Good evening.

Good evening.

And thanks for being in attendance at our September 16th meeting tonight.

If there's any chance that you still have your phone turned on, please turn it off.

If during the course of the meeting you have the need to talk to the person next to you or have a side conversation, cool, but take it to the hallway, please.

So we don't have any interruptions.

And um that's about the most I can say about all that.

So at this point, we'll um council member Jackson will give us an invocation and then we will do the Pledge of Allegiance.

So please stand.

And to the report for which it stands.

Councilmember Jackson.

Present.

Councilmember Early.

Present.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Here.

Councilmember Shaw.

Present.

Mayor Love.

Here.

City Attorney Salzman?

Here.

City Manager O'Reilly.

Here.

City Clerk Carico is present.

All righty.

So tonight we will start with uh um the reading of our millage rate and our um public uh excuse me budget ordinance.

We will have discussion on that.

There will be an opportunity for public comment as well.

Item one A ordinance number 2025-09, second reading and public hearing, an ordinance of the city of Gulfport, Florida, providing for the advalorum tax levy for the fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2025 and ending September, excuse me, September 30th, 2025, and providing for an effective date.

Also, mayor to be in compliance, I have to read section one of the ordinance.

All righty.

And uh it sets it once again at four point zero two five eight.

And how many years in a row have we been at the third one for this?

The third one.

Prior to that, we were, I want to say at 4.3 about round numbers.

A little higher.

Yeah, just a little.

We had to roll it back because of the fact we had exceeded 10 percent in property value.

Okay by statute.

Very good.

Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve?

I second.

All right.

I we have a motion and a second discussion, and we'll go in speaking order.

No questions or comments from me, thank you.

No questions or comments.

I'm good.

I have no further questions either.

I have no further questions either.

We've talked about this several times, so we'll open it to public comment.

If anybody wants to address has anything to say specific to Millich, yes, Mr.

Freedom.

Hello.

Just gotta say that um this tax here.

Uh as some of you may know, I own a duplex.

I rent one half, so half of my property is homesteaded.

Um I just uh don't know how many other folks in the city have uh duplexes and live in one half and rent the other.

FYI, this represents a 14.1 percent raise in my taxes for the year.

Just let's do.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment on the millage rate?

Seeing none, I close public comment.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

All righty.

Item 1B, ordinance number 2025-10, second reading and public hearing.

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

Okay.

Motion to approve.

I second.

I have a motion and a second.

City manager.

Mayor, this is the adoption of the budget on second reading.

You I've also provided you pay replacement pages 106 and 1.

We're back to numbers.

I can get this page.

The also the set um senior center part-time employees for page 177.

All right.

Once again, we'll go in speaking order.

No questions or comments.

No questions or comments.

So the only one I have, because I asked a lot last time, is that we have this other item where we're going to be voting on the permitting contract.

And I brought that up last time, and you didn't know the figures of what it would be.

So the money that we're going to be giving them rather than collecting for ourselves, how have we adjusted the budget for that?

What we have done is removed the two, reduced our revenues.

We identified in your memo for the contract that we're going to consider.

We've identified the two, what our revenues were from the permitting from the last two years.

We've also addressed that by removing two building inspector positions.

And and what was the value of those with benefits?

Do you know approximately?

Approximately about, I would say in the $75,000 range.

So it's still not as much as we're paying these people.

We think this is going to be over 200,000.

That's correct.

But you have to remember we've talked about this in the past.

You have to spend your money in the build community development.

Right.

So as other cities do, this is 100 percent because they don't want to deal with the revenue coming back to the general fund.

But we don't we don't know that we'll make enough revenue in permitting to pay for our permitting staff.

That's that's true.

I mean, till we have you can see the numbers we have in the memo.

We're getting ahead of ourselves, but the two last the two fiscal years that we have hard numbers for.

So it this is the example was 200, oh say, rounding 275,000.

Right.

So if we're only taking off 150, then we still have a chunk that we're and we hopefully we'll have additional permit revenue this year, but we will be because of all the projects that are going on, those are normal years.

So I I I can't guess what I'm gonna make till I get to a point with the general fund.

I can't say offset.

I can't say I can offset I could I would rather underestimate my revenues than overestimate my revenues.

But I think we're not un underestimating them enough.

Because you're only and I may have this wrong, but if we're gonna theoretically not get at least 275,000, and all we're doing to reduce our expenses is 150,000, then we still have a lot of revenue that we're not accounting for that we're gonna lose.

And that's what we would take that, evaluate that once we get through the permit in the year fiscal year.

Where will we get the money to pay for the permitting department?

The general fund, we will have other savings.

We will manage this over the course of the fiscal year.

We will have monies that we have vacancies, it's a general fund m dollars.

So if we were to have a vacancy in just in the city manager, department or whatever.

That money can be transferred in.

Okay.

So money can be transferred from the general fund into the permitting department, but permitting money can't be transferred to.

Exactly.

And money that the magistrate charges for penalties.

Does that go into the permitting department?

No, that goes into in your revenues, fines and penalties.

Okay.

That's a general fund revenue.

And and when the magistrate or or or whether they go to the magistrate or not, when people who did not get a permit but have already fixed their properties, when we contact them and they have to get an after-the-fact permit, are we charging them double the fee?

Yes, we are.

We are.

Yes.

Okay.

So that might help make up for some.

Exactly.

Okay.

And how do we assess that value when they didn't get a permit?

Well, they have to identify what they are getting a permit for.

But what if they just say they got it for, you know, because when we're when you're when your house is wrecked, then you know you have to get flooring and this and walls and electrical and blah, blah, blah.

Are we are we making sure that we're accounting for everything that somebody normally would have to do?

Exactly.

That's what when you do the SDE, when you get a permit in a flood zone, you have to put values.

Okay.

If you that's the one thing we've had issues with holding it up, because we have to verify all those values.

Right.

That's and that's how we're going to do that.

So then that might help make up for some of it.

Sure.

And you have you have another major project coming online, I hopefully that will be substantial.

Seaside villas, you mean?

Yeah.

Okay.

I just wondered how we were dealing with that.

That's it.

I have no further questions.

Thank you.

No further.

Okay.

I have three.

Okay.

And I it's not necessarily that I know exactly where to find these in the budget.

Sure.

Um, to be real honest with you.

Um, all three of these are things that have been mentioned to me and um more than once, so I've been pulling in getting uh waiting for this opportunity.

Sure.

So the first one has to do with in June, we had a presentation from Duke Energy on a program called Clean Energy Connection Data.

That's correct.

Okay.

And um they talked for about 15 minutes.

I can't say that I understood too much of what they said.

Um I'm just being honest.

I don't know too many people that did understand what they said.

Um what I got from that, just being honest, is that if you pay money now, you might get a return after 13 years.

I have not been able to find out how much money are we paying now for a possible return in 13 years.

So I would really like to know those numbers.

And then I'd like to know do we have to continue with this group?

Because I'm not sure that this is our best investment.

And that might, you know, have to take a consensus among counsel.

So if you could address that a little bit.

Certainly.

You've paid $7,300 over the past three years to be part of this.

Each year or total?

Total over the past three years.

Okay.

You are scheduled to pay $7,600 over the next seven years.

It's going down.

Each year for the next over the next seven years.

Over the next seven years, I'm sorry.

Okay.

At that point, you would then be returning, you would receive a return.

And as I heard the formula for the return was pretty discombobulated.

I didn't understand it, but maybe you have it and you can give it to us kind of simple like.

Okay.

The numbers Jim referenced, $7,300 the first three years.

That was from the beginning of the project.

As they tried to explain when they were here.

Facilities were coming online, and so it was improving as over time the credits were receiving.

So over the next seven years, the 7,700 would be the average of 1,100 a year because they've got more capacity, it's performing better.

They said the payback period was beyond 10 years.

So after year 10 is when we should be receiving net credits.

Beyond year 10 is where net credits are projected against projections.

Those would be between 1,000 to 3300 per year beginning after year 10.

3300 per year.

Between 1,000 and 3300 per year net credit.

So we'd have to pay 7,000, we'd have to pay about 1,100 a year for the next seven years, at which point they're supposed to turn the corner and get us a benefit of credits between $1,000 and $3,300 a year.

And is $1,000 credit related to $1,000?

Okay, that's what I was wondering.

It's complicated with the kilowatt hours and the per, I'm just talking in our net cost and our net benefit in dollars.

Don't we get some discount now, even there are points when we um have a net credit, but the numbers we've calculated are just um you know, net for the year.

So net for the year has been a net cost.

So um to the council I say I don't know that that sounds like a particularly good investment, and I'm not gonna put you on the spot now, but I would like for you to to talk to the constituents and see what they think about that.

And if you know, if they think that there's value in this program, um, you know, another thought that's going on through my mind is as quick as and fast as technology is changing, will this program even be in place down the road?

I mean, that's another thing that's going through my mind.

You know, will this even be out there anymore and considered anything other than really outdate it and inefficient?

So I don't know that you can speak to that, and I understand it.

So I'm really speaking to my council more than anything right now, that um I I would like to revisit this issue.

Um and I'd like to hear what the residents have to say about this, if this is a good investment or not.

I I can just add the the Duke representative obviously said we can cancel.

Um if you cancel, you may not be able to re-enter the program.

Um if you did, you'd have to get in line with the other subscribers, and then your period would start over like at year one again.

So just kind of the sales pitch from the Duke person.

Okay.

May I ask one question?

Yeah.

Please.

How long does the net credit go on after the 10 years?

I believe they have a projection out to uh 30 years.

And for me, it's kind of like putting solar on your house.

You you you pay up front, but especially as utility prices keep going up a lot every year, you save actually more and more every year after your payoff period.

And then you also feel like you're doing something sustainable.

So in simplistic terms, right, over the next seven years, we'll start getting back almost what we paid into for the over the next seven years.

Beyond we'd have to pay seven more years.

Yeah.

Yep.

And then year 10, we would start receiving the yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

And we've already paid in for the first time.

7,300.

Over three years.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thanks.

So I brought that up now because it is a budget a financial thing, and I wanted to.

The second thing I wanted to bring up was I don't know where to look, um, Chris, to see what we're paying for our electric charging stations.

I have been approached by residents that are um asking, you know, we weren't part of I wasn't part of the council, so when the charging stations can came in, I understand that they were given to us for free.

And I guess the council agreed that we would put the bill of the charging stations.

And now I'm getting some questions from the public saying, how much are we paying for charging stations and um for the actual electricity?

And they're questioning the fairness that if they put gasoline in their car that they pay the bill, but if they use electricity, the city's paying the bill.

It's it's mayor, if I may.

Yes.

It's on page 165 in the parks department budget.

Okay.

And it's allocated we spent approximately 11,000 last year.

11,000 last year?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So again, I don't know if if this is the appropriate time, but um I guess, yeah, I'm getting seeing a look, so I'd kind of like to get your thoughts on that.

Do we want to pay 11,000 a year for um electricity for charging when we don't pay 11,000 for our residents for gasoline expenses?

Speaking order?

Is that what we'll use for the new police vehicles?

No.

Okay.

It would be those would be hybrid.

We'd have a different we wouldn't want to be on that public system.

So if we didn't have these, would we just remove the charging stations altogether, or we're telling people they pay for their well, we could ask the company that provides them.

Yeah, there is a metered possibility that you could swipe a credit card, you can move to that, or you could just turn them off.

Okay.

I would like to explore the option that you can pay to charge.

Okay.

That's something we can look at.

We'll ask the contractor.

Okay.

There may be a startup cost.

Well, let's see if we can.

If they do it in parking lots, you can let's just go in speaking order and see what everybody Yes, I have a question, Chris.

Um, how many how many people here utilize that?

Does that 11,000 make up of a hundred people or a hundred cars or like ten?

I don't have a yeah, I don't have stats on that.

I just have the cost for the year.

Um I just I can say working here, I see them pretty busy.

There's four there's four connections on two pedestals at the end of City Hall.

How many?

I'm just trying to understand the breath.

It's fairly it's fairly utilized, fairly there's someone in there pretty much every day.

Same the same people?

That I couldn't tell.

Okay.

Do you see what I'm getting?

I was what are we paying for the same six people, right?

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

So I'm the one that got those charging stations.

And the reason I did that was because at the time we were looking for electrical police cars.

And so I got them.

They kept saying, well, we can't do that because we don't have charging stations.

So I said, okay, I got charging stations.

So I asked public works where they wanted to put them.

I thought we were going to put them behind the fence in our yard, but they chose to put them there.

Um and then since we haven't gotten any electric vehicles, but I think get charging for it is a great idea because I I wouldn't take them out.

You know, I would either charge for them or just like shut them down till we need them for ourselves.

Okay.

Thank you.

And thank you for explaining what the thought process was.

That that's helpful to hear too.

Councilmember Shaw.

Um I I would agree with a payment system.

I've installed the charging stations at different communities, and um we had a charging system.

And even more so I've become aware that people from outside the city come here to charge the cars.

That's what I was trying to and so that that's not really fair to to our residents, to our taxpayers.

Well, to all of us, we're all taxpayers.

So I would believe that I know we're talking about the budget, but I think we have a consensus here that we would like um uh a payment option to be added, or not an option, but a payment format to be added, and that folks with using that, they're welcome to use it, but they need to pay for it.

We will bring back the new, we'll have to get a new contract, we'll contact a vendor and bring you back contract.

Okay.

If they have something to offer us.

Okay, perfect.

If not, I would recommend that you do as Vice Mayor spoke of you could just turn them off if they can't give us an element to charge.

Yeah, and then they're there if we want them for our own vehicles.

You're just not incurring the cost.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, and thanks for giving us the page number to look for for that.

So we can see that expense.

And the third one that I have is again, I don't know where to find it exactly in the budget.

I think it comes in under um, I'm I'm probably gonna not have the word right, but where your discretionary budget.

Right.

It's in it's primarily in cultural facilities, events, and it's also spread advertising spread out throughout different departments.

Okay.

They each have a promotional, you'll see in their budgets promotional aspects.

The specific contract for approximate is 19,000.

Okay, I haven't even said to them yet what I'm talking about, but yeah, I am talking about um we we pay just short of 20,000 a year to the GABA for advertising.

Okay.

And um I'm questioning that.

I I um I've been questioned over the years from residents about um why the city of Gallport was at one time it used to say on the front of here that we were um paying for the and supporting the online digital, okay.

That little statement has been removed now.

But um we're paying about 20,000 a year in advertising.

And when I look at the center here, which is probably the biggest expense, we do this 26 times a year.

This is really a um calendar of events.

So I find this very redundant because we have a staff that puts out a wonderful calendar of events, and it's on our website, and every single person that lives in Gulfport needs to get used to using that website.

And when you look at this, by far, three quarters of this is about the senior center.

But if you walk into the senior center, what do you have every single month?

This spells out exactly the same thing.

So I know that it's your discretion to use as you want.

I know that the contract is coming up, and um I believe the con I I don't know that the contract will change.

I would expect that uh it would there'd be an increase in price.

When I look at the GABR and and what we're told routinely, this is not the golf port gabber anymore, this is the Gulf Beaches Gabber.

I don't see any other city taking out a centerfold and spending $20,000 a month, and so I'm questioning why we do.

So my request is um that you greatly, greatly reduce the cost that's being spent for this.

We don't need to do a calendar of events.

Our staff does a great job on that.

If there's events that you're sponsoring and you're offering, you know, that to the leaders of the event, I can understand that.

But again, when I compare what other cities are doing and what we're doing, and we're not the only this is not our GABA anymore.

I question it, and I'd like to see it greatly reduced.

Okay.

Do I have a consensus on that before you say, okay, let me see, because I'm only one of five up here.

Um I guess I would need to see the kind of what we need to provide you a copy of the contract.

Yeah, yeah.

More of the details there and what all benefits we get besides just advertisement.

Well, that's what it is.

It's an advertising budget.

Okay.

Okay.

I'd like to see the contract.

Good.

I'm interested in that as well.

Okay.

So I this has come up before.

And I know that the city manager said before that when we've tried taking it out, people complained.

And um are not good with computers, and our website isn't always very user-friendly, and some things are not always on there.

So, and I know that besides the sent the 20 the 26 center spreads, we also get 12 full page ads, which we can use as full page ads, a quarter page, half page, whatever we want.

So for things like like I'm having them advertise my town hall.

And so, you know, there are other things that we get it for.

And you're right, it is a duplication, but I don't I just know from what we were told before when we looked at this that people complained.

That's good.

Yeah, they're gonna complain if we remove their electric free electric for the cars.

That's a little different.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I assume you jumped in.

I'm sorry.

Um I I'm wondering how long ago it was considered, like you're saying that the people were unhappy with that.

I know that there was a lot of different opinions out there now.

So was that a long time ago?

Do you mind if I ask you?

Yeah, it was probably at least three years ago, maybe something like that.

I would I would say that I mean it it's a it goes in cycles.

I mean, there's times that counts pre past councils previously have stressed, and a lot of residents have got up and said, Well, I didn't see it in the Gabber.

I'm not trying to paraphrase, but they would say I didn't see it in the GABR or things like that.

It was it was articulated as the vice mayor spoke of.

So I mean that it's a council decision.

I I appreciate what the mayor said, the fact that let me go back there and see what we can work out and give you copies of the contract.

I know you both have copies, all three of you have copies.

And um let me see what we can do.

Okay, so I can live with that um to let everybody else see a copy of the contract because I did ask for it, so I have already seen it.

Um and I just would come back to the idea, yes, others would complain, but we've already heard a complaint because of the tax millage tonight.

We've already gonna hear from people who are using the electric power.

I mean, people don't like to have to change, but when we have a newsletter that we're paying for the staff to create and to print, even if somebody doesn't want to use their computer, here it is, hard copy right here.

It's very redundant.

And when I look at the GABBER, again surely Gulfport isn't the only people place where people complain, but I don't see the other cities using this as their source of advertising for their daily events.

So um I appreciate then that you'll take a look at that and come back to us and excuse me, please.

I I asked the question, but I wasn't gonna do that.

I'm sorry.

I'm I apologize.

So uh yes, and we do email that out regularly, all of the all of the events, et cetera.

But I have also received complaints that we are paying for that to the extent we are.

So there's both sides of that, and so to hear from the constituency would be very important, and I think it's an it's a good thing to look at under that.

I always like hearing from the constituency, so I appreciate you saying that.

And I know I've I've been hearing long before I was sitting up here that why were we paying for that?

And now I'm just hearing it um some more, and it got me to looking, really looking at it and what that middle section is.

So you see, I said substantially reduce.

If if the relationship between the city and the people putting on events is such that the city has always, when they've co-sponsored, they've offered some advertising.

I'm okay with that, though I don't see the other cities doing it.

But you know, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time?

And mayor, that contract is in effect through through November.

Yes.

So in Oct early late October will bring you something or early November.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Um those were my three items.

You got off the hook with me.

Those were just three things that I felt like needed to be discussed, and I think uh we made some progress on the uh charging stations.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Public comment on the budget.

Yes, Mr.

Freedom Um regarding uh the Duke energy issue.

Um I think it's kind of funny and a little bit just desserts because I remember some time ago uh that I was uh uh fighting about the city with the 2,000 gallon uh water, and um now we have 1,500 gallons.

It changed a dollar savings between 1500 gallons and 2,000.

It's insulting.

It's really insulting.

So I think it's just a little just desserts that you know you're dealing with uh entity.

Um but I do think that you should continue with Duke because it it it sets a tone.

So I didn't hear what you said continue to do.

Continue with Duke.

Continue with Duke because it sets a tone as to uh the direction uh um uh savings.

I mean, you want to talk about whether solar is efficient, climate change, etc.

etc.

You know, I have my opinion, which is right.

Um but it just ultimately it saves money in the long run.

So uh and um I'm kind of wondering if you're picking this because the Florida Department of Government Efficiency have they come and done the audit yet?

No.

No.

So I'm wondering if you're picking that ahead of time.

And um Ms.

Love Yes, sir.

Uh you know, make love not war.

Um I think you need to kiss and make up with the Gabber.

I'm not at war.

Okay.

Well, you need to respond to local press.

That's your job.

Okay, anybody else for public comment on the budget?

Yes, Ms.

Stern.

Uh Larry and Sternwork 4.

Um, I think it's too late, but I I think it's a mistake for us to hire such a significant community development role that doesn't have anything in their job description for grant writing and grants.

I feel like I know Jonathan came up here months ago and said, can we have a focus on that?

What are we doing with that?

Is that happening?

Um I got the sense the answer kind of the whole time was we're waiting on these studies for December, then we'll be able to apply for grants.

But if we don't have somebody focused on that, maybe we do, and I didn't know that.

Um then I would love to hear have we launched remote public comment?

If we've launched it, I missed the memo.

Love to hear an update.

Thank you.

Okay.

Anything else regarding the budget?

Yes, Mr.

Bixler.

Oh.

Now I see you.

Tom Bixler, Town Shores.

It's tiding tying into the budget.

I came prepared.

Actually, I did a public records request on the bills.

And the last couple months, it's been 1,150, 1,020.

So I figured, yeah, it rounds up to about 12,000 a year, which that was the number that Mr.

O'Reilly came up with.

And um and I was gonna question, you know, if you guys are being financially responsible, but obviously the answers that you gave, you all are, all five of you.

It's a simple thing.

We go to the gas station, we put in a credit card.

You go to charge your card, those are at the gas station also, they're not free.

You gotta put in your credit card.

So I think it's an easy fix.

But but don't forget also there's one down by the casino that the I think the uh city pays for also.

That's free.

I think that's a charge.

You have to pay for that one.

Oh, you do pay for that one?

No.

No, it's in the city one.

It's a city.

I think it's free also.

But anyway, I I just think it's the uh fiscal responsibility of you to do that and see too that it gets done.

The original deal with Duke was they'll put them in for free, and they gave the the uh cost of charging for a year for free.

Once that ended, then the city picked up the bill.

Correct, Mr.

O'Reilly.

That's simple.

That's uh it's out work.

So now it's time to put it in.

And and with getting the police vehicle that electric vehicles, at that point, you know, most electric vehicles come with their own charger.

Those need to be installed behind the fence where the police cars are parked.

That's where I thought they were gonna put it, but they chose to do it.

Public comment.

It'd be tough to put them there.

But anyway, well, thank you for bringing up Mayor.

I appreciate you following up.

No problem.

Anyone else for public comment?

Oh, yeah, here.

I couldn't see you.

I know.

You're I'm sure.

Priscilla Kitter, um, Gulfport resident.

Anyway, just on the budget, I just didn't know about the Duke thing.

Is there a clause in that contract?

I was wondering in case we no longer get Duke.

I know there's a big push to get rid of Duke and dump Duke and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

What if in the next seven years or within the next thirty years we don't have Duke anymore?

Are we SOS?

Are we out of luck?

You know, are we not gonna get that?

Also, with the um Gabber as a constituent, I had no idea we paid the Gabber anything for that little page, especially to the tune of $20,000 a year.

And I stopped reading the GABR several years ago.

It just kind of became not really relevant as much as it used to be.

More community and everything, and it became more closer to more of an agenda or something, and then the other cities came in, and now I don't even really read it.

And um I don't think we should do that.

I I get my um info from the calendar on the website, but it seems more whatever relevant to me.

And as far as the charging stations, I think charging makes sense.

We probably should have done it after that first free year, and then we would have said, hey, we're getting charged, we gotta pay.

Whatever.

But um with the Duke thing, I just wondered about that.

What if we don't have Duke anymore?

Make sure there's something maybe Mr.

Salzman can look at that.

Thank you.

Anyone else for public comment?

Yes, Amy Amy Costa, 28th Avenue South.

Um, couple things with the charging stations.

I do know people that use them.

Um a friend of mine finds is that every time she tries to plug in, cars are parked there, and they're parked there all day.

So they plug in, there's no time limits.

Um there's no way to get in touch with anyone to move their car, you know.

So charging, you know, even if it was like first 20 minutes is free, and then after that, you know, or whatever, I don't know how long it takes to charge a car.

Um, but I don't think it's fair that someone pulls in, parks all day or overnight, and then if the machine's off and someone pulls in and there's no way to get a hold of that person.

So there should be at least time limits, some some kind of an app where you know it says your car's ready, come and get it, everyone to tell you, or whatever, whatever.

Um, so I know that has been a concern with people who do try to use it.

Um then the other thing about the advertising in the gabber, I didn't realize that it was a $20,000 uh fee for an event calendar.

Um I know there are other uh publications that put events in for free all the time if you have something going on in your city.

Um I feel like that should be something that the GABA would want to do for the city because it's increasing their readership of people picking it up looking forward to that calendar.

Um so I do agree with you that that seems to be a little steep, um especially with everything online now where you can access events through multiple channels, you know, within the city, your website being probably the best, obviously.

Um so I agree with that.

I think that's a lot, maybe something to talk to the community about.

But that's all I have on the budget.

All righty, thank you.

Anyone else for public comment before I change it on the budget?

Alrighty, Laura.

Just I guess sorry if it's not directly related to the budget, but on the topic of the GABA and the expenditures, I would just encourage, I get concerned about our older citizens.

We have such a large older demographic, and I just don't know how they're getting their information.

So if if you know you talked about surveying people, I think, especially at the senior center.

I know that there is that um event thing there for the senior center.

I would just suggest asking people, you know, in that older demographic, which the senior center would seem like a good place.

How are they getting their information before we eliminate that?

Thank you.

Anyone else public comment?

Okay, public comment on the budget is closed.

So I think we have a motion and a second.

Councilmember Jackson, yes, Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Thank you, Mayor.

All righty.

And now we have um no presentations for this evening.

All righty, so we're gonna move right into public comments.

So public comment now is for anything that you want to say that is not on the agenda.

If it's on the agenda, you wait till then, but anything else?

You have three minutes to come up here and say what you'd like to say.

Um respectfully.

Okay, show of hands.

Mr.

Freedom.

I have no more tears.

I spent them over 30 years ago over the tens and tens and tens of my contemporaries at funerals, wakes, and gravesite services.

God hates fags.

These signs occasionally appeared at graveside.

Fred Phillips and his minions.

A Supreme Court case, Schneider versus Phelps, 2011.

And an eight to one ruling.

Chief Justice Robert states.

Free speech.

And I quote, matters of political, social or other concern to the community.

Unquote.

And thus protected by the First Amendment.

I reserve the tears I have left for those in my circle.

I have no tears to shed for Charlie Kirk.

Not a one.

Thank you.

Who else for public comment?

Yes.

Wolfgang.

Thank you, Mayor.

Wolfgang Dininger, Gulfport Grassroots.

I'm reporting on the last Beyond the Beach cleanup this past uh Saturday.

We had 207 volunteers.

We collected over 100 pounds of trash.

So for the last two months now, we've uh collected over 250 pounds of trash and debris from our waterfront area.

This last uh uh beyond the beach cleanup, we also, besides the 20 um seven people, or as a part of the 27 people, we had a contingent from Orlando Health, a Bayfront Hospital, uh 12 nurses, techs, uh, and even a couple of volunteers out of the hospital show up and uh spend two hours cleaning golf board.

Our next cleanup is going to be uh as part of the uh uh Great American coastal uh cleanup, actually the international uh coastal cleanup, and that's on October 4th, and that's from 9 a.m.

to 11 a.m.

It's at uh our uh clam bayou, our uh our own nature uh preserve.

Uh we meet at the end of uh Merriam Street that's done as co-hosts with Chief Pinellas Beautiful and also with the um his city of golf port, and we uh thank the city very much.

Uh the week after that, a Saturday on the 11th, we have another beyond the beach cleanup.

And we're switching to our uh the winter schedule, which is going to be 9 a.m.

to 11 a.m.

So we hope we see a lot of people there.

And again, I emphasize our beach cleanups, even though they've been quite successful, we don't see many Gulf butt uh people there.

It's people from Clearwater, from St.

Petersburg, even from Tampa.

But all my friends from Gulfport aren't showing up, and I don't understand it.

Uh so I'm hoping at the next uh well, the clam bayou cleanup, the beach cleanups, uh, that more of the local uh Gulfport people do show up.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who's next for public comment?

Okay, seeing none, I'm gonna close the floor for public comment then, and we will move on to our city manager's report.

No report, Mayor.

Okay.

Never heard that before.

No report.

Okay.

Uh City Attorney's report.

Mayor Council, I was asked to address to some extent the recent attorney general opinion regarding open carry.

Um, today uh the sheriff and law enforcement agencies, along with state attorney and the uh attorneys for Pinellas County have met to discuss this particular issue.

It's somewhat of a fluid situation.

Um the Attorney General has definitely taken a position uh that open carry is allowed.

However, there are restrictions.

There aren't, it's just not people can just do whatever they want.

There are this only dealt with one statutory section.

There are other sections that mandate um restrictions that protect people from uh situations where they feel threatened in those sections are still in effect.

And the uh Attorney General has made suggestions to all the uh counties.

The sheriff has taken those suggestions, and we're um dealing with issues with local municipalities, so that everybody's on board to make sure that these rights are still being protected on both sides, meaning businesses still can prohibit individuals from having guns on their premises.

You don't have to suddenly allow things that you didn't that you prohibited before.

And there is still uh protections for individuals that have uh weapons in a threatening manner or where things like that occur.

So that hasn't changed.

So we're hoping that uh uh the actions that the sheriff takes uh and the attorney general will continue to protect individuals in this area, but I didn't want people to be concerned that suddenly it's the wild, wild west.

There are still laws in effect, the chief still has mechanisms to enforce these things, and uh we are continuing to deal with those.

Uh so I wanted to address that.

I didn't know if there were any questions from council.

Thank you.

Um is it possible to make it so that you can't do open carry like on city property, like at the beach or the beach parking or or parks.

Is that a I don't know if that's allowed or not allowed.

You can't do that.

No.

There are some public areas that you can prohibit it.

There's a list of um areas that are still, I think it's I have it here.

I mean, for example, as we know, you know, schools obviously there are certain um places that you could still do it.

Some of them are dealing with the police department, uh courtrooms, polling places, um, certainly some meetings that we have, uh, we could do that.

But most of them are those kind of situations, not the beach, not parks, not things like that.

At least not right now.

Now remember, this was an opinion.

The it's very dicey the way this came about, but we had the Florida Supreme Court give an opinion that said that it's banned, and then we had the first DCA give an opinion that says it's unconstitutional based on a particular criteria.

So I'm sure we're gonna see other cases.

Remember, if the second DCA rules something, that guides us.

First DCA only rules right now because they're the only district court that has given an opinion.

If you have a contrary one, you go to the one that mandates what you do, and we are we're governed by the second DCA.

So we're expecting to see opinions from other districts on this.

Should it go before the Florida Supreme Court, that would be great.

The problem is is that normally this is an issue that the Attorney General brings to the Florida Supreme Court, and he's pretty much said that uh he's kind of happy with what the first DCA said.

So but but we're still following the statute with his opinion and the first DCA opinion.

And and I under I heard on the radio that it doesn't take effect until September 25th.

I think that's the final date of the uh uh potential to appeal.

Yeah.

And Vice Mayor, if I may, there's also, as you know, when you were early in office, there is state statute that pre uh provides the preemption to the state on regulating firearms.

The council's prohibited right.

You could not draft something that would be.

Right, right.

That yeah.

I think we talked about it back then.

Yeah.

Um thank you.

I think you answered all the questions I submitted from residents.

I appreciate that.

And I'll keep you updated on this as it as it changes, because I'm sure we're gonna see changes.

Uh there's going to be some kind of challenge by somebody.

Thank you.

That's all I have, Mayor.

Open carry, can they walk into a city council meeting with a they cannot come in with a a gun to a city council meeting?

Okay.

Those are one of the prohibited areas.

And we went through this before when people were doing that audit and things like that.

There was one question that always exists about someone coming into council chambers.

Okay.

They've exempted you.

Mayor, if I may interject one moment.

Yes.

Use your mic the same.

I'm sorry.

You had asked me about the flow chart about the process about how permitting it out.

We were going to cover that during the power short PowerPoint we're going to give you.

Yeah, that's why I was a little taken back.

But then I remembered you tell told me that.

Okay.

City attorney, was there anything else?

No, Mayor, that's all.

I was hoping you'd take just one second and make it real clear that a service animal and an emotional support animal are two totally different things.

The law has been very clear that those are two totally different things.

I mean, you have to consider uh a service animal as almost as a uh part and parcel of somebody that has a disability.

And so when how we treat someone with a disability and the rights that you have supersede restrictions, i.e.

the beach.

You you know, it's it would be the same as do you allow somebody to have a wheelchair on the beach, you know.

Is it a a disability?

And that's what a uh service animal is looked at.

Uh that's why you see service animals um Home Depot is probably a bad example because they seem to let every uh thing in.

But um, you know, normally you see businesses that say only service animals, and that's what we can uh do too.

We can restrict it to only service animals.

But the fact of the matter is that just because you have a uh animal that gives you support, that doesn't mean that you can violate those restrictions.

And those are very clear.

The law is very clear on that.

Um the ADA talks about that all the time, and you know, unfortunately, some things are taken to extreme, i.e.

the peacock, you know, on the uh plane kind of situation, and that's unfortunate.

But definitely we are uh the city has restrictions, um, and you just can't bring animals wherever you want unless it's a service animal.

So when we have an ordinance that says no dogs on beach, that does apply to emotional support animals.

Absolutely.

That is not a service animals service dog service.

Okay.

I just wanted to clarify that was my understanding too, and um I wanted it to be clear to everybody.

All right.

Can I ask something then too?

Um is there an update on Ian and whether he's paid us?

The the chief and I talked about that, and we are pursuing it through uh the criminal system, and here's why, because part of the criminal uh penalty is restitution.

And so we didn't want to spend a bunch of city money on civil and then not get it anyway, um, where we can get the court to order restitution, and then we're not out of anything.

Now, the only time we wouldn't do that is if the state told us the state attorney's office said they weren't pursuing it.

I would find that hard to believe in this case.

I think it's pretty cut and dry.

So so he hasn't paid us any more money.

Not that anyone has told me.

No.

Okay.

Thank you.

All righty.

Did you anybody else have anything for the city attorney?

No, I think that was one of my questions as well.

Thank you.

Okay.

Very good.

City clerk.

No report, Mayor.

Thank you.

No report.

All righty.

That takes us to council comments and reports.

Uh each one of us have up to 10 minutes to report on the meetings we've been to or address uh any public comment or anything else that you have going on, and we'll start with Councilmember Jackson.

Yep, I'll just repeat um what I had said two weeks ago about the open house for the paving happening on 58th Street.

And that open house is September 25th.

Cool.

At the 49th Street.

All righty.

Um what I have is new business.

I would consider new business.

All righty.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor?

So my um town hall has been changed to October 13th.

And um apparently I think I need a new graphic for it, because I want people to understand that this is a place where April Lott is gonna come and speak to us, and she's um the CEO and president of um Directions for a Living, where we get our social worker, and she gave a talk that was really fabulous about the kinds of um stress and emotions and um trauma that people get from a flood event like we had.

And um, so she's gonna talk, and there's several other people who one person who's writing a book, and other people are doing some other things, and they'll tell us what they're doing as well.

And then we want to break up into individual one-on-one conversations where somebody who was affected talks to somebody who wasn't affected, and um and if they're willing, we'll record those, and then have them as an archive for the um history museum, and then um if people want to, the people who are listening, if they so choose, they could do something creative, like write a poem about it or do an artwork about it or something else, and um and then someone's gonna put that together for a presentation for later in the year.

And again, it'll be something that can be archived in the history museum because this is it's over a hundred years since something like this happened.

And and city attorney correct me.

I am basically not going to speak at this meeting except to welcome people and tell them about the process.

So I would think that if the other council people want to come and hear her, they should be able to do that.

Absolutely.

It's just the same prohibition we talk about when you go away on conferences.

Please do not discuss it amongst yourselves uh on issues that are gonna foreseeably come before you, which means you can be there, you can listen to those things.

Remember, the violation doesn't occur with the first person who makes a comment.

The violation occurs when the second person makes a comment about what the first person said.

So it's at six o'clock at the library, and we'll be in the friends' room first and then spread out through the whole library to do these interview things.

So I I I think you guys would really enjoy hearing her.

It was a fabulous talk.

Um I think that's um and another thing that came up.

Um first of all, I guess signs are uh I I assume we've ordered signs and stuff for the the no smoking in the parks and the the I still haven't seen any of the flood, you know, not driving through through flooded street signs.

So presumably those are coming.

We have installed the first batch in the marina district.

Oh, okay.

I haven't got more coming.

I didn't order enough.

Um, but we do have them covering 29th Avenue from Miriam to 49th as well as 46th from 29th to 27th.

Okay.

Just to get started.

And just so you know, I would have told you separately, but now both fountains aren't working in the Wood Ibis Park.

I knew one was down, but I didn't know.

Yeah, no, one's been off to the side for quite a while, but the other one stopped too.

Um that someone suggested that when we're gonna have a discussion item that we maybe have a format that we could put into our processes that um, like if we're gonna discuss any particular topic, whatever, um, that we describe the problem that we're seeking to address, who or what is impacted by that problem, what is a problem costing in terms of either money, safety, equity, and if it's addressed, will it solve those problems and describe the project or solution that you envision and what resources will help generate the um help address the problem?

I mean, do we need some expert?

Do we need a study?

Do you know something like that?

And what support are you looking for?

You know, either allies, expertise, resources, money, whatever.

But if we did something like that, and so everybody was on the same page about what we're discussing, and I can write this up and and send it to everybody through Teresa, but it might be a way to make sure that we're all on the same page and um really have a problem to discuss.

So that was the only other thing.

All righty, Councilmember Shaw.

Well, first I'd like to say thank you to Regina and Robert Bacchini, um, the mayor, all in the city, and most certainly our first responders that made it possible for the special 9-11 commemoration.

That was really special.

Thank you.

Um, thank you to our public works department for being so responsive when we report safety hazards even on weekends like this past Saturday.

So kudos for that.

That people were very impressed with that responsiveness.

Um I attended the Midtown Business Collective Mixer and Meter, and it was an excellent opportunity to hear from businesses and residents, and so they are open to all of counsel and to everybody.

Um, Friday I'll be attending the Suncoast League of Cities Meeting and Safety Harbor.

I elected to participate in the Florida League of Cities Development Code compliance and redevelopment committee, and that will be this month as well.

26th, the 26th.

Uh and then, of course, I'm uh I was going to ask about the no week signage, so that's really good to hear.

Um, and um I was wondering if there's any updates on the status of storm recovery on city and property and neighborhoods and responses to the courtesy letters for one.

And then the other question was have we made progress regarding utilizing student interns?

And then I wanted to mention that I'll be at the Salty PUP after hours at 6 p 6 p.m.

So come join me and share what's on your mind.

This is just one of those one more of those that I've added on, but it's in the evening now.

Um and finally, we're still in hurricane season.

Uh I know our mantra is no hurricanes, no hurricanes, no hurricanes.

Uh regardless.

Uh it's it's good to plan ahead and be prepared, and uh please take that pledge to evacuate on the city website on quick links.

Thank you.

Great.

Okay, so that leads me to my report.

The first thing I wanted to tell you all is that I did go to the Ford Pinellus meeting.

Ford Pinellas does not make decisions and and vote on things, but they're an amazing uh group of planners that are planning out where we're gonna be in 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now.

I'm overwhelmed when I go just to give you an idea.

The meeting was three hours long, and the um all the criteria and backup support to the meeting was 531 pages.

I didn't master it, but I tried.

So much of what happens at Ford Pinellas really has to do with the north side of our county more so than our south side.

And that is moving forward slowly with them.

But the things that I heard that I found interesting were the PSTA were there and gave a really good report, in my opinion.

They wanted us to know that the uh Dunin Ferry is going to start again in or start up in October.

They made it clear that all studies have shown that whenever you can do a roundabout as opposed to an intersection, it's so much safer to do a roundabout.

Traffic trends that I thought were interesting.

51% of the people in Pinellas live within 10 miles of their workplace.

Crashes are down right now 4%.

Fatalities are down 1%.

The leading cause of accidents, aggressive driving.

Not not texting or talking on the phone, but aggressive driving.

When they talk about PSTA, they always uh chime in too about the Pinellas Trail.

And I loved it when they said a third of all the jobs in our county are within a half a mile of the trail.

We need to, I mean, I think of the trail as recreation, but it really is considered a mode of transportation in Pinellas County.

Even when so far as one person said that they said that they thought besides our beaches, that our bike trail was our biggest asset.

Um bridges, they labeled the bridges.

They said Cory Causeway is the least reliable.

And Gandhi has the most accidents and the most speeding issues.

Okay.

Um then I and I know that's 531 pages I just gave you.

Okay.

I don't think you need to hear about what they're doing with the malls and egress into them on the north side of town.

We do have a new horticulturist, Brian Benjamin.

So if you thought we didn't have a horticulturist, I just found out we do have a new one.

I wanted to address that.

The third thing, we said when we set out our rules for this council that we, as council members could always address things if we wanted to, especially if we felt like we were being slandered in any way or not being treated fairly.

So I just wanted to address that when I was campaigning, I campaigned very strongly on transparency and open communication.

These slides up here that are our backdrops now, just kind of tell you what all I'm working on and have been working on almost since the first day I came into office.

We have a website.

I do a monthly recap of the activities on the website every single month.

If you choose to not use a computer, I can't help you with that, but that's what we do on our website.

On the Facebook page, apparently in the past the council thought that that the mayor could not speak on Facebook.

The city attorney made it very clear to me that when I'm addressing city business, I have every right to put it on the city Facebook page because a lot of people in this town do use social media, and I have the right to do that.

So if you're not checking and following the Facebook page for the city, please do so.

I make at least two, if not three posts every single week bringing people up to date, my form of communication.

We have an emailed newsletter for anybody that prefers to receive email.

You can sign up for it at MyGolfport.us news.

Um there's a newsletter that goes out every single Monday.

I give a full um article in that newsletter.

In addition to that, um I do uh write occasionally when asked for town talk.

I'll let them know what's going on there.

Also, I am now going to be writing for uh the only publication that I think is solely dedicated to Gulfport, which is Gulfport Living.

Starting in November, I'll be writing for them.

So I wanted to say I never campaigned that I wanted to work for the GABA.

I never campaigned that I was a great writer, okay.

I never campaigned anything like that.

I said I would be transparent and keep open communications, and I think I am, and I know that I have driven a lot of traffic to the city sites, and I'm gonna keep working really hard to do that.

Um apparently there were people that thought that when there was an error, and everybody makes mistakes.

You have all seen me make mistakes up here, but when I saw an error in the GABER that directly related to what the information was incorrect, what they were providing for the senior center, showing photographs of our past plan that was folded months ago, and presenting that as if that is what this council agreed to.

I had to correct it.

The fastest way to correct it, the first thing I did when I read it on a Thursday, apparently it was out there on Monday, and that made the GABR mad that I didn't call and correct their article.

I didn't see it.

I don't work for them.

The first thing I did was to go to the senior center because that incorrect information in the GABA has a long shelf life.

And that meant a lot of our senior centers, seniors who walked in and saw that GABA believed that we were going back to that floor plan, and that was not right.

It also led the public to believe that this council said that they would pay up to 65% of the cost of that.

That is not that conversation about 50, 60, 65 was about age.

I had to correct that.

So I went directly to the senior center, informed the volunteers, informed the staff who happened to be having a meeting with the senior foundation right then, so it was really efficient.

Then I got back to the city web's uh the city Facebook page and I corrected it.

I did not say bad things about the GABR.

I corrected the air.

That is my job.

I work for you, not for the GABBR.

So I'm going to continue to do that.

Apparently, there's some idea that there's been an olive branch or that I'm at war.

I'm not at war with anybody.

I know who I work for.

I communicate, I'm on email all the time.

I'm not hard to find.

So I uh have used uh the example of the senior center.

I think I did the exactly the right thing to do to try and correct that, even though it's in print forever on the big for the folks who only read the the GABBER, that's what they have.

They didn't see the little correction that came after that.

Um the last thing I'll say is I don't see any other mayors putting out regular articles for the GABBER, the Gulf Beaches Gabber.

Why would they come after me and act like I'm not doing something right?

That that's not my job.

So that's all I have to say about that.

I have not uh been asked for anything that had to do with city business.

It was all uh the couple times I was asked for comments on things, it was about drama that did not show Gulfport in its best light, and I'm not going there.

Um stop sign 26 and 46.

Our residents asked for it.

We put one up that made it a three-way stop.

Could be a little bit more dangerous than a two-way stop.

City of St.

Petersburg worked with the city of Gulfport, put the fourth one up today, so that is now four-way stop, um, and it needed to be, so I'm really happy about that.

And last not but not least, Gulfport 2050 is not a lecture.

I'll be on stage listening.

I'll have people writing down.

This is about you imaging.

If this council is to lead you into the future, we need to know how you see and what you predict the future.

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

Where do you think our downtown's going to be?

Do you want a hotel?

Do you want a bigger business district?

Do you want less business district?

I mean, really think about it in terms of whether it's for you and your aging years, I'll be gone by then, okay?

Or if it's about you know your children or your grandchildren, this is all about kind of laying things out for us where you think we're going to be.

Something very similar was very helpful, the golf port on the edge, but I think we've had a a little bit more of a wake-up call since then because of the storms.

Thank you.

And that leads us to consent.

Item 7A, consider approval of meeting minutes from meeting held September 3rd, 2025.

Motion to approve.

Second.

All those on all those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Passes unanimously.

Okay.

And if you will move on to the ordinance.

An ordinance of the City of Gulfport, Florida, amending the code of ordinances for the city by amending code section 17-32D motor vehicles, establishing code section 17-32 E, cooking while parked, providing for the repeal of ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict here with to the extent of such conflict and providing for an effective date.

Motion to approve.

I second.

Mayor.

Yes.

Council.

Let me address this.

As you know, I had originally written a uh ordinance.

Um when we had the last meeting I was at before I went out of the country, um, I got a lot of feedback from counsel that maybe it was a little more draconian than you wanted.

Uh I subsequently wrote another one, which is the one before you.

Um, and first let me say that Section E apparently has no problem.

So I've heard nothing from anybody about prohibiting cooking.

D has been where we've had problems.

And while I was away, some council members uh and the mayor contacted me uh through email and said, okay, well, maybe consider this or maybe consider that, or maybe um this is not what we're looking at.

And so uh I did something I normally don't do, which is I made a change to the uh ordinance and provided it for you tonight.

Now I don't like to do that because you haven't had a chance to look at it.

Uh but I would like to go over it with you because remember, this is first reading, and first reading is just that.

We we only have to make sure that everything is in place for second reading.

And those are comments that you would make tonight and changes that we would do.

But what I did with this ordinance uh after looking at what everybody had to say, and I made this um comment before, the mayor was nice enough to present me with a bunch of different uh municipalities that had different ordinances.

And frankly, I looked at them and I took the one that's about as straightforward as can be and changed it to uh deal with our city, and that is the Key West one.

And and it talks about lodging in vehicles, which I think is really at what you're talking about, not necessarily sleeping, because sleeping, we run into problems.

The person you know that is sleeping because they don't want to drive, and we don't want them punished for that.

The person that may be intoxicated, and we don't want them to necessarily get behind the wheel or be punished for that.

So now we look at really lodging.

And so what I wrote in this one is no lodging in vehicles, and it basically says except as provided in sections 10.5 and 21.4, those are recreational sections that you have that allow for recreational vehicles exceptions, which you already had in place.

So this would not affect the law that you have dealing with recreational vehicles in somebody's driveway, the normal things that have already existed.

Um but I added it shall be unlawful for any person to lodge in on or about any automobile, truck, trailer, camping, or recreation vehicle.

Remember, there's the exceptions that are already in there, or similar vehicle, and here's what the other thing that I changed.

I took it out of private property and only put it on public.

So public streets, public park area, public way, right-of-way, parking lot, or any public property.

So it's only dealing with public property within the limits of the city.

And then I define lodging, which they did not have in the previous ordinance that I looked at.

Uh lodging for purposes of this section shall mean a place in which someone lives or stays temporarily.

So what I did with this is basically hopefully when you look at it, I've taken it away from private property.

I did it only in public property, and it is lodging, it's not sleeping.

So there is a difference.

Um hopefully I've addressed these issues.

I know this is a hard one.

It's a hard one for me to draft because you all have different opinions on this.

Um, and I tried to simplify it.

So obviously we could make any changes you want before second reading, or we can put it on again for first reading if that's what you so choose.

Thank you.

So if you have any questions or comments, I'd like us to go in uh speaking order first, please.

So I did speak with Kathleen Buckman from the Continuum of Care Board about this.

And she brought up to me that nearly one in two households are asset limited, income constrained, and employed, which means that they are basically one event from send not being able to afford their next payment.

So paycheck to paycheck kind of situation.

And so criminalizing these kinds of offenses will send them over into an area like a point of crisis in their life because they won't be able to pay for the bare minimum, which is what Alice essentially stands for.

So nearly half of all households fall below the Alice threshold, which means that people have nowhere else to go.

So I do I'm okay with um section E about the cooking.

But I would I'm not for criminalizing lodging in a car.

Okay.

Councilman early.

Um what is the difference between no lodging and no sleeping?

If um Chief Ferrand, how do you distinguish the two?

So it's it's the and when I put in the definition, someone would lives or stays temporarily.

So they're living in the in the car versus just sleeping in the car.

And how do you know what they're doing?

Well, that's a hard question.

You know, I have to tell counsel another hard thing was, and you all had brought up well, maybe we should have a certain amount of days or hours.

Hard to enforce, same thing.

We use a reasonable person standard when we look at these things, but I honestly I don't know how the the chief will instruct you know staff to do that.

I agree with you.

It that's what makes this a very difficult.

When I first wrote it, honestly, it was very simple to enforce because you just couldn't sleep, right?

Right, right.

And uh and so that was easy.

Um but when you're doing lodging, um that makes it much more difficult or habitation, as I had put in the other version.

It is, it is a little subjective.

Um honestly, with unless council tells me differently, the whole intent I thought when we did this was basically to give Keith for our enforcement, meaning coming to people and saying, look, by the way, you know, you can't cook here and you can't live here.

And to try to but to take the fact that if somebody's sleeping there, okay, we understand, or even the suggestion I made, maybe we use a particular parking lot to allow people to stay in that kind of situation, because it is really for trying to you we're balancing the problem that you're having with individuals, you know, trying to care for individuals.

And so that's somewhat difficult to write.

Um so I think there is some uh subjectivity that the police officers need to have in this situation, and that it just can't be a blanket situation.

I mean, honestly, they're gonna have to use their judgment.

So it so the I guess the short answer is it's not a clear situation.

Um perhaps that would make it difficult for us to enforce if somebody challenges it.

I wouldn't really know that until somebody did that.

Um but uh I agree with you.

I think there's yeah, I think that could be tricky.

Okay.

That that was my only question.

Okay.

Vice Mayor?

Yeah, so I'm totally opposed to this.

I I'm not so much the cooking part, but the other part.

And sections 10.5 and 21-4, what exactly are those?

Those are recreational vehicles that allow you to uh have the opportunity to have a recreational vehicle for I believe a hundred and is it 120 hours?

Yes.

120 hours on your property, um, so somebody could come and stay at your property.

I thought you couldn't live in an RV on a park personal.

You can have a visitor come to your property and park it in your if they're just visiting you.

You can't live in it.

There again, we get into living and that's on private property, which is what we the same.

Yeah, no, I understand that part.

But um, but do we have a time limit on that then?

That was the 120 hours.

Yes.

Someone could have to do that.

120 hours, okay.

Because I know there was issues about people using them for um short-term rentals and other kinds of things.

Yeah, that would be prohibited uh the way we currently have it.

Okay.

So so just in general, I'm opposed to this.

I I just don't want to criminalize people for being poor.

And and the rents are high, everything that Kosi said, totally agree.

Um I understand that it's a problem.

And I a couple of years ago we were talking about the same kind of issue about the homeless.

And I had suggested, did we want to say make a place like, say, parking around 49th Street, the building there?

And I even found a trailer that would have toilets and showers, men's and women's, and we could buy it for 75,000.

And then if we wanted to, we could even move it to the marina later and use it for a marine a lot of cities have those.

A lot of cities have.

Yeah.

And if we did it at 49th Street, people could come and stay overnight but have to leave by the morning, by some time in the morning.

May I also add?

When I talked to Kathleen, she also recommended that if we could partner with the church or any place of faith and use their parking lots because they're often well lit.

So yeah, that that would be another so at the time people were very opposed to that.

And it would have its own issues.

You'd have to be able to monitor it and make sure that people weren't abusing it and weren't being abusive in any way to each other, even to make it safe, you know.

Um, so that's an another thing.

Um also another way to keep people from parking there.

We used to have beach parking stickers.

So everybody who lived in Gulfport could get a sticker, just go down and get it from the police department or wherever.

And so you could were allowed to park in the beach parking if you had a sticker.

If you didn't have a sticker, you couldn't.

We took that away, and but we could make it so that alongshore you had to have a sticker.

That would be fairly easy to police, because it would be fairly clear.

Um, and you know, everybody in Goldport could park there.

And then for visitors, the visitors could still park in the in the sh the beach parking because that closes at night anyway.

Um so we don't necessarily have the problem there.

And uh another thing that was brought up was about people doing wash and having things strung out.

Uh I don't know if there's an ordinance against that.

I was talking to the chief about it.

We're not sure.

I don't know if you could consider that littering.

Um probably not, but you know, but that could be something, you know.

Vice Peter, the only concern when we looked at this from the parking standpoint is in does that move people inside the neighborhoods?

The what?

Neighborhoods.

Oh, the people might move to those places.

That was the concern when we when we looked at this.

Right.

Just so you know.

So, yes, but but on the other hand, the neighborhoods don't have the public restrooms and stuff right there either.

That is true.

So I think that's less likely to be a problem.

And um, but I don't know, you know, it would be something that we could try.

If it worked, it worked.

It's just another potential solution without criminalizing people for being poor.

And I know a couple of people may be taking advantage.

And I and I and I think that's bad, but I don't want to make it, you know, there's other people that are living in their cars that aren't being obnoxious or irritating or annoying.

Okay.

Councilmember Shaw.

So, in answer to council member Early's question, what would determine habitation?

Um I turned in 36, 30 some pictures that are being shown on the screens that show you their habitations, their solar panels, you know, their grills, their furniture, that sort of thing.

So hopefully that will help convey the difference between sleeping in a car and habitation.

Um, and um, and I and I'd like to focus that I did look up at look up how some cities have dealt with this, and church properties was definitely high on the list because um that that is a very positive purpose for a church.

But um we have a very caring committee community.

Many residents, including myself are very compassionate.

We all know that life can take unexpected turns, and even some of our neighbors are facing circumstances that that they and we never thought would happen.

We want to support people who are truly unhoused and seeking help, and we do have services for that that are very positive.

At the same time, we're also seeing individuals who are choosing to live in their cars or vans and set up campsites, clustering, often disregarding the impact on others.

This is not just about compassion, it's about fairness, safety, and protecting the character of our community.

Many residents and businesses explain disrespect, continuous pushing of limits, and overtaking areas that are intended for the community as a whole.

Some businesses have conveyed that it's that it's impacting them as well.

One, for example, said that they can no longer hold weddings at their venue right now, and that they're receiving complaints from their patrons that their privacy, they don't feel that their privacy is regarded there.

A long time resident shared that people living in their car just recently at Veterans Park because we do have it there too.

It's not just on the beach, it's in various neighborhoods, it's in various parks.

And at Veterans Park, they had a domestic abuse, and three police cars were called out on it in the early hours.

These folks explained that they've enjoyed the use of Veterans Park with their family, that they no longer feel comfortable utilizing Veterans Park for family time with the grandchildren that it's been overtaken by, and I'm going to quote them by van lifers, and that locals are being displaced.

Many residents and some business owners have stopped me to share their concerns.

They're fearful to speak out and because they fear retaliation.

I could go on with more examples, but I am hoping that the pictures do help convey.

The goal is not to punish those in general and genuine need, but to address behaviors that negatively impact neighborhoods and the beach, compassion is essential.

There's also responsibility to keep public spaces welcoming and livable for everyone here.

This is not an easy issue, but doing nothing is not an option.

I'm committed to working with all of you to find a solution.

But let us view these pictures that will explain some of what residents are expressing concern about in various res neighborhoods, including alongshore boulevard.

As I said, I've I've looked into a number of ways cities respond to this, but first and foremost, they all say that they need something that their police department can work with.

And so if we do adopt this, we will have that.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And we will have public comment on this in just a minute.

So my thoughts for what they're worth is that what was presented to us tonight is different than maybe what you saw on the computer, okay.

It has been changed, and um what was presented it to us tonight is is what I like best so far, okay.

And what I like about this one versus what I thought we were going to be what I thought we were going to be voting on initially was that in the past, um, what we talked about before was we really got into debating about um sleeping in your car.

And I know overwhelmingly I I wanted people to be allowed to sleep because we don't know why they're sleeping, you know, and I'm not talking about sleeping night after night for six months, okay, but sleeping, certainly don't want anybody to come out of one of our entertainment places having had too much to drink and driving because they're afraid they were going to get a ticket for sleeping in the car.

So that's not in here.

The second thing that changed dramatically for me was the way it was written initially would be if the person who said, and I did get, I heard from three residents, just to kind of let you know, three residents that thought that we were being much too harsh by saying that people could not live in their vehicles, okay.

And the way it was written initially was on any property, not just public property, but even that a good Samaritan could not say, well, I've got a spot in my parking on my driveway tonight.

If you want to use this, you can.

The last draft did not permit that as well.

So that's a change because my feeling is for all the folks who don't live and aren't affected by these pictures.

If they feel like we're being too harsh, great.

Go on down, talk to these people and invite them into your yard, okay?

That that would be fine.

So the way this new ordinance has been written, that's totally legal.

You can do that, okay?

And then it's between you and them to decide is this for six months or a month or a week.

I mean, the city's out of it in that case.

So I actually like this.

Um in terms of the question um about not punishing the poor.

I mean, I think we would all agree with that.

Um I do think that there has been from conversations that some of us have had with some of our long-term campers.

We have been led to believe that this is a lifestyle that they have chosen, that they would prefer to live on the beach and have this view every day as opposed to maybe being in a more affordable apartment where they don't get to see the water every day and the dolphins.

Okay, and in terms of habitation, um, to me I I'm really proud of the fact that we've always had a police department that is compassionate and their people first.

And so when you get down to habitation, um did I say that right, habitation.

To me, I think that you can look in somebody's vehicle and know they had too much to drink and they're decided to sleep overnight, or you can decide after talking to them that this is either a man or a woman with their two children who had to flee in the middle of the night because of danger, domestic violence, um, a fire.

I think that that can be pretty well determined by looking in their vehicle and listening to the story.

But if you heard the same story from the same people whose car is packed and jammed with um cooking equipment, their pillow, their blanket, their TV, their uh mini air conditioners, I think that's habitation, and I think that that that is taking advantage.

And I I think it's time to shut down.

And um I will say that as you travel, and I know we have a lot of travelers in this city, you will find that Gulfport does not have nearly as big of a problem as many, many cities do.

But that doesn't matter if that's your view of your front yard, or if that's your view the first time you come into town, it sets an impression.

So we're not voting at this moment because we really want to hear public comment.

So I've shared.

Can we clarify one thing?

Yes, please.

The motion was it made on the original one that I wrote, or is it on the new one?

I believe the new one was read, and that's what the motion's on.

Okay, just want to clarify that so when public comment comes up that people understand what they're commenting on.

Right.

And is everybody clear on it, or do we need to read it again?

Okay, I don't see anybody saying read it again.

So we will open this now to public comment.

Can I just make one comment?

That a lot of the stuff that's in the pictures like this, where there's stuff out in the parking space, that's illegal now, and the police can make them stop that.

Having the stop outside the car?

No.

No.

Okay, she said I thought it was.

Okay.

Registered.

Okay, so we're gonna do public comment, which means that anyone who wants to speak and will listen to everybody, but you need to come up to the microphone because everything's been recorded.

All you gotta do is raise your hand and I'll call on you.

Okay, so would you like to come up first?

I don't know your name.

I'm trying to point to you in the back row there.

Oh, yeah.

Come on up.

Because we keep minutes of everything, it really helps if you'll just give your name because that's how our clerk tries to keep up with who said what.

Sure, thank you.

My name is Katie, and I live um right across from the public bathrooms on the corner of Shore and Clinton.

And I spoke, I think in August about the situation of lodging and living in vehicles.

Lodging is a much better word, I I agree.

Um, I would just want to say that from that meeting though, until today, I want to give thanks to the the police department because they're doing something because people are leaving.

The vans, all of this is in front of our house and our houses.

And um the uh put their policing of the dogs on the beach, thank you very much.

And they're also I can see them actually talking to the people, and it's not as bad as it was for the last couple of years.

So I thank you for that because you were listening, and I appreciate that.

The one thing that um I'm would like also to be in there's something about this that remember the story I told last time was the guy who pulls up in the blue, you know, the black car next to the blue car, and he just slowly just takes the stuff out and puts it in the car and rearranges his life.

Well, ma'am, he moved down to 58th, but there's still other cars that use our parking spaces for storage units.

So I don't know how you can incorporate that in there, but it's not only the lodging.

Um, but the sleeping overnight, uh, I think that's just compassionate because there are so many times that you know people do come out after drinking a lot in our and giving business uh money to our businesses, and I have overheard them with the cops.

Cops are saying, look, you can't park at the beach, just go on the other side and go to public parking.

And that's okay with me too, because like just like you said, we don't want them driving on our streets.

So that's okay too.

Um I think that's all I wanted to say.

All righty, thank you very much.

Public comment, yes, Ms.

Stern.

Um I was I was sitting next to you, and I felt like I should ask this in public comment.

Can we shut this off?

We've all seen it 700 times.

So I have a family member who is a drug addict and unhoused.

Can we?

I just feel like it's I think I think it's important that people.

That's okay.

That's a council person's decision.

Okay, I'm just asking the WC, like I think we've seen it all over and over.

So I have a family member who's unhoused, so this is like very personally triggering for me.

I'm also a parent, so I'm at the beach all the time.

We were there today.

There was none of this today.

So, whatever enforcement or encouragement or interventions or suggestions or it is moving in a direction.

I'm really happy to hear someone who lives on that street saying that because I think there's been a lot of improvements.

Um, we can't criminalize them sleeping in their cars.

We can't do that.

We've been talking about that for months.

The bathroom situation is the thing that we basically have to just talk straight about.

We can criminalize the stuff, we can criminalize the feet the cooking.

Um there were pictures, including people sitting at the tables.

I I think that's that's iffy to me on saying that that we know those people are unhoused because they're sitting at the tables or they have oh food with them, and we just some of these pictures just were were upsetting for me to see that we're looking at groups of people, not in their cars, and we're saying based on this possession that you have sitting with you, we're assuming something.

I find that troubling.

Um I also you know, there's also NA and AA meetings that meet there that are some of the same people, and so if you stay in the area because you want to go to a meeting that day, you're might be around.

You might be you might look exactly like somebody that is there as unhoused or has a vehicle that you think shouldn't be there or whatever.

But I just this there's like a it's upset, it's upsetting to me.

So I just wanted to come up here like raw and share that.

Um, but as far as the idea of using 49th Street um behind the neighborhood center, that parking lot that's not a residential, that's not an immediately residential area, it's immediate commercial area, at least those two blocks up and down.

And I think that's a positive option if we bring bathrooms there, but for the churches for that parking lot, you if you're not providing a bathroom, it's not an overnight option that's gonna have safe sanitation disposal.

We just have to be honest about that.

And so I think it would be great if we invested in a trailer that could serve people who are here anyway, be you know, more easily cleaned and separated away from our public facilities that down there, the bathrooms, which also require outside showers.

Like we say, we know that these are gonna be people showering right outside in front of all these families and everybody visiting.

Um I do think if the churches are interested in this conversation, there's absolutely precedence for that partnership that many other cities have done that.

So I guess we're pretty much only talking about the church right in our Chase Park.

I can't think of another sized one, but would love to hear what they what they think.

Yes.

I'm sorry I didn't call you by name because I don't know your name.

Okay.

Hi, I am Shauna Stone.

I am living in town shores at the moment because my house on DuPont Street was ruined in Hurricane Helene.

I hope all the council members here pass this ordinance.

I am in ward two.

This, what we're looking at here, I've been looking at for eight months.

We have asked the police for help, and it was only until recently, and by chance, sitting at Comfort Cafe next to Officer Stone.

I don't know his his.

We started talking about this, and he got he stepped up.

Now we are a tourist town.

We need the economy of people coming in and buying breakfast, buying lunch, buying dinner, buying an ice cream, having a couple of beers.

We need that.

We need these parking spaces that are free for people to come in from St.

Pete and Treasure Island, Passagrill.

You don't know how many people from Tierra Verde come over.

We need that for our economy.

We need these parking spaces for the families bringing in their children to go to the beach to go to the playground and use the recenter.

Okay.

I am not here to criminalize homelessness.

This, as the lawyer here said, is lodging, lodging in their vehicles.

So they have enough money for their vehicles, provide safe spaces then.

But we have to get people off of the public streets.

But thank you.

Thank you.

Let's see.

Uh Priscilla, were you next?

Priscilla Kitter, and I live at 5320 Havana Court.

I've lived in Gulfport since 1985, and we raised our five children here, and some of my children live in the area and grandchildren also.

And the changes that we have seen are largely positive.

But the car camping, the van life, the people living on the in their cars parked all around, is not a positive one.

Um probably two years ago, there was a red truck that lived at Veterans Park for about a week.

I hesitated to call the police because I was like, I know they're living there.

I see them, I see that park out my window.

Um previously I'd called the police because there was something parked in front of my yard with things all over it, boxes all attached to it, and there was no license visible.

And I said, I don't know what the hell's going on.

Nobody I'd ever seen, and the policeman was extremely dismissive of me.

So I didn't call on the red car, which the red truck, which ultimately some of you might remember he'd had a break or something, and then drove down to the waterfront, smashed into those um mangroves and set up a house inside the mangroves for quite some time, and then the city had to go in and backhoe his car out.

Anyway, that's a few years ago.

So it's been going on.

The city workers are burdened with trash and people defecating in the parks and all kinds of things.

I have seen people come with their big bags of garbage.

I'm talking contractor bags of like a week's worth of garbage, right before July 4th, and shove it into one of the cans meant for like the public.

And I was like, that's terrible because it was I knew it was then everybody else couldn't put their garbage there, so it was gonna be like a the pile of cans for the city workers.

I'm a taxpayer.

I'm also a person who has a has homed house homelessness.

Uh, my brother lived with me for about a month and a half when he was homeless.

He's still home, he's still sort of semi-homeless, and he wouldn't abide by the rules of no drugs, and he refused, so I had to give a kick him out.

So I'm sympathetic, but no, there have to be um there have to be rules and the Gulf Port citizens are what this city council answers to, not just you know, I of course we don't all hate the poor, but the citizens are the taxpayers, and we pay for this.

I no longer do beach yoga, I no longer go down to the playground with my kids.

I would never, I haven't been in that bathroom for years because of I don't know what's gonna, I would never take my grandchildren there.

So it is affecting our citizens.

And if you would love to have somebody parked in your driveway, I say please too.

That would be great, you know, if people wanted to do that.

There should be a little good.

Who's next?

Yes, Amy.

Amy Costa, 28th Avenue South.

Um, this is a tough topic, I think, and there's no um perfect solution.

I feel that I'm from Philly, so you know, the unhoused are everywhere, you know, you pull up it on a corner and they're coming out to your car.

I mean, I grew up around it, and it wasn't anything that we could do about it, right?

You just live your life and we feel sad and we wish they had a better situation, but they don't.

Um, I agree.

I have friends who are struggling with the view from their homes.

I understand that it's scary as a parent to go to a park and feel like you can't use the public bathroom, but it's not illegal what they're doing, you know.

And I think what we have to think about, just like when we talk about code enforcement.

If someone's doing something that is illegal or is harming someone, report it and call the police.

If you don't like the way it looks because it looks ugly in our cute little town, yeah, I get it.

I don't want anyone living in front of my house, right?

I wouldn't want a camp set up either.

I would look out and be like, what's going on here?

But in reality, I can't do anything about it unless they're causing me harm or threatening me or something like that.

I think we really and we can do a church and we can come up with all these really great solutions.

I love those movable bathrooms.

I think the Salvation Army has the trucks that'll come in and set up different things for different events, or people can come and use them and all that.

So there's definitely things we can do.

However, what is the reality that you're gonna go down and say, hey, we found you guys all spot.

There's bathrooms, there's parking, we just need you to move here away from this beautiful view, away from access to everything you have right here, maybe your boat, maybe your friends, you know, and go up here and you know, live in this parking.

I don't think it's realistic.

Um, and we can't criminalize people and say, Well, you you know, unless it's says no parking anymore, you know, and I and I think it's hard, and I hear everyone's point of view, but um I think we have to be realistic about the reasons that we don't like this.

You know, is it uncomfortable for us?

Is you know, are people a threat?

That's what we have to figure out.

If these people are threatening someone, if you walk by and they're saying lewd things, if they're trying to rob you, that's a different story.

If they're just mining their business and they're at they happen to be parked in a parking spot in a chair and hanging out, I don't know if that's fair to just be like, we need these people gone.

You know, we don't know their stories, we don't know what got them there.

Um, I don't have the all the answers.

I'm up here because I just have a feeling about it.

I think we have to think about um each person as an individual, and if anyone who's struggling with it has had incidences where they felt threatened, they should be calling for help at that moment.

Um I would be curious to know if anything has happened in that way, other than maybe someone dropping their pants.

I, you know, growing up at the beach, surfers always would be changing their clothes outside, right?

Going from their wetsuits or their shorts.

Whatever.

We don't need to see it out on our streets, but it's not also if if someone's getting naked, call the police.

It's illegal, right?

To be that's in decent exposure.

I think we have to look at the actions and not the people and try to come up with solutions that way.

And I'm happy to be a part of that conversation and help in any way.

All righty, thank you.

Who's next for public comment?

Is that Wolfgang?

Yeah.

Hi, Wolfgang Dininger.

Uh I really think we as a uh city need to uh visit uh paid parking.

I think uh paid parking is a great uh solution.

I know I I love the St.

Pete Pier.

I'm down there probably a four or five days a week because I like it so much.

Um parking down there is two dollars and fifty cents an hour.

You go down there, you can have dinner, you can stroll around, you can spend four hours for five hours, you're paying like ten dollars.

That's not a lot of money to ask to park.

And I just think it's time that we as a city uh address uh uh visit uh paid parking.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who's next for public comment?

Yes, Nancy.

Nancy from 51st Street South.

I totally agree with Wolf Graham.

Wolf Wolfgang, I totally agree.

I I didn't think about that until he mentioned it.

I think that would solve everything to have paid parking.

You're not gonna be offending anybody.

You it's you know, I'm sure other beaches do that too.

I feel like we really have to get a hold of this problem because if we do nothing, it's only probably gonna get worse.

So I think paid parking might be a solution.

Okay.

Who else?

Lisa Malkey Waterfront.

I'm really mad, and I am not gonna say what I wrote because I was gonna say something really complimentary and ask thanking you for taking all the time that I've spent up here and listening to my concerns for people who are concerned and who are venomently opposed.

I think you guys are very isolated from what's really going on.

I am not uncompassionate.

I these people are not homeless.

That's what you have to understand.

These people have chosen this.

This is a lifestyle.

They want to live in their cars.

They have means.

They've been provided with services that they have available.

They can go do go anywhere.

They have chosen to stay in one place for six months for eight months.

They live there.

They shower there, they cook there, they spread out all their furniture, their animals, their drums, their furniture.

This is a problem.

And it's a problem for our town, and it's a problem for what other people construe when they come to our town.

Okay, I don't want, I want Golfport to come back from this storm to be revitalized, to be renewed, to have this new energy.

And when people from other places and they come here and they go, oh yeah, but Golfport has all those people living on the beach.

I can't take my kids, I can't take my elderly parents to the places I used to go because it's not comfortable.

Because you see pictures where they're in the pavilion, but they're in the pavilion because they live there, and then I can't go to the pavilion with my older parents.

It's affecting our lives here.

And I think that you don't live down where this is happening.

You Cossi don't live where it is.

April, I know that you come down there, but you don't really understand what the situation is.

It isn't one day that you see this stuff on a picnic table.

It's it means that the families can't come down and have a picnic that Sunday with their family because it's covered with people's laundry and their coolers and their dogs.

I don't think that you guys understand, and you can be compassionate, but you need to understand what the situation is that we're dealing with, and it's not people who have nowhere else to go.

And I feel very strongly about this.

And before you make a vote, I think that you need to educate yourself on what is really this is about.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Who else would like to address this issue?

Yes, please.

Hi, my name is uh Lorraine Lights.

Uh we're new to Gulfport.

We took ownership of Seabreeze Manor Inn.

Then we got hit by the hurricane.

We just got back up, but now some of these pictures that you see, we have a room that is called Jamaica.

Outside of Jamaica, we have this nice patio that we had to restore because of the storm.

We have people that come in from town staying in the rooms.

They set out there and they're seeing people undress, get in their nightcloth so they can stay right in front of the view that they pay 200 and some dollars for a night.

So we're gonna lose revenue based upon this.

We have concerns from our people who are coming to town.

Um again, they're scared to go walk downtown to you know, the stores, the restaurants at late at night because they don't know.

They're they're new, they're coming here as guests.

They don't know that these people are not gonna hurt them or are going to hurt them.

So it's it's a big problem for us because we're just trying to get back up from the hurricane, and we need the business.

Um there's a chair in one of these pictures that we had set out because of the hurricane had affected it.

Somebody took it, and they have it here by their car.

So I'm very compassionate.

I really hope we can find a solution and help these people.

I really we do care.

We're willing to help out with this solution if somebody, you know, comes up with something.

I think the churches is really good.

Um, I think I don't know how big Gulf Port is and like trying to find housing for them, um, building houses.

Um we also lived in California, so I know what homeless is very much so.

I've helped out on Skid Row, so I'm very compassionate with it, but we do need to run a business, and we do need to have people come back from this hurricane and be able to go downtown and to spend their money so we can have more tax dollars, and we also are trying to do events and weddings, and it's kind of hard.

So that's thank you.

And I thank everybody.

Thank you.

Yes.

Laura Oldini, Ninth Avenue South.

So just a couple disparate thoughts.

Um, one, I'd be curious to hear from our chief of police, just in terms of what crimes, if any, have been reported by um, you know, by people who are unhoused or would fall under the purview of these pictures.

I don't know if that's something she could speak to at this meeting.

And then I do very much appreciate the compassionate approach, and I know these solutions are challenging.

And I in some ways I really like the idea of a church, and I can think of several of them around that are options, but I just wonder how helpful it would be in terms of deterring this during the day.

It'd be one thing to get them off the property and give them a place to sleep, but are they just gonna come back during the day and still be an issue for people?

I don't know the answer to that, but that would be you know something to consider.

So, two things that and I don't know again, what crimes have we experienced from this population, if any.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm getting ready to close public comment unless you speak up.

Nope, you've already been up.

Sorry.

Anyone else?

Yes.

I'm sorry, but you only get one three minutes per topic.

MJ Kozlowski, 27th and 58th.

Can you use a microphone because it's taped?

MJ Kozlowski, 27th Avenue and South and 58th Street.

It's not only the beach.

Um we we walk, I walk my dog over it by the wreck area.

And uh, because people can't smoke uh on the beach, they're coming over there now with their reefers and uh and you know, some of them you want to talk about those people with the little house with the cars.

I mean, they come.

One lady had seven kids.

Um she's from Sarasota, and she was over there cooking all kinds of hamburgers and hot dogs and uh and it you know it's it's you're gonna move them off the beach, they're gonna move to another place, and I think you just gotta police them.

I I remember when I first moved to Gulfport, the policemen used to ride bikes, and it was great because they could get in places that they couldn't with their cars.

So um I don't I don't see anybody over there by the wreck area and the the houses.

I'm shocked that nobody has broken into the apartments because you know everything is wide open, but um you know it there are people that are doing strange things everywhere.

There was a couple there, a lady was f-bombing crazy, like crazy, and they weren't from the area, they had just stopped by and thought it was a great place to sit.

So who knows?

They moved on, but I I just uh the reefers really bug me there because I'm an old retired prison nurse, so I just can tell by the smell what it is.

Okay, and I I just don't think that's a place for it, but what do I know?

All righty, I'm getting ready to hit the gavel.

Anyone else on that topic?

So, Trey Johnson, I am new to the area.

I work for the gabber, but I'm on my scooter dancing through St.

Pete, St.

Pete Beach here.

I love Gulfport, it's beautiful.

It's friendly.

Everybody always compliments me on my clothes.

I really do like it.

I love your solution about the church.

I just really wish you can't keep saying you have compassion and then talk about how it's irritating you that people have to live in their car.

We can't keep giving these blanket statements that people choose to live in their car without talking to them.

I understand uh I think it was you.

I've seen the pictures, they're terrible.

I don't want to look out my window and see that either.

However, when you get back into your bed and you're watching TV, these people are still living on the streets or in their car.

Most of them, it is not a choice, it is survival.

So you have to I it's just frustrating to keep hearing I'm compassionate, unless it inconveniences me.

Unless it inconveniences me.

That's not right.

We're all humans, and this world is is going down the shitter because no one cares about anybody and they only care about how it affects them directly.

That is not how most of us I think were born and raised.

Well, we were, you know, growing up in school, it was sharing.

It was helping the vulnerable popular population.

It's not penalizing somebody because a company shut down, they can't pay their mortgage, they have no food for their seven kids.

That's really mean to now, hey, we don't want you here because it looks bad.

I think giving them an option when you give people an option to have pride and to be self-sufficient, that's typically the one they're going to choose.

There's a few of them that are gonna just live off the system, but that's not really how most people are.

So I just implore you as you guys keep judging these homeless people, and and take it from me.

I've talked to a lot of them, some of them are nutbags, but some of them have just went into hard times.

So rather than just saying, oh, you look bad or you look funny, or I don't like your legal marijuana.

How about saying, okay, what can we do to give them a safe place to sleep, shower, and eat?

That's basic needs that should be met.

And I think to now just penalize people and judge them when you've never really suffered a day in your life is not the right approach.

And it's not compassion.

Yes, please.

I just want to say um, if they everybody's saying they have been offered services and have denied them.

That's that's the issue.

It's not about you know, they they're homeless, they have to live there.

They're denying the services that our town is offering or our county is offering.

That's the issue.

That's what makes everybody so mad about how they're acting, and just being disrespectful when you see all this stuff.

But that's my issue about having them offered services and they've denied it.

So it's not about people, you know, we don't have compassion because I do.

I do.

Thank you.

All righty, going once, going twice.

I'm closed public comment.

So we wanted to hear from the public, we heard from the public.

We have a motion and we have a second.

Um, do we need to everybody have a one-minute recap before we take a vote here?

Would you like to see that?

Let it each person talk again for a minute.

For a minute in in speaking order.

If there's particularly if there's anything new you want to add, and if you don't want your minute, it's okay.

I don't have anything new to add.

I like uh I'm okay with section E and I'm not okay with section D.

Okay.

I don't have any more anything more.

Okay.

So I totally agree that this is a problem.

I would solve it a different way.

So that's why I'm not opposed.

I mean, I'm opposed to this.

I think paid parking is something we could look at.

Stickers, moving them to a different place.

Those are all things we can look at.

But for the for the ones who are not taking advantage of services and staying and staying and staying, I don't want to penalize the ones who aren't in that position because when you make it illegal, you're gonna be affecting other people besides these ones.

So I'd rather solve it a different way.

I agree it's a problem.

Agree we shouldn't have to be having them there.

Totally agree with that, but a different solution.

Okay, Councilmember Shaw, anything new?

First, I'd like to point out that um the reason we see improvement is that services have been going out, police have been going there.

They also know this is under discussion.

One of them even tried to pull me out of the Gecko Fest parade to talk about it.

Um, so they know this is a big topic amongst our our citizenry right now.

And um, and and to suggest that anyone knows what level of compassion someone else has is not a fair statement.

I myself have taken in homeless people from the time I was I lived on my own from the time I was 16 years old, and I've taken people in, and even now I've had they are family members right now, but I've taken them in due to their hardships for for for years now.

And even now I've had they are family members right now, but I've taken them in due to their hardships for for years now.

So you know, and I've had immediate family members that were homeless that I also tried to help, but it wasn't only family members that I tried to help.

That minute is for real.

Okay, so let me talk real quick.

Um I also have noticed improvements.

I do drive down there most mornings, sometimes in the evenings I've noticed improvements.

So I don't know what the police are doing, but it is helping.

Um you know, we always come back to the same thing.

There's homeless, and we're gonna help them, and there's lifestyle campers, long-term internet, they work together as a team.

That's a totally different thing, and that's what we're really in my opinion trying to avoid.

Um I'm not at all opposed to the idea of paid parking, it's actually to be talked about tonight.

I'm gonna set a date for discussion.

I'm also actually like the idea of stickers along Shore Drive, like maybe if I heard that right, the stickers would be for residents only.

You have to prove that you're a resident.

So again, I like this ordinance better than any because it in my opinion, it allows all the folks who want to help these people, bring them to your place.

It's absolutely okay, it would not be illegal.

Also, the fact that it clarifies between sleeping and habitation.

Can you call the vote?

Councilmember Jackson?

No.

Councilmember Early?

No.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

No.

Councilmember Shaw, yes.

Mayor Love, yes.

Mayor, can I just make a comment?

Yes, please.

For those that uh voted against in the majority, if you want to keep E you can make a motion solely on E.

Just so you know.

Okay, I would make a motion that we keep E.

I second.

Okay.

Have a motion and a second.

Do we need any council comments on on E?

Okay.

So this is just for keeping item E in the ordinance.

That's what they vote.

Councilmember Jackson.

Yes.

Councilmember Early.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Lev.

Yes.

Carries.

Second one carries.

So that'll be on for second reading.

Uh E.

And it I'll just amend the ordinance so that it reads just section eight.

Okay, so I now have 811, and we are going to take a quick bathroom break in for about seven minutes.

So we will meet back here at 8.18.

We don't have a crowd anymore.

I know that's why I want to see what you meant.

The meeting is resumed, and we will move on with uh resolutions, please.

Item 9A, resolution number 2025-69.

A resolution awarding the bid for contractor permitting services to CAP Government Incorporated, a Bureau of Heritas company, and to authorize the city manager to negotiate a contract therewith.

Motion to approve.

I second.

Thank you.

City manager.

Yes, Mayor.

We're gonna have a short presentation.

Mr.

Mather's gonna give a short presentation in regards to the new processes that we're looking at.

This is basically to authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with a third-party provider to provide building inspection and also plan review for companies for private contractors.

It also lays out a process for the homeowner, owner builder.

David.

So good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

So I look up there, I keep forgetting.

So first of all, um I noticed this is blank here, how we got here.

How we got here.

I think we all know how we got to this point at this time, and we'd all like to move forward.

And I'm hoping with this resolution we can move forward.

So I worked with Clark, and obviously he worked with his employees to uh to uh make this.

So uh new vision for the building department.

Um it's a hybrid vision of permitting, and what we mean by a hybrid vision of permitting is that we now have will have uh this third-party provider that will deal with contractors.

Um at the same time, which you will see in a little bit, uh, we will also have our own uh staff working with citizens directly.

Um so that's what we mean by a hybrid.

Um so in this uh you'll also see some new permitting workflows.

Um there is position and staffing changes.

I think we've already spoken about that, but essentially what that means is those positions that were taken out of the budget that um you know that'll be used for these um this contractor, and then of course, we have new technologies both in position now and coming very soon, and I'll get a little into that too.

Um so uh this is the first workflow, and let me uh put my glasses on, and then this is a little small.

I can try to make it a little bit bigger with the picture.

Um, but it and I can also provide you might have already gotten these in your documents.

If not, I can always provide them for you.

Uh so which one is this?

This is owner builder.

Um, so the first part of this workflow is the uh verified owner-builder application submitted in person at permit counter.

Uh, and that requires a signature and ID.

And Clark was uh saying to me that that's why that has to be submitted in person because they need the ID and the signature to verify that.

Uh so there's two different parts of this pro, or there's two different shootoffs here.

The first one being uh permit tech triage.

So let's say you did want to submit it.

Um after you get it done, you just want to submit it because maybe you have a background in this kind of thing and you understand the permitting process.

Um the permit tech will then ask for city staff zoning, flood planning review, um, also verify application is complete or incomplete at that time of submittal, so they can you know further help that person.

So let's say you did think you crossed all your T's, dotted all your I's but you didn't, then that permitting staff can say, hey, you did miss this, something like that.

Or you can take this alternative route, which is if you need they you can make an appointment and uh the reviewer will go over uh what you need, uh what the process is, things of that nature.

So that's when both paths lead to the same position, whether you've had the interview or you've just submitted, you'll then be getting this customer service tech who is a licensed plan reviewer.

Because remember, can uh contractors are going to be dealt with in an entirely different way.

Uh, we won't have to necessarily quote unquote worry about those contractors because they're going to be handled by this professional third party.

Whereas in this particular with the home, the owner-builder, these are direct citizens of Gulfport, and they will kind of I don't want to say have their hand held, but they will have someone there customer friendly to help them with their issues or their permitting.

Uh so from there, this is where the plan reviewer, along with the permit text, obviously, will put it into zoning review if needed, flood plan review, if there's substantial improvementslash damage, another storm comes, something like that, God forbid.

Uh so the the two from there is yes, it goes to zoning review, then it gets approved, and permit is either issued by the counter or by email.

And I am happy to say that you can pay by uh in-person telephone and online.

Originally, these people could not pay online, but we've we've opened that up for this particular path.

So you will be able to pay online now.

Obviously, if you don't need the planning review, you still get your permit.

You can either be issued in person over the counter or by email, and again, you can pay by the same methods.

The next one we have here is the registered contractor.

So, what's gonna happen here is you still will need the permitting staff to, and I'm sorry, do you let me see if I have another copy of this?

I don't think I do though.

I think it later, don't we?

Okay, okay.

Um, so the uh registered contractors submit digitally signed permit applications via city portal.

Um that's one that Clark said they're legally allowed to do that through the portal.

As before, we they couldn't do that if they're the owner builder.

Uh so then it goes to the permit text again for triage.

Permit verifies application is complete, incomplete application applicant is notified by email and that but then it goes down to still sit uh still within our purview for zoning required, city planning staff involvement includes all permits applications in the flood zone.

So if that is required, then again, yes, you go to zoning and planning and the flood ordinance uh for the same things that the other one people had to do.

Uh if not, it goes if not, or if they do have to do that, the next thing that happens is a fire review by the city fire marshal for commercial applications.

Uh the next thing down is uh third-party plan review and inspections.

That's the company that if you all agree we'll be hiring.

Um, and that will deal with building mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fuel, gas, um, accessibility, energy, all those things.

Um, then it goes down to the approved uh permit issued by the permitting counter, and the payments can be made in person via telephone or the city portal.

There is a third type, which is required by law, and that is really easy.

Uh and hopefully everybody can see that one.

That one is uh whether you're owner-builder or contractor, you get a single trade private provider uh to submit your permit.

The private provider handles the review and the inspection, and the building official just signs off and has to legally sign off within five days.

So those are the three types.

Now there are nuances within the the obviously the contractor one.

If you have to do a docs, something like that.

Didn't get into that with these processes, but it's basically the same.

Okay, can you because I know what the single trade private providers, but I have a feeling maybe nobody.

Okay, we can what that is is someone you retain your own building official basically to manage your project to do the inspections, the plan review, and then that's you hire that person by law, you're allowed to have your own.

And they're state registered and everything.

Yeah, they have to be a license, and they have to register with us so we can verify that they're a legitimate license as the vice mayor spoke of.

We had folks do that too.

Okay, yes.

Yeah, a lot of people are doing that now.

So technology integration.

We have B SNA at this point, um, and we have the payment portal.

Like I said, a new portion of that payment portal will be the owner builder will be able to use that too.

Um the new website, which you will be showcased on October 7th, I believe.

Um, that's gonna have an FAQ, and we specifically are trying to design the FA part of the FAQ to focus specifically on permitting and community development in general.

We also are are kind of developing a chat bot at the same time.

Um chatbots, you know, everybody kind of uses those.

Um hopefully we can get it going where it's really focused, but ultimately, if you do need someone to speak to, because a lot of these things are nuanced, um, then you would be prompted to speak to someone if it's within regular hours.

Um we do we are utilizing mobile devices, and this goes along with this next one down.

We did contract with Forerunner.

Umner is uh going to be really nice.

Um it's going to be one of those things that we can do a public side to to show floodplain elevation and all that, but at the same time, it's also really great tool for uh doing substantial damage and things like that.

They can do it right in the field and it goes right over.

It also attaches the GIS information, and um we can send things into BSNA.

We can we can send the um it's not an API, but it's you know, we can send a little document in.

Uh I don't get too technical, but like a document for lack of a better word, uh, into BSNA, so it can be seen on that side too.

Uh so there are several different factors to this, but this is mainly for storm damage and for uh floodplain elevation.

Um then each depart each person kind of over there uh has their own large plan monitors too, so when they bring it up, they can see everything.

Uh and it's it's really kind of cool.

Um so these are this is what we're doing right now.

Uh next steps in implementation.

Obviously, the RFP has been create, not only been created, it is before you for vote.

Um the company was vetted um by three per people.

We checked references.

Um we did send you this digitally.

Uh, this is the pamphlet for it, uh, or this is the booklet for it, and um they are a huge company, they have boots on the ground everywhere.

Um when I spoke directly to the president of this of CAP, um, they basically said, you know, whenever anybody wants us to start, we can start the next day if we really want to.

Obviously, I said it probably be October.

Uh, they but they have they have something for everything, and the great thing about something like this is we're not just getting one per one, like you know, we're not just getting one person out there on the ground.

Whatever the volume dictates is what we will get, and they have their own building official too that works for that as well.

So all that is compacted into that for those contractors.

Um their building official can their building official actually sign off, or does everything still have to be signed by Mr.

Stryker?

Their building official will sign the permits that they approve, they will that they create with through their plan review will sign off on, and that it initially it's and it's included in the contract.

Okay.

And and the thing is with that is uh Clark had said because they are there's kind of like wholly it's it's it's its own little world pretty much because they're all he's verifying that that particular uh contractor to permit to you know all of his people.

Uh I know I'm saying that weird, but um I couldn't think of the word for some reason offhand.

But um it's basically um um an ecosystem, that's what I was going for, its own ecosystem, and that's why he can sign or that building official, whether it's a man or woman can sign off on that.

Um, and then uh the same thing.

Uh the one of the things that we wanted in here and we received is a percentage rather than an hourly rate.

Although, if if it did happen, and you know, we're all crossing our fingers that it doesn't, that there's a storm.

This company is so big that they have capacity that within the price ranges that's like kind of the a la carte, they can also step in and do those as well.

Uh, I tried to be as detailed as possible when I made the actual agenda.

Um, but that's I think this is the end here of my um well, so staffing obviously we've talked about customer service is going to be essential, the technology we talked about is essential.

Two other things that we definitely want is feedback, obviously, and uh and obviously we'll have to be adaptable too.

This is going to be new for everyone for a while.

So if we do need to pivot, we can pivot.

But luckily, with a company like this, I don't think it would be too hard to shift things because again, it's just such a such a massive company, and the fact that they've dealt with places like Sanibel, Pinellas County, and all cities from from Sannibel size all the way up.

Um so if you have any questions, um just let me know.

Mayor, if I can interject as well.

Yes, please real quickly.

Uh the reference for Pinellas County is one of their clients, was Mr.

McAndrews, who told us he didn't have the capacity to take us on.

He was their reference for Pinellas County, the chief building official.

Okay.

Good to know.

I believe the contract is five years, and either party has a 30-day out.

Correct.

And it's pay as you go.

Correct.

Right.

And so that the way just so people know, um, it's an 80-20 preposition.

Uh they get 80%, obviously, because they're giving the workload.

Uh, they will give us 20.

And he actually said the one gentleman I spoke to, which is the president of CAP, he actually even told me that uh some municipalities give them, want to give them all of their money because then they don't have to deal with the the fact that legally they have to use it for within the building because they have it going towards every part of the building.

But in our case, we do have separation, and this will pay for I mean 20% of some of these numbers is pretty significant anyway.

Okay.

So are we gonna go in?

Yeah, we'll go in speaking order.

Um I talked about this with the city manager this morning, and I don't have any other questions.

Um, I think this is great.

First of all, I did read up on this company in their main office in Coral Gables, Miami, which is no joke.

I used to down the street from there.

Um very um serious people.

Um it's the emergency piece, which I think is always great.

They can come in, especially knowing we're here, they're there, over here Santa Bow.

I think that's great.

We'll at least have that coverage for the emergency, which is I think the biggest our biggest issue.

Thank you.

Um I had a couple of things.

Um my hope would have been that we had more than one contractor apply, but I was really pleased to see flow charts of processes.

Um I'm really happy with that because I think that was one thing that even if you just added people, you still needed to look at our processes.

So I was happy about that.

So if you have the owner-builder permits, who's gonna do the inspections on those?

That's the people, right?

The company will.

Even though they're not in the portal.

Exactly.

They will be put in by we have to they will be put in by the permit tax.

Okay, so they'll still do even though and and what percentage would they get for those then?

There it's all blankets 20 percent.

They would get the 20 percent of their of our revenue.

They would get 80.

80.

I'm sorry.

So before you were explaining to me that we were taking care of all the owner-builder things.

So if we're doing all the work in a prime approving those, why are they getting 80 percent just to do the inspection?

I don't th I think that the um I thought a clerk had said that uh the the um the Arnold uh it's Griff is doing that who's doing those is the plan reviewer.

Yeah, he's gonna be doing the plan or we'll do all the way through the plan review.

Right.

Right.

But the inspection, we're gonna pay them 80 percent of the contract fee.

I mean of the permit fee to just do the inspection.

It's cumulative.

I mean, yes, that's the the contract.

But we're doing all the main work.

Well, I understand.

They should get only 20 percent.

We should get 80 percent.

Please let him finish the answer before you interrupt.

The 80 percent is cumulative.

There's gonna you're also getting 20 percent, 20 hours a week of a building official.

It's cumulative.

But I'm gonna go.

Yes.

You're you're yes, you you have to have somebody have an inspector.

You just eliminated your inspector positions.

Someone has to do the inspection.

I know, yeah.

So that's okay.

I I don't understand what you're saying.

When you're saying it's cumulative, the the revenue.

I I so I understand, but my impression was that the ones that they're doing on the portal, well, they're doing the majority of the work, they were getting 80 percent.

Right, and that we were gonna handle the others and get all the revenue for the others.

So I didn't understand that we were gonna do all the work for the owner-builder ones, but still give them 80 percent of the revenue.

Well, the idea with the owner builder, but maybe I always uh misspoke, it was unclear.

The owner-builder, the number one thing is putting them with the licensed city employee plan reviewer.

I know, so that's gonna take a lot more of our time.

And so we should get 80 percent, and they should only get 20.

Well, one of the things I can say is that's why I kind of built into that memo that we can negotiate.

They did say that they, if for example, any thing that started prior because obviously we're not gonna you know walk away and go home right now until October 1st and say, well, we'll just let them deal with it.

So there will be some still open permits, and they said anything like that, they'll negotiate a different price because we did some of the work.

So we have it built into this um memo that you would be voting on that we could talk to them about that and see if we can negotiate a different price for the ones that we're doing more for.

Yeah, I think the owner-builder ones we should get 80 percent of, and they should get 20 just for do the inspection because we're putting it in the portal, uh which I don't even know why we need to unless because they're doing the inspection, they need to be able to see it.

But we're we're talking to the people, we're helping them through the process.

We're taking the time to put it in the portal where the contractors do that themselves.

So I don't see why we're giving them 80 percent for that.

We can ask them.

We can do that.

So we can talk about it.

I mean, it just doesn't even make sense.

You know, because we're keeping staff so that we can give this service, and if we give away all that revenue, and when we were talking about the money, you were kind of talking about the amount that was gonna be going through the portal and that we were still gonna have this other stream.

Let me talk to them.

Yeah, because I I don't think that's fair.

Um then property owners, you know, now they can go in and and look and see how their contract, you know, because very often contractors will tell people that they put their permit in and then they find out yeah, they didn't put the permit in.

So can property owners still go in and monitor this whole process?

I mean if they if they want to sign up for a the same thing.

Same principle now.

But nothing's changing on the BSNA side other than you can make payments as a home owner builder.

And um, yeah, no, nothing else is changing.

I was so they can still do that.

All right.

Um then you talked about the emergency side.

Do we need to sign a separate contract with them to cover the emergency side to satisfy the state law?

Yeah, what we'll have someone.

We're also the Pinellas County is ranking theirs, and they will be we will also get a contractor that if necessary will bring you back once Pinellas County releases their list of vetted companies, you can also have that company.

But we could use this one.

Yes, you could.

And would we use this one and another one, or just we'd have to we could we can have contracts with both of them, just like we did with the debris removal.

Right, just in case.

In case you needed it.

Okay.

And one of the things I'd like to say too about only I was thinking about this, only one contractor, you know, really, or you know, one vendor.

Um, and I think that a lot of these companies are very cautious about jumping into these places now that they've had some issues like that.

So I think that a company that does do it kind of has to know they can can handle the capacity.

Which I get.

Um you answered about how long it was.

That was good.

Um with the people we hired before that were, you know, where they gave us, I forget their name, but the one where they gave us staff and we were paying them hourly.

Save built.

Two and tailor, two and tailor and save build.

They'll be going away.

And we found that they made some significant mistakes.

So are we gonna still spot check what they're doing to check do quality checks?

Because we don't want that to happen again.

And that's why we had at the as the mayor spoke of, that's why they're also providing their building official to approve the information.

They'll also be checking it.

Because at now Clark was having to review all of the two and tailor work because he's the license, he's a licensed building official.

They also will have a licensed building official that'll be responsible for their work of their employees.

But was Clark inspect?

He wasn't inspecting the case.

He wasn't inspecting.

No, he was he was a review, he would have to review two and tailor's issues.

That's what you're asking.

Once we found issues, but he wasn't doing it before.

Yeah.

So as long as we're spot checking them so that we know that he knows he has to manage the contract.

Okay.

And that's why we're entering, you'd mentioned asked that's why I was remembering you would ask why we had to put everything in B SNA.

There's an audit trail there, so if somebody has an issue, they can look back and say, oh, it's this reason.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with putting everything in there.

It's just that we're doing 80 percent of the work, we should get 80 percent of the money.

So okay.

Yeah, I would like that that part to be looked at.

That's all I I agree.

It's very good that it's a large company, uh, large reputable company that can respond to our needs as they might arise.

Um, and um I I do like the 8020 split um conceptually, but if there is any room for negotiation as was discussed, I think that would be great.

And as you pointed out, the the um the uh paperwork does say say that as far as what was attached to the agenda.

Um I think oh the only other question I had is there were hourly rates that were beyond the contract.

So could you explain that a little bit?

Sure.

So there was the reason why they had both at first was because we had said um we would prefer the percentage, um, but we would you know entertain other because we were pretty sure that other companies may not every company would do a split, and so they provided both for that reason.

Um and then with the with everything else, they also they can provide other things in-house like um permit text, this, that for uh places that are doing like the whole shebang.

And so they wanted to know if we wanted extra added on services for those types of things too.

So that's why they're all there.

But the main reason was so we could decide whether we wanted the 80-20 uh or whether we wanted the hourly rate when we do the contracts.

Okay, so they generally wouldn't kick in at all.

No, the only time they would kick in they said is if there was an emergency, then there is uh fees for additional for emergency services.

But I think that's par for the course for these companies.

Yeah, and that's kind of that's if you have something catastrophic again, and you wanted more building inspectors or you wanted more plan reviewers.

So the percentage wouldn't apply there.

Right, you would buy those a la carte.

Uh okay.

In that sense, I like the percentage part better.

All right.

That I I think all my questions were answered before and now too.

Yeah, it was just gonna say if we went a la carte and we were playing hourly, it wouldn't be with the idea that it was a five-year contract.

Right.

So I think that's the difference.

And and again, we've been paying at a much higher rate.

Absolutely because we didn't have a long-term contract.

Agreed.

Um the only thing that I'll say is much like um Vice Mayor, I also assumed and understood that if it was uh owner, uh owner builder and we were taking care of everything in-house, I didn't think about the inspector.

I thought we were taking care of taking care of everything in-house.

I did not imagine that at the very end that it would be turned over to CAP and that they would retain 80% of the fees.

So I again I've not uh dealt with a contract like this.

I don't know what the norm is, but if we are continuing to have our own staff and they're working it from beginning until it's time for the final inspection, it doesn't seem to me that we should have to pay out 80% on that.

So um we'll talk to them about that.

Okay.

That was just an oversight on my part, and I apologize for that.

But um uh I will say that they were pretty negotiable when it came to, like I said, the the one I don't think they know the full scope until they get here of those types of things because this whole RFP was really just for the contractor side, so I'm sure they would negotiate that piece because they said they would be willing to negotiate any other thing that we needed as far as community development went.

And I did want to say one last thing because I know someone had said in in the audience that you know this doesn't involve a grant writer, but this is just strictly permitting.

There's other pieces of the community development, but this was just an RFP for permitting.

That's why not nothing like that was involved.

But I just wanted to be aware of that.

We're talking about plan review inspection, yeah, all those parts of it.

I I agree, and certainly if in negotiations, you know, I guess in my mind, we don't have a building inspector, so and we have to have somebody do that final inspection, but if that switched to a contract labor price, that would make a little bit more sense to me, I think.

I don't know the economics of it exactly because I don't know how long it takes that building inspector.

I know when they came to do my final, the final took two minutes in the conversation telling me how busy they were took 25 minutes.

So I mean I'm not being a smart aleck, I'm telling the truth.

That's exactly what happens.

So um, yeah, I'd like to see us fine-tune that.

Right.

And I think that's the good news about the 8020 when it comes to certain aspects of this because we're at least that percentage base because they're not getting paid by the hour, so they're not going to have that that dialogue chit chat if they're already done, I would assume.

But within the same took, I do hear you that since we do have those, you know, a la carte pricings too, that may be more beneficial.

But again, we'll have a conversation with them.

Uh like I said, their staff has been up to up so far really easy to to deal with.

And uh one of the things that just anecdotally I I'd said to the city manager was usually when you talk to these people, you don't have the president calling you and saying, hey, if anything goes wrong, just call my cell phone.

Usually that's not a thing, especially with a big corporation like this.

So sounds like he's pretty confident that his people can take care of something like this.

Very good.

Thank you for explaining.

The only other thing that I would say on that, and it doesn't particularly uh uh it's I'm not addressing it today, but I would really I've mentioned this once before, and I'm gonna mention it again.

If we're gonna start talking about being more uh owner builder friendly, we've got to get that glass down.

Um I went in there the other day, and there was a contractor literally on his knees so he could talk through that little hole in the ground down there, because he stood up here and the glasses up here, so he was kneeling through the entire interview so he could be heard.

So I think that if we're if we're trying to approach being more customer friendly for our residents, having a big block of glass without even having the little cutaway for somebody to speak through, like they do at utilities is really anti-friendly.

Okay.

All righty, so we have a resolution.

So um how do we deal with voting on this when when we have that one question?

Basically, you approve this and allows me to negotiate.

The language in here allows the resolution allows the city manager to negotiate.

Okay, thank you.

And were you and you and what clearly directing you to try and negotiate that piece of the puzzle and then you'll come back to us.

Okay.

Public comment, please.

Thank you.

Okay.

I'm utilizing the uh from afar public comment.

I just got a public comment from Courtney.

Um her question is where are the permit rates being set from?

Are we still setting the pri the cost of permits, or will this company then take that on?

We have our own permit schedule.

Council sets the permit rates.

Good question.

Lauren.

Yeah.

Oh, was yours the same question?

Oh, sorry.

So Mr.

Freed.

I love it.

Okay.

So I'm understanding that this is completely subcontracted, that we're not gonna have any code enforcement officers.

Is this correct?

No, that is not correct.

That is not correct.

Okay.

So how many code enforcement officers do we have on staff right now?

This is public comment.

Okay, my point is um subcontractors, okay.

Uh and this is a this is just uh this issue is prevalent with subcontracting, right?

Local, state, and national, okay, because when government doesn't work, okay, everybody can blame the sub.

Okay, it's not your responsibility.

Okay.

So I think government works.

Okay.

I don't think it's a bad idea to have uh keep these things in-house.

Okay.

Uh the prison systems, for example, statewide.

Okay.

Subbed.

Well, the prisoners aren't taken care of, so blame the subcontractor.

Don't blame me.

Okay.

Don't blame an elected official.

Okay.

I don't like subcontracted uh.

Uh I don't like the responsibility of government uh being subcontracted, period, whether it be local, state, or national.

Okay.

Uh it's your jobs uh as elected officials to get that accountability from the people under uh you uh as government employees.

Subcontractors are not government employees, they're not accountable.

Thank you.

Mayor, can I address something?

Sure.

In regard to contractors, subcontractors, city staff, I've been responsible for building and permitting.

I may have disagreed with some of you about this, but I have been responsible for building and permitting since the beginning.

I'm not gonna change.

I'm responsible.

It's on my watch.

And I know I've had differences with some of you, but I can tell you it's still my responsibility.

Thank you.

Uh was there anybody else public comment on that issue?

Okay, there's not seeing none.

Call the vote.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early, yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

I say yes and I say thank you because we talked about this and we talked about it and we talked about it, and we looked at all different avenues and we looked at hiring, and we kept coming back to kind of a hybrid model.

And um we gave you direction and you took it and you uh accomplished it.

Um so I say thank you to that.

Thank you.

All righty, moving on.

Item 9B, resolution number 2025-70, a resolution of the city of Gulfport, Florida authorizing the city manager to purchase a new train 25-ton package air conditioning unit for the police department from Todd's air conditioning and refrigeration.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Mayor, uh very simply, the air conditioning system over in the police department is broke.

We're running fans and all those things.

I know Chief Farron would be much happier if she had an air conditioner, Mr.

Nichols is here this evening.

You'll see there was three quotes taken, and we recommend approval.

Thank you.

Any council comments questions?

No.

No.

Okay, any public comment on this matter.

Seeing none, please 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 2025-71.

A resolution of the city of Gulfport, Florida authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with half engineering for professional services related to the improvement of the historic casino building.

Woo-hoo.

Come on up, Tom.

Yes, I was gonna tell you saying yes.

We're excited about this.

And in it if you look at the agenda, Mr.

Nichols' agenda memorandum, he talks about preserving the historic floor.

We have to do that.

So the floor, yeah, we're going to um if this is approved, we'll start uh working with the engineering firm tomorrow to start the process.

And uh this is going to take somewhere between eight to ten months for design and then probably another 12 months for construction.

So we're still looking two years out on the on the far end.

Um I hate throwing dates out there because things change, but I think two years out from today would be the long range end of that.

I I I mean, I know you don't like saying that, and we certainly don't like hearing it, but I'd much rather hear a real answer.

Um I get myself in trouble all the time by trying to be optimistic.

I don't know.

And I never knew that you know design uh and engineering would take so long.

It seems to me you'd call them and you know they'd be back in 30 days.

So um it helps to hear that, and I think part of that is because we aren't the only city looking for this type of work that I mean half our stak all of our coastal cities had flooding and and are rebuilding, so we're not the only ones in this boat.

So you know, don't like the price tag.

Glad glad we have some insurance um and just glad that uh we will be able to tell people that yes we're working on it.

And just for a little background on uh con for construction, typically you're looking at anywhere from eight to twelve percent of what your anticipated construction cost would be your engineering cost, and this is at the lower end because it came in at about a $3.5 million rebuild, and this is right at the 8%.

Actually a little less than that.

So this is just for the engineering this is just the engineering oh yeah I thought it was for repairing.

I thought this is a great project.

What are you talking about?

Multiple subcontractors on this because you got mechanical, you've got uh plumbing, you've got yeah, just a bunch of different districts.

You mentioned on here that ticket booths.

We don't have the two, yes, those are the two areas if you at the front of the building, and they're part of the significance of it.

Oh okay, that we don't really use now.

Right, because of flooding and we're gonna put it back just the way it was, and maybe a little better.

The admin area and then the floating desk.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Let's see.

So did we do we didn't do public comment on this show?

I need a motion first.

Don't have a motion.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Any council comments, questions, issues?

None.

Who's paying for the party time when it's done?

Okay with Mr.

O'Reilly or no questions, thank you.

So again, I like you know, you don't have to get up.

I'm I'm just saying I I would like to have seen several bids as opposed to just the one contract.

But I would like to answer that because you can't uh under the it's the consultants competitive negotiations act, which is part of the Florida State statute.

We have uh engineers that have already been vetted.

You all approved that in four years ago, I believe it was.

And then you negotiate we we get a price from one of our vendors.

And you can't I can negotiate with them, and if I don't get to the price point that I'm comfortable with, I have to then go start the process over with another with another engineering firm.

So it's not a it's not a bidding.

I can't get a number from you and then a number from you that's illegal.

Uh okay.

It's part of Florida State statutes.

Uh okay.

And um shoot, I had another question, it was on the tip of my tongue.

Um we haven't we've used half, I think, on one other project.

So we again have six different engineering firms that are pre-qualified and pre-approved.

And we just half I thought was a good fit for this project.

And have we written in a um a timeline that it needs to be done by X date?

Because I know a lot of people.

I haven't gotten the schedule yet, but I will have that as part of the case.

Because I know sometimes we've had contracts where we don't have timelines and it ends up you know being way longer.

So and usually when I have timelines, it can still go a lot longer than the other.

Well, but at least it could be penalties then like give me back 10% or something.

I don't know.

Um, I can't think what the other thing was.

Oh, the historic preservation committee that we made.

Right.

How how have they been involved in this?

What we have to do is we Tom does this same type of update.

That's where we're at.

They the committee is a requirement by the state historic present.

Basically, we received updates from Mr.

Nichols.

So they didn't have any input into what should be done.

They just you know the that's what you're hiring half for.

Okay.

I I just wondered how that how that worked.

Yeah, we okay.

Thank you.

Ms.

Shaw.

I I especially appreciated the notation that a claim could be made, so I'm happy about that.

And um I've talked about it, I've read through it, he's answered more questions, so I'm I'm fine.

Okay, and I have no questions.

I'm just thrilled to see that we've made I know that you've been working on this forever, but now we can see concrete forward movement.

So that's good.

All righty.

So um any public comment on this, Mr.

Freedom.

Are you tired of hearing that yet?

No, but you could always take a seat in the front row, it'd be easier.

I actually think this is a real hot mess because we are gonna have hurricanes again and that building's gonna go down again.

And uh, you know, I think we should have a seawall at the beach because we are gonna flood again and boats are gonna be floating back up uh up on the street and uh taking down houses.

Um but I have a solution here, and I don't know how this will work.

But I've been thinking about this for a while.

Um the senior center.

Right.

What would it take to move the casino from where it is now to Claymore Park and make it part of the senior center?

Because that will preserve the casino.

Right.

Um you don't have to deal with the flooding issue again.

Because it will happen.

It will happen.

Uh and uh I think it it it solves two problems with uh with uh one little tech mark.

Consider it.

Anybody else for public comment?

Seeing none, I close public comment.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes, Mayor Love.

Yes, and I have to say that I'm really uh appreciative too about the resiliency features that we've been talking about for months now, and I'm gonna be very excited to see what in fact the engineers come back with, what features we can um add to help that, and also I really appreciate that we had good insurance.

All righty.

That being said, then we're gonna um move on to discussion.

So this might be, I'm guessing this might be our shortest discussion ever.

Okay.

So the first thing I'd like to say, I'm gonna kick this off a little bit here.

Um the first thing I want to say is that somebody's doing a really good job.

I'm maintaining uh Lincoln Cemetery right now.

For a couple weeks now, it's looked the best I've ever seen it look consecutively, even getting all the tree limbs down, so on and so forth.

Okay.

Um so it's really hard to have any kind of real discussion because it's really important that everybody that's listening and everybody up here understands since this council came into place since I've been elected mayor, the owner of the Lincoln Cemetery has not reached out and asked us to do anything.

Okay.

I've heard from the mayor of St.

Petersburg who asked for a meeting with me, that um the owner of the property had approached St.

Petersburg and asked them if they would annex the Lincoln Cemetery into their pro into their city.

Okay.

So that's how we got information.

Um I I think that there's some internal stuff going on in St.

Petersburg based on the media calling me and thinking that there's a big story.

I seen certainly have seen all over social media that I am blocking the de-annexation, you know, me, the white racist uh female mayor, okay.

The owner of the property has not asked me for anything.

When I met with Mayor Welch, I asked him, have you ever heard that in fact the cemetery used to belong, not ownership, but it was part of St.

Petersburg.

He said, Yes, I've heard that.

I said, I've heard that too.

I don't know if that's true, because I'd also heard equally vehemently, it never belonged to St.

It was never part of St.

Petersburg.

So I'd heard both stories, right?

And I again, you know, I've been in office five and a half months, I've lived here 15 years, I've heard both stories.

So when I asked the mayor that, he said he had heard that too, and I said, can you get me proof?

So it was the Monday before our last meeting that he provided me with the documents.

The reason that I brought it up and brought you the documents is so that all of you would be on the same page as me.

You were seeing the same information because if the media is calling me for the big story, and there is no story, at least I wanted you to know how this came about.

Again, I think things are going on in the city of St.

Petersburg, and maybe they're not all on the same page and they're trying to pull us in.

But I don't know that there's anything that we would be saying or doing until we are asked by the city, excuse me, by the owner of the property to do something.

Now, that being said, I will tell you that somebody from the owner's office did call me and asked if I would meet with them, and I said, absolutely, but please make it clear that they know that I did talk to Mayor Welch the other day since then, and that's easily I'm gonna say easily four weeks ago.

I've heard nothing at all.

So that that's the only story that I have to tell in this discussion, and we can go around and everybody can comment on what they're thinking if they'd like, what their concerns.

I don't even really know how we have uh much of a conversation when we haven't been asked.

But that's all that I have to, there's nothing more to tell from my point of view than what I've already told.

So let's go in speaking order.

No comments or questions?

Here good.

I agree with you, Mayor Love.

It does look very nice there.

Um it has really been kept up nicely, which is kind of funny given that the owners looking for someone else to take ownership.

They've really upped their game over there.

Um but other than that, I have no questions.

There's nothing for us to decide until we have to decide something.

Right.

Okay.

I know I was kind of wondering why are we having a discussion when the owner hasn't even come to us.

But but I know that um Corey Givens, who's a city councilman over in St.

Pete, you know, he brought this up to Maureen to Marlene and I when we were at the Florida League of Cities.

Um, but when I look through these documents that you gave us um at the other meeting, I don't see it ever belonged to St.

Pete.

For when I talked to the city manager about these things, it went it came to us from unincorporated Pinellas.

But it belonged to St.

Petersburg before that.

And that meant and it was there as they say.

Yeah, I'm just saying what they say for a skinny minute.

Yeah.

And you know, it when we do come to discuss this at some point, if we do, that I would really like to have a map of exactly what we're talking about.

Because yeah, because they they had different parcels mentioned in here, which are now part of the.

In their mailbox, just so you know the map is in your everybody has the maps are in your mailbox.

Oh, okay.

I didn't check my mailbox.

Anyway, um, yeah, but I uh you're right.

And and I had also asked the city attorney to look at unintended consequences if we do this, and what about precedent setting and all of that?

So I don't know if if if Andy, you have anything to say yet?

No, I I mean, you know, we've been involved in this situation over the years many times because of people who are saying they're maintaining it, cleaning up, and and then we always hear something at some point, and then nothing ever happens.

So this is another example of that where we kind of hear that they're interested in that, but we don't we don't see anybody coming forward.

Ms.

Shaw.

So I I recall, and I believe her name was Vanessa.

Yeah, uh, and she was turning it over to the to the church.

Um, the church's congregation was substantial enough to to support it, and it seemed like a very appropriate way for it to go.

Shaw so I I recall and I believe her name was Vanessa and she was turning it over to the to the church the church's congregation was substantial enough to to support it and it seemed like a very appropriate way for it to go and at that point our council abated a large sum of money to give them a good start and taking it over as well and and to just show you know um you know good good favor um that's not the right word good faith thank you um so you know i i have a number of concerns to consider d deannexing it it is connected to our our city already um i would be extremely concerned about precedence and i would also be concerned about how we would be viewed um if people would view us of wanting us to wash our hands of it considering some of the alleged um statements about our our history here so um those are just a few of the things right now and i i won't go on with everything uh I think that you know that's enough for now since we don't even know if it's an actual real issue I would like to point out though since it's illegal for cities to support private property and it is private property that's an interesting question as well that's why we can't maintain it ourselves yeah I I I feel like um being up here for representing the city of Gulfport is a big enough job I'm not trying to take on uh managing St.

Petersburg and and I think that that is you know very possibly where the issue goes in terms of um to Vice Mayor say you're not sure why we're having the discussion the reason we had the discussion is because we flat ran out of time at the last meeting and I felt like I had to say something since I was being approached by the media for the quote story um and I I didn't want y'all to think that there was something going on then I wasn't sharing it with you.

So that's how it ended up being on a discussion because for tonight because we really didn't have the discussion then to you council member Shaw I say yes I had the same thoughts in terms of extremely bad optics if we agreed to that however that is exactly why I asked Mayor Welch if he had proof that it did in fact originally or at some point I should say belong to St.

Petersburg because if there was truly a large per push by the owner and the congregation and the folks who have all these nasty things to say about the city of golf port those optics could also be equally bad if we refuse to turn return the historically black cemetery to St.

Petersburg which are where many of the family members presently reside.

So it's there's kind of a catch 22 in it I can see it both ways and so again I don't think there's too much more to be said I don't want to cut anybody off yeah just maybe if they do come back to us to find out why it went from St.

Pete to unincorporated and then even the documents that we have don't explain why they wanted to go from unincorporated to Gulfport.

It would be kind of okay well I don't know if we're gonna get fine I don't know that we're gonna get too much history from the people who made these decisions in 1967 but in terms of why they might want to de-annex now part of it is the historical uh factor involved in it okay they feel like many of their residents live in that cemetery or have passed away in that and are buried in that cemetery and they'd like to see it back.

Second they think that the city of St.

Petersburg has deeper pockets than the city of Gulfport so you know that's that's the only thing that I was given yeah and there just was not really any conversation other than you know can you can you help me by can you prove to me that it it was and we were provided with the documents in a very timely fashion so all right that's all I have to say about that.

So we're gonna move on to new business and we'll do that in speaking order as well no new business okay uh sunny day sandbag giveaway I don't know if giveaway is the right disbursement maybe um is the Saturday from eight to one at the neighborhood center and the trees the tree giveaway again I'm not sure that's the correct word but um is also Saturday from 9 to 11.

So if you get there between some of these hours that are overlapping, you get yourself a sandbag and a tree.

Thank you, Callport for that, the city.

The second thing I have is very exciting.

So since Fusion 49th started a couple of years ago, they've been working very hard to show the public just how much progress is being made with regard, especially to the relationships.

And on Saturday, November 8th is the very first event.

Bridging the fusion 49th folks, both sides of the 49th street corridor and vendor wars.

This has changed a couple times.

It was food trolley wars, a lot of wars happening.

But it's vendor wars, it's food tent wars, and they're we are expecting a lot of people.

Before I close, none of this would have been done without Justin.

We would never have gotten this far.

So I appreciate you.

He cleaned up all the cleanup things for us and made it very comfortable for us to all agree on what needed to be done.

So I thank you very much, Justin.

Okay.

Thank you.

All righty.

Putting Vice Mayor putting it in my uh calendar.

Um so I had a couple of things.

Um I have been asking the city manager, and maybe you guys aren't even interested, but we get a um a discount on our flood insurance of 20% right now.

And there's a whole process and a whole bunch of things that you get points for in order to get that.

And so I was thinking that you might like to know what that looks like and to have maybe Mike Taylor or Mark and give a presentation on why and how it how it's done.

Yeah, I like that idea, but if you give me a minute, I'm gonna answer that.

I have that on mine as well.

I'll I'll tell you what I learned at my meeting this week.

Well, and and I know, I mean, I have it all, but I mean it because it's new to everybody, they might want a presentation.

Anyway, and if we wanted to talk about parking, you mentioned that.

If you would like, you know, I mentioned that way of of doing a discussion.

If you want, I can put that together as an example and send it to you guys to see what you think of using that kind of format.

And of course, we could make changes to it and stuff, but just so you see what the format looks like.

And that was all.

All righty.

Councilmember Shaw.

I have no further business.

Whoa.

Well, thank you guys because I've got a lot.

Okay, so the first thing is is that I was approached by one of our community advocates that they would like to build build a beach toy library to put right down on our beach right next to where we have the, you know, you can go pick up a basket and pick up trash now.

They'd like to do one.

They have somebody who has donated the materials, they have somebody who's willing to build it, and they have an artist who's re who's willing to make it look like a children's toy library, and I'd like to tell them to please go ahead.

I but I didn't want to speak for all of you.

Sounds wonderful.

Sounds great.

Good.

So um uh uh they will go ahead with that.

Second thing I wanted you to know, I didn't know this, but um the United Nations has a National Day of Peace, and it is September 21st.

And so if you're going through town and you should hear bell ringing or anything, I think they're gonna do something at the rec center, if I understand, with the children.

That is what it's their referencing is that it is the uh National Day of Peace.

They also have actually come up with a little um I I don't know that I should call it a logo.

Uh I don't know what word to use, but I'm gonna use logo just to give you an idea.

And it's a white dove with a olive green branch in its mouth.

And so um when we have our um holiday tree or Christmas tree lighting this year, I was hoping that we might consider putting the white dove on the top of it with the olive branch.

I kind of thought that was a good idea.

Um the date that I would like to throw out for parking, and please hear me.

I'm not just saying paid parking, I'm saying timed and paid parking.

I'd like to throw that out as a workshop.

So it would be here, and I would like to do it as early as October 2nd.

I've cleared it with staff, but I didn't want to publish that until I checked with y'all and made sure you're okay.

Excellent.

Okay, so October 2nd will be a discussion, um, and we call that a uh workshop here.

We're open to public comment.

We want to hear from everybody.

I did, I didn't give a date because I didn't have it, but I did already approach the Chamber of Commerce, and I know Amy's here now for Midtown.

So timed and paid parking.

We've not had that discussion at council in a very, very long time.

The reason that I particularly asked to put this on here is because I think I've heard four council members use that term up here, uh paid parking, which was not done in previous councils, and I get emails routinely from the public saying it's time for timed or paid parking.

So I think it's time for the discussion, if nothing else, October 2nd.

So then I went to another meeting besides the 531-page meeting with Ford Pinellis.

I attended another meeting, and the whole meeting was about nothing but Senate Bill 180.

And they gave us a lot of history about the Senate Bill 180 and then the House Bill, and how so many people, maybe Gulfport would have really have liked Senate Bill 180 the way it started out, but maybe wouldn't have liked.

I don't put words in anyone's mouth, but maybe they wouldn't have liked the House bill so much.

The House bill died kind of early on, and so the Senate Bill 180 was coming along quite well.

And the history to just kind of understand this was that after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida, it really hurt the economy for a long, long, long time in South Florida because all the rules that came into effect right after the hurricane hit made it so much tougher and more strict for people to be re able to rebuild that it took a very, very long time to recover.

So the purpose of Senate Bill 180 when they started was to try and not repeat that what they thought was a mistake to try and make it a little bit more lenient.

Okay.

So in the meantime, there was a section at the ninth hour.

This is what I was told in this one and a half hour class.

There was a section that was added, and of course, the attorney can chime in if he thinks I'm representing incorrectly.

Um the House Bill had a section 28, which is really as anti-home rule as it as there is possible, kind of taking away all of our rights to do anything.

It's a huge uh intrusion for any planning and zoning department, and it removes our power to do anything that could be considered a burden or hindered development, and now here's where it gets real tricky.

Retroactively, okay.

So we learned about the bill when it was passed, what in June or July, and it became retroactively in effect August of 19, August of 2024.

And it stays in place until October of 2027.

Okay.

So think about that.

We as a city council can do nothing to hinder or create a burden for redevelopment construction during this period of time.

So the reason that I um said spoke up when Vice Mayor said, What about insurance rates?

First of thing I want you to know, and I was very surprised.

In the city in the in the county of Pinellas, we have 24 cities.

How many do you think have any kind of discount on insurance rates?

Six.

Six out of twenty four.

We are one of those six.

We can keep those discounts and those rules that helped us get those discounts in effect.

Okay, we can keep those, but we can't make any changes because the way that you get a greater discount is by making something a little bit more burdensome, a little bit more restrictive.

And we can't do that until, assuming that we don't have any more destructive hurricanes, we can't do that until October of 27.

Okay.

So I didn't mean to cut off the vice mayor, but that was made real real clear in this meeting.

Also, we've been wanting to talk about ADUs up here.

And we started that conversation and we kind of had to stop because we had to wait for our comp plan to come back.

Well, what do I find out in this meeting?

Almost everybody's comp plan is being rejected.

Okay.

If there's any kind of changes that they're seeing in the city's comp plans, it's the uh Department of Commerce who's actually rejecting the comp plans.

So whereas I thought before the end of the year we would be having a serious conversation about ADUs.

I want to have a serious conversation.

We can't do that right now.

Per this class that I went to that was run by Let me tell you when you're done, let me tell you something about that.

Okay.

Um let's see.

So the goal of this Section 28 was to make building rules more lenient, as they were too strict following Andrew.

I already said that.

Both bill sponsors are very, very unhappy with the changes.

The House bill that died, but then they got their section 28 in at the last minute, they're not happy.

The people who wrote Senate bill and promoted Senate Bill 180 are not happy.

So I'm only telling you that to tell you that I don't think it's over the after this class.

I mean, there was a lot of uh discussion.

There is a class action lawsuit that the cities are joining in now to fight this, but also the people who wrote these bills also want to fight it.

So I don't think it's over forever.

It's just kind of over for right now.

Um I have a couple more things, but that was it on the House bills.

So if you needed to respond.

I was just gonna say the the main thing that we could do to, and I wasn't saying that we should look at our floodplain insurance thing to change it just so people understood what it was and how we got points.

Um because you're right, we would have to get more points or a higher percentage off, we'd have to make like it taller that people like now.

You have to we have one foot over baseblood plane, you'd have to make it two or three feet to get a bigger discount.

And there was a look back period, they took that away, so that would be another way.

But we can't change it right now, but at least so for people to understand how the whole process works.

And I talked to Linda Fisher today, and she's updating a couple of things that they asked for.

So she anticipates it won't take her very long to get it back to the state.

They usually have 45 days to get it back to us.

So we should have it by the before the end of the year.

All righty.

Um, and then um the one thing that I was asking, and I I believe everybody had a copy.

So the um Tampa Bay Coastal Master Plan, who's working on this master plan for the entire Tampa Bay area, they have asked us if we would be a partner with them.

A partner means that they would actually be asking us for some of our issues in our city and be considering helping us find grants to solve the issues.

Their expectations from us is that when they have their quarterly meetings that somebody is there in attendance, okay?

That's a lot less than a collaborator.

They're not asking us to be collaborators.

I think they found out we're not experts on this.

Uh this isn't our training.

So they have given me and I have provided with you a copy of a sample type letter that they would like from Gulfport, and I definitely would like to see us sign this and send it back saying that we would be a partner, and then when the meetings come up, we'll make sure that one of us is there in attendance and then comes back and reports back.

I think it's in our best interest.

Do we have a consensus on that?

I see two.

Okay.

All righty.

That was my question.

And the last thing, and this this wasn't said so much tonight, but I've heard so many times.

Um, it's real interesting how talk about um property taxes.

I have over the years, and my background is was real estate for 33 years.

I have heard so many people make comments about taxes, and I do think taxes are going up, but I'm just was wondering if we needed to have um a discussion on that or just even a um a town hall on that, not not really a um uh uh a workshop, but a town hall, if there was a need to explain how to people how to read their tax bills, because when people are telling me that their taxes are going up and they're angry at us, I say, look at your city portion.

I mean, my my city tax bill went up 108 dollars.

How many millions of dollars did it cost the city to fight these storms?

And my tax bill went up 108 dollars.

That $108 increase would not pay for all the storm debris that was removed from my my property.

So I know other people's bought homes more recently, have bigger, more expensive homes.

Their bills went up maybe more by by more than $108.

I understand that, but I just would like for everyone to look at what they're actually paying to the city in taxes before they make that comment.

And if we hear from people that they don't understand how to read their tax bills, I think that I would be very willing to lead a workshop in that if that so happened.

Thank you all for staying to the end.