[Music] [Music] [Music] to our uh June 4th City Commission meeting uh we welcome you here if you would join us please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for stands one nation godice for all thank you Jennifer all right we have some fun things to do this morning right Chief come on up are you talking first or am I coming down there first okay morning mayor vice mayor Commissioners uh We've we've been a few years since we've sworn in new firefighters due to the covid and The Old City Hall and all that so we' we're trying to get back on track so we have several firefighters today that we'd like to have sworn in and then the other two shifts we'll be going uh picked the date in July and a date in August to uh to finish them up so hopefully uh we can get those all all to you as well I'd like to start off today by introducing our firefighters that we're having sworn in today and as I call their name if they come forward Andrew Baker and give you a little history and Andrew Andrew was hired March 10th 2021 he worked at Sunstar for a year prior to starting with deden he has 5 years experience as an EMT at me Countryside and the city sponsored Andrew through the fire academy so he's one of our folks that we we bring through and he's also was a county certified paramedic So the plan that you all approved where we could give a th000 or $5,000 uh certification pay he's one of the results from that we stole him from Sunstar so welcome that's Andrew so if you want to just slide over to the side Derek Courier firefighter paramedic Derek started with the Department As A Firefighter EMT and has since completed his paramedic certification his prior experience as a volunteer with the old lime fire department and old lime EMS in Connecticut and has a Connecticut cert and was a Connecticut certified EMT he has a musical background serving as a music teacher for many years and has a ba in music from Western Connecticut State University so are you singing for us today yeah just kidding welcome all right Adam Gonzalez yeah also known as AJ the firefighter paramedic uh he's a member of the Florida National Guard where he serves as a combat medic he's earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Florida so we well-rounded individual we have that joined us here probably needs that to deal with us yes yeah we we can use that uh firefighter paramedic John Keeler John John started with us in January of 22 he came to us from the city of Melbourne fire department where he served for 3 and A2 years he was the 2020 firefighter of the year in Melbourne and he also worked at Sebastian River Medical Center as a paramedic for a year and as a lifeguard for Morton County ocean rescue for over two years he received his as degree in EMS from Eastern Florida State College and again another result of your offerers to uh be able to to bring them in with more experience and pay them more he was one of those that joined us welcome thank you Rafael Mal malano did I'd say that right I screwed it up Raphael I'll stick with rapael he's a firefighter EMT he joined us in August 23rd of 2023 he's a graduate of denen high school so I knew you all would like to know that so worked for Sunstar as an EMT prior to being hired he's currently attending SPC paramedic class and to complete this fall awesome welcome and finally EMT ASA Sanders I'm sorry I have one more after this okay and ASA joined us in 2021 24 he worked as a firefighter EMT for seven years for the city of Olive Branch Fire Department in Mississippi and the City of Hernando Fire Department in Mississippi he's also attending uh paramedic school coming up here and don't ask him to talk to you because he has a whole different language when he he speaks but so and again another benefit of you allowing us to bring people in with experience that he joined us and we have one more Brandon mlin Brandon is an EMT firefighter he's currently in paramedic school and he joined the Department a year year ago right do we have a year yet three I'm sorry three months it seems like a year anyway so uh oh but he was in paramedic school uh when we hired him so another benefit obviously and uh he's a firefighter so with that we'll go ahead and mayor want to join us gentlemen if you will raise your right hand and then repeat after me I'm GNA you guys are going to each repeat your name so I and your name do solemnly swear swear to do my duty As A Firefighter my duty as a firef for the deden fire and rescue department for the fire resue Department to the best of my ability to the best of my ability to serve my commanding officers to serve my commanding officers with respect and dignity with respect and digity to serve the citizens to serve the citizens of the Duneden fire and rescue District fire and rescue district with compassion courage and integrity with compassion courage and integrity and to up uphold the laws to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States of America Constitution of the United States of America the State of Florida State of Florida and the City of den Eden and the City of den you are official all right so how do you want to do this we'll bring uh the family members they we're going to do the pinning if you please come forward stand next to your firefighter I'm going to go back up there you don't need me for that y not to be in their picture [Applause] you guys get so much training I would think you would train on here [Applause] congratulations great y oh they got to get you to learn the back pipes yes we do [Music] a still [Applause] [Applause] all right so we want to come down and get a picture with you guys if you don't mind our new celebrities and then we want to get a picture with you and your family not us but after we do our pictures okay kind of try to look really good you look great they all look awesome I'm just that's all right we're gonna come down to you all right we're all going to [Music] all right how about the pictures all right we'll get out of the way r you guys can get the picture do okay are we Goodbody all right what's next chief next we had uh Lieutenant promotion uh scheduled unfortunately one one of of the members was unable to come due to a doctor's appointment that he couldn't reschedule and the other two we just recently did our Lieutenant promotions uh we're still trying to compile those scores so they're not ready to be promoted at this point and to have a ceremony so we'll catch them at another meeting uh the next one would be our Deputy Fire Marshal and if we can ask Danny uh Castillo to come forward come on Danny he brought his own Entourage he takes up the whole side I'm not surprised he brought his grandma I love that yes Danny was hired in uh November 9th 2016 has been a member of the department for over 7even years he's progressed through the inspector certification levels which we have three to become a fire inspector 3 prior to be promoted to Deputy Fire Marshal which was effective October 1st of 2003 so mayor if you want to okay okay oh yeah got to have the mic so Danny you raise your right hand and repeat after me I Danny Castillo I Danny Castillo do solemnly swear to that I will support the policies and procedures I will support the policies and procedures of need in Fire and Rescue need in Fire and Rescue while serving in the position of Deputy Fire Marshall serving in the position of Deputy fire I will faithfully and honorably faithfully and honorably bear allegiance to my superiors be aliance to my superiors I will I will to the best of my ability to the best of my ability protect the safety protect the safety and lives and lives of the citizens and firefighters whose care has been entrusted to me whose care has been usted to congratulations [Applause] buddy all the way from Miami Metro Dade fire department this is he he said Danny said he wouldn't be where he was today if it wasn't for him uh when he was like 19 18 years old and hee thees you guys think this is [Applause] [Applause] dry your eyes it's contact contct can I have one more on the side acting up thank you got it thank [Applause] you thank you can I have some of you guys on the side as well please thank you all right y congratulations thank you chief you guys don't have to stay we don't expect you to stay you can go unless you want to gotcha you go GMA know you're welcome thank you thank you we love him so sweet that's so sweet okay awesome woo that's like tear Fest um all right so now we're going to move on to Citizen input and this is time for be able to come forward and speak to any item that's not already on the agenda if it's on the agenda you'll get a chance to speak to it at that time anybody wish to come forward Mash long time no see baby how you been MH I see all the traveling you're doing on Facebook yeah and share with you I'm sorry some of the concerns that we're having over the golf course renovation we know it's almost over we've talked to Blair he's told us look how happy you'll be when it's done but right now we're having a hard time getting through it okay this is one day's cleaning of my laai ah one day and the same is true for all of my neighbors are you on the are you on I'm on the number two tea box and number one Fairway and number two Fairway are really number one and number two highways all the traffic for the golf course travels up and down one and two and we get all the dust I have photos to show equipment going down with just dust just billowing out behind it my neighbors some are 91 and 93 years old one with asthma have not been out on our back porches since March 1st haven't been on our lenai they've been hiring people to clean it I even though I'm not a youngster have been cleaning it at least three times a week our neighbors who have pools their filters are black like this every day I don't know what they want me to tell you except they feel like they need some kind of compensation for the frustration that they've been through the house cleaning that's going to be required after this is over pressure washing our roofs our screens our walls our window sills even there were days where this black dirt got in underneath of our sliding doors we just feel like we weren't ready for this even though were told it's not going to be a big problem there won't be any big equipment I've seen lots of excavators out there and the dust just keeps on keeping on I mean as late as last week I have a pictures of a big truck going down with dust just billowing out I don't know what the the solution is okay I hope we can come to some sort of agreement with y'all after the course is finished for either reimbursement of the expenses that we've incurred or in some way to have a chance to talk with you one onone about how each one of us on along the road but I have copies of a letter that we've all agreed to and signed and I will present so you can see all the signatures and we know that this is going to as we've been told repeatedly increase our house values and that means increase our taxes but we're all looking forward to playing golf on this beautiful new golf of course as well and as a side I just discovered last week that there's such a thing called a Swip s SW PPP which is if I'm getting storm water and pollution something plan that required the city to or the golf course to have sprinklers on weding down the sand daily never happened okay thank you mam um Jennifer um I remember when we went through this with the Player Development complex when that was being built yeah you know with the dust I I don't know what remedies are I'm looking over at Jorge I I I don't think you can I know when you when they do a property they have a screening along the bottom I think it's more of a storm water screening than anything can you have taller screening no May I'll yeah precious punch through um as best we can we will meet with mash and the neighbors and talk a little bit about what we can do in the future but for now we have to punch through with this construction we've got to finish it we've got to finish it strong um and um and we'll see about what remedial measures that we can take and and I mean I we all know that there is a water issue everybody knows that so it's probably why they're not watering every day well they are watering every day I mean they're watering the sprigs and the fairways yeah they are they are because you know we're springing the fairways right now and we need water um you know a certain amount of water every hour while they the water actually would help keep down the dust I would think I think it will yes it does so um but let me you know I know Blair has been on this I know he's been in contact with the neighbors uh and let me chat a little bit with Blair um unfortunately as you said this is this is a consequence of construction um and what we can do is as I said punch through get this done as quickly as possible I think the Rainy season's going to help us a lot though when it when it does arrive yeah I'm praying for rain I'm doing a rain dance every we got a little rain we got a little rain yesterday afternoon at my house okay thank you Jennifer MH she'll hook up anyone else want to come for and speak to any item that's not on the agenda please give us your name and address for the record hi and you have three minutes my name is Eric Graves thanks for the opportunity to speak um dunan resident 1413 Bayshore Boulevard um welcome what I'm here to do is propose a your support for Weaver Park kayak paddling small sailboat Access Project um I did send in a proposal for the project um for the 2025 Aid to social and cultural nonprofits um preliminary cost on that is about $5,000 for installation and M maintenance based on one potential solution um while the proposal suggests that funding could be provided by um donations that um I and other volunteers will collect um any funding that can be provided by the city will obviously help the project um benefits of the project uh we we've got a need um I don't know if any of you do much kayaking or paddling or small sailboating but you know we've got a nice little opportunity to launch at the Duneden Marina we've got one at the dun Eden Causeway but really nothing in between the two and uh so we we don't have that access right now um also the opportunity to create another economic draw um to the um to the area to Dun Eden um and again I've laed a lot of this out in the proposal but the north side of town you know we've got a nice little draw there now with dun Eden mix this could be another addition to that um activity to draw visitors from the beaches Tampa Orlando um we've got kind of one of the most unsung really nice kayak opportunities at Caladesi Mangrove trails and this is an access straight across um infrastructures already in place so lowcost options exist um safety is a big part of this as well if you've ever been out uh uh to see the activity at the causeway on weekends or holidays or even over at uh the marina there's a lot of mixed boat traffic and this uh provides an opportunity to pull some of that traffic away um in my environmental uh positive effects supports non-motorized non-combustion watercraft kayaks paddle boards small sailboats and also no impact um at least in terms of the proposed insulation to the seagrass bed so I think that makes things a little less complicated from a permit perspective um and less driving for residents on the north side of town uh parking relief uh there'll be less traffic in parking and already congested in Parking Challenge areas at the Marina and The Causeway especially on the weekends and then some approved Aesthetics uh the suggested area for the proposed launch is a real visible part uh of the park that can now be improved so thank you for consideration again the proposal was sent in I'll kind of let the process play out um but I think we've got a real need um for this um useful project so thank you okay thank you um if I remember correctly Jennifer when we when we did the grant to purchase Weaver there there was a kayak launch already planned but I do think that there was an issue with the seaw wall if I remember correctly I think there I was looking around for you I didn't see you back there good morning mayor I just am I right when I say that the the kayak was a plan yes we were working uh on trying to get a kayak launch there you know there is some challenges because of the parking you can bring your kayak to the pier you can you can go in the water um at the end of the pier on the floating dock but the water is so shallow there and and sometimes I mean it's 100 ft or so from the shoreline before you um can really get your kayak launched so that was a challenge for us to build any that's why we did the floating dock right yes yeah and the floating dock has been there it was originally going to be right there at the park yeah yeah I mean I know it's not real convenient because you have to walk 700 feet to get to that floating dock but the other areas are just so shallow that um we have struggled to make that happen but I can speak with this gentleman here and um but there was something with the seaw wall too I think I well yes we also you that that's a challenge too and we are studying we are it's proposed budget again uh we'll be talking a little bit about tomorrow uh proposing for doing some investigation on a um natural seaw wall and that that might be the time that this gets Incorporated okay so okay thank you thank you anybody else wish to come forward and speak to any item that's not already on the agenda okay we'll move on to the consent agenda we have the approval of the amendment from strategic planning the work session and regular meeting with have board and committee appointments to the causeway and Coastal waterways committee on Aging Edgewater Drive historic preservation and Marine advisory excuse me and then we have the hail Center Activity Center North restroom Remodel and the pelis County School Board in city of denan piping and drumming funding agreement are there any items to be pulled uh yes mayor like 2C 2C is the bathroom at the Hill Center yes anybody else okay so without the Hill Center Activity Center can I have a motion and a second second okay so uh commissioner torga and commissioner gaw is there any public input on any of the um consent items all right all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes unanimously um did you just have a question vice mayor I did um I just $96,000 just kind of blew my mind um for the bathrooms and um um and I don't know like we we don't we don't have that many craft workers anymore Jennifer do we have craft workers anymore I mean how many craft workers do we have I know we used to be able to do the stuff in house are you saying craft workers craft workers basically you know facilities you were saying craft workers craft craft workers we do have craft workers in house the the question is whether or not they have the time to dedicate to a project as large as this and you know at the cost of other projects that we have going so the answer is I don't we don't have enough staff inous in order to accomplish this project yeah and the only reason I asked the question I I think that everybody always thinks Outsource Outsource Outsource well we used to be able to do a project like this in-house now I think sometimes things go back and forth is it better to have in-house staff better to have external I'm just suggesting that if these prices continue we might want to explore you know insource versus Outsource because I think they go back and forth as to what's coste effective but um just a lot of money to me for bathrooms so that's all thank you okay that's it that's it I mean at this point I don't we don't have the staff to do it but I just think as we go through our budget I mean custodial is the same thing in you know doing it Outsourcing which we may be having some effective custodial now for the first time in 20 years even though we outsourced but we had very effective inhouse so it's always a cost benefit analysis we're coming into our budget think we just constantly need to really think about that it's not always best service best cost Outsourcing sometimes it's best service best cost by you know doing it inhouse so I just think we need to always keep those things in our head so that's just my editorial comment for the day so thank you okay anybody else all right Jennifer anything nothing okay can I have a motion and a second to approve the bathroom good job jeline second okay uh vice mayor Frey and commissioner Walker anybody from the public wish to speak to this item all right all in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed motion passes unanimously thank you all right um hang on just one second okay we'll move on to action items we have the discussion of the lease option year for the art incubator agreement Jennifer did you have any opening I don't I'll hand it straight over to Bob good morning Bob iron Smith economic development director as you had mentioned mayor here to discuss um lease for the art incubator this been in place since 2015 uh the current lease expires September 30th of of of this year um there's been various items that we've looked at uh I do have Andrea here I know with the dun Fine Art Center but uh at this point in time staff is recommending not to continue to lease but to do a three-month extension to allow a transition uh for a d find Art Center in Arch Angels uh to uh look to uh either find another home or to look to go in a different direction uh we've been subsidizing this since 2015 at a considerable expense this initially was put in place to stimulate arts and culture in the downtown uh this has been done uh the things that archangels has done has really been well recognized as far as you know bike racks various different items that have been produced we certainly very much appreciate all that and the classes that D find Art Center has put on to expose people to the different Arts so it's really been a very much a win-win for all these years uh we're very uh excited to uh work with everyone we just feel that now the time has come where uh it doesn't make sense to continue to lease it's been a strong subsidization for all these years and we felt that between the maintenance and the resources and the expense to subsidized to lease that it was time to say Gee let's go ahead and help them maybe find another place um but let's go in a different direction I will bring up from the last uh commission meeting when this was put in place for two years there was various performance measures in various direction that was put in place by the commission uh that we felt has been in progress but hasn't really been met one was the 501c3 uh I do know that Mr Coleman now has that but the other items were to uh do a succession plan with the dun Fine Art Center uh archangels has met with the dun Fine Art Center The Dun Fine Art Center at this point in time is not in a position to buy the equipment or to look toward the succession plan with that and that was a very important aspect that the commission had mentioned at the last commission meeting so based on that based on where we are today based on subsidization uh we're looking to just recommend the three-month extension as a part of a transition point I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have okay um questions for Bob vice mayor uh I really don't have anything I think Bob you covered everything in your Staffing from the performance metrics to the subsidizing to you know some of what our original goals were and um I I think you covered it well and you know I support what you're recommending commissioner thank you mayor I agree with the comment uh that you covered this well um there's a lot of detail here and we follow we've all followed that carefully um things have changed certainly down there but things have also changed um with regards to uh both entities that are involved in in this activity at this point in time so I think this is probably one of the one of the better Alternatives under the circumstances uh and and under our budget considerations for not only this coming year but for the next year so um I think that that this is a the best solution we could have any questions so question oh sorry so you guys have you you have I know spent the time working with Bill to attempt to find him another place and I followed that with the city manager as well I know you've done that and and I and you've drawn drawn line on on the end of that is that correct yeah that's correct commissioner the city M Jennifer and I have worked pretty hard on this for for quite some time and uh we certainly recognize you know what Arch angels has done and brought to the city it's just we think we met the goal and it was time to move in a different direction and we certainly would help uh Mr Coleman find another place and also for uh Mr Davis who owns that property also to see it released so yes but we ran the end of that and we did there it is thank you thank you any questions questions any questions commission okay uh I don't have any questions um anybody from the public wish to speak to this item okay uh can I have let's see so you're looking for consensus direction to move forward with a three-month extension and then it it just expires it doesn't have to come back to us correct mayor but the 3-month extension will come back to you we'll have to prepare a new lease agreement which will come back before the commission which would include the F Art Center U archangels and the city and and Mr Davis so mayor the reason why we're here today in regards to this is that we need to give um the property owner three months so if your decision is that you're not going to extend it for another three months we would need to notice them in June so we're looking for your direction to to in to um add the additional three months give archangels and the dfac time to relocate sufficient notice an abundance of notice and then that essentially gives them six months correct okay goes through the end of the year I'll move staff's recommendation with the additional 3 months okay thank you vice mayor do I have a second second okay commissioner torga all right final comments no I mean I think this was uh you know it's been a good project trying to an incubator for art um and I think some good things were accomplished but I think we've landed in a good spot I personally have a great piece of art in the corner of my living room by Mr Coleman and he's great and I'm I'm sure he'll hopefully we'll get a different place for him he will and uh and continue his wonderful art in our community thank you commissioner D so my only comment is that I have a great respect for Bill and what he's done and and some of the projects he's done here in the city and I'm really hoping that perhaps somebody's listening and and can figure out some kind of a solution for this uh but I think we sounds to me like you have really extended yourself in this so you're absolutely right commissioner an opportunities present themselves all the time you're absolutely right someone might be hearing this and say to you we have space or something so sure thank you thank you mayor Comm uh yeah there's you know we can't uh say anything bad about Bill I mean he's a very skilled artist and it's wonderful that he's in our community this is just an unfortunate situation it was great that we we tried um to have a district to have some sort of art incubator uh in our downtown it's it's unfortunately it's just not working my comments yeah so I I don't think there's any question with regards to the um visual sense of place contribution that bill Coleman has made um you know you look around to need and of of all the things that he has built and been involved with that um every single piece and every single thing really does epitomize what denan is all about and uh I uh I'm I'm in favor of the of the staff's recommendation um however I would like to make sure that we continue to work with him to keep keep his his business into needed um I you know I I think there's tremendous value um and uh however uh at the end of the day there there's cost associated with maintaining the the incubator and everything associated with it and it's a it's a pretty big cost and so subsequently um you know we are where we are at um but uh anyway I that's uh you know I I I wake up every morning and I see this beautiful teacup across the street from me and uh you know that's that's Bill Coleman's work so thank you and that's what I meant to say that was well said yeah I think we all appreciate Bill's contributions um to the community via art via editorials remember those days yeah I know you do um and we do appreciate all of that what makes an incubator work and I think what maybe hurt us a little bit is we don't own the property right and so we're trying and you know we're trying to get a property owner to give a discount and that's not workable for them for all the reasons we know we have a for-profit business that we're subsidizing trying to incubate it's just the formula wasn't right if we owned the property I think it it could have been I think it could have been what whatever we wanted it to be but we don't own the property um so so like you said we did what we could thank you to the Fine Arts Center for your participation it's been good nine years um okay uh anybody did I already ask for public in put I can't remember I don't know Rebecca I think you did I think you did yes none huh none okay all right um all in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed motion passes unanimously and you will bring back a final lease right yeah what what we'll do is we'll work with City attorney we'll have a lease prepared for that three-month extension and uh we'll get copies obviously draft the final art center and Bill Coleman in the city and we'll bring that back before you here in the future sure okay all right uh thank you and now we're on the affordable housing let's see approval of financial commitment letter to the Florida Housing Finance Corporation for proposed affordable housing projects the Flats on Main Street in the amount of $610,000 Bob uh correct yep I'm not moving I know that's a mouthful right uh in our travels especially city manager one item we always hear about is affordable housing you know how do we get that we've come before the commissioner on numerous occasions this this might be the third or fourth time I recognize sometimes there's a little bit of fatigue we build up expectations and we haven't got there it's certainly not from a lack of will or trying I can tell you that Jennifer and I continue to try to push the ball up to court to see how we can get an affordable housing project today's kind of a different day and I'm excited about today because we we have a project this is one we've tried before it's called The Flats on Main Street this is over by uh on state row 580 over there by the dollar store the property owner is Mary Mariel Constantine but we're working now not only with a a developer that has been very successful this is archways they are here in the audience Dave Hy slip here an answer questions we also brought in the penel County Housing Authority the director is Neil Brickfield he couldn't make it today today he was at a conference but we have Jake Stowers here who can also answer questions but what's nice about the penel County Housing Authority is they're going to be able to participate in this project with vouchers which makes the chances of getting this done much much better what this is this going through the state it's called the sale program State Department incentive loan and what we do is we compete with that as you aware uh there probably going to be probably another five applications coming from penel County only one is picked but we feel we have a pretty good shot at this uh this would be 78 Apartments okay at 30 60 and 80% of of the median so this is uh very attractive project and we think we got a really really good chance on this one and what this would uh result in is uh if we're selected a $610,000 commitment from the city this is to to participate this is that commitment letter uh we would probably hear sometime maybe in September if we if we're able to get this and this would allow the project to go through but I say that we're not only just banking on getting the state at the 9% there's also a program called 4% through the state also competitive not quite as competitive but we'd also need pelis County Community Development to participate with us and we've had pretty good talks with them and frankly the developer archways has had numerous talks with them on other projects and they have one going on in seol which is really doing well so at this point in time I'd like to answer your questions I'd like to bring up archways David HP to answer any questions I got Jake sters here at the County Housing Authority we're bringing the whole team together we're really going to go after this one um we've done it before I know there's fatigue but I really want to remain optimistic and because we're doing a few things differently on this one we're getting a few more units and bringing in a Housing Authority I think we got a pretty decent chance at this one so be happy to answer any questions that you might have okay questions vice mayor anything um no not really I think I talked with the city manager a lot about you know average Med average median income and how that would fit with the apartment so I I don't really have any questions right now sure commissioner questions thank you mayor so this still requires um the issue of a person having a certain income for a family or or the group that is living in a particular unit cor correct cor that's correct and if that changes over a period of time um how do they notify us and and what happens if they are no longer in that eligible eligibility I I'm going to bring up Dave H to answer that one and Jake stalis because this one's a little bit uh out of out of my wheelhouse can I just ask is that a relationship to the Jake star P scy Jake yes that is that that's his D that's your dad yeah so notable guy done a lot for green space in the environment in pelis County so just a nod and shout out to that before before you guys start let let me just say this just to because want to answer your question certainly commissioner 78 units we're going to have 12 at the 30% of the median we're going to have 48 at the 60% and 18% at at 18 units at the 80% level so just so it's a pretty good mix so it's 80% or less but I let these gentlemen answer that that question sure so Dave Hast up with R2 Partners uh Jake s count Housing Authority um commissioner to answer your question there is a lore or land use restriction agreement put on these properties when we do get State funding or city funding or County funding so we are going to be required there be a covenant on the land typically it's 30 all the way up to 99 years where each unit will be restricted to the Ami that we just talked about so we we are required to audit those units or there's a third party auditor that'll come in check the files make sure that the residents in those units do qualify and if they do go above Beyond then we'll try to you know we typically move them into a unit that would um be at their inome level at that point so at no point is there somebody who moves in and makes over income and they can just continue to make a unit that should be goinging to somebody who who needs it I've always been curious about this so I'm going to ask it here so hang on um what happens to the individual who for some reason we're not really quite sure what their what the total income is um obviously it's audited or they have to S make a they have to sign off on something so I guess that's just what an auditor attempts to attempts to discover correct how often does that happen I mean I'd like to say never but you know I mean we're trying to be very thorough about all the income sources that people receive um just a Housing Finance Corporation list of what we count as income what we count as an asset whether it be a savings or 401K um granted it's it's harder some of these days when when there's Uber and PayPal and zel and all that even though that are supposed to be counted so um but but again they do their best to to get the accurate income levels of those those residents and households so this may direct back and forth between you two but so for uh anyone who's listening for their purpose so we give $610,000 it's called a grant like correct correct and so that money goes goes to the the developer who then attempts to put together a program utilizing utilizing sale um that is beneficial uh to investor to invest outside investors the advantage we get for 610 is that we have what this thing is it you called it affordable housing those are all those terms that are floating around availability and uh Etc but that's sort of the way the concept works yeah and this works all over like this this is how this this is one of the ways one of the way ways that that we attract someone to come in and and create this affordable housing correct without the 610,000 we wouldn't be able to apply to the state for the 9% tax because the state wants wants us that we have wants us so that leads to my big question so we have a we have a county obviously 24 municipalities in it we got one great big road that runs up and down in it we're being fed that way and basically or that's the way it has been in the past from from Pasco if I may then coming down and going back up again and some sometimes a few of us going up that way and coming back down um so an organization for the state or an organization like like the one you're representing would would would attempt to locate the most efficient or the most Progressive I use that word how about that for uh locating those those uh those places for this kind of a housing situation so I guess you would really want to be looking at you look at everything Transportation lines uh Etc is this is this particular project in a scale of where all the other ones are that may exist is this in a great place yeah you know I'm going to just answer a little bit and let Dave take over near grocery store positive public transportation positive and also I forget non economic medical facility um and public school yeah and so look it's um it's a competitive process for 9% tax credits as Bob mentioned there's typically four or five um uh developers that will get 610,000 locally in pelis County St Pete always has one pelis County always supports a development hopefully this uh deal in dun Eden um Largo I don't think this year will have one um pellis park has in the past and Tarpon Springs but there's could be another municipality that decides to support can you summarize the concept of tax credits sure so it's it's a dollar for dooll um reduction in your taxable income um and they are generated off of the eligible basis the total construction cost of uh of the development and you get those for a period of 10 years um and we sell those tax credits to a tax credit Equity investor that gives us money upfront during the construction process to um help us build the the development yeah I mean Dave Raymond James various institutions will buy these to reduce their tax exposure and then of course makes it attractive in order to get the development going you know we're dealing obviously with high interest rates we're dealing with high property values so it's always a little bit challenging to get these affordable housing projects to go but with this team here we're optimistic and we're trying to overcome that that challenge of trying to make these things attractive because the cost are so high and with the higher tax rates this becomes even even more beneficial easier to sell and and so it's really it's really people giving us some monies to allow us to develop something like this upfront as well as the money that we give as well as the money we the state I can't think you know obviously my backgound is real estate development I can't tell you how competitive this is because of what you just say commissioner they want the everyone wants this in order to make it work so thank you thank you questions commissioner uh thank you mayor um everybody at all income levels are certainly welcome in our community uh but within this makeup where where do you see our Hospital workers teachers Food Service workers uh in our community where do you see them fitting in in this program a lot of those folks would qualify for 80% Ami units which are the higher end Amis okay all right thank you Comm um so um just to bring a little bit of historical perspective to this um we've you know this the the funding is part of the BPI has been brought forward for about two years now right in the works and the process process of getting this is that that that's correct right B yeah absolutely I'm knocking on Jennifer's door saying GE please keep this funding available and and the goal of this was always to achieve some element of affordable housing here in denan is that yeah it's always been from city manager top goal you know yeah it's always been high up on the list yeah I and I I'm bringing this forward I'm asking these questions really kind of more for historical and for any for whoever is listening because you know in in my opinion those those facts are important um the uh because you know this has been an initiative of the city for quite some time and it's a complicated process and uh I I just for purposes of emphasis um can you explain again what's different about this particular case because in the briefing that we got I I think we all realize this is different but I I want to get this out there because this is a different case my opinion yeah certainly commissioner this is different and we certainly knew there's been a little bit of fatigue because we've been here to the table several times uh the difference is one we're getting more units there's something called gray water reclaimed water which allows another eight additional units that helps to reduce the overall cost to make a little bit more profor of feasible the other item frankly is penel County Housing Authority uh we reached out uh you know I remember Neil when he was at the the Safety Harbor and also at the county and uh he actually called me out of the blue and we sat and had a cup of coffee and talked about it so having them bring the vouchers to the table makes it financially more feasible because it guarantees some of the financing for the project these gentlemen can talk a little bit more about that and the other item is we feel the county is going to work with us on this even if we don't get 9% we're going to go at the 4% tax level uh the county certainly recognizes and we've been knocking on their door we want something in Duneden in North County the only project really been W has been in Tarpon we'd like to get one here we consider this North Middle County so that's why this one's a little bit different and and uh I think the other aspect too is the other project that we brought last year um was the way that it was positioned was just heavy heavy subsidization looking for a lot of money to the unit it kind of got ruled out at the state Dave and I have talked about this he's looking at his Pro for archways to position in a way where we need this but we're not going to go so over the top that would throw us out of the out of the mix for the lottery so and Dave you can talk more about that one yeah sure so on on the unit count so um in the past we've submitted the site for 63 units but through the gray water um density bonus program we're able to get an additional 35% so it gets us to up to 78 units so you get more operating efficiencies when you're actually operating the property and then also from a construction standpoint um you get better um contractors you get a better general contractor that's going to build a a 78 unit development versus 63 um and then uh Florida housing to prioritize deals once you get the 610 they have what's called a leveraging calculation so they want um whichever developer can build the most amount of units with the least amount of dollars requested from the state gets a higher prioritization it's a an 8020 split so um the developer that submitted last year unfortunately was in the B leveraging group which you don't want to be in um and we think through working with uh the Housing Authority we can get into the A- leveraging group there is a as been said here it's complicated a lot of strategy to it and bringing in the penel County Housing Authority with the vouchers also makes us more competitive that we haven't had that in the past so there's a lot of positioning and there's a little bit of luck I gu Dave and then one other major change this year um there's a third funding source that we can go after it's for Hurricane Ian impacted counties pelis County was one of those and so the state has a pool of $90 million um that they're going to give out to developers and so we would like to apply for that we'll be knocking on that door too so we're going to leave no stillone Unturned on this one no thank you um the location is this is this Carnation Drive it is this corination drive up State Road 580 behind the dollar store there is there a Transit requirement for the 9% once you get the 610 you do not need a Transit requirement once you get to what the the 610,000 which is is considered the local government area of opportunity once you have that you don't need the transit requirement but this does qualify for well we do have the we's we meet the transit being on 580 right there's bus stop because we do well it's not even about the bus stop I mean I'm going to look at you I I mean that route is very successful yes 580 good writers ship on that you need proximity to medical facilities Public Schools um grocery stores and transit for the you got all of that for the sale application and you have all of that correct okay okay and can you um explain just a little bit more about the gray water thing sure so it takes water from your washing machines um your um dishwasher showers and it puts it into a holding tank and then that water gets recycled to flush toilets in certain in a certain number of units and in exchange for that the state gives you a 35% um density bonus in a certain number not all of them um it's it's 100% of the units must be affordable I don't know if the gray water has to be in all of the units or not 75 okay interesting didn't even know that existed uh we we just learned to so we're learning on this yes we're working on a 80 unit um elderly development in St Pete that we got a sale award last year and we're incorporating the the gray water system in that Dave mentioned your seol project if anyone wants to come down there they've recently with the county did a project in seol that's getting a lot of accolades and so why don't you yeah we just uh completed seol Square it's 96 units located in Largo it's just north of the Largo Mall at the intersection of seal Boulevard and almerton Road um that was a partnership with the city of Largo pelis County through their penny for pellis program and then we also partnered with the St Petersburg Housing Authority um just completed construction we're about 50% occupied and 80% released so talk to me why now is penela County stepping up because this has been something for a long long long long time we've been begging yeah no we've been knocking on I'm not complaining please not at all I'm I'm just curious because you know we're we are let me just say this we are a smaller community and so we never can match the number of units in clear waterer lgo or St Pete so it was always true there's this piece wrong or that piece wrong and we never could find kind of the right the right fit which I think hamstrung us and and we're not the same Community as St Peter Clearwater so I'm just curious why is well I think we've been knocking on the door for a long time they've also had their own projects you know we've competed a little bit with them when they went to the state um I just think it's a better opportunity for us I think we're putting some more pressure on them and I think they recognize I mean we've kept it up I think this project being a little bit larger kind of fits their mold better so yeah and with with the new leadership that Neil Brickfield brings to the P County Housing Authority it's a different mindset now um we are thank you yeah I mean we are Neil yeah I mean it truly is we are we we do have a a goal we we do want to double our footprint within a time frame and we we were not going to turn down any projects that could be viable to bring affordable housing to penel County no matter where it be well I'm extremely appreciative of that because I think we've been extremely frustrated knowing that penis County put aside a certain percentage of their Penny yep right to go towards to try to promote affordable housing but at every step of the way we agreed I think it's a different I mean we brought forward project after project in the last six seven years well again we're pel's County Housing Authority different than pel County I know but we we are here now and we are happy to to work I appreciate that maybe we can get some County County money wouldn't that be nice I think with the shared partnership we have a much better opportunity so have okay all right thank you I'm going to ask for public comment so you guys can thank you thank you gentlemen um anybody from the public wish to come forward and speak to this item morning good morning I'm Tracy short I live at 946 Highland Avenue and dun Eden and I want to thank Bob for first and foremost for bringing this forward it's long overdue as as you all mentioned I know you're kind of fatigued with it but it is so so needed um not only the affordable housing piece but also um the special needs people in the community the neurodiverse community were greatly impacted by covid and they need housing they need employment excuse me um so I want to bring that forward um I'd love to see the sale money set aside es um they have specific settle sides for special needs people so I'd love to see that as part of The Proposal um I I mentioned that to Bob before um I think that Denny needs to go further with this be a leader with this and it's a great opportunity because um clear water has housing for um special needs people denen has nothing on the website it shows that waterf falls which is a Clearwater apartment complex um is in dun Eden it's actually not there's there's just nothing here so it's there's a great need for that here um and then I just want to bring up lastly that the arpa money and the county money would be greatly appreciated for this project um you know the the individuals that were impacted by covid the most were you had the the lower the the lower income folks and then a subset of that would be the people that have nerd diverse issues and that that can be a wide range of disabilities so um I thank you I I mean I really hope that you take this on this I know this was um brought up in the Cien survey survey again again about affordable housing State initiatives um County initiatives and it's just it's it hopefully it's our time so thank you thank you thank you Trac anyone else wish to come forward and speak to this item okay can I have a motion in a second to approve we'll move second okay Vice mayor fry and commissioner go vice mayor any final comments I do um I think that um is it Tracy did you say your name Tracy Tracy short hey um you said it well I mean this comes up all the time if you ask citizens I was just at a forum last night and we were talking about concerns and again and again affordable housing you know we need a place for people that work here to actually be able to live um we've tried to do this over and over over again it was in one of our top comments it repeats itself in our citizen surveys um you know one of the things I always love about denen is economic diversity and we're losing it because uh you know we're just getting kind of richer but we still have to have a place for the everyday person who's who's who's doing the work um you know our First Responders Etc so obviously we have been pounding the drum on this for a long time and we don't have a lot of land that that that hampers us um but but this is a great opportunity and um it has been frustrating to kind of go back at it again and again and not get it but I'm optimistic this time I it seems like a great project I like the layout of you know the uh the uh Ami percentages and how that would lay out I think it provides some real you know availability for different levels of individuals um and Bob I definitely want to thank you because I know you're the number one drum pounder to try to get us something going so we'll just keep our fingers crossed and Hope this one crosses the finish line thank you commissioner G uh thank you mayor yeah I could be wrong Bob but I want to say that this is at least the sixth project since I've been on the commission uh that we've talked about between here and Union back and forth back and forth yeah so I'm very happy to see that this this might have legs it might uh go a little further hopefully to the end but uh you've got to be really happy if it does so you have been working on this for a long time certainly it is in citizen survey um so our residents know the affordability is an issue uh the county knows the the the state knows so just affordable housing is I don't know if there's a stronger measurement Beyond crisis but uh certainly we are there so anything that we can do uh in support of of that is certainly welcome in our community so thank you B thank you mayor okay commissioner yeah so I uh you know the per you know discussions that you and I had Bob I you know I absolutely admire your steadfastness on this issue um you know it affordable housing is is an incredibly important issue and unfortunately it becomes a little bit um lost when you start looking at the the economic realities of our area um you know things are the cost of real estate here is not going down and subsequently to be able to generate an opportunity like this becomes extremely complicated and I I have a full appreciation now of exactly what you've and your staff have had to do Bob to to get this in place and um you know when I go downtown or anywhere or you know visit our our our First Responders you know I am one of the things that's always amazing to me is is that how far they have to commute to get to work and I I I love the fact that we are putting our best foot forward um you know it's it's it's it's not it's not going to be the end all in solving the problem but it's it is a step forward and so with that said I you know I I I applaud the the efforts that are are going here and I'm very excited that this actually you know I think we got all the pieces in place to to bring this across the finish line so thank you commissioner thank you mayor I I um will be supporting this but I want to make a comment about this affordable housing concept this is just a part of it and this will not be a panace for us uh certainly but it's a step it is a step forward correct uh the question is going to become one of who ends up in in those in those facilities uh the qualifications to be in it uh from a locational standpoint where where they live they outside of den Eden now or or where do they live before all of those complexities but right now we know we have an affordability problem throughout a lot of done eatting uh if you live here um look what's happening 14% increase on your on your electric last year I think it's going to be a up to a 9% or perhaps even worse than that I'm not sure 9% of electricity we have the insurance issues we have the taxes going up etc etc and on anybody that's on fixed income or any that's on a lower income uh will'll have we'll have a problem and again this is SE 70 or 70 some units but it's a step and so we've we' made a commitment to do that uh we put the money forward from from arpa to do this and uh and so we have a greater chance now with the with the with the relationships that we have and certainly with with Neil and and these these involved we have as good a chance of of any I think now as opposed to previous we are number what we're number four out of 24 municipalities uh correct and and it might be our time I'm going to hope it's our time open okay um I'm also very supportive since I've been on the commission we've done four or five projects four four projects and then any number of habit T homes and every single one of those projects was difficult trying to pull together the funding I mean Lorraine Leland went on for 10 years quite quite some time I mean it was it was difficult so it's not an easy thing to do and I I you know I'm just repeating what my colleagues have said our own residents talk about the affordability there is no way that my family could afford to buy a home in this town I we bought our home in this was our second home uh that we had owned together and we bought it in 2000 we paid like I think $155,000 which we were choking choking on that mortgage when we bought that um that that's like a drop in the bucket today that would be an affordable house and so um we can't solve everything and we also can't have everything in Den Eden you know it might have to be on the other side of union or the other side of Kuru but as long as we can look at the whole County and try to provide stuff everywhere and that certainly was what was frustrating me with the county the the just the I I totally get why you have to have a process and you have to have metrics to achieve I get all of that um but I you know it can't all be about metrics and it can't all be about we can have a highrise and get a th000 units over here but we can only get 70 here we're going to ignore the 70 M you know and uh I'm very appreciative that we're not ignoring the 70 because I think that's that's important um anyway thanks for the hard work certainly thanks for keeping at it we appreciate that um so let's uh all in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion passes unanimously okay thank you Bob my pleasure thank you gentlemen tell Neil we said hi this was so important Bob were a tie today I saw that I know I'm like why is he so dressed up and then like that wasn't lost on me very impressive we never see him in a tie okay Den Golf Club food and Bev banquet services staff is recommending to postpone it do you have anything to add to that Jennifer nothing to add okay can I have a motion to postpone sove second third okay commissioner torga and commissioner gal all in favor signify by saying I I I any any opposed okay motion passed is unanimously all right and then we have the freebie Looper pilot program discussion um welcome thank are we postponing this today or what is this the first step what are we doing no we're requesting a Second Amendment to the to the agreement for another 35 days okay so we're just talking about the 35 days we're not talking about the actual agreement correct do you have any opening remarks I don't no I don't go ahead step hi hi thank you for having us again um I'm here with Jason Spiegel um managing partner for freebie and today we are um proposing the second contract um for freebie this is another 35 day extension and it has the exact same hours uh reduced hours and two gems with one Ada uh vehicle available um so this is just simply to for negotiation purposes have some background information to move forward on yes so this contract will start June 9th and then July 13th and that will give us enough time to formulate a an annual contract if the commission wishes and that's um we have the backup data for that as well if you'd like to hear it okay so you're just looking for an extension and approval of an extension until you can negotiate the final situation right we are yes okay I'm looking to my colleagues question yeah so just to make sure and confirm this that for this particular extension and discussion we're not looking at changing the terms of the route or any anything of that nature right that's at this point okay okay for this extension for just the extension corre okay it's 35 days all right thank you anything no anything yes ma'am well you know when it does come back for more than this extension I just want to make sure we're focusing on the revenue Source because we're talking tomorrow about our budget and I noticed that we've got $250,000 a year in coming out of the general fund we do um that's a huge concern so uh I just want to make sure we're focusing on that when we do when you do come back with it appreciate it not not to say that it's not a good thing but you know still comes down to the money and how we can afford it so absolutely commissioner thank you mayor um so we did make a minor change previously in in the section the first section in the fact that you're doing a little bit more on demand or a little bit more of an expanded or at least you have that understanding I would think with the city at this point correct so we're just extending that part of it we're just continuing that part of it again it's not the it's not the previous relationship that we had just confirming yeah so to confirm there we we had we didn't change anything with regards to the route I know we talked about that at the last meeting back in April yeah it's a fixed route right corre correct still today there's no extension but there you're still functioning somewhat some on demand I mean you'll take people wherever ever and stop wherever and you know I mean there's a piece of that that's not just going round and around and having fixed stops and right we talked about the flex aspect of it at the last meeting there to be able to again provide a more kind of direct route there um obviously heard some feedback um from you guys as the commission on how do we make sure that people are not driving their vehicles into the downtown there is there a way to kind of tweak the program to be able to kind of accomplish those specific goals and we do have uh you know again service recommendations enhancements that can do that but that would be up to you guys if you wanted to kind of change how the service operates there so a question was asked down the line about that this was an extension of the previous of of the first sort of of the first agreement that we had uh which is the big agreement to to do the testing the first big test and then we extended it and we said we're going to have some more flexib flexibility or fluidity in that we're continuing with that in section that's correct that leads to my second Point how is how is that working out and of course as you knowas you don't I have an interest in that certainly um in that expansion um from the standpoint of what what I think is is good for us and what might work for us and might what might help us not taking cars to the downtown um have have is that what is that sort of where you're working on some of this information that you're providing with us to us to make the next decision yeah I mean that would be definitely part of it you know again as a discussion and you know amongst you guys on how you would want this to operate you know it can stay as a fixed Loop fixed route kind of with some kind of flex within the downtown there um or you're able to obviously expand it a little bit to help get people that live right outside the downtown to and from the downtown core without having to take a car there so again we're able to operate kind of both mechanisms there sounds like the goals that you guys have set forth with regard with regards to reducing traffic in the downtown um not having people you know have to take their vehicle to to drive into the downtown but that would be a decision from you guys there but we do have those two capabilities so I appreciate you bringing that up very very much because it was a point that I wanted to make at the end of our conversation and I'm asking questions so are we going to be doing uh input later or you want me just to continue with this no we're we're doing on questions just questions okay so that's why I I I'll tell you why I'm asking that question in a minute thank you questions uh yeah I guess my question and and commissioner might have been tagging on to that but this started out as a pilot program fixed route and now we're we're also talking about flexibility and I I'd like to maybe understand if we're going to talk about flexibility and that flexibility is an on demand portion when when does this go from a fixed route to on demand and when does that purpose of that pilot program all of a sudden change to well wait a minute now it's a different animal and because we we have a a business in town a home ground that does On Demand so when does all of a sudden freebie change from a fixed route to On Demand without giving other companies an opportunity to bid whether it's freebie whether it's it's other services in dun Eden or outside of dun Eden and and that that's what I'm kind of looking for I can answer that if I may mayor so so the original request for proposals this was uh competitively bid uh as part of The Proposal process and we don't uh as local government have any uh other opportunity or option but to competitively put out a requestor proposals um and free uh freeb submitted a proposal which the city commission approved moving forward the proposal state of very clearly that and I'll read um the pilot planning effort would emphasize a fixed route Looper with a potential for future on demand services and that was as a result of City commission comment during the course of of awarding the proposal and the agreement with freebie so so kind of a a photo in time of where we were when the contract uh expired the uh City commission was very clear that you wanted it to continue we didn't want to set aside the the you know the the vehicles and have them uh uh remain in the parking lot we wanted to continue so you approved the 35-day uh uh extension of that agreement what that 35-day extension uh didn't do is take into consideration we need additional information on whether a fixed route or a free or or on more of an on demand would satisfy uh the need that we have in downtown um and as well as the fact that staff was very clear that that well I felt that we didn't need that full service during the summertime here in our downtown we need to decrease the level of service during the summertime uh which they responded and that was that first amendment was a decrease level of service at $16,000 per that for that 35-day period what we're recommending right now is that we look at that um an additional 35-day period as we analyze this information and put a proposal before the city Commission in terms of either a hybrid on demand and Looper or if you want to stay with a fixed Looper or whatever it is you would like to do but we need more time in order to assess that and we want this to continue um on the fixed route I know that they do go off Route um every now and then to take somebody home you know or to if if they're called I've seen it um I've been behind them right right I support that so we're kind of in the next stage and one of the things that I'd like to do and I know that Tiki rides is here um so one of the things I'd like to do in this intervening period is sit down with them and talk about their business model you know and what that means um to their business model and where the origin of their rides are and where they're going and those types of things um that we are very clear when we put out the RFP last fall that we wanted a company that that was eco-friendly it's an eco-friendly Looper service and that has uh the app capability so that we can collect the data and you can call on your phone and that type of a thing so it's two different business models that we're looking at right here one's a local business one is is National if not International I don't know but um so I'd like to have opportunity during this period to really sit down with both groups and talk about how we can all play in the sandbox together thank you commissioner questions did I already call on you I don't remember I did is this your second round of questions you were about right to give me a second round okay no and he was going to take it my turn too honest but essentially today M my question is yes today we are on a fixed route yes so it's important kind of well kind of I mean I according to the agreement we're on a fixed route we haven't negotiated what an on on demand service would look like decrease the level of service right we're on a fixed route and the purpose of that fixed route um or any number of reasons but that those are comments so um all you're asking from us today is to extend the agreement is 35 days enough for you I mean I agree with that question I mean that's my question I don't want to keep coming back at this I would rather give you more time to meet with our business our local business to meet with them and to meet with us because I'm not sure I'm on it with on demand MH I'm not sure at the cost that it is I I I mean when I'm looking at it I see the benefit of the fixed route flexible fix out shoot oh I hate that you know I'm just not sure so I mean and so I I don't want to I I need to think that through so I I guess my question is is I I think you may need more time than 35 days to figure this out and to talk to all the people and then to advertise it and to get it on the next agenda I think that I would need a moment to talk to freebie and to staff I can't make that decision on the day right now I need to you want more time we can certainly use more time well that's what I'm offering hope if my colleagues would well my only add on to this how are we the the 35 day increments how are we funding that this is uh our it's arpa and we have the added arpa money to do it because we've allocated a certain amount and I didn't ask you ask I really I'm not comfortable with with making that decision right now without all the information before me so can we talk about this on Thursday sure I need I need time to talk to staff to talk to freebie um you know before we move forward I mean we can we can approve the extension here and now not to hold you up MH I I'm just offering you more time if you want it that's all I'm just trying to be helpful you can come back on Thursday and say yes I do want that more time and we can approve it again I don't want you to walk away without an approval or whatever right not trying to give you a hiccup that's what I'm saying got it thank you uh I'd like to actually postpone this till Thursday so I can talk to staff and talk to freebie and bring it back on Thursday okay just be a supplement it's easy to do okay so I understand what what you're doing and I'm grateful for it but I need more information although the irony of uh offering extended time so it doesn't have to come back before us yet it's got to come back before us on Thursday to discuss it again just wanted to acknowledge the irony yeah it is irony I I know I don't want to bring it back Thursday let's just do what we need to do here well then I would move I would move that we uh approve staff's recommendation to postpone oh to extend no to extend to extend the 35 days second mayor so another option is that you could go ahead and you could move to approve this amendment and then you could authorize the city manager to extend up to an an additional 30 or 60 days at needed and that way she has the authority to enter that I will make that part of my motion right I mean obviously yeah up to two months I mean obviously MoneyWise I don't want to keep going and going so yes anywhere from the 35 days to the 70 days that at your discretion is there a second second okay uh just just for clarification we are just moving to bring this to a vote right we're moving to extend the the agreement we're not changing the agreement it's going to be no different tomorrow than it was six weeks ago okay and we still have we're still going to do comments though yes okay great yes okay okay and Jennifer is going to meet with the with the tiki brids folks yes okay folks want to come forward and speak give us your name and address for the record and we'll have three minutes hi welcome welcome thank you Mike short uh 946 Highland Avenue in deden welcome thank you so I'm coming forward to really talk about the fiscal responsibility that you have for their town I do not think that the Looper service yes it is a pilot I don't think we should proceed forward with it I I don't know in looking at the three epic goals that this really meets those so without the service I don't think either of these goals don't get achieved they all get achieved without the Looper service itself our TI rides which I've used multiple times that is a great service it's it's a it is a market-based service as opposed to you uh subsidizing it I I don't think that we should be subsidizing that we've already spent over $100,000 as a city for a pilot I don't think that was that I know you went out for RFP to do that I don't know how many riders have actually taken it I don't know what we're getting for our $116,000 that you're extending so that's the other concern I have I mean I don't I just don't think it's you know worth our time I understand we want to extend I would expect we would have a lot more facts and data relative to the success of the program yes we've done surveys everybody thinks it's a great service who doesn't like a free service Nothing in life should be free so thank you for your time thank you anyone else wish to come forward and speak welcome I am Bob Potter uh me and my wife own TI rides M um I just thought I'd help you out with a few uh Transportation notes here um uh they wri in their proposal this service is expected to significantly reduce car traffic in downtown to Eden I imagine that's the goal um but our TIY bus holds 13 people at once you can write these numbers down on a busy night we settle about 120 people on a busy day 160 to 200ish during events of course they all want rides from 4: to 6 if the parades at 6 so you can only get so many people from 4 to six downtown with one vehicle um so yeah so their vehicles hold half as many people um if you're lucky you can run maybe four or five rides to homes in an hour out and back out and back especially when all the traffic coming downtown do the math uh you know few people ride five times an hour um you're not going to get much more than 120 people a car um and I looked at the map you have on your site um for their proposal at least half of our Riders are north and east of that you know you got Heather Ridge and you got Amberly you got Fairway Estates lots of Fairway States um and we bring three or four groups at a time you know you can't do that with an app they call can you pick us up right now well we're heading Fairway Estates can you be readying 15 minutes all right we'll get you at the same time we bring everybody together um so that's it so as you know our service is free the city hasn't paid zero it's an important number of the zero so we're just curious while you're deciding this we'll be glad to talk to you um what's what's what makes there's a quar million dollars better than free um and that's it so no one more number for you I get 50 seconds uh We've run over zero people and we've had zero accidents after five years so thank you thank you anyone else wish to come forward hello Miss Kimberly Aloha I'm Kimberly plat I own the H new restaurant 5116 516 Grant Street behind the old defunct City Hall hooray um I'm all for progress and I'm all for moving people around the city um but careful progress um I just want to tell you about my experience with um the freebie and some of it's a ding and some of it's a positive so we'll start with the the bad of it I had a um extremely uneducated driver approached me um at my host stand one day it was in December during si in Santa and he came up very disgruntled and told me I don't know what this place is but you need to take all these blowups people think this is a daycare I said that's funny cuz it used to be a daycare years ago my son went there yes and um he had no idea what we did he had no idea who we were he definitely had no idea who I was I think he thought I was one of my hosts and um he just Unleashed on me I was really really turned off about that um I said as a driver of this ride share that you're using um aren't you supposed to be educated on the businesses I also advertise with you on freebie so I didn't pull my advertising I just sat back and waited the good part about it was there's another driver that frequents our establishment she is extremely educated she is always coming by she you know stops in our in our parking lot as she's making her Loop um she's super positive she's super educated she knows all the things that's if you're going to continue with this that's what you guys need not the grumpy old man that came up and if it was my host she might have been crying then there would have been a bigger issue um I haven't actually read rode the freebie yet because I don't really go anywhere except for honu and maybe the chamber once in a while but um um I have not myself experienced the ride just saying that um I have a little bit of history with Tiki ride bus because I was actually one that connected um the old owners with the new owners um the new owners actually while they were still back in their home state of Ohio were stalking us as the honu they were our first stalkers um when they came to when they came to town and moved here and made their home here with their children um they came in and we became fast friends and that was during the co time when um the old owners of the Tiki ride were getting ready to sell because they wanted to be with their family connected them within a week they were on board they were running it they're a staple in this community they are um definitely Hometown charm you know we talk about where dun Eden was where we are and where we're going all of those things should be taken into consideration when you guys are making your final decision on this because T rides really is Hometown everybody knows them everybody loves them that's all thank you thanks Pat hey hi Pat Miles Michelle Circle and you all know that I wear many many hats you City so but today I'm talking about the chair I'm talking because I am the chair of club's International Convention that's going to be here July 2nd through the 6 we have 87 full-time people oh sorry we have 87 full-time people and 14 part-time people that are going to be in our city July 2nd through the 6th we have sold out the holiday end so we're going to Paradise Express we're going to party at the blur we're going to have our Awards dinner at margarites at hob Brewing we're going to use the Jolly Trolley to go to tarpet we need both the freebie and the tiki rides to get our 100 people around this city freebie goes in a small little area up and down the Main Street and Tiki rides goes out for us they can transport more people for us back and forth to the stadium I love both entities they both serve serve a purpose in our city and I hope that we extend freebie and we keep the tiki rides because we need both of them we moved way too many people here also win sub blues and Marty gr were also needing them for that so I greatly appreciate your time and I hope to see you all on July 5th at the blur thank you thanks Pat anybody else wish to come forward name and address for the record hi Eric Graves basore Boulevard um I spoke at a previous meeting on freebie I'm an advocate for it um quick rationale on it I think the survey while you know the points were made that were great that hey you know people are going to say it's great you know it's free um that still makes it a good idea um you know when people respond as positively as they did to that also my experience with the drivers has been nothing but positive in terms of their knowledge their friendliness um their kind of reflection of our community uh kind of from a cultural and approach perspective um as was previously stated I think there's plenty of room for multiple options in our city we're a vibrant growing city um environmentally positive you know I talked about The Kayaks and paddling earlier you know this is in that similar vein in terms of uh electric vehicles and you know I know it's easy to maybe criticize a large company um but also I'd really highlight that all the drivers these are local folks that are part of our community and one of the things that I didn't speak about at the previous meeting was freebie has really integrated into some other activities I'm part of a group called Joy rides and uh freebie is offered to move people from one of our parking facilities over to the stadium um which people love you know I I I can't quantify the economic impact of it but I can tell you that people love that um and then as far as you know I think my only challenge you know and it's came up at the last meeting and you know I highlight this to Jason um because I thought it was great points that were raised from your perspective is really clarify for us the economic impact you know so I think that part is still on freebie uh to clarify because obviously there is a cost with this and then also being able to really fully quantify the increase driving issue um for me it's been important but I know I'm just you know one person in that regard so thank you again for the opportunity to comment thank you anybody else okay uh we have a you had a motion who seconded it I think Jeff did am I right Jeff okay vice mayor final comments yeah wow I don't even know where to start but um so you know I wrote down here we're on a Learning Journey right we started this to learn we don't know all the answers the number one issue was parking keeping people from moving their cars in and out of downtown so we could help our parking issue and it's still number one as a rationale for me I will say Eric I had just written down Joy rides because a little side issue that's come up with freebie that I think is kind of interesting is that it's brought some people from parts of our community that don't get into downtown and it's made it more connectivity for them I I'm talking me life Joy R's done the same things they've done it for some nursing homes getting people out that haven't been out for years and they getting them around and uh I think it's an interesting element we got a we got a letter from the head of me life residence Association of course there's a lot of people over there to have cars so they're not moving the cars they're taking the freebie uh doesn't mean they couldn't take tiki Tiki rides I think you guys are doing awesome job and we don't want to lose sight of that what you know what is you know I I love the city manager's idea of making sure we're understanding both models and how we can uniquely figure out how it works to our benefit in both ways but again remembering it's about a journey of learning to achieve goals because at the end of the day A4 million dollar a year of general fund money is a lot of money and I know that you're working on some grants I want and I'm hoping that you know but you know the potential for a three-year grant that could fund this for 3 years and help us to really learn because I know right now keeping the model the same isn't giving me the information to know that we're solving the real issues that we set out to solve so we need to stay on the journey and um and we need to make sure that Tiki is part of that Journey um you know when I look at it I think you guys are providing a great service I do look at um you know the expanded hours number of vehicles how do you you know as it gets more popular how do you handle it I think you guys can fit into that but maybe that's where you've got to have extra vehicles um the um app the app you know I use the app and I have used freebie and um the Ada the accessibility um is important because you know I know people that are absolutely using it in that regard um so there's a lot of pieces to it um I think that um I do think the mayor is probably right giving you a little extra time to make sure we're looking at that and you have time to really talk to to both sides to make sure we're understanding it um so um but I'm supportive of the 35 to 70 days to try to figure that out land in the right spot and again we just need to keep learning together as a community as the five of us to hopefully make the right decision for the taxpayers but again to achieve the goals we're trying to achieve it makes it more worth you know the the the dollars that we're going to spend and hopefully we'll get a funding source so um those are my comments commissioner well said vice mayor uh yeah the reason I seconded this motion was for the extension of basically learning and understanding I'd rather give a little extra time to make sure that we get it right um I'm never shy about where I stand on on this I'm I'm I'm much more in favor of on demand than I am the loop of service um so I am looking for economic impact I'm looking for the reduction what's the impact on on our traffic on our parking situation um are we able to identify that this actually has value to our restaurants are we seeing more butts and seats are we seeing more Revenue spent in our downtown um uh or are we just moving people around we are are quite proud of our walkable downtown or walkable City uh well let's really really Embrace that and let people walk um but anyway so the the reason I extended uh or I uh seconded the motion was purely for an educational up point and to make sure that we get it right in the 35 to 60 70 days whatever that time frame is thank you mayor commissioner so uh first you know I just want to confirm my understanding uh when we approved the pilot project that the RFP that was was set out basically was for a pilot project with potential for for other stuff and um I I think that we we need to at the risk of uh providing a perception that we will need to recompete for a future uh offering uh I I I don't I want to squash that right now because I don't think we're at that point um so yes $250 annually is a lot of money and um looking at the cost of the extensions um there there are two there are two benefits out of this one is the vice mayor said is to complete the journey you know find out what we don't know um but but second I I think that it's absolutely imperative that we are involving our local business that offers you know well essentially there are two business two different business models but you know we do have a local business here in town Tiki rides that provides an on-demand service and I I think I personally you know if it comes down to a decision that has a negative impact on local business I'm going to vote no and so the expansion of the services from a Looper to demand I I am not in favor of but we're again I wanted for clarification the extension that we are going to be voting to approve or not approve is going to be an extension of the Looper service so that we have an opportunity to discuss with freebie with our local business to ensure that we have an equitable split in terms of the offering and the provision that each company provides because I I think I you know I think there's there's benefits to what freebie provides most certainly there benefits to what Tiki ride provides so I I Envision a world where the the two businesses there the two business models can coexist but I I most certainly do not want to be put in a position of having to make a decision that's going to negatively impact you know one of our homegrown companies and I've said this numerous times I I you know I do not want I I want I do not want the expansion of the services freebie to include demand I I think we're we're meeting that um so I'm I'm happy that city manager that uh we're going to be we're going to be talking to to Tiki rides and uh the uh I think I think that's the comments that I have on this thank you okay thank you commissioner commissioner Tonga thank you mayor the reason why I was asking the questions previously really what I was saying as you could probably tell what have we been doing in this extension where are we what have we what have we accomplished and one of the elements was to look at a I thought to look at a bigger program to to look at something with on demand and I remember we talked a little bit about that on the overview um I started with the golf with the golf carts in here in in in Den Eden and everyone liked that and of course we've got lots of golf carts now and we wanted to expand golf carts within the city we almost call ourselves a golf cart City and people are very proud about that some people don't like them but we're still looking for more ways to open up the city so that everybody has the gity here and everybody has a chance to uh to utilize the same motor transportation and it's pretty simple here in dun Eden um we're like a little square box so to speak and we really don't have public transportation within that and certainly don't have anything on demand um we know we know your program works in other in other locations in other cities and we've looked at that and that's not just in the last year or two it's a lot longer than that um one of the other things that we were looking at is we're putting up a big GR down here but we know we have parking down here but this garage is very very expensive we're talking I just throw out a number of $10 million for a garage to park 175 cars how many more might we might we need at some point in time so we were kind of saying in the future we might be le losing cars leaving our cars don't take the car or send the car home while you're at the restaurant and call for the car back that's kind of futuristic um too futuristic but but something like this on demand is not and so I'll give an example um uh to not have to not have not demand to not use demand when you can have it um to me is something you guys have learned over time I'm sure uh the advantages of having on or having a demand system and you and you do have a good one uh and we know how it works and it works good and there's proven proven uh there's proof of that so for I'll give a couple examples so for example let's just say that I'm at the VFW and I want to go to the American Legion okay and I'm going to get it I have to I get in my car me alone and drive down to the American Legion meanwhile it's a straight shot goes right on down a main street that we have can almost go all the way down D Eden um and to take me to that location and I can go back again uh Etc if if there's if there's a demand situation what does that do it keeps traffic from going down we say that people give us comments of what what they like one of the biggest things that they're not happy about the traffic and the traffic is not getting less uh it can get even more than what it is today and in some hopes that that we would we would eliminate some of that but it also allows a lot of access to to our to our community people that want to go to The Hil Center that may not feel like they can or don't want to drive there can't drive there or have a concern about that if we have a demand system um and it was funded properly we have to fund it we have to figure how we're going to fund it that's not yours that's us over here and so that's that's why I was asking some of those questions where are we do I want to keep going on and on and on with this I I don't um I think we we we kind of need to come to grips with with where do we want to go with this I was not a supporter of doing the the uh just doing the downtown here and moving people having people drive to the downtown park some place and then we take them to someplace else within the downtown and take him back again um that was that was uh to me sort of put in the finger in the Dyke uh I was looking for a bigger a bigger pitchure than that and and in combination uh I was at one point in time saying we could almost run this program and off the money we colle would save from from doing a garage um on a yearly basis so I think there has to be has to be some obviously Financial package looked at that's not you that's us again I see what it's in the budget for next year but I'm not sure exactly what that represents for for certain because I don't know what you've talked about here so I am I am strongly uh supportive of um of having some kind of a demand system now this is this is not this is not for our events I'm not talking about events the events are a whole another thing um when they happen you can only get so many people down I'm not against us utilizing something like this uh in in a package program where we know we're going to have to park people for the stadium for example because we made a major commitment to our stadium so we need to feed people into the stadium who we didn't have parking there so I'm not against that part of it but I am for I am for us expanding um into a into a demand system if it makes Financial sense for us and if it if it helps us achieve some of the major issues that I talked about before so that's why I was asking those questions um that's that's my position on it I'm I'm more interested in in responding the 37,000 residents where we can to make their movement within the city more efficient and effective to solve some of the problems that they've complained about too much traffic etc etc um and and and utilizing something that that may even preclude us from having to build a parking garage that's not what's that's not what we continue to talk about we continue to talk about building the the parking garage but even with the parking garage um I can I can almost tell you that something like this would would possibly work I'm not asking you to comment about that of course so that's my position on on this and I think that I think that for us to continue to go on uh unless we've not done anything and I don't know what we've done um doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now I think we're going to a lot of people are going to be Joy rioting on us and and that's not good a gentleman stood up and said that's not good access not good use of of public funds and really it isn't so I'd like to see us make a decision sooner than later and decide whether we want to go on demand or not and if we don't I think I personally think we lost a great opportunity here to to really do something within the city and we're not the first city this isn't like we're the only ones to have done this I know you've got a lot of them that that use demand so that's I just want to make that comment make my make my uh position known on that thank you thank you so I guess I'm going to speak to my colleagues really the most right now as you all know I've been Knee Deep chin deep I guess in transportation issues for 18 years um and the way I look at this is there's 10 things that need to be done to solve a problem in transportation I'm not being literal by the way this is just one piece and I don't see that the freebie has to be the answer to everything it's one piece Tiki rides is one piece and we can all coexist what I would rather see is us spending our time pressuring PSTA and finding funding ources to make the Jolly Trolley 30 minutes instead of an hour what I would rather see is us spending time making sure the water faery comes okay on a regular basis and supports bringing people in and out of here without a car what I would rather see is us pressuring PSTA to provide better service within our community I'm sorry we're not St Pete and don't have a grid system but we need service too this service is not meant to solve everything it's meant to provide a service because we are not a planned community and our parking is all over the place so we've got clear sky at one end and we've got the marina at the other someday the Gateway is going to get developed and when Skinner's done think about the development that's going to happen over there I'm sorry Jeff not everybody is going to walk that far no offense I'm not and I'm a relative ly healthy person walkability it doesn't mean you can walk everywhere what this does is allows somebody if you see the bigger Vision if we do get our parking sensors and you can see where a parking spot is you can park by clear sky Let's Pretend there is a there's a um parking lot there and you hop on the free and you get to the other end so that you're not circling which is some a complaint that we've heard about over and over and over again and I I think we're being shortsighted to think that this service is supposed to solve everything there's a bigger picture and I just what I want to see and I'm now looking at you Jennifer and you Kathy and George what I want to see is the big picture on a piece of paper so that we stop going down this Rabbit Hole there's five or 10 things to solve this issue not just one and we have to look at it collectively and and I know we're doing that I'm please don't think I'm trying to say you're not doing that but when we talk about it here it's not presented collectively and I think we just have to remember that I'm not saying this is right or wrong I'm just saying that this is not the end all to be all service you're not the end all to be all service the ferry isn't the trolley isn't none of them are but together as a system solves the issue and each thing has a piece I can tell you I am not prepared to spend taxpayer dollars on on demand service all over the city of Duneden when I we're our our taxpayers are already spend in I'm looking at you with sorry I know you're not with psda but you're a person I can talk to um when psda is supposed to provide that so that's where advocacy needs to happen and yeah it doesn't solve the problem immediately I just again we had the same argument actually or debate when we first signed on this service you probably remember it cuz I think you were sitting there only in the other building Our intention of doing the freebie was never to take away your service ever because we saw it as two different things this is It's called The Loop for for a reason every downtown successful downtown has something like this go to one and you'll see they have a trolley or a golf cart or let's see Anam Maria it's the monkey bus everybody had has something this is our version and and so I don't mind spending the money on this I think there's a good taxpayer reason to have it as long as it fits into the bigger picture and the bigger picture is you have to have all of those things to solve your parking and Transit problems I see this for what it is it's a Looper goes around takes you hits the hotels to keep the the folks from getting in their car at the hotel to come into the downtown it was never meant it really isn't has never in my mind anyway ever meant to be going to San Christopher County Road one or the causeway that's what you have psda buses for that's what you have the Jolly Trolley for and I want to see people fighting for that service go fight for that service it took three years just to get the Charlie started it's been in service for 11 or 12 years it has offthe chart writers ship most of the year not all of the year and the hour frequency stinks they actually have to leave people at bus stops during season why aren't we fighting for that to make that 30 service this is just one little piece so those are my feelings I have no interest in on demand not at least until we have solid conversations with our taxpayer paid Transit service can we get your help with that Whit so um sorry okay that's my comments I want to give you the time to go think through those things talk about it make a plan but what I'm asking our team our staff looking at you is let's look at the big picture and let's figure out how we want to attack the big picture and all the little pieces in it that's what's going to make all of this successful it's going to make Tiki rides successful it will keep you going it's going to you know hopefully make Jolly Trolley more successful hopefully in October we're going to have a water fairy service all of those things together are going to keep cars off the road whatever you do is not going to make a dent it'll make a small dent it isn't going to do this and if we're thinking that it is that's you know it has to be all of it together and it has to be looked that way so those are my comments have a can I ask a question sure so if you feel that strongly and obviously we've made a lot of efforts to go to the 60 Minute to 30 minute um you have a strategy by which we can make try to make that a reality or well I've been talking to Jeff but a far off remote you know never going to happen type thing or is it or is it something we legitimately should have a strategy and go after again yes it is okay and can you kind of guide us in that strategy since you've been on the well he's the guy to guide you okay but he's also not the guy to guide I mean we're to talk about it I mean I have I don't I don't disagree with the word you're saying I just I know we've tried that but you know I think we're trying to solve our problems because we have problems now and we can't we can keep fighting for that I think there should be a strategy I think there I frankly I think the strategy is once we get through waterborne Transit discussions and to see where those funding sources come from again I'm looking at you Wht I know you're ignoring me um sorry you came keep looking at Whit Whit plan is the executive director CEO of forward pelis who is the transportation planning arm of pelis County and he's here for another subject on our agenda but he's also been a keen leader in working on the waterborne Transportation plan that we have which is bringing fairy hopefully in October the problem is is the funding same with psda jolly you know the Jolly Trolley it's all about funding I think we have to wait and see where the funding comes with um the waterborne Transportation you know there are funding sources out there that people don't want to give up I'm not going to get into what those are but what knows and see if we get anywhere with waterborne if we get anywhere with waterborne then it's time to talk Jolly Trolley because that should be 30 minutes hell it should be 15 minute service during season it really should um and I think that would significantly take cars off the road but in the meantime these guys are just trying to let somebody Park here and get over there and if I'm coming out of dinner at 9:00 at night I don't want to walk a mile to get to my car I me heels I'm flagging you down like I said every downtown house on okay so we can work on all those things all right uh so we're voting to extend we're voting to extend at least 35 days but up to 2 months until you can negotiate what we're doing yes okay all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed motion passes unanimously all right we have the proposed agenda June 18th everybody okay with that so moved commissioner frainy or vice mayor frany second commissioner torga thank you all in favor signify by saying I I any opposed all right we're going to take a break thank you thank you guys all right thank you guys for coming thanks for that turn resue [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] June 4th uh commission work session we will now go into our informational items which are our first item is 2024 citizen survey results presentation good morning uh mayor vice mayor Commissioners uh Nicole Delino strategy and sustainability uh manager here um with Dr stepen Neely who should be joining us on Zoom um they may just not have pulled uh it up yet but he's been on um so he will um join in this uh to present the results um I'm going I'm here to just review a little bit of the background and some of the steps that we've taken um again we're I'll introduce you to I think you might be popping in maybe maybe not um introduce you to Dr neie uh take a look at the Timeline um the review of our communication plan um Dr NE Neely will cover the survey results and the recommendations hopefully um again um we introduced uh him there he is can you hear us Dr but I can hear you it's not on our screen okay one okay all right um well Dr neie is here with us is now he's here okay perfect um he has an MBA and PhD on public administration um he serves as a professor of public administration and he teaches undergraduate and graduate level classes um in public policy quantitative analysis and Survey research um he's done a number of research projects um in regarding public policy social media education um and has a number of peer-reviewed um articles papers um as well as being a lecturer and attending conferences um before I pass it to you Dr NE I'll get through a few of these items um as far as the 2024 survey goes it closely um duplicated some of the 2019 and 2022 survey uh uh questions so that we have some comparisons year-over-year um we did add and modify some of the questions um in regards to parking and traffic concerns um capital projects and strategic planning priorities um it was approximately 30 questions long H with some demographic questions um the survey ran approximately four weeks um we were here in febru earlier this year to present this um we began communication pre-loading the survey um in March of this year and it launched uh mid to late March um ran for that four week period in which we were we were supposed to be here a few weeks ago um but we're here now so this date of 514 is not quite accurate but we were ready to go as far as the communication plan goes um this was what we had presented early on as far as what our strategy was going to look like um again we had a lot of different um Outreach um we created a uh Project Specific page um that and had uh Outreach uh via our dun news we had a a specific uh dun newsletter that reached over 8,000 of our subscribers um and then there was continual posting um in that Denine news um shared weekly um and in other areas as far as our social media goes um we had um several posts across different uh mediums uh Facebook LinkedIn X next door um The Impressions and the postre were included in in the Staffing um and in addition many of our dun uh organizations and groups um shared and reposted so I just wanted to share some of that kind of um that re-sharing that we saw um out on social media and then we also had uh your April at your city at work um with the city manager who shared information on the survey excuse me I'm so sorry um are we supposed to be seeing this the slides on these screens well that's a good question yes we'll we'll switch back okay thank you thank you um to continue with our communication plan um we developed uh flyers and rack cards um that had QR codes um to the to the link to the survey um these were distributed across several City properties um including hail Center um Denny the library MLK Community Center and City Hall um the Flyers were displayed in public areas and rack cards were available for pickup um we also as you can see some of the businesses listed here had a lot of Outreach into the community um stopped at businesses and other locations um including Child Care Cent centers churches um businesses like not on Main Street mangoes and Marley and other local businesses to share um the Flyers and rack cards and then in addition we also had an email campaign um to reach um even more individuals uh we um emailed out the request to complete the survey to all our boards and committees the downtown task force uh the BRC um there was an economic development uh email list the Chamber of Commerce many other organizations um we also had an organic um as you can see here the picture uh an organic um sharing of the survey um that was on the corner of uh um Virginia and Patricia patri um I happen to be driving by it on my way to work and I'm not really sure who put that up but I appreciated that people were sharing uh the word about the survey being available so from here um I'm going to pass it to Dr Neely he'll start to go over um the uh response rate and demographics and then the the survey results themselves thank you Nicole can everyone hear me okay yes yes great well good morning and thank you for having me today um appreciate the opportunity to to present to you and to work on this project with you I want to I want to start by giving a just a big um a big round of applause to the city manager's office and to Nicole's team um you had 244 responses this year which is a 19% increase over what you had two years ago and that's really a phenomenal um a phenomenal Trend so their hard work made this a a very good and reliable survey with that said I want to talk about a couple of just kind of big picture ideas with you before we jump into any specifics if that's okay I I like to start out with a couple of caveats when we talked about citizen surveys um one of the goals of these surveys is always to measure Trends over time and um that's that's an important goal and it's important for um for datadriven management and policym but I want to caution you with um the number of data points we have even if we hadn't made any changes to the survey instrument this time around I would still offer this caution that essentially having three data points um three data points allows you the first point of triangulation for your Baseline and that kind of G because any any survey is going to be subject to some degree of what we call sampling error there are two types of sampling error not to get all all dorky on you here but there are two types there syst systematic sampling error and there's random sampling error systematic sampling error is when there's something wrong with your instrument like if your scale was broken and every time you got on it it had your weight off by seven pounds that's a systematic error a random error are the kind of fluctuations that come with choosing a sample so if you stick with that analogy anytime you step on a scale um there there might be some minor fluctuations in what you see based on you know how hydrated you are how long ago you've eaten what you're wearing and so forth that is akin to random sampling error anytime we take a sample of a th000 people 2,000 people from a population there's going to be some degree of error um between the actual population parameter and the statistic you see in in that sample and so in order to kind of establish a really clear Baseline of data we really need two or three points of data so we can start to triangulate where that Baseline is falling in the midst of those data points and so any year-over-year change with limited data points it's very difficult to ascertain if that is due to those kind of normal random fluctuations once we get up to about six data points we can start to see underlying trends that aren't masked by those random fluctuations so that's a really long wind winded way of saying I'm going to show you some Trends today but I would be very careful in over interpreting them until we have some more data to really confirm what we're seeing the second thing I want to talk about is this 2044 number here this is a really fantastic number and I've given you the confidence level and the calculated margin of error for that your margin of error went down by about 3/10 of a point this time because of the increased sample but one of the questions we always get with surveys like this is how can we rely on 2,000 responses when we have 30,000 residents um and and it's a great question I would say that 2,000 responses is typically more than we use to actually predict a national election and the reason for that is essentially what we call you know the central limit theorem the idea that as you increase the portion of the population you have past a specific point the statistical gain becomes marginally smaller so this margin of error if you only have 500 people this margin of error is going to be very large it's going to be five or six points and you're going to have you could say a data point that we see could be five or six below that that's not very helpful once you get up to about a thousand it falls down toward 3% once you get to 2,000 it's falling down toward 2% if we added 2,000 more people into this that margin of error would not change dramatically there's a diminishing kind of returns on adding more sample to a survey obviously it would be nice to have everyone it's just not plausible to get everyone to respond um but what we have here is a really nice sample size that gives us really reliable inferences from the population because we do have a significant enough portion of the population that individual outliers in opinion are not going to dramatically move the data points that we see if if you want a kind of silly example of this I always say that if you're making if you're making marinara sauce you're making a big pot of marinara sauce and you want to make sure that it's good before you serve it um you're going to sample it right you're going to you're going to taste it to make sure it's good um but you're not going to sample it by eating a third of the marinara sauce to make sure it's good you're going to take a little bit of a sample from here a little bit of a sample from there a little bit from there different part places in the pot different depths in the pot to make sure that it's consistent and good throughout but you don't need to drink a third of or drink eat a third of the sauce to make sure that it's good um the same thing kind of goes with a sample we can tell a lot once we cross a certain threshold um of about that 3.53% margin of error where we're not going to get a lot more information by building dramatically on that sample size I hope that makes sense um the other piece of that though is that there's a big Aster beside that and statistical Theory sampling Theory assumes when it when it calculates this margin of error it assumes that your sample is representative um and there are a few places where the sample in this case I want you to be aware of I wouldn't say that it's in any way a bad sample in terms of represent representativeness and there's nothing about it that's inconsistent with what we typically see in citizen surveys but there are a couple points I want you to be aware of um and Nicole I'm so sorry I don't think I have the ability to control this would you be able to jump to the um housing and personal demographics for me um so this is the age demographics and the age demographics um you see the blue line as your s data and you see the purple line is where we were with this year's sample so we are a bit under representative of our youngest residents and that is completely common with citizen surveys but it's also something that we want to keep in mind as we interpret the results and something we want to keep in mind as we target um as we target the survey in future years for the same reason that that younger individuals um are have lower voter turnout they have lower participation on citizen surveys and that's because they perceive themselves as having less at stake in the system in the decisions that you make as elected leaders um and while I would argue that that's not true that is their perception um and so we see lower rates of participation typically in that age group and we see higher rates of participation among older residents who feel that they have a lot more at stake in what you're doing and so we see that pattern in your data here it's not horribly glaring but it is um it is something to keep in mind the other data point I don't know if there's a slide for this but the other data point that I want to draw to your attention is the idea of of um owner occupied housing the owner occupied housing rate in your survey was over 90% according to the census data in your community it's closer to 70% and so when you interpret the results that we're going to discuss I would I would encourage you to keep in mind that it's very under repesentative of renters um this is also very common in citizen surveys and it's something that um that you want to keep in mind and that we want to talk about potentially ways to address in future iterations of the survey um that was a mouthful of caveats to get us started but if I if I could I'll just pause there and see if there's any questions before I proceed into the actual findings no qu no questions Dr Ney okay so I'll go ahead and give you the big picture overview I always like to start these presentations before we talk about specifics I like to give you the headlines and the headline here is that I have no bad news for you um I do have some recommendations for you in fact I have only good news for you I would say but I do have some recommendations for you particularly as they pertain to um citizens awareness and utilization of particular services and amenities now I I would say that the the group who did your survey in past years opted to essentially remove the unsure responses before calculating percentages and I totally understand that decision I could make a strong argument for going in either direction my cons my only concern with removing those is that if there's a large number of them that can obscure your understanding of how familiar citizens are with the things that you offer and Don Eden offers lots of great things that we found out that citizens may be less aware of than than you may realize because those responses are always removed so what I've attempted to do throughout this report which I is admittedly a bit wordy um and I hope that was okay but what I've attempted to do is give you the data at points where it mattered with and without those un sure responses so that you could get a better gauge of the levels of familiarity that residents may have with some of the services and amenities in the community um but overall the news the news is very positive um you're I I I I I mean this sincerely I do a lot of these surveys um I don't think I've ever seen Public Services rated as rated as highly across the board as I did in dun Eden's responses this year I was really really taken back and impress by that and I'll get to that in a few moments but overall the numbers are very positive you have 89% of residents rating it is an excellent or I'm sorry eight 90 plus per of residence rating is an excellent or good place to live um while a lot of people aren't familiar with the city as a place to work or raise children that makes perfect sense those who reported familiarity were generally very positive um residents view the city as a good place to visit a good place to retire now I I want to get to one of those kind of caveats um that I mentioned earlier with a trend on kind of the overall Quality of Life ratings um and that's what you see here in figure one there is no I want to emphasize this very very profound or very loudly there is no decrease in negga or sorry there is no increase in negative satisfaction with quality of life people are not suddenly saying they're dissatisfied with the quality of life in Duneden what there is is a slight decrease in the percentage of people saying excellent so when asked to rate Duneden as a place to live the percentage of people who said excellent has fallen off from the high 7s to the mid almost the mid 60s over the last three iterations of the survey and from what I can deduce based on the response throughout the survey that seems to be almost entirely about development and congestion um however I would again put this Aster here and say this is three years of data this is establishing a baseline I would Su I would suggest that the real number probably lies in between that High 70 and mid-60 that we see in the in the first and most recent year um and it'll be very important to see how this changes over the future iterations of the survey but I would keep an eyee on that if it continues to kind of tick down um that may not mean that people don't like living in dun Eden it just means that they might be a little less enthusiastic than they were before the community started to grow so significantly and so that is one of the one of the places where I would place kind of a an aster and say keep an eye on this see what this trend does over the next couple of years but I wanted to draw it to your attention but I also wanted to underscore that this has been offset by more people saying good or fair but not by more people saying poor um and so that's I think an important caveat to keep in mind um again the overall attributes of the community I I vaguely heard some of this being discussed when I got on the call earlier and I was admittedly doing the dishes waiting for my turn so um I I I didn't catch it all but I know that affordable housing is on your radar um the majority of the of the kind of intangibles of the community it's Aesthetics sense of safety that people have there are rated very positively your residents love dun Eden they love the walkability they love the charm they love the natural beauty um they're very they love the services you provide they're very positive on those things but these kind of endemic what we call kind of wicked problems that are facing communities all over Florida they're definitely showing up in your survey and the two biggest ones are affordable housing and traffic congestion overdevelopment in general um and so we see those showing up um as the primary areas where residents rais concerns you actually saw a slight bump up in traffic congestion ratings um from 2022 but not in a way that I would consider um meaningful there's that you know that's well within the range of kind of statistical noise from one sample to another you've seen a big drop um over the the the prior iteration from in terms of affordable housing though and that is again that is endemic to the State of Florida um I've seen several communities where that issue wasn't on the top three concerns 5 years ago and now it's number two sometimes number one in those communities um so it's it's not an easily solved problem and I think the key is that I you know I know you're already aware of it it's something that's on your radar something you're looking to address I would say that the continued quality of life of your residents will depend in no small part on you know how well communities can address that issue um and and this is a theme that we're going to see throughout the throughout the survey is that again that residents overall are very satisfied with the community but these kind of endemic problems are what's hindering the numbers in some places uh your amenities are rated fantastically again though this is one of those cases where what you looked at um what what I saw in the reports from the last two iterations of the survey they didn't include this far right column of unsure and so you look at the people who do rate the these amenities um there's no negative sentiment there um there's really there's none of them go over 8 89% most of them are under 3% with any kind of negative sentiment the majority of people who are familiar with these services like them they're appreciative of them um in almost every case the majority or plurality response is very satisfied so the amenities you have are are are fantastically received by residents but it would concern me a little bit to know that more than half said I'm not familiar with the recreation center I'm not familiar with the golf club the senior activity center again not everyone might be these might not be relevant to everyone but you would still anticipate that people would be familiar with them even a quarter of people are saying I'm not familiar with the Fine Art Center or the dun Eden Community Center I'm unsure of how to answer so my recommendation here is twofold from a policy perspective um my recommendation is you know get out there and preach um you know any kind of information based effort um communication based effort to to raise awareness of these amenities is a great thing and to the to the extent that you can kind of Strate strategically and systematically develop that um communication I think that's to the better but I would also from a survey perspective recommend in the future asking residents if they are familiar with with these um are you familiar with them but don't use them are you do you use them are you familiar with them but don't use them are you not familiar with them and then only ask those who use them how satisfied they are and ask the other group and this is a very easy Branch logic to build into a survey ask that other group um why why don't what what you're familiar but you don't use it is there any particular reason why you don't use it um you know maybe it's just not a service that's relevant for you but also maybe it's not you can learn a lot there about your services maybe it's not accessible for them maybe it's not convenient for them um and so forth or maybe they think they're familiar with it but they but they actually only mean that they know where it is but they don't actually know what it has to offer so um that is a recommendation for specifically for asking residents about this in the future and then if you come over here you see the same thing um unsure um almost 2/3 with the Paw Park okay that's understandable not everyone owns a dog but um the Sprayground the Highlander Pool the Sterling Park driving range so so in Prior and again this isn't a knock on your prior um your prior provider I I can see the argument for removing the unsure responses it makes sense to me but um it may have been obscuring the fact that a large portion of people a majority of people in many cases aren't actually familiar with these so the same kind of advice goes here in terms of how you might ask about about this in the future um I would I would distinguish between users um non- users who are familiar and non-users who aren't familiar and I would ask them a different set of branching questions so that you can better understand how to improve where needed these Services um I think that's a good place to oh here's a comparison compared to the prior year I know that that that again I want to put the big Aster over here of we changed some things about the survey we have more respondents and it's only two years of data points so it's unlikely that or it's likely that many of these are kind of some stochastic noise from the different samples but here you you see that overall things are relatively consistent a couple things went up a couple things went down um nothing other than the two um uh the Highlander Pool and the Achieva Park went down by a to a degree that I would consider anything other than sampling noise um and thank you Nicole pulling this chart together I think this is a good another good place to pause because I tend to talk fast and I want to make sure that I'm not I'm not going too quickly for you or skipping over anything important to you so maybe I could pause here again and ask if there are any questions up to this point yes sir Dr neie if we go back to the demographics um of the number of people that live in dun Eden uh three to five years and six to 10 years seems to be one of the highest probability or percentages rather and I'm wondering if the the the number of new residents in Duneden plays a role in their understanding about the amenities in dun Eden absolutely absolutely I think that it does I I've made a recommendation to other cities in the past who have kind of issues with this that I you know I would get out in front of that I would actually be partnering to the extent possible with um with apartment complex communities apartment complex communities with condominium communities with Realtors um where possible to see if we could even have information being handed off to new residents because Florida's growing so fast there's so many people coming to the state and keeping up with their needs and their awareness can be really challenging even just letting them know hey we do this survey every year and we want your your participation even if you've only been here for or four months we want to see you know your response um to the extent you can get that information in front of residents quickly I think that would be very helpful um but yeah I do think I do think that's a big factor here is that um there's a lot of there's a lot of growth in Florida there's a lot of transience in terms of people moving here um kind of I don't want to say on a whim but you know kind of quickly and then later deciding what community they want to settle in and so I think all of that is definitely a factor thank you okay any other questions before I move on if at any point I'm going too fast um please please feel free to interrupt me and let me know trust me we don't have a problem telling you to stop all right and interrupt we're trying to be polite though and sort of take it all in okay well I know it's a lot of information so I will note before I forget to note I will note that even after today if you have questions if you need additional data points please feel free to reach out to me and let me know I'll be happy to um to provide you any any further clarifications I can um the the next thing we're going to move into is actual public services and again I um I I I don't say this lightly you guys are just crushing it with some of these um your parks and wreck folks your your Waste Management folks that's usually an area where we see a lot of City struggle a lot of complaints you guys are just doing a phenomenal job when it comes to service deliv dely itself um which is which is the heart and soul of of the city of course and great job over there suck up I'm sorry no no I I was talking did you repeat that Dr NE no I'm oh stop it's it's recording Jennifer's taking full credit oh okay yeah I understand um so yeah so with Parks and Recreation you've seen consistantly High numbers over the years um this is the chart that has I believe everyone in it regardless of how they responded correctly oh no this is let me catch up on myself figure four um this is what the unsure response is removed okay this is what the unsure response is removed so with it came to parks and recks the only places where you had a lot of unsure responses were the programs the quality of youth programs you had about 2third of people say they were unsure quality of adult programs you had about a third of people say they were unsure they're removed from this chart and we're looking at only the people who answered and in this case again you see really really high um numbers in almost every category um 87% being the lowest one with walking and biking paths in the city um my suspicion um this is this is an inference on my part so so put put an aster by this and say this is ne's opinion but uh my suspicion based on the responses that I've seen elsewhere in the survey is that that kind of 133% who didn't say they were satisfied that's probably leaning more toward bike paths than walkability um overall the ratings of walkability for the city were very positive and so um but again overall these are just fantastic numbers for your parks and wreck program but let's be honest most cities love their parks and wreck not maybe as much as dun Eden does but most cities love their parks and wreck so let's talk about some things that most cities don't always love um and that's um going to be well let's let's before I was going to say waste management but I have I'm out of order so let's first talk about Public Safety um your Public Safety numbers I think are very good overall there's one number on this chart that that worries me and Nicole was so kind as to Circle it for um 78% of people are saying that they're kind of unsure about the community police officer program now that might mean in some cases that I just haven't interacted with it in a way that would give me an opinion but there's a lot in this shows up in other places in the survey there's a lot of people in the community who aren't familiar with the community policing model that you use um and that that could be problematic in in certain emergency situations for them it's not surprising that most people aren't familiar with um police response time um because they haven't needed it um most people haven't had a fire in the last year and so they haven't needed fire services so it's not surprising that they're unfamiliar um the one that concerns me on that list that that I think is is worth looking into is the CPO program you want people to understand how your community is protected um and to the extent that even those if we could do we do we have the next table Nicole with the the users only uh no it just goes into the solid waste okay so let me just talk about it then we we what we did is we asked residents after asking this we we asked them if they've used these services in the last year and we created a new table this is table should be table nine in the report uh we created another table with these same metrics but only for those who use the services so only for those who interacted with the police in local police in the last year even that group 61% said that they weren't familiar with the community police officer program so even those who have interacted with the police are kind of unfamiliar with how your community is policed all of these other um all of these other unsur largely went away when we focused only on the people who had used the services and in almost every case the responses were very positive very satisfied with number of police in the city with police response time with Emergency Medical Services 85% um saying very satisfied with Emergency Medical Services if they had used them um 90 4% saying very or somewhat satisfied if they had used Emergency Medical Services those are great numbers our friends in Code Compliance um we we we feel for for our Code Compliance people because um they always have lower ratings you're going to see that in the table here you're going to see it in Table 9 it's the nature of the work it's not uncommon um and I would say that yours are actually you have majority satisfaction in among those who have interacted with code compliance it's 50 5 almost 56% say that they are satisfied with um the work done by the C compliance office that's actually high for those who have interacted with code compliance compared to other cities um so those are positive numbers overall but I would again emphasize this community pleasing uh model I think raising familiarity with that among residents could be could be very valuable and could be in their best interest in the case of of a real severe need um next now we can move on to solid waste and infrastructure this is a place that shows up in a lot of Citizen surveys as a pain point for residents um you know complaints about frequent missed pickups complaints about you know them making more of a mess than they cleaned up um complaints about variable timing and rates and so forth we don't see much of any of that in your survey results I I legitimately was blown away by how high some of these responses are 96% satisfaction with trash collection 93 with recycling 88 with um or I'm sorry yeah 88 with Street lighting 84 with the condition of city streets that has gone down a little bit by the way and that 7% no I'm sorry that 9% drop is too big to attribute to random sampling error so the condition of city streets I I would I would say from a statistical standpoint that has dropped um since your last survey okay Jorge I'm just trying to make light of a you know uncomfortable situation this is the inevitability of increase traffic business foot traffic increased road traffic and so um it's it's not surprising given what we see about Resident concerns over development and growth um drainage that's a small decrease but we're seeing that become a increasing concern um in all communities in your region um as kind of the coastal flooding issue becomes more more of a um factor and you did see I know that I through conversations with the city team I know that the drinking water um question was important to them there is a slight increase in that over the prior year um it's potential it's outside the margin of error potentially within the margin of sampling error though of like kind of statistical noise but but it is an increase compared to where it was at 7 um 77% um I'm getting wonky okay so where are the kind of pain points that we're seeing in the community it all boils back again to this idea of growth and development and infr and the kind of the idea and some residents directly said this in their comments that infrastructure has not and cannot keep up with the the rate of growth now I've said before that this is endemic to the State of Florida that doesn't mean that there aren't policy things that you can and want to pursue to address it but know that you're not alone in this struggle um also know that often times um residents will attribute growth in the surrounding region to growth in their city um and so it can be kind of disproportionate to the actual growth occurring in the city because the growth occurring in surrounding regions still affects your traffic still affects your infrastructure usage and so forth and so it's something to keep in mind um but the majority 56% say that the city is growing too quickly at this point um and comments when we ask them to kind of share their open-ended comments on infrastructure um a lot of concerns over the effects of this growth on safety uh condition of Roads the physical condition of Roads um on things like parking and use of public facilities so all of the things you would expect to show up with concerns over over development or what we're seeing in the comments now you should be Prov have been provided and if not I'll make sure our provided a file with the data the clean data and all of the open-ended comments um this is one place in particular these comments about infrastructure where I am less useful to you because I don't know the local streets and infrastructure with anywhere near the detail that you do and so I think I would recommend reading through all of them time permitting but especially you know assigning the appropriate folks in the city to read through those comments on infrastructure and to identify anything that stands out as a potential area um that they would want to address because they're going to have the most intimate knowledge of the local infrastructure um Nicole if we could jump ahead a question hang on just one sec just just one question can you go back so the um utilities and services where it says garbage services how do you Jive that negative commentary with the fact that we rated so high in garbage services in the overall rating um I believe that some of those comments were addressing um Street guard Street litter but I um in clean up of kind of that more than kind of residential pickups but you can have a vocal area of concern with majority satisfaction and that's what we're seeing there is that yeah most people are satisfied but those who aren't that's something they're going to talk about in the comments um if my trash if I'm that that one out of 50 people whose trash is not getting picked up routinely I'm going to talk about that in the comments and so it does still show up sometimes as a pattern even though that is not consistent with the majority opinion thank you and again infr those open-ended comments might help you to identify any particular areas in the community where that could be a pattern does that help thank you yes um so we were on I lost the slide parking traffic and Transit oh yes okay so I just got to sit in on the on the discussion a little bit about Transportation um very um very interesting discussion I I want to I want to kind of like maybe I don't want to step out of bounds but maybe just add to something I heard the mayor say I loved your your comment about um thinking about the big picture I I made a note to to if you're interested to recommend a book by uh danella Meadows called thinking in systems um really phenomenal kind of approach to policy design and policym because Transportation policy is a systematic issue it's not a single item issue um and so what we see all I can tell you beyond that is what we see in the data and what we do see is that there is some systematic lack of familiarity with a lot of the offerings that you have um the the shuttle Loop that was being discussed you have more than a quarter of people saying they're not at all familiar with it while nearly half little little under half are saying that they're not at least not very familiar with it um the local Tiki shuttle a little more familiarity makes sense it's a bit more longstanding um but there's um you still have about a third of people who are expressing a lack of familiarity there um the the ferry the Clear Water done eeden Ferry you've got about 40% and then with PSTA buses I don't I don't know what to tell you on these um these are kind of outside your scope of authority um you know from a policy management perspective but you've got almost 2/3 it looks like saying that they little under that saying that they really aren't familiar with the PSTA bus routes and so while you're thinking about all of the great things you can be doing and there are great things that that you can be doing and it sounds like that you are doing and that you're that you're taking a very deliberative approach to which is great but while you're thinking about all of those things I would say um remember that it's all for not if residents aren't familiar um if the goal is to decrease um automobile traffic if the goal is to increase conven I to allow those who might have a harder time getting out and about town to be able to do so um that depends on them being familiar with these services and um in this case we have a lot of folks saying that they're not um this is always tricky from a policy perspective because many of these entities are not City entities so you would of course want to think strategically about how you might communicate how you might partner with those entities where appropriate or or kind of on your own communicate to Residents the options available to them but I do think from what we're seeing in the numbers that there could be a lot of fruit from that kind of communication effort um and I know that another issue that was discussed and has been discussed at length is parking and so we asked um thanks to um thanks to the city team we asked some very I think unique questions about parking and um we can jump ahead to that on the screen Nicole but we kind of wanted to know when people were feeling the pain points from parking availability was it all the time was it specific times and what we found is that really it boiled down to weekends and events um where residents were feeling a lot of issues with parking I think that there's nothing surprising there for you I think that that's what you would have anticipated to see but I hope that that data is helpful in guiding your thinking and decision making in terms of what you want to do to address that problem moving forward the traffic data were really the same residents don't have a negative perception of the city as a place to drive around or a place to park and kind of get out and about on a Wednesday afternoon or even really on a Wednesday evening it's it's those special events of course where things Skyrocket um and I suspect from what we're seeing in the data where there's parking and and traffic are probably deterring some residents from taking part and enjoying those things um and then there's this kind of uptick with weekends that I would say is pretty consistently in line with what you would see in most you know kind of vibrant thriving City centers um I don't see anything in your data um that would say this place is a nightmare on weekends and people aren't going out because of it it's not it's not that degree of of dissatisfaction expressed there but there certainly is I think evidence that the resident concern over parking and congestion during events is probably deterring them from enjoying those events the way you would I'm sure like them to be able to do um do we not have that in a Dr NE can we go back for just a second absolutely when it comes to the parking did you Al is there any information on is that annual or is that seasonal when it comes to weekends I could also say events but events kind of drop off during the summer so that's not an issue but are is it even on the weekends is it easy to find a parking spot in the summertime or is it just a challenging year round so that's a great question that we did not include and certainly can can refine a question like this in the future to try to address that but my you know from a social psychological standpoint when residents take surveys um as a general rule they're going to bias their reading of the question toward their greatest point of dissatisfaction and so my suspicion is that most of them probably interpreted it as or answered it in the context of an inseason climate um but I can't say that with absolute certainty given the given the way that we asked the question so that's something that we would have to consider asking differently in the future I don't know when did we take the survey I assume during season I think it was during season so it's probably what was right I mean guess people's minds yeah yeah okay thank you oh absolutely so so this gives you hopefully a little more detailed data to incorporate into your thinking on what I what I recognize there some really tricky and challenging issues for a community such as dun Eden everybody wants to be there um I didn't want to leave the day I was over there a few weeks ago it's it's it's such a great place to spend a weekend um it's such a great place to go out for the evening that um you kind of have you know the blessing and the curse of having to deal with how you most efficiently accommodate that increased demand but it definitely is showing as primarily um weekend weekend evening and events um where those pain points are for residents we asked residents some open-ended comments by topic um or an assess them by topic here about the public trans transportation and I want to underscore that I think the biggest takeaway I had from this so just to give you a little background on how I do this um so if we take a survey with 2,000 people and we ask an open-ended question and 800 people answer it um if I sat down to code that by hand it would take two days to code those 800 responses um in in in a careful and cautious way so what I typically do is I run those responses through um a gener AI program that is designed that that is kind of tailored to do content analysis um I ask it to identify themes and topics and before I really look at that I take a sample of typically maybe like a 100 to 200 of the responses and I do my own hand um content analysis and the only thing it does that I can't do by hand is the sentiment analysis um but uh at least I can't do it in an algorithmic way I would do it in a very subjective way and so I um I then compare to make sure we're seeing the same topics um the same themes and categories emerge and 99% of the time we are because these programs have gotten really good at this um they're not great at everything but they're really good at doing qualitative qu content analysis and so that's kind of what I've presented to you in the report these bigger tables that will have a little more text in them are the summaries of your open-ended comments ments and uh when you run when you do a citizen survey and you run a Content analysis nine times out of 10 at least the sentiment analysis which sentiment analysis is assessing whether the tone of the wording and language used is positive neutral or negative um and and there's a a very you know complicated machine learning algorithm underlying how this is done it's been taught a lot of language and a lot of um a lot of kind of processing language typically no matter what the question is the responses are highly negative because the government's asking me a question and I want to tell them what's wrong right that's kind of like I'm going to tell them what I want them to fix and people get charged up and excited about that and Ne and the language tends to come out in a more negative Direction when we asked open-ended comment about your local Transit options that is not the pattern we saw most most of the responses expressed a positive sentiment even those that requested some changes or pointed out some areas for improvement tended to be positive My overall takeaway of this and and and indeed the the one of the primary the primary category usage experience in table 17 in the paper is just positive comments just people saying I'm so happy this is here I'm I'm so grateful for these Services they make my life better and done they make it easier to get out and enjoy the town so overall the responses about Transit even those asking for better service availability better accessibility those raising concerns about cost even those tended to be framed in a positive way and what that means is that residents really like these Services they're very appreciative of these Services even in places where they'd like to see some improvements some of the improvements that were brought up were service hours wishing wishing these things were available more frequently um the um concerns some some concerns over safety with walking in golf cart Crossings um citizen your citizens love to walk around dun Eden that was clear from the responses they love how walkable it is um there's definitely sorry Dr could you repeat that please what was that I said that your citizens love the walkability of the community that's very clear at multiple points in the survey in the responses that we received the open-ended responses um so the walkability is is rated very positively there are a few points of concerns if you look at these comments and if you look at the infrastructure comments there are a few points of concern about safety um about pedestrian safety golf cart Crossing safety um th those come up at a few places in the survey um thank you sir very much I appreciate that very very much why why am I feeling doesn't mean they can walk all the way to clear sky back what's that doesn't mean they can yeah I I feel like some of these request for me to repeat things are not because I'm not speaking clearly I'm on the fence stop it you are okay Dr Hy so um so yeah that that's what's showing up there again this is this is a little uncommon um to see such positive sentiment in these responses but I wanted to make sure to emphasize that it's not Everywhere by the way there are other places where like infrastructure where the sentiment analysis definitely skewed to the negative um and again I would encourage you to to Really um think about who the most appropriate people to read through those and kind of classify them with local what I'll call local knowledge would be um because that's just a level of of of expertise that I can't provide as not being a resident um okay so overall performance how are you guys doing um pretty consistent um on the idea of caring for the environment over recent years that is largely unchanged and you're rated very positively um I shouldn't say this on public record but I'd say you're rated more positively than many of your peers up and down the coast it's okay you can say that okay so residents are residents are happy um with that you had a nice little bump in planning for the future I my guess is that U maybe that's just the visibility of your strategic planning process in the last year here um but you had a nice little bump from about 60% um saying that you're doing a great job of planning for the future that's hopped up over 70% um overall folks you know agreeing that you value arts and culture that you value diversity and historic preservation um 69% agree of the city is moving in the right direction um that's a good number but you know personally and I and I think you share this this kind of mindset I'd love to see that higher I'd love to see that number up in the 80s of of folks who say even if I'm not satisfied with everything right now I trust that we're moving in the right direction I think communicating the strategic planning process involving citizens in the strategic planning process can really help to to move the needle on um on a metric like that the other question that kind of goes along with how are we doing and especially in the midst of a strategic planning process is like what are residents want us focusing on moving forward um and these are again this was kind of when we got to this point in the survey this came in the survey I kind of felt like we were getting a summation we were we were at the end of the lecture from our residents in a good way and we were kind of getting a summation of here's what we've been telling you and all of those other responses we've been telling you that we like it here but it's getting very expensive it's growing very quickly and we're afraid that's affecting our infrastructure and of course and and I want to emphasize this because we see this throughout the survey you're doing a good job on the environment keep going do more um this improving Coastal resiliency here at the top of the list is not res from when I take that kind of in comparison to what I see in other places in the survey that's not residents saying you're not doing good here because they are saying you're doing good at other places in the survey in large numbers it's just them saying do more we we understand the threats we understand the issues we understand that we're you know we're 4 days now into a new hurricane season that's becoming um you know that that that it sounds like it's going to be a scary one what more can we do it's not a negative response seeing that at the top of the list um I would say um if you asked me what is the thing on this list that residents are kind of most fired up about that I can see at other places in the survey um in a bad way it's affordable housing um there's it's you know infrastructure keeping Pace with development yes but affordable housing is is kind of a piece of that as well and affordable housing has become a really really major um a major pain point for residents not not just in dun Eden but as you know all over Tampa Bay Region all over the state um and uh seen several several reports and and I'll lightly use the term studies recently suggesting that a lot of people who came to Florida um are now leaving Florida because of what's happened with our um housing costs and um how home home insurance rates over the last couple of years um and so obviously that's a trend that dun Eden wants to combat and wants to overcome um as much as possible so those are the priorities that really stood out um notice what's not anywhere on your list um here is much of anything about public services um yes expanding and improving parks and green spaces but that's not an indictment of Public Services we saw how highly parks and green spaces were red earlier just something that folks always want more of um but there's really nothing on here saying like you're doing a bad job of delivering essential government services um that doesn't show up anywhere in your survey um so that's a point I think a point of Pride that that the city can really um can really be be happy with uh and we asked kind of residents those generic but often very valuable questions at the end of the survey I did the same thing with these I used that same method of kind of combining a human coding with with a machine learning coding to kind of assess these results and see what the things were that emerged that residents like most and would like to improve um people feel safe in dun Eden they love the local activities and events I was jealous of the local activities and events when I was doing your survey by the way um if you guys were a little closer to USF I might be looking for um I might be looking for housing but um um walkability and accessibility really stood out I picked it up the AI picked it up it definitely stood out as an area natural beauty and um kind of the opportunity to be outdoors doing things really stood out and local government services stood out again as an area of satisfaction with residents what do they want to change they want that affordable housing I I I feel a bit like I'm like I'm repeating myself over and over here but um I'm only parting back what they told us they want that affordable housing improved they want infrastructure improved particularly when it comes to parking roads walking um infrastructure U there were several notes in there I believe about the timing of traffic lights as well um and so um you know to the extent that it's possible some sort of comprehensive study of that could be could be helpful to see if there are any inefficiencies that can be approved um and stronger environmental actions um again these are not not these are not a indictment of um a of the city's current efforts there was widespread satisfaction with the city's current efforts it's just a call kind of for more of more of that um I found this one a little funny community and recreational facilities a modern Sports Complex dog parks improved accessibility to parks and wreck and then we go all the way back to early in the survey where where we had those circles around the levels of familiarity and I think a lot of folks again just may not know that you're already doing that you already have those available um and maybe what they want isn't being offered there because their input hasn't been received because they're not familiar with what's there right and so I think that um reiterating that idea of a communication campaign an informational campaign around lowest typically the lowest cost policy tool um to to kind of improve service satisfaction um but an informational campaign to raise awareness of those things could go a long way um to improving some of these numbers and the same goes for those local Transit options um where we see a a lack of familiarity in a lot of cases and I believe that kind of brings me to the end of what I have and and you've probably heard my voice enough so maybe um another good time to stop and just see what questions there are um that I can and and I'll reiterate that if I don't have an answer to your question today or if you don't feel ready to ask your question today um I am available anytime to discuss this further with you if you want to send emails if you want me to send some specific data um any of that please feel free to let me know at any point thank you the first thing I want to do is let city manager Bramley speak thank you very much mayor and and I appreciate you allowing me to reserve my comments for after Dr ne's presentation because um as part of our budgeting process the it's on it's on yeah as part of our budgeting process the citizen survey is is uh fundamental it's a foundation upon which you will make your decisions um regarding allocation of funds during the budget process we started this the citizen survey in 2019 and we've done one you know we kind of skipped the co year and then did another one this is this is our third we do a business survey on the alternate years as well so we really have a a finger on that pulse as far as what it is the community wants to see you're going to have a budget Workshop tomorrow and it's the business business plan Workshop you will see within the business plan work workshop that we have initiatives that are um uh developed around these priorities we did have the benefit of the citizen survey as a draft item you'll see uh um Paving uh uh the paving contract and increase in funds for Paving streets you'll see funds allocated to drainage and resiliency Coastal resiliency as well and increase in that in in that funding so it really is fundamental to our continued budget process as well as our strategic plan in terms of where we allocate our resources in the future there's really nothing new here and you you'll see in the business plan as well moving forward that that our service delivery is is exceptional and that's because of our staff and that's because of their dedication and their commitment we will maintain those levels of service but our attention is really on those items that are most important to our residents moving forward and you're going to see that tomorrow morning and I would encourage anybody who's watching to tune in to that budget Workshop um as well if we're going to live stream I don't know if we are or not but anyway um so so I'm really pleased with where we are with a draft budget now the draft business plan as it relates to this citizen survey and you're going to see it tomorrow so thank you mayor questions or comments and uh well actually let me just say this we are now have gone over our scheduled a lot of time for this meeting so I need to check in with everybody's personal schedules I'm okay I'm good okay are you guys going to be good to go on to the next subject yes yes okay okay so comments uh yeah I I don't have any questions I think um uh Dr Ney you you uh you did a great job explaining it actually better than I've ever heard um and um and articulating some of the key points um I thought our last company did a great job and I wasn't sure we should leave them but you don't know what you don't know and I I'm you know you You're great and uh I really appreciate the presentation style you have in in pointing out some of the key issues so um thank you and uh I think again I don't think there's any surprises but you know it shows us what we what we need to focus on and it's going to be tremendously helpful so thank you commissioner too thank you mayor I don't really have any questions um on the survey and I'll and I'll reserve my uh input tomorrow as to how we use the survey okay commission Walker so uh yes I I'll just reiterate I I think um in terms of comparison with last of 2022 this is uh I think to me this is a little bit more focused and I think that's good um and I also would interpret I I guess is looking at the like a just a general comparison of any of the categories there was typically like about a less than one point um drop from 2022 to to now um but I interpret that as being the fact that the margin of error is lower and subsequently the our ability to get to a probably more accurate satisfaction rate um is facilitated by that um so anyway that's really my my comment um and yes I I look forward to applying this because this is what I tell everybody is this is the first step in the budget process and um you know we we need this data in order to make the informed decisions so thank you okay um just waiting for your turn Jeff I have no comments okay uh thank you to everybody for for all their hard work on this um obviously we're still at the top three probably now we have four or five but top three being traffic affordable housing and overdevelopment so we're still there um I do think there's a big thing about the perception of overdevelopment I mean we have we do not have places very many places to develop but when you're traff is so heavy when you have so many state roads in your city you it feels like you're overcrowded and with the exponential increase in visitor numbers that we really don't have anything to do with um yeah it feels very crowded so um I I did couple of things I walked away with 41.7% were unsatisfied with business opportunities in the city that is economic driver I know we're a bedroom community I understand that 5% commercial all whatever that number is I get it that's a problem unsatisfied not unsure unsatisfied I think we have to determine okay who do we want to be and let's focus on it and then let's convince our residents of the same thing you know maybe it's focusing on entrepreneurship maybe it's maybe it is focusing on tourism so like it or lump it I you know I don't know what it is but when you have that big of a number that's unsatisfied with the business opportunity here I think we have to spend some money to investigate it I'm not saying higher consultant God forbid I'm just saying we need to put some effort into that um the two big drops in satisfaction from the last well actually three big drops just different categories since the last um survey was uh streets storm water and the achieve of paw Park I heard what you said I we'll see it tomorrow hopefully we have a new dog park in our future which we've put off um and then 77% of the people don't even know what our CPO program is I bet you a bunch of them were businesses too because I've said it 100 times we used to have cpos that walked on foot during events during the weekend at night know the businesses by names we're always the same people in a neighborhood so the neighbors knew them we now have five right we added several and nobody even knows what the program is that's our fault partly but it is also because the program isn't what we designed it to be so you know it's up to us to fix those things um but again thank you very much to everybody um for all the hard work this is good information we'll see tomorrow um um and thank you for your patience um from last meeting to this meeting I don't know if he's still there there he is okay no problem I understand you got to get business done no worries okay um can we take a five minute break before we move on to the Skinner thing thank you Dr Ney thank you have a wonderful day you too thank you sure okay our F do friends have had [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] um I'm I'm just letting you know I have an hour and I have to be out of here I will be suain so yeah let's let's be there go I was going to say that thank you DK BR there you go okay go okay thank you Bob iron Smith Economic Development we're here to talk a little bit about the Skinner Boulevard complete streets uh specifically this is on the trail Crossing component I have dot Representatives here Chad and Danielle they've put together a simulation to show how this Hawk high intensity activ crosswalk works this is what's in the design also have Whit Blanton too who's in in the audience so what I'd like to do at this point in time is to turn it over to Chad Danielle they're going to go through their PowerPoint it's a simulation it shows how the hawk works and then certainly will be able to respond to any questions that you might have so Chad Danielle you want to sit here and you can go ahead and activate that and here that's for you thank you welcome thanks for your patients oh good morning so we do want to go through a bit of a project update too to go through some status because a lot of the simulation covers how everything works together because we have um the signal adult 19 the PED Crossing and the roundabout also also close together so we'll do a brief overview okay um so we'll go over the project information the status uh that panel's trail crossing the operations of that hog also known as a pedestrian hybrid Beacon and we'll go through our traffic models and simulations because we ran the traffic modeling uh to show the comparison of that temporary traffic signal that's there today with our improvements as well as this uh pedestrian hybrid Breakin so the project limits are from Alt 19 to Main Street along State Road 580 Skinner Boulevard we did have a public meeting I included the link that had the project information for the public if they want to go to that our design is complete we did our final plans they're approved and now we're waiting for construction to start in late 24 and we anticipate it to be complete in late 26 so going through um our complete streets what the goal is is to promote safety for all users have the Eon economic uh development and focus on all users all ages and ability and really develop something that's for the context of the road and this is what sets up of how everything works together and really sets the speed and the safety for all users so we do want to encourage um a multimotor facility support um walkability rideability calm that traffic slow them down facilitate Transit and do have that stimulate economic growth and even enhance uh Redevelopment opportunities what we're doing we are doing a lane reduction so we have uh four lanes out there today and we'll be reducing down that to two lanes one in each direction we will have uh 10-ft sidewalks in both sides which will connect to the penel trail we are proposing a single Lane roundabouts at Douglas Avenue and Highland Avenue uh they'll be single Lane with Right Turn Only and we'll have 7 foot bike Lanes throughout and we'll have some segments with on street parking and bus base uh we do have that permanent pedestrian Crossing control device which right now is in the plans is that pedestrian hybrid Beacon uh currently we have that temporary uh signal we are putting in a new Crossing west of Milwaukee Avenue and currently we're upgrading the uh signal at at Main Street which is existing it's at box ban on the span wire we're putting in a mass arm which is similar to what's on 19 and we're putting in the raise median uh future projects and other uh teaming efforts at the city's Park of is we'll have Landscaping that comes in afterwards really gives that complete street that Corridor feel we have there's taming for decorative lighting and with all this the speed is going to be reduced to 25 mes hour which is great for that walkability safety and the current posted speed is 40 is 40 mph just to show what that looks like the existing typical is in black and white in the top of the slide and that in the reduced lanes and the 7 foot bike Lanes is shown in that colorized typical this is a summary of everything good afternoon everyone my name is Chad Stewart U thank you Danny for the project overview and update my name is Chad Stewart I'm with the Florida Department of Transportation and my portion of the presentation I'm going to be focusing more on the the new traffic control device for the pelis trail Crossing but I think it's important that you know Danny went over and the the features that you're going to get with this project um a lane repurposing from four lanes to two speeds are being reduced to 25 miles an hour you getting two new single Lane roundabouts 7ft buffered bike lanes and full Corridor lighting so it's really going to transform uh the corridor the characteristics of the corridor overall in a positive way um before I get into the new Trail Crossing device I'd like to take just a few minutes to go over and kind of revisit the original Trail Crossing device the current device and then explain to you hopefully how we arrived at selecting the new traffic control device for the trail so previously for many years on the top portion of my Slide the trail Crossing was controlled by R rfbs RFB is short for re rectangular rapid flashing beacons so these these have yellow LED lights that when you pedestrian bicycle pushes the button they flash a rapid frequency and complete your Crossing and then they go dark again unfortunately when 2020 with when Co hit uh this location in 2020 and 2021 this location like many other locations throughout the United States experiened an increase in crashes with our vulnerable users with our pedestrians and bicyclists so the department worked with our local agency partner penel County who came out and in called the temporary span wire uh full signal that you have today I'm sure you're all very familiar with it it's got a red yellow and green light it rests in green until a pedestrian bicycle is pushed with the button and it changes to yellow solid red while they complete their Crossing so like I said the the characteristics of this Corridor with the new project are really completely changing um with the lane repurposing and the new roundabouts this slide has the the new the proposed Corridor overlaid on an aerial and it's showing the proximity of the trail Crossing to the new roundabout at Douglas about 250 ft to the East and the existing signal at Alt 19 350 ft to the West so the department wanted to review the interaction of the new traffic control device for the trail to make sure the traffic operations was not only safe for trail users but the traffic operations aren't being compromised Elsewhere on the corridor so what we did is we during the design of the project the department obtained traffic counts we did some traffic analysis and we applied some growth factors and we forecasted what the traffic conditions are going to be like in this area in 2025 then we grew the traffic 20 more years into the future to 2045 and we we took those those two sets of traffic volumes 2025 and 2045 and we've created a traffic a model and we modeled the interaction of the existing signal you have today but in the new in background of the new Corridor uh to see how it operated and we also modeled a pedestrian hybrid Beacon and just just see which device perform better so this is a this is a I've got a 10sec this is a a clip of a simulation so what this is this is the 2025 am peak hour traffic and this is the uh item number one um that the proposed Corridor is overlaid in the back ground on an aerial item number one is represents the proposed roundabout at Douglas number two represents the panel Trail Crossing three represents southbound altern 19 and four represents Northbound Al 19 so I'll play this animation it's just a 10-second clip but what you're going to see is traffic starting when the the trail signal gets the red traffic starts to queue up back up into the roundabout that's what we're starting that's what we're seeing in the the 2025 am peak hour now this is just a 10-second clip but this is happening repeatedly throughout that peak hour um how do we jump to the next slide this is jumping 20 years into the future this is that same can you do that I'm sorry can you do that again sure that one and that's where the clip ends but that that that backup keeps happening over and over throughout that that one hour period what did you say the peak time was though what did you say the peak time was I don't it8 it's whatever the the highest this is 20 years into the future so this is the same location but this is with 2045 traffic volumes again we got the roundabout at Douglas number one Trail number two southbound Al 19 number three Northbound Al Alt 19 number item number four I'll play this animation and you'll see three different cues build up not only does the westbound direction of uh Skinner Boulevard queue up into the roundabout but we start to see Northbound Alt 19 queing up as well as the southbound left turns from Alt 19 are getting trapped in the middle of the intersection unable to complete their left turn um it's starting to clear out because the trail signal just turned green there but this is again happening I think this happened eight times during that peak hour uh three different cues built up so after we saw the the results of this analysis we knew we had to look at an alternative device for the trail Crossing and that led us to The pedest Pedestrian hybrid Beacon sometimes we refer to it as a hawk signal I have a bad habit of doing that myself um but the hawk signal will look similar to the image on the top right of that slide it'll be mounted on a mast arm overhead um again we took into account the traffic analysis the characteristics of the corridor and also the fact that the drivers in on Skinner are used to seeing a red light they're used to that traffic signal um and there's a certain aspect of the red light that the advantage that is has over the RFB um as far as driver compliance the drivers tend to respect the a red light more than they do the RFB flashing yellow lights um so more on the left side of the slide what drivers see versus what pedestrians see so when the when the there's no pedestrian needs to use the crosswalk it's not in use the Hulk the driver sees a the Hulk the hawk signal will be dark it won't be illuminated at all when a pedestrian pushes the button it'll start flashing yellow warning drivers someone's about to cross it'll change to a solid yellow telling drivers they need to slow down and prepare to stop then it will change to a double solid red at the same time a pedestrian gets the walk driver stay stopped pedestrians complete their Crossing then after they complete their crossing the signal will change and it'll start flashing alternating red during that time drivers still have to stop at the crosswalk but if there's nobody in the crosswalk no pedestrians or bicyclists they can go ahead and move on move on through on their way so I would like to play on this next slide a brief this brief video it'll show one complete cycle of a hawk signal in operation Meet The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon this is the vehicle signal of a pedestrian hybrid Beacon The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon has been shown to reduce pedestrian crashes by 69% but how does it work the vehicle signal remains dark until it is activated by a pedestrian while the vehicle signal is dark The Pedestrian signal displays the don't walk symbol and vehicles May proceed through the crosswalk at regular speed when a pedestrian presses The Pedestrian push button the vehicle signal flashes yellow to warn motorist a pedestrian is ready to cross the road this brief flashing yellow interval is followed by a steady yellow interval informing motorists they should prepare to stop the vehicle signal then changes to steady red indicating motorists must stop and wait at the stop line and The Pedestrian signal changes to the walk symbol allowing pedestrians to cross after a short interval The Pedestrian signal switches to a countdown timer and the vehicle signal changes to flashing red when this occurs no other pedestrians may enter the crosswalk once all pedestrians have cleared the crosswalk motorists May cautiously proceed even as the vehicle signal continues flashing red the vehicle signal then goes dark until the next pedestrian activates The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon Meet The Pedestrian all right on this next series of eight slides here what I've got is screenshot comparisons of some of the traffic conditions we observed in the 2025 AM and PM peak hours and the 2045 a.m peak hours of both if we let the signal that you have today remain in the new condition versus The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon so you can see a little get an idea of some of the traffic conditions that are that are present so this is the 2025 am. peak hour with the existing full traffic signal at the trail in place again this is the the signal the trail signal has just turned green in the snapshot image but again it was the que and the westbound Skinner Boulevard quees up into the round about four to five cars deep off the screen really and again this happens multiple times throughout that peak hour in comparison this is the same location same 2025 am peak hour traffic volumes but The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon is being used at the trail uh in this image during the entire peak hour there were no significant cues observed at all with The Pedestrian Hy Beacon and this is the PM peak hour again 2025 PM peak hour with the existing full signal today at the trail we get the same queue in the westbound Direction backing up into the roundabout at Douglas blocking access to the roundabout we can ALS you can also see a que starting to form uh from Alt 19 as well in the eastbound Direction this is that same location 2025 PM peak hour but the only difference is now the trail is being controlled by The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon instead of the full signal again during the entire peak hour we we observe no significant congestion events now we jump 20 years into the future with the traffic signal that you have today at the trail this is the am peak hour again it's the same type of cues that we're getting in in 2025 they just get a lot longer in 2045 so basically this queue is generated from the trail signal being red queuing up backing up past the through the trail into the roundabout four to five cars through the roundabout blocking access to the delos Avenue roundabout and this is that same uh 2045 a.m. peak hour traffic this is the probably the worst queue if you will we saw with The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon of all of them of all the scenarios um it didn't actually queue up um this is actually from the signal at Alt 19 not the trail not The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon it didn't cause this queue it's actually from the signal at Alt 19 caused the traffic to back up just to the edge of the roundabout but it didn't actually block access to the roundabout with The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon here's the 2045 PM peak hour with the traffic signal in place at the trail again it's just a screenshot of the simulation I played earlier it's it's probably the worst case scenario we've got three different congestion events the westbound traffic cues up into the roundabout at Douglas blocking access and so Alternate 19 Northbound is congested as well and southbound traffic the southbound lefts are unable to even complete their left turn we have vehicles being trapped in the intersection and this is that same location in 2045 p.m. peak hour but the only difference is here the trail is being controlled by the pedest hybrid Beacon instead of the full signal and again in this scenario during the whole peak hour we never observed any significant cues at either the roundabout or the signal at 19 so with that I hope that helps explain a little bit more about how how the hybrid Beacon works and why we selected it it it we feel it's the safest traffic device that functions effectively for all users through the design year 2045 and it's it's functional for all you know D drivers pedestrians and bicyclists and that's all I have June is national Safety month and over 3,000 lives are lost every year to prevent all uh crashes in Florida so thank you thank you how many lives any questions how many lives 3,000 um okay well I mean I have to say when I looked at the agenda item like I'm think I was like what like how's that going to work I mean that just seems very confusing to me I asked um you know where are these in another part of the county where are they being used um yeah they're used throughout pel County I we have some clear water and um we have we have them on Bush Boulevard and Tampa mid block cross I mean can you send us some locations sure I'd like to go and just see it um you know it's kind of a long question but I'm just going to ask it so originally how we had it before the traffic light when you approached that intersection cuz there were four lanes and you came and there was just no way to look at everything you'd look one way you'd look the other then you'd feel like you had to go look the other way and look back the other way there was no way to capture all the information to safely go through it therefore traffic light traffic light functions great safest wonderful now before we did the traffic light the concept was we're going to go to two late L if we go to two lanes are we going to need the traffic light a lot of the answer was no we'd go back to the original cuz we wouldn't need it anymore then you don't have all this stuff to see there's just two lanes it's easy to you know then you can just have the normal original one that we had which I forget what it's called but the norm R flashing Beacon rapid flashing beacon beacon at the time I was like oh people are going to get used to the very safe traffic light not want to do that which I think is probably what happened um so it's probably a political loser to try to go back to that but I still in my mind I keep thinking the traffic light was right for four lanes the the rapid flashing Beacon may have been right for two lanes now we're going to this Hawk Beacon which seems like it just seems confusing I mean whenever you tell me well oh when they're the both red lights are blinking and if it's clear you can go nobody knows that well yeah I mean I so so are we picking the middle ground because we don't want to go back to the flashing beacons but we're afraid the traffic light's going to back things up which I see what you're doing I guess that's my question are is it a are we coming up with a political solution or is it really the better solution than even the flashing beacons that we used to have well also just to your point about not when they pull up there there will be signage up overhead on the M arm I understand there will be a learning curve and a lot of people still don't you know a lot of people aren't familiar with The Pedestrian hybrid Beacon or Hawk and they'll be we'll have to do some education and Outreach as well that'll go along with that but there will be signage up on the Mast arm to to notify the driver if they pull up and they're stopped and to remind them that they can go ahead and go if it's clear so there is there is some signage up ahead to to notify them of that um I get it but when you start to say to yourself why is that Superior than than the rapidly flashing Beacon with two Lanes where okay now you've got a reasonable purview to look at and can probably safely interpret now you've added this Middle Ground light that you've got to interpret it as you're figuring out where pedestrians are I'm just trying to understand why that's Superior well that that the rfbs that you had previously were Ground mounted on pedestals right this the hawk signal will be up overhead on a mast arm so it'll definitely be much more visible than the RFB is ever would be understood if it's under but if people can aren't confused about what to do um and it has a red no I I get it I get it but I have to say it does f to me like you either go with the super secure method of the light and time the lights right or you or you go back to the rapidly flashing Beacon that with two lanes everybody felt like that's going to be safe so I I that's getting into comments so but I'll wait and see what the rest of M colleagues commissioner G thank you mayor um can we accurately say the system that we're using now works yes and I we haven't had a death since V I'll vote yeah yeah I it seems to be working um and is the current system currently connected from a Signal Management point of view to of the alternate 19 no it's not connected to it is not connected it was I my understand I thought I thought it was thought it was yeah we were told it was going to be timed my understanding is the signal was previously when it was put in the signal we have today it was coordinated with the adjacent signals and then there were some issues I think it was I think it was complaints from Trail users but they the problem is when you put it in coordination when a trail user comes up and pushes the button it may not always instantly activate for them so I'm trying to be disrespectful but so is the thing coordinated it what it can be coordinated yeah but it was coordin was that it went in coordinated and but it was taken out of coordination complaints okay okay and because it seems to me with the hawk method and it is a traffic management device what we have now is a traffic management device why is what is it within those two systems that makes one back traffic up and one not back traffic up so what is the timing there that makes the little difference is that I don't know if you recall the video at the end so with your your signal today you have a a green light a yellow light and a red light so when it changes red it doesn't ever flash red it just changes red it's solid red until The Pedestrian completes their walk and then you got that countdown you know I don't if you cross the street you get the walk and then after a few seconds it start counting down saying flashing don't walk it tells you how long you got to complete your walk right so the signal you have today stays red during that whole time it stays red during the 7 Seconds of walk and it stays red during that flashing don't walk right what the hawk or pedestrian hybrid Beacon the difference is is it's solid red during the walk and then after the walk completes it switches to the flashing don't walk so that most of the time pedestrians have completed their Crossing and the crosswalks clear and you kind of got that wasted time where you're just kind of sitting there and there's nobody in the crosswalk with the full signal with the pedestrian hybrid Beacon that wigwag and the signage telling the drivers that they can go ahead and go if the crosswalks clear that's really the difference in the operation of that's the difference in the operation and that's where you get the added benefit that's why we don't have the queuing so pedestrian H Beacon okay so while it's red yeah is there that for The Pedestrian Crossing is there a countdown at that point or is the countdown start when it starts flashing red the countdown starts simultaneously when it starts flashing red when the hawk when the hawk signal starts so it stays solid red so when it turns solid red simultaneously a pedestrian sees walk at the same time okay and after that few seconds it's usually about seven or so seconds of walk time your pedestrian signal will switch and it'll start counting down it'll say if you haven't already entered you shouldn't enter and you have this long to complete your Crossing okay so in your simulation yeah when it starts to flash red your the way you program that simulation was the drivers know when it's flashing red they can move through it and the simulation right go whenever it's flashing okay okay um you know I just maybe it's more comments and questions yeah um do you think when if we stick with what we have and it cues up and backs up either into the intersection or the roundabout well human behavior change or they get frustrated that intersection maybe find another route or 5 years from now they'll still be backing up and they'll still be cussing that they're backing up I is this an opportunity to say if you don't like it find another route which to me which is part of what we should be doing anyway a lot of that traffic is pass through traffic especially if it's on all 19 wan to continue St I think people are going to do that once it slows down per sure yeah so is this a way to change human behavior I I don't know obviously I can't answer 100% which way that's going to go but was that taken into consideration for your numbers for your traffic sorry no it's okay for your traffic numbers you know the 2025 versus the 2045 I don't think it's considered a drop off and no it didn't and just to add about other rounds just to add to that what is the difference between your traffic count in 2025 and 2045 I don't know oh I that's going to blow up our citizen survey that's sorry I would really like to know that we can get you that information but I well yeah and you mentioned what the increases and are we applying the same increase everywhere cuz I mean I know what the increases I see through our long range trans ation plan at forward pelis so I want to hear what you guys have used okay go ahead sir uh no those are good questions and in that backup you mentioned that this is at Peak time and this happens five to eight times it just happens repeatedly during peak time just showing you a little sample but it's whatever that peak one hour period is that's those those congestion events are happening over and over and over and how did you determine the number of times a pedestrian is pushing that button it on the counts of the of the current of the current counts so you know what the current counts are okay that I just wanted to make sure that that there was some sort of data behind the pressing of that button um thank you those are all my questions thank you questions yeah just um so what what was the data exactly that that led you to the hybrid light well basically when we saw the the congestion events occurring with the full signal with the Curve the Curve saw it in 2025 when we saw it backing up into the roundabout and then when we saw it in 2045 backing up into Al 19 um we had to pick a different device we had to do something different statistically show that any backup um of 19 making that um left turn on all those backups creates potential for and like in 2045 the backups from southbound Al 19 there were Vehicles were being trapped in the middle of the intersection daisy chain of backups basically but um just so going back to the the the questions that were asked I'm just kind of curious if you go to down to curu that the light sequence there is fixed in the to the benefit of the vehicular traffic and the uh bicyclist or pedestrians have to essentially yield to those specific lights now you know I I guess what I don't I guess I'm not you know I'm I'm not I'm not seeing the difference um I'm not and I'm not articulating this question very well but um anyway I'll I'll just let's I'll put this uh put this away until we get to our comments hang thanks commissioner TKA questions only please thank you mayor a key word was if the crosswork if the crosswalk is clear okay so I'm simply asking questions now in in support of Life uh of of the people that are on actually uh the trail so and then those who have to confront that and should they confront it improperly they they live with that right so I'm real concerned about that and I've watched that intersection a lot so for your 2025 to 45 comparison obviously there's some issues about trying to figure out what what are we going to look like in 2025 but we have to make some assumptions so you made some assumptions that sort of like nothing has changed that we're all in the same kind of vehicles same thing happening is that correct correct probably yes and then when we saw the pictures and then you showed the vehicles uh stacking up and then we couldn't see them anymore is that cuz they ended there then or they kept stacking up in some cases especially as you get within later 20 45 years they just stacking up off the screen is as long thank you did did we look at what happened on the trail well what happens on the trail the people want to go they want to go that's why they run all the St you you got you know all of that so did we look at what was happening on the trail on in in the comparisons did we do it or not I'm just asking if you did it when congestion on the trail yeah what what's happening on the trail show any congestion no show no no no congestion you know the people who are there so you did during this peak time during this peak time weren't on the weekends second ccle right on the weekends there probably are or I know there are in some cases because I I ride I ride there so and so to other people but I was just wondering if when they show up and it's stop for them it goes green they're there waiting and some of them don't get to go is what you're saying no no I'm just saying I I'm saying sometimes they get rambunctious and they don't want to wait and uh etc etc and I know that's wrong uh but but I'm just curious to see if we looked at would show that kind of it assumes everybody's doing things legally did you take any consideration for where we are with the its or Intelligent Traffic Systems today I I know we're going to I'm sure we're going to be doing some improvement significant Improvement in that how might that affect this did we take that into account how how I don't remember how much we are are affecting 580 do do you recall that like for example up to bass or up to um you're talking about if we creating gestion outside of the screenshot I showed you is that no sir thank you for asking that to clarify so we have Intelligent Traffic system in in in place in C certain circumstances how much of that is on 580 oh Gosha do we know I I'm I'm just wondering how much that might have an effect on on on this flow I I I don't know I'm just asking you what you think of it yeah I I don't have the data on the the dev no okay okay you're still not talking into a microphone you've got to come up here and talk microphone come over here let me step away thank you so my question I guess is I'm wondering how much how much is more significantly more robust or or compelling uh Intelligent Traffic system might have in this in this situation that we're talking about um currently I mean it's a brand new signal brand new controllers and cabinets so I really have to find that information for you as far as anything related you're relating to fiber right the fiber that's on 580 I I'm just talking about the system in other words somebody you're trying to are you asking I'm sorry you're trying there's technology that can make the Improvement versus going to a pedestrian H Beacon maybe not just a pedestrian to all of the traffic lights that are adjus in them as things are happening they start suddenly start to see a backup going around something now they have to release it and hold somebody else for example automatic technology does that he's asking not this particular no not this particular location can not particular can can it be um or can it be tied into Intelligent Traffic management we can check on that and get back to you okay um so my last my last thing and I'll move on is this word if the crosswalk is clear o help me you help me later okay that's my question I'm I'm really concerned that that us Florida drivers and US Florida people that are on making fun of us that are on that on that uh Trail um have the capacity to deal with that comfortably the guys a lot of the people in the trail are going to go when they want to go and the person driving might be just a little confused and not familiar that's why I had a problem with I was kind of concerned with the coordination because you like you just said they're going to go when they want to go so if we coordinate it we tie it in and it's not activated when they push the button I'm concerned they may think well it's not working or this that and the other and they're going to cross anyway so that's that's part of that but um I mean drivers will see when I say it's clear so they will you will the drivers will see you know alternating flashing red lights at them so that's going to get your I it would get my attention I would think as a driver approaching it if I so if you're on the trail and you have that concern I would in my in my mind I would rest a little easier knowing that those drivers are seeing in a flashing red light at least uh during that it's going to at least catch their attention and and slow them down they they're supposed to stop obviously it's so we're a great tourist place so I'm GNA have I'm gonna have somebody from Nebraska not picking on Nebraska any state it's coming down there it's going to look at this thing just went through a roundabout may or may not be familiar with that and now all of a sudden they see these flashing red lights and they don't know about that trail they don't know how how I don't know what the status of that trail is going to be in 30 years so I'm just I'll make a suggestion later thank you for questions yes okay um I mean we did determine to put the roundabout out there close to the trail and I know we had long discussions about it but now you're saying you're concerned that the traffic backs up into it it does and no no I get it can you just tell me why that's a problem I understand they have to go this way and if they can't do that but can you tell me why that's a problem really in 2025 not 2045 well if you if it backs up into the roundabout then for example the side streets Northbound and South then they can't even they're stuck they can't make their movement because that roundabout is their access right right so the only traffic that could theoretically go would be the East currently they can't get in there either with or without the roundabout cuz if you're sitting at Douglas take a left on to Skinner and the light is red and the traffic's there you can't get over there anyway so it's no different than the current conditions I guess so what I know this is supposed to keep things moving but the concern would be more like in 2045 yeah okay because then you you're backing up it showed it backing up almost to high gotta and that's what I kind of got from your presentation so let me ask you this question I can tell well I can tell you if it it continues to back up and somebody comes Northbound on Douglas and and so it's backed up on 580 right almost a Highland so somebody comes up Northbound on Douglas and gets into the roundabout now they could block eastbound from going so now you've got the entire thing nobody being able to move and that's that's when you have a real problem yeah okay uh so let me ask you this why do we have to go from a traffic signal to the hawk what do you call it Beacon okay the hawk Beacon because of something that's going to happen 20 years from now why can't we manage it it's something that works and see the results and make sure the lights are timed um and know that that might have to be an option why why do we have to do that now when you're talking about numbers 20 years from now I'm not saying we don't plan for that but we're not talking about the size of the road we're talking about something that is relatively easy to change out why why can't we wait tell me why we can't it was seen as the best option but best Optive the hybrid works best option vehicles and pedestrians best option for traffic movement not best option for people movement hybrid works for everyone from our point of view okay um I'm trying to stick with questions okay the rest is comments I'm going to ask Whit to come forward and speak please CU I really do have to leave here in 15 minutes so we have to come to a conclusion good afternoon welcome do you have a question for me or do you want to no I just picate well first of all I want to thank the department um all have done a great job and you all should be very proud of the Skinner Boulevard U complete streets project and we are very it's a big lift and you I was trying to do this 25 years ago and the state didn't want to set a precedent of reducing capacity on the state highway system look where we are we're having discussions with roundabouts and crossings and everything uh for the record I'm Whit planton the executive director of Ford pelis um I think I'd like to just relate a couple of concerns we have about hybrid Beacon in the county um I think it's a good device and I don't want you to use the signal versus hybrid Beacon as an excuse to not keep going forward with with Skinner Bullard because it's a great project overall we would never do um we have hybrid beacons on uh Park Boulevard uh which is um Gandy Park Boulevard on the western end it's a six Lane high-speed 45 M Road uh a few years ago the department changed its rules for where rapid rectangular ra Flash and beacons could go they need to be on Lower speed lower volume roadways with fewer Lanes to cross hybrid beacons are better for a four five six Lane Road uh with higher volumes and higher speeds the concern we have is we have the hybrid beacons also in St Petersburg on the penell trail I believe at 16th Street and there's some other locations and there is a problem with bicyclist and motor compliance with the hybrid beacons particularly in that last phase where you have the wigwag movement bicyclists on the pellis trail are used to seeing the countdown signal and continuing the flow on the countdown signal because right now we have all red for the East West movement so if I'm a bicyclist I'm coming up on that and I see the countdown I'm going forward the way I understand this will work and correct me if I'm wrong is if the motorist is sitting there and it's flashing red and they don't immediately see the bicyclist they can proceed but you might have a bicyclist just outside that site Vision who's preparing to enter the signal and I think that is a potential risk we need to be mindful of my own perspective is I'm very concerned about traffic backing up into the Alt 19 intersection as they showed particularly for the 2045 southbound condition because you don't want to leave traffic hanging out there in the middle of the movement I'm a lot less concerned about traffic backing up into the Douglas Avenue roundabout because it generally will clear pretty quickly because we're not even talking about a long cycle length for the full signal we have today it's pretty short my experience in riding the trail using the trail is you never have to wait very long and then when it does turn it's a pretty quick signal and you're through so you might back up at Douglas for a little bit but the people who are trying to get out of there aren't going to be delayed a long time in my opinion um the other thing that I think we need to take into account I know we're not seeing congestion problems on the trail but our volumes have skyrocketed on the trail we're now at 2.1 or so million users I mean it's maybe not unique users because we're counting people going over and back but that's more than double the counts we had in 2019 I think that trend is going to continue as we grow in pelis county and one thing that wasn't mentioned in this is we've gone through a series of different traffic signals at that location for the last 3 or 4 years when we had the rectangular rapid flashing Beacon first in sa you may remember that it was modified to a to a um a camera activated signal and that thing was flashing all the time and it was flashing so often that I think people got used to it being flashing and not seeing bicyclists or pedestrians there and they just kind of got used to it and they ignored it um so I'm worried that the volume of people going across and back and forth will make the haulk beacon a little less safe because it's not static groupings it's like a steady flow um so I'm not here to say one is definitively better than the other I just wanted to express some concerns that we've seen with motorist and bicycle compliance with the hawk beacons on the trail and it's going to require a lot of education and a lot of information and you just need to be prepared to have that and you know we we'll work with you we might even sit out there in boo and uh and explain it to people you know and and and do that spot enforcement but all the enforcement in the world is not going to help if it's not intuitive and I just worry that this is a device that is just less intuitive than some other devices thank you what um I think another important thing is is we did a lot of Education with the other two or three different styles of beacons that we had out there the problem is there's a lot of past through traffic of people who don't live here right and there is a whole ton of Tourism that's going down that road and Crossing that we are the busiest section of the trail in the entire County and that's part of the problem when I look at a flashing yellow it means proceed with caution I've never even seen a flashing red and I'm 58 years old and you got guys are saying oh there's one in Tampa there was one on Gandy there's one in St Pete people in North North County don't even go that far south we don't cross Union and we don't cross 19 I mean we don't we bubble so the it doesn't matter and I think we've seen we tried we went down the rabbit hole with other beacons we did and we had a lot of faith in them we found something that's working with a Time signal I think with observation it's the safest route we can take that everybody already knows and you don't have to educate them everybody knows what green yellow and red is I can guarantee you you might have 10% of our population even knows what that thing is and if I'm insulting every anybody I'm sorry but this is this is a problem for us we've had a death and we've had several major injuries I don't I am not willing to take that risk and I know I hopped in in front of you all but I'm on a time I have 10 minutes and so I just needed to get my opinion out there I just don't think it's a risk worth taking I don't so are we jumping in yeah jump yeah I think I'm on U I'm on the uh mayor Julie train here um you know and I have to say Whit you know I think you articulated it so well even the way it was before the traffic light it's the amount of traffic that goes through there on the trail and just the whole way things turn into that trail area um yeah I I just I don't see this ending well if we go with the hawk device I really don't I think there are a lot of RIS with it um and I if we can look at some timing issues um to kind of make sure try to to help the backup issue and I think you're right on about the whole not planning for 20 years from now but we have time we just talked about another issue earlier in the meeting you guys unfortunately had to sit through it all where we're on a learning curve you know I just don't know why this can't be that same learning curve we've got something that works we have a new Street we see kind of how it flows we see what happens and we adjust versus trying to make a change that maybe opens us up to an an accident so a horrible accident so quickly then I'll I'll go and say that the comment that I said I wanted to make was if this big if word then let's just not do that yet don't have to we don't have to do that yet and like I said earlier um perhaps we could do that a later time I was a very very supportive of the traffic light that went up there now I was yelling a lot city manager you know how concerned I was about that um I have watched a lady get hit there personally while I was observing that um I've seen it I've watched it a lot longtime motorcycle rider longtime biker the whole nine yards got to watch their eyes etc etc um there's just there's a just a too much of a potential for a problem I I I believe and from a learning system and I'd rather see a attempt to work something out with the Intelligent Traffic system or something like that to alleviate this rather than having to learn something new I I'm very nervous about it I'm not very I don't mean to be fighting anything that's happening but we have to take you know we're going to be sitting here and then I I don't want I just don't want to see some I've watched people get hit there I I just don't yuck I have seen it too thank you it's awful commissioner uh yeah I had a separated shoulder at that intersection so I'm well aware of that um my my my concerns are I one I think we're getting way too complicated when you start having flashing yellow lights solid yellow lights solid red lights flashing red lights um hand signals person walking it just where are we going with our traffic Management Systems in general that just seems to be a mess and way too complicated um um as as an Avid bicyclist I certainly uh agree with wi's point on if I'm a pedestrian or I'm on my bike and I see that flashing yellow I certainly ride defensively so I'm always looking but you're always concerned about that flashing red light and that car not looking outside the periphery of their site and just going into that intersection um and the Sun and deping which direction the sun is horrific it is it is um so I I just don't think it's for us I don't think it's for that uh intersection I I I think it's still focused on how we can manage cars instead of how we can manage bicyclists and pedestrians and so I think I'd rather see a focus on that and let cars deal with it do what they do what they want to if you're concerned about backing up into Alternate 19 that's one more reason to have the signaling devices there and so that that left you don't get that left Arrow if you think that you're going to have cars backing up um into that intersection uh so just for me right now I'm just uncomfortable with this this system thank you commissioner uh yeah I'm I'm I'm on the I'm on the mayor Julie train as well um the there too much there's too much ambiguity with the hybrid um that even a flashing red means continue with caution and I just they will and they will caution and they're distracted I I ride on the trail all the time and uh I watch it I watch even even the countdown with one second people are flying through it even when it's a solid red hand people are flying through it so I'm you know there are things that we're not going to be able to correct but everybody knows what a traffic signal looks like and quite frankly the learning curve on this is going to be a little bit steep so that's all I got thanks so Jennifer mayor yes thank you we have the direction of the commission yeah we need to sit down and talk swear to God we're not trying to be difficult I just think you know when when you when you've experienced the number of injuries and death and a death we're going to air on the side of caution because we know no matter how much you educate their their behavior is not going to change it just isn't we did it we've been there we've been doing it for what 10 years and it isn't working and there's nothing we can do to make it any better other than something that is simplistic as you said that they understand so we got to have those lights synced and figure it out so mayor we have your direction and staff will work with f do thank you thank you guys appreciate itk you Whit you sat here a long time I did try to move you up into the agenda except our citizen survey guy had to sit here through the last meeting and never even get on the agenda yeah so I couldn't do that to you I appreciate it go have a beer now that's right but you added a lot with yeah you did helpful but would if you could wait five more minutes I do have a question it doesn't pertain to this meeting okay um Jeff has a a thing he needs to bring forward just I'm jumping ahead because I got to go real quickly I resigned from PSTA so we need to assign somebody else I don't know whether that can be done today or it needs to be put on an agenda leave that to the mayor um Rebecca does that need to be put if you if you want to assign some me today and everybody um wants to do I'm fine with that or I can put it on agenda really that's en do we want to put it on Thursday's agenda maybe I mean I'm willing to go forward today I mean to me if you can't do it you know I can't do it cuz I'm on the way out and we have two people campaigning so I mean it seems pretty obvious to me that it's commissioner Walker who doesn't have an A a board you know County board board position yes a board position representing Den Eden yes ta is everybody okay with that yep yes 100% you got consensus dire I make a motion second second all in favor signify by saying I I okay so Rob you go after our 30 minute service buddy on Jolly trolley cuz PSTA controls that it's your baby now just give him a minute that like next meeting you can do that yeah give him a minute yeah okay you had a question Rebecca yes mayor thank you I just have actually a couple of things but I'll be really quick um the June 18th proposed agenda that you just approved I do need a new New Motion in a second I do need to add a um Skinner Boulevard complete streets additional funding that should have been on there and I apologize but um if that way I don't have to do it as a start item can I get a motion in a second so moved second um all in favor signify by saying I I I okay thanosed and then just a reminder to um just make sure everybody does see that on there June 18th agend um morning I do have a CRA meeting that is scheduled at 8:30 so please um arrive early and we'll that is on it's kind of the first part of that um complete streets that you just approved so okay and the very last item and I'm sorry but um the August meeting agendas because um of the uh the trip that the Scotland trip I just need to look at when do you prefer to meet because right now you're meeting um August 6th and August 8th if I'm not mistaken that you're at a town starting on the 7th correct so um so this doesn't necessarily need to be I we canceled that one I not not and not when I've been there yeah as I recall we kept it on there until we designated what the dates of that trip at the time at the time we didn't know the dates weren't firm so you for August then you would only meet on August 6th as a work session well but I mean we can add other things on there if we need to we leave on the 7th don't we correct yes and then your vacation days would be the 20 the normal would be the 20th 20 second I I don't know how to answer that okay I got to think about that think about it's just something that we do need to um I really prefer not to have a meeting the day before I'm leaving to go out of the country so the sixth you're saying oh um I'm not saying anything I I'm brain dead and I got to go okay take us home Mo take us home like just had somebody texting me guys thank you okay so I got distracted somebody's asked me where I'm at so um where where are we at do we want to make a decision on that or I'll think about it any city manager comments city manager no City man any advice no thank you we're good yeah on the commission updates okay do we want to finish okay commission updates so what else do you have we had high school graduation um we're in the process of creating an alumni association as soon as those papers were filed I would be the president of that also my summer project is to uh create a u history of bagpiping in Den Eden so I'm working with all kinds of alumni going up through the year so look for more of that anyway okay thank you commissioner commissioner walker uh I don't have any updates at this time uh and uh commissioner TOA sweet just real real quick June 6 coming up everybody knows what that is dday yes 80 years 14 June 14 is Flag Day the day that we decided 1777 to create our flag and on regarding the golf course I'm out there at least literally probably five or six uh times a uh a week so almost every day um I met Chris out there Chris Spence once when the last week he's really happy with with what's happening everything looks good I'm just giving the update to the commission as a representative that's so just making that comment find my ball out there I did find your golf ball out there when they drained it when they drained the pond there were four of yours six of mine none of mine since I don't play the oldest one so far is from 1960 yeah so far I'm sure we'll find older ones yeah okay so I don't have anything so we did city clerk update we did we didn't do city manager update we did I had nothing you had nothing and okay so are we done okay well then I call this do I have a motion to adjourn second we are [Music] adjourned for