Welcome to the public services and infrastructure committee meeting of August 8th, 2024. Can I please have a roll call? Hannah Woods. Here. Gratis. Here. Floyd. Here. Montenegro. Here. Big Sanders. Here. We have an agenda before you. I'll entertain a motion for approval. No approval. All in favor? All right. Okay, we have the minutes from the July 11th, 2024 PSI meeting. I'll entertain a motion for approval. I'll in favor. All right. Okay, everyone, welcome this morning. We are here today on a continued discussion regarding the preemption of major construction projects and contract requirements. Just to give a little background, we had a city council meeting back on July 11th, 2024. The legal department presented repeal of ordinances that we had passed based on state preemption, also a court order. And there was discussion at City Council based on that discussion and the need for further clarification. We have scheduled this PSI meeting at the request of the majority of City Council. So just to kind of give a background of what we're gonna to do here today and So everyone here understands we're going to first probably have legal speak kind of give us the procedural posture of the case Some of the history go through the preemption at the state level So there's two things you have a state preemption issue and then you have a court case so kind of review that and then if we can go into what the role of City Council is and what legal's position is and anything else obviously that you guys made add. We also have the building and construction trades here with us. They have contacted me and based on our discussions we are going to have someone from the building and construction trades by understanding is Brian Nathan is going to be speaking on behalf of everyone. So I'll give him some time after legal presents to kind of speak to legal and I mean to us and present your position on the issues and that allows council members to ask questions of legal and also any issues that you may present and then we can have this discussion. So with that being said, I will turn it over to legal. I don't know, Janine, I don't know if you're starting. I can. Or, or yeah, either whoever was gonna start. Yes, so I spoke with you all the city council regarding the preemption and House Bill 705 and that it was the legal department's determination that that bill did pre-op our disadvantage and apprenticeship ordinances based on the prohibition of requiring contractors and construction projects to hire, train, or recruit from a designated, restricted, or limited source. That information came to you a week before the actual court order that we received in Florida Gulf Coast chapter of associated builders and contractors versus the city of St. Petersburg, which Ken will talk about when I finish, but not shelling it preempting this advantage and apprenticeship ordinances and finding them unconstitutional and null void and stricken. So as we advise city council at that meeting because of that court order that administration was not doing anything to enforce the language in our ordinances regarding those ordinances. And since then, obviously at the time of the City Council meeting there is an evaluation going on. As to whether or not we would appeal the court order and I will hand that over to Ken to discuss. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, everybody. Good morning. Did talk about this at council a few weeks back and just to recap, there's a lawsuit that goes back. It's filed in 2019 by the Builders Trade Group, if you will, that the City Legal Department we have fought for the last five years. Ultimately, just to recap what happened, the trial judge here in St. Petersburg, the case dragged for a long time because there was a change in judges and COVID, we had an early stage of that, so the court system kind of ground a halt for a year. But ultimately, the judge here locally, after the summary judgment motions granted, summary judgment in favor of the city with a brief one page or, sorry, one sentence or two sentence order saying that the city prevailed. So that went up on appeal to the second DCA. There's been a change in civil procedure rules in Florida, which requires that the court, if they're going to grant a summary judgment, they have to have detailed findings. There was lengthy oral argument with the second DCA. They were very intrigued with the case for a number of reasons. One can never tell how a public court rule. Ultimately, they overturned the trial judge here locally and sent the case back on a procedural reason because the order was so brief and didn't have any findings. Now, I should note that the most interesting part of all this was the second DCA attached, a secondary order, which granted conditional attorneys fees to the plaintiff in this matter, which in all my years of doing this I've never seen, which was a signal to all of us as to what the court is signaling what they're going to do going forward, it was probably a signal to the trial judge also. Because then we had a second round of orders from the trial judge and she granted plaintiff's emotion, granting their summary judgment against the city with a lengthy 14 page order which goes into great detail talking about the Unconstitutionality of the ordinance structure and the fact that it's all preemptive. I would also add that this dubtails into what Ms. Williams was talking about in that the state has preempted these ordinances and I should also add that when the state preempted the city's ordinances they actually cited St. Petersburg and their footnotes is one of the reasons why they were doing so. So the order has found our ordinance structure to be stricken, null, void. There's nothing there going forward. There's no real way to enforce it at this point without getting some kind of injunction pending in appeal. And I can tell you to get a court to stay everything pending further proceedings. You have to be able to show a pretty strong likelihood of prevailing on the merits. I simply don't believe that here and I don't believe anybody in our legal department feels that way also. So we're in a situation where we have a legal case which is dead. We have the ordinances which have been preempted and we have a fee provision because fees have been granted in the other side in this case late Friday filed their motion to tax attorneys fees and costs and that is a matter that will have to be Lithuated going forward as to what the amount of that is Any move to continue legal action in this case will keep the clock running on the attorneys fees on the other side So that's what brings us to where we are here today. I can tell you that the consensus of the legal department, as we looked at all this and great depth, our recommendation is to not proceed any further on this matter. We've had discussions, we have the administration in this matter, and they are in agreement with us to not go any further with this matter. So that's where the legal case sits as we're here today. Okay, and thank you, Ken. And can you please discover a little bit on the notice of appeal, obviously the appeal period, the decision that's been made? And what City Council's role is because I think that's also important to kind of cover. Okay, I'll discuss the appeal period is 30 days. 30 days actually ran yesterday, according to the calendar, for when the city can actually appeal this matter. So that timeframe has already run in this matter. Okay. As far as city councils roll and all this maybe, Jean, maybe you can address that real quick. As far as the court making a decision, whether or not we can instruct you to file notice of appeal, obviously, administration made the decision. You had the discussion with administration. And so, Charter obviously has certain roles for city council versus administration and we can kind of go over that. Sure. With the settlement of cases, as in the other case, this case is no different as far as procedurally how it is being handled as far as the client for purposes of determining settlement being the administration because that is the role set aside for administration and the city charter is to direct us in those matters. The only thing that city council could have done is as Ken has just stated the appeal time period has run. So we're here today, the day after the 30 days has run for the appeal time period has run. So we're here today, the day after the 30 days has run for the appeal. The only thing, let's say it was today and you had a meeting today. The only thing you could have done was request of administration to file the notice of appeal. Right, okay. And then Tom, I don't know if you wanna add anything to what legal has said in terms of administration's position. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, committee members. A couple of things I think that I would like to share with this committee. Obviously, Mayor Welch and our administration is always focused on inclusive equity and progress, and especially with workforce development. I will also share that we're not happy about this either. You know, this is a situation where we had worked with this council and previous councils to design those ordinances. We were having impact with those and we were pleased with the impact and we reported annually on those ordinances. So we're in a similar place that we're disappointed that this has happened and that we, but in our final determination as we evaluated and consulted with Ms. Williams and Mr. McCullum, you know, we didn't see a path forward for how that we could have any success either through the legal challenge. And so our ultimate decision was not to proceed with appealing that decision. Okay, thank you. And now, Brian, if you wanna come up real quick and introduce yourself, wherever you feel comfortable. My name is Brian Nathan. of the global. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. The President. the local building and construction trades council. And I'm gonna speak on behalf of the ordinances today. I believe our attorney has reached out to your office for each so we go. Has he been in contact with you? Well, just why don't you address, yeah, this is not to question legal. And then if city council members later on want to follow up on some of the questions that you bring up. I apologize. Yeah, that's that's our legal attorney our labor attorney's reached out to City Legal repeatedly to talk about this. He provided us with a memo which I believe has been sent to all the council members. The date he provided for the notice to file an appeal was actually today. So I'll have to get with him and make sure that that's accurate because he was telling us that today was the deadline to file your notice. What he was saying and what we have seen is that the court didn't find fault with the decision as it was originally rendered. The decision itself, it was just the lack of an explanation. So what you guys did, what the council did, is perfectly within the bounds of law. What we also saw in that final summary judgment was that this judge said that these three ordinances were somehow inextricably pants. I'm unclear how they came of that decision, and I'd really like to find out why they're saying that, because apprenticeship ordinance does not reference the other two. As far as we're aware, those other two ordinances don't reference the apprenticeship. So this idea that they're inextricably linked, that if you remove one, the other two aren't effectual, we just don't see how that works. Also, the ABC didn't sue over those other two ordinances. They only sue the city over the apprenticeship ordinance. And I get that there is a preemption that's currently an effect. That only applies to local and state money. There is federal money coming to all corners of this country. We're asking that you leave them in place. When that money comes down, it may be the fact that these local ordinances would have an effect on requiring responsible wages, things of that nature. Currently, the fact that there are no void and stricken, they can remain on the books. And they are unenforceable. I mean, I'm not disputing that. But like I said, when Federal money comes down, you guys may be able to make use of them. And I would just ask that you defend your own ordinances. Like, this does good work. It does good work for your constituents. Again, this was brought by an outside group that didn't like what you guys were doing for working class people. My job, I guys were doing for working class people. My job, I get paid to defend working class people every day. When I saw what you guys did, and I didn't inspired other communities to do the same thing. Tampa specifically cited the work that you guys did in their ordinance, in the discussion around it. We saw what St. Pete did, so so we're gonna do it in Tampa. What I don't wanna see is that now these other communities see what's happened here, get scared, and preemptively just yank these ordinances back. I'd like to see you defend it. I know that comes with some hazard. As Council said, they attached a provision that you guys have to pay for the plaintiff. But these laws are already being challenged in court. Not this one in particular, but the governor's DEI law, that was challenged in court. It was found to be the court basically said, you can't enforce it, you can't use that law. Why can't there be a scenario in which this preemption law, the same fate would happen to that? Why would you just repeal? When we already see that the governor's laws, anti-worker laws are being repealed, are being sent back through the court system to send you the handguns. I'll leave it there. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Thank you, thank you, Brian. And I just wanna touch on a couple of things that you brought up before I turn it over to council members and the committee members. So legal, just, you know, let's have a little bit about the 30-day appeal period. Obviously, I wanna make sure that you receive what Florida Golf Coast Building and Construction Trades Council sent from their attorney that the city should follow and notice of appeal. And it is a three page document that was I believe you you all received it. We did. Okay. And so just let's cover a little bit the notice of appeal period and 30 days. My understanding is it's it's just straightforward within 30 days and it has to be appealed and the data of the order was July 8th. Was July 8th and July has 31 days? Which brings it to our set. August 7th. OK, so that's where the date comes in. And it just so happens that this was the first committee meeting that we can have it by chance. It had nothing to do with the dates. This was the first PSI meeting that was scheduled and it's the day after. So in terms of the court's order and what the role of courts is versus city council, the court has decided obviously that our ordinances were no void and stricken and preempted based on state law and unconstitutional. What is the power of city council when a court decides that on one of our ordinances? Really at that point it's done. The only thing you could do would be to continue to litigate to the next higher court. That's your only option at that point. Obviously, if there was some way to create some other kind of ordinance or law that people felt was legal based on what the state preemption laws were, that would, you'd have to start over from scratch at that point. OK. So you have the court role on it, and then you have the state preemption, which are two different things that happened around the same time. Correct. Okay, because it could be muddy for those that don't understand. We're not just dealing with the state preemption, but we also have the court making findings about our ordinances around the same time. In terms of the judges ruling, it was sent back from the Appellate courts for findings, okay, and can you please discuss real quickly the courts order the first time was one page correct this time what did the court do in terms of? Remitting the issue that the Appellate court had identified sure, so I mean, I want to show you go this The order that the court provided was an in-depth 14 page order, which addressed every issue within the case related to the ordinances, related to preemption, related to unconstitutionality based on state law. And I also believe that the court went very in depth with this. And when the court is in depth with these kinds of findings based on what the second ECA signaled to us at oral argument, coupled with the companion order related to fees, I've been doing this close to 30 years. I can read the writing on the wall as to what this is. And it's very in depth and very clear. It's no void and stricken. I don't know what else to say. This thing's over. So. Right. And I understand you said it before. But I'm trying to break it down because you all have been practicing for a very long time. And most people do not practice law. And so it's more difficult for others to kind of go through. That's why I'm trying to break it down a little bit. So we have an in-depth court order. Brian mentioned the four factor severability analysis and how the court touched upon that it's not severable. And just kind of explain why that was brought into this order. Okay, so I'm going to take you back a few years to a case out of Hillsborough County called Emerson versus Hillsborough County that I believe that related to sales tax issues. Hillsborough had a big problem with that. Ultimately the Florida Supreme Court in 2021 in the Emerson case found that when part of an award in the structure fails, the entire thing fails, there's no way to save any of it. That was the Emerson case, Lord of Supreme Court. The real eye opener, when it happened at the time, and in the pettency of the litigation in this case, the plaintiff, because it happened after this case was already going along, that became part of this case as it went along, which the court has taken into consideration in their ruling. So a part of your ordinance is preemptive or unconstitutional. The whole thing has to fail. So, that's what we're talking about with a severability. And, you know, we can quibble with the court as to whether we agree with that or we don't agree with that. But that's the ruling in this. And that's, it's relatively new case law in the state of Florida, but it's something that all municipalities and counties are gonna have to deal with going forward. Okay, and so the severability analysis was brought into this case and this order because case law requires such an analysis to occur by the court based on what the court was ruling on. That's correct. Okay. You got it. Okay, so I asked some questions just to kind of help move this along and with that being said, I see Councilmember Gabberd with her hand up. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, so thank you for that thorough analysis and discussion around the court case itself. I very clearly understand. We have had conversations as well. I get it, right? I don't like it. I don't want to be very clear. I'm not upset with anyone in this room. I'm very upset with Tallahassee, as I'm sure several of my colleagues are. Their continued lack of supporting everyday people who break their backs to build our communities is disgusting and has put us in this place. And I'm very upset about it. Administration, I understand. You're kind of between a rock and a hard place. I know you share in similar philosophy. I might have been a little more bold, but I'm not going to question you on what you decided. That is your prerogative. And I very much recognize the role of council at this time. I also appreciate the part that you just discussed Ken where part of it fails, all of it fails. I hear that. It was my hopes deep down inside not having that legal understanding that there would be some salvageable pieces here where we would not have to start over. Unfortunately, I respect your opinion and the job that you do for us. So I get it. We don't have a choice. We're gonna have to send the sub-stairs and repeal it and we knew that I think a month ago when we talked about it. But coming here today, what I was hoping for was a conversation to take us forward because it's not my nature to like dwell in where we are. My nature is to figure out how do we move something forward. That makes sense that we can protect people, that we can help people be able to do better for themselves and for us as a whole. I had some questions at the council meeting that I wanted to see if we could maybe start to answer a little bit today. If we can't, then I'd be happy to file a new business item first to bring this back as a separate conversation around potentially new ordinances. But my first question is in the bill, it states that there are certain exceptions. And you mentioned federal money. We have local money. Are there exceptions we believe around those two, take state money out of it? OK, I get it. Could we potentially have a conversation? Because I don't want to go down an exercise of utility. I kind of want to know today, if there's any band with it all, to have conversations around ordinances that pertain to federal and local dollars. I would first say that federal dollars that require those types of hiring, require a certain rage, we have to follow anyway. We're currently doing that with projects at the airport, which are largely federal dollars. They have DBE is what they call a disadvantage business enterprise programs and other types of programs. Davis Bacon prevailing wage, other requirements of federal money that we will always have to follow. That's our one. This particular statute does not allow for local only funding to be able to do these types of ordinances. A lot of people have been reading a provision in the bill to apply to the section that prohibits what we're doing, but it does not. It applies to the section only within which it is housed and that complete statute was provided to you guys not in this backup, but for the City Council meeting. So a lot of people have been reading the bill which only shows you what has been changed. It shows you the change in the definition of public works project. It shows you the additional language regarding local only funding, but you have to place that language within the existing statute to fully understand where that provision lies and what it applies to. So there is no local only money exception the prohibition against hiring, training, recruiting from a designated limited or restricted source. Okay, that was my next question. So, okay. And that's kind of that wording around being designated limited or restricted source. Okay, that was my next question. So, okay. And that's kind of that wording around being the sole source of funding. Right. That's the verbiage that you're referring to. Right. Okay. That was my next question. So, thank you for leading into that. Okay. So, my other question, and I kind of brought this up at City Council as well, just kind of the far reaching implications into a lot of our policies around this garbage. Our CBA, our CBA has a lot of kind of tied terminology as it pertains to the apprenticeship to subanage workers. So how does this affect our CBA? Our CBA is a little bit different because the CBA doesn't require a contractor to do something specific. It provides a plethora of different things that a contractor can choose from to satisfy the requirements of the CBA. So if there is some voluntary assumption of different things by contractor, whether that's negotiated in a community benefits agreement, is a totally separate situation than what we have before. So it's more of an incentive, if you will, for them to do this versus a mandate. It's a voluntary, I would even say incentive, because they don't, you know, they don't have to choose that to get the benefit. It could be other things, resiliency, and some other things that they choose to do. I would say it's a voluntary obligation at that point from the contractor. Okay. To select this specific benefit to the community. Right. Okay. Ryan, you mentioned that you were kind of looking for there to be like a higher challenge potentially to Houseball 705. You referenced other challenges that have been one. Are the trades looking at coming together and doing a challenge to this? Not aware I'm aware of at this time. Okay. You have a very large statewide organized group right? I'm not going to say it's not the table but I'm not aware of it at this point. Okay all right if you could keep us posted on that, that would likely not be a charge we would take up, but certainly as an individual, I would support you very much in moving forward with that. So please keep us posted on that. Okay, so I guess my last question, and then I'd love to hear kind of what my colleagues think about this is we've done a lot of things kind of over the past maybe years so I can think of city-owned land policy being one of them that are things that are very much within administrations wheelhouse but we pass a resolution in support of administration utilizing incentives and things like that. Is there a place where there could be some ability for us to create some incentives around utilization of these particular types of programs when it comes to the evaluation of our contracts that we could then do a resolution in support of and work with administration from the standpoint not of a mandate but of an encouragement to the contractor community to utilize apprenticeships disadvantaged workers. And before administration asks answers, I will tell you that with the court case preempting, saying that, and I'm gonna read it, so that we all, you know, it says that these ordinances impermissibly control limit or expand staffing and require recruitment training or hiring of employees from designated restricted or single source in major construction projects. And then it later goes on to say that it is preempted. So whether or not we can regulatory-wise provide an incentive program and an ordinance is something that we would have to do a deeper dive on. Okay. Not likely I'm gonna say, because of the court case, not the preemption and the law. The preemption and the law does not address incentive programs, but because we now have a court order saying that our ordinance was preempted by the scheme of apprentices in the state statute is basically what that means when they say that it's preempted. So we're not going to look closer at it. Okay. I'll follow up with you offline about it. And if I may, Madam Chair, I just want to add to that because Miss Williams pointed out in very, very good detail. But so for, and let me kind of make it a little more simple for my understanding and make sure I understand. But let's take a normal capital project that the city is running. Let's say we're going to construct a rec center. We could not issue an RFP for the services to construct that and include a requirement or even an incentive to address some of these issues. I don't believe. But conversely or going back to the previous conversation in the context of a public private partnership where there's a development plan with a CBA that those type of requirements, those type of, not required, so those type of incentives could be included. So I think that's kind of the way the administration is thinking about this is that we would look to public private partnerships to try to address some of the apprentice disadvantage and other things that we cannot require in our straight city funded or state and city funded or federal and state and city funded projects. And can you do that kind of makes sense? It is. It's an analogy that can't apply absolutely. Well, thank you all for your hard work and there's no new good. There's no good news today. That's where we are. So thank you chair. Thank you. And just on one of the questions that council member Gabbard asked you mentioned something in terms of whether we could do a resolution using incentives and you mentioned we now have a court order that our ordinance was preempted by the state statute which makes it more difficult. And I just want to kind of touch a little bit upon that. The effect of having a case litigated, right? Having a final ruling with findings, whether it's at the court level or at the appellate level, which ends up being case law, versus the case not existing or settling without those findings where it gives more wiggle room. So I just, I want to, if you can just kind of explain the effect of when you have a court order, and it could be either of you kind of talk a little bit about their, sometimes you want a resolution to something and you want a judge to the side, but sometimes it's not good if it comes against you. And the ruling is against you because now you have a court ruling that kind of says, well, this is what it is. And if you don't have a court ruling, then you have, it's a gray area. Sure, I can touch on that briefly. So anytime we have an ordinance or any kind of law that gets challenged and we take it up through the courts, we run the risk of a ruling which strengthens the state's hand on preemption and constitutionality. And that would be the situation in this particular matter if we pushed onto the appellate court, which is part of the analysis that was done in this. And I can cite examples that even came out of this very city where matters were taken up to higher courts, which ended up strengthening the state's hand on different matters. So litigation is always more than just the case that's right in front of you. You have to take the long view of the impact of what could happen. And I think that is somewhat what you're getting at here. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I just wanted some clarification because obviously that's what attorneys kind of look at when they're looking at their evaluation. But for outsiders who are not involved in it, sometimes it's better, well, I want the court to rule, but the downside of it sometimes is that, that you have a court ruling such as this or an appellate court ruling, which makes it more difficult. Statewide, not just here, Statewide. So it's just something to keep in mind. Share fake sanders. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Not all night we've had you, but we're on the same wavelength when it came to asking questions. And I do know, and thank you, Attorney McCullough, we talked yesterday briefly about this, and thank you, Brian, for coming forward. And my sentiments, exactly about the fact that we were doing really good work here in the City of St. Petersburg when it comes to ensuring that everyone that is here is heard and that we have incorporated policy to support our workers. There is a lesson learned from this, is that for the City of St. Petersburg, we've spoken about this and the need for this politically in a policy for years, for years, for years, lesson learned, and I don't know why we didn't accept the policy so that we could have benefited from it a lot So this and I think what was highlighted was The project that we just approved the dome I Think that also highlighted this because the need for us wanting to support You know our unions and in our hard work is to keep the city going. Did just not arise during the gas plant project. So we've lessen learned. Hopefully we all hear this lessen learned. We've been talking about this for years. This is not the first project that we've had for the city to say Petersburg. Is one of the largest, yes, but it's not the first. So Council member Gavrid also asked about the CBA. Thank you for that question. And when I talked to Attorney McCone yesterday, when I left the council meeting, I did not leave thinking that we were gearing up to the ball and a repeal. That's not what I left with. I left that we were wanting to refer this to PSI so that we can have a conversation because we already know there's nothing we can do. We understand that all the levels of government, all of that conversation is fantastic. But I think when we left, or when Deborah left, I understood that there was nothing further we can do. My hope was to have a conversation of what we could do, what a fallback plan looks like, how we can work around legally, some things that we can do as the city to assist our workers, to assist our local construction need to assist at home here. And it's, I don't know whether to say it's flattering. That St. Petersburg has been noted as, you know, thinking out of the box wanting to do more for our residents as to why we were targeted on this. I don't know, but I'm going to take it as a compliment because we are St. Pete and we look out for our own. And that was my intent for having this PS and I conversation is that we were going to have a conversation to discuss something that we can actually walk away with. If we have to start over, we'll start over, which is where the lesson learned come from, because we've been here. And it took us a long time to get here. But if there's a way that we could resurface what it is that we're trying to do, what we need to do, I understand the difference between the incentives and we can't, but even with the CBA, there's a threshold. You know, before any of those options are even available. So I was hoping that today's conversation will be what we could do not, excuse me, not an explanation of everything that already happened. We've already done that. We have, we've had that conversation. What could we move forward with as a city and as a council, with the partnership with administration to ensure we still pay Continue that focus and that commitment on our local workers. Thank you chair Okay, any comments? Okay Councilmember Floyd. Thank you. I just had something pop into my head So I'm gonna go off script a little bit. There was, you know, living wage provisions that got preempted as well, and they had a sunset in them. How does that sunset tie into any sort of living wage provisions we had? Does the court order nullify that situation as well? It does not. So what the court ordered it was only preempt the disadvantaged worker ordinance and the apprenticeship ordinance. Yeah, okay. Now we have to amend the prevailing wage ordinance as it applies to those ordinances which have been found unconstitutional and preempted. So we still have a living wage ordinance that is not affected currently. So there was a separate bill that basically says that in 2026 that goes away as well. So if anybody would want to file something about that, there's two years to do so. But at present, we would still be able to enforce that living wage order. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I understood that that is a separate conversation. Okay, there was something mentioned, severability, I guess, as where I'll start with. Have we had any analysis or consideration about what within the ordinance remains legal? And if that's an impactful item in the ordinance, I just wonder if there was reasons for it to be struck down, which I think were probably the core of the ordinance, I just didn't know what existed within the ordinance that was permissible still. And if that had been thought about at all. Well, the judge, I don't know if you want to handle this or not, but the judge did find that a whole thing. Bye. Okay. Baby in the bath water was found preempted in on constitution. Yeah, I'm not saying to like keep any parts of, to keep this ordinance, I'm talking about like if there was something in the future that we had in there that we could continue to have. And I know I understand, especially with the preemption, I understand that the requirements in general are preempted, but I just wasn't aware of what else if there's things in there that are different. What is in there that's different? And so. Not within the ordinance, because the ordinance just basically had a million requirement regarding construction contracts. But to council member Gabbard's point, we can take a look at if there is any possibility of doing anything else, say perhaps for disadvantaged workers, if the court found that the apprenticeship ordinance was preempted by the legislative scheme regarding apprentices, that doesn't necessarily apply to disadvantaged workers. I'm not saying that it can be done, but what we are willing to do in the legal department is take a look at it to see based on, you know, what is considered, whether it is preempted or likely to be preempted and we're certainly willing to do that work to see if there's something that can't be done. Okay, well you took me to where I was gonna go next as well to council member Gabbard's points. That was my exact direction of thinking. I was thinking about the CBA and was thinking about something else that I've been working on recently, which is after we got preempted in our ability to regulate the landlord-tenant relationship. I brought forward like discussion on a resolution, which has been moving forward, where we're asking administration to negotiate those things into the agreements when it comes to us funding them. This is an interesting situation because the apprenticeship ordinance only applies, only applied to things that we were funding. So whereas like the housing one, even though we may pass a resolution asking for that negotiation to be done, it's still only going to apply narrowly. This though, if we were to ask administration to negotiate this, would still apply to all of the same contracts. And so it seems a little more, I guess not expensive, but like a little more applicable than that. And so I was reading that and I'm picking up that legal is taking it this way as well. You know, it's, remove the word incentive, remove the word requirement. We're very clear in the ordinance we've drafted or in the resolution we've drafted on the housing one like this is strictly we're asking administration to do a Negotiation and just tell us how that negotiation went when they present as deals and I still saw that as a path forward simple path forward and Everyone is shaking their heads. So I'm gonna go ahead and say that we can continue to have that discussion. But there was that, and then I've also talked to some advocacy groups from the labor movement as well, about trying to expand upon the idea that's in our CBA where there's a slate of things you can choose from during the negotiations and all the opinions throughout the CBA process or advisory. So it's not a requirement. And seeing how we can say to contractors or not even specifically to this, but anyone we do business with like, here are things that we like to see happen. And I guess some of the ideas were like, and if all of, and if you can make some of these things happen, we can, I don't know, it's, I'm trying to think of how to say this. Maybe it makes it preferential for us to work with you, but not have it any kind of requirement, not require any specific thing that would be preempted. And so that idea is not as fleshed out, but I do see some opportunity to continue in a direction like the CBA has, or at least explore, continue a direction like that for broader projects. And so I don't believe that we're completely stopped from finding ways to strengthen our local apprentice workforce. But I see how they've thrown a wrench in the gears for this one. Let me make sure I have all my questions covered. Okay, so the one last thing I have and I don't know if legal can even speak to it or is there other ordinances around the state similar to this is you have any status on what other municipalities, county cities are thinking, or how they've moved, or if you've been in contact with them at all? I have. And just like you have a move, no one has moved. They're currently evaluating is what I get from most of the attorneys, from most of the offices, to see if there is anything else that can be done is basically what I'm hearing from other attorneys and other jurisdictions. Okay, all right. Not super helpful, but okay. Okay, well I'll leave it with talk trash about Tallahassee forever. It's fine. So I'll just, you all know my thoughts there. No, we don't. You want to hear them again? So I do think that there are some things that we can continue to do to not require, but facilitate good things happening in this respect because of our opportunities with contractual negotiations. And I think we continue to explore that. Sounds like everyone's, well, sounds like many people are interested. And I'll say directly to Councilmember Gabbard, like you brought it up first. If you want to take over that, like, I'll leave that to you. I think we've had a broad enough conversation. And yeah, I'd say very soon we're going actually I think maybe next week but don't quote me. The one I did on the housing stuff will come forward so you can look at that it might already be out for you to find. And I'll continue to look in other places as well but I'll leave that to you and then I do think we've got a little bit of a path forward to explore what we can do. I mean, when the apprenticeship ordinances happened, we had nothing on the books in this vein. And it took like work to figure out what we could legally move forward with. And I may be a little bit optimistic or naive here but you know I think that our creativity in the same way that created the apprenticeship boardman's can continue to sustain and build off of some of the things that we did there and some you know I'm not happy but I think there's a little bit of a place for us to be optimistic about still being able to accomplish some of this work in the future. I think, you know, it's a never-ending legal battle with Tallahassee as to cities and municipalities trying to do better for their population, their working people, and the state trying to stop us, and I don't think that this is going to be the end of that battle. So I think we'll just continue to be innovative and do the best we can going forward. So I'll leave it there. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member. Committee Vice Chair, Curtis. Thank you very much, Chair. I think my colleagues know I don't mince words. This just sucks. These are the meetings I just don't enjoy. I tell people all the time, nine days out of 10, this job is awesome. This is the 10th day. And so I just hope the next day, nine days out way today. Two quick things, frankly you stole half of what I was gonna say, Council member Floyd. That doesn't happen very often. And so I'm in complete support of a resolution, just like we did in housing. My expectation is administration's going to do it anyway. I think we saw them do it on the gas plant with frankly, without us asking, because it happened in between cow meetings. And so my expectation is they're going to do it. And I think I'm completely in support of a resolution asking them to do it. And frankly, I think the only thing really here that changes is that it's no longer an ordinance in the Onus is on us. For when contracts come before us, we're asking the questions on, is it included? If it is included, good job. Keep doing it. If it it is included, good job. Keep doing it. If it's not included, why? And then it's our decision on whether to approve that contract or not. And so I think really, we're taking it from being codified to now it's on us. Frankly, it was easier with it codified, because it just had to be there. Now you have to look us in the eyes and go, well, why the hell didn't you ask about it? Why isn't it in there? And so I think that becomes on us now. And again, I fully expect administration to do that because they've shown where their priorities lie. I do wanna ask one question because I think it's important to understand and let me just map this out real quickly. I think I heard you say Ken, and I'm sorry I missed your call yesterday, but I think I heard you say earlier that they have filed four fees currently. And so there is already a monetary consequence to this. that they have filed four fees currently. And so there is already a monetary consequence to this. That's correct. And so if we were to appeal, that would continue. Locking, genius. Lock continues. So can you kind of ballpark, let's say we were to lose that. Currently, we don't appeal clock stops right what does that look like monetarily today so we we we are at some risk of monetary consequence today and then could you give us an idea of what that looks like because I think it's important to understand sure of what that were to look like if we were to go forward. Sure. My, typically in cases of this nature when we're dealing with a pellet quartz, the law firms would do this kind of work at building out in the vicinity of $500. Oh, yeah. Okay. So you calculate the number hours. I look at the number hours that our office has put into this case, we're into the hundreds of hours on it over the last five years, hundreds and hundreds of hours, it would not be unreasonable for this to be in the mid six figures. As it stands now, if you pursue it further and then even up to the Florida Supreme Court, clock continues to run, firms that handle work in front of the Florida Supreme Court tend to charge even more. I'll give you an example of this office out of case that went to the Florida Supreme Court about a decade ago on a different kind of matter. I think before anybody in this body was serving at that time, but the total payout on fees in that case was a million dollars. So that's where this potentially could end up if you continue to litigate it. I think that answered your question. Yes, thank you. I just think it's important to understand, not because I'm not afraid of the number, but I think it's in context that's important that we at least know it. And so if this were a different situation, and I'll just quickly say, I appreciate the question about other municipalities, my big concern about that is I feel like we're in a different situation, and I'll just quickly say, I think I appreciate the question about other municipalities. My big concern about that is, I feel like we're in a different situation than the other municipalities because not only is it preempted, now we have a ruling. And those municipalities don't have both. And so I think if it were one, I might be willing because this is so important. And I hate bringing this up but I mean I my family was an integral part of this and continued to be an integral part of it. Even after my dad left city council this is what he did for the city and so they're like I feel like I have a lot of equity in this. And I think if we're one, I might be willing to go and do that. But I think where we are different is we're stacked on top of each other. And that's really kind of where my mind goes at this point. But again, just to kind of round this out and then I will yield. But totally in support of a resolution, again, my expectation is that administration is going to do it, but I think it's important for us to show our support and ask for that. And then again, I think it really is going to land on us as these contracts come before us that we're holding our partners, their feet to the fire. And Brian, I appreciate you being here and all the representation, you know, and again, I'll just go back to that, you know, this is the, for me, this is the, the 10, the night day out of 10. It's just no fun, because I want to do this, but I just think this situation, we're boxed in, and it's a terrible feeling. But I totally agree with Councilmember Floyd where I don't think this door is completely closed and we've just got to be innovative and we've got to find ways to get this done on our own without it being preempted and against this ruling. We've got to find our narrow path through to get this done. So that's where I'm at. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. And you know, committee vice here, Gerdas, mentioned, obviously the concern on the fee front, but I want to again, emphasize the procedure posture of the case. And if you proceed further based on how the appellate court had ruled, it could go even further south. And when I, and when I say that is a courts ruling in our district, is in our district. If it goes to the appellate court, the appellate courts ruling that is within our area is binding within that area. And if you continue further and it goes to a Florida Supreme Court, a Florida Supreme Court, a Florida Supreme Court's ruling is binding throughout the whole state. So right now, it's just at the trial level. And given what we've heard from our attorneys and correct me if I'm wrong from what has been going on in the case, This is not a good place to be in a good case to go forward on based on all the facts surrounding it and the courts ruling and what the how the appellate court send it back. So the point is it could actually get worse not just for us but for every other municipality and our state, and I just, I wanna make that very clear, because I don't think that I don't want it to get lost. There's that fee portion of it, but there's also the analysis that you have to make of your case itself and how far it goes and how far binding it goes to others. And so I think that's extremely important. And am I correct with that? You are correct, but we're discussing it. Absolutely. OK, and I just want to, you know, right now there are other municipalities. No one likes preemption. No one. Except I was going to say, except how I have to see. But when I say no, when I was gonna say except Tallahassee. But when I say no and I was talking about the local municipalities and the people. But yeah, obviously Tallahassee is very in favor of preemption right now, but at some point believe it or not, they believed in home role. And at some point maybe that changes and you have the swing that goes the other way again back to home role, you don't know that. But having said that, I think what we have, at least what I'm getting from a lot of council members is that we have a majority here obviously that wants to find some path forward. This isn't the only council that has worked on this. I want to mention other councils. I think committee vice-sharigard, as mentioned, that has worked on this. I want to mention other councils. I think committee vice-shierger, as mentioned, his dad worked on this. There are other, by the way, elected officials that worked on this. This isn't the only administration that has worked on it. There was another administration that worked on it. The attorneys, you may have been working on this the whole time. But you know, there are, and our legal department, I have to say, But you know there are in an ugly equal department I have to say they are always trying to find ways where we could do stuff on all our issues And even they mentioned it again today But everyone's in a while they have to have a hard conversation with us and you know in those hard conversations happen I can tell you when they happen I'm sure council council members are agreed. They typically happen after preemption and after a court case ruling, those are some of the hardest conversations they have with us. And here we have both. And those weren't fun conversations. So not to belabor it, even though there have been roadblocks thrown by Tallahassee and obviously the courts pertaining to this, I know that everyone here is going to work to find innovative ways, including administration. And frankly, there is talk of resolution, which is fine. But honestly, I do believe that administration with or without a resolution, that's how much faith I have in terms of them caring about this because I know they were not happy about this because they also worked on this. And they did, by the way, change to your point council member, Curtis, they did change the contracts in the historic gas plant to make sure it was done properly, so it'd be binding. And I think that's important. And as you all know, I do care about the contractual language very much. And I was happy to see that they changed that and they proactively changed that, which took a lot of work, by the way. So having said that, I see that Chair Fick Sanders wants to say something. I have a quick question. Yeah. And in following the California response comment, because I too know that there is a path forward in this. And sitting on a lot of evaluation committees when we are funding as the city. We do ask some of the checklist questions, give extra incentives for meeting a certain requirement. Just moving forward literally with that being something that we can do in the vein of ensuring certain projects have what's considered disordant workers or a certain classification that need an extra focus on particular projects that are funded by the city. We're no cool. And that's the part I said that may be not likely, but we are certainly willing to look at it. But because the preemption language says that you're prohibited from requiring something, if you're using that as a stock voter factor. No, no, no. Just giving extra points. You don't have to, but just giving extra points. Understood. A preference if you will. But since the court ruling is that the apprenticeship scheme in the state statute pre-empts us altogether, which is basically what the court said, then it may not be that we can even do incentive, but we haven't taken a look at that legally, so I would want to take a deeper dive on it before giving you the hard-known, but it's less likely because of the type of preemption language that was used with the apprentice side of it. On the disadvantage worker side of it, we'll take a look at it. Okay. Now for the CBA, I know we have the three tiers in the CBA, and I know that the current version that we're working on now did not include everything that we have been working on, up until that point. What would be the consideration, and I don't know if this may be an administration question, going back to the review of the CBA, what was initially proposed from our labor force as to where we are now, to see what we could legally now incorporate into the CBA because without that CBA, a lot of those benefits from the gas plant project we would not have had. It would not have the CBA. So I'm hoping that I'm strong support of the Reservation, strong support and the new business items coming forward. But then I'm also hoping that possibly we can review the current version of the CBA to see where we can add some of those additional things that we can no longer that we're preempted from, that we can look at language in our CBA to update that policy as well. Well, we would welcome that conversation to, you know, and I'm thinking back to an earlier committee meeting on the FAR bonus, you know, we made the affordable housing kind of the first check box on that for a developer to consider. You know, so we would be open to a conversation of prioritizing benefits within the CBA. So I think we would be welcome, we would welcome that conversation and discussion. Okay, so I know moving forward we spoke about a resolution, we spoke about new business items. And I don't know if it can be decided here today if we're going to bring back, keep it on, you know, the referral list here. What's going on with that? But I would still like to talk about an outside option and I'll talk to you separately about the CBA and moving forward with that so I'm not sure what that looks like but I'll touch the screen on that one. Okay thank you Chair. Yeah and I have no problem leaving it just all depends on what committee members obviously want going forward and if there is other items but you know it seems like a discussion seems like appropriate at this stage because there is really no other action item right now except the discussion so council member Gabard. So just to kind of round out this discussion I was going to speak to the referral list and our process moving forward very clearly the item that's on the referral list work. It's done. We move it upstairs. It is what it is. We'll repeal our ordinances. But I would commit to my colleagues to see this through to bring this back as a another new business item once it's ready after work with legal administration and our friends and the labor world so that we can come up with something, be it a resolution, be it some conversation around what we can do. As far as the CBA, we have a joint meeting already on the referral list for a count in the future. And so administration, are you planning on at that meeting bringing forward some additional changes to the CBA? And maybe that could just be included in that conversation? Because I don't want what we're doing here with potentially a resolution or whatever it's gonna look like to kind of then start to bring in the CBA. Because to me that's way too complex. I kind of then start to bring in the CBA. Because to me that's way too complex. I kind of think we need to bifurcate those, but we already have that in the referral list. So quite candidly, I'd have to check with Mr. Corbitt and Mr. Caper, because I'm not exactly sure what is on that. And I can certainly coordinate with them quickly and report back. I mean to me that seems like a cleaner path forward with the CBA portion of it. Leave that to administration and the chair to kind of coordinate what that looks like. But then we can work and be more than happy to bring forward a new business item when it's ready for it to come back to this committee and have a conversation. Oh, kind of resolution or something something else maybe that creatively we come up with what we can do. Okay sounds good. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Montenegro. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to say just a few, just a couple things. I've been consistent on this since this came before City Council earlier in my first term. And still, I've got a different point of view on all of this stuff. And my views haven't changed. I did want to just thank you, Madam Chair, and thank our attorneys for the way that you brought up this discussion and kind of brought it down to a level that lay people that aren't attorneys can kind of walk through and understand both the legislation that passed and then the court case and some of the implications that we need to consider going forward. My only question to Jenine is do we need to take action today in the form of a motion to take it back upstairs? You don't have to make a motion if we will bring it back as a legal item based on the conversation here today. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. And then in terms of leaving for the committee members, you know, I'm open to how you want to handle whether leaving this as on a referral list or bringing on a different item whoever wants. So you know, committee members, what are your thoughts on that? Well, you guys are on the committee. Yes, I want to make sure that they're attending, but you guys are committee members and I want to just test the committee before I say something. I guess if well, Councilmember Gabbard is going to have a new business item. Right. So I mean, I'm fine with just leaving it to the new business side. Okay. That's what I want to ask. Yeah. Yeah. I would say if I was gonna bring anything else forward, I would do a new business side. Okay. Yeah, because it still needs to be delved into. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that way it's a fresh item. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to input from the committee. Okay, so it's not on the referral list. So as of right now, yeah, based on our discussion, we've kind of exhausted this part of the discussion. And I think the next part will be some action item. And another council member is going to bring something up based on our discussions and see what path forward we have to find a way to support our workers in our city. That's where we're at. We're trying to find ways around the roadblocks. OK. And with that said, meeting is adjourned. If there's no more business, thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. you you