I call to order the regular session of the Tarpon Springs Board of Commissioners. Tuesday, February 24th, 6:30 p.m. Roll
call please. Mayor Giuliani's here. Vice Mayor Eisner here. Commissioner here. Commissioner DiDonato here. Commissioner
Banther here. Our reflection tonight will be by the chaplain, Adrian Murray of the Advent Health Hospital. And that will be followed by the Pledge of
Allegiance. Please stand. Holy God, we have summoned ourselves again to do the work of this
community. But we do not want to start this work without you. And so we invite you into this place. You are welcome here, but we need something from you.
We need you to grant our leaders wisdom, courage, intentionality, peace, vision for this city. And as we are
here today, may everything that is said and done be to your glory and to the betterment of Tarpon Springs. We pray in the
name of the father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to
the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have one
proclamation tonight, and it will be Black History Month. Will the Union Academy
Revitalization Committee come forward, please?
Okay. Thank you all for attending this tonight. And this is an important proclamation about the about black history. You
know, the Reverend Jesse Jackson recently passed, and he was a historic figure. He was the he ran for president.
Besides being an activist, he also ran for president 1984 1988. And he finished actually in 88. He finished second to Michael Dukakis for the
nomination for the Democratic nomination. But I have a quiz question for you. All right. Are you ready? So who who was the first African American to
run for president? Yeah. No. You're wrong. It was actually George Taylor, but he didn't. He? Shirley Chisholm was the first one to run for president
on a major ticket. Okay. But actually it was a guy named George Taylor in 1904. See, that's that's why history is important. So there you go.
Somebody we've never heard of who was brave enough to put his name up in 1904. You know how bad things were. 1904. Yeah. So.
I had to actually had to look that one up myself. So I looked it up. Oh, no. No, I'm I'm
modern. I go ChatGPT. Oh. So no, you didn't. So, you know. No, seriously, you know, it's there has been a push to whitewash
black history and to kind of downplay make it like it wasn't so bad. Right. Yeah. And we got to fight that. And you got to make sure that the kids know
how bad it was. Because then where we are now, they will appreciate it more. Okay. So it's important and the adults too. But the adults, they're kind of you know, kids we can
we can work on them. Yeah. But so it's important that everyone understand how it was. And here in this area in the early part of the 20th century, up in we
had a we didn't have a sheriff up here. We had what we call a constable and that constable, he was part of the Klan. And
yeah, he was part of the Klan. They used to burn the cross on Saturday evening down on where? US 19. If you go up where all
Alderman Road was and US 19 if you go down. It used to be orange groves and they used to burn the cross down there. So, you know, that Constable was pretty cruel and he would go
around and, you know, if, if a black man or, or even a Greek were found in Palm Harbor and like, you know, Palm Harbor is like very yuppie now. But it wasn't yuppie then. It was a
rough spot. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, they would if they were found there, they, they, they got taken care of by the, by these Constable. Yeah. Killed
or beaten up or whatever. You know. So it's important that you know how bad it was to know where we are today. And that's why I asked this gentleman
right here to come on up here. Come on up here. Here's your constable today. So I think we I think we've come I think
we've come away. We've come a ways haven't we. Yeah. Okay. So I'll read the proclamation. All right. Whereas Black History Month honors the achievements
and contributions of African Americans to our economic, cultural, spiritual and political development. And whereas the city of Tarpon Springs formally recognizes the
important contributions of historical influence of African Americans in our community. And whereas African Americans began settling here in the mid 1880s,
finding work in the lumber, citrus and sponging industries, and whereas historical records indicate that the Union Academy neighborhood in Tarpon Springs is recognized as the first
African American community established in Pinellas County, and whereas African Americans remain prominent in our community as businessmen, leaders, educators, ministers,
and public officials. And Whereas Black History Month serves as an essential period for educating young people about black history and fostering pride and confidence
in our youth, particularly within the black community. Now, therefore, I, John, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, do hereby
proclaim the month of February 19th, 2026, as Black History
Month. Good evening everybody. This is a community thing, and if it wasn't for the community, none of us would be up here. But more specifically, if it
wasn't for Katie, none of us would be up here because it was Katie Taylor that had the the thought Katie and Juliana that had the thought to let's do something to revitalize the
community. And I think if every community did the same thing, our communities would be a lot better or could be a lot better.
So thank you. I just thank everyone that's standing up here with me. You know, I sent out an email, a text and everything asking, you know, I
needed support to stand here. Katie and I everybody do. And I just thank everybody for showing up. My little thing today is say, be glad the heart
overflows with gladness and leaps and dances for the joy it has found in God. You will have much joy and laughter in life
as you have faith in God. And this is a quote by Martin Luther King. So as we have faith in him, in each other, by supporting each other,
regardless of your color, your creed, your culture or anything. But support is thing. And remember, the greatest thing is
love. Amen, Amen. My, I just wanted to let you know that this is an historic site, this
building, this used to be Tarpon High. Then it became Tarpon Junior High. Tarpon Junior High was one of the
first junior highs desegregated in 1964. And I was one of the students. So remember that
you've got some history right here as a transplanted tarpon. I've been here for 56 years. This year we are now trying to
make black history. 365 that means every day, not just one month. Hi, I'm Maggie Miles and
I always like to share in Black History Month. My great my great grandfather was Willie Richardson. He was the first African American that worked for the city of Tarpon Springs in the Public Works Department.
He was one that knew where all the water meters were. Even in his retirement, they would come and get him. That was my great grandfather, Willie Richardson, and he also was the one that
turned the time on the clock down at the performing, we call it the performing used to be the City Hall, him and my uncle Herman Richardson, so I'm proud to be a tarpinian. I've been
here around 60 years, so I'm glad to be a part of this community. Thank you. They normally don't let me talk
until the end and then I say no comment for me. I look in the audience and I see a lot of people that I, I remember growing up with, but standing up here, other than Zeb, I
think I've been disciplined by everybody up here, including my mom at the end. So this is full circle. But when somebody said
community, that true, that truly defines who we are here in Tarpon Springs. And I look at the men and women up here
that have done so much and that Union Academy area to make it ours. We have legacy families, legacy homes there that so near
and dear to me. And I thank God for the city manager. We rode through there a couple about a week ago, and we looked at some of these legacy homes and what we can do in those areas to make them better. You know, I
always say, if you look good, you feel good. If you feel better, you do better. And I thank you for just driving, I told him, I said, Charles, I'm rambling, but this is the Hays
House. This is this house, this is this house. And I mean, your dad was still cutting hair when I was a kid getting a haircut. I remember that, so I just
thank you guys for being who you are. And standing in a basketball term. You're standing in the paint for the community. You're taking the elbows, you're taking the body blows to make sure that we're
making this community the best community that we have in this area. So I say, you know, on shoulders, I'm, I'm standing on because I look at you guys and
I say, you know, you guys are my hope. You are. I call you more than you need to be called to get problem solved. But I thank God for you. And I thank God that you're standing in the
community and you're willing to work and do the hard work, you know? And so I just appreciate
it. So thank you. I like that term a legacy homes. Oh, there
are generations interest okay. Okay. Let's go to public comments. Please come up. And if you wish to speak on any
item that is not on the agenda that excuse me on any item, yes, any item that is not on the agenda you can speak about. So please come forward. Please state your name and your address please. My name is
Susan Rose. I Susan, 504 South Florida Avenue. I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you tonight about a project that's near and dear to
my heart, in conjunction with peace for Tarpon and the Tarpon Springs Public Library, we have started something called a
memory cafe, and a memory cafe is a social gathering for people living with dementia and their care partners to come
together for just a nice morning or evening. Memory. Cafes were started in Holland
in 1997, but they soon spread to the United States and we now have almost 500 nationwide. Every memory cafe is different,
but the one that we have started at Tarpon focuses on music, yoga, chair, yoga, crafts, and of course, snacks
and sometimes special performances and most important, community. Because people living with dementia and their care partners are so lacking in
community support and being able to get together with other people just for fun activities. So that's what we're trying to provide there. We meet on the first Saturday of the month at
the Tarpon Springs Library from 1030 to 12. It's totally free. There is a registration at the library, but it's not necessary. So people are welcome to to
drop in. You can come for a little bit, see what's going on. We've had two so far. We started in January. The first one we had more volunteers than
guests. We had three guests by February that that had increased four times, so we had 12 guests. So we were very happy about. So we made it. We had a little Valentine's party.
The next one is March 7th, and it will be, of course, Saint Patrick's Day celebration. Tarpon peace for Tarpon has been instrumental in helping me
start this project and we have plans to expand. Expand into more dementia awareness and support throughout the community. Because dementia is a community issue and it needs
a community response. And I look forward to telling you more about that in the future. I do have some little cards that we pass out that explains a little bit more. Is it okay
if I bring these up and you could pass them out? Okay. All right. Yep. And thank you very
much. I appreciate your time. Thank you. It's it's really any anyone who has a loved one who is suffering from dementia and
you would like them. It's really good to for them to get to get have be socialized, get out. It's a big break for the
caregiver themselves to have an opportunity to sit with other people that are all going kind of through the same thing. So it's a really good thing. So it's at the library and you said March 7th is the next one,
right? Okay, great. Anybody else like to get up and speak? I'm just kidding. Robin Katie
Taylor, 657 Haven Place, Tarpon Springs, Florida I wanted to thank the commissioner, the mayor and the commissioners for supporting Rose Cemetery. I know sometimes some people are
not sure of where the city stands with Rose, and they say the city don't do nothing for Rose. I'm here to say the city does help. Rose rose Cemetery is a nonprofit, charitable
cemetery that's semi privately owned. It's not exactly private. Anybody can be buried there, but it's it's governed by a private board of members that own cemetery. And when we call
the city this, this, this diocese right here. Since I've been with Rose Cemetery the last few years, these gentlemen and have helped us every time we call upon the city. So I
thank you. We found we've we've informed them that we found that 12ft of that 12ft of city property has graves on it. And
these gentlemen are working to help us bring those people back into the fold. So thank you for all that you're doing for Rose, for the cleanups. Thank you for your city staff coming out,
helping us doing our cleanups. Thank you, mayor, for going out there one day when we forgot to call you and tell you that it was it was a council, but you showed up. So I just want to say thank you from Rose
Cemetery Association for all you're doing. And we hope to continue to support us as we go through things. Thank you. Thank you for all you do.
Anyone else? I'm Robin Sanger, 1630 Lonesome Pine Lane here in Tarpon Springs. And first of all, the Memory Cafe. I went to the first two. What a
remarkable experience. If you're free and available that day, come by and just drop in and see what it's about. It's incredible. But I came up today to thank the community, and
I've heard that word more often than any other word today or this evening, to thank the community for their support of Stone soup, that piece for Tarpon and our historical
society partner with every year to showcase signature soups from our local restaurants. It was a wonderful success. But also on that day, talk about
community. There was the touch a truck. There was the Rose Cemetery cleanup, there was the first responders car show. There was the pack, a meal. They packed 25. I don't know
how many that 25,000 meals at the Methodist Church that same morning. And then all the people had to come for soup because they were starving. But it was just it's the idea of
community coming together in all these ways. We have such a rich community as far as volunteers, people with giving hearts and generous spirits, and it's something that we can
all treasure. And I really appreciate everyone in this community. Thank you, thank you.
Oh, you're not next. It's me. Juliana. Day 413 East Oakwood Street. Oh, I don't know. I was so surprised. I almost got the
car and did a dance at the corner of Lime Street and Distant. They cut the bushes back. Jesus. I mean, I came
there, I was like, you know, you'd be itching out trying to see the cars because that's what my daughter had her accident at, you know, and she was like the third accident at
that corner. And it really was it was devastating to me. So she came in town last Saturday. She came by the corner. She said, mama, they cut the bushes.
I can see. So I want to thank the city. The city works for going out and making that drive, that roadway safe. And I know
there's other roadways that need to be made safer so you don't have to inch out. Maybe take a dash of faith to get across the street, because that
heel on distance is a blind hill there. So I would just want to thank everybody for that. Thank you. That man in the light blue shirt over there wave. Chris. Chris right there.
There he is. You saw it was it was thick. He's doing a wonderful job. Wonderful job. So anyone else like to speak.
Hi my name is Marty Peters. I'm at 1702 Heritage Oaks Court, Tarpon Springs. Our representative in Tallahassee, Adam Anderson, recently voted
to place a referendum on the ballot that would severely reduce or eliminate property taxes that pay for infrastructure, public safety
and other needs. After corrupt state politicians use $10 million dedicated to help health care for poor kids, we can only expect the state to
again use taxpayer dollars to fund a referendum campaign to misrepresent the impact of this referendum, this time on the
ability of local governments to solve local problems. Your job While Anderson isn't the initiator of this attack on local control, he did vote to
support it and he represents us, so he should be held accountable, just as other local governments should hold their representatives accountable. Invite Anderson to
come to Tarpon Springs to defend his vote. He should tour our city to see infrastructure and other needs. I doubt he's ever driven or walked the
streets, like all of you have done in your campaigns. Anderson should learn that his property tax cut is also a services cut, so extreme that
the independence of Tarpon Springs and other cities will be called into question. After all, if you can't fund solutions because you have no
access to funding, what should the purpose of local government be? If Anderson wants to control local revenue sources, he and the state become
responsible for potholes, flooding and crime. Fight now for Tarpon Springs. Hold Tallahassee politicians
accountable. Maybe if politicians like Anderson spent less time trying to micromanage local government, he could concentrate on issues like
affordability, transparency, investigating corruption at the state level, property insurance and runaway utility costs. I urge you to stand up for Tarpon
Springs and not let Tallahassee take us over. Thank you, thank you. Appeared like us. 514
Ashland Avenue. Thank you. Marty, that saves me about 45 seconds because I've asked for a resolution from this board. And I want to remind you of some of the words that have
been said today by the pastor here wisdom, courage, integrity. And then what everybody else has said about community. Community. So I'm going to read something real quick here, and
then we'll get to the community part Psalm 35 A few verses contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me, fight against those who fight against me.
Take up the shield and buckler. Arise and come to my aid. Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. May those who seek
my life be disgraced and put to shame. May those who plot my ruin be turned back and dismay. May they be like chaff before the wind with the angel of the Lord driving them away. May
their path be dark and slippery, with angel of the Lord pursuing them, since they hid their net for me without cause and without cause. Dug a pit for me. May ruin. Overtake them by
surprise. May the net they entangle them. May they fall into the pit to their own ruin. You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and the needy from those who
rob them. Again, our communities across the country are being decimated by people being taken out because of color, language, ethnicity,
religion. Now, I've lived in Tarpon Springs a long time, over 50 years. I know where people live and I'm a little
disappointed. I don't do Facebook, but I'm a little disappointed with what I'm hearing from people. There's also an agenda item later. I'm not discussing that, but as I
drive around. I see all the Greek people I know have one candidate signs up, and people that I know that aren't Greek or don't have, they have
another candidates up. And it's like we've got two warring factions. Someone wants an ally on the board for them, and I don't understand it. I don't
get I'm not getting into it, but I just don't like pitting one part of our community against another. As you heard, the Bahamians came here in the
1880s. Even then, rich people and people from up north and northeast were coming down here. The Greeks didn't come to the early 1900s. We are all a
community of immigrants. And let's unite and and quit. The internal bickering between ethnicities and color and
religion and culture, language. We are all Americans here. Let's behave properly. Let's really live this community that everybody's been speaking about.
And in God's name, I pray for that. Thank you, thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Let's go to
our next. Let's go to the consent agenda. Let me read the items. Number number two on the agenda is special events.
Sunset Beach movie night 2026 Easter Egg Stravaganza 2026 Tarpon Springs High School Band Boosters Music Festival 2026.
Taste of Tarpon 2026 and Bike Your City 2026. Number three attorney Fee Johnson Jackson, number four renew file City
Attorney Services Agreement, amendment number five increase file of the golf cart leasing. Number six Award file for
corrosion inhibitor number seven. Award file for Pentair Myers pumps, repairs and parts number eight Award file for
lift stations. Scott Equipment and service number nine. United States Capitol Police member, memorandum of understanding number ten increase file for
air vac pumps, parts and services. Some more here. Number 11 Award file for auctioneer services. Number 12
Award file for single source purchase of Ford original equipment manufacturer. Automotive Parts and services. Number 13 Award file for
CrowdStrike Cybersecurity services and number 14 award file for landscaping materials. Does any commissioner wish to pull any of these items? No.
Okay. With that roll call, please. You know you need a motion. Oh I'm sorry. Motion. So moved. I do that every time, chief. You'll forget to write it on my hand, you know. So.
Okay. There's a motion. Did I get a second? Second did. Okay. Oh, now. Now motion. Now motion. Good. Roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner.
DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes, vice mayor. Eisner. Yes. Mayor. Kuleana. Yes. Okay, let's go to the business. Items
number 15 has been deferred to March 24th. That's number 16. Anclote Bayou bathymetric survey navigation charts and
data analysis. Miss. Mr. Makris, would you like to come up and present that, please? Thank you. Good evening. I'm Nick Makris,
project administration department assistant director for this agenda item. City staff contracted with our engineer of record, Stantec, to complete a bathymetric survey
of local channels and waterways and to create navigational chart based on that survey. As you are probably well aware, our city charter requires this
to be conducted every five years, and the last survey was conducted in 2024. The results, along with data analysis and cost estimates, were presented
in January of 2025, and at that time, and based on the direction received from the board at that time, we now expanded to include additional
areas that are now captured in this updated study and presentation prepared by Mr. Matthew Starr from the team Lead for the Coastal Engineering and a subject
matter expert in dredging for Stantec. So with that introduction, Matt can now provide you with our updated presentation. Thank you for the
presentation. Nick, can you help him put up the
presentation? There we go. Excellent. Everyone work. I
think we just scroll it. Yeah okay. Excellent. Again, for the record, my name is Matthew Starr. Stantec Consulting Services, Clearwater, Florida.
I'm here to provide an update on our work over the past year for the waterway study. So as Nick mentioned, Stantec was assigned to task order in March
of last year after we presented a similar update to the city commission, we were directed to go back and conduct an additional hydrographic survey, provide volume calculations,
feasibility report, navigation chart, and ultimately come back with those updated volumes and cost estimates. The City Commission, which is where we are here tonight. So the
previous project. In 2024, Stantec was tasked with surveying the previously surveyed canals and waterways that the city of Tarpon Springs
had surveyed in the subsequent years prior to 2024. You can see on the image here many of those areas are along couple the bayous, some southern
portions of the Anclote River and some of the bayous to the south. The results of the of these ■surveys were presented, as Nick said in January 2025,
at the conclusion of that meeting, there was public discussion on those limits and expanding the project areas. The areas in yellow shown on
the screen. Here are the areas that were surveyed in 2024 and that were previously surveyed by the city. The areas in black. These were the additional areas
along the southern shoreline, and some of the other bayous that were added to the project. Based on public comment and city staff direction. So the
project went from about eight and a half miles of canals and waterways to a little over 17 miles of canals and waterways.
So what we did, we conducted a hydrographic survey of all the 17 miles of waterways. We were able to provide these charts to
the city that show high spots, low spots where the bars are within the waterways of the city. Based on direction. At
the last meeting as well, we were able to come up with dredge templates to -five feet mean low water. The intention of this is ultimately for permitting the Army Corps of
Engineers and Florida Department of Environmental Protection. They'll allow maintenance dredging to -five feet. Mean low water with a some standard permits in
general permits that they offer dredging deeper than that typically considered new dredging. And it adds to the permitting process. So we took all of this information for all
of the canals and waterways, and ultimately came up with a dredge template that covered the survey areas. And we were able to show how much material
has to be removed within each of the bayous and waterways within the city. On the screen here, we can like I mentioned,
we have a dredge template to -five feet, mean low water. The little dashed line here is the top of the sediment, and the dredge template is basically
where a proposed channel would be cut to dredge that waterway and make the waterways more navigable. So really getting into the the meat of the
presentation here, how much volume were in all of these canals and waterways after we surveyed everything, the waterways were broken up into
different waterways and the total amount of volume to be removed to -five feet mean low water. And as I mentioned, that's pretty much the standard for maintenance dredging in
Florida. Minus five is a little over 88,000yd■!T. To put that in reference to another recent project with the city, the Army Corps of Engineers in 2023
dredged approximately 59,000yd■T of material from the navigable channel of the Anclote River. That material that the Army Corps dredged was dewatered in
the city's dredge material Management area. In this little box in red here that the city purchased a few years ago. So you can see that there's quite
a bit of material here, broken down by the areas of the southern Anclote shoreline has quite a bit of material in it. One of the things I wanted to mention here for dredging, this
is a proposed project right now, and the city did acquire their DMM a few years ago. That area would be used again for this project, as it was established to be used for this type of
maintenance dredging within the city. So kind of next steps here. What we've done, we've gone through and we've surveyed the canals, come up with volumes and we'll talk about the cost estimates on the next
slide. But this is just a piece of the project here. Ultimately, to move the project on to permitting, we would need to complete a seagrass survey to mitigate any type of impacts
that would be to seagrass in the areas, oysters, benthic resources, geotechnical investigation to define the sediment. Let's see what the material is composed of, which
ultimately leads to after it's dewatered. How could it be reused? Or does it have to be disposed of somewhere? A couple of the other steps on here as well. We'd have to hold
pre-application meetings with the Army Corps and DEP as a result of the seagrass survey. We would talk to them on what they might permit with the project, how it would be permitted if mitigation would
potentially be required, and work through the permitting process. Once the permits are submitted, we would work with the Army Corps of Engineers and DEP over the next couple years
to permit the project. Right now, we're seeing about 2 to 3 years with the Army Corps on permitting dredge projects. In Florida. DEP is about 9 to 12 months. We do see that longer
lag on the Army Corps side, just due to recent staff attrition and government cutbacks. They're just understaffed. So it takes a while to work through the system. But it's not a bad thing because when we start to
look at the next steps, what it costs for consulting services, permitting services and ultimately into the cost estimates here. There's a
pretty big number here to dredge you. 17 miles of waterway. The permitting process, like I mentioned, does take 2 to 3 years, but that allows time to develop funding
sources, work on funding and capital improvement projects, potentially set up other funding streams, go after grant money. But these costs here,
these are based on recent bids that we've received on the west coast of Florida. We're seeing on the low side about $135 a cubic yard. That's an all in number for dredging,
transporting material to the dewatering area and then ultimately trucking it potentially offsite to be reused somewhere, whether it's beneficial reuse or a land fill
these numbers, capture those proposed costs that are out there on the high end. We are seeing $210 a cubic yard. These are based on recent projects in
2025. So I'm pretty comfortable with these numbers. But ultimately, at the end of the day, what we see here to dredge everything that we have on the plans right now, we're looking at a project between 11 and $18
million, which again, that's that's a big number. But there are funding sources. There's grants. There's grants from the state government, from DEP, from Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation. There's there's a host of opportunities for dredging grants that exist because ultimately you you're dredging, but you are enhancing the waterway. You're improving water quality, providing
recreational services, amenities to the public, etc. on that, one of the other items we had to do here with the city, they wanted us to produce navigation charts. So obviously
we updated the the survey data in 2025. This is post Milton, Post Helene. So this survey information was provided in different charts that have been provided to the city's GIS
department, along with the raw data itself, so the water depths can be uploaded on the city's GIS website, and the public can access that most current data that we have
available. So looking here at the end of the presentation, there's one slide after this, city staff is looking for a little bit of directive to move
forward on the project. We've come to you answering the questions that we were directed to answer in early 2025. So there's a couple different ways
to proceed here. We've got the areas listed on the screen. We could certainly work with city staff to move forward, collect the rest of the data necessary for permitting and submit
permit applications. We could also work with city staff and city commission to potentially prioritize areas. There's a couple numbers on here, or a couple waterways that have some pretty significant construction
dollars to them, and maybe they would want to be prioritized over other waterways. So it's, you know, potentially open to, you know, workshop how to proceed with the project as
well here. And that is going to be my last slide that I have. So I'm going to open it up for for questions. And if Nick has any closing remarks before we
pass it back I'm happy to answer any questions. Nick, you have any more remarks? Okay. Unless the board has any additional questions. Okay.
City manager wants to say a few things before we go to commissioner. Questions? Yeah. Thank you. Mayor. I think there's a lot of information here. And we've even had some additional requests for areas to look at, areas that we
haven't considered. So so our recommendation is to schedule a workshop where you can get into detail, perhaps look at how we might phase this over many years, a little bit at a time,
in more bite sized chunks. But I think we'd be better in a workshop setting where we had plenty of time. Yeah, I think that that sounds like the the
direction we should go. But let's go to Commissioner questions. Commissioner Banther, do you have any questions? Yes. Thank you. I want to I want to thank you for this, guys. And it's one of the comments I get
most often is about the is about the dredging in our in our residential areas. I know especially Kramer Bayou is dangerously low. I mean and I know in real estate that when
you sell waterfront homes, that's one of the first questions that people ask is, is about the water depth and the tides and when and when can you go out. So, you know, doing this well, it's going to be
very expensive. It's going to directly help our waterfront property values. And thus down the line, I think a workshop is a great idea. You know, we'll get into the weeds there as far as what we do first or what not,
but I definitely want to prioritize areas that maybe have not been dredged at all or not dredged recently. So we'll get into that. But thank you guys very much. It was a lot of good data and we look forward
to to having the workshop. Thank you. Commissioner DiDonato. I feel very much that we need to workshop this as ideally it would be nice to do option one. Then we've got to
make sure that the money is there to do that, and it may not be so. We certainly should workshop the issue and decide kind of a long term plan to
tackle this whole matter. So I endorse the the workshop Commissioner coleus. Thank you. Mayor, I want to thank you both for the presentation. And actually, you guys came back with everything we actually
asked for because I remember there were just certain cuts around the bayous and we we were requesting a lot more and to see the full. And you guys hit that right on the head. And
Commissioner Banther did bring up the property values so that that was a great thing. Sir, you talk about these grants and other funding opportunities. I mean, what type of a percentage do you think you see from that,
from other projejects mean, it varies. We get like 50%, like 20, 30%. Sure. Absolutely. Most of them are kind of a 5050
match. We're doing a dredging project for the City of Saint Pete right now, and they're able to get $3 million from the federal government. And you
know that if you just submit paperwork that shows you're going to improve the water quality, you know, enhance the stormwater, you can clean stormwater runoff, provide
public recreation opportunities. There's money there for those opportunities on the west coast of Florida here. And would you say, I don't know if you got to look at the history of it all,
but would you say like a big revamp in in taking care of addressing these waterways? We should be good for how many, how many years after you? Would you say? So that's a that's a
difficult question to answer because we had two really big hurricanes in 2024. But typically when we do these maintenance dredging projects, we typically see a lifespan of
10 to 15 years when we dredge them to minus five, maybe a little bit longer if we don't have any of these significant hurricane and really intense storm events that we have. But
if it's a residential upland cut waterway, for instance, one back like here in Cramer Bayou, that's like not facing the Gulf a little more isolated. I'd
expect somewhere in that 15 to 20 year time frame out of it, typically because a little more isolated. And a lot of this rolls into to where we see longer life spans, our some of
our communities at the city level and county level. They enhance their stormwater cleaning projects where they might buy an additional street sweeper. And we've really seen
that if they keep the streets clean, keep the stormwater drains clean, they've extended the life of these projects significantly just to keep all of the organic material, all the runoff from the roads, keep
people from blowing lawn clippings off their back, dock into the water. All that just settles at the bottom. So, you know, a little bit of enforcement and maintenance goes a long way. And we really see it reflected in the
lifespan of these projects. Thank you sir. Thank you for the presentation. And I a workshop is, I think, the only way we can go and and deciding how to start addressing it
piece by piece or one whole and with our other projects we have. So thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you mayor. Why why are we
choosing five feet? Why would we not try to do three feet? And I am going to ask that question because most of the boats don't need the five feet,
right? So when we presented the information before in 2025, we broke it down into -three feet, -four feet and -five feet. And yes, you're right, a lot of the boats with outboards, they
don't need -three feet. But if you're going to go to a maintenance dredging project like this, you're going to get the longest lifespan out of it. And if they're already there working on it, they're already dredging the material out. It's
not a lot of extra effort to dig that extra foot or two out, to really get that maintenance out of the waterways and a longer lifespan. So there's a
difference between dredging three feet or dredging five feet. Yes, that's correct, because we didn't see that as a price difference. Yes we did.
So then I would like to see what a price is for three feet through everywhere. Because, you know, we doubled our amount of area that we need. Correct.
And we're sitting at five feet, which is pretty much for larger boats with bigger drafts with more speed, which we don't need the speed, as you just said,
the bayou, there's very little movement there that wouldn't be necessary. When we had this discussion last time, I don't
remember that we were going around Harbor Watch. I don't know how that got added in, because Harbor Watch is in open
Gulf water, and if you look at it, it has the shallowest of water. I don't think it's a foot. So that would be a really huge amount of money and it
wouldn't last the 15 years. It would might last one storm. Would I be correct? Potentially in this area, the Harbor watch area that again, like you
mentioned, that was an additional area that was added for us to look at during 2025. Right. But we didn't add that because we stopped. I remember what we did. We stopped right
at Harbor Watch where the opening is to go out to Miss Vickie's. This was added with the discussion with city staff at that point in time. Okay.
But the board did not approve that. So that's why I don't know why it's there. When I looked at it, that is the one of the worst dredging areas. I don't know how much more was
put into that. Just to add that in. But if you pull it up on the color chart, you'll see there's just no water there. If direction from the board at the
time when this was initially presented in January of 2025, that was specifically the area that I think what we were to expand and include in this, in
this revision. No, the it was it was from Harbor Watch all the way back through the bayous, because we were only going to do the bayous in 2024. And then
we added all of the back bays behind Circle Drive, and that's what we added. But we stopped right at the opening to go out
to Miss Vickie's. You know, if you remember that, because you were I don't know how we added that in. It's that is an extremely excessive amount more
adding in, you know when you're showing me 11 million. And I looked at this versus the 18 million and I'm seeing that you have like a totally flat area
there with less than a foot of water. Because I've had my boat on that land and it's all full of seagrass. So that's going to
add the, the, the monies to it. I just don't see how we can afford to do that. That would knock off quite a bit of money. Yeah. And I think I think that's really one of the intentions of trying to
workshop a project plan going forward and prioritize what areas to focus on to move a project forward. That's certainly the intent of that discussion. Yes, but I want to have you have those numbers for
the workshop. Otherwise we won't have, you know, we won't make progress on the workshop. So I want you to understand that's not something that I want to support at all. I'd
like to, but I just know that it is a great deal of money and it will not last. Maybe a year, one one hurricane. And that's
going to go totally flat again. So, you know, on on the rest of the area here, the water moves in and out parallel to what
you're going to dredge. So I'm okay with that. But there it's perpendicular to it. If you understand where I'm going with this. Understood. And we'll make sure to work with city staff that we're prepared to
have the requested numbers. But if you could leave that out of this equation, I'd like to see what those numbers are going to be. Yeah. If that's Southern Anclote Shoreline, I believe
you're you're referencing. Referred to as Southern Enclosure. Okay. Correct. That's the lion's share. I believe it's the second row here on the cost estimate
you're referring to, right? Yes. The southern shoreline. Yep. The other thing is you're dredging a 40 foot wide dredge. Correct. It varies. Some of
it's 30, some of it's 40, some of it's 50. It depends on the width of the waterway. But our Anclote River doesn't even have that pretty much in some spots. And again, that's that's an item. This is just very
conceptual level here. This is trying to take all the data that was surveyed, say here's what we've got. And this can certainly be reduced to help fine tune costs. And ultimately
what our project is. And again another point of the workshop, do a 20 foot channel 30 foot channel 40. That's all stuff to be worked out in time as a project is better. Well, my purpose of bringing this up is
I want you to have those numbers for the workshop. Understood. You know, if for me to sit here and discuss all the things that I read on this that
were needing to have further information, the workshop won't do us any good if you don't have that information for us right then and there. So I'm not interested in putting 40
foot, you know, wide dredging. We could get away with 30, 25, something like that. I don't want this is they're all private homes back there with people having docks there. We
don't want people doing 35, 40 miles an hour behind there. So it has to be a narrow dredge, just enough to get the boat in and out. Most of these boats
are open bay boats. They're all 21ft, 23 foot. They have shallow drafts of one foot. Right. Why are we doing five feet? I don't need to go out 15 years. We've never done this
back there at all. So anything we do is going to be a major improvement. As commissioner said to, you know, and some of the areas that I was looking at already have their three feet.
They could get in and out, but where they're going to the Anclote, that's where it's backed up. So we just really need to clear that up a little
bit or a spot that congests quicker. We can maybe there go to five feet, right. And again, if there's areas of concerns and maybe that's the direction for the project where the
prioritization is, let's focus on the the high spots or the intersections and the, the areas that are more traveled by more more vessels. And then maybe the secondary part of the project or the other portions
of the waterways. And that's certainly open for discussion as the project develops. If you could go to the slide on the
dredge template for the bayou. That's the one. Okay. As you can see, pretty much around all the homes, you pretty much can
get your boat out from the home, but you can't get out of crema. Yep, yep. The yellow areas are areas for -3 to -4. Right. But we don't really need to dredge
minus three and minus four. Most of those boats are small. You know, what I'm looking for is a price just for the red and the brownish area to bring it
up to snuff. The same thing on both sides. So that might be what I'm trying to do is cost cut. So where it's feasible for us to get this done, get it
done right and everybody is somewhat appeased, we don't have to, you know, make the Queen Mary come through here. We need to make sure that most of the boats that people have
on their backyards have have access to get in and out at low tides. The same thing, like I said, with the width, it will
cut down the costs drastically. So. Vice Mayor, vice mayor isn't aren't these the things we would do at a no, because we need to have the funds. We're going to have a workshop. This
isn't a workshop of one. We're going to have a workshop. We're going to go over all these things. We're going to then give direction to the they'll have direction. They can go back, sharpen their pencil,
come back with things we're not I don't know why we're going micromanaging it now or this is what we're going to do in the workshop. So go ahead. Go ahead.
No, that wasn't my point is not the word. I get the point. My point is for them to come back with numbers of three feet everywhere, of not being 40ft
wide of, you know, having smaller amounts of dredging amount. And that's then when we have those factors into place, then we can decide as a board
what we would like. That's my point. Got it. Understood. Stantec will work with city staff to slice the numbers a
couple different ways, so can look at them from different perspectives. Got it. Thank you. I appreciate the report. It was very in-depth. Absolutely. Okay.
Is there any public comments on this item before? Yes. Yes, I would like. Charles, I think this is a great item for the Marine Marine Commerce Committee to take up in their first meeting. I mean, this is
where I no one's coming here tonight to, to, to even to even to even to even speak on it. But this is where we need their expertise and this is, this should be their very first item.
Okay. Thank you. Good point. Good idea. Okay. So is there any public comments on this item. And this is not something we're voting on. This is where
this is all we've given. We're giving direction to the city attorney. I mean the city manager to go ahead and set up these meetings. And I agree, the Commerce Committee should
probably visit this first. So yes, lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. We would like to be able to participate. You can invite us
to the workshop and allow us to comment. We're in workshops. You aren't allowed. But what I have thought about, and now
that I see Mr. Makris here, I would like to ask. And I'm not representing the board. I'm here as a private citizen on a board looking at some
suggestions to you. We're going to need a staff liaison. Whoever has the most knowledge and experience with what has already occurred. I know Bob
Robertson started. He's but appears Nick appears to be quite qualified to be our liaison. Secondly, a suggestion as a board, we would like to
have one commissioner that we have as a liaison between us and the rest of y'all so we can maintain, you know, some kind of sunshine law thing. And I
would recommend Commissioner banter with regards to that, because he has taken some initiative with regards to this.
We would like at some point for us to get some information as far as data provided to us, as far as historical data, current
data, all these files that we can maybe have put in a packet and then send it out to the members that we've already are on the board, so we can begin
reviewing them so we don't walk in quite cold. I did speak to Tommy the other day about some of my thoughts, and I know going forward we haven't
assembled as a meeting, so I'm not reaching. I hope any sunshine laws. But again, again, again, again with the Marine
Commerce Committee. I know the focus has been with regards to the dredging and all the access, and that's important. And our
environmental concerns are also important. But again, we need to have a direction. One of our duties, as we can do without
having to breach our scope of duties. As I mentioned with the city manager mentioned economic things, working with our marine community to be bringing in
ways to help boats to do more sponging, more fishing. And as I mentioned, there was a little blurb in the last week's Suncoast News about a ferry
service that Pinellas County Transit Authority helps pay for for service between Dunedin and Clearwater. And why not Tarpon? This to me is part of our
marine increasing the vitality of the dock. So as I mentioned to the city manager, let's look at how we can prepare for that and start lobbying for these things. And my last comment on
that is that if these property tax changes go through, you won't be able to do these type of things. All your money will
be tied up with fire, first responders, police, and then later tonight you're going to make public works people's first responders. So if they mandate, all first responders have to be paid and all that
budget can be cut, where are you going to cut? These are the things that are going to happen. Our infrastructure, our quality of life will be suffered. So think about all those things
and thank you for your time. Thank you. Next. I'm Sue Swenson. I live at 327 Manatee Lane. Full disclosure I have
self-interest in this one. I live on the bayou behind MLK, going into Whitcomb. And you know, my concern there is we
already have that very, very, very low bridge there. So dredging is of utmost importance to me, too. Thank
you, thank you. Tommy Klaus, 906 West Bayshore Drive. I know this isn't being voted on tonight. Excuse me. How? The girls. They're good. Let's put
them to bed. That's why I'm late. I know this isn't being voted on tonight, and I've looked at the hydrology study briefly. This really, really,
really needs to be looked at as it relates to the dredging on the edges of our rivers, even our bayous. You're going to significantly impact the
hydrology of our waterway by dredging in some of these places. I know driving, you know, on a boat down a river and some of our bayous, water
is dark. You necessarily can't see the bottom all the time. There are living seagrass beds everywhere in our river oyster bars. It really, really, really
needs to be looked at. And I'm probably going to upset a lot of waterfront residents by saying this. But there's some there's some areas that do not need to be touched. I'm 41 years old. I remember our river
when there was knee, knee, knee, deep sea grass all through our river. That's no longer the case in some areas. That's probably from stormwater runoff
pollution. I'm not getting into that. We do have some new growth that's starting to come back into our river. And I would just ask everybody that's going to be involved with this to really, really, really pay
attention to that. It's extremely fragile what we have. I've been in a lot of different ports, a lot of different waterways in my life. Nowhere have I seen anything like
Tarpon Springs that has the community, the working waterfront, and just a very alive river. We suffered a really bad red tide a few years
ago, knocked a lot of stuff out. We're starting to come out of that and see some light at the end of the tunnel there. Like I said, I've looked at the study briefly and I would just ask
everybody that's going to be involved with this to really pay attention to what we're going to do here, because you could mess a lot of stuff up just to allow people to put their boats in their water and
drive to their house. So that's it. Thank you, thank you. Anyone else? Okay. All right.
City manager, you you have direction. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you guys. Thank you, thank you. Let's go to item
number 17. It's sludge hauling treatment services. Mr. Kiger.
Thank you. Thomas Kiger for the public services department today. We have a small administrative increase for our biosolids contract with
Appalachian Material Services. The key notes to point out here for this contract is one we we've not experienced an increase in contractual costs. This is purely in response to
operations. In wastewater operations, you receive wastewater from your community and you treat it and you remove the nutrients and all the pollution. And the byproduct is biosolids. And that's directly related to how much volume of
water you treat in any particular year, and what comes to the plant and some other weather factors and things like that. This year we have a little bit of an increased
biosolids production, largely related to some of our cold weather. It's a little bit of a technical wastewater treatment issue, but we do have an additional need for additional tonnage of biosolids disposal
due to our changes in operation. And we're requesting a roughly 15% increase in the contract to cover up that operational change. With that, I'd be happy
to answer any questions. Commissioner Banther, you have any questions? No, sir. Thank you, Commissioner DiDonato. No, sir. Commissioner coleus. No,
sir. Vice mayor. No thank you. Are we shortest I've ever. Tom? You. Are. Let's go to any
public comments on this presentation. Okay. I come back to the board for a motion. So moved. Second, if there's no further comments, roll call
please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. De Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes. Mayor. Kuleana. Yes. Okay, let's go to
number 18. Ratify selection of firms for request for qualifications. Yes. You're not Miss Lewis, but I'm still here. You're still here. All right,
all right. Thomas Geiger again for public services Department. Today, we are recommending we're here both for public services and on behalf of
procurement, recommending award for our five year award for our engineering services, contract for utilities, engineering services. This is for our water and wastewater engineer of
record contract. We just reached the end of our last five year contract. This was put through a competitive process, an RFQ process. It's a
qualifications based award. The committee, the qualifications committee recommended awarding to three different firms, being McKim and Creed, Tetra Tech and Black and Veatch. In no
particular order, each of these firms is highly capable and specialized in water and wastewater utility work, and we have some experience with several of them. At this point,
we're recommending a $1.5 million annual award over five years. Our previous award was 1.2 million. We do have some additional capital projects coming up in the next few years
that design fees are directly tied to the cost of construction projects, and additionally, we also use these contracts for other as needed services like meeting
regulatory requirements. When we get new environmental regulations from the EPA or DEP, we rely on these experts to help us navigate those regulatory challenges and also
for day to day operations, like when Dot calls and tells us that we need to move some pipes out of the way for for a highway project, or to help review complex plans for new
development. So we're recommending a modest increase at this time. And also this will be when we renegotiate our unit rates with each of the firms. And so the previous
rates were held steady for five years. So we're anticipating a little bit of an increase in unit rate costs. But we'll have the opportunity to negotiate as well to get best value. Okay. Commissioner, do you have any
questions? No, sir. Commissioner DiDonato. Commissioner coleus. No, sir. Vice mayor. No, sir. Okay. Thank you. Do we have any
public comments? If not, let's come back to the board for a motion. So moved. Second. If there's no further comments, roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. De Donato.
Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes. Mayor. Kuleana. Yes. Let's go to item number 19. Reject all bids for
on the Craig Park Seawall project. Now we have Miss Lewis. Good evening. Mayor, board of commissioners. Janina Lewis, procurement services director. Yes. Tonight we are requesting
that the board recommend rejection of the seawall bid on phase one project. After the bids were received and opened, it was realized that one of the
quantities provided in the Schedule of values, which is the bid line items that the contractors use to provide their total price, was not correct, and in that situation,
we did not want to introduce any new information after the fact that the bids were opened. So in this case, we are recommending reject and rebid and I'll leave it for questions
at that. Thank you. Commissioner Banther, do you have any questions? No, sir. Commissioner DiDonato. No. Commissioner coleus. I guess
this isn't a question for Miss Lewis, but maybe the city manager. Now that we're rejecting these bids, is this something that's coming up in front of us here in the near
future? Again, like reissued that? Yes. We'd like to reissue a bid rebid with the quantities revamped, revised, and then that'll be noticed again out to
the contractors, and they can bid again. And then we'll be bringing that before you. Okay. Hopefully the next board if we can manage it. All right. Can I ask was some of our funding.
This is for the seawall, right. Correct. Was it some of our funding from Arpa money, or have we shifted that out completely because I thought we had to have the project done or at least allocated allocated. There is some grant money
related to this project. It is not Arpa. The time crunch originally was for the permitting. We've we've talked to the whoever's supplying the permit. I don't know at this
time, but we have spoken with them and they're aware of the situation and we are still within our time frame to be able to do the award. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank
you. Mayor, do you have a ballpark idea of how much the difference is of what we were? Shortfall? Let me see here. I
think I have it. Initially it turned out to be one item. That was the biggest issue was the
six inch concrete. And let me see here I. It's item 33. Yeah
I'm just checking here. Okay. So let's see. This is just what I've got here real quick. It said it could add up to another
$200,000 to the lowest bidder. And so in that instance, we didn't feel that that would be fair to all the bidders if we came in right away with a
change order after award. Then the other issue was the six inch concrete, and then the four inch concrete needed to be separated out because there was a there's a difference in
quantity and cost as well. So that was one of the other items that came to light after the bids were opened. Well, the reason I ask this is because I had the conversation with you
earlier today, and in that conversation, I want the board to know that if we go back out for a bid, all of the bids that are already out there will now be seen by everybody, and we
could have a little feeding frenzy of people trying to undercut one another. And from what I understand, we even had one that the low bid that was not happy about that. Correct?
Correct. Okay. So was there any way possible that we could move ahead with this and somehow deal with that 200,000 in a different way, not in this
particular situation because it's grant funded and I'm thinking it's state grant funded. There's you know, the stricter guidelines need to be followed, and we can't
introduce other items once the bids have been opened. Because as I spoke to you on the phone, I mean, I just I dread having
this rebid with everybody knowing what the other person bid. And then we have people under bidding and then playing games when we're doing the project. And that's correct.
That's just the state statute. I have to I know once we opopen the bids, we have to say the price and that gets reported. It's a sticky, sticky situation either way we go. So that's why.
So there's actually no way possible for even the city to pick up the 200,000. No. Yeah. Okay. Well then we really have no choice. I mean, we have to
reject it, and then hopefully we can get to look at the original bids and see now who's going to be playing games with lowering bids just to get the, the, the work. We should have a
good realistic realism of cost, if that's the way you want to say it. Be able to compare, you know pricing before pricing to now and what they if it's the same individuals who want to
bid again. Yes. We'll we'll be able to see where they've changed or sharpened their pencils. So do we have any jurisdiction like because we have one person that's bidding
$5 million and they could, you know, while one is the low is 2.9 as high as 5 million, does the 5 million turn and go? I'm going to now do it for 3.1
million. It's possible they could. I can't predict what the bids will come in at. It would just make me say, you know what I mean. Yes. So I wouldn't like
that. And, you know, that's something that this board and we still have to take the lowest bid. Correct? Correct. Okay. Lowest responsible. Responsible. Responsive bid.
Yes. Well, I'm going to go along with what we're recommended, but I'm just not happy with how this thing came about. I know it's not your
fault, but it's just not good I agree I agree okay. Are there any public comments on this item? If not, let's come back
to the board for a motion. So moved. Second, okay, if there's no further comment, roll call please. Mr. Panther. Yes, Commissioner DiDonato. Yes,
Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes. Yes. Come. Okay. We come to item number 20. I've discussed this
item with the city attorney, and on his advice, here's how we're going to handle this item. Commissioner coleus is the the
commissioner who put this on the agenda. So he will speak. Then I'm going to allow Miss Weaver to have a response. Then
it will come back to the board for a motion. And then if there's a motion and a second, then we will proceed with as, as normal. So, Commissioner
Coleus, yes, I brought this forward because I discovered that there had been some. Discrepancies, contrary
statements that were given recently. And I think it's important that we have true transparency from everyone involved, whether you serve on an appointed board or on the
board of commissioners. And so for everything involved, and this involves a removal of an individual, Miss Lori Rinaldi Weaver from the Planning and
Zoning Board for for many issues and reasons that I've put inside this backup. But I would ask that we don't have to
discuss anything or even proceed forward to talk about the details of everything. If simply Miss Weaver wants to come forward, give a very brief
apology for the community, and I'll move forward to defer the item, and nothing else has to be said. So I'd give that opportunity right now to happen.
But if not, then I'm going to present the case that needs to be. And but I would prefer not to. I think there's enough there for everyone to be able
to accept and move forward in. A simple apology will go a long way for these residents. For representation on the Planning and Zoning board and for this
word, that transparency that we all talk about and overall sincerity. So, Miss Weaver, if you if you would like to do that, please do. There's not
going to be any deferral or any motion to go to remove you. And we'll go from there. So I'll leave it up to Miss Weaver first. If not, I'll go into the
presentation. I don't know what I would do. Okay, hold on a second. Okay. The way that again, I'm going to reiterate
what I said. You have a chance to make your case. Miss Weaver will get come up at that time. It will come back to the board for a motion. And if there's a
motion and a second, then you go into your presentation and we go, move forward. Okay. I ask the city attorney for that. And I thought that was the most presentable. No, I I'm okay. So
with that, here we go. So, Miss Weaver, would you like to get up and make a statement of any kind? I prefer to wait until after. Can you come forward to
the podium, please? I think we're going to just do it the way you talked about you. Mr. will go first and then she. Yeah, that's what I thought we were doing. No, no, he he he
asked if she would, if she wanted to come forward and apologize. If she doesn't, then he'll proceed forward. Okay. I would, I would prefer to make a statement and I would prefer to
do it after the accusation. Okay, if that's so, Commissioner, do you want to make your you want to make your case, I guess. I mean, this is how it's going to be so absolutely honorable. Mayor and
fellow commissioners, I respectfully submit this memorandum for consideration at our upcoming Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday, February 24th, 2026.
The purpose of this memorandum is to formally request the removal of a current and planning zoning member, Lori Rinaldi Weaver, who has operated an illegal short term
rental within the R 100 zoned neighborhood in the city of Tarpon Springs. Short term rentals are not permitted within this zoning classification. The operation
of such a rental constitutes a clear violation of the city's zoning code and land development regulations. The
actions of Lori. Lori Rinaldi Weaver removing this site adds. Within hours of this disclosure on February 10th. Support. This was advertised as a short term
rental, and the individual Miss Weaver's intentions to rent it as such. It is particularly concerning that Lori Rinaldi Weaver was fully aware of the
city's zoning regulations governing short term stays as a captain. As a planning and zoning member, she is tasked with reviewing, interpreting and applying these very
regulations. Moreover, public discussions and campaign related statements demonstrate that she has previously acknowledged the restrictions on short term rentals in certain neighborhoods.
Knowledge of the law, combined with deliberate noncompliance, elevates the matters beyond a simple code violation. It becomes an issue of integrity
and accountability. Allowing a planning and zoning member to continue serving while intentionally violating zoning regulations undermines the credibility of the Board of
Commissioners and that board planning and zoning members are entrusted with making recommendations that directly impact property rights, neighborhood character, and
regulatory enforcement. When a member knowingly breaks the same rules she's expected to uphold, it erodes public trust and calls into question the
fairness and impartiality of future decisions. Lori Rinaldi Weaver has been asked to appear at the regular session meeting in anticipation to speak for them, to speak for herself,
without any board member trying to detour her comments. The issue ultimately comes down to ethics, perception and how the citizens see us react to this
item. We are in the court of public opinion. Our responsibility as elected officials is to not only enforce the rules, but to model adherence to it. The community
expects honesty and consistency from those making decisions that shape up our city. It is deeply troubling for Lori Walding, a planning and zoning
member, to publicly state and debate forums that she voted against allowing short term rentals in prohibited neighborhoods while simultaneously operating such a
rental herself. That contradiction damages the integrity of both Miss Weaver and the institutions we serve.
It is also a bad look for the city of Tarpon Springs and the Board of Commissioners to allow this matter to remain unaddressed. Ignoring this issue, minimizing it, or
attempting to defer action once presented publicly sends a message that rules apply differently depending on alignment. While it is understood that members of this
board may support the individual, that support should not override obligation to acknowledge the facts and act appropriately. Removal from the Planning and Zoning Board has
no impact whatsoever on her future ambitions. However, failing to act in the face of substantial allegations will reflect poorly on this commission and may be perceived
as placing alliances above ethical governance. So the citizens of Tarpon Springs are watching closely. How this board responds will set a clear example of whether we
prioritize transparency and accountability. Our action or inaction will demonstrate whether we are willing to hold voluntary appointed board members to the same standards
expected of every resident. And so. By going to one of these
short term sites was the Vrbo site we were able to see we have Miss Lori as a host who's been hosting for over two years.
I believe in the area, but I believe over ten years and wherever at. And so this is the host. This is what we call the
description of the host, and it matches everything Miss Weaver talks about in her great accolades and all the titles
and stuff. So it is her. Now. It's all in the back of. There's also reviews. There's a
review that goes five nights in December of 2025, which is outside the May state of emergency for short term stays
of 2025. And that was within your qualifying period. And so that is a violation that I don't know how you're going to
explain. There was also another review that was done for ten nights in July of 2025, at the same property that's in AR1
hundred zone neighborhood. That is a violation of the short term stay within the community. The May deadline was, in fact the last day for any R 100
neighborhoods, or actually shouldn't have even been in there, but we allowed the state of emergency for those reasons. So we have two reviews outside
the state of emergency in our 100 neighborhoods that weren't allowed, especially those time periods. And so we also have
and you know, when I reached out to the city manager and, you know, I told him about the documents that I backed up, there was a response back
stating that Elise had a reasonably a lease had recently been signed in February of 2026, pretty much the same week the disclosure happened. So it's a
great coincidence, I would say, if that's the case, but it doesn't hold the fact that
there was single daily rentals in February of 2026. In March of 2026, that averaged a little
over about average, about $300 a night. So this this lease is contradicted by by these short term stays unless unless
someone did sign a lease. But part of that agreement is they could have people still rent there from the short term stay. As we know there are hosts, I don't know, but there's those
two right there are the clear violations also. We we could
see in a way this map was located off in the Gulf. It wasn't even on Florida Avenue. So it must have been like this
deception to put it out in the water, as if not to give it a a fine location. And so. We can't
have people serve on boards that are going to say one thing and protecting residents, but in fact themselves violate or intrude those neighborhoods
that are supposed to have the short term stays out. We had an application the other day. There was a recusal. It was presented great within the
community. It was a short term stay. The lady actually reached out privately to me and I said, the most important thing you did was apply formally. That was the greatest thing. So I'm
not sure what type of excuse we're going to hear tonight. Neither do I think we'll even get the support to remove an individual. But this stuff
cannot happen. And if we can't have a tough conversation, an honest conversation for transparency, and we're just
going to lose more public trust. And, you know, this code enforcement, it's not just cutting the grass and your grass is high. It obviously came up through a debate forum
question because it was that important. And so. We're going to I'd like to hear back from her comments and her responses. But the key points is code
enforcement couldn't open up a case because they'd been closed. The ads the day they were disclosed. And simply, if you were advertising just six
months availability or whatever you can wide, you have daily stays or simply why did you
just leave it up there? And so. And then I'm going to hear the, the excuse that there's going to be a sorrow about a lady who was placed in a fire. You know,
there was a fire in my neighborhood, which I feel for the lady, but that doesn't override the past of how that property was used. We as a
board will not three members was the vice mayor and myself. We actually sent a complaint up with the rest of the board at that time to the Commission of Ethics. I have no intentions on
doing anything like that, but we sent it up to the Commission of Ethics. Why? Because it was Commissioner Car at the time wrote a letter in support to help an individual use city
letterhead, which was wrong, but it was in fact to try to take care of somebody with a major fire issue. So all I was
asking was a quick two minute, simple apology. It seemed like that was the hardest thing. Miss Eisner, you still laughing?
All right. You have a chance to speak. And so. If we can't get that, how are we going to expect sincerity in the way
you're going to articulate answers and questions and make decisions for this community?
And so I'd like to hear from. Miss Weaver coming forward. And guess what you're going to have to hear. And we're going to have to hear your excuses, in which I gave you an ample
opportunity to kindly apologize and and move forward with this very forgiving community. But that reflection of saying one thing and doing another while
serving on our boards is not something I support. And if I had the approval from this commission, I'd make the removal. I'd make the motion to
remove you. So we'll let Miss Weaver respond back. Miss Weaver, would you please come forward? And would you meet? Would you please move the
microphone up near your your your mouth, please? Thanks. Thank you. Good evening. My
name is Lori Weaver. I reside at 451 East Tarpon Avenue. And I'd like to address the commissioner's statement to clarify those mistruths
perpetuated here tonight. In October of 2024, after Hurricane Helene, governor DeSantis issued a statement on Facebook which referenced his
recent executive order. The order provided for lifting any restrictions on rental periods for storm affected counties. This order applies to all counties that were declared
under a state of emergency. In order to provide more options for immediate housing for those who needed a place to stay long term or short term as they
rebuild and recover. In short, you could rent a property for any period of time in storm affected counties without
penalty. As the acting mayor at the time, I would have expected Commissioner Coolio's to be aware that this order was in effect. This emergency
executive order has been renewed several times, with the most recent renewal occurring last month on January 6th. Extending the executive order
60 more days until March 6th, 2026. With that said, short term rentals operating in the city have operated lawfully as long as this order remains in
effect. Since an emergency executive order overrides local city regulations. Again, something that a former mayor should have known. We opened
our home to short term rentals after our tenants lease expired, and he purchased his own home and moved out in fall of 2020. For several weeks after the devastating storms. At that
time, so many neighbors were without a roof over their heads, some living from doorstep to doorstep. Some had only the shelter of their car to call
home. Changing this location to a short term rental option was an easy decision for us at the time, when not a single hotel room was available locally. I
was happy to have something for people to remain local and for their children to remain in school here. I allowed the website to manage rentals and collect taxes on my behalf.
When it became apparent that the house was no longer being used for repair and recovery purposes, we returned the home back to its original long term rental status. It is presently
leased to a resident here who lost their home this year to a fire. A copy of this lease was prevented presented for you
several weeks ago, and it was well in advance. It was January of this year and yet here we are. All these claims of
violations and using reviews as proof of wrongdoing are not relevant. Since the governor's executive order allowed a short term rental, and I only allowed those rentals during the time
of that executive order. In other words, I was well within my rights and I feel I provided a service service which was much appreciated by the people
who needed it. By the commissioner's own account, there was not one single review of this property that occurred before the hurricane. We owned
the home since June of 2023, one and a half years before the rentals in question. Why are there no reviews for that 18 month period? The answer is
because I complied with local regulation and rented it long term. So the question remains, has the commissioner who brought this item to the agenda
addressed all 683 local rental properties? Or just mine? As a former mayor, why did you not address this through the proper channels? So it could be
predetermined that no violation existed? The picture you took of my property clearly states that it was offered for a six month lease. If someone tried
to book it for a shorter time, the site would have prevented that. Why does this commissioner have the right to circumvent due process? The
short answer is they don't. This salacious attack on my character and my position here in the city, I take very personally because it is personal. I maintain the timing
of this item is not coincidental. This commissioner has on several occasions disparaged me verbally, in public, along with relentless negative postings and untrue
accusations on social media. He has attempted to disparage my service record without success, and when that failed, he turned his efforts to remove me from
the Planning and Zoning Board. On January 28th, I informed this commissioner in writing that the three candidates had made a verbal agreement one week prior at the candidate
forum to run a clean, honorable race. And if my intent to adhere to that agreement. However, he continues to berate and spread mistruths. Miss Weaver, let's refrain from
talking about the election. Just continue to answer the questions regarding your rental issue. And and then we're going
to ask I'm going to ask for a motion. So please. I feel that this issue has been brought up
due to the election. I feel the people here realize that. I won't say anything further. I will just say that I presented
my case. I was well within my rights. And I don't understand why I should be standing here trying to defend myself. Thank
you, thank you. I'll entertain a motion for removal of Miss Weaver from the Planning and Zoning Board. Is there a motion? Motion to remove Miss Weaver from the Planning and Zoning
Board due to her running the illegal operations during the months, she was not allowed. And on the board. That's uncalled for. Is there a second?
Okay, with there being no second the motion dies? Lack of a second. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Weaver. Let's
go to. Let's go to. We're going to move item item number 28 up to the first ordinance and
resolution. Resolution 2020 6-07. Would City Attorney please read the resolution by title? Please? Hold on. I'm
looking for. Okay. Resolution resolution 2020 607, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, authorizing the establishment
of user fees for city owned electric vehicle supply equipment, providing for an allocation of collected fees to an Energy Reinvestment Fund or
EV infrastructure sub fund, authorizing the city manager to establish and amend a fee schedule. Providing for findings, providing for severability, and providing for
an effective date. Okay, Mr. Kiger. Thomas Kiger for the Public Services Department, and we'll be having Holly, our
sustainability program manager, presenting this item. Good evening, mayor and board of Commissioners. Yes. So this is essentially an effort to
transition our electric vehicle charging stations from free service into a cost recovery model, which is very consistent with our neighboring municipalities. Pretty much everyone in Pinellas County, we
went into a pilot program several years back with Duke Energy. It ended in 2023. So we've been giving free power to EV users for a couple of years
now. So we want to really look at, you know, how we can make this a self-funding program. So that's what this resolution
will allow us to do. Okay. Is let's go to well, let me ask you. So I think we we talked about this this morning. So
we're going to go ahead and start charging for the usage of electricity by outside. Correct. But not we're not charging city
employees here at City Hall. That's correct. So our public facing charging stations are all manufactured by one vendor. So we have one vendor that will
network all of those stations. So there will be ten. And those are public. The ones that the city uses for fleet charging and for the employee area, those are those are not by the same vendor. They can't be
brought into the same network. So those would not be affected by this. Thank you. Commissioner, do you have any questions? No. Thank you, Commissioner DiDonato. Commissioner coleus. No
questions, vice mayor. No, sir. Okay. You got one of these? Let's go to public comments. Any public comments on this item? I'd like to come back to
the board for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. If there's no further comments, roll call, please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes,
Commissioner. Yes. Yes, vice mayor. Yes, mayor. Yes. Thank you, thank you. Number. Let's go to item 21, ordinance 2020
6-01. City attorney, would you please read the ordinance by title, please? Yes, mayor. Ordinance 2020 601, an ordinance of the Board of Commissioners of City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending section five Dash 26 of the
Code of Ordinances in its entirety. Boat launch permit providing for conflict. Providing for severability. Providing for codification. Providing for an effective date,
that is, ordinance 2020 601 read by title only on first reading. Second reading is scheduled for March 10th, 2026. Publication will occur on
February 25th, 2026. Okay, Mr. Geiger, thank you, Thomas Geiger, for the Public Services Department. The next three ordinances are sort of a series of ordinances that all relate
to our guidance that the board gave back in May related to public access at Sunset Beach and for boat trailers and things of that nature. The project manager for this whole
effort has been our assistant director, Jamie Taylor, and so he'll be presenting all the details, and he's done a tremendous amount of work on this effort for the last nine months, coordinating with
police and the city clerk's office and public works. And it's been a big effort, and it's a testament to his project management skills and attention to detail. What we've brought
forward to you today. So here's here's Jamie. Honorable mayor, Board of Commissioners Jamie Taylor with Public Services Department. The amendments to
this boat launch permit municipal code includes the increase of the fine to the state statutory limit of $100.
There's also a recommended daily launch fee at the boat launches themselves that would be administered through a. It's called Park Mobile. It's an app that facilitates payment for
parking, would be on site with a QR code through the app. So if folks do not have the monthly permit, they can easily come into compliance at the
time at the boat launch there. Another aspect of this is we had begun a boat launch attendant program last. It was it actually began last
September. And that's that has two staff out at Sunset Beach and at Craig Park. And their job is essentially to maintain some order down there, make
sure that folks are aware of the requirements of everything that is needed for them. Also, make sure that commercial activity is not going on down at the parks. That includes jet
ski rentals. You know, whether it be some group exercise classes that may be unauthorized things of that nature. So looking to continue
that program as we go ahead and implement, potentially implement new things, they will be working towards educating the public. They will be working towards enforcing and
bringing folks into compliance with that daily launch fee. And the request for that, that would be an additional 21,000 in part time wages. That
looking for guidance on that. Another change to the municipal code was removing the fee amounts to allow for future administrative changes. So we don't have to come back to the
board and we can adapt and change as everyone sees fit. I'll take any questions if you have any. Okay, so we so this
will help us. What? Excuse me, excuse me. We're not doing a circus tonight. We're not doing a hold on. Hold on. She needs to be removed from the meeting. Hold on a second. She made
derogatory statements to me. I already advised the city attorney so I can record her doing her nonsense. Hold on. Let me. She keeps it up. She needs to be removed. The city attorney, sir. That's it. Let
him. Let him take care of it. She should be removed. Yeah. You have no expectation of privacy. Yeah, exactly. The
whole thing's been. Let's take a break till eight, 830. Come
on. And. All right, everybody. Rose, and gave him and make my
commissioner. You get, you get, you get your fresh brew. Yeah.
We have a young man. How come I didn't see it? The military
ready? Yep. This supposedly is signed on January 6th. You two now. Nice meeting you. Okay, let's continue the meeting.
Let's go to item. Let me read it. Did we? It talks about different sections. We did 21. Let's go to item number 22. Do we vote. What I don't think oh
we never okay I'm sorry. All right. We we recessed the meeting in in the midst of item number 21. Did we did we
already read that title? Yes. Okay. We did. Did we have a motion? We did not have a motion yet. So moved. Do we
have a second? Second. Okay. With that said unless there's any other comments. Can we go to roll call, please? Commissioner? Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner.
Yes. Yes. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes, yes. Okay. Let's go to item number 22, ordinance 2020 602, an ordinance of the Board of Commissioners of the City of
Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending section 1814 of the Code of Ordinances in its entirety. Parking of large vehicles and trailers and residential districts, providing for conflict.
Providing for severability, providing for codification, and providing for an effective date, that is, ordinance 2020 602, read by title only on first reading. Second reading is
scheduled for March 10th, 2026. Advertisement will be February 25th, 2026. Mr. Kiger, Mr. Taylor's here. Jamie Taylor I'm
sorry. So essentially, this was brought up, I think 3 or 4 years ago from, at the time, Assistant Chief Frank Ruggerio. This was a desire to impose a
with restriction on trailers within residential neighborhoods to allow for accessibility for both first responders as well as neighborhood residents. As we all know, some of our streets
and neighborhoods are pretty narrow, and to have it blocked up entirely by a wide or long trailer, you know, definitely is a hindrance there. So just
looking to close the final task on this and get it approved there. I'll take any questions if you have them. Okay. Commissioner Barnier, do you have any questions. No sir.
Commissioner Di Donato. No. Commissioner coleus. No, sir. And vice mayor. Yes. I just wanted to. Just not a question per say, but I just wanted to
let you know both both. Most boats are eight foot six with the trailer. It's about nine and a half. You know, a lot of those roads over there, unless they've been redone, are 18. So
once they're parked, you have to drive up on the sidewalk to get around any of those boats. But there is also a lot of a
lot of people not just parking in the fruit section, but they're parking on canal and, you know, wherever they can walk to. So we do have to be diligent in making sure that
nobody's parking on those outskirts as well. That's pretty much it. Okay. Are there
any public comments on this item? Lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. I'll be brief. Apparently y'all got the
picture I sent you on Saturday. It was driving out to Key Vista Park and happened to go down Reed Street right there where
Canal Reed and South Spring is, and there were two trucks with two trailers parked there on Reed. One was right next to a
fire hydrant, and Reed is a difficult street to navigate. It's already narrow if you have two cars passing and some. There's no restriction on
either side of the street to park on, so sometimes you can have cars parked on both sides of the street, and you kind of have to zigzag down there, and there's other streets similar
to that in that that particular part of the area west of the bayou. I know there was talk earlier on the permit, and I would also like to, I guess
maybe it's in the next item with the park, and I'll out on the out on Sunset Beach. But anybody who has a trailer that's parked at Craig Park not
only needs to make sure they have a valid sticker, which would allow them to have the parking there, otherwise any trailer park there that isn't
valid, then you know whatever is necessary to be taken care of. But this is a good start. The commissioner makes a good point about the width of some
of the trailers, so I'm not sure if the 96in is a general standard or how that number was picked, or if there's any
leeway in lessening or increasing that. I'm not sure, but because I'm, I, I couldn't tell you how wide a normal trailer is. It depends again on the size of the boat, but that
was the only thing I had any question about. Thank you. Okay. Any other? Yes. Tommy Koulouris,
906 West Bayshore Drive. Couple things going back to the ordinance prior to this. I'll be brief on that. Just changing the fees. I have been victim.
I've gotten tickets from not renewing my parking pass. There's a lot of people that do launch boats here that aren't even considering a parking pass. So I think the the daily I
think you guys said you do it on your phone. I think that would help tremendously. I think having if you're going to give somebody a ticket, let's make it substantial to where they're not going to do it
again. And then talking about the boat trailers, you know, that's pretty simple to address. I mean, if you put a again, people probably aren't going to like this, but if you put, you know, some kind of width
restriction or draft restriction on our boat ramps, you're you're going to decrease a lot of that problem with as it relates to parking and the width of these trailers,
there's no excuse me. Somebody say something. You're you're going to I mean, there's no reason for somebody to be dropping in a 30 to 40 foot
boat or even a 28 foot boat with a nine foot beam, and Craig Park that they have to go under a bridge that they probably aren't going to fit under Sunset Beach. Same thing. I mean, Sunset Beach is a dirt
spit that spills into the Gulf there. If you have anything over an 18 foot boat. Again, I've done this before. You're doing some serious damage to the bottom they're trying to load. So ask you guys just to
look at that. That would be an easy solution. Thank you. Any other further public comments? Okay. With would come back to
the board for a motion. So moved second okay. If there's no further comments of the board, roll call please. Mr. Banther yes. Mr. De Donato. Yes.
Mr. Yes, yes. Vice Mayor Eisner yes, yes. Okay. Let's go to item number 23, ordinance 2020 603, an ordinance of the Board
of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, establishing section 1816 of the Code of Ordinances, parking of vehicles at Sunset Beach and Splash Park, providing for
residential permits. Providing for conflict. Providing for severability. Providing for codification. Providing for an effective date, that is. Ordinance 2020 603 read by
title only on first reading. Second reading is scheduled for March 10th, 2026. A publication
set for February 25th, 2026. All right, so this would be a creation of a new municipal code going back to that May
2025 meeting with direction from the board to institute a paid parking program at Sunset Beach and the splash park.
After researching neighboring areas, the county looks like I'm out of time. All right. We're looking to implement a $5
fee for nonresidents for a daily rate. We're also looking at a an annual pass of $50 being proposed. And proposed.
Excuse me that in comparison to Fred Howard, we're looking they have a $6 daily fee, a $75 annual fee. Resident parking
passes would be issued at the recreation center. We have the flexible hours open to the public. We deal with residency verification, you know, pretty
much every day. And that that's similar to how Oldsmar operates. They they give their residents a free pass and allow them to put the recreation card in the
in their window and their parking at the paid spots over there. We would have the ability to suspend fees during
special events. So, you know, we're not looking to deter people from coming down to the sponge docks. And you know, that parking lot at the Splash Park does provide some overflow
parking for special events and things of that nature. So we do have the flexibility there. The Park mobile app is widely used throughout the throughout the
area and the greater Tampa Bay area. I've spoken I've used it personally, and then I've also spoken with county staff that are on the administrative side of things. And, you know, it's
cleanest app that they can find out there. With this money and with these revenues proposing
that the funds be allocated into a specific account for parks and recreation capital improvement projects. So the the fees collected would be
directly, positively impacting those in the future when we can go ahead and improve things. You know, boat launch was just brought up, you know, things of
that nature and improve the amenities throughout the city for the residents. We have an aging splash park. You know, this would help with getting that cleaned up and a better
product and a better user experience. With that said, I'll take any questions. Okay, I have some comments, but I'll save them for after the motion.
Commissioner Banther you have any questions? Yes. Thank you. I fully I fully support this item, especially as it relates to to Sunset Beach. While we want to welcome everyone to
there, it does get to be a circus in the spring and and and and and and the spring and summer. I would suggest maybe and I think we are putting some people down there, but maybe
this spring, maybe the first few months, on the weekends, we have somebody down there, like assisting residents with that because residents will get frustrated. They have to go get a wrecked car, they can't go
because of work or this, that and the third. So maybe I don't know if we want to do like decals for windows or something, but I want to make it as easy as possible for people to show to not not have to preplan a
trip to the beach to pull up, be able to show their residents, and get some kind of a pass. I don't know what that is. I'm sure you know more about that. More, more more more more about that than than than I do. But I
would like, just temporarily, for the first few months, to have somebody there on the weekends to help, to help facilitate that, that, that with residents because I see having to get a red card for
some people to be problematic. I know that that kind of sounds silly, but I want to make it as easy as possible. And what's the enforcement going to be? How how are we enforcing this
through the app? So what we're looking to do is work towards compliance there. We are going to have those boat launch attendants there that are working every weekend. And they have a great demeanor to them
where they're they can address folks sternly but also be approachable there. What we're looking to do, as you mentioned, is really educate for residents
and nonresidents and make it a better experience where our residents can have better access to the to Sunset Beach.
So we will have real, in real time data, ability to look up the license plate and see if they have or have not paid. And then, you know, we can address that with a little printout of,
you know, a warning of sorts. And just can we educate them like in the beginning, like if they if someone's not paid right and they can they tell if they're resident too, I assume by looking up the plate, is
there any limitations there? There may be some opportunity to import data into the app. That may be. I'll have to look
into that further. All right. Can you get with staff. It's probably better offline and just propose some easy ways for us to help educate residents for the spring on this and then also make it easy for them at
like the beach specifically to be able to to to obtain a pass without having to, you know, get into an altercation or go get a rec card per se. Thank
you. Thank you. Jamie. Yes, sir. Commissioner Donato, I would agree that we want to make it as easy as possible, but yet we still have to do the job, so
this moves it forward. So thank you, Commissioner. Yes, I like the idea of the parking at the splash park, but I'm not crazy about Sunset Beach, you know,
how are we going to get people to even come visit for a little bit and go see other parts of town? So it's a public beach. I think it's good to have something free for, for those people. But, you know, at the
same time, and he might have touched up on it, but if a resident who's, you know, they go there, they don't get the permit or the pass yet and they get a ticket. Is there an ability them for them to have
it waived? Yeah. So we're not looking to actively give tickets. We're looking to really educate and work towards compliance there. So you know it's going to be this public
notice. You know, whether it's through our Jordan or our Pio, social media signage and and our staffing out there. So what we're really looking to do is give that notification, you
know, and if let's say they have not paid, they don't show up in the app. They haven't gotten their resident decal, then we'll just simply issue a
something that just notifies them of the process, saying, hey, you either need to pay your daily fee or if you're a resident, please come down to 400 South Walton any time and
we can help you out there. But definitely not looking to put a sour taste in our residents mouth on this piece. So we're we're looking to make it as user friendly. As I mentioned,
our our staff down there are excellent with customer service. So, you know, I'm confident we can get that word out and, you know, not be getting in a spot
where we have to backpedal on tickets. Sure. All right. Thank you. Jamie. Yep. Vice mayor thank you. Mayor, I just wanted
to clarify. The residents are free. Correct? Yes, sir. So residents and city staff would be free. That that wasn't said. So I want to make sure that
everybody in television land hears that they're not going to be charged. This is only for outsiders. Correct. So. If they
don't have a pass, they can be charged $5 for the day and then go back to where, you know, I guess it's going to go to the
city clerk's office. So the app collects the fees that would be directly deposited into our account. We will have a lot of signage. So at the sign that
has the QR code that brings you to the app itself will also have a sign there that denotes residents do not have to pay. And you know, this is how you
can access a pass. But if you don't have the way and will to see if they're resident or not, I mean, if you you could look at their driver's license and give them a sticker right then
and there, or you could charge them the $5. And when they bring that in, they could get their $5 back. No. So our staff will not be administering the
the payment process. That is all a user user experience. And they take care of that on their own. So we would not be saying, hey, cough it up and you have to pay right now or, or you're
going to get a warning for lack of better terms. Okay. Well, I guess in the beginning, as commissioner is saying, I would just like it to go as smooth as
possible. You know, people don't know. So this is a nuance. One other thing that I spoke with you guys both about
earlier today, I was also a little bit concerned. I'm okay starting off with $5, but I don't want to be a dollar cheaper than Fred Howard Park just to have the people just
come over to our side. Rather, I let them decide whether they want to go to Fred Howard Park or Sunset Beach. But I'm willing to start off with the $5 right now and see it'll help
fund, you know, the the cleanings of the bathroom, the the people that are there administering the boat launch and all that stuff. So I am
thrilled that this is going to be like that as the splash park as well, because I've been to the splash park where people are eating in there and doing all sorts of things that they
shouldn't be doing, and possibly bringing in glassware, which is definitely a no no there. So I'm thrilled to hear that we're going to have somebody there, you know, seven days a week and on the weekends
off season rather. Okay. Thank you. Okay, let's go to public comments. Are there any public
comments on this item? I need a protest. 91 Bayshore Drive, please. Number six is coming up.
Please think about getting a lifeguard out at Sunset Beach and putting a police car out there, or a policeman with a golf cart or something on
weekends because the traffic is heavy, the cars are backing in and out. Children are running between cars in the streets, and we need a lifeguard with
all the young people that go out there with inner tubes and floats. We've been lucky and I hope we stay lucky, but I don't want to see a tragedy out there
happen without a lifeguard and the city be held liable for it. We have a swim. Swim team, I think team at the high school. Maybe some of these young
students need a summer job to earn money, and they have their lifeguard certificates. But we need a lifeguard out at Sunset Beach. Summer number six is
coming up. You want. You want a summer job, Anita? No, I don't swim. I, I see. All right.
Appear to lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. I'm in support of the proposal of charging nonresidents. And I have three words. Notification, education,
implementation. Yes, it's good to notify. But as many of you know, people don't pay attention to these meetings unless something comes out in the paper. People locally are not going to know about this. They're going to get surprised.
So you need to educate them right off the bat. How we do that. Maybe water bills now wait. Water bills. Where do water bills go? They go to the residents. Send all the
residents. You've got internet, you got apps. So everybody who because according to what I read, it's tied to the car. So you send in your notice, people
go online. Here's my here's you can verify here's my license plate for my car. You're already got him in the database. Secondly, when you're out there
and you run into someone who's a resident and they don't got the app here, let's sign you in right now. Take a picture of your license plate. Here's your ID all that. You can make it so
much easier. And you're going to avoid a lot of chaos and friction, a lot of chaos and friction. So I would really like to see more focus on the
implementation of how this is done. So there are other ways to to get the residents already into the system. As the gentleman said, he has access
to database. You get an email from John Jones at 1321 Riverside Drive and matches up. He says his license plate
matches boom. Send him a little ID card through the, you know, PDF link or somehow. So if you're going to do this, it's fine. I'm glad to see the money
will go for capital improvements. And as Miss Otis mentioned, yes, it would be nice to have some allotment for safety out there in that regard. So hopefully that could be some
of the funds used for it. But you got to make this as easy as possible. You have a lot of retired people go out there. They're not going to know about this. Why, why I've been coming
out here 35 years. You telling me I got to get a pass, blah, blah, blah. Make it easy for him. Thank you. Employee. Any
other public comments? Okay, let's come back to the board. I'd like to entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Okay, so let's go to Commissioner.
Comments I have I just have one comment I, I may be the the odd duck in this group, but I don't, I don't, I don't I think that
the fact that we have these free amenities, again, I don't know the amount of people that are using these amenities that are not living in Tarpon, but
they they come to tarpon. I would assume that if they go to the beach, they may, after they're done at the beach, go
eat. They may stop at our convenience stores and get something. If they go to the beach, they could go over to Jimmy's Pizza and get get a,
get lunch, you know, and and I don't I'm, I'm, I don't know. And maybe it's something that we could find out, but it's even if we test it is how many
people really are coming that are not residents and are we creating. Yeah. You want you have an answer to that. So the city has adopted the placer AI
software in calendar year 2025. We had. And that that goes off a cell phone pings. And we isolated the Sunset Beach area. In 2025. There's 223 cell
phones there. 223,000. Excuse me. The splash park had 78,000, so 78,000. Nonresident visitors,
cell phones being pinged to those location to that location at the splash park. Parking lot. Excuse me, I again, I mean, if it's a reasonable fee, I'm
going to I'm going to kind of acquiesce to the to the rest of the commission. I get the good thing is I get to vote last. So that's cool. But I'm, I'm, I'm
I'm not sold on it. You're not. You just don't like the Sunset Beach park or or the splash park or both. I just the whole idea of charging people, why don't we just defer and talk more about it or workshop it or,
you know, that's up to you guys. I don't make motions. So you made the motion. Me or Eisner? I'd like to approve the splash park, but think about the sunset beach. Yeah, I mean,
come back. I don't I feel the same way I but again on the even on the splash park I again I don't you know, people come there they're even if they're from somewhere else they, they
live in holiday. They want to bring their kids over to play there. Probably a lot of these people are that are using the splash park, you know, they don't have they don't live in a, in a, in a home probably that
has a big swimming pool with a slide and all that. They, they come there to, to utilize that, that facility. I mean I, I'm, I'm just saying I don't
whatever the guys want to do there's, there's four of them. I'm, I'm just not 100% sold on it. But Eisner you want to you want to take back your motion
or. No, I'll take back my second. And I would say that just to defer, I think we need to do something, but I think we need some more conversations about it. Can I do that, city attorney? Can I can I revoke a
second or. No? I think, Commissioner, the best thing to do would just make a motion to table, which takes precedent over the other motion. Oh, really? No, I just never do
that. Okay, I would motion to table. Is there a second I never removed my first motion. I know table. It's a superseding motion. I'll second
it. Can we can we amend the timeline for it to come back? So is there let's have a vote on the table. Let's have a vote on the tabling because there's no discussion. Make a comment then. There's no motion on the
table. You can't do that. No. Okay. That I know from a year or so ago. All right. Table which supersedes the would you please roll call, please.
Commissioner Banther, this is motion to table. Yeah. The motion to table. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Coleus. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. No. Mayor. Yes.
Okay. Now we now you can discuss when you want to bring it back or what you want to do with it is Commissioner Banther. You want to I mean, we don't I
said workshop, but what kind of workshop? Crazy. The right now I think if Charles I think maybe on a a lighter agenda where we have time to talk about it, we don't have cra and
you know, later in the night then I think that would be sufficient. I don't I don't think it's controversial, but I would like some more information. I don't know about the cell phone pings per se. If
we had any other finite data of how many, because I do somewhat support, you know, the fines for not fines, the parking fees for non non residents. I just
don't want to create a problem for for residents and I think we can accomplish that. So I just think we need some more time to adjust just to work that out. So I would say, you
know maybe the April meeting when the new board sits, what's what's our first. We don't have a real meeting though. That first one, it's kind of ceremonial. So so I would say the the the second meeting in
April with a new board. Thank you everyone. The vice vice mayor, you have something to say. Yeah I do. The thing that we didn't cover was you only
gave out one of the factors. You gave out the factors. How many people are outside the tarpon, but you didn't give the factors? How many people use it from tarpon? Correct? I did not
mention that. I do have that data, though, because that's going to be an eye opener, because I know what the numbers are. Splash Park was
approximately 23.6 thousand, and the Sunset Beach was 68,000. So from 68,000 180,000 are there. So it's mostly used by
outsiders, triple correct. And the same is for the splash park. Correct? Okay. Now you have the facts, I hear you. Have phone
number. Okay. Well, it's been tabled until have we? But we didn't vote. Did we vote on the table? Yes. Okay. All right. We're just discussing when you're going to bring it. Yeah. Second meeting in April was in
April. Will will discuss it in April. Thank you. But that was an eye opener, vice mayor. Thank you. Jamie. Okay, let's go to item number 24.
Resolution resolution 20 2613, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, authorizing the issuance of a non ad valorem revenue note
series 2026, in the principal amount of not to exceed $19,500,000. To finance and or reimburse various capital improvements of the city
described herein, and to pay associated transactional costs, providing that such note shall be a limited obligation of the city, payable from non ad
valorem revenues budgeted and appropriated as provided herein. Providing for the right securities and remedies for the owner of such note. Making certain covenants and
agreements in connection therewith, and providing for an effective date. Okay. Thank you very much. Hi, hi. Hi, Miss
Kempton, would you please. Sure. So good evening, mayor and commissioners. Ashley Kempton, finance director. This is budget resolution 2026 dash 13.
It's being brought before you authorizing the issuance of a non ad valorem revenue note series 2026 and the principal amount not to exceed 19.5
million to finance capital projects that include Fire station 70 Craig Park Seawall phase one stormwater Action plan projects, golf course,
clubhouse and water, sewer, electrical and meter projects. The city budget for fiscal year 2026 includes the projects just listed, and financing was approved as part of the budget
to pay for these projects. On January 12th, 2026, the city with our financial advisor went out for bid on financing the 15 excuse me, the 19.5 million of
capital projects which were due back to to the city January 30th, 2026. The city received proposals from 11 banks is a good sign of the city's
financial strength that we received that many proposals. City staff reviewed the proposals with our financial advisor and narrowed it down to four. We then went back to these four and asked them for
their best and final offer, and if they would lock in the rate. Regions capital advantage was selected due to the combination of providing one of the lower interest rates at 3.74% and
locked in, but also the ability to prepay without penalty the loan in four years on or after October 1st, 2030. A big thank
you to our Bond Council with Bryant, Miller and Olive and our financial advisor with PFM. They have been giving us great financial guidance. If they if
you have any questions for me or them, we have Julie from PFM here, as well as Dan and Dwayne from BMO. That's all I have.
Commissioner Banther, do you have any questions? No, sir.
Commissioner DiDonato. No. Commissioner coleus. No. Commissioner. Vice Mayor Eisner. Yes. All of these numbers have
context to them. The water. Sewer, electric 4 million. Stormwater 3.5. ET cetera. ET cetera. The fire station, as we spoke about prior, was paid for
in full. So now we're taking $6 million, borrowing money, and we're going to get $6 million that has been already allotted
to that firehouse. And I don't know what we're doing with it. And that was the one thing that I asked before we agreed to this 19 million, 300,000. So I
don't want to take $6 million and just hold on to it without knowing where it's going to be placed. And I don't know if you
have that answer. I believe the fire station was paid out of penny funds. Correct. And the plan is to reimburse the penny fund, free up that money for
other projects, which sounds like we've got a lot coming up. So yeah, I want to know what those other funds, those other things are. And I think the city manager, we do have that in the five year CIP, and 5
million of that is for the dredge alone, 5.4 million is earmarked currently, which sounds like would be a first phase of the dredge in years 27
and 28, I believe dredging. So we're going to hold on to this money for two years. Well, there isn't a time limit on the on the penny money. The financing pays for the fire
station, which we're we're paying now as we construct it. And that will free up that penny money we had set aside. So now that money, we begin spending it next fiscal year on the design phase. If you move
forward with the dredge, this is dependent on you moving forward with the dredge. Be almost a half $1 million in design phase, and then there'll be several million dollars a year on the dredge if we begin
moving the dredge. If you choose not to do the dredge, then that money would then be designated for some something else. But it's currently all all the monies are spoken for.
So in the backup and I don't remember where I saw there was 5 million set aside, 27, 28 or 28 and 29. I forget which one,
but where is that? That this money? That's the the the penny money. The $2.5 million a year. Is that what you're talking about? The 5 million? No. It
was I don't know, it didn't say where it came from. There was just in one of the backup that I read, and I don't remember exactly where I saw it, but there was a two years, I think
we had in the year 27. We had a million. In 28, we had 5 million, and in 29 we had another 5 million. Is the 6
million here the first million and 27 and the second 5,000,000 in 28. I have to see what you're referring to. Okay. Well, that's that's what I need to know, because the discussion
that we had and I remember it was Commissioner Kulas was and I both were not happy about just taking money without knowing what we were putting it
towards, because all the other projects we had no funds for. So I understood why we took the 19 three. This one was paid in
full, which was okay, and it's okay to borrow from a paid in full and utilize that money for something, but we need to know what that something is. Otherwise, we just borrowed $6
million and we're just going to hold on to it. I know you would. You're very new. I know you don't know that answer, but I am. It's in this five year CIP
we adopted. It's all spoken for. Okay. It's all there. I do need to see that breakdown of that $6 million. That's all I want to see. Anybody have a budget
book on hand to be in there, right. Maybe I can pull it up. Okay, Jerry, my rock star. Here
we go. Sherry to the rescue. I mean, I have it all written down upstairs. I mean, I wasn't I mean, these are these are questions we could have we could have asked of staff earlier. And instead of putting
them on the spot here tonight with. We have the answers upstairs, I have the exactly what adds up to the 19 million.
I can go up and get my flow chart. But again, I think these are these are questions that could have been asked of staff. We've had plenty of opportunity
to do this. And okay. All right. Go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. Sherry Boehm, assistant finance director that money is in, like you said, 2829, 2.5 million
each year. So that's the 5 million. Additionally, these and that was adopted in our fiscal year 25 CIP. So for for
for the river dredge. Yeah. So 5.5 million of the six that's freed up is going to the dredge. If we proceed with the dredge. Because the couple million that's been put in, probably into some stormwater or some
other project. Yeah. As far as like other flexible. But that's how it's that's how it's set up. Yes. It's for the dredge like
you said. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Let's go to public comments. Debbie McKinney 1021
Rosemary Lane. I just I had two concerns. One was what you just discussed. And so I'm good with that now. I've always been for
this loan. So I'm not speaking against it in any way. But I do concern came up recently and that's with the property tax
that's gone up in the air. What's going to happen with that? And if we lose those property tax funds, are we
going to still be able to pay this loan back? Is I know we don't know what's going on with the property tax, but I would want you to all be conscious of
the fact that we may not have as much income that we've been planning on, and will we be able to pay this loan back?
That's all. Okay. Any other public comments? Okay. Let's come back to the board for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Yeah. Is there any further
comments? Yeah. Mayor I'm I'm not going to support it, but it's not like I'm going hard against it right now for you know, we've been through this process. We're pretty much halfway through the year. We know what projects we're going
to allocate with the stormwater and you know, the streets and use that fire station. So it moves around a little bit but not too much. But there's a plan there. And you know, the
property taxes and stuff I don't know. But they'll be a way to help balance it as opposed to what people are individually thinking. So.
Thank you. Okay. Anyone else. Yeah. So just to give I mean we don't know what the property tax is going to be and it's going to be a lot bigger than the $6 million any which way.
So, you know, we can always make changes as need be. I just want to go on record that saying from the time I got this
lodge agenda, I've made multiple calls to almost every department head, speaking on a lot of different things, and this was one that I just didn't
get to because I didn't get to it. So that's it. Okay, no further comments. Roll call please. Mr. Yes. Mr. Donato?
Yes. Commissioner. Coolio's no. Vice mayor Eisner. No. Mayor. Kuleana. Yes. Okay. Let's go to
item 20. Okay. Item number 25. Resolution 20 2614, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners, City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, supporting the Community Development Block
Grant application of the project Administration Department to Pinellas County for a public facility improvement project to
rehabilitate the roof of the Heritage Museum. Okay, PJ Harbor Grant Project Specialist. This resolution is similar to the two I brought two weeks ago.
We have another application we're putting into Pinellas counties CDBG application. This one is to request $41,296.25
from the county and their CDBG funds to replace the roof of the Heritage Museum. The city would be willing to put up a
$7,500 match to complete the project. Okay. Commissioner, do you have any questions? No, sir.
Commissioner Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Coleus. You're welcome. Vice mayor. No, mayor. Okay. Do we have any public
comments on this item? Let's come back to the board for a motion. So moved. Second, if there's no further comments, roll call please. Commissioner.
Panther. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor. Yes, mayor. Yes. Okay. Let's go to item
number 26. Resolution 20 2615, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, supporting the grant application to the Florida
Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Fdac for the 2025 Urban and Community Forestry Natural Disaster and Recovery Supplement Grant
program funding opportunity number 25 DG 11083112009 and providing for an effective date.
Okay. This grant application is to apply for $75,000 in grant funding through FTA, CS to essentially to prune trees
citywide. We previously had federal funding for that project. It was pulled when a lot of federal funding got pulled. This is another opportunity to get that funding
back. The city would provide a $10,000 cash match if awarded funding. Any questions? Commissioner, do you have any questions? No, sir.
Commissioner. Donato. Commissioner coleus. No. Vice mayor? No. Okay. Any public comments? Like to come back to
the board for a motion? Second, if no further comments, roll call, please. Commissioner. Panther. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes. Vice mayor. Yes,
mayor. Colonies. Yes. Okay. Number 27, resolution 20 2611, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida,
designating employees of Public Works, the water utility and wastewater utility, as first responders, as federally mandated by the president of the United States and providing
for an effective date. Mayor. This item was brought to us by Commissioner DiDonato. I don't know if you want to make some comments, Commissioner. You want to make comments. This is
something that had been I had been approached about and something I also knew that the city of Largo, and I believe there's other cities in Florida as well and across the nation now doing this and and without
without our public works people go and clear our roads. Our police and fire can't even get to some of us. So it seems like
a natural way to say thank you and we appreciate you. You guys won't make any. Do you guys
have any statements? No. Stand there. Really? No. Is that Mike on to Mike on Greenland. Is
that better? Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah. Okay. Just to just to build on the commissioner's comments a little bit. This is this just a way to recognize the fact that a lot of our infrastructure
employees are, you know, in a, in a major disaster, they're going to be the first ones in to, you know, to open roads to get pump stations working again
and so forth. You know, we have a symbol that we use. It's on our flag in front of the building across the street. We we put it on a lot of our vehicles. And it's really just it's just a way to acknowledge
the role they play and kind of call them out and recognize them for that. So appreciate the commissioner bringing this forward. I think it's an important thing. Okay. I'll, I
don't have any questions, but I just want to thank Commissioner De Donato. I think this is. Well worthy of, of this
designation. So Commissioner Banther no, I'm in full support. Thank you, Commissioner Donato. No additional Commissioner coleus. Yeah, just to build up on Commissioner Donato. Is
there anybody else in this state of emergency we could consider including besides public works in the future, is this these are the main I think
so, yeah, I think perfect. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So first I want to thank Commissioner DiDonato for bringing this up. And thank you for what you guys
do. It's very interesting. When I came down here from New York, we had a completely different set of standards, of course, up there. So I had a situation
where not only were the police and fire were first responders, but so were the stormwater and so were the actual flood
restoration people. And for the 35 or 40 years I worked up there, I was a first responder. When I came down here, I ran for office and I put down first
responder, and I was shunned because I was not a first responder down here. So I don't I'm not looking to pat myself on the back and jump in on this
first responder. I'm I'm retired. But I just wanted to thank you because, you know, there are a lot of people that do get involved that are first responders, that help, you know,
when people are in trouble. So I just want to thank you all for doing it. It's it's an amazing when I get to see the police, you know, moving boats
and and saving people and the fire departments driving through and taking people out and stormwater trying to remove all the water and getting all of the equipment back up. It is
I don't know if all the residents realize how much work is involved to get this city back up and running again, and I just want to thank you all.
It's an extremely difficult job. It's a dirty job. And just thank you. I think this was a great idea. Okay. Are there any
public comments on this item? I'd like to come back to the board for a motion. So moved. Second. Okay, there's no further comment. Roll call please. Mr. Yes. Mr. Donato?
Yes, Commissioner. Yes, yes. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes. Mayor. Kuleana. Yes. Okay. That concludes our our all the items
on the on the regular session. We will have a CRA meeting after this meeting. Let's go to board and staff comments.
Assistant chief okay. City attorney, no comments. Mayor. City manager. Yeah. Mayor. Just I did want to mention we are following the ad valorem conversation and the bills and
that are going forward. And certainly if it goes to referendum will be heavily involved in there's currently a full court press to try to
block these bills. And but they're passing some of them. They're moving forward. So if it goes to referendum will be certainly involved in educating the public on the impact of that. But meanwhile, I've asked
the staff to look not only places we may need to cut, but revenue sources. And this parking thing is an example could generate over $1 million in revenue from people that
don't live in the city. So any other type of opportunity we can have, even the TV stations making those neutral to to mitigate the impact of
potential millions of dollars in valorem being lost for from the general fund. So that's we're going to continue to look for that as the months go by.
Thank you. Okay. City clerk no, Commissioner Banther, first off, I do want to thank all staff tonight. You were very efficient in your presentations. I know we had a lot tonight.
And again, I always acknowledge that your your your your your away from your from from from your families. So thank you very much. I and I can reach
out to Adam Anderson, but I would like to invite him down here to speak with us. I want to figure out a way where it's not hostile. You know what I mean? I mean, he has to be accountable for for what's
going on. But this is a really big deal. So maybe after the session's over, we see what happens. We can maybe have him come down and you know, you know, you know, and speak with
us because I do think we need to educate the public on this. You know, I, you know, I'm a pretty conservative person, but I'm also a big like, like, like,
like, you know, Home Rule guy. And we don't I, we, we, we don't need Tallahassee to, to, to to dictate our, our, you know, budgets. They have no clue what our, what our, what
our residents need. And this was designed for cities where there is corruption present. And with our exhaustive investigations here, there is no corruption known to us. So I think that, you know, we need
to be vocal in this. And no matter, no matter what party you're on, we're bipartisan here. And this is about home rule. This is about us. Us
dictating our own budgets. So hopefully after the session is over, we can get some more information of what's going on. And by Adam Anderson down here, even Senator Hooper possibly.
And we need a campaign vigorously against this addendum. So thank you. Commissioner Donato. Along that line. It's it's it's obvious
that it can affect the cities. The what's what's not happening so far is what they're going to do to replace that lost income. And that that should be our
number one concern. And where that is going to, it has to come from somewhere. Either that or things are drastically and I do mean drastically going to be cut back. I have to be
cut back. So that to me, where it's coming from is very important. And they haven't really been talking about that yet. They want to give us a break. That's all good. And
then they want to leave us in potential massive debts or rundown systems. And so there's there's a lot that Tallahassee Tallahassee has to answer. And
I hope the city stays on top of it. Commissioner. Yes, yes, we had a great weekend. There was so many activities. It was nice to see. You know, we got a few
issues coming up. This this loan thing I'm sure Will will start looking at as we get forward, but happy to get things going. And you know, just for the record, if any
shots are taken at me will be make sure we get a second response. So let's keep it nice professional and move forward with the day. Thank you. Vice
Mayor. So I want to apologize to the city residents because, you know, the presentation that we had from Commissioner
Panayiotis to Lori Weaver was what I would say was a very tailored soft. As much as you thought it was attack, it was not anything near what has been
put on Facebook. And I really dislike seeing somebody writing. And I have a copy of it here. The biggest lie in Mistruth
that candidate forum, Lori Weaver answered to the Airbnb short term rental. She's illegally running one, maybe a few of them in Tarpon Springs, which is another lie. She
paused, gathered her thoughts, and proceeded to lie through her teeth. None of those words was he. Did he say when he was up here? But he says this on Facebook, so he does the damage
on Facebook and then comes here and looks like Mr. Goody two shoes. She claims to protect residential neighborhoods from short term rentals on the planning zoning board. When she
breaks the rule itself, that is the hypocrite with typical so do I say I do mindset as the planning zoning member and candidate for office, and I don't want to read the rest of
it. It's just all hogwash that he made up and attacked this candidate because he's not supporting her. So one of the comments that was also made in
some of his things were that she's a bully and intimidator exactly what he is. He's a bully and intimidator, and he I don't even know if he knows he
is. The next comment he wrote is, does she think she's a mob boss? He's the mob boss. He's the one that runs this town with, you know, threatening
people. So and then he says, if I sent the exact same message to a candidate or a BOC member, the police department would be questioning me. They've already
had three pages of it. Okay. She sure lacks ethics and ignorance to put threats and intimidation in writing to me. But the fact is, this man put a
threat right in the mayor's office, with the mayor sitting there with a fire chief sitting there, and he threatened to throw a cup of hot coffee in my
face. So I don't know what he's talking about, threatening that she's threatening when he's the one that does the threats. I know he'll deny it. Then he writes, I promise you, the
people ready to play dirty for her are not from this community, from this commission that they want to follow. So he's inferring that the outsiders,
like maybe John myself, I don't know who's born here, who's not. Those are the people that, you know, are making these comments. And then I'll just close this
by saying he's very agreeable and very amiable when he says, I think if anyone thinks I'm wrong, they can go fly a kite. There's another way to word
that I'll stay with the fly a kite. So if you heard his soft demeanor today, he didn't even say that he wanted me to recuse myself. He didn't say that he
wanted my wife to not be the campaign manager. Or I have to recuse myself because my wife's the campaign manager. He wanted to say that there's a rule that
I can't wear a shirt when I'm candidate. You know, when I'm when I'm campaigning for someone, all rules that don't
exist. So the bully that is up here is the bully. This poor candidate who has been a gem giving people places to live,
giving people places to stay, the insurance companies that had to come down and do the estimates needed a place to stay. They weren't going to write a pretty oh, we enjoyed
the food here. No, they came down, did their estimates and left. And she was kind enough not to say that there were people that came down here that didn't have a place to stay.
Not everybody who usually sits in the back has a mother to to stay at people that lost their homes. You provided a place for them to stay, to stay warm. And
I appreciate everything that you do and did. And now a person in his development that's house burned down. Lori
Weaver has given her a place to stay until the house is rebuilt. So instead of him and and this board putting her on a pedestal and saying, what an
unbelievable, fantastic tarpon night this woman is and how good she is to the neighborhood. He wants to remove her. Do you know that we've never removed the volunteer board from this?
From from Tarpon Springs? But he wanted to do that today. We never removed one. And on top of not removing one, he's going to make sure that nobody wants to be a volunteer board here,
and nobody wants to run for office because he's a bully. But one thing he can't bully. He can't bully me. I'm not going to bully me, even if he stands in front of me like he
did at the end of this past meeting and starts to have the police escort him out. And then when he was done with me, he went to Commissioner De Donato and tried to bully him. And
he's bullying Commissioner Di Donato for something that Banther said. But Banther has twice his arms, so he wasn't going to say anything to Banther. But he'll pick on 70 year old and 80 year old
because he's a tough guy. He's a bully. Got nothing more to say. I'm sorry that I had to. I'm sorry I had to say it like that. But I am not going to let
him run this show like he's Mr. Goody two shoes. You know, nobody's throwing coffee in my
face and nobody's threatening me. Okay? Okay. So. All right,
so I want to talk about the tax situation. The tax situation. So the, you know, I I've had people a lot of people ask
about, you know, what's going to happen if we don't have property taxes on residential homes and what's going to be the effect? I'm on the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.
That was the hot topic of discussion at the meeting. And everybody's concerned. You know, I think that the the I'm not
trying to read into the intentions of the governor or legislature, but I don't think they've done their homework on where we get the rest of the
money if they do what they do. So, you know, and then you got to think about, okay, if it gets to that point, I think it was like. Former Commissioner
Delacruz said, you know, we have those things that we must do, which we must keep our everyone safe. So we must fund our fire department, our police
department, and and then we still have to, you know, make sure the water flows through to everyone's home and we have to take care of sewage and and that and all of that stuff. So
when it comes down to it, you know, it's going to be like it's going to end up being services. And you're right, city manager about, you know, having to go to pay as you go
on a lot of things. You know, we you know, just think about you don't get your garbage picked up twice a week. Maybe you only get it picked up once a week. We're going to have to
look for all kinds of ways to cut, so hopefully we won't get there. But we have to obviously prepare, and it could change the whole premise of how we function in the city. Now, if
they're going to force us to get most of our revenue from commercial property, then does that mean we have to have more commercial buildings to create
revenue? I don't think that's what the residents of Tarpon want. So it's going to put us in a pickle when it comes to the election. You know, I don't
I'm not going to express a strong feelings as the vice mayor did. But yeah, we we are. I talked to a lot of young professional people in town and
they say, you know, I say, why don't you you get involved in the city and, and they talk about the toxic environment and they don't want to go through it. They don't want to put
their families through it. And that is really unfortunate. You know, we've got three people that want to be a commissioner.
You know, they should be able to just run on their merits. And the city decides, the voters decide which of the three they feel they want to
elect. The other two, you know, in a in a perfect world would go reach out to the one who won, say congratulations. And what
can I do to help you to be a successful commissioner? And that's really how it should be. That's how it should be. It should be, you know, any one of
the three. If if elected, then I have to serve with them. So I want to be. You know, and, and so and they're going to be
serving the community and I'm going to have to work alongside them and find ways to compromise. And that, you know, I don't I mean, I and I, I want
to I really want to apologize to Miss Weaver for having to go through this tonight. You know, we have people that just want to volunteer their time. Not
everybody wants to be up here. In what? What I used to call the big show. I really enjoyed my time on the planning and zoning. I thought it was was really fruitful. And a lot of
ways I, I yearn for those days of going to a meeting and voting and maybe having a difference with somebody and being able to walk out without any rancor and not have to
worry about, you know, hostility and stuff. It never happened. We just voted and we had a great chairman in Myrtle Seaman, and we were just
collegial. And and we really need to get to that. This this is this isn't healthy. It's not healthy for the city. It's not healthy for any of us, you know. Anyways, I, I, I hope it can
change, I really do. Maybe after the election we can kind of reset and but this this isn't this does nothing for the
there's nothing to further our city. It it actually is very destructive. So with that said meeting adjourned at 935 and
will go straight into the CRA meeting. Okay. So let's have I call I'm going to go ahead and just start it up. I call to
order the Community Redevelopment Agency meeting for the downtown Tarpon Springs redevelopment area. Tuesday, February 24th. Roll call,
please. Chair Collins here, vice chair Eisner here. Commissioner coleus here. Commissioner DiDonato. Commissioner Banther here. Okay.
Let's go to we're going to go to item number four first. So Miss Kimpton doesn't have to stay around any later. You want me to go ahead and read the
resolution? Yeah. Can you read it? Resolution 2020 601, a resolution of the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida,
amending the budget for fiscal year 20 2526. Okay. By Ashley Kimpton, Finance Director this
is a budget resolution. 2020 6-01. It's to bring forward the budgeted items from fiscal year 2025 that were in process as of
September 30th, 2025, the total amount is 49,284. And it's just for a couple of open polls that were that were out there that
we rolled forward. Okay. Thank you. Is there any questions of Miss Kimpton, Commissioner Banther? No, sir. Commissioner
DiDonato, Commissioner coleus. No. Vice mayor? No. Okay. Is there any public comment? None. So I'd like to come back to the
board for a motion. So moved. Second. There's no further comment. Roll call. Please, Mr. Yes, Mr. Donato? Yes,
Commissioner. Coleus. Yes. Vice chair. Eisner. Yes. Chair. Yes. Thank you, thank you. Hey, thank you for everything
tonight. So. Thank you. Okay. Item number one, downtown docks,
shuttle service. Miss lemons,
please come forward. Oh. Good
evening, Karen Lemons, economic development manager. We're here tonight to request approval to purchase two shuttle carts from Love Power Equipment utilizing
the Florida Sheriffs Association cooperative contract in the amount of 99,002 53, plus a 5% contingency for wraps and branding. The purchase will
allow the city to launch the downtown shuttle pilot program that we're calling the Tarpon Springs Looper that we've been talking about for some time, which will connect the downtown
and the Sponge docks. Staff also is requesting approval of the shuttle routes, the signage and the stops, the hours of operation, and recommends
hiring three part time shuttle drivers for background. In December, the board declined the initial vehicle recommendation because of concerns about open air
suitability, and they directed staff to come back and return with options that were better aligned with rider comfort, Ada accessibility and operational practicality. So staff
conducted a lot of additional market research, evaluated multiple delivery models including city owned vehicles and contracted services. And tonight's recommendation
reflects that direction that we received. So the recommended pilot configuration that staff is recommending is a two vehicle pilot would be one Ada
accessible shuttle, which has a cost of 57,002, 24 and then one six passenger shuttle, which is shown here. The cost of that is
42 oh 29. These are the same vehicles that the Freebee mobility company uses. If you remember, we had talked about the freebies about a year ago.
Both vehicles are fully electric. They're fDOT road designated. They're limited to roads that are 35mph or less. And this configuration will ensure that we're Ada compliant
with the vehicles. We have operational flexibility and we have cost controls while we are evaluating the ridership demand.
Again, the upfront vehicle purchase total is 99 253. The start up costs are estimated about 25,000 for each vehicle. For the RAF's route planning,
signage and the launch materials, the Gem has the lowest cost per mile at $0.21. It's got the lowest ten year life cycle, 53,000 per vehicle
and the lowest capital cost among the new vehicles, about 58,000, and the pilot will be fully funded through the CRA funds using the Florida Sheriffs Association.
Cooperative contract is another reason we're recommending this that will ensure competitive pricing complies with procurement policy and will avoid any delay from formal
bidding, which some of the other options required us to go back out to bid. And most importantly, this is a pilot project. So the recommendation will allow us to measure our
ridership, evaluate the cost effectiveness of the vehicles, and we can adjust, expand or or discontinue based on the performance. This
recommendation prioritizes a right serving sizing, so sizing the service to actual demand rather than overcoming a large capital payment up front. So it
will allow us to launch a controlled and scalable pilot project at a significantly lower cost than outsourcing. So
this is a picture of the vehicle that we're talking about. I'll show you the. And
this is the Ada accessible vehicle that sits for passengers without the without the wheelchair. So staff is
also requesting approval of the shuttle routes. So we'll go to that. Okay. Here's the one
route. Okay. There we go. Okay. Proposing two routes. One is a lightning route. And that's a direct back and forth between the downtown and the docks. It
would it would go from the Mears parking lot to the city Marina. There'll be no stops. You're just there and back. Easy. Fulfilling the goal of moving people back and forth between the docks and the
downtown. The route will run along Safford Avenue. It takes about 5 to 7 minutes. And then the second route is called our
leisure route. And that's this route. This has 13 designated stops. You see them with a little turtle icon, will be using a lightning logo for the
emblem for the lightning route, and the turtle emblem for the leisure route. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes. This is a route that will be able to
access additional sites and locations. Let people travel along around the city a little bit longer than just going from downtown to the docks, and opens up some of our other
locations for people to stop. We'll be placing signage at each of those stops. We're looking at existing poles, so not adding any new poles. We're
proposing the hours of operation from Thursday through Sunday, 11 to 10, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 11 to 11 and Sunday 11 to 7. And then
obviously these hours can be adjusted as we evaluate ridership and the popularity of of stops. We'll also be developing a marketing program, which will include a logo and
taglines, signage, wraps or logos on the vehicles. We're looking at some fleet and route management software so we can provide GPS tracking and look
at the ridership and shuttle stop data so we know whether the program is working or we need to upsize or downsize. And finally, we're recommending three part time shuttle drivers
at the outset. So we have coverage if a driver is absent. And there were job descriptions in in your backup. So overall, again staff is requesting
approval to purchase the two GM electric vehicles from Love Power Equipment utilizing the Florida Sheriffs Association contract in the amount of
$99,253, plus a 5% contingency for the wraps and branding. And we're also requesting approval of the routes and the signage and the stops and the other program details. I can answer
any questions you have. We also have procurement and fleet that are here. If you have any additional questions. And this
is a map showing both of the routes. Okay. So the. The the
first shuttle you showed the one, the blue one with the. The six. Yeah those. So now those are not handicapped. Correct.
They are not these are not handicapped accessible. And then we're talking about one shuttle that if you go to the next one that just holds. How
many people does that hold. This would hold four passengers plus the driver. If you have a wheelchair, it will hold one passenger and the wheelchair
and the driver. Okay. I mean. So you're if you have a family with somebody with a wheelchair, you only can have one person go
with them in that car. If there's a wheelchair, it's right. The driver wheelchair and one person. The Ada requirements really been a struggle to find a vehicle that
can get a wheelchair in. That's that's street legal. Yeah. Okay. Commissioner, do you have any questions? No, I'm. I'm in full support. Thank you. Okay,
Commissioner Donato, thank you for your your work. And looks like something we could probably move forward with. Commissioner Coolio's. No
comments. I'm supportive. Okay. Vice mayor. Eric Johnson gave us a bunch of proposals, and we did not get a chance to select
them. I'm holding one right here. This was just one of many, and I am not sure why. I did ask the city manager and he's
aware of it. This held Ada. It held people and we didn't even consider it. And I don't know why having that vehicle that's
sitting up there is an enclosed golf cart. And as the mayor just said, putting one person in on a wheelchair and having
the rest wait for somebody else was is to me, I would not support this at all. I want I want the board to see this. This is just one of many and we
didn't get to consider it and I don't know why. Again, we looked at this as a pilot program. So we're looking at the costs, the Ada
compatibility. And we're looking at. We can ramp up by not. I'll let Jake answer. So
we did receive some quotes from the gentleman you're speaking about. Eric. One of his vehicles was substantially more.
It was an Isuzu model for 30 passengers. The capital cost was $213,000, and it was significantly more per mile. It
was with the routes that we have planned, it was about $1.28 per mile. The other vehicle was a Silverado that
wasn't able to be enclosed due to the chassis. That one was 80,500 with $1.05 cost per mile.
So both vehicles that you're talking about, he did. He was not even under the impression that you wanted an electric vehicle. You the both vehicles you just spoke about were gas vehicles because I spoke to him,
spoke to him today, spoke to him yesterday, spoke to him a number of times. He has a multitude of vehicles that we should have been the ones to decide and do a comparison, not
decide between a one seater and a six seater. So the study we did didn't just include electric vehicles, it was gas, diesel, electric. And based on
our findings, the electric vehicles tend to cost less per mile. So that's what ended up making the gem the the best pick. How often do these have
to be recharged? Their charge. Their fast charge is four hours and they have a range of about 150 miles. So is that a full day running? Yes. Okay. But you
still, as the mayor said earlier, the other vehicle is is half acceptable, but this one is not acceptable at all. And the sheet of paper that I just sent down, I don't know if
you saw it. Were you aware of this one at all? Let's see. That one doesn't have doesn't have sides like the golf. Yes. So at the last board meeting, the safety was brought up with
vehicles like this with the siding, the fabric siding. So this vehicle here without that secondary safety feature, it was considered but ultimately
not not chosen. No. What we chose was the safety factor because you could fall off the back of the golf cart. That was what that was. These can be
made with arms that come down. The only reason I have this is to show you that it could be enclosed if it rains, but that is all can come up. That's
fully safety. It has Ada in it, and it wasn't anywhere near the numbers you just threw at me with the other two. My whole thing on this is I don't want
to buy something that's going to fail, and I'm not into a pilot program that's not going to take off if the rest of the board wants to vote. That, and
is what I told Eric, I said, do it. But, you know, this is not acceptable to have pull up and have, you know, three couples and nobody could get in. It's
very common that we're going to have that. We have the wine walk, that the trolley moves people back and forth. This is a trolley that will move X amount of people. But this is not his only one. That's the
point I'm trying to make to you. This is just the one that I copied off of his Facebook page. He he said he had a whole presentation and we're getting
to see none of them. So like I said, we we presented the the most cost effective vehicle that we found. The we did
consider some of his vehicles from Eric specifically, but through our market study we found that the cost per mile, the lead time, which is another big thing. Some of his vehicles
were 120 days out. When I know at the last board meeting, we we said we wanted to get this going as soon as possible. It would also require the the vehicle to go out to bid as
well. Further extending that that time and and due to the cost upfront and the cost per mile, that's why the gem is ultimately what we recommended.
So you know he's bringing these to Dunedin, Largo Clearwater. He's bringing him to Saint Pete. We're going to be the ones with
these jokes. While everybody has a nice vehicle. And I'm not trying to beat up on you. Believe me, Jake, I don't see that the cost per mile is what
you think it is. The cost per mile on these vehicles. We have our own gas station. Our vehicles get pumped gas, not at the gas station, but we have our own gas. And these I don't
think will make it through the whole day. So Dunedin does actually run these gems currently. And they fired the freebie because they were not
worthy as the cost. Well, because of the cost. So your cost per mile is not not I need to see what he's going to
propose versus the cost per mile and everything else. Ada, you know, just to show me two vehicles that say this is it, I won't vote for this. You know,
I need to see what was proposed. And I'll make the choice with the rest of the board. But these are unacceptable to me. And I won't put my, you know,
stamp of approval on it until I see that this is more worthy than what he's proposing. Did he show you the one with the with the locomotive on it? Yes. The locomotive with the carts
behind it. Right. Because that you could add as many cars as you want behind it. So we could start off with two cars and, and put four more back on or whatever. Both of the vehicles
that I did receive quotes on have that option as well. I'm sorry I didn't hear you. Both of the vehicles that I mentioned do have that option as well. The the ones from Eric,
they have carts in addition. So it's the main vehicle with a passenger compartment and then carts behind it to, like you said, further add later on down the road. So this this is
buying one vehicle and and one bug. I mean you might as well get a rickshaw. That's what I see here. I mean, I'm not trying to pick on you like this.
This is not something I want to vote on at all. A motion or something. Get going. So I
don't have any, I guess. Mayor. Okay. Your turn. Yes. I'm sorry. What do you think? What do I
think? Yeah. I is your turn to speak. I mean, I like the concept. I like the fact they're electric, but I just have a bias towards that. And it kind of meets our whole
thing that we want to do in sustainability, in the community. I wish they held more people. Yeah. Because there's, you know, they're so small and and if the real
effect is to get people between the sponge docks and, and and downtown and, and for commerce purposes, and we're just hauling six people at a shot
and then this one really is like two people. I just it I don't know that it it actually accomplishes what we really
want to accomplish with with this. So that that's what if you ask me what I think. That's what I think. Commissioner, can I, I just think we're we're pretty much we're at the end of
February. We, we know how the cycles work for our community and the busy season. I. It's you guys can help me out. I
don't want to have this first. Starting off during after Mother's Day where it's slow from now until, you know, September. So I don't know. I just want to be able to get
this out in time where it's going to be able to have a lot of snowbirds here, etc. and, you know, if we can get it out sooner. But I don't know, I think like, we're gonna have to
push it back a little bit before the like the fall season. I don't want to start this during the summer. Yeah. And I and I, I'm in agreement with the vice mayor about the size of these vehicles. I just don't
think they. I don't think they accomplish what we really want to accomplish. I mean, they're fine, don't get me wrong. I mean, they're nice, but they're going to be they're costly. I
mean, it's, you know, it's $100,000 then plus all, you know, having employees running these things all day long, the electricity and, you know,
buying that, the power and all that. So I mean, it's probably worth tabling and then can you maybe look a little deeper and,
you know, maybe work with the vice mayor and help see if we can come up with a better something that actually moves more people. And again, we have time now because we kind of
missed the season already anyways. So we have time for that. We gotta thank him. He's been through a lot. I know he's done a hard job, but we but we all want we all want this to be
a fact. No, I'm you've done a great job and I like these. Don't get me wrong, I like them, but I just they're small now. That may be the way. That may be the only way, the way it goes. I don't know, and I'm
just. You asked me my opinion, I, I you asked for my opinion. So I'm just giving it to you. So. But I don't make motions.
So that's up to motion to table second. Okay. There's a motion on the floor to table. It goes immediately to a vote roll call
please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes. Vice chair. Eisner. Yes. Chair. Kuleana. Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Can I just have a question? Did you want me to work with Jake and Eric? Was that what the discussion or did you want Eric Johnson, who has these to come before us? How did we want to handle that? About like one.
What's this? Not to get in the weeds because I really want to go home. But what, like, don't we have to be careful in purchasing and how we work with vendors and stuff? I mean, I can address that. Oh, yeah. Just doesn't sound nothing
against you, Vice Mayor. I mean, this is. No, no, I understand, and I and I want to support this for you, but I have great caution speaking so much about one vendor and doing things with them. I leave that all to
the purchasing manager, but that just doesn't. I don't know, something doesn't seem right, I don't. I agree with you. I don't want to be in the weeds with this. He is a Tarpon resident and he brought it up
to me when I was going by his house. He's spoken to Jake about it. Just we we just never got to see his proposal, that's all. Now, how Janina wants to
handle that proposal is going to be her. I'm not involved in this, so I don't really even want to be involved. Eric, should. You are officially extricated from the process. I
love hearing that. All right. So I don't even want to be involved in this. All I want to do is say, Eric, talk to Jake and that's it. We will come up with some specs and put that
all together, and then do a formal bid again with all different types. We're not we're just going to say, give us a proposal of what you want to present. How's that? That
will work. Thank you. Okay. We'll come back. All right. Let's go to item number two. Purchase of Tarpon Springs Housing Finance Authority. Lots.
Miss Vincent. You've been very patient tonight, Spencer. All right. You ever been to her office? It's the most Zen like
place in City Hall. Overhead lights are off. It's wonderful, I love it. You got the best office in the in the building. Okay, let me get the map exhibit up, because I think
that's the best reference point. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor and commissioners. I know it's been a long night. We have an opportunity to consider
purchasing some lots from the Pinellas County Housing Finance Authority. They're kind of a an arm of Pinellas County, but they're quasi governmental
entity. The lots that you see here are the lot with the exception of five and six. We own those ourselves. Those are in the city of Tarpon Springs. Control all the other lots that are outlined that are shown in
green, are owned by the Housing Finance Authority, and they've owned them for quite a long time. They were acquired with NSP Neighborhood Neighborhood Stabilization Program funding
many years ago. And this the the county simply is just not been able to move them. They haven't you know, we're up here in North County. Sometimes I think we're lost in the shuffle.
Anyway, we asked them for a price. They provided a price per lot that we've had since I think it was. We got it in July or August, so it's a little
dated now. We've asked them to update it. In a nutshell, if we were to purchase the lots from them. It's about 15,100 per lot, and the intent would be that we would facilitate redevelopment
of the lots or development, I should say, as you know, for the properties fronting along Safford, hopefully it would be mixed use. And then the other
lots we could pass through, if you will, or facilitate an affordable housing developer to do single family, affordable single family homes in the area.
So the the total cost on this comes up to over $300,000. So I've asked the city attorney to look at that and see, is that a stumbling block. For since these are all individual lots, it's just the total is up there.
I don't know if he's had a chance to break that yet or not. So but we wanted to get an initial discussion with the board about, do you want us to
move forward with this and try to make this happen? And the idea would be the CRA would purchase the lots there in the CRA right on the edge. That front our redevelopment plan
shows those redeveloped as mixed use with residential or commercial. And then this the general fund would purchase and then sell the residential. The
single lots for, you know, someone like habitat or someone to build single family homes. Get them all infilled to get rid of these vacant lots. And then we would we would lots
nine and ten, 16 and 17. We would need to purchase to support the development on the Safford Avenue properties for parking or stormwater or whatever the need was, and the rest would be single family
homes. But the idea of getting control of those, we could then put out an RFP or an invitation to bid, negotiate and see who would develop a project, just like we just recently did. And
then you can choose what people are willing to do, what the market is willing to do on those lots. If we want to pursue any other privately owned properties, we could, you know, make offers or whatever.
But tonight we need your we need before we go into creating a the paperwork and all that on these purchases. We want to get your direction. If you're this is part of the redevelopment plan. But we just checking in
to see if this is the direction you want to go with these two be two separate general fund purchase and CRA fund purchase. So let's go to commissioner questions. Let me let me start
off the. So we're we're purchasing these for about $15,000 a lot. That was that was yeah they they basically came up with a yes. That was the that was what we got from
Pinellas County. What they were seeking. And what they're trying to do is recoup the cost that they have spent maintaining these properties over the last 20 some odd years that they've owned them. Yeah.
There you go. And if we do it, as the city manager said, CRA buys a portion of them, then we pay for the rest from general
funds. We don't have to go to referendum because we'll be under the. I'm going to defer that question to the city attorney, and I don't know if he has an answer yet. Renee brought that up this afternoon. Well, yeah. This morning. Yeah,
I'm just looking at it. All right. But that's something I mean, regardless, we either have to or we don't have to. I think it's a great idea. I think these are, again, at the
price we're paying. Any of us as businessmen would gobble those up in a heartbeat. So the city being able to purchase them at that price, I think is, is pretty good. Commissioner
Banther. Yes. Thank you. I'm usually opposed to the city buying property like this, but I think in this case it's going to create something. It's going to create. Instead of people saying, oh well it takes things
off the tax roll, this is going to help out the tax roll down like like down like yeah, they're not we're not collecting taxes now. There's you know then we're just it's it's only the upside then from there. So I'm in full support
okay. Commissioner Donato I think it has merit. Certainly. You know let's do our due diligence. Make sense to me, Commissioner Coleus? Miss Vincent, I've been trying to
push this for many years now. Right? Yes. I just I think it's a good thing that we we try to get that Safford Avenue in our possession. Some great mixed use, just like the city manager
talked about. And so I'm telling you, this is the great this is a start towards creating a beautiful entryway coming into our community and really forming it. And then
maybe in the future, the parking garage or just more. It's going to all be one big area going down with shops and activity, and it's going to
extend another quarter mile if we can get it that way. And I'm happy to support this. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Will the shuttle be going by this? No
shuttle. Right? Probably. So I'm going to drive it. Parking. I wouldn't be joking if it wasn't me. So I think this is a great idea. I'm looking forward
to this 100%. It's a great price. It's a great opportunity. We can do a lot of stuff with it. So I have no qualms about
this. I had heard about this down the road, and I wanted this more than anything. I mean, right now what we have there is it looks like the desert. So, you know, this this would be
really great. It gives us the opportunity to do really a lot of things. So I'm I'm 100% for it. And you know, we usually
give to habitat for humanity. We we sell lots at a cheap price of 25,000. And if we're buying it at 15, you know, it's just a fantastic idea. And the
most important part, as I as the I hope the city manager corrects me with this, we're not out of the woods with getting our CRA correct. We we
had a 4 to 3 vote, but we have to go back for more. We have to go back with a plan. We have to go back for a plan. This is the best thing to go back with a
plan to say, hey, this is what we're going to do with the CRA. What county commissioner would say, oh, this is this is not good. This is going to be great.
So I'm for this 100%. Thank you. Okay. Are there any public comments on this item? Let's come back to the board for a motion. So moved. Second this
is really a discussion item. But you can vote I guess right. It's not a it's just a direction. We have good direction. We have to bring it back to you for the actual
purchasing it all. Yeah. Direction given. We'll continue forward. I retract my motion. All right. So we're just trying to move it along for you. Thank
you. All right, let's go. So there's you know what you're doing, right? I know what I'm doing. Okay. Thank you. So item number three, reject bid,
Jitney garage museum. Okay. We just need to formally reject the bid. Okay, so here we really don't, do we? Really? Okay. Go ahead. No, you really don't need to hear anything,
but I'll give it to you anyway. So, as you know, we have this 1927 Jitney and the. We've been looking into ideas on how to, you know, get it out there for the community to appreciate. We
put out a bid to build a museum, and our budget was roughly $275,515. The single bid we received came in at 350,000,
and we're requesting to reject the bid at this time. Commissioner, do you have any questions? No, sir. Commissioner. Donato. Commissioner. No, sir. Vice
mayor. No. Okay. Any public comment? If not, let's come back to the board for entertain a motion to reject the bid. So moved. Second. Okay. There's no
further comment. Roll call please. Commissioner Banther. Yes, Mr. DiDonato? Yes. Mr. Yes. Yes. Vice chair. Eisner. Yes.
Yes. Okay. So that concludes do we have to go through board comments and staff again? Fortunately we do. Mayor. All right. Okay. Just quickly, I, I
spoke earlier when they did the proclamation for African American Black History Month, and I mentioned me and the city manager driving through town. And I didn't know this was going to be on the agenda. And
we were driving around and he was I was telling him a family history and lineage. I was kind of telling Commissioner Banther that I, you know, that's my passion is that neighborhood. That's where I grew up. I was
born and raised, and I just appreciate you guys taking a look at that. And, you know, some that that community needs a little a little something to smile about. So I appreciate
you looking at that and helping those folks out. Thank you. Thank you. City attorney. You sure you don't got anything to
say? How was your your event over the weekend? Your Jewish event was good. Yeah. You had a good time. All right. Successful. All right. And city
manager, you you partook in that festival is delicious. Yes. Okay. City clerk. All right.
Commissioner Banther. Nope. I'm ready to go home. All right, Commissioner DiNardo. Okay. Commissioner Coolio's. Sure, mayor. I mean, you know, I was
going to say something after those ridiculous false bearing comments, and I didn't want to have to. But, you know, we've come to a point now where, you
know, people like vice mayor, he'll he'll put on this act to do this, you know, this sad face. So when you heard at the last meeting last week when he
tried to make some excuse about, you know, being cursed out, he forgot to tell you what he did the very next morning. And so I
get this text message thread from a lady. It's Alexia Reynoso. I'm very disappointed at you talking against the friendly Greek. So when I
contacted her, she discussed how she heard I was the only one going against the food trucks on the item and it was only her. I was going against two as well. So when I
explained that you watched the meeting and she goes, no, I didn't watch it. I got the news from vice mayor and this was 930 in the morning. Okay. She
also mentioned that Vice mayor was accusing me of dividing the Greek community and businesses within Tarpon Springs. And so when I hear that type of stuff
and you see the antics of him pouting and crying like he's been cursed at, it's all one big charade. And so that if you
consider to me, is filth. I don't need people trying to divide me within my own community. And I've been born and raised in with people I
grew up with, with this little side posturing stuff. And so that goes to show another reason why he's upset, because
he knows in a couple weeks he's going to come off the vice mayor situation. And I told him that. So he's not too happy about it since we already had it set in stone. And so I would
encourage Mister Eisner to claim to talk professional, but act it to. Now, as far as he even went to, as far as I had
to bear false witness and just say things to try to smear my name and, you know, go that route. But that's what happens, what people do when they're desperate. But what I will say
is today with the city attorney, I made sure I recorded a resident who is acting way out of line. This isn't the time for a senior lady to be moving
back and forth her head like a bobblehead and cursing at me in the first row, looking right at me. So I'm not going to tolerate that from the vice mayor's wife. I'm not going to
tolerate anybody to try to act like they're calling me a bully. When we call things straight out. And as far as the item with Miss Weaver, is it correct?
City manager, when I sent in the information that you said that the state emergency looked like it had ended around May of 2025, our local state of
emergency did okay. And city attorney, based off everything you received, you didn't receive any document that they represented? I had not seen
that. No thank you. So we're going to look into it. And local state emergency is different. So I just want to let you all know that. But this
charade of this man trying to act like he doesn't stir up the pot and cause issues is just one big fat lie, and it's nothing but filth. So he can
say whatever he wants moving forward. But I think of it as filth and embarrassment to this community and the city. So I have no further comments on any
man trying to bait me for nonsense. It's despicable. Thank you. And oh, and here's a formal complaint about his city attire wearing campaign stuff.
So taking now as a city complaint formal and look into this. Vice mayor. Let's start
with comment one. I was dealing with Alexi from the Friendly Greek. I'm the one that was trying to get her to not get thrown out of there. She was
under code violation. I was speaking to her on a day to day event. I also asked her that I would be approaching the board
and asking for seven days to be there, and as long as they. The only issue was about getting rid of gray water. And I told her that I was going to be
letting her know when that was done. I let her know it was coming up and I got feedback from this board. I think it was
the mayor wanted five days and Commissioner wanted four days, and you wanted something like three days. Then we were picking all kinds of days. Okay,
so when the vote failed and she had to pull out, I did what I was supposed to do, which you didn't want to listen to because you called me a liar in
the mayor's office. So what you did do was I called her and said your item failed. She said, why? I said it failed because
all four board members didn't approve it. So she said, even my friend PK, I said yes, he had the least amount literally with three days. So I said, but
you could call him and you can ask him. So I didn't put all of the blame on you. Like you just said, that's a lie. And what I told her is exactly what
happened. And then she had the she said, who can I speak to? So she decided to make a date and speak with the mayor. And I
want to ask the mayor, did she say the exact same thing to you? Is what I've just said? What did you just say? Well, she.
She met with you. Yeah, correct. We'll go. I'll answer that. Speak for yourself. Okay. So the bottom line is she met with him. So none of what he said
warranted that. I just badmouthed him. Okay, but that still doesn't warrant someone standing in an office saying I have a good mind to throw this hot cup of coffee in your face.
That's a threat. And that's what he did because he can't control his anger. I don't know about the rest of what he wants to do. If he wants to fight
throughout this the rest of his term, he can do that. I'm here to try to move the city forward, but I'm not going to be bullied by him and I'm not going to
have him bully anybody else. Because if I don't know what rule he thinks the having a shirt on or not having a shirt on, that means nothing here.
The shirt thing. I'm happy to tell him what that ruling is, but he hasn't looked it up, so I have nothing really more to say. Trying to have a
conversation with an immature child is ridiculous. Okay, so. Well, since you brought me into
this, I. I did meet with Miss Reno. I didn't even remember that I had known her for such a long time. When I saw her face,
it, she actually worked for my parents at the same time that your mother worked with my parents. So? So it was nice to
meet with her. You know, I hope we get to a point where we can bring the temperature down and
and everyone has, you know. We can we can accomplish things. And still keep civility. I know
we can, for example, with Miss Reno's I brought her I asked her to come to the to the office, sat down with, I know were you were you you were in the meeting and actually Renee
Vincent was in the meeting and we talked about her food truck and her and her challenges of having to take it in and out.
It was difficult. We had talked here at the at the board about having a certain amount of time. I, I was I think I, I said,
well, we should do it a specific day, you know, Friday to Monday or whatever. We do it. I think I was wrong with that. And when I spoke to her, I said,
what days do you want? She gave me three nights and was four days. And I asked Renee, can that be worked out? She goes, yeah, we could actually put it
in her permit where it the permit she would be permitted for the days that she had that she wants and that that permit could be posted. If somebody were to complain, an officer
could go by, see the permit, know that she has permission to be there the 3 or 4 days. And she gets to and he and he walks away and says, okay, this lady
has has the opportunity to be there. So, you know, and I obviously that's going to come back to the board, but we can accomplish these things in in
real calm manner, help residents do what we need to do for residents, and yet still have rules that protect against,
protect the brick and mortar stores as well by not having trailers that that stay there permanently. So again, this all
this other stuff is unnecessary and I don't want to get into any more of it. I just asked you one question. Did we did I single out PK in this? Did she
say that I singled them out? Or I said the whole this is like my teenage daughter arguing at dinner. Can we just go home like it's 1030? I, I don't like being accused. I didn't get I didn't get everything. But
being a child of God in here, you know, I'm not sitting here carrying on. Let's just go home.
Come on. It's 1030. Let's go home at 1023. Jesus. Are.