The Dunedin City Commission held a work session on April 1, 2025, at 9:00 AM in City Hall. The meeting began with a presentation honoring former Mayor Tom Anderson, who received a Key to the City for his decades of service, including his pivotal role in disbanding the city's police department and contracting with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, saving taxpayers approximately $2 million per year (or $60 million to date). Following that, Commissioner Dugard read the Earth Month Proclamation designating April 2025 as Earth Month in Dunedin. The commission then proceeded through the consent agenda, action items, and informational updates, concluding by 10:41 AM.
2025 City Commission work session, and as I'm saying that I'm thinking, why didn't I make an April Fool's joke, right? Um, I'd like to call the meeting to order, and we're gonna start with Pledge of Allegiance. And Jen, could you leave us in the pledge? I pledge allegiance. I legally of the United States of America and Republican for the one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Okay, so the first thing on our agenda is uh a presentation to a very special person. And uh we want to recognize Tom Anderson for his service, but first I'm gonna read a little bit about him. And Tom is right here in the front row. So uh as all of you know, he was a former mayor and former uh state representative. So Tom and his wife Alice moved to Dunedin in 1982. Tom's a veteran of the U.S. Navy. He served as commissioner of City of Dunedin between 1990 and 1994. Uh as mayor of the city of Denon for almost nine years between 1994 and 2002, and as a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2002 to 2010. Tom's a champion of many important causes, including senior care, safe aging, public safety. During Tom's term as mayor, various staff who worked with him, including myself, very proud to say that, knew him as a smart, caring, efficient, and level headed leader. One of Tom's many great achievements as mayor was being the swing vote in 1995 to disband the city's 100 year police department in contract with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. This issue was extremely controversial at the time. That's an understatement, isn't it, Tom? Yes. This courageous decision saved the need taxpayers approximately two million dollars per year, or 60 million dollars to date. It resulted in a 25% reduction in the city's tax rate while retaining quality law enforcement services. Tom Anderson represents the best of public service and has been an inspiration to many others. And we want to present him with a key to the city, but I do want to say personally, Tom, as I sit up here and as I ran for for office for mayor, I looked to you and how you led the city back in the days that I was a staffer, and I always admired how you handled things. You kept an even hand and even keel, you were respectful with people, you always did your homework, and you had courage. So I always want to try to model that, but you're an amazing person. You've done amazing things both as our mayor and as a state representative, and we want to honor you today. I'm gonna come down. Yes. Very nice. I'm gonna read this, and then you want to come up and say anything? The Honorable Tom Anderson, an appreciation of your many years of dedicated service, devotion, and commitment to the city of Dunedin, February 27, 2025, because of course this was originally um presented without you here, and we wanted you to come back at our state of the city. So if you could come forward, Tom. The mic is yours. Very good. Thank you. Thank you so much for this honor that you're presenting to me. But there were quite a few other people involved in this uh performance of me as the mayor. Uh for example, uh John Lawrence, who was the city manager at the time, used to give me very good advice and uh counsel on a number of issues. In addition to that, uh John Hubbard, who was the city attorney, uh, also provided some very good advice for me over the years. In addition to that, the current mayor Mo Freeney was very instrumental in the decision to go from the city police department to the Sheriff's Office. It was a uh, as she indicated, it was a very controversial decision. The actual vote on it was 2-2, and I had to cast the deciding vote. But it was a uh big win for the city. We saved 25 million dollars, and we're able to reduce the taxes substantially over a period of time. And uh an interesting uh side issue is the uh current sheriff Bob Gultery was a former city of Dunedin police department uh employee. So it provided a lot of opportunity for advancement uh for the people also, and about 80 percent of the uh police went with the sheriff, 20 percent just uh had difficulty uh uh handling that. So that's uh that's uh it was good to have uh good staff, good uh advisors, and that that does it. Okay, we're gonna get some guys one of the down pictures. You gotta get some pictures with you.