Good evening.

Good evening and welcome to the September 3rd council meeting.

I appreciate y'all coming out here.

I know there's other fun things to do at night as well.

If by chance you haven't thought about turning off your phone, I ask you to do it now.

And well in session, if you need to have a side conversation, that's fine, but I ask that you step out into the hall to do it, okay?

All righty.

With that being said, then we are going to have our invocations going to be given by council member, excuse me, council member Jackson, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

So I'm gonna ask that everyone stand.

Okay.

My quote today is from John Perry Barlow.

A good way to invent the future is to predict it, but a better way is to create it.

And to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God.

I do see quite a few new faces out there tonight, and that's always good.

So just one thing that you should understand is that tonight we're going to open up uh with some conversation discussion on the budget, and there will be public comment, and we will close out tonight with discussion regarding the uh charter review.

Okay, and there will be public comment at that point.

So when I call for public comment, that will be for anything that's not on the agenda already.

You'll have three minutes at that point to talk about what you want.

But for those of you that are new, you might not know that public comment is not a give and take, it's not a conversation, it's an opportunity for you to say anything that you want to say, and then when the council members have an opportunity to do their reports, they can respond or um sometimes the staff responds, but just want to be clear that it's not like question and answer.

It's just where you get to speak your mind.

All right.

That being said, how about roll call?

Councilmember Jackson?

Here.

Councilmember Early here.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Here.

Council Member Shaw.

Present.

Mayor Love?

Here.

Attorney Evans.

Here.

City Manager O'Reilly?

Here.

City Clerk Carico is present.

Thank you.

All right.

Item number one, public hearings, fiscal year 2025-2026, millage rate and budget ordinances.

Item 1A, ordinance number 2025-09.

First reading and public hearing.

An ordinance of the City of Gulfport, Florida, providing for the ad valorum tax levy for the fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2025, and ending September 30th, 2025, and providing for an effective date.

And also, Mayor, I do need to read section one to be in compliance.

Section one reads that a levy of 4.0258 operating mills be placed upon the total assessed valuation of real and personal property lying within the city of Gulfport, Florida, and said monies raised by the 4.0258 mills shall be used for the general operation of the city of Gulfport for the aforementioned fiscal period.

The adoption of the 4.0258 mills is a 4.71% increase over the rolled back rate of 3.8446 mills.

Very good.

I need a motion.

Motion to approve.

Need a second.

I'll second it.

All righty.

All right.

Uh we will have uh we'll go uh discussion in uh speaking order if you have anything that you'd like to add.

I have nothing else to add since we've talked about this previous meetings, and this is gonna be our rate.

All righty.

I have nothing else to add.

All righty, thank you.

I'm fine.

I don't have anything additional additional to add either.

All righty.

And neither do I, because we your presentation from a couple weeks ago went over this for very well.

So I think we're all clear on that.

Is there anybody on public comment concerning us holding the millage rate?

Seeing none.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries on first reading.

Item 1B, ordinance number 2025-10, an ordinance of the City of Gulfport, Florida, adopting the operating budget for the fiscal year beginning up October 1, 2025, and ending September 30th, 2026, and providing for an effective date.

Motion to approve.

I second.

City manager.

Yes, Mayor, I just have a few comments this evening.

As previously discussed, this budget stays less than one percent increase over last year, actually 0.039%.

Did a great job.

Chris did a great job.

Shannon holding the entr uh insurance rates down.

Also the efforts of David and Tom and any and Sonia on putting this together to maintain the cost.

I mean, one of the things that we talk about is trying to limit the cost of government and reduce it.

But this is as close to in my career that we've ever been to having to other to me enforced because of economic climate.

But staff did a great job of maintaining it.

As a to as actually since the budget initially proposed in July, we've reduced it an additional 218,613.

So it still maintains a 24 percent.

We did remove the and reap applied certain monies to be focused more on stormwater and also to the allocation reallocated restrooms at the marina at this moment to foresee the buyout of the Lions Club lease.

Um those are pretty much the change for capital funding.

We added the reappropriation for the 58th Street Roadway project because Tom's gonna be able to start it after the fiscal year.

And also added the cost for demolition of Lions Club and the Coast Guard buildings.

And in the waterfront redevelopment district, we had removed the outside basketball resurfacing and removed the $75,000 for the downtown parking bollards.

We did add $100,000 for relocating the City Hall generator to the library.

We have been able to secure and our grant funded project for the neighbor neighborhood center and city hall is completed, so we'll have an extra generator.

We're going to relocate that to the library.

We had previously did that with moving a generator to senior center.

We added $95,000 in the waterfront redevelopment district for the exploration design development of the Mooring Field expansion.

And also we set aside 45,000 for the architectural review for the new phased approach to the senior center.

And still maintained the limited growth in your overall budget.

Thank you.

So we will go in speaking order then and ask any additional questions that you have or comments, concerns.

So we'll start with you, Councilmember Jackson.

Yep, I don't have anything to add.

You covered all the things on my list, which was where we're putting our money towards and especially the one percent increase cost, even with three storms.

So I want to commend the staff for their actions on that.

That's awesome.

Thanks.

I don't have anything either.

I'm very thoroughly educated.

Thank you.

Council uh Vice Mayor Thanos.

Okay, I've got a lot.

Um being that you just brought it up, why didn't we put one of the generators at the library right when we got it, as opposed to having to pay 100,000 to move it?

Because we were waiting, we had to bring get the generators installed here.

This is a generator that was here that we would receive a grant for new generation.

This is the one that we got now here is bigger or better or something.

It takes care of the whole campus.

Okay, and this other one is smaller.

And it costs 100,000 dollars.

Relocate the electric and such, yes.

The switch.

I reacted the same way.

Um just one thing, and again, this isn't a big deal, but I I think our organization chart is um doesn't really reflect things.

Like under the senior center, the gems and the um under the senior center.

It isn't really a separate thing equal to it.

Usually Rachel, I think, runs that.

And the same thing under recreation, the casino theater, and events all are under one person, and it makes it look like they're all equal.

So that's something I think we should look at.

And and of course, I feel like utility building should be underfinance.

You don't agree, that's okay.

So looking at page 17, which is a general fund, there's 500,000.

I have 300,000 that we have as a transfer to utilities, and it says stormwater.

So what's that?

That's the what you're in your budget this evening, in your action items this evening, you'll be transferring to the utilities from the capital projects that were in the this year's budget.

This is the so I don't believe we should do that.

You're talking about the 350 for solar and the 150 for the bathrooms.

That was voted on to be solar, and I think it should stay solar.

And I've asked you numerous times to see if we could have another building to put the solar on.

Right.

And haven't heard, but if we don't have a building, I talked to somebody today that for the 350,000 could get us 50 to 100 solar street lights so that we wouldn't have to be buying energy from Duke for for at least our street lights.

So I don't think we should give it away yet.

I think it's fine to leave it separate as an ARPA thing that we haven't finally decided on, but I don't think we should move it to utilities.

So how how do we handle this?

Do we vote on everything?

Well, we actually at the last council meeting, in my opinion, we did have a consensus on that.

I looked right to you and you said I'm in agreement.

I think if you look back in the minutes, you'll see that maybe you thought I was asking a different question because you agreed.

Because the point that was being made in that I feel like we had a con I thought we had a unanimous, as a matter of fact, was that um rather than worrying about a solar project, let's worry about our homes flooding so that we in fact have a gulf port that we can worry about solar down the road.

And you went into a great and lengthy conversation about yeah, I understand, I understand, but if we do it now, we're gonna save X number of dollars, and if we wait, we won't.

And then somebody else said, Yeah, but if we wait, we might not have a on stormwater, we might not have a golf port.

So just Okay, I mean I get what you're saying, but I didn't understand that you were going to move it over there for that.

You know, I I I am not sure.

I don't I don't know that we said that we were moving it to stormwater, but we clearly had a discussion that I agree with.

Our drainage and stormwater uh wait, I'll finish.

That our stormwater um was gonna take a very very, very, very high priority in this budget.

So if it was set exactly that way, I don't know, but we did talk about solar could wait until we dealt with the stormwater.

Oh, well, I I disagree that isn't or I don't disagree that you said that or meant that.

I didn't mean that.

Because I think this will save us money.

300,000 will get us practically nothing for stormwaters.

We need big projects, millions and millions of dollars.

And so 300,000, I don't think.

I'm happy to just put it aside and leave it separate till we can figure out how we should best use it, but I don't want to allocate it to something else yet.

So should do we need to vote on each thing individually?

Do you have a consensus to do with the council member?

I mean, we'll change the budget.

So that was gonna be my next question, and I was looking for my city attorney.

Hello.

Um, in a case like this, because I'm new, I don't know protocol.

Do we let April or excuse me, Vice Mayor Thanos speak on each thing that she wants, and then at that point, then we'll see if there's a consensus.

Each individual item, if they're gonna be changed, would require a consensus.

At the time.

At the time as well as well, right now.

Okay.

If you want, if if you council would like to change the reallocation, then there would need to be three out of five of you would have to consent to that.

And and also, and and this goes to something else that's later on.

I saw that it what looked to me like we took the the 350 for solar and the 150 for the bathrooms and put it in sidewalks, because we added 500,000 to sidewalks.

No, we didn't add 500,000 to sidewalks.

Yes, we did.

I mean, I'll show you the page when we get to it.

Okay.

So we're gonna take it one step at a night uh at a time, okay.

So what we're gonna do right now is I I'm gonna ask for a consensus.

And uh I guess it's up to me to phrase the consensus the way I want to.

Or or would it be me because it's my chance?

No, it would be the mayor's okay.

Right.

So the what I'm asking you is there a consensus that the $350,000 that was set aside for a solar project on the library that requires a new roof.

No, we're never going to put it on the library.

That's out.

Okay.

My consent what my question is, is the $350,000 that was set aside for a solar project.

Are we willing to um go along with the written budget as it's a written today that $300,000 of that will be delegated and put into the our budget for immediate actions on our stormwater?

All right.

That do we have an action that it would be you're gonna see an agenda item later this evening?

Yeah, we do.

I didn't see anything on the agenda about that.

I don't know how you didn't.

Uh are you talking about the seawall?

No, I'm talking about Does anybody my other council members?

Do you have a question about what I'm asking?

Are you clear?

Okay.

So we'll go in speaking order then.

Are you in favor of pulling the $300,000 and putting it towards stormwater immediate actions?

I'm in favor of keeping it for stormwater immediate actions and not switching to solar.

We I agree.

Yes.

I council member Shaw.

Um I'm certainly in favor of anything that can save revenue, and I'm uh and and solar can certainly do that, but in the last meeting we did make a concerted commitment to stormwater in the senior setter.

So I I don't recall anything about it going to sidewalks, so I'll it's uh it's I'll show you later on.

Right.

So I'd like to make sure of where it is going that it is going for stormwater.

It's going to agenda item nine E.

Okay.

So I'm still waiting.

9B?

9E.

I'm still calling the vote on the consensus.

So um I approve it remaining for stormwater.

Okay.

And and I also approved so we have a consensus.

Okay.

So on the next page, there's three five hundred thousand for a phase three sidewalk replacement that was new from last time.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, if you're going to refer to that health.

It's a very next page.

18.

And so I don't know if that came out of the appropriated surplus of 1,100 above, I mean 1,000 1,100 above.

Because it was six I don't know understand because that was six hundred thousand in the last budget, and this budget it's one point one million.

That's the reappropriation for 58th Street and 49th Street.

Okay.

And then the sidewalk replacement, that that was new compared to the last budget.

It wasn't in here on the last one.

Down further.

500,000.

It's about 100,000.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry, I was reading wrong.

Never mind.

Never mind.

I got that.

Okay, that's right.

Um.

And I already talked about the generator, so that's fine.

So can you always help us by stating the page?

23, page 23.

So on your um page at the beginning where you're talking about general things about the budget, you state that we're gonna be collecting 175,000 more in property tax on page three.

And then here we've got a million more than last year.

So I'm I was just confused.

Page three.

Page 23 and then page three.

Page three, yes.

We don't approximately 175,000, an additional ad below.

Right.

But here we've got a million more in property tax.

Your proposed budget and current property taxes is six million nine hundred and six.

I know, but compared to the actual in 24, it's a million more.

Your adopted budget.

Yes, you you've seen increases the previous if you look at the bar chart.

So does that mean we we we in 25 we're probably gonna see 800,000 more in property taxes?

You there's a there's a last year, we'll see what the actual numbers are when they're not closed.

Because it just seems to budget 100,000, I mean, I mean a million more was a lot.

It's it's it's compounding your property values as your property values go up.

It's your I know, but it your property values have gone up exponentially, 20 percent.

I just I just wanted to make sure because the other earlier you say something about 175,000, and then we got a million.

So that's an additional revenue from last year.

Okay, smaller.

Adding the two.

You had a smaller, I believe last year you had approximately nine percent growth.

Right for the previous two years, which equals 20 percent over those two years, which equal a million dollars on five million dollars.

Okay.

Um page 25.

Again, this is just a little bit of money, but um under other miscellaneous revenue, in actual 24, we had almost 5900, and yet we're projecting 10,000.

Um is there a reason that we think it'll be twice as much.

Especially when we're talking about every little penny counts.

Page I'm sorry.

25 miscellaneous revenue.

Other other miscellaneous revenue.

Yeah, just an estimate that we put in.

It's an estimate.

And what consists of other miscellaneous revenue?

Chris, you want to come up and as Jim mentioned, that's a placeholder estimate.

I don't have fiscal year 2025 actuals here yet.

Um I'd suspect we try to base 26 proposed on 25 actuals, so I think we'd be running a little bit higher in 25 to base that estimate on 26.

So you think it'll be almost double what we paid in 24 or got in 24?

Um, I'd have to go drill in to the general ledger, and I think we had you know looked at that the other day.

Okay.

Um on the next page on 26 on towards the bottom, it says Pinellas County.

And in 23, 24, 25, we had no revenue, and yet we're projecting 350.

Is that for the EMS?

Yes, it is.

That's a vehicle.

Okay.

And okay, that goes with the other thing.

Okay.

And then on the next page, 27.

Under surplus equipment.

We showed 100,000 in 24 on the previous budget.

Here we're showing 20 100,000 for 25 and 20,000 for this year.

So what kind of equipment is that for those numbers fluctuate.

We sell various vehicles.

Uh, I think there was a uh truck or garbage truck.

We don't know the prices those are gonna go for.

Uh it goes to auction, so those are hard to predict.

Okay, so it's vehicles, so uh vehicles and or surplus equipment.

Okay.

Because it just seemed funny that we were estimating a hundred thousand last year and only twenty this year.

But that's we knew we were gonna also replace a fire truck and garbage trucks and things like that.

Okay.

And then on the next page, we have insurance twenty-eight insurance proceeds.

So that's for insurance claims that we have now for we're still as Shannon discussed previously, working through all the various claims with the insurance companies.

So again, that's an estimate.

Okay, because that was new in this budget compared to the last budget.

Okay.

Um so on page 40.

We have um other contractual, and I was told that we had 84 before proposed.

Um because we were gonna have an extra election, but now we've decided not to have an election in November.

So should this be lower than because it lowered we lowered it from 120.

I don't have the old number in front of me.

The price did inflate this year.

So we removed one election but kept an amount for the inflation.

That money was reallocated to uh IT equipment and software.

That money was reallocated to uh IT equipment and software.

Okay.

So it is down to one election, though.

Yeah.

Yeah, because we had 124,000 in the last.

So it went from 124 to 90.

Okay.

Okay.

Um page 44.

We have an assistant city manager.

Um, but we also have him when you look at the uh personnel count, but we also have him as a full person under director of the library.

So which place is his salary?

His salary's in general administration is the assistant city manager.

But I mean, is it under city manager?

No.

But that's where you've got him here as a as a personnel person.

It's a title that he shares with his director of library services.

But shouldn't he be in a point five then instead of a full?

We could.

Because it looks like we've got two people and two salaries.

Okay.

And you and and you can't tell when you go to the money part of it, you can't really tell because you don't know what people's salaries are.

You can't really tell how it breaks out between the people.

So it is it is split between the two.

Okay.

Um on the next page 45.

There's other contractual services for 110.

Is that for the social worker?

I don't know if page 45.

Yeah, under category.

Grant procurement management, homeless facilitation support, and other contractual.

Yes.

It's on the narrative on page 47.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Okay.

Um page 49.

We don't have a police commander.

Yes, you do.

Well, there's not a budget for him.

You have two commanders.

Well, but we don't have them in the budget as a number under personnel.

And the same thing down lower under volunteer coordinator, we had one.

I think we don't we still have Jim being our that's his title.

That but he's not in here either as a person.

Community engagement coordinator, yes, he is.

At the end at the bottom of the personnel summary?

No, on page 49.

Yeah.

Commanders, you have two.

There's no no under the 26th budget, there's none.

I think they're a change from commander to captains.

They changed their title.

And then community engagement coordinator was volunteer coordinator, is now community engagement coordinator.

Okay, all right.

Okay.

And and so it was Mary and Josh before.

Who's the the second one now?

It's Commander Woodman and Commander Stone.

Okay.

Woodman.

Okay, don't worry about that.

Um on page 75 under machinery and equipment in the draft budget, it was 50,000 and now it's 84,000.

The earlier reallocation I had discussed uh that went from contractual in the clerk's office, yes.

So machinery and equipment is for computers and stuff, or yeah, computers, equipment, and software.

But if it wouldn't we have did we decide we needed more than we did a month ago?

Yes for for what?

It was the iterative budget process, and we had estimates out there, and when we realized that we had enough in the clerk, we reallocated based on IT uh recommendation, additional software.

I'm I'm only saying this because we're looking for extra money we want to put in stormwater and in the senior center, so that's why I'm saying if we had extra money, should it go somewhere else, or do we need it there?

Okay.

Um that we already answered.

And I just want people to know just in general that since we took over the history museum and the art center, we've got 226,000 dollars in the budget to run those two things that we used to have the society run.

Okay.

So we have the floodplain manager.

And is I assume that's now Mark.

No, it's not Mark yet.

But we have a person there.

We have a position.

A position, okay.

And so then Mark then the planner.

And is is Mike the planning administrator CRS coordinator?

Yes, he is.

Okay.

So we don't have a planning administrator.

No.

Or he that's combined with the other thing now.

Exactly.

Okay.

Okay.

And community development, page 101.

So in the draft, we had two people under building inspector.

Right.

That we were going to use that money, I was told for towards the contract that we're going to get for people inspecting.

So instead of replacing those people.

But I I didn't and we had one staff assistant.

And now maybe she's moved to staff assistant too.

Right.

I assume.

The the permit there's no the building inspectors are out.

Yeah, but but I didn't see a corresponding change for the other contractual service to add in a contract for them.

Because their contract, the proposal that we put out was to have excuse me, was to have them based it on fee-based.

I know, but we still need to budget for that because that's money that we're not going to have there to run the department.

And we will bring that in to you when we bring their contract.

We've just closed.

You have 200,000 in other contractual at this time.

I know, but that's the same thing we've had every year.

Yeah.

And we're going to have to do that.

And so if we're going to be paying not only for the inspectors, so that could be fine for the inspectors, but now we're also going to be pay paying people outside people to do some of the permitting work.

So we need even though they're going to even though they're going to take a percentage, that's going to lower our revenue.

So we need to do that.

Well we did lower overall, we did lower community development $24,000.

We lowered the revenue?

The expense for all of community development combined.

Okay, I'm not understanding.

I think we need to raise the expense for community development.

Okay.

Because if we're going to so the two inspectors that we were going to pay as staff, we're now going to do contractually.

That's fine.

And you say that's can included in our other contractual under 205, because we've been paying them the last couple of years.

So that's fine to take out that those people.

But we're also, per what we're putting out, we're going to pay planners, I mean permitted to take a percentage of our fees.

Right.

And so we need to budget for that because that's going to cost us money.

Even though it takes we don't have to pay them it it we know we don't have to pay them in the normal way, but it's still going to lower the revenue that we have to pay for the whole rest of the department.

We'll we'll address that once we get the numbers from them.

But that's how do you have to do that?

And how can we well this the issue is you have a general fund budget.

If you're gonna say we're gonna identify what the exact revenue is, it's all based on a percentage.

I understand what you are saying that oh, you've got a budget for that expense.

Well, till I know at that expense, it's a general fund issue, so I can bring this back to you.

True, and it's a revenue that they will take a percentage of.

I know.

So so have we lowered the revenue to account for that?

Not at this point, because we didn't know we haven't approved a contract yet.

But if we estimate lots of other costs, why aren't we estimating this?

Because I have to meet with these people and do the percentages and all that.

This is you're you're basically looking at your revenues, yes, will go down in community development to help offset this.

But I think that's what we have to manage those expenses.

And at this point, the placeholder is the 200,000 dollars.

But how are we gonna manage it?

How do you think that's the other one?

Well, we're gonna that's my job to manage it.

I just brought you a budget that didn't that grew by less than a half.

Let's just hold up here a minute.

It's okay for you to ask your questions.

Of course, we want you to be settled.

I know most of us did this in meetings prior to this moment.

But you can ask as many questions as you want, but you cannot, when he's trying to answer, you can't say, but but but but let him answer the question.

Likewise, the public's getting a little irritated right now.

You all just need to take a chill pill too, okay.

It's a process.

We have to go through it.

All right.

So let's just resume order.

If we'd gotten this earlier, I would have asked these questions.

We just got it yesterday.

Um I still don't get.

I say I understand that you're gonna manage your expenses, but if you're already putting your expenses in here, do we have any idea where you think you're gonna get revenue from to cover that?

Well, explore it where we're or where what will we reduce?

Okay.

Um code enforcement on page 106.

This shows now we the previous year we've had two code enforcement people.

Right.

I know one left, and we just have Heather now.

But this shows three.

So are we planning on hiring two more?

No, we're hiring one, and we're giving her a clerical assistance.

Well, that's in here too.

So she's got a staff assistant, and uh third, you know, that, but she's also got a code enforcement officer one and two code enforcement officers two.

So there's three code enforcement people here.

I'll have to go back and look at that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

We'll check on that.

So we might have a good chunk of money if if you put in a salary for that.

Okay.

Because that could be a hundred thousand with benefits.

Um page one hundred twelve.

We have improvements other than building.

Um we have two hundred and forty thousand.

And in the last budget it was ninety-five thousand.

That's for the waterfront redevelopment district.

You had only the basketball court resurfacing and the bollards.

We removed those.

Subsequently, we added the mooring field, the relocation of the generator, and also monies for the the senior center repurpose reconfiguration.

So that's okay.

Um, to the next page 114.

Okay, we so we've taken out so here we have the the so actually I did know that the cost of associated with those things.

But we had something for Williams Peer, the casino AC, the basketball court, and new front doors and painting at the rec center.

Did we get the new front doors and paint when we fixed it up after the storm?

And that's why you had money.

So we don't need to do it now.

Right.

That's why you had monies available to do the things we just increased the WRD to do.

So but don't we need still need money for the casino AC?

You're building an old new building.

Huh?

You're rebuilding a whole new building.

It'll be included in your insurance claim.

Insurance, okay.

And what about the Williams Peer money?

They're working on that.

Williams Pierre has been fixed.

We uh so it didn't need to be there anymore.

Okay.

Um page 130 under vehicle maintenance.

We have inventory for resale and outside repairs.

And in we had none in 23 and 24, and then we budgeted for it in 25, and again in this year the same thing.

So what is that that we didn't do it for the previous couple of years?

Those are budgeted in that department, and then they're tracked and allocated among all the various departments for the repairs that are performed at the various departments.

It's initially budgeted in here to vehicle maintenance department.

But we didn't do it that way in the previous years.

That's the way it's been done.

It's been budgeted there, but those are the actuals.

The actuals end up in the respective departments.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

So thank you for putting in my tree category.

Well, you saw that.

Yes, I did.

As I've seen a lot of stuff, I did see the good stuff too.

Thank you.

Um but on that page 166.

Um you show a different um amount on in the tree bank on page 123 than you do here.

Um I put above I put for improvements other than building, I would put about the bathroom, but you've taken that out.

So correct.

Okay.

Um in the senior center.

Um I know in the email you you you'd said something about adding staff, but there's no more staff here.

It was 42 4.25 in the last budget, and it's still 4.25.

And we talked about having it open evening, so we need to add staff here.

Chris, we lose the person.

Yeah, well.

Um are you talking about which page are you on?

177.

That's a recre recreation senior.

Okay, see that's a recreation social services, one supervisor, one coordinator, senior center assistant, staff assistant.

I don't have the previous version in front of me.

I'd have to check the head count.

If the head count's not updated, I can correct.

I got it right here.

The wages are increased by the part-time people that were added.

So let me look at the we just need to we may that'd be at half FTE, because it'd be two.

Yeah, and I I didn't look at the wages as much because it's hard to tell you know, because you don't know how much people are making.

So the wages were uh increased, we just haven't put at the personnel summary needs to be.

I I actually did see the the numbers adjustment if that helps.

So it went from 1773.

I believe it's about $30,000.

It's still the same.

Wage salaries and wages was 177 132 in the previous budget, and it's the same thing here.

On page 179, the bottom.

I'll have to double check that.

I was certain I uh that was updated.

I don't have the old version in front of me.

You want do you want it?

I'll double check.

Okay.

All right.

Um good.

So uh just another good this isn't really a budget question, but on page 188, we have um casino staff, and as a casino is closed, how how are we using those staff?

Should we count those staff as as the extra people for the senior center, perhaps?

Or here that those are part-time positions.

We are down to, I believe, one or two individuals that are still working.

The full-time employee, there those are positions that are not full, not I understand because I can see they're part-time here.

Right.

They're empty, that's all.

But we had three seventy-five in the last budget.

Well, it would that wouldn't have changed because of any.

We don't base it on the body what we have today in the budget, you have positions.

And they're still having enough to do.

I mean, I I know that justin has events and stuff, so okay.

And um, never mind.

Okay.

So on page 198, there's um recreation technical events, and there's the event marketing specialist.

Is that Kirsten?

Yes.

Okay.

And then last question, page 202.

Page 202.

So if you look under Let me just make sure I'm doing it right.

Of the 49th Street.

Okay.

So I was wrong.

It wasn't, it wasn't under sidewalks.

So where?

Um where do we show the 500,000 that we've put it in stormwater?

You will do that later this evening under agenda item 9E.

So we're not putting it in the agenda, we're spending it.

This year, this fiscal year.

Oh, okay.

It's not in next fiscal year.

It's being transferred this fiscal year.

Okay.

And then you have this buyout for the Lions Club lease.

Have we gotten a new appraisal yet?

We were getting access to the building.

Dennis was arranging access to building so they can do it.

Okay, so fee that should go down.

We'll see what I'm not gonna I I don't I don't provide commentary until I get a real number.

Okay.

And oh I see information technology was 50,000, now it's 84, but that's the 34 from the correct.

Yeah, because things come up in multiple places.

Thank you very much for answering all those.

I'm sure you're glad somebody reads it.

Council member, yeah.

Whoa.

Thank you, Chris, for answering those questions.

I'm impressed that you um are able to do that on a document that's 231 pages uh without having it everything right in front of you.

That was quite impressive.

So the um I did go through the budget section by section, and uh the city attorney was very patient with me, being that it's the first time I'm having to read a budget in this type of format.

So I had my questions answered.

Except for one now.

I just wanted to ask one additional question.

The ninety-five thousand dollars for the mooring field.

Are we putting that into the budget because this is money that is designated strictly for the waterfront redevelopment?

And is there a time pressure on us to use that money or lose it?

No, it's your money, but you have to account for it.

Um it can sit there, but they if you were audited by the county, they'd say, what do you plan on doing with this?

Because the percentage of this money is is the tax increment financing that you received over the past 30 years.

Okay.

So then that leads to my question.

Is it possible since is the beach the waterfront redevelopment district?

Yes, it is.

So is it possible that we could instead of worrying about 95,000 for the mooring field design at this point?

Is it possible that we could take that additional ninety-five thousand dollars to implement into some additional uh resiliency and protection for our waterfront area special beach?

Of course you could.

But it would take three out of five of you would have to do that.

Oh, okay, because I'll say I didn't remember voting, so that must have been I was against it, but we had a consensus that from others.

I'm looking at you, Councilmember Shaw, because I think you may have raised it.

Uh I did.

And and that was raised in part as a resiliency issue because of so many of the boats out there that aren't on mooring balls that do end up on our shores.

Number one, okay.

And number two, the fact that it would create a revenue source and create uh a managerial environment that because and them on the mooring balls they require insurances, license, registrations, those types of things.

So um it fits within you know a management scope.

So it helps for me, it helps me for you to say you're seeing this as a resiliency as well as income uh generators.

So then my question is prior to the storms, did we have all of our mooring balls rented, were we at full capacity?

Primary, yes, it's a transient nature, you know, not long term, but if you have you may have all full on a weekend, but you may not have them, because a lot of people do it in a transient aspect.

I can't say 365 days a year, all 25 are full, but I can tell you that at period peak times, like any tourist and destination, they are full.

And and if I could also interject that the original plan, in case some do not recall this detail, the original plan was for 100, but at that point um they moved forward with 25, and that there was thought that maybe it would be addressed further in future years.

Now, the 95,000, uh I d I wasn't aware of that specific figure for the planning of it, but I am aware that we have to start somewhere because it's a long-term project.

That as uh city manager has explained, this is not something that will just happen within one year's time frame.

I did hear that part of it.

So then my question, I feel like I'm at a tennis manager.

Sorry.

Um so then my question is if the original plan called for a hundred, then what do we mean the original plan?

Was there a design plan for a hundred at that time?

Why would we have to spend ninety-five thousand because the design plan was done close to twenty years ago.

Oh and you we had certain restrictions where at the point where the Army Corps of Engineers said you couldn't have there was a period where you couldn't even build docks in Boca Sega Bay.

There was a moratorium on docks, things like that.

There's a lot, there were different seagrasses that had to be measured.

You have to have environmental studies before you go put 75.

The mooring, the plan that I have in my office is this big and it has all these scientific studies that would be outdated, things like that.

Okay, so that was that was really my only question left was the mooring field.

You know, I was looking at that and saying, and I forgot that there was a consensus, I just never voted.

So I have no other questions then.

Thank you.

You skipped council member Shaw.

Pardon?

Oh, I skipped you on.

I apologize.

It's okay.

Seriously, I don't I it's all right.

It's you know that that whole yeah, I get it.

It changes every month.

So we have to give each other space for that.

And it's up to me to speak up.

Okay.

I I I just uh I'd have to I have to say that that my questions have been answered by the heavy lifting of Vice Mayor Thanos, and um and I'd like to just make sure everybody understands that we received an initial proposal, and then yesterday we received a modified proposal, and so it's a lot to go through and compare each page and see where things have changed and what questions we may have.

And um, so I I just wanted to kind of give that little bit of background.

Um I've already talked about the types of things, the types of information that helps me go through a budget that I'm used to, so um I won't reiterate that at this moment, but um I uh is do we usually take this long to get the previous years um year-to-date.

We were a little behind this year because of the what storms and we've been managing the FEMA aspect of finances.

Completely understandable in that in that case, but I was just you know that that has to make it extremely challenging for everybody working on it not having the 2025 year to dates, and then I'm even used to working with uh year-to-date for the current year, so it gives me nothing to compare with.

So I really appreciate all of the time that's and effort that staff has put into it, and and that you have put into answering all of my questions as well, including the list that you sent me, uh, because the changes weren't highlighted of what of the major changes.

Uh and then the rest of it, I I certainly have explanations and all of that uh now, so thank you.

Thank you.

Is that it?

That's it.

Okay.

I'll try not to cut you off again.

Oh, no worries.

All right.

That being said, then um public comment on the budget.

Yes, Ms.

Schwartz.

Hi, Karen Schwartz, Dillette Avenue South.

Here's my question.

Why couldn't some of this been nailed nailed down, discussed, thrown back and forth, and answered at a workshop.

It seems like uh I don't I don't devalue your questions.

Councilwoman Thanos.

They did go on and on.

And it seems to me that if there had been a workshop, a lot of this stuff could have been discussed and solved.

Not during a city council meeting, but during an open workshop where you have city, you have you have everybody on the Bima.

I whatever this is, the uh the dais, excuse me.

On the dais, the public, uh, the staff, and really have serious discussion about all of these items.

And the and the fact that as you said, you got it yesterday.

I mean, I sure didn't look at it.

Who has time?

Who has time?

We have two people who still work.

So that's my commentary.

Thank you for you.

Thank you for you.

Anybody else public comment?

Yes, sir.

Please start with uh giving us your name.

How are you doing?

I'm Coley.

I made the uh Jeebus movie in town.

Uh you're all awesome.

Uh I love this town so damn much.

Oh, I guess I could I could adjust.

Sorry.

Um, three ideas.

Uh these are just call me the idea, man.

You'll y'all are the reality people, right?

So uh forgive me if they're a little hippie, but um, you know, scared money, don't make money, all that things after the hurricane and all can be tight and all these things.

I got three uh very tangible suggestions on how we could rejuvenate uh Gulfport faster.

Um, uh use the human capital we have here.

We have a lot of brilliant people, you know, um engineers, scientists, environmentalists, artists, and when I made Jebus, uh 300 people worked for back end only.

They didn't require payments.

So I know personally, uh, you know, I could throw a beach party and we could go fix that thing up.

We let's get 300 hippies out on the beach, you know, carrying rocks, you know, digging sand.

Um pay for the hard cost, but let's use our people.

I think you know uh if we get that beach done faster, the whole downtown becomes more vibrant and um you know lean on the people at Gulfport because they're very passionate people, and um I think we could do something there.

So if you want to throw a beach party to help fix it, uh let me know, I'll help you.

And Jeeves, just so you understand this public comment right now is regarding the budget and the budget only.

It is well, that would save you a lot of money because it's free people.

That's what this is budget oriented, believe it or not.

Um, to bring in more tax revenue to that budget.

Um I think we should make town shores uh not 55 plus.

Um it would bring a lot more young people uh who can help when the hurricanes happen, et cetera, et cetera, um bring more artists to town, more revenue base, and uh I think ownership rights uh should supersede HOA rights.

Um I had lived there in a condo that my pup up had owned, and I will uh inherit one day, and they had an HOA problem with that, and so if you're kicking Jeebus out, Lord knows for the little guy or gal, that's pretty nuts to me.

But um I said the whole time I'm I'm really doing something pretty good in there in town there, but you know, you can you know and then thirdly, um the Jeebus movie has one percent left on its cap table before uh we have to close out the cap table.

And I would love to give Gulfport one percent of the Jebus movie.

It's essentially a advertisement for the town, and if there's any money in the budget to promote it uh to help us get a better deal with Netflix, um that could drive a lot of money.

So say uh we spend 50,000, 100,000 on ads and we get a a certain number of followers that Netflix picks it up, and then the movie becomes Napoleon Dynamite, and that's a hundred million dollars made, right?

That would be 49 million bucks coming into the town because the casting crew own 49 percent of it and Gulfport would own one percent.

So I can't turn water to wine, but I might be able to cover the water budget.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment on the budget?

Hearing none, I uh close public comment.

All right, we'll call the vote.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early, yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries on first passage or first reading.

All right.

We have no presentations tonight.

So from there we will go move to public comments.

So you're limited to three minutes.

You can say whatever you'd like to say that's not on the agenda already.

And uh a show of hands, and I'll call you up here.

Regina.

Regina Buscemi, very happy Gulfwood resident.

I forgot what I was going to say.

9 11.

Thank you.

Yes.

Well, thank you for being so thorough with the budget.

I am not a money person.

What I got out of that was that Sergeant Woodward is now a commander, which is awesome.

Anyway, yes, I'm here to discuss 9-11, which will be, of course, on September 11th.

Justin has moved it to Veterans Park since we can't use the casino.

It's at 8 30 in the morning.

Moment of silence at 8 46.

I hope to see all of you there.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Show of hands.

Ingrid.

Ingrid Bedenberg, 56th Street South.

I am reading some things here because I was just asked to make some comments tonight by the chamber, the merchants chamber.

The um some of you may know that the Creative Pinellus is being threatened with being defunded.

And I would love to just have you be aware of this possibility and for the community to know this.

I know four people on our block that are applying for Creative Pinellas grants.

And I think Gulfport knows how important the arts are.

Creative Pinellas is a nonprofit that distributes monies to the artists and to the community throughout the community throughout the county.

And they've been very, very effective and very judicious in their allocations of money.

But now their focus is on the intersection of art and tourism, which we know can benefit Gulfport.

I'm going to just read what somebody else wrote much more uh eloquent than I just to for people to know what they can do if they're interested in having the arts funded.

In my estimation, defunding creative penells would be a grave mistake.

The arts, as has been demonstrated by numerous studies on numerous occasions, are a magnifier of community funds, not a consumer of them.

Arts funding returns to the community many, many times over, yet strangely the budgetary attack dogs seem to come from the golden goose time and time again.

Well, the arts add significantly to the draw Pinellas County has in tourist destination.

That's because the arts here are wild, vibrant, and unpredictable, not a carefully engineered tourist experience.

So the point here really is that Creative Pinellas has a wealth of experience and expertise within the ranks of its very small staff and its board and its mentoring, exhibits, and grants deeply water the roots of the artistic community, the fruits of which in turn directly feed the community at large.

Tomorrow night at 6 o'clock, the county commission is going to be hearing from the community, and we know that a lot of people are going to go up there and be able to speak, but some people can't, and there are ways of making our voices heard by the county commissioners.

I'm here to ask that all of you also contact the council, they're the commission, and anybody that's interested to go to creativepanellist.org, get a better idea of the good work that they're doing and what they can do to actually help sway them to make the right decision to save the money, the money that has already been allocated to Creative Pinellas.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ingrid.

Sir, I don't know your name.

Is this uh appropriate for the utilities though, or is that later?

That's later.

Okay, thanks.

Uh-huh.

Yes.

Hi, I'm Beth Burkebein.

I live on 56th Street, and I've been a Gulfport resident for 23 years now.

I've been a member of uh Boca Sierra Yacht Club for over 16 years, and I want to tell you a little bit about uh some of the happy news that's going on over there.

Um it's been nearly a year since Hurricane Helene devastated our town.

The marina's south basin, which was originally built by our members, was destroyed.

A lot of boats were lost, our grounds were trashed.

Um, but there was only about a bucket full of water inside our clubhouse, and we were shocked.

Thirty-six hours after the storm, we had power, we had running water, internet access, we were able to provide charging stations, hundreds of pounds of ice, cleaning supplies, and moral support to the surrounding neighborhood.

Some club activities were curtailed by the storms, but we focused on moving forward.

This spring we held our adult sale school introducing new sailors from Gulfport and the surrounding community to our wonderful little bay.

Over the summer, we were able to once again teach kids how to sail in our free youth sailing program.

We are eternally grateful to the city for expediting the beach cleanup behind the Lions Club.

That protected area is a perfect spot to launch little boats, prams, and small sailboats, which is what we teach the kids in.

But it was really trashed by boat salvage operations over the winter.

It became littered with dangerous debris, fiberglass metal, all kinds of nonsense.

Um with a little encouragement.

But uh we want to say a special thank you for getting that area ready for youth sailing over the summer.

Uh recently we also established a fleet of uh uh with the U.S.

Sunfish class association.

These are also little tiny one-person one-sail boats that are easily launched from the beach and really fun to race.

We have three uh sunfish sailors that complete nationally, and we're hoping to bring a sunfish regatta to Bokisega Bay uh in the coming year.

Again, without that beach cleanup, this wouldn't have been possible, and we really want to thank you again.

Adult Sale School starts again on September 17th.

There's still spots available.

Check our website.

We'd love to invite all of the uh city council members to come down the last two weekends of September and see what we do, and um docking practice is especially fun to watch.

And now for the really big news, I'm thrilled to announce that BCYC's annual lighted Christmas boat parade will return this year on Saturday, December 13th.

Um I believe it's the 40th anniversary of the boat parade, unless you do hurricane math.

Um the parade will once again support Operation Santa Toy Drive, and all the details can be found on the website.

So try to ignore the fact that it's 89 degrees outside and start planning your holiday parties now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who's next for public comment?

Yes, sir.

Is this for a utility?

But my question is for the no, this is public comment.

There'll be public comment when we do the reading of the utility.

Yes, Albert.

Albert Reisenberg, 19th Avenue South.

Uh, first of all, I want to thank all of you for your dedication.

The last meeting we were here.

I mean, we stayed for part of it, and then we went home and watched some more, and you guys went right into the I was sleeping when you guys finished.

And I really appreciate all of you, all of your dedication.

It's really important for Gulfport.

I know that you're really involved, uh, including the manager, everybody.

Um, and then the other thing I wanted to ask is I heard the city manager mention that the Lions Club was getting torn down.

Is that true?

Is it going to be rebuilt, or what is that property going to be used for?

Thank you.

All right, who's next?

Karen.

Thank you, Karen.

Karen Schwartz, um, Delete Avenue South.

So the other day I was going past the library, you know, on 28th Avenue, and um, so the south side of the library, and had been just mowed, and there was grass in the street.

I was kind of shocked because there's been so much talk about cleaning up, keeping the streets clear.

What I do is um on our street, plants grow in there's like dirt, but of course there's erosion.

So the plants that are growing in the curb next to where the street starts, I pull them all out.

I want to make sure that the water will flow.

Our street is a river.

We don't have um uh storm sewers.

The other thing that surprises me is I don't know, uh I don't really understand why our storm sewers don't have grates.

It seems like they're big holes where I I was reading somewhere, I don't remember where.

This is this is you know, Facebook news news.

Um a child fell into one, wasn't here.

And I just don't get it.

I I you know they're not like the grates that you ride your bike over and your wheel gets stuck and you go head over tea kettle, you know.

Um they're in the they're right in the curb.

So I'd like to know why they aren't covered and how many balls or and toys are found down there, you know.

I worry about dogs and cats falling in there.

And that's it.

That's all I have to say tonight.

All right.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment?

Wolfgang.

Hello, thank you.

Wolfgang Dininger, uh, Gulfport Grassroots.

Um and uh Gulfport Grassroots will be uh having a our uh monthly beyond the beach cleanup on September 13th.

Uh we meet at shelter number four on the uh Gulfport Beach at 8 a.m.

And the event runs from 8 a.m.

to um 10 a.m.

Uh we supply everything everybody needs pails, pickers, gloves, uh water to drink, um uh uh uh sunscreen lotion and even more.

Uh so we hope everybody in our community shows up.

We've been getting a lot of outsiders, uh, and we'd like to see more uh Gulf Port uh people there.

As I reported at the last meeting, our last cleanup in August, we had uh 22 people, and we got collected over 150 pounds of trash and debris off our uh waterfront area.

Uh and then also in October, looking um forward, uh Gulfport Grassroots is going to be co-hosting with Keep Pinellas Beautiful and the City of Gulfport, the international uh coastal cleanup at Clambayou.

Uh this event happens uh twice a year well at Clambayou.

We change the names uh in the spring.

Uh and that event will be October 4th.

It'll run from 9 a.m.

to 11 a.m.

We'll be joining volunteer groups throughout the country and indeed throughout the world in cleaning up uh coastal areas.

Uh also in October, we uh Gulfport grassroots will also be co-hosting with Keep uh Pinellas Beautiful, also with the international uh a coastal cleanup, our regular monthly beach cleanup on October 11th, and that again is uh at shelter number four.

Uh as we do every month, every um as a second uh Saturday of every month, we do it with Keep a Pinellas Beautiful, who supports us and uh uh helps us out with uh supplies.

So we hope we see everybody there.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Anyone else before I close public comment?

Yes, Lisa.

Hi, Lisa Milky Waterfront.

I'm here today again to address the growing concern in Gulfport, the long-term camping and car dwelling in our public spaces.

While we all value compassion and community support, many individuals currently occupying our parks and parking lots, have declined assistance from social services and the VA.

This is not a matter of outreach, it's a lifestyle choice that prevents presents real challenges for our town.

The lack of proper sanitation and facilities in these areas poses health and safety risks.

The constant presence of parked vehicles, personal belongings and gatherings day and night to track from the appearance and accessibility of our public spaces.

These areas were designed to be clean, safe, and welcoming for all residents, including families and children.

When they become informal campsites, many feel unsafe and discouraged from enjoying them.

I speak from personal experience.

I've had individuals knock on my door and confront me with accusations.

I no longer feel comfortable bringing my elderly parents to the pavilions, which are often occupied for the entire day with people sleeping and storing their belongings on the picnic table.

This is not the environment our public spaces were intended to foster.

Local businesses are also affected.

Gulfport's charm and walkability are central to its economic vitality.

When public areas resemble makeshift camps, we risk losing visitors, shoppers, and tourists in neighboring towns that maintain more inviting atmosphere.

This is not about the occasional overnight stay.

What we're seeing is sustained long-term presence month after month in multiple locations across Gulfport.

Vehicles are used as storage units, gas is brought in by portable cans, camping gear, solar panels, furniture, personal items are spread out and left indefinitely.

These gatherings are not happening on the beach, but in our parking lots and the pavilions.

This issue is expanding and demands action.

Restricting camping in public parks and lots is not about exclusion.

It's about restoring order, promoting safety, supporting the broader community.

Resources have been offered.

And if this matter comes to a vote, I ask that you represent the constituents who elected you and not your personal ideologies.

Thank you.

Lenny.

Good evening.

And uh the gecko fest was I think a really a tremendous uh uh event.

Uh it appeared to me that uh there might have been more people there at this event than I've seen the previous events the last couple of years.

And uh one thing I've noticed is that on our side streets where cars are trying to find a parking spot that there's a almost a log jam, it could be.

And uh some of the streets have been closed on one uh the parking has been closed off and there's cones that say that's when that parking cannot be allowed.

But the um there's nothing that talks about remote parking.

I know we have spaces where there are uh like the parks where there could be remote parking or some other places, and also I did not see that we have a looper or some kind of transit that could pick up people and and shuttle them around.

So I'm hoping that maybe next um festival is occurring where we're attracting a huge crowd.

I think it was very successful, but we should have a way that people can park remotely, get to the event and uh with shuttles, and I would like to see that we had it one time a shuttle, but I don't know what happened if it was operating.

But anyhow, thank you.

All righty, with that, then I'm gonna close public comment and we're gonna move on to the city manager report, please.

And if you will, into the microphone.

Yes, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor, uh, first item that I have, and I'm gonna as Mr.

Salsman is not here this evening, he wanted me to announce that on your September 16th meeting, you will see a draft ordinance for your consideration in regards to camping and such on the in the beach area.

So you will have that in front of you on the 16th Teresa, am I correct?

On the 16th meeting, it'll be on the agenda, along with the second reading of the budget and the millet rate.

Um, in regards to the Looper was in service, the shuttle was in service during the Gecko Fest.

I just didn't see it.

Okay.

The next item um in regards to drain grates.

Those small areas that we're talking about at the throat of a catch basin in one breath, and I have to, and I'll talk to my parks department about putting grass in the street.

But that if you were to put a grate in front of the storm drain, you're gonna catch all that grass and it's gonna stop the effectiveness of the drain.

Next, and the last item I have this evening, Mayor, is Councilmember Shaw had asked that you'd be giving a report that your similar report on the activities of community development, and that's before you.

That's it.

All righty, and before we move on then, um, do we have any uh questions of the city manager?

Anything that he just addressed going in speaking order.

None.

No.

So I I got this, and this is great.

Thank you.

Um, but it doesn't address the hundred letters that we send to people and how many of them have responded and what the results of that is.

Well, we took that off because we're now working through them as code enforcement cases, and you'll see the increase in code enforcement cases.

We've taken the increasing number of code and for open code enforcement cases.

And we'll we'll add that to it.

Okay, yeah, that would be really helpful.

And I know someone to magistrate this this right.

We have more coming this next month.

That was we've taken, I believe, seven to magistrate.

And and are we do we still have one contract person that we're using at the permit department?

The for per plan review?

Yes.

Yes.

We have one contract plan reviewer, and subsequently, once we change over, hopefully by October 1st, that will be included in your contract for outside services.

Councilmember Shaw.

Thank you.

And thank you for adding the detail in the future too.

Sure.

Is that it?

That's it.

The only um no, that wasn't something you spoke about, so I have to wait and deal with that later.

Never mind.

Um Mayor, you can you have the chair.

I think I I wanted to because I I know that our city attorney has been working on verbiage.

Right and he keeps hashing it out with different people trying to find the teeth to do it.

So but the one thing that I don't think we've addressed, and I thought maybe you or maybe you'd ask the chief to come up here to maybe just give an a little a real quick overview of what are the police doing now.

Chief.

To enforce the scenario that m what most people are talking about and complaining, and I know we get different complaints every day, but primarily it's about our long-term residents, quote, non-residents who are living camping gathering on our beach day in, day out for months at a time.

We've made contact with nearly all of them, and uh we've asked them to clean up the area around them.

Once the ordinance is finished, I think we'll have a little more teeth to be able to do something about it.

But right now there isn't anything that prohibits some of their behaviors.

And we did treat like the tents and things we talked about, we enforced the structures, but the idea of what what their issues are not related to, as we spoke, as Ms.

Milkey spoke of, it's not repla regarding homelessness.

These are people who are actually living in their vehicle and things, then that's what the city attorney hopes to address.

And I think that's a really key element because I don't think there's anybody in Gulfport that doesn't have um empathy for the person who has become homeless and not not quite done have their feet underneath them yet and know how to handle it.

And of course, when we encounter that person, we'll call our social worker in.

But this is this is a different scenario that we have going on, and it's called life choice.

They're choosing to live across Florida's beautiful beaches for long periods of time and use our facilities.

And I had one of our long-term residents living in a car explain to me and let me know that he did not think that we were keeping the bathrooms clean enough.

And I asked him if he wanted to go down to Dollar Tree and get some supplies.

And one thing I need to address, Mayor, is as it was also spoken of and it was referenced earlier once again by the resident of Shore Boulevard, that it directions for living, Elijah has been out there to speak to these individuals.

Also there was veterans administration outreach program that did come to the beach to talk to some of these people if they to offer them uh you know assistance.

So that's where we're at.

And the Chiefs and Chief Fernandez have both done a great job of trying to communicate with these folks.

So one question to you, Chief.

If if you go down there and there is a problem, does anybody ever get any kind of a ticket uh citation, a violation, or you just ask them to correct their behavior and they do while you're in sight and then they go right back to the bad behavior an hour later.

I mean, how many how many warnings do people get?

To my knowledge, we have not issued any citations to anyone.

Again, as I said, what they're doing is right on the line of what our ordinances allow.

So it isn't a situation where we're just giving them warnings.

We can't give them warnings for meet-up ordinances, unfortunately.

I would love to be able to tell people a yeah, today you can't do that, but we can't, we're not that kind of a community.

So we're waiting for an ordinance that will help us enforce some of these things that people are doing.

But honestly, you can't have a a law or an ordinance or a rule for every single thing because people are just gonna figure out how to work around it.

Right.

So we're doing the best that we can.

We're trying to work with people, we're offering services.

Um not services from the city, but services from the community organizations.

And I imagine that you're communicating with the city attorney so that they hear your frustration when you say they're they're coming right to the point, but not taking a toll over it.

And I think, Mayor, as we spoke last Thursday morning with the city attorney, that's the definition.

It's all, you know, to make sure because and and no one we've had this conversation about an homeless individual in the past, and not to get into the specifics of it.

But the courts have found in a very wide ranging latitude that this is not illegal.

So we have to craft an ordinance that, as you talk about that fine line, that is not been declared, it's like the term loitering.

The Supreme Court has declared that loitering is not a crime.

Right.

And that I guess that's the best example, or and they've articulated also that being homeless is not a crime.

I mean, those are things that we have to take into consideration with because of the risk of someone filing a federal lawsuit against the City of Gulf Court Police Department, because we violated something that there's already been Supreme Court action on.

So and there's things the State of Florida tries it once the first thing happens to the State of Florida.

Litigation is filed against them.

So I think I I applaud the city attorney for being very conscientious in working hard to draft that language that we can enforce.

Yes, ma'am.

When you're talking about what ordinance should be, is any consideration giving to parking restrictions as opposed to a restriction to living in your car or camping or that kind of thing.

Because I know I I don't know if it's legal or not, but we used to have parking stickers to for Gulfport residents to park in the beach parking.

Can we, and now we have many streets that have resident only parking.

Can we make some streets be Gulf Port resident only parking or timed parking?

You know, so if you're not a resident, you can park there for two hours.

If if you're a resident, you can park there whatever.

Well, I think get a little sticker from the other.

I think that's a whole different discussion because that would be applicable to everyone in the city.

Yeah.

And all the business people, and that's a lot bigger discussion than do you want to just deal with this issue.

But it would be a way, but it would be a way to address it.

And I understand that, and that's something that I think the council would have to undertake because I'd like to jump in here and say that that really is not uh a city um manager decision that is at the direction of us, and I have asked for us to have that discussion at a city council meeting in October.

Okay.

And if I can address one other along those lines, that's a a parking discussion.

Right.

That's this is a something different.

Exactly.

The parking discussion could solve this problem.

Well, uh understand the broad, but I think as I explained earlier, you know, this is a situation where we've got 10 percent on each side of an issue, and then we're the impact is going to be felt very broadly across the bell curve.

So I mean we will I think you need your first step needs to be to adopt an ordinance that's defensible in regards to what these people are actually doing.

Right.

I just wanted to ask.

Um every week we get an executive report from the city manager's administrative assistant.

And it's the calls that you've answered.

Crimes committed by our residents and their guests sometimes.

Do we get many crime 911 calls for the people down there?

I would have to look at the calls, but I don't believe so.

Yeah.

I don't I don't think we do.

Okay.

And I just want to touch on one thing.

You commented, Mayor, that you know, people are choosing to live this way.

I don't know that you can paint everyone with a broad brush like that.

I think that in some cases there are some mental health issues going on, and maybe they don't they they're not capable of maintaining a home.

So just keep that in mind.

We're in in with all of our contacts with folks, we sort of have a an inside scoop on what they're going through and what they are experiencing.

So we're trying to be as empathetic as we can and make sure that none of our ordinances are violated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all I have there.

I I don't know if everybody else is aware, but from my tours in the police department and the fire department, I've become aware that that you can carry technology with you and assist mental health issues on the spot, connect them with the counselor, connect them with resources on the spot.

We have a social worker.

We're doing I I believe that might even be available at one of the other city facilities, the library.

I'm not sure.

Um the the the resources and assistance for mental health issues if someone's we can get and then primarily it's when the officer interacts, we can put we'll walk, we'll give someone an iPad and they'll stream with someone and we'll walk away and let them have a personal conversation.

And I I just think that's that's really incredible that anybody that's having some kind of mental health issue, even on the spot can get immediate help.

Um so now again I I hear your point about you know different issues applying, but we do have folks there that said they have no intention of leaving.

This is perfectly great for them.

They are happy campers.

So we have that.

And even today I got an image and I shared it with the city manager where you know they did their laundry, they've tended to take over the pavilions, so our residents don't feel comfortable even getting to use the pavilions.

And um and and there was their wash laundry spread all over the pavilion across the tables and benches and everywhere.

Um, you know, that I I mean they're they're happy, they're their needs are being met.

Um, you know, and and to to at the expense of our residents' ability to use these types of amenities.

So whatever we can do to move forward on a resolution on that, um, I I think we really need to because our community's been impacted.

I've been approached by um businesses as well.

I don't know if anybody else has, but you know, they're concerned about it as well.

And um, so that's what I'm trying to respond to.

I said from the very beginning, you know, when I agree to be a candidate, even that I would listen, I would hear, and I would be the voice, and I'm committed to that.

Thank you.

Again, the city attorney is working on it, and it will be at our next council meeting.

All right, was that all that all that you had?

Okay.

Um City Clerk Report.

No report this evening, Mayor.

Okay, but before we move on, I need to to state that um though our city clerk did not want to m me to make a big deal about this.

I just feel the fact the need to share with you that she has finished her education and her schooling, and she now has her official certificate as a municipal clerk.

All righty.

So now we'll go in um public spe in our speaking order.

Your attorney it it's not on here.

Oh, it is.

I missed my eyes, went right over it.

And there's no report other than the ordinance I was gonna touch on, but that's it.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right.

Did you want to touch on the ordinance or just that that Mr.

Saltzman was working on this?

Exactly.

All right.

My eyes went right over it, I guess, because I didn't highlight it.

All righty, uh, council comments and reports.

Um my only comment and report today is that there's going to be paving happening from Gulfport Boulevard down 58th Street all the way to 15th, 17th.

And um we're gonna have an open house for that at the um community center on September 25th.

Okay.

I just wanted to mention um thank you for talking about the sailing school.

When I left my home, which seems like 10 hours ago.

Um my husband was right at the laptop, so there was eight spots left at that point.

And I'm just gonna ask you to retract the everyone go down and watch her dock the boat with you in mind.

Thank you.

I'm very excited to that in that's all right.

Um, so a couple things.

Um it could be under new business, but I'm just gonna do it now.

Um that now that we're talking about stormwater stuff, some of the easiest things that we can do to prevent storm water is to have more permeable ground.

That's like the very easiest thing.

So we had talked before about changing our definition of green, and in our ordinance, we have 20% of a lot has to be green, and that now means 100% permeable.

We could increase that to 25%.

Places like Anna Maria have 40% because I mean they're even more vulnerable than we are.

But I mean, that's something that we could consider.

And there's also we could make it so that you can't make a cement driveway unless it's there is permeable concrete.

Right.

But but that's a rare thing.

But but there are pavers that are permeable, either the kind that like Havana Cafe that have the the open space and you can put gravel or moss or something in there, or pavers that have bigger spacing that aren't really much more expensive.

And again, because they're building so many new houses right now, it would be a way to keep more permeable ground and and absorb more water that doesn't even get into our stormwater system.

So I think that those are things that we should consider um taking up.

Also, we have about $7,000 in our tree bank money, as well as the $30,000 that we've got in the budget for next year, but this $30,000 we have right now that I think we should really start spending.

And I went by the library today, and I noticed all the lovely plants that we had there before are gone, and there's just mulch.

So I'm kind of wondering what happened there.

And there's some some somebody brought up to me and I saw them yesterday that around some of the trees on beach, they've put shells.

And I don't know why.

Um but and I don't know that the shells will necessarily harm anything.

I think that they um but they're messy.

The shells are messy, especially when they're on the top of the ground and they'll you know, kind of get everywhere, and they'll get in the drains and stuff too.

So I'm wondering why why they did that.

They they don't seem necessary.

Um I've been talking to some residents about the potential to have a meeting with our current um engineer that's working on our stormwater study, and the people that we're using for our beach um engineers, and there's a couple engineers in town that do this kind of work about making where the where the sand is dug out along the casino pad, once we get the um shoring put in for the sidewalk in the street, to instead of filling that with sand again, because that'll just wash away again until we fix our stormwater problems and don't have water running down beach, it's gonna wash away again.

And if we built like a river, so if we put boulders and did salt tolerant planting, it would sort of be like a rain garden, but it would be a little deeper and a river, and if the tide comes in, it would come in and come over the boulders.

If the rainwater goes out, it would still be doing exactly the same thing it's doing now.

It just wouldn't be eroding more sand, and we wouldn't be wasting another 184,000 dollars putting sand in.

And it's something that we could do.

The city could potentially buy the boulders and the plants, and we could make a community beach party to implement it the same way that we did this the rain garden that's in front of the rec center now, or the one that unfortunately didn't do so well that's on the beach.

And the same thing I know that Priscilla Kidder made a plan for putting plants towards the rec center.

That's another project that we could do with community input as long as the city just bought some plants.

So those are two other things to consider.

Um so Dean Hay, who's a resident here and very knowledgeable about trees and urban forestry, um, would like to make a presentation on canopy, and and if we do it sometime in October, he'll have some updated figures because when he presented before, the council um decided that we wanted to have 30% canopy, and we lost a lot of trees in the storm, and we haven't had time to plant as many as we lost, nor have they had time to grow.

So, and um, and as we're building more houses, we're gonna be taking down more trees.

So, you know, I I know we don't have 30% by any means.

I don't know how bad it is, but I know we don't have 30%.

So I would like to see if we could have him do a presentation sometime in October, if you guys think that'd be great.

Okay, I'll get that.

And I also want um permission to have a town hall, probably October 1st at the library, about um hurricane um fatigue.

And um I would have April Lott who presented at the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Resiliency Summit and was amazingly impactful.

Um, to explain, you know, she was flooded and she runs our directions for living the where we get our um uh social worker, thank you.

And um, she's a very good speaker, and it was just you know, you don't even realize how impacted people are, even if they weren't directly impacted, just driving by piles of debris or going by the casino or seeing the fences up by the beach and having storefronts closed, you know, that that you know, and and we've heard, especially now with the the last couple of weekends where the streets flood you know in an hour from an afternoon rain, and you know, people are kind of freaking out again, even and a lot of those people don't even live in the flood zone, and they're freaking out about being flooded.

And so I'd like to have her, she would give a talk, and there might be some other people with services there, and then we could do one on one presentation.

So, like people who were impacted, would talk to somebody who's not impacted and tell their story, and we would record those kind of like Story Core does for MPR and give them to the um history museum as a record of what happened in our storm.

So that would be my town hall.

I like it.

Um go through my notes here.

Um I'd like to know where we are on our comp plan because I know we were waiting to have more ADU discussion until we had our comp plan because it would affect that.

Right.

Have we got it back from the state?

No.

It's been they had questions and they needed some changes done, and Linda Fisher's working on some resubmitting their changes, their requested changes.

So we don't have any idea when we're gonna get it back.

Hopefully, with it between you, I'd like to have it in front of you the next version in December between December and February.

Oh, that far away.

So could we have a a discussion then about because you said that we when we turned on all of us, just so you know, all of us turned in what uh there was a list of 10 questions, whatever it was, and so we all had to fill those out and to see how close we were in agreement on what an ADU proposal should look like.

So could we at least have a discussion item to close those gaps so that when we have the comp plan done, we'll be ready to go.

Well, let me speak to Ms.

Fisher and see what she recommends and what we where we're at.

I mean, I I think we've kind of narrowed it down and we're we're working on, she's gonna work on that also.

We've to bring that forward.

Okay, because there was I think you said there was three parking and we address and that you would get when you start getting into your ordinance, you would hash that out.

Right.

That's what I'm thinking out of the way.

Well, I don't advance until you get an ordinance.

Let me see what I think at that point you would start talking about that.

Just trying, because it may change between that and adoption.

Let me get the comp plan back before you and then we'll talk about where you want to go with your ADUs.

But I don't think you're ready to start the three things we've addressed.

She's coming up with some unique unique ways to deal with those issues, the parking way they did in St.

Petersburg, things like that.

I don't think just what I think you would do is have the same conversation that you had in the past.

But I think we'll get there, but I mean it's a process.

But I will talk to her.

Um and another thing I brought up before, and I brought slides the last time, and I can bring them back again.

But there was um when I lived in England, I lived in a little town that had a marine lake.

And what they did is they had a breakwater that went into the river, and so you could still have water coming in and out, but you could walk all the way around, so it made a promenade from the beach, you know, out around on the thing, and um people could windsurf and stuff like that in this little lake or go swimming, whatever, although it was cold.

Um I talked about this before, whether something like that going maybe from the rec center to the pier would help with storm damage.

And and and I don't know that it would.

I'm not a uh you know, a water engineer and don't know, and I know there's some shallow places there, but I don't know if if in dealing with the mooring field, if we talk to them about whoever would talk about the mooring field, whether that would be something that would be help or not help.

I don't know.

Well, we could ask them if it's even the feasibility due to the fact that you're using public waters that state state-owned waters.

That because it's a good thing.

But it could be a good tourist draw.

We'll ask them if it's feasible.

Council Member Shaw.

Great job on Gecko Fest and Gecko Ball.

So for everybody that helped with it, everybody that went to it and celebrated together, great job.

It was wonderful.

And um thank you for sharing the update on BCYC and letting us know the lighted boat parade is returning this year.

I've been hearing questions about that, so that's good to know.

And it's really positive to share all of the things that BCYC does too.

A lot of folks don't realize the contributions that they make to the community and have over the over the decades they've been here.

Um I just wanted to mention um I I hope it's not premature to say, but I've been talking about uh adopted drains and and uh council member Early and I are actually um working on developing a plan for adopt a drain uh program uh because that should help with um some of the blockage that we get from just yard debris, et cetera.

Um, so uh you you didn't mention it, so I hope that's all right.

Of course.

Um I, for one, and I know uh many others are too, are celebrating the businesses that have reopened.

You know, our our are heartbroken to see businesses closed, and now we've seen so many reopen.

I'm choking up.

I actually had uh a meal at Neptune's the other night.

It was wonderful.

I didn't get to the ice cream place because I'm trying not to eat too much ice cream, but I'm glad they're there.

I was very sad to see that the junk and taco closed.

Um, but um, you know, hopefully who Emma whomever moves in there next will you know be a success because the businesses are the vitality and the quality of our life in this community, along with the sense of community the people bring, of course.

Um we have a wonderful community that came together regarding the loss of Ms.

Melissa Loven.

Uh, she was not just a business owner, but a friend of so many choking up again.

Sorry, I've been good about that lately.

Um, the storm damage and and the loss of someone does hurt.

Um, this on a happier note, the senior centers looking for volunteers to serve at the Thanksgiving dinner.

They have two shifts, three and five.

I'm gonna be there again.

Uh, and for anybody that wants to share the information, it's a big plate of food for $10.

Um, if anyone has anything on their mind, come see me uh at Wonderworks on the first Wednesdays at 2 p.m.

Uh Mondays at City Hall at 2 o'clock.

Uh next week I'll be at Summitra's on Tuesday from 11 to 1.

And I'm starting a new one, the third Friday's doing an after hours one at Salty Pups starting at 6 p.m.

And so um caffeinate wine conversation.

I haven't figured out a title for it yet, but I'll I'll get there.

Um, and of course, we can set up other times to get together.

Email me, call me, we can get together casually.

Uh it doesn't have to be a a real formal thing.

It's it's all about our community conversation.

Um hurricane preparedness is still a very important topic during hurricane season and an effort to contribute to emergency preparedness.

The pledge to evacuate campaign is to encourage everyone to plan early.

Sign up on the pledge to evacuate on the city website.

There's a quick link to it.

Uh don't wait, pledge to evacuate.

Um, I have a few questions, and I hope it would be appropriate for me to ask those because these are questions that I'm also hearing from others.

Is that acceptable?

Sure.

It's a within your 10.

All right.

Um when we do the repaving on 58th Street.

Um, what is the plan and the delaminating paving due to the bricks underneath?

So because the water just keeps getting under there, it delaminates the paving.

Do we have a specific plan for that?

Yep.

That's my question too.

Yes, the 58th Street.

It'll be a full-depth reclamation where they come in and they grind all the bricks will be ground up as part of that new base material, so we will not have that problem moving forward because right now you get all that water underneath the bricks, and the bricks really can't be salvaged.

So it'll be a full-depth reclamation to solve that issue.

Uh some of us feel affectionate about bricks too, so I get it.

I get it.

I I understand what you're saying.

I asked the question and thank you for the answer.

Um, did we send a letter requesting addressing the safety issue of the unfenced pool at the 5.767 acres?

I understand we can't enter the property, but people are asking, did we send a letter?

I will follow up with code enforcement and let you know.

Okay.

Um, and have we look looked into the possibility of texting residents regarding Steve Street?

David and David and Justin are looking at the possibility of having a text alert system.

Oh, excellent.

That was gonna be excellent.

Excellent.

Uh, and of course, you've already talked about these uh permitting issue uh question, and then the status of beach permitting.

Oh, they're asking what the status of the beach permitting is.

And just so you know, he's gonna be given a long presentation here in a little bit.

Oh, I didn't know.

Not really on not on the beach.

Not on the beach itself.

Again, just a real quick recap.

We applied for an Army Corps permanent uh permit for an emergency beach restoration back in January.

We've got a long paper trail with the Army Corps.

They gave us that.

We were able to then bring some additional sand in, and our goal is to then put the uh sheep piles in, as the mayor mentioned earlier.

Subsequently, after we put the sand in, we had 200 year events that one weekend, which again washed a portion of that sand back out.

So we are still waiting on our final permit.

We're moving forward.

Kendrick's a spearheading a project to try to get those sheet piles in now.

We can still do that under the emergency permit, get the sheet piles in, repair the asphalt, repair the concrete, and then work on the phase two.

As soon as that permit comes in, our plans are done, they're ready.

We will be meeting here soon to talk about other options out there.

We are looking at other resilient measures to add to that.

But news at 11 on those, we're still working on that.

And if I can expand, we've had three groups approach us in regards to making up grant applications to do resiliency projects.

And we'll bring you the details of each of those.

Um Professor Hog Hugged Amanda as one.

Um there's another group that's approached us to do further to the east of the casino, and then one group that had previously did the rain garden on the beach this year club.

So there's three separate projects, one east at a casino, one west of the casino, one almost at the casino with some some type of resilient project or rain garden and two other planting projects.

One thing we have to be cognizant of, and this is not a popular sometimes not a popular statement.

You still have to have a public beach area.

And so that's always a concern, and I voice that to each of these groups that you still have to have a place to go to the sandy beach.

You know, we'd all love to see because if left untended, I will tell tell you from my experience here, if that beach was left untended, it would quickly become an area like clan by you.

Because this is basically a flat versus a it's an engineered man-made beach versus a sandy gulf front beach.

Okay.

And while you're standing there, any word from Stantec on the stormwater runoff and um vulnerability reports?

That's before the end of the year we will have those advanced standards.

That's not standard.

There is movement on it.

November.

In November.

Oh, that's better than December.

Thank you.

Before the end of the year, but November I've chatted with them about.

Yes.

All right.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate your help.

Anything else?

Okay.

Thank you, Tom.

Is that do you have anything else?

Oh, that's sorry.

I usually say okay.

Thank you.

That's all right.

No problem.

All right.

So just to respond to a couple of things that were said during public comment.

Um to Lenny, I say I also was wondering about the looper schedule and the parking options.

I got it as a screenshot on my phone around two o'clock in the afternoon.

So I think that that would be a really good conversation to have with the uh Chamber of Commerce who puts on that event along with the um the group that organizes and does all the marketing for them uh that that they need to do a better job on marketing that.

I mean, overall, it was just a wonderful gecko fest, but on those two issues, uh, there were a lot of questions, and I think that could be worked on.

Um, in terms of what um Vice Mayor Thanos had to say, I also agree to 100 percent that we need to um in the future increase our permeable um or uh increase or decrease our permeable surface, okay.

But here's the thing.

I was in a class today, uh the mayor's uh mayor's class, and it was about nothing but State Bill 180.

And they made it so clear, they could not be clearer.

What's different about this State Bill is it's retroactive.

So literally, we as a city are not allowed to do anything that could be considered restrictive or hindering development in any form or fashion from last August 24th of 24 until October.

I'm I believe it's of 27.

It might be 26, so I'll try and clear that up with you, but I think it's October 27.

So I'm gonna talk about this more at the next meeting, and then I'll give you the correct dates, but we can't do anything.

I think it's a great idea, but we cannot do that right now.

And that ties right into I had asked the city manager to put the um uh ADUs on the um agenda for October as well.

And he said, well, you know, we don't have the comp plan back, just like he just said.

Well, in the class I went to today, I found out that almost everybody's comp plans are being rejected.

Okay.

So they you know, for people who don't come to council meetings routinely and think there's easy solutions to everything, it's because you have no idea of the laws that are coming down at a state level to supersede any powers that the cities have.

So we can't just go out and do something because we want to do it if we ever want to get a penny of state or federal funding down the road.

So we have to follow the rules.

And um again, I'll expand on this more down the road.

And I think that um Vice Mayor's idea of having a uh hurricane uh I can't remember what you called it uh fatigue.

I see it.

I'm on the streets almost daily talking to our residents.

I see it.

It scares me.

And and when it rained recently, it really went up.

Uh the number of emails I got uh from the rains that came in recently were over the top.

So those were the couple things I wanted to say in response to some of the things that were raised by by y'all.

Um for my I want to make sure that everybody knows that I do have Gulfport 2050 coming up.

That is a town hall at the Catherine Hickman that is September 23rd at 6 p.m.

That is not a problem solving or complaint driven meeting.

It is a meeting to talk about your vision.

Where do you see us going?

We as a council have to have some idea of where you think they're gonna be.

I'm not gonna be here in 2050, but some of you are, and some of you are gonna be thinking about your grandchildren.

What do you want golfport to be known for?

What do you want it to look like, feel like, smell like?

Um how what services do we have now that you don't think we'll need in 2050?

What additional services?

Those are the things that I'm gonna hope that you're gonna bring to me at that meeting.

So I hope that everybody will come.

It'll be very conversational, very laid back, all right.

Um we just have to remember that we are the ones that are leading the future for future generations.

Uh next thing, just uh administrative, the next 25 rain barrels are in.

And uh I I sent um all the emails out today asking people to show up tomorrow at 6 o'clock at the neighborhood center with your $20 bill to get your rain barrel.

I also did not hear until about 3 30 this afternoon.

That's it.

They're not giving us anymore.

And when I say they, I don't mean the city.

We apparently um asked for more than they were prepared to uh sell us at that price, and also they make them and they're they're slammed with other things.

So instead of there were some people that asked for two to pick up tomorrow.

Nope, everybody gets one.

That that's what we're gonna have to limit it to.

So if you uh don't come to pick up yours and um you got an email from me, you're probably gonna lose your slot because I think I have a request for about 33 and only have 25 rain barrels coming.

Um then moving along with resiliency and things that we can do, and I'm not talking about we the city, I'm talking about we the residents.

So we had the rain uh barrels class, and um soon I hope people start showing us how they're using them.

And then we have uh the next class that I have is gonna be called the rain garden.

I'm told by the experts that even those of us with small yards can put rain gardens in our yard and collect and hold a whole lot of water off the streets.

Combined with that class that night, I'm also gonna have a class by another expert, not myself, on um Florida natives, because if we're planting the right kind of plants, we're gonna hold twice as much water as if we're uh planting the wrong kind of plants.

So if we're gonna go through the effort, we might as well uh make it work for everything.

Um at one of the at the last council meeting, I heard somebody during public comments say, you know, we need more focus groups to talk this about this and talk about that.

Yes, do them.

You don't need us for focus groups.

You can um arrange for your own meetings.

You can get a group together that has an interest in this or this or that, come up with a plan and come to the council and present it.

We don't have to be involved in in that necessarily.

Bring us the goods.

Um sometimes I talk about Gulfport Connects and sometimes I say Gulfport Connected.

That's the new software program that we're gonna learn all about at the next council meeting.

The correct name is Golfport Connects.

So if you think there's two of them because I use both terms, I'm gonna get better at that.

It's Golfport Connects.

And the last thing that I just wanted to say, I had three different people get real angry over this last week about parking.

And it all three came from a totally different perspective.

But some of it still comes down to the same point.

Many people don't realize that street belongs to everybody.

Just because you have a parking place in front of your home, that is not your parking place.

Anyone can park there, okay?

So as I'm seeing more and more of our residents putting up cones in front of their yards because they don't want anyone to park in front of their yards, or they're running street strings from one mailbox to their neighbor's mailbox because they don't want anyone to park there, or some of them are going ahead and posting no parking.

That's not enforceable.

Those streets belong to all of us, okay.

Common courtesy, you never park in front of somebody else's car and block them in.

So I wanted to make that point.

With that being said, then I'm going to stop and let's move to consent, please.

All right, Mayor, just before I read the consent agenda, I just wanted to mention that I did make a couple of corrections to my meeting minutes.

I put a corrected copy in each each of your desks and they're highlighted.

I just wanted to make sure that you understand you're voting on the corrected copy tonight.

And as soon as I can find my spot.

We will okay.

Item 7A, consider approval of meeting minutes from meeting held August 19th, 2025.

Item 7B, resolution number 2025-62, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a two-year contract with Borough Building Property Maintenance LLC for janitorial services.

Motion to approve.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

Passes unanimously.

Could somebody in the back of the room just step out and tell the folks in the lobby?

I think that they were here specifically about these next ordinances that we're getting ready to go to.

Could somebody just tell them?

Um they've been so patient for so long.

All righty.

With that being said, City Clerk, moving on to 8A, ordinance number 2025-05, second reading.

An ordinance of the City of Gulfport, Florida, amending Article 4 of Chapter 11 of the Code of Ordinances pertaining to water service per providing for amendment of subsection C of Section 11-48, water service rates established, responsibility for payment, providing for applicable rates over a multi-year period, providing for the repeal of ordinances or parts of ordinances and conflicts here with to the extent of such conflict, providing for severality and providing for an effective date.

Motion to approve.

Second second.

Yes, as previously on first reading, this adopts an 8% increase to your water and sewer rate.

These item 2025-05 and 2025-06 are together, they both provide for an 8% increase in your water rates and also your sewer treatment rates.

Thank you.

I mean, not public comment, but council comments.

I have no comments.

No comment.

I just have a quick question.

It says responsibility for payment.

When I read through there, I didn't see anything about responsibility for payment.

Sorry.

That's the name of the section.

Oh, okay.

So it doesn't talk.

This part doesn't talk about who's responsible.

It's just the name of it.

Right.

A section dash 11-48 is water service rates establish responsibility for payment.

That's the title of question.

Thank you.

Because I was wondering why that wasn't there.

And I just wanted to make a comment.

I was hearing from anyway.

The town in in Hillsborough next to Temple Terrace.

And they have a problem with PFOS.

And they they do their own water treatment and their supply.

And they are within current EPA limits, but by I think 2031, they're going to have new much lower limits.

And so people in their community are complaining and wanting them to get down to the 2031 limits.

And so they're gonna have to do some extensive expensive stuff to uh treat their water coming in.

Um we don't do obviously we we don't do our own water, but it it's just something to keep in mind when people worry about the the rates at some point we're probably gonna have to pay much more because they're gonna have to do this really expensive treatment for PFOS that we don't even quite know what that would mean.

And it wouldn't be us doing the treatment, but the people we get our water from would have to do it.

So just want to make that comment.

Thank you.

I have no further questions.

I have no further questions.

Public comment on or on 8A.

Yes, please.

Is this for utility?

Yes, this is specific to water.

Okay.

My name is Ralph Jordan and I've been a resident for 30 years in Godport.

And um it was very good to have bills around 40 for a water bill at that time.

I know that can't happen again.

But my question is are we on an algorithm system for water system?

We're gonna change the meters out.

Are they on electronic systems?

They're on electronic systems.

Do we have an app online for that where we can actually assess that and monitor?

If I may, Mayor.

Yes.

We will initiate a budget.

We will be bringing that forward.

We have to have it where we can read your meter remotely, which will then provide you the opportunity to read your meter reading.

Okay.

Because I just noticed um I used to foster three kids in 2022.

Bills was around about 105 dollars, 11, and I get still bills around 105.

So that kind of made me wonder or the system is on an algorithm as a system because I had issues with Duke Energy in regards to algorithm with them with their um system.

I had um hurricane Milton, not that powerful about five days, I think it was, and um it was showing barcodes when the power was off, it was showing barcodes on my app.

And I had a big argument with Duke energy about that, so and had filed a complaint with the city about it, say Petersburg City, irregular the Duke Energy bill.

So that's why I was concerned about the algorithm that you guys have with City of Godport.

Is it accurate or we'll find out?

Okay, I count it.

It's the same thing I get paid.

That's like the minimum that you can pay.

Okay, basically.

Yeah, and I was told that pretty much that's about going around the whole um city on that that amount.

So uh just wanted to address my opinion on that.

Thank you for letting me do that.

Yeah, no problem.

Yes, sir.

All right.

Uh my name is Tim Walters.

I live at 17th Avenue and 54th Street.

And I'm opposed to an 8% increase.

The consumer price index in Tampa last year went up 3.3%.

Now, I know this is not necessarily tied directly to the consumer price index, but why are we coming up with an 8% increase when prices aren't going up that fast?

According to the Stantech presentation, this increase will put us in the middle of the uh other comparison communities that they had on their slide, but wasn't able to see all of them for middle usage, and it'll be the absolute highest for high users.

Why should Gulfport be in this position?

Why shouldn't we be on the left side lower than average?

This proposed increase is 8% this year and 8% next year, followed by 5% thereafter.

It'd be very simple to smooth this out over time.

Why do you want to punish the existing residents by foisting this 8% increase on them at this time and next year, and then people who may come to the community later, they benefit from only the 5% increase that's forecasted.

Can't we smooth this out to something like six percent so that it would be um fair to everyone?

I also have some comments about the garbage, but do you want me to hold those until later?

Yes.

Okay.

That's all I have then.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else on ordinance eight A?

All right.

Do you want to address that part of that money goes to the upgrading or stone suitors and stuff?

Councilmember Jackson.

Do we have a motion on the floor?

I yeah.

Uh we do.

But I was just wondering if we were going to give any response to this resident that wasn't perhaps in the previous meetings.

I wasn't planning on it.

We don't typically um do that at public comment.

I mean, yes.

Uh Councilmember Early, yes.

Uh Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes, and I just want to say I'll address it.

Part of that money is going to go for repairing our storm sewers to be in our utility enterprise fund.

Not according to 8A.

I don't think that's on A.

I'm in the middle of a roll call vote.

Yeah.

Yes.

Please let me call your name for the record.

Councilmember Shaw.

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Passes.

Thank you.

Item 8B.

Ordinance number 2025-06, second reading and public hearing.

An ordinance of the city of Gulfport, Florida, amending Article 3 of Chapter 11 of the Code of Ordinances pertaining to sewage disposal.

Providing for an amendment of Section 11-37, sewer service charge established amount, providing for applicable rates over a multi-year period, providing for the repeal of ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict here with to the extent of such conflict, providing for severability and providing for an effective date.

Thank you.

Do we have any council comments on 8B?

Motion to approve.

Second.

And now do we have any council comments?

City manager.

Oh, it's 8 o'clock.

City manager.

Mayor, this is the companion bill to legislation to the 20-25-05.

This is the companion for sewer treatment that from the city of St.

Petersburg.

Thank you.

Ready?

Yes, please.

No questions or comments?

No questions.

Again, all of these increases go to help pay for stormwater's, you know, the utility fund for paying for stormwater updates and stuff like that.

So that's part of the reason for the increase.

I have no further questions.

No questions.

Public comment on 8B.

Yes.

Explain what I just did.

If that's what you want to do.

Sorry.

Call the vote?

Yes, please.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love?

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Item 8C, ordinance number 2025-07, second reading and public hearing.

An ordinance of the city of Gulfport, Florida, providing for an amendment of Chapter 11 of the Code of Ordinances pertaining to garbage, providing for amendment of R of Article 1 thereof pertaining to Section 11-21 service charges, Section 11-22 billing, providing for the repeal of ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict here with to the extent of such conflict, providing for severability and priding and providing for an effective date.

Thank you.

Decision to approve.

Second.

Okay.

Mayor.

Mayor, this is a 8% garbage increase to the garbage and recycling rates in the city for the sanitation department.

Thank you.

Any council comments, questions?

Um my only comment is I want to encourage everyone to recycle and compost as much as possible because we pay for trash by the pound.

That's all.

Thank you.

No comment.

Vice Mayor?

Oh, I'm sorry, yes.

I said yes.

Oh, no, we were asking if you had any council comments.

Okay.

That's right.

Nothing further to add.

Nothing further to add here.

Public comment.

Yes, sir.

Mr.

Walters.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos, this has nothing to do with sewage.

I hope you or the stormwater.

I hope you realize that.

This again is another 8% increase.

That is unjustified.

We currently pay.

I mean, I saw the council meeting where Stantec made their presentation.

And earlier it's just like, oh yeah, let's just throw in 8% for garbage too, because everything else is going up 8%.

We are getting uh bad deal, raw deal when it comes to garbage.

We're paying $37 per month is the way I understand it after this is going to be approved.

I looked at other communities around here, and I'm not sure this is apples to apples, but Largo pays $30.

Treasure Island, who went private, pays $23.77 a month.

South Pasadena may be as low as sixteen dollars a month.

And we're more than we'll be more than twice what they are.

This is completely unjustified.

Why does it cost so much?

Because we have one of the most inefficient trash collection systems around.

You send out three guys on trucks twice a week.

This is very inefficient and it's just uh related to the past.

The current way to do it is basically a provider gives you the trash cans and comes around with a one-person truck and an arm that picks up the trash and puts it in the puts it in the truck.

They do this also for recycle.

And where I lived before, you could actually recycle glass and other things that would help out on the sustainability.

So we have a couple of uh ways that I think we could make this more well that we can make it lower cost.

I mean, obviously, one is we only have trash collection once a week.

And we'd be able to reap a lot of savings from once a week collection.

The other way is to make it an efficient system, as I was describing, where you have trucks that go through and dump everything.

And um a lot of those are in by private contractors.

I understand that, but perhaps that's what we need in the city because it's just ridiculous that we're paying so much.

Well, I've been here, this council has reneged on the proposed meal levy decrease and has been rubber stamping eight percent increases on other things.

This is not the change I voted for.

This might not be what the new people thought they were getting, but I didn't vote for a spendthrift city council.

So why can't we become known as a fiscally responsible city and eliminate this uh increase?

So I would suggest that we completely table this until we come up with a more efficient system for garbage collection.

Thank you.

Yes, Ms.

Schwartz.

I'm really glad that guy spoke spoke before me because everything he said was so true that we have very, very inefficient um trash collection.

It needs to be down to once a week.

There is absolutely no reason to have it twice a week.

If you look at the various communities around here, they pick up the trash once a week.

The the the thing with the machine, I know that um uh Tom can explain why some parts of the city can't use that thing.

I I live in one of those parts.

The uh another thing that really troubles me is I'm really unsure of the plastic that are that that is picked up.

I was under the under I I was under the impression that the the uh plastic containers needed to have a where that they would only um whoever we deliver them to only wants the kinds that have a twist off top, they won't take yogurt containers and things like that.

I don't know for sure.

The the the printed material that we that that this the county puts out, I don't know if it's accurate.

I would like something that is clearer on what exactly I can put in my bin.

I have no one, I'm very, very unclear about that.

And composting absolutely, we compost as much as we possibly can.

Um, and I've brought this up so many times, a pay as you throw system, where if you're gonna put out one teeny tiny can once a month, maybe twice a month, you should not pay as much as someone who is tossing everything in the garbage can and is actually using those three huge um uh cans that you're allowed to use.

Um there are many, many things that that we can do.

The fact that it's going up so much, I kinda understand that, but I really think it's time to take a serious, serious look at the trash collection and how it operates in our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Recycle these groups.

Oh, Lenny, I'm sorry, I didn't see Lenny Guggenheimer, uh 52th 13 to let uh Ms.

Schwartz said, uh composting would make a uh council person Jackson mentioned can make a big difference.

Um before I came here and started living with uh Ms.

Schwartz and composting, you throw out me, you threw out all sorts of uh stuff.

If it did sit around in your garbage, it'd start to stink.

He compost, you you don't have that issue, and then you have uh material you can use for your garden.

Um like to say that if at the recycling center that we have here and uh by the neighborhood center, uh there might be some way that we could have uh demolition uh a place would drop off demolition from repair work in your house in like a some drywall or lumber that um otherwise you'd have to take it all the way up to the uh dump site.

You know, it's just some place where you can drop off small things, and that's my comment.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment?

Okay, council member Jackson.

Yes, Councilmember Early?

Yes, Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes, Councilmember Shaw?

Just for the record, I'm very open to other options, but yes.

Mayor Love?

Yes, and I'm also open to other options, and I think that this is something that we could um get on a discussion item soon to talk about.

Um it's just a matter of what comes first.

Do we worry about our homes flooding first?

Do we worry about you know our drains backing up?

I mean, you can only do so much at one time, you can't attack every single problem at the same moment, and this council's been up here for five months.

So um I think I can foresee this conversation coming, and the start of it could be even at Gulfport 2050, which is at September 23rd, because if you heard me, I said, what services would you like to see into the future that we don't have now, and vice versa, what services might we have that you don't think that we need to continue?

So the door is open to conversation.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, City Clerk.

Item 8D, ordinance number 2025-08, second reading and public hearing and ordinance of the City of Gulfport, Florida, amending Article 5, Chapter 11 of the Code of Ordinances pertaining to storm sewers.

Providing for amendment of subsection A of Section 11-100 pertaining to stormwater utility fee, schedule of rates, calculation of fee, providing for an applicable rates over a multi-year period, providing for the repeal of ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict here with to the extent of such conflict, providing for severability and providing for an effective date.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Mayor, this is the stormwater ordinance regarding maybe it's actual investment in your stormwater system, and it requires a one dollar per year increase over the next three years one dollar per month.

Not one dollar a year.

Okay, one dollar per month for the next three years.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Just wanted to clarify that.

All right.

Any uh council comments on this?

No, no comments.

No.

It's not directly about this, but the this stormwater thing brought up to me because one of the things that we were doing was our lateral program to help there be less water to be in the stormwater drains.

Did we I didn't notice any of the things?

No, we still have some monies in the fund because we had applied ARPA money.

I believe we have about $50,000 left.

About $50,000 still in it.

It was budgeted in the previous years, so it's continuing.

The program is so we only have $50,000.

Right.

And then when we get to the end, we'll do what we did in the past, come back to council and asked if they could.

And we've spent close to $450,000 for it.

That was it.

Ms.

Shaw, that's fine.

Okay.

No comment.

Public comment.

Do we have anybody that wants to speak to Stormwater 8D?

Seeing none, I say call the vote.

All right.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love?

Yes.

Carries to passage.

All right.

So it is 825.

I know that we still have a lot to cover, so I don't want to take a long break, but I I'm just gonna take a seven-minute break because I suspect some people could use the restroom.

So we will resume at 8 32.

Thank you.

Because they can't all right.

I think we're just missing one person now.

Okay, so the meeting is back in order.

Um city clerk, if you will, to resolutions.

Item 9A, resolution number 2025-63.

A resolution authorizing the city manager to accept an in-kind donation from of an Atasa USA Incorporated Reach In Refrigerator from the Gulfport Multipurpose Senior Center Foundation Incorporated.

Motion to approve?

Second.

Thank the foundation for this generous donation.

Um helps offset your operating at the senior center.

Wonderful.

Any questions?

Nope.

No.

Anyone need to speak public comment?

Seeing none?

Call the vote.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yay.

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Item 9B, resolution number 2025-64, a resolution authorizing the city manager to accept a donation from the Armed Forces Families Foundation for specific upgrades to Veterans Memorial Park.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Mayor, I'm going to defer to Mr.

Nichols.

Mr.

Nichols, tell us the good news.

We were approached by the Armed Forces Family Foundation, which is a local 501 C3, uh several months ago to look at improving the damages at Veterans Park that were ha that happened during Hurricane Helene and Milton.

We explained to them that those repairs are covered under insurance and and by FEMA.

And so they suggested we walk the park and look at other amenities that they uh could potentially fund.

So we looked at the park.

They we put together a plan that would include a gazebo, a water fountain, some additional picnic benches, as well as a pervious parking area.

So we they said give us whatever ideas you have.

And so we walked the park with them, we showed them that.

We gave them um the map up here, as well as a cost estimate, which was 126,000, hoping to get a piece of that to do some amenities.

They came back and their board approved all of it.

So they will be handing us a check for 126,000 dollars.

The only thing they ask is that they put a plaque uh eight by ten plaque and and be uh invited to the ribbon cutting when we do it, and we have to build all this by June of 26th.

Nice.

So very excited.

You said we have to have it completed by June of 26.

By June of 26th.

So the project I have coming before you tonight on 54th Street will be we'll get that done and then we'll move on to the the amenities.

That's great noise.

I did reach out to them today and um just got an email back, and and they said that several of their members lived here in Gallport and that they just love Veterans Park.

Yep.

And um they were just awesome to work with and and talk with.

So yeah.

I said I would invite them to the uh Memorial Day commemoration next year.

And and a real cool thing about the organization, not a penny.

Every penny that comes in through fundraising or because they do the 10K at the Skyway 10K is one of their bigger fundraisers.

Every penny comes in goes back into the projects.

No board members paid or anything.

Very good.

Uh, do we have any public comment on this seeing none?

Call the vote.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early, yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Item 9C, resolution number 2025-65, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a contract with JR Marine Construction LLC for the repair of the 49th Street Outfall Gravity Wall.

Motion to approve.

Second.

City Manager.

Yes, Mayor, the retention area is adjacent to the Gulfport Marina.

It's the 49th Street pipe comes down, then comes over to it.

Because of the action, we had so much wave action also with flooding in that area.

Also the volume of water coming down the pipe.

It this was built as a retention area for water treatment purposes, water quality proper project.

It just the damage to the wall had washed out both and then with the volume coming down the street in the following storm.

We had some damage to the wall, and I know some of the neighbors had mentioned it to you.

It was in progress.

Mr.

Frain's here this evening to answer any specific questions that you have.

But this is just a project as part of the repair project.

All right.

Any questions that we have in speaking order, please?

No.

No.

So my question is presumably we did engineering to do this project.

What questions should we have asked so that we could have had this done when the wall was built originally to put these things that we're adding?

Well, because the intent was that you had the two storms.

We couldn't this was designed by Dr.

Brown at Tampa Bay Engineering.

That's what caused it.

It was just the volume of water with the No, I I understand.

But presumably we we could anticipate that we would have flooding.

Not to the extent that we did.

Well, but if we had a hurricane hit us, we would have I mean that's what I'm just asking.

Is what questions could we ask, especially in the future, if not for this one, this one's already passed, to make sure that we're planning for things ahead of time so we don't have to repair them after the fact.

The question we would ask, is this sustainable at the volume of hurricane related flooding?

Okay, so I suggest that we do that in the in the future because clearly storms are getting worse, and we're we need to not do things twice.

No further questions.

Um Dennis, I'm sorry, kind of along those same same lines.

Um we're approving the funds for JR Marine to do to do the repair.

Is that who did the insulate installation to begin with?

No.

Okay.

Okay, because I was wondering the same thing, why on a 10-year-old wall.

Yeah.

Um so I understand.

Now we have none of us were hit by uh three hurricanes and a pop-up flood in two and a half months in the past.

So some of our qualifications when we ask questions now have to change as a result.

Okay, thank you very much.

Any public comment on this matter?

Seeing none.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love?

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Thank you.

Item 9D of Ros excuse me, resolution number 2025-66, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with Central Florida Contractors Incorporated for sidewalk and ADA ramp improvements.

Motion to approve.

I second City Manager.

Mayor, I'll invite Kendrick Anderson, he's the future assistant public works director to come forth and move to give you an overview, and he has a pretty detailed map of what repair areas.

Thank you.

All right.

Good evening.

Uh just want to give you a brief overdo overview of what we're working with right now with our sidewalk improvements.

About 2023, we did an assessment.

Most of you guys weren't here at the time, but we didn't have yes, Mayor Love was here, and she's a very inadequate advocate of uh sidewalk safety and maintenance.

So this is our overview of our so more our sidewalk network.

We have 32 miles of sidewalk.

We have a little bit over a thousand ADA ramps.

So what we did was we we had an evaluation done.

We figured out where our our distress locations were.

I didn't provide a map showing the greens and the reds and the serious.

It's no different than a PCI with your roadways.

We did the same thing with the sidewalk.

So what we did was we collected that data, we evaluated where our areas we should focus our efforts.

So we broke the areas up into 12 sections throughout the city.

Last year we decided to work on zone one, which is the waterfront district right here.

And here's a map here.

So what we did was we took that money that was allocated, we began replacements of the sidewalk that we deem was necessary.

The green highlights the ADA ramps that we replaced.

The purple are the proposed for this coming up uh money that we're asking for.

Uh we did about 1800 linear feet last year, and we did 50 ADA ramps to bring them up to compliance.

It's gonna be a little less this year because price of materials have gone up, raw materials have increased over the last five with this new contract.

Let me go back.

The previous contract was a five-year agreement, so the prices were set at that time.

Now we're at a new new set range with the raw materials.

So we're planning on getting majority of that done with that money that we allocated.

Um but then once we get that complete, we are moving on to zone two, which once again is south of the 28th Avenue area, heading to the east toward the waterfront.

Uh let's see.

So any questions.

You know, I know we're doing the the city in in in sections, yes, but but clearly if somebody has a problem, you know, they call in, then we'll go out and shave things or do whatever we need to do.

Yes, so this is just for the capital project.

If we do get concerns or complaints that come in, we do have a shaving contractor who will come in for less monies.

Uh $5,000, usually they can do a whole block.

And there's some sidewalks that don't need to be replaced, it just needs to be knocked down a quarter of an inch to an inch.

So we do have in-house uh small monies for that.

Thank you.

Thanks, Kendrick.

Great maps, by the way.

Thank you.

All righty.

Do we think you can do that?

Do we have any questions of Mr.

Kendricks?

No question I had, Vice Mayor Ashton.

All righty.

Very good.

Uh any public comment on this.

Seeing none, we'll call the vote.

Councilmember Jackson.

Yes.

Councilmember Early, yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Item nine 9E, excuse me.

Resolution number 2025-67.

A resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with the Atlantic Pipe Services for stormwater system televising, cleaning, and repair, and providing for a budget amendment.

Motion to approve.

I second.

I'm back.

Okay.

And my mayor, just to briefly, this I can before Kendrick starts.

This is basically what we discussed earlier during the budget discussion.

This is the movement of those monies to the to this utility fund to fund this first step project.

Okay, great.

So here's another map showing uh we went we worked with the utility department to find some of our worst areas that we're having prone to clogged pipes, uh high canopy, you know, where trees are uh obviously dropping leaves and blocking our drains.

So we got with APS to get a proposal.

Uh as you can see, these highlighted areas are what we're gonna start with.

We're gonna uh uh predominantly start down in the waterfront district.

Um this contract includes the cleaning and televising of the storm pipes.

Uh we do estimate with the money that approved, we will be able to accomplish getting these areas all cleaned and televised that are highlighted in yellow.

Cool.

Now we do have uh we do have 136,000 linear feet of pipe.

So, yes, there is a lot out there to do, but this is about 25,000 linear feet we're proposing on doing.

And uh, we do think and and part of our NPDS requirements for the state.

We are required to inspect and clean at least 10 percent of our system every year.

Now they're gonna be going back next year up net to 20 percent uh across the state.

So we will be accomplishing those requirements next permit cycle.

I have some questions, but we'll go in, we'll go in on our no questions.

That Council Member Shaw and I are talking about, would we talk to you?

We have some questions, right?

So you'd be the person we would talk to.

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I I know that one of the really bad places was Tangerine in 61st, and I see that that's included on here.

But I thought we we'd gone around, you know, since the last couple of weeks, we've been going around and doing some of this ourselves, right?

Yes, correct.

So then we wouldn't necessarily need them to go do it again.

There's a mobilization cost from moving them from one area to the other, so but we haven't had the uh the CCTV truck available to go in there and actually do a PCACP, which will actually inspect all the joints, any lift holes, anything that might be damaging the pipe, we're also gonna be doing that too.

And and how because I know that pipe especially because that's been a real problem area that that pipe is particularly long.

So how far, how long are those camera things so that they well they can expand the 500 linear feet?

That's all yes, but what you do is most manholes and then pick up the next exactly you're not gonna see a manhole that far along because maintenance-wise, it wouldn't make any sense.

And the other thing is I know along 15th, it really flooded bad along 15th, too.

So I don't know if there's you know any way we can include that because I know that people said that was really bad.

Yeah, any money's left over, we're gonna work with your utility superintendent Dwayne Stefansky to see where he's getting the majority of the complaints, just like with I myself, the alleys we get complaints on, we do keep track of those.

So we also prioritize based off of what knowledge we have and what the citizens are seeing out there in the field.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Uh this is very important.

So I'm I'm absolutely thrilled that we're moving ahead with this.

Um, and I do have a list of all the different areas of of uh that I've observed or that I've heard uh input from owners on, and they've wanted me to come see it.

And and I think having a copy of that map will probably answer those questions.

So thank you for that.

I really appreciate you getting this done.

I would recommend we were with us working with our engineering firm, advanced engineering design.

We have been taking photos of these rain, these events that are occurring in these streets, and we actually send it to them.

So they can't be out there all the time.

Excellent.

Same thing with the residents.

We love it when you guys come out and tell us, hey, we had a flood, we're not there on the weekends, we're not there at seven o'clock at night when these rain events are occurring.

So sending it to us, we with this new asset manager program next year we're asking for.

We're gonna put that all in that program, we can keep track of where these calls are coming from, base it off priority, and hopefully we can have maps like this and accomplish the overall goal is ensuring these pipes are clean and ready to roll.

Very assuring excellent.

Thank you.

Let me can I ask another question?

I uh so what about streets like mine that's one of the worst for retaining water and having potholes right now?

Yes.

Um it doesn't have a sewer.

Yes, you only have if my understanding, you have one on 59th Street going toward that watershed out there.

Uh so and and they did put one uh at 27th, where it's really low go, but that just goes straight into what Ibis Park.

It's not it's not a it's not a stormwater sewer.

So again, when we're looking at our whole thing, and I know this isn't what we're doing right now, but what happens to the streets, and I know there's lots of them that don't have stormwater.

That's all gonna be addressed under that uh watershed management plan or the or the water stormwater master plan, if you will, because again, as we've talked before, if we can capture that water further north and keep it from coming south, it's better.

Those are things that we're really looking at, and these were the hot spot areas when we had that hundred year storm event of three weeks ago.

Right, these areas all flooded again.

So that's why these are hot spots for us to give some get some eyeballs on, take a look at these pipes.

But again, you're talking bigger picture.

I know, I know.

How do we solve that?

Do we raise the entire neighborhood or do we and what proportion of the city has stormwater pipes as opposed to the part that doesn't?

Do we have some concept?

Is it like 75% have stormwater pipes?

Yeah, so we do have uh I'm sorry, it's not up on here.

We do have an inventory of where our storm system is.

Um, as far as a definition of percentage of south versus north, eastern uh we don't have that data in front of us, but I can get that to you.

That'd be great.

Absolutely.

Um and I just want to clarify for the record, this is just to ensure that the pipes are functioning as designed.

Um we're gonna make sure they're clear, they're inspected.

But unfortunately, if we do get a heavy rain event again and it's out of the capacity of what we can hold, there may be some flooding, but it's still something that should be noted to the city staff so we can make sure that it isn't something that came down.

Someone said uh a beach ball might get into the pipe or something like that.

Just items like that are good for us to know.

Okay.

So my question was um I understand this is this is to do with our recent flooding, which is not so much tidal, this is rainwater.

Okay.

And um I noticed that not in this not in the last three weeks, but after the hurricanes, and you know, since this um group came into office, I've seen a lot of trucks out there, and we've been pumping out the storm drains.

But the places that I've seen it is really truly where I've seen it is in this area here.

So I I when I heard the four areas, I I was figuring one, two, three, and then I was really figuring four was here because that 59th between 26, 27, and then 27th, and then overflowing to 58th and 28th.

That to me is not always title.

That is a lot of rainwater issues.

So I'm I'm kind of surprised that this is um our fourth area.

I um I thought it was gonna be more here.

So we don't sorry to interrupt.

The ones furthest to the west, southwest is gonna be number one, um, where you were just pointing out just below.

So sorry, it's the one closest to town shores.

Right.

That's uh area one.

It's kind of working its way counterclockwise to that section to the marina to downtown.

Um you're right.

The 58th to the west is a hot spot area.

Uh we did speak with Dwayne.

They had internally they have done cleanings and inspections.

So we didn't want to waste efforts on something that's already been done in house so recently.

Uh I think they just were out there a couple weeks ago.

We've been out there, we're also doing it.

26 and 59, somebody reported to me way better between clearing out the ditch and fixing that stormwater drain.

They said it's much better.

Fantastic.

And we will be back out uh with our contractors September 22nd, I believe is the date to finish that 59th Street ditch, which will help the 26th because that goes to that, and if it's blocked, the water can't go.

You'd ask me about that.

Did we slow down the ditch?

Was it part of the CYC?

From the uh east side, because that pipe goes under to the west.

Yeah, so we did some um preliminary work in-house just to relieve that pressure.

But this this will be a the major project.

When like in the last couple days, or last week.

I missed it.

Okay.

We were we weren't out there very long.

We just did minimal okay until the contractor gets in there.

All righty.

So this is just like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.

You start at one end by the time you're back, you're doing it again.

So this is exciting stuff.

I'm very happy that we're moving forward with this on internally.

So very good.

Thank you.

Good use of guess of my solar money.

Uh any public comment on this.

Resolution.

Seeing none, call the vote, please.

Council member Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Council Member Shaw.

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Item 9F, resolution number 2025-68, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a contract with KM2H LLC for the 54th Street South Intersection, restoration and seawall replacement.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Okay.

City manager.

Tom Nichols.

Yes, we went out to bid to do the repairs needed for veterans park area 54th and shore.

Bids came in.

Um if this is approved tonight, I've already talked to the contractor.

If it is approved, we will have a pre-construction meeting Friday, and he plans to be in by October 1st, the first week of October to get started with the project and get us.

He'll start getting his materials ordered now.

All righty.

Any questions?

No, no.

Is this something that FEMA might pay us back for?

Yes.

Yes, this is definitely a FEMA project.

Thank you.

And we always talk about resilience, and we are adding right now.

There's only two storm inlets over by this Omati side of 54th and shore.

We're adding three additional plus three 24-inch pipes.

Right now, there's only one 15-inch pipe that takes all that water out to Boca Sega Bay.

So we're actually adding three inlets on the east side as well as three 24-inch pipes.

So it's going to greatly improve the chances of that surviving 100-year event.

So because I don't know.

Like no one's speaking order already.

Uh I I know, but I forgot because it just made me think I know, but I didn't get to speak.

Okay.

Um my question was have when I looked at the bids, there was such a wide range in prices on the bids.

So that just made me wonder if we had ever worked with this company before we have any.

But we did check their references.

I had Dennis call because they had done work with the City of St.

Petersburg.

And Dennis knows their harbor master, so he called them and I called others on their list.

So they're going to have some real mobilization costs, some higher cost to come into town to be here for a couple months.

It's a 220-day contract.

I think we're going to get it done a lot sooner than that.

But that's where I think the cost you can do.

And we've seen we've seen that in contracts before.

This is a local company here in Penels County.

You know, it really helps when you say something like that that it's a 200-day contract because you know there's people when we tell them we're going to get started October 1.

When is it going to be done?

They think that we're going to be ready by Halloween.

I mean, so it helps when you give us some you know point of reference.

I've got somebody that calls me almost daily to ask me when it's going to be done.

But our old stormwater drains.

How big are they?

How many inches are they?

Anywhere from correct me if I won't kind of eight inches, probably up to 48 inches.

Yeah, we do we have a max of 48 inch on War of Marina.

So so what's going to be our what we would aim for to be our normal size stormwater drain, or would it depend on the street and it not really depend on the street, depending on what level of service we're trying to capture.

If we're looking to prevent a hundred year storm from flooding a street, then you're going to have large pipes everywhere.

And it's going to be every project that we do, we're going to have to evaluate differently.

And again, we can probably build any project you want to be hurricane, you know, to survive a hurricane, but it's going to cost you here where if we do a standard project here.

So every project's a little different.

But we do look at resiliency and trying to make them better than before.

So thank you.

You're welcome.

Do we have any public comment?

Seeing none.

We'll call the vote.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Thank you.

Whew.

So we have some special guests in our audience today.

They didn't know they were coming for the night and bring their sleeping bag.

So we're going to kick off a discussion here, and that's what it is.

It's a discussion by our hardworking charter review committee.

This council gave them five sections to look at initially, and they did, and they came back with to us with some suggestions for us several weeks back.

And now this is the first opportunity that the council has that they have read through the suggestions and we're going to have a discussion on that.

Thank you very much.

In case we maybe had a question in terms of what you were thinking, and maybe it's different than what we were thinking.

So we appreciate that.

So I just want to make sure that everyone is clear.

So if anybody feels any sense of panic, oh no, what are they doing?

No, we're it's a it's a process.

So that starts with the committee, they bring it to us, we discuss it.

Eventually we hash things out.

Now, they were so kind to us that in addition to the five that we asked them for, they said, well, let us just take a look at everything else.

Well, we're at it.

And we said, well, that would be nice.

So they are doing that, and and they will come back to us with that additional information.

So tonight, this is a discussion.

We might get some consensus on some things of things that we think maybe we should be looking at and want to go to a referendum.

But I don't really want to have any kind of a vote uh about what goes to referendum and what doesn't yet, because I don't know that you agree with me, but I think that if we have a ballot, and I'm just gonna throw out a number.

There's five things on the ballot, five referendums.

I think a good number of people will read them and consider them.

I think if we come back and there's 15, I think that a whole lot of people will just ignore them all.

So I think it would work against us to put too many referendums on a ballot.

So even though I think we'll make some progress tonight and see what kind of consensus we have or don't have, I don't want us to say anything.

I definitely want that on there positively for sure until we see what else they might have come back.

And again, why these five?

These were the five that all of us picked as something that we wanted attention to.

So we've not been through this before yet, so um I think what we probably need to do.

Will the city clerk maybe read the section to us with the proposed changes?

And then being that we all had time to look at them, then we could um each ask our questions coming to you in a minute, um, and make any comments that you might want to make, and we're gonna do one section at a time.

Okay, city manager.

And I now try and Teresa's done a great job managing this whole system.

One thing I I wanted to put on the record is that you would have to draft an ordinance that would take two readings to adopt the question.

This is not the question has to only have less than 75, correct me.

75 words.

The ballot question.

So we'll the city attorney would have to narrow this down to 75 words if you want something that you wanted to change.

And that's 75 words.

Does that only is that 75 words that is a change to that section, or is that the entire section that just the change stop the change has to be 75 words or less?

Okay.

So but you will have to the direction I believe Teresa and the city attorney would look for is the idea that you at least say, yes, we'd like to move forward with starting him to work on drafting you language that you could then consider as part of a first and second reading ordinance.

Okay, so I suspect that um based on how the discussion goes tonight that Andy would have a very good clue what we felt pretty strongly about and and had some consensus on and what we didn't, and then he could start behind the scenes on that.

And that's what we would ask him to have anything.

No, I was just gonna say the same thing.

Basically, what you have in front of you is just our outline, just so that you guys can see what they've been working on.

Um, this is not the ballot questions, this is not like you just so when we're having our discussion, what one more question.

When we're having our discussion, would it be appropriate and okay if we said to the committee?

I'm confused what you were thinking here.

Is it okay for us to interact with them at this point?

Yes.

Okay.

That's all I needed to know.

This is a discussion item, Mayor.

You can set the ground rules.

Okay.

And I just want to go to the rules.

Commend your committee because actually all five of them have stayed through this.

That just shows their commitment to what they are doing for you.

We appreciate it.

Uh I'm just clarifying.

Do you want me to just read what what the changes are, or do you want me to read the whole section?

I think it would be I don't need for you to read it because I've already written all my stuff based on it, but does anybody else need the whole section read or just the proposed changes from the committee?

Okay.

Okay.

So for section 103, which goes over the extraterritorial powers for the city, uh, they have proposed to change uh it instead of 30-year leases, they would like a five-year lease.

Uh they also have come up uh concluded that they would like a monetary amount of any lease for real property should be at fair market value to be turned to be determined through a licensed appraiser.

Uh third section down.

And they have also added to that section upon approval of the referendum by the city's electorate, the grantee is responsible for recording the updated deed with the Pinellas County Clerk of Court within 30 days.

Otherwise, said property will revert back to the city.

Thank you.

Okay.

You kick us off.

Yeah, I have no questions or comments.

I understand that.

Thank you.

So I have a question.

Like the first paragraph about the five years, that looks like it's about property that we acquire as a city.

Okay.

So no.

Well, it says the city may acquire property within or without its corporate limits.

Right.

So that it's not you.

Then you have then you can lease it.

I thought that that's how we would be leasing it.

No.

No.

Okay, that was confusing.

I'll let you all let me jump in here.

Please.

So I so I can hear you on the microphones.

When we're talking about leases of Gulf Port owned properties.

There's some properties owned, you know, down in the marina district and other places.

And with a 30-year lease, we're supposed to be in the best benefit of the city.

That's what the charter calls for.

Okay.

30 years is a long lease.

I agree.

Okay.

So in most businesses, is a five-year lease.

You can renew it.

It's not like you're cutting anybody off.

But you have to go with the appraised value of the property of what the rental costs are.

And that's what we want.

Yeah.

That's income.

Okay.

I was just confused because it starts off saying how we could acquire property and then talks about leasing it.

But I see that it says that we may sell it.

It's about acquiring property that we have.

The second part, also which I want to kind of jump into, was the issue with when the city has given pieces of our property to other people, and they don't register that property.

Okay, with this with the county.

So they're not paying the proper tax bill on it.

Okay.

And it makes a big difference.

Especially when you have waterfront property given to other people.

Yeah, like we did.

Right.

So, you know, if they want the perk of having waterfront property, they're gonna have to pay for it.

Okay.

Do we know if the people that we gave waterfront property to did that?

We didn't vacate waterfront property.

They own they owned the submerged, they own that part.

But the in the area that they vacated declarity, the area that was vacated, I will have to inquire if they did record it.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, otherwise that looks good.

Councilmember Shaw.

I agree with their recommendations.

Okay.

So here's my thoughts on that.

I think that there can be a uh each council can decide in that there can be a policy that uh regarding the five years.

I don't think that I would necessarily bring that to referendum to get the five years and or the um need for an appraiser.

And um being in the real estate business my whole life.

Once you get one appraiser, then you fight and somebody else, okay.

So you get an appraiser and you get an appraiser, and then if they're not the same, then we have to go and get a third appraiser if they're um not that they're not the same, but if they're not within a certain percentage point, and who's paying for the appraiser, and it can become quite a thing versus I feel like um there's a little bit of a policy thing there that in the past maybe we had some councils that weren't so concerned with getting um fair market value, but I think that attitude has changed and that environment has changed.

So um I don't have a problem with that, but I I just feel like to I wouldn't want to see something like this go to referendum to change from 30 years to five years and um call for uh independent appraiser, and then you get into again who's gonna pay for it and how are you gonna decide if somebody says but that's not a fair appraiser.

So that's just my personal opinion.

That would not be one that uh these changes would not be real high on my hot button list.

What about the bottom part?

The bottom part you're the last paragraph.

Um I think I have been told that that is actually somewhere already in our um I don't know what what was I told.

Yeah, it basically we do have a recording requirement.

A recording acquirement.

But I'll have to check if they did record it.

And where is that?

I'm gonna have to check with community development.

Well, before we decide on that, we should probably know that.

Oh, right, without it without a doubt.

But when you're I think that some things can be changed, you know, through policies and not have to uh do the whole charter.

I felt like those were fairly minimal.

I don't think all of them are minimal, but on just that one is all I'm saying.

I thought that was uh fairly minimal to call for a referendum on the um ballot.

Well, I think we can wait to see too how many things we end up with, too.

Yep.

All righty moving on.

Excuse me.

Section 302 is terms.

They would like to add the mayor shall be limited to two terms consecutively.

The council members shall be limited to three terms consecutively.

Any member of council who has reached the maximum term for their seat held must be out of office for a minimum of two years at the time of qualifying.

An exception will only be made, or excuse me, only be permitted in the event there are no qualified candidates for a specific ward or for mayor.

All righty.

Councilmember Jackson.

I have no questions.

I have a question.

So were you thinking that six was the magic number?

That was where you the sweet spot, because if the mayor is from three.

It says here, well, I know it to be three, three-year term, right?

Two three.

Two year terms.

Three say it again.

It's for two, three year terms.

Both of them would be limited to six years.

Right, both of them we would be limited to six years.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

That's what I was doing.

Thank you.

Even though I can't add apparently or read.

It's late.

Okay, thank you.

So personally, I I have no problem too much with with the bottom part.

But I think the term should be longer.

Most cities around here have three or four year terms.

And it's it's it's less expensive in terms of elections and less disruptive.

It takes you three years at least to figure out what's all going on here.

And so two-year terms can be counterproductive.

So I personally would think that we should go to longer terms.

Either you know, three years for the council people and four for the mayor, maybe, um, or all four year terms, and still have term limits, that's fine.

You know, you could have two term limits and have it be eight years instead of six.

But that that's how I feel because I know from being on it takes a long time to figure out all that's happening.

Yeah, we as a board, we went back and forth with that a lot.

Um some had longer term, some didn't.

And what we did was we kind of, as a board, we kind of met in the middle.

And that's that's how we came up to this consensus.

Yeah, I mean, I like the term limits.

I just think the term should be longer.

Okay.

Councilmember Shaw.

I I've always been in favor of term limits, and having that clause as to how to handle if no one runs is is how even the condominium act handles that.

Sure.

So I have no questions about that.

And I don't really have a question other than to express what I've been learning from other mayors and other counselors and other cities and the Florida League of Cities and different organizations that work with communities.

And um uh two years is not sufficient.

They they always kept saying it takes you three three years to learn the budget, even so, and I've even heard our previous council members say two years isn't enough.

You know, the first year you're kind of getting into the swing of things, the second year you're you're into it, but then now you're starting your next campaign if you chose to run again.

So, in my opinion, it should be at least three years and and however many terms we conclude on later.

But these are things that I think would be very important to address.

Okay, well, this is a discussion, so this isn't just about us asking questions of them.

This was really the Otis is on us now to state what we think.

So I want to hear what you're thinking.

So I'm not clear, um Ms.

Shaw, on what you're saying.

You think that mayor and councilperson should both be a three-year term?

Three years or four years, okay.

Maintain the staggering, because that's a very important component.

Uh, and then determine the term limits from there depending on the three or four.

Okay.

And and I've learned that through other communities, but also through municipalities and and their officials and their city managers, etc.

So I'm basing it on the education I've been receiving, especially in this role.

Right, right.

Okay.

So the one thing that I hear that I think we're all on the same page is I think everybody up here thinks we need to have term limits.

I I don't think there's any question to that.

So my thought was I thought that the council um two three-year terms for a total of six years.

I was okay with that, but that doesn't mean I'm feel that in no other way, okay.

I did feel though that the, and again, I'm an old woman, okay.

I don't want to be up here.

Um I did feel like the mayor should be able to stay a longer term because I think that's the continuity.

Um and maybe I'm wrong, but that was my thought, and then I look back at our previous mayors, and um we had I think 16 years and 20 years, which I personally think is too long, and I think that's why we're having this discussion.

But um if it was my way only, I would probably put the mayor at nine and the council people at six, but uh it's not set in stone.

So the only thing I'm hearing for absolute sure right now is we all agree we want to see term limits.

So I don't know how we're gonna you know get to the end line on this, but um I really would l hope to see this on the ballot in March.

Oh, and then one other thing though, with you standing up there, Joe.

Um, just if I'm reading that right then, I'm also uh reading it uh that after six years, if somebody was on council for six years, they could not then turn around and run for mayor without sitting out for two years.

Was that the intent to say that?

Or am I reading that wrong?

I think you're reading that wrong.

Yeah.

I'm reading it wrong.

Right.

They were talking about their their seat, their seat.

Their seat.

Right.

Okay, so after their seat.

I I okay.

Yep.

Good.

Because I thought that was because sometimes you know you would have some experience that was built up there, and you know, um, so I thought that's council member Shaw said that if we didn't have somebody uh that was qualified to run, that person could exceed their term limit because they didn't have anybody to fill the seat.

Okay.

You know, I don't know if this r relates back to you talk about um appointing people.

Um like say well, we're gonna get to that with the kind of goes with this too.

Well, I guess we can get to the one at a time.

Okay.

Um can I ask a question?

This may not be for you, Joe, but um if this is on the ballot in March, when does it come into effect?

It would be the following election.

You wouldn't extend anyone.

That's what I was asking.

Thank you.

You would start with a new election when the next term was up, they would run for a three-year term.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

So um I don't I think we have the consensus that we all want to see some term limits, and I think that we're kind of much like the committee, we're not sure what those term limits should be.

Um and I don't know, I know that they've done some legwork and found out what some of the other cities were doing.

I don't know besides that, how we come to that conclusion of what we think.

Well you know neither Cosey or Nancy expressed whether they thought that they should be longer, because if you go to three-year terms or four-year terms, again, two terms should be enough, because that would be similar to the six six or maybe eight years that you're allowing somebody.

So the two terms might be fine, but what depends on the the length of those terms.

Yeah.

Okay.

Could you all adjust should be longer?

I'm okay with the length that we have now, two year and three year.

Okay.

I am too, actually, I am too.

I think you become a little complacent after a couple of years.

Yeah.

I can't speak from experience myself, but yeah.

I did see.

So yeah.

I'm I'm okay with the the um term as well.

Um being two-year and three-year.

Well, like I said, all my education has taught me otherwise in my experience and in other communities as well.

So I I mean, I don't know that's not a municipal level, but as far as municipal education and what input I have received and what I've observed in our community in 31 years, um, you know, I could see where where we would benefit from it, and we would also save money on elections that way.

Well, I'm on in favor of saving money on elections, but um we wouldn't uh our charter states we must have an election every year.

Well we could change the charter too.

That's in so you'd yeah, you'd have to change the charter before but not just the section.

That's another section.

Yeah, the only reason that I'm uh being resistant um about changing the the term is um because I just wonder if we would have enough people that would run if it you know was three years and four years, and would anybody up here say that it would have impacted them and their decision.

I I actually think more would because the same thing happens that I just explained, and I've heard that from council members here and elsewhere when it when they did have a two-year term limit, that the first year they're kind of getting rolling, the second year they're rolling, but what's happening is now they're starting to work on their next campaign, and that's a major distraction.

So at least if they have a third year to carry on and complete everything they need to, they could even just move on and give a space to someone else.

And to me, if people get complacent after two years on council, they shouldn't have run in the first place.

Well, not two.

I was thinking more like four.

Yeah, I I mean frankly, I four four years would kind of make me nervous.

But three fours, you know, I I get that concept that I just explained.

I understand your concept.

I think for is a bridge too far, but I'm fine with three.

Okay.

Anything else from you?

I'm still standing by my two years.

Okay.

Did you want to say anything else before we move on?

Well, you know, when we're talking about terms and stuff like that, we want continuity across the day.

Okay, it's very important.

So when we did our discussions, and we spent a lot of time on this one.

Um we had come up with with with numbers of especially for the mayor to to get their terms in, and what we thought if you can't if we can't figure out what you're doing after two years up there, what is three years gonna do?

I I'm not following that because if you're still if you're learning the first year and you're getting rolling in the second year, but now you've got to work on a campaign, you could have just been spending that to finish off what you want in your third year.

Right.

So if you if you want to limit that, and you know, this is this is up to you guys.

We're we're just making suggestions, okay?

And you say, okay, we're gonna do a three-year for the council people.

You're true, your the total terms then is six years total.

That's what you get.

That's fine.

So you gotta you gotta figure out the continuity of how you're gonna approach it with a staggered count by changing it to three years.

You you would still have your your continuity simply by virtue of the fact that you are staggering.

It's not gonna, it's not gonna change, it's not gonna change your how many times we you talk about changing money of electoral you know, voting, you know, costs.

You're still going to for staggered, you're gonna have to stagger it a little differently.

You got you're going from three from two to three.

Yeah, but but if say two people are elected year one, then two people are elected year two, just thinking council people at the moment.

Then in three years, these two come up, and then in three years those other ones come up.

So you'd have a year in between where nobody gets voted on, but they would still be staggered.

They would be you know, and then if you wanted to have the may like right now, the mayor runs one time with ward one and three, the next time they want run with words two and four.

If that was important to keep, then you could keep the mayor at four years and have two terms, that would give them eight years instead of six for the continuity you're talking about, and then it would run one time with one set of council people and the second time with the the next time with the other set of council people.

Why would that be important?

I'm curious.

Yeah, I don't think it is important.

Okay, I'm just saying if if you think it's important, okay.

It may not be important.

Yep.

Okay.

Thank you.

All righty.

Um I think uh the only consensus we have right this moment is that uh we all want to see term limits, and we want uh we want to come to an agreement on this, and I'm not sure how we're gonna do that.

It's not important that we do it necessarily tonight, but it is important that we ask uh our committee while we have them here, um, you know, how they came up with some decisions so that the that can factor into some of our decisions as well.

Okay.

Um so I think as has everybody in this discussion said what they wanted to say about this.

Because you know we're all gonna go back and watch this in a day or two and see what we said about this, yeah.

Exactly.

And we may get comments from residents.

Yes.

Yeah, I was gonna call for public comment, but we only have two people here.

Yeah, but you're that's a really good point.

I was gonna say the same thing.

We had a lot of questions.

But that is a really good point that um we may get some feedback via email or on the streets or whatever.

Um we may get some feedback on that as well.

All right, so let's move on then to the next one, which is section 3045.

305.

Yeah, 305.

305 due 304.

No, it wasn't one of them.

304 um is that vice mayor by chronological order or prohibitions.

No, prohibitions.

Okay.

Thank you.

My my mistake.

305.

So 30 section 305 prohibitions subsection A is about bless you.

Appointments and removals.

Uh under this section, they had requested to remove the sentence.

Any council member violating the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a second degree misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof and replaced with the city council may by a three-fourths vote of its members remove a council member from office for cause, including but not limited to violations of law, ethical misconduct, or dereliction of duty following due process.

They did not miss Jackson.

You kick us off on this.

Okay, it kind of feels like survivor voting people off the island.

But um I'm assuming this came partly from former council member Ian's situation, so um I can see how it was relevant.

Kind of my only comment.

Oh, you don't have any opinion?

Well, my opinion was it feels like Survivor, which feels a little intense.

But um I I trust that the you know their decisions were made for their reasons, and so if you want to expand on it, I'm open to hearing about it.

Yeah, so the board worked closely with um attorney salesman on this, and the language that we're crossing out on striking is any council member violating the provisions of the section shall be guilty of a second degree misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof.

So if they the only way to remove somebody from the council is to have them convicted of a crime.

And you know how long it takes to get somebody by the time they get convicted of the crime, they're no longer gonna be on the city council.

Right.

So we had to change the verbiage of that to say, okay, council made by a third three-fourths of a vote if you're accused of um misconduct, violation of law, dereliction of duty.

That would be vote that council would make and say, okay.

You're off the island, like you said.

Fair fair points.

I accept it.

And that the due process part, I think, is important here.

If you skip ahead, yeah, that you'll we'll we'll get to that section too.

Alright, it would all be a very transparent, kind of formal situation.

You guys can just decide boom, you did something wrong, you're out.

Got it, right?

It would be based like on a committee that you guys would appoint, just kind of like this, but I think we spoke about the magistrate overseeing the ethical committee.

Yeah, and um I was the one that kind of brought it up because of things that have happened that just were not making any sense.

Um a lot of uh misinformation, a lot of things that just were not, in my opinion, ethical.

Um, you know, when you own a restaurant or a bar, you hear everything, just like I'm sure you guys hear all sorts of things, and I had heard from two people that there was a possible sunshine violation, and I'm not just gonna take somebody's word for it.

So I called the city clerk's office and I asked if she could provide that email, and she said yes.

And if I'm wrong or I I need to be corrected.

Anyway, so I called and I said, Great, have it for me.

I'm not quite sure when I can pick it up.

She goes, fine, it'll be on my desk.

So just so happens that the day that I came by, I could hear one of the council members screaming and yelling at him.

That is unethical.

That goes for a hostile.

Okay, I'm I'm gonna stop us right now.

I I wanna hear, you know, but I want to stay on task, and I think we're kind of going off task right now.

Um not to that detail, no.

You don't want to know the detail.

Not not to that detail, I said.

Um I I want to first continue when we'll ask questions, you know, if we have them, but I'd like to continue with to hear what the council has to say about things.

Okay.

Did you want to say anything else?

Yeah, I think that was it, because then there's more for the next section.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, not to bring up your example, um, Joe, but in using that example, this would go in front of a magistrate and it would be discussed, and then it just wouldn't be that someone would walk in someday and be faced with a vote.

Is that correct?

My understanding that okay.

I'm fine with this, thank you.

Okay.

Um, my only question, I'm fine with the idea of it.

If it is it should be here, or should it be part of 306 instead of being in 305?

That would be my only question.

Okay.

We kind of followed the format that existed on that because it talked about removal in 305, and then it talked about the process in 306.

But 306 is filling a vacancies.

You know, so we're adding a subsection to 306.

I I know, but that's why I think it it it should be in my opinion.

I I'm fine with the clause.

I just think it it might be better in 306, but I mean it's not a big deal.

Uh I I would certainly say we could ask the attorney what his thoughts are on that.

Um I completely understand the need for us to address this.

Attorney Salzman had even said that it was worded very poorly on more than one occasion.

Um, and to refer to a due process, I think is very important.

The only thing I would add is that uh I feel that there should be uh a notification of of an issue as a part of the process.

Um, you know, as I understand in one of the cases, that individual had verbal discussions and chose to disregard those.

If you gave written warnings and they had to sign or whatever, um would make it formal, uh I think that would be appropriate.

Um the part of the reason is is that we we could fall into a politicization situation that we've had at least hints at in the past, if I might put that delicately, and um and so if you can at least forewarn something forewarn someone you need to correct this behavior, and they still don't, then you have your due process in place.

All of you signed a somebody, uh all of you have signed a code of conduct and a code of ethics when you took your office here.

So that's your first step saying that you're going to do that.

So if somebody were to have a complaint or or think that you have violated, I mean if it's in that book, that so that would be your notice.

Like somebody coming to you to talk to about it.

That's your first notice.

I think you should have a specific notice of what which particular thing they think you've done.

Right.

Uh and the complainant would have to submit who what they're what they think the complaint is.

But I'm stating you guys have already signed a kind a code of conduct.

So you're already saying I'm going to do right.

So if it's brought to you as a and they say to you, you've done you're doing something, and I think you should stop.

And then that person has does not continue to stop.

They tell the person, the resident, um, yes, I will stop.