Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. I want to welcome you to today's August 27th, 22nd, 2024, the media of the whole and we're going to call this meeting to order beginning with the roll call, please Floyd there girders here Gabbert Montenegro here Hannah Woods here Sanders here your school here and Muhammad here Thank you council members. There's an agenda before as our entertainer motion to approve the agenda All in favor Council members we also have an approval of three different set of minutes from July 16th, July 25th and August 1st. If there are no changes, our entertainer motion to approve them all together. Move approval. All in favor? All right. All right. Now moving on to our new business. The first set of business that we have is the selection of our PSTA citizen at large representative and I do want to read how we're actually going to run this for the record. So we will be looking at our applicants for the citizen representative for the PSTA board. I like to thank everyone for being here and for those of you who submitted a cover letter in Resume and for recognizing the importance of transit and transportation. We received a very strong list of people who are interested in this important position on the PSTA board and I genuinely appreciate that because this position is a volunteer citizen position. We are looking for a person with a strong desire to improve local and regional transit, as well as regional transportation issues. The board meetings are generally held the fourth Wednesday of the month and board members are expected to participate in at least one or more board committees. Most other committees meet monthly and that is usually on a Wednesday morning. The board position is an excellent opportunity to invest in improving local and regional transit and regional transportation issues. Regular attendance is required and each term is for three years. A member may not serve more than three consecutive terms. This term will begin October 1st. And currently, Council Member Driscoll and I represent the City of St. Petersburg on the PSTA Board with the Council Member Driscoll, being the current chair of PSTA in IAS Secretary Treasurer. Council members, we receive the Secretary of Treasury. Council members we received a total of 11 applications. Since the packet went out last week Roger Donaldson has withdrawn his application. Today we have 10 applicants. I will invite each of you to join us at the table one at a time I'll call in the order that the applications were received. To talk about your interest in the PSCA board, after each applicant, council members will be given the opportunity to comment and or ask questions before we move on to the next person. After all, applicants have had the opportunity to speak. Each council members are finished and council members are finished with comments and our questions. I will ask council members to rank their top two choices. And then the clerk will tally and report the outcome. Once the board member has been selected and a official motion in vote approving the appointment of that PSTA citizen representative will be taken up at the September 5th City Council meeting. And with that being said, I want to publicly thank who is with us today and I have had the pleasure of serving on the board. And when I tell you he has represented the city of St. Petersburg, well, Josh Shulman, would you please stand? We want to thank you for your service. And dedication for the City of St. Petersburg since 2017. We don't want to lose you, but I know you're ready to go. But we do what we do. What? You know I'm a leave it out to vice chair girders. So our first application that we received and I'm going to ask that you come and sit at that seat is mis-Elizabeth Cipley. And again we're calling these in the order that we receive the applications. Whichever that will be fine. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. So we welcome you and we're going to give you three minutes to share with them. Well first of all before you do that, Council Member Driscoll, you are the chair of PSTA. I want to give you a couple of minutes to say anything and welcome our candidates since they will be working with you and I'm going to give you a floor. Well, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to everyone who has stepped up to serve on the Board of PSTA. This is an incredibly important board that is county wide. St. Petersburg has strong representation on it right now. And as you know, as you go about our city, our public transportation system plays a big role in our success economically and in the quality of life for all of our residents. And all of those who live here, work here, or work elsewhere, and for those who come to visit. So PSTA plays an important role in our city. The board is comprised of people from all across Pinellas County. And so it's, for me, now serving on PSTA for several years, I have learned a great deal about how our transportation network works and affects the entire county. And different parts of panelists need different solutions for their transportation needs from within PSTA. And so the composition of the board with county commissioners and with people who represent various parts of panelists is a great learning experience as well as an opportunity to represent St. Petersburg. What I am looking for today is for someone to fill the big shoes of Commissioner Shul Solman who I'm very glad you're here today so that we could properly recognize you. He has been an incredible watchdog over PSTA's budget, the processes. He's not afraid to speak up and make sure that St. Petersburg is heard. And that is something that's very important to me. He also understands what it's like to be a bus rider. And he has gone to great lengths to make sure that he has that firsthand experience that lends to his service on that board. So, you know, I hope that that just gives you a little bit of context in which we're making this decision today. Thank you again to all who have applied. And I look forward to going through this process. My only regret already is that we only have one seat because we have, I mean, I was blown away by the caliber of people who have submitted applications for this. And I think it just says great things for us. If you're not selected today, please find another way to be involved because as we grow, we need more and more seats at the table and voices to be heard to improve our transportation network. Thank you. Thank you. So welcome again. I'm going to open the floor to you now. I'm a sibling. Thank you. Hello, everyone. I am Pastor Liz. I'm going to read because I do have a prepared response. I want to be very intentional about what I say and how I address the board. So I represent several tiers within this community. First and foremost I'm a native of St. Petersburg. I was born and raised. I graduated from St. P. High. I did ride the bus as a young person so I do know the experience of that part. I'm a local pastor who serves a diverse congregation. We have youth and elderly that access and attend the various activities due to the services that PTSA actually provide. I'm a local business owner that have employees and citizens that utilize the public transportation. One of the things I like is that we have bicycle access to where they can actually transport their bikes and still continue on with their commute. I'm a retired veteran who served 27 years in the United States Army and I'm extremely grateful that our city and our county makes a committed investment and to ensure that our warriors are honored and giving the opportunity to ride without limits. I know going to the VA can be challenging, just getting around as a whole, suffering with PTSD and some of the mental things that we go through after going through war, so I do appreciate that. With all of these tears, I represent my number one concern is that we keep the citizens at the forefront of all decisions that are made regarding the public transportation. With the rapid growth in our city and our county, it is imperative that we have a delicate balance of accessibility and road access to our commuters. I have family that's visiting right now and I'm proud to say that because I will be in a meeting tomorrow they have access to the airport and can actually transport over there without any hindrance of of possibility of getting on their flights. We didn't have that before. We used to have that van where you have to access and get an appointment. So I do appreciate that. I believe being part of this board would assist with getting vital information and accurate information to citizens in my demographics that may not necessarily receive the important information that goes out. I would be honored to serve this community and the heart working group of the committed servant leaders such as yourselves. Thank you. Thank you. Council members, anyone have any questions? Seeing no requests to speak, thank you, recycling. Thank you. Next you. Thank you. Next we will have Miss Latoya Bowls. Can you please come? Oh, then you are. You'll have three minutes to share with us. You want to serve on the PSTA board. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Latoya Bowls. I'm going to also read as well, so I don't miss any important details. I'm currently served as the Executive Director for Due CIS Live, and it's a community-based organization focused on revitalizing and enriching the lives of the residents in City of St. Petersburg. I'm here today because I believe public transportation is the backbone of a thriving equitable community. It's more than just getting from point A to point B. It's about connecting those opportunities, fostering economic growth, and ensuring everyone our city has access to the services and resources that they need. In my role at Duce's life, I've worked directly with our residents, sharing their challenges and advocating their needs. I've seen firsthand how the transportation issues can create barriers to the employments of the residents and the community education, healthcare, and particularly for the underserved community. As a PSTA citizen at large representative, I will bring this community centered perspective to the table ensuring that the voices of those who rely most on public transportation are heard and prioritized. One of my strengths is being able to communicate and advocate effectively. Whether it's rallying support for a new community initiative or negotiating partnerships, I know how to convey the importance of public transportation in a way that resonates the peat from the people of all walks of life for equitability. I'm also committed to finding innovative solutions to our transportation challenges, whether it's advocating for expanded routes, enhancing accessibility, or just exploring sustainable and green transit options. I'm ready to work collaboratively with all the stakeholders to bring this ideas to Frutation. In closing, I am passionate about making St. Petersburg and more connected in close to city where public transportation empowers all residents. As the PSTA citizen at large representative, I'm ready to bring my experience, my advocacy, my deep commitment to this community to ensure the transit system truly meets the need of every person in this city. I am also born and raised here in the city of St. Pete by a single mother and graduated from Lakewood High School of Ghost Spartans. So I understand the importance of it. So thank you guys so much for the consideration. Thank you so much. Anyone has any questions? Of the schools? Council member Driscoll. Thank you. The question that I have is actually more for staff on a clarification. So with those kinds of questions, should we wait till the end? No, let's get clear five before we get too deep into it. Okay, Ms. Ball, thank you so much for that introduction. The question that I have is for the city attorneys. Has, have we looked at and has it been determined whether or not there could be a conflict of interest since Ms. Bull in this particular case, since the city does provide funding for the the Duce's live organization. And I can't remember if that goes directly to salaries or to operations for it as one of our Main Street organizations. So I just, I wanna make sure that we're crossing all the tees and dotting the eyes here just to make certain that we don't have any kind of a conflict there. I understand, good question, Councilmember Wheat. That question has not been posed to us. We are happy to, we could take a quick look at that during your process and circle back. And again. Okay, perfect, thank you. Okay, thank you for that. Thank you, so we'll make sure we check on it. Next we have Mr. Charles Arnold. Welcome, Mr. Arnold. Good afternoon. How are you? Great, thank you. So, please share your three minutes. That's why you would like to participate on the PS2. Okay. First, let me say that I'm retired. And during my career and salad days, the opportunity to travel around the world and experience many different transportation systems, local transportation systems, San Francisco, New York City, in Europe, in Zurich, in Asia, in Bangkok. And I was always fascinated by the way these systems were an integral part of the social, economic, and lives of the city. And so when I retired and moved to downtown St. Petersburg, I was really anxious to get involved with the local transportation system with PSTA. And the first thing I learned was that if you want to catch a bus, you have to learn how to think like a bus. So luckily there are many resources available, the app, the great employees of PSTA. And but catching a bus is really quite complicated. There's the drivers, the passengers, the route, the weather, the traffic, all of these play a part of it. Plus the machinery, quite a bit of machinery involved and now electronics too. So during my career, by trade, I was a technical writer. And the heart of my job was translating highly technical information for non-technical users. And I think this might be important because there's technical users, the people who actually operate the P.H. T.A. system and the non-technical ones, the ones who use it. Also, later in my career, I became a business analyst. Part of that job was dealing with various stakeholders with conflicts of interest, being able to understand, analyze their interests and their issues, and present those issues to other stakeholders, and find compromises to find solutions that work for everybody involved. So I'm anxious to bring this experience to PSTA, to try to help it develop and move to the next level and become an integral part of the fabric of the city. Councillor Mellon. Councillor Mellon, you won't have any questions for Mr. Arner. Mr. Arner, thank you so much and I applaud you wanting to get busy in your retirement. That's not my plan after I retire, but thank you so much and I applaud you wanting to get busy in your retirement. Mm-hmm. That's not what I planned after I retired, but thank you so much for being here. I've always been over there. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Next, we have the maximum can. How are you, sir? Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thanks everyone for having me here. It's especially thank you to Madam Chair and Council Member Driscoll for your leadership on the PSTA board. I think that really is one of the more important tasks that you could do as a city council member. So a little bit about me. I know most of you from my advocacy efforts related to sustainable transportation, which I basically live, breathe, eat, and sleep sustainable transportation. I really do. It's always on my mind, potentially, to my detriment, I think, it might cross the line into obsession. Sometimes I'll be the first to admit that. My day job is as an attorney for the Department of Financial Services, a state agency. I do have the blessing of my employer to serve on this board. I've got it cleared with our HR department. I don't anticipate any conflicts of interest coming up with my service, but I'd of course recuse myself from any issues that were before the PSTA board that also affected my professional career. Okay, my background in activism briefly, it's in my cover letter, but I do appear at the PSTA meetings for public comments sometimes. I find a lot of enjoyment in that. I think that's also an important role that citizens can play to have your voice heard. It seems like the board members really do listen when citizens show up. So I like to do that. I'm probably most active in working on the zoning code for the SunRunner. I think that's a huge opportunity for us. The SunRunner is just, it's got so much potential to change our urban fabric for the better. But you probably heard me say this, good transit needs good land use. If we still have sprawling land use nobody's going to take transit. So that's why I'm so passionate about the Sunrunner's Zoning Code that we're working on and I think that has a lot of potential. I also lead a bike to school event at my daughter's school once a month. That's a lot of fun. Councilmember Floyd has joined us on that. We get families together riding from Kenwood down to James V. Sandirland, K-8 school on this outside. That's great. Also the vice president of my neighborhood association. So we are involved in the Halloween on Central event. For example, we'll have a booth down there and get engaged with all the pedestrians on Central. That's a lot of fun. One thing that I think might help me as a member of this board is that I'm also a fiscal conservative. And I think that it's completely consistent to advocate for public transit as a fiscal conservative because I don't view it as just a sunk budget line item. I really think it's an investment. I think that it can pay off. It can pay huge dividends for our county. So looking forward to serving. Thank you. Thank you. Is anyone happy? Councilmember Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you, Max. You are such a reliable advocate for the things that are important in St. Petersburg when it comes to our transportation solutions and the accompanying land use that's needed. So I just appreciate you so much. And I am grateful that you have stepped forward to serve. Thank you. The question I have actually is for the City Attorney's Office. And so first, are you a contractor with the State of Florida or a direct employee of the State of Florida? I'm a full time employee of the state of Florida. I'm a full-time employee of the state of Florida. Okay, thank you. So that's another one I'd like to check just to see if a state government employee could serve on what is a county board or serve the city. Just want to make sure I know I'm glad to hear that your employer has given the okay but we've got to make sure it's good on our side as well. And as an attorney I'm sure you appreciate that. I sure do. Yes, all right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. Thank you. So next we have Esther Matthews. Is she here? I think Esthers here. Thank you, Esther. Okay, we're gonna move on to Mr. Garrett Marple. Welcome, Mr. Marple. My name is Garrett, and I'm very excited at this opportunity for the citizen representative position. Public transit has long been a very intense passion of mine. I guess you could say I'm somewhat of like a transit nerd if you will. So when I saw this opportunity I jumped at it and I said I had to come, you know, be a part of this. With that said, I jumped at it and I said I had to come, you know, be a part of this. With that said, I must be honest with you guys. I don't have any formal experience in public transit. I've never worked in the field before. But I do think that what I lack in formal experience, more than makeup for in passion and sort of a personal education of sorts that I've given myself. I've done a lot of research into St. Pete, its own encodes, CRAs, bus routes, all of that fun stuff over the past couple of years. And I think that I would be very, very interested in working alongside the PSTA. I love the PSTA. I love the PSTA. I'm a Sunrunner Rider. And there's so many things about it that I'm really excited about. The Cross Bay Ferry, 34th Street Express Bus. Super excited about that. But anyway, I've spent a lot of time personally looking at different systems across the world and in the US, I used to live in the DC metro area. So I was a very frequent rider of that system and I just became an appreciator of all systems that allow citizens to move freely within them. Another thing about this that excites me is I'm really a big problem solver. I really enjoy having challenges thrown my way. So I look forward to the opportunity to potentially work on budgeting constraints and community opposition and all these different types of things that might seem intimidating to others, but I think are actually a really fun part of advocacy and community involvement. Professionally, I am a clinical social worker. I see clients both in the state of Maryland and the state of Florida, so I do see clients in the city of St. Pete. And while this isn't directly related to public transit, I find that, you know, within my work I have gotten to know both the individual and the society that is around it. And I have a lot of experience with, you know, advocacy. That's essentially what I do all day is hear people's concerns and help them figure out solutions. So I think that would definitely aid me in this position. And once again personally, I'm a big fan of the Sunrunner and I ride it all the time. And I'm a quick study, so even though I don't have a lot of experience, I would be really excited to learn on the job and do whatever I can to improve the city's transit. Thank you. Council member, any questions? There are no questions but let me publicly thank you. I am so encouraged to see youth in your eagerness to want to participate and to be involved in that you even apply it. And you being a clinical psych social worker. Social worker, yeah. Yeah, you have a lot of work in St. Petersburg. Oh, yeah. That's a lot. And so what I do, I really want to thank you for that. Because we want to make sure we continue to keep our younger residents engaged. And I appreciate you even applying for this position. And if you do not buy any chance to get this, there are so many different other opportunities for PSTA that could utilize your willingness to want to volunteer. And I'm sure between myself and Council Member Drisco, we'll be glad to introduce you to this opportunity. But thank you so much. I definitely welcome those. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Next we have Mr. Franklin Alves. Let's say that correctly. So please share with us your three minutes as to why you want to be on the PSTA board. Hello, council. My name is Franklin Alves. I'm a first generation. I'm a first generation American. I'm honored to be here today. Being here today takes me actually back to my first time being here. About 10 years ago, I had started a long boarding club at USS Amp and before that, I had literally no idea how to get used that thing. But very quickly, I found there was a lot of people that were really into learning it and we grew to a group member of like a hundred people rolling around downtown. During that time was actually I found out that it was illegal the way that I was getting around town and that when I worked with Karl Nersen I said those kind of famous last words that I think we've all said that we should change that. We should change that. St.P. has taught me the power of those words. Early on and I love this city it is my forever home. I learned early that citizens in this room have a voice. While attending USF St.P., I advocated the removal of the skateboarding band in downtown, getting the regional skate park built in Campbell Park, and lobbied in Tallahassee and behalf of the university and even shared meetings like this when I was the student government senate president. One of my first jobs outside of college was working at St.P. College at the Seminole Campus and I had honestly the best privilege there because I was the person that would give students the little silver sticker for their bus passes so that they can get to school, get to work, go see their friends, and just seeing that first hand that way, being taken off them, now that one less concern of transportation is off their responsibility was so cool to see. Now I sit on the board of the Camel Park Neighborhood Association. My working community involvement have deepened my understanding of the neat transportation challenges that we face and has fueled my passion for making transit more accessible and equitable for all. Economic and social mobility is simply linked to physical mobility. And in Campbell Park, where a court of my neighbors don't have access to a car, this connection is especially critical. We know that more than half of PSCA writers live in poverty and they pay taxes, and they deserve to be able to use those roads that they're paying for. If there's one thing that St.P. has taught me that it's the power of change that lies into hands of the people. Well, I may not bring big connections or large organizations. What I do bring is a deep connection and commitment to my community. I'm here because of my neighbors who depend on public transportation to get to the doctors, to get to work. I'm here because of my mom who has now moved to St. Pete and she lives just a couple blocks south of me in 133 heights. I wanted to live in a city that is well connected and where she can age gracefully with dignity in place. I believe that transit is a necessity and it is a public good and it a better transportation system will make our county more successful. I'm here for you because I'm here because I'm committed to advocating for my neighbors and for those who need it most which is why I would like to be the citizen representative. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Mellon, don't you want to have any questions for Mr. Alves? I want to make sure I say that correctly. Mr. Alves, again, thank you so much for your client. We appreciate it. Oh, Councillor Mell Councilmember Drisco. Thanks. Thanks, just real quick. And Franklin, you live in the Camel Park neighborhood. You're talking about, I think, your mom lives in 13th three heights. You're in Camel Park. And I know you guys own, have some properties in other parts of South St. Pete, where we have a high number of people who are transportation disadvantaged. Yeah. Have you? So this is something that's important to me because we have such a need to make sure that those who really depend on the bus have, that convenience and that efficiency. Can you just kind of tell us a little bit more about your background or your advocacy through the Neighborhood Association with Reson? I don't mean to put you on the spot and ask you like this question, but you know, I mean, you would be representing all of St. Petersburg to be very clear, but I like the perspective that you have from, what is it someone has said before, like where you stand depends on where you sit. I'm very interested in where you sit and the access that you have in the radius around you that has a large number of our residents who are transportation disadvantaged. What would you like to tell us about that? I mean the biggest part about what and I'll just tell you my favorite part of the things that I do is actually carrying this binder here with me. This thing is filled with all of the different documents, paperwork, of everything of opportunities that are available to citizens, especially in CR. Actually last night was my best example. One of our neighbors in Campbell Park just was able to get the deed to their house, and they were finally able to get it out of probate, and they were able to move into the next steps of getting CRA grants to be able to make improvements on their house and I literally had it printed out in this binder and it was my favorite moments where I can take it out and hand it to them because that is for some people the only time that they're able to get that access because it's available when it's out there but being able to open this up and hand them a different grant proposal. The transportation disadvantage is my number way, number one way of doing that in my favorite way of being involved in my community, along with being on the board of Campbell Park, using even just little changes for how we promote events when like Kona has her events over on 34th Street. It's as simple as when we market it in Campbell Park, we include the bus map on how to get there. And it sees little simple changes that help people make better decisions know that they can get involved. And even for people who do have a vehicle, it parking over there was complicated. And honestly, taking the bus, there's no transfers. It's a straight shot, helps encourage people to know that it's like the simplest way. So I'll thank you. Thank you. We need to have a chance. Could you please send me an email? Let me know where you got that binder because it's pretty amazing. This thing is... I love it. No, just we can talk later. I mean, if you'll... No, I just... That's really impressive and I bet you've got a bike map in there somewhere too. Yeah. Well, I'm glad I'm glad I asked because it's really nice to hear how much you have taken advocacy and communication regarding transportation and other things down to the ground level person to person. And that's something that on the Board of PSCA we do talk about effective communication with the public and with those who need it the most so it's just little changes we make a big difference to a lot of people even even St.P. it or not the people but even like events that St.P. are having around the city putting what bus stops are around there to help encourage people to understand a difference of like should I drive there should I walk should I take different should I drive there? Should I walk? Should I take different, should I Uber? Makes a huge impact. Even for when my mom is back, we're gonna go to the Gulfport community event. I don't wanna drive through Gulfport. I'm not gonna try to sign parking, but I can get on the bus stop right there with my mom and we can get off right at Gulfport. So, this is a little bit of that. Thank you. All right, well thank you so much for that. I appreciate you. Thank you. Next we have Mr. Matt Letner. Welcome Mr. Letner. How are you? Wonderful. Can you share your three minutes as to why you want to represent us on the PSTA board? Absolutely. Well, Chair, members of the seat council, thank you so much for this opportunity to address you today regarding the citizen representative for PSTA board. My name is Matt Letler. I resided 3P221 21st Street North. And as a lifelong resident of St. Petersburg, I am deeply passionate about this city and I'm committed to ensuring its growth and vitality. I'm honored to have the support of several prominent leaders in our community for this position, including Florida Senate Transportation Community Chair Nick DeSeggley, Florida Senator Darrell Rousson, St. Petersburg Chamber President Chris Steinacher, and the Tampa Hillsboro Expressway Authority CEO Greg Slater, as well as a Cain Commissioner Charlie Justice. They're backing reflects my deep understanding of the challenges facing PSTA and our regional transportation system. I'm especially proud to have Senator Ran support for this board seat, as the seat would not exist if it was not for Senator Rusan who stopped the local bill that would change the governance of PSTA during this last legislative session, so I really appreciate his support. You have received my resume, I'm cover letter, which outlines my qualifications, and explains my strong interest in this appointment. Today I want to focus on how I can serve as an effective advocate for the citizens of St. Pete and help address the challenges facing PSTA. It's no secret that some members of our community harbor grievances against PSTA. While some of these criticisms are valid, many seem to stem from personal discontent rather than constructive dialogue. This is counterproductive as we work toward making St. Pete an even better place to live. As the system representative, my goal is to collaborate with Brad Miller and the PSTA team to move beyond these conflicts. Together we can build a stronger, more efficient transportation system that truly serves the needs of our community. What sets me apart from the other fine candidates is my established relationships with our county officials and state legislators. I built a reputation for bridging diverse perspectives and finding common ground, and I'm confident I can bring that collaborative spirit to PSTA. In closing I want to emphasize the importance of forward-thinking public transportation. Soon, Brightline trains will arrive in Ebor City, bringing tourists an economic opportunity. Morris Christyneauker says, Mickey Ears and Miami Money. It's up to us to ensure Pinellas County and St. Peter are ready to connect with these visitors. We need a vibrant and efficient transportation network to remain competitive with the world's greatest cities. I'm eager to help us get there. Thank you for your time and I welcome any questions. Thank you. Any questions, Council members? All right, Mr. Letler. Thank you so much. Good seeing you. And next joining us is Mr. Matthew Baldwin. Okay, Mr. Baldwin. Next we will have Miss Ananda Bergoran. Did I say that correctly? Thank you. Thank you for having us all here today. My name is Ananda Versaun. I've been a St. Pete resident for 21 years now. Living in St. Pete for the past 12 years. I've have two sons in college now. I've raised them here. They were born here. Up until a few months ago, I commuted to Tampa or Clearwater from my career as an engineer. You know, in the car for an hour and a half to two hours every day, which, you know, got really old after 20 years. So just started with the local firm here in St. Petersburg. As a professional engineer, my background is in transportation and bridge design. I've been involved with several transportation BRT studies, transit studies, high speed rail design, multi-milittle studies, as well as pedestrian facilities. In my career, I have been involved with dozens and dozens of projects, including federal projects, taking them all the way from inception through planning, public outreach, design, and construction. Personally, my family were big fans of using public transportation. We visit Boston, New York a lot. My son goes to school to college in Boston, use public transportation all the time when we go up there actually planning to take him back up to college next week and already have bus tickets to get him from New York to Boston. My younger son uses the son runner to get to SPC. We also like to use public transportation for recreation here when we can. Living in South St. Pete, I'm well aware of the challenges we face as far as mobility right from buses to bicycles to pedestrian use, as well as the disenfranchisement that we've seen in the past, you know, the past several decades within South St. Pete. I think my experience as an engineer working with transportation, budgets, federal funding, community outreach, which is key for this role, I think, getting the community involved and engaged in this project. I think that all will tie together to help serve as the citizen representative. Thank you. Any questions? All right. We're moving right along. Council members, you have sheets in front of you. I'm going to ask if you would. Oh, yes. Thank you so much. We can clarify that for you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So a couple things. So in terms of the state government employee serving on PSCA, we don't see anything that would prohibit that. Ultimately, that like you indicated, like the gentleman indicated is primarily, there could be policies, et cetera, that govern that similar to ours for all side employment or things like that. We don't see anything. Okay. In terms of the, on the polls, the similar outcome, there doesn't appear to us to be anything that would prohibit on her service, that would be a type of prohibited conflict or prohibit you appointing her for any of these individuals that's possible that a voting conflict could arise. You know, that's very fact specific and that could happen no matter who was appointed. The only other caveat that I would give is these are our impressions ultimately the advice for PSTM and where's what have to be from the attorney advising them but for your questions are any of these appointments problematic? Not that we see. Okay on our side. Yeah. Okay good thank you so much for clarifying that. Thank you so much. Mr. Finnevass, is there any way you want to handle this? Just pass them to you. Okay. Can I move to the top please? Name on the top as well. You're the top two. What are we doing? Top two. Just to be the first number one. And then number two is that how you? Yes. Okay. Okay. number one and then number two is that how you yes okay okay I'm going to put to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. I'm going to go to the restaurant. Yes, bike. Nice to go. Madam Chair, while the clerk is counting votes, I just wanted to, people had paid attention. There were three St. Leo Lions that showed up today. Not only did we have less cider, then we had three lines of fly, lines are stepping out in the room, just wanted to. While the counting was going on, figured I'd bring it up quickly to the matter, chair. Oh, and on that same note, I did receive a correspondence that Esther Matthews had a medical emergency, which is why she's not here today and she takes everyone for the consideration. She can't. I'm sorry. Sorry. There's a mask. There's a mask. There's a mask. There's a mask. There's a mask. There's a mask. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So Councilmember Drisco. Before the clerk announces the votes, is this going to be like the top vote getter? The top vote getter will be the representative in In case there's a tie, where there shouldn't be. For example, there are seven of us. And if it's a 331, then the one person with the one boat, of course, would not be considered. And then we will have to vote on the two. OK, so it's not a 50% plus one situation or anything like that. Just whoever has. We'll ever ask. All right. Just want to make sure it's clear to everyone. Yes, yes, yes, yes. We're going to do it. So let's see what the results are and see where we are with that. Put, yeah. Okay. This is the way. Okay. Okay. Okay, cool. Okay, thank you. You all doing no icing, right? No, I'm just doing it. Madam Chair, members of Council, I'm just doing it. Madam Chair, members of Council, we have a tie. We have a tie. Okay. And that is. Max McCann and Matt Letler, so can you. Okay. So what we're going to do in that instance, are there any questions that anyone would like to ask of, Max McCann and Matt Letler before we have another round of voting? I have a question. Yes. I would like I guess both of the candidates who just come up and talk a little bit about complete streets in our city and how that kind of folds into PSTA and the importance of those programs. So however you wanna call them in order. Okay, actually both of you can come together because you're gonna be asked the same questions. Thank you. Thank you. So council member, yeah, and we're so I'm gonna let you start as well. Yeah, so the question is obviously complete streets is important in our city. And I just want what your thoughts are on complete streets and how it helps our citizens and safety, safety is a huge issue. And then how PSTA, obviously you have a son runner and other programs help mobility with along with complete streets. Yeah. I guess I'll go first. You went first earlier. Yeah, so I actually started on the complete streets committee for the city for four and a half years in my role at the same P Chamber of Commerce. So I was in this room once a month working with, you know, Cheryl Stax and Nevemorian, the folks from Cappy, et cetera, to ensure that we have safer streets in this city. And it's very important with for PSTA because in order to get to the bus, you got to walk or you got to bike there. You're not very familiar taking a car to the bus stop. There are some, but those are, obviously those folks are much more protected. But the majority of folks just looking at sunrunner today, you've got folks that are walking in the rain and trying to avoid water collecting in puddles that are walking down the middle of the street because they don't want to walk through the puddles that are at the intersections, things like that. So there's a lot that we can do and there's that PSTA is going to have a role in in keeping folks safe. What they've done on fourth street, I know that a lot of people have complained about it, but we're going to have safer crossings there. And that's really beneficial. And thanks to the city and F.Dot for doing that. And I really believe that we're moving towards more acceptance and more thoughtful planning to have our streets be safer and complete. And just one more thing is the transfer and development that we've got going on along the sunrunner route that we're finally getting to is just so important. I wish they had coincided with the development of the sunrunner so we could have folks, more folks riding it immediately, but now that it's coming online soon, I think that's so important and PSC is going to see an increase in ridership there because of that, and now it's on the plan the next. So I look forward to being a part of that, and working to go to Tallahassee and DC and get money as to expand those networks. Yeah. I think one good place to start with this might be a statistic that I've heard that says a third of the people in our country don't drive. You're either too old, you're too young, you have a DUI, you can't afford a car, whatever. Yet we design our cities under the assumption that almost 100% of trips are going to be taken by car and that disenfranchises a third of the population. That's really startling when you think about it. The safety implications are also there. One person dies every three days in a traffic crash in Pinellas County and we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, what are you going to do? Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to encourage complete streets. I think that's the solution. Devoting public space to making it easier to walk bike and take transit is the answer to so many of these problems. Not just community engagement, not just safety and reducing traffic fatalities, but also financial well-being, for example. If you can have a family that can get around without a car that can get around without a car that saves them $10,000 a year and that money instead of going to Ford or Geico or Exxon stays right here in Pinellas County. That's a really powerful thing. So it touches on so many different aspects. The hot button issue to me on top of the hot button issue is allowing kids to have some independence and some autonomy instead of being shuttled around by their adults in the back of a car with no control. Even if you're 13 or 14 in a lot of places in this country, you just can't go anywhere. You can't do anything. So I think empowering kids, seniors, other marginalized members of our community to participate in society even if they don't drive is one of the best things we could be doing out here. Equity, health, environmental concerns, they're all connected. That's why it's kind of hard to answer that question, but that's it in a nutshell. Well, it is hard because every time we do something that you have a lot of people that complain about it, right? I live in Crescent Lake when we did the MLK, Complete Street Project, a lot of people complained about it. The same thing happened with the BRT and we had a lot of people complain about it and we're looking at it as a whole approach, right? And we're thinking about the safety of our community, whether it's pedestrians, whether it's bicellularis, the community that obviously doesn't have a car and is using the bus, and those all come hand in hand, and same thing with forestry and what's happening now in terms of improving the safety of forestry, because I don't know, I'm old enough to remember Frogger again. Yeah, same here. Okay, so I'm not old enough. For the young one. the game. Yeah, same here. Okay. And the Richie's looking like what? I'm old. I know problem. But I've seen I've seen people cross the streets, you know, and it feels like a frogger game and it could be with their walking their dog or their children or, you know, and it feels like a frog or a game, and it could be with their walking their dog or their children or, you know, and or they have mobility issues. And, and so it is very important and they go hand in hand. So that's why I asked the question. So I appreciate your your feedback. Thank you. Thank you. That was a great segue. Councilmember Chris. Thank you. I'd like you to tell us a little bit about your experience with writing the bus. I think it's important to have that firsthand experience, not just in the past, but today because our system has changed and I'd just like to know currently what ways you use PSCA or other types of public transportation to get from point A to point B. And we'll go this time with Max first. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Great. Most of my experience as a writer with the PSTA is on the Sunrunner and the Central Avenue trolley in the downtown looper. I take all three of those pretty frequently. I have on me today, this is my Pinellas County Schools volunteer, level two volunteer badge that gets me onto the PSDA buses for free. Really grateful for this. I think that's a great program. I've reached out to PSDA about having our neighborhood association participate in the way that Kenwood currently does too. I think that'll increase ridership as well. So another way that it's helped me though, even not as a rider, my mom came to visit recently in state in St. Pete Beach and stayed at one of the hotels out there and she didn't have to rent a car because she could take the sunrunner from there to our house and it was great. It was one less car on the road and that's a win right there. They saved $25 a day from parking at the hotel so instead of sending that money on a rental car with enterprise and exon, we spent that money at the hangar, restaurant and the James Museum. My daughter got a little stuffed rabbit from the gift shop over there. So it's those little wins that the PSTA brings to our lives that I really appreciate. Yeah. Thank you. So I'll admit that I primarily rely on my car to get around. I work for Orlando Health and I'm going across the whole region and using a bus for commuting is just not possible. But I do use the bus system, especially the Sunrunner. I actually did use it today, and partly because I'm here, I'm not gonna pretend that there's a thing I wanted to write at just in case there were some questions about your experience with the bus lately. And I used today, went out and had lunch at Ted Peters and wrote it back in. And I knew that could use the sun runner today because I know that it's reliable. I know that every 15 minutes the next bus is going to come around. I knew I could make it back here in time. So that was that was important to me. But my wife and I did use the Central Avenue trolley. I think it was two and half three weeks ago. I'm a Saturday night for date night, started downtown and moved out when all the way to wildchild for dinner and then took it back in back to our car so we could then get back home. We only had to park once, which is nice. So as we build out this system and especially in St.P., there's so many more opportunities for transit, whether that's an actual large bus, whether that is commuter shuttles, things like that, there are more opportunities and the more that people want to use them, the more that they'll be used, and the more that we can give to this community, especially for the underserved and transportation disadvantaged folks. Thank you. And I have a second and final question I promise. And this time we time was sorry Matt. What would you say is the greatest challenge that PSTA faces today? And I know that you're not on the board yet. Just from your point of view, what's the biggest challenge that we face today for PSTA? I think the biggest challenge is that you have folks that do not like PSTA. And frankly, some folks that just personally do not like the leader of PSTA, frankly some folks that just personally do not like the leader of PSTA in Brad Miller and I think that there's a major disconnect and I would want to bridge that disconnect. I've got friends that are on the Republican side of the aisle that I've worked with for many years that I have talked about and they are not fans of PSTA but when I talk to them and I dig down into what the actual issues are, get them around to what PSTA, but when I talk to them and I dig down into what the actual issues are, get them around to what PSTA actually is and how important it is to this community and having a robust system. And so I think that's the biggest threat is, thank you, thank God for Senator Roussand for saving my share. We wouldn't be here today, but let's see what not exist as I said earlier. So what if happens after Senator Russo is gone? Are we gonna have another person that tries to change the governance style of PSTA, gets rid of seats for St. Pete, tries to totally change, hey, we're gonna get rid of all the buses, sell them all and we're gonna switch to Ubers. I mean, is that the future? And I think that it's important to have enough votes on that board that don't want that, that want a robust transit system that can compete with the transit systems around the world. I sworked in 2019 to go spend several weeks in Europe, and I couldn't find my slide that I showed the chamber back then, but I would use ubers, I used scooters, I used a ton of Metro, I can't really check miles by that, but I mean it was amazing, I use buses as well. And I think that that is, you know, we gotta get to that point. I think that's the biggest hurdle facing PSTA is going from a good transit system to a great one. Thank you. Yeah. I think the biggest challenge facing PSDA right now is that people don't understand the dividends that investing in transit can pay. I think even if you never expect to ever set foot on a bus, having a robust transit system helps you because it takes cars off the road. And so as a driver, I drive every day for work, just like Mr. Lightler. As a driver, I love to see buses running frequently on time because it clears the way for me to drive more safely and efficiently. So, and that's only one way that transit helps people who aren't driving. We're also reducing the environmental impacts, the safety impacts. I'm sure everybody in this room has either been in a serious traffic crash or knows somebody who was. I think when I had a call with council member Gertis, it had been that very same day that you were in a serious traffic crash and transit makes things safer for us. Every car we can, every trip we can divert to transit is a win for everybody in our community. So trying to explain that to people in a way that we can win hearts and minds with people who just don't understand the benefits of transit. That's what I hope to do. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I know both of you well enough to know that you're both very passionate about this and also very persuasive on many topics. And I think the role of both of you and this is a really tough decision. It is. No hard feelings to anybody if I'm not selected. I don't envy you. Thank you. Councilmember Mojave. Thank you Madam Chair. Two questions. One of them was actually prompted by Councilmember Driscoll so hearing and thank you for your willingness to serve and applying for the role. I don't like to talk about challenges, but I'm talking about opportunities. So what do you think is the biggest opportunity for PSTH right now on this environment? Thank you, Bill. Why turn to go for it? The biggest opportunity is more bus and turn lanes. If we're just doing the same thing, look, I think I'll probably agree with any person on the board who is skeptical of transit. I'll agree with the point that if we just keep doing the same thing and expect different results, that's a mistake, that really is. If transit doesn't become easier than driving for certain trips, people aren't gonna take it. That's just the fact, that's why I like to work on the land use side of it also. It's no coincidence that City Council has a land use and transportation committee, those things go hand in hand. So devoting, making the buses faster, making them more regular. The PSTA also had a survey recently that basically said, should we focus on expanding routes and running them less frequently or consolidating routes and running them more frequently, and I think that we should consolidate routes and run them more frequently. A bus that comes once an hour or a couple of times a day, for a lot of people it might as well not come at all. If you've got a smaller set of routes that run more frequently, that's more dependable. I think that's a huge opportunity for us to. Yeah, and then you've got more sustainable ridership numbers on those routes. Yeah, those are my thoughts. Thank you. I agree with the consolidation and more frequency on those routes, those are my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. I agree with the consolidation and more frequency as my lunch example was, you know, every 15 minutes, you can rely on that. You know, for way longer than, you know, you're having to take other alternatives. I think another, I mentioned in my comments, another opportunity is when Brightline pulls into Tampa. Brightline can't come across our Franklin Bridge. It's heavy rail. That's light rail that the bridge is built for. That's many, many years away, if ever. But we've got buses that can go on the Tampa Hills or Expressway, the Selman Expressway, drop right down into Ebor City where that train station is going to be. Pick up those tourists and those business people they're coming to Tampa Bay Area and get them over to St.P. without having to take a Uber or a lift or rent a car right there. So I think that's another huge opportunity. Outside of that is the extensions of what the Sunrunner, the BRT, the bus and turn lanes and dedicated, bus and turn lanes and, and dedicated lanes. Any more of that? US 19, alternate 19. I mean, these are areas that are primed for more development, consolidate development, density, and feel, get those folks to our downtown, to get those folks out to the beaches, to, you know, we've got the, the trop site, gas plant district, you know, it's happening, whether you afford an instant of happening now, that's going to be huge and it's going to be a draw for people and it's going to be where jobs are and so we need to have a consolidated system that is going to be able to deliver folks into into those jobs and then we'll take we'll figure out a way to take care of folks that are the one-offs, those to especially transportation disadvantage that are in unincorporated areas of the county or in the smaller cities. That right now we're relying on a bus once every hour. We can go get those folks and we can use some subsidized ways of getting there. But let's really build out this system in the core of our population. Thank you. Next question would be around community engagement. So how would you ensure that the voices of everyday transit users are heard and considered as a part of the PSTA decision-making process? Just me first. Well, PSTA's got a great spot out there on share drive, but that is not easy to get to for for anybody. And to have every board meeting out there, every listening session out there, other than, you know, some of the community outreach ones, is tough. And even when you do those community outreach, you know, sessions, not all the board members are there, not all the staff staff can be there. So I would want to road show it. I would want to see that at least once a quarter or twice a year that we are in South St. Pete, that we're at the Inok Davis Center for a board meeting, or we're up in Clearwater, or even up in Oldsmart or in Tarpon Springs, that we start to hit those communities, so they have an opportunity to address us without having come down to really a desert and share a drive. I mean there's nothing else around there other than PSTA and you know, warehouses. So I mean I think that's that's how you reach reach people. You gotta go you know where you sit as it was mentioned earlier to see where people stand. Yeah yeah definitely agree. I've even said that at one of the one of my public comments at the PSTA board that I hope the board appreciates that the comments are probably skewed towards drivers because it's so hard to get to the location of the meetings by transit. I love that idea about taking the meetings to other parts of the county. I think that's great. If PSTA is not already doing it, on bus surveys, QR codes on the buses where people can send feedback would be a good option. But I like to hope they've already thought of those kind of on-route surveys. Maybe QR codes on bus stops, you're sitting there waiting anyway for the bus. You might as well collect some feedback from the users right then. Yeah, and I mean, in some way we already have a lot of the feedback that we need, it's ridership. That's the biggest feedback we get, are people taking this route? So one small idea though too is to make sure that people who are taking the route with a pass like this are counted because sometimes I get on the bus and the drivers just wave me in and I don't see them hitting a button or anything like that. So I want to make sure that all riders are counted not just paid riders, especially if we expand the neighborhood association programs like that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Any other questions? and aviation programs like that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, if I can get you to grab your talent, tablet, and your top choice. You ready? Good job. I'm going to put my name. Let's have to put your name. Sorry. I tried to go secret. I did it. I just completely forgot. Here you go. Sorry. That please. Yes. I'm not sure. Yes. Council Member Monteneering. Thank you. I did want to say a few comments. First, I wanted to thank all the people that applied for this position. And public service comes at a price. These serving on any board is difficult. This homework that needs to be done, when you take a side on an issue, there's people that like your decision, there's people that don't like your decision. But I want to thank everybody that stepped up and is willing to serve in this capacity. And the two of you have been very, very impressive. Thank you. Thank you for stepping up also. Josh, I did want to say thank you for your service to the PSDA board. I got to serve with you on the International Relations Committee back when we had that here at the city and you've been just a great good servant for our city of St. Petersburg so thank you for everything you've done for us. Chair. Chair. Councilmember Hanover. Thank you, Chair. And I just want to have a shout out to a district for residents, the Choiselle, and you are representing our district on PSDA. And I don't think not to say that it's not bad, that another district is going to be represented, because I don't think neither of you live in my district. You moved out of my district, right? So I just wanted to make that clear. We really appreciate everything you've done. I know you've worked really hard and given a lot for our city because it is service and this is service that our citizens give on their free time because of their love. Their love for making our city better and everyone that has applied is because of that love and that passion that they have. So I really appreciate it and good luck to both of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair, would it be possible to invite Commissioner Solomon to join us at the at the tables so that he could speak for a moment. He is always welcoming to have commissioners. And as he comes, I was just in a note to make sure that I announce the fact that we also still have openings on some of our other city boys and committees. And they wanted me to make sure that I mentioned that for your consideration. Not only YouTube gentlemen, but those of us that are in the audience. So it's all yours, the original show, man. Okay. So to those who have served with me on the PST board, giving me the microphone is not you want to do. It's going to be a while. No, I know. Okay, let's get clock running. I know. Okay let's get clock running so good. No I appreciate the opportunity. I know this isn't an easy decision. I know both Max and Matt I will say to whoever moves forward involve yourself with the Transit Rider Advisory Committee. PST has a committee that can help share what the Transit Riders are experiencing and be open to new ideas. I know I've been most proud of on PSTAR involvement with the schools. Max had his badge and I was sitting over there going yes because when I got on PST that wasn't a thing and that was one of the main issues I was pushing forward was involving our students. Council Member Muhammad you asked about our opportunities. I think our schools are the opportunity. That is our long-term opportunity is training new riders to love transit and use transit. Short-term opportunities are connecting to the sun runner and getting choice riders back into the system. So it's been great. It's been seven and a half years. I believe Council Member Monten a remontionary. You're the only one here at my initial appointment. So I guess we're both short timers at this point, but it's been wonderful and I was ready to leave and then hearing all the conversation, I'll transom like, no, I wanna stay. So thankfully, I appreciate that there are rules that I have to go. It makes the decision much easier. So thank you. When is your last PSTA meeting? Are you with us through the budget hearings? Yeah, technically my last meeting is the nominating committee meeting after the last budget hearing meeting. Okay. So. Thank you. And to whoever becomes the next citizen representative, I hope that you will see Josh as a great resource. He's been just incredible. A little smarty. Even if we don't agree all the time, I just really appreciate his, the passion that you've shown and the strength that you've shown in not being afraid to speak up. So thank you. I know I enjoyed that. Yes I did. And you're not afraid to ask those hard questions and you show repeatedly that you do the homework. You know you look at every figure, every dollar, every dime, every you pay attention to what's presented before us and to what is not presented before us. So that strength is going to be hard to duplicate and again I just want to thank you so much for allowing me to just sit back and watch you work because you've done a great job on the board. And you still can come and speak during public comment. I have. And I was actually recalling prior PSD board members elected officials that had left the board and come back. And then we do it for about two or three meetings. Then you start real in that three minutes is pretty small of a window when you used to be in on the diet. So when the mood strikes. All right, we look forward to seeing you and thank you for your time and your service. Thank you. Mr. Clerk, are we ready? Yes, ma'am. Madam Chair, the next member of the PSCA committee is Max McCann with five votes, Matt Letler, two votes. Oh, wow. OK. OK. APPLAUSE So Mr. McCann, you ready to work? Absolutely. I'm serious. What if I got myself into it? Okay, so again, in Councilmember Driscoll can attest to this, we have several committees. Count them off. The legislative nominating planning. Finance. Finance. Okay. Executive. Yeah, we're going to need all of that. So with us having a new City of St. Petersburg representative, I will entertain a motion to accept the appointment of Mr. Maxim Kahn as the St. Petersburg. I have to do a motion here for us to take it upstairs Is that did did you word it right? Yes, okay? It's really just I mean the balloting makes it clear But your typical formality is to make that corresponding motion to send it to full council. Okay. Got it All right, it's been properly motioned. All in favor? Hi. Those opposed? Welcome, Mr. McKean. Thank you. Thank you very much. Moving on. Item two is our Northwest Park lighting project currently on the Wiki Watch Project list and joining us is Mr. Mike Jeffries and Vice Chair Gertis. I believe this was your item. So I'll let you introduce it, please. Thank you Madam Chair. This is step number 11 of 12. For this Wiki Watchy item, been through multiple committees. As I'm sure Mike and the rest of the team will go through. This is a relatively simple project. It was brought forward really because of capacity at Northwest baseball to be able to make sure that all of the kids that want to use our fields can use their fields in the lighting situation at Northwest was restriction at. And so excited to be hopefully near the end of this and looking for your support to bring this to full council next month. and so excited to be hopefully near the end of this and looking for your support to bring this to full council next month. And I'll turn it over to Mike. Perfect. Thank you very much. Mike Jeffries, Community and Rich Administrator. And I'd like to introduce three of my staff members that are here with us today. We've got to my right. We've got Rebecca Hansen, who is our manager over facilities. She will be overseeing the contractor who, if this is approved, will be installing the lights. To her right, we've got Barb Stalbert, who is the assistant director over the Parks and Recreation Department on the park side of the house. And then our shy staff member, who didn't come up to the table like we asked him to, is Chris Wolf. Probably doesn't need a lot of introduction, but he's our supervisor overall of our athletic programs. So we've got all the subject matter experts to answer any questions that council may have. We will quickly go through the PowerPoint. This is the same PowerPoint that we've gone through a couple of times, so I won't belabor it, but we will then be available to answer any questions that you might have. So I don't know who's controlling. I think you might be Barb. Yep. And that spot. So today we're talking about the Northwest Park. And we are specifically talking about the Northwest corner of the park. So on the first picture that we have here, we have the red box that's showing the fields that we are here, we have the red box that's showing the fields that we're currently on lit and those are the fields that we are specifically talking about installing LED sports lights if this should be approved. On the right-hand side we've worked with our vendor, Musco Lighting, who is a sports lighting company that really has worked with us for years and years and has really allowed us to move forward quickly in the LED process and really kind of keeps us safe with proper lumens and make sure that we have the proper lighting for the specific sports that the field will be used for. You can see the red dots that are on the right-hand side picture. That's where the poles would be installed. And again, pretty basic layout. I will, before we get off of this slide, I will go over our public outreach program that we dig. I know that's important to all of you. It's important to us as well. We want to make sure that we're good neighbors. We want to make sure that we're working within the confines of the neighborhood and that we're doing everything we can to be a good neighbor. We work with Susie Ahock and her department. And this is a unique area. Typically in the Parks and Rec Department, what we will do is we will work with the Neighborhood Associations. We will let them know what we're planning to do, what our concepts are, what our ideas are. We'll take feedback from the Neighborhood Associations and we'll work with them to really work on a project that everybody can be proud of and happy with. This particular area of town is not represented by a Neighborhood Association. So we had a kind had a unique challenge. We met with Vice Chair Gertis and we met with Suzy Ahak to come up with some strategies on how could we best get the word out and get input on these additional lights should they be approved. What we all decided on, if you look on from 22nd, which is the bottom of the screen, and if you look on from 22nd which is the bottom of the screen and if you look at the houses that run all the way north and then if you look at the houses that run all the way from north all the way to 58th which is the far right hand of the screen we actually went to Rose Deep and we reached out we soon or up the little league team yeah the team the sports league the hung door hangers on all of the doors that did that L shaped so the 50% of the of the park we didn't do 58 and we didn't do the 22nd because we weren't you know those lights are already there we were just doing new additional lights on the northwest side of the field. To date, we've only had one call, and that was an individual that called Chris's office, just to get some more information. Chris shared kind of the times that the lights would be utilized. Again, those of you that are athletes will quickly recognize that the fields that we're putting those lights on are smaller fields. And so that right off the bat organically indicates that the games will not be as late and the lights will be off at a sooner time than some of the other fields that we already have existing at Northwest. We did get that one call. Chris chatted with the resident and the resident indicated that if she continued to have concerns or any questions she'd reach back out and she is not reached back out at this point. So we are not aware, as we see here today, of any opposition to the lights being installed from the folks that we reached out to. So again, we see that as a success and us working hard to be good neighbors in the community. Barbara, do you want to? Now I can get into just a ton of details here, but we'll let you know that this data and the specs are in your handouts, they're in your packet. This really talks about the system. Again, I think the most important pieces here would be that this is an LED system, so we're looking to be as green as we possibly can. We also have warranty information there, and I think what's most important is, with LED, as they continue to improve that technology, we're really able to dial in on the spill rate, and we're really able to make them as friendly and as directed as possible. So that's a real success, and we're really excited about that. Again, we'll get into some of this. Brezh would be all over this and love to share all the glory details. We'll let you peruse that. If you have any questions or have any answer, both will go to the next. So the next slide here is the budget. So we have budgeted this project at $300,000 for the lights. There's a note that permitting is not included. We feel that the permitting is, we can cover that in the 300, the 300,000 is an all-inclusive number. I think most of you have worked with Parks and Rec, and we like to underpromise and over-deliver. So we wanted to make sure that we had a number that we knew we could get the project done with. We would rather come back and give you money back then have to come back and ask for additional dollars. As we sit here today we do not anticipate needing to ask for any additional money. It also notes here that the estimate from Musco is based on standard soil conditions. And then we also indicate that we will have to bring in an additional three-phase power, and that's all factored into the $300,000 as well. So in bold for Vice Chair Gertis, because I know he likes to hold us to these things, we just have that the timeline is once the PO is issued. So it'll be a six month project once it goes to the process through the approval and then we're able to move forward. So we do have a note there that the pricing is 90 days. Our goal would be to get it approved as we go through this 12 step program. And then we'd be able to issue the PO, we'd be able to incumbent lock it in so that those prices would be locked in and we'd be able to hit the target on the budget. So I believe that's the last slides, and we're happy to answer any questions again. I've got Chris who can answer any of the league questions. I've got Rebecca who can answer any of that in his installation questions, and then Barbara and I can answer any other questions that you might have. Thank you. Thanks, Chair Good. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the presentation. Thanks for the whole team. I just appreciate all the work you've done on this and working with me in the league. It's very much appreciated. Thank you. Just quickly on the light times, like Mike mentioned, and I just figured I would hit on it real quickly. These are seven-year-olds in younger, and so there is not a game that starts later than 7 p.m. Unless it would be during the summer if we hosted a district tournament, then there could be a 730 or 8 o'clock game. The lights would be off by 9 p.m. No later. Unless there were, you know, some crazy outlier like rain outs and you had to get games in because of the tournament. But these are seven-year-olds and younger and so these are significantly earlier games and really, really due to a daylight savings time in the spring. The only other point I wanted to make was, and personally to me, those two fields are the fields that created my baseball career. And so when I think about kids not being able to play because we can't host enough teams, because we don't have enough field space, because we don't have lights. And then I think about those kids that don't play it for or five, maybe they have to wait till six or seven to play. And maybe they're a little less into it because they got into something else at four or five, breaks my heart. And so that's why this was so important to me. I know it seems like, well, it's just lights. No, those fields, and I'll speak for my brothers too. Those fields are what created over 50 years of baseball in my family. And I know has done for countless other families. And so excited to be able to create this opportunity for Northwest baseball that just has continued to surpass their goal on both baseball and softball and just excited to move this forward. And I appreciate all the support, and I'll move approval chair. Thank you. So we have a motion to move this forward and I appreciate all the support and I'll move approval chair. Thank you. So we have a motion to move this to full council to approve the $300,000 dollar amount. Is there anything that needed to be stated? Okay, sounds good. Move approval, all in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Thank you. Thank you, thank you, everyone. Thank you. So now we're going to move forward to our fiscal year 2025 recommended budget. I know at the last committee of the whole, there was some recommendations that were asked. And we're going to now review those moving forward. And I'm going to go ahead and did you want to open up with that city administrator, G administrator girdis or make an entry with the budget? Thank you chair. Did you want to hear the budget presentation first before the comments that I have to make? How do you want to do it since you're presenting it to us? Okay. All right. Thank you chair. So I appreciate that. I'd like to open up with just a couple comments before we get into the presentation. And I know we're here today focused on some of the conversations we've had before related to the arts and how we may find some funding for that. But you know, there's certainly some other budgetary considerations that have come up lately. And this is the first time we've had an opportunity to meet. So I just want to make a few comments related to the one-time payments that were made and then rescinded and just talk a little bit about that before the presentation because I know there should be questions about that as we go forward. So it's not talk about that now if we can. Can we hold that piece until after we talk about the business and hand and the only reason why is because I don't want to rush any council members with their questions because I I think you're gonna have a lot of questions on that. What I want us to do is what the full intent of what we have in front of us on the presentation is. And if there's any comments you wanna have in regards to the new items that we were from the previous cow, if we can have that, then we can come back to that issue. Because I think you're gonna have a lot of stone conversation and questions on that. Happy to follow your guide and share. And I think the presentation explains itself. I think we can go right to Liz and the present. That will be great. Yeah, we can go ahead and do it. I just deleted the. Oh, nice. Nice. Nice. Well, we don't have a hard time. I'm trying to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to want to do things in a certain order. But the topic that Administrator Gertis was going to bring up actually does have a relationship with our budget process and our budget discussion. So I want to make sure that they are not separated too much. So I think what I understood is that you want to have this presentation and the discussion on the items that are being changed or added. Yes. Because had that happened we still would have the same conversation. So we're going to talk about the business at hand first with what we ask for administration to present to us and then after we've conducted the business then we can go into questions and cars to to that. So the floor is did you get your presentation? Big thanks to Kim for the assist. Thank you we're good okay so we can go ahead. I appreciate that. All right. Good afternoon, Chair and members of City Council. At the committee of the whole on August 2nd, the FY25 recommended budget. City Council members discussed some items that they wanted to see funded in the FY25 adopted budget. Some of these items include funding for programming at the US F Marines Science Center at Clam Bayou. Additional funding for the arts, a match for an airport scholarship and increasing the transfer to the economics stability fund. The next few slides shows these items and potential funding sources for them and just a reminder that in order to keep the general fund budget balanced any new items funded out of the general fund requires a similar reduction in funding elsewhere in the general funds budget. So our first item is the programming for Clam Bayer, Clam Bayer, the USF Marine Science Center. If a decision is made to include funding for programming. At the USF Marine Science Center, a potential funding source could be reallocating a portion of the 500,000 that we have currently in the budget for the literacy and steam programs. And this 100,000 could be reallocated to a Funda One-Year Pilot Program. And do we want to stop at each issue or just keep going through? Well, I mean I had a question, but we come back. I think if you just go ahead and go through the presentation, that would be great. Okay. And then the next item was a discussion to increase the arts funding in the city's budget with a potential goal to allocate 1% of the city's budget to the arts. We have been increasing the amount of arts funding in the budget each year with the current FY25 budget increasing about 687,000 over the FY24 adopted budget amount. And in order to get to that 1% goal and additional 695,000 in funding would be needed. Potential options to fund this increase would be to unfund five of the new positions recommended for FY25. This would free up about $423,000. The five positions include a housing development coordinator to librarians, a 434 person, and a senior operations analyst. And then the rest of the balance would come from the General Fund Contigency, which would be about 272,000. And that would take the contingency balance from 1,000,000, currently to 727,000. And then areas of potential programming for this additional art fund could be to arts grants to individual artists, increasing the water funding from 50,000 to 100,000. It also could be used to offset some of the governor's vetoes or increase or increase our art grants program amount. One of the other items discussed was a funding match for a scholarship program at Albert Wooded Airport and this match could be funded on the Airport Operating Funds Fund Balance if approved. And finally, there was a discussion to increase the transfer to the economic stability fund from 500,000 to 1 million. Potential ways to achieve this would be to increase the transfer in the adopted budget to 750,000 using general fund contingency. And this would bring the new general fund contingency amount if the arts funding is also approved to about 478,000 and then at year end we could transfer any remaining contingency amount Through our clean abortidence to potentially get to that one million amount And then finally whenever I have a chance I would like to advertise our two budget public hearings Which are September 12th and September 26 at 6 p.m. and city budget information is available in the city's website. That was good. So as you all know, when we last met the community of the whole Councilmember Driscoll, and there was quite a bit of concurrence in regards to the funding for Claim By You and additional funding for the arts and the Albert Wittard Airport Scholarships and Council of Modernaries, Transfer to the Economic Stability Fund. And the request was for administration to go back and provide possible options for accomplishing those financial support of goals. And so what we have before us are the recommendations in funding those particular items. And so I'll open it up for council members to ask any questions that you may have in regards to the requests that we have made of administration of possibly funding those sources. And we have council member Annow possibly funding those sources and we have Council of Rehandling. Thank you chair and I wasn't here for the last one. I was not feeling good that afternoon. So I missed the meeting. I'm very supportive of these items. My question is in terms of the potential funding sources for the arts. And here it says, unfun, fine, five new positions recommended for FY 25. Now, we were just at the BFNT meeting where we discussed about $400,000 that would be freed up because of the BF settlement monies being able to be used for the sea grass. And there had been some money appropriated to that. And so I'm wondering how that could maybe be used as opposed to unfunding five new positions. So the adopted budget has to be balanced so I can only count the 25 revenues coming in and that amount that would be freed up from the sea grass mitigation would be general fund balance. So we could do it as part of the amended budget The one thing I would kind of counter against that is that positions are Not one time funding right funding is so we would be have like we could use it one time to fund in 25 But then we would have to kind of we'd have to have a whole for the 26th budget for those amounts So okay, so my understand with the arts funding, we're doing this for this year is my understanding. So it's just for this year, right? And were you, I mean, what was the, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if you were gonna do the five positions, right? weren't you gonna have that funded in the future somehow? Am I missing something? Yeah, if I'm Positions would be funded with current and future revenues. Right. Right. What Ms. McCrey is talking about is the BP monies are one time money that we won't be recurring. Right. And we may have to deal with it again. I'm just wondering if the money's going to be available now. You could do these things. And then we tackle the issue next year in terms of. I think I follow what you can do. Yeah, we can use the current resources in FY 24 to fund and increase contributions to the arts. Right. But not part of the FY 25 budget but in the current year. Right. I mean the money would be there. That's how I was trying to figure out a way to kind of deal with it and have my cake and eat it to somehow, maybe I'm not sure. Okay. That was just the thought I had on that. But otherwise, I'm extremely supportive of the proposals and it was very thoughtful. I think the arts funding is necessary. I will tell you that, you know, I'm on the advisory board, the Arts Advisory Board and the arts funding is necessary. I will tell you that, you know, on the advisory board, the arts advisory board and the arts grants, I think will be very welcome, waited to deal with it. So I like that. And in terms of the clam by you, I had said it before in the meeting, but if I didn't, I was in there the last one. I'm supportive of that. And the Albert Whitted Airport Scholarship Match, obviously, is pretty straightforward. I think that's a wonderful program for us to do. And again, goes with education, which I think is important. The economic stability fund I've always asked for that. So I'm on board, and I thank you for actually doing this to allow our comments to be included. Thank you so much. Nice to see you, I guess. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council Member Hanna, what's thanks for bringing that up. That was the one concern I have. I don't want to unfun these positions. It'd be my recommendation that we do a resolution using fund balance to do this one time funding out of the 24 fund balance and I'm not about to say we're not going to do two new librarians force person housing development coordinator which is somebody I asked for in my budget priorities and so that would be I would have this one separate to where that would be a separate resolution using fund balance. And you're right, we did open up $400,000 of fund balance earlier today, and that offset a big chunk of that. So I would be supportive of that. I would prefer to find a different way than unfun five new positions for that funding. I'm interested to hear whatever, but I'm obviously very supportive of making sure that we're being good stewards and the economic stability fund. To me, it seems like using balance of general fund contingencies like going left pocket to right pocket but if that makes everybody happy I'm happy to go with my colleagues but it seems like if it's in general fund contingency it's just like being available if we were to need funds I mean chances are we're going to general fund balance first before we would go to anything else. I'm assuming if we were in some sort of financial crisis. Correct. And not only the general fund balance, but other accumulated balances and other funds that are available. And so again, I just from my perspective, looking at it, it just seems like a little bit of a left pocket to right pocket. I'm certainly willing to listen to my colleagues, but that's just my two cents on that and happy to support the other items. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member McNair. Thank you. So on page 110 of the budget. Of which one? The rec-man-a-budget. Okay, thank you. of the budget of which one? The recommended budget. Okay, thank you. There is 700 and $25,000 for the Peer's Fifth Anniversary celebration. Explain to me what, do we have Chris Blyster here? Can somebody talk to me about that expenditure? Because that seems like a source of funding for a lot of this stuff. I don't know that Mr. Blyster is here, but those resources are from the Peer Operating Fund. I guess theoretically, if we eliminated that expense, we could further reduce the general fund subsidy. But it's not exactly dollar for dollar for, for, I'm following what you're suggesting, but it's not exactly dollar for dollar on that 725. Because it's peer operating revenues in addition to the general fund subsidy that we subsidize the peer operations for. Okay. Is that right? Can you explain to me a little bit further about I'm not tracking why it's not dollar for dollar. I could look at the, do you know what the subsidy for the Johnson 1.497? Okay. So general fund resources of 1.497 transferred into the the peers operating fund to make sure that they can cover all their operating expenses on in FY 25. Okay. So we could theoretically reduce that- That subsidy in half. That subsidy is basically in half. Potentially. We would just have to see if we wouldn't want to throw the peer operating fund upside down. All right. It just seems to me like a expense that, well, in the budget you've got needs in once. This seems to me, it's a big expenditure of money for an anniversary party for the peer. I love the peer, worked on the peer, $725,000 for a celebration seems to me like a source of funds that we can, well, we can reduce the subsidy, but the money's coming from General Fund, the ongoing subsidy. Correct. All right. There's Chris. Hey Chris. Good afternoon. Can you fill us in on the 5th year anniversary celebration for the peer? Yes, this is being put together by the events department, Tony Leno's group. It is a large number. A big chunk of that is not just the normal things that you would expect on a one-day event like a 4th of July, but it's a multi-week process that involves not just fireworks and event activities, which free to the public. That's the goal. But also a drone show, which is a pricey component of that. So that's what ramped up that number. It's a placeholder. And so it's obviously up for discussion. It's a fair-. And so, you know, it's obviously up for discussion. It's a fair, fair for discussion. And it's a proposal. Well, I'd like to hear from my colleagues, but to me, this is just a, it's a large expenditure of money. Peer subsidy has been an issue since we did the first beer task force starting back in 2009. Yeah. The subsidy's always been around 300 and a quarter, three quarters of a million dollars, going back that far. And then since we built the new peer, the subsidy has gone up. Yeah, it's historically been closer closer almost to 1.5 actually. And it's ramped up to over about 2 million in a couple of years. And again, it is totally different asset, obviously, than 15 years ago. But we had averaged under 1.5 for 15 years. OK. All right. Well, let me hear from my colleagues. under one five for 15 years. Okay. All right. Well, let me hear from my colleagues, and I may make a motion to strike that from the budget. I want to get your opinion, and it's not a whole lot of money, but I'm fully supportive of the airport scholarships. This is $16,500. It's going to make a difference. No, it comes out of the airport operation. I would fully support the scholarship recommendation. I think we'll be okay. Okay. Well, and I stick with my request on the economic stability fund. I still want that funded. And the funding for the plan by you, I'd like to get that funding. I think that's all I have for now, Chair. Okay, thank you. Council Member Jerosco. Thank you. And thank you for the work that you've done so far too. I'm meet the request that we had at the last meeting, particularly with the arts. That was a lot of good amount of funding that you were able to find. And that's going to be really strong. I would like to see more. I really do believe that we can adopt a goal of dedicating 1% for the arts. And this is something that that conversation is not going to end today. And even as it stands with all of what we put in, we're still not, we're still leaving them with a lot that they have to do. And I mean, we're talking about people who are going to be laid off and some artists who are going to be laid off and some artists who are going to have to just close their doors. It is extremely difficult right now. I do appreciate what has been done so far. I want to remind everyone that in the last committee meeting that we had regarding the budget, there had been since the last time, since the time before it in the last committee meeting that we had regarding the budget, there had been since the last time, since the time before that, there had been the addition of nine positions that totaled like what, over $750,000. So not all of the positions were cut. Some of them stayed, but none of them were above the line back in April or May, whenever we looked at it before. So these were positions that were determined to go that could be unfunded at that time. So that's when I asked everyone to take a closer look and could everybody give a little, could everybody take a little haircut to help make this happen because we do all believe in the arts. So I appreciate what's been done so far for that. I know that there are going to be opportunities ahead to find funding for these positions, but the mere fact that they weren't in the budget in the first place and they were added later made me want to question all of them and how necessary they are. Because that's not one time funding when you do that. I want to ask about the oh and the breakdown last time we talked about the breakdown of what the arts fund what it was considered to be arts funding. At the time I was told that there would be some changes to that to kind of clean that up a bit and make sure that things like fireworks aren't considered in the arts budget. I was told that that was going to be moved. So I just want to confirm that doesn't have to be at this moment. At this moment I do want to ask why we are only going to fund the Claim By You Marine Education Center for $100,000 for one year. The request was for five years so that they have those opportunities for the federal It says that this would be a one-year pilot program. So I can try to address that question. So as we are looking at all of the steam and STEM type programming, Carl Lavender and his team are evaluating concepts and evaluating opportunities. And I think what they would like to do is make sure that they have a year-or-track record to evaluate impacts and make sure that, you know, we have measurable outcomes. And so that's kind of the thought process is all of the resources we would enter into kind of a one-year contract to determine what the plan would be and have measurable and deliverable benefits. So I think that's kind of the thought. That doesn't preclude us from having a long-term agreement with any organization, but it does kind of set some ground rules as to how we're going to be measuring impacts and so forth. And any of the preliminary conversations that I've heard and informed about said that they're very excited about the CLAMBI program. So I think indication is that it will be successful and there won't be any problem, but I think the first year will be a pilot for all of these investments. Okay, I hadn't had that follow-up conversation to see if it was okay for them for their plan. But I know that sometimes the requirement for grants is not just for a lump sum, but to show sustained contribution. So I wanted to make sure that that wasn't something that was the case. But I'm okay with doing this for the one year. The funding for the peer anniversary is, I'm glad the council member Montenegro brought that up. That is quite a lot. It sounds like there's a lot that's planned, but in light of looking at the things that we need and the goals that we've, you know, each been talking about that we have, I don't think I could agree with eliminating that funding altogether, but we could take a less as more approach because it is, I mean, five years might be a milestone. I don't really think of it that way, but maybe instead of a long drawn out thing, maybe it could be one weekend, maybe we don't have to have drones, there could be an opportunity to do this a little bit less fancy. Maybe more demure and mindful as they say these days. I can't help it. It just popped into my hand. So, yeah, I think not zero. But can we please look at less? Because here's what I see. Last Friday, I learned a lot, but one of the things that I learned was that the organizers or the folks who were involved in the Philis Wheatley Rice Read campaign were informed by City staff that there was zero allocated for the Philis Wheatley Rice Read campaign when we have already made an investment to help them get started then suddenly it goes to zero and these things don't change overnight. And knowing that in our last meeting, the 500,000 that is dedicated to steam and literacy programs, I asked for 100,000 out of that. But when I asked about how is that broken down, they said it hadn't been decided yet. But then last Friday I found out that one thing that was decided was that that one doesn't have any money. And you know seeing that they were here and they gave a presentation and showed the progress that they've been making was really disappointing. And so it feels it feels a bit wrong to have a line in the budget to spend that much money on a party for the peer when we have black children who can't read. And we have an organization that's working with Pinellas County Schools to help fix that. There was just an article, it may have been an editorial in the times yesterday or the day before, that was about this very thing, about how literacy is not picking up and how black children are lagging farther and farther behind. This program is addressing that in a very holistic way. I'm not doing the presentation for you. We've all seen it and it's starting to really affect some young people's lives. We can't take it to zero. We've got to keep supporting this. So I'm not going to say how that needs to happen or how much. But the fact that the folks from that organization haven't been able to even get a meeting, that it was like a quick phone call, but not even a sit down and let's talk about what's going on here. I mean, at least do your homework before you say no to someone. I don't want us to say no. I think that we need to maintain this investment because we all know how important it is to make sure that the Children of St. Petersburg are learning how to read and that they're at grade level by third grade. It is critical. We spend all of this money on youth crime prevention, all of this stuff. But if you look, it doesn't take long to find statistic after statistic that if they know how to read, they're less likely to commit crimes as juveniles. If they know how to read, they're going to score better on test later in life. They're going to be healthier physically, because guess what? They're going to know how to read a label. I could go on and on, but I think you understand what I mean. And I know that there are people in this room that agree with me. And I implore you to please find some funding to continue this good work that this group is doing. That's all I have for now. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Anyone else? Council member, I'm sorry, Mohammed. That happened to see me. Thank you, Madam Chair. And there's everyone for the presentations, quick things. The, I don't support above the, the airport. And that funding, my question about that, is that, are we looking at that as one time funding also? I will this be something that will be continuing, is this like a one time? Thank you, Council Member. I think I would characterize that as kind of a pilot program, pardon the pun at the airport or pilot program. But I mean, we would like to see outcomes. I think a lot of things that we're looking in evaluating need to show outcomes and show. So for 25, you know, the 16,500 would be a start and we will evaluate on a going forward basis. Okay, got it. And that actually kind of leads into the conversation around clanamBody of course it's in District 7 and I'm extremely supportive of the project. What I was hoping to see was more of a breakdown of what the other programs are in that bucket so we can see the impact of taking 20% of those resources and I'm you know I didn't see it basically. They said there weren't any last time. And that was why we asked for the last time to be able to see some ideas about what other programs are in this bucket and and so again that's 20% of the funds for one program and we don't know what the other programs are, is a little disheartening. And then to hear that a decision has been made about one particular program that's in that bucket, but then not being able to see the other programs or ideas or anything related to those funds It's giving me a little pause As a father with you know black children and black grandchildren Always specifically I think an investment in Phillips Phillips Wheeler-Oisdery campaign It's definitely warranted. They did a presentation show the outcomes and we've already started that to moving and so to hear that, you know, it's not being funded, it is also concerning for me. But just not knowing what else is in mind and saying, okay, well, we have this pot that's dedicated for this amount. Let's just take 20% of that for this one particular project and we'll figure out what we're doing with the rest I think we can do a better as far as the process especially for something as important as literacy and sting As it relates to the arts funding I do agree that It's necessary of course. I think that goes without saying and I will be supportive of using some of the peer party resources for that because I do think $725,000 for five years of liberation is a lot and so yeah if we can reallocate some of those resources for the party and see how we can address some of the other ongoing and consistent needs, it would be something I would also like to see us do. And just make sure that I got it clamed by you. The arts. I would have. Here party. That's it. Thank you. Chair, can I ask a question of council? Yes. So I appreciate all the comments so far. I think there's a lot of good things here that we'll work on for the budget that we bring you. But there's a fundamental issue here on the arts. And, you know, I think we do agree that we want to increase the funding on the arts and there seems to be divided voices. So, you know, I would personally recommend that we come back to City Council in a few weeks with a resolution funding the arts grants through the General Fund Balance to take care of this issue. And if Council is okay with that, we can do that fairly quickly. And then we would leave the positions in the FY25 budget that are there. So, I mean, we're very flexible. I'm just trying to catch on to what I'm hearing and see if there's a consensus. We would just need to do that in October. So, you know, if it's going to be FY25-position. The resolution. The position. No, no. The questions in the budget. Right. Fund the order of training. Oh, from there now. OK. On the other hand. Now. Mm-hmm. That would be my recommendation based on what I'm heard, but we're very flexible. OK. All right. You need a note of that. Do we need to- You can make a motion, you can vote on it upstairs, or we could have, you could shake ads, and you know, shake it up and down, and whatever you want to do. So, state what it is that you're amending to that. Well, based on the numbers that I've heard, I think we would bring back a resolution for $500,000 in additional grant funding that would go into Celeste Davis's grants program. We would do it within the next four weeks and then in the FY25 budget we would leave those positions alone. Okay, so you're talking about the potential of the unfunded new five positions? Yes. Okay, because I was going to speak about that too. And we'll work on the other things. We're going to come, we're going to talk about Phil Sweetly, we're gonna look at the peer funding, we're gonna look at Clan Buy, I mean, we're gonna, we've heard you today, those are other issues, but we need some real guidance on the arts, because I mean, this is the main issue, and we need to know what you want us to do. Okay, so I do have two other council members willing to speak before we vote on the motion. I didn't know if what you wanted to contribute would add to the discussion on that council member floyd I did see you council member might never be council member floyd hasn't had a chance to speak Thank you I think you know as far as the arts goes I feel like like council member handwits and Gertis said Using what's available right away and would be less impactful. We'll get us some time over the next year to figure out how we want to handle this more holistically. In that vein, what I put myself in the Q to speak for was to say that the arts funding going forward, I think, you know, I appreciate that you presented us something. And this is exactly what I asked for was for administration's recommendation on how we can get to funding the arts. I think in the future, I didn't say this in the last meeting because I hadn't fully formulated the thought. But I think in the future, thinking of it more as an economic development piece, including a lot of it in economic development department, budget, or in the economic development budget, or in the economic development budget would be really helpful and I think, you know, had you not come up with a reasonable plan I would have suggested looking at some of those things to try to get to our funding because it arts has been a huge part of our economic development and I think, you know, we can, it's my personal belief, and I think it's backed by a lot of data that arts investment is very beneficial for local economic development in a way that other things maybe aren't. And so I think that was where I was coming to this meeting with that perspective. But I do agree like with what we seem to be coming to terms with today. And I guess it looks like we're talking about the five unfunded positions, but there's still almost $300,000 that would still be in the budget. It looks like from general fund contingency. I think that's fine. So it still would be a two piece thing. We'd have to do the resolution. And then we would still have that general fund contingency movement, or would we be able to do the resolution in that we just come from contingency now? Yeah, OK. As I was talking, I was feeling like we could just do it all in one go. OK. That makes sense. As far as Phyllis Wheatley, I would really just love to hear from you all, like what you were thinking by starting out the funding last year and then stopping it as it seems. So that's really, I think, what my biggest question on this topic is. So thank you, Council Member. And I'll take a little step back. And kind of when we appropriate or ask Council to appropriate that $500,000, we are building the plan right now for those investments. Now our last discussion of this topic, it was suggested that $100,000 of that go to Claim Buy You. and that's perfectly fine. I don't have an update on where we are with the planning of those resources. I'm certain Phyllis Wheatley will be in the mix. I just don't know what the funding level is going to be. So, you know, and right now that's the best answer I have as far as that those resources are concerned. Okay, well I'm going to say, yeah I understood I think last time it was a little bit tricky to wrap your head around but like I understand y'all are want to make investments in that area, literacy, steam and you allocated funding towards it but you hadn't decided the programs yet. What I would say is I would encourage you to see through what we've started, one, but I also am very supportive of the administration's efforts to make our future decisions based off of impact. And I think that that's been talked about some. And I want to see that happen completely. But I think in the meantime, right now, we haven't gone, at least I'm not aware of how far we've gone through with that work to make decisions about dropping things that we're already doing. I think we need some lead time, some time between, to make sure like, you know, if we have programs that we might wanna go a different direction from, they're given an opportunity to, you know, present their opinion and come up with a plan that says that they can be more impactful if we determine that they haven't been impactful, if all that makes sense. And so I'm really supportive of you all going about the way that you've been doing things, but I definitely wanna see it be a smoother transition, I think, continuing to find some of the things that we've been funding and making sure would be really ideal in that situation. If I could just say there, I mean that might be an opportunity for a new business item to have Mr. Lavender and Dr. Brown come to a committee meeting and talk about some of the programs and what their plans are. I think that's a very good idea. I think some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic. If any of them want to do that, I'll leave it to them. But I agree, I really agree with the administrations like taking a holistic look at how impactful all the programs we're funding are. So I'll leave that there. The last one or two things I want to say is literally thank you for the Albert Wooded Airport Scholarship Match. I've been incredibly impressed by the scholarships and the work that they've been doing. There's no doubt in my mind that they will show at the end of the year how impactful it is. And I really look forward to, you know, everything that's surrounding the airport right now, when it comes to turning the airport into a real community asset, I think. You know, it started from an interesting conversation at the beginning that was quite controversial and it's really co-hearing into using our airport as a real community asset and I'm really excited about it. All right, with that I'd say one last thing about the peer party, same as I was saying about the arts and economic development. I think the peer has a massive economic impact. I think somebody can correct me from wrong, but it's like one of the top three tourist attractions in the county. I would hesitate to not continue our investment in it. I understand that that's a lot of money and we might want to maybe scale back some, not continue our investment in it. I understand that that's a lot of money in. We might want to maybe scale back some, but same as when we're thinking about our investments, like our return on investment to the peer, I think is pretty significant. And so I would definitely encourage us to continue to support it. I'll leave it there though. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. So I know we have another round that we're about to go through, but I'm going to go ahead and give my opinion before I let Councilmember Montenegro and Councilmember Hannawitz go to. You haven't spoken. Have you, Councilmember Hannawitz? I haven't spoken. I'm the Phyllis Wheatley program. So I was going to make comments on that. OK. So I'm going to go ahead and give my two cents before we go to round two if you guys don't mind. So I'm so glad Vice Chair brought it up about the new positions. Because when I looked at it, that was one of my concerns. I know it's not like we're laying people off. But when I looked at what those positions and what they would be serving, how they would be serving our city, I was kind of hesitant about that. So thank you Administrator Gertis for solving that question for us. In regards to the money for the arts community, thank you again for that. And coming up with that particular funding source for that, I'm even more appreciative for the Albert Wooded Airport Scholarship, as you know I'm a huge fan of that. And the opportunities that those scholarships have provided the last two or three years. So I am grateful for that as well. And I appreciate what you've done. I'm going to echo on the money from the legacy and steam program allocations. It is no surprise that I, you know, was I questioned 350,000 dollars for a campaign. There was no doubt in my mind. I questioned because that was the precedent. We've never done that before ever. So I wanted to find out, you know, if the Phyllis-Weed program went down to zero, they had to have been a reason for it. And I understand your response in regards to impact. I understand everything being a pilot and you wanted to find out what the impact was because I'm a huge supporter of the Sheryl Procter Puella Foundation that has years of impact that we haven't even funded out thing 35,000 if we've done that. So you know we're gonna advocate for something I am gonna advocate for Sher, I am going to advocate for Shirley Procter Puller. Because I have seen what they've done. That is a program, is it's not a campaign. But the other, my issue, the last conversation for the literacy steam programs, I asked that we find out what would be at jeopardy when we removed money from that particular pot. And so I'm hearing that we still don't know what that looks like. So that would be great for Mr. Lavender and Dr. Brown to come and provide that information so we can see how this may have impacted some of the other literacy and steam programs that are actually that have years of impact in data. I understand the start stop concept and where that is a concern but I would love to have my colleagues understand why that happened and what the opportunity for future funding could be. But if I'm going to advocate for anybody having some of that $350,000 moving forward it would be the Shirley Proctor Puller Foundation. So I'm going to start on round two. Council member Martin Nguyen. Thank you. Let me kind of back up a little bit. Can you tell me how much do we currently have in contingency? We have one million in general fund contingency. We also have a million in contingency for future development expenditures associated with the historic gas plan. I'm talking about the current. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Council Member, right? Yeah. Currently, I want to... We're looking at it up. I think I know, but I don't want to give it up. I'm going there next, but I wanted to know what we currently have. I can move on to my next question while Stacey's looking that up. So can you all help me with the math? Because there was $750,000 that was for FY25 to be taken out of contingency for the economic stability fund. And then 272,256 for the arts. And on one of the slides on, I think, is the economic stability fund slide seven, it says balance of the general fund contingency would be $477,744. I'm trying to understand the math because in the recommended budget it says $2 million. So how did you get to? So $1 million for the gas plants. So why was just looking when I built the slides at the one million that was for the general fund contingency? So those numbers are based off that one million, not the two million starting point. Okay. And it reminds me that million dollars for the gas plant. What's going to be to cover expenses associated with like SCANSCHA, our Construction Monitor, other Associated expenses that could cover Okay, all right FY24 General Fund contingency maps right now we have 250 4000 left Okay, all right. Thank you. Well, I I want to also get on the record that I'm fully supportive of the Phyllis Wheatley Rise to Read program and I'd like to see that that funded also that's that that's a priority for for me. So I want to see that that funded and Let me see if I had anything else Let me just circle back to the to the peer of fifth year anniversary I hear my colleagues that They don't want to zero that amount out. It just seems to me to be a lot of money. I guess I could compromise on that, but boy, that's a lot of money to spend for an anniversary party. And I understand what you're saying. Councilmember Floyd about the economic impact of the peer, but I also kind of see it as a celebration in the subsidy of the peer is just at a very high level. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember Hanover. Thank you, Chair. So I did not have an opportunity to discuss the Phyllis Wheatley-Rice to Read program. I will tell you that on the education front, I think maybe a couple of years ago we had a presentation. It was a former director that gave the presentation and there was not a lot of data. And I had an issue with that, then I want to see data. And I think that is what administration is alluding to to having a program that there was data. I'm on the arts advisory board. Right now we're going through grants to provide to organizations. And they have to provide, there's a whole process to give them money. And we have nothing here, there's a whole process to give them money. And we have nothing here in terms of education. So I would like to see a good robust discussion as to how we are going to be able to determine the impact we are having because it is that important. So I think it is critically important to have, obviously, Dr. Brown and Carl Lavender to come and give us that presentation. I will tell you I am on the board, I'm an unpaid volunteer of the Shirley Proctor Polar Foundation and they're going to be giving a presentation to City Council on October 4th as to what they're providing to the community. So there are lots of good organizations out there. Just like to fill us Wheely, I'm not going to play favorites because I'm on the board of one, but I'm going to give some numbers, for instance, that the Shirley Proctor Polar Foundation is doing in the community. And we just had this presentation last week, you know, in terms of our board. You know, the summer program ended well with 70% of 73 students who remained with us for 12 months performing at grade level versus 27% the year before. That's what they're doing. This was Bill upon 10 month data, which showed 55% of 137 students who attended the after school program that were performing at grade level in May of 2024 Versus only 23% in August of 2023 and this is testing this is actual data So I would like to see something that really is robust to ensure that we are doing what we're saying that we're doing and we do this for other programs. And I mentioned this years ago and so going forward, I don't mind funding Felicity. I don't mind us investing in any of these organizations, but I want us to do it the right way because there are good programs out there that are performing and are trying to do the work of educating our children and helping the public schools And I want to see that we can do to support them. So that's my my Contribution to that. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Muhammad. Thank you, Madam Chair. It was weekly. You got the spotlight today. So the way I understand for this weekly, the Rosary Campaign is a campaign and it's a collective impact model. I remember we were organizing under the 2020 plan to reduce poverty, which was also a collective impact model. And to the point about data, I think when the presentation was made, we weren't able to get the data because the funding was to stand the program up. So the data that was presented was based upon what the problem is and the need. And then seeing the magnitude of the problem is why I agreed to invest as a council member into the program to help change those outcomes. So when the presentation was made, we couldn't have data on the program because the funding was to start the program. Now that we have a track record or some history with that program, I also would like to see the impact, but I don't want to see funding just arbitrarily, you know, removed before we get to see what the impact or the outcome of the campaign has been. the literacy partners of this collective impact model as our other literacy partners. And so if we look at this campaign and we're able to see the contributions to solving this problem is happening with our literacy partners, then that can give us some ideas about which partners we want to invest in. If we see that, surely, Parker Puller's not being invested in, but they're getting these types of results. But without having this coordinated effort, I think we're doing our self-adgressorvers. Again, the campaign from the way that I understand it is seeing that there's multiple avenues for addressing this issue and it's collaborating and coordinating those issues so that we can really measure the impact. So I absolutely would love to see that continue in the way that we've continued to support some of those other issues. Other efforts, Gross Martyr was a collective impact. And when we first invested in that, we had data about what the problem was. But it took time for us to see what the impact of this work that we were doing collectively is. And I think that that in some ways is being lost in this conversation around Phyllis Wheatley. We're looking at it as a program, as a program, but it's a collective impact model that's coordinating all of these programs in order to achieve a result. And I think that that should continue to be funded. And I'll leave it there, thank you. Thank you. And in my input to that is, I don't think there is a consensus that it should not be funded. I thought $350,000 was a lot of money for a campaign. The simple is that. $350,000 is a lot of money for a middle man, a collective to refer students to other places to get services. When we have other organizations out there that they have to apply to youth development grants to get five and 10,000, I just thought that that was an open amount of money for a campaign, and I was clarified that it is not a program, it is just that campaign, which is something we've never funded at that dollar amount before for something that cannot show us impeccable data. We won't see that. So other organizations have to bring all kind of stats and documentation in order for us to approve funding, but we're making an exception for this one. For me, you have to make it make sense. So if we're going to fund it, I don't mind funding if we can show where it's viable, where those dollars are actually being spent. And when I think about Shirley Proctor Pula Foundation and I go and I visit and I see all the wonderful work that they're doing and other organizations that are out there that don't get that same opportunity, I have to stand back and say, where's not even an equity in that, but the equality in that. So $350,000 was a lot of money for me. I'm sorry, that was a lot of money for me. I'm sorry, that was a lot of money for me. So with that being said, I don't, I look forward to getting an explanation as to what led to the decision, but if I keep hearing that word impact and what is the impact and what is the impact, I think that should be in the first and in first foremost thought of moving forward with organizations and ensuring that we are actually getting the results that we are looking for. So with that being said, I don't think you know we want to say we don't want them to not be funded at all but I want it to make sense and that's just not for that organization, it's for any organization, but I just think we have $50,000. It was a lot of money. Vice Chair goes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I was actually going to make a motion based on arts, but I think Councilmember Driscoll had a comment, and I'm happy to defer. It looked like earlier when we were talking about that Councilmember Driscoll. I want to make sure but- I can wait my turn but I would like to talk before the motion is made. Yeah, that's why I figured I'd defer. If that's okay with you, Chair. I don't even know what the motion was. I haven't put one on the floor yet. I haven't had it yet. Okay. On the arts. to go first, that's fine by me. Yes, go ahead, Councilor McTrish. Thank you. And thank you for the discussion on Phil's weekly rise to re-campaign in the Shirley Park to our Polar Foundation both doing a lot of good and I think you've heard us loud and clear on that. So I look forward to hearing more. I do hope to hear that a meeting between Mr. Lavender, Dr. Brown and Phil Sweetly Rice Recompane will take place because that was disappointing here. Back to the arts. So I understand I love the idea of being able to really do both and fund the new positions that are needed. If you look at the list of the nine positions, it's not all from one department. I look at every single one of these and I see value and I know that the people who work in those departments on the on the ground level work very hard and probably need some help. There is one last week in the Youth and Family Services Committee. Administrator Foster mentioned that there had been a position that was requested in the early part of the budget process that fell below the line to help with social services. And those of you who are on youth and family services may have recalled. And I'm sorry I don't remember what the title of the position was. But we had such a good conversation. And it seemed like there was some real validity to that request for that position. And it made me think about these nine positions that were that are going to be added. It's hard for us to have a budget discussion when we don't have everyone here, by the way. But I would love for y'all to look at that again and see if somewhere we can make room for that position. I don't know what the cost was going to be or anything like that. But I just remember her saying we asked for a position but it did not make make it into the draft budget. If I may, Ms. Helen. The positions that we did include were the highest priority of each of the respective departments. Okay. Well, if it turns out that we can't do it, then that's fine. But we had such a good conversation about how the funding goes and how we're trying to make sure that everything is getting to the right people. And there was a question that was asked regarding staffing and there was an answer to that. So I would ask that you maybe chat with the administrator foster to see if, get more detail about that and see if you can find room for it in the budget because these are folks who not only work a lot of hours but a lot of that work can be stressful and take a lot more than time from you. And so if there's a way to make it happen I would be very supportive of that. I just want to I just want to make sure I understand the this switch that we're going to do with the arts. So I think what you said is that there is $500,000 that is in FY 24 that can be moved into the arts budget now. To be clear, I said fun balance. I don't believe I said contingency. I don't believe there's there's 500,000 in contingency but we could certainly take from the fun balance by resolution to fund the arts. And that would be out of this budget, right? Yes. So then what would be 445? That would be 5. So then what would be increased for the arts for FY 25 would just be 250,000. I think since we're so close to year end, we wouldn't be able to spend it all in 24. So at year and clean up that amount, any amount that's not spent would be rolled over. So it'd be part of the amended budget. We'd increase the 25's budget through that way. Okay. All right. Well that's progress. I know that during our conversation that I have a draw a wash about this is that we are moving to a a much greater amount that will be allocated. And this is specifically for, in through Granson Aid, right, which is right now at 550,000. So we would be adding 500,000 to that, right? I think portion of it, and maybe Celeste Davis is here, but a portion was going to try to address some of the reductions from the governor's veto and then a portion would be available for additional grants. So I'm not super familiar with all the grants processes. I just want to make sure it's going to the right place because the idea here is to help artists like individual artists and then small and medium arts organizations. High Celest. Hi, all of you. Grab a mic. So is this, and then there are some individual asks like the water funding. I thank you for getting that 200,000 which was the original ask that I've had for the last couple of years. So I'm glad to be seeing that. But then the rest of it, the individual artist grants will go in FY25 that'll go from $50,000 to $250,000. Because we're adding 200,000 to $250,000. Because we're adding $200,000 to the, yes. OK. And then the remaining now will be taken out of this year. It'll be 500. And that's going to go to grants and aid, right? Yes. Was it 500 or 250. It's. So the toll mount that we were looking at was it's 695,000 and we do that all in FY 24. It won't show up in the 25 adopted budget, but it'll show up in 24 is amended and then we can roll it over to FY 25. So you won't see it in like the ordinance for FY 25, but you'll see it when we get to the cleanup ordinance coming back over through there. And then we, it all will go to the less division and then it could be put into those different categories. Yeah, I could be wrong. I'm not sure that's the question you were asking council. Members, less, I think what the council member I know it's not going to be a long time. I know it's not going to be a long time. I know it's not going to be a long time. I know it's not going to be a long time. I know it's not going to be a long time. I know it's not going to be a long time. I know it's not going to be a long time. I know it's not going to be a long time. out of this budget, we're just gonna get it done. And then what's not spent by October goes to cleanup and then we allocate it from there. That was not my understanding. I thought we were doing $500,000 right now. Yeah, and that's where- Based on what we did, there was gonna be 250 remaining that Tom talked about. The 500 may get rolled over. It may all get spent in FY25, but it's $750,000. And then Celeste, do you know how you're gonna use that $750,000? Yes. So there are, there were 20 organizations that received the governor's veto. 17 of those organizations actually applied for city grants. And so we can use the organizations that applied for city grants their scores to then use the additional funding to give them the additional money. Did you follow? So we have- I believe so yes. Okay we have 17 organizations that have applied for the city grants. That also got vetoes. That also got vetoes. And so those funds that we have for additional money, we can distribute based on the scores that they got from the city grants. So they would get the additional funding. And they'd get the city grant funding and they would get what it would help to make up for what the vetoes actually impact. There are three organizations that fell outside of that category. Two of those simply aren't appropriate for city grants and one of them is. So we would pretty much be able to cover everyone who then missed out on the state grants with the additional funding. Okay, and then we have the total amount that we're adding is 750 or is it 695? Can you can you put that one up? Yeah. Each five slide five just so that we all are looking at what I'm looking at. So the total will be 695. Okay. He said 750. I was getting, you got me excited. Councilmember Jisco, vice chair girders would love to chime in if you would allow it. Okay, no, this is, this is fine. I just want, just want one add. There was an ask, this is like a really, this is a serious situation. There wasn't ask by the art alliance for the Shine mural festival to the state for $25,000, not a lot to help with the Shine mural festival. And it didn't even make the legislative cut because they took out events. And so they still have a shortfall of $25,000 for shine, which is in October. And so one thing I would like to see is out of this, could that small amount, that 25,000, please be allocated to make that festival whole, it is a, a lot of people don't know how worldwide that festival is. We don't want them to miss a beat. And so I do request that that amount be allocated specifically for that purpose. The rest of it I'm fine with. I really appreciate all the work that's been done with this. I feel like we're on our way. And I look forward to looking for ways that we can continue moving towards that goal and the spirit of the goal of 1% for the arts. Thank you and thank you vice chair Curtis for your piece. No, yeah, of course. Is it your turn now? There's no one else ahead of you. Thank you. Have a mission. Wow. I did and now I have a question. Oh, man. So. I guess my question is, I mean, couldn't we just use fund balance for the entire 695? Leave the general contingency balance at 1 million for 2025. And if council member Montenaries, item stays and gets passed, we use the 500,000 from contingency to economic stability. And it's just clean. Can we just do that? Is that, I mean, does administration- I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry. I mean, I guess I'm trying to figure out, why wouldn't we just do the entire 695 out of general fund balance. Roll over what needs to be and clean up to 25. And this way it's just clean there and then the general fund contingency for 25 stays at a million. And if you want to transfer half a million to the economic stability fund, it's half a million there. I'm fine with it. Okay, I just want to make half a million to the economic stability fund, a half a million there. I'm fine with it. Okay, I just want to make sure you're good. My motion would be to out, for draft a resolution for city council, for $695,000, I'm assuming administration will take care of your $25,000 ask. I'm sure they will. And so $695,000 to be used from general fund balance to fund the arts in 2024. All right. We have a motion on the floor seeing no further requests to speak. All in favor? Aye. Those opposed? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Unless we have, well, unless we have anything else, I'm going to go ahead and move on. No further comment on that. So I know administrative girdists, you started with a statement that you wanted to have a discussion and so now I'm going to. Madam Chair. Yes. I had a couple other budget items. Oh, the budget we just voted on? Well, we only voted on one item. We voted on one. Just one so you have a, okay, so can you hold that? Okay. Council member by the way, I didn't see you wanting to speak. Okay. So I just wanted to kind of get back to the economic stability fund. And because I do want the million dollars in the economic stability fund, do you need a motion for that? That would be our tax question. Would you? Council member, not everybody jumping in with clear consensus or direction to the new. So we're moving back to the bill. Right. That's on the council. I'm going to make make make make make a motion to move for for FY 25 half a million dollars from contingency to E. Okay, okay, so did everyone hear the motion? No, I just contingency to economic stability. Okay, okay. Okay, so there's been a motion seeing no one asking to speak all in favor. All right, those opposed. All right, Councilmember Montenegro. All right, also I'm going to make a motion to remove the $725,000 from the recommended budget for the peers. Fifth anniversary celebration. I'd ask for a roll call vote. Just for the record on that, Chair, can just the administration's position on that. We certainly have heard the comments today. We understand that maybe council members might feel it's excessive. But I think we should keep in our, in the administration's opinion, at least 500,000, if you want to reduce it for that celebration. So that's just our position. Obviously you can make your vote however you want. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll. Do you mean to remove 500,000? No, I mean to leave 500,000. Leave 500,000. And if we have further information. Madam Chair, if I could just add some additional context. You know, in the recommended budget for the peer, with the general fund subsidy of nearly 1.5 million, 1.497 million, the forecasted budget would use about 2.2 of the peer operating funds, a fund balance, leaving it with $633,000. So that's why I'm saying a reduction in the expense doesn't translate necessarily to a reduction in our subsidy for the peer operating. So because I wouldn't want to go much below the $633 forecasted fund balance in that operating fund. So I just wanted to make kind of walk through that math with County. So does your motion still stay? Yes. Okay. Council member Mohammed. Yes. Thank you Madam Chair. Yeah and I do think it's excessive but I wouldn't be supportive of zeroing it out. I think we should have a celebration but I think it should cost so much. Council member Hannah Winston, the council members just... Yeah, I'm not sure we're at consensus. I mean, first of all, I hadn't thought about this issue until today and I'm just not sure where I'm at right now. And that's not a place I wanna be when I'm voting. I just, I can't, so I'm gonna have to vote no. I just can't do that without thinking about it. Thank you. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. I mentioned before, I don't think I could support zero. And that remains, but like council member, you know what, I'm not really sure what 500 means or what 300 would mean what that would look like what kind of a celebration that would look like and so Can I make a substitute motion? I'll make a substitute motion that we removed $225,000 from the Pierce 50 anniversary celebration allocation. That leaves us with $ 500,000. As requested by the administration, something can be simpler, maybe a little bit shorter, maybe not for as long, and I think it's still going to be quite memorable with the half million dollars. So we have a motion on floor council member Watt-airi says that he wants to stand on his motion. I just want to procedurally do I have to accept this substitute? No, we're just beyond the sub-keep motion and then depending on the outcome of that, we'll dictate whether your motion is. Okay, so I'm going to give my thesis before we vote. I'm in a greenish with council member Mano. It's just not a thing for me until today. And I don't know what $750 looks like. I don't know what $500,000 look like. So I'm not gonna support either one. So that's my thoughts. Councillor Remember, for you. Thank you. I'll just real quick say the same thing. I haven't been given information about what the scope of this is. I am very supportive of us investing in the peer and I won't support either one for that reason as well. Thank you. Okay. Council member Martin Anne. Well, I can read the room. I'll support the motion that's on the floor. Okay. So we have a subsequent motion on the floor to remove 250,000 from the peer fireworks line item. Yes, no, celebration, five year celebration. Okay, please make sure I'm correct, five year celebration. And we're gonna do a roll call vote on this, please. Chan. Floyd? No. Gertis? No. David, absent, Maunce Nerry. What wasis? No. Yeah, I would absent, Montenegro. What was me? Yes. Yes. Canowitz? No. Exander? No. Driscoll? Yes. Mohammed? No. Motion fails. Five to two with council members Montenegro and Driscoll voting. Yes. Floyd Gertis, Annowitz, Fick Sanders, and Muhammad Voting No. Thank you. Nice to hear Gertis. Thank you Madam Chair. I'm sorry, but I just want procedural points. So if a sub-supemotion has been made and failed, the initial motion is not on the floor. Okay. Unless withdrawn. Innocent rate. Are you withdrawing it? Councilman, I'm not going to mind it. Okay, so he's not withdrawing it. Is original motion? So okay, we have a roll call phone on the original motion to remove $725,000 from the Pierce Five Year anniversary. Floyd? No. Curtis? No. Gavard, absent, Montenegro? Yes. Anowis. No. Exander. No. Risco. No. Mohammed. No. Motion fails. Six to one with Councilmember Montenari voting yes. Councilmember Flored. Gertis. Anowits. Exander's Risco and Mohammed voting no. Thank you're good. Then I won. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chris, could I have a one-on-one with you and Tony to this? Thank you. Appreciate it. That's all I have, Madam Chair. All right. Do we have Councilor Wattenay? I'll go ahead and make a motion for the funding of the scholarships for Applewood at Airport of the Airports offering There's a motion for the funding of the Albert Witter Scholarship I haven't seen no request to speak All in favor do we need to do we do we require a roll call All in favor all right those opposed Thank you is there anything else that we are overlooking? All right. Sounds good. So now we're going to go back to where we attempted. And administrative girders, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, Chair. And thank you for the good discussion today, City Council. And as I started out previously, I wanted to talk a little bit about the one-time payments that were made and then rescinded and obviously I think this is an appropriate place in time because there's a budgetary impact to that. So the first thing I want to start out with is just a little bit big picture and I've mentioned to you before the importance from our point of view of talent recruitment and retainment. And you know, human talent is really the lifeblood of what we do and it's so important. We try and retain and recruit employees through our inclusive culture, culture of positivity, culture of appreciation with our employee appreciation week and also through financial means. And both the Mayor and City Council have worked together to support our staff and we thank you for that. I think examples of that are the union contracts which I think we're very fair for those employees and we're approved by City Council. Also the pay increases, the annual pay increases for non-union employees that Mayor Welch has put into practice and City Council has approved. And so we've shown a lot of support for our team and that's important. So in this regard, why would we choose to make one-time payments? So the intent of the one-time payment was to reward the exceptional work and effort related to the gas plant redevelopment. And of course, I had a firsthand seat to that work and I can just tell you and I think that you know already that many of your employees gave very much of their lives to that work. And the mayor and I felt that the amount of work that was done, the amount of time that was spent, that in this case really a thank you or a thank you card was just not enough. And we needed to support those employees with some type of monetary benefit. The path we choose was a one-time payment, and there's reasons for that. A one-time payment, I believe, has a more direct impact to the employee. It's closer to the work that was done in time. It can be more impactful, and actually it's more financially responsible to the city. The reason for that is because it doesn't attach to the base pay, it doesn't roll over year over year. And when percentage increases are given, it doesn't compound over time. So we chose the one-time payment method because we felt it was more impactful to the city employee and more financially responsible for the city. So what happened? How did we get to where we are now? Well, there's a couple issues that ever risen. One was that I think there was a negative reaction to the one-time payments that actually caused morale issues with the employees, especially a lot of the employees that received the one-time payments. And what was intended as a positive towards those employees turned into a negative based on some of the reaction that was out there. In addition to that, there were some questions related to our one-time payment policies and how they relate to state statute. So, state statute does permit one-time payments for work performed with an administrative policy that meets certain requirements of the state statute. I was informed last Saturday that there were some concerns raised about our administrative policies related to compensation and how those may interact with the state statute. At that time, I was in contact with our city attorney and our assistant city attorney, Ms. Kovlar, Ms. Williams, to start to talk about this issue. Based on a review of our current policies, both by myself, Mr. Green and the city attorney's office, we reviewed those policies and procedures. And to be honest, they were inadequate. Policies were inadequate for the compensation that was provided to the employees. So we had an issue with our policy and what we did. So as a result of the negative impact on the morale and also the issues with the current policies being inadequate, the one-time payments have been rescinded. Staff has been notified. Several staff members have already written checks to the city to make repayment. In addition, the mayor has directed staff to conduct a full review of all our compensation policies and procedures. And we always want to learn from our mistakes. We didn't make a mistake in this case by not ensuring that our policies were aligned in order to do what we did. I do want to make one last point before I turn it over and we'll be happy to answer any comments or questions. And I just think it's extremely important to note publicly and for the record, especially because ethics and integrity are such an important part of an attorney's life. I wanted to be well known that our city attorney's office was not consulted prior to the one-time payments being made and did not have any opportunity to evaluate the process. I just wanted that to be well known. City Attorney was not involved until I was notified of the state statute concern and started to have discussions about what we had already done and what we might need to do on a going forward basis. And I just want to be clear about that. And we'll be happy to answer any questions that we can. Thank you. Councillor Moor, might you? Well thank you for that statement. This is a difficult situation to talk about and but we need to talk about it. We're elected officials, and we have a responsibility. And I know I've received a lot of correspondence, phone calls, and text messages on this. And so my first question goes back to the mayor's statement last Friday, and there's one sentence in there that says, this is within the budget in my administrative authority. And my first question to legal is, is this within the mayor's administrative authority? Well, as administration has pointed out, the policies did not cover this type of, one time lump sum payment. So had the policies cover this type of one time lump sum payment. So had the policies covered this type of one time lump sum payment, it would be within the mayor's administrative board. So, all right, so there is a state statue on this. And then there's an attorney general opinion also in the attorney general opinion it states that The city council Needed to adopt a lump sum bonus payment program For this to happen have have you all reviewed that attorney general? Yes, and I'm glad you asked that question because that attorney general opinion is from 2000 and it references an earlier version of the statute, that earlier version of the statute that was in existence in 2000, specifically stated that the bonus scheme or policy had to be passed by ordinance or resolution. That no longer exists in the statute. The current statute as it exists today does not have that specific requirement. Oh, okay. And then there's, I want to just get this out in the public also. We, the city council, have to vote on most expenditures over $100,000. And this was a $250,000 expenditure. Can you, I don't know if administration was to answer this. How, or maybe this is a legal question, how was this made without City Council? How did this expenditure happen without City Council approval? And Madam Chair, I could try to take a stab at that. So each, in the aggregate, yes, it's $250,000. Each of the individual expenditures or lump sum payments counted separately is its individual expenditure of resources. So take, for example, there might be a capital project that we're working on. We might have a series of expenditures that would show up on the Procurement report, you know, that would be less than $100,000. But if you aggregated them, all they would be in excess of $100,000. So I don't know if that helps, you know, explain that. I can clarify that. That $100,000 limitation is within the procurement code. And this lump sum payment was not procurement. Correct. Okay. And I've reviewed the procurement code. But I did. So there's been a lot of talk about the $100,000 threshold and how did this expenditure happen without it coming to City Council for approval. What you just said, Mr. Green, and I want to get legal's opinion because what you just said could be a reason to like bypass City Council if we took that. If you broke things up into pieces in the manner that you just described. How does city council protected? How does city council keep their authority for something like this? Well when projects are brought before you, they are the project in total. That total amount is brought to you. If there is a number of capital projects within the budgetary line, and a Missed Green spoke to, then you're going to have different projects within that amount. But if the particular project is, let's say a project is broken up into two parts, but it's the same project. That $100,000 limitation will apply to that. So if the initial, let's say an initial project comes at $50,000, but we find out later that it's gonna take another $60,000 to complete it, then it's going to come to City Council for approval. Yeah, and if I could just add, I think the best oversight of this is the monthly expenditure report. And you may remember one time this even occurred where there was a secondary payment we realized it was the same project and we notified City Council. So we're tracking that and you're tracking that as well and that monthly expenditure report I think is the best way to do that. Okay so just to review this so this was funded by individual departments within the issue. You know, this was going to be used for a fund balance out of the individual departments. So, hey roll expenditure hits the org code of each employee. So there could be, you know, there are labor distributions for employees, some of the expenses hit in other departments. And so, but any pay element is defined at the beginning of our fiscal year with respect to how pay is allocated. But that's how it was treated. And so within the total appropriation that council has approved, we had capacity within that appropriation to provide for these increased expenditures, but of course now they have been reversed and reversed out of the payroll process. Okay. And then I want to understand the timing of this. When did this idea of these bonuses first come forward? So I can address that. And I can't give you the specific timing, but I will say to you that from my point of view, it was never based on a result. It wasn't based on a vote, it wasn't based on getting through the county commission, it wasn't based on it happening, it was based on effort, right? And I'm just a believer in we work the process, we work as hard as we can, and we can't control outcomes. So I'm not going to necessarily want to reward based on outcomes because those could be out of our control. The amount of effort put into this by many of the people involved was extraordinary and we thought deserved monetary compensation. Okay. Well, I want to go back to my original question. When did this come up? Prior, my recollection is prior to the City Council vote. We had discussions about it. Okay. I'll give up the floor for other council members to ask questions. So I totally understand and I've stayed publicly and I've spoken to a lot of individuals that did a lot of heavy lifting to get this done. But this situation has just been very troubling for me and our whole organization. I appreciate your comments on it and appreciate everybody answering my questions. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Council Member Jisco. Thank you. And thank you for giving us the opportunity to address the elephant in the room. Not you. Sorry. Here we go. I was just, I was, he been. No. Listen. I want to start by making it very clear that I don't, that no one who received this extra compensation did anything wrong. The intentions were good because they were doing everything right. And that is serving our city far above and beyond what's normally asked of them. And so this isn't about whether or not I think anyone deserves anything. So the questions and comments that I have are just about how this happened. I don't like that a lot of the information that I've gotten has been through the media and through social media. I mean, and through the weekend, it was really hard. And it may have, it's been hard on me, too. Maybe some others, because there were folks out there that weren't reading very closely and thought that we, those of us who voted, yes, got something to. I have to deal with that. I didn't get a dime. You know? I mean, some people got more than a third of what my salary is. So yeah, I'm just going to admit that made me mad. That I got drawn into it like that and then of course I have to speak and respond and I just don't know what to say. I don't know who to talk to. I'm trying to figure out what in the world happened and why is it that through social media, I saw a copy of the email that Chris Gwellis sent to payroll that was dated July 25th, but I wasn't told until last Friday, the morning, the day of, the morning, that this broke in the media. And so that tells me that there was never any intention of letting City Council know that this even happened. And so I wanted to give an opportunity to respond to that because that felt wrong. Sure, thank you Councilmember. I'll be happy to respond to that. And I think it's a good point for discussion. I mean, during the year, we do do salary increases for employees based on performance. We could have done that here. And I think there would have been no issue with state statutes. I think my understanding is that the city attorneys and HR, Mr. Green, all agree that we could have provided increases to base salaries and been perfectly within our bounds to do that. I explained why we chose the one-time payments, but that's another issue. I think the question here maybe is the number of people that were involved in the amount of money that was involved. Maybe that should trigger communication with city council. The thinking was that when we do compensation during the year, compensation changes, that's not something that we typically informed city council about, so that was our, we were just following our normal, normal way of business. Thank you. Another question that I have is, well, the times did another article showing where all the money came from and I too was wondering about how how is this that 250,000 dollar expenditure and that is the most practical way. That's the way you should look at this, you know. But it was like a little from here, a little from there. And departments that had no one who received anything, got money taken out. We just finished a really great budget discussion. And, you know, one of the things in here is that one person's $10,000 bonus was taken from the end team. That was one that really made me stop. Because we've asked for more money for the end team. We love the end team. Is it so flush with? And we're on track for FY 25 to give the end team an 18.53% increase in the budget. If you've got an extra 10 grand lay it around with nothing better to do. So I think this is a great it's a great question it's a good conversation. We don't often talk in the budget process about the labor distribution process with the employees and maybe at some point we should have further discussion about that. A number of the employees do have labor distribution and so you know what that means is an administrator may have their compensation distributed through the different departments that they're in their that are in their administration and that's based on a percentage basis and that's set every year by percentage. So any compensation that goes to that person, whether it's a one-time payment or a base salary increase, is going to follow those percentages in the labor distribution. And so, you know, if council wants to have more discussion about the labor distribution and how that's set up, you know, we could certainly do that. It is not something that is talked about much during the budget process. And I don't know Mr. Green if you want to add anything to that. I think you summed it up perfectly. It is, you know, and maybe I'll just give a little additional context. You know, the first thing we do when we start developing the budget is we do a position reconciliation. So the budget analysts work with each department and look at department division, head counts, true everything up so that we have a good basis because you know positions are 70% of our general fund budget right. The men and women who provide service is a huge expense. So that is the very first thing we do each year when we're starting in probably November, December for the next budget cycle. And so as Mr. Gertis mentioned, we do have labor distributions. And that's true to capture the amount of time an administrator or a director spends with different functions of our organization. So in this context, yeah, it looks funky that a portion of the expense would have been attributable to the codes division that is funded by sanitation and codes and for the end team, but that's just the way that Amy Foster's org is constructed. And James Corbett has the same with the parking revenue fund. So I mean, but those are just a tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of labor distributions across our organization that capture the true expense of providing the service to our residents. But when we get into July, which was when this was all done, and it wasn't budgeted for ahead of time, you see how it looks. And I'm just using this as an example, because it's the one that I kept thinking about after I read this. I mean, this is for crews of city workers and volunteers that help our seniors and people who are disadvantaged in some way to fix up their homes. A few of us talk about that quite a bit how we want to see more of it. I certainly understand how it looks and you know I just want to reiterate you know I don't know if this makes it look any better but if the housing and neighborhood services administrator was to get a $5,000 base salary increased during the year, it's going to hit that same labor distribution. In the context of all of this that happened. I understand. I'm just, I'm showing you how it looks. And I appreciate, I appreciate the explanation. I wonder if, you know, when I first found out and, you know, I was told with no detail, it was kind of vague and casual. And I was on the run and hung up the phone. And I thought, gosh, is this even legal? And I couldn't be the only one that thought that. So I'm glad we're having this conversation because I spent part of the weekend actually doing my own research to see because, I don't know, I haven't been through something like this before in the private sector, these things happen. It's fine, but I hadn't heard of it happening in city government before. And I was really troubled by the fact that my phone blew up on Friday afternoon. And from what I saw in the median online, it was just really bad. And it's unfortunate that the string of decisions was made that led to this after what five of us considered to be a great victory. So I would like to see some changes to make sure that there is some checks and balances on this. I don't know what they would be. I'm open to ideas. Yeah, I mean, I would have to say at this point unless something changes, it would not be our intention to use a one-time payment anymore. I think that's unfortunate because I think it's a great tool in the toolbox. In order to do it, we would have to make some amendments to the policy. We could do that. The mayor is allowed to do that by policy. But I just think based on what has happened in the negative reaction, it's probably a tool that will put down. And we just use a base salary increase is going forward. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I wasn't talking about a change to actually allow it to happen. Well, I mean, I support the employees and I support rewarding them for their hard work. Mm-hmm. And, you know, if we wouldn't have made a mistake, you know, I fully support what we did. They deserved it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hanowitz. Thank you, Chair. This has been weighing on me and I'm sure I speak for every council member here, including administration and probably every city employee since this began last week. So I really appreciate Rob that you started off how you did. And I do want to emphasize to those that are watching both the public and the employees that the people who received this compensation did do nothing wrong. They received something that it asked for. And this issue of bonuses and how they happened and whether it complied with statute, statute should not diminish the exemplary work that's done pretty much by all our city employees daily, whether it's for emergencies, whether it's red tide, whether it's storms, whether it is working on the historic gas plant. And it hurts me to know, because I've worked in government before I know what it does. I know what it does to morale. I know what you're talking about. And so I want to put that out there. And I think part of the issue that we're talking about, and the word hasn't been said, it's transparency. And although we shouldn't need to find out every bonus that's out there, I think I was very clear when it came to the historic gas plant, we should be as transparent as possible. Why? Because it is the largest deal in the city's history involving a large amount of public money. Period. And when I find out that, you know, we were, this was part of it. And then things come before a public meeting. And none of this comes out. I'll tell you this. A lot of this would have not happened if there would have been more transparency and more going into it in terms of going through this process. And this is not to put blame on. I want people to understand. Sometimes people do things and things are flat out and things just happen. I get that. But it is a transparency issue. And I like other council members found out last week and my big issue with it was when I found out same thing. I know there was a public records request before I found out which lead me to believe the reason I found out was because it was going to come out in the newspaper and then I get information from Facebook and nobody likes, I'll tell you this, no city council member likes finding out anything on Facebook that has to do with them. Okay, and I know that and I saw that and that was the first time I found well this has been going on so you lie. So transparency is the big takeaway from all this and that erodes the public trust. Yeah, and I, you know, I think it's a great discussion. And I think, you know, you make a good point. Councilmember Druskel makes a good point. We struggle with this every day. Right. You know, in my role as city administrator, I think that the other administrators would tell you that I ask them to communicate with city council more than has probably ever been asked. But there's a line between, you know, are we overcommunicating? What do you really need to know? There are things that come up that we think, you know, we didn't need to share. And then if there's a public records request, yes, absolutely. We got to share that because this is, you know, for that, so that absolutely does happen. And I agree that the scope and amount and the project involved we could have thought about it differently. I think you make a fair point. And that's where I'm at. Knowing what we're dealing with and the amount of money, I'll tell you this, it was going to come out one way or the other. Those bonuses, it was eventually from the get go, that information at some point was going to come out and we're going to be questioned. So to me, I think in the front end is better than in the back end. That's all I'm going to say about. And I would agree with that. And I feel like this is a blessing based on the issues we have with our policy. Right. Right. And so I want to kind of walk through, because I appreciate that legal test on some stuff, but I want to make it clear for the record, because of course now you have all a lot of people. It's like you know you go online and figure out what do I have this disease? You know and Alice said and you read something and you're a doctor and it's the same thing with the law. People read something it's like they become lawyers overnight and and that's I just want to clarify some stuff in terms of the law. You know obviously and I think it's been clear, there was a Florida statute. It's 215.425. That was not complied with, correct? Correct. OK. Now, there are no penalties attached to that statute. Not that I'm aware of. Not that you're aware of. OK. And this issue of not compliance right now to me the issue was the money's repaid now is the cure that the money's been returned. Right. The bonuses have been resented. And I just want to make that very clear because I want if there was an issue and the issue has been taken care of, then that takes care of that. Now, what is left is obviously what is being done to the term in if there have been any other previous instances and administration has already said, they are looking into that. And I am glad that that's happening. I had asked for that. And I'm sure before I've asked you or thinking about it. So I just want to make it clear that you all are looking into it to make sure that this is being complied with. I'm sorry that this is cause of dark cloud obviously for everyone and but I do I do want to make clear that we didn't know about it and the transparency thing was the big issue for me on this, giving what we were dealing with. I'm not expecting you to tell me about everything, but there's certain things that we expect to know about. And the historic gas plant, to me, giving bonuses related to that, I think would have fallen into something that I think the public would have been interested in and I always and those things I rather earn the sight of caution, but I appreciate you taking the lead and taking responsibility and clearing the air this afternoon drop. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Councilmember Mojave. Thank you, Madam Chair. And a lot of what I was going to say has been said, I think it goes without saying the way I view and the relating engage with employees and city staff. And so I won't keep us here any longer with that. Also the question about has it happened before I'm happy to know that that's being looked into to determine that because that was some of the feedback that I got was around you know bonuses and how it was specific to the work around gas plant and then the question was well what about you know those moments when we have parks and rec and sanitation and storm teams doing cleanup after these events that we've been having? Do we consider them going above and beyond and then being able to give them some type of bonus or acknowledgement financially for their contribution other than cookies and a round of applause? And so if they're, and I'm hearing that it won't happen again, but that was what I wanted to introduce like if we're in the business of giving bonuses for people going above and beyond, then we have a lot of staff and a lot of departments that are deserving of those one-time payments who could really benefit because the other point of criticism and not that anybody did anything wrong was just the amount of the salaries of the people who received those bonuses and for somebody who was a lower wage to get a one-time bonus for born above and beyond would be more equitable as a part of that conversation. And so this is just points of feedback not to try to ride a dead horse because we don't beat things that have died. But really just being mindful of those things and considerations that I think the distribution and when you look at that top bottom, top down bottom up approach, it just, I mean, like I said, you see, and we know that the optics were bad, but I think the intentions were good. And so, you know, you've got to be mindful that you do good, it looks wrong. In this case, the opinion that it actually was wrong because we didn't follow the law, you know, we have to court correct it, make sure that we do better next time. So I would like to take you up on that invitation to learn more about the labor distribution process because I'm having some experiences with that now. And it is like a lot to try and wrap your head around. And so I'd like to follow up and see how I can better understand that and how that works. And also last, that's one to thank you for creating this space, addressing the elephant in the room and allowing us to be able to discuss this publicly in this format and this way. And I think that's commendable that you would open this space that way. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the rest of the team. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Floyd, did I miss you? Yeah, I'll go if that's okay. Thank you, Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. A lot of what's been said already is fine. I don't need to reiterate it. I just kind of wanted to get some clarification that it is possible to do one-time bonuses under state statute if our policy aligns correctly with it. That's correct. Okay, okay. And in the past, it used to be that city council would somehow have to be involved, but that state set you since been removed. It's been amended. Amended, sorry, yes. At the time of the age you were paying it in 2000, it read that it had to be by organising a resolution, the police plan, one time payments and things like that, but it was amended and so currently in 2024, that specific requirement is not in statute. Okay, great, thank you for that. And administration has no plans to do one time payments in the future. Yeah, I mean, I'll certainly, we'll have to have more conversations with the mayor. I mean, I'll certainly, you know, we'll have to have more conversations with the mayor. I mean, I think that based on the reaction, you know, there seems to be a strong reaction to the one-time payment. You know, we would certainly get back to you if we had any other thought about it, and we would have to modify our policy to do it. But in the near future, I would say no. Okay. to do it but in the near future I would say no. Okay I'm going down this right now to sort of piggyback on some of council member mountain nary's comments in that I think that if it was ever considered to do this again in the future it would have to be a public conversation that city council was involved in in setting up whatever policy happens. I don't know what that looks like right now. But I think it would have to involve a discussion with us and there's some public debate over it. And I would encourage you to either do that or to not do it at all. Yeah, and I think that that's the vibe that you've been giving off. So I just wanted to make it crystal clear that I first that I understood and second where I was coming from. But I think everybody else has said it. You know, it's because of the topic that it was done on and how controversial the topic that it was done for was, I really, you know, had an emotional reaction to it right away. But I think that, you know, if you step back and look, like trying to do right by your employees make sense, just didn't go down as smoothly as I'm sure you all would have hoped in this situation. So anyway, I think everybody is heart-honored enough, so I just wanted to put in my two cents. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Vice-Chick Erdison. Thank you, Madam Chair. Council member Floyd, I think at the very end there, I think you hit it on the head. I think it makes me sad that a mistake with such good intentions gets piled in because of where we are. I feel like, personally, where we are today as frankly a society that automatically a mistake gets racked so emotionally. And I think we all do it, right? And I just appreciated your comment, because I think everybody, or I think most people, had that reaction. And then you step back and you look at it whole listically and you think about the intention and the process. And you get some questions answered. And it becomes, OK, we just need to make sure this doesn't happen again. And so I think about just being on a team. This is really what this is, right? And a team makes a team. This is really what this is, right? And a teammate makes a mistake. And you either get past the mistake or the team never wins again. And I don't think that's the case here. And I appreciate all of my colleagues. I think the one thing I would just double down on, not to rehash is I think there are some instances and I think it's not just the gas plan. I think there are some instances that it is better to be overtly communicative rather than not. I am somebody personally who would rather get every single email and have to sit through that, sit through them or every single phone call, then get one less. But that's just me personally. It's not going to happen. And my needs aren't always going to get met. And so I appreciate all the discussion today and the questions from my colleagues. That being said, I just wanted to make one last comment, and jokingly I didn't go to law school. I'm sure that's probably the hardest thing you've ever done. This is the hardest thing you've ever done. It's gas, gas plant. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. All the, starting a business, dual-sport athlete, the time energy sacrifice made over the last seven to 12 months is the hardest thing I've ever done. I can't imagine our employees and what that time felt like. My appreciation for that is never ending and I will never forget it until the day I die. some of the public questions are staff from a work standpoint, an ethics morality standpoint, and let me tell you, and all jokes aside, if you've seen the movie Major League of all things, Serrano in the movie says, bring that stuff to me. My door is open. If you have questions about our staff, don't bring it to them, bring it to me. That's what I signed up for. I'm not going to have it. You're not going to question the integrity, the work ethic, and what they put in. And this is not for my colleagues. These are for people listening or Or if they decide to read the minutes which they probably won't You can bring it to me that's what we signed up for we signed up for that questioning With our staff didn't they get they get Assignments all day long and all they do is work their ass off to get it done. And so that has been my biggest frustration. The mistake is not the biggest frustration. I've made plenty of them throughout my life. And so my frustration is that the people that work really, really hard to make this an amazing place, a place that I hope my kids and my grandkids grow up in, that they get questioned. I'm just not going to have it. If you have a question, come knock on my door and I'll be happy to have that conversation with you. But otherwise, I'm very appreciative of all of you, including all of my colleagues, the work that's been done, that you guys continue to amaze me every single day, and it makes coming to this office so much such a joy of my life, and I'm just appreciative of all of you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I just have one more thing, and I wanted to mention, and I know that you mentioned it, our attorneys were not consulted, I want to make that clear because I've seen stuff on Facebook about our attorneys and our attorneys cannot protect any attorney cannot protect you if you don't consult them. That's as simple as I can get. You will not get protected. If you don't consult your attorney, and ask them the right questions, and that's the other thing. You consult, you have to actually ask the right questions, and they cannot protect you. There is no way, it's very easy to second guess. Well, they should have known this. There is no way that our attorneys can know everything that's happening in every department and whether every policy is up to date. There are subject matter experts. We do find that stuff all the time. You know gas be right and our professionals though gas be do I know I have no idea. I don't know what the accounting standards are I take other professionals that are subject matter experts on advice on that and I just I want to make it clear it is it is so easy to say well have a knee jerk reaction on something and say they should have known if you don't know you you can't do anything about it and so I want to make it clear we have our attorneys here. They weren't consulted and they didn't do anything wrong. And no one asked for this. No one else asked and their attorneys are not here, you know, also. But no one asked for the bonus and no one asked for this to happen and no one was consulted in our legal department. And that I do want to make clear. So thank you, Chair, for that extra opportunity. Thank you. So the wonderful thing about being Chair and speaking last is most of your colleagues, everything that you're going to say. But I do want to make it very clear of how appreciative everyone's contribution to what we contribute to the City of St. Petersburg means, especially to me, especially to those that have wanted and found St. Petersburg to be the place that they call home. So you're looking at the grander scheme of things. So I'm not going to go on and on about what my colleagues have said because it was something that happened. It was something that happened. And I haven't lost any additional sleep over it because of the immediate response from administration in rectifying or trying to minimize the effect of what this caused on our city. So you know, I've voiced my opinion on it. I appreciate everyone. And I say every time I go out and I share with constituents, we don't know what we don't know. And to, you know, echo what Council of the Manhattan was said, you don't know what you don't know. And policies, a lot of times, we don't know they are not up to date until they're tested. So this was a test. This was truly a test. And with that being said, I'm glad that we were all able to have the opportunity to have this conversation. I'm glad that we were all able to get our questions answered. I am hoping that moving from this point forward that as the residual impact of this minimizes that we do not lose focus of other issues in why we are really here. And I totally agree with the communication piece of it. I've said that a hundred times, communication is key. And being made aware of something that is so impactful, Vice Chair Gurders said this is one of the hardest things where he didn't have to chair through this process. Thank you. It's so, I said just hardest for me. It was, I know it was hardest for you, but chairing through this process and, you know, also being drug in the mud was something that I found out about the same time as everyone else. It was, you know, But then again, I knew that what they were saying was incorrect. So the statement that I made earlier was I didn't lose any sleep over it. But I just wish that there's a way that we can better improve our communication in regards to something of this magnitude. I'm not a micromanager. I don't want to know everything I don't, but I rather have more information than less and have the impact have that ripple effect. Impact everyone that really wasn't a part of the original conversation on that. But again, we are here. we're at the tail end of this. I'm prayerful. I'm looking forward to moving forward. I hope that everyone had the opportunity to ask their questions in the sunshine to get the answers that you needed to make the comments that you needed to make. And administration I don't think I'm gonna speak for Deborah but I really think I'm going to speak as chair. This was an opportunity and a conversation that was valuable and needed to be had. And I appreciate your willingness to want to have this conversation. And I thank you for that. And you know, Jackie and Janine and Natalie and T&D already know that they are like the bees' knees. We don't, we, we, we want to make sure that everyone understands, um, you know, how important and how respected you are in your positions and for what you contribute to the city of St. Petersburg. I don't ever want you to think because you know, if we have an issue, now you know this, but we'll tell you if we have an issue we will. Um, and't I don't want you to to even think that The things that you heard read Assumed or whatever came from any sentiments from our council members So please know that same thing for you guys administration all right, but to my colleagues. Thank you Every perspective every opinion every every request, every desire. You're here to represent, and I call this the fabulous eight. Right? We are the fabulous eight. And so I thank everyone for your input and for your feedback on this, and seeing that we have no further requests to speak. Let me go to my agenda. I think we are good. We didn't have anything else following that. So having no other further requests to speak I think today was an awesome day and I want to call today's committee of the whole adjourn. Thank you, everyone. you Thank you. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. Thank you.