e e everyone and welcome to the Bradenton city council meeting Wednesday March 27th 2024 at 8:30 a.m. in City Hall Council chamber ERS um today I would like to do a special thing and we've done it a few times since I've been mayor and I know it had been done in the past but to introduce our mayor for a day Connor Longo with St Joseph's Catholic school he's a seventh grader there and his interest we're going to go through some interest because they're very interesting he loves singing playing the piano acting and basketball um he is in something special to all of us up here and I know a lot of people in the audience he's the president of the kanana Builder Club at St Joseph's so that's something very special and then he's also um St Joseph's thespians Group which is acting and doing things of that nature so welcome Connor and we appreciate you being here and um what we'll do at this time we're going to have our pastor come up do the invocation and then Connor will lead us in the pledge so we ask Pastor Dyan Kern with Braden Christian reform church to come forward and take care of the invocation and then Conor will lead us in the pledge everyone to please stand good morning counselors and Mr Mayor bow your heads with me this morning Father in Heaven this morning I bring these civil servants before you as they prepare to serve in the calling that you have set before them these men and women have devoted themselves to the service of the city of Bradenton to do the best in their power to seek righteousness uphold Justice and to serve for the greater good of all all the people who live under their stewardship father I thank you for the common Grace that you supply to all of your creatures so that they can capably do good and useful things even in unbelief you use your instruments to your ends for the good of your creatures yet father we all know in our hearts the Ready Temptations of sin especially sins related to power believing ourselves to be serving the best interests of the least of these we often are tempted to use ungodly means to manipulate one another and to control what should be a democratic process believing our causes to be just and right we don't consider the means by which we pursue our ends unwilling to submit to the body of men and women we have agreed to work together with we lament and complain when decisions don't go our way and so father I pray that you would give these men and women a spirit of humility that they remember that they are servants not leaders Representatives not change agents as they deliberate and vote place the citizens of Bradenton and the four of their minds tear their hearts away from all self-interest that they would be at the beck and call of those they have committed to serve even on matters that are mundane with no significant moral consequence I pray that in humility they would set others before themselves recognizing that no one in this room is all the right answers and that whether Republican or Democrat they need each other father you know far better than we do that none of us are righteous here on Earth every one of us left to our own devices is completely Wicked unable to so much as desire desire what is good let alone pursue it even our abilities are weak tainted by the curse that we brought into this world when we sinned and so I thank you that in a limited way this is well understood well enough by our city councilors that they request ministers to pray for their meetings father may your Holy Spirit restrain their sin and strengthen the hands of all in this room May their work reflect the glory and beauty of Christ the Creator and king of all that was is and is to come May their Works serve no obstacle to the faithful proclamation of your gospel in the city of Bradenton even as they seek the good of all of its citizens believing or no I pray this in the Name of Christ Jesus the Lord who lives and reigns with the father and the Holy Spirit one God now and forever amen amen thank you Pastor abolutely to the right and if you can start Us in the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and at this time now you're going to bang it pretty loud we'll call the meeting to order thank you Madame clerk the first item on the agenda this morning is a proclamation which I'll read on behalf of the mayor Child Abuse Prevention month whereas Florida's future Prosperity depends on nurturing the healthy development of over 4 million children currently living growing and learning within our many diverse communities and whereas child abuse is a crime against humanity that affects 5,31 children annually in Manatee County with a rate of 60.3 reports per 10,000 in comparison to 51.1 per 10,000 Statewide and whereas child abuse and neglect can cause severe costly and lifelong problems among society and victims such as social criminal and academic difficulties and emotional physical and mental health changes and whereas research shows parents and caregivers who have social networks can seek support in times of need are more resilient less isolated and better able to provide safe environments and nurturing experiences for their children and whereas individuals businesses schools community and faith-based organizations must make children a top priority and take action to support the physical social emotional academic and mental development and well-being of all children and whereas during the month of April prevent child abuse in Manatee County in collaboration with the Florida Department of Children and Families Manatee County Sheriff's Office Bradenton Police Department Manatee Children's Services Healthy Start safe children's coalition pin wheels for prevention and all agencies dedicated to the well-being of Children and Families will be engaging in a coordinated effort to prevent child abuse and neglect by promoting awareness of healthy child development positive parenting practices and promoting healthy family relationships within our communities now therefore be it resolved that iene brown as mayor of the city of Bradenton Florida do hereby Proclaim April 2024 as Child Abuse Prevention month and urge all citizens to engage in activities whose purpose is to strengthen families and communities signed Jean Brown mayor thank you who's here to accept this bring the whole group up I know sometimes people like to stay in the seats but we want everybody I uh I just I'm Kimberly Griffin I'm the supervisor for the child protection team and I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for promoting and and helping us continue to prevent child abuse thank you any comments from the council anybody want to say anything vice mayor Barnaby the work that you all do is hard draining many times there's not the outcome that you want but you show up and you keep working and that makes you Heroes to me it takes a village as you can all of you all of us thank you and I think also one of the things I'd like to say is is obviously thank you and and it's not 8 to five a lot of times and when you look at things and look at other things that maybe happening in our country where children are coming in maybe not in the right way and and getting abused in different ways so that's something important I know that I don't want to get too federally involved in conversation but but that is something that's happening a lot more and more with children and we've got to make sure that that gets stopped and and work towards that so I think that's very important that what you guys do and see and and uh really take care of is something that's you know very important because we know that the children maybe a smaller percent of our popul but they're 100% of our future so how do we to continue to to make them have a quality and productive life so we we appreciate it thank you so much thank you can we get a picture I mean everybody I don't know if we all want to stand up here and then you guys come up a little bit and get the picture with everybody day thank [Applause] you right thank you for coming and keep up the great work all right Madame clerk the next item on the agenda is a presentation of water quality update on Sarasota Bay by Dr David tomasco welcome sir uh hi good morning and okay I need to get to the mouse to click on the presentation I think thank you Jamie uh do there you go so it's idiot proof it's in a secret yeah okay thank you uh for the record uh my name is Dave tomasco I'm the director of the Sarasota Bay estr program and uh I'm here today not talk about a a single uh topic which is what I was here last time talking about but the overall health of uh Sarasota Bay and to answer any questions you might have at the end of this presid presentation so we start off with uh Sarasota Bay and we're one of 28 National estate programs throughout the country and the first thing when we start talking about the health of the Bays we don't talk about water chemistry right away we talk about like the the way the people experience the bay so uh this is what people like to do in Sarasota Bay they like to go out on a weekend and with their boat toss out their anchor stand around a waste deep water and they want to see their feet and uh so our number one goal is water Clarity and that's because it encompasses an awful lot of good environmental features but it's also important for our quality of life healthy Bay is also important for our economy we have 20,000 jobs that are associated with water related activities in our region so we have the commercial fishing Village of Cortez there's not many of them left in Florida but we have one right here and we have recreational fishing guides and the waiters and waitresses and bartenders and restaurant owners and people R out jet skis and Paras sailing so that's a lot of people that have an employment uh associated with the water and there's also property value uplift associated with proximity to the Bay so uh at least one are you is a real estate agent and you know so people pay more to live on the water than a block away or a street away and so we Quantified them back in 2017 and if we adjust it uh for inflation it's probably about $4 billion property value uplift associated with proximity of the bay so we want people to want to continue to live on the water because we need that uh property tax to pay for police and fire in schools and sarasot Bay EST program um and we know that property values are reduced by about 20 to 30% during a red tide compared to Coastal counties that aren't experiencing a red tide so you know that actually if you sell a house for like you know uh3 million not $4 million I don't feel that bad for that person but that's a property value hit that's going to last as long as that person owns that house uh and then we have a lot of habitats we want to make sure people understand we use seagrass is sort of like the canary and the coal mine sort of a it's an indicator of the overall health of the system and so we want to make sure people understand what seagrass is so it's a stuff that grows underwater in the bottom of the bay it's not Sea Oats that grow in the sand dunes and it's not salt marsh and so it provides a lot of habitat values as you can see here the school of fish swimming through the um seagrass medows and mangroves there we have a lot of wildlife that's dependent upon habitats that are dependent upon good water quality so in the last three years we've lost about 20 to 30% of our Mante population Statewide it's about 50% on the East Coast this picture is like you know the cutest thing in the world people bottle feeding baby do manatees but the reason why they're being baby U bottle fed is because their mom starved to death because of a lack of seagrasses as a food source in the Indian River Lagoon because of degraded water quality so if we don't want that to happen uh to us here we don't want to have emaciated and dead manties washing up against our beaches then we need to do a better job than they have over there so we're all about nitrogen management and so the thing that matters for water quality more than anything else in our region is nitrogen so if you want your lawn to look green add nitrogen if you want your citrus tree to grow faster add nitrogen if you want your Bay to look green and you want algae blooms including red tide to grow faster add nitrogen but you don't want that so we're all about managing nutrient loads so the only thing you have to measure uh for coming up with a report card for a place like Sarasota Bay uh is this managering the water quality but there's more to uh the health of the bay than just the water quality so all these things are measured so we actually work with man County and Sarasota County and a Water Management District and Fish and Wildlife to actually collect information on The seagrass Meadows they're mapped every two years we use volunteers to measure how much macro algae is on the bottom of the bay U Mante County collects water quality Sarasota County working with moat collects water quality FWC collects uh fish abundance we put it all together and we come up with a report card and that's what I'm going to talk about the report card how is the bay doing and uh so our report card has four things in there two of them are water chemistry the nitrogen concentration and how much algae in the water how much seagrass you have and how much macro algae you have so four things in there and then we take those values and we we don't compare base segments against each other we compare each base segment against what it was like during what we call the reference period 2006 to 2012 we don't know what Sarasota Bay was like a 100 years ago we don't know what it was like 50 years ago um but we do know that 2006 to 2012 it was a healthy system we had lower levels of nutrients in the water we had less algae we had a 28% increase in seagrass and you just don't have that if you're anything but a healthy system so that's our goal 2006 2012 we take our results and we color code them blues and greens represent good conditions yellow is caution red is like stop something's going wrong so let's see how we come up and I apologize I have one more year here 2023 since when I put this in I didn't have the 2023 data but now I do so I'll talk to it a little bit but the general thing is the blues and greens that we have during the reference period this was a healthier system uh and then we have this next seven years which we call the degraded period so notice pomas Sola Bay it continues into blue so pomas Sola Bay continues to be roughly as healthy as it was back then uh still and the upper part of the bay uh hit a bad spot in 2018 that was when we had that big red tide that was one single bad year but that was enough to kill probably about 90% of the fish in the upper part of Sarasota Bay we lost a th000 Acres of seagrass so an acre of seagrass might hold like something like 50 million fish so when you lose a th000 Acres you you have a huge hit to your fish populations uh the lower part of the bay shifts into the degraded range back in 2013 so something weird is going on in the lower part of the bay and what happened down there is not happening here but what happened down there can be illustrative to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future in this part of the bay so our worst water quality 2018 2019 that was the worst red tide we've had in a long time it was also the worst year that we've had in decades in terms of Wastewater overflows which is kind of the theme here and how they need to be brought under control uh the last couple of years have been improving Trends and 2023 is better still so little Sarasota Bay switches from yellow to Green in 2023 and palola Bay goes down a little bit but it still stays in the blue but all the bay if I had the 2023 line here would be blue and then greens across the board for the other four segments so uh why did it switch from healthy to that yellow that we have in 2013 well our pollutant loading model says that we had a 20% increase in nitrogen loads so we set a goal back in 2021 to reduce our nitrogen loads by 20% and how do we do that well our biggest issue is Wastewater and our Wastewater problems that we had in the lower part of the bay were over application of reclaimed water from non awt plants you have an awt wastewater treatment plant Advanced wastewater treatment uh when it's operating the way it's supposed to then you can do a surface discharge you're allowed to under state law your permit might not allow it but under state law you can that's what the city of Tampa does every single day but my understanding is you basically have effectively no daily surface water discharge you may have one during spills but you have awt and no surface discharge which is basically better than what they have in Clear Water and uh St Pete campus so you should be proud of that system um but in the southern part of our County there were no awt plants south of the city of Sarasota so Sarasota County didn't have any of these and they had high nutrient water and we had spills and over application of reclaimed water uh which was more than 12 tons so the good news is because we've been talking about this for years a couple of years they've actually done the things that are necessary to bring their water quality under control so we have already met we believe our pollutant load reduction Target so now the neat part is rather than having to drag people to do the right thing it's like did it work and the answer is yeah we've got a lot of good news particularly in the southern part of the bay so um we are unique here but no part of the open Waters of Sarasota Bay are declared uh impaired for nutrients as per D so we've been talking about this for a while D ver if this so um Paloma Bay was blue so Paloma Bay wasn't impaired the upper part of the bay had bad water quality one year but it has to be more than one in three years to be declared impaired but the lower part of the Bay from ringland Causeway all the way down to Venice Inlet exceeded the criteria that we developed ourselves 10 years ago so we had water quality problems that were severe enough to put us under regulatory oversight but no longer so the question is why did they determine that you've actually no longer become impaired is this some bureaucratic decision and the answer is no it's because our water quality has been getting better so this is the axis that shows how much algae in the water in four different Bay segments over time and it's annual averages and what you'll see is this downward Trend our water quality has been getting better for 3 to four years now and the last three years shown here we have different targets for each one of those base segments but each one of those four base segments have met their individual targets for three years in a row and some people might say well you're just you're just taking advantage of a drought you so it's been not raining that's why it's getting better the drought's in 2023 this data set ends in 2022 when we had hurricane Ian so this isn't the 2023 water quality data is even better than what we've got here so what we've got here is this is what happens when you pay attention to your pollutant loads it actually can make a difference across a system that's 50 square miles 70 billion gallons so we don't believe it's driven by rainfall because in all of South West Florida there are only 10 water bodies that are delisted in other words improving enough to become off the impaired Waters list we have half of them here in Sarasota Bay so we have half of all the ones and all of Southwest Florida so we're a hot spot for water quality improvements so this is the most complicated graph I got here but I know you guys can get it because this is actually something that uh um explains everything that's happening here so on the bottom axis the x- axis is years so the blue represents that reference period the yellow represents that degre graded time period and the purple represents things getting better what we call the improving Trends so there's a couple lines that go up and down and what they are is we're trying to figure out a way to display a lot of data on the same graph so we have nitrogen concentrations of two different forms we have red red tide forming organism and then we have a measure of all the algae in a bay the big Point here is that notice how all those U peak in that yellow time period right and then they go down so they're fairly low and then they go up and then they go down and the the reason why that we can express it that way is on the y- axis on the left-and side it's standard deviation so if you remember stats one standard deviation is fairly Rich it only happen once out of every six years two is even rarer and instead what we have is multiple things get worse in that yellow period and then they get better there is one line that ticks up again in that purple that is Kenia brevis the organism that causes red tide and that's because we think of the 20 23 red tide associated with 2022 is Hurricane Ian that came through um but the reason why all those things got worse is those lines that go up and down so the vertical lines represent the volume of Wastewater spills and the axis for them is on the right hand side we're using scientific notation here 2 E8 you see that number on the top there that's 200 million gallons 1 E8 is 100 mlion gallons we had five Wastewater overflows over 100 million gallons in the lower part of the bay in seven years we had three more than 200 million gallons all in all we had 1.2 billion gallons of Wastewater so I know that there are issues with every wastewater treatment plant this was basically 1.2 billion gallons of Wastewater overflows and it set us back in that lower part of the bay set us back about 20 years in terms of our progress so 1.2 billion gallons is a big amount but it's a small percentage so uh 1.2 billion gallons is less than 5% of the Wastewater treated by the wastewater treatment plants in the southern partk so they did a great job for 95% of the volume but that last 5% was enough to give us all the problems that we saw in that lower part of the bay so the improvements that we see the reason why everything is getting better we think is because of these types of activities so uh the $25 million already spent by uh man County uh those two storm water treatment projects 1 million and 3 million they've already treated 6,000 Acres of urbanized Watershed those are done Sarasota County is by far having to do more because they've got the biggest problems but Sarasota County is well underway with a $250 million project which is the largest single Capital Improvement project history in Sarasota County's history so um we expect widespread benefits that are not just chemists to be able to notice or statisticians so the picture on the left is our colleague from the Water Management District snorkeling over uh an area where we're mapping SE grass is and he's snorkeling over that beay area but you see all the dark signature around that that's all seagrass no one planted it there's no gimmick involved if you get your pollutant loads under control your water quality improved and the seagrass came back on its own and the reason why that matters is uh one of the reasons why is the things that are being held by the people on the right hand side anyone know what those are fish what type of fish can't see juvenile gag grouper so if you like to eat grouper you catch them out in the Gulf of Mexico but in our younger age is they're in places like Sarasota Bay so if Sarasota Bay and Tampa Bay fall apart as EST it's going to adversely affect offshore Fisheries of grouper but that's not the case our system is getting healthier those are three juvenile gag grou are found in the grass beds that were now increasing so uh I'd be remiss to not talk about the challenges in the future which is uh this is uh one of the things that we're going to have to deal with more and more this is Blue Sky flooding this is Longboat Key Village uh people there tell me that their streets flood twice a month uh because the sea level has come up and over the last 20 years our water level has come up about 6 in that's 3 in per decade over the last 5,000 years which is roughly how long we've had civilization it's been about an inch a decade so we're transitioning towards a higher rate of seal level rise than we've had over the last 5,000 years uh it's not several feet but it's several inches it's not nothing and so this is the reason why we basically want to make people realize that you need to anticipate sea level rise over the next 30 years we expect about another 9 in our title range is 18 in and what that means is in the year 2050 your average sea level will be what today's high tide is and the average high tide will be 9 in stacked on top of that so the problems that you guys are addressing I believe right now this is rearview Boulevard man Avenue the picture on the top shows where the water's coming in this is Blue Sky flooding it's not rainfall this is water from Man River and a picture in the bottom uh is that's not a canal that was actually the water uh in the streets uh the reason why that's happening is because it's just getting warmer this is a temperature plot for Sarasota County and it Compares every month across 120 years against the average of the last century so all the months of January from 1900 to year 2000 and if you're warmer than the average over that last century you're yellows and Browns and what we see is it is just getting warmer we're not getting the freezes that we used to get uh we used to average two to three freezing temperatures per year on average for a 100 years we just don't have that anymore and we used to start off August days in the 60s not every day but we haven't had a single hour of a single day in the last 20 years where it's been cooler than 70° in August so it's just getting warmer thermal expansion of the water just the way a hot air balloon Rises up in the air is what's going on right now there's reason to be concerned about that because warm water and warm moist air are fuel for tropical storms and we have a data set that goes back to before the Civil War and that Red Line represents a fivepoint moving average for the North Atlantic it looks like we're getting more tropical storms but the more interesting thing is the graphic on the right hand side major hurricanes are Category 3 four and five we used to have a lot of years where we had hurricanes we've always had major hurricanes but what we see in the first part of that is there were lots of years where we had a hurricane but it wouldn't be a 3 four five and now it's fairly rare that if we have a hurricane it's not a major hurricane so the thing that seems to be happening is we're not necessarily getting a lot more hurricanes but the Hurricanes we're getting are more powerful hurricane Michael in 2018 went from a tropical storm to category five in three days which scared a lot of people hurricane Otis the one that hit aapco last year went from a tropical storm to Category 5 hurricane in less than a day and it hit a batch of water in the Eastern Pacific uh 88 de were a lot warm at 88° so it is you know what we're seeing is warm air warm moist water excuse me warm moist air warm water is adding more fuel and but in this case the engine of a tropical storm doesn't produce anything you want to have it just produces winds and waves so more fuel stronger engine and uh the reason why I we uh uh concerned about this is what we live here number one but the other part is what it does to our water quality so this is the lower part of the bay U before and after Ian came through um this water looked like root beer it didn't smell like root beer it smelled like dead fish and compost cuz that's that's what it was basically we had so many um you know dog poop and leaf litter and uh porta-potties tipped over that tipped into the bay that we had uh fish kills that lasted for 2 weeks but it didn't last two months so our water quality had recovered within about a month but the way it recovered was it flushed out into the Gulf of Mexico which is the reason why we had such a bad red tide in 2023 so cleaner Bay is a more resilient Bay and if you want more information uh follow us Sarasota beta .org or on social media or Point your phone at that QR code and you'll go to an arcgis version of our uh management plan and with that I am finish thank you for your time questions um I thought a representative on the Sarasota Bay thank you very much no thank you it's a pleasure to serve on this board and I think they're doing a fabulous job as eviden here but I think that um it would help if you would let them know we recently were reviewed by PA and I think it'd be good to know that it's not just us that thinks he's great yeah we had I think last year we had a program evaluation it happens I don't know every five years or so they come down and so we uh uh we had a great review it went very well they uh we had some issues in the past that we had to address I think we're we have great staff Megan Barry's in the room rate there she does a fantastic job of of increasing our profile in the community um but it went really well and we had Janee was out there and uh we had a ribbon cutting event at the fish preserve so we had a super time we've sailed through it and they've asked me to actually be on a Review Committee for the New York New Jersey Harbor estr program U because ours went so well so thanks to you and thanks to the policy board who actually you know allows us to do the work that we think matters vice mayor Barnaby thank you for being here today we appreciate you coming in and uh giving us factual data that that can help us in our decision- making uh I seem to remember when I was back on the Estuary board in 201 10 or 2012 somewhere around there uh we actually did an economic study to come up with exactly how much is the value yeah to the Bay H and again I haven't been involved with the EST program since then have have you done an update to that or will you be looking doing an update to that yeah um so that study was done in 2017 and we could update it but I'm kind of like I'm not really into the study mode so it's a lot of money and it's more money than we're spending so to me it was like a $3 billion property value uplift 20,000 jobs they're probably both higher now and we could do it again but I'd rather actually just focus our effort on projects because I've never had anyone say 3 billion isn't enough or 20,000 Aren't Enough jobs so I'm going to go with like it was already a big enough of a economic impact for people to be willing to spend what they're spending and and I understand that I appreciate that we just know that sometimes when you have um The Ships coming in and out of Tampa Bay and that sort of thing the a I mean if look at what happened in Baltimore yeah yeah yeah so um just I just want to make sure that we have factual data on the economic value in case we have something of significant disaster happen understood absolutely Mr Perry thank you mayor thank you Dr tomasco for the informative and factual and scientific presentation I'm always just uh amazed at how good job you guys do and I'm glad we're able to to work with you and that Council and coper is intricately involved in in your uh group but I'm on the operational management side of things being a city manager basically and so when talk about um certain Wastewater components in particular that's something that's near and dear to my heart because our teams have to address that right and we deal with it in two components one is a collection component Rob can you pull the microphone real closer y one is a collection component and the second is a wastewater treatment component right and and really when we talk about the city of Bradington we we treat somewhere in the order of six to about 8 million gallons per day of Wastewater and you you you made a sentence about they captured 95% of it and did a pretty good job and and that is a good job but we want to capture 100% of it right I mean that's what the overall objective is but in Sarasota when they get into environmental problems my understanding was over a short shorter period of time about three years there was over a billion uh gallons of water that went into the bay and and it was about seven years in general where we had the problems but yeah three years were the maximum yeah I mean the the biggest issues we had the several hundred million uh overflows were're in about a three-year period um which coincided with our worst water quality right right and and and and we're you know we're looking at Major investments in wastewater treatment as well as collection to minimize any sort of delirious and negative impact on the environment from our from our Wastewater system um but when I look at it overall and we had a spill fairly recently that was a million gallons and of course we go into the minate river not the Sarasota Estuary or any of the Bays associated with it but when I look at the volume of the Manatee River and I I say look I wish our goal is zero but a million gallons is a drop in literally um I don't know a large swimming pool outdoor swimming pool comparatively and relatively is that scientifically a fair well there there's the the there's the concept of U mixing zones a simulative capacity so you're allowed to have uh discharges of awt effluent 100% under state law the grizzle fig act um but you guys don't have that you have day-to-day very little I don't think that you have a direct surface discharge you use every day um because you send it to places that they need water which is smart um there is a bigger impact where the outfall occurs and so what we had is we had so much of a Wastewater uh inflow a billion gallons is a thousand times bigger than a million gallons and so what you had is uh a thousand times what you just had uh we had a thousand times worse in the lower part of the bay and and I think that's really the the key that you know spills will happen I mean 1 million gallon uh overflow isn't something anyone should be happy about and I know you guys aren't happy about it but we had five that were over 100 million we had three that were over 200 million those overwhelm that system that's that's a massive discharge right and and I just I think you follow the city enough and we appreciate your your interest in the city to know that we're making significant investments into wastewater treatment system I think we have about $50 million in srf loans that deal with both collection and wastewater treatment collection gets under appreciated everyone loves to go to ribbon cuttings for the plant right but the what really happened the problems that we had in Sarasota County is uh excessive inflow ass with the cracked pipes and leaking pipes and those are like decades old the plant may be brand new the pipes are decades old and that's the big part of what you guys are investing we have 62 miles of clay pipe and and we've replaced 35 find it and we'll continue to line it what people don't understand is that during the wet season what ends up happening is all that rain saturates the ground gets into the Wastewater Plant uh system and so we have to treat so much of it it's overc capacitates the plant absolutely yeah we appreciate working with the scientist like yourself and and have a great deal of respect for your opinions and it's very strategically helpful for us thank you very much appreciate Council more um when you say in the slide um about future complications and you talk a little bit about population growth and a need a Hold the Line strategy yeah can you elaborate a little bit Yeah I apologize that's actually one of the main things I want to talk about so um because our water quality got better we no longer have an impairment so there's no need for what the next step is typically uh a total maximum daily load which is a state or federal government oversight to basically say you need to reduce your nutrient loads to get your water quality under control we don't need that anymore because our water quality is now under control so what we were going down the pathway was to do what's called a reasonable Assurance plan which is a local version of a total maximum daily load when the water quality improves so much uh we brought this to our policy board's attention including uh Jane and we said well there's three options one of them is do nothing more because regulatory wise you don't have to do anything more go forward with a reasonable insurance plan which is a regulatory document but there's no real need to do that or to do a third option which is what we call a water quality protection plan and that's what they decided to move forward with so a water quality protection plan would be we would anticipate what would happen to pollutant loads over the next 30 years as our population grows so more impervious area more rooftops more roadways more driveways more roads more storm water runoff more sewage and we need to figure out what kind of a load increase would happen with the population growth over 30 years and come up with projects to offset that so that we can hold the line on pollutant loads so we don't let this water quality uh restoration success story slip away from us so it wouldn't be a regulatory program because there's no one out of compliance but it would be instead a publicly facing document that allows the general public anyone to go there and say all right they said they were going to reduce 17 tons per year are they doing that and and if so who needs to do what more to do that so we work with city of brington and all our local stakeholders to come up with a list of projects to help us hold the line and pollut load for the next 30 Years so Dr Tasco you and I had a conversation I don't know maybe a year ago or so after a meeting with water Keepers that over in paletto at the Yacht Club yeah that we talked about maybe some of your neighbors and some of your your that development is is is causing the problem and you had mentioned to me that development sometimes can help the situation because they're putting in the new infrastructure that is keeping the eye and eye out and there's and you had mentioned about an individual that was probably the loudest but he had a septic tank right on the bay yeah somewhere and those issues sometimes people think oh well they're doing development and the old if it's just one house but if every house on that street has a septic tank that could actually be more detrimental to the Bay than a new development that is putting in the proper um infrastructure that will get it to the right place to be treated properly and then dealt with is that did I did I remember that correctly yeah the way I look at it is uh there's nothing natural about most of Florida and certainly not our Watershed uh we have like there's only 2% of our Watershed is in a natural estate and that's Oscar Shear 98% of what you see looking down you know from a plane is rooftops driveways sidewalks roads and that sort of stuff so we're basically built out so um the question we have then is um can we make better water quality and the proof is we can and there's lots of examples out there uh New York New Jersey Harbor Hudson River cleaner now that's been at any time since before the Civil War we've had three US presidents who Di died from bacteria related to sewage contamination we haven't had one recently who's died because of bacteria related sewage contamination so the Hudson river is cleaner the temps River in uh London is cleaner than it's been in centuries um Tampa Bay is cleaner Sarasota Bay despite that setback is still cleaner than it was in the 80s so we know that we can have cleaner water with more development it depends on how you develop and one of the things that we see is new development for example has storm water treatment ponds old development doesn't so so uh someone who lives in a neighborhood that was built in the 50s who complains about like Lakewood Ranch for example Lakewood Ranch has like uh they're using your effluent for example and Sarasota cities to water their lawns so they're not using drinking water to water the Lawns they're using reclaimed water which actually means you don't have to have a surface discharge plus they have storm water treatment ponds so there are issues with new development and traffic but not necessarily new development causes water quality degradation there's plenty of examples that show you can have more people and better water quality and that's just the way it is it's not a political statement that's just what the data show I think one of the most important things to do is we look through as a body up here of development we know that we have 14.4 square miles that we are not a Northport that has hundreds of miles of development available Northport you know virtually right now is the same size as the city of Sara OTA the city of Bradenton but both of us are landlocked with our boundaries where Northport will be a county in itself in 2050 when they have 200,000 residents and we're probably still going to be somewhere around 60 just because even if we grow a little bit with some Urban core development but it's important I think to this Council as well as the community that that we continue to look at ways to develop our Urban core while allow ing the developments to work in the development as well as the city to fix some of that old aging infrastructure that could actually benefit the water quality and just because you're adding something doesn't mean you're tearing down that water water quality you actually could help build it up because of the the inii and all the things that are that are out there now so that's something I think important to remember yeah we'll need to like I mean the number one thing we have to focus on is our Wastewater and you know so you need to have uh a healthy enough economy to pay for your Wastewater upgrades I mean there's lots of places in West Virginia that have same problem you don't have enough money to fix it uh there is one thing that however and I forgot to mention it uh that is uh one of the biggest concerns we have moving forward also is uh seaw walls concrete seaw walls being replaced with plastic seaw walls it's a big deal um we have about a 100 miles of uh canals that are seaw walls that or concrete that are being replaced with like polyvinyl chloride or fiberglass they just don't grow oysters and what we're trying to do is uh we're trying to work with you know you guys are involved with the the Oyster River Project the goal is to have 100 acres of uh oysters out there we also want to make sure that we do projects to uh um with vertical oyster Gardens with Mangrove panels because if we don't we're going to lose a significant amount of our oyster Reef habitat which is good habitat filters water quality along our seaw wall so uh we're working with longbo key to come up with a way to uh allow oysters to grow on these plastic seaw Walls by adding a concrete panel that goes on the outside otherwise we're going to lose a lot of the water quality benefits over time as those concrete seaw walls get replaced with plastic ones well great I think that's a obviously a great update and I think it's something that it shows that that you know propaganda gets out there and again we don't want any type of spills we don't want anything but we just got to work within the fact and make sure that the the public understands that we are doing something big in the whole Sarasota Bay whether it's Sarasota County the city of Sarasota Manatee County the city of Bradenton and others that are in those municipalities and areas so we appreciate you being here and taking your time and and you came over on the right day on spring break didn't have to get the traffic y so all right apprciate thank you appreciate it thank you all right moving forward it's in the citizen comment time a citizen comments will be accepted during the citizen comment portion of the meeting on any non-agenda item agenda item future agenda item or topic of relevance to the city comments will be accepted on the public hearings at the appropriate time and I just have one card for Tracy Washington if Tracy can come forward please state your name and your city of residence for the record and you'll have three minutes good morning Council oh okay I'm Tracy Washington um city of residence is paleto Florida I am the President and founder of the Minnesota re-entry project and I'm also your second vice president of the manity NAACP I'm here today standing um as a mother though today my title today is a mother I'm the mother of Bon Johnson Davis that lost his life while in custody of the Peta Police Department um I stand before you today because there um were accusations that there was an investigation launched by the Bradington Police Department because there was an officer that was involved with the incident um so I stand here today because I can't get any answers through email or public record requests because they're telling me that it's under investigation at at this present time so my questions today for the city council is when did this investigation begin um when and were the city council members made aware of the incident I want to know the training of the officers mental training Mental Health Training and substance abuse where is the officer now officer Julian Jackson I need to know if he's on administrative leave if he's still on the streets I need to know where the officer is and what is the protocol for the police department to notify the family because I was never notified about an investigation that was open when FDL and the prosecutor closed and cleared these officers so um my question is when and Lord I'm so frustrated give me a minute my question here today is why do we have another investigation open and when was I going to be notified about this thank you thank you all right I have no other citizen comment so I'm gonna ask Chief bevon to come forward good morning everyone thanks for the uh opportunity to review this uh I've actually stood before you in the past and kind of reviewed how we do things and and it's by law and it's by policy and it's what we've always done here and so um a few things happen when situations occur particularly something such as this where we had an officer involved in the ultimate death of somebody in custody um a criminal investigation has to occur first in this particular instance this was a criminal investigation that was conducted by FDLE I think in conjunction with pal Police Department um during a criminal investigation we can't touch that we're we're not the entity that is doing the investigation although we may have an involved person we need to wait for the findings to be forwarded to um the prosecutor's office and for the prosecutors to make a decision State Attorney's Office whether there's going to be any criminal charges brought forward at the conclusion of that the brainon police department then looks at situation such as this to see if any administrative violations may or may not have occurred when I say administrative violations it could be anything from um somebody being out of their area um uh you know was was proper Force used from our perspective in compliance with what our uh general orders stipulate and mandate um state law required is that all these investigations as I've said in the past um are confidential that's not our rule that is a state law these are confidential investigations in fact we have received a number of public records requests and every single one of these records requests have been responded to with just that language that these are confidential when the investigation concludes and I I will tell you I don't think that this is going to be a protracted investigation most everything has been handed us um we're looking over it it's going to come before me to look at all the facts and circumstances and then we'll render a decision on whether any administrative violations occurred involving our officer only just the braon police department I can't speak for how pal meow handles situations like this or any other agency we've always handled um situations like this for all the years I've been here and probably then some um we're not trying to step back from any kind of situation we're actually stepping forward and making sure that just because fdla and the state attorney's office said there's no problem here we're going to make that decision as well in accordance with our policies and procedures everybody who's made records requests we can show that we've responded um and that's it if anybody has any questions I'm happy to speak with her further outside and answer any questions that I have in front of you today okay thank thank you mayor if I could just point out one important legal point is that when Chief speaks about it being confidential that isn't something that they deem confidential it's a matter of state law it would be illegal to provide those records when they're deemed by state law as confidential it would be a crime by the police department to do that because the state has basically determined that investigations should be independent and they shouldn't be influenced by external forces until they're concluded thank you all right have no other public comment Madam clerk the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda and staff is requesting approval of items a through F all right chair we entertain a motion motion to approve consent agenda all right second all right councilman Kramer and a second by councilwoman Coachman is there any other comment hearing none we'll start the vote in W two yes three yes four yes five yes and one yes carries unanimously Madam clerk item 8A is the first reading for ordinance 4025 an ordinance of the city of Bradenton Florida providing for an amendment to the city of Bradenton land use Atlas changing zoning from t4r General Urban restricted to t40 General Urban open for properties located Lo at at 910 Riverside Drive East 111 10th Street East 10008 Riverside Drive East 1010 Riverside Drive East and 1020 Riverside Drive East the partial ad numbers are 3219 300005 321 05359 3210 5309 32124 and 32105 0049 providing for applicability providing for severability and providing for an effective date and the second reading and public hearing is scheduled for April 10th April 10th 410 at our 8:30 am meeting correct all right moving forward item 8B is the first reading for ordinance 4026 and an ordinance of the city of brenon Florida providing for an amendment to the city of brenon land use Atlas changing zoning from t40 General Urban open to T5 urban center for properties located at 214 9th Street East 208 9th Street East 112 9th Street East 110 9th Street East 108 9th Street East 406 9th Street East 304 9th Street East and 402 9th Street East partial ad numbers are are 31347 008 31348 00006 3134 9004 3135 00002 31351 0 0 37 excuse me 3137 900001 31362 00007 and 3135 009 removing properties located at 214 9th Street East 208 9th Street East 112 9th Street East 110 9th Street East 108 9th Street East 406 9th Street East 304 9th Street East 301 9th Street East 2011 9th Street East 825 3rd Avenue East 108 8th Street East 106 8 Street East 807 3rd Avenue East and 402 9th Street East and the partial ID numbers are 31347 00008 31348 006 313 49004 3135 00002 31351 0 0000 313 79001 31362 00007 32185 00001 31278 00006 31358 005 313 92004 3143 00009 31375 00009 and 31 38822 from the Antiques overlay District providing for applicability providing for severability and providing for an effective date and the second reading and public hearing is scheduled for April 10th and get a glass of water thank you a lot of zeros so all right so we'll move that forward to our second reading on April 10th correct 2024 at our 8:30 a.m. meeting all right moving forward to new business thank you mayor first matter is item a uh City Administration fire station Tu the GMP guaranteed maximum price and uh I would like this information to be put forth by um Chief G as well as have Folly come up The Architects and engineers on Fire Station 2 along with Brett Ray maker his team from Willis Smith which is AAR and they can brief councel on where we're at on the GMP thank you welcome so good morning everybody um I'd like to say that since our last um uh meeting where we were in front of you we've had many meetings and and uh gained a lot of good ground I feel so I'm going to turn it over to uh probably uh Mr uh here and uh let him proceed with the uh presentation trying to keep it kind of high level not get too uh um to down um into the details too much it's a very long GMP if uh if you notice so take it away good morning Brett raymaker uh vice president and project executive with Willis Smith construction I'm joined by Robbie grombach vice president and also a um director of pre-construction with Willis Smith you want to introduce yourself good morning I'm John Ward uh senior Pro manager with f Bryant and to start off with we will let John talk briefly about the description again of the fire station to you all sure um the the Fire Station 2 project is uh on 222 man Avenue between 23rd Street and 22nd um it's a approximately kitchen dining Fitness room uh turnout gear and laundry also there's uh an apparatus uh bay approximately 4,500 ft uh three Bay apparatus uh second floor uh six dorms restrooms and showers a lounge laundry room and a feature of a fireman's Pole to get the firemen down to the the first for quickly out to the apparatus Bay um I do have to say this is going to be a project that we're uh definitely proud of and that the the fire department and the city is going to be proud of uh we worked really uh hard and diligent on exceptional design uh proper functionality and then also budgetary needs we work directly with uh uh John tody with uh the city of Brayton uh project administrator uh Chief gear assistant chief Kennedy and then also Willis Smith the team here with Robbie and Brett um we just worked really hard at an exceptional design and uh these guys did a great job focusing on uh the budgetary needs of the project which they're going to talk about that now um but uh uh I think we this is a project that we're proud of and I hope the city's going to be proud of definitely working with these guys and been great thank you now Robbie talk briefly about the GMP efforts good morning everybody so with the construction budget set at 7.75 million and our early estimates coming in between 8 and 8.4 million John touched on it but we went to work uh and there was a significant effort that went into to cost reduction strategies without sacrificing the program for the firemen or the design intent for what will be that Gateway into the City and we're able to bring that GMP in at 7.9 million uh and that was a significant effort from our Market uh so we invited over 280 subcontractors and suppliers to bid this project we received well over a 100 actual proposals that went into that uh final GMP that we're presenting to you today and then upon approval we would anticipate mobilizing and put a shovel in the ground starting June of this year so a summer start and then it would be a summer finish 2025 any questions here if I could just summarize a couple of points um when we initially uh looked at this from a pre-construction Services perspective Council may remember that uh we had done some preliminary uh estimates through both uh Willis Smith and Folly and and our cost estimates were really between 7 and 9 million um and uh again it it's 7.9 uh so we're in the middle uh John and Brett really did an exceptional job along with John tody Lance Williams and some other folks here at the city and the and of course the fire department the the Chiefs and their staff in in in really sharping their pencil and and and I don't think they compromised on the programmatic perspectives but what they didn't do was uh they didn't allow certain expensive uh types of components to creep up the price of the project and and ultimately when you look at the rendering itself it's a greatl looking fire station in my opinion um it the city will be proud it's on the entryway of the East Side into the city obviously on State Road 64 the service area itself is very challenging the chief and I had had a lot of conversations with hi uh chief and his staff regarding really what that station services and some of the fire department operations that that Chief could get into much better than I could uh but it's an important important asset for the city and I'd also point out that it's the second of of two fire stations that we've built over the course of the last three or four years um uh we think it's a a pretty good value in today's construction world it is more expensive when we hear that we were able to build station three uh uh three for $3 million it's important to understand that we actually had Folly go out to the market and say this was probably a year and a half ago how much would it cost a year and a half ago to build Station 3 and it was about 150% of what we were able to build it at because it priced out in 2020 thereabouts and so even Station 3 would have cost great deal more than 3 million if that was built in today's in in in when I say today's market the market of a year and a half ago because the construction costs have gone up even over the last year and a half that's just what we're facing um with with with major commercial specialized construction such as this uh if you take the size of it and cost it out um on a square foot based basis it's it's still pretty reasonable this station is one and a half times the size of Station 3 too at roughly 14,000 plus Square fet almost 15,000 so that's the project it will ultimately come back to council for final approval of the of the GMP in contract form but we thought it was important to bring to you what we have today and my hat goes off to the selection of these professionals from the architecture and engineering the preconstruction the the semar the department itself the our city John Tod's done a good job and so we're we're pretty proud to bring this to you and we'll be uh greatly uh pleased when we start construction in June um we will have a construction wrap fence with a wrapping uh advising the public of the construction of this new Public Safety facility um the placards on it will display the fire department the city of Bradington our partners to the private development of the project and I think the citizens will know that their tax dollars going to worthwhile Public Safety projects any questions yes ma'am Miss Moore um it's not really a question it's just a point of clarification because I I think it's I don't want to have anybody misconstrue that this is the construction budget so it does not include contingencies in the fee it it does that guarantee maximum price will include 3% contingency and the fee it does yes it's all-inclusive and this is a different contract form than what you did on the previous station guaranteed maximum price is the most that you're going to pay for this station anything that is savings is 100% return back to the city of Bradon and that's what a GMP is the that's why we going with this and I think that when we went with the previous fire you know it was a timing thing and I think then Co hit and so there was a lot of other issues and a lot of other problems that we had and I think that you know looking back we probably should have went with a GMP on that that's just my opinion and I think that you know we learned from that at that moment so vice mayor Barnaby thank you Chief gear I just wanted um thank you for all the work that you all all of you have put into this I think we all know that station number two right now is not the type of fire station that we want to have in the city it's outlived its usefulness it's very tiny it's in a very interesting uh location difficult to get out onto the main streets from it um so I'm very happy to see this I just want to double check because of all of the information that has come out dealing with firefighters and incidences of cancer just as we did at station three where we set up basically for lack of a better way to describe it dirty to clean areas we are doing that in this station correct uh 100% so we we sent all that information over to Folly Bryant um really back with Station 3 we sent updates to them as well so all those areas are separated uh to keep clean areas and then also with ventilation AC say systems um you know uh just redundancy in our in our washing areas things of that nature so all those requirement or requirements have been met and um you know kind of station three was our original kind of kickoff for that and we maintain that same you know basic design with the uh cancer reduction um in mind as we move forward so thank you very much for asking that and I think another important factor is that we learned some things from station three that we probably didn't repeat on station two doing them so close together and chief I look back to that rainy morning many years ago that we drove around looking for a piece of property yes sir and uh you know I mean we could have we could have looked for years but you know this property was available at the right price and I think it was great of this Council uh um to take that leap at the right time and now the the fruits of within a don't want to wish any of our lives away but within a year and a half we show that we're able to get quicker to some of the areas in that segment and you know as we know whether it's a fire whether it's the um safety of health issues that moments count and that I think will show go and so that is well worth getting you know that new station in the process and I think at Station 2 don't you have to walk through one thing to get to another and well well we do and you look at all the current building codes and fire codes I don't think it meets any of those I mean you're talking a you know 40 50 year old building and it's time and it it's just time and uh you know we we appreciate that old station but it's definitely time to move on and uh like you said this will serve the public a lot better with times on the E side you know and getting down in that 27 Street East Corridor where we have new neighborhoods going in and uh so you know we we really appreciate y'all moving forward on this and appreciate the support and thank you and and all of your staff and and firefighters putting in the the newest technology things that we need to really work through and I know with our staff in the administration as well as the the Builder and the architect yes sir continue to work it because again nobody wants to spend more money than we have to but we've got to spend what we need so thank you well thank you too May with that I would request a motion to approve the the GMP as proposed I just also point out that uh I'd said the the per square foot cost was was fairly uh pretty reasonable today's market it's actually $533 a square foot and uh in today's commercial specialized construction Market that's pretty good for 15,000 square ft chair wner a motion to approve the GMP Mr Mr Mayor motion to approve the guaranteed Maxim maximum Miss barnab I'd see Mrs oh I'm Sor first okay I so move okay second all right perfect thank you we have a motion in a second to guarantee the GMP on this project we have a motion in a second is there any further discussion hearing none I'll start the vote inward three yes four yes five yes one yes two yes carries five to zero thank you thank you all so much and thank you mayor for the day yes good luck Mr Perry next Item B 9B is the city administration's request for public works and utilities director uh recommendation uh for Colonel Urban Lee and I think we have a letter do we have a letter for that it's attached it isach the page and the agenda right um as as Council knows um U we've had Mr rudel a little bit on on confirmation requirements for directors and as I remember uh it it's a situation where for hiring of a director the charter is is silent and it doesn't require formal confirmation uh for for removal of a director it's a little bit different but as a practical matter we always submit it to council because we want the endorsement of council and that we want Council to know of such important positions and get the the uh confirmation um approved as you know um Colonel Lee has a very very extensive record in public works um he has phenomenal education backgrounds he currently runs the US space command in Colorado Springs as a retired um uh former military Colonel but in a civilian g15 position which is the highest general service position I believe in the federal scale his uh his academic background is is tremendous with multiple engineering degrees in both civil and Engineering as well as certifications by state agencies including the professional engineering Association of Florida um he had previously been in charge of facilities from mcdill Air Force Base and the Central Command which were all near and dear to our heart and the role that that plays in the National Defense as well as they had been the director of Public Works in Tampa uh the background investigation I believe I would forward it to you which was rather extensive it called all types of references prior employment um as well as uh uh specific 15 uh individual interviews that were conducted with people that the colonel had worked with I think the best thing I can say about the colonel is he wants to be here aside from from those incredibly impressive uh background credentials I think he really wants to be here it's returned to Southwest Florida his family his wife is is is up in the Tampa area he plans to relocate closer uh into manate County and um he's looking at it as a great opportunity for this point in his career to make valuable constructive contributions to an entity that is on the on the rise such as Bradington we spent a day with him we took him to the Department introd uced him to staff took him to the spirit of manity awards where many of you got to speak with him and meet him in an informal somewhat informal uh environment as well as individual one-on-one meetings and we appreciate you taking the time on that day which was kind of a busy day to do that uh I'm really excited about what the colonel can bring in terms of leadership we've also uh oddly after the fact of the formalities of the invest background investigation and experience have been able to speak with mult multiple people who just have worked in the public works Arena here in in in the Tampa Bay area and I think we had three or four people say I work with him and he was great he's awesome and everything so you know I I just think uh that we really got a gem um I hope it works out and that I'm not overselling things to to a certain extent but to bring in that kind of background to the city of Bradon I'm I'm proud we're able to bring that type of leadership background and experience he served the country he served the state he served the you know the the surrounding area and uh I think with the challenges we have in the public work sector remember 266 employees out of 600 it's 48% of the city and uh we touch 11 different divisions we heard Dr tomasco talk about some of the challenges on utility infrastructure environmental impacts we got to get busy we got a long way to go and a short time to get there and and this is a fell that I really hope you could support it's your recommendation to hire the colonel I believe it's my recommendation I believe it's also the recommendation of Mr Williams and well as the entirety of uh HR the the HR and and and and the Public Works staff they're excited all right Mr Mayor any questions yes ma'am I'm sorry go yes any questions go ahead Miss coach um I'd like to move to approve the recommendation of Colonel irin Lee as the city's Public Works and utilities director second all right we have a motion by councilwoman Coachman a second by vice mayor Barnaby is there any other discussion hearing none we'll start the vote inward four yes five yes one yes two yes three yes carries five to zero so Mr Perry than you good phone call later today absolutely make it happen all right all right last matter item C is a community redevelopment agency temporary public art display in City Hall and and we're going to show you kind of a rendering of the display itself and do you have an a depiction of the area that this is going to be displayed in want that first yeah let's start with that if we could yep mayor this is uh obviously going to be spayed in in the city hall building the public artport of course is a component of the CRA um and and uh Miss farmer does a great job over there this uh proposal was bought to miss farmer from young lady that I'll let her describe a little bit the background of the of the public art itself um the process that it went through through the public art board the individual um and the collaborative the individual took with a lot of other artists from the area uh what we're talking about is displaying it on this wall that is depicted I believe on the right side of my visual where the sailboats and the and the birds are depicted um it will be uh dimensionally 9 ft by 12T I believe it's sized as four um horizontal panel that are each 3T wide totaling 12 wide and three verticals of of 3et so it's by 9 feet tall it'll take up a good part of that wall um and with that I'll turn it over to miss forer okay welcome hi there good morning we actually have the artist here with us today too I've invited her upce wonderful yes I will go ahead and introduce yourself so hi guys good morning uh my name is Annie dong I'm also a fourthe thesing student at new College of Florida with my major in art and psychology um and that's kind of what's inspired this overall project I want to let you guys know that this mural was designed by the teens all designed by them I just assisted with building the panels and giving them a theme of who are we um and then I let them take on whatever they decide to design um so I only assisted and they designed the um mural and I'm very inspired by them being really young talented young artists and my goal was to also invite other teens at the Boys and Girls Club who are not really interested in arts to also join the project to see what they might like connect with other teens and this is the outcome of it um the mural shows positive affirmations by individual teens such as I am loved I am brave I am C courageous and this is like a reminder to other teens that they are in they are also connected so having this mural displayed in the city hall can mean a lot to um the community and other young adolescents and like you said um Mayor Brown that the adolescence are the Next Generation they are super important to the community and if other kids can see this that are done by other kids it can mean a lot to them too to feel connected and to be reminded that they are loved and they're also just humans at the end of the day all right any questions comment just a comment just I think I think I love it and I love um I actually like the idea because I know up in up in the capital building you'll see different displays now and again and so I I like the idea of uh using that space like that so sounds great well I think we just had the great project with our banners through the school district to put out throughout our city with the artist and going through that so I just thought this was a great next step and obviously this is something that you know we'll we say temporary but obviously it depends how long temporary means that we're in this building for the future but it is something that can be taken down also and moved at the right time if it's if it's deemed or something even better to be to come forward so we appreciate you taking that effort and uh really helping and being a college student you know that shows a lot of initiative and and we appreciate that thank you well done yeah very nice so the chair will entertain a motion to approve this uh I'll make a motion uh to approve the temporary public art display in City Hall I'll second all right and Miss Moore the second all right any other discussion I'll just may I note yes um that I love it I love the project and I love that you had the foresight to come and and make it a more public display for the community uh personally I I feel like it speaks to all the different hats that we wear um which collectively is I think the core of our humanness so I think they did an excellent job thank you good all right we hearing none we'll start the vote and award five yes one yes two yes three I am voting yes I am and good four yes carries five 5 to zero and how quick can we get it up so we will be working with the CRA and the facilities team uh there's a challenge to to putting it up because of the size of it and we'll probably have to do it maybe after hours and there'll probably be lifts involved and other things and we'll be seeking CRA support for that appreciate it thank you great job you want to get a picture uh yes please yeah all right y let's go we get a picture why don't you want us to get up here and then like hold can I say that um also one more thing I would like to exceed exceed exceed a um invitation for all of you guys to be invited to the new College of Florida art thesis opening night and this mural also will be displayed there along with the um another mural that I did in the gallery so I hope you guys can come in the opening reception night and I'll hand out postcards once um this meeting is done awesome thank you you guys come up here anyone else group come up come on let's get the B come get in it too we'll get you the picture we'll get you the picture anybody hold the hold the we need the piece of paper so have your awesome work everybody in see everybody it's good thank you guys mayor that will conclude my uh item number nine of new business at the present time I stand for any questions if anybody has any is there any unfinished business uh none at this time all right so we'll move to council reports and we'll start in ward two oh well thank you um first of all uh sir I want to thank everyone that came together and worked so hard for the program at Lewis Park last weekend I received a lot of information a lot of positive comments about how wonderful the park is and how terrific it's going to be for some of the younger kids to be able to do a tea ball there and the the neighborhood is just very happy that we put the time the effort uh and the money into that Park and I want to thank uh all of members of the city council for supporting that it's a it's a wonderful wonderful Park and then I have one more thing and and Tamara's going to miss Melton's going to help me with this oh sorry oh yeah there it is a perfect for those of you that remember when I first got on the city council and Matthew Barnaby was a second grader at Miller Elementary please allow me the honor of introducing to you Mr and Mrs Matthew Patrick Barnaby my son got married about a week ago so congratulations yes thank you thank you and that concludes my report all right I'll just jump on a little bit with Lewis Park and and Sean Flynn and he's president of Manatee West little league right now and obviously we have a great Park in GT Bray Park uh but it's a little bit for the bigger kids these are the four and fiveyear old te- Ballers and if you looked out there you know it was fun pouring down rain nobody cared at that moment on Saturday but what um Ross and his staff and Brian and his staff did you know as far as waste and everybody over at the public works and sanitation that you know is keeping that Park looking good we do have one problem at the park now we got to empty the garbage cans a lot more which is a good problem to have because that means that people are using it and we are getting numerous positive feedback on that when we at the beginning people were were concerned and I think they realized that some of the things that that were done have now benefited the park and now with the little league jumping in and that's their official Little League field for the the te- Ballers you know and we didn't have to cut any trees down we trimmed up the little tree but not to any detriment to it because t- Ballers are basically infield you know when they hit the ball and and go but that's something great and I think that that's something that we'll be coming back you know as some other improvements to that Park and other Parks I do have somebody that's contacted me that said find them another Park in the city that we can do that too and they would help fund it so um you know private person so that's that's you don't give me a challenge like that and I'm not going to take advantage and bring it here so um I know Ross is thinking oh no more more work but but I think that if we can do another Park in our city that matches that park because even though it's a true neighborhood park we have the true neighborhood on the Riverwalk and the different things in Minal Springs area but let's continue to grow that because when we were out there the other day doing some logistical things with the contractors um I think there was almost 70 people there in in there with their children and it was before spring break I would expect to go out there now in Spring Break and it even be busier so that's a good problem to have and you know benches and different things that you know we're working to keep improving it so obviously without the rotary it wouldn't have been able to be done in that way but also without all our city staff and this Council extending the additional monies that we put in there so great job to kudos to everybody thanks Mar I don't mean to interrupt but I'd like to thank you for going out there and kicking off the t-ball season out there on Saturday I saw the pictures this morning and uh the the t-ball teams had their own mascot oh yeah never seen it was expecting you to probably have be the person under it but that was someone else it was there was over a hundred people there by the time the day was out and as vice mayor Barnaby said she was getting a text or a phone message from somebody and forwarded it to me that wow great job and how it's continued to grow so we'll keep working that um moving on Council um or Ward three thank you sir um I'm very happy to see Conor up here uh but as I scanned the audience I saw some people that just were smiling the entire time and I got to feel that these are Connor's parents right down here you know we don't get a lot of people smiling at us very often but they were smiling the entire every time I glanced out towards the audience they were smiling the entire time Doug Hoffman's also smil laughing at us they were just smiling right right Doug Huffman's just laughing at us but um but yeah uh but thank you very much for your donation to got him up here and uh that's it all right thank you Fort Miss Moore um I um I just want to applaud that's such exciting news uh that there might be you know uh as an individual that wants to invest in more city parks um I have to give kudos to you all pre me because I was not on the council I think when you began the Lewis par uh Park project but it really encourages me that we can you know make those kind of things happen because I do think it's uh fantastic fantastic addition to the to the city um I don't have much else other than I am going to be attending uh a fashion te with my River Isle ladies this afternoon that I look forward to that um and I think that's just about it I don't have a whole lot today need a hat let me know I know hats like that hats like that it's true I forgot a hat it shows I think the the public interest in public private Partnerships that this Council and and and my office is really working towards and it can be government Public Public Partnerships public private but as we know we can't do it all ourselves and we can do it a lot better in collaboration and that's that's always been a theme and I and I thank this Council for continuing that theme with what we're doing and the community letting us do that so that's a perfect thing so all right Ward five all right War five is alive uh just a few things I had noted from the very start of our meeting we've had some some presentations and and and recognition um first of all with the water quality that was great to have that information and get that out to the public and secondly the the child AB use Association I get to see the the I get to see them working you know um a lot of times those calls are made from my school and I I I see the benefits of their labor so it was really great to see them being recognized and appreciate it um during citizen comments when the mother came up and spoke about her son of course that is definitely something this city and our law enforcement and all those involved in such a thing are um caring and and will definitely do as all we can to help that mother with her grief you know it's only so much but but we are friendly City and I'm I have faith I know that we'll do the right thing and take care of it we've already done the right thing um on the vein of parks one of the things I am most proud of in in um my almost immediate neighborhood is that we are going to redesign one of the par well both parks but we're going to start with love Park and that has been the source of complaints for for you know safety reasons and and usability and all of that so I'm pretty excited that the signs have been put up letting the neighborhood know that uh a new park is coming and uh so far I've only heard good comments it's more like thank you time you know it hasn't been used as a park the way it's has been designed for years so the idea of something new coming and something that can be used and something that will be safe uh there quite a few people uh looking forward to that there are a few that aren't happy that it'll be closed for a bit but that's okay because they can move on uh and and also in the vein of safety when Chief was you know bringing up about the fire station and you know I'm kind of concerned about when when we try to cut things so it'll fit with that you know that cost hopefully and I feel confident that we've not you know uh in any way diminished quality just kind of took a few little little luxuries I guess out of the way um but that brings me also to think on that east side there is still some areas over near an apartment complex where the residents that don't have the proper I guess decals or what have you are parking along the side of the street and it's really becoming a bit of a nuisance or has been a nuisance for people to be able to get through I have to double check and find out where we are with that but I did uh about a week ago someone mentioned that it was still kind of going on and we had a city vehicle I don't think it was an emergency vehicle was unable to get past on that street I think it was the street sweeper or something and there was a call made I thought but anyway just saying that we want to definitely make sure those streets are clear so that you can get to them and and respond to them um readily and on a positive positive positive note I am so appreciative to how our mayor made a young lady's wish Beyond wishes come true there's a young lady in my neighborhood she's she's killing it in softball her dad is very supportive he's with her you know all the time and making sure she gets the practices and does her schoolwork and all that stuff but one of the things she wanted was to go to a game a baseball game I mean you can hear leom from her home I can hear it too um and it just so happened I happened to uh see a post on Facebook I hardly pay attention but you know I saw some pictures of her in her baseball a softball game and her dad was so proud so I reached out to him and I said hey how would you like tickets to go to the game he said she had just recently asked him gee Dad could we go to a game so those tickets came available and it was spring break on Monday I'm sorry Monday was spring break so it was perfect that 1:00 game was perfect so they got my tickets and uh they got the tickets rather and I mentioned to the mayor I said hey there's going to be a young lady and her father sitting in the seats um and it meant so much to that father Mr Williams that you personally came down to meet him and bring them up to the box and he he was so amazed that the mayor would come and get you know just a regular person and his daughter and bring them up and and give them you know like the Royal Treatment which uh she'll never forget it she will never forget it and neither will he he is definitely your greatest fan he did say I'm I'm one too but but um I just thank you for it's obvious how you feel about the youth and um I just want to thank you personally for how you um took care of that little girl and her dad and really made I can't even tell you that that's going to go far and other than that award five is alive if you celebrate Easter hope the Easter Bunny is kind to you get something real pretty to wear and all of that stuff need to have oh oh you know I I inherited my mom's hats so I got you covered thank you w one yeah um just to kind of play off of that I mean we are very blessed in the city um I mean the mayor does stuff like that constantly it seems like and even I'm going to tell a tale on you that he was out weed whacking out on night Street he and Gina doing just doing that extra to just put it forward for our city and I don't know that everybody appreciates all that you do for us and I wanted to give you a little shout out too but um I uh want to thank the Pittsburgh Pirates I'm you know spring training um such a magical time of the year and it was um it was a great year I think I was able to go to a couple of games and I want to thank them they're they're great supporters of our city and uh I look I look forward to them coming back again next year and uh we are kicking off the Marauders I think it's this Friday isn't it April April 5th um so there'll be plenty more baseball games um and uh while we were disappointed that the music in the park didn't happen because of the rain um that'll be happening this Friday um is the band is solar coaster it says it's a rock band and that'll be from 600 to 8 those are always a lot of fun the community comes out free music um I really I always enjoy that and uh I'd like to thank Dr tomasco um that you know we know that there are a lot of voices out there and while everybody's got well-meaning um it's great to have that scientific data to rely on um so I want to thank him for taking the time to come here and actually for doing such a great job on the the estro board in general um so I I thank him for that and then uh I just want to wish everyone a blessed Holy Week and and a happy Easter thank you all right staying on the theme of the Pirates so the games that we had this year the weather could not have been any better we had Chamber of Commerce weather the whole home game season for us so you know we just uh we got a little bit lucky a lot of times people say the mayor don't let it rain today but I don't really have that much control of things but we're trying but no just um and we're waiting for the final numbers but I believe we're going to top 95,000 throughout the spring so that's some numbers that you know before Co were happening a little bit but since Co the difference but now we saw that that those numbers numbers are back and that economic impact in our city is great now the other econom or the other impact is traffic and that's one of the things that that our Police Department really looked through um and we actually had officers on streets you go to Tampa Bucks game you go to a Lightning game you do different they direct the traffic so we're looking at that and this year was a little bit of a sample that we did so our Police Department did a great job of getting out there trying to move that traffic out out of there um since Major League Baseball has put the speed T clock in where batting and pitching and all of that the games get over a little earlier which we like because it gets out before the the rush hour track so it's going to be something that that I think we can morph into next year and have it better um which will really help and also uh we've met with DOT um the no and different with I think we just hired a traffic engineer which is going to help us we're working with the county doing some of those things that are are looking at ways because a lot of times you know lights being synced don't always change the flow of the traffic because we have two one-way streets in Manatee Avenue and 6th Avenue but they're very close together so if people are trying to turn to get over the green bridge there's not a lot one way has to stop for a long time to get it so those things are being looked at you know there's a lot of post out there that that they're not they're looked at constantly one of the things to remember is don't block the box and don't turn from a center lane when it's a straight Lane because we are going to work on those and and we do not want to give out tickets but we want people to abide by the rules and if you block the Box you actually could slow the traffic up by considerable amount of time so really pay attention our Public Works is working on that right now to more signage and putting some of those white boxes just so it helps you a little bit that that way and then um there's some comments coming and at some of the different Wards we're getting a lot of comments about speed humps well obviously we know why we don't do speed humps we have our own fire department and that's something that they have stood strong on for years so I'm gonna to ask and I wanted to do this in the public meeting that um some areas that they're talking about speed humps it's because of the speed well is there a way to maybe put some four stops that and you know right now that will slow the traffic down I don't know but I'm going to ask our Police Department to research that and come up with some of the areas that they've talked about which a lot of times it's the neighbors that get affected by that the most but if it's safety then it might be worth it because a lot of our I'm just going to say Riverview Boulevard for example from 26th Street West people are saying that's a speed track well speed hump might slow it a little but a four-way stop would definitely slow it unless they're running the stop sign which then there'd be more penalty so I don't know I don't have the answer for that but I just thought that's something that the public can look at and say hey we're at least looking and trying things so Mr May if I could just add something there because I know that there's been a couple of neighborhoods in w i that have asked about speed humps speed tables speed bumps some of the newer neighborhoods do not have curbing they have a a Swale that helps take the water the storm water off of the street we know and we have seen out in the county if you don't have a curb and you put a speed bump in people will go up into people's yards to go around the speed hump so that's why in many instances I I just tell the neighborhoods it's it's going to cause you more trouble than it's worth because people do go around and they go up in people's yards to go around them but you're not being ignored by us we're we're looking at every option out there and trying to figure out yes yes ma'am and I think once we were talking about um for example on some streets around where I am if there were speed limit signs up they're not now so sometimes even just a matter of putting them up and reminding people uh this is a neighborhood you don't go 40 50 miles per hour 25 you know so I think just a reminder too if we could get some signs up yes ma'am um I um I think too to some extent um I think traffic mitigation would help that because I think if people felt that they were in in a flow versus just at a standstill they wouldn't mind that the speed limit was you know only 25 or 30 miles an hour so I think that projects like um just to give Miss uh clayback a shout out a project that she is working on that I am super excited about which is the total streetcape of Second Avenue making pedestrian and and cyclist safe will help with that feeling of flow but not driving super fast so I think and I think when you go down second there is some stop signs in places where if there was no stop signs it would just be a racetrack so that would be some options well as you point out we have Traffic Engineers so we now we very ex yeah we can kind of dedicate a little bit more resources some of these issues Perfect all right all right uh nothing else on my report uh department heads Chief I'm glad you all are talking so much about traffic um because that's what I'm going to talk a little bit about but before I do that I just want to reassure you had a very positive um discussion with Miss Washington out in the hallway so um I wanted to let you know these are the things we don't always or I don't always come in here and and kind of wave the flag um recently last week we um received a a hard fought Grant um it was part of um my participation in the public safety coordinating Council we get 250,000 in Jag funding each year and it's up to the the Chiefs and the sheriff and um various nonprofit groups to try to get a little piece of that um we actually got $112,000 for um a 9,000 intoxilizer um we used to have an in filzer before I arrived but um space constraints and the requirements that go along with that for set out um this takes about six months to nine months to get the funding and so we're I'm sorry uh DUI DUI enforcement um we do do DUI enforcement but currently if we pull somebody over determine that they're impaired and arrest them we have to drive all the way up to the county jail to um do that test that can be problems Pro that can be problematic for a variety of reasons I'm sure you know um we're uh excited about actually having this and have that part of our new police station um it can actually help us maybe put somebody permanently on that job something that I know that the community has been calling for a long time we also got another $122,000 for Speed lasers um we're trying to get more and more out there I think yall have probably seen a lot of the signs that are popping up in in various places and so we've really aggressively gone after grants just this year Alone um with that $25,000 that will make $100,000 that the police department has obtained in Grants everything from speed um to DUI to pedestrian and bicycle safety you may see right now if you guys have been out and about we are aggressively out there working those grants um it's not our desire to to be punitive to the point where we affect somebody's pocketbook but unfortunately um just what we're seeing out there and aggressive driving um you know it is making a difference we feel and so um just thought I'd let you know that um crime reduction team is has been out there um I don't know if yall have seen them in the neighborhoods and and downtown whatnot I can see the difference I'm reading their nightly reports they're out there doing some some pretty good things so stay tuned on that speaking of the Pirates if yall didn't catch it uh we retired for the second time officer uh McGowan who he was done right he was he was probably done about halfway halfway through the season but his dog kept wanting to come back to get the hot dog from me well he had to get there he had to get there at 4:00 in the morning so being retired and then getting up and check in the stadium at 4 was kind of like I don't know if I want to do this anymore but he he he hung on this year for you for me um but he's over uh or he's happy he was in yesterday they're getting ready to go vacation together um we are actually in the process right now of replacing him we're we're going to shift a little bit we're going to go from floppy ear to pointy ear um so that we can get a little bit more bang for our buck because really truly which is a good thing for our city um he doesn't do much else except for the the Pirates games and some big events around the region so um we're looking at some different options and and the good news about that is that we receive um grant grant funding from um you know some various entities to help support that so it doesn't come out of our um our budget and then finally if you all haven't had an opportunity to see the work of some of my staff out front of the police department um that's an important area for us I know you and I have talked about it it's it's a safe haven um we we see it used quite often for all kinds of exchanges um you know Marketplace what have you kid exchanges but this time a year what we love to see and I can see it out my window are the dozens and dozens of people from around the community who come there to take pictures their family pictures if you guys haven't seen it um Marvin and um Josie went out of their way I was trying to figure out what they were doing after hours in the back building flower boxes um and so please make it a point to get out there maybe take a picture um and enjoy that encourage folks to come by I think it's a really good connection when they're out there snapping family photos and the police officers are coming back and forth I think I think that's just a pretty cool thing so that's all I have thank you Chief I have one question for you um you mentioned about the public private partnership with helping with securing our next um dog animal uh mention those names who does that I think that's that's appropriate because it's community support and it is the public private partnership um so for for many years now um it's too called uh the Pirates organization um pays for half of it and NDC pays for another half and it's this is actually going to be their second dog um as well both those entities and a lot of people don't know that also help support our officer of the quarter um initiative uh to provide some um little goodies in a bag for the officers who are recognized speaking of that um hopefully you've gotten the invite you'll be getting it today just in case you didn't for our ual awards ceremony that's coming up I believe on April 10th that's um something that is sponsored by Jess Jewelers um uh as well as o' bricks um and corks um these are all businesses who have stepped forward they don't want anything from us um and and it's simply to acknowledge the great work that the men and women of the braon police department are doing and and to help us in any way we can we've got some fantastic opportunities and um councilman Kramer I know you sit on the brington Blue Foundation um coming up in just the next two weeks um I you know you run into people um over across the street from my house at the American Legion they've been giving um bears and money to the to the Sheriff's Office for years and I said well I'm better looking than the sheriff and you know maybe they're in the county but I I don't know how I convinced them um but they're actually getting ready to do a a bear and poker run on the 12th I think and they're going to donate those proceeds um to the foundation and as you guys know that money goes towards officer Wellness equipment it's bought our officers the plate armored plates for their vest um it helps with community events and so it really does is does a lot for us we also are going to be the recipients of a golf tournament um just through relationship that's going to be happening out in Palm Harbor um it benefits um autism education which we do every year um but uh the proceeds from that which is going to happen on the 6 should be in the realm of about $188,000 that's going to go to our our foundation um and so we've already earmarked that for potentially some new gym equipment for the for the new station um to help out in in that regard and so it's incredible uh really how we've grown that and and how the community has come to us to to to try to help um it it makes it very acutely aware to us how much they care about us and I think they realize how much we care about them and as a final reminder our torch run law enforcement torch run which has nothing to do with us but um Special Olympics is the number one entity that law enforcement um really gives back to and um Endor and so we're going to be out there with our special Olympians Saturday morning on April 6 um for 5K and so anybody interested in signing up I'll just make sure you all get sent that link as well and if you don't want to sign up maybe you can buy a shirt or maybe you can just donate um you know it's they need help and um it's it's always a great event we we do that in cooperation with the Mante County Sheriff's Office I I don't run 5Ks anymore my knees don't like that but I know you got three cheer up here so if you need stand in corner we'll be out there I I think it's at like 8:45 or something in the morning I don't really run but I walk um I get I get through it one way or the other so um anyway so thank you all right and then last thing just as obviously our prayers go out to the New York family of police department you saw that on the news this morning where one of their officers was shot and and killed had a small child and and obviously a wife so I'm sure there's a lot of things in this country country but our police officers that put their lives on the line every day you just keep that family and then um also the the community of Baltimore you know we lived that 40 years ago with the Skyway and they're living something now and and you know you think about the the six or seven people that they've identified that they can't find yet that those families and their our prayers are with them especially at this Easter time when you're going through things and and you're celebrating what Easter means and that's such a tragedy there and and for that Community um I was in seventh grade when the Skyway got hit and one of my teachers coming to the school was on the bridge was fortunate enough to stop before the part that fell so I you know we were wondering where she was and nobody knew then somebody said she came over the Skyway then that came up so you know that sticks always in my heart because we were waiting for our teacher to get there and fortunately we were able to she was able to stop before the the others but um any other department heads all right before we adjourn or before mayor Longo adjourns we want to give a couple things here this is one of our keys to the city so you can stand up we'll give it to you there um doesn't open anything but it's a key to the city M can we can we get a picture with his parents down front and maybe all the council in the back and conclude it on a great note like that and I'd also like to thank Miss aguella for coming filling in for Mr Rudell this morning and happy belated birthday to Mr Perry girl you know it's your birthday don't even ask it's big number it's a big number I don't like to it is theth it is the 25th yeah how old I was so we get in it's just a certificate of achievement and obviously we appreciate the family being willing to donate money to St Joseph's Catholic Church to buy this so you know it's really thank and keep this certificate show your friends hanging on the wall keep it I've got certificates I got 45 years boys and girls I love but I don't have a key to the City app here picture off we're we're Jed