It was his papa. That was the funniest thing I've ever seen on Facebook in my entire life. So
much. So, I called to order the budget public hearing special session Tuesday, June 17th, 6:30
p.m. Let me, before we get started with roll call, I'd like to entertain a motion to approve Commissioner Coolio's absence
due to illness. So moved. Second roll call, please. Commissioner? Yes. Mr. DiDonato. Yes. Vice mayor. Yes. Okay. Can I have
just regular roll call now? Mayor Giuliani's here. Vice Mayor Eisner here. Commissioner DiDonato here. Commissioner
here. Before we get started, I want to read a brief announcement. It is with deep sadness that I inform the community that our city lost a police officer today. The
officer's death was a result of a non in-service medical event. However, it is a tragedy nonetheless. The chief has asked that we not announce the name of
the officer, as we are not certain that all the family members have been informed. All of the members of the Board of Commissioners have been made aware of the identity of the officer. However, I ask that any
comments made at public comments or commissioner comments not divulge any information that might indicate the officer's identity. Our prayers are with the officer's family, along with
the members of the Tarpon Springs Police Department. The leadership of the police Department will keep us informed of any ceremonies to take place in honor of the officer, and for
the community to pay its respects. So tonight, we're going to have our public hearing. Our first agenda item is City manager, would you
please. Thank you. Mayor. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to take public input on the budget. We're very early in the process. This is before our workshops opportunity to make changes or additions to the
budget. So it's not the only opportunity. The public can also go on to connect tarpon, as well as talk to your commissioners
and provide input for us for the budget process. Mister herring, would you go over the overview of the fiscal year end 2026 budget process? Yeah. Good
evening, mayor and commissioners. And we're going to do just a brief presentation on on the on this meeting. A couple years ago, the Charter Revision Committee approved that
by June 30th that the board should have a public hearing on the budget, and it passed by 88% by referendum. A couple years ago, as part of the budget
public hearing we sent out, we have this is the site here. Fiscal year 2026 Budget Connect, Tarpon Springs, where we sent out the survey a couple weeks ago. Citizens and have been
responding to the survey. And I just want to thank Ali in the planning department for putting this together. She's a big help with this, but this is a survey site. We've had it on the website for the last couple
weeks. I just wanted to go over where we're at at the budget, the budget process so far for fiscal year 2026 and just going back to the city charter, it was
section eight that said that we have this public hearing by June 30th. Section eight also talks about the strategic plan, and every three years we need to be
updating the strategic plan just to go back on what the current strategic plan, the I don't I won't go into it, but the mission statement, the vision and the core values and then the goals and objectives of
infrastructure, community engagement, quality of life, cultural heritage and preservation, smart growth and redevelopment and good governance. Strategic plan goal
f two. Objective one is to utilize a strategic plan as a tool to prioritize budgeting. Annual long range capital expenditures. The budget process
to date for fiscal year 2026. We started back in February. Departments have entered their their requests. All the funds have been balanced. We are currently working on the CIP program, the capital improvement
program is in process. We balance the general fund with no use of unassigned fund balance. That is our Unrestricted Reserves Budget Advisory Committee has met with all the
departments on their budgets. That was just completed. Just going forward tonight is the budget for the public. The public hearing July 15th is the first budget workshop with the
PLC. July 29th is the second budget workshop with the PLC. August 7th if we if we need a third budget workshop, September 3rd is the first public hearing on the tentative millage and
budget, and in September 17th would be the second and final public hearing on the budget. And then after that, the budget approved that night for the next fiscal year. Just a little summary where we're at right now
on the budget for fiscal 2026. It's a little over 100,417,000. These are the revenues, the biggest revenue categories
charges for services at 40.5%. Most of charges for services is water and sewer sales, sanitation sales and stormwater sales, which are enterprise
funds. And on the expenditure side, as far as the different categories, personnel services is the biggest category at 38.1%, coming in second is
operating expenses at 28.8% and then capital outlay at 25.5%. And that was just a brief presentation on where we're at in the budget and the reason
behind the budget public hearing tonight. Then we have we did have the results which are on
the survey results, which are on the city website, on the agenda.
I'm not sure if you want me to go over all the questions on the survey or. Okay. The first the first question is what is your
connection to Tarpon Springs? And 19 of them in green lived in Tarpon Springs, one in gold, three in gold. Work in Tarpon Springs. Two I own a business in
Tarpon Springs, and in pink one I visit Tarpon Springs. Of the of the respondents. This is sectioning it off by the. Where
do you live in Tarpon Springs? And I guess this is some of the categories of where they live. Bayshore. Sorry. If anybody wants a map that corresponds,
I'll just pass it out. I'm good. That does it for me right there. Yeah. I'm good. That's just what you're seeing. Are the actual registration questions. It looks like we're the ones in the in the neighborhoods in Tarpon
Springs, Bayshore Drive, Rolling Oaks, Harbor Oaks, Athens Street, Harbor Watch, Sunset Ridge, West Winds, Village, West Winds, Sunset Hills, Stonehedge
is where the neighborhoods they were from. And this is when. Which decade were you born? Okay, I looked at this one for
myself and I go, okay, but I think I was the majority down there. Number nine, 1952 and blue 1950 to 1959. So I'm in the
majority here. So but I don't know if y'all want me to go further than that Ron. Good. So by age they're trying to categorize who the respondents by their decades. And then the
survey questions and these were all the responses. So I don't know if you want me to go through all these. It's not necessary. Okay. I know for
myself I did I was at a conference this week and was in time in between classes. I tried to summarize them, so it seemed like the majority of responses were stormwater related.
Flooding, distant connection came in, had a few of them on that. And streets and sidewalks seem to be the majority. Are. Is
there any staff questions for Mister Herring? David? Sure. What is the unassigned fund balance? Right, right, right now. Mr. Mr. Herring, the
unassigned fund balance in general fund is at 9.1 million. 9.1 million. Yes. And how do we have any monies like out, like out like outstanding that FEMA
owes us? I mean, I assume we do. Yes we do. We have for the general fund, for the general fund, we have roughly about a million and a half that we're still waiting on reimbursement. That's mostly overtime and
expenses for operating supplies. That's a general fund. The debris removal is being charged to the sanitation fund. So far we've got about 5.5 million we've spent there. But that's
also 100% reimbursable. But we're we're really pushing it on them to get this money back. I'd like to get it all back by September 30th, which is the end of our fiscal year. So we're
we're meeting with them with them weekly and trying to get give them everything they need to get our money back as soon as the 5.5 million back in full. And are we getting the 1.5 million back in full or partial?
Well, it's 100. We were at 100% the first hundred days on that. Yes. These are all. None. None none. None of this is still from Irma. This is all Helene and Milton. No, Irma is done with. This is just Helene and Milton.
Irma did take a few years. Correct? It wasn't. It wasn't quick. Well, yes. What we're hoping back then we did the paperwork ourselves. We're hoping that we have our hired a
consultant to help us with this, which is FEMA reimbursable. So we're hoping with our consultant and the knowledge that they have that we'll get it done quicker. Okay. All right. Thank you, sir.
Commissioner de Donato, this time I just just would reiterate what he's already said and what our handout says, that the bulk of the questions that we
received back were, were infrastructure and stormwater drainage. That's going to be my concentration and hope that where we spend a lot of time on
budget and money as well. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor. So you spoke about how much is still out there. How much did we actually get back? From FEMA?
Yes. Well, what we did initially, at the beginning, we had an estimate of 5 million. At that time of debris removal. We went through the expedited process and we got 2.5 million.
We got it. I think on December 13th, the 2.5 million. So we filed to get the balance of that 5 million. So that was in debris removal? Yes. Just a removal.
How about in police and fire overtime? No, we haven't received any of that yet. Zero zero. And how much is out there? Again I would say roughly about
1.5 million between overtime and the supplies necessary that we needed. What else is reimbursed and what else is still out there? We've only been
reimbursed the expedited, the 2.5 million. That's it. Yes. That's pretty much where I want to. I'm okay with that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much.
Now we're going to go to our public comments. So come forth if you have any suggestions for
the city on the upcoming budget. Don't be shy. Come on. Thank all five could just line up probably right I mean it's all we got.
Good evening. Mayor, vice mayor, fellow commissioners, senior city staff. Robert Rockline, 755 North Lake Boulevard here in Tarpon. First, I want to extend my condolences to the Tarpon Springs Police Department on the
loss of your colleague. It's a very tough thing, especially when it's unexpected. So I pray for strength and solitude, both for the family and for the
members of the department. Thanks much for the presentation. I can say I was definitely in the majority for the age group, and as well as the priorities for
infrastructure maintenance and improvement and stormwater mitigation, because they seem to be the two things that never go away from this city. My other
concern would be, you know, adding to and maintaining and improving park and recreation facets, which I know is ongoing also. And many things have been done, like the pickleball court
and the gym over by the sports field and things like that. I had spoken with Tom Funcheon over the course of maybe a year and a half or so, first, about the pickleball courts, which I
was a big proponent of, and also about the possibility of a bocce court or a pair of courts here somewhere in Tarpon, which don't take up much room at all, probably from the end of the
days to the end of the dais, and the width from the podium to the stage. But it wasn't in the big plan. But he did identify some places where this could be enabled. Oldsmar has a great
pair of courts, and I have a picture I can send to any of you down the road, but I don't think it's too cost prohibitive and certainly not prohibitive. Maybe even some other portion can be
repurposed somewhere that's not used. But he thought that there was room over by the pickleball courts and maybe some other areas around the city that would
benefit from it. So, you know, there's a lot on the plate for the city constantly. It never ends. I've worked for municipalities for 40 years, and you have to prioritize that. And
that's, you know, that's Solomon's sword decisions for you guys to make. No one gets everything but the things that are important, the things that are needed are certainly more
important than the things that are wanted. So the I was a little disheartened with the fact that so few people responded to the surveys. And I think we need to increase public
awareness as to what's going on. And I know you have, you know, some of that in the works with additional personnel and everything, trying to promote the city and promote what's going on and promote
participation. So I can certainly appreciate that and hope it at least swells and grows. Thank you. Thank you. Robert, I don't know if people are aware that Robert was a
former New York police officer. So good evening, board members. Anita protest, 91 Bayshore Drive. We all have wants for Tarpon Springs because we love
our community. The saw, the roads, the water, great parks, seawall, all of these things are very important. But I don't know what you have in there for
historical preservation. And the reason I came tonight was because when I saw the blacktop on the bricks on Canal Street, I almost went into the water because we have an ordinance
against that. I hope we're not going to blacktop our brick streets in tarpon, because that's the ambiance of our
community. I think it was done because of the dips and for repairs, but it's going to be hard to get all of that off of it. And the reason it's never worked, because twice when the
road was put down, I was told by our department here they did not put down the cement for the water intrusion. It wasn't done
right. So with our new city manager, hopefully we can take care of our brick streets that mean so much in our historic preservation. And when I heard
what Newport Richie got in a grant, millions of dollars to do their work up there, I was shocked. I hope we start looking for grants and I hope we start
going for those big improvement grants in our community and get that money into Tarpon Springs. You can find out from their city hall up there what they've got.
And one of our former commissioners is in charge of the whole grant and taking care of the needs of what's needed up there with that grant money. It's a lot of money. Dunedin got
some and so did Safety Harbor. We need to go after grants and bring that money into Tarpon Springs, because that's part of our money. And please, let's not
lose sight of our historic, our historic preservation in Tarpon Springs, because that's what we're known for. Thank you.
Thanks, mayor. Next. Debbie McKinney, 1021 Rose Tree Lane. For those of you that don't know me well, I live in a house with
my two sons, a daughter in law, and three grandchildren. It's not because I have a big house, it's because the economy today prevents them from being able to
afford, even with a two income family, the rent and the electric and the property insurance, all of that. But it
also benefits me because they're helping me survive in my house. So they help me as much as I help them in a multi family budget. Everyone has seen
increases. We need to pay our bills while avoiding debt. Sorry about all these little notes. I got flooded the day before the hurricane last year and my
insurance denied, so I had to come up with the money to replace all my floors, half my walls, and a bathroom. And if it wasn't for us making a priority
of getting that fixed as a family together, it wouldn't it wouldn't have happened. I, I still haven't gotten my walls painted. I'm still working on
that. So we made it a priority over vacations and new items and priorities are important when you're working with a budget. So
my point is the city needs to be more like a family budget. We need to have priorities. We need to have them numbered. What's the most important? What's the
most important? We can have a long list, but for years I've seen items go from one list to the next, to the next, to the
next and never get funded. I remember Mr. Herring speaking about taking out debt to pay for some of these things that we
need done, and I agree with that. I think our debt ratio is very low, and we can afford to do debt to take care of some of our problems, but the projects
need to be in a priority first. We need to do our part for the Beckett Bridge, because now the funding has been approved for the county part, but we still
need to come up with, what is it, 4 million, 1 million, 3 million, 4 million to do our part. So that should be a priority since the rest of the
funding has been obtained. We have a ten year plan for our stormwater, $4,000,500. I think
I saw somewhere. Oh, my question is, does that include re piping for water supply to homes? I believe that our infrastructure
should be at the top of our priority list. This benefits all the Tarpon residents, not just a few. I know the water leaving
the city is good quality water. At my home I have good quality water. We actually drink water from the faucet, but many people by us, by me don't. And if
you've seen the water that comes out of their pipes, it's kind of scary. And so that's why I asked about the re lining to the
homes. Is that included in that? I thought I heard at the golf course presentation, the golf club house presentation that the
funding for that was going to come out of golf cart, golf income. But now I'm confused
because I'm seeing money in the budget for the golf club. I love cops and kids. I love train came
up through cops and kids. Don't be mad at me. But in every scenario where we were talking about taking out debt, the $5
million for cops and kids was in every scenario. So it's like, that seems like it's at the top of the priority list. And there
was I can't find the chart, but. There were some scenarios of that debt taking out debt that didn't include stormwater. And
so my opinion is stormwater and water quality should come before $5 million. Cops and kids. I don't know where I heard this,
but I thought I heard that cops and kids serve 75 kids and the new building would serve double that. That's great. But $5
million for 150 kids seems a bit much. It was just a couple meetings ago that you guys were had this great big, long
discussion about, should we give Boys and Girls Club $15,000? It was like a big topic of discussion about should we do
this or not? And yet, in every scenario of taking out debt, $5 million for cops and kids is in there. Before we take out debt
or allocate funds for projects, we need to look at all the projects. We need to determine where the funds should be assigned. Funds to benefit the
city. Citizens should be first. Where are we on the CRA for the Union Academy area? Couldn't CRA money be used for cops and kids? Like I said, they deserve
improvement. They deserve to expand. I know there's kids on the waiting list. I know it's a wonderful program. I just I'm
having a hard time swallowing $5 million. One last thing.
This one is the hardest one for me because we love our employees. I love our employees. Two years ago, there was an
increase in health insurance of 7%, and the city absorbed the 7% cost for the employees when they were purchasing family insurance
for their family. Last year, the increase was 8.5%, and the city absorbed the cost for the employees to help pay for their
family insurance or spouse insurance. The city pays more than half of what it costs the city for family insurance or
spousal insurance. They haven't seen an increase in four years. The city pays more for their coverage than the employee pays. Now, with another increase
coming and we're hearing it could be up to 10%, are we going to absorb that again? I think
that's all. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Debbie. Anyone else? Good evening. My
name is Anne Calhoun. I live at 508 Myers Boulevard. My husband and I have lived in Tarpon Springs for almost four years. I absolutely love it here. We
moved here because of its quaint charm. Fred Howard, Sunset Park and I. My mother has recently moved from Virginia Beach and
now she lives with us as well. My concern is the. Area around Sisler Park. You know, with the
speed limit at 30 miles an hour, people are going down mirrors at 40 miles an hour. We I would love to see some speed bumps. I would love to see two
crosswalks. I mean, over the last two years, the amount of traffic, foot traffic down, mirrors, I feel like it's almost doubled. You know, kids going to
school on their bikes, people walking, walking their dogs. I mean, it's just it's become it's very scary and definitely scary for all of the children and all
the families that visit this park, you know, for sports and recreation. I would also love to see. I believe mango was just
the streets were redone. They were painted. And I believe it's 25 miles an hour. And I believe that they have a crosswalk and they have lighted signs. And I
would like to see that continue down Myers Boulevard as it is a main thoroughfare, you know, to Sunset Beach, you know, and Fred
Howard, I mean, I would just love to see it beautiful and safer for the community. I do work at TPA, and I do come home
late at night, and it seems as though a lot of our speeding, excessive, 60 mile an hour speeding goes on late at night. And I know that we cannot afford
to pull any of our police officers to police that area. You know, we really need them on night. I'm seeing some horrible things on night coming home that late at night. And so I
definitely think that speed bumps would absolutely help. You know, I'm I'm very lucky because I can do a three point turn in my driveway to get out of my
driveway facing forward. The rest of my neighbors cannot. It's just ultra dangerous, and I would love for you to consider, you know, doing the same on mirrors that you did on mango.
Thank you so much, I appreciate it. Thank you. Anyone else in the audience? Mr. Races, is
there anyone on zoom? There are no online comments. Okay. City clerk, do we have any. We have
no emails. No emails okay. That concludes our public comment portion of the of the meeting. And now we're going to go to commissioner comments. Commissioner Banther. Yes. Thank
you. And I would like this lady here to get our city manager's business card. It's not there. It's out there. You're not the only person that has commented on that. And I think it's a good problem to have in the sense
that we have mirrors opened up now, and I take mirrors every morning and I can see how busy it is. I have a good friend that lives at Mirrors and Carolina
there, Molina and Mark, and they have trouble with that too. So whatever we can do and terrain in the sheet, we'll get with you on that. Thank you. Overall,
first I want to thank Ron Herring. I mean, Ron, I remember when Ron was the assistant director ages ago and he's he's he's always been the best and I
hope he's here for a long time. So thank you. And I appreciate you answering those questions about the unassigned fund balance. The unassigned fund balance is something I've, I've, I have talked about since I was
on budget advisory, probably in 2010 and first elected in 2013. And that's our reserve fund. That's money that we basically have in a savings account. And you can see with, you know, what
happened in the fall, not even a direct hit, how much money we had to spend. So that's why it's always important to protect that unassigned fund balance, because if we ever did get a significant
direct hit or anything like that or other kind of disaster to doesn't have to be a hurricane, we would need those funds. So it's I'm, I'm very happy to see those funds have grown and they have been protected. And I'm
very encouraged that we did hire the consultant to do all the FEMA paperwork. I think that's a smart use of time and money. You know, and I appreciate those that, that, that are, that, that
are here tonight and participated in this survey. I think, you know, it wouldn't take a survey or even a public hearing to know that storm water is on the forefront of
everyone's mind. Obviously, you know, as many parts of our community that are at sea level, we can't stop the water, but I think we can mitigate it. So I would be in support to prioritize the programs that
that have been outlined that will help us do that. I know my street, which is oleander over by the high school. We my house didn't flood because I'm about ten feet up, but my street
slants down to the east and pretty much everything to homes east of me flooded. And that's all from the like sewer system. The storm water has nowhere to go. It backs up again. We can't
we can't we can't stop that. But we can mitigate it. So I'm definitely in support of prioritizing projects that help with that. And I think too, it
was important that it was brought up for recreation. We have seen a recreation boom in this city. I mean, if you weren't here 15 years ago, you
wouldn't recognize our our lack of recreation now. It's just amazing. You see, the basketball courts are full, the pickleball courts, you know, you know, court courts are busy. I know we
have the tennis courts off of Riverside that we're going to be talking about soon. I think I think there's some concerns that could be better, better utilized. You know, we'll see what happens there. But I think
definitely when you look under, I think public safety is always our overarching hierarchy. Right. That's you have to have public safety. And then we have our storm water. And what we discussed with the mitigation
with, with storm surge and the hurricanes. And I would say it is definitely, you know, recreation and that I'm very thankful how Anita brought up historic preservation. You know,
we can we can do everything in the world. If we don't have our identity, then we don't have anything really. But I'm encouraged of what the mayor said in the last meeting, how we're going to have a committee
to help with the sponge diving and continuing that, I think I think that's a great idea. So overall, I'm very pleased with what I've seen with the with the budget thus, thus far, it's
sobering how much it has grown, and we're here to help that. But part of that's just the world. The world we the world we, we live in with inflation and we're also a full service city. And I
think that, you know, those of you that have taken the Citizens Academy really have a back door to that. I encourage anyone that hasn't to please to please take
that, you know. Well, I say it was my idea. It was just my idea. The clerk's office is the one that has made it what it is. I did Leadership Pinellas in 2015, and it really gave me a
back door view to the county, and I thought we could use that here in Tarpon Springs. I'm so glad that it has been, I think, very successful in recruiting people to run for the board, as well as our different boards.
And I really think that, you know, when you when, when people look at our budget and $100 million is a lot of money, we are the most full service city in this part of the county,
really outside of Saint Petersburg, to be honest with you, you can't really compare us to them size wise. But so and that's important. I think you want a full service city. You don't want to be relying on the
county for anything. You don't have to. They're good people, but they're way down south of us, and money tends to flow south from the county. And then it does not flow north. And that's never going to change, at
least not in our lifetime. So I think we have to put that as a grain of salt. On, on, on, on on our budget. While some of these numbers are hard to swallow, we have our own police, we have our
own fire. We have our own, you know, we have our own, you know, you know, public, public, public works, you know, streets, parks and rec and whatnot. So I never want to lose that. So overall,
thank you to our city manager, to Ron Herring and to staff. You've done an excellent job with this budget. I look forward to our additional workshops.
Thank you. And I, I did not forget staff. I want Assistant Chief to speak last. So let's go to Commissioner DiDonato,
please. Okay. First, I want to thank everyone that took their time in the schedule and maybe either had an early dinner or going to have a late dinner for being here tonight. And your
suggestions mean a lot to us and help guide us. I also want to thank those that responded on on Tarpon connect to also voice their their feelings about where
we should go and what we should be doing. Fortunately, we are moving primarily in directions that many of you have brought up here today. I also wanted to thank our staff. I think you all
have continued to do a tremendous job, and as mayors, ma'am, I can tell you I've lived off mirrors for about 25 years
now and it is getting worse. I don't know what we can do about it. I've actually talked to the police. This was years ago about it. Speed bumps are probably not
going to happen. I don't know about crosswalks, but it is a problem and it's getting worse. The undefined funds. I like the
way we call that now. Ron knows that I refer to it as reserves, but he cringes when he hears that word. It used to be 1516 million and now it's nine. I do
think that commissioners, we need to look at trying to fund that what however we can each year to try and build it back up again. And to defend that. I
would say to you that our budget in the early 2000 was in the neighborhood of 30 million, and now we're talking 100 million.
So by saying that, I'm saying that I think it's very important that we look at continuing to build our reserves and to maintain that. As far as cops
and kids, I understand where you're coming from on that. It's been a long term plan. I think we were looking for grant funding. Ron, I don't know where we are with some of that stuff,
but we're trying to find ways to pay for that bill. We'll be talking about that more during the budget session, I'm sure. But again, thank you. Don't ever quit commenting. It's through
your input that we're able to do our jobs. So thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you mayor. So I also want to thank everybody for
coming. Originally when I was a commissioner, first go around, we didn't have public comments before the budget. We had public
comments after the budget, and I scratched most of my hair off trying to understand how that came about. But I'm just glad that we as a board. Now listen
to what your request is. It's not always that we can satisfy all the needs. We always have a wish list longer than our budget
list. But I do want to thank you all because it does. When people give me their request, I say, it's so much better to come in front and have all five of us
hear it, because I can't speak to the other four. So this is a blessing in disguise that we can have all the input that you guys
put out there. I did want to make a statement, and I did mention it to the city manager, and I did want to bring it up to the board. And I would like
input. It doesn't have to be this minute, but if you could think about it, the survey response that we got was all anonymous, but I would like to
see if we could at least respond to each and every one of those survey survey questions with the best of our ability to respond.
It just has to be somewhat generic, because I know some of them were comments about 19, and I'd like them to know that we don't oversee 19. That's Pinellas County. There were
just, you know, we have the I'd like you to guys to buy the Pappas restaurant. We're not in the business to buy restaurants. You know there's could we knock
down the motel and such and such? I mean, some of them would just they could be answered with, you know, so I'd like to know if the board would be willing to go ahead and allow.
And I'll put it on you, Renee, they're not difficult questions to answer. But through all my years of being in customer service, a person just wants to
make sure that they're heard by the city commission. And I want to make sure that they know that their their question means something. And there's a response. It may not be the
response that they wanted. You know, there were a number of questions regarding distant avenue opening. There was a survey done by Forward Pinellas.
It was there's good points to it and there's bad points to it. That's something that would be a little bit more in depth to try to answer. So I don't recommend answering it. It could be something that the Board of
Commissioners will take up somewhere down the road, but that's not something I would answer. But the easy ones. I would like to get at least a consensus from us and say yes,
answer those so they know they've been heard. The sports field. I don't know who follows in Facebook, but I read often on
some of the things that go on. There was a complaint put in and this week I went over there because they said it was just it was a inferior project that we did. It wasn't whatever they
said, and I know they got shot down by the other people. That was like, no, it was really nice. I went over there the other day. It was just plain beautiful. You know, it's not
going to be a gym. It's going to be a outdoor, you know, facility that you could just do your things right next to the pickleball. I thought it was
great. I did want to jump off from that and just let you know that. Also, Robert, that's a perfect place for the bocce ball as well. I had a long walk from
my car right to see that. So there's a large area there of grass. There was a comment made about relining of pipes. We're perpetually doing relining of
pipes. Can we do it as fast as we need for over 100 year old city? My next door neighbor gets brown water. I have two filters on my house. I get crystal clear
water. So it just I don't know what it pertains to. I'd like to see the pipes, you know, lined as as quick as possible.
Infrastructure of our city is most important. I did hear your comments about the cops and kids. It's a it's also it's a
very touchy subject. I know on dollars and cents 75 kids versus $5 million on dollars and cents. Nobody would like to do it. But to lose a kid or to have one
child be lost. I sit on on the School Transportation Safety Council, and I fight like a cat to try to get lights at bus stops so that a kid isn't hit.
And let me tell you something, I. I lose my head sometimes trying to fight over these type of things. So if we could save children, how much is that worth? Is it worth the 5
million? Or do we lose that child to drugs or or, you know, whatever the other things. So I understand where you're coming from. And on dollars and cents,
we can't judge it. We have to judge it by life as life as we see it. There was a situation on that $15,000 Boys and Girls Club
deal. I probably was the most outspoken against giving that money to them. It was just unfortunate. It was handled wrong. And, you know, whatever
it was, they needed to have a contractor overseeing that job. It didn't happen. And we have some discretionary money. It was not a lot of money. So Rotary
Club does a lot of good things in town. And, you know, it's a non-for-profit organization. So you know, at the end I, I kind of agreed to give it as well. I
just said, you know, and I had good conversations with, with Rich and I just said, look, you just can't do jobs like that. But it's okay. Speed limit. I wanted to touch base with that.
And I'll probably end it with this every time I get a call from somebody that says something about a speed limit, the first words is speed bumps. So I appreciate that you made
that comment. The problem that comes into play is if you were needing an emergency vehicle, you would not want them stopping and slowing down at every speed bump. You'd want them getting there to you or your family
member as fast as possible. And that's one of the deterrents. If you're in a homeowner's association, go through Green Dolphin. You could bounce the whole way to your destination.
It's just the way it is. But when you ask any policeman, where is the most complaints for speeding? The answer you're going to get is in front of the person's house. That's putting
in the complaint because that's where you are. That's what you look out your window. I live on Riverside all the way down by Harbor Watch, and I see people
just buzzing down the street at 60, 70, 80 miles an hour. Sometimes they don't even let me stop, put my blinker to make the left to go into my house. They're they're punishing me by
flooring their car to get the harbor watch. I don't understand it. It. You know, flooring their car doesn't do anything except waste gas. And I honestly
watched somebody try to run my neighbor down who wasn't crossing the street fast enough. So I think it's a breakdown in a society of. Do you are you always going to be late to where
you need to go, or are you just disrespectful of other people's living? I don't know if we could rectify that because in on 19 it's like that. If you go on the highways, it's like that. You
know, I came down here 13 years ago and people would sit there and I'd be in a fight at a four way stop sign. No, you go, no, you go. And I used to lose my mind and go, okay, I'm from New
York. I'm going. But the bottom line is, it's not like that anymore. And things change. And, you know, I don't know if the police can actually do more than
what they see. I'm also trying to push at Forward Pinellas and at the school transportation for cameras at school busses. I was
in a meeting where I got a presentation that they interviewed one bus driver, and he only saw one person pass the bus, and again I lost my head. I
was like, that's impossible. Hillsborough County put in bus cameras 61,000 violations in ten months. So I when I, I called
that baloney. So we went and we had a survey done and they had 390 of the 420 bus drivers. And they had just one day, one day
survey just asking. And they had over 400 past school busses in Pinellas County. So the original presentation that we got was
bogus, but I don't see that anybody wants to go forward with cameras or with lights or with, you know, so here we are. We're not willing to protect our
children, our number one asset. And I don't know why. So that's my fight. And I feel for you with the speeding. I know that there was a situation a year or
so ago where somebody put a fence up. They went to see their boat on the bayou, and they left one little spot open, and it was a little Chihuahua, and the thing ran through and got
killed. So, you know, we do have to be more respectful of what's out there as, as residents. And other than that, I don't know if law enforcement can do any
better than what they do. There's X amount of them out there and they're not everywhere. So I do appreciate you all coming here. The staff
is great. And if the board wants to, you know, respond to that, I think it's a good idea to always let the residents know that we heard them, and that we're going to respond may not be what we
what they want to hear, but we should do that. So thank you. Vice mayor, city clerk, do you have anything? Okay. City manager, I just want to make a
couple comments. I did want to let you know that we applied to the state for matching funds for three stormwater projects and $1.1 million, and it's in the
budget, so we just have to survive the governor's veto process. So we've got three projects for the coming year 50% funded. So that's really good
news. Also been working on the on the penny fund. The stormwater fund is insufficient to fund projects. Basically covers the overhead. So we're working on putting those into
the penny fund and expediting that that the plan plans a decades long plan. So we tell people, you know, sorry about your street. You're on the plan for 2057. You know, it's not what they want to hear. So we're
working on bringing those forward also with the streets master plan. The streets master plan didn't have an implementation strategy. It was just a list of streets. So that staff created implementation
with pricing. And we're working that into the penny as well. The Sidewalk Master Sidewalk Fund now has more money available. So we're updating that master plan
as well so we can expedite those projects. And then of course we're updating the waste water and wastewater master plan. So we do have all these pipes in a plan. And we're revising that.
And it just takes time to implement. There is a funding source for that as well. And then with cops and kids, I did ask the chief to go ahead and set up a capital fundraising
campaign to begin. There are people that will donate that will, I think, help make that happen. We'll continue to look for grants. We've kind of taken it out of the penny discussion for now and look to see if we
can go into the private sector and support that, because I think it's a very affordable project for the community to get behind. And then that also frees up that discussion, put those into infrastructure projects,
that money. So we're we're looking forward to bringing you the draft of the CIP and see how much we can get done in the next
few years. All right. So I'll go next. You know, our we have our priorities. Also. I want the
community to understand that the budget process and the pushback on the budget is mostly done
upstairs. We don't you know, I know each commissioner has gone to the finance department and express themselves to the city manager. I mean, I express
myself, I didn't want a millage increase. So figure out how to make it work without that. So, you know, the our, our finance director, you know, goes back to
all the departments and says, sharpen your pencils, you need to cut some things. And he's and he's done that. So don't think just because we don't hash it out up here, it's already been
done before it gets to us. Because you know, that's kind of I and I'm sure all the commissioners have have expressed themselves in different forms to the to the
city manager and the finance director. You know, the. About the CRA, you understand that the
CRA takes time for there to be accumulated any money. The way that program works is we have we have a we have a baseline of
valuation of properties. And then it's anything above that baseline year by year state goes to the CRA. Right. Those those tax dollars. So initially it
takes it can take, you know three 4 or 5 years to actually accumulate anything of significance. Overall I, you
know, I was the guy up here, you know, concerned about whether we were going to have enough money or not. And the effects of the storms. So and on this case, you
know, I'm always happy to be wrong when it's to our benefit. So we did have an increase in property values by 4%. And
believe me, I'm very happy that I was wrong on that. But again, I like being conservative in advance of things like that. And, and you know, we talk about
our employees and, and benefits. Understand that, you know, people that come to work for the city in most cases don't make a lot of money can compare to the
private sector. But one thing they can always count on is that they get excellent benefits. And so that benefit package is always important to us to be able to provide that to the
employees. So I mean, we're going to be I as a I can't speak for anybody else, but I I'll be hard pressed to try to cut any benefits of the employees. It
because I think it's important that we keep that up because that's always been the one of the driving forces. And we, you know, we have to attract and
maintain good people. I think we have excellent people here at the city. And but we don't want to lose them to other municipalities that offer either more compensation or better
benefit packages. So just understand that, you know, that's one of the main things they get. And we shouldn't really we need to do everything we can to help them. You know,
with this, with the like the vice mayor said, you know, the speed bumps. I live on a street that, you know, it could. I
always call it a drag strip. It's a long shot, actually. Mayor Produce got years ago when my kids were small. I've been in that house for almost 30 years.
A mere protest got us a sign that said Kids at Play. And that helped. It did help. So there's things we can do but speed, you know, and all my neighbors say
to me, you know, when I'm out walking my dog now, I got to walk my dog like super early in the morning so I can avoid everybody. But they all, they all grab me and like, you're the
mayor, get a speed bump. So I'm like, if you can't get a speed bump, I can't get your speed bumps. And like the vice mayor said it, it's a, it's a safety issue not only getting the, the
ambulance to you, but what if you had some injury that had some spinal cord issue and you're going over bumps all the way to the hospital? Okay. It's
a problem. So, you know, the speed bump thing just it's not going to happen. I wish it could because then I'd be really popular on my street. But but what I have done and something
that the, the city and the police department, you know, they're they're excellent with helping us with community
relations. So I've asked Officer Smith and Major Crawford. So they're going to we're going to
hold a, a street meeting. So they're going to come out, meet with our all the people on our street that can come on over, and they're going to explain what the options are. And, you
know, so that they feel again, like the vice mayor said, they just want to be heard. So finding ways for them to be heard. So I'm doing it on my street. You can do it on your
street. You want to do it. You contact the police department or you can contact me directly or the city manager, and we'll make it happen for you. And that's really and that may that will make all the neighbors feel
better, like, hey, we're being heard and there's things that can be done, like the mayor did for us years ago that that helped on our street a little bit. And now we probably need
some more things. So, you know, the like, Commissioner Banther said, you know, we're we're we've grown a lot. My brother was mayor 38 years ago. I'm the
baby. So but it was 38 years ago. And the city is different than it was then. And all the things we have and all the services we provide and the, the parks and the and all the
recreation activities, we've really grown, but I think we've been pretty responsible in growing and keeping our, our
taxes at a, at a fair amount. We're I think we are lower than all the other cities that have our full service. So we are we do I think I think we do an
excellent job, not just the guys up here, but, you know, the past commissions as well have always tried to, you know, the city has grown, but and they've providing
a lot more services even when I, when I, when I talk to my brother and we're having coffee and he was like, oh, when I was mayor, we didn't do that when I was mayor, we didn't do that. And like and so we just we do so
many more things now and, but I think we do a great job of that. And that's pretty much it for me. And I want to thank you for coming forward. I mean, we always wish that we'd have more
people coming, but those of you that did come, we really appreciate it. And I'm going to let the assistant chief go. Last, given this somber day we
have today. Thank you. Mayor ma'am, I'm trying to move so I can see your face behind the dais. If you can meet me out back, I'll get your info and then get you in contact with
some people to help work this situation through. There's things that we can do to help mitigate some things. We can saturate the area and then tomorrow get another complaint. I'll be in another area, but we will do what we can to make sure
that we, you know, we hear you and we will be there for you to try to address whatever needs we can. So however we can make that work, I will get your info and make sure somebody gets in touch with you. Corporal Smith is
stepped in some big shoes with Corporal Boone retiring. So you see the commissioners shaking their heads. He's got some big shoes to fill, but we will do our best to make sure that you know, that we hear you, and that
we will do everything we can to make sure that we do what we can to fix the problem. I do want to
say. It's tough driving in. And I don't give the fire department much credit. This is kind of a big brother, little brother.
We're the big brother. But I do want to tell the fire chief. Thank you for taking my call when I needed somebody to call and just put some things in
place. So for that, I'm forever grateful for your help. And to the mayor. Thanks for calling.
And to the rest of you all, thanks for your support. The chief is on his way back from Miami from a conference. This is really my first week as the
assistant chief back in this new role. It's not what I expected.
But I thank you. I really don't have much else to say, but. Thank you so much for everything. This is a great place. I've been gone for two
months. When you say traffic, I've been in Quantico. I 95 is terrible. So for you to say that it's bad, I get it. But thank you all for everything. I'm sure
we'll be getting some information out to you about the next steps here forward. But again, Chief Young, thank you for just listening to me ramble
and getting things in order. It was not expected at all. So, mayor, I thank you for the time. Sorry for this, but we are a family here in Tarpon Springs.
We've. This is what makes this town so unique. It's one thing that we do. And if last September and October didn't show, as we pull together and I
think I don't know if it was the vice mayor or you or somebody said we were the this town was cleaned up faster than any other town in this area. And that's because of the commitment that
from the mayor to the city manager to the commissioners, to the staff have put in place to get things done. So when this happened today, it was a phone
call saying, we got you, we're here. So for that, I'm forever grateful and I'm glad to be a sponsor. Thank you. Thank you
for all of you even here and that are watching this this meeting on Tuesday, we will be honoring our assistant chief.
And for all that he's done for our community and how much he cares. And we care about him and we care about everyone. And like you said, we're a family. We lost a member of the family
today. And it's a tough day. So thank. They make one. Absolutely absolutely. So this has been pretty heavy. And I don't want
to end this on a on a tough note. So I did want to tell a little story. You know I've been listening to people speak about how tarpon was and how tarpon is and how tarpon was. And many
times I get out on my bicycle and I stopped to ask this old gentleman, I said, listen, I'm a commissioner. What is the one thing in town that you just
don't like? And he said, you know, I don't know why they stopped mowing the grass on the outside. The sidewalk is ours, you know, as the city. And I was
like, I didn't even know that we ever did that. So it was just it was an interesting, funny story. And things have changed. And I just wanted to end that on a
positive note. And my condolences again. It's all
thanks, Vice Mayor. Meeting adjourned 732. Thanks for.