It's always so weird sitting here waiting until it hits exactly six o'clock.

If there's any chance that you haven't remembered to turn your phone off, please do it now.

We got another action packed meeting, so I prefer not to have phones ringing.

Um so welcome to the November 18th meeting.

Thanks for coming out.

I do like seeing that there's quite a few new faces in here today tonight, and I appreciate that.

So we're gonna go ahead and get started.

Um the invocation tonight will be given by Vice Mayor uh Thanos, and then it'll be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

So please stand if you will.

I have to say I kind of had fun with this one.

But um so it was about thankfulness.

Let us rise up and be thankful.

For if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little.

If we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick.

And if we didn't get sick, at least we didn't die.

And that's from Buddha.

And there was another one.

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others, and that's from Cicero.

All righty, roll call if you will.

Present.

Council Member Jackson?

Here.

Council Member Early.

Here.

City Attorney Salzman.

Here.

City Manager O'Reilly.

Present.

City Clerk Keriko is present.

Very good.

So I can only imagine that the faces that I don't recognize are here for the presentation tonight.

Um I know many of us have been waiting on this and we're very anxious to hear what you have to say.

So with that in mind, please, Mr.

Justin Keller.

Justin Keller with Advanced Engineering.

Um I'm here with uh Rafkae with advanced engineering as well.

Um we are here to present on our findings for the watershed management plan.

All right, I've told I was told to be very careful with this, so all right.

Uh we're gonna talk about our big picture findings, uh get into a little bit of the weeds and talk about uh nerd nerd out a bit and talk about the model.

Uh we're gonna share the results or the floodplains with you.

Uh discuss level service, more or less how do we determine success when it comes to stormwater management.

Uh we're gonna talk about our project recommendations, provide some program recommendations, then obviously, um whether it's at the end or intimidately, please feel free to ask questions.

I want to make sure everybody um, you know, I'm I'm not losing anybody as I talk.

Um so starting with kind of what is flooding.

Uh you know, a lot of times uh, you know, we have or you know, just not golf port specific, but you know, you see standing water in the road after after uh a rain event.

Um and maybe it's like some curb flooding.

Um that's not the kind of flooding we're talking about here.

Or um, you know, if you have a uh, you know, if you have a structure that or a collection structure has a palm front in front of it, that's really not the type of flooding that we're talking about here.

Uh today we're here to really hit on the um, you know, let's say your your stormwater infrastructure, which is your pipes, your ponds, um, you know, your ditches and your inlets, and talk about how they function uh during specific design storms and then where those inefficiencies are and how we can make them better.

Um, and then also too, um I I have a note here that also you know um golf port experiences tidal flooding.

Um this is a focus on stormwater as in rainfall-based flooding today, but there will be discussion about tidal flooding uh throughout the presentation.

So as far as big picture, what exactly goes into a watershed management plan um referred to as a WMP, so I'll be using that uh abbreviation moving forward.

Um the first part is an extensive records review.

Um I think we requested that uh Tom and his team uh go up in the attic about a couple times to look at the uh you know to get some sacred scrolls, smolder plans so we can get information, uh some more detailed information about what's out there.

Um also field and get an investigation.

Part of this effort was us going out in the field, uh, you know, put putting our head in structures, putting our eyes on things, and making sure that we had a lay of the land of what what's out there.

Um we also uh this is a um GIS-based um exercise that we performed.

So while we did not get funding through the Southwest Florida Water Management District, we followed all the protocols of that of that funding program or of their watershed management program.

Um so everything you know you see in your deliverables and within the geodatabase, it looks and smells like it was done through Swift Mud.

We want it was important to make sure that we kind of standardize to where when this gets used in the future that somebody picks it up and they they understand language we're speaking.

And then most importantly, is a uh hydrologic and hydraulic model.

That's essentially the program that we hit we hit run and it and it performs the the calculations that kind of determine effectiveness.

And um, that's certainly a critical tool.

Um for this specific model we used, um, it's not ICPR anymore, it's called stormwise, um, but it is a program that's recognized by FEMA and and the district.

So it certainly is um is one commonly used in this area.

Um so as far as our big picture finding findings, um, we did find that uh due to rainfall-based or uh precipitation-based events, uh structural flooding is present within the city in isolated locations.

Um we also found uh as we'll um as we'll hit on later, that a large portion of your city drains through the Pasadena Yacht and Country Club.

Um and and as we'll see, it's it's surprising when you see it on a map as far as what areas drain where throughout the city.

Um also um we've uh found that there are some upgrading inefficiencies that contribute to some of the issues downstream.

Um the northern, you know, generally speaking, the city falls in a um from an elevation standpoint from a north, uh let's say northeast to southwest, almost like a seven o'clock, if you will.

Um and so what happens is that as inefficiencies are experienced at the top of the hill, the water doesn't stay there.

It wants to migrate and find the lowest spot.

So a lot of the challenge areas that we'll talk about today, they are um they're a uh byproduct of inefficiencies upstream.

And then lastly, um there are some challenges that are you know kind of apparent and ahead of us, um, but we have identified some opportunities that um you know we do think can can make some um meaningful improvement within the community.

So as far as the model, um what are some of the factors that impact a stormwater model?

More or less, what you know, how do you make the sausage?

Um we do think it's important to share this so everybody understands kind of the background and some of the assumptions that we made going into the process.

Um from a hydrologic standpoint, which is more or less, let's say rainfall and terrain standpoint.

You have your soils and your land use.

Um what we're showing here is the land use map that we use for the city of Gulfport.

Please note that this is not zoning and this is not future land use when it comes to actual land planning as as a planner would use.

This is more or less um each land category has a specific amount of impervious area and uh directly connected impervious area.

And as we begin to stack these known um feature classes on top of one another, that allows us to really refine our calculations and make sure that we're properly you know incorporating the areas that are more um highly urbanized and those that may be more spread out.

Before you go on, can you explain what those colors mean?

Oh, so oh, I guess it would have been helpful to have a legend on there.

So you know, that will, you know, we're just checking and see what is paying attention.

So there you go.

Um so uh, you know, the majority of your city is is a high density residential, which is kind of the brown that you see in the center.

Uh the tips that you see in Pasadena Yacht and Country Club, those are um those are um larger lots, so that's called like a medium density residential.

Uh no, the purple is uh the golf course that's actually like open lands.

Um blue is um blue is I think that is uh uh water and brown is institutional schools, you see Bogasiego, the elementary school, um, and also and the yellow is commercial.

So the green.

Oh uh the green is the um is um medium residential, which is more or less a less dense version of the high residential because out on the tips in Pasadena Country Club, you have larger lots.

So naturally, what you do is you assume that there's a less impervious concentration, you know, it it's it's different previous concentrations.

So um another thing we want to consider is depressional storage, more or less, how does water move over the land?

What you're seeing here in the left is a gradient um with blue being the highest and red being the lowest.

Um and that is an elevation model.

We actually um that is provided by Swift Mud, the district, and that that tool allows us to understand how in these larger events, how does water move over the land?

Um and then two, it's also important to understand it's uh not only important to understand where it goes, it's also important to know where it stays.

And on the right, we're showing the marina district.

Um, I want to say probably about 10 years ago, y'all constructed the uh the ponds over near the marina, and so just to demonstrate how those get burnt in, or though those are incorporated in the elevation model, which allows for us to consider the storage that those represent.

Um from hydraulic elements, um, this is essentially your infrastructure.

Again, your pipes, your structures, your um your your ponds or your stormwater management facilities, these all get inputted, you know, your critical facilities are inputted into the model um based upon um you know, based upon size, material, elevation, in order to understand how the um how the city stormwater network um operates throughout or operates during different design storms.

Um connectivity and routing.

Uh, when we talk about um some of the issues that we see when we're performing a peer review for another watershed management plan, oftentimes this is the one that kind of can result in um let's say um less less accurate results.

Um so in total we have 454 catchments um or let's say basins that that we um that that we developed, and more or less what we try to do is that we try to identify what are the important points of collection throughout your city.

So typically each basin is going to be tied to a um either a string of inlets or a critical structure.

Um and again, too, there is a geodatabase to where if you know I guess if anybody wanted to really nerd out, you can kind of zoom in on your property and see okay, what subwatershed am I in?

And then you know, you you can also see what your naming designation is a model if you really uh are lacking for time.

Um as far as and and then the next step is once we identify where these are um where the collection occurs, it's also important to understand, okay.

Well, where are these subwatersheds?

And we talk about subwatersheds, um, where where are these critical outfalls that large places of your city drain to?

Before you go on.

Like right there, and along 49th, there's parts that go over into St.

Pete.

Yeah, so so that is part of the clam bayou watershed.

So the clam bayou watershed that all flows that all flows south and and into our site, and what we do is we have what's called the boundary boundary stage that recognizes that flow coming into there.

But why do we just show those few pipes that go into St.

Pete that aren't in Gulfport?

Okay, so we talk about on the very far east.

Like right there.

Yeah, so those those drains on the on the east side of 49.

So the ones on the east side of 49th do not drain to City of Gulfport facilities.

Those go those go back the other way because 49th Street is really a hill, and so those are part of clam bayou, they go the other way and they go in that large uh drainage facility that goes through the uh that goes through twin books there.

Um, and there is a part that goes south into our site, which we incorporated via bound via um boundary conditions, and then the um the ones on the far east, those represents uh those represent areas to where the city of Gulfport owns the infrastructure, so it's important to understand um you know what drains to those areas.

So when you talk about 454 individual catchments, are you talking about this is where it's pooling, or are you talking about these are where we have storm drains?

I'm not sure.

No, so so really where uh you know conventionally the answer is where it pools, but conventionally where it pools, there's a storm drain there to begin with.

So um, you know, there are places.

There are places to where we have found wow, there's a lot of water that goes to this area, and I don't think this was golf port at all, right?

Um we found areas to where it goes to a central location and there's just nothing there.

And so it's important that we model that to demonstrate how how much area can that, or let's say how much water can that land collect before it starts to spill over elsewhere.

Um more or less every base in here is tied to a structure because I don't recall offhand.

Um that's a neighborhood?

Okay.

Those those have some areas where we did have some overland flows to where it goes to a and and when we talk about low spot, we're relative terms to where to where it is a small depression, but we did carve those out.

Yeah, you're right in Stetson.

Um from there, what we do is we develop a link node diagram.

And essentially that is the connectivity between all of the catchments, and it it more or less says, okay, you have water collect in this depressional area, this pool.

How does it get to its next stop along its way to the to the bay?

And that is normally in golf pour through a pipe.

And so, you know, you you more or less you model the water going to to the catchment uh, or uh, I'm sorry, to the node, which is a center point, and then it goes out via the link.

And um what you what you are seeing here is the graphical representation of the link node diagram.

Um obviously there are no pipes that um let's say wrap around the edge of uh bogus of um Pasadena Yacht and Country Club, but those are representing areas that go to the boundary, i.e.

tidal conditions to where this outfall has a tidal connect has tidal connectivity.

And this is what we talk about ensuring that we follow Swift MUD standards.

The reason why you have this graphical interface is so if somebody picks it up and says, I want to do a development in this area, or I want to do a stormwater improvement project, they're able to look at our naming designation within the model and look at the GIS interface and more or less put the two and two together so they know where things are.

So we talked about the subwatersheds.

Um the one I want to focus on is uh the pink in the middle, which um is the uh the PYCC.

If you're familiar, um there is uh at the very southern end of the community, um there is um almost like a land bridge that goes over a couple box culverts.

Um everything all the way up to 49th Street in your city drains down south through Lake Tomlson through the Gulf Port Um Boulevard system, then through um then into the pond.

That's actually just to the east of the um of the guard shack to PYCC, goes through the golf course, and and then it dumps out to um and then it dumps out to the bay.

Um certainly as we begin to group these areas together and and and you know, more or less assign an outfall for each location, it was pretty powerful to see all this area that drained through um uh PYCC.

Um, some other of the larger um collection areas is uh is Peters Lake, um, which is actually located within the city of St.

Pete, um, but that actually heads north, and that's the green area.

Um we called that uh so we're calling it the Boga Siega High School uh subwatershed.

Um all your all your water does not go to Bogey High specifically, but just generally it goes to the facilities adjacent to it.

So certainly not suggesting that you know golf ports flood in the high school.

Um also um Bear Creek, which is the uh large conveyance facility between you and South Pasadena to your west.

Um there is an area in the northwest part of your city that drains there.

Um last time I think I saw everybody was for the Wood Ibis presentation.

Um and so that um that certainly has a central um a central watershed, and that drains in a couple different ways.

It goes to uh PYCC and also heads down uh down south and all south and uh let's say southwest.

And then we have some coastal areas.

We got the marina district um over on the east side.

Um again, the the major take-home point here was wow, there's a lot of area that drains through drains through those pipes uh within PYCC.

Another thing that we um you know we look at is rainfall and uh tailwater conditions, and when we talk about tailwater conditions, we mean the tide.

A stormwater systems dependency is uh you know is impacted by the tidal elevation.

If you have a low tide, you're gonna be able to flow more.

If you have a high tide, you're gonna flow less.

So it's important that you make sure that you incorporate a suitable tidal condition within your model.

Um rainfall is also important for obvious reasons.

This is a study that determines how your system responds to rainfall.

Um I brought up a uh uh a radar pixel that covers golf port uh just just to kind of show some of the rainfall patterns.

Um, you know, there are a lot of entities in Pinellas County and really throughout the state who have you know gotten a lot of calls lately about like it's never flooded here.

We've never seen this.

Um and to be honest, that's true because when when you look at some of these rainfall trends, um, as as you see here, the the diamonds uh represent, let's say the average, and you'll see in 2024, um August was pretty wet.

That was when Debbie came through, and if you remember the week after Debbie was some of the worst rainfall I've seen.

Um my road flooded twice that same week after uh because it was Debbie and then twice that week after.

Um and then obviously um, you know, we had Helene in uh September and then Milton in October, which certainly dumped a bunch.

But then you go to 2025 and you look at August, and you're like, holy crap, we got more rain this August than we did last August, which had Debbie and all those storms.

And that was the big flash flood that happened on the 10th.

Um so and and really when you look at the average rainfall that um let's say has been uh experienced, and these are averages by USS Water Institute, not AED, just to have credit and everyone knows where the data's coming from.

Um we are dealing with things that we haven't seen before.

So now with that being said, how do we go ahead and how do we um let's say plan for let's say what is statistically relevant, but also recognize that we are dealing with um you know, let's say some some higher rainfalls than maybe historically civil engineers have designed for.

Um so for this study what we used is we use uh the NOAA Atlas 14 rainfall.

Um the suite of curves, if you will.

So uh generally speaking, this is a suite of storms that is that is recognized and used.

This wasn't something um you know that that y'all are gonna be big for or anything.

Um but so the the NOAA Atlas 14 uh generally predicts higher rainfall depths.

Um one of the one of the um uh evaluation techniques we like to use is we like to use the more severe SCS curve with the um NOAA Atlas 14 rainfall depths, which provides uh a bit of added uh conservatism.

Um and then also um also too, it kind of so typically where uh 10-year uh 24 hour storm is going to be 12 inches over 24 hour period.

Um this study used 13.7 to follow NOAA.

And then uh we're conventionally a 25-year, 24 hours nine inches, it's nine point six one.

And again, the the the big take home here is that we recognize that you know it ain't the status quo out there, and so how do we make sure that we can provide you an assessment that kind of follows along with with those trends that people are seeing?

So I know I I mean notice uh uh 14 means nothing to me.

So I I but I know that in NOAA they have you know um you know, sort of medium risk, high risk, uh so those are sea level rise trends.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so so and and so you know the same um, but really kind of the kind of the same thing to where essentially um NOAA publishes uh you know climactic data that says well these are the sea level trends.

They also have people who publish climactic data as it pertains to rainfall trends, and so um we we use the NOAA rainfall depths, which tend to be higher than what Swift Mode would require if you're building a parking lot or or uh or a strip center or something like that.

So are we using like what would be the most extreme, like the the highest that you would like if you were the most worried, what would it look like?

So compared to what you're saying.

So when it comes to stormwater, there is always a bigger storm that I can model.

Okay, there I I you know, and and and and so um you know what what we're it what we're looking at is the hundred-year flood, you know, the hundred-year floodplains.

Um I could look at the 500 year floodplains.

But I could look at the thousand year, you know, I think 25 years it was like 9.6 or whatever.

What would be the more severe version of that?

The most severe one that they well for for the 25-year period, or for the for the 25-year design storm, NOAA Atlas 14 produces more aggressive rainfall depths than the SCS method produces.

So we've got to SES method.

Uh you don't know the SCS method.

So the SES method is kind of the um soil conservation science.

That's the way it stormwater evaluation has been done since like the 70s.

But but I mean, like, so so if you're saying the 9.6, like it would be nine, but you're going a little a little more conservative than 9.6.

What's the most conservative?

There I mean and I I don't mean to be core when I say this, there's no top cap with stormwater.

There's you know, because but like when they do see a level rise, you know, they have okay, for instance, they have well they have two feet would be well they have extreme for them.

And then you know, more a normal kind of range would be two.

You know, so so what I just want to know what what would be I you know, I mean there they're I'm sure there's published data on like a thousand-year storm, you know, like I know.

I don't I mean for a 25-year storm, if you're using nine, what would somebody else be using that's being way more conservative than you?

I don't I mean for a 25-year storm, if you're using nine, what would somebody else be using that's being way more conservative than you um I I can dive into that and provide maybe some upper bound 10 inches or 12.

Well, so so really what what's um when when we look at the rainfall depths, it's important that we use defensible data that essentially is location specific for you.

And and and and that's what we did with using the NOAA Atlas 14 data.

Um that data is based on like a 90th percentile certainty.

But over what time frame?

Um, I I can take a look at that to give you that, but so like there are I could find you a higher number, and I don't have that off top of my head to where to say that okay, in the in the lower percent probabilities, because again, stormwater is a lot of statistics, right?

And what we are trying to do is we are trying to provide you um, let's say what is the most likely event, not necessarily what's the highest rainfall you could see.

Okay, so what I'm getting at is like you know, 20 years ago, they would have said one of these rainfalls was like a 500-year rainfall or whatever.

And now we know it's getting more and more common.

So I don't want us to plan for something that's only gonna last us 10 years, and we're gonna look back and say, shoot, what were we thinking?

It's way worse than we thought.

No, and that's what we're doing.

And and and really, and and I certainly understand that concern, and that's why we use the NOAA Atlas rainfall to kind of you know to provide that.

So, are there more extreme storm events we could have looked at?

Certainly, because again, with stormwater, I could say 20 inches over for for a 24 hour period.

And the next day a 21-inch storm could hit.

So you you know, you you can with stormwater design specifically, you you are never gonna hit it right.

You're just not going to because nature can always one up you.

Um, but it's important for us because again, when it comes to planning for stuff, we also have the financial end.

Right.

And and and and we're gonna and really it's you know, obviously, our job is to try to help the city find the sweet spot to where how do we financially commit what's needed versus recognizing that well, we can't fix everything for every situation, but how can we put our money the best way we can in order to in order to address this big group of storms that we know is gonna happen.

And again, I guess I'm worried that say we spend 40 million dollars, which we could easily spend, I'm sure.

Yeah, we have more than that in here.

So say say you know, we do this, we do bonds, people chip in money, and then all of a sudden, 11 years from now, there's a a storm, and the people up on 15th and and in the Stetson that aren't even in a flood zone, and it's stormwater flooding, they're flooding.

You know, and then say we we just spent all this brazilian money.

Well, I mean, here, what happens if category five hits?

I kind of would like to jump in here.

I'd like to jump in here for just a minute because I would like for you to give your presentation the professional presentation that you would give, because you uh can't predict the future.

You're you're doing your best, but none of us know what's gonna happen.

I mean, we don't know what a direct hit would look like.

So, and we know that as you get further into your presentation, there'll be some additional conversation about okay, if you want to acknowledge that you're at sea level, you're gonna spend this much money, or you're gonna acknowledge that you don't want to, you're gonna pretend you're not at sea level and you're gonna spend this much money.

So we're gonna get into that, but if you could proceed, because I know you can't answer her question because she's asking you to speculate, and you're not wanting to speculate.

No, I'm I'm just what I'm I I got concerned about what that we're using adequately conservative data so that we don't spend money that's wasted.

Well, what a nice transition.

Talk about the tide, right?

Okay, thank you.

So uh which also you know, and you know, again, um, so um one of the critical documents that we use when when we're looking at really any um you know WMP is gonna be uh the comp plan, the comprehensive plan.

Uh a lot of times that document outlines the level service, which we'll get into later, um, and also the um, you know, so sometimes they will even reference the tailwater elevation or the tidal condition um that an entity wants to use when they're evaluating their stormwater systems performance.

Um thankfully the city of Gulfport does outline what is to be used for the tailwater conditions for stormwater.

Um, and that is a NOAA intermediate high um projection for the 2035 planning horizon.

And uh essentially your comp plan says give or take at a foot on top of on top of your conventional tailwater in order to account for sea level rise.

And um that is certainly something that that we did um you know within our model in order to follow that directive provided by the city because that's really what the comp plan is the directive to the public and to the private industry about here's how we want things done.

So and so really so we used a tail water or a tide elevation for all of our storms at what at elevation 1.78.

Let's talk about tides real quick.

One of the biggest misconceptions is getting your datum wrong when you're talking about the tide.

So if you go to Tampa Bay Tides.com or whatever website you use, a lot of times when they give you the tide elevation, it is going to be in relation to the mean lowest low water level.

So you'll see a tide of plus 3.2, a tide, you know, and and so it's all about what the datum is based off of.

When we talk about elevation 1.78, we're talking about the NAVD 88 datum, which is more or less like when you get an elevation certificate for your house, that's on the NAV D 88 datum.

And so this tide elevation of 1.78, um, I'm sure somebody's looking at their phone and saying, Well, we had one higher yesterday than that.

Well, that's on it, it's on a different datum.

So it's important when you're looking at tides that you you're comparing apples to apples.

So you know, when we talk about tide, obviously, as a coastal community has a big impact into how your stormwater system functions.

Um, so what we're showing here is this is um all the readings from as of 11 o'clock today, um, taken at the St.

Peak gauge every six minutes to represent what is the tidal elevations that the city has been seeing um since January to up until the time I ate my sandwich.

Um and what we've and the red line we're showing is elevation 1.78 transferred on there.

Um you know, again, and this kind of gets back to um you know some of the discussion we were having earlier to where, well, do you plan for the worst?

Do you plan for let's say uh the middle?

Like, you know, how do you incorporate conservatism into your evaluation?

And so what what we did is you know, taking a look at this, and this is something that we've kind of kept ongoing just to keep tabs on what's going on.

Um, can we sit here and tell you that we think your comp plan has a suitable tidal elevation?

And looking at this, I mean, obviously, Helene is not on here.

This is 2025.

But what this shows is about there's been about you know, there's been about 48 six minute intervals that the tide had exceeded um the our tailwater condition and our model throughout the entire calendar year, which is about 4.8 hours this year, it's been above that.

So I think that the um you know, I think we can we can be confident to say that no, the stormwater model does not incorporate the worst case when it comes to tidal projections, but does it incorporate a reasonable case that you see on a day-to-day basis?

And I think this kind of demonstrates that yes, we feel good about moving forward with that.

Can you define tailwater?

I'm talking about it.

So tailwater is more or less when you're evaluating a stormwater system, it's the elevation that you start at.

And a lot of time, and so uh a elevation you start your calculations at.

If um, you know, let's say you you have a stormwater system that's connected to a lake, whatever level that lake is is where you start running your calculations at.

And um, for golf port, your lake is the bay, you know, because that's where all your water goes.

So essentially, it's so important to make sure that we identify the tailwater, or in your case, the tide that we're gonna be starting with.

So, more or less it's like when you click run on your model, what's the first elevation that starts with?

So, if you can tell us that in 2025, for approximately 4.8 hours, we exceeded the 1.75.

Do we know how high it went?

So, well, so looking at the graph, uh uh slightly over two.

Oh, so minimally Yeah, and and you know, and you know, what what's um what can be you know, we uh there are certain areas of golf board that are very flat and low line, and so a couple inches of flooding looks very different uh over flat terrain.

Um essentially you can just say just for um just for uh uh a basis of comparison.

If you have a 10-foot road, the crown or the center of the road is normally about let's say three inches above the the edge of pavement.

So even though three inches sounds like oh, it's just three inches not a big deal.

Well, visually, that looks a heck of a lot different because you're looking at a dry road versus one that's has water like at the center line.

Um so you know, again, there are cases out there that are gonna be worse than the 1.78.

Um, but when it comes to providing, you know, when it comes to providing the assessment with how your system is functioning to determine what needs to be done, we do think that the 1.78 is a prudent elevation to use.

Another thing.

So if we take this 1.78, did you look at say 10 years ago?

What would our tides at 1.78 look like?

Like maybe 10 years ago, we would have never gone over 1.78.

I I have not done that assessment for golf port.

We have looked at um, you know, for other um assessments that we've done, we have pulled uh tidal data from the same gauge.

I wanna say going back to 2001, and we have done a uh like a trend line, and we have found that the mean high waters have been increasing.

Um I wish I could tell you that number, I'd be totally winging it and probably wrong.

Um, but I can see the line in my head, I just can't tell you how how much.

But no, certainly uh well, you know, we have um we have seen those trends on on paper, we have seen those trends out in the real world, um, and which is why uh we were so um you know, let's say happy to see that your comp plan um had some forethought and recognized that.

And so back in 2018, somebody said let's add a foot of tailwater for sea level rise, and here we are in 2025, and that's a pretty good idea.

All right, um, I'd like to hand it over to Raf uh to talk about the floodplains.

All right, you get a chance to rest your voice on me.

Good evening, I'm Raf Kadai with Advanced Engineering.

And um I just want to discuss some of the the floodplain findings.

Um, you know, all that blue that you see on the screen is as a result of our stormwater modeling.

And essentially what you're seeing there is that model that Justin described that we developed, that is based off of Pinellas County's um DEM that was approved by Swift MUD and provided by Swift MUD.

So essentially why I say Pinellas County, Pinellas County was the one that flew the LIDAR, um which is a laser-based uh survey system.

And then Swift Mud ended up um taking that data, creating a um digital elevation model um that was then enhanced for stormwater model development.

So essentially all of those 454 um catchments or drainage basins that were developed, have a let's say a top-down 2D um geometric uh uh shape to them.

So essentially what I mean is if I were to start at the roadway surface, or let's say this the surface point of the lowest uh point within that drainage area and start cutting slices at every three inches.

I could build this essentially um stage storage relationship that tells me that hey, at the at the roadway surface you have very little storage right at your inlet.

But let's say you go out 10 feet and all of a sudden you have 500 square foot.

Well, then let's say we go out a thousand feet, now all of a sudden we have uh an acre of of storage above the rotor.

When I say storage, I mean if let's say you're showing that your your uh your depth is getting to three feet above the roadway elevation, you have five acres of of area that is being covered from a top-down view.

So basically, when you're looking from like a map view, you'd be showing that whenever your your your drainage area is surcharged by three feet, you'd potentially have a couple acres of flooding.

So essentially what we end up doing is when we run the model um that takes all of the stormwater infrastructure into account, it also takes a bunch of overland um uh overland flow transfer wear links.

And basically what it develops is saying that all right, when you have a stormwater system that is inefficient and you start pulling water up onto the surface, at some point you're gonna reach a path of least resistance for this water to want to take.

So then it's gonna transfer its flow to the next area downstream.

So essentially the next lowest point, and it'll just keep cascading on down until it finds the lowest point.

And essentially what we do with that with those modeling results is plot a floodplain.

So, for instance, that 100-year rainfall event, which used utilized the 13.61 inches of rainfall per each drainage area.

We you know, we ended up developing this this floodplain, and it kind of shows you a picture of where are your trouble spots?

Where are the areas where you're gonna see the biggest issues during some of these more intense, you know, large rainfall events.

In addition, we look at a 25-year floodplain, which is the 9.61 inches of rainfall in 24 hours.

Now, if I scroll back and forth real quick, it doesn't seem like there's that much of a change.

There are certain areas where you will see there's less flooding in the 25-year storm, but then some of those other areas they look pretty much the same.

And essentially what we can use that data for is to determine all right, we know where there aren't that many great changes between the big storm events, that's usually signifying that is your upstream area where your trouble starts, and then where you have some of these larger floodplains, you know, down south, like on shore, you can tell that that's what happens when you have this cascading effect of water transferring downstream.

And essentially, um, as we looked at the the subwatershed map, you know, PYCC has this large area that travels or the PYCC subwatershed travels from the northeast to the southwest.

And some of this modeling resulted in in us finding some of these hot spots.

City Hall, just outside the doors on uh on uh was that 25th, um, you know, we can see that there is some trouble spots there.

Um so this is during the the 100 year rainfall event.

Um, you know, we can see that that this existing stormwater system around here, you know, within this general area is is insufficient in being able to collect all this runoff in the hundred year storm.

Now I'm not gonna say that you know I I don't want to uh put words in my predecessor's mouths that designed these systems back in the 50s and 60s, but you know, back then um stormwater systems weren't weren't designed in the same way that they are today.

You know, a lot of it was hand calculations, a lot of it was just looking at localized areas.

These watershed management plans allow us to look at your watershed from a broader aspect and see how the water travels through you know your town or your city.

One of the other areas that that are is a hot spot is the Tomlinson Park area during the 100 year rainfall event, and and a lot of it is you know, essentially the work that was done there previously was was amazing work.

You know, there it was a beautification project, there's large scale of of work, and it addressed the localized issues.

But what what ends up happening was this you know this was developed before the watershed management plan existed, and what the watershed management plan reveals is that essentially we have issues that are downstream of Tomlinson that result in some of the less than favorable results that we're seeing here.

On top of that, another hot spot is 59th Street and around 20th Avenue, um and and basically where Gulfport Boulevard intersects with PYCC, or let's say cuts PYCC from let's say the the northeast Gulfport area.

And essentially, once again, if I were to trace it back, Tomlinson, Lake Thomason Lake uh drains down and then will come down 20th and then drain out into that pond area that we see there.

So essentially, once that pond area gets full, you have nowhere for that water to end up going and you end up pulling it into the roadway.

The other hot spot, which I know um you know is a is probably well known to most of the city and the staff is um the Wood Ibis area.

Um and essentially anything that goes down to shore uh boulevard as well.

Now, our findings um, you know, tracing back the the path of travel for for some of this overland flow you know tells us that a lot of this area that gets inundated here is just from up in the northeast area.

So essentially it's just that water traveling over a period of time and overland and then transferring it down to the path of least resistance, which is down unfortunately on on shore.

And then some of the other hot spots to look at is um around the Stetson area, um, particularly you know, north of 13th Av and uh west of 61st, there aren't existing stormwater systems out there.

Um a lot of it uh travels through overland flow, and we tried to basically capture this area utilize you know, understanding that there are no stormwater systems that are present as far as uh underground conveyance.

We want to still capture this area to be able to model um what kind of flooding occurs and how does the water transfer.

And then finally, one of the other hot spots is the is the marina.

Um, you know, uh I know historically the cities had had some challenges in this area with with flooding, and um, you know, I'm relieved that our model kind of shows that as well, you know.

And and a lot of the reports that we've gotten from the city um staff as far as what are these trouble spots, we were able to replicate them with our modeling.

And then I guess now that he's rested his voice, I'll throw it back over to uh Justin.

We just like to switch it up to keep everyone on their toes.

Um so when we talk about level of service, essentially what we're saying is what will the city accept.

And um, it's not realistic to say we don't want any flooding.

That's just not that's not financially feasible for for any city, uh, really.

And so really what the level of service does is it is a policy that the city enacts that says we as a community will accept blank.

And so we this is where we go back to the comp plan.

And so this was stuff that we talked about during the Wood IBIS presentation.

So I apologize for the repeat, but it is still very important.

So essentially the comp plan tells us to what degree does the city essentially permit flooding, recognizing that we can't stop all flooding, it's going to happen.

What will we accept?

And as we talked about earlier, it also guides us on how to incorporate sea level rise.

So table 25, it has everything we needed to perform our level service assessment.

So the first thing we looked at was when you take a look at the table, it shows that there's three different levels.

Level A is evacuation routes outside of the 100-year floodplain.

Level B are other areas outside of the 100 year floodplain.

And level C are all areas within the 100-year floodplain.

So earlier we showed you 100 year floodplain maps, okay, for the 100 year storm event.

What we believe this is referring to is the FEMA flood, which is the surge-based floodplain, the special flood hazard area that is managed by by your city as a specific area.

Think about it as the area where you have to elevate your house in those locations.

So one of the first tasks we did is we took those 454 catchments and we came back and we more or less assigned what level they they should meet.

The evacuation routes as identified, and certainly I know police and fire here, so please let me know if I'm off out of base here.

But um evacuation routes are going to be 22nd and 49th.

Uh 49th is only identified north of Gulfport Boulevard.

Um so any basin that touches those areas, we assign a level of service or a level A to it.

Um you'll notice that there's a difference between the pink and let's say the orangest designation.

Well, that kind of follows your special flood hazard area.

So all the basins that are you know kind of uh along the lower ring of Gulfport, those are level service C, again, in accordance with your comp plan.

Everything else is level service B.

Then we get to um once we assign the level, the comp plan tells us what we do with that level.

And this is where um we want to kind of share how we interpreted it, and as we'll talk about later on, we think there's some improvements that that can be made to this.

Um so level A says no significant street flooding.

Uh during periods of heavy rain, there is some street flooding throughout the city.

However, uh floodplain streets are generally passable with the motor vehicle.

Um so when you read this, you you see um significant sum, generally.

Um a lot of terms that I think are purposely put in there to allow for professional interpretation.

Uh similarly, when you look at level service B and C, again, we see a lot of those same words.

Significant, you know, we uh more or less um words that allow for interpretation.

And so, but one of the main items that we see in this water uh this water quantity part of the compitly an intended focus on vehicles passing and an intended focus on emergency vehicles passing.

So when so when we look at this, we say, okay, um, level service or level C, the city is telling us that they want an emergency vehicle to pass for level service C, which implies that it's not a standard vehicle, it's emergency, a higher vehicle.

Um we actually coordinated with fire during uh the Wood Ibus study, and we found that they can uh go out to what is it, 16 inches?

16 yeah, and and so um, but we recognize that not all emergency vehicles are fire or fire engines.

So we uh we recognize that some um emergency personnel may be in SUVs or something like that.

So we identified uh nine inches as what would be acceptable over the center line of the road um in order to determine it it passable, if you will.

Again, you're not gonna be going 40, but you know, can you get through it?

Um and for level of service B, the city comp plan is different.

They don't talk about emergency vehicles, it talks about passenger vehicles.

So obviously we're assuming that a lower vehicle can get through.

So what we did for um for that is we more or less said, okay, we will say that a passenger vehicle that um a passenger vehicle can get through six inches over the center line.

And this is a part I'm going to steal from Raph because he always talks about the uh turn around a turnaround don't drown that the National Weather Service puts out, and they say if it's more than six inches of water, do not go through it.

So that's kind of a nice checkpoint to say, okay, we think six inches is the top threshold that we would expect for a passenger vehicle to be able to get through.

And then uh level of service A, it talks about uh no significant street flooding for the evacuation routes.

And again, significant as we interpret it means that there would be, let's say, a significant hindrance to multiple vehicles passing.

So what we assumed is that there would be no flooding over the center line, and that two vehicles could pass one another in like a slightly submerged state, if you will.

Um and that is more or less how we took the uh directive and what we feel is the intent of the city's comp plan and incorporated it into um let's say uh a tangible evaluation metrics that we can use to determine level of service.

And so what we're showing here is that all of the basins in red um did not meet level service for the hundred year storm event.

Now, one one caveat, the the city's comp plan does not specifically say what storm are they talking about.

Are we talking about a hundred-year storm?

Are we talking about a 25-year storm or a 10-year storm?

And and and again, I I think part of that is by design, you know, to allow for some professional interpretation, um, to allow for some um, you know, uh allow for some flexibility as situations come up to where you know, again, it's about meeting the spirit of the comp plan um and not necessarily um having certain clauses be so finite that they hinder your ability to to make progress.

So um what we did is we figured it'd be worthwhile to look at the 25 year as well.

So for the hundred-year 24-hour storm, um 202 of the 454 basins failed, and um for the 25 year, obviously with less rainfall, um, we saw a slight reduction to where we had 192 um failed basins, which represents about 43 percent.

So again, when we talk about level service, and and and as um Raph's gonna come back up and um share about the projects, and it's important to remember that you know this is all based upon level service, which says if we're in evacuation route, no flooding over the center line.

If we're in the special flood hazard area, which is that lower ring around the city, we will allow up to nine inches of the center line.

And um for everywhere else, it is six inches over the center line.

And for these projects, um we use the 25-year storm event.

We felt that those um performance metrics are reasonable for the 25-year storm event and a suitable um jump-off point for for evaluation.

When you tie that to our comp plan, do you know what year we put that into our comp plan?

Uh 28.

Well, so I don't want to say what I don't want to say what year it got put in because it's very possible that it could have been in prior iterations and carried over.

The most current comp plan revision, I think was in 2018.

Um so it was in there at 2018.

Yes, and it could have been in there in prior, you know, you know, it could have been some in prior revisions.

Um I did not go back at older ones look, but your your most recent one available online is from 2018, and that one incorporated the level service and then also the tailwater discussion for tides.

And the rainfall that we had this August was 100-year-yeah.

I mean, that was a I mean Pinellas County was putting out flash flood warnings.

I mean, that that was a pretty pretty hellacious event.

Um you know, really one one thing in you know one thing we'd always like to do is that we'd like to kind of get everybody set up with rain gauges to try to see like you know, you know, start to kind of create our own or get our own data to see, okay, you know, because uh rain gauges aren't everywhere, and and a lot of times when we talk about the precipitation that we should we uh depicted, that's like radar, radar-based.

So it's not an actual rain gauge.

And and so it's it's awesome data and it's good stuff, and we should count on it, but you know, again, it'd be nice.

So if anybody has a rain gauge at their house, feel free to share the information.

So I'm sure everybody is uh sitting here hoping that I found the magic bullet that would so solve all of uh the city's uh flooding issues.

Um but you know, uh as I showed with uh with that flood map with the hundred year and both the 25-year, there are a lot of challenges within the city um from a flooding standpoint.

Um it will take uh a lot of work to to be able to address all of those concerns.

Now from a project development uh development standpoint, we made some some key assumptions.

Um one of the things was we wanted to be consistent.

So essentially we utilize the same tailwater condition, same storm intensity and intensities for all the projects that that we evaluated.

Um we didn't make any major changes, you know, from one model to the other to make one project look better than the other.

Um essentially it was whatever we got, that's what we got, and we try to make you know the the best possible outcome.

We looked at um not having the city um required to buy out any land.

So essentially we didn't we didn't want to uh present a project that would require the city to go up uh to buy up neighborhoods to convert them into stormwater ponds to provide the additional storage.

Um we wanted to look at basically anything that that we can do from a gravity standpoint.

Essentially, can we can we find a stormwater solution from either a pipe standpoint or expanding an existing pond to be able to provide um a reduction in flood?

On top of that, I know that you know the city has some park uh areas, and we didn't want to take those areas and convert them into ponds as well.

You know, I you know, I personally I like going to parks myself as a as a mental health break, and and if I were to lose a park in my area, you know, I'd be pretty mad.

Um on top of that, you know, we felt that we needed to spread the wealth.

I don't think it would be um justifiable for me to come up here and say, well, I'm gonna give you five projects that all focus on PYCC subwatershed, because then a resident that might be living in the Stetson area or a resident that might be living um in one of the coastal water areas would be wondering, well, you know, the city's spending this money, why are we looking at only projects in one subwatershed?

Um on top of that, you know, what we what we're trying to design is something that will not cause the adverse impacts to downstream areas.

So essentially what I mean by that is if I look in the furthest upstream reaches of let's say the PYCC subwatershed, and I do all these improvements to make flooding go away around Tomlinson Park, well, that water is gonna have to go somewhere, and essentially it's gonna get pushed downstream.

So I can uncork everything upstream, but then I just push the problem downstream.

And I just don't want to be say, oh yeah, I've I've solved all the issues around Tomlinson Lake, but then all of a sudden, you know, down on uh 60th, um we have two feet of additional flooding.

Um on top of that, you know, we want to look at at the scale of the project.

I know this city has historically done some big projects, um, Wood Ibis being one of them, um Tangerine Park being another one, and essentially I we didn't want to propose something that would be let's say take the entire drainage area and just one giant project that costs a billion dollars, you know, because at the end of the day, you know, I understand that's a big number, and and it's gonna take some time to come up with that money.

Um, so we wanted to essentially come up with projects that would be on a smaller scale, when I say smaller, at least not something grander than Wood Ibis or like a Tangerine Park area.

And then essentially, what I wanted to present was essentially projects that didn't rely heavily on being sequentially ordered.

So essentially the first project that we that you know we're gonna show, if you do the fifth project, you're not relying on that fifth project, you know, if you do that fifth project first, you're not relying on that first project to be completed before you can touch the fifth project.

So essentially we wanted to make every project somewhat um standalone while also um you know potentially even providing some some improvements outside of the general project area.

And then you know, every cost that that I provide um, or that's gonna be provided on this on the spread on the um slides, they're gonna come as somewhat of a shock potentially, um, but those are based off of today's dollars.

And with that, um I kind of want to show the the BMP location map.

Um, you know, we have six projects that that we're gonna showcase here.

The first one being um the police and fire rapid response roadway improvements.

So that's literally just outside of City Hall right here.

Um and essentially we wanted to focus on reducing flooding for um police and fire to be able to get out of the facility to be able to perform any uh potential um emergency services during during high uh storm events.

Um and then essentially what we found by doing this project is what we did was uh we ran a pipe system um from the ground from basically the the intersection of 54th and 25th Avenue all the way south and outfalling by the pier on Shore Boulevard.

And what we ended up finding was that we we were able to provide uh significant stage reductions in the 25-year storm while also providing reductions in the hundred year uh storm event.

But on top of that, um it leaves um the opportunity to do further expansions out to the west and to the east along 25th.

Um in addition, um you know, one of the other things that we were able to notice is by performing some of these improvements, and you know, I I should have maybe highlighted the colors a little better, but out on um shore and and um was that 59th, we do see some reduction in stages.

So essentially the flooding level gets slightly reduced by doing this project that is let's say outside of that project area or outside of our project area.

And then with that said, though, because it's such a long run of a stormwater pipe system, there will have to be some um maintenance dredging that would have to be um performed at the outfall area just because we're we're having to sump the system.

So essentially, when I mean by sumping the system, it it outfalls um below the current um let's say sand elevation that is out there at at the at the uh pier.

And with that, um, you know, the the pre-design estimate for this project is about 18 18.1 million dollars.

The second project, which now kind of more focuses on the PYCC area, and really to be able to do any future projects or let's say build off of providing improvements in in the further northern northeastern reaches of the PYCC subwatershed, we have to kind of um uncork the system downstream.

So, what we'd end up what we're in proposing here is doing two um bypass or bypass box culvert systems.

So one box culvert system um essentially runs from that that vegetated pond area that is to the west of Gulf um Gulfport Boulevard, and it directly bypasses the entire PYCC uh neighborhood and then discharges within that same land bridge area that that is out there now.

In addition, um there's a secondary bypass uh bypass system that is for that um vegetated wetland area that is kind of like on the the southeastern reaches of of that PYCC golf course, um, and that is essentially um to provide some additional uh flood relief to the wood Ibis area and and to those eastern reaches.

Um and essentially what this project, and and I'll get into BMP three, but this project uh provides some flood reductions that will be banked for future improvements.

So what I mean by that is if you look up where the pond is, it shows that there's like a 2.3 feet of reduction in in water elevation and runoff um elevation during the 25-year storm.

Well, essentially what we're proposing to do is use that as a as a future means of storage for the additional improvements that we want to do through the PYCC subwatershed.

On top of that, from a from an off from a water quality standpoint, we are proposing a um uh structural BMP like a hydrodynamic separator or some sort of uh offline uh baffle box to treat any sediment that might uh travel through that system.

Now, one thing to note um being that this is within the PYCC property, there will have to be some land use permissions that are obtained by the city to be able to construct these systems.

Um and you know, on top of that, we're not we're not proposing to get rid of any existing system that's out there, so whatever money has been spent in the past decade or so um to do improvements on the city side, um, those will remain in place.

This project in itself um would cost approximately um 11.8 million dollars.

And then kind of leading off from BMP two is is BMP 3.

Um and and I know I said that that we tried to strategically uh come up with projects that would not rely on another one being built.

Um however uh BMP2 will need to be built prior to BMP 3, um, and that's only because we need BMP2 to bank that flood reduction to be able to then kind of take it back up with this additional flows that that would be with this system.

Now that pond system that is on the west side of Gulf Boulevard, we would be uh proposing to expand it, um, essentially to add additional storage from a depth and a footprint standpoint.

Um and what we would be proposing to do is running um a box culvert system all up across Gulfport Boulevard, which is a county-owned roadway.

On top of that, there will be extensive maintenance of traffic needed during construction.

Essentially, when a contractor is going to have to excavate the roadway to be able to install these box culverts, which will require extensive rerouting of traffic, you know, through the neighborhoods.

So essentially, right now what we're showing would be to tie in that's 20th Av South out to essentially the main trunk line of the Lake Tomlinson discharge, which is a 42-inch pipe that runs down to Gulfport Boulevard.

And what we're what we'd be doing is essentially siphoning off some of those flows, which then reduces the the um requirement of the Gulf Port system or the Gulfport Boulevard system that is currently inefficient.

If you kind of look closely, you can see that this project would provide benefits not only within the general area but to the south as well.

There are some stage reductions that are observed.

Um and that's mainly because what we're doing is taking some of those high flows and siphoning them away through a more efficient system, which prevents water from from traveling overland during peak flows into the southern areas.

Um when looking at this low-lying area, um, essentially, you know, when when we're talking about 30th uh Avenue and 58th Street, um the roadway elevations around there are around 4.8 NAVD.

Um and I kind of want to show on the next slide first to show why we have these challenges, and it's kind of the repeat of the gradient of the terrain.

Once those northern areas um those systems cannot handle the flows, it sends it all down into the southwest.

And unfortunately, it primarily winds up in that wood ibis um shore boulevard area.

So through through just uh a modeling effort, um, we looked at what would happen if we put in a bunch of box culverts or essentially put in a box culvert system to try to siphon off some of these flows and reduce uh flooding.

And what we found out was that it's not really uh an issue from a stormwater infrastructure standpoint as far as the pipe that's in the ground, but it's the overland flow that comes from the other reaches.

Um currently, and and you know, I wish I could give you like a how many truckloads, how many semi-truckloads is this amount of water, but during a 100-year rainfall event, approximately 1,000 CFS cubic feet per second of water travels into that intersection of 58th and 30th from overland.

So essentially just from cascading flows coming down from other reaches within the city, which is why essentially what we end up finding was that doing the system does not provide um uh a huge benefit.

But what we did find was that if you construct um BMP one, two, and three, um, it would actually those projects would actually siphon off approximately 400 cubic feet per second of flow during the peak storm events or during the 100-year storm event from entering into that area.

So that would actually provide um with those three projects constructed, this fourth one would actually see more benefit than what our initial modeling found.

Um and that's not to say that you can't construct BMP four first and then come back and do one, two, and three later.

Um, but you'll see you know, you'll see greater benefits once you do um one, two, and three along with four.

Is 400 cubic feet per second?

Would that be like half the water?

A third of the so a thousand is is what is is essentially what the modeling says that a thousand CFS enters a little less than half.

Correct, by doing one, two, and three.

Um, and and we we tried looking at um seeing if a pump station could handle the rest of the flows.

Um you know, what we found is like a 215 horsepower pump provides about 50 CFS of um capacity as far as pumping out.

So to get to get the rest of the 600, let's say, you would need what am I at?

Man, my math is failing me right now.

Um, 12 pumps.

Um, and and one of these pump stations, I mean, would be, you know, um, do you remember what Tampa spent on a stormwater pump station within a neighborhood that was only like a single 125 horsepower pump?

It was in the upper million, I mean upper probably over 50, 60.

And that was in 2011.

So, you know, when when we look at 2025 to do a pump station like this, um, you know, essentially it'd be well north of 50 million dollars in in our opinion.

Uh, not inclusive of having to find the land to even be able to put a pump station like that.

Um and you know, with this project though, unlike the other ones, we you know, we don't see that that there would be any kind of um uh special land use requirements to be able to construct this system, mainly because it follows the same footprint of of an existing system that's out there.

Um our estimate for for this uh project is approximately 13.3 million dollars.

And then BMP 5 is a that's an area um conveyance improvements.

Um and essentially there's currently a system out there on 15th Avenue South, and um you know what what we were looking at doing is providing the means to be able to further expand the system in the future, um, only because you know, understandably if if we were to build out this entire area, so like this that's an area that um the neighborhood that does not have stormwater system currently, um the construction footprint would just be massive and it would be a years long project to be able to construct all of it.

So essentially what we're looking at is to create an initial leg to be able to then further expand upon those projects and connect into the system.

What we ended up looking at as well is a bypass system, which I don't have a good map, but looking at a bypass system that would potentially cut through the golf course.

Uh unfortunately, you know, I I you know I'm not I don't know the difficulties that that would be from a coordination standpoint, approval standpoint with PYCC to be able to recommend it, and therefore, you know, we we didn't look at that um that option in in greater detail.

Once again, because this project would cross Gulfport Boulevard, um, it will require extensive maintenance of traffic from rerouting um traffic through the neighborhoods and around the construction during the pro in the time period that uh the contractor would be installing the box culvert through um Gulfport Boulevard.

How long might that take?

Uh I mean I I don't know means and bounds from a from a contractor, but I would assume at least uh short term, maybe a month to two months.

Um and you know uh and this project also looked at um adding a um like an offline um stormwater treatment from a water quality standpoint as far as um like a hydrodynamic separator.

This project in itself we're we're estimating to be approximately 10.2 million dollars.

And then the cheap one, um BMP six, um marina tidal flooding mitigation.

So this is actually a uh a pilot program that we proposed that would create like smart outfalls.

What we mean by that is um actuated valves for for outfalls that would be tied to level sensors, and um essentially a public facing um kind of like a online portal that residents could see where when uh potential roadway inundation could happen from like a high tide event.

Um so essentially when when the tide event gets to the point where you know the roadway is inundated.

Um we did uh we did put a request in with the state for for appropriation dollars, and and you know, we're waiting for for those um for that confirmation to come back.

And with this project, you know, we're we're estimating to be approximately 1.5 million dollars, which is the installation of um actuated valves systems along the outfalls around the marina as a pilot program, and then um the this the level sensors and the implementation of the um public-facing platform that anyone you know within the city could could um access.

And then with that, hand it back over to the program recommendations.

Thank you, sir.

Um a couple big picture items I want to make sure um that that you know are are known coming out of these projects.

the level sensors and the implementation of the um public facing platform that anyone you know within the city could could um access and then with that hand it back over to the program recommendations thank you sir um a couple big picture items I want to make sure um that that you know are are known coming out of these projects um we talked about first of all some of the challenges how how within the city because you have that gradient that goes from the from the northeast to the southwest that your inefficiencies upstream manifest themselves downstream so that is going to be something that is a continuing theme um in in any improvement that is proposed um and it is way more advantageous we talked about this with wood ibis it's way more advantageous to collect it at the top of the hill before it becomes a problem but as Rap pointed out doing that can be an issue with your neighbors that you're right next to when you try to make that improvement so we although we recognize it's important to start at the top in order to make way for the top water to kind of come on down we got to make sure that we have the outfalls ready to go which is why we focused a lot you know along the Gulf port uh you know or say the water the waterfront interface of the city system so as far as um some some program recommendations um we talked about the level service uh that's contained within your comp plan um and I I do think that there's there's a lot of good concepts that the city should keep um there also could be a benefit and maybe further refining um what the city determines as acceptable level of flooding um you know this this um this is certainly something to where um I welcome the council's feedback on whether you feel that our interpretation um aligned with the intent of the document um but again I I I do think maybe being being more specific about the design storm and how those um level services apply would be would be beneficial um then also too um in 2018 2035 was a while away and we're in 2025 and it's right around the corner um so we feel that the city um made a smart move by incorporating sea level rise into their planning um and I we recommended that continue forward and unfortunately when we you know if the city moves forward with building any of these improvements 2035 is is right there so um as we look at future improvements we do recommend maybe taking a step out and looking at 2050 2070 maybe in 2100 um number three um so reducing the allowable impervious perviousness for residential properties um within the city's code I believe the term is green space and right now um within certain residential um areas um the city uh um allows for a for a minimum of 20% green space which essentially means 80% impervious um so that is something that that we we recommend um we recommend be updated in order to um in order to reduce the amount of uh perv or reduce the amount of impervious now with that being said um in speaking with staff there has not been a single or there's not been a project that's even gotten close to that 80% impervious threshold and that is something to where um we don't you know uh as as we evaluate the landscape as it is today we're you know we we see this as a problem that could man itself itself move or that could be apparent moving forward um so again this is more or less this recommendation is framed in the manner of stopping something before it happens um because again I think even looking at your lot sizes and your setbacks um it's hard to hit that number or or you know it's hard for somebody to really get against that threshold um number four um and and this is in in terms of financing um you know the city has a uh stormwood utility fee um with um let's say the formal presentation of these projects and and and possible um you know acceptance at some time by the council um it's recommended that maybe you take a look at your stormwater utility and determine if it's um meeting the financial needs of your operation maintenance and also your capital costs um because really the important thing moving forward is to have that bank of money ready to have matching funds when a grant becomes available when appropriation becomes available um you know again because any anything that we do um in the grant world it requires a match so um it is certainly free money but it it it does come with a financial commitment on the city's end um and then also too um in some of your low line areas we do recommend that you consider using non-structural fill within AE zones um and I put a caveat with caution um now uh when we talk about non-structural fill um that's more or less utilizing um utilizing fill to elevate uh single family homes elevate um lots elevate roads in order to increase the difference between your tail water or your tide and your grade and um uh in areas like around the marina um I think it's relatively safe to say that those areas can support um additional fill without much um without much um let's say further stormwater valuation just because those areas aren't inundated with this cascading effect that happens um versus the wood ibis area that's where the caution is because we would recommend that if the city were to pursue that further that we you know um or that somebody take a take a closer look at what would be acceptable in those areas um because again when it comes to fill

And um in areas like around the marina, um I think it's relatively safe to say that those areas can support um additional fill without much um without much um let's say further stormwater valuation just because those areas aren't inundated with this cascading effect that happens versus the wood Ibis area, that's where the caution is because we would recommend that if the city were to pursue that further that we you know um or that somebody take a take a closer look at what would be acceptable in those areas.

Um because again, when it comes to fill um non-structural fill, um your code um for my review of the floodplain management ordinance uh oh your code does not specifically restrict its use, and I think for a lot of low-line um areas within this area uh within really Tampa Bay, um, I think that's gonna be a tool that we're gonna need to look at using uh more moving forward.

So certainly appreciate y'all um you know, taking time and um I guess if there's any questions um I can feel Danny or I think my very first question is um will we have this presentation because I feel like I'm gonna need to watch this about 25 times in the next week.

So do we actually have these slides?

Yes, I do.

We can do a formal transfer on a flash drive if you like, but you know, they're yours.

They're yours.

My eyes don't see that wells, so I want to see I mean there there's there's a lot we discussed, I understand.

That's the biggest question I had right now was how am I gonna see this again?

Okay.

And and often when you get a stormwater study, you have to do an adaptation study.

Does this include that these recommendations would be what you would get from that?

So the adaptation plan is uh is is something is a study that the resilient Florida program will pay a hundred percent of moving forward.

Um that is more that is more or less a study that assesses like your your adaptive capacity and more or less what does the community want as far as strategies to protect against extreme threats, sea level rise storm, stuff like that.

Um so while we you know we like to include some programmatic recommendations within our watershed management plan, this does not substitute an adaptation plan, but certainly um recognizing the interplay between the tide, your low line areas and stormwater.

Uh we certainly hope this kind of gets the conversation started regarding the long-term direction of the city.

And how long do those studies usually take the adaptation studies?

Do you know?

Um, you know, I I I think it can vary based upon the specific scopes.

You know, again, uh, with an adaptation plan, a lot of times you can see one that is um um more streamlined, and you can see one that are you know um let's say more more detailed.

So um without uh not trying to uh let's say avoid giving you a timeline, but that it's really hard to pin that down because the scopes can vary so dramatically.

But that is something to where we have submitted adaptation plan um requests, and we can certainly support the city if that's something that they would like to pursue.

So aside from the money, what would you see as a barrier that we're doing here that may impact that?

So like ADUs, right?

We talk a lot about that here in the city, but it's gonna be on the agenda.

Just more concrete that you don't know about going to impact us poorly.

Well, so as we go ahead and you know, yeah, so um, you know, the the money, I like to caveat because the money is a barrier for anybody for any entity, and that's not unique to golf port.

Sure.

Um when we talked about some of the factors that impact a um a stormwater model, right?

Um, you know, imperviousness is an element of that.

Um, you know, but but but understanding that what we're talking about is is stormwater solely and that ADUs address other things that are non-stormwater related.

But I would say whether you're putting in a um an ADU or a bunch of basketball courts and tennis courts, right?

So you know, it's you know, it's it's kind of the same thing to where um essentially um the you know there is a direct correlation between um the amount of imperviousness you have in a basin and the degree of runoff that's gonna come off.

Now it's not a one-to-one relationship to where you know you're not gonna build five of these concrete pads, whatever they house, right and have this immediate impact that you see downstream.

Um, but from a number standpoint, it it does impact it.

Okay, and there's other things you could do too.

You you could not build um impervious driveways and help make up for the space that you would take for housing, for instance.

I'm just saying, you know, and and you know, for you know, from my standpoint, I certainly understand um that this discussion does overlap with stormwater.

Um, and I certainly want to make sure that I don't let my um you know that I focus on let's say the imperviousness and the stormwater aspect of the conversation.

Um we also haven't heard from our vulnerability study, which you guys were doing.

So, how much would that vulnerability study impact how we discuss this?

Well, so the vulnerability study is something that um we um through our prior presentations um we shared that we'd be sharing with you at the end of the year.

Um it's actually due, I think in the middle of it's in June in 2026, and we're looking to get it done next next month because we're gonna be presenting to you in January, I believe.

Yeah, I thought it was gonna be done a year ago.

It was supposed to be a two-year project originally.

But anyway, that's no, I mean I mean the grant agreement is there.

Uh whatever.

Anyway, so but how much will that study affect what we do with this?

Uh well, so this is you know, certainly there is some connectivity.

The um so what the watershed management plan looks at, it looks at how does your stormwater system perform for let's say um the higher rainfall events, right?

You know, because we talked about it doesn't include extreme tidal events, it doesn't include cat five hurricane stuff.

Um the VA looks at your critical assets and it says, okay, all this really really bad stuff can happen.

So what of your critical assets is most exposed and most vulnerable for not only the hundred year storms, but also the Cat 5 direct impacts, the more extremes, you know, or let's say more extreme steel of RIS scenario.

So actually, what we will do is we will use we've developed this model that interconnects the tide and your infrastructure, and we're and we we use this for our VA.

So the same model will be used, but really the focus is not gonna be on level service or roseways, it's gonna be on your critical assets, on your fire stations, on your libraries, on your parks.

So where the storm where the WMP is more like roadway and stormwater based, um, I like to say the VA is more of a uh let's say an asset um asset base if that makes any sense.

And you you are presenting that on January 6th.

Yes, okay.

That's what I'm told.

We have a date for that, okay.

Um Ms.

Shaw.

Um I'm I'm 100% with Mayor Love.

Need time to assimilate, welcome the slides, and start formulating what questions we have for I as I understand the workshop.

Yes.

And um, yeah, it's it like at the moment it's like drinking from a fire hose.

Yeah.

I I agree with you.

And so those of you that are sitting here waiting, just so you know, we are gonna have public comments, so you're gonna be able to address anything that you want to right now, okay, without waiting further into the meeting.

But I also want to tell you that one week from today, so that would be the 24th 25th at 4 o'clock.

We are gonna have a workshop here in this room as well.

So why four o'clock rather than six where people can get when everybody could get their schedules?

We'll be here for a while.

So that's what our staff was able to work for us.

So we wanted to do it as quickly as we could, but we felt like we wouldn't necessarily be prepared to have an in-depth conversation because you used a whole lot of lingo that I've never even heard before.

So there's a lot to take in in that period of time.

Was there anything else we thought on five?

Thank you.

I just wonder what we're gonna talk about in a week.

Okay.

I don't have any questions, thank you.

It was super informative and actually really interesting also.

Thank you.

Oh you lie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All righty.

So we are going to open this to public comment, and just like normal, it's you've got three minutes to say, you know, anything you want.

And even if we don't respond, that doesn't mean we're not listening.

We are listening, okay.

We just aren't gonna respond tonight.

So the first hand I saw.

I'm use the mic because we're recorded.

Okay.

My name is Robert Lewis.

I live on 2608 Beach Boulevard, and right across from the senior center.

And I'm an environmental engineer.

And something that concerned me, and they've asked for it, and they should have it.

You talked about computer modeling modeling calculations.

They should be included in the report that we see.

We want to see those numbers.

We want to see how you generated them.

That's important.

Also, um there's a lot of things I thought you missed.

Like near this neither series center, I think there should be a box culvert put there.

There's a so-called culvert there, but goes nowhere.

You should look at that.

It's on the on the corner, a 26 and Beach Boulevard South.

And I'll meet you there if you'd like to so like to see it.

Um Bob, just so you know you're talking to us, not to them.

Okay, I'm sorry.

I mean, they're listening, but yeah.

Yeah.

And that's about all I have to say.

Until I can get those computer modeling calculations, I can't make a decision or help you make a decision on this.

Okay, thank you.

Yes.

Hi, my name is Peter Ford, and um I guess I live on the infamous 59th Street, and I'm right near Wood Ibis Park.

Um, and I would like to start by by thanking uh Dwayne Stefanski who came out and helped us with our drainage problem on 59th Street.

Um word I just heard, overlanding.

I thought that was when you went to Africa on it on a bus.

But the overlanding water would come cascading down 59th Street, even during a good storm.

Um, and we have ditches in front of our homes, and he helped quite a bit, and he worked with us, and we're a tough group to work with, I have to say.

Uh, he worked with us to increase the the depth and the width of that those creeks, and that that is helping.

However, um, we got to the edge of my property, which goes into PYCC, and we had to stop because that's private property.

And I guess my question is I don't understand we're all in the city of Gulfport, and why a Gulfport official trying to help the citizens of Gulfport has to stop doing an important job because all of a sudden it's on private property.

Gulfport property, but private property.

And I that really doesn't compute.

So um again, Dwayne did a great job for us, but I I don't understand why we're all in a community, and it takes a village, but if everyone in the village doesn't help, this project is not going to be completed.

And that's my that's my take.

So again, thank you, Dwayne.

But we all have to work together, public, private.

Yes, question?

No, I'll okay.

So thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

So again, just for those of you who have not been here before, this isn't a question and answer by any means, but you can say whatever you'd like to say, Jennifer.

Hey, good evening, everybody.

This was a great presentation.

I really appreciated all the detail and information.

And just uh some additional resources to bring to the council and administration.

Safety harbor has pulled together an interesting project with deed restricted um neighborhoods that maintain their own wastewater systems and streets that might be helpful to learn from them and and pulling together the financing for this.

And recently in the Sun Coast League of Cities, um other cities have been coming together to request jointly projects where there's connection between St.

Like, for instance, St.

Pete and Gulfport or Gulfport in South Pasadena, although I don't think any of the maps covered that.

But that's another um way of strengthening our request of um of the state when we ultimately have to put those in or go through the um the granting process.

And I look forward to seeing to hearing that y'all's discussion once you've had time to digest all of the I mean a lot of information, good job, and um and being involved in the conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Donovan Good evening, madam mayor and fellow council members.

Uh my name is Donovan Nickel.

I serve as the Ford Panell's Bicycle Pedestrian Action Committee, citizen representative for the city of Gaulport and also a Gulfport representative uh for context for Pinellas is the Transportation Planning Agency for Pinellas County, functioning as both the Pinellas Planning Council and the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Their mission is to integrate transportation and land use planning in ways that support economic vitality, improve safety and mobility.

Lost my place.

Let me see.

And enhance the quality of life for both residents and visitors.

As part of this work, the bicycle pedestrian action committee meets monthly, and the pedestrian and the Pinellas County Security Task Force meets quarterly.

At the most recent security task force meeting, local authorities recommended to Pinellas County Missioner Brian Scott several safety guidelines for e-bikes to include a minimum riding age of 16, mandatory helmets, and no riding on sidewalks.

They were also agreed that law enforcement should continue focusing on education, safety, and enforcement through community outreach efforts.

The Senator for Urban Transportation Research at USF recently shared data showing the Pinellas County ranks number one in the state for e-bike injuries, highlighting the importance of taking these safety measures seriously.

In light of the recent tragic bicycle fatality that occurred in Gulport on September 20th, I want to encourage all road users to remain vigilant and aware of both cyclists and pedestrians.

I want to thank the city of Gulport for implementing pedestrian-friendly signs along Beach Boulevard from 28th Avenue South to Shore Boulevard.

These signs aim to improve awareness and create a safer experience for everyone walking and biking within our community.

The three things that you can do to be safe while riding is be seen, be ready, and be heard.

Please remember that safety is a shared responsibility, and together we can make our streets safe for everyone.

Lastly, if anyone would like any additional information about these organizations, including maps, reading material, or anything, please see me after the meeting.

I thank you, everyone, for your time.

Thank you, Don Vin.

Who'sn't it?

Courtney.

Hello, hello.

Thank you again for that presentation.

The first project that was mentioned was to improve uh first responders.

And I remember a few years ago there was mention or research or thought into moving those departments up to the 49th Street Community Center or neighborhood center.

I was just wondering if that was communicated to the team that that might be a possibility, and if that is less than the 18.1 million dollars.

So just something to consider.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Yes, Jonathan.

Almost totally unrelated.

Jonathan McCoachy.

I'm a proud member of the planning and zoning board.

And came to my awareness that our role and our goal is not maybe in our history is maybe not super well understood by potentially the council and the public.

So a couple of things I wanted to shine a light on.

Uh who we are, it's all laid out in the code.

It's a quite an official body.

We have five members.

We have an alternate.

We can make people tell the truth.

We uh have all sorts of of uh powers and responsibilities that are specifically outlined, shall act as the city's local planning agency, shall have the power and shall be required to make recommendations to city council.

So authority and res and responsibility, and that's about the master plan, platten and subdividing, zoning and land use, the comp plan, uh, status of the comp plan, proposed land development regulations, and one that I particularly like the replanning, reconstruction, redevelopment of any area or district which may be destroyed in whole or in part by fire, earthquake, flood, or other disaster, if that rings any bells.

Um and hearings are required.

Okay.

So in other words, we are a vehicle by which the public can weigh in on these issues and then uh make recommendations to the council.

So I think that sounds really good.

And then I I thought, well, we've had one meeting this this year, and it was very perfunctory.

It was completely perfunctory.

So I wanted to look a little historically, and and thankfully it's on the website, and um going back to 2019, there have been 11 meetings.

Um went over an hour.

Okay, since 2019.

Um was 15 minutes, one of them was 18 minutes, most are under 40 minutes.

Okay.

Um I don't know about you.

I don't get a ton done in 18 minutes.

I I have the strong feeling, maybe it's just me that one of two things is happening.

Either there is no planning or zoning needed, and the city has been cruising along with no need for public input or an advisory body to help the council.

And that's great.

And I am definitely not looking for more work.

The other thing would be that maybe these functions are being uh done by somebody else or in some other way than what is in the code.

And I invite the council, because you guys work harder than the old council.

And uh we appreciate it.

And we want you to have all the tools at your disposal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

And please state your name for us.

Hello, I'm Kathy Ford.

I live at 2613 59th Street South.

Very quick comment.

Is it possible to get the slides, which we couldn't quite see?

Um put on the website or in paper form that we could pick up at the town hall or elsewhere.

You can request it by public records request.

I don't know if I can put it on the website due to ADA come compliance.

But uh but you can request it from me at any time.

Okay.

That's that's could they be printed out and we could pick them up?

Uh there would be a cost.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Bob.

Bob Kang, Shore Boulevard.

Um we're having a workshop on the 20th 5th.

Could these gentlemen uh 10th?

Yes.

We're not allowed to answer questions, we're just about to make a statement.

Got a lot of questions.

Uh personally, the nine inches above the center of the road, unacceptable.

Because it's already three inches higher than it's crowned.

So you're talking 12 inches.

When we talked about the pumps, oh, it's way too expensive.

They're a million dollar piece.

Nobody builds pumps houses.

Nobody buys pumps.

You lease them from Godwin pumps.

Okay.

They maintain them, they clean them, they make sure they run.

We don't have to do nothing.

It's a lot cheaper for us to build pump houses and buy pumps as pumps.

Um another thing was I didn't hear anything about check valves.

I don't know if the gentleman went down there and looked, but the question is is it possible to have a flood when there's no hurricane, no rain, no storm?

No, right?

Uh-oh.

Yeah, we every day we have one here.

Because our pipes, the tide comes above our pipes.

We have no check valves.

So all the pipes from Shore Boulevard up to 30th Street are full.

And water cannot run against the current.

He thought tail tail water he called it.

Well, if water's running this way and you got water coming from the high ground, it just hits and stops.

It's like putting a cork there.

So we would need, so we've got to get a check valve so our pipes, if our pipes are already full of water, it can go nowhere but up into the streets.

So we've got to stop the high tide from coming into the water.

And we got to we can leash the pumps, okay.

But I have a lot of questions for these gentlemen, but I'm not allowed to ask them here.

Okay.

A lot of people got a lot of questions.

But they're the guys that know.

I would look a copy of this like the woman just said, that'd be great.

But can these men attend?

So we can ask them general like questions.

Absolutely.

And not only that, please understand that when you're asking these questions, we're just outing on getting answers too, okay.

Right.

So we appreciate your input, even though we don't take time right now because we don't want to be here at midnight.

Explaining to April why I leave, you're like, you left.

We we answered the thing.

I have allergies so bad.

If anybody here has perfume, I'm dying right now.

I I'm I I'm like, I gotta get out of here.

So that's why I because I'm gonna, you know, you're gonna have to call the EMT.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm sorry.

Who else?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kieran.

Hi, Carrie Schwartz, uh Delayed Avenue South.

I'm not really prepared, but the the gentleman who was talking about the the ditch that you can you can't go past, isn't there an easement on that on that um culvert ditch thing?

Where I used to live, I lived on a ditch, and I became the the um ditch manager for my lateral and I walked that ditch probably weekly, and many times the it went through private property, but the people that own that property didn't have ditch rights.

I actually irrigated using a ditch.

It was fascinating.

Um didn't do a real good job, but I didn't care.

Um anyway, I was allowed to go on to that because there was an easement for our ditch company.

And it seems to me that there should be an easement that there isn't easement through what I through the PYCC, and anybody should be able to go and maintain that ditch.

Probably the homeowners don't even think about it.

But the city thinks about it.

People who live upstream from it think about it because that's one of the reasons that it floods.

The um invasive grasses and whatnot need to be removed from it.

The silt needs to come out of it.

There's a lot of things that need to be done, and you can't just say, no, it's private property, and you can't go.

That's thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

Hello, everyone.

Um, Amy Costa, 28th Avenue South.

Just a quick um thought.

And I might be way off, but I what I heard Justin was saying was a lot of the water comes from the northeast and runs southwest.

And I to echo what Jennifer Webb was saying is is that just the northeast of Gulfport, or is it the northeast of the peninsula?

And do we need to be connecting with other municipalities who are also struggling to figure out what they're doing if they need to do anything?

And if if there is, if it is coming from way up, and we start in Gulfport fixing it, but it's still coming from above us.

Are we really gonna be able to solve the problem?

I don't know if that's a thing.

I just that's what I kept thinking of.

Like if it's above us, then maybe we need to be working with those other towns to figure out what they're seeing, what kind of flooding they're having, what other things we can be doing together, like Jen said, and working in tandem with other communities to solve a bigger problem that seems to be our entire peninsula.

Because I remember we had that big storm, St.

Pete was flooding everywhere, which nobody expected.

Um just a thought.

Add to the line.

All right, thank you.

Who else for public comment?

Seeing none, I'm going to close public comment then.

No, we we did other public comment too.

Was there something else?

Okay.

Oh, please come on up, Eileen.

You have good news, I heard.

Yes.

Thank you, Mayor Love and Council members for having us here.

Eileen Corning, president, proud president of the Gulfport Senior Center Foundation.

Last night we had our annual meeting to report our year end and our future plans.

We had a lot of motions.

I will say the city's commitment to the senior center and the renovations, it's phenomenal, and our board very passionately supports that, and we're 100% as committed as you are to ensuring that that program.

You talk about thankfulness and gratitude.

There is a beautiful board if you have an opportunity.

Marlene and I got to look at it yesterday to see it's a thankful what I'm thankful for, and if you could see some of the things that our participants in the at the center have written.

It's warming, it makes what we do very, very meaningful.

We did, we will have to say we all um we put some motions forward for going for the organizational structure of our foundation.

We traditionally had the president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer.

We've now added two additional leadership positions.

Um we will have a parliamentarian to keep us in line because we've grown so much, our funds have increased so highly.

This is Bill Griffin.

Yeah, and he is the uh treasurer of the of the um of the board.

But I just wanted to share one special story tonight for you for the record.

How meaningful we have a woman, Ina Shelley Hatcher, and she in her passing left the foundation 87,000 of her retirement.

And I say that with my voice shaking because it means so much to me that she was a member for many, many years.

Her wife was there last night, and it was a very emotional, wonderful experience just to be able to recognize her.

So you will see more about that.

You will see our foundation doing a lot more events.

We miss the the casino, but the Maria Center has been fabulous working with us.

So look for our events there and keep in touch.

Bill's gonna share a little bit about the finance.

Thanks.

I mean, one thing uh last night we talked about the financial uh summary of the last three years, and all the credit goes to Larry Kennedy.

He did an amazing job.

I mean, three and a half years ago, he presented a goal of a half million dollars over five years.

We're gonna actually hit that goal next month in under four years.

So it just goes to show you the uh strength of the foundation, but really the people in Gulfport also.

It we've been getting a lot of money, and we really haven't even been able to get our message out yet.

You know, so what we said this year was all right, we have that half a million in the bank, but we really need to prepare to raise a lot more funds in the years ahead.

So we invested some money and we did three things.

You know, we brought on a um a consultant to help us uh on the sponsorship side.

Um we don't have a lot of time left, but we also brought a grant writer, but most importantly, we passed a motion last night to do an agreement with a media company, and we're going to um publish a newsletter working with Rachel Contaldo to really get the the senior center out and work with them, and they'll bring in advertisers in.

So I think we have a lot of potential.

Thanks for sharing the good news.

Can I have the other two minutes?

I thought that was just for floods.

Well, it's very clearly stated it was just for floods.

No.

No.

Now because some people I don't believe I said it was only for flood.

I I did think that there would be a lot of statements that needed to be made that they needed to be heard.

But because there's been some confusion, is there anybody else who did want to speak on another topic that did not get an opportunity?

Well, you had an opportunity.

Anyone else?

Okay.

Seeing none.

All right.

I know, but you you came up for public comment already.

I understand your standing.

City attorney.

That's not that's not your normal process, but it's up to the board.

It's up to the board.

Or if there's anyone else in this room who's concerned about immigrant justice that did not speak, I would like to see that three.

This is out of order.

Okay, you are out of order, and we're gonna stop this right now.

All righty, with that in mind, then I am closing public comment, and we are going to move on to uh city manager report, please.

Mayor, if I could uh address some of those questions just bear just from a high level.

The trial the project that was discussed as a trial project was what you're referring to as check valves.

That was the project we're asking for the appropriation this year for.

I didn't quite hear what you said in the beginning.

So could you start that again?

Gentleman referenced check valves.

Yes.

Mr.

Justin spoke of that is the project that we're asking for an appropriation for, the trial project to do those where someone can go online and look at the tidal action, when they're gonna be open, and it becomes more electronically based in the days of just opening and sticking closed and all that to credit that method creates up with up as he spoke of upwater flooding because the rain can't tides, it's not open, so the tide backs up.

But I think Justin, if you want to address what that project, what the trial project is.

Yeah.

So just kind of frame um my my personal experiences.

I grew up in Shore Acres in St.

Pete, which is known for tidal flooding.

Um and actually back in 2008, our firm um had the pleasure of working with St.

Pete to install uh what were called red tide, red valve check valves.

All right.

And um oftentimes so the check valves that are commonly discussed are either like a duckbill check valve or it is a uh almost like a flapper that goes this way.

And what it does is is it's it's a really good concept to where the as the tide comes up, it closes that valve and it does not allow for the water to back up into the system.

But here's the here, you know, the concern with that is that that same valve requires a certain amount of head or elevation above the valve in order to open.

So if your tide has closed the valve, then you need to get more head than your tide in order to open it back up.

And essentially what that means is that when you put in those valves, you now need to artificially increase the water in the road in order to open up the valve and get it to flush out.

So that is how those systems operate, and and and again, they are um they they're a tool that can be used to um let's say to to deal with I would say like nuisance kind of flooding, but they do have an impact.

And when you go to uh like one of the popular ones right now is called WAPRO, WAPRO.

And you take a look at their technical guidance, and they and they show you explicitly how much head, feet ahead you need to have to open the valves.

So while it certainly is a strategy um that the that the council could use, it is something to or as a person who's lived in low-lying areas who spec'd out similar valves before, I do not see them as a as a true long-term solution to the challenges that you're facing.

Um also want to talk of um project.

Yeah.

Um and and so the difference between what we're proposing, so you know, we talked about um the check valves, they require additional head to open, which is why um well uh we don't like using them.

What we're proposing in the marina area are actuated valves, actuated valves that open and close based upon the tide and and the the elevation within the road.

So essentially the downfall of the analog check valve is that the water has to get higher here, more than it more so than it would have had to do in order for it to open.

But you know, what what we're gonna use as a pilot program is see if we could have the sensors tell us to stay closed, stay closed, and then when it gets to that elevation to where the water could flow, allow it to open then.

And and and so that's what we're trying to implement on a smaller scale and isolated location, because we you know, before we go and deploy this over all these areas, we need to understand, you know, kind of what are the some of the long-term maintenance challenges that the city experiences, and and you know, so that's why we're calling it a pilot program because it's really not ready to deploy on a citywide on a citywide scale.

And and I'm very familiar with this.

This was an issue, and you've probably seen the media coverage of what happened over by the Don Cesar.

The same thing happened.

There wasn't not enough headwater to headwater was keeping it closed.

The rain came down very heavily, and now you had Gulf Boulevard flooded.

And we've seen that numerous times in my career there, spent 20 years there, and I can tell you that was always the issue.

The low area, especially around the Don Cesar has them everywhere, had them everywhere, and they ended up having to take them off.

And you know, on on shore where you're low, you don't have inches or feet to spare.

You know, so where uh where a pool of water is kind of stacked up at somebody's doorstep, we don't want it to go that little bit of further in order to open up the valve.

We need we so that's why um we did not recommend those type of check valves as as a project.

Thank you.

Mayor, um and also another question was asked in regards to the e-bike situation.

Um we've reviewed and you Councilmember Thanos had brought it up last week.

At this point, the statute provides you the ability to prohibit them in two places, in a park area and the beach.

Because the call once again, in a lot of tourist communities, they're seeing people ride these down the shoreline.

So you have the ability to pass an ordinance, if council so directs us to prohibit them within a park area and also the beach area.

So the beach area or on the sand?

On the the beach, what is dis delineated as our beach, which is that area we adopted for no smoking south south of the sidewalk.

Okay, so they could still ride on the sidewalk there.

They couldn't ride across the grass and the sand.

Exactly.

Okay.

And they wouldn't be able to ride like around with IBS or around the rec center park.

Right.

If if you delineate a park, now the rec center parking lot, yes, not in a rear of the we we can bring you back an ordinance to that effect if you're asking for consensus on that, right?

Okay in speaking order?

Yes.

Uh definitely, because I've gotten more complaints about people actually being knocked down, et cetera.

So we've got a safety situation here.

Okay.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, we have direction.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

I'm trying to make some of these.

Oh, and I I think we need to provide some clarification in regards to the PYCC drainage system.

That belongs at present, that belongs to them.

They built it just like their roads.

Their drainage system, their stormwater system is theirs within the PYCC.

Within they have their own ponds, they have their own stormwater system.

Yes, ma'am.

So also where Peter lives, that's their property too, and yet we fix that for them.

We were trying to be here.

No good deed gets unpunished, does it?

And also we we no, I'm no, that was good.

They were happy with that.

But also we had talked about code enforcement, and we were supposed to use code enforcement to get, especially that one guy who doesn't clear his part.

Right.

And have we done that?

I don't think so.

No, we went and cleaned it.

Well, it's still backing up because there's a place at the end of Peter's property where there's a hump and it can't the water can't flow.

We'll look at it again.

I thought we addressed Mr.

Ford's issue.

Um I just wanted to make that clear for the record that PYCC owns in all the subdivisions out there own that suit stormwater system.

They built it just like their roads are private roads.

They they built their stormwater system when they built it.

Do they also own what we've been referring to as the drainage ditch?

I mean, I know that's on their property, but is that what the drainage we've been talking about a drainage easement.

So does PYCC own that drainage easement then as opposed to I'd have to look at something to tell you.

Is it the city's responsibility to clean out the drainage easement?

Because I've I've heard yes, we could.

We can't we have the ability to do that.

It's a maintenance issue on our easement if we had to.

I mean, we like to.

That's why I asked it that way.

Is it our easement if you have a lot of people?

Tom, you want to address the easement issue with this.

I was just seen it differently.

Okay.

And also, easement along 59th Street, which allowed us the opportunity to go in there and do the ditch that we talked about.

We have a drainage easement along Wood I was, which created a little bit of a an issue to the past couple of weeks.

We do have a drainage issue all the way up there.

That's why we were able to contract out that maintenance.

We have no easements when you go from Mr.

Ford's property into the PYCC.

We have been working with Swift MUD because there should be the they should have to report that.

But that is a natural area, so we're still trying to define what level of service.

I can't go ask somebody to go cite somebody when I don't know what level of service that prop that private natural area should be at.

Again, it's natural.

Maybe it's the way it should be today.

I don't know.

I know there's some issues there.

Once we got the ditch cleaned out, it seems to be functioning much better.

But over in that side, again, it's natural.

It's not even you know man-made, it's just labeled on all the plat sheets dating way back to private.

So also then, if if PYCC put in their whole drainage system, how much are they responsible for fixing it now?

They're responsible for all of it.

They're responsible.

We don't fix, we don't fix it inside if we start any of these projects that uh Mr.

Keller talked about, we're going to need easements because they're not going to let us come in there and tear up the roads.

And are they going to be responsible for paying for them?

No.

I mean that's up to them.

That's their if they fix, if they have an issue in their storm drain in front of a house, we'll call it, they have to fix it.

So a lot of what we're looking at fixing drains through PYCC, and I know they do flood there.

So why would we fix stuff draining into them if they're not willing to fix their stuff?

That's the discussion that we're discussing.

That's the true discussion.

Okay.

Yes.

Storm representative Webb spoke of.

That's the safety harbor issue.

They you have private areas that you you have no responsibility for.

You have no responsibility for their stormwater, you have no responsibility for their sidewalks, you have no responsibility for their roadways or even their signage.

We don't enforce speeding in there because they their signs do not meet code.

They that's all private areas.

Yes, that is a big discussion, probably foremost, that at some point we will have to have a conversation with that group.

Because remember now it's not just one person.

There's multiple situations.

Thank you, Mayor.

Was that it?

No, not at all.

Um thank you, Mr.

Ford, for recognizing Dwayne's efforts.

Um in regards to uh you rec and Mayor me, you may talk a little bit about this, the pedestrian walk from the mayor's that we had the other morning, and I addresses Mr.

Nichols and the code and the idea of the e-bikes that he spoke of.

Um also I had a couple of things also I wanted to touch on was well, one was the electric bikes.

Um also we've had and we had talked a lot about this, and we're drafting new language for our code notice of violation for code enforcement that focuses a lot at least a few sentences in within that violation to please contact us.

Because everyone is strictly going to the $500 fine, the magistrate language.

We're trying to put something above that language that says, please contact us to to remediate or work out something.

So someone is told right away to contact us.

We've all talked about that.

Our goal is to get compliance.

So if hopefully they'll reach out to us before they go from right to the line that says you get a $500 day fine.

And that's something we're working on new language for that.

I know Councilmember Shaw had brought that up.

And then one other line uh issue that we'll we will be publicizing.

Uh we're starting to have a proliferation of recreational vehicles.

And so that is a code enforcement issue.

And they're being parked on right-a-ways and they're being parked hooked up to plant water and electric and that, which your code only provides for a minimum amount of time for them to do that when they're visiting.

But we're having people store them.

So I wanted to put that publicly that we're going to start looking at these and they need to get permits and park them appropriately, as you know, Councilmember Shaw.

As so the number one thing is they're park, they're not we have a free permit that allows us to manage recreational vehicles here in the community.

And we're finding a lot of vehicles have not been registered.

Yes, ma'am.

So I have so with the with the the code things.

I was talking to somebody else, and I think what would be a good idea what what was suggested was that when we're going to like like say these line of sight things.

Because people had very established gardens and stuff, and and so it came as a shock to them when they had to do this, that we have if we know that we're gonna start implementing and and and um you know sending letters about a code violation.

Before we do that, we should put something in the gabber, we should explain, we should have it on the website.

Look, we're gonna really start looking at line of sight issues, or we're gonna start looking at RV issues.

That's why I brought it up.

I know, but then that's what he's doing.

Well, I know, but I'm saying this isn't enough.

This isn't enough people.

It needs to go in the gabber or on the website or on the Facebook page.

So whenever we're doing something like this, not just this one, but anything that we haven't been strictly enforcing, that we should put it out there so people understand why we're doing it, how we're gonna do it, and what we expect.

Okay.

Did you have anything else?

One more thing.

Um you've received your update on the SDE violations.

If you go to the bottom of the handout, we did we've met we've sent all the flood violations we had, 192.

Of those, 140 have responded or working with us.

And so we'll follow up with the other 52 that have not responded.

I I'm confused.

Before it was a hundred people who hadn't put in for permits and stuff.

How did it get up to 192?

No, it it's down to it's down to 50.

No, no.

But originally we sent a hundred letters.

Right.

Those were stages we had sent.

We originally I told you it was a smaller number the first time, then it we had reached a pl a number of a hundred, and we now we were completed.

That was a month ago.

Okay.

So it's been 192 violations.

Okay.

And of the people who have violated that we know violated, like my neighbor who I know rented it and then had black mold.

Has he been prosecuted?

And when we prosecute, it say, like I know he did no remediation and he didn't get a permit.

Do we make them take out wall?

Because when we met with you in November, you said you were going to make people take out walls and not if they do not comp prove to us in compliance.

And we haven't got to that level of compliance yet, but we would that's the next one.

But we've taken people to the magistrate already.

We've taken, I believe, one person for doing unpermitted work.

We've had that's all.

Because we're going through these people are reaching out to us, and we're working with them.

But what about I know that there's probably at least I'd say 25 at least that that fully fixed their houses without permits.

Okay.

And and you you know that it's one on my block.

You know there's several others that we have discussed.

But but our goal was to get everyone violated, let's be candid.

We have them violated.

It's on their property card that they have a violation.

They have been notified.

They have to clear that with us.

So if your neighbor tries to do anything, he can't get a permit, he's got to come in and go through the process.

The the first step in this is violating these folks.

I know, but it's taking a lot of people.

Well, it does.

It does it's gonna take a year because we went from being very laissez-faire to letting people, council said work with, then we went to a different method, and now we've cleared that backlog, and now we can go to the next level.

That's very candidly.

The bottom line is just because we know, meaning you know what your neighbors done, you know that they've not done right.

We don't get to go in front of a magistrate judge and say, we know we have to build an entire case.

And that doesn't happen overnight.

If I if you've been to the magistrate hearings, you see there's document after document after document and thick pictures, and it's all proven.

Our code enforcement, which is one and a half people, have just sent out 192 letters, and then when you send out those letters, you hear back from what did we just say, 140.

So it everything's a process, and it's not been a year because we didn't even start talking about this phase of it until that's true.

April or May or June.

June, it was after June 1.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

Anything else?

Alrighty.

So we have made it through the city manager report.

Now we'll go to the city attorney report.

No report, Mayor.

Although I believe uh there's a question for me.

May I ask a question?

Yes.

Okay.

This is just a question.

It's not an opinion or a request or anything like that.

In the Gabber last week, there was an article again about Lincoln Cemetery.

That's in my ward.

And I do know that we clean it up periodically, right?

We do we're being very respectful, but we don't own it.

And no one's asked us to own it.

But what would it take to acquire the Lincoln Cemetery with all its baggage?

Well, we just asked.

We've met over the years several times with or contacted the owner or somebody who is going to take over the rights to do that.

The city has always offered anything we can if they wanted to turn it over to the city, we would bring that to council.

We have never been offered that.

Okay.

Um we have been we've facilitated groups together.

Um I mean, I think we've mentioned that the last time we keep being told that whoever's taking it over will maintain it.

And over the years, the city has come in and cleaned up areas just because we want to make sure that it's taken care of when people have not come through.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

We're being very respectful, and it doesn't always seem like people think we are.

That's why I've tried to give uh updates a couple times.

Everything that's ever happened since I've been mayor, I've communicated to you for everybody to hear.

And so I know that there's a lot of inaccurate information out there, so I appreciate it.

But um, City me uh city attorney, were you gonna say something about um the state attorney's office?

Oh, yes, uh I I will do it.

Uh basically the state's attorney, the police gulf police department detective and the city clerk will be going to the state's attorney's office.

They've sketched the state's attorney's office has scheduled an Invest, which is the preliminary step to see if charges can be filed.

Teresa has to go as the city's representative with her records and such with the detective, and that's not as soon as we spoke last week and that issue, Chief Farron, everything moved.

So we did make the appointment, or she her people did make the appointment with the state's attorney, and that's how it will be presented.

And the state's attorney will make the determination if charges are to be filed.

And when's that appointment?

Monday, November 24th.

Yeah.

Okay.

Uh City Clerk report.

I do have just a couple of brief items.

First, I just wanted to recognize uh deputy city clerk Hartman for a job well done stepping in for me at the last meeting.

I know that was a very quick um, and she did an amazing job, so thank you.

Uh second item is just a reminder that we have qualifying opening um for the March 10th, 2026 election.

It'll opens up on Monday, December 1st at 8:30 a.m.

And it runs through Monday, December 8th at noon.

And this is for wards one and three.

If anybody is interested in a packet, I do have them in my office.

All righty.

All righty, and so that will take us to uh council comments and reports, and we'll go in speaking order, Vice Mayor.

Okay.

So I did a few different things.

One was a Sierra Club um Zoom meeting that they have uh that's called a think tank.

And um, the most important thing that came up there was a model tree ordinance and talking about tree canopy and stuff like that, which is something that we'll be working with our tree committee and stuff with to look at that.

Vice Mayor, they did meet have an initial meeting today.

Yeah, yeah, they were meeting at five.

Yeah, um, and then um a thousand friends had um a webinar on form-based codes, and um it's sort of a different way of looking at having your your zoning codes, and so it it was fairly complex, but um you know they dealt with things like front porches and having different setbacks for that, no garages in front, the number of trees, more walkable about sidewalks, dark sky lighting, missile missing building missing middle housing, and having pre-approved plans for smaller buildings so that it was less expensive to to build them, and uh would make a fewer barriers for small developers or individuals, and again, adding ADUs, duplexes, triplex, and reserving open space.

That's just some of the stuff.

And um, so I'll be putting stuff in my um report about that.

And then um, but they had a lot of stuff uh about this, and I think um there's a look is it Dunedin?

I think that has developed this.

I think it's done Eden.

Um anyway, so no, Palm Harbor.

And then there is a facilitation meeting that's about how to run listening sessions because for the Coastal Master Plan, they're gonna have a series of listening sessions.

So Courtney, Ingrid, and I all went to this, and we're gonna be starting to schedule these because it's part of the public input process for that.

But I also think it's really important that somebody from the council step up, maybe after the elections, because I won't be here, and this is a three-year plan.

So somebody else is gonna need to participate in that.

Um so the other thing I want to talk about is Wood Ibis.

And um, you know, there was a lot of complaints, a lot of issues, and um what I was told by the city manager is because I did think we should take the guy who was in PYCC who kept not clearing his ditch.

And I'm not talking about grass growing on the side, I'm talking about things down the center that prevent the water from moving.

And so he did said he would do a code enforcement.

So then he said he had to do a code enforcement into Wood Ibis Park where there was no problem with the water flowing.

And I've been trying to reach Scott because he said he sent me an email, and Scott's the uh skimmer point president for their HOA, and he said he had just talked to Tom about clearing along the fence line.

But when I went there and talked to the crew that was there, they were told to just clean it up, and the only things they were told to save was two big clumps of ferns.

And other than that, they were taking it straight down to the water.

And they took out Florida, I mean, um native plants, the whole stand of goldenrod, and there was a bunch of other native plants that they took out that were on the um the other side of the you know, more the park side rather than the fence side.

And um, you know, and and I've talked to the city manager about leaving a fringe, and it's a a standard practice, I think, of that you'd leave three to five feet for habitat for birds and whatever else is growing in there, and um and the small pond, which is what they took down to the water line, is where most of the nesting takes place, not not so much in the big pond.

And and even in the big pond, they did do some clear cutting there of a month and a half or so ago, which luckily there was some rain and most of that has grown back.

But they were supposed to be taking out invasives in that place, but they didn't poison the uh Brazilian pepper, so it's all growing back, and so that was a total waste of time.

And I think we need to be way more careful about how we treat our parks and be more responsive to citizens.

And if we're gonna do something big, we need to have a meeting, call a meeting and ask them what they want to see in their park.

Because the same thing maybe should be done at Tomlinson Park where you leave more of a fringe and stuff, and maybe they'd get more birds.

And the same thing with the um exercise equipment.

That if we had put a notice up saying we're getting new exercise equipment because the city feels that this is a liability now, it's get to gotten to a certain age that we need to replace it because people using it might think it's working fine, but we may know that we need to do it for whatever reason.

And if we put it, you know, but we'll be able to help you train on this and put a QR code.

All it would have taken is doing something like that, and the people who use that area every day would feel like people cared about them and were thinking of what their needs were, and and we're we're there to help them, and it would take virtually no effort on our part.

And the same thing happened before with playgrounds, which now the parent groups are are you know talking to the city about you know what they want to see in their playgrounds because they're the ones that have little kids and know what they need.

So I just want to to really bring that up that I think we need to be way more responsive to the people who live in areas before we go in and do something different.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And now Councilmember Shaw.

Um I just wanted to point out that um the response to violations trend is is definitely moving in a positive direction.

The last report that we were given in October, there were 80, well, started out at 70, and that was already by the time the meeting was held, 84 responded in the last 30 days, but now it's up to 140 responses.

So that's certainly encouraging and shows a positive trend of moving forward on these things.

That sort of thing.

Doesn't just end in their area or start in their area, like for example, Safety Harbor and Clearwater is one example.

So that and we're already hearing that we're going to need to work on relationship and collaboration with Pasadena Yacht and Country Club.

So that fits into that conversation.

And I know that Mr.

Nichols has a strong relationship with the public works in Safety Harbor and has had conversations with her about that as well.

So I think that's all good.

More questions and concerns were raised, but this week's top resident concerns were centered on Wood Iris Park, which is already been discussed or reported on.

And then on the recent changes to the fitness equipment, and and I I support that when we're making these kind of changes, just like we did with the playground and the young families to get the input from the users first.

And as far as uh the RVs, I'm I'm hoping that I know that you just announced that, and I really appreciate that, but I would also hope that we put it out in newsletters in many various ways, and that we have sort of a time frame to give them a heads up to get the information to them and then move forward so we don't have a repeat of so many upsets from the triangular visibility situation and on corners.

Um the Veterans Day Parade and the Veterans Day ceremony was wonderful, and the Fusion 49th Trolley Market was another successful community event.

Thank you to all who made those happen and to all who participated.

If you haven't seen the Gulfport Community Players performance yet, the show continues to run through third run Thursday through Sunday this week, and laughter continued to increase throughout the show.

And something about sex, and I'm 60, so it's the you can tell from that it's it's humorous.

Um as a highlight at the Gulfport Merchants Chamber meeting, I heard about the many exciting events they have planned, so we have so much to look forward here.

I'm also thrilled to be attending the young families of Gulfport meetings.

Their insights are invaluable to our city's future, and we can look forward to their community engagement, which I'm most appreciative of.

So very heartwarming.

But so many exciting upcoming events were talked about last night.

So we have such remarkable groups in this community.

I also learned that 180 folks are registered and will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner at the senior center.

That's touching in itself.

The Sun Coast Legislative Advocacy Committee on November 13th focused on key legislative priorities, including the ad valorum tax, rising property insurance premiums, and storm recovery challenges.

And I think those are all things that are going to be pretty close to our heart and very important for us to be aware of.

In a separate legislative webinar, we learned that eight different bills related to the ad valorium property taxes are now moving forward.

This is a very important matter that everyone is encouraged to watch closely and learn all you can.

It's a matter that can strongly impact impact our city's future, not just our city, but certainly that's what we need to be paying attention to.

I also attended the Sierra Club elected officials think tank Zoom meeting on November 10th, and they talked about the sharp rise in electricity rates in Florida, over 30% since 2019 was discussed, followed by solar and municipal tax incentives and the impressive savings achieved in cities like St.

Petersburg.

There was a presentation about efforts to develop a model tree ordinance and model native plant guidelines, which I found very interesting.

There's concern that trees are being removed for reasons other than disease or danger or damage, even though cities can adopt ordinances to protect them.

The discussion raised points about diversifying native trees in public spaces, ending clear cutting, preserving trees over 12 inches in diameter whenever possible, and limiting setback variances during the permitting process and more.

Okay.

Thank you.

The first event for Ephesian 49th was a great success.

I would like to thank Justin Shea, Deputy Chief Lund, and of course Chief Fernandez for being there and for tackling some of the issues that happened in the beginning.

We worked it all out.

It was pretty successful.

Over $9,000 went into our local economy from that event.

Yes.

Our next event is Saturday, December 13th from 12 to 6.

We will be marketing that and I look forward to seeing everybody.

And for those of you who want, really thank you for for doing that.

It was the first one, and it was very important that we got it off the ground.

What was the date of the next one?

Uh December December 13th from 12 to 6.

And it's a seafood crab boil.

Okay.

Um I was I wasn't going to talk about this, but I just do want to mention so Tomlinson Park is in my board, and I did hear, you know, a little bit about the new equipment.

So I chucked myself down there with my husband as a certified CrossFit trainer.

And we tell you is state of the art stuff.

I think change can be very difficult, but working off of old equipment is really not the way to go, right?

So I'm happy with the equipment and I stop over and I ask, and people are happy with it, and I think it's just a little bit of change.

So I just wanted to mention the equipment is very, very good.

Very good.

So thank you.

Mayor, if I may.

Yes.

Um council member early had brought up about Lincoln Cemetery.

Is that something council would like us to at least look into what it would cost us during your budget process?

You would have to talk about that, or at any point make contact with the property.

The owner, is that something council would want to even look at from the 30,000-foot level?

Well, I can tell you, since the uh I always call him the owner.

Yeah.

Um the owner and I did have a conversation after Corey Givens had announced that he and I had had a productive meeting.

Okay.

And that provoked the um minister pastor to call me, uh, Pastor Williams.

So in his messaging to me, he was very clear, he speaks as clearly as I do, and he said, I have not asked you for anything.

Right.

No.

So for him to say to me, I have not asked you for anything, and I said, and I'll hear from you if you if you want to, he said yes.

So to me, the ball is in his court is my feeling.

I agree.

That's good.

Yep, yes, thank you.

Okay.

No, we just wanted to clarification if I was getting direction or not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All righty.

So under my council comments, uh, I'm not going to take and read this um zoning ordinance to you, but um, you know, when when Donovan came and he talked about the e-bikes, you know, they're going so much faster and there's accidents and people are getting killed.

This whole thing with this site line is a big deal with the e-bikes, because if you're pulling up to a stop sign, and you cannot see, let's say there's a sidewalk right there, and you can't see even if anyone's on that sidewalk sidewalk, it only takes a split second, and that e-bike, and I mean we we as drivers could easily kill somebody.

So I'm very, very glad that we are now going in and cleaning up our sidewalks, making our sidewalks safer because of this sight line thing.

I'm all in favor of it.

Do I think we could have done it a different way?

Yes.

Do I think we will do it a gentler kinder way into the future, but still have teeth?

Yes, I do.

But in case anybody's still not clear what that is, so it's uh under chapter two of zoning, section 22-6 dot dot zero one F is when it gets into this 25 foot line that you're supposed to be able to see so that you don't pull into oncoming traffic coming from the opposite direction, or worse than that, uh a kid on a bicycle going the wrong way on the sidewalk, and you don't see them coming because of the sight line.

So that's one thing I wanted to say.

Then I wanted to say um, so you know we had the rain barrel class, and that was really well attended, and then Thursday, this Thursday night is in two nights from now, 6 p.m.

at the neighborhood center is the um rain garden, and it is uh again the University of Florida, the extension, the same gale Melissa West, who's an excellent presenter.

She is going to educate us on even those of us that don't have humongous yards, how we can create rain gardens in our own yards to help also with the flooding issue.

So I hope everybody will tend.

She says it's only going to take about an hour, so most of us could spare an hour if we think we could help our city or ourselves.

So that's one thing I wanted to mention.

6 p.m.

Um Jennifer, thank you for bringing up uh Safety Harbor.

I had dinner there just on Sunday, and I had just met the mayor at a forward panellis, and everybody was bragging on their mayor, so I'm gonna pick up the phone and call him to talk about how they had to work together.

I think that's uh great.

Um no, not Karen.

Um I don't know for absolute sure, but I've been told, and whether it's accurate or not, is that um the whole thing of cutting down the invasive plants and not poisoning them seemed like it was ineffective, or you know, won't work for the long run.

But I'm not sure that you can put the poison when you're right at the water.

I think there might be some rules about poison and water not going together.

Um so I wanted to make mention of that.

Um that's it.

So it is 8 31, and my bladder can't go anymore, so we are going to take a break until 8 38, seven minutes.

Okay, and we will resume at that point.

Thank you.

I really do appreciate everybody being back on time and letting us go, because I know that uh our meetings go so long, but we have to take a break.

We're old.

I'm old.

Whoa.

Okay.

All righty.

So with that being said, I believe that we made it through council comments, and now we will go move on to consent if you would.

Item 6a, consider approval of meeting minutes for meeting held November 4th, 2025.

And item 6b, resolution number 2025-97.

Your resolution appointing a member to serve on the board of adjustments and providing for a term of appointment.

Motion to approve?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye, aye.

Any opposed?

Passes unanimously.

All righty, to onto the ordinance.

Ordinance.

Mayor, if I can address this, I've talked to some of the council members.

Uh there is a concern that this has not gone based on the time period with the changes we made going out to the public.

Um, I have, as I said, a couple council members would like us to move this to the next meeting.

Um we don't if you make a motion to move it to the next meeting, we don't have to re-advertise it.

Uh which we only advertise by title anyway.

But then we can put I'm sorry, then we can put the ordinance um on our website, and everybody can be able to look at it in case they have any because we made a lot of changes, and and we want to make sure everybody understands what we did.

And if we move it to our next meeting, we're okay uh time frame-wise.

Yes, I talked to Teresa and she says yes, we are okay.

Okay.

So you're looking for a motion, you're saying?

Yes.

Yeah, I would like to move to table this until the next meeting.

Second it.

I second.

Seconds and thirds.

Third.

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Mayor Love?

Yes.

Passes unanimously.

All righty.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think there are the some of the information that was put out there was not the most current information, and it was causing some confusion.

So by tabling it, then that would mean that our public also gets the chance to see the accurate information prior to discussion and public comment and so on and so forth.

So very good.

All righty.

Resolution.

Item 8A, resolution number 2025-98, a resolution authorizing the city manager to enter into a contract with Keystone Excavators Inc.

for the 58th Street Roadway Improvements Project and authorizing a budget amendment.

Motion to approve.

The second.

City manager.

Yes, Mayor, this is the culmination of the 58th Street Roadway Improvement Project.

We were lucky enough to receive grant funding or state funding, appropriation funding to assist in this project.

Mr.

Nichols and Mr.

Keller are here this evening.

They're the uh visionaries behind this.

And uh you have any specific questions, just approves the contract for construction.

All right.

This was bid in two different ways.

It was bid uh to do a full depth of reclamation would be to pull pulverize all the because there's brick underneath the asphalt.

So it would be to pulverize all the brick and then use that as the base.

And we also then we that we did receive some concerns that that may not be stable enough.

So there was so we bid it, we added a second bid item that would be to complete reconstruction, take all the brick out of the roadway and then build the base back up.

So the recommendation from our engineers was to take alternate B, which was B the rehabilitation, um, just a slight cost increase.

We also bid it the the appropriation was for 17th to Gulfport Boulevard.

We added 15th to 17th just to see what that number came in, but with the bid price coming in at 343,000 over what we had originally budgeted, we decided to leave off the 15th to 17th off, and that's not as bad as the 17th at Gulfport Boulevard is anyhow.

So and again, it's a roadway reconstruction, new sidewalk.

It'll be I don't know, about an eight-month construction project.

There'll still only be sidewalk on one side of the road, right?

That's correct.

Okay, and um is there a little bit being done to help with um drainage to a slight bit, there'll be a uh I believe a couple of additional inlets, but basically getting the uh the level of the roadway to get the water to to move better, but it would be very slight.

It's basically we got the appropriation for a roadway improvement project.

Okay.

Okay.

Do we have any questions?

Yeah, I do have one.

I was just looking.

So how much because we're having to do a budget adjustment as well.

Right.

And um I was just on the wrong thing.

And so is that budget adjustment because we're changing from crushing up the the brick and using it?

No, all the bids came in over our initial uh estimated amount.

We had one point one point two appropriation, we budgeted five hundred thousand for one point seven, they came in at two million two three, so we were 343,000 over what we had anticipated.

Oh, okay.

So it wasn't a change in what we're doing, they just all came back up higher.

Okay.

That's correct.

Okay.

Anyone else?

I have no further questions.

Yep, we had a town hall about this, and so if any questions come up during the construction for anyone watching, let me know, and I'll work with Tom.

Thank you.

Yep, thanks.

Thank you.

Uh do I have any public comment on this?

Seeing none.

Yes.

Councilmember Shaw?

Yes.

Councilmember Jackson?

Yes.

Councilmember Early?

Yes.

Mayor Love.

Yes.

Passes unanimously.

Item 8B, resolution number 2025-99, a resolution authorizing an amendment to the fiscal year 2024-2025 operating budget to account for expenditures and recoveries to meet the response recovery and mitigation costs incurred as a result of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Motion to approve.

I second.

Okay.

City manager.

Mayor, this is basically we moved all of the hurricane expenses and the revenues and also loss of revenues into one fund.

Chris Cadell, our finance director's here this evening.

But one thing I want to do is compliment Chris and Shannon's effort to manage all these moving parts.

And as you see, I think the most important page to look at for my perspective, I know the work they've done internally, but is to look at the exhibit.

Exactly.

Exactly.

If you'll see that that yeah that you had started your uh your fund balance, and um after all the reimbursements and such, we're at six point, but we have spent about 1.2 million dollars of non-reimbursable cost.

Um so right now we also have an estimated 2.9 million dollar FEMA claim in.

We hope to re realize all that, which once that is realized that we hope that our fund balance will return to within the million dollars, other than the million dollars that's not reimbursable and such, that your fund balance will return to return to in the five million dollar range, so that'll keep you very good for next year.

So that's where we're at.

But they did a great job managing a lot of parts.

Yep.

And did Chris wanna say anything to say?

He forgot his tie.

I uh not much to add, it's just uh finalizing numbers for the year, end of the year, adjusting our budget for you know, we were just responding.

It storms hit at the end of last year, the beginning of this year, and it was just a process of just responding and managing through the year.

And so this is kind of just the final year in budget adjustment to account for all that.

Okay.

Any questions from council?

No, no.

All righty, thanks.

Vice Mayor Thanos?

Yes, Councilmember Shaw?

Yes, Councilmember Jackson?

Yes, Councilmember Early, yes, Mayor Love, yes.

Passes unanimously.

All right, let's see here.

So that will um then we have discussion on there.

There is no discussion at one point.

Well, I'm talking to a few people now, but at one point we thought we would have a discussion about our presentation tonight, but we realized that there would be too much to take in, and that we needed to do our homework and study the presentation a little bit before we had uh additional discussion about it.

All righty.

Um so we will then go to new business in speaking order.

Okay, the first thing I just wanted to check because I mentioned the solar dashboard before that the Sierra Club can do, and I you know, I I didn't really get a consensus one way or the other, so I just wanted to check whether you were interested in having them do that or not.

What is it?

Uh I sent it all to you.

Um, but it's about the Sierra Club doing a study of how many houses have solar on them and where we're at with that and what that means to us in terms of saving money and and being more resilient.

I had someone come and look at our home, but we had so many trees that we weren't good candidates.

How are they going to farm that out?

How is that gonna look?

Well, they they would just look at who who has it and what it means.

There's definitely places that can't do it.

Yeah, like I have it on my house and I have it already on my new house because I wanted to get the 30 percent, but absolutely there's places that have too many trees and can't do it.

So so it's just to give us information so we know where we're at with it.

And then we would do uh it would just be informational, whether we want to do anything to encourage it, maybe make permitting less or do something to encourage it.

You know, we could discuss that at the time.

I mean, I'm I'm fine with that.

Information's good, right?

So I'm fine with that.

Um as I recall there when this came up before there was some concern about um use of staff time.

But public record requests it would be.

But that but that's what I was going to just say that from in asking further questions.

I understand that that shouldn't be an issue.

Right.

So, you know, I think any information we have towards sustainability and in educating the public is positive.

Okay.

Yep, I agree.

All right, then I'll go back to them and let them know.

And then because they didn't have a chance to do it.

First of all, I just got my book that Lynn Taylor did that I got my signed copy.

So you might consider getting those.

Um, and Saturday, November 29th is small business Saturday.

And Saturday, November 29th is small business Saturday.

And it's a chance, you know, they're talking about having a blackout on buying anything, but you need to think maybe of not buying from big box or online.

But supporting small businesses helps the whole community.

And if you have any questions, you can talk to Amy.

And then there's also gonna be a resiliency meeting program at Wonderworks.

And if you're interested, talk to Amy about that.

And then also there's vigils for immigrant justice that are taking place at the um the county courthouse up on 49th, every Sunday from 4 to 5 p.m.

So if anybody's interested, that's a place to go.

And then that's all I had.

Thank you.

At the county courthouse, she's a courthouse.

All right.

It's my understanding there's very good organizations involved with that, starting with the League of Women's Voters, et cetera.

So it's it's a very peaceful vigil as I understand it.

Um I had a list of questions, and every one of them have already been answered, so I have no new business.

Very good.

All righty.

I have no new business.

All right.

I I just have something.

So most many of you know that I uh volunteer for the route um reach program for kids, feeds children, and um this year there's so many that need.

So, in addition to fundraising and bringing groceries over, I have five 100 gift cards to publics because they received a grant.

I talked to Laurent Stern who's been doing a lot with our community lately.

She gave me a family, I knew of a family, but if anyone knows of a family that um would benefit from a gift card, um please let me know.

I have three left.

Thank you.

Okay, so for me for uh new business is um once again.

We are going to have a workshop here in this uh office next Tuesday, the 25th at 4 o'clock.

The same team that uh did their presentation to us tonight will be at that workshop meeting, okay.

Uh and there'll be a lot more give and take, and it'll be on that topic only.

The second thing is um we haven't talked about this yet, but it's coming up uh that the Lions Club is not going to be renewing their lease, and so that property which we own, we don't own the building, but we own that property, it is coming back to us, and so I am going to put the word out there now that on January 8th, we're gonna do a workshop here at 6 o'clock, and we would really like the residents, particularly in the marina area, to come and talk to us about what their vision is on how we could use that space, and then we have one more is on February 8th, and I don't know what day of the week that is.

We're going to have a workshop where we will um introduce the referendum questions, and there'll be kind of a question and answer period.

Not that we are going to counsel or advise anybody on how to vote on the referendum, but to make sure that they know in advance that the questions are gonna be on there and that they understand them and what a yes means versus what a no means on those questions.

So we have three route um three workshops scheduled at this time.

Yes, city clerk just wanted it's February 5th.

Oh, what did I say?

The eighth oh thank you.

I typed it as 8th too.

Okay, let me correct that.

February 5th.

And what day of the week is that?

Thursday.

A Thursday.

Okay.

So January 8th for the marina, February 5th for the referendum questions.

Next Tuesday, the 25th for stormwater questions.

So that's where we are on that.

Um I did attend the forward panellist meeting.

Um I can't think of anything on the top of my head that I really want to express that I got out of the meeting.

So except I think the most everything that happens, not everything, but so much of what happens at Ford Pinellis is really happening more on the north side of town and north side of of our county as opposed to our south.

And one of the reasons it is is because when he showed the maps of where we were, how this uh county was developed in 1964.

Guess who was developed?

We were.

So, you know, all the changes are happening up there.

The traffic and the congestion are up there.

So I mean, I know that there are some things that are going to be happening because certainly um the 49th Street improvement is moving forward in Ford Pinellas, but that takes a couple years to go through all the steps, but it is the it is advancing.

So that's about it on that.

But then I did get an opportunity, uh I guess I think it was yesterday.

I sat in on the Florida League of Cities uh meeting and uh a webinar, and it was really helpful as always, and it really focused in on the whole uh tax issue because that is the issue that everybody's talking about.

So I might be a little redundant in some things I said before, but I did want to share this again because this topic isn't going away.

So this is kind of what I heard in the notes that I uh I I made.

Okay.

It started with the governor making a very uh sending a very clear message message that taxes are bad and he wanted them all eliminated, okay.

Uh it quickly switched to being for homesteaded properties, not for non-homesteaded properties, okay.

And from that it progressed to we certainly have to continue school taxes.

Okay.

Um, and that's really important, the homestead versus non-homestead.

Well of all the cities in Penelope um in our our state, there's a great variance.

You know, we have cities that might have um 70 percent of their homes are homesteaded, and then we might have cities that are mostly commercial and tourist and investor, and they have 10 percent uh that are homesteaded.

They would not hurt nearly as bad as we would hurt.

So to to just put all the same cities in the same box is gonna be very uh is gonna be very hurtful to some.

So the House has come up with uh eight bills, and they are planning to advance all of them the first week that they go back into session.

Um and they're planning to advance them all to the Senate.

Um what I've been told um from these classes is that the Senate is being very quiet and not really um playing their cards at all.

Uh they might take and advance all eight votes to the voters, which would be real interesting because of these eight bills, they're all over the board, and some of them contradict other ones.

I mean, it's they're not all on the same page by any means.

And then there's other people that think that uh the Senate might uh totally create one bill of their own, and that that's the only one that'll come before.

The bottom line is what we're hearing is it's gonna be the Senate calling the shots.

And so, you know, if we want to be getting in anybody's ear, that's who where we need to be talking and spending our time.

Um definitely they reiterated, and I said this the other day.

Um if they then said, you know, we're gonna protect homesteaded properties, and then they said we're gonna keep school taxes.

They also are talking about keeping public safety uh safe, but they've made it very clear that uh they don't necessarily consider EMS as a public safety.

And and they're there they could be on the chopping block if we do away with taxes.

Uh we have currently have 34 cities in Florida that could not fund law enforcement without the taxes they're collecting now on homesteaded properties.

That's 34 right now.

That doesn't talk about all the other services they provide.

They could not even do their um law enforcement.

Uh again, our cities vary greatly in terms of the percentage of homesteaded properties, so how they're affected will vary greatly.

And I just want to say that I am gonna stay on top of this and I will keep reporting as I can without ever trying to give my own opinion, just what I'm learning in these classes.

And last but not least, they did wrap up again on Bill 180, and again kind of reiterated what I was told at the last meeting I went to that um the expectations are that it's gonna be revisited and it's gonna be narrowed in scope due to the outcry of the public as well as the elected officials.

And I know that this um bill, Senate Bill 180 really does affect us as a city of Gulfport, so that's something that I'll um be able to actually be a little bit more proactive in as well.

And that's all I have.

Can I make a comment?

Uh-huh.

I love that we're having these workshops.

I think it's great.

I would suggest that we shouldn't have any that start before six because then people who work can't come.

I agree.

And with that, the meeting is adjourned.