I called to order the regular session of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs on Tuesday, June 4th, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. Roll call . Mayor Vatikiotis here. Vice Mayor Eisner here. Commissioner coleus here. Commissioner Collins here. Commissioner DiDonato here, this evening's invocation will be given by Reverend Cody Bracy of the new Spring Church. If we can remain standing and turn and pledge allegiance to the flag after. Let's pray. God, thank you for the city. Thank you for the neighbors, the businesses, the churches and the city workers that make this city so amazing. We give you thanks and we give you glory. Tonight, God, we offer ourselves to you, to build with us and to do with us as you will relieve us of the lure of self that we may better do your will. Take away our difficulties . That victory over them may bear witness to those that we would help of your power, your love, and your way of life. May we do your will always. In your name. We pray. Amen, Amen, Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Dying before we move on to the proclamations, I have one, announcement. Item ten was deferred. That's the Public works departments, proposed reorganization plan that's going to be deferred to a time to be determined in the future, right. Okay. We have, three proclamations meeting this evening. I'm going to go ahead and move to the front. Our first proclamation is the, flag day, and I had asked, Mr. Bob Gorby, Robert Gorby of the Elks Club to accept this, but he's sick. And in his stead, I'm going to ask, Commissioner DiDonato, who's also a member of the board of the Elks Club. In fact, I think both of them are on the board of trustees. Is that correct? Yeah. Mr. Gorby was a board of trustee for the Elks, and, he's also a former Navy Seal. And I know from our past that, Commissioner DiDonato is a former Navy man as well. Is that correct? Okay Whereas since the adoption of the Stars and Stripes on June 14th, 1777, people around the world have continuously looked to our flag as a symbol of unity and liberty. And whereas for centuries, mariners looked to the stars to guide them across the seas, just as Americans and people across the globe look to our flag as a guiding symbol of freedom, opportunity and hope. And whereas on Flag Day and during National Flag Week, we celebrate the journey of progress represented in our banner and paid tribute to the inspiration it gives Americans at home and abroad. And whereas our flag belongs to all Americans and it's red, white and blue colors are woven into a rich tapestry of different cultures, backgrounds and beliefs, which connects us and honors us. Our shared history. And whereas we pledge our allegiance to the star spangled Banner and to the Republic for which it stands, and to the freedom and the sacrifice given to preserve that freedom, the city of Tarpon Springs encourages its citizens to observe Flag Day and national flag Week with pride to honor the American spirit displaying the flag and honoring all of our brave service members and revering those who gave their last full measure of devotion, defending our freedoms. Now, therefore, I Costa Vatikiotis, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of Tarpon Springs, do hereby proclaim June 14th, 2024, Flag Day in June 9th through the 15th, 2024 as National Flag Week . Frank, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Did you want to offer okay. Our next one honors the Tarpon Springs LGBTQ community. If Mr. Jack sperm can come forward. I think many of us know Jack, he's been, an employee, actually, a volunteer at the Chamber of Commerce. And he's always there to help. Yesterday evening, we had his retirement party, I think this is your third or fourth retirement party. Right No, we all wish him well, I asked Jack to come forward to accept this proclamation, in the spirit of the former proclamation that we gave, we recognize everyone and all groups, walks of life, ethnic culture, lifestyles. Tarpon Springs is a very accepting home. Whereas our nation was founded on the principle of equality and freedom for all people. And those rights continue to evolve as society changes and new challenges come to light. For many Americans. And whereas the uprising of the Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village, New York City, on June 28th, 1969 was a milestone for LGBTQ freedom and change. And whereas for over 50 years, the month of June has been established nationally nationwide, as a time to honor those citizens that stood against the discriminatory laws at Stonewall and elsewhere. And whereas every American should live without fear of prejudice, discriminate violence and hatred based on race, ethnicity, religion and gender orientation. And whereas the month of June has become nationally recognized as a time to acknowledge the how, how the LGBTQ community and individuals have overcome adversity and are contributing to the diversity and the richness of American society and whereas the City of Tarpon Springs celebrates and accepts its diverse LGBTQ community and individuals, that includes people of all races, ethnicities, religions and professions. And whereas the city of Tarpon Springs strives to be a community at large where everyone is appreciated for our differences and uniqueness rather than remaining divided as are many other places within our nation. I, therefore, Costa Vatikiotis, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, do hereby proclaim the month of June 2024 as Tarpon Springs LGBTQ Community Recognition Month. Jack congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. This means a lot to us because because of the recently, we've been having a lot of attacks of people trying to roll back a lot of our, our benefits and our. So this is this is just saying that the city is welcoming for everyone in. And thank you so much. Yes As always. All right. Thank you. Megan, you're here. And Chief Scott Young. Okay, Megan, area is our, flood manager. Is that what your proper title is? She's basically the way I know her is. If you got any questions concerning flood insurance, anything associated with flooding and or emergency matters, call, Megan and then, of course, Scott is there to, ask Megan questions, too. So our proclamation for this evening is , the third one is Hurricane Awareness Month, whereas Florida Florida hurricane season officially begins June 1st and ends November 30th. And whereas Hurricane Awareness Month was started to spread awareness of the dangers and hazards of hurricanes, being aware is not being prepared. And history has shown that by knowing vulnerability and what actions to take, people can reduce the effects of a hurricane disaster. And whereas we are better prepared than ever before for today's storms, our technology forecasting and models have improved and we have new ways of disseminating vital warnings and storm tracking information. Still, it never it's never too early to prepare. And whereas we enter hurricane season, let us renew our commitment to responsibility and let us unite in common purpose to safeguard our families and community and whereas we call upon organizations, schools, media and residents to share information about hurricane preparedness, now, I therefore coast as vatikiotis by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, do hereby proclaim June 2024 as Hurricane Awareness Month. Megan, thank you, if you'd like to say a few words, tell us about what you do. Go ahead, I do a lot of things, I run the CRS program for the city, I do a lot of the emergency management system is the discounts that we get on. Correct. Right. So I handle all that. I do, a lot of the plan review for the building department, I just do a multitude of things, the emergency management program now. So we're trying to get that going. I do want to take a quick minute, though, and say thank you for all of the support for the, preparedness event that we had on Saturday. That was a big success. I hope a lot of people were able to come out to that. We had a lot of, good information for the hurricane season. So hopefully everybody was able to attend. It was a really good event. So thank you. Scott, are you going to say, the event that Megan was talking about was, every year the county has a, hurricane preparedness conference or an event, which is pretty much a show and tell, Brown panel discussion and just a whole lot of things that, for preparedness that, that organizations give away to the residents. Pinellas County actually emergency management decided to have that up in Tarpon Springs this year. And believe me, it was that was their vice mayor. Eisner was there there were a lot of people there. And I was very proud of our organizations that were able to put it up. Our police department or fire department, emergency management, Sheriff, whoever was involved in this, the county, I think it was a good thing. I'd like to see it more often here in Tarpon, but I know we need to take our turns so. And you're going to have your hurricane preparedness presentation here. Okay. Thank you everybody. Thanks, ma'am. That's good. Turn it over there. Okay, our next, item is agenda item four, which is a special presentation. Emergency management hurricane season 2024 city manager course. Scott. And the presentation you give every year. Good evening everybody. Scott Young fire Chief. So it's that time of the year. Are we going to talk about getting ready for the storms? That's our favorite time of the year. I'm sure for everybody. Maybe not this year though. All right. So we this is a picture from Megan's crew that she took down to the governor's hurricane conference, last month, we sent a good contingent of people down just a little bit more information, learn a few new things, tricks of the trade and, unfortunately, learned from others that have gone through the big one, and Megan came back this year with a lot of information for me, so new ideas that we have to work on, things, we have to tidy up on ourselves. So we'll be busy over the next few months and, getting getting better prepared. This is, last year's tracks, as you can see, pretty busy season, the main one that we had to watch is the one there. Idelia, that was the one that came the closest to us that caused the most havoc in town. And some time, probably since the no name storm, we had some of the most, most flooding I've seen in my career here, that year, last year with that storm, the thing that saved us the most , that attract farther out to the West than it did to the east , had we got a storm that came about 50, 60 miles, 100 miles to the east, we will have a lot more flooding in town, a lot more damage than we really did. So this season, as you may have heard through the news and the outlets and everything else, this is going most, busiest season they predicted in history, 17 down to 25 named storms, 8 to 13 hurricanes and 4 to 7 major hurricanes. So it could be a very active year for us. We're hoping that's not going to play to be true, but we have to be prepared. So if you're going to prepare, this is the year to make sure you are ready. Here's the names. And, I'm not sure that anybody has any name up there that we know except for the last one, William. My first name is William, so I'm hoping that's not a bad omen, but, these are the names I will tell you. The years that I've been coming up doing this, presentation. The first name or a couple names have always been checked off at this point, and they haven't this year so far. So that's a good thing. So as you know, there's different categories. Category one winds 74 to 95 all the way up to category five. Over 155mph. One thing I did learn at the event on Saturday when I was, sitting down talking to Dennis Phillips, the Hurricane Center is actually talking about putting out a category six in the coming years because of the way the storms are intensifying and everything. So you may see that in the future, an actual, another category. We'll wait and see. Hopefully not. So the, the motto was always run from the water and hide from the wind. Water kills people. It's the major contributor to deaths during a hurricane is because of the flooding. You see the different zones A, B, C, D and E, the majority of tarpon is pretty much an A and a B. There's a few scattered C zones and tarpon, 5 to 7ft, for, most zones in our town of a but, up to 12 to 15 and 26ft plus for the E zones. So if you're in a, A zone and we have an E zone evacuation, expect a lot a lot of water. This is a picture from, Ian down in Fort Myers, the flooding in the streets. And as you can see in the picture down to the left side, you can see the palm trees. This is 15 foot of storm surge water. So that's what 15 foot of water looks like, they did have some water down there. Reported up over 25ft, some of the second floor apartments downtown area were underwater. So you can imagine the devastation in and what it would do for our town. Our town is pretty low lying. So 25ft of water would be pretty bad, because of that storm and what we went through, the city was able to get us a new vehicle. This is what it looks like. Our new high water vehicle. That truck can go through about 4 to 5ft of water, it will carry up to about 33, 34 people in the back of the truck. It has a lift on the back. So people that are in on in bed bound that they can't get out of bed or in wheelchairs or whatever, we can lift them up with the lift in the back to get them in the back and get them out of hazardous areas. It's one of those vehicles we buy, and we hope we never have to use. The idea is to be out of those areas before we have to call. You have to call us to come and get you. We don't want one disaster turning into another disaster by people not leaving when they need to. So please heed to the advice of the professionals and leave if you need to leave. All right, things to start getting ready for. You should already be working on this and getting your kits and stuff ready. Review your emergency plans with all your family members. Make sure everybody knows what you're planning on doing. Where are you going to go? Check your supplies, water, blankets. As they said at the event the other day, each person needs a gallon of water per day, so I would plan for seven days, power goes out like Irma. We had a couple areas that had water out for over two weeks almost. So make sure you have enough supplies with you, set up your out of town contacts. As we always tell you, if you're going to leave and go someplace, tell a family member out of town. Out of state. Where are you going to go when you get there? Let them know you're there. When you get home, let them know you got home. That way. Somebody's checking on you, important documents, anything that you don't want to get damaged, make sure you take them with you. Or if you're staying, make sure they're in a watertight compartment or box of some sort. Figure out your evacuation routes, and please follow the instructions of the, experts telling you what you should be doing, where we should be going. Know your zone. It's very important to know where your zone is, like I said, most of tarpon is A and B zones, so the one way you can do that is look at your, utility bill. If you're part of the county, unincorporated areas, you can go to the tax collector's office, a property tax collector's office. It'll tell you on your trim. Notice there where your evacuation zone is, the Ready Pinellas app is a free app you can put on your phone from Pinellas County. So anywhere you're at at that time, you can go in there and say, my location and it'll tell you what evacuation zone you you are in at that point or what house your house evacuation zone is. So and it also has a lot of information, a lot of the tips, things to pack, etc. is on that ready Pinellas app. So it's a very good app to have. Again, shelters, hurricane shelters are a means of last resort, again, Tarpon Springs does not have a hurricane shelter that was taken away from us about three, three years ago. I think, because that that school was in a, sea evacuation zone. It sits up on a ridge over there. But the problem was they realized what the storm's intensifying so fast nowadays that if we had people out there and the flooding started to come around and it was going to come up even higher, we wouldn't be able to get out there to get the people out of the school. So they didn't feel it was safe. So there are shelters that we take our people to are car wise Middle School and Palm Harbor, Palm Harbor Middle School or Palm Harbor University, not too far away, but, that's close enough to get people there. We do have, busses and stuff. If you're signed up for our, special needs program. Our special needs program is for those that don't have a way to get out or need assistance getting out. You can call our office or contact the Pinellas County Emergency Management and sign up for that program. And they'll make sure you're going to the queue for us to, get you out. We will be making phone calls prior to the storm hitting, making sure you still want to go and let you know that we'll be on our way. At what point? How to follow us is through social media, we have Twitter, we have Facebook, we have the city's website, of course Facebook. You can the city has a Facebook page. The fire department has a Facebook page. Police department has a Facebook page. We send out all the information we get from the county, on those pages, we also have the Am 1610 radio station going that we put out information on that what's happening? We try to update that as we go, alert Pinellas is another great tool that you can get through your Ready Pinellas app that you put your information in your phone number and stuff anytime any information is going out of significance, that your phone will ring and it'll give you an update of what's happening, we've used that actually for a huge water main break years ago in town, just to let the residents on that side of town know that the water was going to be out just some a good way of getting the message out to our people, our town. With that, I'll answer any questions I may have. I went through that little fast, but I know we're busy tonight. Okay, first, let me ask the public whether they have any comments on any of the proclamations that were done before or the presentation that you just heard. Thank you. Mayor, appeared like 514 Ashland Avenue since we're on the hurricane part, I'd like to, say I'm proud of the fact that Ellen and with the help of Mark, designed and put forth this emergency management center that we have that's become a model for a whole bunch of agencies. So it was good to see that we continue to use that as our model and share the knowledge, and that we're accepting of knowledge to help us better, one thing I didn't hear about that. Maybe the management or administration can address is the public work aspects as far as water shutoffs and things of that nature during and post hurricane. So people are a little more aware of that, so those are kind of my comments on the hurricane stuff. So as I'd like to go to the proclamation, Ian's first off, we, earlier had the Pledge of Allegiance, and in it, liberty and justice for all. And you even kind of reminded us about that through the flag Day stuff. And what people in our past, through the years have sacrificed to be able to maintain that uniqueness that we have of diversity and inclusiveness. And I think maybe this town, because a lot of us are immigrants or have come from other areas, or maybe a little more aware of being accepted and accepting others. And I know this may seem unusual, but, this past weekend we went to go see a concert by this group, Michael Franti and Spearhead, and it's real positive music. And he does a song called Big, Big Love, and it's about looking at the other person and realizing that one thing we all have in common is we're all different. You can look at each of us here and all around. We're all different. So accepting everybody's difference is a first step in accepting that we're more alike than not. So I do want to thank the city for recognizing this, and I hope that this can be a way to, Share with the world that it's not all bad. Thank you, thank you. Are there any other public comments? Katie Taylor, 1991 Douglas Lane, Tarpon Springs, good evening, I wanted to comment on the hurricane, preparedness session y'all had at the police department. It was very nice. I really got a lot out of that. And I also wanted to, thank Chief Young and Megan, because they're also going to be having one at Mount Hermon at my church. They did a lot of work and effort to come to our community to share this information with people that could not make it out there. So I just wanted to let the commissioners know, and the mayor that we appreciate, Chief Young and Megan putting that preparedness package together to come to Mount Hermon this Thursday at at 6:00, they will be at our church. So thank you very much. Thank you. Hi. Good evening, David Ballard Geddis Jr I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. I have to make a comment about Pride Month from a political viewpoint, from a political sense, and that does lead association as a body of government have the same rights as the leisure activity of the gay civilian population. The government is composed of bodies, legislation is a body. Congress is a body of government . Our local body of county commissioners is a body of government. Does legislation as it intercourses its duty with the Senate, as the Senate, as it intercourses its duty with the Congress? Do they have the right to do it gaily? Is the interlocal cooperation Act of 1969 and statute 163 .01, an act of prideful legislation? Does the various bodies in government get paid to conduct their activity responsibly, productively, efficiently or do they have the right to do it as paid performance to do their reasonably foreseen expected duty of government? Gaily, I stand against political mockery of the gay civilian population. Thank you. Okay, thanks, is there any other public comments this is on the presentation and also the proclamations that were given, I'm not sure who's up there, Mr. jumper. Mr. Moore, any, remote access comments? And we do not have any raised hands at this time, sir. Joe. That's Mark. Okay. Thank you, any commissioners got any questions? Questions? No, but I did want to share with the audience, and when you do have a hurricane, just. These are some tips that I have found through the years, fill your bathtubs with water as an extra use of. If they do shut the water off, that they would have more use of it, frees gallon bags and frees them vertical. It'll keep your food and perishables good for three days. And you can also use that as drinking water afterwards, if you should flood, you should use, water rinse, because salt will deteriorate everything, concrete and everything that is, known to man, in the last but not least is please don't use bleach on things because as well as it may kill or at least disguise the mold, it does not remove it and it also will eat away at all of the metal structure that's holding your house together. So those are the couple of things, that I'd just like to share. And other than that, I thank you for the presentation. Appreciate it. Okay. Anyone else, I do have something. City manager, of course. Scott young, you know, we, I know sometimes when we have a hurricane nearby, we man our EOC, and there's an emergency order that's given by our Pinellas County Emergency Service. Is that correct? Yes. And then that is countywide. Am I correct in that? Yes. So what we normally do is, once I get word or we get word in the EOC that the county has made their declaration, we call the city manager immediately and say, okay, they've done theirs, and we instruct him to please do ours. And he always does it, and we're ready to go that way. We're kind of in line with the county. What's happening? So that kind of allows us it frees us up to do a little bit more, you know, at some point in the very near future, I would like to see a either a presentation or a memorandum for the commission that explains, emergency authority and what the role of our staff is, what the role of the city manager is, the EOC and also what our role is as the Commission. And I know, way, way back, there used to be a role for commission to be at the EOC. That's changed. Things have become very complicated, technology wise, from a comprehensive perspective, there's a lot of more functions that go on now that there used to be. And, and I think that there needs to be some understanding on the part of everybody, the residents as well as, all the way up here to the dais. What each each, city officials role is and what their expectation should be. So if we could do that, either a presentation or an agenda item so that we can have questions from everybody or a memorandum. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks very much. I just hope we don't have any hurricanes. All righty. Let's go to public comments on anything that's not on the agenda. I thank you again, David Ballard Geddis jr. I live at 802 Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. The charter for the city, the city of Tarpon Springs charter in section eight M states that the city is responsible for maintaining public sidewalks. Public sidewalks are generally placed in public easements intended to accommodate public water supply, and the public sewer systems. Now, when we fast forward to section 26 of the city charter, section 26 also mentions the maintenance and funding of the sidewalks. Yet section 26 fails to use the word public in its definition of the sidewalk, stating the sidewalk or such sidewalk as based on chapter 218 of the Florida Statutes. So the city public sidewalks in section eight M of the city charter have now evolved into being defined as the sidewalk, such sidewalk in section 26 of the charter, again as based on chapter 218 of the Florida Statutes. Florida Statute 218.415, section 618 F is in support of a foreign country, a foreign entity, in selecting a privatized infrastructure scheme in an attempt to take over the public easements. In selecting privatized sidewalks. This same privatized infrastructure scheme is attempting to contrive variances such as the reclaimed water variance and the eminent domain of residential property seen in statute 150 303, section five tapping into the equity of residential homes to finance such privatized infrastructure scam. Section 26 of the city charter must know shall be amended and shall reflect the sidewalk system as being a public sidewalk system and shall be maintained as public domain. The variance also reflected in section 12 of the City charter. I call into question. Thank you, thank you. Are there any other public comments? Good evening Peter Lucas, 514 Ashland Avenue. Okay I have. Today I will read from Psalm 55. Listen to my prayer. Oh God, do not ignore my plea. Hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught at the voice of the enemy at the stairs of the wicked. For they bring down suffering upon me and revile me in their anger. My heart is in anguish within me. The terrors of death shall assail me. Fear and trembling have beset me. Horror has overwhelmed me. I said, oh, that I had the wings of a dove. I would fly away and be at rest. I would fly away and stay in the desert. I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm. Selah So? So, just some reflection. So, as I mentioned, I saw a concert the other day, but, we had been out in Denver and going to other places and other cities and seeing how they do things makes you got to realize, are we ahead of the time or are we behind the time? And why do I say that? So I missed the meeting last week so I didn't get to see the forward Pinellas. So when we were driving, we pulled up the YouTube and I heard a brief segment of the forward of Pinellas, and I guess they're wanting to put overpasses in and again, back to the cars and busses. So when we were out there being kind of unfamiliar, I looked to see if there was other ways to get around. And you know what there are. They have a magnificent rail system. It took them 15, maybe 20 years to devise this, to set it up, but from all over different parts of the whole megalopolis, you can catch a rail. So on Sunday we took a rail train from a stop near where our hotel was, went right down to Union Station, five blocks away, Coors Field. We watched a Rockies, Phillies game packed, packed people all over, people all over. The next day. Well, we took the train back the next day. We took the same train earlier in the morning to get down to Union Station to meet one of these group tours. That's the beautiful, easy to get around boom, boom boom. So are we ahead or behind? Are we had are we continuing to just build freeways and expressways and stuff. And years ago it was weird. I used to think back in the 70s when 19 was starting to develop monorail system right above the whole thing, all the way from San Pete, all the way up. Never happens. So are we going to be forward thinking? And I don't know who's on the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council now, but or the I know forward Pinellas commissioner Eisner. But we need to look at other ways to get people moving around. They're talking about putting the rays stadium in down in Saint Pete. I love the rays. We go to the games, but it's the wrong place. Unless you have public transportation people to get over from Tampa or from Orlando. So, you know, we just don't we just need to work on these things because we're just reinventing the same wheel. If we don't look at other ways to get ourselves around. So I would implore this board and those represented that are on those boards that have a say with regards to transportation and other alternatives, is to express that. Thank you, thank you. Are there any other public comments, Mr. Jumper? Are there any remote access comments? If anyone online would like to make a public comment, please raise your hand and you'll be allowed into talk. And we do not have any raised hands at this time. Okay. Thank you. Okay let's go to the consent agenda, de does any commissioner wish to pull either item 5 or 6 for questions , item five is authorized execution of contract for conducting special municipal election. Item six is increased. File number 210025. Facilities maintenance, repair and operations, through Florida State. Contract. Number 31160000, if I'm going to go to public comments, are there any public comments on either one of these two items? Parallax 514 Ashland Avenue. I'll be brief, number five, the execution of the contract for conducting special municipal election. I would like to take this moment to recognize, our clerk, Irene Jacobs, and Michelle Manousis and all the staff that work on putting these things together and making sure the public is aware and the candidates are aware of all the requirements. And it's a big job. It just shows up here on like a resolution or just an authorizing a contract. But I do feel it's important to recognize the city staff that has to take the time out of their other duties to handle an election which our forefathers fought, that we can have the chance to vote. And I hope as many people turn out this election to vote. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I agree with that. Now, our rules of procedure say we're not supposed to clap, but I let people clap, which means we can clap to Irene. You do in your staff. Do a fabulous job. Thank you. Thank you everybody, if there's no, commission comments, may I have a motion to approve item five and six, please? In a second. Second, roll call. Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Mr. Collins? Yes, Commissioner. Coleus. Yes. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes. Mayor. Vatikiotis Yes. Special consent agenda item seven. Award bill. Award. Bill I'm sorry. Award bid file number 240110. Safford fitness Park. Pickleball courts. City manager, of course. Yeah As Jenny is walking up, I'll go ahead and introduce this thing. Jenny is going to come up in case there's any questions on the bid. This is one of the few times in recent times I've been happy about a bid coming forward, this is something we've been working on for a while about the pickleball courts and getting them there, a little bit of background. We started out with $120,000 budget. We knew that that wouldn't go very far. I think we told you sometime last year because of Ron and is figuring on interest, and I believe it was the interest from the penny money. But somewhere we're in a neighborhood of 240,000, in that time, interest from Arpa and interest from general fund gave us somewhere in the area of 350 to 375, to be able to use to try to get the four courts in that location. I was truly expecting bids in the $450,000 range and above of, on this bid, we did get a bid, for 357,000 and change. It was a bid that the extra two courts from the two courts. We're looking at the four courts, the extra two courts are less than $100,000 to add the two courts. It's a company that is doing pickleball courts in other cities, I believe in Florida. We've checked. I know, I know, one town. I was trying to find the person at the city manager's conference last week, but so it's not somebody that just thrown out a low bid, and we're going to be suffering, so, so the money again, I was anticipating 450 somewhere around. And, the possibility of scaling back to maybe three or, you know, hopefully not two, because we've seen the demand over all the years for this. And, this will ease our tennis courts, which again, were, you know, we don't meet the comp plan for those. So this is a win win situation, I believe it's koalas. General contractors, 359,781, we do have the money from interest money. One thing we'll note was we're doing 30,000 less from recreation impact fees. One, because we got the higher interest. And two, we use that money for some of the improvements on Dorset Park, so because of the interest coming in, we're able to use that. Rec. So whereas you saw in past documents 60,000 for rec impact, we were able to use 30,000 for another project. And the interest from Penny general and Arpa was able to pay for it all. So it didn't take money from other projects. It was the interest that was coming in which, you know, interest is not been too good, but it was better than we had thought. And we're able to fund this through that. So again, no other projects suffer. So I'm very happy and bringing the proposal for you to do for courts with lighting. Now we did not bid in the amenities because we knew about the prizes. So we are internally going to add be work on the benches and shade. Those things are done. This is the courts, the fences and the lighting lighting. But we will take over internally, we didn't want that to run up the bid because we were worried about it. So we will be working on those things in-house, but my recommendation is to accept the, the four courts with, with lighting, from koalas. And again, Janine is here. If you have any questions about the, the bid, the processes and answer any questions. Also we have Nick here representing project administration who worked on the bid. So if there's any questions we'll be glad to answer them. Miss Lewis, do you have anything to add right now? No I do not. Okay. Stand by. Any public comments on this item? Good evening. Craig Lunt 743 Chesapeake Drive, I just wanted to thank, city Manager Lucas and the staff for all the work they put in on this, as Mark had mentioned, it took us a long or took the city a long time to get this. A lot of planning to get this, it's been a demand that I've been hearing about for least a couple of years. So I'm really glad, you know, pleased to see that it's going forward that way. And again, I just wanted to, mostly thank the staff that worked on this. It's been a good project all the way along. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other public comments on this item? David Ballard, Goddess Junior, Georgia Avenue, Palm Harbor I know the City of Dunedin and various other municipalities are are pushing for pickleball courts. Dunedin's got the, the par three golf course down there south of the Causeway all torn up, in pursuit of putting in pickleball courts, I think things, funding things such as pickleball courts and roundabouts and, Pelicans with baseball hats used. Pelicans with baseball hats for 30 grand is not an essential function of government. I think we're lacking a lot of funding in in essential functions, the city of Saint Petersburg, for example, their sewer systems collapsing, and they want to promote baseball stadiums as we have priorities, that are being looked over and, in pursuit of recreational activities and funding arbitrary, perm suits. And I feel as though funding more for, essential fundamental functions of government is vital at this point. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other public comments, Mr. Jumper? There any remote access comments ? Anyone online would like to make a public comment? Please raise your hand and you'll be allowed in to talk. And we do not have any raised hands at this time. Okay, before I go to Commissioner Coleus, let me let me in. And if there's any questions for from Miss Lewis, let me just say something. When we first got started. And this adds to what the city manager was saying when we first got started, you know, there was some, weren't sure as far as the cost and everything, just as the city manager had said. And, we had that at that time budgeted for, this is, maybe a year ago or so, budgeted 60,000. And then the penny fund was 60,000. That's the old budget, and what you see now, that Mr. Herring has put together is, is basically what we can actually do right now based on some windfall that we did. And, of course, you know, you can always use that windfall for something else, but whatever motion we have and I'm sure it's going to be either 3 or 4 pickleball courts, whatever motion you make, I'd like for you also to deem this as a priority project, just to understand that this is something that people the commission feels is very important to the public, and that's because we're we're adding money to something that we've already budgeted. And there's been a little bit of scrutiny of that, of late, at the city. And I just want to make sure that everyone out there recognizes that the commission feels that this is a this is an important addition to the city of Tarpon Springs. I don't know what each commissioner is going to say. That's just my, recommendation at the time. We do make a motion on this. So, Commissioner Kalia, you had your light on first. Yes. I just I just wanted to ask , Miss Lewis with once they received the notice to proceed, when can we expect them on whatever we vote on to start building and potentially finish this project? Oh, I think that would. Janina Lewis, procurement services director. Good evening, I think that's more dependent on, material lead time. So basically, when we give a notice to proceed, depending on what they are already aware of and how well their suppliers are set up, it could be anywhere from maybe 2 to 3 weeks before we start seeing some initial action . Okay. Thank you ma'am. And I just I want to thank this board and including, Mr. Lunt, because it took a supermajority to be able to, come to this decision with the pickleball court. And I think it's great. It's going to tie in that section of town. It's a nice gateway coming into the sponge docks as well. And, could recreational fit with all the other activities there. And, this board, together with the supermajority, vote was a big deal. And you're going to see it's going to be used a lot by the residents. And it's a great way for people to be outdoors and enjoying activities. So I want to thank this whole board and Mr. Lunt. Thank you. Okay, vice Mayor Eisner, Commissioner Coleus, you had your light on to turn it off, okay, yeah. Go ahead and go ahead and say something. No, Commissioner coleus asked my question. Okay. Vice Mayor Eisner. Yeah, I was going to say, Commissioner Coleus is also asked the same question that I have, but I'm in agreement to this. And I'm going to push to go for the, for, courts. But I'd also like this board to, backtrack on the decision we made at Riverside Park to, to a lot. One court for pickleball, which I think would be a mistake to do over there. And we should let that be a tennis court and this be a pickleball court and never the two shall meet. It's different system, it's just not proper, you know, on that type of surface for pickleball, you know, because we're going to be putting that material on the court. So that's the only thing I want to add. Why don't we split that into two, get the pickleball courts out of the way and then come back with, I'm fine with that. I just wanted to make my statement. All right. Commissioner Dina, anything, Commissioner Collins, anything else to add? Okay Miss Lewis, thank you. And thank you for the information you gave me, from. We actually bid this out again in 2021, I believe. And it came out $62,000, but that was without lights. So the amounts that we're seeing right now are very consistent with what we saw three years ago, which is a good thing, rather than 50% more. So I feel good about that. And also , Miss Jacobs for digging up some of our old backup that we had so I could talk about what we, what we were working on, about a year ago, I guess. And moving ahead. So may I have a motion to approve whatever number of courts that you'd like with? Also, the statement that this the commission believes that this is a priority and adopts the funding that the city manager is proposing. Is there a second, second, second, and I'd like to add the amendment that we go with option of the for court with lighting, for courts, with lighting. That's good catch . That's right. Okay. For courts with lighting. Second. All right. Miss Jacobs, you got everything. Who made the motion? Second and everything. All right, let's do a roll call on that. Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Collins. Yes Commissioner. Coleus. Yes. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes. Vatikiotis Yes, Commissioner Eisner, did you want to talk about this other thing or make a motion, see if you get a second on it? Yes. I would like to make a motion to, retract that, decision that we had made to make, the tennis court in one of the tennis courts into a, pickleball court. So that's my comment. Is there a second to that by anybody, Mr. Mayor, I put my light just. I'd be concerned if we're going to retract a previous project that was agreed to that was granted change it any way that there would be no concerns. That's not on tonight's agenda. So the public wants to speak on that one. I would I'm not saying don't do it. What I'm saying probably you probably want to put it on the June 18th meeting. I kind of agree with him on this. That's why I wanted to make it just as a comment. But, you know, yeah, we don't have to make that was part of the original contract for that. Anyway, that was an addition that was made by, one of the commissioners. But if, just for the purpose of giving everybody an opportunity, we'll schedule it for June 18th and, and commissioner, sorry. City manager, of course, can get a sense from everybody. As far as I to me, it doesn't matter one way or the other. And, and let me just before we table that until June 18th, does anybody want to offer any comments on that or. Yeah, Commissioner Coleus, just, I'm not sure how far along we are with the, the design process of, with Mr. Mister Function can help, maybe the lines have already been made or not. So I'm not sure if he could help assist the. Really help. Actually, I received the CAD drawings on Friday, and signed off on them this morning. I'd have to call the company and see where they are in the process, point. I'm not sure if it went to and went to production yet or not. I doubt it, but I'll have to call first thing tomorrow morning. We'll make the call first thing in the morning and then appropriately, you know, bring it back. That information. Okay, sir. All right. So why don't we just stop here, go ahead, Commissioner Collins. Yeah, this this is not a they're not taking a tennis court and making it a pickleball court. What they're doing is having alternative lines. So anybody who wants to play pickleball on the tennis court can play pickleball. We're not converting a tennis court into a pickleball court. So there are going to be people that there are people that live in that neighborhood that want to play pickleball. And right now what they're doing is they're coming out with chalk and drawing, but they're doing some alternative lines so that they can play. Now on this surface, you can't draw on it because it's rubberized with, you know, groove and stuff. So we're just allowing one pickleball court to have an alternative line or one tennis court to have alternative lines so somebody can play pickleball. They can still play tennis on that court as well. So it's not we're not converting a tennis court to a pickleball court. So let's go ahead. Did you want to say something? I sure do, well, let's make it short. I mean, when you say I sure do, we mean that. Let's get ready. All right, go ahead. Thank you, that's not 100% true. And because I've spoken to people with tennis in mind, and they say it's confusing to have multiple lines, it's a different net. I don't play tennis, and I don't play pickleball, but I know that the people that play tennis don't want this. Okay, that's all I want to say. All right. Thank you. That was short. Thanks very much. Goes with the height. All right, so let's talk about this, June 18th and city manager will have a little more information, you know, I, some of the, those appliques may have lines on them. I don't know, maybe I don't even know how they put the lines down. So thank you. And thank you, Mr. Lewis. Yes, ma'am, let's see. Okay. Number eight. Authorize city manager and police chief to work with regulatory agencies for approval to widen the period of excluding motorized boats and watercraft and Spring Bayou area, that was that. That was my doing. And basically, we received a letter from Miss Cornett, who? I don't know, but it was a very nice letter. And she reminded me a couple of things, and one of them was the fact that, we did have the manatees. I believe it was last year that stayed rather late. And we talked about that time of, of widening the data or at least looking into it. And Police Chief Young basically explained to us that that's a process that we go through and this item simply, authorizes the city manager and the police chief, just basically to, go into an inquiry with a specific date and see whether that date would the widening would be to those dates would be possible or whether depee would come up with some other dates? Probably less than that. I don't know, but I would like to see a little more protection for our manatees, and we are on that list of best springs to see manatees, list in Florida and that was another thing that I didn't know about, that the young lady Miss Cornett pointed out to, to me, anyway, in the letter that she sent. So, that's all I had to introduce this item. The, back up speaks for itself. I want to thank whoever else added that additional back up, beyond the memorandum. And, so forth. Are there any public comments to that to on this item? Thank you. Mayor I would also like to add to that, the fishing that takes place during the winter time and the bayou affects the safety of the manatees. I've seen people out there fishing with treble hooks and so forth, most of the manatees today have been hit with propellers, and I do believe that we lost close to a thousand manatees during a red tide, issue, two years ago. The manatee population is being subjected to ill practices of man, and I believe we could enhance protections for those manatees by disallowing, boats in the bayou. When manatees are present, as well as, putting in controls to prevent people from fishing, during, the manatees need a place of refuge and safety during the winter time when it's cold. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, actually, I agree with that treble hook, everybody knows what a treble hook it's the old snag hooks that people would cast and snag. Mullet And it's real easy to mistaken a school of mullet for a manatee that just. It's fin that's making ripples on the water. So maybe that's something we can look at as well. If the commission approves to move ahead with this, Mr. Barlow. Thank you, mayor and commissioners. Senior staff. Robert Rockline, 755 North Lake Boulevard here in Tarpon, whenever this comes up. And it did last year and maybe it had to do with the seasonality and such. But at the recent events that have been held in the city, you hear this wine in the sky and it's the police department's drone, which is a good thing. I know they're documenting it, you know, partially for PR, but also it adds to public safety and observation on the waterways. You don't have a current harbor unit, you don't have a helicopter. You do have drones. It's an eye in the sky. It's an extra cop on the beat. Now, I know you need somebody to monitor it. And the technology is out there to gauge speed and everything else. But just like in traffic enforcement, you have the engineering, the education and the enforcement. The three E's. This would help with enforcement both. There's a lot of complaints about jet skis and boaters and things like that. To have an extra officer with no vacation, no benefits, no salary, it's a one time purchase. And of course, like I said, somebody can monitor, but one officer can monitor several drones, just as one officer and myself included many moons ago, could operate and observe several cameras for general area. So it's not out of the realm of possibility. And I think it would get the message out to the community. Like you said, the manatees are an amenity to tarpon. They're an amenity to Florida. And they're, you know, they're victims of, of reckless boaters. So just food for thought. Thank you. Yeah, we do have the manatee cam. That does a pretty good job of covering, spring Bayou. Maybe that would be something. Maybe to add another cam further out towards the mouth of Spring Bayou for our police to monitor. But thank you, Mr. Rogman, go ahead. Public comments. Thank you for bringing this forward. Anything we can do in our own area to protect the environment and our wildlife is a step forward. You're saying from March 1st to June 1st. I think that's a good start, the aspect that if you drive around the bayou, usually in the winter time, January and February, when the tourists are here, you're here in the. Ooh. And the Oz and families pointing out to the kids, look, look, look. So anything we can do to not only protect these animals, whether we advocate for, motorized boats to have protectors on their propellers or to slow down. But that's a good suggestion to have more monitoring of other areas of the waterways that we have jurisdiction to patrol. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Mr. Lunt? Craig Lunt 743 Chesapeake Drive, something that Peter just said just sort of tweaked something in me, it six months is a long time for, for a period that says no powerboats in a place that actually has docks with powerboats on it, we might have a difficult time of saying we will. We might have a difficult time getting through the approval process for that, one of the things we might consider in lieu of is there are devices that go over your propeller on your boat that don't tend to, you know, can, you know, cause any sort of malfunctions or, or or lessen the function of your propellers that do protect manatees, if we cannot get the extended period of time we might look at regulations that require the use of these in the Whitcomb Bayou area. And I'm not sure that's just something that should consider. Thank you. Thank you, are there any other public comments, Mr. Jumper? There any remote access comments? If anyone online would like to make a public comment, please raise your hand and you'll be allowed into talk. And we do not have any raised hands at this time. Okay, let's go to the commissioners, Vice Mayor Eisner, that was a good comment from, past vice mayor, Mr. Lunt. You know, you could have a sign there that states that no boats can enter without a manatee guard on the boat, and that would cover 12 months of the year, just that there should never be any boat in there. Except I understand, during the epiphany or the Christmas parade, where they're moved out. But, I know exactly what this protection is. It covers this, the skeg. So that you can't knife the manatee. And at the same time, it it has a shroud around the propeller that, stops them from having that spiral cut that you'll see on some manatees . So I think, you know, you shouldn't be in there with a boat moving fast, the other thing I wanted to say is, I don't understand why we're doing the time when it really manatees come and go according to the temperature of the water. Not they don't know the dates, but I know that's approximately when we our water starts to warm up. Because I've seen a number of manatees this year, traveling along the outside Anclote, Island and they're just moseying along as the water's warming up so they're no longer in where they are. So it really has to do with water temperature rather than the dates, if we've had some warm weather just recently and that's why they're not in there, so but I do think that any boat that's in there just because people buy boats, they just they don't not always know how to use them. Or it could be a rental boat that somebody took. So you need to have some sort of a notification there, not just on time, but that if you don't have a protection on your outdrive, you shouldn't be in there. Okay, well, these are all good ideas. I think the time frame is more tuned to people planning. Yeah. I mean, if they're planning on something, you know, look, understanding they can't go in there at that particular time. That helps them plan, but they don't know whether they can go in there depending on the temperatures. A different issue. I, I think the idea behind this item is just to get to DEP, get some suggestions from them, come back with I'm sure the city manager is not going to go in there that says, look, let's just we want to talk about widening it here. Here's some other thoughts that came as a temperatures at the dates, treble hooks, what what is it that we can do or what is it that you would recommend? What is it that you would not recommend? Because it doesn't make any wouldn't make any difference. So that that's all and especially it's moving slow because they move slow. You know, I've taken a boat through the locks and I'll tell you that the manatees hang out in the locks. They love it, and you know, you're allowed to move your boat through the locks, but you just have to move it slow because they can get away from you and out of your way. But it has to be done slowly. They're not. You're a good boater. Well, there's a lot of people that are not good boaters. Okay. But they do move slow and you're supposed to move slow. If you move fast, you're going to hit them. I know, I know, you're being funny, but that's okay. All right. Thank you, Vice Mayor. No worries. All right. Who else, anybody, Commissioner DiDonato. Okay we did the public comments. May I have a motion to authorize the city manager to proceed with exploring some of the recommendations that we heard tonight, including widening the time frame of excluding motorized boats and watercraft from Spring Bayou and its approaches as as the memorandum right as is. So move. Okay. Second. Okay roll call, please. We should. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Cooley Yes. Commissioner. Cooley. Yes. Vice mayor eisner. Yes Mayor. Vatikiotis. Yes. Okay. What I'm going to do is go ahead and, since, you know, we're supposed to go to resolutions at 730, but since it's ours, I'm just going to go ahead and do our public art, direction and discussion, and if that's okay with the commission. Okay. Yeah. I think we should have got the ballot language. Pardon me. I think we should have got the ballot language done first as. Go ahead and do the resolution. Yeah Okay. Miss woods, we're going to go ahead and proceed with that. Okay. Mr. Lewis, if you could read, item 11, resolution 2024, by title. Yes resolution number 20 2417, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, calling for the special municipal election to be held in conjunction with Pinellas County's primary election on August 20th, 2024, for the purpose of electing one commissioner to serve an unexpired term for Commissioner seat number two, which expires April 7th, 2026, providing for establishment of the ballot title for said election. Providing for notice to the supervisor of Elections and providing for the effective date hereof. Okay. Thank you. Miss Jacobs, do you want to say anything about this, no. It's just basically our standard resolution calling for the election and the ballot language. And, Attorney Salzman has reviewed it and it's in order. Okay. Thank you. Let me go to, public comments on this item. Are there any public comments? This is pretty much boilerplate setting up for the election on August 20th for our two, candidates. Thank you. Peter, relax. 514 Ashland Avenue. Thank you for prefacing it as preparation for the election. Again, thank you for Irene and them to get us to this point. I'm wearing blue and yellow and support of Ukraine. People that are fighting to voice their opinion and their own government. But at this point, I would like to speak about this election. As I mentioned earlier, we're looking to the future. Are we looking to the past to stay in the past? And I'm going to bring something up over the last couple of years, many of you have been criticized and many of us have been criticized for the amount of money spent with regards to the Anclote harbors. Both sides, and now all the other stuff with the trust to know and the suits from us and the stuff you have to deal with with your executive session. So many people have been blamed for why this has occurred and who's been responsible for this expense and these troubles that have brought us to this point where our city has been divided. So somehow people sometimes forget things they don't know the full history of how things occur. And I'm going to read you something, how this history began when. Mr. Delacruz, does this have to do with a ballot language? It has to do with the election, sir. Which is what this ballot is about. So excuse me one moment. Mr. Lewis. This is a political statement that he's about. It's about the election that is coming forth where you have announced your candidates for election, and I am going to speak with regards to facts. I am not going to put any opinion in other than what I'm going to read. So I received I did a public records request from the city. You can see it right there. City of Tarpon Springs, Florida dated February 22nd, 2001. Mr. Calvin C Harris, chairman, Board of County Commissioners, 315 Court Street, Clearwater, Florida. Regards ABR Plaza Dry Ceridian. Dear chairman Harris and commissioners. It has been recently brought to our attention that Pinellas County has made an offer to purchase the above caption 70 acre parcel of real property for park and recreational purposes. The existing inventory, parks and recreation facilities in the city of Tarpon Springs includes 153.2 acres of city owned parks, 22.1 acres of leased shuffleboard park, 567 acres of Anclote Key State Park, and Preserve, 128 acres. Al Anderson County Park 155 acres Fred Howard County Park, 64 acres. Nature Park, ocean property 1,089.3 total acres. In addition , 2.5 miles of the Pinellas Trail runs through Tarpon Springs with northerly and easterly extensions underway. The current population of the city is 20,850, and our total land area is less than 5000 acres, with approximately 22% of our land and park and recreation land use, plus our river and bayou systems. Tarpon Springs has the most open space and recreational opportunities of any city now in Pinellas County, which is great. We should take care, take advantage of that. We are proud of our open space system and our intergovernmental cooperation, developing and operating as a recreational amenity. The acquisition of the prime 64 acre ocean parcel early the years is an example of this cooperative spirit. On the other hand, the ABR site is one of the largest undeveloped commercial sites in Pinellas County. In 1998, the city rendered a development order for 400 square, 400,000ft■!S of office d 50,000ft■!S of commercial development on the site. This do is valid through 20,000 for all environmentally sensitive portions of the property will be preserved under the terms and conditions of the deal. The improvement will benefit the regional transportation system, as well as the employment picture for both the city and county. Our fiscal and infrastructure planning contemplates the commercial development of this site. Its loss will have a significant negative impact on both the city and county ad valorem tax base, as I see my time is about to run out, Miss Annette Parker has agreed to give me an additional two minutes of her time. As you see, she's waving. So here again, it's about money and taxes part, did Annette okay, the city is opposed to any public sector acquisition of this party. We were never consulted concerning this move, nor we are able to understand the logic behind this offer to purchase when there are several other parcels of greater environmental and recreational value. In a time when critical county capital projects are threatened by delay, Tarpon Springs requests that Pinellas County withdraw any offer to pursue purchase. The ABR Plaza. Sincerely yours, Frank DiDonato, mayor carbon copy Board of Commissioners Ellen Popovich Gay, Lancaster County administrator Rick Dodge, assistant county administrator Ellen Caddell, director, real estate management. Buzz David, director. Ed Interesting. Now, if you go back and search through the minutes in that time , there was never ever a discussion by the board to make this decision that was unilaterally done. Unilad really a major decision like this. And if you go back through the minutes of those times where I mentioned the 64 acres nature preserve, the ocean property, there were some discussions at that time. Somebody wanted to have it rezoned, and then the county stepped in and he backed off, and then the county took it. That's the 64 acres off of Carlton, just north of the west Klosterman Preserve. Now, the thing about that that's a preserve. You can't go in there. You can't see it. So no one enjoys it. It just preserves the area. So I would like to see some way that the county looks at that. And with the West Klosterman Preserve to create some kind of a nature preserve that people can actually enjoy, instead of driving by and seeing a fence. But sometimes history can get hidden by time. So Frank , thank you for all the time, money that we have all had to expend to save this land, which at one time when you ran against Chris, you said you would do, I'm going to continue on with public comments, but I want to make sure everybody understands from my perspective, my personal perspective as mayor. I've made it clear to Mr. Delacruz, I've made it clear to Mr. Hrabowski, Mr. DiDonato, Commissioner Koulianos and Commissioner Kalia, I'm staying out of politics and quite frankly, if I have an opportunity to shut political nonsense or statements down, I'm going to do that and y'all can yap all you want and object. I'm still going to turn to the city attorney and ask his opinion on it. So know what everybody says is fact is not necessarily fact checked. And there's you know, it's politics. So that's all I'm going to say about this. I'm not taking any sides. It would be the same thing as if, Commissioner DiDonato got up to the podium and said something. So let's continue with public comments on this matter. I have a point of order. Point of order. Since Commissioner Didonato's name, he's going to have, does he have a right to, I'm going to have him give him an opportunity. But let let's finish public comments first. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Anita. Pros nine along Bayshore Drive, Ellen Popovich wrote that letter, and we all know it. She's the one who talked to the county. She's the one who said no. Mr. Delacruz knows it. We're in the future now. That's never going to be a park out there. You can't afford it. It's dangerous today with the way the world is turning. And when ABR wanted to us to take it, they said no because of the cost. They don't want Commissioner DiDonato to win. I know why, and if they spent money fighting and that was their choice, not the city's. This has got to stop. It's over with. I feel sorry for Peter, but he chose to take the other side. We're moving on. The community is moving on. But he did not write that he was mayor at the time. And I'm going to take up for that because I dealt with ABR also, and there's been a lot of misstatements made about that project, a lot about what's been going on. It's over with and let's just move on, okay. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? My point is, when you make one political, you're going to have a stream of other politics and quite frankly, I'm hoping there's an opportunity for form for this type of discussion that all the public can sit in and listen to what the candidates have to say. And also know what anybody else says. There's opportunities at public comments at the beginning of the meetings as well. So let me go, Mr. Jumper, there any remote access comments? If anyone online would like to make a public comment on these items, please raise your hand and you'll be allowed into talk. And we do not have any race hands at this time. Okay, Commissioner DiDonato, your light is on. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah I can. Start from 91. I can actually start before that. If you'd like, but, that particular site. Peter, you know, this has always been designated not only by the city, but by the county as one of the largest commercial development sites in Pinellas County. It has been even in the 80s, it was designated that and in fact, in 96 and 97, ABR came to this town to propose a development which would consisted of two, basically multi-story tower type office buildings with parking that was very, very close. The only reason why I think it didn't happen was because they found an opportunity in Saint Pete of existing buildings, as former mayor pro-tem just told you. And I know you know that to that letter was written by staff, it was written by Ellen Posavac, and it was written by Julie Staley. They did that together. It was a policy of the commission. If you notice at the end, it was copied to the commissioners. That was in no way a stance for me to dictate policy further. I served on the Pinellas Planning Council and that was in the top ten for commercial sites. And not only that, we worked with the planning department of the county and again, that was designated as one of the largest commercial sites I have seen when I was in commission from 1991 to about 9495, there were many, proposals, nothing successful, but they were all basically mixed use or commercial sites they were talking about. One was talking about strip centers. One when I became mayor in to, 1998 to 2004, there were several opportunities again, or inquiries to develop this piece of property. What that letter stated was the facts. Now if you look at selling that property and look to the West and diagonally go across to your right, Peter, you'll see a park or know of a park called Anclote River Park. I was proud to vote for that park and support that park. If you go down the road just less than a mile, there's a county park, Anderson Park, which is very, very nice park. If you come back to Tarpon Avenue and you go out to Highland Lake areas on Lake Tarpon, that park, I helped to support improvements to that park. If you come out and go to Richard Irving Park, which basically is a boat ramp with some picnic tables, I helped to support to repair that. I personally put my labor in to reduce side on on the rotary fields, endorse that fields over the years I've did that. We got through volunteers and I purported that we bring in Bermuda grass. When I became a commissioner, and we sent their people down to Dunedin and worked with Blue Jays to develop that. So for you to sit up here and say, I don't evaluate parks, that's just not true. And for you to say a unilateral did that again, that's not true. That was the concept both before I came on the commission, during the time I was on the commission and after the time I was on commission. So I'd like that issue to be known. I in no way am against parks. I'm pro parks. But that location has always been to my knowledge. And in Costa and Anita both go back longer than I do and know that that's been commercially thought of from the beginning. That I can remember. So I'd just like to put this issue I know everybody, when you're campaigning, you want some kind of issue to beat up somebody on. But this is an issue that has been said was a long time ago. The letter you're talking about was February 2004. That's 20 years ago. And basically to this day, they're still talking about developing that property of which I had nothing to do with. So I think it's a little lame of you and anybody else that uses that, that argument. Okay, anybody else, any other commissioner? Commissioner. Kolody I'm sorry, Commissioner DiDonato, you're done. Okay. I wanted to follow up on the municipal election part on the what? I just wanted to, follow up on the municipal election and ask city clerk at this point, how much have we spent to start this special election? And what do you think our overall total cost will be? Even though we are receiving a discount off the piggyback from, the county election that's happening in August, currently we have, paid the supervisor of elections, a couple dollars short of $3,000. And, as far as the rest of the cost, it would include the city's costs, such as, our legal ads and those have not come in yet and are transient, you know, Spanish translations of items. Okay. Thank you. I just want to make a couple comments regarding this election. Obviously, we see there's going to be tensions at times, but it's very important for us to, look at everything and make very important, methodical decisions when running for office or even resigning for office, because it's there's gaps here now and, it does cost the city money, time, frustration when we can't be working on other issues. So just a lesson that we all understand the importance of running for office in Tarpon Springs and the people, expecting us to fulfill that spot. And let's just learn from this and move forward, because obviously, we see what's coming in front of us in the next couple of months. So thank you, anybody else, may I have a motion, Commissioner Collins to. Okay. Nothing. All right, we have a motion to approve, resolution 2024, dash 17 and a second, please. So, moved second. Okay. Roll call. Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Persis. Yes, Commissioner. Coleus Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes. Mayor. Vatikiotis. Yes Okay, let's go back to our discussion direction on future projects. I'm thinking this will be a little more peaceful. City manager, of course. Yes, as you know, this item came up from our last meeting, again, last meeting, we had a presentation. Usually there's no city business that's involved in the presentation. However, you were asked, about endorsement or. I don't know what the right word is of two projects coming up. So we brought it to this agenda, to discuss and talk about again for my mind, as you know, you know, it's your board, Miss woods is my liaison, but, I think some of the discussion should include how we go through these in the future. This, this, this coming up with with projects that hasn't been vetted at all with the board or with themselves, there's a budget process. There's a budget process that is brought to you from the, our committee and I think we need to make sure that we don't go from presentation to these decisions, which I don't think you have enough facts on to make positions on. So that's where a lot of the discussion should go in on them in direction. And, again, that's just my feeling as being the liaison and, and having someone as a liaison for the board, the public art committee may have another opinion on it, which is fine, because they're your board. So I think that should be involved. Discussion of how we bring these things forward and try to get endorsements or directions or okays from the board, before it just comes out in the presentation, would miss would you want to start, good evening. Diane Wood, director of cultural and civic Services, yes. You did hear the presentation at the last meeting. And so, Miss Jennings, who is our chair for the public art committee, brought up, some of our proposed projects. And so, with your permission, if you would like to hear an overview of those, I will ask Miss Jennings to give you an overview of the two projects that are being considered. Is that Miss Jennings? Okay. Let's see if I can. I know that you got, printouts of the presentation in your, backup, but let's see if I can get it. One of your other members behind you? Yes. Let's see, we have, Katie Taylor and member, Biba Christofellis. Okay okay. Oh. Fire department always comes to the rescue. That actually looks pretty good. Yeah I want to go back up. One. No Okay, first, I would like to tell you something about our process, we have two classifications for, applied commissions to do projects with the public art committee, if someone from the committee, comes up with a project that we'd like to have, such as, say, the murals at the Riverside Park concession stand, we'll put out a call to artists, and people will make an application addressing that call. And we consider that a solicited project. The other, the other qualifier is if, a member of the public comes to us with a proposal, in fact, we got one from Greece, to do, these extensive, etchings, they're considered unsolicited projects. And we have two different applications. So, the thing about an unsolicited project is we have to discuss the merit of each project, we usually assign a member of the public art committee to kind of shepherd that particular project. And it involves us the scope of the project. The first, I guess, qualification is that each project has to have a location. You know, we just can't, you know, create something and then try to figure out where it's going. So the first one was proposed by, Doctor Elizabeth Coachman and it was a statue, to honor Doctor Mary Jane Safford, the location proposed would be on the grounds of the Safford House Museum. And that, like every other project we do, is on city owned property, doctor coachman sent us a very extensive email, she's also the author of a biography, Mary Jane Safford, MD. Indomitable. Might an and, at the meeting last week, I offered to send a full text of the email, detailing, Mary Safford's accomplishments, I did not get any requests for that, but, Graham Jones, volunteered actually, to chair this, exploration, if you will, and, and, the process after we have, you know, determined, a location would be for the city to approve the site, then we determine a budget for the, the artist, the fabrication of the piece and the cost of installation. And we also, for a project of this scope, create a selection committee, which is a group of 5 to 7, people who are considered experts in one facet of the project or the other. One might be an expert in sculpture, one might be an expert in local history. So you know, it's up to, the member chairing the committee, to bring the selection back to the public art committee for its approval. So right now, this project, an unsolicited bid project, but with a location and, and, you know, is presented to you for consideration and approval, both of the project itself and the location. Does anyone have any questions? One at a time, or do you want to do the whole I'd like to do them one at a time because they okay. But do you have any budget amount yet or. Well the budget is determined determined by the actual scope of the project because both of these are figural sculptures. So you have to, first, you know, get an artist who will actually create the sculpture, and then it has to be fabricated. So there are a lot of new techniques, new materials and things of that sort that we can consider, for the fabrication, which would obviously affect the price of the budget, figural statues are usually fairly expensive and artist fees, you know, coincidentally. So, you know, you'd pay a sculptor, you know, more for a piece than you'd say a muralist. Okay, well, let me let me go to the public first. If we're going to take one at a time, are there any public comments on this particular proposal? Anita, protest, 91 Bayshore Drive. I have for years wanted to move the Safford house to the piece of property on the bayou because nobody goes up there. They don't go up there a lot to see this house. I think it would be nice to have the statue, but mayor, at one point you even thought it was a good idea to move the house to the Hoffman property on the Bayou. And since we haven't discussed it because we sort of parted ways, I think it's something we need to think about. We made a presentation about it at the library, the rotary was there, the women's club was there, and I sent a packet, but it's gone from the city. I don't know what happened to it. Outlining that we would all try to raise money to move it there. You even brought, companies here, and they told you how it could be moved. And it is expensive. And during that, presentation, you know, we said we can also have restaurants put in there, venues to have venues there to have weddings. The women's club, the garden club and, bridge clubs could go there. You can make money off of it. And the property that it's sitting on sell it to the neighbors who live in that area to extend their backyards or their front yards. There's many ways to do it. And the clubs came forth saying that they would be willing to work to raise the money, and it would be good for the, finish the corsage on the bayou of beautiful homes of Tarpon Springs. Sunday in the Saint Pete paper, there was a magazine called the Bay magazine, and it showed all the older homes in the Tampa Bay area that have turned to venues like this, and money's made on them. They've gotten grants, they've had money donated, and we need to, investigate that and put the Safford House, which is a beautiful home for the community and a historic home on that piece of property. And it can be done. It takes time. But these companies know how to cut them, to move them, and how beautiful that would be on the bayou. As the proud home of Tarpon Springs. And put your statue on it and people would see it. Children would see it, and it would be utilized more than what it's being utilized now, because at one point, it wasn't being taken care of till we came up here and started fussing about it, and then work started being done on the Safford house. This is a beautiful project. It's not for me. I won't be here in ten years. Maybe next year I won't be here. But it's for the community. It's the home of the community with all the other beautiful big homes on the bayou. Look at what it's going to take and let in Tarpon. Let us start raising the money. The historical society, all of the community work to move the Safford House there. Put your price on it. Let the neighbors buy the property to back it up for the city. And let's go for grants. Even our city manager at the very, very beginning said, oh yeah, there's a way to get grants. When you read the grants that are coming out of proposals out of Tallahassee, there's a lot of money there for these things, and it makes your community beautiful. But for some reason, mayor, you've changed your mind. But we need to look at it. Let's get the house here. Let's get the statue there. Let our community and our children know who the who. The, people who made tarpon in the early years were about. And their commitment to this community. Don't lose this house because you're losing it. People don't go up there. It's out of the way. You're okay for the statue. But the idea is to move everything over to. Yeah, and tell them they can do the statue. Start raising your money. Let's move the house there. Let's get the community behind it. Let's start renting it out. Having a program. You've got the kitchen with it. You should see that, Bay magazine. If I had known it was going to come like this, I'd have brought it tonight. Beautiful. What they're doing. Hernando, DeLand. All up in the up, the boondocks of the state of Florida. These big homes are being moved and renovated, and they're making something out of it. And let's be proud of the bayou and finish what it should be there. Thank you. Are there any other comments? My name is John Saxer. I live in holiday, but I work in Tarpon and while I don't like the idea of moving the house up to the spot where the, hotel was, I think there's a better project. It's great to honor Doctor Mary Safford, and it's great to put a statue there, but I have talked to the commission before about this. I think there's a better project. We should be honoring. Poseidon. The Spring Bayou was built by Poseidon. When Poseidon came here, he. The first thing he did on Earth was build an underground river. And that river produced the spring of life. So around the area I found over 2000 stone anchors from an ancient fleet of giants that ruled over Florida. 14,400 years ago. And we should be considering what they did for the area and producing Spring Bayou. The story of the Garden of Eden is God carved out a river for Adam and Eve. The source for that story is an 85 foot giant from another planet, an extraterrestrial named Poseidon carved out the Anclote River by hand. According to Greek mythology. But Heinrich Schliemann, in. 1870 found Troy in, Turkey. And when he was a boy, his father wrote his father, told him all sorts of stories about Greek mythology. And when he was a boy, he said to himself, he's going to go out and find Troy. And he found Troy in 1870. What that means is Greek mythology is not mythology , it's reality. And so what I decided to do was go to find the source of Greek and Atlantean non mythology. That's how I came to tarpon Springs. Ponce de Leon led me here. Ponce de Leon named the river is Spiritus Sanctus River. Holy spirit River. The spring of life. He found here that was his fountain of youth. But to his confusion the fountain of youth turned out to be a spring of rejuvenating fish life. It was a fish hatchery that Poseidon built. So if we were to put a stone circle of nothing but stone anchors from the ancient fleet of Atlantis on the property that Anita wants to move a house which would cost us $300,000 to cut that house in half and move it over to the property. I think it's fine where it is. Add a statue to it, it to it, and put the stone circle at the property where the Sunbeam Motel was. 13 stones, 12 stones in a circle. One big stone anchor in the middle. And we'll get enough tourists in here down to that area where they'll walk over to the, Safford house. Because we'll be a famous landmark. This city is more than any other city because it was the source city for the Garden of Eden story. I spent 60, almost 57 years in archeology. I started when I was 14, right now there's videos all over the internet proving that these stone anchors means that an ancient fleet used to be here . That fleet, of course, was Atlantis. So I would hope that the arts Board and the Commission would see fit to spend only $30,000 instead of $300,000. And I, I said this before, I've lived in the Safford home. When I first came to town, I worked for a construction company as a foreman again, and I would say cutting that house and moving it in in two pieces over there is an iffy situation. Thank you, Mr. Sexter. Thank you. I also want to mention Mr. Saxton's help the city staff, by identifying some free, stones that have been around Tarpon Springs and we've been collecting them and putting them on, city property, for future use. So I want to thank you for that, are there any other public comments? David Ballard Geddis Jr I'm not against artwork in the in the community, but within the industry and the art industry, there's a lot of money shuffling that goes on behind the scenes, here's an example. Let's say I was to paint the Mona Lisa smile on George Washington's face. And then behind the scenes, I'd give you $0.10 on the dollar. That's the type of industry that I'd stand against. So if we have that taking place within the art community, in order to get this artist or that artist to produce this form of artwork, and then behind the scenes, there's a little bit of money shuffling that going on, we need to pay attention to what the industry is capable of doing. I'm against, such a sarcastic, undertakings. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ghettos. There any other public comments, Mr. Jumper, there any remote access comments on, this particular item, which is, Doctor Mary Jane Safford statue? We do have raised hands, so I'll allow the first person in. Okay. If you can unmute and state your name and address. For the record, Liliana Day 413 East Oakwood Street, Tarpon Springs, Florida. Good evening everyone, speaking, the speaker there about the stone circle was was marvelous, also about the location of the statue and but what I want to talk about is the process. To, do a process with an unknown budget to me is not feasible. So until we get a budget and how much it's going to cost because you got this project and another project that you're doing not wanting to go over budget. And that's my statement. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jumper. Is there anyone else. And we do have another raised hand. Allow the next person in. And if you can unmute and state your name and address for the record. Hi Earnest Kiernan 3101 Coronet Court, Tarpon Springs, Florida. I just want to say that I think the statue would be a great addition, and I also, you know, I'm really happy that the city is trying to be, beautify things. And, it's pretty much it. Mr. Trump, is he still connected , he is still there. But we are not hearing anything from him at this time. I think he finished. He finished, sir. He finished. Okay. Thank you, anyone else? Mr. Trump that's standing by and we do not have any other raise hands at this time, okay, let's go to the commission, Commissioner Koulianos, you've got your light on. This is a set of questions I would ask on both of these projects. You know, I think before we bring projects, before the board of commissioners from the art committee, I think we have to ask these and answer these questions, identify the project. What kind of project is it? Is it a statue, a mural, etc? If it has historic if it's historical nature, has the proper research been done, to, to research regarding that historical, project? Where will it be located? What is the estimated cost of the project? Some sort of a budget. And, and, and also very importantly, the Board of Commissioners needs to know that the whether the Art committee has endorsed the project. So the question I have for you, Joan, is, is, was this project either one of these projects vetted or, approved by the art committee? Well, I'd like to deal with them separately, the thing the thing is that I guess the art committee works a little differently than, say, somebody who's going out to bid to buy equipment. You know, you're dealing with something concrete with art. You're dealing with conceptual ideas. So the fact that, you know, I come to you asking for the ability to explore this statue is opening the door to, to pretty much create answers to all the other questions you just asked. Has the has the Art committee endorsed? Yes, yes it has. Okay. And, the you know, the thing is that doing one of these is a lot of work and very complicated. And so to embark on it without getting the blessing of the board of commissioners would truly be a really a big waste of time on our part. And, you know, I keep, going back, to what I call the Naiad fiasco in which the public art committee spent an entire year hours, soliciting and creating art proposals for the, the roundabout circle at the, the end of, Dodecanese Boulevard. Only you know, we worked on it for an entire year, only to have it shot down by one of the commissioners because it wasn't what was wanted. So that was kind of, you know, a lesson for us to sort of get a blessing to even proceed with the project. And, you know, I think we're very proud of the idea that we do everything by committee, you know, the Black Heritage Project, which is hopefully nearing completion with the installation of the, final piece, took us four years. So, you know, we determined locations. We created a call to artists. We received. You know, you have to allow a certain amount of time for artists to prepare proposals, the selection committee was created, and all of the proposals were reviewed. They were rated by the selection panel. A final artist was selected and it was brought back to the public art committee. So there's is a pretty defined process for all of these things. And but the you know, the first is the recognition of the, you know, the process, the application, and we determine whether or not it has some validity. And then we assign a chair from a regular member of the committee and then bring it to you guys for your blessing. I appreciate the process, but the question is, was this endorsed this this particular project endorsed by the Art Committee? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Vice chair Eisner. Right. Yeah. Excuse me. Beba. Just sort of corrected my verbiage. What was approved was the exploration of this project. Pending your approval. Vice Mayor Eisner so here's my question, Miss Jennings. Let's say the board approves it. Okay That doesn't mean that you're going out and buying anything, correct? Correct Okay. So once you then go through the process of finding out what it what will it will cost, would you be coming back to the board with those numbers? Well, there's a lot more involved than that. We'd have to, basically do some research to determine an, an approximate budget and then put out a call to artists delineating the location in the budget and, and, allow time for, for, proposals to be made in answer to the call to artists. And then a selection panel would go through the proposals and, you know, it goes through, you know, the same process that we did with other major projects, you know, done by the. So it's, you know, at any time during the whole thing maybe, you know, we see what the budget comes in at, maybe we determine that we don't want to pursue it, that it's just too expensive or it's inappropriate. It could be, you know, beyond our means. And, I live very close to the vest, and I treat the public art money the same way. In fact, the Black Heritage Project, was the budget for that was $138,000. And that was for two installations and a Wayfarer sign. So you gave me a very elaborate answer. I'm sorry. No, that that's great. That's more information than I asked. But my point is, before you go forward with anything, would you be coming back to this board to go ahead with anything or is this going to be where we say yay or nay right now? Would you be coming back to us and saying that you now, found it for 80,000 or 100,000? And so is this a final is my question, it's an approval for us to explore the project. So all of this takes place within the public art committee. And then, you know, I usually report, you know, Diane and I usually report the progress to the city manager , and he, you know, my idea would be to bring it back to this board for a final vote on it. Okay So that's where I'm trying to get to. I know you weren't giving me that answer, but that's okay, I do realize there's a process, and I do realize it's not going to buy a circular saw or a chainsaw or whatnot. Art is, you know, it's up in the air of what? What? It's unique. Every piece is unique. My whole thing is you have a budget and you want to compare the budget to whatever the art project is being presented. But still, I'm hearing that there would be a final approval for you to go ahead with that purchase, whatever it is, through the Board of Commissioners. Usually the city attorney creates a contract between the city and the artist. Right? And that, of course, you folks have to approve. So that was all I was trying to get to. I was just trying to get to that. This is by us just saying, go ahead with it or do your research and find out and whatnot. It answers all of what Commissioner Kuleana said. Plus we still have the final say on the end. Is my absolutely okay. That's it. Thank you, Commissioner Coleus, thank you. Mayor, Miss Jennings, would you say that when, an agenda item or a new piece of business comes up, that a motion can be made to create a subcommittee or continue that exploration, exploration between inside the public art committee? Yes. That's correct. Okay. And, have you already formed or named people for this subcommittee for this project at all, no. But we did appoint one of the voting members of the committee to sort of spearhead the project. Okay, my main concern is cost and, and, this, this idea of statues now is a form of art. And town and particularly, how much time and research is going to be needed, you think, to get your the subcommittee and the proper people in place to be able to present this project with numbers that are closely going to represent the cost to complete it, probably a couple of months. Okay. I have my reservations on this project. I believe that, you know, Miss Safford is a great lady. Her contributions to the area were amazing, I'm worried about the location as the Safford house, because I don't believe it gets as much visitation as the cost that this project could possibly bring out. And there's a whole house dedicated to the Safford family, and I believe there's a more cost effective way to help show an art piece or or, you know, a tribute in some artistic way, maybe within the house to the family or to Miss Safford, to Miss Safford himself. And, I'm concerned that we, you know, we're going to idolize one individual when there are many pioneers in Tarpon Springs who have pioneered their way through this town. And, that's a big concern for me. And so I don't want to go down that path. I wouldn't mind seeing a marker, a dedication marker, similar to what, we saw for Mr. Dorsett, where, you know, it's a I think it could be cost effective. It could still get the story out without a big statue of a figure of an individual themselves. And I just don't want anyone particular pioneer in the community to be singled out or idolized in that way. And there is a lot of respect and dedication given to the Safford family with the house and I would encourage every citizen in Tarpon Springs to go see it because it's beautiful. It's a beautiful piece of history for our community. And I just believe there's another way to tie into it. And I don't want I'm just worried about putting a lot of time into this, and it could end up being $150,000 statue. You and I both know you're, you know, you're you're ferm with you don't want to spend our money in any reason that's not reflective of, you know, the art in the community and I respect that. And so I'm hesitant to move forward on a statue, idolizing one individual as, the house is very representative in the community efforts and the contributions the family has made. So I don't wish to proceed forward unless they can come back with numbers that make sense. But relatively soon, because it's going to put a lot of time and effort. We're talking like, as the chair said, four months. So, I don't really want to support this project at this time. Thank you. Ma'am, do you have anything, that makes the motion? I, I remember the discussion, that occurred several years ago when they were looking at purchasing the property just across the street from the bayou there. And I understand the concept that that that it might bring to Main Street, as far as tourism, I love Safford House. I think it's a very neat program. I'm glad the city, started that program, and I'm glad the city is looking into making it better, my thing is it I, I would like to see what it would cost to move, if it's too much, then definitely. I I might have a hard time supporting it, but I believe the Safford house is neat enough that we are to do or figure out ways to get it enjoyed by more people. And I'm sure your committee has probably talked about that, too. And I think it may take a while to come up with a way to actually do that, but that's a very nice project that that the city has that could go a long way to, to help tell a story, I certainly understand about singling out certain projects or certain people, I happen to agree with that. However, it's already there, and we might as well make it as nice as we can. So so without numbers, you know, it's tough to make make a decision, but certainly what you're asking for, I believe, is a direction to go forward and I certainly support that. So thank you. May I make a comment, Miss Woods, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think there's a misunderstanding that the Safford house is not getting seen by people. You know, as the director of cultural and civic services, I keep numbers of everybody who comes in my door at the at the Heritage Museum, as well as the Safford House, so I can give you numbers per month, per year of all the visitors we've had, it's very active. We have a lot of compliments on it. It is being seen. It is being recognized. So please do not misunderstand that. It's like tucked away somewhere and nobody's finding it. They are finding it, they are enjoying it and I get lots of great comments on it. The other thing I wanted to make a comment about the process too, is that when we're doing a project two, we may initially see, you know, the committee might initially look at it as a statue. However, you know, when you're going through the explore process on a project, there might be other ideas that come up and, you know, research that says, well, maybe not, maybe it's not great to be a statue, but maybe it could be something else. So that's part of the exploratory process. You know, I sit in on all of their meetings, so I just wanted to make those two points, but mostly about the fact that the Safford House is being seen. We send those numbers to all the commission, please. Yes I would be very happy to write. Yeah. And I'd also like to remind everyone that this came from, a Tarpon Springs resident. Okay your speaker, your microphone. No, your microphone, your light is on. Did you. Yes, I did want to. I'm having trouble understanding why we're discussing moving the Safford house when we're discussing an art thing. Let's not worry about that now. I mean, I just don't understand that. But I mean, okay, I see, I understand, but the issue at hand is, is, Mary Jane Safford recognition of for. Believe me, I'm following that part of it. So, is that it? No. The other thing, so the bottom line is it would come back to us. This is just for exploratory reasons, correct? Correct. Thank you. That's it. I let me help. I think the exploratory, you just want to be able to move forward and kind of develop the ideas behind this. There's different mediums and sense of bronze, other types of things that could form a statue, it could be interpretive type statue. It could be an exact replica of. Although I'm not sure that we've got anything 3D of Mary Jane Safford. So it's going to be interpretive. So I don't want to stifle the creative process of our public art committee. And I and I trust that, you're going to answer the questions you've heard. What the commission is looking for in this particular case. So not to belabor the point, I don't have an issue with moving ahead and you coming up with some answers to questions that were asked tonight concerning this and maybe giving it your best shot as far as what, you hear tonight, although we're not art critics, that's your job, on the public art committee. So I'm okay with moving ahead with this one, just. And then you need to develop the concept a little more, okay? Okay So that's so let's let me see if there's a motion to allow the public art committee to move ahead in terms of developing concept of this, doctor Mary Jane, Safford, artwork was all I'm going to call it right now, so moved. Is there a second mayor could second, could we amend the motion to have a presentation in September? October? I want to keep it on A34 month as Miss Jennings stated that it could take about 3 to 4 months to get the proper research. If we could amend that motion and maybe have it back in September or October of this year, I don't want to put any time frame. It's their time frame, not ours to decide. Okay, Commissioner Koulianos, you seconded the. Are there any other comments from commissioners? Well, I think we shouldn't go on for six, seven months. We, you know, they've got the committee going. They the research needs to get done and hopefully a presentation could be presented to us. I don't think that it's going to take that long. I mean, I really don't, I think the committee is in a hurry to get something. It took four years to do the, Steven Oliver's artwork and I think with every major project, everybody's learning. And by the way, let me just say there has been other major art work that has been done, has gone through exploration, has gone through, call to artists, has actually come up with budgets, and then it's come to the commission to be killed, of course. Right. That's what that's what I was referring to. The great need fiasco. At least let's give them the benefit of the doubt to come up with some ideas right now. So. Sure, ma'am, roll call please. Mayor did we finish public comments? Okay. Can I have one more minute? Okay. I was checking because there's two raised hands, Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Cool. Yes, yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Vatikiotis. Yes Okay, let's see if we can kind of speed these up a little bit, okay? Okay. All right. The next one was also an unsolicited project, for an afro-bahamian sponge statue, we did select a PAC member to chair the project. Elaine Christofellis, we do not have any, approved site for it, we did propose this same project in 2020, and it was not successful, the, since the original proposal in 2020, the Board of Commissioners has also passed. I'm not sure whether it was an ordinance or a resolution that there'd be no further art projects on the working waterfront, which is where the proposer suggested this goes. So, we don't even have a location. I included it in the annual report, but, it's basically been deferred by the public art committee until August, I believe. Viva Yeah. August. Yeah, I had said June, but. Yeah. Okay Looking at it again, right. But what do you mean by deferred, the problem is the first requirement in the process of a project like this is determination of a location. And right now, we don't have one. So this would not be something we're going to be considering tonight to allow you to move forward. You know, it's it really needs a lot more done if we're even going to, you know, consider it going forward. Plus, we, as I said, we proposed it in 2020. It did not succeed. And we created the Black Heritage Project, which basically, honors, the two phases of, you know, we it's the one that's going to be put in on the dock on the about the North end, not the dock. The north end of the city. Marina will deal with the early, you know, sponge and the one that was installed at the Union Academy neighborhood deals with more contemporary contributions of the black community. You know, people like, you know, Billy the Kid, Emerson, and, you know, David Archie's family, you know, a group of ministers that, you know, school teachers, that sort of thing. So basically, we should just table this item. Yes Can we do mayor did. Yeah. Go ahead. There's a lot of history here. And there's tables in the item, but there's some statements that, you know, Miss Jennings said that doesn't really reflect what's in. I don't mind, I just I mean, either way, I just, want to move this. I mean, let me ask for public comments. Are there any public comments? Maggie Miles for 33 East Boyer Street. I was born and raised in Tarpon Springs. I'm 58 years old. Where can I go and look for the contributions that my people made to Tarpon Springs? You have a place down there. You call it Greektown, but they were not the only ones that were there. I cannot go down there and see contributions my great grandfather made when he came here on a hook boat. I can't see that. It's called Greektown. It's known for Greektown. There is no where there that shows we had history. There All our houses and Union Academy haven't been preserved. They're gone. I have no history to show my granddaughter. They put that exhibit at the Cap center. Most of the people in the community don't really care for it. It's there. Bunch of pictures from a book. It's there. It reflects something. You have to have a Q and R code to know what's actually on there. But I have nowhere I say I'm from Tarpon Springs. When I go somewhere proudly, I say I'm from Tarpon Springs, but I can't really take them anywhere to show them where my great grandfather or my grandmother, what they contributed to this city that Afro-bahamian sponger it should be there. It has every right to be there. Just as that Greek sponger is there. He has every right to be there on that dock. It has every right. And so, I don't know, all this fluff, these, you know, these people. I was supposed to be on the committee. I was never called and asked, but I have something to say about that. I'm passionate about that. And you would be too. Am I? Just tell me I'm wrong. Just tell me I'm wrong. That I'm born and raised here and my forefathers had contributions to this city. But there's nowhere we have something at Dorsett Park. Yes, we do, but we had contributions downtown. We live down there. We lived on the on Pine Street. My aunts and uncles, they we lived there. But everything's gone. We were pushed cross town. We have nothing. Everything that's done is wrong. You trying to make it right now? But we have nothing. And so I don't know what the big commotion about that about Greektown, because we worked right alongside the Greeks. They were there. History proves it. So we're not asking for a favor. We're not asking for, you know, to be included. We're asking for history to be revealed. And that's my take. Thank you. Miss Miles, I have a question. You keep saying nothing. What? What is the Steven Oliver artwork? Therefore you don't. You don't care for it or you don't want it. You don't like it. I mean, what are you talking about at cap center? At the cap center? Pardon me? At the cap center. Are you talking about. I'm talking about the one that's going to be installed at the that that we're supposed to be a couple were way overdue. It's supposed to been done by now. We don't. And it's being installed at the sponge docks by the city Marina. I have mixed emotions about that. Being in the back. I mean, yes, I understand what you're saying. I understand how you feel. I, I'm not sure I agree with the nothing part of it, so I don't either. I mean, that's how I feel. Just were we not on the working dock? Were the afro-bahamian sponge? I'm not arguing. I'm just. I'm just saying, were we not there? Yeah, I, I all I'm saying is I just wanted to make a statement that, you know, Steven Oliver work was there. So that's all. And I appreciate that that's going to be in the back and that'll be closed. You know when the people write, the majority of people may come through and may miss it, but those that are there during the daytime, they will be able to see it. Right. But I think we deserve a spot on that dock. All right. Thank you, next public comment, please. Katie Taylor, 1991 Douglas Lane, Tarpon Springs. The research part. I came here before I got on this board because this is an excellent board. I enjoy working with these. Ladies and gentlemen. I'm honored and, humbled to be on this art committee board, council. But before I came on that board, I, I approached a couple of people on this, on this diocese to get direction on how I should handle this, because I asked the city a contact, Irene, I got a thumb drive of the last four years in January 2020. When this when this the, the mayor at that time in 20 1020 said put the what might have been a commissioner. He he said have the a major the project put on the board as a as a statue as time proceeded. When I read all those minutes from those meetings from 2020 to 2024, 2023, the ball was dropped for a whole six months. It wasn't even talked about when, when, when it came down to the people that were selected as a the Black Heritage Project, only two blacks was on that committee. The right now I've done a lot of research. You got not just in the African American community, 215 people signed a support letter to support a Bahamian Sponger nativity scene statue. However you want to, whatever you want to call it. However, however, the art committee can work it out. Bible has been put in charge of that committee. She's an excellent source. The project that you have down on Martin Luther King, David, Archie, he's he sits right there. He didn't even know nothing about it. Nobody approached him. Steven. Steven, the artist, he said he met with the community. That didn't happen. I don't know what community he met with because none of us was invited to the meeting. We didn't get. We didn't get called to any meetings for that project going on. On on Martin Luther King. That's why the community was upset, because you got a lot of our all of our people, a picture of our history. People put on a fence pole of a fence that that portrays a corral, a corral, a corral is what you used to keep the sponges in. That's not a sponger. That's sponges should be standing in a nativity scene down on, on, on, on. And you can put it in front of the, just, just in general, have you anybody given us a chance to even ask if we can talk to the sponge exchange? You've got two big palm trees sitting out there. That one of those could be made in nativity scene. You Mister Brooks, Wilbert Brooks was the only Bahamian. Might have been two. I'm not sure how many Bahamian sponge captains was I know, at least I know Brooks was one that I did research on. He was on the Doris two right down there on the working dock. The where you're trying to you're saying about these two projects, these two art abstract projects, the one that's going at the at the convention, the visitors center that's being put in the back parking lot. As I said in my support letter, with the 215 signatures, all around Tarpon Springs, not just the black community all around Tarpon Springs, that those black men wouldn't even be allowed to even be at that at that visitor center, they would have been hung. They was only allowed to be right down there at the sponge Exchange. They worked on the working dock, but they worked together with Greeks and whites in the sponge exchange. There needs to be a nativity. We should be given an opportunity to just like Mary Stafford, go forward and see what we can do about making it right, because it's supposed to be you supposed to be doing diversity and history art. We're not talking history for the art, but you're doing everything else. It interfaces. So the experts that you had, we have people of suggested seven people that that they two, two of them, 2 or 3 of them might be artists, but the other ones are people sitting right here from our community, educated people with degrees. We need to we need representation on Dodecanese. I asked, I plead with you to give this a chance. Give Bieber a chance to work her magic and see what we can do. You know, let me just I understand. Let me hold on before we get into huge debate. This is to explore something. I don't want to create a statue tonight. It just says public art . Exactly. And all I'm going to say is, I don't know what we're talking about tonight, but I understand your feelings about it. And miss Miles. Yours, too. So the easiest thing for this commission to do is to ask the public art Committee to go back and explore some of these comments, but it's got to be done in a very methodical and calm manner. You know, everybody's yelling about it. Bahamian on the sponge docks. Can somebody describe what you're talking about, a statue or whatever. You know, they put out this black history thing. We got this, this artist that came back with an interpretation. Everybody doesn't like it. Well, okay, it's artwork. Everybody is a critic. Unless you see something that you can identify and put your hands around. People don't understand it. A lot of artwork I don't care for, but I understand what it's for. So let's we're at this rate on these art projects. We're going to be here till midnight and what I'd like for us to do is just to minimize the discussion on this, because quite frankly, Miss Taylor, everybody that's here, including myself, I don't know what we're talking about. A Bahamian sponge artwork in the middle of the sponge docks. I understand what you're saying, but I have no idea what that is or how that's supposed to work. I think all you're saying is maybe give it a chance to talk about it a little more. Is that right? I'm asking you to allow this art committee to do it, just like Mary Stafford. Give it a chance to go back. And I think I think unless this commission is got some reason to deny it. I mean, I don't know why we would say no and let the art committee just talk about it further. Obviously there's some heated discussions, but, there's going to be a lot of competition with whatever is going to be decided. And everybody needs to understand this isn't a personal issue. This isn't a, you know, a this neighborhood versus that neighborhood issue. I live in Greektown. I have a lot of people that aren't Greeks that live in Greektown. And I have some people from the Union Academy that live in Greektown. Now, I can tell you who they are . So it's Greektown by name. So let's just hold off a conversation at that point. I'm sorry, I'm kind of monopolizing the discussion, but I want to try to put my arms around it. Let's finish up with public comments and Miss Taylor, your time is up and let's quickly respond to the, comment previously not Miss Taylor, but, so, I know you miss Biba. I'm sorry, so Miss Taylor gave some suggestions for committee members, but she is not authorized to create the committee. So she gave me her suggestions because I had personal issues and I could not work on it until this summer. I have not contacted any of you, so it is nothing more than that. But I have not. But everyone. Those are suggestions. I have to form the committee. Okay so you were asked. You were given as a suggestion, just so you know, to be on the committee. But the committee has not actually been formed, because I, you know, life happens and I have work and couldn't get to it until this summer to really sit down and be able to, so the art committee, did, you know, we threw out some ideas that this doesn't necessarily have to be, a sculpture, number one, like, you know, Joan said, we don't have a location. So we would ask, we would have to work with, you know, Marc, on getting let's get to that point, a location first before we move forward. And I think, you know, the reason for asking for this is, you know, we don't want to again, move, put time and effort into something that there's no where to put it. Okay. So I think first, you know, I would ask for being able to sit down and see if there is any location. You know, that's possible if you want to put a ten foot wide statue and a six foot wide space, it can't go there. Well, I understand that, okay. And on the other, not. There's other issues. There's nothing going on. So let's not get to the end of the details because we don't know what the details are. Let me get back to public comments. Okay. Miss Protoss 901 Bay Shore Drive I think you need to look at the history of the coming up here when the fenders, the mirrors, the Thompsons and about 5 or 6 other families came back up from the islands after the war where they would knew they wouldn't get in trouble with the government. Way back then they came up here and started sponging again. The children of these families that went down there, you know that yourself, mayor. They came back up here and the came up after them. Who used to work for them. And they would store their sponges up in Apalachicola, and they came down this way with the spongers. And the black community saw that they were doing and they started hooking the black community men worked in the packing houses. They worked in the movies and the sponge exchange. They packed the sponges. They took them to the train station where they were once they were bundled to be shipped up north or wherever they wanted to go. So when you start talking about black and I'm going to bring you the history of it because it's been researched and you're going to see how it started and how they started working with the Greek people. And the Greek sponge ers. But you need to find out the truth about all of this, because I'm hearing things and it's not historically right. Give them a recognition of some kind. But let's not change history of Tarpon Springs. You can't change our history, because if you do, you're telling lies. I'm not calling anybody a liar, but I'm going to bring it to you. The dates and things and the names of the families. So, you know, you heard some of it yesterday. What? We've missed the boat on Mayor is we should have had a big basket from made with, a and I talked to, Mrs. Jennings about this, and it would have covered everything. Have a sponge basket , have the Greek sponger of the helmet standing behind it. Have the black man, the guy from, the white man from down off the river and other people clipping sponges all in bronze. It shows that everybody had a part in the sponge industry, and you could have made a way where we could have put a right there at the beginning. As you go down, though, the knees, you could have done it with the sponge helmet, the sponge diver with the helmet, and it would have told the story. But what did we put the little ladies dancing at the water, faucet, you know, and I've said it five times up here, but y'all won't listen to Anita Protus. And I'm not telling you to do what I say, but take it in your brain and think about it. That would have covered everybody, even all the black men that worked in the packing houses that we have left. We're losing them all. We're losing our history. That's what should have been done. All this money spent, and it would have covered the whole Tarpon Springs and the sponge docks, sponge docks and everyone but those were the how they worked with the, sponge divers. They the black men did not go down in helmets with the hose. They didn't do that. They went off of the Greek sponge boats and it's documented. And I'm going to bring it to you. So you can read it and digest it and learn. How's everybody sat back. And since 621 East Orange Street, I'm not from here, the way I learned about Tarpon Springs history was from a book from, doctor Randy Lightfoot and . Sandra Rooks, wrote a book detailing the history of black Tarpon Springs. So that's how I learned about the history of Tarpon Springs, when I looked around, I didn't see any of that history either. Like, miss Miles talked about, when I went down to the cultural center, the historic center, right in the bayou, I didn't see any African American history there either. So I would just ask the commission to do, like, the Mary Stafford and go ahead and let the Art Commission look at it. I was also asked if I would be willing to be part of the, committee, not by Miss Beba, but I said, yes, I would. I'm a member of the community, so that's my take on it. Just look at it. For what it's worth, I've been here before talking about having the sponge on the dock, right? With the other sponge. Or don't know what all that entails. Don't know where the space is or anything else, but I know there was a dog or something like that that got put on the sponge dock. So hopefully a more significant piece of art could be put there. If that's the desire of the of the community. That was the other thing, there are 200 and some odd people that that want to see this happen and hopefully before this installation gets put in the community can at least be informed of it. See what they think about it before putting it up. Because the one that's at the cap center, and I know all artists objective, it's not a piece that looks like art. When you walk by it, you just think it's covering or, you know, keeping people out of a hole. That's there in front of their cap center, that that's what it looks like. So thank you. You know, it's interesting the, public art Committee, thank you for your comments. The public art committee is made up of personalities, and they all have their ideas of artwork and they're they're professional artists and they're people have experienced with art. And as the public art committee changes, personalities, so does the ideas of the art. So not every year you're going to get the same type of art coming out of the public art committee, because people are different. But I understand. So, I, I'm not an artist. I'm an engineer. I like square corners. So, Mr. Doctor Bucuvalas Tina Bucuvalas 115, Athens Street, history cop, so, so, I think I think there's merit and in things that everyone has said and I'm certainly not against this project, I think there's room for a project, especially one that, that demonstrate that people were working together in the industry. But I have been inspired by some recent comments to talk just a little bit more. And I know you've heard this before about the history. The Bahamians are people with Bahamian backgrounds, but out of Key West originally came up the Gulf Coast beginning in the 1870s, and they established temporary key places to clean sponges all along the coast between here and all the way up to about Apalachicola. They did not live here. They temporarily they cleaned the sponges and they took them back to Key West to, to sell, because that was the main market then, beginning about the 1890s, after Cheney started the business here, he brought up, his first manager was a white Bahamian that came up with him. They brought some other Bahamians, came up, but most of the Bahamians that were up there, they were fighting with the temporary camps of Bahamian and those people weren't in Tarpon Springs. They were on the other side of the river in Anclote, and people, there were some things over here, but mostly a lot of the sponging was taking place over there. Here's what the census says about who was here in 1900. There were 252 Americans, 112 white, 140 black, and 107 Bahamians, 21 white, 86 black. And when I say Bahamian, I mean someone either born in the Bahamas or with a parent. 1 or 2 parents born in the Bahamas. So in 1900, there were more black African Americans, really from the South than there were black Bahamians, and there were more blacks than whites in the industry. There was also, of course, one Greek and one Norwegian. I wonder about that. Norwegian So in 1910 there were about 900 Greeks, in the business there were 40 Americans and 32 with Bahamian backgrounds evenly divided in each case between black and white. So consistently there were more African Americans than Afro-bahamian. So I would like to see the name of this project changed to not to diminish the hard work of the African Americans, which who are not exactly the same culturally as the people with Bahamian backgrounds, but eventually everyone married and they did work very hard in the sponge industry, and they deserve, recognition as well. So thank you. Thank you. One short comment here. We're talking about sponges. Does anybody know Greek history? Do you know who designed the sponge? It was Poseidon. There was a statue that was supposed to come to Tarpon Springs that the commission voted against it. The last commission, Chris Alahouzos is the mayor. Formerly the mayor had a friend that wanted to donate a statue of Poseidon to Tarpon Springs. I thought that was a great idea, but it never happened. And I think we should ask Chris if he can beg off that statue from that individual and put it right in the center of the stone circle, because this was the port of Poseidon's navy. And one last thing about Doctor, Safford. She was the person that named this city. But it was a mullet jumping, not a tarpon. I read the history books here. She was a wonderful lady, but if we're going to put a statue here in Tarpon, we should have put a statue of the God. The created the sponges overlooking Spring Bayou because he created the spring to. And there's already a statue made that wanted to be donated. So if everybody's gung ho about statues, let's just get that statue of Poseidon back. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Saxon. Oh, and by the way, my stuff's on the internet. Anchors of Atlantis. Sacks or stones? They've named this, great discovery of all these stone anchors after me. But it's on the internet, on under sacks of stones. And the article on the internet about Tarpon Springs being the garden of Eden is under Saxon Saga on YouTube. Okay, anybody else in the auditorium for public comments, Mr. Jumper, there any remote access comments? Yes, we do have a raised hand. I'll allow the first person in. Hello? Yes, if you can state your name and address for the record. Hi, George. Francis 15 Athens Street, first of all, I would like to advise the board of Commissioners to watch all of the other, advisory board meetings, including, but not limited to, the public art committee meetings. There's a lot to learn from that, including the process that Joan has tried to explain tonight. As far as the exploratory committees, I believe a lot of this, discussion tonight could have been avoided had that been explored prior to this meeting, second of all, I'd like to address a problem here that has been created by, somebody who's already spoken tonight, an individual who's blurred the lines between history and public art, and I believe that that has been one of the primary issues. That has caused such a, the, the problems tonight is a lot of people think the public art is supposed to describe the history of this town, and that is not the case. And if you would watch the meetings, Joan has addressed that multiple times. And as Miss Wood has as well, that there's a difference between art and history. And, somebody came in and blurred those lines and has created this issue, that has become this made this so contentious tonight, and I believe that that issue should be discussed with that individual who I know every single board of commissioner knows who that is, and the city manager, before I escalate that more, the third thing is that I would advise the committee to trust Joan Jennings in the process. Again, you have to know what that process is, and you won't know that until you watch the meetings that these are exploratory committees, that she addressed to the entire board gave every single board member an opportunity to take that on. Nick Toth had the opportunity, and if you watched the meeting, you would see that Nick Toth pushed it off to Beba, who has some other concerns as she's a full time teacher and has some new responsibilities at hand and is waiting for the Greektown Vision making plan as well. So, again, these are things that you would not know unless you watched the meetings, again, I'd also like to address that. You know, some concerns. Maggie Miles spoke and Katie Taylor and I think that both these individuals just want to be heard and want their ideas and what they think that, you know, they're entitled to, to be explored. And I think they are entitled declaration. It does not mean they're entitled to the art that they think that they that they deserve, but they are entitled to the exploration that the Committee should provide to them without the interference of this board, you know, Maggie Miles, I've listened to her the past few meetings. I appreciate her comments. Same as Katie Taylor, and I'd like to remind the board of the book that the mayor has given as the history and the key to tarpon, which is the history that my grandfather wrote about The Strangers at Ithaca. This is not Tina Bucuvalas book. This is my grandfather's book, and he does speak about the Bohemians on page 65. Okay. And I'd like to address that and remind him that that is the history of the sponge docks. And that is not only the one that was given to the Sister Islands, but also all of the, the all of the, dignitaries at epiphany. So I again, I would like to advise the board to remind themselves of that and that and same with Mary Stafford. Is it the public Art Committee has their own process and it should be respected in our board of commissioners needs to start paying attention to other board meetings and what is happening and not overstepping their bounds when they ask for volunteers to do these jobs. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll allow the next person in. Juliana de 413 East Oakwood Street. Yes. Mistake. You want to continue? Digital. Wouldn't work. So you still trying to get around? So. Thank you. I'm sorry, miss De. We lost you there for a moment. Are you still with us? I'm still here. Okay. You want to continue? What I was saying was. Mr. Miss Jennings is talking about pushing the, Bahamian, sponge hookup project back to September . For now, this project has been before the board and before that committee since 2000. 20. And now it's still being pushed back further. And further. Why would another project jump in front of it to. And you're talking about locations. I don't understand why is that that the problem of the location of it? I know the board has said suggested it had voted no more projects on the working docks, but was that voted on before? Before 2020 or after 2020? And and, I feel that being African American myself, I don't feel that I'm entitled to nothing, but I'm entitled to my history being known as any other culture would be. We want our history to be known. We want peoples to know that that who, who was, who's here and who's lived there. I have spoken to the committee committees about that. Sustainable. One side of the city needs to look the same as the other side of the city. We should all look the same as a community. Communities working together for the benefit of Tarpon Springs. So having so much discussion on this art project, both of them should be tabled until everything comes back. The budget, the committee, have they will say in it whether it's history or it's just whatever it is, history or art. So that's my take on it. Thank you. Now, one of the stone circle. I love that idea. And moving the Safford House. Look at the like you said, look at the cost of that project. And where that where would that money come from? City manager. Thank you. And we do not have any other raised hands at this time. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Kuleana, she have your, your light on. So I'm not going to get into the history because, Tina Bucuvalas did a good job of talking about, about that, but, you know, the public art committee commissioned two significant pieces at a cost of approximately $130,000, located at MLK and Dodecanese boulevards. That commemorates the contribution of blacks in the sponge business and in our community, these these pieces deal with two different phases of the contributions of the black community in Tarpon Springs. The Union Academy piece deals with the 19, with the 1930s to the current day. The piece to be located on Dodecanese Boulevard, portrays and illustrates the significance of the Afro-bahamian sponge. It is important to historically note that blacks and Greeks worked together in the sponge business. My father told me, many stories of the times that he sat alongside black men in in the sponge exchange in the 1930s, cleaning, clipping and stringing sponges. The blacks and the Greeks were bound together by discrimination as well. From the outside communities. As we all know, the Klan was located in Palm Harbor. A portrayal in the form of a statue of a Greek man and a black man sitting together clipping sponges would be an accurate depiction of the unity that existed between the groups during the years the industry was flourishing. This is the project of which I could readily endorse. I'm willing to send this back to the art Committee for, exploration, but I'd like them to explore alternative, ideas, which would include, something that I've discussed with Miss Taylor on several occasions, which we called a unity piece. I think that's the piece. And when we're talking about art, we're not talking about history. History can be we can have history in the, in the heritage building. We can have history in all the places where we record history in Tarpon Springs. But this is art, and this art would send a signal of something special that Tarpon Springs had, which was a unity between our black community and our Greek community. And that should be, I would love to see a piece that, honored that. Thank you. Okay Any anyone else, Vice Mayor Eisner, I couldn't second guess what I just heard, what what I was going to do before, Commissioner Koulianos spoke was say that, you know, I've I've heard what everybody is saying here, but also, at the same time, I'm not an artist. And I would like to see the art committee go ahead with doing something, moving forward with this. And, and having it as a unity thing would be nice, again, I don't want to make comments on, you know, the art itself because that's not my forte. I only speak what I know, but, what what Commissioner Koulianos just said was something I would agree with. So that's where I'm at. Anyone else? Commissioner Gulyas. I just want to make it clear this is not a racial issue. This is not a diversity issue. This is a factual issue about contributions. And, mayor, I am going to take a minute because I am going to take some. Did you want to take some time? I am going to take some time. Okay. Because I did bring this forward again to be discussed. But knowing the history and the time that has been spent and acknowledging, the great works and the contributions made by the Bahamian and Southern African African American people and so I want to start off with Miss Jennings as a public art committee chair. You're are you've been involved from the get go from this project dating back to January of 2020. Correct. The proposal to do a statue was made in the annual report in 2020 and it failed. So it was reimagined as the Black Heritage Project, which was the Stephen Oliver project. Well, so I want to get there. I'm looking at the minutes from January 10th of 2020, and it also mentions where you said that the master plan needs to be updated. And there was that day that Vice Chair Echtermeyer said, we need to add the Bahamian sculpture to the master plan. So that was really the start. In the inception of it. And so I also want to follow up. You made this statement about the Safford bronze statue situation and how the simple exploration will lead to either a sculpture or a statue, or a sculpture, or some type of artwork with this exploration, correct? Yeah If. Okay, great. So this Bahamian heritage project, black Heritage Project, this research has been going on for some time, and I pulled the minutes, and the minutes should have been in this back up for everyone to see the detailed effort and time. Delicate time was full time. This is taken to get where we're at today and so. This master plan and this Bahamian project. And if you want to pull page 16 of your public art committee report. These aren't numbered. Commissioner if you could just tell me which one it was, it's going to be the black. It's basically the visitor center with the, with the black Heritage sculpture. Just one more. That one. The wayfinder sign. That is the Wayfinder sign that was originally that was an amendment that came up to create the pathway to show that this sculpture was there. And let me remind you that there was a Poseidon statue that was presented to the Board of Commissioners prior to majority of us, I believe only the mayor was on the board at that time, and it was shot down right in front of the Marina, right in front of the Marina. It was shot down, and it was definitely not even considered in front of the working waterfront or the sponge exchange. So I want everybody to pay attention. This is serious. All right. And so that was shot down for many reasons. Then I want to go back to the minutes because on. June 9th of 2020, there was discussion of the Bahamian project and stated that suggested the project should flow into the discussion of the master plan before moving forward with a call to artist. So you said it got shot down on the, you know, from January of 2020, but six months later, it seems that the minutes confirm that this project was associated with the master plan that was created, artists was issued, and there were no responses. That's what killed it. But you were also part of helping update the master plan between January 2020 to the June that we're coming up . And then also on August 11th, 2020, in the PAC minutes, it says review the final approval of the updates to the master plan. It was also even stated that Chair Jennings mentioned there have been many sponge for different ethnicities, and so perhaps there should be representatives of the profession rather than a specific ethnic group. Okay. And number four, on November 10th, 2020, Mister Stackhouse noted the importance of finding a historical reference for this project before moving forward. So I'm basically trying to go through and show you there's been a lot of research to make this project to get it where it's at. On on February 10th of 2021. Research Chair Jennings met with Annie Dabbs to discuss the Sponge Project. It was suggested the PAC form a subcommittee to discuss what the community wants and artistic representation. And then the following meeting, March 10th, Mr. Stackhouse even stated the $50,000 wouldn't be enough for the project, and this would cost a lot more due to the importance of the project. These are the minutes and so this whole idea of this hasn't been researched or this is all, you know, a lot of this history stuff has been ignored is false. It's a false narrative. It's not correct and it's not true. On April 14th of 2021, Chair Jennings formed a subcommittee of raw. Davis, Dudley, Sally Lynn Whitelaw, Reverend Milton Smith. Theresa Wilkins, Annie Dabbs, and Tina Bucuvalas. There was a lot of experts who have helped contribute to this project. It. And you also stated in the minutes where it says Chair Jennings stated she does not want this project to fall off committee's radar. So, ma'am, this black heritage sculpture was the master plan statue that was suggested by Doctor Eickemeyer during the update of the master plan. Is that correct, ma'am? So to say that it was unsuccessful in being a statue isn't necessarily true, because through art and through discussion and through all of these entities and individuals that formed this committee, the sculptures or the artwork that extends from the Union Academy neighborhood down to the Wayfinder sign at the visitor center and then right there at the Marina, which we're still waiting for the artwork, and it's going to be the biggest art installation at the Sponge docks. It's going to be. And whatever work, whatever waterfront you see over there at that point at the Marina, you're going to see very little of it because the statue or the artwork is right there, and it's beautiful because it opens up, you see the water somewhat around it, and you will notice it. Visitors who go see that visitor center, those are the ones who care about art. Those are the ones that care about what's in our town. Those are the ones who care to explore the community in its history, and seeing what artwork that ties together. So all that work had been done. We also, you know, we hear statements of, you know, some individuals not being involved, you know, including Mister Archie. Mister Archie knows he he might not say he's around, but he pays enough attention to see what's going on in the community. And I'm sure he should have had an idea when it was coming at the cap center that he knew what was going on. Is it my greatest location? No. But the point is, this project has been underway for years now. Before me and before the majority of this board. And so. We also have this is from the Tarpon Springs Historical Society. And it references to the black community and it talks about others arrived in the 1890s from the Bahamas and Key West to work as spongers. Some owned their own boats, while others became divers and crewmen on Greek vessels and spoke fluent Greek, African American women were in demand as household staff, and several were skilled midwives, so the African community has been recognized as diverse as crewmen, as sponge, but also other ethnicities were sponge. We have another article, and in this article is from world renowned artist Tarpon Springs. Very own artist Elizabeth Indianos, and she was she helped paint this beautiful, blessed plot right in Old City Hall. Pretty much. It goes back to I feel like the Paleolithic days. It talks about the Indians and the conquistadors and the different animals at that time. And it really ties in Tarpon Springs in the region for what it's worth, in the article, the article says Indianos discovered the lesser known history of the block. The black sponge who came from the Bahamas and Florida Keys and worked alongside the Greek sponge divers. She included it in the play and the mural. She gave the image of a sponge diver in his helmet, a face that she quoted, quote unquote, a face that could stand for either the or divers. And so . And back to, we had one of the residents out here say, where are we identified and where where are we represented? And there has been a project that is about to be complete. And when you see it, it gives a lot of the recognition. I've also mentioned in a brief conversation, there's a great way to honor the Bahamian Southern African Americans to the contributions of Tarpon Springs. And I'm going back to the art boxes. I think if February is Black History Month, there could be an exhibition where you could have 40 art boxes filled with black contributions to Tarpon Springs and the sponging industry. It could run all month long. You can make it a national, you can market it nationally and get people to come to Tarpon Springs, see the sponge docks, and for that whole month, have that contribution that is focused and centered around the contributions. And so what we have here is we have to understand some people that come up here as citizens, but also some people come up here as citizens, but they also work on public art committees, which works on the discretion of the board. So I'm speaking at myself when the mayor had brought up that during commissioner comments, there's, public art, project or somewhere along the lines to follow up with the city manager and so I went back, started looking at the meetings. Okay And I pulled up the meeting from February 14th, 2020 for this year. This is where the project was reimagined now and recreated without people doing the proper work to look at the history of how we got to where we're at now. And during this new business and this claim to, you know, have this statue. It was never it was never acknowledged of the Bahamian heritage, the Black Heritage Project that has fulfilled the master plan in every way, same sense and form. It's fulfilled it. You can look at the minutes and you can't go against it. So I disagree with it. Got shot down or wasn't successful. This is a very successful piece and I understand some people are frustrated that they weren't around to contribute to it, but government is timing and how people come in and out of government at certain times, and issues that come are what they are. And so when that motion was made to have a subcommittee, there was not the proper information. You guys were given. I don't a lot more could have been discussed to come forward. To realize this project has been fulfilled. Okay. And so . If Mister Graham also had that backup information with the minutes, with the research, with all these different experts and people that have historically been in this community for decades. And I'm talking about the black community, are their contributions meaningless? Did the hard work came together to put this project for nothing. And now we seem to, you know, use the diversity issue when it's not a diversity issue, but there are people in town they want to keep the uniqueness of each and every neighborhood. And for what Tarpon Springs is. And so we can't we can't take away the fact that the contributions that the Greek immigration and the technology, they brought to help revolutionize the sponging industry in Tarpon Springs is what made Tarpon Springs famous, is what brought that charm and uniqueness to Tarpon Springs and the statue that everyone seems to say, you know, the Greeks have a statue. Well if you look at that statue, it doesn't resemble a Greek immigrant, a Greek man. And, you know, I did some research on it that that statue was made for one of the late somehow one of the late Pappas, grandparents received it, but that was an artist who used it. Their son, who was Italian to make the statue. It doesn't look representative of the Greek community. But that's not the point. That statue reflects everyone who's made their contributions to Tarpon Springs. And so I'm not going to sit there and keep creating a situation that has been explored . We spent $130,000 on this project, but for some people, it's not good enough. And if you're looking to put we have a feeling that some people just want it to go right next to the sponge statue, just to be right next to it. And it's just not a good fit for what's been done. The hard work other people have put in to get to this project, to where it's at. And we're not even done with the black heritage Project. And so I'm urging this commission because, you see, it's a topic that seems to be controversial. The project has been explored. It's been vetted by some of the top people in the community to let this committee go on, do the research, come back, have another situation for a controversial spot. We know. Is a waste of this art committee. They gotta move forward on other projects. This has been recognized. They've been acknowledged, and it's a great contribution. But what at what point, you know, what are we going to have the sponge docks be the land of statues? I mean, where are we going to go with this? When's it going to stop? You know, and I'm sure some of you have gotten, you know, concerns about, you know, I thought we just did this project. So the semantics of words and what we're talking about, the master plan. I looked at the minutes. It's been fulfilled. So the board and I and I mean, this for, you know, as constructive criticism before we have these ideas about one of the form committees presented as a regular consent agenda item, have the backup material to help show the true story and not a story of people weren't heard. There was a lack of communication on the project. I mean, I was accused of you know. Division because the location, I've already been selected, but there was a big push again, to have it right in front of the sponge exchange, right in front of the working waterfront. And when are we going to be able to move forward without the. There is no division in Tarpon Springs and this division that some people say I don't see it. And so this community, this board, we have to acknowledge the past work that other public art committees have put together. I'd ask for this project to be tabled. We don't even have the Stephen Oliver project yet done. And when you look at it, I mean. That is a man holding the reef of sponges. It's pretty much taller than some of the other statues. It's going to lead right to the back, right where it opens up for the, for the, the Marina. Why create a controversy on. Oh, we have to have it at this location. And we when this project has been fulfilled and I understand you know, a couple individuals, they get in the committees and they'll try to push agenda. But I understand there's signatures, but if there are signatures that there's a piece of art that needs to be and I'm going to tell you endorse that park, that's not reflective of that community. I'm not going to support it. I have to look out for those communities, each and every one of them, and we have to respect the art within them and be very sensitive to trying to impose or overshadow the importance of one another. And so, I mean this in the most delicate way, but I'm elected to speak up and there are issues with trying to proceed with this. And this board needs to understand it. And it needs to be tabled because it's just going to create more issues in which we saw. And so this needs to be tabled. I'd like to get the support from two more members on this board. If you looked at the notes in the minutes, it talks about it all. And the public art Committee should start focusing on other art projects. We're going on five years now with this project , and I don't want future boards that have to worry about this. There's obviously pressure, but if you stick to what what's been done in the course of work, it should take care of itself. So I really need two more members of this board to come forward so we could move forward together as a community. And expressing the true nature and history of this community without over, without offending, overshadowing or or imposing on one another. And I mean that in the most delicate way. I really do. And so let's see if any more commissioner comments come out and we'll move forward here in a moment. Thank you. Commissioner Donato, do you have anything? Well, first, first of all, I think thank you one more time. Should be thanked for the work that you're doing, second of all, it's becoming obvious at least to me. That probably need to do a little bit more work and have a little bit more information, I think you're still asking for direction again. And that doesn't include at this time, you don't have a location and you don't have a budget, but you want authorization to go forward and I understand that, it might be easier for those of us up here to make a decision when, when that information is available, so maybe maybe tabling it till we have more information might be the answer, but I hate I, I admire your work, and I don't want to say that we don't appreciate it because we do. We just we need more. And I know that's a pain too, because you've been dealing with it for a while, but hopefully we've addressed some of the concerns that we all have and that your, your committee has the time to address that and help us. We actually need your help. I think, in that respect. So that's all I have to say. Can I have a thank you, Commissioner Kuleana? Yeah. I just want a point of information, city attorney, when we talk about tabling, we usually attach a date to its table, too. So should we actually be using the word deferral, which can be indefinite. So I think we want to use the word deferral not the word table okay. So yes use deferral. If you my only concern is if they're seeking direction I don't know what the you can table it until you table it but then you don't. We usually when we table something don't we usually don't. We do not have to give a date a certain date. You table okay. I'm sorry I'm I've got it backwards. You you did table it at some point and then establish a date when you're going to hear it. Okay At that time. All right, let's walk through this before. Yeah. I just wanted to clarification. Okay. Is there anybody else is there, and basically it would be, The direction would be to table this, until when? And not a date, but until when, the Steven Oliver artwork is done until there's been more discussion about this or. Commissioner DiDonato, please. We wouldn't wouldn't we put that dependent upon the committee's ability to address some of those issues that we've, I think, discussed very well. It's a very good points brought out and I'd say when you're, you feel you have a handle on it and can explain it, you know, in a little more detail, then I would think they have to determine that. I don't I think it would be unfair for us to say, you know, you got to do it by such and such a day because I don't know if we even know what detail you're going to get into and how involved it's going to be down the road. So I would would respect your need to have the time to do it as you feel necessary to table it until the public art committee comes back. Okay Schedule. May I have a motion to that effect to table it until the public Art committee request through the city manager that it be tabled. So moved, so moved second. Okay, I should say Untabled, okay. So we have a first and a second. Is that correct? Okay. Mayor, I'd like to also say before the next time I'd like to have all the minutes in the back up I'd for regarding this public art situation. And that way the residents can see the public art committee can see, but I'm not supporting this because the project has been fulfilled. It's recognized by so many and, The public art committee needs to focus on some other projects right now that enhance the community. So. Well, we're not done with the report yet. So this is just another item. So we have a motion and a second, if there's, Vice Mayor Eisner. Well, I'm not following this because on on one hand, Commissioner Donato is asking for more information, but yet if we went ahead with this and just said, turn it over to the public art going ahead with it is the process. That's right here in plain English, it says city and site approval and determination of budget and selection of committee. So if we table it or defer it, we're not giving them the go ahead to come back with any more information. I don't think I don't I don't see how you how that makes it. I don't understand your logic there, there's been five people up here. Well, the mayor hasn't said too much about it, but there's been expressions up here about things that we all would want to know before we made a decision. They don't even have a location in. They don't have an idea of how much it's going to be. They, the interesting point that Commissioner Rojas brought out about what's already been done, I think those issues need to be melded and to make a decision before that, or to tell them no to me is unfair. They've invested a lot of work and they they should be able to come back and answer. I believe I that we've said enough that you probably know pretty much about how we all feel. I would think, because I know how intelligent you are, and I respect that. Thank you. I mean that sincerely. So that's that's all I'm saying, Commissioner. Just the only other option is just to do away with it tonight and be done. And to me, that's disrespectful to a committee that we've asked to do certain things. And then at this point, just to say no, based on what I've heard, isn't enough. That's why I said, I think Vice Mayor Eisner, I think let's go back to Miss Jennings original observation that we should just table it because they don't feel that they have enough information for us to actually even authorize them to explore it further. So I'd like what I've heard tonight was a lot of, of, I don't want to say misinformation, but incomplete information on a number of things. I've heard history mixed with, art. I've heard, just a number of things. So I think that whatever concept that this ex-black cook or art project has, whatever concept that is, it's just too soft to even talk about right now. That's all. And I think that you've gotten at least three. Me and I tend to feel the same way. I mean, I heard a whole lot of I don't even know what we're talking about right now. And that's why I would like and my point is, okay, fine, let's table it until you can tell us what we're talking about. And I think each commissioner has a different kind of view on it right now. And I think it'd be best to let the commission, the, the public art committee, even if they don't come back with anything, they don't come back with anything. That's all. Can I call the question? What's the question, I'm sorry, vice Mayor Eisner. I don't want to cut you off. Do you have anything else? Yes I wasn't looking to defer it or table it. I was looking to throw it back to the public art and let them come back. That's basically what the tabling it does. I understand that, but you know what? They the whole reason that they didn't bring this up now is because they don't have you have to have what we would just explain with the prior, project. You have to have us giving them somewhat of guidance to say, go ahead, get something there. Eisner I know, listen to what you know. The observation is the reason they didn't bring it forward is because of X, Y, and Z. Well, it's there if they didn't have enough to bring it forward, why is it on the screen ? So I think my point is that be best for them to just kind of talk about it a little further. If if they can come to some kind of, take the mushiness out of it and kind of come up with something that's a little more specific and agree. And again, I don't want to create there to be , miss, you know, be Lucas's idea coming forward and then we've got other people out here who's got different ideas. That's not going to help. No, I understand, I think that discussion has to happen at the public art committee. Even as a side committee, which I think is what you all did. Right. It's a side committee. So let them we table it until at some point in time, if and when Miss Jennings tells us it's time to untable it, and then we would set a separate agenda item on it. That's all. That's all what we're doing right now. We have a motion and a second. Yes, I want to make sure Vice Mayor Eisner is done. What's the motion, please? Okay. Probably a roll call, please, so what's the motion again? Please? We have a roll call, please. Right. What is the motion then? What was its to table it. To table this whole topic of this particular black. What. What's black from the afro-bahamian sponge statue. Art. Okay, until Miss Jennings comes back and says to on table it. All right, I'm not going to support it, but I would encourage everyone to look at the minutes, look at the process, the history of where we've gotten to this project and understand this board, has an obligation to take care of town and look at all the public art and everything, but also to preserve heritage and culture, too. So I don't want this prolonging and anymore in which could create an issue. That's why I'm not supporting it. Thank you. I don't think we're prolonging it. They may not. The public art committee may not go anywhere with it. And that that and I understand though. Roll call please. Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Collins. Yes Commissioner. Coleus. No. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Vatikiotis. Yes. Okay the next one, miss Jennings . That's it. That was it. Okay. I need more punishment. Is there anything that you want to wrap up with? Because I want to ask the commission if they've got, Zeke, just quickly. Because, you know, I've, either Commissioner Giuliani's in my head somewhere or, watch them, but my, the original proposal said or Stringer. When I heard Stringer, the first thing I thought of was exactly what you said is, you know, creating something that showed working together, and I presented that to them. And, you know, I've also thought of maybe on the sponge boat, you know, the Tarpon Springs maybe we create figures of all different ethnicities that have been working on a cruise. So those are some projects that I, you know, maybe in a different form, might come back to you as, so I think is my question maybe to, you know, Mr. Lucas is, is coming to you and finding a location. The first part of before we bring back a project, what we need to be doing so that we're not so wishy washy of what we're doing and where we're doing it. Again, we have to know what it is, though. If it's that figure that you described the boat, we have to know what it is for the size that we we'd have to know that that have to go in and okay, I just want to know what we need to come. But we can talk. Just just get with me and we can we can meet and talk about it. Let me just share with you all something I was around when that sponge statue, the sponge Diver statue, was debated . And the location was it. It wasn't. The idea of a sponge diver statue was where it was going to put right, and it was batted around. And finally, I'm not sure that it was the Pappas family that it was a gentleman that paid for it. It wasn't the Pappas family, but but Jackie Pappas came up and actually said, put it inside the exchange. Everybody was against it, putting it on the sponge docks until Jackie Pappas says, put it in the exchange. When he said, put it in the exchange and all of a sudden it was okay to put it on the sponge docks. So you know, this is the way things are. At least back then in Tarpon, and it's right there. But if you were here at that time, and I think Miss Protas was, and I know you were, and there were all kinds of things, the seawall won't hold the weight. It's going to collapse and fall into the river. All kinds of things were going on. So anyway, my point is, I understand what you're going through. Everybody's going through right now and we just have to have that. So we just if we're going to do something, we need to come back with a more solid foundation. And have you done that? Okay. Thank you. And I agree with Commissioner DiDonato. The easy thing to do is just to say go away. But I don't we don't want to do that right. And, you know, most of the discussion tonight has been about history. And we do have a historical society. So, you know, maybe that's something they could address also. All right. Thank you. Is that it. That's it. Oh my God. All right. That's it for the agenda, Miss Jennings. Thank you very much. And, Biba, for your perseverance and hanging in there. And, Diane, thank you very much for all your hard work. And, we'll give you each a medal, I guess, for this. So, anyway, okay, so that's the end of the agenda, let's go to board staff comments, assistant chief Ruggiero, we have nothing, sir. Okay Mr. Lewis. Nothing. Mayor I just want to remind everybody next Tuesday night will be the public hearing for to hear about the budget, beforehand, the connect Tarpon is up. So if you can't make the meeting, it's up now for you to put ideas for the budget. It's going to be up after the meeting. The 11th, for the ideas of the budget, and there's plenty of time before we get in as a board and staff in July. So there's going to be a plenty of time for that. Go through the venue a little bit. Is that a commission meeting? That's a commission meeting. Yes. Okay And, but and but primarily it's allows the residents to. Yes. This is for the residents to give. This was something that was that was put in the charter. It's a chance for the residents to give the input of what they'd like to see in the budget ahead of time, instead of the end of the process. In years past, it was always at the end. In the two public hearings in September, when the budget is done, they were asked for input. The board at the time wanted them to have a process early. So again, but it's remember, it's not only a date. We've got connect Tarpon up now for you to put any ideas of what you want to see in this year. And remember, some things may be on there that we may not be able to do this year, but we can maybe plan in the upcoming year. So please use Connect Tarpon to do that. Come to the meeting. But there's plenty of chances before and after, next Tuesday night for you to get get the word, to the commission and, and myself and staff. What you'd like to see as citizens in the upcoming budget. If you all remember, last year was when we had the 20 or so residents asking for the pickleball. Yeah And we had put a $100,000 funding wedge, in the budget. But it was not it was just there was a placeholder, but it was to be determined. That was something that miss, Jacobs provided to me today. So, anyway, okay, Miss Jacobs, anything. Okay. Let's see. Vice mayor Eisner, you got anything? I just want to thank the residents for sitting through this, lengthy conversation. I think this is my last, serving of the vice mayor for, this this board. And, I just look forward to working with, the next vice mayor, and that's it. Thank you for allowing me to serve you, Miss Jacobs. What date is that? The seventh. The June 7th, Commissioner. Cool. Yes Is, does he need to be sworn in for anything? No he's. It's already done by resolution. Okay Let's see. Vice mayor, Eisner. Commissioner coleus, anything, yes. Are we planning on having the city attorney hiring process for June 18th at the next meeting? Yes Unless some again, you're all are in in individual interviews and stuff. So. So that is my determination, and it will be Mr. Lewis's last meeting. He did give us the extension. So hopefully we can we can we can have it, at the next meeting and, and again, thank Mr. Lewis for serving us and staying on so we could possibly get through the project , but again, less dependent on on all five of you. And you're talking with the, the firm that we're suggesting and, bringing it forward. But but that's my plan so we can bring it forward on the 18th. But you're going to bring it forward on the 18th. Yes. Okay. All right, all right. Thank you. And as far as I know, we talk about the city manager search. And we have things set for the June 18th meeting. Is there any way this commission would consider having a special section, a special session to have our candidates listed. And that way we can try to get an extra week or so out of it to start contacting these applicants, because I just don't want to lose out on qualified applicants that we have right now. In two weeks, a lot of things can happen. The special session would be to go through the list. Our top applicants and proceed forward. Well, I think I don't have any objection, but I think what has to happen first is maybe I'm mistaken, but there has to be this background and background check on these, eight. Remember the whole idea was to discuss it with the, Miss Kniffen and Mr. Smith and see if you concur with the list or talk about adding somebody else. And then the next step would be for them, unless I'm mistaken, was to go through the 18 is to pick the group of people that you want to go to, extensive background that you need before you start doing some may fall out from that and then that list, I think we would be the next step would be to have the well, let me I'm just trying to clarify what's going on so far. And I agree with Commissioner Coleus. We need to move forward. My understanding I have I meet with with Paul and Jane tomorrow. I don't know if the rest of you already have or not, but I meet with them tomorrow from what I've been told, they've narrowed it already down to 8 to 10. I forget the exact number. What we probably would do in a special session, I would think, which would be following that point where everybody's talked to them, is to come together and maybe whittle that down. I don't know, it's just my opinion. We didn't use 8 or 10 for background checks. We I think we use 3 or 5. I can't remember exact the exact number, but I mean it. We don't unless you want to have all 8 or 10, with background checks. That's fine. But I'm just saying, I don't know if we need that, you know? Well, yeah, we're still trying to. We're still trying to get. We're still trying to get the firm to do it, but again, the point is and really, it's more like 3 or 4, there is maybe eight. But remember there that's what you got. My pan. They're not they're not recruiters. They're not that they got some obvious ones that go to the top. But it's important. Again while you're meeting with them is there there may be someone that's down there list that you see some qualities in and you wouldn't want to exclude him. So. So whereas we'd probably say here's our top 4 or 5, we're looking at maybe a number of 8 or 10 to go for the background, figuring somewhere between 500 and 750 apiece to do it. We haven't got those. We're still working with a couple firms to try to get a firm price, but we want to make sure we do the backgrounds on any candidates that you see that may not from our rudimentary again, you know, Paul Smith and Jane Kniffen did a great job on a rudimentary system. But your qualities that you're looking you may somebody that on their system is down 11 but they have qualities that are interest you and being the next city manager. Hey I would like this one to go on with your top four. I like this one to go on and hopefully get the 8 or 10. If it's more, it's more, but hopefully you get the 8 or 10 for that in-depth background. That in-depth background might knock it down some more to some candidates. And then you'd you'd decide, you know, the next step if you're doing something pre bringing them in, it or doing some kind of meeting, you decide. But again it's for you to, to, to add to the list. And then again we're thinking 507 50, but we don't have that down yet per person and stuff. So that much so I because because it has to be an in-depth that you can't be caught like other cities have been done and get caught somebody you bring in and something comes out that you didn't see and all of us have egg on our face. So it's not just the normal, it's an in-depth look at everything. So it's a little more detailed. Our our ones like for employees or somewhere around 250 something, it has to be more in depth because you're looking at these, you know, believe me, there's plenty of cities that had egg on their face for not finding something in the background thing, so it needs to be a more thorough one. And again, the cost is the is the cost. We still want to find the best person in here to lead this city for at least the next 5 to 7 years. So, you know, we gotta spend more. We gotta spend more, but but it's got to be important that you look at that whole list, and we include some people that you think have those qualities that you're looking for, to bring in here. So then, then I just think we're going to add to the process a little bit, but that that's fine. I whatever is fair to everybody else, but we wouldn't want to I think ten background checks is more than more than we should need, because we're going to whittle it down to eventually 3 to 5 to interview. You're not going to bring ten people in here, and there may not be ten at the end of all of you going there. You might have the same ideas that the you you could have less coming forward to approve at the 18th or whenever you want, whenever you're approving to go to background. And the only reason why I ask of this, we see these we've seen candidates be finalists in other cities. And I think it's important for us as a board through a special session, if needed, to come together, list our top 6 to 8, and if all of us somehow have 3 to 4 or 3 to 5 of the same people, I think there are our top candidates and we can go forward with a background search, I just don't two weeks is a lot can happen and we want to start engaging with these top. I mean, I don't mind I mean I don't have an issue with the special session. It's just finding the, the time. I mean, do you do you have any. Well normally normally we'd have an open Tuesday to do it next Tuesday. But we have the budget meeting. I just have to look at if we're talking about next week, which we probably have to be what what the, you know, the availability of the rooms and stuff and whatever. I my point is we, we just have whenever we do meet, we have to have a specific purpose for it, not just to sit there and talk about 8 or 10 guys or ladies, whatever they are. And, and I mean, there's got to be an objective to it. And I right now, I know that, Mister Smith and Miss Kniffen are basically the ones that are coordinating this effort. And this would be news to them. So why don't why don't we do this? Why don't we let the city manager talk to the two of them and see what they can come up with? And if they feel that maybe the special session would be the way to go, we'll go ahead and do it. Or. I mean, I don't know what they've I haven't met with them yet tomorrow or the next day is when I meet with them. Sure. And just so basically what we were going to do on the 18th, we'd actually just do a little bit before that. That way we can lock in, maybe our top candidates and try to go forward. If Commissioner Collins would like to say something, I don't have a problem with that. We piggy back know that we piggyback off the, the budget meeting we could use. You know, we could get here at 5:00 and work before the budget meeting. It's a really great idea. Yeah. I would just point out usually there's not attorney representation at the budget meeting, and at least at Tuesday, like my schedule, it would probably have to go through Mister Salzman's office because my schedule, especially for next week, would is pretty tight, especially in the evening. So we'd have to just if it's going to be sometime next week, do we please go to or do we, do we need the attorney here to talk about applicants? No, that's what I'm getting at. I don't think we know. Why don't we show up here at 5:00 and talk about applicants? Look, there's a difference between a special session and a workshop. I want to make sure y'all we understand what we're talking about. Yes, sir. Right now, I think it's too soon to get, you know, I think other anything other than a workshop done. Sure That was probably the right terminology because we do a special session then that complicates things. Absolutely. I'm sorry. Is that why don't we look into that and come up with something. Look at that. Either before or are we going to have it out? I mean, I'm trying to remember last year I think it was no more an hour. You know, the budget, the budget, whether we want to do it, we can do it or we can set the budget. We can set the meeting for immediately after the budget meeting workshop. We can do that that way. Yeah. Okay Okay. So we'll go here if, if everybody's met with them and we have. Sure. I appreciate it. Everybody's okay with it on this. Okay. Commissioner Cooley, anything else. That's it. Thank you. Okay Commissioner Cooley, anything, all right, I've got a couple of things. One, I want to remind everybody of our special session tomorrow at 9 a.m, and right now, it's scheduled for one hour, I'm hoping we can get done in one hour. And if we can't, then we've got to be real, real careful going beyond that time, I don't think we can go beyond more than an hour and 15 minutes at most. But the objective is to get done within that one hour, of an announced meeting, Commissioner Killian, I want to, congratulate you. You're going to begin your, vice mayor term in June seventh, I guess, and then, vice mayor Eisner, I want to thank you for everything that you did. And you're still involved in a lot of stuff, so I want to appreciate. I want to thank you for all that, a lot of people paid compliments to you and including that that guided the left of you. So, yeah, I know, but anyway, thanks for doing that. You take everything with a grain of salt, you know? Yeah. And I was like, I always enjoyed joking around with you, too. So All right. Thank you. That's not good either, I'm always open for jokes, sarcasm, whatever you want to throw. All right. I think everything else is fine. Meeting adjourned at 1009. And, mayor, here are the have to sign these. Yeah. Those contracts. Yeah. Just.