##VIDEO ID:Kd1VcO3a3MM## city clerk if you'll please do a roll call vice mayor mahand here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Robinson here commissioner R niiki here mayor petrilla here we have a quorum thank you before we get started really quick seems like that we have a full house here um and so will just remind everyone just of our basic rules and procedures uh no chairing no booing um when you come to the podium you will be given an opportunity to speak nobody else will speak at the time and you'll have un interrupted time and so we're going to ask the same Curt as you of you for everyone else that you allow them to speak uninterrupted that also means please silence your cell phones put them on vibrate turn them off um if you do not you will be asked to leave uh very kindly and patiently um but nonetheless we want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to be heard whether it's staff whether it's members from the public whether it's the Commissioners again we want to make sure that we maintain the Quorum and that we have a open place to have open and honest discussion where everyone can be heard and so we also make an opport make sure that everyone has an opportunity to be heard this evening whether they here to speak or they here to listen so thank you for that and with that the first part uh we're going to start with presentations city manager thank you mayor commission and community members I have the pleasure of kicking us off this evening with the recognition of Employee of the first quarter of uh 2025 and we had several nominations as usual I want to call out everyone who was re recognized by their peers to be considered uh we first have Joanne Boland in the Community Development Department Patricia Cordis in the Community Development Department jacqulyn spiser in public works Jay Wht in Parks and Recreation Sean zot and public works and lastly the entire Community Development staff and the winner of the quarter is Jacqueline spiser and I want to just say a few uh comments before we present the um award Jacqueline was nominated as employee of the quarter due to her exceptional dedication professionalism and teamwork during the storm recovery efforts particularly during hurricanes Helen and Milton she went above and beyond her role taking on additional responsibilities in the emergency Operation Center and working tirelessly to ensure tasks were completed efficiently Jaclyn's commitment to collaboration and open communication helped teams while her positive attitude created a supportive work environment she also plays a vital role in supporting City operations including providing excellent customer service to Residents coordinating across departments Gathering critical data and streamlining processes to save time and taxpayer money Jacqueline's resilience leadership and initiative significantly impacted the city's response and Recovery efforts in a positive way her contributions were integral to the the success of these operations making her a deserving candidate for this recognition I personally sat next to Jacqueline during um hours and hours in the EOC and I just want to comment that her sense of humor brought a sense of levity that was much needed in a time that was extremely stressful and many people in the room and personally thank her for bringing me celery and Pop-Tarts to keep me um properly filled with a nutritious snack during the time so with that um mayor if you'd like to join Jo me and presenting her certificate right since we do have several of you here tonight members of the media I'm going to encourage you and challenge you to also take note of these types of items I know you all like to show up whenever there's controversy whenever's potential controversy but here you have an example of somebody who in above and beyond the Call of Duty like so many of our employees in our city you over 20 of them lost their homes and yet they were still here 50 60 60 70 hours a week sometimes seven days a week to make sure that they're here to assist in the recovery efforts for everybody in this community and I would encourage you to highlight those individuals just as much as you highlight the negative thank you mayor uh City Commissioner ERS and members of the public I have a quick uh presentation to uh give you an update on what changes we are making in the public works department and we have Public Works director Camden Mills to give a brief overview of um all the changes we are making that we think are going to make a positive contribution to efficiency in the city good evening uh mayor vice mayor Commissioners Charter officials uh for the record my name is Camden Mills and I have the pleasure of serving as your Public Works director I appreciate your time this evening um to share on the changes that we're uh moving forward with and reorganizing our our public works department um So currently here you can see our existing operating structure um currently we have 15 full-time employees and in our infrastructure maintenance division you can see those numbers there on the leth hand side um two in our streets two storm water two waste water and one reclaim water on the right hand side is our budgeted Personnel structure according to our fiscal year 2025 budget um so right now we have eight vacancies which would what uh put public works at a total of 23 uh full-time employees um this is just um an org structure of of what our current Personnel operating structure looks like um overall as you can see this is it's pretty lean um in order to accomplish the goals and and serve our community effectively and one thing to point out is our operations manager currently has 10 uh direct reports shown here is the budgeted Personnel structure uh with the eight vacancies shown in Orange um again I think a shortfall we see here is is that our operations manager um in the budgeted structure has 15 direct reports uh which we feel is is not sustainable for for long-term success some of the proposed changes um that we moving forward with is is first rebranding back to the public services department um with that we'll be combining Public Works beaches parks and Facilities into one department and then reclassifying positions to fit um organizational needs our goal here is to ensure exceptional Public Services um have a high performing team for for long-term sustainable success and being able to encourage opportunities for growth within our organization um outlined here are some of the level of service benefits um that we expect from this change uh as far as a unified skill Workforce uh we think that's going to help us not only during blue sky but also emergency response situations um improving our resource efficiency uh through our equipment vehicles and skilled labor uh centralizing our equipment and asset management for purchasing rentals maintenance uh Surplus and replacement and filling gaps in our streets Wastewater and storm water um maintenance Personnel here is the mission statement for our public works department or Public Services Department to uh provide reliable exceptional public services and enrich the quality of life for present and future generations and we will execute this Mission by um holding true to our core values of purpose respect safety and teamwork shown here is the proposed organizational structure for the Public Services Department um this is with the addition of facilities and parks and beaches uh into the department um here broken down is the administra administrative portion of of the Public Services uh with combining facilities and Fleet into one uh Division and then increasing the oversight of the assistant public works or public services director um in order for succession planning and also to build a bench dep to fill in when needed so as you can see here going through these slides these are going to be some of the key responsibilities of the administration of the Public Services Department uh the the management analyst position that we're proposing will be a reclassification of our vacant Transportation planner um job description and as I mentioned we're increasing the the oversight of our assistant Public Services director by by moving the field services um under their supervision the facilities and fleet manager uh we're proposing to reclassify the Community Development operations manager um into this position position um our goal here is the centralize management of non-infrastructure assets the project manager is a reclassification of the engineer one job description and then our field services manager is reclassification of the Public Works operation manager um the goal here is to shift uh some of the administrative and budgetary responsibilities over to that management analyst position and away from the field services manager in order for that field services manager to focus more on work order management and maintenance maintenance planning of infrastructure and rideway assets here's a breakdown of our facilities and Fleet division uh we're proposing to reclassify our Automotive Parts clerk into an inventory uh coordinator um again for for Citywide equipment and vehicle inventory and then reclassifying our mechanic to a senior mechanic our Field Services division as you can see here um this changes them from having 10 to 15 direct reports to two um so we'll be D structuring our maintenance division with crew chiefs um public properties crew chief will be responsible for streets beaches and parks and then our utilities crew chief will be responsible for Wastewater storm water and reclaimed water here is the the structure of the proposed um public properties division um they'll have eight team members including the crew chief um and and our goal here is um to utilize our cross functional skilled labor and and make efficient use of our our resources and equipment and um here in Orange is two new positions that we plan on Advertising uh so we can grow this team to 10 our utilities for the reclaimed water storm water and waste water will be a similar structure uh where currently we'll have eight uh team members including their crew chief uh we think this will help for bench St for for call back and standby and also fill some of our resource apps with with in-house talent and similarly we'll be proposing to add two new positions to this division for a total team of 10 um here outlines our tentative recruitment plan um outlined in in five different steps and and really these first four steps are are going to be the key um in in order to initiate these changes step one will be to hire our immediate needs um this will be done through internal and external advertisements um once we hire the assistant Public Services director at that point is when we'll plan on adding the facilities division um in into the department step two will be to fill other key recruitments and we plan on doing this internal only um utilizing some of the in-house Talent we have and promoting within the organization U to fill these roles so this will be our fats oils and grease inspector and the two crew chiefs as well as a utilities technician too our plan would be once we hire our two crew chiefs then that's when we would formally uh bring beaches and Parks into the department and then step three will be the reclassifications of our skilled Workforce um with these we don't anticipate any job postings it'll be minimal changes to the job descriptions and and essentially more of a title change um but these are some of the the budgeted positions that that were proposing to change the title for those skilled Workforce and then step four will be professional recruitment um as you can see on the left hand side these are um existing positions that exist that we're proposing to change the titles to but there will be um significant changes to the job description as well um here we're proposing to um advertise internally and our our purpose for the internal recruitment rather than reclassification um it's because the job descriptions will be modified significantly um to fit our new organizational needs uh we believe that that it's best practice to have a process for recruitment uh for these new positions uh in order to remove any perception of of unfairness or favoritism um and and this internal process will ensure a mutual buyin from both the employee and the staff um and a commitment to serving the expectations of their revised job descriptions and then again with these changes um I'd like to highlight the anticipated level of service benefits with our goals of of creating a high performing team for long-term sustainable success and having the opportunity um to encourage personal growth within our organization and with that I'll take any comments or questions M Commissioners Mr Mayor yes commissioner mahalin thank you Mr Mills uh just so I'm clear um because it's not specific or maybe I'm a little slow on it uh as we Rebrand uh will you become the Public Services director yes sir that's he already is yeah he missed that memo yeah I miss missed that I thought you were the Public Works director but yes good very good well I'm happy about that thank you okay I have a question commissioner R Niki yeah the title was not right in the memo so I I do concur yes the okay so the but B brings a good point though because you were you were mentioning some things would be delayed so our title has your your title changed for example is is it now from Public Works director not formally we have we haven't initiated these changes yet okay so with that do you have a timeline um because I know you said a couple of things you said um uh we're going to wait for uh field I think forgot which slide it was field whatever maintenance workers to be hired first before we make the changes over for to bring Beach under um so again without a timeline or doesn't does that mean it's in limbo when does you know or when does Beach come under or in my mind it's I think I I like to see like okay starts tomorrow these are the changes that every comes under because you have to kind of step and bring people at different times Under New Management new roles new titles and so forth so correct yeah in in total to get through those first four steps we're anticipating about six months um you know I'd like to work through this as as quickly as possible but obviously there there is a lot of logistics um tied to these changes but our goal would be to have this completed within six months and I say that too because when you're saying you're waiting for position to be hired I mean we've seen I mean you have vacancies right you've had we've budgeted and have eight vacancies and I don't know if that's because people are not submitting um resumés for positions and time could take a long time right for a position to be filled so is that going to hold um the goals for the beach Department you know to get busy and working and moving forward if they're they're waiting for someone else to be hired before they transition to new roles so that's just a question you don't need to answer these are just things in my head and also budget wise because of these changes um will you be requesting additional money from what has been budgeted already we don't anticipate um any impacts to the budgeted salaries and wages um what we're proposing now through through these first four steps is actually a reduction in total FTE from what's budgeted um between everybody so our goal would be implement this plan and then evaluate and if we need to hire additional staff um within what's budgeted we will but um within these changes we don't anticipate any impacts to the budget thank you thank you I have a question commissioner I think you might have just answered it but I did see that it's 35.7 by proposed uh employees but we've got budgeted for additional would you be looking to bring those on as needed or are they needed now considering the you know situation we're in and with maintenance and everything else that's needed um we we would propose to bring those in as as needed um we we think you know bringing um our our skill sets together um as far as bringing in we have like for instance right now we have some parks employees that are all storm water certified so we think bringing those people in they'll be able to help you know in in the immediate future um and then we can fill those additional positions as needed okay thank you commissioner so I wanted to uh commend you and the city manager for undertaking this right now um you know from the outside looking in you could look at and say you know why the world are we tackling this right now we've got so many more important things to do you know permits processing people getting them back into their homes um until you put it into the context of what we're actually dealing with today so when you look at the report that you presented on December 10th uh just the last regular scheduled commission meeting we uncovered some significant deficiencies in our Public Works um um well that's what we called it right um and so that's why I want to commend the city manager and you with the speed that you're moving with because some of the deficiencies that we identified were the lack of inspections the lack of Maintenance and so to be able to you know cross utilize our resources from the different departments putting them all under one umbrella to allow us to service the community more efficiently and take advantage of this of all the resources that we have some of you may not know in some instances we've had two different apartments have the same equipment machinery but they couldn't use it because this was for streets and they couldn't use this because this was for parks and so and the same as you just mentioned with the employees who were actually certified for storm drains you know now we can actually bring everybody under the same umbrella and so that we can service the community better so we can service you know the storm drain so we can service take a look at the sewers and the reclaim water and all the other things that we do um that you know previously it hasn't hasn't been done as efficiently as it as it could be and as part of for we have the deficiency so I I want to thank you um for bringing that and also just to explain to the community a lot of times you just hear about the things that we do and I think it's important that you understand the why we're doing what we're doing and why we're doing it today right we want to make sure that our sewer system is as the best as it can be that our storm drains are properly working right so that our tide check valves are properly working that our infrastructure Works uh so that when people do come back into their homes you know we have infrastructure that works um so I appreciate that very much um and then the other part of it is just just transparency we want the public to know what the commission is doing if you look at I don't know the last city manager who's ever brought us a report on what they're doing internally to run the city more efficiently it's just never happened before right and maybe you don't care I certainly appreciate hearing about it and and know okay here are the steps that we're taking we've identified some huge problems December 10th we've had Christmas and we've had new year since and our staff has already brought us Solutions major Solutions on how we can address some of those deficiencies right and I appreciate the speed at which we're moving today versus the speed that we've moved in the past I think that is a sign of good things to come so I want to thank you for that thank you cim this is your one and only warning all right Commissioners are there any amendments to the agenda as proposed Mr Mayor I'd like to uh add an item for discussion please certainly uh I'd like to add an item uh for uh discussion of the no noise or please thank you sir I I as well commissioner Riki we'll go in sequence perfect yeah and this could fall possibly with um commissioner mahalan I have ordinances but in both the beach and the sign outstanding ordinances have been they been working on would like to discuss as well as another second one is um the current status of the beach I believe the beach ordinance is coming before the commission on the 24th 28th okay then but the the status of the beach just how it oh the stat of the beach I'm sorry I thought you were still on ordinances no no no no a separate SE separate about what the beach um looks like today okay just an update of what the unless we're going to I mean if we say it we could eliminated if we're going to say it during um updates on Hurricane recovery you mean the beach cleanup well just how it looks the the hills of sand I mean I'm not going to go into the discussion now but that yeah or maybe we can ask for a report for the next commission meeting if they're not ready with it could be that yeah I don't right and it's just discussion I don't know it's observations that people have made up here on commission or not commissioner Robinson uh yes um I'd like to have a discussion on a forensic audit I've gotten a lot of uh public comment on that and um a lot of requests for that and I'd like to have a discussion on that okay and I also have uh on consent I don't really want to pull anything but I just had some quick questions on item G that I think can just be answered real quick okay any other changes to the agenda can I please have a motion to approve the agenda as amended I make a motion to approve the amended agenda for the January 14th 2025 St Pete Beach City commission Second City Clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes may patrilla yes motion carries thank you all right next we have a uh presentation on the recovery efforts hi good evening Denise Anderson Community Development director um today we'll go through many of the similar topics that we've discussed in the past I'll try to keep it as brief as possible I know we have a a large agenda tonight so just briefly we'll talk about the the primary focus of tonight's discussion courses on permit processing substantial non-substantial damage determinations and the appeals process and then we'll be providing some other updates some data for you including permit status um Etc and then I'll be looking for consensus on extension of the fee waivers and then a staffing update among other things so in terms of permit processing following a federally declared disaster such as we've experienced I just wanted to briefly remind uh commission and the public that there are really three elements that that must come together as we move through the permit process and so those include a damage assessment actual cost of repairs for uh owners and then building permit application and so the three of these data streams must come together for us to be able to effectively manage recovery efforts compliant with uh FEMA regulations so as data becomes available though our team has been privating to make reasonable ass assumptions but they must be defendable and consistent we are currently utilizing four vendors to support all processes and and um permits issued is now outpacing permit application intake and along with that we've been able to catch up on pre hurricane per pre hurricane permit applications we host a daily operations meeting with the city manager's office setting goals and amending processes and policies so an example of this is we're now issuing permit if building permit application and the SD review package is approved at less than 50% this is up from the 30% we've talked about previously our current areas of focus include shorter time frames from intake to issue a 0% damage from flooding I'll talk about this in in more detail um we're um preparing and sending out Condo Association notifications these are multi-story structures of the policy we've discussed in the past um have a coordination call with a mission request fulfillment that we submitted last month and then talk about um volunteers how we hope to utilize them going forward in terms of substantial and non-substantial damage uh determinations you can see there on the right hand side in the bar chart um we have um 1,29 non non-s substantially damaged versus 705 substantially damaged I suspect that many of those substantially damaged will come in through appeal we still have 1149 there in various stages of data entry and qaqc review we did just receive a data transfer on the 8th and are going through uh that data transfer one of the challenges that we're finding in the information that comes from us from the state authorized vendor that we know as Title Basin is that we often get duplicated and delayed data from them and so going through that duplicated data is timec consuming um to ensure that um we're pulling out all the ones that are unique and sending out those letters um other challenges that we see is that um computed damages often exceed actual damages is and this results in a high number of appeals um we are looking at ways to mitigate that uh prior to issuing letters and then data review file documentation and entry into permit portal all labor intensive activities that take significant time one of um my most important priorities is to ensure that we have a completed file we can expect of course that we'll have an audit in one to three years and so we wish to make sure that we have every file every property owner of record we have uh things fully documented and so that's of concern for us and we're make taking the time necessary to ensure that those um property records are are um maintained appropriately so in terms of the appeal process we did make a very minor change but significant in in process that is um we've updated the form so what we know is that there is um at least one neighborhood that has received information about flooding that actually did not occur in many of the homes and so a couple of things are going on one if they've received a letter substantial or non-substantial they can appeal both the determination and the percentage of that calculation um but to get ahead of this what we're doing is we we've requested anded ground level ground elevation data from penel County GIS and for all Property Owners above 7.2 nav navd which is a an measure of elevation we will be sending them a 0% damage from flood letter and this will resend any previously issued letter replacing and of course we'll remove any issued letters that were sent previously from our documentation so the 0% damage from flood does not mean that you did not receive any damage you could have wind damage Etc but we wanted to make sure that property owners who understandably so um have a record that they had no damage from flood I can certainly understand why that would be of concern for them and so that's one of the ways that we'll be addressing that um I spoke with our Communications manager earlier today and we're going to be sending out a notification via next door to in particular the Mina delmare neighborhood that's the first one that we're looking closely at and so that notification will go out to them tomorrow on social media and those letters will begin to go out on Monday I have a question real quick in regards to the peel um now that it also includes your damage estimate percentage um if you've already sent in an extension for appeal let's say is it already going to include that or assume that you're appealing one or the other or do you have to update that or say something to the effect of which one you're doing or both we can what we'll do is um because that appeals process does request information that you may have already submitted identify the permit numbers where that documentation May reside as an example we'll go through there and reissue an entire letter which in fact will in most cases reset a damage calculation if they wish to see something different and in um my opinion nothing is f until all parties agree so we'll move forward with that there probably will be some rare instances where we have to take it to the board of adjustment if our building official determin something to be finalized but as we go through this appeals process as information becomes available or they they wish to see something reflected differently uh then we're very happy to to accommodate that to meet the needs and again I think we asked this question before whether this remains in your property record uh it does remain attached to the the property record the letter the final letter will remain all previous letters will be pulled from the record okay well the uh letter if you're nons substantially will that remain with the percentage in it or will just be out of your record at all it will remain with a percentage in it the 0% damage from flood is a is a a different animal if you will it's going to be classified somewhat differently but it will have the percentage in there okay thank you you're welcome so just briefly I did make a minor revision to this packet really just removing reference to the one- year cumulative period no other changes were made documents have been updated on this on the system on the website excuse me I wish to share with you I made an error and it's a significant one and so if Ryan will help me out and put this um on the overhead I would appreciate it thank you so much um so of the 2025 applications submitted you can see 1,250 six have been issued those are both issued and closed permits this has been updated in the presentation didn't make it in time for tonight's meeting by the time I caught the error but it will be on tomorrow's website and I believe Mark has updated the permit tracking dashboard um just a little while ago this evening so this information should be current on the website and and other places um by tomorrow at noon at the very latest but um as you can see um significant changes since our last meeting in December 1,256 permits have been issued about 300 of them have been closed uh meaning final inspections have have been passed and and the permit is now closed so I just wish to share that correction with you um challenges um are remain though SD determinations owner Builder applications and sisd review packages still struggling with that and then the Staffing of plans examiners I I'll be doing an overview of Staffing um with our our contract um employees in just a moment but um we do we are making plans and have had issued a call for volunteers to support our efforts with completing the these owner Builder applications and sisd review packages I spoke with the city manager earlier today um if we get enough volunteers what I would really love to do is to work with um some of our community groups nonprofits perhaps and others that can identify perhaps elderly or others that are struggling to understand the process and we can deploy volunteers out as ambassadors to work with them directly perhaps in their home to support those efforts we we recognize it could be a struggle to understand all of these challenges in terms of permit and plans examination fee waiver so as you recall on November 4th you approved a waiver and refund back to October 1 2024 permit and plans examination fees associated with hurricane related repairs the Florida search charge is not waved so is a a nominal amount of money that we are collecting at issuance of permit um and it does not um this fee waiver does not include permits for new construction or elevation or lifting of homes damaged by hurricanes those are mitigating activities and because of the level of review required to elevate lift or build new um we think it's appropriate to collect plans examination and permit fees for those types of activities um you did establish a $2 million building fund Reserve minimum and and so um that policy was put into effect on no on November 4th and we have issued those refunds and and um are moving forward just to go back one more on the Florida that is a fee that the State of Florida collects that is yes so that is not within our power to wave a wand and say sorry State of Florida you don't get this money that is correct uh I suppose we could have waved it and it could have come out of our pockets but because we are not charging that fee Florida is we felt it was important to collect that fee thank you and roughly what is the percentage of that fee I want to say 01 but that could be wrong I I I will say on a$1 th000 permit it's very very low approximately $30 perhaps thank you um I think even less than that actually in terms of impact so this is as of yesterday uh we have waved or refunded 1,733 almost 700 $34,000 we have also received though 523,000 plus in revenues those revenues are largely attributed to pre hurricane permit activity that we've been able to to move forward in our our process so that's actually tracking above where we anticipated revenues to be based on budget but I do not expect that trend of Revenue to continue throughout the year I think it's largely attributed to those permits that were dated pre 101 if you will just again to make sure that everybody understands what those numbers mean right so the amount the dollar amount that the city so far has waved in permit fees is $1.7 million right now rightfully this is money that we all put into the piggy bank together right and it's been here for a rainy day in the reserve funds for this department and so this is the time for us to use it but just for everyone to understand that's the dollar amount so far just for those 2035 permits that have been filed actually it's only for the permits that have been issued that's right so we still have uh 769 that are in various stages of review that does not it is not attributed to that it's roughly equal to 1.5 million is our estimate of what's in the queue as of today and that's not disaster related so this is only for disaster related permits correct okay so this is just a recap of the budget you've already approved so just as a reminder of where we're at so walking into this current fiscal year we had 3.6 million in building fund reserves we budgeted um transfers in uh that's your revenue of various types including interest income Etc of 1.3 million and transfers out of 1.4 million so it was going to we anticipated that it would reduce our building fund Reserve by $124,000 but because we are currently above projected revenues we have not seen expenses yet exceed that Revenue so to date we have not withdrawn anything from building fund Reserve however that day is coming to your point that day is coming very soon I I do wish to make this recommendation so I'm certainly recommending that we extend fee waivers until April 22nd 2025 that we continue to retain that $2 million Reserve minimum and at the um uh April 2020 to meeting this is after the 180 day period this is that that period ends onor about April 14th following 180 days from Milton and um that is when we're going to see the very significant out of-pocket expenses all of the all the the contract labor that we have currently is by and large being expensed to the state under Mission requests so we are not seeing those yet hit hit our uh accounts payable but that day is coming in April and I think it's really important that by then we have an idea of where we're at with permits what we expect to see in permits how many homes have been demolished and tend to rebuild those are very significant um permit costs on a per home basis of about $99,000 so some of those expenses that will be coming to us I feel U by the time we get to that meeting in April we'll have a better picture of where we're going to land but I certainly feel that based on what we're seeing right now now that we're in great shape to continue the the extension of fee waivers through this April time frame so we have uh said 235 or so permits that have been submitted we've got roughly 2700 letters going out correct okay so we're missing roughly 700 permits potentially okay so what we're doing is we're opening the windows of waving permit fees if you have hurricane related damage and you're filing for permits for that you have 90 days another 90 days approximately yeah another 90 days to get your permits in couple of reasons why as in E just said you know we received additional resources as well as staff from the state of Florida that the State of Florida is subsidizing once that staff goes away that's going to you know if your permit isn't file by then we might not be able to file you know process it at the same speed that we currently are so it is important that you file your permits you know as soon as you're available get you know get your contractor bids in do they have to wait for the SD letter the F their permit they do not we'll talk about that momentarily okay so I know there were two residents I spoke with yesterday at the library they mentioned we're waiting for our letters don't wait for the letter right especially if you think your damage is less than 30% right we can if it's less than 50 now know what I'm saying like if sorry less than 50 if you can turn in an sisd package and a building permit application that yeah especially if you if you're going to be under that threshold of 50% get it in as quickly as possible so we can start the working on that permit thank you and also and correct me if I'm wrong but even if you don't have a complete packet once you open that permit that's when the fees are waved that is correct so even if you just went in and put in an incomplete permit application you would hold your spot for essentially waving those fees so I just can't impress upon you 90 days get the documents in you can fill the blanks in as you move along through the process yeah thank you of course we'd like to see I know you'd like to see complete just we also want to see everyone that is eligible to get their free permits right it's already been 1.7 million for 2000 so the other you know 700 is probably another close to another 700,000 of a million or so so we want to make sure that we allocate those resources to the people that needed most so please get your permits and it's before the 14th it's right before tax day shouldn't be hard to remember so in terms of Staffing allocation really just wish to draw your attention to the building inspectors plans examiners and permit Tech that's clearly where we're dedicating most of our resources now and that's showing up in in the pie chart you you saw a few slides back that is being um utilizing these folks very effectively to move through uh permit processes much quicker to get those um the work inspected we're still operating on next day inspections we're still able to maintain that level of service and that's largely due to we're pulling in all resources from these four vendors and wish to commend um the acting assistant city manager Adam puyer and working with us he's liasing with these contractors to hold them accountable for performance standards and it's been um very helpful to us as we try to manage process he he's working on the other side of that to to manage those contracts with us I have a question so is the added new going to drop off of uh after that uh 4:15 or 4 what was it 22 dat well certainly I think there are um whether it's the same persons or the just the numbers I think we'll know more as we move through the next couple of months in terms of of where we're seeing those activities I suspect inspectors as an example will be shifting to higher numbers of inspectors uh perhaps we'll be at a point where we can relieve a couple of permit tax from activities I'm not sure and then plans examiners I think for plans examination we're going to need them um at that level certainly for quite some times um some of the other things we might be able to to kind of move away from uh I My Hope certainly is that we have some folks here that have come to us through various contracts that we can extend those contracts and not have a disruption of any service or changes in Personnel um but again that comes out of our budget and that'll have to be negotiated so just a brief update on local historic designation and certificates of appropriateness so to date we've received 30 applications for designation 26 have been approved uh they remaining for going forward in February we've seen 11 applications under the certificate of appropriateness including five for demolition which is um sad and disheartening of course and then uh and one for for restoration um of those applications received we still need additional information four have been withdrawn but um as these are are moving through the processes we are tagging properties in our permit portal so that um intake and plans examiners know whether or not the property is subject to the the FEMA requirements related to substantial Improvement or substantial damage long-term housing recovery really no updates there uh this is now a program that's being promoted by the state of Florida's elev Florida they're still working on the applications to the federal government and encouraging folks to to sign up for this I expect um any time now they will open up the application portal does not mean that they have funds available but get your applica when as soon as they open up and I encourage you to scan and sign up for these updates as soon as they open up um get your applications in if that's of interest to you there are some conditions under which um uh some folks would need to be aware if you've made any repairs is an example that may preclude you from taking advantage of other grants and so um I encourage anyone that's interested or contemplating elevating of their home or otherwise wet or um dry flood proofing which is a rare but mostly it's elevating home that they really read all that they can that's available out there these are federal programs they're not programs that we are managing um but we encourage them to read all that they can as they go through their decision-making process because some of the decision they may choose to make now may impact negatively impact them when it comes to applying for Grants and just briefly uh as it relates to commercial debris update as you know um we had a requirement that all commercial debris that was non compliant U be remove their debris by December 23rd and right now we only have eight properties that did not comply so there was about 100 initially when we started I had very good response from them over the course of that month but 8 properties um did not comply by that date and so we'll be moving forward as I've mentioned in previous meetings the goal is compliance it's not punishment and so um we're I think the intention is that we recoup any outof pocket costs associated with having to pick up debris if in fact we did and that's really I think going to be the recommendation if they do go before the special magistrate and with that I'll take any questions thank you commissioners commission Robinson sorry um yes um mobile permitting um are we going to get that off the ground do we have a use for it uh what's the status of mobile permitting so we have the ability to issue mobile permits in terms of the equipment right so we have equipment that can be deployed in a vehicle likely one of our code enforcement Vehicles the um the challenge with that is because we have these three different streams of data very often it's difficult to do to issue a mobile permit I do think we're going to get to that point though where that becomes feasible again and so um the city manager gave me a heads up that that's of interest to you and so I I plan to talk about it with the team tomorrow morning during our daily operations meeting to see if that's something that we can find a pathway to deploy in relatively short order but at this point I have no update for you great and and um how are we doing on the one day permits so we have removed that from the website I believe that's been removed because we have not been able to effectively deploy in a one-day review the list of permits that were under that listing and so I've asked our Communications manager to to Simply change that to Hurricane related repair prioritization of those following things um again we are getting very uh much quicker in terms of intake to issue but because we have these three streams of data that we need to kind of Rectify or or apply a reasonableness at the the um achieving one day review is simply not feasible and um I know I asked you about this before about the sod Bond and I'm going to ask that about you know kind of versus fencing um is that is is fencing with the with the uh debris screens is that an option instead of a sod Bon so um I I spoke with our permit administrator about this late this afternoon in the sod Buon one of the the primary objectives of the sod Buon is to vent erosion but it's also to prevent a blighted condition and quite frankly with demolition of properties particularly now many of these properties will remain vacant for quite some time and I think it's important that we not inadvertently contribute to a o blighted condition and so it's certainly my recommendation that we continue to move forward with a sad Bond I would like to point out though that bonding agents um will issue bonds for sad so even though it's a a a one point something multiplier of of the anticipated cost of sod repair is the sod Bond you can get a relatively lowc cost bond for that and not have to put up all of that cash if you will it's just hard when there's really not reclaimed water or if you don't have you know a way to maintain any of that it it's just a waste um that's why I bring that up I mean commercially you can put up a fencing with the debris screens correct I'm sorry I'm not sure I I just can't answer that I don't know did know if there was a difference and why you know a residential couldn't do that I mean I know it's not as attractive but you know dead grass isn't greatl looking either but so I'll keep asking that question um and you know I've hammered you on on computed actual cash value for a while now and um so uh just to touch base on that I mean the letter back came back that uh it's actually one of the items that could be used but you have to do that in advance yes so consistency so and I appreciate the questions that you asked because it certainly helped us you and I'm so sorry but i' I've trying to get the answers and just be able to try to find a way forward that's I understand and it's helped me to better understand as well the varying options that are available so I I know that there's been a lot of conversation in the community and in various communities about why this approach versus that approach and so firstly um there are three different types of approaches determining levels of damage and then three different types of approaches in terms of um how you move forward beyond that but uh and then you you pick one from each is really the combination that we're going with and and so I I I don't wish to sound mysterious about this but at the end of the day the contract was negotiated with the state the vendor with the state um to deliver a scope of services that yielded the combination of Assessments and my understanding is that it's a very very common approach um when dealing with a major disaster such as we've seen here so the over 30,000 structures being assessed countywide and so I understand why that approach was done it's the quickest um but least reliable perhaps in how the data came across um and and of course that puts us in a position where we're now in appeals or reassessment um in in some cases um the computed actual cash value um process um as you know the the vendor got back to us as did Florida Division of Emergency Management we did elevate it all the way to the state and um where the challenge comes in is the is honestly I what I deduce from the communications is that it's the way in which the property appraiser handles their assessment it puts it in there's no way to use a a a a reliable com computed actual cash value calculation because it can't be appropriately compared to how the property appraiser does their depre iated assessed process so it's quite complex as we learned um but U it is a negotiated uh scope of work that was put in place and we signed on to that through theou process they're doing the same process countywide understood I would just me personally would would argue that all the way up to FEMA because it's a metric I feel that could be used and that would speed things up but uh thank you for bearing with me because I know I did Hammer you quite a bit on that thank you commissioner marot sure so um Denise I just have a quick question for you on the the temporary occupancy permits and are those being are those being prioritized I I realize that we've not been able to do one day permits or over-the-counter permits but but you know that that seems like one that that you know could or should be being expedited both because of the need and because it should require less of all that information and then inspection of that information and so you know for for folks who have been waiting for those for you know three five seven nine days and are trying to you know schedule somebody to come do the work for them which gets tough um particularly when you know even before even before the the storms the city of St Pete Beach was in a position of of many contractors And Trades peoples just going oh you're in St P Beach nope I'm not doing it and now you you convince someone to do and then you cancel on them twice and they go buddy I got other things to do and so are are we making any progress in being able to give people a you know like okay we can't do a day but like you're definitely going to get it in a week or or or is it just you're on your own we'll do your we'll do our best and so the minimal repair permits as you point out they're not as easy as what we one would hope because they're meant to do that which is necessary to safely occupy a home that's the premise of that minimal repair permit the challenge as I've mentioned in previous meetings is that very often what is being submitted goes beyond that sort of scope and so then it becomes sort of a negotiated process and that delays our ability to release permits I did communicate with a building official earlier this evening he had to step away for some some family um responsibilities and um and I'm certain he's going to be following up in writing but um we are he has approved U minimal repair permits for whole house rewiring under certain conditions um and is not opposed to those recognizing that property owners really need to take responsibility for for the consequences if there are any the reality is though we anticipate that what we're seeing right now and and the success that we've seen on appeal uh has is that we are going to have far fewer substantially damaged properties at the end of the day than we anticipated at the outset of this following the two hurricanes the data uh a lot of people of course are getting appraisals private Market appraisals but the data that we're getting um the structures the the ground level elevations I I'm not going to sit here and predict where we're going to land but I think it's certainly taking us to the two gentlemen in blue in the back yall have been carrying on for the last 10 minutes so please take it outside have your conversation when you're ready feel free to rejoin us thank you so the the data that we're seeing as I said um and and how this is um seeming to be working out is that we're going to end up with far fewer than we initially feared you know when when you were driving around the neighborhoods immediately following the storms and saw the debris that was left outside on the curb I think many of us thought we were going to have a very high number of of those determined to be substantially damaged and we're not seeing it or not I don't believe that we'll see it at the end of all of this um so that gives us the ability to to adopt and adapt more flexible practices as I mentioned we're having a daily operations meeting with the city manager's office to bring them along in all of the decision making as we kind of navigate just the facts right and and what we're seeing and and the preponderance of evidence and data that's coming with all of that and so I do think that being able to move forward more flexibly in the minimal repair permits such as whole house rewiring there's not a great deal of fear or concern for for homeowners because the vast majority of them really are at relatively low risk at the end of the day that's a safety issue too do that answer your question so it but but but it's still if somebody comes in with a permit and they're just trying to get a hot water heater replaced it's still uh uh who knows you're on your own will let you know I'm not familiar with that response but that that might not be the stated response I think that's the Practical response of what's happening I you know I we do have a Monday morning all team briefing on that that we utilize for for our training purposes and so I'll discuss that to make sure that the folks know if it comes in on a minimal repair permit you can replace that hot water heater in the as is location but when it com comes to Whole House repair that's got to be elevated and so there may be some consternation and the minimal repair permits you know does it have to be elevated not elevated so we'll discuss that on Monday's training thank you you're welcome thank you one comment yes two go ahead um first I just wanted to um thank the city for and I know maybe all of us individually have kind of spoken with the city manager and and with you to Denise about issuing permits under the 50% right um that are approved sorry and pending SD determination so I I appreciate that that was done um because it would have been something I would wanted to have discussed tonight to to motion all of us to approve and go ahead with so I I greatly appreciate that that was done and and that the hundred and some I think there were in the on your chart I'm going assume are getting the happy notice that they they are approved sometime soon there there's still I think it was 75 that were listed pending SD determination some of them that either we've not received enough information where we can confidently presume that they'll be successful on appeal if they get an SD determination so there's a couple of them that that do give us pause because they're close enough that we really want to be certain that we're not putting somebody in Jeopardy by telling them to go ahead and repair and then ultimately they can't do it for less than 50% so very typically it'll be advising them that they may wish to go um seek a private Market appraisal uh without exception we've seen them come in higher than um what the property appraiser has on record so um uh but there's there's about 175 there that I would say too close to call comfortably or we're waiting on more information and and can't quite Get There Yet now but the appeals are done within the city aren't they so if they are approved packets um by the city then they should be yes and forgive me because some of those approved it's the building permit application that's approved and perhaps the the sisd packet is not quite there yet or we're waiting on some additional information to make sure all parties are in agreement okay got it's very typically what it is or we're looking at Ground elevation just to reassure ourselves that we're in a good standing um because for instance some the ground elevation what's what's interesting about liar is it's it seems to be quite exact um but it doesn't give you finished floor elevation it gives you ground elevation and so you know sometimes we have to make judgment calls about that but because we now have access to ground elevation we're looking at that and and trying to get to yes certainly that's the goal is we want to make sure that people can do what they need to do to move in but we do understand we have a responsibility to protect them as well from from the potential hazards of going over 50% Thank you another comment um you mentioned you're going to and and I'm happy you're using volunteer services I know something that that i' I've talked or brought up to the city manager um of using other resources to alleviate what's been you know real horrible for many people um but the lobby so Lobby service management I hope that some of the volunteers could help in something like this um and this is just my my personal observance coming here going to Lobby seeing a resident talking to a resident go to a meeting come back down resident is still in the lobby um a lot of it is because they don't know what to do um I'll give you one simple example a senior um resident that I know um was in the lobby went to the meeting same senior Resident was still in the lobby turned out all the Resident wanted to do was submit an inspection but didn't know how to do it and you know and I think I've mentioned this to the city manager before it's almost like treating it like a Bank lobby you get to the bank nowadays and they say well what are you here here for are you here for loan application or you know to get notorized paperwork did you just want to know how to push the button to get an inspection you know something that could have been really quick versus having a senior who's already very distraught confused um sit in a Lobby for over two hours um I hope the stuff that you all are are discussing and and want to address fairly quickly because it's been a long time and and a lot of people just don't want to approach and come here because they don't know what to do understood and agree uh so the volunteers we hope to utilize pretty much as you've described and as I mentioned earlier if we're able to to get a big enough stable of volunteers where we can deploy them out to to do home visits if you will to help people in their homes fill out paperwork um my preference is to to identify nonprofits that are already working with seniors um there's plenty of those nonprofits out there they may be able to identify help us communicate with them if they otherwise don't have a means to communicate with us they they may have a way of connecting with them and and providing um a a way for us to to meet people where they're at and I hope to be able to do that with volunteers I do have some Mission requests in and have a coordinating call that I think may be uh scheduled as early as Thursday with um vendors who have responded to the three Mission requests for admin support inspection services and and to work directly with our owner Builders I'm filling out permit applications and sisd packages so th those folks the paid staff that would be deployed here would and my view partner with volunteers to help them and so we really kind of double those forces if you will um I should mention one of those missions was the the inspections for commercial structures those were largely not done by tile Basin I was able to um Title Basin began to let go of some of their inspectors because they're largely in the data crunching phase of their work um but they uh were able to deploy them out to the Corey Avenue district and uh do the assessments of all the business structures here and so I'm not certain that I'll need a deployment of of folks for that part of the mission we may abandon that request the other request that's of significant importance to me is administrative support to help us with the production creation of the substantial damage assessment plan I think it's absolutely critical that we um we get that plan completed and and document all that we've done and all that we plan to do going forward the lessons learned and and get it all in one document it's one of those things where you you know you pull in the various ordinances that you have and the and those guiding um plans or strategies that are already on the books and then you you pull in the policies and the activities associated with it and so it's largely a matter I think of of just assembling all the stuff and but getting some administrative support with that um I think administrative support as well to help us just simply with documentation you know we're dealing with a lot of money a lot of waved money a a lot of activities and and really getting um a management analyst or somebody similar to help us with all of that I think is important as well so hopefully we'll be able to to get staff deployed here um through those Mission requests and relatively short order but certainly volunteers um and others to work with owner Builders is a big important part for us and it's a significant Service delivery Gap that we have thank you thank you commissioner Mah so miss Sanderson um as it relates to the bottleneck on the determination letter is the count still a problem is that correct getting data from the county is still a challenge I would agree uh a question was posed um building official was on a call countywide call this morning with the vendor and they've shared that um they view their project uh the entirety of the project which is assessment and and data entry q qaqc and delivery of of outputs to be about 65% complete countywide and that um I was surprised to say the least they I believe have largely completed inspections it's 99 point something per of intended inspections or reinspection if you will in STP Beach they have completed that and so data entry is on ongoing they have 80 Personnel that are currently doing that I but as I say to for them to quantify it and and suggested it their project is about 65% complete was disheartening and some of the data that we've already received has duplication which creates difficulty for us to generate the letters did I understand that as well un unun yes you have that correct unfortunately I believe in the month of December we received about 6,000 records only 19987 of them were unique records everything else was a duplicate of that which was previously transmitted in some cases four times so that's and unfortunately it often comes to us in a different format so the columns don't match in the order um it's quite remarkable actually and um I'm not sure if it will ever get fully resolved but the net of that is is by the time it gets to us it's very staff intensive process we've brought to their attention there were numerous four Transmissions of six re of eight received in December included a mismatch of partial ID and address which calls into question of course the entire record for for a property because we don't know if it reflects the property um the property address or the property parcel ID and so we have to toss out the entire record and but that's the level of scrutiny that's required of our data team on every transmission that we receive um I'd like to say that its quality outputs is coming to us uh certainly um understand and respect that they have a big challenge that they're dealing with countywide but when we get information that we cannot rely upon it makes it very very difficult um to be able to move through the process quickly on our end as you might imagine so it's real easy to be a Monday Morning Quarterback uh but I'm just curious what could have we done better to have gotten more accurate determinations in a relatively timely fashion uh after this event uh or as we look forward as a community and a city um H how how could we potentially be in a better position to manage that I don't want to use the word misinformation um choose your own words but what could we have done or what can we do after this event to get this information more accurate moving forward so a couple of things I think that I would desire to explore one is to look at a tool different than the SD tool there are a couple of them out there one in particular I think it's called Forerunner I have no idea what the cost of that would be but it Imports information from from those public data sources like from the property appraisers um and others so and like light our data um my understanding is I've not seen a demonstration but it it pulls in information largely eliminating keystroke error for much of the data that's necessary to document again I haven't had a demonstration but I think exploring a different Tool uh I think the most commonly used phrase to describe FEMA's sde tool is that it's glitchy uh and that's an understatement it creates duplicate records quite often whenever you um whenever you download information it seems to randomly create duplicate records and that can be problematic so that would be number one is explore a different data tool secondly um you know I'm Monday morning quarterbacking as well I'm not sure if it was brilliant or the biggest mistake to come together under multiple jurisdictions for a single process there's pros and there's cons certainly um certainly we could not have gone out and done these assessments from our own team gone out there and done them in a quick ER or more reliable fashion quite frankly we tried that with some of our own inspections and we found ourselves that it was depending on who was doing it wildly different outcomes so it the process of of rapid assessment is just riddled with inaccuracies because of the way that it it has to be conducted so quickly and with you know this is not looking at detailed damage estimates we're not looking at contractor quotes and when conducting a assessment it's just a broad assessment that said I do think we probably should look at going under contract much like we have with aftermath for and you know to anticipate debris removal I believe we should explore and negotiate a contract in advance of a disaster for this kind of activity and I would recommend that we do that and I assume that will all be included in the after action hope yes and in the substantial damage assessment plan so just to pick up on what you said so as I understood it Title Basin indicated they're at about 16% complete or 65% completion of the entire project yes of the entire project and we probably don't even have the data from for all 65% of that would that be correct um they have about 9,000 excuse me about 3,000 properties that they've inspected or assessed if you will and we've received 2,000 of them so we're 2third of the way through in terms of expected data I will point out that not every property is being assessed and so some of those other ways in which we're issuing substantial or non-substantial damage determinations largely non-substantial are some of those other policies that we put in so it's requiring no inspection it's really using a presumption uh determination so as an example four stories and above we're presuming non-s substantially damaged and we're notifying those Condo Association and multi-story structures that they can move forward with permits without concern um one of the important things that the county recently did and this is just in the last few weeks before if you had a condo and you went into the female wind loss mitigation tool on property producers website you would see a statement about how they do not do a structure value for puds and so you could get nothing as a condo owner to give you an indication of what your structure value was well that's because it's the entire structure the county property appraisers office is now going through and issuing an entire structure data a structure value for that building for every building where it's multi-tenant multi- story so that is extraordinarily helpful it's allowing us to communicate with these other property owners that you know based on the structure value non substantially damaged X number of floors if if you get down to two or three we're probably going to ask you to send us photos of your roof and exterior walls to show that you've had no other incursions we'll assume that you may have had flood and we'll look at elevation but it's allowing us to move through that so even though 3,000 structures have been assessed um there are far more structures U you know there's a a large number of structures that will not be assessed through the title base process that we're establishing these other policies to address so last question uh this is um really your and the city manager's uh area of responsibility but based on my background uh Personnel always interests me so uh how are we doing on the one step forward two-step backwards process as it relates to uh bringing people on and losing people and maintaining our staffing and training up our staffing how's that how's that working for us so happy to report that all St be Peach St Pete Beach employees we have retained every employee nobody has left our organization though they've been under a terrible amount of stress so presuming that you're talking about the contract folks that have been deployed here through the four vendors we have had challenges as part of what you know Adam is working with these vendors on is to ensure that they're able to deliver Personnel that can dedicate X number of hours per week we're even um supporting and encouraging nights and weekends many of these plans examiners have full-time jobs in other locations or part-time they're working in multiple jurisdictions so we're willing to accommodate and encourage whatever hours they can dedicate but we wish for them to dedicate them for a period of time and so that's being communicated to them we did have some experiences where we had folks um come in and and they were with us for a couple of weeks and then moved on I I'm hoping we've gotten through that process because onboarding them takes a little while not just within our permit system but to brief them on all of the policies that we've since adopted in our processes so that onboarding them is um an investment of our time and energy and so we're hoping that we get that back from them in terms of duration and we're seeing improvements there we have had to release a couple of plans examiners for non-performance meaning they just simply did not produce on the number of reviews that we would anticipate for the hours that they were clocking and um that's a certainly a performance standard and then others just sort of dissatisfied with the way in which they were communicating we felt that it was causing more challenges than it was positive outcomes in terms of customer engagement and experience and so we've made some some deliberate decision decisions than to release folks based on some of that so is it safe to say that there were some Monday mornings when you came into work that you didn't really know how many people were going to be here certainly I would say that safe to say um we are monitoring it continuously and meeting with we have not resumed meetings since um just after the Christmas holiday but we'll be resuming weekly meetings on Wednesdays in particular with tile Basin who has deployed the the largest number of folks those are in person in meetings and discussions on Wednesdays and then the other vendors I know Adam as I said is in communication on a regular basis thank you you're very welcome thank you thank you very much you're welcome oh forgive forgive me we have consensus to move forward with a permit fee waivers is correct yes thank you we'll be bringing a resolution back at the next meeting just to document that but it's effective immediately and we'll make sure that that's communicated thank you thank you so much thank you all right next we're moving to the audience comments portion of this evening uh just really just to reiterate a couple things um if you wish to speak there are yellow cards in the back corner you can fill that out um you have two options you can speak during the general audience comments or you have a specific issue that you would like to speak on I don't know off the top of my head maybe the freebie uh you can just put down freebie and then you will speak when that item comes up right so you don't you know if it's two different issues you want to talk about the first section right now is for General audience comments so this is not just something that's on your mind that you want to share with the commission not necessarily specifically to one of the items that we're going to cover at some point later in the future uh when you come up please state your name and address I will remind you um adjust the microphone so that we can hear you you will have three minutes uh to speak your whatever it is that you would like to communicate to the commission generally this is not a question and answer session uh there may be instances where one of the Commissioners may feel that they do want to add uh or provide an answer or provide additional information or context uh we certainly will do at the discretion of the commission and I will ask everyone in the audience to respect the person speaking please allow them their time this is their time to speak I know not everyone feels comfortable speaking in public so please you know give them that courtesy let them speak uninterrupted um you know no clapping no booing um and then once we finish the general audience comments we will move on to the other items on the agenda and if at that point you wish to speak on a specific item uh you can do so as well cards are in the back please bring them to the city clerk thank you very much do we have any general audience comments Rick parales Rick are you here all right if you'll please state your name and address for the record um thank you so much for the time and opportunity for having us here I'm I rck Morales for the record of course with my ACC from PTO Rico um I have been here since uh Debbie I have been doing this work for the last two years working from declaration to declaration most of the states of the east of the United States so um I came U here today to speak about the updates about Milton and Helen so uh like you all know we have been here doing so many different activities and we have had great Partnerships with the estate with FEMA with this city not just me my colleagues I remember that on October 28th the FEMA town hall on this municipality I had to speak with a megaphone because so a lot of hundreds of people were there so that's that's not normal that this is historic that's why we're still here so we are here because of the long-term recovery and one of the updates is the um centers we still have the centers open uh I'm going to mention uh the addresses uh the oneing epicenter uh St Petersburg College that's a business Recovery Center in panelas of course Clear Water Monday to Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 P PM so if a person go there a Survivor a constituent if they go there they can only apply with the SBA if they go to the DRC Disaster Recovery Center in the Davis Center in St Petersburg Monday to Saturday 700 a.m. to 700 p.m. closing permanently on January 31st they can apply with both feta agencies on that Center we always encourage the people to apply with both feda agencies because you never know from what part you're going to get the money faster so that's why we always encourage that and the most important information that uh I'm going to bring today is like uh the latest update the 60 days grace period that in the past it wasn't like this like a year ago or more it's like you had two weeks and you have to justify why you're applying late and meaning that you um sometimes you are not going to qualify vot now we have the 60 days great period that the people they don't need to justify why they are applying late in other words they can still do reconsiderations to appeal they can complete the procedures they can still apply within that 60 days grace period so that's very helpful for the people that didn't apply in the past because for so many reason that you know that in the past um we didn't have the funds but now um if the people is proactive and they apply our times of waiting is between two weeks and four weeks if they complete the procedures like quickly if they answer like we we send a lot of notifications about uploading the documents and all that you they can receive the money uh faster and so all that is already resolved and thank you so much for having me here I'm I appreciate it once again thank you so much all right Rick when is the 60 days expire well well the I explain that we don't have like a specific dat but the deadline expired for the physical damages on January 7th so after January 7 we we have to add the 60 days that was for the physical damages meaning for the damages on the roof walls windows so for homeowners renters nonprofits and businesses we have another deadlines for economic damages but those ones are are for the summer for uh July 11 full Milton and for uh June 31st uh for Helen that that the meaning of that is that's only for businesses and nonprofits for the losses of profits but what we are talking about right now is like the one that Aspire but they can still apply with us is the one of the physical damages for home owners renters nonprofit and businesses and very important uh the centers that I mentioned I'm going to say also the 800 number 659 2955 800 659 2955 so the people can call there can call that number they can give you the status applications they can give you the closest centers everything all the details they can answer you any questions so for for the people that is here that we might have a Survivor here if we don't have survivors here or people affected they can share that with their families friends networking so that's why we are here we want to to keep sharing the information and disseminating the information so we are here for to help thank you so much great okay thank you so much for coming Rick and next time you come just send an email to the City Clerk and we'll get you in the beginning so you don't have to sit here for an hour and a half sorry uh mayor uh I forgot to mention that um I provided uh to Amber like uh the Flyers with the 60 days um flyer with more details of course and with the U flyer of the centers um with the bilingual flyers in English and Spanish so you're going to have the Flyers Amber she has and the flyer for you all thank you so much man thank you all right bye bye all right Karen Boer I think that's the last name right if you'll please state your name and address for the record good evening my name is Karen berer I live at 2162 West Vena Delmar Boulevard um first I want to can you hear me okay yes I um want to thank the staff in the permit department I was here on uh December 13th which was a very ugly day um the staff was under tremendous Fire by pretty much everybody a lot of angry people they could not have been Kinder or more helpful or more informative they really did help guide me through the process um the one thing that still seems to be a mystery is what was the process for um obtaining the services of Tidal Basin in STP Beach can anybody explain that how we obtain the services of Title Basin here in St b beach yeah we we generally this is not a question in the answer session this is this is your time to speak right if you have a specific question the easiest way to do it is send me the city manager one of the Commissioners and then we can send that back to you we don't always have all the information right on hand okay fair enough so you'd like me to email you asking who hired Title Basin M okay yes so a lot of it is again I'll try to some of it comes from the state some of it comes from the county right often times you have one entity that already has an established contract and we do what's called a piggyback on that right so there's any number of ways so Title Basin is being used by I don't know I think 11 out of the 22 municipalities in pelis county and they're one of two vendors that are currently working in pelis County so the options where use them use the other one which I heard is just as good or use our own staff which we didn't have uh is that the one that uh Readington is using I couldn't tell you what the other cities are using individually okay all right thank you all email all right but if you send me an email or your commissioner will'll get the exact answer for you thanks JN Jennifer Macaluso okay thank you Vincent tormina if you'll please state your name and address for the record Vinnie Vincent tmania 3514 Kaza Blanca Avenue St Pete Beach Florida um I sent um the commission I want to thank the commission and through the years I've been here all that this is the best commission that's been here okay so including the city manager the mayor everything I know that youve been really working really hard in this time of a disaster that happened and I just wanted to bring out to you for accountability from the former regime it needs to be held accountable I sent it all off to you you I hope you all looked at it uh I spoke to Ashley Moody's office I got the thing to file for it and I'm hoping that you all file for it too so I mean they must be held accountable for what they did I mean through the whole period of and I'm going back from 2010 I'm not going back from list year I'm going back from 2010 and the people of St Pete Beach does not deserve this none of us deserve it but they have done and that they got away with this so I'm hoping that you do the right thing and file that complaint with the Ethics Committee and get it done and hold them accountable for what they have done to the city cuz I don't think we were sideswiped with this hurricane but we don't even have storm sewers and any subdivisions we've been paying since 2010 it's 14 years swim and Swift Mud it was never filed candom is now doing his best we were allocated $5 million a year that was lost for the last 14 years to help our infrastructure here so I'm hoping that just do the right thing and get it done thank you thank you Deborah shner uh good evening Deborah shner basa Isle Drive in St P Beach you know unfortunately due to some residents not receiving their letter when they went to the Enoch center before the deadline so that they could rent help which quite a significant number they would turned away and that deadline was the 7th of January so those people lost out on $2,500 worth of rent vouch and in some cases if you have children it's even more than that and they could have found something so that's something you certainly have to look at for next time but I don't know if there's anything you can do for these folks now your priority really has to be getting residents back in their homes we have a City without residents right now and if we continue on this vein several have already left the city for good and have sold their properties we don't want to see that we love our city but the priority has to be to get residents back in their homes period also you know help the small local businesses as well sewer situation I agree with Vincent the prior commission some of whom have served for 30 years one sense or another as well as some that serve for decades dro the ball our sewers is are a mess we really can't even build anything and add new toilets I think that's very very important to listen about we can't build anything because we don't have enough sewer capacity our pipes are falling apart and we're talking probably 25 million at least and I think that's a bottom figure to fix this and it was their fault because they didn't do it they only fixed sewers in front of the hotel District so that tells you where their priorities are what I like about this commission I know some of you are residents first and to me that's very very important we pay the majority of the taxes and we pay for all this stuff city does need to get an Architectural Review Committee I think that's going to be very important I've said before McDonald's Publix they probably have 15 different designs to choose from but we've never even said oh do you have a beachy one or do you have one that did over in another area and it makes our community so much more beautiful we never had anybody even even though we had an architect at the May at one time nobody asked that question and to me that was very very important to ask just remember it's very very important put residents right now first they have to get back in their homes or we will be a City without residents thank you thank you for your comments Brian stack if you please state your name and address for the record hi I'm uh Brian stack uh 327 uh 39th AV uh in the B of Vista neighborhood and like many residents in St Beach we continue to be frustrated um and I know I came in about two weeks ago trying to get an update on my permit I probably let my frustration get the best of me so I do apologize to some of the staff I did speak to two weeks ago that being said um I think for some of this frustration to subside in my view three things need to happen one acknowledgement acknowledgement that we need to do better that as John Wooden one said in his famous quote activity does not equal achievement we have a lot of activity going on but we need more achievement two is a little more accountability I think there's some good stats on the website and know I know the lady who presented today gave some updates on kind of permits coming through I would love to see more Trend data on the website meaning how many permits are being approved per day and seeing that Trend over time with the goal being that you're approving more than are coming in once you hit that goal then we start to see achievement and three is progress um I think one of the ways to maybe ACH achieve progress is doing a permit day trying to remove some of the bureaucracy have a day in which those who are actually are reviewing and approving and have real deep questions on what's your feema status um do you have a licensed contractor they can meet face to face with individuals with the staff bring the STA as many people together as possible especially for the majority of us um and I'm an engineer I'm very good with data and metrics the vast majority of us are in the situation we need walls we need floor we need electrical and we need cabinets and if you're in that situation and you're under 50% like myself you have a licensed contractor like myself and many others that is kind of a rinse and repeat on this permit day with the goal being in you come in you meet with the staff it's 30 minutes or so everyone feels good and you leave with a permit I think that would greatly increase the amount of permits coming and maybe do a few of these permit days I understand there's going to be some exceptions there's going to be some situations that don't fit that mold but the vast majority of us need walls floors cabinets and electrical and if we're in that kind of Paradigm it should be much easier than it is today so I'm hoping we can get this done and have maybe some of these permit days to really cut out the bureaucracy the middleman bring people and the staff together who are making some of the decisions work through it with their contractors and again I think it'll help also you guys with transparency of we're here we're in front it's not not coming in and waiting three hours to try to get some information on where your premit stands so thank you I appreciate your time thank you can I ask a question sure can I ask you a question would you be willing to be one of the volunteers since you've put in a permit yeah more we would love to have help yes yes would love to have that thank you so uh just really quick a couple of things um you know on accountability I think you've seen I think Denise just mentioned uh just a few minutes ago we've had people that haven't been in Good Fit we've had to make tough decisions over the last several months and last several weeks and so um you know we are holding everybody to a high standard including ourselves the Commissioners we've had uh our regularly scheduled commission meetings we've had three emergency meetings right before Christmas uh we've had Town Hall meetings we have another one tomorrow so we're we're trying to do as much as human there's a limit at some point that there's just no more you there's only so many hours in the day right um and then the other part is we actually do have a a daily opportunity to come meet with the staff from what 9 from 8 9 to 1 from 9: to 1:00 every single day you have the opportunity to come in and have your permit day where you can sit down with the building officials or the individuals or the specific staff that can answer those questions and we can walk you through that process we may not be able as Denise mentioned just a few minutes ago like we can't we're not at the point where we can issue a permit in 24 hours we tried we really really wanted to and we thought there were some things that we could it certainly isn't possible with the large packages right because it does require there statutory requirements at the State of Florida says look a building official has to look at this they have to sign off on it right there's 3,000 permits in the queue right and we can't pull one out of here just because you you know but at the same time we do make that available for everyone to come in and meet with the staff uh just as Karen mentioned earlier when she came in and by the way I do want to thank you for your kind words I don't think the building department he's enough of them so again just just thank you for that um but we do make our staff available um I know even commissioner Robinson she sits at the desk back there every now and then just to help residents I mean she's asked you to volunteer she's doing it on her own time as well well um and so I do appreciate all of the volunteers we've had volunteers from all different walks of life and different you know we've had Engineers we've had people that have sewer experience we have people that just have extra time on their hand so we do appreciate all of that um and then the other thing I want to say is I actually appreciate you coming here tonight I can't tell you and look the the number of comments and emails that we get sometimes there too much to respond to all of them and sometimes you may feel like it goes into a black hole but I cannot tell tell you just how many suggestions we've taken just like yours tonight I know that the city manager reads almost all of them because she'll email me and says hey or she'll respond to resent says look that's actually really good we can Implement that so I want to encourage all of you if you see any areas that we can improve right we're not just here to be you know we're actually look we're part of the community and that's one of the things that we wanted to change from the way that the commission maybe has operated in the past right not just be here on deaf ears um I know in this meeting it kind of seems impersonal and I apologize for that but we do have we're not even going to make it to 10 o'clock tonight it's probably going to be midnight right and so sometimes it feels a little fast and like we're rushing you but I do want to say thank you for the comments and we genuinely appreciate them and I wish I could just show you the list of comments we've received versus the list of comments that we've implemented some of the suggestions that we've implemented that have helped us through this process and so keep them coming I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see as many of you here tonight I remember just two or three years ago we'd have two people in the audience and both of them are staff they had to be here right and so I know these are not the best of circumstances I know you'd rather be at home right but I do appreciate it at least for myself I just want to say thank you so much and and please keep the comments and suggestions coming we genuinely appreciate them and we do Implement many many of them thank you city clerk John kurman thank you John kman be Honda way um to respond to commissioner mahan's uh question let me first preface this by saying I'm not being a Monday Morning Quarterback and you know I I want to make sure it's clear that this commission this staff is here you know responding to you know an emergency and the the real answer to this issue is you were asking about what kind of planning can we do to avoid you know the issues that we're confronted with because essentially the planning wasn't done ahead of time and it takes a lot of planning and and and if you go to the uh Co manual for the community rating system what you see is that they say you need to do a you have to have a a committee that's formed and that committee tries to plan what they're going to do when there is a hurricane and a flood and the first thing is assess the vulnerability assemble a team identify the postevent actions built build a database identify your pre-event actions plan implementation and updates and then you do steps 2 through six and have an annual evaluation report so let's go look at what those are Step One is you're going to determine those that are likely to be substantially damaged you're not supposed to have to send those letters to every home you're supposed to look it says at a minimum the list should include the properties with with buildings that are that are to be inspected that are below the base flood elevation so you're supposed to start by saying post firm homes don't bother homes that you know are already raised don't bother you're supposed to then it says go and look at the homes that are within a repetitive loss area so you're supposed to identify the homes that are in the areas where you know these are the ones we're supposed to be paying attention to that that way you don't have to spend all your time going and and spending you know energy you you know on these homes that are just going to be annoyed you said hey you're 20% and they know they're zero that's just wasting everybody's time and energy you want to be able to focus just on the homes that really need attention but all that homework had to be done three four five years ago so that when an emergency happened at everybody could be right you know hitting the ground running with where they needed to be so these steps are here and then and then you only do the work you need to do and it's a and it's a finely tuned machine so it's it's it's there is a step to do it and it just needs to be planned ahead of time Forerunner by the way is the system it may not be because of Forerunner but Forerunner is the system also that has a lot of our city Mis misrepresented and again when we have time we need to clean for runner up thank you thank you and that is one of those great suggestions that we're actually implementing tonight which is the first action item uh by establishing a uh recovery task force committee and this is going to be part of what what they're going to be looking at is you know what have we done well what did we not do well what what are the areas for you know what are the available areas where we can improve and you know how do we plan for the future um so that's again just one of those things that were're implementing um to make sure that you know we plan for the future Jeff bonell if you please state your name and address for the record I am Jeffrey banau I live at 440 8th way I want to first thank personally Karen who is my district rep who has constantly been communicative and responsive and supportive and helpful I'd like to thank all of you guys every decision I've seen you make thus far has been an effort to try to help people get where they need to be which is back in their home it's not a perfect world I'll extend my gratitude to Denise who's been very helpful in the process of applying for permits what we can do what we can't do who I don't want to thank is the permit intake Tech who Friday when I went and signed the clipboard sat for two and a half hours to find out why my minor repair permit to swap a hot water tank out had yet to be approved now I've heard what's been said and I understand when a homeowner pulls a permit and it's a minor repair permit there is a limit to the cost that can go on there so no one is rewiring their whole house for under that amount if they say they are slide them aside they are lying problem solved I'm trying to put a hot water tank in my house so that I can turn the water back on I applied for that permit on January 7th it's still not been issued I've cancelled my plumber twice it's a $4,000 job I signed an affidavit fully acknowledging that if my house is deemed substantially damaged because I still don't have my substantial damage letter that I would accept responsibility for that expense and eat it this is a stamp and go permit Jeff go ahead and put your hot water tank in what I don't appreciate is the permit Tech who came out to the window and I'm obviously upset a little bit and decides he's going to Bow up on me and start talking to me like I'm 12 I'm a retired Marine I do not appreciate being spoken to like I'm 12 I certainly didn't appreciate being threatened with a 5,000 fine that he said he was going to personally come an issue if I put that hot water tank in without my permit I think that's the kind of person that should not be in that office tall gentleman black bushy hair I'm sure you know who he is I just want my hot water tank I'm trying to get my family back in my home I get we all have problems I get you guys are dealing with things these are Simple Solutions Simple Solutions hey Luke take all the minor repair permits that came in today go in and stand them and get them back out the door problem solved thank you thank you sir and you're right no one appreciates being talked to like a 12-year-old if you wouldn't mind sending an email to the city manager she handles all the staffing issues and we'll certainly take a look at it we appreciate it thank you sir Jackie McCall if you'll please state your name and address for the record um Jackie McCall 434 77th Avenue St P Beach I still hate public speaking um but uh while I appreciate wanting to do rapid assessments of our properties the focus should be more on quality as a result of the repercussions from these determinations as we've heard today the numbers generated by Title Basin are not accurate and will be attached to my house forever this will impact my ability to sell my house this doesn't make any sense we need another solution thank you William Lawson DJ Lawson 547 Lani Drive paying the taxes but not living there um the prior speaker to carry on that same message I was watching the meeting at uh where we're staying and I just couldn't stay away because my my background is in systems and data and it and we have a staff in the city that's being held hostage by bad data from an incompetent vendor called Title Basin and I was motivated Enough by what I was hearing during the Community Development report which again appreciate all the work that everyone's doing trying to get us through this but Denise and her team and by extension all of us are being completely run over by people who are building models and spreadsheets that are completely disconnected from the reality they don't live here they aren't here on site they don't see what's going on and then when they give us data to put into our systems the data itself isn't even clean enough to go in without causing issues and duplication and requiring massive staff effort to fix well if you look at the state contract the blanket agreement signed by the state with title basement for management consulting services I draw your attention to the contractor warranty there on page 10 warranty on page 10 the contractor agrees to the following representation in warranty should any defect or deficiency in any deliverable or the remedy of such defect or deficiency cause incorrect data to be introduced into any customer's database or cause data to be lost the contractor shall be required to correct and reconstruct within the time frame established by the customer all production test acceptance and training files or databases affected at no additional cost of the customer now we're all the customer here and I'd simply respectfully ask our City attorney our city staff how do we Avail ourselves to the language and get things get ourselves out of the grip and out from underneath the thumb of this system and this process and this vendor that is causing negative value to this recovery process thank you could you leave that with the clerk thanks that to okay thank you thank you sir I have no cards on General okay thank you so much all right next we move to items five the consent agenda I believe commissioner mohal and you had a question or was it Commission Robinson yeah it's usually you it's usually you um my questions in regards to uh item G it's for the generator um c c i don't know if that would be something you can I would be remiss in not asking questions on a half a million dollar purchase um I see the delivery is 92025 and um this is I'm going to assume permanent it's not a rental it's a permanent purchase correct a permanent item permanent generators stay there at Pump Station one that's correct is it right is it going to be raised or elevated it will be raised and elevated above the base flood elevation okay great um does it have an auto or manual switch over it will have an automatic transfer switch um that automatic transfer switch will be brought forward at the next commission meeting for for purchase yeah I didn't see it in the purchase order um and then it said weather protective I don't know what that means it it had some sort of weather protective covering correct it's in a waterproof enclosure okay great and um is there a yearly maintenance by cat there um is not a yearly maintenance there were it was offered but we have a separate contract uh for routine maintenance of our generators and we'll we'll exercise routine maintenance through that contract instead um and what's the life expectancy I don't have that off top of hand okay just curious to know okay thank you thank you okay is there a motion to approve the consent agenda I make a motion to approve the consent agenda I second city clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you next we have action items 6A the recovery task force committee yes mayor Commissioners uh on December 3rd we met and it was decided to send it back out so I put it back on the website and solicited further applications we've received the ones that are attached to the agenda uh I did update the application so this time on the application there was specific section for them to designate this task force and the role within the task force okay do we so these are all the additional ones in the agenda yes what page do you have I don't have p uh it's 25ish thank you yeah starts at 200 yeah thank you for okay so are we specifically looking at just the two that we requested for additional or are we looking at all of them when I was here on December 3rd my interpretation was to send it back out and start over that's how I understood it but of course you can do either way certainly okay so Mr Mayor yes sir I I thought when we first dealt with this we had like four pretty qualified um citizens that wanted to serve on this and um I think the consensus at that meeting was that um while they were all qualified to serve on really any board uh that the desire was to get um somebody that was business orientated and somebody that was environmentally orientated that was my understanding and and I don't see anyone that applied outside of those two categories correct so all of the new applicants are the new ones the new ones are all for right for business or environmental cor corre right and as unless I miss something I think only one of them was for the environmental is that not correct and I think most of us know that individual and most of us know that that individual has um spent a lot of time working um on environmental issues in the city um and then I think we have four I believe from the business Community is is is that correct we have three new ones yes four from the business community and then one from environmental and you know I I mean I personally feel very good about the environmental person that's applied and I will just say from my perspective the four business people while they all uh appear to um qualified and certainly we should appreciate that they applied I other than eating at one of their restaurants and getting haircut at one of their places and some of that I really don't know anything about the four I think probably others on this commission have a lot better feel for those four so you know from my perspective um Miss Reich um for Environmental seems to be the logical Choice and then the remaining four um I would defer to the rest of the commission on how they feel about those folks because once again I really um don't have a sense for any of them other than the fact that you know I think they all could serve so that's kind of my position on it and other the four business owners that are applied three of them were actually former presidents or current presidents of the Cory Avenue Business Association so yeah all all of them would be highly qualified they're involved and engaged in the business Community as well as a local community so I found it interesting that um that if I uh hermino is he here um that he actually was a Vanguard inspector FEMA and Vanguard is one of the um Title Basin um it's Vanguard Title Basin um that he was an inspector so that's would shed some light and I think we had other applicants previously as well um and one of them was also a um did relief Hurricane Relief so I think that brings a different perspective especially considering what we're looking at doing um so I found those two um uh quite interesting and uh thought they they might bring a different perspective and as well their residents and they are U business owners okay would anyone like to commiss M would you are you saying you you would recommend Lisa Reich I would uh well she's the only environmental but I I'm very happy to hear that uh that she applied in fact I didn't use her name when we were talking about the environmental person um well it's all here in the public record so um but yes I certainly would strongly support her as being the environmental representative okay and then would anybody like to nominate one of the uh other four business individuals for that slot see the other I um I I think I think they're all quite qualified um just based on on um current engagement in The Bu business Community um I think Ken from chill would be a a fantastic choice um you know just just because he's he he's very engaged with what's happening every day on Cory Avenue and with the and with the business members um but but like I say I think they would all be very qualified any other recommendations any other nominations I would uh oh sorry I was just gonna say I would go ahead and if you I don't know if we have the motion for this or just no I'm just saying I think we should nominate individuals and have a conversation with those individuals and then you know see we can come to consensus which one might be you know the most qualified of the B of the bunch but I would concur that um since you know Lisa is I mean we could just go ahead and move forward and and say Lisa uh be representative for the environmental and we can continue to the next right yeah I would agree I would agree too great okay any other comments discussions on the business committee business owners since we re reposted were were we not taking into consideration the other applicants these are the only ones that came in no we we had some from before from December 3rd again I interpreted it differently and so that's how I presented the material but you all can choose to do what you think is best I agree that all of them are equally qualified they've all you know like you said been uh past presidents of cabba um or I think current I just kind of for me personally I like the idea that somebody has had FEMA experience I think they bring a different perspective to everything um I think they might have a little bit more insight maybe so I would uh my recommendation would be for um hermino I would agree with Lisa and and I did have a question just to make sure that we're all on the same page because I thought too that we were going to use the names that were there before at least I left that way I know there's a confusion as to how um because they weren't disqualified right we I know we never said before y okay um and I don't have the two in front here um the names um but if I remember we had um most of those of of business were um owners or managers of hotels correct they were managers M okay and so and this is just something I want to throw out I don't know if we can add this or not because we have a strong representation of local businesses on Corey Avenue um but the the effects of the H hurricane on the smaller local businesses like on Corey I think is very different than what has happened to the hotels in our city um and what it requires to have to evacuate hotels you know before a hurricane even approaches um and then I mean we all know like I mean I watch Donar Hotel every morning and you know they're still not operable um and all the hurdles that they're facing I know have to be very different than the ones that are facing uh Corey Avenue so I don't want to say like to add somebody else I know we're trying to minimize it but to there's two different types of businesses there's large businesses and smaller businesses um and probably in between as well um but but it is very different uh a hotel and what they're dealing with versus um small business so I I was just going to suggest if we had a representative from a hotel and a representative from Corey we would be meeting two very extreme types of of businesses on on this task force so so the objection to the two applicants before wasn't that they were from the hotel so it wasn't just happened to be right well it just happened to be no but the issue was they weren't even the owners they were the managers of the business rather than you know the person that's literally on the ground level operating that business who is either part of the community because they live here or part of the community because they operate their business here and so when the call went out for for additional you know for for actually people that are from the community you know whether it's whether they own the business or whether they live in the community and operate a business I think there was tons of opportunity for any of the small boutique hotels or any the heck if if any of the big hotel people wanted to show up and put their name in the had they had that opportunity we gave them an additional month to do so and yet for some reason none of them felt it was important enough and we have several of them who are very active in the community right they're at commission meetings all the time they're at you know the TRC meetings they're at here and here and here and and yet for some reason and and we get five for every other committee I don't know that we add one more and make it six and now all of a sudden for some reason the hotels get their own voice you know well I mean I would say the flip we gave an opportunity for people to put names in if not we would have decided at the last meeting with the businesses that did apply so and I understand about the ma the differences between an owner and a manager but it's actually the managers that are dealing with with the hurricane you know the the the the natural disaster it's not the owner of a hotel who's out here I mean I'm sure they're calling on the phone I'm not going to you know not say that they're not involved but the the foot the the person who was calling in my district was the manager from the Samora the manager from the Donar Hotel it was not the owners of the hotel they were the ones that had to know you know uh when can we come back in they were asking me how do we allow our staff staff they had issues on how do they get their staff onto the beaches because they don't have driver's license that have a local address so I I think they ran through many hurdles um because I remember having to deal with it and it now feels like a real long time ago but now that I'm starting to say this I mean I'm getting the flashbacks of the calls that I was receiving and the answers we couldn't give and and I know I was calling the city manager to help with some of the situations because there was a miscommunication between the sheriff's department and um who's at the bridge and who's allowing them to come in and well if you come around through Corey maybe somebody from the staff that recognizes you will let you in I mean they had we all had issues Corey I'm sure had their issues but I still do think it was very unique um and and then to your point then we wouldn't have opened it up again because the people who put their names in in the Hat for today's meeting didn't put their names in the Hat at the last me so I would say the same things did they not think it was not important back then so I'm just saying that because I I think there's a flip to that story too sure just I mean those two are there available we can nominate them so if you think one of them is more qualified than these individuals that's why we're having this conversation as you think I want to dismiss it I want to talk about it so let's you know but I don't think opening enough to add one more person not only that now you have six now you never have you can have a deadlock at any moment I mean it's just it's not it's not feasible uh to add one more spot just for special category um anyway I I I didn't see this recovery task force as being a voting task force making recommendations so just recommendations but I will point out that there was a I think a John Glascock that um had Hurricane Relief experience from our last go through I don't know where he worked but I do believe he also was a resident on the beach um so just bringing that up but I still I don't know that in this particular case having you you know I think that that um that there's a a clearly a huge benefit to the city in in information from anybody who has other disaster relief kind of experience but I think in this particular case what we're looking for is somebody who can say you know here's what happened here this time here's what our experience was with the with the policies and procedures we had in place for This Disaster and here's how it affected you know the portion of the community that I'm here to represent and so I think it's um you know I I think for for this particular case it's much more important that we have a business owner who's very actively involved in running a business in the city than to have somebody who has Hurricane Relief experience I I would disagree with that I would just say that they already have experience from being here on the beach and experience this this event in general and then bringing a different Insight on anything that they've experienced in other communities and whether that was good bad or indifferent that they can bring a different shed of light to us uh you know it's the same way in business when you can hire somebody and and they can bring extra knowledge to you just to enhance enhance the uh you know the the workplace or your procedures I just like the different perspective um of being able to having experience to before and experience it now well plus he he does run a business on Cory Avenue so and he was the president of Cabo before as well so I mean he's clearly actively involved I think you're getting kind of The Best of Both Worlds you have somebody who's in the community you have somebody who's actively involved in the business Community as well and then you also have somebody who brings in some disaster relief and particularly you know FEMA experience I mean that's that's huge because here's somebody who it from the ground floor both working in the disaster and being impacted by the disaster and the recovery and you know it's one of those things where you know you're somebody who's had to do it and now they see it personally what the impact looks like on the other side when it's done poorly because the businesses are getting the same SD letters as everybody else so I mean that's I I could I could go either way with with both of these I think you I'm leaning more towards somebody with you know who's got two things versus just you know one thing of being a business owner Who's involved and kind of certainly actively involved I mean I we saw him like the couple days right after the first hurricane he had a big barbecue in front of chill you know he brought you know a ton of people over you know food Burgers you know for everybody that was you know here some's actively involved in the community so certainly don't want to Discount that at all and Mr Mayor which gentleman's that that you are talking about so we're we're talking I think the only the two names have come up so far I the the one that did the barbecue oh her me you okay sorry no that was Ken Ken did the barbecue the gentleman with the FEMA experien is Herman yeah no I I knew that I just uh I wasn't at the barbecue so I was kind of curious it was it was just one of those impromptu things on on Facebook said neighbors anybody who's still in town and who needs a burger and a hot dog pleas stopped by okay and they had um couple of guys from one of the the he's the owner of chill yes sir yeah okay we got we got two names on the table it's we need to make a decision here well two that we're talking about there's three yes is there anybody else there's four there's two more there's Sherry and then there's also JoJo have JoJo's oh they're they're all awesome I mean there's not going to be a bad choice here and then Ivon so ivonne's been around for I'm not going to say how long ivonne's been around but I think they built Cory Avenue before she showed up at least that much but um again former president of cabba as well so again that there's not a yeah is there anybody here of these that want to speak by any chance do you want to hear anybody or is is anybody here one of the four okay I didn't see any of them but yeah I didn't I only saw Lisa but would anybody like to nominate anybody else besides those two if not then let's make a decision between uh between those two I I'll I'll say hermino um again because being um you know ped uh president I would hope um not just focusing on Corey Avenue because you know all three three here are all ex-presidents of of cabba um but to really hear what I said that there are a lot of other businesses and a lot of types of businesses and that that person um is representing all the businesses um and and how important that is so um for sure y yep so commissioner Marriott um is mostly supporting Ken is that correct yeah and I mean like I say I don't I don't think it's going to be a bad choice I I I I know him a little bit I don't know the other gentleman I'm I'm certain that they will all do a any of them would do a fantastic job and the mayor's kind of can go either way on the two and then the other two Commissioners are supporting well I'm I'm more inclined to the FEMA experience that's and that's not saying not a bad choice is that is that who you're talking yes I mean Ken would be an excellent choice if it wasn't for somebody who is also got Fe my experience well I'll make a I'll make a motion whenever you're ready sure uh I move to appoint the city manager or design the uh the building official or design the chair of the planning board the chair of the beach stewardship uh committee the chair of the historic preservation board Lisa Reich representing a wildlife environmental advocacy group and hermino Alando uh a St Pete Beach business owner and I know I probably butchered his name but uh that's the best I can do with it good I I second sorry C clerk you pleaseed call R commissioner R Niki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes mayor patrill yes motion carries thank you all right next we have item 6B a presentation by the freebie please state your name for the record good evening everybody uh Jason Spiegel uh managing partner at freebie uh so thank you guys for having me here tonight um I think this is important conversation and making sure that number one you as the commission and more importantly the the public and the residents have all the facts um about this service um you know we've been operating this now since 2019 um it's it's actually been a very very successful program um provides a lot of value to this community every St stakeholder in the community from your residents your visitors your workers your local businesses um everybody's been able to benefit from this and you know I've heard a little bit of uh misinformation over the last few weeks and my goal here today is to clarify everything um listen to you guys listen to any uh issues that you guys might have the public might have address those issues then hopefully be able to come together um to move this forward in a positive way that benefits this entire community so as a quick introduction um you know I'm very confident and very proud to say that this microtransit program is the probably the most successful program not of only here within the State of Florida but across the entire country and that metric is based on ridership customer feedback cost per Rider um these are all data metrics and if you look at Transportation at in in general when it comes to public transportation you will see that this is one of the most successful programs out there and you know despite this success I believe that there's a misconception of what this service is this service is a novelty these are golf carts driving people around for free when really this is the most Innovative new form of public transportation that is really um again Not Just Happening Here in St Pete Beach this is happening all across the world microtransit is replacing a lot of fixed routes that are very expensive to run um have low ridership poor quality of service and micr Transit has come in and played a role to again provide that high ridership better quality of service and added value to the entire community at a much lower cost than fixed route transportation there um so again it's a it's a very Equitable service um every stakeholder is benefiting from it um it's not just your Transit dependent which is typically who uses public transportation you're also having the choice riders that use the service here um that are going to spend money at local businesses moving around the community and more importantly making sure that they're leaving their car at home not causing additional traffic congestion pollution here um with on the beach each side so again public transportation that's what this is um this is not a novelty service this is not Uber this is not ride share this is the new form of public transportation that again is operating everywhere across the world um we operate 50 different Services here within the State of Florida and again this is one of the most successful but public transportation yes it's a cost and it's very expensive to operate um between the driver wages uh maintenance Insurance the vehicles all the compliance that has to go on it's not an inexpensive service to run it's very it's very expensive um but it's an investment and APTA which is the American public transit Association has come out with studies over the last year that every dollar that's invested in public transportation provides a $5 dollar in economic impact coming back to those communities there and this provides access to jobs for people um it provides economic growth it allows people to come visit businesses that they might have not have been able to uh to to visit without public Mobility it improved quality of life um it provides that Equity that again is very important across every Community there and one thing that I think it's very important is to understand the why why was this service implemented here within St Pete Beach um this wasn't freebie who came to the table and Lobby to have this service here this was a problem that residents down in the pag gril area um again when the PSTA trolley was operating um they thought that vehicle was too big they didn't want that vehicle to navigate those smaller streets um obviously there was not many people using those large trolleys that were just coming through the neighborhoods there um so in response to that um the city put out an R solicitation that was open to the to the uh to any business to apply for and that was in 20 uh 2019 uh we were awarded that contract um and also um I heard a lot of you know kind of conversation about this is an unfair contract Etc we didn't make the contract that contract was attached to that RFP as that solicitation went out there um so again those were terms that were predetermined by the city and again we were just awarded that contract and um when it comes to the funding this was an additional funds that was used to obviously pay for a brand new service there was no duplication whatsoever um the funding for this service came from the elimination of the PST PSTA trolley um that was costing a lot of money for the city that not many people were using there and again the city looked at hey is there a better way that we can move people around and again over these last 5 years I think this has proven to be a very successful way um to provide public transportation um so again we launched just in the pag gril area 2019 one vehicle um based on the success of that the the feedback the ridership in 2020 um it was extended to the county park there was additional trolley service eliminated and we expanded to a second car there um same thing happened in 2021 a third car was introduced um The Zone was extended up to 75th Avenue and then in 2022 there was a fourth vehicle added servicing the entire Community the entire Municipal boundary of uh St Pete Beach but again all this funding was reduction and PSTA service um which again if you know you looked at uh public transportation over the last few years especially operating fixed routes and trolleys the cost for that has just risen extreme like it's it's out of control where we've kept we've kept your cost your alley rate exactly the same since 2019 even with covid even with our driver wages uh we went ahead and paid them more we didn't charge you guys anything additional we kept it everything at status quo but again all the funding for this program has come from uh elimination of funding of the PSTA uh public transit service that used to operate here for years um so ridership again with every single one of these expansions we saw significant increase in ridership right the most important stat to look at is that even with every single one of these expansions your cost per Rider Contin to decrease year after year you look back in 2020 fiscal year 2020 your cost per rider was $86 you fast forward to this last fiscal year your cost per rider was $458 that's unheard of when it comes to providing a public transit especially a micr Transit service there we moved over 117,000 riders with four vehicles on this Beach uh we operated in other areas with five vehicles eight Vehicles 10 Vehicles not even doing this this even close to this type of Rider ship it's really tremendous the the effect that this has had on this um Community here and it's again it's all data driven this isn't me telling you this this is the numbers that are really showing that this has been extremely successful there it's gone from under 20,000 Riders over five years to over 117,000 Riders and it's because people value this service they depend on this service because it's their public it's public transportation and that's their way the means to get to work um to move around to get to the grocery store to get the doctor appointments Etc so you know that was all preh hurricane obviously we're post hurricane things change and if you look and you compare the the ridership from the last two years um November and December back in 2023 we moved almost 15,000 passengers a little bit under that um this past November and December we moved a little over 10,000 passengers 10,500 passengers yes there was a decrease of about 29% um but at the same time we also decreased the hours of operation that we were operating the service um previously we were going from 6:00 a.m. to midnight 7 days a week during this time and we're still operating under the schedule we're operating from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. um daily so again it's about a 24% reduction in hours of service uh with a 29% uh reduction in ridership there uh but historically uh November December they're always the uh lowest ridership months if you go back you know to 2020 to now those are always always the lowest uh ridership months of the of the year that starts to pick back up in January and then February March April May through July it just goes crazy we're moving 13 14,000 passengers uh monthly there and again while you know over these last few months it hasn't been you know the same type of volume and it's really not people you know using it as a leisurely service this has been a Lifeline for many of the residents here who have lost cars um who need to get to work um and it's again we're still moving significant ridership um billing right so you know again aside from driver pay our operational costs for the service remain consistent if we're operating or not we're still paying our vehicle lease that we bought vehicles for this service for the insurance doesn't go away the monthly cost when it comes to some of the technology within the vehicles many of our costs do not go away if this is operating or not um and again our contract is based on a set amount of minimum hours which uh gives you guys a very very good hourly rate but that's based on a minimum hours that we had uh contracted with you guys and again we're not operating all those hours I mean typically we would charge more on a cost per hour because again it's not spread out across all the the 84 hours we're supposed to be operating um but we haven't done that um despite that we've been building on an hourly basis um when we were shut down from October 1st to October 21st we only buildt for a minimal of you know just the vehicle and the insurance cost which cost about a couple thousand do not the 40 plus thousand that's the typical month Bill there and we've only been again billing on a per hour basis hours that have been worked um and you know again at the same time again many of our drivers or residents here um within the city we were proactive we continued to pay them through this shutdown of service and we have not obviously build you guys um for any of those costs whatsoever um for us it's all about how do we be a good Community partner how do we take care of our employees and how do we continue to go above and beyond um to make sure again we're providing more value to these communities outside of moving somebody from point A to point B there and again all the invoices have been attached to uh to your packets how do we reduce costs is there ways to reduce costs and there is and one of the big ways to do that is by selling advertising on these vehicles and it's something that we have recommended uh multiple times throughout the years and again it's been the direction of the commission to keep the vehicles as is branded for the city and foro that subsidy whatsoever but there is that opportunity and again on a very low end very conservative we can probably give back to you guys between 30 and $72,000 if not much more I mean we had Bush Gardens at the table last year who was willing to put $100,000 into the program which would have gave you guys $50,000 back um just for the summertime so there's a lot of opportunity to generate additional Revenue help lower the cost of the service um but again that's direction that you would have to provide that again has not been provided previously um there's also the ability to implement fairs right uh we have some Services where they're not free here paying $2 a rider a dollar a rider $5 to fill up a whole car that's up to you guys and again it can stay free for all the residents registered users you can charge uh you know non-registered users if that's tours whoever that might be but we can work together to figure out a fair structure that continues to also bring additional Revenue back to you guys to continue to lower that cost of service so the priority system this is something that Mr Mayor has been bringing up now for about a year and a half and it's not gone through deaf years we were working with City staff that who's who's no longer here we provided a lot of recommendations on how that could happen um and as Madam manager came on board here we re kicked off those conversations uh we've been working on this uh you know really hand inand since July U we've come up with a couple different uh you know ways that we think we can implement this that works best for you guys and again it would be up to your decision your direction on how you would want to see this operate here um the first one is a priority pickup for registered users and we say registered users because you know is a registered user is that residents only are you going to include workers like you do with the parking passes here um determining what that registered user is um again could be that priority and again it could work where no matter where you know no matter when they request a ride no matter if that vehicle is going to pick somebody else up they automatically jump to the top and they're going to be the next in line to be picked up um again some of the small challenges with that and again not major challenges but some things to consider is number one what is a registered user right we have to determine that um number two um you know a lot of that registered user similar to how um you do the parking passes there might be some staff time that would have to uh you know register that user through a portal we would give them super easy and simple um but again they would probably have to come here to City Hall um show their you know utility bill or whatever that might be and then to be able to get that flag on their account to be able to have uh that priority pickup there um and again if it's just limited to residents only which again absolutely doable um you have to consider the workers who are a really really big part of this program a really big part of the ridership here do they continue to get bumped down the line when obviously a priority resident user um jumps to the top there meaning that they're not getting the work on time they're not being able to rely on this public trans transportation system again just something to consider there um another option could be keeping the priority you know first come first serve how it operates today um but making it so that again a register user a resident pays nothing for the service and everybody else has to pay a fee uh $2 a person $3 $5 whatever we want to determine um as that fee um for somebody to have to use a service if they're not part of this community or they're not part of that registered user there um so again it's open up for discussion um on that specific um obviously item here but it's something that we can Implement it's very minimal cost to get that off the ground and we can have some up in something in running between 30 and 60 days um at um at your direction there so as we move forward and something I forgot to mention was that back in 2023 at the end um the commission directed us to add four additional vehicles to the fleet between February 1st and July 31st every year during Peak tour season it was an additional $166,000 this was supposed to happen last year um but the the vehicle manufactur had delays and we weren't able to get those Vehicles so um that $166,000 last year was saved we are recommending saving that again this year based on obviously the status of the community not as many tourists that might not be coming hopefully they do um you know over these next few months um but keeping the fleet at four vehicles saving that $166,000 and looking potentially at the next year to see all right are we back to status quo are we back to the the tourist levels that we need to be and then maybe implementing those four vehicles at that time there um but again our goal here today is to understand any concerns that you have address those concerns talk through any of those concerns um because we're committed to the long-term success success of this program and making sure we're always delivering you know a high level of execution providing value to every stakeholder in this community and making sure this is something that you guys can be very proud of so again my goal here today is to work hand inand with you guys answer any questions that you guys may have thank you Mr Mayor before we get into specifics of pricing and whether we want to keep it not keep it whatever can I ask ask a couple fundamental questions of this gentleman just to no I think the the first part we're going to do is ask any questions since he's here and available and then you know then we can do a discussion we can have I think the staff has additional uh answers that they provided uh and then we'll certainly want to hear from the community as well yeah so I yeah I I may have several questions as we move through the evening but I I just have a couple fundamental questions I'd like to ask he hearing available and so sir uh your um business model when you work in a community um does that business model um operate on a central dispatch um model or can you have a diversified dispatch when you say dispatch can you elaborate a little further well where your crew or your drivers meet and where the vehicles are kept one location to do that uh within a community is that your model so if you have a driver that's sick there's another driver that's easily available to replace him or can you work in multiple locations within one municipality um so I think I understand your question so obviously our our home base we like to keep that together in one spot um just obviously easier for you know when our our performance performance manager here that's uh managing the day-to-day with the drivers the staff Etc is able to obviously have those coachings um being able to talk about information Etc there um drivers call out yes we have a a big pool of drivers here all employee drivers that are able to come in obviously and jump into those spots whenever that does happen there but it's it's ideal to have everything in one location y so yes I absolutely understand that and that was the Genesis of my question and I I guess the issue with that is um freebie is kind of taking on a life of its own as a number of people in the community feel anyway and you had mentioned that uh you operate with four vehicles but pre storm there was typically seven to eight vehicles at the Warren Webster building uh and often times at least two of those Vehicles were full-time vehicles uh and that was at a bill rate of about 500,000 a year so if freebie were never to grow any bigger than what it was pre storm uh you need some type of a terminal that's what I'm going to call it a terminal a location where you can stage and charge let's just say seven vehicles of various sizes ideally sure and uh a centralized dispatch location um is there any place in this city that really that number of vehicles is appropriate particularly when repairs are being done on them and things of that nature yeah let me let me address both of those things so previously there you know again we have four contracted Vehicles the reason that we had seven sometimes eight Vehicles here was that those vehicles started to get to the end of those at the end of the life there the battery range was not acceptable for operating standards especially operating the entire municipality here so again to mitigate that we brought in extra vehicles at our cost um to make sure that again when a battery was going down they can come in and swap out without having again just put that vehicle on a on a charger only have four vehicles there and now you're down a vehicle in operation there so that was why we had more Vehicles we did replace those vehicles that brand new vehicles now much larger battery ranges brand new again no very minimal issues with these vehicles themselves um but the plan was to actually bring that home base here to City Hall and previous to the hurricane uh happening uh we had the approval for that uh we paid about 105,000 for plans for site plans um that we submitted to the city uh for approval to go through permitting but unfortunately the hurricane hit and we and again obviously things were in chaos afterwards and again we just haven't reconvened on that conversation but they were supposed to be here at City Hall and we were supposed to build out a whole new charging infrastructure here so had we not had the storms which we certainly all would have wished we hadn't have yep how many vehicles would have been at City Hall it would have been five four plus an additional okay and so what about repairs where would repairs been done so in the parking lot like it was being done at the if it's a minimal repair if it's a minimal repair yes for major repairs we take the vehicle off site so is a major repair when all the body parts are removed from a vehicle do you consider that a major or a minor repair I'm just curious that would be a major repair okay because that was happening at the the Warren Webster building I yeah I understand what you were referring to is one of our spare vehicles that we did start to take parts from and it looked like a skeleton there and you know we obviously cleaned all that up and where were you storing the spare parts for the vehicles at the Warren Webster building uh we had a section within the uh the building there that was designated for us the the baseball concession stand I believe I believe that's the right and where was the break room for your drivers it was in that building as well okay so your drivers had a key to the Warren Webster building and is that where they were going to take a break and to to get air conditioning and the like when they were on break or that's correct where was that happening they had yes they had that's where they were able to eat their lunch um take their break get out of the sun um Etc it was there okay so the reality is if you're operating at a half a million dollar size operation uh in this city nothing to do with any other City effectively you need some kind of a terminal would you not agree with that yeah a hub okay so if you got bigger you how would you ever get bigger if you want to maintain a centralized dispatch that was going to be here at City Hall and they had designated break room for us here we had all the legistics already ironed out on how that was going to work was to get it out of uh passag gr so the city's responsible to essentially provide the terminal um in within the contract yes um they were responsible for providing the parking and we were responsible for installing the charging stations but the city is responsible for the break rooms and the restrooms and the storage for the the maintenance repairs and those type things I wouldn't say fully um again we we work in in terms of a partnership and again these are obviously it's a city service um you know it's public transportation so that was the relationship that we had developed with uh the city here at the time and and just and I'm going to uh pass the comments to the rest of the commission although Mr may I may have more to come but um So based on your contract and based on the level of service pre-storm that you were doing that you do rely on the city to provide some type of a terminal for the things that we were just talking about based on this contract yes right and how in the world if because it is popular it is popular how in the world do you maintain the centralized dispatch model and you increase that four vehicles additional service vehicles that you've offered post storm to withdraw that part of the contract how do you do that I mean we we just don't have the facilities in this city to have that type of expansion for this service so how's that happen that was brought to us and again they told us that we can have eight Vehicles here during that time and we were no no that was the previous commission correct correct from commission and staff but yes that was the direction that was given to us to be able to expand to that um similar to all the expansions right that that wasn't us lobbying you guys or the commissioner or anybody that was staff and commission deciding that this is so popular this is the feedback we want to continue to expand this so my concern is the previous cons commission didn't consider and I don't quite honestly I don't think most of the residents have considered this that the reality is you need a terminal and we don't have an adequate terminal in this city to support certainly anything any bigger than what we've been doing the last two years um so Mr Mayor I just wanted to present that before I don't know where we're going with this um obviously we're all now concerned about budget and the like um but I think it's important that no matter what way we go we fully understand that at present level or pre-storm level or greater we don't have the facility ities to support more that well we really don't have the facility to support the level of uh service that was pre- storm so I think that needs to be part of our consideration as we move forward because while everybody loves it and we could probably easily double um the amount of freebie service in the town no matter who's paying for it this has nothing nothing to do with money logistically we don't have the terminal abilities to support a higher level of service than what was previously being provided and quite honestly we didn't have the level to support that so uh I may have further questions but thank you for allowing me to go first on that sir let me let me throw him a Lifeline um you are correct in in the sense that if we had to do more than five vehicles at at City Hall at one time it would not be manageable so a couple of items for consideration we also have a charging station at the at the library that's being used um I'm not sure if the Warren Webster charging stations would go away or if they would stay there um but the other thing is you know the vehicles don't all charge at the same time the only time they all charge at the same time is after midnight when they're all in the same location in that case if there's only four or five charging stations if you have eight Vehicles you know um so I'm not sure what the logistics of of that would be and I also don't think any of us are having a conversation about expanding the service um you know even even that additional uh increase during the season that was a 32 vote and that barely skated by by a hair for me voting in favor of it um so I'll take responsibility for that um so you know whether we maintain the inseason increase or whether we take his recommendation and not do it um I don't know that anyone's contemplating expanding the service I mean if anything we're looking at you know how can we you know uh how how can we pay for it in light of all the other things that we have going on and it's certainly is very popular it's it's not a question of do we do we think the community hates it I absolutely not that's not that's not the question here it's it's rather we got big bills and and to your point you know the you know where do we stage it if it gets any bigger I don't know where we would you know but then also not sure that we're having that conversation about do we go any bigger but it's certainly a good point so any other questions he's here and available um as as far as ridership um what is the percentage because I've heard before but what is the percentage of uh resident versus nonresident it varies by the season right so when you're in tourist season you're going to have a little bit more tourist action than you know November December where it's more residential so during tourist season which we've I guess kind of defined because the intent was to add four more Vehicles during February I guess February 1st through July 1st or 31st correct okay so in that 6mon period what was the the percentages don't quote me 100% but I think it was around 55 45 6040 um during that time more tourist than than right I think before you had said 6040 something along those lines there right and just you know I brought this up because you know it it's a fiscal responsibility issue here and and transparency so people know what's going on what they're paying for how much costs I was mistaken because I didn't know that the 166 that made it over the $700,000 Mark wasn't happening um that didn't happen um and I because of supply chain and from last year correct from last year but it was to be allocated as that I mean that's what the contract was and if we hadn't had a storm we would have been doing it as well we would have been starting in in February unless I'm assuming you have the vehicles that's correct that's correct so with that being said you know I I know the the residents you know it it's a bit you know they love it a lot of them don't want to pay for it um so I think you know from a fiscal responsibility standpoint we need to look at how we can you know if you're willing to partner with us how we can reduce the costs for the residents because they're getting and then the city's getting hit hard yeah absolutely um so that is that would be my take as far as being able to amend the contract um and and I'm a little confused contractually it was initial three-year it was an initial three-year and then with this expansion um obviously we had to purchase new vehicles so we made a very big significant investment um last year um to bring in these new vehicles so we invested an over $250,000 um into this program to get new vehicles and it was extended for two years okay well I think the other the the initial was three years and then you got a twoyear as well and then this would be the second of two years no this would no it was I think you might be right yeah 19 yeah so it was correct it was originally contract was originally written for three-year initial with two one-year extensions but you got two two-year extensions yeah so you doubled up on the EXT on the those one years and then yes added an additional two with the investment that we made bringing in all brand new vehicles and then so you got the two-year but we never got the we never got the extra Vehicles that's correct but we still did replace the fleet with new vehicles with that two-ear okay so we made the investment good to know um and as far as the advertising Revenue originally it was presented as I think $24,000 a vehicle $48,000 total because there was only two vehicles in the initial proposal yeah and again so are we looking at $224,000 a vehicle times four I don't want to guarantee it I wanted to obviously error on the on the lower side you know again but I I think this can generate more than that because we've had significant interest over the years it's just we've not been able to implement on that and then that advertising revenue is a split between you and and the city that's correct okay um okay just trying to figure financially you know where we can where we can make you know make this a great partnership a better partnership absolutely um you know I don't think the res want to see it go um the majority of them but it's it's a tough you know kind of tough to to to swallow for some people to be paying for a tourist's uber ride understood when they pay 80 when you know the residents pay 80% of the tax base here and then in tur season they're only getting six 40% of the service totally understand so you know I would agree with the fact that you know we need to look strongly at the prioritization of the residents first on this and I think that's been asked for for maybe over a year yes two years so is that something that can happen immediately between 30 and 60 days 30 and 60 days pretty immediate okay yeah um and then as far as fairs can there be a combination of residents being first prioritized and then um there being uh the fairs as well for for uh non-residents we can do anything we can do you just have to understand what the obviously the pros and cons of all that is but absolutely I mean we can do any of those in combin it's it's a tight time here and it's you know residents are rebuilding their homes and it's costing them money we've got residents that you know didn't have insurance yeah absolutely and so there's a lot of financial implications with the city and with the residents so you know I think it needs to be you know a win-win for everybody yeah no 100% 100% and again understand the Uber comment and again my goal is to just dispel that misconception is that previous to freebie the residents were paying for PSTA right this fixed Route Trolley that again I think we have sunrunner now too so I'm sorry we we got stuck with sunrunner too sunrunner as well so we have that I mean that does service a lot of the workers so you know that that is a big one and the other workers if they're residents they're they're going to come first on a priority system so the residents that work in the city and and want to use a service are not going to be you know falling back so that whole worker thing I would have to look at at a different light because that would be you know primarily a sunrunner issue and depending upon where they work and and the sunrunner does come go all the way down to county beach yeah yeah again whatever your direction is we're you know we have options and we can Implement one or the other a mix of both whatever you know makes sense for you guys okay great thank you so on the advertising in Revenue um is that something you all are currently doing in any other municipalities with the advertising or yeah we do it in probably 80% of municipalities and again it's it's a direction from that municipality so yes we have a whole team that again uh is dedicated to selling advertising making sure we're maximizing on that revenue for you guys and is the um uh uh you had mentioned Bush Gardens so you sell advertising both to to to businesses that are and are not in in St P Beach it would be you know I'm I'm sure all kinds of people would want to advertise sure it's it could be local it could be Regional it could be National um and then again you could put standards behind it hey um you know nothing objective no alcohol some communities have that obviously the alcohol clients play the most but um some don't want to have that which is fine right um but again you can go all local it's just the amount of Revenue you're able to generate is not the same as you would for a national brand that wants to come in and advertise here so there's kind of a balance there as well and is there and so um do you have I mean I I know you don't want to make any promises about advertising Revenue because that that can vary but you in in other municipalities where you do sell the advertising do you have any you know rough idea of you know like well you know once we started selling advertising that paid for 10% of the cost of the service or 40% of the cost of the service or you know is there is there an amount at which you just go well you know like there's no way we can sell advertising that pays for more than 25% of the service is there any kind of rough numbers can we've again depending on the community it's as low as 5% in other communities is up to 50% and it depends on the desirability of you know obviously the advertisers yep um and in between there okay I have um couple of a couple of questions my other questions are really for discussion with the commission but um and I did look at the the data that was sent on our packet um and even though going through that what I don't see that that comes back to me is the true exact number of individual residential homes that use freebie right is it the passenger usage the same passenger that has to go to work within our community right that same home you know what the percentage of homes you know of all the homes in our city how many homes in our city you freebie it's a hard metric to pull right it's but I know I have my name it it is possible because I I have an account right so I I have to put my address when I and have my app right when yeah sure you drop your PIN exactly 100% correct so we should be able to know how many homes actually use freebie in in St Pete Beach um second this and this is because I've used it um and have not been satisfied to be honest um p because the we time is terrible it's unreliable for me um and I've used it quite a few times to try to come to City Hall for commission meetings never again as a matter of fact commissioner molland had to take me home because I could not get a freebie ride back home um so it was very unreliable for me not to mention that I've ridden freebie several times um to go to um I know I met a resident one time at a hotel um you know to go you look I think it was a cup and I was doing some observations and then I wanted to get home I literally waited way too long I'm talking more than an hour because I was testing it and I saw freebie pass me and freebie pass me that I finally had to call my husband and say hey forget this I I want to get home um so and it's happened to me multiple times through multiple years not just in my time as commissioner I'm talking from for many many many times um my husband as a matter of fact too CU we've lost our far more than one time not just from these last two storms we unfortunately live in a neighborhood that floods so we've lost our vehicles and he needs to get to work and he has to go all the way to downtown believe me he rides his bike goes to Dolphin Village goes to county park rides the sunrunner because sunrunner is reliable Sun rer sunrunner comes at a at every 15 minutes I think it is or 20 whatever it is I mean it's there so we know we can get to work on time we know what time it takes he would never even take freebie to get to the dolphin Village cuz he wouldn't make it on time so I can't see reliability when I look at your data um I don't see satisfaction um from customers I don't know if you pull reports um you know I've been in queue and I've tested it I'll be on I'll St in Q St q and then I just get I honestly get frustrated and I said forget this I'm not going to I can't wait you know and whether I'm testing or not so I don't see that in the data I know what I talk to other residents um you know within my neighborhood who use it and and it's fun it's it's cute I would say right it's fun like I got my my uh family coming over I say hey let's go get an ice cream down in pass a grill let's ride the you know let's ride the freebie you know and we'll go and we'll do that just to be different and but not r that we'll be back faster home as a matter of fact we'll walk you know just because it's non reliable for me and I know I cannot be the only person in this city who feels the same way as far as reliability I've written it also um to pass my home street to have to drop off another employee going further than me because I know they're running late I'm not going to say no I said sure go drop them off first and then take me back um it it's just not reliable um and and that's my personal take but also with other people I've spoken to um and then I go back um what's the purpose why why did we get in this whole thing to start with um which was um to meet the need for the residents in pag Grill who were no longer going to receive PSTA trolley right so we started there I can't see how many people in P gr actually use this or Vena if you want to you know include v as part of it so again I don't know how many homes in Pastor Grill still use um freebie um and and then the rest will be discussion with us because I don't know the funding that we were using or what we claim we're using to pay for freebie because it's the funds that were used for PSTA are we required to have to use these funds for transportation or could These funds be used for anything else is there a requirement for pelis County um because we remov PSTA from pasor grill that we are required to provide microtransit for our city and if the answers are yes then obviously there's money that's already been allocated that we have to use for transportation um but I also believe that we need to be able to minimize this cost um and again I know this is going to be discussion amongst the commission here but I I would be in favor of reducing um this cost because again I I don't I almost don't have all the data to even be able to make a decision to know how many people actually use this that live here you know how many homes that rely on it is it the same because I can tell you I don't have hundreds of emails from people saying I love it I did get a lot of emails in support of it for this meeting um but it wasn't in the hundreds right so is it the same and and I can tell you it's less than 50 probably less than 20 emails is it the same 20 homes that are using it only are there more more homes in our city that rely on this service and and if you could answer that that' be great yeah you had an actual number no I mean first let me address first of all I apologize for any negative experience that you had reliability is something that we pride oursel on and again this is definitely one of the most reliable microtransit services that we offer the data packets that you have have a customer rating there out of five this is one of the highest it's over 4.95 out of five there also within that within your data packets that you get every single month it shows you the breakdown of rides by waiting time as well and it's very very far few in between that rides are waiting over even 30 minutes to be picked up there um majority of the rides are under 15 minutes um the average and again it's an average right there's times of the day where you might wait longer there's times of the day where you might wait less is about 10 11 sometimes 12 minutes there on average during this time right now it's about 78 minutes because obviously it's not not as many people out there um but reliability is something that again um I don't think you were at the last meeting but there was a lot of residents that came out here who are workers who depend on the service who came out here and support because this is what they rely on to get to their job every single day and if it was not reliable service they they wouldn't be able to use it they wouldn't be using it they'd be up here complaining about the service so again I would love to be able to look into what happened on those specific rides to give you a full explanation um maybe again we operate from 6:00 a.m. till midnight they're long hours of operation that doesn't mean there four cars on the road at every single one of those hours first thing in the morning there's only one car on the road to to accommodate a few of those workers that are getting to their jobs there so again I would I would really like to look into each one of those situations I can p provide you a full breakdown on the why of what potentially could have happened there let me before you finish with that thought in order for you to provide that information to me you would have to be able to capture when I was not picked up because I don't get a message saying hey Miss why um a survey you know I saw you dropped you know off of the request why was that sure were you picked up were you not picked up they do have that data they just didn't include it in this package because previously they've had the number of what I'm saying mayor is that I have never been asked that question once I've never been picked up but I'm saying when I ask for one right and I'm on my app and I request a ride and I wait and I wait and I wait they drop me because they actually can drop you off and they they then I add myself back up into the queue and I wait and I wait and I wait they drop me again and then when I give up I don't get a message back to ask me hey did you what I was saying is they have data that shows um here's how many were requested here here's how long they waited here's a number of people that quit waiting right or the number of completed rides versus incomplete rides there's also again you mentioned the Q the que that was an old system we used where you you requested and wait in a queue to get selected by a driver it's all automated now so as soon as you request you actually get a full ETA you know how many stops are in front of you um right off the bat so it's going to say 8 minutes 10 minutes it's going to say 20 minutes but at least at that time you're able to make that determination do I want to wait or do I not want to wait and you see very transparently how many stops and how many people are in front of you there um so again that was implemented I think back in maybe August so it's about uh you know four or five months now of that uh new system that's been out there well if you had a resident uh priority program you could immediately tell what the usage was for residents yeah exactly because they would be actually you tell exactly who used it how many times particularly it could really you know narrow that down quite a bit and I wish we had that two years ago because that would have we would have had an easy decision on knowing how the usage was sure for residents sure okay all right so um oh I I did have one more question do you have a daily schedule yes okay because I haven't seen that yet like I mean I knew it was we're now what uh 7 to 900 p.m. 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. yeah okay just to know what the vehicle schedule was within that time period I can provide the for you guys absolutely Okay so we've we've had the question about uh about ads so if we look at ad Revenue your your guesstimate was 35 to 75 is that what the number was on your presentation yeah I mean you know if you want to take uh so if so if we start working our way backwards at call it 550,000 a year let be optimistic 75,000 right so that brings us down to 475 so if we were to charge every nonresident $2 right that's roughly it's called 50% of the people so just just for your calculations a $2 Fair the the processing system takes about 40 cents of that of that initial so that's that's fine so it's about1 60 per let's call it per passenger okay and then how many people total uh last year was about 117,000 a little over okay so we had 117,000 people last year so we're going to assume that roughly half of them are visitors sure right so okay times a buck 60 so that's $93,000 $94,000 so we subtract that from $475 so that now leaves us at 380 okay so I'm just going to ask you to guess you're not going to like it um but roughly how many um nonresident but uh frequent users like employees would you think out of that number it's a guess it's it's it's it's a hard guess you're saying out of the non-residents that are actual workers right yeah so I'm I'm going to break it down into three categories because that's what did right so you say you've got residents yep and you've got habitual users who are genuinely workers sure right and then you have visitors whether they're day Trippers or whether they here for a week right and I think your heat map shows that because the two spots are County Park and passag Grill Beach right and so that's where they're going yep okay so out of that so now we're looking at maybe 30ish per 30% 30 30% maybe more I mean again it's it's a total guess so okay let's be generous and's call it 25 right okay so now it's 25% of 117,000 that's roughly 30,000 people 30,000 rides right I mean again we have some of the drivers here they could maybe tell you a little bit better in terms of you know workers vers terms of percentage there but it might be a little bit more than that because workers are definitely a big part of the ridership daily so so here's where I'm going with this question is if you um if you come across the South Bridge to the Don's are there's a toll booth right when you get off the interstate sure right if you live in the buildings immediately past the toll booth you don't pay anything if you live further down like us because we're habitual users but non-residents we pay 50 bucks a year right so rather than pay paying a buck 50 every time I cross the bridge I just pay $50 a year and I have to do the math whether I cross the bridge enough times to be worth of 50 bucks right so then the question is for and I'm not I don't want to Discount people that need the transit right but they also not residents contributing to the tax bases who pay for the service itself but rather they're using the service for free just like the visitors are without actually contributing to paying for the service so if we're Institute for example a $50 annual pass is that a possibility yeah okay so now we have an additional base of individuals right again I'm trying to figure out a way where we can have our cake and also eat most of it or at least a very large trck 50 that that could be something that the city collects when they're registering that person where there's no obviously um you know service fee taken out of that by the processor that could be a full $50 okay similar to the what we used to do with our um like the parking passes yeah exactly okay so we could have a registration so I'm just thinking out loud here right I haven't had you in front of me before this to have this conversation so I'm just thinking out loud here right okay so we could have a registered user database and we can have a visitor database the city could then segregate the registered user database into residents and non-residents but frequent users whether they're employees or whatever else they might be the city could collect whatever the number is $50 a person for an annual pass and that would then that would signal to your system do not charge this person an additional whether it's $2 or whether we decide to have a different number okay that's correct okay so I okay so now we're okay so now we're getting to not quite half okay bear might need to go up but but it's still $200,000 less than where we were okay so just to provide context the reason the commission previously myself included um was hesitant to go the advertising route is um some of them are just gosh daren't ugly and I I I appreciate but then again we were not in the financial situation that we are today and so today we can make different decisions from what we did two years ago um okay if we went is there a in your other cities that you're operating in is it a flat fee per user or is it a flat fee per ride requested it could be either or I mean we most of them are per user right so if it's you plus three others uh it's four people it's $8 is there a maximum you can make it a maximum you can max out at five you can max out at whatever you again we have the flexibility on the fair side to implement whatever direction that you want there so that there is that capability and that ability to have a Max so if somebody's coming with a full car and you only want to charge them five bucks you can do that okay what do you do you know in situations where somebody requests two people and three people show up and you're charging per person uh so it doesn't charge until they actually get it in the car so that the driver's you know obviously confirming the amount of people then it charges their card as soon as that ride is complete okay so they can put two if they come with three it's going to be three okay do they do other pickups along the way as well yeah I mean again it's the most important thing with micr Transit is to maximize ridership and minimize weight times right so pulling if you were just doing one to one one to one the weight times would be out of control and the ridership wouldn't be what it is so there is pooling of rides together and who on the advertising side of thing with the split was that part of the contract or was that a negotiated thing that the 5050 split um I don't think it's in our contract today but that's typically how we do it because we'll handle everything from A to Z if you said to me Hey listen we'll handle all the advertising sponsorships will do it you guys can keep a 100% of that but we have a lot of costs obviously for employees time Etc when it goes to going to sell commissions but if you wanted to take on that responsibility not an easy responsibility you can keep 100% of that okay just yeah ask the question sure okay all right any further questions for this gentleman I have one more um in types of I I saw um a resident not a resident from here a resident from the city of denan sent uh you know I want to keep it for our city but I I think they didn't realize that they're in dened and not St pink Beach but in denan you have a loop um service or had because I think I heard the commission switched but I guess I want to know how successful is it as a loop service vers you know um or eron why was it switch you like what what happened to cause the switch it's not even just an needen we've we've operated fixed route Loops in other communities um we've done both at the same time and just the the the ridership and the feedback was just hey this needs to operate on demand so for the first nine months in the we operated as a loop the decent ridership we piloted during the summer months when there's not as many tourists there the on demand into the residential neighborhoods and ridership skyrocketed so they just decided to eliminate the full loop and keep it as a full on demand service there but it's and that hasn't start it yet though there right because I I saw it on their website still has no it started it started um the the pilot started in um want to say September is and they have to update their website because I saw it yesterday so oh was it still say the loop on there the loop yeah okay um and I and I bring this up to the commission um to hear because um again thinking of what we had in the past you know we had a trolley that was going to pass a grill which is a loop basically um you know so I don't know if that could reduce costs or um it brings us back to where we were what what you know we started as a loop and pass a grill correct you were you weren't you weren't providing service to V then we added V then eventually it came to the Don csar neighborhood because I live in the Dawn and then it went to the county park so I do remember meaning that the the first original implementation of the service was a loop service and just pass a grill only right and again the feedback from the community was that they wanted a more on demand service cost-wise it it doesn't matter if it's on demand or it's fixed route right it's the biggest driver of your cost is how many hours that uh you know that vehicle is operating out there and the type of vehicle it is right you you go to a larger vehicle the cost Skyrocket um you know again the trolley type vehicle it's a special vehicle you need special licenses to drive and the cost for hour goes from what you guys are paying about 30 into the 60 70 $80 per hour um you keep them with the gem cars again same the same price but does the reliability get better if it's a loop you know because I think of it like sunrunner you know it's going to come around um every so whatever their minutes hour I forgot now my husband would know but whatever it is sure and again I apologize for you know your experiences but I I I wouldn't say that's the experience of the St Pete Beach freebie program um this is a very very reliable service it's one of our most reliable Services we operate 50 of them again you know we wouldn't continue to expand this type of all demand service if it wasn't reliable for the communities there so again maybe we talk offline I'd really like to understand a little bit further what happened on those situations so we can address those I think you two are talking apples and oranges because you're talking about reliability and I I would agree with you that it's reliable and you're talking about whether you're able to get picked up or not and I would agree with getting picked up is a challenge having experienced it many many times and having the same done the same test where I'm sitting there just for fun to see okay how long is it going to take because I wanted to know right um which is why the commission at that so so the the issue that we discovered at the time was was the number of users that request a service at that time sometimes if it's at 6:00 in the morning if it's more than two people that's one too many and sometimes if it's 10:00 on a Saturday night at Spring break God help you just walk right yeah and so that was the that was the issue that so you know I you're you're both right in in in in your own way which is why we decided to increase the service during those Peak times to reduce the weit time because one of the other data points you didn't have tonight was the actual weit time because it and it is also tied into okay if we waited this long then actually the drop off you know people just get tired of waiting um so the wait times here by by year I mean you can see back in 2020 um it's on your screens um it was about 7 and a half minutes and then this past year the average was about 11 uh in change but you said that that the system was different back then right you said it was just redone August right the way that it picks you up I think that's how you you yeah meaning that you're not you're not in a queue anymore so you're just getting that visibility as soon as you request a ride it's oh okay here's my ETA here's how many stops are in front of me there but that wasn't back in 20 you said 2020 right is that no but that was servicing a very very small area I mean we're we're obviously servicing all of St Pete Beach now it's it's it's you guys are a small municipality but it's a large area to service with only four vehicles and going back to the mayor's point there is that we're operating from 6:00 a.m. till midnight there's times of the day there's one two vehicles out there and just kind of think you know in terms of common sense if I to go drive around this community and pick people up how long would it take me and you know again that's when you get some of the longer wait time so we did make recommendations earlier on in the program to condense those hours to try to alleviate that but um the goal was to get those workers in the morning get those workers that you know obviously finish late to be able to get them to where they needed to go so they they kept the hours as is but again that could be another thing to look at is to kind of condense those hours a little bit further so you have more vehicles on the road at more times of the day now could there be a hybrid model like and and this is just me thinking because again trying to improve it for residents I know tourists use it we we whatever if it's a 640 split or whatever it is um but could you have a loop system and an on demand system and and I say that because you know again I test tested it going to hotels going to Hotel I sit in a weight but I would would figure people who are using it from a a hotel or our Gulf Boulevard strip right going from pass a grill all the way um to 75th Corey if they're going to the market that they're basically just doing that loop I don't think they're coming you know to trade WIS to come visit me at my house right and I don't think so they're going to go to the restaurants they're going to go to the beach they're going to go to the market um so if we ran a loop just for Gulf Boulevard and then for whatever two vehicles doing that and the rest are for the the resident's direct you know service um could it improved just an idea I think so wa this was an idea that the commission had considered previously uh there's a couple of challenges with it in fact if you go back to the slide Ryan so uh back one or forward one sorry right so what what you have here is your chart oh the Trap yeah there you go right so you look at it you have the so the first year we were one vehicle roughly 20,000 people right last year was one vehicle servicing 30,000 people now that was the loop right the 2020 we were just in pass the grill yeah but my point is look at the number of people per vehicle right so the same so the same vehicle is having to service 50% more people which is why your cost right per ride went down so what happens with the loop system is you know when you have the on demand service and you can see look there's three rides in front of you they're going to come and get you right the loop system we've got those hotspots and there's really only one hot spot they're all going to the to the county park so then what happens do we run a loop from from where do we run a loop from from Cory Avenue down to the county park we run a loop from the county park to that now we're taking 50% of vehicles off the road and then what happens they can only fit five people in there right what happens on a busy night there's only two of them and it's going to be they show up and they don't even bother stopping for you because they're already full they got their five people in there and they can't go on versus those people that would have been passed by by full freebie if it's on the man they can at least see okay great okay there's five people in front of me they can decide whether they want to wait or they don't want to wait I think he is 100% correct in that um if it's on demand you're going to get a higher number of ridership to me the only reason that makes any difference is because the cost to us is the same we're getting charged per the hour and so if we're getting charged per the hour per the vehicle then we might as well get as many people in there as possible and if the on demand gets as more riders for the same cost versus having a loop system even if it's and then the other vers the other really issue that we looked at with the loop system was you know Golf Boulevard is you know you know almost 5 miles from you know the top to the bottom right passive grill it's 5 and a half miles um from the Treasure Island Bridge all the way down to First Avenue so I wouldn't go that far no no but it doesn't go north of Sun R doesn't go north of 75th here right can just go from the park to P so but my point is simply this right you have off of that are 93 streets and some of them like mine is a mile off a Gulf Boulevard so if I wanted to take the freebie it's a 12-minute walk to Golf Boulevard from my house and then the same V delmare that's going to be even longer walk right 505th Avenue you know most of the ones in District 1 might be a 3 to 5 minute walk but most of the ones in District Two and Three could be a 20 minute walk if you're at the back end of B Vista trying to get to Golf Boulevard where they where the loop might pick you up and then you don't know if the freebie is full or if it's not full versus they can just come pick you up in front of your house at B Vista whenever they're you know writing available and respectfully what I'm saying is a hybrid I'm not saying you ride the I'm saying you call and they're going to come pick you up at your door the loop is running just for the tourists that are on cul Boulevard but those do I mean we don't know where they're going so now we would actually have to to Really make it work we would have to keep the four existing Vehicles we'd have to bring in two additional Vehicles test different areas in peak season and offseason see which one which Loop Works which Loop doesn't work what routes for the loop I mean I said on the PSTA board they we have dozens and dozens and dozens of routes and the amount of data that goes into determining which routes run what time and they connect where else and which ones are worth it which is it's absolutely monstrous and I don't think that we want to tackle that when the easiest system is just let it go on if we want to keep it Let It Go On Demand they've got a better interface now with the w than they had two years ago I'll give you credit for that you know it's it's much better I'm not sure I'm getting picked up any faster but at least I can see where I right um I'm just we've we've gone through these things before and and every time we looked at the loop it's like it just it works on a scale and even even in pelis it doesn't work that well you know one of the reasons that public transportation in Florida is so tough is because nobody wants to sit at 90° or 100 degrees and sit there waiting for the bus to show up and the PSTA has an app where you can see exactly where the bus is I mean you can see it and you can wait in your house and know it's a five minute walk and you're going to leave seven minutes before the bus and it's still hard to get Riders and I'm just it's it's really tough with loops and so I I would just caution against it um any further questions for the gentleman and then I think the audience has been waiting for a very long time thank you sir yeah anything else I'll come right back up and I can answer sounds good city clerk do we have any audience comments Greg Christopher great if you'll please state your name and address for the record hi um my name is Greg Christopher and um I'm lucky to live on 12th and passive grow away and first I just want to um I owe Denise an apology my phone rang in the middle of your presentation and my apologies I uh I thought it was on airplane own it's a new phone and uh apparently it's not so apologies there um so I I use the freebie about 12 times per month and I really depend on it to I still work my wife works in fact it's brought us down to a one car you know we lost the car and we don't really need the other car because of the freebie and we take the freebie to the sunrunner and and conduct business into St Petersburg sometimes a lot of times Leisure uh you know within city of St Pete Beach and also in in downtown C Pete so we really depend on the freebie and we really don't want to get a second car um I'd be willing to pay you know three5 doll a ride I'd be willing to pay that um I just want to make sure we're not left out in the cold and pass a grill we need some type of Transit whether it's the freebie or something else i' prefer it to be the freebie um the one thing I will say is you know obviously it's reliable for for for us my wife and I um we average between us about 12 rides per month when I say between it's probably more than that but it's quite a few so it is reliable and um commissioner res Niki and I know you didn't have that same reliability and I think it's just a matter of timing now I will say that you know maybe Jason am I allowed to ask Jason a question here you can ask you a question whether he'll answer with this new system if you wouldn't mind facing because we got to be able to pick you up on the mic Jason with the new system um I find that it's not nearly as efficient um I'm waiting longer and and uh other residents are as well um you know if somebody's in pass a grill and there's a ride needed to 75th Street um it's like the the freebie will just go from one point A to point B without calculating hey somebody else along the way could use a ride and so I'm just wondering now with the use of AI you would think the system would be able to you know integrate something some smarts with it instead of just point A to point B and forget about anybody else in between where you could maximize the ride so I'm just wondering Jason if you might I don't even know if it's appropriate right now but at some point I think that needs to be addressed because there's a lot of inefficiency with the new system versus the old system in my opinion they ders were able to stack things on their own and use their own brain to do things now they don't have any of that it's all predetermined and it's not efficient in my opinion thank you sir but that being said please don't forget us and pass the grill thank you need something I I do believe they have a feedback system on their app if you wanted to provide that feedback to them directly oh that's the does show thank you sir thank you Deborah shner okay de shner BGA Island St P Beach you know this was brought up primarily because our contract stated that we cannot cancel the contract or change it during the storm whoever wrote this contract in the past administration did a terrible terrible job so they can give us 120 days and say we're not going to do the freebie anymore we cannot we do not have that opportunity to even change it during the storm it's not in the contract so whoever wrote that contract really did a poor job it didn't work for us it work for the company and so you know that's disturbing I will say that we also have beat rids which has been around a very very long time and you usually obviously tip the driver but I was shocked to learn that they go all the way up to Clearwater I had no idea they went up that far my only experience with with the freeb I had to get to a meeting they picked me up late we got a few blocks I looked at my watch and I said would you mind taking me home I never really tried it again quite frankly and so I like it for the drunk drivers I prefer somebody leaving a bar use a freebie but somehow this contract needs to be changed so that when we have massive Devastation we have to limit I I don't even know anybody who use a freebie right after the hurricane and you know right now most neighborhoods avoid a res it's pretty quiet out there and it's pretty dark at times so we we need in my opinion the opportunity to change the contract so that it reflects a situation that's devastating that we shouldn't have to pay for it it is a lot of money when you consider what's going on with the rest of our city in the neglect of the past administration it's costing us a lot so you know maybe there can be some you know type of vision where we adjust it at different times or if you're going to go I remember everybody was against the advertising route I don't know how much that will actually bring in but you know perhaps we can look at that thank you thank you John kersman on way and also tomor times uh can you zoom in a lot I'm going to probably go too fast but you know we used to have maybe we still do uh Free Beach Ride Island Hopper where people would spend their money to rent that vehicle and then they work purely for tips to pay to to pay for that money you know to to to break even and then we jumped in and competed with them and said okay that's why we're not going to have them those drivers except tips and of course I don't get out of the car without tipping but we're you know we're sort of putting those guys out of business we used to have a lot of those big vehicles that could drive people around put those guys out of business and now we're doing doing this and then you know if you look at the history in the expansion read it um you know they've expanded but if you look at the writers ship data uh talking about the average wait time but really it's not how long you wait it's to to get in the vehicle it's also how long you wait to get out of the vehicle what people get upset about like I get upset about is the opposite about the other gentleman I don't want to stop because I got in the vehicle and then I had to stop at one hotel and actually backtrack the opposite direction I was going to go drop that person off to then go back on the direction I was going that's the worst you're you're on a local so tracking the delivery time is really important um and then post hurricane ridership as other people have talked about you know how much did our our rate go down uh that's really important and you know reducing costs I I think maybe we should charge but I think the rate we should charge is and it would solve everybody's problem let people buy uh a pack of of passes so maybe it's $4 or $3 for one ride but you could buy 10 rides for a certain price or 20 rides for other price and that way with by doing a quantity discount you're helping address the needs of your of your your workers or other people because the people who need a lot of rides will will you know maybe even pay the same price you know once you had 25 it's the same as 50 um you know in the year for the same ride um and that would help and then the other thing is um we've never really answered the question are we paying for the driver are we paying for the vehicle are you paying for when the vehicle is is is being charged why if we're being charged in our contract for the for the number of hours the vehicle is operating or you're paying for the number of hours the vehicle is is in those number of hours in the contract and we don't get a report that says the number of hours the vehicle was operating that day we should get a report that says vehicle number one vehicle number two vehicle number three vehicle number four it was on the road from this time to that time and provide the actual data and we're supposed to have street legal Vehicles we should specify that they are and it says in the contract we should have a real-time data portal we should have that so thank you very much let's go thank you sir Shannon cadi cetti I'm sorry if you please state your name and address for the record Shannon cetti 2240 East Vena delmare um I have to let you know I've been up here before I am a freebie driver just to acknowledge um I wanted to say something until the previous uh person spoke that is a very important part of my job to me is y'all I'm driving on Gul Boulevard at night and the amount of intoxicated people on Gul Boulevard is crazy I feel like the freebie does save the community um in safety which I don't really has really been addressed that much here tonight but I do feel like that's that's a very important part of our job um as far as your experience I'm sorry you did that out of experience I will tell you when we get in those cars even now those those rides light up and we go go go go go and um I think it's hard to understand but when you're free when you're driving and someone on third four people jump in your car on a Sunday and they want to go to shrimpies that's one driver that's out for about probably 14 minutes and then another driver gets another set of people so that's why the backup is there and the reason I think it's it's taking so long is because the demand is really there y'all and it's still there um I can give you just a fact from Sunday I worked I left early because I wanted to watch football on my schedule out I worked four hours I drove 128 people that day because we can see how many people we drive at the end of the day out of that 128 um a large majority of them as you know a lot of the resorts aren't open were people that have either lost their cars in the flood people that are going um to the grocery store tons of public runs um people that are going to pick up their cars from other places that are being repaired um and the workers the workers are still here I mean all the restaurants and pass a grill we're running to them constantly um the Zamora the Bon a um I mean I just think it's a very valuable service and we are doing the best we can and I mean we're going going to keep hustling and keep trying and I'd be happy if you guys have any other questions if you want to meet or something I'd be happy as a representative to come and kind of give you the load down on exactly what's going on because I feel like on the streets we kind of know so thank you thank you Dave green if you please state your name and address for the record Dave Green for Beach I'm not even sure where I want to begin my head is spinning from the numbers um as a as a business uh we've been established here since 2009 as the original freeb Drive zero cost of the city zero cost um you guys are TR I don't know how to say it because I appreciate all of you I really do you respond immediately to my emails calls I appreciate you trying to figure things out I don't know why the city is in the transportation business so there's multiple businesses not just myself that offer these services and the drivers work strictly on tips so those people are paying the drivers for the service up here trying to figure out how much of the guests are going to are you going into the taxi business now is it still going to be called freebie um I don't have any fancy uh charts or anything but we have some fun Vehicles large Vehicles we can take care of the tourist not a problem um if you want to know where your weight times are going and I take this more from a a residential point of view our we're looking for $25 million and I know you're trying to figure out how to make that freeb survive we're looking for $25 million our streets are still Flooding at high tide can we fix those because if our streets are flooding there's no sense of having an electric car come down to pick us up where are tax dollars going I love a good margarita at VIPs and Treasure Island just as much as the next person but if you're going to change the terms of the contract work out of the realm of the city take the tips I think it should go back out to um to the public I mean we have advertising dollars in place that we could guarant guarantee not a maybe not a guess we know what our advertising dollars are you're taking away that from us too they going to compete with us for that level too 90% of our drivers live eat and sleep on this beach I'm not going to go hungry these guys you're taking food off their tables and we pay a license fee to operate here if freebie cares and these drivers care and they care about their drivers obviously can they not come and operate in this business like everybody else why why do we need if they're going to charge people why does the city also have to fund it just some things to think about thanks for your time and thanks for helping us get back into our homes I know you're working hard at that Mr Mayor could I ask him one question certainly uh so Mr Green um what's the was the operation of your service we used to go 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. after the storm or 8:00 a.m. to 12 and 12 midnight If You Were Somehow incentivized or asked or whatever would you possibly uh expand those hours earlier um if there's some reason for you to do that I get up at 4:30 I'm good with that uh and how many vehicles do you have we were at 16 prior the storm we're down to 12 we lost four okay and but you operate pretty much the whole way up uh all the way to clear water is that right cover sa Beach Treasure Island and madira Beach okay so madira Beach is as far north as you go correct a lot of the hotel years have guests that want to go to John's Pass it's just and what about um like uh do you go in the Bayway like towards Maximo or any of those places or anything no but we will go over the bridge to accommodate the people that are just on the other side of the bridge okay and I I'm guessing I I thought I only had one question I Mr Mayor cut me off if you want I apologize but um so freebie originally was p for to get the big buses off passag gril create a loop service for pass gril that's been talked about over and over again I I'm guessing that that wouldn't work in your model to make some type of dedication to the city uh to be able to to provide a a service from whatever the hours freeb working the passag gr Loop now um is there any way that you'd be able would potentially offer that up to the city or make a commitment to the city that you'd be willing to pick up the pass girl Loop if I may just that would have to go out for a request we couldn't just hand them a contract so you know that these are the types of questions we would ask for the applicants at that time okay so maybe we just just looking for solution not not put either one of us in the position we don't want we all want our toilets to work this way let me say this way we would um that's fine sir be happy to thank you though and Mr Mayor thank you for indulging can I leave you with this seriously I would rather be able to flush our toilet and our home not fled right now I think that's a priority but I also realize you have to stop the bleeding where we're spending money that maybe we don't need to spend right now thank you sir all right thank you guys okay so if I may make a recommendation so we can move this along um we have nothing else on the agenda for tonight um so we have a contract right whether we like the contract or not I think that's not I think we can maybe have a conversation about coming back to the table and and and revisiting some of the items that um maybe are not as not not where we would want them I would think there should be an opportunity that if we have a catastrophic event that um you know we we can hit the pause button and I think that that's a significant oversight I do appreciate the fact that um you know they've reduced their hours they've reduced the cost but we still got charge for two weeks when they didn't operate I understand that they had fixed cost so do we right um and so in in the interest at the moment of having a contract that still has some time left on it um so you mentioned that to Institute a fair program would take how long 60 days 60 days okay so 60 days would put us right before Spring Break um wouldn't be wouldn't be a bad time to start a pilot program through the end of season which is end of July that says look um and and here is my thought process I would because have a program that provides it for continues to provide it free of charge for residents uh for workers and any other frequent users they could register for a I'm going to say a $50 annual pass or $50 every six Monon pass something uh something like that um and then for non resident visitors non-w workers I would charge them for example $3 a person um up to $10 maximum the reason I would say cap it at $10 is I mean at that point we're competing with it's not even competing at that point you're charging the same amount as Uber right or maybe we leave it at $3 and say look you could wait 15 minutes for freebie or you can take your chances with Uber for the sake same price if you got five people if you can find an Uber they well Uber XL is going to charge you more but whatever um but I would say at you at $3 now we're looking at reducing our cost um by another $45,000 so that puts us at $335,000 so that reduces um so that reduces our actual hard cost by by $200,000 um and just one other point to uh to answer a question you asked I don't think you ever got the answer um so when we had the PSTA trolley our annual outlay for that was $900,000 which is ridiculous okay and they also charged right so the trolley wasn't free it still to was it a dollar or $2 whatever they charged right so not only did everybody have to pay we also had to pay twice the amount of money that we pay now and we got a far inferior service and while I 100% sympathize with with Dave's position and I abhor When government gets into the business of competing with private Enterprise um I do recognize that we the way that we operate this is more like a public transport that is happens to be on demand but we're also not the only instance of a public transport that operates on demand PSTA for example if you ever check your Uber app there's an option for PSTA take the discount right um a lot of other cities operate you know for various reasons they operate things on demand whether it's for Mobility disability whether it's for um you know for senior citizens whether it's for for you know low ridership routes that just operate better on demand rather than the loop system and so that would be my proposals my proposal is let's start charging as quickly as possible let's have a pilot program to the end of uh to the end of season in July which actually brings this right to when we start doing well that's that's when we start finalizing our budget for next year as well and then we can look at actual hard hard numbers in St Pete Beach and say look it operated for 90 days and we offset 10% of cost we offset 90% of cost or we offset 50% of cost right now we can make a real decision on whether you know again part of it is we do have a contract with them right so whether you know I'm not sure I don't remember exactly what our terms are for terminating but it's longer it's longer than 60 days Yes 120 120 yeah so it's it's longer than 60 days so we could have the whole thing implemented in in 60 days and I I would be I mean I I would be optimistic that we can get a very large chunk of this of this reduced and that that to me is you know providing service that the community clearly so again I like you know you you've heard me say this often enough times right we we are representative government it's our responsibility here to represent our constituents and often times what they want may not necessarily be what I want but that's not why I got put here to impose my will but rather to listen to what they said and I do appreciate rece whether you all believe it or not I do appreciate receiving a 100 emails on the same issue because that does give me a very clear pulse of where the community is on a specific issue right and in instances where I've received 500 emails for something and five against that tells me what the community wants and in this scenario I've received an overwhelming number of emails from residents from employees you know that work here and support of the service versus three that I can think off the top of my head against it okay and so to me that tells us to me that tells me that that's what the community wants whether I appreciate the long wait times whether I appreciate having to ask eight times if we can have a resident uh you know priority system and I do understand and I'm not you're not hear me bring it up tonight because I do understand the difference if we charge for it it's going to put us in a position where we may not get the revenue that we want if we have that priority system and so I'm willing to have a tradeoff I'm willing to lower the cost for our residents in a different way give them priority by charging the people that cause you know the additional demand more and fact charging them well more because we're not charging our residents anything at all so that would be my proposal is let's Institute a fair system as quickly as possible let's run the test program through the end of season and see what the numbers look like and then we can make you know a more informed decision based on actual data right at the same time that we have our budget and we can plan better for 2026 so Mr Mayor your proposal does that uh include the increased $166,000 of uh additional service that they had offered to um go ahead and let the city out of that portion of the contract are you proposing that no I I would I would be I don't think that we need the additional increase if if I had to so you're calling the status quo as it is today I would I would leave it as is if they've if they're willing to foro that portion of their contract and say look we don't we're not going to do the the double fold increase right that's going to give the other businesses that would have you know been impacted if the freebie did expand it would give them opportunity do gobble up market share if they so choose to that's going to reduce our expenses by $165,000 $166,000 right if we Institute um advertising and if we Institute a fair system right between those two or three items you know I'd like to see what the real numbers look like for our city right and I you know I I do believe that it's more than 50% of riders who are non-residents if that is the case you know if we're looking at 450 on average per Rider and we can charge $3 right that's going to offset the cost by about 40% so what would we be so essentially we're doing a pilot while we kick the can down the road so when would we revisit this in a serious way well we are revisiting in the serious way today I'm I'm saying oh no I understand that today no based on what you're proposing uh when is the contract expire our latest one takes us out through 9:30 2026 okay so we have a year and a half left on it year and eight months okay um we can always I would have the next serious conversation at the end of July when they come in with data and says okay here's what your writers ship numbers look like right here's how many visitors we had versus here's how many residents we had versus how many here's how many workers we had that we charged uh and I actually this this one should go back to the city manager um because it would have to be your staff that implements the the flat annual fee is that something that you'd be so the reason I'm asking is because they're charging a 20% service charge you know and $50 that's a $10 service charge can we offset that is it going to cost us more than $10 to process that in house if I had to estimate I'd say probably yes right now I have one staff member who spends most of December fulltime processing parking permits for residents you're putting that burden on the team right now in the time when they I would literally have to move her off of permits okay to do this so you just need to know the no that's that's why that's we're asking like we don't want to make decisions that then you know it's going to be impossible to follow through them and I know in discussions with freebie they we do have to give them the data okay so they can't get the data without City staff okay is there is there a way for the freebie to charge whether it's a like some kind of annual fee for frequent users or asking for us to do that I'm asking if that's a possibility if that's something that you can include into your 60-day plan so not the resident verification the frequent user verification employees basically well and I guess from your vision what would constitute that you know what what would they provide a pay stub or like what would they what would they do for nothing any anyone that wants to pay a flat annual fee so it can be anybody yes I don't think that we need to go too deep on this one right I just I mean again yes it's going to take time obviously I have to assign somebody to do that uh gotta kind of build that that little system wouldn't be too much of a burden we can probably do it but there would be a a nominal cost for it okay and I can get back with the manager and let her know exactly what that would be after I do a deep dive on it okay and then when is the fee study coming back the full City fee study we're tracking to probably June July okay so not before then okay so thank you um okay so if then we can delegate the annual flat fee mayor before we continue can we all have a discussion too I'm not I'm giving you my proposal okay well I'm not in agreement so I I know we're putting a lot of work right now on another staff I'm I'm no I'm trying to ask the staff whether what I'm asking for is feasible or not okay right so that's really the conversation we're having as soon as somebody would like to make a motion to extend this meeting meting I'll make a motion to extend the meeting to midnight thank you second city clerk if you please do a r call vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner res Niki mayor patrola yes motion carries thank you okay so trying to flush out what's possible before I make the proposal right okay so we can delegate that and a fee and then we can okay so that's that's essentially my proposal is that we use the advertising that's available that we charge a user fee to any non-resident um we make an option for employees or whoever wants to pay for annual flat fee or whether it's 50 bucks every 6 months or 50 bucks a year whatever the number we want to come up with um and I think somewhere around $3 a person 250 a person something like that that's my proposal is a 20% charge for for running the $3 through you it's not through us it's through stripe okay through stripe what what is the percentage rate on that off at $3 what is what are we% sure I just know on a $2 we it Nets about1 60 okay but if it's like a four if it's a four or $5 Fair it doesn't it's not equal like it's it's less 20% correct it's less yeah okay I factored it into the actual net numbers y mayor can I can I give one proposal or an idea sure um I I'm not in favor in throwing in more more into this equation right because 2026 is is even though it sounds far it's not really far right we're in 2025 already um and there's still things um I'm still hearing people say they they're not 100% satisfied weight times having to take routes that take you one place and the other way so I would want freebie to be hearing what we're saying about where we need to improve keep everything the same if we were to keep it and if we were to reduce the price or um be able to rec cover money somehow to so that the overall cost is less to the city would be to focus on the ad portion because the city is out of out of that equation right we're not putting the burden on City staff to run the ad business we're putting that on freebie I mean I know he mentioned it could be one or both either we do it or they do it whatever may be if we're looking to reduce the costs because either we're reducing to reduce the cost or eliminate eliminate right 120-day notice and it's done right or let's really measure the value of this as is because if we throw in an equation of money now when we revisit this what where are we going to get the data from three a pilot of three months and then you know do we extend it for another year and then we're going to keep getting in this why are we in the business of Transportation I 100% agree with Mr Green that's not what we should be doing whether PSTA is having a hard time or not that's PSTA they are in the business of Transportation whether it's run by pellis county or whoever it may be I want to know why we got into this and I heard what you said did cost more but do we have to continue paying is that 400,000 that's allocated for this required to be used for transportation or could be used somewhere else if it's required for transportation then yes keep freebie because we are required to have to do it but let's reduce the cost so what is your proposal let if we want to reduce costs let them run the the ad okay so we're going to reduce it by 75 grand what does it get maybe we're not sure it depends he says it's different for a national say you mentioned Bush Gardens they would willing to pay $100,000 yeah but we only get a 50% split off of that so it's only 50,000 was that the so 50,000 so that's one but you would have multiple other um whether local or maybe a potential other I mean I'm not I'm not going to run the business you for I'm saying it could be 90 it could be 100 it might be 10,000 we don't know we haven't done this we're throwing again something else into the equation that's that's why the proposal for a pilot program let's run it for 90 well what it ends up being 120 days during season the busiest time of the year when we have the most tourists here it's going to give us some excellent data so I'd like to hear a counter proposal your proposal right now as I hear it is try to get the dollars for the advertising and don't charge anyone anything right because how are you going to prove they're not a resident I mean are they how are they going to know that they're a worker I mean if they're not running it through the city how we've discussed this before I mean are they looking at their driver's license like how are you going to know who to charge we you know we're we're talking we're trying to talk we're talking about fixing a problem as simple as identifying where somebody lives and where they're resident that shouldn't be that complicated of an issue I'm not saying it isn't going to take time it isn't going to take some resources but it doesn't it's not the insurmountable thing that everybody seems to make it out I got my parking pass renewed this past week I uploaded a picture of my driver's license to the website that or you can upload a utility bill or whatever it is to prove that you're a resident it could be that simple hey you want to be part of the freebie database and we push that data once a month out it just literally goes into a I could code it in a Google doc and I don't know anything about coding in about three minutes where I just have everybody filled out and it goes into Google spreadsheet and then once a month somebody verifies it against the tax roles or against the uploaded picture of the driver license and then that gets sent to freebie once a month and then for the residents you just know hey this only gets updated on the 1st so if you sign up on the 15th it's going to be two weeks of not being in a database sorry right and that way we're using one or two hours of Staff time a month rather than some kind of complicated system I mean we already have a system in place for this right whoever cell phone that is okay I'm looking for looking for Solutions right you don't like my proposal make a counter proposal if your proposal is to fire them make that proposal if your proposal is to you know only charge only only get advertising dollars and we're leaving 200 Grand on the table why would we do that I think we need to step up and get everything we can reduce the cost do it as a pilot program but i' I'd up the rate from three three bucks to 350 at least get some of that service charge back because the amount of rers ship the 117 you're basing figures on it's not going to be that this year I think you got to strike the balance between are you going to get people or are you just going to basically get nobody and I think again is I don't think government should be in the business of competing with private business but you do have to make the consideration since it's already here you know you end up okay do you take Uber do you take do you take this at at some point it just becomes more liable to take Uber mhm right for the eight bucks to go from passor Grill to Publix you know um if it's one person it makes sense to take the free and if it's two people you're thinking i' like the AC yeah so well my proposal would be that we reinstitute assuming they agree to it the loop service and pass a grill and we terminate the rest of the agreement if you're asking for proposals that's my proposal I realize that I'm probably uh uh The Lone Ranger on that here but uh you know that's what it started out to be and then it took on a life of its own like many government programs do and uh you know based on the circumstances I mean we can't leave um P grill with no service and I don't think anybody would would uh want PSTA back in there about district one where do we leave district one district one didn't have freebie to begin with right yeah but they we're going to leave them without any service they don't have any sunrunner at all they have the trolley runs hourly well I'm just no no I'm just I'm saying if we're are we going to single out no I'm just that's fine I'm saying are we going to single out Pastor Grill as special they get they get no Pastor Grill is not special it's just that there's no bus service down there now if if if anybody here thinks that it's a good idea to send the buses back through passor Grill um with all the smell and noise and all that um you know I I've had one person that's ever said to me that they thought that was good down there um and no pass Grill isn't special but um it does generate 74% of the parking revenue for the CI so um and I think part of of that the Ambiance and people like to go down there it's not cuz I live down there that I'm I'm saying that the bottom line is when this started it started in passag gril for an intended purpose to get those buses off um passag gril way and Gulfway and create a means for people from there to to to get up town and people from Uptown to get down there um I realize I'm likely in the minority but um um I you know you wanted to know what a recommendation from all of us that's my recommendation okay and I and I appreciate that I'm I'm simply trying to talk to your to your recommendation the same way so because the trolley is gone District 3 also no longer has bus service right so the sunrunner stops at the county park by Publix so from there to the Don CeSar go to the Don CeSar by the way which bus there there's a County bus that stops in front of the D Drops around through Casablanca and goes over the Bayway that's twice in the morning twice in the afternoon for the employees that doesn't run all day long no so for our so for our residents at if somebody wanted to go to Publix at 2 o'cl in the afternoon from you know Vina delmare they couldn't or from your neighborhood and Don CeSar they couldn't because there is no bus service there because we got rid of that bus service when we took on the when we took on the freebie and the Sun Run well there still is U there still is Uber sure again I'm simply saying so why I'm simply saying why should we leave the freebie in Pastor Grill not in District 3 not in district one so then the only ones that get bus service are the two of us in District Two right and everybody well and and you in District Four so well I've never written on freeby so uh you know I I can't really speak to that I just what I hear from the people I think there's a greater principle at work here right and and while I appreciate you bringing up the conversation because of fiscal responsibility and while I sympathize with your not most pleasant experience with freebie which I've shared on more than one occasion probably at least a dozen occasions and so I do agree with you as well I do bring it back to at the end of the day our residents are telling us what they would like to see from this government if we have anyone responsibility as Representatives it is to represent and so while you know to me take it or leave it I can pay for Uber it's not a problem but if my residents are telling us hey keep it and figure out a way to cut the cost then that's my responsibility is to listen to my residents to listen to my constituents because at the end of the day it's not about what I want here what I like but what what does the community tell us that they want that should be the overriding principle I'm not just bloviating here I really do believe that and so for this instance while I have the same reservations that you do with the freebie to me if the community wants it and they want to put up with that if they want to put up with the long wait times okay let them let them flood his inbox with complaints about the way time that's fine but at the end of the day I think we have an opportunity here to give the residents what they want and then put some of the cost on the people that cause the additional demand and then let them choose if they want to pay for it or not and if they choose not to pay for it we know then we get priority from our for our residents well Mr Mayor I I will absolutely say if we're going to keep freebie I I am all for um you know the funding alternatives um but once again you wanted to know what our preference was I told you what my preference was I appreciate that yeah um so and we have to remember there's a lot of people out there who do want to eliminate it so there there is both you know and and again some of the emails we got were not residents okay we don't have verification they actually live here I had three that were from theen Beach because I look it so but we have had residents say the same we shouldn't be spending this money now in this time I got those same three emails and I don't discount them at all but I have 100 emails in favor and to me again at the end of the day when possible whenever possible and we've made I've made plenty of decisions here that were not what I would have chosen but we had a cup just a a year and a half ago with a very unpopular establishment or I told them I wouldn't have given them the cup but the residents all showed up and said you know what give it to them I said okay and they've been dealing with that for a year and a half but that's what they asked for and it's my responsibility to give to represent the best as I can so you all make your decisions and if you think that your decision best represents your constituents then by all means that's I'm not going to challenge that I'm not going to challenge your your your personal beliefs if that's if you think that's how you serve the community best I I would agree that that the the response was more on the on the freebie side um but I do agree we need to definitely take care of our our maintenance so so to me the happy not the happiest solution there's no happy right now um but uh the solution to me would be to go ahead and be able to enact a charge a fee do a fee let's agree on a fee get the advertising do it as a pilot program see it as see it out we still have a six Monon cancellation I mean 120-day cancellation so that's still if we don't like what we see we have that opportunity to do that I'm still not happy about the contract how I went from two one years to to two years um and how that changed because that was not the initial contract at all and I still want to see a schedule to know what the hours are I I don't like seeing the billing hours not broken down by car by day um I it's it's very hard to from accounting standpoint to see what we're getting you know what we're getting charged I mean it's just a lumps some number um so I have so if if I if I may this one I'm going to put back on you okay because at the last because at the last commission meeting and so I'm going to just repeat what I said the last commission meeting if you have questions for the freebie email them to the city clerk or to the city manager so that we can present those questions to the freebie I'm going to ask them to come back in 60 days or sooner schedule that however youall want send them the questions so that if you want specific data and Reporting so that they can have that I did ask for that I did ask for dat we didn't get that data no and the CNF report here I'll get that to you tomorrow okay and it's not here okay so I will make a motion that we Institute a fair program for the freeb in the amount of $3 per person um with exemptions for residents and with the option of a $50 flat rate per year for frequent users to be effective within 60 days and mayor that's being run by freebie yes we will provide the data on the residents anybody that's not a resident can pay 50 bucks to be on the annual plan everybody else pays $3 per person uh and as part of that sorry I I'll amend the motion to also include the uh to allow the freebie to start soliciting advertisements uh advertising customers for the freebies any re-evaluation uh period included in that motion Mr Mayor I say the commission just well no commission we can revalid any point right but I would say I I would ask the city manager to just put on our schedule for end of July review you know to have a conversation with freebie and bring us the data for our last meeting in July our first meeting in in August whichever one Falls closest to the budget meeting so that we can use those use that data for the budget if we don't like we can what we see we you know can can do the termination we can turn around and do another request for bid if see if Mr Green's willing to put something out there as well I think for now that's probably as good as we're going to get I'm not I'm not a big fan of government being in the in the private Enterprise world at all um but but currently we are and uh uh and we have residents who have come to count on the service um and like anything that you give away for free of course there's big demand for it um people would want as much of it as we want to give them because that's what happens when things are free um but I think if we if we keep this the status quo of the service try to minimize our costs by charging um if it were up to me I would just charge everybody $2 a ride and eliminate any burden on City staff at all of having to manage this at this time um but if you know if if if we have to do it that way that's how we can do it and then I think we need to be very very strongly considering putting it back out to bid at the time that the contract contract expires for for a variety of options including probably going back to just some kind of van or trolley service that goes from the county park to bassil which was the initial intent before things got a little wonky I'd still wish that we would put a hard re-evaluation date on the mocean but you can you can always amend the motion so far it has not received a second so there's nothing to amend I understand that but I I didn't write down everything you said so I heard the motion that the request was to bring it back the end of the last meeting in July or the first meeting in August yeah that's right whichever is closest to the budget meeting yeah sure I'm I'm just saying I'm not just I'm saying administratively right this does not have to be the motion just so that it coincides with that so that it's not I hate to have it like two weeks after the budget meeting Mrs robelli can can you say or would you know you might not have the exact answer but how much how many hours would this take for a staff to have to be providing the data which could change right we've got homes being sold homes being you know residence changing it's fluid it's not always the same um it could change dayt day how what type of burden is this on staff so when we talked to freebie about it our proposal was that they get the we're not basically it's going to have to be resident initiated to get on the list we're not going to beg people to come in and and promote it and so the first time they'll find out is when they get charged it'll be on our website with instructions but it's going to be in our parking permit process so they'll be together that gets downloaded it gets sent to freebie we talked about once a month that's it that's the only time they're going to so there is going to be a Lo lag time for residents if you know maybe they came on the first but we don't distribute the date until the 30th they pay the the reality is we're adding 11 months of data transfer I don't know how many hours that is but we're going to send you data and then you have the deal wasn't on your end um and then we're going to have to deal with the complaints arguably because people are going to be upset that you know why am I getting charged for free being we have to explain it to them until they get used to the new system I would say you make this meeting mandatory watching before they get to complain doesn't always work that way um but that was the original plan to make it as easy as possible yeah for there's been some of that discussion and I guess this is a question for City attorney um this is a change in the contract though because we're adding something different because we're talking about data okay the exchange of of personal information to another company does that need to be confidentiality you know there is any we can look into that as we do the negotiation with them I'm thinking there might be something as simple as check checking the driver's license when you're on the ride I don't know why that would or wouldn't work it may not capture everybody I know when when you do the Free Ride software you have to fill in your zip code and so you know I put my home zip code in I didn't put my work zip code in but they could check and verify that and and then there's a button on the Free Ride app where you pay well I'm talking about the exchange of data from the city to freebie not not the use of our app I when I it's the app that freebie does I'm saying maybe we can get it so that City's out of it completely oh got the city the free ride just checks your checks your license if you don't have a zip code from here then you get charged as another may not pick up snowbirds things like that I'm not sure what the the parking permit process is do they come in and they have to like fill out something and and hand it in to somebody their identification we can build literally a simple one page portal when they're doing that where the person just puts in their first name last name email and it goes right into our system right there live like it could be as simple and easy as that so we're not taking your information and that's just coming straight into our system and that way it's initiated by the resident it's not the city providing right the city's confirming that this is an actual resident and just like they're getting their parking pass boom they have this little portal first name last name email and it sends off to us that's it and it goes right into our system register like register they register with yeah it's like it's yeah essentially registering in a way I just don't want it to be extra work on City staff I mean that's just that's it's a bad time it's just a bad time it's going to be extra it's going to it's going to be many right I mean commissioner Marriott's right with better I less work is just doing a flat right for everybody unfortunately and then it really you know freebi is not free for anybody there's freebies on the app that's why we're freeb it's not because of the Free Ride free discounts local businesses get free advertising just yeah yes um okay that that would probably be the easiest way for you guys I mean yeah a flat rate for everyone would be zero work for staff it would be all on freeb because they would just program their Fair yeah and that's how the app would run yeah the bad thing is then you well it you've got residents paying twice the ones that use it yes so that doesn't help either okay so going once going twice is there a second I'll second okay is there an amend it city manager can I reread the motion please so free of charge for residents you can re I didn't hear this taken off the table you can register for an annual pass for $50 anyone can if you're not any either of those categories you would be charged $3 per person with a Max $10 per ride no there's no Max no Max anymore okay it was not in the motion no I'm advertising can I I can read how I typed it if you don't mind sure mayor patr move to start a fair program to charge $3 per person with exemptions for no charge of residents and an option for a $50 flat rate per year for registered frequent users to be effective in 60 days to be run by freebie and to allow freebie to solicit for advertisement customers one question so the only challenge of charging for $50 for a year is if you do this for 90 days and then you want to roll that back that's going to cause a lot of issues with all those people that paid $50 okay so maybe you do that after the 90 days you collect this data during the 90 days and then everybody pays three bucks that's not a resident correct okay and that should not for most people that shouldn't add up to more than 50 bucks right okay and we are taking off the table of the um extra four vehicles during the yeah we're so we're that was not part of the motion but that was part of their proposal is to not and that is still on the T yep okay just want to make sure all right city clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Marriott no commissioner Robinson yes commissioner is Nikki no vice mayor mahand no mayor patrilla yes motion fails two to three okay contract remains as is seems to be a better outcome okay next item I have a proposal for the applicant City attorney if I may applicant with your Indulgence I apologize it's been an extremely long evening already um and as you already heard from the commission we are committed to be here as long as necessary uh so we're happy to hear you um and I would extend to you an invitation for us to reschedule to a date certain that is not a regularly scheduled commission meeting the next one being the 28th city clerk what is our minimum requirement for noticing please um I need to notice well you wouldn't need to R notice it in the newspaper because you can make a motion to designate date time certain specific okay um but we would need to notice it at a minimum of 72 hours publicly as an IND agenda posted and that type of noticing okay option two which if you're open to that conversation we can have a conversation with the commissioner see what the next available date for everyone is so where the only item on the agenda is is your item option two is we can start this right now we can go to a a certain amount of time and then if we run out of time and we run out of energy we still reschedule and we would not have to notice it in that case correct that's correct yes okay so I'm just trying to give you options I I appreciate your patience and I also want to make sure that you get a fully attended fresh commission we appreciate that mayor I think in in light of the delays that already had occurred and because of the hurricane and the fall we would like to go ahead and get moving tonight I know you all had a preview of this a few weeks ago so hopefully um since this is the second time you've seen this application and the second time you've seen the conditional use on this property hopefully we can be efficient in our time tonight and keep moving forward so okay thank you sure I'm going to ask for a recess of 8 minutes to 10:35 Sharp e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e next item is action item 6 C public hearing of resolution 2024-25 and ordinance 20247 as it will be one item as a whole uh regardless I would need two motions one specifically in regard to the resolution and one specifically in regard to the ordinance after I read both the title blocks into the record um you can go down the line mayor can direct that on exp parte Communications to be identified into the record regarding this project and then after that I will stand and swear in all of those who are planning to address uh all of you this evening resolution 20248 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of St Pete Beach Florida approving a conditional use permit pursuant to sections 39.6 p 46.2 c 46.4 c and 466b of the Land Development code to allow the construction of a 30 unit Hotel tower that will increase site unit count to 50 total temporary lodging units or 6 54.2 units per bitable acre and extend to 76 ft above base flood elevation with non-habitable overrun not to exceed 86 ft above base flood elevation as well as include an eighth floor restaurant with outdoor seating area on parcel number 07 3216 0738 0000 0120 with the address of 4200 Golf Boulevard incorporating the conditions outlined herein and providing for correction of scrier error and an effective date ordinance 20247 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida providing for the allocation of 12 units of temporary lodging density under the provisions of the boutique hotel/ condo District temporary lodging unit density pool as established in the city of St Pete Beach Comprehensive plan to property located at 4200 Golf Boulevard p and myar Resort and reverting the 15 temporary lodging units allocated under ordinance 20214 back to the named density pool providing for codification conflicts severability correction of scrier error construction publication and an effective date thank you city clerk Mr City attorney um at this time I believe we would do the expart disclosures if you've spoken to the applicant or any other persons regarding this quas a Judicial application in particular the cup um we'd want you to disclose who you spoke with and what you spoke about and if you have nothing to disclose if you would State they have nothing to disclose sometimes people say they're familiar with the site but have nothing to disclose so if we could begin um with the clerk calling each council person and if you could respond that's one way commissioner Mar yet um I attended the public meeting last spring and I'm familiar with the site but have had no conversations with the applicant commissioner Robinson I as well attended the uh meeting last year on site I am familiar with the with the site as well but no Communications commissioner is niiki I also went to the community meeting visited the site um and outside of meetings heard um I think it was planning board and nothing else vice mayor mahand uh I've spoken to a couple residents I attended the planning board meeting uh a month or two ago on this and uh I've spoken to staff mayor Petrella uh I watched the planning board meetings um I reviewed the application for today in the supporting documents um I've received a few emails from residents uh and other parties related to the um to the project uh review The Land Development code comprehensive plan and the City Church in preparation for this meeting okay thank you thank you anyone who is going to be speaking to the city commission tonight on this topic please stand and raise your right hand do youir that the information or factual represent okay thank you good evening Denise Sanderson community development director so just to kick us off tonight I just to introduce this item this is a public hearing of the resolution 20248 for conditional use permit 2438 it's for the approval to construct a 76 foot tall 8-story Hotel tower that will increase site density to 60 64.2 units per acre and contain an eighth floor outdoor restaurant at 4200 Golf Boulevard G excuse me Gulf Boulevard uh known as the myar beach resort tonight the applicant will kick off uh the discussion of this item and representatives include Kevin Bowden of myar Resort St Pete Katie Cole representing the law firm of Hill Ward Henderson Jack bodak of Bak Hayes Architects and Sean cashen of the engineering firm Gulf Coast Consulting thank you good evening mayor Commissioners Katie Cole with the law firm of Hillard Henderson representing the app applicant Mr bow Bowen and his uh entity that's the property owner um we will go quickly through but just from a housekeeping standpoint um we do have two experts as Miss serson said uh Jack bodak the architect of record and Sean cashen um a PE with G Coast engineering who prepared the site plan and can testify to the same uh we'd ask for them to be accepted as expert Witnesses for the purpose of this hearing tonight I don't know if you all require a formal motion or you would like them to may explain their qualifications under under oath when they come up certain degrees their experience and their education absolutely thank you um secondly um as the mayor already spoke we would uh confirm that the application all of the supporting documents the staff report are all included in the record for this evening's purposes um there are two requests tonight the grant of the density units to the project that this commission heard uh last month at its meeting as well as the approval of the conditional use permit at the December meeting when the first reading of the grant of units was heard I appreciate your frustration with the process that you did not at the time consider the entirety of the project so we hope that we can um address that tonight uh conditional use approval is necessary because of the density of 64 units per acre located in the Botique Hotel district and because of the outdoor rooftop restaurant which is part of the request um the density and the cup approval is contingent upon the grant of the 12 units um from the density pool as a reminder this project received 15 units from the density pool previously in 2021 at that approval the approval of this project will return three of those units to the pool after uh there is a non-appealable uh order uh with that I'd like to start and we will be efficient we appreciate the time and and and your attention and the fact that you all have had a very intense meeting tonight so um this is 4200 Gulf Boulevard uh the existing Miramar Beach Resort which is one of the traditional uh one side is two stories one side one story um kind of motels on St Pete Beach here's an aerial of the existing hotel and the proposed hotel which seeks to retain the lows scale front of the hotel and build the Tower um to the center in the back of the hotel Mr bodak is going to review um the specifics with respect to the conditional use permit but specifically the applicant seeking 12 units from the density pool and conditional use approval um to construct a hotel on the subject site with a total of 50 rooms the existing hotel is 30 rooms so this contemplates the demolition of 10 rooms retaining 20 rooms and then the addition of the tower in 2021 it's important to note that the owner did obtain approval for the Redevelopment of the entirety of the site a conditional use permit that permit is still active and in fact the applicant has submitted building permits that are tolling um and are are waiting even paid for and waiting to be collected um this proposed design has fewer units in the approved project and fits with the historic character of St Pete Beach I know almost all of you attended the neighborhood meeting I think you heard that from the neighbors as well that they appreciated the reduction of the scale so again it's to renovate the 20 existing rooms demolish 10 existing rooms and add the 30 new rooms in the tower um the Boutique Hotel district does have a 50 unit per acre base and allows for the bonus allocation pursuant to the comprehensive plan this total density is 50 units total which is the 64 units that staff took talked about um the otherwise there would only be 38 units permitted um with that I'd ask Mr bodak to come forward speak to his qualifications and the compliance with the code want to start by recapping um how long you've been an architect many project in St Pete Beach and practice I hate to admit I've been but I've been an architect and been in practice since 1968 uh actually I'm licensed in Six States um I've been active in development as well as uh architecture and um been extensively working up and down all the beach communities uh to give you uh uh Mr Mr Brooks do we need to have have him formally accepted as an expert or is that sufficient for the record I believe it's sufficient I don't know if this city has any particular past history of doing accepting experts but that could be reviewed if it needs to be at the courts thank you yeah I I have been an expert with us in a number of cases I'm graduating the University of Florida and as I said I've been practicing on these Beach this Beach Community for quite some time uh basically this is I'm going to make this as briefly as possible the uh this is a this basically is a major downsizing of an approved project that stands in place with uh with a permit um uh that was uh is just been sitting um and is provided for in the application uh and the narrative uh and as I will further discuss the project under consideration tonight meets the required criteria for approval uh of the conditional use and Grant of the density uh which is actually reduced density from the prior approved density that's in place um and both the conditional use and the granting of the density are a portion are this request before you the as I stated this is a major downsizing as you're aware and I won't go through the pictures uh showing you but um the result this resulted from the owner Mr Bowden uh deciding that after a lot of discussion with people throughout the community uh that he felt that perhaps doing redesigning this to create an element that was more fitting with pres preservation of some of the existing units and the character of some of the hotels up and down the beach and reducing dramatically the size and the impact of the building the building that was approved and the permit is sitting in place on is actually let me just see 47,000 Square ft to give you an idea the proposed building including retaining the existing units is 22,000 ft total the um I'm Excuse me I'm a little bit um the um and we actually are reducing the density from 54 units to 50 from the previous from the approved project to this the uh preservation of the existing units and the character was well received at the community meeting if you recall that and we feel this is a real dramatic step in the direction that a lot of people like to see the the uh Beach go in pres in a certain amount of preservation um we also eliminated in the process if you've seen the uh renderings which are posted right there of the previous project we eliminated about a 10,000 squ ft outdoor deck that was a covered parking area and we eliminated about 8,000 square ft of restaurant and outdoor space on the top uh of the building so this is really a dramatic attempt at trying to come back to something that does a certain amount of preservation and achieves a financial goal being able to create an updated Resort that um that works a little better within the boundaries that the community seems to be accepting at this time um we increased this change did increase the new building set back from 50 ft uh from u u Gulf Bowl yard to uh almost 200 ft uh so it's a significant also impact on setting the building back from the road so it doesn't encroach and sit 50 fet off the road um the beach AIS has previously been discussed and that uh I believe is part of the uh the uh submittal the the project is to me uh a significant step in a direction that I think is more accommodating to what the city uh would like to in place and I'm here to answer any questions you may have is it no longer the freeb by the way is it is it kind of freebie we're gonna let Sean speak and then we can go um we we know that there have been questions specifically about uh capacity and concurrency issues with respect to the uh comprehensive plan and so Mr cashen um has been working with staff and obviously ensuring um what we can do so I would like him to also introduce himself enter his credentials the record and um speak to that specifically as well as any other uh site plan considerations good evening Sean cashen Gulf Coast Consulting I'm the engineer record working on this project U I've been working as an engineer for almost 40 years and I've been licensed as a professional engineer in the State of Florida since uh February of 1990 uh regarding the sewer capacity issue I did have a conversation with Camden Mills uh earlier today and he told me that there is sufficient capacity in the system that currently serves this site um for the additional 20 units um above the existing 30 units and there is also capacity for uh uh other crd sites but uh anyways there is sewer capacity to serve this Redevelopment and I'm here to answer any questions as well thank you um a a couple things that are unique to the site that uh Mr cashing and Mr bodak can speak to and answer your questions is the parking lot as you can see it has a stacking parking design it is proposed to be a valet parking lot and valet only uh which is your code allows for the stacking with respect to that um the landscape plan is uh exceeds the minimum standards including the landscaping for the public access on the South Side uh this does relocate the public access and combine it with the public access on the south you can see that in the recommended conditions of approval that are part of this ordinance uh discusses or excuse me resolution discusses the uh Public Access as well as the beach access through the dunes uh the applicant uh has no changes to the proposed conditions of approval and accepts each of them as they are um I wanted to show you um there has was a discussion significant discussion this is a lotsize comparison the building mass or footprint of the previously approved building versus what's proposed today you can see um the significant reduction there that Mr ex spoke to obviously there are a number of comprehensive plan uh considerations that are included in your comp plan and that are discussed as part of the crd and the Boutique Hotel district um The increased setbacks for building Heights The increased Landscaping pedestrian access um each of those are all uh respected in this proposed uh 2024 conditional use permit uh it was important to us to show some photo photos after this site has significant Dune presence anyway after the storm it has an greater Dune presence um so we've been working with engineering staff talking with the engineering staff about what that beach access might look like um you'll see that uh the condition of approval does discuss d uh approval because um honestly this is the Dune that based upon the access may need to be would need to be crossed to get to the uh mean high water line and so we anticipate that that would be a significant permitting uh request through D um that the applicants committed to going through but also just uh wanted to highlight the potential difficulty um with the existence of the dunes um with that uh the team is happy to answer any questions uh I know there was a question before about financing and the ability to perform Mr bodden one of the reasons why we appreciate you uh moving forward tonight and not continuing this is uh he does have financing in place was prepared to start construction or move forward with revised permits so he could start construction first quarter of this year as you all are aware this went to the planning board originally in September there was a noticing issue um uh with the newspaper advertisement and so it was delay needed to be reheard by the Planning Commission in October because of the storms it was then delayed until November so uh we're about three months behind uh from an ownership standpoint and from a construction documents and permitting so uh you have a very motivated uh Builder and owner who's ready to move forward on the Redevelopment of this product and introducing a new product into this part area St Pete Beach so with that we're happy uh to answer any questions if I can just make sure I've um and would respectfully request uh your approval of the um both the conditional use permit and the grant to the density units so Commissioners questions Mr Mayor please so ma'am you you alluded to the funding uh is the bank is a funding Bank funding private Equity or self-funded hi everybody my name is Kevin Bowden um funding is with Mid Florida Credit Union um we have a commitment letter they've been wanting to close the loan but we got pushed a couple times um very excited to be here very excited to get this hotel built um as you know the beaches uh can really use something good to happen and I think uh with the neighborhood meetings we've had with the feedback we've had I think people will love it um just for your information I I recently bought the Beach Haven as well um which is just up the beach a little bit um I live right over the bridge in Bayway 2 so I'm like here every day moving TV and and uh shoveling sand um so really happy to be here really happy to get this moving and uh appreciate you staying a little bit late for us thank you uh so ma'am I I don't know the owner may need to answer this one as well uh are there any call Provisions during construction from the credit union do they have any conditions for calling the the loan mid construction no i' I've done business with Mid Florida for years you know I used to I used to own the holiday in um West over on us9 I sold that but they were my bank there um I I I own the Cambria up in Madera Beach um financially we're pretty strong no no I'm not I'm not questioning your necessarily your finances but generally most banks or credit unions or whatever on a project they would potentially have some type of call provision if you were not to perform certain things during the process of the bill old um no I it's a pretty firm firm commitment letter it it's a 10-year term uh interest only coming through I've worked with their construction Department before um I know Pam well um it'll be smooth yeah if I may Mr Vice May are you trying to seek about whether it would actually be completed upon commencement of construction is that I want to make sure there's no financing conditions that could prevent from being I I think there are probably a number um not having read the commitment letter but in in general practice both the contractor would and the bank is going to require a performance bond I I there'll be a performance yes if that's where we're going yeah the contract will be required to so um obviously everybody in this room is aware that whether we have stated sewer capacity or not we have a huge infrastructure issue in this city um are you willing to make any type of beyond the standard um uh tap fees Etc are you willing to make any type of commitment to assisting the city um towards sewer improvements uh as part of the well if this helps I mean we had paid uh $127,000 review fee on the first permits that we went to pull now we have to pay that fee again because it's a different project Brandon tells me um so um I you know I think I think we currently are approved and I could finish pulling my permit for 54 units at this point no no I'm not denying that we waited years until the sewer moratorium was lifted I've owned the property about eight years waited years to get a chance to build it and um now we're doing something a little bit smaller so uh I I think it would be um aggressive for the city to ask me to do more than than than we've already done unfortunately we're in the position we need to be aggressive with a lot of things to the infrastructure I'm sure you understand that being a businessman absolutely okay so I take that as uh you have no interest in any special contribution that's that's yes that that's true we thank you I'll take consider that than thank you um part of the package the city indicated they had requested uh 15t easement um from mean the mean high water line uh however it appeared as if uh you folks had agreed to a 10 that was as I read it it wasn't certain whether you agreed to the 15 uh my sense was you agreed to ATT 10 and not knowing specifically what are you asking for the easement from Gulf Boulevard to the mean high water line or are you asking for an easement which easement are you talking it's under the public benefit analysis public benefit amenity analysis uh Beach easement parallel to and a long mean high water line um this is the staff report it doesn't have page numbers on it right my it's my page number 264 but I don't think that would be anybody's else but it says applicant has agreed to 10 plus staff requested 15 the I defer to Mr Barry but in conjunction with the prior approval in the pending uh building permit the applicant has already granted the easement and provided that to the city 10 or 15 so I believe we we received a draft easement along the mean high water line I don't know that it's been executed however that was part of the proceeding process project this is a 15t easement along the mean high water line the landward side of the mean high water line that the applicant would provide that's part of the resolution we have discussed that with them that's separate from the easen that would go from Gulf Boulevard to the mean high water line which would be a 4ot easement that expands the beach walk so where where we want to be on that I'm sorry so we have the 15 ft the 15 ft would be a condition of approval that that's one of the resolution conditions yes okay uh so Mr Barry since you're up here um on the shared impact fees uh with the county uh for transportation and the sewer meter you know the split on that well the meter is ours um I believe transportation is 5050 uh the county is currently undertaking an update to its fee ordinance it's been several years since they've updated those numbers um I it would really come down I understand the the applicant if they were approved would be fairly aggressive in in permitting this so I don't know that these numbers would change between now and permitting no but I would I would expect it to be about half of that so about4 $42,000 or so okay to the city so for the applicant um under transportation analysis uh uh it it and it also talks about the Land Development code section 4.4 goal one objective 1.1 um I don't it talks about that the uh applicant is required to produce a transportation management plan that offsets the expected impact of their project on the local Road Network these St strategies require required under the city's comprehensive plan and are over and above minimum requirements of the 10- foot sidewalk and can include improvements to include pedestrian Circ circulation Financial contribut contribut to the C it's getting late City multimodal system private multimodal improvements and similar as of the date of this drafting of this report the plan has not yet been produced and I I would just comment that I got the sense during the planning board meeting that there wasn't a real strong commitment on the applicant about um satisfying that requirement vice mayor I I'm wondering if you're looking at a prior analysis I'm looking at the staff report for tonight's meeting and it specifically acknowledges that the applicant did submit a trans transportation management plan um and that it was included as part of the application it's on page 272 of 364 of your agenda package I just want to be sure that's why I and I I apologize because I was a little confused about your the 15ot easement question as well because there's a specific condition of approval for the conditional use that requires a a a minimum width of 15t so perhaps the what was the page you just referenced that I'm looking at page 272 of 364 of your agenda I have it yes yes the staff report dated um well last week whenever it was issued that's the same report that I'm that I've been reading off of so so it says policy 11 transportation management plan shall be required on all development and the staff comment is that the applicants engineer has supplied a TMP which references strategies such as on-site amenities and Facilities reducing the need for off-site travel the required 10ft W wide side Sidewalk and expanded Beach Walk which is recommended But ultimately not required a copy of the TMP is included with the application and part of the record well that's not exactly what I have but so once again we're good on this Mr Barry I think that was just my error I updated one line in the staff report not the other they did provide a TMP it wasn't it was included as part of the packet so I that first sentence that you referenced in the in the policy that was just not updated correctly Sor okay uh so I guess before I ask my next questions I ought to maybe see which page that uh I was wondering about we're happy to answer any of your questions regardless yeah so I I'll just ask the next one then um the accessory commercial space the service area for deliveries and trash pickup doesn't necessarily meet the 10,000 foot requirement uh to properly provide for on-sites pickups and deliveries um is has that somehow and uh remedied since the initial staff report or is the property still um below the 10,000 square foot requirement for accessor commercial space the accessory commercial space is less than 10,000 sare fet right the requirement as I read what was provided to me is 10,000 square fet Matt I apologize I'm not sure where you're reading so I can't cross reference it if you if you can give me a policy I can happy to look at it and 277 and 280 of my copies um oh sorry that requirement is if you have 10,000 square fet of accessory space you're required to have a specific loading space this project does not propose to have 10,000 square ft of commercial space and therefore is not required to have a loading space um accessible commercial space m so once again Mr Barry they have enough space for loading unloading and trash pickup correct the city code only requires a dedicated loading space when there's at least 10,000 square ft of accessory commercial on the site and they're at around 2500 square ft with the rooftop facil or the level eight facilities so they do not need a dedicated loading space on the site and while you're up here I may as well ask you this question so we went from the previous uh project that um provided 67 I guess standard parking spots for what I believe was 54 units in a restaurant now we're at 48 smaller parking spots that are back to back and I understand there's a laet requirement for for 50 units in a restaurant uh is that still com is that still comply that doesn't seem like a lot of parking for uh the number of units as well as um employees as well as uh a restaurant even though I recognize it's a little smaller well part of it was a significant reduction in the commercial space um part of it was also that since then the city has amended its parking code the number of spaces required per lodging unit has gone from 1.1 down to 0.9 so there was the reduction on that side as well but the applicant has also significantly reduced the amount of restaurant and bar space so that's also count for that difference okay and um As I understood it Madam attorney uh you said said that the developer is good with uh the stipulation that they need to comply with uh the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on the Doom crossover guidances is that still the case yes sir there is a commitment to that and the last question I have uh once again assuming I'm reading the right report it seems we're all looking at the same thing now I'm sorry I said it seems we're all looking at the same thing now um the the new uh proposal uh leaves some of the existing units and those units are not FEMA compliant is that correct they on the some of those units are on the ground floor some are on the second floor so to answer my question they're not some are not some are not correct um just out of curiosity does this uh um has this hotel historically used the national flood insurance program or does it use private um Right Flight the flight company private National or national n okay okay and the expectation moving forward even though the new tower is femur compliant um the existing structures that are non fever compliant will be ensured through the na naal flood insurance program likely I I I don't know if there's a specific expectation or knowledge about that today um we are going to flood proof that building exactly we're going to put flood on the door I was saying Mr bod I can no and I said I saw that sir but you know fundamentally those units will not be above flood plane they will not be located above flood plane but there are construction methods to flood proof ground floor buildings that they permitted by FEMA and there are certain measures that are being taken to flood proof those rooms do you have that engineering design yet or we're just uh assuming that that that's the way we're going to go um Jack bak and uh yes we we uh specified flood proof uh flood paneling uh which is allowable as the means of uh flood proofing the units and uh that is already on our our plans thank you sir Mr Mayor that's all the questions I have at this point Thank you thank you commissioner any further questions yall ready to vote I I do have well then let's get the questions out I was trying to get to my page um can I go ahead first person please um for the for landscaping um notably I can see the difference between the prior um proposed site um to the current proposed site the prior proposed site and and if I I remember even being in these meetings back then there was a lot of discussion about landscaping and I know you put a lot into um making it more Lush uh per se but the current one I think I I also read and I was trying to look for it on um recommendations or staff report the percentage and if I remember 75 I don't know why it's in my head 75% is what's needed but they're at 50 or 55% is that what it is and Brendan I'm I'm not going to want to put you on your spot but I was trying to look for it um are are they not meeting what's required right now and um and if not I was trying to figure out how we can I don't know if you could help me with that so the comprehensive plan sets 75% Redevelopment of a lot as the threshold where they need to full come into full compliance with the code um on the south side of the property if this were developed today you know from the ground up or more than 75% of the site were to be redeveloped there might be a little bit um wider of a buffer there they're not providing for example fencing where they would need to screen the vehicles that's okay based on the scope of the Redevelopment they're undertaking in terms of the landscaping that's being provided the caliper the height um the quantity of trees and so on across the site that is higher than the code requires even at that base standard it's really just the width of those buffers that if they were to redevelop the site from the ground up that would be something that they needed to to expand a little bit so but the the amount of green space on the site is is increased from what it was in the 2021 approval oh so it's more now it's two 2% more but it is it is more so okay maybe it's just visually it doesn't seem the same you know when I look at the the rendering right it looks more Lush on the South Side on that beach access um and of course you know I know it's not my money but I was like We'll make arches and trellises and make it more Lush and shade um for you know um people who are walking from Gulf Boulevard all the way back towards the beach um yes we we all agree and um the width of the buffer area in in order to accommodate the public access easement and the parking reduce that buffer and therefore some of the shade trees that were previously provided wouldn't fit um but I I I will assure you that um Mr Bowden will this is the minimum that you're looking at so we're going Lusher right we like L right I mean it would again I'm not your landscape um and of course it could be a condition but it's it's because it it didn't seem the same you look at you look at the rendering and it's more building versus when I look at the other rendering and I know you had a compare you have both of them I think on one of your page the comparison of proposed and approved if you keep going through your slides you'll get there you could see um even there you know even the building is way bigger obviously down in the bottom but it's more Lush not to mention that you you had on your rooftop even some um Landscaping per se Hedges and so forth um that were Incorporated so and when I look at the other one is just the building there's nothing Incorporated even you know on the rooftop list just say um to make it more green and and I think there was because of the standard of the green you know a green mission that it would improve um so I I think it deals with the setbacks of the building because it was a larger single building there were greater side setbacks to allow for more landscape area and the shade trees um which is the difference in the rendering per se but um if you look at the front and you look at kind of the back you can see um it's very Sim similar from a code standpoint okay and and for permeability we are within what's required correct okay all right and then just to clarify because I know we were talking about the easements so it's an easement from um on the conditions and easement from um west to east east east to west plus the north to south on the mean high water line yes and then the dunes which you know if you heard me at the beginning because I want to talk about the dunes and I know your property is one of the ones that I've been seeing walking on the beach that has acquired some more sand um but I I know that would have to be worked out with DP it's I won't call them Dunes it they're more like Hills that have formed correct I think they're even the these are post storm I noticed the sand in your pool yeah yes so those are both easements that you're referencing that are required by the comprehensive plan are provided so yes thank you Mr Mayor I have one more question rley uh would the applicant be willing to um modify the condition on the um Amplified music um by installing a uh deible governor with a lock box that's um something that's been required I'm not sure we we know what a box control box is but governor on basically the manager can control the level of the Amplified music as opposed to um I mean I'm not a m or a sound expert but um accept that this has been dealt with before in the city various things where the manager can ensure that the deel setting is is set at a certain level and um it's in a locked area where the musicians or the bartender can't necessarily crank up the music because the part's rocking on um and uh I think Mr Barry could probably put the language to that uh in our city attorney my question to you is is would you are you good with that for a condition yes all right thank you I think it's on page um 254 has a little summ number three correct and it might be something the City attorney look at because it does mention amplification um but to to your point I agree commissioner mahalan um some condition to reference like our our noise ordinance that's within some decel H happy to do that and and I did I just remembered because um commissioner mahalan was talking about this before too when we were talking about the sewer capacity and and I can't remember if this um who I was talking to about this but but um or maybe I'm thinking of other conditions that we've done with other um cups where um the connection is is um or where we connect to the Sewer that the that it's larger so that if our sewer system were to be improved that they so we don't have to tear up the grounds and all are do you all know what I'm talking about I don't know if I talked to you Miss robustelli about this but whether we've done this with other ones that um like the size of the pipe the pipe yes coming into our property Gulf Boulevard so if we were to make a change or to improve or have to improve because we're talking about infrastructure and we don't know where we're going in the future um I don't know what your current like what the requirements are to go into our sewer yeah we have the engineer you could you could correct me Sean cashion again uh the existing line from Gulf Boulevard into the site is a 6-in sanitary sewer um and that's a lateral that connects into the gravity system that's U about in the middle of Gulf Boulevard so we plan on connecting into that 6in Lateral with a 6in line that will be uh extended to the the 30 unit um eight-story uh building and and also we're going to um extend new sanitary lines to serve service the existing 20 units upgrade those sanary St so uh and that's all we need to service the 50 unit hotel is a 6in sanitary sewer line so I don't think there will be an opportunity here to upssize I I we do when we can upssize lines or extend lines um across properties when we redevelop sites but in this case there's not really a good opportunity to to do that does that make sense yeah so B not needed right for the size of the dev it's not needed for for this Redevelopment okay a larger line so okay all right thank you now is the time for questions as far as that lateral line you were talking about do you know the age of that lateral line for the sewer that you're um connecting into uh I I um had asked that question previously when we went through the first round for this project I I can confirm that with Camden um but I I want to say it's like 30 or 35 years old do you know what condition you mean the yeah the lateral I do not know the condition of that existing 6 in when you get when when the sewer calculations were done when were when were the sewer calculations done that were submitted for for review do you know when you worked with Camden on that the sewer calculations oh well the the previous development with the 54 rooms we had worked not with Camden but it was Brett Warner we had worked with on that and um for are you are you planning on using reclaimed water or do you have any repurposing any uh as far as for uh for watering purposes U I believe there is reclaimed out there and we'll be using that for an irrigation Source okay um just because we are in a drought yes so I didn't know if you were planning any repurposing what you're doing as far as any storm water we're not proposing any rain water repurposing to be used for irrigation but we do plan on using reclaimed okay and um I know you've got a small parking lot there yes and you're using ballet service Staffing that with ballet service the whole time yes that correct so you'll stack cars basically you'll have to yes okay um so as far as um public benefits for getting the uh award units from the density pool what public benefits are you providing um I'll let Katie answer that one sure as part of as part of the application the public benefits are the Redevelopment of a site of an aged hotel I think predominantly the grant of the be eement that is requested as as a condition of those grants um a grant of the secondary easement um the Landscaping uh bringing uh units uh online uh that are compliant with current codes you mean the new building okay because the other ones what what condition are the other ones and how how far how bad did they get hit with they did not uh they were not significantly damaged but as part of this they're being renovated but because of the flood zone area they have to be within the 50% and so they are within that but as Mr bodak already testified um there are proposals to flood proof those to the extent there's ability to do so and um as far as any amenities for uh the residents at the hotel um for I mean is is the is the restaurant going to be open to General Public I I think that that's a um demand issue I think the owner would be happy to allow the restaurant to be open but it is accessory to the hotel um obviously it's a small parking lot that's valet only so the uh reality of having a large number of extra cars coming is is probably very limited uh but to the extent that there can be events there yes that that would be the goal as you can see um not only is this a narrow site but because of the dunes and the sand piles um it's not as if there's going to be a significant beachfront um amenity available so the roof that was why it was important to include the rooftop uh as part of this application and uh your transportation management plan MH um it's relying on the freebie I see um so with that being uh or uh I think it's listed in here is free breach ride it's included as part of the so what contribution are you putting in towards that um financially there's no proposed Financial contribution I mean we've seen we've seen some of our other U developments put in uh monies towards that certainly many of the very large developments that you all have approved that have been subject to development agreements that allowed for that type of negotiation absolutely but you you are not going to you that's not the application before you today no probably have some more questions now is your time um so you don't have to do it the the transportation management plan even though there's let's see you put your application in 2021 but because of the size you don't have to do the traffic studies correct corre is that hard there's no traffic study requ requirement okay want to make sure on that um let's probably all I have for right now there was one other well she's looking PR I have just one question and this is I guess out of curiosity because I I did read an article about the purchase of the other um property um is there any plan in the future in using that property as part of this hotel operation um I don't know if that was the purpose of the perp of the purchase you know um I'll use the Donar Hotel because I'm familiar with them having an the Suites you know like a an additional building where would but they're the same they just shuttle yeah no it was really it was pink and really cute and just up the beach a little bit so we kind of couldn't resist I'm try kind of trying to retire but my wife kept being like it's just up the Beach we got to do it so that's what happened okay thank you I think that might be all for me right now I'm just still wrapping my head around around um just um you know what type of situation our City's in right now and respectfully we're hoping that this can be a positive momentum with that I mean because it obviously we' listened to your discussions about um a lot of things today and uh Mr bden and I were sitting there looking at the tax ta potential tax impact of such a Redevelopment um he currently pays close to $80,000 a year in taxes on a non redeveloped property we would anticipate that would more than double um um after Redevelopment and and hopefully provide a beacon that for both tourists and residents and and a positive light in what's obviously needed uh with such a hard time right now in the beach communities I don't have any questions I think this is a a a nicely sized project for the beach um I think the the response at the community meeting was largely very positive uh I have had no communication from any Resident who was against this project um I think they've done a really nice job of trying to put something together and I know that there's a lot of our our small businesses and restaurants on the beach that would be really thrilled to have there be something in the future where there's going to be a a reason for you know PE people to come back to the beach and and have more customers for our small businesses and small restaurant Independent restaurants and uh so I don't I don't have any questions I think it's a great project for what it's worth I think you have a card for public comment if you want to but I'm sure the mayor has questions for me as well yep how many units do you currently have on the first floor propos there are currently 28 units on the first floor and how many are proposed removing eight we're removing eight so there will be 20 units but only 15 are on the first floor sorry it's a little off it's not one for one there the of the 20 U well no four are upstairs now now but what I'm saying is there's got be there are 15 on the ground floor and five that are on the second floor I was trying that's what I was trying to get to uh in other words in the front the building is twostory so those units are elevated and there are 15 on the ground that are remaining and under the um under the original plan how many units were in the first floor on our original plan that was approved you mean or uh well that the entire building was elevated it had that big parking garage the one that we paid for the that we have the permit uh Foundation permit for the that huge um you've seen the picture of that I think up on the screen earlier have you or not I have that's yeah there there were none on the ground floor okay so there were none yeah yeah your original cup was issued in 20 21 May of 20 April or May of 21 that's four years ago uh what kept you from breaking ground sooner a lawsuit filed against the city challenging the approval that was eventually settled and once when was that settled uh 23 is I I remember exactly yeah right before we submitted the permits for the building permit so um what lawsuit was that please I thought I knew all of them but this one escapes me know the name style it was a lot that name of the asso two buildings south of us against St Pete Beach don't remember Nam sorry I'm not the litigator no I I did were you not aware there was a lawsuit or a challenge I specifically requested not from this particular City attorney but from a previous one a list of all lawsuits and that one did not make the list it was settled so it was it was a challenge against the approval it was eventually settled once it was settled um um then the applicant moved forward with building permits then paused okay so when did it settle that's why I believe end of 22 early 23 okay so that was more than two years ago yeah okay so in the subsequent two years they prepared construction drawings submitted them for a building permit mhm received all of their um bids and were ready to move forward and then uh in light of candidly much of the conversation regarding the very large developments that were happening uh Mr Bowden reconsidered his approval went back to the community meeting to present a new plan and that was in April of 24 so less probably less than a year after settlement around a year or so of settlement after April immediately resubmitted to the city for this plan and we've been going through that process since then okay how many how much of the commercial squirt footage will be on the ground floor for this proposed project uh there is there is only the accessory restaurant space on the first floor on the roof okay what's on the first floor besides rooms is there any commercial activity on the first floor no well the lobby and um coffee shoping the lobby anything else like that okay um currently there's a apartment up front it's room 21 uh that we had our meeting right outside um that's being converted into a Lobby you can see in the rendering you kind of drive up to it uh it's just a front desk a couch someone to check people in yeah okay on your valet service is that 24/7 it is so you'll have a staff 24/7 so there won't be a KN clerk who's or a KN auditor who's also doubling up as a valet but there'll be a dedicated valet person okay councilor since you brought up taxes you mentioned that the new development would roughly generate what in additional tax revenue we were just guesstimating with no actual analysis about two times times the amount um just based currently the assessed value of this property is only $5 million and so with uh 50 rooms renovated and new we're expecting um looking at construction costs that the assessment would easily be twice that and therefore taxes would be twice that but again not an appraiser sure that was just a guesstimate based on what appeared to be a low assessment at $5 million and your guesstimate at what the tax bases would be if you'd built the originally approved cup um more than that probably more than double more than triple more than more more than what this would be yes okay were the beach axis and the easement part of the original cup yes okay so these are not new things that you're bringing to the table no okay so here's my my challenge with your project um while in essence I'm inclined to agree with you that you are presenting a smaller footprint potentially smaller impact um like challenge with this project is that we have a comprehensive plan and I keep hearing from you all that we want to comply with a comprehensive plan and I I applaud you that and yet it seems that you're cherry-picking the parts of the comprehensive plan that you like and then you put aside a parts of the comprehensive plan that you don't like that may not be financially advantageous to you and so when I'm looking at the comprehens ensive plan and especially as I'm reading the comprehensive plan with the last four months in the review in the immediate rareview mirror just I'm just going to read you the comprehensive plan parts of it so the comprehensive plan starts with saying here's why we have a comprehensive plan and here's what we're trying to accomplish right one of the things that residents have expressed the need and desire for is to replace older structures and buildings with new construction that meets curring building code standards and female flood protection regulations to maximize protection from both wind and flood damage caused by hurricanes and tropical Cyclones and yet you have a project here that the way you've presented it is less resilient and meets the comprehensive plan less than the previous project that you had where everything was elevated above the flood plane where everything was up higher yes it was a larger project yes it had more square footage yes it had more rooms yes it had more commercial we're not here to argue the merits of your previous cup we're not going to relitigate that so we're looking at today's application and today's application just fails in the very first item that the comprehensive plan and the conditional use permit review critor States hey does this meet the comprehensive plan does this meet what the comprehensive plan is is requesting I'm not asking you to answer this I'm simply giving you my reason why I'm I have a challenge I have an issue with with this application and that should I sit down are you asking questions or are you uh I I just wanted to know you can sit down if you like you can because I can I'm happy to answer that based on the comprehensive plan as well so I I just didn't know when the right time to do that would be if if you wanted to wait during the Quai judicial hearing for rebuttal or is this a qu Q&A so I think I've given you 1 hour and 15 minutes of uninterrupted time and the first time I started to speak you think it's no no sir not at all Mr Mayor I I just am I I just want to be respectful of you and and understand the process and when I when I should respond that's all okay by all means you seem to be in the hry to respond go ahead not at all I I I simply um I didn't know if we were going to take public comment what the process was I I'm just trying to understand how you would like the hearing to move forward forward that's all okay we have the Commissioners asking questions was my turn to ask questions okay right I'm giving you some thoughts here at some point if you'd like to respond to those thoughts whether there was a question asked or implied or otherwise you're free to respond okay uninterrupted sure okay thank you so if you would like to respond no I'm happy to wait and listen I'm happy to hear from you now you want me just respond to this uh um your as far as the resiliency um for the for the Redevelopment I will say that the uh the eight-story 30 unit building that's located on the Far Western end of the property that will be elevated so all 30 units will be above flood uh the flood elevation of the remaining 15 uh I'm sorry 20 units I'm sorry um five will be on the second floor 15 will be on the ground floor but as what Mr Bosak has stated those 15 units are on the ground floor they will be uh flood proofed internally and we have flood gates so there is a a quite a a good measure of resiliency with the ground floor units as opposed to you know what uh is there now so we are trying to protect those ground floor units from potential flooding as well I I hopefully say that yeah the comprehensive plan doesn't speak to you protecting your property as much as it talks about resiliency for the entire city and so the question is is your property contributing contributing to the resiliency of the entire city for its neighbors for the neighbors across the street for the city in its entirety I appreciate the fact that you're going to protect your property my responsibility is to make sure that every property and every resident every business in this town is protected so if somebody comes with a proposal to us that seems to actually make it less resilient than what they already had approved before before now I have to look at it and say well what gifts what happened here right because we have a four-year Gap in during which time okay you say there was a lawsuit then there was another year after that then there was another year and a half and now we're sitting here you're coming to a proposal that is far less resilient at when you had before and I'm trying to understand why and why you're bringing something that on the face value of it contradicts the core principles of the comprehensive plan well let me just jump for a second one of the other things you talked about a lot tonight is um that you represent the citizenry of the of of the town and the people in the town like the new plan a lot better than they like the old plan so as far as the resiliency of the property all we're trying to explain is there's only 15 rooms left on the ground currently there's 30 um modernizing the whole thing building the new building to current codes and it made the neighbors a lot happier than they were before so I kind of rest my case on that well I think the happier before was compared to the other building for the sure blockage and it being so upfront to um to Golf Boulevard but again to the mayor's point that was resilient and this is not um you know when I saw it the building as well I mean it it it did block view it was right in the middle of where the Courtyard area was where the big building was so you know you do have that as well it does does does block The View might be a little further back but it still blocks a few can I answer yeah everything it's okay do do not feel like you're being hindered to speak because this is the only opportunity par me the the the part garage was huge and blocked the view entirely uh and and the and the resiliency we are bringing the ground floor units uh with flood proofing uh up to a point where they are protected now so that would be an improvement of the condition uh as to if the buildings were to remain the way they were so I do think that we are uh bringing it up to a uh the level of resiliency in the existing units then the new building naturally is and we are are what we thought was responding to building a much less imposing structure um that totally blocked the view 100% uh and imposed right on the road at 50 ft opposed to 190 or whatever it is feet back so the the well-received um aspect of this thing was what we thought was a consideration versus a per that's sitting there ready to build the other building so I do think that we have taken steps to build new resiliency into the existing buildings uh units get rid of some of the existing be reduce the amount of units that are not compliant uh and create a new building that that is totally compliant so I think it was a joint effort to improve the units that are there and build the new building that was uh totally improve the resiliency overall were the original were you the original architect on the previous project oh yes I was okay did you testify that cup meeting pardon me did you testify that that cup meeting I'm sorry I don't understand did I testify that when at that meeting yes at that application well I was the I was the architect for yes I I did I I don't recall exactly be honest with you I'm sure I did we were building a building that was up to code 100% And when we when we pulled the we have the the foundation permits which Mr bowden's going to walk away from essentially the 120 or whatever it is thousand so I mean I think this was a major consideration and we thought we were taking a positive step and that was well received and we are building in resiliency to the existing units and reducing the exposure by getting rid of some of the ground floor existing units and we're building a new building that's 100% and people were not attacking us uh or not attacking we didn't get negative comments As Much from the fact that the building was too close to the road too imposing had 47,000 Square fet uh plus 10,000 square ft of one deck and 8,000 square ft of another deck so we're talking about 18,000 plus 47 what's that 57 55 65,000 square feet of building versus 14 something like that 22 I'm sorry 22 total we thought this was a a positive step in how the city wanted to see the beach developed and we thought it was a very positive aside from the delay of time that Mr Bowen's been exposed to on this to take this step so um I do believe we have built resiliency into the existing units that is a step in direction of compliance with the comprehensive plan thank you any further questions before we go to audience comments I have a question I just I just don't know the answer to but you said you have 20 units on the ground floor or 28 on the ground floor right now right now yeah right now today we have five rooms on the um no five rooms upstairs and 25 units on the on the ground floor and and are you subject to the FEMA 50 is your subject to the F50 we are um and how many of those ground floor rooms got yeah ground floor rooms got a couple inches um couple and we we have a femur appraisal and and the renovation budget for the building that's that we're going to keep is is way under the 50% yeah well Fe FEMA does allow for commercial property to be I know they're they're wet or dry yeah shall we take audience comments Deborah shner good evening maybe good morning soon um Deborah shno Baza Isle Drive in St Pete Beach I think you know there's some housekeeping here requires that a certificate of concurrency shall be required prior to the issues of any development permit and I know the last commission had a problem with the word sh but I'll give you an example Ten Commandments Thou shalt not steal that's not misunderstood it's not part of God saying yeah maybe maybe not no shall means it happens certificate of concurrency and this is city code 29.4 development code must be here before a permit is issued and I think that's really important there were some other issues with that development code 29.2 subd with the variance exhibit and some people said to me that it probably couldn't go forward under those conditions and I read one part of this is three feet from a property line and I wasn't sure where that property line was the next thing I do have real con you know concerns regarding the valet they're not telling you where the valet parking will be um if it's 247 I don't know how they'll block some of those lights and the noise from the neighborhood around is there a long-term lease for the valet how many years long does the lease expire how will you secure Val parking and of course safety of the valet Personnel if they have to go across the street there is a substantial change page a 1-01 as it went from seven stories to eight stories and I don't see anybody addressing that as well it's very very important to me that not only is concurrency part of this process but also everything or several things are put to when you have the site plan review now I don't know if the public can comment on the S side plan review or is that something done internally with um technical review the detailed Wastewater calculations can be provided at the future site plan submitt um fire flow requirements for buildings fire flow shall be in accordance with the minimum flow requirements again site plan review so do we have access to speak before that but concurrency is really important it should be there before the permit thank you thank you other comments thank you city clerk to extend somebody can make a motion if you want I make a motion to extend to 12:30 Second City Clerk if you'll please through a roll call commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor petrilla yes motion carries okay are there any further questions for the applicant if there are no further questions for the applicant we're going to close the Quasi judicial part so if you do have any questions now is the time okay with that we're going to close the quasa judicial portion of this hearing and we're going to move to deliberation and discussion can I go please please um I just want to say that I thought that it that you did really well uh that it was thoughtful um to take into consideration um what the community had been talking about at that time and I I had gone to that community meeting and um I know I saw some of your faces um as well during that time um and it was and it was receptive um I have zero emails for or against um this this particular application um so I take that as we're good to go when no one says anything um and and I watched you know planning board I you know and I and I heard your comments Mr Mayor about the resiliency but redeveloping means you're improving that site and the fact that they are improving the site is making the site more resilient I'm not quite sure what you're insinuating or not insinuating but um saying how does it impact those outside the only things I could think of is when we've talked in any other conditional use application we talking about storm water um making sure that water is not going to the neighbor and um you know reducing those type of impacts which uh from what I saw they're good um um permeability of the ground is good um you know of course I'm I'm wanting it to be more green um and I already mentioned that um and and I hope that's taken into consideration um I saw the conditions that were written by the staff um you know as summary which I would agree with them and looking at the the noise um maybe rewarding that and making sure that it complies with our current ordinances and if any complaints I've heard and actually I'll say one because I do remember this email but I think it was before the planning board was the concern of noise um and I think it was an adjacent property it might have been the two buildings uh from you because they brought to our to my attention I don't know if it was one that went to all of us um was and they use Samora as the example um because when Samora was approved everything seemed great and year after year and I'll say up to last year we're still too new into this year for me to have heard from any other resident in in my district about more complaints because of noise traveling um but that was one and that was a big concern if anything that we approved something but yet it still keeps happening um and and I hope in the future to talk about I'm kind of tired of warnings because we do a lot of warnings um and then never really go to you know citation if we want to call it citation so I would want to be stronger on that to assure the neighbors that um it's zero tolerance you know we we've already talked about it here we've talked about it a kazillion times and and it should be Zero Tolerance um so I would be in favor of of making sure that that's what's strict um because it really was the only email I received um with concern about the property and and the restaurant we actually don't have to wonder what Redevelopment means because a comprehensive plan says to replace all the structures and building with new construction well in that case in that case mayor then you would be saying every resident in the city would need to redevelop their home to make it more resilient so no home that's 50 plus years should be redeveloped and and I'm sorry to say it that way but that's how I see it because if not every home in this city should be elevated and I'll leave it at that the comprehensive plan these are commercial properties not residential structure so that doesn't apply so we're talking about a commercial property thus the comprehensive plan applies and their responsibility in the cup process is to prove that it actually does comply and it and and it is it doesn't say flood prooof it says to replace older structures and buildings with new construction they're leaving half of it there this is what the comprehensive plan says our responsibility section 44 right is to establish whether the conditional use cons is whether all the conditions have been met whether it's consistent with the goals objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan at least half the structure is there in the flood plane it does doesn't elevate it the old one at least did that so we're saying that every Hotel on Gulf Boulevard that would ever go to Redevelopment would have to demolish the hotel and build up I mean they have a site plan ready to go that's elevated much bigger yep I mean if that's what you prefer I'm saying at least that structure was compliant and you know what for consistency's sake I made the exact same argument with every other cup because that's what the comprehensive plan says now you chose to ignore it in the past and you seem ready to ignore it again today I've never ignored resiliency in our city you've ignored a comprehensive plan it says replace structures and building with new construction you are you're looking that's what it says that's what one of the standards is among all the many other standards that we have and that's why you know my objection again with this is It's the cherry picking some things we like of the comprehensive plan some things we don't the things that we like about the comprehensive plan we're ready to come out and say look how great we are we're going to do exactly what the comprehensive plan says in this instance but in the ones where it's not convenient we just lay it aside and say well you know what I'll probably just we'll just leave those old structures there we'll just do something else other than tear them down because that's not convenient because we're going to choose to ignore this one part of the comprehensive plan that is the definition in the comprehensive plan it for redevelopment my concerns are is the the impact we're at right now with our sewer system with our infrastructure um you know and there's no contribution back to freebie that the residents are paying for look what we just did tonight um I have big concerns on that again buildings blocking a view we're we're blocking our Golf View again we start doing this up and down we have no Golf View I don't think that we can in the same sentence say that that we're going to interpret the comprehensive plan to mean that every Hotel needs to be torn down and rebuilt to be more resilient and at the same time say that we want to protect every view from Gulf Boulevard because those two things are in direct conflict with each other I do not see how we can say that we want to maintain the views from Gulf Boulevard to the west and also require every hotel to be more resilient if we're going to say that more resilient is being elevated actually that is quite easy because the comprehensive plan requires both it specifically mentions three times in the in the comprehensive plan and in section four that views are to be protected on three separate occasions it is that important that it reiterated that on three separate occasions that views have to be protected so comprehensive plan actually does require both of those things how that is accomplished is on the applicants to bring us something that says hey this F your comprehensive plan it doesn't block The View and it's resilient it's not our decision is to determine whether it fits the comprehensive plan or not it's not to give them a plan and how to build it I believe that what they're building is a more resilient structure and it's a brand new structure the the brand new structure is more resilient the part that is not brand new is further from the water they are also making that more resilient I had a lady from FEMA a month ago tell me how much more resilient it makes properties Downstream from new construction when a new house is built to the water side of old houses because it breaks the flow of the water and and makes the rest of the structures behind it more resilient so you know you can you can choose to interpret things such that nothing could be redeveloped and that as buildings age that the only opportunity is for them to be torn down and that we can try to put the beach back to something that it hasn't been since the 1940s I think that's a a stretch of an interpretation I don't think I don't think the the comprehensive plan was ever designed to say well we're going to be real clever about this and write in some conflicting stuff to make sure nothing can be redeveloped and don't forget about the character of our city right I think that's in the comprehensive exactly I think I think when we talk about the character of the city I think we should go back to the uh the early 1970s to early 1980s drug running character of the city I think that would be lots of fun so that that might be what's actually uh required in the comprehensive plan well the comprehensive plan was written in uh 1995 so I don't think we're going back to the'80s right and it was updated multiple times since then including this version of the compr of plan which is from 2014 so if anything it references is the character from 2014 or thereabouts so I'm struggling with this because I think uh literally we have justification um to reject it based on the fact that uh it's only partially being um brought compliant with uh the the flood plane I'm I'm still struggling a little bit I would have liked to have heard and you know in all fairness the the uh the applicant uh made it pretty clear there wasn't any interest in helping any additional as it related to the sewer system that is a huge problem problem and with the um transportation fund um so I'd be less than honest if I didn't say that that wasn't turning me off a little bit I understand I respect their opinion um but um that does concern me uh I'm kind of you know I I feel that the once again the interpretation that I have that this is not going to be fully FEMA compliant and therefore doesn't have to be approved um and it's the the other the contributions um make it a little more difficult for me to look the other way on that one I guess being 100% candid and I still to this I I can't tell you which way I'm going to vote but I'm just telling you all how I feel right now um so just to go back to something that was stated on the record just to correct it and I I hear you the building is FEMA compliant and in fact your comprehensive plan says that non-conforming temporary lodging uses densities intensities the city of St Pete Beach should allow for the continuance of existing non-conforming resident and temporary lodging units under the circumstances outlined before below catastrophic events routine maintenance FEMA compliance required and expansion prohibited so very specifically the renovation of the existing units complies with FEMA that was testified on the record there is no expansion of non-conforming use because the additional units comply with femma and are above above the flood plane and that's specifically in section B of your um Quality Community planning to stay General Provisions you have a page number on that of your comprehensive plan no I have it's section quality Community that's I just printed out your comp plan that's not in the staff report okay so um in the staff report there's objective 1.7 right says all new building construction shall comply with current building and safety codes FMA and National flood insurance program program regulations to maximize protection of the city's built infrastructure from all manner of Hazards natural disasters and flooding the staff comment was the new building and Associated other improvements such as ding restoration if required and the onsite storm water vating should help reduce the property's flood risk unlike the previous design for the property approved in 20121 20 of the 30 existing units will be preserved with flood proofing applied rather than brought into full compliance with the current FEMA regulations throughout or through Redevelopment however the new building construction will comply with current codes do you dis dispute that only the language it is full compliance with femma so it complies with the 50% rule which is permitted for commercial structures and residential structures pursuant to FEMA and the new building is 100% compli compliant from the standpoint of it's above the flood plane the existing building is not elevated it is not elevated but that does not make it non-compliant because you can get but you have to get flood insurance through the national flood insurance program or through a private insurer a as with every property in a special Hazard area yes sir so my point was I'm not an attorney but I believe that that interpretation would allow me to not support this what I was trying to make the point was is that there was no contribution for Fe freebie or Intermodal or anything to help with the sewer and I you folks have made your position on that clear my arm can be twisted I'm sorry sir I said my arm can be twisted if it needs to be oh it can it can sure you want to grab a hold and turn well so are you suggesting that you will help with the interal pram sure you put a condition on there that something reasonable that we help with I mean understanding the something reasonable I I mean something that you feel is reasonable I mean understanding that we we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars redeveloping the plans to build this and here we are right um the architecturals the all the work that goes into making this all happen um so if uh if you are disappointed I know what people used to tell me that's the cost of doing business sometimes it is yeah sometimes it is but so I mean a 50 unit Hotel um we how many units are in uh SRA two wouldn't that two 650 650 roughly okay so they're contributing 100,000 a year 100,000 so what's the math on that 10% roughly 10% roughly 9% 10% of it yeah so was $9,000 $10,000 a year um so are you willing to contribute 10,000 a year for 10 years yes with a 3% escalator annually okay um will you give us $75,000 towards our sewer will you contribute $75,000 to the sewer system improvements includ plus that plus both well they're both two different things so you're you're asking for $75,000 to the city's sewer system that is not proximate to this property just to be clear that is not because we we have testimony from your engineer and our engineer that the capacity adjacent to this property is sufficient so you're just asking for a general contribution that's correct the city sewer system that has no impact on this development well the pipes in front of your building I think's 35 years old with the life expectancy on those pipes I I I just want to be sure what we're at I can tell you this as long as I'm sitting in this chair I'm going to ask anybody that comes up here for contributions to the sewer system and and to the transportation system uh if as we started out we agree the applicant doesn't have to agree could we agree on 50 as the as the property so small well once again I'm just one person up here 50,000 50 50,000 to the Sewer 10,000 a year with a 3% escalator for 10 years that's your offer and to clarify these are in addition to the impact fee absolutely in addition impact fees okay so so to to be clear here these are conditions comprehensive plan Land Development code allows for the commission to request certain conditions right and so we're going to ask the City attorney to work on how to structure that so that it complies should this so an agreed voluntary contribution is what you're he hearing the applicant saying it seems to be the rational basis would be the be aging 35y old pipes directly in front of the building and the use of the uh freebie and other Transportation um the previous conditions of the hotel so it would be offsetting some of their impacts they wouldn't be driving their hotel cars around or driving the guest cars around they'd be driving on these existing freebies so in in previous M micro I'm sorry the actual word is not free micro Mobility fund yes and agreed these were agreed voluntary contributions seemingly voluntary correct they would have to agree tonight and it sounds like they did okay for everyone done with questions is it time for a motion do we are we give time for continuing to discuss if the applicant has anything else to say that is's not testimony by all means otherwise we can continue discussing somebody can make a motion I'll make a motion to approve res resolution 20248 with the included and discussed conditions I'll second city clerk if you'll please to V call commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson no mayor patrilla no motion carries three to two thank you city clerk and so uh city clerk we need to make a motion on the next one is to M please I'm looking for the word motion to approve final reading 20247 the 12 units from the boutique hotel adopt ordinance 20247 so sorry Mr Mayor Mr attorney I just for a point of order just wanted to ensure that we incorporated all of the evidence and testimony from the prior hearing into this agenda item so moves okay so again the motion is to adopt 2024 ordinance 20247 ordinance 20247 thank you second city clerk if you please do a roll call oh wait I thought we already took audience comments yeah we already took audience comments we we did mention that at the onset since there tie together vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson no commissioner R Niki yes mayor patrilla no motion carries three to2 thank you city clerk next we have item 7B final reading of ordinance 22418 city clerk yes thank you ordinance 20241 18 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida amending the city's Land Development code division 28 historic preservation section 28.5 ordinary maintenance and repair to allow for administrative exemptions from the substantial Improvement requirements for substantial maintenance and repair to Historic structures providing for codification conflicts severability correction of scrivener's error construction publication and an effective date I just wanted to State we've we've made no changes um this have been um accepted and recommended by the historic board when it first came forward and it's working as intended so no comments from staff thank you is there a motion to adopt the ordinance I'll make a motion to adopt ordinance 20 24-18 second city clerk if you please to a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor Petrella yes motion carries thank you next we have item 7 C reading of first reading of ordinance 2025-the Beach amending the St Pete Beach code of ordinances section 9835 9836 98122 do4 and 98128 do4 to amend a provision related to the Improvement and repair of buildings build yeah buildings and flood hazard areas providing for severability codification and scribers errors and providing for an effective date thank you city clerk sorry my apologies Denise Anderson um just as a reminder this is a followup to our meeting in December where we remove the cumulative onee look back reverting to the NFI minimum standards um happy to take any questions if they are thank you commissioner's questions is there a motion to adopt the ordinance I motion to adopt to no I'm sorry commissioner it's just to approve the first reading oh a motion to approve the first to approve the first Reading Please I motion to approve the first reading of ordinance please do a roll call commissioner Robinson yes commissioner is Niki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor patrill yes motion carries thank you next we have items for discussions my recommendation is that we that you all take these items for discussions give them to the city clerk and to actually add them to the agenda for the next uh City commission meeting so that it can be noticed as well so unless you have anything that's pressing that cannot wait I do you do have something pressing I I I think mine's pressing well you're going to have to get three people to agree with you okay all right how about everybody else mine can wait okay then we have item 8 a noise ordinance uh I would like to uh get a consensus on with the commission to uh ask the City attorney uh to draft a news or news a noise ordinance uh and potentially present it to us at our next meeting okay sure okay we do sounds good thank you thank you Mr Mayor certainly all right unless there's anything else we are adjourned e for