Good evening.

Good evening and welcome to the October seventh, twenty twenty-five City Council meeting.

Thanks for coming.

If there's any chance that you have your phone on, take a minute, check it, turn it off.

I appreciate that.

And with that being said, we will uh start with the invocation given by given by council member Nancy Early, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

So please uh rise.

For those of you who are still in the coal mines like myself, you know that it's employee appreciation week, formerly known as Customer Service Week.

So this is for our city staff.

We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.

JFK.

Councilmember Early?

President.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Here.

Council Member Shaw.

Present.

Council Member Jackson?

Here.

Mayor Love.

Here.

Councilmember, excuse me, City Manager O'Reilly.

Present.

Attorney Salzman?

Here.

City Clerk Carico is present.

Super.

So tonight we're going to kick off with uh two presentations.

Um, heard us talk a couple times now about something that we're calling Golfport Connects.

It's official name, the software is called Get Connected.

So if you looked at the agenda, that's what you saw.

But we call it Gulfport Connects.

So David's going to kick us off and let us know what it means to us.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor City Council.

First, I'm going to start.

This is GoPro Connects.

Um, this is what it will look like when you go on.

What it is is it's a way to uh have volunteers connect with not only the city for volunteer opportunities, but also for uh organizations within the city for volunteer opportunities.

So um I'm not going to go into the weeds, obviously, but I'm going to show you all the things you can do first as a volunteer and secondly as an organization.

So if I'm a volunteer, uh, what I'm going to do is I'm going to log in here.

It kept kicking me out, so couldn't do it.

Okay, so this is what you will come to if you are a volunteer.

And the first thing you'll notice is I've obviously already made an account.

You have to make an account first.

Um, but that's just like making an account anywhere.

You just have to put your name.

Uh you know, you don't have to do anything really any heavy lifting at first.

You just have to put your name, email address, and make a password.

And you'll come to this screen and it'll tell you, you know, sign up for volunteer opportunities, browse agencies, or RSVP to an event.

So if I wanted to go to an opportunity, I'm gonna click here, and we do have two for the city in the system currently.

We have a volunteer shelver at the library and a welcome ambassador for the senior center.

Um we do have some groups in here too.

They're still going through training, but the uh we have uh you can browse agencies, and these are all the current ones that we have.

We have Gulfport Grassroots, the city, the Lions Club, the library, uh Gulfport Recovers, Gulfport Merchants, Gulfport Senior Center, Gulfport Senior Center Foundation, and the Midtown Business Collective.

So they're all in here, and kind of like a Facebook kind of thing, you can become a fan of them.

So if they do have uh opportunities that come up later, you can click on that, or let's say you didn't know what Gulfport Recovers was, you could click on that information to get more information.

Um the next thing over the uh RSVP to an event.

Uh there is an organization that has an event in here.

So let's say you wanted to, you were knew you were gonna go to this event and perhaps volunteer for this event, you could click on that.

Um so that is the uh what you'll see from as a volunteer.

Now, if you go down, you'll see this again because it's it's redundant on purpose.

Some people like to scroll.

Uh and this is by design, this is the way the company created this, but some people like to scroll.

Uh some other things you can do as of uh you can also click on needs, obviously, and you'll see those same needs because we have two right now in there.

Um and obviously this will be once the community groups start adding, there will be more added here.

But the other neat thing is as a volunteer anyway, you can click on as a volunteer and add your hours.

So right now, if I go to my dashboard, if I click out of here, you'll see uh obviously I've been a really bad volunteer because I have no volunteer hours here.

But um, if I had volunteer hours, they would show up here.

It's also gonna show the impact.

So if the organization you this is really good for grants.

If an organization that you are part of uh puts in a dollar value according to like what the the federal government says that particular volunteer is worth, you can actually add that up here.

And so if you have several volunteers and you're going for a grant, you can actually list that as in-kind services.

So that's a good thing to have.

You can also as an or well, I'll I'll show you as an organization later.

So I'm still a volunteer here.

So here's how many agencies I've worked for and events I've gone to, uh things like that, and how many needs I've responded to.

Again, mine's zero, but you can also look at your calendar and see um, you know, uh what of where you are going to be volunteering.

So it's almost like a little schedule for you of volunteering.

And then once you're done, you add your volunteer hours here.

And uh the neat thing about this is uh you'll see on the other side, it's not like I can say, oh, I want to be the best volunteer in the city, so I'm gonna put 75 hours at the library and get away with it.

That volunt that organization has to approve those hours.

Uh so nothing like that can happen.

Not that anybody would cheat on volunteer hours stuff, but um you can do stuff like that.

So this is the this is what you would look like from the volunteer aspect.

Now I'm gonna go over here and go to what it looks like from signing in to the city.

And don't worry, I have a generic password right now because I knew I was gonna have to do this.

Oops.

Let's see if I can see this.

Never.

There we go.

Okay, so now I'm in.

This is just saying this because you can also, you know, be a volunteer here, so I don't have that in here.

But um, so as a mine will look a little different than some organizations because obviously I have global rights to everything.

Uh but it's basically the same.

What I can do here is I can go to my agencies like the city of Gulfport, or I can go to the library here.

And so I can go here and I can go into the dashboard.

Oops, I didn't mean to do that.

I meant to go up here.

Manager.

And so these are the different things I can do here.

I can go into volunteerism and I can create, well, I can create an agency, but as an agency, you can do benchmarks, which are you know things that are again helpful for grants.

You can make like certain uh things available that, like, you know, we're doing this and we're getting here, that kind of thing.

Uh, you can also do uh things like events, which we've seen one.

Uh you can check the hours, but you can create a need here.

You saw that in the volunteer part, and you can have qualifications.

This is very important for the city side.

The qualifications the city has things like you have to have your um your volunteer and your background check, things of that nature because of insurance.

But if you're a volunteer organization that has different things, like let's say you just have a sign-up sheet or that kind of information because you're a different type of organization, or like the Lions Club, which I'm sure has like a their own form, something like that, you can actually add that in independent of ours.

So the city has one set of paperwork that you need to do, and that particular organization has another.

Now, I understand that in some uh some you know, you could have an issue where oh, I've got a lot of paperwork to fill out if I'm doing like different volunteers.

Unfortunately, that's just the way it goes in this day and age.

You know, we have ones for legal reasons.

I'm sure places like the Lions Club, I'll come back to has one for but then like a local organization may have something less.

So uh it's just the way it kind of works with that.

Um you can check responses.

So here's where you would check, like let's say someone did reply to my shelver.

Um, I could check those responses here and you know, find someone to do it.

You can also send out things.

Well, you can also set up schedules for your volunteers.

This is really good if you have consistent volunteers, like say the library, or we have a lot of teen volunteers, so we can set up consistent volunteers and then send them their schedule so they don't miss anything.

Um we can do things like that with the scheduling.

Um then teams we have I haven't used yet, um, but I I could see this being kind of neat for a local organization.

This would be like, let's say you let me think of one.

So let's say you're part of um an organization that's got a particular big day, like an MLK day or something, and you have different volunteer teams doing different things, you can schedule those groups of people together so they know, oh, I'm you know, working with uh Melissa, Tom, and Harry here, and these are the hours, and this is when I know that I've got to be here 10 to 12 and someone's gonna come relieve me, that kind of thing.

So that's your team, and then you can schedule your team accordingly.

Um you also have user groups, which is kind of along the same thing, and users, but these are things for me.

Um, these are kind of global things that I can produce uh as the person that's in charge of the whole thing.

But the things that you would see as an actual uh organization would be the teams, the the scheduling and this thing, uh these things all the way up.

The other neat thing is you can, as an organization or as the city, even make a check-in kiosk.

So if you have an iPad or something and you have a bigger event where you have several people helping out, you can actually create a little online kiosk where people can check in their hours.

And of course, uh the again the good thing about this is you can set up reports.

So again, I can't stress enough just being part of nonprofits for years, you can set up these things for grants, so you can do in kind, so you can show how many different events you've had over the years and what you're doing for that particular thing, so you can get those grants.

Uh, it's a really great thing.

Um, so I hope I didn't go too fast, but that's it in the nutshell.

So you have the volunteer side, and you have the uh side of the actual organizations.

Again, it's not just for city volunteers, it's for anyone that has an organization that wants to start this.

So the next steps are hopefully the organizations are taking those um uh the different uh trainings and there's a live training also that's available uh and working through that, and then they would start putting in these things.

Obviously, if there's a storm, that's when the other ones would come in handy for like a big storm, what you can do.

Uh, and this is this is where this really came from because uh the mayor had asked um about volunteering and how you can do it during a storm.

And I know that the vice mayor also had ways that she could utilize it too.

Um but uh effectually if you have a storm and you know of a need, you let's say you see it either on Facebook or someone calls you and says, you know, I've got such and such and they need water or something like that.

Um you could put that need on here, and once that need is filled, you could take it down so people know that it's been satisfied.

Um there's things like that that you can do.

So with there's two different components to it.

There's what we call blue sky days, those are those volunteer hours like I was talking about, shelving, uh MLK, things that aren't like a matter of life and death, but they still are important to the community.

But then you have those really important things after a storm, door well, not the worrying, but before a storm, after a storm or after a crisis or an emergency, where volunteers can step in right there and then and take care of those immediate needs.

So uh we can do all of that with this, and we can have the neat thing about this is we can have unlimited organizations, and obviously we have a lot of volunteer organizations in the city.

Um so the next steps would be hopefully onboarding more organizations, but also starting to onboard volunteers.

Now I know we don't have a lot set up here, but if you log into this now and just take a look at the limited things that we have, once those organizations start posting, you'll be able to see those and you'll be able to see how you can get involved in your community.

Awesome.

Yeah, wonderful.

So I let's go in speaking order if anyone has any questions.

Uh no questions, but thank you very much.

It's great.

So a couple of things occurred to me.

If you make an event, can you share it?

Like on Facebook, yeah, you can share this stuff.

Yep.

Okay.

And if say say I signed up and said I'm a carpenter and just put it generically out there.

Then somebody else has a need for a carpenter.

Does it automatically email me or tell me because I know you can put so qualification some of the qualifications and things like that?

You can add on, I didn't show this on the volunteer side, but you can add the different attributes you have, like if you're you know, something like that, like a carpenter or something like that.

And then um I'll find out and I'll get back to you.

I think though that's how it works that they can see those things.

But I think you have to have liked them.

So I just want to make sure I have that down.

Yeah, because I because I just want to make sure that people don't have to go in and check every day that somebody has a need for my skill, you know, or do I have to keep going in and looking for somebody who needs my skill?

I don't think so.

Certainly, though, if if somebody has a need for a carbon, let's say something happened to a house or something and it's an older individual who can't do anything, like they need steps or something, you could say I have a notification of a carpenter, and then if somebody clicks on that and it's you know Jane Smith that has carpentry, you can click on that person and see what their attributes are and see what they have, so you know that they are a carpenter.

And then you would contact them, as opposed to it uh uh as soon as like say the the Gulfport players put up that they needed a carpenter.

Right, it wouldn't automatically connect with me because I've generically put myself that's what I'll find out.

I know that there are the one thing I didn't mention because I don't get too much in the weeds and it's kind of scare people, but there are tags.

So you can put when you're a per person in here, you can put tags as to what kind of volunteering you want, but you can also as an agency put tags as to what type of each one of your different ones are for um like the needs that you're looking for.

So, like let's say shelver, I put like social needs, something like that, and government need, um, you could put all sorts of different tags on it.

So if that's something that you like on your side, I think it comes up for that, but I don't want to and say, like in the emergency uh scenario.

So say the you know I put on oh my god, all my dog food disappeared in the storm.

I need dog food.

Right so somebody else said I have dog food.

Does that then take my need off because it's been met by somebody?

Right.

So the organization would take that need off once once they get it.

It's up to the administrator of that page of that civic organization or volunteer organization.

Right.

Okay.

So the faster, I would assume though the faster you did that, then you could see what is the immediate need there.

But that's why you can the other good thing is you can have uh not just one or two administrators if you want, you can have like one to five, and they can all see that so they can all jump in whenever.

Like shifts.

If a storm hits us and we need shifts, you know, having three to four moderators and everybody taking shifts is what's gonna be required, I think.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

It looks great.

Okay.

Councilmember Shaw.

I just want to say I think it's fantastic, and I'm very excited, and thank you very much.

Yeah, well, thank you.

And thanks for the mayor for addressing it because uh we can really use this during at least I know the library can for sure, because we right now just write everything down on paper.

So this is gonna be good for us.

Right.

Um so I guess do you want me to just go?

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's okay.

When is it gonna be live?

It's live now, actually.

Um the we were just trying to onboard some some people first, some groups, and so um I imagine that they only one group has reached out to me that they need additional help, like from me.

So I trying to coordinate with that person, but the uh uh the other groups uh since I haven't heard from them off my first email.

I just assume that they're kind of going through the motions because it is a lot to learn at first, especially it is a little different, and I even I had a little bit of trouble at first because I wasn't used to the way this particular thing worked, but once I got the hang of it, um, and actually the deadline of October 7th really helped out because I got the hang of it really fast.

Um but um once you get the hang of it, it's not as scary as it as it may seem.

Um you can also um but yeah, you but I'm gonna push out that's what I was gonna say.

I was gonna push out the volunteer aspect of it because again, even though there's not a lot of needs on here, it'd be good to get volunteers just ready to go.

Right.

And I have is it on the home page?

It's sorry.

Um when we had spoke maybe a couple weeks ago.

Oh, yeah.

And so I can forward this volunteer page now.

Yep.

Because the the issue when we spoke was um we didn't have ADA compliant documents yet, but now we do, so they're all on there.

Awesome.

Okay.

So what I really liked about this is that um all the years I've lived here and I volunteered for things, it's always been like grassroots things.

And then I when I got here working with the city, I'm like, you all are talking about volunteers, and I don't even know these people because they're all like vetted with the city.

And so um that's one of the things I like as I see this uh Golfport Connects as an opportunity to bring the two groups somewhat together.

The folks who are our grassroots grassroots leaders as well as the ones who have been donating their time to the city working, you know, volunteering with the city at more formalized and they've been vetted.

So this is an opportunity to pull it together.

So I love the idea that volunteers would start going on there now and kind of getting their name in there and out there because again, the reason that when David brought this one to me, this was so perfect because this is truly the way Asheville, North Carolina made it through the storms was using this type of program.

So we don't want to wait until uh we're one day out from the storm.

We want to get in there and work it now and and all.

So we have so many civic organization volunteer groups, city volunteers.

Um if there's people sitting in the audience to tonight and they would like to add their group, um, do they need to speak to you first, or can they just go live into the site and set up their organization?

Um I I need just need to add the um they need to be administrators, so I need to add them, but they can just email me dmather at my golfport dot us.

Um to answer the vice mayor's question, we are I just wanted to present it here today and formally, and we'll put it on quick links for both volunteers and agencies.

Oh, yeah.

And we'll put it on Facebook.

Yep.

And you might put an article in the news, you know, the e-blast telling people to get there and for Monday, yep.

We'll do.

All righty, thank you.

So now we move on to our second presentation tonight.

And believe it or not, it's by assistant city manager Dave Mather.

Okay, so this next one has been a long time coming.

This is the the face of the new Gulfport website.

Uh so just so you know, this was actually approved by council, but only one person was up there at the time because it was so long ago.

It was last August before the storms.

And the reason why we asked for this was because we needed mainly the back end redone because we we have gone through different phases of uh ADA for the American Disability Act for websites, uh, time and time again, but it's constantly changing.

And there was uh it came to a point where we just needed to change so much that we decided to do this new design.

And so this is the new design.

The big things on the back end, there is a lot of differences.

There is like indexes and things like that that had to be changed.

But on the front end, you'll notice right away that these menus are a lot cleaner and a lot clearer.

Um, and you can you can see a lot better what where to go and do and things to do like that.

The other big thing, and I actually I never bring notes to these, but I wanted to make sure I touched upon everything.

Um we have um the menus, and then when you go down here, you'll see that some of the stuff that was kind of like splotchy before on the old site, it's all right here, so you can get all these storm updates and you know the pledge for the evacuation, so it's all in one neat place.

Then the quick links, we have there's two different things that have changed.

Quick links is a little different now, and there's news.

So news would be what our click links are now, but the quick links on this new page are things that we looked at that were clicked a lot.

So permitting surprise.

Uh pay my bills, events, Muni code, things like that, where people are constantly asking about it.

Me and Justin are constantly getting asked where where the city council meetings are, so that's where they are now.

You can just click on those.

Uh council people ask us, you know, how to contact their uh city council person and where their pages are and their reports.

So now it's right there and visible.

Uh, so it's all right here.

And then when you go further down, this is where you would get your top news.

This is where you would log in to this is where you would see the latest and greatest, like the Gulfport uh 2050 video uh and things of that nature, and then you can go down from there, sign up, uh things like that.

Um the community updates are here.

Um, of course, I had to put the library there, but that'll probably change.

Um, so these are the different things for the front page.

Now, here's some really neat features.

We have a help, excuse me, we have a help now, and this is a huge FAQ.

I reached out to uh all the city directors and employees, some employees, and asked them what FAQs they would want for their particular departments, and so these this is kind of a giant uh FAQ and will constantly add to it.

So if you have something like let's say something comes up in um the meeting tonight, and I hear it, and it's something like, well, I can't find blah blah blah.

Uh it's like a paid um a person from the public comes up, then I know to put that in the FAQ so they can find something like that.

Um the other really nice thing that we did is um if you go to do where's community development, community development.

We here's where you get the residence if you're a resident, because now that we've changed things, if you're a resident, you go here.

If you're a contractor, you go here.

Um here's the online portal.

But uh, more importantly, where is it?

Here, form library.

Um, this is something that the vice mayor talked about a few times, getting forms online.

These are all ADA accessible community development forms now.

Uh so uh they're everything that we could find that we we worked with the two women at the front desk, uh, the permit text, and uh found these to be the most popular types of either forms or information.

Uh so we made these available first.

We can add to this.

Um, and so that's in the community development area now.

Uh the other really neat thing is uh this down here, this little get help.

This is a little um AI agent.

And so you can ask it just about anything.

Um, like uh how do I get a library card?

And I think I spelled that wrong, and I can't see.

Yeah, there we go.

And you're not used to typing this way.

And then this little guy is gonna tell you how to get a library card.

Hopefully, he's not gonna prove me wrong because I checked this already.

So, yes, this is uh this is how you get a library card here.

Um, but you can type in just about anything.

Like I typed in um what do I try?

Um, how do I get in touch with the I can't see if I'm doing that right?

The mayor.

So let's see how I spell wrong.

HOW, I know how you spell how, but I can't even see if I put the right one in.

I need better glasses.

Got it.

All right, so it's gonna tell you you can get in touch with the mayor Karen Love by uh entering her email address or by calling her directly.

Additionally, she looked we even have the it even comes up the hour.

So the good the neat thing about this is this is an AI agent, but it it not only an AI agent, it's for it can learn.

So if we does get something wrong, we can check that and do and fix it.

So one of the things that um council member Jackson came to us with is she actually has a person that's willing to volunteer and help with that.

So we're gonna be using that person to help this AI engine learn.

Um also we did vet this, we did send this out to uh people like citizens and people who work here and people who work here who are also citizens, and we had a council member look at it too.

So uh what we did was we did work with a company to help us do this.

Um and so they sat with that person and said stuff they liked, stuff they didn't like, uh things they would like changed, and then we made those changes.

So we did have responses from uh different stakeholders.

Um so that's it in a nutshell.

We are hoping to launch this, uh, if not tomorrow, sometime in the near future, uh, as long as you're all okay with it.

But the big thing is it ha we have to move forward for ADA requirements and things like that.

I would like to mention two or three things that are coming down the pike uh with technology as well.

Um we are going to be moving, we we're completely finished with Arca Search.

That's the company that was doing the digitization of all those things within the museum.

So I'm happy to announce that uh that's coming online too, and that'll be for the public.

You can go on to our museum's website, which is here on under departments, and you'll be able to search for uh specific public documents that they have digitized, including all like the old sewer records and how some of the housing records.

So uh if you have you know, if you have an older house and you want to do some historical investigation, that'll be available.

Um also um, which I believe is on the agenda tonight, um, of working with Kendrix um to do um, he's got like an internal ticketing system for um his c his different departments or his you know his different departments, and they and so what we're doing, we had a uh an app years ago, but unfortunately the it actually got bought by Granicus of all companies, and then they just dissolved it.

They didn't want to bring it forward in their new um company.

So uh because they bought a bigger bigger company, they bought GovQA and they just got rid of the app portion of it.

So we are actually also this year going to partner with C Click Fix because that company can go you can use that app and it not only works for that, you can type in you know down tree or whatever, and we're getting an API thanks to Kendrick's that'll talk directly to his employees' internal ticketing system.

So like you have a you'll get you'll get an email saying, okay, the you know, this is the issue that you've proposed, and then you'll get periodic connections with that person, you know, seeing that it's being fixed and altered.

So it'll it's all gonna be according to the API.

So as soon as they do it, they don't have to send, you know, they don't have to stop and what they're doing and do additional work, it'll just you know send you a ticketing.

So that'll all be resolved.

Any questions about the website?

Okay, order um is that AI bot or is it a gentic AI?

Will they all attach the form for you?

It's it's an AI, but well, it's an AI bot, but um if you do get down to um you know a certain point and you're not getting the answer you want, it'll tell you, oh contact the city.

Oh, okay, okay.

Okay, close.

Do you know what I mean by that?

Agentic AI is if it's an agent, right?

So if I want a library card, says here, this is I can get your library card, but here's the form.

Oh, we don't have to get so fancy, but for permitting purposes, well, yeah, we could we could do that.

The reason why um I wasn't familiar with that, but the reason why we didn't do something like that is because like things like our library card is actually through the CAP PPLC, and that's still um not ADA.

Okay, thank you.

But we could do it with our internal forms.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, so and I'm assuming this would be quite easy to add information.

Oh, yeah.

Because I know I I don't I know on our current one we don't have a good list of how much it costs for different kinds of permits, for instance.

And I was talking to the city manager about having um, you know, because we were talking about parking the other day, having a trolley map and something that really says how frequent it is and all that.

So stuff like that we can easily we can do that, and we're actually working on an interactive map for I think the there's like a there's something coming.

Um I think you're involved, Mayor, with like a walking map, um, like a walking with um the senior center or something, but um we're doing an interactive map for them and we can do an interactive map for the trolley with the same uh software.

So we can we can definitely do that because we're already looking at it for another aspect.

Okay, because I know that that was a problem sometimes making things ADA compliant to put them on the website and then getting different department people to give you the information to to fill out and make it.

Well, that's that's the thing.

I mean, like um Sonia's actually been great at that.

We got all the new utility rates up, uh, thanks to Justin on the old site, but then also we mirrored it on the new site.

Uh so that was up like next day.

Um, but we can do that if if we can get the rates from the the techs, we can put them up there.

Great, thank you.

Um anything that we can do as far as the Luber and making it easier to figure out where it's at would be a positive because in a number of conversations I've had with the city manager, uh he has said that that there isn't very much ridership.

So I think that that will be a big help.

Um, I can see that this is going to be so much more user-friendly.

And one of the things I was concerned about when we talked was people being able to find where things are, some kind of mapping or tracking of where to locate things on the website.

So I'm I'm really happy to see that there's there's implementation of that.

Yeah, we we tried to listen to everybody.

I mean, there was a lot of because you know, the the website that we currently have, it though we do periodic updates to it, let's face it, we've had it for over 10 years now, so it was getting kind of long on the tooth.

And we do have a kind of a hard deadline with this too, because in 2017 or 2017, 2027.

I don't know where I am.

2027, there will be a um uh a move to do all any kind of like mobile app to be ADA compatible, but or 80 or even just going on your phone and seeing this, this needs to be ADA adaptable.

Uh so this is a step forward in that.

So the next step for that is about midway through this 2026.

We'll have to do a little bit, it's not gonna be expensive.

You just do a little audit seeing what we still need to do for that, and then we just move forward with it.

But we've already come like 90% of the way with this.

That that is good to know as well because I've I found that you know I do so much work on my on my phone itself, and then when I go to the website, there's some things I can't do on it.

I have to actually go to a it's pretty adaptive now.

Um we we did we did work with uh a few residents that use very heavily on their phone instead of just using computers for that purpose to see to make sure they could see everything right.

Thank you so much for all your work on this and every everybody that contributed to it.

Oh, great, thank you.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yeah, I think this is awesome and um great job.

And can you remind me of who was the other staff member I did the usability test with?

Uh Sasha was one.

Um she's a permit tech actually, and then so did Gina from the library, because she's actually a she lives in the city and she works at the library, so she was another one.

Um and then there was a few citizens, I just don't know what they want me to name them in public.

Right.

And I did the usability test with Oh, I'm sorry, Deanna Silvera.

Yes, yes.

I'm sorry.

Yes, so I want to give her a shout out too because she did a great job.

Okay, good.

Okay.

I don't have any question.

I love that you said it could roll out as early as tomorrow.

Great.

Sounds good.

I think uh I'm really glad.

And I do remember when the discussion about getting this going was happening, but since I came into office, I can't say that I gave it another thought.

So this is one of the things.

There's a there's a few storms in between.

So all righty, thank you so much.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Good job.

Okay, so now we'll be moving on to public comment.

And because I do see some new faces out there, let's just be I just want to make sure that everybody understands when you come up for public comment, you have three minutes.

You can address anything that you want to that's not on the agenda.

Okay, it's not already something that's scheduled to be talked about.

You can say anything you want.

It's not a give and take conversation though, it's kind of awkward.

You get to come up, say anything you want.

Fortunately, we have council comments that come up you know fairly quickly after that.

And if if we want to address it right then and there, we can if it's something simple like that, but it's not a give and take.

And also we don't boo, hiss, or applaud during public comments.

So who wants to be first tonight?

Bonnie.

Thank you, Karen.

All right.

Thank you, because I have a really bad cough that I don't want to keep bothering meeting me.

Um Bonnie Bray, I live on 56th Street South.

I just have a couple of suggestions.

I would like to either get a workshop or a focus group going for a golf cart reassessment.

There are golf carts that only go 20 miles an hour, and they are not classed as low speed vehicles, they're classed as golf carts.

Low speed vehicles go 20 miles an hour and faster to 25 miles an hour, which we have quite a few of them in the city now.

But when we first started out with the golf cart, it was just supposed to get us around in the city, not drive down 22nd Avenue, 58th Street, or 49th.

So I would like to get a focus group together where there's other communities in the Pinellas County area, i.e.

St.

Pete Beach, uh Dunedin, some of the other cities that don't have to have VIN numbers and license tags on the golf carts that go 20 miles an hour and stay within their community.

The other issue I have for a workshop is I'd like to see a dog beach.

I'd like to see a dog beach behind where the children's rec center is on shore, because it's hardly used.

And there's a lot of families in this city that have pets.

And it would be a great thing to go to the beach and be able to take your pet.

We would have to maybe get a tag that shows that it's a golf port resident that's using the beach.

And the same thing for the golf cart.

They have in St.

Pete Beach, they use a tag meth method where you have to reach the specific safety requirements and you have to have a license and blah blah blah blah.

Um but the dog beach is another thing that I have quite a bit of interest on, so I'd like to do a workshop with that.

And the other thing I I live on 56th.

I really think Gulfport needs to consider making 54th one way going to the bay and 56th one way going away from the city.

Because the traffic when there's festivals here, you cannot drive down those streets because they're parked all on the side of the street, and if there's another car coming, you cannot get past it.

Um it would be nice to have stop signs on beach because when you get it when you pull out, you're almost in the middle of the street before you can even see if there's a car coming.

And most of the time, because you're pulling out into the middle of the street, the other cars are stopping anyway, and then you got this little backup of who's gonna go first.

So even if it's just from 28th to shore, that's the only area I'm concerned about.

That's it.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

And who is next?

Uh C Regina.

Hi, Regina Buscemi.

Um I can very easily get distracted.

I would love to see a dog beach also.

Um be some, but that's not what I'm here for.

Uh a Gulfport welcome is this coming Friday.

I hope to see most of you there.

It's uh 6 30 at the library, and one of the things that we push is the website.

So, Dave.

We need to talk.

That's all.

I just wanted to remind everybody.

All righty, thank you.

Who's next?

Wolfgang.

Thank you, Mayor.

Wolfgang Dininger, uh, Gulfport Grassroots.

Uh we did have our uh clam bayou cleanup this past weekend.

It was the it's the uh the 40th anniversary of the international coastal cleanup.

We had 49 people, and we gathered 180 pounds of trash and debris out of the um uh clam bayou uh nature uh preserve.

Uh uh a good outing.

Uh we also introduced a Gulf Port grassroots.

We also asked for sponsors from local businesses.

Uh Joe Gunther of O'Maddy stepped up and uh Ulio from Ulio's empanada stepped up and uh Nita McLaughlin of the um funky flamingo.

Uh we had uh Mayor Love uh devoted uh a couple hours with the cleanup.

April Thanos was there.

Uh it was a great event.

Um we have another uh uh international coastal cleanup coming up this uh Saturday morning at uh our regular uh pavilion number four on the um a Gulf Port Beach at 9 a.m.

More information on the uh Gulfport Grassroots uh website or at the uh keep about Pendellas Beautiful um website.

Uh another matter, we just heard Dave uh and a few other people mentioned ADA quite a few times.

Uh and I and we also hear words like uh walkability in a city.

And uh when I lived uh south of uh uh uh Gulf Port of a Boulevard, I used to walk a whole lot in that area and never had any big problems since I've moved up on the north end, trying to walk around that area.

Cars are always blocking the sidewalks.

It's terrible.

Um I reported it to patrol officers last week.

I finally called the non-emergency number, 9th Avenue South is crazy.

I mean, if if I were a vision impaired, handicapped, wheelchaired, or anything else, you could not navigate that street.

And indeed, I ran into a gal who was on who is, I think a paraplegic.

She had a out of fitted uh wheelchair.

I ran into another uh gentleman on 11th who was uh a vision impaired.

I had to help him.

Uh we really need to enforce the no parking law.

It's it's a big issue, it's not a small issue, it's a big issue when people can't walk in their own uh city.

So I hope that uh the police uh start to crack down on that.

Warnings are fine, but after a while we need to start issuing tickets.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Amy, you're next.

All right, hello everyone.

Uh Amy Costa, Midtown Business Collective.

Just a couple of things to share with everyone.

Um, tomorrow night is our Midtown Business Collective Mingle.

Um we invite everyone, community members, small businesses, friends, family to come on by.

There's snacks and drinks.

Um we mingle, and then everyone gets an opportunity to share a pitch of what you do, what you need, who you are, why you're in this community.

Um, it's a very laid-back thing, so you're all welcome to that.

Um, in response to Bonnie and the focus groups, uh, we would be more than happy to host that.

I know I've talked about that before of we all have these great ideas, and you guys are busy enough where you don't need to be spending time having workshops for every single topic.

So I'm we're happy to take that on and start forming those, and people can um email us at info at nbcgulfport.org, and we'll start putting groups together and scheduling those.

Um we have an upcoming week of hurricane healing events as some of it's sponsored by our city with the starts with the town hall on October 13th, and um following that on Saturday, October 18th, we will be having a community healing day at Wonderworks.

We have a variety of um different practitioners, yoga counselors, sound bath, breath work, all different things coming out, volunteering their time for a free day for anyone who is stressed out, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like they just need a little support, want to talk about what went on, especially following the town hall when those stories will feel fresh again.

Um so it's from 10 to 2 on Saturday, it's free for everyone.

Um, if there's anybody out there that wants to volunteer their time and come and offer service, please reach out to us.

Um, and we hope to see everybody come and spend their day there.

And the last thing is we are hosting a Halloween creepy crawl on Halloween night leading up to the Rec Center Bash.

We are uh partnering with all of the businesses throughout the city to host a space in their business to stay open from four to seven for families and kids to come through, give a trick-or-treat, maybe have a treat for parents, maybe have a spooky photo op or a haunted house or however little or however far they want to take Halloween.

Everybody has I don't know if anyone's seen Salty Pup, but they apparently really love Halloween.

Um so we are inviting every business in Gulfport.

Um we've got tons and tons of support already.

People are really excited about it.

Um I'll show I'll be reaching out to the city to see if maybe we could get the looper to come around and pick people up, make sure they can get places safely, and then we'll be um adding the the rec center bash with that so that the families know once they're done the trick-or-treat crawl to head right over to the bash.

Um, and then we're um asking for witches to host the switch witch.

I just learned about that today.

Apparently, it's a place where if parents don't want their kids to eat the candy, they can swap it out for treats and we'll have the treat that like prizes, not food.

Um, or healthy food.

I don't know.

So we have a few witches already, so if anybody wants to be a witch, let me know.

Super.

Who's next for public comment?

Yes.

Good evening, Eileen Corning.

I am here representing the Gulfport Senior Center Foundation.

And this is my first time to have to speak with only three minutes.

So I want to first thank all of you for your time.

Um, really, that my purpose for this evening is to just show you our appreciation and our commitment to the goals for the senior center.

Our mission is to support and enhancing the programs there, but I have to be honest with you.

The support we receive from you, our membership is growing.

Our board of directors is so active.

We've increased our events.

I could go on and on, but really I just want to say, David, I'm so excited about that that I got to see Gulfport Senior Center Foundation up there already.

Our coordinator of volunteers is sitting beside me to the left, Rosemary.

It's just I want to say thank you.

You have no idea how many events that we have upcoming.

We've increased the events, we've hired a grant writer, and thank you again because those volunteer hours will help with our grants.

Um and I just I again I appreciate everything that you guys do for us in support.

Thank you.

Who's next?

Where's the hand?

Yes.

Hi.

Hello.

I'm Carol Kelly, and I'm here on behalf of the New Horizons Band.

And um I'm here also to express appreciation and let you all know how grateful we are that the city collaborates with us for not only using Gulfport Senior Center, for um having performances, and especially thanks to Justin Shea and Jacob Taylor who've really helped us um with all of this.

We are a nonprofit, it's all volunteer.

Um anyone is welcome to join.

And we really feel like music is important in our lives, it inspires people, it brings a community together, and if we didn't have places to perform here in Gulfport, we wouldn't able, we wouldn't be able to bring music to the community.

Um and also uh just to remind everyone that the concerts are free, um, everyone can attend.

We also welcome anyone to join the band.

Um you just really have to play an instrument and have a good attitude.

And um we also have a flute choir, we have a jazz band, and um that's about it.

Um we're just very thankful that we can be here in Gulfport.

So if anybody has any questions later, they can ask me.

And please everyone come to the concerts.

All righty, thank you.

Who's next?

Courtney.

Hello, hello, hello.

Uh my name is Courtney Prokoppus, um, fourth word.

I brought props with me tonight.

Um I just wanted to share that uh I'm part of the Gulfport Coastline Coalition, which is a community organization.

I wanted to share that we have no wakeyard signs available.

They look like this.

Um I want to express gratitude for Councilmember Shaw for helping us coordinate with public works to make sure that we had proper information about how they can be displayed and where they can be displayed and that information.

So uh it's a part it's an effort to help amplify the city's official no wake messaging, and you can order one through our website, which is Gulfport Coastline Coalition.org, and we can deliver them to your house, either to your doorstep or set them up for you.

Um you can also grab a flyer at the back of the room.

There's a QR code.

I'm still looking at you, but I'm showing people behind me.

Um we're working with a few different spots around town to do local pick pickup.

So stay tuned, check out our social media pages website, or if you see me out walking my dogs or having a cup of coffee, just flag me down.

Um secondly, I would love to just double check in about the living shoreline and the timeline or status on that.

I know it was in the works and a few things happened last season, but we're back.

Um thirdly, this came up.

Uh, assistant city manager Dave Mathers mentioned the C flip C click fix with the API integration.

I was just curious, is that also going to be public-facing?

I know when I was in St.

Pete, you had the app.

Just want to check in and see about that.

Um, and lastly, just as a citizen, I'm still gonna hold this up behind me.

Uh, I want to give a quick shout out to one community grocery co-op.

It's a local nonprofit uh that is working to open a member-owned grocery store in South St.

Pete.

So it feels especially timely given the recent closure of the save a lot at 49th and Gulfport Boulevard.

They're nearing a number of early members that they can then go on to their next phase, which is scouting locations.

So if you're at all interested, they're looking for membership.

Um I believe Councilmember Early is well aware of them.

I'm a member.

Hey oh, me too.

Um so I'm volunteering you to give more information.

Um a plug, or you can check out their website.

It's O C G C dot C O O P.

So O C like the OC, G C like Gulfport Coastline Coalition dot co-op.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Karen.

Karen Schwartz, Delet Avenue South.

I just I really want to thank.

I have I have gratitude galore for um public works for the new bike racks at the recent.

I was there, I couldn't find a place to lock my bike.

It's a trike, actually, it's very big.

And um I mentioned it to Maribel.

That was on a Tuesday, on a Thursday, there they were.

So I was just so delighted.

Thank thank you.

Thank you very, very much.

And I want to know if on the I can't remember the name of the app that Dave was just talking about.

Could it be, could there be something on there where you could say, hey, there should be a bike rack here.

Or maybe somewhere on the website, you can ask, you know, I think there should be a bike rack here.

Um for example, uh, I went to the fall festival last weekend at Clymer Park.

I couldn't find a place to lock it.

So I locked to a sign.

But please.

Um how to get that accomplished, other than just please, folks, bike wrecks.

So thank you.

Thank thank you so much.

Who's next for public comment?

Yes, in the back.

Hello.

Hi.

My name is Katie, and I live um on Shore Boulevard, right across from Goldford Beach.

And I'm here just to just to talk about the the water, the beach water.

I came from Southern California.

I loved body surfing.

I brought my kids here, they were four and six.

And at that time in 1996, the water wasn't that great.

And um the sewerage was bad, and when we had rains, it was very difficult to even go like the smell was terrible.

But and you could see the bacteria, and even with my kids, it was it was kind of difficult to dissuade them from going into the water.

But that all changed, but people's idea of the bay hasn't changed.

And when I hear comments like, oh, you would never go in that water, it kind of annoys me because we had that big that big that like couple years there where they dug up all the streets, they put in those huge pipes and they cleaned up the area.

You don't have all that sewage coming up anymore.

But people are still stuck in that mode, and I hate to hear that.

And so I get into these little discussions with them.

They well see back then Debbie and and um Ken used to publish in the Gulf Port Gabber at that time, publish, you know, how the what the water levels were, the bacteria levels, and then sometime like there were um I used to live on 53rd and 31st.

So at the beach, you could you could go to the beach between like the casino and the pier, and they would have signs saying, uh, it's kind of unhealthy right now, so you know, just wait, and then then they would take the sign down, and that's where my kids used to swim.

So I I just would like if I'm wrong, then you know, please correct me.

But um I have noticed just people just giving the beach a bad rap.

I've paddle boarded, I've walked the beach, I've collected shells, I've I have to wear sand shoes because it's kind of mushy until you get out to like the sandbar.

That's just because of the grass.

But that's natural.

It's cleaner, it's more fun to be there.

Our beaches are clean, the water's clean, and I would just like someone to either publish something or start the conversation about how great our water and the beach is these days.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Hello, Mayor Love, esteemed council members.

Uh, my name is Scott Reevy.

I live in fourth ward.

I've got a few things to talk through.

Um my neighbors Rottweiler broke through my front door, uh attacked my dog, barking at my kids right now.

Uh owners not doing anything about it, not taking any responsibility.

Really fired up about it.

Um that's aside.

So because it didn't attack a human, it is not uh, you know, a dangerous animal.

Um the video's there, it's a dangerous animal.

So that emotional thing aside.

Um, and I appreciate the call on that front.

On another item, uh, I am the property owner of the pink house across from Havana Cafe.

My wife is an optometrist.

We have, you know, we purchased that building a few years ago in hopes of opening an optical.

Seems like a great market for it, David.

We would love to have you get some some new uh frames going.

And really, um it's all about the you know, the connection, the walkability with the senior center and and and all of the businesses in the area.

But as we were going through the process of converting to mixed use, we hit rope one roadblock after the next, you know.

The I think the request was up to eight parking spaces, you know, on that site, and it's just like, oh my gosh, like we got to cut down a tree and like you know, beg borrow and steal from the neighbors.

We would love to find a more streamlined way to bring this service um to the community.

Uh again, dangerous animal barking at my family right now.

Also coming back to that and uh being mindful of time.

Um I second uh there was a uh a comment earlier about potentially a one-way street uh on 54th and another 56th or something like that just to control traffic a little bit.

I'm always walking with my two daughters and my wife in the area, and and the the pedestrian walkway is wonderful.

Uh, but having another, you know, some kind of stop huddle around that area where we've got Wonderworks as well with Amy's, you know, like a lot of foot traffic potential.

Uh, we would love to put a business there and and and have it be presentable and lovely for the community.

And uh, I guess the last item I had is just uh love to see the um power lines being put underground.

Super exciting.

Uh I just went and checked on my uh property, and they put one of the boxes right in the middle of the driveway.

So you know, that's what just you know, this so there's just a couple things floating up, but you know, just very happy with the things that we've seen even just in the last four or five years here in Gulfport, and you know, a little some quirks here and there, but you know, just appreciate you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, Korea.

Good evening.

Thank you so much.

I just want to say thank you.

We had a really successful event this weekend.

I'm with my name is Krea with the Gulfport Food Forest.

Um, we probably saw probably 300 people or better.

And um, all ages enjoyed the day.

We don't have a tally of the funds that we raised, but it was our first real official fundraiser um probably ever.

Um, and it I just wanted everybody donated their time, everyone donated their time and their products and everything to just be put towards the food forest, which was just this amazing uh feeling of community.

And on that note, I just want to put a shout out to some sponsors, Wise Hands, which is a native plant nursery in St.

Pete across 49th.

Uh Anderson Lumber made our hay ride spectacular by loaning their flatbed.

Um we had a banjo player on that.

Um thank you to the Gulfport Police Department for giving us guidelines to that.

It was really great.

Um, one chick, one bro, uh O'Mattie's GMC, Gulfport Realty, Seabree, Spearrows, Trader Joe's, Stella, Sprouts, Jackson, and out.

I'm telling you, everyone showed up for this.

Um, sick production, Willow Tree Nursery, Crumb Factory, Tommy's Hideaway series, pizza donated pizzas.

Super, super wonderful.

So we get together on Tuesdays in the Gulfport Food Forest to do work in the garden.

And um, I'm really happy to announce we have two people coming on to the actual council, the um our nonprofit board, because Pandy is stepping down, and Carol Witt has moved out of um the area.

So we're having we have an actual professional um well retired accountant coming on as our treasurer.

And we have a really great woman, Delia Skye, who's coming on as our secretary, and that's pretty special.

Um, other than that, I just want to put a quick shout out to Effortless City, Effortless City to Gulfport, Florida, who made our shirts.

And what their real thing is is they go around and make maps of cities that shows where there's curb cuts where people with wheelchairs can actually uh navigate.

So I really would suggest that our city look into effortless city, Gulfport, Florida.

Their logos on here, and I'll send you this sponsor.

Uh, she I want to say thank you to Karen Love for being the judge of our pie contest, and for Karen who came out first thing in the morning and helped out.

Um, and for Cozy for donating plants from her garden.

And I also want to say that one city grocery co-op has been at the 49th Street Makers Growers Market for three years now, gathering support.

So if you want to find out a place to come talk to them, come to 49th Street Makers and Growers Market.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Anybody else for public comment before I close?

Yes.

Thank you, Maya Love and uh Council members.

My name is uh Bill Griffo, and I'm the treasurer and the um chairman of the events committee at the uh Gulfport Senior Center Foundation.

Sounds like it's a big night for events, and this is the biggest uh season of the year for events.

So I just wanted to kind of go through what's up ahead for us.

Um this Saturday we have the Health and Wellness Expo, uh, which is at the Maria Center, which we've been grateful to have access to since the casino um closed down.

Uh but it's gonna be a big event, and we have uh we've secured eight sponsors and 40 vendors who provide expert uh opinions on all health and wellness issues.

Uh just definitely want to thank Anita from the Funky Flamingo, who is last year's uh gecko queen.

She's providing lunch for everybody.

And then October 25th is really the funnest night of the year that we have is the night in Italy, also at the Maria Center.

And um this year we're adding a new twist to it.

We're gonna have a dance competition for anybody that wants to come and there'll be prizes, and then we'll have uh a ring toss for um bottles of Italian wine, which will be fun.

And we really want to thank uh Pas, Mazzaros, and uh Campanellas for providing uh the food that night.

So it will be four course authentic uh Italian meal also.

Uh then we have our annual report on November 17th, um, which Eileen will present, you know, our impact on the community, and then also next year's budget.

You know, we've really been seeing a lot larger uh firms and uh corporations uh wanting to work with us and uh go through out to our network of people.

Uh so it's really a key thing for us for next year.

We really want to try and double what we raised this year.

Uh then the ninth uh the 29th is the Mad Beach Band, which is very popular and it's like part of the culture of Gulfport.

Uh they sold out last year, and it's already sold out uh for the 29th of this year.

It's pretty close.

And then on 12 um on descent in December, we want to introduce a new uh Christmas, big band Christmas, and we're really trying to use the garden outdoors.

And this year we're gonna make a 90-minute pre-event um, you know, networking event for people.

We're gonna have SantaCom.

It's really gonna be for families and kids this year.

So it's really been great with this garden uh enabling us to have this pre-event because that's where we a lot of people come to just community and be together.

Uh and we have that before every event.

So really we're just very proud of what's ahead and grateful to the city for the great uh spaces that you provide for us to you know come together as a community and celebrate and give back.

So thanks very much.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Last chance.

Okay, Bob.

Bob Canning, Shore Boulevard.

I just was wondering if uh anybody was has been in contact with the group that's doing the watershed and the stormwater report.

Uh we were told that it would hopefully we'd be getting the last third of the year.

Well, it's October.

And if we haven't heard anything from them, can someone reach out to them?

Because we can't do anything to limit the flooding anywhere until we have the report.

And we've dodged the bullet so far, but oh wood, whatever.

That's all I wanted to say.

Thank you.

All right.

With that being said, then we're gonna close public comment and we're gonna move on to the city manager's report.

And before we do, just one reminder, um, council members.

When at our very first meeting, when we set the rules the way that we wanted to operate, we said that when the city manager gives a report, that it's okay if we need to ask clarification, clarifying questions of what it is that he's addressing.

But during his report is not the time for us to ask and go off topic on to other things.

Though you're very um very definitely you can do that during your 10-minute council comments.

But when it's his report, we can ask him questions of what he's addressing, but only that.

Okay, that's what we agreed on, and just kind of a reminder of that.

So City Manager, please.

Yes, Mayor.

I'm just real quickly, uh just about three or four items.

But first of all, the living shoreline is in permitting.

We did have um worked to the city attorney to submit an application for submerged land lease for the area that would be planted.

We're working through with the state for that in regards in addition to permitting.

Secondly, the flood study uh stormwater study is scheduled for November 18th in front of the council.

We'll say that again.

November 18th for the stormwater.

I knew it was November, I didn't know the day.

The next item I have um this evening is uh you've received your report on permitting.

It's also been posted to the city's new website.

Um just wanted to give a brief update.

We've uh sent out a hundred and four notice of violations to individuals to maintain compliance and the NFIP to stay in good standing of that.

We've received 37 responses.

We still have additional letters to go out, but the initial were the ones that we looked at who uh there was concerns about unpretty unpermitted work and non-compliance with the process.

And I know you've been hearing about that, but uh we council had established a zero tolerance and start moving with violations.

Subsequently, that's where we're at today.

Um with that said, also we've council had directed to explore the feasibility of charging for the electric charging stations out front of City Hall.

I'm gonna bring Mr.

Nichols up and he's gonna give you an outline.

We're prepared to move forward with that uh based on council's direction this evening, but we are have the ability to do that.

Mayor council?

Good evening.

Um I did reach out to Nova Charge, who is the ones that manage the charging stations is a very simple process.

If we want to put a fee in there, we are spending a little over eleven hundred dollars a month currently on those charging stations to break even with our maintenance.

I'm gonna suggest a 25 cent per kilowatt hour charge.

That would cover uh electricity, that would cover um the Nova charge, what they charge us to manage the system, and it would also cover uh put about 250 dollars a month if this number stay the same into a for future maintenance and future replacement of the devices.

So our largest user over the last four months was at 91 kilowatt hours, that would be a charge of like less than 20 dollars.

So that and that was the biggest user at putting it at a quarter.

When I was talking to uh Nova Charge, who does uh manage quite a few throughout uh the state, they said that cities typically are somewhere around the 30 to 35 cent range, but I'll leave that up to y'all.

The other thing I need uh some direction on is idling charge.

Some people uh our reports show how long they charged and if they just left their car there after it was done.

So they recommended that some cities do anywhere from five dollars an hour up to as high as twenty dollars an hour.

So I would recommend the lower end of that until we see how this goes.

And I can pull reports with our Nova Charge software every day to see who's on there, what they're doing, how they charge.

So that $5 an hour charge that would kick in if as soon as they're fully charge their battery, but they were at the grocery store doing something else and they just wanted to leave it there all day.

When I'm looking at the reports, it's almost like they plug them in after work, and they get in them in the morning and they may stop charging at 2 a.m.

They walk home from here.

They walk home from here.

So that's that's kind of what I saw in the report.

It doesn't happen that often, but there was some that stayed there considerable amount of time after they were charged.

Would this include questions in speaking order?

No questions.

Thanks for addressing the idling.

I think Amy brought that up about a month ago.

Yeah.

Um would this include the ones that are down um on Beach Boulevard?

We have one on Shore Boulevard.

Now that one isn't functioning today.

Oh, I've got a price from Nova Charge uh to replace that.

And then we put that on the same the same system.

Okay.

Because it's not a Nova charge.

It was I I didn't even know how the electric was being run because Duke was paying for, we've only paid this for a year.

Duke paid the initial year, same with the one on beach, but that one um was running right through now through the casino meter.

So we were paying for it.

Okay.

Councilmember Shaw.

So I had heard figures of even up to 40 percent 40 cents per kilowatt hour.

Sure.

Um we we worked out the calculations to come up with the 25 cents.

I was coming up with that just to cover our expenses.

If you want to look at it as a gener uh uh revenue generator, that's your call.

I can do a dollar an hour.

It's very simple.

I can I have the administrative controls to go in there and change those at any time I want.

So if we're seeing something that it's not paying for itself, and Nova Charge handles all the payments.

That all the money goes through Nova Charge and then they send us a check quarterly.

Okay, so if we did charge a little bit more, then that would increase the amount that would be available for future maintenance.

It would be.

And our replacement?

City council decision.

Okay.

Um can you tell me, is it a fast charger?

I believe they are fast charges because I've seen some charges on there that are very quick at uh uh, you know.

Because from my research, fast charging, you would charge more per kilowatt.

So we might want to consider that since it is a fast charger.

Um, but we'll just figure out what that charging is.

But I'm open to starting at a reasonable price and then increasing if we see that usage still steadily because I agree that it's worth it to get the And that's my concern is that now somebody's gonna go scan it, they're gonna see that they have to pay now.

And then leave it.

Are we gonna have to have the same type usage?

And it's just to just to take a look at the first month, and then I'd be glad to come back.

One thing that you will have to do is your next meeting is pass a resolution because it's a charge that the city is gonna level, levy, just like we do at the marina or for the recreation center fees under Chapter 25.

So we'll bring you back a resolution, but we couldn't bring you a resolution this evening till we know what amount you wanted to charge.

Yeah, okay.

Uh I would be open to increasing that price from 25 cents a kilowatt to like 30 or 35 cents, depending on what council agrees.

Since it is a fast charger, the average is 40 to 50 cents a kilowatt.

And the average for local municipality or the like Duny is 35.

Right.

And if we're competitive with those rates, then I don't see why people would shy away from it.

When you get to the idling uh charge, is that five dollars an hour after hourly charge?

Okay.

So I'm gonna throw this out and just see if we have a consensus so we can see an ordinance next time.

I would say 30 cents an hour, uh excuse me, 30 cents per kilowatt and five dollars an hour idling.

Yep, agree.

Everybody okay with that?

Okay and like we said we can always adjust down the road, but it's a starting point.

Okay.

And we'll bring you a resolution.

It's not necessary to read it twice, just a resolution.

Excuse me.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Was that it?

Thank you.

Okay.

Did anybody need to ask the city manager any clarifying questions on his report?

No.

I just want to clarify.

On here it says flood violations sent 104, which you said, but on here it says response was 15.

We have 37 now.

Okay.

So this was just a little old.

That was from last week, okay.

And how many of those have we actually um sent code violations to?

Those are all code by the code.

Those are code violations.

Those are 104 code violations have been sent.

W have we heard from people who um were waiting for, say, elevate Florida and now are gonna go ahead and either demolish or I couldn't get into that specific.

We do we have issued 35 demolition permits.

Okay, but so so but out of the 104, if 37 have c code violations, but are there other ones that we heard from and we aren't issuing a code violation because they have to still get a permit to demo to do anything.

Anything.

So no, we have it heard.

Well, unless you're just gonna sell and then the new.

No, there's also but there again, this property now has a code violation on it.

Oh, because they haven't responded to the exactly.

Okay, thank you.

Um I I just needed one clarification.

When we had discussed numbers before, it was a much larger number.

And that's what you'll see, the second number that we're working through.

There's another number of 1970 that put us in that 400 three, four hundred range that we talked about.

Okay.

That makes sense now.

Thank you for that question.

We do I want to thank uh Katie, Mark, Heather.

They've been working over the weekends because we're also doing our normal code enforcement activities and permitting.

So I wanted to thank them for all their efforts to get this done.

And what and main thing is to maintain once we send out the balance of these letters that'll put can maintain we're staying in compliance with the NFIP program.

And now move forward.

Thank you.

Everyone good?

Yep.

Yes.

All righty.

City attorney report.

No report, Mayor.

Nice.

Okay.

City clerk report.

No report, Mayor.

All righty.

Then that takes us right to uh council comments and reports, and we'll go in speaking orders starting with council member early.

Yes.

Um Scott, yes.

We spoke at the fall festival, met your wonderful children and your cute dog.

And I did talk to the city manager today.

You if you don't have an email from me, then you then it's in my draft, and I'll send it tomorrow morning.

But he shared with me what it is you need to do.

Okay.

And that would be the parking very parking, yes, yes, the parking.

I'm sorry.

Yep.

You're welcome.

Um I also paddle board in the beach, and I have no problem with it at all.

Um it's I'm very happy to do it.

So I agree with you, ma'am.

I totally agree with you.

And lastly, um, thank you for cheering teeing that up for me, Courtney.

Well, community co-op for someone who buys their groceries 98% of it we buy at the farmers markets.

And it would be very nice to have a co-op where we're all members make decisions, bring the community together for so many other reasons.

So please consider joining that.

Thank you.

All righty.

Okay.

First, I I mentioned this at our workshop, but I want to bring it up again because I think it's still out there.

I am moving.

I'm moving toward four.

Nancy will become my council person.

I didn't mind that when I signed up.

I'll be talking to you.

I don't know.

Um I'm not moving until my term is up, because number one, I'm elected, and also because I did a homeowner permit and you're not allowed to sell for or rent it for a year.

I do have a tenant in the house that I've bought, so I am not living there.

I did not get a mortgage that said that it it my mortgage is for a rental property, my insurance is for a rental property.

I am not living there.

You can come and see me in Flora at our house on 27th, any time.

So hopefully that answers that.

And they have a process where they can do a solar dashboard, which would tell us the number of houses or buildings that have solar in Gulfport and what that means for our energy output and you know, uh carbon footprint and all that.

It's fairly time consuming, but if you guys are interested, I can at least send you the email that he sent me, and then we can decide if we want to ask them to do that.

Great.

So it's okay.

I'll I'll send that to Teresa to send out to you guys.

We could decide.

Um my town hall is next Monday, and April Lott is going to be speaking, and she is a director of the company that we get our social worker from.

So it's a chance for her people to come and listen to her.

She did a wonderful talk at a resiliency conference about the emotional impact and and stress and trauma of hurricanes on the people who are flooded, and also everybody else, you know, first responders, people picking up debris, and just neighbors.

And um, and then there'll be a couple people talking about the the event at Wonderworks, and there's also a book that was put out by um Lynn, and she's gonna have it opening at DRV Gallery.

I think there's some flyers in the back that Justin put out for all three events, and um, and then people will have a chance to work with another person.

So, say a person who was flooded and traumatized could talk to somebody who wasn't, and we want to record those and make um uh like an MPR um story court to put in the history museum.

And then um we'll also put together probably but we plan on it, uh a presentation you know, in the next quarter about the results of that, maybe some pictures, people that want to do artwork or something from that.

We'll we'll put something together um probably in January or something.

Um I went to the delegation meeting, and that's where all of the del state delegates for Pinellas County come together, and every anybody who wants to can sign up to talk.

So um you'll see in my report, but I talked about flood insurance, um the the property tax, you know, they're talk talking about taking away property tax, which would severely impact our um city revenue.

Um vaccinations there was people talking about everything you can imagine.

I also thank them for the grant we got or the money we got for fixing the water lines in town shores.

Um I went to the food force event, which was very nice, and the clan by you clean up.

I was a little late, I didn't pick up many things.

I'm not an early riser.

Um yeah, I think that's it.

Thank you.

Um the uh Gulf Port in 2050 town hall was so informative.

Um the road work open house at the community uh 49th community building was very informative as well.

And the parking workshop was exceptionally interesting.

Um lots of ideas uh and input on that.

And um, and then uh I was really um I was really sad to miss the food forest and the Sunday market, makers and growers market.

I was under the weather, but uh to say that uh I am very grateful uh for all of those things that we've done and all of the input that people have provided as well.

Um so uh congratulations on that.

And um uh and then I I wanted to mention as far as the C click fix something that uh that uh I thought found very interesting about that was that anybody in the community can take pictures of situations or send in input right to the department, and uh then the department can be addressing it, and you can look for status updates on that as well.

I think we're gonna talk more about that later, so uh I'll I'll leave it at that.

Uh but I know that was one of the questions in case somebody leaves early.

Um for anybody that expressed concern about the pool at the 5.67 acres alongshore, that has been filled in.

And I I did have one question that I'm hoping I can get an answer to, and that is the status of the stormwater televising to date, what's been accomplished so far.

Well they did begin in the north section of town Monday.

Or was it middle?

It may have been last week, I'm not exactly sure, but they are in town, they're working every day, and they'll go through, and I think we're gonna have plenty to get through all the four zones that we had previously talked about, including you know the beach, the marina district, the area by Hoyt, as well as this one up north.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Um I did attend uh the Sun Coast League of Cities meeting and also the Florida League of Cities meeting.

Uh I'm not sure how many minutes I have left to speak, so I'll I'll try to get in some of the high points.

Um they there was um a discussion about the importance of strong local voices and ensuring our cities are well represented with legislators in Tallahassee, so encourage everybody to speak up.

Um there was a special speaker at the Suncoast League of Cities meeting, Renee Cooper, who is the Safety Harbor's Public Works Director, and she reported that they've been focusing on sustainability and resiliency and adoption of uh types of plans uh with the Army Corps of Engineers for multiple years.

They also began a comprehensive plan in concert with their vulnerability assessment and created a sustainability advisory board.

They hired a public works program coordinator to oversee related initiatives and stormwater grant programs.

Um they're very different from us because a lot of their flooding and yard erosions, etc.

are a result of so many creeks, and um what was happening is a lot of those are are privately owned, and of course, residents were getting very upset that the city should be fixing it, but the city, of course, can't pay for private property repairs.

Um so they started researching some grants and they came across the town of Jupiter, and um and some of and they discussed some of their program successes, and that led to some financial planning for them, and many specific details were shared, and um and then what they developed was a mechanism to provide a matching grant with those private owners, which was really an innovative move and something that uh I think will be a positive indication when we speak to the legislature about why home rule and and local voices and choices are very important.

Um there were other discussions as well, but these my reports will be on the website.

So I I again I don't know how many minutes I have for this.

The other one was uh the Florida League of Cities, uh, and the reason I'm trying to get these in now is because there's now two more this month, and um there's five committees in that, and just in my one committee, which is the uh development code compliance and redevelopment committee, um there were like about 70 people present in about 20 some no-shows.

So uh it's it's it's amazing.

All of these committees are from all over Florida.

But um both of these, uh both committees I want to mention that um they offer an excellent opportunity to meet with officials from across Florida and share experiences one-on-one and also in group settings and learn how other cities approach common uh issues, which I have found absolutely excellent.

Um this meeting focused on legislative matters, and and again, this report will be in um on the website, but they discussed CRAs, affordable housing, accessory dwelling units, short-term rentals, and um, and there was one more impact fees, and um and they talked about the different things that have been discussed as far as what legislature might change, and they even went into detail about which are likely to be discussed further, passed or unlikely not to pass.

So if you're interested in any of those, you know, please go ahead and check out those reports, including council.

Thank you.

Umly uh council update I have is that we're still working on getting the public virtual public comment software in through the Granicus platform.

So still waiting on Granicus Press there.

All righty.

Let's see.

I have a couple of things here that I wanted to say, and then I've got a couple responses to public comment.

Um the first thing I wanted to say is that I've heard the rumor out there that um because PSTA has done a lot of changes with their transportation system.

I actually heard some people went to Facebook and posted that we would not have bus service.

There's no truth to that.

There have been some dramatic changes with PSTA.

I actually was at a meeting maybe six, nine months ago where they talked about it and they they've did these great studies and they found out that you know not everybody works eight to five, and they adjusted all the um buses accordingly, and they really studied what they needed to do.

And in some cases, there have been lines job.

Nothing that affects Gulfport, but then there um there they've actually secured some temporary to get people from here to here outside of a bus.

So they're they've really done a fantastic job.

Golfport has not been affected by uh any changes made to PSTA in any negative way.

Uh Golfport 2050 was really, really um a good visioning session.

There were some really, really good ideas.

I'm taking all that information.

I also am lucky enough that I have some of the information from what Councilmember Thanos did with um Gulfport on the Edge from a few years ago, and I'm working with all of that.

And um hope to, you know, sometime next year kind of start showing you some um visuals of the what the consensus was from our residents of what Gulfport might look like at 2050, and if we could then once we see these visuals, if we can then get an agreement on that, then we'll start backing it up.

Okay, if this is where we want to be in 2050, where do we need to be in 2040 and 2030?

You see where I'm going with this.

So I am working on that.

And part of it, which will not take till 2050, is definitely working on some one-lane roads.

I've got drawings all over my house.

I'm starting to work on all this stuff, but I don't have software, you know.

I'm not uh to know how to do it that way.

But that is all coming, but not this year, probably next year.

Um in terms of the time and the timed and paid parking uh workshop, it was really beneficial.

Um, without a doubt, no if ands or buts.

There was a real clear consensus that the residents of Gulfport, I mean there are some obviously, or we wouldn't have talked about it, but overall they do not want time uh part paid parking, excuse me.

That's uh uh a no-brainer for now.

There was a very definitely a mixed bag on the timed parking, so I'm not saying that that's going away forever.

I think we should wait to see what happens after three more restaurants open in our business and then see if uh people want to talk about uh timed parking a little bit more.

But there were a lot of other good suggestions, and um I'll um that we will bring to you, you know, within the next I'm gonna say by June of next year is my best guess, okay.

Um I will say this that if you're interested in working with me as a volunteer, um, because you know I'm all about volunteering and focus groups and all that kind of stuff.

Um I'm looking for three people that will help me.

We're gonna go through the city pretty quick, find out where are our bike racks, is that where they need it, where are they not?

What can we do about it?

And then we're gonna come, we the volunteers are gonna come back to the city and say this is what we did.

We don't need to hire professionals to take you know a couple months or years to do it.

We can do it pretty quickly.

So if you're interested in doing that, please do reach out to me on my city email, which is posted up there.

No, it's not, it's K Love at my Golfport.us.

So that would be that.

Those were the things that I wanted to tell you.

And then in conversation with the others, um Bonnie Bray mentioned focus groups for some of the things she was interested in.

I've said a time and time again, go for it.

You want a focus group, you don't need a council member to be on your focus group.

Figure out what it is you want to accomplish, get your group together, have your focus group, and then come to us with your proposal after you have the information from your focus group.

Um go for it.

Um second thing, um, oh, and how wonderful, because Amy already said that her um uh Wonderworks would host the focus group, so you're in good shape.

The Living Shoreline, I knew the answer on that, and Jim's already answered that.

Um Katie Shore Boulevard Water, oh, water's clean.

Um City Manager, don't we put the quality of the water?

Is that on the city manager report?

That's on the city website twice a week.

Twice a week.

The water quality testing, we we've done that since 2016.

I knew that we did it.

I just wasn't sure where it was, and Katie left already, but you know, that would really help dispel a lot of these rumors, you know.

If everybody would share, no, our water's not bad.

The difference being if you've been spoiled by the beautiful sand beaches, and then you go into our water and the mud from the mud flat squishes between your toes, you might say, oh, gross, but it's not the quality of the water, it's that you don't like a mud bath.

I get it.

Okay.

Um and then I was gonna address uh Bob, but that was already answered.

And I'd been told all along, and I kept making jokes about uh that they said we'd hear it in the fall, and to me, the fall is August and September, and they'd say no, December, December, December.

But I'm thrilled that we got it moved up to November because I can't think of anything more important than that right now.

So uh that was all I had for council comments, so let's move on to consent, please.

Consent item six A, resolution number 2025-72, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with Riley's outdoor LLC doing business as Clark Sales Display for holiday decoration services.

Item 6B, resolution number 2025-73, a resolution authorizing the city manager to utilize the Florida Department of Managed Services State contract for the use of Baker and Taylor and Ingram Library Services LLC to purchase library materials.

Item 6C, resolution number 2025-74, a resolution authorizing the purchase of IT products and services from SHE.

Item 6D, resolution number 2025-75, a resolution authorizing the city manager to issue payment to tech guru, excuse me, tech guru consulting incorporated for citywide IT managed services.

Item 6E, resolution 2025-76, a resolution authorizing the expenditure of funds for the 2025-2026 fiscal year for granitis platforms.

Item 6F, resolution number 2025-77, a resolution authorizing the city manager to issue payment to Taylor Tyler Technologies Incorporated in Code 9 application for annual maintenance fees for the city's financial and utility software suite.

A resolution authorizing city manager to enter into a contract with Todd's air conditioning and refrigeration for replacement of the Michael J.

Yakes Recreation Center HVAC system.

And item six I consider approval of meeting minutes from meeting held September 16, 2025.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Okay, I have a motion and a second.

Uh city uh manager pardon?

Oh, well, I I wanted to ask a couple questions.

Can't do that?

No.

Nope.

Okay, Mayor, only if you want to remove that item from the consent.

Okay.

No, they were questions, but I didn't want to remove anything.

Okay.

All in go ahead.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Passes unanimously.

All righty.

And that takes us to ordinance seven A.

City attorney.

I guess the clerk you'll read it.

I'm sorry.

That's okay.

Ordin item 7A, ordinance number 2025-11, second reading in public hearing, an ordinance of the city of Gulfport, Florida, amending the code of ordinances for the city by establishing code section 17-32E.

Cooking while parked, providing for the repeal of ordinances or parts of ordinances and conflicts here with to the extent of such conflict, and providing for an effective date.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Okay.

Mayor Council members, this is uh what we've discussed and what is left from the prior ordinance that the council felt that they wanted to entertain.

Uh this deals with specifically just the cooking issue.

Um and uh we made the changes and it's before you.

Okay.

Do we have any council comments questions in speaking order?

No.

No.

No.

All righty.

Um do we call public comment on this?

Yes, public comment on this.

Yes, Courtney.

I know that last meeting it was quite a lengthy discussion, and I appreciate you getting into the weeds about um defining certain things, but nobody asked to define what is cooking.

It's not defined.

It's not clear.

And to say that this is to address the cooking issue is a massive oversight and massive understatement to what this is actually addressing.

So I just would like you to sit with that and really consider it.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Mr.

Freed?

I mean, we can use general.

Hello.

Yeah, I just need you to uh square circle for me.

I'm a little confused, and I need uh some explanation.

Um the mooring field.

Um are the folks that some of the folks living on those boats homeless.

What's the difference really between I mean I assume we're trying to address a homeless issue.

Um the boats are pretty to look at.

Um, I'm defending the right of those folks to be where they are.

Um I'm wondering if we should just designate an area where they can be like a morning field on land.

Um Karen, did you want public comment?

I thought I saw your hand.

Um my uh concern is very similar to Courtney's.

Yes, cooking is not defined, and neither is parking.

Um it doesn't say parked in a car, parked on the street, parked in a parking lot.

It it's it's it's ambivalent.

And um I'd like to see that also kind of just defined a little better.

Anyone else for public comment on this?

Seeing none, I've close public comment.

Call the vote.

Councilmember Early.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

All righty.

Let's see, and that will take us to resolutions.

And I know there's a lot of people that are sitting here waiting for resolutions.

I'm asking though, it's 7.40.

I'm gonna ask that we take a five-minute bathroom break and we'll resume at 7.45, okay?

Okay.

Just hoping.

Okay, so that's gonna take us to resolutions.

Item 8A, resolution number 2025-80, a resolution approving new special events for fiscal year 25 2025-2026, providing for the temporary work waiver of certain provisions of the city code of ordinances and city policies during special events and establishing responsibilities.

Okay.

Mayor, if I may, I'm gonna bring up Justin and numerous motion to approve.

Okay, good.

Do I have a second?

Mayor, um you're gonna hear three resolutions, 80, 80, 80, 81, and 82.

They're broke down into three categories.

The first is new events that are added to the calendar this year.

The second item is the recurring calendar that we primarily done every year since we've adopted the calendar.

And the third one is multi-day events, which councils in the past have decided they wanted to hear separately due to the impact of substantial impact to the community.

With that said, I'll turn it over to Justin.

I know also that there's numerous applicant event applicants that are here this evening, if you'd like to hear from any of them on any specific event.

Okay, so I have a couple of questions just so I'm clear.

Um I understand that it's broken down into the three different categories.

Yes.

Um if uh after Justin does his presentation on each of these, then will there be an opportunity for us to ask questions?

Okay.

And then is it normal for there to be um public comment?

Okay.

And is this an opportunity then if somebody wants to tell a little something about their event that they can?

Yeah, sure.

Okay, so that would come under public comment as well.

Yes, sir.

Okay, just so I was clear on it.

And you would vote on each of these resolutions.

Yes.

Okay, but you can do that.

And then we'll do C.

And you can combine the public comment.

The comments, yes, you can combine the comments and maybe tell everybody that they can comment on the first three.

Yeah.

If you want them to be able to do that, of any of the any of the A, B, and C maybe we'll do one public comment.

Yes.

And then but then we'll come back and we'll vote each of them separately.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Just needed to get protocol.

Okay, Justin, you're on.

Thank you.

Um happy new year.

Um, your applicants are here tonight representing the city-based nonprofits that have applied for use of city property to conduct a special event activity.

The code is very simple.

Section 1730 authorizes city council by resolution the um opportunity to waive policies, ordinances to allow special events to take place on public property.

For example, outdoor retail sales, um, the sale and consumption of alcohol, temporary structures.

Um these policies are in place, but special events gives an applicant the ability to request that type of activity on public property.

Each spring time, we um ask our uh city-based organizations to submit their dates for the next fiscal year.

Um then we start crafting the calendar on your exhibit.

You'll see page one in the attachment, a list of in this first item, 8A, the new events and new city events.

Umce the calendar is crafted, we then ask the applicants to submit their application.

Um, and then we start uh putting together what that would look like from an administrative level.

How can the event be a success in the community, the most amount of impact for the most amount of people, but also not to negatively impact the adjacent property owners, our businesses, and our residents.

Um so when we get through that, chain of command goes up to the city manager.

City manager then is able to essentially be here with y'all for the ask or the blessing.

Um I can tell you these events on the exhibit have gone through the process.

Um new events are there is a uh larger in-depth or more detailed look into this.

We have to coordinate with our public safety teams.

We have to look at this through our public works department.

We work hand in hand with our organizers and our residents, and we really want to present this package to you uh to give you the uh to make the decision a success for not only our applicants for the city but our residents and business owners.

Thank you, Justin.

That's good, Justin.

Okay.

That's all we have.

Oh, so that was on 8A, or that was on all of them?

All of them.

8A.

Okay, gotcha.

Then let's go in speaking order if you have any questions about so this is about the new events.

I have no questions.

There is so are we going are we talking about each event?

No, you don't have to.

If you have any specific questions about an event, we possibly have the event sponsor here this evening.

Oh, okay.

Um I'm all set, but I want to thank you for helping with the event that I'm um working with Fusion 49th on.

And I'd like to say everybody's been wonderful to work with.

Um, careful experience.

Thank you.

Okay.

Just I can hear them.

In your exhibit, you'll also see the attachments with the special event applications, the site plan, and I added the looper schedule for events that have requested the looper.

I put the timings in the packet so you can see the map and you can also see the timings that it will be running.

Um we also have some cards new this fiscal year.

We want to promote more usage of the uh more ridership on the looper.

And we have some uh creative things that we're gonna be doing to uh get the word out better in the community.

Um I understand that we're having a veterans um day event, a parade and everything, but I don't see it in the heroes we're gonna do.

You'll see that on your 8C agenda item in the exhibit.

It's considered the Vet Sports Beach volleyball tournament and veterans parade.

Your microphone.

Okay, Vice Mayor, your microphone.

Okay.

Oh sorry.

Shaw um I can I can imagine the beyond work that goes because there was extensive documentation and I was reading all through all of it and um that's it's pretty pretty impressive the detail work that goes into it from both all sides of it um I I did um I had a question about just some language and I know I already asked the city manager some questions but then I noticed that I didn't cover all of them and and it talks about in 8A and this could apply to others as well that it may require insurance proof and it may require nonprofit status it are there cases that that we wouldn't require those uh there is in your reoccurring exempt there is an exemption it's insurance is mandatory you have to provide the city a insurance policy that writes the city in as additionally insured um you'll see one um that is a local business that extends out onto Shore Boulevard if I if I can address that simply you have ones that may we may exempt to senior center foundation that are under our umbrella with their events the St.

Patrick's Day is a private entity is Justin's talking about that's not a nonprofit so that unless the the from sponsor he identifies a nonprofit and he can answer any specific questions but he identifies with the proceeds to make a donation to a Gulfport nonprofit in the past he's donated to little exable amounts things like that.

And he does that presentation here as well he's here this evening to answer any questions if you have but the there are events that you'll approve like the senior center using the theater for a fundraiser you're not going to require the senior center foundation or a library organization they're under our umbrella.

Okay that that's logical thanks.

And then it referred to beach parking permits where where would that apply or is that just old language that was old language.

Oh okay okay I I have no further questions thank you.

I have no further questions thanks I have a couple um so the way I looked at it I I still remember sitting out there when the council said we have plenty of events we don't need to do any more and I know that we've added eight and I'm not against any of them but I just acknowledging we have added eight events though two of those are actually being reinitiated.

I mean junk in the trunk we used to have twice twice a year and now they're coming back as two different things I think one is called junk drop off and then the one that's called swap meet I would really really like to change the name of the swap meet because to me when you do a swap meet that means you're gonna come set up and you're gonna try and swap out your stuff and if it doesn't get gone you're gonna take it home and I believe that the intent of the swap meet is that you're gonna come drop off stuff that maybe somebody else who lost everything might want but at the end of the day whatever's left there is going to the trash because we're gonna have the equipment right there.

Okay so I just think the name is a little misleading I'm not you know against it by any means I just like to see that and also when I said the aid so two are being reinitiated one is um we are going to have a a daytime holiday parade and I think that is replacing the nighttime parade with Santa going around and the beeping horns.

Yeah it that would be up to you okay so it doesn't quite look like um eight brand new things that they're gonna that's gonna swap and then the mayor's walk there's no impact whatsoever on the city that I can see from the mayor's walk.

No but you would have support of the event so you also not just they're gonna wheel us well you're gonna have you're gonna have staff support okay and that's where you're also approving staff support okay so there'll be uh at the Catherine Hickman Theater November 15th in the morning you'll see the the podium the PA system the kickoff to go experience this permanent walking trail that was spearheaded from the senior center.

The location is going to be perfect on beach from 23rd to 27th and then back up the other side.

And instead of um, you know, the city and the uh Santa Rampagers kind of some maybe being at odds, we're going to invite the rampagers to be part of our parade and and lead Santa in, which I think will be absolutely great.

And um also instead of having um all the cars necessarily decorated or floats, I believe we're gonna invite the golf carts that love to decorate.

They've shown us over and over again.

They'll be part of it.

So it'll really be a true community holiday parade.

And I think we're gonna reach out to all denominations and invite them to participate in our holiday parade.

I love it.

Um so then I think I'm down to just the two events.

Uh there's two new events at Trolley Market Square, and I'm really happy that we're gonna use Trolley Market Square.

I mean, that's a wonderful place that we have to use, and it's been underutilized.

Being that they're new events and being that there's a good deal of parking in that area.

I was questioning why we needed to run the trolley for that event.

I mean, between the parking at at Tomlinson and then all the way down the parkway on both sides of the road.

I mean, my first thought would be that we wait and watch these events grow before we feel like we have to uh pull in the the trolley and pay a driver and have additional expenses because I don't think that the first couple of months of these events that we're going to have thousands of people.

I think the goal to uh scheduling the trolley for the second Saturdays was to loop the downtown area to connect town shores, beach boulevard, the south end of the city to um 54th Tangerine.

It was all right.

That's all I have to say on 8A.

So we're gonna move on to 8B, and again, we're not gonna do um public comment until we've done A B and C.

And 8B is strictly the events that we've annually supported.

This is the reoccurring list that events that have taken place inside the city of Gulfport.

You'll see the art walks, the night markets, the Tuesday market, uh, the Health and Wellness Expo.

If there's any specifics, happy to help.

Okay.

In speaking order.

I have no questions.

Thank you.

I'm good.

Just a quick one.

Um what what non-city property was signs be on?

Holy holy name.

Oh, okay.

Thanks.

No questions or comments.

Okay, I have a couple.

Um is the um fourth Saturday.

I guess that's a quarterly event.

Is that a daytime event as opposed to a nighttime?

Yes, ma'am.

That's a 10 to 2 during the day, same footprint as Tuesday market or night markets, but that's also uh four times a year.

Those dates have not been decided on yet.

But it's a placeholder on the agenda for the merchants to have four of those Saturday markets on the rights of way downtown Gulf.

Okay.

Um for the Halloween, uh, I don't know the proper name to call that one by the is it Halloween Bash down at the Rec Center.

Yes, ma'am.

Um why do we have police and fire for that children's event?

Um so they can give out candy.

So the whole community.

Oh, there I thought the par I thought the children's parents were giving out candy.

Um I I put the looper down there as well, and staff hands out candy.

I I purchase uh candy from Sam's Club.

We try to make it so the kids that show up really get a good experience in the rec department.

And public safety.

Okay.

Um I think that on that list, maybe we have the uh March 8th Pride Festival, and I believe that one has been canceled because they really needed the space of the casino, and that won't be available, so that one would come off the list.

Yes, ma'am.

That was a second Sunday request from Pro Sisters.

Um historically, it was on the footprint of the casino with also vendors inside.

With that location shut down, we explored the theater, we explored Trolley Market Square, we explored the green space, but it was best from an organizer's perspective to just wait for the casino to be opened to do that second Sunday event.

Okay.

I had a couple more questions, but you've already you answered them for me earlier, so I'm okay on that.

All right.

So can I go back and ask one I just noticed?

Uh-huh.

Um on June 6th, we have the Pride on Beach Boulevard.

But on June 1st, there's a Pride thing in Trolley Market Square.

Under the one time event, yeah.

So that's February 1st.

February.

February 1st is the Gulfport Pride Florida Inc.

new event that's like a market.

Umrigin that request came in on the second Saturday in January, kind of like a winter's market.

However, with the fusion 49 consistent schedule for the market in Trolley Market Square on the second Saturdays, we reapproach that schedule with the promoter, which is also here tonight, but also the organization.

That what would be an alternative to allow the fusion 49 schedule to stay consistent to build that, but also keep the Gulfport Pride Florida Inc.

um event in Trolley Market Square.

So then they came back to the city and it was decided that first Sunday in February would be best.

Okay.

Okay, so it's gonna be a market different than the other Pride Festival.

Um I can uh Amy Costa is the promoter that's authorized by Gulfport Pride Florida.

She can go into more details.

Um you'll see in the application packet the site plan.

Yeah, but David, there's so many, it was pretty hard to find those.

Now you want to do all of it first and then do comment, or you want to have a there's a specific question for the February 1st.

Amy's the authorized representative that Linda Breen, the president of Gulfport Pride Florida has authorized to conduct the event.

Hi guys.

So um the MBC and Wonderworks are helping to um event coordinate for the for the Gulf Board Pride Group.

So it's really like you know, kind of how we do our things.

It's a community day.

It's gonna be called for the love of Gulfport.

Um it's going to have all of the things that we typically have.

It'll have some market things, not junk market, but you know, local LGBTQ, you know, small businesses, crafters, artists, um, kids' activities.

Um is sponsoring, so they'll be involved.

We'll have definitely have you know the restaurant open.

I know safety tire is gonna provide restrooms for us.

Um, so it's we're really looking at as more not, I don't really like the term market anymore because when I hear market now, I just think of a bunch of vendors trying to sling chotch keys at you.

It's not gonna be that.

There's gonna be interactive um community games and activities for families and kids and you know, all the different things.

We have we haven't done all the specifics because we were waiting for tonight to be able to really start calling people and and scheduling things.

We didn't want to get everyone excited, and then if something should have changed that we couldn't, so um once we get going on that, you know, we'll be happy to to share as that grows.

And it's the first year, so you know I have a million ideas, but we'll probably reel it in for you know the first one and see how we do and then go from there.

Any other questions specific?

No, that's no.

I just saw both of them and I thought Yeah, yeah.

Okay, okay.

All righty.

Okay, I think we can move to 8 C.

Okay.

Um, before you use uh item 8C, these are the multi-day events, events that will take place on public property with multiple days involved.

Um the fine arts festival that uh was taking place at Veterans Park.

The merchants are moving that to climber park like the previous year.

Um you'll see the Art Jones studio tour that's specific for just right-of-way signage requesting.

It's the private studios that open up their doors to allow the people on the tour to uh see the firsthand experience of those artists and where they uh essentially create their work.

Um you'll see the readout literary fest at the theater, uh the Gulfport Community Players, they have the summer one acts and also a request for a January comp for the theater production.

Um vet sports, um, vice mayor.

You have the honors to MC the parade on uh Saturday, November 8th.

Um Mr.

Lidke's here tonight.

Um it's a uh we're hoping that we will have sand on the beach.

There is a plan B in place as well if if we cannot host the event, but um we are going to plan on moving forward with a parade to uh support and honor the men and women who have served in our community um in the armed forces, and that would take place Saturday, November 8th at 11 a.m.

Uh, same route as before, public library, Gulfport Public Library Casino to the rec center, and we'll have the uh intersection of shore and beach with the help of PD and Fire locked down to uh really give our veterans a um an honor.

Very good.

Any questions on this category HC two-day events?

No questions, thank you.

So, where would vet sports go if we don't have room for them on the beach?

Mr.

Lickey?

Sure.

Ann Lidke is here tonight.

Well, we're we're blessed that we live in Pinellas County and there's 35 miles of beaches in this county.

Um if we have to, we would probably go to uh St.

Pete Beach like we did last year.

But we're gonna do everything we can to try to make it happen here.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Super.

Um Marlene, did you have any questions of the two-day categories?

Thank you.

Okay.

I think the only one that I had, and again, I'm just trying to learn how to to read these because I've never seen the slate from this end before.

So when I was reading it, and I heard you say earlier that, or maybe the city manager said that when uh we waive the fees for the senior foundation when they're using the theater.

So then when I'm looking at this slate here, and it shows January 3rd to January 18th, um, it's we're uh we're waiving the fees there for the I think it's the community players.

That's correct.

Okay.

Yes, man.

So do we waive fees for everybody?

The specific requests for special events, and I can address the January um, there was a scheduling conflict at the Catherine Hickman Theater.

Um the Gulfport community players take precedence when scheduling events.

Um I originally had them a week later than what the um the players needed.

So Ms.

Navarro uh is working with us to essentially uh move that schedule up a week for the players to move in.

I believe it's January 3rd.

Um originally it was a week later, but from scheduling in cultural facilities, I could not make that work.

Um so I offered a comp to work with me to move that schedule up when I approached Mr.

O'Reilly, he said to place it on the docket on uh the city council agenda to ask for a waiver of the theater rental fees.

So that's exactly what I was picking up on, and because uh then I saw that the you know I was thinking I don't think the fees have been waived for outs art and culture, and I don't know if the when the horizon ban when they perform there, I don't know if they're charged a fee or not.

These requests on this agenda item are an ask from the organization to uh uh ask for a waiver of the theater rental fees.

All right, so I think I got it.

The typically the theater would pay for the use of the theater, but because we had a conflicting and they worked with us to accommodate other groups, we're waiving it.

That was the January show, and they also the summer one acts are right.

And and they they have historically received a preferential treatment because originally the theater was built for them.

Um but that's the exactly the case, trying to facilitate.

There's no need, we book the um New Horizons band and those type of activities just directly through cultural events.

They're normal activities, they're not promotional activities.

We're giving them a place to play, and they're giving us a free concert.

So it's not a special event level.

Okay.

And theater events are very simple.

Um the infrastructure is already built at the Catherine Hickman Theater, for example, if there was an event in the park, site plans, public restrooms, that would have to all be looked at and drilled into for special events.

But because the event space is already there, this is just a specific waiver.

Okay.

All right.

So then I believe we're gonna open it for public comment, or if there's any of the organizers out there and they want to share something with us for either 8A, 8B, or 8 or 8 C.

All right, show of hands, who wants to speak, have anything to say?

Thank you.

Thank you, Justin.

Thank you, Justin.

Yes, I mean uh hello, I'm Eileen Navarro.

I'm the president of the Gulfport Community Players.

Um I just want to um take a minute to reflect on uh last year uh at this time, um, how instrumental Justin was in getting the Gulfport community players um prepare to do our first play of the season in November.

We had survive the storms and the flooding, and I know the Catherine Hickman Theater was a mess.

Um, but he did everything in his power.

Uh minus the carpeting, I think, but we were able to move in and have our uh our regular season begin on time, and we really appreciate that.

So um I just want to reiterate uh the question of insurance came up.

The Guprook community players.

I know that we have a substantial insurance policy.

Liability issues.

But again, I just want to thank not only Justin but the city for making this happen happen.

He took care of a little hiccup that we had in the January schedule, so everything is good to go now.

And invite you all to come out to our first play of the season, which opens in November.

Sex, please.

We're 60.

That's great.

Okay.

Anyone else want to speak?

Yes, Mr.

Lickey.

Hello, I'm Dan Lidke, 21-year Gulfport resident, and I also serve on the uh National Board of Directors for Vet Sports.

We're going to organization of veterans.

We have over 15,000 members.

We have chapters in 36 states as well as Japan, Guam, Germany, and a couple secret locations in the Middle East.

In the last couple years, we did add a new executive board member.

Her name is Dominique Dawes.

She's the uh gold medal gymnast from the 96 Atlanta Olympics.

So we have a good organizational structure as well as a lot of members that we we serve, you know, every year.

Every week we have over 1,500 members competing in various sports, uh, from softball to flag football to cornhole to ping pong to golf.

You know, if it's a sport and you want to play it and you're in a veteran, uh, vet sports pays your league fees, they buy your jerseys and they get you involved.

And that's what our whole mission is.

Is an over 80% of our members claim that they are taking fewer medications because they're getting involved in sports and community involvement.

And as part of our event in November 8th and 9th, uh, we always have the annual guns and hoses match where the police and fire compete against each other in a beach volleyball match.

And the 10 years that we've had that, uh the fire department has been kind of dominating.

Uh they've won seven.

I think it might be because of the fire chief.

Well they they have won seven, and I think the the police department has won three of those years.

But I will say that with the retirement of police chief Robert Vincent, the odds of the police department winning have dramatically increased.

Chief Vincent, who's good at a lot of things, but volleyball wasn't one of them.

So we're uh I'm happy to entertain any questions you might have, but we look forward to hopefully having this here in Gulfport.

Yep.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good to near.

Who else wanted to speak?

Yes.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, I'm Diana Schwartz.

I'm representing the Kawanis Club of Gulfport, and uh also our uh Juneteenth celebration.

Uh for those of you who may not know, this is actually our will be our fifth annual Juneteenth celebration.

We started the same year that the uh that the that the um the day became a federal holiday, and we actually had it planned before it was called a federal holiday, so we were very proud of that.

We originally had started during the recreation center, and it was a very, very big event.

Um there were um the the um the buccaneers, the rowdies, we had vendors, we had a uh music, we had a lot of DJs, and we did that for a couple years, and then ended up in the casino, and then we had a very small event this year.

So we were hoping to do um really bring back the vendors and just bring back the big event back at the recreation center.

But um it was suggested by city management um that Tomlson Park might be a better location uh this year.

So we went ahead and uh agreed and very excited about that.

And I'm also very excited that in the interim um I've been um the idea came up as I have been attending the Fusion 49 meetings, and I thought it'd just be a perfect uh way that possibly we could partner, so that might be something that's just started, and hopefully we'll you know have that as part of the um the event too.

So we're very excited to uh bring in the fifth annual Juneteenth celebration.

So thank you very much.

Very good.

Any questions?

Thanks.

Courtney.

I just want to have strong support voiced for having the looper run for these events and making that be utilized, and again, additional signage, the interactive maps on the website, all of these things will only help with that, and it can also help alleviate issues with parking, up with transportation, getting more people out, and just having reliable public transit is integral to growing cities.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yes.

Hello, my name is Tracy Ashley.

I'm the pastor at First United Methodist Church.

Right down the street, it's where the church with the crooked cross now because of the storms last year.

We're working on that.

But I just want to thank you all for allowing us year after year to have our Easter worship service at the pavilion at the beach.

It is just beautiful out there, of course, with the sun coming up.

Thank you for allowing us to do that.

We partner with other churches, and it's not just for our own congregations, it's for the community.

So thank you.

100% of our offering each year goes back into Gulfport community.

For the last couple of years, we've been donating all of it to the senior center food pantry.

And so we'll be looking for other places to donate that this year.

So thank you.

Very good.

Thank you.

Yes, Miss Nancy.

Yeah, don't so my board is very progressive.

They don't let up on me at all.

So I do want to um stop for a second.

I am Nancy Dunham, the president of Fusion 49th Business District from the actual Fusion 49th in a whole, they sent me something to say to you guys.

Um it's mostly a heartfelt thank you to the city of Galport for your partnership and support in making our upcoming Fusion 49th event possible.

Um also your commitment to community connection, including that trolley um service, helping those residents and businesses travel safely and easily along the corridor.

It truly embodies the progress looks it truly embodies what progress looks like.

Um together we're moving forward with our district.

Um what I do want to do is take a moment to actually remind you guys that before Fusion 49th became a resistance, this was like a community effort.

It was stakeholders, it was business leaders, it was residents of City of St.

Pete and Gallport collectively coming together for this vision of this corridor.

So in the process of different things that we're intentionally as Fusion 49th bringing towards you guys, it is intentional because these are the voices that we heard people say and the changes that they said they wanted to see.

Get those voices, those visions that they want as the city of Galport and also with the city of St.

Pete as a collective whole.

So you'll see us as an organization intentionally doing things to for one, never divide.

We don't we're not for a division, so whatever that looks like it isn't pertaining to division.

Me as the president speaking on behalf of them, we would not have a part of it.

Uh, we're all about collaboration, we're all about moving forward.

The things that happened in the past, we want to leave them exactly where they're at and move forward.

But again, I appreciate everyone so far thus far.

Um, as we continue, uh, we are planning to grow.

I appreciate all the support we have, and it also makes sure that you guys come out for our event.

This is gonna be our first event.

We're so excited about along with the community on November 8th at Trolley Mart Square.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Seeing none.

Uh did you want to take a vote on ABC or are we moving on to D first?

Uh ABC, each one individually, please, Mayor.

Okay.

So this is for resolution number 2025 80, item 8A.

Councilmember Early.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos.

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

For item 8B, resolution 2025-81.

I need a first and a second before I can do roll call.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Second.

All right.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

And again on 8 C resolution 2025-82.

I need a motion and a second.

Motion to approve.

Second.

And Councilmember Early.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos.

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

All right.

Moving on to 8D.

Resolution number 2025-83.

A resolution authorizing the city manager to purchase one Fairbanks submersible pump from Barney's Pumps Incorporated for lift station number two and providing for an associated budget amendment.

Motion to approve.

Second.

City manager.

Tom, do you want to Tom?

Yes, it's uh lift station number two.

We did have a pump failure.

Uh we changed the pump out the same day.

We were notified it was bad.

Uh, we sent it off for repair and we're notified that it couldn't be repaired.

It's about two years out of warranty.

And so we this will this will act as our new backup pump for station two.

I don't know which is station one and which is the state.

Station two is they're in my mind they're backwards, but station two is the rec center.

Oh, yeah.

Station one is the marina.

Okay, good to know.

And this uh this is related to sewage, not just stormwater.

That's correct.

Correct.

Okay, we have no stormwater pumping stations.

And then just because I'm always curious, like how long should a pump last it depends.

This one really got a hard work out with uh some of the storms that we had, and then the the 200 year rain events we had.

So typically the last, you know, they should last, you know, eight to ten years.

They should last a good long time.

This one through a bearing and just that burn up before we we could uh before it yes, got sent up for repair.

It was it was it was done.

Okay.

Any questions for Mr.

Nichols?

No questions.

No.

All right.

I had one quick one.

Sure.

Um I was wondering, was this done with the bidding process or piggybacked?

This is uh basically a sole source because that's the equipment that we have now.

All right.

That's the equipment that we did bid and uh originally put in that station, so I we can't just change out pumps.

Okay, with it with the equipment.

It wouldn't match, right?

I didn't see it in the documentation.

So I think I should.

That's my mistake.

I should have worked sole source.

Good question.

Okay.

Do we have any public comment on this matter?

Um you can stay.

Seeing none.

Next.

Please.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

Item 8E, resolution number 2025-84, a resolution authorizing the city manager to renew the contract with directions for mental health, Inc.

doing business as directions for living, a Florida not-for-profit corporation to provide in conjunction shared cost with the City of Treasure Island, a street outreach and engagement specialist service for an additional year.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Mayor, is the title is pretty self-explanatory.

This is uh Elijah and his group of P that come to help us with individuals that are challenged with certain issues.

Okay.

We share the cost with the city of Treasure Island.

I have a question.

Oh, yeah.

Any questions?

I have a question.

Okay.

Um City Manager, so are they still part-time?

Yes, we we they allocate as needed between the two cities.

Is it time for us to think full-time or no?

I don't believe so.

Okay, thank you.

I think this is great and definitely has proved useful.

And the woman who's the the uh CEO of this is the one that's speaking at my town hall.

Okay.

I I have no questions.

I think it's an important program to change to another's another system now would counteract all of the effort that's been made.

Oh, he's great.

He has a good relationship and he makes contact with everyone.

Right.

Ditto.

Same with me.

Um I I think it's a very important service that we offer as a city and and uh very necessary.

Public comment.

Public comment on this.

Thank you.

We had time.

Seeing none.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Carries to passage.

All righty.

We have no discussion tonight.

And so we will move into new business and we will do that in speaking order, starting with council member early.

I don't have any new business.

All righty.

Um so I have a couple things based from our parking um workshop.

Um I I agree that we kind of decided from consensus that of what was there about not doing paid parking and that time parking might be a possibility, but it is fairly expensive because you have to either pay for the software or for staffing to do it.

So the things I would like to suggest that don't cost very much money and could be easy, and then we could implement these and see where that takes us, and then wait till these other businesses open to see where we go in the future.

But uh we talked about bike racks and looking at bike racks, and I think you're gonna do a thing about that.

And and also the city manager, um, you were gonna send me a map of the ones on the city.

Yeah, they're doing the inventory now.

Um, and then there was a request for a couple of 15-minute parking for people who are doing takeaway, like at Neptune's.

So maybe we could look at where we might need those.

And if we need any handicapped um additional handicap parking.

Um I'm not quite sure how many we actually have, but we might look at that and see if there's you know, adding one or two or spaced out wherever they need to be.

Um then I talked to the city manager today about the looper, and that we should put a map on the website that says what kind of events it's gonna work for and you know, for the markets or whatever, and have a clear designation of when it's gonna be running, how often it runs, and and then at and and how to flag it down, like once you pick it up, say at Wood Ibis Park, then and it takes you downtown, then how do you pick it up again to go back to Wood Ibis Park?

So to make an explanation that you can just flag it down, and then at the different parking stops to have a sign saying the looper will be running on these events or the you know, these kind of events and these kind of days, and it'll be I think you we decided a 20-minute frequency was what would probably work.

So that we could put signs up for those things, and those are all fairly cheap, easy things to do.

And then the other thing I'd like to recommend that came up is that parking for people who work on Beach Boulevard or shore to have some kind of a sticker for them so that they could park in the resident only parking that's between uh 58th and sh and Beach Boulevard.

And the city manager told me that we would need to have a resolution, no, you have an ordinance, an ordinance, sorry.

To amend your present ordinance.

Because we've already made it resident only, something that allows us to allow these other people to park there.

So I wanted to see if there was a consensus to do that, because it would be a way to get all of those people off of the main parking strip, and then we can see how that works, if it works, and try it and and see how that goes.

So those were the the what I've got out of that as inexpensive, quick things that we could do, especially before the season starts and before these new restaurants are open, and then we can see you know, after the season, six months from now, is it working?

Is it not working?

Is there something else we want to do?

Do we want to change one of these things?

Whatever.

So I want to see if there was a consensus for those things.

No, no, yes.

Uh what what what don't you like?

I don't want to um add in any more parking to the in the restaurant area and like the waterfront district.

I don't want any more parking regulation there.

I don't think I think that was the outcome of the meeting or the workshop last week.

Well, they didn't want timed parking or or or um paid parking.

I'm not suggesting those things.

Okay.

I I think the concern that I heard from some residents uh in adding more restricted parking as far as um fift more 15 minutes and more handicaps, obviously there's requirements for handicaps, so is we have to meet that.

But but people were concerned that that just means less parking for everybody else as well.

So I think that it would be good to discuss that further.

Um and then I I wasn't really sure what you were saying about resident-only parking, so I'd if it so I go ahead.

So between 58th and beach below 28th, it's resident-only parking, and you have to have a sticker on your car daytime after I think five nighttime you can park there, but it's very unclear with the signs that we have, because most people would drive by and see the no parking and not read the small print of when you can and can't park.

So by allowing staff to park there in in the daytime, because they could park there at night anyway, but to to allow the staff to park there would free up spaces on Beach Boulevard and on Shore Boulevard.

And most of those streets, I I drove up and down all of those streets, and I think I found five houses that didn't have off-street parking.

You know, they either have a driveway or they have parking in the back in the alley.

And so I don't think that the number of staff that would be parking would be a problem.

And of course, normal parking regulations, you can't park in the driveway and all that kind of stuff.

That's just normal parking.

So and I mean if we don't want to do the 15-minute or the handicap, that's fine.

We could look at those later.

But I I think that that would probably require a little more discussion, at least on my behalf.

And then of course, I I always like to know what residents would think of something like that.

And because some of the businesses I've spoke to, um, they said they have like regularly 15 to 18 employees.

And if that's the type of volume, I don't know what volume all of them have.

So that's why I think it it it merits additional discussion.

And that was the question, right?

Do we want to talk about it again, right?

Well, maybe we could get a list of how many employees the various businesses have.

I'm only laughing because almost everything you've said, and we've never talked is is on here and I'm working on all of this right now, so that's why I'm laughing right down to the um trying to form a committee that would help me go around to all the businesses and find out what their staff hours are and how many.

Okay, good.

Um so I'm working on it, and then I my thought was I was gonna bring it to y'all, but I'm not saying that I'll have it ready within the next two to three weeks.

It'll take a little longer.

And I heard what you said.

I mean, I I was going a little different direction um on the residential parking, because I it has never made any sense to me whatsoever, since we don't have a beach parking issue, like we did in the old days where everybody came to the beach and then and we didn't have the nice parking lot and it flooded in there.

We don't have that issue.

And those streets that are protected, and I complained about this when Mr.

Litke was on was up here, was that the these many of these they have alleys and they have driveways.

Yeah.

And and at this point, many of them are vacant.

So as we come into this next um season, I was already starting to look at other ways to use that because we're not protected uh to the other side, and with really truly the roads are wider over there.

There's several roads that are much wider than say 54th or 53rd.

So yeah, I was working on that, and I was gonna, you know, ask for discussion and then come out and say this is kind of what I'm thinking.

What do you think about this as well?

But um, you know, I'm willing to have a briefer conversation on that sooner, because as you said, with the season coming up, that right there to get some of the employees over there onto the side streets, um, and and and we have to incentivize.

Okay, thank you.

Incentivize why the employees would be willing to do that too.

Um, you know, we have to make it in their best interest to do it, like it means you get more customers, uh, which means more dollars, which means more tips, you know.

So um I would like to have the discussion.

So if you'll allow me to talk to the city manager and see how we can work that in there, because even what you're proposing, you know, would be could be in my mind, and I'm only one of five, but it could be something that we could be working on maybe for this season while we work on then the next step, and you see how the whole 2050 and 2040 and 2030, it all kind of has to tie in together, kind of the stepping stones of how we get there, because we cannot think that we can continue to bring in businesses, and again, I'm looking at three more restaurants in my opinion that we're gonna have in the relatively near future, unless we start dealing with with this, and also I know Bonnie Bray said uh something too about one-way streets.

Well, that I'm working on that too.

So um are we okay with saying that sometime before the year is out, we'll have a discussion uh on what could be potentially be a tentative plan.

Um just a discussion.

I know we have to have a consensus to move forward.

I'm interested in discussing that.

Yes.

I totally disagree.

Okay.

Um I support both of your ideas and definitely look forward to discussion.

And I I'm happy to even help contact some of the businesses to determine the volume of employees that they have in the hours, et cetera.

Okay, so I I would be happy to help with that.

Okay, so we'll then we'll organize and we'll again how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time a little bit successfully.

So could we maybe then if we put off the 15-minute and the handicapped and the parking for the staff?

What about the bike racks and putting up the signage and on the website about the looper so that people know better?

And I think they addressed that earlier this evening about expanding that aspect of it.

They talked about that earlier, staff did with David and Justin also about a different type.

We want to add a QR code to that, some things that will provide information.

Additionally, but one thing that we've had some preliminary conversations about after that discussion was you not to increase the number of 15 minute parking, because you know, then it becomes why do I get one?

Now we used as the mayor and I spoke of the post office is no longer there.

Right, take that one away and take that one and maybe relocate it to a more convenient to where the restaurants are versus the five and dime.

Just very minimal things.

As regards to handicap parking, we have a plethora of that because we if you look across the in front of what is now storm runners, those are multiple park handicapped parking spaces there.

Each of the businesses have to meet a minimum requirement.

They do that.

So I think handicap, because remember, every time you and nothing against creating handicapped parking, but every time you make one specific for a certain user group, it takes you're taking it away from your inventory of parking spaces.

So I just caution you on that.

What I would bring you is a map of the waterfront redevelopment district where you have the for your discussion, where you have resident only daytime, resident only parking between the hours of 9 a.m.

I believe it is, Chief, 9 a.m.

and 5 p.m.

And we would you could address that.

My recommendation, not I know you you it becomes do you want to maintain that, or instead of trying to fit employees into that, would you consider, and this is the third option, removing those, because as the mayor spoke of, we and I know Mr.

Lidke was totally for removing parking restrictions.

Was that when you had paid parking also at the beach parking lot?

So as the mayor and I spoke of the regards to maybe you just do away with resident only parking on the side streets, and you just open it up and have it no parking on one side because of the width of the roads, as you have now, and you take down that's just one of the three options is all I'm putting that that I would hope that you would consider when you have this conversation, if that's okay with you.

So I I like that idea.

Is that okay?

So we're going to have another discussion about it.

And again, Jim, you know the irony because you and I discuss so many of these things I've brought to him.

So it's almost like you were repeating things that we had talked about earlier today as well.

So let me just one more thing.

So an idea that that came up from the public discussion is what about having on the website a suggestion box?

So a place where people could put whatever ideas that they have for us, and then have some staff person take a look at them so that they could send it.

No, I think that you're very accessible.

The five of you are you the five of you are the suggestion box.

If someone wants to know, and if someone wants to communicate through you, then you before because then what happens is I'm going to start setting policy based on what they're saying instead of the elected officials.

Yeah.

Well, sometimes it could be a simple thing that it's just a good thing.

But that's what our emails are for.

Okay, that's fine.

That's right.

Well, you know, plus we're actually going to have the e-com pretty soon too.

So all of this discussion kind of eliminated things on my list like bike racks in one ways and stop signs, et cetera.

Um, but I did bring up before uh residents asking for um some additional benches at climber park along the walking paths.

So I'm going to bring that up again and say, may we do that, please.

Do I ask the other thing?

Now are you asking?

Let me let me ask this question then.

Are you talking about within the formal landscape climber park or in the food forests?

Anyway, anywhere there's kind of nice areas for people to settle on walking paths.

Because I don't want to disturb things that they're doing in the food forest.

Some of the folks that are involved, unlike the food forest, would like some along the path as well.

I think it would be good to have Kriya's input before we decide on putting bike racks in the food forest or along that path.

Well, I again residents are asking for it.

And I'm saying we have a resident who runs it, and we should use her input before we make a final decision.

So beyond that, might may we move forward on adding some others and along walking paths.

Yes, so my suggestion to you, Ms.

Shaw, would be that you would come to to council and say this is what I'm seeing, and I think we need two more or four more, six more, and this is where I would like them see them, and then see if you can get a consensus among us for a specific plan.

Okay, fine.

Um the next thing I'd like to propose is a uh youth mock council meeting.

We've done those in the past, and it could be from teen council, could be from the library youth volunteers, it could be from perhaps schools.

Um, but uh I think it would be really great to have the youth involved and you know engaged in in that form of the experience.

Yeah, I think you found it out before.

Yeah.

Mayor Yakes used to used to do those, and I think it would be great to see that in place again.

Absolutely.

I thought you maybe I brought that up before.

I someone did it.

It's a great idea.

I said I guess, but now I'm proposing it and asking for consensus.

We do have a I I thought we had a teen council, or have they disbanded it?

What the council members asking in the in the past, city council has invited members of the school, the elementary school to participate in a mock government, but that was a city council driven activity, not a staff driven activity.

Are you asking for the elementary school?

No.

Uh no, what I was not well, Mayor Yakes, I was I understand Mayor Yikes had a contact at the elementary school, and that's why he went to the elementary school.

But I'm we have a teen council.

We and we heard earlier Dave mentioned that there's there's young people that volunteer there, you know, maybe in different uh locations in the city as well.

You know, um I you know I just like to see if we could move forward on that.

The city manager said they that staff can create like an agenda for them, and whatever it would take for me to help or whoever else on the council would be willing.

Um I I think that would be really great because like um you know, youth engagement in in the the civic process is is how you engage them as adults as well.

Okay, Mayor, that's primarily if council would designate a member that would like to head up that that who makes the ask of the school or the or of the group.

Well, and that's why I asked if we were talking about elementary school, because I went and talked to the elementary school, and all they wanted to know was if I was going to pay their water bill or their rent.

So I don't think that elementary school is where we need to be.

That's why I was asking.

Well, I'm they're an entity amongst themselves, so I I realize that they have uh an incredible amount of regulations as to what they get involved in and what the children are approached on.

So I was thinking more within you know the city here.

Okay.

I think that's a good idea.

If we have something that is already kind of in existence, like the city clerk said, you used your mic, people can hear you.

Yep.

Sounds like you have a consensus.

All right, thanks.

Um and then I'll just toss this out, not to discuss right now because um I don't want to push my luck, but I I'm gonna still plant more seeds about a citizen's government academy, and that's just planting seeds, so just file that away for later.

Thank you.

No new business, thanks.

No new business.

Okay.

Um I think uh yeah, it says would like the chamber or volunteers for chamber to find out shifts of workers in our downtown area, particularly if they drive to work.

Okay, so we've kind of dealt with that.

So then I think the only thing left on my new business is again, I feel like I have to because um there's been a lot more stuff in the press about Lincoln Cemetery, so I just kind of want to bring everybody up to date again on this.

I've I've brought you up to date a few times, but um I was at the food co-op meeting.

Um co-op one, I guess it's called or one co-op.

I'm not sure.

One community co-op.

One community co-op on Thursday morning, and Corey Givens was there, and I had never met him before.

Um and so we were kind of standing there, and as soon as the we were done with this part of the meeting, he and I stepped off to the side and I said, Oh, I've been wanting to meet you, and he said, Yeah, I've been wanting to meet you.

And um, he gave me a lot of history of the uh Lincoln Cemetery, and I said, Thank you.

I I don't know that piece of the puzzle, so that helped a lot to hear that from him.

And then he uh I then I we had a frank conversation where I said, you know, I don't really appreciate that, you know, our name keeps coming up at your council meetings, and now I'm I'm hearing on the news that we are in possession of the Lincoln Cemetery.

And I said, and this has been going on for a while, and yet not once, not once, had the um owner of the property reached out to me and said, Can we talk?

So I thought that was a I felt good about that little meeting, and we exchanged cards and I thought we were good, and then I saw on the news that night that he said he had had a very productive meeting with me.

He said it on council on the day I see.

Oh, yeah, I saw I I saw it on the news, and then I watched the meeting.

So I just wanted to say once again, in my opinion, we had an accidental meeting.

We had a clearing of the mines.

He helped me by giving me some additional history that I did not have.

He expressed to me why this was extremely important to him because he has family members buried there, and I said I haven't heard from the owner of the property.

And so the very next morning, we'll Friday morning, sure enough, Pastor Williams called me.

So I talked to Pastor Williams, and he called me and he made kind of three points.

Number one, I don't appreciate my name being called out at the city council meeting in St.

Petersburg.

Number two, I've never talked to you before, and I don't appreciate you uh you and Gulfport being called out.

And number three, I am not behind this drive.

And I said, Okay, I heard you loud and clear.

And that that's the end of it.

There's no other story to tell.

I would tell you if there's more to tell, but that's all that I know.

So every time you see things, whether they're in print or in the news, and they're trying to look like golf port, because I would have to think some of you might be embarrassed, you know, and and think that we're doing something wrong.

And I and I let me be correct.

I said to Pastor Williams that he was the owner of the property, and he corrected me.

He is the director of the nonprofit from his church that actually owns it.

So it's the nonprofit that owns it, and he's the director of that.

He has not asked us to do anything, he's not even asked for a meeting.

So that's all I can tell you.

And I don't want to have to keep, I would prefer not to keep addressing it over and over again, but that's where we stand right now.

And with that, I'm gonna say meeting adjourned.

Thank you so much for coming and attending.