welcome to the 10th annual annual bike with the mirror so this is a really welcome to the 10th anual Annual Bike with the mayor so this is a really cool event it's a good Community Builder it's very fun we dialed in some good weather for this as you can see um we really appreciate you being here and we really appreciate the Partnerships we have with the Comm the community um this event is made possible uh primarily through the events of our or the efforts of our sponsors um our staff also but I really want to thank um the folks here who are here from the Center for Urban Transportation research at USF uh those of you who are live in Temple Terrace know that our relationships with USF go very deep uh and right today they're deeper than ever we have a better relationship than we've ever had with with USF and so thank you cutter for all that you do for us and I especially uh yes please thank you thank you very much I especially want to talk about our relationship with the Florida Department of Transportation um who also makes this event possible and I I obviously know elected officials throughout the state but and also in other states and we're in a very unique position because I don't think there's any other state where you actually hear people bragging about their Department of Transportation right that's not the it's like animal control it's not the kind of thing that people brag a lot about but in Florida and particularly in district 7 which is the district that we're in um we really do have have it I I don't think the public understands how good we have it with with our Department of Transportation here in district 7 and and Paul's here with me today but all the way from the secretary David dwen down to Justin Hall who was supposed to be here and who stuck in traffic right uh the irony to that strikes me but uh they are tremendous for the city of Temple Terrace and for hilber County in the region they're tremendous easy to work with I don't know any place else where you can call the do or text them and they're they're on the spot like what do you need and so that um is something that go to another state you don't get that thank you appreciate mayor what uh just thank you mayor Rost for your support of this event and uh the council as well and Julie Bond over at cutter we really appreciate working together you know we are always looking to improve both pedestrian and bike safety uh we do some lunchtime rides with folks from Cutters that hot spots we call them to see what the cyclists are actually experiencing on our roadway network and to see if there's improvements we can make and uh it's a great event to just get people out getting them riding make sure they're wearing their helmets and staying safe and get some uh lights out to people I always keep a few in my car in case we see someone whing on the road without a light especially young families we try and give them some lights keep them safe um and I think it's a beautiful day for a ride and say we get to it so I I thinkk you and so I do want to acknowledge I should have done this but it's early I don't usually start this early so I do want to acknowledge some uh guests that are here also our vice mayor Meredith Abel is here and council member Gil sister's here somewhere where did Gil go he had a meeting at 8 oh he had a meeting at 8 he was here I can testify to that I saw him um and so some of our members are out of town so um they're few today but uh so Julie are we doing any kind of a safety brief or anything or are we just going to ride quick safety brief and then we will line up for the photo like out here okay and then we'll ride from what do we go 30 35 miles okay all right I also want to thank uh sis police for giving us an escort yeah yes TR always better to have them in front of you than behind yeah thank you for the place for doing the sore thank you for all the people that are here I see some temp ter fire depers that are here um she's going to kill me for this but I want to thank Julie because I was just starting at cutter like 10 years ago and Julie's like I have this idea and I don't know if anyone's going to do it but what do you think about this and me and our colleagues and Julie you know we worked with the Department in the city and we put this event together and 10 years later here we are still doing it so this is going to be just kind of a slow casual Rod we're going to keep to the right you know it's not a race so we're just going to try to keep together as a group as much as possible you know stay you two agress side by side when we can um just make sure that you're coming to a stop when you need to we're going to have the police kind of help us block off traffic so we don't have to stop too much but and if you have any problems just let the person next to you know and we'll try to help you out so let's all have fun meeting of the Temple terce City Council if you would um well let me explain a little bit first so we have a practice here in Temple Terrace that um at Ramadan we typically invite um our members of our Muslim Community here to um receive a um to say the invocation at the opening of our meeting and in uh recognition of Passover we do the same thing with Rabbi Rifkin is here to Grace us with the invocation this evening and so if you would please remember to silence your electronic devices and please stand and join us in the invocation and the pledge welcome Rabbi almighty God I invoke your blessing today upon the legislative leaders gathered here at the city of Temple terce Florida as they prepare to work on behalf of the citizens of this great City we ask your divine blessing for all of the city inhabitants wherever they may be gathered here in a chamber of elected leadership in our prayer let us recall the preeminent leader the biblical Moses Moses was not merely a leader who set guidelines and imparted knowledge to his people but he also have the unique gift of being able to reveal every individual's inherent potential almighty God please bestow the wisdom upon the elected leaders gathered here today so that we enable to work for all of this inhabitants of the city of Temple terrorists of all ages backgrounds cultures the ability to achieve to achieve our true potentials please give them the inspiration and humility to unite across all divides in the pursuit of a just meaningful and moral society as was outlined in your seven universal laws you gave Noah and his descendants after the great flood one of which the command to govern by a just laws is the purpose purp of our gathering here today May It Be Your Will God Almighty that the tireless efforts of all the city councelor members be successful in empowering all the individuals in this great City to be decent human beings considerer of others reverent of you and ready to do their bidding towards the ultimate goal of a perfect world in which your presence will be manifest as we come upon the Passover holiday which commemorates The Exodus from Egypt we hope and pray that all those suff uffing War across the world and all those hostages who are should be in honor of this Passover holiday be um speedily redeemed as our ancestors in Egypt may it happen speedily in our days amen Rabbi if you wouldn't mind remaining at the podium for a moment and folks if you please join us in the pledge pledge alance flag flag the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands One Nation God indivisible and justice for all thank you you may be seated Rabbi would you like to say a few words thank you for being here thank you for uh for all your services and um it's a great City the the weather's beautiful at this time of year and we're really enjoying and uh I guess you you put me on the spot I'm I've spoken to you about the past in Pleasant Terrace where our little synagogue is the end of 122nd Avenue I don't if this is the right time to make this request maybe that it should be considered is a became a dog park but the end of 127th going on to 50th might be able to be a children's park just wanted to bring that up if that's possible there's a lot of families and children and there's no Park out in that neck of the woods we would greatly appreciate if somehow I don't know if the budget is there for more Parks well thank you for taking time out of your schedule to join us tonight thank you so much for okay we have uh one other tradition in Temple Terrace or city of traditions um and that is this one actually is a new tradition that we started a couple years ago we open the meetings with a used to we called it a fun fact and we quickly realize that some of these historical facts are not always as fun as that so we just call it a historical or interesting fact um about our city or the region of our city so um tonight it's council member Fernandez's turn yes so uh welcome everyone and of most of you know Temple Terrace is a small city that was much smaller upon its founding but it has grown over the years and but one of the things that stayed very constant is that we have a a deep history of volunteerism and dedication to the community and that's what I would like to talk about tonight so the three oldest groups in the city City have been responsible for many changes and positive changes in the city and right now um those three groups the Garden Club the Women's Club and Junior Women's Club actually run and help maintain Woodmont Clubhouse which is one of our oldest structures in operation in the city it was formerly for those of you who remember it was the stable that went uh with one of the original residents with her State and then it became a garage and then it became the first Schoolhouse in Temple Terrace and now those three organizations operate that as their meeting space and a gathering space for other people who to have weddings or or family events or whatever so the Garden Club was actually founded in 1946 and that's the oldest Club in the city and they you will see their work all over Woodmont Park they respons for maintaining the flowers that you see in that Park and I think we can all agree it is a very nicely flowered Park um they also handle the roundabout that is I think it's our only roundabout in the city um near the near Florida college and the country club they handle the flowers there and they handle the flowers at melik house which is the hospice house and I believe they also take take care of the beds at the near Riverside Park um but I know that they their hand is is very evident in The Greenery and um scenery in the city and the Women's Club was founded in 1959 and that group is actually responsible for the first public library in Temple Terrace and if some of you remember seeing pictures of it was extremely small it was not here when I was a child and not not quite that old um but it was like basically kind of a little tiny building and it's since grown through volunteer efforts and the community to be the library that we have now that the community enjoys and uh has been in its location um I'm not exactly sure when it was put there but I moved here in 72 and I don't remember the library not being where it is so um and then the junior Women's Club was founded in 1958 and they've been responsible also for many projects throughout the city one large project that a lot of people might be familiar with is originally getting the playground equipment organizing and fundraising to get the playground equipment in conjunction with the city at Bonnie Bray Park and that was in the 70s and Through the Years they've added to that equipment and all of these groups have been very active in the community uh with many different events and you can see the gazebo at River Hills Park you can see the Riverwalk at River Hills Park which are spearheaded by the Women's Club so we have a great tradition of volunteering in the city and we have other volunteer groups um such as the Rotary Club those of you who went to Brewfest this weekend um and that was a great I didn't what couldn't go this year but it is always a great event um the community garden that is an area where people come together and take a space that's otherwise sitting and not having any use and put their garden beds there and grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables um the juniorettes which is a group of young women who are able to partner with other clubs in the community and make have uh great impact in volunteering and and um events and then the preservation Society is not as active as they have been in the past but they have been a group that helps maintain the history of the city and showcase some of the um historical items as well as information but in addition to these volunteer boards that are completely private volunteer nothing to do with the city itself we have City appointed boards and these are very important boards in the city because they help you as citizen have a say all over various aspects of the city so we have the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee the board of adjustment the Centennial committee which you know we're approaching our 100 years code enforcement board historic preservation board Library board Riverwatch task force and the school support committee so you can see that volunteer organizations have a huge impact on this city and the many projects and events really help create the sense of community that I think brings a lot of people to Temple Terrace and and keeps us living here so I want everybody to think about how can you give back to your city I think that there is a project an event a group that fills all kinds of interests and needs so I encourage every resident to find the place that interests you the most and get out there and volunteer and that's it thank you council member appreciate that so okay we're done with Traditions so I'd like to call uh Mr Chris Jeffords uh to the podium he is the victims assistant program uh he works at the victims assistance program for the state of attorney's office in the 13th judicial circuit and he is here with the honorable Susie Lopez our state attorney for the 13th judicial circuit and we have a proclamation that they're here to receive for National Crime Victims rights week um and they're certainly busy in this it'd be nice Chris if you were not so busy it would be yes so the proclamation reads whereas Florida is a Law and Order State and will always provide a voice to Crime Victims and their amilies National Crime Victims rights week provides the opportunity to recognize the importance of Crime Victims Services ensures that victims have access to services and support and promote discussion on how communities organizations and professionals can work together to reach all victims dedicated victim service providers are working daily to meet the needs of Crime Victims and we continue their efforts to expand services to victims who face barriers to meaningful access to services such as isolation lack of Transportation language limitations or cultural barriers the Temple Terrace city council wishes to commend the Hillsburg County Victims assistance program for providing exemplary services to the victims of crime within the city of Temple terce and throughout hillsbor County during National Crime Victims rights week the city of Temple Terrace renews its commitment to providing survivors of crime the support they need to heal as a community let us all work together together to stop crimes before they happen and to give victims the support they need to restore of sense of trust and safety to move towards healing and peace now therefore I Andy Ross by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Temple Terrace Florida do hereby set aside April 21st through 27th as National Crime Victims rights week and so I we we would love for you guys to not have anything to do um and not even need to have this but um we recognize that that's not a reality and so um we thank you for being here and we'd like to hear from you thank you mayor um it's my honor to be here on behalf of our victims assistance program and the state attorney's office uh in the last almost two years we we've worked very hard to give a voice to victims and their families and it has been my honor I've met with 97 families who have lost loved ones as a result of a crime in Hillsboro County that's of course 97 too many but we could not do the job that we do we our attorneys could not do the job that we do with without our victim Advocates they work tirelessly to support victims of crime and we're very proud of them and we're proud to stand by them and to stand by victims of crime in Hillsboro County and like you said mayor we don't want to have to ever have this day but in order but because we do and I'm pleased to report that crime is actually down now um so we are seeing fewer people come in as victims into our system but until that number is zero we are here with them and we stand with victims and we're proud to do so with our victims assistance program and thank you for acknowledging this very important week that starts on the 21st well thank you for being here I know you have a slightly busy schedule so thank you so much thank you very much it's nice nice to see you mayor sadly statistics show that all of us are going to be a victim of crime probably multiple times in our lifetime and that's a very sad statistic so we want to make sure that victim's voices are heard too much uh talk gets with the defendants and defendants rights they seem to have more rights than victims so we want to make sure that all victims get heard and we have our victim's rights poster uh for National crimes victims rights week we're doing a resource fair at the Sheriff's Office on the 25th and we have 16 Partners throughout the community they're going to be providing resources for our victims so that's a big deal for us the first one we've ever had and we're looking forward to it a week from Thursday that's thank you for having us we really thank you and welcome home thank you thank you for lending him to us we're very grateful for him let's give him a round of applause [Applause] folks picture picture front that's a good idea one two three one more one two three okay now we look at yours yes one two three one two three thank you [Applause] next I'd like to invite our City attorney Pam shonne and our Deputy City attorney Ernie Mueller to the podium well don't look so [Laughter] enthused this is a good thing we're not going to give you more work so we have a proclamation for uh recognition of law day and Proclamation reads in 1958 President Eisenhower proclaimed law day to honor the role of law in the creation of the United States of America and every president since then has issued an annual law day proclamation in 1961 May 1st was designated by joint resolution of Congress as the official date for celebrating law day which is a special day aim to help people in the United States appreciate their Liberties and to affirm their loyalty to the United States especially regarding equality and justice it also aims to cultivate respect for the law which is vital to the Democratic way of life the theme for law day 2024 is voices of democracy which recognizes that in democracies the people rule for nearly 250 years Americans have expressed their political views and wishes by speaking their mind and voting in elections excuse me members of the legal profession should lead the way in promoting democracy by taking individual responsibility not only to speak up and vote but also find the courage to listen to respect and to agree on path forward toward a more perfect union in 2024 the United States will hold its 60th presidential election and we encourage all Americans with the law day 202 four theme of voices of the Democracy to participate in the 2024 elections by first deepening their understanding of the electoral process discussing important issues in honest and civil Ways by turning out to vote and finally helping to move the country forward after free and fair elections now therefore I Andy Ross by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Temple Terrace Florida do hereby set aside May 1st 2024 as law day in Temple Terrace so thank you would you like to say a few words yes um I wanted to say a few things about um Florida lawyers the State of Florida has 94,6 attorneys who are members of the Florida Bar Association and are thus eligible to practice law we also have 1,414 judges who are also members of the bar and in the year ending June 2023 members of the Florida bar donated nearly $7.5 million to various legal aid organizations and they gave over 1.5 million hours of their time in pro bono services to provide access to the courts and access to justice for people who could not otherwise afford it Hills in Hillsboro County and pellis County we have two agencies Bay Area Legal Services and Gul Coast legal services that provide legal aid to senior citizens a AG 60 and older to Veterans to victims of domestic violence and of human trafficking to those trying to obtain social social security disability benefits and to folks of low or no income in a variety of other areas including landlord tenant matters so I encourage people to if you know of somebody who cannot afford an attorney and who is in need fits one of those categories to please let them know about Bay Area Legal Service services and G Coast Legal Services good thank you Mr sh Mr Mueller I'd like to uh just publicly didn't want to talk what's that attorney didn't want to talk oh my goodness I would like to take an opportunity we don't normally have our both of our attorneys here in a public setting and so I'd like to thank you for the work that both of you do on behalf of the city and and let the public know that we get quarterly reports of you we know on a daily basis kind of the big stuff but we get quarterly reports of all the different things that our legal staff the two of them are doing and uh all the cases large and small than the the hearings and the court appearances and the various motions and replies to motions and um when you get the quarterly report um it's staggering it really is the the work that that two people do on behalf of our city so I I was on the council when we um brought in in-house councel as opposed to Contracting out to a law firm and I was on the council that helped to make that decision and it was a good decision and and uh I can't ever imagine us going back to the previous model the these these two have really done a terrific job so thank you for all of that thank you [Applause] used to being down here all right ready one two three one more one two three all right thank [Applause] you so next it's an honor to have um a good friend of our city a good friend of our County a good friend of our region um and a a really terrific Ambassador for uh the entire Tampa Bay area and a good friend of Temple Terrace and a good friend of me personally uh Mr Santo Kara Santiago Kara who's president and CEO of visit Tampa Bay is with us this evening to uh make a brief presentation about some of the activities that they have going on and I get these briefings at the um visit Tampa Bay Advisory board that I serve on and it struck me a while back I'm like you know the public our residents need to hear some of this this is terrific stuff so thank you for joining us Santiago good evening honorable mayor Ross honorable city council Madam City attorney Madam city clerk city manager those in our audience and and those watching on TV I am both humbled and excited to be here I can't believe I've been serving Hillsboro County for over 20 years and this is my first time in these Chambers so I hope the next invite won't take 20 years love to come back and share some great news about our home our destination which is doing so very very well so with that I'm going to move very very quickly through the presentation uh visit Tampa Bay for those of you that may not know it's not on no for ah and um thank you visit Tampa Bay is a 501 C6 charitable organization under contract with uh Hillsboro County and the City of Tampa to sell Market advertise and promote all of Hillsboro County all over the country and all over the world I would often say that uh we were all about bringing people here to spend their money and to go home but uh as you'll see in my presentation we do way more than that these days because we also market for econom IC Development and Tourism is Big Business um uh be nice to those out of town plates I think we can all agree we love not having an income tax and in the State of Florida a quarter of the sales tax collected is from tourists and visitors so those Ohio plates those Michigan plates we love them thank you for visiting and uh spending some time with us our vision uh is to inspire the world to love Tampa Bay and that happens through marketing and advertising I think some of you know last year Time magazine named our home one of the greatest places on Earth Fortune Magazine mentions us often The Wall Street Journal K nass just announced that Tampa uh this region was Florida's it destination so we're very very proud of all the attention uh that this destination is getting and uh our values are super important uh I was looking at uh some of the values on the wall here and inclusivity being ethical being relevant being Forward Thinking are all the values that are instilled in our organization and obviously our commitment to social inclusion in Hillsboro County uh we collect 6% uh at every overnight stay in a hotel Airbnb VRBO campsite uh it's the most that can be collected by any County it's authorized by state statue and it's collected at the county level comes from hotels to the county and then the county disperses the dollars we have an interesting breakdown of the 6% in Hillsboro County every County in Florida is a little bit different we have four buckets the first 3% and 75% goes to visit Tampa Bay another 25% goes to support other things in our destination 1% goes to Rayman James Stadium another to Amal Arena and then the last percent 30% goes to visit Tampa Bay and then a lot of uh the other dollars go to other things and what's what's really interesting about this is when I I make this presentation I've done it through three times today uh we say the 75% and the 30% add up to 40% and I'm not crazy uh that's what our budget is 75 and 30 equal 40% and by State Statute when your county is investing in capital projects a minimum of 40% should go to advertising and marketing this is a self-imposed tax by the hotel industry to further promote a destination and this is the whole breakdown of the entire amount you're probably wondering what that amount equals well last year uh we hit a record in uh what we call the tourist development collection was almost $65 million on $1.1 billion of Hotel revenue and this is how that pie is broken out and just to put that in perspective so that you know how very well we're doing uh when I joined this organization left City Hall I was with the mayor in Tampa and started doing this almost 11 years ago Hotel revenues in Hillsboro County were $423 million and last year we broke $1.1 billion so we're doing very very well when it comes to hospitality here you'll see Hotel performance year over year and what's really interesting about this is that uh Hotel revenues were up almost 5% over the prior record and we saw a little dip in occupancy uh and our hotel folks are okay with that as long as the revenue is up they're okay with occupancy being a little bit down but then when we look at this past February second best tourism uh month in the history of Hillsboro County only second to last year's March and we're waiting to see what this March looks like but you can see compared to Florida and the United States on those four key variables occupancy average daily rates Revenue per all available rooms and revenue we're doing very very well against not just Florida but the rest of the US that in some cases is still in recovery mode after covid and then uh if you look at the last three years uh don't get too conc concerned with that 81.7% anytime you're over 80% you're Stellar so it's very very hard to continue to uh do better than the prior year when you're over 80% but when you look at uh revenues there in uh February for all of Hillsboro County almost 26,000 rooms and I want to stay with your tradition of little known facts so uh law day uh most of our attorneys know that if you want to be an attorney in Florida you come to the Tampa Convention Center to take the bar exam uh that's been going on for decades and then on the hotel side uh we have four hotels in Temple Terrace uh 453 rooms of the 26,000 rooms can be found here in Temple Terrace and that tells me we need more hotels we need more hotels in Temple Terrace and we often talk about that private investment uh the industry breaks down Hillsboro County into four uh submarkets the north is is your submarket sometimes it Blends a little bit with East but it's really North Tampa and you see there the figures for North Tampa for February and the impact in Hillsboro County is huge we have approximately 27 million visitors to Hillsboro County a year they spend over 8.5 billion dollars in our local economy because most visitors don't come to a destination and hide in their hotel room and watch television you know they visit a destination they want to experience it like the locals they want to get out to unique restaurants they want to see attractions they want to go to museums festivals events so they spend a lot of money not just on a hotel and then we have a number of initiatives one is uh the memory makers initiative where we really salute Hospitality Heroes that are Frontline and make our destination very unique and special this is uh Pamela khoun she works in one of the nearby hotels to this city and so we featured her and I think there's a quick uh video vignette for her no sound I think you knew I had to time that there was a video okay well well she's great uh she's saying wonderful things uh the people love her at the hotel she's received numerous awards for her dedication to the hotel uh and she is again one of our local community Heroes our campaign strategies are to talk about uh this juxtaposition between being a very relaxing destination and a very exciting destination a lot of our graphics and collateral you wouldn't see right here at home because we're not allowed to spend money here at home we're allowed to bring in uh people from out of the area not to Market to our locals and our objectives are always to drive incremental visitation and this is some of the material you would see in other parts of the country and other parts of the world uh you see there mosy being highlighted uh it's hard to tell it looks like the aquarium and maybe the zoo uh we were one of the first destination leadership organizations to use carb verti that meant we wrap Uber and lift Vehicles all over the world uh now we wrap them completely around so if you're in a high-rise in Chicago and you're looking down you see Tampa from your high-rise in Chicago or Boston or New York city so again our campaigns are very successful and since we don't do a lot of uh work locally because we're not allowed to we like to compile videos of us out in the wild so no need for sound on this but you'll get uh the hint here when you look at what we do in other part parts of the country e finally we do have a major Convention Center in the city that we have to fill under contract with the city to Market and sell the convention center 18 months and out and the marketing around conventions meetings and events is very very different than when we're trying to appeal to tourists or Leisure Travelers so the messaging is very very different really shows off all the assets and then we've really launched a number of initiatives around accessibility we partner with travel ability wheel the world we came up uh and developed our own Riverwalk accessibility path and and chroma uh Believe It or Not uh is an organization that provides glasses for individuals that are colorblind and we love uh having those available when we have visitors visiting museums and attractions so they can enjoy those attractions like many of us uh do and then we're a partnership organization uh we're very very proud of the diversity of our small minority owned businesses we make sure that they are connected to the hospitality industry when we have visitors conventions major events uh and then we have our Visitor Center uh in downtown Tampa the unlock Tampa Bay Visitor Center with all all product uh curated uh and in and about this region so we have our own artists we have our own uh product developers we developed our own product so if you're looking for something uniquely Hillsboro County Tampa uh you will find it in that store including uh we just announced uh Monopoly just uh released its own Tampa Hillsboro County edition of Monopoly 35th City uh to have a Monopoly board and who knew that monopolies was so special over 2 and a half billion people have played the game since the early 1900s and so we're very very proud to have uh our own Monopoly board now uh I was at Barnes & Noble last night and I was like a proud papa when I saw them being sold at Barnes & Noble uh we can't keep them on the Shelf but we have lots of announcements just a few days from today Michelin the Michelin guide of restaurants will be announcing uh all of our new Michelin restaurants for the area right here in Tampa and we just announced a direct flight to AO Mexico uh to Mexico City on AO Mexico starting in July and Incredibly enough we hadn't had a direct a daily flight to Mexico since the 1990s so we're very very pleased of all those developments and then we have lots of partner activations with almost 900 Partners uh we have a number of those activations a number of events uh where we really give back to the community including T4 tourism where we raise scholarship dollars for young people wanting to enter into our industry uh but a number of events and your mayor attends most of those your city manager has been to some of those uh so we appreciate uh the support that we get from Temple Terrace you can partner with us you can see what we're doing uh all over social media and then we have a number of Affiliated partner organizations we were the first in the state to develop a small marketing District that focuses on downtown the Riverwalk and eore City uh we do marketing for that District we do Talent relocation with the Economic Development Council under the offices of make it Tampa Bay not visit Tampa Bay make it Tampa Bay uh for your new home uh for your new job to relocate a corporate office so we also uh do that marketing for Economic Development Council film Tampa Bay lives with us and they do a heck of a lot of work all over Hillsboro County with commercial shoots digital advertising movies streaming you name it they do it all uh the Tampa Bay Sports commission incredible Sports commission we're very very lucky to have them they work very closely with USF right down the road here in fact we just crowned a new National Champion Women's Basketball team next year we host the women's final four here in Tampa it'll be our fifth time hosting uh as well as we've hosted five Super Bowls in Hillsboro County so our Sports commission is very very Dynamic and then we have the intern National trade and protocol officer that lives with us the Disney ESPN Union Home Mortgage gasp barill Bowl long name but you got to get them all in there and then of course the friends of the Tampa Riverwalk uh all organizations uh that work symbiotically with ours I know I had 15 minutes I hope I kept it to the 15 minutes I always like to follow the rules don't know mayor if there are any questions uh but I'm I'm really really grateful to be here thank you so much for the invite again uh 20 years may be too long so I'm if I come back in 20 years I I may be in trouble thank you Santiago I wish that everybody could had the opportunity to sit at the meetings that I sit through with you at the the various presentations because they're phenomenal and it's this only a much more detail um there is a figure I don't know if you can recall it I'm trying to come up with it if we backed out tourism dollars out of hillsbor County's economy there's a number that associated with that every household would have to Pony up like $700 I think an additional $700 in taxes because of I believe it was 714 it changes every year the last number was I think $714 and that's because of the economic impact that tourists have to our destination they pay the sales tax like we do they pay the education tax and then when you think about all the entities that make up the industry that pay property taxes to either Temple Terrace Plant City city of Tampa Hillsboro County uh it's quite an impact if you can imagine how much a hotel pays in property taxes or an attraction or you know another restaurant uh they really help with the quality of life by paying taxes that normally we would have to pay and again uh we're blessed to not have an income tax I know we we've uh motivated people to move here and sometimes their biggest raises have been not having an income tax that they had in some other state in the country well the other thing that's that I've learned uh through my association with with you guys is that you know we tend in Temple terrrace to think well you know we're not we don't have ra Raymond James Stadium we don't have the arena we don't have so what impact does that have on us has a tremendous impact on us and um where was I going with that oh just the downstream benefits of just the cruise industry alone I remember one presentation you were talking about every time a cruise ship docks here the the stuff that goes on board that cruise ship as they turn in the port all the way down to local florists who make gazillions of dollars off of these cruise ships that come into the port and that's Temple Terrace folks don't always recognize you don't have to be in the tourism business to to to derive the benefits of this well you know mayor when we have a big event uh and it's focused on downtown or Westshore those hotel rooms are taken up so there's compression out if somebody wants to visit Hillsboro County they'll stay in Temple Terrace because the inventory is it's taken up in downtown or westore so we look at compression numbers and how uh the visitor impact goes Way Beyond those traditional locations well it's a downtown thing it's a West thing it really isn't it's a Hillsboro County thing and when you look at how that spreads and I'm glad you brought up cruise ships we we invest uh in not only airlift like we just did with Aero Mexico but we also just invested uh with Margaritaville at Sea which will be a new ship uh that will call Tampa its home there are only two ships in the fleet right now the first they inherited was down in West Palm Beach and we will be launching ours this summer and they are super excited because they feel their brand really goes more with Tampa Hillsboro County than maybe West Palm Beach so they're very very excited to launch uh also this summer so we've got a lot of launches coming up uh with Airlines and cruise ships and uh like I said the attention of the nation is on on Tampa Hillsboro County and indeed the world because we're seeing more lift and more people internationally wanting to come here council members questions excellent you yes council member Fernandez when you were doing market research to create your um advertising campaigns do you come across Trends in what people are looking for in travel and then when you come across those Trends do you share those with various Economic Development people that's a a great question and yes yes yes right um we don't Market the destination like other uh Florida cities Market their destination we we rarely talk about palm trees and the sun and the water we really focused on what made Tampa genuinely Tampa Hillsboro County because that's what visitors were looking for visitors have become very sophisticated that's why we've seen disruptors like Airbnb and vbo they want to come and experience a destination like the locals and so we wanted to Market and advertise this region uh in that way we wanted people to know that when you come to Temple Terrace plant city the city of Tampa Hillsboro County you're going to be in for a very unique experience so our images our inclusiveness really focus on that Trend that people are looking now for very very special experiences they're they're kind of tired of the cookie cutter thing and then generationally we also have to look at what pequs the interest of generational Travelers what might work for a millennial may not work for a boomer right so you look at you know what really pequs that curiosity is it is it the culinary scene is it history is it the Arts is it culture we Market all of it very distinct Tampa Hillsboro County because we want to make sure that the visitor that is looking for that very very special experience knows they will have it here and we do very very well uh those numbers when you're looking at over 80% occup and think about that that's eight out of every 10 rooms in every hotel is being occupied and probably those other two you don't want to occupy right so uh rooms are being turned over rooms are being renovated so again when we talk about 80% or more occupancy and we've had days over 90 when we had Taylor Swift play three nights in Tampa hotel occupancy Hillsboro countywide was over 94% all three nights so when we host big events like that we really see a bump and we're very data driven so we can see day by day we could compare this day today to the same day last year and how much better we're doing this year versus last year the year before the year before the year before so we're really data driven and invest the money the right way because we don't have the war chest at some other destination have and to put that in perspective for you uh our uh tourism collection and private Revenue gives us about $30 million to work with every year my friends down in Orange County over there in Orlando have over $100 million and my friends right across the bay and panelas have close to $70 million so we need to make sure we're marketing and advertising following those Trends what's going on uh and making sure that converts into a visitor and an economic spend for us Santiago thank you for being here I know you've had a long day started in plan City I'm ending in Temple Terrace so today is a great day great for for letting him drag you along app thanks for being thank you thank you all so very very much Council has everybody had an opportunity to review the minutes of our April second meeting and if so is there a motion to approve move to approve second any adjustments Corrections to the minutes if not all those in favor say I I opposed no Nays the minutes are adopted next or persons wishing to be heard on items not listed on the agenda or items on the consent agenda there are forms in the back of the room if anybody wishes to address the Council on items that are not on tonight's agenda um we do have a 30 minute time limit for this section of our meeting we rarely meet that but if we did meet that we would move ahead with our next agenda items and then resume public comment at the conclusion of the meeting um I currently have no requests to address the council I I see one approaching there is a three minute time limit imposed on all comments from the public uh we do ask that speakers come to the podium and state their name and city of residence and then you have the floor for three minutes welcome back Rabbi who Rin City at Temple Terrace every time every year when you make me do the benediction I think of mentioned earlier that Park and I was listening to Allison say that in the 70s some group helped donate some of the equipment for a park so just just again to on 122nd maybe one day it could get on the agenda I don't know all the They there's an empty lot owned by Temple Terrace in Pleasant Terrace on 122nd Avenue as well as there's that City of Tampa well no it's it's the 50th Street that once they closed it off that they made the dog park at 122nd there is that empty area on 127th Avenue as well empty areas like we have a mini Park in our 502 towards Fletcher and people randomly from the city just use it because there's no Park in Pleasant Terrace and lots of multif family and families I know it involves Hillsboro County or who to deal with for the dog park but that area Pleasant Terrace and sometimes we feel like we were annexed okay and City of Tampa owns the water lines and there's no sewer there's also septic that's another issue but uh for Parks again if if there's ever a meeting or a group that could think about additional Parks it was annexed used to be Hillsboro County in the year 2000 Temple Terrace annexed that area of pleasant Terris but there is no park in that area that's that's it thank you are there other members of the public who wish to address the council yes sir hello everybody and the Rost and the council council members U my name is Tyrone coach Tyrone Rim at uh GRE greo Middle School been there for I see some familiar faces um I'm also the CEO of rankup I remember your face there Mr uh CEO of rank up Athletics um as well and a scout professionally collegially and we work with the youth in the community um we are going to be playing a professional showcase game the game will be played in Okala originally where I'm from uh former football player had a little experience with Oakland Raiders professionally but um I would like for the community to come out to Greco Middle School it would be June 21st at Greco Middle School in the gym We'll be playing against Team USA international they play professional teams all over the country they just played Costa Rica uh Mexico Japan Etc uh my showcase agency as well is rankup Athletics we're also playing teams over in Australia and overseas so um I will get the material for you all I do have some uh some photos here for you all to have for yourself for Te USA and rankup Athletics um it'll be a media day it'll be a signing day for the kids and the adults will come out uh to Greco Middle School at the gym uh to sign autographs um it will be great we're not a 5013c yet we're LC but if we can get any help from you all to donate food or anything for that particular particular event uh at the school I've been at Greco middle school now for 14 years I'm very big and doing a lot of things that I can for the community and for the Youth uh as well um I think the council has come out a couple years ago we had an event at the school we had vendors it was amazing people came out so I would like to be a contributor to Temple Terrace I've been here now 14 15 years now and uh after I played ball but we would love to see if you can guys help us promote this event for June 21st after school cuz we're going to play on June 22nd the game and I want to bring a big game like this every year to Temple Terrace so but as of right now so everybody can get a field and meet all the uh uh the the the owner the coaches for Team USA and rankup Athletics it'll be and these are professional athletes and I would like to announce that with all the hard work of scouting and work that we've put in we now have five rankup Athletics uh free agent football players that will have a chance to have uh to play in the NFL after the draft in two week so they're not going to get drafted but they have a chance for free agency and this is what we want to bring to the community to show that if any of your kids collegially male or female need our assistance to help you professionally or collegially uh you can come to rank up Athletics to the Showcase agency but we we would love for you guys to come out 21st at greo Middle School to meet Tey W and rank of Athletics well thank you coach for being here if you have materials you can just leave them with the city clerk and she'll make sure they get distributed appreciate it thank you thank you are there other members of the public who wish to address the council okay um ladies and gentlemen is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second all those I think you got it all those in favor say I I I oppose no nay's consent agenda is adopted next is a resolution approving the Riverwatch task force vision and mission statement and goals and objectives for fiscal year 24 uh chairman of the Riverwatch task force me Lewis is here to explain welcome Mr Lewis as always thank you so much for having me um I've prepared a short uh presentation to go over um uh some of the things that we've accomplished in the uh previous months um with the Riverwatch task force um uh but uh when we're addressing um the uh current um change in the vision and mission statement uh I want to highlight that our objective here is kind of to widen uh our uh really what we can do um the Riverwatch uh task force was originally founded in order to uh in order to help alleviate drought conditions and uh fight back against you know our water being completely taken from us but now uh we're evolving um uh there's many more water options for uh Tampa in particular to uh choose from and so our River seems to be more uh more stable nowadays um and so broadening our scope I think is uh good use of uh City resources speaking of that use um this is one of the projects that we took on operation severed pepper is kind of what them we came up with um where we were taking on the Brazilian uh Pepper Tree um which is as you recall an invasive uh species that's really running a muck here in Florida so we came at this with five objectives we wanted to remove the Brazilian pepper tree plants from the West River Preserve uh we wanted to create a scalable pathway for the River Watch task force to host volunteer and educational events and I want to highlight the word scalable there um we also wanted to gauge Community interest in such events because doesn't make much sense putting a lot of time into making this happen if uh nobody's interested uh and we wanted to educate the public on proper removal of the Brazilian pepper tree because it's once again a gnarly thing to content with interrupt you just for a second Mr Lewis we didn't notice this presentation on our agenda we were we noticed the discussion on the vision and mission statement um aome is there an action it to be taken on this or cu the public hasn't been notified that this was going to be the vision mission statement okay so we're going to have to go through this we can't take action on this at all tonight it's not about action it's just but we're going to have to move through it because the next item there is action and that's so we're I don't know how long this is going to take like two minutes okay if that okay sorry that's right um and we wanted to come in on budget um I want to highlight bad news first this was a learning experience for us um we came in well over budget primarily you'll see uh highlighted under uh trash bags dumpsters and removals all of those were kind of uh uh o overlooked and um not really accounted for in our original budget but if we remove those we are only 25% above budget um we can blame uh online shopping or uh inflation for that um but the actual impact was that we got8 volunteers actually some of them are with us today um troop 120 um uh and the Ages were between age N9 and 66 which I thought was an incredible spread uh waivers were collected for each individual some uh of which immediately applied to join the Temple Terrace Riverwatch uh uh task force which was dying for new members uh 45 man hours were spent between all of this that's cutting hauling dumping educating and everybody got safety uh uh course um completed and this was during the original date for your bike ride so 26 M hour winds heavy rains it was it was pretty miserable but the impact was huge and you know I'm not the most eloquent speaker but I think pictures can speak better than I can and I like this one because you can actually see the physical Dent that we made in the tree line there um that was all Brazilian pepper tree and uh you can see how big those roots were and how they're just a cluster of this growth um but this is probably the most impactful so originally we were given one dumpster this is how much we collected so just a massive amount of uh this plant and what I can say is that uh either 100% or maybe near 100% eradication uh of Brazilian pepper tree from West River Preserve was achieved um and it's an expensive epidemic uh Cape Coral um city just south of here right uh just announ anounced uh two years ago that they allocate $800,000 for removing uh this plant from uh their City uh borders and they even cut that down um they're really only looking at 6,500 uh Acres so in totality just a small 12 acre project we saved the uh City roughly 22 uh or $222 um by my estimates using uh Cape Coral's math um if we were to expand these efforts across the city it'd be 612 ,000 in savings if we were using um uh uh if we were using volunteer efforts um we learned a lot all right I'm trying to keep this presentation short so sorry um but we learned a lot we need to create backup days we need to work uh better with Jason for the cleanup uh side of things the actual dumpster and removal side um and uh uh we uh also need to do a better job at planning but all in all Mission success we removed every uh plant twice what was uh what we originally anticipated um we uh need to work uh once again more on planning but volun we've created these volunteer forms so now for future volunteer events we're streamlined we've done a great job at uh engaging the community and getting an idea of how much interest there is um we train the public and uh once again work on the budget this was a great quote that we got from a neighbor um who lives right beside the park in 45 years of living next to this park I've never seen a volunteer effort like this and so I'm very proud of what the Temple Terrace River Watch task force has accomplishing what we can accomplish with this uh new mission and vision statement thank you are you going to speak to the agenda item so so I really wanted to uh uh uh address a few things for the uh agenda item first and foremost most of the changes that were made um uh were not um were about changing the word for uh uh to focus more on What's called the Watershed all right um The Watershed in particular what we're talking about is everywhere that yes Where the River Flows to and where the ri river is flowing through but also expanding upon that such as water conservation um which currently we're seeing a massive drought um you know we're on these water restrictions etc etc and and that's one of the big things that we want to focus on in this next phase of the Temple Terrace Riverwatch task force uh as well as uh these volunteer efforts that once again deal with the floor and Faun or the exact verbage within the uh within the mission and vision statement um you will uh I have um uh uh uh discussed uh with the task force about uh uh some of the changes uh being more Broad in nature but a lot a lot of the language was uh just uh taken from the uh from the original document that we were operating on for the last number of years are there members of the public who wish to comment on this item council members questions one thing I just want to point out council member Fernandez I know there was a little bit of confusion when we originally received the documents but the changes so these documents are what was in effect with the ception of what of the words that are in bold so the changes that the River Watch task force is proposing are the text that's in bold print the rest of the text here is existing it's what they're currently operating under okay so I I just want to make sure that that's clear any questions for Mr Lewis I don't have questions questions council members Council a member from schist um what was tac tac yeah uh that' be uh uh technical advisory yeah technical advisory committee to the river board okay all right I'm was just curious what that was um and so you're the Watershed Define that a little better for me yeah so Watershed is uh you know we've all seen the charts right where wa water precipitates down lands on the street and then flows eventually into the river which then flows into the ocean eventually right but what we're focusing on is obviously the Watershed that's based uh around the Hillsboro River and really that incorporates everything in Temple Terrace in some way or another because this is uh we're surrounded by it right and so when you're Watering your lawn for example and you put you know fertilizer um into your grass that eventually is going to make its way to water uh uh into our River and cause an explosion of duck weed or several other issues um and uh similarly um uh uh if we're running up our aquafer here then the river we're barely going to be able to use it um and so it's not just about the river itself which um uh is one aspect of it but it's also Upstream from that and there was another line in here continue relationship with the task force as a subject matter expert yes so so one of the uh the the group that we have within the Temple Terrace Riverwatch task force you know we all are smart people but you know there it's not that we all have phds or something right and so it's sometimes valuable to get uh to get these folks who can educate us on how to better advise the city council um uh to come in and do a short presentation similar to um you know what you have uh uh in these meetings as well thank you I well I don't have a question I have comments so any other questions have comments too no no other questions okay thank you Mr Lewis appreciate it thanks for being here and thanks for your service and good job with the peppers thank you okay discussion council member Fernandez since you're the Lea's on so the original creation of the Riverwatch task force was because the city of Tampa relies on our area of the river as their water storage and in all of the interactions with Tampa and and Hillsboro County they were referring to our our our section as a reservoir and not as a river so this committee was this task force was formed to have these entities basically respect this part of the river as a river and they've achieved this goal in that uh before the focus was entirely on the reservoir aspect and the flow over the dam for the Lower River and there was no focus on the health basically as a river and an environmental location for the Middle River but now at this time this this task force has achieved this because these other entities refer to the river as the upper river the Middle River which is what we are and then the Lower River and they've we've achieved I think the goal that we originally set for this task force and then they so they were tasked with widening their focus into more areas of environmental aspects around the river so this is what that task force came up with that's it thank you just a point of clarification the the Middle River is still legally classified as a reservoir it is but it is it is in in um Swift Mud City of Tampa Hillsboro County they are understanding that they can't they have to treat this as a a part of the river and not just a reservoir thought there was a state designation it is yeah okay done yes okay good council member shler I I I'm a little surprised with the expansion of what's trying to be done here and I could be completely in left field um uh it it seems to me that it's it the the the the task force is is taking a big chunk out of Swift Mud rules and and so forth and I'm not sure how Swift Mud would react to to doing woring with us being associated with water levels water quality um floor and for excuse me floor and form uh diversification species you know monitoring advances and and and um I'm sorry with with there was wanted here um uh uh where is it in uh landfills and things of this nature I just have some concerns of getting awful big it's going to and it's it's going to it's going to add a significant layer of uh administrative um responsibility to the s to the to the administration the government uh to to to City Hall in my opinion I'm I'm a little concerned with it um with the get it's it's it's getting a little bit bigger than I think the intention was but this is a personal opinion and I'll stop it there council member AEL I see the document that's proposed and I also see in our backup the information from fiscal year 2020 and um council member fernandz you said the stuff in bold is the only changes but it looks like the whole second page is different from 2020 I was just a little confused about that well what I was told by staff is that the only changes so if you look at the goals and the first goal this is from 2020 all of the text is the same the the only thing that's changed is instead of wildlife it says flora and fauna so that that is the only change in in that first goal there don't appear to be any changes until you get down to engage city leaders and it just says issues concerning the Hillsboro River and Associated Watershed I mean I'm looking at the one that's that's marked 2020 so the only changes I see to this vision and mission statement is what's in bold yes but it seems like the goals have been expanded a good deal yeah between between the older one and the current one I'm looking it objectives this is what she talking about this is page two I've got that maybe I don't have that this is the propos I have that okay yeah okay the second page is completely completely different yes and it's not all in bold no it it is not but I was told that it was that that's the change so page two is altogether different so to continue I guess my concern is I don't want there to be overlap between what the our Riverwatch TK force is doing and what perhaps Swift Mud is doing I feel like some of the things in here are are good like increasing the volunteer and um I don't I can't really read I need my glasses to actually see the exact words but um the mission and vision I don't have a I don't have a problem with adding the word Watershed to it but I do want to make sure I understand the full implications of that so anything on the land that can go into the water is included in the Watershed but it isas to be relevant to you know the health of the river for that to I guess I'm just a little unclear on what the the full implications of adding that language to the mission statement is so I have some concerns also and I'm I too am a little confused because some of obviously the bolded stuff is new but looks like there's other stuff that's new also on page two looks like the whole thing is new even though it's not bolded I I have I I respectfully see it a little differently I do have concerns about adding The Watershed the hillsbor river Watershed is huge that that is huge um it's not even all in Hillsboro County this this goes into other counties if you by the definition of the Watershed um and I am concerned about creating a I'm not concerned at all about expanding this to things inside the City the invasive species eradication and looking at water quality litter you know those types of activities in the city but issues the river is subject to a very crowded Arena of government Regulatory Agencies already between EPC and Swift Mud and the TAC and the riverboard and the the port and the Army Corps and I mean the list goes on and on I said EPC already I guess but um I I don't want to stray into somebody else's areas of responsibility particularly outside of the city um that that to me doesn't that that concerns me and the Watershed language if we're talking about the Watershed as it applies to within the city of Temple Terrace and Mr Lewis is right that's probably the whole city that's okay I don't mind that because okay I don't live near the river but activities at my home in Temple Terrace do have an impact on the river so I don't mind that that that makes you know storm drains all go to the river that's kind of activity but that doesn't say that here it just says the Watershed so I mean our task force is looking at garbage dumps in Pasco County or I don't think that's appropriate uh in fact I think it's inappropriate um there was a couple other things in here that I'm concerned about out that that look like additions and oh this bullet really bothers me and I don't know if we missed it in 20120 or I I don't I'm glancing at it now I mean I read it earlier but page two the third bullet up from the bottom says ensure that future development is consistent with the preservation and conservation of the hills Ro River Watershed okay this is not a regulatory board this is an Advisory Board to this body and that bullet seems to imply some role in evaluating proposed development and that's not what this board exist to do we have professional staff we have members on the T we already are involved in the regulation of the river at a much higher level we our council member Fernandez is a voting member of the river board we have staff and other appointees that are appointed to the TAC the technical advisory committee to the river board we have an appointed repres representative on the Marine law enforcement board we already have um these higher level Representatives that are either appointed by this body or in this case elected by the residents to to serve in these capacities and I I I see some of this as kind of staying outside the boundaries here a bit and going into things that are we already kind of have a seat at these tables well then that's what I think we are supposed to be doing tonight is saying what me what what does this Council really look at this task force at what what is their role well I think last year at goal setting we had a lot of discussion about this and at that time the council discussed expanding their role because as you pointed out for a while now it's almost been kind of like a a an advis board without a problem without a mission right they I mean they'd get together and meet you were the liais on back then I mean they'd get together to meet it's like okay well the water levels are good largely because of Lower River um supplementary Strategies employed over the years by Swift Mud and so and other sources of water for city right so the original the original Mission which was very narrowly defined kind of went away due due to event and so they didn't have a lot to do and so they were looking for things to do and we discussed in March of last year to expand their scope into maybe invasive Spees which they've done a terrific job with that you know that um into I don't know is there you know some way to promote um you know drought resistant landscaping for people those kinds of things in the city of Temple Terrace that would have a positive effect on water consumption and the quality of water in the river I remember when I was on the task force we used to go inspect the outfalls periodically on a boat um we were concerned about what went down the storm drains and how can we mitigate that those are all things that are I think beneficial for them to to engage in and that was an expansion of their mission last year um I remember going to their meeting and pres I don't remember if you were assigned yet or whether you were still but I remember going to their meeting and presenting the council's discussion to their to their board about these are some of the things that the council would like to you you asked us to expand your scope and we heard you and we talked about it and these are some of the areas that we think you could expand to invasive species the storm drains that kind of thing um I it was received kind of lukewarm it was that some of them not everybody but some of the board members in a were accuse me of trying to take the focus off the river and that you know our core mission is the river and they oh you're trying to take our attention off the river and we need to be more involved in the river the river the river and then they started talking about you know landfills up in Pasco County and all that kind like okay that's not what the council talked about right this is not so there seems to be kind of a difference in Vision unless the council has changed their vision from March of last year there seems to be a difference of what we think they exist to do and what they think they exist to do um so I I'm not comfortable with the Watershed language and I'm not comfortable with the U development review I it doesn't say review it says Ure that future development is consistent I'm not comfortable with that I don't I don't want language in there in my opin opinion that tends to gravitate towards another regulatory agency that's just my two cents you got it go ahead I I tend to agree um I I don't like the Watershed references and I don't I I I'm not comfortable with most of the objectives I think they're too far-reaching um frequency determined by you know Swift Mud press determined by the task force no no no no we can't we don't we that's not what they're there for so uh I have I have a problem with the objectives and I do have a problem with the uh uh broad U terminology of the associated Watershed I would like to see them rework this if they could okay so let me ask you I don't want to these are volunteers that are really doing terrific work for us here and I don't want to you know just like go no we're not doing this I don't want to do that I mean I don't have a problem with continuing continuing the relationship with Swift Mud at our monthly meetings at a frequency determined by the task force the task force asks Swift Mud to come to the meetings and and update them on what's going on Swift Mud doesn't necessarily ask to come unless they have something that they're trying to promote I mean that's that's just them being oh we haven't heard from Swift Mud they haven't they haven't had something to present to us we we need to have them come at a certain meeting and tell us what's going on with the flow over the Lower River and or over the dam and and where we are in in water levels I mean that's still that's still within the advisory capacity but I'm I I would agree just saying Watershed doesn't limit it to Temple terrce but it could we could we could add language in there that says the wed that's within the city yes we could do that so let me let me ask you this council member Fernandez since you're the liaison uh we can't task you to do anything but would you be willing to meet with them maybe maybe turn their next meeting into a workshop of sorts so and since you're the liaison you kind of take this back and say these were some of the concerns can we work on this better and but what I was actually thinking is that our goal setting will happen before that and I was thinking that it might be a good idea for us to discuss at the goal setting where because it's one thing to say okay we think you should expand and and we like looking at invasive species but what do we really expect this task force to do you know are we going to encourage the task force to to organize more events like this or or or just educate people that these are invasive species like I I think maybe we need to discuss more about the practical application of how this task force would operate to fulfill the the goals that the council sees for this task force well I think we're pretty close to getting we can we can probably nail that down here I would think we're pretty I I think we're um I mean I'm willing to do it here I just didn't know if it was going to be too long a discussion well but our goal setting is going to be yeah full too so in my mind I go back to what we established at our goal setting last year and I don't my opinion on it hasn't changed we talked about them branching out into the eradication of of the uh invasive species which they've done they proven that they can do that very effectively that's I think that's good I'm glad that they did that I'm glad like to see them continue to do that public Outreach I think they do a tremendous job at that when they set up their tables and they you know they go to events and they I think they do a tremendous job with that and we budgeted some money for them to have some swag giveaways you know inexpensive things to promote um litter abatement those kinds of things the water goat is something that they really the River Watch is the ones that got the water goats and they should be um monitoring the water goat um issues involving storm drains I think are appropriate to this that's the Watershed piece The Watershed within the city of Temple Terrace um outfalls making sure the outfalls are functioning properly with in conjunction with staff those are things that we you know those I those are all things that we talked about last spring in my mind it hasn't changed I council member able the other thing I remember we mentioned was about Florida friendly landscaping and water that's right advocacy and maybe some sort of program um proposing a program for that that's right we did you're right thank you forgot that so I have a question about the pr the practical application so if you so they had an invasive species project that um was very successful more successful than they expected yes so then the question is what's the role or who so you you pull the invasive species um but nature will fill that with something so is it do we just want to pull the invasive species or do we want somebody that's also going to look at what should be put back or how to maintain that area once you've pulled the invasive species I don't this is what I was going to bring up at the goal setting but um because you we could just have a program where we just pull the invasive species periodically and leave it at that or we could have a program where we pull invasive species and then we try to Reed or replant with Native that's appropriate for the location or we could have a situation where once we pull everything it just keeps getting mowed we just keep it mowed down so it doesn't come back I I that's one of my questions that well I I will refer to our environmental scientists here but I think the Brazilian peppers are an invasive species that grow along the shore of the river yes and taking them out is sufficient that we don't we let nature grow whatever grows on the shore of the river that's native to you know or we keep it mow or whatever that's kind of a public works thing Nature's growing Brazilian pepper plants good point but um yeah I don't I don't truthfully I don't Envision replanting as part of that's what I'm just asking is as part of the removal of the inv invasive species is it are we just looking at the removal or are we also looking at well they can certainly recommend it's an area be replanted with something if it's appropriate and there's a big gouge in the shoreline or something sure that would be within their purview yeah yeah that's I mean that was that's my only thing I I don't think I don't think that we need to monitor landfills and because we don't have any landfills in the city and I don't think and this is an Advisory board so I don't think that they should be ensuring that development has they can't ensure anything about development so do you feel comfortable enough yeah meeting with them to kind of hash through this and see if we can get something that's workable yes is that okay with everybody course me city manager you have anything to add add to this or staff that I know this directly involves you guys too so no I think we we'll U we'll defer for direction from the council if you want us to research anything regarding Shoreline protection replanting we can do that at at your direction in the future once you make a better determination you want to go we can any of that well I I I think we all are pretty comfortable giving council member fand as a little leeway here to work with you and you know that seems appropriate to me I I trust that Allison's going to if you're good with that yes okay all right and I see we lost Mr Lewis um okay so we do not I believe we do not need a vote of action on this is that correct Mr Shan we can just refer this back for further work yes okay and that's what everybody wants to do okay all righty thank you all next uh is a resolution approving adjustments to fiscal year 24 budget number Q3 and oh there he is Mr Ingram our finance director is here to explain good evening sir good evening honorable mayor and city council at the conclusion of quarter 2 fiscal year 24 there were a few items that require a budget adjustment for unplanned or unknown expenditures with matching unplanned unknown revenues exhibit W provided a description of each item the fiscal year 24 expenditure and the previously unbudgeted Revenue source to fund the expenditure a summary of these items are as follows in the water and sewer utilities fund there are the following two adjustments a CD 225m dry Prime diesel pump was sound attenuated enclosure costing 96,3 75 this item was included in the fiscal year 24 capital budget at $90,000 the remainder of the cost of $637 from un is being added to the budget with a matching Revenue amount of6 6,375 from unbudgeted fixed asset sales this purchase is being approved actually I think it's the next item on the agenda uh is being uh put through for approval tonight through resolution 20228 needed to complete a 67,0 720 purchase approved by resolution on April 2nd 2024 for the purchase of a 2024 F F250 XL Superduty super cab it was approved with the 47,49 to appropriation included in fiscal year 24 and the remaining cost of 2,228 coming from current year unbudgeted fixed asset sales in the general fund we have the following a $ 37,74512 th1 for a vehicle repair with funds from the receipt of an insurance payment through our fmit auto insurance 9,580 doll received through United healthc Care Wellness incentives specifically for wellness program expenditures and finally in the community investment tax fund we have the following an additional $50,000 added to City Hall renovations for flooring installation to be funded through our CIT reserves step staff recommends that the council adopt a resolution approving the adjustments to the fiscal year 2024 budget and I will be happy to answer any questions you might have thank you Mr Ingram or there members of the public who wish to comment council member questions council member schisler yes Thanks James um qu I do have one question and it it kind of relates to this the top two items are budget adjustments based on future sales of fixed assets correct or anticipated not not future but we actual sales we have uh we've already got the money okay we got the money okay my my question then is related to not necessarily this but the last budget uh adjustments we made we had the same thing with some uh uh items that we're going to put on consignment with the um uh the place on 301 did we actually Rec did we realize those revenues or is it still in process uh no we did we did we did realize those revenues we've uh Jason uh our Public Works director uh Warren Fels has done a great job and getting some of our old equipment out on auction and uh getting money for it getting sales that we didn't plan for thank you I'm good other questions yes yes council member Fernandez so with regard to the sales of the fixed assets and Equipment um right now I mean obviously your budget adjustment is to offset the unanticipated expense but has are the revenues higher than the expenses that were offsetting and where are they if they are um the revenues are higher they are in the uh we had the revenues for vehicle Assets in uh particularly sanitation and the 410 Water and Sewer utilities just to give you an example in the water and sewer utilities fund we got $ 36,7 40 in asset sales we're using 26$ 265,000 tonight of that 36740 so we actually have that's 10,000 excess Revenue that we have for those fixed asset sales okay so I just I just wanted to to point that out because if somebody was looking or listening they might say well how how is it possible that you sold an asset that matches the expense you need and that's not the case you're taking the a portion the revenue and you're taking a portion and applying it to the expense and the remainder is sitting in um unallocated fund balance or um yeah it's it's sitting basically in the uh in this case the water and sewer Utility Fund as a revenue you know for Budget purposes we have to always balance right to zero that's why we match it with the same even though we received more money for the sale unless we have something else that comes up where we need $10,000 or less that will just be at the end of year go back into the the water and sewer fund to be available for the next year's budget yes okay I I just wanted to point that out okay good thank you other questions okay if there are no other questions is there a motion so moved to approve move to approve do I have a second Motion in a second discussion of the motion all those in favor signify with i i opposed no nay resolution is adopted thank you Mr next item is a resolution approving the purchase of a cd225 m dry Prime diesel pump with the sound accentuated enclosure and our public utilities director Troy tinch is here to explain and anything that starts out with a CD 225m is bound to be expensive not too terribly bad I guess it is a little bit pricey and actually it came in Just a Touch Above what we budgeted Jim brought that forward in his during his presentation so I'm here tonight to request a approval of a resolution to purchase this new diesel pump the pump is designed as a high flow pump it's meant to really service our Master lift stations we have three of those throughout the city those are our higher capacity uh system so we needed to have a pump that could match that capacity need in the event of emergency loss of power if there was an issue with the diesel generator on site which does periodically happen or if the electrical pumps themselves we had issues with those so it is a trailer mounted pump it um does as you mentioned have a sound attenuator so it's what we call a quiet Run pump it's something that could easily be run in a neighborhood and not make a lot of Rocket cause issues for people who may be trying to sleep um it was specked out through the Florida sheriff's Association bid so it was bid through that process that said staff recommend city council approve this resolution to purchase a new diesel power pump and I will stand in for any questions thank you Mr tin other members of the public who wish to comment seeing none council member questions council members I have a quick one so is this this pump attached to does it permanently live at a lift station or is this one that we move around when there's a problem at a lift station right so all of our bass for Lift stations and actually most all of our lift stations in general have a quick hookup we call it a quick hookup and so this pump will live actually over at the white way water treatment plant and when we have an issue with one of those Master stations we'll bring that out pull that out to that station we'll quickly hook it up and then get that station back online okay that's why it's trailer amount I assumed that but I wasn't clear yes absolutely it's about the size of N150 okay and waiting so okay if there are no other questions is there a motion move to approve the purchase of the CD CD 225m dry Prime diesel pump with sound attenuated enclosure second Motion in a second discussion of the motion all those in favor say I I I opposed no Nays thank you Mr tinch resolution is adopted next is a resolution adopting a revised revised site plan and building elevations for property located at 13102 North 56 Street and our community development director Mike Sherman will explain good evening Mr Sherman good evening Mr Mayor members of the council tonight for the council's consideration is there a a site plan 210 uh excuse me um 2309 is a site plan review application for revisions and modifications to a previously approved site plan uh site plan 2103 uh it's for 40 or 7200 ft² retail office structure located at 13102 North 56 Street the owner Dr Muhammad Salah and the applicants representative uh JD asalah is in the audience tonight he's with sec more engineering so U everybody knows where this is but for the people in the audience and to review real quick for our Council this is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of 131st Avenue in North 56 Street the zon's commercial General the future L map category is commercial the size is a little over half an acre at 61 acres and the approval Ted for site civil and building plant elevations um a little bit of background up in June of of 2022 the council approved the site plan 2103 and this was for a on story 7200 squ ft multi-tenant structure the maximum height of that was 19 ft at the decorative perits located over the main entryways uh access was off 100 East 131st Avenue there were 24 parking spaces provided and they're located behind the structure uh where the uh parking lot is adjacent to the residential prop properties to the west and there's a 6ot landscaped uh buffer along the property line which which separates the residential property line from commercial uses and here are the approved elevations that the council approved and the applicants submitted uh in the first round so after the approval uh by the council the building elevations and site plans was uh most modified the building permit was then issued uh when we realized that the elevations were not the ones approved by the staff we reached out to uh Dr Salah and discussed it with them he put his team on it to bring it back to us and work on this to get it back to the city council the DRC met and now that's to the council for consideration tonight so the uh proposed uh modifications would be still for the 7200 ft multi-use tenit uh the paits were modified with columns uh and these are 22 ft located above the main entryways one handicap space was relocated uh so that's all they were required was one and actually this is at a better location it's more to the interior of the site more proximate to the entryways uh and the modified storm water management plan was also provided by the applicant and these are the new building building elevations so the modifications for the site civil plans would were include the relocation of the handicap parking space modification of the storm water control control structure uh the building elevations modific modifications uh perits were eliminated replaced with columns The Columns are now a bit higher than the paff pits and they're 22 ft um the decorative uh cement finish over masonry walls were added North and South elevations uh and window finishings have been modified the East and West modifications uh and phing has broken up a bit differently than was previously approved um the windows on the North and South elevations were reduced from 6 to two and electrical panels were moved to the north side of the building to improve the a really good uh good movement on the side of the electrician and these are pictures of the buildings right now this is the east side of the building uh facing north 56 Street these are views from 133r and the north side of the property you'll see the north side of the property's got some pretty Lush Landscaping buffering into the adjacent commercial property uh this is the front of the multi-use center as you see it's facing the property excuse me facing the parking lot uh in the back so to speak is turn to North 56 Street these are shots of the storm water facility that was some minor modifications the DRC we had a review with this went around with the applicant there very responsive to a request for uh information we were working this trying to get it on this agenda so there's one condition which we want to add uh to the to the motion and that's the modification of the storm water plans are approved by the storm water management by the southwest Florida Water Management District in the city engineer prior to their certificate of occupancy and I can stand for any questions the applicants in the audience tonight if the council wants to ask them anything thank you Mr Sherman are there members of the public who wish to comment on this seeing none as the applicant wish to speak Mr Sherman do you know okay council members are questions council member AEL so this building is already complete it's close to being completed um the majority of the outside and the the shell of the building is completed they're working on the Interiors or will be very shortly thank you I have a comment not a question questions I have a question council member Fernandez the modification of the storm water that does that need to be approved by the city before that H who has to actually say okay this this storm water collection system is corre cor for the site regulatory agency is the Southwest florer Water Management District and they will uh issue a modified uh environmental resource permit for this I believe or a modified permit for this and then the city Engineers is going to look at that and hopefully he'll agree with that as well so I guess my question is for a developer when they're when they're modifying especially it's Florida we get rain and we're and we're very Sandy um when you're modifying storm water collection do you need to get your design approved before you build it from these regulatory agencies or are there just common practices that you can design it and then you know that it's going to meet the criteria I believe the final permit ma'am has to be submitted to this we have to have it at Co okay the laws changed a number of years ago I believe it it used to be where when you start the project you had to have it and now it's changed I believe at the C's when by Florida law we would need the the U the permit from the district yes yes sir good afternoon JD elab engineering I am the engineer AFF for the project and the agent for the owner also so um modification to the storm water system is required approval approval from whatever City or Swift mod however we have minor modification so it's really and we have of course discussion with Mr chairman and uh Mr Anderson the city engineer and it's really minor and I accepted the condition even it's really a very minor change and the same way we went and requested a certification from Swift and we agree going to submit it before the CEO on this so there is nothing major to be worried about about the stone water system so everything is really minor change on that thank you other questions I I have questions Mr Sherman how did we wind up with the building that's different than the one we approved um so nor so what happens when the building plans are submitted for the the uh building official to review if there's a sight civil plans they're also submitted at the same time the planners are supposed to look at this see what was approved by the council and look at the plans that were submitted the elevations in the site plan to make sure that they line up with what was approved and in this instance the planner did not do that can I so why did you sir you're the owner's agent why would you have changed the building elevations and not brought it to the attention of the city when you okay I of course I'm civil engineer I'm responsible anything outside the building but I can speak on behalf of the owner and this it's really you're the owner's agent correct yes sir but I'm trying to say I'm be sure I'm not the architect I'm not I mean so really the modification if you look into it kindly it is really minor modification and I understand and it's like one other the thing I see is from six window to um uh to from six window to two window and there North and South elevation um and this is I'm going to be agree with you this is a change and should be brought up however coordination came by the contractor and the owner I was not outside of it and it seem in discussion is not completed also and they went executed but there not completed it so Mr shman is advising completely that need to be approved by by by the city on this regard but really the best of their ability they thought it's really minor change on this year however there's no change to the structure and safety issue you see we not talk about like structure change square footage there's nothing to change on that the same way with the site if you notice the site to change which is like the handicap replaced because they notice it it might be it's not good idea to be in front of the door that was replacement so so it came the Judgment through them that it's minor change and this and there's not safety issue concern that they make a chain to the safety issue without without approval well I I understand there's no safety I don't care about the handicap thing you guys work that out but this building does not look like what we approved I wouldn't consider this to be minor it doesn't even look like the same building and part of the discussion at the site plan approval cuz I was there I remember this and part of the discussion was what's this building going to look like on 56th street because essentially you put the back of the building out on 56th correct and the plans that we approved are much different than what this building turn so in in all my years on coun I don't remember anybody ever getting the site plan approved and then building something different and then coming back right before it's done to say we want a modification of the site plan well respectfully mayor this is started in November last year I understand the Building completed now but we have been we submitted in in in I believe the best of my ability November so we about five months ago or more so it was not completed it's not happened after completion it was modification during the construction I mean it noticed a little bit different and what Mr chairman I think they arrang meeting with him to discuss it or he found that I could not record exactly in this and based on that they came back that well this chain need to be come to the Council on this here so and I'm going to tell you also the reason with the change came back and with the discussion with AR try to have two elevation from two side as you brought up kindly just a minute a second ago that we trying to make two two f facad one on 56 and one to the back area and does not and that was the reason with with this change came back and add some element to make it more appealing from both side thank you sure Mr Sherman I have a question for you so what happens to this project if we don't approve this modification and make them build what they said they were going to build I think at this point the council the only thing that I would I would think y'all could do is ask for more architectural features to get it as close to the Shell that was approved and the the elevations that were approved by the council okay so follow up question I don't want to belabor the point of you know the water over the dam so to speak but are there steps that we need to take to prevent this from happening again when we assum when we approve a site plan that contains elevations we kind of assume that that's what we're going to get not something different that they built it and now we're kind of stuck with whether I mean it's not that bad it's not but it it is different and we didn't get to chime in on that yes so U first of all I think what Mr Sherman said just to re reiterate so staff in this case let me let me back up we have not had an incident that I'm aware of in in recent history where a developer gets approved plans and basically builds something completely different which is I mean the building is the same but the the facades look extremely different this was uh caught uh and actually I want to recognize uh council member schisler because he actually mentioned it at after one of our meetings I believe and reiterated for a lot of us like you know that does look odd doesn't it and so we had staff go back and look at it and that's when they realized that they the plans were different the building plans were different from the actual uh s plan approval facade um so what staff has been trying to do for the last several months to the point of the gentleman mentioned about November is trying to get the developer developers team to come up with a solution that resembles what was approved by the city council get as close as possible to the city council and that's what they've been trying to do to get to this point and today they're coming before you cuz this is the best I believe that they could accomplish um based on the building the building does look does look better than it did when it when we first caught this I mean it was pretty much the back of the building it we just service access doors I think now you look at it and they there's been a good faith attempt by the developer to make it seem like it's a front of the building facing 56 not the rear service entrance um not the situation we'd want to be in uh and uh hopefully it's not a situation that will repeat itself in the future it's part of standard operating procedures for the planners to take a look at what was approved by the council I can assure you we've had that discussion internally now and it won't happen again okay other questions just comments okay I think I think we're done with questions thank you thank you very much council member schisler I I when I brought this up six months ago or whatever it was it was like I watched this thing being built it's like it's the back of the building that's the flat back of the building and it's not it's not a precedent we did the we did the same thing down with the uh uh building a down but the The Fountains but you had access through and through it every every every location every unit look like it could have looked like the front this absolutely looked nothing like the front and I look at these draw these renderings they they look almost identical and we're still looking at the back of a building on 56th street I don't see any windows I don't see any doorways that you can see through I mean you can you you go down to the the the the fountain shops and you can go in you can enter through those through those those entrances through those those doorways I don't I don't know this is It's to me it's a it's a lot more than just the North and South um uh elevations this is uh these these don't look the front back don't look at all like these drawings make it look pretty similar but what we have up there is not I'm not sure what we can do about it at this point except um you know request more visibility make make it look more like the front of the building I I just it just doesn't look right yeah I agree I drove by it and I was disappointed to see that it didn't match what we approved and I didn't really see the degree to which it didn't match until I compared it in our backup materials but I think as you said I mean we have an expectation that when we approve something we want to see that built not something else and the only reason that I think this is coming to us now is because council member schisler mentioned it otherwise it just would have happened and I'm I'm not comfortable with that all right well the only thing to consider here is well there's a few things to consider um one is that our previous planner seemed apparently dropped the ball on this because there was a building permit issued that I'm assuming where'd he go where might go I'm assuming that the building permit was issued based on renderings of what was actually built is that what I heard you say so the argument can be made if I'm yes sir just correct me if I'm wrong here the argument can be made like well in the application for a building permit we showed you the pictures of what we were going to build and you gave us a permit and we built it and we built it and so um so the city doesn't have Clean Hands in this either although I would argue that the developer changed the drawings and gave it to an unsuspecting planner well who then the planner is not going to assume that they've changed the drawings so but you know the only solution to this is that they not tear it down because it's the same footprint but I mean they'd have to tear down the outside and build it the way that we approved them to be built that's it's a pretty extreme I don't know if you want to do that or not I I'd be willing to approve it but I tell you what I'm pretty upset that this happened and I'm pretty upset not only with the former planner but I'm also upset with the developer this this is supposed to be a professional developer and they know that this this is Shady and and uh so I I would be supportive of approving it at this point because of the alternative is pretty dramatic so but but I don't like it I mean I have an issue because I know the developer knows what elevations were approved and know and knows the expectation that the council had because it's it is right up on the street and it is supposed to look the way Council originally approved it I obviously the building is built and I know that some of the issue was caused internally as well we it was a contributing factor for sure but is there something we can do what kind of exterior architectural features could be added to make it more attractive at this point well the only thing I was thinking is that y'all direct us to sit down with the architect and take what was approved Gussy it up or whatever till was just as close as possible to what was approved by the council and come back with new new elevations and say this is the this is what was attempted to make it look more like what was approved by the council I'm okay with that yes and not approve it or deny it tonight continue till another time where we can come back with revised elevations and the council could consider them at that point CU I believe there's more that could be done to make it more similar okay I'm just trying to think here sorry folks it takes me a while to think council member Abel I mean if if our input is valuable here it's really the doors the doors are the very um unappealing part CU that's what it makes look like the back more than anything else I don't know how the rest of you all feel but it's the doors so how can you Rectify that though well that was one of the discussion points that we had with the applicant and this you see what their their fix was but I don't know I mean I'm not in this industry so I don't know what other possibilities I mean you have to have door you have to have back doors there's back doors now they can cover them more with what it looked like possibly when it was approved by the council that's all we're asking for I think there were always going to be doors back there they just looked more like the front side of the building than the rear side of the building and now there's doors with it I mean it looks better than when council member schisler brought it up but it still looks like the rear of the building and that's not what was approved by the council it was almost a mirror image of the front City attorney any input or we on the right track or I think that hopefully the um developer and his representative can see where this is going and can listen to you and and I I know I I was at one of the meetings I know that they did come here and work with staff on making changes once it was discovered and hopefully they'll be willing to do that again so if you can make a motion to continue this that that's kind of what bugs me the most is that they came here and made changes after it was discovered correct if it had not been discovered and brought up who knows what this right so okay so is it the council's wish to make a motion to continue this and give staff an opportunity to talk to the developer about what possible changes could be made yes do we need to continue it to a particular date I Pro I you don't need to do that I would just you know or table this then it's then it's out there and it's a date unspecified move the table just a burst of the table the the the resolution I mean I'm assuming that they're going to they'll want to do this as quickly as possible they're not going to get a CO until this is resolved so okay is there a motion to table Mo to table second discussion of the motion all those in favor say I I I opposed no name item is Ted thank you Mr Sherman sir last item is a resolution approving the addition of a full-time Utility Billing manager position and related salary and benefits to the fiscal year 24 budget our city manager Carlos be will explain thank you Mr Mayor members of council um as the council is aware uh we have been conducting an audit of our uh utility building office for the last uh couple of months at this point uh look at it from the basic as Personnel processes software Etc looking at the full gamut uh trying to find ways to improve customer service in that office um as as you know we've had some challenges with errors being made uh lack of followup uh delinquent accounts again were not pursued and things of that nature so we are we've been made a concered effort to to fix that the staffer uh that is looking at our project administrator one of her recommendations from her findings after spending a couple of months downstairs or in the first floor here City Hall I should say is that the office really requires a a manager uh this office used to have a manager prior to several years ago uh at which point the the incumbent retired that position was not filled under a prior Administration and since that time uh things that could have been resolved reasonably quickly have been left to fester and they've compounded and so we have uh a situation right now that requires a lot of TLC um there's a fair amount of folks that work in that office around 10 people that work in that office and so we need to have somebody who's held accountable for that who can do the daily reconciliations who can deal with the customer issues who can follow when we have software issues and make the calls and track those things so those things will take several days to resolve and right now people don't have the ability to do that cuz they're dealing customers and there's really nobody with a complete oversight of the entire operation to handle that um this position would be funded entirely from the business the Enterprise funds so there would be no impact on the general fund it would add an FTE to the city's overall count uh we're looking obviously we're starting to look at the budget for next year so we don't know exactly what our total fdes will be if we may decrease Etc so but right now this would add an FTE to the existing count um but we feel it's it's very much needed we'd if you approve it tonight we the first thing we'd want to do tomorrow is start to put the ad out and try to recruit for this position that's how serious we feel that we need somebody in there to to take over and and they have a lot of work to do to make it get on the right path thank you Mr Bria council member questions well are there members of the public that wish to comment on this item okay council member questions for Mr B council member sister no no I have comment questions I have a question yes ma'am so in the documents we say that we have a salary savings projected in the finance department it's we don't mean the finance department itself we're talking about the budget to the because the finance department's in the general fund sure so our utility billing uh staff is within the finance department so organizationally they're within the finance department and um uh you're correct I understand your question and actually if Jim wants to can you help maybe come up to the podium try and address that question within the utility billing which is uh in under the Enterprise fund not general fund uh there is savings for one thing the project administrator that we hired we're only going to end up spending about five months of that salary in fiscal year 24 five maybe six months uh we did look at all the numbers I was concerned um you know is this going to put us over budget although I certainly agree that that it's needed but looking at the numbers we found out that it it's tight but it will it should be able to fall right around what we budgeted in terms of personnel expenditures for uh that particular part of the water and sewer fund the utility billing okay Department division then question with regard to management what we found then so so basically there were mistakes happening in the billing process that have cost the city money is that correct they have there there have been correct there have been errors made where delinquent accounts were were NE were not necessarily followed up on we've made a concerted effort over the last several months to follow up on all these delinquent accounts and I think we've had closure on almost all of them at this point uh there were just also customer service issu so for example when a a customer has a a water bill issue there might be an error or there might be just an issue they're trying to follow up on there those things were not getting followed from point A to point Z I mean there were there were people were dropping the ball and I can't necessarily blame the staff per se uh there were no standards no standard operating procedures in that office when people are hired on they we found out that they're sort of being informally trained by the person at the counter next to them which you know that person learned from somebody else so by the time you get to the last person hired the means and methods can be completely different from what was originally intended so that's where we need someone and our project administrator is working right now on developing those standard operating procedures leaving that in place so that if the utility ability manager is approved and we and hired that person can start right there at least have some a book and some documentation and build up from there okay I'm good thank you other questions if there are no questions is there discussion yes oh thank you thank you Mr Mayor um I remember mik guy's name was Mike wasn't it when Mike retired I I remember that there was um uh discussions on whether to replace them or not and uh we had a whole bunch of other issues that were developed with personel throughout the finance department um as well um I was very glad to see that the audit was being conducted to figure out what's actually happening with with with internal to the uh to the billing to the billing um department and uh I think it's a good move um we did have software issues we've had a multitude of issues and I know Finance has worked very diligently to clean house from top to bottom to fix many of their problems and I view this as fine-tuning um I think it's needed it's NE I I thought it was necessary back then but um uh the administration chose not to do not to to fill that position and um I'm I'm glad that Jim and his crew have have have come to this realization that we need to get this this position fixed again it's split you're on the second floor you're on the first floor you need supervision in that department um and um I wholeheartedly support it and with the funky allocations that we have between general fund and and um the utility funds I I I don't believe it'll be any kind of a budget AR issue going forward so I I support the move would you like to top that off with a motion absolutely I move to approve the resolution um to U uh additional full-time utility building manager position and related salary benefits to the fiscal 24 budget second a second discussion no I I agree I think it's necessary very good all those in favor say I I I opposed no Nays resolution passes thank you Mr B for your work on this carryover Council business anybody follow-up question yes okay um and I I know he's already sat down Mr tinch but um we have have we had an update recently on the Public Works projects particularly the building and and or or how about the and the and this PD me okay go ahead no I don't want to I don't know for Council business I suppose that's a good time I didn't know yeah that's why I'm asking is this is the right time to do it you know yes Mr actually at your next meeting you're going to be provided if I'm not mistaken with a a ream of quarterly reports including one on our Capital Pro I'm done I'm good I'm good very good thank you Council business carry over Council business we're still on Council business no new business and board reports new business anybody two things real quick um one is have a packet that I'll be emailing in submitting tomorrow for a grant from the Florida League of Mayors for a I I guess in retrospect I guess I should have asked your permission but I didn't think you'd oppose me asking for a grant um for partial funding for a centennial mural the one that's going on the north side of this building so it's only open to Mayors to submit for that so many thanks to Nancy Hudson and to your ex executive assistant Jeanie Barlo for helping me come up with the packet so um one other quick item is I have now found myself on the board of the Sun Coast League of cities the acting president um or the acting mayor of Clearwater did not win her election her reelection and so she was on the board and so everybody kind of moved around and I was kind of drafted I think they just wanted to Hillsboro person and and uh unless they're going to get somebody from Tampa I'm at so um the only reason I bring it up is if we have any particular legislative priorities as we get closer to the next session um I'd be in a position to advocate for that organization to join us in that so and that's all I have anybody else have any another new business or board reports okay city manager City attorney um with with the help of um the director of Community Development um this was this is just to sort of do a preliminary announcement um as to how we're going to handle uh an item that was going to be coming up on the agenda for May the 7th concerning the Davis Road Project and I'll defer to uh Mr Sherman so as the council knows the rezoning for the Davis Road Project was uh continued until May 7th um there has we've been working with the applicant trying to get them to respond to the questions concerns the council had reduction of lots dealing with elevations storm water connection to the parks and all the stuff that came out of that hearing uh the applicants are not going to be ready to get us the stuff so we could make our advertisement dates by May 7th today was actually the Dead the date drop dead date that we had to get all the stuff to our city clerk they didn't get it to us and so we were not able to make our advertisement time frames uh although they are working to provide the information that the residents were looking for and that the city council was looking for they're not sure when they're going to be able to have all that together so they want to continue the hearing date not until time certain but until they can get everything back together provided to us we'll review it and if it we believe it fits what the council's looking for will then go through the regular setting up a hearing date doing our advertisements but we wanted to let the council know tonight because yall were probably expecting it to be at the May 7th meeting and it won't be there um so and and I'm not sure if you know we can send letters to the property owners and let them know that as well so they don't show up uh and then when we do and we'll let them know that you know watch for the papers and we'll be sending them U letters for all 100 100 ft of the property where this will be rezoned possibly rezoned um of the date and the time and to show up for the hearings Mr Shan if the council's desires to do that what action would we need to take tonight but Pro nothing tonight this was this was more to let people know who were going to probably show up on May 7th so it was to give them another chance to to know ahead of time that they can make their vacation or whatever and not have to come here but what I'll ask uh for Council to do is on May 7th is to open the item and then uh make a motion to continue it um and you know just continue it but not uh for an unspecified date and then when the applicant is prepared it will be read vertis and we'll hold the hearing then okay in our discussions with the applicant they think they'll be ready for the uh May 21st meeting and by the May 7th meeting we should know all that well I hope they're not ready for the May 21st meeting because I won't be here for that meeting and I would really like to be here I mean I don't want to hold it up but we can tell them it's not I have a lot of uh you know I missed the first one and I have some thoughts on this but I mean I I know the Earth doesn't stop turning if the mayor is not here but I won't be here for that meeting and i' we can we can let them know that it wouldn't be until the 1 June meeting then so it'd be great with me I don't want to you know right well I think I would agree with you because it certainly was an issue that all of council was of concerned about and I think we've learned from past Council meetings that it's in our best interest to have all interested parties yeah I if they're amable to that they might actually be relieved to get a little extra time but so yes sir we'll let them know that good with everybody I was going to ask I knew you were going to be going one of the meetings in m just sure which one so that's that's the one I was going to bring that up so everybody's comfortable this what we're doing okay good thank you Mr sh thank you City attorney still all I have that's all you have anybody anything else to come before the council okay we will be adjourned thank you everybody [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]