Okay, good morning.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to the February eleventh meeting of the Hillsborough Transportation Planning Organization.

It's good to see everybody this morning.

If you would please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, everybody.

Mr.

Streeter, would you please call the roll?

Good morning, TPL board.

Ross?

Here.

Wallstool?

Here.

Here.

Miller.

Here.

Myers?

Here.

Cullen?

Here.

Bowles?

Here.

Clinton?

Here.

Hertak?

Here.

Carlson?

Here.

Kilton?

Here.

Gray.

School board member Gray.

Oh, here.

Thank you.

Kluge?

Here.

Roderick Christon?

Yeah.

Slater?

King.

Here.

Joseph?

Here.

Thank you.

You have a quarter.

Thank you, Mr.

Streeter.

Before we begin, I'd like to introduce to everybody our newest board member, Mr.

John King from Hart.

And uh would you like to introduce yourself, sir?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I'm not a Tampa native, but I am a Florida native.

I went to Florida State, spent uh twenty two years in in the Navy, and retired out of Think Dill in twenty fourteen.

Um married, I have a uh three stepsons, and um a golden doodle.

Who is uh uh an absolute joy.

But anyway, um, I'm I'm happy to be here as Hearts Representative, and I'm looking forward to working with all of you.

Well, welcome, Mr.

King.

Thank you.

Okay, uh, board members.

Has everybody had an opportunity to review the meeting minutes from January 14th, and if so, is there a motion?

Second.

We have a motion by board member Gray.

I think she got it first and uh seconded by uh Councilmember Clinton.

Uh any discussion or corrections to the minutes?

If not, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

No nays.

Uh public comment section.

We currently have nobody signed up for public comment.

Committee reports and advanced comments.

Our first uh committee report will be from our CAC chair, Rick Fernandez.

Mr.

Fernandez, you're recognized, sir.

Good morning, Chair.

Thank you.

Uh you hear me all right?

Yes, sir.

We can.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Okay.

Good morning to all.

Um, this is uh for the record, uh, Rick Fernandez, Chair of your CAC.

The Citizens Advisory Committee met the evening of uh February 4.

We easily met quorum as has been our norm.

TPO staff uh presented the uh traffic signal prioritization study and also presented the uh TIP amendment for Hart's new compressed uh natural gas buses.

Both of those were action items for us, and they're both on your action item agenda this morning.

So let me start with the prioritization study.

CAC members ask questions about ADA compliance and pedestrian call buttons and about the relationships between a signal database or center with law enforcement regarding notification of signals that are not working.

CAC members appreciated the incorporation of their feedback from a previous meeting.

The CAC voted 11 to 1 to recommend the TPO board approve the traffic signal prioritization study and direct TPO staff to integrate the methodology into the list of priority projects.

I have a slight divergence at this point, Chair.

Um you uh good folks have been provided, I understand, a letter that was authored by two of our committee members, Christina Costa and Reva Inman, as part of your agenda pack.

I reviewed that letter yesterday.

I would consider it a uh well thought out dissenting opinion in part if I were talking about a judicial opinion.

Uh and I was asked by Mr.

Cop Ms.

Acosta to read portions of it to you.

Uh and with your permission, I will uh I'll expedite this, but I I thought it it deserves some elevation.

It's well thought out, and uh one is a new member Reva, and the other has been with us for quite some time, Christina Costa.

Again, the letter dated February 9, 2026 to the TPO board reference traffic signal prioritization study.

We are two members of the Citizens Advisory Committee writing to express concerns regarding the traffic signal prioritization study.

This study contains significant omissions related to safety and accessibility for our most vulnerable transportation system users.

The study does not include any assessment or scoring criteria related to pedestrian and bicycle push buttons, specifically their presence, accessibility, operability, or physical condition.

Failing to evaluate whether these devices exist, function properly, or meet accessibility standards, such as reach range, pole placement, and up and obstructions to sidewalk tactile features or audible feedback.

The and attributable points in the scoring metrics will create a major gap in the study's results and ultimately its recommendations.

Equally concerning is the lack of consideration for the geographic relationship between traffic signals and vulnerable user populations.

The study does not appear to account for proximity to schools, senior communities, medical facilities, affordable housing, or areas of higher concentration of individuals with disabilities.

By focusing solely on vehicular metrics and omitting these critical non-motorized fact factors, the TPO risks perpetrating or perpetuating, excuse me, inequities uh in our transportation system and missing opportunities to improve multimodalism, transit use and safety.

I'll defer any further reading.

That's about 50 percent of the text.

As I said earlier, it was authored by Christina Costa, Riva Inman, and it should be in your agenda package.

That said, moving to the closing uh here, TPO staff presented the TIP amendment for Hart's uh new compressed natural gas CNG buses.

CAC members asked about how this will impact service operations, why CNG and not electric, what happens to the buses being retired, and about the training program for future mechanics as I understood it.

The CAC voted unanimously to recommend the TPO board approve the TIP amendments.

If there are any questions, I'll I'll try to stand for them.

And if not, I appreciate your your time.

Thank you, Mr.

Fernandez.

Board members, are there any questions?

Seeing none, thank you very much.

Uh next up is our TPO staff member, Harmony McGee.

Good morning, Ms.

McGee.

Good morning, Harmony McGee, TPO staff.

Regarding today's action items, the Technical Advisory Committee recommended that the TPO board approve the amendment to the fiscal year 2026 to 2030 transportation improvement program.

A few questions arose, such as whether any other buses will be coming up for replacement and how many food fueling stations there are for the buses.

TPO staff confirmed that the oldest compressed natural gas buses are due for replacement soon, and that fueling is done at the Hillsborough Transit Authority facility via direct line.

They also discussed the changes to the bus's interiors.

It was noted that some changes will be system wide, while others are new features specific to the upgraded buses.

The technical advisory committee also recommended that the TPO board approve the traffic signal prioritization study and direct staff to integrate its methodology into the list of priority projects.

The committee discussed evaluating sign signal cabinet heights, noting that short, medium, and tall cabinets were analyzed.

Members emphasize that cabinet evaluation should consider vehicle turning radius, nighttime visibility, and the frequency of cabinet strikes.

There was also discussion regarding the associated grant and the selection of eligible corridors.

Staff shared that a centralized signal database accessible to all jurisdictions is currently in development.

The committee requested that a melt and debrief that a Milton debrief be incorporated into the study.

TBO staff noted that language is being included to allow flexibility for a variety of backup power supply options.

Structural evaluations were also discussed, and it was noted that there is currently no reserve inventory of signal massed arms, nor is one being considered for new signals at this time.

Additionally, some jurisdictions are exploring adding a prioritization process for new signal locations alongside upgrades to existing struct infrastructure.

Public comments were also received via email and social media.

A letter was submitted expressing concerns about the traffic signal prioritization study, which is in your packet.

On Facebook, Walk by Tampa responded to a community member advocating for the development of missing segments of the Gulf Coast Trail by encouraging them to reach out to the Hillsboro TPO.

Sam Bowden Akbari commented on Facebook, stating that Waymo should not be supported in cited multiple articles that explain its negative impacts.

And we also received a comment on the Vision Zero Hillsboro Facebook page from Eric Page, who shared safety tips for e-bike users, including wearing a helmet and passing e-bike riders properly.

This concludes my report.

Thank you, Ms.

McGee.

Any questions for Ms.

McGee.

Thank you very much.

Next board members is the consent agenda.

Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

Motion approved.

Second.

Motion by Councilmember Clinton and seconded by Commissioner Wallstall.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

No nays.

Consent agenda is adopted.

Next we'll move on to the TIP amendment regarding Hart's new compressed natural gas buses.

And Ms.

Watkins will explain.

Good morning.

Good morning, Mark.

TPS staff.

Thank you.

Good morning, Elizabeth Watkins, TPO staff.

I'm really excited to present this TIP amendment for you today.

It represents the largest federal grant that Hart has won.

Um you help me share that.

So the TIP amendment today reflects the largest grant that Hart has ever won in their history.

It's 32 million dollars to replace their aging fleet and transition to 100% compressed natural gas or CNG fleet.

So this award will replace 33 aging diesel buses.

And with this investment, it will make Hart the first transit agency in Florida to have 100% low emission fixed route fleet.

A small proportion of this grant will be used to expand their mechanic training program that they have a partnership with Hillsborough County.

So that will be investing in this technician shortage and increase these trade skills that are so needed in Hillsborough County.

This is a photo of a compressed natural gas bus.

You can always tell which ones are CNG because they have the uh tank on the roof.

So a few of the benefits of this investment, there'll be a reduced error uh pollution, particularly with uh particulate matter that's um expanded from diesel fleet.

You don't have that with CNG buses.

It will also reduce the maintenance costs by over a million dollars per year because you'll have newer buses, um, which when they're newer, they don't have as many upfront maintenance costs.

And then another tangible benefit of this is there will be improved service reliability.

Newer buses don't break down as frequently as older ones.

So HART is expecting to have an increase in their on-time performance.

So the actual change before you today is to add this award to the transportation improvement program so that HART can access these funds.

So what the tip page is showing is that $32 million in federal funds, eight million dollars to match it for a total of 40 million dollars to replace the buses, and um to invest in that apprenticeship program.

The recommended action before you today is to approve by roll call vote this amendment to the transportation improvement program.

And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ms.

Watkins board members.

Questions, coordinator Gray.

Thank you, Ms.

Watkins.

My question is we just bought a slew of uh electric buses.

So what would you all um or did you all look into the cost savings and environmental benefits of electric versus diesel?

So my understanding, and if anyone from HART wants to address is um electric buses require a significant amount of infrastructure.

Um so CNG has been the preferred um technology for HART.

They've been working at this for 10 years, they have a direct line.

But um, hey Sue Sarah, Heather, if you'd like to add anything to that.

Thank you.

Um good morning.

Uh Hesis Brothers Hart staff.

Uh there are several things about electric.

Um, buses are more expensive.

Electric buses are over a million dollars.

CNG buses are 850,000.

Um there's an infrastructure component as well, like Elizabeth mentioned.

We we've been working with CNG since 2015.

So we already know how they work.

We already have the infrastructure in place to maintain them for electric.

We are we would need a lot of investment on the infrastructure side, not only the vehicle side, charging stations, retrofitting the heavy maintenance facility, which is you know is outdated and needs replacement as it is.

And lastly, there is a component of um how things work at the federal level.

Uh this grant was for low emission, no emission, but most of the awards were for low emission.

Um, so there's that as well.

Not electric was considered on the heart side?

No.

Yeah, no, we went for CNG.

So those were your choices.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

Commissioner Wilson.

Nope, pass.

Any other questions?

Board member Rhoda Krishnan.

Thank you, Chair.

Um would this would these buses be compatible with renewable natural gas, which is not fossil fuel.

It's from um landfills and the like.

Would these buses and the grant be compatible to later use retrofit to use renewable natural gas?

Yes, we uh Heather Sobosh with Hart.

Um, we are looking at renewable natural gas.

And I know our maintenance director is actively researching that.

Can I ask another quick quick question?

Um, I do have a question if nobody else is good.

Okay, I'll come back to you.

Um, actually, a couple questions.

One is I know normally we would not be buying or Hart would not be buying this many buses in one batch.

I assume that they like this like our city kind of meters out the fleet so that we replace a certain number of vehicles each year.

This is a good development to get this sizable federal grant, but it causes us to buy all these buses at one time.

I'm assuming that they'll all reach end of life at the same time, however long they last, they're all gonna get end of life about the same time, too.

Is there some type of plan at heart to figure out what to do in seven or eight years when all of a sudden 32 buses are now, you know, there's no guarantee we're gonna get a grant like this in eight years.

So we do have a fleet replacement plan, and that's about 16 buses per year going out into perpetuity.

Um that that's really what we're trying to achieve is to have those annual replacements.

Can you identify yourself for the record, please?

Oh, sorry, Heather Sobush with Heart.

I still don't quite understand how you'll adjust that plan to compensate for one big year.

So in seven or eight years, you're gonna have this one big year come up again.

Yes, that that that will likely occur.

Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Clinton, and I'm sorry I delayed your motion.

Motion by Councilmember Clinton and seconded by board member uh Joseph.

Uh any discussion of the motion?

All those in favor say aye.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, I know you told me that, and I still Mr.

Streeter, would you please call the roll call vote?

Ross.

Yes.

Wolstool?

Yes.

Miller.

Yes.

Myers?

Yes.

Cullen?

Yes.

Foles?

Yes.

Condendon?

Yes.

Hertak.

Yes.

Carlson?

Yes.

Kilton.

Yes.

Gray.

Yes.

Klug?

Yes.

Roderick Krishnan.

Yes.

Slater?

Yes.

King.

Yes.

Joseph?

Yes.

Thank you.

Motion carrot in 16 to 0.

Thank you.

Next up is Wade Reynolds who will discuss the traffic signal prioritization study.

Morning, Mr.

Reynolds.

Good morning.

Wade Reynolds.

Hillsboro TPO staff.

I'm hoping this will come up on the board in a minute here for you.

But I'm actually just introducing Wyatt Bowers and Travis Stewart from Atkins Realis who will be presenting this study.

So thank you.

Mr.

Bowers.

Okay.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I'm assuming y'all don't have it up.

There we go.

Perfect.

Wyatt Bowers with Atkins Realis.

I believe Wade made a presentation to you all last month, and so I'm just providing an update.

Wanted to give you just a little quick overview again of the purpose of the study and talking about some of the comments that we've heard from CAC and TAC.

But I say assessing the baseline condition of over 1,200 signals throughout all of Hillsborough County and prepare a methodology to help in prioritization.

We did look at some other studies that have been done, including there was one that Theo worked on with Cutter, which looked at a methodology, and one of the key recommendations of that, for example, was to create a standardized digital template, basically, for digitizing digital infrastructure of signals, which would help with when they're communicating to each other, which was one of the comments that was just made in the CAC review.

And again, establish that performance methodology, which helps to prioritize for the LOP.

So aiding in planning and response operations during emergencies.

We definitely considered resiliency as a key component of the study.

So there was a full inventory done through multiple methods.

So again, um I think this offhand was 1,234, but it's over 1200 signals.

As I noted, a focus on resiliency, looking at the structure, type and condition and age of the signals as much as possible, looking at the cabinets.

For example, were they mounted?

Are they above uh street level, which helps in case of flooding?

So we definitely were looking at flooding in the floodplains.

Um and technology again with sensors and and the ability to do that.

Noting the most vulnerable locations.

So if you look at this chart, this is updated now with the different um components in it.

But you can see floodplain, um, the existing signal infrastructure, the traffic signal safety, which includes the high injury network, the cabinet, and then there were some bonus points related to resiliency and the high injury network to take that um and really elevate its importance.

So this is just an example of how um five four intersections, basically one in each community, um, Hillsburg County, Temple Terrace, City of Tampa, Plant City, and how they would have scored on the in the system.

Um now, what we've done is also provided a couple of maps.

So, for example, these are the top three intersections in Hillsborough County.

Um, you can see them Hillsborough Avenue, primarily because of resiliency issues in the floodplain.

Uh, the top three signals in the city of Tampa, of which two of them are in South Tampa, again, not surprisingly given the resiliency considerations.

And then we also noted top three in Plant City.

Um, and you can see the scores, for example.

So these were at 17 out of the 35.

The ones in Tampa, 2023, um, and then the Hillsborough County ones were 2427.

So in the end, what we noticed was that there were more high ranking or lower scoring, however, you want to the higher scoring or lower ranked, however, you want to think of it, um, signals in Hillsborough County that are in need of prioritization for improvements.

Um, there were some challenges again in in availability of data in talking with the different agencies, how each agency was collecting their data, what they had available.

Um, we do understand that there is some work that FDOT has been doing, and they were a part of our study, and we've also been coordinating with their staff over the last few weeks and hoping that we may actually even be able to fill in some of the gaps.

It doesn't affect the prioritization methodology, but if we can score things and adjust some of the scores over the next few weeks, we would love to do that.

And we're continuing to work with the partners on standardizing the data maintenance so that some of these challenges will not persist in coming years.

Um we did do some field visits, again, over 1,200 signals, not possible to go out and look at every single signal in person.

Um that deals somewhat to do with the ADA question and the push buttons.

Uh, you're simply not going to be able to get information on that from Google Street View and from the data that we had.

So that is something that will need to be done in subsequent, and you'll see here in a second where we're getting to that.

But we were able to do 50 signals that we looked at the ones that were in the floodplain area and on evacuation routes, primarily Hillsborough Avenue, US 41.

Now, when we finish the study here with your hopeful vote today, um agencies will be able to submit SU funding requests for infrastructure for signals.

We will hopefully have be able to move forward with standardized data collection and proactive repair and replacement instead of waiting for something to fail.

Um again, changes based on the committee and board recommendations.

We did add additional points for the high injury network, as I noted, and as applications come in, they will be reviewed for ADA compliance.

And as I said, we are working with the partners and hopefully enhancing the data collection efforts.

So that was super quick, but what we would hope today is that you will approve the traffic signalization prioritization study and direct staff to integrate that into the list of priority projects.

Thank you, Mr.

Bowers.

Board members questions.

Board member Greg.

Um yes, I my question, I just want to be clear what we're voting for.

So this is just to create a standardized data collection system to assist in the prior priority of these 1200 lights.

Is that correct?

Um Wade Reynolds, TPO staff.

Uh, yes, it is both to approve to accept the study and to integrate the methodology into our list of priority projects ranking uh that feeds into the tip every year.

Okay.

All right, thank you for that clarification.

Other questions?

Councilmember Hurtek.

Um again, I do want to talk a little bit about what was mentioned about pedestrian and cyclist prioritization signals, because it is a huge problem as someone who bikes and walks a lot in this city, it is very hard to reach those signals.

So could you just explain a little more clearly how you're going to put those in future iterations of the study?

If you'd like to go I'll I'll start and then um Wade can chime in.

I think again, the challenges to your point that requires a field visit to each one, figuring out, and and mind you, you know, I bike and walk a lot and took note of one the other day that I had to walk about five steps back to get to the button.

Um those are things that we would like to evaluate case by case, intersection by intersection, but in terms of this broad 1200 plus signals with I think what was about a hundred thousand dollar study, it's just not feasible to go out to every single signal and every single signal.

There we go.

Um so as additional funds are available, and the TPO, for example, prioritizes and allocates to go out and do that data collection, um, that's an opportunity, as well as when the agencies come in with requests, then the TPO will evaluate those on a case-by-case basis, looking at where the signals for pedestrians and bicycles are.

Um, can you not just also use Google map imagery?

So that was the challenge was when we did, because we did, and Travis can answer this if I say it wrong, but we did use Google Street View for a lot of the signal review.

But it is, you know, I mean, we could zoom in to a certain extent and maybe be able to see the pedestrian signal, but you wouldn't have all of the data about how many steps back, am I ADA compliant, things like that that has to be reviewed in the field.

Okay.

Other questions?

Commissioner Cohen.

You know, I I I was just I I understand that it's not feasible for um for the study to visit every site, but we could ask the various different jurisdictions to at least compile a list of ones that they know are problematic so that we we could at least you know get some of the the worst ones looked at and also give people who I mean there's obviously people who are um concerned about specific intersections.

If we could give them a place to send those concerns, we'd at least have we'd at least have some grouping that we could that we could evaluate.

Um thank you, uh Wade Reynolds CPO staff.

Um I I agree with that, and I think that um we we can do that.

The TPO though is unfortunately not responsible for the maintenance and upgrading of each of those individual signals on a day-to-day basis.

But what we can do is as applications come through for SU funding, um, we can evaluate them at that time and make recommendations to the jurisdictions about them.

But um I agree there are portals for both the city and of Tampa and Hillsborough County where people can report those issues currently.

Um, but um with with this effort uh we just could not in the last couple of months um compile all that data.

Okay.

Well, I think I think even if if we can't necessarily manage it from here, um it would be helpful to put the word out that if if we get information back about specific intersections, we will evaluate them as as we go through this process.

Yes, sir.

And I think we well, I know that we can evaluate them as we go through this process, um, and we can flag um intersections uh as we get reports of those as well within this database.

Thank you.

We can flag them.

Councilmember um Carlson.

Is there a way to um or do other cities have a system for real-time monitoring of this so that so that we can track in between when the studies are done?

Um I'm not sure I can answer that.

Travis is uh saying to me that he is not uh aware of any specifically, so we're not sure.

But again, that was one of the recommendations that I think was in the THIA study was to have a standardized set statewide where that information could be compiled.

And so that's something that's definitely should be a prioritization, and um it isn't you know included in the overall recommendations from our study board member Gray.

Yeah, I just had a thought when we talk about priority, uh, and I'm looking at um Mr.

Fernandez um or this letter of concern.

Does this is this inclusive of the push buttons and um you know to cross the street, and then I have a second question.

Are we prioritizing our school zones?

Because that's very relevant to our uh to the school district.

Um we have added uh we have added points for signals within the high injury network.

We have not added any additional points for within a school zone, and we have not um as I I think we we've stated um gone out and looked at every push button um on every uh poll for every signal.

So what I'm hearing, and and uh Mr.

Cope Member Cohen uh I think it's in my mind be very helpful to have more of that grouping that profiling to make a better, you know, uh more fidelity with the study.

But um just one member on this TPO.

But I I have to think, you know, just voting for this at mass is seems a little bit uh dubious.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Councilmember Clinton and this maybe it's a follow-up for Dr.

Wong, a continuation of our conversation yesterday about the sidewalk obstructions and having a comprehensive evaluation of the sidewalk obstructions in the county, you know, telephone polls or whatever the obstructions are.

Would maybe we look at a uh another study that would incorporate that along with because you know accessibility is part of what they're talking about with these uh you know, these signals as well.

I mean, maybe a future a future study to roll both of these things together.

Uh councilman, we could definitely consider doing a wide inventory of the condition and operational performance of each intersection, like what I think some of the other members have proposed.

I will remind you that the purpose of this study was specifically for the TPO to have a method to prioritize funding requests that we've received from local governments.

Up until this point, we have uh we have received those funding requests from city and the county asking for money to replace signals, but we had no way to compare them against one another to make a recommendation to you.

Where this study went a little bit above and beyond that is we also uh wanted to make some recommendations to each of the local governments about known issues.

On the flip side, as this, you know, if this study is adopted and how it could be implemented by the local governments, we trust that your staffs would evaluate the conditions for each intersection that they're seeking to fund.

And so it would require the engineers to go out and make a professional assessment about what infrastructure needs to be replaced, and at that time, if they notice any issues related to ADA compliance or the polls uh, you know, requiring utility relocations, that they would bring that up to us.

If we can fund it, we would, but a lot of times we're gonna be prohibited by the use of our grants.

Um, and so it would fall on the local governments to do that additional work.

You know, we can pay, we can help them pay for the signals, but the relocations may not be an eligible expense.

Some of these other uh some of these other things that we're discussing may not be an eligible expense.

Okay, thank you.

I hope I answered your question.

I think I gave more than you were.

I was I would say a little bit too much information, but it was uh no, it I I understand obviously I'm fully supportive of this and and for the original purpose and what we're doing today.

And you know, when it gets to that point, if we need a motion to approve the uh the study, that's fine.

But I I'm just looking at trying to capture the concerns that I've heard, and then of course what we had discussed yesterday about sidewalk obstructions, and it seemed to go in with the accessibility issue that somehow we you know at least have an understanding of how big and how wide the problem is.

To answer your question directly about whether or not we could fund those.

The answer is possibly if they're part of a larger transportation project that we're funding.

And so if we're going out to award money for a corridor redesign, utility polls would be part of that assessment.

Maybe we can pay for some of that, but uh, you know, that would be a collaborative project among or bundling TPO funds with local funds and possibly another source.

I would think that in large-scale projects, this is probably something we should always roll in, at least to have the bigger picture for for all both of these issues, the side sidewalk.

If we're doing a large corridor, that this probably should be a decision point or at least an information point to incorporate into every project that we do.

At least we had then we'd at least start a process of understanding what's actually out there.

Thank you.

Board member Slater and then Commissioner Cohen.

I think Dr.

Wong may have answered my question.

I was a little bit unclear on kind of what the project was that was coming out of this that was going to the list.

But it doesn't sound like there's a project that's coming out of this study that's going, it's going to be uh a tool that's used when when project requests come in.

Exactly.

Uh the only uh other suggestion I would have is you know, I think there's a lot of value uh in a collaborative effort.

I think the challenge we have is there's so much different ownership of the roadway system and the signal systems throughout the region.

Uh more of a master plan type of an effort that says, you know, what what's the destination?

What are we trying to get to?

What is that future system look like?

Where do we need crosswalks?

Where do we need ADA functionality?

Where do we need other pieces of infrastructure so that we're not necessarily just constantly replacing equipment and systems without making progress?

So just if you have that kind of information ahead of time and you know you've got to replace that, then you can replace it with with the improvement in mind versus just kind of replacing it the way it functions today.

Commissioner Collins.

Yeah, and I don't want to imply by my questions that I'm not supportive of having um uh a methodology for making these types of decisions related to signals, but I I just want to make a uh ask a follow-up question of what um school board member Gray asked.

What was the reason that we decided not to assign any points to proximity to a school?

It was not a criterion that was requested or that we we had thought about.

Mostly these were meant to be about a combination of the strength of the supporting structures, the height of the well, any any flood damage potential and age and type of controllers so that we could update, outgrade, upgrade outdated infrastructure was the purpose.

And that is, and we have gone back and we've added points as um as was suggested for the high injury network, but um so if we were to pass this today, is that something that could be looked at subsequently, or is that is it a closed subject?

Because honestly, we I mean yes, 500 feet of a school to me uh deserves some additional consideration.

You've got to assume that there's yeah, more kids.

So I would say as part of our effort, we do still have a little bit of time, and and we so we could go back, and I think again, this is meant to be an iterative process.

So even if we were done, the you know, TPO could go back and modify the prioritization to include those additional factors.

But yes, as Wade said, it was really meant to focus that the request came to look at the actual signal structures themselves, um, aging polls that were you know maybe at risk of falling down, things like that.

Um and then we went and started to modify for things like resiliency and the vision zero network.

But yeah, school zones could definitely be.

I think that's good, but I think we at least if you make a decision after analyzing it that you don't want to add points, explain to us why.

But I think just not to add points without at least going through an analysis is probably not we ought to do that once we get through this initial phase.

And and Commissioner, I I will say that um adding points for uh proximity to schools is very easy.

That's a GIS exercise rather than upgrading the whole database.

Um I I've and and we're happy to do that if that is the board's will.

Thank you.

Dr.

Wong.

May I propose to the board so that we nail this down today that that recommendation not be carried forward on this study, but we consider that when we present the list of priority projects to you.

So if we have multiple requests to fund signals, we could show you how they scored based on this methodology, and also note if they're in proximity to a school zone.

We uh it's just tackling it in a different way so that we don't have to bring this presentation back to you later.

Okay, uh councilmember Carlson.

Did I see you?

I think she wants to go first.

Well, she's in line.

I got you okay.

You're in line, but I want to make sure we have first people first.

So Commissioner Wall.

Um did you say you had a yeah?

Okay.

Um thank you.

Uh I I would be in favor of supporting a follow-up study that looked at pathways to and from schools.

I think it's important enough that we need to look at it specifically.

Um, and a lot of it has to do with um you know crosswalks and um and sidewalks.

If if there's not a uh sidewalk adjacent to the school, they're not allowed to have crosswalks.

So there's a lot of issues there.

The city has been looking at it, but it would be helpful to have a broader study with all the schools.

Also, um Councilmember Kellanden mentioned ADA.

It seems like we should have a separate add-on study to look at ADA accessibility and and obstructions.

That would be that would be another thing.

But the another issue is um in in downtown Tampa, we have a an ongoing issue where during peak times, the city of Tampa is um manually overriding the the signalization, and that's causing traffic jams throughout South Tampa.

Um Bay Shore Boulevard uh almost every night now gets backed up uh to Rome or Howard Avenue.

Um Platt Street gets backed up for a long distance.

The the Selman is backed up.

And um in last week's city council meeting, I asked the city to look at considering it, uh changing that that their plan because um we've added a lot of density in downtown, we've added people in downtown, and we essentially have become a big city, but it's not acceptable that all of South Tampa is jammed up because there are jams in South in in downtown.

Other cities with more infrastructure and more people are able to navigate that.

I wonder if you are if your study has any special um look at peak times in downtown.

Our study did not evaluate signal timing, that was not part of the scope.

That was not part of the scope.

So special events and how the signal times work is not addressed.

Commissioner Wastel, then board member Gray.

Thanks.

We're kind of veering off into a lot of different directions here.

But it looks like you rated them in four different buckets, the three cities and the unincorporated hills, bro.

Is that kind of how you presented it to us?

Um we did a prioritization for the full 1200 plus signals.

But and so they're actually in the report appendices, they're ranked one to 1234.

Okay.

Um, but then we also divvied them up by jurisdiction so that, for example, like I said, let's say I'm just saying for sake of arguments that top 10 intersections are Hillsborough County, and it's number 11 is the first one for City of Tampa.

That would be why we would also do a list by jurisdiction so the city of Tampa could look at theirs.

I just I want to keep the information as small as possible to get to my point.

Is that um there are four four jurisdictions, but it is a fair argument to school board member Gray about the school districts?

So how difficult would it be for you to simply add a fifth category with the information you have for us to see um which um intersection stop lights within that potential fifth jurisdictional boundary, the school districts?

Could you rate them or would that be too difficult?

Well, they're already ranked.

Um we could just do a radius around schools and and uh grab those those schools that are within or those signals that are within a radius of those schools.

As I said, it's not difficult to do that.

Um I think that we should just do that, and then we can handle the ADA questions at a different time because this money was specifically for this type of study, correct, Dr.

Wong.

So do you do you need a specific motion on that um for us to just direct them to, or can they just take our direction and bring us back that fifth bucket?

Based on what you mentioned, I would propose a uh recommendation to approve the study.

We will uh create a new list of traffic signals within a 500 foot buffer distance around school zones.

It's 500 foot.

Yeah, well, I think that's a little bit small because um we have Sumner, 4,000 students in the circumference of that one school, and this is uh excluding Newsome, excluding our big campuses, is generally speaking more than a mile in circumference, and that's left, right, north, south, you know, the whole area.

So 500 feet is is a small dimension uh from a run's point of view, and uh so I would say try to extend it for a mile because bicyclers come.

Um I mean a mile radius over all the schools, you're gonna have so much overlap.

You would pretty much have the entire county cover at a mile radius.

I'd go for a half mile, perhaps, but still I I think if for example, if we're saying 500 feet within a school zone, that gets at the signals where the majority of students are crossing, where you have your crossing guards and things like that.

Um I mean, we could look at what the difference is between say 500 and a thousand.

I don't think you would want to go beyond that.

Yeah.

So um so just a motion to recommend the study, and then you don't need any you can bring back to us off of the dialogue the fifth bucket, let's call it.

Okay.

I will motion to approve the study as it is um pending the future information from Dr.

Wong.

Motion by Commissioner Wastel, seconded by Commissioner Cohen.

Is there discussion of the motion?

I I have a couple comments, and so just thank you for the presentation, um, Mr.

Bowers.

I think it's important for us to remember the scope of the original study was really to do with the the hardware, the cabinets that are out there, the and the and the location of them, the resiliency, and that kind of stuff.

So when it comes to the actual ranking of proposed projects, there's a lot more factors that need to go into this, and I think that's come out in this discussion.

Proximity to schools is certainly one of them.

ADA um concerns that have been brought up many times.

I think that is a valid um thing that needs to be considered when we're ranking.

But there are other critical infrastructure too.

There's the emergency rooms.

I mean, St.

Joseph's Hospital, Advent, you know, Bruce B Downs and Fletcher.

Those are those signals are preempted by ambulances and fire trucks, so it's important that those signals have the latest technology as well.

Um I mean they're right up there with schools in terms of if if that signal fails, then delays an ambulance getting to the emergency room by a minute or two, that can be life-changing.

And so a lot of factors need to be figured in.

So I think the goal would be to start with the study like, okay, where's this intersection rank in terms of aging and um hardware and that kind of thing, but then you know how close is it to schools, how close is it to emergency rooms, how many cars a day go through that intersection.

There's a lot of other things to consider.

So I would trust that you and your staff would be putting a second layer on this decision making, not just putting it into this formula and spitting out of here's the tip, you know.

Okay, other discussion, board member Gray.

My my question is not even a question, but it is a with gratitude.

Um member Wastel and Member Cohen.

Um we have the seventh largest district in the nation.

220,000 students, largest bus fleet in the Hillsborough County, um 245 schools uh, and that is a huge amount of uh putting priority uh priorities in my mind that those statistics, the data should be also guiding those uh four to five areas.

Uh and I'm just giving you those statistics because I'm I'm kind of disappointed.

Um, but you know, I'm new to the TPO board, so I didn't get to the beginnings.

Um, and I will vote accordingly, but I definitely think you need to put that in your your study.

Um, and if you'd like to re reply at this time, I would appreciate it as to why it wasn't.

I think he's covered that board member.

Covered it.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So we're beating a dead horse.

Um done.

Well, I I think he's already covered that.

But got it.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Okay.

I yield.

Other discussion of the motion.

If not, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

No nays.

Uh study is adopted.

Thank you very much.

We have uh a couple of significant status reports next.

The first one's from HERT.

The next one concerns Waymo.

Um, I just like to remind everybody.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I didn't.

Am I missing something?

I thought you said that the Waymo person wasn't available.

Yes, Chair.

Um Monday evening, uh what the Waymo presenter said that he was called away to urgent business in a different state.

So I'm looking to reschedule that one for April.

Okay.

Thank you.

I didn't want to know that.

So we have still one from Hart.

So that's good because I was about to remind everybody of the time and that the so this frees things up a little bit.

So we have Jesus Perraza Garcia and and Donnie Murray here from Hart to present.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, TPO board members.

My name is Donnie Murray.

I'm the manager of community engagement.

I'm joined by Jesus Praza Garcia, he's manager of service development.

Today we're going to be covering some proposed service changes that might go into effect in June, um, talking about the outreach that we did with TPO's coordination, and just talking about what we heard from the community as well.

So these proposed service changes are a result of a comprehensive operational analysis that we did last year.

We do this study about every five to seven years.

It looks at short-term improvements.

It looks at just the efficiencies of our system itself, trying to identify some quick fixes to make our system more efficient and more effective.

This COA ties into as the foundation of our transit development plan, which our transit development plan is when we look at a 10-year forecast.

That's when we start to dream a bit bigger.

Look at our vision of how do we expand growth over time with funds becoming available.

And then this TDP ultimately ties into the TPO's LRTP as those first 10 years of the long-range transportation plan.

So we will be coming back to you next month to talk about the transit development plan and what our efforts are going to be for that outreach.

If the board approves these proposed service changes next month, these proposed service changes would go into effect this June.

So we did request feedback from the public about these proposed service changes for a 31-day period from in the fall, um, so that the community could have a voice in what we are proposing to adjust to the system.

We had a variety of different formats to receive feedback, both physical and digital, so that people could have an opportunity to be a part of this process even if they didn't have access to online.

And to educate people on these proposed changes, we had flyers, maps, videos, display boards, and all these materials were available in English and Spanish.

We also did a massive marketing effort to make sure that our riders were even aware of this opportunity to provide feedback, both physical and digital.

So we had posters at our transit centers, we had information on our heart website, posted things on social media, had email newsletters, and then posted newspaper advertisements.

So, in all, our community outreach efforts had a total of 37 community events, and so we were able to reach a total of 750 people who received information in some way.

This included being at our transit centers, having open houses at community centers and libraries, hosting online virtual town halls in English and Spanish, hosting pop-up events at our parking rides, and having staff even ride the routes themselves.

And so we were coordinating with the Hillsborough TPO, and we are grateful that we were be able to provide a consultant through Kittelson and Valerien to help us even accomplish all of these marketing efforts and all these outreach efforts so that we were able to just do more, make sure we're reaching people more, make sure the education is getting out there, making sure again that people have as much of an opportunity as possible to be involved in this process because these are their routes.

We want to make sure that our changes that we think we know what we want to do actually reflects what people want to do.

And so, in total, through all these efforts, we did receive a total of 212 unique public comments.

Our plan itself, we were proposing to adjust eight different routes, of which three of those routes we are actually proposing to remove, and we'll get into each of those routes one by one here in a moment.

A combination of these routes were again both coming from physical opportunities and those digital opportunities, a really nice mix.

So again, it showed us that some people prefer talking to a in-person, and then some people prefer just going straight to online.

Based on the feedback that we received from all of these comments, we did actually make some adjustments to our initial plan.

And again, you'll hear about some of that in a moment.

A couple of the main things that we adjusted, we were proposing to remove a loop to one of the HCC campuses.

We removed that from our plan.

We were proposing to increase frequency on one certain route based on the feedback.

We actually changed that frequency to a different route.

Um, so that some of the rules actually still saw improvements in those areas.

And again, which serve which adjustments are being affected in which area.

Um, and a log of all this documentation of all the outreach that we did, all the marketing efforts and what we heard is included in your packet as well.

And so now I'll hand it over to Mr.

Garcia to talk about these proposed service changes.

Okay.

Thank you, Donnie.

Um, I'll touch on some of the major changes.

Uh, the first proposed service change is the removal of routes 24 LX and 25 LX, which are limited express routes from the Brandon East County area to downtown and McKill Air Force Base with three one-way trips in the morning and three one-way trips in the afternoon.

There are several reasons behind this proposed removal.

Uh, first, these two routes are among the least productive in the system because they don't pick up too many passengers, particularly in very long expressway segments.

And they drive this long distance without picking many people, so that makes them unproductive.

Um these routes serve mostly commute trips for for one primary employer, the Air Force Base, and some downtown workers.

This makes them highly sensitive to shifts and ridership due to work, working condition changes or work schedule changes.

Um, other routes have a more diverse and stable ridership base serving um different trip purposes, multiple types of jobs, and more destinations.

The alternative for riders of 24 LX and 25 LX is the Van Pool service, which is maybe a better fit for this type of trip.

It offers flexibility with direct trips, shorter trip times, and choosing your own schedule.

Enterprise is the one who runs the Van Pool program, and it is already a well-established program for Mike Deal employees.

We will still have a route that serves the Air Force base.

Uh Route 3608 LX provides uh hourly service throughout the day from brand into the base from Monday through Saturday.

Uh, we're going to improve service hours for this route to start an hour earlier on weekdays so that it can provide an alternative to 25 LX riders on top of VAMPOL.

We have another removal, the Heartflight South County, which is the least productive route in the system.

On average, it only carries one rider per trip for a daily total of 30 rides, which means this service costs Hearts $60 per ride, whereas the average cost of a bus trip is $9.

There are many factors that hinder the success of this service.

The landscape is dominated by gata communities and a fragmented street network, which generates long walk distances, making it hard and unsafe to walk in this area.

For those who qualify, Sunshine Line would be an alternative to Hard Flex South County.

Sunshine Line is a door-to-door transportation service for the elderly low-income and people with disabilities who have no other transportation options.

And this service is run and operated by Hallsboro County.

Now, how are we improving the system with the resources freed up by this removals and adjustments?

One of the proposed improvements is to increase frequency on Route 38 from hourly to every 30 minutes on weekdays, which is reallocating the resources from 24 LX and 25 LX.

The initial proposal, like Donnie mentioned, was to increase frequency on Route 9, but we chose Route 38 instead, so that those resources will go back into the greater Brandon area in a way that serves more people better.

Route 38 serves Mango and Brandon, and it is 100% within unincorporated Hillsburg County.

All Brandon routes are currently hourly, as you can see on the image in purple.

So this would be a significant improvement for the area.

Route 38 is a high ridership route, and out of all our hourly routes, it is the most productive.

Also, Route 38 buses are regularly full.

All of this considered there is a strong need for higher frequency throughout the day on this route and in this area.

Lastly, Route 38 serves workers from several industries, including service workers, retail healthcare, and the casino, to name a few.

Here's another improvement.

The reallocation of resources in the COA allows for on-time performance improvements to one or two routes.

The exact route will be determined during the scheduling process.

The slide shows the bottom OTP performance with the lowest ranked on top.

As you can see, Route 7 and 9 aren't strong candidates to receive these OTP improvements.

Finally, here's a summary of all the service changes, which is the final proposal after the public input has been incorporated.

We have three improvements, more frequency for Route 38, on-time performance improvements for our routes to be determined, and an extra morning trip for Route 360 elects.

We have three removals, 24 elects, 25 elects, and Hartfax South County.

And we have adjustments to the schedule of two routes, 7 and 46.

The last two on the list were not mentioned on the Route by ROP breakdown because they're fairly minor changes, but they're still part of the proposal.

In total, all of these changes together with projected 200 new rides versus an average of 178 daily rides that would be impacted.

With the frequency and on-time performance improvements proposed, a total of 1900 rides would benefit.

As a result, both ridership and customer experience are improved by these changes.

With that, we thank you for your time, and we're happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much.

Board members' questions.

I was just gonna tell Mr.

Garcia that he always does a wonderful and professional job presenting us information.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Any questions?

Thank you, gentlemen, very much.

Thank you.

Good.

And as we mentioned before, Waymo's uh presentation is postponed, and so we'll move into the executive director's report.

Thank you, board members.

Um we have a TMA meeting this Friday at FIA beginning at 9:30, going until 11.30.

In addition to the TMA reps who always attend those meetings, we've invited members of the BOCC and Tampa City Council to participate.

We're gonna be asking that uh working group to take a policy on how cities with a population below 50,000 would be represented on a merged MPO board.

We met, we had a workshop with the League of Cities two Mondays ago, and their top preference was to have one small cities representative be a voting member on the full board, that small cities rep would be voted in by a committee of other smaller sized cities.

The second priority or the second preference was to have one small city from each county selected to be a voting member on the full board, and whether it's three small city voting members or one, those would all come off the top, and the remaining seats would be suballocated by population.

So that's on the agenda for this Friday.

Um TPO board meeting will be March on a kind of related note.

Lately we've been pretty fortunate to have short meetings, but I'd like to set the expectations that March, April, May, and then June being the TIP hearing, um, we're gonna have about six planning studies closing out, adopting a new work program, and then the LOP and the TIP.

So my expectation is that we'll go the full two hours over the next four months.

So just buckle up.

You just thin you just thinned the crowd, I'm sure popularity is trending down.

I'm sorry.

Um, and then I owe you some legislative updates.

There's not much to report at the state level, however, um, as many of you know, the federal transportation authorization bill expires this summer.

Um, we finally got some movement on that up in DC.

Uh, a couple couple folks uh introduced a new bill called the Basics Act.

Um, whereas under the IIJA, uh the requirements of many programs, I think it's fair to say advantaged state DOTs and other large organizations with uh the ability to do complex data analysis, manage contracts.

We were a beneficiary, don't get me wrong, Hillsborough TPO has uh won a number of discretionary grants because we have an excellent staff.

Um however, this disadvantaged the majority of MPOs across the nation.

Uh many of the funding programs were also competitive.

Um this bill shifts that pendulum a little bit in the other direction.

So in my uh preliminary reading of it, it seems to rely more on applying formula funding rather than discretionary competitive grants.

And it gives uh greater proportion of the funding to local governments rather than state DOTs directly.

Uh some of the big takeaways are that a large portion of national highway performance program funds are gonna get shifted over to more flexible grants.

So NHPP is only uh eligible to be used on national highway system roads in Hillsborough County, that's I-4, 27575, 301, 60, and and a handful of others that carry a large amount of traffic under this new bill.

Uh much of that money would be changed over to SU surface transportation, which is very flexible.

You can deliver multimodal projects with that.

Uh I don't believe that there are any restrictions on functional classification.

Um, and it can also be used for transportation planning.

Uh those are the big takeaways.

I'm still going through and doing a reading of this.

This is again just the first bill that was introduced uh over time.

I'd like for us to have some policy discussions about whether or not we'd like to support it, and if so, staff will take the lead drafting a letter allowing individual board members or the TPO itself to um sign off as uh supporters and then transmit those to our local Congress uh representatives.

Thank you, Dr.

Wong.

I saw Commissioner Cohen and then Councilmember Hurd.

I would just like some clarification as to what's going to be decided on Friday, because uh I remember there was a discussion at one point that uh as far as the apportionment was concerned, that um after the airport and the port came off the top, the seats would be divided, and then each county would decide for themselves how to handle their appointments, including how to account for the small cities.

What I hear you saying is that that is not actually what's on the table now.

What's on the table now is for each county to have a three uh have a small city taken off the so essentially five votes would get taken off the top, and the rest of it would be divided.

Is that accurate?

The option that the TPO preferred last year is still on the table.

I failed to mention this, but that was the third best option, or sorry, not best.

That was the third option selected by the League of Small Cities.

That option is still on the table.

Um, and that could that could move forward as a matter of fact on Friday.

Um where it becomes a little nuanced is Pinellas and PASCO prefer for us to identify a an allocation method that is consistent across the region.

And so while we preferred to just allow each county to decide for themselves how to delegate the seats, I think Pinellas and Pasco are looking for a little bit more uh of an aligned approach, if that makes sense.

I know, but the problem with that is that Pinellas has 24 small cities and PASCO and Hillsboro each have two.

It it I I mean it's really non-apples to apples in each county.

And at least I thought that the the thinking behind letting each county handle it themselves was that it would take that into account.

But I'm glad to hear that's one of the options.

Um, we can talk about it right now.

If I could add a little bit, because I was I was at that meeting and a big part of the discussion, and so yes, I I remember that that's what this board originally approved, and I still think that that's a sound approach.

I I spoke against the idea of each county having a small city, but I mean it's three.

I and out of respect in my mind, I in fact I even mentioned this.

I'm thinking of Tampa's perspective, and in my mind, it overrepresents the smaller cities.

If they get three, you know, that that's that's a lot of representation.

And so I I felt that that overrepresented the small cities by giving them too much.

Um I I still like that.

The other thing that I brought up in interest to our friends in Plant City was um they're they're gonna be 50,000 people in no time at all.

And so the way this is structured, we don't revisit the apportionment until every 10 years.

But with the census, and so they're they're gonna be 50,000 people in no time, and that's gonna bump them out of being eligible for small cities council, and yet they're not big enough now to be on the board as a big city.

So what happens to them?

And doesn't that same thing happen to Largo?

Yeah, I mean there's some other ones that and so uh I really tried to take in my conversations at that meeting.

I really tried to represent as best I could the interest of Tampa, which I fully aware of, and and our colleagues in Plant City too.

And so um the problem with any of these scenarios, as I pointed out to the group was these three counties are so different in terms of cities that um there is no perfect solution to this.

What what makes sense here with the three cities doesn't make sense in Pinellas with 24, and and not all of them qualify for the small city thing either, and then you've got six in PASCO and they arm wrestle over how to determine what their population is because it you know seasonal there.

So I still like the idea of each county figuring it out um on their own, but then that wouldn't I think there would be some expectation, but how are we gonna do that?

Um you know, because I I get it, Temple Terrace is free.

I mean, it and it was also brought up that all the county commissioners represent the cities too.

So it's not like you know, we have a county commissioners elected by the Temple Terrace residents too.

So it's not completely um so that is still on the table.

Well, I I appreciate what you said out of tremendous respect for you, Mr.

Chair.

Oh I I would what the scenario you're painting is that Temple Terrace would have a permanent seat on on the regional MPO, uh probably that is as sacrosanct as the airport and the port, and if plant city is out of it, you're the only one that can fill that that seat.

Yeah, but that that doesn't that's that's wonky too, because I mean we have 28,000 people, Tampa's got 450,000 people.

So to have this truly representative and a portion by population, you'd have to have a board of 80 people, which of course we can't do.

Um we'll see.

Yeah, yeah, we'll so I'm sorry, Councilmember Hurtek, you've been waiting patiently.

I jumped in.

Thank you.

Um no problem, it's a good discussion.

Uh I just wanted to say that I will not be able to be there, neither will any of the Tampa City Council members, because we have a very late night hearing on Thursday.

We're expecting it to go till two, possibly three in the morning.

So we will not be there at 9 a.m.

So um you are already on the TMA, correct?

No.

So then if you might want to go, you seem like you're passionate.

So uh so um I would say that he could I I just wanted to let to level set and just let people know we won't be there, most likely.

Um if it's going to be earlier, if we end earlier, but um history has shown us that these these particular hearings where we already have 500 emails about it that it will be a very long night.

So uh I I do support um the conversation with the small cities, uh the the two that were explained from um Dr.

Wong.

I I I will respectfully like leave that into your hands, and I know that Mr.

Slater will be there as well because he's the um he's one of our fill-ins, and I know you can't make it either.

So um, but it's good to know that we could have three, so I'm happy to hear that.

Is is there a staff member that could at least represent the city?

Do you have any available that would somebody be maybe available from staff?

We had somebody from the attorney from your city attorney's office that yes, unf um unfortunately he's also gonna be up till 3 a.m.

Okay.

So and lives in Largo, so um all of our staff people.

Councilman Clendon, do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I think I I mean all of our staff people will be at least my staff person will be with me all night.

Yeah.

Um so yeah, I don't necessarily and I don't know if that would be a productive anyway to kind of in order to spool them up in a timely manner.

But am I next to speak anyway?

So yes, your recognition.

Um you said something that I thought it resonated with me.

You know, this doesn't make sense.

Eventually, I think we'll get to a point where this doesn't make sense.

We have three we're trying to force a square peg into a round hall.

We got three unequal parts when you talk about the three counties, and then even within the counties, you've got all these unequal parts, which is difficult enough to manage.

Um so it's is it more and more is just it's reconfirming my first initial notion.

You know, when you look at, especially when you look at the apport apportionment, as uh Dr.

Wong and I spoke about yesterday, it's it's it's it's a very difficult puzzle to put together that again with three very unequal parts.

It's it's it's it's a very difficult puzzle to put together that again with three very unequal parts.

I mean uh the county is very unequal, and then you you talk about the interests of the small cities.

I mean, the voice that the small cities have on this TPO is is strong, you know, compared to uh what they will have in a combined uh the voice that Tampa has on this TBO is strong compared to what uh you know we will be significantly diminished on a combined TPO.

So uh I think that uh I think more and more is becoming self-evident of where we're heading.

Thank you.

Well, there are others who share your views on that.

So council member council member Carlson.

I'm sorry, did you I didn't catch you?

It's okay.

Commissioner Wastel, then we'll go to Council Member Colin.

Oh okay.

I'm sorry.

Um I just wanted to remind everybody again.

Um Commissioner Cohen and I sit on Tampa Bay Water, and it is living proof of an over three decade regional board of only nine members, um county commissioners, and the representation from the largest city.

Um, I've been on that board with you for over three years now, right?

Um the city of Tampa is ran by eight elected Democrat officials.

Have I ever once singled out councilman Miranda or prevented any of his asks or motions from going forward?

The answer is that is no.

Anytime the city of Tampa's engineers departments come and present to us, we hear their needs and we work with the department bodies to make sure that their needs are and concerns are met, and we move forward.

And it's just living proof that if you give people a chance to work together, they will.

Um has it ever been suggested that in our ordinance in the interlocal agreement that there is just a required subcommittee of the small cities?

For our MPO, no, the uh the concept of a small cities or municipal advisory committee is actually borrowed from Metro Plan Orlando when we went on the field trip, their elected officials spoke highly of that committee and said that it had functioned relatively well over the years.

So that's where that uh the impetus for that uh well that scenario came from.

I'll just leave you with this.

Um Commissioner Cohen has uh a really good saying at something like um if you're not at the table or you're on the menu or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I I I we can do whatever.

I I had an item that um Dr.

Wong talked me out of bringing that I'm confident would have passed because I just don't like wasting people's time.

So I did not bring the item, which was just to end the discussions.

Um, because I know for a fact that if we don't keep ourselves at the table or whatever, we're about to not have a decision and we're gonna be eaten.

And that is just a reality that that that was going to happen sooner than later.

Um I just don't want to waste anybody's time.

If it the same thing keeps getting told now as a year ago, the same threat from the same person, and just like everybody else, tired of hearing it.

So if I need to bring that item, let me know I can bring the item.

I can put everybody out of their misery, and then we can be eaten um next year or possibly still this year.

Okay.

That's just where we're at on it.

It's unfortunate.

We've tried to be extremely extraordinarily reasonable with everybody.

Um, I'll be there on Friday just to hear what's going on.

So I'll I'll leave it there, but we need to make a decision or decision can be made for us very soon.

Thank you.

Councilmember Carlson.

Yeah, I was gonna bring up some of the same things he said, but um uh I was involved in the creation of Tampa Bay Water back in 97, 98, and um I meant I mentioned this a little bit before, but um Steve Seibert and Ed Tranchick, who were the chair and vice chair, they went around.

I went to some of the meetings with them, but they met with every government official of every one of the member governments.

Now they're not as many because it didn't include all the all the cities, but um uh they went through and listened to every one of them.

And I and if the city of Tampa has to approve something, we're only three votes here.

Um we need to get a majority on city council, and so somebody who's not part of an advocacy organization has to listen to the concerns.

Um second, uh uh I also was involved in this in uh with the Orlando Chamber when they created the Central Florida Partnership, and Jake Stewart, who was the head of that, then went around and met with all the um cities uh and counties and all the officials and and listened to their concerns and built um an infrastructure that could handle that.

I think besides representation, if any of you have been involved in uh MA work with uh with companies, um there's always concern about control and who has the most shares and things like that.

But if you ask any investment banker, they also will talk about the the terms of the deal.

So you can, even though you might ha not have a majority of votes, if there are terms in the deal that protect you or protect your interest, then you can go forward with the deal.

And I think that's true in this case.

And the two examples I gave are examples of that.

We have to protect the concerns that people have.

Each community has different concerns.

Uh the seven members of city council in Tampa are representing the concerns of their constituents.

And there are certain uh uh bright lines that the that the constituents are very concerned about.

And if we put covenants in the agreement that protect the citizens of Tampa from those issues, uh then we we might be able to move forward, and the issue of how many people we have is not as much of an issue as protecting the citizens from those issues.

But the only way you would surface those if you have is if you have a neutral party not connected to an advocate advocacy group that goes around and interviews uh each of the city council members individually, and then do the does the same for each of the other governments.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Anything else, Dr.

Wong?

That's it for me.

Okay.

We'll move into new business.

I do have some new business to share with the board.

Uh and some of you already know this, uh, and some of you may not.

We got uh received uh a written allegation that a couple of our members of the citizens advisory council have uh violated the sunshine law by communicating uh committee business uh outside of a public meeting.

Um that I became aware of that um on Monday.

And so i the complaint that we received re included a request that the complaint be read in its in entirety into the public record at this meeting.

I did not want to do that.

I've been in consultation with Dr.

Wong and board attorney uh Cameron Clark.

Uh like I said, I just learned of this Monday, so I haven't had a lot of time.

Um it is it will be handled publicly.

I didn't want to do that this morning because we have not had a chance to look at um what the law requires of us and who needs to be involved in this review of this.

This is an allegation that isn't just a violation of board rules, it's a it's an allegation of a violation of state law.

So I want to make sure that the rights of everybody involved in this are protected and that the due process is followed uh and people have a right to flesh this out.

We are working on that now.

It's not we couldn't get it completed by 10 o'clock this morning.

We've not even talked to one of the um accused people yet.

So I I don't think it's fair to read an allegation of a of a violation of law into the public record when that person hasn't even been reached yet.

I I would assume they know about the allegation, but I don't even know that for sure.

So that's not a good way to find out about the allegation when you're reading it out to a million people.

And so we will be um disclosing this.

We will probably at the next meeting uh we we will probably give a lot more detail because we'll know more.

But I want everybody to understand this is not an attempt to keep anything quiet or keep anything squashed, but something like this needs to be done in a legal way to make sure that we are doing what's required of us as far as involving the right state agencies or whatever, and that we're not just um flashing off without you know having a plan here knowing what we're doing.

So for anybody who's watching this and knows about this, they I don't want them to think well they didn't read it, you know, they're just sweeping it under the rug.

That is not the case, and we will be uh giving a detailed report to the board and and and the public uh at our next meeting.

So okay.

And I don't know which of I know some of you have received a copy of it, I don't know who, but uh in any event, that's the status.

Uh be happy to answer any questions, but I don't want anybody to think that there's um I just think we need to do this fairly and correctly and legally and carefully.

Okay.

Any other new business?

Old business, new business?

Anything for the good of the order?

Okay.

Well, if that's the case, we will be adjourned.

Thank you, everybody.