##VIDEO ID:PZfqHjoA5_s## I call to order the regular session of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs on Tuesday, August 20th, 2024 at 6:30 p.m. Roll call please. Mayor Vatikiotis here. Vice mayor here, Commissioner Eisner. Here. Commissioner kuleana. Here. Commissioner DiDonato. Here Okay. This evening's invocation will be given by Pastor Tori Huff of the new Spring Church. I can ask everyone to stand and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance afterwards. Heavenly father, we come to you today asking for your guidance, wisdom, and support as we begin this meeting. Help us to engage in meaningful discussion. Allow us to grow closer as a group and nurture the bonds of community. Fill us with your grace, Lord. As decisions are made that affect this community of tarpon Springs. Continue to remind us that all that is done here today, all that is accomplished, is for the pursuit of truth, for the greater glory of you and for the service of humanity. We ask these things in Jesus's name, Amen. Amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have a as everyone probably knows, we've had an election today, and we'll be providing you the results as soon as they're received, but probably around 730 or so. So the first item on the agenda is the special presentation by Saint Petersburg College. The Greek study abroad presentation. And I'm going to introduce, one of the gentlemen from Saint Petersburg College. Whoever wants to take get up there first. Okay I'll be Doctor Rod, Davis, who is the provost of Saint Petersburg College, Tarpon Springs campus. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon, Mayor, commissioners. I am here to kick us off, but, I do before Professor Metaxas gets into the weeds of what happened and what transpired, with this beautiful study abroad trip, I just want to give thanks to all that made it happen. I want to give thanks to our Professor Metaxas, who's worked tirelessly to get this trip on board, and the students that attended, I also want to give a shout out here to Mister Frank Jurkovic, who's our director of international programs, who's also had a big hand in making this happen, and, this could make me more happier to be a campus provost, than to send students to Greece. Tarpon being from Tarpon Springs city, where I grew up and went to high school, and it was just a great thing. Great project, and I don't want to get into it too much, but I'll go ahead and pass the torch to Professor Moutsatsou. Thank you. Thank yo. Good evening, mayor. Good evening. Board, I'll just start off by saying thank you very much for entrusting us with a lot of the things that we talked about as far as being able to be representative of the city as well as Saint Petersburg College. This trip was, truly enlightening in a lot of different ways. Not just for the students myself. It's for the college also. It's the campus. It's a good way to get us all to connect and reconnect to the love of the connection to Tarpon Springs and to Greece. And, one of the things. And for those people that didn't know about this trip, we did come earlier on and we pitched this exact same idea about what, what, seven, eight months ago, wasn't it? It's about we came before I came with this last time with this exact same, presentation, exact same four slides. And all I've done is just change out the slides for the ones that we took, the pictures that we took when we were there. The things that we found, it's kind of what happens actually, when you go on these kinds of trips, you think about what you're going to see. You think about what you're going to do. You find something on the internet and you put it in a presentation because you don't have the actual pictures, and you get there and it is absolutely nothing. What you expected. And, and it's so much more and, I can speak to that, that part of it myself. And what I experienced leading this trip, the students and their what they did as well. We, we started off in Athens, then traveled to Delphi. And then to Aigina with the sister cities, sister city twinning ceremony, that we accompanied, Mayor Vatikiotis to and to say that, it was humbling to be there was an understatement. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know there would be that many people there. A good 250 residents showed up, a packed house, dancing, full buffet. I mean, they had a band to start off with. This was it was truly amazing. I don't know if people saw the, the ceremony at all, but for us, being part of all that, my students that came, we were honored. We were sitting second row. I mean, we were we were brought in as though we were like we had lived there, you know, we were sitting in front of long term residents wondering why we were there in the first place. And it was, and we they gave us translators and everything. It was it was truly a truly an eye opening and wonderful experience. But we went from there. And part of it, we went with this ceremony, you know, getting ready to and being part of it all. But that, element was about the sister city beginning. This is what started off with things for us. We go from there. We went from there to the other sister cities within Halki and Symi, Kalymnos. And what was really interesting was watching the students in their experiences. And I can speak to some of them, but I did bring or asked today to for some of our students to come. Two of them did come, and I'd like for them to give you a little bit about their experience if they'd like, would you like if you'd like to, don't get embarrassed. It's okay. Come on. If you like. You just want, I have mister, Nicholas Spagnola, he's young man. He accompanied us on this trip, and he and his experience. Thank you, professor doctor Davis and members of the board and Mister Mayor. In two days from now, I'll officially leave my home for the first time in my 20 years of life and live outside the Tarpon Springs city limits. And that sentence is astonishing to me, as it is happiness to my mother. And in a time that has taken me to reach that point, I've learned that God gives gifts to us big and small, that our potential is limitless and that dedication is a test of spirit on the Greece trip, I've learned to connect to people, to culture, to food, to history, and more importantly, to my roots. When people ask me why I have such a fascination with history, I tell them that I grew up in a house built by built by my great grandfather, surrounded by black and white photos of dead people that I've never met before. But this Greece trip brought to my understanding more the sacrifices that the generations who carried my name before me have made, although some of their stories have gone with them to their graves. You are always reminded about the risk he took to put you in a position that you are in now. I've learned to be grateful for the risks in life and to never under underestimate any choice you make in life, or even the smallest. Seeds can grow to be the most vegetated of jungles. Thank you, thank you. Joe, I'll drop, my other student, Konstantina Bizios. I'll introduce her. I won't make her get up and speak. It's okay, but, I had seven other students on this trip as well, and, some from Tarpon. Some from as far as Naples. And it was really interesting. I brought them actually, and I don't know if I let some of you all know this. I brought them to Tarpon Springs before we went. And we spent an afternoon walking around Tarpon Springs as a way to gauge whether or not we truly are sister cities to anywhere we would see in Greece. And, that day we spent a whole day walking around and they were impressed. We got to Greece and every three steps people were stopping and taking pictures. You know, and every, every other three steps. It was it was this beautiful crescendo watching their experience blossom at the end of it all, going through this, seeing all these places. The one thing to let you know as well is the special thanks from all of them for the scholarships that they received from the City of Tarpon Springs to everyone that was involved with it. That was absolutely amazing and it made a huge difference in their lives, but when they returned, I did ask them to do an assignment and ask them to, give me a one of the places that we went to that was a sister city and what they felt was a sister city to Tarpon Springs. And none of them saw the responses. I saw all the responses. And what I found amazing was there was no consensus. They pulled something from everywhere. We stopped even Aigina, which wasn't even a sister city yet. And it's a testament to the city that we're such close bonds with so many places in Greece. Not necessarily because of the building that we have of the establishments that we have, of the sponge docks that we have, the recognition of the sister city elements. And they all said the same thing was the feel of the place, the feel of the place is the people. And we said, we have the people from all these places. This is the connection of these regions, of the sister cities to us, and hopefully we continue all this for, as long as we can. So I thank you all for all your appreciation with this and your and your, generosity with this. We do have one, thing to give out. I'll give I'll give the floor to Professor Davis again. So we couldn't come here without bearing gifts. So what we did was we had a plaque made with the picture of the students, that was laser etched on this at the, Chris Sprouse Workforce Innovation Hub at the Tarpon Springs campus. And in the back, there's an engraving. It says Saint Petersburg College wishes to present this plaque to the city of Tarpon Springs on the 20th day of August, 2024, as a thank you for your continuous support, this plaque was created and laser etched at the Chris Sprouse Innovation Hub in Tarpon Springs campus. Saint Petersburg College. So hopefully we'll make one of the shelving spaces there. And it's got a little hanger here as well, so I will set it right up here. Ron. I was about to say. Beautiful. Nice Thank you, thank you. I want to thank, Doctor Davis, Frank and Basil for being here and, Saint Petersburg is college is Tarpon Springs College, both Rod and Basil went to Tarpon High. And so they're products of our school system, and they're back here, basically paying back. So we're really happy with that. And the trip was really outstanding. Our young students from Saint Petersburg College were exceptional. Diplomats of the city. You couldn't have asked for anybody better than there. They were extremely sincere, polite young men and women. So I want to thank them for that. So. Let me ask the commissioners, have any comments that they'd like to make, yes. Vice mayor, just happy that you all were able to go on this trip and just see the culture and the heritage behind it. And I also, I'm very happy to see Nick Spano actually be part of the trip. And being over there, he's a hometown person, and you see him a lot around the community and has really grown to be a great young man. So I was happy to see that he was one of the recipients that was able to go to so congratulations to all. Thank you. Yeah I also want to thank you. I was there at the presentation at the library when we were all getting ready, and I got to speak to quite a few of the youngsters. And also you, rod always, but it was very nice to see the anticipation of what they were about to go on this adventure and you speak extremely well. Your you're a very well versed youngster and I hope to have see you do really good things in the future. So I hope you really learned a lot because this was a tremendous cultural, event for you. So good luck to you and good luck to everybody. Thank you, John, I just want to repeat the same, how proud we are of you and how proud we are to have helped you get, get to on that trip and, hope we can expand it next year and get more young people to go, have the same experience. You did. So thank you. All right. I would echo the thank you to, Tarpon is very proud to have Saint Pete College in our city, and I think we should always partner and help one another where we can. So thank you and keep going strong, public comments. Anyone that cares, please come forward, this is for this presentation. I'm sorry. We'll have public comments in a second. All right. Well, thank you, everybody, for being here. And Professor Moutsatsou told us that these trips are on a two year rotation planning rotation. So, in order to have a trip, not next year, but the year after in 2026, they've got to start planning now, and I won't be here, but this commission's got deep pockets, and I'm sure they're willing to help you in the future. So thank you very much for being here in the presentation. Okay. Thank you, let's go to public comments, sir. Yeah. Thank you. Board. And, Mr. Mayor, my name is David Smith. I have been a resident in Tarpon Springs for 24 years in the same house, and in 24 years that I have been in this same house, one of the neighbor houses has been a problem for 24 years. Used to be that one of the daughters would sit in her lawn chair out by the mailbox and peddle drugs like a drive through cars would be driving 80 miles an hour down my little cul de sac. And it was always a problem. This has progressed, and it's gotten worse and worse and worse over the past 20 years, for instance, in the last year, there's been two deaths at the house. These are drug related deaths, law enforcement is there 2 to 3 days a week. And I assume that if you ask him, he'll know which address it is without me even saying what it is, code enforcement problems, drugs, drug related deaths, people driving fast down the street. Delinquents walking up and down our street. We're in a residential street. We have neighbors who have children who are not even allowed to go outside in their own property because they're scared that something's going to happen to these children. So law enforcement has been to the house hundreds of times. I've been out there to talk to them about what can be done. And they say there's nothing that can be done. So I'm here today, today to tell you people in 18 Greenleaf way, why is it that they get more rights than the other people on the street that are that are there? It's not safe to be there. The people there have said, listen, we're going to retaliate if you keep calling the cops. We have now had last a week ago. We had the police there three times in one day. One of my neighbors is at the boiling point where he's threatening to do something stupid. Well, he's a father, but he's looking to protect his family because we feel that we're not getting any response from the city, from the law enforcement who are supposed to protect and serve the citizens. I'm a citizen. I should have I should have rights. I've been in this house 24 years. I shouldn't have to worry about getting hit by some drunk person going to pick their drugs up. When I'm walking out to my mailbox, my neighbor shouldn't have to worry about not letting their children out to play, because that's what kids do. But we feel like we're trapped and we're held prisoner on our street because of this drug house. And every time we talk about it, we're told there's nothing we can do, our hands are tied, our hands are tied. So I wanted to come here, and I wanted to tell you as a citizen, this is what we're going through. And I don't think that it's fair. I don't think that it's fair that I should live on a street, that we have to worry about retaliation from drug addicts, and we have to worry about, are we going to step on hypodermic needles on our sidewalk? And are we going to do we have to worry about the crackhead walking down the street that's going to break into our house? Or if they know we're not home, it's just not right. And so that's why I'm here. Thank you for listening to me, and I hope something gets done about it. 1018 Greenleaf Way. Tarpon Springs. That's the house. Thank you. Thank you, city manager chorus I honestly, I don't know the background of this, so maybe this is something that, with Mr. Dickman and yourself and our police chief can just look into this, or you already know the circumstances. But again, you know, we'll talk about it. But this board is not going to be able to untie the police's hands, with a little thing like the Constitution of the United States, but we will check. I'm sure this police department is doing whatever they can within the law and are probably still continuing investigations and ways to do it, but we will check on that, confirm that. And, and, but I can tell you if there's anything they can do, they will do it for you. And they may be doing it now. And you just don't know it yet, that's how those things from my 30 years of law enforcement, you know, you get claims of a long time not working. You're actually working on something to try to do something to make a dent. Other when doing something where you take them down to jail and they're back the next day. So. But we will check and ensure that anything that we can and possibly will do, that we will do on that address to relieve these neighbors. Thank you. Thank you, thank you for bringing this matter forward. Yes, ma'am. Hello, Mr. Mayor. Hello, gentlemen of the board. My name is Anna Smith. He is my husband and I live. We live at 1011 Greenleaf. I come from Colombia. The reason why I'm here in the United States is because we ran away from the drugs. We came to the United States because of the cartel problems that we. I grew up with. It is not fair that I live in a safe. Quote unquote safe country. And I still have to fear for my life inside my own house. In 24 years that we have lived in that house, I've never had to close my doors, lock my doors, lock the cars, lock anything around. Not even when my kids were teenagers. Two daughters. I never had to worry about that. The only thing that we had to worry about was the little boys coming by. But that was it. It has gotten worse. It is. It breaks my heart to listen to the neighbor's kid, the oldest one that she could not sleep in her own bedroom because of the crackhead was outside of her bedroom. That is not fair. I will promise you. And I will give my promise to every single one of you to please use my house. It has a direct view to that property. You guys can use it as a surveillance. Please. I will donate the internet for you guys to please put any rebellions in watch because by the time that we call and by the time that you guys arrive to the property, they are gone. Their moves are being done within seconds, they come in and they get out. They come in and they get out and it's not fair. It's not fair that we fear for our lives in our own homes. So please, I beg you to please allow me to donate my roof or any time or any part of my property for you guys to put any kind of surveillance and then watch the house, please. Thank you. Okay. Miss Landrum. Good evening. Sharon Landrum, 45 West Martin Luther King Junior Drive, Tarpon Springs, three four, 689. Good evening, Mayor and Board of commissioners, city employees. I just wanted to say a couple of short things. I know it's going to be a long evening, but I wanted to thank all of you for the due diligence you did in hiring our new city manager. I look forward, forward to meeting Mr. Rudd and I hope all of you are successful in working with him, and I hope he becomes a very good part of our city. I also want to thank, Commissioner DiDonato, who I've not had the pleasure of personally meeting, and Vice Mayor Coleus for reminding me why I never wanted to get involved in being an elected official. Very glad that voting is over today, and I hope the results are good. And I also have a comment to make later about the zoning change. I hope that is made with good judgment, which I know you all will. Thank you and have a good evening. Thank you, Miss Landrieu. Miss Swenson. Mayor commissioners and everyone else here, I'm Susan Swenson. I live at three, two seven Manatee Lane, Tarpon Springs. 34689. I am a retired engineer, project manager and a leader with IBM. For 33 years, I've owned multiple Florida businesses for greater than ten years, one of which is now in Tarpon Springs. I was born and raised in Chicago, moved to Minnesota, and then to Palm Harbor 22 plus years ago, and then to Tarpon Springs not quite three years ago. I now consider myself a Floridian, a Tarpon Springs taxpaying resident and a local business owner. And although I am relatively new to Tarpon, I am active in, I am an alternate alternate member of the P and Z, and I am honored to serve the city. I'm a member of the Chamber of Commerce, downtown business and merchants Association. I come here because I've struggled struggled for weeks on this topic. I am strongly disappointed with people who continuously look down on others. If they are not a born and raised Tarpon Springs resident aka not a tarpon and instead we are outsiders, does this really matter what happened to inclusivity, the three tiers of our sustainability plan are social, economic and environmental. We are not sustainable as a community without all three of these tiers. The social aspect is people, specifically to promote equity in our community, equity, not just for whether or not your race is this or that, your gender, whatever. It's equity. If you're not a native tarpon resident versus somebody that chose to move here to tarpon and make it their home, good leaders do seek people's perspectives from other places and other avenues. My disappointment is also, and this may be sensitive, is the crass, unprofessional social media posts and comments regarding this election. And I am not a weak person. This is clearly not leadership. I am not sure we all know what leadership is defined as. We must learn to lead by example. Tell us what each one of you would do individually for us. What you stand for yourself, not what you perceive the other person, what they're doing wrong, did wrong, or cannot do it all. You do not look better by bringing other people down. In fact, you look worse. We can see through that very easily. What ever happened to agreeing to disagree or attacking the problem, and not the person? Great leaders have compassion. They have empathy, respect, honesty and much more. Can you say that you embody the? I know that none of us can always be at our best, but I urge the leaders of our city to do better, to use better behaviors, to help our city align our collective direction, and to execute plans. Without this, we will never attract more competent, dedicated people on our boards, our committees, and we will never gain the respect for our city that we deserve and where we want to be. That's it. Thank you, Miss Swenson. Melody angle, 700 Lanston Court, Tarpon Springs, Florida. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. So I just kind of want to follow up with what she had to say after reading the public rants of two of you last night, because there needs to be an adult in the room attacking each other publicly, not representing our city professionally. The lack of professionalism, the lack of maturity. It's embarrassing if you have problems with one another, you don't put it on Facebook. Whether it be you or your family members. You don't do that. I don't think anybody here elected you all to behave that way. I'm here kind of like your mother. And it's a little bit ridiculous because I'd rather be at home with my family. My dog and my cat. But instead I'm taking my personal time to say that the behavior here is unbecoming. Mr. mayor, I ask you to take these individuals and put them in a room and start with negotiations one on one, and let's see what we do agree on. It's probably 95% of your issues. This country has so much division. And if we would all start with what we agree on, we might find we agree on a lot more than we think we do. But all I know is, the division that I see up here is not acceptable, and it certainly isn't acceptable in a public forum. It's not becoming of your office. So I just want everyone to think on that. And it's just I didn't say it. As eloquent as she did. I don't have a script. I was mowing my yard 25 minutes ago, and I came up here just to say, knock it off and that's it. Thank you, Miss Engle. Good night, chair. Thank you. Good evening. Mayor. Deputy mayor. Fellow commissioners, senior city staff. Robert Rockline, 755 North Lake Boulevard here in Tarpon, ditto to the two previous speakers. It's immaturity at its finest. I'm really kind of embarrassed sometimes to read it and think I know the people behind it, but that's that's up to God to judge, I'm here with some good news, as I try to focus on the positive, I'd like to give another thanks to the staff from the DPW sign shop, Tony and Dylan, who would not give their last names, this was kind of a port on us and part on them to accomplish some replacements of signs and posts that were not compliant, stop signs that were too low and kind of small and things like that. So we worked together on a day and time. We supplied one of the signs, they supplied the other, we gave them a new pole and they reused the one that they had. That's the perfect public private partnership that makes a community, that makes a jurisdiction, you have people in staff. You have people like like Ali Keane from Planning and Zoning who met with me just for ten minutes over a site plan for a neighbor so that they didn't have to go with a back and forth with the with the design professional and what's compliant and what's not. It's that's what makes us stronger. That's what puts unity in the community. I've seen it for 40 years. It's easily achieved if you put your mind to it, you have staff. Luckily that that does. And they're under great management. Because of that, they treat their jurisdiction like home, just like I did for 40 years. You take your work home, you take your home to work, and you treat people the same in both places because you spend about equal amount of time. We're stronger together, regardless of today's elections. Results we're going to have to go forward with a board of five and your senior staff members and stuff. Let's work together. Working separate this way. And the other, you know, it really doesn't accomplish anything. So it's this jurisdiction is no different than any of the others that I've dealt with in my life, but people think they're different. People think it's unique here. It's really not. It's the same stuff in a different place with a different name, so let's let's forge that partnership. Let's go forward together and let's make tarpon as good as it can be. It's pretty good the way it is right now, but there's room for improvement and there's always room for progress. So that's what we ask for. Thank you so much, Mr. Rourke. Are there any other public comments? That you. I'm Carrie Root at 1061 South Point. Alexis drive in Tarpon Springs. I know a year or more ago, I really wanted to come and read what I'm going to read to you now. And I think after what I heard come before me, it's time, this is a an essay written by Robert Fulghum. All I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten. Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be. I learned in kindergarten wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned. Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't think. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush, warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and no one really knows how or why. But we are like that. And then remember the book about Dick and Jane, and the very first word you learned the biggest word of all? Look everything you need to know is there somewhere the golden rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and the sane living. Think of what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world had cookies and milk about 3:00 every afternoon, and then lay down with our blankets for a nap, or we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them, clean up our own messes. And it is still true no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it's best to hold hands and stick together. Thank you, thank you, Doctor Ruth. And Powerful words. Okay Here to lack is 514 Ashland Avenue, I'm going to read my reading here, Proverbs of Solomon. Various passages. The Proverbs of Solomon, a wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son. Grief to his mother. Ill-gotten treasures are of no value, but righteousness delivers from death. From death. The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked. He who conceals his hatred has lying lips. And whoever spreads slander is a fool. When words are many, sin is not absent, but he holds his tongue is wise. The tongue of the righteous is choice silver. But the heart of the wicked is of little value. The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fuel fools die for lack of judgment. The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and he has no trouble to it. The righteous will never be uprooted, but the wicked will not remain in the land. The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be cut out. The lips of the righteous. Know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse. Now, since I have a few more minutes, what I really want to come. I kind of like a theme of this, my theme on that, when I looked this up again is hypocrisy. And boy, was there a lot of it at the last meeting with regards to rules and procedure. So I'm going to run through this a little bit quick, if you want to watch this and follow along on the TV or when you have a chance, if you go into about 26.40 or 26 minutes, 46 and begin talking about the rules of procedure. Mr. Panagioti. At 2940 starts talking about removing zoom from public comments and, consent items and proclamations, okay, for special occasions and or ordinance resolutions. But then he later goes, say he wants to get people to participate. So let me just stop here for a second about removing the zoom from public comments and consent agendas. One consent agenda items have money in it, and as a resident, we have the right to speak about things. Money. But more hypocrites. Hypocritical is for Commissioner, yeah. And he even later in the meeting, they bring it up again about stopping zoom calls. That's how you got known getting up here. You get your four minutes, your mom would be on the phone, you'd have someone else, and then you got your ten minutes. So let me move on, Commissioner Eisner. You're not innocent either. It says okay with what I just heard after speaking there. And then you go on to say it bothers him that people go home and call in, and they're you're stuck here for an extended period of time. You signed up for this. And then part of the meeting was about cutting the time down. You do have in your rules. If it gets to 11, you don't want to go later. You move. You move the meeting to the next day. Let's see. Oh mayor, you want people to think they're in the military? Everybody's got to stand up in line here to be ready. And then a little bit later. JK, you're not innocent. Talk about soap boxes. Comments should be about city issues, and then you're talking about meetings too late and then you go to talking about citizens and respect. Don't respect our time. And then they get up here and talk. If you don't have anything to say, and then you start talking and then you even says, oh, I'm going, I'm rambling on. Y'all could cut half the rambling in your meetings by all this self pontificating, oh, I went to this meeting. I did this, I did that. We know it's election season, but the responsibility of cutting some of the time is on y'all. And it's not to me. We're not kids like the lady said, y'all grow up and act like you're supposed to. Thank you. Next, please. That was good. Good idea about getting rid of $73.50. I'm going to tell y'all something, and I'm not ashamed to say it. My name is Anita. Protest, 91 Bayshore Drive. I was the mayor for many years, the commissioner for many years, and led the organization or the employees. One night as I was walking out, one of the commissioners came up to me and he says, you're an effing. I said, yeah, I am, but I'm not an effing. I don't sleep around. He just looked at me. I said, a, I am, I am a for tarpon Springs and what's good for tarpon? And if I don't like it, I'm going to get up and tell you he knows who he is. He was in an organization in an organization with me. I went to my lawyer. I said, what should I do? He says, throw it over your shoulder. You're going to spend a lot of money for nothing. It's his word against yours that should not be. Everyone should be respected. No matter what you think of a commissioner or a past commissioner or a citizen. Respect what they say because they see things differently than you differently, and you're elected to listen to all of us. We have a division in this city. It's got to stop. We need to bring caloptima. That means love and friendship back into tarpon. And it's been too long. Too long. Right, mayor, that this has been like this and it's got to stop whoever wins this election tonight. He needs to respect us, and we will respect him. We've got to work together to make tarpon beautiful, loving, bright community. As I told you before, you go down county, they say what is going on in Tarpon Springs? What is the ugliness? We don't want that ugliness in tarpon. And it's been the last 4 to 5 years, and it's got to stop. You've got to stop and respect everybody, whether you want to talk to me or not. It doesn't matter. You know, everyone respects and they support it and do what they think is right. And we're all for Tarpon Springs. Whether you like hearing it or not. So respect us and don't call us names. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Any other public comments, Mr. Jump, I'm going to say somethin. Panayiotopoulos 595 Peninsula Avenue. I can't lie, it's a very great feeling up here, especially in this spot. I remember when I first came over here being vocal, trying to get our points out to make a difference in this city, and I just wanted to let it be known how much we all love Tarpon Springs. I want to talk about the special election right now, and as I was hoping that the residents would receive the apology that they were owed and deserved to lead us to where we're at, right now shouldn't have been like this. The transparency that we need and that we seek up front needs to be there from elected officials and the true intentions when we make decisions. And I want to thank you, Frank. I want to thank you a lot because you didn't have to do this. You didn't have to come up and deal with what was going on now. But you ran because you cared. You cared because you were appointed by people who knew this town. And we can't thank you enough. You know, there was this assumption that after Frank because he said he was going to run. Remember, I didn't support Frank during the appointment at first, but I knew he was the best thing for Tarpon Springs. If I didn't get my first choice. Some of us refuse to learn how to compromise. And so there was this assumption that since Frank said what he said, that he was going to not run again and they were just going to be this walk in, walk in from someone who the voters didn't select yet. But we're going to find out tonight. We are going to find out tonigh. And we're thankful that the people do have a choice to select somebody. But it shouldn't have been this way. And that moving forward, there will be contested matches running for all city seats here in Tarpon Springs. Why Because it has to be that way. And so no matter the outcome, I promise this community there's going to be no radical agenda, no radical agenda that's going to offset this town. We're going to move forward and focus on issues that really take care of the community. And we're going to take no nonsense. You know, I was elected to speak for the residents who don't really pay attention to what's going on. And I understand the frustration that some people that you come and you volunteer. But I ask you, that 10th of the 1% that has your ear in this community isn't enough. Step out of your comfort. Step out of just these little boards. Step out of your women and men dinners and luncheons. There's more to Tarpon Springs. There's more to the people here than just the organization. The organizations that you are on. And I'm thankful you're on those organizations because you represent the city well. But please understand, there is a community out there that's not paying attention that needs to be represented. And I'm very thankful I have the opportunity to represent them. As far as the mayor, mayor race, I'm officially announcing my withdrawal from the mayor, campaign election here in March 2025. I understand the importance of being able to have possibly two Commissioner Koulianos and myself, people with knowledge of the city on the commission. I understand the extra time it takes, and at the same time it was to make sure we kept everybody on their toes. And so as I withdraw, I do ask Commissioner Eisner, let the people of Tarpon Springs know as soon as possible whether you're going to run or not. They are owed that, and they need to know there's only three months left. And so I am running again. I don't know what commission seat time will tell, but the one blessing that I have that the people that support me, they're going to support me at whatever seat I decide to pick, and they're going to come out and vote, and we're going to talk about the issues that were really made a difference, and we're going to be able to show who's created agenda items. The better the people of Tarpon Springs and how we're going to do that. And so the problem isn't the mayor race. So I wish you the best of luck. Commissioner Giuliani's the problem is those who are not willing to step outside that small circle that has their ear, and they think what's best for this community. And so moving forward, I plan to keep doing what I'm doing, looking out for my community, looking out for the people who aren't paying attention to what's going on, the ones that are too busy raising their kids, watching over their grandchildren, trying to better their lives. But they know I'm going to be here to think about them, look out for them, and make every decision I make. Yeah, you see me 95% of the time. I'm well. But that 5% we're here to call it like it i. And if I didn't do that, I wouldn't go to sleep at night. That's how much I love my community. And so as I look forward to anybody looking to run for office, welcome aboard. If you can. It's a great feeling looking out for the residents. I can't tell you enough, and I know my special connection that I have from those my age and younger and so I want to thank you all. I wanted to be transparent as I came up here to let everyone know in advance, because that's how I do things, and I look forward to any challenges I decide to take on as a commissioner. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Okay, there. I think we need to congratulate Frank DiDonato. He won the election. Oh He got 55.8% and her boss got 44.2%. Frank, people know you're going to bring love and harmony back to this community. We love you. Thank you. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for our community and all of y'all. At least two of y'all. You made this. Thank you very much. Well, we know what they call you. Okay, I'd like to make a statement on that, too, we have as close to the official results as we have, Commissioner DiDonato received 2349 votes, and, Chris Hrabovsky received 1842. So that's his, those are not quite official yet. They still have to go through some process. But, there's I don't think the results are going to change. Let me put it that way. So thank you. All right. Commissioner Eisner. Good evening, Mike Eisner. 1515 Riverside Drive. I was not planning to get up and speak, but my name was, contacted here by, Commissioner Coleus. So let me be the first to use the word you used to. Craig Lunt. And you called him a quitter. Why, that's a terrible thing to say. And you posted this all over, and there were innuendos that I was involved in this. I haven't posted one thing. You have been nonstop coming at me from the day I took that seat. So since you run on transparency, I want you to be more transparent. I'd like you to announce what you announced to John that when you went to Florida League of Cities, you spent your day at the beach and didn't even do a thing? That's what you said to John. And I saw you. So if you want transparency, be transparent. That's what I would say. Be transparent. But the problem was I looked for you all day and I didn't see either. You know. This is out of order. This could be out of order. But I was attacked. My wife was attacked. Craig Blunt was attacked. Spent the night saying, come together. Agree to disagree, Mike. It's time to let it go. Time to let it go. We've got the attorney who is our. Just put your name for office, Mike. Or. Or I don't do things according to what you tell me, but let's just stop for a moment. Sure. Our attorney is our Robert's rule. And mediator. And he's basically hasn't called us yet. Mr. Dickman, mayor, this is time for public speaking. I didn't I honestly never seen public officials get up and take the podium like this to do public speaking. I but I am new here. I don't know if you have some special rule to do that, but I would encourage all of you to, turn the other cheek. Maybe I understand both of you, but please, this is for you're here to conduct, the people's business here tonight. I understand this commissioner has attacked my wife. And you know what? He's not only attacks people, but he gets into fistfights with people. And that's a bigger thing. I mean, you know, what can I tell you? You know, he accuses me of all these things. This guy doesn't sit on a board. I sit on Forward Pinellas, I sit on the school transportation safety board and did you want to interrupt? Did you want to say something? I was going to tell you. We also have board staff comments as well. I understand, I understand okay. Go ahead. I just don't particularly care to have this person who I have very little respect for because of the way he's shown his treatment to an ex vice mayor, to my wife, he's accused her of all kinds of things. He's accused me of all kinds of things, and he's the guilty party. He's the one that corrupt. He's the corrupt guy that's been doing it all. I have nothing more to say. Thank you, Miss Swenson. You can't get up again, just just one time. Are there any other public comments? Yeah. I just want to make sure that. Anybody else. All right. Thank you. Linda Eisner, 1515 Riverside Drive, Tarpon. Today I was campaigning in front of church at the Bayou and I had my shirt on. I had my sign. And this commissioner drives by and gives me the finger. That's the kind of person he is. Do you want him running your city? I don't think so. Thank you, thank you. Let's go to, Mr. Jumper. There any remote access? Comments If anyone online would like to speak on it on 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, Miss Jacobs, we have no emails. We've confirmed that earlier. Okay, so let's go to the consent agenda. Does any commissioner wish to pull any of the items two through 11? Okay, let me read the consent agenda. Item two is satisfaction and release of liens. Item three Attorney's fees. Eunice. Salesman Jensen. Invoices 8272728 and two nine. Special events. Item four. Tarpon Springs Band boosters outdoor music festival. Tarpon Springs High School Homecoming Parade and item C, Tarpon Springs High School homecoming bonfire, item five Award file number 240167. Single source purchase of Toro Real Master Mower. Item six approved. Florida Department of Agriculture, Consumer Service grant agreement. Item seven approved. Change order number two to award file number 22086. Pond mowing item eight decrease. Increase. File number 240029. Instrumentation Parts and Services. Item nine Award file number single. 240160 single. Source purchase of ammunitions. Item ten Award file number 240162. Hydraulic repair parts and service utilizing the Pinellas County invitation to quote number 2301808. Item 11 review file number 210202 utilizing Sourcewell contract number RFP 032521. Aftermarket vehicle parts and supplies. Let me go. Any public comments on any of these items? Here. Lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. While I'm still allowed item six again, part of the reason I bring things up in the consent agenda is things that go unnoticed. These are things to be kind of quickly signed and passed on, but when you read that you don't really understand what that's about. If you just read the agenda item, but what it is, and I'd like to recognize Shannon here for all the hard work she's done, because what it is a grant program to put together a master tree canopy program. And in our comprehensive plan, part of our comprehensive plan is to look at shade trees and heat areas and things of that nature. So it's a $15,000 grant. But from what I can read, it's a $15,000 match that we have or something. If it goes over the 15 cap. I don't quite understand all that part, but part of what I do when I get up here to speak is to recognize staff who work hard behind the scenes, and all they get recognition for is a yay on a consent item. Now number nine, single source purchase of ammunitions. It's $38,000 and I see it as need for practice and hopefully not use in our streets, but it got me to thinking how much ammo, how many bullets can we buy for $38,000? What I don't know, I know they need to practice and be aware, but how much are those costs? And it's a bullet. Thank you. Okay any other public comments, Mr. Jump? Any remote access comments? Mr. Jump, any remote access comments? I'd like to make a public comment. Please raise your hand. You'll be allowed into talk. And we do not have any raised hands at this time. Okay, I'd ask the commission for questions earlier. Now, does any commissioner have any comments on any of the items? Thank you. Commissioner Eisner. Thank you. Mayor, while I was in, Florida League of Cities, I did make connections with quite a few grant writers that will work alongside with the city with no commission for them. And I did want to, you know, get that information over to the city manager and have him distribute. But there are a lot of, some of the best part of that exhibition was getting to meet Grant writers that are willing to work with cities to help us out. So that's what I was going to share with you. Thank you sir. Any commissioner? Yes, mayor. I also wanted to bring up, item four C, that is the tarpon Springs High School homecoming bonfire. And the reason why I bring this up, this is the stuff that we try to shoot for and try to fight for, especially what I try to do. And so this has been a couple years in the making, bringing back history and tradition to the high school, to the kids, to the youth to be able to give them great memories during homecoming week. And that's what I do, and that's really what I'm about. And I'm so proud that this commission together can come to support the community and the youth and bring them the same memories that I have as a kid growing up. So I just want to thank you all. Anyone else, actually, I want to thank, Miss Brewer, our, Shannon, our arborist, and also PJ Harvard, who is our grant writer. I think this was announced before, and we always express our gratitude for hard work. And thank you for being here. PJ would be here, except she's home under the weather. And I appreciate you stepping in for her place. Thank you. Shannon Oh, Pat was involved too. Pat McNeice, our chief planner from the planning department was involved in this too, so thank you. Thanks for spreading. Spreading the gratitude. Thank you. Okay if there's no other comments, we have a motion to approve. And a second on items two through 11. So moved. Second roll call, please. Mr. Donato. Yes. Mr. Collins? Yes. Commissioner Eisner. Yes. Vice mayor Cooljazz. Yes, mayor. Yes And the special consent agenda item 1224. It is 730. I'm sorry. We have to jump to, ordinances and resolutions at 730. Those are our rules of procedure. Ordinance 2020 4-04. This is a quasi judicial, proceeding, Mr. Dickman, if you could read the ordinance by title, please. Thank you. Mayor, this is ordinance 2024, dash zero four, an ordinance of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending the official zoning atlas for 0.31 acres, more or less of real property located at 433 East Harrison Street on the northwest corner of Harrison Street and South Levi Avenue, from residential multifamily district to R 61 and two family residential district providing for findings and providing for an effective date. Okay, if you could read the quasi judicial proceedings instructions and also swear in anyone that is here to testify, and also ask for any quasi ex parte or conflicts of interest concerning this matter. Yes, sir, okay. This is a quasi judicial proceeding where the Board of Commissioners acts in a quasi judicial rather than legislative capacity at a quasi judicial hearing. It is not the board's function to make law, but rather to apply the law that has already been established in a quasi judicial hearing. The board is required by law to make findings of fact based on upon the evidence presented at the hearing, and apply those findings of facts to previously established criteria contained in the Code of Ordinances, and in order to make a legal decision regarding the application before it. The board may only consider evidence at this hearing that the law considers competent, substantial, and relevant to the issue. If the competent, substantial, and relevant evidence at the hearing demonstrates that the applicant has met the criteria established in the Code of Ordinances, then the board is required by law to find in favor of the applicant. By the same token, if the competent, substantial and relevant evidence at the hearing demonstrates that the applicant has failed to meet the criteria established in the code. Then the board is required by law to find against the applicant, so as you stated, we need to swear in any witnesses that are going to testify here today. And then following that, we will ask for any disclosures of ex parte communication. So anyone who's going to speak on this item, please stand and raise your right hand. All right. It's just you swear to tell truth. Are the applicants here, Miss Vincent? There he is. Oh, there he is. Can you stand up, please, sir? Just in case. Yeah, we may need you. Thank you, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, ex parte communication could be anything from talking to the applicant or doing your own research or, going by the property or receiving emails or communication. So in order to avoid any appearance of prejudice, you need to disclose that under state law here, publicly. Anyone? Okay Thank you. Okay. Miss Benson, if you could proceed with your presentation. Thank you. Good evening, mayor and commissioners. Rene Vincent, planning and zoning director, this is, ordinance 20 4-04. This is a rezoning request for property at 433 East Harrison Street. This is second reading of the ordinance, it was approved on on first reading, the specific request is changing the zoning from residential medium to r 61 and two family residential. The applicant is habitat for humanity, and so there's no new information to add to this, since first reading. So I won't go into a long presentation. Just submit my previous staff report, and presentation into the record, and I'll answer any questions if you have them. Thank you. Okay. Are there any questions from the commission? Okay, does the applicant have any questions for Miss Vincent, I know we've already entered the staff report into evidence, so there's nothing new. Is that correct? Correct. Okay, the applicant, do you have anything that you'd like to offer? You don't have to. Okay I'm going to go ahead and, close the public and. I'm sorry. Public comments. Are there any public comments on this item? Mr. jumper, any remote access comments? Anyone online would like to speak on this item? Please raise your hand and you'll be allowed into talk. And we do not have any raised hands at this time. Okay. I'm going to close the public hearing on this and ask the commission if any of you have any comments. Nothing. Okay if there's nothing more, then I'd like a motion and a second to approve ordinance, okay. Second. And that is to approve ordinanc. Hang on a second. 2024-04, sir, did you read it? Yes, sir. Roll call please. Mr. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Juliana. Yes, Commissioner Eisner. Yes. Vice mayor Coolio's. Yes Vatikiotis. Yes. Okay Item 16 is resolution 2024 dash 29, salary and Classification Amendments for fiscal year 2025. City manager course. Yes. Thank you. As Scott is walking up here, we need to read the resolution by title. Yes. Resolution 2024 Dash 29, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, authorizing changes in the department organization of building development, city manager, slash board of commissioners, finance, information technology, planning and zoning, police, public services and public works, including combining of position, reclassification and re grading of positions, revisions of job descriptions, and providing for an effective date hereof. Thank you, City Manager. Of course. So this is the process we do every year. I'm real proud of the job that this commission has approved over probably the last 5 or 6 years. If you remember, in the in the beginning years, we were really trying to get the bottom of our salaries up. We made some compensations, did a lot for them in the middle portion, we were dealing with the other cities and the other cities competing and working on getting our salaries to a place where it could be in a gradual process. This year, a lot what we were doing is looking at some of the things we may have missed in the coming years. We also know we've had some serious challenges hiring second and third in commands, hiring some other positions, so to do a real in depth job this year, I had three of our most senior staff people, Scott Young, Jane Kniffen, our HR director, Paul Smith, who's retired, but still helping us tie some loose ends in, and of course, working with Ron Herring. All these people have been here. The longest. And to really look and see what positions we already knew, what positions are being competitive out there. We know what the other cities are doing to steal, people from us with their offerings. So I had this group really look in depth of what we needed to do, and especially important with the new city manager coming in there to set them to set things up, but believe me, there's some other things we need to do that I'm already preparing the list for him to be looking at and working on, that we may need to look at in the future. But I can tell you, some cities are doing some things to steal things for us. I just heard the police aspect and the sheriff offering $30,000 bonuses to hire people, is that right, Frank? And it's some outrageous number, but, we're trying to keep up the best we can, we try to do as much as we can during the year. Thank you for all of y'all. This is this is pretty complicated. Some of the things, some of the innovative things we've done here. Thank you. All of you, all for talking ahead of time to get this. So I know you've talked to Scott about the most of these, so I'll just have Scott do a quick overview for the public and then answer any questions that we haven't answered previously for you, Scott. Scott Young Fire Chief, thank you, in front of you, you have the packet that we, submitted to you about last early last week. So you had a chance to look it over, this was a quite an undertaking for the committee, we met with all the department heads, after they submitted all their stuff to us one on one, multiple times, and in some cases, to try to come up with the best fit during this time to make the. We knew we couldn't do a whole hearted change of the all the city employees. It just wasn't going to be feasible, money wise. So we had to try to figure out what the best way to make a somewhat of a jump in all of our employees and to fix some issues with, the job descriptions. Some people were working, under job descriptions that maybe had a little bit more work than they had been doing. So we had to change some things. But pretty much what the city manager has already told you is where we are at, but you also, I believe, have the sheet that showed you the cost breakdown of doing this, if you have any questions on that, Ron is here with me to answer those questions, but, I can turn it over for questions now, if you'd like, or if you have any questions about the process. Moving forward. And just one more thing to add. We have a new salary survey done by the city of Largo that we just have. We're going to be looking at that's a lot what we're going to do. Prepare for the new city manager, look at it and see how that pay study. There were some the Clearwater one was out there where nobody could deal with, that one was a couple of years old. This one that just came out of Largo is going to be very important for him to come in day one and look at as we prepare for the next step and what else we have to do for some other employees that we have to help. I know some of you have talked to me about, and we need to look at and stay competitive and not lose them. So that study that we've just got is going to be what we look at in the future of where we need to go. Okay Done with the presentation. Yes Okay. Let's go to public comments. Are there any public comments on this item? Mr. jumper, are there any remote access comments? If anyone online would like to make a public comment on this item, 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 Commissioner comments. Vice mayor. Yes. Yes, mayor. I just, I'm happy to see the regrades. I've been believe me, I've been going back and forth with the city manager as I'm always trying to look for some of the other departments and, individuals underneath them. And so I understand why we're doing this pay grade increase with, with the individuals and the positions listed, and, hopefully I get them down for a couple reorgs here in the next budget, as I've been trying to fight for those other residents or those other, employees. So I'm happy to support this moving forward, understanding where we're at and trying to get top tier talent to the city and retain them. And so as we do this regrade, it's going to be nice as we focus on, Reorgs and a couple other departments too. Thank you. Vice Mayor Eisner I'm sorry, Commissioner Eisner. Thank you, Mayor, I was glad to see this. You know, anytime you're giving an increase, it does put a little bit of a stress on the residents, but we were lucky to not have to turn over any of the raises. We were able to withstand this within the budget, I'm always a strong believer of trying to be competitive with other cities and towns. This isn't the end, and I do want to thank you, chief, for the explanation. It's not really a lot of money, but it's at least to keep people, from what has happened with inflation. So I'm glad to support this. And I thank you for yours. And, you know, Ron's contribution to getting this all done and everybody that worked on this. So I will support this. Okay. Commissioner Koulianos, you got anything? Thanks, Scott, for all your hard work. I'm sure Mark had a lot of involvement as well, you know, I you guys know your committee and you and obviously the city manager understand what the city needs in order to function. You know what? Are the raises that are needed and the incentives to keep people motivated and doing their job in the city? So it's not mine to get into the weeds. I had one question, and it was of Ron Herring. And we pay for this. You don't have to. I already know the answer you, because you already answered it for me. And we pay for this. And the answer was yes. And I'm. Yeah, let's go. I'm good with it again. You know, you guys know the city. You know what? You're doing, our job is to be the big picture. And you can pay for it. Good luck. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Donato, I want to thank you for your work, too. I as well, I, I, I want all employees looked at and you had mentioned that, but I don't I don't think we've done that yet to my knowledge. So what we had is the department has brought to us a lot most of their employees came with they came to us with a bunch of changes they wanted to make. So we had to systematically go through each department to see what they were looking for, as you know, the city manager over the last five years has worked on the bottom, level wages to keep them in line with the ever changing minimum wages and etc. to keep that, keep the city moving, to keep people coming in. So we had to look at what who had been moving already through that and then try to fix some of the holes that needed to be fixing mid level and up. So it does need to be looked at at some point here in the near future. But the first batch of numbers that came through on the cost of doing this was just going to be too astronomical for us to do so, we had to start really looking at a deep dive into what was really, really needed at this point as a first step in this process. And this is what we came up with, we brought it to Mark. We also he also looked at what we were doing and we whittled through it. And this is the final product. But yes, we pretty much had to look at everybody. And I appreciate I was here when we did do one for all, every single level of employee. And we adjusted whatnot and I know that it can be expensive and if we can avoid that, I'd like to avoid it. But there there, according to my some of the feedback I'm getting, some not necessarily the new hires because they're being caught up rapidly and it needed to happen because we weren't competitive. But there's some still lost in there. And those are the people that I want us to try and try and help. But you're saying in sometime in the near future, I believe that will probably have to come. I'm sure. Like City manager said, he has a list of things that the new city manager may want to be looking at, and I'm sure that's probably part of it. Okay as long as it's just, yeah, okay. Our Chief Young, thank you. And your team as well. I think, to put things simply, we have a process that we go through. This isn't the first time that we've done this, but we've done it in more in depth this time. And I think that, the lower wage is that living wage trying to make sure that they achieve that living wage, that they can put food on the table for their families. So we've always been sensitive to that, I don't think it would have gotten in front of us if we couldn't afford it, given Ron Herring credit, he would have been running around with a dish pan, banging away down the corridors about that. So, my big thing was, earlier on this summer was the fact that we bring all our employees along together at the same time, not parse out one group, make a decision on them, and then throw them in with a stack of everything else. So I think you've made the approach very clear, not just what the in great adjustments are, but also the extra money that would be given when we increase from one grade to another. And also, you've made it very clear as far as the additional, adjustment due to the what I would call consumer price index or the, labor wage index that we've got, which is I think we agreed to 5% in the budget. I think it's slightly over that for our area in Tampa Bay for this year. So I'm I'm satisfied with everything. And I want to thank you all on that. Again. This is, fairly painless for the commission. We stick to policy. It's the city manager's job to take care of the employees and make sure that the work gets done. And this is all part of that. So thank you. If there are any other comments, I'm going to go ahead and, ask for a motion and a second to approve motion to approve resolution 202429. Okay, I should also say that, we still have that one mission meeting a budget meeting in September. Is that correct? The two the two mandated public hearings to formalize as far as what we're doing, this evening for the overall budget, this is a resolution agreeing to this is what we're going to do. And then that formal budget hearing is we're actually going to adopt it as part of the budget. Yes. This is the one thing in the budget that has to be done by resolution. So that's why it's separate from everything else we do. And that's why it's usually the last, last meeting in August to prepare for the final. Final two votes in September. Okay, roll call please. Yes, Commissioner. Koulianos. Yes, Commissioner Eisner. Yes, vice mayor. Cool. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, that's it for the ordinances and resolutions. Let's go back to special consent. I think we're starting with item 12. Is that correct? Okay it's item 12, but it's entitled 2445 Moses Tucker development agreement, 44 098 U.S. highway 19 review Terms of Development agreement, city Manager, of course, I'm going to assume this is your item. Yes, I'm going to have Renee go ahead and give you. Okay. Miss Benson's going to give you an outline of where we were, how it started, what happened? Whole timeline and explain to you, it was a pretty simple process. This was heard by the board before the item came up and was turned down, there were some, some concerns that I think we could very easily address in what we're doing now. Obviously had to wait six months. We had we asked you, about making a development agreement. You agreed when negotiations. And, Renee, if you just want to run down everything and get to where we are and what we're asking for from the board tonight. Yes, you pretty much covered, about 90% of what I was going to say. So I'll just kind of hit the highlights. So, just for, a little bit of background on this, this property is at, 44 098 US highway 19 North. It's the old, driving range. I think the most recent thing on it was the drink and drive. The owners, wanted to rezone, change the land use on the property, from a residential office, retail to commercial general, which would bump up the floor area ratio and would open up some additional uses, after a very protracted set of public hearings back and forth, ultimately, that land use map amendment was denied, at that point in time, the concerns expressed really regarding around the fact that there was no even though there was a concept plan in play, there was no way to ensure that that concept plan is what would come back through the process, and there was also an extensive set of terms that were negotiated between the, the applicant and the adjoining property, the residential property that was a private agreement that the city was not a party to. So essentially what, what we in March, the applicant came back, requested to negotiate a development agreement to memorialize that those terms of that development of that private agreement into something that the city could be an enforcing mechanism on, as well as capturing the concept plan. So, you granted that request to negotiate essentially what you're seeing today is really almost identical to what you saw during the request to negotiate, so this is a, you know, a formal process that we have to go through. So there are, the general terms of the agreement, are outlined in the staff report, those those first eight were provided by the applicant, the ninth one. Which is the recommended condition by staff, is a restrictive covenant to the benefit of the city or similar mechanism as recommended by the city attorney attorney, including all terms of the agreement shall be required in perpetuity and may be only further modified by the Board of Commissioners. So, what we're asking tonight is for the board to, hopefully agree with the terms of the development agreement, and reduce the direct the city attorney to go ahead and reduce that to a formal agreement. Then we will go through the full formal public hearing process. It will go to the Planning and Zoning Board and back to the Board of Commissioners. With all the notifications and everything that are required. So that's the crux of what the request is, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Before we go to public comments, I just want to ask you, you've got the site plan that's shown in there as part of the package. Are we binding ourselves to that particular site plan, or is it one of these that probably to the extent most of it, but you can't deviate much from that later on, is that it's a concept plan. So I mean, I think you're going to want to be substantially in compliance with it, I'll defer to the attorney. Maybe there's some specific terms that gives you some wiggle room when we go through the site plan process in the future. Yeah. That's correct. And also I want to add tonight you're not in any way binding yourself to a vote, a future vote, because you will have the ultimate vote on the development agreement. All that is being asked of you today is, authorization to go ahead and reduce this to a full development agreement. Thank you. Okay, let's go to public comments, public comments on on this particular item. Mr. jumper, there any remote access comments? If anyone online would like to speak on this item, 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 Commissioner comments? Questions, vice mayor, do you have anything? Nothing's changed since the previous meeting? No, no, thank you. Anything, Commissioner Eisner. Thank you. Mayor, in the last meeting, we had a discussion. I know I brought it up about who maintains the wall that's being built, because there was a timeline on how long the wall. The wall was going to be maintained. And what I requested was to have somebody come back to us because I didn't want the city to be having to negotiate the battle between who repairs the wall. I believe it was. And I'm not 100% sure, but it was probably a 99 year contract. I may be wrong, but I just wanted to make sure if there's going to be this, this wall, who's responsible for it, the maintenance of it. At the moment, I'm going to defer to, where is she? Yes, there she is. The applicant's attorney. Right. For what is the current state? Good evening. Amy Huber, 2200 Gulf Boulevard in Indian Rocks Beach. Here, on behalf of Moses Tucker Partners. Good evening, there is an agreement for us to maintain that wall for ten years. There is not a contract for 99 years. The longest city attorney here will tell you. You can't have it in perpetuity anymore. It's 30 years is the maximum, but that that is the agreement that we reach with our neighbors, but obviously it's our wall on our property. So we have an obligation to the extent that something happens to it, to repair it, I think the issue you're talking about is the painting on their side. I'm talking about it could be painting. It could be, damage to it. It could be failure. What what I didn't want is I didn't want, you know, the city is not part of your contract. This is the contract between the development, your development and the condo board or whoever. And what I was curious is I just didn't want to have to be between, the fight, if that should happen. So the obligation to maintain any building or object on our property is the same as it is for anybody else within the city. We have an obligation to maintain a structure. And to the extent that it's damaged, it's our responsibility to repair and or maintain it in accordance with, with code, just like just like everybody else. But it's only for ten years. No, no no no no. Our obligation to paint our neighbors side is, is for ten years. But our obligation to maintain the wall is the same as it is for anything is that it indefinitely. It's I'll let Mr. Renee, I thought we were going to put some language into the agreement with Dickman about the memorialize. What she's saying about in perpetuity is their wall. They have to maintain it forever. And so I think that was one of the items we were going to talk about when we did the thing, the language she just said is going to be not just their agreement and stuff, but like anybody who builds something to say they've got an opportunity to maintain it, or we can code them. So we're going to add some some language in there to make to make that one contention in there. So that's, that's the way we spoke about it, because what happened is, I know you weren't here for that, but I was. Were you okay? I'm sorry. So. Okay. It's been it's been a couple years of this, so we're we're good. I have short term memory loss, but thank you, you know what? It was was just in case you decide to sell your project or whatever down the road, the land, and then it becomes someone else. I didn't want the city to be involved on maintenance. On repair on. So I wanted that to be. I understand your concerns. And that's why we came back with the development agreement in an attempt to address those concerns. But regardless of any private agreement we may have with our neighbor, we're still the property owner. And that doesn't change. So even though we have an agreement with them related to those items, you still have a code that we have to comply with and code enforcement can still come after us regardless of what private agreement we have. If we have something on our property that's damaged, not maintained, needs to be repaired, you, as the city have the right to enforce that regardless of any agreement. That's what you have. Code enforcement for, Mr. Dickman. Feel free if you have something. No, I don't disagree with that. In fact, I mean, the wall would be considered a permitted structure. And just like anything else, if there was any dis, anything that would be in violation of the code, like if it were to break or fall apart, they would be required to repair that and come in and get a permit and repair it. So or otherwise be subject to code enforcement. And we don't have to put that into the agreement that's there. As long as the city is alive and the codes are in the books, they just like anybody. They have to maintain their property. Okay Well, I think they don't have any special any, any special rules applying to them. In fact, they they've got a private agreement, which is great, but and there will be if you want to go forward on this would be a development agreement. But also they still have to abide by all the codes that everyone else has to abide by or be subject to the same enforcement that everybody else is subject to. Okay, the idea is just to get things the terms down on paper, and then we'll work out the details when it comes back. But this is pretty much a broad stroke to what you'll see in a in agreement. And there there's going to be some nuances there. I if I recall already, there's a couple of suggestions, suggested hints that the wall and fence will be maintained already in that site plan at least the concept plan that's provided. So let me go, Commissioner, you got anything else? Okay, vice mayor. Cool. Yeah. You got your light on? Yes. I just wanted to reconfirm with, the applicant that that southern building right there that was originally maybe to be like a daytime office or commercial building. The southern building on the property. It's intended to be an outdoor retail outparcel. Yes. And if I, if you, you did work with the president of the Brittany Park Townhomes and they were able to get an agreement with you and proceed forward with this application and agree with you on it. Basically, yes. We spent a lot of times with our with our neighbor and they've been here. There must have been miscommunication. They were going to be here tonight again to speak in support, we continue to communicate them. They want this project to move forward, and so that's why all of the, the restrictions that have made regarding that parcel, parcel a, were made as a concession to them to address any potential concerns that they may have regarding the use operation hours, of that parcel. Okay. Yes. I think your application did a great job in working with that residential neighborhood. Obviously, you have the wetlands that's, bordering the other side with the commercial up north. So the fact that, you guys worked well on the property and how it was and with your neighbors as well, is we appreciate it as well. And so I'm happy to support this. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else needs me? Hang on, Commissioner, you got anything I want to commend, the applicant and commend staff for working together. This is how projects are supposed to work. So thank you very much. Thank you. And your staff is amazing. I agree, Commissioner DiNardo, you got anything? Yeah. I concur with what's been said. Miss Vincent, as always, thank you for the hard work. Mr. Dickman. I'm sure you were probably involved in this as well with your expertise. So it was a good teamwork. And also on the part of the applicant as well, look forward to seeing the development agreement in terms of a time frame. Do you have any idea of, coming back with the development agreement? It's really going to depend upon the attorneys. Our attorney. It depends how much work you put on him. Ballpark. I mean, next year, two years from now. Oh, definitely not. I mean, I'm hoping we can get this wrapped up before a couple of months before the new manager comes in, if we can, before the new manager. Hopefully. That's two meetings. Oh, two meetings. Yeah. Okay. Well I don't think I don't see it. I see it as a straightforward development agreement. We've done these plenty of these, but we'll move as quickly as possible. Definitely not all right. Thank you. I'd like it to remain fresh in your minds. Okay, if there's no further comments, may I have a motion and a second to approve this item? Second. Okay. Miss Vincent, we had a motion and a second. Right, miss Vincent, roll call. I'm sorry, Miss Jacobs. Commissioner. Roll call. These glasses don't work real well for the board. Commissioner Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes Commissioner. Eisner. Yes, vice mayor Coolio's. Yes mayor. Vatikiotis. Yes mayor, the next item is, we have a five minute one, a break. Okay. That's right. The next 1st May be a little lengthy, let's take a break at 806 and reconvene at 816. And everyone can return to their seats. Please Commissioners. Commissioner DiDonato. Where's your. Go ahead and call the meeting back to order at 817, the next item is item 13. Sponge docks. Hope Athens community plan. I'm sure that's the reason why many of you are here. This evening, before we get started, I want to just say not to. Read more into this than what it is. This is an acceptance of a presentation of a consultants plan. And it's being requested that the commission accept the report, not necessarily its findings or adopt its conclusions or anything like that, but just to close out that particular task, this whole effort on the Greektown Historic Preservation Sponge Docks, Athens Hope corridor project, you know, we've only had a couple of steps in the journey to completing this thing. It's not going to be done for. I would suspect, at least a year from now, maybe there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, it's going to go through a full review with the P and Z board, as the comp plan did, and that update and you saw how long it took. And I really have confidence that in the end, it's something that we can all live with, I keep remembering Mr. Salzman's, comment about a successful mediation is when both sides walk away, not happy with the result. So I don't think everybody's going to get what they want. But I also ask that you look at it from the standpoint of what's good for the city of Tarpon Springs, and that's the way I see that. So City Manager, of course, I'm going to ask you to go ahead and get started. Yes, I'll, I'll have, Rene Vincent start and introduce our consultant, give the presentation, good evening. So I've been trying to figure out what I want to say about this planning effort, and how to introduce Jared or presenter. In my 17 years with the city, there are two things in Tarpon Springs that give me a little bit of PTSD. And planning and place making and things like that. At the Sponge docks is one of them, and it makes me a little sad, frankly, because when you stand at the intersection of Athens and Cross streets, it feels almost perfect. And the majority of the development that took place there precedes every planning effort, every code and regulation that the city has ever had. Even the redevelopment of the Sponge exchange over time has morphed and been modified to take advantage of and contribute to those street frontages. So, in large part in my mind, the placemaking has occurred, it's happened organically without interference and without regulation, overregulation by the city. So I mean, contrary to some beliefs, I think this plan was never meant to be a grand placemaking or regulatory document. During the early engagement process, it became clear that the best possible outcome was to focus on areas where we can find some common ground among all the various stakeholders. And in November of 2023, we redirected to that end, I know there are some people who don't think the plan met its scope, that it isn't a placemaking plan. It's absent of design regulations and so forth. But with the sponge docks, I've learned my lessons, and I believe that there's a fundamental need to first do no harm. So we need to agree to disagree about terminology. Past actions, lost opportunities, and what makes this area so unique. So the consultants listened and so did staff. They interviewed property owners. They went on walking tours, as did staff with representatives of the Greektown Placemaking and Heritage Association. We engaged online. We had very well attended in-person workshops, and we looked for common ground. And to the mayor's point, I don't think anybody's getting 100% of what they wanted or envisioned, but the plan identifies 30 opportunities that have implemented over time can help ensure the economic longevity of this area, and that new development is sensitive to and complementary to the sponge docks and the Hope Athens community, and most importantly, will preserve and protect and enhance the placemaking that's already occurred in this area over the last 100 years. So I wanted to give you my thoughts on this before I introduce Jared, I'm going to turn it over to him. He's going to provide a more detailed overview and then switch back to myself on some of the implementation steps. Can you introduce your team behind you as well? Yes, I can, so we have we have Jared Beck. From Stantec. We have Lori, I can't pronounce your last name. Lori. Lori viola. And then you know, my planning staff, we were all involved. Caroline Alley and Pat, we've all had our hands in this. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jared. Thank you, Mr. Benson. Thank you. Good evening. Commission. It's a pleasure to be here. And provide you this update on the planning process and where we've been, as Renee had mentioned, we started this process with a variety of goals. And over time, that also evolved as we got further into the public engagement program. Among the various goals, though, included advancing asset based economic development within the area, enhancing placemaking and public spaces, promoting sustainable, historic and cultural preservation, as well as working to identify opportunities that can enhance the accessibility and mobility throughout the entire study are. I think one of the things that we find so often in communities is that some of the greatest places and spaces they have are frequently our historic downtowns and our historic commercial waterfronts. And I believe as we approach these from a planning perspective, there's a value in looking back to when they originated. And for us in Florida and particularly in coastal Florida, in many cases, these areas were developed on land that at the time was very inexpensive. There was not a robust regulatory framework. We didn't have the Florida building code. We source materials locally for the buildings that were constructed, and we did not have major transportation networks, and more so as communities, we supported the community that we were in. We lived there, we worked there, we recreated there. It was a part of our our every part of our life. I should say. Now, more than a century later, those areas are among our most expensive real estate that we have to work with. We have a very robust Florida building code that requires many things, including costs. As we look at redevelopment and infill, we have construction practices that are very different, and I suspect we source very little locally. It probably all comes elsewhere. We also have a very dynamic and robust transportation network throughout the state of Florida in fact, I think the average Pinellas County resident commutes almost 25 minutes from their home to go to their job. We are no longer in the place where we always live and work and do all of our business in our general area, more so, our community expectations are different, right? So we live in an era of Amazon and Uber Eats. It's a very different dynamic than it was a century ago. So as we look towards these communities in the areas, from that planning perspective, this brings some very unique challenges that we have to be mindful of going through the process. Now, of course, within those are that we want to ensure that anything that we do protects the scale and the character of a downtown and a commercial center that we're able to retain the locally owned businesses that provide that flavor, that we're adapting to changing demographics, that we're supporting tourism as a major arm in our economy, while not losing the authenticity of a community that we're also better managing mobility types. We have far more vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles and technology, e-scooters and e-bikes. We also want to compel investors in this process to respect the fabric of a place that attracted them, that made it what it is, and that we're managing redevelopment or infill projects in a way that is compatible and enhances the existing character of a community, rather than detracting it. And increasingly, we're concerned about the weather events and how we're protecting not just what comes, but what is there. So as we think about these plans and how we develop them, we also be mindful or need to be mindful rather of some of the considerations. And those are recognizing that there's a limitation on what a city can do and what a city can regulate that we do have to comply with codes today as there is new development, redevelopment or major rehabilitation that we are competing on a public level with very costly real estate. We have to have capacity to manage the things that we are doing. And as a city that is internally with your staff and your resources, that those that we're working with also have equal capacity to be participatory in this. And that generally, there are the financial resources and wherewithal to advance these efforts. It also takes a willingness, and that's a willingness to consider creative initiatives or programing, funding or partnerships or things that may not always have been done. It will take property owner, business owner and resident support and commitment and organized commercial structure in our downtowns and working commercial components that their city support, and that we also have buy in and committed support broadly, and that we remain open to experimenting with things. And if they work, that's great. And if they don't, we can always try something different. So that being said, and I'm going through the next couple slides to lead up to and following on what Renee said, how we got to where we got in the report that you've all read, we have had, quite a lot of interaction with your community over the last year or so, and it has at times been very fun and it is at times been very challenging. But I think it has always been meaningful. And I appreciate everyone that we have interacted with. One of the things that we have learned through this process and I think you should be very proud of it, is that you have a very, dedicated and passionate group of residents and businesses and property owners that care very much about their community. We also recognize, though, that the views that many of your community members have very broadly, and they seem to be often conflicting with one another in terms of how we look at future actions or initiatives. We also have to recognize from the planning perspective and the city perspective that change is constant. Development and redevelopment is going to happen if we choose to do nothing, then we're accepting what we don't want. As this study evolved, the goals that we began with transition much more. As Renee had mentioned in the finding common ground, not creating winners or losers, but identifying those things that we could hopefully build together with going forward as that starting place. As I mentioned, doing nothing is accepting what comes and with that, then we evolve to these opportunities which are really intended to be considerations for you as a city and the community together to take those actionable steps towards implementing some of these common ground projects. As Renee had mentioned, there were a number of different activities that we had done over the last year to work with the community, talk with the community, the listening workshop sessions we had a morning and an afternoon session last spring, I think really gave some great feedback. And so what I'm going to include are just a few of the highlights, which are also in your report. We've taken them exactly as they are. Of what came out for four different categories, one of them being commercial and generally some of the comments very much centered around preserving the historic architecture and scale. There's concern over property maintenance, perhaps too much signage, and that there is an opportunity to consider alternative uses, potentially, of existing parking in the sponge docks. One of the I shouldn't say this came through very clearly of a desire to keep them clutter free, potentially make them wider, and bring in more directly that they remain functioning working, remains a functioning working waterfront. Having this for trucks as needed. Really supporting the sponges first and then pedestrians and tours secondly. The furnishings are more historically appropriate that we have clean and consistent landscape, using real materials, minimizing some of the clutter, addressing a few of the functional issues, and then advancing a more unified and simpler simplified signage program in Dodecanese. We heard, really a wanting to allow for things like kiosks and sidewalk cafes, but also doing so in a way that there are standards that alleviate, alleviates that sidewalk clutter, and still allows for functional mobility up and down the sidewalks that we are recognizing the need for culturally and historically appropriate streetscape elements and signage, there are many competing elements within the right of way that could be mitigated or minimized that we look at restricting truck delivery times and trying to help keep the roadway as functional as it can be for automobiles and folks actually going to business and going home within the area. And that perhaps there are portions or segments that at limited times would be evaluated for potential, one way use and then a potential need for parking solutions. So these are oh, and additionally also with residential, we did hear a desire to, to really ensure there is a preservation of the historic neighborhood architecture that its scale that there are regulations to guide future development, there's uniform signage and that potentially revisit the on street parking regulations. Again, these are just a highlights of some of the comments. I think you've all probably read the report that you've received. You have all comments from all sessions within there for your review. So that being said, as we move into the next portion again, just simply restating the opportunities that are meant to be considerations for you as the city commission, in the community to take steps towards some common ground projects. I'm not going to go through all of them. You have them in your report, but I do want to highlight some of the main themes and those that we think are most important. So as it relates specific to the sponge docks, delineating a working waterfront protection area, that was a constant that we heard throughout this, removing excess furnishings, any of the landscape or unnecessary signage that doesn't need to be there and impedes some of the function of the waterfront, as well as differentiating it being the working waterfront from the adjacent public realm, as there are future projects that come forward really making that distinction. For economic development, I think that if there can be support, it would be very beneficial to work with an establish an organized commercial merchant group of business owners. Tenants that can be property owners within their employee representatives of the commercial property owners within the area, giving them that one focused hopefully, voice that they can start to agree and be real champions of these opportunities, carrying them forward, supporting you as a city and also in ways helping you as time passes. I think there's also a benefit in the longer term, to consider establishing or creating some type of a bid, a mechanism that allows the, business owners and property owners to continue to have a real role in, say, in the direction and future improvements within the community, while also creating a mechanism to ensure there's always some protection in place for it, as well as funding mechanisms for the particular things that they may need in the future in terms of cultural asset preservation, we think there's a need and opportunity to update the special area plan. To expand that overall, to look at creating a cultural commercial district to help enable the city to provide should you create additional incentives or programs to help advance some of the future plans and efforts in creating incentive programs for actions such as flood and windstorm mitigation for the existing commercial businesses. Expanding the Building Code Grant program to better support adaptive reuse of historic structures and make them more viable. To continue to be in active use. Also encouraging community based code enforcement to build relationships. So identifying problems before they become difficult and helping to mitigate and alleviate those without creating an issue or large costs in creating consistent development patterns. Again, we think there's an opportunity to expand the boundary of the smart code or the special area plan, and also to establish design guidelines as they apply to new residential development or infill, that there's an opportunity to update the design standards within the smart code as well, to better regulate nonresidential buildings, its scale and its massing throughout the area in terms of sidewalks, pedestrian access and safety. There is, you know, a lot of motion up and down the area in terms of vehicles, bicycles, pedestrians. So considering things like integrating new pavement materials and shade beyond the working waterfront area, evaluating sidewalks and storefront Ada ramps for reconstruction and removal of some of the guardrails, if that's an opportunity or if not replacing those with more historically compatible railings. We'd also like to see, investment in high pedestrian areas in coordinating, you know, as our future streetscape replacement projects or utility replacement projects. There may be some areas where there can be some limited narrowing of travel lanes to help give more sidewalk width to the businesses, and things like the cafes and outdoor space, repainting crosswalks or installing new, actual different materials. Intersection improvements, could be great areas to help identify some of those potential conflicts and freshen up the overall street itself. Incorporating sidewalk lighting and shade infrastructure within the residential areas, I think would be very helpful. And also then as these things occur as furniture becomes replaced and you go through your processes developing a consistent theme for any of the new streetscape furniture as well as landscape materials would be something very much to the benefit of the area. And then also as it relates to traffic, circulation and parking, the last of the ones I want to highlight, you know, we heard a lot of discussion about one way vehicle circulation potential, elements of trying that out in a block or two block area. I do think there's a value in, in looking at experimenting with that. Perhaps during certain high volume times, it could be an evening and whatnot. I'm making anything permanent. But there's again, as we mentioned, the opportunity to try and experiment with that. And then also, you know, we do recognize the impact that all of the deliveries, the trucks have in terms of just impacting flow. So establishing with the business owners, working with them, identifying certain designated loading and unloading zones, having them work with the delivery companies and trying to agree to those. I think there's a benefit in in improving some of that overall function. So what we provided here is really a highlight of some of the main things that we are themes. And what we think, I think are some of the most important things to start working towards that we believe do have some some broader support for, so with that, what I'd like to do is actually ask Renee to come back and I know staff has already gone through kind of what we have, have provided talk through some of these things. And I believe that they've got some next steps that they would like to share as well. Thank you. So where we would like to jump off with this, there were certain opportunities, that very much also align with the update of the comprehensive plan that we would like to see be the, you know, immediately implemented. And this would be by staff, the first is expanding the special area plan and the smart code regulating plan to include the Hope Athens area, and other surrounding properties, we want to evaluate and update the special area plan and the smart code to address design regulations for new constructio. And we've we heard enough during this process to do this, and we're confident that we can, you know, bring something that everybody can get behind, and then complete the amendments to the Land Development Code to create a conservation overlay district. We've been working on that. I went to the planning and Zoning Board. I got some good additional input, so we've retooled that a third time. So bring that forward, and get that established as a further protection mechanism for demolition and new construction, if there's a, you know, significant portion of the property owners, that's a process that we have to go through, but we want to get that done. We would like to use the Planning and Zoning Board in a very similar manner, as was achieved in the Comprehensive Plan update to help us with this, because this is a the special area plan and the smart regulating plan are you know, there's a there's a lot there that needs to be addressed, and so we want to use the planning and zoning board, to help us with that in a structured manner, get in front of it better than we did with the comprehensive plan, so we're seeking direction and then all the other opportunities I think are probably going to require some additional discussion at another time for prioritization. And so, you know, if you have initial input on that, I would like it. But I think that might be something for a workshop or a work session, at a later date. So that that's what my recommendations are at this point in terms of moving forward or to focus on these things, because I think these are the most important things that, and that need to be done. And they do align as a jumping off point with the comprehensive plan, follow on actions that are identified there as well. So with that, you know, I think we'll turn it back to you, mayor. Okay. Thanks, Miss Vincent, just for clarification. So we I think we're going to have two action items tonight that can actually be combined. One would be the acceptance of the report. Yes. And then the second would be to, accept your guidance and recommendations to move forward as you presented it on this immediate step. Yes. Right. Subject to what the commission decides. Okay So, let me go to public comments and then we'll go from there, public comments. We'd like to go first. No public comments, they're coming. Tina Bucuvalas, 115 Athens Street, and I am with the Greektown preservation and Heritage Association. And first of all, I'd like to say that I agree very much with some of Renee's comments that she made at the beginning. This docks and the downtown area. There, for instance, is a place that indeed made itself, and it's up to us just to I think, enhance it and preserve it. I also think these implementation guidance and recommendations for the staff are an excellent way to start this, and there's a lot of other recommendations that, I and other members of the association very much support, s 1 to 3, D 1 to 3, P 1 to 6, I would love to see implementation as soon as possible. Especially for some of the easier things like cleaning up the docks and things like that. Especially since funds are currently in the budget and the project has been late. Now, as you know, because all of you received copies, we did take a very close look at and made a lot of comments and many criticisms of items in the plan. It's not to say that there are not a lot of good things in there, but there are some things I think that could be changed, redirected, and there were unfortunately a few things that were incorrect or maybe need some reconsideration, one of those things is that I, I think it should be clear that the report incorrectly stated that an outside agency initiated the Greektown Historic District nomination to the National Register. That is not true. All district nominations for the City of Tarpon Springs have come from the city's Division of Arts and Historical Resources, including the Greektown one city staff submitted the nomination for approval to the HPB. BOC, then the state historic preservation Officer then that went to the Florida Historic Preservation Review Board and was submitted to the National Register, and that can be confirmed by public records and, BoCC meetings, another thing I think we probably need to consider is the change of name. Which I am not comfortable with. The name of the project that started out was officially the Greektown Traditional Cultural Property Preservation and Placemaking Project. The report. The report said the Greektown nomenclature may feel uncomfortable. I haven't run into hardly. I haven't run into anyone that has told me they feel uncomfortable with that and it's not justifiable to rename this. The Greektown Historic District is the official name created by the city, the state, and the national Register of Historic Places. No one is allowed to change the name of the district, especially not since the area has been called Greektown by residents and by outside people. In oral and written references, newspapers, whatever. I just heard it mentioned last night, referred to that way last night at the PNC meeting. But in similarly other American ethnic enclaves around the country have this kind of name. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Perhaps some people felt looked down upon it in the mid 20th century, when those enclaves were not as affluent as other places. That is not the case anymore. People are proud of those names, and what's more, they're a tourist attraction. So I don't feel that the name, Sponge docks and Hope Athens corridor, I have minutes from Mr. Marcus. Yes really describes what we're looking at. And I know we're looking at a slightly bigger area, but I feel we need to address this issue going forward. Otherwise, I just want to say there are many good recommendations in here. One thing I think we would like to see more of when we, initiated this project by asking for budget allowance from the city, we had been hoping to have a little more of a concrete vision for the area. Again, not to change. We appreciate everything that the staff has done in terms of aligning the zoning and looking at different ordinances and things. Those are extremely important, but we also want to have more of an emphasis on the placemaking aspect, character by things that people in the district both residents and business owners feel we need, we want to bring it back to a more attractive appearance, appearance. And we want to preserve, of course, the working waterfront, because that's the authentic thing that people come for tourism as a result of the authentic character of the district. So we have to stress local needs among those things might be, different kinds of events and placemaking things, making it a more attractive place to come to at night for residents and for people outsid, making it a livelier place to really enjoy it, you know, for the residents and for everyone. And I would like to see hopefully going forward that, the Greektown Preservation Association, which has a lot of people in it with many different kinds of skills, renovation, arts education and so on, work more closely with the city in helping to create some of this. So thank you very much. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Good evening. Katie Taylor 1991 Douglas Lane, Tarpon Springs, I'm glad to see that this, the Greek organization is being being prepared to preserve Greektown because I go down there as a although I'm born and raised here in Tarpon, I go to Greektown for my mama's, I go for Yanni's, I go for the little Greek bakery that's on the side street in front of Kostas. Those things make me feel like a tourist. And although I one day I want to go to Greece, that's the only way I can get to Greece right now is to go to Greektown to get that culture. But what I would like to see also is that, all, all nationalities be represented down there that help create a part of Greektown. So sound like it's a culture. It's an association that maybe I need to speak with someone. Tina Bucuvalas, doctor Bucuvalas, or somebody that I can talk to about how can we get more diversity to get that sponge, that Bahamian sponge that's been put on the back, back row with the pack, with the Public Arts Council. Put that back up on the table. I'm waiting to see if it's going to come back on the table with the Arts Council, because I haven't forgotten it. But I'd like to have conversation with the vendors or the representative of the society of this association to see what we can do, to come together, to see what we can do to get the Bahamian sponge represented on Dodecanese. Right now, that Art exhibit, although it's beautiful, sitting at the back parking lot of that visitor's bureau, I go back there and I get dizzy just looking at the water. I don't see how I noticed that it's a chain in front of that parking lot. That's because that parking lot is reserved for the boat slots. For those people who reserved that, they put their boats there, so nobody's going back there. I look at that every other day. I drive down there because I love that area. Nobody's going behind that visitor's bureau to see that. The Bahamian Sponger project that you put on the back, in the back of that parking lot back there, I'd like to see it moved some kind of way, but I'd like to talk to someone in the Greek community, the vendors that own that area, or whoever owned that, the sidewalks or whatever. We have to do to see if we can work together to try to get the representation of the Bahamian sponge on Dodecanese. It's a beautiful area and I appreciate you preserving your culture. It's a beautiful thing. Thank you. Thank you, other public comments. Good evening. Craig Lunt 743 Chesapeake Drive, Tarpon Springs. I'm actually one of the people that have been involved with this even prior to funding the original conception. I think in some cases we got what we asked for, but the original concept here was that we know our city, we know the sponge areas, we know other things. We were really, really close to the sponge docks area. The initial intent was as a placemaking study to make residents and business owners and everybody feel more comfortable in their environment. We wanted an outside look. This is why we went for a placemaking study. We all know there's a myriad of different things we could do to the sponge docks. Depending upon who you talk to on any day to do clean it up or remove signage or improve sidewalks and remove drainage and stuff like that, but what we were operating on was the general concept of placemaking and the general concept of placemaking is a philosophy and an iterative process for creating public spaces that people love and feel connected to. And that's what we wanted when we first started about this. We wanted an outside view of what could be done, not how much regulation we could put into it or how it could be done specifically, and how it could be zoned, etc. we wanted because we can do that as a city. That's what we're here for. We wanted somebody to go in and say, look, this is what you've got. This is the way the people feel about how you got. And we all know they have strong feelings and this is what I think would make a more comfortable place for them. We wanted suggestions on more public spaces and where they might be, what they might be. What we got was a was not exactly what we asked for. I'm not really going to sit here and criticize, but I mean showing us how to redesign. The garden at the Marina was not what we were looking for. So just just a word of notice. I know we've got the report. We're going to accept i. We'll we'll do or not do things. But that was not the original concept. Somehow the original concept evolved from help show us what we can't see because we're snow blind and to just regulation. It's just. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Anita. Pros 901 Bay Shore Drive I agree with doctor Boukouvalas should be called Greektown. That's what it's known for. That's what it's been known for since day one, when the sponge divers first came and you saw a river there, and you could see the bottom of it with the starfish and the shrimp and the fish there. There was no sidewalk. There was a dirt road to go there. It is Greektown. And we all know growing up here, that's what it was referred to. And that's what our families referred to. It was the other thing is start looking to the history. Look where the sponges were. Apalachicola at the beginning, coming around the bend, how they got here with families that came up here, the American families that went down to the Bahamas to stay safe. And what happened? You need to know the history of where they came from. And you still have a lot of the older, older families here that you can talk to and get the history before we start changing to all nationalities down there and lose what we've got in the Greek heritage of the sponge docks, it's going to change. It'll change in the next 10 or 15 years. But be cautious of what you change and what you put down there. We lost the sponge exchange to a point because it's got too much commercial, but they didn't have all the sponges to put in there, and the city was going to condemn it, and that's why it had to be sold, because they didn't have the money to keep it up. And most of the old men were gone, because I remember George Produce was president of the Sponge Exchange, and he made sure all those widows and the wives got their checks. We went everywhere. And it was killed in a local newspaper here in Tarpon Springs, with the editor being sitting on the board here. And she killed it for the city trying to get it. And the church tried to work with the city, and we couldn't get any cooperation to keep it in the hands within the church and the city of Tarpon. And that's what's happened. And you look at it no, it's changed. So be very cautious and look at the history. Mr. Collins family knows about it, Panagiotis, grandfather being a, a captain of boats, it's gone on. Be very cautious. The liquors family. My family a lot of these families here, Mr. Francis. Father in the back. They know the history of Greektown. And I hope y'all do not change the name to anything else because you've lost it. We are the only Greek community in the United States and part of Europe that has all the. Though the Coney Islands. Here we are the only Greek community in Tarpon Springs that has the sponge history. What we've got, don't lose it. Is there any other comments? Mr. Delacruz, do you have comments? Yeah You're next. Thank you, thank you. Wanted to offer courtesy to those who live in the area. Peter LAX, 514 Ashland Avenue, if I may ask staff, can you put up page 37 from that report and I'll go ahead and start, you've heard me before talking about the maritime Committee and finding ways to preserve our working waterfront again. I will bring it up. We need to set up some kind of grant program that we can start supporting some of the industry and businesses that would go along with that maritime community. Also you can have grants and offer some incentives to have fishermen or people come to learn the sponging trade so we can revitalize the sponges. There are sponges out there. They have recovered. So I would think that that would be something that could be done constructively because we, as it was said, the working waterfront is what brought the tourists, it's not in the presentation. It might be in there was two items in in the thing. The one that talks about the land swap. Page 37. So. That page 37, as they bring it up, it talks about doing a land swap. For the property. We authorize the board to purchase on Roosevelt and Hill and cross streets over there. I think this is what you're talking about. Yeah. I can't read it. Can you read it? And if I have a moment to time myself, it says, evaluate the opportunity for a land swap with city owned property on Roosevelt Boulevard and Hill Street for the existing parking lot on Dodecanese Boulevard between Athens Street and or Ferris Street, including the adjacent easterly parcels for potential construction of a public parking garage that could include ground floor street facing commercial liner buildings. So when we approved that amendment or that permission for you to buy that property, there was nothing in there in language about a land swap. Went to the hippie fest the other day, and I was at the PNC meeting last night. They made a presentation about that parking lot on the northwest corner of Roosevelt and Hills. Going to be impervious surface redone at the hippie fest on the north east corner of Hill and Roosevelt. That's where they set up the band tent tables. Vendors were around there. They had parking. That is what our vision was to use that property, not to trade it for someplace in the middle of the of the decades. And what's the other reason? I hadn't been down to that part of the West End of the docks, and there's a lot of new shops in there on that side. And we've heard Raya and others from the Merchants Association coming down. We need to attract more people because people park on the East End. They walk maybe to Hellas or right there around there and then they go back. You've put up a place where they can park and then they can walk down. They can walk down to the sponge exchange. They can go further down to Ferris, where Mykonos and Yannis and all that stuff. So. The last thing I'll say, I know parking is an issue. We deal with it with downtown. We deal with it with the sponge docks. But I don't see where it's necessary that it's the city's obligation to provide a parking space for everybody who may come to Tarpon on a special event. I found a parking space. I went down there a little before 6:00, found a parking spot right there on Cross Stree. There are places to park and it was packed. The place was packed. So look at finding a way to support our sponging and our waterfront. More fishing boats, more shrimp boats, more marines. I told you before, marine Max across they bought that boat yard and they have an apprentice program. They're training people how to work on boats. Those are the types of things we need to do. Thank you. Do you want to put the land swap thing to rest? Please I'll try to be restrained in my language because when people go off on tangents, stuff. So as you said before, these items are just suggestions in a report. This item happened to be a suggestion of the consultant to put in the report. Now, if it got to me, I probably tell him don't put that in there because now you're going to start conspiracy theories of we did this and traded this and all this nonsense that goes on and causes all of our problems. But in reality, if there is an opportunity which there isn't, because our land at the end of the docks is not as valuable, the land in the middle. But if there is some value that somebody was going to put something in the middle of the sponge docks to take away all the parking there, and they wanted to maybe trade and go down to the end and do it. It would be something the city would have to look at. It's not ingrained. No one's mentioned in the city. This is something just put on the resort. You'd have to look at if someone offered it up, you have to look for it. But in reality it wouldn't have been the report, because we know that the land is not valuable to swap there. Now people have been looking to develop some of those major lots on the sponge docks. One of the major reasons why we went to that vote to get that land is if that were to happen and you wipe out a big area in the beginning, in the middle of the docks where a whole lot of parking was, of course, everybody would be looking for the city. What can you do without having that land? We would say, I don't know what we can do. That's an opportunity in the future. But there's nothing happen. There's many different options we can do with that. Buy that land. But if something happened and we lost major amount of parking spaces, you know, that's what we have that property to do. There's not going to be anybody offering the it's too valuable in the middle there. It's an idea and a concept. Would you look at. But in reality, no one's going to trade that property in the middle for their value to our property at the end. So it's a suggestion from the consultant, but it's something that's never going to happen. So let's stick with the rest of the plan and the important things and not worry about these sort of things. Okay. Thank you, let's continue with public comments. Are there any other public comments? Please come forward. Hello, Pete Matsakis, 204 North Florida Avenue. So I wanted to add some suggestions to this plan over here. Maybe to have consistent events happening at the sponge docks once a month, like they're happening downtown Tarpon to bring more people down to the sponge docks. As you guys can see, it's very slow now too. And with everything going on with inflation, businesses are struggling. So we need more people down there. Another thing I would suggest is having like live bouzouki playing like every Saturday or Sunday night down there. Everybody pitches in close off the road. Tina suggested retractable retractable barricades too. That could help with traffic flow from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. have the road closed and direct traffic around, so just a few ideas I wanted to share with you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? I'm going to go to Mr. Jumper. There. Any remote access comments? Please raise your hand and you'll be allowed into talk. We do have a raised hand. So the first person in. And if you can unmute and state your name and address for the record. If you'd still like to talk, please unmute. And you please state your name and address for the record. And. And we do not have any other raised hands at this time. Thank you. Okay, let's go back to the commission, vice mayor, do you have anything? It looks like we have an implementation plan that's going to take some time on on how we go about approaching it. And do you have any suggestions on how we work with some of the, you know, the association and ourselves to slowly start addressing some of these recommendations? You're asking me, I mean, I, I very much, you know, we're we're going to have what we have up here these initial implementation steps is going to require working with everybody. Yes. It's going to require working with the Association, working with the you know, we can't do that in a vacuum. You don't do regulating plans in a vacuum. So you know we've heard a lot we have we have a good jumping off point. So you know, maybe hopefully we can use this process to, you know, to better engage, continue to engage. And if we can get, you know, get, get a consensus and some, some, you know, synergy there, you know, we can carry that over into these other opportunities. But I do think regarding that larger list, we probably need to have some additional discussion in the future, and some of those are not planning type things. They're they're a lot. There's a wide range of things there. So, you know, continue the conversation and pretty much simply, you see how we do with the comp plan and you know what? We ended in the comp plan. It was the biggest kumbaya of everybody together that I've seen in all my years at the commission. Everybody on board, the citizens. So why change a process that worked on something as big and as good as the comp plan? I think we instituted the same way we did tons of community involvement with everybody and get to the point it worked. Then in a record amount of time, I never thought that I'd be here still when it's done, but it seemed like a long time. But all that was done was strategic and comp plan and planning did, it was amazing. We got there so that worked and we'd like to go forward with the same method we did there, and include all those things. And I think we'll have the same ending that we had with the comp plan. We want to jump in with the Planning and Zoning Board at the September meeting with with a solid work plan and engagement plan. You know, to achieve this. That's what we're working on right now. Okay. Now with this place making, you know, I sort of had an assumption that there may be, you know, potential ideas, obviously property rights or property rights, but location aspects to maybe even a boutique hotel without freaking anyone out, you know, or you know, a parking garage or just different aspects to help create nightlife, which also includes the bollards that we talk about and closing the street off. So do you think that that's something that's can be formed in this report, working with the planning and zoning department and the various organizations, maybe. Or, are you, like, trying to, like, identify a particular location for where we would want, you know, I think we can we can we can tackle some of that as we move forward with the special area plan update and the, you know, and the smart code update, special area plan. More from the vision piece of it, I'm not sure I'm 100% getting to what you're what you're getting at, but I see where the placemaking, report is gone. And I just had a little bit different expectations on like a layout for the future of the sponge docks. Even though it's a great it addresses a lot of different, you know, cultural resources asset protection, economic development, which it looks great. And so, I just want to see as we slowly get together and we look at this all to implement it, it's a lot to absorb and, and you know, there's, you're never going to win. We're never going to win. You know, some of the, you know, some of the organizations may, may never feel like they they went through this all, but this is a, it's a tough area over here, but I do want it to be called Greektown. I have every reason to want it to be called Greektown. And, it's very special to my heart as well, I do want to bring up the, you know, the, Miss Taylor and the, you know, the Bahamian project. I believe that's, been addressed through multiple years of research. We've come with the art projects that we've come to, the suggestion of trying to create a bronze statue and place it nearby. The sponge exchange, or, next to the current statue that represents all the contributions made to the sponge industry in Tarpon Springs. It's not something I'm going to support, we understand the different ethnicities that help play a part of this, but our our importance and, what we're doing is to not overshadow or impose the importance of one another. And so it's not there's other ways that we can go about taking care of community and addressing the different ethnicities that helped make the sponge docks and the sponge industry what it is. But as far as that project, it's the minutes reflect what's been done and where we've gotten to today. And, I believe that's been tabled indefinitely. So thank you. Okay, Commissioner Eisner. Thank you. Mayor I did read the report, and I also did speak to people on the committe. So some of the things I got out of this was there was a an expectation, expectation that was not satisfied, and I don't know how that happened, you know, you set a goal of what you want to get out of something, and then, I don't know if there was enough feedback. I don't know if there was enough, correspondence back and forth, but that's the feedback I got was that there were a lot of ideas on doing a lot of things, but no real time frame on what's important to do first, what's important to do second, and this is just the way I would look at this, and how much things would be costing to do things, I think that's all pertinent when you're doing a presentation. I think that there should have been feedback during, I don't know if there was or there wasn't, and if there was, it wasn't enough because we should not be at the end of a report and have all of these things still up in the air, I would have not approved or like to see, he just let me go down through the sponge docks area and find everything under the sun that, falls under needing repair or needing chang, or it's an impossible thing to do. So, I wish there was some more stringent guidelines to what we were spending this money on and coming up with a concise, what are we getting out of it? Because if you speak to the people from, the Greek town, they don't feel that they got the money for this. They didn't get their money's worth. And I guess if I spoke to Stantec, they would say to me that they provided more than their money's worth. Money's worth. So, I just think there was somewhat of a breakdown between that. And I also don't know where to go with this report. There's just it needs to be furthered, to get your bang for your buck. But at the same time, I don't know how you move forward. There was so much information in there and a lot of the information, I mean, I read all 36 pages and has been said there's only 13 pages of it that, had information. The rest is pictures of this. And pictures of that. And in those 13 pages, you could have gotten anybody to walk down the Greek docks and just written that almost that same amount of information down. I didn't think it was a unique. Report on what we need to make it more viable. And I'm speaking from an outsider. So, but, you know, I do have people that come to visit and they go, this is a little bit rundown. This is this, you know, they give you your own feedback. So, I don't know where to go with this. There's a lot of information, like I said, and, I don't know what we do with this. Do we extend the report? Do we continue on with it, you know, I really don't see any guidelines to what we should be doing first, second, third, fourth or what we would what the return on assets of what we would put in, what we would get out. I don't know if we have agreement from the, store owners, nor do we have agreement from, you know, anybody of what, what we're doing with this. So that's my take. You know, we don't have a response right now. There was no question that are you're waiting for something. You weren't going to get it. So I thought we'd move on. All right, you have anything else, Commissioner? Oh, good. Go ahead. Correct me if I'm wrong. As I've gone through this, I see it as as a working document that will hopefully go forward to be refined into what we are really looking for. I don't I don't see it as a concrete document. I mean, you take this or not, I see it as a working, livable, let's get together document. And I think it's needed. I think there needs to be a direction. There needs to be some common goals. We want to try to agree to disagree and move forward and find solutions and, and make them happen because this has been talked about in different realms on and off for a long time, so I just would encourage everyone here with the interest that they have to keep working. I want the Historic Preservation Association to continue to work with the city and PNC and PNC to work with them. I think that together, we're going to make some pretty positive changes here, and we'll make them, hopefully for the benefit and good of all, I, I don't think there's anyone in this room that doesn't recognize how important the sponge dock area is. And so we want to do our utmost to, to, to preserve it. And to help make it better in a, in a workable manner. I think it's important that the residences, the homes be protected and preserved as far as the character of the nature of that nice village, in my opinion, I don't want to see over requirements, which I've talked to others about, but I believe if we just all patiently work together, we can make this a very good document to move forward. But I would encourage everyone to, to understand that this is a working document. We're going to be making changes as as we go and suggestions. And Miss Vincent has already said that we will continue to go through this process. I do agree very much that we need to have priorities and prioritize those so we know what step one is. Step two is step three, and we have cost and factors involved. But, that's where I sit on this issue. But I think it's a good thing. And I think we need to move it forward, trying to get to the best possible outcome. Okay. Commissioner Koulianos. Yeah. Yeah. Let me, first of all, Yeah, it's Greektown. If you say I'm going to Greektown, you're going where the people live. If you're going to eat, you say, I'm going down to Sponge Dock. That's what people say, if you want to get really down home, you would say, I'm going to fish House. That's what my wife says. She was born there. She says she's born and raised in fish House, so we can talk about names. But Greektown is Greektown. Sponge Docks are the sponge docks and being afraid of those names is silly, I mean, there's Chinatown, there's Little Italy, there's all these places all over, all over the country. So Greektown is Greektown sponge docks or sponge docks. The thing you know, I, My father was born in Greektown. My wife was born in Greektown, raised in Greektown, I wasn't born in Greektown, but I'll get into more about where I was born. And Commissioner comments. But I we used to come down. My father owned a gift shop, a store on the sponge docks, of which when he retired, he opened and Commissioner Coolio's mom, worked for my mom and dad. So that's how far back we go, he wasn't a twinkle in his mom's eye yet when I knew her and she was delightful back then. So you know. And the thing is coming. Coming to Greektown and Sponge docks, it was always the same. It was always the same. It smelled the same. It looked the same. And that's why we loved it. You know, it's like Renee first said, let's do no harm. First and foremost, let's do no harm, like this young man up here that spoke and talked about opportunities to increase business and that's really important. But changing if you didn't know it, then you had never been here. You would if you came down there, you would say, yeah, it's sometimes you can even say it's junky sometimes. But I look at a junkie and I love it because it's what I remember. It's what Mayor Produce remembers. It is what it is. It's eclectic. It's never had a, you know, a central theme. It's not, you know, everything doesn't look like the Parthenon. Everything doesn't look like something. It has its own kind of weird, eclectic look. I don't want to see that change. So people demanding more out of this report, these are opportunities strictly opportunities. They need to be weighed. You know, I think that, you know, when it gets to architectural standards, right? And none of us want what happened on Grand Boulevard that house is that house is actually great. They did it because it shook everybody up. Right now we know exactly what we don't want. We don't want a house like that, that don't belong there. We know it. Okay So we need some standards. But the people of that neighborhood don't want somebody telling them what color they can paint their door. They don't want to go to some board of no offense of a bunch of seniors telling them how you know, what their house can look like, okay? They don't want it. So if we're going to do something like that, we need to have a board. If we're going to create some kind of little architectural standard group, that's going to whatever it needs to be made up of stakeholders to me, stakeholders are owners of property in the area. They have to live there, either live there or own a business there, a store. They have to own the building. Not that they have a three year lease. I want them to own the building. Okay. Those are the people I would listen to if I lived there and was going to decide on what color my door is, but I don't even want anybody to tell me about the color of my door, how we go about this, is really going to be difficult. You got a hard job. I mean, I it's a hard job because you got this place that most people don't want mess you messing with, but you need to enhance it. So, you know, we've we've always talked about, progress preservation and progress. How do we preserve and still progress. Right. How do you know people come back to Tarpon Lake for, let's say, epiphany? I have relatives that come from up north that come down for epiphany. And they love it being just what it is. Right And it's and, you know, I came here for, I don't know, 20 years that I didn't live here, that I came here and it was always the same. And I loved it, smelled the same and looked the same. It was the same. How do we preserve that? He's given us opportunities. I think, you know, I would like to see a better connection between the sponge docks and the downtown. I'd like to see an enhancement of our walkability. You know, our town's not that big, but it's awkward, you know, Susan Hale's, she and I, we run Tarpon Springs. I mean, literally run around Tarpon Springs. And, you know, there's sidewalks that are hard to maneuver around and, you know, I've fallen, like, three times. I know some of you might find it funny, but my hands get all scarred up. But it's. So. So we have you know, stuff. We. So we need to make our town more walkable. And again, that goes with our, sustainability plan, you know, so. And even the sponge docks could be enhanced with better sidewalks. They get tight in spots, you know, and, so there's things we could do, but we can't lose what we got, and we can't overdo this thing. We got to be careful. It's delicate, so you got. It's a hard job. But you know what? Don't do. No harm. Been there a long time. It's been doing things. It's a good place. It's a wonderful place. That's where I'm at with this, so thank you. Just a quick follow up. Yes, are you done, Commissioner Koulianos? Okay, and you last. You're next. Yeah. No problem. Okay. Go ahead. So, this is just a tad off the base, but I think it has some correlation, I know at the last meeting, we had a discussion of salvaging the area of. So what? I did was I made copies of inline pumps, and I would just like you to pass it to the commissioners so they could see what an inline pump is, because there's no sense if we can't keep this water free, did you get one for I yes, I do, I have I'm sorry, so that was one thing that I wanted to bring up. And as I've heard, because we also spoke about trying to bring Tarpon Avenue to the Sponge docks and back, while I was also in the Florida League of Cities. This is for the city manager. This is a company called Freebee that has a car that can travel back and forth on Safford and communicate. You could use them on the weekends. You could use them during the week. You could use them as much or as little as you need. So I'm giving you another job to do there. City manager, we've been in contact with them. Yes. Good to hear. I am too. Okay, Commissioner. Vice mayor, mayor, I just wanted to bring up that the property purchase down at the sponge docks after going to the hippie festival, I understand things were a little bit more spread out with the layout as we had more property to work with, but they were literally 7 or 800 people underneath that tent at, the property we have now. And so we need to try to look to improve that between parking and, recreation or, you know, community event, concert space too, because I've been trying to talk with the merchants and slowly telling them about Bouzoukia. And you know, which is a Greek style of partying and, outdoor entertainment with singers. And I'm hoping one day we can get to the point where we can have nice lights stringed up across during the winter and fall time, where it's a lot cooler out. We get some of the merchants can work with getting great. Artists, and it will bring a lot of regional heritage to the area as well as citizens who can help. Come see what Bouzoukia look like and it'll be very replicated. Representative of what you see in Greece. And there used to be 3 or 4 different bouzoukia in Tarpon Springs that you could go to. When I grew up, there was only two, so it slowly dwindled away. We understand that, you know, it's we're 365. We're we're, you know, Greektown. So but we are working to try to build community events. And I'm hoping the merchants and other people who know about the Bouzoukia can help, bring this, you know, a fall addition or a late winter early spring addition to the area to. And it would help drive restaurants for later evening dinner experience. And then they could head over to the event. So I just wanted to bring that up as we try to build the heritage in that area. And, there's one statement I wanted to read that Miss Bucuvalas put in here, it was a comment from, Nicolette Henderson, and she recalled, my Greektown was a neighborhood of Greek speaking friends and relatives, bakeries and grocery stores. Everyone knew everyone, and we looked out for each other. Many of the residents are now third and fourth generation Greek Americans who choose to live in their ancestral homes or are returning to their roots. And that's what Greektown is to a lot of us. And so, you know, we take great pride in it and hoping that the great plan that the city has put together with Stantec and, and, the Greektown Heritage Group that we all communicate to try to get this to where we want to go for the long for the longevity of, the community. So thank you. Okay Well, Miss Vincent, I want to congratulate you, I think tonight, we're talking about preserving something rather than changing something. And I think everybody's on the same page with that. And so I think that's excellent. I don't think it's a hard path, moving forward, I really don't. I think everybody wants to, keep the sponge docks as as we have historically. I remember putting on Facebook a long time ago three photographs of the basically the same area from 1915 or 20, 1960, and then the current one, they all looked alike. And I challenge people to tell me what year was what. And so, the only difference is back then, the and it's generational. The only thing is that back then the, store owners were actually the business owners and, it didn't matter to them whether they were home or whether they were at the store. It was the same to them, they would have their stores open at night, they would have a little TV, you know, the old ten inch by ten inch box TV. The mom, the mom, the mother would go home, get food out of the pot, bring it. So the husband could eat it. They'd all eat there. The kids would be doing their homework. They'd be playing on the floor, and hopefully somebody would come by. Maybe they'd make a little more money. That generation is gone. We've got now most of the property owners don't own their businesses. Some do. Don't get me wrong. Some do, but many don't. And they're actually leased out. So I think that this idea of preservation, is going to build on that original generations of how things were and then and then hopefully we'll have this going forward, as we as it is now and as we remembered it, the name I'd also like to get rid of the, the hope Athens part of the corridor, maybe sponge docks. Greek I was looking for direction from the board on that I was not going to make that decision. No no no, no. But I mean, it's just a thought right now. You're going to have to come back and maybe bounce that off on, however you want to handle it, handle it. That's just my thought for this evening. The other thing is, I know you had the one of the bullets in there, and in reading the report, there was something about a kind of one of the challenges is preserving the working waterfront and the fact that, and I read into that the fact that we may not be having the sponge boats that we have there now, at least they're there. I mean, they're they're there, some are working, some are not. But somehow that's going to be a challenge for whatever we do. We could preserve everything that we've got right now in terms of the stores and property, but there still has to be that attraction that those sponges that are being cleaned on the dock and that sort of thing. That's a big part of this place making. I also, don't have a problem with moving slower. I and I think that, I think slower is good because it, it tends to bring everybody along and people have a little more time to catch up with how things have gone. And so I don't have an issue with that. So I think that you're you're doing an excellent job in that, you also had a matrix in your report somewhere about, moving ahead with some of the tasking. And I think you mentioned earlier in your presentation that some of the work you can do in house, you believe you can do in house, I think that there were some empty boxes on some of that, tasking moving forward. I we're we're done with the budget. I think pretty much I'm not sure if you had intended to put something in there. I know you had 150,000, but that was for, taking the comp plan. And creating land development code changes based on the comp plan. I'm not sure whether this is included in that or. Yes. So we had that tasking list and the comp plan that follow on. And so we were already looking at this area to and update the need to update the special area plan and the smart code. That was all called out in that comp plan update. So this feeds right into that. So I'm very comfortable, you know using that money if we need to. It's budgeted that that is budgeted right. Yes. Yeah So you're comfortable with working it in with what is budgeted. Absolutely. Okay. Good. Lastly I just want to thank everybody that, has been involved. Your staff behind you, the consultants, I think that they've, whether we think we know everything about the sponge docks, we can always learn something by having a separate set of eyes on it to kind of give us their perspective, people come. We love the sponge docks, but we also want people to come to the sponge docks and love the sponge docks as well. And so I think a different look is always worthwhile in that, so having said all of that, and I'm looking for a motion to accept the report and also to accept the implementation guidance and recommendation from the staff. I'd also like to include to amend, to change the name to Greektown now. And just I don't think we need to wait. Greektown sponge docks or sponge docks? Greektown. Yes. Whatever the terminology that included Greektown was, still do it. I what I've heard and everything. Sponge docks. The sponge docks. Greektown is a Greektown, so I think the plan addresses both areas. So I think both elements need to be in the name. So we'll do that. So just to be clear, Sponge Docks Greektown would be the name I mean that I think that's what Commissioner Cooley was picking up or is that right? Or I just want to get this righ. You want to get it right. Well, why don't we bring that back at a different time, then? What is it, Renee? No. We'll just. I mean, if we need to, you know, bring that back. We can. I mean, we'll we'll work it, or I can just take the liberty and work it into the name and we'll, you know, I'm sure I'll be told if I did it wrong, I don't I think it was. Go ahead and make it part of the recommendation and the way you want them. Let Mrs. Vincent have some flexibility to play with it a little bit. She I think she got the message. Yes. A motion to approve. Sponge docks. Hope Athens community plan and amend the name change to the Greektown sponge docks. With the ability for Miss Vincent to alter it a little bit. The name second. Okay first, if there are no further comments, roll call, please. Commissioner DiNardo. Yes, Commissioner. Yes Commissioner. Eisner. Yes, vice mayor Coolio'. Yes, mayor. Vatikiotis. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Item 14, there's two parts to this an A and a B, the part a, I have a question, and I know, city manager, of course, you were on travel and didn't get back till late on this. I, I talked to the two attorneys yesterday, so the gist of. I'd like a point of order. I'd like. I make a motion that we table this indefinitely. Do I hear a second? I have a second. I will second it. Well, I was getting to that point. The table? No, the table needs to be voted on. And there are no discussions. There are no discussions on a table. I'd like to table all of 14. You want to table all of 14? All of 14. Want a and B? Oh okay. There's a motion and a second, roll call. Commissioner Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Collins. Yes. Commissioner Eisner. No Vice mayor Coolio's. Yes Mayor. Vatikiotis I'm going to vote. Yes. To reserve my, ability to recall in the future. So if it needs to be reconsideration. No, no. Okay so do it or not. So many kettles. That finishes the agenda, is there any board staff comments? Assistant Chief Ruggiero? Yes Hang on. Oh, do we vote? We did vote. Right. And the agenda is done. Is that correct? Yes. Vice chief Ruggiero. Nothing Nothing. Okay. No No report. Okay. Just real quick, we talked about it a little bit about the event at the sponge docks, so I was out of town, but I got the pictures of the great crowd. Just want to remind everybody that this event, which is smaller, and the bigger seafood festival, which come out in November, these are the two test events for that property and giving us some ideas. You can talk about ideas for a piece of property that we bought an event thing, but actually the best thing you can do is have events there to see the kids. So just a reminder looking at this one, we got a bigger seafood festival coming up in the same property. That's going to lead to a lot of discussions and coming back to you on a lot of different things. With that land and what we do for now, it was a great amount. We'll probably have more at the Seafood Festival, so that will test us and we'll learn what works and what not works with the property. And it's going to be a great event place for some big events like you talked about and other big events, going to work out well. So Okay, Miss Jacobs, anything, just real quickly, I wanted to advise the residents. A press release was put out, we're in need of budget advisory committee members, code enforcement, heritage preservation, public art committee sustainability. Those are the boards that have openings, applications could be received through the clerk's office or online. And also we are, our Citizens Academy 11 class will be starting on September 11th, and we still have a couple openings if anyone's interested that application is also online. Vice Mayor Claudia, do you have anything? Yes. Everyone received the letter that came in from the Tarpon Springs High School boosters program, after speaking with Mark and understanding the situation that this program is in, right now, it's tremendous growth in the last year, the program has become one of the premier programs in Pinellas County, if not the region, they sent that letter requesting for some funds and ability to help. And I would ask that two more board members, please, agree to help give the city manager and Ron Herring the ability to find about $10,000 in the budget. That way we can give to them this year, stabilize this growing program, and do what we need to do to make sure we can stabilize this program. Just this year, as they asked and help the help the team they need uniforms. They got a lot of things going on, and they're going to bring a lot of lot of great attention. And cheer to the community. And I think where we're at right now, if two board members could help, agree to help give them direction, it would help the program a lot. I would support that. I'd be proud to support it. Thank you, Commissioner Kelly. Yes. Okay. My turn. Commissioner Eisner, were you finished? Oh. Oh, then I also wanted to bring up, we have, I'm not sure if we're supposed to have Wix cards that we can just be using anytime for gas. I don't know if this is just, you know, a certain situation. I don't have a Wix card. I don't use it to go back and forth to places to, to use gas for any city events. So if any commissioners have them, I'm not sure why they do, it you know, I don't see it as a need for any of us to be using the city's gas money to go to and from places as part of our. Unless it's a special event, but not our daily duties. And so if anybody does have one, I believe they need to give it up, as far as, without saying too much, I would really encourage before we send out any memos or any thoughts of what we think something is or isn't, please seek legal counsel before doing something. Something like that. Because not only does it, it put us in a spot where we assumed there was some counsel given, but it also potentially exposes us to any anything that we really don't need. And this has happened a couple of times recently, and we need to be very cautious that, how we go about doing things with that and, as far as the election, I think there was a great message to the residents of Tarpon Springs how well respected, Commissioner Frank DiDonato is and how the community came together to support him. And I truly believe that that is a message of what's going to happen here in the future, the residents understand that you know, decision making that needs to happen is for many different various issues. And, it was a well-spoken from the everyday tarpon nights that came out to vote in a special election that clearly defined that, you know, the people, the people who have the knowledge and the experience in this community and those who know them are from years and years of years of hard work being in the community, being out there and truly making a difference. And so Frank needs to be acknowledged for that, really happy for him. And this is just a start to another message that's going to happen, in the near future and other elections. So I just want to thank you all and it's a great day in Tarpon Springs. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Eisner, thank you. Mayor. I first wanted to start off by congratulating Frank for winning the election, I think it was a good run. It was a good election. And in every campaign, there's always knocked down, drag out fights. But I'm happy to work alongside you as far as the comment on the wick, card, we have two wick cards. This is not so much to teach Commissioner Coleus what? But this is for the residents. We have two wick cards, and they're utilized when somebody travels outside the area. If you're traveling within, boards like to vote Pinellas or to the Safety Council, you get paid back by, the amount of mileage. And that's all figured in. If he would go to one of these, he would know that, as far as we were awarded this week, to be finally it was signed, supposed to be signed in May, about us having a apportionment on forward Pinellas. And I was pleased to hear two people, one from Largo and another city, telling me that it was finally signed. So we have representation, I was thrilled. I've been to every Forward Pinellas meeting and at least we will have some representation. And I'm happy to serve and to represent Tarpon and bring all of our needs. We are the northernmost Pinellas County, you know, city. So I was really tickled pink. That was probably the highlight of my trip. And, that's pretty much it. That's all I have to say. And thank you for my wife for being here. Okay Commissioner Koulianos. Yeah Okay. So I want to address a few things, you know, the comments about, people feeling that they haven't lived here long enough and they're not tarpon nights and all that kind of stuff, you know, I said it when I first got, my first, moment in office when I was inducted, I said I didn't care if you were here a hundred years. Ten years or ten months. We're all here, and we all count, I made that clear. And I believe that, I'm. I don't know if I'm a tarpon or not. I wasn't born here, okay? I was born in Gary, Indiana. I was outside of Chicago. So I came down here as an adult. Now, I had a choice where to live. And this is where I chose to live. I've been here a long time, and I do have family history here, which gives me kind of a unique perspective, because I know what it feels like to come down here because I was judged a lot when I first came down here. I didn't go to Tarpon High, so I was kind of on the outside, so I know how that feels. And it's, you know, we're we're all here, so we all count, but but, you know, I wouldn't move to Paris, France and complain about all the Napoleon stuff either, so you have to embrace it, right? We're here. You you chose to come here because you like all this stuff. You like the Greek stuff. You like the downtown. You like this. You like that. Now you could want it better, but I when I, when I was campaigning, I asked the simple question. Did when you moved here, did you want bigger buildings? And nobody said, yeah, I wish there were bigger buildings, nobody wanted that. So we again, going back to what Sue said, I don't know if it was Sue or Sharon. One of you guys talked about finding some common ground, right? Was it you who said it? Find something. Whatever you guys are, point each other. Okay, but find something. We agree on that. We agree upon that. And there's a lot we agree upon and we can build on that. And we should all again embrace each other. Whether you're here a long time, you know, the mayor is a I mean, he was here like, you know, when there was horse and buggies. So he's been waving. He comes from way back. No, I mean, he was here at the beginning. He's he's. And then I came up later and, you know, and then, Frank was living in Lakeland and moved here and has been here 47 years or whatever. Baniotis, mom immigrated here 1971 and 1971, and he was born here. So, you know, we all got something, but we all but we all we're all here now. And so let's let's figure it out, this thing about quitters. Okay, that's like the new word. Who's a quitter? You know, it's, you know, things change. You know, it's like, Bruce Lee said, be like water, my friend. Be like water. You got to flow sometimes, you know, you had to plan to do this, and then you don't do it, and you do something else, right? And you. Oh, I intended to I you know, one of the reasons that Craig Lunt, I think, wanted to run for mayor is because I was I was wanting to get out. I was like, I don't know if I want to do this. So we all have those moments where, you know, we change our mind or whatever. You know, I don't like that word. Somebody tried to pin that word on the mayor. He didn't like that word. Nobody likes that word. It's but and it's stupid. Okay, so, and, you know, this election, you know, there's you can never say why Frank won and Chris didn't, you know, there's probably a lot of things, but one thing I did notice was, a need for civility. People thought Frank is calmer and be more civil. Okay. And I think there are people that voted for Frank because he is would be calmer, and we didn't want all that constant. You know, attack, attack, attack. And suspicions and accusations and, and things and you can see that words have consequences. And I've said that before and I'll continue to say it and it's going to come up. But folks, it's going to be coming up more words have consequences. You know, the commissioner down there that, you know, got up and wanted to you know, just bounce something off. You know, one time when I was sitting next to him, I said to him, does everything that come into your head come out of your mouth? Does it always have to be that way? Can you have show an ounce of discipline? Because remember, one time there was a comment where, he said, I, I heard somebody said that this former employee, must have paid somebody off to be able to work from home. And I'm like, seriously? You know, two days later, we got a letter from a lawyer. Words have consequences in September of the fiscal year, September 2021, we spent $181,485 in legal fees. The next year. In September of 2022, we spent $263,767 in legal fees, went from 181 to 263. That's a significant you can ask Ron Herring. It's a significant percentage increase in September. The fiscal year ended September 2023, it went to $451,650. We spent from 180,000 up to $450,000 in legal fees, and the majority of those had to do with suspicions, accusations, Defamations constant attacks on people, you know, and then we were going to have a conversation about removing somebody from a board for lack of for what we say she might have been saying, and we've got it coming up. She didn't she had nothing to do with these numbers. She didn't have anything to do with these numbers. Okay. We better clean this house up over here before we start worrying about other boards, I'm going to tell you right now we have a chance. We have a chance for a, what I call the coalition of the reasonable, because we have lost the reasonable. We lost it for a couple years here, it just got out of hand. But we have a chance. We have a new election coming up, I'm not saying the mayor. We've done a lot of good things. I've been part of this team. I wasn't here the first year, but I we've got we've got a lot of things done. But there. But the people were saying to m, there's it's too chaotic up there, it's too much. And we have a chance for a change now, my friend, to the right, you know, he's young. And he, he gets he's aggressive. He likes to fight. He's just it's his nature. It's his nature. It's. It's actually one of the things that is attractive about him. He's a fighter. He he you know, you want him in your in the trench hole with you. But, you know, I was his age once and I was a fighter. And 30 years ago I, you know, I got involved in things and, and, you know, it could have been a little more delicate and I and, and those things have haunted me. For a long time. So you know, we can all get better. We can do a better job. We don't need to. We don't need to. You know, always bite on stuff. But I respect the fact that you're a fighter, and I respect the fact that, you know, and I look forward to working with you further. I've told you that we can we represent something that needs to be represented, and it's important, but we have a chance. And, you know, my friend Susan Hales, I've gotten accused of trying to rig up elections, getting people to run and take pull papers and do all kinds of stuff. Yes, I am guilty as charged. I've asked. I think there's like three people sitting right there in that little bunch that I've asked to run for office. I'm going to ask people to run for office and I. Susan Hales would be an excellent person to be on this commission. She is calm. She is deliberate. She is a hard worker. I know her she ran 27 marathons, 26 miles. This girl's done 27 times. She knows how to get up and get something done and get to an end to the end of a goal. She knows how to do it, and I hope she does stays with it. And I hope she runs. And I hope she's up here with Commissioner Cooley and I. I hope she is. I think we have a chance to turn the page and get more civil up here. And we're getting a new city manager. Are we going to bring him into this mosh pit? Come on. We know it's not going to be. We'll chase the guy out of town. Okay but we have a chance, so I'm looking forward to that chance. And, you know. But again, words have consequences. We need to control what we say and what we do, especially what we say. It costing us money. Again, these are numbers. These are facts. I didn't make them up. They're just what's happening. And I don't know what it's going to be at the end of September of 2024, but it doesn't need we don't need to be spending all no offense to, Mister Dickman, but I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on lawyers. I don't want to be. It's exhausting. And it is, it it it it it is. So it takes away from all we're trying to do. It's constantly, you know, shade meetings in the middle of the day. I got stuff to do, and I got to come and sit in a shade meeting because somebody kept couldn't stop talking about stuff. Come on. So, that's what I got to say. So thank you. And on that pleasant note, congratulations. Commissioner De Donato, I'm excited to work another 18 months with you and, that's it. Commissioner De Donato. Well, first of all, I want to thank. You through this. It was a battle emotionally for me. And mentally. I just want to thank everybody. I believe, I believe strongly that I can help, and I guarantee all of you that I will do my best to do so. So my heart and mind are saying thank you. Preacher John, some many of those words, you just said bring home to me. We'll get a lot more done agreeing to disagree and moving forward than we're ever going to get by bashing one another. Let the bashing be over. Let's enjoy this beautifu, beautiful place we live, move forward and get things done. And again, thank all of you. Those that voted for me and those that did not. I pledge to do my very best. Thank you. Frank, I want to congratulate you and on the win. And I guess Mr. Rabovsky is not here anymore. I also want to thank him for putting his name in the ring. And, offering to serve the city, I have nothing else to add. Meeting adjourned at 10 a.m. p m.