So I call the meeting to order. Sustainability meeting. June 20th, 2024, can we get a roll call, please? Yes. Chair Denise Menino here. Dori Larson here. Taylor Mandel is absent. Robin Sanger here. Doctor. Carol Mickett, present, Siobhan neon is absent. Peggy Varvaris is absent. And we have a quorum. And have we heard anything from the absent members as to whether they wanted to excuse the absences or, no. Okay Moving right along, as everybody had a chance to look at the minutes from the last meeting and. Yep. Any amendment or corrections? No Okay. I move that we accept the meeting minutes from April or from May 16th, 2000. All in favor? Aye Aye. Aye. Aye So public comments. We would really invite people from the public, and I'm just putting out the invitation because we would love to have input from everyone who is concerned about sustainability. So far we have only had a couple of visitors. But we would love to have more visitors in the future. If I may, I do have a quick point of order. We did have a just for the of the committee's benefit. We did have a late addition to the agenda tonight, so, when we get further on into discussion, we will have a letter of support for consideration for the committee for an upcoming grant. Upcoming what grant? Okay. Thank you, for discussion tonight, Shannon Brewer is joining us to kind of give us some clarity on tree removal permits. Yay! Trees Excellent. Hi. Good evening. I'm Shannon. Thank you, you are my grant, stakeholder chair. Can I give you a two second update on the current grant, excellent, the lump for safety program is underway. We have our four interns. They are flying through our project area, and to date, we have 2300 trees just within this current phase two project area, we believe that we'll have all of the trees mapped, but then following up on that will be going back through the area and finding all the low limbs. And this limb up for safety program is to alleviate that financial burden on those residents. And for fire trucks and safety equipment. So it's moving along. If you see the gaggle of interns along the streets, please stop and tell them that they're doing a great job because they truly, truly are. I'm very blessed to have them. Are they wearing, like, bright yellow vests? Oh, I wish I had gone out and said hi because I was working in my office and I was on a call and I was like, oh, I'll go. And then they were gone by the time I got out there. The move in, move out. All four of them. So USF is cranking out some great humans, they we've used them for two years now and they are just on spot. They are just awesome. So props to them. That's wonderful. So I was told I can click this. There we are. Excellent So tree removal Florida statute. And I do have a little bit of information about utility line clearing as well in here. Many cities actively manage their urban forest preservation, canopy coverage, invasive species. This truly has been woven into Tarpon Springs fabric. This is actually ordinance number six ever for our city. And the date is March 15th, 1887. It was a misdemeanor to remove trees willfully and that's to me how they they've embodied this the entire time, to date, there are two sections of the code. You can see all of their established priorities and intents within there. A quick snapshot is the 133 tree preservation deals with all the maintenance as well as defining the tree removal permit process. If you're unfamiliar, there are 26 species exempt from permitting, regardless of condition, four inches of d.b.h diameter at breast height. That's here on me. And anything wider than about that is a protected species, unless it's one of those 26, the code talks about topping where you take off the entire canopy, or more than a third of it at a time, as defined can be actually code enforced mitigation, the process of trying to put back trees is described in this section. There are seven conditions and we'll go over those tonight. Hopefully everybody understands that you cannot remove trees from a vacant lot without a building permit unless there's like diseased or some special. But we take those on an individual basis, and like I said, there is code enforcement described in the section and it's four times the regular permit fee and mitigation is involved. When reviewing the permit. We have to evaluate or I have to evaluate the necessity to move, remove the tree, the one that I want to highlight that may not be familiar to people would be good forestry practices, the IPS beetle is what we're dealing with currently, which would qualify for that. Trees get stressed, particularly pines. These beetles move in and basically kill off the tree with the fungus on them. But that would be an example of good forestry practices taking them out before they jump ship into another tree. Is that what the picture on the bottom right is? Yeah. Yes. That's what they look like. I say, Marsh mallow holes or like coral on them or popcorn . Some people describe when they've gotten to that point they've actually hit the life system. You can see holes in bark borers and things like that in trees, but as soon as they hit that life system and all that starts to come out, that's when we need to do it, even before the tree is dead. But unfortunately, a lot of the times it's already dead and way gone and they've moved on before a resident sees them. How serious is that problem? It's moving in pretty quick. It's the stress that's relayed onto the tree first and then they move in. There's a pheromone on them that's actually named for the beetle. And so is it. Climate related? I mean, do you think that there's any connection to the change in weather patterns or. There's definitely got to be something there? I saw straight line winds that came in with a couple of the hurricanes. You can see it right across the path of those straight line winds. When we have all these droughts and the stress, all of that builds into the into this, okay. I talked about mitigation, these are the current fee structures. It is preferred to do inch per inch replacement within the city as these seven factors that can be waived is tree is diseased or point will ultimately expire. The immediate danger of falling significantly endangering a structure and its continued presence will ultimately cause damage. And no economically practical remedy exists. The city's professional opinion the tree is substantially endangered. Pavement or utilities for loss of life, visibility triangles around corners and in the interest of general welfare and then related to, construction. Anything 19in or smaller located within the primary building pad foundation line, swimming pools, or within the first 15ft of the driveway. Mitigation would be waived. Now, if it's over 19in, no matter what mitigation is required for those trees to be removed. So the question why are so many trees in our neighborhoods disappearing? Right, the answer is the Florida statute from 2019. I'm sure everyone's familiar with it, there was a rewrite of this in 2022. The Florida passed the statute, which was the intent of oversight on trees and residential properties. That's key, the wording did not align with industry standards. Other things were in there, like what is residential property? So Isa and others got lobbyists and they were successful with the rewrite, what I do want you to notice in this is that no notice to the city is required. As part of this. It can only be used for residential property. The it documentation must be possessed by the property owner and the unacceptable risk. And we're going to talk about that. Yes. Can you explain that a little bit more. Here we are. Okay. The greatest thing that they did was put definitions and those definitions changed. The was a game changer pretty much for this statute. Documentation is not a letter as I heard it in the community as it's called. It is a report reports have 18 specific things under our industry standards. Residential property is now defined as single family detached, which is actively used for that purpose. And moderate risk. And I will go into that for you. Common misuses HOA lands, vacation rentals that are, you know, single family detached homes, but they're not being used for that. And mobile home parks I've seen a lot of that around here. Yeah. Tim, can we just get a little clarity because it's I think it maybe people listening are a little vague about so the new law made it easier for or harder for harder. Okay. So then the question is why are so many neighborhoods having trees removed? Almost implies that it made it easier. It was very easy in the beginning. It became really the Wild West. And there was some studies out there from the University of Florida, other organizations that had stepped up, like nonprofits to try to see what was going on. And that's when they started to become successful with the rewrite. So currently it's harder to remove trees than it should be. Okay, but I'll show you how they're getting through it. So just to clarify, there was a statutory kind of preemption in 2019, and then there was a fix to try and address how wide open it made it in 2022 by adding additional definitions. Yes. Correct Okay. Can you explain that though the statutory preemption in 2019. Do you. Yeah I can explain preemption in general again. So we talked a little bit about this in the last meeting. So if the if the if the if any city has an ordinance requiring a certain type of activity and, the state passes a law that defines how, how the, how cities or municipal or counties or other, you know, can regulate something, that is supersedes your local ordinance to the degree that the statute says it's superseded. So like if they say that, you know, just to make something very simple, you know, like if they say cities can't require a permit to paint your house blue, you know, we can't pass an ordinance. If we had an ordinance on the books that says you have to have a permit to paint your house blue, then, that ordinance is no longer in effect. But ordinances tend to be a little bit more complicated, right? So if they if adds additional avenues for tree removal or things like that, we have the city has to comply with the state law, but it seems that in some cases, a lot of our tree removal ordinance still stands, but it created like an alternative mechanism for tree removal. Thank you. Which does not require and thank you for saying that, and again, that's no notice to the city and I cannot go back and do mitigation on those properties at all because of it. So I believe that it's important for you to understand tree risk and how it is determined in order to see how it's being misused. Risk assessors, we have the matrix. We have to combine the likelihood of failure occurring within a specific time frame. That is key. It has to have a time frame in order to be have risk, and the likelihood of the failed tree part or the whole tree hitting a specified target. No target, no risk, the two factors are evaluated. They are combined, and those expected impact consequences and the significance of them are on the all go into that risk. There's 18 parts to a risk assessment. It's not just a letter that says this tree can come down and this is in, you know, you have to really go through it methodically as a risk assessor, as part of our Ansi standards. And this is all built into the Ansi standards. I believe that the Florida statute and the new writing went to item number ten, risk mitigation options. And we'll go back to those other slides and I'll show you, in there, it said the risk has to can nothing else can make it reduce the mitigation below. Moderate. If it if you cannot do anything to it if you cannot prune it, if you cannot move the bench then to get it below moderate then it can be removed through this statute. So let me show you. We have a tree here. We have a dead branch. We're going to assume that the rest of the tree is healthy. For this demonstration, the dead branch is maybe in a storm. It's caught up in the tree. So it's pretty, I would say imminent, right about failure. If it's going to be there, we're going to have our specified time frame. We're going to say two years. What of our targets? We need to define those. Is it the people on the sidewalk? Is it the people standing at the funeral home here? Is it the cars in the driveway? Is it the cars on the road? And then you have to factor in their frequency. How long are they? There are they standing there out for hours upon hours? Is it really quick moving by the target? You know, to be a target? All of that goes into a risk assessment. Then you have to say what is the likelihood of that impacting one of your targets for this demonstration I would say medium to high. So you have a likely or unlikely. Then you take that into the next. Does this have a yes. Excellent. So you take this likely into this down here. And then what is that consequence of failure for this particular tree? When I took it the limb was about this big and pretty long. So that'd be a significant failure. And it would be significant damage. So it would be a high. Now, as we said in the number ten, you have to go back and the risk assessor has to act like you did something. Prune this tree would be an example. You prune the limb away, you take all the little other bits out. We call that a crown cleaning. Now you've removed that risk and then you have to go back through the matrix. So then it would come unprobable you would have unlikely. So unlikely. You would have a nut. So then you're back to low. So the Florida statute would not allow for this tree to come down. Why do we have to write reports a certain way. Ethics. The way the standards say, as we can see, if we have unscrupulous people coming into our community, they use this to a different advantage. It's the ethics, I believe, that is holding the arborist accountable . When does the statute back up? One slide. Oh, track is tree risk assessment qualification. I have that standard. It's above and beyond a regular Isa. I had additional training, I had to do a demonstration with instructors in order to get that to a certain level of acceptability, we go through the tree, we talk about how bits and pieces and the biomechanics and all of that relate and you know what truly is risk. We go deeper into that. So that's what that track is. What is not in the standard in Ansi is wrong tree, wrong place trees, damaging homes. That's in our code. That's not talked about in the in the NCA 300 trees, damaging sidewalk. That's in the code. That's one of the ways to waive mitigation when the risk is low. And the client still wants the tree removed when the tree is in an inappropriate species. So and when do you have to do with that. You get a permit, in preparation for this, I did pull some stats out of our naphthalene system. So I did five years before the incident. So it July 1st of 2019, five years before that, we had 1311 permits. The five years from January first to now, we've had 559. It's a huge drop, but you said that people don't have to pull a permit. Correct? There's no notice required. If they possess that documentation. Single family detached, and the risk cannot be made to go be below with with moving like moving the bench or trimming the tree or any of those. So is it just an artifact of reporting or are we removing fewer trees? Have you noticed a lot of trees being removed from the area? Yes, but I think that it's. Yes Okay. Thank you. So, There are code enforcement options, and I have done a few code enforcement cases. And if they do come in, if the documentation is not on site, we have made them do after the fact permits and go through the code enforcement. A lot of them have not been seen by the code board because when I present with them with this, they comply immediately and get the after effect permit. So Shannon who does that 18 point survey. So a homeowner can get anybody to do that survey for them or they do it. How did Isa Certified arborist or a licensed landscape architect? But there has no notice to the city or you're not involved at all. Correct. But it has to be someone who's credentialed to do that. So depending on different factors, that may be easier to have it removed or not. So And we do have enforcement abilities, as you were kind of alluding to. Just a minute ago, if, if we find that a tree was supposedly moved on the statute, but let's say it was like on a commercial property, the statute was misapplied. We can still go back and apply our ordinance after the fact. I currently have two of them. Okay Any other questions on that part, I remember from before I, when the statute first came in that, some arborists were willing to do a letter and for $400 around that range. I mean, I'm in the business, so I know, you know, and that goes back to the ethics. The ethics of the arborist. Yeah Vegetation, land clearing. So their vegetation line clearing. There's rules, regulations governing all of this. Federal, state, local, they have been taking a more proactive approach. They use the phrase line hardening, I'm sure you all have seen them in your neighborhoods. More frequently. The clearance distance is established within that right of way by regulatory oversight and in their standards, they say potential growth of vegetation, combined movement of vegetation and conductors and high wind. The sag of conductors due to elevated temperatures or ice. But for temperatures for here and regulatory clearances dictate how much they can take out the pruning is supposed to conform to all of the Ansi, A300 . Directional pruning is the most effective and discussed in that it takes in size, shape, expected growth rate, and there's only four types of pruning cuts in arboriculture that would be branch removal, reduction heading and shearing, the images that you see on the right hand side are approved methods. Different shapes and ways of pruning are discussed in the standards, but they are approved methods. No. But they're hideous looking. Yeah, and so stupid. I'm just going to say it. Surely we've all seen absolutely. Tarpon Avenue, my neighborhood. I've seen them decimated, sorry. Go ahead. In 2019 again, they're at the same time that the other one went into effect. This one also went into effect, many counties, municipal arborists have been discussing this. I am part of an urban forest. Forest working group with Pinellas County, Pasco, Hillsborough. We meet once a month and this actually has been on our radar for a little bit. Pasco has met Pinellas, has met with with the energy company directly as part of the annual general permit renewal. They've been pulling in Duke Energy or Tampa Electric, whatever their energy company is, and having conversations with them. What I want you to see is that vegetation maintenance is. Does say removal of trees within the right of way, and no local government shall require or apply a permit for any of those. So that's where those people in Clearwater were so upset when those giant trees got removed. If they are in an established right of way. Yeah. Yeah What baffled me was an enormous 150 year old tree that was removed from the middle of our neighbor's backyard, which didn't seem to have any apparent conflict with lines. But it was Duke Energy, the in the what do they call it? Kilovolts and the. I just had a mind just the voltage of the line. I just had complete mind blank. I'm sorry. Kilowatts that if it's a distribution line versus a transmission line, they all have set parameters. The ones on distant, the trees that were on distant never ever would have grown up there. But because of that standard that they have in order to get the equipment up that high, to maintain them, those trees had to be removed. There is defined by the NC how how far equipment and things can get to the. And there's another part of this is actually the vegetation in greater than 14ft with in those they cannot have a genetic potential of greater than 14ft. In these established line clearing. So you're not going to get an oak tree. You're going to get a glorified shrub. Yeah So there are discussions, happening. I there's resources out there for all of this. The movers and shakers and the gurus of the arboriculture in Florida. They're up there. I know you have copies of this. Google them. Find some of their their research that they're doing for the Florida tree law side. Isa did create a web page to help homeowners and arborists and community leaders figure out what is allowed and not allowed. Share that link with everyone and you guys have been very helpful in my grant process. Oh, is it possible to negotiate with Duke to, plant a tree somewhere every time they remove one, to plant one in a safe space? Yes. So that we still retain our trees, number of trees and tree canopy, but they're in a place where they're not going to interfere with the lines, Pinellas is actually discussing mitigation options, as an urban forester for here, I am actually anxiously awaiting to see what happens with that. The also so as part of because of you guys allowing me to have the grants and being my stakeholders, the urban forestry master plan, there is a grant to write that I do have intention of bringing this up during that process. And having those facilitated conversations and that we have done the first phase with the very first phase, one of the inventory. We're moving into phase two for that grant, the contract has not come back from the state of Florida yet. In order to help get a consultant to come in, do all the research and help me pick through all the sustainability action plan, the comprehensive plan that just went through and get all of the tree data and wishes of the leadership here in order to try to create that urban forestry master plan. So, yes, the trees matter. That's why I put the benefits up as part of the last part of my presentation. That discussion is going to happen. I just can't tell you an exact date of when, but it is going to be a discussion with our Urban Forestry master plan. Thank you. Anything else? What is the group that you're meeting with, in the area was Urban Green. We call ourselves the Tampa Bay Urban Forestry Working Group. And right now it's the municipal arborist, urban foresters. We all have different little names and nuances, and that's who we're getting together. And we're discussing policies and procedures within our community, general ordinances, maybe trying to create some that go across the region to make it easier or more concise that those are the different things that we talk about. I have a question about like, replanting and like, because I know that you we talked about this before and you said that you wanted to have the master plan set before we start doing replanting. But like the pine bark beetles are just ravaging my part of town, like, so, I don't know, like, can you if you replant them? Or is it just like inviting them back for like second meal or like, should we be looking at other species? But like, like the whole soccer field over off of Keystone. Like it had this beautiful pine canopy and it's like gone and this, that church, the Episcopal Church right there on Keystone. Like they they just keep picking it off one by one. And there's a dead one in our common area of our HOA. And they already killed off three in the common area along Keystone. So like they're like just going through it and over like the where you you mentioned the wind lines from the hurricane like out at Fred Howard. Like it's depressing. It is really depressing. A lot of that was saltwater intrusion, right? Right. But like, it seems like a fire hazard to have that many dry, dead trees in one place. Is the county going to address that? And then like, when can we start like replanting some of these trees? If you do replant, it's all about the stress, not stressing it out. It's got to be in a healthy condition. And I get that's hard. We've we've got high heat. We've got yeah. So finding the right tree for the right place is going to be what we need to do. And working with Master Gardeners and working with the, you know, the university of IFAs individuals down there and trying to with our USDA zones. Again, that's stuff that we're talking about in our urban forestry, in our urban forestry group. You know, are we moving all to a ten a? Are we still stuck in this nine B range in some places? Our area is such a niche. It really, really is. So we can't have the things that are in North Florida. We can't really necessarily have the stuff in South Florida. So what are we left with? Mesic oaks and pines and they're getting stressed out. Yeah. So is there a fund that the city has to start replanting? There is the tree bank. So any mitigation that comes in, that goes into the tree bank and then those funds are for replanting, the touch a truck, all those trees, they are funded through the tree bank. Let me get through the master plan because I have to replant, and I, I really want to have the right tree for the right place. Is there enough money in the, in , in the tree bank to do to do replacement? Yes. Okay, there's also a number of trees on, North Spring, like near the, the club and the clubs, you know, that was flooding, too. And then the trailer park across the street has a number of dead trees also. And my concern is if we have a bad storm, you know, and those we lose and those trees go over, we're people like me who live near Fred Howard. You know, that eliminates one. That is a county road. And they have been in communication with me about removing those, the eucalyptus that you're referring to. The big ones. Yes. Matt Hill down from the county has reached out. They he did not specify a time frame on those for the removals, but I'll gladly reach out to him and say that the community is now concerned Melaleucas are in really in the wrong spot. Oh yeah. What about Fred Howard though? Like, is the county got a plan to address those? I mean, it's a lot of trees. Is the county I'm not completely involved with their particular property maintenance. But I have been out there and I have seen like the truck went out there and did a big clearing, but I can definitely ask that question. Thank you. Shannon do they ask, do they, confer with you? Like, say the county removes 20 trees at Fred Howard? Do they give you kind of like, a heads up? It's like these trees, you know, so that you can look at the city for things that might be happening throughout the city, along that same stress , you know, the same stresses and so forth. Not at the particular property maintenance of that particular place. So who I'm dealing with is more of the urban forester that deals with all the right of ways. The major plantings, we don't communicate and say, hey, we're going to take these trees out today on their property, but definitely along the right of way, like Riverside, we do communicate quite frequently. And the city is doing their master planning too. So like that, trees that are aging out at Craig Park and so forth, they're trying to get new trees started, to take the place of those that are on their way out. Is that. Yes. When I was in parks, we actually we put installed a 7 to 10. I can't remember the right number, but they were all 3 to 4 inch caliber oak trees because of that succession planting was was definitely needed. That's a really I love that. That's really good. But it's really hard to replant right now with with the drought because, I mean, it it's really rough out there, you know, when I put stuff in, we, we have to water so much more now. It's just. And then from a municipality standpoint, I mean, how can you water a tree for 30 days straight? You know, how can you do that when we don't have consistent rain and manpower? Yeah. And getting the big water truck out there. Yeah. And all of the other as an individual that worked in parks for 15 years, I was the water girl. Yeah. I understand I the reason I got my CDL is so I could drive that big truck on alternate 19 and go out at 5:00 in the morning and water those crape myrtles, I was the water girl. I mean, it just because of climate change. It just it just you know, complicates the whole thing. You know, we need the tree canopy, but it's so difficult to get new trees. Is Yeah. I mean, I've got a property in North Redington that we just put in and we're watering in the morning and the evening to get these trees because it was 95 degrees when we put everything in and it's just it's grueling. It's grueling work. And then you put in the water restrictions. Yeah. And then. Right. And I talked to the irrigation. You know, the irrigation guy said he won't even go to some parts of Pinellas County because they're only on one day a week, you know, for reclaimed. And there's no way right now you can plant anything new with one one day. So I'm curious from your in your position, how do you address the, invasive species of trees under city ordinance? The only species I can effectively code enforce removal of is Brazilian pepper. That property has to have had a certificate of occupancy at some point for me to be able to go in and say, you have to remove these, if it is in a preservation area, if it's a property that's a vacant lot, I cannot do anything with that. During the site construction phase that is addressed, the proper tree is to be free of Brazilian pepper before that certificate of occupancy. And it does say 130 303 that it has to be maintained in perpetuity by the property owner. So I know that there's a drought, but when it does rain like we have rain barrels and we've been using that water to water our new tree and, and I mean with the big property, you know, if you plant a lot but we're like making sure we just plant one at a time and then use our rainwater to water for that. So, I mean, it may be a really good idea for, to encourage George more people having rain barrels, and you know, the, the, you know, where the botanical gardens are, they, they that's how we did it. We went to the class and you get rain barrels and they show you. Well, you can also get a system in an aboveground cistern, which, if you have a lot of plants, that's quite effective. And we do have that. But it was empty for months. Yeah. What I said we have a large tank, a large aboveground cistern, and our roof is designed gutters are designed to go right into it, but it was such an extreme. We had such extreme dryness that it was empty, that we had 40 days recently with no rain. Yeah. Now, I mean, it was overflowing last week. Yeah. No, but where do you get a cistern? Stern. Was that original with the property? No, no, we got it. We got it from somebody that we knew that worked for the city of Clearwater. Put in another rain barrel tank. So they're really. I have one other question open, and it's regarding when you see businesses that have things, they're utilizing trees. I know a business that's utilizing trees to put up put signs out, but they're surrounding the entire, bark of the tree. And I, as I, some people were attaching their advertisements to the tree, I said, do you realize that you're going to cut the circulation off and kill the tree. Do we alert you to that code enforcement? Code enforcement? It does say in the code about girdling trees and attaching things to trees, particularly signage, call code enforcement. I will do that. Thank you. And explained and applicability of maintenance. All right. Well thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for this. Oh, yeah. Thorough presentation. We really appreciate it. We should clap for her. Yes, yes, but it's so counter intuitive that these trees are being taken down in mass or dying. And yet now we need them more than ever. Yeah, it's just like, well, it's upside down world right now. It is unfortunately very difficult, very depressing. Very thank you Shannon. Thank you Shannon. And our second item is the climate Action Plan update. Yes, Tommy is going to present that. Okay, today we have a short update on the climate action Plan and greenhouse gas emissions target for the city, we're kind of viewing these as a joint effort. We talked a little bit about that during some of the action item updates, but these are two of our biggest action items for, this year. And the sustainability plan. Still getting used to the new software . All right. So, going back, in time a little bit. It's been a little while since we've talked about this. And, this was a slide that we talked about when we first did the greenhouse gas inventory. It's like, how do you do a greenhouse gas inventory? And we talked about the steps about how does a city go about, you know, working on greenhouse gas emissions. And the first step is establish a baseline. You collect data on these different sorts of, you know, energy consumption and fuel purchases, you convert all this energy use into equivalent tons of emissions, which is what we did in the inventory. And that's where we kind of wrapped it up. We did a 2019 baseline inventory. We also did a 2020, but because of there was a lot of other stuff going on in 2020, it made it not the most useful information. You know, so we've completed the 20 2019 inventory. We've got a full technical memo and report that documents all of that stuff and all the methodology and, the neck and that. So we kind of wrapped up at that third step. And the next step is to forecast future emissions based on growth and make a plan with goals to reduce emissions over time and those are the two steps that are going to be included in the Climate Action Plan. The next follow up steps would be to continue to monitor energy consumption and emissions, as projects are implemented. And that's also included in our sustainability plan, which which is that we want to do, an inventory every five years. So the next step is to make a target see where we're going, monitor progress over time and see how we perform. Just a little, quick update for I know, maybe not everyone was in the, the original presentation when we put this information out and completed this a couple years ago, so in 2022, we did the, inventory using the tool. Italy is a international organization that's local governments for sustainability, and they help organizations, local cities and governments tackle big sustainability challenges, there were two tracks that we could choose at the time. There was either a community scale track which is looking at the entire community, or we could look at the government track, which is focused on municipal operations, just to make it a little bit more, implementable for a city our size and start working on it at this, the local government scale, the things that we have the most control over being a small city and a large county, we're focused on government, we decided to focus on government operations. So, progress to date , we are going to be partnering with Italy to do this work, we've selected them as our consultant to conduct the vast majority of the technical work to, to do the climate action plan, so already to date, we've kicked off we've completed the procurement process with Italy, the next step will or we also developed a joint scope of work to finding exactly how we're going to do this study with Italy, what their responsibilities are going to be, how they're going to conduct all the technical work. We've had our project initiation. So we've already kicked off this project with Italy. They are off and running, we had our project kickoff meeting last month, after quite a bit of discussion about how we were going to do the study during the initial scoping and we've also selected our baseline. Again, we went back and forth about whether we wanted to update or not, but to get things going kind of quickly , we decided that 2019 is probably the most reasonable year for us to do, as our baseline, just because it was the last year before all the Covid extracurriculars. We had a lot of weird changes in government operations over the last few years. That we're finally kind of getting back to normal, but we didn't want to wait for that in order to start setting a target, and we've also been working with them in quite a bit of detail on the initial data request. So we've provided them with access to all the original files for the energy consumption and fuel use, they've been reviewing our technical memo, and we've also completed with them a detailed quality assurance and quality control, for the current inventory to make sure everything is all buttoned up and accurate and ready to go as the basis for projecting future emissions. Why did we choose Italy, again, Italy is a they're the first and largest global network of local governments, devoted to sustainability challenges for local government. Ecclesiolae square, which is what we use, is also become the de facto standard for local government greenhouse gas emissions accounting. So they publish the software, they develop it, they know the tools. The best, and they also have a lot of experience. So we were able to get some really good expertise on board through our membership in Italy. We do continue to maintain our membership in Italy through the city's sustainability budget, they've worked with other local governments on greenhouse gas planning, including a kind of countywide effort that they were working on a few years ago. And a couple years ago in Pinellas County. And most recently, they were they've been working with us and showing us some of the work they've done on Santa Fe County, New Mexico, on their Climate Action Plan, which is published, about this time last year, so, so other news, it was also extremely affordable because they are a nonprofit. We are looking at other options for procurement to see if there's maybe like environmental consulting firms, that would be interested in doing this sort of work. And we were seeing quotes, budgetary quotes in the neighborhood of 30 to well over $100,000, so we decided not to do that, so that we were able to find this in our budget and kind of scramble to make these make this happen, so it's a big cost savings and a really good value for the city, especially to get the folks that established the standard effectively and it's also on a really nice schedule. We've got a total 22 week schedule to complete the study, which started a, you know, a few weeks ago. So what will be included? So there's this is kind of the scope of work, what we've been working on with them. So Iclei will be developing the overall Climate Action Plan report. They'll be the primary author and will obviously have lots of engagement with them, they're going to create a business as usual forecast. So they're going to take our emissions and say if we do no activities, where would we be likely to wind up over the next 20 years by 2050? And and, part of the value of having Italy do this is they've already compiled lots of detailed information about other things that are going on in Florida and in our local area. So they even in our business as usual forecast, we're actually fairly likely to see some emissions reductions because they will be including the green energy plans from the Local Power companies, so that when we're making investments or we're choosing which policies we want to implement, we're not making them in a vacuum. We'll be making those in conjunction with what other with what, like Duke Energy, for example, is going to be planning on have already sort of budgeted for, then they're going to do a wedge analysis, has nothing to do with salads, but they will be looking at several different policies that we could potentially implement, short, mid-term and long term policies that would achieve different levels of greenhouse gas emissions targets. And what the wedge represents is it looks like a sort of graph. And each triangle shows your emissions escalating over time and different practices reduce those wedges by a certain amount. And so we would pick and choose the policies that would be most implementable or, most favored by the city, to, to achieve our, our individual goals, they'll also be working on again forecasting for all the different scenarios with the different policies, they also have a task in the scope to assist the city with potential funding opportunities. And they'll be researching funding opportunities to help implement this plan, they'll be coming to you once we've got a little bit more meat on the bones. To do a presentation on, once we get closer to a draft report and then they'll develop the final report. And that report will include greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets for both 2030 and 2050 for the city. So we'll have a sort of near-term target then sort of a longer term, 2050 target, which tends to align with a lot of like international climate emission or emission reduction target setting efforts and things like that. Let's go back just a quick refresher to about where we're starting with. This is a graph out of the 2019 inventory showing where most of our emissions are located within city operations, the largest source of emissions is our water and wastewater facilities. This is largely a reflection of the services provided by the city. So it's not a lot of times we get the question, how do we compare to Oldsmar? How do we compare to Dunedin, how do we compare to the county? And the answer is we don't. We have different practices, we have different, services that are provided by the city. If we were to have a landfill, that would potentially become a much larger source of emissions. But we don't have an open landfill, so we don't have that emission source. So this is really kind of a reflection of where our energy is going within existing city operations is the best way to look at it and know this is our baseline. How do we do better or worse from here forward? And, water and wastewater tends to use a lot of energy. You have to pressurize a lot of water. You know, you need big pumps and things like that. Go ahead. So I mean, this graph gives me numbers, but I really don't know how to understand it. Like let's say the vehicle fleet. What would be our goal. Like what would be a good number to have zero? Zero is always a good number, but things have to be implementable. So that's something that we'll be developing in the wedge analysis is we'll we'll be starting at this baseline saying all right over time where would we expect to wind up with in a sort of no action scenario. And then how could we move those targets up or down based on different practices the city would implement? But if I looking at these numbers, should I be horrified or should I be? It's okay. I mean, I don't know what these numbers mean. You know, I don't know what 1700 from, 5000 from a again, it's really just a reflection of where our energy is going. This is a indirect measure of how much energy the city is using from emission from sources that generate emissions. So, but again, it's really variable and it's really dependent on what operation you have, where your power comes from. If we were located maybe over on the East coast where they have like a lot more nuclear power, our water and wastewater facilities would be much lower. But that's not where our energy comes from. So also does. Oh, sorry. No Go ahead. Okay, because we haven't as we you've described a somewhat outdated waste, water facility, would would those numbers come down once we, implement a that would be that would be the goal. I mean, I think that's that we're really starting we're very early on in this process. We have done, a full, energy efficiency study a few years ago at the at the wastewater treatment facility through Ameresco. We used a special procurement method called an ESCO contract that's dedicated to finding efficiency and finding ways to be more energy efficient, you know, so thing we did a lot of stuff like improving lighting and installing variable frequency drives so that all the equipment's not running at maximum power when it's on, and we can ramp it up and down as needed, that being said, there will always be a certain amount of energy that's required for, the wastewater treatment facility. It's just the nature of wastewater treatment, we do have some plans to become more efficient there. We're working on upgrading the aeration system , to be a more modern iteration system. That's we've got kind of an interim step that we're working on right now, and then several years out in the, utilities capital budget, we've got it budgeted for sort of a full rehab of the aeration system, which is the sort of the main guts of the of the wastewater treatment facility, tertiary your system, our system . Yes. Okay, yeah. We don't usually say tertiary, but we, we provide full advanced wastewater treatment, which includes nutrient removal, which is what most people think of for tertiary. Okay. So yeah, we do full nutrient removal, full advanced treatment for public access, reclaimed. So whereas whereas high up on that is when was it upgraded. Because I think initially when I moved here, it was not great. The wastewater treatment 30 years ago, the I mean you don't I mean if you don't have that information it's fine. But the wastewater facility was built in response to the Grizzle Fig standards, which were established, by statute. Those were named after certain legislatures from back in the 80s, and they established new nutrient targets for wastewater treatment facilities for the whole Tampa Bay region, which were a part of. And so the older wastewater plant from back in the day was replaced in 1985. I believe. So that's when we went to the new advanced wastewater treatment process. And it's gotten some incremental upgrades over the time, like life cycle stuff, but no major changes to the treatment process. Tommy, go ahead. Is the solid waste facilities. Is that the old landfill or things like that? What what is that exactly? Is that the that's that's essentially, the electricity used at the like scale house at the, at the yard waste facility and all that. Yeah, we did look in the inventory at, emissions from the, the existing landfill. And at this point, the landfill is largely not generating any landfill gas, we monitor that on a periodic basis multiple times a year at the different landfill gas vents to see if it's, producing methane and things like that. And so we did look at that. And it's the landfill. It's a legacy landfill from like the 70s and earlier, and it's largely kind of getting ready to be closed out. So there's not a lot of active emissions coming from that facility at this point. I wonder what how how that's been reduced over the years if it was really, really active when they first shut it down or, I would I'm sure that early on when you, you know, there would have when it was first closed and capped, there would have been a lot more methane emissions and things like that at the time. And they they taper off over time as the waste is degraded. So if we have the opportunity to add more solar, would it be primarily to bring down the highest number, the water and wastewater facility being additionally, yeah, I think supported through solar, that would probably be a if that's that would probably be a likely outcome would be some look. And we talked a little bit about this in the original inventory report is that, there's ro reverse osmosis which is what we use for our, our water treatment facility does tend to be a very energy intensive system. So that's where we're going to be looking at what Duke Energy has planned. So if Duke Energy has a really well developed plan for reducing, you know, for greening up the power supply, and they're going to sort of achieve our targets for us, that would be something where we might want to be focusing on something else, like maybe the vehicle fleet as a priority. But that's that's what we're starting with, is the no action scenario will sort of define, you know, what will happen. And from there, that's when you start making your priorities about where you'd want to focus your efforts, but in general, if we were to want to reduce emissions, absent the power company at the water and wastewater treatment facility, solar or offsite solar would probably be the most viable option. Because we're largely built out for solar at the water plant, we don't have any more space at the end. Well they were talking about adding it potentially on the property that the dredge, you know, that is possibly being purchased. Yeah. That if, if the city were to acquire that property, that might be one viable solution, but they would have to be compatible with the use of the, of the site for, for dredge material as well. So we don't want people piling, you know, sand on top of the solar panels. Yeah. That's right. All right. And going back a little bit further, this is, you know, city wide electrical consumption. So you can see this is not emissions. This is electricity in kilowatt hours, which people are a little bit more familiar with. Everyone gets their power bills. And most lay people don't know how a metric ton of CO2 relates to their energy consumption, but they know inherently, like, you know, what they're using at their at their home. And you can see the water utility was using about 44% of citywide electricity. Wastewater facilities, about a third, and then sort of everything else is the balance. So like street lights and traffic signals are significant at like 8% parks, rec and leisure, which is sort of all of our different parks and lighting and, air conditioned for different facilities and things like that. And then smaller categories for like the local government buildings, which tend to be, you know, like the public works, not the public, the public safety buildings, like relatively new. It's so it's relatively energy efficient and things like that, those are those numbers annual, those are chart. Those are snapshot in time from the 2019 baseline. So yeah, that's a full year okay. That's a lot of power. I'm hoping that's not monthly. No no that's a full year okay. Well we'd have quite expensive power bills. And this was our vehicle fuel use. Yeah. Just going how much is the city electric bill per month? The answer is we don't have a city electric bill. We have a variety of electric bills, I don't know all of them. But to give you sort of a point of reference, just for the water plant, which is probably which is, again, our biggest electric user, it tends to be depending on how dry it is, how much water people are using, if people are in town, peak season, off peak season generally between 100 to $120,000 a month in electricity a month a month. It's got to be in the millions. Yeah, we're we're in the ballpark of a million plus dollars a year on electricity at the at the water plant. I'm feel pretty good now about miles. And, yeah. So we kind of looked at going back in time again. We looked at vehicle fleet two different ways. The way the tool looks at it is it breaks it down by, by vehicle type. We thought it was a little bit more useful to also compile it by sort of activity. So we have a lot of light trucks, but a light truck is anything that's sort of smaller than like a 3500 series truck. And that could be also like a patrol vehicle. If it's like a Ford Explorer, that's for the police. That's a light truck, you know. But it's not actionable. So looking at it by sort of activity made it a little bit more interesting. And you can see that police, they have a very large vehicle fleet. They're on the road most of the time. Out there doing police work. So they do tend to use quite a bit more fuel than average. The fire trucks don't drive around looking for fires. They wait for the calls. So they use a little bit less, and then you can see sort of everything else is sort of filling in the gaps. Roughly similar levels of fuel use across other different municipal sectors. And yeah, here's an example of like a wedge analysis. This is from a Santa Fe County. So this is kind of a cup. They did it a little different. They were community scale because they're a little bit larger entity. And they offer more services. So you can see here this is their they broke it into sort of three different tiers. They did a low effort, a medium effort and a high effort implementation range , and there's different costs associated with each of those practices. And then they gave you they gave the county a menu of options to pick from, like a really one that everyone sort of jumps at is replacing gasoline vehicles with electric vehicles, and they said, what percentage of vehicles would be replaced each year? Low effort would be 1% of vehicles. They vote a lot more vehicles than we do. Medium effort would have been 6. High effort would have been 10. And they provided sort of a wedge analysis showing the different emissions and how they would reduce over time under each of those scenarios. And then you would pick and choose the individual, activities that would give you sort of the most bang for your buck and that are also implementable at the city level. So not I didn't provide the whole list because there was a lot of stuff in there that wasn't necessarily applicable to us. Like for example, we were talking about this with Lee earlier, whether or earliest questions was how much natural gas do you use? Like for heating? And the answer is none. We're in Florida, so when they're doing this work up north, converting natural gas to electric can be a big source of energy efficiency. But we just don't have that practice here. Go ahead. What is a f o l u? That's an excellent question. Which gets I was wondering about that. And it gets bigger. Yeah a rather than smaller. I'm really sorry I didn't I don't remember that acronym off the top of my head. Google it. It looks like two with this example that they're looking at emissions community wide. Not just with the city's effort. Because like in Tarpon, if we were looking citywide, then transportation would have a much bigger impact on the total emissions that are being produced in the city. But since we're only looking at what the city is in charge of, that's lower because like, they've got residential energy in here and we're not looking at that. Yeah And that's again largely a reflection of like the types of services we provide. Like we don't provide an electric utility. So it would be exceedingly difficult for a city our size to start measuring citywide electrical consumption. And we are also not in charge of producing that electricity. So there's we have sort of a limited ability to change that at our scale. Similarly with the transportation. So like because we're not in charge of the regional transit authority, we have limited ability to get people out of their cars. So like that's something that's kind of better handled at like the county level, which manages the TSA. So it means agriculture, forestry and other land use. Yeah Okay. Yeah So and one other example we did have here, that might be a little bit more, akin to something we would do in the city would be like increasing commercial building efficiency. And it's what percentage of, energy efficiency targets do you want to have? And that's a little bit more something that would be something inside of city facilities, maybe not commercial buildings, but the goal might be increase. You know, city facility electric use efficiency by 1% a year or 2% a year, or 5% a year, and we would be looking at the relative costs associated with that. And also, how doable is it? So that's our kind of initial start onto the climate action plan. The greenhouse gas target, are there any questions about the effort or where we're headed? What's this diver doing asking, looking for clean energy . So my understanding is it looks like five and a half months to completion, right. And that includes having the plan or that's like now they've given you the recommendations and the city needs to decide which of the actions they want to take. That that's overall to complete the report. And then after that there would be a little bit of obviously like a policy framework, you know, phase. So, with that board adoption and things like that potentially. Yeah it's pretty quick. We're very pleased with the schedule. And that won't impact any of the like. The sustainability action plan items. Right. It'll just like enhance what we've already kind of recommended. And like we've got the 50 actions in the plan. Yes. So it wouldn't be necessarily new things. It would just be like leaning in where we think we would get the biggest bang for the buck. Yeah I think that that is that's something we're still going to work out. This is our first sustainability plan. So if we were to have something new that's not in the plan, it's a lot of the things that are in the sustainability plan are a little bit it's a little bit of a plan to make a bunch of smaller plans. Yeah. So, if we start establishing targets and we were to have something like a gold like increase energy efficiency, it wouldn't be something that would be new to the sustainability plan. It would be incorporated in as one goal, but it would be something that would be tracking through the sustainability program. Thank you. So you're saying that this will be complete by the end of the year, hopefully as it as it started, yes. We've already five. That would be sometime in November for maybe December. Yeah. November, December. You know, depending on again, you know, scheduling and, yeah. But we're, we're hoping to make quick work on this one. Good. Well, thank you very much. Well done. Yeah. Good applause to Tommy. What I said you get applause too. That's of course, not going anywhere yet. He's our Tommy. Third item is letter of support for Becket Bridge funding. Yes I thought we'd have. At least one was added. No Go ahead, and I. Yeah, I just want to let everyone know because you weren't in on the discussion. But we're waiting to do more community engagement discussion once we get our coordinator on board. That's why it's not on the agenda for tonight, because we didn't want to have to backtrack. But we really wanted to include our new coordinator in the discussion. Do we have a new one? Let's I'll address that in staff comment there. We get ahead, so for the last item for discussion for tonight, I do apologize. This was a little bit of a late addition, it came in earlier this week. So, a little bit of backstory on this. We've had a long running project that the county is leading. It is a county project to replace the, to replace Becket Bridge. It's the bridge on Riverside Drive, right in front of the yacht club, and it's an old bridge, and it is both structurally deficient and functionally obsolete, which means it needs to go and, the city has a healthy financial contribution that we are going to have to make to this project to replace our existing water and sewer lines, which, although they're actually in fairly good shape and don't really require immediate replacement because of the way the bridge is going to be installed, they have to be replaced to make clearance for the new bridge, so we're going to be trying to support the county and pursuing some grant funding for the bridge replacement, which would potentially include, some money for our utilities component of the project, but the goal is to the county's going to be replacing the bridge. It will include some really nice elements, like, sidewalks, you know, it'll have a I believe it'll have a real functional shoulder. There's not really a shoulder to the road right now, so that'll provide a little bit more access and space for like, bicycles and things like that. So definitely be a little bit more connective across the, you know, east to west for the community and multimodal commuters, and there's also going to be some stormwater improvements as well that should help with some of the coastal flooding. And stormwater flooding that occasionally occur in that area. Occasionally it's unbelievably bad. It's bad. It's really bad. Yeah, I mean, you know, I've said this before, but in other meetings, but it's a no go, when we have big rain to go that way. Yes. Yeah. And I would like to point out that's a county road. So the city does have a little bit of their fault. Well we don't we just can't work on it. It's not our road. So but they are. Yeah. This has been a long running project. It has been delayed several times, you know, there's, a retention pond really could help over there. There is that pond right behind there's a big pond right behind Riverside and Chesapeake. It's right. It's huge, but it doesn't seem to be working really well. Well, I don't think it's hooked up to anything. Yeah, but it could hook up. I've actually told the county this because I've spoken to them, but, when you say the Beckett Bridge project, you also mean all the drainage, because when I spoke to Carol, she told me that the first thing that's going to go happen is a drainage to do the drainage project. And then they're going to do the bridge. I will I think it's one project. Yeah, it's sort of one overall project. I will say I'm not intimately familiar with the construction phasing that they're planning. It is really a county led project. And our project admin, department is leading sort of the interfacing with them on that, but they're going to be building it and they'll be, you know, letting us know as the different phases come online, but right now they're just looking for our support to pursue federal funding. She also told me that when it gets closer, they're going to have meetings with the community because I asked, I said, you know, people need to know. And she said, yes, we'll do that. So I was impressed with the person from the county. That's that's good to hear. Yeah. We're we're happy to hear that they're, they're doing well and that they're, you know, doing some outreach. Yeah, yeah. So the, our goal for the project today is, there's some federal dollars available that this county is going to be pursuing again, to offset part of their costs for this project and also part of our cost, it's through the, I believe it's through the bipartisan infrastructure Act, they have a bridge investment program. They did apply for this last year. They didn't get the funding. So that's why they're asking for lots more letters of support, and so that's what we've got here today, is a letter of support to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. They'll be having lots of other letters of support. They'll be submitting with their, with their grant request. And, we talked I drafted this letter with the assistance of planning and zoning and the county had a template that we used also. So we talk a little bit here about some of the elements that are sustainability related. So, bringing things up to modern safety standards, adding more sidewalks, to come up to full Ada compliance, improve connectivity for pedestrians and bicycles, which is an element of our sustainability plan, and also focusing on resiliency. When you've got a bridge that's functionally deficient and structurally. Now structurally. Functionally obsolete and structurally deficient, you know, it's not the best situation when that's a major hurricane evacuation route. So we want to harden that. This will harden it and make it more resilient, make it less vulnerable to hurricanes and things like that in the future. Plus, addressing the local, flooding concerns, it's scary. It is scary. I mean, to walk over that bridge to ride your bike over it. Oh riding your bike, it's brutal. So for tonight, are you looking for us to just like, over that bridge endorse, endorse this. Like, do you need a vote? Okay. So then I move that we sign on to this letter and have it sent off to Secretary Buttigieg. I second. Oh absolutely. I believe we are all in favor. Yes absolutely. All in favor? Aye, aye. Okay. Thank you. Can you send that to us? Because it was not in our, backup material. Yes it should be on the. Oh, it is where if you just refresh. Oh, then it'll probably because mine popped up. Now Yeah. It should be in the agenda packet on the civic clerk. So if anyone's on, like the copy package, okay, she has to sign it. Denise has to sign it. Yeah. Thank you. Yes And then it should. Yeah. So it should be in the agenda packet now. And also if you click on the individual items. No problem. We're all still getting used to civic plus a little. So is the CD also like the board of commissioners and the mayor also sending a letter of support like is this one of many? Are we getting like Congress person the I believe the mayor and the city manager have already issued a letter. So they're they're just looking for lots of letters. The more letters we have, the more likely we are to get the funding. So the county is also sending multiple letters of support. They're looking for letters of support from the community organizations and things like that. Do they want individual citizens to submit letters, or how about the neighborhood, yes. Anyone who would be interested in submitting you know, feel free to. If you'd like, I can send a template. We have a template for you. Sent a letter. I'd walk around our neighborhood and get people to sign it. Yeah, I can, I can send a template where you can fill in your names and that'd be great. Have people sign it. Yeah, I'll do it too. Awesome. Yeah. Every dog. Morning, Walker. Really? Thank you. Yeah. Perfect Okay. Thank you. So we're talking about items for the next meeting, and I'm hoping that we can continue discussion on, the community engagement, but, I'm leaving. Information will come from Tommy , but, another thing that I was hoping that we could look at is aging infrastructure in the city, because, I'm mean, I'm sure that you're aware. You see it happening all the time. And especially in the historical area, just, fire hydrants that are left open so that they can clear out. I'd like to understand that a little bit better, but the water gets really, really dirty. And it's probably it's coming from aging pipes. And what there is, you know, is there a plan for gradual, gradually addressing those aging pipes for the future citizens of our city? You know, the children that are growing up here and that are going to live here in the future? Yeah, because you can't just let them corrode. And I think that'd be a great topic for the next meeting. We could provide a presentation. Oh, that'd be good . Good. Just to make it a manageable sort of scope, would you like to have that focused on utilities and particularly on water? Water infrastructure? Water. Okay Could we I mean sort of connect it with that, you know, I was, I guess, in the Tampa Bay times this morning, there was an essay about you know, algae, particularly, it seemed, from, freshwater algae. But the study that was being addressed indicated that one of the major ways in which the algae grew was from sewage and, and not so much from runoff and, but also from diet sugar, sucrose that never dissolves was really interesting. Where was the article? What where was the article? Tampa Bay times and but sewage was the biggest culprit, especially for that, skin eating bacteria. Yeah. They they put it some sewage in it and it, it got 200 to 300 times bigger. So could we talk about that because that is an issue with municipalities in Pinellas County. I'm sure, beyond about how sewage runoff occurs and the amount of it, I will say within our city, we do have a little bit different water quality priorities than maybe like the main part of Tampa Bay, particularly our city, we already have full advanced wastewater treatment, so we're already getting nutrient removal and things like that. We actually have the nutrients in the wastewater effluent at our city are actually lower than the ambient water quality in the Anclote River, which is really good. We're actually kind of diluting out the pollution at this point. But the issue is you know, when we get big floods and stuff like that and things break, or the issue that's going on, one of the things that was discussed in here was the septic tanks and how the leakage happens, and then that goes in the water. So it'd be good to know how. Now, you know, I know this was a huge issue and still is in Saint Pete, but how what the situation is in Tarpon, how it's being handled and what are the potential hazards and what can be done because that affects such a big area? Yeah. There are so many ways we are replacing the septic tanks slowly. Some some streets like Bayshore and Tommy was big. That look big issue over there. My mother in law lives over there and everybody's steaming mad about the cost. Yeah, $25,000. Can you not speak to that? No, I can, I mean, if we're if we're picking items for the next meeting, if the committee wanted to have an update on the Bayshore project, that's something we could do. So, sewage is a big issue. Why can't we get a grant for that sort of stuff? I don't want to get into a detailed discussion. We're setting items for the next meeting. Okay, yeah. Sorry about that. There The city is looking for some grant that to. Right. We're just looking for items for them. But that's good, I have, I have an idea. Carol. So I have a client on, Gulf Boulevard, and, during this latest, bad storm, the whole street was, it came up. She's got a bank, and it came up substantial, but there's a retention pond across the street, and it's not working correctly. It needs to be cleared out. So like, my street, Charlotte is fine. There's no problem. But we do have some streets that are having issues like that, you know, continually having problems. So does it relate to the agenda items right now or how does it relate to. Well, I was saying as an idea for next for the next a next meeting, you know, just, if we could look at the retention ponds, how they're, draining, that I'd have to I'll talk to Public Works and see if that's something we do a presentation again when things get outside of our department. I do like to talk to the other folks in, you know, who are managing and see, like, what their staff availability is, just like with Shannon. So we can definitely put that on the list. And I'll talk to other staff and see what sort of presentations we might be able to have ready for either the next meeting or a subsequent meeting, I mean, it was it was a lot of rain, but, you know, it really, people in that neighborhood were having a really hard time getting in and out, I mean, we did get like six inches, 6 or 7in, and, you know, one day, but, it was problematic for certain neighborhoods, okay. Ken. Yeah, I would like to point point out to, we could also bring the communication plan goals back for the next meeting. We'll have the new sustainability coordinator on board. So Good. Thank you. And connected with those is time for staff comments. And we can be updated on the good news. Well I'd like to say connect it with the retention ponds. There are areas there's a big area in Riverside where there's just standing water. I mean a lot big a lot of it. And how does that get removed? Is that a person who owns the property is supposed to remove that, I have to look into that particular site because I'm sure that's not the only place. And, you know, then we get mosquitoes, you know, all of that issue. But that's like retention. Yeah, yeah, I could have a discussion on stormwater management in general within the city was that's kind of maybe a broad enough subject that we could talk about as stormwater management. Okay. The comments are in the beginning, but I was wondering if you could wait for the movie so I could talk before you guys adjourned, is there, can we get a motion to waive the rules so that we have public comment? I make a motion to waive the rules so we can have public comment. I second it. All in favor? Aye Thank you, thank you, thank you. Georgiana Frances, 15 Athens Street. So I'm not sure if everyone's aware that the sustainability committee was brought up in one of the charter revision committee meetings on Monday, and, they don't really understand how it's supposed to fit into the charter review, but they're looking at maybe that it should. So I'm not sure if that's being addressed with with Tommy or who they want to come speak or or what, but the bigger thing is that this is an opportunity. For you guys to. And it's an issue that we talked about at the last budget meeting to prioritize your priorities, because I was looking at the plan and it's 50 items, and I think I read that they're going to implement them in like stages, so that's I mean, you know, when, when, when you come up in a meeting all of a sudden to the charter revision. That's our like our city's constitution. Okay. So there's a reason. So, you know, you're here and you've been here a long time and you've been ignored, right? I mean, I feel like that that's how they were saying it. You guys don't have any teeth. That's what they were saying. And on the onus is on you. That was what was said in the meeting. So you know we have to hold you know, I mean, the only way that we can if you guys want to be heard is to, you know, reach out and listen. So, you know, you watch the meetings and that will help you prioritize some of these. I was looking through the plan, and I already found a few that would, well, just the Bayshore thing. I mean, that's that's huge, right? And it just happened. And, you know, nobody was you guys weren't notified. And when can that be implemented on your 50 plan? I mean, who knows when that will go in? Right number 36 demonstrate progress in appointing local advisory board members that reflect the gender, racial and ethnic diversity of the community. So recently, we had, there was a public art appointee that, was the only black appointee on there, not appointed. And I was thinking, looking at all the boards, I don't think I mean, we have some Greek people for sure, but I mean, we have a large, you know, African-American community and they're not represented. And they're coming to the meetings and they're involved. So, you know, if you want, that's that can help with some of these, picking out the action plans, because you'll have to have local support because otherwise they're going to use your committee for whatever they want. And so you have to use them back. Fine. If they're going to use it for whatever, you know, trees cutting a certain tree out, there's a reason that you're brought up and, you know, watch the meeting, see what people are concerned about. I mean, it's good that you guys get your input from your friends and your neighbors and things like that. But you know, you know, if you really want to be effective, you have to listen to the community, not necessarily the outreach, the input that you got from a public meeting on a Saturday at 2:00 at the community center, okay, because that's just not really bringing the right people out, you know, and that's, you know, that's how you get effective and that's how you're listened to. Because they're going to come to the meetings. And those are the people that you want to represent because and that's that's what's going to get done. So I mean, with all the 50, like I said, that one kind of came out to me. So I spilled my fruit punch, number 37 partner with community organizations to maintain inventory of civic organizations, neighborhood associations, local service providers, which can be used to address neighborhood specific needs. That's another part of the problem with this. And I don't know, Tommy, if you can maybe get with, you know, there's I think a lot of this has to be with like reaching out to other groups, the same thing with, the other number I had, I think was, 33, 38 as well. Community engagement for local decision stakeholders to further community engagement and local decision making. So, we have we do have some civic organizations, you know, the chamber and things like that, but a lot I think, Carol, you brought it up in one of the meetings that there are not a lot of neighborhood associations, so maybe just target certain areas, but this is what we use for our last, planning and zoning meeting to repeal the comp plan. It brought a lot of people out. So I don't know if it was the size or what it was, but when you do get, you know, start putting fliers out if you want, you know, people to come to the meetings or people to come to this for the community engagement, the other thing, even if you're for the that charter revision meeting, you're still residents. You can go talk. Just say I'm not speaking on behalf of the board and, you know, point out something that you know, that you have that you like or what you guys do here. So you tell them and you know, if they're going to say they don't know what you're doing, well, then watch the meetings. You know, they're on a charter review committee. That's our city's constitution. They're supposed to be, you know, very respected people who are involved in the community. And they should be paying attention to you, at least not insulting you. And it's also election season. So the people running are on the board. So, I mean, this is like I said, this is a time to push your push your your agenda. I mean, you, your action plan, and did you say that you already have you guys hired somebody already for the, for coordinator? Yes. Starting next week. Yeah. Okay. I was going to say don't wait until that you know, to start with the community outreach. And I would start. So I would just you know, like I said, prioritize these priorities, find out what's most important out of the 50, out of each three, you know, and then, yeah, I was going to share this at my at the committee comments too. Oh good. Okay. Yeah I was I just was I didn't know if, and I was listening to Shannon. You're really lucky to have her because she was telling you exactly what those statues do and obviously stopped when she couldn't say, you know, what she. But those those statues that go in are just one of, like, a many that are going in from the lobbyists and they're coming to you know, obviously they go in with a comp plan, you know, that's why we have to change the comp plan to go around the statute. So those are just a part of it. And if you look at the comp plan update, there's a reason that those changes are happening with that. So it's all connected. And the crosswalk thing has to be implemented because all these boards should be paying attention to each other. And you know, until until we wait until somebody comes and puts that in, you know, makes that happen like a city manager or something. I don't know, you can just listen to the other meetings and bring it up. And, you know, we don't have to wait for them to, to implement something if it's concerning to you. And these things are happening, you know, right now, then just go bring it to the board. If you wait till everything to go in a plan, there was no plan for pickleball courts. And they got pickleball courts in two years. And it wasn't in a master rec plan. So you know, don't just wait to say, well, okay, we've got a plan going. So we'll wait till that. That will never come. It'll never happen. Okay. Well thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing. Okay Staff comments. Yes. Yes okay. Please biggest update is, we do have, we've completed our hire for the new sustainability coordinator, we're it came kind of down to the wire on getting background checks done. If she was gonna be able to attend this meeting or actual start date is going to be next Thursday. So we're very excited about that, her name is, Holly Lindstrom, and she is Holly. What let me double check that. Actually, we've got, you know, her? No, I just heard what I can't. Yeah. How do you spell that? Langston Langston? Yeah. I'm terrible with names like Langston Hughes. Yeah, I'm not sure about Langston Hughes, but, Holly Langston. So. Yeah. So her background, she's actually. It'll actually dovetail nicely with a lot of the action items that we have coming up. So, that was one thing that flavored heavily, like what we were looking for in this round of recruiting, was what do we have in the action plan scheduled for the next three years? And a lot of it's around planning, policy writing, dealing with the comp plan being adopted and ordinance adoption. So, Miss Langston is a planner by trade, she her undergrad back in the day was in, geology, and so she has a background in the sciences as well. And she also has a master's degree in planning from Georgia Tech. So which is very impressive to us, and previous employment, she was in public sector, in private sector doing, planning, in the Atlanta metro region, working with small governments and municipalities there on comprehensive planning, policy development, ordinance development, and then she also worked has a history with the Florida West Florida Regional Planning Council up in the Panhandle as a senior planner there. And then she's also got a great background, she's a member of the US Green Building Council. She's done a lot of work with Pasco. Beautiful. Very interested in engagement. She also a little bit of history with working with childhood educators on environmental programing. So we think she's got a lot of the goals that we're trying to achieve in her background. And we're very excited. Yes. Yeah, we're we're really excited. I'm particularly excited to get her on board, to get a little bit of help writing, meeting minutes. So thank you. That's the best news that we've had in months. I think so too. Okay, Committee comments. Is there a way to, contact the two board members that are not here to find out, typically, if you have a board like, not a city board, the chair of the board contacts people to find out where they are. You know, to keep them involved, so is there a way to find out, about the two people who are not here a lot, one never. I think, so that we can have a fuller, board and. Yeah, I can, I know we've addressed this with Mr. Mandela in in one of the last meetings he attended a couple of months ago, I think, and I believe he had some work conflicts. But and we did talk to him about, like, hey, are you going to be able to attend. And he was the last comment he had was that the board was he was still evaluating his work schedule, was looking like we can definitely reach back out at the staff level and see, you know, if his schedule is going to be aligning with, committee membership, and the member that we've never met. Yes. Yeah. Alternate. Yeah I've spoken with Miss Tavares, she signed up. She's very interested in sustainability and civic involvement. She's similarly has kind of like work schedule and childcare like, conflicts and things like that that have been preventing her from coming. But I can reach back out to her. It would give us a good opportunity to make this committee more diverse, right to appointments and to encourage that. I was thinking the same thing. Yes. Yeah. Other comments. Yes. Well we have had the comment. I did want to say that, you know, I have we've talked about, excuse me. Sorry to interrupt, I have been listening to a lot of the other meetings, and when I did listen to the Charter Revision Commission, I was like kind of startled, you know, that they just did not know anything about what our role was. And I think we have an opportunity and I was going to, you know, because the meetings happen at 2:00 on Monday, you know, we're trying to figure out how to coordinate with them. I may just write, an email to Irene to have her share, Irene Jacobs to share at that meeting. But it's an education, and I just feel like, one of the things that, has, has that that I become really aware of in watching the other meetings, as I was encouraged, too, is that, you know, there's a lot of opportunity for us to be working more closely with one another on different committees that would that be an interference or a sunshine law, and problem. Yeah. That we have a lawyer in the room. So, the city attorney, but they could answer that. Yeah. There was a question in the charter whether people could serve on two boards simultaneously that came up. And there's just, you know, there's so few volunteers and there seems to be a handful of people that are really dedicated. So, you know, they were, you know, mentioning that as an opportunity, a potential opportunity. But I think that it would help. I mean, when you look at sustainability from the city perspective and it's just a small piece of the planet and we want we want to expand to the community at large, we want to expand more into the county and the state. I mean, just really make a tapestry or a patchwork of effort to be stewards of the planet. It, you know, it starts right here. It starts with making an effort to getting to know, getting to know one another on, you know, all the volunteers that are working within our city. I mean, we have the kind of the opportunity when we have the appreciation dinners, you know, to interface with them and, and, get to know them a little better. But it was an education. I've just spent the last few days while I was commuting, listening to all the different meetings that happened just this week, and I felt like, oh my goodness, if I had really been listening to all the meetings all along, I'd feel so much more empowered and aware of what's going on and in the community and be aware of each of the people and the flavor of how they participate in the city and whether whether really they're they're saying things that I agree with. I mean, not not to, get into a polarity, but I think that it's really good to know where they're coming from so that you can reach out and see if there's a possibility of making them more aware of the things that are our priorities. So it's been an experience, a wonderful experience listening to the other meetings, are you suggesting you write a letter to the charter Review? I think it would be a good idea. I was going to maybe try to write something on Sunday because they meet on Monday and that's just my next opportunity to have have time to think about it. But I don't know whether I could do that just on on my own or whether we'd need to, do it, and approve it from the committee level. Yeah, I think that would probably be best to do. I think you could go ahead and write a as, as a citizen, go ahead and write and let them know that you're on the committee and that you know, you'd like you're interested in their committee, as long as you're not doing any sort of like formal policy or anything like that from, from the, from the, on behalf of the committee. But, also, I, I'm just getting around. I was out for a couple days, but we're just getting around to looking at the charter revision meetings from earlier this week. And, they did have some questions. They wanted to know about the sustainability plan. So I'm going to be reaching out to Renee tomorrow. And she's already committed in the meeting to providing them copies of the sustainability plan. So they're a little bit more up to date on what's going on, who who's the staff liaison for the charter Review Committee? I believe it goes to the city clerk. But this was okay. I sat on it like a long time ago. I should know that. But okay. And these are available. The comprehensive plans. I mean, I think that you could talk to. Which office to get a copy if you want it. I mean, they might be planning and zoning. Yeah, planning and zoning to get a copy of the plan. And see how our work is interfacing. Is it possible for you to get some and bring them to the next meeting? I think so, thank you. I can I can achieve that. And the one one other item that I was thinking of is, is say that I have another commitment. I have to leave. Okay, okay, then we maybe should adjourn the meeting. Is that okay? We have a I'll make a motion. We adjourn the meeting I second. Okay. All in favor a sorry. Thank you. Do you think we were adjourned? Yeah. I think like ongoing the meeting like goes until.