Welcome to the City of St.

Petersburg City Council meeting.

Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch.

District 1, Copley Gurtis.

District 2, Brandy Gabbard.

District 3, Mike Harding.

District 4, and Council Chair Leseth Hanowitz.

District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders.

District 6, Gina Driscoll.

District 7, Corey Gibbons Jr.

And District 8 and Council Vice Chair, Richie Floyd.

Welcome everyone to the uh June 11th, 2026 City Council meeting.

Clerk, can I please have a roll call?

Frisco.

Here.

Givens?

Here.

Floyd.

Gurtis.

Gabbard.

Here.

Harding.

Hanowitz.

Here.

Dick Sanders.

Yeah.

Today we'll have our invocation given by Pastor Lannis Thomas Jr.

from New Pleasant Grove Baptist Church.

If you can please stand and then remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Good afternoon, sir.

Good afternoon.

Let us pray.

My gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you, Father, for another day of life.

Father, we thank you, Lord, for bringing us here, Father, for the celebrations, Lord God, for the awards, Lord God.

But first we have to celebrate you, Lord God, because Father, you've been so good, so kind, so graceful, and so merciful to us, Lord God.

So Father, we just thank you for all that you're doing here in the city of St.

Petersburg, Lord God.

We ask in the name of Jesus, Lord God, that we keep the greatest commandment that Jesus gave that we love one another the way he loved us, Lord God.

So we just thank you now, Father.

We ask in the name of Jesus that you come in, Lord God.

We ask in the name of Jesus that you continue to touch our city, continue to bless our city, Father.

We just thank you, Father, because Father, without you, it would be no St.

Petersburg or nothing else.

So, Father, we just ask in the name of Jesus right now that you take over the meeting, come in, Lord God.

Bless those who need a blessing, Father, and we just want to say thank you.

It's in the precious and mighty name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, Lord God, that we do pray in Jesus' name, amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States.

By the nation, under God, in the principle, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

You may be seated.

Thank you, Pastor, for that beautiful invocation.

Council members, we have an agenda before us.

I'll entertain a motion for approval.

Second, we have a motion and a second.

Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting.

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously.

Thank you.

We have a consent agenda, Clerk.

Are there any cards?

I'll entertain a motion for approval.

Have a motion and a second.

Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting.

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously.

I'm gonna take a moment, thank you.

I'm gonna take a moment real quick and turn it over to Jackie.

Our city attorney.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to introduce Dale Delaney.

He's joining our litigation team.

I won't talk about why, or I'll get upset about that.

But we're very excited to have it and appreciate your confirmation.

Thank you and welcome aboard.

We are glad to have you.

Okay.

Next up, we move up to open form.

Clerk, are there any speakers for open swarm?

Yes, madam chair.

Okay, and if you can read the rules, if you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk.

Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet.

Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak.

All issues discussed under open form must be limited to issues related to the city of St.

Petersburg government.

If you're speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during open form or when the item comes up on the agenda.

Applause is not permitted except in connection with awards and presentations.

In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address city council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted.

If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature in the Zoom app or enter star nine on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed.

When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted.

Asked to state your name and address.

At conclusion of your comments, or when you have reached a three-minute time limit, you'll be muted.

All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item.

Regardless of method of participation use, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments, the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and rules of the quorum.

If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the quorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only, and we do have some speakers.

Great, and I just want to remind everyone, as the clerk said there is no clapping or any other type of uh let's say applause or anything like that during open forum.

We're going to reserve that for awards and presentations, and we want to keep it orderly.

So, Clerk, if you can name the first two speakers.

First two speakers, Reverend Ben, Altern Zeman, and Amy Miller approach either podium, state your name, address, and cross streets.

You have three minutes to address city council.

Thank you.

I'm Reverend Ben Atherton Zeman.

My pronouns are he and they, and I'm the minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of St.

Petersburg.

That's at 100 Mirror Lake Drive.

I want to thank Councilman Corey Givens for um bringing the proposal that ended up with the title inclusive faith and inclusive family and faith month.

And thank you for respecting lesbian and gay parents.

My own congregation includes all kinds of families: gay, lesbian and bisexual parents and children, trans and non-binary parents and children, and unitarian universalists have sided with love and against discrimination for centuries.

But I agree with Councilman Richie Floyd that there is a concerted effort to try to push back against LGBTQ rights.

This pushback comes from our county commissioners, from the state house, and from the White House.

I'm proud of our city's protection of the LGBTQ IA plus community, but our state government punishes teachers who use a chair a trans child's correct name, and our federal government has recently classified groups who support trans rights as terrorist groups.

And this discrimination can have deadly results.

The Pulse Nightclub masked murder is one example.

Another is the fact that over half of trans children attempt suicide.

Some of my colleagues in ministry define marriage as one man and one woman.

First Corinthians chapter 13 says that love is patience, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.

But if we say families can only look a certain way, this seems boastful to me.

But if we protect our trans and non-binary kids, as this t-shirt says.

And if you're getting thrown out of your church somewhere else in Florida, you can always come to St.

Petersburg.

You can always come to my church.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

And if your name is called, if you can come up to the podium, um, what's the other can you call another speaker?

Um Bret Falvo, approach either podium, state your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address city council.

Okay, Amy, could you go ahead and speak?

We just have two speakers at a time.

So when you're good afternoon, council.

Uh, my name is Amy Miller.

I live at 700 Beach Drive Northeast.

Proud president, uh proud resident for 36 years of St.

Petersburg.

I'm here representing item G3 about the Narvaez landing and expedition.

Um, I'm I'm wanting to thank uh Councilman Copley Gerdis, especially for bringing this resolution forward, and I hope as Jim McDougall does that you will pass this resolution today and also recognize the quincentennial event on 15 and 1528 to 2028, 500-year anniversary, which doesn't come around too long.

Another thing I'd like to mention is I appreciate everybody else who on the council who met with us and listened to the story.

It's a story not well known.

It's a story about the first non-native who stepped foot on the North American continent, and I think it could really propel St.

Petersburg forward on an international stage.

And one last thing uh hasn't been considered in the resolution, but hopefully going forward we'll talk about making a monument to honor this um epic event and survival journey um that celebrates many cultures, including African Americans, Latin Americans, and in American Indians.

And I want to thank Jim McDougall for his 10 years of research and and uh just perseverance on this project.

Thanks, everyone.

Thank you.

Go ahead, sir.

Hi, my name's Brad Falbo, 1856 Summary Way South.

Uh Deborah Fixanders, I've requested your phone records from what you've been doing up here many times, and you've stated that it's not related to your official duties, so I look forward to getting those records from today's uh, you know, activities on your phone.

I'll start off with City Clerk Chan, Deborah Fix Sanders, Ken Welch are criminals.

They have disregarded public Florida's public record law, chapter 119, and they have treated this community's right to transparency with contempt.

If any of them believes I am lying, take me to court.

Let everything come out in discovery.

I welcome it.

For months I have asked the city for the records from the original gas plant sale.

The city just completed the digitization and surprisingly provided me with a majority of records.

It's apparent that no one has actually taken the time to look at what really happened at the gas plant in the 1980s, so I did.

Over many weeks by hand and with the help of AI, I built gasplant data.com.

It is still in development, but it has already started to tell the story that has been avoided for many years.

The story residents have some residents have always suspected.

People's homes were sold for pennies on the dollar.

However, certain commercial and institutional properties received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And remember, this is 1980s money.

First Baptist Institutional received nearly $900,000 and likely more for relocation.

But here's what should concern everyone in this room.

Mayor Welch's father, David T.

Welch, sat on this city council during the gas plant deals.

The Welch family also had ties to the Prayer Tower Church of God in Christ.

The uncle was on the board, the dad was on the board.

The mayor's uncle pastored that church during the time as well, and today his son, the um uh the uncle's son, is uh leads the church.

So I'll ask the question the city refuses to ask.

Why did Bethel Metropolitan Baptist, Prayer Town, and First Baptist Institutional receive so much money while the rest of the gas plant community receives so little?

Why did the mayor's father, his uncle, and these institutions fail to fight for their own people?

And the neglect is not just history.

Council member Fig Sanders sends out a monthly email accounting for her hours by her own numbers from January through May.

She spent 13 hours meeting with constituents.

Thirteen hours in five months, a fraction of her time for the people she was elected to serve.

Hopefully, Deborah spent more time in history class because she would have learned that taxation without representation does not bode well in this country.

I hope the other council members will maintain a high level of transparency and will continue, we'll consider looking into the full gas plant history.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next two speakers, please.

Next two speakers, Jenna Gordon, Thomas Gross, approach either podium, state your name and address, or cross streets.

You'll have three minutes to address city council.

Whoever makes a first can start.

Well, good afternoon to all of you.

Uh happy pride, by the way.

It's uh good to see you all.

My name is Jenna Gordon, 546 93rd Avenue, North St.

Petersburg.

And uh I'm a 28-year-old trans woman from Florida, grew up here, uh moved to St.

Pete about four years ago.

And uh I'm just here to speak in favor of the resolution to protect LGBT people from discrimination in this city.

And uh because I want to stay here.

I love this town in many different ways.

It's beautiful.

I uh and I just want to continue to have a place in it, to work here, live here in safety and dignity like everybody else.

And uh I uh, but I see what's happening all around me.

Uh just since in the past four years, over 400,000 trans people have moved states for fear of their safety, uh, just because of everything that's been done uh to attack our community.

And you all are leaders of this community, and I know that you all have an opportunity to set an example for everyone here to be good neighbors to one another, stand with each other, no matter what our sexual orientation or our gender identity or any of that is because we're all human beings.

Um, and I am looking forward to see how it goes.

And I thank you all for your time.

Thank you.

Go ahead, sir.

Uh thank you, uh, City Council.

My name is uh Thomas Gross.

I live at 4927 13th Avenue North, St.

Petersburg.

I'm here speaking in favor of the City of St.

Petersburg bidding on the Morgan complex in Saint in South St.

Petersburg as the horrible living conditions tenants have been forced to endure can only be insured through democratic control over the complex.

I'm sure you all know the Morgan Complex given the massive complaints against them over the last almost a full year at this point since August.

Uh them uh not paying their water bill, I believe, for many years.

There being holes in the ceilings, wasp nests all over, being almost inhabitable conditions in this place.

These conditions may seem extreme, but landlord exploitation is definitely typical for your constituent tenants in St.

Petersburg across the entire city, notably in Boca Siega, the Boca Siega apartments LLC, where the manager of the complex acts as a tyrant against the privacy and rights of the tenants.

The answer is clear.

The city needs to reevaluate its relationship with housing, not as a commodity to be traded on the speculative market, which results in gentrification, displacement, and exorbitant rent increases everyone in the city has to face who's a tenant.

Over 40% of St.

Petersburg people that has a human right, which is controlled by the tenants themselves in conjunction with the city, primarily through tenant associations and resident councils like the St.

Petersburg Tenets Union.

A common argument against this might be that it was simply cost too much taxpayer money.

I know uh last week that was a common talking point against a lot of things, which costs a lot of money, including the uh the Duke Energy uh feasibility study.

But I would think over 40% of St.

Petersburg residents that are tenants would rather prefer their hard-earned money being going towards controlling their very means of survival and their housing instead of into the pockets of private owners who don't even live in Florida, much less St.

Petersburg.

Uh thank you all.

I hope City Council understands that these problems are not from one bad landlord, but that tenants don't have democratic control over their own very means of life.

I also support uh Richie Floyd's resolution that he introduced to uh show St.

Pete stands to protect its LGBTQ plus residents against discrimination.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No more in person.

We have one in Zoom, Adam Chairman.

Uh Dalty Ray, I'm going to enter you into the meeting space.

When I do, please state your name and address for the record.

You will have three minutes to address city council.

Uh Dalty Ray, go ahead, please.

Hey, can you all hear me?

Yes.

Hi, I'm Delta Ray.

Um, I live on 16th Street North and uh 20th Avenue North.

And um I just wanted to uh speak in favor of a G2, the uh resolution opposing uh state legislation that discriminates against people based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other protected identity or characteristic.

Um I've been an ally of the LGBT community my entire life, and um I remember the day that gay marriage was ruled uh legal in 2015, and it's been really uh disheartening seeing the regression that our country has taken, um, especially in the state of Florida.

I feel like Florida has kind of been like the um kind of leading the charge in that regard.

So I I think that a city that has the largest pride parade in the in the state and puts rainbow tape on the steps of City Hall is one that should be um vocally opposing the state legislature and their um fight to dehumanize uh LGBT people.

So I really hope that you all vote yes on that resolution.

Um additionally, I also want to advocate for the St.

Pete City Council to look into buying the Morgan property while it's under foreclosure and making it publicly owned housing.

Thank you, that's all.

Thank you.

We have any other speakers.

We may possibly no more speakers, madam chair.

Thank you.

Okay, we close open forum, and now we're gonna get to the award and presentation part of our meeting.

The first up is the Five Pulse Remembrance Day proclamation, and our own Vice Chair Floyd will present that.

If there's anybody that is gonna stand with Vice Chair Floyd on this proclamation, you can join him.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

Uh thank you so much for being here today.

Um I just have a few brief comments.

Uh I'm incredibly honored to be able to present this proclamation today, although it was obviously something I wish I didn't have to do.

Uh Orlando's one of the few places that I've called home in the past.

Uh so I went to UCF just a few years before this horrific accident uh event, not accident.

Um I was I was crushed when I woke up that morning 10 years ago and immediately worried for my uh LGBTQ friends in Orlando, and I was fortunate to be able to get in touch with all of them relatively quickly that morning, but that wasn't the case for everyone.

This tragedy shows the exact reason why it's so important that we stand up for everyone in our community.

And so with that, I'll read the proclamation.

Uh 10 years ago on June 12th, excuse me, whereas 10 years ago on June 12th, 2016, a horrific act of violence at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida claimed the lives of 49 innocent people and injured dozens more.

And whereas the tragedy at Pulse Night Club was at the time the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S.

history and continues to be the deadliest act of anti-LGBTQ hate violence in modern US history.

As well as families and communities throughout the state of Florida and the nation, and whereas the Pulse tragedy remains one of the deadliest acts of violence against LGBTQ people in the United States in United States history and occurred during Pride Month, and whereas in the aftermath of the tragedy, people across Florida and the United States came together in grief, compassion, and solidarity to support survivors, honor the victims with action, recommit to building a world free of anti-LGBTQ hatred, and comfort those affected.

And whereas law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel, healthcare workers, and countless community members responded with extraordinary courage and service in the wake of the attack.

And whereas the state of Florida has designated June 12th as Pulse Remembrance Day to honor the victims, survivors, families, and all those affected by the attack.

And whereas remembering the lives lost at Pulse provides an opportunity to reflect on the importance of community, public safety, and standing against violence and hatred in all forms.

Now, therefore, I, Councilmember Richie Floyd, on behalf of Kenneth C.

Welch, Mayor of the City of St.

Petersburg, do hereby proclaim Friday, June 12, 2026 as Pulse Remembrance Day in St.

Petersburg, and encourage everyone to remember the victims, honor survivors, first responders, and reflect upon the values of compassion, unity, and community engagement manager of uh the city of Orlando, uh Luis Martinez.

Good afternoon, everyone.

On behalf of Orlando Mayor Boridayor and the City of Orlando, as a Hispanic, Puerto Rican and LGBTQ plus individual, I'm deeply proud to stand before you today.

Thank you to Mayor Kenneth T.

Welch and the St.

Petersburg City Council for this deeply meaningful proclamation and for inviting our city to be part of this noble gesture.

Ten years after the poll strategy, our commitment to honoring the 49 innocent life lost, their families, the survivors, and the first responders remains as steadfast as ever.

This proclamation is a powerful reminder that our communities are bound together by shared grief, but more importantly, by an unwavering dedication to the values of compassion, inclusion, and unity.

We accept this honor with profound gratitude, standing shoulder to shoulder with St.

Petersburg community in our collective mission to ensure that love and light will always prevail over hate.

Thank you.

Mucha gracias.

Thank you.

Um, thank you, Vice Chair Floyd for those beautiful words.

Uh, we hold the family and friends and everyone affected by the tragedy in our hearts today and always.

The next proclamation we have is a D1 Pride Month proclamation, and we have our mayor here with us.

Hi, Mayor Welch.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of council, our uh St.

Pete community, thank you all for being here.

Uh Vice Chair Floyd, thank you uh for your words and Mr.

Martinez, thank you for joining us as well.

We thank you all.

Today is a day where we stand on who we are as a community, and I'm honored uh to remember that just a week ago we raised our flag in honor of Pride Month, and we're especially proud to celebrate the diversity of our community in the climate that we face in our nation today.

Our city is inclusive of all residents, regardless of their neighborhood, economic status, race, religion, or orientation.

That's what we are St.

Pete means.

I want to invite our LGBTQ liaison, Nathan Brummer, and all of our friends from the LGBTQ Plus community, if you would stand again and join me for this proclamation.

And it reads, whereas the city of St.

Petersburg values diversity, creativity, and civic engagement and strives to be a city where all people feel respected, safe, welcome, and connected through opportunity and belonging.

And whereas many of the residents, students, city employees, and business owners within the city of St.

Petersburg who contribute to the enrichment of our city are a part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning community and contribute significantly to the cultural, civic, economic, and creative vitality of St.

Petersburg.

And whereas Pride Month honors the ongoing pursuit of equality, dignity, visibility, and opportunity for LGBTQ individuals, while celebrating the resilience, leadership, and contributions of generations of LGBTQ plus people who help strengthen our community.

And whereas this year we celebrate the 24th anniversary of St.

Pete Pride, Florida's largest pride celebration, which brings together hundreds of thousands of residents and visitors and recognize the substantial economic impact an event of this size has had on the city of St.

Petersburg and our surrounding areas.

And whereas we partner with our neighboring cities and communities across the United States to recognize and celebrate June as LGBTQ plus Pride Month.

Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T.

Welch, Mayor of the City of St.

Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 as LGBTQ plus Pride Month in St.

Petersburg, and invite everyone to reflect on ways we can all live and work together and reaffirm our commitment to mutual respect, compassion, and the freedom for people to live their lives authentically.

We rec further recognize Pride Month by flying the rainbow flag at City Hall.

You may have noticed some work on this steps as well during the month of June.

Thank you all for standing on who we are as a city.

God bless you.

Thank you, Mayor.

My name is Nathan Brumer, and I'm proud to serve as the City of St.

Petersburg LGBTQ coordinator, and I am joined graciously by a beautiful representation of our city with leaders from the following organizations: the Tampa Bay LGBT Chamber, Equality Florida, Trans Network, the Tampa Bay International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, the Trans Film Festival, Winter Pride, Sage Advocacy and Services for LGBTQ Elders, Out Arts and Culture, Tampa Bay Black Lesbians, the Queer Asian Museum, St.

Pete Pride, Love the Golden Rule, The Gay Men's Course of Tampa Bay, Project No Labels, P Flag Greater Pinellas, UU St.

Pete, and Allendale United Methodist.

I know we don't have a lot of time to have everyone speak, but I have three organizations you may not be as familiar with that have tremendous history.

So joining me here for just 60 seconds apiece.

We have Jeremiah from the Gay Men's Course of Tampa Bay, Jane from Sage, and James from Out Arts and Culture to tell you a little bit about themselves.

Thank you for so much for let me be here.

My name is James Bake.

I'm with Out Arts and Culture.

We're a nonprofit that helps celebrate LGBTQ artists and authors in the area.

Right now we have art out going on.

It's our ninth annual.

It's at the Gulfport Library and the James Museum this year.

We're celebrating over a hundred pieces of queer art at the both the library and at uh the James Museum, and we're very excited to be celebrating 60 plus authors or artists.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jeremiah Cummings, and I proudly serve as the artistic director of the Gay Men's Course of Tampa Bay, where we have where next year we are excited to say that we celebrate 25 years of changing lives one song at a time.

Although you cannot hear us locally again until October, we do want to invite you over the next couple of days to join us with several courses from all over the state of Florida to honor Pulse in Orlando at the First United Methodist Church of Orlando, where we will be joined by the Orlando Gay Chorus and Diversity, the Voices of Sarasota, where we will take the next two days and just celebrate together in song and and socialize together.

And we're excited that next year, next summer, we will be the hosting chorus here in Tampa Bay for that very same uh event.

And we hope that you will join us and just come and enjoy and be entertained and let us change your life one song at a time.

Okay, thank you.

Hi there, thank you.

My name is Jane Haskell.

I am director of impact and engagement at Sage.

We are services and advocacy for LGBTQ elders.

We are the nation's largest and oldest organization dedicated to uplifting the lives of LGBTQ people age 50 and better.

We are headquartered in New York, but I have the privilege and honor of living and working remotely here in St.

Petersburg, a community not only rich in LGBTQ history and individuals, but in LGBTQ elders.

I am so thankful for the LGBTQ ancestors and elders who came before all of us.

I don't know that we'd be here today if it weren't for them.

So I just wanted to say thank you to the LGBTQ older adults who have made it so we can celebrate, who have paved the way for the rights that we have today, and just acknowledge that St.

Petersburg is full of such a beautiful, diverse LGBTQ community.

Aging is a process, it is not a moment.

We are all aging, and I just want all LGBTQ people to grow old.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gerdas.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Um, I've been sitting here this morning trying to figure out what I was going to say during this proclamation, and the only thing I can come up with is you make me proud of the city that I was born and raised in, that I chose to live in, that I choose to raise my children in, and I chose to represent.

So thank you.

That's all I can really say is thank you.

And Vice Chair Floyd.

I try not to do this except to my children and even with them, because I don't know.

I think I watched a quote in a movie one time about telling somebody that you're proud of them, and it's a weird thing, but I'm proud of you.

Thank you.

Well said, Councilmember Gurtis.

Um, look, we uh had the pride flag raising um last week, and I will tell you it was just a wonderful, wonderful occasion seeing all our community celebrate Pride Month here in St.

Petersburg, and that's what we do as a city.

And seeing all your beautiful faces and all the happiness that I is surrounding you makes my heart full.

And Vice Chair Floyd, you did a fantastic job.

I know you're holding it together.

And that is unlike that's unlike council member, I mean Vice Chair Floyd because he holds it together all the time.

And so him speaking with emotion, unlike me, uh the Hispanic here in the room that gets emotional, um, he holds it together, and and so it was very appreciated.

I thought the words were very poignant.

Thank you to all the organizations and everything you do.

Thank you for being here.

Okay.

Next up, we have the eight, it's inclusive Faith and Family Month proclamation, and we have Councilmember Givens, who is gonna present the proclamation.

Thank you so much, Chair, and I'm gonna ask uh those who are here for the Faith and Family Proclamation to please join me over here on this side of the chamber.

As they come, I want to acknowledge that as we prepare to celebrate Father's Day weekend, we recognize the work that these organizations that are here today are doing.

We are grateful for each of them.

We have representatives from Faith and Family, from the Next Step Center, various pastors here from Somebody Cares, Tampa Bay, and multiple, multiple congregations that are represented.

And I just want to thank them so much uh for being bold and courageous and for standing with me today as we recognize Faith and Family Month.

The proclamation.

Whereas strong families serve as the foundation of thriving neighborhoods and contribute to the social, emotional, and economic well-being of communities throughout the city of St.

Petersburg, and whereas valued families come in all varieties of forms, whereas diverse faith communities, civic organizations, businesses, and community leaders play an important role in supporting families through mentorship, service, education, fellowship, and outreach efforts.

And whereas family, faith in family month, encourages individuals, congregations, organizations, and diversity of all families to participate in activities that strengthen relationships, promote shared values, and foster meaningful connections among generations, and whereas the this observation recognizes the importance of investing in children and supporting parents and caregivers, honoring grandparents and elders, celebrating diversity, encouraging healthy and resilient family relationships, and whereas when families are strengthened and communities work together in a spirit of inclusion, service, and compassion to all, the entire city benefits through increased civic engagement, stronger neighborhoods, and a greater sense of belonging.

And whereas the city of St.

Petersburg values the contributions of all of our residents, faith communities, and organizations that dedicate their time and resources to uplifting families and creating opportunities for future generations to flourish.

Now, therefore, I, Councilmember Corey Gibbons, on behalf of Kenneth T.

Welch, Mayor of the City of St.

Petersburg, do hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 as inclusive Faith and Family Month.

Thank you.

I think I saw him somewhere.

Is he here?

Pastor, where are you?

Anderson.

There you go.

Pastor Anderson.

Oh, he's not speaking today.

Pete, where are you?

Pete, you are speaking.

Thank you, Minister Givens, Council, Councilman Givens, and uh to all of you.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to recognize the important role that family uh has in making children uh to flourish and to be the citizens that will be taking all of these seats and all of these seats uh in coming days.

Um my name is Pete Michler.

I'm uh part of the pastoral team with my church, Gulf Coast Community Church, and also with the Next Step Center, which has a big event coming up just a week from tomorrow that is called Gather for Life, which is part of Faith and Family Month, and uh we um I wasn't prepared to speak, so all of a sudden my heart's racing.

So, um our scripture for that event is from Psalm 145.

One generation shall commend your works to another and tell of your awesome deeds.

And so our our emphasis is on equipping the next generation and engaging the next generation in works of faith in in ministry and and in valuing the worth and promoting the worth and dignity of all human life, all image bearers of God.

So thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is uh Ellis Hodge, I'm the pastor of Water Life Fellowship Church, located here in St.

Petersburg, Florida.

Um this month, our concentration is basically to take the word of God to instruct, to teach, and to demonstrate, and then allow the Holy Spirit to guide people in the direction that God would have them to go.

We don't hate anyone, we don't dislike anyone.

We try to love everybody in the spirit and union of Christ and and according to the word of God.

And that's what not only what we do this month, that's what our calling is, that's what our focus is every time we grace the pulpit, every time we walk in the community, and every time we talk to someone, is to demonstrate and show the love of Christ and let him choose who he may want to serve him.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Councilmember Fake Sanders, thank you so much.

And I I am just so happy to have all of you all here today, and and Pastor Hodge, thank you so much for saying that.

But I what I want to do is there was a piece of the proclamation that was omitted, and I want to take that opportunity to spare to say what it read what it says, and it says, whereas, value families come in a variety of forms, including those headed by opposite sex couples, same-sex couple, foster parents, adoptive parents, single parents, and blended families.

And I read that because I was the only mom for a very long time.

I was a single parent, and I want to make sure that all of our families in any and every form know that we are an inclusive city, and this proclamation celebrates everyone.

So thank you so much for your words.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Fix Anders.

Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you so much.

And um, given that this was a proclamation signed by the mayor, um, I know that city council members, if you read a proclamation, you're um typically not given liberty to change the wording that of something that the mayor has written and signed.

Um so I appreciate Councilmember Fig Sanders' um correction there and making sure that the entire intent of that proclamation um was read properly.

The first two proclamations, and then this one I can't help but think about the wonderful work that's being done today by Equality Florida.

They, and the fact that St.

Petersburg is the birthplace of Equality Florida, makes some of this particularly special to me in light of the fact that they have a wonderful program called Parenting with Pride.

And they've recently launched a new interfaith initiative that is going to really elevate the role of faith in Equality Florida's work.

And I absolutely appreciate everything that they do.

And I don't know if any of them were part of the group that was here today, but I do want to publicly thank them for all that they have done and take a moment to express to the mayor and the administration my deep appreciation for all of the thought and effort that went into making last week's pride flag raising and celebration.

Such an incredible success.

Even more than that, it was a great statement that we were able to make.

And that is what I will carry out, carry in my heart, in my mind, and in my celebrations throughout this month, which is Pride Month.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gibbons.

Thank you so much.

I just want to thank those who showed up today and uh just make mention.

You know, again, this was not meant to divert any attention from any one organization, one celebration or another, but the intent was to prove that we can love all God's children and we can celebrate all God's people all in the same month.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

So, um, Councilmember Fig Sanders, I'm glad you mentioned that because I do want to um just make it clear to everyone that's here present or anybody that's watching.

When we have these proclamations as city council members, they don't come from us individually or from us as as a city council.

They really come this from the city of St.

Petersburg and our strong mayor form of government, and they are signed by our mayor Kenneth T.

Welch, and all proclamations say that, and when we read them, we are supposed to read the proclamation as it is presented.

So I want to make that clear so I appreciate Councilmember Fake Sanders for you mentioning that, because I think that is important for everyone to understand.

It we don't have the liberty of changing what is on here.

So having said that, we're gonna move to the next proclamation, and that is the three, which is a 2026 Governor's Hurricane Conference Innovation Award.

And I will say that we're gonna take a break after D4, because there is a huge group of codes compliance and others that are downstairs as we know in their way that's a huge group.

So we're gonna we're gonna have a huge group downstairs come up.

So we'll take a break after D4, but I wanted to make sure that whoever's watching understands that.

Um so hi!

Hello, good afternoon, good afternoon.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I'm Amber Building, Emergency Management Manager.

Pleasure to be here on a blue sky day delivering wonderful great news.

Um I'm so happy to be here.

So today it's my honor to share that the City of St.

Pete's economic and workforce development team was recently recognized with the innovation award for the hometown Holler's program at the 2026 Governor's Hurricane Conference.

This award is presented to programs that demonstrate new and creative approaches to hurricane preparedness response recovery and following hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, a challenge emerged in the emergency operations center.

How do we remove debris faster, support our residents, and accelerate recovery?

And it was a remarkable thing to watch in the EOC.

Um, when you have a problem that gets presented, and to see people work through that and what it looks like.

To watch city leadership sit at that table with city staff and work through the problem in real time and develop a new approach.

But ideas alone do not win awards.

Implementation does.

The economic and workforce development uh through the city development administration, took that concept and turned it into a functioning program.

They built the framework, engaged local businesses, managed logistics, and created a program that was both innovative and accountable.

The result was the hometown hallers program, which enrolled over a hundred local trucks, completed 5,382 debris halls, generated more than 1.6 million dollars in payments to local businesses, helping their own community recover.

The city moved forward with this program without the expectation of FEMA reimbursement, prioritizing recovery while still ensuring the program met federal requirements and the work paid off.

FEMA has already obligated a significant portion of the program, and the city anticipates full reimbursement as the review process continues.

This award recognizes not only an innovative idea, but economic and workforce development's leadership and dedication and turning that idea into a successful recovery program that is now being recognized throughout the state of Florida.

So congratulations to the economic and workforce development on this well-deserved recognition.

Thanks, Amber.

And I first want to recognize uh I said it earlier, uh it's uh the best in the business, our emergency management team.

So thanks to Amber and the entire team.

Um I wanna just quickly just thank a few people.

Um while we were in the uh EOC, this was post-um Helene, but before Milton, and we we were thinking what can we do?

We have another storm coming.

Um, how can we get debris picked up and also how can we help with infusing some economic development into community?

And I want to recognize Council Member Fig Sanders and several others in the community who contacted us with the uh the framework of this idea.

And and uh I also want to thank our city administrator Rob Gurtis and our mayor, because at the time when we were saying we were going to do this, we didn't know exactly how it was going to work.

We're we're figuring this out on the spot, and they gave us the ability to move forward with not knowing that we were going to get reimbursed for from FEMA.

So I appreciate them giving us the ability to do this.

After that, uh I contacted uh and unfortunately, Tracy Smith retired.

Uh she was part of the team.

Uh and Andrea Falvey is not here today.

She's off today is her birthday, so happy birthday to Amber.

But uh George Smith at the time was also a part of the economic and workforce development team.

And essentially, uh I remember distinctly on the call saying, hey, we want to stand up this program where we're gonna pick up debris, we're going to pay the uh the teams that are picking up the debris debris.

We need to do it in a way that's structured that maybe we can get reimbursement, but we may not be, and I need you to do it in 24 hours.

And so they engaged our team, and I want to recognize Shelby with procurement here, uh, Alexis Garcia and Cassidy with economic and workforce development.

They really did the lion's share of the work to uh distribute.

We had to get placards created, we had to uh assign the work so that we were evenly distributing um the pickups in the areas that were hardest hit, getting the documentation for the payment and then making sure ultimately uh that the haulers were paid.

And they did all this with not a blueprint, and like I said, we we turned this around in about 24 hours, so thanks to the team for their hard work.

And I actually want to give this award to Alexis Garcia.

She uh he describes this as a uh a labor of love.

She actually is still working right now with FDM FDEM and FEMA to make sure that we get every dollar back that we can.

So thank you to Alexis and the entire team.

Councilmember Gerdis.

Thank you very much, madam chair.

Uh Councilmember Fixanders, um, thank you for you and your team and your innovation and your willing to your willingness to think outside of the box.

Uh this this was an amazing program.

And uh it frankly, a lot of it was literally in my backyard, and so uh just thank you so much to administration.

I remember being on the phone with Rob with Mayor with James about this program trying to uh ramp up the Raytheon property as quickly as possible.

I big thanks to Les Porter who was willing to do that.

Uh, we would not have been able to do that without him, and um it just incredible what this what this did.

Mayor, uh, thank you for uh when we were down, you doubled down on our people.

And that says a lot.

And it worked.

I watched it work.

And if you were a hauler and you're here or you're listening, thank you.

And I tried to be out at the Raytheon site as often as I could, and I went up to as many people as I could to say thank you.

And if I didn't say thank you to you, I'm saying it now, because it made a big difference.

I watched it happen in our neighborhoods.

I watched it happen in my neighborhood where the debris was piling up fast, and that's before a truck could even get into town.

And so thank you for the difference that you made in our community and uh council members, thank you for believing in the program, and it's it's nice to know Saint Pete continues to innovate from the front.

And so thank you to the entire team.

Thank you for the work, thank you for changing what emergency management looks like going forward, not only for our city, but for other cities.

Now we just gotta figure out where we're where we'll put it.

Uh we'll figure that out though.

We're we're good at problem solving, I believe in it.

But again, to all the haulers, thank you.

Thank you.

You made a difference.

You got us started, and that the hardest part of moving a rock is the first push.

So thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gavard.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and uh just uh personal note of thanks from District Two.

Uh, you know, almost every neighborhood in my district was affected in those days and when times felt like, you know, we would never see the the next side.

Um here came our own community to help and uh make sure that we were able to move as much as possible before the next one came.

And that was because of the team, that was because of leaders like Councilmember Fig Sanders.

I see uh Dr.

Tomlin back there in the back.

Thank you.

For your leadership, um and for everyone, Urban League.

I don't wanna leave anyone out.

I'm sure uh Councilmember Fig Sanders will name them all um as she rightfully should, but just thank you to everyone and really to our team.

Um Councilmember Gertis said it best but uh you know what you all mean to us and we know that those moments um many of you were dealing with your own homes at the same time, but continuing to be there for our city.

We talk a lot about resiliency.

We talk about it when it comes to our stormwater pipes and our infrastructure.

I think the thing that we don't talk about enough is the resiliency of our people.

And you guys are the example of that.

So thank you for everything that you do.

Thank you um to our community members for being our partners and uh we hope we don't have to ever call on you again.

But if we do, we've got the blueprint, we're ready to go.

So thank you all.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you.

You know, it's not that often that leadership at the state level actually likes what we're doing in St.

Petersburg.

So I wasn't gonna go.

This really means a lot.

You know, I am so glad that um that everyone involved has been that our city and everyone involved has been recognized um for that innovation in um in a time of crisis.

Um I am so grateful for council member Fig Sanders.

Um, you know, get getting this up to to the right people to help execute it, um, staying in touch with everyone, all the all that you did.

Um it's it's what you're all about, Councilmember Fig Sanders, and I appreciate you for that.

For the team that worked tirelessly to figure this out and get it out the door so quickly.

It says so much about who you are.

Honestly, I'm not surprised, because I know and enough of you for long enough that um this is this is just what you do, and I'm so glad to see that you're being recognized for it.

So thank you.

And to those who participated, stepped up and said, Hey, I can help this way.

I can help my neighbors, I can help my my fellow citizens this way.

Thank you.

Thank you for for being there for each other.

That's really what Saint Peter's all about.

And we've shown that through this um this program in so many different ways at so many levels.

So I'm very grateful.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I have to say, so every council member has spoken has said exactly what I think.

But Councilmember Driscoll, I have to say, Councilmember Fake Sanders, who would have thought that the state of Florida would have thought your idea is so worthy of an award.

I mean, this makes us proud because not everything we do here in the state in the city of St.

Petersburg is uh looked upon with a smile from Tallahassee.

So it says something about the program and everybody behind it that made it a true success.

Um it was a great idea, and it took our little village basically to get it through through the hurricane.

And for those that are watching, this is just part of a small group in our city that keeps us safe during storms, and I want to make sure that everybody acknowledges their work.

So let's give them a round of applause again.

Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to make a couple of comments, and I won't steal uh Councilmember Fix Sanders Thunder.

But I just want to make sure we said thank you.

This idea came from the community, and I have a unique vantage point of being in the EOC and watching how this team deals with stress, and as Councilmember Gabbard said many of our team members had gone through personal trauma just days ago with uh Helene.

Uh we were dealing with cranes and everything else, right?

And here comes another hurricane that's gonna put more debris out there.

So I just want to thank Councilmember Gertis helping us get that DMS set up, it wouldn't work without that.

Councilmember Fig Sanders.

Uh Nancy was a mentioned she was uh integral to this and just getting the word out to the community.

So there's so many folks to thank, but when we stand on our principle of being inclusive even in the midst of two hurricanes, it works.

I noticed Tom came in when we talked about reimbursement.

We had a lot of conversations about do you move forward knowing we might not be reimbursed?

And we say, yeah, this is the right thing to do.

So I just want to thank everybody, and I know some of y'all were dealing with personal losses uh that I didn't even know about at the time, and you still work through it.

So this is an example of how we work as a city.

I just want to make sure we said thank you to everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

And now we continue the celebration on the hometown haulers with D4, the Distinguished Citizen Award, and Councilmember Fig Sanders is gonna present.

Good afternoon, everybody.

So, what we're gonna do is I I want to uh definitely say thank you for everyone that's here, but I will be remiss, and I'm gonna ask Dr.

Tomlin if you would come up with me, please.

So, you you keep hearing everyone say, Councilmember Deborah Fig Sanders, I was only a little bit of what brought such a success to the city of St.

Petersburg.

Nancy Dunham, aka professionally branded name, Fancy Nancy.

If you would stand with me, please reached out to Gypsy Galardo to say, I have these businesses that have trucks that want to give back to the community that was after Helene, and we knew Milton was coming, and so they convened a small group of us, Dr.

Tomlin, who agreed and so graciously offered to seed the first hundred thousand dollars for the hometown haulers, Gypsy Galardo, Carl Lavender, Nikki Gaskin K.

Hart.

Is that it?

I got everybody.

We got on a call saying how are we gonna get this done?

How are we gonna get this done?

And we need to get it done quickly because we got another hurricane coming.

So we reached out to the mayor's office, and I will say, we had to get it done regardless, and we could not have done it without the team that you just saw up here, without the mayor saying yes, but more importantly, without you all saying, I want to step up, I want to be a part and make a major impact to our community during a very, very difficult time.

Now, Nancy, this is you you received the first Distinguished Citizen award because you brought it to us.

That you did.

You brought it to us.

We thank you for that because that's we don't know what we don't know, but we were blessed to have you and everyone else here to say we ready to work.

We need to get it done.

And we're ready.

We're here.

So you will get the first Distinguished Citizen Award to Nancy Dunham for actually giving us an award-winning program.

Thank you for that.

So I have a lot of them, and please forgive me if I miss anybody or I say it wrong, but as I say your name, if you would please come up.

Because we want to personally thank you for the contribution that you made uh to this program.

Where's the mayor?

Come on up, Mayor.

Look, it took all of us.

Come on, Dr.

Thomas.

It took all of us.

Mr.

Bill Baptiste.

Is he not here?

Somebody gonna give it to him.

Okay.

Mr.

Clinton Blue.

Oh, my dad.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr.

Blue is no longer with us.

I did not realize that he has gone on to be the glory.

Who are we going to give this to?

Oh wait, I'm sorry, baby.

Come on up and get this for Mr.

Blue.

This is Mr.

Alan Jackson, who's accepted on behalf of Mr.

Blue.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Jackson.

Come on up, Mr.

Gilson.

This is a junior.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Marquel Green.

Come on, Mr.

Green.

Mr.

Quan Rush is accepting the award on behalf of Mr.

Green.

Thank you so much for being here, sir.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Mr.

Anthony Harrell.

Okay, we're gonna get that to Mr.

Harrow.

He had to leave.

Okay.

Uh Trey Henderson.

Come on, Mr.

Henderson.

Thank you so much, sir.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you.

Congrats.

Mr.

Alan Jackson.

Mark Lowan.

And we're gonna get that to Mr.

Logan.

David Pierce.

Oh, he couldn't be here.

David Pierce had to be somewhere with his wife.

She's graduating and he could not miss that.

So he has he was in the right place, no choice.

Patrick Ruffin.

Okay, so you know what?

Y'all better live like today is your last because one day it will be.

Mr.

Ruffin is no longer with us, so we're gonna make sure that someone in his representative in his family will get this on his behalf.

Yeah, you're right.

Thank you.

No one can say that.

Okay.

Eric Ruffin.

That's his brother, though.

Derek Ruffin.

You see, not here.

He said he's shy, both of them.

They're twins.

They're shy.

Both are shy.

Okay, so Eric Ruffin, he's shy too.

Bobby Smith.

James.

Thank you so much for what you did.

Thank you so much.

Dakota Weaver.

Thank you, Mr.

Weaver.

We appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, here come Blue Cheese.

Mr.

Antoine Well.

CB dressing.

Sorry, right.

Is that everybody?

So that's with everyone, but I again we have Dr.

Tomlin.

And I truly do want to give her the microphone because again, she graciously in the initial meeting agreed to see the first country so that we can get this going.

And that would be remiss not to let her see it.

Well, thank you, Doc.

Thank you, Councilmember Sanders, for your leadership, and thank you to all of the heroic uh city team and the members of the community that led so valiantly in this effort in our city's uh greatest time of need.

On behalf of the Foundation for a Healthy St.

Petersburg, we're just very privileged and honored to be able to serve our community in this way.

It illustrates the power of philanthropy and the importance of public-private partnerships and uh the strength of community when we come together around a shared aspiration and the common goal to care for one another.

So it's our pleasure and our honor to be able to do this type of work, and we uh look forward to working with our community not only in times of crisis, but also in times of strength, so that we can continue to build a stronger, brighter, more equitable community that makes all of us who call this beautiful city proud.

Thank you so much.

So before we ask Nancy to take 10 seconds, um after she speaks, we want to play the video that was done on the hometown hallers.

All right, hi guys.

Um just I just want to give you like a brief overview of what I experienced um in those moments.

Um first and foremost, I definitely want to thank Miss Gypsy Galardo, um, Miss Kanika Tomplin, I want to say Jelts nonstop, but I know it changed.

Um, Miss Deborah Figgs, Councilmember David Figgs, of course, and I'm also Miss Um Nikki Gaskin K.

Part.

Just for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to actually go out there and get these people on my own without any restrictions, without any remorse, nothing is let me just go be great.

And I appreciate them trusting me in that much that in that manner to do that.

Um, I did take a little slack from my community because they felt like since um, and this is me talking, um, they felt that since we have this color skin that it should only be based off of that, you know, and and as black people, we have been set back in time.

However, I'm one of the people that feel that it shouldn't be regulated by one thing.

Right now, we need we have a need, and anybody that can meet that need, whether you have a driver license, long as they have a drive license or a social security number or EIN, we want them.

So I didn't want to um, I didn't want to, you know, break it down, like even though I had all the right to do as I wanted to, because it gave me every guidance to it.

But I'm like, no, I wanted everyone to be a part of it.

But what I do want to bring to you guys' attention is um one one of the hometown haulers came up to me and they told me that before that program was created, they were like literally 30 minutes before um taking their life, like they wanted to kill themselves.

Um, only because he was being raised as a family man, so he was the pride, he was he was always meant to take care of families.

Um, and that moment he was $1,500 short of paying his rent.

And this program came about, and so he was able to go out and hustle that money back up and still be that man of the household.

So I just want you to know that you guys literally saved the life that we didn't even know that was going on, and not only that, uh um the Mass Low's hierarchy of needs.

At this is a moment in time that I also can say that the whole community actually met that.

The community that I served that I was working with, I mean, I was all the way out to the to the to the yards out there with them, just to make sure that they were fine with everything they had going on.

But at that moment, they had like a sense of pride, they had a sense of belonging.

That was one moment that y'all, as a community or the city, really regained their trust.

Y'all really made them actually felt like um they belonged somewhere, you know, like that you value them.

And if you had to hear all the different conversations that they had with me, they walked around, they smiled.

I mean, they they cheese and they chest is poked out.

It's like, geez.

So it was just like uh the history of how the community does not trust so much the city of St.

Petersburg or elected officials.

I don't, you know, I don't do politics, but they don't care for everything.

That moment there, you know, they were really, you know, happy to be a part of something, you know, and they talked about it for days about that.

And then also, what I want another thing I want to bring to y'all attention to do is when that hurricane did happen.

Even the best of us, the ones that's up higher, you know, was getting better pay.

If you just think about it any time when we was going to Nity Park recreations and stuff, and the people had the food out there for everybody to eat.

You can tell the rich from the poor.

We all start stood along each other looking the same, and pulling up in nice cars, regular cars, and no one looked at anyone the different, even the less fortunate uh unhaules community was able to eat and bathe and do everything.

Actually, regain their dignity in those moments.

So I just want to let you guys know from the ground zero that that day there, it actually woke up a lot of people in the community.

It also gave people an actual another chance of actually living.

So now they have their own businesses, like so many of them to open up their own businesses.

They're general contractors, you know, they don't invest that same money because I want y'all guys to understand that although we do want, you know, we'll take grant money, we don't really want the grant money.

We just want an opportunity to actually get our own money, you know, be our own selves and actually uh generate the money for our own families.

So just giving us that opportunity, meet us as a whole, um, the opportunity to do that.

That was just like priceless.

So I just want to tell you guys thank you as a whole.

Just in case you never hear it from ground zero.

They told me everything.

I'm full of everything.

So I'm very appreciative.

And then also to the mayor, just for him just to stop throughout all this stuff that's going on.

You know, and he has so many different things that they're beating him down about.

He actually stood up as the Leo that he is, and I'm a leader also.

Um, he stood up as a Leo in those moments there, and I mean he didn't think twice about anything.

He literally kicked in at those moments, like, and I mean, he elevated it all the way from the food, all the way from the disasters, all the way to I mean, everything you could think of, it was just coming out left and right, left and right with no hesitation.

So I just want to tell you thank you so much for that.

I definitely noticed it and um the community noticed it also, too.

So we appreciated you in those moments.

And thank you guys.

It's called the Hometown Haulers Initiative.

The city won an innovation award for the program last month.

It's designed to speed up debris removal while also helping people recover financially.

Spectre of many designs Josh Roja shows us how the program created opportunity in the middle of disaster recovery.

For David Pierce, the road to a new business opportunity started with storm recovery.

Pierce says the general contracting certifications he's earned since the 2024 hurricanes are directly connected to St.

Pete's hometown haulers program.

Pierce used his truck to haul away debris from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

The city paid him 300 per load.

He and his business partners then used that money to start the Pierce Contracting Group.

We were able to come up with a plan.

We'll take what we make from the hometown hallers program and we'll reinvest it in ourselves.

Antoine Wells also signed up to be a hometown hauler.

Wells says his small business managed seven local crews during the cleanup efforts and completed about 100 halls.

Community resources and solutions was able to um get Derrick's income uh during the time of the storms, but also helped some other families, which they probably wouldn't have had work uh during that time because basically everything was shut down.

The first of its kind program supported economic recovery by generating 1.6 million dollars for small businesses and residents impacted by the storms, according to the city, while at the same time accelerating hurricane debris removal.

In May, the city won the innovation award at the governor's hurricane conference for creating what leaders call a new scalable model for community-driven disaster recovery.

Mayor Kenneth Welch says the grassroots idea for that program came directly from the community.

It's really innovative.

Uh, caught the eye of uh the director of emergency management and other folks, and our team got the awards.

We're really proud of their innovation.

Mayor Welch says 100 local trucks enrolled in the program, completing more than fifty-three hundred halls.

Pierce says the innovation award was well deserved.

I think it was great kudos because it it was very innovative, you know, to bring uh the people from the community and help generate some dollars, help put some money in our pocket.

City leaders say the hometown haulers program not only accelerated storm recovery, but also created an economic lifeline for families and small businesses working to rebuild after the hurricanes.

So Councilmember Fig Sanders, thank you for the Distinguished Citizen Award for the Homestown Hallers.

But I think we would be remiss not to include you in getting an award.

Right, Council members.

So we're gonna make sure that you also get a distinguished citizen award for your part.

Um after hearing all of this, I it gave me the words to describe like a feeling that I had about this program, and it was that the people that I knew that participated in it really, I feel like it really gave them purpose as well at the time, like when they felt like they were uh contributing to the city.

Uh, and you know, it was able to help them, but uh, not just financially, but uh like spiritually and mentally as well.

And so I hadn't really put my finger on what that was until you were speaking really, and so I just wanted to say I saw the exact same thing, and I'm uh really happy that we were able to get recognized for it and we're able to recognize people for it.

Yeah, thank you.

No, I I, you know, it's amazing when you think about our community as at large as our city is and when you think about neighbors helping neighbors, right?

And the basics of what makes a community, and this is the epitome of that.

This is the epitome of neighbors coming up together and the city coming together and coming up with a solution to help their community.

And I it's fantastic that we could do that in a time where everyone is struggling uh from the hurricane and find a way and find the light, um, from you know, the darkness after a hurricane.

So I thank you all for being a part of this and for making it happen.

Um, Fancy Nancy, I it's just it is, it is amazing the work that was done on the ground level, and I just really really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

Okay, with that, we're gonna take a five-minute break to allow those that are here that can need to leave, and then those that are downstairs come upstairs.

So, five-minute break.

We're in recess.

Okay, we're back in session.

Um, the next item up we have is day two, which is Code's compliance appreciation week proclamation, and our mayor Ken Welch is going to be presenting that.

This is an opportunity to recognize some true unsung heroes.

Our men and women who are in blue today from Codes assistance, my standard.

With me?

This is what and there are still folks working in codes, right, Amy?

Uh, just for folks who are watching, and this will be short.

Uh, but this is an opportunity to recognize and celebrate a division of the of the city that has a challenging role helping to ensure our neighborhoods are healthy and safe.

Our codes team have managed a new role following the historic back to back hurricanes.

They've been instrumental in helping put our city back together and get us back on our feet.

Our coast compliance officers were our boots on the ground when many of their own families and homes needed attention.

In support of their efforts and appreciation of their work, I've issued the following proclamation, and it reads.

And whereas Code's compliance assistance is responsible for improving neighborhood health and safety, enhancing the quality of life for residents in our community.

And whereas CODE's compliance assistance has prioritized education and assistance to achieve compliance with dedicated staff conducting proactive outreach with tenants and homeowners to connect them with valuable resources.

And whereas every day, assisted by administrative support staff, they provide quality customer service to the public for the betterment of our community, and often their efforts go unnoticed, even after compliance has been achieved.

And whereas COE's compliance assistance staff are dedicated, well-trained, and highly responsible individuals who take their jobs seriously and are proud of their department and the city in which they serve.

And whereas COE's compliance assistance deserves recognition for the jobs they do, often going above and beyond their duties to assist residents, protect tenants, and improve neighborhoods.

Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T.

Welch, Mayor of the City of St.

Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim the week of June 8th through 12th, 2026 as CODES Compliance Assistance Appreciation Week in St.

Petersburg and express appreciation for the dedication and outstanding service provided by the individuals who serve in the CODE's compliance assistance department.

Thank you all for the work you do every day.

And now we'll hear from our housing and neighborhood services administrator, Amy Foster.

Amy.

Thank you, Mayor.

I definitely think that the work that this team does every day deserves to be recognized.

And while it may not be cutting ribbons or breaking ground, make no mistake that under the leadership of Joe A and Beecher Zafra, this is an innovative and focused team, and they focus on assisting our residents.

Every code that's enforced is an act of protection.

This work takes knowledge, it takes patience, and honestly, it takes a thick skin.

The work isn't easy or appreciated in the moment.

They have to make difficult calls and deliver news that people don't always want to hear, but they do it every day with professionalism and integrity.

On behalf of our residents, I thank the entire CODES team and uh Joe and Beatrice for your leadership.

So I'm going to turn it over to Joe.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Administrator Foster.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of council.

Uh, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you this afternoon.

It's really an honor to be able to recognize the great work that our CODE's compliance team does.

As the proclamation mentions, this is a group of dedicated professionals who often do a thankless job.

Despite this, they show up every day to serve our residents to the best of their ability and often go above and beyond their normal duties.

Five years ago, on the heels of the COVID pandemic, when we lost a lot of personal interaction and communication, I challenged the team to change the perception of our department within the community.

We knew it wouldn't be easy, but it could happen over time with every knock on the door, every return phone call, and every email exchange, where the focus would be on customer service, education, and assisting our residents.

Standing here today, I can tell you that I am extremely proud of this team and the way that they conduct themselves every day as we continue to work towards that goal.

Whether they're answering the phones to take a complaint, supporting a tenant who just received an eviction notice, connecting someone to our housing team for assistance, or going door to door in the aftermath of back-to-back storms to support the community, they do it with an unbelievable amount of compassion and empathy.

This group also embodies what it means to be a work family, always being there to support and uplift one another in an often difficult job.

What many people don't know is that over the past 18 months, while they navigated increased workloads during recovery efforts, they also experienced the loss of two colleagues and members of that work family.

It was inspiring to see the way that they continue to show up every day in the face of adversity to continue to support one another and our community.

I am truly amazed at how resilient this group is and how they always jump to action when called upon.

I'll be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to also thank our fellow city departments and community partners who we connect with on a daily basis to support residents to solve problems that cross department lines.

We value and appreciate the collaborative nature in which we're able to work towards our common goals.

I'd like to thank the administration for their support as we've implemented some innovative new programs to assist property owners and tenants alike.

We're also very grateful for the continued support they've shown as we managed an unprecedented workload after the storms.

And then I want to thank each of you, mostly for your patience, as I know you all often feel questions and concerns related to COVID's issues, and you always provide us with grace and understanding as we try to gather information to find solutions.

So with that again, I want to thank you for this opportunity to recognize the entire CODS team for their hard work and dedication to the city and its residents.

So thank you very much.

Councilmember Curtis.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Well, Councilmember Gabbard said it earlier, and I think it rings true here.

So I'm sorry to steal your quote earlier, Councilmember Gabbard, but our people are resilient, and you are a shining example of that.

And so from eight people that get a lot of those types of emails too, we have a lot of empathy for that.

And so thank you so much every day for doing the work.

And Amy and Joe, thank you for your leadership here.

Joe answers emails to some of the nastiest emails in the nicest way.

It's pretty incredible.

You've got way more patience than me, brother.

And uh, and that like that leadership, I think seeps down into the rest of the team.

And so uh from somebody that does notice when you're driving through a neighborhood or uh I see you on 9th Avenue or Fifth Avenue.

Just know that from me, our family, the GERTIS family, we are just so thankful for you, and we have massive fans of what you do because Joe said it, right?

You you are the protection of our city, and not just safety, but of a standard.

And that St.

Pete's standard is only held because of you.

And I am very, very, very grateful for that.

And I said it earlier because born and raised here, raising my family here, I want my kids to come home just like I came home to my hometown.

And they won't do that if it's not for people like you.

And so thank you so much to each and every one of you.

And please know my door is always open if you ever need anything, and I'm so grateful for you and the work that you're doing every day.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

I have had the opportunity over the past year to speak with three of you, three on the team.

Thanks to to Joe for allowing me to get to know some of you.

And here is the part that I am most impressed with.

Um the job that we've asked you to do as evidenced by every everyone who's spoken, is a very difficult job.

You have to go tell people that they're doing things wrong and and there is now a penalty for it.

We're moving towards a penalty for it, and and it's for the right reasons, right?

But but the three conversations were tied together, these three separate conversations were tied together in something that Joe said he used the word empathy.

And I was I was so impressed with um with the way that the department approaches this is wrong and it's got to be right, but how can we help them get there?

Um there was a uh one of the discussions was uh was helping me understand that um that all codes violations aren't on aren't on purpose.

I didn't really think about it or understand that sometimes it's just people who fallen on hard times, a health issue or a money issue or a family issue or whatever it is.

And the fact that that we have through Amy and Joe and you all, which is where the opportunities come from, or the ideas come from, developed ways to help these people, which is not our job.

It is not our job to help these people through their codes violations.

It is your job to find them.

But you decided that your culture was gonna be a culture of helping them when we find them with with tools um to get through.

I could not be any more impressed with you all.

I could not be any more impressed with your culture.

I could not be any more impressed with your customer service, and uh and this is this is one of those ones where where we get the opportunity to recognize um what what is normally a thankless job, and and really make you understand that that or hopefully uh give you the idea from us that that your job is important, but the way that you do it is is absolutely out of this world.

So thank you very much for what you do, and thank you for being here today.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Hi, Chair Floyd.

Thanks.

I'm gonna keep it short and sweet.

I really appreciate y'all.

Uh, I appreciate the innovative work that you do uh to help people, like so many people have mentioned, particularly tenants, and just to you, Joe.

Uh, you know, I have a friend who likes to pester y'all a lot, is how I'll leave it.

Uh and she has nothing but kind things to say about the department and uh your leadership, and so I'm really grateful for everything that y'all do.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Councilmember Givens.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to say, on behalf of District 7, thank you all so much.

You all really are the wheels that keep our cities turning.

And when you think about the work that our codes department does, you are really that first line of defense.

A lot of times the complaints that come from our constituency, you all are met with them as you're out there driving those streets.

And so I see you, and I appreciate the work that you do, and please forgive me for being probably the reason that you all have more work because I've been pushing and promoting C click fix left and right.

So thank you all so much for your innovation and for your steadfastness.

It is appreciated wholeheartedly, and thank you so much, Administrator Foster and Joe, for all of your hard work.

I have to say, Joe probably responds quicker to emails than anybody.

So thank you so much for all of your hard work.

I appreciate and I'm grateful for each of you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Fix Anders, thank you.

I just want to take this moment as you are receiving your flowers to say thank you, because again, you all handle some of the most difficult part of our city and addressing those needs, but I have to thank Mr.

Wall.

I think you've heard it.

Um he is the most gracious, most expedient, most polite person that I've seen uh in a very long time, and he's consistent.

Where are you, Mr.?

He's consistent.

I've never seen Mr.

Wall have a bad day, and I just want to thank you for that because the Coast Department, what you guys do is not easy, and you are not met with a whole lot of thanks, and you're definitely not giving a whole lot of appreciation.

So today I thank you all, and this was such a momentous occasion for everything that you all do.

Please know that you are seen, heard, and appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So in my past life, I I, as a prosecutor, I was part of enforcing the law.

And one thing you learn is when you're enforcing the law, whether it's codes or a statute, a lot of people don't appreciate it.

But guess what?

A lot of people do.

And what is the alternative?

Having neighbors duke it out.

I mean, you in a civilized society.

Seriously, we need you.

This is part of what makes our city work.

And so I know the work that you do every day, but just know that every time that you have someone that may complain about what you're doing, there's 10 other people that are appreciating it.

Okay.

And I hear it from the residents in my district, just like other city council members here, in the residents in their district in our neighborhood meetings.

How appreciated it is.

Every time that I have written in the email, you know, sent an email, it's been forwarded by my office.

The responses that you give aren't just quick, they're thorough and they're on point.

And that is extremely important.

You are so knowledgeable in what you do.

And it trust me, I there are times that I'll send an email late at night, and there's Joe responding.

And I'm like, how does he have the time to do this?

But he does, and so you have great leadership.

Um, and Amy, obviously, that also goes to you, and it goes to every one of you of what you're doing.

I've heard wonderful things, not just from the top, but also from other departments and working with St.

Pete Police Department, having those good relationships.

I think that's extremely important.

It says something about what you do every day.

So please always remember when you're going out there, even if you have a bad day and some and people are giving you grief, there's a lot of people sharing you on.

So thank you very much for what you do.

Thank you.

Okay, I'm gonna turn it over to Vice Chair Floyd while I go down to the police.

Great.

Thank you all.

We're gonna go to the seven.

Caribbean American Heritage Month proclamation given by our city council chair.

And we'll wait just a second.

Hi, you can come in and join.

Alright, take it away.

Okay, thank you by share.

Well, good afternoon, everyone.

It is an honor to join you as we recognize Caribbean American Heritage Month here in the city of St.

Petersburg.

As a city council member, I am proud that our city is taking this moment to celebrate the history, the culture, the leadership, and service of Caribbean Americans.

And as a child of Cuban refugees, this proclamation is personal to me.

I carry with me my family story every day, and I know many of you do too.

Today, as we look around this room, we see the beauty and strength of the Caribbean represented in many forms.

Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, and Tobago, Barbados, and beyond.

We see public servants, faith leaders, advocates, community builders, cultural leaders, and neighbors who make St.

Petersburg stronger every single day.

Caribbean Americans have shaped this country for more than 400 years.

And they continue to shape our city through their service in government, public safety, education, business, the arts, civic life, and community advocacy.

Their contributions are not only a part of our national story, they are part of St.

Petersburg's story.

For me, this month is also a reminder that identity is not something we leave behind.

It is something that we carry forward.

It is in our families, our accents, our recipes, our music, our prayers, our resilience, and our warmth and commitment to open doors for others.

It is my privilege to stand with you in celebration of Caribbean American Heritage Month and read this proclamation.

Whereas during Caribbean American Heritage Month, we recognize that Caribbean Americans have been part of the American story for more than 400 years and have contributed greatly to every aspect of our nation, including the economy, health care, public service, arts, culture, education, the military, literature, science, and technological innovation.

And whereas Caribbean American Heritage Month was first officially recognized by the United States Congress and President George W.

Bush in 2006, honoring the friendship between the United States and Caribbean countries.

Founding father and the first Secretary of the United States Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, and the common values and shared history of the United States and Caribbean countries.

And whereas the City of St.

Petersburg shares those same values, history, cultural, and economic ties to the Caribbean, and has a history recognizing the contributions of Caribbean Americans, including by naming one of its libraries after James Weldon Johnson, a second-generation immigrant from the Bahamas.

And whereas the city of St.

Petersburg is proud to join in the national celebration of Caribbean Americans and welcomes the opportunity to celebrate their rich culture and heritage through food, music, and events that invite people of all backgrounds to experience these cultures and develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of the role of Caribbean Americans and how they continue to play in our nation and local community.

And whereas Caribbean Americans have served as public servants within the city of St.

Petersburg and in the community, improving the lives of all residents and are integral to our history, our culture, and respective communities locally and beyond.

Now, therefore, I share LaSette Hanowitz on behalf of Kenneth T.

Walsh, Mayor of the City of St.

Petersburg, Florida, to hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 as Caribbean American Heritage Month in St.

Petersburg, and I also urge citizens, government agencies, institutions, businesses, and schools to celebrate the contributions of Caribbean Americans.

Thank you.

Now I invite our government affairs director, David Sanza, up to the podium.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council.

Surprise, I'm Jamaican.

Maybe not surprise.

If you've uh been around my house.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank the mayor, thank council for recognizing Caribbean American Heritage Month for the first time here in the city of St.

Petersburg.

Chair Hanowitz read the proclamation and talked about the little, you know, things and the people that you don't realize are from the Caribbean.

And as Chair said, there's a, you know, it's one thing to be born in this country, but it's one thing to leave the country that you're from and move here and give up your life and your culture and try and start over.

And for those of us who are descendants or those who are first generation, we very much understand what it was to give up that life and to be a part of a new one and really connect and give in public service to uh a place like thank you.

I believe we have Francis Joseph is gonna speak, president of the Caribbean American National Development Organization.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairwoman.

Yes, and thank you to the mayor.

I think he slipped out, and to all of the council members.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity.

Uh the Caribbean American National Development Organization.

Uh just think about it.

When we created that name, uh, we first came up with the name CANDU, and that's what the acronym stands for.

Uh and then we came up with that long name.

Um who knew we could have actually come here today to stand in front of you and be recognized for our accomplishments.

So that's uh part of the reason why the organization was created.

Uh, as the chairwoman already indicated, uh, the Caribbean American uh Heritage Month was established back in 2006 by then President George W.

Bush, recognizing the accomplishments and the contributions of the Caribbean American community to the community at large.

So uh all of the things that the people that migrated uh came and contributed to the American society, we now get an opportunity to recognize and celebrate.

So thank you for that opportunity.

Uh from a can-do perspective, I am the chair.

Uh we're over in Tampa, so I was invited over here this morning.

Uh, and similar to our speaker earlier today, I did not come to speak.

Uh, so I'm making this up on the fly.

Uh, you're doing good.

Uh but can do uh in, even though we're in Hillsborough County, we have a strong relationship with uh St.

Petersburg, and we know uh that the Caribbean community is growing in the Tampa Bay area.

We're not quite as big as Miami or Fort Lauderdale or Atlanta or New York, but just by walking into this building this morning, I quickly recognize some other people from the Caribbean.

So our population is growing, uh, and we thank you for your support as we move forward.

Uh, I know there's a Caribbean carnival that that the city of St.

Petersburg has been supporting over the years, so thank you for your support on that.

Uh there was a group earlier today uh that talked about disaster recovery and disaster management.

Uh I would like to share uh I would be remiss in not saying thank you to the members in the community of St.

Petersburg for the support in the disaster relief for Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica because the Tampa Bay area, we donated over 40,000 pongs of supplies that went back to Jamaica to support disaster recovery, similar to what we are talking about here.

Uh Kandu is also a member of the COAD for Hillsborough County.

We've supported uh disaster relief efforts there.

We've collaborated with Career Source, which is also here in St.

Petersburg for job development and economic uh opportunity and sustainability initiatives as the Caribbean community grows.

We are looking forward to being able to build on that economic footprint uh to better support themselves and advance the community overall.

So thank you for your support uh for recognizing the Caribbean community uh as we continue to grow together.

Thank you, Councilmember Givens.

Thank you.

I just want to take a moment to recognize each of you uh for your contributions and for your accomplishments here in our communities, specifically those of you who work here at City Hall.

We appreciate all that you all do, and a huge shout out to Can Do.

I appreciate all the work that you all are doing.

I've been following you for a long time, and I'm grateful for the work that you can do because we can do more together.

So thank you all for recognizing this day today, David.

You know, you are part of what makes St.

Petersburg a diverse community.

And I appreciate all of you for your contributions.

And I just want to shout out a district seven restaurant that catered our delicious lunch today, Taste of the Islands.

Thank you so much, question.

I just want to thank everyone who joined me here today and these young men who behave so well.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

All right, we have one more proclamation.

World Ocean Day proclamation brought to you by Councilmember Gabber.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

And if I could ask the members of the Sierra Club to come and join me.

So I'm very honored to bring World Oceans Day proclamation today.

You know, as a girl who grew up in Indiana, landlocked in the middle of the country, the ocean was a far-off dream.

And it wasn't until I had the opportunity to be an exchange student when I was 18 in Japan that I stood on the shores in Hokkaido, Pacific Ocean in front of me, and I realized how small we really are in this big world, and how beautiful and how lucky we are to have our oceans, our environment, and Mother Earth, of which I believe as an environmentalist, it is our responsibility to be stewards of.

And so I'm very happy today to read this proclamation, and it reads whereas World Ocean Day provides an opportunity to recognize the vital importance of our oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the marine wildlife, coastal communities, and economies that depend on clean, healthy, and resilient waters.

And whereas residents and visitors of St.

Petersburg and the Tampa Bay region cherish our beaches, fisheries, seagrasses, mangroves, recreational opportunities, marine wildlife of Gulf of Mexico, all which are central to the region's identity, tourism, economy, and quality of life.

And whereas offshore oil and gas exploration, development, and drilling carry inherent risks, including oil spills, leaks, industrialization of marine waters, habitat destruction, and pollution, which could cause significant harm to Florida's coastal economy, natural resources, marine wildlife, and way of life.

And whereas, even the perception of environmental risk associated with offshore drilling can negatively impact tourism, investment, and business development in coastal areas.

And whereas the protection of our coastal environment and economy is a priority for St.

Petersburg, and the long-term well-being of our community outweighs the short-term benefits that expand offshore drilling and that might offer to the oil and gas industry.

And now, therefore, I, Councilmember Brandy Gabbard, on behalf of Kenneth T.

Welch, mayor of the City of St.

Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim Thursday, June 11th, 2026, that's World Ocean Day in St.

Petersburg and recognizes World Ocean Day as an opportunity to celebrate and protect our oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the marine wildlife and coastal communities that depend on healthy coastal and ocean ecosystems.

And I'm joined today, as I said, by members of the Sierra Club and Michael McGrath.

We'll be speaking for them.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Well, I realize I think we're the last proclamation of the afternoon.

So I won't kill us up too much.

But good afternoon.

My name is uh Michael McGrath, uh lead organizer for Sierra Club Florida.

I want to thank our Mayor Welsh, members of Council and the city staff and committee members for inviting us today for World Oceans Day here in St.

Pete.

Um, you know, for seed like ours, World Ocean's Day is not abstract.

Uh it's about who we are, right?

We all have our special memories at the beach.

Our great fisheries we have before us, our seagrasses, our mangroves, the dolphins over by Vanoy, sea turtles, manatees, all the things, right?

Um, it really helps to create our own identity and also quality of life for the residents of St.

Pete and also help support our local economies.

Um that's why I want to thank you all today for supporting this proclamation, also supporting our efforts to oppose offshore drilling and standing with the Sierra Club to oppose um efforts that would actually open our Gulf up even more to more offshore oil and gas drilling activities.

Um it's we're at really a critical moment here within our Gulf.

And there's one thing I actually wanted to just bring anyone's attention to that.

Um I wanted to just kind of be as an educational tool for us today.

Each of you received a bookmark today um of a rice's whale.

Out of curiosity, uh show of hands.

How many folks have heard of this this whale before?

Rice as whale.

Okay, some, okay, some, but not all, right?

We have some more work to do.

Um get this folks.

This is the only, this is this is the Gulf of Mexico's only um year-round resident whale.

It exists nowhere else in the world than here in the Gulf of Mexico.

Um, it's critically endangered.

There's only about 50 of them left um out in the wild.

Um, during the Deepwater Horizon explosion back in 20 uh gosh, what was that now?

2010, 20 yeah, um or so, right?

Um that that actually killed about a fifth of their their entire population from from the oil drilling activities.

Um if we have more span facilities for um oil drilling within the Eastern Gulf, um the Florida Gulf, if you will, um we will see the species um it go extinct.

Simple as that.

Right.

Um, so this is survival's threatened not only by offshore drilling, but also vessel strikes, seismic exploration, noise pollution, habitat degradation, of course, oil spills.

And there's also federal actions uh more broadly within the Trump administration to weaken the Endangered Speeches Act exempting the oil and gas industry from um having to follow the protections of the endangered speeches act.

So it's really helpful to have communities like St.

Pete take the leadership on this so we can actually have a coalition of local governments across the Gulf of Florida that we can work with saying not here, not in Florida, not our shores.

And that I'm really just really proud today that St.

P is standing with us today to save our shores together.

Um again, thank you so much for your partnership on this, and thank you again for uh making it very clear that we cannot stand to uh have extinction be on our in our uh our our hands.

So thank you again.

Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Gabbard, for reading the proclamation and thanks to the administration for creating it.

Um this is an important one to me.

I know um a couple of years ago uh for World Oceans Day or near World Oceans Day, we had this uh similar proclamation, and I had invited the um executive director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography to come and speak with us and give us an update on FIO.

Um I thought about trying to scramble something together for this time, but they're kind of they're just so busy right now, um, you know, with everything since the since the fire.

But I wanted to take the time to point that out so that maybe next year um someone who's still on the dice will um invite FIO to come and give an update.

Um they along with the College of Marine Science have done some incredible work, and and some of them are um actually strong advocates for the rice as well, which is how I am familiar with them.

And I um actually found myself in DC with them a couple of times meeting with different um uh members of Congress, their staff, um, and others to um talk about solutions because there actually is one.

And um the solution can be found in St.

Petersburg, as usual.

Um, because one of our companies, Sail Drone, which is at the Maritime and Defense Technology Hub, actually has the technology and the equipment to be able to um go out and sense where the rice's wells are, because some of the part of the problem is they're they get in the way of the ships, and the ships don't want to move, you know.

Um but Sail Drone has a way that they can help very efficiently guide them around.

If only we could just get them to all work together.

And so um that's a little bit of what I know.

Um I've become a big fan.

I want if you have extras of these, I can give them to my fish friends.

Um, yeah.

And um I'm just so glad that you brought it up, and I really really appreciate that the Sierra Club has been raising awareness.

I do get your emails, and I am so glad that you're bringing this up because um I'm the number of of rice as well is so small right now that you are not exaggerating when you talk about the possible extinction in the very near future.

So you know, I'm right there with you.

I appreciate you, and I appreciate all that everyone is doing to advocate for our marine life for our marine environment.

And just a big shout out to all of those who are doing the work to advance technology and science in that area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gurtis.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Uh, Councilmember Gabbard, thank you for reading this proclamation and bringing it forward.

Um, to the Cierra Club, thank you so much.

Um, I was flying home from a work trip.

I don't know, four or five weeks ago from somewhere west of here.

I won't call them out.

And uh it was right at kind of sunset, and we were taking off, and we were flying over the Gulf, and I looked down and I had to double take because there were some stationary things in the water, and I went, What the hell is that?

And then I realized it was oil rigs.

And I went, man, I'm really happy I don't have to look at those in Florida.

And uh I hope I'm continuously happy that I don't have to look at those in Florida and hopefully we can chip away where they are at other places.

So thank you so much for the work that you're doing.

Uh I'm very happy that my kids weren't on that flight, so I didn't have to explain to them what those were.

Uh, that'll be uh another time.

But uh I'm just very proud of the work that you're doing, especially on this front.

Thank you for representing us so well uh and protecting us.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you and Councilmember Gabbard, thank you for um bringing the proclamation and Sierra Club for all the work that you do and your advocacy.

I mean, teaching us something every single day.

I think it's a it's important.

Um I love the the story about the rice's whale that you have actually put out there to let people know that they're endangered.

I think that's incredible.

Um that a lot of people don't know more about this, especially when we're threatened with uh opening up our Gulf to more drilling and that sort of stuff.

Um, and Florida has been fighting for many years on this front.

I will always and I will always continue.

So I'm glad that you're in the forefront and I feel better about it too that you're there.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

So we move on to reports.

Uh, we have a presentation.

This was uh pulled by Councilmember Gabbard.

This is on the residential recovery and elevation program grant, and I will turn over the floor to Councilmember Gabbard to introduce this.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh so I pulled this item, I think for probably two reasons.

Uh, one, certainly, um, anything that comes through Sunrise St.

Pete, I always appreciate a presentation and a public conversation because these dollars are so important to the recovery for everyday residents in our city.

And um, let's be honest.

I mean, I shared this at the Lair Committee that uh we've been really pushing back on Tallahassee and FEMA for the lack of response under the Elevate Florida program, uh, continuing to try to keep the pressure on working with our state senator and representatives to make sure that those dollars come down.

And whenever, you know, I'm out in the community talking with residents about this.

The very next question is what about the St.

Pete money, right?

So I think it's important that we're continuing to be transparent in how we are moving forward and and being very honest about what our hurdles have been so far, right?

I mean, a lot of this, like to the point this morning in HOUT, the agreement didn't even get signed until just a few months ago.

So um, you know, I just I think for full transparency, full accountability, making sure that residents know that we are still working to move these dollars forward.

Uh, that was my purpose in pulling this.

So thank you for uh giving me the opportunity to introduce it, and I'll go ahead and turn it over to Aubrey.

Thanks so much, Councilmember Gabbard and Chair and Council members.

Uh happy to be with you.

I'm Aubrey Phillips, uh Director of Strategic Initiatives and Grants for the City of St.

Petersburg.

Today I'm gonna provide a brief progress update on our residential recovery efforts and the action plan implementation overall and request your approval for a resolution to help us continue to streamline homeowner awards in particular.

The presentation today frames up where we are, where we are, what's working, and the immediate operational steps that are helping us to serve residents better every day.

So first up, a quick overview of the agenda and objectives.

We'll cover today overall implementation progress, the feedback we've received and monitoring observations we've made, and the actions that we have currently underway to ensure a consistent and positive applicant experience as we all journey on this road to recovery.

I'll close out with our request to city council to approve a resolution delegating authority to execute residential recovery and elevation program grant agreements.

This is to ensure we can move eligible homeowners promptly from approval into construction and get people on the road to recovery sooner.

So here's the broad how the broader action plan is tracking.

As Councilmember Gabbard referenced, with in February, we received our fully executed HUD grant agreement within four months of getting that HUD grant agreement back fully executed.

Over three quarters of the city council approved funding in the action plan has been activated, and that's what you see represented on this slide.

So currently in progress, we have our residential recovery and elevation program, disaster relief reimbursements, public infrastructure mitigation, and post-disaster improvement and planning.

Applications are currently open right now for the affordable rental housing for multifamily developers.

Those responses are due by 5 p.m.

tomorrow.

I will reinforce that we will remain in the code of silence pending those awards.

And then later this summer, we'll be launching home buyer assistance, voluntary buyouts, and nonprofit community support services.

So I have to take a moment here to recognize this is not just me and the team that I lead.

This is almost every department in the city that has been helping to support this effort as well as our implementation partners.

I want to give a quick shout out to legal housing and community development, real estate and property management, public works, codes, EM.

Like I said, a lot of departments are involved in helping make this happen so quickly.

Zooming in on residential recovery, here's a timeline of some key operational milestones.

And really operations started even before this timeline starts.

So as a reminder to everyone on council and the public that may be listening, BDO government services provides our program management support for the city's residential recovery programs.

And this is under a competitively procured consulting agreement that was originally approved by council in August of 2025.

Ryan Flannery, a principal with BDO, has joined us this afternoon and is available when we get to the QA portion.

Reflected on the slide, the city began accepting applications on December 15th, 2025 while we were awaiting our fully executed grant agreement back from HUD.

We wanted to get the ball moving on getting folks in the pipeline for recovery.

Intake paused on February 15th due to higher than expected applications, and that's to allow us to time to review the applications we had received and assess whether additional applicants could be served with the current funding we have available.

And on February 19th, 2026, we received our HUD fully executed grant agreement, and we were then able to issue our first disaster relief payment award in March of 2026 and the first reimbursement for repair award in May of 2026.

We just recently completed the environmental review for our first repair and reconstruction awards.

So we're expecting those grant awards to be coming forward very shortly.

I'll reimind everyone on council and those watching that these federal funds come with substantial documentation, eligibility, and review requirements, and that does impact how quickly we can get help to residents.

So in particular, all repair and reconstruction awards require an environmental review, which, depending on the age of the structure, entails a mandatory 30-day review period by the state historic preservation office.

These reviews and documentation and eligibility requirements are all embedded into the case workflow that you'll see in just a moment, and that's to ensure that we have full compliance with all of our HUD regulations before any obligation or construction proceeds.

We want to make sure we're moving people to recovery quickly, but we also want to ensure that we're protecting the city and making sure that taxpayers are not on the hook for repaying any funds to HUD.

So as of this past Monday, June 8th, we had 1,635 cases in document collection, 611 were in review, 240 were on hold, and 184 were complete.

So digging into that just a little bit more deeply.

Case managers are actively assisting applicants with document collection.

As I mentioned, there's a lot of documentation that HUD requires that we collect and verify with applicants.

We do encourage and I encourage you if applicants are reaching out to you, please encourage them to make an appointment with our service center and the case management team.

That remains one of the most effective ways we found to finalize outstanding materials and get cases moving forward.

The review process includes eligibility verification, damage assessment, duplication of benefits, and environmental reviews.

It also includes the pre-award quality control to ensure that we're these dollars are all compliant with the federal rules and regulations.

After priority applications are addressed, those cases that are on hold because of prioritization will be processed.

And then complete applications include both awarded applications as well as those applications that were duplicate, withdrawn, or cases that were ineligible.

Focusing in on those cases that are in review, the 611 that are in review are undergoing that eligibility verification and environmental clearance check.

And new KPIs are helping us to make sure that these things are moving forward more quickly.

Next up, we'll summarize implementation momentum feedback and operational improvements that we have in effect now.

So as of this past Monday, we had issued 37 grant awards totaling just over $370,000.

As I mentioned earlier, our first repair and reconstruction awards have just completed environmental review, so we're anticipating those grant notices will be going out any day now.

As we have been processing applications, we've received a very low quantity of complaints today, just 12 since we opened applications.

However, we did see a slight uptick in April, so an increase from two complaints per month to three complaints per month, but that was enough to trigger us to do some additional monitoring related to applicant experience and really dig into what applicants were seeing.

Using this feedback, both the city team and BDO's team introduced additional monitoring to look into that.

And based on the findings of that effort, we've strengthened intensive weekly staff training with an emphasis on service standards and federal documentation requirements.

We want to make sure our case managers are clear so that applicants are clear and we can get people moving forward more quickly.

We're also conducting case-by-case follow-up to remove barriers and refer residents to other programs where applicable.

So as you might imagine, we're encountering folks who are dealing not only with recovery but ancillary issues related to paying both a mortgage and a rent, facing eviction threats, things like that.

So we're making sure that we're connecting them with other programs that the city or community partners have to provide those wraparound support services and help folks to stabilize in that recovery journey.

And then also BDO has said it's been expanding their case management team.

So we have six new hires coming on board.

This will grow the team by 50% since May 1st.

We have new KPIs that we're rolling out over the next month and a half to two months that'll focus on case processing, applicant contact cadence, and quality control return rates.

This is will help to support over time, long-term oversight, and continuous improvement.

We're proactively not only managing production, but we're also adapting to emerging federal guidance while we bring today's resolution and work on internal efforts to streamline award execution.

So, as one example of that emerging federal guidance, we've recently been informed by our HUD representative that SAVE, which is the system used to verify citizenship and immigration status, is no longer required.

We're awaiting the publication of HUD's announcement of this and further clarification as our understanding is that there is a federal injunction that may affect the applicability of that save and Aurora requirements that relate to citizenship and identity documentation.

This would really help to streamline the documentation that we have to get from citizens to be able to process their cases.

But of course, we want to make sure that HUD is supportive of that direction and that we're not coming out of compliance.

So with all of that context, here's our specific recommendation for council action and how you can help us to continue to move eligible homeowners forward.

We're requesting council to approve a resolution delegating authority to the mayor designee to execute residential recovery and elevation program grant agreements and related documents.

So in this case, that's a mortgage and promissory note on these agreements that will allow us to move eligible homeowners forward without delay.

Let's see.

Just as a reminder, our eligible applicants for this program can receive up to $375,000 worth of repairs, reconstruction, or replacement of their storm impacted home to a decent safe sanitary condition.

This delegation of authority reduces administrative friction for residential recovery awards over $100,000 so that we can execute those agreements promptly while maintaining full compliance with HUD requirements.

So for our residential recovery program, we do prioritize assistance to households with members who are 65 or older.

We currently across all three types of assistance, so repair and reconstruction, reimbursement for repairs, and disaster relief payment.

About a quarter of our applicants, that's 679 cases total, are households that have members who are 65 or older.

That increases as we talk about repair and reconstruction awards.

For repair and reconstruction, about 40% of our cases have members that are 65 or older.

That tells us, reading between the lines on that data, that those households with older family members are having some of the hardest time recovering.

So we are really emphasizing support there.

I really want to shout out our BDO case management team.

They are very hands-on with applicants.

They sit down, they've visited applicants in their homes, helping them walk through how to log on to various federal systems to get the documentation that's required.

And we know that that's that's not an easy journey for folks.

So we really appreciate the time that the BDO case management team takes to meet applicants where they're at.

With that, I'll take any questions you might have.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gavard.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation.

And so yesterday we received a memo from Aaron Fish about the voluntary buyout program.

Is Aaron here or whoever can answer the questions?

First of all, I just want to thank you guys because you did a great, I mean, Aaron did a great presentation in here about like what we discussed on March 12th, and there were concerns at that time on the voluntary.

He's there he is, he heard his name and he appears.

Thank you, Aaron.

I appreciate your memo that you sent us yesterday, and I appreciate the response from staff for the feedback that was shared about voluntary buyout, specifically with the proposal in March that individuals could, you know, purchase a home or relocate anywhere within the state of Florida.

And very clearly, you know, I know myself and at least two other council members, I think in that committee, were very um steadfast that it needed to be relocation within the city of St.

Petersburg.

Um, you know, that's one of the challenges that we are continuing to see is that people want to stay within the city that they have loved and you know built a life in, but once their home is destroyed, they have a lot less resources to do that with.

And so I really want to just thank staff and the administration for hearing us and for making those changes.

I don't know if you want to speak to that at all with voluntary buyout happening in the summer, July-ish, if there's any like specific conversation about like outreach and things like that.

Yes, and uh good afternoon, council.

Uh good to be here, Aaron Fish, real estate and property management director.

And council member, yeah, to um to answer your question.

Yeah, the original outreach is expected to start in the summer um with a mailing to go out to um all the property owners within the disaster risk reduction areas, and then um based on the feedback that we get from that, then um then we will start reviewing um the properties and you know those locations uh at that time.

Okay, um, two questions about that.

Just because council, this is our last meeting, and then we go on break, and next thing you know, it'll be July, right?

So two questions also came up in the committee in March.

Have we narrowed down the areas that um we discussed before the map that you had shown us?

And I bring that up specifically around district two, because the one and only area really that was in district two, as I pointed out, was highly a multifamily area, and so um that certainly when we only have the bandwidth to do 14 properties doesn't really work for those large-scale multifamily, might work for smaller ones, not the ones that were in that area.

So have you all looked at that map and kind of brought it down a little bit more to areas where you actually think because if you just send these notices out to all of these areas without refining it a bit more, you're probably gonna get a lot of applications you're gonna have to weed through that aren't really gonna meet the criteria.

So, yes, and that's a good point, council member.

We um we did consider that, and then ultimately um the idea was that if we we did send it out to everybody, cast that wide net, so to speak, we really wanted to see the benefit of what that feedback really is without trying to hone in too much on certain areas and potentially miss something.

So, yeah, it's it's gonna be a broad outreach.

Okay, and then my last question on this point is uh also from the feedback from the committee with only having 14 properties that are really going to be able to be impacted.

Um, have we continued to work with uh say stormwater and making sure that whenever we do get these applications in, we're somehow prioritizing based upon areas where there are stormwater projects happening, and I go straight to Clan Bayou, Kingston Street South.

I was just down there a couple of weeks ago with a couple of uh my senior uh ladies who I continue to keep track of through the Elevate Florida program.

Um and there are homes down there that people have not touched, and they are right along Clan Bayou in that area, and so you have to worry about will they know about this program, right?

If they're not engaged in the active rebuild, but then also I just look at those properties and I think like those could be ripe for buyout and be able to utilize that with stormwater projects that are planned.

So have you guys had more conversation about that?

Certainly, and I and I think once we get the feedback from the outreach, uh there will be plenty of opportunity for staff across administrations to review and and provide feedback on what's most beneficial to the city.

Okay, Ryan, do you have anything to add about what your experience has been working in other um cities where you had disaster funds and kind of outreach and response and any challenges with outreach when people haven't, you know, returned home and maybe are a little bit more difficult to reach.

So, in general, across all types of programs, just outreach.

Um, you know, that it's a it's a common issue for sure.

Um I think that it it's a a sustained concerted effort, which I think you know the city has been doing a great job with.

Um outreach comes in a lot of different forms.

We've come to find that outreach really works best with social media, yeah.

Yeah, believe it or not.

And word of mouth are the two um, you know, most prominent for uh when we we do surveys and get responses from folks who have applied, it's usually those two um methods.

Okay, very good.

Well, when all of that opens in July, if you could get that to us as council members, uh, be happy to share that in newsletters and on social media as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Driscoll.

Um, I actually, Aaron, it's just it's just a quick buyout question.

I know it was a while back we had gotten um like a map.

And I'm I'm sorry if I missed it with the update that we were just sent, but is the map like can we look at it today and it's still accurate?

Yes.

Yes, there is on the city's website.

There is a a public-facing map that shows the disaster risk reduction areas, and it is a searchable map where um you can go in and type in an address or even click on the map and it will show whether or not that property is eligible.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure it was up to date and um something we could still encourage people to use.

Yes, okay, and um I I you know I'm I'm gonna just schedule a quick call for us for my additional questions because they're really specific and I don't need to take up everybody's time.

So thank you.

Certainly.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have a resolution for consideration.

I'll entertain a motion.

Second.

Motion second, clerk.

If you can open the machine for voting, council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item F2 passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you, Aubrey, for the update.

Thank you.

Um we'll recess at City Council and convene as CRE.

Uh we have Mark Van Lu here uh on a resolution recommending the city council approve funding in an amount not to exceed 481,852 in previously appropriated TIFF fund from the South St.

Petersburg Redevelopment District to Habitat for Humanity of Pinellas County for the construction of the Grove Townhomes.

Good afternoon, Council Chair, Vice Chair, and Council Members.

Mark Van Lu, Assistant Director of Housing Community Development.

Do you have a brief presentation I can go through with you to explain this uh request and this project?

Um Habitat Free Manity is constructed 11 units at 1805 18th Avenue South.

Um all of these units are three bedroom, two and a half bath, for sale townhomes, and are restricted to buyers with household income of 80 percent of area median income or below.

Habitat has completed construction of the project in late 2025 and has closed on the sale already of seven of the eleven units as of late May, uh, is under contract for the sale of three more, expected to close this month, and has the final unit uh buyer selected with a closing date yet to be determined.

The project's located on 18th Avenue South, just a couple of blocks east of the Tangerine Plaza uh area, as well as uh a couple blocks east of Habitats New Under Construction Pelican Place project.

They're 40 unit project that uh is beginning uh construction now.

This is an actual photo of of uh portion of the units that were constructed on the site.

Um, and uh there it's a really attractive uh project with uh 11 great uh for sale townhomes.

These are the basic numbers for the project.

So total project costs just under 3.9 million dollars, which breaks down to about 354,000 per unit in total cost.

Uh Habitat is requesting city funds in an amount of 481,852 and 14 cents, breaking down to a per unit subsidy of 43,805, and all of the units are affordable, so uh that number remains the same per affordable workforce housing unit, and that represents about 12% of the total project cost.

Uh the financing plan habitat has constructed the homes using self-financing and will recoup the cost of the homes through the buyer's purchase price, uh down payment assistance, and the requested 481,00852 gap funding.

It's important to note that the average household income level for all 11 buyers uh comes in at about 70.3% of area median income, with the uh lowest earning buyer at 62 percent of area median income and the highest at 78 percent.

So, due to the income levels of the buyers that were ultimately selected for these homes, uh Habitat for Humanities unable to cover the full cost and is asking the city to help cover this gap.

This is a little different.

I usually come before a project starts requesting the gap funding.

In this case, habitat attempted to uh build the project without any financial subsidy, but at the end of the day, with the selection of lower income buyers uh have this gap that they're requesting our assistance with.

So uh staff recommends approval of this funding request.

I'm uh happy to entertain any questions.

I also have representatives from Habitat here.

Thank you, Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark, for the um the report.

Very supportive of this.

I really just wanted to take the mic for a second to um thank the folks from Habitat.

Um, once again, you created something that we can all be proud of and given gosh.

I mean, just this morning in our housing land use and transportation committee meeting.

We're getting our housing opportunities for all update and talking about you know the continued difficulty in finding home ownership opportunities for um folks who are on the lower end of the income scale or not making what was it uh $28 an hour or 34, whatever the housing wage is now.

Um this is housing for real people, it's home ownership for real people, and habitat is making it happen like nobody else.

I drive by these a lot.

It look it's it's beautiful once again, you know.

And um, so thank you and more, please.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gurtes.

Well, I'm just gonna repeat what Council Member Driscoll said.

I just wanted to say thank you.

I'm super excited for this, Mark.

Thanks for the work.

Amy, Mike, Sean.

Great job.

Move approval, second.

You have a motion.

Second, Councilmember Givens.

Thank you, Chair.

I am so pleased to support this, and I concur.

I want to thank Habitat, Mike and the whole team.

Sean, all of you all, the hard work that you all put in for a 43k subsidy per unit, less than half a million dollars.

We have other projects in the city that we've done a hell of a lot more for, and they've taken much longer.

So I thank you all so much for your diligence and your hard work in helping to make homeownership a realistic dream for the regular working class family.

There's so many people who I know from this community who have become homeowners, not priced out of our community, but able to maintain their home and also able to give their family a place to be raised because of the work that you are doing.

So I'm so excited to see this go up in my district and congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Fix Anders.

Thank you.

Um again, thank you so much for this presentation.

And of course, Mike and John, you know that Habitat has always been my favorite.

Um, especially because of the opportunities that you provide.

So I just really wanted to say thank you, and I agree with Councilmember Driscoll.

We need much more.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, thank you all.

I'll just say ditto.

We have a motion and second clerk.

If you can open the machine for voting, council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item CR82 passes unanimously.

Now we adjourn as CRA and reconvene as city council.

Same report, same presentation.

Second, motion second, clerk.

If you can open the machine for voting, council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Thank you, sir.

We move up to two legal items.

We have McCall here.

Hi McCall.

Good afternoon, Chair and members of council.

Uh thank you for your consideration at these couple legal items.

The first item before you were asking for your approval to increase the not to exceed amount of our engagement letter with laying in Rafa from twelve thousand five hundred dollars to twenty-two thousand five hundred.

Mr.

Nick Lang, his expertise in laws governing Florida Homeowners Associations has been extremely beneficial, not only to our office, but to administration.

And we're just looking for this funding to help get these HOA documents finalized for the deuces hound home debt town home development.

Thank you.

Second, you have a motion and a second.

Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting.

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item I1 passes unanimously.

Thank you.

I too, and then this request is going to be similar to a request we brought, gosh, uh a few months ago related to the geo bonds.

This is uh asking for your approval of the resolution confirming um the appointment of Bryant Miller Olive to provide legal advice and services on various funding and finance related matters associated with a potential reduction in ad velorum revenue for a not to exceed amount, it's initial $25,000.

Move approval.

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda.

I do passes unanimously.

Thank you, and thank you, McCall.

We move on to new business.

The first item is mine.

Uh I am gonna amend some of the language because that actually passed the legislature and it started before it uh passed the legislature.

So uh same same item.

And I do want to check with administration.

July 30th, committee of the whole recommended budget.

Is that a good place to put to talk about this?

Yes, Chair.

We we're comfortable with that.

Okay, that sounds good.

All right, move approval, second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting, council member, please enter your vote.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve uh G1 passes unanimously.

Thank you.

We have G2 by Chair Floyd.

Thank you.

Uh I am respectfully requesting city council approval of a resolution opposing any state legislation that discriminates against people based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other protected identity or characteristic.

You can see the resolution attached.

Uh the language around uh city funding for shelter services and whatnot was uh I ran it past uh Amy and uh administrator Foster and uh to make sure we were all comfortable with it.

Uh and uh I also want to thank my friend Jenna who helped write this as well.

Um and I'll move approval.

Second.

We have a motion of second.

Councilmember Gurtis.

Uh thank you, madam.

Share Floyd.

I'm just gonna repeat what I said earlier.

Proudie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gabbard.

Same here.

I was very proud of you earlier, but to two for Clempt to say anything.

So I I did not, but I do want to take this opportunity just to thank you not only for the remembrance proclamation earlier and reading that, but also this uh resolution.

I stand in support with you 100%, and I just really appreciate your leadership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh all one other thing I wanted to mention is I felt this was important to bring this year because it's the last time we get to talk about this.

And it's the last time we get to talk about it because of the legislation coming from the legislature.

And uh I hope that it's not the case because I feel that um, you know, my first amendment rights are being violated by the uh legislation.

So I think we'll have uh there'll be a more public discussion about that kind of thing in the future.

But uh a big reason why I uh did it was because it's our last opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Uh 100% support and wonderful timing given given its pride bump.

So we have a motion and a second, right?

Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting.

Council members, please enter your votes, seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G two passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Next up we have G3, Councilmember Gurtes.

Thank you very much, madam chair.

Uh colleagues, I have a resolution in front of you requesting approval uh that the city of St.

Petersburg recognize uh the Panfillo de Navarro's expedition landing near uh Jungle Prada site.

Again, uh I worked with legal and I want to thank Rui also for the one-on-one.

And I uh I'll speak for him and if you can yell at me if I are, but I think I have his support on this as well.

Um listen, I I want to make it very clear.

This is just recognizing uh the historical significance of this.

This is not a yeah, everybody's picking up what Oda went down.

Yeah, okay.

Well, yeah, and look big thanks to legal for helping uh the way it was done, and that was very purposeful.

Uh the ancillary events do not get lost on me.

And so uh, but again, I thought it was important with the 500 anniversary.

I mean, a lot of a lot of cool things happened.

I mean, the first one of the first black explorers traversed America to the Pacific Ocean.

Uh, there's there's a lot of history to this, and I wanted to commemorate it, and I think this will help kick off also what is the 500th anniversary of this, and I'll move approval.

Thank you.

I have a motion of second.

Councilmember Gabbard.

Thank you, madam chair, and just very briefly, thank you, Councilmember Gertis, for bringing this forward.

I know uh if Mr.

McDougall is listening.

Yes, thank you.

Amy is here.

Thank you for taking the time to educate me in our one-on-one that we had, and uh immediately I was in support.

But of course, we try to always give reverence to colleagues when something happens in their district.

And so I very affectionately uh said, you go talk to Councilmember Gertes, and uh, you know, good luck.

So, you know, very happy to see this come here today, and so um thank you so much for your advocacy and for your education.

I really do appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, and Amy.

Uh thank you for the for the uh um meeting that we had, and obviously, same thing with council member Gabbard and your advocacy on this issue.

It land it landed in the right spot.

Yeah, two twice today.

Wow, uh aren't you cheap?

So we have a motion.

Oh, Councilmember Gurtis.

I'm sorry, thank you, Madam Chair.

Just I and thank you, Councilmember Gabbard, Amy and Jim.

Jim is not able to be here.

He had uh a surgery, and I just want to publicly I think he's at home watching.

I just want to publicly thank him.

Uh I I had an extra thousand pages of reading in May.

And so uh I've gotten through about half of it if I'm being honest with you, Jim.

Uh but uh very very thankful for uh bringing this forward to me.

Frankly, I was relying totally on the historical marker that's already there, but I think this is important for us to recognize.

So thank you so much for the support.

Thank you, Councilmember Driscoll.

Yeah, thanks, uh Councilmember Gertis for bringing this forward.

I had the the pleasure of meeting with Amy and Jim, and Amy, thank you for shepherding this the way that you have, doing your part.

Um, I noticed that Rui's here.

And um I know he gets excited about these things too, and he is also um plays a big role in getting getting some of these things done and making sure that we're recognizing our um all parts of our history.

So um thanks for all that you do as well.

Getting this off to him now.

I know.

I love it when we give Rui work to do, but then it means that you have to answer the phone when he comes.

So but honestly, thank you.

Thank you.

Bye Chair Form.

Thank you.

Yeah, I did want to say I read through it and I was like, oh yeah, this is totally reasonable thing and well written, and uh I think it's a good thing for us to do legal, yeah.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

Because I was like, you know, I see it, I'm looking like all right, let me make sure this is good, and it was good.

So I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Rui, good to see you by the way.

There's some pictures you have to pick up, which is unrelated to this.

So my legislative aid is gonna meet you outside while you're here.

I just want to make sure I'm picking out the district one stuff.

I'm trying to think, you know, thank you for what you've done on this too.

We have a motion and a second clerk.

If you can open the machine for voting, council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members uh except council member.

I thought I did it.

Sorry.

There you go.

See that all present council members have voted now.

Can you tell me and then else to vote?

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item G3 passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Next up, we move to uh council committee reports, H1, Councilmember Gertes.

Thank you very much.

Respectfully requesting city council approval of the short list of proposals for the FY2026 management evaluation of the billing and collections department to two offerers, the e-com technical services and baker Tilly Advisory Group, and I'd move approval.

Second.

You have a motion and a second, Clerk.

If you can open the machine for voting, council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tell the announced the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item H1A passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Next up is public hearings.

They start at 501.

So at this point, we are adjourned.

Thank you.

We're re-sorry, reset, reset.

Yeah, yeah.

We're back in session for public hearings.

Um, the first item up is J one.

Um, I believe we have Dr.

Avery Slifer here.

Hi.

Oh, good.

Did not see you.

You snuck up on me.

I know I'm a little bit.

How are you doing?

I'm good.

Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, committee members.

What we are here before you this evening is to authorize a second allocation of the emergency solutions grant on sheltered survivor housing, which is known as rush funds from the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development in the amount of two million three hundred and twenty-eight thousand three hundred and one dollars.

This is the second allocation in response to the major disaster declarations associated with hurricanes, Helene and Milton.

Rush funding is to address the housing and service needs of individuals and families experiencing homelessness or those at risk of homelessness as a result of the disasters.

The funding is specifically intended to help communities rapidly identify, engage, shelter, house, and stabilize vulnerable residents affected by disaster-related displacement and housing instability.

Consistent with the priorities identified by the Pinellas County Continuum of Care.

The city plans to utilize these funds to support a range of homeless activities, which may include street outreach, emergency shelter, rapid rehousing, rapid resolution, diversion services, and homeless prevention programs.

There is no local match associated with this funding.

The grant represents an opportunity to bring these additional federal resources into our community to help address the increasing housing and homeless challenges as a result of our recent disasters and to support our most vulnerable residents.

Thank you.

All entertain the motion.

Move approval.

Thank you.

A motion and second.

Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting.

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing the all-present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tell announced vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J1 passes unanimously.

Thank you, and thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Next up, we have J two, an ordinance amending City Code 26-168 and creating a new section 26-169 title Neighborhood Resident Only Parking Areas.

Uh Clerk, can you please read the ordinance?

Gross ordinance number 638-H, an ordinance of the city of St.

Petersburg amending the city code to revise Section 26-168 and create a new section 26-169 to be entitled neighborhood resident only parking areas.

Renumbering current section 26-169 to section 26-174 provided for several and provided for a date.

Madam Chair, we do have a few cards.

Okay, thank you.

Um we have Evan Moore here.

First of all, council members, I know that you have received some additional information on this item.

Uh there is uh additional language that council members council members can consider in case you would like to.

Um, Evan Morey has been working on this for a very long time and has done a good job at first, you know, reaching out uh to both uh chamber and Kona and bringing up this item and trying to get feedback.

We've gotten a lot of more free uh recent feedback, which he's been addressing this week with me, and we've had meetings, so I just wanted to kind of let council members know that, and he's gonna be able to address a lot of that today.

So, Evan, thank you so much for being here and um start with your presentations.

Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon, Council Evan Moore, Director of Transportation and Parking Management.

I'll walk us through uh a few slides here.

Uh the first one has some background and history on the residential parking permit program in the city of St.

Pete, which dates back to the early 90s of note is that initially the program was relatively small and in the eastern core of downtown over time as it grew and parking stress pushed out from that core area.

The RPP program has gone through several expansions, the latest of which were into traditional neighborhood, the old northeast section immediately north of downtown.

The first uh section of the ordinance in front of you aligns the code with how the program has evolved over time.

For example, this includes updating to match the fee increase approved by city council through the FY2027 budget process and a transition to passes always being valid for 12 months from the date of issue rather than passes uh acquired during mid year expiring at the end of that calendar year.

Also listed on here are some of the eligibility requirements and the limit on visitor passes.

The RPP program has done definitely gone through several expansions as the city has grown, as earlier mentioned.

Overflow parking and resident requests for parking relief didn't stop when the old northeast zones were added.

Indeed, both staff as well as city council have fielded requests to consider options for residents further from downtown, but we haven't had a mechanism knowing that the downtown program couldn't readily be expanded to remote uh areas of St.

Peter, areas further from from downtown.

Since the original uh council referral and through the council committee process, we've developed a draft ordinance that be that's before you today, which doesn't define any exact zone or zones.

Instead it establishes a framework and ground rules that would be applied to potential future zones.

This framework establishes some very clear guardrails that provides elements of protection for all interested parties.

Some of the major elements are listed here.

Which includes that significant congestion must exist and that a permit program must be able to provide some relief of that excessive congestion.

It also requires that a two-thirds supermajority of households be in support before a proposed zone can even come to city council for consideration.

And while the traffic study and petition process are very similar for traffic calming there's a big difference here because once all the hurdles are cleared all the boxes are checked it still doesn't move forward without going through the entire city council amendment process again.

And I'd like to emphasize that no news zone would be implemented without a thorough valuation passing the petition defining all proposed details of a zone community engagement and at least three votes of city council the committee and then twice with full council.

Here's a few more details about the proposed framework first it's flexible in that a zone wouldn't have to be in effect 24-7 it could be certain days or times of the day however it's not meant to address occasional major special events.

For example we wouldn't be conducting the requisite parking study in a neighborhood adjacent to Grand Central during Halloween on central or Pride weekend the previously outlined high bar set for program initiation partially addresses the fact that both residents and business interests must be kept in mind while defining a program we added an additional restriction that also works towards protecting business interests which is that the ordinance would not allow for a proposed zone to come before council that includes any parking abutting a commercial use earliest earlier this year we did share the draft ordinance with both the uh council of neighborhood associations and the St.

Pete Chamber so this slide shows the recent history of council meetings related to this item however it should be noted that today is actually the fifth time in front of council in total the first was when city council voted to send this topic to committee almost three years ago on July 20th 2023.

The second time was a committee discussion on October 10th 2024 the third time was April 11th 2026 for the second committee review and discussion at PSNI the fourth time was the first reading which occurred late last month and the final time is today at public hearing one idea that has emerged since the first reading is the possibility of adding a one block buffer along all major streets as this defined in the city's comprehensive plan.

This would complement and not replace the budding commercial property prohibition council was provided draft language yesterday and you may wish to consider that option during today's deliberations to close I'd like to thank Mr Ingram who's here here again today for speaking at the first reading and our conversation since then I'd also like to thank the chamber and Kona for their help in sharing information with their constituents and also for talking through viewpoints and ideas.

This concludes the presentation thank you Evan I believe we have public comment yes madam chair first two speakers Kyle Masterson Kay Mohamed Kumar approach either podium state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council.

I think you're here both are against two speakers, Bryce Kennedy, Nate Siegel, approach on the podium, state your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address city council again.

Both arguments, Madam chair.

Philip Ingram, Steve McGarry, approach either podium, state your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address city council.

Good evening.

Good afternoon, Councilmen and women.

Couple weeks I came before the I guess I should give my 2339 Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Street North.

Sorry, I represent Trip Steiner, and it's great to see you all again.

Philip Ingram.

Good evening.

Couple weeks ago, I came here to the council to state how concerned I was about the parking ordinance that was being proposed for passage.

My chief concern was about the lack of accessibility protections for many businesses across our great city.

That day I stated I was ready and open to discuss with any city leaders to try and come to a possible solution to help secure more protections for our business community while still respecting the other stakeholders involved.

I must take a moment to thank many city leaders who've taken the time to reach out, speak, and meet with me and hear mine and many other concerns.

This is especially true for Evan Morey, who I have to imagine is probably tired of hearing from me at this point.

But indeed has been a great partner and resource, and I thank you for that.

We arrived at a solution of creating a one-block buffer zone around any major future road in the city's plan to protect accessibility to a vast majority of the businesses that are possibly affected from this.

I believe this will go a long way to help protect those businesses and also respect the residents.

It also protects investment of future commercial property and viability for many of us to plan and keep our doors open.

This also would be a partnership with our neighborhoods.

Passage of this ordinance without the added language, I would believe have potential would have the potential for unintended disastrous consequences.

I wouldn't be surprised if you hear calls tonight for deferment or tabling this vote for a later date, and that there are some unresolved issues that might need to be concerned.

I don't think that's the worst thought, but if you choose not to do that and you choose to move forward to vote with this vote, I do ask that it is only with this additional language.

Thank you for your time.

I appreciate it.

Good afternoon.

I'm Steve McGarry, small business owner.

I own wildflower ice cream at 26 in MLK.

And I'm a chamber of commerce member.

I'm a member of the neighborhood association of a couple couple different ones around, and most importantly, a dad to a couple kids in the area.

And I wanted to start with just saying that I think over the last two years we've all seen dozens of small businesses close.

So this timing is a little bit unfortunate.

Watching friends close down, and it's just a bad, a bad time, basically for a lot of businesses with rising rents, insurance, health care, all that good stuff, all the all the ingredients going into it.

So when I saw this, thanks to Phil, really bringing it up to a lot of people, I got a bunch of messages from a lot of friends.

They were concerned about this, and I think that when it comes to the timing and everything going through this, the timing is just off, unfortunately.

I know that you came to a middle ground, but I would encourage maybe an economic study of impact for something like this, in addition to what you guys are talking about, because I went through as much as I could with time permitting, and the local businesses along these corridors make the neighborhood special.

They're coffee shops, ice cream shops, salons, and we hosted my son's kindergarten ice cream social the other week, and something like this kind of harboring or uh hindering something like that is kind of painful for both the neighborhood and for us to see.

So, what I would encourage is that there is some sort of economic study of some kind done here to say, like, all right, how would this affect taxes?

How would this affect jobs, all of that around the area?

Because my employees park there, many vans with strollers park all up and down these streets uh to walk to Violet Stone and the surrounding places.

So the ordinance itself acknowledges that parking restrictions can create an undue burden on small businesses.

So at the same time, you know, the city currently lacks the personnel and vehicles for a net new cost that this would be to enforce something as large scale as this.

So that means that taxpayers would be asked to fund enforcement.

That would be vehicles, administration, all these operational costs would be a net new cost.

And as a business perspective, that's a big deal when you incur a net new cost of any kind.

So I like the one-block uh exclusion.

I think that that's at least somewhat of a middle ground, but I would encourage to expand into some sort of economic analysis here as to what the impact would be on all of us all up and down the MLK corridor.

And I appreciate everybody here for finding a middle ground.

Thank you.

Next two speakers.

Next two speakers, Daniel F and Chris Steinacher.

Approach out of the podium, state your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address city council.

You don't want to try to say that I didn't want to butcher it.

Okay, so go ahead.

Hey, do you guys?

Uh my name's Dan.

I'm the owner of Violet Stone.

Uh, I'm gonna you guys have heard a lot over the last few weeks about what this effect would be to our businesses.

I'm gonna talk a little bit about just what my story's been like in this city.

Uh, moved here four years ago with my wife.

We actually started as a food truck at Crescent Lake.

Like, we used to park out front of it.

I would scream at people trying to sell pizza to them, right?

We'd sell like five pizzas a day, and uh it was a hustle job.

We're doing it in front of the pickleball courts.

Um, what was great about it was we were left alone.

We were able to just sell, make a little bit of money.

We started to grow, eventually got into a takeout spot.

In Kenwood, we were literally next to Simply Delicious.

If anybody's familiar with them, we were under a bridge selling it, right?

So, and then continue to do really well, great support from the community.

Um, parking's never been great, no matter the spot we pick, right?

It's always been tough.

Um, we moved into MLK, sunk a lot of money into that building, right?

It was somewhat of like, you know, and not to talk poorly about any of the other existing businesses prior, but there wasn't a lot going on there.

There's a barbershop, there was a new brewery.

There wasn't a lot, but in the last two years it's exploded, right?

Fourth Street, it's very commercial, it's very franchised.

MLK is literally small businesses.

You know, I know myself, Steve, a few of the other guys and girls that run those places around there.

We live in those areas, right?

I just bought a house in that neighborhood, right?

Like, so I'm I'm very, very familiar.

I had somebody parked out front of my house yesterday who was going to a coffee shop, like around the corner from my house, right?

So we live with this, and you know, did I have to park four feet away from where I normally park?

Yeah, I did.

Didn't ruin my day, it's okay.

Um, we are the ones that when the hurricanes hit, we were given out free food for two weeks, right?

I was like telling people not to pay.

They wanted to donate and everything like that.

We're like, don't worry about it, it's on us, right?

When the EBT stuff got shut down six months ago, we were the ones that fed 5,000 families outside of the restaurant, right?

They weren't customers, right?

They were taking buses actually to come to us so we could feed them, right?

We were the first ones that stood up.

We don't have the billions of dollars that McDonald's has or Chick-fil-A has to build these massive parking garages, right?

We're not paying $80 a square foot to be on central.

We take a lot of pride, and we put like, you know, our home equity lines like on our homes to build these businesses, right?

So that and these, you know, when I bought my house, I found it really funny that on the Zillow description of the house, it had my restaurant labeled as I would live near that restaurant, right?

So it's a benefit to those that are in that.

They're in the MLK business district, right?

Like that's why they're buying these properties.

Um I think the one block of Venom's fine, but I really could see.

I mean, I know my spot on a Friday night, they're parking two, three blocks away, right?

Like, we're already making handshake deals with ACE hardware.

Whoever can let us park there, we're paying them cash just to get by, right?

We know it's a problem.

Like, we get it, but also we're in a business district.

Like that's where we're at.

That's what we're trying to make a living out of.

So we can't survive off of just the people that live in these neighborhoods.

There's not a lot of apartment buildings, we're not central.

You know, so thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Chris Steinaker, president and CEO of the St.

Petersburg area chamber of commerce, located at 100 2nd Avenue North in St.

Pete.

Our chamber here is here today to ask for a deferral of this vote.

We need to ensure we understand all the impacts estimates as well as how we determine how best to address the businesses that won't find the same relief in this newly proposed one block carve out of our main quarters.

It simply doesn't work for all.

As I mentioned last week, our brick and mortar businesses in every district are facing unprecedented economic headwinds, leaving many fragile, and for some one week away from shutting their doors as we read on a weekly basis.

Well, I've heard a few of you say this new code doesn't put anyone in harm's way today, and I agree to a point.

I do understand that neighbors would have to go take the next step, and not at the neighborhood level, but at the block-by-block level.

Some won't go through this work, others will.

Unfortunately, as I scan the city's business impact study, I recently found today, they cite that this new idea will impact five or fewer businesses.

Unfortunately, we are not privy to understanding how they came up with this number, who they believe the five would be, or what the impact really means.

It's that type of uncertainty we are creating.

Should I sign a long-term lease?

Well, I'm not sure, Chris.

Do you think you're one of the five?

Or maybe even six if you've estimated wrong.

We can't support this, it just creates too much uncertainty for our entire community.

But you know, I get asked all the time, can St.

Pete remain that cool funky Florida outlier that offers a promise of inclusivity for everyone?

Well, when will we mess it up?

I respond confidently, hey, we're not messing up, we're moving the right direction.

I respond, as long as we don't create any forced errors, if we start to change to accommodate those who have found us and now may expect a different experience.

It's my belief this new code supports, not in my front yard movement in our city.

And especially if you can afford it.

And since this is blocked by black, you actually may find neighbors at odds with each other's because one block wants to support the business and one doesn't.

Or you may find neighbors that just don't like the employees or customers of a business, and it wants to work together to say, no, not in my front yard.

Then it calls on all of us to fund this project these blocks forever with our tax money for enforcement on public land that we will never have access to again.

You heard me talk of the St.

Pete way.

I say every conversation starts with or ends with I love St.

Pete.

I've spoken of the fingerprints and footprints all of us can leave on a city of this scale.

I've said we're hugs over handshakes when we come to relationships and we're neighborhoods with access over subdivisions with gates.

I believe we may be putting up gates and not even aware of it.

Please defer.

Let's determine how best to move forward.

It may not even require a new code.

I'm appreciative of the city staff and all of you for meeting with us and our chamber members throughout this effort.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next two speakers.

Next two speakers, Franklin Alvise, Caitlin Grady, approach either podium, state your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address city council.

Go ahead, Franklin.

Hi, Franklin.

Alves 1026 9th Avenue South.

Uh I'm here representing the Council of Neighborhood Associations.

And so when we met with Evan originally back in February, some of the first things that we did was really process this code change.

We have a dedicated landing page on our website, it's been in our newsletters, emails, and something that I've done personally is every neighborhood that I go to.

I bring this policy forward to them, making sure that we're helping neighborhoods kind of flex that civic muscle.

What's been really interesting about talking to them about this policy, and as you know, talking to neighborhoods, uh talking to them about policy can hit kind of prickly in certain subjects.

Um, this one universally accepted.

I think that uh overall, all the conversations I've had with neighborhood associations, neighborhood thought leaders, is that this makes sense.

If you have a like demonstrative problem, you hit these very high bars, then there should be opportunities to look at a solution and move towards a solution.

Um, what's good about this is that it's not a universal blanket like process.

It is individualized and neighborhoods have the opportunity to really exercise that that muscle in there, talk to their residents and get that overall consensus.

Um for us, what's most important about a policy like this is that it adds much needed tools in the toolbox for neighborhoods.

There's not a lot of options for them to be able to find a solution for this, and when we look at other neighborhoods like Old Northeast, where this is a solution for them, it's nice to know that we have something like this and that you all are working on something for neighborhoods to be able to have that in their toolbox.

And so overall, for Kona, we do generally support anything that adds that tool to toolboxes for neighborhoods.

And so anything that we give them neighborhoods more agency, more flexibility, and more opportunities to be good stewards for their communities and the people that they represent.

We're very much in favor for all of that.

For something like this, I really want to take the take the time to thank City Council and staff for organizing something like this, moving forward, listening to your constituents and for neighborhoods that are experiencing this challenge and coming up with a possible solution for them for those that have that type of problem.

So that's all.

I know that there's the conversation about deferring this.

I want to say that I think that can be handled here on the dais.

I know we don't like making sausage on the dais, but I think that a one-block buffer could be something that is an easy conversation to have.

Make that amendment change if you all see that's appropriate, and then move forward with it.

So again, I just want to thank you all for the time and uh happy Friday Junior.

So thank you.

Go ahead.

My name's Caitlin Grady, and um I'm at 3015 7th Street North in my business and 1310 16th Avenue North, also 33704 in my home.

I'm here to represent the Body Electric Yoga Company.

Um we occupy a hundred-year-old commercial building in five points, which is a residential neighborhood.

Um we've been in business there for 14 years, leasing for 11 of those years and owning for three of those years.

Um, we rely heavily on neighborhood parking, and we've been in conversation with our neighbors about it for years.

They know we care and they know the efforts that we make.

We've made significant investments into keeping as many cars off the street as possible and to getting those cars that do park in the neighborhoods to park mindfully.

We bought the empty lot next to our building for over 400K and pay 10k a year in taxes along with the mortgage on that property just for parking.

We incentivize biking, busing, and walking with rewards that can be used towards services and products.

We have signage that is about parking and driving mindfully, and we discuss parking with every single new client that comes to our doors.

And while we do our best to minimize the need for parking on the streets, we absolutely do need it.

The nature of our business is that everybody comes all at once to take class.

That means a rush of cars all at once.

That's the nature of a high-volume accessible yoga studio that serves many.

If we can't fill our classes, we can't do business.

We can't materialize any other options for parking because we're not a traditionally commercial corridor.

Even the caveat that would exempt streets within one block would not apply to us.

And I think a lot of businesses too, they are the block between the main corridor and the neighborhoods.

I understand it can be frustrating when you have trouble parking near your home.

I grew up in Philly, so trust me, I feel the pain.

Also, it's part of living in a growing and thriving city.

Sometimes I can't find parking at my own house because the neighbor's having a party, and even though that might be a little annoying in the moment, I would never want to live in a community where we can't gather, where we can't have community commerce.

I don't think it's the plan to make ordinances that make it harder on small business.

We live in a growing and thriving city, and I think that those who don't want to live in a commercial corridor should not.

There's many neighborhoods within St.

Pete's city limits that are not on commercial corridors, and that's literally why there's suburbs.

For many years, we've been changing as part of the community in St.

Pete, The Body Electric.

We've been changing and saving people's lives there where it's not ours.

We've partnered with the city to provide free monthly yoga as part of Healthy St.

Pete and our monthly fundraising classes at the pier, which raise hard money for local nonprofits.

We're the kind of business that makes St.

Pete what it is.

But we love our community and we love our city.

We somehow managed to survive COVID and the hurricanes, but we wouldn't be able to survive this.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Last speaker, John Burchett, approach our podium, state your name and address.

You have three minutes to address City Council.

Thank you very much.

Uh John Barquette, um, my primary business is at 615 MLK North, um, with a whole bunch of buildings that we're renovating right now in MLK South.

But um, good evening, Chair Hanowitz, Vice Chair, members of City Council.

Um, I'm here tonight as president of the MLK Business District, representing businesses along of one of St.

Petersburg's most historic and what we feel important commercial corridors.

Just a few days ago, our organization was opposed to the proposed neighborhood residence-only parking areas ordinance.

We were concerned about the potential impacts on small businesses, their employees, customers, and service providers who rely on access to public parking near commercial corridors.

Like many business owners throughout our city, we worry that a well-intentioned ordinance could create unintended consequences that would make it harder for businesses to succeed and harder for customers to access them.

However, I'm here tonight because something important happened in this process.

City staff listened, council members listened, stakeholders from both neighborhoods and the business community came together to find common ground.

In particular, we appreciate the addition of language that excludes areas within one block of future major streets from eligibility for a neighborhood resident-only parking area.

That amendment recognizes that major corridors serve a broader public purpose.

They are not simply streets adjacent to neighborhoods.

They are economic engines that connect residents to jobs, services, restaurants, retail businesses, health care providers, and community institutions.

For the MLK business district, that amendment material addressed our primary concern.

It demonstrated that the city understands the need to balance neighborhood quality with economic vitality.

And balance is really what this discussion has been about.

Yes, neighborhoods deserve tools to address legitimate parking challenges.

Businesses deserve confidence that public policy will not inadvertently restrict access to their customers and employees.

Tonight's revised ordinance represents a meaningful step toward achieving both objectives.

I also want to be clear that our support tonight is not a blanket endorsement of every future NROP application.

Each request should continue to be evaluated on its own merits with meaningful input from affected businesses, property owners, residents, and stakeholders.

We believe the framework before you today is significantly improved from where this conversation began.

So on behalf of the district, um I'd like to thank uh Chair Hanowitz, city staff.

That's it.

Thanks, guys.

No more speakers, ma'am.

Thank you.

Well, I'll start off real quick, and I want to turn it over to Evan to answer some things that were brought up because before we get into council member comments.

I brought this item forward because this is an issue that has come up before city council on many occasions.

We live in a city where we have businesses and we have neighborhoods.

And we have had this conversation in a variety of contexts.

And most recently, by the way, when we did the whole Grand Central area and we had the uh BRT and the bus rapid transit when we allowed businesses not to have uh no parking minimums in that area, and historic henwood came out and was very opposed to it, and they're like, okay, well, then maybe they don't need to park into our neighborhood.

This has come up in a variety of instances, and it is just a part of a growing city.

This is not about pitting businesses against neighbors.

This is not about picking on people who have houses that are by businesses or businesses who are in the middle of a neighborhood or businesses that have small uh parking lots.

This is about a city being responsible and tackling these issues, like by the way, other cities tackle it because residential parking permits you will find throughout the United States.

There are Florida Supreme Court cases that deal with residential parking permits.

So this is by far not an uncommon practice as a city grows.

It's usually better to deal with something when it's not a hot topic, and when people aren't up in arms about something, and then you're gonna have a whole neighborhood's gonna come out and say, you know what, we don't want their parking in our streets.

We don't find any parking, and then it becomes even more difficult.

So part of the reason of having this conversation in a time where level heads are here, and people can have a conversation about the pros and cons uh without having a heated argument over a potential development is probably the best way to approach this issue and be thoughtful about it.

So with that being said, I just want to make sure that council understands there have been things that have been said, but at the end of the day, I think administration and I have allowed for different options depending on how we want to go forward.

This is not something that's new, and now these issues are being brought forward.

I think Evan has also done a good job of providing council members which you have um before you some examples of how if you had the extra block, what it would include and not include.

And I I Evan, I want to give you the opportunity because just to show um number one, how vast it is in terms of what this would include in certain areas and allow for parking, and also if you can also maybe talk about how other cities do this and how we're comparing and how these proposals compare to other cities.

Um, there's there is a distinction between what some might uh consider a commercial corridor and the future major streets.

So there's probably more streets on the future major streets.

So for example, 30th Avenue North is um on the map, so body electric would have some pr protections that were not apparent.

Um we just used a few examples like uh Mr.

Ingram came to the first meeting.

So we mapped out well what would the original restriction have resulted in around Trips Diner, and you can see short black lines that go from ML King Street to the alley that's behind trips.

So it wouldn't have been very many spaces.

With the one block buffer, it adds quite a bit of spaces, it eliminates quite a few homes from being able to potentially have uh residential parking signs in front of their block.

And if you look at it on a uh neighborhood wide basis, you've got about actually two-thirds of the neighborhood that will not would not be able to apply for the program if the one block uh is is put in place.

So in that case, it's um leaves quite a bit of parking in the neighborhood that is first come first served shared parking, and the very interior of the neighborhood, if it goes through all the process and if it gets approved by council, a small interior part could be approved.

So that's the trips diner example.

Do you want me to go through the other ones?

Okay.

Oh, could you uh go?

Oh, it's on here, great.

I didn't know.

Uh, here's the uh beer boutique example, it's one that we've we've talked about, and because of the location of 9th Avenue North that's not too far uh from from here being a major street, it takes all those blocks from 8th to 9th off limits.

It takes the block, or we already have the block from 4th to Dartmouth that's off limits, and then 7th Avenue North on the north side would be off-limits adjacent to all those commercial properties.

So with the parking that you see on the screen, the places that could become resident only are pretty few.

So again, here for body electric, there's a one block buffer, uh, there's an alley, so you can see 31st Avenue North there.

So on this screen, everything shaded in blue would not be eligible for residential parking permits.

And then one of the things, uh, one of the examples that we've discussed is the Grand Central District.

And because not only Central Avenue is a future major street, but First Avenue is, of course, 20 um 202nd is and 28th is.

So if you look here, the red is where it begins that could become residential parking if these neighborhoods applied.

So all of the blue shaded would not even be eligible if the one block uh was implemented.

And going back to Crescent Heights, the uh dashed line is the neighborhood, and the solid red would be the interior two blocks east to west that potentially could have permits if passed with the one block buffer, and that leaves 62 and a half percent of the neighborhood unable to get permits, where that could be shared parking between residents and businesses.

So those are just a few of the examples that we drew up to share with you.

And then how does it compare to other cities?

What is proposed here?

Well, in the when we went to committee, we had looked at a lot of cities, and we actually thought that the Phoenix program looked a lot like our res our program for traffic calming, uh, with their thresholds, and was uh one of the few that required city council to approve zones.

So I'll give you a few Florida examples.

St.

Pete Beach, 50% occupancy instead of 75 with the same 25% intruder parking.

The zones are approved by the city manager or through his designee.

Uh St.

Augustine, 50% occupied, 25% uh non-resident, and then this the petition threshold is lower, 60%.

Palm Beach, 50% occupied, 25% non-resident, approved by the town manager, not uh their not their council.

In Tampa, it's a um 50% they it differs based on driveways and garages.

So there the threshold is 50% occupied, and if less than half of the homes have driveways and garages, 70% occupied if most homes do have uh off-street parking of some sort, 65% petition threshold, so very close to our two-thirds, and that's approved by the director or or designee.

Um so those those are just a handful of examples for you.

So basically, what we have is extremely generous.

It was extremely generous to start with, it's much more extremely generous with the amendment, considering that most of the parking issues are within those areas, and those would be the homes that would be affected.

In my research, I couldn't find a one-block buffer in anybody else's.

Nobody else did that.

Okay.

And by the way, the original one included areas by businesses that would not be covered under residential parking permits, and Tampa actually has residential parking permits by businesses.

Yes, they go right up to the main corridor.

Now they do provide four free passes for businesses in Tampa, so that that is a trade-off there.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Gabbard.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Evan, for all of your hard work on this.

And uh, Madam Chair, thank you.

Um, I even the work that you've done this week to bring us, you know, something amended and to listen to uh the concerns that have come to you.

I certainly appreciate that because I know that's not easy in real time, and so thank you for all of that.

And I think I you know I wrote down the word balance.

Um, I heard someone say that earlier, and I think for me in St.

Pete, one of the most important things about you know the the challenge of keeping St.

Pete special is that synergy between our small business community and our neighborhoods.

Um it's vital that we don't tinker with that too much because if you pivot one way or the other too much, it could run that.

And so I'm sensitive to that, and I just I want to ask a few questions that I think even with what this future major streets, I still have a couple of these outstanding issues that I just really want to clear up and understand before I make my decision, because even as I sit here right now, I'm not quite sure which way I'm ultimately gonna vote.

Um very sensitive to uh what one of the speakers said, you know, with the economic challenges that our businesses are going through currently, um, our small businesses.

I don't want us to do anything that could not only create maybe a clash between neighborhoods and businesses, but could hamper uh their livelihood.

Another thing that um I have a lot of concern about that I don't know, we haven't talked about it yet tonight.

I want to kind of dig into a little bit, is the experience for contractors, you know, business providers going into homes, doing work, landscapers, housekeeping crews, I mean realtors, you know, anyone who is going to be going into these neighborhoods and working as their form of business, I'm very concerned about that as part of these changes.

$10 a day is what people are being asked, correct, uh to pay for a permit if these pass, let's just say in the future.

But $10 a day is what's set right now, correct?

If they need to be there all day as a contractor.

Right.

And uh we we would have guest passes, though.

So you could issue your housekeeper guest pass to park for a short period of time when they come.

And how many guest passes per property?

Uh for this, it get my zones confused, but this is three.

Three.

That's what I thought I remembered.

But Heather, three.

That's mirroring our programs that we already have in other areas.

Right.

Okay.

Um, yeah, I mean, you know, that kind of takes me to my other concern about people's ability to gather in their homes.

Um, you know, that is an outstanding concern for me as well.

You know, I'm just thinking if I'm a contractor, and especially in, you know, today's time when it's a little bit more challenging to, you know, kind of stick on time and on budget, and you've got a three or four-day job at a house, so you think um you go and you get your three or four day $10 a day permit, and Friday rolls around and oh, well, parts didn't come in.

This didn't happen, that didn't happen.

Better get back down to the city so I can get my permit for Monday morning.

I just makes me kind of concerned about what those implications are to those businesses.

Um, you know, somebody had mentioned, or a couple people actually mentioned, you know, why not do the economic impact study?

Chris mentioned he just found it yesterday or this morning.

Um, in fact, I had problems finding it as well because it now just lives on a city website that isn't even called the business impact study.

It's the business impact estimates.

Um, and I wanted to bring this up as a separate ask just for future backup, um, if the administration would be so kind as to include these in the backup going forward.

I understand by um, you know, the way the Florida statute was written and the ordinance that we passed in 2023, putting them online is what is required, but for full transparency, people deserve to know what these business impact statements say.

And so, you know, I would like to see those going forward.

But there is, there's a lot of vagueness in this business impact study.

It's not real specific, and you know, it very clearly comes right out and says in uh section 2A businesses whose employees and customers have historically parked in the neighborhoods will be impacted, but it doesn't say how it doesn't really speak to anything further from that.

Um it just I don't know.

I'm I'm very concerned about that piece of it.

And again, when I put on, you know, the hat of what I do for a living in my other life as a real estate broker, people purchase in these neighborhoods because they love the vitality, they love the businesses that they can walk to.

And trust me, when you take people to these neighborhoods to look at property, and they see all of this happening, especially if you're out showing on a Saturday or in the evening on a Friday, and they go, Oh, wait, I can't park here.

I don't think I want to live in these neighborhoods, right?

And then they go to other neighborhoods, like someone said, you know, they'll they'll go further up to the north side where my district is or other parts of the city.

Um I just think that that vitality is what creates those neighborhoods.

And so I'm I'm still very sensitive to all of this, and I I don't know that we have landed in a place that makes me feel comfortable to move this forward.

Um I'm certainly not gonna make any motion to defer.

I'll vote how I vote at the end, but I I just have a lot more questions than answers.

I also have some other uh questions about once again, it's mentioned in the business impact study.

You know, we're gonna have to have the manpower, and I think this was said in the PS and I committee, Councilmember Gurtis might have said it.

Um, you know, we're gonna have to hire more enforcement.

Sorry, you don't have to come back.

I'm just quoting you.

I'm just quoting you.

Um so I'm thinking you said, you know, we're gonna have to have more enforcement, right?

Like it was something that pointed out, also says it right here in the business impact study.

We're not hiring more enforcement.

We've already put basically a hiring freeze on and we know that challenging times are coming we're not going to be hiring more people so are we creating something that potentially neighborhoods could try to take advantage of that we can't even enforce anyway I I'm having a hard time with that I don't know if administration has any comment on that but that I I don't know tell me why that is a good idea.

But I can tell you that historically we when we run the numbers that parking enforcement officers end up paying for themselves through the citations that are issued so that can that's a position that if it went into effect would likely pay for itself and say we had just one zone and we had to hire one person to do it they would likely have other duties.

Maybe they're going to do um boat ramps for parks and rec if we do that or they're gonna work downtown and be able to write tickets there.

So we've always found that if we're hiring people to write a ticket that costs that's maybe forty dollars you know based on their rate of pay they only have to write a couple tickets an hour to to come out even so that would be one thing I would say about an enforcement historically for for us.

Okay.

Talk to me about the special events because I'm still a little vague on how special events get handled.

So we would not go study an area if it was experiencing a large special event because that would just be very atypical.

So we would want to study a neighborhood on a typical Saturday or a typical Friday and we just would avoid um studies during major events we want to capture a a typical overflow situation not an excessive overflow situation.

You wouldn't use the special again event to make a case for it you would study it during another time right for the if it still was implemented and a special event happened you would create chaos in that area without people being able to park I mean I think in the um in the example of Grand Central that's a really good a good one there is that buffer people could share and it would create some parking challenges when you go north of second Avenue North or south of second Avenue South where in that case people would be able to find a place to park by their home but they wouldn't be able to park for the event so okay.

Well I look forward to hearing what everyone else has to say those are some of my kind of outstanding concerns.

So I look forward to the discussion thank you.

Thank you.

And I just want to I don't know if we made the record clear we do have it in the city in Old Northeast.

Yes and um that kind of prompts me to there we did do a buffer for for that there was no residential parking in Old Northeast between third and fourth street.

So we do actually uh have a precedent for that even though that was brought in kind of late on this and then even when the original program was developed there was a buffer where it set we the code was written that there will be no residential parking permits on Central Avenue in the in the core so we have done buffers in the past.

Right.

I just wanted to point that out because old Northeast I don't think there's a problem with selling property in Old Northeast in St.

Petersburg with the parking situation in Old Northeast and with the residential parking permit situation and the fact that all the Vinoy park events that we have and everything else and somehow that works out.

So I just for those who don't know it does exist in the city currently council member Harding thank you chair.

Evan thank you for your work thorough and uh and thought provoking greatly appreciate your efforts I struggle with this entirely I don't know what we're trying to exactly solve for some of these communities have been around for 50 60 years.

We're not building tall buildings in these communities that we're trying to change the the the demographics of it um and the folks who own these properties, whether they're residential or commercial, they bought them under the auspices of buyer beware.

They knew what this was going to be when they got there.

And so by doing something like this, what we're doing essentially is we're picking winners and losers.

That's what we're doing.

Trips Diner has uh 12 parking spaces, 14 parking spaces.

I don't know.

They're right behind it.

There aren't many.

Um there are not enough to sustain a business, I guarantee you that.

So when that business was opened, um, that business model was written on the idea that the city owns streets that I can utilize as a business owner, and so that business was built on that model.

After it was open at some point in time, and I'm making this story up now, but if it's not trips, it's another one of the businesses on 9th or 16th, money was borrowed, right?

At some point in time, trips either either got old enough that it needed new equipment or got big enough that it needed more equipment, and some money was borrowed.

That money was borrowed on PLs that were written on volume.

If we take parking away from that business, I promise you, I guarantee you that that business will drop.

There's no doubt about it.

So we picked winners and losers.

That's what we've done.

The map right here, I would assume that a lot of the complaints, and that's what we're doing is we're solving for complaints.

Um a lot of the complaints would come from areas where there is residential and there is commercial or restaurants or yoga studios that are popular that have a level of success that require more street parking.

Um, and now we're looking at those and saying, Well, we can't fix that part, but we'll fix other parts.

So this this what we're talking about is not it is not universal.

So now we're gonna try and now we're gonna try and help some residents, but we're not gonna help other, we're not gonna be able to help other residents because of X.

And so I'm I'm struggling with all of this.

But the part that I'm um really struggling with is that all of these parcels, all of these pieces of property, regardless of what's built on them, they all pay property taxes.

Um, as a result of paying property taxes, they have rights, and one of the rights is the use of public streets and the use of and the use of public parking.

And that neighborhood um has done it, that one on the board has done it that way for longer than we have been doing this, and it's worked, it's worked fine.

It's really no issue.

So now we're gonna solve for a problem that's gonna create administration that's going to create bureaucracy um over something that really I don't beyond the fact that I am upset that I had to park four blocks away from my house, which don't get me wrong, I get it, but I but I bought that house knowing that, and so I won't be voting for this.

Um and and I struggle with with what we achieve um by by bringing it forward and possibly passing it.

I'll take one quick point of personal privilege.

I've known this young lady for many years.

I'm very proud of you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And um again, our city hasn't been in Ember and sat without growth.

I think we've heard both from residents and from businesses and from others the growth of their city and the impact, and you get it, whether it's downtown, whether it's any other area, we continue to grow.

There's gonna be more and more challenges coming.

And I will tell you, we have sat here through many meetings.

Every time we approve a building in downtown, any time we do anything where people talk about the change and the impact to their area, and so I want to make it clear that everybody has an impact, it's not just businesses, it changes for residents too.

And so I don't want to get that also lost because I do understand the business impact to it, but there's also the residential impact that we're also representing so we represent everybody, and I don't want to have that lost in this conversation because I will next time we have a conversation and we have another development that we're approving, or we're taking parking away, and you have and you hear from the residents, we're gonna all be reminded again of this issue.

Council Member Givens.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, Evan, thank you for your hard work.

I know this has been a tough one for you, um, but I want to start um with something that was mentioned, which was um Grand Central's uh BRT for the Sunrunner.

Um, here we were just a few weeks ago having this similar conversation about removing these parking minimums.

Now we're having um a conversation here uh very much along the same lines, and so I I'm wondering again, you know, how we find that middle ground because what I don't want to see is what was mentioned, and I want you to clarify this that this could come back 50 times for 50 different neighborhoods.

Should this pass the day, if there was a neighborhood to seek an exclusion, would this body have to determine whether or not that should be granted each time?

Yes, I mean I think um more than one could come at a time if they came to the city at the same time, but that's how this would work.

Um that's one of the high bars, so they don't get established without coming back through city council.

And I appreciate the um clarification.

I got the same calls with concern.

Um I appreciate the business owners that made time for me uh to walk me through what it is that they're asking for, and I appreciate the residents who are frustrated, but they were willing to sit down and listen.

Um I think it's very difficult when you have residents who bought homes in neighborhoods knowing what they bought, right?

Um homes with no driveways, minimal to no parking, but you also have businesses who purchased in these commercial corridors knowing what they got themselves into, but what they didn't expect was these unintended consequences from new laws that honestly in my opinion have no teeth.

So I I'm just concerned that again we're rushing this without all the facts, and I'd like to have all the facts.

Um I feel like the um one block exclusion is is a good comfortable middle ground, but at the same time I want to know more.

What are the implications, right?

How is this going to impact businesses?

Because what I don't want to see happen is residents come back upset because now we've lost all these businesses, these mom and pop businesses like our ice cream shops, our diners, you know, that's what makes St.

Pete special.

I love taking trips to trip dinner, but again, once that space is gone, who's gonna feel it?

And I can tell you it's gonna be the residents in that immediate vicinity who's gonna miss it the most.

So I personally um would love to see this deferred and interested in hearing from the rest of my colleagues, but I would really like to see a proper study completed before we consider this.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Briscoe.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation and for all the work that you have have done on this.

I know it was um it was brought to you, right?

Um, I think it was uh the the chair's new business item in the first place, and um I just appreciate the amount of time that you've taken to work on this over uh the last couple of years.

Um there is so having having been a downtown resident at one point from for many years.

Um I lived in two places.

One had um a uh private parking space for my car, um, the other one I had street parking, I had no space.

So I've kind of lived both, didn't have businesses on my block or really one block away, it was more than like two blocks, but in downtown, you've got if it's not metered, there are time limits.

So it's two hours from this a.m.

to this PM, except for you know, zone 1A or whatever.

That worked, you know, and for my block, I knew that if it was a popular raise game, I might have to park on the next block and um walk to my uh my apartment.

But that was just life.

That's how that's how things work.

Um, and that's with the residential parking permit.

Okay.

But the time limit, I'm I'm just really surprised that we're kind of going at this with a like a 24 hour thing.

Cause I I feel like the time limit, whether it's two hours or three, which is the norm, that that helps to create the balance that some of us might be looking for.

I know it says in here that um that we we would establish time limited parking zones when it deems advisable to do so.

Um but then on the next thing it says that it we recognize that it causes a hardship for residents who own vehicles and cannot secure off street parking.

Like I've lived that.

I knew I wasn't buying a place or renting a place that had a private parking spot.

I knew I didn't I you know when you buy a house if it has a a driveway or a garage.

You choose that.

Um someone said earlier you you kind of choose the vibe of a neighborhood, but you weigh what's important to you.

Is it more important to you to be able to walk to the ice cream store?

Or is it more important to you to be able to park um right right by your house?

People have to make those decisions for themselves.

So meanwhile, we have these neighborhoods that are quite popular for the um the residential elements and for the business elements.

I have I have been watching the faces of worried business owners.

I've had calls, and I do appreciate that um this one block buffer uh came about.

But I have um heard and seen and I'm kind of looking at some instances where I still don't feel comfortable with that.

Now the path that I could see to getting to yes is that that is sort of the starting point, right, Evan.

But the rules actually could be different because we would be taking this up on a case by case basis.

Yes, I I think um maybe an example of that would be that if this is the framework, you have to operate within it without changing the underlying ordinance.

But you could do something in a particular neighborhood where like if you're concerned about Grand Central, you could say, okay, in this neighborhood, we're gonna do a a two block buffer.

Now you couldn't say we're only gonna do a half block buffer because that would violate the underlying ordinance, but if you wanted to go further from a commercial corridor, that that could be an option.

Okay, so that flexibility to go bigger when net when needed is um is great.

That makes me a little more comfortable.

I don't know that we have talked enough about the time limit option.

And I don't think we need to, I mean, I'm not saying let's have this a huge conversation right now about it, but I feel like in the in the downtown area where this where it's not metered where you have the two or the three hour parking, that does create a balance for people, and it could solve the concerns that are out there about where are my customers gonna park.

We we did cover that in committee, and what um what I put forth was that I felt like it would be uh burdensome to try to do like two-hour parking far away from downtown where it requires multiple trips out to an area to to implement that.

And if you were to do two-hour parking, it's just a different thing downtown with other places.

If we did two-hour parking in a faraway zone, I'm not sure we'd be accomplishing much for the residents because it would be it would still be that that spillover, so um, we had just to determine through the committee process that the ordinance would have not time limits, but just restrictions.

Right, right.

I just I just feel like that would create more balance, and I understand that there would be challenges with enforcement, but I don't think that um the burden that's that's placed on the businesses is worth it if we're not gonna go in that direction.

It takes so much to keep a business going, especially if they're not like they're finding success outside of downtown.

Isn't that what we want?

The folks who live in the neighborhoods where these businesses are located, they love being able to walk to beer boutique, they have to realize beer boutique cannot stay open, it cannot survive if the residents close off the neighborhood to anyone else who wants to come in.

And that's how I feel that we're that we're looking at this.

I think there is a way to achieve a balance.

I I'm just not totally comfortable with where we're at with this right now.

Um I think if we could defer it and and keep working on this, I don't want to get it wrong because um our business community can't afford it, they cannot afford for us to get this wrong.

That's where I'm at right now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I wanted to hear what everybody had to say, and I think I'm just gonna make a couple of points.

Um, when we first talked about this, I was just like no right off the bat.

Like, wasn't interested because of some of the things council member Harding said, like, I live right next to a business district.

Sometimes people park in front of my house, it's fine.

Sometimes I'll use it, and you know, this wouldn't impact me anyway.

I live too close.

Uh and uh I knew that when I bought the house, and that was fine.

Um, but I've since thought about it a little differently.

Um so the first thing I think I thought of was about like public streets being a resource for everyone, and that no one should monopolize it, and so uh be it residents or businesses, like it shouldn't be monopolized by anybody, like we should all share this public resource, and so that brought me like to like how do we go about deciding if this is the right thing to do, um and there's a democratic process there, it's two-thirds of the neighbors have to sign it, and I think with that level of threshold, and the business is able to interact with those residents, like it's a it's a really high threshold, and so if you have a business that's causing such a problem that two-thirds of the residents are upset about it, like that's that's what made me think because I believe the people here like they talked about how they want to be good partners with their neighborhood, and if I lived by them, I would not vote to do this, I wouldn't sign the petition because I know uh they're being good neighbors, but uh I just felt like as we had conversations, the flexibility brought me some comfort, and as uh was described by a speaker, it's a tool for neighborhoods to use, and I have had some people say to me that they were uh they didn't want to be in here all the time, like going through a hearing and fighting it out.

It's not the strongest argument to me because I'm always in here going through a hearing, fighting it out, um, and I signed up for that, and that's okay.

Um, so uh yeah, I I got more comfortable with it as time went on, and uh especially recognizing that it's gonna be case by case, it's got a high threshold.

Uh but what I will say in addition to that, though, is the block compromise.

Yeah, at this point, having seen this, like I wouldn't support it without the block compromise.

Um I'm glad to have seen that, especially through Grand Central, because you can see that I had an I had a resident say to me whenever we were talking about like removing parking on central, they were like, I live on second, uh, doesn't matter what you do to Grand Central, like people are always parked in front of my house, I don't care anyway.

Yeah, so uh in that vein, and to Councilmember Givens' point, like this sort of relates back to another conversation we had recently.

In that vein, like, yeah, the people who live like it within these boundaries like of the buffer zone, like they have got to already have recognized that they moved to a place where people are just gonna park on the street, they've got to recognize that.

So I I do like the compromise.

Um but I'm very sympathetic to what everybody said here today, and so um I would say with the compromise, I could support it because I do think there's plenty of flexibility and it won't just happen.

But I also you know I understand and won't be upset either way if we have to have more conversations about this, is what I'll say, yeah.

But I I'll support it with the compromise.

I'll I'll leave it there.

Bye, Chair Gerdas.

I mean, Councilmember, sorry.

I got upgraded.

Uh thank you, madam chair.

So, you know, I'll be very honest with you.

I've gone round and round about this.

Um, you know, there are very few votes that I feel like I come in and it's still a bit of a toss-up.

I appreciate the one block.

I got to talk to Evan briefly the other day and and some of the stakeholders in this conversation.

And so, and and this is kind of what I was thinking would be would end up being the compromise, very honestly.

And so it's it's it's still going round and round in my head if I'm being completely transparent.

Here's some of my takeaways just from listening.

I I very much totally and wholeheartedly agree.

I think I think I was talking with Chris the other day, and I use the example of one of the biggest complaints I get in my district is uh I get a call and they're like, Councilmember Gurtis, there's cars in front of my house again at 3 30 p.m.

on 74th Street, and I'm like, well, that's because you live two houses down from Pasadena Fundamental, and school is getting out, and you bought a house next to a school that's been there since like 1972, and you bought it four years ago.

And so I I totally agree with listen, you're buying into like the vibe of the neighborhood.

I'm I totally agree with that.

What I will say though is that that is not always the case.

That should not be a blanket statement because you could have bought a house and then something changes a block away from, you could have had a uh, you know, a hair salon that only has four people every hour, and then it turns into a restaurant and bar, and it's a very different vibe than it was when you bought that house.

So I just I just wanted to share that lens.

This doesn't mean I I'm not changing my mind on that.

I just I just wanted to make sure I was saying it out loud because I think sometimes we get caught up, and me too, I definitely do.

So I'll speak for myself.

I get caught up in listen, you knew what you were doing when you bought the house, but things change around you also when you buy the house.

And so that that's the changes that have kind of been happening real time in this conversation.

So when it when it comes down, it gets down to the decision, the brass tax of it, and I see Councilmember Driscoll.

I'm interested, I'm interested in Councilmember Driscoll's comments and then chair hearing from you because this was your item.

And so, here's kind of where I'm at on this.

I do I do not support it on its face value.

I'm I'm considering supporting it with the one block, but I'm I am not in for a deferral.

I just think this decision needs to be made.

We've been talking about it for three years.

This is the fifth time it's been in front of us.

Could we do a little bit deeper economic study?

Yes, and then we're using manpower and money to do that, and I think we've got enough to arm us with this decision.

Very frankly.

And I don't want to cause a problem by trying to solve a problem that is non-existent.

And so I'm I'm interested in in hearing my colleagues one more time, and maybe I'll try them in again.

But I to be very honest with you at this point, I think I'm leaning.

I'm leaning no.

Um but again I'm I'm definitely against the deferral.

I think we've got we've got enough to to make this decision.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you.

Um Evan.

Would would it be possible to require an economic impact study with each of the requests?

Because, yes, I think that if you're gonna do the traffic study, or the parking study, you know, part of the requirement would need to be an analysis of how such a move would impact the businesses.

I can yeah, council member Driscoll.

So again, this is creating a process where every discrete area that's proposed and that meets the criteria has to come to council to be added into the code.

So that has to be done by an ordinance process.

So there is a business impact statement required for each and every ordinance, so that's not something that's a quest that's already built in, so you will get one for each future because they can only be placed and set by ordinance.

For the reminder on that.

So that helps.

Let them use one of their visitor passes while they're doing the work because the visitor passes are good, um, for like what up to seven days, I think.

I think there's a problem with that.

Do you know of one heather?

No, I mean, that's your choice who you are gonna use your passes on.

Some people use them for extra members of their household, their children, or we don't really investigate who's getting them, you just get them, and then you're that's what you've got.

I know you gotta stretch that $15.

Sometimes we get a request to cordon off spaces in pr in front of a particular home because they have to be there, and we go put up signs, and then they would pay for that.

But if they didn't have to have a specific place if they could park nearby, then they could park for free with the visitor pass.

And as you've had conversations with residents, do residents understand that by that if they were to go to this into this particular program.

That there would be a limit on how many visitor passes that they have, and it might be a little bit hard to have people over for the for the birthday party.

I think if we if this were to pass, we would it would be very important for us to explain that to each neighborhood early on before they sign the petition one way or another, what what the program parameters are, and if they don't like the notion that they won't be able to have parties without people potentially having to park far away, they're not gonna sign the petition.

All right, still thinking that's all I have.

Thank you, Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Cheryl.

Summarize that the the in order to do this, it is my opinion that you have to pick winners and losers.

But I I want to take it one step further.

I I would bet a dime to a dollar that first off that this event came to light because complained is not the right word, but citizens brought this up that that they have issue parking close to their house.

Right.

I'd bet you a dime to a dollar that those folks who are most affected and most want relief and just think they deserve relief and have have argued for relief are the ones who live in what we are making into an exclusion zone.

Right?

The folks that live in in a giant city block of just houses, right?

They're two cars.

That's what you're that's what your family is until you get a 16-year-old.

And two cars fit in front of your house.

But if you live where Richie lives, there's a good chance you don't have any parking spaces when you come home because there's a business right close to your house.

But we're gonna exclude his house.

We're introducing bureaucracy that I can't make sense of.

Um that's my logic.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

So I appreciate everyone's feedback.

I see that there isn't support in general, but I will tell everyone this.

It's not an issue that's gonna go away.

It's just not, and we're gonna continue seeing it.

And that to me, this is not about businesses versus residents at all.

This is about finding a way for our city to manage those interests in a way where people can be happy.

And I get the concerns that businesses are expressing, which is the reason we had the one block buffer, and it does affect it does actually cover the areas that are most affected, but that's what compromise is about.

This first came up with rolling oats and the parking, and when people think about where you buy and where you live and what the area is, and you should know what you're buying.

When people first moved there, that wasn't there.

No one expected, I mean, not really on, sorry, Trader Joe's, Trader Joe's.

Rolling Oats, by the way, has grown much more and bought parking, another area that by the way started very small and continued to grow.

And that also is it is not what was there before.

We have businesses that grow and outgrow their space, and they need more parking.

So to me, this is not, and I I hear a lot of conversation about well, the residents should know where they buy.

Well, I don't think that's a fair statement because it goes both ways.

I think everybody knows what they buy, including the businesses, and if they don't have parking or not.

So I, you know, I don't want to pit anybody against each other, and that wasn't the point of this conversation, and I don't like that tone in terms of well how we're approaching it.

This is about a city that's growing, trying to put something in an ordinance, by the way, that is very common in bigger cities that have more issues than us and more and and small businesses just like we do.

It's not, I mean, I'm hearing this conversation, it's like, oh my god, are you crazy?

How can this even happen?

It's like, oh my god, it happens all over the United States of America in cities that are bigger than us with more businesses.

And I I mean, I was in LA and it's in LA, it's it's everywhere.

So I to me that wasn't the point of this conversation.

To me, the point of this conversation was having a true conversation before you know what the shit hits the fan to be blunt, but maybe we need that to happen, and then they'll come back to us, and it may not be the compromise, it may be a completely different thing, and I'm fine with that.

I'm absolutely fine.

But when I look at residents every time and we have something come before us, whether it's you know, reducing parking minimums, whether it's the increasing the density, and now there was a building and it was short, and now we're it's more now it's eight stories, and then people don't are able to pack park, and we make these decisions.

We are impacting everybody that lives there as the growth of the city, and to act like we're just you know, we can't do anything about it.

I don't want to say that either, because there is a tool that we can have in place, and then it would still come before city council, but city council doesn't want to do that, and that's fine.

I thought it was a good tool to bring forward so we can uh be responsible when it comes afterwards, then we look at it and we do something thoughtful.

And I think that's why we had the conversation, and frankly, I think that Evan brought something that was very reasonable.

It wasn't to shove anything down anybody's throat, it wasn't to honestly do it to an extreme where compared to other cities, we actually made the bar much higher and more difficult.

But it was really to do something to for residents and for businesses and for everyone else to kind of find some balance.

So that was my goal, and it really wasn't to pit neighborhoods against businesses or to destroy businesses, because frankly, I do love the fact that MLK is growing.

I do love that Grand Central is growing, but to act like it doesn't have an effect the growth in our city or the growth in downtown to the quality of living of people, that's that to me is short-sighted because it does.

There is that that tension, and I think it's important to address, and there are difficult conversations.

My district is in an area that is growing.

My district does have the growth from downtown, and that's why it happened in all northeast, and that's why you have the parking permits in Old Northeast, and somehow with single family homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, all these people that live in all northeast, imagine they have residential parking permits, and somehow all the the things that we've heard today, the concerns that have been brought up.

Somehow they're able to have people come and do work at their house and find parking and do all the things, and so I'm fine with however this lands, but I thought it was an important conversation to have because we do have these conversations come up at city council every time we have a development in our city, every time, and the the tension between the growth in our city and keeping the quality of life that we all have, and we all agree every neighborhood is special, all these business districts are cool, and somehow finding that balance is important.

I thought that this was some way to address some of the issues.

So with that said, uh Councilmember Fig Sanders.

Thank you so much.

Um, so thank you, uh Chair Hanowitz for this.

And and I guess um, and thank you for everybody that come out, and and again, thank you, Evan, um, for this.

When I think of residential areas and I think of some of the smaller businesses that are in those areas, I keep hearing about future purchases.

You buy into that area.

Well, I think about where I am where I already live in that area, um, and how I don't want to have me.

I don't want to park on the next street over.

When I come home, I want to be able to park in front of my house.

I want to be able to watch my car, I want to be able to have accessibility to not have to walk around the corner.

So when you know, I hear terms like quality of life and development.

Well, the one thing that protects us about big development is zoning.

There are only so many developments that we're gonna be able to put in certain areas, so I hear the small business owners, but more importantly, I hear the homeowners in regards to having accessible parking.

If you grew up that way and you're used to it, then okay, that's okay.

But I'm one of the ones that still want to keep St.

Pete, St.

Pete.

I know that we're growing, I get it.

I know that we're going, but every neighborhood, and I do appreciate the fact that it's it would be case by case, but again, I hear Councilmember Harding loud and clear, what problem are we trying to fix?

There are certain areas of our city, like I don't like to go downtown.

I know that's your district, I love it, but you can't park, and I don't do parking garages.

That's just a personal preference of mine.

So if I know that something is happening downtown, I just don't go.

I just don't go, and that's a choice that we make.

So although I like um what was brought, I'm still I was quiet because I knew I wasn't gonna support in the first place.

And you know, I'm okay being the owner, but I just think that if we're going to move something like this, I do agree that we do need to know what the impact is to the other homeowners because I bought my house and I don't plan on moving, you know, and I moved there with an expectation of having that type of environment for my children at the time, and now my grandchildren.

So again, Chair Hannah was I hear you.

I I do I hear you loud and clear.

I'm just not really, you know.

So uh council um member Gertis made a statement this morning that has resonated with me all day long.

Some of the things that we're dealing with now weren't thought of years ago, and we're paying for it, and we're paying for it, and so I'm not gonna be in a hurry to have my grandchildren pay for something because they can't find suitable housing with adequate parking.

And so I get it.

So again, I hear the homeowners, I hear our small businesses, and I hear the voices out there that's saying, and I do hear we're not gonna defer, but I just wanted to go ahead and put my position um on the record of how much I do appreciate the future consideration, but it's not apples um to apples to me in order to move forward with it.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you.

I I was actually on City Council way back when we did residential parking permits for um Old Northeast.

I think it took two, maybe three rounds uh that we that we did that.

Um part of the problem there was that it's it's right next to downtown, and you had a situation where it was often employees of um establishments downtown who would park in old northeast because it's free, and then walk to work that was um, it's just a different situation because the folks who were parking in Old Northeast, whether they were customers or or employees, whoever it just doesn't matter, they have the option of parking in a garage, unless you're Deborah, but people had other options.

If you go to Grand Central right now, there's no parking garage, they don't have any options.

They're going through the same growing pains that the edge district went through before them, and the edge district now has a parking garage, hopefully more coming in that area and westward as our westward success and growth continues, but we're not there yet.

I think if we were talking about one neighborhood and really taking a scalper, a scalpel to it or a microscope to it and really going, uh like zooming in on the neighborhood level, I think we could find a way forward because we could more closely examine the unique attributes of the neighborhood as well as its challenges, but having something like this, even though there's flexibility and there's so much that I like about this approach and having this tool, I think um I don't I don't want us, I don't want city council to give up on this because there is a problem.

There is a problem.

I just don't think that this I don't think I can support it because I I don't see that there has been enough buy-in, and so maybe there is something wrong with the formula that we have here.

It's important enough to keep working on and get it right.

Um I hear that nobody wants to defer this.

Um I'll just I'll just let it go and and I'm hoping that um as the city council moves forward that there will be other ideas that come up that can solve this, even if you decide to start looking at it on a neighborhood basis or based on a um a zoning type, something like that.

That is a little bit more um condensed.

That's all.

Thank you.

And I think you brought up a good point.

I think it has to be more concrete for people.

Yeah, the end of the day, it's gonna happen with an issue.

And this was try to trying to look at it broader, have a framework, and then have the flexibility for an issue.

But what I'm hearing is the issue needs to be there for people to consider it, and if that happens, then we'll deal with it when it happens.

And it may not be this flexible, it may be much more stringent.

And if it is gonna be a whole neighborhood, you may have a whole neighborhood that has residential parking permit, just like old Northeast, and so this was a balance of not going that route, and I thought it would be a good way to start.

But I I hear you, I hear that we may end up at that situation, but I want, I want to say also in Old Northeast, and and there's a um a misunderstanding about some of the neighborhoods that I represent.

Not all of them have garages.

Older homes, and I've said this before, have garages where you would put a buggy in them.

They are storage units.

They don't fit SUVs or whatever today's vehicles are.

And if you look at the homes that were built close to whether it's MLK, whether it's 4th Street, whatever it is, and you look at some of those 1920 and 1930 homes with accessory dwelling units, trust me, people are not that those are not garages where people are parking.

They're parking in the street.

So I just wanted to clear that up in terms of the parking situation.

I don't think there is a situation where people are like, oh, I'm just not, I mean, there could be.

Uh I'm just not going to park in my garage where I can fit my big vehicle.

I think a lot of times you just don't have that option.

And so I wanted to make sure.

But but I hear I hear everyone loud and clear.

This was a good faith effort in dealing with an issue that's been brought to me in various forms to have a solution without people being here with pitchforks.

But I guess we're gonna wait for the pitchforks.

So with that said, this we can move on to the next item.

This item nine.

Thank you, Evan, for all your work.

And thank you all for being here and giving your input.

We really appreciate.

I really appreciate the meeting that I had the other day.

I thought um y'all were extremely thoughtful in terms of your approach and very understanding.

And I just want to give out a shout out to you and trips and you know, John.

I mean, you all definitely cared about what the neighborhoods finding that right balance for both for you and for the neighborhoods, and I thought that was very wonderful.

So thank you.

Okay.

Next up, we have G3, and this is a first reading.

Clerk.

Proposed ordinance number 636-H, an ordinance of the city of St.

Petersburg, Florida, amended its comprehensive plan.

Amending chapter three, feature land use element issue, natural resources and objective LU 6 and policy LU 6-1 to remove marina development restrictions in North Vinoy Yacht Basin.

Provided for serverability, provide for an effective date.

The second reading and second public hearing for this ordinance is scheduled for August 27th, 2026.

We have no cars for this item, Madam Chair.

I have a motion of second.

Clerk, if you can open the machine for voting, council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing that all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally announce the vote.

Madam Chair, the motion to approve agenda item J3 passes unanimously.

Next up, we have open forum, Clerk.

Are there any speakers?

Yes, Madam Chair.

First two speakers, Courtney Bermudez, Charles Phillips, approach either podium, state your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address city council.

Good afternoon.

I'm Charles Phillips.

Uh address 10775 Village Club Circle North.

Um, I'm here to speak about the situation at the Morgan Apartment Complex.

Uh the St.

Pete Tenants Union has been organizing with the tenants of the Morgan for almost a year, and the conditions at the complex are frankly very shocking.

Mold, damaged structures, unresponsive management, and non-functional fire systems harm the safety and integrity of the residents at the Morgan.

This problem is caused by private equity purchasing cheap apartments and allowing the situation to deteriorate until the complex becomes unlivable.

And I mean unlivable literally.

Only about 30% of the complex remains occupied due to poor conditions and a situation where people feel that their voices aren't being heard.

At the moment, the tenants, many of whom are long-term residents of the city, feel like they don't have a voice.

The city of St.

Petersburg has an opportunity to be the voice and advocate for these citizens.

At the at the moment, the property is undergoing foreclosure.

And this presents a golden opportunity for the city to purchase the property and create a safe and livable community for the tenants.

Elected officials such as yourselves have an obligation to stand for the dignity of their constituents.

Please take this chance to purchase the Morgan and run it as a good community like the Jamestown apartments and to do right by them.

Thank you, Council members.

Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Chair, Mr.

Vice Chair, and Council members.

Before I begin, I want to thank the city for officially recognizing can do uh Caribbean American Heritage.

I'm sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Courtney Bermuda's 129 114th Avenue North.

Uh can do Caribbean American Heritage Month and World Ocean Day as a Puerto Rican woman and therefore Caribbean American myself.

I deeply appreciate seeing our cultures and communities honored in this space.

Um I'm here today to speak about the ongoing crisis at the Morgan apartments.

I was reached out to by multiple groups who works with who work with tenant organizations in my capacity as a property manager.

Uh I went over there and I have to tell you it's abysmal.

It's really bad.

I wouldn't put anybody in there.

Since the hurricanes, residents have been living with conditions that nobody honestly in St.

Petersburg should have to accept water intrusion, mold, electrical hazards, damaged stairwells, units that have never been fully repaired.

The issues go on and on.

And from what I can see in my research, they have been raised repeatedly through public grievances, community reports, and families are still waiting for safe and stable housing.

There have been widespread reports, community concerns about management companies' financial instability, including the possibility of bankruptcy proceedings.

And as a result, residents are left uncertain about who's responsible for repairs, who's accountable for safety, and whether the rent they're paying is being used to maintain the property.

I think it's clear if you go down there, it's not being used to maintain the property.

Some residents have begun withholding their rent.

Uh they simply cannot continue paying for uninhabitable conditions.

The situation has become a public safety concern, a public health concern, and a community stability concern.

I'm asking the city council to consider three actions.

First, I understand the city council did do an inspection or the city did.

Please notify the residents.

Some of them are not aware, they don't know that the inspection happened, and they certainly don't know the outcome of the inspection.

Uh, second, determine whether or not the current ownership or management is in violation of city codes or state statutes, and pursue enforcement actions that ensure real compliance and real accountability.

Third, begin exploring the city's option to purchase the property if the current ownership cannot or will not meet its obligations.

Given the financial uncertainty and long-term neglect of the building, this may ultimately be the uh the most stable path forward and resident for the residents and for the surrounding neighborhoods, people living there deserve dignity.

I think we can all agree on that.

Um St.

Pete prides itself on being a community that um gives historically disenfranchised residents a voice, and I think this is an opportunity for us to be able to do that.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Any other speakers?

Carla Correa, approach either podium, state your name and address.

You have three minutes to address City Council.

Hey, Carla Correa, 345 Fifth Avenue North here with the St.

Petersburg Tenants Union.

So I feel like City Council's been on a good roll lately.

It's like the feasibility study funding, the trans thing today.

Like, I feel like let's let's keep this going.

So I'm here to uplift the um the call that the last two speakers made for the city to look into purchasing the Morgan.

And I'm not gonna repeat all the issues because I know you guys know about the Morgan.

Um, but like the major ones, like not paying the water bill, not paying the Duke Energy bill, not paying the fire watch for months.

Like, there's a lot going on there.

The pool's green, it's rat infested, it's mold infested, and I'm not saying like the city hasn't done anything.

Like, I do appreciate the work that the city has done so far on this, um, especially like Amy Foster and like her team, but it and that work has been mostly to relocate the residents, but I feel like we need to look at like long-term solutions for this.

And that would be like making it city owned public housing.

And it's not something that the city doesn't already have.

Like Jamestown apartments.

I don't know if you all have been to Jamestown, like all the council people, but um, it's really nice, like it's super cute, it's well maintained.

Um, and so we need to like expand that um public uh housing enterprise, um, because obviously the Morgan is like incapable of managing it, and they're like completely unaccountable.

Um, so and this whole thing, like we should see housing as a public good, right?

Like the whole thing, like we've had meetings with some of you all about it, and the question is always like, well, how are we gonna pay for it?

But like we don't say that about like roads or like water or sewer, you know, it's like our essential needs, like housing.

Um, so like yeah, and times are really hard right now, like you said earlier, councilwoman Galbert about um like yeah, hard times are coming.

It's like hard times are here, like hard times are here right now, and then like you said, like um councilwoman Fig Sanders, like that where we don't we shouldn't be like we didn't know these problems were coming, like we can't we shouldn't say that.

We should be like forward thinking with what we're doing now.

Like, think about like how are we going to like fix the affordability crisis?

Like, how are we going to like make sure people have housing?

Um, so I know this idea has been brought up before.

This isn't like the first time we're saying this.

Um, but yeah, so if we could get an update on like where the city is with that, that would be really helpful.

We'll be contacting you all.

Um, and yeah, I think you guys should really consider this.

And people, this is like the same thing as why people want public power, you know.

It's all this is we need to be looking at housing like that.

So my time's up, so thank you.

Speakers in Zoom or in person manager.

Thank you.

We close open form and we go to announcements.

Okay, council member Fig Sanders.

Thank you, thank you.

Today has been quite a day, um, and there are just a couple of things that I've I failed to um pull in, and it's on it's it's on me, um, that um I really wanted to address.

So, first, before I go into that safety tennis union, we talked about that, and and so I would love to continue to have that conversation because the Morgan is in DeFi.

Second, we did not recognize this month, and I think it it may be my fault.

Juneteenth is happening, and we did not.

Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day is a federal holiday in the United States.

It is celebrated annually on June 19th to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.

The holidays name first used in 1890s is a poor month of June and 19th, referring to June 19th, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the emancipation proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.

So Juneteenth, as many Juneteenth um celebrations as you can attend this month would be great.

And I wanted to make sure that um I did that.

I forgot to ask for the proclamation on Juneteenth.

My bad.

The second thing that I wanted to talk about, um and you all know how I am when it comes to certain things, and it was even more evident to me this morning, or this afternoon.

I did not pull the and I'm sorry that I did not the resolution approving the amended and restated city council policies and procedures manual.

Because had I pulled it, there would have been two items in there specifically that I would have highlighted item number two clarifies that each council member must take an oath before assuming office as required by law, and as a part of that oath that I took twice, I've taken twice, I brought my whole 110% to this position.

As council members, we have three things that I can narrow down in order to speak on.

One is to be present, one is to be present, two is to represent those that elected us.

Yes, we're elected by district, but we were also elected by the city of St.

Petersburg.

And three, the most important thing that we're supposed to do is vote.

Vote.

And I'm glad to say, even when I was chair, I did not miss one meeting.

Did I vice chair?

Not one.

I took my election and my position here seriously.

I took it seriously.

Those are three things that we need to talk about.

Then item six of the council policies and procedures.

It states that we all worked on and voted on at a committee of the whole.

It adds the language to the civility preamble regarding attendance, expectations, including the importance of being present, prepared, and punctual for meetings.

Now I'm gonna leave that right there.

I needed to make sure that I said that and I said that out loud.