am on Tuesday, July 28th, 2026. Would you please rise and join us for the pledge of allegiance? >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. City clerk, will you please do roll call? >> Commissioner Marriott >> here. >> Commissioner Cosy >> here. >> Commissioner Maldonado >> here. >> Mayor Tate >> here. >> We have a quorum.
>> Thank you. Okay. Uh does anybody have any changes to the agenda that we need to propose? >> Uh Mr. Mayor, I'd like to pull uh consent item 4F for just a brief statement. to to remove it all together or just uh
discuss it. Right? >> Just discuss it. Yeah. >> Okay. Uh so we'll pull that out. >> All right. Thank you, sir. Are there other changes proposed? >> Uh Mr. Mayor, I'd like to pull item B from consent into a brief discussion.
>> Item B is a boy. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Others, >> mayor, I have a few changes. Um, I'd like to move item 2 C um to occur correct um immediately after item 2 A.
>> All right. >> As we have a time sensitivity on that. And then I'd also like to remove items 7A and 7B for discussion as Commissioner Robinson was the referral and um she will not be here this evening. So we
will continue those to the next meeting. >> Thank you so much. I think that just leaves you and me, Commissioner Murray, I got changed. [laughter] >> I have I would like to add a discussion item um regarding uh House Bill 803 uh and how that affects building permits
in St. Pete Beach. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Uh, is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended? >> Make the motion to approve the July 28, 2026 agenda as amended. >> I'll second.
>> City clerk, please. >> Commissioner Marott, >> yes. >> Commissioner Cay, >> yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado, >> yes. >> Mayor Tate, >> yes. >> The motion carries. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Uh, I believe we have some presentations next um recognition and I'm I'm excited by this.
So, um, >> thank you, Mayor. Yes, we have um five certificates this evening to present for our employees of the quarter and um three are present this evening. However, I will read about all five of them and then we'll at the end present to the three present and take pictures. So, um
and excuse me for my raspy voice. I I came back to Florida and now I have my first summer cold in like four decades. So, um here we go. Um Moren Martin, our operations uh librarian. want to rec um recognize her for consistently
demonstrating high performance, professionalism, and strong ethical standards. Although much of her work may happen quietly behind the scenes, Moren plays an essential role in keeping the library's daily operations running smoothly, her organization,
dependability, sound judgment, and attention to deal strengthen the entire library team. Next employee of the quarter, Carrie Nelson, our information technology business systems analyst in our information technology department. Carrie is being recognized for her hard
work and dedication during the city's transition to the new HR software system. Through the implementation, Carrie has devoted many hours to help ensure the transition was successful. Her dedication aligns well with the city's team commitments. Her willingness
to go above and beyond has made a difference and has been instrumental in moving this important project forward. Next from the fire department, we have Captain Michelle St. John. Captain St. John is being recognized for her dedication, leadership, and
commitment to service. She works additional shifts to support department staffing, oversees the emergency medical services quality program, provides medical training to Gulf Beach's fire departments, and helps ensure the equipment remains ready and in service.
She is also known for supporting her fellow firefighters both on and off duty. Next, we have Brandon Barry, our senior planner in community development. Brandon is known for his exceptional knowledge, professionalism, and commitment to serving our residents. He
consistently goes above and beyond, whether assisting customers at the permit counter, supporting staff, or responding to questions during commission meetings. He treats residents with dignity and respect, shares his expertise with others, and remains focused on public safety and finding
solutions. And last, but certainly not least, James Cooper from our utilities maintenance uh worker three. He's in the public services department. James is positive, dependable, and a valued member of the city team. He's always willing to step
in, take on whatever work is needed, and support his co-workers with professionalism and a great attitude. James exemplifies teamwork, respect, safety, and integrity. And so with that, if we could all take a moment to recognize our employees in the corner.
[applause] >> And if those of you present would come up and join the mayor and myself, [cough] I'll be fine. some fire time. >> Thank you. >> [clears throat]
>> One, two, three, two, three. Congratulations. [applause] Thank you. [snorts] >> Uh just briefly as they leave, thank you very much. We appreciate uh the [snorts] the employees of the quarter. Thank you
so much. Um next we have a presentation. I think we swapped. Now we're going to be talking about fiscal year 2027 millage rate options, projects, and public input. Good evening, mayor and commission. I'm Devon Schmidt. I'm the finance director for the city of St. Pete Beach. Um, so
this presentation tonight in action discusses the city's village rate, the property taxes for fiscal year 27 budget. My role tonight is to present the information the commission needs. So that'll be the revenue and rate history, how a resident's total tax bill is distributed, the composition of the
city's tax base, and the range and rate options available under state law. So staff will present the facts and scenarios. The decision really lies with the commission informed by comments from the public and some of this presentation will be repetitive from what we saw at
the workshop to benefit the public. So why are we here? We have five items to think about tonight. So, first the commission must set a 2027 millage rate for trim certification and noticing. That rate determines both what the residents are build and what the city
can fund. Second, at Commissioner Kazzy's request, we'll look at how additional millillage could fund the ranked park projects in the capital improvement plan. Third, for the full picture, any other of the unfunded capital projects in the CIP will also be
shown so that those options can be weighed side by side. Fourth, the history of the resiliency fund which a prior commission created in fiscal year 2023. This is useful context for tonight's presentation as it provides context and options. And
fifth, public comment that input comes before the rate is set and the hearing is part of the purpose for tonight's discussion. So this is our advalorum revenue from fiscal year 2020 through fiscal year 2026. The figures through fiscal year 2025 are audited actuals and for fiscal
year 26 are our budgetary forecast figures. Revenues grew from just under 10 million in fiscal year 2020 to about 15.2 million budgeted in fiscal year 26. One factual point to note is that this growth occurred in a period when the millage rate was flat or slightly lower.
So the growth reflects rising taxable property values rather than rate changes. Here's the rate history itself. So the city held the millillage rate at 3.1500 mills for 9 years from fiscal year 2025
through fiscal year 2024. The commission then reduced the rate to 3.0913 mills and has remained there through fiscal year 26. So taken together with the prior slide, the record shows that revenue growth over this period came from rising taxable values, not rate increases.
So before we get into the option, a question that we often hear from residents and you might as well is where does the property tax bill actually go? So this is an illustrative example of a home at a taxable value of $500,000. Their annual bill is going to be about
$8,135. Of that schools receive 40%, Panelis County receives 29% and the city of St. Pete Beach receives 19%. about $1,546 on the annual tax bill. EMS and other
districts make up the remaining 12%. And the reason why this matters tonight is a commission decision only affects that 19% of the share of each dollar. The other taxing authorities set their own rates independently outside of this process.
For regional context, this is where the city's rate sets among our other 24 incorporated municipalities in Penllis County at 3.091 mills. St. Pete Beach ranks 15th, which is below the median at 3.9879.
Belair is the highest at about 6.98 and Bair Shore is the lowest at 05345 mills. If the commission adopted the 2/3 vote maximum of 3.8330, 8330. The city would rank roughly 13th, still near the
median. This next slide describes the composition of our tax base here in St. Pete Beach. Of the city's 4.93 billion in taxable value across roughly 7,900 parcels, about 71% or 3.48 billion is
non-homestead properties. So that's going to be hotels, condos, any investorowned units or multifamily residential units. Homestead properties is about 29% or 1.54 sorry 1.45 billion at at our tax rate.
At the current rate that works out to roughly 10.7 million of the levy of the non-homestead property and 4.48 million for homestead. So this composition is relevant later in the presentation because the proposed constitutional
amendment three would affect only those homestead properties. This is a second view and this is looking at our property use type. So about 79% of the taxable value is residential. So that's your single family condos, multifamily, residential,
vacant land across roughly 707,100 parcels and about 21% is commercial. So that's retail, offices, hotels, motel and restaurants or about 850 parcels. So the city is predominantly residential in
its tax base. So these are the three statutory reference rate for fiscal year 2027. These are all calculated on the certified gross taxable value. The rolled back rate is 3.075 mills and generates the same revenue as the prior
year. Under statute, that definition is no tax increase. The current flat rate is 3.0913, which holds the rate residents pay on change and yields about 80,000 more than the rolled back rate. Then we have the 2/3 maximum, 3.8330.
This is the highest rate available, requires a supermajority vote, and would generate roughly 3.8 million more than the flat rate. The finance budget reviews committee recommendation is noted on the slide for cons commission's consideration.
One timing clarification is the amendment three on the November ballot does not affect our fiscal year 27 decision. If approved, it would reduce the FY28 role and with an estimated city impact of about 1.2 million in 28 and growing to 2.2 million 2.3 million,
excuse me, in fiscal year 29. So, this translates those same three-year rates with our average homestead with an average taxable value of 478,000. At the current rate, the average homestead pays $1,478
a year or $123 a month. At the rolled back rate, that drops by about $745 a year. And at the 2/3 maximum, it rises to about $355 a year to roughly $153 a month. The finance budget review
committee recommendation is noted again on the slide for consideration and these figures are current with the taxable value standard of a $50,000 exemption that we have today. This table lays out a full range of options at 0.1 mil steps from the rolled
back rate to the 2/3 maximum. The commission is not limited to the three reference points that we discussed earlier. So each point.1.1 mill equals roughly 517,000 in gross levy, roughly $45 a year or $3.75 a
month on average homestead. The home tax column uses a 500,000 homestead example, which is 450,000 of taxable after the standard exemption. So the revenue also shows on our growth gross levy before the 95% statutory collection factor. So
budgeted revenue would be about 5% lower. Rates above the majority vote maximum require a twothird supermajority. And this table is a menu of what each rate produces and what it costs the taxpayer at any point including no change is available to the
commission. And again we've highlighted the finance budget reviews committee recommendation on this slide as well. So the millillage asks and answers the question for us is how much. This next section covers the other half of the question. If the commission were to
consider or adopt a rate above the flat rate, where would the revenue go? So, we'll discuss the next rank park projects, the city's other unfunded capital needs, the resiliency fund, and its histories, and we'll go from there. So, this slide is illustrated at the 2/3
maximum responding to Commissioners Kazy's request on our parks at 3.8330 8330 mills. A net new revenue after the 95% collection factor would be about 3.64 million. Against the five unfunded
Capitol park projects, 1.05 million. That would include the Don Cesar boat ramp, playground equipment, Egan park site improvements, dune and beach restorations, and public restrooms. The citywide's park condition estimate, a rough order of magnitude, was included
in your packet, and that's covering playground services, court resurfacing, landscaping, dog parks, ball fields, signage adds about 2.04 million. Fully funding both would leave about 500,000 at a lower rate. These amounts scale
down proportionally. So, two things to consider is that those um rough um order of magnitude are estimates and that funding capital um from the levy requires a transfer from our general fund over to capital.
For the complete picture, um this is our capital improvement pipeline for fiscal year 28 uh to fiscal year 32. We have about 41 projects in total and 1.79.2 million programmed. I think the key phrase for the commission to see on this
slide is that program does not mean funded. The largest category is in our resiliency adaptation at about 1.19 million across the island's regions followed by capital projects at 30.8 million which is um roadways, fire
stations and the wastewater at 23.3 million. And finally, we've heard some questions or some confusion around the resiliency fund. So, here's some history for the commission and the public to understand.
Um, so in April of 2022, um, staff sea level rise analysis proposed a dedicated resiliency fund. In September of 2022, by ordinance 202213, it created it. So the millillage was held at 3.15000
and 50% of the new property tax revenue which was uh $786,000 approximately was dedicated for sea level rise infrastructure. If we were to apply that same 5050 formula at the twothirds maximum that would direct
about 1.82 million to resiliency and 1.82 million to other capital. The slide also presents an alternative the commission could weigh in, which is retiring the standalone fund, building resiliency into every project as a standard where that makes sense for the project. And so there is some
considerations there where you may lose a dedicated um funding stream that you could utilize for grant programs isolated and a transparent fund. But both approaches are presented as options for the commission to consider.
At this point, I'm going to turn it over to the city manager. Thank you. So, in summary, tonight we have two key discussions to have. The first one is predicated and will lead to the second one depending on your decision. So the
first one, we need direction this evening on what you would like to file for a trim notice to the county to set the millage rate at. Whatever amount you choose tonight, once we do the trim notice, you can never go higher than that for that fiscal year, but you can
go lower. So, one of the recommendations of staff is to consider um reviewing the finance committee's recommendation and giving staff the opportunity to engage with the community to find out if there is an appetite to
raise the millillage to fund capital projects only. Regardless of what you do this evening, staff will be preparing an operating budget that does not assume assume a mill. We are assuming a flat millage rate. So the only thing that would change is
if you do raise the millillage, you would then identify the projects that would be funded in the operating budget in the final adoption. Um again, any rate may be chosen. You only need a twothirds vote in
September. We have a twostep process for the vote. It's an ordinance. So the first and second meetings is when the vote actually occurs. So between now and then, whatever you choose tonight, you can change. Um >> as long as you go lower,
>> as long as you go lower, you can never go higher than tonight. So whatever you do tonight, you're set in stone for 27. Um if you go lower than the 2/3 threshold, even I want to make this point. If it's 3.80 80 instead of 3.83.
You only need a majority vote. So the 2/3 vote is predicated on that actual number. And um the rate certified for trim notices again I want to I can't be more clear is the ceiling and it can be lowered in September. It cannot be
raised. So based on your direction this evening um if you are prop if you are going to go in the direction of what your finance committee recommended we would be then be normalizing those concepts with the community to get you as much as engagement and feedback as we
can before you have to vote. If you decide tonight to um move in the direction different than the flat rate that we have prior we've discussed prior that's driving the development of the operating budget then decision two comes
into play. If you don't decide that decision two is irrelevant at this point. Um but if we do go in that direction we would like to hear from you tonight. we have the projects um in front of you to hear some ideas behind what you would like us to communicate with the community and find out from
them what they're interested in. And then last is what would we like to do with the resiliency fund as a as a policy decision as it is currently set up to take any increase in revenue and distribute it half into the resiliency
fund and half into whatever else you decide depending on that amount of that increase. So with that I would like to um recommend we open it up for public comment and then we could move into the discussion.
Thank you. >> City Clerk, is your public comment? >> Terry Grokott. >> Can we have the overhead, please? [clears throat] Good evening. Terry Grocott, 2841 Alton Drive. On behalf of the Vina del D Delmare Island Association, I'm here
tonight to discuss the city city staff report dated 17th July included as supplementary information in this agenda item. First, I respectfully ask that you reject the recommendation to remove the Royal Ponietta trees from the Vina Delmare Park as identified under item three of the report. The justifi just
justification for removing these mature trees has been the alleged extreme toxicity to dogs. However, the available evidence does not support that conclusion. When this issue was first presented to the BDMA, we sought independent veterary guidance rather than relying on assumptions. Two separate veterinarians concluded that
these trees pose only minimal risk to dogs. More importantly, both emphasize that removing the shade canopy presents a greater health concern than leaving the trees in place. The association shared the first veterary opinion with our commissioner and s city manager on July 7th and followed up with an email
on July 16th recommending that the trees and the dog park remain in place. After reviewing the July 17th staff report, which still recommended removing the trees, we sought a second independent veterinary opinion. I will leave a copy of that with the city manager this evening. In Florida, shade is simply not
an amenity. It's a safety feature. During mo most of the year, surface temperatures become dangerously hot for dogs and their owners. These mature trees provide natural cooling, reduced heat stress, and make the park safe and usable throughout the day. The Vena Park has already lost several mature trees
due to hurricane damage without replacements. If the city removes these trees, it should first have a funded plan to replace the lost shade with commercial-grade shade structures. No such replacement is included in the staff recommendation. Removing healthy shade trees without replacing their
canopy would make the dog park less safe, less comfortable for the residents and it serves. I also urge the commission to review the city staff's rough order of magnitude report for park improvements in its entirety before making a decision on individual projects or priorities. The recommendations
regarding the Venina Demar park is not is not the only concern. For example, the park recommends complete or partial resade of Hurley, Pasigra, Leo, Mckini, and Lazerillo parks. Yet, Venadar Park despite sustaining significant hurricane damage is omitted from those recommendations.
The photographs I have provided document several large areas where the sad has never been restored following hurricanes Helena Milton. These are not insulated bare patches. I measured several of these using a 35 foot tape measure and they are approach or exceed that length as the commission considers investing
more than $2 million in citywide park improvements. I respectfully ask that the Vina Delmare Park receive the same level of attention and investment as our other neighborhood parks. To summarize tonight, I respectfully ask that you do two things. First, preserve the Royal Ponetti trees and the valuable shade
they provide. And second, direct the staff to revisit the park improvement recommendations to ensure that Vina Delmare Park receives fair and comprehensive consideration. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> David Gamma.
>> Uh my name is David Gamma. I live on 87th Avenue. I have a house there. Um, one of the reasons I moved into bought that house was because there was a park down the street. I'm kind of piggybacking on this woman that just went up because I agree with everything that she says. But this is Ron McKenna
Park and the problem there is um it's a busy park, very busy park and I don't think people realize how busy it is. Uh there's probably I did some tallying on any given day in the summertime there's 40 in the morning people with dogs and
about 20 in the afternoon. In the winter time it doubles. So the park is so busy that I'm having to beg for dog bags. I mean they have one thing there and it's emptied every three or four days. So I've gone from Mandy, which was she was
actually really good in parks and wreck. Uh, she got me mulch every six months. Now, once it was grass when I first went there in 2019, they decided to put mulch in. Okay. Once you do the mulch, you got to keep doing it. And the deal with the dog park is this. Um, dogs poop and pee
there. All right. So, we do our best to pick it up as long as there's dog bags to do that with. And, uh, but the rain also helps, too. Well, we haven't had any rain this year till just recently. So, the dog park gets in bad shape. My
dog is so sick right now. Um that uh I can't even take him barely on a walk. He's chewed off part of his tail. Um his head is bleeding and it's all from allergies. And people say, "Oh, it's that time of year. It's allergies."
But it's so bad there. He's been going to that park since he was nine months old. And it's so bad [snorts] there that again [clears throat] the rain can't wash it out. Well, I didn't think anything of it. I just kept taking him there, digging in the dirt, playing with the other dogs, and all of a sudden one day he started chewing on his tail. I've
gone to two different vets. I've spent over $800 trying to figure out what the problem. No one can figure it out. But they all agree it's from the dog park. All right, we need new mulch in there. I I mean, that would almost overnight take care of the issue. And I keep getting
from officials here. I've talked to uh uh different officials. One guy that works in city hall here says, "Oh, don't worry. I'll take care of it." So, I've gone from Mandy to Jacqueline and now it's some guy named Michael. Um and he says, "Oh, it's not in the budget. It's
not in the budget." Well, this city official here says, "Yeah, he's spinning the wheel." I guess that's a common thing. You spin the wheel when there's an excuse that you want to give. And you know, that's just that's horrible. I mean, we and along with this other woman, they've removed five trees at
Ramen McKini Park. Two of them were giant fus trees that shaded the park. And at first they said, I'm saying I said, "They're coming back." And they go, "Oh, you know, we're going to I said, just cut them back a little bit. Let's see if maybe they come back." That
mean my time's up. >> Yeah, but continue for a few seconds. >> So, they said, "Okay." So, they cut them back. Three days later, in the middle of the night, they must have come and they chopped them down totally. So those two fus trees are gone. So for afternoon sun, there is no shade. I'm not asking
for like the kiddie park there. They spend 50 grand on a new kids park. Maybe two kids go there in a in a three or four day period. We have a hundred dog owners that use that along with tourists that come here and they bring their dog with them. I'm not asking for like a
cover like the like the Kitty Park has or anything. We have nothing. We have the the only thing I've gotten is a park bench was the only thing that we've gotten. All I need now is mulch. Please, for my dog's sake and other dogs that are also sick, uh we need mulch, not
wood chips. That's a problem. They brought these 6-in wood chips and they injure dogs. If it's going to be wood chips, it's got to be two inches or less. I guess there was some problems at Passa Grill from from that. We have I I take care of the park. I go in there, I
rake it up. I can't even get a new rake anymore since the hurricane. The rake is missing. So, I've got a shovel. So, I've got to pick up a shovel. I keep the mulch spread and stuff like that and to try to keep it clean and make sure, you know, I pick up the dog and stuff. But [clears throat] we need new mulch. I
mean, it's been there 10 months now. We were getting it every six months and now they're saying, "Oh, it's in the budget for next year." That's just too long. We need mulch now. Please, I'm begging you. >> Thanks, sir. Um, try to hear about your dog and thank you. >> All right. Appreciate it.
Dean Damato. Close enough. I'm a 310 North Ale Drive in St. Pete Beach. Um, [clears throat] I have been a member I am a member currently of the VINA board, but I'm I was also a member of a citizen action group that John Maldonado asked us to put together to do a study of what we
should be doing in the uh in the Vena dog park. The mulch that that gentleman was talking about is what we still have. The big stuff, not the little thing that he's asking for. The big mulch is still in the Vena parks. Both even the dog, the large dog park and the small dog
park. It's hazardous to dogs because they all eat it. They gag it up at night. So that means it was in their stomach and then they gagged it up in their esophagus and then a lot of times it'll be in their poop, which means it went through their intestines. It's not
good. But we're still dealing with that and we've been dealing with it for quite a while. I came up with a petition to get rid of that stuff in March. We're still basically living with it. Some things were done, but you know, nothing nothing that really rectified the situation. We put together a report that
I believe that the commission looked at. I don't know if you read it because the report that the commission came up with has a lot of discrepancies. I'm just going to point out a couple because I only have a minute and a half left. But bottom line is we recommended artificial turf as number one, sod is number two.
The processed mulch, which is what the individual was just talking about, was really number three. We didn't we thought that that was third place. Everything else didn't didn't really work. The um but our recommendation was the was the dog turf.
the uh commission's uh recommendation or decision was to go with the engineered mulch. Now, that's okay. If that's the way it's going to be, that's the way it's going to be. But in the report, it says that the engineered mulch has a 12-month expected service life. So, does
that mean that you guys are going to spend another $40,000 next year to to because it has a 12-month life? That makes no sense to me. The price that I got from Chewies actually for the turf was about $78,000.
I think I believe that he had the right aggregate as a base for it. I don't have that detail. He didn't put it in his his budgetary bid, but the easy way to find out is just calling Chewies, right? If that's the decision. Uh SAD, you say
it's a sixmonth life cycle for SAD. I think that's ridiculous. you have sod or grass at least in pass a grilled dog park. I'm sure you didn't replace that every six months. I doubt if you replaced it for maybe six years, but I mean obviously it does need some
maintenance. So what I'm saying here is that the report that the commission came up with and there's a lot of other areas as well just did not reflect what the citizens was asked to do were asked to do by John Maldonado. We did it in good faith. We thought we were going to present that to the city and then we'd
have a discussion and come up with a with a joint decision. I saw this. I didn't even know you guys were working on it. So, there's a lack of transparency between the city and the citizens. I don't like it. Um, and I'm just pointing out some things here that I think you guys should consider because
it really doesn't make any sense. Okay. Thanks, sir. Ted Teal. Hello. See if I get this right. I'm Ted Teal, 2871
Alton Drive. I'm the new treasurer of the Vina Delmare Island Association. But since Terry spoke for the association, I'm speaking for myself as a resident. The first thing I want to thank all of you for your public service. I know you
don't get rich doing this job. Uh so I I really appreciate it. I also want to comment on the Vina Park uh and which was one of the reasons we decided to move to Vina Delmare. It's just such a nice park uh and I believe it's helped
attract many residents, particularly those with dogs. and is therefore increased the value of everyone's property. As Terry mentioned earlier, the park's in bad shape and needs investment. It needs to be a priority. The mulch in the dog park,
some of it was removed and apparently some is still there, but then there's a lot of mud. So, I do think that whatever solution you come up with, it needs to be uh implemented soon. And it's uh mud is not ideal for dogs and their owners.
I would also advocate as Terry mentioned keeping the royal poinsiana trees with two veterinarians say they're safe and they provide a lot of shade. I think that's valuable. Now I was there today and the kids playground structure is now
boarded up which is not ideal either. A lot of kids play in the park and there's dirt and mud all over the park. So, please put Vina Park on your priority list and thank you for your consideration.
Thanks, sir. >> Karen Keywood, >> I just have a question about the um increase mage rate, millage rates. That's about a 24% increase. And I just kind of roughed it up, but is that not going to ne negate any potential savings that we're going to see if the proposed
homestead exemption is raised? I just, you know, have a lot of people saying, "Hey, they're just trying to get in front of this and increase our taxes this way." So, if we do get some back from the potential homestead increase,
we won't even be seeing any of that actually. And the in the revenues here have increased by 50%. Since what was it 2020? Has all that money has any of that money saved for any type of rainy day funds or
that's a huge that's a pretty significant revenue increase in five years? I just wondered if any of that was saved for anything or >> I think I think city city manager is going to comment on it. But uh you know I know that we uh um specifically we
talked about the the extra revenue being put into the resiliency fund. So I assume some of it has been saved but >> so we do have some reserves and things like that that >> I think in the resiliency fund I think we're starting to have some. So yes. >> Okay. because I am going to run the numbers on it, but I do feel like, you know, if we do get that potential homestead, this is just going to negate
it and we'll end up still paying the same amount. So, thank >> thank you >> Kathy Garel. >> Good evening, Commission Mayor Kathy Garshaw, Casablanca Avenue. Um, so like everyone else in the room, I think
nobody's going to put their hand up and say, "Yes, I want to pay higher taxes." So, um, however, I think we also hear hopefully as we walk around and it's like, but I do want two fire stations. I'd like two boat ramps. I'd like to have a library. I'd like to have a
community center and a aquatic center and all these other amazing things that make our city super special, right? Um and I think um what I look at and and I have had the privilege now of serving on the finance and budget committee. Um the
staff has made themselves accessible. I've been able to look at a lot of the data. I've been able to spend time uh with folks even in the around the city. I've looked at cameras as they've scoped sewer lines just recently. And I think
we all have to just be real honest with the state of where our city is at. Um, you know, I I look at this a little differently. If I can share this on the overhead. Um, I I think St. Pete Beach is worth at least the same amount as the
residents of Treasure Island. I also look at this number and think this is actually we are very efficient. We have a pretty spectacular place that we live in and all these amenities and we've been holding ourselves very low. So when
we think about $1 more a day, that's the $354. I mean, it's 365 days. So if we could allocate one more dollar a day to start to and and for me, I I don't I love our parks. I think there's a lot of
things we can do with volunteers and work on parks with the support of the parks and recck team, but I'm all about the meat and potatoes. So, to me, I really want us to look at how are we getting ourselves back with infrastructure. We need our public
spaces, our community assets. We need that meaningful investment. Um, we know that the sewers, storm water, reclaim water, we're all talking about the rates and fees. They need to go up. Why? It's not because operations, although operations have gone up considerably, it's because of the capital improvement
investments that we need to be making now. And if we don't make them now, what happens? They will cost us more. And I think that's a really honest conversation that I hope that you all will have, that if we don't put a dollar in today, the actual costs will go up
every single year because we all know it. We just put money into our own homes. So, as much as everyone doesn't want to pay another nickel, I do think that we're not at a point where there's wasteful spending going on. Um, there might be things that we can scrub of the
$267 million that we saw on a 7-year time horizon, but I also think that we have a tremendous amount of investment that we need to do to build the city back. So, I really hope that we will look at this seriously and start to tackle this before it's too late. We can
get grants when we put money down. So, let's move this forward. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Deborah Shener. Good evening. Deborah Shener and Boke Sega Isle Drive, St. Pete Beach. Uh the purpose of a city government is to
protect the health safety of residents and visitors. That really is your prime objective. Our city budget includes services for tourists. For instance, for our EMT emergencies,
more than 50% of the calls are tourist related. Please let that sink in. More than 50% of our calls are for tourist relation. Believe me, I want all those tours helped. But at what point
do we ask for the state local panelis county to allow us to have either some money from the bet tax or add a percent to the butt tax which has been done in other
counties but right now they won't. And people don't realize we get the same amount of sales tax as a city of our population without tourists. Those cities have plenty of money. Why? They're only supporting their residents and they're only supporting their
facilities. I think it's a real serious question that you need to think about. So, as you're talking about budget, perhaps you could be formulating a plan that either through the hotels or for the state government or for heaven forbid a $1
toll that we get money back because it comes out of residents pockets and residents are the primary. We're the primary payers in real estate taxes in our city. Nobody seems to want to attack either of those problems.
either of those revenue sources that go out to others. You take a look at some of those other cities, they even have huge reserves why they're not supporting the tourists. I love tours here, but at some point,
hotels and the city need to take a hard look at doing something so that we get some money back so that we charge 1% of the bed tax. We have to do something and we have to
go to the state and the state will approve hopefully. We have new government coming in. We need to plead our case. I like to say we're the Cinderella working hard all the time, but we never get to go to the ball.
Why? Because we're forking out the money for everybody else, but only the residents. And um back to the parks. My granddaughter plays tennis over at um Lazarillo. The amount of red ants surrounding that
park is phenomenal. And if anybody plays anywhere near the tennis courts, uh, they're going to get bit. But again, we need to rethink this. >> Thank you, >> Rich Laorenzan.
>> Well, good evening. Rich Lorenzan on Pass Girl, 22nd Avenue. Uh, I wasn't going to talk specifically about millage rates, but uh, Kathy Garchow kind of schooled me before the the meeting here and I learned a couple facts. Uh, when I first walked in here, I was like, do not touch our millage rates. I pay enough
taxes. Uh, a lot of us have even old homes like mine that are approaching a million dollars in value. I'm already paying what, 6,500 a year in taxes, 5,000 for flood insurance, 4,000 for wind insurance, and the figure is 357 per person a year. It's double that for
me. So that's another seven or $800 I'm paying out of my pocket. I'd rather not. Um I think there's maybe some middle ground. What I can tell you I'm not in favor of. We have major infrastructure problems. Kathy outlined it very well.
You look down the list, we got a lot of problems. The seaw walls aren't done. The tidal flow valves are still broken. Um the road like uh Gulf Way and Pass the Grill is in shambles. and we're talking about $2 million for tennis courts, pickle ball courts, and dog
parks. Um, I just think we need to focus on, to use a phrase, meat and potatoes, and that's infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. The rest of that stuff's great when we are flushing cash, but we are not. So, please use common sense. Thank you.
>> Thanks, sir. >> Ruda H. Hi, I'm Bruta Hance from 7711 Cookinoway. Um, during the recent election, residents heard repeated promises that taxes would not be raised because the city budget contained a lot
of waste that could be eliminated. And I'm one of those people that was here always saying, "Hey, we've got an infrastructure problem that needs to come first." And I agree what Rich Laorenzan just said. However, we were told that a careful review of the budget would identify where those savings would
be. Well, residents deserve to see these promised budget reforms before we are asked to pay any more money. Leadership means leading by example and following through first on what you said you were going to do for us. It's been four
months later now since the election and we have not yet heard what those specific budget reductions are. So, let's stop putting the cart before the horse. Tell us first before you ask for an increase in taxes. What wasteful spending in our budget can be cut before
you sit here and ask struggling residents to blindly pay more money to the city? Some of our neighbors are still waiting on permits, living in trailers, and can barely afford to get back in their homes, let alone pay the city for more money for utilities they
are not even using on their empty lots. residents resoundingly voted yes for a campaign that argued that a $1 tourist toll would unfairly burden residents even though residents wouldn't pay that toll and be exempt. Yet today, we have
somehow quickly seen significant parking fee increases and businesses are expressing concern about those parking rates just as they previously expressed concern about the proposed $1 toll. Leadership requires more than campaign
promises. It requires transparency, followth through, and lots of communication with the residents. I hope the mayor will begin sharing this these specific budget recommendations that were promised to us and engage directly with the residents just as all our
commissioners regularly meet with and do with their constituents. I agree our enterprise funds should be financially sustainable and I understand that they are not. However, as per your own slides, our multi-million dollar commercial properties are only paying
77% of what they use, while real residents subsidize these hotels by paying up to 138% of what we use. Don't forget that these multi-million dollar hotels are set to expand. When that happens, they will push this further out
of balance. This imbalance deserves more careful consideration before asking some literally homeless homeowners here to shoulder their additional costs. And if our commission is so convinced that hotels are the only businesses that can support our economy, then let's get
aggressive in advocating for just getting a few pennies of that bed tax money back over to St. Pete Beach instead of raising our taxes. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Dana Richardson. Dana Richardson, 5830 Bahama Way South.
Um, I won't be as eloquent as everyone else. My my uh point is simple. Um, I try to be involved. I watch the meetings. I come here and accounting and math was never my thing. Um,
it's really hard to stay on top of every little thing. What's part of our infrastructure? What's maintenance? What's this? What's that? I do know that um we were told during the cup hearings that uh we had no infrastructure
problem. Then we find out later we do have an infrastructure problem. That's about 213 million. Then we find out, now I may be wrong, Kathy, but I thought it was 282 million after seven years, but regardless, it's very confusing. We get
different figures. And all that I ask is before anything gets voted on. We need community involvement. We want we need to have a Q&A. We need to have a discussion to kind of lay it all out so we really understand. I have no problem
with paying because everything's increasing in cost. So, if we were never really charging ourselves enough to carry the maintenance on things, obviously, yes, we need to keep up with that. But when it comes to handling the deficit, we really need to work hard on coming up with uh whether it's uh
getting some more bed tax money, uh you know, whatever it is. Um, I did not like having the toll, but if it came down to me paying 30 35,000 or uh, well, the tourists paying a dollar
per car one way. I would like to go that way. Now, you all in previous meetings have said that's off the table without our involvement. I've talked to several people who were deadly against the toll until they found out that, hey, we
really do have a problem and it is going to be the residents that pay. All of a sudden, they're saying, well, gee, I'd be okay with a small toll. Better for them to pay it than me because they all made their decisions because they didn't think we had a problem. Well, we do. So
that's all I ask is that before anything gets voted on for increases and so forth, let's involve the community. Let's do Q&As's. It's let's really put it all out there for us to make a good decision for all of us. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Vincent Torminia. >> Hi Vincent Smenia. Uh Kazablanca Avenue. I have this over here. I don't know if you can see it. I'll find that. It's called chip drop.
It's free mulch. It's from natural trees and everything. You sign up and they dump it. That's one. So, the city don't have to pay for mulch. It's called And I gave it to Candom already and I sent it to Francis. I'll send it to everybody else if they're
interested in it. Anybody could get it. You just sign up and when they chop down these trees or whatever, they just dump it on your front lawn and that's it. it's up to you to take care of it afterwards. Uh, as far as anything else, um, I'm not too in favor of the miller's
rate increase, but I have people that are contacting me and they would love to come in as volunteers for two to three hours a day, okay, a couple of days a week, they said, and help write grants. And they don't know where to call or who
to talk to or whatever. So, that's why I'm bringing that to you. today and that was it. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> I have no more comments on this particular item. >> Okay.
>> Thank you. >> City commissioners. >> So, I think you're still looking for direction from us, correct? And so I'm I'm looking for discussion from the other commissioners on their thoughts regarding the same and what we might have just heard. >> Yeah. So just a reminder tonight's not an official vote. It's just direction
from the majority of if you'd like us to engage the community further on millage increase and what that would go towards or do you want to keep with the flat rate? >> Can I get the slide presentation back up that you used uh Director Schmidt and go
back to page 13? So, I just wanted to kind of bring this into discussion because some of the comments were made on things that I was talking about and it's talking about fiscal scrutiny and responsibility trying to eliminate wasteful spending and things like that. And I couldn't help
but notice that it says $75,000 each per court resurfacing. And then at the bottom, I think there was a note on one of these slides, maybe the next slide or subsequent slide where it
talked about there was an anomaly where we can get this done for $23,000 at pass. And this reminds me of my time in government service when agencies were paying $500 for a hammer without
question. And it happened quite frequently and it just kind of slipped [snorts] through the cracks where vendors were purchasing a hammer off the shelf at a hardware store for $9 and literally marking it up to $500.
So it's one of the things that I do struggle with. [cough and clears throat] I do agree with one of the comments that was made that we need to show that we have exercised and tried to eliminate wasteful spending. And I bring that into this discussion because nobody
wants to see the military increase. The input that I've had other than a couple of people here tonight speaking saying sure I'll pay for it has been the acknowledgement that it hasn't been raised. It was reduced by commission
and the inescapable conclusion that we've been kicking the cat the can down the road. Right. I almost said the cat. I'm a dog person. But uh but here in lies the dilemma and that's kind of where I wanted to see where the
commission's at with this recommendation. Not a decision but a recommendation to even have the have this discussion tonight because the persons that I've heard with and discussed this with do not want to see
an increase in the millillage rate. That's where I'm going to start with. Commissioner Marriott. >> Thank you. Um uh thanks Commissioner Maldonado for kicking us off. Not the cat. [laughter]
Um, I uh [clears throat] my general feeling about it is that I could probably be convinced that in the trim notice to have some higher rate. Um, and allow public comment and more community discussion
about if we collect more money, what that money would be used for. Um, but I think I would need to be convinced a little bit. Um, I still feel like keeping the keeping the millage rate flat. Um,
because we're raising, you know, because we're raising the fees on the utilities and we're getting those funds, you know, working those funds to being self- sustaining, that's going to free up some money in the general fund. And
in general, the truth of it is that there is no amount of money that would ever be enough, right? Like there is no amount of money that's enough. >> [clears throat] >> and and and so you know the nature of
the beast is that it is our job to pick the spot to draw the line to influence as much efficiency and cost savings as is possible in the regular operations of the city and do what we can with the money that we have
be because again it wouldn't matter how much money we had there would still be things that people would want that we can't pay for. It would never be enough. And so, um, you know, I have no problem with having
the potential for there being more money if there's ample opportunity for lots of public input into what that money would be spent for and if we actually want to collect that money. Um I absolutely think that we should stick to the uh uh prior uh prior commissions before us
recommendation that half of any increase in uh taxable income colleable value collected goes into the resiliency fund. I think that that's really important that we keep track of that and we look at, you know, what what is the
difference between money that the resiliency fund funds and what is the money that the wastewater fees fund. And I think keeping that resiliency fund in place makes it easier to keep track of that and to pay attention to what we're doing. I think it also puts us in a better position to
get grant funds and matching grants and that sort of thing if we have that money sitting there ready to be used. Um, you know, the the the at this point in where we are in the
city with infrastructure and continuing to recover from the hurricanes and raising utility rates on our residents and our businesses. Um, I don't see spending $2 million on things for parks
that are absolutely nice to have, but aren't probably the most important thing on the list. I would clearly there's some people who are very passionate about our parks and so I would love to maybe see us come up with a program where we come up with a budget for, you
know, per park and and let the neighborhood association decide how to spend it, you know. If uh if you know it sounds like the the folks in Vina are very organized and passionate about their park. I think that the city should be working on ways to say
here here's how much money we have for this park this year. You guys figure out how best to use it based on what works for your neighborhood and and you know get get the city out of the way so to speak um is probably the probably the better option for something like that.
So again, um I'm I'm I'm good with a flat millage rate. I'm also fine perhaps with with publishing a higher rate. Um but man, we'd want to make sure we had a lot of opportunities for good
public input into what that money is going to be used for. >> Thank you, Commissioner Cy. >> Wow, that's a lot. I took a lot of notes. So, one thing I think I've heard is the
feeling, and I think it's a common fear, people don't want to their their money to be wasted by bureauc bureaucracy. So, I'm wondering if our city manager could give us an idea of how we could
speak to that through community engagement and what would it mean to address the idea that is there any waste in the budget and I might would go beyond that is is there any increase in
the budget and then I see it as a separate thing that I'm hearing is uh related to infrastructure projects that we have or any project, uh there always seems to be the extra governmental cost compared to what a homeowner could go out and get the same
job done for. So, um the $500 hammer question, I guess, would be something that I'm interested in hearing about because I feel like that should be part of the decision. [clears throat and cough] Certainly, what I'm one of the things I'm hearing tonight. So, um, I've got a few more
things that I want to talk about, but would you have be able to speak to that for just a minute and give us some ideas relative to how we would address that question? >> Absolutely. So the way this is structured, you're in a really good
position to potentially put some sight of o some sort of oversight on any particular millage increase in this situation because we do not need it for an operating budget. We're going to be bringing you a flat no growth operating
budget with zero FTE increases. Um the oversight could land into your finance board who is already established resident appointed commission members. Um we have spent the last two years
engaging them in a very different way um than they have been in the past. So I think we've set it up well for that structured engagement. We could also normalize that through the outreach. Um, if you do recommend anything beyond flat tonight to work
with the community, we have 45 days. So, we'd love to hear from you on how you would like, you know, what kind of meetings you would like, formats that you would wish that we do engage the community on that. For your operating budget, you're going to be seeing that coming in the next few weeks. That's the next budget session. Your finance
committee will see that as well before you do. Um, you will have an opportunity to try to find any elimination of waste or excess you may see. I will tell you, you have a very skinny operating budget for the amount of services we provide to
the community. So, you're not going to be um it gets to the point where you have the bare minimum to run a certain function and at that point you have to you have to start cutting services. You have to
cut hours. You have to cut how often we cut the grass, how often we rake the beach. It's not the team's too large. And we have people sitting around not being productive. So, I think you're going to see you have a pretty lean
operating budget when you do see it in the next two weeks. Um, so those are Did I answer all of your questions? >> Well, okay. Um [clears throat] so I heard you say that you are engaging the finance committee. So the finance
committee is pretty important function for a city I would think and so what is it that is different in the way that you are engaging the finance committee now relative to how you perceive they were
engaged? When I first arrived, I believe they met with staff twice a year and it was um to I believe present the audit findings as well as some investment reports, but they were they were not involved in the budget
development process. So, as um Director Schmidt has referenced several times, we have we have you cooking in the kitchen with us. Um we're we're providing an extreme level of detail that normally was not provided to the community. Um
and we have invited them in to provide us recommendations as another layer for the commission to consider where you did not have that before. The commission was unilaterally taking in the budget, approving the
budget of course with public comment, but you did not have an appointed committee looking at the budget in the detail you have them looking at right now. So we could also extend if at the direction of the commission you said, "Hey, we we want an extra million dollars of millage collected this year.
We wanted to go to these projects. Please report to the finance committee quarterly on the activities and expenditures of that money. That's a that's a simple explanation of it. >> How many staff are there in our city? I
roughly I guess I >> um so approximately 159, but that does include um departments where it's that you have seasonal folks you within our resident services and our library or part-time folks as well. So if you add all of
those together, it's 159. So 159 includes the temporary people and part-time people or not? >> Seasonal and part-time. Correct. Y >> So what? So do you know how many full-time people there are? >> Um we could we could provide that. Right
now the way we have it is just showing how many of um what a full-time equivalent would equate to. So if they work, 140 hours and we have two of those that equates to one FTE if that makes sense. Full-time equivalent. Is there Can you
give me a rough idea of what that number would be? >> I could I I don't have that off the top of my head, but I could certainly follow up with that. >> Yeah, I just trying to understand. To me, it seems like we live in a very small town and there doesn't seem like there's a lot of people working in the
city uh as staff and I don't see where we can do a lot of trimming and get the things done we need. So I I am interested in understanding and I think the community wants to understand that might be part of the
community engagement. So oversight and the finance committee the finance committee they did they recommend what what is it they recommended to the commission relative to uh the millillage. So the finance budget review committee
did recommend to go to the twothirds max at 3.8330. >> Is there did they say why or I I was actually at the meeting but I just would like to understand and make it clear to the public why would our finance committee recommend this?
Because I am hearing people say I think I'm hearing people say why in fact why would anybody want to raise taxes ever? I don't think it's um a discretion thing. I think it should be based on the actual situation we're in.
So, I don't know. Is it do we have a finance committee person that could speak to us right now or is that something we would be interested in doing or not? Is that >> is that the pleasure of the commission? >> Does anybody want to hear a finance
committee person answer that question? Like why did they recommend? I'd be okay with with hearing it. Yeah. >> Do we have somebody? Maybe that's the question. I I know we do. I don't know if she's willing to come up and have the conversation. >> You got hiding back there. [laughter]
>> If you can keep it. >> You can stay too. [laughter] >> If you could just keep it under >> Oh, yeah. You just ask me whatever question you want. So Kathy Garcia, I'm I'm now not >> on Casablanca. I'm on the [laughter] I'm on the finance and budget committee. So,
>> well, I hate to ask you to frame for the entire finance committee, but could you at least tell us why you think >> Yeah. I I don't want to speak for everyone, but we all um did walk through um I think like you all did actually the very next session. In fact, I just
handed my copy to one of the other girls who I mean I think everyone like I I I spoke as an individual citizen and just saying no one wants you know to pay more in taxes. Oh, thanks. But I think we this was handed out um and I I'll show
this because I think that this has got I think the 80 CIP projects and there was a really good healthy discussion around that with you all um right after that session. Um, but this still kind of burned into I think our brains that as
we look at um and and think about what we need uh in terms of this city building itself back with the healthy sewer, storm water reclaimed, seaw
walls, etc. I I think Karen said it well, but we we are a city that has um a a really special uh set of assets and we I think have deferred um some of these
things for a significant amount of time. So while we don't want a millage increase, it seemed logical that as all of us have been pouring um into our own homes, bringing them up to code, we have a big and you know kind of state of um
now thanks I think to the new current city staff that has revealed to us a current state of of a system that has now is starting and I don't have the data on this to prove it but costing us a lot to repair and maintain versus like
it's time to replace or modernize. And so as we we want this wise kind of investment into the infrastructure so that it doesn't cost us, as we all know, construction costs are only going up. And anything that we could put a dollar
into the ground on today will save us money going forward for two reasons. Actually, three. One, it's cheaper to construct today. two, it is um enabling us when we put that money to work to
pursue matching grants and funds. And three, it saves us from the repair and maintenance. So when you combine all of those, I think it that's where we all kind of I think looked at this and said this is the year to do this. We're rebuilding given the state of
infrastructure. And it really was core meat and potatoes. He did not get into um the parks and and things that I think have been discussed here tonight. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> So, I think a lot of what my thoughts revolve around
is what's happened to us in the last couple of years because I remember when I was looking at buying a place here, it was about eight years ago. I glanced through the city budget and I noticed that we had 49 million in the reserve fund at that time and I thought well
that doesn't seem like a lot of money for a city but now it's been the hurricane the last couple of years and I know we've transferred 27 million this year I would is how much did we end up spending out of our
reserve fund just this in the last 12 months would you say city manager I I couldn't answer that with accuracy without looking at the books. I will tell you the storms alone um in the first six months of recovery, we were I think we I believe we spent
$14 million in recovery efforts. >> Yeah, >> that was just getting the city back to a livable not great quality of life, but a livable quality of life. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I believe we're at 9
million now. And as I understand it, that's the minimum that we would be willing to we can't spend any more next year on recovery even though there's things that need to be done. >> So that is a financial policy that the commission um has the opportunity to
review through each budget um cycle. What a GFOA or government finance officers association best practice is is that you have three months of your operating um reserves and then what we've looked at is that baseline of what it took for us to respond to um
hurricane Helen and Milton on category A and B um which is your debris um removal and monitoring and that um number is where we looked and we said okay we should probably look at adding in another 10% so in the event we have another catastrophic IC situation, then
we're have about 35% available in our fund balance in the general fund to respond immediately to a um catastrophic event. [cough and clears throat] >> Well, so I heard tonight the discussion that other cities have a lot higher
amount of reserve. Have we compared to what we keep in reserve compared to other coastal cities here >> for our general fund? Yes, we have. Um and so when we're looking at um government finance officers association is a national benchmark that we utilize.
We're among um 3,000 municipalities that at a national level benchmark and we submit our budget annually. Some of those criterias that they're looking at um in order to receive the distinguished budget award is things like our financial policies. How well are we setting up the community? How easy is it
for the community to understand our documents? Um so when we're looking at benchmarking, we typically look at that very high level. Where we need to spend some time and we've shared that through some of these workshops is within our enterprise and our other funds. We need to set a fund balance reserve policy for
each fund since they operate very differently. So we do have it for our general fund today. Um that's where we need to start focusing in the future is what how do we rightsize those enterprise funds and make sure that we also have a reserve in there so that there also have a rainy day fund in the
event we have some system failure or something of that nature we're able to respond in the same manner we are in our general fund. >> Okay. Okay. Well, I guess sum up my concern relative to the funds is that the draw down that we've seen with the hurricane recovery over the last two and
a half two years uh into what I believe to be the minimum that would be advisable to where we can't spend what we have spent again next year. So, um
>> to to your point, you're not going to get a budget this year that recommends any draw down on reserves. >> But yeah, I believe it. Okay. >> Yeah, I understand. I I what but I would like to go in the other direction. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I I feel like we would need we
should have more reserves. We should be heading in the right direction since I know we have looming infrastructure end of service life issues here >> and you will naturally achieve that through your rate resizing
>> the user fees. >> The general fund has been subsidizing all of those fund enterprise funds wastewater reclaim and storm water. >> Okay, that's great clarity. >> So you're going to you're going to rightsize those on their own. >> Yep.
So the right sizing the user fees would help us start rebuilding our reserve that we need to should have. Okay. I guess um another highlight I've heard is why would we spend um millillage
increase on parks when we have other more important things to do uh with that money? So can you city manager or uh speak to
how to how should we think about that? I know that the user fees and the uh enterprise funds that are for each part of the infrastructure are supposed to be what takes care of the critical infrastructure. So how should we be thinking about millillage relative to
the public comment about how to spend the money if we were going to why would we increase millage at this point? I mean >> so millage increases would theoretic if if you take if you assume that
wastewater storm water and reclaimed water are being right sized to take care of their own infrastructure. Then Millage comes in and fills the gaps for roads, um, parks, facilities,
and >> seaw walls, >> anything that's not storm water. So that's sea level rise. Anything that's mitigating sea level rise. >> So seaw walls aren't storm water. >> They're not storm water. >> Seaw walls are for sea level rises like
correct. Maybe sometimes it's a hurricane. Sometimes we're talking about global climate change over 50 years perhaps. >> Correct. >> But that isn't covered by user fees, that's covered by mill property tax. So if we need to fix the seaw walls and
pass, if we need to fix the seaw walls at the parks at Uppam, that's coming from millage in theory. It's supposed to, right? >> Correct. And one of the unknowns at this moment that is, you know, there's been a lot of
discussion around the $120 million resiliency projects. >> Yeah. I don't like that word because it means a lot of different things to different people. So, so what we're doing right now this year through this through some of these studies in the
various neighborhoods is portions of those projects arguably could be partially storm water and partially sea level rise. But we have to go through that exercise and then have us o have the city
attorney involved and opine which portion could which layer of that could come off in the storm water which we haven't included in storm water fees yet. So that's sort of a future discussion but I say that because that millillage could also be used for that.
So it could be used to subsidize storm water until you start to rightsize storm water as we find out more information. But we we have literally $120 million of I'll call it new infrastructure or improved infrastructure to address what
we're dealing with that we don't have all the details yet. >> I'm glad you mentioned that because I think it is an important point right now discussing in the millillage is the fact that the user fee study is doesn't rightize the user fees this
year, next year, even the year after that. It's a three-year phase in. So after the third year of adjustments, finally we are actually getting the amount of money that we're should be getting. And then after the third year adjustments, we would be back to an
equitable distribution of payments from the different uh classes of of people or payers here in the city. So we have our our multif family condos, we have our single families, and we have our commercial properties. And there is a
true uh inequity right now in how the amounts are paid and we won't be back to normal until the end of the fee study recommended adjustments whether we do the three-year phase in or the five-year
or some other variation of it. It just extends it out. And I would like to say that if during that time where we're trying to reach the correct amount on user fees, we will need the millillage to make up the difference for things that need to be done. So there's another
very that's how millage equals very important projects instead of parks. So maybe that's we might need to quantify that a little bit >> if the direction tonight is to explore with the community more. These are the This is really good feedback because we
would be going out and saying, "Here's all that we know today. We know it's a fluid environment, but based on what we know today, if the millage was raised, where would you want to reinvest it in the community?" >> And it's hard because everything people
don't know what the real needs are. So I guess you would want to say here are five, six different alternatives or possibilities or distributions and this is why we need to do this and this and this and this. >> We could frame it that way.
>> Yeah. Because um otherwise you don't have a frame for that question or the community engagement. So I I feel like since the finance committee sent us a full max out based on some kind of logic that they think
we're underfunded and I I understand we are going to be underfunded until we get the user fees right size. I would I I it's my personal feeling we should just go ahead and and go with what the finance committee recommended and then
we still have the opportunity to go through the community engagement process here until when is the date when we would take a vote on the actual village. >> The first actual vote is September 9th. >> September 9th.
>> So we will spend the entire month of August in the community. I think that's what we would want to do because that way we would have the community would feel like we engaged them and they could um decide whether they want to fix parks or whether they
want to fix infrastructure or their streets flooded or they would like their sewer lines cleaned out in their neighborhood because these things need to be done or there's sidewalks and seaw walls that people want fixed as well.
I'll stop for now because I could go on for another hour, I believe. >> Commissioner Maldonado, >> uh, slide 13, deck. Uh, please again, thank you. So, let me let me just back up and first say thank you to the finance budget review committee and for
the recommendation. It doesn't fall in deaf ears. It's a very hard uh deliberation and work that they do behind the scenes to try to dumb it down so that when it gets to the commission that our job's a little bit easier, but it's not perfect. Um
I don't agree that, you know, we should completely discard some of the amenities that we're talking about here. Uh part of the reason that many of us moved here is because they are attractive neighborhoods. They offer tennis courts, pickle ball courts,
playgrounds. The landscaping is very important when it comes to home values, resales, and things like that. So, we can't abandon that all together. What I'm asking for is more scrutiny. Uh, when it comes to awarding contracts, and just accepting
things are fair when apparently they aren't. I just wanted to clarify here uh and maybe this caused some confusion tonight to the Venina Delmare Island Association. I had asked that this toxic tree removal be u removed from the slide. We did talk to the city manager
and the attorney and they agreed that with uh signage, appropriate signage being placed there that we will not remove those trees. That's no longer in consideration. Uh thank you for advocating to keep those to those of you that did and we'll continue to work
together. And then to Dean's uh point, the citizens action group made some recommendations, but it did not come to the commission. I want to be very clear on that that that was a city staff uh initiative. We were trying to work through some issues. Eventually, some things may come to the commission, but I
just want to eliminate any any confusion before it gets any further. I don't agree that we should go to the max. I think that that really, you know, is is uh premature. this year. I would say that we should continue to challenge
staff and our procurements uh and contract people to go through things judiciously make sure that we're not having wasteful spending. I don't believe in faces. I believe in spaces. So there should be no reduction
in staff. I don't want to start rumors here that we're looking to reduce 160 uh people by a person. If we can eliminate or encourage physicians to retire early and do things like that in future years, that might be something we can discuss,
but I don't want anybody hearing this to think that there's going to be riffs or any kind of reductions in in the uh the structure. I don't support that. So, I want to be very clear on that. Uh to Commissioner Kazy's point though, I think that even though the staff
is showing us these numbers and that the commission uh was given a certain recommendation, I don't think we're there this year. So again, my my uh emphasis is to keep the flat rate, work on reducing waste wherever possible,
and then next year we'll see. But to Commissioner Marriott's point, we'll never have enough money. So even if we increase this by six times, 10 times, 20 times, we're still not going to be able to cover the deficit.
So, we're really just asking the city to do more with what we have from my perspective. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner Aldonado. Um, one of the I guess
um pieces I I know mayors generally go last and let everybody kind of put their feelings out. So, I'm going to echo a little bit of what I heard from my fellow commissioners and thank you. Um you know just just kind of taking my own notes here you know I know that we we started um discussions of you know
whether it's 200 million 280 million you know whatever whatever that infrastructure need is I think it was interesting uh city manager just said you know there there is a portion of that I think I think the attribution I just heard was about 120 million that is all brand new stuff that doesn't exist
in our city right now and so you know to to assume that the city hadn't been maintaining things that were not in existence is is inappropriate or in incorrect I would say but that does mean that that leaves us 80 90 hundred million worth of existing infrastructure that is has its
own set of needs and and needs its own set of work. Um so I think that is that is something to to contemplate that that we don't need the 200 million for existing stuff that's failing. We need, you know, some portion of that, uh, and
it sounds like less than half of that for existing needs, fixing things that, um, I think it's been well acknowledged have been kicked down the can, kick have that can kicked down the road, right? Sorry, we're just messing up our metaphors this this evening. Um, but I do think that that can has been kicked
down the road long enough. Um, and it's time that we uh start to rightsize it. And so that's been the conversations we've had, you know, over the last few sessions is how do we rightsize our enterprise funds? What we've been doing, as Commissioner Kosy, uh, I appreciate
you drawing that out, right? We have funds that are meant to pay for themselves. And yet, we have not been bringing in the revenue off of their their their fees to pay for themselves. We've been stealing, for lack term, from our advalorum general revenues to be able to cover these funds for so long.
Hence, we made the decisions to go forth and rightsize those. If we're investing in storm water, let's make sure that we bring enough revenue into to account for the storm water needs now and going forward ditto on you know u reclaim water and the other enterprise funds
that we have. So, I think our move that we did make to rightsize those funds is appropriate and I think we heard even some positive comments from the residents that that uh that seems to be the right approach. So, I think there's not a lot of argument on that side. Um, on to fiscal conservancy and the and the
$500 hammer kind of conversation. Um, I do think we should always be cognizant that we are getting good value for our investments. Um, I need to ask a question, but but I or put you on the spot, city manager, but I know we have the finance and budget committee and
they help us with long-term budgeting. I wonder if we've contemplated or whether there'd be interest in in having that same committee review our our contracts, especially these large ones that we have coming through and make sure that they are, you know, aligned with
expectations. We don't have to commissioner Maldonado's questions a $500 hammer sitting in there, right? And so perhaps we can can get whether it's uh a different set of experts in the community or perhaps the finance and budget committee to take on the extra
role to kind of make sure that they review large contracts and make sure that we cut all the wasteful pieces out of there as well. Like I I just don't know if there's um I I think there's some value there that could be had to Commissioner Maldo's Maldonado's $500 hammer thing, which I don't really think we have a $500 hammer here, but but I
think there is some things that we need to kind of just double check. Um the question before us tonight is not what is the final millage rate. In my head the question is not what's our final millage rate. Um city manager you said I think we're just trying to set
something for our trim notice that we could always come right back down to any number we wanted to after that. The problem is if we stay flat right now we cannot go up once that trim notice goes out. It it cannot go any higher. And so if we set it tonight where it is, there
is no opportunity at all with community input. All the community input we get, there is no opportunity to to raise that back up. And that concerns me a bit, for lack term. I'm not saying that I want to see us um raise that number. I think because we've made those right sizing of
the enterprise funds that that will take a little time to take effect, but as we as we drew out earlier, um they will start to naturally bring our reserves back up in the um in the general fund because we're no longer subsidizing all
of these these things as a result of it. And so I'm inclined, as Commissioner uh Marriott said, to let those enterprise funds right sizing, the fee right sizing take its place before we look at millage rates. Um I don't think u with all due
respect to the finance and and budget committee that we should be looking at a max uh even on the trim notice, I don't think we need to go that high. Um but I would entertain a higher number tonight on on the trim notice uh with the
expectation two expectations. Um one we do need to keep investing in our resiliency and that was the wishes of the board from just a few years ago that the extra revenue 50% of that extra revenue goes into that resiliency fund.
I think we need to keep thinking about our resiliency as a city going forward. I would like to see, you know, the expectation that if we uh if we do get extra revenue that 50% it goes to resiliency. Um
my my concern with raising the the the the millage rate for the trim notice. Um I like I like the idea that allows us to have the discussion. What I want to make sure is is that we identify a mechanism to truly get input from the community. Right? we we tend to hear from a lot of
the same voices in this room. Um, smart voices, interesting voices, all those things, but it's the same voices. And so, I'm interested in how we could, city manager, with your thoughts. Again, I've suggested polling or whatever it is. I'd love to understand how we might go about
really um getting down in front of in front of the residents in a forum that we could say, look, um, if we raise mil, let's say tonight we agree to bring it up to a military. It's a little higher. It raises another I'll pick a number here. $2.5 million, right? And then we
say, how should we spend that? Right? And you've suggested to us part of it to resiliency, part of it for potentially parks, part of it for other capital projects. How do we make sure that we truly get a well-rounded set of input? Because if we're right back here in a
few months with the same 20 30 voices, uh I don't know that we've really made progress here, right? So, I'd like to understand how we are going to actually get to actionable input from the community that says, you know, if we get this trim notice up and we leave it where we where we might vote now to get
it on the trim notice and we leave it there and we makes us two and a half million that we really understand that that that the community buys in on investing it in either resiliency, investing it in the parks, investing it in in other capital projects that we truly get >> good input across the community. I don't know if you have any thoughts on how we
would go about doing that. >> I do. Um, based on my past experience, um, first and foremost, and and this is a heavy lift. So, I want you to know I'm not taking this lightly. It's it's a very heavy lift for staff to do this kind of outreach over the next 30 days.
Um, but first of all, I would recommend a road show. I'll call it a budget road show where we would go out to each districts. the districts are having very successful meetings and engagement with as you may said they don't show up in this chamber but they do come to their
community centers and the um I I would say safe spaces where structured conversation is not part of the dynamic. So that's number one. Um I think we would have to have one of those in each district and um myself the finance
director and probably you mayor at the very least would be there to um join the fellow district person in that that meeting. >> Secondly, we do have um survey tools while they won't be expensive and statistically
you know scrubbed and ensured that someone didn't answer it twice. you generally can come up with themes and those that we could put out some sort of survey very simple to get some other feedback um from from the city and just get a sense of what's happening. That to
me is just a temperature check. It's not a you know an absolute data piece that drives your out your your ultimate decision. Um those two are the top that come to mind where you're going to get the most engagement. Um we would have data and
activities during those um meetings with with they be very interactive where residents could come up and see you know I envision big white boards that show this is what's funded right now this is where the direction we're going this is
what an extra million dollars could do you know do some dot votes we've done that with residents where come in and tell us or are you not interested at all I mean just through the conversation you'll get a sense from the community that it's not time. Do I think even if
it's not the right time, the conversation can never start too early. So, you're not going to lose anything other than a lot of work. Um, and in staff investment, you're not going to lose anything by engaging the community in this conversation. It's not
going away. >> The the pipes aren't going to fix themselves. >> The flooding's not going to stop. So, I just, you know, in the spirit of ultimate engagement, I'm never going to shy away from opening up a conversation with the community and getting them
talking and giving us ideas. >> Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I I'm an advocate for that. I mean, I think I think if if we can go out and meet with each of the the districts, um have staff, have the commissioner, if y'all are amanable to it, I would I would certainly make myself available. um um
surveys. Um I think if we get into park conversations, I think we heard enough from the community input today that everybody's got the park that's in their neighborhood. So I imagine if we went to one, we hear or you know, district four, we're going to hear a lot about Vina. If we go to district one, we're going to hear about Egan and McKenna. But I think if we if we entertain parks, I would
think we should we should entertain it as a as a subject of all parks across the entire city so that we don't get locked up in this park needs this and that park needs that. But we would allocate a maybe a dollar amount, a fixed dollar amount that we think we would allocate towards parks. And I
would suggest that we might spend it on a uh you know by by area that each of those parks entertains. We've got larger parks, we got smaller parks, but that every park gets some investment theoretically up to a dollar amount that we just say that's the most that we're going to spend this year on something
like that. ood. Um, and I think that would that would at least um mitigate the my park is more special than your park kind of conversation. Um, so I with that I mean I I will tell you I I do think we've done enough with the um is my perspective. I think we've done
enough with the enterprise funds right sizing. I think we need to see how that comes into play. I am still at this moment probably in favor of flat millage rates. However, for tonight I'm in favor of picking a rate that's larger. uh that that gives us, you know, some meaningful
money. I don't know that we go to the max in my head, but but you know, I think the max gave us an extra three. It's it might be in front of 3.64 million, right? And so maybe we suggest that we want to look for three million just as a round number, right? And we want to get to a $3 million number or you know a $3.5 million number, whatever
the number is, whatever that number is. And we say, okay, residents uh in these meetings through the surveys, how should we spend three million? And if we can't frankly get a good set of input from the residents that that is directionally, you know, consistent that we've got a
large swath of people say I need you to invest in these things, then we fall back and we go there's no raise this year. We can't find the right investments in it. But if we get enough people that say it must be parks, it must be resiliency, it must be whatever else it must be, then we can say okay um you know and we can make a final
decision come September. So I want to make sure everybody understands that tonight we are not deciding if we go the route that I'm proposing. We are not deciding that we are going to raise the mill rates. We are deciding that we want to raise it so we have the option of having the conversation before the you
know while the trim notices go out to be able to invest it the extra dollars as we choose or to fall right back where we where we are right now because I my understanding is we cannot go up once we set this number tonight but we can go right back down to wherever we want to. >> That is correct.
>> And so that is my vote to engage the community. Pick a number higher than than flat. engage the community on where they would spend that money uh through the mechanisms that city manager suggested. >> So, you're suggesting 3.5 to get us the
uh two the slide. Could you pull up slide 11? Oh, there you go. You've got >> uh I was thinking I was thinking, you know, somewhere around 3 million. Um but >> I I like that number, too. >> So, it feels like it's about a 365 or something like that.
>> 3.65 mills. Finance director, can you just back out into that math? If it's 3 million, submit that percentage as a trim notice. >> Yeah, let me determine what that millage would be. >> Yeah, I'm going to speculate it's somewhere around 3.64 or something like
that, but we'll get the actual number. >> Um or yeah, anyways, 3.68. >> It would be uh 3.6715. >> I wasn't far off on the second time. Um, okay. So, I mean, that's what I just
think and it allows the conversation to happen. If we shut it down tonight and say we're flat, we don't get to have the conversation. I do want to hear, we've heard some some great input tonight. I'd like to continue to hear more. I know it's costly on the staff. Thank you for acknowledging that. Um, but I think it's
valuable to have that conversation and and get consensus from a broader swath, you know, through the district sessions and the surveys. It's my personal opinion. So, I hear two two yeses and one maybe. And
>> yeah, I I agree with that. If if I were picking the number, I'd probably pick a little lower, but but but that's fine. Um I uh and and I did also want to want to just say that, you know, I don't think any of us are sitting here looking at this going, well, oh, you know, there's this, you know, uh uh
constitutional amendment pending on the ballot and this is we're trying to get ahead of it. That's not at all what we're doing. And and I want to also point out that, you know, it's it's it's a little bit misleading. We've all heard for a lot of years that >> that the the residents of St. P Beach pay the majority of the property tax,
but as we saw from the presentation tonight, 70% of our property tax collected is from non-homesteaded properties. And so that might not be tourists who stay in hotels, but that's tourists who stay in condos. And that's tourists who are who are who are
halftime residents who aren't homesteaded who who are visitors to to our island. So um and and and that 70% is not going to be affected by that uh by that constitutional amendment anyway. And so um so that's not what we're
doing. We're just trying to get ourselves back in a position where we can do what we need to do with our infrastructure. Um and like you say with adequate community input, I think that's a good path forward. Thank you. >> We have enough direction.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh thank you. Next uh next presentation we have is on the fee study wastewater assessments. >> Okay. >> Can you introduce us? So we have this before you this evening mayor and
commission um Sean Osasio with Rafelis. Um he will be presenting um the updated requested changes that the commission had asked from our last workshop. And so with that I will turn it over to him. >> Good evening sir. Good evening Sean. Thank you for your patience this evening
sir. >> Well uh glad to be of service. Um I appreciate you all having me. Um, you know, just for for the record, name is Sean Oacio with Reptile House Financial Consultants. I'm a senior manager with the firm and I've been working with the city on the various enterprise fund
analyses. Um, what I'm going to do now is share my screen with the revised presentation document just so we can all go over that together. This is a a follow-up presentation to um our discussion back I believe on the 14th. Is this uh visible to everyone?
>> Yes, sir. City of St. Pete Beach is what it says in front of us. I assume that's what you're looking to show. >> Yes, sir. Awesome. >> Okay. Um just a quick uh agenda for the discussion uh this evening. Uh just uh just a very quick recap of the prior wastewater uh revenue efficiency
presentation just so to keep that fresh in our mind. Uh from there a review of the rate design alternative that we talked about previously. There was the three-year phase in period as well as the requested 5year um additional scenario to look over and then just a quick overview of summary observations here.
So uh a quick recap of you know some of the major issues that are affecting you know the wastewater rates and then the wastewater enterprise fund in particular. Uh again like as was mentioned uh earlier in the discussion this evening that I heard you know enterprise funds are are designed to be self- sustaining that their rates are designed to cover uh the cost of
operating. So that's covering your your operating cost for the utility system your capital cost and you get service payments and and financial metric requirements and so on. And uh currently, as was also mentioned earlier this evening, uh the the enterprise fund is currently not in a position that it's
able to do that. Um the the rates that it's generating are currently sufficient to cover its operating cost and a portion of its annual debt service payments, but not enough to cover uh the required capital needs of of the system in order to maintain and upgrade and continue to provide service uh to to your customers. uh the the budget in
order to achieve its um ends is is uh currently uh balanced through the use of as was mentioned before uh general fund uh transfer as well as uh use of existing fund reserves. And so you know part of the the financial plan that we've um we're putting together is to to eliminate that um reliance on the
general fund, build adequate reserves and and so on. So you know the major issues that are then impacting the system currently you know you're experiencing inflationary increase in your operating costs that's um you know your your wholesale rate from the city of St. Petersburg for the treatment of
the wastewater uh CPI increases um you know cost of repair and maintenance type items you know personnel and other items. So you have an inflationary pressure on your operating costs. In addition to the pressure on your operations, you also have a significant capital improvement program in order to
improve and maintain your system. Uh it's a a capital plan of about $58 million over the forecast period. And um you know, just as uh again a lot of good comments were made in the discussions earlier, you know, the significant project costs, you know, that's something that uh municipal uh utility
systems are experiencing all over the state again with capital cost inflation and so on. And so you have this significant capital plan that you need to fund in order to provide service. uh in addition to that um there's not a lot of uh you know growth in customers or or revenue growth. So that's you know while your costs are increasing your your
revenues at existing rates are fairly stable and steady. Um and as a part of the the plan another uh pressure on the rates is also in order to fund a portion of that capital improvement program uh that $58 million plan there's a an assumed amount of uh use of uh borrowing
in order to accomplish some of those projects. some uh projects that have a a long useful life. And with that, there's the corresponding increase in your annual debt service payments in order to uh pay for that additional borrowing um for those particular projects. And then
again, the need to improve the overall cash position of the utility system and maintain adequate debt service coverage, which is one of your required financial metrics as a part of existing loan obligations. So, those are some of the the major items that that are impacting
you right now. Um again on and m operating and maintenance costs, capital costs, low growth uh need to fund debt and so on. Um so just to to recap then the the initially um identified revenue adjustments for the wastewater system we
were looking at an overall increase in revenues needed for fiscal year 2027 of 16% fiscal year 2028 of another 16% and a and a subsequent increase in 2029 of 16% followed then by 5% increase in fiscal year 2030. That would be a
cumulative overall increase in the rate revenues of the system of just under 64% uh in total and a corresponding average residential customer bill uh would go from about $95.34 to about $15624 over that period of time. What I wanted
to to note here was um the this uh rate trajectory here would um is designed [clears throat] to fund all of your operating costs over the forecast period. It's designed to eliminate the reliance on the general fund transfers coming into the fund to fund items. It's
also designed to fund your capital plan and your debt and other financial metrics and other obligations. Um so this would be what I'll call the the baseline revenue increases that um the forecast is um showing as being needed. Now they are significant in their their
nature. Um again this is not to diminish their significance but this is something that we're seeing a lot in other communities. There was a slide in the workshop presentation two weeks ago about all the other communities just from a small sample that were experiencing similar uh increases again because these capital cost pressures,
operating cost pressures are impacting not just you but all of your your neighbors and just communities across the state. So uh busy uh slide here essentially this is just a a quick output um from from the overall forecast. first top left graphic here uh called the
projected wastewater revenue requirements chart. That's just an illustration of your cash outflows and your revenues coming into the funds by by their character. So the bars represent the cash outflows of the system. That would be your operating costs in red, annual debt service payments in orange, proposed debt
service payments for funding the capital plan in yellow, uh some capital funded from ongoing rates in the blue. Those would be your cash outflows, those bars. The black dotted line on the screen represents your revenues at existing rates inclusive of any you know minimal growth that's assumed as a part of the
forecast. And what you can see is in all years your revenues at existing rates are projected to not be sufficient to cover those costs. Hence the um the projection um uh notating that we were aiming for 16% for the first and 5% thereafter. That's that green dotted line that you then see on that slide the
revenues at the proposed rates there. Uh the top right chart is then your projected ending cash position in each of those same uh projected fiscal years. And what you'll see is over the course of the forecast period, we're trying to build that up over time. It's a little light in the first two years, but then
it starts to catch up in 28, 29, and 30. Aiming for a level of about 90 days of rate revenues as a an overall target there. Um in the bottom two graphics [clears throat] are representative of uh coverage uh senior lean debt service coverage and subordinate lean debt service coverage. Essentially, those are
required financial metrics associated with some of the the the wastewater systems loan obligations that require a certain financial margin over and above uh the annual debt payment that's made. So, based on this uh rate path that's been proposed, uh you would be in compliance with your
with uh your coverage requirements there. So, that's just a quick overview of the you know cash in and out flows, cash balances, and coverage, which are kind of the three main prongs that we look at when uh designing a a financial forecast plan. uh residential rate comparison uh that
was shown before. This would be your current rate is the light green bar towards the middle of the graphic on on the left side at $44.65. This would be taking a bimonthly bill and comparing it to your neighbors on a monthly basis. So, it's split in half. Um and then what
the increase would be with that 16% adjustment for fiscal year 2027 on an average bill basis that would go to $51.79. So looking at uh the uh survey of other municipalities that we had looked at previously, the the average across those
various um municipalities for wastewater service for a bill of about 3,000 gallons a month is a bill of $50.17. So you'll see uh you're about in line with that um with that first rate increase there. Uh one thing I do want to mention as a part of this chart, you
can see it in the the text box onto the side. Um, you know, bills can uh vary materially due to a myriad of different factors. They can vary based on system configuration. You know, where they are in their asset life cycle. Are they in a major cycle of renewal and replacement? Are they in a major cycle of capital
expansion? Uh, they can vary based on the time that the last time they had a rate review. You know, has it been a long time since they they've done anything, in which case their rates might be lower than um if they have been reviewed more recently. uh you know level of funding can be an important uh
discussion item as well and in differential between these you know if you have a a community that's been uh uh I think I'm going to get the the gnome wrong now kicking the can down the road then they may have an artificially lowered rate than um than what it would be to fund fully fund their cost to uh
provide and uh maintain their operations uh grant funding general fund subsidies level of excess capacity in the system uh treatment process to the extent that it's a utility system that has a treatment plant. So these are all different reasons why these bills can vary and it's not necessarily a measure of the efficiency of the operation
itself because there's so many other moving parts as a part of that um but rather just an overall snapshot comparison at a point in time here. So with that uh overview of the the revenue sufficiency analysis um covered we had looked at uh wastewater uh rate
uh design for the city. Um just a quick overview of your existing rate structure. I know we we've covered it previously. Um currently your uh system has a a very simple uh rate structure. All customer classes and meter sizes pay the same bimonthly base charge. Um and that base charge does include a a
minimum of 6,000 gallons of flow on a bimonthly basis. Um and base charges for your multif family accounts are build on a per unit basis. Um, so there's also a single usage charge for all flows that are over that minimum of 6,000 gallons on a bimonthly basis. And it's the u the
same charge for across all classes. So currently it's a very uniform structure across across all your classes with no differentiation in meter sizes or anything like that. Now, one of the the initial observations with a rate structure like that is that
it um in in the case of the the city, uh what was observed is that your your commercial accounts are not fully paying um their their full fully burdened cost of readiness to serve and capacity related costs. Um and the uh the reason for that has to do with how this rate is
structured. So uh it's a very common practice among utility systems um in order to recognize the potential demands of a customer class and the the service that has to be maintained in order to provide um capacity for those accounts with larger meters that the meter size
excuse me the base charges are then scaled by meter size such that customers with larger meters have a greater service availability and can place generally a larger demand on the system. So their base charges are then scaled accordingly for that additional uh hydraulic capacity that's reserved for
them. So this is a a a common uh method that is used and currently the the the city has a uniform rate as as opposed to that. [clears throat] So uh when we look at that essentially what we did was we looked at an analysis uh on a byclass basis where we took the
total revenues generated by the class divided by the total build flows to give us an average revenue per flow or an average cost per gallon or excuse me per thousand gallons. And in so doing, what we find um is what you'll see on on this slide here is that if we looked at the
the total revenues of the system divided by the total flows of the system, you get an average cost per thousand gallon of about $33. When we then looked at it on a bylass basis, this is where it can be a bit revealing to us is when we looked at it for residential, the average cost per
thousand gallons was about $34.62. For multif family was about $4542. And for the commercial class, it was about $2542. So when we compare those against that 33 system uh $33 per thousand gallon system
average, what you'll see is that the residential class is paying a little bit above um their uh the average system cost per gallon on about 105%. So 5% over the multif family class is at 138% of the system average cost. So
about 38% over the average. And then the commercial class is only at 77% of the system average cost. And so by by looking at that analysis, what we find is that um there's uh uh that was mentioned earlier essentially an interclass equity concern as the
residential and multif family classes are are effectively um you know to some degree subsidizing commercial accounts because they're picking up the costs through uh the way the rate is structured presently as opposed to u from some of your commercial accounts. So the the first rate design alternative
that we looked at uh previously was that the residential class rate structure would remain the same that your multif family class rate structure would also remain the same but that for the commercial class the base charges would scale by meter size to account for again their their greater readiness to serve
and capacity demands of the system. So they would scale by hydraulic factors and that the commercial class would also be built for all of its flows as opposed to getting the same uh benefit as um uh residential and multif family with that 6,000galon minimum. This initial um uh
alternative was designed to be phased in over a three-year period of time um for the the base charge component and the usage charge would be phased in in the first year component. Now what what this rate structure will then do is cause a a rebalancing because as the base charges
scale upwards on the commercial side in order again to account for their their capacity that's going to generate additional revenue from the commercial class which in in a you know what we're trying to do is a essentially a a revenue neutral situation. So that what
that would allow for is those 16% uh per year increases that I was talking about for the system overall would be slightly reduced for your um your residential and your multif family classes uh over the forecast period. So again, it has to do with a reallocation of cost to make sure
you're treating your customer classes fairly. And what that would allow for is a a a diminishing impact to your residential multif family classes while um getting commercial up to a a closer uh fairer share of its uh cost of the system.
So what that rate structure would look like is what you see on this slide here. It's a little busy, but you'll see that we have um for the commercial class the the different uh meter sizes. You'll see the existing rates uh for base charges and for flow charges. You know, the current base charge for a B monthly bill
is $95.34 and that would be phased up over a three-year period of time between uh 2027 28 29 such that the uh base charges would be scaled by uh hydraulic uh capacity factors uh based on the meters.
Um what you'll also see here uh in the bottom portion of the table is the uh the usage rate component. Again, in the first year, your current rates, they get the benefit of that 6,000 gallons included in the base charge. in subsequent years they would be uh billing for all of their their usage or all of their flows.
And um one thing I'll mention so this uh phase up structure is designed to achieve again an overall revenue increase of those 16% uh per year for three years and a 5% in in the latter. It's just a a rebalancing among the classes.
Uh this uh slide here uh is a some sample uh an average bill comparison. Um what we have is uh for the bulk of your commercial class is comprised of the 3/4 in 1 in and 1 and 1/2 in accounts that represents about 86% of the the entire
commercial class. And so um with the bulk of that being um 3/4 in is about 51% of the class. Uh 1 in is about 23% of the class. One and a half inch is about 12% of the class. So what we've done here is this is a comparison looking at the average flows for
accounts with these meter sizes. Uh 3/4 in bill for commercial averages at about just under 9,000 gallons of average uh by monthly flow. For a 1 in account it's just under 19,000 and for a 1 and a half inch account it's uh just over 35,000 uh gallons on a bimonthly basis. So what
you'll see is the bills at the existing rates and then increasing over time based on those rates that rate schedule that we looked at on the prior slide going from $141 for a 3/4 in um uh meter account to $385 by the end uh 385.88
phasing up overtime. Um for a 1 in account that's $294.65 65 increasing overtime by the end of the the forecast window to $87212 and a 1.5 in bill going from $56011 on a bimonthly bill up to just under
$1,700. Um you'll see the phasing um impacts are are larger the larger the meter size again because we're trying to to rebalance those uh capacity relationships and make sure that your your larger meter sizes are are um
recovering the the cost associated with providing uh readiness to serve for uh for their potential capacity demands. Here's another um existing imposed sample B monthly commercial sewer bill
comparison. This is by um looking at some your again those meter sizes we talked about 3/4 in, 1 in, 1 and 1/2 in um also a 4 in in here and just looking at some uh high level um business types, you know, restaurant and bars and and
sample average usages, clothing and gift stores sample average usages and then a large hotel um as well. you'll see the the bills um ranging and increasing over time along with the cumulative uh increase percentages and on the far
right compared to the uniform increase. So, um, what this slide is is trying to demonstrate here is, you know, uh, let's say a restaurant with a 3/4 inch meter that uses 10,000 gallons on a bimonthly basis. Their current bill would be $15826.
that would increase over to 20 in 2027 to $2939 to $339.98 in 2028 uh to $394.40 in 2029 and by 2030 uh $414.
So that's uh the the structure of this um table for for each of these examples. Um you'll see the uh the overall increases there vary again as a function of their usage. Uh one of the things to note is the the more usage you have it it does dilute the impact of the
increase on a base chart because you have more flows to distribute that increase across. Um and uh you'll see that um here's this was um another slide that was uh requested by the city uh typical
business bills. So whereas before we were looking at more typical meter sizes in a bit of a general uh business type category, here's some other uh business types where you have a small restaurant. Um and this uh this in this bill it it assumes um these are annual bills uh an
average by monthly flow of about uh 52 uh um uh kals. So that would be a annual current bill under your existing rates of uh $4,914. that would increase under the phasing
option um one of uh excuse me threeear phasing oh okay it's sorry just lost my place so for option one the one that we're talking about the um the three-year phase and that's the the second column here that would be going from $4,900 to 60 just under $6,400
for a business type that's more of a bar where there's no food served the current bill is about $2,365 for an average amount of flow for that business type that would be increasing to about $3,400 uh for an annual bill. Uh for small boutique, you know, $572 to
$992. Uh large hotel 28,000 for the year going to about $248,000 for the year and and so on. So you'll see these graphics show your existing uh current bill as it relates to option one and then also
option two. So option two we haven't talked about too much just yet. We we'll detail that a little bit further on some of the other slides, but essentially that's the 5-year phase in option as opposed to the three-year phase in. And so what you'll see is it depends on um the the the type of business. Uh but
mainly it's meter sized. Um whatever meter size that particular type of business has would would then impact how this comparison looks. But what you'll see is with the option two phase in um using the example of say large hotel because you're phasing that structural change over a 5year period instead of a
three-year period. You'll note that that 248,000 is slightly reduced to 245 almost 246,000 there. So again um you're you would still be aiming for the same end point because you still have to fund all the same
requirements, the same operating cost, the same capital cost, the same debt and everything. It's just choosing to uh to remedy some of those inequity issues over a two-year or excuse me over a three-year period as opposed to over a fiveyear period.
Um it's a busy uh chart here just showing under alternative one which would be that three-year phasin what a bill an average bill might look like for a 1 in account at 18,000 gallons. There's a sampling of usages but the average for that meter size is about
18,000. That would be a current bill of $284 increasing to about $494. You see the increase of 210 or about a 74% increase in that bill. You then see in year two the same bill would experience an increase of about 29% and in the
third year it would increase by about 28%. So [snorts] again that's that's accounting for the 16% increase that is um needed to be recovered plus the rebalancing of the um the cost among the classes. for one and a half inch. Same idea, just
higher usage because the larger the meter, the higher the average usage is. So, $35,000galon bill would go from about $551 to just under $900 or about a 63% increase in the first year. That same um sample bill would then increase by about 35% in the second year of the
phase in and about by a 33% increase in the third year of the phase in. As [clears throat] far as a comparison of an average commercial 1-inch monthly bill, uh current rates would have that at about $146.77. The average of the other survey
municipalities for this particular class and meter size is about $129. Um under the phasing approach, uh the first year of the proposed phase in under the uh alternative one would increase that bill to $25267. So would put it on the upper end of the
comparison here for 1 and a half inch. While there would be an upward movement from 27576 to 448, uh it's it still wouldn't be the the highest on the comparison that goes to Clearwater presently. U but the average of the other municipalities is about $35
there. >> [snorts] >> So um with the with the revenue targeted increases that we had spoken about the 16% for the first three years and a 5% in the year thereafter remember I had mentioned that u because of these structure changes on the commercial side
in order to rebalance that inequity that currently exists among your classes. Um what that allows for is the additional revenues generated by the commercial class to uh help um mitigate the increases uh being felt on your residential and your multif family classes such that the residential
increases would then be 13% per year with 5enter in the last year and multif family at 9 12% per year for the first three years and a 5% increase in the last year. So cumulative um increase instead of being about 64% would be about 52% for residential and about 38%
for your multif family classes. So um just looking back to that um comparison analysis that we talked about at the beginning the cost per per gallon basis to to compare your classes what we had said earlier was residential is paying about 105% of system average cost
multif family is paying about 138% of system average cost and commercial is getting the the the lower rate of 77% of system average cost under alternative one the three-year phase in approach the uh when uh when that's fully phased in over time that would rebalance to about
99% of system average cost for residential about 119% for multif family and about 92% for commercial costs. So that's a a change in residential be a decrease about 6% for multif family about decrease about 19% and an increase
in commercial about 15% on a cost per gallon basis. again. So, this is um you you'll never get them all perfectly 100 100 just because, you know, each system has its unique usage characteristics and and seasonality and and other items and
cost structure. But the the goal here is to try to tighten that up um each of those classes closer to the 100. Essentially, trying to remove some of the variability there and tighten things around the the mean. And so, that's what this first structure does. uh and brings those in uh closer and u tries to treat
your your customers more equitably across uh classes on a cost perunit basis here. So then alternative two, which is just the same exercise, it's just over a 5-year period of time. That phasing protocol, it will also generate additional revenues that would allow for
um still slightly lower increases on your residential multif family classes, just not quite to the same extent as the the three-year approach, but it would still provide a significant benefit. Um this would be the five-year phase in um of the uh charges uh for under this
approach. So you'll see your existing rates and then going for proposed rate structure change for 2027 28 29 30 and then 31. Uh one of the things I will mention here is that our uh initial forecast for the city is a forecast through fiscal year 2030. So we did have
to make an assumption for 2031 as to a a built-in rate uh adjustment there. So it presupposes a 5% increase in 2031 in order to keep things apples to apples. Um but you'll see this is a so it's a more um you know it's a it's a slower
phase in period for those increases um over the the forecast period here. Again these are those bill comparisons. You'll just see it's um you know it's going up a little bit further in time and it's it's slower increases on an annual basis. Um uh when you get to
those larger meter sizes again um you're still going to go from the let's say for the one and a half inch bill uh using 35,000 gallons on a bimonthly basis of existing bill of $560 increasing to just under $1,800 by the end of the window um
in 5 years as opposed to in uh three. Uh again another sample comparison here looking at um business types in in general and some meter sizes that are often associated with those business types for restaurant and bars 3/4 in 1 in 1 and 1/2 in clothing stores
similarly and then large hotel 4 in and you'll see based on average by monthly flows you'll see the corresponding bills and their increase over time based on that phasing plan. So, if we were to look at uh the one and a half inch uh account for let's say restaurant and
bars, that bill currently would be $3,776 on a bimonthly basis. That would increase to 7,300 uh 19 um by the fifth year of the phasing plan uh for 1 in uh counts uh uh average
usage of about 18,000. You'll see that in the first year uh if the if you had a one one inch account on an average bill basis of 18,000 gallons that bill would be increasing by about 66% in the first year about 24% in the second year and about 24% in the third year again as
those structure changes take effect and then the building of all usage is also taking effect. That's also one of the reasons why the first year increases higher than the other year increases uh in part has to do with the billing of all float um as opposed to that having
that 6,000galon allowance. And then uh years four and five that would increase then by 11% and then by 11% again in the the last year. Uh for 1 and 1/2 in it would be for an average bill uh for a 1 and 12 in
account using 35,000 gallons on a bimonthly basis the first year increase would be about 52% uh second year would be about 28% third year about 27% fourth year about 14% and uh the last year
about 13 and change. Uh under alternative two, um while we are uh spreading that phase in period over time, it's still a material increase. So that would take the the average bill from $14677 for a 1 in account to uh $24161
here. Again, there's a great deal of uh variability in these rates uh across other locations and in terms of how they uh fund their needs and and how they balance things between their classes that may not be shown in this comparison. Um when we look at one and a half inch assuming an average bill of
17,500 gallons per month um what we'll see is the $275 bill will go to 418 uh putting it on the upper end of the comparison but but not quite the highest there. So under this approach um with the five-year phase there's still the um the
additional revenues generated. It's just over a slower period of time because we're doing it over five years instead of four or excuse me over three. Um so those um increases of uh 16% in the first years would be reduced to 14enters
for residential class and to 11 12% for the multif family class. And then the 5% in 2030 would remain 5% for residential and it would be 3% for multif family and then uh similarly in the estimated 2031
uh fiscal year as well. So still um you'd still be targeting the same overall revenue points. It would just be residential gets a slightly smaller uh increase. Multif family gets a little lower than that and commercial picks up the difference again because of the rebalancing that you're trying to
achieve the the fairness across your classes. So under this approach um the the rebalancing will get to about 100% on the residential class about 120% for the multif family class and for the commercial class about 91% compared to
their starting levels of 105 138 77%. So again this this phase in still achieves uh a better balancing than your your current rate structure um and does try to treat your customers uh more equitably across your classes again on a cost per unit basis. it just does it a
little slower and um it still tightens up around the average need not quite as close but very minimally different than the three-year approach. Um again there's just there's a lot of moving parts in that background as things phase up over time but essentially you get to the same place and that's what we see on
this uh graphic here just comparing all three your existing versus the three-year phase in versus the 5year phase in and effectively you get to about the same place across your classes you know tightening them up around the average um you know it's not 100% solution but this is something that can
be achieved you know over the 3 or 5 year period and it can also always be revisited in subsequent analyses. to try to true things up a little bit further. Again, the goal here is trying to um treat your customers um a little more equitably across the the classes.
So quite a quite a lot of information there and quite a lot of numbers. So the overall in summary, you know, both of these uh phase in options, both the three-year phase in or the 5year phase in both address the equity issues and provide for reduced rate increases to
your single family and multif family uh uh customers. Um one thing to to note is again in order to compare the scenarios fairly, we have to look at them through the same window of time in order to phase the the the five-year in option. Um that would take us to 2031. So I did
want to make sure we looked at um both scenarios through the same lens and through the same time period. And so what that shows is if um the baseline cumulative increase just the total revenue target through 2031 would be about 72% for residential and multif family. Under alternative one the
cumulative increase through 2031 for residential would then only be 59% under the 3-year phase in and 44% for multif family versus the 72. And under alternative two, the cumulative increase for residential would be 63%. So just a little bit higher than alternative one.
And on multif family be 47%. So just a little bit higher than alternative one. But it does phase in those impacts to your commercial class a little bit uh slower, you know, by that 2-year window. Um so this uh these approaches they do create um both of them also do create a a reduced uh base charge for your multif
family class as a function of the the phase in and the uh lower [clears throat] rate adjustments such that your multif family base charges would be about 91 to 90% lower than the residential rate compared to um uh to to
to a normal single family residential rate. Um what I would note there is that's uh you know that's an outcome of this that's also a very common one. Um it's a very common practice to have a reduced base charge for multif family accounts because it recognizes that um
on an average basis multif family accounts have a much lower use uh per per unit than a than a single family or standard residential account. And so in in many municipalities and and utility systems um that is uh recognized and um as a lower you know need for capacity
and therefore a lower uh base charge um on a monthly or bimonthly basis. So this rate structure in addition to rebalancing and generating additional uh revenue from the commercial class in order to um to more fairly treat customers across classes, it also does result in a slightly lower base charge
on the multif family side which is also a very common and good design element there. So, uh, with that, I I tried to move expeditiously here considering the time, but if there's any, uh, questions on on any of the the items shared, I'd be glad
to to, um, address them where I can, >> commissioner Marriott. >> Thank you. Um, so, a a couple of questions. Um, when this was presented to us before, I had expressed my concern about the the increase in rates on the smallest of the small businesses. And am
I correct in that this this subsequent presentation, the only change is offering the alternative of the five-year phase in? >> No, I think we showed you um if you can go back to the slides on the small boutique and small bars. We we tried to
pick a cross-section of what made up the smallest of the small. >> Believe that's slide 15. I think >> I was taking >> and and so you wanted to know what was going to be the annual impact to their business. So if you look here
>> slide 15 and and I think that's yeah >> this is the right one. Yeah. >> So a small restaurant in year one >> would in experience an annual increase of 1444. So, a little over $100 a month. Uh, bar, you're looking at $75
a month. The boutique, less than $50 a month. >> Those are the three of the smallest characteristics we have for you on average flows in those types of businesses. >> And so then by the third year, by the
the third year, this is just the first year impact, not the full impact after the three years. >> That's correct. Okay. Um, yeah, because I think the full Yeah, the full clearly the full impact on by year three is much greater. Um, and so
we didn't try to change any of the structure of of having a lower rate for lower flows or anything like that. We just this is just this is just showing the effect of what of of the same setup that we had discussed before the same suggested
>> and then at adding the five-year phase of it. You can see that really only benefits the large business. >> Yeah. Um the challenge with your proposal is 86% of your businesses fall in to the very small to the
category of >> Can I interrupt for a second because on uh that small restaurant line example you said that that's just for 2027 but I think that's the current bill in 2027 4900
um in column two there current bill but the difference Then for the three-year phase in, you're going to 6358. You're saying that is the end of the three-year phase in or just it's a little ambiguous what we're talking about.
>> Oh, I Sean, can you just clarify? I think that's the first year of the three-year phase in. So um the the column that's titled option one three-year phase in that would be uh the phase in for only for fiscal year 2027 of that first
three-year phase in option two would be the first year of the 5year phase in >> thank you I'm sorry commissioner you were you were in a lot of questioning so >> yeah no that's okay so um so yeah so the so by the time we're done with the three-year phase in that number is
significantly bigger than what it is in the first year Um, that being said, I have I have two two comments about that, I guess. One is that, you know, we've had a couple weeks for anybody who's paying attention to reach out, look at what size meter they
have, let us know if this is going to be a problem, and I haven't heard from anybody. Um, I think once the rate starts going up, we're going to hear from a lot of people [laughter] that it's a problem. Um, but but we'll we'll see what happens. I um I'm probably I'm
I'm more in favor of the three-year phase in because I think if we're going to rip the band-aid off, we need to rip the band-aid off. And then my um my final comment um preceded by a question is that I believe we we have started conversations with Penllis County about
um them taking over our wastewater system. Is that correct? Or we we're we're we're begun a conversation. >> That is correct. Then we're waiting on the county to provide us the cost associated with them conducting random pressure test studies throughout the
city. Okay. >> And once we get that cost estimate, we would come back to the commission for further direction. Got it. Um, and if we if if if that was to continue if we were to continue down that path, and I I get there's a lot of whatifs here in this statement, but were we to continue down
that path and ultimately the county um took over our wastewater system, everybody on the system would revert to county, whatever the county rates are at that time. >> That's correct. They set one rate >> regardless of what we decide to do for ourselves right now. >> That's correct. And the reason that is
is they do an evaluation and they either say we'll pay you to take your asset or you pay us to take your asset. And so they level set the value of the asset before they take you into their system. And that's why everyone at that point is equal and you get the same rate. There's
no by district or by city rates through the county. >> Got it. Okay. Thank you. Um, yeah. So, with with that information, I um I I I still think that that for the the I I am concerned for our small businesses, and I'm particularly, you know, I think there's going to be some small
businesses who find out that they're occupying a building that is has a a bigger water meter than they need. [laughter] And uh and and there may be some commercial properties that become unoccupiable um based on these rates that we set three years down the road. But but I
don't know that we can um I don't know that we can fix all that upfront. So um so I'm uh that answers my questions and I'm fine with going with the three-year phase in. >> Commissioner Cy. >> Uh thank you, Mayor.
I'm u with Commissioner Marriott. I think a three-year is the way to go. I'm still concerned and I'm a little I wanted I was hoping Sean could clarify the philosophy behind us reaching the end of the three-year or five-year phase in and there's still a
30% differential between what a commercial customer is paying versus a residential account in a multif family. In other words, a condo uh they're still at 120 whereas the commercial account is at 90%
of the uh what would be an equal. Why why is what is the philosophy there? And why is it that after 3 years or 5 years we can't get back to closer than a 30% differential between those two types of users?
>> Are you there? >> So it Yes. Yes, I'm here. Can can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um uh good question there. So part of it is is a function of just there's there's a lot of different moving parts
in this because you have you know your flow characteristics, you have your your what your customer makeup is. Um and when um when looking at this, you know, what we're trying to do is tighten things around the average like like we have um at least to the extent we can.
Could there be room for additional adjustments to the structure in the future that may um remedy this a little bit further? Yes. Um for for the window that we were looking at, we wanted to to go after um you know, some of the more larger design elements. The big one
being the base charges uh because that's a very uh big one there that can can do a lot of rebalancing just in and of itself. Um but there's certainly room in the future to to look at additional uh modifications to the structure. Um it was just for for this particular
forecast horizon. Uh part of it was you know how many things do you want to attack at once and also uh with that the the more you you change and rebalance a structure the more you're going to get um what you know divergent bill impacts because you know based on someone's
unique usage characteristics and meter size and situation they may get an increase that that varies. So we were trying to go after you know the the the main item here which was you know making sure all flow was built for the class and then also uh making sure that the base charges scale to try to reflect
some of those better capacity item uh related costs. Um so that gets you a good bit of the way there. Even if you tried to tweak every u you know move every needle you could you'll never get the everyone to be at a perfect 100%. that that just can't happen because some
classes just have inherently different usage characteristics and and that measurement tool will only get you so far. Um but it's certainly um you know further uh tweakable over time. But the the main goal is to try to get these big ticket items in there to start this
rebalancing and get it moving in the right direction quickly. >> Okay. So, I think uh what I'm hearing is we tried to get it as close as possible and this is as close as we could get it for this point in time.
>> Uh yes sir, for for for all the other um items that needed to be achieved because the the other thing I'll mention is you know we're doing this restructuring at the same time that there's also significant rate adjustments in the early years of the forecast period. So that magnifies any sort of structure modification. it magnifies the bill
impact. So if if you get the let's say the the what I'll talk about the revenue sufficiency in line you know by the last year of the forecast period ideally if there's no um you know hiccups and again you know um uh there's always a hiccup but um if if the the system can get into
a position where it's its revenues are sufficient to cover its costs and that the increases then on a forward-looking basis are more inflationary in their nature it gives you the opportunity to further refine these structural type items and not have as pronounced a bill impacts. Okay, thank you. That that answers my
question on there. I think for me we are looking at uh average rates compared to other cities and that pretty much gives the complete answer to me because our city as opposed to some other cities
are we actually are facing uh the most severe end of service life that we can be facing right now with our infrastructure. I mean we are um starting procurement now for force main one which is how all of our wastewater
leaves the island. So the underwater pipe there is old and it's 2011 said that we needed to um there was concern then we were supposed to do an inspection in 2018 and we didn't do it. Now we're 15 years after that. So uh
we're doing what we can. We're starting now with this uh infrastructure project. That's probably the most important thing in our city. But that's $33 million we just heard from Camden and that's starting basically now. So that money's got to come from somewhere and we're
still just average user fees even at the um end of this. So it's a pretty easy question in my mind just purely from logic. I don't like paying money, extra money, but um I feel like this is something that we have to face right
now. And uh we have the proven facts that show that we have a a need, a critical need. >> Thank you, sir. Mr. Maldonado. >> Yeah. Uh so I'm in agreement that uh let's rip off this band-aid. I do like the three-year phased in. It's not a
perfect model as Sean and others have pointed out. It's trying to get to that treating customers more equitably across the classes uh you know based on cost per unit which it seems to be getting closer to that true north. So I'm
absolutely in favor of option one. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh Sean, a few questions for you please. I'll try to be brief. I know we're we're running uh a bit late. Um, but I'll just if you'll quickly run to slide six, please for me and I'm going to bounce around a few
slides, but I think if you go to six, it's got adequacy of proposed rates. So, I'm I'm happy to see with these proposed rates, uh, we will and I'm looking at the top left uh, chart there. Uh, we are currently not able to fund at our at our rates what we need to do v our growth
that we expect and the expenditures we expect. But by that green dotted line, we're basically saying with these proposed rates, we not only can uh rightsize our wastewater, but we start to build in those those reserves uh because I'm guessing that green includes reserves or above and beyond the
operating costs. Is that correct? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I'm hoping short short answers. Um if you'll go for me to slide 13, please. And I just want to ask um these
hypothetical rates that the growth rates um these are by monthly rates, right? So I take any of those numbers and I multiply it by six and I get an annual kind of cost. Is that correct? >> For the base charges. Yes.
>> Okay. Um if you'll now please uh go to uh I think it's slide 15. It's where you've got the bar, small bars, and all that other fun stuff. There you go. Yes, that one. Uh, yeah, I think this will work. Um, actually, go
back one for me. It may may draw it out a little better for me. Back one slide, please. Okay, here's the impact, if I'm understanding, on on our small bars and and and uh you know, clothing stores and and things like that. So, with a cumulative one to Commissioner
Marriott's kind of question. So these are bimonthly charges. So I take any of those numbers and I multiply it by six. And if you look out frankly after three years at 2030 and I just take one of those lines that's a that's a six times whatever that number has jumped. It's
six times that right paying it six times a year. So, I am I am telling you right now, I am worried, as Commissioner Marriott alluded to, that we are going to dramatically impact um if these were annual numbers, and I would say you're going up, you know, uh $1,400 a year or something like that, I'd be less concerned, but I'm worried to be frank
with you. And so, if you'll go one more slide forward, do you happen to know um and I think you l you know how what percentage of our commercial businesses equate to small restaurant? what what percentage equipment was to bar no food service to what percentage of each of those with
real St. peach numbers. What percentage of of the of our commercial businesses are we talking about with each of these increases? Do you know? >> I think there was a slide for that. >> Uh let me just ask Sean if he knows. >> Yeah.
>> As far as u businesses specifically, uh that I don't know. Um you know, in true full proportionality across the the 300 roughly 350 commercial accounts that the city has. Um, in order to uh to develop this type of sampling, what we what we did is we looked in your your customer
billing data, pulled some um sample accounts uh in terms of average usages by meter size and then calculated these uh accordingly. But to to go and research every single one of 350 uh accounts, tie it to a business and then develop a a relative distribution across
business types was not something that that we we did here. >> Understood. Understood. Thank you for for for your transparency. Let me just ask you a qu. These are annual growths then in this chart. I notice a lot of the others were bimonly. This is an annual growth. >> Yes sir. Is that >> correct?
>> Okay. So theoretically if I'm a small small restaurant whatever percentage that represents of our city. Currently my annual uh water bill I'm sorry sewer bill is 4914. Uh after year one if we go with with alternative one my sewer bill
will be 6358. Correct, sir. >> Correct. >> Okay. And then, as Commissioner Marriott pointed out, we we grow from there. And so, I I I think to me it's it's I'll tell you what I'm worried about, and I'm I'll kind of say this out to the public.
I'm worried about our bars, our restaurants, the things that make St. Pete Beach and our and our and our boutique uh our shops. Um but I suspect there's there's uh you know, the less of an impact on the boutiques. If you look at the numbers, it's not as dramatic as as uh as some of the bars and
restaurants. I'm worried about the character of our city long term if we do something that is um detrimental uh as as uh Commissioner Marriott alluded to. Um so let me ask the city manager just uh just outright. If we make these
decision to make these changes and they become something that is, you know, immediately recognized as extremely detrimental, what's our process to roll back some portion of this if we choose to slowly roll it back to not change our commercial pieces?
>> So, couple thoughts. Um, first of all, even though you're directing us on a three-year phase in, which then becomes a financial forecasting plan for us, you're only approving year one tonight. Well, you're actually directing me to bring you year one, which then goes through another two-step ordinance
approval process. So, there are additional opportunities for the business community to come forward in the next 30 days as we will be moving these forward. >> Okay. Um, and then every year we're required by law to send a notice of what the fee rate increases will be >> in advance.
>> In advance >> and then they can raise their voice. >> You've given us this direction and we have a fee study to anchor to. >> We'll come back next year. >> Um, we may have impacts. We have business uh license data. We can see growth. Um, >> yeah,
>> we're working on some economic development tracking and community development at the moment. So we we'll be aware I think if something's going sideways and then if for some reason the commission decided to do a rate reduction is the same exact process as
you're doing right now. It's a two me two-step meeting process and a notice of rate changes. >> Okay. So we've got to fall back if somehow we do something so detrimental. >> Okay. With Adam inclined to go with with these options. I would tell you I'm worried about it. So, I just want to >> okay >> suggest to those that are that are commercial ones, uh, if you want to
speak up and tell us the impact, this would this is a good opportunity. Um, all right, let me let me ask the next question. Um, and I I just Commissioner Marriott kind of pointed to it, but maybe right here. Um, or maybe if I had a a meter that served a 2inch line and to Commissioner Marriott's point, I'm
not using anywhere near that capacity. What's is it possible for me to downsize my meter, you know, uh, diameter so that I get down to something different? I look, I got a a 2inch meter size and I really don't need but 60% of that capacity. I'm going to go down to a one
point, you know, 1.5. Is that possible for a business to do that? Is that, you know, what's the work there to do that? >> I need to follow up on that. I just want to find out >> because we impact a business. Maybe another fallback is downsize your meter if you don't need the the capacity that you have. Right. Okay. I'd like to understand what that is, but I don't know that I need it for tonight. I'm
just It's part of this fallback that says, "I'm worried about our businesses." Um, okay. Um, lastly, uh, Sean, if you'll please go to slide seven. Sorry to bounce you around.
Okay. Um, where we are now and where we're proposed are in the light green. And to Commissioner Causy's point with with regards to residential uh wastewater billing even before and after will be kind of in line with the with the uh average uh as well as uh you know
not we're not standing out as some some egregious thing here. So I'm I would say this is a good example of where um we can fall in line and say that we are we have competitive rates uh against our peers in this situation. I will contrast that if you go to slide 20 please
because I think I hear coalesing around alternative one. So let's just get there right. Um you know right now we're kind of competitive at best and we're saying we've got all these needs and then I look at where we
jump to uh you know proposed which is your your light green the second to last thing. Not quite sure what Clear Water's doing, but uh but proposed for us, we're still way above average. That all I'm saying on this chart, it speaks to me that we are not offering a competitive rate. Um and then one more slide,
please. 31. I promise I'm getting somewhere with this. Okay, ditto on this one. Right. Right now, we're we're we're a little above competitive rates and with this proposal, we'll be considerably above everybody else. And I would say um
considerably not competitive with our with our uh sewage buildings to our commercial properties. So um I think this this to me uh speaks a little bit to what Commissioner Causy said. We have needs and we've got to charge more. But I would I would um strongly again
suggest probably for the third or fourth time. I'm glad that we're going down the the study with the county on fee structures um or I'm sorry on on uh potentially um giving them uh our our wastewater because what this slide is telling me even if we adopt these high
rates right now um if [snorts] we can uh transition our our wastewater to the county we will fall back to Penllis County rates which are below this uh average utility. If I look at it, it's a third R here at about $100. So, we'll go from 241
uh down to 100 in this scenario and and be not only competitive but but um you know provide a a a opportunity to grow for our commercial businesses. So, um, all of this to say, I I support Commissioner Marriott's point, uh, that,
um, that we should strongly keep going down the path of of trying to give competitive rates. And I think our best opportunity, given what I'm seeing in these charts, is to see if we can't give that system over to the county and reduce our rates accordingly for all of us.
Um, so with that, thank you for letting me run down those little pieces on it. Um, city manager, do you have the information that you need? >> We do. Thank you very much. >> Can you summarize it for me? Which is it? Alternative one. >> We're moving with alternative one, the three-year phase in. >> Okay.
>> And continuing to pursue the option for the county to take over the system. >> Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Uh, I think that's the end of our presentations. Um, just double check that. Yes, it is.
Um, city clerk, do we have any audience comments for any other things? >> Vincent Tormania is here. No. Okay. Uh, Kathy Gar. >> Oh, okay. Deborah Shener
[cough] Shaknoboka Isle Drive, Sty Beach. Um, we also have to make sure we have the water to charge a meter fee. We're in a severe drought. I think we should be worried about that at the moment and conserving water. Um,
I don't have an objection to the hotels paying more because quite frankly, um, it's been a long time since they've done that. And somebody texted me, "Have they addressed the taboo topic? The comp plan speaks to inequity infrastructure uses
versus hotels larger owners paying their fair share and that we are in the position partly because it was not sufficiently charged for decades. And so
we also have to identify what is a small business and a small restaurant versus something like um a Levox versus the Adrian's steak and wine house. Totally different facilities.
um do we need to further identify um small businesses that have don't use a lot of water or large businesses who consume much more water. So I almost think you know I know Karen has a
business it's probably a smaller business probably doesn't use a lot of water I don't know that for sure versus somebody who uses a lot of water. So I almost think we my opinion should have some subgroups. Um hotel restaurants are
large, other restaurants are small. Um we do want to support the small businesses in our community. We also want utilities to pay for themselves, which they've never done. And part of that is
on the city. Maybe we do subsidize, you know, water usage. I don't know, but we do need to think about the drought and um right now that is a serious issue. Thank you. >> Thank you,
>> Nita. Noani. >> She left. Okay. >> I don't have any more comments. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh on the consent agenda, >> I'm sorry. >> Sorry. >> Dana Richardson, 5830 Bahama Way South. And I want to say thank you so much,
Scott, Al, Karen bringing this up. Um I don't understand how they can't do a better job of kind of getting us closer to everybody paying a hundred. Obviously, the residents are fine. If I was a condo owner, I'd be a little bit upset and uh they don't typically I I
can't say but here maybe they don't typically have families. Um and I'd also be a little bit upset if I'm a small business like Karen's or Jojo's Boutique that doesn't use water. Hotels, I would say mostly people take two
showers a day. You're at the beach, the pool, then you get ready, you go out at night, you're doing laundry, changing linens, uh, every night, two nights, three nights. Why are they getting a pass? They need to start paying their fair share and not have the residents
and small businesses pay. So, it's it's like a continuous theme. I love tourists. I don't hate the hotels. I just want them to step up and start paying their fair. And I think we need to do a better job, Sean, on making this
a more fair distribution. Thank you. >> Thank you. I I I think for the record, you know, what we just agreed to and gave city manager direction on is to rightsize it across the board as well as get equitable. As much as uh you know, Sean and team can help us get equitable,
that's what we're trying to do. So, for the record, uh Okay. Um, any others, city clerk? >> No, there are no more for >> Okay, thank you. Um, on the consent agenda, I believe we pulled 4B and 4F. So, uh, with regards to the rest. Um,
do we want to make a vote on on the remaining items? And is there a motion to do so? >> I move to approve the amended consent agenda. >> Second. >> Commissioner Kayy, >> yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado, >> yes. Commissioner Marriott. >> Yes. >> Mayor Tate,
>> yes. >> Motion carries. >> Okay. Uh item 4B, uh authorize the city manager execute AB replacement contract agreement with ABISPL for a cost of 152 050.21. I believe Commissioner Maldonado, you wanted to pull this and ask some questions.
>> I did. Uh Mr. Mayor, thank you. So, uh, my first question is to Attorney Brooks in terms of what legal requirements the city has to stream or televise these meetings. >> There's no legal requirement in Florida
statutes to stream or televise. The only requirement of sunshine laws to take minutes. And I bring that up and I just wanted to spend a couple minutes to talk about this uh because recently I had the opportunity to speak with the mayor from
a neighboring city who does not practice uh these uh types of meetings being broadcast uh or recorded. And I just wanted the public to know that this is a privilege. It's an absolute privilege for the city to be doing this. And part of why we have
folks here in person is to enhance and encourage engagement with uh the commission. And the last time that we had a break in communications where we had to take a 30 minute pause, I would say that over 50% of the attendees got
up and left. So I don't think that it's fair to the people that take the time to come in here in person. And I understand that there may be extenduating circumstances and convenience of staying home and watching this. But when I look at this, and Candace, you may uh be able to come
up and speak for just a second. I may have a question for you here as well is that if you look at this $152,000 estimate, $80,000 of it is for equipment costs. 56,000
is for professional integration services. There's a general administrative cost of 4,200. And then there's services, support, and maintenance of $11,000. Luckily, there's no tax for tax exempt.
But my question, uh, Miss Galloway, is, do you feel that this is a fair and reasonable cost to replace an antiquated, outdated system? First and foremost,
>> um, fundamentally I do. Um we we put a lot of effort and energy into analyzing our options. Um we looked at potentially outsourcing the entire service. We looked at downgrading the service and coming up with a different strategy um
which would reduce the service level greatly. Um obviously the cost would come down um on that but uh from my perspective it's reasonable given the uh complete replacement of everything that
runs in the AV room and everything virtually out here as well to um maintain and enhance uh the reliability of the service that we have. So yes, >> and the current uh system I believe is five years >> the current
>> past this life expectancy >> um much more than that but you know it's pieces and parts some that system's been in here for 25 years I believe is when it was first installed there's been a few moves adds and changes to try to augment to keep it running over time um
but it was first originally installed 25 years ago >> okay and you mentioned that you'd looked at alternative uh means of communication uh Zoom Boom. An iPhone, something like that. I don't know. Can we get it down to $800 is what I'm asking. >> I don't think so. I don't think so.
>> And and I and I don't mean to put you on the spot. Uh but, you know, my point to the residents and folks watching this is that we're investing in the community by doing this. I do think that >> at least um most of the people that I
communicate with watch it remotely. One thing that I would ask in future years is to try to come up with a system to see how many folks are watching these as we stream through it. You know, numbers are important. >> So, as we move into out years, it's important to look back at this and
analyze whether this was a prudent uh investment in the city. So, I have no further questions. I just wanted to highlight the fact that we actually look at these things that we have professional staff members that we rely on to say this is a wise decision and there is no $500 hammer hidden in here.
So >> yeah, unfortunately in this case there is not. >> Thank you, Candace. >> Thank you. >> Uh quick thought on that. Um you know we have a one meeting per district coming up to talk about uh the millage rate and
what we would do to spend it on. Uh we're getting surveys about what we would spend it on. I would suggest maybe this this AV replacement could be another option inside of there. And I the only reason I say listen, if we're going to continue to offer the service, I think we need to replace the equipment. Uh but maybe the community
says, you know, I don't need this I don't need the service anymore. You know, I don't watch it enough. It's not worth the investment. Invest elsewhere. And and we you know, I don't mind getting community feedback on that. um if that's what you know I'm offering that as a as a thought consider with
other capital projects is uh do we invest in it or not and get community feedback. >> Not suggesting we do. I'm looking around to see if there's any appetite for that. >> Well, I like to get community feedback for it idea just to for the president of
it. city manager. I don't I don't want to again keep putting you on the spots by my my suggestions, but you know, is there something that we wouldn't be able to contemplate this along with uh parks and capital improvements and just now also throw AV as one of the line items inside of there? Would you, you know,
I'm assuming at some point we might ask them to force rank projects or something like that? I don't know how you're going to go about doing this, but is this another thing to throw into that suggestion? So, you'd be asking because one of the things we're going to have to frame is do you want us to actually put current
funded programs on the cut list when we go to our district meetings? I don't think that was the exercise we were framing. We were trying to say if you increase the millillage, what do you want to spend the money on? >> Got you. Gotcha. Uh I would
>> This is fully funded in this fiscal year. >> It's fully funded. It's just about spending it, right? M >> and then I I could open that same argument up to we should ask about everything that's fully funded and I'm with you. I'm I'm opening up a Pandora's box that we would then >> not kick down the road if it Pandora's box in this case.
>> I I guess in this case there's I can just tell you from my experience you can go ask the public. No one is going to tell you they want less access to you. I can already give you your answer. I would bet a 100 bucks on it. >> Okay then then I think that's good enough. I was trying to offer a community input but here we are. Okay.
Thank you. >> Thanks. I was I I probably doesn't need to be said now, but but I I agree with the city manager. I that's the comment I most often get from residents is when the sound doesn't work at the meeting or there's some problem with the meeting. Pe people people want to be able to
watch it at home. They want to be able to watch it recorded. It's important to people to keep track with what's going on. And then, you know, not that $150,000 isn't a sizable amount of money, but in the scope of the things that we decide on in the budget,
this is a representative democracy for a reason. [laughter] And if if uh um you know, I I don't I don't think our residents elected us because they want us to turn around and have them vote on every dime that gets spent. And then if
we're doing that, what are we doing up here? So, um, >> so I think I think this is a reasonable one that we just I I think it's good that we that we talked about it. I think it's good that we pay attention, but uh um but but I think this is one that we probably just move on. >> Okay.
>> Um and do we have a motion on this particular item? >> Yeah, I'd make a motion that we accept consent item 4B. >> I'll second. >> Commissioner Maldonado. >> Yes. Commissioner Marriott. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Cosy,
>> yes. >> Mayor Tate, >> yes. >> Motion carries. >> All right. Thank you. On to uh the other one that got pulled was 4C. Authorizes city manager to execute an agreement and all related documents necessary to acquire the real property conveyed by Candace L. Mortonson as trustee of the
Candace L. Mortonson living trust dated April 27th, 2020 for the sum of $10. >> Mayor, just for the record, that's 4F. >> Sorry, I thought I said that. I apologize. 4F. Thank you. Um, okay. Uh, I believe
>> I I I I just wanted to make a a quick uh discussion item here. Few comments. uh Miss Mortonson uh she didn't want any fanfare associated with this, but it is a u significant donation on 45th uh 44th
Avenue in the B Vista neighborhood and it's in a floodprone area and her intent was to provide a u possible flood mitigation with this property so that um
the community could benefit from that. It also uh is in uh planned to be a showcase for native Florida or Florida friendly landscaping. So a landscaping showcase. So uh once you have these
plants established in your yard, they are salt resistant. If we had another flood, you might not need to replace your shrubbery. And also they're drought resistant. So you possibly don't need water at all once they're established. So there could be millions over the
years and water saved if we were to embrace the idea here in uh residential landscapes for example in your own neighborhood mayor. Um that could be significant. So there's also been talk of a Bel Vista Native Florida Garden
Club. >> All right. >> Which you might be interested in, I'll bet. Yes. So, um, anyway, I [clears throat] just wanted to make sure we, uh, acknowledged, uh, Candace's, um, donation. It's in memory of her parents,
and thank you very much. We love you, Candy. Uh, she was here, uh, earlier. So, I would make a motion that we accept uh, the donation. It's uh, item 4F as it's presented. I'll second.
>> We um adjusted on paragraph six just to say that the grantee um which is us allow the grtor um Candace to park on 44th Avenue while she visits the native uh Florida garden and
landscaping showcase and she wants to participate in the planting and the marking of the plants. >> How would she be granted this parking privilege? >> We're going to give her a parking pass. She can park along the street there. >> Okay.
So, we've got a motion and a second. >> Yep. >> Commissioner Marriott. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Cosy. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado. >> Yes. >> And Mayor Tate. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> Thank you. >> Right. Congratulations. >> Yeah. And thank you uh Miss Mortonson.
That was very kind. Um All right. In the interest of time, ordinances. Uh second, but I believe uh city attorney, you're going to read the ordinance. Is that correct? >> Okay. Sure. Um, this is the second reading of ordinance 2026-14. This removes the recreation fees from
appendix A and moves them to adoption by a resolution, which you'll do later as the next item. So, this ordinance of the city of St. Pete Beach amends section 58.5 and appendix A of the city's code of ordinance related to recreation fees. removes the recreation fees from
appendix A providing that recreation fees will be established and amended by resolution of the city commission providing for codification conflict severability scriveners errors construction publication and an effective date. Again, this is second reading. This is just to remove it out
of the code and the next item will be the actual fees. So, we get a motion to approve on second reading. >> We have a public comment on this. Um we do. Okay. Deborah Sheckner [snorts] Deborah Shaknaboki Ego Drive St. Pee
Beach. Not every recreation or facility um needs to pay for itself and I'm thinking that the direction this is going. I would also like to see some exemptions. Um maybe do
partnering with um All Children's Hospital. We've done that kind of a thing in the past to teach kids to swim every year. Every year several hundred kids across the country and many in Florida die from drowning.
So, I would like to see us have a swimming program for the safety of the kids in our community and others. Part of recreation is something the city does for the residents
and if you price things too high, they won't participate or they'll go elsewhere. So, I think we need to think about this a little bit and I'd also, you know, like that suggestion of hopefully partnering with some other facility to teach our kids to swim in
the pool for free. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh, any other comments, city clerk? Okay. Um, is there a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-14 as proposed?
I'll make a motion to adopt resolution 2026-24 >> 14. >> Oh, sorry, 14. I'll make a motion to to adopt on second reading ordinance 2026-14. >> I second. >> Commissioner Cy,
>> yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado, >> yes. >> Commissioner Marriott, >> yes. >> Mayor Tate, >> yes. >> Motion carries. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, on to action items. Um, [clears throat] our first one is uh resolution 2026-24 establishing
recreation fees by resolution. I presume uh associated with what we just did on the ordinance side. >> That's correct. >> Um, I don't know if there's a staff report or anything that that uh we need. >> Andy's here. >> Ralph, are you going to read the title? >> A resolution of the city commission of
the [snorts] city of St. Pete Beach, Florida, establishing a comprehensive recreation fee schedule, providing for repeal of conflicting resolutions, and providing for an effective date. >> Thank you, sir. >> Hi. How are you doing, man? >> Hi. Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners. Um Mandy Edmonds, resident services
director for the uh for the record. Uh tonight, I'll provide a brief overview of the proposed um fiscal year 27 recreation fee schedule and its anticipated revenue impact. The goal of this proposal is to improve cost recovery while continuing to protect services for our residents. The
recommendations are based on our recent fee study, current program participation, and anticipated operating conditions for the upcoming fiscal year. So overall, the recommended fee schedule is projected to increase annual recreation revenue by approximately
49,000, representing about a 17% increase over current projections. It's important to emphasize that this is a revenue projection, not additional profit. Even with these adjustments, many of our programs continue to be subsidized by the city.
The um it was recommended by commission at the last commission meeting to leave uh resident fees as is and we took that recommendation into consideration when we were uh going through this. Though the recommendation initially places the majority of fee increases on non-residents who utilize city
facilities and programs, resident fees remain unchanged. Uh this slide is breaking down where the projected revenue growth occurs. Program registrations are expected to increase by approximately 11%. Admissions and sales increase about 12% and the largest
increase which is approximately 33% comes from rentals and permits. This is intentional because rentals and permits are heavily used by non-residents and represent the greatest opportunities to improve cost recovery while minimizing impacts on residents.
So, we reduced our expectations because we know fiscal year 2027 will still um continue to be will still be continued um to be affected by some of the constraints that we've had as far as buildings and hurricane recovery and such. Um, so the constraints include
hurricane recovery efforts, limited programming while the gym remains unavailable, and reduced programming and event capacity during portions of the year because of facility availability. We chose numbers that we believe are realistic and attainable.
In summary, the [snorts] proposed fee schedule is expected to generate approximately 49,000 in annual revenue. The vast majority of increases are directed toward non-resident users rather than city residents. And the forecast is intentionally conservative and already accounts for known
operational limitations. Staff recommendation is the motion to approve resolution 2026-24. Any questions? >> Okay. Uh, city clerk, any Thank you.
Uh, is there a motion, please? Motion. Oh, please. >> Oh, I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2026-24. >> I second. >> Commissioner Maldonado, >> yes. >> Commissioner Marion, >> yes. >> Commissioner Cay, >> yes. >> Mayor Tate, >> yes.
>> The motion carries. >> Okay. Next action item is B. Approval of the guaranteed minimum maximum I'm sorry guar approval of the guaranteed maximum price proposal with Hennessy Construction Services in the amount of 10,479,642
for the construction of fire station 22. >> Hi, good evening, mayor, commissioners, Adam Pory, assistant city manager. Uh I'm excited to stand before you all tonight as uh one of the final steps in uh rebuilding fire station 22 uh and bringing uh a level of service back to
our to our southern residents down in Pasa Grillil and quite honestly getting our firefighters out of the trailer that they're currently living in. So um as you all know fire station 22 was significantly damaged during the storms. Um but even prior to that it was built in the 1970s. We it had uh been past the
extended use of its uh livelihood. Um, so we had started this process about 6 years ago to redesign fire station 22, build a more resilient structure that could survive uh some of the storms that we experienced back in in 204 2024,
sorry. Um, so the contract that you have in front of you tonight is a guaranteed max price from Hennessy Construction Services. I just wanted to highlight a couple couple points to that. um guaranteed max prices is a little bit deceiving because there are still some fluctuations that could occur uh during
the build if you know anyone that's participating in a construction project has obviously seen some fluctuations in and cost. Um however um based on industry standards we did build in a 10% uh contingency to this cost. So that's built into that 10 uh4 price tag that
you see. There's about $887,000 in contingency money. Um that money is controlled by us. So the contractor can't just spend that arbitrarily. We will set up processes to ensure that um all those are getting approved through us. So they're basically broken down
into 5% um uh contingencies. Uh on top of that, we do plan and and we've already planned on a lot of value engineering options. So we're looking at ways that we can cut cost already. the uh contra between the contractor and our uh design professionals at Sweet
Sparkman, they've already identified about $184,000 in and options that we can value engineer and that's before the build even starts. Uh but that's a process I'll continue through uh through the build which we're anticipating will be about 14.5 months uh once they break
ground. Uh additionally, the other thing I'd like to bring to your attention is um there are some by owner costs that would be in addition to this 10.5. It'll be most of them will be later on the build. There'll be some earlier ones. We have some uh Duke uh energy uh equipment
that was placed on that property, not in a great position that we're going to have to relocate. So, we're working with uh Hennessy and with Duke uh to try to get that for as for as cheap as as possible. And then you have stuff like furniture and stuff like that that wasn't included. There are a lot of things that are included in this
guaranteed max price, all the cabinetry, but you know, when you start putting dining room tables and things of that nature, that's that's not included either. So, um you will see some of those come as well. Um if you approve this tonight, uh the anticipated start date is somewhere in midepptember to
late September. Like I mentioned, it's about a a 14 and a half uh uh month build if everything goes correct. Um the funding for this project, as you're as you're probably well aware, uh a huge portion of this funding for this project came from the state appropriations through three different appropriations
over the past four years. We were able to secure $6.5 million uh to go towards the funding of this. Uh in addition to that, we're still negotiating. I don't want to throw out a number right now because we're still negotiating with the insurance company, but we feel pretty good about uh the money that we're going to be able to get from insurance funds
for the station that was destroyed by the hurricanes. And then the additional money will come from uh budgeted funds that we've already uh programmed into our capital replacement budget. Um just a couple of other things. Uh you know, when you see this price, obviously um we did go through it. I don't think there's
any $500 hammers in it, but it's certainly something that we'll be continuing to uh to monitor as we go through. Um but there are some some complexities on this site. Uh generally, you want about three acres to build a fire station. I'll tell you the industry standard is is about one and a half
acres minimum. We have a quarter acre down there that we're trying to build a fire station on. So, um, this is a very, very complex build. Um, it's in a, you know, obviously a high flood hazard area. So, there's a lot of complexities to to this design, uh, and to the build
itself. So, uh, I'm I'm I will tell you that I'm uh, and I know you asked our our IT director about her project. I will tell you I'm I'm pretty happy with with this cost. Obviously, I would love it to be cheaper, but based on what I'm seeing across the industry, I do feel like uh this is a pretty reasonable uh cost estimate for the type of bill that
we're that we're going to present to you all. So, um with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you have. >> I'm not sure I want to ask you how much a fire axe cost. >> A [laughter] not $500. >> Oh, really? >> Probably. >> Anytime you add fire to it, the price goes up a little bit, but uh we we get a
pretty good deal on it. >> I'm just glad you're on the job. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate that, sir. Congratulations, by the way, on your new role. >> Thank you very much. >> So, I appreciate it. >> Uh, Commissioner Maldonado. >> Okay. So, thank you, uh, Chief. >> Thank you. >> I, uh, just happened to notice that the,
uh, in the GMP package, there is no 5G tower sitting in front of their rendering. >> Yes. >> So, my question though is I know that the quarters will likely be upstairs. That's going to be at eye level. Are there any concerns and are there any visibility uh line of
sight issues that the city should be looking at given the new design? >> We [snorts] don't believe so. Um that wasn't uh you know this again started about 6 years ago. So that tower wasn't there obviously um working with Brandon who's been fantastic. U we've been trying to work with them to to move that pole. We're not there yet, but I'm sure
those are the conversations that will still continue. It won't it won't uh it won't prevent us from building the station though. >> Yeah. My my my point to you uh is just please continue those dialogues. You know, uh the uh the representative we've worked with is is very open to speaking
with the city. He's been very cordial, but uh I do have concerns that it's going to be right outside of the uh sleeping quarters. So, but other than that, thank you so much. >> I appreciate that. Thank you. >> All right. U I have just a few few comments for you. Um and I'm sorry I'll
be brief. Um 10.4 million total cost. I should go look real quick. Roughly. Okay. Um how much do we get in grants? >> Uh appropriations we got $6.5 million. >> Okay. Any other grants expected or anticipated? >> Not at this time. No.
>> Okay. Um and then insurance. Do we have a claim that we're expecting some kind of funds out of? Do you know the amount? >> I I have a I have a number, but we're still negotiating. We're so I hate to throw there. So >> um all right um with the uh grant and
some insurance money coming in um we clearly are not out of St. Pete Beach outlay. It's not anywhere near that 10.4. It's something in the you know sub4 or five million kind of area right? >> Yes sir. >> Sub I hope. >> Okay. Um a little bit about the guaranteed max price um kind of concept.
Um, if I understand it correctly, um, you know, I know you said there's a little bit of variability, but as a general statement, uh, price fluctuation above that GMP should be mitigated based on that the type of contract that we have, right?
>> They they will do their best. So, basically the the guaranteed max price, what they do is they bid out the project. So, every component of the project and we have the list of everybody who bid on it and what those costs are. um you know the fluctuations that you get is the the cost of material today could be significantly different
by the time you know for example we get to the kitchen cabinets right so you know what they price today could could conceivably increase by the time they get to that portion of the project so um there are some caveats in the guaranteed max of price that um you could see some
fluctuations with that um which is why when we originally got the guaranteed max price there was no contingencies built into that that is not an industry best practice to go into a project of this size and nature without some contingencies. So our hope is that through value engineering having those
contingencies that we won't exceed the guaranteed max price that you see before you today. >> Okay. Um understood. Um okay. And theoretically, I think I heard you say it, the uh the contingency that
you built in 10%. Uh is not you if we can do value engineering and we can uh save some things, then we can it will be less than the 12 or the 104 theoretically. We could theoretically come in lower. >> Yeah. Yeah. And to your point, we don't write a check for 10.5 million and and
hope they don't spend it. We we pay as we go type thing. They'll be invoicing us. So, um, yeah, that that contingency money wouldn't be spent unless it's uh, you know, approved by us. You know, again, we we get in the middle of this build and we find something that that we need to make a change order for. You know, we start eating into that
contingency. >> Understood. Um, and with regards to material costs, um, I think I saw in your your plan that there's some staging sites and things like that and I'm sure some materials can't be stored outside. So, you know, I'm thinking about have you have you just tell me you've contemplated ideas to you mentioned
cabinetry as a hypothetical example, right? We may not need the cabinetry for a year, but if we can buy it now and store it somewhere, you know, theoretically we we've locked in that cost and it's and it's sitting there waiting on us, right? Are you thinking about things like that? >> Yeah. So, um the uh the contract
administrator for from Hennessy, they've been fantastic. So they actually and and if you read the whole uh guaranteed max price package, it's pretty significant. They've already had the timelines built out. So basically their timelines are based on approval tonight. Uh they they told me they'd likely start ordering
material tomorrow. Uh because some things I'll give you an example, the fire pole. Um shocking how expensive a fire pole is for one, but uh the build time of it is is significantly long. It's about 9 months to actually get that. >> Um so a lot of things are going to be bought early on in the stage to your
point. Um, so yes, hopefully we will capture, you know, a lack of price increase because they'll be buying it earlier. A couple of those staging sites, they've already, you know, uh, told us that they'd be having some storage containers on it so they can store the equipment in in storage containers. That's one of the issues with such a small footprint of that
building is we only have so many areas to store stuff. That's why we kind of have to spread it out down there and pass a grill until the until the build. But yes, sir, to your point, they they'll be ordering a lot of it very early on. >> Okay. I I think of projects that we've started that were long extended projects. I hate to bring up the undergrounding, but it didn't finish
because costs went significantly higher than we anticipated and we ran out of funds because we couldn't uh couldn't get those costs in. So, as much as you can think about, you know, getting your getting your materials in now at these costs because I expect materials would go up, labor will go up. You can't control when when the labor gets done, but you can control when you get your
materials. Yes, sir. >> And try and do that as fast as you can if we've got a place to store it. Obviously, we don't want to go on stale on us. >> Okay. Yes, sir. >> That was it for me. I I like it. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Um Okay. Um any public comment? >> There's no public comment.
>> Okay. Thank you. Is there a motion and a second, please? >> I make the uh motion to approve the GMP proposal with Hennessy Construction Services in the amount of 10,479,642 for the construction of fire station number 22. >> Second.
Commissioner Marriott, >> yes. >> Commissioner Kazy, >> yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado, >> yes. >> Mayor Tate, >> yes. >> The motion carries. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, next item, uh, action item is, uh, resolution 2026-22,
authorizing additional use permit 26107 for an off-remise parking lot at 3815, 3855, 3859, and 3861 Gulf Boulevard. >> Also read the parcel numbers. That's 07321618143001 0010
and 07321618143001002 0 and 073216 07398001 0170 and finally 07326 073981230 30 pursuant to land development code
section 42.4E and providing for correction of scriveners errors and an effective date and this being quasi uh judicial conditional use if we'll have um exparte disclosures of any um communications that you have had regarding this
application and then we would go to swearing in all the witnesses who will be speaking today. So, first if we could start with the commissioner Mald Maldonado and go down the row about any exparte communications. >> So, I've had no direct uh communications
with the uh applicant and I have had several emails regarding this proposed uh cup. Uh and as previously stated, I have been to the site and familiar with the area. >> Same for me. uh just emails and previous
site visits, previous conversations with uh the applicant. >> I have um just the emails that we've received and I'm familiar with the site. >> Uh I received uh the same emails that most of us commissioners got. I've uh
taken another stop by the site and I did receive a a text um expressing disappointment that we didn't solve this last time and uh and hopeful that we will solve it with some emphasis if you will. So, >> yes, sir.
>> The city clerk, would you like to do the swearing or would you like before I do it? >> Anyone who will be speaking or testifying before the commission needs to be sworn in, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> So smart. >> Thank you. >> All right. Good evening, Brandon Barry, planner. I want to mention that the basic request for this project has not changed since the last meeting. I will be going through the modifications made
to the resolution 202622, which if authorized would approve conditional use permit 26107. And this is for an off- premise parking lot at the parcels that were read just a bit ago. So we received several pieces of actionable input from the city
commission at the last meeting related to this project. These were for inclusion of conditions or for modification of conditions that were not included in the original resolution that was presented to you. The first is to provide minimum vehicle depth for idling outside of lot entrances to make sure
that vehicles entering and exiting the lot do not back up into the sidewalk or into Gulf Boulevard. remove any kind of special event option for this use while it is operational. Provide screening for headlights from Bel Vista to the east and for any kind of on-site commercial or recreational vehicle storage.
Currently, that's proposed in phase two of this project, but should it be provided down the line, they would be required to screen both that parking area as well as um in the shorter term headlights from Bel Vista to the east.
There did seem to be some potential um to allow for an initial operating period, a restricted operating period of 120 days with some limitations. Um it would include the limitation of any kind of beachgoer parking that would be prohibited under the initial 120 days.
There must be a chain and lock uh that remains up while not in use at both entrances to the parking lot. Limitation on overnight parking that would be prohibited during that 120day time period. no nuisance activity that would be inconsistent with the use of the lot as a parking area. That would be any
kind of tailgating, gatherings or so on the lot. It would be used solely for parking, storage of vehicles and signage must be provided to the frontage of the site stating that it is not a commercial parking lot long-term. So after that 120 days, there would be a limit on use of
the lot only for ballet guests and employees. And that would be specifically for temporary lodging uses, not for any other kind of uses, uh, commercial uses or residential uses in the city. And then adding signage peritting usage of the dock by date of
full operations. So looking at the modifications we made, ones that were woven throughout different conditions, and we have worked with the applicant, the applicant and their attorney are present tonight. This is presenting what we have discussed with them and and what I believe we're both in agreement on with these
conditions. Uh throughout the resolution, there were modifications that removed all options for special events. Should you approve this resolution as drafted, the applicant would be held to operation only under the terms of the conditional use permit for the three three years of life of the
use. Under the initial 120 days, they would be permitted to continue to allow limited contractor valet to temporary lodging guest and employee parking. That is new condition seven. That is an additional option that is presented to the applicant based on the resolution in
front of you tonight. After that 120 days transitional period, permission would be for valid service from temporary lodging facilities only. That would include those accessory facilities that are associated with temporary lodging facilities like bars and restaurants that are on the property and
associated with that facility. That would also allow for 120 days to make those operational long-term improvements and those on premise improvements with the exception of seaw wall repair. I'll cover that in a moment. So that would give the applicant 120 days to install the frontage fence
and gates. Um there's of course currently a fence. It's in fairly poor shape. They'll be replacing that fence and the gates at the entrances to the property. Uh providing the access aisles, providing the drive aisles, coming up with the valet agreements with the long-term tenants that they are
currently, I believe once they um if they are approved for this use would begin negotiations with and then provide that frontage and buffer landscaping. As you heard earlier tonight, we are currently under an extreme drought. Um there is significant limitation on
irrigation for landscaping after the initial month of establishment. So the owner had asked that the landscaping be extended out and I'll cover that in just a moment. Looking at the individual condition uh modifications looking at condition one, this is just authorizing valet service
for those other temporary lodging uses and their accessory facilities. They would fall under the authorization granted by the city commission to the applicant. they would all operate under their approval. So any violation conducted by a temporary lodging
facility would be considered a violation caused by the applicant. So they would still be held to that that one corrective um one corrective issue and then they would return to the city commission or or lose the use depending on the condition violation. Condition three was as I
mentioned modified to allow for that initial 120 days of operation. After the 120 days, the gates must remain closed except during peak demand hours. It requires the individuals following that 120 days that are accessing the lot to be identifiable, uniformed, or have a a
key card or some other form of identification. So, there's no question about who's accessing the lot. It would be limited only to those valet staff. Condition seven, that's what authorizes that initial 120 days. that would continue to allow for construction vehicle parking, valet guest, and
employees of temporary lodging facilities, staff. In terms of enforcement during that period, just based on our capabilities, we would look really be looking at prohibiting any kind of nuisance activity, any kind of overnight use. We would not be looking so much at the use of the lot um or
rather the the individuals accessing the lot during that time period. We would be looking at those nuisance activities that are incompatible with the authorization. Looking at condition 9, this would require those temporary or permanent long-term code compliance screens for
recreational and large vehicle parking. The applicant has agreed to install a temporary screen on the seaw wall side of the parking aisles to prevent that headlight spill over to Bel Vista. Long-term once they replace the seaw wall, they would need to come up with a more permanent solution, whether permanent vegetation, walls or fences
that meet the land development code. Condition 10 is the full list of sub conditions requiring all the other improvements on the lot. This is what would be extended out that 120 days um going past that initial temporary period into the the full operation of the lot.
Sub condition B would require a full vehicle idling space between the gates and the sidewalk at the front edge. D would allow for additional time for plantings if Penllis remains under an extreme drought. It is currently set to expire in October 1st. So that would really only extend um the time period
for planting by about three or four days given that we're at the end of July. However, this is an option for the applicant. If we remained under extreme drought, we would want to make sure that landscaping they're installing in the buffer survives. So, they would have a little bit of additional time to make those uh put those plantings in place.
Subcondition G requires signage at the docks after the initial 120 days. There are docks present. They have the option to either repair, remove, or restore those docks should they repair or restore them during the life of this conditional use permit. if they're seeking to use those docks for any
purpose, they would need to return to the city commission. That's not really being contemplated under this use request. And then subcondition J would require contact information on permanent signage for valet service operator once they are in place. Condition 11, as I mentioned before, would require that
temporary screening adjacent to the seaw wall to prevent the headlight spillover. Condition 12 would allow 60 days to commence seaw wall construction or repair following issuance of a building permit. It would require completion by the end of May 2027. So in advance of
hurricane season 2027. The applicant had requested that because the city does not have any control over any kind of delays that are imposed by any state or federal permitting um that they would be allowed additional time equal to the length of that delay should they be held up at the
state or federal review um stages. Because we do not have control over that, we we did consent to that. So that is in condition 12. Condition 14 would require the installation of the pedestrian scale lighting on the lot only if overnight parking is provided in the future. Staff had initially asked
for that as a safety mechanism. The applicant, I believe at the start, does not plan to offer any overnight parking at some point in the three life three-year life period of this site. They may seek to provide that. They would be required to provide the lighting at that time. And finally,
condition 16, that is effectively an extension of condition 12. Should there be any delay caused by the city in review of the permits, the applicant would have that additional time tacked on to their time to comply. We don't expect that to be an issue. We we don't feel that there'll be any delays in the
issuance of permits, but should it occur, they did ask for that additional time and and we agree to that as staff. So, with that, um, we have made those modifications to this resolution that accompanies conditional use permit 26107. We do have the applicant and their
attorney present. and I'm happy to take any questions. Um, should you find that this addresses all the items brought up at the prior meeting and the correspondence you've received since that meeting, we ask that you move to approve this conditional use permit. We do have two follow-up items that seek to
revoke the existing resolutions active on the site. Those would need to take effect prior to this use becoming operational. I'm happy to take any questions. Commissioner Cosy. >> Um, Randon, that is sounding good. Uh,
there's a couple of questions I have. I think that I don't understand a limit on overnight parking, for example. I thought that I understood this would be for valet guests who might be they have
an overflow situation where the cars would need to stay there overnight. So, is there clarification on that point? So that limitation would only be explicitly for the initial 120 days. And that really stemmed out of concerns about the lack of permanent improvements
on the site to facilitate overnight parking and moving vehicles on and off the lot. It will not be secured in the way that it will be long-term after that 120 days through the gates, through the valet access only. That was just a proposal, but that was
stemming out of concerns that we received from from the public. And I believe the applicant was amendable to that. >> Okay. So I I guess he doesn't need overnight parking for the first 120 days is what I would I take away from that
and then I'll move on. Um so where we've run into problems with this parking area, this area being used for parking is when it is unsecured and unattended.
So, uh, I think the agreement by the neighbors was valet only would be appropriate and that's the way this was really sold, but I believe that they have come to grips with it being used in other ways as long as it's attended
or uh secured. So, we it turns into a big problem for us if it's unsecured and unattended. And it it we things got so much better for us this year with this area once that Don Cesar started putting an attendant
in the lot during the day and then locking the chain when they were done. So that is absolutely what we're expecting here uh from the neighbors point of view and I don't see that here. I I think I'm see that it's not that for
the first 120 days which is right here in the summer season. So, Saturdays and Sundays is a giant problem. So, if we could solve Saturdays and Sundays, that might be getting to where we need to be.
I think adding a You're correct. It's not in the list of conditions. We hadn't spoken to the applicant about that. They are present and they can if they have any concerns with that, but I that seems like a logical addition if if that would resolve the president's complaints.
>> I think that would that would get us there. it seems like to me. >> So, are you asking for if if there isn't a locked chain that it be attended or are you asking for it to be attended regardless? I'm asking for
if it is not locked with a chain for the first 120 days that there would be an attendant there and that is the way it was operating uh this [snorts] spring once and it solved the problems for the neighbors. So the problem for this
particular area is Saturdays and Sundays especially if it's unlocked and unattended people park there and then they try to get to the beach and there's not a way to get to the beach. So it the lot literally filled up with
people parking coming from other cities and they don't know where to get to the beach from there. So, it's a giant problem and we I think we had this figured out towards the end of the last person using the lot
and if we can get make that happen, I think we're good. Uh then in after the 120 days, I think there was a provision for leaving the gates open during the day is what I heard for
I don't get that. So that that wasn't intended. If that needs to be cleaned up, but that is specifically if they have multiple vehicles that valet staff are moving through the gates at one time, they don't necessarily have to close them after each vehicle, but the intent is
not to leave them up throughout the day. In the same way, it's it's a little more difficult with the chain because you have different users coming on and off the lot, but the valet service provider would be one entity, so they would have access through the gate. It's it's really just to clarify that it it it may
not shut after every single vehicle. It would be um you know if they're bringing multiple vehicles in, they would they would leave it up to >> Yeah, I'm not cons I don't think we're concerned about that. We're just concerned about it being left open. >> Okay. >> We can we can clarify the language on
that and again the applicant can speak to that. They they had expressed some concerns with the way it had been written where it stated it needs to be closed after every vehicle. That's my understanding of what they're looking for just to have some grace during that short period of time. But >> so yeah, if we could could we come up
with a proposed um modification that we could approve tonight on this [clears throat] for just to achieve those two points from my perspective. Are there other thoughts here? >> Let's let's gather other thoughts. Make sure we don't get too far. I I don't
know if other commissioners have input either related with that or different input. Okay, I think I think we >> uh thank you uh Brandon for all the uh the extra work in getting this to where
we are today. I think with Commissioner Kaz's concerns being addressed, I think that we can do those on the spot and I have no uh no further objections or issues. Thank you. >> Yeah. And I I think if I can paraphrase quick M just make sure I understood it
right. Um so generally in the first 120 days the lot will be either locked or attended. >> Right. That's kind of what you're asking. >> And then in general uh post 120 that um the same idea. It's either locked or or
attended. And I I I think I heard the intent is that the gate closes behind each vehicle with the intent, but it's not a guarantee that there's not another vehicle right behind with another valet person coming through. But as a general idea, it's intended to close so that somebody from the public can't just pop
in in the 3 minutes that the valet is running back and get in the next car. Right. It's it's intended to close behind each vehicle. >> Correct. >> Okay. So, that may be the solution, but Okay. Just make sure we we kind of clarify. I'm good with those suggestions as well. I I would love to hear, you
know, whether you've got comments or whether the the applicants have comments on those two items. So just just to address these from the staff standpoint and and the applicant may want to speak to it as well. That would be a modification to condition seven specifically to item A that the
not only do the locks need to be changed and the chain securing the lot while not in use. An attendant must be present while the chain is not actively securing the lot from use. We would add that to item A. And then under condition three,
we we might need to we might need to clean up the language about during peak demand hours, the gates may temporarily remain open to not unreasonably delay ingress or eress. Could I just clarify that? That's >> the gate must not be left open for entry
by the general public at any time. >> There we go. >> Say that. >> I I just going back. Sorry, but I just from an enforcement perspective, it sounds like you either want it secured or attended, >> right? >> That is all our code enforcement officer would be looking for. So, I don't want
to get over complicated here. >> Agreed. >> Secured or attended. >> If the gates's up, but there's an attendant there, they're compliant. >> If there's nobody there and the gates closed, they're compliant. >> I think that seems that should work. I think that seems, you know, I'd love to hear from the applicant and make sure that
>> there's not a concern, but I think that u mitigates the concern from the residents. Commissioner Cy's >> good evening again. Uh Brian Sykes for the record, Meridian Partners Law, uh Albertton Road, Clearwater. Um first of all, I want to appreciate city attorney
Brooks and Mr. Barry's help on this. I think within 48 hours we were probably at 95% of where we're at on this ordinance today. So, uh they were they were great to work with. Um let let's kind of just address the two points on the gate closure. The way it reads in
the condition is the self-closing gate shall remain closed except immediately proceeding and following the entrance or exit of a vehicle to or from the property. Provided, however, during peak demand hours, the gates may temporarily remain open so as not to unreasonably
delay ingress or eress to the parking lot, provided the applicant or its valet service operator actively monitors any vehicular traffic in and out of the parking lot so as to prevent any unauthorized use. We were we were pretty precise in in crafting that because one
of the concerns was we don't anticipate that the gate is going to be an up and down arm. it's more than likely going to be a swing gate or a travel gate. So, in either of those cases, there's always going to be a delay of getting in and
out. And what we don't want to do either is overburden the gate system. So, it's broken constantly. As one car is coming out, the next guy's hitting the clicker, he's trying to hit the uh, you know, the key card enter and it's stopping a gate, stopping a gate. So, if you've got a
valet guy that's running, let's say they have a [cough] there's a big dinner rush on, you know, or let's say there's a dinner party at one of the restaurants and they have 10 valet cars all of a sudden that they got to get back and forth. There would probably be short periods of time that
the gate would remain open as car one's entering, car 2 is entering, but once that's done, the gates closing. So, there's no intention to keep them open for any periods of time. It's just from a practical perspective that will probably happen. And as you noted, we don't want to get too complicated here,
but we want to at least everyone understand where we're at. With respect to the 120day period, um the the intention is and what we've agreed to is it's both entrances and exits are going to be chained and locked when it's not
in use. The majority of the use of that parking lot in the short term will likely be Myiramar's contractors, trades, those people parking over there and potentially the Dawn uh Cesar uh using some valet or employee parking. We
don't have an agreement with them yet. Um we did not want to go down that process until we knew we had approval, but there will be a license agreement that will be very specific as what can and can't be done. Um my client was just saying that you know during the weekdays
there's going to be a lot of traffic and people over there so we will be able to moni monitor it then and on the weekends when it's not in use it could be there could be an attendant there so I think that addresses hopefully your concerns commissioner Kazzy you know um like I
said the the gate will be closing once it's installed and part part of the 120day request also is we've got to order the gates got to get the permits for the gates you know. Um, so it's going to take a little time to get some of that in place.
>> Kevin, did I The only thing I might not be clear on is the contractor use during the day is if it were on a Saturday and it's it's it's left open for the contractors to go in and out if they're even working on Saturdays, then
>> is there are [snorts] you guys working on Saturdays? So, the head guy, [laughter] by the way, nice to see everybody. Um, usually the head guy of each sub has the combination to will have the combination
to the lock because I can't monitor them all the time when they're there when they're not. >> Um, but I do live close by, so I'll make sure that that no one's there at night and it's locked up at night. It's off season now, so it's pretty quiet. I don't know what the Dawn's events have
in in the past the Dawn has parked their employees there, their employees parked there. So, we'll make sure that anytime they're using on the weekend, that's when it gets busy, that they have an attendant there. They always did. And he'll he'll sit there under his little tent and and make sure everyone has a
dawn pass. Um but during the week, it's pretty quiet. The the condo building that is unhappy about it is on the south end of the lot, right? Um, on the north end of the lot is where all the Miramar contractors park and it's they're pretty
good about it. Um, I'll I'll make sure that I or somebody designated by me drives by there. Contractors only work Saturday. They're not allowed to work Sunday. So, nobody should be there Sunday um at all. And I'll make sure I drive by or have somebody drive by um
Saturday afternoon and make sure it's locked up and there's no cars there. I mean, once we do the valet only, um, which I think Tamora and Don both want to do, we'll know every car in the lot. The Don will have, uh, cards in the
windshield that show there from the dawn. We'll have cars in the windshield if Samora uses it. So, our valet people will know every single car. The reason for the other request is simply that if it's a dinner rush and we're, you know, back to back to back valing 10 cars,
we're probably going to do like a kind of a rod iron slide gate, which takes a minute to open and close. Um, but our valet guys will be on site while it's open. So, we'll make sure no one parks there that isn't part of either the dawn
or by us. So our our goal is to really run it so everybody will be really pleased compared to what's happened in the past. Um and uh we'll be as as responsive as possible. Some of our requests are just based on we don't want
to have our ability to use the land get revoked because someone made a mistake, right? Um and uh someone snuck in there. Can we absolutely promise and prevent that no one will ever sneak in? I I I don't think we can. We can certainly if we have an electric gate gate at the
north end which will have a keypad which only our people know it and that we'll have little openers. Um I I think we'll really control it and everybody every car will have a tag so we'll know whose car is where. Um >> but I think I think the key is too that you're you're not holding this out to be
public park. >> There'll be there'll be no public parking. Yeah. I mean >> towing signs everything we >> towing signs everything you I'll try to make it not look too um aggressively rude, right? We don't want to be rude to the world. Um we we really would like to
dress it up so as people pass by it feels better. Um you I think we'll be back in at some or talking with the city staff at some point. We'll put a we'll put the silk fences up at first so the headlights don't hit the houses, but I think the main place the headlights are going to hit the houses is at the entry
point. So, I think ultimately once the seaw wall gets done, we'll have some landscaping out towards the back and some fences that will keep those we can look at where the lights are going to hit the houses from, right? And and prevent it without making it look um bad, right? We want it to look
as nice as the piece of land can look given the fact it's on the water there, right? >> He didn't like my idea using that as banner advertising across the back. [laughter] >> Love it. >> Okay, >> any other questions? We're happy to answer. So, regarding the wording, uh I I think you're happy then with the
concept that we proposed that was it would be uh locked or attended or locked or monitored for the long term. I mean, my interpretation for the concern about the gate staying open is you would have an attendant there. The valet parker person would basically be on the lot for
any of those. >> The first four months, we'd like to see um it, you know, it's it's coming into off season. We we'd like to um so people have to have have to have accommodation to the lock. So will will one of those
subs leave the chain down? Probably. Right. I mean um you know I I don't think a whole lot of people are trying to sneak in there, but I don't want to be caught on a violation of somebody making a mistake. That's my biggest concern. There's no uh our staff is not hired yet. Our LA team isn't there. By
the time the four months is over, our team will be there full-time. done. I'll have a deal with them. The beetle team, all of us know, I think, how important it is to satisfy the city and satisfy the neighbors that we're doing everything right. Um, but the first four months is the most difficult part, but
that's been going on for 15 years or so, right? Um, >> it has been very frustrating and I think the solution has been for the user of that lot just to put an attendant there. So, an idea might be if you're really concerned about not getting violated, if
we just said it has to be locked or attended, you could put an attendant there on Saturday if that's the day that you're concerned your contractor might not lock the gate behind them. That would probably fix everything because I don't think you're going to
have um problem on the weekdays with the public trying to park there. But we've proven we do have problems with the public parking there on the weekends. >> So, we we can do that. We can I mean, if Don's having an event, uh they'll be
having they'll have an employee there. If Don doesn't have an event and you want me to put an employee there for Saturday, I I can certainly do that. >> I I think that would be what they're looking for. >> Sunday, it'll be locked up tight, right? Um it'll, you know, I mean, we can supervise that even though we're not
there. I mean it's >> and then if you're not concerned about the it being unsecured then you wouldn't need the attendant even on Saturday. So it would be your discretion but we would still say you know we're holding you accountable to keep the lot secure one
way or the other. >> Yeah. I promise it will be a lot better than historically. How about that? >> I believe that. I really do. >> We'll do our absolute best. Yeah. >> I'm just trying to get the wording in there. >> Okay. And I'm open to ideas on on how to
how to get that wording in there. >> The lot shall be either logged or attended at all times. >> We're asking I I assume you'd be good with locked. I think that >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was earlier. So now that the applicant
We right now it says changes the existing locks and the chains of both interestes and secures the lot by chains when not in use. >> I could just add add that sentence. The lot shall be either locked or attended at all times. You can leave the rest of it there too.
>> Well, but it won't be attended at all times is the problem. Like on a Monday locked or attended. So it's when it's not attended, it would just be locked. I I I think that locked or attended at all times is I mean that's a that's a bridge too far. I mean in in practical
application for the first four months while they're trying to get this figured out and they have a chain there and people are coming and going. I mean the the locked or attended at all times sounds like a great idea to [clears throat] all of us sitting up here who aren't the ones who have to actually manage that system. It's like
oh what could be easier than having it locked or attended in practical application? And that's ridiculous. And and I'm not a fan of demanding that he hire people to work just to stand there next to a chain so that the people that live at the condos down the street can be happy with it. At some point, people
have to understand that you don't get to tell your neighbors everything that they can do. I don't get to tell my neighbor across the street that their garage has to be locked or attended. I don't get to tell them what color to paint their house. I mean, I think at some point we have to accept that this is a different
operator of the lot than we've had before. He has proven himself with his dealings with the city to do things as he has said that he's going to do. And I think we need to give him the opportunity to prove that he is going to do that again
without putting up ownorous hurdles that are very impractical. How do you guys feel about our current state of wording? Have you come up with any ideas for Saturdays? Saturdays have been the problem and the problem has
always been solved by it was being attended on Saturdays all all the for the last four or five months >> there's an event happening. We're we're particularly at the dawn. We'll make sure there's still an still in attendant there. >> Right. If there's not um an event for
the dawn and that's the day where you have 50 or 100 cars there, it will just be our contractors and I am concerned like she said that they'll make a mistake and leave the chain down. >> But I'll come by or my GM will come by every afternoon and make sure there's no cars there and the gates are locked,
right? Um, and uh I I don't want to get into a trap in this form of period. My gates up, right, of this this game of somebody that's supposed taking a picture of a car driving through that is right because the chain's down, right?
That's just asking to fail kind of. >> Yeah. >> From my perspective, >> I think if I'm hearing it correctly, after 120 after you get the gates up, just leave it at that. Whatever that takes to get the gates up, presumably within the first 120 days, >> already already have bits on the gates, >> right? So once the gates are there, this this issue is mitigated. did their electric gates that that open and close
as as we expect them to. And I think uh you know we're trying to mitigate those first 120 days while you're trying to get your affairs in order, trying to get all your parts ordered, trying to get all the pieces put in place. And I think to Commissioner Marriott, we need to we need to show some levity. I think you've done a really good job of kind of acknowledging I mean even even the
changes that occurred in the last between the last commission and this one have been quite significant. >> Well, thank you. And uh and um I I think um you know in the end you know um you know this you know if if there's an enforcement issue it's going to come right back here because you've put yourself on a short leash and we
appreciate that. Uh so I think you know we could address that. Hey it it seems like you've got people parking that shouldn't be parking there and I'd hate to have you come back here and have this conversation but you know be cognizant of that because if it gets out of hand then I think we'll be saying look we need to have another conversation with you. This is kind of my perspective on
it. we'll have another conversation with you that maybe you do need now to hire somebody because it's been shown that that people are just kind of public parking there when they shouldn't be. Right. And so >> yes, I I would totally understand that and and I I I do believe that we won't have any any further issues going
forward. I I think we can. So we have people we trust, people on site there at Myiramar um Monday through Saturday. Um my GM Steve is always checking on the place. I drive by it all the time. Make sure there's no cars there at night. Um,
make sure no one's there that should be there. Although, I mean, I got to admit, we pull up and find someone on the seaw wall with with a fishing pole some days and I don't even know how they got there, right? Um, but I I I I'm sure it'll be smooth and and certainly
appreciate all of your help in in trying to come to an agreement that will work for [snorts] both sides. We feel really good about it and uh you know the seaw wall application with Spieler I bid with Spieler is on my computer waiting for this approval so I can sign it tomorrow
morning by docuign so the seaw wall will be ordered so you'll see you'll see it roll fast you'll see um the seaw wall come to pass we already have quotes on the gates um you know we want to move it forward and secure it as quickly as we can um I I do think it's really kind um
to not blindside Zamora and Myiar with with the uh without the four-month period. It gives me a chance to go meet and say, "Hey, look, we can you have to be careful and and and I'll make them read this and and you have to be careful for the first four months, but after that, it's going to have to be valet
only." And I think it gives them a chance to figure out what they're going to do with it. So, um, really think you've all done a great job to help us to format it, um, so that it works for the city. Hopefully works for the condo association across the street and works for us.
Okay, >> I'm cognizant that, sorry, just a little bit of housekeeping here. We've got about three minutes to either vote on this or we've got to extend. Um, I would suggest we maybe if we're ready to vote on this, we make a vote and then we also need to extend and then talk about the other two items beyond that. Did we have
a a change modification at all? >> I'll have to get consensus from the commission. >> I'll make a motion real quick that we extend the meeting to 10:30. >> Second. >> Thank you, Commissioner M.
>> Commissioner Cay. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado. Yes. >> Commissioner Marriott. >> Yes. >> Mayor Tate. >> Yes. >> The motion carries. >> Okay. Right back where we were. So, uh >> I think the mayor had a had a suggestion during the first 120 days the lot shall
be locked or attended. I think I heard something about attended on Saturday or attended when there is a special event at the dawn. So, there's some ideas that have been thrown out there. And then I think also a contrary
opinion that no additional language is needed. So if you guys can deliberate and discuss and I'll need a motion. >> Yep. Go ahead, Mr. Go. >> Well, my comment is just based on the
true history of the sit of this particular location where there is no beach access and I'm very happy with the applicant. I believe he's going to do a great job. But I do think that it's very easy because I've seen the other users have an attendant there and I don't
think it costs very much money to make sure that we don't have a problem on Saturdays and I don't want to leave a loophole in our ordinances because this is what's happened previously for us in this specific place. uh code enforcement
has found it impossible to have a a enforcement a proper enforcement because things were not clear on what should be the case. So um the only problem I see right now is just the wording for
Saturday. I think we've I think we're clear on it's going to be valet only. That is that true Brandon? We've got that in the wording already completely. that that part is nailed down 100% where where we want it to be after the 120
days valet only that's perfectly clear and then pri during the 120 days uh we I think it should be uh attended or secured
and I think I've heard from the neighbors that if it's a week day it's not going be a problem. And they're not int they they've said they'll have it secured on Sundays. So it only leaves Saturday afternoon from 12 till 6:00 p.m. is the
big time when people are pouring in looking for a place to park, driving up and down the street. So if there's contractors in there and the gates open, they're going to park in there. >> Commission Maldonado. >> Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, I I support
uh Commissioner Kaz's concern that we should at least ensure that the behavior is corrected and addressed before it becomes a problem for Saturdays. Uh you're already talking about having someone there when there's events. Uh but as we know, you know, this is a
trust but verify situation. You're trusting people to do the right thing. Uh I don't want to overburden Conan Force, especially on the weekend. They've got a lot going on as it is. So if you would significantly help us ensure proper behavior by having an
attendant there on weekends, Saturdays, not worried about Sundays. So I do support uh Commissioner Kaz's constituents in expressing that concern and um it's a minimal investment for 120 days. You're talking about just
Saturdays. So I think that it's not an unachievable request or goal. Thank you. I would love to understand if that's imable because I think that let me let me let me check with you commission if that's the the case would you be >> it isify what you're looking for
>> and this is what has been happening there recent history yeah >> if applicant >> considers uh manning it when it's unlocked if it's locked it's locked if it's unlocked if you consider manning it with an attendant >> uh that would solve I think your your
request >> for the 120 days on Saturday on Saturdays only for the 120 days. >> I would prefer a time frame >> from 12 because >> yes, >> hypothetically someone cuts the lock. >> Yeah. >> At midnight. >> Understood.
>> And now somehow they're held responsible for something that we >> I agree. >> Have no idea when it happened. We don't have a time >> frame time frame to rely on. >> Thank you. So I I think what we're if I'm here I'm trying to I'm trying to just compartmentalize. saying on
Saturdays between 12 to 6, uh, it's either locked or it's attended. >> Yep. Mhm. >> Does that seem reasonable to the applicant? >> It does. And I was just talking with my client. He said the contractors will only be there between 7 and 4 on
Saturdays. So, if the gates are unlocked during that period of time when the contractors are there, then you'll have someone that's an attendant there to make sure that there's no parking. Now, if he has a Saturday that the contractor's not there, then as long as the gates are locked, >> we're good.
>> We're good. >> All good. >> Okay. >> 7 to four. >> 7 to four. >> I'm I'm going to I'm going to go out on a limb and throw something out and just tell me the other option is >> your contractor I'm sorry. Your other The other option is your contractor
last guy in parks across the gate. I mean, locks it and parks across it. I'm assuming as long as we have it secured somehow and the gates are just the chains aren't just wide open and people can come and go that that's sufficient.
>> Do I create an unintentional fire emergency response situation if somebody's drowning out there and they got to use a bolt cutter to get through there? So I don't want to set you up for >> So locked with the chains or an attendant there on Saturdays? >> Yes. >> Between what do we say and
>> noon and 6 p.m.? He's saying seven and four is the hours that they offer. >> Yeah, seven and four is the hours that the the contractor would be there at max. So, >> okay. >> So, [snorts] what are you saying that would be there between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.? >> No, I don't we don't have a problem
until lunchtime, maybe 11:00 at at the earliest. 11 or 10:00 in the morning. 10 10 to 4. >> 10 to 4. Does that seem reasonable? 10 to 4. >> 10 to 4. >> All right. >> Anything else we should mention if if because I'll know about it. I'm sorry. [clears throat] Uh the Don would call,
but if they have an event on a Sunday like Okay. >> They have an event. I think you've already acknowledged that they will have an attendant there. >> Every time they have any kind of >> parking use there, they're going to have to have an attendant there. >> Our understanding is that on Sundays, it's either going to be locked completely or there will be an event
where we will have it attended by >> will have an attendant. We won't be using the the lot that day on will and they'll have an attendant there. Um just to be careful, I'll send people by to check to make sure when they're done it's locked and there's no cars there. But um um that would be the exception.
Um but but certainly we we'll agree to staff that lot on Saturdays between whatever time you're >> 10 to four. I think we said 10 to four. >> Sounds great. Yeah, >> Mr. Cy, >> but the reality is we're just locked or attended >> except on uh the weekdays, right? But
but >> Saturday we need hours to >> That's where we're at now. >> That's your major focus and concern. >> Yeah. >> Oh, well that's fine. That's fine. >> 10 a.m. to 400 p.m. on Saturday, >> which it means it would be attended. >> Okay.
>> Which is still lock. It's either locked or attended. That's what I'm saying. Still nothing's really changed. >> I think I'm I'm fine with the 10 to four. I think we've already got the applicant saying they're fine with it. Yeah, >> you started by saying Saturdays are concerns between these hours. I think we
I think we're there. Um, so do I have >> city attorney? Would you please help us just make sure we clarify what the motion would be? During the first 120 days, the lot shall be either attended or secured on Saturdays from
10:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. >> In addition to what attorney Sykes had previously stated with the other, >> we're not changing the existing language, just adding this new language. >> Okay. During the first 120 days, the lodge shall be either locked or
attended. on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 pm. >> I'll make a motion to approve conditional use permit 26107 with the conditions as uh uh conditions as recommended by staff
and the additional condition regarding the lot being locked or attended on Saturdays between 10 to 4. Is there a second? >> I'll second that. >> Commissioner Maldonado, >> yes. >> Commissioner Marriott,
>> yes. >> Commissioner Cosy, >> yes. >> Mayor Tate, >> yes. >> The motion carries. >> And then we have two follow-up resolutions. Resolution 2026-14, a resolution of city commission of the
city of St. Pete Beach, finding violations pursuant to condition on use permit. Resolution 2021-11 authorizing an off- premises parking lot for the Hotel Zamora at the property located at 3815 Gulf Boulevard parcel
07321607398 001230 section two condition 10 that states any violation of the above stated conditions will allow the city commission to resend or modify the conditional use permit rescending the authorizing resolution
and providing for correction of scrier's errors and an effective date and if we can get motions on these two uh separately >> I don't know that we we need a presentation at this >> there's nothing to present from staff we published the presentation [laughter]
>> questions right okay >> as much as I love your presentations >> I I I think I think we're ready for motion >> it's mostly ministerial at this point >> understood Yes. >> Make the motion to approve resolution 2026-14.
>> Second. >> Commissioner Marriott. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Cy. >> Yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado. >> Yes. >> Mayor Tate. >> Yes. >> The motion carries. >> And the next is resolution 2026-16. A resolution of the city commission of
the city of St. beach finding violations pursuant to conditional use permit resolution 2021-22 authorizing an off- premise parking lot for the trade winds at the property located at 3855 3859 and 3861 Gulf
Boulevard parcels 0732160739800170 and 0732161-8143020 20 and 07321-61814300 1- 0 1 0 section 2 condition 10 that states any violation of the above stated conditions will allow the city commission to resend or modify the conditional use permit rescending the
authoriz authorizing resolution and providing for correction of scriveners errors and an effective date. I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2026-16. >> Second. >> Commissioner Kayy, >> yes. >> Commissioner Maldonado,
>> yes. >> Commissioner Marriott, >> yes. >> Mayor Tate, >> yes. >> The motion carries. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Um, I believe that's all of our action items. >> City clerk. I think that's that is just confirm that's the list of our action
items that I see. Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. And that brings us to >> 7 A and 7B were moved. And >> 7 A and 7B. So we got an item for discussion. Uh there's a beach maintenance item for discussion and
house bill 803. Um I don't know who feels like they need the time on either piece, but uh let's uh well, let's start with how with beach magnets. >> Should be pretty quick. Uh so you all should have received a draft memo from
the city manager regarding a request uh to the county for funds to help maintain and enhance our beaches. So my question city manager is has this been sent? >> Yes, sir. Sorry I've sent you that that was sent last year.
>> It was sent last year. And what was the response or the result of that request? The result was that the um county took a recommendation to the
tourism business tax board to consider paying for infrastructure capital improvement projects and what they coined as beach parks. So that grant opportunity is going to open up for the first time this year. But they made it clear at that meeting
that they would not include maintenance as a consideration for reinvestment of bed tax back into the beach communities. So that's where we left. We made some progress. We didn't make significant
progress on where most of our investment goes into our beach parks. >> Awesome. And thank you for summarizing that uh much better than I could have. So uh so according to chapter 118 article 3 tourism development act section 118-
32C of the panelis code collected revenues can be used for beach improvements maintenance nourishment restoration and erosion control. So although this request [snorts] was not favorably received, uh I would like that to have the staunch support of the mayor
as our official representative to uh re-engaged with the uh tourism development tax council and county officials to re-engage and pursue this because I believe that a strong partnership with the county when it comes to helping us enhance our beaches
is critical to raising taxes uh from or getting I'm sorry TDT from our visitors and our tourists. Uh you know it's one of the things that we struggle in trying to find that right place to put TDT
request. I think this is a clear example. It clearly is authorized uh by the provisions that we've seen and I applaud you for going at that uh you know uh and trying to get that. You know she asked for 1.9 million. I don't know that we would hit that bar, but you
know, something's better than nothing. But I really do think that we need to go back and try to find these critical funds. Uh if they don't like maintenance, I'm fine with enhancement uh and things like that. But I have noticed that, you know, the aesthetics
of the beaches are starting to decline. I don't know whether it's just uh lack of attention. You know, the uh one of our vehicles is heartbroken right now. So, we're suffering from a lack of capacity. It's not a lack of effort. It's just we don't have the resources
that we need uh to keep our beaches, you know, uh pristine and to the level that not only the tourists but the residents have grown to expect. The other part of that is cleanup. So, you know, we rely on people to volunteer. We have the dune
savers. We have a lot of great people that come out and rally, >> pick up trash, especially after events. Uh the 4th of July was >> worse >> epic, you know, and now we're having uh people throw chum, mutilated sharks, and things like that, contaminating the uh
the garbage and bins. Uh so there's also requirements to clean those more frequently than we projected and expected. So that's my plea to the commission. And I just wanted to bring it up uh in full transparency that you know I would like to see you know our representative uh go
after these things and you know we did talk about that prior to you being elected that my my hope is that as the mayor you're outward looking that you're seeking these opportunities on behalf of the city of St. Pete Beach. So with that I I yield you know love to hear some
comments on that and thank you. I have comments, but I don't I I want to see if others have to. You know, Mr. Cosy, >> I had been through the these ordinances and I noticed that the TFT can be used
for uh infrastructure even related to tourism and I think it definitely needs to be pursued. I I noticed that the city manager sent out a memo today uh noticing that they're looking for three
more representatives for the TFT board and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about that. >> Um I will say this um there's also my understanding is that letter that got sent out today was about almost like I call it residents non-elected officials.
Is that did I get I have that right or so that that request was for non-elected officials to fill that board. I do also know that there's some board vacancies at a at an elected official um that we're pursuing. Uh so, you know, I think there's some interest from St. Pete
Beach to fill some of those positions. Um don't know that we can go on all the details right now, but there's some elected official positions and there's some non-elected official positions. I think I'd love to hear some some uh non-elected official that could be as I I'm kind of paraphrasing the the the email in my head. It's it's almost like
a usually a a >> hotel >> hotel year maybe a non- hotel year and then there was a third one I I forget the distinction but I think we're looking for you know some of those in those categories to help us fall on the board that I think was alluded to in the email. um you know and then if there's
elected positions you know I I I can tell you there's interest for myself in in pursuing some of those and helping as we can or if others can pursue them as well. So my only ask um and I I think I think uh beach maintenance is is a piece of the puzzle and I think we kind of touched on it here. I'm sorry commission
mayor not to turn my back to you. I just get comfortable like that. I don't mean to to feel rude uh when I'm talking away from you. I apologize for that. Um I think um for me I I think I think we need to put together as a city I think we need to put together a set of capital
projects that we think are uh potential for uh tourism tax whether it be beachfront infrastructure whether it be something else and we put together a package which includes this as well and I think we pursue it maybe not you know they don't have to accept all or none
but I think we say these are the things we'd like to pursue and and can we you know we take them and and and we agree on them maybe as a commission and we take them forward and say these are the things that we think with some staff input we think these would fall within the the the guidelines of of the u of
the boards and the committees and uh and we would love to pursue these sets of projects get blessing if need be from the commission and then we go to our either our uh our folks that volunteer or our elected officials to kind of be our our voice in those areas.
>> Agreed. Yeah. >> Does that satisfy you? >> Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I just think that we're leaving money on the table and you know, it's not that uh they also have competing priorities. I understand that. So, I like the idea of rack and stack and anything that we can tie into the uh
tourism development tax because it's a win-win situation. Yes, we enhance the city. >> We get more uh favorable reviews, more folks to come out and visit us. We have repeat visitors. I I meet them all the time at the local cafes and shops. They've been coming here for 20 years
and stuff, but they have noticed a change. >> Agreed. I I've heard the same. >> And and I think for us, our our argument is it's an investment >> in the county's, you know, tax revenues going forward by making sure that we maintain our our pieces accordingly. So, >> absolutely. >> I I think we get help from city manager
and staff to kind of put together a list and uh you know, what should likely qualify. Um I know we loaded you up already with uh with millage conversations but uh you know think about this as well um and we'll we'll approach I would love to see it happen as well.
>> But Mr. Mayor I would say though that a key a key part to this though is obviously the liison and the followup with uh the county uh county commissioners >> understood >> commissioners at large and the uh the folks that really are the decision makers. So >> understood.
>> Thank you. on it, >> sir. >> Respectfully. >> Yes, sir. Um, okay. Uh, next item is House Bill 803. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, so one of the bills that the state legislature passed this year that the governor recently signed was House Bill 803, which uh regards a
lot of um things to do with building permits, building departments, timelines for approval of building permits, uh things that um don't require building permits that used to, things that are cities are preempted from uh requiring
building permits for. Um my understanding is that there's a there's a whole lot of things in that bill. There's also a whole lot of them that are um uh exempted you're exempted from if you're in the flood plane. So there's a lot of them that we don't have to necessarily comply with here in St. Pete
Beach, but as we've all been sitting around for two years since the hurricane talking about ways to make things easier on people to improve our building department, to improve our systems, um I think it's a really good opportunity for us to look into. And so with the approval of the rest of the commission,
um I would love it if our city attorney could bring back at a future meeting for us some information about what's in that bill. Um and perhaps the city attorney along with our community development team could bring back some information for us about what's in that bill, what
does affect us here in St. Pete Beach, h how have we figured out how we're going to comply, and then what things are there for us to decide? What things are there in that bill that perhaps we don't have to comply with because we're in the flood plane that maybe we want to because there's a lot of good things in
there about, you know, if it's less than $7,500 and it's not mechanical, you don't need a permit and you don't need a permit for like for like change outs of windows and doors. And presumably we're exempt from from those changes because we're in the flood
plane, but I don't know that that means that we don't want to implement those anyway. Um, and so I think it's a good opportunity for us to look at some ways to um to make things easier on our residents uh who are trying to improve their houses, free up a bunch of time in the building department for things that
maybe we don't need to be requiring permits for. Um, but I certainly didn't feel comfortable instructing the city attorney to go about that just as one of five. So, if uh if the if the rest of you agree, I would love it for him to bring us back some information so we can
uh have a have a better conversation about those kinds of things. >> Yeah, Commissioner Cy, >> I am very excited about that. Commissioner Marriott, I think that would be a great idea. I think there's definitely room for us to streamline. [snorts] It would be great if we could identify
even just one or two things. >> We have um 11page memo we did July 8th. I don't know if it got distributed. We'll distribute it to you on page 910. It has >> maybe 15 or 16 recommendations. >> So, it'll take some time to go through
even just reading, but if you read that and we'll come back and talk. What we haven't >> done yet is coordinate yet with the building department. So, we'll pull that half the other half together. >> Yeah. I mean, I I'll tell you this. I >> I'll send you the memo. I just sent the memo around now, sir.
>> Thank you. Yeah. I I I mean, I Sorry. if you had a conversation. >> Okay. Um I fully support it. I think I think u one of the things we we should strive to do is um you know take some pressure off of our building and permitting department. I know we're we're doing uh we're doing you know
software upgrades. We're doing some other things uh that hopefully lead to some efficiencies in the future. But if we are doing uh what I would say are are optional things that we just choose to do and maybe we don't need to do going forward because we could be more efficient uh by not pushing those things
through our system. I would love to see it frankly. So >> perfect. >> Okay. Uh all right. Let's see. Um into uh uh reports, please. Um, city manager, any
reports, please? >> Nothing to report. >> Tony, >> not this evening. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I do have a quick report. >> Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Did I skip you? I hope I didn't skip you. >> I just wanted to announce that Jack Samarajic recently resigned from the Finance and Budget Review Committee after serving the city since 2007. On
behalf of the city, I want to thank Mr. Samarajic for nearly 20 years of dedicated volunteer service and leadership. We appreciate the time, expertise, and commitment that he's given to St. Pete Beach. >> Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Um, thank you. Um, Mr. Maldonado.
>> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, there was a comment made earlier during uh the general audience comments about some free chips delivery recycled wood or whatever that was. I would just say uh if it's free, there's a reason. Uh we had stuff
uh place in one of our parks that was debris and dangerous. So, just buyer beware. even though it's free, I just do some research and make sure that it's not wood with nails and things like that. So, you may be causing your own hazards. So, it's a public safety
announcement. Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. Commissioner Cosy, uh, nothing for now, >> Miss Marriott, please. >> Nothing to report. Thank you. >> Okay. And, uh, nothing to report from my perspective as well. So, um, there being
no further business, we are joured.