e e e e e e e e e e e meting for 14 May at 6 p.m called order if you'll please join us in the pledge of allegiance of Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the for stands one na God indivisible withy and jusice for all well as you may have noticed the mayor is not here with us in person but he is on Zoom so can you hear us okay there mayor nod your head all right great all right well A first order of business is uh we have uh the employee of the second quarter for the city of St Pete Beach so vice mayor may I do a roll call oh I'm sorry roll call please vice mayor lenen here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Philz here commissioner res Niki here mayor patrilla we have a quorum thank you thank you all right it's all yours good evening Commissioners mayor um and members of our public um for the employee of the second quarter um was awarded to Brandon out of two three four five about seven or eight other employees that were nominated and I have to say it's welld deserved you guys have seen him up here at countless City commission meetings um he dedicates a lot of time and effort weekends days holidays whenever um to make sure responses are given as needed um Brandon wasn't here when I first came here he was here prior and came back and I am so glad he did um he has a steel trap of a mind like you can question him and quite honestly I sometimes challenge him on things and I can't stump him so he he is an incredible asset to have I think anybody that has come up to our counter you know enjoys working with him we enjoy working with him and I think it's welld deserved so [Applause] [Laughter] congratulations but he gets a present [Laughter] con [Applause] congratulations yeah just to add to that Brandon is a living walking talking comprehensive plan memorizing Land Development code guy it's absolutely amazing so well deserved all right next on the agenda is approval of the agenda do I have a motion from anybody I do have h a change to the agenda oh we do have changes thank you for that reminder okay so like to add an action item for approval of uh must Pump Station number one uh construction bid award and we were going to move that to uh make that item five if that's okay with everybody and then what was five will become 6 7 8 n make sense mhm everybody good with that thank you also wanted to add a discussion item um un flooding resiliency we'll make that 7D I do have a question on that I have several public signed up to speak do we want to take that ahead of time to let them speak or do you want to wait till we go through the whole agenda and have them wait you're a little can you speak up on that please I would let and she's asking there's a lot of public comment on flooding and resilience whether we should wait um till after the discussion but I would say let them speak and if they choose to want to stay um they they could even though it's a short agenda but we've said that before so I well it is a discussion item as well so it's not really an action or anything but I know if Mike Clark there he is Mike Clark is here so I assume that uh Mike's going to address that issue if that's okay City maner yes sir okay so what I'm hearing is you want to move that uh up and so folks and not have to sit through the rest of the meeting or you just want to let it roll could could we yeah I think the proper thing to do would let let those people speak during during the public comment yeah because the discussion item is just a commission at that point that makes sense thank you okay have one other thing to ask I have a resident who signed up to speak for freebie vehicles um typically discussion items public comments you're always your discretion so I just wanted to let you know I'm either going to call them dur regular non-agenda item or during discussion he would prefer to speak um after the presenter presents it's not City staff it's actually a representative from freebie which is not typical so I told him that I would ask on his behalf that's fine y okay do we have approval for the agenda as amended uh I'll move to approve the agenda as amended I'll second roll call please commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Phil yes commissioner res Nikki yes vice mayor Lorenzen yes mayor patrill yes motion carries okay next is uh I think we're up to public comments here okay audience comments just a reminder just when you come up to state your name and address and these will be General comments not for Action items or agenda items Edward Chima hi my name is Ed Kea I live in Don CeSar place and I'm here to ask as I know you're embarking on budget season setting the annual budget for the city of St Pete Beach to consider because I'm sure you have much more demand than you have Supply um consider the safety and well-being of the Citizens First Don sayar place has been under water for a long time the city has embarked on more studies than Harvard for the water problems that we have and yet nothing has been done so I'm here to respectfully ask you to consider the quality of life and the safety of the residents of St Pete Beach in your budget allocation process and prioritize mitigating the flooding problem in dun as our place thank you Mary Mc Reynolds okay thank you hi good evening Mary Mc reinolds I live in Donar place as well and um I bought last April from I had lived in uh pas grill for 11 years before that and a rental so we decided to purchase and we love the area so we moved to Don sasar place and in August with the Dalia we flooded 8 in inside the house this is my living room where you see the handwritten 8 in of water that is water up to that level under the fireplace and then in December once again we flooded 7 in inside the house we had a house fire a sewing machine that was plugged in caught on fire had we not been there because of evacuation who knows what have happened it was very scary my 96y old mom is downstairs and her bed was 8 in in in the water once again I would like to reiterate what Mr Kea said um the safety and quality of our life is very important and I have four generations living with me in in that house and I'll show you another picture that is the front yard at 9:00 the next morning 9:15 the next morning when it was not receding yet these are all from August from idalia extremely scary we did lose um a palm tree we lost plants we lost potted plants we lost buried um not buried planted plants in the ground um that is the backyard and as far as I could see from my second story window it was that color the entire neighborhood as far as I could see in the back so all of the houses around me were affected the house next to me um they spent 125,000 remodeling I think FEMA paid 854 to help so they lost drywall all you know a whole bunch of stuff this is a picture of my swimming pool which as you can see was underwater um it's that is later in the day because obviously we were dealing with the inside of the house um later in the day I took pictures of the swimming pool we had to empty it three times that cost $490 in water bill um we had extreme debris from the ocean not only from the ocean the water from the inter Coastal however the park where all of the dogs come and do their business came into our house so when he speaks of quality of life that's what I'm talking about we have some people have little children crawling around on the floor and that's not healthy so thank you thank you Jer I I don't want to butcher your last name I already did Chimas I said that wrong Kima what is it I'm sorry what is it I'm still wrong good evening I am Jerry I Angelo and um your address please for the record Jerry address please oh it's uh 2702 pass away and uh now that you mentioned that we're right across the street from the old old Bush estate and our home's been in the family for three generations that's over over 50 years so like these other concerned residents uh these last three storms um especially idalia back in in August of last year has caused significant flooding and property damage in Northern Pass R way area now we used to have some flooding and it was addressed in the in the new construction of passag way um back in 2015 and 2017 time period great huge underground Batten tanks backflow or vent valves were installed and that dramatically reduced the flooding in the short term but recently the the flooding is started and become deeper and uh the drainage has gotten a lot slower so what seems to have gone wrong well it appears several things have happened uh the check valves to keep the Bay water from coming up the street drains have failed uh the tanks fil immediately with rainwater and no longer perform as a buffer the storm sewer drain pipes do not seem to be open enough to carry the volume of water as needed to to drain the street so was the failure of the drainage system not detected because uh during scheduled maintenance or it was and perhaps not identified a significant Pro problem um I submit that it should have been identified and considered a significant problem so um like the other concerned residents uh what can be done to help um we know we're having another vigorous storm season approaching so whatever actions that can be taken in the near term to reduce water intrusion and facilitate drainage should be prioritized that could mean cleaning out the system replacing check valves and deploying large temporary pumps it certainly would be helpful if the vehicle traffic could be limited when the water levels reach some height above the drains I don't know what the I didn't go out and measure the curbs but usually once the the water breaks over the curb and you have people plow through the streets it creates uh really these damaging wakes and and like these other residents we we know what it's like to have all kinds of debris um pushed up into your yard into your mulch beds and and uh the damage that's created from from that so we would like to see some kind of no wake zone created and that uh the traffic be limited to the actual residence as opposed to sightseers that find it joyful to speed through and create these wakes um so on a on a larger scale though budget's going to require um prioritization so we're hope our presence here helps commission aware of our problem uh while doing that work and getting something in the in the budget to help us thank you thank you Craig Steven City Manager well he when while Craig comes up could I ask you to just take note of what he said in reference to and I hate to call it the no wake zone I kind of smile at it because I know what he means um after a storm and this is not something I think is as a rule in the city but for those of us who are living in these areas and are cleaning pretty soon after storm has left I I you said it eloquently I get frustrated because I've been in that situation when you've cleaned out your garage and then a vehicle comes by at full speed um and wakes the whole garage once again um so if you could make a note of how I mean I would hate to say our streets have no wake zones it's kind of sad to say that but how we could possibly address that since storms are rapidly approaching thank you name and address please okay excuse me my name is Craig Stefan and I live in the Don CeSar neighborhood I'm at uh 3210 west of basin Avenue uh being the lowest spot on St Pete Beach one would think that we would attract more immediate attention to our neighborhood problems I have been sadly disappointed with the urgency of our needs by the city I have lived here since 1990 and our neighborhood needs have never been a priority to this Council or any other Council uh I've attended city meetings neighborhood Gatherings and spoken to my neighbors on issues yet nothing ever gets done for our neighborhood uh our spillways were placed two years ago and exasperated flooding problems valves stuck in the open position seaw walls that were placed in 1927 that are almost 3 feet lower than current requirements and no storm drains and Roads that are pitched towards the home in instead of away from the homes uh we need pump stations in the park connected to water vaults that would pump the water out to the bay and canals we will never defeat mother nature but need to learn how we can survive and thrive with her what we don't need is complacency and comments by those like Rich Lorenzen that said to me at another meeting and others that I uh have spoken with so I'm paraphrasing when I say this but the dawn Cesar neighborhood Rich uh has always flooded and those bought there should have known better or bought somewhere else no seaw wall Pump Station Spillway or anything else will ever solve your problems we need can do people with can do attitudes and a city commission that works to solve our problems and and our problems have been studied to death and the time is now to start implementing Solutions not more studies thank you I don't usually comment on public comments but U you kind of took a little bit of our conversation away at of context and what I said is it was the property owners responsible to fix their individual seaw walls so I we didn't go beyond that so obviously we're all interested in fixing the big problem of pass Grill and D is our place yeah but thank you yeah we can discuss that another time but that sounds good okay thank you Becky purple good evening mayor Commissioners I've lived in St Pete Beach since 2019 and I've been frustrated by The Continuous flooding and dances our place ever since when I started talking to neighbors I learned that this there was a study completed by half Associates in September of 2020 the study researched the impacts of water threats and sea level rise on our neighborhood the general recommendation was to install a seaw wall to prevent Bay tidle and sea level rise threats redesign the street profile to flow rainwater to lazarillo park redesign lazarillo Park as a storage Basin and construct pump stations to evacuate rainwater a community meeting was promised to discuss the recommendations to date that meeting has not occurred by mid 2021 construction of some spillways began in the neighborhood however during a walkr of the neighborhood in April of 2022 with City saf many issues with the new system were reported it appears some of the work was never finished some were not was not constructed properly and maintenance has been lacking in addition several of the spillways have never been replaced or repaired the title flooding continues in Fall of 2022 during a commission budget Workshop commission discussed flooding issues in Don CeSar place and on September 12th 2022 City commission voted to reallocate $780,000 towards flooding mitigation in the neighborhood what happened to the funds that were set aside we are still living in a recurring flood zone though it is easy to blame flooding on King and spring tides such tides are guaranteed to happen several times per year in fact Don CeSar Place starts to flood at about 2 feet above sea level in 2024 high tide will be at or Exceed 2 feet 180 times of which 43 times the tide will rise to at least 2.4 ft this does not seem to be an odd occurrence to me last Thursday on May 9th the weather was perfect it was sunny clear day with no rain no distant storms causing a surge and winds were a mere 12 knots Southwest at 11:52 a.m. the tide had reached 2.4 ft and was still Rising I walked the neighborhood and took photos of all but one of the spillways and every single one had flooding on a sunny day in May um these are just some photos and where I took them around the neighborhood I beg commission and staff to finally give this issue the time attention and resources it deserves implementing solutions for high tides is a good start lastly I would like to see movement on installing a pump system in dances our place so that when we do flood from a storm the water will rain quickly than it more quicker than it currently does we are often forced to wait several hours for flood waters to recede and sitting in water for numerous hours causes more damage to our property and is a danger to Residents who do not have EMS access during those times thank you for your attention and time thank you Kathy garow [Music] good evening my name is Kathy Gara and I'm a home homeowner in the Don cazar neighborhood and a board member on the Don cazar Property Owners Corporation I'm not a multi-decade resident but I did close on my home the day before Adelia hit so I have felt the impact and have seen my neighbors suffer from the flooding and impassible roadways again you may recall the so-called surprise flooding on December 18th it was the same situation water completely submerged our streets and in some cases homes and then just last month on April 11th our neighborhood was underwater again I watched as my neighbor stood by his car unable to drive to work and had to miss a shift the water was halfway up into our yards and that was due to a short burst of rain combined with a high tide I could go on and on about the destruction of the Landscaping not to mention what it's doing to our homes home values and insurance costs but what I really want to focus on is Solutions we need our city to be successful we need to address our neighbors title flooding and get the basic storm water management in place to address this we believe it is our basic right to expect our tax dollars fund the maintenance of reliable infrastructure and prevent flooding in the streets with every high tide and minor storm event we expect that basic maintenance and repair or replacement of backflow preventers and we should not be ex expected to accept the open holes and crumbling seaw walls that allow rivers of salt water to flow into our streets each week we know the city and the neighboring cities across Flor Florida have engineered solutions for Worse scenarios than ours and we expect that these designs can be implemented now in fact we watch the city Implement underground pumps and lift stations to address our neighbors to the South and pass the grill back in 2014 what's mindboggling is that those cities stop this Improvement right at the border of our neighbor neighborhood with pasac gril it's the Don cazar neighborhood that's the lowest lying level what do you think happens to the water as it flows down from the Bayway or from Pac gril it's filling up our streets about a week ago several neighbors gathered to discuss the flooding situation and needless to say there is real frustration some even suggesting they feel it's time to explore lawsuits if they don't see immediate action we love St Pete Beach and we want to work collaboratively with the city but the time of patience for basic maintenance is over after years of talks studies and hiring Consultants to draft proposals not to mention the countless requests by all of us in our neighborhood to get the city to maintain and repair spillways will we just continue to watch Things fall into deeper disrepair we feel we've been forgotten we want to see action we need the funds that have been allocated to our neighborhood put into priority projects we need the to see the city build out clear executable and funded plans to address the resiliency of our neighborhood we need the basic infrastructure repaired or replaced so our roadways are safe and reliable we are the dances our neighborhood next year's our 100th anniversary let's make it one to celebrate we need you act now thank you thank you pictures Nancy Fury name and address please mayor Commissioners my name is is Nancy Fury and I live at 3616 Casablanca Avenue in the Don CeSar place four years ago when I purchased my property one of the things that I love best about it were the beautiful big mature trees that provided plenty of Shade flowers places for the birds to rest sadly I had to have four of those trees cut down in the stumps ground and it was due to the storm that we had the three storms that provided enough salt to kill these old mature trees sometimes I feel like a Sitting Duck looking out the windows watching the water coming up on a full moon tide not even a storm not even rain and there's nothing I can do I have sandbags my husband and I fill them to be ready but it's not doing what needs to be done I was very shocked when I moved here from New York and found that St Pete Beach that I'd been coming to for so many years to visit my children who decided to come to college in Florida and preceded me that this beautiful place had not addressed the problem that's been ongoing for a long time so tonight I'm asking you to be that commission that helps us please help us thank you thank you Bill price name and address please yes my name is Bill price I'm at 3512 East maritana Drive and I'm just here to reconfirm what everybody else is telling you I've lived here going on 34 years at that address and you know we've had water in the street for quite a while maybe the last 15 or 20 years but this new it's it's become you know we're living in an anxiety ridden State of Mind these days um you know other than the No Name storm in 1991 or 92 I think it was we haven't had any flooding up until about two years ago and my house has flooded three times already and I mean there's only so many times you could tear out the walls and put in new drywall you know I'm just hoping you can you guys can find a way to do something with this I don't know just like the rest of the folks here thank you thank you Ken fome okay my name is Ken fome 3508 Casablanca I live about one block from what I what is considered the epicenter of flooding in the neighborhood and that's the 36 and Casablanca intersection the current Public Works director lives there um and that's either an expression of great confidence in his abilities or he's just terrible at real estate um I'm not a climate scientist nor I'm an engineer so I can't address those issues but what I would like to address is the ongoing crisis in confidence that residents have with staff and their flood mitigation efforts um I think that I've got four suggestions uh that would possibly if not take an individually at least form sort of a framework for addressing that the ongoing crisis in confidence which just keeps snowballing one please make yourself available and show up and visit my area uh I haven't had a city manager actually go through my neighborhood knock on doors and meet the residents since the time when they put in reclaimed wall water and that was pretty much only to shake me down to to uh to do that uh it doesn't take long to knock on doors to talk to people the new city manager I think would be well uh uh it'd be a good idea to do that I know that during the city manager meeting four of us told her saw saw that rain was coming and asked her and all the man city manager candidates to go visit the area number two prior to flooding uh please tell us or try to get the word out inspect make ensure that all the uh the flood abatement measures have been inspected uh we used to have saw horses that worked with the wake uh they were manned by the city um but we don't have that anymore and I don't know why they left uh penel County Sheriff's Department who is charged with some safety for the public at least Pro on their website doesn't seem to want to do anything or is it enlisted perhaps that could be a solution as well or something that could help also after the event have people come out inspect it report clean clean it up um we've had to tow two vehicles privately just people just normal citizens because the the cars were blocking intersections or people's homes um just put a tow rope on it that doesn't seem to be something that you'd want to encourage uh residents to do on a regular basis yet we've had to do it in the last couple months um again to my first point too you know the president goes to investigate um uh natural disasters Etc they do that that for a reason to show that they care and to show that the buck stops here and that there's a and that there's a clear understanding by the administration that doesn't seem to happen here number four and my last point is after care so if you look at look at online survey online and also in the St P times you might see that St P Beach residents have been characterized as entitled whiners well I ensure this I assure the staff that that's only a minority of people please listen to us when we call especially after and respond especially after a significant event like that remember the four rules of constituent Services when I worked in public administration respond promptly listen understand and affirm thank you thank you lean Ferris I'm lean Ferris my address is 645 78th Avenue uh protect St Pete Beach stands with our Neighbors in the Don cazar neighborhood who are rightly in sensed that yet another hurricane season is upon us could you hold on a second Mr kman thank you all right uh protect St Pete Beach stands with our neighbors and the Don's our neighborhood who are rightly in sensed that yet another hurricane season is upon us with no plan to address high tide flooding in our most vulnerable neighborhoods we are especially disappointed that our commissioners saw fit to essentially give away our beach to developers preparing to make billion dooll Investments in our community with zero efforts made to enlist those developers assistance in obtaining funding for critical infrastructure including flood prevention and our aging reclaimed water system from the most obvious and appropriate Source the bed tax clearly pelis County benefits greatly from the planned Redevelopment in the large res large resort District the bed tax has been a sacred cow for decades but it is our belief that the Coalition of developers eager to invest a city commission committed to the needs of our residents and a state representative who strongly supports our community would be extremely persuasive the reality is that the bed tax is an economic strip mining operation that takes money from our beach communities and gives it to the politically connected at our expense continued failure to remedy this Injustice in the face of massive unfunded infrastructure infrastructure needs puts our entire community at risk thanks thank you John kersman thank you on the same topic um what Chang John kersman I I live off of 59th Avenue and one of my neighbors actually mentioned uh who's lived here you know 40 years that the flooding the last couple of years has been much worse uh but it's been much worse and I looked at the Noah data much worse even though the water level actually has not gotten necessarily higher so the question is what has changed it might be useful to understand what has changed physically has there been a repair to baffle boxes has there been something maybe maybe look into what has changed physically to how things are done because maybe what was changed at 59th Avenue is the thing that you need to look at in in Donar to make sure is being addressed correctly because maybe it's something in that physical nature because you know people had trees right they had trees we're hearing stories of people lived here a long time and all of a sudden now they're having in the last three years to do all these things and if you look at the data there's been high water before then so something else is going on here it's not just that now the other thing I wanted to talk about to get through in the slide is you know I have to run into at the PCI meeting the person who did the traffic study for Sarat and Tradewinds and the sarata traffic study showed that they had a certain level of uh up to 1,400 on Gulf Boulevard and they then for the tradein study they added all 600 the whole 20 years worth of cars but they clarified for me at the PCI meeting they only did the 5year study worth of traffic so they weren't using the the parallel road which is what I thought was the reason that when they they added the Sara Cory landing and Maramar so in the Tradewind study somehow trade wins with SRA is lower than than than Sado was without trade wins so this makes no sense now you know I once I once act uh one on appeal where a judge took judicial notice of something and so I'm sort of familiar with what you can what you can take judicial notice of so you know ovens get hot uh that's judicial notice you can't necessarily say you're doing the math so it's okay though to say you may not know 2 plus two is four but you do know 2 plus two can't be less than two so trade wins plus Sara can't be less than Sara you need to be able to recognize that as a fact and I don't think they ever explain it so this was my slide that I that I did during the hearing at the bottom and I asked that question how is it possible that I thought maybe it was the access road the guy when he was a PCI said no it wasn't the access road they didn't do that um also I happen to mention at the hearing how do they you know the unification document doesn't have Rumfish in it and the the and the resolution doesn't have 5,500 Golf Boulevard so there's just all these issues that I just hope you guys have figured out how to address thank you Eric water name and address please Eric Waters is east of basin Avenue um for somebody that's a lifelong resident been out here probably longer than a lot of people born and raised up on the North End of the beach here and my family's had that property uh in east of basin for 50 years um the flooding is is it gotten exceedingly worse and I've grown up fishing this boat ramp on a my boat when I was 11 years old out in this area so I know it very well and this continually has gotten worse to the point now my mitigation what I'm having to do under my house excavate put drains in and pump because it has just gotten so bad that we are literally having to do something to pump this water out of my property and the last storm that came through it was just a low pressure system I watched I hear cars going through water and I'm sitting at my desk and I get up and look and the water's flooding over the curb into my yard I mean I get it that all ties in with the boat ramp there has to be something done as far as the seaw wall goes it's gotten to the point though that it's gotten worse and I've watched it get consecutively worse you know our house was completed in 7576 or 76 sorry so being there constantly it's never occurred to the level that it has we've literally in that property have gotten flooded out two cars flooded out uh one car multiple times but that's still running so but it's continual and middle of the night that I have to worry about moving my vehicle get up at two o'clock in the morning to move a car because of their the fact that this boat ramp is part of the problem but also the seaw walls are part of the problem those seaw walls all in the Don's our place are original those are all old coina concrete that's been near since the 20s so there has to be something done at this point because now the money I'm having to put excuse me put into mitigation on my part and pump systems I shouldn't have to be doing this really it's getting to the point to where I've lost trees I've lost equipment I've lost a bunch of stuff under that house because of the frequency of the flooding and it continues to get worse literally any day the water is flooding up in the street on a regular basis uh this past week multiple times it's been a over the boat ramp up into that into that area on the corner so with that I hope you guys really do something the money's there we have the largest tax base in one of in in some of the areas here we'd really like to get something done about this because I I'm watching it occur and it's getting worse on a constant basis so thank you thank you Lisa Robinson Lisa Robinson 7100 bogga Drive I just wanted to get up here and say that I support everybody on on the flooding issues with Don CeSar area as well as other areas in B Vista I live 17100 we have the same issues it is a city-wide issue it's just not a particular District's issue or a particular Street issue well I should say it is some particular streets issue but um it's something that does need to be addressed it should be high up on the priority it's not going away it's only going to get worse I've lived in Florida for 50 years and I can tell you that and my living out in the beaches in the last three years with all the flooding it's all been because of sea level rise and it needs to be addressed and the same thing with anytime you put down more concrete more impervious surface I don't care where it is you're going to have more flooding and uh I'll be talking on basa drive as well thank you thank you so I have one comment and again for a discussion item do you want to wait until the discussion item or do you want them to come is it regarding flooding no yes no it's not it's not during it's not for flooding it's for golf wins let's let's save that for golf WIS I think yeah thank you then that is all that I have for cards on General Public comment the rest are on discussion Amber you have somebody coming up oh hello hi how you doing you can go ahead and go up and state your name and address for the record go ahead you can go up yes sorry uh Thomas J Lennon 2905 pass realway I've been a resident maybe 32 33 years and I agree with mostly everything everyone else is saying that the flooding has really got worse I live I think I'm on the water but water has never in those 30 years come over my seaw wall all down pass Grill way and I presume we've been flooded probably about three serious times most was seven in in our in our house but I understand that the seaw wall in 29th has always been 2 feet lower than ours and they are going to fix that I think starting yesterday but it and so it's supposed to be done in 2 weeks which I feel will hope solve our problem hoping but again as I want to mention it's just not 29th Avenue it's every one of the City Sea walls all the way up to First that the water is coming down like a river even on a big rainstorm I want to thank you and I hope something can be done thank you very much thank you thank you all right okay next item is our consent excuse me consent um so fellow Commissioners we can break this up uh individually or if nobody has any questions we can have a motion for approval of all if no one has any objections or comments on any of it I would make a motion to approve uh consent items a through e we have a second call second roll call please commissioner Philz yes commissioner res Nikki yes vice mayor Lorenzen yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries okay next will be uh our amended action item number five which will be the master Pump Station um I don't know is somebody going to give a presentation on that Micha Clark maybe I'll um I'm sorry City maner no I'll I'll if you have some specific questions further Mike is here can answer but I think all of you know uh this is a project that we've been working on for quite a while it's um our Pump Station one which is our main Pump Station that all of the sanitary sewer flows through before it leaves the island um it's been in the works to rebuild that station for some time now we did go out for uh for bids on that recently we have a uh a good a good contractor that is the low bid uh we were waiting to bring this to the commission uh because of budgetary reasons uh a majority or a lot of this was actually budgeted in the prior fiscal year technically the city commission cannot approve an expenditure or a project like this unless the budget is unless the money is actually in the current budget year so uh each year our city other cities um adopt a budget amendment after the end of the fiscal year and after our audits are done after we have the audited financial statements to bring forward monies from the prior years into the current year in order to do projects like like this or others unfortunately our Auditors have not uh completed the audit and have not given our U our final uh budgeted statements we are expecting those this week but the reason we went to we brought this forward tonight is um we could lose our contractor if we don't move forward uh the bid documents gives a certain amount of time that the commission must approve or reject a bid uh we are beyond that time already but fortunately our contractor agreed to extend that time toow allow us to to get uh the dollars in place basically and uh we do as long as we are uh just using money within certain funds without trying to move money from One Fund to another fund the commission can do that um uh without actually doing a budget amendment so that's why we're here tonight we do have dollars that are unexpended have not been expended or or U or uh appropriated in the Wastewater fund and in our arpa fund that we can just basically move from one line item to another that's explained there in the funding issue that would cover this bid award so we're here tonight to request the commission's approval for this bid award uh we will be coming back uh in the future for some direct purchases that we will for equipment that saves the city a lot of tax dollars when we direct purchase but those dollars are will be in the budget U uh once we approve that budget amendment so um we're here tonight to ask the the commission's approval of this uh bid award I have a question from the funding source um you have uh three different sources of funds what was that money originally intended to be used for it was it was all for sewer uh it's called II infiltration improvements within our Sur fund we do those each year uh we haven't expended that money in the current year when we do that a budget amendment that'll be twed back up and we'll still have money available uh later in the year so we'll be needing it for the following year is what you mean for for next year I'm sorry the money will be needed for next year I for next year ma'am any other questions commission I have a couple more questions um the and I remember remember from sometime last year um I remember Mike you had done a presentation on Pump Station one and there was some discussion about the pipe also that runs from here across the water and I think you had mentioned um the life of that um pipe um where are we now on that life um and how is it being monitored and I'm only asking obviously to know the expenditure for for what could happen with that we do have that uh we were just actually talking about that today we're working on next year's budget and actually the next two or three years budget as far as capital and uh might correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure we have that design uh identified in next year's budget so are we close to the end of the life for that pipe I think we were within a couple of years uh 10 years from it I think the life is 10 and we're at year Mike maybe you can give a little better information but we are still have a few years left on that pipe because uh we're talking about major expenditures but I I think we do have a few years left on that pipe Mike Clark Public Works director that's correct uh city manager um in a project like this where you literally are all in we have one pipe that takes 4,500 gallons per minute off the island per minute if that thing goes we've got a serious problem so there's a lot of concern with this project which is why Wayne brought it Forward tonight the pipe has another 10 years left in it um but we want to be in construction with you know changing out that designing that pipe so that we can get through all the permitting issues which may take a year or longer maybe two years and we want to make sure that uh all the other issues associated with where we might put this new pipe are resolved we may be talking about land acquisition uh we have to coordinate with other cities the county St Petersburg the amount of coordination on this thing is just amazing and so we need years in design like three or four in order to get pull this thing off to the point where we can begin to do procurement and then at procurement we want to kind of be about two years ahead of the end of the pipe's life which is 10 years from now so beginning now for an eight-year long project is the is the right way to go how old is that pipe right now do you know a little bit of over 20 20 plus years I believe it's uh good for good for 30 before it start we start getting nervous i' I'd be nervous already um how how are we monitoring the pipe like how do we know and and again I'm thinking about infrastructure you know with storms and everything that's happening Barnacle growth algae I mean things that you can't see that's occurring underwater how is that pipe being monitored uh the pipe is actually buried and so Barnacle growth and things of that nature are not are not an issue on the exterior of the pipe uh there is technology uh basically we send a little ball through the pipe and the ball is a sends signals out and it'll tell us the wall thickness of the pipe and other conditions of it as it travels through and and uh as it travels through we know where it is and so we're gauging okay at uh at uh at 89 95 ft in we have a wall thickness change you know at 150 feet down you know so it gives us continuous feed information technology on this thing uh as everybody knows uh technology is just uh exponentially improving so we do this yearly like it's being it's not necessary to do it every year uh we'll probably do it one more time uh during the design phase sometime three four years from now okay thank you any more questions Mike while we C up there the uh current uh submersible pumps the diesel generator and all the other Associated systems any idea when those were first put in or when they were put in I should say roughly uh the whole system itself is is 20 plus years now okay and uh pump number two so when we go to redo pump number one here pump number two picks up the load uh it's actually a four Pump Station one pump is permanently down uh pump number three is giving us fits and starts but we have three on the station right now what happens is a pump one is the primary pump and it will go until it reaches a uh capacity and then the second pump will automatically kick in and that those capacities will then balance each other with variable drives um as they creep up at at Peak s at peak times of the day in the morning when everybody's getting up and in the evening when everybody's you know getting ready for dinner uh pump number three may come in and then they will all work together but they'll work at at less uh strength and still push that water I apologize I Ed the wrong term I meant lifting station too so when we bring one down for the overhaul and refurbishment then number two if I have the correct nomenclature lifting station two picks up the load no lift station two will continue to pass the water uh to lift station or Pump Station three uh or Pump Station one that we're talking about it's it's Pump Station one in larella park pump station two at 55th Pump Station or in Reverse three is the South two is in the middle one's in the north uh Pump Station 2 will continue to push to pump station one and we will have a bypass set up that will uh feed the water that's a very expensive component and a high-risk component of this of this project thank you I actually have one one more question I was just thinking about which I was going to ask um so the bid that was back in September 27th 2023 was 7.31 Million um dollars and we reduced it or I don't say reduce this we we put out other bids right it was reduced by 3.9 you know 81 some change million how how in a time when costs are going up how was it reduced so significantly uh we partnered with the engineer firm kimley horn and the contractor to sit down and take a look at all the components that are in the design and we were able to identify with their expertise uh a number of areas that we could combine reduce or eliminate certain activities and those costs would be off ramped um that's the value engineering portion uh that we have and then by removing uh major components for purchase uh those so those costs were then removed from the contractor's bid with their agreement and that's how we were able to get down to a number that we could afford today okay and just a kind of add to that when we remove those direct purchases we save all the sales tax uh and so it even reduces the cost further because we direct purchase them we do not have to pay the sales tax but if it's included in a contractor for him to buy it then he puts that sales tax in the bid so that that is an additional savings for us he also puts his profits on that piece of equipment and we get a better price sometimes on our exchanges and so the $455,000 or whatever it was that he put in as line item for the generator we're actually able to get that for closer to 415 okay and and those prices are included in this total like what we're purchasing as far as equipment that's the purchasing equipment is not we'll we'll be bringing those forward to you this is the contractor then do you have an estimate of what that is more or less right now yeah there's another uh I didn't bring those numbers with me but there's um I believe the total project cost we decided was 5.9 I believe so and uh the commission has already approved some of those Direct purchases okay I think close to 1.3 1.4 million were already approved by the commission then we'll bring We'll be bringing the final ones to the Commission in the next month okay thank you any other questions from the rest of the Commissioners somebody like to make a motion uh I will move to uh approve the Master P Pump Station number one Rehabilitation construction award to TLC Diversified in the amount of uh 39818 8815 I have a second I'll second roll call please commissioner res Niki yes vice mayor Lorenzen yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner filtz yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you okay next on the list is ordinances so this will be the first reading of ordinance 20241 city clerk if You' please read that ordinance 20241 an ordinance of the city of St PE Beach Florida amending the code of ordinances chapter 22 boards committees commissions article 6 technical Review Committee parent TRC section 22146 membership providing for codification conflicts severability correction of scrier error construction publication and an effective date yes thank you if I may vice mayor uh Matthew McConnell assistant City attorney so midy year last year the commission authorized the city clerk and City attorney to begin attending the TRC meetings um we've been doing so in the interim but what this ordinance does is actually add our attendance to the membership so if you review the ordinance there's two underlines one being the city clerk's office and one being the city attorney's office so unless there's any questions um we've already been attending and I believe the clerk has as well to um keep meeting minutes so this would just solidify it in our ordinance questions comments if somebody like to make a motion I motion to approve the first reading ordinance 20241 technical Review Committee attendance second roll call please vice mayor Lorenzen yes commissioner marot yes commissioner filtz yes commissioner Riki yes mayor petrola yes motion carries okay next up our items for discussion our first one is uh a is freebie vehicles and I understand we have somebody here to uh from freebie good evening Commissioners but excuse me before you start I just want to say if anyone in the audience needs to talk to someone next to them would you please go in the hallway thank you okay good evening um my name is Christopher walker uh I have been the regional manager here on the Gulf Coast of freebie uh since December of 2019 when we launch freebie um and here's a little bit of a breakdown a timeline of uh our growth here in St Pete Beach in 2019 in December uh we launched a onec car operation in Passa Grill in 2020 we expanded one vehicle to go up to the county beach access um in 2021 we had a third vehicle going up to 75th Street and in 2022 we added a fourth vehicle to cover the municipality of St Pete Beach uh in as of 2023 we've uh moved more than 115,000 passengers making it one of the most successful microtransit systems in the State of Florida uh just last December uh the commission approved the expansion of freebie Service uh from four vehicles to eight during the peak season which is uh February to July uh to make this expansion possible freebe ordered brand new gem vehicles uh that would replace the current four and the additional four that would added uh at no cost to the city uh the manufacturer of the gem Vehicles originally planned to deliver uh the new vehicles for us the replacement Fleet in uh February of this year um the date uh I'm sorry uh with new due to battery shortages uh the build vehicles have been delayed uh with a scheduled date of end of May uh beginning of June uh for some potentially into July um during this time we've had a chance to evaluate the current state of the service with freebie servicing the entire Municipality of St P Beach operating from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. daily uh we have made a recommendation to the staff that would be a massive upgrade to the freebie service freia proposes uh a changeover from the current gem cars to Teslas and this would be at no cost to the city simp put the switch from gems to tesas will massively increase ridership lower weight times and provide a much higher level of service to the community now the primary reasons we are recommending this change uh the first will be efficiency the gem cars have a top speed of 25 M hour as everyone here is probably well aware the speed on Gulf Boulevard is 35 mil hour now obviously this creates a potential safety issue uh especially where the causeway joins on to Gulf Boulevard we know that can be a little bit of a saucy interchange uh the availability for these cars to go 35 mph um not only reduces weight time to passengers uh reduces or increases potential ridership throughout the day it allows the vehicle to move at the speed of other vehicles on the road uh battery life the gem cars brand new out of the box uh get about 60 to 70 miles on a full charge uh the Teslas get about 250 plus depending on the the model that you get customer experience those of you that have been in a Tesla know that it is a uh luxury Comfort vehicle um obviously people who are riding on will have a more comfortable experience um for both tourists and locals who ride our our ridership is more than 50% local um will have a much more comfortable experience AC and heating uh we are unable to outfit the gem vehicles with heaters or air conditioning uh meaning that in the hot summer months um it can be um a little less comfortable for both the drivers and the passengers and that small time of year in February usually where it gets very cold um everyone kind of has to bundle up to get in there with the Teslas you have full range of both heat and air conditioning flood closures rain delays uh with Tesla vehicles we will no longer need to pause service when there's disruptions due to torrential rain uh unlike gem Vehicles which we do need to pause the service Whenever there is standing water or torrential rain outside which in Florida could be anytime really uh and safety uh the Tesla is a number one safety R uh rated vehicle so um you're you're talking uh a vehicle that as a low speed vehicle the gem car is not equipped with airbags versus a a car like a Tesla which is fully equipped with safety measures uh this is a mockup uh this is a Tesla Model why um obviously uh we put the city branding on there and all of that is subject to change at the pleasure of the city um but that would simply be um what we would be proposing to replace the gem Vehicles projected results increase ridership lower weight times better customer experience and higher efficiency potential to advertising the vehicles which is an issue that we revisit from time to time uh we have the ability to subsidize a portion of the city's cost by selling advertising to local Regional and National sponsors the City St P Peach would have full approval on any Advertiser um and advertising content before it's placed on the vehicle and all advertising would be split 50/50 equally and projected generating between 50,000 and $125,000 in subsidy that would be provided back to the city and here is just a mockup of a 12200 de Chop House on the side of the car um and how we tend to put advertising in the cars and thank you guys so much for your time this evening thank you we're going to have some questions I think so you might not want to well at least I do I don't know if everybody else um a couple of questions um no particular order but just because as you were going through the presentation um the you so are Teslas able you just heard a bunch of people talk about water right still standing water so are you telling me Teslas can go through standing water uh they can go through standing water so unlike a combustion engine vehicle um that you know you're going to flood your engine that's not an issue with a Tesla now for safety sake we will not be driving through floods and we will not be driving through rain that is you know dangerous for passengers to be getting in and out of the car um but yes in comparison to the gem car which um uh the internals of the vehicle are not protected at the bottom of the car unlike a Tesla which is pretty much a steel plate on the bottom of the vehicle so so where's the battery located on a Tesla uh the battery is on the bottom of the vehicle okay and and you know there's salt water it's not just rain water oh correct yeah no no we're not proposing driving through floods of course uh but here's here's let me specify the difference um if there's like a little standing water on the side of the road and a jump car drives through it that water can Splash up underneath there are sensors there that when they get wet to protect the the vehicle in the electronics they'll shut the car down okay uh which leaves a vehicle stranded um unharmed in the long run but to protect itself it will turn itself off unlike the Tesla were you know splashing through that water will not cause any long time long-term uh harm to the vehicle what's the capacity of that vehicle how many passengers could ride uh driver plus four so capacity would be down by one passenger um but our data shows that only 2.3% of our rides are for five passengers and when um are your vehicles going to be like babies and kids right those who need booster chairs or baby seats um because you're Now using Teslas from my understanding they weren't required in the gems but now they would be required correct oh no uh I mean booster seats are required for um children between the ages of four and five on the gym you mean uh on the gym and the Tesla and uh car seats we do not provide um but parents are more than welcome to install them when they're they're getting a ride okay and then on advertisement um and I know this could be a discussion later between the commission and and I hopefully we can get input from the public as well is advertisement only available by placing it on the vehicle or is there also advertisement I think I remember from the app and I would have to open it to remember it's there is advertisement when you request a ride right like it tells you these restaurants are nearby these are offering discounts I see some nods in the in the audience so I think I'm I'm on the right track with this um are we receiving discounts through the app ads as well so uh all the the ads on the app to my knowledge um are not paid those are offered as a courtesy to local businesses to promote themselves and it's something we call the carousel um I believe we can do paid promotions to be sponsored um as far as I know we don't currently have any in St Pete Beach but I I apologize if I got that wrong I'd be happy to find the information and get it to you thank you that's it for now I've got a couple questions sure um how is it no extra cost to the city uh the the way that we see it um is that dealing with the gem cars especially our Curr aging Fleet that we want to replace um the the issues that we're dealing having cars off the road needing to charge more often from Battery degradation uh it's the reliability of the vehicles um we see a long-term future with Teslas here um less need to to update replace uh repair versus the gem cars which we're quite accustomed to um that we drive beyond their design limits essentially um being on the road 18 hours a day 7 days a week um in the salt water Salt Air uh it just it has wear and tear on the vehicles so for us we see it as just a a benefit across the board to be able to provide something that is far more reliable uh both to represent the company but also to serve the community so it'll be a one for one for each one that we have correct yes and what is that number currently uh four four four okay are there other communities I think you mentioned that you're doing this and now and switching them to the Teslas uh in most places we are encouraging to to move to Teslas and most um I believe the data is the average is somewhere between 20 and 40% increased um ridership in the areas that we move from a gem card to a Tesla okay yeah could we get information from those cities that are using the Teslas right now like in the next presentation or I don't know what the next step is I know you're providing this info but can you bring um information from other cities as yeah the difference and is you know testimony to yeah yeah to it thank you yeah I would just say as far as comments my initial my initial reaction on it seems safer to me um as far as the advertising on the exterior of the vehicle and I love 1200 Chop House I'm a big um big supporter of them my wife and I um terrific restaurant but I'm not sure I love the design on the exterior of the vehicle um just some of my thoughts y understood there I keep forgetting you out in Zoom land you got anything um you've mentioned increased RI multiple times do we currently have a lack of ridership problem uh no there there's definitely not a lack of ridership problem um the our primary issue is uh with battery degradation that the cars are spending a lot of time on the charger because they're spending so much time on the road they're essentially burning their batteries down and then they have to charge which slows things down so uh the issue isn't so much that people don't want to ride it's that our ability to service the rides has become capped out at the moment so what data do you have that shows that you know with switching to these cars um you can increase ridership while maintaining similar or improved um The ridership Experience primarily in the sense of waiting I can speak for myself and personal experience the last um I know 6 months about 50% of the time that I've tried to uh catch a freebie I can't get one mhm right and so is that because the cars are down or is it because we have too many people requesting the service and how is switching to this going to improve situation um I like this sorry to me interrupt uh I believe that uh we can pull the data for you to show uh where our ridership um I'm sorry with the request Peak um and where cars you know essentially are off the road to charge um I mean we we track all the data across you know the days and weeks and months so that's 100% something that we we can provide so right now if um you know if one of your drivers had let's say 8 hour shift how much of that $8 hours do they spend waiting on charge versus how much time are they on the road uh so they they should have a dedicated hour for charging during an 8 hour shift which is built in um they will probably be on anywhere from an additional hour to additional hour and a half during that time um and most of this is due to battery degradation uh which was the first argument for us coming to do a full replacement to get new batteries on the road uh those 60 to 70 mile uh batteries are probably getting somewhere between 30 or 40% less at this time so they're probably getting 35 to 40 mil out of that 70 or maybe 45 mil out of that 70 okay so with the model y having a range of around you know 300 miles you know not going particularly fast does that mean you're now will be able to service you know probably 24 hours without charging oh no that that wouldn't be 24 hour well I you're talking about a single vehicle um it would probably charge between shifts um and you know if if we ever get put into a pinch where you know ridership is so high during Peak seas and something like that um we can actually utilize the uh the phase three Chargers the ones you see like the Wawas the big intesa ones um uh which charge about 10 times as fast as our Phase 2 Chargers uh that we have kind of throughout the island both public and uh dedicated for freebie so where is the closest phase three charger um I believe I would have to look it up um I think it's Pasadena or yeah Skyway Marina District I know has some the Walla there mhm and it's a good 15 minutes each Direction um so with with the current freebies um you know one of the challenges is there most be vehicles are limited 25 miles hour which seems to infuriate some people um again just well I'm exper you know experiencing driving down golf bullet yeah um I think the challenge with the model Y is you're going to have the exact opposite problem I'm sorry do you mind say that again well do so with with the freebie right now 25 miles hour which may contribute to additional congestion because of how slow they're going with the model y you may have the opposite problem because if you've got a lead foot you can easily hit you know very high speeds on those so will those have some kind of speed limiter built into them so that they can't exceed or we have some kind of monitoring software or something else that you know will prevent them going 100 miles hour down C Kil so we we do currently have monitoring software monitoring software in the gem cars uh which is also installed in all of our Teslas as well in addition to that Teslas come standard with a speed Governor that you can set to any speed um so you know with the the speed limit set at 35 as a company across the board we could set the speed limit of the vehicle to 40 um so that you know no one would ever you know go beyond a certain point but they've got a certain safety limit of you know maneuvering speed and if the city wished us to keep it right at 35 we could certainly do that as well and then um what do you anticipate and I'm not asking you to predict the future here right but you know it's you know we're switching over to a Tesla at no charge today you know and we have a certain hourly rate there we're paying right now roughly 35 whatever it breaks out to um what does that look like when we renew in two years time um you know I actually I don't know the answer to that question I would be happy to get it so it's not a mystery and no one feels like it's going to pop up out of nowhere um but I mean we're 100% dedicated to the two-year contract uh with the Teslas at the the price that was agreed upon for ahead of time let me the question yeah um if you're bringing on somebody new right now who does not have a fleet who's just a brand new customer roughly I'm sure you've got you know a range roughly what would they expect to paid hourly for it unfortunately I can't answer that question simply because I I work in operations and I don't deal in that that particular end of the company um but like I said I'm happy to find information other contracts with other cities in using similar Vehicles just so that you have a template to go off of okay well since you're in operation maybe you can answer my next question this is a question I've asked now probably six or seven times um how can we have something set up where we would give priority to the residents um how how would you set something up that gives priority to Residents yep um uh there's there's a a very tough way to do it which uh we we've done in other other areas that serves a smaller Community um where there's a portal where residents sign up through through the city essentially um to be added to a list and when they call for a ride on the app um they will um essentially be on a different pickup list uh which is preapproved by the city verified through licenses or however you'd like to do it that someone is a resident um it's it is a lot of Hoops to jump through it's a lot of administrative stuff but it is something that we have done in the past um to make that happen so what what cost we associated with making a implementing something like that um to implement it on our end it would just be I think a a build out of a system that we already have um I think it would mostly be because it would be a partnership with the city it I think the cost would be on the city end um finding a route for people to get verif ver ified through the city so that you know that we can set up the portal for the city so the city can manually add people's phone numbers email addresses so that when they're on the app they're sort of pre-approved um but that is a lot of like work and administrative work okay thank you no problem any other questions commission okay I'm sorry no I was going to I I don't think I have any questions I I think that um you know on on the one hand I I I hate to lose the the you know the look of something that's very different and very obvious that it's this you know free microtransit service and it looks different than the other cars on the road and I think there's some value to that um but from an operation standpoint I can certainly see how this would be an improvement in all in a whole lot of ways um not the least of which is probably for the the health and safety of the drivers in the summer and so uh um so so I see the benefit there and I think as um as has been mentioned I think as long as we get some clarification on the the potential of um you know future costs associated but on the other hand I mean I would imagine if you all are are phasing if if you all are working this direction um my guess is that when you're doing new contracts in new places you're not even offering the gym Vehicles no yeah so it it it will be what it will be yeah perfect thank you hi Jennifer McMahon um it was on discussion tonight because we wanted to get the direction to see if we even wanted to switch it sounds like um that that's a possibility so what we would do next is bring it as an amendment to the current agreement because it does specifically talk about the ev6 in our agreement that went out with the bid package so we would have to do an amendment and then I think at that time we can bring some of the data that you guys have asked for tonight so you have that before you actually make any Amendment to the agreement so is that the direction I'm kind of getting well before you give any kind of direction we do need to hear from the public comment okay got Greg Christopher my name is Greg Christopher I live on 11th in passag Grill and um uh I would like to see maybe a mix maybe a couple of the freebies these new gem sixes I've been in touch with the manufacturer and the reason these gem sixes have been delayed is because they have a massive massive battery Improvement to the point where the current Fleet only had a one or twoyear warranty these have a seven-year warranty so I've been doing some homework on my own because this this means a lot and means a lot to the community and um and so and and correct me if I'm wrong at any time I don't want to put words but yes and so it's my understanding that freebie did order 20 of these vehicles right yeah so they they they are committed to these vehicles still it's not like those 20 vehicles are going to go somewhere aren't they uh yeah they're they're pre committed essentially right so with that in mind an improved charging system massively better batteries and again that's been the holdup I would ask the the commission to maybe consider maybe not 100% uh Teslas because Teslas sound like they do have Merit but maybe perhaps a mix of the freebies to keep the look like uh commissioner marot suggested and um you know there's there's a certain Vibe and it just there's a charm to that whole thing and I hate to see it go away with this a sterl kind of Tesla um I also um but also want to thank uh commissioner Riki and and Philz and and mayor um you had some very relevant um commentary and and I do appreciate that very very relevant so thank you and I I appreciate you um entertaining that consideration thank you thank youu no you areu uh John kurman U way so just a little history um originally there was a price of 30 oh you were zoomed in so nicely go back $34 an hour uh and the contract called for the vehicles always to be motorized and street legal which meant it should take hitty seats uh and then the contract said if we got two units or more it would go to $30.60 a unit an hour and we extended to October of 24 then uh we had four vehicles and last December they said hey if you extend to October of 26 to the last commission uh and and get additional units will lock in that $30 price for those two years then when you guys came in in January there was a meeting where they said oh let's do that add-on but by the way there was a mistake we wanted to charge you $36 an hour I wrote a letter and then that was shelved so one thing I'd like to know is are you and I never heard again did if the contract got signed at the 30 an hour that was agreed upon by the last commission uh or otherwise this contract really still just expires in October um it sounds like there might be an answer there nothing else got approved by the commission other than those two things go ahead if you like I can answer that you the yeah okay thanks contract was signed by both the city and and uh free at the uh the $30 great thank you terrific very nice so it was good that they they ended up staying with what they had um so then my next thing would be we have this great these gems that are out there that are um five passenger with three rows of doors and they don't look anything like you know micro you know just free Ubers they have a little character to them people like them but they do have they do suffer from the battery issue so back then I had proposed that we wait for those lithium ion ones which the ones you're talking about uh I know a consultant that was working with the company too and these were these were good you know they had a nice range and I thought we were getting them I said hey make sure you get those good battery ones and it sounded like we were um or there's another vehicle that at least was in the original proposal when freebie you know uh bid they offered these nine passenger ones so you know maybe it doesn't have to be one siiz fits all you know I like the idea of not getting on the the current free because what I didn't like was I didn't like just measuring when I got picked up which is what the people were infatuated with it's also when I got delivered because what would happen is you get picked up and then I would go to another hotel to pick people up and then go to another hotel to drop people off by the time I got to to passag grill I actually missed the whole boat parade and never took and never took it took one again so you know having the idea of a Tesla that's private is is sort of nice so maybe you have a couple Teslas for you know for for some point to point maybe you have this for where you have a differen sized crowd maybe you have the bigger van for for for what's appropriate so maybe there's a way to have a mix and um you know you know maybe that's the best way to go thanks very much thank you all right any other discussion on our discussion item C Cameron oh I'm sorry we got one more uh Cameron mauchi uh West maritana wasn't here to talk about this issue um here about the flooding because I live in that area but I just wonder why the city is in the business of business why we have Tesla let people order a Tesla why are we paying money for free rides they're not free we're paying for it and that money could be better spent on things like flooding and all the time that we're spending on this could be alleviated and we could be talking about things that are actually important like flooding so I don't know why the cities in the business of business they should be on the city you know in the business of managing businesses and citizens but not starting their own businesses or making partnership with businesses to give free rides to people when they we have things in place at work and if you want to pay for somebody's Uber then pick up the Uber tab it's already there they already have Teslas it's already in place we can save our time and do more important things thank you thank you do we have any more comments on this okay all right unless I see faces otherwise let's move on to uh Item B the Gulf Winds Drive project and city manager we're going to have Mike Clark come up I think Mr Clark is going to address that if I'm not mistaken vice mayor I think staff was looking for some direction on whether or not to we we did we're going to bring this back to the commission yeah okay I'm not sure if the mayor heard that we could ask the freebie representative to take note of the questions that were asked today so that don't get come back they have answers for all them that'd be great yes we will we will discuss all those ideas with uh with the representatives and when this comes back to the commission for your consideration for an amendment to the uh to the contract we'll have all those uh we'll have those discussions at that point Thank you thank you uh Mike Clark Public Works director the topic of Gul Winds Drive um given the direction that we received following the bogus sea design review we thought it would be prudent to bring the Gulf Winds design review back up for your consideration and get some guidance if you have any otherwise my recommendation is to proceed to procurement let me add a little bit to that we we do have bids already on this project I believe is that correct we do not we we would be going into procurement yes and um this design is similar to to what we had for the boaa um I personally have not received the negative comments like we did on on the boaa I'm not sure what y'all have received on that but like Mike said we just wanted to get it in front of you before we went any further with the procurement process of course that you know those bids had to be brought back to the commission like we did uh on the other one for y'all's approval but you know there's there's uh things we have to go through to get to that point so we we thought it'd be good just to to talk about it tonight to see if if you want us to go ahead and bring that forward to you and let you decide at that point whether to move forward with the original design or or if we want to go back to the drawn board with h with another design for that project as you all know we'll be having a community meeting on the 29th I think it is is that uh we do have a community meeting schedule to talk about the uh Jennifer says 22 22nd specific for the Gulf Winds G winds no I'm sorry I was thinking about another Community V uh meeting but um anyway we just wanted to try to get some some general guidance on this particular project before we spend a lot of time a a question um you mentioned that you haven't heard or received any negative um comments on it how are you how are you soliciting comments or has there been a recent community meeting on this or just if someone like how would they know can they see the design online is it on the website the design has been online for quite some time uh we did have several public meetings the last one here in Chambers where I actually brought the fullsize drawings and laid them out on about 20 different tables in the four your way walked uh many many residents who live on Gulf Winds Drive Through the impacts of their personal property uh along with several of the Commissioners who had detailed questions at the time um we do have uh one intersection that is of concern by the resident that lives there and uh we have uh met with her and we continue to to uh review an idea that she recently came up with which um I I would like to see maybe has Merit but we have you know have to pass that through some engineering um but uh uh and that's and then there's another consideration well well made that you know more impervious area doesn't do us well for flooding and this project does the exact opposite it eliminates impervious area Gulf Winds Drive is a very large very wide road that comes down considerably and so we lose a lot of asphalt uh in this project um we do gain the sidewalks uh in most places on both sides of the street in this case um we do get an entirely new set of street lights designed for the neighborhood in a special photo photometric design and they are improved lights even better than the ones on blind Pass Road and uh Duke Energy is prepared to put those in for us they are in the design um pelis county is on board with the water uh pipe project improvements all of the reclaimed water laterals that we haven't already gotten to more than once in some cases get replaced um and which uh once we get a Contractor on board the good idea uh good idea boat doesn't stop the contractor brings their expertise to the table as we begin our preconstruction conference and we continue to pursue uh the best course of action for the one particular intersection that is uh still in consideration uh and any other aspect that the contractor can bring our way we'll probably go through a value engineering exercise post award uh just to just to see what the contractor's thoughts are most of the contractors out there have have good constructibility operability maintainability issues that they can bring forward that perhaps the designers and the city staff did not did not realize and so so uh this is a uh as as near as I can tell pretty non-controversial uh very straightforward beautiful beautiful addition to the neighborhood and to the city um I'm really looking forward to this project in case you haven't noticed uh and so I would love to hear any concerns that you might have received from constituents and and the city manager and I can work through those comments got a couple questions for clarification of course so so essentially it's going to look like blind Pass Road looks from Golf Boulevard to Cory Avenue that part of blind pass there's a lot of similarities yes okay and what is the current sidewalk with on a golf Winds Drive and what is it going to be uh it's a variety most of it's four feet not on both sides of the road uh it will go to 8 feet mostly on both sides of the road okay not not in every not on every block and the and the folks that live there that have been to the public meetings know exactly what's happening if they have asked in front of their property and if they would like to call me I'll be happy to walk them through the design on the uh on the internet that we have posted okay and can you touch on um what's going to be done to help reduce speed vehicles on that road there is actually a speed table in this project at 64th Avenue um the stop signs do remain and they uh I believe there are speed humps associated with mid blocks uh the long ones uh and the narrower driving Lanes of course as we've talked about before which gives people a little bit more sense of I'm a little tighter so I'm going to pay attention a little bit more and I'm going to ease off the gas a little bit a little bit lighter so instead of being Speed Racer through 64th to 67th uh they're going to be a little bit tightly tighter confined and so that by itself naturally drives our tendency to go faster down anybody else I just one because you asked if I've heard any comments the only comment I've I've received so I haven't really received too many just one actually was on um what was the width of again of the sidewalk is it 8 feet now or five I can't remember it's four and five so it's a varied and there's one small neighborhood in there with six okay where we where we actually connected from from blind Pass Road through uh this um Gulf Winds to get to the outfall structures on the on the bay okay at 72nd Avenue I believe and that and that comment was because they were again about the permeability like you kind of mentioned or alluded to why not just have them all four um so you could have either it's more I don't I have to look through all the plan to see why it's four or six the design is consistent at 8 oh and and we've been through the conversation with bogus sea and all of the aspects that an 8 foot sidewalk brings to pedestrian and uh bicycle capabilities and um and the idea that this is a a wonderful throughput for folks who want to get from the downtown core all the way to Gul Boulevard without having to actually be on Golf Boulevard this provides that opportunity so from your feedback from the meetings that You' had with the community the majority I'll just say um were in favor of 8 foot um sidewalks I don't think house I don't recall that it was necessarily a big point of discussion um it was more the holistic aspects of shrinking down the lanes providing sidewalks where there are none now at all getting folks out of the street and onto the sidewalks walking their dogs a lot of landscaping goes into this because of of the roadway width that we're able to narrow uh a lot of really great Landscaping opportunity it's a it's really transforms this particular Road into more of a neighborhood feel and so my recollection of all the all the meetings was a lot of a lot of conversation about what happens to my property and my driveway and and uh and just just the overall aspect of turning this back into a neighborhood instead of a more of a commercial District M Mike so Mike how much of uh gowood Boulevard is going to have B ples appears that they are sherrow okay so we're eliminating the bike planes I the bike lanes are not dedicated on the street no so this is the same conversation and discussion we have with both C right we are taking 4ot sidewalks and we're creating less imperviable Surface by making the sidewalks twice the size and then we are forcing you're forcing to have bicycle Riders and pedestrians on these 8 foot sidewalks whereas right now a good chunk of it does have a bike lane on it um and so it yeah I I misspoke here H there are sections here from 71st North or South that are bike Lanes on the both sides um and then there are to where um 71st South I see designs with the bike Lanes um I'm looking through some of the pages now it appears that um they are going to be Sher Rose uh the the one page that I saw a bicycle lane on marked uh does not appear for the rest of the project so the so it appears that there will be Sher rows and the 8 foot sidewalks will uh accommodate uh mixed traffic that's the same concerns that we voice the loaa drive this having massive sidewalks double the size of what we currently have eliminating bike roads and putting pedestrians and bicycle riders in the same spot um I mean I I can't speak for other walkers but that's certainly doesn't make me feel better when now I'm walking and I've got Mr kman coming down with his ebike 100 miles an hour on the sidewalk you know uh although I know John's not going to do that uh but John's also not going to want to have to share the road with the cars especially since as you know John pointed out in both the Sarat and the trade WIS meeting they're using golf when drive as a as a overflow traffic thoroughfare to get you know off the island um again this is the exact same conversation we had a couple weeks ago about basa Drive we're creating massive sidewalks and I remember those conversations with the community meetings maybe a little bit less Rosy um because the feedback from the community was overwhelmingly against having massive sidewalks um and as I remember it again there was also overwhelming opposition to eliminating the bike lanes and not having you know if we have the width which we perfectly have the width we're not lacking in width on the road so we have the opportunity to have you know have your two car Lanes have your bike Lanes have a four or five foot I think on B sea we finally agreed on on about 5 foot uh sidewalks instead of the 10ft sidewalk that we have proposed there um I I don't see where we're creating a safer environment um when we're forcing two entities that don't belong together to share a 8 foot you know you've got people walking you've got people with strollers and you got people on bikes you know going 15 20 miles an hour on the same thing I don't see how that's creating a safer environment uh again I think those Community meetings you know the residents that were there they were they're quite adamant um I remember commissioner former commissioner Grill you know voicing his concerns about eliminating the bike Lanes as well um I think from my perspective the consultant gave us their idea of what they wanted and at every step the community's concerns were ignored and what we got at the end was what the consultant wanted on it rather than the feedback that we received from the surveys from the community and that's a huge concern and that's why we had a conversation about boa drive and that's why we're here again having the conversation about golfins as well mayor I think you're exactly correct and that's why we wanted to bring It Forward tonight uh just to make sure uh I I anticipated that would be the same same type of comments because it's it's the same issue uh but we just uh you know before we went any further we just wanted to bring it back to the table but I anticipated that would be the same type of reaction that most people would have uh you know the sidewalks sidewalk width as well as the lack of bike lanes and if that's a consensus on this project as it was on the other project then I think we know what we need to do is is go back to the drawing boards and and and make that make that work in that direction well I I think especially if we're looking at creating an environment where we have you know you're coming from Golf Boulevard and golf B drive and you're taking it all the way up to boaa drive as well I mean if we've already amended the look of that project I think it would be nice to have a consistent look all the way from one end all the way up to the North End absolutely you know that's that's one of the issues that we have with golf WIS drive right now I mean no one says it doesn't need to be fixed I mean it's God awful it's ugly it's pothole written I mean it's it's in desperate need of of a ril um absolutely you know but it'd be nice to have something that's consistent from one end all the way to the other have something yeah I um and and Mike maybe you know this might be something that that that you can double check on and and let us know but from from the plans that were included in our agenda packet it did appear to me that a big stretch of that did have dedicated bike Lanes at least the sections of the uh of the plan that show the the road striping and the crosswalks and that sort of thing show dedicated bike Lanes from like 64th to 72nd or something like that um and so um it would be it would it would be nice to know for for sure what you know what what we're looking at there because I think if there's sections that already have a bike lane then those sections might be might be fine but if but if the pages that show the striping aren't consistent with the other pages that show the design then maybe that's something we need the design that you're looking at is the final design that's online and so um I think the mayor explained a philosophic view on uh what we're attempting to do with bogus sea and Gulf wind's drive and as a city manager I believe I heard the same thing abolute so as I understand it my instructions are to put this project back with bogus sea and try to pair them such that we have a holistic uh approach to both sections of the roads with regards to uh smaller sidewalks and bicycle lanes that are safe for travel I think that's correct your honor okay do U do we have any public one last question Mike um if is there any opportunity for us to to save money by putting the two projects together when it goes out to bid or or not we would have to give up the $1.5 million State grant for bogus sea okay yeah we don't want that so we might save a million five but we'll have to give a million five up to find out you know one one thing we could do along that line mayor it's a good suggestion is we could try to time it to where we're bidding both projects at the same time and and uh you know I've done that in the past and where that certainly helps with the price if somebody thinks that they can they can be awarded both projects so that that could be a possibility of some savings yeah what what's the time frame on that Grant like what by what's the expiration it's next June uh 2025 yeah but uh typically this type of Grant uh could be extended but right now it's 20 you June of 2025 it's been extended once already correct we must be fully expensed by June 2025 okay city clerk I understand we have a couple public comments based on what you heard uh do the folks with the public comment still want to comment okay I've got a question I'm sorry we still have more so I don't know the proper terminology for them but on Gulf Boulevard on the residential neighborhood of Gulf Boulevard behind St John's they I'll call them those raised area seed tables so that is what is being proposed to be put on golf one St yes it is okay got it everybody seems to uh seems to be okay with those they they I feel they do a good job they ride well they do a good job they don't disrupt you too much but they keep you in check thank you John kman thank you John fman uh uh he underway um this is actually my slides from the bokei sea Drive presentation and you one of the reasons there was no more comments is I I think most of us thought that okaa and GF winds were sort of the same situation uh and and and yes shos is is really something that we want to try to avoid um and but I want to use also use this as an opportunity to to suggest something about even Gul Boulevard you know we have in our in our comprehensive plan that we want to have 10ft sidewalks which is something that came up you know back when that was state-ofthe-art um and as far as the hotels are concerned their line of where they're going to draw that 10- foot curve back would still be the same but maybe we could start thinking about maybe making those sidewalks maybe seven feet and making the bike Lanes three foot wider because I've read also the federal guideline of suggestion is to have 7ot bike lanes and that way you have one it' be safer for the bike but it also means that someone could pass another bike in the bike lane and that's just a general suggestion but because there's a Florida law that also says you always should be three foot away the car from the bike whenever a car passes and that never happens um but going you know just looking at this and I'll try to skip over the stuff that's that's redundant um uh you know the other thing to consider on these on these Street expansions and Mr McConnell knows this well there was a recent case in the our local Court here where a woman was given a ticket for her bushes were extending into the street and it turned out that her bushes actually weren't her bushes they were the city's bushes so as we start playing games and broadening people's property by letting them pretend it's their property um but it's really the city's property there's also some questions about who's responsible for that property so we have to start thinking about even ordinance changes if we're going to start you know widening our properties and narrowing our streets and and sidewalks and who owns what um but you know if if we're really going to use narrow the streets to to for to slow traffic you know you know we certainly want to widen the sidewalks a little bit to make them nicer um but at the same time we have room to widen the sidewalks and widen the bike lanes and just let's let's just meet in the middle somewhere um and um because we don't want to have I just love this picture I hate it it's over the Don CeSar and you know I just don't want to be where that little white guy paint in the street was when that skid mark happened and um you know it just scary U that these bike lanes are the way they are um and and so um you know anything we can do to avoid and widen those streets and and follow Vision zero um would be great thank you Thank you Lisa Robinson I've been involved in this project from the beginning for the golf Winds Drive project originally was called basa drive and then I live on basa Drive which is part of golf WIS because basa Drive really is from 75th all the way to 72nd and then it starts into golf wi so there's a little misnomer there on that so just to clear that up too and when you think about about that that portion there is narrow that's probably the only narrow portion on that otherwise it starts expanding out when you head south and when you head to the north it is expanded out as well there's a double concern here on mine because I live on the corner of 71st in boa Sega drive and I am the person that Mike is talking about when he says the the person um that storm dram is number five on the storm water uh risk assessment it floods greatly um that's why I sympathize with everybody else who has flooding issues there's no remediation on that area at all whatsoever and it comes down from 73rd the slope is 73rd and blinds pass all to that corner so that's why it floods so great plus with high tide with that being said any addition to additional Concrete in that area is only going to impact that area worse I I I am against the increase in the sidewalks the size of them at least in that area you have to protect that area everybody else is sitting here tonight asking for protection I'm asking for protection in my area and it's not just me I have petition signed with all my neighbors um we've gone through that as well as design on the on that corner because it is is a odd corner and we're trying to get the stop sign moved out there was a pork chop design that got nixed but it's a safer design because it brings the stop sign on the other side out and I'm really upset because back in 20 in August of uh August 26 of 2021 the community response was by a survey done for golf WIS was 90% of the population of the residents there wanted to reduce the speeding and the cut through traffic and further that the response to the design options was an overwhelming 64% for bike lanes and smaller sidewalks the last I went to a meeting the 90% design and the 100% design only had sidewalks on both sides of the street from 64th up to Golf Boulevard and that was 8 foot and everything else was only going to be on the east side so I'm confused now why anybody's talking about sidewalks on both sides of the street now and and Karen you live in an area that's you don't have much of a driveway so let's put a sidewalk through yours and let's make it as big as we can possibly make it where are you going to park I don't have any Street side parking zero so when you start doing stuff like that in the other neighbors when you all go home tonight go ahead go by there take a look and see how much driveway people have anybody who has a smaller home knows how much driveway space is important and parking on this beach is important thank you thank you okay I think we uh Mye Clark you got all the direction you need right city manager do thank you okay uh next is the uh board member SLU decorum I think we'll let the attorney assistant City attorney lead off and whoever else would like to jump in on that I'm sure yeah um Matthew McConnell assistant City attorney uh just generally when it comes to public decorum um we had a resolution that we passed and Amber can help me with the date uh probably two years ago was going to be my guess it also laid out uh public comment it laid out how we address groups speaking um um all sorts of things now we did have policies and procedures before but this was kind of an update just because statutes change um and I think it's important to just so I've personally been at the city for eight years and I can speak on on personal experience I've recently uh realized it's gotten gradually more combative I think frustration sometimes bleeds into what I feel like is hate um I think there's a lot of bullying going on I think um people are resorting toy cyber bullying on these social media apps and I I just don't really understand it uh personally I think we all try our best I think at the end of the day we all have one goal in mine which is the best interest of the city you don't have to agree with what I say um you can agree with what I say but at the end of the day I'm I think we're all just trying to do our best I you know I'm usually the youngest one in the room and I've just just really noticed a a very interesting turn and when it comes to board members as well I think Andrews made it clear that there's an Ethics code statutory and in our code of ordinances that we all have to abide by and I will read one of the most important things that I think sometimes gets lost which is enhancing the public confidence in the Integrity of its municipal government I've I've witnessed board members do the complete opposite at times um although I'm not a frequent flyer if you will on next door I get Anonymous things in my mailbox where people send me posts and say why is a board member saying this and it's just a very awkward conversation that I now have to have that I would prefer not to um I'm all for due process I'm all for public comment I think it's important to be heard I think it's important to take the time to hear the residence like we have today um I think a lot of these suggestions are great suggestions that you all should take into consideration but when it crosses the line of disrespectful I just don't see a need for that in what we do I think uh we all just do our best whether you believe it or not and I've never once in eight years turned down any meeting or any phone call with any Resident or any board member and respectfully to to those watching who don't believe me if if you don't believe me then try me my my emails on the city's website contact me meet with me uh board member or not I I do my best to try to accommodate and I just um I really think now is a good opportunity for us to just unite as a city and I may be overstepping here because I'm just a City attorney and yes I may not live in the city but I understand the city I've been coming here every other week for the last eight years and um I'm passionate about what we do and I just think that at the end of the day we're all humans humans make mistakes call me out on it call me meet me do what you need I feel for you as board members I think it's a very interesting or commission members I think it's a very interesting time but I will say please be mindful of who you select on boards as well I'm not here to tell you that you need to remove or replace or anything because that's not my position but next time I get an anonymous email maybe I'll pass it along and you guys can call your board members because sometimes it's a very awkward it's a first conversation for me sometimes I don't even know who they are I've never met them before and it's just very odd um and I don't like doing it so I'd prefer to not do it in the future so that's really my comment on the situation I just want to say I appreciate um you you bringing this up because we don't have an opportunity to Talk Amongst each other um we have to always speak in a public forum um and we all came in um in in a real talist time let's just say there's a lot going on and we have not really had an opportunity um to kind of just talk you know um because we are team members ultimately we're all here for the same reason um you know I've been coming to commission meetings for a pretty long time um because of flooding for those of you who are still here in the audience but I I sat there many times to come up and give my three minutes and actually I'll take the back we didn't have three minutes um back then when when I first started coming um to commission um meetings and talking about the flooding in the neighborhood we just came up there wasn't many people out there so there's actually way more people in this crowd right now than I would sit by myself you know sitting in the crowd so I remember the day that um Amber brought to the commission um the rules um if you want a column rules for decorum in in this chamber um and I thought oh my gosh that's going to be hard how's my my group going to work around this you know so we can get our minutes in and and our you know and so I know that that that's what a lot of people do when they come here um so they can get more air time right more more time to speak um so but we have the rules right and now now I sit here and so in you know especially with the cups and the conditional use applications that have come before us uh lately um you know and and I see the people coming up and and I see time is given more to others and some less and you know and then um the next person comes comes up and it's the same group and then we've got lawyers who speaking and it's the same group and so yes I do say something because there are rules right and I expect us as team members to be working together with these rules um now if we don't agree with the rules then let's change the rules okay but we have the rules and that what's even more concerning for me um even though I don't I don't take um bullying if you want to call it bullying I don't really see it bullying I just say people have um say words in the public and use next door social media um for whatever means that they want um and I don't think they're successful at it because obviously I'm still sitting here um for those who started petitions to get me off of my seat because I ridiculed public comment okay I believe people should speak I I've always believe that but to ridicule me and attack me um doesn't do anything so luckily I have a lot of great neighbors that say hey Betty are you okay I'm like had no idea what they're talking about but people and you know I know through the grapevine around here in the city staff were asking me am I okay I am perfectly okay okay I am fine um because people don't want to follow rules that's you know their choice but when they start ridiculing us and and suggesting that I'm not here for the right reasons that's wrong um so I I appreciate um Matthew bringing this up because I do want to be able to work with those around me and those who are in the audience as well um we might not all agree on everything but that's okay we're humans right we don't all agree on everything but we have to try to work together so um I just wanted to say that I appreciate that Betty and and thank you Matthew also for bringing this up I think that that um uh it's a point well taken for all of us to remember that that we should we should all collectively be looking at all of these issues as as us versus the problems not US versus each other and uh um you know there's there's a lot of smart people in this room uh and only a few of them are up here a lot of them are out there and uh and there's a whole lot more in the rest of the city and uh and I think the only way that we can make significant progress is by leveraging the expertise of our residents right we're just the repres resentatives of the residents we're not the we're not somehow all of a sudden the experts and so um you know I I I would be thrilled if if we could somehow make this be all of us versus the problems and really get something done versus people yelling at each other on the internet exactly yeah I'll I'll say I think in life a lot of things can be solved with communication specifically face-to-face communication um whether that's members of the community who want to meet with us or members of the community who want to meet with one another to talk about things I think a lot can be solved with that um and then the other thing it may sound Elementary but I think it's it's the Golden Rule just treat others the way you want to be treated before we move from that can I just add a couple things please so I just want it to be known that we had we had rules and procedures before I started so I didn't just come in and implement something out of the blue I took what we already have I also took the knowledge that I have with the experience of being an assistant city clerk also working for another municipality being able to communicate with my peers at fellow cities other city clerks to learn best practices and to know you know what's good and what follows the statute all of that so when I came on board I took what we had I took what I knew and I tried to make it better I am a person that likes to know the black and white so I can find the gray I'm not saying when you have it written in black and white you got to follow it to a te otherwise no you can't write there's always a gray but we need the black and white in order to do that so I also wanted to say that the decorum is written on the back of the speaker's cards so when people fill these out they are agreeing to follow the decorum and I just wanted to remind everyone that any person making personal impertinent slanderous or profane remarks so that's calling you all names calling calling each other names calling staff names that's not behaving with appropriate decorum it says who willingly utter loud threatening or abusive language or engages in any disorderly conduct which would impede disrupt or disturb the orderly conduct of any meeting hearing or other proceeding shall be called to order by the presiding officer and if such conduct continues May at the discretion of the presiding officer aboard be ordered barred from further audience before the commissioner board during that meeting so this this is decorum is is anywhere right you go to church decorum you go to the courthouse decorum you're in a grocery store deor you can't just act a fool start calling people names being nasty it's the same here um you know when people are up here making public comment I'm like I'm not like oh that's dumb right imagine if I did that and it's it's you just don't do that so I mean it should be common sense and it's not just the priding officer or the chair of the meeting this is applicable to all boards and committees it Al is also the responsibility as I told all of you when I met with you individually you all can say um excuse me no thank you that's not appropriate and say mayor you know remember decorum and because sometimes we all need reminding maybe it's offensive to you but it's not offensive to him right so I think that we all need to take that responsibility I mean you all know me and I think the public knows me I'm not shy and I will speak up but it's not my place to necessarily be like um excuse me sir that's rude right I will but um I really think it falls to all of you all as elected officials I just wanted to add that and these decorum rules are always up at the front if any member of the public needs to read them or refresh them or understand them they are always there and like Matthew said I never turn anyone away I am a talker I am a Meer I'm a relationship Builder I will meet I think the public knows that since I've been back they have come to see me and welcome me so I think they all know that I am here for them so of course they can come meet with me too I'll be glad to walk them through the statue and and what you know what what public comment I'm big advocacy of transparency public comment just like we did at discussion items I am in favor of that so I'm glad that we did that because that's something that I am a proponent of so thank you Amber and by the way welcome back we forgot to welcome you back to to the fold uh mayor anything from you on this uh topic I did not have anything okay thank you all right um is everybody good rolling in the flooding or we need a quick break I'll take a quick break quick break all right let's make it a relatively quick one uh we'll make it uh 8:15 yeah 5 minutes that clock is wrong back there it's it's hasn't been working okay what taking forgot we added that e e e e e e e e e e e e e Delta D flooding is the major topic I believe um city manager you want to start in sure mayor uh vice mayor thank you um we've all been receiving the emails and I know we've had calls about the flooding in several areas um and I know one of the comments that you know one comment that seems to be Universal is why hasn't anything been done um there's in a project like this in a flooding projects there's a lot of moving Parts a lot of agencies a lot of things that have to be done there have been planning studies done but there are there are always things going on behind the scenes that that a lot of people are not aware of but uh so what I've asked uh Mr Clark to do is basically put together a a comprehensive report of basically past present and future where we've been you know why are we talking about this uh what is being done what has been done over the last uh year what's being done now to address this problem and then the future that that has uh been uh the dire future Direction that's been given to our staff from the commission and what we understand is the commission's goals and uh Mr Clark has indicated that he would have that report ready for the uh by The District 3 community meeting that's coming up next week so uh I think that'll be a very informative report that will help answer some of the questions that we've all heard about you know what what's going on why haven't things certain things been done and so uh we'll all be looking forward to that report uh as as it comes forward uh the other thing is we are in the middle of our budget session um and just as late as this afternoon we were talking about a lot of the things that need to be done to move the to address the flooding and move move things forward uh a lot of those things that were talked about today as far as our coming budget so uh that'll be something we'll be bringing to the Commission in a budget Workshop very soon to talk about not only that but all of the things that that flooding is not the only issue that that the city needs to address and so U there are things going on but I think that report that Mr Clark has will be doing and and providing to all of us will help the commission help the staff help the residents understand where we are and where we're headed and and we'll help the commission uh decide well which what are the priorities because obviously uh it all can't be done at once uh because we're talking about significant significant dollars to address this type of problem but uh but I think we'll uh next week we'll see a good report that and then we can I'm sure we'll have further discussions from there comments more than comments I I brought brought this for discussion so I want to have a discussion on this um and and first because we had um 14 people speak um earlier um and I just want to because I promised I would um go through the names of those who sent us emails I don't know if everybody on this commission received them all I'll forward them all later to you all um and I received things from the Donar specifically and from two two um two from pastor Grill um with which is important to me as well even though it's not my district but because of of why they sent the information which has to do with maintenance um of that what's existing or had been done already so I had um George Alwood uh send information um Jeff weeks um and we're talking about pictures movies not just in events but daily uh title uh rain you know um issues okay so it's both just a nice small rain um or your neighbor who's emptying out their pool um because they're repairing the pool and you happen to be on the intersection um where uh there's a a flex valve that's closed okay so now the pool is on the street um Don cber um Ashley James mark s cath Katherine Pon um Mark Dawson Kevin Kimbell um jetah danan um Kevin O'Brien um Robert scuta um Kelly Lynn or Kelly lee MC Frederick Mary batty um Jim Thal Linda morisi Tenley noon Eddie cockman um an beretti Thomas Hamilton John Stevens Jay Rice Lynn Ballard Michael Welch um Chris Jared Mel cadle and Greg cadle as well um Roger steel um and and Kathy and some that already spoke here as well um and I'll provide this to uh the city clerk as well um who I know has received some of these pictures um but I think they're important um obviously and those who do know me know that this is important um for me and and starting because I do live in the Donar neighborhood um and I've been coming um to commission meetings for quite some time on this topic so some of the staff that are here um have seen me come and give my my time um and I was president of the Donar Property Owners Corporation and then I was also chairing their flooding committee two weeks ago on a Saturday um there was a good showing at lazario Park of neighbors and resid from the Donar and I was in attendance as well and it was it was um not as eloquent I would say everyone spoke really nicely but we were all very mad on that Saturday morning at lazario Park um because it's very frustrating to stand there in the neighborhood and look around um it was a sunny day it wasn't raining um but where's puddles in the streets um you know the curbs are are are cracked um they're the original curbs from when the development was made um you could see the seaw wall from lazario Park um the so the intersection of East maritana South maritana and de Basin you can see it um from from the courts or from the shelter um and then you still see the aftermath from storms or non storms lazario Park lost live oak trees somebody mentioned trees um and other palm trees dead grass um I I have no Landscaping on my front um lawn okay I'm not planning to put any because why would I dump another $20,000 in landscaping when I know the next um flood is going to take it all um I've also lost cars I've also had to do drywall I do live on a two Lev stilt home by the way um so just because you have your home raised doesn't mean it takes you away from issues I do have to watch the title um chart to go pick up my daughter at the school I also have to park my car to come to meetings um here at the at the chambers on the Bayway um because it's the highest um land in the neighborhood so I can make it to these meetings on time still having to be in skirt to walk through the water to get to my vehicle that's not how we should be living um and that's personal obviously but I know it's the same stories that many people have been telling me and many of these pictures which I'm happy that a lot of us here have received them and hopefully you've watched some of the movies um and you had a combination because I know you saw some of the storms and that's pretty scary um the water is very dark um and it stays there for a long time so while most people in this city have started their cleaning efforts they still don't have the water in the streets which is why I wanted to make sure the city manager took note about um I hate to say potential no wake zones in in our neighborhood you know really we need to fix the problem um but that only helps during the recovery right because we still have that issue and it's very frustrating um I have documentation and I've done this before at commission meetings historical okay so from we're talking about problems with tital flex valves um from a long time 40 plus years okay I know sea level rise I'm not disputing sea level rise um I'm talking about infrastructure issues okay our neighborhood not being addressed um quickly or efficiently and maintained now watching other um neighborhoods like Pastor grill or B Vista or boaa or any of the other ones I think Miss um Robinson spoke today also about what's happening in front of her home has to do with maintenance of what has been done okay or lack of let's say uh maintenance we have upcoming storms okay I have not seen in quite some time anybody come through the neighborhood to clean out these Flex fows um I'm almost uh wanting for them to be removed um if we can't get the repair done faster um because it's not helping right now it's actually it it's truth when people say it doesn't seem to be doing anything um the water comes around those spillways so it it's it's not doing anything um it was a you know if you looked at the conceptual plan that was done I can't even remember the year 2014 maybe more or less I don't know if you remember back there Mike um it was some time ago okay and it was brought out in phases and so for residents who live including myself there thought we were being addressed in phases and for some reason the spillways were brought up first then we were going to go into the boat ramp which I know we have a community meeting on this um but there was a purpose on why the study was being done on the boat ramp because it's an area of intrusion and some of the images that you all have seen on those emails that we received and some of the movies you don't even see the boat ramp because you're looking at mcferson right it's there you don't see the wall you don't even see the boat ramp at at any point and if you've been there lately especially with the higher tides in springtime um you could see what the problems are unfortunately a lot of people in in our city drive through there not thinking twice why they do I don't know know it's salt water okay so um and your car will get damaged and it doesn't matter if you do an undercarriage wash through it will get damaged I've put a couple of rotors already on my vehicle um you know it it's disheartening because I have lived on uh water all my life I'm I'm a Florida native okay and and I was fortunate enough to always be by water but I lived in cities that address these things a lot faster than I feel it's being addressed now and being dismissed you know when I do hear and I heard someone mention the comment about well we chose to live there well I you know unfortunately it wasn't a disclosure um when I closed right it wasn't on my contract um and to be honest when I first moved in 2010 I did come to the city and I did address the problem but I wholeheartedly believed that the city was going to be doing something about it because I came from many cities that did um but we're in 2024 I have and I brought them with me and I don't mind giving them to Amber so she can have them for record you know 2020 January 28th my speech for good evening thank you again consent items public words website um non-existing seaw walls everything that everybody was saying today November 12 2019 um September of 2014 2015 same comments over and over over and over it's tiring okay and it's disheartening I see for salees signs going up I see the frustration in people I do see people who don't think there's much of a problem not many um but I think they say that for other reasons um we have an issue with the seaw wall there's possibly um you know um things that we need to look into um that have to do with the seaw wall and just because I've done research on the plat for for our neighborhood um I know it's not the only problem in the city and I'm not trying to make this about the Don cisar neighborhood solely but we are the lowest line we were the the neighborhood that complained the hardest when everybody benefited from the Bayway being constructed in the city of St Pete Beach we were the loudest back then who did not want it not only because of a taking of property but also on the second attempt when the new Bayway bridge was built um that is the highest land in the city where do you think the water runs off to when it's raining okay into our neighborhoods okay into our neighborhoods the swes along the Bayway are nonexistent but yet when I go over the bridge towards eel Soul what do you see sailes right what happened to ours why is do not coming out and why isn't the city representing us more efficiently which I will and I'm saying the city because I am the city um representative now and I will try my best to do this um is to get it addressed because we've asked for meetings this was two years ago that we asked for a meeting with the Florida Department of Transportation to address what's going on the Bayway because the city doesn't own those Flex vals okay but the homes along the Bayway have water all the time on their sidewalks all the time one time I came here and I said do you know what the life of a of a frog is the the life cycle of a frog well we all know because a tadpole um an egg can be laid in the water in a sidewalk and the the fogs are born in our sidewalks because that's how long it takes for the water to is sitting there okay that's not right there's so many health concerns including mosquitoes I you know our neighborhood and I'm not going to say there's no mosquitoes throughout St Pete Beach but we are swarming because we have standing water when I call pelis County to come do an evaluation of my home um which they'll do for free for anybody what do they say eliminate standing water well how am I going to do that you know it's not I can't and I can put as many tablets as I want in this standing water but it's not going to do a thing for me okay so um it's frustrating I think earlier in January I think it was in January and I believe um commissioner marot brought this up and said well may this is a city problem resiliency I've spoken um and I know people hate to hear when we talk about Miami I'm from Miami so I was born and raised in Miami and I spoke to um the chief of resiliency for uh the city of Miami Beach okay they have a dedicated person on resiliency for their City I believe that we're at that point that we need somebody who's Focus for the city strictly on resiliency which includes flooding you know that's the new terminology I make the city resilient but we need someone focused on these projects solely because it's important not only for the Donar neighborhood but for Pasa grill for for B GA for B Vista for Gulf Winds Drive for District 1 2 3 for everybody um other cities are doing similar things Treasure Island um you hear the things that they're doing you know uh raise raise the island I don't know exactly how they're going to do that but that's what they're I I don't know the exact name but maybe one of you and and the city manager might know what what they're calling it um but I know you know I was surprised to listen today from the gentleman who was talking about the mitigation that he's doing in his property by actually having his own pump system um on the property which is kind of crazy to think that that individual resorted to having to do that himself um but I know others I know people who are going and talking to the people in Treasure Island and Madera to raise their homes um there's an ad right now and one of the properties that's going to do it on De Basin um and he's willing to do this for his home but it costs money the reason I brought up Miami Beach is because they are um looking for Grants they're looking for money they're matching people um who want to raise their home they're doing a 50% match to those homes that want to be raised okay so the city is helping invest with other property owners to raise their homes and we should be as um um you know creative I want to say you know that like other cities are doing we're not the only city or Barrier Island in the State of Florida is going through this or other states in the United States that are going through similar things but I do think that and I hope to get the support from the commission um that this has to become a huge priority for our city um because no one should have to live like this on a daily basis thank you well I I share your concerns um I've been meeting with members in passor Grill mostly between 29th and 26th over the last couple weeks and talking about the uh title Flex valves some other things that apparently failed and I met with Mike Clark and we talked about those failures and what they're just not functioning anymore they're basically stuck open um so um I can tell you right now I'm very interested in in the budget talks and and kind of making this a priority from my perspective once I see the other things of the table but this is definitely comes across to me as as a huge one so I I agree and and Betty I think your point is well taken that there's a a broad variety of Creative Solutions you know because it's really easy to look at um you know we we live on a sandbar right and uh um and you know in the the storms in the last year there's a a lot of people in a lot of neighborhoods that flooded that have never flooded before or flooded for the first time in many many years and um and then flooded more than once um and and and it's it's easy to kind of take a defe view of like oh my gosh how can you possibly fix this you know we're on a Barrier Island there's all these miles of seaw walls that have to be raised and that and and most of them are private and it's very expensive and you know how are we going to make this happen but but I think that there's a a a really broad range of Creative Solutions and I think we're doing ourselves a real disservice if we don't explore them all including like you say grants and matching grants for raising houses and wet flood proofing structures and dry flood proofing structures and you know I I know that in New Jersey after superstorm Sandy there was kind of a whole industry was born of of you know ways to flood prooof buildings that you know that don't involve raising seaw walls and don't involve even necessarily raising the house um and and and I think we need to be exploring all of those and and I think this is the perfect time going into the budget to to be looking at that and I think it's going to require some really hard decisions and some really Frank discussions amongst everybody who lives here um you know because you know that that's always the hard part right how do you how do you pay for all the things you want and which things do you decide that you can live without um but I think if we don't address this one we're going to be living without a lot of things so I I think I think it is an important one um and I don't think it's a problem that we're going to fix in a night or a month or a year but we we certainly should be trying to make strides yeah I'll say thank you to everyone who showed up and thank you for the emails um I've read most of them the ones I haven't I will review um thank you commissioner R Nikki for um your background on this as well um I think it's great that we have you a part of the commission for for this particular issue um and yeah you know a growing up here I knew it it flooded a little bit back there but until I had friends and professional relationships with people who lived back there I didn't realized to what degree and I understand that it has gotten worse um and I understand you know this is and I think it's important for all of us to understand that it's not a hurricane or storm issue you based on the evidence that was brought to us today as well you know this is a reoccurring thing unlike some other areas of St Pete Beach where it's a rare occurrence so that's that's all I have to say on and thanks again for everyone who showed up Mr Mayor any comments discussion well since you asked so I I think I mean this is an issue that that I've that I've heard about that I've I've met with residents about since even before I decided to run for office so this has been years in the making and you know I've heard it all right as Betty said she's been coming here for six or seven years telling us about these issues and every time we have a storm every time we have a high tide we it it just bubbles up again and we hear about it again we have a public works director that lives in the neighborhood and one of the things that I've always thought is like well you know if Mike whose house has got flooded twice in the last 6 months or a year now you know if what I'm trying to get at is that we we hear the comments right and I'm not an engineer I'm I'm a real estate broker that's what I am right I've got background many other things but what I don't hear this is what is the solution and I've had this conversation with residents I get I get the angry phone calls I take them right and and I listen and then I say at the end okay great how much money do we need and what do we spend it on and this is a question I've been asking for two years I asked it of the previous city manager I've asked it of of our Public Works director I'm asking you the Commissioners because yes I empathize with our residents it's awful it sucks I wouldn't want to have to live like that it it's it's it's awful but what is the solution how much money do we allocate in the budget is there a number see this is the problem right we have posturing from we we we have platitudes from the commission we have yes we we're all with you it's a terrible problem but how do we fix it this is what I'm never hearing from anyone is how do we fix it and I say this to the residents as well because you are right you are right to be angry you're right to send the emails and the pictures and the videos and I'm going to encourage you that you do it every single time it happens send it to you Commissioners send it to me send it to the city manager because this is an issue that needs to be addressed but what I'm not ever hearing from the commissioner or from the city staff and then I'm not hearing a solution I'm not hearing if we do this this and this that's going to fix it and it's going to take X number of dollars I can I can and that's really what we need right what we need at this point is yes we know we have a problem Betty you've told us for 7 10 years there's a problem what's the solution right what is the next step what other study do we need we have studies we have many studies I've seen at least you know three or four of them but we don't have a solution and so to the residents I say you're right to be angry and you need to come back to the commission and say give us a solution take start taking action because all I'm hearing is a 20-minute speech about how bad it is yes it's bad we all know it's bad it's time to tell us how bad it is and say here's how we're going to fix it and I sound maybe like I'm a little mad a little angry CU I am just a second mayor excuse me is not telling the truth excuse me I'm going to ask you I'm give you 5 Seconds to stop talking Sheriff please escort the gentleman out thank TI this this is all  mayor um respectfully there there has been Solutions brought to at least particularly with the neighborhood um so I could answer part of your question when you're when you're done so so what's I'm ready to hear a solution Well we I'm waiting for somebody to bring us a solution to the commission that says here are the things that we need to do this is how much money we need give us the resources so we can address the issue um we have mik here that could address that for you and and I could also tell um you mayor that we have had multiple um studies at least for the our neighborhood um a con a conceptual plan was even brought to the neighborhood and I want to say at that time was $28 million um I'm sure it's more than $28 million at this point um so we have had many solutions brought to the neighborhood um but unfortunately nothing has been completed so that's the frustration we've been told and promised many things um but it hasn't been completed so um I know Mike you you raised your hand and if you could come up here Mike you can give me some of the solutions that maybe you've seen there's there's multiple things that can be done and we do have numbers um and and I think that plan is still probably even posted on our City website as well let me I just want to reiterate what I said earlier Mike is working on a a comprehensive plan that we'll he's planning on having for everyone next week and Mike if there's some comments you want to make regarding what that that's fine but uh I I don't think now is the time for Mike to try to explain what his report is going to say next week because I know he's still working on that but uh you know there certainly have been lots of studies there's stuff that has been done there's big big dollars associated with all that but Mike if you'd like to add something certainly uh perhaps a little context um Mike Clark Public Works director um since 2016 we have commissioned uh more than a dozen engineering studies and project studies and there's good reason for that because if you don't have a baseline of data about what your city looks like topographically how how the uh Watershed basins are connected which intersections flood at the 25e 24-hour storm at what elevations and set your priorities what are your threats to Transportation what are your threats to private property what are your threats to the infrastructure functioning properly uh there's a lot of science that goes behind uh all of the commentary of and frustration that we're hearing all of which I I share um and uh so Solutions okay let's talk about that the water's not going to get more shallow the storms are not going to get less intense the exact opposite is what we're facing we're at the beginning of the hurricane season it's supposed to be the worst one in Forever that's that's that's concerning you all should be I'm concerned and so as we take a look at incrementally improving in our posture to mitigate the uh damage that these storms and flooding events can occur uh we looked at putting in um tide check valves and you know if you look across all the cities on the east coast and in Texas in the Gulf Panhandle we're all pretty much going through the same science at the same time and I will tell you that St Pete Beach as far as being based in and understanding our community and our threats and our vulnerabilities we are years ahead of most of the other communities in the region the Tampa Bay Regional planning committee and we had a member here uh with us today on that uh didn't even begin to look at what was going on until three years after I talked to the city manager about hey we got a problem boss we need to start thinking about this and uh I we led the way in our water threat analysis everybody else took notice I had 40 Engineers working and studying our little city 40 on four different firms including my staff so we have a very good basis of understanding of where the threats are and they're much most of them are coming out in the commentary tonight most of the locations have been identified um there are a few others that you all maybe are experiencing in your districts that haven't been brought out yet but they're there and I know where they are and so the prevention of water encroachment into a low-lying neighborhood is a combination of protecting the spillways and the storm drains and our seaw walls and the science behind protecting our storm water outfall structures and everybody everybody was proclaiming that the tide check valves don't work and I'm not going to argue that point one way or the other um I will just tell you that the tie check valves are a product of engineering that have been adapted to this environment rather than built for this environment we have learned that lesson and what we have done is we've created a little bit we we've created a new design to pull the tide check valves off of the outfall structures bring them back into the street so that they don't have the nutrients they don't have the Marine growth and protect them with the baffle box so that they are protected against the debris and they are able to open and close but they will be vaulted with quick disconnect links that our maintenance Personnel can open up the hatch take the crane latch on to the bolts undo the section of pipe bring it up to the surface make the repairs get back down into the Vault take a look at the baffle box from the inside to make sure functioning properly and then put the system back together again Brett Warner our previous city engineer and I we created that knowledge nobody else has it and I'm sharing it with the rest of the County's engineers and we are first in design and we are in design now in six locations uh that is something that is extremely important to the operability and functionality of these TI check valves but those stormfall outfall structures had we done nothing we would not be any worse off now than we are and had I done nothing that we were in the past the water just still runs through as if they weren't even there and so the the the the protection of the storm water and the tidal flows being able to control that has to be done in conjunction with the elevation of the seaw walls the Don's our neighborhood will not improve until the private seaw walls are all elevated that that is the ground truth there is your solution we have a public private partnership for living seaw wall design is ongoing right now and that will we will own that design when it's done and that was on purpose because we can export that design to every other property in that neighborhood on both sides of the Bayway and we can adequately protect ourselves at 5 ft and that's where the storm water pumps begin to come into play we are in design now for the first storm water pump in that neighborhood we did a previous study that said storm water pumps would be in the park and as we as we continue to challenge ourselves with engineering questions we determined that it would be better to reverse that and put the pumps on the perimeter we would save Millions tens of millions of dollars in doing it that way and we are in design for that first Pump Station but I will not finish that design uh it it'll go to concept uh the conversation that must take place is what are we going to do with the seaw walls that surround the D's our neighborhood that is your solution how we choose to approach it there are many Financial avenues that are available to us but in the end those are privately own seaw walls and it has to be a public private partnership um so the the government brings in on the infrastructure that the government is responsible for protective measures I.E the spillways and the pump stations and the private property owners have to come together and they have to figure out how we're going to incorporate this design to protect that neighborhood that solution extends to all the other neighborhoods in this city okay so if you're if you're out there 70 in the 78th Avenue neighborhood that entire Frontage along blind P Pass Road needs to come up and then what we are looking at now is the interconnectivity of multiple Watershed basins in a geographic topographic area that can be connected and reversing the flow of the water underground under the streets to a Pump Station instead of outfall structures on the on the perimeter we will close those perimeter outfall structures Elevate those seaw walls and add pump stations to evacuate the water where are in concept designed for multiple locations throughout the city that is your solution okay now let's talk cost anybody around here got $100 million that's just to start with okay so at 10 million bucks a year over 10 years we can make a significant difference where does that $10 million come from who's first so there are solutions we have been working on it those Studies have not been done done for not our design and our engineering we are Cutting Edge I am creating new knowledge and I'm bound and determined like the gentleman said I either made a bad real estate decision or I had a heck of a lot of confidence in myself well guess what I have a lot of confidence and so we have we have a suite of solutions but there are some some very very significant discussions that have to take place and I think the city city manager is well positioned to help lead you through them at the budget discussions thank you I did get a couple comment cards I don't know before that I just want to mention just a few things legally um we can discuss if you want to throw out options there's special assessments I mean there's a lot of authority that you all have through home rule um you can create a resiliency committee you can task a current board with prioritizing this so legally there is a lot of ways to create funding for projects um if you want to have difficult conversations we can I don't know how open the public will be but there are rules that you all have to utilize as tools to do things like this so just want to mention that I was thinking um what the rest of the commission thinks if we've already had uh the same folks talk about flooding earlier I'm not sure we'll achieve much more by having them get up and repeat the same thing but I want to give everybody else's feelings how many cards we have we have two we have one that already spoke and one that did not speak I'm fine letting him speak okay absolutely I'm many well unless baring additional discussion I think we'll go ahead and open up the public comments Mary Mc Reynolds good evening Mar MC reyolds um you heard from me before and I want to thank you for having a positive attitude about this um Harry mits was one of my neighbors he was a for commissioner before um in pass Grill and he moved out um many people have lost Vehicles many people have moved out a lot of people have given up some people didn't come tonight because they don't feel like the commission or the city cares about them and I've only been there a year like I said before but I hear a lot of discouragement um I don't think Beauty and sidewalks are a priority to us um I hope it's not a priority to you guys because this is a health this is a health problem it's dangerous for all of the stuff coming from the park going into my house it's dangerous um I've been told promises were made and not followed through I thank you for your information and research and anyone else who has researched I appreciate it um the problem is IM imminent the boat ramp is at a flood stage several times a week I drive by it daily and the water's up to the edge it's coming in soon as we get a rain it's coming in so um I don't have a seaw wall so I can't say I'm going to build my seaw wall up but I'm getting flooded so that's all I have to say and I want to thank all of you for having a positive attitude about this because we're in Dire Straits a lot of people moved out a lot of people wouldn't come to tonight because they didn't think they'd be heard and I know that because they told me so appreciate your listening tonight thank thank you Cameron try to make it quick um just start by saying um this been a long process and I actually remember going maybe a few years ago to over where the rec center is and we had a meeting on this flooding and actually somebody brought up before these flexx valves that do not work I don't if it's I understand that it may be your concept but it's a failed concept they don't work at all and relying on somebody who's already done that I think isn't maybe the best idea we had somebody at that meeting say we should just have an area those areas where the water is pumped out the solution is easy you raise a seaw wall water comes over the seaw wall the seaw wall is higher if it's raised it won't come over we got to close those valves the water doesn't go in the valves and the seaw wall is higher is higher your problem solved for the most part so I think that maybe we should we spent so much energy on this and so many thoughts I think there's too many thoughts let's it's it's not that difficult and we can adapt we put those valves in they don't work got to move on that's it so let's get the seaw wall up I'm I am a I do own a seaw wall I think the city has something to say about water coming in and ruining the infrastructure of the city I I think that it's on their it should be something that they're concerned with too not just put on private owners the other issue with private owners we can't have it peace meal you can't have one person put a seaw wall up the other thing that was raised was at that time they were talking about raising up so many feet well they let people build seaw walls to the low standards and I ask why would you approve and give and let them do that they're wasting $33,000 seaw walls are somewhere between 400 to 500 ft now it's not that much it's it's not hundreds of billions to do our neighborhood it's not going to be that much that's one start doing something with those valves even if it's a manual open and close it was it was always a failed concept because we knew if it rained and it was a high tide that the water wasn't going to go out and we'd be sitting without water too so it was never a great idea the idea of having higher seaw walls and pumping it over the the water over sounds like a much better solution I'm sure that we could figure out a better solution thanks thank you Kath Kathy Garo thank you I will be brief but thank you Mike for going over that I think um honestly it's pretty exciting um I did spend a good amount of time talking to the Shore Acres um president of their civic association I think is what they refer to it as they have a much more significant uh problem I think over there in a much bigger Community um but in talking with him I think what um I think he coined and I'm going to told him I'd steal his phrase which is there's Band-Aids there's stitches and there's surgery I think what you've just described is great in its surgery like that's cool great let's do that but in the meantime we need Band-Aids and stitches so my hope Mike is that and Wayne that we can come up with some Band-Aids to the holes that are in our walls right now where water just pours in in the flex fails don't serve any other purpose other than to let the sea water just roll in every high tide let's get some Band-Aids or stitches however you want to refer to it on those things now while we work on the bigger surgery strategy because that's not going to happen overnight please like today and I just did a quick Google I don't know what's going on with us tapping into Florida's resiliency grants but it looked to me like the deadline is September 1st 2024 so if we needed money I don't know where we're at Mike with this but like we need to be writing the grant requests today how can we help you with that I'd be happy to be a part of that I don't want to let that money go to someplace else if we need it here thanks thank you um two two points I think are very important for you all to understand in the audience also um the other day Kathy uh and I were out taking a look at the 36th Avenue situation and Josh Roos did quite a nice uh interview with Kathy and she said Mike why can't we just do a temporary solution why do I have to wait through another hurricane season I thought to myself holy cow okay thanks for the challenge I am uh talking with our contractor this week on a concept that we might be able to plug that 36th Avenue uh uh seaw wall I don't know where the money where where we're going to land on the cost but I I have an idea I think our contractor can pull it off I'll be bringing it to the city manager so just so you know and our citizens in that portion of the neighborhood know that uh I'm going to try to take some very very aggressive action here in in the very near future uh with that particular location and I just I just felt that was important and I wanted you to know that that came from Kathy and the other one is the Florida resiliency grants I believe we already have two and I'll be chasing that I'll be chasing the I'll be chasing Grand St like a hound dog on a ham bone you can bet on that and right now we're managing eight and we'll go after as many as we can possibly get and so there's encouragement out there so there's there's a Band-Aid uh I'm working on some stitches and uh major surgery well big conversation I just want I thought the 36th Avenue was very important for you all to know that's because that's brand new right off the right off the uh right off the plate today thank you yeah I Ed Kea I think you guys remember me from earlier um I'm mad as hell and what I'm mad as hell about is it seems to me and this is I'm sure a theme that's not going to strike you as anything new but the hotels in town tax the residents but we don't tax the hotels and what I'm mad as hell about is the bed tax which is a lot of money that in my opinion and I hope you share this opinion city of St Pete Beach doesn't get its fair share and uh I I've said this to a few of you before so I I I I'm sorry to keep beating the drum but uh and Matthew will probably step in here and shut me up on a few of these ideas but maybe we could consider a resiliency tax for hotels I don't know that we've got the power to Levy taxes against the hotels independently but I don't like taking no for an answer but this I can guarantee you is that everybody in this room and probably 80 % of the people who live in the city of St Pete Beach would rally around the idea of getting more bed tax money for the city of St Pete Beach for resiliency purposes and I bet you if Adrien and the mayors of all the other small towns around here got together you know I'm sure that the other Mayors would be excited to get a piece of that as well I don't know it's sorry for sorry for the bad pun but it's like fighting City Hall but I I think you've got a con a constituency that's ready to fight so if it's big money and I'm sure it is um I think you've got a community behind you to fight for it thank you city clerk was that the last of the public comments okay well we're getting down the road um we're up to U comments City Clerk so you all know that qualifications just ended for the special election um in August we had District Two and District Four up for um that time period and we had two people uh pool books and qualify that be current um Nick filz and Lisa Robinson was the second person and then District Four we only had one person and that's Mr Joe mahand he is in the audience this evening and all of that information is on the city's website there will be um updated information as I get it for um what the supervisor of elections does as far as mail ballots both domestically and internationally I want to say to the members of the public that is not my job I do get phone calls from time to time I don't handle the ballots I don't register people to vote I don't I I don't do any of that all that information is available on the pelis County Supervisor of Elections there are links on the city clerk's page for the election outlining what I just spoke of Nick and Lisa as well as Mr molland and then the um when treasury reports do because I always get those types of questions and then the information for the supervisor of elections and specific links for mail ballots how to register how to see if you've already signed up for a mail ballot um I know I had a couple of things but man I'm tired I'm sorry um I am glad to be back this is my first meeting back at I've been back for a full week last week and this is my second day I'm grateful to my staff for all that they took care of uh while I was out I was able to come back and like not have a bunch of fires so super good like transition to smooth right back in I am so grateful to the outpouring of support while I was out from you all from members of staff I got flowers I got cards I got phone calls I got text messages and when I came back I had a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a welcome letter and balloons and I got residents coming to see me and calling me and emailing me so I feel really appreciated and I wanted everyone to know how much I appreciated all of that recognition acknowledgement support during my um recovery process it's been a recovery for sure a long road but I am much further than I was when I first started in February so I am grateful for that and I think that's all I can remember for now guys sorry thank you city manager uh just a couple of real quick things uh one thing to follow up on on elections I was in a meeting last week where the supervisor of elections was uh giving the city manager some updates and one thing that he uh and I believe they're planning on sending out some a lot of uh uh information on this but if you are voting or if you have voted by mail if you have not re signed up you're not automatically going to get that vote by mail again uh just because you did two years ago doesn't mean you'll get it this time so please you can do it on the website so uh just go to the website and you can take care of it there but uh he was trying to get I know they'll be sending a lot of information out on that I just want to remind that uh the only other thing is um just today I got the uh report from the uh NIS count Sheriff's Office on on the beach enforcement uh for the month of March last year um last year we only had like 33 warnings given in the month of March on the beach and I know that's been some concerns about uh things that happened on our beach that shouldn't be happening and that's a discussion we did have with the sheriff's department this year and and this report shows the month and we're I'm talking about things like alcohol and on the beach and glass and people on the dunes and um this year for the month of March we had 174 uh so that was great that the sheriff's department has heard uh our concerns and theyve certainly stepped up uh what they're doing out there that's all I have thank you City attorney thank you vice mayor just a few things uh coordinating so we talked about the beach ordinance um I know there was some projects that were before you but at this point staff's ready to circulate a doodle pole through the clerk's office for a joint workshop with the beach stewardship I think that's the direction I got um at the last meeting so just wanted to let you know to expect that the way it works is the day that's picked by the most people is usually the date that it's um scheduled in regards to edits to the beach ordinance I've done some very minor grammatical cleanups but based on the direction of the commission I have not touched it any further um so we can make sure that that's ready to go Additionally the historic preservation board has been working on an update to the passag grow overlay and the cdaa I believe um and we would also like to send out a doodle pole for a joint workshop with them as well so essentially it' be a joint Workshop but then because it's sine development code it would have to go to the planning board first before final adoption but we wanted to get commission input on the progress and edits that have been made so that too thank you commission oh yeah and um with the beach ordinance I know there was a I guess we could talk about it when when we have the joint Workshop but there was a template ordinance sent by Miss Reich um that had some really good language in it so I think part of the discussion with the beach stewardship joint meeting should be whether we include that in the beach ordinance or whether we adopt the separate sea turtle ordinance I think um sea turtles are important and I think there were some very good language that we could could a cherry pick from that whether that's in chapter 94 or a separate adoption commissioner Mar um I don't have much to report um the folks at masteries Brewing hosted me for a have a beer with your commissioner on Monday uh which was great I had a pretty good turnout I had about eight people come out and uh it was a uh um much more relaxed one beer a much more relaxed setting to uh to get to chat with folks it was great we're planning on making it a monthly occasion so if anyone wants to talk to me in person in a very relaxed setting you're not required to have a beer but uh I'd love to talk to anybody and that's all I got Mr Phils yeah um not District related but I like what Matt brought up earlier about potentially an idea of a resiliency committee maybe it's something we can talk about more as a commission on a later date um um and then yeah as the city clerk said I did submit and qualify um it's been an honor to do this and should I get elected it'll be an honor to continue to do it um and I also wanted to say amber your staff did a great job while you were out but we're we're very much glad to have you back so commissioner isi um well I definitely want to welcome you back even though I know we did it but I wanted to say it because um I know sometimes I I know I personally run out of time with so many things that I personally juggle but you're never forgotten so I try to text you every once in a while say how you're doing um pick is recovering from the type of surgery that you had and I won't disclose but it's significant you know um so I'm really happy to to see you here um doing doing your job and and just your smile right there so we all we're all happy to have you here um I wanted to mention that I attended um last uh Saturday this this last weekend um the fire 101 and I see Adam back there so I want to thank you but I also wanted to thank everybody who put that event together including the city of of Clearwater who hosted the event at their facility um and the St Pete Beach uh fire department um for taking care and I'll say of us I see Jennifer in the audience here so you all back there and you can tell your team have spoiled Jennifer and myself because I have spoken with Jennifer and but it's not working at the household people are not doing the things for us the way you all did I want the the public might not know but the gear is heavy and my lower back was hurting um but they made sure that it didn't hurt more I'm actually sitting here pretty fine um but it it is an eyeopener um to see or to try to walk in uh the shoes of a firefighter or EMT or rescue um one day um is not enough to really know that I but they did their really real good job having us feel it um I wish we would do that for many other um professions out there especially um those that have to do with um people uh people don't know how how difficult it is not only physically the work but mentally um and emotionally um what what a a firefighter has to do um when they're called on the scene on a day-to-day basis so thank you very much for for that experience um I wanted to also thank the residents who did come out um to that flating meeting that was held at lazario Park um obviously we talked a lot about that already um but I did want to thank everybody who was there there are a few upcoming meetings um tomorrow 9 o' Beach stewardship meeting um it's here in the chambers um and and there's a lot that's being discussed so take a look at the agenda or watch the meeting um on video as well the danta property owners Corporation is having a meeting on May 21st at 6m in the suntan correct and there's also the town hall meeting for District 3 on May 22nd at 5:30 here in the chambers and then there's also the boat ramp meeting on May 29th at 6: pm at the community center I know all these meetings are also listed in the events calendar uh for the city on the website um so please write write those down and I hope to see you there thank you Mr Mayor excited to have Amber back glad to see that she's doing so well um you know know it's been a long road to recovery but just um you know very excited to have her back with us um and looking forward to being back home soon I hope you're enjoying your vacation all right just a couple quick comments for me uh the beach tree nourishment uh project of P the grill was kind of the mini one I think that Mike told me got postponed into June sometime and that there might be a larger one following on the tail of that one I forgot the notes but um that's some more good news for our beach before the big season hits uh you already mentioned the boat ramp meeting on the 29th um to my residents um you know I fought hard to get the Alleyways backed open for garbage delivery and of course the Water Project immediately started and put a stop to that and uh they're going to have to redig some of those same spots to flush the systems out in June so uh the good news is it's coming the bad news is we're looking more like July before those Alleyways at least that first Alleyway opens up the garbage collection um and then uh my next meet and greet is tomorrow evening at 5:00 P PM over at uh Hurley Park and I will not be having one on the 29th if anybody's listening out there because we'll be at the boat ramp uh meeting so that's all I have so given that thank you everybody meeting jour for