good morning good morning if everyone would be seated I would be so appreciative I'd like to welcome you all to our big c meeting today is March 27th we will begin and we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance would you all stand with that we will start with uh mayor Queen and if you'd like to introduce yourself and then we'll go around the room for have to have everybody introduce themselves Bill Queen mayor of North Reon Beach also if we would please keep in mind Jim rosc he had a operation and he's out of the hospital but he's recovering thank you thank you your name yes ma'am and I'm sorry my name is Pat plasco and I'm executive director with keep pelis beautiful thank you good morning everybody Gina Johnson Waterfront realy Tim Johnson Waterfront realy and Tampa Bay Beach's board of directors Lindsay cross state representative district 60 good morning Kimberly burfield state representative district 58 which way you fine John fan steel Indian Rock speech part of a large group against the invasion of short-term rentals into our once peaceful neighborhoods hi Mary Wilkerson Indian Rocks Beach uh business owner vacation rental Beach owner as well as resident Harbor Drive North in Indian Rocks thanks Jerry Newton Indian Rocks Beach John Bigalow City Commissioner the Indian Rocks speach Janet Wilson City Commissioner the Indian Rocks Beach mayor elect the Indian Rocks Beach Patty Catz Indian Rocks speech Susie Sofer commissioner city of Beller Bluffs Stan Sofer b beach xxi management and Dian the shear mayor elect of Indian Shores good morning Larry Shear fire commissioner pela Sun Coast fire and rescue districts Frank elre readingon Beach resident morning Nigel Duff Premier Hotel Corporation and Tampa by be's chamber commas Bob Schmidt retired mayor Beller Shore good morning Charlie Justice pelis County Commission John doctor vice mayor Treasure Island hi good morning Wendy hullick SE Turtle nesting manager for clawater aquarium Amy tuos s keyy Mark orm Daily autism.com resident seminal Florida good morning dorine Moore member of the tourist Development Council uh TRS total realy and travel Resort Services vacation reyolds and a resident here in madira Beach good morning every good morning everyone Rich carello vice mayor the town of Readington Beach good morning Mike Howard um council member elect Indian Shores good morning Mike mclin Town Administrator Readington Shores Christy herig resident Readington Shores good morning Margaret Cary town clerk Readington Shores good morning CJ Hoy town of Readington Shores commissioner good morning Sam Jenkins spc's Institute for strategic policy Solutions Adriana nees on the town clerk for the town of Readington Beach Lauren Cornish city clerk of Indian Rocks Beach hendrik beiz Treasure Island Sea properties a Andre Treasure Island sees Sal properties oh hi Mitch Perry reporter good morning Barry ruin treasure al mad Beach Chamber of Commerce CEO and president Christa Ray Waterfront realy good morning Mike Ray Waterfront realy trash Collins social media influencer and Readington North Readington Beach resident n Raider North rington Beach resident Clint Bel fire chief mad Beach Fire Department Teresa gasi Readington Beach resident Peg Shannon madir Beach resident Tony stillo Aid to commissioner Janet long good morning Jeffrey DAV fire chief for Panella sunos fire and rescue District Ashley Wilson legislative aid for Senator desley good morning Senator Nick desle district 18 good morning Robin Miller Beach Business influencer Tampa Bay Beach's chamber morning Gilbert Boulevard general manager of the Hotels zor St Beach Megan Powers assistant to the city manager of city of Mader Beach good morning Robin Gomez city of Mader Beach I absolutely no responsibility here this morning thank you all for visiting madira Beach welcome thank you thank you good morning I'm Lena tsha councilwoman of H Clearwater Florida Tyler Payne mayor of Treasure [Music] Island Ray Kerr vice mayor madira Beach sitting in for Jim rosc mayor mayor cookie Kennedy city of Indian Rocks Beach David will mayor Readington Beach good morning Rich Loren and vice mayor St Pete Beach good morning Daniel story vice mayor Beller Shore filling in for Steve Dave gtis mayor of Beller Beach Lisa Hendrickson mayor Readington Shores with that we'll move on to agenda item number three are there any changes to the agenda and approval move to approve second Lauren did you get the approval and the second thank you all in favor I thank you uh at this time would our one of our great Mayors Robert Schmidt no better known as Bob come up forward please Bob I want to thank you for your service to the city of Belair Shore and your friendship and kindness to all of the commission we've all worked with you for many many years we got you this plaque because you're retiring and it says you have done above and beyond uh and thank you for being a dedicated leader and contributing your time and energy to make the beaches the best place in the world to live from 2006 to 2023 the Barrier Island governmental Council I would just like to take a minute to thank everybody uh over the years in the town of bers shore as well as the uh big sea and the beach communities I've served on a lot of different boards and over the years and um the one thing with the Big C everybody seems to agree what the objectives are and focuses on the job at hand there I've never seen anybody here over the years arguing about anything everybody's got the same objective and I want to thank you again and uh my game plan of course is to stay involved uh as much as I can and Civic communities and thank you okay our next agenda item is the approval of the minutes move to approve second the approval was from mayor queen and the second was from mayor uh David Wills gtis okay all in favor I thank you move our next item is the approval of the February 2024 treasuries report all right we had an opening balance of $967 51 there were two dispersements one to digital e for $99.50 the other to pisanka trophy for $210 leaving us with a balance of $748 And1 thank you and is there a move for approval second all in favor I thank you motion carries we will now move on correspondence which uh mayor Wills talked about the digital eel and the banka uh invoices with that we'll move on to new business and we will have our presentation with uh keep America beautiful keep pinelis beautiful well in America come on right one at a time yeah we'll start herey you you you you just gave me a great intruction uh for my introduction good morning everyone good morning good morning everyone I hate having my back to everyone I wish I could spin around this full time but I'll get dizzy my name is Pat plasco and I am the executive director of your local keep America beautiful affiliate keep pelis beautiful um you can change slides okay um keep pelis beautiful our mission um is to conserve and beautify the natural environment by by means of education and Community engagement um you know but we're more than that what we are is we're a group of people that wants to get a group of people together to help preserve the beauty and and health of our of our natural environment here in pelis County we just happen to be one of um almost a thousand Affiliates in the United States and one of 50 in Florida and I might add one of the best but I'm not just saying that um let me see next next slide oh you know when I took over the organization in 2015 I was trying to come up with a way to describe what we do you know very easily but basically what we do is we educate we engage and we Empower we educate residents on the re relevant ecological issues and how our in our how we impact uh the environment and the economic health of our communities we engage citizens through our community Improvement initiatives as part of a sustainable solution to keep penel beautiful for generations to come and the most important thing is we Empower Community participants to become environmental stewards and volunteer leaders next our uh programs or areas of programs and services involve our education programs our education initiatives um provide free presentations visual or in person to schools businesses and Civic organizations to share our impact on the environment and offer ways to help us keep pelis and our world beautiful and we tailor each presentation to meet the needs of the group our student involvement has grown d uh dramatically in the last couple of years encourages pelis County Youth to get involved with the environment we offer bright future hours and community service hours to middle and high school students through through our volun tees program we train the next generation of environmental professionals through our College internship program and we bring students together with our Vis our youth advisory Council to help design and to help youth-led conservation initiatives in the community and at school we also offer an environmental leadership online course and now that Co is over we're back to to normal again and we're back to our environmental workshops and it's a two week Workshop where high school students well one it's two sessions um where high school students get to come and they spend one week totally immersed in the environment and they walk out of that leadership um workshop with the ability to lead on their own and that's the way that we started our um our high school chapters we now have uh 14 High School chapters within penel County and they are student-led programs um that that uh partner or piggyback on an a service Club in the high schools and we offer to go in there and do training and to offer them unlimited community service hours and and also leadership opportunities um our adopto mile program our our adopt mile program is a partnership between keep penel beautiful pelis County and residents this is a free program and it involves participants who adopt an area of pellis County and receive the training materials necessary to host their own cleanups each adoption group holds a minimum of four to six projects per year we have adopt a mile adopt a Shore adopt a trail adopt a community adopt an Al Alleyway don't stand still too long because you'll get adopted but the whole concept behind that is that if if people make a commitment if they sign that document it's only a two-year plan but they sign that document and they're committed to do what they're asked to do for two years and that that's a really uh a neat way to develop relationships and work directly with the with the um the public um we have our community Improvement initiatives and our community Improvement um programs engage residents to create positive change and a lasting impact we work with Community leaders and interested parties such as churches schools and businesses to organize projects throughout panel's County these Community projects include cleanups Flor to Native species planting and Gardens building raised beds tree plantings invasive species removals mulching planting planting graffiti removal and even constructing picnic tables our beautification and Community Greening consists of our um our County's green um excuse me consists on improving our County's green spaces and P and preserving Florida's native ecosystem we also work on Beach refurbishment and planting we'll talk about that a little bit later um our annual events H we're in the middle of this right now this this is the Great American cleanup this is keep America beautiful's Signature event where we engage approximately 10 6 to 10,000 Volunteers in community Pro program initiatives and I know that the city of madira beach um has been partnering with us for years on this in fact they even award give an award every year for for the best uh best volunteers so it's very much appreciated um we also have oh that's by the way that goes from March 1st through June 3D 30th um the other the other large annual event we have every year is the um is the international Coastal cleanup and that's where we partner with the ocean conservancy and we provide um science-based uh or citizen scientist activities where people actually count and the number and type of trash that they're picking up so this goes into not only our records but goes and helps um internationally with the ocean conservancy and to understand amount of trash and the types of trash that we have um that's a great another great program you know we grow we grew so big in such a short amount of time um we started out with three staff we now have nine uh we're interviewing for our 10th and we're very grateful to for the support of our city but our cities but also because of pelis County pelis County um is a very is our major supporter for this for our organization uh but as we're growing you know we're we're we're always looking for additional funds so that's why we do fundraising and we also do um uh contracts with cities but we can talk about that more later the um the ambassador program involves uh side Captain ambassadors so we train individuals to lead our events so we can't be there with only nine staff we have someone that knows that has done this before we go out they have the proper training and they can lead it um we have education ambassadors where they can help us with educational presentations and they can also do Outreach we have micr Plastics ambassadors and the microplastics um is is a program that we have in partnership with University of Florida where where we're collecting water samples throughout the county and we're analyzing these water s samples and Counting the amount of microplastics we find in the samples and reporting that that in um let me see we have beautification ambassadors so the the reason we started with started with these programs is just to give us an extra hand and actually utilize the leaders that we have in the community because there's so many people that want to get involved with us and they have the talents so we bring them on board to help us um we have a a Hospitality Eco partnership program you know we do a great job educating in the schools and educating the community but we don't we didn't have a a um a touch point to the visitors in our community so we started this eco eco hos Hospitality Eco partnership program where we're partnering with hotels and restaurants and teaching the staff um what are the proper things to do and how to care for the environment so they can share it with their with their guests we also provide activities for them they can adopt an area they can adopt a beach in front of their property or or road in front of in front of their um their hotel or restaurant um just to get them involved and and and develop team uh team spirit and and team building events for the for themselves um and the last program we have is our I want to share about actually it's not the last we have many more in here but these are our main ones um is our litter hotline and our litter hotline is really neat because it empowers every citizen in the county to call us when they see illegal dumping and this is something that I would love for you all to write that number down 72721 04 663 um and let let your community members know that if they see illegal dumping if they see excessive trash they can call that number and within 24 hours of the of the answered call so that means if it comes in on on a Saturday we're not going to pick it up until Monday but on a weekday um we will respond to them and the the trash will be removed um that's a really neat program to have and um um and it really does give the power back to the residents to help control next slide please okay here's the Big C um recap these are the beaches um that we've worked on the ones that we did events in 2023 and in the back on the table I put a stack of our annual reports and that will go through de in detail more of what I'm talking about today but in Belair Beach we we did 22 events we engaged 167 volunteers removed 1,994 pounds of trash we completed um 242 volunteer hours and saved that city7 $247.9 um Bella Shores we weren't in last year Clare watera Beach um again this was 194 events I mean you guys can read this I don't need to go through this individually but just to for you to see each one of the things and how we record everywhere we are we record um what we do so the data is kept and we're able to report on on what we're doing in in that area next slide please okay okay our impact in 2023 that was city-wise this is County wise we did 1,294 Community Improvement projects we removed um over 167,000 pounds of litter we planted 3,537 trees and plants native trees and plants within the county we removed over 78,000 invasive vegetation throughout the county next slide please our impact also includes we provided 641 educational presentations uh we we participated in 17 Outreach events and 27,32 three individuals were educated next slide please but you know what what I'm really excited about and we're back to normal numbers again because we were building up again after covid we engaged 20 , 89 residents or community members here in penel County to participate in our events and it's really neat and the reason why it's so important and and keep pelis beautiful came about because of keep America beautiful and the whole philosophy behind keep America beautiful is that everyone takes responsibility for the places they call home so if we provide the individuals with the tools to do so then then most likely they love where they live they want to and then and the in the community that are underserved and that need that little oomph we get in there and we work with those communities community members and we build a sense of community by creating a beautiful space and having the members come together and see that work on it and see what they've created and that kind of just develops more friendships more um and and and actually feeling like this is my home too next slide please okay our total impact when we multiply and this is last year's numbers not this year's number numbers when we multiply 2543 by the volunteer hours we see that we save taxpayers one over 1,500,000 of Labor in community proven projects so it's a great selling point I mean as far as I know for the county uh because we can see how much money we save them but what's more important to us and to me anyway is the amount that we did and the amount amount of volunteers that have participated and worked with with us next slide please okay these are our projects these are future projects and Beach plantings and we've been contacting a number of beaches um we have a um a grant from surfing Evolution preservation foundation for sea o plantings and we have a couple of uh beaches on board right now couple of the beach communities on board and but we we'd like to have some more they're providing us the funding to um to so that we can purchase Sea Oats and not only seot but other plants to help and I know that a number of the beaches have been refurbished lately you know with the sand and that you might need plants please reach out to us and call us um if you'd like that next slide please um the other projects and as I mentioned this was great American cleanup and these are the different activities that we do um every year on March March 1 you before March 1st you all get the invitations from me to come to this event the leaders against litter it's a center picture there and what we do is we have we invite the leaders of our Community to come out to Gandy Beach and and commission of justice is always there reading the pre uh Proclamation and and always saying some wonderful things about our organization and and cheering people on for being out there um we want that we want the every all the leaders to see how bad it really is in some areas you know and we clean this up on it we clean up Gandy on a weekly basis we're there every single weekend averaging 500 pound of trash per weekend so we were excited there I was saying at the at the um at the leaders against litter March 1st this year that when I was looking at the data I was seeing a decrease in the amount of litter um but it's back up again unfortunately but anyway um we do the cleanups and there's just wonderful things that are going on in beautification projects during the Great American cleanup next slide please um our other future projects are also water-based projects we also take out kayaks and canoes and we get out there and clean the mangroves and areas that are hard to reach next slide please okay if you're interested in finding out or if you want to share information with anyone you can look at the um look at our website under ongoing events and we have a listing of them there's a constant list going on because that's how how how much our reach has has has how many people we've touched because these people are calling us and asking us to put these projects together and do these different projects so you can check on our website um under ongoing events or you just call the office and we can talk to Megan Jackson She's our program coordinator next slide please so what can you do all right the first thing I mentioned and I mentioned it before about the litter hotline ke pelis beautiful has a litter hotline again it's 727 210 4663 um where you can call us and Report IL legal dumping or excessive trash on public lands you can join us and I know a majority we have I think 17 of 24 cities as me as City members of ke panel's beautiful and thank you so much to the cities that have joined us and we also want you to tell us about your community needs and let's schedule a project uh one of the neat things that we've done to able to build our staff and build our impact is contract with individual cities and we have contracts so far with the city of um St Petersburg the city of Clearwater and the City of Largo so that's additional funding they're giving because under our our County contract we're we're being supported for unincorporated areas now nowhere did you hear in my presentation that I talked about any lines between because I don't see the lines we don't see the lines trash is trash litter is litter when there's a need we get out there and do it so we would love to you know when you're doing your budgeting this year consider um sitting down with us and talking about supporting our organization a little bo maybe maybe even bringing in adop option program to your community our adopter road program our adopter mile program is only on County Roads so if you'd like one for your communities we would be glad to come in and and set one up so um next slide please so I want to thank everyone for for uh for listening to me here and I want you to know that I'm I'm so so excited to be here and so excited to share what we do and I want to thank you all for for participating and for helping us in the future you know helping us in the past to be to grow as big as we have and for supporting our initiatives thank you so much thank you are there any questions for Pat from the board hearing none thank you Pat thank you for coming today thank you with this at the uh this time I'd like to bring up Mark Orwin if he'd like to come Mark has a daily podcast it is called daily autism and uh Mark has five children uh his youngest son Cal is autistic I met a cal I mean I met Mark in class at SPC and I basically fell in love with his project that he's doing about autism uh I'm going to ask all of you our 11 Representatives here to to take a stronger part in autism as we move along and with that I'd like to introduce you to mark thank you mayor to all people here in madira Beach I gotta adjust this uh thank you all I appreciate this uh opportunity I'll make this uh as quick as possible here uh my youngest son Cal was diagnosed with autism three years ago he's six now and I started daily autism.com to really connect families of the community um really an underserved uh community and primarily by our own choices this happens and we tend to feel confusion embarrassment but I really do believe we are in the midst of an epidemic and it may be silent right now but it is going to Roar throughout our communities very soon and I'll give you some background on the epidemic itself the autism rape uh prevalence 2014 was one in 168 in 2018 it was 1 in 54 and here we are now one in 36 children diagnosed with autism Florida has the fourth highest rate of a ISM in the country a prevalence rate of over 4% but to bring that home a little bit to the 11 municipalities here population 147,50 196 if we strike that against the 1 in 36 diagnosis that's 4,100 individuals amongst the population here 4,100 but it's not just the kids who were diagnosed it's the family members two parents four grandparents two aunts two uncles two cousins two neighbors couple of co-workers a teacher three family friends and all of a sudden we're at 9,198 people who were impacted ad in the diagnosed kids we're at 94299 over half of that original population number a lot of people ask how is a family impacted what does it mean to be impacted by autism divorce rates are higher job loss is higher many of these kids need 247 care my son needs 24/7 care higher cost $2.5 million on average to raise a child with autism Medical Treatments special education therapies caregiving resources and safety measures also health issues for the parents anxiety depression stress related conditions all very common in the special needs Community take all that into consideration and we've got a big problem here water it is the best friend and the biggest enemy to autistic kids it is the number one way that autistic kids die it's also one of the our greatest assets here it's why many people move here Florida leads the country in childhood drownings there were nearly a hundred last year and nearly all fatal drownings are result of wandering eloping and becoming missing from a caregiver now the term aing with autism it sounds different we think of aing we think of getting together maybe you go to Las Vegas and aope but with kids with autism they alope towards the water so they run from their caregivers they run towards the water and experts would tell you these kids love water my son loves water it gives them both a sensory regulation and excitement so they're getting comfortable and they're also getting excitement that's why they seek it that's why they run towards it children with autism are 160 times more likely to drown than their neurotypical peers and 50% of children with autism wander they don't just wander they run they turn into cheetah and they take off for the water so I came up with a couple of initiatives just to because I think would really benefit our community as a whole and the one is a wearable QR technology just like this it's a sticker it goes on the back of a shirt the child has no idea that they're wearing it that's important because these children have sensory issues they don't like to wear things uh sometimes bracelets and scanners and things like that upset them I created this a couple years ago we were going to a raise game and I was terrified because I didn't know what my son would do in this in this large crowd when these kids become lost when they elope you will notice them it does look different they're not going to jog towards the water like they're practicing for a 5k they're going to run erratically so if a citizen sees us they can scan the QR code a video message comes up on the screen the citizen screen with instructions of how to handle this what to tell the dispatch the sheriff's office here has a mental health unit it's so improve time in getting a mental health unit to that scene instead of deputies having to get to the scene and then determining that this could be an autistic person the wearable QR technology um is cheap these are stickers something that could be available at a city hall for big events Fireworks shows or even a beach day the second initiative is a citizen drone activation system there are over a million drones in this country and over 300,000 licensed Pilots our picturesque setting we have a lot of drones I see them all the time in the air a child goes missing somebody calls 911 police respond they eventually get a drone in the air sometimes a helicopter but if we could have local drone pilots on a network to get a text and an email of the last coordinates of a missing child we could get more drones in the air we could cover more miles in the air I think that's something that we should really consider doing very cost effective and it could save lives the more area we can cover when these kids run into mangroves into canals between struct the better opportunity we can to save these kids finally uh we conducted a large survey 170 local residents and I'm just going to give you one piece of data and we asked them to measure this statement I believe that our communities are safe for autistic kids or adults to live in 78% either disagreed or strongly disagreed with that statement so we are hearing these families of the community and I think it's worth it for us to listen thank you thank you Mark before you go I got you something oh you I hope that all of you will have Mark at your cities and talk more about um this initiative we are uh our city manager his grandson is autistic and we are going to meet with sheriff galter and we're going to try to put together some kind of a program with the drones I think that that was fascinating um and any of those who have drones could be a part of it if there is a lost child so I hope each of you Mark can we give uh do you have your card or can we give your phone number to each of the members up here and I know there are some from other cities here that possibly they will get in you could um what's your tell me your number 727 okay 404 275 8301 so I hope you will call him and um let's do something about this thank you Mark okay next we have uh nominating committee recommendations for upcoming consideration of appointments at the annual meeting you want volunteers for the committee yes yeah I'll volunteer I'll volunteer volunteer okay Lauren we have mayor gtis mayor Lisa and Mayor Bill okay thank you uh is there any old business to come before this board today hearing none we will start uh we have no discussion items to the best of my ability I don't see any uh legislative updates and we will start start with our Senator Nick desiga you'd like to come forward hi Nick good morning mayor good morning Mayors it's good to be with you we had a a very busy legisl session uh the the one thing we are required to do per the Florida Constitution is to pass a balanced budget which we did uh that b budget was1 117 billion dollar obviously we're going to find out uh how much of that budget is going to uh be vetoed or Not vetoed by Governor DeSantis but I think he's made it very clear that uh he's going to sharpen his uh his pencil uh here in the coming weeks and months uh we also focused on Healthcare uh Senate President pasedo was very focused on making sure that uh here in the State of Florida we have an environment that we're able to retain our doctors we're able to retain our nurses uh obviously with the growing State um you know as as quickly as we've grown it's very important that uh healthc care remains a top priority um obviously you know keeping a low tax environment here in the state is very very important for all of our communities uh from the Panhandle down to uh down to Southeast Florida uh we we did address uh property insurance directly because of the several reforms that that we uh that we tackled uh in years prior going back from 2020 21 22 special session uh the good news there with property insurance is that um you know the level of litigation has come down significantly due to to these reforms obviously we're going through uh many of these claims still through uh hurricane in uh which is certainly uh had had an impact on on on that level of of litig a that we've seen uh so personally for me I had a very busy SE legislative session as well give you some of my highlights here um my safe Florida condominium pilot program uh we wanted to we wanted to create a pilot program for folks who uh want to provide hurricane mitigation uh to their Condominiums obviously Condominiums are are significantly different than single family homes um so we were were're able to start this pilot program we an association can receive up to $175,000 per uh per Association through Grant funds there's a $30 million appropriation uh that goes along with that uh release of balloons we talked about litter earlier today uh release of balloons I worked with representative Cheney uh simply if you release balloons that you could get a ticket for intentionally release balloons you could get a ticket uh simple lit ticket I think it's about $150 fine I ran the cyber security incident liability uh bill which basically protects businesses and governments uh who follow protocols from any type of uh frivolous lawsuits uh residential permitting we want to shorten the time frames for local governments uh to process those building permits uh treatment by medical specialist which allows our First Responders to go out of network uh as you know firefighters is the greatest example uh they are dealing with uh some of these um you know environment with different kinds of smoke Etc they're getting specific uh lung and heart diseases that are very unique um they have to go out of network to get treatment uh this bill will allow them uh to do that uh as the chair of Transportation in the Senate I ran the transportation package uh also ran the artificial intelligence political advertising Bill uh which will require a disclaimer uh for any type of political ad that aims to injure a candidate um uh using artificial intelligence um I got a $18.2 million in appropriation give you some highlight highlights $1 million to the panel Sun Coast and fire rescue for their uh new fire station $100,000 for madira beach seaw wall replacement $650,000 for St Pete Beach storm water $650,000 for St Pete Northshore Park Shoreline revitalization uh water quality working with the ocean conservancy 295,000 and $500,000 for treasure Treasure Island roadway and drainage improvements several other infrastructure improvements and other youth programs and last but certainly not least I'm sure the the item that uh many of you want me to discuss and that's vacation rentals uh vacation rentals uh got through the legislative session uh this year uh it was a priority of uh Senate President pasido um and I W to I just want to point out that uh you know the Senate President had given me an opportunity last summer uh whether or not I wanted to sponsor that bill once again I sponsored that obviously in 2023 did not get out of the legislative session uh and after about three four weeks of of you know deciding whether or not I wanted to go down this road again uh I decided to to sponsor that bill the reason why I decided to sponsor this bill is because that when you have a priority of a presiding officer whether that's a Senate President whether that's speaker of the house there's a high likelihood that that particular piece of legislation is going to get through the legislative uh process and so knowing uh what a Hot Topic this is in Indian Rock speech uh knowing that I have a vacation rental directly next to me directly behind me uh directly across the street from me uh I wanted to make sure that my constituents uh here in pelis County the 550,000 of them uh were going to be at the table uh because it's it's easy uh to um you know be in opposition of of a bill and I respect my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that that did not support this legislation I that works both ways um but I wanted to make sure that that that our community here in panales County had a voice at the table when this legislation was being uh you know presented in committee and then obviously on the floor uh that those changes that I was able to bring to the table was uh was occupancy uh was the reasonable fees those the reasonable fees was were capped uh ocum was never dealt with in in uh in the original legislation going back to 23 and going back to to to 2011 and so you know I I wanted to make sure that uh that our voices here in pelis County uh were heard um obviously the the bill is is waited to be signed or Not by by Governor DeSantis uh we're in communication myself and the Senate President with with him and his staff uh we'll see what happens here in the next in the next few weeks but you know I just want to I want to make it very clear um that this is an is issue that uh that I take very seriously this is an issue that I try to I try to get right I understand that there's there's a lot of emotion uh in our communities relating to Vacation Rentals I understand there are a lot of folks who have moved uh to these communities that don't want vacation rentals they want to have a family of four in these in these units uh and I recognize that I respect that um but this issue the legislature in 2011 it preempted vacation rentals to the state and so this was over all of these years uh it got start you know obviously this issue started to grow I think it started to accelerate during during the pandemic uh and now we're in a situation where these these vacational rental properties are popping up all over the place not just in our beach communities but but throughout our throughout our state um and so you know until the legislature uh decides to you know remove that preemption this is the legislation that was that was proposed this is the legislation that the Senate President pres uh certainly made it her her a priority for her to to advance this so uh I did the best I could to to create a balance here uh obviously there's property rights issue there are needs of the community uh there's an economic uh impact when it comes to uh folks coming to our communities staying in vacation rentals spending money in our in our restaurants in our local restaurants those are all the things that you have to take into consideration when you craft a piece of legislation of this nature uh and you know I want to uh specifically thank uh mayor Payne for for for your friendship uh throughout the entire legislative session uh you and I stayed in communication you were giving me your feedback you were giving me some ideas I utilize those ideas into this legislation and I just want to thank you for uh for your friendship our partnership um that's in my opinion that that's how this is supposed to work and and I I really do value uh the value what what you and I were able to do through this legislative session so uh mayor with that I am certainly as always uh happy to answer any questions any of you might have any questions for Senator I just have a comment um thank you for coming today and thank you for all the positive work that you did during session but I do have to say that the residents that I represent and also myself personally strongly disagree with the preemption regarding short term rentals because a preemption removes the voice of the actual resident in that neighborhood from participating in their local government anything else this power now has been centralized to Tallahasse we could talk all day long on this but the the actual voice of the resident to go to their town hall and have a discussion Pros cons whatever to shake their Community to to to forge that direction has been removed so to me whether they're for whatever their position is having that voice having that discussion is incredibly important so taking that away takes away your the residents voice in their Community I I'm I'm happy to talk with you about all of that because I'm I'm not really sure that I understand where this bill the vacation rental bill Senate Bill 280 removes removes anybody 's voice as a matter of fact we as a matter of fact we took a lot of the the things that Indian Rock speech did when it comes to local registration programs for vacation rental and and attempted to implement that into into this bill so I'm not sure I I fully understand I'm not sure I ever fully understood uh how this bill or any other preemption takes away the voice of the people to elect their local Representatives their ability to go to City Hall Express their views participate in our in our Democratic process I I I I don't know if this is the form to have that debate per se uh but I'm not sure I I just don't understand um you know that that position of yours especially when it relates to to this to this legislation I just I just don't I can't connect the dots well very quickly then land use and Zoning has always been the responsibility of that local community so the direction that that Community goes regarding that will be up to the residents that live in that Community now as You' mentioned in 2011 the state preempted local communities so now they whether they wanted short rentals or not they're having them they were that decision making was taken away that's what preemption does takes the decision-making away from the actual resident of that community and I was not in the legislature in 2011 well I understand I'm not saying that but now and and you had mentioned that yes that shouldn't have happened back in 2011 and I would agree with you but now we are preempting again and I've heard several legislators and our Senate President also say well it's been preempted to the state it was preempted before what's wrong with preempting a little more the current legislation as it stands right now from 2014 allows local governments to regulate short-term rentals as they wish you cannot ban them you cannot regulate the frequency or the duration so the communities can regulate how they feel will be best to maintain the single family residential quality of that community so if a a Community like Treasure Island say wanted to adopt what you have proposed they could do that the communities who don't want to adopt what you have proposed now if the governor signs this we'll be forced to accept that no they no not that's not true they they don't have they they're not forced to have a local registration program that's laid out in the bill they don't have to they don't have to do that at all that's there's basically no regulation so they they're more than free to do that in the bill right so so a local Comm decide not to set up a registration program but now we've also lost the ability which was very important in the 2014 legislation to distinguish between a single family home and a vacation rental because in what what way in this bill in what way to regulate no but how do you how does this bill not distinguish well there's a line in there that says you cannot uh it cannot be given a citation for any violation that does not solely apply to every house in town and that's that's effect in in effect today that is not in effect that is in there is we we've had these discussions there is plenty of case law to support the the all throughout the state the cities throughout the state have regulations set up there is case law to support that we are able to regulate and we are able to distinguish it says it and I can we can go back to 2014 and I can give you that legislation from we have local senators and Reps who sponsor that legislation and it's very clear there and I've provided that to all of our our our people here I've i' I've spoken at several events laying out the facts so that they can make their own choice they know what the facts are they know what the regulations are now this does not give us any more ability does not help us at all we're not able to distinguish between a single family house and a vacation rental which I believe they are very different entity they are very different and in in the bill it clearly lays that within that local registration program every vacation rental properties they have own identifying number okay and then the local government's going to coordinate that with the Department of Business and Professional Regulations they have a database that they're going to create so I'm not sure I understand from what you're telling me where you can't tell the difference between a single family home and a single family home that's operating as a vacation R I'm not sure I'm not sure I so we know that difference but beyond that I'm not able to regulate the occupancy which I am now I'm not able to regulate occup is also also in the bill the occupancy is laid out in the bill it's laid out in the bill but right now the local communities are able to set that themselves to make that decision themselves so now the state has come in and said this is a uniform policy throughout our state we know we 411 cities throughout the state all of them different all of them unique all of them with their own personality we'd like to maintain that so if I can yes chime in um these conversations and debates have gone on for a long time and I think we're just rehashing what's already been um discussed many times so I just want and I know that a lot of my colleagues up here are not happy with the final result of this bill but I do just want to encourage everyone to try to look at the positives like the senator highlighted um like you said it does set that standard occupancy limit which I think is very reasonable and at with conversations that I've had with multiple of you when we talked about what kind of an occupancy limit we would want to be able to enforce I understand your point mayor will that you believe that we could have done that before even without this bill but this really solidifies that um ability for us to regulate the the um occupancy which is two people per room and then two what's the common area two per common area um so that's that seems very reasonable it also allows us for like you said to charge reason reasonable fee for registration program which last year the um House and Senate wanted or the house wanted to cap that at $150 per unit whereas now it's a reasonable fee so Treasure Island I can do the math with my city staff to calculate how much revenue I need to have from a registration program in order to create a viable enforcement arm of that registration program to be able to look at this database look what um vacation rentals are not in compliance with the rules that we've set forward and enforce it and revoke their registration so with the reasonable fee which is something thank you very much for for fighting for that we can now do that math for ourselves at each of the 411 cities local level to set that fee and we've we've done the math and we're going to hopefully um consider moving forward with the registration program so that we can pay for addition Code Enforcement Officers so that we can pay for the software that we need to have to track these vacation rentals and enforce our rules that are in place and I think most importantly which has been just overlooked every single time we discuss this and talk about it a very key provision in this bill is that it allows cities that have lost their grandfathering to reinstitute regulations on frequency and duration as long as they're Le even just slightly less restrictive than what they had in place place prior to grandfathering so if any cities have lost their ability to regulate duration and frequency because they had a a court case or a lawsuit that challenged their them trying to change their their ordinance since that grandfathering went to into effect you can go back and reimplement those restrictions that you had in place in 2014 when that grand fought when that first preemption went into place so I think that that is a huge thing that is being overlooked and not talked about enough enough so thank you for making sure that that was included as well and thank you um for your cooperation and partnership and listening to us because I know you don't hear that from a lot of people up here but I know that you listened and you did your best to try to incorporate the the needs of our cities into the Bill thank you ju just a quick question if I may yes sir uh Daniel store here um and I'm learning this process but I'm just curious the cities that lost the ability to do that do you are you aware of which cities those are there's uh over 111 cities in the state of Florida who've lost their Grandfather Clause that fix that and then the only thing the standard occupancy limit I know you said it did that but that already exists now so I just wanted some more clarity on that it allow and maybe the senator can clarify but it it allows within the registration program if your City opts to create a registration program one of the conditions that has to be met in in order to renew and have an active registration is that you state that occupancy and enforce that occupancy limit um on your vacation rental so if it's found that you're violating that and you have a party house or something with a ton of people staying in it then the city and the state have the ability to revoke your registration and last question again um because I travel I use vrbos and airbnbs when I travel um quite often for business I'm curious how do you enforce you know when I was younger and and things were a little tighter uh you know we would cram 15 16 people into two bedrooms right and as long as we weren't causing a problem like we didn't throw some big party in the police were involved there was no way to know and we were a burden on all of our neighbors I'm sure you know we took up a lot of extra space and you know the the house the Plumbing Systems all those things aren't designed for that but I'm curious how do you enforce even with hiring additional enforement agents how do you enforce occupancy unless there's a problem or do you have to wait until a problem arises before you do that I'm just again just asking yeah I think that's an issue with a lot of things not just this I mean anything that we pass in the city there's often not ways to to prove it if something's happening in someone's backyard that our Code Enforcement Officers can't have clear access or sight to um that's problems we run into so I don't think it's a so it's not a proactive resolution it just merely allows you to take steps to resolve a problem after a problem has already Arisen and then um what's the process so are there going to be let's say that we site a a home right for violating this uh how many is there a standard process for the number of warnings or the how hard is it or difficult is it to remove that license it's very difficult just yeah the enforcement of this whether under current current ordinances today is very difficult um you know I don't think that's really going to change here obviously uh there are five violations within a 60 day period the the suspension can be 30 days if there's five violations within 30 days suspension is going to be for 90 days and again that that enforcement is is strictly um you know done by local governments sure and then one last question I believe if uh let's say a property a specific property subject property um violated continuously and it just was an ongoing thing and and eventually that license removed um that individual chooses to sell the home right because they can no longer operate it as a short-term rental uh the next person comes in and buys it can they then apply for the same short-term rental license and re restart the the short-term Rental process at that property yes seems fairly ineffective to me but okay thank you for answering the questions guys Senator thank you that's very quickly I mean no disrespect whatsoever I'm just having a conversation with you I disagree with you based on fact and case law and the current ability from the the 2014 legislation when you mentioned and I heard Tyler mention this bill allows we are already allowed there are three things we cannot do which was ban regulate frequency and duration outside of that we are allowed to regulate that has been proven there is case law and I can I would love to sit down with with you or anyone at any time to discuss the actual facts of where we are now so they can make up their own minds on which Direction they would like to go happy to talk with you offline on that thank you very much for coming out uh before you leave I just as your mayor uh I and I want everyone to know this that I invited you multiple times and I appreciate the fact that you had conversations with Tyler we were all at a meeting once in the very beginning last before the session I invited you multiple times to our city I consider you my friend uh my feelings were very hurt uh our city manager invited you to come and so I I want the audience to know that uh not only Tyler reached out to you but I did on many occasions thank you for coming yeah I I wasn't you know pointing that out um I represent 20 municipalities in in penales County I can't realistically go to every single uh commission meeting and the commission meetings that that you were having you guys were thank you very much for coming to know that and I wanted the audience to know but thank you for coming today and I'm happy to be here thank you representative burfield if you'd like to come up now thank you well thank you very much I'm going to start on a little bit of a different note um today we actually come together um and we're connected by a shared element in our community that is vital to panel's County it is our beautiful home Ori or family oriented active and famous speaches our coastlines are more than just a place where we and families and neighbors and friends and visitors can make memories they are our first line of defense against increasing threats of hurricanes to our state and the past legislative session we have focused on the safeguarding of our homes our communities and our local economy that thrives as a result of Tourism as a reflection of that commitment the 2024 117.5 billion budget I want you to think about that for a second $17.5 billion that is approximately .5 billion more than last year that is the smallest increase the State of Florida has experienced in a number of years and yet we have been able to accomplish some great things we are talking about tens of millions of dollars that were invested not just in weathering for the next storm but ensuring that Florida remains a safe and thriving atmosphere for our future future Generations this piece of legislation this budget of ours includes extensive support for public shelters during hurricanes and other forms of pre-disaster mitigation um one of those items relates to our homes um and was mentioned by Senator deigle through the mysafe condos but also the mysafe homes um initiative that was started over a year ago um both of those programs receive funding as we're speaking about homes would also share with you there were some additional steps that we actually sought to address during this uh session that were challenges which are currently being faced by um our citizens property insurance a number of bills were integrated into an overall piece of legislation so as you can appreciate in the legislative process we um have a number of members who bring various ideas to the table about how we can address the same issue um this year we chose because of all the significant work that was done around tort reform last year to actually take those various small pieces and put them into one piece of legislation um one of those issues would have had a significant impact specifically on pelis County 20 years ago when citizens property insurance was created by the legislature the legislature established parameters and while the thought was that we would not hit those parameters no pun intended 40 or until 40 or 50 years later um the artificial property values and the cost of homes that we're experiencing today would have triggered for a large number of homes in pel's County the hit to a to a 700,000 replacement cap um that means that it would have triggered an in ineligibility I hate that word um that would have been experienced by a number of our citizens where they wouldn't have been able to go to the insurer of last Resort and actually obtain Insurance fortunately as I mentioned that piece of the pie was integrated into the overall piece of legislation and will be protecting our citizens another protection that we chose to focus on was associated with our shorelines and one that I was proud to be a part of with uh representative cross and I'm sure she'll talk a little bit more in detail in reference to that but basically while we as the Florida legislature can't tell the federal government what to do as we might like to at times um we can collaborate with them and we can send them messages and encourage them to take certain actions um house Memorial 1411 sought to instruct the Army Corps of Engineers and our federal Partners to focus on protecting our shorelines without unilaterally deciding to take private property from our citizens and threaten us with not actually renourishing our beaches the last item of protection I would like to take a moment and note deals with House Bill 7073 and some of you all may be familiar with that it was sponsored by uh house chairman Stan mlan of the Ways and Means Committee it included the removal of mandates that could have restricted our ability to fund necessary projects that help enhance our community's environment um initially House Bill 7073 contained Provisions that would require all new local discretionary sales Sur excuse me sir tax um uh initiatives to be approved by referendum at least every 10 years and it sought to limit all new tourism taxes to six years requiring that our voters would have to approve it um by July 1 of 2029 to continue the bill also uh proposed that any tourism tax it that was in effect would have to be reapproved by the voters by June 30th of this year um while we uh saw the benefits of um ensuring accountability um being good stewards of the dollars we also appreciated the risk that came along with this and as this issue was brought up late in the session um we did have a group of U leaders from pel's County who actually fought to make sure that that was preserved this year and so that will not be going anywhere I know that was a concern that I heard from a number of you on this Council to make sure that we were protecting that resource however I would share with you that um based on the final conversation relating to the the tax I would anticipate that as something that will be coming up in the the next session and something that we want to take the time to really educate um our peers and our elected officials about so that they understand how we are collaborating how we are working in a good manner and how that is being such a benefit to our communities so those are just a few I wanted to make it uh short and sweet to the Point as um I know we're coming to the end of the meeting um some of the things that the legislature has done that directly impacts our beaches and our tourism industry so thank you madam chair for asking us here today um as always I look forward to continuing to work with you all you have my number and I hope you will continue to reach outk any questions for uh representative barefield any questions from representative Baro thank I just want to say thank you for always being available and always listening and helping us yes thank you awesome and thank you I reached out to you to come to one of our meetings and you came and I appreciate I know the time that it takes an elected official especially at the state legislature and I appreciate that you came to a meeting thank you very much my pleasure representative Lindsay cross all right good morning it's good to be here with you um I just like to start by saying that I do not represent any of your communities unfortunately love being out here at the beaches but my district includes the Eastern portions of St Petersburg and penell park but I began coming to these meetings back in 2018 when I was running for a senate seat which is now occupied by Senator desley and I just appreciated so much that you come together and work collectively and collaboratively on issues that I continue to attend and like to hear the feedback that you have because I think we're all working towards the same type of goals here in penis County um but unfortunately I don't have have the beaches in my community um but I did sponsor um and help to support some bills that have direct influence um and application to your Beach communities and the residents and your businesses there I want to start by highlighting um a bill that I was able to get past this year along with another representative from the Palm Beach area uh the bill number is HB 165 and it's related to the sampling of water on our beaches in our public bathing area does and what this does is it requires Public Health notifications within 24 hours or the next business day if there is sewage if there's feal matter in the water at a level that is unsafe for swimming um that's something that your communities may have already been doing proactively but there's been a lot of Bad actors uh we've seen sewage spills throughout our state um our last couple weeks of session I think there were three down in in southeast Florida and so people are unknown knowingly going into contaminated uh beaches in swimming areas Contracting um illnesses as serious as bi vibrio which can cause death and so the previous uh requirement was actually not a requirement it it had a shall um the word shall in there or may rather than shall and so this will now require municipalities and state agencies within 24 hours to notify the public um to have signage potentially close Beach areas when they're unsafe for swimming um so that's something that will will go into effect um July 1st as soon as um or as soon as the governor signs that I think it's a really proactive Public Health policy and glad that we are finally able to get that across the Finish Line this year um a couple of bills that I sponsored um did not make it across the Finish Line this year but there are ones that I'm committed to working on you may know that I have a background um in environmental science and have been working in that field for over 20 years working on improving water quality in Tampa Bay and um conserving natural areas throughout the state um so as representative burfield mentioned we uh co- primed a bill together um called House Memorial 1411 which again was related to beach re nourishment and trying to um urge Congress through the Water Resources development act through that reauthorization this year to really to uh tell the Army Corps of Engineers to um be better stewards and work with the local communities to make sure that we can get these Beacher nourishment projects that we can um continue to get the resources from the federal government that is so important um because that Memorial did not pass I think there's still other opportunities for us to work as a county delegation and send that message up to Congress I know that uh Department of Environmental Management here at the county Kelly Hammer leie who you all have had to your meetings many times they're working on other ways to um to collaborate with our Senators uh Scott and Rubio and other members of our Congressional Delegation so I just encourage you guys to to keep that pressure on them um so that we can have better coordination um continue to pull down those Federal resources for those very expensive but um important projects to renourish our beaches um a couple other bills that I will continue to work on um one of them is related to Advanced wastewater treatment throughout the state uh there's varying levels of treatment for our uh Wastewater um some of it is because areas like the Tampa Bay uh were under a bill back in the 1980s the grizzle fig act that required higher level of treatment um however there are some parts of our state that still are at lower levels of treatment so that means the water they discharge to their estuaries their Lakes um out into the Gulf or the Atlantic Ocean is not as clean as it is to the levels that we treat here um I think that as a state we need to have a systematic way of uh prioritizing where our state um taxpayer dollars go in those upgrades and we don't we don't have that right now a lot of our water quality improvement money goes to specific member appropriation projects that may be more politically backed rather than those that are going to have the most impact on our local communities and our health and so this bill 1153 would have started um to look at the really the state of our wastewater treatment plants where we're having problems where we need to make those upgrades and then creating a prioritization for going forward um a couple things related to to housing and insurance um both uh Senator segle and representative burfield mentioned the mys safe Florida home program we did do that a new condo pilot program and made changes to um the My sayfe Florida home program in terms of who is eligible for that um a bill that I was working on with the senator from Lee County Senator Jonathan Martin would have expanded that program to include flood mitigation uh penis county is one of the top three counties in the entire state for repetitive flood losses and neighborhoods in my district including Shore Acres were hit kind of with the double whammy with idalia and with the noname stormed in December um I've been having a lot of ongoing conversations with the city the county as well as our Congressional um leadership uh congresswoman Kathy Caster on how to better uh bring resources to the community and so this bill would have allowed for some flood mitigation protection measures to be uh part of that grant program um I think that it's something that has um interest from the cfo's office going forward but it just there was too much emphasis on some of the um retweaked finally another bill um I had would provide some tax relief for accessory dwelling units and this is something that that may be popular in your communities or may not I know in in St Petersburg it's a place where we're trying to add density in the right locations um in the live local act last year we provided up to 100% tax abatement for multif family units that were renting at an affordable rate well I think it is um it is only appropriate that we extend those same tax benefits to our local neighbors who have accessory dwelling units mother-in-law suites garage apartments and are committing to um to rent those at an affordable rate so that's something that I think um has a lot of interest as well and that I'll continue to work on going forward um and the last thing I wanted to mention is a bill that did pass uh the Senate version was s SP 1526 it's called um non-conforming or unsafe structures and I did share it with Lauren to provide to you all but I'd appreciate if you and some of your um some of your staff would take a look and see how it may impact your communities the basic gist of the bill um it came from the desire to redevelop in the Surfside Community um following that that tragic collapse of that condo a couple years ago but it is a a preemption on local governments and it's specifically related to existing structures that are seaword of the Coastal Construction control line so those are the areas that are closest to the water and in my opinion U most vulnerable to sea level rise to storms and hurricanes uh what this bill would do is it would require um or it would allow for the demolition of most of those structures there are a few um exceptions including single family homes and those within the national register of historic places um but if there's structures that are built maybe in the 1950s or 60s that don't conform with current building codes those would could be deemed as non-conforming or unsafe structures for various different reasons what it will do is it will um make it so that local governments cannot limit for any reason the development potential of new structures put in those places for a similarly situated parcel in the same zoning District so in an effect it would allow for a new structure to be as tall and as large as other structures in that same zoning District so I'd appreciate if you could look um at your GIS maps I know that U mayor Payne just provided that to me for some of the communities that that have more of the motels and the town homes and some desire from develop um developers to make some larger um hotels um multif family units it's something that you should be aware of because it may significantly impact your ability to limit that density and those higher buildings um it imposes other you cannot impose any other additional building uh restrictions or have additional public hearings in response to that so um there are places where it will will have a big impact um in our state hopefully it does not impact uh your communities as much but I wanted you to be aware of that and please if you see examples of that I'd like to know um some specific properties that that could fall under that or how um it may impact your residents thank you representative cross is there anyone who has any questions for our representative cross from St Petersburg I have a question for clarification please can you talk about the provision in the bill that pertains to a um Barrier Island municipalities with a population of 10,000 and has at least six city blocks that are not in I'll call it a flood zone um can you talk a little bit about that because that whole provision in there is is taking me off on a whole another path yeah so um the the vacation rental bill um there was one County that was Exempted from that bill um the language in um sb1 1526 is to meant to exempt a specific Community within our state um I don't know if if any of certainly you would have populations under 10,000 but I don't know if you have at least City six city blocks not located in zoning districts vve AO or AE exactly yeah okay um so I know that there are some some carve outs I believe Tampa West Palm Beach uh there are a few communities that are identified as not falling under this provision um and so that's why I'd love to give you a little bit of homework to see whether that would impact your your communities thank you so much thank you you're welcome representative thank you I just wanted to say thank you very much U you've always been available I've spoken many times I know you're not a representative of this actual area but you are a representative so you do vote in committees and you do vote on the floor so thank you for looking out you're welcome thank you at this time I'd like to have our pinelis County Commissioner Charlie Justice come in and give us some words about what's going on at p pelis County what's going on in pelis County that's a good question good morning mayor council appreciate the time to come share an update with you the State Legislative Del uh session finishing up there's a lot to report there so I'll be I'll be quick uh you heard one of the representatives talk about our goal to continue to work with our federal Representatives on our US Army Court issue you heard that the language that we wanted to be in the spending Bill did not make it in there so now we are focused on getting that language into the 2024 Water Resources development act um we are in constant contact with our local Cong Congressional Delegation uh Senator Rubio senator Scott are all over this issue um I don't have to really tell you anyone on this board what's going on with that but uh the Army Corps who gets a call from a US senator and just completely blows them off uh is something I've never seen before in my life uh but we continue to work to get that language in there um immediately on St Pete Beach we are taking part of our grand canal dredge project and we are placing some of the sand there onto Passad gril Beach um I think about 15,000 cubic yards so that's that's really it I mean we continue to move on planning stages for the other projects um we have funding local funding for the match um we have a healthy Reserve in our tdt budget to take care of our needs on that but we continue to work with our federal Partners to see if we can't get some movement on the US Army Corps language um and I'll have to answer questions as we move on a couple other objects uh obviously the Tampa Bay Ray stadium and the downtown St Peak gas plant District um we continue to have negotiations conversations with the city of St Petersburg and the team um You probably read about that in the paper a little bit um there's a dozen documents on each item um nothing is on our agenda yet we expect to have a full briefing and workshop once we have a final agreement um between our negotiator in the city and the team um so we expected to have that vote in April or May maybe May or June now as we continue to move but we're taking our time to make sure that if this is something we move forward with that we're all at a comfort Comfort level that we can live with uh County Complex uh at the end of last year we purchased a site onton Road just east of US1 19 an old automobile lot if you're familiar with that next to the aviation Authority uh that will be the home of the new County Complex we have wonderful Partners in the city of Laro that are helping us with that transition uh if you're not familiar with our property and downtown Clearwater we have about 550,000 square feet of space in downtown clearw spread over 14 properties uh with our studies and the transition of people working from home and all our Workforce we anticipate needing only about 350,000 square feet in our new facility at to campus onton Road and we're working with the city of clearw uh as we start to parel out and transition and sell those properties as well um we're working with a group in North pen County uh in Tarpon area uh to preserve a space called the cluster preserve on cluster Road it's 14 acres we've committed uh some money to that the local group is raising money uh if we're able to be successful which I believe we will that will add 14 acres of Green Space to penis County which over the last several years we have added 211 Acres of Green Space uh which is pretty remarkable in a county like pellis I think we're very proud of that 125 Acres at wall Springs almost 50 acres at glattus Douglas and dun Eden 42 acre golf course in seminal uh and a smaller 9 acre parcel in East Lake but again uh over 21 Acres of green space in penis County pretty incredible when you talk about how built out we are we're beginning to um uh beginning to start our budget process administrators meeting with staff departments going across there uh June 5th our budget Workshop begins we have six days of budget workshops um if you have nothing else to do and you want to cancel your vacation and come hang out with us uh we will be meeting from 9:30 in the morning to about 4 in the afternoon for six to eight days to go Department by Department section by section to go through our budget uh and that is really the best time if you do have specific areas of interest to to see the agenda will be all laid out for you you can see all the presentations if there's an area of interest that you have we welcome you to come and partake and and give us input and by the way there's 28 departments so you know is all the Departments all the Constitutional officers everybody else we we all got a chance to go through it uh and then lastly before you have question or two things one uh we left a stack of these here of our accomplishment report uh gives a really good update of all the incredible work our County staff does for you every day and then I got a text this morning that's please remind that on May 9th and 10th on Clearwater Beach the Tampa Bay Regional planning council is hosting their resiliency Summit and you're invited to to attend that and partake so with that mayor uh happy to answer any questions or any questions for commissioner yes sir I just have a compliment this is really down on the weeds but the pay raise you did for panel's count employees back in October I think it was much appreciated I know some folks that were making $15 an hour that at least it's getting up to a a fairly normal wage so thank you for that absolutely we we see that that is the number one obvious area of our budget um for our our employees um you know one it's just the right thing to do and two the folks that we have some folks that live in South Pasco that commute over um and Pasco was raising their pay and so we have to be competitive and then we have particular Department quite frankly our 911 operators where we had to do a special raise in that department in order to keep those employees in critical employees uh and we were get we were losing some thank you anyone else thank you commissioner appreciate your time today have a great day just want to take thank all the legislative people who came in uh I made it a point since uh I got on in January as president to invite everyone and they will continue to come uh throughout the year now so I think it's great uh Beach watch is there someone that I can update it unless we have somebody who's gonna update it it just it just says that uh 2024 weeks six seven and8 update is there anything that someone wants to say about that or are we good okay I think we're good um uh at after the meeting I I'm going to do a five minute presentation to whoever would like to stay it's part of my Capstone project I'm graduating in May with honors uh with my degree in public policy and administration and of course um my uh five minute presentation will be uh My Capstone is on the pros and cons of short-term rentals uh Mr story I'd love for you to stay because in that presentation uh I will tell you from our perspective in our city what is wrong with the bill that was um passed uh with that I'll move on are there uh to City events and we'll start with mayor Queen everything's quiet North Readington Beach no events for Readington Shores all quiet in berair Beach everything's good in Belair Shore not so quiet but going well in St pet beach in Readington Beach this Saturday morning we are having an Easter egg hunt starting at 9:30 so um if you ever come to this before or heard about it you better get there early it gets pretty insane with these little kids so see you Saturday I'm Gonna Let You Go ahead okay uh madir Beach um every Wednesday we have the madir way market um that's going to end uh May 22nd so um that's open until 2 pm uh later this evening we have our uh light reception at 4:30 anyone's invited uh induction in the office for two Commissioners and our workshop at 6 uh Friday May 29th is our final Friday at uh John's Pass Village Bell Tower area from 6:00 to 99 uh and then the following day Saturday March 30th the Great American grun hunt which was postponed from last weekend the we in in community fish fry starts at 4M $15 a plate get fresh fish fries and SLO I believe and lastly uh just a reminder about the golf beaches public library their um your their brick uh fundraising with their clip artart and text um we encourage everyone to get involved with that thank you uh every uh Sunday through the end of May we have uh uh the Sunday Morning Market in Indian Shores 19305 Golf Boulevard you're all welcome to come it's a great place uh we have a lot going on in Treasure Island and it's spring break so it is not quiet it is very busy but um we have our also have an Easter egg hunt sponsored by our G beaches rotary this Saturday starting at 10:00 a.m. but like May well said definitely get there early to get a parking spot it's at our community center Park um also very excited to announce that we will be doing a ribbon cutting for our new city hall on Tuesday April 2nd at 6m we had our first city commission meeting in our new city hall um commission Chambers last night a big Monumental um step forward we've been Recon or remodeling this city hall for almost four years now so I know I get a lot of flack for having postponed our um big CA meetings in the new city hall so I'm happy to announce that um our next meeting that Treasure Island will host will be in our new city hall with a a gorgeous view of the the beach we're right across the street from our main beach access and our commission Chambers and our event space have um beautiful 180 degree of our our beautiful beach across the street um so if anyone wants to come out to the ribbon cutting that'll be next week and then we also have Community Appreciation Day on Saturday April 13th from 11:00 a to 1 pm and we'll be offering um tours of our city hall then for the public so if you want to come see it before we host you guys for the big sea um later this summer you're welcome to come out on April 13 we also have summer camp coming up June 3rd through August 9th so if anyone in the community Community wants to sign up their kids or grandkids you don't have to be a Treasure Island resident um to participate so that's a great thing that we offer over the summer and then also we have um airing on Monday nights on HGTV right now is Rock The Block which was recently filmed in Treasure Island on IA Capri um with four teams of amazing designers rem or um completely designing from scratch these beautiful town homes with pools and docks behind them so be sure to check that out um it's been very cool to see our our beautiful beach um aerial views um highlighted on HDTV and lastly I just wanted to announce that this will be my last big c meeting um last night we swore in our new um we had one new City Commissioner and after that we also appoint all of our boards so I have opted to um step aside and let our new vice mayor John doctor take my seat on The Big C so he will be joining you guys um at your next meeting so it's been a pleasure been a pleasure to serve with you guys I just felt that I've done this for three years and um I think it's time to bring a new voice to the table and John's um been on the commission for four years now three um so he's a great asset and I'm happy to have him as our vice mayor and I will be sure to be um stay tuned to what's going on at the big sea but um I know that he'll be a great great voice and a great asset for you guys it's been very busy in Clear Water um along with all the Easter egg hunts throughout all our rec centers this Saturday is going to be our neighborhoods day where we have dozens of neighborhoods having block parties um so that's a great way to connect um our new park imagine clearw has an Amphitheater called The Bay care sound we've had many um con con the next one is Alabama next week and then shortly thereafter is Diana Ross Melissa Ethridge juel UB 40 and B naked ladies so um downtown is full of music just check our Ruth eard Hall website and uh go to our next concert thank you well one of the things that mayor Pat Serrano didn't tell you is that this is his last meeting and um it's also mine so uh I want to say for both of us that um it has been a joy uh sometimes I think being on the big sea was even more important than being the mayor of my city um it's very difficult and um I just you know I have appreciated all of you especially the ones that I've served with for so long you um we've always been a team and they're bullies but they became my bullies and so that was always a great thing um we have collect collaborated on so many issues mayor queen and I have spoken to different groups um one of the um they're all my favorites but I have to say that mayor Pat Serrano gets a a gold star because at one event he said that I was his best friend and so I immediately said his wife is my best friend so everybody would know but um you know when you're in this business uh it's I truly believe that the people that I have worked with really have the best interest of all of you and we may not always agree and we sometimes we can't follow what we want to do for you but uh I can tell you that everybody who's ever sat up here with me has worked so hard to do the very best for all of you and uh Pat and I leave and two absolutely incredible women will be taking our place uh I'm very happy uh those cities are going to do a great job and um with that uh I like I said I'm going to do my My Capstone because when you go to school they make you do a Capstone and I have to do it in front of a group so I thought what a better way than to do it to this group um and so I'm looking for an adjournment is there an yes would of everyone s on behalf of everyone sitting here that comes here every single month um to the three of you that are leaving it's been a pleasure to be in the crowd and work directly with all of you in even outside of these meetings we we wish you all much success and I'm sure everyone here agrees thank you so much and thank you to the delegation that came here today and thank you for the work on the tdt tax but thank you guys for your dedication up here thank you thank you very much uh with that we'll be adjourned and if you want to stay you can stay I'm going to do thank you and no problem and hopefully some of you will be coming tomorrow night uh at in Rock Beach at 6 o'clock they're having a reception and I don't know what they're doing but it's for me so uh motion to adjourn second all in favor I mayor Tyler Payne okay all right I think I'm going go