he's here in the building well yeah do we see D Mr wood good morning everyone welcome to the Braden City Council meeting Wednesday April 23rd 2025 at 8:30 a.m this time
I'd like to call Pastor Don Steriano with Kingdom Life Christian Church forward to do our invocation then we'll do the pledge please stand good morning everyone as we're recognizing police week uh this
prayer is dedicated to all law enforcement officers would you bow your heads father of heaven and earth I lift up our valiant law enforcement officers before you now i ask that you and all of heaven would take notice and honor this prayer for these who have vowed and
dedicated their lives to serve and protect the children on the earth who you so dearly love i pray that your mighty hand and outstretched arm would go before them in the battle for justice anointing them as your ambassadors of divine order so to foil the deeds of
those who plot evil I ask of you Holy Spirit to envelop each of them with the peace of Christ that transcends understanding guiding them with the wisdom of Solomon as they guard the citizens of our nation grant them the courage and strength of King David to
defeat the Goliaths of wrongdoing and impart in them the loving kindness as David the shepherd to serve with compassion and a gentle hand discerning when to be as a lion and when to be as a lamb may they serve with the heart of a king and lead with the heart of a
servant and as they continue to be deployed on their assignments I declare Isaiah 54:17 over them all that no weapon formed against you shall prosper and every tongue which rises against you and judgment shall be condemned i pray that you would grant an overwhelming
peace to their loved ones reminding every mother and father wife and husband son and daughter that you the creator of the universe has them all in his mighty hand and now I thank you Father for those who have paid the ultimate price of laying down their life willingly
placing themselves in harm's way while standing watch against the deeds of darkness i pray continued comfort for the loved ones who remain i pray this all in the name of Jesus the Christ amen amen thank you can we ask all of our
veteran police officers to come forward i know we've got some out there military veterans i know there's one i know he had one i know any other
military yeah you'd served in the military yeah and and if you can lead us in the pledge they were scared pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and sorry to put you on the spot i know i'm thinking they face battle but they don't want to face all right we'll call this meeting
to order welcome everyone Madame Clerk the first item on the agenda this morning is a proclamation for Police Week and Peace Officers Memorial Day thank you i believe Vice Mayor Kramer will
read it this morning yes sir thank you did you want to go up to the podium and read it uh sure former deputy chief and vice assistant chief deputy assistant chief terminology is everything assistant chief Josh Kramer
and now vice mayor Kramer will read thank you Josh Kramer vice mayor proclamation by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Bradon I do hereby issue this proclamation honoring police week May 11th through 17th 2025
and Peace Officers Memorial Day May 15 2025 whereas the Congress and President of the United States have designated May 15th as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week in which it falls as police week and whereas the members of Florida law enforcement agencies play an
essential role in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of our citizens hand whereas it is an essential it is essential that all Florida citizens know and understand the problems duties and responsibilities of their police department and that members of our police department recognize their
unwavering commitment to serve the people by safeguarding life and property by protecting them against violence or disorder and by protecting the innocent against deception and the weak against oppression or intimidation whereas it is appropriate
to commemorate police officers past and present who have dedicated their service to their communities and demonstrated utmost courage in preserving the rights and security of all citizens and whereas on May 15th we honor all peace officers who through their courageous deeds have
lost their lives or have become disabled in the performance of duties now therefore be it resolved that I Gene Brown as mayor of the city of Bradon Florida do hereby proclaim May 15 2025 as Peace Officers Memorial Day and May 11th through 17
2025 as police week and encourage all citizens to participate in activities honoring our police and peace officers signed Gan Brown Mayor and do we have anybody here today to accept it i think we do everybody can come forward
absolutely while everybody's coming down um thank you Vice Mayor Kramer uh I know this is April it's still a little early uh but we wanted to kind of get a jump on it just because of the timing of our council meetings to make sure that throughout the whole month people in
this community recognize why you'll see our officers wearing a band across their badges um by the grace of God we haven't experienced uh any tragedy when it comes to to our men and women who serve in this agency
but it's a time when we recognize that others in the United States and and we're we're trending upwards again unfortunately have lost their lives in the line of duty we wear that badge and we commemorate this month not celebrate it but commemorate this month as a show
of solidarity with them and to remind everybody that that thin blue line the thin blue line that we wear across the badge during the entire month is what separates chaos um from a a well functioning performing society and we're
the ones right in the middle we are blessed within this city to have such such an incredibly supportive council um an incredibly supportive city staff residents we know and I think everybody here will agree we know this city loves
us we know you all love us we know you support us and we are blessed um that we can all just stand here together with you and um and are thankful for all the support that we get um I will tell you that it's it's just been the the
experience of a lifetime to be able to serve alongside everybody in this room not just the sworn but the the civilians everybody we are all one team and together we succeed and it's it's just been the incredible opportunity of a
lifetime thank you comments before I do all right i just want to say um couple things obviously in my position as mayor for the last five years one of the things was most important to me and sitting on the council for seven and a
half years was going through different things of pay and and and all of that and it was always said that we were one of the lowest paying you know and and and even though you never can be the highest paying but we were able to do that with the support of this council
financially to get the increase almost 30 plus% for our starting pay which articulated up for the rest um are we ever happy where we are maybe not but are we at least getting better and that's something that I think helps
helps keep a force and I think we are keeping them now as we're sending them to to uh the academy and paying for that through our blade braiding and blues in different ways so we just appreciate what your administration has done from
top down to really make it a better place and and and work together and what we're going through right now it it I don't think has officially been announced but it's out there and but with you retiring the end of July and I have interviewed four in-house
candidates and I'll be making that decision towards the end of May and all four of them I think are in the room yeah yeah jeremy's back there too so all four of them are in the room um which is going to be a very very very very tough decision that that I will make and bring
to this council the end of May just to say on police week coming up in May we appreciate what your nine plus years have done here and um got us to that next level you know and and I really appreciate that and I think the citizens
of Braden appreciate it and the 20 plus people that I met with in the department before I did my four interviews with the in-house staff um was so appreciative of where we are and what we're doing And the morale you
know is off the charts is what they were telling me and I interviewed from one year to nine years to 19 years to retired and came back and everybody said we were in a good place and that's because of leadership and it starts right at your with the chief of police
so thank you for that and let's have a good last week for you in a good way so thank you these guys all that I walked down the hall they're all trying to trip me and do all kinds of stuff right um I got have 88 more days so just
how many more Sundays you're the one who counted those thank you all so all right thank you well let's get a picture everybody come up here and we'll gather behind you sideways lean back on your back foot
hey squeeze in oh you're right there people are you seeing us thank you i appreciate it thank you everybody thank you kind thank you thank you this chair
leans the wrong way it has to be just right yeah well you thought it was does it lean left or right going to Tallahassee thank you very much sir yes sir thank you Vice Mayor Assistant Chief Kramer
retired r have Madame Clerk there are not any presentations scheduled this morning okay and so we're at that point in the meeting where we have citizen comment and I'll read our traditional citizen comment will be accepted during the
citizen comment portion of the meeting on any non-aggenda item agenda item future agenda item or topic of relevance to the city comments will be accepted on public hearings at the appropriate time and as we say it's very important that
you know you have three minutes state your name your city of residence and it is a topic of the city of Bradenton um and that's going to be important to remember and I think you know as we've said lately please address we respect
you please respect this council and address them you know with the proper um Mr Mrs or council person and not by first name so the first uh agenda item is have a good old friend Glen Jabelina please come forward
please state your name and city of residence and you'll have three minutes and it would be topic of relevance to the city right and that's one thing that I'm going to that's the CRA this is not the CRA meeting this is I'm talking about it
though for the record Glen Jabelina so I did have an opportunity to read this into the record uh at the CR meeting last week i'm not going to do this today i just do want to I want to talk about um policy and procedures on you know
let's make let's let's get healthy again let's make our communities healthy so you know I'm an advocate about affordable housing and at the uh Pat Glass Awards I talked about infill lots i have a passion for affordable housing
i think we're missing a lot of opportunity here when we have an infill lot and that's not being utilized in a timely manner so I think we need some some corrections uh in moving that direction you know I look at this lot that has
been on the CRA for 18 years now it's vacant it's been sitting vacant and it's not it's not helping anyone right these people are are
starving for affordable rents housing and this lot sits vacant for this period of time i just think we need to set some guard rails up to say "Hey every three years let's do a check what are we doing with this?" For this property to sit for
this long benefiting no one is uh is really a travesty and I think that the proposal that came forward is the adjoining is the adjoining property so it's a logical deduction that if anybody was going to build there give them the
small piece of property let them develop it up into affordable rentals mr katon has a great idea he brought some renderings it looks it looks fantastic i just think that we got to stop kicking this can down the road i mean that's a marginal
community to begin with so let's let's bring it up every vacant lot not only in the county but in the city should be approached as as an opportunity instead of a detriment in degrading degrading
the neighborhood 18 years this lot is vacant now there's trash on it there's vagrants hanging out and you're you're devaluating an already marginalized community and I just think that we can take a different approach and say you
know what let's get this off the tax roles for 18 years you have not collected one thin dime of t tax revenues that you could have so not only not only you marginalized the community by leaving it vacant and
not even maintaining it but you could just you could just when a guy like this comes forward and said "I got a great great opportunity man please do it." And uh Councilwoman Coachman you should take the lead on this mission and I hope you will thank you Mr jibelina next we have
Linda Seabolt please come forward state your name your city of residence and you'll have three minutes good morning um I just want to fulfill my shared responsibility here with the uh lift stations um and ward 4 and um I
want to just find out and there may not be any uh updates on lift station number three our collection system and also I'm adding to it the check check valves and uh seaw wall for ward 4 lift station 13 is
still functioning and it's still there thank you thank you all right next we have Ron Nerburgg please come forward state your name your city of residence and you'll
have three minutes good morning um I'm Ron Nerburgger uh I'm a Bradington resident and I'm also president of the Bradington Shuffle Board Club at 1525 Ballard Park Drive i'm also the past president of the Southwest Coast District that runs from
Venice to the south to St petersburg to the north there are seven shuffleboard districts in the state the Bradington Club is home for the Southwest Coast District the second largest in the state as you know I have met twice with Mayor Brown and city administrator Rob Perry
along with Jeff Burton and Lance Williams regarding the future closing of the Bradington Shuffle Board Club i am simply here today to follow up on the packet of information I dropped off for council members Monday and andor answer any questions you may have it earmarks
the huge support our club has received regarding the value of a comparable replacement facility in Manatee County you can see from the letters and signatures that the support for the Bradington Shuffle board club runs statewide shuffleboard in Bradington in
the state of Florida has been an institution and staple for over 100 years shuffleboard is played in many nations throughout the world the Bradington Club is one of the largest in Florida we also house the shuffleboard store selling all shuffleboard park and
player supplies in West Florida we are the location for the century old history room and home for the Southwest Coast District Hall of Fame shuffle board will continue to be a desired activity if the city of Bradington and Manatee County are to continue to offer the best
recreational opportunities to current and future residents then it needs to include the sport of shuffleboard i would like to just reiterate the value of shuffleboard facility in the county one it gives residents another social activity to create friendships with
others two it provides for a more competitive play for those who are looking for that venue and three it is a less physical demanding activity for all ages shuffleboard activities can be organized in many venues such as fun
shuffles competitive leagues for men ladies couples and families similar to golf bowling pickle ball and tennis as well as hosting the national state and district shuffleboard tournaments as the Bradington Club has for many years our
concern is that we have a seamless transition from the closing of the Bradington Club to the opening at another site we wish to avoid a gap in time from the end of one to the beginning of the other in closing our hope is the city council along with the
Bradington Club and the county recreation parks department can continue to work together and find an adequate replacement facility i also offer my services to be part of that planning committee thank you thank you sir all
right i have no other citizen comment at this time i will start out um and talk about the shuffle board it was an opportunity um to try to help because we are not as was just stated and I don't think it was meant to be stated that way that we are
not closing the Bradenton Shuffle Association that's their association all we're doing is trying to find a better use of land that can help more people while giving opportunity to find shuffleboard merging maybe in with
others and I did get a letter sooner from another association uh president and talked with her and gave her an update on some of the stuff there because we had probably hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage during the hurricanes d to the
shuffleboard association there the the facilities and as we know the city of Bradenton doesn't have a parks department so you know it's the city of or we have a great GT bra park in the city of Braden that is run by Manatee County and I have been talking with the
administration of Manatee County and when we brought the CRA in on it there was opportunity to maybe work and make the shuffleboard association better in the long term because the lease is up in 28 and one of the things that we thought
is how do we hit this headon first because it's not when you know when the lease was up if this council voted to just not renew the lease then you're out the window so this was not anything and and there's been some information put out there that was confusing maybe and
and Ron and his group has always supported the conversation because let's start a conversation first then go and see where we can help because I think you know we all know and um some of us more than others that shuffle board does
not carry as many people as it used to in some of the tournaments there's big tournaments around here at Trailer Estates in Palmetto at Bradenton so we've really got to look at the good of the whole of Manatee County and there is shuffleboard courts at GT Bray um so I
did find that out that you know we have to work on the opportunity and I did talk with uh county administrator Bishop and they are looking into it as well to do a collaborative and I think it'll
it'll be a win-win long term and it'll help clean up an area that's no fault of the shuffle board but it's an area that if this city does not clean up and drive by that 7-Eleven every day and see what you see and again it's not the fault of
the shuffle board but it's an area we have sir I'm sorry can't sir sir we can't have from the audience so um all right any other comments or concerns or questions on anything was said yes ma'am i was going to save this for my council um comments but um in case to leave the
meeting I'll just say now that um I was pleased to hear from Mr williams that there is a team dedicated to the project that I'm sort of just calling the expansion lift station 3 expansion slashreplacement of collection
system and that includes communications and um uh and some technology I think in regards to how we create information and push it out to the public um that team is uh I understand going to be meeting regularly and I've asked to participate in those meetings so that I don't have
to go through the the process of being asked a question and then going back and getting information and then coming back to relay it i'd rather just be able to knock out questions as they come and they already have um so and not just within the 170 that were affected but I received responses after our last
meeting and my council update um from people in River Isles and Braden um Castle Park as well so it's definitely on other people's radar I think because of the magnitude of the project um and I want to reassure people that information
will be coming forth and that um we're going to address questions and and I'll be ready to do that mayor yes sir mr perry I appreciate uh the whole sub the subject regarding the station 13 um I think we all know that
this is a monumental project perhaps the largest project that the city has taken on for their water utilities as it relates to uh to uh rebuilding um a system where there's 170 private land owners involved there is an estimated
time um with this it's it's a long-term project and uh it's a phased project and that information is important but patience is going to be important too and the accuracy of that information is
going to be important and the the um way that we're able to gain public confidence is to pro provide that information out but that it is going to be a stepbystep project it will require dealing with 170 different homeowners
legal implications to doing that um it will pro also deal with the design and and and fabrication and construction of a major list station for transport and transportation of probably millions of
gallons of sewage water it will involve digging up a lot of public roadways and putting into the rightway uh transmission and uh collection systems for that and so I don't want anybody thinking that this is going to be an
easy project um these types of projects don't go without hiccups and uh I I hope that we're all capable of being patient on it and understanding that before the administration goes off with some
knee-jerk comment or someone else does that that it probably wouldn't benefit the project that's been my experience this something that this this monumental magnitude and so hopefully we'll we'll be able to take it slow and steady and
uh we don't necessarily um guarantee that we're going to be able to do this fast but we're very hopeful that we'll be able to do it right can I sure um I I totally agree and it's actually the the monumental aspect of the project is why I think real-time
updates are so important for the public um I my experience has been talking to people that have asked me questions is they 100% understand when you explain what is involved they understand how huge and and actually I think that they appreciate the ambition i think that
even if you're not in Ward 4 of the 170 um just because people want us to face it and fix it they are happy that we're we're moving forward with something of this magnitude um and I and I think that they're I think that we shouldn't and I'm not saying you're doing this but I don't want to I don't want to
underestimate people who are inquiring and their ability to understand that real-time information means that it's going to change that it's just too big of a thing for it not to um but I I really want I really think it's going to be important given the scope and the scale that we just and I think that
we're planning to do that which is why I was pleased to that's why I was going to mention it in my word comments um because I know that already Miss Shadik and Mr meyers are working on uh really I think more advanced at least more advanced than me and social media
posting uh technology to really make sure that people can gain the information if they're curious about the project and where it's at all right thank you um and a couple things I think as Mr perry said patience is going to be important as as we know
that um there's a lot of things in this community that people put out as propaganda newspapers different things that not about this project but other project other things going on but one of the things that um and Mr perry brought it up um that came to me from somebody
in that neighborhood um and they asked me they said "Is this going to be the private laterals for um homesteaded properties and how will um rental properties and different things that people make money on is the citizens
going to have to pay for that too?" So I I just get a question so I said I don't know i'll bring it up at the when it's in the public because I think that's a good question so how are we going to answer that what are we going to do i think it's going to be important that emotion is taken out of this so that's
going to be very individually because all of us up here except for maybe one or two aren't as emotional as others no pun intended well I'm just kidding but from a standpoint of emotion you know we've got
to take that out of it and we've got to get the project done as quickly as possible and um it's some things that we're already looking at that will come up to this council pretty quick that are going to have to make a decision how we can make this project even move quicker
and and um financially probably more feasible long term to get it done so those things are worked every day um and it's something that Mr williams Mr perry and staff are are doing a great job but until the time is right it's got to come
up and it'll come before a vote on this council all right thank you moving on madame clerk item six is the consent agenda and just a reminder that item D was pulled yes for the meeting so staff is
requesting approval of items A through C and E through J mr perry I've had the opportunity to speak with most of the counselors and I think Mr williams has spoken with the one that I haven't and I apologize for that we just had a little
bit of a communications uh connection issue but um been able to address any questions that were related to any of these matters the vast majority of them deal with um different types of service and uh supply contracts for the city all
right chair will entertain a motion move to approve consent agenda items A through C and E through J second all right we have a motion and a second further discussion hearing none we'll start the vote in ward three yes four
yes five yes one yes two yes approved five to zero madame clerk item seven is the second public hearing for resolution 2548 all right mr burton jeff Burton cra director this is the
second public hearing to designate property on 14th Street that the CRA is selling for as a brownfield site it had a kerosene tank on it and uh it's a minor brownfield site which is fine but it also adds um some economic
benefit to the development so we'd appreciate approval of the second public hearing designating the site as a brownfield thank you any questions from council hearing none we'll open the public hearing anyone wishing to speak
anyone wishing to speak anyone wishing to speak hearing none we'll close the public hearing chair will entertain a motion mr mayor yes sir move to approve resolution 2548 second all right we have a motion by Mr kramer and a second by
Miss Coachman any further discussion hearing none we'll start the vote in ward four yes five yes one yes two yes three yes approved five to zero madame clerk item 8A is the emergency
procurement report mr perry or Mr williams mayor As council knows I present the updated emergency procurements that are done pursuant to the the storm storm events of last season and I'll get to that um
in a second there was only I believe one two two okay can you get me those copies i know you put them in the package but I can't seem to find them but I want to take um a moment to talk a little bit about um the storm season itself and some of the efforts that have been ongoing activities related to to the
storm season because we had our last close out uh with Hagerty under the emergency contract and Hagerty is our FEMA consultant that was bought on an emergency basis to be really a documentation and and and reimbursement expert they have the expertise they work
for the county they work for a lot of other larger entities and uh we were able to get Amber Guy as our principal in doing that and uh so we did our last uh phone call that we do weekly on that and I want to thank some of the folks in the city that have been able to
participate in that between Corey representing the administration David Lindsay over at public works and some of the work you don't see being done is phenomenal i'm going to talk about it in a minute i think you're going to be fairly impressed um Rebecca Desh from fire Jeremy Gittens from PD Heidi and
her team from finance but I asked Amber to put together something that would kind of give you some idea about what we had been doing ever since the storms and to start with the category A recovery that's the easiest to get it's category
A through G that FEMA reimbures two of those categories A and B are the the one is debris removal the other one is what's called protective measures and their expedited project typically so you get reimbursed and there very significant cost associated with that uh
between Cirrus and uh and is it DN DRC DRC as our other contractor you're talking about I think it was probably close to $6 million it may have been even slightly more than that in debris removal and of course our folks did debris removal as well but as relates to
uh debris removal in category A we removed 100 at 44,000 cubic yards of Can you get a little closer to the microphone or pull the microphone toward you sure you bet and and that's equivalent to 27 football fields that
are basically 100 by 50 yard one one yard deep um other comparisons 58 Olympic swimming pools um the construction debris itself uh basically 14,000.5 cubic yards of construction
debris that's equivalent to 111 fully loaded 18 wheelers and so we pulled out a lot of debris um 1,243 hazardous limbs that were hanging removed throughout the city protect to in order to protect
public safety and property and uh and uh a whole host of other things as it relates to the reimbursement as an expedited project we're eligible for a 50% immediate payment which we have received Mr williams and our finance
team have processed that 50% payment uh for the other 50% usually that's fairly quick thereafter because it's based on contracts but remember the city had to pay these bills and so the you know you have a cash flow issue there from a finance perspective but we have
recovered to 50% um typically the the the the recovery on that is going to be I believe 80 80% um the state puts in 12.5 and so we end up about 10% but this was 100% recovery because of the nature
and severity of the storms and so we should be fully reimbursed for those costs associated with it um there's also things to look at as far as our staff and what we'd had to do as far as what's called emergency work and that's the city's public works department staff
they recorded more than 6,300 hours of emergency work in the days that immediately before and after hurricane Selen and Milton itself and the city and and and Mr lindsay working with the
entities involved whether it's PD and Jeremy and fire and and our staff and and a host of other folks had to basically take all them frock forms that's what we use now and try to basically gather them and put them into
categories that have very specific requirements by FEMA for reimbursement and that's what Hagerty helps us out with and I can tell you that in a 40hour week mr lindseay probably spent 50 hours doing these spreadsheets continuously
submitting to Hagerty and they have to also look at mechanisms because Hagerty knows that if you don't have these documents then you can substitute two or three other types of supporting documents that you have so we've looked at different ways to meet the FEMA
requirements they're fairly tedious they change very often and they're they're rather ownorous in their own um undertaking but we had basically 6,000 hours of emergency work that we paid employees and most of them were probably
at premium time that we want to be in re reimbured for so we we constantly trying to put that package together um the the FEMA project management itself um FEMA approved the city's request to consolidate damages into 17 logically
grouped categories of damages basically and so that again is being done in conjunction most of it with public works um and and Hagerty and putting the paperwork together for fema we've declared 36 different city facilities as
in receiving compensible damage and they will be subject to site inspections where FEMA actually dispatches people to come to the city of Bradington and look at those facilities in order to verify the paperwork and condition physically of
all that work and so there's a lot that goes into that and and even you know now that we're basically six months outside of this the storm's hitting six to seven months outside of the storm hitting there's still a lot of work that's going into it and there will continue to be i just
want you guys to know that out of sight isn't out of mind on this one and I'm really proud of of the bandwidth and sophistication of our staff and your support for them in order to continue i don't think that you know the city had
had um been hit with this type of storm for quite some time and it takes a Yeah I think it's pretty much zero three storms yeah but but I don't think that typically we had the bandwidth to do that and Hagerty helped a lot and our folks have stepped up a lot and we've learned a lot and we'll be better next
time for it hopefully there won't be a next time at least with the severity of this particular storm season so um I wanted to talk about that i'll close that subject out with saying that we are doing a training um that Mr lindsay and
Hagerty Miss Miss Guy putting together for all of our public works staff and there'll be some other folks there as well um to even get better at processing that paperwork for being prepared to basically do the documentation in
accordance with FEMA or FDM standards uh it's again tedious ownorous and very detailed and if you haven't done it before or you don't do it regularly it's pretty easy stuff to mess up because of the requirements of it i mean it's
interesting when you think about what we did and the mayor in particular out on the east side and down into Ward 4 and even some of the other wards um and and FEMA is saying "Well we want to know that you picked up something and it wasn't um on somebody else's private
property uh because they would be responsible for that um it has to be in the rightway and you have to have a legal obligation to do it." So what does that mean for documentation well it means what it means we'd like to see some documentary evidence either written
coordinates which are GIS um other types of written documentation photographs and the like well when you're in the the throw of battle at least personally when I was down there doing it you don't have time to do that i mean you're basically taking people's
lives out of their front yard moving on to the next yard trying to get 600 700 houses just on the east side alone cleaned up that were flooded so that the next hurricane doesn't hit them it's somewhat impractical in in my opinion u
to to have to document to that level of detail i understand from an internal control perspective why it would be wanted but we're constantly playing that type of situation um on on on some of the work that we've done and and surely when you use the term protective measure
I can't think anything that would be more of a protective measure than clearing that debris when you know another storm with a potential wind field and storm surge could come wipe out the same area so you know both operationally as well as
administratively the city did a good job in my opinion and by and large the recovery and reimbursement efforts are going well as it relates to the emergency thank you for the the documentation as it relates to emergency purchases um we had one two two
emergency purchases basically um one was for facility which is the admin building AC units itself um air and mechanical systems that were were damaged impacted from the storm about $30,000 in repair for
that sir you got to the forever one oh yeah i forgot this is the for me that I'm not sure that they're getting you clearly because you had your head under the microphone thank you Tamara
you never know those two items basically um come through public works Mr peterson with landscape grounds obviously for the forever lawn um and if you have been over to Rossi um that's all been repaired now i just happened to run over there yesterday and just kind of took a
quick look and all all of the the the four different pad areas have been restored and then um what about the for at Lewis Park i haven't checked on that one yet i know some of it had been replaced i'll have to check on that for
you i think it had all been replaced but So it's been the pieces that we looked at the other day say not replaced right um yes some of it's been repaired and then we have a quote into the the vendor supposed to give us a quote to finish up the repairs so you will be see that
coming in the near future thank you and as we talk about Rossi as an aside that six foot fence will be coming down to the 4 foot um at Lewis I'm sorry yep that will be kind happening I think within probably a month or so yeah we had had back and
forth with the contractor and suppliers for the materials we're going to be redeploying that fence that's available over to fire station two so that's some good news too fire station one fire station one is it going okay well you're reusing it so it's going somewhere it's
going somewhere yeah yeah we're going to repurpose it and then uh also use some of it in our upcoming butterfly garden as well that's right yep so that is related to
obviously recovery efforts um I I wanted to just bring to your attention um the the recommendation and appointment of let me zoom out of Heidi were Monday um basically to be
the finance director heidi's been with us about probably close to three years and she has been a CPA that's gone through several audits for us successfully no reportable conditions no uh no findings unqualified opinions as
it relates to the accuracy transparency and compliance with Gatsby within our annual audit and uh that's a pretty significant undertaking for Heidi and her team she's done a great job after Mr kelly coming in um and and making the transition to um local government
accounting which is fund accounting basically and so Mr williams and myself um felt very comfortable in promoting um Heidi to finance director from assistant director basically is the situation and um to that extent there isn't you know
there is obviously a commensurate salary increase but uh there we don't need to hire a new position they do a pretty good job on a fairly a fairly um streamlined staff in our finance department and uh done a really good job with that and so I wanted to bring that
to your attention Mr williams would you like to add anything to that yeah um like Mr perry said uh Miss Mormon has done a phenomenal job with our finance team she works uh very well with with uh Linda who's been here for you know quite some time we all know uh the two of them
but you know you hear me talk countlessly about the hours again that you don't see and I can tell you just in the month of March I think they they both maybe had one day and one weekend off all the rest of the entire month
they worked and they do that because they know that that it's important for the city to have a good financial report an accurate financial report obviously they dealt with the three storms that we had this year and and all the idiosyncrasies that come with that um
finding some later invoices just kind of really getting everything cleaned up to be able to hand over uh you know to the state to the um government finance officers association a very accurate and well put together um act for our annual
comprehensive financial report um so that's just one piece of the dedication that Miss Horn has and and Linda has as well um but they're now Heidi's at a point where she's leading the team in
finance um I collaborate a little bit with her but she's taking over the team she's going to bring in some technology to help streamline some processes um she's looking to add some additional staff um she's really heading up the finance department and we felt it was
appropriate at this time to to get you know ask for the recommendation to be approved that uh that Miss Waramonde be our finance director and can and continue to be dedicated to the city and do a phenomenal job do you need us to take action well no i don't think there
needs to be any action because this isn't one of the the positions that the council would hire or fire correct that's my understanding but I wanted to bring to your attention i always bring it up i always try to do that they're doing it right because again we don't want to get into the point where that every time something happens that the
council has to hire and fire outside the charter right or to make it easier that's what we hired you to do yes sir so yes sir i just want to bring it to the attention and that you know Vance was talking a little bit about when you talk about the finance team the finance team is a lot of what they do is going
to be you know the accounting work does done by the city with payables and receivables and that's a that's an ongoing thing that is ongoing but then it's always nuances and new things within it the investment portfolio that we have is significant that's handled
basically by finance and Mr williams and and myself um as it relates to the debt service components that we own and the requirements of both servicing the debt and bond covenants and things that are related to that that have to be complied with certifications uh and and and
strange things that go on with that uh that has to be handled uh the budget obviously coming into budget season is done through the finance department as well so there's a lot of different components that you all probably don't have to pay much attention to and until
there's a problem right and uh the thing is is that there usually isn't a problem because of Heidi and and her team over there you know they do a really good job and again this audit was on time it was unqualified with no reportable conditions uh material deficiencies are
the things that would be concerning to elected officials as well as high level senior administrators i would now we're going to call Heidi up to give a nice long speech because she loves loves being in front of the microphone instead of
welcome and congratulations good morning mayor and council i just want to say that um I just want to thank you for your support and I really appreciate your faith in my team and um we'll continue to put in our best effort and
do the best that we can here for the city and keep that smile on your face thank you appreciate it good job thank you thanks Heidi well also under the agenda for item eight new business is the proposal for
the city center garage retail space and uh that is item B which is the the the surf shop that is that is there currently um we got noticed that they were not going to renew their lease and so um we looked for possible tenants to
replace um that particular space and we were told that there was some folks that were interested and uh and uh this particular tenant came forward they had had a
successful location out on Anamaria Island they specialize in like coastal um design types of home goods and accessories and it's pretty cool i think some of the stuff might be on in the
package yeah uh yeah I don't have the package with me right now but it's the kind of place really that if you're looking for unique Bradentin artwork and and accessory work for home decoration and accent pieces and things like that
that's the kind of store like that i don't know i kind of don't even I'm not very artistic and things like that but I like walking through a lot of a lot of other folks that you know like keeping up their home with cool stuff do too so I think it's going to be a nice
compleiment to the city basically so is that something we have to approve i think it'd probably be good if you did on this one with the with the motion of approval y and and Tamar's going to put this this on there
that's just a a graphic obviously of some of the materials that the homegoods that I referred to accent pieces and accessories um kind of cool looking stuff most of it's all locally sourced we have uh Councilwoman Coker and then
Councilwoman Moore i'm excited for this this looks like it'd be a great addition to downtown was there a discussion with them about making sure that they are open when we're having our events i I feel like I
want them I wish they were here because they're kind of our partner here this is all about you know being partners in downtown and making success successful events and having that retail component I think they'll do
well but if they're open during events I think it'll be Yeah we're gonna continue to rec you know encourage that especially a lot of the special events that we do things of that nature um there's it's a tricky situation
because they're probably going to be open when they believe the best hours and and days to be open are because that's what they want to do is sell sell products and uh at a certain point they've got to sacrifice a little bit so
they still stay open maybe when they don't think it's the prime time but it's a balance and I and and to be honest with you I've been flexible with them and and maybe I shouldn't be but I I think when you see people that are leaving it's telling you that they can't
sell enough product to be um uh sustainable and that's just probably the nature of the free market right whether it's a restaurant or whatever if if you don't have a good product and good hours and good service um you're probably not going to be in business a long time well
I agree i've just and and I you know am not here to tell someone when to be open but there have been many times when there were people all over downtown and all the shops would be closed and I think um that's they're getting a
preferred rent i mean they're they're good if not if we're not going to ask them to support our to support what we're doing down there then then we could just go to market rate yeah we could go to market rate and I I I think I should address that because um you
know there's a lot of space storefrontage downtown and and NDC's building a lot of it and the guys the head of our planning department Ben Baka is probably the highest broker that of having property downtown and it's not easy it's not easy for those guys to
find tenants so it's a balance between price and and and and basically you know market as far as what's available to come in and so we don't want empty storefronts mm-m and and if you go to market and we had empty
storefronts any business and any economist would tell you that you've got something that uh people won't pay the P for the price lower the price and the demand goes up that's a debate that we can have yeah that it surely is yeah um
so Mr cooper I just want to make Well hold on hold on we got other people on the Sorry um anything else Miss Cooper no miss more than Miss Barnaby and then Miss Coachman um I um I don't think you're wrong about the the balance when I talk to the um to the current store
owners they tell me that it depends on the event so some of the events that are maybe a little more daytime family-friendly people will actually buy things if it's a little more of a party atmosphere then they're you know people are less inclined to go into a shop to do that kind of thing um so I do think
it's a balance kind of a hard you know it's kind of a nebulous thing to really pinpoint that when we really want them to be doing something so I do think we have to give them some difference but that actually wasn't going to be my question my question was I see that the cover page says that we're renewing or we're not renewing we're starting a new
lease at the next level as the if the tenant had renewed as far as the rental rate correct um but we don't actually have the lease so am I safe to assume that the lease form is the same as the one that we previously approved but just with the higher rental i I believe it is and and each rent has an escalator every
year i think it's three is it 3% 3% the other thing is we try to go with the same term Councilwoman Moore so that when renewals come up they all come up together and it's easier to for us to administrate that way and and probably easier for you to make policy decisions
about accepting them or not miss Bar thank you Mr mayor getting back on and up tailing into what Miss Coker brought up I think it's important that we make sure that the tenants in the garage know
when these events are because sometimes I don't think they know and one of the reasons that we it's not the only reason but one of the reasons that we require people to turn in their event requests in a timely fashions is so that we can
get it on our community calendars and get it out to people like Pink and Navy and people like Orange Blossom because I agree with Miss Coker there's been many times that I've been down there and there's thousands of people and they're
closed and I'm I'm like did they not have the staff did they not schedule the staff did they not know that we had an event going on so I mean I'm more than happy to check with both uh Miss Kaiser and Miss Thomas and make sure that we
get when the we have a calendar of these events that we get it to them you know at least you know six months at a time so they can plan their schedules a little better i think that's a fair comment and I think it is a communications issue to a certain ext I I I think I I want to think that you
know most of those folks know when we're going to have events um in most cases but no I might be assuming something I shouldn't be assuming and so maybe from our communications team to get notice to the five you know um uh storefronts that
we have would be a good idea um also putting it on that billboard is probably a good idea because I know we've had events that have not been advertised on probably one of the most graphically observed things down there if you're you're in the area that the billboard the electronic digital billboard um so
I'll talk with um with our communications team and Lance and I and whoever else about that those are good comments thank you yep i take them very coachman yep thank you on that same note um I'm and this may be an assumption but
some of it I've actually talked with um someone one of the retail um I think initially they were open during events and I mean it's a business so it's if
you're not making that profit you you don't open during certain times because you don't have the money for staff um I I really do think they were aware initially but it just
wasn't as profitable maybe and it's difficult it's difficult to take the gamble and be open and just go through the same old thing i mean what's the definition of you know and and in a business sense you
wouldn't want to continue doing something that's not working i don't know i just feel like um we we should give I know we're not doing market rate which is probably good that's how we have them there but I think we should do some give some grace
though and not just say "Hey you better be open." and then they go out of business you know i think I think they can gauge it i hope i'm sorry all right thank you Mr perry the chair will entertain a motion mr mr vice Mayor thank you motion to
approve the proposal by Holly Kim of left coast soul to rent the city center garage retail space it'll be available July 1st 2025 second all right we have a motion and a second by Vice Mayor Kramer second by Councilwoman Coker any other
discussion hearing none we'll start the vote and award five yes one yes two yes three yes four yes carries five to zero mr perry um before we go on to the next thing sir councilwoman Moore has um a question on the emergency procurement
report okay um I think I heard you say and uh let me Congratulations Miss Ford i'm gonna I'm so sorry names are a real stumbling block for me no disrespect and congratulations um also though um as I
know Mr perry and Mr williams are uh probably more familiar than they ever hope to be I am continually trying to better understand municipal finance as it compares to profit and nonprofit finance and and budget um considerations
so be right after or when we were facing the storms I was speaking with a uh city commissioner from the city of Northport and she was relaying to me their experience with Hurricane Ian and I think that you're absolutely right that there is going to be more recovery time than people really realize for them it
took a couple of years but they were very fortunate that they had reserves sufficient to weather um that process so just moving forward as we you know we're six months from post uh 24 season that was really horrible for us but we're
also something like four months pre storm season 25 and six weeks is it six weeks oh god I'm not ready um do you feel like we have sufficiently planned now that we're
in budget season i just don't want I want us to make sure and I I feel like I'm preaching to the choir but I feel like it needs to be said that you know just for the benefit of everyone to understand that and appreciate that as we go through this budget season we're taking consideration to maybe replenish what we had to use considering it's
going to take us a few years to even get maybe whatever it was 80% is uh maybe best case scenario that we're even going to get so I just want to make sure that we're continually replenishing whatever we feel like we need to stockpile that's a really good question it truly is um
we're still trying to square things up on what we have recovered what we may recover when we may recover it and the like i think the uh subject and the answers to some of those questions will probably be better left to the upcoming
budget cycle as you may be aware I think you are um the city has a restrictive $4 million reserve um for for catastrophe and hurricanes basically and we have to look basically at where the funding had
come from for some of those um operations that we have done and the expenses related to them and and really look at when we close out the books the accounting from this year um what the
fund balances are going to be and how to basically cushion some of those fund balances so there is adequate um reserves we're well positioned across the board um with different types of reserves but it may be something that we
want to look at um to dedicate how do we build up that 4 million if there's a deficiency there if we've used it or something along those lines i can't really answer that right now and I I really truly apologize why I can't and I don't expect that that my folks could either we could give you a little bit
more information here a little bit more information there but it's such a dynamic situation going on with the FEMA reimbursement that relates to it and other types of reimbursement um when we talk also about reimbursement you know we have property insurance and so that
property insurance is if you're insured FEMA doesn't cover it what FEMA will cover is the deductible and so there there's a lot of a lot of still unsettled questions about that and I'd be doing nothing more than throwing a
dart and probably talking speculatively if I was to try to answer it but I will tell you that we will be able we will have more information by the time budget rolls around and I think we need to raise that issue at budget time great i think that's appropriate thanks Mrs
coker yeah i just want to comment because I think this is probably a much bigger longer conversation but and I agree with you it is thank goodness we have the talent here to address all this and keep an eye on it but I think that
this will be why our face it and fix it is so important because I think a lot of this has to do with the deferred maintenance on some things and I think that the deferred maintenance was a result of probably very conservative and
keeping very heavy on our reserves so I don't want to get back to making the same mistake of the past and I like the idea of us going forward aggressively with our face it and fix it and get it as quickly as
possible that's that's all it's interesting that comment um and and it's rings true very much so to the extent of when you look at the impact of these storms on our infrastructure and particularly in our utility infrastructure area and here and his
team and the like sometimes grave opportunity comes from grave circumstances we've heard that adage and really there's funding coming into the the state and the region that's related to these storms our new contractor with
w with uh Woodward Karn WC has a fiscal solutions team that we've been meeting with we're going to Mir and I going up to Tallahassy we're going to meet with them we're also meeting with D we're meeting with some other folks as relates to some funding opportunities but the Woodward current $1.6 billion dollars is
coming into Florida that's that's a lot of money and it's for resiliency in a number of categories storm water yep we got we need improvements for that infrastructure um wastewater oh yeah both collection and treatment face it
and fix it um potable water evis reservoir alternative source as you look for longer types of things ah resiliency so those types of opportunities that really probably wouldn't have been available absent the storm um may
actually become beneficial and supportive of us we got off a call yesterday um with some folks that do special type financing for all that stuff and when you look at doing something that could be a hund00 million
upgrade project that's a lot of money right $100 million when you think about it city size of Bradenton um usually there's not just one single funding source but if you can defay some of the the funding for that to 20 million from
this source and 15 million from that source and an SRF loan from that source all of a sudden you've got what Councilwoman Moore had asked for when she first came in and I think everybody else has too a strategic plan because a
strategic plan isn't just about what you need it has to be about what you what you can do when you can do it and how is it you can do it because you can't do it all on the back of a rate generally speaking for utilities it's very
difficult to do it on the back of a rate and the political implications are difficult if nothing else so there might be some pretty good opportunity as we as a team look forward to handle this face it and fix it across the board i know
Ebis Reservoir you know we have two 24inch lines that come through there and it they got to go seven miles from what state road 70 into the city of Bradenton we need more redundancy and that's a surface water source we don't have alternative groundwater as it relates to
deep water wells like they do out in the duet fields for the county there's a lot of there's a lot to be talked about but some of this funding looks very promising yeah and I think one of the the couple of the important things talking about
this is we've got to make sure that we're not going out individually and saying things that that are going to maybe hurt long term one of the reasons I think that that going into Tallahassee
at this point is going to be important is because we are meeting with the governor and the governor's office confirmed that last night that I want him to know that city of Bradon is on board city of Bradenton needs his help he was here three times in the city of
Bradenton during those storms and some of the things that we did that um really and and he mentioned on TV that Bradenon got some of that storm debris and I think you know in especially in that
neighborhood in Ward 4 um that Sunday morning when we showed up it wasn't just about picking up debris it was about telling people that we cared and I want to continue that and I think that's what the governor saw and so we are going to
have some asks to him but we also we have about $8 million I believe in ask in the legislative session now that we want to make sure that he understands that you know it's important to us little by little but it's also we're going to be bringing some things to this
council soon that may be helping us speed up our face it and fix it you know we know money doesn't make it go faster but it can make it get planned and get moving at least and government works slow um and and again I agree with
strategic plans but sometimes you can strategic plan something to death that takes too long to get it done we got to keep working while trying to have strategic plan in order but our strategic plan is every day and you know
how the next step is going to happen and one of the things that we did with Woodward and Curran is that next strategic plan and that is very important when we look at what are we going to do and I say we as a council up
here to make it better from today than it was yesterday and then tomorrow you know and again I go back to the gentleman that asked me the question if you had all the money in the world that you needed right now in your pocket it would still probably take about the same
amount of time but another important part of that is how do we get that money in our pocket and I think legislatively we can keep asking but Mr perry you and I and others met with state representative and I asked you the question if we don't get the money from
the state this year are those projects still going to happen and you said yes because we will find the money whether it's through the SRF or we need to come back and do something else because we can't wait another two years and that's the face it and fix it and I think
that's going to be important to go forward because we talk about this the three of us Mr williams Mr perry and I talk about this every day every day every day and sometimes twice on Saturday usually quite multiple times a day so um but you know along with
running a city you know you can't just stop and I think that's the thing that that I want the the public to know and I hope this council keeps in their pocket that we've got to talk as one not individually because that goes
from our wastewater to our um storm water to our drinking water to our traffic plan and it's going to be important to keep that message going or we can be dysfunctional like we were for that four-year period not too long ago
because one individual killed it and I'm not going to let that happen though um any other questions for Mr perry so moving on to item C item C city administration third amendment to the agreement of purchase and sale Tropicana
Manufacturing Company um as the council knows and had previously authorized um subject to final council approval uh we have engaged with Tropicana basically to purchase 32.9 acres in two parcels um
one of them is known as the old trail a lot that of course is uh just due southeast basically of um of of uh the old the old uh red barn and Um so in doing so we
conducted diligence and we are the first two amendments basically dealt with extensions of time to continue the diligence period the diligence consisted of both um title as far as the the marketability of the title it's typical when you buy real property um surveys
and and boundary lines and things like that making sure there's no encroachments on it um and things of that nature but probably most importantly was the environmental condition of the property itself and you we'd conducted what's
called an EAS1 survey it's basically a historical look at what was on a piece of property previously and what might uh envision what it called uh uh reportable conditions basically environmentally reportable conditions and so what what
that does is take a look and says well Tropicana purchased this property I think it was 1942 um thereabouts and it had been used previously in certain sections as furniture manufacturing facility and I believe would have been the northeast corner um most of the
western flank of that large um property line that goes up against the state DOT 301 road right now was farmland uh before 301 went in and so it had t typical types of herbicide and and and
fertilizing and that type agricultural chemical usually with those type of chemicals is arsenic and things like that it's not a showstopper it's pretty common on that type of property um and then there's this whole new adage in the environmental world called PAS and and
that's I won't poly chloral null travis Hearn is here who's our invent environmental lawyer and uh he's pretty good on the science side of things as well since he's an environmental regulatory attorney and I asked him to be here because I think he can speak to a couple of the the issues that I'm
going to refer to so we conducted this environmental due diligence basically we did PAS testing to close that out and in the PAS testing there's a couple things you want to determine you want to determine what type of amounts you have um as far as concentrations of of
detectable PAS is it above the EPA standard florida doesn't have to set i think they have a recommended standard now but Travis told me that the state of Florida like other states it likely will move to a concern about PAS and things of that nature um and then direction of
groundwater underground movement of uh contaminants and things like that again you know it's typically dealt with by environmental regulatory attorneys both transactionally as well as remedially um it brings into idea the whole notion of
brown brownfields that's typically what the state of Florida does is designate as a brownfield property and provides certain types of legal protections um as well as sometimes financial opportunities to res support remediation and ultimately put usually a deed
restriction on possible use a lot of times if it's heavily polluted you can't put things like schools hospitals and other types of you know residences on the top but you can make parking lots out of it and things like that so the short version is the reports back we got back from uh Teraccom that did the
environmental testing did indicate some of these contaminants both the arsenic some PAS the good news is the the water flow basically went back towards Tropicana itself um there are not a whole lot of housing I don't think there's any really housing developments
either multif family being apartments or single family residential or anything else um most of it's industrial land that that's adjacent to to the property it's commercial and industrial land um I bought this up with Tropicana and I said
"Here's the situation you know there's some things we're going to have to do to remediate the property likely and uh and to that extent we'd like a price concession and we'd also like to buy insurance for it and we do intend to pursue environmental insurance." That
policy we're considering right now is a 10-year policy and it would relate to certain coverages both for um any injury caused to individuals um through any sort of environmental condition um as well as pay legal fees which could be substantial um and the like and it's a
$10 million policy so it's a fairly high high value policy um by and large there's a lot of different types of protections we have we have obviously the insured blanket type protection but we also have sovereign immunity um in
talking with Mr robinson who was our transactional lawyer Will Robinson um as a government entity that a non-government entity wouldn't have there are legal implications that come in for protections against um third party type lawsuits once the Brownfield
designation is sought and Travis can talk about that but the short version is is I was able to negotiate a price concession from the $5,250,000 level to um
$4,850,000 so it's basically $350,000 reduction um that was is being proposed in this final amendment the other thing that's important about it is it would close within is it 15 or 30 days Corey may 15th by May 15th it would
require closing um and we would basically be using mostly um utility reserves because public works utility um would be relocating out there it'd be an aortionment there would probably be some general reserve but but the the it's an
allocation because a lot of public works enterprise and so that's the funding source for it ultimately what it does it gives us these 32 acres to use for city facilities we have Robin and Greg and their team at planning looking at annexing the property into the city it
is adjacent to the property and so would meet that criteria some of the conversations I've had with some of the administrative staff said that the county they didn't think there'd be problems with that ultimately there's through the the political and legal process some approvals that would be
needed for that but um I think that as a a location goes for our industrial efforts through public works and I'm talking about sanitation I'm talking about facility maintenance I'm talking about you know all the different things that public works does for bulk storage
and uh all the other difficult um things that there multitude of divisions occur this is an ideal location and and there aren't a whole lot of other locations I like as far as anything of that size and it's also centrally located um there's
other opportunities on the site to do other things as well in collaboration with the county in collaboration with other partners including the county absolutely affordable housing maybe maybe something we're looking at um yeah because it's a pretty sizable site and
so it it kind of represents the future of about half the city you know when you look at the the the city's operational sphere and uh public works and the work they do is is is probably and it takes it out of your central core that if
somebody hits a comes out to a baseball game they're not looking at garbage trucks absolutely they're not looking not that that was bad at the moment it was the right place right time but now it's an opportunity and probably the biggest thing to me is that location it
whether whatever happened with the luck of that location it keeps our staff from having to travel because at one point there was talked about out towards the golf course area that we have think about the transportation that would have would have really added miles where this
really is a little bit more central even and it's on a main thoroughfare that you can get in and out of absolutely we actually have access next to the flea market or is that the right terminology for it today yeah still flea market red barn flea market red barn flea market you know but has an access along the
railroad track so we're not having to get on 301 to get back to closer to our city so it there's a lot of opportunity there that could be a win-win and and obviously location location location that's a short version mr hearn is here
if you'd like to have him stand for any environmental question has a question okay um and it could go to either one if you want to um so I rate you know I'm I'm obviously happy at the at the work and the effort at the
price uh reduction do we have confidence that the designation of the brownfield will uh you know are we are we operating still at a net benefit to the extent that we have to remediate it particularly in light of the collaboration potential for affordable housing because the brownfield you know
that's one of the categories of problematic environmental problems is residents I'm going to let Travis give a shot at I mean you know talking with Travis he said you're probably going to have to remediate there might be some funding I would imagine in certain areas some of it doesn't have contamination some of its take it from there sure that's one thing
about the Brown the Brownfield program name yeah travis Hearn i'm an environmental attorney representing the city um the best thing about Brownfields is that it gives you one of the big things Brownfields gives you is a lot of financial assistance toward the cleanup so basically you get half of your costs each year up to half a million dollars
each year and then at the end you can get an additional 25% of all your cumulative costs up to another $500,000 so there's a lot of money available in Brownfields to kind of alleviate the cost of those cleanups so that's kind of a big piece bringing the financial picture more in favor for the city you know that's it goes a long way it really
does and it's not the whole property isn't it well well the way the environmental cleanup works is it's a DP thing you know that they'll have to look at you know make sure you know where everything is on the property we've done we've done as much we can due diligence conventional kind of routine due diligence processes but that's kind of part of the process is kind of you know fine-tuning where it all is that'll be
that'll be part of something that will be be done in the future once the sites in brownfields and the cleanup has begun we can well we can proceed though without having to do this first no that's correct yeah there's no and the other thing too is the another thing just to clarify is the environmental cleanup is the program the the statutes
and rules that govern it are designed to be flexible around development so that's another good thing you can kind of make a development plan and then kind of fine-tune your cleanup plan around that plan so it won't stop development or delay development or anything like that thank you all right any other questions
all right so the chair will entertain a motion mr mayor yes ma'am miss Coachman five minutes motion to Let's see if I got the right thing thank you motion to approve the third uh third amendment to the agreement for purchase and sale for
the purchase price motion to approve is there a second second all right Miss Barnaby so we have a motion by Miss Coachman and a second by Miss Barnaby and we've had discussion start the vote in ward one yes two yes three yes four
yes five yes approved thank you very much and that's a that is a huge strategic plan going forward to really start the process that we've already started but it was just a logistical thing getting it done and I'd like to thank Mr perry
Mr hearn all the staff on the many many many many meetings that you sat in on that I would sneak in for a few minutes and listen right but um and then it got boring because it was just logistical stuff yeah yeah that's what happens those meetings that's But it was great
those are the important things right important things but and I say that with the way that that it it took a lot and I'd like to thank Tropicana for working with us in the way that they did and then obviously Ciss started it out um
he's moved back on to I think into his cosmetic field where he came from um so we're excited to see him go but but dealing with Mr walters now that's the CEO and thank their whole staff for helping things move forward financial
officer not only in the city for a lot of years some family members by merit were were great partners in Tropicana and Mr rossy but but overall now they're still great partners that they're kind of back yep it' be nice to be a neighbor
of theirs and obviously a tenant as well yeah uh speaking of which we will be bringing a tour council is trying to schedule a tour over to our public works administrative building that uh director Lee has done a nice job with
his team of establishing if you haven't been over there it's a really nice facility i think the reason they delayed the tour is because they wanted to have it fixed up nice and pretty and it wasn't ready yet that's exactly when we popped in one day and it was like "Wait wait we you can't come in." I loved her when she said "You can't come in." She
wasn't telling us we couldn't but she said "I want to get it all fixed up and all the pictures on the wall." And I mean I think it's that is a great facility that as we go forward we may re-evaluate how we do it and what they do um because whenever you're looking at
anything from a cost perspective to build right now is very expensive absolutely sure uh final matter corey new employee want to stand up robin do you want to introduce your new planner come up forward to the microphone
i got you on the spot huh first first week all right robin can introduce Corey he's a new planner with us yeah yes this is our new city planner uh Cory Holden Cross and he comes to us at St pete Beach and uh Newport richie also has a
real estate background so um that that's important for us uh I don't know if you want to say hello good morning my name is Cory Holy Cross just wanted to say I'm very excited and thankful for the opportunity here everyone's been extremely welcoming um I haven't met
anyone who isn't smiling so that says something good about working here uh the driveover isn't bad i'm coming from St pete so always good to pop in here uh and I love the way the city is growing so I hope to see it continue to go in the right direction and I've enjoyed my time here thus far good welcome aboard
we appreciate you being here thank you all right anything else Mr perry nothing from the administration sir no one no unfinished business no all right um council report we'll start in three
oh all right caught me off guard uhhuh um Mr perry I I noticed you gave all the cubic yards and all that did you have a number for the cubic yards hauled away by the mayor and his wife and I'm I'm serious i'm I'm not you know crazy
serious but I'm serious because that I would dare say was in the uh tens of thousands easily and he's still doing it mhm i I think it would be broken down into like the trailer he did his his
truck bed um other equipment that he used some of it that had to be fixed after it but uh he did a great job there's him and him and Gina just I mean talk about leadership you know there on Front Street just and I think it would both our team uh and and the community
recognize that and uh that we do have a certainly engaged mayor no doubt about it good leader we have a great team at Solid Waste Public Works and and they're the ones that drive the positiveness through our city and and it's just fun to see and I think um one thing that I'm
excited about next at our workshop next week is to talk about some opportunities to even make you know that department better while even enhancing what they do and what we can do collaboratively as a
city so if you're out there watching come to our workshop because it's not recorded but it it's recorded but it's not videoed next Wednesday okay back to me all right not about you no not about me no um thank you to Cindy Pino and uh
the board of the Courtyard Square neighborhood they had me out to their board meeting last Thursday um a couple years ago when I met with them they were very interested in getting sidewalks in out in front of their uh and I said I'd worked on it in
26th Street and then found out quickly that 26th Street wasn't ours and then I had a conversation with then Commissioner Van Ostbridge who said "Well we're working on it and now it's pretty much done right in front of their place." So they're very happy i told them I had nothing to do with it so
um uh but they also point out some other things in neighborhoods uh surrounding them that they drive through uh that I passed on the public works and they're working on it now so I appreciate the the work they've put in um tonight is the graduation of the 41st class of
leadership manatee uh I am rolling off the board of governors this year but it's been an honor to be with them um Captain Brian Theers is the only city representative on the uh in the class this year i'm very happy he's going to
be graduating um it's one thing that I would like all department heads to sort of take a look at your staffs and see if there's anyone from your staff you think should be uh part of the leadership manatee program uh I can say that the county I believe this year had of the
class of I believe it was initially 44 had eight representatives countywide and I think we should certainly have at least one or two um so please if you can uh look at your staff applications are out now but they need them back I think
by sometime in early May so if you can please take a look at that and um I think that's it all right okay thank you ward four um I uh I know we already touched on uh
the lift station 3 collective collection system team um but I think that it is worth mentioning um piggybacking on our previous conversation that um I just want to thank the team because I I am aware that everyone is really putting in a lot
of effort and you know I know that you know you're in the background sort of um not to me but you know to the public they don't see the hours that you're putting in and and Miss Clayback is not here but I just
want I feel like It's important to acknowledge the work that not only Miss Clayback and her team but also the communications team um you know one city one team and I I just want everyone to know that I appreciate that effort for something that is so close to home for
me um I also am super pleased to uh let you all know that uh Colonel Lee and I have been able to plan our meeting regarding the Braden Castle Park uh canal clearing um situation i don't really even know what else to call it um I have heard
from many residents on both sides of that canal because of the upcoming storm season and their concerns about the inability of that canal to drain particularly in light of the county's efforts to clear canals being kind of out there in the public so I've been receiving a lot of questions about that and I'm very happy to hear that we're
going to get that process started um I think we have to have a sense of urgency even if it is going to take a long time and it's going to be you know uh no one said facing and fixing it was going to be easy but that's what we do every day right um and then oh I I I'm
not positive we have another meeting before that so I think it's also worth saying that um I'm I think most of you already know but just in case you don't the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is having their um summit in early May the date is escaping me but I can let
you all know or Mr perry can share that information if he has not already um we are being honored um for a uh regional uh re regional award by the council for our development of a process for emergency management and the system that
uh staff has put in place uh really kind of under fire with the storm season and so I feel like May 16th may 16th so we probably have a meeting but I wasn't sure so I felt like I wanted to just let everyone know that that is very exciting and I'm proud of us so good no great job
for now um one thing that I I just want to bring up with the lift station too and and what a great job our staff does but I think it's something that we've talked administratively that and I know Mr perry's not in the room but um that it may be they're looking at different ways
also to possibly bring on a project manager that will actually be able to run that project dayto-day so there is no you know because as as great as as our staff does they still have a whole city so if we can bring on a project
manager and we talked about that the other day to make the project go quicker more information and that so that is something that wonderful that that you know that's exactly why I would like to start meeting regularly with the team so that I can also you know not that I need to announce it from the rooftop but you
know if people are asking you know if they have questions about it there's because again this it wouldn't be on the where we're at if we didn't face it and fix it and want to do it so but like I said we just got to keep that one of the things I think is going to be important and I was talking with um our PIO and
staff and all of that and some some of her past experiences in areas that we really got to be one city one team and and do that together so that's going to be important to keep you know that would be our
uh what's the word I'm looking for that's our conduit to keep it going out to make sure that they're not because again we know how social media something gets on it and not even us somebody else throw something and then it's like it's true sure and that's going to be
important so all right or the real media or or or the real is there real media anymore um I got a little laugh on that maybe I shouldn't have said it but Boltz News at Lee Middle five
all right thank you kind of just to touch on um there was mentioning about working with the county and and one city one county is also the way it seems and hopefully it'll stay that way um I've actually had
some experience throughout the years where there's a citizen that thinks they're in the in the city limits but they're actually in the county and recently there was um there was a area where there were shrubbery or something
that was blocking view when you're at the stop sign and we were playing pingpong because the county said to the person "Nope that's the city." and the city was saying "Nope that's the county." But in those instances I've
always seen in my history with uh council that it gets done you know one way or the other it does get done um I wanted to make a comment about our citizen comments um in the last few
meetings it has been almost pleasurable to to hear hear citizen comments and I I don't mean to I don't mean to say that sometimes it's not pleasurable because we take the good the bad and the ugly uh and we welcome that but it has just been
so nice to have people address like this morning to address us you know appropriately so that we could listen to them not just hear what they're you know shouting or saying and um I really really wanted to make comment about that
um it was great to recognize our law enforcement for police week um I have often said I get to see them work up close and personal a lot and fire i get to see them a lot i am to the point I
can tell you what which uh agency the siren is because I'm on near First Street so I know when it's fire fire and EMS kind of sound the same but but the fire trucks are different um I know when it's not a firet truck and I know when
it's the sheriff and I know when it's BPD and I hear BPD a lot i look down 11th Avenue it's perpendicular to my street and I'll wait sometimes to watch to see to confirm if I was right and
I'll see red go by or blue every now and then I'll see a BPD red and blue uh traveling down uh First Street or 301 however most of the times I hear them going from east to
west because that's that's been keeping us hopping but anyway it's just great that we are uh acknowledging them they It's so much talking about some things are not seen we We don't really get to know
every aspect of what they have to go through we get watch commander reports here and there and I hope you're not thinking that those are the only calls they get because that's not the case but um I I I just I thank you all keeps me
safe i like that I sleep better um there were several events in Ward Five but I'll let the mayor speak to it because you probably he's everywhere um and oftentimes I miss them um I know Keep
Manity Beautiful did something wonderful you know um in the area uh I did hear that they even went out in the neighborhood streets and picked up trash and thanks to BPD keeping an eye out for
them because that is one very hot bed for crime so I'm glad that everything went well and um there's so many things that have been um brought to our attention um from citizens uh as of
recent uh there's a median between Manatee Avenue and Sixth Dav uh Third Street and it's been a mess for years but the citizen wanted to bring to our attention we need to work on it and we're moving towards that anytime a
citizen calls and brings something to our attention and war five um the city period but I just want to say to Wart I hope Wart 5 is listening things are being done and it's not um
it's not slow to happen it's the same for every every ward um I I just I I get a little disappointed when I you know hear someone say "Well you know they're not
going to do it because it's you know it's war five it's going to take forever." And it doesn't it's done the next day um um I guess I'm going to stop there because there was something I was going to probably talk about but I might get
emotional so I won't do that ward five is alive all right ward one thank you uh I'm sure everyone knows at this point the Roman Catholic Church lost um a
treasured leader this week and and I would ask all to pray for the church as we as they are going through the process of selecting the next pope he truly is a world leader even if you're not Catholic he um it'll be important to everybody um
this week is probably one of my favorite weeks is the Dodto celebration um when I you I am a transplant i'll admit it i've been here a while quite a while but I fell in love with this city because of
the Dninnesota parade and you would see the chairs getting put out on the sidewalk the week in advance and and it just to me just shows that that downhome friendly city that we are and I always loved bringing my kids to the
parade and the the celebrations that would go along the street and uh so to me the Dota parade just hearkens a lot of memories of raising my kids here and I hope everybody else finds that joy but behind the scenes on that I know that
there is a lot of hard work that the Dodto organization puts into it it it's it's a lot of work and I want to thank them for all their hard work and uh I I hope that all the residents regardless of whether you
enjoy the parade or not will check the road closures because it will affect your traffic on that day but try to enjoy the celebration because it it really does celebrate our heritage and the friendly city that we are um I I did have the pleasure of meeting with uh
Village Green homeowners um from section 8 and the mayor was nice enough to come as well i I I thank them for inviting me it's always good to go and meet with them that way they get firsthand information um and a lot of times as
Councilwoman Moore said when they get it directly and they understand it it it just you know it avoids that next door nightmare and all that um so I'm always happy when they invite me to come and speak and um I do appreciate the mayor
coming he always has lots of face it and fix it to give to give them as well um and I also want to thank you Mr mayor and your team that are going to Tallahassee to meet with our governor um historically we've always been blessed
with great representation up there and and it's really benefited our community a lot and so I'm glad to know that you'll be up there giving him firsthand account from the local city of Bradenton leadership that we support all his
efforts and uh thank him um for all that he's done to meet the challenges that that we've all had to face you know from COVID to the storms and things like that so thank you for making that trip and uh bringing along our support for him
that's it ward two get me right as I'm sneezing so um first of all I would I would like to send my congratulations and I'm sure the entire city joins me uh this month
Bell's Department Stores is celebrating their 110th anniversary and they are familyowned and located here started here in Bradenon located here in Bradenon still has their headquarters in the city of Bradon so we want to want to say thank
you uh Mr ruticil since our last meeting you had a birthday so happy birthday Mr rutesil and we thank you for everything that you do uh I too am looking forward to the parade and and participating and having a good time with that um need to
share the passing of a longtime city employee Joe Henry to many people Joe was the city of Bradington and now I'm getting emotional and nobody wanted to do that so um but Joe
was he was the salt of the earth he was a wonderful person and he's going to be missed and also many of you know of of my husband and I's involvement at Florida State so
sorry that was a very very hard week last week and one of the young ladies that was injured was in the class that my husband and I went up and taught recently so her name is Madison Asins they do have a GoFundMe page for her to
help with her expenses and if you are interested in participating with that please let me know i can give you that information so thank you Mr mayor that's all I have thank you and and and you know we've got a lot of things and we've got a lot of rivalries up here when you talk about sports and football and all
of that but when you see what happened at FSU um and we've seen it over the years and different places but but I I loved one of the captions that came on um the Facebook i say the Facebook because I read it i don't do it but but
it was obviously the the seminal sitting around with it had the the Miami Hurricanes the Florida Gator the South Florida Bulls and Central Florida saying one team you know when you look at that that's what it's about when you're because again two people lost their
lives and unfortunately you know others are going to be injured forever and and that's something that we just want to pray for those families um Earth Day jennifer Hoffman obviously is our keep manity beautiful director
and does such a great job at what she did and they went over to the 13th Avenue Dream Center and really started a project there that I I hope that the 13th Avenue will continue to to mostly water we'd like some rain but you know you got to water Saturday though yeah
yeah but that was last Saturday and a great group of people from all over our county and city worked hard and they had great representation from the 13th Avenue not only did they plant plants they cleaned up they had an Easter egg hunt really showed sense of community
and uh painted the whole inside which was great and they're going to do some murals on the wall as you know they have the landscaping done and and just the participation was great to see how that community came together and is recovering i mean you drive anywhere in our city and you see fences still down
you see things that'll take if not months more years to get fixed so all doing that um and we talk about things that we have here in town and one of the things that's that's proud and and you know yeah they're a business to a point
but MEV does such a great job and you know Charles Clap Saddle for all the years and you have Chris Dolan and his team that that really does such a great job not only videoing our meetings and others and doing that but also working within the regata the BAMFest the
different things that they do to support the community because without them we wouldn't have that in our community people wouldn't see it and a lot of people can't go but when you you really look at what's happening this week with Dodto you know people are willing to be
patient I hope because it's happened for you know a lot of years but you look at what's happened in the city of Bradenon over the last you know couple of months like I said with the riata really starting it out you know the great fireworks on New Year's Eve and and working with that event going right down
through it and and adjusting changing doing things and uh it's really exciting to see that it's out there um informationwise i tell people you know and one of the things with our shops even was thinking about it most of our
events get put on our Facebook so you know the PIO and all the group does a great job but they got to look at it and when you see something in the police department that'll get a million plus hits we need to get that in the city too
so that's how it's working i mean I don't know if police are good or bad and people like to look at it more but but it gets a lot of hits compared to things and and that's something I'm hoping that we can grow in the city as well in working together um excited about the Tropicana property
i think that's something that has really taken a step forward for us that you know is something we looked at because without that city park doesn't happen without that the community center over there to help Rogers Gardens doesn't happen so everything is falling into
place in some of those ways without that Village of the Arts doesn't have an opportunity i was at a group yesterday um kind of investment realators there was mortgage brokers there was different things about 45 people I gave a talk to and one of the things that one of the
ladies said is how is my child going to buy or my kid she was saying her children but in their 20s and 25s and I've heard others say that going to buy you know well one of the things that to buy a house now it's tough but you know what we have some blank slate scenarios
that could be fixed up but would you drive down ninth or 14th at a time and want to be there But we're going to talk about homeless and and some structure things that are going on with Salvation Army and um turning points and um the
county next week at our workshop and with some of those fixes that we can do in in a strategic plan that that's been working for that if we've got opportunity to help others I think it can help those neighborhoods that will
then give those homes opportunity to say "Hey I will buy a home there." And it might be in a more reasonable rate you know one of the things that was brought up about mortgage rates you know 6% you know one of the ladies go "I was able to get somebody at 6%." the last week I got
up and I said when I was eight years old and my mom and dad started our our family business 1975 I remember riding to the bank to make the mortgage payment with my dad because every day it was due he has his little passbook still in his desk drawer there but it was
21% so you think about it and he had to wait hours in line to get gas so again I say a lot it's not about what politically you believe this or that it's about how you work within a community in your heart and what we're
going to do and every one of us up here that that I know I feel that you all have the right heart now it's how do we get there in different ways to make sure that we're supporting the citizens and supporting that next generation so I
think that's important to to continue because there's going to be battles there's going to be times there's going to be delays on projects but there's um I don't think any of us up here feel that we're not going to try to push that envelope so a couple other things that I
don't even think Mr perry knows i haven't walked in his office in the morning and given them to him yet and Mr williams but there's going to be a couple things I'm going to challenge this council in the next couple of months that you know are going to say what are we going to do to make it quicker how are we going to fix these
projects whether it is like we said Mr prepare you were out of the room but I did mention if you heard it or not but I did mention that we might want to hire a project manager for over on the east side in Ward 4 because we've got a great
um group of people and and and Saturday afternoon when I was out with Mrs clyback and um Mr keys because of another DOT contractor making a mistake in our city that would have gridlocked our city more Monday morning that I just
happened to see driving by um you know they work hard but we need to get the bandwidth so some of that stuff will happen again we know we don't want to add more layers but if you don't have enough to get things done then we're
still spinning our wheels so just some of that you know I can go on forever as you know but it's about what we can do to make it better tomorrow and and better than yesterday so thank you uh department heads anything and you know Chief I did want to mention because I
know um my administrative assistant is listening to this meeting that today is um administrative assistant day and I usually broaden that to all those who do everything they can um so that those of us sitting up here do well and and look
well and so um to Ela personally thank you and and to the rest of the folks over at BPD we appreciate who you are and what you do all right thank you Chief and I'll echo that for all the administrative assistants we have in this city and we we have a great
administrative assistant sitting up here amongst the six of us that takes care of us and gets things done um or maybe two but you know sometimes we have good people that help but but great job um
I'm talking about up here two of them so thank you for what you do and and remind us of things hallmark moment um anything else all right hearing none we'll be adjourned thank you