of the case, just to be clear, the appellate order for attorneys' fees. I want some clarification on that. So that never happens. Never seen it. I don't know any attorney who has. So I just, when you see something like that, and I'll read it, because I actually printed it out once I got this order, because I was looking at all this, the appellate court granted a peltence attorney's fees conditionally, and then basically told the trial court to determine the reason about of attorney's fees if the appellant prevails, which I understand what attorney's view of that is, they see that and they know where the case is going at that point. But then the judge did not, she ruled on this after the state had preempted the bill. So she knew that there was a previous bill, and now there's this current bill this year. Correct, and I'm unsure if the court specifically was referencing the new bill or not, I'm not 100% sure. Right, because it wasn't clear there. But she did, she based it obviously on the previous bill and maybe on whether it was implicit in the statutory scheme. Right. Okay. So I don't like where it stands. I'll be honest, I don't like it. I don't like the order and I don't like the bill. It doesn't look good. We are gonna have a discussion on it. And I think we should, so we're all clear on it. But the order in terms of even appealing the order at this point, we have an order that tells us that it is, if we have this conversation, and I'm fine having it at PSI, are we going to be doing anything in terms of the ordinances? I would assume that everything's abated, nothing's happening based on this order right now, or what happens because this order right now is out there. Because it says our ordinances are no void and stricken. Sure, no void and stricken, I mean theoretically a motion to stay. Judgment of this pending the appeal would have to be a type of emergency motion for stay with the court, something we could consider. We certainly have the 30-day window on the appeal and all of this to do that. And we can have that discussion offline, I guess. And obviously we need to get administration involved in this and their thoughts on all of it. Right, and that's the thing. I don't want to step on them. This is administration's role in terms of determining the appellate issues, but I'm just concerned about we're having these conversations. We have an order pending right now that tells us these ordinances are stricken. We're not doing anything. We know by the way that there are Florida statutes that hold us to a duty in that of the neglect of duty. Obviously, the governor can remove any official that neglects a duty. So if we have something that's pending, that's legal if we're not doing something. So I do have some concerns and I wanna make sure if we have these conversations, we're doing the right things. Does that make sense in terms of the pending order itself? Yeah, it makes sense to me. I mean, I understand where you're going with this. Yes. So that's what I want to make sure of. If we're going to have these conversations, are we covered? That was because we have this order pending. And they're all, by the way, they're all related to the same ordinance. Whether it's the house bill that legal is telling us that preempts us, we still having order that separate apart the came out two days later that basically has stricken it. So we have it on both ends. We have it on the legal end and on the state level and they're here and we're here. I mean, the way I read this order, the ordinances are done. As we sit here today, it's null, the wooden stricken. And any move we make going forward is going to be a battle. It's going to be a real battle. Okay. So if we have, if we have the conversation, if we don't do anything today, we have the conversation. So we can have a full understanding of this, at least for every council member here to be on the same page on the issues and allow everyone to understand where we're at and the stakeholders and all that. What do we need to do to ensure that we are within the bounds of law, and we're not doing anything outside of the things that are required of us, because that's the only concern I have. Obviously, administration has the right to make their decision, and we have to allow them to do that, and there's 30 days. While we are waiting to figure out, because we haven't had those meetings regarding the appeal We still have a court order saying that they're no avoid and stricken. So While you're talking about whether or not you're going to take the active role of repealing it We are not Doing anything with and I want to make sure that because I want to put that on the record though, I think that's important to put on the record that nothing's gonna happen. And we're all on the same page because if we're gonna have those conversations and there are statues that hold us to a duty, not to neglect our duty as city council members and follow the law, also on and so forth, that we're all on the same page. We're gonna have these conversations and whatever actions we take after that have those conversations and that should be fine But I would figure if nothing happens right now. It is no void and stricken as it stands right now We can have those conversations based on the order We can have those conversations and and then take it from there It helps if it helps for the record the is not going to be enforcing these ordinances or something. Until there's something clear. Okay. So, but it's important, I think, to make the record clear on that. So with that being said, I mean, we have the next PSI meeting is August 8th is the one that we have scheduled. That's the next PSI meeting. So I can absolutely put it on that August 8th meeting. We have a conversation of the City of St. Petersburg Community Survey. I think we'd be able to tackle both issues easily and I think legal could then give us a much better legal analysis of the things that we've talked about and then some of the other issues that council members have brought up. If that works. I, that's within your purview. Yeah, okay. Okay. Recommending first read, but obviously it is within your purview descended to PS and I at any time. Okay. I just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. So, okay. be happy to hear from everyone else. Thank you. Vice Chair Gertis. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know we were laughing about having you talk, but that's why. So, that's how I understood it. And again, I'm going to probably use simpler language. But my understanding is that we are taking a mitigated risk to have a conversation later on by not repealing it today. But in essence, this is done. Whether we repeal it or not because of the order we've received on Monday. Yes, unless we appeal in. Right, unless there's an appeal within the next 30 days. OK, OK. So because I'll be very honest with you. Listen, I don't like bringing it up, but my dad was a significant part of this ordinance and then worked on it for three years in procurement after City Council. And so I saw the sweat blood and tears of this and you all lived it. And so I don't want to do this. I would use very strong language that I haven't used on this diaciette describing how I feel about this. But I came in certainly ready to vote to repeal it because the way it seems to me is it's dead. I'm happy to have the conversation because I try to be amenable and act like I would like my colleagues to act if I were on this same road. And so I'm happy to have the conversation because it's not a huge risk. I think it's a mitigated risk. It's short term. I want to understand it. I want to make sure some of the language in here from a simple mind. I get the argument of not having apprentice specifically done where it says recruit train and hire employees from a designated restricted or single source among other prohibitions. I'm happy to have that conversation, but then I'll just be honest, my brain goes to we have an order for Monday. Now we could appeal it and certainly that warrants maybe having the conversation to keep it open and that's why I'm open to it. I hope that made sense. We've been talking about this for a while and I feel like a lot of people are in the same place. But I also don't want to get my hopes up because that order, I read it as also, I was never a lawyer but I worked in law office for a few years. I had, Anne for an appellate attorney, I've never seen that. And so that certainly scares me, but I'm open to having the conversation now that I've said that four times. So that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Montenegro. Thank you. So, when our city attorney tells us that there's great danger in going down this path, that should get all of our attention. A lot of the points that other council members brought up, I had on my list of questions, but I do want to ask a couple questions about our role, our oath of office that we took and taking this step of moving this to a committee and not adopting these ordinances today. Could that be grounds for removal from office? I don't believe so, but I can't guarantee you that with what has happened lately with a number of removals of officers in different areas. with a number of removals of officers in different areas. And how about the oath of office that we take uphold the Constitution and the laws of this data floor? I think regardless of your active repeal of the ordinances they are null and void. So that would be the argument, but I just couldn't give you 100% based on, as I've said, removals of officers in the state of Florida in the past couple of years. Okay. Do we have a motion on these. Yeah. I'll go ahead and move approval of 11 a b and c. Are you done, Councillor Moor? Councillor Moor, gather. Thank you. So that motion died for a lack of a second. All right. So I'd like to make a motion that we take the repeal of these ordinances to the next available PS and I committee August 8th, did you say? Second. Yep. Thank you. And I just want to be very clear. On the record, I understand we're not going to be enforcing these. I understand they are null, to be enforcing these. I understand they are no avoidans stricken and I understand where we are very clearly. I have no intention of violating the law as a sitting council member. I do very clearly have intention on having a conversation around what it means to stand up for workers in this city and that is within our right. That is what we are allowed to do. That is what we are representative government to do. So I just want to be very clear with whoever is listening. We're not violating law. We're exercising the rights that we were voted into exercise. So thank you. I also remember Jusko. Thank you. So I would, was there a motion in there? Yep. You have to be getting. I'm not sure if you can see the room. I'm not sure if you can see the room. I'm not sure if you can see the room. I'm not sure if you can see the room. I'm not sure if you can see the room. I'm not sure if you can see the room. I'm not sure if you can see the So what happens to this in the meantime? There was no second for the motion to approve it. So depending on the results of the motion to refer to PS and I, there would just be no action on it. So on August 8th, we'll have a PS and I committee meeting between now and then I'm sure we'll all be having more conversations with you. And hopefully by August 8th we'll all come with some ideas. A better understanding of all of this for one thing, but also some ideas on how we can move forward to achieve the goals that are set forth through these ordinances. That's what I want to look at. So it's, you know, we may not be officially repealing it today, but we do understand what the consequences are of this particular order and what has happened. But if you think about it as I've been thinking of it as a repeal and replace kind of thing where I don't want to let go of this until I know another way that we can do it. So by the eighth though, I mean I just don't want any more time to go by. So we need to have this more than just a discussion. We got to be ready to take some action that could possibly like go to counsel that day. That's how fast I want something done. Just to show that yes, we understand that some changes have been made, be on our control. But if we focus what is under our control, I think we can still get some good things done for this. So I'm looking forward to the eighth. And I appreciate everyone's contributions to this discussion. Thank you. Is everyone spoken? Yes, ma'am. All right. Yay, my turn. We're I was in this and I've had this conversation after receiving the phone call about the repeal from attorney Williams everywhere I went I spoke of my dismay even with the 101 with administrator Gertis one with administrator Gertis. Those that know, know that I have been on this and thank you Council Member Driscoff since 2016. And we were diligent and we were able to get the CBA passed in 2021 that actually included some of the apprenticeship piece that was nowhere near what we wanted, nowhere near what we thought was sufficient, but we took it knowing that we were going to continue the fight. Administrator Gertricks will tell you how adamant I was about it being overall in the ordinance. And we were because of the CVA, we were blessed to get it in the term sheet for the Gas Flamp project. And then I get the call that it had been preempted. Imagine how, I don't know if I was sad, mad, whatever it was, because we worked so hard to recognize our apprenticeships, our laborers. Those that do some really work, because I have family members that are in unions. And I know that we could not exist without the contributions of our laborers. So my understanding, and I totally agree with Councilmember Gareb, but I understand everything that's going on. I don't, it's not for lack of understanding. My questioning of not wanting to move forward with this today not to jeopardize anyone's position not to jeopardize the city of St. Petersburg and cause any great harm or danger but what we've been impacted with to have a conversation as to what can we do? To just have something placed before us coming back from breaking just saying we got to do this. Without having a conversation I just thought was rushed. And not knowing we know we can't do this, but what can we do? Because, you know, we're here for a reason, and working on this, what, past eight years, meant a little bit more to me than just repealing it, just the first time hearing it and coming back. So, I think everybody for your phone calls, I think all of our colleagues were wanting to have a better conversation and understanding about this. I think everybody's already on the same page. We were there. I don't think anybody does not understand. I just think that we wanted to talk about it. And again, attorney Williams and you know our legal team, we never once doubt what it is that you're bringing to us. But we still have a job to do just like you did yours. And I think having it scheduled for PS and I is the right, that would be my choice. And I'm definitely going to support the motion that's on the floor. And that's going to give me more time to have a better conversation with the experts as to what something like this will do in regards to moving forward, not only on a specific project, but for those impacted greatly on this, because this has been, yeah, I was real disappointed, very disappointed when I heard this last week. So the motion is on the floor, it has been privately seconded. It was seeing no other further requests to speak and you please open the machine for voting. Council members, please cast your votes. Now that all the President and Council members have voted, can you please tell in and announce the votes. Madam Chair, the motion to move the ordinances to the August 8th, 2024 Public Services and Infrastructure Committee meeting passes 7 to 1. Council members, Driscoll, Fixander, Floyd, Gabbard, Curtis, Hannahweights, and Mohammed Voting Yes. And Council member, Montenegro Voting No. Thank you, thank you. So we're gonna move right along. I know you all are tired, but we're gonna move right along our New business items G1 we have a referral to PS and I from vice-chair girders Respectively requesting thank you Madam Chair. We're respectfully requesting a referral to PS and I committee or other relevant committee for an update on the city's sign code and I'll move approval Having motion in been seconded can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that all persons and council members have voted, can you please tell in and announce your vote. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G1 passes unanimously. Thank you, moving on to G2, vice chair goddess. Skip to one, excuse me, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am respectfully requesting referral to the Budget Finance and Taxation Committee to review the BP settlement fund expenditure request as presented to the Hurs Committee May 16, 2024. This is a City Council resolution which is attached to the requires any request of the expenditure of BP settlement funds to be referred to the BFNT Committee before submitting to the City Council for approval and I'll move approval. Second. Now that we have a motion in a second can you please open the machine for voting? Council members please cast your votes. Now that our president council members have voted can you please tell in announced votes. Item chair the motion to approve agenda item G2 passes unanimously with council member Hannah what's been absent. Thank you moving on now to G3 referral to VFNT vice chair girders. Greener O Madam Chair, respectfully requesting referral to a committee of the whole to discuss Northwest Park lighting project currently on the Wiki Watchy project. List, this is step number nine of 12. This should be a relatively short item for a committee of the whole. It's pretty simple. It was passed by BFNT to send to the cow. And so we certainly get to add it to one. We don't need to have a special cow. Whenever that comes over the next couple of months and I'll move approval. Thank you. Thank you. Now that we have a motion in a second for G3. Can you please open a machine for voting council members Please cast your votes Seeing all present council members have voted can you please tell you and announce the votes? I'm chair of the motion to approve agenda item G3 passes unanimously with council member Hannah what's being absent? Thank you moving on to G4 council member modernary. Thank you Respectfully requesting or referral to the Economic and Workforce Development Committee or other relevant committee and update and presentation on the Arc Innovation Center. This is a staff request. I'll move approval. Second. Thank you. Now we have a motion. It's been second. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members please cast your vote. Now that two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. I have two questions. Today in agenda review there are six council members present and we had a conversation in regards to a resolution to change the starting time of the July 18 date from 1.30 to 11 a.m. and I have a resolution and now I entertain a conversation of not an entertain a motion and approval for a time change for July 8 from 1.30 to 11 a.m. I'm going to approve of it. What did I say? I'm sorry. July 8th and Yama brain is gone. Move approval of a time change on the July 8th meeting to 11 a.m. Thank you. Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I just wanted to, since we're up here, put it on the record that I would prefer if we keep our meeting at the same time, it's already been put out there. People are looking forward to it. It's an important meeting. I know it's difficult for people to get time off work and whatnot. And so I just wanted it set upstairs since I'd set it downstairs. Thank you. And let me just respond to it really quickly. We're going to start off with the buzzer presentation, 8-11. And by the time we finish with that it's going to be 12, 12, 13, or 4, break. We're going to take an hour for break and we're coming back at 1, 30, which is the same start time. The only thing we're missing is the budget. So that they're coming so we move that so that we're not impacting. Council member Mohammed. Thank you, Madam Chair. And actually going back to what I said earlier, I got involved with advocacy around the budget. And so I think there may be people who would come out to have a discussion on the budget. And the me and me would love to move it up so we can start earlier, probably hopefully end sooner, but the organizer and me knowing that people have to move their lives around in order to make these meetings. In participating these sessions, I wouldn't wanna move it and keep it as what was said before. Because I do think that somebody might wanna come and actually participate in the budget of schedule to come at that time. And when we move the change, they show up to the meeting and that conversation has already happened. I think we do our constituents a disservice in that. So I wouldn't support it right now. Understood. We've had a motion as a property second. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your votes. Now that our president, Council members have voted, can you please tell in and ask the votes? There was a private thing. Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F5, passes five to three with council members, Driscoll, Fixander, Scabber, Gertricks, and Montenarri voting yes. Council members, Floyd, Edowicz, and Muhammad voting no. Thank you. Now I also, we talked about having another review and a cow for the budget. We have a proposed date of August 1st at 2.30 p.m. prior to that we do have a council meeting that morning at 9 with public hearing at 9.30 which shouldn't take that long but August 1st is the available first date for the cow. Are you all amenable to August 1st? August 1st. You need a motion Madam Chair. We're going to need a motion innocent. Make a motion that we have a budget cow on August 1st at 230. Thank you. Do I have a second? Okay, we've probably been second. Vice Chair Gertis. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to support this because I want the cow to happen. I had booked travel that afternoon. I'm going to try to change it, but I just wanted to let my colleagues know. I just wasn't anticipating it, that's all. And so that's my fault. It being a Thursday, but I should have known better. But I'm gonna try to be there, but I'm certainly in favor of it, and I would not vote against it just because I'm not gonna be there. Or could not be there. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I just wanted to say one thing. We have done this like maybe every year I've been here. We want to miss one. We should talk about systematizing it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Council Member Driscoll. I'm done. That's all I had. I didn't know that too. The engineer. I think it actually made it know I was actually going to bring it up when we talked calendar in December during that committee the whole meeting. So I'm glad to hear that someone else would like to have that as a tradition. Thanks. We'll systematize it. System it. That's not good. It's time to go. He is an engineer about it. He needs me on his spreadsheet. Seeing no further requests to speak, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, can you please cast your votes? Now that our president council members are voting, can you please tell in and out the votes? Madam Chair, the motion to have a budget committee of the whole on August 1st, 2024 passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we're going to move on to open form. Do we have any cars for open form? We do have some speakers, Madam Chair. List is still. I'm going to call them to it at time. I believe this is Mary. Can't read the writing. Talk. Say talk. And Dr. DeRuele-Poli, please go to have the podium. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to address the council. I don't see Dr. Poley, John Stewart. Well, Cindy Roberts, Douglas Jackson, Sonye Cacone, Williamilgore, Ernesto Barnwell. Please go to I the podium, say it's your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to address it, Council. Go ahead, Mary. Good evening, Council members. My name is Mary Ketalk, 5910, Biogramble of Ardonarth, Easton, St. Pete. I'm coming to you today as a ordained license minister with the Church of the Creator since 1996. My God, that seems like centuries ago. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for being here today. Hear this prayer and bless all with your wisdom, your strength, and your grace. In Psalms 15, you had a conversation with King David Hear this prayer and bless all with your wisdom, your strength, and your grace. In Psalms 15, you had a conversation with King David who asked the following questions, who can dwell in your tent, Lord, who can dwell on your holy land? You answered King David that the one who lives honestly righteousness, and acknowledges truth and speaks and holds that truth sacred in their hearts, they will reside with me. You said that the one who abides with you and does no evil to their neighbor, the one who doesn't use money to a disadvantage, and protects the innocent, they will live with you. And you said that the one who keeps an oath, even though it hurts very painfully and they don't get what they want, will live with you. Lord, you ask us to walk the high road, especially when governing others, using right speech and maintaining integrity in all matters legal and financial. You further remind us in Romans chapter 8 not to walk according to the flesh, but rather according to spirit. God help us embrace Paul's epistle in one Timothy chapter 6 where he reminds us that the love of money and what it can bring us is the root of all evil. Guide these council members when dealing with those who wish to do business with our city. Your Lord, be with each and every one of these council members. Guide them. Touch their hearts with your precepts of the higher road as they move towards their decisions so that your will will be done for they cannot possibly know the hour and the day of what is to come to this city during this time of economic unrest. Amen. Thank you all. Thank you. Hello. Go ahead. Go ahead. Ernissa Barnwell. I am the CEO of Barter Harburet in College Museum, 76th Fourth Street North, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33731. I would like to speak to you about the Tampa Bay Raids deal. I am here representing the Black community and basically the historic gas plant community to be exact. The historic gas plant community had been uprooted by legal instruments that were utilized based on the misuse of Islam law that was created in legislation and used on a state level, from a state level, to exact eminent domain on the historic gas plant district, which was a thriving district. It had schools, it had homes, also housing schemes. This district also had churches, it had markets, it had nightclubs. So this is literally a thriving community. And basically the same way that the illegal instrument was used to dismantle this community and mo it down for to be used as a pawn and black community has been displaced in our taxpayers, actuaries, and descendants throughout this community as well, not being heard, not at the table, but definitely citizens. So it is obvious that legal instruments are gonna have to be also used to get the property back. Thank you. I'm sure we're going to call it to speaker. Next speaker is Zoom. Brad McCoy. Brad, once you enter into the meeting space, please unmute yourself. That's your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. Hi, my name is Brad McHoy, 1856. I'm area way south, 33712. Hi, council members. Everyone sitting here on council took it both to serve the citizens of St. Petersburg. And none of you serving today will face a starker, more obvious choice than the one before you now and on July 18th. On one side there's a very wealthy, very powerful group promising that giving into their terms will result nothing but great things for everyone who will actually be paying for it. And we've seen this group's influence and money corrupt and compromise the ethics of a shameful amount of organizations and public officials. On the other side is every single person who's fortunate enough to call St. Petersburg home for the next 30 years. Those people aren't throwing exclusive parties and luxury boxes, shoveling donations into campaign accounts. They're struggling with rising prices and flooding streets that can wreck their lives in the blink of an eye. And all the marketing, false promises and and rig surveys in the world won't change the very simple facts surrounding this proposal. The current stadium paid for in good faith by the people of this city will be perfectly functional for years to come. Decades, decades of studies show that new stadiums provide little to no positive benefits for a city. I urge you all to do the research on this. It doesn't feel like this research has been done. These stadiums rob cities repeatedly. The proposal as it currently stands provides no binding guarantees from the team, no shared profits, and no financial returns for the public. Only risks. This city is facing very real, very perilous threats in the near future. Either from storms, floods, failing infrastructure, or other economic emergencies. I'm certain you love this city and want this to be the best decision for its future. But that future depends on council members with the vision and courage to lead the city into that future. We need to have absolute certainty that every public dollar spent will benefit the safety and security of everyone lucky enough to call this city home. Unfortunately, none of that certainty, leadershipize the health of this area for decades to come. So I strongly urge you to join with the multitudes and I again say multitudes of your constituents, the residents of St. Pete, who are well aware of how agreeing to this this horrible deal will sacrifice our future and reject this deal until a better solution can be found. Thank you. Anyone? Speaker Madam Chair. I'm Dylan. Danes Dylan, once you're entering to the meeting space, please state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes to address city council. Hey folks, my name is Dylan Danes. I'm at one two zero zero one. Dr-1, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sheeran Norris. I'll be honest, this is a little tough for me to bring a reprimanded counsel after such a good display of solidarity with workers and like a bright imagination to resist state repression and like in all the ways that it comes, you know. So I commend you for that. However, on behalf of Faith and Florida, you know, we represent rent-burdened residents and progressive people of faith. I just want to urge the council today to reflect on your public celebrations of corporate partners like Duke Energy, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Hines Development Group. Too often, this sends a message that these corporate partners take priority over the concerns of residents, whom you claim that the partnerships are in the service of. Providing jobs and stimulating the economy and grants and scholarships and all these things. These are often touted, but you counsel, you're so often told that these partnerships don't serve us. They hold up, the municipal status quo, but they don't protect everybody. Black folks, low income folks, disabled people, environment like exposed people, like the list goes on. These are people largely unprotected by the private groups you celebrate. There's a couple of concerns with like a Duke energy day, of course, like rate hikes on residents and, you know, a strong preference for gas over solar, all these things like a lack of sustainability steps even though like even in the context of the city's 2016 commitment to emissions free electricity but what's more important is what it does to the public's confidence in you. As you are ragged this day of commemoration and you call on residents to join us join you in celebrating Duke so many residents will not celebrate Duke, and you still will. I hope you all see the problem with this. This takes us away from unity and toward tension. I'll be honest, so many folks within faith and Florida, myself included, we didn't even hold negative feelings for Duke until the research required to write this comment. So I hope this makes it clear that your celebrations of walking in the opposite direction of what people want is as potentially as harmful as the collaboration themselves. You know, on September 19th, while I sat in the bleachers last year and listened to the city and members of the mayor cabinet and stuff celebrate the tropical field deal, I just remember feeling like there's two completely different stories happening here and the marketing and the celebration is just as bad as the robbery itself. So I want to echo council members Floyd and Driscoll and Urges toward relief for residents, you know, while still recognizing the working class effort and service you that goes into providing energy services for the city. And I just want council to be conscious of the kind of partnerships that you celebrate. Thank you. Thank you, anyone cards? Well, more speakers. Sierra Clark, please go to I the podium. State your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to address city council. I'm going to go to the school. My name is C. Aria and my previous address was 4 or 4 or 20 second Avenue self. I'm a live story of St. Petersburg. 14. I've been working since I've been 14 and worked 18 years at our local children's hospital. And dad got sick in the local nursing home. This is also about the gas plant district, but I know we like a story, and I just want to get my real story, the one that I'm currently living. And the one that I was living that I didn't even know that I was living to do my grandparents being displaced from the gas plant. So I felt a level of oppression. And it was so deep inside my household that my learning disability went unnoticed because parents had to be out. My mom was not my aunt who raised me because my mom was on drugs. And so I want the president to learn from the past. I had the privilege of writing a second book and there was about the history of St. Pete. But it was also about the history of my family. My grandfather was an immigrant who came here who saw fit that St. Pete was gonna be where he called home where now as his granddaughter's voice, I don't even know if I can call the only place that I know home is even home. And so the 18 years at the Children's Hospital, I no longer am employed there. Because it got really tough cousin once I moved out of my apartment to move in with my parents because what do you do as a child? You want to take care of your parents and then the housing crisis happened. The part that I was a part of where we live on the city, lawns and some people went to jail for speaking up. I realized that you're considered a troublemaker when you speak up. And so I, but what else do I got? They say that my voice counts and my voice matters, but I speak to people who are older than me who say, what's the point? Because they have spent centuries and times where they feel like they voice don't matter. And so I just want to ask those to think about and not do this deal, right? Not even reconsider, but not do this deal. We need to deal that is more robust that is targeted around Community inclusion and sustainability for households. It's unfair that our community grow Which is a beautiful thing, but our households don't and so I don't want just art of our history Painting on buildings. I want us to be able to live our story so out loud that we add flavor to what Martin Luther King dream was not what just we are our valleys are exalted but our communities are exalted and households are able to thrive right and so um and so um what is it so yeah so can if this is the thing that y'all still feeling like y'all have to do, can we put something in order to where that what's built here, or if it needs to be built here, is about the disparities that our communities are already facing, that what's being built flows back into the households of the people and the citizens and the working class people of this community. Thank you so much. Do we have any other speakers? No more speakers. We will now move to announcements and adjournments. Do we have any announcements before we adjourn? Oh, Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. I just want to make sure everyone has heard the fantastic news of the $27.8 million that PSJA has received from the Federal, the bipartisan infrastructure law funding. It is the largest competitive grant award that PSD has ever received in its 40-year history. It's the largest amount that was given to any place in Florida. And we're going to use it for 16 buses, 12 will be electric, four will be hybrid. It includes the charging infrastructure and then just as important it includes funding for hiring and training workers because driving and maintaining an electric bus or a hybrid bus is different from a diesel bus. And so it includes that workforce development too. I can't start smiling like ever since I found out. So I know y'all heard it yesterday of Ford Benella said, Councilor, Councilor Scherfick Sanders was at the PSE Committee meeting yesterday when we talked about it, but it's just worth saying over and over again because we worked really hard, you know, talking to everyone in DC, but Congresswoman Kaster really, really led this and she has become such an incredible advocate for St. Petersburg and for transportation. This is a woman who really knows how to bring him the bacon. I am very grateful to her and so I wanted to mention that as well. Thank you. Thank you so much. Council member Muhammad. Turkey bacon I hope. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know. I don't know. Speaking. Thank you Madam Chair. I just want to. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to acknowledge for those who may be listening to say thank you to my colleagues for the vote in my absence to approve the alternative number one in the housing land use and transportation committee meeting. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of our first Fusion 49th Street interest meeting where we assembled, brought it back to you know, where we brought stakeholders together to talk about the creation of a business literature. So yesterday was that anniversary of just the idea and then fast forwarding into where we are now to see the momentum that they have, the traction that the group has and the work that they're doing, getting things done in the community in the district with the support of council is definitely appreciated. The goal of every organization is to organize yourself out of a job and so as I sat and watched the vote and the discussion happened, I was very happy and pleased that you all unite with us and those in the district who want to see the transportation changes and the things that were brought forward so thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and seeing no further request to speak we are adjourned thank you