##VIDEO ID:keju_4IEL44## e e e e e e e e e e e the city commission meeting of the city of St Pete Beach today is Tuesday January 28th 2025 it is 6: p.m. let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice city clerk if you please do a roll call vice mayor molland here commissioner Marriott here commissioner Robinson here commissioner Riki here mayor patrilla here we have a quum thank you city manager you had something you wanted to cover about these fancy lights in front of us this evening sure just a few uh meeting changes one is you have queuing lights in front of you so if it's red it means you don't wish to speak speak on the item at the moment and if you turn it green the mayor will be able to see that you wish to be queued in and speak and then additionally staff presentations will be timed to the extent that they are not interrupted in asked questions mid presentation so we are trying to just be as um efficient as possible for for you tonight thank you Mr Mayor could I get a recap on that again uh because it sly it went over my head uh so I can speak when so commissioner Mahal and you would just move your Cube to the green if you you see the cube in front of you and when the mayor calls on you you may speak but it tells him that you wish to speak on the item they have so we didn't no I I get it I I I think I can figure it out but I'm a little surprised we're just finding this out when we show up here so um you know to have to add something else to the mix uh I don't know I guess I can figure it out but right uh it's just little different that uh we were presented this tonight to have to start pressing a button when we want to speak so I think tonight I would like some coaching on it in advance to be perfectly honest with you um I just don't think it was appropriate to do it this way but well we way we go we'll do a drive run tonight I'm sure we'll be having lots of grace and patience with everyone myself included so um all right so first we have presentation say review of special events process as it pertains to the commission good evening everybody Mandy Edmonds um interim Parks and Recreation director this is going to be a brief presentation for you all about what we have been working on as far as the special events packet and the process so um this first am I on this okay okay so this first slide here just is our special events Department review we took a little bit of time we've formed a committee and we've got a little bit of an update to give you our goal is to ensure the public safety compliance with regulations minimize disruptions to Residents and businesses and support activities that bring the community together that is the goal of our special events in St Pete Beach so the events requiring commission approval this has not changed this has always been the same events selling or consuming alcohol events requiring a street closure which will impact traffic EMS routes and local business and then co-sponsorship requests for the contribution of in-kind services from any Department of the city use of City equipment or facilities Andor cash in support of a special event um our priority there is to try to meet the Strategic goals of the City by prioritizing those events that do so 202 five special event process so for all events coming up now from now until October 2025 this is how we're going to be doing it events currently scheduled now through September 2025 will be brought to commission for approval all event applications are reviewed by the special events Review Committee which now consists of the recreation director the city clerk the Fire Marshall and um a member of the penel County Sheriff's Department the approval will then be shared with all the department directors these are the activities that we have listed right now that people have said expressed interest in and we'll be bringing them forward for approval before we move forward uh the 2025 co-sponsorship requests will be brought to commission as requests are submitted the events were previously approved by or were not previously approved by the recreation Advisory board for 2025 as they had in the past so that's why we're kind of changing the process for 2025 2026 special events um these co-sponsorship event requests must be submitted to the recreation department by March 1st um we will be emailing all of the past applicants to make them aware of this change the co-sponsorship requests will be presented to the recreation Advisory board for approval with detailed costs for each event outlined the recreation board approved co-sponsored events will be presented then to commission for final approval and the cost for services will be added to the budget to account for the co-sponsorship and departmental planning purposes okay finally we are still working on the guide to special events we're updating that our committee the city clerk uh Fire Marshall and myself um we're continuing to revise this guide the revisions will include this co-sponsorship timelines and process for approval we'll be emailing out notices and then the proposed Beach ordinance impacts to any of the events uh pertaining to like any uh sea turtle and um other regulations that will be going into effect with the new ordinance and then a fee study we'll be reviewing all of the fees pertaining to the special event making those necessary changes and then we will be doing an after event reporting and that criteria will um will outline a criteria for both the city and the applicant go through the process of reviewing each event and then we will document and retention through our laser fees and that will be all taken care of through our city clerk's office so overall we're hoping that this is more collaborative and transparent process to help promote successful community events that's all I have thank you commissioner any questions commissioner Robinson Mandy um why did you choose a 9mon uh March 1st for the following for the following year as a deadline to apply because we want to make sure that we have enough time to get it to our Recreation Advisory Board they meet in May and then we'll be bringing it their approvals to you in July when we start doing budget workshops okay thank you sure thank you it's because it's not don't worry about it commissioner Mah you have a question no no I don't have any question I'm just trying to figure my button out this plugged in over here so so so unfortunately Ralph is color blind so he's not going to be any help to you it's blue I think that means it's not working it's not available to me I'm being censored I guess Rubik's Cube it is it is like a Rubik's Cube there you go okay I'll no I I don't have anything I just trying to figure out the button all right are there any amendments for the agenda down mayor I have one Amendment to the agenda I need to add a discussion item of the city Clerk's resignation it's a great place to be figuring this out okay that will be item e any other amendments to the agenda commissioner could um I'd like to move consent [Music] item uh d uh consent item e to an action item okay consent item e will be action item like dog okay D this will be 6A commission Robinson well I had one question before we go into consent items I don't know if I should hold that it's just a general one beforehand or if I can just ask that now we can just ask it at the consent time okay thank you okay I would like to pull items L and N these will be items 6B and 6 C okay all right if there are no other amendments do we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended motion to approve um the agenda as amended Second City Clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you all right next we have um update on permitting and Beach cleanup good evening commissioner Denise Sanderson interim director of Community Development I think Ryan is getting the presentation pulled up thank you Ryan so uh this is our pretty much our standard um recovery update following hurricane Helen and Milton I'm going to quickly go through a lot of the statistic slides that you're used to seeing because I want to make sure that we talk about some significant updates to a couple of other programs so the usual things that we're reviewing today are are permit related information substantial and non-substantial damage historic preservation and then we'll spend some time talking about long-term housing recovery updates Staffing and volunteer program and then final with Beach debris update so permit status um we have uh currently issued 1636 permits out of 20 2544 received as you can see there things are moving quite nicely through the system and we're averaging about 42 permits a day and and U that number is steadily climbing all the time I've reset goals there to be more commencent with what I think is reality now that we've been in this process for quite some time and understand the complexity of review I think those are more appropriate goals um but we saw have a way to go as you can see there building permit inspections I've added that data um as we are now issuing permits and calling for building permit inspections by and large we're still able to do inspections next day we're Staffing up for inspections uh we do find that we have a challenge getting inspectors that are qualified for mechanical electrical and plumbing and so we've called on our vendors to try to identify inspectors that specialize in those fields as well uh so the challenges remain with receiving data from tittle Basin um to I believe the last time we got a significant download from Title Basin was on January 8th I am told that we can expect information coming from them this week and then of course um review or or submitt complete and sufficient submittal of the sisd review package for owner Builder permits in particular remains a challenge and we'll talk about that a little bit as we go through today's presentation under the volunteer program so just briefly uh it's come to my attention that we really did not do a very good job uh right before the holidays we changed the ordinance of removing the look back period eliminating the exclusions as a result of that and so I wish to call attention to this and of course this presentation will be posted on the website tomorrow so I wanted to talk about the substantial damage and substantial Improvement and the decoupling of permits if you will so we learned from FEMA in early uh December that all costs associated with a damage event must be included in the sisd or the actual cost of repairs and therefore no exclusions are allowed commission voted to therefore remove the lookback period uh we're going to the nfip Min we've gone to the nfip minimum standard and a reminder that any permit not related to a damag event is considered substantial Improvement which is viewed separately certainly recommend that any permits that are pulled are closed before another permit is then pulled because when permits are open at time of event or uh at time of improvement if you will all of those costs get calculated against your 50% Rule and so again upon completion of work we strongly recommend you close out you do final inspection and close out that permit before pulling another um as it relates to substantial and non substantial damage determinations um we've issued 193 1966 determinations with 9917 pending review out of Title Basin so we still have a ways to go we've received about two-thirds of that data set as you can see um currently the non-s substantially damage is certainly outpacing the substantially damage and through the appeals process and and processes that we've talked about in last commission meeting we expect ultimately will land with far fewer as a percentage far fewer properties substantially damaged at the end of the day local historic designation I know that you're all aware of this we just had a workshop earlier but uh we have received a a record number of appliations for those seeking local historic designation which is one of the qualifying exclusions from the sisd or FEMA requirements and so it makes sense that we would receive high numbers of applications they are rather time consuming if it the property has not been previously surveyed as you heard earlier today it's an extensive process for us to create and do all the research associated with those file preps so uh we have four excuse me we have four yes four coming forward for approval or consideration for approval on February 6 and then 12 more that still need additional information so this is a significant update and this has been reflected on our web pages I certainly encourage everyone to pay attention to the housing recovery support web page I anticipate that we'll be making updates somewhat frequently on this but the latest is that we've been notified that Florida Division of Emergency Management has been notified of a pre-award or pending award a rately $300 million in Hazard mitigation grant program and 100 million for the flood mitigation uh Swift Current program so as you can see there 300 million the the hmgp program will be open to all applicants the FMA Swift Current is open to nfip policy holders only it will be one single application to be filled out the state will be managing that process that application is expected to go live any day now I've not heard that it's it's not coming forward that it's a delay any further but uh I was not able to get an exact date the state will be hiring contractors for preconstruction and construction and I would probably equate this to the similar process they had on their my say Florida home program where the state deployed contractors to do inspections and had licensed or contractors in their queue that could do those those improvements for you as part of that grant program so I anticipate that this model will be quite similar as you can see there um the grant award C caps there is a cap um for demo and rebuild projects that's uh up to $220,000 plus the soft cost associated with engineering preconstruction and the like and then there is no cap for elevation projects they must be deemed cost effective and again the state's contractors will making be making that determination about what is cost effective and again this is a program that is being managed by the state and though the funds may not be available ultimately for quite some time uh the application I would encourage anyone interested in pursuing these opportunities to get their applications in very very early uh there's a QR code there if anybody wishes to scan that they can sign up for notifications directly from Florida Division of Emergency Management and um again go to our website there's a couple of Flyers posted there I think it's important for everyone to read fully so that they have a better understanding of these programs that are coming forward and the time frames iated with them and then just briefly Staffing allocation by job type really no changes here except for uh building inspectors we've added another building inspector to the stable who is um able to do the MEP required work because as you know we're seeing a lot of mechanical electrical and plumbing work out there and then um I expect another one to join us within a couple of weeks and so that call is has gone out so a mission request update we did suspend our commercial SD assessments request we initially requested about 30 Personnel to 20 Personnel to inspect 30 to do data assessment Title Basin was able to pick up that component for us and we are beginning to get some of the commercial assessments from that effort the administrative support effort um I believe that we will have two people deployed to us um beginning next the beginning of next week one is specifically it will be remote but specifically focus on the substantial damage assessment plan that we know we need to to get working on and completed before our next season and the other one is in-house support for file documentation internal Communications and the like um and then the technicians I don't have a firm date on that but the goal is to uh have those folks deployed here on February 10th we anticipate that those folks will be partnering up with the volunteer cohort that we have and I'll talk about that next so the volunteer program thank you to everybody that that boosted that post out there we had a fantastic ftic response to that uh we have 36 registered volunteers and to date we've um completed training for I believe it was 19 we are hosting those two-hour training sessions every Tuesday um and have the the full schedule for for next next week already queued up and so at this time we're utilizing up to four volunteers for four hour shifts 9 to one daily until they become comfortable with um all of the things um we think four is a nice manageable number for our our our permit technicians to to support as they continue their volunteer efforts so their scope is very very limited to the sisd um review package and building permit application and related documents really assisting those owner builders in particular with the assemblage um of that information identifying labor rates doing things like that to make sure we have a complete and sufficient package which ultimately means a much quicker and seamless permit review and sisd review for our plans examined ERS they're also able to collect documents that might be just folks might just be coming in to drop off so rather than wait in in the queue outside for the intake desk they're able to collect those documents bring them in and we'll scan and upload to the appropriate permit and then asking some general answering just some general questions so as we move forward as as we fulfill that uh Mission request we anticipate utilizing volunteers and those the mission Personnel if you will to get do inhome visits with some of our most vulnerable populations who may not be up to speed with all the requirements that are necessary thank you Amber so finally just briefly the beach debris update uh Public Services uh now uh they've identified three locations where sand with debris was moved onto the beach that certainly has caused for a concern and we've notified D they're taking it from there and we handle the concern happy to take any questions and Camden is here as well for that one in particular thank you you Commissioners commissioner Robinson I have a uh couple questions um in regards to the non-substantial damage determination um am I correct with that would not be if you're having non-substantial damage determination you therefore are not subject to FEMA's June 25th deadline June 25th deadline M to either raise Elevate make it decision that is correct okay yeah okay so very important for everybody to get their substantial turned into a non-substantial just want to make that point because otherwise June 25th comes around and it's going to it's the deadline yes so we are our understanding is that we can document and extend that so we do recognize that some folks are still going through an evaluation process where they may choose to elevate or they may choose to um repair and have the option to do so they may um may be sitting on that final determination in some cases it may not behoove them to seek a non-substantial damage determination for insurance purposes and the like and so we are willing and able to to offer that extension we simply need to document that for so that's a city thing not a FEMA thing correct but it is allowed under the we are able to do that so long as we document the request and the reasons why okay and then then um I see we're still using Title Basin for commercial development commercial assessments again FEMA's recommendation is always that you use consistency and Equity across the entire uh entire community and as you know the state contracted with Title Basin for these services and so we're utilizing them across the board okay with that being said I'm I guess I'm going to look at legal here and ask about any liability on title basin's part with the document that a resident put in as far as what their accuracy what they are obligated to provide accuracy wise because obviously that's not been the case there is a provision that we're looking at in the contract with Title Basin and I'll bring you up to speed on that at the next meeting thank you and then my last question is from a staffing standpoint where are we short so right now we're short in plans examination we have a rotation of plans examiners some of them are are moving on or to perhaps full-time job so we always have that call for plans examiners and building inspectors as that now gets ramped up um I think we hit another record the other day of 100 next day inspections right now um we're struggling to meet next day inspections when scheduled by 2m and so being able to to continue to provide that service with that kind of turn around requires that we bring continue to bring in qualified inspectors that can can do that we were short there again is in the MEP field particularly okay um and then I guess um another big concern is just that you know we're we're one month away from febru I mean one one week away from February so we're four months away from the next um the next hurricane season and I'm very concerned with two things one is our elderly population who is either lost or paralyzed in this whole process or they're not techsavvy enough and that's why I think I suggested the inhome and uh uh visits from our volunteers um the other thing is just that I am going to put on the perming department side I'm going to task you with and ask you to find or FR I'm going to ask you to find a way a gray area because I'm very concerned about any permits being opened because we're 4 months away and at no fault of the residents to not get permits it's not their fault and I'm afraid that there's going to be permits open and again looked at the whole phasing thing and and funny thing is that phasing is allowed it is statute wise but FEMA doesn't allow it it just all has to be documented on the front end but yes so your sisd packet has to document the entire scope of the repair you can pull independent permits and phase if you if you desire you can you could mhm we don't recommend it generally it's a little bit complex for from what I've read on phasing it reduces risk and coming into a hurricane season that's a huge R especially for people going in late getting permits and unfortunately got a lot of people think that they have to wait for that SD letter and they've been waiting for it um and I keep telling nope you don't have to wait for it just put it in put it in but I'm still concerned about that and I'm concerned that we're going to have because it will be devastating to people that have spent money to get those repairs done we go into another storm and that money that they've spent that whole value of the whole permit will now be part of their 50 going into the next store if not closed out correct I would like to to get some information then on phasing and what the options are on that because I was under the assumption phasing is not allowed but I looked at Florida statue and it totally is allowed it is so um I I put that to task to find out to on that if what you're speaking about is so if you wish to phase your contractors or phase components so long as we get the entire sisd y detailing the actual cost of repairs for the entire project tied to that damage event I see no reason why we would not be able to do phase permits but we'll get clarity and and shity of that process again it's it's people that are late in the game and I'm like I said I I'm really concerned about our elderly population here and um I just I'm afraid they're going to get a late start and then it's going to devastate them and I I my goal would be to see you know no resident Left Behind everybody gets in back in their home um and I think that should be you know our goal as well so anything that we can do so if you can update me on phasing that would be great y thank you it be but even if they don't get even if they started the process two months ago and let's say supplies are yeah not available contractors are delayed you you know what if due to no fault of their own they cannot close out the permit by June or July or yeah it applies it would apply to everybody just be oh but then we have to do a retro so then the question would be is there a retro where's the gray area how can we work with this how can we make you know everybody whole I I just don't want to see this you know people get devastated from what from where they're at and again it's no fault of theirs but to your Point mayor yes it would also apply to people that couldn't get supplies and have already put in their permit and therefore they're not asking for phasing in advance so I I would ask that can we look at what we can do how we can do this where is the gray area we can work in and make it happen certainly we'll get back to you on that in the next than you meeting certainly commissioner May up uh yeah thanks Denise um a couple quick questions on the Staffing there's a uh quite a few people in the data entry and uh quality control sections are any of those people people who will be able to be deployed to other things once those Title Basin data gets wrapped up or or are those people so spe specific in their skills that they're they're permit technicians by trade okay we brought them in as permit technicians and recognized very early on that we needed to deploy them for data so those that had the ability the the technical ability and to an interest to do that is where we deployed them so um but I I will share that uh we'll be in the data phase for quite some time through the appeals process and otherwise not only that but um my what I believe they would be redeployed to do once we get through that phase is all of the file review to make sure that we are fully documented in all of our files and preparation for what we know will one day be a a female audit so I would recommend that that's how we deploy them now keeping in mind that come uh 180 days from Milton whatever that day is in April the um vast majority of the folks that you saw on that Staffing allocation list are no longer funded under a FEMA reimbursement model the the 1206 program and so this is one of the reasons why as you know we have a healthy building fund Reserve um we will um with the city managers um guidance and support we will identify the appropriate staff probably retaining many of them and whether we bring them on as temporary contract employee temporary Personnel temporary full-time or we bring them in under contract status is to be determined but I think certainly those that understand our systems process and and protocols here would be it would behoove us uh to to try to retain all the staff that's necessary to continue to move on through the following phases and then one other quick question and and and again since we are potentially going to be losing some staff come that the end of that 180 day per period And I know um previously there were a lot of questions from residents about utilizing private providers for uh uh plan review and inspections um and my understanding was that that's not allowed uh in the flood plane essentially but for anybody who is building above the flood plane they could still take advantage of a private provider for plan review and inspections correct absolutely that is correct yep all right thank you MH thank you commissioner commissioner R Niki a couple of questions um just to get a clarification on the 188 approved with the aster what does that mean so that typically means that we have either the sisd package um approved or we have the building permit application approved or it's at a level that requires additional review so we might have to do um ground elevations that kind of thing to to make sure that we're not hitting that 50% Mark perhaps the math is so close that we need to provide that level of shity to the homeowner the very last thing we wish to do is put them in the situation where they're making a repair and they're tripping that 50% Mark um after they've spent all the money on repair so um it could be any one of those conditions that provides a conditional approval there's a component that's missing that is keeping us from issuing that permit and sometimes it's perhaps a subcontractor needs to do a sub sign on it could be something as simple as that so it could be a variety of issues can I asked that because I I mean I've seen the similar number for quite some time already on the presentations we're always in that I think 170 now 188 so because that again to me that means it's not approved so I I would prefer not say it's approved because there's something that's not approving it um because if it's under 50% if we we are saying as a city that if you're under 50% you should be able to get your permit then then those 188 are outliers you know and and so it really confuses me when I see that you know if if they meet the criteria there there's usually some bit of information that's required that's keeping us from issuing a permit it's not that those same numbers well that number might be similar to what it was previously reported I would say it would be a rare exception that they'd be in that status for that long of a time um but it's usually something like that where there's some component of information that has to be obtained or received before we can issue permit and there's usually a communication going on either with the contractor or the owner Builder or perhaps with the building official to final that okay it's almost like I wish I could see which one of those 100 and at one point was 70 then now 88 that they have been approved you know because it's hard for me to see I don't I almost feel like we have this group of people out there that are sitting in this subcategory and not moving moving forward so um yeah I I would say that there there probably is a very small number of those uh as you might imagine many of these contractors are truly overwhelmed with the workload that they have and you know we have homeowners all day um on successive days at times approaching our desk waiting for an update and it's really waiting on the contractor and our message to them is you must communicate with your contractor so I think in some cases it's contractors not being responsive by and large of course they are um but that's very often something they're just not able to Pro provide the required elements um that's very often the case in some limited cases it might be a fire plan review that our Fire Marshall is waiting on but I can assure you generally speaking you're not going to see them just stuck in that queue for a long time there's every day our permit administrator is going in and reviewing all of those for any updates to any of those conditionally approved to see if she can release do you know how many have been successfully appealed anybody who's appealing in that process do have have we already gone through a process of I don't have that number um I I will make sure that we are able to report on that uh when we started tracking information as we got into the process we realized we probably should have been tracking some additional things and so I think it would be certainly a worthwhile exercise to go back and try to capture that because I think it's important for us to be able to document how many I'm certain we have that information I just don't have the data so it' be nice to see that um because you show what's substantially damaged and what's not and then yeah who actually appealed it and then one last question um you mentioned about the sand with debris on the beach what does that mean were we dumped by did someone dump debris on the sand are we talking about the mountains of sand that are out on the beach right now I know from like uh north of um the Donar hotel when I do my walk that way I mean my daughter is tempted to want to roll down sand you know that that's really high and I'm I wanted to bring up Beach fire and I know we put this into this category presentation but it was for that reason is how are we managing and what's going on and if and if that's you know sand with debris I mean is it dangerous is there big items in there like what does that mean what's the debris in the sand I certainly Camy can respond to this my understanding is there's three locations that we've identified where the property owner and these are are rather large properties that have moved property off of their perhaps their structures or sidewalks what have you and back onto the beach and there's evidence of debris in there and so we've notified D but whether or not they're cording off or or those kinds of things I don't know that's probably a question for Camden you know the answer to that one okay thank you I would like to know because there is and I'm sure any of us who've been walking in the beach noticed these heaping mounds of sand um how did they get there was that when Beach Breakers were out there doing their debris and they just kind of pushed it over there I doubt the hurricane meatly stacked mounds of sand on our beach so and what what are we doing what are the steps that we're going to take to address that and and how are we going to manage it and how are we involving D or the beach stewardship committee on you know how how we're going to bring back the beach and what are we doing with these mounds of sand on on the beach because we know um vegetation will start growing there right so you know what point does it officially become a dune okay so just so certain we'll talk about that tomorrow in our in our staff meeting and and properly staff that response for next meeting thank you thank you okay um one last item um for whatever it's worth about a 100 of our residents received code violation notices this past week um first of all you have my sincer apology for that um those probably should not have gone out now that said our staff followed the code verbatim black and white um but I think the commission would agree that in this time where we are at today we need to maybe use a little bit more leniency there's no need to use more discretion right and so we've had a conversation with the city manager and if you wouldn't mind just uh updating us on what the resolution was from um what we're going to be doing going forward so these were residents who still had piles of debris you know from their homes or or other things that would normally be a code violation you know they may not be in their homes at this time they may not be around to remot the law all the time whatever it is that shouldn't have happened so for me personally you have my apology for that and we're going to work on rectifying that situation right away the last thing anybody wants at this point is to receive a code violation letter and a scare about fines and the magistrate and whatever else so uh we're going to address that right away thank you mayor and my apologies as well staff is very efficient in the code enforcement area and so um in the what has happened is as the mayor mentioned about 100 people have received notices if you received a notice um if you need assistant assistance with a remedy or you need more time if you would just let the code enforcement team no we are not doing any action to special magistrate between now and April 1st they have been told to not proceed through the process and work with the residents to try to help remedy the situation as well as between now and April 1 no one will receive any notices of violation if you receive something it will be a courtesy notice letting you know that um you may uh be out of code right now but we are giving you extra time to remedy it and we're giving you resources in that letter on how to do so and so um again apologies uh we we got a little bit ahead of ourselves and um please don't stress out about your letter we are here to work with you and they're going to do their best to help you um get get everything cleaned up so thank you thank you city manager so for those of you who received a letter if you need any help with addressing that situation please reach out to code enforcement reach out to me or reach out to your commissioner for your District thank you for that thank you all right next we have audience comments for those of you who are not used to our audience comments process uh it works as follows um if you have a general audience comment not pertaining to any specific item that is on the agenda this evening uh you can fill out a yellow card they are in the back and then you can present those to the city clerk if you also want to speak on a specific topic you can also do that by filling out the yellow card and indicating on the card which topic you'd like to speak on everybody gets three minutes to speak on whether a general comment or a topic of your choice you will have three minutes uninterrupted which means we're going to be asking the audience to allow the speaker the courtesy of speaking interrupted so no clapping no booing no cheering no laughing just in general if you'll please you know give them the respect and the opportunity to speak for three minutes uninterrupted um also this is generally not a question and answer session um what I'm going to ask you if you have specific questions uh about anything in particular the best way to do that and the best way to address that is send me an email send your commissioner an email you know give us a call all of our phone numbers and Emil email addresses are on the city website um if you do have any specific questions and we will address those for you or we will you know connect with the appropriate City staff to answer those questions for you so with that city clerk do we have any general audience comments yes sir Lesly close if you will please state your name and address for the record Leslie close 5555 Golf Boulevard I am the association president and I'm here representing 27 owners um who are trying to get back into their condos after suffering damage from either Helen or Milton um we are working with a general contractor who is white boxing these units as per our Condor docks uh the sa our our permit was originally sent on January 9th um on January 21st our first response was that we need to have separate permits for each of those units on January 23rd we as a a general contractor's offic is entering the permits into the system online we get a call saying you don't need individual permits for those 27 units you only need one so I just need a clear is there a clear and consistent direction for multi-unit commercial properties when applying for the white box permits if you'll please send me or the city manager an email and we'll address that for with you within 24 hours thank you thank you Carolina or Carolina lead if you please state your name and address for the record hi there I'm Carolina lead I own my home at 6350 third Palm Point my husband and I also own a contracting company called Trinity carpentry our two elementary school children go to St John's viani which as you know is not reopening so I say all that to say that we are very invested in this community I'm here to talk to you today about the inspection process in particular Eddie one of the inspectors Friday my electrical rough was passed by Joanne Boland and Luke Curtis Joanne then told me go ahead and submit for your drywall inspection Friday afternoon was able to put it in scheduled it for Monday Eddie arrived midday Monday and that night I found that he failed Our rough electrical inspection keep in mind he was there for the drywall inspection of course it didn't make any sense to me as it went on we had submitted an Engineers report showing that the lentil and the rough electrical were passed state law requires municipalities to accept this document which Joanne and Luke did so some reason this man believes that is above the law so I returned to the building department the next day which was this morning again spending two hours which is fun fortunately Joanne Jennifer leadford Patrick Hawke and another woman who I didn't catch her name were all reasonable they even looked at me and said this makes absolutely no no sense and it's happened three times with this man so I pointed out that why would this inspector believe that he supersedes Joanne and Luke they are his superiors they passed it so you know I never called for a second rough electrical which is what Patrick said originally he said did you I said no doesn't make sense so we realized that Eddie took it upon himself to submit a new rough electrical and fail it is he doing this to get more reinspection fees is it a financial reason I don't know I'm constantly in the building department I do not envy their jobs especially after a disaster like this I'm always friend ly and respectful I actually enjoy chatting with everyone there Joanne is lovely to deal with Jennifer is amazing pretty much everyone I've dealt with is great in my experience I don't want to speak for the residents and as crazy as it sounds yeah spending two hours there is not that bad I get a chance to do some work I get to meet my neighbors and I get to talk with other contractors Jimmy as an inspector also phenomenal and reasonable if he says do this we do it no problems I've been a journalist for 25 years I'm on Hiatus right now so I've kind of converted what I'm doing for a living helping my husband with his business which is incredibly busy right now and of course repairing our home I've reached out to several other contractors who tell me the same thing they say that they've had the same issues with Eddie some are even astonished by his lack of basic knowledge he hurts our relationship with our clients who say wait you failed It's upsetting so we're all trying to rebuild we cannot have inspectors like Eddie he needs to be removed he is eating up valuable time on nonsense and making it harder for everyone here to get back in their homes thank you thank you for that and again if you wouldn't mind sending me in a city manager an email with some detail specifics we would certainly want to look into that situation because no one should have to go through that thank you Deborah shner mayor can I make a comment on that sure um and just just because and this is for a city manager and for staff not not about the individual I haven't heard the name um but I have had other residents call me with similar um complaints that we had someone show up to our house for an inspection but they came for the wrong thing so I don't know if the other Commissioners have received something similar but I know in my district I've had a couple of people kind of mention the same thing thank you good evening Deek no basa Isle Drive in St P Beach I think this is a good time to show Grace to our neighbors and to our friends some are lonely because they're stuck in their house or they're stuck in some condo or room or hotel room somewhere send them an email send them a text give them a call contact right now is so important um and I just heard from somebody the other day who told me she's very depressed and she's going to seek help because of this situation and you know pstd PTSD is rampant so I say show grates call them up maybe you can meet for lunch somewhere just something so that people are not isolated in their pain of dealing with all of this mess and let's remember our snowbirds I don't think they're down so when they come down to look at their homes um if it's a second home it doesn't get covered by FEMA but if it's their main residence it would it will so we can also I think expect a large group of people coming back to their homes for the first time or possibly the second time and so we we really really need to know how to deal with those situations we're g to be busy busy busy and again show Grace call your friends call your neighbors check in on people thank you thank you John kersman you please state your name and address for the record thank you John kurman beond the way um yeah first just to Echo what uh the last speaker just mentioned I mean I wouldn't just call it post-traumatic stress I mean some people just have stress right now and we all have to recognize that and uh you know I appreciate what was just said about for instance the letters I was one of the people that received one of those letters and you know I I'm expected to have a new roof and windows Within by by February I don't even think I can get it by April I mean I'll try I've been trying I I actually Tred to give other people time just to get things done and I I I didn't want to push now I am trying to push because I want to get things done before hurricane season but um you know we all we all just um you know have to work together and and we're all trying to do what we have to do um but the real reason I came up here was last week I attended a session in Treasure Island and not as a beach Steward but as an individual and it was about the erosion control line because they're they're working to do their their Beach nourishment project and they've been having a hold up as we have but the uh Army Core was there and they did a special session uh to convince people to sign up and in the 30-day comment period um to get an erosion control line and to finally get theirs nourishment taken care of so we're still only the we're the ones that are still the holdup where we may miss out on that project uh to get the erosion control line done if we don't you know get the one hold out area and the the only weird thing that that occurred was there they're putting their erosion control line on the um landward side of what's been the public boardwalk and I actually mentioned that I thought that was a bad idea because if people have been customarily using that board Boardwalk you're going to have a patchwork of then private homeowners saying well wait you know now I do want you to be the public on it and I don't want the public on it and the actually are considering maybe changing that because you know this is the problem we have too as a beach where you have customarily people using areas and I think we all have to be careful of you know taking those rights away in spots and I'll save that for the later session so I just wanted to mention that that's been going on and maybe we have to think about what we're going to do also for for public B access and and our our rosion control line because that project is coming thank you very much thank you sir thank you all right next we have consent items is there a motion to approve the consent agenda I wanted to bring one one thing up certainly um and it was just on items I know touched based on this before but it appears items G through o are all contracts and I don't believe any of them had a Force Major slash uh acts of God uh clause in it and I would like to make sure we get the template that procurement uses gets that updated and get that in there so we have the ability to reduce suspend or terminate I can address that a little bit um since December 19th we have included that force maure in all proposed new contracts what's on here today is an in a brand new contract they have some extensions some task orders um and there's some amendments and we are going to approach the uh companies that are doing the amendments to see if they will agree to add the force majour even though their contract is already signed and I wanted to read the force majour uh for you I pulled it up that I've worked out with procurement Force majour the city reserves the right to suspend modify or terminate this contract in the event of an act of God or act of man beyond the control of the parties including but not limited to Hurricane tropical storm tornado or other destructive weather event flooding pandemic plague War armed conflict domestic or foreign terrorism Riot labor condition state or federal governmental action or catastrophic internet disturbance making performance inadvisable economically impractical illegal or impossible we've tried to capture everything that we could think of great thank you thank you commissioner Robinson is there a motion to approve the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda as amended I second city clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Robinson yes commissioner res Nikki yes vice mayor molland yes commissioner Marriott yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you next we have action item first one is 6a formerly 5D acceptance of entities and stakeholders for the comprehensive plan amendments Community engagement commissioner Marriott yes thank thank you I I my my questions were just um a a couple of questions about uh the stakeholder selection um a little bit more clarification on on who those people are and if people who aren't listed as stakeholders can still be involved for starts for starters yeah thank you mayor if you if I if you'd like we in anticipation of this item being pulled we have a brief presentation and overview certainly okay thank you go ahead good evening mayor Commissioners Gil Martinez Community Development um primarily the reason we're here today is to get your blessing to move forward on the comprehensive plan amendments for the Town Center districts and the large resort districts this process does require that we do some extensive community engagement and with that said I'll give you a little background history to refresh all of our memories back in 2023 the city commission directed staff to look into assessing and amending the large resort and Town Center districts in October 2024 Calvin jordano was um selected as our consultant to lead us in this process and then their scope of services and their timeline was approved in September of 2024 as it currently sits and it's projected most of the Community engagement process will take place in the spring of 2025 so that's coming up Upon Us quickly um the intent here is to be as inclusive and and and bring everyone we can into the discussion as we move forward in this process stakeholders including residents neighborhood and Civic associations businesses and environmental groups as well as um planning advocacy groups that have been identified will be engaged um primarily for Property Owners Citywide and business owners they will be getting notification by way of website social media signage whatever means the Calvin Jano finds appropriate to get the information out but we've also identified some groups in the community that are pertinent to the districts themselves such as the Bahia Shore and B Vista Brightwater and Leo Beach um neighborhood associations there's the commercial associations such as corab Business Association Tampa Bay chamber of Commerce there's some environmental groups due to the nature that it's a Coastal Community and some of the town center and large resort of bust the ocean we have Turtle trackers seabird sanctuary and Tampa Whit Bay Watch from a Planning aders Group perspective um it's my understanding that s protect s beach has been active in the community since 2004 in advocating for planning policies so we thought it'd be appropriate to invite them to the process to the table as well as board members from our different boards including our planning board historic preservation board and Beach stewardship committees with that said um that is the concept behind selecting these entities of stakeholders this is something that you can amend at your discretion as well or add to um to get more understanding of what the process looks like we have C jordano here right now leis Cerna is here so if you want to address any questions as to what this process looks like what they're going to implement he would be the best person to answer those questions with that um if you have any questions of me I'll be glad to answer them as well so if we can go back to commissioner Marriott's question right so the way that this is outlined right now is specifically we're going to send mailers out to anyone that lives within 300 ft of the affected area which is roughly most of District 2 and District 3 correct correct okay now that's just where we notify people but as far as Community input it is open to the entire city yes right so we're not absolutely we're not limiting community outreach just to these groups or these individuals or these residents in these neighborhoods or the businesses in this area but rather we're inviting input from everybody in the city because everybody that is a resident or business owner in in the city should have input on what the comprehensive plan plan looks like um that is correct okay does that answer your question it does I have one one quick other other question which is that and and I I don't anticipate this being a problem um it's not generally a problem we have here in St P Beach but with the hurricanes and so many people being displaced if if we have any of these um these stakeholder uh meetings or opportunities for people to weigh in is there some uh base level of participation below you would consider it not AC you know like if you you know and and then and then is there a plan for remedying that I I would defer to Lewis on that he's a person to address that oh yeah good evening uh Louis CNA Calvin gordano and Associates yeah it's um definit definitely we're going to make it a concerted effort to get as many people to these as possible um you know once you do all you can you always re-evaluate after your first meeting if there was not the type of uh participation you'd anticipated uh oftentimes it's a matter of at that point maybe adjusting the date and the time of the meeting but we're open to those things we don't have a threshold number we'll work with uh closely with City staff the stakeholder group public information officer to sort of gauge that uh level of success at the beginning okay thank you MH commissioner R Niki yeah I do have questions about how how stakeholders are um determined I mean it it says within 300 free but where where is that from is that written some document in our city that when we do a review of a comprehensive plan it has to be within 300 just because it's the large resort District I mean I'm I'm kind of confused because why not like the mayor said if it's open for all the residents in St Pete Beach then why isn't it just open for all residents in St Pete Beach well it is open all residents of St Pete Beach I think the uh the difference here is there's going to be mailed notification to the people in the in the T the districts that we're targeting for this study so yeah but it is open to everyone okay that and it's just I mean it's confusing to me I mean I know I sit here so I get to hear when the next meeting is and so forth but you again everybody goes up and down Gul Boulevard so you know I just wish I mean I'm not saying mail the whole city I didn't know there was going to be a mailer so there's an expense that we're adding you know to do this but um you know or I see protect St Pete Beach planning advocacy group but I didn't even know that what is a planning advocacy group and is there other ones because do other people know you know how do I become one like why you know was that open to the public how was that determined um yeah I'll I'll defer to Mr marz on that I know there was a lot of discussion at the planning board level about the stakeholder group uh but we had just asked that a group of people who were identified as stakehold holders be provided yes commissioner on a staff level we found that these groups were pertinent to the discussion um just our our our working knowledge of of who these groups are and and what they bring to the discussion that was our intent in bringing them up and and I ask because there's so many people are involved you know I was in a president of an association um that is not within those 300 feet but very involved you know so I was like okay so how did you know were they reached out to you know where because can we consider them a Planning Group you know that I I feel like we picked people already but I don't know how it was advertised or whether other people okay it has not been advertised as of yet this is completely brought up to for your blessings at this Point okay so just to reiterate when we get ready to notice this we're going to be sending out mailers within 300 ft of the designated area that is specifically under review that is what has been planned so far yes roughly how many homes or is that I don't have a a grasp on that okay the other option is to mail it out to 8,900 individuals which would cost over $110,000 versus doing it this way the other thing is are we going to be noticing this on Facebook next door social media the city website the city newsletter the nine different avenues that we currently have of noticing yes I was going to say that that's in addition to the stakeholder group we will do targeted uh you know high-tech uh social media type advertising as well as uh old school flyers and uh boots on the ground if there's any other groups or organizations that you feel should be noticed as well we can reach out to them so even though they not be included in with the stakeholder group they are definitely invited to participate thank you and and if past experiences you know is is any indicator the second the letter gets received by residents it's all next door so the whole city knows about it um the other question and or suggestion that I have is because of the current situation with so many of our homeowners absent and not able to live in their homes um have you considered doing at least one event virtually so for example do a CommunityWide Zoom meeting uh so that people that aren't currently here are able to attend whether they're displaced from their homes whether they're snowbirds whether they're happen to be on vacation or having at least one event where we can where we can host it virtually I think that's a very good suggestion we had not uh called that out specifically but I think we could perhaps incorporate it into a hybrid in-person and zoom meeting so so yeah I think that's that's a great idea I think based on again past experience the hybrid model doesn't work very well yeah I could I could I could just because of the way that it's set up you know you can't see everything and I think having just one event specifically virtually you know where maybe we don't open up the whole event for but where people can type in their questions or we can do polls on whether it's a zoom event or something else but having at least one one event that is dedicated virtually that that everyone in the city can I think that would be especially in the current situation yes I I I agree I think we can do that that without a problem I think that would be a good suggestion I mean we're you know to the commissioner's point we want to hear from as many residents as possible from as many business ones from as many people that actually have an impact uh from this and you know who who want to be involved May them just simply not in a position you know to be here not notwithstanding the full house that we have tonight um you know we do want to make sure that we hear from as many people because this is the first time we've done a massive review like this in over 10 years and so this is going to have lasting impact for the community for years to come and so we want to make sure that we hear from as many residents as possible of what you want the commission you know to tell us what you want the future of the city to look like you know we want to hear from as many people as possible yeah and I agree and any other suggestions you may have uh following this meeting that you could reach out to us through staff thank you I I still had another commissioner Riki and and this is a legal question if and and I'll just put out it just came to my my mind um and I hate to say it but we have an open lawsuit with with one of the advoc with the advocacy group and since this has to do with a comprehensive plan is there any is that okay okay let me answer the other earlier question you had also about the 300 ft so 300 ft is normally required for public notice except our city has five 00 fet for comprehensive future land use changes so want to make this the same 500 feet for this one instead of 300 because that's who will be coming to the actual transmitt and adoption hearings when we get further on down the road and we don't want people to say they weren't given notice of the preliminary charettes um the second one is no that's okay they can attend and participate um and they're not prohibited from speaking simply because they've challenged some other projects in the city so there's a few other condominiums that are affected that are in this different associations right seark for example you know there's a lot of them there's um Silver Sands Envoy there is so are we I mean are we just specifically highlighting these neighborhood associations or are we I mean they're going to get noticed anyway because they're within 300 ft um I think the only ones that might be you know Bright Water half the street might receive it half might not half might not be within 500 F feet that's why maybe the whole association will get noticed but is that something that you're going to look at or you're you're talking about additional condo associations that could be noticed or part of the stakeholder group yeah I mean most likely all of them will get noticed because they are most will fall within 500 ft except for maybe the envoy they're yeah yeah and if they're not within the 500 feet I think we could do uh at least Outreach to the associations okay yeah so I like um what's the one right here the svette that's maybe 500 ft maybe not and they have 350 400 units so that's okay any further questions thank you gentlemen thank you is there a motion to approve item 6A uh I move to approve item 6A uh acceptance of entities and stakeholders for comprehensive plan amendments Community engagement I second city clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner is niiki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries thank you all right next we have item 6B and 6 C I will take these together because they are both pertain to the same issue formally items five I and N in both of these instances we are dealing with a consultant kimley horn and Associates excuse me mayor I think you meant L did you mean l or i l l okay thank you L lnn um so I'm going to ask for the first one so here's why I pulled them so we've had this conversation about kimly horn multiple times in the last year and a half um this consultant is working both for the city in some instances and then in many other instances is representing um other entities in the city whether they are developers whether they are um you know planning board like Ford pelis um or any any other um any other entity that may or may not necessarily have um there may be conflicts in many of the situations um for example we had kimley horn do the uh reevaluation and and Reconciliation of our comprehensive plan and then the next month they are here representing a developer helping them navigate our comprehensive plan and I pointed this out many many times that there is a clear conflict of interest having an engineering firm a consulting firm give you advice on one hand and then give somebody else advice that may contradict the advice they gave you earlier or in some instances for example for item for item 5n so this is a renewal for a contract that pertains to the sewer system so they helped design the sewer system then they came and testified in multiple situation that our sewer system is functioned perfect perfectly fine within the parameters of their designs and yet now we found out in December 10th that our sewer system is a complete disaster and based on their testimony we approved multiple developments right so they told everything is fine and then you all voted for it because of their testimony I voted against it because what we were told at the time it didn't sit right it didn't smell right it didn't look right and now we found out December 10th that it wasn't right because our sewer system is in a catastrophic state of failure one of the other items on the consent agenda here was spending more money on Pump Station one which was supposed to be fixed years ago which isn't fixed which we're now getting in the we finally have you know a competent city manager and you know competent City staff that can address the issue but what we found after the storms was that our system will require somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to $35 million over the next 5 to 10 years to put that in perspective that is roughly half of our annual City budget that we somehow have to find in the next 5 years and it's this engineering firm that told us everything's great everything's amazing you have all the capacity in the world you can handle and so now I ask what are we doing here why are we keep extending their contracts why do we keep letting these people work in the city if you look at there's a public records request you can pull up to see how much money has been spent on this one particular consulting firm and the number will shock you over the last three to five years we're not talking tens we're not talking hundreds we are talking millions of dollars to one firm who is responsible for testifying under oath in quaza judicial meetings about the state of our sewer system and yet here we are looking to extend another contract for them now here's the quantity that we have and they've been working in our sewer system for 10 plus years right they know everything about it and in fact I've Been Told told by the previous Public Works director that we can't get rid of them because we're stuck with their software they have all the data they have all the historical and so we actually can't even get rid of them if we wanted to basically have us handcuffed right we can't find somebody else because they have all the data we're told hey you can export all the data you want but we going to keep all the information right all the historical stuff and so what I would like to see from from the city staff is I would like to see a plan an exit strategy on how to unshackle ourselves from a consultant who works for us and against us in the same breath this is not doing our residents in our city any service if they had been truthful and accurate about the state of our sewer system when we had the votes last May April March January and December of last year and the year before we would be sitting here with a 25 to $35 million bill and so you all were here two of you were here for those meetings and I brought this up then and I was shot down then I'm not here to tell you I told you so but it's time for us to take action and not put up with this nonsense any longer it's uncons that we have to do this I would fire them today if I could but we're we've got our hands shacked together by them and so I'd like to see a way for us to exit our relationship with this firm who does not seem to have our best interest at heart who does not care about having a conflict of interest with our residents and with our city they do not have our best interest in mind their actions have spoken louder than the words that they've spoke here at the pulpit so I would like for the commissioners to join me in requesting from the city staff that we find a way for us to remove ourselves from this relationship I'll join you on that one commissioner Mohan absolutely commissioner Maria so I think in the staff report it says that they were asking for a one-ear extension while they figure out a way to find somebody else to do this so I think I think I think staff has already embarking on what you're asking for and I think it would be highly irresponsible to cancel a contract now with no with no plan in place right and so uh regardless of whether you lay the blame at the feet of the consultant or a previous Public Works director or prior staff or or or wherever you want to put it the the issue here is that it's a one-year contract extension because it's needed to keep the city functioning and there is a plan in place according to the staff report to find replacement contractors and so I I think that that I have no problem supporting these motions for these contract extensions because there has already been a clearly stated plan to put out a request for proposals to find other contractors as I stated begrudgingly I agree with you that we do need to extend this today because they have us handcuffed and we could not exit this relationship today if we wanted to but I just want to make sure that we have the agreement from all the Commissioners that this is a relationship that needs to be severed permanently we divorce ourselves from this relationship so that we can move on with somebody who actually does have our best interest in mind based on the amount of money that we spend with them if in my business somebody gave me that much money I would be ashamed to take it based on their actions city manager do you have enough Direction yes thank you I move to approve agenda item 2B approve task order with kimley horn Associates forbid support services for the Gulf Boulevard phase two utility undergrounding project second city clerk if you please do a roll call vice mayor mahand uh sure yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson no commissioner is niiki yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries 4 to one next we have item 6 C I make a motion to approve the amended uh the amendment to the continuing contract for press professional Design Services with Kinley horn associate for an additional one-year renewal second M Mallen I apologize did I overlook you last time I turned the green light on I thought I was going to be able to comment but I apologize would you like an opportunity to comment yeah I guess because we've got another motion for the same company uh we had a discussion uh for those who don't know I've only been here about five months I've been paying attention a lot longer than that uh once upon a time we were using two companies uh and the name of escapes me I I know they're the ones who designed the in fact commissioner Marriot may recall the uh the Medal of Honor uh Park in your District I believe uh and they actually even gave us a discount because it was a veteran based thing and that the name of that company escapes me and I seem to recall whatever the discussion was I had asked why we had moved totally away from that company and fully on board with Kimberly horn I'm not sure we really ever got that totally answered but apparently there is a company that we were recently using that was providing good service and actually seemed to uh uh look out for the city uh and gave us discounts when they didn't need to and some of those things so uh I know we'll have to do an RFP and obviously we can't throw these people over the side right now because we are handcuffed uh they have us over the barrel and uh I know that uh ticks all of us off that uh uh care about these things so uh we do have options uh and we do need to unwind uh that company based on what I've seen how they've treated us compared to how the other company treated us so anyway that's all I wanted to say Mr Mayor I was trying to support you but I'm still trying trying to get caught up on the red light green lights up here so same here um thank you commissioner city clerk if you're please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson this is for n right no commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries 4 to one thank you next we have ordinances first one is 7A first reading of ordinance 2025 d04 city clerk yes mayor Commissioners I'm going to read the titles again to both 7A and 7B as it is one presentation and again you will need to make separate motions one for ordinance 20254 and then one for 20252 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida for the purpose of adopting new code sections 22- 285 through 22- 289 providing for alternative code enforcement through a code enforcement citation procedure providing for codification conflicts severability correction of scriveners error construction publication and an effective date ordinance 20252 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida for the purpose of adopting a beach ordinance amending the Land Development code division 25 Coastal protection and conservation section 25 9 permit required renumbering section 25.10 permitting procedures renumbering section 25.1 variances amending division 44 marine turtle protection section 44.3 prohibition of activities disrupted to Marine Turtles renumbering section 44.4 through Section 44.9 amending the code of ordinances chapter 6 alcoholic beverages article Article 1 in general section 6-5 consumption or possession of alcoholic beverages chapter 14 animals article one in general section 14-2 feeding wild birds in public areas article two dogs section 4 14-35 prohibited on sand beaches renumbering section 14-36 regulations for dogs in approved outdoor seating areas amending Chapter 58 Parks and Recreation article 1 Recreation section 58-1 definitions Article 2 city parks and Facilities section 58-22 vending and city parks renumbering section 58-24 camping renumbering section 58- 25 domestic animals amending section 58-26 prohibited activities in city parks ruming sections 5827 through 5831 adopting section 5831 sleep in during nighttime prohibited amending chapter 62 pedlers and solicitors Article 2 commercial solicitations division 2 permit section 62-59 application qualification contents renumbering section 62-60 through 62-65 amending division 3 regulations Section 62- 93 specific restrictions on solicitation on Sand Beach areas renumbering section 62- 94 permitted hours for solicitation reing 62- 95 through 62-12 0 reserved amending chapter 94 waterways article 3 beaches Division 1 generally section 94-66 definitions section 94-67 penalties section 94-68 chairs tables umbrellas section 994-6937 sleeping during nighttime prohibited section 9471 Tiki Huts section 94-72 temporary structures section 9473 vehicle permits sections 94-74 through 94-79 reserved division 2 Beach maintenance regulations Section 94-101 requirements section 94-102 prohibitions section 94-103 exemptions section 94-104 through 9 4-13 reserved creating new chapter 95 beaches section 95-1 intent and purpose section 95-2 definitions section 995-3436 Tiki Huts section 95-79 5-8 vehicle permits section 95- 9 Beach maintenance regulations Section 95-1 Zer prohibitions on Sand Beach section section 95-111 animals prohibited on sand beaches section 95- one2 distribution of hand bills and other advertising section 95-113 fishing on the beach section 95-1 for feeding wild birds and seabirds Section 95-1 5 fireworks section 95 95-1 6 micromobility section 9517 vending on public beaches section 9518 solicitation section 95- one9 prohibition of activities disruptive to Marine Turtles section 95-2 permit required section 995-2101 severability correction of scrier error construction publication and an effective date thank you city clerk pull the PowerPoint good evening Brandon Barry planner so we have two ordinances as we're just read that are being presented to you in one presentation they are linked together and we are asking for action on both tonight for first reading so to give some background these ordinances reflect a three-year process to clean up consolidate and introduce new regul ations to protect the city's beaches three separate ordinances are proposed to fulfill this purpose two of them are before you tonight the first is ordinance 20254 related to code enforcement citations uh you have not seen this ordinance previously ordinance 20252 is the beach ordinance as summarized you have seen content as recently as last June I believe was the prior Workshop um there have been some some minor modifications from staff based on the content of that or uh that meeting which we'll discuss tonight um there is an as of now unnumbered ordinance for marine turtle lighting um this might be either an adoption or an adjustment of the state model ordinance um this is something that we will need to discuss the staff something that I believe was discussed at the workshop back in June that will travel separately from the other two ordinances that are being reviewed tonight but that is something staff will be meeting on and potentially bringing forward in the future so here's some the ordinance highlights so looking at ordinance 20254 just one one slide a fairly straightforward ordinance this permits citations with a fine after warning as an alternative to issuing notice of violation and hearing for Behavioral and conduct violations those include violations related to uh the beaches any kind of Dune disturbance fishing causing endangerment and so on other violations that are cified in the code that is proposed uh noise violations violations related to animals open containers and so on other items that are listed explicitly in this ordinance this would allow for after warning a fine of up to $100 for first violation and $200 for the second violation I should say that there are certain situations in which a warning does not need to be given when they're especially temporal or or um damaging uh violations of the city's code um but in a typical process there would be a warning um followed by a fine if there were to be an appeal of that citation it would be to the special Magistrate under the typical process that's filed for notice violation in hearing moving on to may I speak so we've we've to clarify one thing that sure just remember we put the staff on the clock as well okay well I didn't know that either so um so Mr Barry uh real quickly uh in the Agenda Report uh speaking of the uh um penalties uh it was mentioned that the officer this was the original staff report to First Warn and then issue code VI violation citations for $100 and uh second is $200 which essentially is what you've just restated here but it was my understanding that that was being Rewritten where um the the verbiage would be they may first warn in other words they don't have to first warn they can either warn or they can find uh when there's a violation um has that somehow not happened I was was my understanding that that was going to happen before tonight's meeting if that's the will of the majority of the commission will put that in there okay that I okay I should say that section 22287 C does list out exceptions where that warning doesn't need to be given as I mentioned violations that are of an iterant or transient nature um if there's a repeat violation anything that is an immediate threat to the health safety welfare those would not require a warning based on the current draft but is what is requested of Staff potentially to just remove the warning altogether allow for any any violation to be fined $100 I think what you're saying is you want prosecutorial discretion where you don't have to give a warning if someone's being that's correct and I was it was my understanding that had already been vetted but we'll come back to this um whenever we have some time hopefully we have all the time moving on to ordinance 20252 which will be the rest of the presentation this is the beach ordinance there's two major overarching purposes the first is to consolidate existing provisions and restrictions from the Land Development code and the code of ordinances into one chapter for readability we have two sections of the Land Development code as of now that are being moved into the code of ordinances they're in different uh divisions of our code in the code of ordinances there are multiple sections and different chapters um there are different restrictions and Provisions for the beach um throughout various parts of the code of ordinances we're moving them into one chapter chapter 95 uh the second is to introduce new provisions and restrictions related to use function and development of the city's beaches so I have a few slides talking about changes that have been made after the June 2024 Workshop this slide deals specifically with what staff has interpreted to be the guidance that we received at that Workshop first item is that we have differentiated between commercial cabana rental areas and transient lodging alcohol service areas those are the new terms transient lodging alcohol service area is replacing what is currently called the Cabana service area it's again just a name change um to to differentiate between setbacks for commercial candet areas that may or may not have alcohol service within them and the transient lodging alcohol service areas which is being moved over into this beach ordinance and um include some additional provisions and restrictions but that's that's a renaming of the caban service area staff has suggested side and dune setbacks of 15 ft to allow for travel um between Cabana service commercial cabana rental areas for commercial Cabana placement with alcohol service area set back back tied to sit back so the companions will talk about that briefly in a moment and limiting open flames on the public beach except for annual permits or where specifically approved through temporary permitting this is actually a more permissive standard than staff has interpreted recently under policy we have only been issuing on the public beach um permits for open Flames under annual permits this would provide some additional discretion for either the city commission or or staff looking at the changes that we felt were supportive of the ones on the previous slide staff has modified the following um we have suggested nightly storage location for Cabanas and I'll talk about this more in a moment as well um they would need to be located outside required landscaping and parking areas and landward of Dunes if an operator is located on a beach where there may be a grassy area that isn't part of a required parking area or a required landscaping area if the Upland development has additional parking that isn't met mandatory to support their development it could be stored in those locations that's something we would deal with through a permitting process it also needs to be located out of the RightWay uh not visible from the RightWay rather um it specifies application requirements for commercial cabana rental area permitting uh staff would be looking for a recent survey um that depicts certain elements that we would need to evaluate the placement of these Cabanas it implements and modifies penalties for commercial cabana rental and alcohol service areas there are three um series to the violations the first would remain the same with our current ordinance the first violation would result in a written warning under our current ordinance uh the second violation also results in a written warning with the stipulation that it will be revoked if there is a third violation within six months under this uh modified Beach ordinance a second violation would result in an immediate 6-month suspension if it's issued within one year of the first written warning for any violation of the restrictions on these areas a third violation under the current um alcohol service area restrictions would result in revocation of the permit for one year plus 6 months for each subsequent violation under the proposed ordinance there would be a one-year revocation if issued within two years so we are giving a time frame for that date um following the first written warning plus one year instead of 6 months for any subsequent violation finally uh these are the changes that are before you um I believe they are still in in a highlighted format these are additional changes that have been made by the city attorney's office following the agenda publication clarification of intent pertaining to beach shower use commercial cabanon alcohol areas service animal exceptions and animal prohibitions additional permission for fire pits associated with non-annual events that was addressed with you just a moment ago requiring UPL properties closed blinds only when non-compliant with the marine turtle lighting standards so those properties that use Amber lights when they have a appropriate Lighting on the Upland use um when they have the film on the windows or other meth methods that don't require human intervention um they would be exempt from this but for other properties that are non-compliant with the marine turtle lighting standards there would be an expectation that they close blinds on a nightly basis during Turtle season prohibiting a styrofoam on the public and private beach that was another change so these are changes that were in the code when it was brought forward you for evaluation in June of last year at the workshop I just wanted to summarize these changes for the two Commissioners who were not present at those meetings so the definition for temporary structure includes chairs umbrellas tables Cabanas tents other structures that are intended to be temporary it exempts structures like Tiki Huts that are allowed as more permanent installations on the beach the current requirement is that they must be removed or relocated from reported Turtle nesting areas at the discretion of the city and that is during marine turtle nesting season the proposed requirement um as I understand it based on the language that was drafted for the code is that temporary structures must be removed nightly year round and may only be placed well in use when cited each piece of equipment is considered a separate violation now I did want to state that the June Workshop did include three different sections of the proposed Beach ordinance that related to Nightly removal of equipment two of the sections did reiterate what I just stated one of the sections that that was actually specific to marine turtle season uh did provide staff some discretion based on the the discussion As I understood it what is on the screen is what was proposed to be moved forward so I just I just wanted to mention that we have made all three sections consistent with what you see on the screen uh looking at beach Vehicles micr Mobility new regulations again this these are not newly um introduced since the workshop I'm just summarizing the content that was presented at that work shop related to micr Mobility prohibits micr Mobility devices on the beach that is an existing regulation except those required for individuals with a disability uh looking at bikes non-electric bikes may be approved for use on the beach with issuance of a vehicle on the beach permit for any vehicle that's covered under a vehicle under the beach ordinance um those vehicles that are used for uh traversing the beaches bringing out equipment um grading and so on um they must be approved for operation um and they must be electric by January of next year looking at regulations related to behavior and conduct fishing um fishing on the public beaches is prohibited when it endangers bathers and swimmers any kind of taking harassment trap trapping and so on other um harassment listed in the code of endangered or threatened Shorebirds or seabirds such as black skimmer Snowy Plover is prohibited smoking is prohibited except for unfiltered cigars um that is the wall we face with the state preemption this was enabled by the state a number of years ago uh we are permitted to prohibit smoking on the beach however INF filter cigars is a state preemption and that that is in the code um due to that preemption related to fireworks display of fireworks is prohibited unless approved by the city through a permit looking at what is now named the transient lodging alcohol service areas previously the Cabana service areas again change to the naming just name change to avoid confusion um again going back to these styrofoam products being prohibited Beach wide registered guests and patrons only may be served within the service area uh setbacks this is where we are seeking direction of the commission again as drafted um the regulations would provide for a 15 foot setback from the waterw toe of the frontal Dune and a 15t setback from the side property lines of the property um per the June 202 for City commission Workshop uh we did prepare aerial maps now these are based on static linear footage um which I'll show in just a moment um it could be based on fixed distances those are the maps that staff prepared it could be based on a percentage of the property width we did not prepare any maps showing what impact that would provide um we did provide for fixed distances as we were requested just to remind you of our existing setbacks the wetsand setback is 50 ft that is for any property with a cabana service area a permit side setback is not required for most Resorts there is a 75t setback for those at a but residential property specifically outside the community residential district of current permit holders that applies to the Don CeSar it applies to the postcard in as well on the North side and there's currently no specified Dune or Coastal Construction Control line setback um there's of course Provisions in the code that require that all equipment be located outside of Dunes but there's no setback from the dunes or the Coastal Construction Control line so again as I mentioned um the Aerials that are provided in your packet staff provided setbacks based on the fixed numbers of 30 50 and 75 ft from the side lot lines dunes and me Mei water line these areals were uh prepared pre-storm um there have been modifications but this is this is what we have we just wanted to give a visual General impact of what these what these changes would provide for um and as is not a surprise at all um those properties that have more beach front um are impacted less by uh greater setbacks than those that are smaller and have smaller Beach fronts um you look at a large property like the trade wins a 75 foot setback relative to a 30 set 30 foot setback would be about a 50% distance is estimated by our GIS staff for a smaller property like the Hilton Garden in would be about an 85% reduction going from a 30 to a 75t setback and these are just a sample the the rest were included in the packet so there were items that were effectively brought in wholesale they are not significant modifications to the language that is currently in the code um that includes items that are related to activities disruptive to Marine Turtles Ticky or chicky Hut placement uh the city attorney's office did include an exemption from the building code for those chicky Huts that are regulated under or sorry exempt from the Florida building code uh most registration requirements related to vehicles on the beach have been brought into the code of ordinances uh chapter 95 untouched Beach maintenance regulations have been brought in as well prohibitions on non-service animals on the beach and any kind of soliciting on the beach those are brought in effectively unchanged and regulations for uh issuance of special event permits and operations of special events one item that is not before you tonight this is an unnumbered resolution um we would intend to bring this back to you with the second read of ordinance 20252 and this is to just adopt fees related to supporting staff time for reviewing processing Staffing these events where required and enforcing permits for any of the new permits that are required under the code um these include vehicle on the beach we do have an existing vehicle on the beach uh fee it would be updated based on an evaluation of these factors commercial caban rental areas as are not currently charged for um that would be a new permit fee again for the temporary lodging alcohol service area permits they exist no fee um we would be evaluating that to bring back as a fee uh anything related to fireworks bicycles and open Flames um as applicable would be subject to this resolution so we are requesting uh three separate actions from you tonight two related to the ordinances before you one related to direction for the city manager to draft and accompanying fee resolution pertaining to review processing Staffing and enforcement of beach permit related fees on second reading of ordinance 20252 so City attorney um I know that there were some additional changes proposed was there anything you would like to add to those yep the one that um vice mayor mahalan brought up and the code enforcement citation section 2287 section B would be to change shall to May in the first sentence the statute says shall but I think we can get by with May um the idea is if you are a code enforcement officer you're supposed to give reasonable time to come into compliance based on the circumstances unless again the exceptions apply there's a serious threat it's irreparable irreversible or itinerant or transient in nature then they can just go ahead and write the citation so that preserves the prosecutorial discretion depending on the actor the Violator how they're behaving whether they're Cooperative those are things that are within the jurisdiction of the sheriff's deputy and the code enforcement officer so we could live with May there and and 22 287b changing shall to May in the first sentence commissioner M so uh Mr City attorney you're looking for um blessing from the commission to make that change I assume I assume there'll be some other discussion tonight but when the motion gets made if we can include that change yeah and I'll keep track of them as we go along right and and from my perspective the way it's written now is kind of where we're at uh the sheriff's department enforces what they feel like enforcing uh based on generally the guidance that they get from the pelis county sheriff not necessarily our government and many or let's just say the majority of the violations that would be cited uh from my perspective anyway would typically be day Trippers and visitors where we would end up where we're at right now where all we do is issue warnings to people that are never going to be around or never observed by the same officer uh doing the same thing uh so you know what's the what would even be the point in doing this ordinance if we're just going to give a warning because that's what's already Happ uh I think it's important that if we're going to empower code enforcement uh to be able to enforce the things that impact the quality of life and lifestyle of the residents that they need to have the ability to use their discretion um on how they handle that situation because that's not how it's being done now now even though many of the issues that we we're going to be addressing as we move through the evening here um currently aren't codified in a way as we had previously discussed that there could be any enforcement action because there wasn't a connection uh but I think it's very important that if if code enforcement is going to help improve and sustain the lifestyle of the residents that that it's important that that they have that discretion uh that they not not have to give a warning because it's just a waste of time if that's all we're going to do because most of the violators are never going to be seen Again by that same officer so that's precisely the reason for citations too because these violators don't own the property and traditional code enforcement puts a notice of violation on the property owner and a lean on the property where the violation occurred where here it's a tourist or someone else that's walking across the area so they can can be cited for dog violations for open container violations by code enforcement and not have to rely on the sheriff's deputy thank you maybe what we can do is to take each one of these at one at a time so if we get consensus on this issue we can check it off and then move on to the next one Commissioners do we have questions comments consensus on this item um up I I I do have a question on the the um the the the code in ment penalty ordinance um and and I guess just some reassurance I mean you know just earlier in this meeting we heard that that the code enforcement department was perhaps being a little bit overly efficient and you know sent sent out notices to to a bunch of people that were maybe ill advised and so this ordinance to to me as someone who's who's not you know not a lawyer reads as though these code enforcement to find people um extend to kind of anything right anything that's any anybody anywhere in the city that's not a property based violation it's not specific to the beach correct that's correct and so I mean I guess I just want some reassurance from from the city manager that um that will be managed properly and not that you know I mean I'm I'm not I'm not even certain that I can come up with an example but if but if you have you know a resident standing in their front yard with a beer in their hand are they going to get a citation with no warning that wouldn't be a violation if they their own house all right but if they're on the sidewalk by their mailbox if they're at the public beach I guess they're drinking there they would they would get a ticket or they'd be asked to dump their beer out I think Pete can speak but what they used to do is go down the beach with the deputy sheriff and they'd have a ATV and they'd have a garbage ear recycled so this is intended yeah this is intended to be to to to control activity and behavior on the beach but the way the ordinance is written it seems to me that it it could be anywhere that's correct okay and it also allows signage so you could put on the signage no alcohol in the beach was a penalty 100 250 it could be added to the signage which is something that the city man code enforcement is not going to be enforcing alcohol against individuals without a police officer present okay so as the City attorney mentioned they used to be in teams and the code enforcement would try to clear Sheriff would come behind them this is back in the day when I think they were being successful the goal is to go back to that model but now the sheriff can just instantly give a citation they don't have to go to court they don't have to even the sheriff can issue that $100 citation on the spot so it's gives another element to the sheriff if they're willing to go beyond their policy of warning first okay it also gives them if I understanding correctly gives them two tools right so they can issue a citation and go the citation route or they can go the special magistrate route right so it's at there this so the citation gets issued if no one contests it they bring it here and they pay the clerk's office the if they say that wasn't me I need to contest this then it gets scheduled before the special magistrate special magistrate can assess a higher penalty and cost if they find the person to be guilty from the special magistrates order then notice of appeal is filed and it's a regular appeal briefing in the Circuit Court okay and will there be a a a method you know if if we're going to be be finding people who you know likely don't live here aren't residents of our city um is there going to be a a an Avenue for them to be able to pay those fines without driving back out here and you know if they get a ticket on a Saturday or they expected to show up out here next week in person at the clerk's office to pay the fine you don't have to do notice of appear um if you write the citation I'll have a have a place to mail um the uh amount to within 15 days it's on the sample citation and and the ordinance to the city clerk at our address at 155 Corey so they can drop a check in the mail we probably and I can talk to the city manager about trying to set up online payments with credit cards or PayPal or something yeah I think most of the people who are going to be cited for for drinking on the beach aren't going to have check check checks around any you know it's it's really interesting I had this question when I first came in about parking enforcement mhm shockingly the numbers somewhere around 95% of the people pay the parking tickets I would have expected to be around 50% so if we do have a especially an online method of of addressing citations I think that would go a long way and I I 100% agree with you which is why I brought it up earlier right our code enforcement you know they do have discretion right and but the situation earlier we talking about residents who've gone through you know incredibly difficult and challenging situation and the last thing we need to do is Heap on more hardship on them at this time what we're talking about here is a situation that has been neglected since this drinking ordinance was put into place six years ago right up until the ordinance was put in place just historically so that everybody else is in the same page we've historically had zero drinking on the beach in St P beach ever period and then the previous administration six years ago decided to allow drinking for tourists designated drinking area for tourist right so as residents you can't unless you go to the designated area but visitors can go and enjoy it all right and so now that created additional issues for us because now you have people that may have only hung out at certain hot spots that we all know on the beach where the activities keep going on now they're everywhere so now we've got the sheriff overloaded they don't necessarily want to be out there giving tickets for drinking all the time now it gives us an opportunity and it gives our court enforcement you know the tools necessary to address an issue that has been brought To Us by residents for six years since we passed these designated drinking areas ordinance and that gives us an opportunity and a tool to actually address it and to address the issues with the individuals that are doing it which we've not had those resources before and to commissioner moh's Point you're right giving somebody who's here for one weekend or for a couple days of you know a warning hey if nice by all means give them a warning right if they're polite and whatever but we should also reserve the right to be able to give them a citation and you know and this is a conversation I've had with sherff occasions because the sheriff doesn't they want to give and I appreciate the fact that he wants to give a warning I have benefited from his policy myself several times when I may have been pulled over and they're like look at my record like this guy hasn't had anything in 20 years let's let him go and I appreciate that at the same time we have individuals who are only here for a couple days maybe for a week and they never never come back right so giving them a warning their opinion was well why punish them because clearly they're not going to do it again anyway so let's just give them a warning and I my point was simply somehow the word has gotten out by the same people who only here infrequently or temporarily that we never give tickets for anything no citations no tickets so some the word got out and so you can go there any holiday weekend and we've got the pictures and I receive them from our residents every single holiday weekend on Monday morning I have videos emails I'm sure you all do as well and it's time that we put and so a lot of the ordinance that we're seeing tonight the beach ordinance you know having the ability to find the noise ordinance these are issues that our residents have been begging us to address for years and so it's time for us to do that and put some teeth to these ordinances do we have consensus on this item yes for me thank you City attorney that's one down for the code enforcement citation ordinance we want to take two two motions separately one for the first reading of ordinance 20254 to adopt a code enforcement citation procedure in the code of ordinances we can get a motion in a second to adopt that with the change I Rec recommended oh but we need to take public comment we haven't I'm not sure we finished with questions and comments from the Commissioners so okay um let's let's proceed with any other questions and comments on the first uh 7A and then we can take public comment on 7A Commissioners if you don't have anything else we'll take public comments on 7A please Deborah shner if you please state your name and address for the record um good evening Deborah Sea Isle and St b beach I want to bring in a couple of things when I had spoken to a police officer last year he indicated that unless somebody opened up a cooler and they saw the liquor they could not bring forth a citation they cannot ask somebody what they're drinking so I that might be you know in conflict or confusion for enacting this ordinance um when you talked about structures are we including residents or visitors who put up you know a little tent for the day for shade and or an umbrella because I would object to the fact that we should be able to do that because SPF skin cancer is really an issue and as commissioner M Holland said the signs really need to be firm they really need to be out there so that people can't say well I didn't see the sign and um I don't find the signs that we have there now sufficient how will we Engage The Sheriff to enforce these violations because if you have a photograph like some neighbors have done of dogs defecating on the beach photograph doesn't work because the police officer has to see that violation at that time I don't know if this changes that or not but I think it's very important that it is something that we look at people just can't take a video and send it to the Sheriff's Department it just doesn't work so is this something we're working with the with the police department are they going to have dedicated patrols on the beach especially you know busy holidays or is it going to be halfhazard that's it's really my only question thank you thank you I think this particular particular item is going to give our own code enforcement additional resources that we have not had before and yes the city manager and I have been in talks with the sheriff many many times and I'm sure we'll have a followup conversation with them soon I have no more thank you all right I think we are ready to tackle the next small item 7B do you want to do a motion and a second first on a do we need to do those simultaneously or just separately let's do them separately okay is there a motion on 7A please I make a motion to approve the first reading with Amendments of ordinance 25 22-4 Second City Clerk if you please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahalin yes mayor patrill yes motion carries thank you all right next we move on to 7B first reading of ordinance 2025 d02 no additional content from staff Commissioners questions comments commissioner res Nikki I'm turning it green but I'm getting my notes first I just don't want you to move forward if anybody else is ready they could if anyone else is ready with questions while commissioner RZ Nikki Gets Ready um I'll start I'll start with just I'll probably have more more questions later but um I did have a question about uh about um the max tent size being 10 by 10 and in the ordinance that appeared to be everywhere um on public beaches or private beaches and so I guess my question was are on a on a private beach um you know behind a condo or a hotel or something if somebody's if if there's a I believe in the past that you know like hotels could have weddings on their private beach without having to get a separate special events permit for each wedding would would this 10 X1 Max tent size how how would that fit into that sort of scenario Commissioners if I may request that you site the section that you're referring to when you your questions so we can all be on the same page and see which which section you're referring to that'll be yeah I'll find it that one's 954 thank you 195 D4 y thank you yes this is drafted um the term Beach is inclusive of public and private so that would be the Restriction that is proposed um my understanding is that is typically the maximum tent size that's permitted for special events um not with a recreation departments I can't confirm that but I I'm not I'm not exactly sure where that standard came from but I believe that's that's tied in with the special event size okay 10 and also on the 10 size going back to U Mrs sher's comment if you're a visitor you can put up a tent it just got to go by the end of the day right correct as long as it doesn't exceed 10 x 10 commissioner Riki are you ready yes well some of them they I'll keep coming there's a lot of pages here um I have a few and I know it's been a while since looking at this um and and I remember a lot even all the way back from Beach stewardship committee but um and I know that our prior City attorneys we going to be looking at some of the wording um one definitions um that would be page 15 if you have your your separate packet but we have the definition for Beach um yet through the packet we also mention private we mentioned public beach but we have no definition set for private and public beach um and it and it's and it's confusing and I'll get to some other ones that that don't have public or private that they may or probably should have um that's one thing um another question and I didn't see it in the presentation I know and I didn't the packet but have we done a business impact for this ordinance so we do have on public be definition in here but we do need a private beach definition so we could add that and then the U business what page is public page 16 top of 16 oh sorry Public Access Beach means at a minimum under the Florida Constitution the wet sand beach between the M high water line based on the average high water line over 19 period 19e period and low water are held in trust for the public under the public TR trust Doctrine and where an erosion control line is established in the area seword of the Eco so that would be your Public Access beach it could be privately owned underneath um because of the Florida Constitution and because of the ecl you have to allow the public to walk on those particular areas and that's separate and apart from the customary use Doctrine thing that we're not getting into don't have before you finish with that one but Public Access speech which basically is walking along the shoreline is what I I see you know in this but we have public beaches too that is more than just that so that's why I don't see the definition Parks we can add right well the previous conversation we had was to eliminate talking about different types of beaches and just say Beach right specifically to avoid getting into the customer use should we ever want to do that mhm and so we just reference Beach period not public not private just Beech but there is pages that still says public and private well I know that's that was one of the corrections That was supposed to have been made which is to remove the mention of public and private well that raises some legal issues um the beach and ownership of the beach is is complex um so there is a u Public Access between the mean high water line and and Below but also the ecl if you have a beach re nourishment project and ecl is placed placed over that public sand that's placed on a private beach and the public is allowed to walk over that private beaches landlord of the ecl they do have some property owner rights to exclude uh no trespass different things there so we can regulate activities on both public lands but also as a Proprietor in our city beaches and Parks we have regulatory authority over private lands we can tell you can build a hotel of a certain floor area ratio impervious surface ratio so many beach chairs or so many Beach areas setbacks those all are all within our regulatory power so we can do that on a private beach so we could do more on the public beaches and the public access beaches then we can do on a private beach we can tell someone you can't drink beer on a public beach but if you own the Upland portion of the beach and say I own that house I can sit on my private Upland area of the beach and drink a panina colada on my own private beach but someone else can't come in and drink it on my beach the private beach there are certain sections in this beach regulation where we do need to differentiate between public and private we it's it's it's uh as you go through you'll see there are areas where we are do make a distinction so you can't it's difficult just to say Beach it's it's important to have a definition of what the beach is the UNC Consolidated material and this is all straight from the D rules and the frontal Dune and the Dune system those are all D definitions and what we've done here is try to do the best we can as we go through here um so for example in the previous question uh 954 about uh tents and chairs um we're talking about public beaches placing chairs on public beaches if I'm on my own private beach and I want to pay place a chair P tent it depends whether it's commercial or residential so we do need to make distinctions as we go through this it's not as simple as just saying same rules apply everywhere on the beach so I'm sorry I'm trying to do as best we can but we do have to make certain distinctions we probably could can add a definition of what a private beach is and business impact statement just contrary to the public access speach all we'll do something to go along with that the business impact statement is required for second reading so depending on what you decide today about setbacks chairs uh other issues if um the ordinance is ready to go then we'll prepare the business impact statement and it'll be published before we notice for second reading that's what the state statute requires commissioner mohand uh yeah thank you Mr Mayor I will have um probably some comments when we get into setbacks and chairs and the like just uh a couple quick things for Mr Barry we started issuing permits for C Cabana rentals and alcohol service 2017 2018 is that 201 right yes um and as I understood it there's no fees for that correct red does that strike anybody as being unusual I mean it doesn't surprise me we've got permit fees or fees that haven't been reviewed in 35 years so I'm not exactly sure why I would be surprised but um so for whatever eight nine years now we've been issuing permits for alcohol consumption and for Cabana rentals but that's just been a piece of paper there's it's just been City staff work and no fees to correlate with that that's correct wow we been mening commercial licenses to operate and every other business has to have right permits and then this is something that's been brought up multiple times uh so thank you Mr Mayor I I will I'm sure I'm going to have more later but I wanted to just clarify that before we got into the real meat of things we can add a section um to 95 at the end 95- 2222 fees for beach related permits and say that a schedule of fees for beach related permits should be adopted by the city commission by resolution and we can bring that forward with second reading we can have we can ask the city manager to prepare a proposal for a second reading do we have consensus on that item yeah okay thank you commissioner Riki actually uh commissioner Robinson was first I just um just don't uh see under the definition of temporary structure um the chairs the tables and umbrellas I don't see it in the definition I see in 95-452 where it does talk about renting chairs tables or umbrellas should that be defined in temporary structures in the definition I mean should that be included in there as such so I'm going under um the definition temporary structure and then 954 and then 957 we'll make sure they all are consistent yeah I just I I think it needs to be very clear that uh we're talking chairs tables umbrellas we got Cabanas in here too under temporary structure but we also have Cabanas up there so just want to make sure that's clear in the definition commissioner Riki yes and um something to follow up with with the temporary and the permanent since Miss Robinson brought that up commissioner Robinson um for permanent structures once once it's defined as a permanent structure when when a temporary because of over the 180 days now becomes permanent to be a permanent is that a permit that someone needs to um requests for and then therefore is there a fee also for when when something is permanent and and and then what happens when it's permanent I mean it's just means forever what does that mean not necessarily I think it I think it does come down to intent which temporary structure does State um just by virtue of the other amendments that are included in this code for nightly removal um those would you know by by definition be temporary for Cabanas um chairs umbrellas and so on permanent um for example with Tiki Huts um we do issue permits for this those those do come in as building permits if they're Tiki Huts if they're Tiki Huts they come in as zoning review permits so we handle that through a different process and there there is a fee associated with that as I mentioned at the end of the presentation we would be bringing you back a complete um resolution related to fees on the beach not just the alcohol service areas but all of these fees that staff incur in reviewing and regulating so okay um and then another question on the electrical Vehicles by January 1st 2026 and that's around the corner is that and I know we had discussions and this was a long time ago and maybe some of you will remember is that was for I thought it was for All City Vehicles being electrical but is this meaning which I don't think is doable either by a city I mean that's a cost that I don't know we're ready for um but is it all vehicles you know any any commercial entity that's using a vehicle on the beach is to be electrical is that what we're saying any any vehicle that steps foot on the beach has to be electrical that is how it's drafted I understand that this was what went forward back in June um so this was not a recent change there was a clarification to include electrical in the def you know the summary bikes but that is the only change but it would include all vehicles on the beach yes okay I mean I'm I'm concerned to saying January 1st 2026 because because like I said it's it's around the corner you know and and to Define what are all vehicles electrical I mean that that's a huge expense when you think of vehicles that do maintenance on the beach um fire rescue I mean are we saying they have to be you know electrical vehicles does it does that mean could it be hybrid I mean that's that's a big one there there's General language that exempts um you know when it serves a clear public purpose so you know something like fire trucks and so on I mean they would be exempt but okay thank you I'll have more after I'm I'm really concerned about electric vehicles and saltwater well yeah that too batteries I mean we all have experience of fires right or seen fires well we we had multiples during the hurricane I know that's yeah yeah I we should strike that one Al together I mean that seems I I would be feel thought out I I think I I would be inclined I'm just trying to figure out do they even sell Earth movers that are electric I'm sure someone's trying but put so the public purpose is Exempted so the city Vehicles Sheriff's vehicle fire would not have to be gas okay this is but that would be an impact for sorry for businesses as well right because I mean to say all of their whatever they use to move those Cabanas or chairs or um just to maintain or clean I mean I've seen them go out there and clean behind their facilities but they can't use an electric bicycle because we just prohibited those right well you know what I'm saying that's why that's why I'm bringing it up I mean that's kind of it's it's nice it sounds nice very green but it's not practical no right it's not practical again I'm I'm not even sure that they sell they they don't do they sell electric ATVs cuz they use I mean they use a lot of ATV and I don't know they're kind of like golf carts but the bigger forklifts and things like that are more expensive and less readily available we could just I think I hear consensus to remove this section yeah yeah they they absolutely do battery uh utility vehicles yeah golf carts I I didn't think about it yeah but we don't do if you're looking at you know a a you know front loader or something no that's not going to happen cuz then that would also include for example electric jet skis when they get on sand right and moving them out there yeah that's a lot and moving them to and from yeah okay yeah commissioner mahol are you on board with removing the electric probe yes I am sir okay all right commissioner Robinson um Sor I got got distracted on that one there um yes um so I'm just trying to make sure I know the difference between the Cabana versus the Cabana Zone which is now we don't have that defined in the definitions either we've got Cabana but we don't have that temporary or Cabana Zone defined in here will we get that once we determine setbacks so is this referring to the commercial cabana rental area or the alcohol service area um it was a recent addition we can Define it if if needed um it's it's really just it's included in there for permitting purposes and to give direction to staff but we could definitely come up with a definition okay and um to uh commissioner rikki's point on the permanent structure can we put in their per permitted in there yes that's for for permanent structure there is a definition for for permanent structure is that what you asked for on page 15 yeah it's it's for a temporary period of place that has not been defined in permitted through this code so it has a so I'm just making it clear that it's a the permanent structure would be a permitted permanent structure Right Said Yes could be a tongue twist say that more all all permitted structures shall be permitted something to that effect you commissioner marot um so I had a question about the um the I'll go with the easy one first the um uh and and I don't know the I won't be able to find the section quick enough but there's a section in there about overnight storage of chairs or equipment from the beach and where it can be stored and it was um not in required Landscaping not in required parking not visible from the rideway land where to the dunes I mean have have have we looked at at all of the prop propes enough to know if that's even possible it's 952 that's on page 15 excuse me 19 and 957 uh e uh to answer your question commissioner no this is something we would address when the um either the Enterprises or the Upland property owner comes in for permitting um this is a first pass this was not something that was addressed in the workshop back in June um the Assumption from staff was that storage on the beach would not be especially if nightly removal is a requirement storage on the beach would not be appropriate so we just came up with a first pass of potential regulations that we can impose um but we haven't evaluated it at the property level now Okay I uh I I and and I'll I'll I'll lead this into what I'm sure will be a little bit of a bigger discussion about about what what is what is the purpose right so if if we're requiring all the chairs be removed from the beach at night is that is that because we want to give the turtles ample opportunity to nest and if that's the reason why are we requiring it year round and are we or are we requiring removal from the chairs from the beach because in the dark when no one's on the beach we want it to look pristine or you know like what what what is the point and what can we do that meets what we're actually trying to do because if we're just trying to leave a big open area for turtles to Nest during Turtle season it seems to me we would just require the chairs be removed during Turtle season and then if that's what we're doing then if the chairs are all Consolidated into the smallest possible footprint as far landward as they can reasonably go that seems a lot more practical to me than trying to make people who maybe don't have anywhere to put the chairs you know I I guess we could make them throw them in the pool every night or something but um it seems largely impractical I would think some of this is just not only for the turtles but also for the sheer fact of eye pollution I mean I can't tell you how many times I walked by and not all those chairs are rented they're just sitting there unattended sitting there and why are they out if if they're not going to be rented why so but but but if but but I mean but one of the things it says is they have to be removed every night right so so we would make sense that if you rent one then you put them out or you put a small portion of them out and then if you need more when you rent them then you go and get them and you put them out I mean that's just how it kind of has worked I Believe on on upam beach for the public beach um you know other beaches you know caddies whatever else that you go to they don't put them out there just put them out there they rent them when they rent them they put them out there for you so so I'm still I'm still trying to get at the the so so if if if all of the chairs I think what you're talking about is a little bit of a separate issue which I'm sure we'll get to but if but but if we just start with are we requiring all of the chairs be removed completely from the beach every night all year round or just in Turtle season or or what is the reason for after Sunset Before Sunrise what is what what what are we trying to accomplish I'm happy to answer that question fantastic so um first of all we're already requiring this it's just like many of other ordinances we're not enforcing it so uh one of the things that I'll be asking this city manager and I was going to help for your support on this is uh that we start enforcing our current city um Beach ordinances as they are written until a new ordinance is codified um so we already have that on the books so this is not anything new we're simply making an adjustment to it as as we see necessary the other thing is if you go to any number of beach towns all over Florida uh commissioner R Nikki and I and the city manager were in Hollywood Florida uh just as past August for the Florida League of cities we were there for almost a week s miles of beach 30 40 story highrises not a single chair in the morning not a single chair after Sundown seven miles Hollywood is not 8,000 people it's 500,000 people they manage Coco Beach most of the cities in Broward and Dade all do this and there's a number of reasons why you know they're doing a number of reasons why we should be doing it as well right so you've already mentioned the turtles and the skimmers so you've got environmental impact um and Environmental Protection that we're looking to do and it's currently not happening I mean you can read the news reports and the whatever it's called now the Tampa Times Tampa Bay Times it's on the news it's in newspapers of the turtle hatchlings that drown pools that end up in holes in on the beach that get lost between the chairs and the lights and there's another reason why we're bringing up the turtle ordinance we also have a public safety Factor number of things could happen happens to be Florida now you raise your hand if you've ever seen a storm come in with five minutes notice where it goes from Blue Sky to 30 mph winds in a matter of 30 seconds 5 minutes 10 minutes so now you've got all of these chairs and structures there and they become they can they can become flying objects right there's a reason we're asking them to remove them not only that it's in the middle of the night you don't have any lights out there because it's prohibited by the turtle lighting right so now you've got people walking the beach that could easily trip over these chairs right so this is It's a public safety issue among other things beside Environmental Protection right beyond that you know we also want to make sure that look how many times have we looked in the comprehensive plan and it talks about preserving the character of St P Beach well what is our character are we not at least as good as Hollywood Florida that we cannot have a beach that's clear and free of debris that you don't put stuff out until you need it so that you leave your stuff out there 247 and the question is it's already being required why are they not already doing it because based on Cor of ordan says everyone should be receiving citations right now 24/7 it's not happening right so I've got residents receiving code citations because the the law is in mode and I've got multi-billion dollar industries that are not following the code and nothing's happening to them so again there's any number of reasons right that are legitimate reasons why the chair should be removed why shouldn't be obstacles on the beach in the middle of the night why they shouldn't be impeding the wildlife right why they shouldn't become a hazard in case a storm pops up which happens you know from June until November happens every day right so yes there are good legitimate reasons why this should be enacted and that's one of the reasons it was already in our code in the first place you just need to start enforcing it commissioner Robinson well I mean the other side of that question is why keep them out I mean it it I think we'll I think we'll get the answer to that when we do a business impact statement I I mean you know that that I I don't I don't recall any time in the 15 years I've been here there being death or destruction from people tripping over chairs in the middle of the night there has not been an epidemic of you know Wizard of Oz style chairs swirling about the city going through people's windows I you know I mean it's it's it's something that that hasn't been a problem it has been problem we haven't been enforcing it except during T Turtle season well I mean I'm I'm sure I'm sure that's not the only ordinance we have that we haven't been enforcing or that isn't or or that perhaps isn't even needed you know it's it's a um you know I I you know what is the character of St Pete Beach well the character of St Pete Beach is that there have been hotels on that beach and and tourists on that beach since before most of the houses were built and so you know I think it's it's uh you know I I'm houses where the hotels are now I am 100% on board with doing things that are reasonable for a reason well this code has changed quite a bit over the years I mean let's face it first there was no drinking on the beach and that was for everybody there was no special exception to any of the hotels no special exception to any of the bars there's always been no dogs on the beach and there's there was no bikes on the beach for the longest time there was always I mean I got a citation for drinking on the beach in my 20s out here I didn't get a warning and that's just how it goes I mean there's a lot of stuff that's just not fair here I mean I look at this and it says no person and that only leaves the rest is being the residents that can't drink on the beach um you know why keep them out I don't want to see them I don't want to see chairs that aren't rented without people in them when I'm walking down my beautiful beach and I can look down and just see it wide open and it pristine also makes Beach clean up much more difficult oh wait well we can go on on that equipment when there's chairs in there all the time and you've seen it on many occasions where especially after busy holiday weekend the beach is just full of stuff up and down the beach and now you can't even run your big equipment through it to clean it all up which again looking at Hollywood Beach for example they mow their entire beach every single day and you know why they do it at 6:00 in the morning cuz there's no chairs out there and they can do it do we does the city pick up trash off of private property on the beach I I don't know the answer to that well I I I believe for one that the the hotel should also fill in the holes from all the digging how many times have you walk the beach at night or dusk or whatever and there's a hole I don't they don't fill them in it's all their K all the all the tourists are there digging and digging and that's great and we've seen what happened we've seen what's happened on the other Coast low girl got sucked in died I mean there there there's other things too on that I mean if it was up to me I would have put that in there commissioner R Nikki thank you not too sure how about this green light here um but we can talk about those rules I don't know if we just have open dialogue or not so um anyways the the beach is a preservation zone right the for everybody whether your private or public beach that that is the Zone um and let me just clarify something because I don't want everyone to be confused but the Hollywood Beach i' be careful to their apples and oranges here um because most of the East Coast was dredged and so they have an ecl line so and and and also I lived in that beach for a long time in that area that's one of the main reason reasons why it is the way it is um so they they have to pull back the chairs they do have to get permits and I looked into this a lot because I wanted doing the beach stewardship um that was the big thing I wish we could do it we can do that by the way um because that's why we have this ordinance but it's different over there because they have an ecl and and we don't across their whole Beach all the way down to South Beach um in Miami um but for the reason um back to um commissioner um Marriott's um you know question to us is what's the purpose well the purpose is is the preservation Zone and and because of that we should be preserving our beach and as someone who walks the beach frequently mostly in the evening um have been frustrated many times because of those crazy storms pop-up storms too that that we're talking about that ch chairs and towels that have been left behind on chairs are now all over the beach okay and me and my daughter are notorious of grabbing the stuff and a either throwing it away in the trash because I'm not going to walk all the way up to the hotel and give it back to them so sorry for all of you out there um but they're on the shoreline they're on the water they're floating um and and it's and it's because it's not enforced in that place so that that is why if I remember back when we were on the committee and I say we being um commissioner married and myself for Beach stewardship was because bringing back the chairs prevents when staff are not there um to quickly bring everything back in right if I know a storm is coming at my house I'm at my house I'm going to go outside and I can bring everything and try to secure it as much as possible before my pool umbr takes off to my neighbor's house right but when it's out there on the beach in the evening and everybody's gone on it is everywhere now how far back does it have to go does it have to go all the way back to their pools all the way to the front or side of the hotels possibly not Hollywood Beach is a good example of they don't leave the beach they go all the way back um where there's Dunes if there's dunes or if they're if you're familiar with from Hollywood All the Way South that used to be seaw walls okay so there was dredge and that's why I mentioned the ecl there was no beach there all that beach was gone Army cor Engineers came in now they have Beach but they've got to put all their chairs up to what used to be the seaw wall um particularly in Hollywood but as you go further down let's just say South Beach it's a very Dune area those chairs are either really close to the the dun line and some of them they have some open space for vehicle traversing or for people for walking it's a much wider Beach you know than than ours obviously um or they're close to the Lifeguard stations that are on that Beach right so but they do have to stack them and put them away a because it's a um a nuisance for overnight you know um sleeping um for people going out and drinking um doing drugs and all sorts of things right now there's a place for them to sit even though you could sit on the sand but now you have chairs and it's even much better right so they Tien that up for that reason um so that would be the purpose my my concern is saying daily move on all the way past and possibly through Dunes for those that do have Dunes because I've seen how it also destroys the dunes we're here trying to preserve the beach yet now we're going to request that they go out every day and travel back and forth through the dunes hopefully taking care of the dunes and dragging all this equipment back and forth I would prefer and and I think I've I don't know how many years ago said for the stacking um to be closer uh to the Dune and of course this is in talking with individual sorry in the future I haven't spoken to any hotels or commercial entities about this but um what would be the best location what would be feasible what's not feasible every every location is unique um when we look at upam beach or we look at passor Grill Beach well that's very different they're public beaches yes I don't want to see all the chairs outside even in the day I know in the evening we want to bring them in but in the day is different that's a public beach people want to come to the beach if all the chairs are already out there there's not many places for me to go if I'm not renting a chair right so that's different that's a different model of business when we were offering chairs for people going to a public beach um the the other thing um and I know we're going to get into set I don't know when we're going to get setbacks but I'm just going to bring it up now setbacks again every hotel is different I've been to hotels um and this I have gone out you know to to look you know and I've been invited to go and look to some of the hotels um so and they were really nice because they actually ConEd it out for me so I could see and feel what it looks like from those that are very small to those that are they have a lot more Beach or a lot more square footage and and it's nice that you did have on your presentation um Brendan the picture with the 75 what would it look like and 50 and so forth because you can see how it reduces it that's where I ask for what's the purpose what's the purpose in doing that are we just trying to get access from east to west um and is that access supposed to be clear access meaning and again it doesn't have to be 75 75 on both sides or 50 on both sides that's 100 feet you know what are we trying to accomplish for people to be able to walk back and forth get to the hotel um for emergency access you know so that there's a place for somebody to run across what's the purpose right and you know and I don't think we all here will be able to answer any of these questions but I'm just putting them out there um when public beach accesses are between 8 to 10 feet wide I think right and some depending where why not keep the same thing why why are we making it bigger what does it mean to have it if let's just say it were 75 on both sides or 50 and 50 that's 100 ft what does that mean nothing is there no one can travs through there not a towel can be laid there not a chair can be laid there what does that mean same applies for 50 ft um landord side of the mean high water light why not 50 why 75 what 30 what does it mean let's just say it's 50 does that mean nobody walks through there nobody puts a chair there no one puts a towel there whether public private hotel guest whomever what does that mean why are we trying to to do that what are we trying to accomplish um so I have you know those are my outlining questions which I don't think we could all answer I mean we could all Give opinions but I don't know if we'll have a clear answer I think what we started and I can't remember the year I sat on the committee this has evolved to more than what the intention was um we've mentioned you know and and trust me I've wanted to be talking about this be Jordans before I've asked for this to be brought to the commission so it's not like I don't want to talk about it but it's holding back a lot of the sections of the beach ordinance because of the setbacks and the uncertainties and not having the business impacts to me that's important you know I thought we were told that was the reason why we held back doing the first reading to start with um and now we don't have it I'm not not putting blame on everyone because I know we're trying to get this doing but we were all we also discussed moving the section out and cuz we're not going to be able to decide this all right now what's better what's the intention what's the purpose and maybe we can not I'm saying we can't but we still have that option from what I remember that we can move a section out approve the rest that we are an agreement with because it is kind of frustrating that now I sit in a commission and I sat on the beach stewardship committee and been through all these workshops and we're still talking about this you're absolutely right it is frustrating and I'm committed to stay here until 3:00 in the morning as we have done for other people we should do for at least for our residents and if we got to be here and figure this out because I am tired of having to come back over and over and over again absolutely to rehash the same thing and so we're going to get to that's my commitment now yall decide what you want but I'm committed to getting this thing answered and done one way or the other whether y'all pass it or sh it down we're going to have a vote on this tonight that's my commitment whether y'all for that or not that's that's fine I would ask maybe that we have the discussion about the setbacks after we hear from the public I think a lot of them I would hate to make any decisions I'd like to hear from them first before we have a discussion on the setbacks I really would like to get whoever's here that has statements about that so maybe we can deal with all the other things then have public comment and then come back to the setback issue since that's really the biggest issue would you all be opposed to that I mean I thought I was asking questions or making common sense I'm not by no word did I say I did not want to get this done I've been wanting to get this done a long time but I'm I'm talking about what I say the public isn't the only one that's going to you're going to change my mind trust me you guys are going to come up here and I and I'm going to listen but what I'm saying is from observations of many years that this has evolved if if we need a beach access or you know a space to go through you know what we currently have is good right we're able to go from point A to point B if we're just looking for TR I I will need this from the commission answered I don't think the public came prepared with this is the purpose of what this space is supposed to be I mean maybe you did and I would like to know maybe you all have some purpose what is the purpose for right what's the purpose of in the front you know if if if we're saying you have 50 fet setback from the mean high water line landord that it's open for views right we've all been talking about views many times then it's open for views for everybody right not it's it means nobody sits there we're just walking back and forth right so um I just need a clear purpose um for it and that will help make a better decision so thank you I'm happy to provide purpose for that as well like it did for the other ones and I think specifically what we're talking about with the setbacks or the mean want or the from the water back is no commercial activity in that area it's not talking about people not being able to set up their towels or their chairs or whatever else is that there's no am I wrong in that this is specifically restricting commercial activity it whether it's the Cabana area the drinking area whatever to the setbacks whatever the setbacks end up being if we decide to do that that's correct for for particularly those two areas okay yes so we can I can give you some reasons for the setbacks uh we already talked about Wildlife protection same thing right they have to have a way of traveling so if if we end up not removing the chairs at night there has to be there have to be setbacks for us to be able to do that EMS has to get somewhere somehow right they have to get somewhere and a lot of the beach accesses are in the property lines so the most natural place to put setbacks where there's no commercial activity where EMS Vehicles can you know Traverse unimpeded that's one of the areas to do that we have huge overcrowding issues on our beaches already the last thing we need is to overcrowd them with more chairs and Cabanas when it's already pretty bad in many in many areas and the overcrowding also presents a health and safety hazard right you cram that many people in in that high density in that low of a of an area right that presents itself again another health and safety hazard and then there's also an ADA compliance issue right you have to be able to in some areas be able to get you know access for individuals right so those are just some of the reasons why you know it'd be good for has for us to have some kind of setbacks between the properties it doesn't have to be 75 ft we can come up with a number that's reasonable it could be 15 feet it could be 30 feet whatever I'd like to hear from from the people particularly affected by this what they think is a reasonable number I mean I think you know I think a setback from the beach back where you're not you know we've seen some instances where you know they're out there at 7:00 in the morning putting chairs all the way up to the mean mean high water line you know to to block anyone else from from showing up even though you know whether they're allowed to do that I don't know but uh so I think the setback from the water you know also you know does the same thing it provides EMS access you've got the sheriff going up and down the beach all the time you know another area that we've looked at here is having some kind of you know every 50 or 75 or 100 feet having some kind of break in the Cabanas so that you can access them in between right what happens if you've got I don't know let's say a th000 feet of beach front and you have a th000 ft of uninterrupted chairs and then you have an emergency in the middle of it no one can get to them because it's all just crammed in together so again it provides it's overcrowding right it provides a health and safety act you know issue and it provides it limits you know Emergency Services access whether it's the sheriff wanting to enforce something whether it's the fire department having to respond whether it's an ambulance or any kind of Emergency Services trying to get someplace so there's there are a number of legitimate good reasons why we shouldn't be over crowding the beach and cramming in every single trair that we possibly can to commission mohan's point without even charging for it I next up Mr Mayor yes sir so I'm actually not going to talk about setbacks yet but I certainly will uh when we get to it uh so I had um six of the operators reach out to me last week asking me to meet with them so they could show me their operations and I was able to get five of them scheduled so uh I kind of got a flavor what from where I thought they were and the feedback that I've heard uh leads me to believe that the same message has been going out to everyone but specific to the chairs removed from the beach and the like I didn't really get the sense from the the five that I met with um while they'd rather not have to remove the chairs I got the sense or got the sense that there was a lot more concern about having to totally remove them from the beach or um maybe they didn't logistically didn't have a place to put them and I I I don't know if if we could possibly consider you know some type of individual site plan approved approach where each Hotel would work with the city planning department like you know I realize they don't have a lot of time now but um to get a realistic site plan of where the chairs have to go and the Cabanas have to go every night um I I I think some of them it just to me fell into the too hard category they they didn't want to take them off the beach um but the majority my sense was is their biggest concern was if logistically it didn't work they would like to like to see the city work with them creating some type of a site plan so I I would just propose that maybe we consider that as it relates to pulling the chairs I personally feel they should be pulled um I I I don't I'm not going to regurgitate what uh has been said uh multiple times here by various Commissioners there's a host of reasons why they probably should be REM removed and I I agree with that but um I think we should consider if we can work with them um about logistically creating individual site plans for the various properties so uh I'll have more to say when we get to the setbacks but thank you Mr May no I mean you're you're absolutely correct and you know if you look at the county park up on beach pass a girl the vendor that is there right now they're pulling all their chairries in every night and I think that's what we talked about earlier Brandon of having some kind of storage location that we're going to work with the individual Property Owners to make sure that they have you have a good point we shouldn't be carrying them over the dunes every night but there should be someplace that we can work with the property and say okay here's a designated store storage area at night I saw the same thing in Hollywood some of them have under their seaw walls they have storage and some of them just pull it up to their seaw walls so there there's different ways and you know we can work on a Case by case basis I think we should be working with those homeown with those property owners and say okay based on your property and again for some properties that may have you know a few hundred feet it might be more than one designated area so that they're not pulling all thousand feet to one location but rather maybe having four or five locations spaced out you know we're just pulling them back you know one section of the time to that area so I think that'd be I think it'd be good for the staff to work with the property owners uh to figure out a an appropriate location that you know staff can maybe administratively approve and say you know here's here's what we've come up with commissioner marot yeah I just have a quick question for the for the City attorney um regarding the setbacks and and if the the setbacks are for commercial activity as it's written as that correct or for any activity believe they're for the commercial cabana rental areas okay and so so the the if you're a beach goer going to a public beach you can bring your own chair and your own umbrella and you can set up at the public beach anywhere but if we have a Beach concession at the public beach I think we impose some conditions on our beach concession chair people where they should put chairs and where they should allow room for the public I think the U the issues that were brought up as rational basis is the the ADA wheelchair access um life safety issues getting in and out getting sheriffs in between if they're too close you can't get a wheelchair in if they're too but we don't do any of that on the public beach right so so we we have no concern about getting emergency vehicles back and forth on the public beach or whether somebody in a wheelchair could get all the way to the water because we don't regulate how far apart people have to sit on the sand I think we regulate I don't know um the staff can tell you whether we have concessions that rent chairs on our beach I'm not sure whether we do or not and how but we don't try to regulate just somebody who walks down to the beach and sets up a sets up a blanket or puts up an umbrella and those would not be addressed by this ordinance either okay um and on the on the on the setbacks for commercial operations that are on privately owned property the the the property owner is still in control of what happens in that area then they can't have chairs there but they can still regulate what happens on their own property somewhere to like a side setback on a house you have a clear side setback so fire can get in there um but you can't have a shed in there but still their property put a fence there or whatever do you can't compel them to say to to de facto make it a public beach no okay yeah I mean we we already have for residential we have similar ordinances on the books right you look at every little every neighborhood has different setback requirements right this is how far you can build your house from your neighbor's house this is how far your pool has to be from the from the seaw wall this is how far your pool has to be from the back of your house this is how far your garage this is how far forward you can be this is how far back this isn't any different than that is we're simply looking at setbacks and saying you know for the for the public good for safety access for all the other reasons enumerated you know we should have a path between the properties um a setback between the properties that's that's all and again we're talking about commercial activities and the vendor at up and beach at the County Park and at Passa Grill would be subject to the same requirements because they are a commercial operation another reason for setbacks is to mitigate incompatible uses so if you have a say hotel next to a residential condominium one way to mitigate any incompatibilities require a setback so that the commercial chair operation isn't right on the property line line you know it's set back 15 ft or 30 ft or 75 the greater the distance the more compatibility mitigation occurs and planning perspective yeah like you have with the sea Mark for example that's surrounded on both sides by hotels and then same with some of the condos next to Bell weather so I had a question about and this has come up many times before um the definition of Cabanas and so the way that we currently have it set up is we we're talking about Cabanas as far as what is rented and what has to be removed at night and I don't know what your definition of Cabas but to me a cabana is generally usually one or two chairs together with some kind of awning structure that opens up versus having beach chairs whether they're heavy wood beach chairs whether they're plastic beach chairs whether it's a beach umbrella and I think maybe we should look at just changing that from just staying any Cabanas any anything that's rented has to be removed so whether they're renting chairs umbrellas Cabanas any of those things it shouldn't be limited to just Cabanas because I could see a situation where well the ordinance says all the Cabanas have to be gone this is not a cabana this is a beach chair or this is a beach umbrella therefore I don't have to remove it so rather it should be inclusive of anything that is rented or anything that is provided as an amenity whether it's charged for and not charged for anything that is not a fixed item right it should be removed at the end of the night to the designated area we have in there on page 19 it says all temp temporary structures placed on the public access beaches and privat on beaches including but not limited to chairs tables umbrellas Cabanas and Tents shall be removed from the beach nightly I think it's just some of the other areas that only talks about Cabanas right yeah okay I see what you're saying y may maybe we put it in the definition of cab that's far as getting add on the definition on the temporary structure yep you're saying to add Cabanas under temporary structure right that add those items tabl both should be in both areas so that if we're talking about Cabanas have to be removed at night specifically or the Cabana service area whatever that is that means anything that is a rented or provided or yeah how this is written there's a lot of that where it's Cabana and then it does go into Cabana and chairish tables this and then it doesn't so it really needs to be consistent I think it's as a result of coming three years right and I think too if you put it under temporary and then you just call everything temporary I mean you define it as one thing you might be able to do it that way okay and that way it gets consistency yeah we've mentioned in Cabanas 86 times so yeah okay word count now when does a when does a temporary become a permanent like let's say you're not removing it and now now your Cabana becomes a permanent structure 180 days so all of them and so then they could just get a a permit most of these have to be removed at nightly under the ordinance but if there's something that stays there for longer than 180 days it needs to get a permanent permit like a big tent or a water slide or something like that or so we could sorry so we could put up a water slide for 179 days and not require a permit that's a cup that should be addressed some other time no I'm just asking this is is that the way Brandon you can to address but we have 180 days is what's written in here Our Land Development code for commercial accessory structures lays out the different accessory structures that are allowed on the beach and those would be considered permanent we allow for Beach storage boxes and things like that Tiki Huts um for facilities that have approved commercial water operations still in ex extent uh we allow them to have a limited facility for that but those other type of um for example we no longer allow commercial recreation on the beach and in our primary Resort zoning districts and I know this came up during recent hearings so those type of items would typically be preempted that would be the water sports items yes right I was wondering why they weren't in here because they're not commissioner Robinson did you have any other questions no I'm just playing with my RT's Cube um and I'm trying to look for it again but for the for the commercial needing for commercial activ activity needing a permit um and I'm not sure if if that was put under Section 9517 vending on public beaches and again we're using public beaches um because there are there are privately owned you know lots um whether condominiums or hotels or private property um again we're differentiating public now in this section um but how about private because which section are you on I'm sorry I'm Miss we have vending 9517 vending on public beaches and it mentions public beaches but not beaches if we're saying we're just going to say everything is beaches here we're specifically saying public beaches but you know I know hotels take out their business um license you know to do business on beach but there's other types of private properties you know in in our cities in our city that owns um the beach if you want to call it that but the the land land word of the mean high water line um are they exempt if we're not indicating private beaches as well uh because you know I could start my business on my beach if I wanted to um without getting approval I think we do address private beach vending and so solicitation separately from public is in then 9518 that's correct we do allow currently and this is just bringing this in from other sections of the code of ordinances this is effectively adopted as is um we do allow solicitation on the private beach it can only be oral with the exception of um approved equipment rental and and other businesses that are approved on the beach based on the zoning code but um they do allow for you know for example order taking in the what are currently named cand service areas that would be permitted because it's on a private beach so section 958 will Encompass all beaches that encompasses specifically let's just say not all beaches but all types well 9517 is the preemption on any kind of vending on the public beach including solicitation 9518 would apply um in in parts to the private beach so solicitation includes Commercial Business is what we're saying right correct yes so in your own private land if your own private business you can sell Cosmetics on the beach if you want for example oh with come to the public beach and sell Cosmetics but with a permit is what we're saying because we have a lot of these pop-up Enterprise business is going on and we all know we've been hearing about issues with photography movies you know advertisement um I think we all got the videos from like the secret garden and everything that was happening over there and those are all private um Lots per se but people are walking over there and setting up their business because there's no requirement to have to so this section will will say you have to have a permit correct correct it's it's permits on the private beach front um public beach front is prohibited in most cases they have to have authorization from the property owner too I believe here it doesn't say it because it's just of the person Desiring to solicit sorry I think we should require authorization of the property owner here as well I think it's 9518 B I think it's in B should sh permit shall be issued only after the property owner represented has demonstrated to the satisfaction of the city man manager doesn't need the Sandy portion of the beach is owned by the property ownership that's where we have the owner authorization but the applicant has to show that authorization though right because I mean I can come in if I'm going to do Beach photography for the s for the Marriott hotel and I've got to get the Marriott owner's permission to go do the beach photography there and they come in and they get the permit for that they can't do without the permission of the property owner okay thank you any further questions before we go public comment okay thank you Brandon city clerk we have any public comments yes yes we do um the first one I have is a voicemail so I'm to play it thank you try to get my microphone good evening this is Robin Miller interm CEO for the Tampa Bay beaches Chamber of Commerce speaking to the agenda item of beach ordinance I would like to uh share with the commission today that I'm a little bit concerned concerned and the Chamber is as well that we are putting the ordinance through tonight for a first reading given the numerous hours months and even years that we've worked on this of why we need a first read reading tonight versus taking a step back and really refining this knowing that there have been last minute changes to this ordinance prior to it being read finally you have the Don CeSar the Dolphin Beach Resort CCI he tumor and Belle weather all 100% out of service and going to be out of service in some of those instances for many more months so that gives us plenty of time to really evaluate the structure of this ordinance and really um really zero in on its impact that it has not only just on the business Community but also the community as a whole um so I do ask uh on behalf of the tablea babes chamber and its business community that you consider reviewing this ordinance tonight putting it back into redrafting and following up with some of the amazing feedback that you are going here this evening thank you for your time okay Kevin reallyy you please state your name and address for the record good evening for the record Kev real business address 401 East Jackson Street Tampa um so many of the things I have written down on my notes Here have already been mentioned tonight uh and also were just mentioned by Robin so um and and I didn't know that I didn't know what the discussion was going to be so I'm glad to hear uh discussion on some of these items uh there was some concerns on the way the ordinance is drafted uh mostly coming to what what's the goal and I understand that in everyone's mind eye they have a goal uh uh carved out and that that's very important but uh you know for example to the May's point if it if there's an issue with fire access and things like that we have to have a a a specific connection to what that goal is and what the ordinance says and how it's written um same for other things like uh Turtle protection and and preservation uh and that public purpose is really important because it needs to be specifically tailored to that purpose and I'm concerned that the the recent draft of the ordinance doesn't do that um and the reason that's important is because this has a huge EC IC impact on many of the hotels on the beach and if you have that type of impact you need to avoid an ordinance that's going to be arbitrary and capricious or unreasonable um there are other issues with the ordinance where it treats public and private beach the same in some instances and different other instances and there situations that's appropriate and not and the private property rights have to be considered if you're differentiating the two I'm not sure that the ordinance as drafted does that properly um the the thing that Robin mentioned that I have here is that this this process started in 22 um it's been through two city managers uh it's on a new City attorney and included a lot of stakeholder input very recent stakeholder input but then the hurricane derailed that input and now we have a new ordinance that hasn't had a lot of input uh and so um you know there's a reasonable ordinance in here and everyone's expecting a new ordinance um but there are some things proposed that that are not reasonable and if and if they're not reasonable or or if there's objection to them they have to be connected to some specific purpose and I'm just asking that you all consider connecting the the decisions you make to a specific purpose and then whatever that magnitude is tie it to that purpose um and if you do that we we can end up with a a reasonable ordinance that um that works for everyone thank you thank you Sean kitowski if you please state your name and address for the record thank you um excuse me Shan Kowski uh business address 5250 Gul Boulevard um I'm speaking on behalf of bellweather Beach uh comr beach resorts uh four items I really want to talk to tonight um that there's been discussion around so number one waterline setback uh the change from 50 to 75 ft I think I heard the uh the purpose of that was no commercial activity um Public Safety but if you really think about 50 ft there's a lot of access in that so um still not really clear why we're increasing that to 75 ft number two s setbacks uh again what is the public purpose of this um at bellweather and Beach comr we're currently space our our seating areas 6 feet plus so we have clear access to those areas um also reminder that we take Beach operations extremely serious right we have training we have Serv standards we have Team accountability um and these setbacks will create a gray area within those um within that uh area increases the risk of issues um also any version of the setback will have an economic impact to us big the setback the more drastic the burden of the economy is number three furniture removal we feel there are conflicting and unworkable Provisions in this we are concerned that as it reads we are required to remove all Beach Furniture completely off the sand nightly specific to the Bell weather property uh we cannot do that the only way to do that is we cross the public access bridge to the south of the property and now we're causing safety concerns um with Crossing that public access for Beach comr similar concerns the only viable path is through our sand dunes unacceptable to all of us I think right so we just can't physically take it off the sand um and then in closing we understand that protecting our beaches is a top priority at as it is our number one asset and why our guests lovees St Pete Beach it's why we work here and personally why I live here but at this moment in time we'd like you to consider the current challenges the businesses Bas in the rebuilding process not only are we working through the physical repairs but our number one goal is to get our team members back to work and repair their lives which several of them are are St Peete Beach residents this beach ordinance will have a negative impact on our businesses and team members when all efforts need to be focused on rebuilding our community thank you thank you Timothy Canon if you please state your name and address for the record my name is Timothy Canon I'm an asset manager for host hotels and resorts the owner of the Donar and beach house Suites that's 3,400 and 3860 Golf Boulevard thank you for the opportunity to address the commission this evening it's not lost on me uh that it was a hearing like this years ago that this community came together to save the Donar from destruction I'm here today at another difficult moment for this great Resort hurricanes Helen and Milton severely damaged critical infrastructure and flooded almost the entirety of our ground floor requiring us to close the resort at that time host hotels had the difficult decision to make to restore one of the most significant historic resources in pelis county or allow water intrusion and storm damage to to claim another valuable asset from this community efforts taken to immediately mobilize remediate begin restoration came at Great expense to host hotels but these decisions were driven by our emotional connection to the history of this building to our employees and to this community it is a result of these tireless efforts and an incredibly productive relationship with this city that we are hopeful of a spring reopening I say this about the dawn specifically but it's not a unique story so much work has been done up and down the beach and we are at a time when we should be celebrating the recovery of St Pete Beach it is that reason that I'm so incredibly disappointed that the city chose this time to further restrict the largest industry contributing to the Financial Health and viability of the City by limiting Hotel years Beach operations this ordinance in its attempt to protect residents in fact only serves to hurt hotels the city's further restrictions are simply an overreach and we see no legitimate public purchase uh public purpose we object to any more than the current 50 foot setback from the mean high water line and no more than a 5ot side setback we also object to the Daily removal of beach Furniture as onerous operational burden which frankly we may be unable to physically comply with respectfully we request that this commission allow the hotels to recover to reestablish themselves and to create an ordinance that is mutually beneficial and not simply punitive thank you thank you for your comments Barbara ready please state your name and address for the record uh good evening Barbara REI era general manager of two properties the Don CeSar and beach house suits um 24 3860 and 3,400 respectfully so good evening mayor Commissioners uh thank you for this opportunity um you know I just want you to know that both our properties operate with intentional purpose doing good in our neighborhoods in our community and in our County um we partner with our neighbors at the Don cazar Property Owners Corporation we participate in Beach cleanups we have membership with the Tampa Bay Watch we serve at the Don CeSar property owners ass Association dun Savers team uh we volunteered to remove trash we participate with sea turtle trackers we do County things related to like type businesses of food shelter which we do feeding the homeless at pelis Hope and supporting building beds all this to say is we mean well um we are a positive asset to this community not to mention a beautiful iconic Historic Resort that has resided with you for 97 years also known as the beautiful Pink Palace but as has been mentioned and apologized for the sensitivity of lack of timing recently we've just had the two most devastating storms happen we have been closed for four months my team members are out of work we remain closed tonight as I speak and now is just not the time to put more burden on us the proposed new beach ordinance creates an unreasonable economic burden without a reasonable purpose removing Beach Furniture is a hardship and keeping it out of site is just not feasible on our property the proposed setbacks and results in a reduction of a third of our land area on our privately owned Beach and for what purpose as recently said by Tim we're willing to the 5T setback on the east and west but we are not or the North and South but we are not able to support anything further so in conclusion this ordinance is just not ready to be passed on the first reading there were many last minute changes and much work is to be done to clarify and quantify the implications of this ordinance thank you very much thank you for your comments Ed sheets please state your name and address for the record good evening this Ed sheets address is 5776 a business address is 6300 GF Boulevard postcard in thank you again for allowing us to come and speak this evening I appreciate it for Section 957 or 957 the setbacks the proposed setback requirements in section 957 could significant impact bside businesses and Property Owners these regulations May restrict the ability to provide services and amenities that attract visitors and support the local economy currently there is a 50 50ft setback from the mean water mean high water line pushing back this current setback to 75 ft further diminishes our hotel's ability to serveice guests I encourage there to be verbiage also pertaining to the current setback to prevent temporary structures loungers and chairs placed within these setbacks by non- guests especially on private beaches during business hours regarding the side property setback enourage you to vote against imposing additional side setbacks to private property owners we currently work well with our neighbors to provide adequate spacing to our Cabanas for those walking on the beach for pass through if needed for sections tourists and locals and disrupts one of the most PE peaceful times of the day at the beach our hotel Prides ourselves in working with Turtle tracker and the coastal Wildlife advocacy group to ensure that we are educated on the marine life on our beaches and our impact on them we've worked hand inand with those organizations to ensure compliance with the local wi love and turtles we received confirmation that the Cabana spacing and stacking of the louers that we currently do is more than sufficient to do not disturb the marine life on the beach and to allow the turtles to move freely about in the evening we do not understand what value this ordinance would have on our beaches which only causes all the hotels extreme financial and physical duress to clear the beach for the night time where the fewest individuals would actually be on the beach itself we hope we can come together as a community to form Common Sense rules on handling the beach during Turtle season and not letting the rest of the year be overly affected by a policy that creates hardship during the busiest times of Tourism during the year again thank you for your time and consideration thank you for your comments Travis Johnson feel please state your name and address for the record good evening can you put the doc cam on please good evening Travis Johnson representing 5500 Gulf Boulevard Trade Winds Resorts um as mentioned this is uh a good dialogue that's been going on for a couple of years now uh there's been a lot of reasonable items that have come up in the ordinance many of which we support and will help in force along the way but um as evident tonight there's still a lot of holes to be transparent here there's a lot of discussion question commissioner Marriott you brought up a question as to you know why this needed to be outside of just Turtle season I don't think we got a clear answer to that um you know there's you know a lot of going or one one positive that I want to mention that has come from the dialogue this far is we've already heard you that we want a more lightweight dense dense product right so we have on order to order 1300 uh lounge chairs you know as you many of you know we have almost 1,000 rooms so 1,300 chairs commissioner Robinson is not uncommon and during our busy times to use every single one of those chairs we've expressed the willingness to work together to find other Solutions but with the kind of volume that we have as as up on the screen shows moving those offsite um just is not realistic for us right so size and scope as you've heard tonight um is is definitely a concern there's as I mentioned uh earlier the setbacks this particular I don't know that there's clear Direction even today as we as we speak that we know what the setbacks are versus the side uh setbacks this represents 75 ft uh one unique item for trade wins is it's multiple Parcels even though we operate the resort as a consolidation as you can see here what you get is a very disjointed operation right we'd like there to be consideration to allow us as our guest would expect because all these you know uh properties are owned and operated by us that we could you know we're not restricted as to where they the command is could sit um removing as I mentioned our volume um it's very difficult I'm not sure where we would put these um time of day by the time we would finish moving them at300 it would be time to put them back talk about damage on the beach um the think about the traffic and and Mr Mayor you brought up the point which I've been asking is there electric vehicles capable of moving that kind of volume that we just don't know how that would be done so again we've expressed um the willingness to stack move back um commissioner Robinson we've looked at opportunity to only use what we need but there are times where we because of the the size and scope as you can see on the screen that we need all of those chairs um let's see here we've talked about there's one of the items in there is potentially reduced hours of operation and I talked about the how hard that is to to maneuver those around um even in you know um in the time we have this would be done at nighttime which we talked about is a a risk if we added an army of people the economic impact of that cost would be substantial um yeah and so the one other point was the the blinds at night um we do educate our guests we have window clings but we at the end of the day cannot control what the guest is willing to do thank you very much have a great night Mr Johnson would you be opposed to answering two questions and don't the questions are um what is your checkout and check in time 11:00 for check checkout and 4:00 p.m. for checkout okay so hours of operations and other areas of a business does not seem to be an issue and so how many rooms do you have 896 we operate yeah do they all clean get cleaned every day they do okay so you seem to be able to logistically manage cleaning 900 rooms in a small window of time is this not a small window of time time logistically with 1300 shares like I said if they're reasonable and that that term came up we're more than willing to work together and collaborate right there's a lot of items in here that I think are not fully thought out that are not reasonable and the mathematics of the time that the sun sets versus the time we want to open the beach which our visitors have come to expect is just not realistic there's there's better ways again a majority of the items in here we agree with we see the value we're willing to work but there are some some big holes and I hope you all can can see that it needs to be thought out thank you sir you're welcome Mr may I have one I'd like to ask sorry if you if you're open for more questions or you can just that's up to you you don't have to answer so the the the room count was 889 896 I believe is the account that includes what we 1300 chairs correct okay just and and like I said we went to again we it's collaboration we heard that the the the product we had which was the wooden Cabana which you mentioned with the large Hood we've been waiting this has been going on for two years right so we wanted some direction we were you know we've been two years kind of waiting for the feedback because we didn't want to buy something that then becomes obsolete or um you know would something we couldn't use long term so I think we we listened we understood where it was going and that order has been placed we will have these chairs by March 1st did your other ones get damaged in the storm no we're still using those ones today we this was something that was in the works well well prior so commission M sir do you still have that diagram that you had up there I do so I'm just trying to understand things uh so you're actually five different properties well these are part I don't know if this is um the only Parcels but this was done as an as an example to show the way it's worded now we would have to separate by parcel and as you can see whatever that side setback becomes creates pretty large gaps in terms of where the seating would be um be able to be located so you're saying there there may be more Parcels than these five I'm not sure how it's broken down but I know we're unique in the fact that uh we run as because as you can see there that's all of Tradewinds but uh the way the language is is worded that we would have to have these odd you know um gaps where as a guess you would not expect that you'd be restricted to sit in one of those locations but the properties are deed separately apparently I believe that's the case I'm sorry I believe that I don't know I'm not sure okay thank you thank you sir thank you Brad Cochran if you please state your name and address for the record Brad Cochran 5300 GF Boulevard good evening Commissioners mayor um I'm the general manager of the serata beach resort the newly proposed Beach ordinance will have a major impact on the operations of the hotels not only from a revenue perspective but drastically adding drastically added cost to the following proposed guidelines having to add additional staff limiting the hours of operation and a reduction in the service areas our site and location as do many others do not allow space to move these items to locations that meet the new proposed standard if they are to be removed this would take uh many hours each day uh unintended damage to the dunes uh due to increased traffic and the increase in the possibility of Associates as well as guests getting injured moving heavy equipment on and off the beach twice daily the new ordinance will have an economic economic and financial impact on all businesses on the beach I strongly urge you to reconsider and vote no to the proposed Beach ordinance without further discussion and review of the total impact um approving them may have on the business owners and community community as a whole uh the big question tonight is what is reasonable thank you thank you sir Elise betel please state your name and address for the record good evening Elise Batel 401 East Jackson Street Tampa Florida um the ordinance as it's drafted now raises a significant number of legal concerns we did send a letter in or do or revisions into the City attorney um I know that they're going to review those but I just want to categorize those first of all we already talked about the public purpose I appreciate the attempts tonight to create a public purpose for some of these um commissioner resi I I so appreciate uh your preservation your code actually talks about preservation and what can and can't happen on the those preservation areas it says that there can't be Land Development it doesn't say anything or limit anything about property owners using their private property for recreational purposes for chairs and Cabanas as with respect to Public Safety I hope that anyone tripping on private property would be uh trespassing at night and I hope that we would be enforcing those ordinance as well I think saying that that is Public Safety is a bit of an overreach um this is a really organized group of hotels uh there's three lawyers in the room that are looking very carefully at this ordinance and how you're drafting this ordinance and they're prepared to challenge the ordinance if there aren't significant changes made to this ordinance before it's finally adopted um as arbitrary and unreasonable as an inordinate burden to their property there are serious significant economic damages to them um and I say that not in a threatening way I say that because after since 2022 they are down you're kicking them when they're down um they are half of them don't have permits just like everybody else to actually go in and repair what they have and here we are with this ordinance once again um I sat next to John kersman and we whispered and we said really all we need is to have the beach stewardship people and the hotel sit down and we are sure that we could come up with something that works with everyone but we've never been given that opportunity and now this ordinance came back after the hurricane uh no discussion with the hotels at that period of time there's a real opportunity to come up with something that works for everyone accomplishes purposes and doesn't overly burden the private property you can do whatever you want on your public beaches you know you have a lot of of leeway to do that but you are significantly restricted with what you can require prior private property to do um and so we hope that you take those issues into consideration thank you thank you for your comments Jeff click if you please state your name and address for the record that um my name is Jeff click and um I have two businesses on S Beach uh Sun Coast waterports Sun Coast tours actually and Sun Coast beach properties we own uh two commercial um spots one on 76 Avenue at 4555 and the other uh 9540 blind Pass Road um so I work out of four different Resorts currently um at various times we've worked out of seven different resorts on St Beach I can tell you each Resort is completely unique they all have their own challenges uh the Dolphin Beach Resort hugging up to the uh Public Access has unique challenges uh that the Hilton Garden in does not have um you know some of the things with setbacks uh the hotels have that well covered um you know so I'm going to speak more to the practical application of some of this stuff and um removing the equipment every night um it sounds good in theory but it's really not practical um and and a lot of the stuff is is honestly unreasonable um I did a little economic impact study um at the Hilton Garden in it's my smallest location I figured it' be the easiest to kind of assess what it would cost me and for us to remove the equipment every night and put it back on one one by one will cost me $133,000 extra per year just in payroll I'm just a small business I'm not a a you know a big hotel um I'm trying to support a family I've got you know I feel like I'm a good uh person in this community after the Hurricanes we offered um uh free food and drinks for anyone in the community that wanted to come out we did that two separate times um on our own dime just because we want to be a part of this we want to be a part of the rebuild um and when it comes to you know some of the things that were addressed um mayor patrill you mentioned these fast moving storms I'd counter your argument as somebody who's been doing this for 16 years and I'd say that our anchored equipment is much safer than any equipment that's being uh moved in and out temporarily um there's no way to Anchor that um so if you look at South Carolina parts of Florida that do have ordinance where they take it on off the beach you're going to find uh new St uh stories where people are impaled by umbrellas um clamshell style hoods are not something that you can just take down and put up without anchoring them so we're going to talk about now the trade wins is going to have to put a thousand umbrellas out there fast mov storm how many people do you think is reasonable to drop a thousand umbrellas before they go flying through the air um so there are some safety concerns I have with trying to enact some of this stuff without really understanding the implications of of some of this um so beyond the economic impact to me um beyond the you know the safety concerns of flying objects um you know there are some protections I know under under Florida law um chapter 20 23- uh 3 9 um you know addresses local ordinances and the arbitrary and um unreasonable um you know aspects most of this ordinance is pretty good but some of this stuff um we've never been given any chance to give input we're the ones that have to live with it um you know the intent is health safety welfare I'd really like somebody to care about me and my staff um so thanks for your time thank you Deb shner good evening Deborah shner boasa aisle in St Pete Beach we have had numerous meetings where any hotel you can come give their three minutes of information they they'd like to do that I was on Hutchinson Island several times you byy the pool you want a chair they put a chair out they don't have hundreds of chairs on the beach blocking people from walking and doing the things they do if you only put it out as a guest request it it's so much easier and you're not crowding the beach we all know some of the beaches you can barely walk on because there are so many chairs we have to look at reasonable to whom obviously I understand the hotels want it to be reasonable for them but we also have to consider the residents and what's reasonable for us and our job honestly is to protect our environment to protect our beach to protect our sand and protect the ability of residents to enjoy that as well as guests and to me that's very very important if it's okay well I can't read my own handwriting right now anyway I I think it's really really important that you take a five years six years we have talked about this to awar blue in the face and yet people are coming up and saying it's not well thought out they had many opportunities to come and speak I do particularly find it unconscionable that one of the lawyers for these hotels comes up and threatens us very strongly and then all of a sudden says no not really we're not really threatening you well you just did take a look at the information and the transcript should react to that you should react to the betterment of our beach to our residents and it's not that hard to bring a chair out for each resident each guest who wants one if you want to maybe put just one row way up near the property I don't know if that's good or bad but I'm just saying it's done all over the United States I've been to many many beaches when I want a chair I ask and they're not full of chairs and this beach has had a history of having way too many chairs on our beaches and I think everybody up there can agree with that so I don't know we want to talk about it for 10 years and still do nothing where's your limit so much work has been done on this that to just throw it away now does not make sense thank you thank you Carrie green if you please state your name and address for the record yes my name is Carrie green I'm the general manager of the Hilton Garden in 6100 Golf Boulevard um so my conversation is going to kind of go back to what Robin said earlier which is where our main focus should be now um obviously we know that the Hurricanes left a lasting impression on this area uh severely impacting both the present and the future of St Pete Beach particularly within the tourism Community um over the past several months the city has entered a critical stage of rebuilding in response to these challenges many hotels and businesses including the Hilton Garden in um mobilized immediately after the bridges reopened prioritizing restoration and disaster relief efforts we have worked tirelessly to reopen our doors and continuing to contribute to the Financial Health and long-term viability of this community uh in partner with local organizations like Sun Coast water sports we have taken significant steps to clean and restore our Beach area working to create a welcoming and relaxing environment that will help Drive tourism back to our market during a time when we are striving to rebuild and support the economic recovery of the city it is contraproductive to impose further restrictions on our ability to attract tourists such decisions would hinder the efforts of businesses that are committed to supporting the community's recovery one particularly concerning aspect of the proposed ordinance is the daily setup and removal of the Cabanas this requirement would impose an unsustainable burden on our operations the labor and the resources needed to comply would severely limit our ability to offer Beach amenities that are essential to attracting Leisure and group Travelers should this ordinance be passed in addition to the setbacks and restrictions near the wet water line our property would lose nearly a third of its privately owned Beach this would force us to replace Cabanas with umbrellas diminishing the experience we could offer to both our guests and the residents of St Pete Beach who are also currently afforded access to these amenities uh it is clear that this ordinance in its current form is not ready for approval it still requires further work and clarification on many points now is the time for our community to come together and support the city during a rebuilding phase rather than placing additional burdens on businesses that are already fighting to recover and contribute to the local uh economy thank you thank you Katie Cole if you please state your name and address for the record good evening mayor Commissioners Katie Cole with hillward Henderson there's been a lot of thoughtful conversation and I don't want to take too much time um despite the mayor's willingness to stay here till 3:00 a.m. I don't know that everybody would like to do that tonight um all all directions that have been discussed tonight seem like there are more significant changes forthcoming and I think what you're hearing uh from some of your colleagues and the hotel years is that this isn't the right time for a first to pass this on first reading the hotels tonight and our clients appreciate the city desires to balance the beauty of the natural resources Wildlife residences and the business opportunities but this ordinance as presented at first reading doesn't necessarily do that there are changes NE necessary to conform the uh definitions of cavana service area the private beach the public beach the proposed ordinance needs more input the operational issues that you've already heard about the special event discrepancies 10ft tents um are the hotel is now Limited in the number of events they have on the beach because there's a tent restriction the alcohol service area if any alcohol is served has to be within this area does that prohibit uh other events or weddings or parties that they normally have on these beaches there's an inordinate burden of the greater setbacks especially for the smaller parts as you've already heard from a few of the hotel years the residents uh missner who always speaks well she's we I appreciate that she wants the beach to be beautiful and open for the residents which I think everybody loves St Pete Beach for that reason but this ordinance is about private property the residents don't have access to this property anyway unless they are guests of the hotel years which are limited by this get the hotel years in the beach stewardship committee back together and allow the opportunity now that the storms have passed to celebrate a successful ordinance where everybody can work together and do this as one and be happy together with this mayor already talked about many of these restrictions already being in place and the city simply not enforcing them what would happen if the city would enforce them with that symbiotic relationship of the residents and hotel years exist and so something that is even more owner is not be necessary please give the that opportunity to come back on a first reading with a clearly defined definitions these inconsistencies resolved and not try to do it from the dis on the Fly publishing this ordinance last week for the first time since last June having so much Strife in the community we appreciate it thank you thank you Miss Co I remember was you and your client that were here until 1:00 two weeks ago soy to do it again John kurman your please State you nameing the address for the record John kurman be here on the way uh I am speaking as a beach Steward but I am certainly not recommending uh uh representing the beach stewardship Committee just as similarly when I was speaking to someone in the back before I was only speaking as myself and could not be representing the committee I only learned of this uh ordinance being you know uh touched upon on Sunday when I happened to notice it in the uh agenda there was nothing communicated to the beach stewardship committee that this was even being discussed tonight but I want to start by saying you know wow I mean it seems like everybody's looking at just this part about you know uh you know uh you know the the the caban is at night uh and I think we're forgetting that it was just you know maybe it was six months ago there were residents being trespassed on on parts of the beach uh and you know people are talking about that they were concerned about you know what areas were going to be the setbacks and I think we're forgetting that you know maybe the setbacks are bigger but people are talking tonight about private property rights and think you may be forgotten and maybe it's because we have new staff and new legal representation um but this is a unique Beach and every Beach is sort of unique and um we do have some customary use uh rules and some history and if you look go back at the videos our last attorney even spoke about how we do have a history and it would be hard to show that there was not a customary use of people traversing the entire Beach uh I confirmed in a discussion with pelis tax assessor in November of 2024 the hotels and beach properties are are taxed as beach front properties and are generally taxed to the marsh line Marsh line not to the mean high water line um so so they're not tax for the sandy beach and I think so one of the fundamental questions is that when you are doing these btrs these business tax receipts and you're you're charging them $100 a year for all of the the chairs and yet you're charging a salon per chair and you're paying freebie per hour for the service they provide you know you have to decide what you're really going to be doing there and I think we have so many things to cover I certainly can't cover it in three minutes um you know just one of the fundamental things that we discussed in our on our earlier uh workshops was that the Cabana Zone was not going to be something that restricted the public from walking into it it was not going to have wristbands it was going to be it was going to have signs that said you could not leave with your drink it would not have signs that prevented the public from coming in you did not have to be a patron of the hotel to come in it was not a p a private area because we were going to continue to make sure that the the public could continue to walk into those Beach areas because we did not want to disturb the the usual and customary use of the beach and also now that the our commissioners are gone and our attorney is gone that was involved in the recision of our of our ordinance that protected our customary use ordinance we have the means and I wrote you a letter about this today we have the means to consider fixing some of our customary use ordinances with what was done in the executive session and the vote afterwards also Jennifer McMahon and Matthew McConnell and others uh were were you know were working and they were supposed to be putting together the things that we had worked on in our Workshop to to create something and there were many things that never came back to the committee and we really need to start putting that information together and I really think that we have a meeting of the stewardship Committee in February I really think that we should put things together at that point thank you BJ [Music] Lawson please state your name and address for the record LW in 5407 Leilani Drive in my observations back when I was living at our house we were living at our house and we'd often walk the beaches in the large resort District we were always amazed by how few chairs were occupied and as this persisted over our couple years of living here I began to realize then tuning into the discussions about customer use and frankly observing the behavior of some of the visitors on our beach the day Trippers over the past couple years gosh the hotels aren't really putting out all these chairs to rent them that's not the purpose they're staking they're marking their territory they're basically saying this is what we consider our so we can have a way to trespass people off of it now I say that because I thank you for being here today and dealing with both of these organ these ordinances these proposed ordinances these are both related they are both very important and I'd simply say that everything comes down to our starting to enforce our code of ordinances consistently so that as we have seen we don't end up with Anarchy on the beach where we've got people that there the resorts would rather push off and get rid of and we've got really bad behavior that's attracting from everyone's experience and I think we really can reach a new point of elevating our town and our beach as we get the guests to understand that this is how St beat Beach operates and as we get the hotels to agree and to help us to elevate that standard of behavior and frankly I think we're very close what we've heard here tonight has been an excellent discussion it sounds like there's consensus that if we only put the chairs out that we need that doesn't mean we're trying to move 1300 on the beach and off the beach in a single day and if we individually decide where's a good place to store these things that there are reasonable reasonable decisions to be made there so in conclusion I would encourage you to take advantage of the work that's been done and pass this on first reading and continue to refine it in a way that gets us to a point of having a set of ordinances that can be and will be consistently enforced for everyone's benefit the last point I'd like to make which is just a a small topical edit would be in section please state your name and address for the record good evening Dave Winkler Sun Coast waterports 9540 blind Pass Road 45576 Avenue 4900 Gulf Boulevard Dolphin Beach Resort 5300 Gulf Boulevard Sado Beach Resort 6,100 Gulf Boulevard Hilton Garden in and 6300 G Boulevard postcar in all the locations were Sun Coast waterports holds an occupational license or what is now called a business tax receipt in St Pete Beach to conduct business since 1978 for 47 continuous years I have been in the water sports and cabana rental business in St Pete Beach offering Beachside services to Residents and guests alike 47 years on the sand you cannot run a dangerous or disreputable or disrespectful business and stay in business for that long and not once have I been allowed to speak at a workshop or Beach stewardship meeting to provide Al valuable input that I have from experience if yourselves or anyone in this room wanted to be in the business that I am in in St Pete Beach you would come into the development community community development offices next door announce your intentions and apply for a business tax receipt to condu to conduct business on the beach behind a resort one of the first things you will you will be told by City staff and maybe to your surprise is that you will first have to obtain permission in the form of a contractual agreement between yourself and the resort you might question why is that I want to do business on the beach the answer is simple the resort owns the beach all the way to the mean high water line why mean high water line and for you to conduct business on the sand you must have an agreement in place to to conduct business on their Beach the process from there becomes even more complicated involving negotiations with Hotel owners insurances stipulations responsibilities equipment and rights basically a landlord tenant agreement where you come to an agreement that allows you to conduct certain business operations on their private property this is what we have done for 47 years the beach is the store that I operate in if I accomplish anything tonight it is to make clear that there is a distinct difference between the public and private beaches in St Pete Beach up and Beach passag Grill and the county park across from Dolphin Village are all considered public beaches open to the public make whatever rules you want for that public property the white sand behind each of the resorts in St P Beach is private property owned by the by The Resort all the way to the mean high water line the mean high water line is a legal boundary established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by taking a 19-year average on the high tide line that line establishes each of the resorts western boundary private line unfortunately there's a common misconception from the general public that as soon as you step foot in the sand that you are on public property that is not the case behind the resorts thank you sir you got I have no more cards I make a motion that we extend to 12: a.m and take a 10-minute recess Second City Clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes mayor patrilla yes motion carries we are adjourned until 10:02 Sharp e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e in session all right Commissioners we have uh we have heard from the public and I think our next step is to discuss the uh the setbacks um what so we have several different diagrams that the uh City staff has pro has provided us just to kind of look at you know uh what size we want to go how many feet we want to look at setbacks um I think we can look at two different uh areas for setbacks one we can look at the setbacks from mean High waterline and then we can look at the setbacks at the property lines um the same again it's the same as you would have on any single family house or any other property in the city um we can look at the setbacks on the uh on the property lines from the neighbors as well maybe we can start by tackling what might be an easier one by looking at the setback from the water so right now what where we have Brandon Brandon you might as well make yourself a permanent fixture up here so right now what do we have and what's being proposed just so we're all everyone's on the same page currently adopted is a 50 foot setback from the wet sand for the Cabana service area so for the serving of alcohol um there's no explicit setback for the actual placement of temporary structures as I believe believe was talked about earlier um what is proposed is a 75 ft setback for the uh cabana rental areas as well as the alcohol service areas Cabana being temporary structures I just want to make sure as was discussed earlier so we're looking at an additional 25 ft correct which is basically a little less than all these windows here considering they're like 30 Ines each okay and that would be for the alcohol service there is currently no setback for temporary structure placement so that would be the full 75 ft that would be new okay when was the 50 Foot adopted that was as part of the original ordinance for the Cabana service areas back in 2016 I believe okay does anybody have any uh thoughts comments objections recommendations for the water setback I'm just cruising sure we got till midnight or longer so as this is written that one setback is going to be for both entities for both temporary and command corre okay yes for any commercial activity [Applause] correct maybe not solicitation but for chairs umbrellas tables that service of alcohol okay and then as far as water sports and all that that's not even included in this at all no cuz I remember when water sports wasn't even regulated Dave and I go back way back when that when Paras selling wasn't even regulated sport so anything was possible back then commissioner so I think that um a potential problem that I see with increasing the setback from the water is that c currently we don't have a customary use ordinance in place and So currently if we increase the setback to 75 ft [Music] from the water line for the hotels to have any commercial operations that's going to leave a 75t area where anybody walking down the beach is going to assume that that is public beach area where they can set up their own tent and their own chairs and the hotels are currently going to be able to tell them that they have to leave and that they can't put up their own tent or their own chairs there and so creating more real estate where that can happen I don't I don't see the good that comes from that and so 50 ft is what we've been doing I I mean I I don't I don't see any real compelling reason to change that without without causing you know without causing a whole new set of problems and and we're not going to create a 50-ft setback on the public beach so to me it seems a little hard to argue or a 75t setback from the water on the public beach so to me it seems kind of hard to argue that we need a 75t clear space of nobody for safety purposes if that's only going to be in front of private property and not in front of public property I only see one property that's going outside of the seven well maybe two properties going outside the 75 that's it so one the public beach the vendors are restricted to the same restrictions that you have any commercial activity so if the Cabanas rental chairs umbrellas are 50 ft or 75 ft on at the county park will be the same as any other Hotel so there is consistency across the board there and then really looking at all of the the satellite images that we have here there is every single one of the Cabanas chairs is at 75 ft or greater yep so anyone that says well that would be some new hardship they're currently not putting them beyond that and again we're we're being consistent across the board implementing safety and limiting new in the public Hazard everywhere in fact I mean here's here's a property you know they're at 80 ft this one over here is at about 100t yeah [Music] the so I'm not I'm not really seeing that there's anything had issue yeah I mean not I'm not seeing you know most of them are this yeah this movie here is at at 100 feet 100 feet 80 feet 100 feet maybe 150 feet right so even so then there's no issue so so moving why would we change it to 75 because that's what they're using IF even the bigger issue I think is the side set back the side set back well it's it's protecting that so that it doesn't get I mean would didn't say it was an issue I was saying that their point was in valid because you know they're saying that 75 ft is too much and currently they're not using 75 ft we had a couple that said that it would be hard to move them but what my point is what I'm trying to say is I do see that and this is not all all scenarios and all sand is different in different locations too but from the ones that we see here none of them are you know maybe a couple of chairs and I it's hard to tell if that's a rental or just someone else who put it in there in the current with 50 feet is not an issue so what are we trying to solve why are we moving it to 75 if they're not even there right now well it goes back to what you mentioned earlier the preservation zone right but but what are we doing so are we going to say no one can put a chair no other commercial activity we're we're talking about commercial activity this whole ordinance has been about I agree but are we going to say for preservation that no other temporary structure no one else can come and put their Cabana or let's say temporary structure their 10 x10 tent their chairs their umbrellas right in that zone they also have restrictions right so they can't do anything larger than 10 x 10 they can't put 10 by 10 together they make a large continuous thing they have to remove their stuff at night anyway so again we're we're not imposing anything that is again I'm not sure that I see where the hardship here and if we are going to have a preservation Zone like you've mentioned at the bead stewardship all of that is Preservation yeah so we're we're maintaining the preservation Zone here and again I mean I can I can go back through the list of the reasons why we had the same reasons that we had at the multiple workshops with the beach stewardship the beach stewardship had their own Workshops the commission had its own workshops then we had joint workshops this is the fifth first reading that we've had so everyone that says that you've never had an opportunity I sorry but you all spoke for 3 minutes today the same way that you had an opportunity to speak for the last 3 years at all the other meetings and first readings or FAL start first readings of this ordinance plus we have a hotel year meeting between the hotel years and the city manager and me every other month and in fact we just had one two weeks ago not and I was there and we had a five minute meeting because no one had anything to talk about and then we have a business meeting with the business community that hotels are also part of once a month so anyone that says you've not had ample opportunity my cell number is listed on the city website so is my email so is every other commissioner I answer my phone or the very least I return phone calls I return emails many of you have emailed me for other issues so you know I do respond and you know I call you back so I I appreciate that you all are here in fact I love that you all are here I wish you all would come more often right because I do want to hear from you that's one of the reasons that we paused the discussion so that we can hear from you first before we start making arbitrary decisions without hearing from the people are being impacted um but I you know we've had we've given so many opportunities for public input I mean dozens of the last three years every time the beach stewardship meet meets you get three minutes every time the commission meets three minutes so it's going back to the issue of 75 versus 50 ft I think that uh uh you may be right about nobody being negatively ex affected except that when you get up to the North End and the beach comr and the postcard in would lose would lose some space according to these photographs which page is that please uh page 179 and 180 so they are also less than 75 ft or sorry 180 and page 180 80 180 and 181 the last two pages if you look at the 75t front set back line I have a question it's behind their first couple of I mean it you know I like my ver it's cute so so 181 there are no chairs in that picture and then 180 181 the 6 6300 Golf Boulevard do we have different page numbers yeah there's no there's nothing 300 go Boulevard green line that's the 50 Foot setback what is that going across those are chairs yeah that's chair I not seeing any chairs SP like you're not the same page it's the very last one it's the very very very last one well those chairs must be so small because they got umbrellas only only one but then there's nothing in the middle which is kind of weird but um and then the one above that 600 Golf Boulevard they also have if we do the 75 but increase or decrease the side setbacks given a more um rectangular area um I'm just looking at we can do a combination of this correct we can we can look at anything we so what we have for examples here is 30 50 75 we can go idea go to 15 we can go to 10% or 5% of the length of the we can do we can look at anything I think the I'd be okay with it decreasing the side setbacks I mean we're 15 feet right to 10 if you did 10 on each side I would give them a little bit more space outside well I'm thinking about like a fire truck or a fire engine or something that we want at least I would say the minimum at least 15 ft right but you're going to have two properties next to each other so you're going to have 30 you have 30 ft which is like that's true as wide as G Boulevard well that's what I'm saying like if if we look at 10 well no Golf Boulevard is it's not as wide as Golf Boulevard it's as wide as F or golf line that's what I'm saying like if we do like 15 fet on each side it gives us 30 that's plenty well and it's not and from the looks of it it hardly impacts anyone to Brandon is the um is the ordinance written such that the tradewins property setbacks would be per parcel line or would they be interpreted by staff as the overall property so it it does state property line um so I think there is some ambiguity there uh typically we look at zoning Lots which is the entire property as developed as one unified site uh that's how it was brought forward for development so I believe we would probably just clarify that if as a zoning lot the commission is not adverse to it we would just clarify it's for the zoning lot so do those properties have a Unity of title uh they will as part of the um the development but then until such time I'm not aware of one now that's active so you you said they will at what point at the point that developments undertaken based on the approval granted last year so there will be a Unity of title that is one of the requirements that there be a unification may not maybe not a Unity of title specifically but there would be some kind of unification that would allow them to function as one one property so they are when it benefits they get the benefit when it doesn't benefit they get the benefit well I think it's I think it's up for discussion how how we interpret this um there are other properties in a similar situation that are also Resorts so if it were to be based on the current parcel property line um it would just affect the the layout of the Cabana service areas for each of these properties and and this again would be relate for um properties that potentially just have Cabana uh rental areas as well as alcohol service areas they would be Trad the same as drafted so I'm sorry Mr Mayor I know we're still talking about the uh seawood sides no we can talk about any of it I mean it's at this point it's it's up to the commission to decide but yeah I'm trying to think through this if I bought my neighbor's house and then I got a I went to the board of adjustment and said I want to combine these lots and then I never actually did and then just started building a a house on both Lots without having finished a combination are you going to tell me that you actually can't do that the Lots would need to be combined yeah so until such time you can build what you can build on each individual lot if it was a residential a lot and so I don't see how the difference here until such time that they're combined they're separate tax ID numbers they're separate entities they're owned under separate LLCs mhm so why would we treat them as anything other than the separate things that they are on paper I'm I'm not disagreeing with you no I know I'm just I'm I'm speak speak into the the two the four in my side um because we have another instance of one that is proposing to separate their property into three lots right the moment they do that they're going to be subject and I the way I read this they're going to be subject to the same rules so if they split if they combine they combine they get a different benefit if they split they get the same requirements as everybody else when they split that makes sense I'm not sure that commercial properties are always treated exactly the same as Residential Properties and in all those ways you know like I'm I'm thinking about if we had a if we had a restaurant on Corey Avenue that ex that expand handed into a storefront next door to them would would we and and they had you know chairs on the sidewalk would we require that they have setbacks between them even though it's one functioning business and two sidebyside businesses like in in that scenario I think most people would look at it and go well that's ludicrous you know so so I don't know that it's quite as simple as as saying well if I you know bought my neighbor's lot and build a house across the middle because what we're talking about on the beach isn't buildings it's not it's not permanent structures being erected it's a you know it's what does the whole thing look like and and you know everybody was really concerned with the with the trade wins that the and and with the sarata that it look and operate as one Resort and now we're going to take the current trade wins which looks and operates as one Resort except from the beach make it look and operate like five separate ones you know it's a it's it's I mean I'm kind of fine with whatever but we should at least be consistent you are consistent each property tax ID number yeah is subject to the same rules and ordinances as every other tax ID number right and if you expand into the you know into the storefront next door it's probably still the same tax ID number if it's a different business if it's a different building you're going to have the same rules right if you just if you own two different buildings on two separate parcels and you want to run a restaurant you're going to have to get a second license LIC for the other one it's a different tax ID number it's a different I mean if you want to run it as one entity and share a kitchen which they might be doing if you want to share the same Cabana Personnel whatever but as far as for the purposes you know how they operate their business it's you know that's for them to decide how to best operate it you know within the parameters of the ordinance I mean from a from a from a practical from a practical standpoint and an aesthetic stand point of what like from the beach to me that that seems you know that that seems unreasonable but but uh well we already looked at so they clean thousands of rooms a day they serve thousands of meals through room service and the restaurants they they have set hours of operations right you check out by 11: you check in at 3:00 so they got 4 hours to clean every single room every single they I mean clearly these individuals are Masters at Logistics and we have the businesses that operate at upam at the county part at Pastor Grill I've spoken with them they operate 11 locations in the county they have one staff person at each location that puts all the chairs out and all the chairs back at night I was just talking about setbacks I was talking about I was talking about separation between the chairs I was talking about somebody walking down the beach or somebody you know walking out from the resort and and having these things parceled out and then again what is the what what is the what is the purpose other than we've created these we've created the rule that says it goes with the with the property line and so we're going to stick to it even if it seems ridiculous and and we're going to have these these setbacks in the Middle where where we're going to try to you know orchestrate some confrontations between residents and and and the hotel when somebody comes up and tries to put up a 10x 10 tent in a 30ft wide space that's on Hotel property that isn't there for any reason other than we've decided that we want to punish them for having separate Parcels so again I've outlined the reasons twice tonight I've outlined them outlined them at every single previous Beach stewardship and commission meeting that this ordinance has come out I'm not going to repeat myself for seventh or eighth time so the the reasons are there the reasons stand I don't see how a contiguous th000 foot 2,000 ft of Cabanas somehow is more pleasingly aesthetical that doesn't make sense to anyone next think we just a free-for-all at this point in the discussion can we stop with just step in I don't really like the lights right now um I I do agree with uh with um commissioner Marriott some of your your points but I just want to go back to these pictures because this is not one continuous view of the whole entire Beach okay so and I'll look at Just Belle weather for example um that's next to to the Sera what's the address on that one so I can follow or what page so it's on page 177 and the next page one or the one before 176 so when we look at 176 and you're just seeing the smaller parcel right but you're not seeing you know miraculously all the other chairs I guess it's on the opposite side but um you you're not seeing the impact when you've got a large resort then a small Resort then that particular one has a public Beach axis has a condominium on the opposite side and how the whole thing looks like it looks it looks very different if you look at the Bell weather yes they they're on the property line their chairs are on the property line um the Bell weather is at uh 30 feet I'm saying the side setbacks yeah no they're on the south side it's at 30 ft and then on the North side they're encroaching on their neighbor yeah what's the address there I don't have the page numbers you're 50 5250 I'm sorry 50 5250 5250 176 for the page number I don't have page numbers okay got you okay anyways the this property is narrow I mean and and yes they have reached out um and I've gone there I think it was a year ago I don't remember even before that um and what it looks like and when it's staked out and what it would be um for me leaving it at 50 from the water because looking at all these pictures see seems no different but the side setbacks from what I earlier said about if it's an access point and I'll get to the fire trucks later but if it's an access point to Traverse whether for Ada or to just be able to move across right if our current Beach accesses are maybe at a Max of 10 fet maybe I know we've been wanting more through cups and and all and all that then the side setback all the way out to the mean high water should still be the same right if it's just for Access I liked and I had written that in my notes when commissioner mahalan said let the individual hotels work with the city come up with the plan for accessibility you know for safety and so forth because they are unique you know it could look different and you look at some of these that hey they got nice straight rows there spaces in between so they seem accessible fire trucks are not going to be going South to um or east to west on all these properties right most of them don't even have access from Gulf Boulevard to come out um you know if I've ever seen any truck and I don't know if fires here anybody in the back nope but they're not going in that direction okay um the vehicles are smaller and and I do remember some discussion about that not all those Vehicles can can go back and forth even in discussions in cups and the turnarounds and all that kind of stuff so um as long as they're able to you know work with the city come up with a plan that meets the safety or the health of of those the the patrons who are at the hotels or the people who are walking on the beach right Anything could happen on the beach as you're walking and you need some paramedic or someone to come out um and help you right if as long as we're meeting that then I I I know strongly that we're meeting that purpose um um you know I I agree in a lot of the things that some of U of the people who came up publicly and spoke um when I asked you know to you know where are we on the status of the beach ordinance in the past was to find out where we were from the last time this had been in front of the commission and um we were waiting for a business impact statement there has been some other changes that that I saw once this was published that that I had not seen from that last time either um you know and and I do think that they should be given and probably Beach stewardship I know I called mine my counterpart didn't know about this being on tonight right from Beach stewardship um with the additional changes so to give them opportunity to work through that I don't think is is a bad thing um because they they deserve I mean it impacts them right it's economically going to impact them um pulling all the chairs for me all the way through the dunes is not preserving anything I do want them to be stacked to put away that's you know that's a definite um you know but not not all the way back that there was no purpose for that um I wish I had some of the representatives here from um turtle trekers and so forth even though I've heard from some already that the way that they were stacking and moving him during Turtle season was okay you know and that you know it it still met that purpose you know for for wildlife so um I'm inclined to keeping it at the 50 from the water and um having them work um on individual plans because there are there is a variety I don't know when this picture was taken I don't know if this if I remember last year some of the hotels were starting to try to see what it would look like if we did go to these ordinances and at least I know when I walked out there they tried it out to see if it was doable so I think they were trying to work with us um but I don't think there was a closure on that so to clarify we sent the staff after the last meeting to come back with exactly these sketches it was not the business impact statement it was these sketches the business impact statement was always going to be a requirement which we will have it at second reading city manager has already mentioned that at least once this evening and so the only thing we were waiting on the only thing that was the last thing and this is the conversation in fact commission rzeki and commissioner marad you and I had because y all wanted to pull this part out and pass the whole ordinance as is which we haven't made any substantial changes to the ordinance so I'm not sure why there's any objections to the ordinance now the only thing that we have now that we didn't have before is this are these diagrams and sketches and the reason why I was so adamant at that time that we have it all as a unified ordinance is because we had an interim city manager who was his whole job was just to keep us floating along until we got to a point we had four appointed Commissioners one elected official right that was the reason at that time because I had we had not our staff was in flux our commissioner was in flux and the only thing that's been required that that was the only thing that was sent back to the staff is exactly what they've provided so everybody was in agreement with the substance of 99% of this with the exception of the setbacks so I'm not sure why now we got to kick it back and kick the can down the road again and the reason we're having this conversation tonight is because of the storms because like many other areas the storms have identified some real significant diff uh difficulties and the efficiencies in our ordinances we had chairs thankfully they all have nice logos on them across my neighbor's yard almost a mile from from the hotel so you tell me they were't secured and we had how many days notice a week's notice that the storm is coming that we might have 5 seven9 fet 15 ft of water and nobody secure their chairs so I don't I don't buy the argument that you know this doesn't happen because it just happened here's the reason why it's because of the events of just this is even more important now than ever to make sure that we are more resilient in the future so that when these things do happen again if they happen again we are more protected you know and whoever said before that this is simply to benefit the residents is it going to benefit the residents absolutely but who uses the hotel properties more than anybody else it's not the it's not the residents it's the visitors so the health and safety aspects that I've outlined multiple times here they benefit your guests more than anyone else it's for them and their benefit to have easier access to Emergency Services right and so I mean that's that's the reason we're here that's the reason why this is important that we get this over the finish line and get this moving along so that you know as these events happen we are more prepared and more resilient that's one more another reason on top of it which is why it's important we were 99% finished minus the setback issu so I think we should finish the setback issue so do we have any consensus of 50 feet versus 75 ft I mean I think we should all kind of I'm I'm okay with 75 ft where are we at on the 75 ft and let's talk about the side setbacks we should be moving this forward yeah I'm I'm for the 75 I'll just make a motion uh I think we need to make a motion we just need to get consensus and then we'll get a motion on the whole thing okay it's written as a 15t side setback which is an indicative of this it's half of that because that's a 30 on the side so it goes out further so it' be the 75 here and the 15 over here so half of that I'm okay with 15 and 75 yeah are you talking from the water though 75 from the water water which takes you to the Blue Line the property line which is half of the distance of what's on here well no it's that's 30 that's what I'm saying it's half the distance yeah half the distance there right and we're not touching of course anything up top yep I would be in favor of 50 foot setback from the water 15 foot side setbacks is probably fine on a parcel like the trade winds that crosses so many properties I would rather see them work with City staff to have appropriate brakes for you know for safety and and access purposes among you know instead of having a solid sea of chairs but I would rather see there be be reasonably thought out appropriately sized aisles so to speak through the chairs that could be worked out with staff in places that make sense instead of just a blanket property line side setback I mean I there's no reason why we can't say they're not even 75 feet 15 feet and have a site plan that can be administratively approved are and so would you be allowing the staff to administratively approve going into the 15ot side setback no that would that's that's the ordinance the ordinance just like your home setback is 15 ft from your right and so that's that's that's what I don't agree with in a case of of properties like the trade mons because if you if you're doing if you're doing 15t side setbacks which makes a 30ft side setback 30ft wide breake in the chairs at property lines instead of putting in appropriately sized Brakes in the chairs at spots where it makes sense where perhaps there is access for emergency vehicles or you know maybe there's a spot where there's a parking lot that abuts the beach where you could get an emergency vehicle onto the beach but it's not at a property line where you're going to have a 30ft wide wide Gap in the chairs so you know to me if if we're going to if we're going to to solve the problem we're looking to solve then that should be probably solved at the site plan level with staff if you have one business that's that's across multiple properties okay I mean at this point again we're looking at 15 ft you're looking at a property that combined is500 ft if you put four Brakes in there plus the two on either side that's 150 feet 150 feet and 1500 feet we're looking at 10% if anyone is not impacted that's that property yeah so we have two people for 75 ft and 15 fet we have commissioner Marth I'm not sure what your proposal is I'm proposing 50 foot front setb from the water 15t side setbacks okay but allowing the staff leeway on a site plan if you have a single business that's operating across multiple property lines I am I am absolutely and as much as I appreciate and Trust our current city manager and our staff we've had we we've had some terrible experiences with administrative staff approvals especially when it comes to large resort district and so I am not inclined to allow for any kind of administrative if anything it should follow the same process as everybody else you submit your variants you go to the board of adjustment you come to the commission if it's a cup is there a a provision in this in this ordinance for people asking for variances and going in front of the board of adjustment does that exist on this ordinance well it's currently drafted and City attorney maybe you could weigh in on this um there is a provision for a dimensional variance for the side PS we have in there that you can apply if if you're a property that for whatever configuration you're piie shaped or you're very narrow in width uh then you can and the setbacks don't work for you where you don't have any reasonable area for Cabanas then you can apply for a variance does that fall on the hardship provision or you'd have to show that reasonable hardship no no area where you could put the Cabanas it could be done by a case by case basis or you could do the staff if you're going to send it to staff I'd recommend that you send it with some standards like for compliance with a life safety plan and ADA compliance for access to each chair so that way someone with a walker or crutches or wheelchair can get to each chair and then also if they have to leave uh they can get out and if we have to have an ATV come in to take someone out and life safety situation they can get in and out and staff can work with the fire uh Chief and EMS to make sure we have access points similar like outdoor dining where you want to have a life safety plan where people can get in and out if there's a fire here there won't be a fire probably it's on the beach but you would have medical emergencies so there is a there's an There's an opportunity to apply for hardship variant go before the board of adjustment through the normal process that any other property owner would follow yeah okay so that so we already have a mechanism in place might be difficult to get but they could apply sure I mean you have all these lots that you see here they they all have sufficient area to put chairs you're just talking about how you're where you're going to put them I don't see any properties where you're not going to have any chairs Al at all I know they're not using it I mean I don't we're holding all this up for that um Commissioners yes you two have yet to declare your intentions if you would please kindly do so so we can move to the next item so we haven't spoken about the landlord setback I don't think there is one this was just showing the this yeah I I thought there was discussion on four corners but so we're really only going to install the water and the sides okay yeah yeah I I mean I I I definitely didn't like the thoughts of a 75 foot um side setback uh I think 15 is reasonable based on the circumstances of of what we're trying to accomplish here sure um and um quite honestly I could go with the 75 or the 50 on the seaword side although I personally If I Were King I would do 75 you do get a vote yeah you do get one vote I get one yes I'm I'm well painfully aware of that M Niki let me ask because there is a setback towards the back right because it's the Dune setback but that's um that's page 19 on on this I think that's for storage on the storage areas at one point we did have a setback from the cccl yeah replacement of the Cabanas um at the workshop there have been discussion about both the cccl and a dune setback um so that but it's 15 ft right like no closer isn't that what right now we have in there 15 ft for the storage area but you could also have 15 ft for the placement of the Cabanas during the day you'll see in the diagrams there's a black line I think that's the property line at parcel line that's from the property appraiser but there's also on some of the drawings another line that shows you where the cccl is if that's something you want to go back to and include well maybe it maybe you just want to set back from the frontal Dune you don't want chairs placed in the frontal Dune sure you could say and shall not be placed landward of the frontal Dune during the day yep right now it doesn't look like any of the chairs are placed in the Dune areas no it seemed to be all complying with a 30 foot setback for most Dune areas maybe I'm confused because n 19 C talks about waterline setback side setback and dune setback and it says Cabanas shall not be placed closer than 15 feet it doesn't talk about storage oh that's right okay Cabana shall says dun setad Cabana shall not be placed on dunes or in the established Dune system because we have some Dune restoration projects when a dune is partially or fully landward of the beach on the property under review Cabanas shall not be placed closer than 15 ft to the waterward toe of the primary frontal dun properties which have been sub the subject of approved permits for Upland Redevelopment in which Dune restoration is a condition or requirement of approval shall depict the approved extent of the Dune to be established on their site plan and follow all required dun setbacks um city manager do you have something right commissioner it's down to you oh I already had said 50 from the from the water line is you know to keeping at what it what it currently is um you know F and if you know the 15 looking again and I'm glad that you know someone can possibly get a variance I think there's two there was another one of how narrow their property is um with 15 you know looking at the pictures that are here would would be um okay so we have consensus on 15 fit side setbacks we have two for 75 and two for 50 and commissioner mohol and yet to declare either way I'll declare 75 okay we have consensus on 75 and 15 ft setbacks okay um I had a question about signage delineation how do we Okay so the concern that Mr kurman brought up which he has articulated at several stewardship meetings joint workshops and commission meetings when we've had this ordinance before us is that by placing signage facing outward blocking people or telling people you can't come in rather than having signage on the inside saying you may not leave this area with alcohol um by having you know people with wristbands that you cannot enter this area if you don't have a wristband uh that might put our customary use in Jeopardy and so I would be I would be opposed to anything that might put that in Jeopardy should the city ever decide to pick up that ordinance um so I would be inclined is to to say that the signage should be you know clearly staked out with you know either a post or an A-frame sign or something that tells the people inside the area you may not leave this area with alcohol in hand and remind me Brandon do we have a requirement for each individual property to have labeled cups yes okay so they have to have so that it's easily identifiable if somebody's in the water and the sheriff comes and says you've got alcohol we know what property came from Okay so for that reason I would be inclined to specify that the signage should be for people on the inside keeping them or advising them not to exit the area rather than have signage on the outside that says you may not enter the area and I would dispense with the wristbands because what are you going to do you going to have children the wristbands and then they can drink or is it just you have different colored wristbands for adults versus wristbands for children I think we can eliminate you know a potential economic impact so that people don't have to buy wristband and then manage the wristbands and give out the RIS bands and see who's got the rband and one less thing to manage and supervise you may also want to remove the requirement that the person drinking the alcohol then be a guest or registered um guest of the hotel um that way if there is customary people going in and utilizing these beach bar areas that they could still go in it I think another Council commissioner pointed out why are we just letting the occupants of the hotels have drinks why not if the hotel is willing to allow the public in to have lunch and to have a drink with it why not allow it so you might want to take that out it's probably difficult to enforce anyway agree I and that may hurt us in customary use like you were saying sure I mean I like if they want to serve res and they've stated many times that residents are always welcome then we shouldn't have an ordinance that excludes residents from okay participating any objections nope none here I don't hear any objection so I where's the sign I I don't find where that is on this ordinance the sign that faces what you're saying I'm saying we should simply specify that you know we're talking not in there right now but we would have we're talking about you know clearly delineating the areas like not ropes definitely no ropes definitely just a simple sign that says you may not exit this area with alcohol you might be subject to fines whether it's code enforcement whether a ticket from the sheriff if that's something that we're considering to be placed in because of that I I would like you all to consider and hear me out not having the wristbands and and listen why oh not okay I I said not to have them I was going to say I'd rather not have risb end up in the water well we can eliminate administrative duties cost of the wristbands managing stuff if they have a cup that identifies where they're from if they're outside the the designated area the sheriff can enforce it right or code enforcement with the sheriff right and then the same way no one's being kept out so if they want to go to the bar um which again they've invited us to frequent often so so eliminate the D part that's what okay yeah eliminate the wristbands and again it's it could be as easy as the Four Corners you have a sign that says do not exit this area which you see it all the time in fact if you go to the under toe they have one you know a lot of the beach bars have signs that prohibit leaving with alcohol even though they could potentially have the area available they actually restricted themselves even more so y it was always like that drawing up here think they usually say no alcohol Beyond this point yeah doesn't like you can buy those on Amazon for 10 bucks okay any further comments discussion on the beach ordinance I do have a question on uh section 9521 special events on the beach um you know I think one of the things that's changed since we've had a change in City attorney is some of the the wording has changed like commissioner riziki mentioned before about uh where before there was no differentiation between public and private beach and now we have differentiations between public and private beach in different parts of the ordinance and so prior you know last summer when we were talking about this the special events on the beach at that time City staff at the time said you know the the attorneys said we're not going to differentiate public or private beach we're just going to call it the beach and City staff said we're going to require special events permits on the public beach but on the private beach any events that they have would just be part of their of their BTR part of their business tax life license right but now the way this reads it says that any special event shall be permitted on any public or private beach and so I think that gets a little bit into some confusion about what what is a special event on a private beach you know there's there's a lot of the hotels that in season have three weddings a day for 12 weeks in a row and are are those all going to be required to be permitted separately and then in another spot it talks about you can only have uh you know three permits a month where alcohol is served on private lands and so you know if there's a wedding at a hotel sometimes the reception is by the pool sometimes the reception is by the beach bar I I mean I think we're getting into some some some do require special event permits for weddings some cities say you don't have to have a special event permit for a wedding if you're at a hotel or convention facility they can already accommodate it within their development order they have enough parking spaces for example um so you you might want to take that out or modify that it's all what you decide to set as your rules here if you want rules for those um I staff as to whether or not U weddings on the public beach require a permit I think I don't know whether they do or not do you know brand or Parks W maybe yeah Amber says it's shaking her head yeah yeah because it's in specific addresses right that you can access yeah I mean I I was you know the the the the you know the mayor was saying you know we were all ready to pass all of this except for the setbacks last summer which is which which which is almost true except with a change in legal Council we have some pretty significant wording changes that change a lot of the of the the impact of what we're doing here and so you know I I was fine with you need a permit for a special event on the public beach but when we have businesses that are operating that are doing things that are their normal course of business and now we maybe are maybe aren't going to require a special events permit for them to do things that are in their normal course of business because they have to to be Beach facing um I think we might need to figure that out this isn't something that I added I think this was here when it was handed to me so that well it's highlighted the the part that's highlighted on my copy which I think means that it's new is where it says no special event on a public or private beach where prior it just said on a beach but at that time City staff's interpretation was that any special events that happen on on private beach would be covered by the business tax license well business tax license wouldn't cover but any development order would cover business tax Li receipt is just an occupational license you're just paying taxes doesn't give you zoning approval for anything but if you're a hotel it usually say whether you can have weddings or not and areas are are set up for weddings but we could take out this public and private beach and just say no special event on a beach shall be permitted within the city limits of St be Beach unless and until a special event permit has been issued and so are we and so then is staff interpreting that the way a completely different staff was interpreting this last summer you know that's this is for you to decide as a council whether you want special event permits or not for example for weddings on the beach and whether you want that to address this ordinance to address that I mean I think we want I think we want permits for things that happen on the public beach I think that uh I I I don't I mean so if they wanted to have an event for a thousand people there's no permit required I think there needs to be a differentiation between I mean you know what what what what is a special event is a wedding a special event at a hotel or is you have an exclusion or is a giant or is a giant concert on the beach a special event I mean there's you know I think a giant concert Like a Hurricane Relief Show with Kenny Chesney would require a special permit but clearly wedding of 100 people would not so we can write up something in here to have some reasonable exemptions I I thought the other special events um guide had um 250 people button here so your code already identifies what a special event is and it's any temporary activity conducted on private property or on a public area for a commercial public or charitable purpose which is not authorized by any ordinance of the city or any temporary activity conducted on private property which is not customarily conducted where the temporary activity is planned nor authorized by the occupational license issued for any business which may be operating on the property where the activity is planned or any other temporary activity which may require the approval of the city manager or the city commission so for example in case of weddings the city could have a simple administrative process where you just say just no theice when you have a wedding and you how is there a way through we already have a permitting process for weddings okay but that's for weddings on the public beach that's on our public beach on our public beach so it would it be simpler just to just to have something in the um in the uh can't come up with the right words but anyway something that just allows that hotels can have weddings and it's not a special event my understanding is is that in their overall development plan not only that but as the city clerk just said it's something that's not customarily done which they do customarily run weddings right yep okay so so there would be no requirement that they have special events for that or spe get a special events permit for that if it's three times a day for six months straight that's not special right well right sounds like a custom but when you but when you have a new ordinance you know what what gets change from to to not you know I think if you look at this 9521 how it's organized um they say you have to have a special event permit in a and then it says b they're not required for sponsored or co-sponsored by the city um and then C is about permits for drinking alcohol during the special event and then it says the commission can authorize the alcohol at the special event on public lands and they can authorize alcohol at the special event on private lands which I would presume would be alcohol service outside that transient alcohol service area so they would have an additional area where they could sell alcohol beyond their Cabana liquor service area for that special event then it's says also that you can approve additional alcohol areas through the conditional use permit process okay and in their dining and their restaurants Etc so that's really just about giving them one more opportunity to have alcohol up to three times a month outside their regular liquor service area right any other questions comments on this somebody willing to make a motion one way or another I'll make a motion um to approve the first reading of ordinance 20252 with um amendments I guess to include what a life safety plan uh 86ing the electrical Vehicles the electric vehicles well all the changes that we disc all the changes that we got there you go I'll second city clerk if you please through a roll call Comm also before you vote I'll try to add some findings of fact on whereas Clauses based on the rationals that were expressed at today's meeting um so that we have a defensible ordinance okay thank you sir commissioner Robinson yes commissioner res Niki um no vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott no mayor Petrella yes motion Carri iies 3 to two next we have item 7c first reading of ordinance 20255 city clerk if you please thank you mayor ordinance 20255 an ordinance of the city of St Pete Beach Florida creating additional new nuisance noise control Provisions in code chapter 46 environment creating new article six noise plainly audible at a distance in a residential location creating section 46-16 Authority and scope creating section 46-1 161 findings of fact creating section 46-1 162 excessive noise declared a violation and the means and method of determining excessive noise and definition of residential location creating section 46163 Declaration of public nuisance and Declaration of irreparable and irreversible n nature of noise violations creating 46-1 164 enforcement creating section 46-1 165 construction of article creating section 46166 excessive noise determination under plainly audible at a distance in res in a residential location means and Method creating section 46-16 7 exemptions creating section 46-1 168 severability providing for codification conflicts severability correction of scor's error construction publication and an effective date City attorney good evening okay it's good that I didn't have to say good morning it's almost not yet yeah almost almost okay well this this is the first time this uh ordinance is in front of you I think it's um it's pretty complete in what it has in it um okay all right um under the current code we have two alternative standards for a noise violation um and those standards currently are a decibel based measurement um and that is really problematic and it was confirmed today in the sneak peek um meeting that we had code enforcement CI tried to enforce the decibel um and in fact they were unsuccessful in doing it and the reason that it's problematic and I've tried to enforce these in other cities and in order to comply with both due process and the provisions of virtually every decibel base code um you have to figure out what the background level of the noise is and that is very problematic because for one thing you have to if you're there measuring for instance noise for a concert you'd have to stop the concert and you know test the background noise and the background noise particularly in an urban area has um cars going by or boats going by um or somebody shouting or something you know that's background noise and those are specific to a point in time so when you measure the background noise it could very well be very different when you measure it when you're listening to the concert so it just it it's nice in theory but it really doesn't work from a you know from a practical standpoint the second um standard that you have is the loud and rockus standard and that is actually a standard that's been approved by the US Supreme Court and a lot of cities have that um the definition of that is any sound that because of its volume level duration and character annoys disturbs injures or endangers the Comfort health peace or safety of reasonable persons of ordin ordinary sensibilities that's tough that's pretty subjective um I don't happen to like rap music so probably you know a medium sound of rap music I I might think is loud and rockus whereas I like classical music and if it's really loud I might think it's wonderful you know don't get me started on country music huh so don't get me started on country music anyway um so what I have proposed is What's called the plainly audible um and this ordinance is is kind of a practical Common Sense way of dealing with noise um it's the proposed ordinance prohibits excessive noise that is plainly audible at a distance and you can choose the distance and I oh sorry okay um and this would be in addition to your two standards I'm not proposing that you get rid of the other standards that are in your ordinance but it's an objective it's non-content based um standard that's actually been upheld by the Florida Supreme Court um so you know it it it does work it's not perfect but it it does work I've seen it work in another city that had serious um noise problems quite similar to what you've got here in in some instances um and the way this is written it's a plainly audible at a distance in a residential location so in other words if if you can hear it and it's in a commercial location that's fine that's that's not a problem you would test the um you know whether it is in violation you'd have to be standing on a residential piece of property um next slide thank you okay so the and I'll read this the the standard is no person shall permit cause allow or create excessive noise that is plainly audible in a residential location when that residential location is located no less than 200 ft from the originating location or the closest property line of the originating property thany I think you one slide behind okay okay there you go all right okay so and when when I ask the planning department what is a residential location you know how should I Define that I was told that they are the zoning designations of ru1 ru2 or rlm1 um or there are a lot of zoning designations in the city that have houses have condos what whatever residential uses in other zoning districts so the residential location would be those districts or any place which is the in the location of a single family resident residence um a duplex Triplex fourplex multifam development residential condominium or cooperative apartment or residential apartment and I did check with zoning and they said those are really the only residential uses in the city um and the investigating officer who would be looking at this whether it would be a sheriff's deputy or whether it be a code enforcement uh officer and and by the way I got these standards from the Florida Supreme Court case these are the same standards um the officer would use their ordinary auditory senses their their ears without a hearing hearing aid and without a microphone I don't quite understand that but that's in the Florida Supreme Court so I put that in they have to have a direct line of hearing to readily identify the source of the offending noise in other words they can't go someplace and guess that you know the sound must be coming from there they've got to you know maybe go to the location be listening to a song and walk the 200 ft somewhere um or maybe they can see it and they can still hear it um the officer and again this is from the Florida Supreme Court case it the officer does not need to determine the particular words or phrases being produced or the name of the song or the artist um and in the case it says that the detection of a rhythmic Bas reverberating type noise is sufficient to constitute a plainly audible noise because you've probably experienced um maybe you can't hear the words but you feel it and it's a reverberating base okay um and this ordinance declares excessive noise plainly audible um in a residential area that's more than 200 ft away as a public nuisance and it's also states that it's irreparable and irreversible in nature which allows us to give larger findes if that's necessary and the way this is written right now um is applicable Citywide and it's all day and night there are a number of different you know iterations that you could have with this there could be um there could be limited times there could be different distances by location there are a lot of different ways you could go at this but the way it's written in front of you right now um for first reading um it's Citywide except that the receiving end of it has to be in a residential area but it's Citywide and um all day and night thank you Commissioners questions comments I think we can go back to our little dads commissioner Marriott um so though I strongly agree with this ordinance in spirit I think that there's some significant uh problems with it the way it stands um and as I've been walking around town the last three or four days um the the live music at the Sunday market is plainly audible much more than 200 ft away in a residential area the Bells on City Hall are plainly audible much more than 200 ft away in a residential area uh when little league was playing at egum Park the sounds of children playing was plainly audible in a residential area more than 200 ft away uh you know there's I I I like I say I I strongly agree with the intent of this ordinance um the way it is right now I think it would be ridiculous at best and you know if if we wanted to you know make this between 10 p.m. and 7 p.m. I would potentially consider it um but but I I you know I think that uh I think that there's a lot of things to be worked out I'm I'm tempted to say that we should table it all together and have a workshop to figure out the actual ramifications of this um you know I think we're I think we're trying to I think we're trying to control a couple of Bad actors in the City by by by creating problems in a lot of other places and I looked up all the the no noise complaints that have been filed with code and enforcement for the last couple of years and there's five or six of them are loud music from bars and eight or 10 of them are things like the birds were too loud and I want someone to do something about it and my neighbors Windchimes were too loud and I want someone to do something about it and there were kids playing in the street and it sounded like someone was having fun and I really don't like it and uh um and and so you know I I I I think that this I I think we either really need to very thoughtfully consider the distances in different zoning districts which I don't think we'll be able to do tonight um or we need to limit it to very specific overnight hours um so that's where I'm at on this I who is next commission I had the same I have somewhat of the same concern just of a time frame that was my only thing put a time frame in there so it's you know you know quiet enjoyment at night um I don't think we've had that many issues during the day you know cor Market um I'd be inclin we currently have a time for our regular noise ordinance um in the decibels are different as I recall based and I don't have that in front of me so could we just sync that up yeah use the same time frame could we and just add this as a third measurement is what we're I can slip it I can slip it in this ordinance M um with regard to the um the bells at City Hall and the little league and the Sunday market I don't know if that's a special event yeah because we could put exceptions we already have 11 exceptions we can add some exceptions if that would help sure commissioner r niiki um time and I done now we we already have a time frame so I am an agreement that you know we have a 10 o'clock I think it is 10 102 I'll look at it okay thank you um I like that you it's audible right and I'll give you a personal example um that's happened to me because typically code enforcement is not going to be there when I want somebody to come and help because there's an issue um with noise when I'm trying to sleep okay so that's usually the sheriff that I'm calling so they have to come to City Hall to get the equipment well it it's happened to me more than once same issue so I know that that it could be frustrating that the sheriff shows up I andan I have to claim how loud it is and I'm you know I'm on my phone and I'm like can you not hear it like you could hear it right um and then they come out come to my house take a desk then okay yes and then they go over um and this is a canal to Canal situation okay so they go over but it's happen over and over they get a warning and another warning and another warning and another warning and another warning because there's a different officer at 2 o'clock in the morning by the way that this stuff is happening so to me that's that's the piece because there's a lot of situ this can't be all day I mean you go on the beach and you hear someone playing their radio and um one person is playing one song and the other one person is playing the other song and it's not to talk about what's the better song or or nothing but you can hear noise you could hear you know uh a speedboat going across on the water you know if you're in um District uh one you've got a school then unfortunately it's not open right now but the kids are playing all day you know what are we going to say that that's a is that a special event no you know that's operations you know um you know we have a church that's operating their masses on the parking lot right now you know I mean so I I don't think that hour I mean that's whatever our current was was fine I think the issue was that when someone comes out whether it's you know the machine like you're saying I didn't I didn't the sheriff didn't tell me that they apparently have one I have an app then it shows it and you know enforcement is an issue right they get the warning in the they have to check it out they have to take it back out so it's like a whole process it's 2:00 in the morning not going to do all that so um the current noise that makes it better current noise ordinance is um 10: p.m. to 7:00 a.m. okay so from 7:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. it's 65 DB and then at 10 p.m. it drops down and that's when the more quiet 10 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. 55 Deb at a residential receiving property so with that does that mean that this just makes it an additional measurement right because if we're not taking a decimal then we can do we're not we're not getting rid of the decb but the reason that they just got warnings might have been code enforcement said that they had been unsuccessful in actually you know somebody contested it um and I I believe that because you're in order to in your ordinance and under due process because you can't charge somebody who is running a bar with the sound of somebody speeding by on a motorcycle so you got to test the the background and how do you get a consistent background if you've got environmental noises going on how was the 200 ft chosen is is is plainly audible at 200 ft roughly equivalent to 55 DB or is it or is it just that the 200 feet put a number there I just pulled it out of the air okay yeah now you said that um another question was you said that you've done this in another city yes I have they done all day I'm just curious to know if a city actually does no noise all day okay it's coka Beach okay which is a very Lively City definitely um and they have it's their distance um during the day is 500 feet um at 10:00 it goes down to 100 ft so it dramatically drops yeah but you can't have really loud stuff you know because well 500t isn't that far really um it's like five Lots right yeah yeah or well it's not even that I mean for for reference for reference um heran Park where we have concerts in the park from from where the band sets up to the back of the park is 200 ft so if you can imagine that having to be qu whatever happened where the band is having to be quiet enough now it doesn't apply to the park right because that's city property and it's not residential area and all that but but but that's that's well right and and that's the distance we're talking about something would have to be quiet enough where the band plays at Haram Park that you cannot hear it at all at the at the South End of the park that's 200 feet that's at 10 p.m. because in that no and and I'm just saying for reference that's the that that's yeah and do you want um to talk about the you know special events the Bells on City Hall do those go all night on hour they stop oh okay all right and little leag we because we can exempt those are they playing after 10 p.m. probably not hope not we'll find out pretty [Laughter] soon commissioner mahall and you were next sir so I guess what I'm hearing from the rest of the commission is that if you have a neighbor that's firing off a cannon at noon time uh every five minutes on every five minutes that's okay you would need a fireworks permit for that yeah right well in according or or you having or you having a pool party uh where um you know you're playing your music at crazy loud uh quite honestly I have a neighbor that uh doesn't live here full-time and every holiday um Memorial Day 4th of July um Labor Day he has a huge pool pot party uh and it's in the middle of the day but it's still it's ruining my quality of life I can't I you know I can't sit on my back patio and enjoy my pool while that's going on because he's across the street and down the street I don't know how far it is from my house he's probably 250 ft um and yeah it's only three times a year so I guess I can live with that but when you live with it day in and day out and day in and day out and night in and night out uh you come to realize that what we have now like many things that we've been dealing with all night long here uh you know the city doesn't run very well hasn't run very well for quite some time and um residents qualities of Life uh and lifestyle uh is severely impacted by people that don't act right and I mean I'm not a uh I don't have statistics on this but it's gotten worse since Co it seems like I I think you know it probably has um but you know if you let 5% of the people do whatever the heck they want [Music] um you know you end up destroying people's quality of life and I will tell you this I probably shouldn't say this publicly but this is how strongly I feel about this um and I told the city manager this today that that neighbor that has three pool parties a year if he were doing that five or six days a week day in and day out I'm leaving St Pete Beach okay I love it here but I I would not put up with that so you know the fact that we're we're you know saying well maybe this uh if it's 10 to 7 or or whatever you know 10 to 7 I I would guess that in most neighborhoods is not the problem time it's when we're actually living our lives uh and uh it's it can be very very disruptive and like I say I thought that I moved here to live here the rest of my life but if that part-time resident becomes a full-time resident and he has a pool party every day I I just won't put up with it um and I can't imagine that many people in the community don't feel the same way uh I don't know if there's anybody here from the zamore uh or the take I apologize not the zamore but from Bel Vista that dealt with the situation with the Zamora and I'm sure some of that was after 10:00 but before exactly exactly not after 10 o' so I I I I'm disappointed to hear us you know framing this as if it's after 10 to me it's if it it's it's normal life hours is when these noises are problematic um because I just don't think it happens that much um you know after 10:00 not not in our community it may appear um possibly with some of the roofs or whatever I that I don't know I also know that before I was on the commission uh uh not only did I come to many of the commission meetings but as the mayor will test I went to many of his meetings uh at the library and uh two of the biggest complaints that I heard was uh that city government didn't respond to the um communication request from the residents when they were having problems and quite honestly Public Works was the biggest area of concern there uh but noise and it wasn't noise at midnight it was noise during life hours um so yeah you know I I I could go on about it but uh I don't think I could say any strong any more strongly how I feel about it than what I've stated uh and you know it is a quality of life issue and if you've if you've lived with it uh you understand it uh and I know I'm 67 years old and I probably am one of these guys that's a little stay off my grass I I I'll admit that but uh I don't think I'm overstating um just how miserable this can be uh when you have live in a beautiful city and you have a nice comfortable home and all you want to do is enjoy your home uh and you know one of the 5% or 3% or 10% uh Bad actors wants to make your life totally miserable uh trust me they can they can so I think that's all I have to say Mr I don't think you're overstating at all I mean I think the the Bad Apple is you know we there's a reason why we have that but um prior to the the current situation that we have with the storms it is the number two issue that I receiv received calls and emails from the number one being development and it's there's no there's no close third between those two I received more emails and I don't I don't think we should be making light of people that that are genuinely suffering I mean I've had phone calls with residents crying because it's the third fourth 100th night in a row that they can't sleep and one of the issues was I can't hear it I have w videos of a lady she calls me up at you know 10:30 at night and when the mayor's line I have a separate line for the mayor's line that that line goes off at 10:30 at generally answer it because something is bad nothing good happens after 10:00 when that line rings and she was in tears she said listen I'm I'm a retired cleaning lady from New York I sold my house I bought my dream beach condo with all the money that I had and my life is horrible it's miserable she was crying on the phone I've had I don't know how many emails from residents right back here down the street on Cory Avenue would email me every single day every single night and I was just I appreciate you all having this conversation today and thank you City attorney and city manager for bringing this because no matter how many times I've brought this before the previous commission this previous staff I received no support in bringing any kind of well just call the police and I would sit there on the phone and I would three-way the Sheriff say hey it's mayor petrilla right that's the only time I'll ever do you know who I am if it's for a resident no support code enforcement love you guys but you're at home at 11 o' at night right um I think with this ordinance and with the previous ordinance that gives us the ability to issue fines we actually have some teeth now where we can Force assuming and I do think we have a willing city manager and City staff to help us enforce the ordinance but I mean this is something this has been and I'm I I felt horrible not being able to provide these residents any kind of resolution because I found no support trying to get this situation fixed and that'll be the first thing I do tomorrow morning is email all those residents assuming this passes and says we finally have a solution I'm sorry it's taken me two years but we finally have a solution and so I think I don't think this is a halfhazard ordinance this has a real need behind it I'm happy that finally somebody's listening and is willing to do the work hopefully we have support from the commission to do something for our residents who've been begging us for years to do something about this and it is so much of what we do and know some of us have run on this you know protecting and preserving and enhancing the quality of life for our residents this is exactly what this is this is a quality of life issue for our residents and there are too many of them that have just been ignored put to the Wayside and said sorry there's nothing we can do for you Sheriff won't come out it's too late for code enforcement what can we do nothing and it is miserable and so I don't know if there's a middle ground commissioner malland where maybe we can look at something as a City attorney mentioned in a different situation where maybe during at all times it's 500 ft at night it's more restricted I don't think that would fix your situation because I think that's less than 500 feet maybe um but is there is there a way to to have a middle ground where we you know we are preserving and protecting and enhancing the quality of life for our residents and at the same time respecting that look maybe I want to have a pool party again doesn't happen very often maybe once a year and my neighbors are death on one side and absent on the other so I don't really have that issue but at the same time you know it is part of the quiet enjoyment that everyone is entitled to with their property I so I I I think the you know I don't know what the right number is whether it's 200 ft or you know because the the pool parties that I cited uh would would have been clearly audible at 3 or 400 ft right um you know somebody having an occasional pool party uh you know it's a habitual that is day in and day out of excessive noise and that's why the ordinance that we have passed previously 05 was it 04 or5 right that one has the option of giving them a warning right code enforcement officer comes says look just turn it down a notch right your neighbors from three canals down can hear you exactly exactly and I I I mean I had a list of things but I I I think that um I got a little bit passionate about it and I didn't really feel like I needed to go line by line but I totally agree one of the things that I said was code enforcement may or may not initial issue initial warnings to nonhabitual situations I mean code enforcement and the city manager is going to know if there's habitual people having pool parties um that you can hear you know a block away well they'll have a first warning and they'll know if it's a rep repetitive situation right exactly exactly um you know does a distance need to be 200 I mean I didn't you know I wasn't the one who picked that number I I don't know what you know someone might consider reasonable I mean I just know when it's loud um you know you can hear it you know certainly very uncomfortably three or 400 ft away there's no question about that I mean like I say this particular neighbor is probably only 250 ft from my house across the street and just a little bit east but um you know I use him as example because I think that's a good example um but I don't know what the number is but what I what I know is what we have now doesn't work it flat out doesn't work just like a lot of this stuff doesn't and hasn't worked and we have a mechanism here to put some common sense into this and potentially help everybody in the city um that might be subjected to getting um you know a bad neighbor uh somebody renting a VRBO for a month that um you know because right now I don't know there's maybe there's other things that code enforcement does on the vrbos as it comes to that type of violation um I I just know if you've if you've lived it uh you'd understand if you'd lived it you'd understand should we uh take some audience comments could I sure just before you do um is there an ordinance or in our ordinances or other cities something that has to do with um um properties that are a nuisance right that could include noise or like the habitual stuff that that we're talking about because and I say this because I I do agree with you because I've had residents even you know way before being on commission to and and on the association that um crying people too that I had to go out to the park and um you know one particular resident that was building speakers for cars and and was really good about going right to the 10 p.m. time but had it blasting all the way till then and this poor neighbor older older lady and and now her deceased husband um had to deal with this all the time and I would go over there and try to talk to them and you know and it was just a constant new nuisance but there was no support um from the city because there was just nothing available to site them on they can go loud until 10 p.m. you know and whether they were we're like but they're running a business well no that's my cousin that I'm doing the speaker and that's just a whole other thing but it's a constant nuisance right and from what I'm hearing from um commissioner mahalan is he's got a constant you know nuisance going on that's happening all the time I don't know if it's an approach or not or if they invited you to the party or not but you know you have something constantly happening and that happens a lot um what worries me is those who want to complain about it all the time right um I'll give you an example when I got married I held my reception at my house but I invited all my neighbors but one particular neighbor could care less but called the sheriff on me um while we were in the middle of our reception you know um he he knew it was a one time of EV you know he came in very nice got my warning and make sure by 10 p.m. you know you guys are are done um but it's just because one neighbor is going to complain about it right you could have the drill running uh by someone remodeling your home or you know the jigsa or whatever going really loud and it's annoying and I work from home so I know it could be annoying that you hear this constant noise in the background lawnmowers or whatever and just keep calling you know so the person who's always going to pick up the phone and say hey they're not stopping it's too loud so how you know this is noise right so what's a something from nuisance from you know this is noise or like is it by different locations you I mean I this this does if there is a violation it does provide that it is a nuisance but the problem is it wouldn't be a nuisance until 10 p.m. so they could just be absolutely blasting your ear out at 955 yep and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it so um what they did in Coco Beach they do have the you know the different um measurements and because they have bars that are going all day there and they did want to protect the residents with regard to that also was it different by zones too like the times like we talking about businesses that are operating and some people who live close to businesses mhm you know if it's all day how are they going to operate like does coco change that I I will mention something that actually because I called the um the chief of police in Coco Beach I wanted to make sure that you know everything there was okay because I hadn't heard anything about noise for quite a while um and I checked with him and um he said that the Chron chronic offenders because I had talked about this at the meetings um The Chronic offenders had hired acoustic experts because it's not so much how how loud the music is in the bar or restaurant um they can have very loud music in there but if they do it right it won't bounce out um there was one that we actually had litigation over it's called Island Time Marina um in coko Beach right there on 5 20 that um uh we filed a law a nuisance lawsuit against them um in the resolution of that case a they we got an acoustic expert from Gainesville who has a company um and he came in and he designed a it's it's basically kind of like a clamshell because they had outside seating right on the water and there were condos right over over there um and they designed this clamshell that and they required all their bands to have to use the inhouse um system you know the you know the speakers and all that they couldn't bring their own speakers and set them up however they wanted and apparently that's not a problem because you can just hook into other people's speakers and so there they had the eating area in the band those were outside right on the water and the um the way they had it before they had the sound going in to the restaurant area and they had regular either glass or walls and of course the sound would just bounce right out and go over the water well they required them or I shouldn't say they required them because theity didn't require it but the acoustic guy said you know you need to put up um this acoustic material and and actually I go there occasionally to eat and it's not offensive looking at all they've got you know some draperies and then they've got material on the walls so the sound goes in and it stops so I've been there when it's really loud in there where people are eating and drinking and all that and if you drive around around and I can walk behind the condos you can't hear it so you know there are ways that these things can be dealt with um but you just have to incentivize the bars to actually spend the money to get an expert to make the improvements you know for the benefit of everybody including them because they they were tired of well they didn't want to be sued for starters but um when we not that we threatening into to sue any he W right them no no no no no oh I'm not no I'm just saying what happened in Coco Beach because we did Sue them but um but the other bars learned that they didn't want to get citations so I don't think it cost that much I mean bars make a fair amount of money um you know and they arrange things so that the the sound didn't come out thank you I think we're we're looking at it from the wrong perspective if that's the question the question is should be how do we enhance the quality of life and how do we preserve it for our residents not worrying about the one person because again I don't have any emails about somebody saying my neighbor is reporting me all the time even though I'm doing not not doing anything but I do have dozens and dozens of emails from residents saying I've got noise and no one's doing anything about it and I've been there with them I've been there with the sheriff I've been on the film with them I've been in person and nothing's being done this is this gives us an opportunity I mean I would be inclined to look at something like 200 and 500 ft during the day you know 200 feet at night um but I think commissioner Mar do you have anything to say and then we can open up for public comments yeah I was just going to say that I I think that um you know H having some sort of standard that's different in daytime and nighttime makes sense I I don't think that there is um anything to be gained by randomly picking distances without any without any idea what it means you know um and so so right you know right now tonight um I would be hardpressed to say that I would be in support of you know what what distances I would be in support of for day or night without you know W with without without it being based on anything factual or anything that that can be related to real life or what the unintended we do have other examples in real life from our own City attorney sure from from another city that you know I mean a lot of the things that we do are based on you know what our other cities doing I mean we just talked about Hollywood Beach and then pulling the chairs out you know yeah I I wasn't on board with that argument either I I think I think you're looking the wrong way right our residents have been screaming for us to do something for years we haven't done anything no we haven't done no we literally have not done anything and at some point somebody's got to say it's enough I have not said that we should do nothing okay then make make a counter proposal make what does sound what's reasonable to you to me based on precedent based on other cities 200 feet 500 feet during our normal you know nuisance hours from 10: to 7:00 p.m. seems perfectly reasonable we have a real need that needs to be addressed we have an opportunity to address it we should be addressing it I'm sorry you're outraged by my desire for factual information but I would provide some what what factual information is missing I don't understand I I would like to know how loud something is compared to our current code that you know for for years to be AUD Deb it has to be audible that's no I want to know what 55 DB is you know if if if the if the decb is you know for years things were based on Deb right if something is 200 DB at the spot if you go 500 your head would explode that 200 so regardless of the numbers I would like some factual information about what it means and what the practical application of so we've all received this a week almost a week ago we've all had an opportunity to look at it ask questions sit with the city manager sit with the city attorney and ask these questions and be ready with them right and I and I and I did not receive answers and I think this was a rushed poorly out ordinance that is needed I'm not saying it's not needed you are not the only one who can be outraged by things that are needed right it is a needed no one else has ever outraged besides me well the maybe the rest this is this is based on the instructions that we gave the City attorney just at the last commission meeting we asked them to bring this to us it was a consensus by the commission to bring this to us to address a real need in the community um this gets we're not doing a noise based ordinance so we didn't bring you the normal there's a chart that shows the levels of noise and what's harmful and and let's see I've seen those charts I just don't know what the I I don't know what that relates to in distance right so the comparison chart says like U let me go down to our areas here um a vacuum cleaner in your house when it's going off is 75 um right that that still doesn't that doesn't tell me what things are at distances so so the the I guess the other thing is the distance so like a typical Canal could be 80t to 200 ft depending on the width of your Canal I mean if if you guys are all fired up to pass this on first ordinance and we can work out the details later then I guess that's how we're doing ordinances that's fine um I I don't think this is ready I don't think this is I I I think we need to do something I agree but I don't want to be involved in passing an ordinance that is going to have significant unintended consequences right I think we we all work too hard to try to do things and do them well and do them right and to pass an ordinance where six months down the road we're going to be going well that was a huge mistake I guess we're going to start over and actually do it based on facts this time what are the what are the consequence the attorney provided you with facts they told you exactly how the ordinance is working they spent time they spent over two weeks working on this are you saying that their work was just halfhazard and random this is how 90% of our ordinance are they come to us on first reading we have an opportunity to review them for four to five days in advance we asked the City attorney the city maner questions about them in our private meetings before the meetings we have an opportunity if you were first of all no one's talking about decb here because we're not talking about decb that doesn't change anything and if you were concerned about that you and I could have sat or you and somebody else could have sat somewhere play at 65 DB walk 200 feet see what it sounds like that would have been an easy way to again I don't think there's anything random or halfhazard about this ordinance IT addresses a specific need at the instructions of the Comm to the City attorney it is random she specifically said she picked the random number right the 200 it came from nowhere yeah okay said it right there I make a motion that we extend this meeting to 1:00 a.m. Second City Clerk if you'll please do a roll call commissioner Riki yes vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott yes commissioner Robinson yes may patrilla yes carries are we ready to hear audience comments yes city clerk if you please Kevin reallyy he is not here Sean kitkowski you please state your name and address for the record Sean Kowski 5250 Golf Boulevard um so I I think one of the questions was what's one of the consequences as it's currently stated um and I know there's been comments about timing and and from a business perspective sorry I'm speaking on behalf of B weather and Beach comr um as it's currently stated there's serious Economic Consequences to our business um we need a little bit more definition to that uh you know one fine balance we make uh from a from a hotel standpoint is the balance of our guests right in the hotel room and the balance of a of a beach bar right so we put a lot of things in place to balance that right we don't want to disrupt our guests uh trying to sleep or enjoy a Sunset and we have a beach bar so from a business standpoint we put a lot of work into that um a lot of despo readings a lot of things of that nature to manage it internally um so I think as as we're seeing this currently stated that's still kind of in question and that's where we have a concern at um I think also there there's a there's a balance of you know live music in the DNA of St Pete Beach too and there our residents that enjoy that live music if we put that at sacrifice um I think there's we're we're we have a concern with you know that type of experience again again we want to we want to balance that out but um we just see it as it's needs a little bit of cleaning up uh right now thank you appreciate it thank you C Clark Gilbert bolevard if you please state your name and address for the record good evening my name is Gilbert Boulevard I'm the hotel general manager of the hotel Zamora on STP Beach address is 3701 golf B board uh Mr mayor council appreciate the time to allow me to speak today the hotel Zamora has been a u great destination for local residents where they can come and enjoy nice sunset uh cocktail or have a wedding event in our rooftop where many celebrate their birthday parties or their Mother's Day Gathering during Mother's Day brunch this noise ordinance will have a significant financial impact in our property um we currently operate 365 days a year our wedding groups have our events on our rooftop we are constantly following our noise ordinance as they're currently stated at the moment 65 DB um I have a heavy uh amount of years of experience managing different different sound levels I can tell you that there's systems that limit your ability to increase the volume sound travels in many different ways from matter to gas wood and water uh sorry and and air so depending on how you read or what kind of device you use that can impact the results of the decb that you're reading at whatever distance you might be so I'm here to say we do what's best for the community we care about our our locals and our residents our residents frequently visit our establishment from our restaurant to our pool bar and our rooftop this noise ordinance is too soon and too much of a financial impact which will impact our team members our ability to provide for jobs the lifestyle of our local residents that visit us our local residents have weddings in our establishment they come and celebrate with us they're regulars at our bars they're regulars at our rooftop I've been in the property for over a year um we have not had any violations thus far because we follow the noise ordinance that's currently in place I don't see the need to change that at the moment um I do feel that we need to talk through that and and I do understand where you're coming from however I think that there is an opportunity for us to work together and be able to still provide that experience to our local residents and hotel guests so it's a fine balance between the two um but this noise ordinance does not have any strict parameters uh the time frame that it currently States now now I believe is it's adequate for where we are we do stop our events at 10 p.m. and we follow the current noise ordinance that we have in place so I thank you for your time thank you Ed sheets Elise betel if you'll please state your name and address for the record uh Elise Batel 401 East Jackson Street in Tampa um it seems like what the City attorney has given you is a skeleton of an ordinance for you to fill in um we worked uh extensively with the city of Tampa when they were adopting their noise ordinance and they also have a plainly audible standard but they have a lot of guard rails within that to add protections for businesses and other things and what they did is they went out and did acoustical studies around their City to determine how far it is to you know when how are you going to hear things what are those distances so there was measur Data behind what they ultimately put together as the ordinance um clearly the ordinance needs more definition sections once you determine all of those parameters it doesn't obviously distinguish between commercial areas and residential areas because you're you have mixed right every jurisdiction every zoning district has residential in it uh and it doesn't account for the fact that businesses reside next to uh residences um there are so many typical commercial operations that would be in violation of this ordinance right away I mean loading and unloading those audible warding signals that backup signals that's clearly plainly audible you mentioned several um it also doesn't exempt you know protected speech so they're just needs to be a lot of additional things put into the ordinance before you finally pass it uh it also lacks a discussion or a provision regarding the duration or length of time before a violation can be issued does the sound have to last 5 seconds does it have to last last two minutes or five minutes those types of provisioning in here because clearly something that's an instantaneous sound would technically be violating the ordinance as it's written today and I don't think that's the intent of what you're trying to accomplish um in addition there's no distinguish there's nothing in the ordinance today that distinguishes what's a warning how much time has to go by until it's another warning or is that then a violation so you need some procedures and some time frames in there so people have noticed with respect to how this is going to be enforced um there's also an interesting provision in section 46-1 164 it talks about law enforcement code enforcement or any investigating off officer I'm not sure what that means can Levy you findes filing civil suits in Circuit Court through the special magistrate process or any other legal proceeding deemed appropriate commissioner Mallen you were talking about you know these subjective standards who is going to decide whether someone gets a fine or whether they go to Circuit Court those are the things that need to be fleshed out um and maybe materialized a little bit before you move forward I'm also concerned about how officers are going to implement this the ordinance talks about measuring from residentially zoned areas thank you plus 200 feet thank you Deborah schner if you please state your name and address for the record good evening Deborah schner boa Isle um I appreciate our attorney bringing something that the Supreme Court of Florida agreed to that's very important I think for everybody to listen to the Supreme Court of Florida approved this particular ordinance we have water in St P Beach and I can tell you I can hear my neighbors way across the bay but it doesn't bother me it's not that loud um like you if somebody's having a party or the neighbor are invited if it's going to be loud a funny story about the Zamora there was a um developer who used to live here he had a house across the street I mean the Bayside of the Deora and he moved this is developer because it was too loud for him and he moved some to Treasure Island where he could not have had I guess he should should not have bought a house across the water from the Zamora but this is also about rooftop bars and how annoying they can be to the people who live right next door to those rooftop bars and all the hotels even when they went through their whole process all of a sudden wait wait we want to add in Rooftop Bar of this after the whole process went through if this survives a Supreme Court ruling then I think it's very clear we should pass something if you want to think about it down the road Road there's nothing wrong with that times change people are different we have neighbors who you know have pool parties with their kids it's fine for me it may not be fine for you but they're not loud and not playing loud music so some of it's subjective but some of it's not I think our issue really is how do we get the proper law enforcement code enforcement out at a good time so so that that issue can be addressed but let's again I'm going to say it the Supreme Court of Florida approve this and if we change it in any way you know that's fine right now it's 10 o'clock which I think is reasonable but um I think you should pass it and if years down the road you see an issue that comes up just like everything else we do life is flexible you can change it later on but let's get something with teeth on the books now because there's nobody on the beach right now but when they all come back they're going to appreciate that they don't that they have peace and quiet when they get back into their homes thank you thank you John kersman if you please state your name and address for the record um John kurman be he underway um what I'm I'm concerned about is when we um look at this uh ordinance that you focus on where the problem is or as I understand the problem and you don't suck in a whole bunch of other things that really is the quality of life a lot of people in this c um maybe I'm wrong but I I just put a number of sample locations in distances and and let me just show them so using Google Earth you could zoom in on my my phone please and and zoom in to the phone really zoom in please like zoom in so you can actually see what's on the phone and only the phone okay so here for instance is be maybe even zoom in more if you mind uh we have like red white booze to the opposing Shore would be about 250 fet just as as one example um another example would be the homes of long be he assures and bright water is about 730 ft I can tell you that during the day I can be sitting at my house and if workers or just someone is outside their house in Brightwater playing the radio I can hear the radio just during the day are we going to say that that's offensive and that that person should be getting a fine just because someone's playing the radio um this happens to be my house in New Jersey where I have some experience and it's 2200 feet across the lake and on a humid day now you nobody heard there's no mention about humidity but with humidity sound travels and on a humid day I can hear someone say who's got a light at the bar you're just at the bar at say of the person next to them who's got a light and and I'll say I do I mean I don't know if they hear me can you tell but you can you can actually hear conversations at a bar 2200t away so I mean I really support the idea we want to address the issue but you really have to be careful to figure out how you're going to do it and and then you know again you can't see it on the screen for whatever from Silver Sands it's about 200 feet to to PCI it's less than another 200 ft to Jimmy bees another 200 ft to coconut charlies's and about another 200 ft to the Rumfish bar so just think about I mean a lot of people enjoy going to these places either during the day or during the night and we just have to think about the ramifications of our actions and I I think that we could have a lot of impact we we we a lot of people enjoy these places during the day and or at night I've seen we have the lock boxes on the music where where the city controls the volume the musicians don't have control over it they're not allowed to bring their own amps not their own speakers and I was impressed by the way the city managed in the past so thank you Ken heel you please state your name and address for the record my name is Ken Heisel 2032 West Vina delmare Boulevard St Pete Beach uh for those in the back who don't know me uh I am a pretty much a self-taught expert on sound uh just based based on when the new owners bought rwb April of 2022 uh from April 2022 to September 11th 2023 uh they had almost 18 noise complaints or notice of violations you have an expert in the back of the room Pete darar who would come out and play cat and mouse with the owner of rwb and he would take a decel meter reading he would see him up on the bridge he would then run run around the restaurant and tell everybody to be quiet uh we had the same problem that Betty re commissioner biki stated we would call the sheriff's department when code enforcement wasn't there you had to get to uh deciel meter reader you couldn't you couldn't make anything you know from uh happen at the time so it was always we were one step behind so you you had a a a residence that we actually surveilled our house from the warf and from Seekers before we purchased it in 2010 just to see if there was excessive noise and there there wasn't we bought the house and for 12 years we enjoyed peace and quiet we Lov the Comm The Sounds uh just like John said I actually heard somebody at the warf talking and it was one of my friends from Key West we laughed we walked over there we had drinks and it was a hell it was it wasn't loud and rockus it wasn't durational it was just it was just it was regular so but then when the new owners came in uh music Started they didn't have a permit so they eventually went to get a conditional use permit they got it and and even the the mayor who's sitting here today was the only person on the commission on September 11th 2023 who said are you really agreeing to this count I go yes because it benefits him his business and it benefits us the residents and you thought it was a bad deal we thought it was a great deal so we we approved it and uh he winds up suing the city because even though he agreed to it he sues the city and and that's where we are today so what what I'm so afraid of and I'll go quickly is you have a guy who who there was no music we made him get the the conditional use permit to play music well then he played it one day a week two days a week 3 days a week four days a week seven days a week and for those who don't live next to a restaurant or bar and yes they say oh well which came first well I'm telling you right now the residence on Vena delar came but the duration he plays it 11 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday until the city said hey take it inside how many you can ask Pete dwar in the back how many code violations or or sound violations or anything complaints have come out of that place since September 11th 2023 zero not one because he was told to take it inside and he has no no concept he was told with the cup the lock boxes directional everything nothing's been done I I thank you very much for your time and your consideration thank you sir okay so this is going to get even more important with any mixed use because there'll be people above I mean the the ordinance is designed to specifically address a the real need that the city has specifically for residential that's what this is for y and for those of you who say you currently don't have any issues I don't see how you will continue how you will have any issues if this ordinance is passed if you're you're good faith actors and you're not causing you know undo hardship for your neighbors if you allow them to AC quiet enjoyment of their property as they're entitled to then I don't really see I don't see the downside and it IT addresses a real need we have you know several Bad Bad actors that are simply refusing to be persuade by Reason by pleading by begging by anything and now we have an ordinance before us that can address the real need that our residents have I think this is an opportunity for the commission to show that you know we do respect our residents and we do want to provide for them you know a good quality of life and above all things our responsibility is to our residents I agree on that I just uh the other thing that kind of surprised me just now is hearing the attorney talk about the the backup safety noise and I I sat through that cup and there was oh no noise no no problem with noise for that so now this comes up and I'm really surprised at that too but yes I think uh something needs to be done um I could go either way on on if we do weekend uh type of hours or or or weekday hours I mean or no I I see commissioner mahan's Point that's if it's something that's you know yeah right next door or even just consistent yeah I sorry so City attorney um whichever one of you wants to answer this question and maybe you want to think about it and come back to us I that's fine too um one of the attorneys made some points I'm not sure I looked up Tampa and it's 100 ft um and it's 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. and then they have established some entertainment districts in eore city and the arena district where they have different decel based things for for that area and it's just and they also allow citizens a noise citizens to bring a nuisance suit against the violators themselves as well so it sounds like not it's not based on residential or commercial it's just 100 ft from a receiving property that complains about plainly aible so it seems like we're being more lenient oh and the state statute is is 25 ft that's that's true the state statute with regard to when you have an automobile and you're playing your um your radio or your exhaust if you can hear it 25 ft away you can get a ticket we have to do something is there a motion I make a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance 20 25-5 I'll second I would like to amend the motion I would like to amend the motion to stipulate 200 feet between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. and 500 ft at all times do you want to add exceptions for special events um Bells at City Hall and the Little League games and backup signals you have um 11 exemptions already correct I do okay I do we can reference um I have the section number 46-34 the exemptions that are there that's a clock Chimes bells that kind of thing they're all in that same well the the bells the bells don't go off after a certain time and I don't think little league is playing at 10 p.m. no that's true yeah but you can hear and I don't know about the 500 ft though for instance for the bells I have no idea okay um sure I'm happy to amend my amendment to include those I think since he made the motion he has to agree to your to your Amendment no you can do it the way that we do it here the mayor makes the amendment and then we call for a second to agree to the amendment then we go to the motion on now becomes the motion that's on the floor plus the amendment and we vote on that that that is how we operate that way okay that's I I second okay city clerk if we'll have a vote on the amendment yes um vice mayor mahand yes commissioner Marriott no commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Nikki no mayor patrilla yes motion carries 3 to2 thank you if we can please have a vote on the actual motion yes is there we have a second do we have we had we have to well commissioner Mahal made the motion commissioner Robinson seconded the motion and I made the amendment to the motion yeah okay sorry I'm tired commissioner Marriott no commissioner Robinson yes commissioner Nikki no vice mayor mahand yes mayor Petrella yes motion carries 3 to [Applause] two y what's exemptions that are in uh 46 134 next we have items for discussion type those in in the we have item 8 a commissioner Robinson recoupling permits um I touched on that uh during our discussion of our um um I'm sorry um the uh hurricane updates um touched on that I'm very concerned about open permits going into another storm and um want to see something come forward what we can do to protect our residents since it's no fault of their own for the delay in permitting um I'd like to know about the phasing and and Miss Sanderson said she would come back with something so I'm satisfied on that for now if anybody wants to talk about it anymore but uh something has to be done I'm extremely worried about that I second that concern I feel like I've got the direction through the recovery presentation and we'll be back with information thank you thank you thank you any further discussion on this item next we have item 8B sign ordinance status commissioner Riki and and I I'm sorry remove this earlier but I already had it addressed before so okay I should have mentioned it sooner next we have item 8C forens unless I'm sorry un go I just think we need to look at the vehicle sign ordinance along with sign ordinance that needs to go hand in hand do you mean like vehicles that have that are logoed up kind of sign ordinance well there's a question like the cars that drive around with LED signs on them both or cars that Park gu both um makeshift signs on all the car you know non-permanent wraps and all that we can take a look at that yeah okay and let me just because I I'm I don't know if you had heard before when we've talked about sign when you said vehicle I know it's been mentioned before I'm sorry cuz you weren't here um city of attorney is that we have vehicles that Park on lots that have wraps that are not that business but are using the parking as their sign that's the typical ones you can regulate as opposed to ones that are just driving I just wanted to make sure if that's what you were well that and signs that aren't permanently attached you know they're not stencl or uh you know painted or or wrapped um so okay because there's a Content issue we saw within the that U vehicle sign there's exceptions for content for Content versus not so that needs to be looked at because I know we talked about content being a pro potential problem and the prohibition and the exemptions have to be content neutral okay next we have item 8 C for enic go commissioner Robinson yes um I've got a lot of calls on this from residents in regards to you know how their money was utilized where it went to and uh very big concerns on previous city manager uh some of the um items that were disclosed during uh the investigation and um I I know that a for a forensic audit is not free it can be I don't know I'm going to guess 200,000 to 800,000 but um I believe there might be some other ways that uh potentially we wouldn't have to pay for that if if it deemed uh to be so um such as whether we could get I don't know FBI involved or other law enforcement involved to check it out but I have residents very concerned the city attorney's office is reviewing the report and we'll be routing it to the appropriate state agencies uh for review and potential audit uh that they would conduct and we wouldn't have to pay for awesome thank you thank you you want public comment or not I'm always open to public comment Commissioners anyone opposed public comment please state your name and address for the record thank you BJ Lawson leani Drive this will be quick I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the importance of this and again hopefully we don't have to pay for all of this but I'm going to share a document that was part of the CM investigation materials redacted that is public records request 20242 two this particular information comes from page 183 um but just to draw attention to concerns about an employee who's no longer with the finance department she noted talking about the pecard which is a city's purchasing card or your corporate credit card system Sheila Dalton trained me on the pecard for the city I am very familiar with this type of program as I was the administrator for PSTA when being trained I asked who verified the transactions and she said no one does she mentioned that Vince didn't have time to look at what others were charging I had a conversation with Vince about the same issues and he again stated that he did not he didn't have time to review charges and never processed anything through the pecard online program uh PC card online program software only signed what Sheila provided to him in addition to the pecard training I noted that there were several charges by many members of the city for food and alcohol per the peard policy alcohol was permitted to be purchased on the PE card one of Jennifer's employees used it to purchase alcohol when I question the charge this is what I was told by Jennifer quote we have music in the park every Friday night the gentleman we hire we pay them with a case of beer he drinks it while playing and then drives home I reminded her that alcohol was permitted on the peard she said Alex Ray gave her permission to purchase it I also mentioned this events in which he told me he was not getting involved so there's a lot of absurdity in those couple of paragraphs and when it comes to understanding where the money's been going over the past decade we've got basic questions that I think we need to answer and the question of appropriateness of internal controls comes up and if you look at the footnotes from our City's annual comp uh annual comprehensive financial report the auditor who does that says that in planning and Performing our audit of the financial statements we consider the City's internal control over financial reporting as a basis for dining designing procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances for the purpose of expressing our opinions on the financial statements but not for the purpose of of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the city's internal control accordingly we do not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the city's internal control so the auditor is telling us in plain language that they assume that we are running an honest operation but we have indications that I would say we have reasonable questions that need to be answered so I sincerely hope we can find a way to answer these questions without burdening the taxpayers but really get to the bottom of what's been going on and where our money has gone thanks thank you sir okay commissioner uh Robinson are you uh satisfied with the city attorneys I I am very satisfied and look forward to hearing the results I am anxiously awaiting those results as well okay next we have the city manager six month performance evaluation city manager would you mind thank you mayor City commission um as you I just to remind the community of the process we we had a uh approved process by the commission a few months back that involved a 360 evaluation by very stakeholders within the organization including yourselves those uh results are in the packet the individual responses from those who participated on the commission are in that packet and the Consolidated responses from the employees who participated um are also in that packet um keeping them Anonymous in uh so that they feel safe to be honest and forthright in that process I also provided to you a summary of of accomplishments I just want to stress and thank the organization I am a true believer that um you only accomplished the leader's only uh reflection is of of those around them and how well they're responding and working together and so we would not have accomplished everything we did without um many amazing people around me this last six months given the uh circumstances of my arrival as well as the two storms um following 8 weeks after so I just want to thank you all for your support I think the packet speaks for itself I am not asking for any uh amendments to my contract at this time so there's no action necessary this evening and I just want to say how much it's been a pleasure to work with you all and get to know you and I'm looking forward to uh the future Commissioners questions comments I think you've done an outstanding job thank you very much and for being very calm and level through all of this it's greatly appreciated when you and I had a conversation about um you know what this was going to look like and the contract negotiations um you know we had a conversation about this beinging the highest paid city manager in the entire County and you said um I'm hoping that when the time comes you'll feel like I'm under paa um um having the opportunity to speak with many other Mayors who are going through similar circumstances that we are I would hate to be them and I am incredibly fortunate to have you um we you know the old adct you get what you pay for we got a much better bargain out of this deal than she did um sincerely I mean everything that you and your family have had to go through from your own flooding and you know still having to deal with it and uh I I appreciate everything you've done I think the you know I I appreciate you commending your staff but your staff wouldn't be who they are if it wasn't for your leadership in that department in that area and I think you've been able to pull the best out of the people that we have and and elevated all of our departments and also by the the people that you've brought in I think they are Testament you leadership so I appreciate that and thank you on that happy note to a less happy note city clerk yes thank you mayor Commissioners um as you know I have made the very difficult decision to resign from the city effective March 24th and um it has been a very lovely time here there have been challenges but I think overall it has been a blessing I've met wonderful people the residents in you all of very supportive of who I am and and the department as a whole um but I think it's time for me to move on and I will be here to help assist through that process uh what I do need from you is to know how long you want me to advertise the position for and then how you plan to receive those applications and then from there we can discuss next steps as far as setting up the interview process and then the final selection it's with a heavy heart that I say you know you're moving on because you've done an outstanding job too I mean you've been there through everything just as well as as as you know most of the city staff has been through the Hurricanes the EOC you know staying the night over there um you've really put your heart into here and uh the city owes you a big gred uh instead of gratitude for being forthright and honest with the whole Alex Ray scenario can't say thank you enough for that um and I know residents have said that to you as well going to miss you and I wish you the best of luck and are you sure we can't change your mind thank you thank you yeah I mean it's it's been a it's been a privilege working with you um you didn't always give me the answers I wanted but you gave me the right answers I told you that I would and I told you that I that's all I ask and I appreciate that more than you than you can know um you know when I came into this I I need Robert's Rules but it's good to have a uh a city clerk who knows them inside out um I appreciate everything you've done I appreciate you know kind of guiding me on Bambi's feet the first couple months um thank you for that I it's going to be an incredible loss and uh I'm incredibly sad to see you go and I Echo what commissioner Robinson said are you sure I wanted to say thank you too um as a as a resident um you know even before being on any committee you're always very um helpful you know sitting out there not knowing the rules establishing Rules by the way because of a lot of the things that that we are doing now because you initiated it so I I know you had put quite a few different projects in place for the city and and was successful and and we're using them you know so I appreciate that but you know I say even from sitting there and you know watching out how people are trying to figure out how to come up to you and give you the card and we didn't have those back then and now we do and just a lot of changes that have happened um you know representing uh a neighborhood being able to explain to them what you do and how you could could help them and and that you do I've never heard anyone say you know she's not giving me what I need you know kind of thing I know it was overwhelming I know even you can get a lot of um requests and it could be overwhelming um but you always did it you know um with with the residents in mind you know for for the service that you were providing um so I appreciate that and then even you know going through the whole process of uh submitting application for candidacy and sitting with you in your office and going over the book the famous book you know I appreciate everything that you did for me so and making sure that I I had my expense reports done on time yes you're welcome but you're not leaving yet right no got me for few more weeks well I'm certainly certainly sorry to see you go and uh I know we're going to miss you uh but I'm not going to give a long speech because we're going to be working together for the next two months so yes that's right um I mean it's city manager I know you have a lot on your plate and you're already hiring for uh we have when they engage for other services as well um is there something that you would have room on your plate to tackle uh the search process and the vetting process with the city clerks and involvement so typically it's coordinated by the city clerk here in the city clerk's office and then coordinated with HR and the five of you um in the past city manager has had no involvement just as much as I have not had any or the other city clerk has had involvement with the city manager process obviously that can be different the five of you can decide that differently but in the past that's the way it it's been done here are you willing to work to get get your replacement yeah okay because it is separate just I I would respectfully ask the commission that I be involved in the recruitment in some capacity this office is extremely critical in how the city operates and functions and collaborates together and so um it's it's highly High touch point on operations unlike the City attorney where they come in with a very specific expertise on advice and counsel this is a very tactical operational function that I think um I would appreciate some involvement whatever you your pleasure is but I'm respectfully asking so in the in the Pro just to be clear in the process um because you were mentioning there was something done before is it that that you just work with HR to post it then we get applications that come in and so and me trying to say working together as a team is it because to be together to review with HR yourself city manager review these applications before I don't know is that we're you know trying to um bring down the selection right so we're not reviewing let's hope 30 applications coming in right we don't know how many we're going to get but to kind of help narrow down for us um so you know for you two to work in conjunction you know to well I think you should involve a human resources or a recruiter to make that initial cut because they're looking at it through a lens of just paper expertise what do how do they meet the criteria of the job and the job description that's been established versus me trying to pick my successor and the clerk trying to pick her successor I think it's more unbiased to have HR or Renee involved as a as a recruiter if we need to but we also have the Florida League of cities and the municiple clerks Association that we can heavily advertise to try to draw it's just dependent upon if you need that Personal Touch to do the targeted Outreach what is uh Renee charging us to do the the partial work that they're currently doing for um for the assistant city manager that was 15,000 that was 15,000 okay is it can we find out if it'll be something comparable again I you all have lot on your plates already and I think if we could have somebody at least do the vetting process the initial one and just hand you a list of the top five 10 candidates it would certainly reduce the workload a little bit I could certainly reach out to her I'm sure she'd be open to that Arrangement maybe we can get thir times a discount yeah she might give me a discount time stamp the car then you get one for free okay I can check on that and while that's happening I mean I can still advertise on our website and the Florida Association of city clerks so I'm just curious like is there a time frame you want me to post it for so cut off application so that the applicants know you just want to leave it I know in the past it's been 14 calendar days it could be whatever just remember I have a finite amount of time I think too it's probably not reasonable to think we're going to have a full-time city clerk permanent by the time yeah no our clerk leaves so but if I could get help you guys get the process going it would be helpful to my staff as well and then is I'm assuming Jenny is she in a position or she would be open to filling in for a a fixed amount of time not indefinitely yes yes okay um okay so the city manager does have a budget discretionary um is the commission all right with all just instructing her to reach out to the recruiter um come up with a a budget for that and as long as it doesn't exceed the discretionary we be her discretion whether to engage them or not I mean yeah together working with the city clerk um I I I hear I hear both of your sides you know I mean you have a subject matter expertise uh and at the same time the city clerk and the city manager have to work very closely to get a hand inand so I I don't think it'd be unreasonable to you expect City manag to be involved in some capacity to to make sure that you know we find somebody that is a good fit that's a good cultural fit good just overall um do we need to provide more Direction than that I think I mean you're both exceptional professionals I think you can I think that's good for now okay yeah thank you thank you all right next we have uh reports city clerk so we have our community meeting on Monday at 5:30 we have our first recovery task force meeting next Wednesday at 8:30 in the morning here in Chambers the following week on February 12th we have the candidate Forum night hosted by the Florida um I'm sorry the women's voters registration of St Pete area uh here in leag of Voters women's voters I can't the league of Florida League of Women Voters right yeah okay um it's here in Chambers um and they are taking questions until the 5th that's been advertised on the website and in the Ops weekly and then um voting for District Two is here in Chambers because of the unavailable state of the community center and that 7A to 7p here in Chambers on March 11th thank you city manager no report City attorney nothing this evening District Four uh uh just three things real quickly first of all thank you Mr Mayor for writing that uh letter to the president um extremely impressive uh I don't know if you got any help with it or not but uh it was a good letter uh the frontier line that's been laying on the vena bridge now since Milton uh Public Works has been giving me frequent updates on it and that um line was supposed to have been rehung uh because it is still an internet line uh it supposed to be done this week uh they gave me an update that now it's going to be probably two more weeks so hopefully that will get done fairly soon uh the remaining lights that are missing uh between 1 and 8th Avenue pass a grill uh Duke Energy has committed to uh March 15 to to replacing those lights they've reenergized all the other lights anybody that live there lives there uh and is up after dark already knows that but uh hopefully by the 15th of March uh the new lights will be installed thank you Mr Mayor thank you District three um I didn't have something to report or or say but I do have a question since um we're talking about this letter and I don't know if you're going to be discussing it or not on your report mayor but I have questions about it because obviously this is when we're getting this um what the process is as a city when we write letters to the president of the United States with I mean I know you're not we're not a strong mayor City so I'm questioning process because heaven forbid I would have written a letter like that what kind of slack I would have received for doing such a thing I knew about letters going out in Treasure Island or it was on the news over the weekend or last Friday the mayor of Treasure Island was on the news doing a similar letter very very much the same just like an AI change let's just say because that's what I do with my students but I want to know process because we never had a chance to talk about it the intent Federal waivers permits femur I mean stuff that I would have like to have talked as a commission so um and maybe you know the City attorney could help explain to me what the process is when we're sending a letter on City letterhead without discussion on the commission thank you City attorney feel free to chime in if you like um the charter just Charter says a few things about the duties of the mayor but not many and the code is silent on the duties of the mayor um it says in section 3.03 the mayor shall preside at meetings of the commission shall be recognized as the head of the city government for all ceremonial purposes by the governor for the purpose of military law for service of process execution of contracts deeds and other documents and as the city's official designated to represent the city in all agreements with other governmental entities or certifications to other governmental entities I shall have no administrative duties except as required to carry out their responsibilities herein the the mayor commissioner shall have the equal power with the other Commissioners to make a motion second a motion discuss a question or cast a vote um in terms of uh I think expenditure as a money uh and and using City letterhead as long as it's for a city purpose it's okay but you can't use it for campaign uh materials um which this doesn't appear to be a campaign material so is it okay for all of us to do the same thing because I want to make sure it doesn't seem there's anything um that directly addresses it so it would be up to the commission to set a policy or procedure about how you wanted to handle these things I we all wanted to write a letter to the president to say the same thing support yeah so in my experience um which we're lacking here a bit is a count a commission handbook on things such as this is how how are you how do how do you all accept that sort of representation um but even if the mayor is the spokesperson of the city at least that's my interpretation of that that could not go that far uh but typically if an individual commissioner so if as an individual commissioner if you wanted to represent your own opinion as long as you were not speaking on behalf of the entire commission I'm just saying in my in my past lives that anyone was allowed to Advocate on City letterhead in not campaign related but it really comes down to what the commission wants and whether you want to put a policy together for that and then we still have the trumping of the First Amendment well the other thing that we have there also is the proclamation and that gives certain emergency Powers uh to wave statutory requirements uh under 252 it doesn't really address this particular situation but would allow the performance of public work and taking whatever prudent ction is necessary to ensure the health safety and Welfare of the community I just want to know if I can do the same thing I you know that's so what I'm hearing is if we want it you know let me look and see what the duties of of the feel free to express your own opinion I live and live and die by the consequences well so if I look at the charter and then I look at that was the mayor's section there's another section um for city city commission powers and composition there shall be a city commission with all legislative powers of the city Ved therein except as prescribed elsewhere in the charter City commission shall consist of four Commissioners and a mayor commissioner um that's basically all it says the vice mayor has the power to act as the mayor during the absence or disability of the vice mayor of the mayor there's prohibitions on appointments and removals interference with Administration city offices are limited to one office you can't have an interest in City contracts and you're subject to the code of ethics with the interference with Administration there you're supposed to all of your supposed to go through the city manager rather than directing City staff I think you're all aware of that that's about all it says there so in the absence I think our question is could they each individually represent their own position and opinion I think that's and Advocate without a handbook yeah and using letterhead you would have to say your position you as freedom of speech I can send the letter you'd have to say on behalf of myself as the commissioner District whatever District district commissioner city of St Pete Beach since there's nothing written then it's okay and if you want me to review letters before they go out send I'm not asking to review I just I did not review this one I don't know if I should do what you request what you said is big for forgiveness later but I I would rather know that's what but it's okay if it's not written that's broad is good I think it might become um something you do want to talk about when you're talking about legislative positions so when we go to our lobbyists we want to go to them as a unified group you know um so I think this was a unique kind of situation where we're were dealing with a disaster and asking for disaster relief to the governor and or the president and being the mayor um but on other legislative types things I think it would be appropriate to have you all discuss them with the lobbyist and before before each writing around letters to say to the legislature and things like that thank you any further District Two um just a couple things one is yes um I I agree thank you for writing that letter um greatly appreciate it on behalf of all the residents here as well um I just wanted to say I've got uh uh I had sent a letter out uh to um to our city manager as well as a uh Community Development Denise and also Pinda over at the library about doing an outreach program to the res uh to the residents to the elderly more so folks that don't have um necessarily have access to Internet they're not technically Savvy um they're kind of lost in the in the whole process and the idea was to go ahead and promote that get a neighbor helping neighbor check on your neighbor your elderly most people know where their elderly neighbors are knock on their door see where they are in the process I'd provide a form they can write down their info and then we could use the remaining volunteers and get them to be able to go you know in home visits to assist them and get them through because if they haven't been paying attention to any of this all they've seen is a letter they have that says they have to tear down their house so uh uh working on that I'll have something in writing um to France so that we can I can start on that and I'm at the library February 4th and February 14th and uh going to continue to um you know talk to people about the SD appeals process thank you commissioner district one um just a couple quick updates the beach theater has announced a reopening date this summer so they'll be open for business in August which is fantastic news um all over district one there are contractor trucks multiples of them working on every street there's huge progress being made there are people who have already gotten their houses repaired and are back living in their houses um and I expect about another I don't know 30% of the neighborhood is going to be in their house by March 15th so things are going very well on our end of the beach uh and I if you want to go listen to live music at masteries you should go now quick before we pass this Sound Ordinance second [Laughter] reading okay um two things uh one we received an invitation from University of Florida I'll read you the the entire thing on behalf of the Florida Institute of build environment resiliency fiber at the University of Florida we're pleased to invite you to participate in our interdisciplinary Urban Design and resil in future supported by the generous support of Duke Energy so Duke Energy Foundation has provided a so this is a no cost to the city in fact they're covering travel expenses to UF so it's it's really a zero cost to the city the intent of this program is to provide Mayors with the knowledge design ideas and guidance on potential grant opportunities for our city uh to address local environmental challenges and develop strategies to translate your ideas Into Climate resilient actions participate is limited to eight Mayors for the whole state of Florida wow um we received this invitation you know we've been one of the most impacted cities um by the storms um so please find us so there uh the first part is going to be you know I work with this city manager to see if this is something that they want to get involved with we've heard from everybody here you know the need to look at more grant opportunities so this is uh this is one of those things where somebody the else can help us with that um free of charge um I'm not one to turn down free help um so they're they're looking at a site visit the just looking at coming to you know St P Beach looking at what our affected areas are so late February early March um so just want to give you that update I think that's an incredible opportunity for uh for our city um and then the second part uh for the leather um I can tell you what the ramifications are if you publish a lettera um a great number of people will say thank you for publishing this and some people will say you're wasting your time no one's going to hear you and you know what um from before I came into office to to this point it's not like I've been somebody who's been quiet it's not like I haven't been putting information out putting videos out um and I don't really you know I I appreciate and I have almost at every instance made sure that I don't you know necessarily step on any of the other commissioner's toe um but at the same time U my responsibility ultimately is to the residents of St PB to the voters um and I feel that they deserve to know exactly where their mayor stands I remember at my very first commission meeting the day after somebody said I can't believe this guy asked for the you know review of the comprehensive plan and somebody else respond is like the only thing you should be shocked about is that a politician actually follow through in their campaign promises okay and so you know here was and normally you know I probably something like this I would have come to you first but there was a clock on it because and here's the thing is I have lots of conversations and in fact I'm going to ask for motion to extend this meeting by five minutes to 10:5 a.m. please motion to extend to 1 105 a.m. 5 a.m yeah so good city clerk commissioner Marriott sure commissioner Robinson yes commissioner R Niki vice mayor mahand yes vill yes okay so being in the position where I am as a City attorney said as a city's representative I have lots of conversations and in fact I sent an email to the city clerk into the city uh manager that I think you all received a copy of before the letter letter went out and before I saw you know uh The Treasure of tre Islands Lea I'd already been in communication with our state with our uh congresswoman and said hey look you all heard what the president just said a couple days ago when he was in the Carolinas and in California and he said FEMA got to you know loosen the restrictions get permits for people as quickly as possible and I like well he didn't mention Florida it's like we here you know we got impacted just as bad if not worse than many of them you know we could use some relief there's a lot of things that we could have done much more quickly if we you know if if FEMA had you know said look just do what is necessary right now to get people into their home as quickly as possible and so I am going to continue to do that I will reach out to other Mayors we we do this on a regular basis I meet with County Commissioners I meet with state representatives I meet with congresswomen and with with senators all the time you know on behalf of our city and on behalf of our residents and if I didn't shame on me right so I actually would like to request two things of the Commissioners today one is uh I would love for yall I haven't mailed it yet I would love for you all to sign on to it as well we can hand it to the city clerk and she can mail it out first thing in the morning from all of us I think unless you find something particularly objectionable that I did all I asked for was help right president said some words and I say sounds really great I would like for you to follow through if you said if you meant what you said that is really good help us out now show us that you really mean it so we have copies if you would like to sign one um I I would love for all of us to to to go on this together um you know because of Sunshine Law we don't really get a chance to talk more than every two weeks and so there's not always an opportunity and I generally don't don't like to publish the things that I do I don't need to Pat myself on the back so all the conversations I have to move forward you know talking to our state representatives talking to our Senators and so on I don't I don't put that out there in this case I felt it was necessary because it seemed like we weren't doing anything but other Mayors are doing things and so I it there was a need to say look okay we're doing it I just we just don't go around bragging about it all the time it's not it's not in my nature so I would love for you to all so that's the first ask the second ask is tomorrow morning is The Big C meeting and I would ask uh commissioner malland to represent the city and to ask all the Big C Mayors if they want to draft a letter from the big CA something along the same lines you know um mayor from Tre ran has already done a good job we have a template I'm sure they can figure some something out um so unless there's any objections from the commission um I would I would ask that um mayor sorry vice mayor molland uh deliver that request to the big sea uh in addition with a second request to the big sea which is along the same lines if the president meant what he said then he should also be inclined to talk to the Army Corps of Engineers and tell them to get their act together and start doing what is necessary for us and get our beach of finishment so I think we should request of The Big C to draft a second Lea to the president as well for beach and nourishment there there's got to be a way to get this done the what the way the situation at Treasure Island madira Beach passag Grill you know up and Beach all of our beaches you know so you all have any objections to those to ask for the big SE tomorrow no is that at 8 in the morning it's at 9 I believe great it's okay I'll be at PSTA what I'll be at PSTA for three hours tomorrow so just so I'm clear um we want the Big C to ha have a unified letter that matches along the same along the same vein yeah okay and then of course your army actually I was going to and then they simar the similar letter for beer nourishment right yeah I actually had a note I was going to bring that forward to the commission so in my the way I see it the president one minute put himself forward and I say we should hold him accountable to it and say please help us do we have any objections to that no okay if you do want to sign on city clerk will have a copy of the letter um if not don't feel obligated to uh I would love for all of you to be on it thank you very much we are adjourned