e e e e e e e e e always check the date because it's really easy to lose track right now but May 16th 2024 hello welcome um can we get a roll call please absolutely Denise minina here Taylor mandalo is absent uh Dory Larson here Robin Sanger here Carol mkit present shoban is absent although I thought she would be attending but we'll see I I received some email for her earlier this week she might still be here um and Peggy varvares is absent and we have a quorum so have you heard from any of the absent uh I hav't I heard from Taylor um I reached out to everybody um to see where we're at I heard um Siobhan indicated that she was planning on being and she knew that it was on Thursday but I didn't hear back other than that so perhaps she is running light so um there were two sets of minutes I don't know whether everybody has had a chance to look at them and I know that not everybody was at the um one of the meetings but um do you have any amendments or Corrections at all on the April 2024 minutes no I move that we pass the April meeting minutes we have a second second all in favor I I and um did you have a chance to look at the um Earth Day meeting why can't I pull this up you have to click on the packet the agenda packet oh I see and that way you have access to everything you can just scroll through it I downloaded them yeah and that was just that was more or less formality sure so I'll I'll move that we accept the Earth Day minutes I'll second it all in favor I hi okay and um it's time for public comments and we have a visitor do you have anything that you would like to share or Express at this meeting I'm just here to deserve okay well welcome we appreciate that you're here do you want to say who you are sure I'm Dr Bobby Arts I moved to to the area in December and I actually watched your guys last meeting online YouTube so it's very intriguing that you guys are getting more established and sustainability my PhD is in environmental science from Florida A&M so I'm just interested that's why I showed up today excellent well it's very exciting to have somebody [Laughter] here thank you for coming and I would hope that you desire to get engaged in what's going on here because it sounds like you've got the um desire and the passion thank you so um I guess can I say something yes Robin besides just generally welcoming you I'm I'm sure you're aware I hope you are that you can apply to serve on this committee online through the clerk's office and then when there's a vacancy you can generally be put on as an alternate and then be moved up into a regular position so if this is something that you would like to contribute to in a a ongoing basis love to have you sign up currently I live in Pasco County so I didn't know how that think that works after you move here then you can do that so the first item on um tonight's agenda is my my report on the bo presentation and I um prepared it and um went to the meeting I was really grateful to have a couple of the members uh present at this um meeting where presented um prior to the presentation there was a proclamation for Earth Day that um was a wonderful symbol for the month that we were presenting the um update to the boc of our activities last month and um also a proclamation to celebrate Arbor Day and Shannon Brewer was there to accept that and it it's hard um to be objective about how the presentation went welcome we're happy you're here I over here hi everybody so you all were familiar with what was going to be presented in advance so all that I can say is that I felt that it was well received I feel that everybody that is on the Board of Commissioners is exceptionally receptive and it's really exciting that um the comprehensive plan incorporates so much of the sustainability plan into the long-term vision of the community of Tarpon Springs the city of Tarpon Springs and now it's just a matter of connecting making the connections so um I'm going to go right into the Earth Day event which was the the following night um we had an Earth Day celebration launch event um where many got hard copies of the of the plan and Tommy did a beautiful presentation we had a meet and greet um Tommy do you have any idea how many people were there for that yes I have a sign in sheet let me go double check it was probably in the 30s I want to say can we get one those I think so do we have any more additional hard copies of the of the sustainable the plan for other members I don't have any on me we everyone took them all so we can make some more if anyone would like some coffees I'd like coffee uh we have about 22 23 attendees so okay and I feel that we were able to get around and um meet everybody I mean I would hope that that happens whenever we we're out in the public and we're able to engage with people because they have to know that they're welcome and that that it's exciting that they're participating I think it's um a really necessary um part of community that is part of sustainability under the social piece but I'm sure that Robin knows a lot more about the need for social connection and I think that that's the beginning of That's the beginning of real Community um expression of sustainability is when we are able to connect as human beings and value the the area that we live in value you know whether it's a beach cleanup or whether it's participation in just um a meeting that celebrates something that has been long time coming you know which was the the plan that we've worked on for so long but it's a part of mental health to be with people that are have similar excitement and passion so I would love if you could say a few words about whatever your experience was too on the night of the presentation or on the Earth Day celebration do you want to keep it separate like do we want to have a conversation about the yeah first on the on the b m presentation thank you yeah I mean I I'll just say I think you did a great job Denise like representing our our committee so thank you for for doing that well thanks I I hope that I wasn't supposed to actually prepare um any video or anything for this evening I felt like it was just an informal affirmation of how the the meeting went yeah no and I I think that in the comments that we received um there's definitely a recognition that sustainability is like a a three component piece that it's like the soci aspect the environmental and then also the economic piece and that the community is putting that together because leadership is helping explain it at uh events like the the presentation so I thought that was I was inspired and hopeful about that thank you I thought that well I thought you did an excellent job and I thought that the um PowerPoint was terrific I also was very happy about how the Commissioners responded and to piggyback on what Dory said I think that the acknowledgment that it's just not environmental um has it was really important because we tend to do talk more about the environment than the other two pieces and um I think that it's becoming more and more aware that Tarpon really needs needs to look at the way the economic um disparity in the city and the societal differences need to be all addressed for the sustainability of the community and I'm glad that the Commissioners recognize that and um that we can start focusing on that as well well thank you well done thank you I appreciate the support and I really appreciated the support of all of the Commissioners and the mayor and felt that that um we are on track to fulfill um a long-term dream and I hope we see the the good fruit from all of it so the next item on the agenda was the Earth Day event and I kind of segwayed into that already because it it was just following the the meeting the night before and it was um another beautiful opportunity to bring people together and it was casual it was I felt it was um very easy to relate to everybody that was there and we had people that came even from Safety Harbor to kind of chip you know you know to participate and see what we are doing which I think is awesome because we did that a lot prior to um developing the plan we were connecting with a lot of the sustainability managers and coordinators in other areas you know from Largo West Palm Beach um we had conversations with a number of different people rather than Reinventing the wheel so they're looking at our community now hoping to do the same thing in Safety Harbor and were there to participate and I just wish we had people with as much enthusiasm as the two women that came from Safety Harbor all over the community but it was a blessing that everyone that came seemed to be engaged in what we were doing so i' I'd like to say that I did not attend and I didn't attend because of the Sunshine Law oh sure and I I wasn't sure what I could do there and to whom I could speak and I figured you were there and you're such a good spokesperson for this that you would um be there and be with other people yeah Dory and I both made rounds we I think we tried to connect consciously connect with everybody that came there and introduce ourselves and and make them feel welcome yeah my takeaway was um a big thank you to all the city staff that participated so there were lots of different departments they represented so parks and W was there and um it was really nice for for them to be part of it as well um and I did make sure that I walked around and and spoke with everybody at the different tables to make sure that everyone felt welcome and I thought it was really cool that it was like not just like one group of people from the city there were like across several like age demographics gender demographics racial demographics I mean it was like really like a nice cross-section of our community people that actually showed up and took the time to want to learn more so I was really inspired by that I would like to point out um you know when we looked went back and cross referenced our our sign-in sheet uh the vast majority of people were new signups to connect harpon so we uh this is kind of like our first for into doing a different style of like social media engagement we're trying to focus on like the sponsored post so this was a little bit of a a trial run for that and I think it was yeah we didn't have a huge turnout like that there's a lot of things that go into that I thought it was relatively successful but uh we did do have success in one thing which is getting new people there who had not previously been involved we had a lot of folks that I was speaking with that had had no idea we had planned had no idea we had a committee they got notied they saw it on social media and they decided to show up and uh so I think we were definitely successful in that respect u in getting new people engaged y so how let's address this Sunshine rule so how did it work with having Dory and Denise there did you talk to one another avoided each other like the play you avoided each other I mean we just didn't yeah we just we we didn't engage on anything that would have been a votable or okay you know we it was very casual it was informal and um for the most part we were busy uh relating to people like bees to flowers out in the community you know so we weren't we weren't really inter how these minutes get made that's good oh you did that he was there well of course he was there and your your presentation was excellent appreciated that the summary of of what was happening in the community and I kudos to whoever did the the Facebook post because I was seeing it constantly prior to um the Earth Day event so that was yeah no I would like to acknowledge our our Recreation staff um they uh they have a very positive uh social media uh engag engagement um you know they they've get a lot of followers they do a really good job having good continuous content and so we kind of left it to them like it's a community event they're used to driving and advertising community events we said let the experts be the experts so um uh some of the it it is interesting when you do the Social Media stuff like um it's a little bit of you have to cast a wide net so we had thousands of like views and engagements uh that were unique uh when we got the reports back on the social media so to to generate the turnout that we did so I thought that was pretty positive indeed that's awesome okay I think that we can move on to um item three which is communication goals and um we uh have a list of a lot of different things that were contributed um I see what my own were but I don't know um if anyone wants to share what their perspectives were on community and communication of the sustainability plan or sustainability and general I mean I think that this is the task now is to make people aware can I ask a question yes just procedurally so tonight are we we're just talking about like trying to narrow down on the topics that we want but then not how we're going to implement that I think that would be the best we in the the last update that we did uh in April you know we kind of talked about how to communicate like different types of environmental environmental initiatives or sustainability initiatives and uh kind of the first step was to establish a goal right and we wanted everyone to submit some goals and these are the um of the folks that submitted I kind of compile these I they're not really in any particular order other than the the order they were emailed to me although I did move a few that to the top that uh directly correspond with an action plan in for this year in the sustainability plan I thought that was like a a nice thing to highlight um and what I would like to do is start winnowing down some high level goals like what do you want what does the committee want out of the communication plan and then we can take that back to our future sustainability coordinator relatively soon hopefully and have them design a plan around that goal right so again if your goal is uh you know so Define what the outcome we want is and then they can Define the um the target audience the um yeah we can you can have input on like targ target audience but I do kind of want to leave like the the how to the to the Future coordinator to let them you know tackle this challenge in their own way but but I definitely want to hear what what's the outcome that you want out of that the committee wants out of this can you or Denise read them out I would just want to to follow up to my question if you don't mind um just a follow up and the reason I'm asking it is because one of the things that I suggested was the the home and Business tour like sustainability tour but that's more of like a an action or like a how to do it instead of like the goal of like what we want to educate on or you know what I mean like what we want to communicate so that was I mean like I would still good idea I'm hoping we can still do the one even though you know what I mean even if it's not selected is like CU it's not really it's it's a one and done it's it's a way to do it not a yeah ongoing thing not a topic or like a goal right I know what you're trying to say before we actually go through the the list of submissions to this topic um why don't we just open up what our objectives are I know I know how I feel about it but I would love to hear you know when we when we think about communication a communic plan that connects us to the citizens of Tarpon Springs what um would the objective be Denise yes so when I look at this list several of them kind of work together and I think there could be an overarching goal for for example uh The Net Zero canopy loss ties in closely with encouraging how to plant a tree and insure sure it will grow the encourag Florida native plants and Florida friendly yard that's in our 2024 action item also goes along with pesticide use and use on the environment of how the to the algae blooms and all that so it's it's like to me what I would be looking at is overall education of the public especially we have so many new residents who have no clue about what what's going on with our what where they're living now mhm um I remember going to a client's house and they were she was shocked she said there's so many lizards I need to have an exterminator come out and kill it's like you know and they just moved here from a Northern State and had just had not a clue so uh the other thing is a resident spoke with me about using uh Rat poisons and with all of our Raptors and and so forth eating The Poisoned rats or mice or whatever and dying which which happens from time to time we have the Ospreys we have the owl incident that happened in Safety Harbor where the whole family died Y and uh she lives uh out on seab breze and she said that it's it's hard for her to share this information so a way for for residents to share things that they're concerned with but also that deal with an overarching uh overarching things for you know Florida friendly lawn can go with water conservation so I think a lot of these are kind of interwoven things yes and the goals can are not mutually exclusive so if there's a way to weave those things in an education of children so obviously the new residents a lot of them young families are moving here to where the children can have an awareness of our environment an appreciation of our environment and uh go from there I think that is admirable The Merchants Association and Chamber of Commerce and businesses but I think with public support that the businesses will fall fall in in line in other words when you know certain restaurants that serve styr like on beach communities that Ser use plastic and things that just go right into the waterways it was public outcry that caused the the plastic straw band and the the bag bands that are happening in coastal communities so I think that the engaging the community is our most important goal MH and if we could find a way to just weave some big picture things together to where the the different facets of those engage uh our community members can I can I piggy back on that just because so um there's actually a campaign that's called like be Floridian protect our fun and it's the Tampa Bay Estuary program and they've got this whole like program it's like resources a homeowner tool toolkit Florida friendly products thingss links we love and it's and it's like if you've got time how much time do you have do you have a morning A day the weekend a rainy day like and it's and there's a whole FAQ about uh what is the website so this is the Tampa Bay Estuary program oh yeah so they've got like whole segments like Education data visualization like all of like it's already there we just need to get it out but I I like that's what I was thinking is like how to be a good neighbor or you know what I mean like how to be a good tonian or welcome this is your welcome packet yes lizards are cool yes a big lizard are cool we want to keep our birds that would be nice just so don't you know try to reduce disposable plastic at any rate like it's great Dory um and what you shared Robin um you know is been my experience with everybody that that we're that are moving into our neighborhood very new trying to jump on board but not understanding the environment you know we have a snowbird that lives across the street from us and somebody who moved down here from New Jersey so I think that that is um right on you know and to have them be able to access a website like this do you think that the best way of reaching people would be through the utility um bills I I don't know I mean that's a go-to but I'm not I'm not 100% convinced I don't know do you I don't ever look at I mean I don't ever you don't look at any I look at my bill you can yeah I think maybe an a way to get this out into the community and be more visible would be to to partner with our business community and like cuz people walking around town they're going into their pizza place to pick up their dinner or whatever you know what I mean like if we can get some business partners that would help and be partners with this then I I mean to me that's that's one way that we can help get it more visible in the community well even like Rusty Bellies is an obvious choice it's on the water it's a very popular restaurant it's always packed and a lot of you know it's a residents goto so something like that may maybe but uh okay I I will say just to help kind of collect our thoughts here uh and maybe facilitate it it does seem like there seems to be a little bit of a consensus around maybe just to formalize this educating the community on local environmental concerns you know or the or the natural environment you know and improving education that's I think that's a a really nice like compact goal it can give us some we talked about some methodologies there and actually if if the committee wanted like you know engaging with the local Comm business community that could be a good goal too I I think that's a that's a nice one what about a Welcome Wagon sort of approach you know I know I went to a meeting once in Palm Harbor for the Welcome Wagon and they had a huge group and you know I mean could go talk to people new residents new residents give them a you know a flyer or something does tarp and springs have neighborhood associations yes they do yes well that's a way to do it I know in St Pete our neighborhood association was very active um where I live in Tarpon there is none um yeah I don't have one either so when you're talking about that do you mean an HOA no okay a neighborhood association neighborhood association there's nothing stete like I lived in Old Southeast and we had a president yeah I mean they're officers they had regular meetings they did events they so it was a way of organizing the neighborhood and so they would even go to City Council meetings you know they were were active as a group and I mean throughout the city there were such active neighborhood associations and they would do all sorts of things it was amazing and um and I I mean that could be a structure and there was always a repres a head of the neighborhood association so there were each neighborhood had an association and then they had a council of neighborhood and that person would be represented at the city council and um that person eventually became the on the city council person but that was a way of representing the needs of the people the neighborhoods what each neighborhood needed um what the interests were and developing that Community within you know so neighbors knew each other and it it really was it's robust and and that could be something that Tarpin could consider instead because when you have a neighborhood association you know you're in this smaller group and then people the people would come the police would come the fire people would come and report and if there was an incident they'd come and report to everybody so we could think about that instead of trying to get an event we could do both but it's also a good way to communicate between in a bigger city to have a smaller groups I I think that's a great idea but how would the city be able to take the initiative to encourage neighborhoods to get together that's something I would really have to look into is I don't know if we have a history of like helping to facilitate forming a neighborhood associations I know a lot of our areas do have you know existing HOAs uh which we do hear from periodically maybe Under the Umbrella of Public Safety because you know of our hurricanes our storm issues and uh one of the after a big storm one of the best ways to recover is to get together with your neighbors absolutely so you know maybe strategically it starts at a higher higher level and then we grab on to that you we can also contact St Pete and see how their structure works because it's you know it's really been a long history of it so uh in our plan we have like inventory of Civic organizations neighborhood associations and local service providers as like one of the action items um it's like not until 27 to like 2027 2030 so like we do have that in our plan and we'll get there and I I mean I mean I understand that like it would help create connectivity if we had it now but like I think we need to also like stay focused on what we're you know I mean like the near term for now and know that like that's part of the plan is to get there and I also think we're a little bit different than St Pete and that St P's got so many people that it just it it has those compart you know what I mean like there's enough density to have those kind of things happening um I think that in St Pete it's was organic because there's a neighborhood right old old Northeast Kenwood I mean there are all these neighborhoods so St Pete's made up of neighborhoods Y and Tarpon I mean I think that I have a neighborhood MH you know we're we all know each other and so it's informal yeah no I would love it and I mean I think that it creates that Community but I don't know that like City resources to like build that infrastructure right now is like on the table so can I just ask for thoughts on you know initially we were talking about just the communication plan outcome or objectives I mean I guess if we if we can at least identify the objectives what we'd have a better idea of how to approach it with the details of actions well and that's why I was asking like are we coming up with the ideas or are we coming up with the implementation strategy and it sounds like we're not coming up with the implementation strategy so we probably shouldn't be like thinking through that tonight and the ideas first yeah so like I think our time would be better spent just focusing on what is the main ideas yeah I I see we seem to be coalescing I mean and this is around you know educate the community on local environmental concerns my goal tonight was to really help facilitate maybe we can get to like our top three things that we would like the outcomes to be right and if the outcomes were educate the local community about environmental concerns that's a very nice goal like we can that's clearly it's well defined it gives us an ability to address that with like our existing staff and maybe through existing events and things like that and just Target our messaging um engaging with the local business Community is what we kind of talked about a little bit other themes that we talked about in the past were uh youth education uh and trying to engage the youth more that's a loable goal and then there's other sort of like and the other kind of three more nuts and bolts goals that we've kind of kicked around a little bit have talked about water conservation has been something that's come up in the committee a few times that's very topical right now I kind of threw that in as a staff suggestion because we're going to be focusing on that for a little while um recycling rates would be another simple one like you know or um um I've lost it um but yeah if we wanted maybe pick like oh I'm sorry like Florida friendly and like outdoor landscape care and things like that you know like best practices for a sustainable for sustainable outdoor spaces you know in in res for residences so maybe of those five you know educate the community on local environmental concerns Engage The Business Community water conservation educate the youth and sustainable you know uh landscape maybe we could winnow that down to three that we could focus on so we're still focusing on the environment sure so this one thing I mean Community connectivity I think is really important and we know that in our whole country that this is a big issue um like how do we connect with each other that's why neighborhood associations are important but it's also difficult to do how do you have Community connectivity you know learning I mean I have to say the things I put in are easy to do how to compost how to plant a tree I mean those are real doable right and people understand what that means and they can come but the whole Amorphis idea of how to connect I mean that's what peace for Tarpon is all about and you know how difficult that is um but I mean maybe we partner with people peace for Tarpin I mean but to me and going to peace for Tarpon meetings that's so important and um that's what really creates a robust community and a sustainable Community is if we learn how to communicate and live with one another and cross cross boundaries that seem to be rigid and how do we make them softer so and people feel welcome I think that word welcome is so important how do we make people feel welcome to to be here to be part of you know the leadership in in this community that to me is a fundamental um component of sustainability but it's hard I mean that is a that is a a allowable goal that would be that is a concrete thing that if we want to make that maybe like our third priority um we can look into what that would look like I'll be honest I'm probably the wrong person to answer that question you know you don't want the engineer being the one who's pushing your sense of community you know but creating a sense of community or improving the sense of community um or a sense of place it is a difficult challenge I mean I do feel and I feel like most folks that live in Tarpon or that are longtime residents have a strong sense of community you can see that when we do like public engagement events and like snow place like Tarpon and I do feel like a lot of folks really identify with where they live here um but that's something that maybe we could look into maybe that's a concept we could explore it's a little less uh direct than um and maybe measurable but um maybe we start down that road and explore what that looks like yeah I would I would say that creating something that is whether it's a communication newsletter and and I think that you had a note that you were going to say something about that the status of the newsletter for May or June we've got newsletters in draft right now they're they're getting ready to come out so what are what are we going to do with those I mean how are they going to be posted how are they going to be shared what what's going to happen with the newsletter uh we're going to share those the same way we did uh previously you know send them out through the connect harpon group um we'll probably do a little bit extra on this one just because we haven't done it in a while and we're kind of trying to try new things with the community engagement so we might put them out on social media again try and do some sponsorship uh try and drive more folks to generate more followers it's a kind of newer kind of content so um uh you know and obviously get it up on the uh the city website you know um but that that's initially what we're thinking is you know substantially what we did to publish the last couple of newsletters before we had a little bit of a we did miss a newsletter last year so um because I think in order to start building something you have to have a predictable intervals of connection sure you know somehow and I I totally agree with what Carol is saying you know about that being the building the the foundation and um the other the other thing about new residents I think it's going to be very important to get information out somehow to introduce people to what it means to live in Florida I think that that yeah that is a huge component could we maybe redefine this a little bit is maybe the better goal instead of building a sense because again I really do feel like the folks like the folks that are like longtime residents that people will tell you if they're a tarpon you know um but um the uh maybe the goal is integrating new res into our sense of community is that something more what we're trying to Target I think I would agree what are your thoughts well I think that there are different communities um in Tarpon and I think some identify as Tarpon nightes in certain ways um and the issue is how do we unite the different communi so for example there's a strong Greek Community well how do we integrate the Greek Community more with let's say the black community which at one point were very interconnected because they both were spune people and then slowly it's you know so how do we integrate that and how do we integrate um non- Greek people you know so there we do have disperate identities in Tarpon and the ideas um we're all here together and how do we make that as robust as possible because the more um connections we have the better we all are so to me like what I'm what I'm hearing is is that theme of like being a good neighbor in tpin to one another right I like that to one another and then also it could also be to the environment so it could be like this whole messaging around like being a good neighbor and it could incorporate lots of social like we got the email about the the senior citizen uh initiative I so like there's ways that like the city's doing things just like kind of pulling it together under an umbrella yeah no I think that I think it is important to acknowledge a lot of the stuff that we already have I mean like you know we do have a lot of really nice Community programming maybe for some people you know living in Tarpon and you know being a tarpon resident is about going to First Fridays and seeing your neighbors there or going to the shows uh the per for the Performing Arts Center or uh for some folks you know it's playing on the same Little League teams you know like that we do have a lot of different Community engagement like like events and activities and things like that that that do a lot of these things um you know it's I I don't think we lack for like programming but if the goal is to maybe utilize some of the existing things to help build a Little Bit Stronger sense Comm that that might be something interesting that we could so how can we piggyback on things that are that already exist and be participating somehow without breaking such law one thing that we going one person going to everything if we decide on a consistent message of what what we want to say whether it's being a good neighbor or we need to be connected or a connected Community is a strong community and and you hear those slogans everywhere you know that they what are we going to call our community Sarasota strong or Orlando strong or whatever it's that sense of unity but how to create that because it has to be authentic and it takes time and it t it's it's small work you know you can't have an event in you know a stadium event and and you know to connect people it's it's intimate work and it's small group work so if there was those a consistent piece of marketing material to where if there's a little league Gathering or there's a senior Gathering or there's a community engagement Gathering whatever something that that speaks to that a little bit it doesn't have to be like it has to be done all at once with one Fell Swoop it it takes time and it's it's sequential to build on that so if we had something to kind of introduce people to the idea of tarp and spr and and just claim it tarp and springs is a connected Community we care for each other we care for our environment and then just a few little points of what what that might mean or or something lowkey not where someone has to read a book about it or read a flyer about it you know just something to even put in people's minds and Denise you know how important that is to kind of get the Consciousness where you want it to be to to start going in that direction so well D Eden did did that in their umbrella as home of Honeymoon Island that's what they agreed on home of Honeymoon Island in denen um and which sort of pissed off the downtown Merchants cuz they got left behind on that but they they did a a they put it out to the community and they had they voted on it and that's what they came up with and I think too that that's a little bit more of like a tourism like marketing kind of tagline um you know to try and drive folks to visitors and things like that I I think we're doing really well with that I mean uh you know we have a very well- defined like tourism marketing program that Karen lemon's you know is largely in charge of and you know we've got everyone knows that the tarpon a great day trip you know so but this is a little different so uh it's about how you stitch together all these different groups of folks that that's an interesting question I think that's enough for like staff to kind of grapple with for a little while right um well I just want to respond to one thing is is in it sparked with something you said but I've been hear that everybody knows this well I'm telling you everybody doesn't know this I mean I don't know this and well like you said something about Tarpon day trip or something like that I don't know what he said it was a great day trip oh a great day trip people come here to go to the docks or go to the beach or you know yeah see I don't know those things I guess that when I mean when I lived in St Pete I did go to The Docks but that was it I didn't know there was the rest of Tarpon until I moved here like I didn't even know there were bayus I just knew there were Sponge Docks I was in Sarasota the the last week doing a project and I said oh I live in Tarpon they go oh yeah the tourist town tourist like what you know but I think that that is something that we should never assume that people know things sure because we don't I mean um and that's you know the more we can communicate and I'd love what Robin says because these small intimate things and I'd say that one of the most wonderful experiences about knowing more parts of Tarpon is because of positivity the peace for Tarpon thing that we do every Wednesday once a month where this group of people that I would never meet and they would you know come together and we for an hour we talk about virtues and it is the most wonderful thing and and the connections it's those connections through that that keep me going not so much the topic but the people and those intimate things somehow I know they're hard to create but um it's that sense of community and and I feel like these people I never really see in person occasionally because we do it on Zoom I mean it's um in it's just invaluable well I'm I'm a former advertising executive creative executive uh now I'm a landscape designer so I merge those two things together one thing one of our greatest strengths here and maybe one way of connecting to the populace is the love of the water and also we have I've read that we have more Waterfront than any other community in pelis County we'd have to look that up but um I think you can really get people's attention when you talk about water the quality of the water you know and then then you can also uh the next conversation is the flooding everybody's con you know we' got to be concerned about the flooding also so if we uh get there you know you have to you have to have a bridge you have to have a well a way to connect with people so um maybe through the water I mean we we have all these BOS we have the sponge industry we have the golf you know beaches I mean we have so many Assets in that direction and also historically we you know water has been so important to us also I come from Buffalo New York which is on Lake Yuri and water is is so important there also so um and in my childhood snow is water well yes snow is water too eventually but but Buffalo went I'm only bringing this up because um Buffalo has gone through a Renaissance believe it or not um and when I was a child uh uh detergents were causing all kinds of harm because of the phosphates and the and the detergents so the lake which was formerly most clear beautiful thing um was just just uh toxified with algae blooms and so when that was turned around um and uh there were more Progressive people with a vision um because it was formerly a very industrial place now the Waterfront has bike paths and and they have uh these exhibits outdoor exhibits of the history of Buffalo so everybody can become um really you know proud of of of that so you know there's some ways of uh uh looking at some other places and how they turned water into a positive now um St Pete uh has the biggest uh Park Waterfront Parkland and they've really turned that in into an opportunity but this might be a vehicle about how to engage with um our citizens I like that thank you so much for brainstorming this because I think that we needed to just kind of Express um what our objective was and you know from my perspective the objective is to get people to understanding what sustainability means but I think that sustainability and big part of that is community connections right when we first moved here that's why I started a Blog just to reach out to try to get some people inspired and um and then we started regularly having a Monday night vegan potluck at our house and our house isn't huge but it got to the point where we were having 40 people on Mondays and that's that's a lot of people on a Monday night that were coming out it was mainly that we were sharing you know ideas on gardening and you know most of the people that were attracted to coming were coming because of um we actually had a little community that we called growing together because we were learning you know about growing here in Florida and we had no exposure to that until we moved here obviously we looked at our backyard it was just a sand box and we thought how do you do this you know and that's why we reached out to people like Jim kovaleski and a lot of a lot of other Market gardeners in the area and and we started inviting them but um I don't know if the blog did any good at all but it was you know I was getting responses from it and that was that was a positive thing and it was it was something that at least was predictable you know I was trying to do them on a weekly basis sounds like something months we could I mean I'd go to that yeah I think that it would be you know that's just another idea you know hosting an event like that on a on a regular monthly basis maybe but well one ohry I was going to change topics if but you wanted to keep going with that so well one thing in terms of something an event we can make a you know a a toolbox how you would do something at your own house right how you do this um how little invitations how you do that a list of speakers that might come so how to to do it individually um and then that can build community Through you have little ones and then you have big ones so I think that that's just wonderful was it worked and I love that tagline growing together that's a really really good name that's solid I like that it's not being used anymore so we can use it grab it yeah okay so just to clarify here so I'm hearing two main goals I'm hearing educate the community on local environmental issues and some iteration of build a stronger sense of community MH yes can I add a third yes sure that's why I wanted to jump in because I just wanted to make sure it wasn't totally missed so my one of my things that I wanted to to encourage is a greenhouse the gas reduction Target and why it's important but tying it to like the economic piece too that like you know we added a whole lot of instulation to our house our power bills went down like 50 bucks a month so like over a couple years it'll pay for itself but there's also now tax credit to help people pay for that so like to me like people understanding like ways to save money on their bills great and not just homeowners but like businesses too like and that there's there's funding to make that happen save sustainably yes exactly exactly save sustainably that's awesome okay so in terms of that I just have a question and maybe you can answer this Tommy or our commissioner um so our governor and the legislature have put out um a bill that was signed about um not doing things connected with climate change and not having like wind in the waters and increasing uses of natural gas and less green like getting rid of green things um it was in the paper today it's just been signed and introduced yeah so my question is and this has been a an issue is the state level has um you know stopped local people people from local municipalities from doing certain things because it tree like the tree ordinance tree ordinance things about guns all sorts of stuff you know the state sets the tone or the rules and and I'm just wondering how that new bill impacts municipalities so uh I can speak to this in general this this phenomenon you're talking about is called preemption um it just was something signed right I haven't read the bill so I'd have to go back and look at that um so in in the State of Florida all local governments uh you know uh obviously if we go really big we have the Constitution right we have the federal government has its roles and responsibilities clearly delineated by the Constitution and the states have reserved rights and all um in general all local and County governments uh derive their ability to govern from the power of the state correct and so um the state can dictate what the local governments can regulate or not because they don't have any you know deao power under themselves they they have they're generally allowed for like uh to regulate things you know some things are specifically the statute that they have to do like comprehensive planning is required to be done by the counties for example or in cities um but they also have the ability to regulate what we can and cannot what we cannot do uh like such as developing um one that came up one of the first big preemption ones a few years ago was like minimum wage you know there was a desire that they did want a patchwor of minimum wages across state and so count cities and counties can't set minimum wage standards Reserve to the state now to the State of Florida now so uh in general if we have a preemption bill that comes in and it directs us no longer to do something we have to comply um with regard to this uh Bill about uh uh that was recently signed I'd have to go back and review it and report back if you'd like I could take a look at it like you can't be required I guess there was a law that had been P that said if you're going to purchase things you should purchase things that were green issues but now that's been thrown out and so I'm just you know I'm curious when these things happen given what this committee dreams about how you know how this impacts what we our dreams maybe not our dreams but the implementation of our dreams well that's to me why Community Connection is so important because personal choices can't be can't be um subverted or interfered with and that's why I was hoping to have that piece about greenhouse gas reduction like maybe and maybe not even wording it that way but just educating people on ways that they can lower their costs and then no matter what the state of Florida is doing if you know if people want to put like we did um the water heater that we have that's really like we have right because of you but that's right it's those kind of like personal choices like I would rather put an energy efficient Appliance in my home and not pay money for extra electrons that I don't need like to me that just makes sense as a homeowner with making financial decisions that are better and if there again there's tax credits to help offset the higher upfront cost and then you're recouping that very quickly and then it's just money in your pocket like our power bill last month was $55 because we have solar panels oh right so you right yeah and there's there's so I think educating people that there's like funds to help do that is to me an important like one of the goals that we should be did you get your insulations through recommendations from Duke Energy yeah so we got like a some kind of energy rebate from duke and then there's also the federal rebates so like you combine it and then but did Duke come and inspect your house and Y they give you a list of where you can go yep okay I I really like this one actually this is like right in our wheelhouse for staff I mean it's it it's very similar to other programs we already run like about like water conservation and things like that so um and it's very topical right now also with with the availability of federal funds I think this would be it's also um I Have A Little Bit Stronger level of comfort with this one because it's a little bit EAS it's like all right increase awareness about specific programs that's that's something that's like relatively easy to tackle Building compared to you know stitching together members of the community you know well increase awareness it's measurable also well and it's it's that economic piece too that I think is really important that like and the newsletter is a good vehicle to get that info out sure is sure so yeah that's that's the most important part is the vehicle because we've got great topics to share to get people more connected and more on board with sustainability and saving while they do it that's awesome okay well thank you very much appreciate all of the great ideas commissioner pardon me no no we're not adjourning did you have a comment on this section we would love to have comment uh John kulanis 1020 Peninsula Avenue um Carol you know we we just have to roll with it um the state may you know they they're going to change rules and regulations and we just have to learn to flow along through it and still you know I I think about um uh you know I think about living longer living healthier and living better um you know I introduced something that I've talked to Robin quite a few times I've actually talked to Tommy about he probably doesn't remember and Carol you were there when I did my little song and dance at the uh peace for Tarpon meeting um I want to be put on the agenda uh maybe in the next meeting I'd like to introduce something to you that I think will go hand inand with what we're doing here in the Su in your sustainability committee um I think that um you know we we need to find a common theme right in the city and I think that's often times what we can EST around something that we can all agree upon and you know again living Better Living longer living healthier those things all of us can agree upon no matter what community we live in um so hopefully you will indulge me and allow me to be on on your agenda and I you know for example I I um proposed at the um the charter revision committee um you know we have Union imity in in town I think near unanimity I couldn't say that word when I was proposing talking you you remember you were but uh that you know we don't want um High we don't want too much uh density right we don't want High uh buildings in tbon so I proposed a charter Amendment and I hope they take it and the reason I'm telling you guys about it because you can put pressure on them that no building will be built in Tarpon Springs over five stories without going to public referendum the that not public input but public decision um and uh you know I'm I I I I'm not sure it shouldn't be four stories but we we can uh we need to come up with again you know sustaining our town so when we talk about sustainability it's sustaining a a life uh quality of life as well so I hope uh you know we can do those big things that make structural differences that protect our town into the future and then we can also then start focusing on the stuff that can make our lives better now so I'm going to be coming back to talk to you and I'm actually going to hopefully be bringing somebody from Advent Health as well um because we're going to try to partner up sounds good all right so I'll just leave you with that thank you thank you byebye thank you okay okay we're moving right along vulnerability assessment okay item number four and thank you so much for the wonderful inspired brain storm he said living longer living healthier what was the third piece living better I think go okay all right so uh thank you again we've got a quick presentation on the vulnerability assessment and action plan uh just a little update we're we're kind of at about 95% complete this is largely a storm water and flooding study so a lot of the work that's been done has been very technical in nature and we're kind of bringing this thing in for a landing so uh it's time to bring it back and show you guys some results uh so a little bit of background on this for folks that might not have uh it's been a while since we've talked about it and we've got some new members um so back in 2021 the State of Florida started the resilient Florida program uh this is really a Statewide program that addresses uh Coastal resiliency it provides Statewide guidance and standards for how to conduct vulnerability assessments um a Statewide kind of database and inventory where they can compile all these things and make a like sort of a Statewide action plan that's combined with all these different local initiatives um and there's funding too which is really great and it's all about Coastal resiliency um so back in 2022 we received an initial Grant uh from resilient Florida to conduct a vulnerability and assessment and action plan we eventually awarded additional funding to expand the scope of the study uh and this came to about 191,000 I almost said a million $191,000 in resilient Florida funding for the city to do the study uh which is really great we would have um it would have been a little bit of a big lift uh financially to do this without the state support which is good um we've been working with wsp which is one of our environmental engineering consulting firms to do this study it's very again very technical in nature um and so we used uh that procurement method to uh start down the road on this project and as I said before right now the stud is really being finalized and we're working on our final Grant reimbursement so we're very much in the the mix with the EP as far as just submitting different data sets and things like that and getting all the money uh ironed out so that we get fully reimbursed and then we'll be coming back to uh finalize the the last details of the report um one really important note and I think uh this is really key um for the city is that completing a vulnerability assessment is going to be required for us to apply for future resilient Florida Grant applications beginning this year so starting in July July 1 there'll be I believe that's the when they're going to start opening up for the next phase of resilient Florida dollars um and so to get implementation or construction money uh you will have needed to completed one of these studies so this is really unlocks our ability to start applying for like the higher dollar items um in the future and how how many cities in Florida have done it I mean are we in a minority or most people have done this study uh that that's an excellent question it's I I couldn't tell you a number off the top of my head um you know it's it's not uncommon a lot of the communities nearby us have already done it panel's County's done countywide one ssar completed theirs relatively recently um St Pete's completed one um so we're in good company you know a lot of folks especially now that it's tied to the funding uh carrot are work very rapidly working to get caught up on this and and in some cases too they're also not necessarily adopted by the local cities but it's more of a countywide initiative in especially more rural areas uh so again yeah what's the purpose of this study the purpose is to identify and priority prioritize our assets and areas that are at risk of flooding uh it says through 2070 that's the nominal goal for the overall resilient Florida program we actually extended our planning Horizon out to 2100 um we also want to identify different strategies that the city can Implement to address flood risk for our prioritized assets and areas and also look at like sort of the next steps phase you know identifying funding opportunities what sort of additional work would be need to be done how do you start down the road to implementation um it's not a complete guide path like a master plan or anything like that but it's an action plan it's what do we do next how do we further further go further down this road to make our community more uh resilient there it is um all right so conducting the study this is really a multi-step process uh it starts with looking at sea level rise uh it then proceeded into a flooding analysis uh with the flooding analysis we conducted a risk assessment we overlaid our our flood coverage with um different Community assets to see what might be at risk under different scenarios and then the next step is to develop plans and strategies to uh improve resiliency um so you can see once you get in the nuts and bolts of it it's you know we also want to look at consequences so what are the relative risks associated with flooding impacts to different facilities so for example um Flooding at a coastal park that's dominated by mangroves yes it might be at risk but maybe that's kind of okay it's a resilient asset um if the water plant floods that's a really different Dynamic uh so assessing relative level of risk and impact to these different assets was was important um you can see here we've got a little uh infographic on the effects of sea level rise on storm surge that sort of top bar uh you can see shows like what might be like a typical storm surge under a current scenario uh um you know the Wind Blows the water in it impacts this structure uh but as you see the uh sea level rise start to come up you know it facilitates the ability for storm for storm surge from this exact same storm to proceed further Inland and cause additional damage uh as you proceed uh further Inland under future sea level rise scenarios um one kind of interesting thing that we did find is we had to look at the uh sea level rise projections from Noah uh the oog graphic and Atmospheric Administration uh these are projections from the 2017 Baseline um this is prescribed which scenarios you look at by the state methodology that's been adopted they want everyone to kind of have a common frame of reference they don't want one Community will adopt a lower risk assessment than another and you know uh and all of a sudden one town looks like it's Doom and Gloom and the town next door looks like it's all great because they use different projections so they prescribed which projections we're supposed to look at and we looked at the Noah intermediate High and the intermediate low sea level rise projections uh which range you know if you go out to 2100 um the intermediate low scenario was uh about 1.6 fet of sea level rise going out to on the intermediate high was you know much more serious uh 5.9 feet of sea level rise which is quite a bit different um and you can see there's also intermediate 20 2040 and 2070 uh time steps about what these scenarios might look like um okay so how did we conduct this study again step one was to we we conducted some public workshops you guys might recall Robin reporting on that in the past uh to try engage Community feedback and assess what the community's priorities were uh then we had to look at those sea level rise projections and develop a flooding model for the city uh this was a pretty big lift um the you can see in that top right those are all the different areas that we did not yet have storm water models for so there's also in addition to assessing our sea level rise risk uh we also develop some really new storm water modeling tools so we've got the entire city covered with storm water models now so that we can use that for future like infrastructure assessments and things like that so having existing storm water models for the whole city is like a really nice side benefit of this as a tool for storm water management moving forward um and then we also collected data on critical infrastructure so we looked at a lot of different asset types this is also again regulated by um the state for consistency purposes they want to see the same types of assets uh evaluated in all the Statewide studies so we looked at simple things like City buildings City facilities uh water and wastewater you know pipes you know we want to look at manholes see if they're going to be inundated roadway um water and wastewater facilities schools we also unique to us we looked at Parcels in the Greek toown area as a unique cultural heritage site and a lot of other community assets as well yes so why are there some areas that are highlighted and others that aren't uh those are the areas where we had to do new models uh the previous areas had been part of uh previous storm water modeling exercises so we didn't need to develop new models there okay all right so on to the results so we broke the analysis into sort of two scenarios um well not scenarios but two sorts of frames of reference right so we wanted to look and isolate the effects of sea level rise and tidle like periodic tidle flooding you know the sort of sunny day you know uh events like we see at the Sponge Docks right now and then the other sort of Suite of results that we looked at were about storm surge and combined flooding from a storm because you kind of manage them a little bit differently and there's really different levels of risk associated with those like um obviously we know that you know nuisance flooding around the the Sponge Docks or certain streets in town There's an economic cost of that it's uh it's not great there's some property damage but and it's uh the rate the what the engineers would call the return interval Is frequent they these occur frequently they're high probability events in storm surge we were looking at a 100-year storm which is sort of a much lower probability event it's much less likely to happen in any particular year but obviously the consequences are much higher so they require different management strategies um and you can see here the yellow areas identify areas that might be inundated uh by title flooding on a periodic basis um by 2040 interesting to note a lot of these are coastal wetlands uh like mangrove swamps and things like that so this might represent something more like um higher depths of in inundation in in Wetland communities um a lot of these areas do get inundated currently under certain very high tide events uh you know they're they or certain types of weather events um and they're a little bit resilient to that and but you can start to see by like the 2070 time frame there's much more significant impacts to like local roadways and things of that nature from from title flooding on a more frequent basis and uh the 2100 scenario there's it's quite a bit more extensive um the we also looked at uh our different assets about what might be impacted under different scenarios and when so uh you can see Tarpon Springs High School was flag as a poent as having some risk I believe that was out in the 2100 scenario so we've got a little bit of time to address that um the uh you know other assets like yeah know the Sponge Docks were obviously identified right away as um areas that are currently being impacted um and the uh the wastewater treatment facility also was something that we might be having to look at long term about it its sighting um in this map sure is all of this Tarpon or is some unincorporated or I believe it does venture out a little bit into unincorporated Tarpon um or unincorporated areas in in north of the County uh North into Pasco County um and how about to the east is that all Tarpon proper uh I'd have to go back and look at it I don't recall if we clip this this boundary or not um but looks about right our neighborhood's the last one on the right yeah and we're the last Incorporated neighborhood okay out there so you you don't have Flooding at all then we were just rezoned we were a non-evacuation zone until last year now we're E I would point out wsp also did the flooding analysis for the penel county vulnerability assessment so we able to lean on some of that work as well to fill in the gaps um so you might see you can see obviously south of claan is is inside the city limit so there there's still results there but it had to be modeled because some of those uh watersheds cross over into our city uh this is the combined flooding results um there sort of this is very much a good news bad news scenario so the bad news is if we get hit by a major hundred-year storm we're likely experience a very significant storm surge uh the good news is is um the sea level rise isn't likely to dramatically change that uh you can see the areas that would be impacted under a very serious storm surge uh Now versus a 100 years in the future are roughly the same so I guess that's the glass half full version of this map um uh is that our our our risk to catastrophic storm surge is not likely to dramatically increase in the future so um but we are a CO vulnerable Coastal Community and there's kind of No Way Around that you know we're in we're in a tidally influenced area and we're in a we're in a river Delta effectively and the climate is unpredictable no that's certainly true yeah um and this is one where we really we looking a lot at critical assets uh this is we're starting to delve into like emergency management issues here and like looking at like um Community resiliency a lot of resiliency there's kind of two ways to look at resiliency there's what can you do to prevent damage and knowing that you're fairly unlikely to be able to prevent all the damage how can you bounce back quicker after the storm so um being able to relocate things making elevating um assets above uh Target flood elevations um critical spares and things like that those all go into all right if we were to have a yeah knock on wood like a a hurricane Ian or an Irma what would get the city back up and running the fastest what's the elevation of the osmosis facility I don't recall off hand i' I'd have to get back to you on that one uh I I want to say it's in like the low double digits like 12 13 14 something like that it probably varies across the site um one really common question we always get is what's a 100-year storm um it's a synthesized storm it's probabilistic um you know based on the it's it's a storm that's uh statistically could has a 1% chance of occurring every year and um we always like to I threw this on here this is the cat comparison of our 100-year storm analysis versus the category 2 hurricane storm surge uh model from the National Hurricane Center you can see they're roughly comparable um so what I like to tell folks is you know this model that we've done you know it also gives you a little bit of a idea of like relative risk of you know we've got a roughly 1% chance each year of having a direct hit from a cat too is roughly what this is kind of equivalent to so um obviously in any particular year relatively low risk we haven't had a major Direct Hit from a hurricane in quite some time going back to want to say the 20s knockwood thank you yeah um the uh the guys with the microphones are going to be quite upset with me um but uh but you can see it's roughly equivalent you know so this is um you know our Category 2 hurricane storm surge map from the National Hurricane Center uh so that's roughly what this represents in in layman's terms it's not exactly the same when you look into how it was made but that's kind of comparable uh we did look at you know inventorying all these different assets that might be impacted and we looked at these different categories of assets so you can see here um the top uh table is for title flooding only so what are we likely to have to address to uh like assets that could be impacted by title flooding by 2040 under certain scenarios and we're looking at like storm water outfalls you know so again that's something may be relatively easy to address um like uh uh check valves and things like that to prevent flooding back up through the storm water system uh you can see even in the in the low intermediate low scenario 350 ft of roadway uh additional beyond what we're experiencing now and and that's kind of a manageable challenge I think um in the high scenario that's over a mile of roadway that's quite a bit um you know historic buildings those are tend some of those are most likely in the sponge dos area and they tend to be um you know in the low-line coastal areas um Parks again a lot of that Park acreage I do want to point out is like Mangrove Wetland and things like that area that's already coastally oriented anyway and then you can see here the uh the table below is sort of you know that's your one in 100 year uh storm surge uh Direct Hit from a hurricane um what are we looking at we we would have we have a lot of facilities that are at risk uh looking back at those Maps we did kind of break this down into uh planning action areas that we thought this would be a useful tool uh to try prioritize different areas because they might require different management strategies um so for example we broke this into like all of the the watersheds that are sort of facing St Joseph's sound those are the areas that would be more uh vulnerable to say a um we do tend to have a lot of existing Wetlands there we have a lot of natural uh Coastline but potentially more vulnerable to like a storm surge because you have the direct W wave and wind action up against the coast um we did call out the Greek Town historic district uh historic area because it's you know kind of a unique area of cultural heritage and we assess that separately um the ano River area is sort of everything from the Alt 19 Bridge that's in those Coastal basins that tends to get be a little bit more low-lying a little bit more vulnerability to title flooding and has lots of canals and things like that can help propagate tidle flooding further up into the community and um we called out another like a river Wetland area which is this is area where like one strategy that might be pursuable here would be to focus on preserving natural areas and trying to use your existing areas with lots of tidal wetlands and mangroves and um seagrass beds and things like that as uh natural buffers uh to to reduce the impacts and then Lake Tarpon it's its own Watershed it's kind of unique because it's uh it would be impacted by a totally different storm condition we would have to have a storm that would most likely be going up through Tampa Bay would be what would cause major flooding in that area so that's a little bit unique and and actually a little bit lower risk because that's a managed Lake it has a large control structure owned by the Water Management District uh so it's an it's an operable Lake it's you know they can lower the water levels in advance of Storms and things like that and they have ways to mitigate risk there so it's a little bit different condition some of the other water sheds um all right so going further into good news how do we address these challenges I know uh people see flooding Maps they don't like them uh I don't like them either uh they're very interesting but it's it's usually not good news no one wants to find out that you got a 1% chance of having you know 5T of water in your front yard um but the good news is is it's relatively lowrisk in any particular year uh so we looked at a variety of different strategies uh for how we can address this so we we started off with a whole planning component what do we do so uh you might see some stuff here that comes right out of the sustainability plan you can see the second one from the bottom in planning is establish a city seaw wall elevation policy um Brower County was called out as an example that's already uh established this and the goal would be to try and incorporate sea level rise projections into our seaw wall ordinance something very nuts and bolts uh if you know that you're going to have higher level of risk in the future make the seaw wall high enough that it the water doesn't come into people's driveways and Roads um there's a little bit of talk about you know roadway level of service policy that's a little bit different that's something that we're seeing more in the keys a lot of these things are starting to be addressed obviously in more lowline communities than us like Mii Beach the keys and so we'd be looking for policies and actions that are kind of right siiz to Tarpon clearly um the way water treatment facility was called out uh as a particularly high-risk asset uh because it's one of the few critical assets that's non-redundant in the city so even the water plant if we were to have a catastrophic failure from a storm surge or something like that at the water the water treatment plant the the RO plant we do have emergency interconnects with the rest of pelis County which is all served by Tampa Bay water and Tampa Bay Waters facilities Are all uh further Inland in Pasco County and further into back into hillsb County and uh down along like the Apollo Beach area so a storm surge that was be likely to impact our water plant would be very unlikely to cause a major storm surge that would impact Tampa Bay Waters facilities so we would likely be able to establish emergency levels of service relatively quickly through our emergency interconnects with panel County the wastewater treatment plant however is a little bit different story all the Wastewater in the city goes there we're not interconnected with penel County um if it shuts down that would cause there would be significant potential for like environmental impacts and things like that it' be difficult to restore service quickly and that's what you saw with uh some of these folks down in uh after Hurricane Ian you know uh critical assets and restoring utility service is one of those things that helps you relocate your residents back in the EV in if you have a catastrophic event so uh that's one of those scenarios where we'd look at trying to harden the facilities elevating the electrical and control system so that if we did get impact the electrical systems would still be intact and we could start uh restoring Service as quickly as possible instead of trying to have to procure new parts uh nuts simple nuts and bolts things those cost money but um you know it allows you to restore service more quickly uh we've got a few other things that we talked about uh updating like a creating a Parks master plan uh oyster reef and resilient shorelines and Coastal Parks trying to mitigate the risk from some of these smaller events um like we might have seen you know even a few weeks ago I think we had a we had some nuisance flooding and things like that from uh that wind event with a I can't remember what day it was but I think it was a month and a half ago or so everyone probably recalls it um yeah so simple things like that you know having more living shorelines oyster reefs uh things like that can help reduce wave action and uh reduce the impacts of wind driven flooding um there's a whole section on City facilities about trying to dry proof areas um again uh it talks a little bit about uh investing in certain projects we did want to include specific projects here like the doanes uh storm water and roadway improvements project that uh project administration's been working on for a while and the wiom byou flood mitigation project that you had a presentation on last year including those projects in this report makes them fundable under resilient Florida so we tried uh we did try and take a little bit of a maximalist approach to make sure that even if we weren't quite 100% sure about a project and it would be developed in the future we want to make sure it was on our list as potentially funding eligible um you know there's another nuts and bolts one that the city's working on currently moving forward the construction of the new Fire Station 70 that's uh uh partially arpa funded uh with the American Recovery plan uh act funds um it's an older facility it's lowly building a new one we have to come up to Modern code and put the finished floor elevations higher up it'll be uh more resilient to storm surge so very nothing and bolts things put things higher you know establish policies that keep things higher um that sort of thing so I know that was probably a lot to absorb is are there any questions and comments and I can go back to any particular slides if you have any questions is this online or how how do we access this the the slides yeah uh yeah they're on the uh it's it's on the agenda now for um yeah okay uh so you'll be able to go back and take a look at that um on our agenda portal okay I don't know how to access that but did you get an email from Tommy uh I didn't get the last one we we talked about this but yeah we're yeah I think there's a connectivity thing happening yeah some connectivity thing I got some but now I'm not getting and there's a link on that to yeah I just I haven't gotten the current ones but we're we've been in discussion about it yeah and for for anybody if you ever you don't need the link if if you just go to the city website and go to boards all the whole agenda portal it links you straight out to the agenda portal now yeah okay great well thank you for the great summary everything that's going on you have a question yeah I have a comment go ahead um could you just briefly I know there's this whole thing about replacing the septic tanks and hooking up with the sewer system and that's a big issue but can you talk about how flooding impacts septic tanks I can speak to that in general I do want to try to Stage your main to the vulnerability assessment so uh that part of our vulnerability yeah so uh if if your septic tank is is inundated it's not going to work properly they tend to be gravity uh fed systems but if it floods will the sewage in the septic tank get out or is it sealed so that's not an issue I I would have to look into I mean it's obviously a risk that's that's why we tell folks if they're in storm surges and things like that don't don't let your kids go play in the storm water so right um yeah they don't work very well and there's heightened potential for sanitary sewage to be exposed to those storm Waters I'm just curious when you were talking about the wastewater treatment facility being really vulnerable and um after the last hurricane um where was where were they affected by Ian uh the the strongest effect the answer is yes but not in the way that we planned here so that uh the good news is is it's not the lowest lying uh area of the city uh so there is some natural protection right now it is elevated a little bit up but we do have some assets at the Wastewater Plant that yeah was built in the 80s and they're below the 100-year flood elevation so that's that's not ideal um so including some of the electrical systems so that's one high priority project that it's very likely that we're going to be uh pursuing funding that project as our highest priority project for resilient Florida dollars this year um we've already been working with uh uh PJ in our our grants specialist on that um and the goal would be to elevate all of the electrical systems so that if we were to have a major storm surge uh it would be uh at least the electrical systems would be protected and everything else like pumps and things like that can be like relatively easily swapped out from critical spares in inventory uh the largest impact to the Wastewater facility from the hurricane Ian was um height and flows we had when you have that much yeah we had a large amount of surface flooding and things like that and we have a pretty good inflow and infiltration control program where we line pipes and the sewer system and try and keep it as watertight as possible but no sewer system is 100% water tight the water seeps in and um so they they did have a very very large flow and they they managed to stay fully compliant with all the uh treatment requirements which is really a testament to our employees um and normally that plant treats about 2 million gallons a day on as an annual average and it peaked up I want to say over five to six because of all the the flooding and the infiltration of all the rain water and storm surge coming in the sewer system and uh but the plant stayed operable we stayed fully compliant we met all of our water quality targets and um the uh The Operators were scrambling but they made it work wow this was with Ian or Adelia sorry this was Adelia yeah I'm sorry okay I was confused to the uh I'm yeah I'm really sorry the the fact that all the major hurricanes have I names for the last few years really get agreed okay yeah that was idalia uh Ian Ian we didn't really have any significant impact I didn't I didn't think so so yeah it's fine with me you're yeah if it hits an hour north and you get the south side of the storm decim it for Myers Beach because that it supposed to Tampa and then my the so they got almost 10 STM yeah so that that's one challenge is obviously you can't plan for it's you have to establish a design standard inine if you're talking about storm water you have to establish a design standard and for us we use the we typically use the 100-year uh uh flood elevation which typically incorporate storm surge um in our hurricane manual we do have different action plans for facility operations depending on the track of the storm so if we have a more Northern track for like a major hurricane that's likely to have significant flooding we have lighter levels of Staffing we relocate more assets for Inland if it's likely to be a storm that's coming either across the peninsula where we're unlikely to have major um coastal flooding uh or if it's likely to be further south where it's more likely to be a major like a wind event but the wind's blowing offshore uh we staff the facilities and Stage our equipment differently so uh we try to address that through our emergency uh response plan are there any more committee um so it's not really a question it's more of a comment like I'm glad that we are investing in this I'm glad that we have this action plan I'm glad that we are thinking through like in the future like where our critical assets are and what we need to protect most but I will say that I'm consistently frustrated that like this is awesome this is fantastic to be doing this kind of like resilience planning but like the mitigation is what is is what needs to happen so that we're not driving these storms that are put Us in these spots and to your point earlier Carol about the state's actions of eliminating climate is like it's it's very counter it's like it's it is insane it's my a colleague uh likened it to like having your toilet overflowing and you're like mopping up the floor but you're not turning off the water yeah and like that's what we're that's what we're doing so I'm I'm like I'm super glad that we're doing this adaptation work but like the mitigation to me is like what the state should be funding as well and focused in on to try to absolutely I totally out the in the state from what I read you can't even use the word climate right well that's what she was talking about ear yeah that's going back to another Governor but but um sorry that was my so Fox I just had like to me like the adaptation stuff is important but mitigation is like equally important and we're not yeah so I think everything that we can do as a city to help mitigate is really important ually can do yes and support I do want to point out I think we're we're this with the plan we're we're going down that road I mean we are we're St we're working on the greenhouse gas reduction Target we are going to be working on trying to do our part to reduce these impacts but at the same time there's also a certain level of impacts kind of already cooked in the scenario unfortunately um from historic emissions and there's also the very just nuts on both side of where in Florida eventually a hurricane will come so it's it's nice to for that too regardless of what happens with uh with climate uh and sea level rise as well but thank you uh being new to the committee I was really impressed by your presentation oh thank you um gives me a little more confidence living right next to the water yeah I always find myself on the map yeah I know thank you Tommy thank you excellent update thank you so much okay we're on to um the items for the next meeting and it looks like we we already have a couple of things that we talked about I'm wondering um the tree removal report um is that did you touch base with Shannon at all or uh I haven't had a chance to touch Bas with Shannon I this was I just put a few of the items here that we had talked about at the last meeting I don't I know we sometimes get to this part of the meeting we were like what were we planning on talking about so I'm trying to carry forward some items that we didn't get to in this meeting well I think from her it would be nice to get clarification on on um Duke Energy's right of way and what that what that means in reality because we had a lot of re reaction right in our neighborhood to a couple of big trees that were being removed and I uh had a coworker brought in um newspaper that had a lot of information on the reactions and clear water when that was going on so and Tampa Bay Times had a lot of that so that was one item if if it happens that would be wonderful um Shannon possibly come and speak to us she has uh several occasions but um yeah that I I'll try my best to reach out to Shannon and see if she's got some availability to come do a presentation on that subject yeah and um commissioner kulas okay I'll uh I'll that one might be a little bit interesting I'm not sure what his schedule is so obviously he's the commissioner um but we'll uh I'll try and follow up with the city he wants to come so well yeah I understand but I also know he's trying to address the board too so we'll have to talk to him about what his priorities are and um um as far as if he wants to address the committee first he wants to address the board first or you know things like that but yeah we can coordinate with commissioner kulos for sure um one other idea that we might have it wasn't quite in time for this meeting um was a potential update on the climate action plan um for those you who are uh we had a little bit of news it was even um at the last uh at the Earth Day event um we're underway on the climate action plan we kind of were in a little bit of uh you know the the cone of silence on procurement for a bit uh because we had it like publicly posted and we were doing some notice to Soul source and things like that but we're going to be working with kley and um we're in the data request phase so they're looking at all of our stuff and the uh greenhouse gas inventory from 2019 that we already done we'll be using that as our Baseline uh so I'll be discussing with the project manager from kley if they if they'll have something substantive to bring next month or if my that's a 15-week project schedule so that might be an opt if not the next meeting one of the next several months we'll have an update on that like probably a midpoint project update are we going to have a um introduction by the new manager the sustainability coordinator coordinator quite possibly well that needs so on the potential maybe maybe I was planning to address that in a staff comment oh sorry we stole your thunder tummy oh it's fine stole your thunder yeah we can move on to staff comments unless there's any other ideas here for a followup well maybe we can like I don't know if a month is enough time but like the ideas that we gave you for tonight like maybe get some like staff feedback that' be good yes that be you I mean like we're running it kind of through a cycle sure so feedback on the communication yes and maybe you can tell us when um the first news news letter is coming out uh you you'll probably be getting the newsletter before the next meeting okay probably or we're going to probably [Laughter] okay I I'll be so we are a little bit short staffed I've actually uh had the intern working on the newsletters and she's doing really great work but uh she's also just graduated and so she's on a family vacation for a couple of weeks so um we've got some like last minute edits and it's all on her can back out so I'm hoping to get it knocked out as soon as she gets back so it's a reality these times yeah so um Tommy what do you have for us uh yes so uh staff comments I first I do want to also really acknowledge all of the the city staff that's been work that was working on the earth a event they they really put in a lot of work and um especially the recreation folks um as far as like getting it posted put they put together all of the uh the materials uh other than the presentation um hailing the food and just orchestrating the event and getting it out there and um setting up the event Bri and things like that so um definitely want to acknowledge those folks uh particularly Ashley harder and Jamie Taylor um on um coordinator we're very close to doing a hire we have completed the interview process we have uh several really great candidates uh we had well o I quit counting after a while but we had well over a hundred applicants between uh LinkedIn and indeed um and then from there we we shortlisted uh we did interviews over the last week and a half and um I think we will the hire will be processed most likely by the next meeting whether they'll be fully on board through the background checks that's to be determined um it always depends you know and people start times and need to give notice at existing jobs and things like that so um but yeah we're we're really close we're really excited about our pool and um you'll have some really positive news next month I think yeah right excellent okay committee comments I have a request um can we get these and I think think it would be really nice if we could have some of them at our meetings so when we do have visitors we can distribute them yes we can do that yes Tommy should I still ask you about recruitment or is that I think we've covered it okay I thought so but I just checked thank you and I got this in the mail this week I don't know yeah who is producing this does anyone know it's uh harpman Springs living which I thought might be an opportunity for communicating somehow you know if this is going to be a regular thing I'm going to do a little research on it I saw it on the um Tarpon Community Facebook um they talked about this coming out so if you are you on there I am but I must have missed it so if you probably search there you'll find out I think that's what it's called isn't it Tarpon Community something it's not the city page it's not the city no it's not a city it's a community that there's a community group on Facebook that a lot of people post different things about the city it's really interesting they announced stuff and I find out a lot about the city through that I'm going to have to check that link out thank you I have to go I know I had something else I have to go okay thank you bye shoban bye shoban good to see you um any other committee comments we could adjourn yes it's a good I move that we adjourn our meeting a second all in favor I e e e e e e e for