The Gulfport City Council met on May 16, 2023, at 6:00 PM at Gulfport City Hall. The meeting covered a consent agenda, two ordinances, two resolutions, public comments, and council reports. Key votes included approval of a lease with the Boca Ciega Yacht Club (with a modified footprint) and adoption of floodplain management reports. All other items passed unanimously.
All right, welcome everybody to the May 16th, 2023 regular city council meeting for Gulfport Florida. Your invocation tonight is given by Vice Mayor Paul Ray, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join us in standing. There comes a time when the world gets quiet, and the only thing left is your own heart. So you better learn the sound of it, otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying. Susan Sarah Dessa. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. She's a Republican for which it's one nation under God into the role with liberty and justice for all. All right, roll call, please, City Clerk. Vice Mayor Ray? Here. Councilmember O'Hara? Here. Councilmember Thanos? Here. Councilmember Brown? Here. Mayor Henderson. Here. City Attorney Salzman. Here. City Manager O'Reilly. Here. City Clerk Carico present. All right. So no presentations this evening, so we're going straight to open public comment. So this is likewise for anything not on the agenda, including the consent agenda for which there's no public comment. So if you have anything you want to speak on that's not on the agenda tonight, feel feel free to raise your hand. You got three minutes, please give your name and address if you're comfortable with it. Yes, ma'am. Hi, Francine Witten. I have two things. One the first thing is about the food pantries. Yesterday I went to the food pantry, and there was ice cream, cottage cheese, yogurt in the food pantry that had popped open because they were. Yeah. It's sad. I mean, I volunteer to do this. I go sit somewhere sometimes three hours to collect food to put here because that's what it's all about is helping everybody. That's but I we've been finding open beer bottles in the food pantries. We've been finding prescription pills in there, the labels have been torn off. But what if a child comes up and takes something or you know, we can't chance that. I don't understand. Yesterday there was two boxes of rotten bananas. If the people would have I mean, other people brought them, put them in the side of the thing where they go better. Or they put bread out there and the creatures all get them instead of the people. And nobody's just taking care of it. And today there was uh mashed potatoes and I mean frozen ones, but they were all warm and yucky. And a lady says, why are you throwing them away? I says, ma'am, I says, I don't want you or anybody else to get sick on any of this food. I says, we put it here to help everybody and we will do it.