e e e e City commission meeting of the city of St Pete Beach today is Tuesday February 25th 2025 it is 6: pm. let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance
please I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all city clerk if you'll please do a
roll call vice mayor mahand here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Robinson here commissioner res Niki here mayor patrilla here we have a quorum thank you all right first we have a couple of
presentations thank you mayor we're going to kick off this evening with a listening session from Calvin jordano and Associates we have them here to present the item and they have a PowerPoint deck that they will help lead you through that discussion thank you good evening Commissioners uh I'm
Louis cerno with Calvin gordano and Associates uh glad to be here this evening uh also joining me is my colleague Zayn Hussein of Calvin gardano Associates and joining us remotely will be uh Eric Li of Lambert advisory uh
we're glad to be here uh We've entitled this a listening session for the commission uh we are about to undertake a project that I know is of great importance to the city uh we're excited to uh be a part of this project uh
there's going to be a lot of public engagement that you will be hearing about before we get too far down the road we wanted to allow the commission to weigh in on the project and uh have this listening session so we're going to do be doing more listening than
presenting this evening uh just a reminder what our scope of work is uh phase one we've entitled P public input data collection and Analysis uh that really will be a bulk of the work right there uh from that and there's a lot
involved in phase one that we will get into in more detail uh but after that we will move into phase two which is draft plan revisions uh ex and then phase three acceptance of recommendations by the city commission and then phase four
adoption so uh as I said most of the work and most of uh the input will be received during phase one our understanding of this project uh as it has been uh proposed by the city is that
uh you would like for uh us to assist the city in looking at the tc1 and DC uh two land use categories and the large resort zoning districts and look at the density intensity standards of those
districts and um and we're thinking uh not just density and intensity uh but also visually what will the future of these districts look like what was what did the public want these uh these areas to
look like what will be the impacts of developing these based on different development scenarios that we will uh present and go through and we're not only talking about new development in the future but we're also talking uh very importantly about preservation of
what you have your historic districts and the aspects of the city that you would like to maintain so um as I said phase one uh we're starting with this commission listen listening session and by that uh
what we would like to find out are what are your hopes and expectations uh for this project and for the public engagement portion of the process uh what what would you like to see come out of this process we are talking about uh
the future of the city and uh whatever comes out of this whatever gets adopted will have an impact uh so we would like to find out before we get too far down the road uh what you would like to what you would like to see and U yeah I'll definitely give you time
to to weigh in on that so the project deliverables just briefly uh where you're going where you're going to have a lot of public uh input and so we will provide a summary of public input processes and outcomes uh we are currently working on existing
conditions and Trends report which uh Lambert advisory is a market and economic expert and housing expert that will be looking at that and they've already started down the path and then visions and key recommendations reports
so those are the uh those are the deliverables that we hope to have for phase one as I said there will be a lot of community engagement uh we want this to be an interactive process we would uh the city indicated that they would like
uh people who don't normally show up to meetings to participate and the city has also also provided a very specific list of groups uh that they would like to be included and be involved uh we do want to keep this as uh we don't want to come
with our preconceived notions we want to do a lot of listening uh what are your ideas uh one of the things that uh we would like to do that we think will be very useful is to do real-time visualization as we talk about um what
are different height scenarios what are different density scenarios what will that actually look like uh using uh computer uh Graphics so uh we think that will be very useful uh in engaging the public uh uh we've discussed in the past
stakeholder identification uh there's going to be quite a few Community workshops uh starting uh very soon I think a couple weeks uh and you'll be hearing more about that we'll be working with the city's public information officer on that uh yeah just trying to get as
brought of uh as much participation as possible so uh We've scheduled two Community workshops or we will schedule two Community workshops uh two workshops specific to the large resort districts uh two workshops specific to the Town Center District and then as the
commission mentioned uh the last time we met a virtual Workshop uh to engage people who may not want to come out physically so uh we we plan on using a as I indicated a number of uh different
techniques that we've used successfully in other communities um really just getting participation uh trying to make it as interesting as possible we're discussing with uh your staff this afternoon we don't want to tell people we're doing a comp plan
update because uh you know people hear that and they're saying they'll say I'm not going so we want to uh we we want to advertise this at a uh future impacts of development on the community or we'll come up with some titles to make it more
interesting um you know ultimately we will be amending the comp plan or Rec recommending changes to the comp plan but uh this is really about uh you know a very large area of the city that uh is receiving development pressures now and
that we want to uh address any potential changes um we are going to be conducting interviews with City officials thought leaders uh we talked about with staff popup meetings at public events and online online meetings like the downtown
um Marketplace and of course you will have a chance to uh receive to weigh in on a lot of these as well um some other techniques we hope to use live audience polling community
impacts and urban form and density changes uh again that's the graphic on the left is sort of a visualization that uh you know perhaps we consider more density in this area in exchange for lower height or vice versa things like that what would that look like and what
what uh does a community want to see these are draft these are phases two through four not as exciting uh this is really well where we will be putting together uh distilling all the public engag M efforts into our recommendations
ultimately for adoption uh Lambert advisory roles um I don't know if Eric wants to uh if he's available at the uh online to uh speak at this point but uh I can have him explain uh their role in really the hard
data collection Eric I don't know if you can hear me y okay gotcha um tell me when you want me to switch slides that can you can you hear me yes we can hear you just tell me when you want me to switch slides okay I can't I actually can't see
the slides so um let me I I can go through them I kind of know them well and then I'll um I'll I'll I'll tell you when to go on the next one but um and I'll go through this very quickly um first of all our role Lambert's role in this is to provide you know the as as
Lou said the economic and market fundamentals that that kind of guide the comprehensive plan and land use development codes um you know these don't work in a vacuum they've got to have have the economics and the market behind them and they help to kind of create that envelope it's very important
to understand and I I'll kind of reiterate this again our work in the economic and market component is is objective it is not to drive anything it is statistically uh based um and we try to understand what you know what the
economics are around the the major land uses um and I'll get into that in a second so our scope just very quickly is we start with an economic and demographic Trends and forecast which we've already started as Louis had mentioned then we we've uh started the market supply and demand Trends F that
focus on hotel and multif family uses multif family being um both uh rental and condominium for sale um and we'll come up with demand estimates over a period of time to help guide the the the planning effort um and put put kind of
again those guard rails on really what what's the reality of this when you start to plan long term obviously there's a lot of pent up demand and I'm going to I'll mention this at the end of this this of this discussion um you know given the limited amount of development that's occurred over the last several
years uh and with so much activity that's occurring um around you know in around you within within pelis County and specifically the the South pelis uh area uh then we'll we'll assist the planning team with identifying strategic locations for multif family uh and hotel
Redevelopment um and that includes you know proximity to amenities including retail dining and Grocery and um and then lastly what we are going to do at the at the end of our our as the last phase of work is going to do a benchmark analysis of Select municipalities within
the state that we can kind of look at and provide metrics as to what's a good balance or what's a what's an you know a desirable balance if you will of of uses um you know based you know between the residential commercial based on your population land uses and so forth so uh
that that will that will uh you know kind of be the last phase of work process and timing we we've had the kickoff meeting and we had a good meeting with the city staff in the planning team um we are in the process of actually completing the economic and market data and plan to present that to
staff uh within the next week or so and then obviously present that to to you as well um and then um uh you know work with the city team you know the city and planning team to to integrate the market findings and start moving forward with some you know some some conclusions and
some planning efforts uh that that are based in the economic and market uh characteristics and then lastly just you know in terms of comments and insights um we're well aware obviously of the history associated with future development um only challenged further
by the effects of the storm and the storms and and really um you know again like I mentioned this is completely objective we do not drive anything this is statistic ially uh based um obviously forecasting we do on
a sensitivity basis a variability considering what you you know a more conservative moderate and higher growth Trend so we kind of canvas the entire uh uh you know breadth of of opportunity um and and like I said you
know it from what we're finding already demand within a reasonable uh you know within a reasonable amount if you will is is is very strong for multif family and and hotel like I said you know we'll we'll show the amount of activity and I
know you're seeing it within the surrounding communities um and you know it's not to say that we're you know that you could build to the to the same density as anybody else but the fact is within you know measurable and manageable amounts and within strategic
locations there is certainly demand and opportunity if that's desired by by you know the city and the community and uh and and then obviously put into code so um you know and again we understand obviously all of the uh you know the
issues that that and challenges um but but but really the focus is to to to understand the community desires understand what effects uh you know development has on infrastructure and then lastly we'll we'll also provide uh in ter you know the in addition to the
benchmarking um some economic and fiscal impacts kind of some variability and and understanding of what those effects on the fiscal on the fiscal land landcape is given varying uses so they can help balance the uses uh you know as part of that planning and land use code um so that's that's my presentation I don't
think I told you to click on sorry Louie but uh if there's any questions I'm certainly here to answer yeah thanks Eric um and uh we're really glad to be teamed with uh Eric Liff and his firm um you know I think
it's important that any any outcomes of this process be tied to hard dat uh CGA is really uh we're really Adept at uh the public engagement process uh understanding land use and planning
issues uh but we're really glad to have the hard economic and market data uh from Eric Liff so that is our presentation we've done a lot of talking uh this is built as a listening session so uh I'd like to leave you with uh this
question is uh what are your hopes and expectations for this project uh and the public engagement portion especially and uh what are your concerns or questions that we can answer and feel free to
direct your questions to Eric if they're related to uh his data thank you Lewis Commissioners questions comments I'd like to go um I have a few questions um I'm glad to see that there's a I focus on uh density and
intensity because 20 years ago according to every citizen survey conducted there was a strong desire against um against uh building for increases in height and density and I'd like to know if that still stands within the community will there be a mailed survey as well to
Residents who cannot attend will that and if that is so is that going to be at the front end or at the back end after um some of this has been publicized um again the economic impact versus the
level of services and that as well includes um density and intensity that is a huge issue out here um infrastructure demand I think those were some of the three things at the end that I was happy to see that are
going to be be a priority on this because this is this is laid on the resident backs for way too long and I'd like to really see where the residents feel as far as you know um density intensity and um you know floor
area ratio as well that wasn't included in there yeah thank you and um yeah we will touch on all those issues they're all interrelated uh as you know density and intensity effects infrastructure uh as far as a mail survey we will discuss
that uh with staff to see if we you know how much coverage we can do and I think we had some discussion at the last meeting uh it will definitely be available online so we will provide that service we have an older population here that not necessarily is online so I would suggest
that we do something in a mailed capacity as well okay or some sort of Outreach to that commissioner is Nikki thank you um some of the things that when looking at your presentation before and and kind of thinking of ahead
that I know you're going to include because I know a lot of what you're talking about is in community input from the city some of the concerns I have is because of what has happened or transpired with two storms coming in and the amount of residents Who currently
are not living in their home so how how can we have how can we reach out to those who can't physically um be here um and then with that um because of the storms we we talk about
infrastructure um planning but we also have a lot of infrastructure repair um and whether how can we develop further when there's still a lot to repair or assess per se because I know the city is
doing an assessment currently on all infrastructure and the commission hasn't been provided yet all the list of projects and cost um so that's one thing and then with cost in our comp plan there's a mention of a Redevelopment
trust fund that has never been tapped into um and when I had read in the past about a Redevelopment trust fund it that had a lot to do with pelis County um because of our bed tax and how the money is is um collected um per se but that's
not impacting our City so um when you know we sit here on the commission and you know we're listening to development and and we're trying to figure out how can we acquire impact fees for this development it seems like we're very
limited especially that we we can't even tap into that fund um so that's just something um that I talk that would like to be addressed yeah thank you so we actually brought those points up at the last time you were here
about people not being here and that's why if you look in the presentation there's actually a zoom or some kind of virtual meeting that was put in there so I appreciate you taking that uh comment and actually putting into practice and applying it so that we can make sure that we have as broad a reach as
possible so not just to those who are I mean commissioner mayor sorry but just because I know I thought was in there but how are they going to get that information like we don't have their emails like how how are they going to know like are we have their emails of All City res well not of All City
residents but we have so at any given time we have nine different modes of reaching out to the community right we have YouTube next door Facebook Instagram the city website the city email list the city city the city text blasting list and the city phone blasting list on top of that
commissioner Robinson also proposed a 10th method which is to also do a mailer to the entire community and if we were to use first class then it would also get forwarded to anybody that's absent it is important that we get as broader reach as possible because Lewis the one thing I don't think you are you're going
to be uh surprised by I know you mentioned people aren't going to want to show up for this or maybe your past experience I can tell you that this will be well attended this has been something that our city has been asking for for years they've been asking for a review
of the comprehensive plan specifically with an emphasis on review of density height um especially in light of the the two most recent storms we have exposed some significant deficiencies in our infrastructure and the question was before the storms could we handle it and
even more so now after the storms um so I think you're going to have very high engagement and I'm I'm also counting on my fellow Commissioners to reach out to their constituents you so this is an 11th method now for you to use your platform and for you to use your reach and to let your constituents know that
these meetings are happening whether they're in person whether they're virtual whether it's an online survey whatever the capacity is we want to hear from as many people as as we can right I mean our comprehensive plan the last time we looked at it it's been a very long time and the last time it was
revised it was revised without citizen input and so it is high time that we actually get our community involved to make sure that the city looks like what our residents wanted to look like 10 2030 years from now so thank you
all right if you'll please silence your cell phones thank you any other comments input for Lewis please he's here now and yeah feel free to reach out to me through staff if you have any other
comments at a later date so we just wanted to give you this forum tonight but we understand you may have questions going forward I have another one time frame what are you what are you thinking time frame for start I mean obviously this is the first one but yeah we're working with
staff closely now I think we're looking at the week of um I think we're looking at March 13th as a tentative first meeting date okay um that's right around the corner so uh we're going to try to knock out some uh big uh big issues this
week really to get the ball rolling on that and what are you hoping that the the elapse time period will be for the community engagement portion is that going to happen over over a couple weeks or a couple months or yeah I mean uh I think we would rather be deliberate on
this and probably take you know two or three months uh to to do this and um you know the first one typically gets the ball rolling for the later one so we don't want to rush them together plus we also typically after the first meeting
uh change our approach you know depending on the the participation that we get all right thank you sir all right well thank you all right do we have any amendments to the agenda as
proposed Mr Mayor I would ask that uh we move item F to action please okay item 5f will now be item 6 D I have a couple items for discussion
okay um one is sod Bon and I don't know if that can be uh discussion or if that can come up as well during our uh presentation on recovery efforts if it comes up then we can deal with it then okay um the next item would be a status
on the forensic audit and the following that would be accountability for Title Basin okay any other amendments to the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended I make a motion to
approve the amended February 25th 2025 City commission meeting agenda I second city clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner res Niki vice mayor mahand yes mayor Pat
yes motion carries thank you next we have a presentation on the recovery efforts thank you mayor City commission and Community we are in transition right now so I will actually be performing your update but I did want to started off with
introducing our new uh community development director Laura Canary if she would mind stepping up and just introducing say hi and maybe give a little background she today is her second day so I thought I'd spare her from uh trying to get up to speed on
recovery efforts in 48 hours thank you good evening mayor and Commissioners as Francis said my name is Laura Canary I'm the new community development director um first of all I just want to say um thank you for having me I'm very excited to get started I am born and raised in
pelis County um I have to applaud you all for just the recovery efforts thus far being a in a neighboring community and um I've directed people to St Pete Beach's website over the last few months just because of all of the good information and Outreach that's been put
out there already and so I commend you all on your efforts so far and I look forward to helping contribute to that further in the future thank you thank you Laura we're looking forward to having you here as part of our amazing staff thank you so much
welcome thank you so it if I could have the slide deck and if you could advance for me next slide so tonight it's a little bit of a condensed agenda um given that we're in transition so I'm going to be going over just an update on permit processing and
inspections some information on damage determinations appeals and where our volunteer program stands right now next slide so in permit processing the last meeting we discussed um how there is an alternative approach to submitting a
permit so we have we're essentially going to be communicating that we have two approaches the preferred by um staff if you want an expedited um permit issuance would be would be to submit all of your storm damage in one permit with
your packet so that's going to be give you the quickest um response because of the uh technicality of looking through all the files however there is an alternative approach where you could submit multiple permits so for example you could submit your El electrical
permit first um Plumbing your air conditioner you could do it all separately finish the work and close it out and those could all be submitted individually ahead of April 11th when is our planned time frame to um and the uh
permit fee um waivers unless we get an extension and we will talk to you about that in April so the pros to this are you are reducing your risk of H having high value open permits during um hurricane season so even if you didn't
finish all your work but maybe you finished half of it you would then only have half of it open which technically if we had another storm could count against you in um another storm event and the Damage that would be associated with with it however closed permits are
complete and they have no value to the determination of a NE of a new storm the cons as I mentioned more labor intensive because our plans examiners would have to research multiple permits to ensure that it does not exceed 50% our
recommendation is if you do want to take this route just submit your complete packet with each individual permit because then they can see that you already have a plan to do all of the work but you're putting an individual permit with all the information um yes and this was formerly
called phasing and we're not using that term it's my understanding and um also I was told as well by the building official that you can put those permits all in at the same time even though they're individual so people need to understand that you can put them in all
at the same time and they're all individual versus putting them under one large permit umbrella so this is a huge benefit for anybody getting late into the process thank you next slide so you've seen this multiple weeks
now our permit status we have a total of 29 a little over 2900 applications submitted we're uh running still about 22 issuances a day which is not um quite to our goal but we do can keep that
we've kept it high to try to try to Aspire to reach it we are uh averaging about 75 inspections a day just want to remind everyone that you you can get the next day inspection if you call before 2:30 the day before City Hall is open so
please be mindful of holidays and weekends don't count on that 230 day before call uh some primary challenges we're still having SD determinations we still have outstanding a little over 800 so there are some community members that
are still concerned may have been issued permits but don't feel completely comfortable moving forward we are telling them that they are free to move forward if the city has issued them a permit despite not having that letter and then the other um challenge has been
owner Builder applications I think Denise had mentioned at the last meeting that about 90% of our applications have been owner Builder um managed so not being a general contractor that does this every day it takes a little bit more um assistance with our our staff
and and our community next slide here is the most recent oh I'm sorry we they gave me new update so we've had 22,277 deter termination so we have 66 we're waiting on um you can see here
that we have a little under 1,500 non-s substantially damaged and 812 currently still substantially damaged we expect this number to continue to go down as we have become very familiar with the damage type that we're dealing with in the community and the trends that we've
seen so you can expect that to continue to go down as we work through the appeals next slide and here you're seeing we' had 515 appeals submitted 423 have been approved we have 92 in progress and if
you are submitting appeal if just to move it quicker we're recommending photos if you need a private Market appraisal and also any detailed cost of repairs to justify the um damage being under the 50% you can see thus far we've had zero denied so again another Trend
we're seeing in the community that we have a really good grasp of the kind of damage we received from the Hurricanes Commission I have an uh and again we are offering on-site inspections correct yes if you want to receive your
own um the city will come in and look at your um property and help you issue basically approve the appeal thank you you're welcome next slide just another reminder Elevate
Florida has um put they've launched their uh portal so please check it out if you're interested in elevating um it is we understand like most of the grant programs under uh sustainability end up
being first come first serve however we have heard that elevate Florida will in particular be paying attention to repeat flooding areas so if you are a property that's had repeat flooding you may have um you may be at the top of their
priority list is they're they are trying to uh move uh as many of those properties that have been damaged multiple times out of the flood plane and then if you go to floridad disaster.org that's where u a lot of the further information is regarding just
housing recovery support so you can check out that General website again Florida disaster.org next slide so we um have a volunteer program we have uh over a dozen I'm not quite sure the
number but we had about 36 people initially um interested we've trained at least over a dozen who are rotating in and out of City Hall during the 9 to1 UM permit desk hours they are there to help you look review your packet with you
make sure you have all your documents and they're collecting drop off documents so you don't have to come in sign up and wait and also helping us with general questions they have been absolutely amazing I try to go down there um frequently to say hi but um if when you do come in you're going to have immediate assistance from one of your
fellow community members and then we are still working on the details of implementing an inhome assistance um permit application review or setting up additional teams of neighbors who are willing to help particularly our elderly
population that may be homebound or um just not know where to start and so uh working on on on that as well right now um wanted to give the new community development director a minute to get her settled and then um we're going to be
trying to to push that out next slide I just want to say real quick um on the volunteers um want a huge thank you to everybody in the community that's that's actually taking their time and volunteering and I I put the program to
test this week actually just this morning as you know uh I just showed up with an an address and nothing else and I said help me I just want to see what the process work like for my own house and um they took me the volunteers took
me through the entire process from beginning to end helped me fill out all the forms said here's what you got to look out for here's where you go to get this soriz here's where we put this and it went through the entire process and then when I took it into the permitting Department I mean the entire package was
100% completed the correct way and they just took it in they went through it and said everything is here and it's ready to go and the amazing thing is the wait time to speak to volunteer was zero minutes right and they take you all the
way through the process from beginning to end and it doesn't matter if it's a small package or a huge package whatever the damage you have they'll walk you through the entire process step by step um so I I can't I can't thank the volunteers and our neighbors uh really
just for your generosity and for your ability and and the the amount of varied I mean one of the gentlemen was an engineer that was at the volunteer desk this morning another one was a retired attorney you know it all walks of life and it's it's amazing to have these people available our community and to to dedicate their time thank
you I I'd like to also mention don't forget two for districts two and and well all districts but two is upcoming for historic designation survey and district one is also on the books for that too so do consider whether you want
your home if it's over 5050 years or older um to apply for historic designation which is free to apply for um so I just want to keep that in people's mind for that going forward as well thank you so take questions if
there are any I see some green lights commissioner molland okay uh just a couple quick questions Madam city manager uh so previously penales County was uh one of our principal bottlenecks for the SD or the
determination letters uh I don't see them listed are they are they good now I mean they're getting us the data as we need it or we are still having some complications on these final letters we need we're actually um Linda Cheney has
sponsored some meetings with Title Basin so uh staff will be meeting with them and um the assembly woman to discuss how do we how do we get through this final process um we also met with FEMA uh this
week to let them know and share the challenges we had had so we are working at the very least to prevent this from happening before but Title Basin is the owner of the data so although the county sponsored the state
contract it really was Title Basin that was responsible to make sure the data was accurate and trans and trans transfer to the um agency is our community development department or in the building department
uh are they no longer an issue as it relates to prompt data processing um the the information in order to get the letters out or are they
still a bit of a hangout I would not say it's the County Title Basin is hang up for getting these so it's not the county it's not us no it's title Bas yes well that name keeps coming up a
lot doesn't it okay thank you commissioner marott um yes thank you so uh I know that there's a number of people who have received permits who are in the or or who have applied for permits and are um
kind of caught in that middle ground of um you know comments coming back to their contractor or comments coming from their contractor back to the back to the building department um who have felt like you know like they're they're Treading Water a little bit and not
getting anywhere and um and I know you and I have talked about that a little bit so I just wanted to make sure that people know that uh that the the building department is aware of of some of these problems and that those are some process issues that are be that are being worked on and improved So for
anybody who's you know trapped in that middle ground of like you know I applied for a permit I thought I had everything good the people at the counter told me I had everything checked off and now nothing's happening and you know that that uh um there are there are
improvements being made to the process and most importantly to make sure you manage your own contractor a bit um so that you know you know what's happening and and remind me the the the the information is now going both to
homeowners and contractors correct when when updates or or comments are made on permit applications yeah so one of the process changes and if this hasn't been your experience please call in and make sure that our system has your information but we're not only asking for the contractor's email but the the
owner's email and so when we distribute updates they go to both perfect thank you commissioner Riki um just something further on the letters of determination um because I would like the city to to
be looking for the future and and process um because we know the letter itself is is an issue or the data attached to this letter is an issue and quite frankly I don't know why we need to use the letter at all um and whether
in the future um or in in the evaluation of post storm that um when we're looking at fd's um guide book right and and seeing that a city can deter determine or have the process in place right that
we can create the process in place of determining substantial damage or or not right because um we know many people who have are having to go through this process of deter of appealing their
letters which I I find ridiculous including myself um and then how long does that sit in the house you know because come another storm come another um inspection or another appraisal all
those numbers change and none of the numbers are changing on pelis County so you know I've had to do um what we called back then because it was called the FEMA packet when I remodeled my home um I did an appraisal that number
is not reflected on pelis County that was three years ago now I got my our determination that's based off of what's on penela County's number versus my already paid for appraisal 3 years ago
but because it was three years ago I would have to do another appraisal because it has to be within one year so now I have to take in this cost because this letter is incorrect and and I quite frankly don't understand why we have to
do that um because everybody like we see the numbers and the data that's been just shown are being very successful uccessful in appealing it because they've all done their packets already so why go through this process of appeal why put the ownership on the property
owner the cost and everything else Associated time um because it's time and money um well we know we're going to be successful we already have what we were calling the evidence so why have that additional step so I hope that um we can
eliminate this sooner than later because come another storm we would have to do this all over again and and for those of that might not be appealing let's say my percentage is not over 50% right I'm able to go get a permit it's under that 30% but how long does it sit there on
this open permit so I don't know if publicly we've put out there how long does it sit there when is it removed is it closed if you don't appeal it um or does it just sit there open for indefinite amounts of time all those little steps at least I haven't heard
you know and I look at my appeal um form and and the and the steps I have to take to appeal it it doesn't mention well if you don't do it it'll be closed because it's under 30% or you know there there's no process um and it's and it's quite frustrating because I know a lot of
residents are frustrated with having to do this additional step or even think that they have to wait for this letter if they already have an active permit so um I just wanted to put that out there thank you you want me to comment if you could if
you could know if that was a question or um so a few things to consider for the future that we are doing one is that and I think we've we've shared this with the public we did not have a substantial damage assessment plan created going
into the storm so we created it as we went through the storm so that did create a bit of clunkiness we also agreed at the very beginning because of the um how large the damage was when the county came to
us and said the state is providing a contract for substantial damage pretty much the entire County signed up because we were over the system was overwhelmed and we did not have a contract in place for any vendor to do the substantial damage assessment ourselves and that's
one of FEMA's rules you can use your own contractors if you've done your bidding process prior to the storm so two things we're working on right now is we we H we have someone on staff working on developing a substantial damage plan my goal is to get it to you for
presentation before the next hurricane season because once you have a plan FEMA likes consistency and so that plan if we have it we're going to have to use it in the next storm we won't be able to be on the fly like we were this last time without a
plan we're also um already looking at an RFP for um building inspectors anyone who can come in and do a substantial damage assessment for us so as soon as the next storm hits just like we had our
debris which was we we did relatively much better than most people because we already had our contract in place and they didn't cancel on us so those were two factors that helped us move the debris issue much quicker than a lot of surrounding um communities So the plan
will be we can deploy a team to do our own substantial damage assessment which which means now the building official can lead them on the set of assumptions they use so one of the main assumptions that happened on this countywide level and we don't know who made this decision
but it was made that the flood level was 8 ft well the building official after our heads got a little above water he was able to go look at what we had collected during that initial damage assessment and we know now is between 7.02 and
7.12 so then we could start sending these letters as say we know you didn't flood so ignore any damage letter you received so those are two things we're working on right now as far as the pelis county uh so the the the one-year
expiration of a private um property appraisal is a femur rule so unless we Lobby which we can to try to change that because we could we could try to change that in the law in the regulations
you'll still have that area of data that when even when we do our own damage assessments we'll be initially pulling from the county and then we'll be checking our own database to see do we have one that's less than a
year the likelihood of that is going to be slim from Hur you know from one damaging hurricane to the next so that's a hiccup in the system that we don't we can't fix right now because it's a Federal Regulation um did I address all your concerns
mostly the time the timeline for like closing um the permit so you have an open permit with the letter determination staff and we'll give you that update in the next because I know we created a permit in the system to track all of the sub substantial damage
letters we've received I think this is a great segue that you're going to hear from us in the next meeting that um we're moving into that phase now now where we have to bring in the FEMA data which the last report they provided this community has received over $150
million in um assistance and so now their expectation of us is to audit that so let's say you got $50,000 on your property for damage we go look up your address you don't have a permit pretty soon you're going to be getting a letter
from us to say you don't have a permit we're going to try to frontload some of the pre messaging before the permit free permit um waivers expire but that's the next phase is we have to show FEMA we connected the um any money people
received with did they get did they actually do permitted work so but I will check on how they're going to close out those letters because as long as you finish the work and you close it before the next hurricane or damaging event you your
start over right thank you I have I have a request um because I brought this up about I don't know about six weeks ago maybe eight um in regards to the uh data that tidle Basin had brought brought um to the table on everybody's
property um because I did request to get my assessment backup data from the uh substantial damage estimator and if anybody else had done that you would see basically two two rows of about 148
columns and only about 40 of them are populated with information there's 14 categories um being anywhere from your super structure your foundation your HVAC your plumbing Etc and those were all what was
determined to be looked at or walked by and guesstimated as to a percentage of of damage on the far far far right corner there was another thing called the ACV so Title Basin actually does do
a ACV an actual cash value determination which if anybody else out here did like me you went and paid 500 600 $650 to get an independent appraisal to do an ACV value which ironically they
themselves populate so um I had I had concerns with that I had a lot of questions with that I had a lot of questions with um who are these people that they got short notice how long did they how long were they trained for what was their training they get accredited
which is just badging who are these people um that question never got answered but I did get the answer on on this ACV and why it wasn't used as a metric and I was told and this went all the way up to the Florida Department of Emergency Management that um tidle Basin
had said that that was not used because uh it uh they defaulted to a condition of your home being average well I personally think fair is you know average is a fair determination um somewhat fair at least to be able to use
as a metric and looking at what you have is your FEMA number which is quite low versus this ACV which is substantially higher than the FEMA number um ultimately came back from fdem that we could use that number so I would like to you know future going forward look at
that as why that can't be used as a metric in the determination because there would been a lot many homes that would have never have gotten that letter had that not been um part of the process and used as a metric so I I would request that we
find out information on that also considering that um we're you know short on our goals is there any way to get more Personnel in permitting from the C uh from the state or County or whomever that because right now we're we're
getting refunded FEMA wise or potentially getting money back from those Personnel do do we need more to speed up any processes because eventually it's going to snowball it's going to snowball for the fact everybody's got permits in and then it's going to get clogged at inspections I
mean it it's going to be a Snowball Effect down the road so I'm just saying is is while it's still being covered should we be looking at beefing some areas or getting more help because Lord knows
it took us what 15 weeks to get help right so and is it going to take us another 15 weeks to get more help yes so I had this very discussion with staff and we we right now have hit the Sweet Spot of a trained
team that knows the city well enough to to move things um we are going to expire on the FEMA State contract on April 11th right we are working with our state lobbyists to see
if they would see if the state would consider um ex extending the funding um we've asked for 90 days I'm also looking at um a I'm going to call it a kind of a limited duration Staffing model to bring
forward to the commission regardless of whether we get the extension we finally have a team that we've trained I've told uh staff to not release any of the people on site or contracted right now and we're looking at um their interest
in staying for a year so that we can provide some consistency to the community we know it's going to take at least another year to reach I'd say 90% you know recovery and rebuild so that's the plan right now um
they have told me if we they can keep everyone in place they're they're kind of in a good Rhythm and uh they're feeling confident that we can keep keep I'm I'm worried about the snowball because I'm figure all the permits get in and now all a sudden we've got a ton of inspections and we're short on
inspectors our inspectors are we've staffed up and amazingly they because you see they're averaging 75 a day uh they're able to meet the demands okay I don't see people move I don't even see the contractors moving quick
enough to overload us if we keep this team in place okay good thank you thank you city manager any further questions on the recovery efforts all right next we have audience comments
city clerk thank you Lauren monz good evening and welcome if you'll please stay name and address for the record right there you can give if you have anything to give to the city clerk if you would like anything entered into the record it's a petition with over 230
people if you'll please state your name and address at the microphone so we can hear you otherwise it won't get record it okay Lauren monus and my address you want my full address just whatever you feel like sharing I'm pass girl resident thank you I'm actually a new passag gril
Resident um my husband and I bought our dream and forever home on the gulf last year and now I am horrified and quite frankly scared um I'm scared because I know what
it's like to lose my health I don't know if any of you know what it's like to lose your health but I moved to pass a girl to optimize my health I love the beach beach is the healthiest Place pag girl is one of the last somewhat
uncommercial area in probably Florida maybe even the states um 10 years ago I almost died of Crohn's disease um I was the sickest I've ever been in my life and I healed myself
naturally um when I saw that 5G Tower go up at Hurley Park I I cried I was um so sad and angry that that I move to an area that would do
this um and not even ask the residents or consent with us um I have a choice in how I use my phone when I use my phone I can turn my phone off at night so I don't get the radiation I have a choice on what food
to eat I have a choice on what vaccinations to get I have a choice on what medications to use the point is I have a choice on what goes into my my health um but when there's a 5G Tower three blocks from my
house that's radiating radio frequency waves 247 I don't have a choice and that eliminates my choice and is an invasion and disruption of my life
liberty pursuit of health and happiness we humans are electrical beings down to every cell every one of our cell has an electrical magnetic field non-native EMF radio frequencies
from 5G Towers have a direct negative impact on our health denying this contradicts basic human anatomy and Science in 2011 30 countries gathered and determined that radio frequency is
dangerous and needs more regulation the World Health Organization rates it as a carcinogen the FCC has not updated its regulations since 1996 so everything that's on the application that you guys approved to get these towers up is false
and it's fraudulent and that's been proven 95% of the information on those applications from these telecom companies is false and fraudulent these telecom companies are immune from
responsibility if someone gets injured they are immune from it thank you just like the vaccine companies so this sounds like this is a really important issue to you it is yeah can I just finish for one 30 seconds a one
time 30 seconds if you'll please wrap it up okay why weren't we informed of this why weren't we consented I want to know why we just just got over a 100-year flood people are struggling to even get
into their home and you guys snuck in a 5G Tower and you have plans for three or four more going up why what is the point because there's no lack of cellular service in passag gril okay so I want to know because I we
are we deserve to know the Freedom of Information Act I want a trace of everything we want a trace of everything the 250 people that I have my petition want a trace of everything where's the money going because there is no lack of communic of cellular service right so
it's got to be money ority we can get you those answers right now what's up I said if you want to give us an opportunity we can get you those answers right now because I did I'm not sure if it was your email or somebody else's but we did receive quite a few emails about this um and that's why you know we have
I brought it up at least in my discussions with the city attorney and with the city manager so that we can give you some direct answers that I believe you do deserve them I mean they didn't come to the commission for approval and said can we put these towers in right it wasn't like they were
brought to us and we said here you can have these towers and so um if you'll give us an opportunity I'm going to ask the City attorney just to kind of give us a quick summary of um of where we are with the cell towers and how we got here will that be all right yeah okay thank
you so you want me to sit down down and you're going to answer yes thank you um if I could go first yeah you go first okay so um these points are are valid um the FCC is in charge of the medical impacts and
they haven't updated their um review in many many years um Robert F Kennedy Jr's Children's Health Network did file a lawsuit against FCC and they won and the FCC is supposed to be reviewing and implementing those and I expect that
we'll see some further advancement uh now that he's been appointed by the president so I think that that is coming in 2017 the Florida legislature was approached by lobbyist for the cell
phone industry and they adopted a state law preempting local governments from saying no to small cell wireless communication facilities in the city's RightWay so we can't say no they've also prohibited local governments from
collecting any money from these small cell phone tower providers that are being located in the Ci's right away um we are allowed to do certain things we're allowed to require registration proof of insurance construction bonds
verification of FCC authorization and uh the city through Brandon has requested and reviewed all of those um we have can require poles to be of a similar design color uh as a replacement pole as an
existing pole um and we've done that um we've limited the pole height to the limits that are in the state statute and limited the cubic feet uh required them to scale down the size of them and we've also required them to reduce to the
maximum um that's allowed in the state statute preemption o of the city um so we've done many of the things we are can do and we did ask for them to voluntarily move um some of the towers
one by the fire station and one by Passa Grill um some of those were rejected U but we did ask um the state statute prohibits us from doing quite a bit but it does allow certain things um we can revisit and I could do a review of our
design Criterion design standards um to see if there's anything else we could possibly do um with regard to trying to U regulate these 5G within the St P Beach and I can bring that back to I think everyone wants us to look into it
so we can do a review it's been a while since uh so we adopted um our 2019 rules um it's been amended maybe once since then but we could review it again okay and this also went before the historic
board I don't know the answer to that I think there was discussion with the historic board chairman yes so we did take it to the historic board for input and opportunity for the community to to weigh in to the
extent they could because I believe if my memory serves me correctly they submitted two options one was adding it to the pole height which was within the height or creating another pole that was shorter and so um when I talked to staff
I said you should take it to some community board to at least weigh in on the design to the extent they can commissioner mahol excuse me thank you Mr Mayor I I just want to make a couple brief comments on this because this is my
district um so uh on 1212 the historic preservation board did um um offer consent to these sell Towers in passag gril um on 12:16 I had a community meeting uh
at the Warren Webster building that was probably 20 25 people there and not a soul mentioned anything about the cell towers at that meeting I had a special meeting on 1226 at the Warren Webster
building that was S standing room only and it was a meeting that was specifically um organized for um one particular matter but it ended up uh being a meeting that anybody that had
anything to complain about was complaining about and nobody mentioned anything about the cell tires in that meeting as well so um I I I guess I don't want to lecture anybody uh I was kind of this in this spot two two and a
half years ago where I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on in the city and I got blindsided with a bunch of things and uh once that happened I made the decision that I was going to start
paying attention what happened in the city and I attended uh nearly every commission meeting in many of the other meetings uh so I wouldn't be blindsided again and then when I got tired of people not listening to me I decided to
run for commission so uh I understand everybody's frustration about this and like I say I don't want to lecture anybody but um some of these things uh there's a lot of State statutes that that Force some of this
stuff on us um but so far as uh the information goes uh I would just encourage people to um attend these meetings uh watch them after the fact I think Mr Mayor you're currently doing
Facebook things that are timestamped for different subjects um but you know pay attention to what's going on in the city um so you don't get blindsided with things like this because uh you know it
was put out there there was an opportunity um uh to address it with me had somebody had concerns about it had they um known what had gone on with the historic preservation board so uh I just wanted to add those comments Mr Mayor
thank you sure commissioner Robinson it appears it's more of a state thing ours is minimal but do we have any regulation on height and distance because what I read about was a recommended distance of 1,320
Ft a distance from where to where from from population from from the from the tower itself now I don't believe everything I read on the internet but I'm just saying that that was somewhat of a consensus on that and so my question is do we have
any regulation for that we can regulate height or distance of the towers I mean I understand that you know we're kind of subject to the state saying that it it you know we we can't say it can't be here but can what other than the color
of the pole you know can we say height or distance um I can put together um a PowerPoint or a memo and distribute that so you can see all the different things that we can do and what we can't do um and one of the things we can't do unfortunately is have public hearings on
the on the 5G applications they have to be done administratively and there's shot clocks that are in there so it's a very onerous State preemption um you know we can't have public meetings on it um you can have a public meeting like
this but you can't subject the application to say a conditional use application for the 5G tower has to be handled administratively and there's 14-day shot CL clocks and 60-day shot clocks uh that are put into the state preemption statute um we I think there
are many cities that are concerned about this the legislation legislative session is coming up again um a Florida League of cities is also concerned about it it might be something that we can push and try to lobby for in in this year's legislation again it's hard to fight
Verizon and AT&T excuse me I'm not sure whose phone keeps going off and I'm not sure who's speaking in the back but we've given everybody an opportunity to come forward and speak uninterrupted and so if you have a conversation to have please have it outside and then rejoin us when you're able to sit here participate and
listen thank you so i' I'd urge us to to look into the legislation in Tallahassee and maybe lobbying in the federal government to try to get more control commissioner malland uh Madam city manager I I I'd
like to be able to ask Mr Barry or Mr Mills a question about um an existing 5G I believe that's already in passag Grill are you okay with me and they may or may not even be able to opine on it but I
believe we have an existing 5G that has been there for some time down around 30th Avenue in passor gr way um if there I didn't even know what it was uh to a year or ago but I don't know
if Brandon's here yeah I can't see past the TV oh coming there he is there he is didn't think you were going to have to talk about this tonight did you don't isn't there an existing 5G like at 30th Avenue is kind of back in the trees 30th
a I I want to say 30th and passway it's somewhere close to there that's been there for quite some time cor correct I believe it was right yeah excuse me we're we're trying to hear him speak okay it's it's impossible to hear especially for people
at home when you're yelling out so we gave you the courtesy all we ask is for the same courtesy to let other people at the podium speak uninterrupted so we can hear them thank you around five or six years ago Verizon came through they installed I believe they were all own poles uh the current installations are
uh equipment on Duke replacement poles but they did come through there is one I believe around that location yes and that's a Verizon Pole right has have there been any complaints about that particular pole that you're aware of I understand that you may not be aware of
it there was one pole in passag grill that was installed under the previous wave which was Verizon's applications where it was relocated I don't know if it had anything to do with with health effects it might have been um just
visually it wasn't appealing but it it was relocated um that was something they were willing to do at the time so do you happen to recall for the historic preservation board um consent of the new polls um I I call them
polls I you know I'm as most of you know I'm not really a technocrat um they look more like poles and Towers to me but um was there any sense of what the
consensus was was it a 0 consensus a 32 consensus or I think generally we didn't take a vote but the board you know prefer that they be as as short as possible um I think there were a few options that was were presented and I think there might be some additional
restrictions we can look into compared with the state uh statute limitations relative to our or ordinance uh we have certain restrictions on new polls so newly placed polls that don't extend the replacement polls and we may be able to explore if we can extend the new poll
restrictions to the replacement polls um we are fairly limited on the replacement polls that are currently under review other than design as was mentioned before we we can't do a whole lot they meet the 50- foot height standard that um we currently have in our code so
thank you I appreciate it I know you I know you weren't prepared to come up here and speak about this so I thank you for coming up how many do we have across the city if you were to guess um not counting on top of the buildings right because I know that I think seark has
some and a few other other buildings so and it's not it can't just be limited to Verizon correct correct I as far as I'm aware it's only been Verizon in AT&T that have made applications so far I would say with the current wave we
probably have around 25 um I believe I reviewed 12 or so that went on local streets I know that FD has approved several along blind Pass Road and Gulf Boulevard and then we have six under the current scope so and these three that
we're talking about specifically on Passa Grill these are additional new ones or these Replacements these are these are replacement of Duke poles but they are new equipment on those poles new equipment that wasn't there before brand new okay so again equipment
okay well that's kind of disturbing with 25 across the city that instead of just the three in pass a grill we got 25 across the city I would say it needs to be looked at thank you Brandon thank you Ronald Veno good evening sir if you'll please
state your name and address for the record yeah my name is Ronald vieno I live in B Grill all right so I have a question for all of you and the audience I'd like to know who would like to have a 5G Tower in front of their
house who would like yeah they don't seem to be very popular yeah they're not because they're very very deadly that're cancer machine so I I know you guys are not trying to kill us but this is killing us and if
you don't protect us which is what your job is because I'd be very very high tax I'm going to die from it because of negligence you know
so so I want to debunk one your statement Ralph so you're the attorney and you can look this up you can defend yourself against these compan it's absolutely all over the net okay
you you just have to look it up they will provide you a lawyer to defend yourself paid by them because it's a law and you will win them because what they write in the application is all lies it's not accurate and you can deun
that right away so I say this is pure negligence that this is happening to us because it has no purpose my 5G to my five my phone works just fine without them right now so why are we doing this
there's no purpose my phone is not going to work better because of it it already works just fine it's a small tiny Island pass Grill and that's why we bought our house there our dream home to retire and we spend like nearly 4 $4 million on this this is our whole life saving and
now we're going to have to cook under this Tower you know it's atrocious so basically I have to accept to take a loss of $1 million do you know anyone that wants to lose 1 million doll this is what my property value is going to go down 20%
and you can look it up Adrian you're in the business you know nobody wants to buy a house near a 5G Tower and it's going to get even worse because RFK um is just about to expose those
company fullblown it's going to happen this just a matter of time and when it gets exposed nobody's going to want a house near 5G they are the killing machine cell phone kills people you know but these are Master machine of killing
it's murderers and if you don't work with me to fight this well what am I what am I going to do you know you guys are there to to protect me and that's why you guys are elected to protect the citizen so we
are the citizen and we need your protection and we know how to fight this we can help you we all work together so and Mr Brooks you know we can provide you a full full information about how to fight those company you can forward that information to Mr Brooks would certainly
appreciate it okay thank you thank you for listening thank you I'm sorry but whoever cell phones and me mayor sorry right trying to turn it off it just makes it really diff ult to
hearon for city clerk RZA Ravi Resa Ravi good evening and welcome if you'll please state your name and address for the record evening um Dr Ravi uh 1105 golfway 2500 passor girl I own several
buildings 7224 cin way uh well it's um good to see some fresh blood I'm glad to see uh for new Commissioners that's that's wonderful and uh glad to hear some of your comments and hear that you're advocating for us uh
congratulations to the city manager by the way I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you congrats um I want to start off actually by saying thank you to our um um pretty much everybody that has helped
during this um Colossus of uh flood so uh our firefighters um those folks the city workers that worked Around the Clock um nurses doctors neighbors uh citizens of our community uh they've
done an amazing job and we need to um you know appreciate them police officers so first I wanted to kind of say uh start off by saying thank you our city is back we're resilient we're not going anywhere and uh you know we will rebuild
and it's going to be better than before but we're really grateful to our uh firefighters um they've done such a marvelous job um you know um I see them working around the clock um the First Responders so thank you on behalf of all
of us uh in St Pete Beach passor Grill um and all of our neighbors who have held hand and proved uh you know our country America this is what it's all about neighbors helping neighbors and communities coming together so um a
concern switching from that uh a concern regarding uh these 5G Towers I think um I'm glad we brought up the issue of historic board by the way Mr Holland I'm going to provide you since we're in the same uh District I'm going to provide
you with my cell phone it's 8134927903 to every one of your meetings and I'll be side by side and we'll consult um I went to Stats and law right around the corner so if I can help in anyway you know I'm I'm right there for you um but what I want to share with you guys is
that um uh I'm glad that we have a historical board I'm hoping um distinguished city manager that we use our historical board a little bit more meaning we just don't use them as a rubber stamp we actually utilize them to
take a look critically at all of these things and provide feedback super duper important uh I was talking actually to Sean Hurley who is an historical board and this is important couple of issues because I know time is of the essence um
my issues some of them have been addressed privacy hasn't been addressed because these towers are also utilized for p you know for um facial recognition and all of that so I'm I would love to hear from you guys regarding that as well thank you very much for your time
appreciate it thank you sir Tiffany margaritondo good evening if you'll please state your name and address for the record hello my name is Tiffany Margaret tondo I am your neighbor off of 59th on
Bal way my husband and I have five children all of which are under the age of 18 and four of which play competitive Sports and I only note this because I want everyone to understand the level of work it takes for our family to maintain its day-to-day responsibilities in addition to the added workload the
hurricane has brought tonight I want to discuss the roadblocks we have run into while trying to get our famili settled the first issue we faced were the clerical issues made um by the city regarding our substantial damage letter we waited and waited for said letter that our insurance company was asking
for and that we needed to apply for the increased cost of compliance it never came our letter was mailed to the old owners of the home thankfully they were kind enough to forward it to us so we could get it amended showing we are the current owners of the property how can our elected officials say they are
putting residents first when they don't even know who lives in the neighborhoods the next set of issues are directly tied to our demo permit our contractors unable to reach anybody via phone or via email to obtain accurate information they have reached out to multiple people including bberry at stpete beach.org
without return correspondence the volunteer team that has been put into action is proving to be a detriment instead of of a benefit because each volunteer has a different interpretation of code which means that our contractor keeps getting told to submit different types of documentation most recently our permit for demo was
kicked back because we did not provide a vegetation or Landscaping package along with our s Bond excuse me I'm nervous my understanding is that if we tear down our house and are unable to start the rebuild within 60 days of tear down we are required to saw our entire property so that the city does not have
to worry about an aesthetically displeasing empty lot adding insult to injury we aren't required to provide just a sod Bond we are required to provide a bond in the amount of 125% of the cost to sod the lot why is this not being waved for hurricane
victims I'm also meeting with the landscaper tomorrow to discuss tearing down the mature magnolia trees on our property that survived Helen in Milton and have been there since 1961 because they don't fall under the approved species of shade trees required can
anybody tell me what this has to do with getting our permit approved Meanwhile my husband continues to work exuberant amounts of overtime to float the cost of maintaining two homes one of which is uninhabitable and the other is an Airbnb that totals 900 square fet for five kids
two adults and a dog perhaps I'm too stupid to understand the intricacies of code or why a magnolia tree versus a specific type of tababa tree could possibly hold up our family from going home but I wonder why we have elected officials who claim to be in the thick of it with us but are unavailable or
unable to guide us through through this process that being said I would like to thank Grant Izzy if you're here I'm not sure you are but I've never met you no thank you for taking the time to explain how to navigate tonight's meeting and for taking the time to care about the family down the street and T Lisa
Robinson I'm the gal you messaged on Facebook and I'm still waiting for your call thank you you asked me to call you this week it's Tuesday I didn't ask you at all to call me you reached out to me and you offered to call and I would have been prepared
with a call if I were you because tonight was an important meeting so rather than get blasted in front of your constituents and fellow co-workers I would have made that call thank you thank you for your comments city clerk Nancy lurker good evening and welcome please
state your name and address for the record thank you very much Nancy lurker 1405 pass a grill way so I had some comments but I'm going to not use them based on some of the conversation that's already occurred about the 5G Tower so first I want to say thank you mayor for
uh having the attorney speak I appreciate that and commissioner malland thank you as well for you commenting about at least bringing this up I travel a lot so I'm out of town I can't make the meetings so unfortunately I was not aware of the 5G Tower until I saw it go
up at I believe 15th Street and Gulfway so let me give you just a bit about my background uh I have an undergraduate in biology and chemistry I have an advanced degree in finance and I've run uh three different biotech companies in my career so I know a thing or two about science I did a bunch of
research on this let me just say shortterm probably doesn't have huge effects long-term we don't know I want to Echo what the mayor said which is we know that the administration is going to open the books back open on this because the the data is basically saying there
could be long-term effects particularly neurological uh and that is something of concern so what I would ask is is there anything we can do particularly as the federal government potentially reopens this to revisit it in our neighborhood
and um I don't know if there's some way we can get back to the state I'm happy to work with my fellow neighbors to petition the state kind of raise a ruus over it on social media to at least say stop as an aside I continue to be dismayed at how the state preempts local
I think that's a terrible precedent to set um and then um uh finally I just want to make sure that we are uh seeing if there's anything we can do to stop further the number of towers that get put in doesn't sound like we can based
on what the attorney has said but I think at least pushing if this opens up at the federal level and then as I said I'm going to work with my local neighbors to try to raise some awareness about this on social media particularly with our Congressional reps and the federal government but I appreciate
everything you're doing and for your openness to this thank you thank you nany uh just there are so our state representative for our district lives in our city here Linda Cheney um if there's anyone that could
reach out to the state legislature I know they're in session right now they're looking at bills um and then also our Senator is Nick the sigle he's just up the road in Indian Rocks um those are the two individuals I would I would reach out to at the state
level um I know I've been working with several of the Mayors for the last year because home rule that's what we call in Florida the ability to self-govern for cities um and that's been eroded over the last 10 20 years and you see it
every year you know last year and the year before and the year before we fought the short-term rentals they wanted you know to come in and just do a one siiz fits-all for the entire state of Florida and so you know through the cooperation between all the small cities and the mayor we've got you know 440 cities in the state of Florida so we were able to defeat that at the very
last minute the governor vetoed that even though it got voted through um so that's that's one of the areas that we're using to to combat this is is trying to fight for that home world and I know there's a there's a group of Mayors that's working on this right now locally uh they've organized it locally
taken it Statewide as far as we can um because it's just you see it with every little thing and and I'm I know what his answer is and it sounds as Hollow to me as it probably sounds to you I'm sorry we can't do anything because the state
tells us we can't and the federal government it is what it is it still sounds Hollow right and so while we may not be able to attack it on a frontal just like this there are other things that we can do sir yes there are and we are doing those things um because it's
not acceptable to say well Shucks there's nothing we can do we just have to find different Avenues to attack them I realize I don't necessarily share all those things that we do on a day-to-day basis outside of this commission meeting but I just I thought you should know some of the things that we are doing to you know to combat this in a different
in a different method but I definitely would reach out to a state representative and a state senator again they're both local you know one's half a mile from here and the one's just up the street city clerk Vincent terminia good evening if you please state your name and address for the
record Vincent Sania 3514 Kaza Blanca Avenue St Pete Beach Florida I have a couple of things that I want to just talk about um I want to thank you all for being caring and everything with everybody that's was from the storm the
second thing is there's been a rise in gleo blastoma and it has in uh venar pigil I know a lot of people that have gotten it and stuff like that I know the Sprint
towers used to be there when it was Sprint then T-Mobile took them over and then Verizon came in but it should be somewhere where people own this property they could say I don't want it here so
if that's a possibility of doing that because actually I had it from Duke Energy wanted a transformer in my backyard and I said no and they never put it there and they won't put it there because I'll take the
ball down but that's besides the point but um so I mean there was no reason for it and they found that there was no reason for it so and that's what I just wanted to bring up you know also that if you
know I've gave you the thing from Ashley Moody's office the ethics complaint and I really believe that that should be filed against the people that were here prior to you that have done a lot of
damage and taking a lot of money and from 2010 that we are paying for storm sewer assessment two of them not one two and we have no storm sewers so I mean this really needs to be
addressed I mean kandom is working as much as possible we're trying to get money grants stuffff like that but we need more before this storm season comes again I saw it the other day and it was time to fill up the
streets again you know it's bad the walls need to be raised we need a storm sewer there somehow I mean I don't know we have a push on our block supposedly but no storm sewer so I don't understand
why that push is there when it's not pushing anything except from Gul Boulevard you know and it's bypassing us totally so and we go down like this all the water comes down like this and fills up and I just don't want to go through
again what we went through so and that was it thank you very much thank you sir city manager would we be able I know cam gave us an update on the sewer system just the the the previous one on what the maintenance schedule is going to
and what we're putting in place prior to the next storm season could we just get an update on that at the next commission meeting or the one after that please yes thank you I know he said he he the plans and just to see what the progress is since
then city clerk Mia heartley good evening and welcome if you'll please state your name and address for the record thank you good evening my name is Mia heartley raise theic so we can hear you I'm a little tall all right good every good evening everyone my name is Mia heartley I live
in District 2680 71st Avenue St Pete Beach Florida 33706 I would like to lead by saying that I was inspired by the turnout that we had two weeks ago regarding the Sound Ordinance um seeing that turnout also made me reflect on how we all ended up in that position together because I
think we were all pretty apprehensive and nervous going into that meeting for various reasons in my mind it comes down to the concept of intent versus impact and how with this ordinance the city commission's attent appeared to be lost on the
unintended impacts that this ordinance could have on our community when the S City commission takes action but that action results in an impact that was far from what you all intended it is the commission's responsibility to learn why that
happened and to make adjustments to how you act so that your impact will more closely align with the intent that could be posed in the future after hearing each of you share your piece on February 11th it sounds like the majority of you do not intend
for this proposed ordinance to have a negative impact on the livelihoods of musicians Hospitality workers locally owned businesses and I appreciate you all for sharing that that being said I've seen a lot of blame shifting going on as to what caused the massive turnout
at that F that February 11th meeting I've heard some folks blaming musicians for blowing this whole thing out of proportion and I've seen some others blaming political opponents for single-handedly enlivening the entire Community I did not use my voice two
weeks ago as a political Pawn or as an unruly musician from the wild west I'm an autonomous concerned and informed resident who does not like the president that's being set for how this current commission five people who are
sitting in front of me right now chooses to pass new ordinances if it was not your intent to Target musicians and local businesses with the Sound Ordinance it's your responsibility to ask why dozens of people and businesses felt targeted by the ordinance and why people chose to spend
their hard-earned money to find babysitters or take time off of work to get here on time to come to your commission meeting to make sure you understood the implications of what you were presenting to your community I agree with commissioner Marriott's suggestion that the city staff be given the opportunity to voice
the need for additional time additional time to do research so they're not proposing ordinances that have numbers that are being thrown out of thin air or ordinances that are clearly going to be contentious in nature it's very obvious I'm sure we've all done research
at this point this is a big problem in Florida while it turned out to be constructive evening February 11th's large constituent turnout was not born solely out of the beauty and unity of the democratic process it was also born out of avoidable chaos confusion and justifiable concern in our community
community that's already hurting thank you thank you for coming back Mia um and just as a followup to last to the last meeting we've actually scheduled several follow-up workshops for the noise ordinance because again as we found out
last time we heard you loud and clear right um what are the dates for that please city clerk first one is on April 22nd 4 p.m. okay so if you want to put that on your calendar on April 22nd at 400 p.m. we'll be right here in Chambers
we've got two hours allocated to have a workshop specifically on the noise ordinance um before a second reading so thank you Rich Lorenzen good evening if you state your
name and address for the record yeah good evening everybody Rich Len in 22nd Avenue uh first I'd like to Echo one of the other gentleman's comments uh City staff's doing a great job especially the worker bees uh city manager I think you're knocking the ball out of the park Amber city clerk we're going to hate to
see you go you're real Pro and I appreciate everything you've done um regarding and commissioner mahalan I'm glad you mve that uh item for the demo of the firehouse and pass gorilla to an action item um I hope everybody kind of slows down this one to realizes once we
demo that there's no going back we have no choice but new construction so U you know I've seen Crews all over the US that work out of double wides they work out of believe it or not I've seen doctors nurses pilots and paramedics in winnebagos for a couple years not saying that's the ultimate thing and in no
disrespect to the fire chief I know he's trying to take care of his folks and I totally get that but I think we need to slow down look at some options and see if we can renovate that place instead of spending $1 million dollars right now I'm going to say some things they're
going to ruffle some feathers here and I hope they do the folks don't take these as personal attacks but listen to it as constructive criticism uh we've got minutes that are published after every commission meeting right we've got a video that's available for every resident to view that's unbiased they
can listen to the entire thing and watch it but lately mayor you've gone to this thing where you're putting out a post commission video and I'm not sure why you're doing that or somebody's asked you to do that but quite frankly it kind
of comes across as your agenda I did a a commissioner Robinson count and you complimented her 10 times we all know she's running for reelection all right but it doesn't seem like that's the purpose of it it's kind of come across as bias and I think you're walking a
fine line and flirting with Florida statute 12313 paragraph 6 which misuse of public position position so I caution you to be careful with that and make that a presentation that is not biased or don't do it I don't know who needs it we can
all watch the minutes we can all excuse me watch the video my compliments to uh commissioner Marriott I'd say she's perhaps the most intelligent wise impartial and non-agenda driven Commissioner of this city has seen in
decades and during the last commission meet a mayor you actually aggressively Cut Her Off four times when it was her turn to talk four times okay and I know we all get emotional we have issues we believe in strongly we don't believe in strongly but I think you intacted her
integrity and a bunch of past Hotel stuff came up which was irrelevant to the issue that she was Raising was strictly about the noise excuse me the noise ordinance that's all she wanted to talk about not the beach ordinance nothing else um and I was glad to see you stand up because I think you've
taken hits a long time here and I was glad to see you stand enough for yourself Mr Mayor you can take this whatever you want to do with all respect but I think you owe her in a public apology thank you thank you for your comments city clerk Jill
mados good evening and welcome please state your name and address for the record uh Jill Madero 64078 Avenue St if you please use the microphone cuz sorry I'm little yeah okay Jill MOS
6478 Avenue St Pete Beach Florida 3376 um unfortunately this time I'm here in front of you uh purely on a selfish motive um I'm hitting roadblocks with my permit and I'm not really understanding
it so um in the short story of it all uh I have emails uploads everything with my permits they're pushing me back um they said my plumber was not licensed or insured according to your
database I personally went on to the DBA site was able to pull up my plumber's license asked him for a copy of his insurance and workman's comp which lists city of St Pete Beach there it is uploaded it provided
it to them they told me it will take at least 7 days to get your database updated so that push is my permit another 7 days then I got pushed back for the location of my HVAC condenser um they wanted to
know exactly where it was going to be placed um it it's a remove and replace it's going in the same place but it's being raised to code again uh had to provide all of that pictures of the old base uh measurements
Dimensions such forth tell me it's going to take 10 days to be reviewed again 10 days push back 10 more days in my rental if I even get approved at the end of the 10 days because I'm sure something else is going to come up
having an issue with that you talked about the uh early process um in regards to filing our permits and everything like that getting individual uh acceptance and everything so why not release my permit let my electrician gets started hold back my Plumbing at
least let me get started I just don't understand uh as far as Title Basin I think you need to consider a different company um erroneous numbers I had to pay for an individual appraisal which brought me down I'm under
30% I am still waiting here we are six months later I still have not even started to fix my home whether you remember me or not I have an 88-year-old father I'm in a rental with stairs I am scared to death every day to
go home and find him at the bottom of the stairs all I'm asking for is my permit I have provided everything that you guys have asked for is title Bas going to uh refund me for my cost of my individual appraisal doubt it haven't seen anything
from FEMA either Deni on all that too I don't understand I thought we were here to get the community back I don't feel that way Jill if you'll give the city manager your cont contact information please and we can look into that permit and get your an answer right away and
find out exactly what the holdups are and why for some reason the plumber isn't showing up or what some of the other issues are but this way and listen this is for anybody out there you've got four individuals here plus me send me an email send me a text message 99% of the time I'll get you an answer within 24
hours I'm sure the same is is true for the other Commissioners as well but right now if you'll just give the city manager the I mean this is your Chief of Staff right here right if you'll give it the information we'll get you an answer tomorrow all right I appreciate that thank you so much for your time of course John
kersman good evening sir if you'll please state your name and address for the record John kurman uh be Honda way I do have some personal items and then I have a beach stewardship item I don't know if I can have some separate time for the beach stewardship item
um can I I do I have toal not separate I'm sorry for General audience comments everybody gets three minutes okay well okay thank you so uh on the on the 5G issue you know I I I spent a lot of time in the cellular industry and I just want
to say though that uh from a science perspective distance matters so if we at one point you may have an aesthetic versus distance issue and unless the trees or concrete is blocking the antenna height may be actually your friend the higher the better it may be
from a health perspective and the idea is that a 4G antenna is a large cell so if you're near it being near it is very bad and the idea is to have a lot of small 5G cells so unfortunately now you may have a lot of people that are near 5G antennas that
are low intensity but the idea is to have these low non you know bad you know not as bad cell so anyway um can you take unfortunately it's still horrible when you're near one you know to see it
there um the the other thing is uh reclaim water I don't know if we're just having some sort of pissing contest literally with the county but you know if it was me who was using the reclaimed water every day since October um I'd be getting fines and if I
was dumping that water into the bay every day whether it's you know nutrient-rich or if it was just fresh water you know there'd be violations and and they make people turn off the water and not use it every other day so it's
like it's a joke that it just leaks every day now and and and it was turned off by the city and then turned back on because the county came and said well we can't fix it if it's off so then it was turned on the next morning and they still haven't come back for weeks so like because they can't figure out how
to patch a hole when you can see it right there when the water's off so I don't understand and they need Five Guys to patch a leak when you know normally it takes one guy to patch a leak so I don't understand what that's all about anyway and then be Ord uh I just want to make sure people know
that there's a beach stewardship meeting tomorrow morning in these in this place um and the beach ordinance you know I don't personally believe that just getting something done is progress if you're going to maybe have two steps back there's a lot of issues that I
think the past attorneys did not address there's a lot of issues that because of the way it was done by the original attorneys that are not clearly done correctly done I sent in I sent issues to the city commission I've spoken about of them a number of them I'm also
concerned about shade Communications because I did communicate them some of these things in these meetings and in fact I sent them uh to make sure that they were publicized and communicated to the other stewards and instead they only got sent to the other stewards and again not publicized so for instance when uh
Miss Batel uh an attorney reached out to me I made sure I sent those to her but again I'm trying to make sure that there's no shade communication so I I am going to try to publicize these things to make sure nobody thank you sir if you have anything that needs to make the rounds you can just send it to the city clerk and they she will distribute that
to everyone they have been sent to the clerk as well but that's right you won't see see you won't see the CC line and so you won't see you'll just have to trust her that she's done it but they the clerk but then they don't get then they don't get sent to the public that's what
I was verifying Grant Izzy good evening and welcome if you please state your name and address for the record uh Grant Izzy 203 59th Avenue um I've been up here several times talking
to you about making decisions using facts so no different tonight um permitting obviously still top of Mind as you heard from several people city manager briefed earlier we have zero appeals denied and part of what you said
was also because we were getting our arms around the damage right we know the type of damage that's out there so I'll just make another plea again for expedited permits we know the type of damage we we know that we can get people in and out quickly the chance of um
their house being substantially damaged is very very low or zero as we've seen in a lot of cases your staff has the expertise to be able to identify the types of houses and and if it's going to be close to substantially damaged you even said it yourself so I'm saying it
again let's do something better for the residents expedited permits we can do it I'm going to put this here if we can zoom in on it um can any of you get guess what that is just by looking at it drywall drywall
drywall screw inspection I I heard commissioner Robinson say earlier she was worried about the um snowball of inspections that that are coming and the backlog well here's an easy one where we can use either photo or video and I've
been asking for that for a long time this is simple right there it is passed instead it took almost a week because it because by the time the drywall screw guys got done it was after 2:30 it went into a holiday weekend the guys were
there they could have mutted my house I could have been done in two days instead it took a full week because we won't entertain the use of technology for something as simple as a drywall screw inspection all right lastly um
metrics um I think we're about 66% now permits uh approved um that's only part of it though you have said many times rightly so our goal is to get everybody back in
their homes as quickly and safely as possible so back in their homes that should be your lead metric how many people I didn't see permits closed maybe we can use that as this as an indic how many people in your
districts are back in their homes After the flood how many permits have been closed if that's your ultimate goal that's your ultimate goal that should be your lead metric per processing permits is important because that's a process and it measures how well our process is
going but again let's use the facts and let's come up with some better ideas to get people in their homes we can do it we we haven't reached the Pinnacle this is the beginning of the crisis so let's keep going thank you
thank you city clerk Lee ponds good evening sir if you'll please state your name and address for the record when you come forward good evening my name is Lee pans I live at in Clearwater and I work here in St Pete Beach at St P guitars um I want to get
back to the uh Sound Ordinance we had talked about a couple of weeks ago um I'm confused I understand a new ordinance is going to be a it's going to be judged orderly you know on it's what someone hears the old one is is decided by a
decimal reading or um and I understand that that one is not it's in enforceable if that's the word I thing was that you used I believe what about it is in
enforceable I don't understand that's not a roral question I'm actually asking you that it's not a it's not a Q&A session sir yeah and this is your opportunity to speak and okay well I just want to know it's like what is that because that's really kind of the crust of everything if one law is we
can't use this one because it doesn't work then we change it but we need to know what doesn't work about it and it hasn't been addressed and I don't understand that um maybe at the workshop we can bring this up since we can't do that now sure you know but that
would be great because that would help out a lot I think you know and it actually probably kill a lot of time instead of figureing out new ways of doing things let's figure out the way to do things that work with what we have already today right now it seems to me
if you're going with an with an audible um that opens up a whole new CLE wors you're dealing with just the other day I was about maybe three blocks away from the saint and uh and they had a pool party I
could hear the I could hear the music plainly it wasn't loud it wasn't disturbing if you're were inside your home you would it wouldn't bother you at all but you could plainly hear it so that would be in violation whereas if we had an Asal
decimal meeting um a actual Benchmark an actual number then there is something we can actually apply to and have as a standard measurement um also unfortunately it have to do also with
taste obviously a certain person's taste in music um whether it's a police officer or whatever he may not like a certain type of music and that and that will affect his judgment call which is what basically we're asking him to
do um so you know again I don't understand what's un enforceable the only thing I understand that is that the a police officer has to go to the City Hall to pick up a a meter am I right MH and uh and then by the time he gets back
to the place um the problem may be gone well what I want to understand is why does he have to go back we have we have place here don't we St Pete St Pete Beach police why are why don't they have
meters on them why do you need to go back to City Hall pick one up do we have just one meter he's like we bar you five with one bullet you know well that's basically it um April 21st I believe you said at 4
22nd at four I Sor 22nd at four at four thank you very much I appreciate it we'll see you guys then you guys have a good evening thank you okay next we have the consent agenda is there a motion to approve the
consent agenda Asos I make a motion to approve the consent consent agenda Second City Clerk if you'll please through a roll call commissioner Robinson yes commissioner res Niki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner
Marriott yes mayor patrola yes motion carries all right next we have action items the first one is item 6A adopt resolution 20252 pay commission pay compression
adjustment thank you mayor if you don't mind tonight we'd like to do a companion presentation for both items 6A and B although you will take separate action they are related thank you
good afternoon mayor and Commissioners my name is Jill Sone and I'm the Human Resources Director it's a pleasure to be here tonight um as city manager indicated we have two separate resolutions for which staff recommended option the first one is resolution
20252 and this addresses pay compression and then recommends pay adjustments and accompanying memo was provided with the resolution you received the second is resolution 2024 -4 it recommends Amendment to the Personnel rules and
regulations Section 8.08 which discusses promotion and then also an accompanying memo was provided okay so on 20252 addressing pay compression and recommended pay
adjustments pay points pay study introduced a broad and complex application of compensation adjustments which led to some unintended consequences in a few areas um such as the compensation data set changed um from 10123 and HR updated the
Consultants data set in the spring of 2024 um the former interim city manager also established a 10K cap on some position increases and then we also looked at internal Equity based on new pay grades new job families and new
career ladders so we're seeking approval to rectify the noted pay compression areas equitably and fairly and the would be absorbed through the fiscal year 25 budget with salary savings from the public services department and we're looking to ask for your recommendation
that we can implement this in the next pay period March 3rd 2025 so in summary staff recommends adoption of resolution 20252 to effectively resolve the noted pay compression
concerns any questions commissioners and and that total was I think was it $75,000 was the difference $7,923 and is that for just the first year or is that going to be continued or how are we looking at that that's for fiscal
year 25 the current year that we're in thank you thank you moving along to the next resolution 20254 this is a request to amend the Personnel rules and regulations Section 8.08 promotion um in in just to be concise
the out the Personnel rules and regulations are currently outdated I believe the last time that they were updated was approximately March of 2020 so sometime around when covid was hitting um we have started a comprehensive update but that is going to take several months for us to
complete um the reason we're asking for this resolution right now is because we can't afford to wait Recruitment and Retention remain critical challenges for us as I think you all know the talent landscape has evolved and it's become more difficult to compete and attract
for qualified talent we are a Barrier Island and a smaller organization so this proposed change allows the city manager the flexibility to consider an internal applicants directly related experience and education and then similar to the same
consideration that we're giving to all of our external qualified candidates so we do have Provisions for posting jobs internal and external to ensure the competitive recruitment to ensure competitive recruitment processes Citywide where HR is also involved in
the review and the recommendation of starting salaries to the city manager um we'd like to implement this the next pay period March 3 2025 so in summary the staff is recommending adoption of resolution 2025-the we have in that so it's not a
favorite child getting promoted just because exactly so typically the process the way the process works is we have a pay a new pay structure and it has a minimum pay range and a maximum pay range a only minimum only qualified applicants that meet the minimum
qualifications are provided and forwarded to the hiring manager so the hiring manager makes a recommendation through their Department director and through human resources where we're looking at the candidates um directly related education directly related experience U against the minimum
qualifications in the job description which could include preferences for certifications licenses or requirements um and then Human Resources also has access to a database of employee salaries so we're also taking a look at um internal Equity from job
families and within pay grades to ensure sometimes our recommendation may be higher but it also may be lower but we're pro we're providing that recommendation to the department director and to the city manager in conjunction with the tools that we have
at our disposal including Market adjustments for Niche positions like there were there's National demand for Fleet mechanics that's a position that we'll be posting for soon um but all of those resources collectively that we have in human resources are the tools
that we use to attempt to ensure you pay compression is not happening because that's very damaging to an organization thank you thank you okay questions comments thank you Jill thank you any
questions comments for the city manager okay do we have any public comments yes sir is there a motion I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 20252 I'm assuming we need to do these separately correctly
20252 for pay compression adjustments Second City cler if you'll please through a roll call commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes
mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you is there a motion for resolution 2504 I move to adopt resolution of the city city Commission of the city of St Pete Beach FL Florida making findings providing for the amendment of section
8.08 of the City personnel rules and regulations addressing starting salary for the current employee who is hired for a different position in the city Second City Clerk if you please do a roll call vice mayor mahand yes
commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki mayor Pella yes motion carries thank you all right next we have it item 6C authorize the city mement to enter an agreement with Dixon resources
unlimited good evening sir good evening mayor uh Commissioners and uh residents uh Adam puter the assistant city manager here the uh what you have in front of you is a budgeted project uh in this year's budget this is a comprehensive parking study much more uh than just a a
fee study although uh there is a fee study component to it but um this is basically looking at uh all the parking throughout the city so it's going to be uh examining the uh the residential areas it's going to be looking at our current parking inventory um looking at
the usage observations uh some of the existing demand some of the future demand um it's also going to be looking at the technology that we're using uh for you know our pay stations we have some online apps things things of that nature so um it's a it's a great project it's a it's a huge Revenue source for
the city uh the the parking so we really wanted to take a comprehensive look at at it as a whole so uh this is an exciting project uh like I said it was budgeted this started as an RFP that went out we did receive three bids um we had an internal committee that rated all the bids this one came back as rated the
highest this is from Dixon uh one of the components that we really uh liked from a staff perspective is they had a a community outreach and none of the other biders uh proposed that so similar to the presentation you heard earlier there's a a significant community outreach component of this that includes
inperson and some elic surveys as well so we thought that was a important component to to add to this so um there was 60,000 budgeted for this it did come in higher uh at 999,000 but we did have some salary Savings in the city manager's office so we're able to offset
that and that's how uh this this proposal is funded and I'm happy to answer any questions thank you commissioner moland uh yes sir I how did we end up with this company
appears if they have done work in Florida but they're pretty California Centric not that California doesn't have parking issues and uh you know uh need for parking studies but how did we land
on a California based company and are they they going to be able to have the appropriate access for us to uh appropriately handle this uh project for us yeah thank you that's a great question um all three three companies
that bid on this were were National companies so they gave us quite a wide range of uh former experience so kind of all across the country one of the rating mechanisms that we used as a staff was to look at like uh cities and Florida experience so they actually do have a a
significant amount of experience in Florida uh some of the which are Beach communities that had kind of the same parking struggles that we had um so it was rated the highest in that category as well as far as experience that we felt related to to our city and and uh
you know we felt like I'll be honest out of the three we looked at this was by far the most personalized uh proposal it seemed like they had done a significant amount of research on our city uh beforehand you know it wasn't just clip art that they had put in The Proposal they' actually spent some time uh
reviewing our city so we we really felt like they were uh proposing the the best product so but they were all I believe all three were national uh base based companies okay thank you so 100 Grand is not an insignificant amount I'm sorry sir $100,000 is not an
insignificant amount yes sir we study uh what is our annual parking Revenue currently uh so just when you're talking uh the the pay stations like the beach access points um this year was down obviously because of the uh the Hurricanes we had some parking areas
that were closed and then obviously the um the the clientele weren't weren't filling the spot so last so I'll look at the year prior so 2023 was over $5 million and uh this year was was a little bit under that like I said so we were a little off um we're reviewing
that on a monthly basis now so we we expect and it it once you got to December it started kind of uh equalizing to the previous year so we we we feel like especially once we see some spring break numbers that uh it'll probably be back to to what it was we were able to get our parking areas
opened um extremely quick in comparison to other communities so luckily we didn't have a a huge gap in time that we weren't collecting Revenue um but we did have a little bit of Gap so it was down this year yeah it was in a couple cities just this past week and some of their streets are still
3 feet on the sand I believe it um so we're looking at $5 million a year we're looking at spending 12th of 1% do they have a before and after that they will give us so for example if we make these adjustments we should
see X percentage increase so what I'm trying to get is are we going to get some return on investment on this again $100,000 is a huge amount of money Visa the $5 million even a like I said a you know fraction of 1% will cover that are
they giving us some kind of metrics on the back end okay here's what you should expect within the year and then how are we tracking it going forward year one year two year three after we Implement these yeah I think that's a great question and so um we there are some de deliverables that they've they've
proposed um like I mentioned one of the one of the large components of this is a fee study to to make sure that we're we're you know charging the appropriate rate based on uh Market uh another component of that is is um you know should we be charging more when it's busy so you know kind of demand pricing
so um I think they'll look at all that they'll likely project out based on our previous experience of those areas of what we can expect to increase as far as the revenue uh component of that but certainly when we meet as the kickoff we can we can ensure that that's a
component of the deliverable back to you all when they come to make I believe them they'll be making a virtual presentation to you all at the end of this okay and so part of this is going down street by Street in the entire city and looking at each individual City so
it wasn't this bad this past weekend but if you all were out the weekend before I mean on 46 Street it was just both sides full of cars every other Street was full of cars so part of what we're going to be looking
at is okay where do we have resident only permit parking where do we have pay parking what are we charging for pay parking you know to make sure that we can manage the crowds and making sure that we have some kind of livable circumstances for our residents that that is correct and and that was uh
there there have been previous parking studies in the city before our time and uh we did review those but they they weren't comprehensive to that extent where we actually went into the residential areas and made sure we were examining that so yes sir that's a component of this I think most of those were just a show of hands who would like
some parking and who wouldn't it wasn't that far off okay great any other questions for Adam thank you very much sir do we have any public comments thank you is there a motion I make a motion to authorize the city manager to enter into an agreement in
the amount of $999,000 with Dixon parking management to conduct a parking study to look at residential permit parking number of spaces types of spaces rates and viability of increasing existing Citywide
parking Second City Clerk is please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner is niiki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor patrill yes motion carries thank you all
right next we have items for discussion uh the first one I think we missed we missed I got so many notes on here I didn't see it all right uh 6D the um
adopt final resolution 2025 d03 the milit of the Fire Station 22 commissioner Mallen all thank you Mr Mayor I I know we T spoke about about this uh a bit at the last meeting uh where we really were
trying to understand what the possible financing uh possibilities would be for the $12 million and I've had a number of people ask me good evening Chief evening um I I've
had a number of people ask me why is it not possible to do similarly to what many residents are in the process of doing building on top of the existing structure in order to to
get the elevation for much of of what they need or or want um and I seem to recall that maybe there was some discussion that the the garage Space by itself is insufficient for
um our equipment needs and the like but I I I felt um that I needed to ask that question because people asked me that question um and I know I'm not an engineer you're not an engineer but I assume you've uh you know had some
discussions um and why is that not feasible and if so wouldn't we be able to accomplish that for you know a third of the price say $4 million or $5 million so so um it's important to remember that
the station is an essential facility um there's a Life Safety Code that all buildings are held to When The Fire Marshall goes out and inspects them um but an essential facility is is held to the most strict standard of the building code um when you go to the grocery store
and the fire Marshalls gone through and done the inspection uh that standard is that the the fire alarm system will work the smoke detectors will work the doors will operate lights will come on that's to protect life with an essential facility not only do we have to protect
life but we have to make that facility um occupiable after a disaster so I you know a lot of people have mentioned station 20 in South Pasadena um what a beautiful station it is um that station was back in service
days after the storm as we sit here tonight station 22 is still not in service we're working out of a temporary structure um the roof system in the 2011 study
from McCarthy was uh scrutinized and of great concern um because of the uh couldn't sustain the wind load at that time which was believe 100 Mil an hour building code in 2011 took it to
130 mph speaking to the building official today it's now at 147 miles hour um the height The Bays we can't fit apparatus in those Bays so uh to structurally change it in a way
that we we virally have to rip the roof off the station we have to raise the level of the walls then we have to put the roof back on the station um then we you know add that second floor that people are talking about well then you
run into an issue with the foundation uh kimy horn has mentioned that uh there would have to be a scour study done um as an example you can look at the community center water is intruded under the foundation it's popped the floor up water does not compress once it goes
under there it's a giant water hammer and it's elevated that floor so that is out of service now um we would have to make that structure resilient to scour since we're in a coastal flood zone um so there would be analysis of that
Foundation as it exists currently the suspicion is built in 1972 that is a uh typical uh foundation not held to the higher standard so going up probably would not be an option uh with with the existing structure since you brought it
up I'm just curious do you Happ to know what the Pasadena Station cost now we're not in a bubble we you know the the fiscal realities that we mentioned in the PowerPoint they they are living in that too just as we all are um I believe uh Chief Mixon went
back for three different budget adjustments and I want to say that that structure single story was $10 million well the the new Pasadena one including all the site work that elevated it and everything yeah it's a public private partnership uh they did
have to add a parking lot for the hospital it's elevated you can see that's above you know normal grade so there are some uh additions that we wouldn't have the opportunity to do down at uh Station 22 due to the limited footprint we can't go very high uh right
now we're at about 3.87 ft above uh ground um we are expected to raise the uh the bay floor about two feet to give us a little bit more Breathing Room uh but we can't go too high because the you know the grade coming out of the Bays
right so that's not enough wow I would have thought that building would have cost a lot more than that but uh um I'll confirm that and I'll I'll get that number to you for sure yeah I I don't need that it was really more of a curiosity question but I mean it's a beautiful fire station clearly we don't
have the room down there but thank you Chief I'd like can I add one thing as far as the financing we're looking at local state and federal at every opportunity to get funding currently have the budget um uh the 2 million that was given to us by representative
Cheney um if we don't build a station that goes away um I have a we were awarded a grant for a generator uh back when we were going to you know uh stay in that original station that Grant will go away um that's probably 250$
350,000 um we have another uh budget appropriation that we're asking for so um all of those are predicated on building a new station so the opportunity cost is going to be 2 million plus um we're going to lose that money so um
we need to figure out what direction we're going and then act thank you Chief commissioner Marriott um yeah is is it is it your opinion that um if if for for whatever
reason if if the money couldn't be come up with to build a new fire station it's still the right thing to do to tear this one down it's so unusable that there's kind of no option there well uh just as uh commissioner Mahan mentioned um I'm not an engineer but at every point when
we've met with subject matter experts Engineers Architects FEMA Representatives people assessing that building nobody has said to us this is a great opportunity to renovate they've all said you know this structure has to
go away um so in one form or another um but if if we thought that we could renovate that and still have the same you know uh functionality then we would um you know as you know I have skin in the game just
like you do um these are my tax dollars as well um and so I I think it is the right move uh for us and I know that figure is shocking to hear it was shocking for me to hear but uh it is the market as we sit
so thank you thank you Chief commissioner Robinson um I I would be concerned too if we you know later down the road the price is not going to be 12 million anymore M kind of like our sub aquous line went from 10 to 15 um so
that is a concern and is like you said losing the 2 million Grant um and we also have insurance on this correct there we're looking at getting something insurance-wise uh as well um I believe that figures around a quarter of a million dollars so
it's it's yeah it's like for like from what I understand so the value on that building is about 250 as I understand it okay um but anything helps and we' be going after more more Monies to to cover this again like I said I hate to see
because this has to get done in some form or fashion and down the road it's only going to cost more money as well we've seen bad timing we've seen that so the price went from two to four to 8 to nine to 10 to 12 so at every delay the
price goes up and uh so I would I would I would hope that the market would fall out the bottom would fall out but it doesn't seem like it's going that way so okay thank you thank you Chief any further questions comments commissioner Molen yes Mr Mayor
I I'll just comment that um I I did it's hard to get messaging out to the community um without using next door which hasn't been particularly productive lately um I I did try to get
the word out uh within the community that uh this was going to be an action item uh tonight's meeting uh because it's a big number it's I've had a number of people reach out to me um offline behind the scenes
uh about it and it being a big big number and you know wondering you know can we do something different etc etc so I did I did ask people to come and speak on this if they felt strongly one way or another is best I could get that word
out without using next door and the like so um I I I don't know somebody maybe is going to speak on it um but I haven't have any cards and I don't believe any um emails were sent in at
least from my district for the commission so um you know there there was a certain amount of Outreach on on my part to the community is that you know this is a big number this is coming up I know Mr Lorenzen spoke earlier
about it and that was kind of the um feedback that I was getting offline from a few people I don't want to say a number you know four five six whatever the number was um but I did um do an Outreach to get people to speak to it
tonight so um clearly there's uh you know there's no particular strong uh opposition at least in my district uh about at least taking this next step so I just wanted to make that comment thank you thank you sir I'd like
to comment on the speed of the uh the issue too that when I came on board fire department 2002 they were talking about taking that station down so at every catastrophic event that we've lost access to that station that discussion
keeps popping up so um like I said in the presentation in 2011 2017 2019 I bet in 1985 with Alena we probably lost it so it's not a it's not a sudden issue it's just that the storm
has given us this kind of opportunity to re you assess it and the funding opportunities that are available now because of the storm are in a way a silver lining to This Disaster so um I
don't want to move pass this window of opportunity and not uh take advantage of every dollar that we can get from outside the city thank you Chief right any further comments discussion is there a motion I move to adopt um see I have the
wrong one to adopt resolution 20 25- 03 to allow the city manager to negotiate an agreement for demolition services with PA materials DBA PA demolition Second City Clerk if you'll please to a roll call commissioner
Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you all right uh next we have items for discussion first one is 7A social media
policy so I brought this up and there was two uh two really related issues in here in the social media policy one is social media one is the city website and and how that's uh operated um because of Sunshine Law you know
there's a limited amount of stuff that we all can talk about outside here here so we're you know in a position where we have to have these conversations in public and I think that's good I think we should be having these conversations out in the sunshine just as the law says
um so it's I've had several residents over the last uh couple weeks reach out to me um with with questions about social media um commissioner mohal on your favorite in particular next door um and so you I just want to bring it to
the other Commissioners here's what was brought to me I don't know what what validity there is to it or if there's no validity so um what was brought to me was um there are several residents have made statements
that uh commissioner Riki you that you are a moderator on next door um I don't know if that's accurate or not or it's not your next door it's a lead so um and and let me clarify that because
that I had seen that pop up and and just so you all know I'm not really watching next door anym because of the negativity that even some fellow Commissioners are posting periodically on next door against Commissioners who sit on these seats um not to mention commissioners of
the past but I am a lead and for anyone who knows what a lead is is the person who established or one of many because it could be a group who established that neighborhood um so when I moved here
because I've been involved in the city since I moved here the Donar neighborhood did not have a Donar next door neighborhood mind you next door was used back then just to
Simply State I found the cats is this anybody's cat right or I'm selling my lawn chairs or tables anybody want to buy them but it's turned out to be a very negative platform lately um I would say probably since the time I've been
sitting here on the commission um I've been attacked personally multiple times by commissioner Robinson as well as well as the mayor who sends letters to um District 2 um devaluing my position and
my intention for sitting here so a lead sole responsibility and there's many any neighborhood Who forms one what they do is when there's derogatory postings we get an email and in that
email we take a poll it's not me individually it's several neighborhoods that are in the area and we simply say keep the post maybe or not that's it that is the role of the lead period
nothing else and nothing more the only way you could get anything removed from next door is through next door not from any moderator not from any lead it is strictly done through nextd door policy if you have a complaint which I have
made one in the past because I was attacked okay personally and it bothered me and it still bothers me because I have to work with certain people here knowing that they're constantly attacking my Integrity so I do not remove anything and I'll say that
continuously and I've told multiple people and all that this keeps doing is having people attack people that was not the intention of this platform so I am sorry to say that I don't watch it every
day I only watch when derogatory things come up because it comes to my email and it's sad to say that it happens every week and for a community that should be a community we should be thinking about that so I hope that clarifies what my
role is I am a lead apparently no one who sits here is a lead because no one here has ever started a neighborhood Next Door Group but that's what that is thank you thank you for clarifying um so the reason I brought
this up is not because of I don't whatever next door uh the reason I brought it up is because when actually looking at the next door guidelines uh their guidelines for leads specifically
mentioned uh removing posts looking at what should be approved what should be removed and so the reason I brought it up is because this brings up in my mind a constitutional issue that I would like the City attorney to take a look at um because if an elected official is now
involved on an online platform deciding what stays on what stays off that may potentially again I'm just I want to know the answer from the city attorney you know what First Amendment issues do we have is there anything else that that we should be worried about from a civil rights perspective um
if again my position is say what you want and I've let people even tonight say things about me and that's fine that is their right to do so and they should um but when a public official gets involved
in removing speech and censoring speech I think that puts a the city in a really challenging position and I'd like to know what you know what liabilities there might be for the city um if that's the case I think there's an easy solution it's just if I was involved in
any kind of thing like that I would have removed myself in fact the things that I was involved in prior to joining the commission I resigned from specifically for that because I didn't want to have any appearance of a conflict of interest and also I didn't want anyone to go around saying well the mayor is censoring what I'm saying um and so
that's really the the the next question I have is for the City attorney if you'd be able to look into that and just bring us back some kind of information on as to what uh ramifications there might be for the city yep I did something similar for town of kenon City here in pelis
there was a case that came out of the US Supreme Court last year Lin key versus freed so I could put something together and make a recommendation for an addition to the social media policy okay just that case uh linky was a person that posted a
comment on the Facebook page of the city manager Port Yan Michigan and the city manager deleted the comment and so liy sued freed and said you violated my first amendment by taking my criticism off of your Facebook page and the
Supreme Court came up with a two-part test they said first you have to have actual State Authority be acting under that and then um also hold on that they they reported to exercise that Authority when they spoke on social
media so with the Supreme Court um opinion uh they sent it back for a review because they said it needed fact specific review um they recommend in the Supreme Court opinion actual language that this that if you're on a on a social media page on
your own the non- city page that you write this is my personal page of the individual or you write the views expressed are strictly my own um and that doesn't uh give you immunity but that creates an irre a rebuttable presumption that the posts on
the page were personal and the moderation is personal U so you want to distinguish your personal from your official so the what we did for a town of Ken City excuse by using their town as an example but it just did it a couple
months ago we had addition to the policy it says use of non-official social media by elected appointed officials and town staff if you are an elected or appointed Town official or town staff and you publ content on any website outside of the town's social media and it has something
to do with the work you do or subjects associated with the town please use a disclaimer such as quote the postings on this site are my own personal views and don't represent the town of Ken City's official position I or opinions that would help insulate you and insulate the
city from any uh lawsuits for First Amendment removal of comments the other hard thing you know uh to do is um some cities don't allow comments on their websites other cities do um but if you do allow comments you can't um
discriminate on based on a Viewpoint and you can have a moderation process but it should be limited to things like uh obscenity uh things like that um so we could do a quick review and I could put together amendo and give some suggested language
but in the meantime before we get together again if you are posting it anywhere right these are my own personal views you can do it at the front of your Facebook uh you know your page or if it's something to do with Ken City it's not a bad idea to write it every time
it's my personal opinion that um it's my personal not official opinion that uh those that type of language will help you thank you for clarifying um that's good advice um so one of the things you're saying is there
should be a separation of profiles if he using one for personal stuff one for City related business yeah in the um the case the linky versus free the city manager um had a personal page and then he converted it over to include not only
his family and his Recreation but also his city manager stuff and because the lines were so blurred uh that's what caused the problem with the Supreme Court they said hey we need more facts has to go back but they did at the same time make that recommendation so there was a comingling
of information on one account how would we do it what if you if you post you need to let people know this is your personal view or personal opinion okay that can be for a separate account or just for each entry um and then again if you're going to be
deleting criticisms that's that's where the trouble comes in so if you are going to allow comments and just allow the comments to stay you're safer sure commissioner Riki um yes thank you um I did come prepared um for this item because I saw
that it was on our agenda unfortunately I thought the mayor was bringing it for another intention not to continue in insinuating that as an elected official I am doing something ill willed again the lead role is not to remove posts
that's not what they do a it's not my elected official site this was done when I was still not even married which by the way is in my maiden name because when I created the neighborhood um my last name is Ginos so
unfortunately the next door doesn't let you change your name okay so I can't change it so I came prepared because I thought that we were going to discuss having a policy in the city about social media which is what I would like our City attorney to do I looked on to
Florida Le of cities and the short answer in bold on their website is yes social media is a new world of opportunity for local governments to communicate with citizens and receive feedback yes it is highly recommended
that a city have a social media um policy which I believe we do not have one um because I do know there's many of us here who do use social media using their official titles and when people out there are reading that especially
when they're attacking me they're thinking it's coming officially from the city okay I was born from elementary to today to give back to the community that's how I was raised my intention for sitting on this
diet has always been to help the community I did attend many commission meetings before I was here I did participate many times with a city before I was here I was not handpicked as the mayor stated in the letter to the
neighborhoods by a prior commission to help forward development that is insulting and you signed it as the mayor of this city sending it to a whole District of people here how horrible is that to demean me of why I'm sitting
here and I'm sick of sitting here and unfortunately everybody out here didn't see me applaud When Miss Marriott was speaking at the last meeting because I was on that video and the gods I guess held Because the Internet went out and I did want to commend Miss Marriott
commissioner Maria for what she said because I've about had it as well as many others of hearing the mayor continuously ridicule every time I open my mouth for anything okay I just told you my role is is not to remove post
from next door so I hope that's not why we're asking the City attorney to make sure that if I'm doing something that is you know for wrong reasons that I stop doing it that's not what I'm doing that's not the role on next door I am
not responsible for it the only post that has ever been removed that had something to do with me was when I was threatened personally on that platform and I had to reach out to next door I did not delete it I had to go through the process and actually get an attorney
to help me out because I was being threatened and attacked personally okay so I wanted to clarify and what I would prefer that this commission talk about is that this C City needs a policy on social media that is what we need all
around for all thank you commissioner Robinson please clarify what you're saying that I did to you on social media as a commissioner before you came on to this commission you started a petition to remove me from my seat and then I have one and she's no
longer here because I was assuming she was here to attack me again has continuously threatened my life because of that petition that was started by you commissioner Robinson and now it's been instigated by a resident in the city one time please she asked me a question and
I'm answer you answer it and then once I was personally attacked personally attack and continue to this day whenever I cross pass with an individual who sits in this in the in the audience I get threatened okay threaten because of that that petition or that um I think you use
Survey Monkey back then to remove me for my seat that's why thank because you were limiting People's First Amendment right to speak you have a disdain for people speaking and it showed yes you did on social media on and this Mission
sitting here in this on this Das you stopped people from speaking um during their their time periods but you let other people in rebuttal go on and on and on and on you stopped residents a group that represents 2500 people from
speaking and you were quite vocal about it on numerous occasions hence I was not a commissioner and that's why I did that post I am not in charge of anybody else making any threats or doing anything to you let's be perfectly clear about that
perfectly clear about that I would hope not perfectly clear about that way I am not the mayor I'm not in charge of a meeting and when a group is going over their time like any of us here would say your 10 and I think I remember when that was when we had a group and we had a rule whatever it was seven minutes 10
minutes for a group discussion we were just following our rules it's not too you got phys you got emotionally upset about them speaking and it was quite apparent one group is deserve to have the same as any other group if one group is given 10 minutes the other group
should have 10 minutes but that was not happening that evening okay and so I'm sorry that's what happened it was not about anybody I talk to those people all the time and the rebuttal went on and on for hours correct I'm not the mayor I am not in charge of a meeting but that
should have been 10 minutes as well I'm not the mayor I'm not in charge of the meeting so based on the Nextdoor guidelines the responsibilities of our lead are to moderate and remove content that to me is about this vote not remove I'm just using I'm just using their
language I'm just using I'm just reading what it says on their website um so that's why I I want the City attorney just to give us an opinion on that um you know to see if it pro if it poses any kind of First Amendment uh issues for the city here um the second component of that uh
relates to our City website um so we don't have uh I asked the city manager to look into this and there seems to be a a long list of things that we've done for a certain way Forever
Without Really having necessarily a policy in place uh for why we do what we do so for example we have you know former commissioner Mark Grill has brought this up I don't know at least 20 times while he was in office you know we donate money to certain Charities but we don't really have it's we just do it
every year because we've done it every year but we don't necessarily have a policy in place that decides okay here's how we establish Charities um just a quick perusal of the city website you know there's several entities that are not City entities that are on the city website that appears we either promote
or endorse in some other way um you know advocate for or say here here's you know check these people out um and so I would like um you know to you know what I would like consensus from you know obviously would be required is
to have the city manager kind of go through with the city staff and come back and present us with a recommendation on the policy of okay who gets to be on the city website if it's not a city department or City Board you know is it you know the State of Florida
do they get to be on there does pelis County get you know we've got links here to the tourist development you know clear visit you know Clear Water you know and all sorts of other entities and so um I would I would like for the staff to come up with the list or some kind of
guidelines or some kind of recommendations that they come back and say look here's you know here's how we put non City entities associations or other groups on the you know whether it's the turtle trackers or whether it's anybody else
okay how do we decide who gets to be on the city website and who do we how do we decide who does not get to be on the city website that could be part of whatever social media policy mhm that makes sense yeah and I think until we come up with some kind of
policy I think the policy for the time being is we don't Advocate represent or link to anybody else outside the city or other government entities that we work with can we keep the perming process in there I be really concerned because the
yeah Cy State offer all these resources really I'm saying that's like non-government stuff let's make that part of our social media policy review I think U you know we have to make sure that we're content neutral so you're going to allow anybody you got to allow every Everybody if it's not on
government well we've removed people before so so I'm looking at the city website and trying to see what what we might be talking about so it looks like um we would be removing information about fishing peers and boat
ramps that aren't in the city which we don't have any we would be removing uh the community history page potentially um so again I think the the point is we should have some kind of
unified policy that establish is who gets to be on the city website who's advertised who's not advertised who do we promote who do we link to right and what are the reasons that we would do so and and and so I mean I guess I'm trying to decide
what the urgency is for removing them all while we figure that out because we would also be removing you know the link to what you do if you're stung by a jellyfish we'll be removing the link to do with you know the sea turtles trackers we'll be removing links you know we're going to be removing a whole
bunch of stuff that I think we would all agree is pretty innocuous and and I don't know how many people look at those pages but but potentially helpful um and so I I have no problem with coming up with a policy and then implementing it but the wholesale like let's go in
tomorrow and remove all links that don't go to a government entity um seems slightly purposeless M at the moment commissioner Robinson well I think it's a good idea to put what what
qualifies as being on there and what doesn't so I would be for coming up with a policy on the social media for both on the website and likewise with in the commission yeah I would say to not take action until we have the policy or presentation right like not tomorrow let
them come back and present present um between the manager and the City attorney okay city manager does that give you enough direction to work with I'm going to restate what I think I heard okay I'm bringing back a policy
that covers social media and website and no changes until we bring back the policy for consideration and voting by the commission sounds good thank you all right thank you I have a couple
comments uh comments take them yeah okay Ruda H you please state your name and address for the record uh yeah I'm Ruda Hance at 7711 coina away
um your Flyers is upside down looking up okay um I'm here to speak about that I do believe St Pete Beach does need a social media policy and I will use next door as an example as to why I'd like to bring to everyone's
attention title 42 section 1983 which is a federal statute that says employees and agents of specifically local governments that's us not State not federal local can be sued
in both their personal and official capacity for violating someone's ferally protected rights such as freedom of speech so given section 1983 which protects individuals from having their free speech violated by a local
government official the city should not allow any City official to act as a Nextdoor moderator I have some simple questions which are yes or no that a city official should ask themselves if they were to become an next door moderator or a lead
I just looked it up on uh a lead essentially does the same thing as a moderator one have you ever voted on attenuating anyone's Free Speech removed a post or suspended an account of any St Pete Beach resident on next door two
have you ever voted on suspending an account or removing the post of any current or former St Pete Beach official or political candidate three have you ever voted on suspending any posts regarding conversations which
the Commissioners have voted on or discussed such as the hotels or the noise ordinance if you answered yes to any of the above questions you are violating the First Amendment rights of your constituents by censoring their right to free speech even though next door says
you can I'm talking about the statute and opening both yourself and the city up to litigation you also run the risk of being accused of election interference you can see here commissioner R Nikki which I put up used
her personal Nextdoor account to announce a meeting at City Hall using an inside picture of city hall Chambers with the official City emblem so she co-mingled City business with her own personal account commissioner riski is a local
Nextdoor moderator using um her her made a name the job of a local moderator is to decide on Whose posts get their freedom of speech censored same with the team lead they vote on it and they vote on who gets censored and who does not I
would request the City attorney create an ordinance prohibiting City officials from acting as Nextdoor moderators and I would ask Betty to step down immediately as either a moderator or or a commissioner it is a conflict of interest to be doing both and I will
follow up with these EX act same yes or no questions to commissioner riski Riki and answer and have her answer this via email for the record thank you thank you for your comments city clerk Grant
Izzy if you please state your name and address for the record yep Grant Izzy 203 59th Avenue go where where where to even begin um of course you need a social media
policy right and of course you shouldn't be using your title none of you should use your title when you post any social media another gentleman got up previously and politely said to you Mr Mayor I mean
think you've done it at least three times in the last couple of weeks where you start your videos off with this is Mayor patrilla we won't go into what you say CU most of it's not true but the point
is you can't use your titles when you do that so along with a social media policy we also need an ethical complaint process that goes with that when we think our elected officials have breached ethical
standards which I have seen several times you've never used a disclaimer ever so please that that is important for all of us because we all need to be able to trust that the information that's coming out of any of your mouths
is accurate right that that's that's just key this whole conversation up here seriously dysfunctional
this is the kind of atmosphere the conversation that you two had is the kind of atmosphere that's in this city right now it's toxic it's divided and you two are starting it you two are the ones responsible for
it and that's a fact and people know it out there so let's get it together bring the community together stop attacking each other we're never going to get anywhere this crisis from the from the storm has just
started we've got a couple years we have to get along so we can get things done stop it thank you all right next we have a discussion 7B on the sad Bond commissioner
Robinson this would be the third time that I've brought this up um on the sod Bon issue and it's just come up now that this is in our ordinance and we have the ability to change it as uh the woman had
stated before it's if anybody's read up on it if anybody's knocked their house down there's a lot of homes that are being torn down they're reinvesting in this community and we need to look at this sodon it's a 125% of the landscape figure that you
have to put out it's it's a lot of money for a lot of our residents that they don't have and that saw is not going to make it because they it's as soon as they start D as soon as they start construction it's gone there's no way to save it we don't have reclaimed water in
most of the areas and if we do you don't have electric to actually water anything to make it look like anything this is needs to change and we need to talk about this and make a change on this whether it's waved it's in half there's another alternative to put down instead
of of uh saw itself um there has to be something there has to be something better that we can do for the residents that are investing in this community and rebuilding their homes it's just a lot of money that's put out there even though they get it back because it's a bond it's still a lot lot of money
that's spent and and I I think it's it needs to be changed and it can be changed by this commission what can we you can amend the code to remove it I'm sorry go ahead go ahead I'm sorry yeah we just need to bring it back and tell you tell us what you want to amend it is
a city code and we probably want to do a presentation first to tell you what it does and why it was created so that you could at least know the ramifications of changing it and what time period you may want to consider doing so is it just
needs to be done quick we've got a lot of people that are starting on demo and and it's it's a big consideration it's a big number for some people can we okay so there's an easier maybe solution like we did with the um uh AC units it was a
90-day excuse me was an 90day waiver of the ordinance 60 we did an we just did an emergency ordinance so we come and say it's or can we do something similar where we just so that it has an immediate so we're not waste waiting a
meeting for a presentation of the meeting for yeah while especially while we're doing the hurricane U recovery y okay so we can look at a at a reasonable we can bring um the next meeting March
10th if it fits on our calendar are you working on it I can prepare it yeah it it won't be too hard to prepare okay okay okay any objections to that sure we don't need a couple workshops for this I was going to say you can have one by
yourself Joe no I'm sorry it sounds like you just want to basically delete I'm not not say make the code not relevant for a period of time we're not changing anything in the code not saying we don't need to look at it we probably should look at it but for
immediate effect for immediate relief if we can do the emergency ordinance just like that's easy but if you want to change the content or intent of the code that's a whole another convers that's something we can take a look at when we have more time okay and I'm assuming that in that in that looking at that
emergency relief there will need to be something addressing the folks that have already had to put one up in some fashion I mean not we can we can uh backdate it to the date of the storm so we can do it like with the
permits where we issued refunds for the yeah you want to isolate the hurricane recovery effort I mean we don't want to penalize people just because they already did the work two months ago are you just do you want to just apply it to those who
were demoing because of the hurricane yeah because we have other construction happening that we're applying the code to right I would say the hurricane related stuff just like everything else
okay okay any further this discussion on the S Bond okay next we have item 7 C forensic audit commissioner Robinson so I wanted to ask legal what the status was on the forensic audit if we had a status so
unfortunately at this time I can't make a comment due to Florida Statutes chapter 112 it's confidential and exempt okay thank you I'll take that as it I'll keep you updated as I can all right commissioner Robinson 7D
up again title Bas uh the last one would be and I think you know we've talked a little bit about this and um I'm hearing there's a meeting on Wednesday so would' like to know about Title Basin or accountability I'm assuming that'll come out of some of that meeting as well is
what their account you know their accountability towards this community and I guess all their communities that they've given guesstimates to and caused quite um I think part of that meeting is trying to resolve the issues we're
having if the direction is there is a contract with the with the county and the state so the question would be I'm looking at the City attorney based on the arrangement does the city have any do you want to review
the contract to see yeah I'll review it I think we found a section that we can point out maybe you can bring to the meeting with you and say hey you know you you have a duty here under the contract gives you a little more leverage in your meeting
perhaps and will we get a any sort of report on that um that meeting I can certainly put that in the next update okay great thank you the Friday update yeah I was thinking more of the hurricane recovery update oh okay not
for that's fine but if I have something significant we could also put it in the city manager update thank you you're welcome along the same lines of the Title Basin I think uh everyone should just Google mayor David will Title Basin
Readington there's some things that happen today there that think could be important for Commissioners and City staff to be aware of I don't have details yet I just know what the outcome was
okay since there are no further items for discussion the next we're going to have uh staff reports city clerk yes thank you mayor the next city commission meeting is on a Monday it's Monday March 10th we will be having the election here for district 2 in Chambers
the following day Tuesday March 11th from 7:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. that is all thank you city clerk City man maor thank you just a few uh key staff updates I know you heard from Adam poer
this evening but he has been appointed as the assistant city manager in a hybrid role for the next year to assist us so I just wanted to congratulate him publicly and he's been a great addition to the city manager's office I'm also going to be welcoming Devin Schmidt our
new Finance director next Monday um so I will plan to introduce her in person on March 10th you'll get to meet her a few key upcoming items that I want to make you and the public aware of is that the Monas school we have been working with
them on anou to uh contribute towards a play structure in the Hurley Park area thatou is complete and we are going to be tracking to you in the next few meetings to get approval to move forward on that project so wanted to that this
this Project's been in progress for several years and was stalled because of the storms and then lastly at the commission requested that I look into uh federal lobbyist Services we have completed the RFP process and selected a lobbyist for your consideration we're
also bringing that on March 10th and that um firm then could help position us to Lobby not only for storm related and other infrastructure but things like cell towers if you'd like us to Lobby on your behalf for changes in the law um in
that area as well end of report thank you City attorney thank you uh mayor I have an announcement today and a request um I'd like to request that we have a executive session it would be actually on Monday
March 10th 2025 at 4:30 or shortly thereafter here in the commission Chambers at 155 Corey Avenue St Pete Beach 3376 this would be pursuant to Florida Statutes
28601 18a the executive session statute um I'm advising the city commission today on February 25th that we have a need to have a executive session with you at a duly noticed public meeting and we need advice related to settlement
negotiations and strategy sessions related to litigation expenditures concerning the litigation in red white and booze llc at Florida limited liability company Charles L colum and Helen colum versus city of St Pete Beach Florida Middle
District of Florida Tampa division federal case number 8 colon 23- cv- 2704 kk- AAS U we requesting the following individuals be present during the
executive session one of one or more of whom may participate electronically if needed um Adrien petrell mayor Joe mahalan vice mayor Karen Marriott commissioner Lisa Robinson commissioner Betty rosiki commissioner BR robelli
city manager attorneys Becky Vos Ralph Brooks Nancy stuper rich and Stephie Val of Bose Law Firm the City attorney and attorneys William bolre III Esquire and Brendan sheerman Esquire with the law firm of Henderson Franklin starn and
Holt PA also serving as Council for the city in this case and and an official court reporter as provided by law it's expected the length of the attorney client session executive session will be approximately one hour um pursuant to
28601 one8 Florida Statutes the attorney client executive session will be recorded by a certified court reporter however the transcript of the proceeding will be exempt from public records law until the litigation is concluded at which time the transcript will be
released and can be obtained from the clerk of the city commission and in accordance with American with Disabilities Act in Florida statute 28626 anyone with disabilities needing special accommodations to participate in the public meeting before we Ur into the
executive session or in the executive session should contact the office of the city clerk at 727 367 9201 no later than 4 days prior to the meeting for assistance and we'll post this notice um at the city hall
I look forward to speaking with you about the case on March 10th thank you all right thank you City attorney District 4 yes Mr Mayor just one thing uh last uh
meeting uh I spoke about um what seems some oftentimes seems like endless um workshops and studies uh and has come to my attention
that possibly some of the hardworking dedicated uh City staff uh folks uh may have thought that I was at least partially directing my comments at them and uh I just want to clarify that uh my
comments were not directed at City staff uh uh when I was uh referring to the endless uh studies and um workshops so I just want to make that clarification thank
you I have it on good authority they enjoy sitting in those workshops as much as anyone else does say again said I have it on good authority they enjoy sitting in those 5H hour workshops as long as anyone else does so thank you District
three um just to thank again the volunteers who've been volunteering not only for um the permitting but we have a lot of other volunteers who've been helping with cleaning um invasive tree removals for the dun Savers um and and
for anybody who walks and sees how much have they done they do it out of love so it's greatly appreciate it um and then just to um for those who might not have known I just want to reiterate there was a meeting annual meeting for the Donar Property Owners last night um part of
their announcement was for a get together relase soon to to be announced um so if you're not on their mailing list they ask to please get on their mailing list so that you could um participate it's their 100th year anniversary uh this year which coincides
with the Donar hotel and they're hoping to do something in conjunction together so that's it thank you thank you District Two um I just want to say I'm looking forward to uh working with our new community development director um and working uh with her to go ahead and
Advance the volunteer program so for to thank you district one um yeah so uh I wanted to let everyone know I've I've been working on a little bit of a side project of um talking to a number of of contractors and Builders who are working
in the city and who have you know multiple permits open in the city um to try to get a real good feeling of how the permit and inspection process is really going on the ground um and I think we've had some I've had some really productive meetings with them I'm hoping to compile lots of good information and now with our new
community development director to um uh I'm I'm I'm very optimistic that there are some really simple process fixes we can do that will uh help people pretty significantly I know there's a lot of people in the city who are um get really
you know dismayed when they hear about you know folks in the city who were trying to build new structures well before the storm and they hear stories of it taking 10 or 12 or 14 months to get a permit for a new new build um and and so I want to make sure everybody
knows that that the city is working really hard to make big improvements there and so you know for the the I think we're up to 60 or some people who have put in demo permits at this point um I'm I'm very confident that those people aren't going to be sitting here a
year from now still waiting for a permit so um so we're working real hard on that and then uh um I just want to encourage everybody you know if you have the time or the means um phys our local businesses because they're not out of the woods yet um you know the the the
restaurants that are open um are busy because there's not a lot of them open but we're losing a lot of great restaurants also and um verduchi in my district is not reopening um luckily the helm got reopened so that's great um and uh you know so the businesses that are
here and the hotels that are here and the the beach bars and the the restaurants at the hotels that are open uh if you have an opportunity go uh go visit them because they need the help they can get to get through this next chunk of time come summer they're going to be they're they're going to be
needing all the business they can get thank you all right thank you along the same lines we the commission put in place uh a couple months ago a task uh a recovery task force uh
comprised of local residents local business owners um so their next meeting is on March March 5th at 9 s 8:30 right here in Chambers uh part of what they're looking at is you know what went well
what didn't go so well what could be improved what safeguards could we put in place like we talked about earlier um having a backup to Title Basin so that we're not you know having to use whoever the county is telling us or the state makes available to us um so that is
another volunteer group that we should be thankful for and I'm I'm looking forward to receiving that report um when it comes in after all their meetings are done and they they bring us a recommendation as to you know here's what the what should be improved
um I received uh two copies of two letters today from um several of the Mayors from uh from the Bay Area islands and also pelis um several other elected officials and U people in the county uh
I mentioned this before and I'll post them probably here tomorrow whenever on Facebook or wherever else just everybody else gets a copy of it um it's really a matter of not leaving any stone unturned I've you know most of the comments that
I received about sending a letter to the White House were positive and some of them were don't waste your time you know what that's my time to spend and so I'll I'll you know leave no stone unted and so now we have an even greater Coalition of Mayors and other elected officials uh
and really the gist of it is is two letters u that are going to the white house uh one um was done in cooperation with what representative Luna is doing uh asking for certain relief from FEMA including you know waving of the 50/50 rule temporarily uh permanent increase
of the rule to 75% as opposed to 50% part of the issue is when you look at the way that it's operates you know FEMA has this calculation where they decrease the value of your house every year and yet they do not account for an increase in
inflation and material cost and labor cost and so on so while 50% might have been a good number 20 years ago 30 years ago whenever the rule was put in place the realities especially of the Florida housing market Florida construction market and materials
Market is 50% is really you know untenable and also creates a lot more um much more a lot more work that the cities have to do if the threshold was 75% that gives us a lot of great their flexibility and also allows homeowners um you know more flexibility
and whether they decide to rebuild um and also part of that the other request to FEMA was to make sure that you know they expedite the funding you know some of the things that we've heard you know the the grants may be available you know a year from now two years from now well who's tearing down their house and
waiting two years and in a lot of cases they won't give you the money if you've already started the work right I mean it neither here nor there but anyway so those are that's the app f side and then the other ask is on the beach for nourishment to the Army Corps of Engineers this has been an ongoing let's call what is an ongoing
battle for years um where we're lacking Beacher nourishment um the county has certain amount of money that they take from the tourist development tax commonly known as a bed tax that they put back into uh the county for Beach for nourishment uh the last number was
around $36 million that isn't quite enough to do every city in every piece of beach for nourishment just in penelas County right so there should be conversation whether we should increase the allotment to beach for nourishment but for the time being you know the Army Core engineer has the permits has
everything ready to go it's just an administrative you know plug that somebody just needs to pull out and say let's get it done the money is sitting there the county has the money the Army C engineer has the money we have the permits it's just the an administrative bureaucratic somebody's got to wave the
flag and say let's let's go so that's the second ask uh so I'll I'll publish those for everyone to see um the final drafts of the Leathers from the Mayors um so with all that we are adjourned