What do you got? It takes a while, doesn't it? For him to go and just say anything. Yeah. Let's call to order the regular
session of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs. Tuesday, September 9th at 6:30 p.m. Roll call please. Mayor Collins here,
vice Mayor Eisner here. Commissioner Coolio's here. Commissioner DiDonato here. Commissioner, here. Before we have our reflection tonight,
the Reverend Milton Smith will be doing that. I want to just while we're praying, let's give a little special thought and prayer to former Commissioner
Susan Kitka. And she lost her son, Matt, to cancer. And let's just keep them in our prayers during this reflection time.
And then we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Pray with me, please, Lord, we come
to you thanking you for this glorious day. We thank you for this beautiful time, this beautiful city, Tarpon Springs. We pray, Lord, for our
residents, for the visitors who come through the city. We pray for the city staff who work to make this a wonderful place to live. We ask that you bless our
our mayor and city commissioners. We pray that you would bless father, our first responders, the police and fire the chief and and their staff
and all the ones that are out there who are making this city safe tonight. We bless you, father. We ask Lord that you are our comfort. Susan. Family
in their time of loss. Just be with them. Let them know that you will never leave nor forsake them, and we just give you all the praise and all the glory that's due to your name.
We pray this. Amen. Amen. 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. We have three proclamations this evening. The first one is for the National
Day of Service and Remembrance. Vice Mayor Eisner will do this
presentation and proclamation. Thank you. Mayor. So before I
read this, I want to thank all of you for coming. The mayor was kind enough to ask me to read this proclamation. I had the misfortune to to be living
in New York when this happened, and I was on my way into Manhattan, and I watched the second airplane not only go into the building, but I
watched the fuselage implode. When it came out, I was close enough to see debris falling off the building. I didn't realize those were people jumping or being pushed out
from people behind. So it was a tremendous day of suffering. Seven years afterwards, I found out that I lost my best friend growing up. He was the bouncing
his boss down the stairs from Cantor Fitzgerald in a wheelchair because he was wheelchair bound. And I didn't know anything about this. So I do want to thank the mayor for
asking me to read this, and I do want to thank all the first responders. And so whereas Patriot Day, officially known as National Day of Service and
Remembrance, is observed every September 11th in honor of the individuals who lost their lives as a result of a terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001. And whereas each
year on this date, we remember the bravery shown that day, just as we remember how we came together, united in grief and in purpose. And whereas we
renew our solemn vow to never forget what happened on September 11th, 2001, or those who lost their lives that day. Whereas on Patriot Day and
National Day of Service and Remembrance, we honor every life that was taken too soon. We honor the first responders, firefighters, law enforcement
officers, emergency workers, and service members who answered the call of duty and the brave civilians who rushed into action to save the lives that day. Whereas the city of
Tarpon Springs recognizes September 11th as a day to honor the memory of those who were lost and those who were united in response to the tragedy, including first
responders and volunteers. Now, therefore, I, Mike Eisner, by virtue of the authority vested in me as the vice mayor of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida,
do hereby proclaim September 11th, 2025, as National Day of Service and Remembrance. So I want to give this to you, Eric,
and if you'd like to say something, you're more than welcome. I would just like to
say that, you know, post 46 in Tarpon Springs. We're here for the veterans right now. We're the only veteran organization in Tarpon Springs, and we're doing a lot for the community
and Tarpon Springs veterans. And we're not going to stop. We're going to be here and we're going to build stronger and just want everyone to know that we're here for the
veterans. Thank you sir. You know, it's interesting. I also see the dogs. I see our canine
officer with his, you know, trained dog. And I will tell you this, there were many canine dogs on that site. I
just want to thank my sister and brother in law. They were they set up a triage and I went to a tribute for the dogs. Not one of the dogs lived. They all
got some form of cancer or poison from the pile. And you know, when I see these animals, I, you know, they don't know. They're just donating their lives to try to find people. So
it was it was a very tough time. And I just hope we never have to deal with anything like that
again. Thank you. Yeah. I'm glad the vice mayor mentioned the dogs. And it's appropriate
that today we have we're going to do National Service Dog Month. Regina, are you here?
Regina? Gina. Lee. Well, Regina Lee wrote us a beautiful email asking that we honor the
service dogs. So I wish she was here. But if you're home watching Regina, thank you very much for the beautiful email.
And we are going to go ahead and honor the service dogs. The you know, I just wanted to say that, you know, our dogs are
they become members of our family. You know, we have. It's like the purest form of of love that you get. It's
unconditional. You you get home. They're excited to see you. You go to the mailbox, come back. They're excited to see you. They don't care how much you know what you did all day. They
don't care if you were in the middle of whatever your turmoils were. They're just amazing creatures. And I know
they're very special to me. So we have with us today, officer Wynn, you out there, officer Wynn. And he's got two of our
first service dogs of Tarpon Springs. We have Atlas and Sibi. So they're excited. Oh. Hey,
buddy. Hey. Okay. It is. Atlas is zippy. Yeah. And they're beautiful. Female. Yeah. Okay. And then we also have
Firefighter Scanlan, and he has a blaze. Our firefighting service dog. So over here blaze I don't know if they interact
between the firemen. And it's kind of like the same relationship that the two Chief Youngs have, you know? So we usually try to keep that dog.
Yeah, we try to keep them separated as well. So. All right, so let me read the proclamation. Oh, proclamation.
City of Tarpon Springs proclamation. Whereas this proclamation declares the month of September 2025 to be National Service Dog Month in the city of Tarpon Springs. And
whereas in the United States, 70 million adults have a disability and only 16,000 service dogs from accredited training programs exist nationwide and the need is
growing. And whereas, in a heartfelt request, resident Regina Lee has called for official recognition of National Service Dog Month and
Canine Companions, a nonprofit organization celebrating 50 years of service dogs for people with physical disabilities free of charge. And whereas National Service
Dog Month serves as an opportunity to raise public awareness and educate our community about the benefits of service dogs, the law protecting their handlers, and
the organizations who enhance the independence and quality of life for countless people. And Whereas, the City of Tarpon Springs acknowledges the
significant impact service dogs have on the lives of those they assist and the invaluable role that canine companions play in the process. Now, therefore, I,
John Koulianos, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, do hereby proclaim September 25th as
National Service Dog Month. I'm going to keep this proclamation, and we're going to find Regina, and we're going to give it to her again, because she's the
one who brought it to our attention. So thank you, officer. Thank you. Firefighter. Do you guys like would you like to say something? I can't I got
my hand up. It's good. See where to go here and play. You sure you don't want to? All right, all right. I would like to thank Chief Forgetting and
Chaplain Smith for getting behind this program. Thank you.
All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Anybody? Hey, Tommy,
why don't you control your dogs? Yeah. Oh my goodness. All right. He does such a good job controlling. They got another
dog. Fires behave much better than the police. I traveled with him just all right. Yeah. That was amazing. All right, so
our next proclamation is. About. It's. It's the peace pole project. So, you know, it's
it's it's it's kind of, you know, oftentimes these, these proclamations have no, you know, they're kind of random proclamations, but these seem
to all kind of fit together, don't they. So we had the nine over 11 and as the vice mayor said, you know, the dogs that
sacrificed their lives to help find survivors and and that was a, you know, one of the. The
acts of, of terror and the acts of, you know, of hate. And here we're now going to wrap up our
proclamations with people who want peace. So I'm going to ask Robin Sanger from peace for Tarpon and her crew to come up,
come on up. And then I'm also going to ask Sue Carson and any of the rotary members that want to all come up. Please come on up. Come on, doctor, come on,
come on up. Take a picture. Yeah, yeah, come on up, Ron. Don't be shy, Ron. Come on, everybody come up. So again, you know these groups. Peace
for tarpon. I've gotten to know Robin really well. And and you know, she wants nothing but to serve her community. She, you
know, peace for tarpon cares about the mental health of its of our residents and those who have suffered traumatic
childhood traumas and to help them to find peace in their lives. And then we have the Rotary Club, which has no
there's no better example of service above self as we get in the rotary. So I think there is no organization finer. So let me go ahead and read the
proclamation. Then we'll let the some people say something. Whereas the Peace Pole project began as a global initiative in
1955 by Japanese teacher, poet and philosopher Masaki Goi, following the devastation caused by World War Two and the atomic bombs dropped on his
country. And whereas the message May peace prevail on earth, came to goi in a moment of prayer and inspiration, words that have the power to
shape our world, bringing peace and harmony to our personal lives and our beautiful planet. And whereas peace poles inscribed with this message
began to appear across Japan and then spread by means of the Peace Pole Project making its way to the United States in 1986, the year of International
Peace. And Whereas Rotary International founded on February 23rd, 1905, is the world's first and one of the largest nonprofit service
organizations that focuses on the promotion of peace and goodwill throughout the world. And Rotary and Rotarians believe that when people work to create peace in their
communities, change can have a global effect. And whereas the Rotary Club of Tarpon Springs and Peace for Tarpon wanted a way to unite people together to
inspire, awaken and uplift the human consciousness in our community, and agreed to plant a peace pole in Tarpon Springs. And Whereas, the field adjacent
to the Anclote River and Tarpon Springs Flash Park was chosen as the perfect spot to stand as a silent visual for people to
sit and reflect, bringing peace within one in each, within each one of us. We are all a part of this community, our country and the world. Now therefore, I,
John Collins, by virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, do hereby proclaim September 21st, 2025 as
International Day of Peace in Tarpon Springs. Now, that day is special because we're that's going to be the day that we present the peace pole at the
location that I mentioned in the proclamation. So, all of you. What time will that be? 4 p.m. 4 p.m. So all that would like to come out and be part of
something special. Please, please do so. Okay. Robin, would you like to. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for this proclamation. And I'm really
proud to be living in a city that recognizes peace is an important component of who we are. Thanks to the city commission, mayor, vice mayor and commissioners, and also a
special thanks to our recreation department. James Burke, Jamie Taylor and Duffy Smith all worked really hard helping us with the fliers and to get everything coordinated and accepting delivery of the
peace pole and the signage and all that. So just thanks to everyone who took part in this, and it's going to be a great day on Sunday, the 21st of
September at 4:00. Hope to see you guys there. Thanks. And this has been a process moving towards having the peace pole in Tarpon Springs. The other
communities in the area have a peace pole, so we were so excited that we are finally having our people here in Tarpon Springs. And thanks to
everyone. One. But I'll make you another one. Okay, so I'll give this one to Robin now and I will get you yours. All right.
Thank you. Okay, I apologize. Yeah, yeah. On Thursdays when I show up, my attendance has been pretty poor. But you know that
I'm with you in spirit and heart, so thank you very much.
Thank you. Okay, now it's now it's time for public comments.
So anyone who would like to speak on any item that's not on the business or the ordinances
and resolutions, please come forward. Just me, I guess. Yeah. Please state your name and your address, please. My name is
Chris. Mickey. I don't live in Tarpon. I live in Trinity. Okay. 10306 Pannofino Circle. Welcome. Thank you. I'm here to kind of continue the theme, I guess, of
honoring, you know, various kinds of service. Recently had the pleasure of meeting Teresa Kondek. She's the widow of the
police officer that was killed in 2011. Officer Kondek, I'm here to kind of try to help her. We want to put a memorial plaque at the site of his death
to kind of honor that scene, change it from a, you know, a crime scene, if you will, to more of like a sacred site where someone, you know, gave
up their life to defend the city. So I just wanted to kind of bring that up to you guys. I know she's already reached out to the the vice mayor and the
police chief, and just want to try to get that done. However, we can just get steered in the right direction and I'm willing to pay for it and sponsor it. It's not going to cost the city
anything. We just need permission to put it up, basically. Good idea. Thank you.
Thanks. Next, please. Appear to lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. I'm glad peace was on the agenda in
a way today, because that's kind of what I've been concerned about. When we see what's going on, some of our leaders, their actions are
pushing our enemies together. If you really paid attention, they had a conference in China
where Chief Peng, Putin, Modi, Kim Jong UN, all the dictators and wannabe dictators of the world were there. And what
united them? Trump and his tariffs and his chaotic foreign policy actions. So I'm going to read Isaiah 59 one through nine.
I just seem to be appropriate for what's going on. Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your
iniquities have separated you from God. Your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips
have spoken, lies in your tongue, mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice. No one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty
arguments and speak lies. They conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider's web.
Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing. They cannot cover themselves with
what they make. Their deeds are evil. Deeds and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin. They are swift to shed innocent
blood. Their thoughts are evil. Thoughts ruin and destruction Mark their ways. The way of peace. They do not know. There is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into
crooked roads. No one who walks in them will know peace. So justice is far from us, and justice does not reach us. We look for light, but all is
darkness for brightness. But we walk in deep shadows. And I just want to also bring up the fact that we're really in a big
type of crisis right now, sending troops into our cities. Military people arresting and
chasing, you know, this whole thing of grabbing people off the streets and getting them at courthouses and schools. And yet we turn a blind eye and
allow it to happen. I can't do that. I have to speak out. This is wrong. And if you all are moral, God fearing people, you
should also realize this is wrong. Thank you. Anyone else?
No. Austin? No, sir. There are no hands raised at this time. All right. Thank you. Okay. That concludes public comments. Now we're going to go to the
consent agenda. Let me read the items. Number four satisfaction release of leans number five special event. Tarpon Springs High School homecoming parade
2025. Number six attorney fees Eunice Salzman. Number seven Award file purchase of dump
truck. Number eight increase file. Myers pumps, repairs and parts number nine FDLE cart
agreement. Number ten Award file. Sod pickup. Deliver and install number 11 renew
contract. Sodium bisulfite. Bisulfite 40%. Aqueous solution and number 12 Award file
hydraulic repair parts and service. Would any commissioner like to pull any of these items? Okay, with that said, I just
wanted to make a comment on one of them, but I don't want to pull it. Okay. So yeah, go ahead. Do you want me to do it now or do you want to do it after the. If you're not pulling it, go ahead and make
your comment. Okay. I want to thank Jake and Bob Robertson and Chris, I did have a question about one of the, you know, the dump truck, and they made some very good comeback. So I was very impressed with
what you guys did. You answered all my questions and you satisfied me. And you actually made me very proud that you guys are running our ship because you you really went
over and beyond the call of duty. So I want to thank you. All of you. Thank you. We have a great staff. Thanks, vice mayor. Okay, let's have roll call on the consent agenda. We
need a motion. Motion? I'm sorry. So moved. Second. All right. Now let's go. Commissioner Banther. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes, vice
mayor Eisner. Yes, yes. Thanks, vice mayor, for keeping me. That's what a vice mayor is supposed to do. I'm trying push the mayor when he's. Am I going to get a little something extra
in the paycheck in October? You get a kudo. That's it. Kudos. All right, let's go to business items. The first business item is number 13. Increase file
discovery Park playground equipment change order number
one. Abby. Chris. Gotta come up. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm Chris Scott, a public works director for City of Tarpon Springs. And
this business item in front of you is part of a playground project for Discovery Park that was initiated. Construction was
initiated earlier this year. The project design did not include any Ada accessible features. And during the course
of construction, some public testimony ultimately led to the manager directing public works and project administration to incorporate some of those
features into the project. So that, of course, comes with a little bit of a price tag. Project contingency budget was able to absorb some of the equipment cost and some of the
items. However, there is still an outstanding amount that we that we need to finish up the project and and incorporate all
of those Ada accessible features. So the initial cost, the project was 500 and approximately 545,000. Change
order number one. Request 134,820 for a contract price of 680,000. Okay. Let's
Commissioner Banther, do you have any questions of staff? No, sir. Commissioner Donato. No, sir. Commissioner Coolio's. Yes. So this is pretty much a funding question, as we're
pretty much at the end of the fiscal year. This might be a run or Bob, question this. It says funding that will work will be provided in project
number CR 2504 through the funding account 307, etc. What is that account? I think I will defer to? The finance department just came on board.
This project has been about six months underway or so, so we've been testing them. But yeah, it's a pretty fun. Okay, so we were able to free up some money
for the end of the year to help pay for this. Yes. All right. Thank you sir. Vice mayor. Thank you. Mayor, I did make a
call to to actually to Chris, not to Chris. I'm sorry to Bob Robertson because I was extremely concerned about the
overage of $135,000. I kind of was concerned that there was some things just overlooked. And they kind of they kind of
were. But it wasn't our current staff. It was somebody from the prior staff. I don't know if we had brought it up prior, whether it would have passed or
not, but they satisfied me, at least with the questions that I asked. And certain things. When you have to comply with Ada
swings, you need to comply with Ada ramps and Ada just it just mushrooms. So I wasn't happy about the extra hundred and $35,000, but I understand why
it was needed. And I just wish. And I know for a fact you guys won't do that, you know, moving forward because I, I like to have a price, agree with it and
not come back with something that's almost 15 to 20% overage. You know, a small overage overlook is great. This one. I'm not attributing this to you
guys at all because I know this wasn't your deal, but it is. You know, the residents, when we vote on something, they want us to to delve in and make sure
that we don't have any overages like this. This is not good. So like I said, I appreciate, you know, everybody getting back, Bob, you getting back to me and
explaining how this happened. So thank you. I'd like to entertain a motion and then we'll go to public comment. So moved second okay. Is there any
public comment on this item. Austin. No sir. There are no hands up at this time. Thank you. Let's come back to the board. Is there any
commissioner comments? Yes, mayor. I just want to say when we look back at this project, there were a lot of trees removed. And I just think maybe we had overlooked it a little bit. But I just hope there's a
lot of trees that come that are replaced, because if any resident did that, there would be, you know, city wouldn't be too thrilled about it. So we over we oversaw it unfortunately. And let's not do that again. Thank you. Thank
you. Any other comments okay. Roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes.
Okay. Let's go to item number 14. Award external auditor services, miss Lewis. You have
any questions? Okay. Yeah, we've been both involved with this, but good evening, mayor. Commissioners. Ron, hearing finance director. Florida Statute two 1839. Annual financial audit reports
requires the city to have an annual financial audit of its accounts and records, completed within nine months after the end of the fiscal year by an independent certified public Accountant. The five year
contract with our current firm, Morton Jenkins, expired in 2024. Florida Statute 218 .391. Auditor. Selected procedures states in part, the auditor selection committee of former
municipality must consist of at least three members. One member of the Auditor selection Committee must be a member of the Governing Board, who shall serve as the chair of the committee. No city employee,
chief executive officer or chief financial officer may serve on the committee but can be an advisory role. Mayor Koulianos was the chair of the committee, along with two members of the Budget Advisory
Committee, Mr. Donald Bergman and Debbie McKinney, who volunteered to be on the other two members of the committee, myself and Sheri Boehm, assistant finance director, served in an advisory capacity.
The firm selected the by the committee was Mauldin Jenkins, our incumbent, who, along with the scoring the highest in experience, qualifications, capacity and audit approach and technical requirements had the
lowest price. And with that I'll entertain any questions. I'll start off the questions. Yeah they I mean it's a this
was an easy choice. Staff found them to be very easy to work with. They were smooth in there and very conscious of our
staff's time. They did a great job and they came in lowest, so there was no reason not to pick them. Commissioner, do you have any questions? No, sir. Commissioner de Donato,
Commissioner coleus? No, sir. Vice mayor? No, sir. Okay. Thank you very much. I'd like to entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. Any public
comment on the selection of our external auditor? Austin? Is there are there are no hands up. Okay, let's come back to the
board. If there's no further questions, roll call please. Commissioner. Panther. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes. Vice mayor. Yes, mayor. Yes.
Okay, let's go to business. Item number 15. Ratify selection of firms for request for qualifications. Construction manager at risk
continuing services. Miss Lewis. Thank you. Mayor. Commissioners. Good evening. Janina Lewis, procurement services director. The item before you is the request to ratify the selection
of the qualified firms to perform. Construction manager at risk continuing services. And what this provides is kind of a pre-qualified selection of firms that can provide general
contracting services for the city to be able to accomplish projects in a more expeditious manner, as well as being able to absorb more risk. Instead of
the city as the owner, taking on most of the risk for overage and overpriced technical requirements, this will give us an option to negotiate a
guaranteed maximum price where we can work with the vendor. As we are initiating the project, where they can provide value added benefit as they're working alongside the engineer.
So with that, I'll open it up for any questions. Commissioner Panther, you have any questions? No, sir. Commissioner Donato. No, sir. Commissioner Gulyas. Yes. I'm just trying to understand this. This Seema
company. At what point will they start working with these construction companies? Is that before bidding on projects? I mean, when do they help them along the process to make from
the very beginning. They start with the the design concept, the design criteria, the package. They can start at 0%, design with the engineers and go all the way through. If we
already have a package that's 30%, they can come in at that point from the get go. They're working with the engineers on the design criteria package. Then we will negotiate. Once that piece is completed, then
we negotiate into the construction site. So there will be two phases of the contracts per project, so to speak. Okay. Then is there a bid point at all? No. With
these type of projects, since it's considered a CNA, there's no pitting the bids against each other. As far as these firms, it'll just be the selection criteria based on
performance, trying to rotate dollar value amongst the firms. So we're not like overly choosing one versus the other. It's kind of a performance based aspect. And this will
help alleviate some of these overages that we we've seen happen with projects. Yes. This is the first time the city has used this. So I'm I'm putting
it out there that that's what this is supposed to do. I can't guarantee it. But again, that's that's the means of this type of a contract agreement. Okay.
Let's give it a shot. Thank you. Thank you, vice mayor to this opens up so many doors for me. So my question is how do I just
have to tee off of what the commissioner said? How do we guarantee that we don't have a gross avenue walk out? Okay. Well, that we can't guarantee,
but when we go to negotiate the the project and get the guaranteed maximum price at that point, anything that's over is the contractor's risk.
They assume the dollar point value at that point. Once it reaches the maximum guaranteed value, the city is not responsible. So they do. We
have a $300,000 job. They do $20,000, and they just decide, for whatever reason, nothing to do with us. Their company decides to go out and they walk
away from it. Do we go to their bonding company? Do we now take on another one of the five? How much of the first person does he get paid? How much does all
the rest get paid? I mean, I could sit here and just rattle off questions similar to a construction project. So each project is bonded? You're correct. So if they walked off the project at that price we've
negotiated, we have the 100% bond. So do we then have to wait for the bonding company to settle with us before we move forward with any project? If you want to look to the bonding
company to complete the project, yes, we could do like we finally did on the Gross project where we settled with the bonding company, took our dollar value back, and then
took it out on our own. In that case, we could then go to the next contract on the list. But I'm sure you know that turned it into a four year plus
project. And yes, and like it, it just depends on how we address the bonding issue again. So with the with the construction project and then
if it fails and we go to to the bonding company and we want to make the claim against the bond. So then the bond company then has to do their due diligence, which is more like they send
out some auditors on their insurance claim to assess what's left of the project. How much dollar value is there, what's left to be purchased,
what they can assimilate from the work being completed. So they have to put a whole package together before they finally come to the assessment
of how much needs to be bid out on their end if they bid. The project for us. Is there something such as an umbrella
policy for all five contracting firms so that we don't have to do any sort of waiting downtime and put residents at in in
trouble? Not that I'm aware of. I can look into something. I can speak with the city attorney. We can kind of discuss what to put in the agreements as far as
negotiating those final aspects. My only drawback on this, and I know it's not even a question, is I can see the what's advantageous about having the five different, you know, firms
because we could do multiple projects at the same time. I do see that, and I don't take that away. But at the same time, I also see that just unforeseen
has nothing to do. The company could be a straight A company all along. Stuff happens and president anything can happen to them and the company just
sits still. What do we do? How do we move forward? We just turn it over. What is the timeframe for turning it over to the next company? I can't predict that. And it's an
unknown. So there are items beyond our control. Once we enter into an agreement again, like the gross project, when the contractor defaulted and walked out on us, you know,
we're kind of at the mercy of the waiting on the bonding company. And then also dealing with the attorneys meetings, all of that. There's no no set
in stone time limit of turnaround. So, you know, I know all of these companies and they're all, in my opinion, mom and pop type or middle mom and
pop. They're not Tishman or Cushman. You know, industries that build, you know, large, large you know, corporations. My hope my drawback is if
something happens to the president, the CEO, somebody where this comes to a halt, what do we you know, again, I
can't answer that. That's beyond our control. So if we approve this tonight, is there I mean, I'm okay approving it as long as we can come to some
sort of satisfying my questions is the issue. Because as I said, I could see this being advantageous to getting things done. I could also see this being a nightmare. Again, any
contract has its risk. We can check into it and I can consult with the attorney and and try and provide you with some information from there. I don't
know how to go forward on that. Let me let me ask a question. In all of the experience. And this may also be a question. Bob Robertson but in all of our
experience, when have we had a how many times have we had a contractor walk off? And or
okay and or had issues with the bonding company not having the performance completed, just the one project, just the one in all the. And how long you been
here? I've been here 19 years and I've been an engineer for 27. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Let's. The commissioner wanted to make a comment. Also,
I just wanted to ask, are we now converting over to where projects won't be bid on, or do we pick and choose what will be bid on? What will go through this type of process? It will
depend on what what the project is and how we feel best fits the firm versus the need of what we're doing. Several we're still going to bid. Yes, construction projects will
still go to bid. Yes. And so they get their service. They get their money basically by helping push this along and keeping the funds at that guaranteed max price, hopefully.
Correct. And they're basically a general contractor as well. So yes thank thank you ma'am. No more questions. All right. So I have to come back at you. Mayor, I appreciate you saying
how many issues we've had versus but it's a different time right now. And there are companies that are really struggling, so we can't use past history on what has
happened in the past and how results have come in versus currently. That's just all I want to say, as well as we've had other issues that still may
have ongoing, I believe, over by me, Sea Breeze is still an issue. Correct? I, I understand they have substantially
completed the Sea Breeze project. We did not receive a final punch list yet. We're still working that issue with the company. How many years is
that going on? 21. About three years. So so far the last few projects we've had have all had issues except for the Bayshore project, which went through
smoothly. Is that correct? Yes. No. We've had several construction projects complete on time. Lemon and Shaddock, I believe it was. Yeah, we've had
our first completion on time. We were actually the dredge area. The the the refurbishment of the dredge area was also on schedule on time, but the city
chose to purchase the property. So we've had several projects that have been ongoing that have completed on schedule and on budget. But it wasn't just one. Correct. Okay. My thing is,
I still I need some assurance before we move ahead with this. So I will not support this the way it is without knowing what that is going to be. I do want to have some more assurance. I
don't want to put my signature on something that has that type of risk. So sure, ma'am, will it be staff's discretion on
what they decide to go through this program or what we decide to go to bid? But basically, yes, once once you approve, it's like a CNA project. So
once you approve an engineer of record, typically we don't bring all the projects back to you. Just select an engineer to do the project. Okay. Thank you.
All right. Let's let's entertain a motion. Then we'll go out to public comment and come back for commissioner. Final commissioner comments. So moved second. Okay. Are there
any public comments on this item? Austin. There are no hands up at this time. Okay. Thank you. Let's come back to
the commission. Commissioner Banther, do you have any comments on this? Commissioner Denato no. Commissioner coleus. No. Vice mayor. I've said what
I've said. I just see the possibility of issues coming up. I like I said, I see both sides of it. But I need more assurance that this is going to
at least work more percentage wise than what I'm looking at. So I will not support this. Okay, no further comments.
Let's let's have roll call, please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. No. Mayor.
Yes. Thank you. Okay, let's go to item number 16, discussion and direction for Elevate Florida acquisition and demolition projects. Is that
going to be the fire chief or who's PJ? PJ I'm sorry. Good evening. Commissioners mayor vice mayor city manager PJ Herbert Grant, project
specialist. This is a continuation of something that I brought before the board back on August 12th. Whereas the federal I'm sorry, the Florida Department of Emergency Management had offered a
property to the city as an acquisition project as part of their Elevate Florida program. The commissioners had given me a list of questions to take back to them. I did get
clarification on those questions. It should be in the backup documents, but I could also let you know too. They did indicate that there is not a hard deadline for a decision to
be made. However, they do want to expedite the process as quickly as they can, so they are hopeful that we will come to a decision sooner rather
than later. The lots are in fact restricted in what can be placed on them. If the city would take ownership, they do believe that we would be able to plant a tree. However, that is not guaranteed. They said
they would have to get back to me completely on that one, but it will be very restricted. It does have to remain as an open space in perpetuity. That has not changed, and the city does
have the ability to decide parcel by parcel if they choose to acquire and maintain those properties that come up as an acquisition project for any future programs, including
Elevate Florida and any going forward, the staff just has now coming before the board to get clarification on how we want to respond back to FTE with this
acquisition project, we do recommend decline this first property, but maintain the ability to review each property as they become available. Okay. Thank you. Let's what we're
going to do here is we're going to have questions of either the city manager or PJ. And then then I'll entertain a motion.
Then we'll go public comment. Then we'll come back for commissioner comments. So right now let's just keep just questions only. And so I don't have any any further questions of staff, Commissioner Banther.
No, sir. I got to meet with the city manager about this and answer my questions. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner De Donato. My only problem, same as before, I, I, I find it difficult to to take on
responsibility the the maintenance for forever, with not the right to do any or make any decisions for what goes on that property. But I do like taking it one at a time
necessarily. I mean, that situation can change in the future. And so just to clarify. Let's limit to questions first and then we'll do the comments when we get back. Commissioner.
Commissioner coleus no question. Just comments later okay. And vice mayor no questions comments later. Thank you I'd like to entertain a motion. So
moved. Second okay so let's go to public comments on this item. Peter Lack is 514 Ashland
Avenue. I'm glad city manager spoke up and said staff doesn't recommend it. And for those who haven't seen the map, what they're referring to, it's one
parcel on West MLK just before the bridge at Whitcomb. It doesn't make sense to take one parcel out of that whole street.
If you were going to do anything along that street, you'd have to take them all and then maybe incorporate it to the Rotary Park extension of some sort, because that corner
lot across from the rotary is also for sale. All those people got really hit bad. In fact, if you drive by there, one of the houses ironically has a sign
out front for $799,900, which is just ridiculously absurd, knowing that all those houses got wiped out as Commissioner DiDonato mentioned, being
restricted to what you could do with that property. No chance of at some future date reselling it because it is a viable lot. If you built a house that was elevated on
stilts, just like we require houses in other areas. So I don't feel that the city should be buying individual properties unless there's a connection to
a current park or city property, or it actually leads to other properties in that area agreeing to follow along. So you have something that's
bigger than 40 by 80 or 50 by 100. I applaud the actions of this program because it also allows people to do things to
their own homes. As far as facilitating their property protections, whether it's raising AC units or the way you can design your property, where
the water doesn't flood on you and drains off. There's other things. So but for this particular item, I would have to urge the board to vote no
because you said so. Move, which means approving. So you're going to have to vote no. That's my understanding. Thank
you. Thank you. Any other public comments? Austin? No, sir. There are no hands up at this time. Okay, so before we go, before we start our
commission comments and I'll start off, but let me ask the city attorney, so is what the former commissioner said correct it would be to vote no
on this. Yes. Or if you're against it, this is to approve this. Okay. Thank you. I my understanding to approve our recommendation to decline this property. Maybe we need to just
clarify that. Clarify. The motion, make a motion properly. Okay. So, you know, someone can amend their motion to decline. The parcel in question was that
was that me or Eisner? I think it was your it was my motion. But again, this is just a discussion and direction. This is not a vote. It's it's a vote
to direct them to approve or not approve. Okay. So you did you who made the motion I did okay. Do you want to clarify your motion? But we have to do
it in a positive. So I mean, you know, you could just leave it the way it is and vote, you know, against it. So the as the city attorney, as the city manager said, to vote positive
is to accept it. No, it's to accept the recommendations of not to approve it so or decline the property, to decline the property. Why don't you just make the motion clear, like
motion to approve staff recommendation to decline the property. So my motion is to decline the property. That's a that's a negative and approve staff recommendation. Approve
staff recommendation the property okay. So we will vote. I don't have to. Just so we're clear. We vote yes meaning we're declining it and accepting this staff okay. So
let me just make a couple comments. You know I'm not I'm not in favor of this program at all. I don't think I know that
the existing homeowner would possibly get a little more money versus selling it on the market. We don't know that for
sure. But, you know, that is may may occur. But. One is we will we get take it off the tax roll, which is not. Again, it's
we also have to look at this as a collective good of the community. So we're taking it off the tax roll. The city has has to maintain a piece of property again, most of the
time right in the middle of a bunch of other homes. We obviously have restrictions like the. Like, Mr. DeLuca said.
We can't sell the property, do anything with the property. It's ties our hands. And I believe that a family lived in
that home. A new family will now purchase, will purchase a lot, a new family will build a home that's safer. And that
those family members, if they have children, will attend our schools and they're going to patronize our businesses. So I would want where there was a home, I'd like to see another
home there in its place, because I think that's better for the community as a whole. And that's just my opinion. So let's go to Commissioner Banther. Yes. Thank you. I agree with former Commissioner
Lackey's comments as well as the mayor. I wish in a perfect world, we could buy every home that that was that was flooded, but that would create a moral hazard. I don't believe it's the highest and best use of the
property. I believe I believe that the high that, that that highest and best use is, is what the mayor outlined as far as a new family coming in, building a new home and being
part of the community. So I do approve staff's recommendation. Thank you. Commissioner De Donato. I agree as well. It just doesn't. I don't even know
why this is before us. To be honest, I don't know who would accept something. Responsibility wise, maintenance wise and perpetuity and not being able to do any
other thing to it. So I accept the staff recommendation. Okay. Commissioner Coleus, it's unfortunate. I feel for the resident and many others. It's it's this property is just
sandwiched between two other residential homes. And my fellow commissioners have echoed my my same feelings. But that is just this property. There's going to be other
properties and they're all unique in their own way. So we will have to look at them case by case and see what, what, how they can contribute to the community. Thank you, Vice
Mayor. I agree with everything I've heard so far. There's only one thing I'd like to add. It could be detrimental. If we did go ahead with it, we would have an open space there where, you know, people fish all around
would come by. This would be just another place that we'd get complaints from both residents, from both sides. There would be people pulling up. There would be a few alcoholic beverages and
everything else that goes. And I'd make the police chief and all of them have to work harder. So I'm not going to do that. But all kidding aside, there is no benefit to this whatsoever.
You know, you're making an empty lot on a street that is continuous with almost a zero lot line between everything. And then you'd have this it would almost look like the Forbes project that we have on
Tarpon Avenue, only worse. And I would like to see that we, you know, somebody sell this for a reasonable amount and they build it up because there
are a number of houses on that street that have been built up and, you know, they're downstairs, got wet, but everything else was fine. So we're in a new stage of, you
know, of, of water issues. And you have to, you know, build a, you know, accordingly. That's all. Thank you very much. If there's no further comments.
All right. Roll call. That's what I'm saying. If there's no further comments let's go to roll call. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Di. Yes, Commissioner. Yes, yes, vice
mayor Eisner. Gotta be. Yes. Mayor. Kelly. Yes. Okay, let's go to item number 17. Appointment to sustainability committee. City clerk.
Commissioners, this is for appointments to the Sustainability Committee. There are vacancies on the board due to members being termed out or the inability to fill those positions. At this time, we
have two applicants to bring forward to fill the vacant regular member positions. Additionally, the terms for Miss Nyholm and Miss Migot have expired and both would also
like to be reappointed. So we would have to do all four of the following actions. One would be to reappoint Miss Nyholm to another three year term. This term would expire
September 30th of 2028. Number two reappoint miss MC it to a one year term. This term would expire September 30th, 2026.
Three to appoint from the list to one of the applicants to fill the seat to be vacated by Denise Menino. That won't be effective until September 30th
of 2025, and that term would expire September 30th of 28. And number four, to appoint somebody from the applications to fill the vacant regular
member position this term would expire September 30th, 2027. The difference between number three and four is one expires in 28 and one expires in 27.
Okay. Thank you. I'd like to with somebody like to make a motion as I would they want to fill this. I'd like to motion
to reappoint Miss Meehan to a three year term expires September 30th, 28. Reappoint Carol. Make it to a one year term. This term would expire
September 30th, 2026. Point doctor Doctor Molina to fill the seat vacated by Denise Menino, effective September 30th and his term would expire
September 30th, 2028 and appoint Loretta to fill the vacant regular position. This would expire September 30th, 2027. Second. Okay, are there
any are there any comments on the from the board on this, any public comments regarding this item? Austin. No sir. There are
no hands up. Okay. You'd like to come back to the board. Let's go ahead and roll call, please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes, yes, vice.
Mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Okay. Number 18, appointments to the library board. City clerk. Mayor, commissioners. This is for the appointments to
the library board. The terms for Mrs. Haddad and Mrs. Walker have expired. And both individuals are termed out. Miss Mary, who is alternate one,
has moved out of the city and can no longer serve on that board. Also, the term for Miss Patterson has expired, but she is eligible for reappointment and would like to be
reconsidered. So we would have to do all of the following actions one. To reappoint Miss Patterson to another three year term. The term would expire July 1st, 2028, and number two
and two a we would have to either move the. The options would be to move the alternate up or replace from the
applicant's that are listed. Those terms would expire July 1st of 2028. If we move the alternate up, then we would also have to do item two B,
which would be to appoint someone to fill her unexpired term for alternate two. That term would expire July 1st of 2026. And number three, we have to fill the unexpired the
expired term for Miss Mary, who was alternate one, and that term would also expire July 1st of 2028. Okay. Would any commissioner like to make a
motion and how they want to fill these spots? I'll try this one with my city clerk correcting me as I mess this up. I would reappoint Cheri
Patterson to another three year term and would expire July 1st, 2028. I would appoint that would be Tammy Walker. Is she
the who the current alternate is Mrs. Stimmel. Mrs. Stimmel okay, I would appoint Mrs. Stimmel to a regular member,
and then I would. Can I just say I would choose the Robert Dockery Deborah to Marilyn
Chapman in in accordance to two a, two B and and three. Tell me if I did it wrong. Sounds good
to me. Second. City clerk is that okay with you? Okay. Beautiful. All right. And we have a second. So are there any any commission comments on
these on this any of these appointments? Okay. Let's go to public comment. Are there any public comments on the appointment to the library board? Austin. No sir. There
are no hands up. Okay. Let's come back to the board. If there's no other comments, roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes,
vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Okay. Number 19, discussion and direction for reactivating the Marine Commerce Committee. That's going to be Commissioner Banther. Thank you. Yes. And I
hinted at this a few meetings ago, and I think I think it's pretty unanimous, you know, this this committee first met. I mean, it's almost, I think
seven or so years ago and was for the dredge project and I believe this committee or, or some version of it was also used previously in decades prior. And this committee
originally was kind of centered around, around the dredge project. And then when that was completed, if you want to call it that, then this was kind of, you know, kind of moved to a
dormant status. I think this is a very important committee. I think it needs to be meeting year round, at least quarterly, and, and have individuals on this committee who have talents and interests vested in our
river and waterways. We have a lot of talent, not only in this room, but in this city. And I think that we I think we learned this last time with the dredge project. It's only going
to get harder and harder for us. You know, it's you know, I know it was a fight last time to get the Army Corps to come here and do it. I think we need a committee that, you know, is
focused on that year round and other things, many other things that that affect our waterways and preserving what we have is the most coastline in Pinellas County. So I would like to
support of this commission to reactivate this this committee, to me at least, at least quarterly, I believe I miss Karen here tonight. Karen, how
many people were on this committee last time I though I though I forgot. I know you emailed me. There were seven
thank you and did did did we appoint or did they apply for the committee? I believe you appointed them and and I'm open to either way. I kind of lean
towards appointment and I would go as high as ten people perhaps. Maybe because you can have people that can't meet every meeting and these are going to be, you know, mostly working people, I presume. So I,
I, in a perfect world, would like to see each of us appoint, appoint two people that we feel meets the meets the requirements for this board, obviously, if they're willing of course. And again they would
meet quarterly. I assume Karen Lemons would be the liaison. And I would also like not that Bob Robertson has, has has like enough to do, but I think he
should be in on this board in some way because of the dredge project and all that. So I'd like to hear y'all's y'all's feedback on this. Please let me start off, you know, I like I
think it's a great idea. We could do this similar to the way we do the charter revision. We could each of us could bring
a, you know, three different members because we might have duplicates. So we could do it that way and, and see how we work through that. Or we could
hand we could hand all of our, our choices over to, let's say, the city manager. He goes through them. If he sees that we have more duplicates, can't
get ten out of it, he can let us know and then we can come up with some other folks. Okay, so I'd like to hear from the other commissioners. Commissioner De
Donato, I'm in agreement. But what what's been suggested to go forward is, is fine with me. I do think they should be meeting on a regular basis. And.
It at the time it was dredging primarily for the rivers. I understand we've got bayous and everything else. And now that we have our our school site, I think it's even more necessary
for us to have this, this ongoing. Committee. So I'm in favor of the process. Are you in favor of having it appointed? Yes. Okay. Thank you. I can go
with either one, but. Yes. Okay. Commissioner coleus. Yeah, I'm in favor of this marine commerce. I just want us to think macro level with this commerce. I mean, I'm talking
about the beaches that everyone enjoys, from recreation to commercial fishing to the boating to the the life that's lived down by even just near
the sponge docks and that type of marine commerce. So there's so many different aspects that I want us to really look at everything on a macro level for this type of project, I, I
would like for us to appoint these, these individuals. Application wise, I'd be in favor of it. Very simple. But if I think we can all find a
couple people really invested in our community with with the background experience to pursue, but please, we must consider this on a macro level. Include night, the night time, commerce,
entertainment, everything above and beyond. Absolutely. That's what we need to do and preserving and protecting our waterways. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So everything
that's been said I agree with I would also do the appointing is my decision, but I want to give a special thanks out. The final charter Commission meeting.
This was a topic that was brought up by Carrie Root. And when it was brought up, there was a one of the participants was thought this was shouldn't
even be brought up to us. And that person walked out. And, you know, I kind of didn't understand it. I thought this would be a great suggestion.
And the board is accepting it and, you know, I'm all for it. I think that it was really well needed for a while. And, you know, having it at a macro level, like you said,
Commissioner, I wholeheartedly agree. I'd like to see the sponge docks and all of our waterways only being encouraged and refreshed and, you know,
renourished and everything that we need to do to make this, you know, that would be what I would classify the rebranding of Tarpon Springs to make us be
more in control of where we're going and not be polluting and not being destroying things and looking to see how we could build back. So thank you for everybody's opinion, and I want
to thank Carrie Root again for bringing this to the board's attention on that day that she came before us. Thank you. Okay, so I agree. So when when we
make these suggestions, let's make sure we're picking people like the commissioner said that understand these areas and and
and and have qualifications. In their specific qualifications about waterways and such, but also people who have a vested
interest in in those areas and and understand them. Okay. So what I'd like to do is entertain a motion to direct
the city manager to. Bring back a resolution resolution and, and then and frame this process. Okay. And my understanding is that we would need to dissolve
the current board because it's still standing essentially. Yeah. Unless you want to keep from what I'm hearing, you want to have a new scope of the committee to be more than just
a dredge. So it would be to disband, formally disband the the Marine Commerce Committee. And then, I guess, to direct to form a new committee. And then I think we need direction with,
you know, what you want the role and the and the scope of that committee to be. And then we work with the city clerk on an ordinance, because I believe that the the new direction with the code changes will be an
ordinance versus a resolution. Okay. So let's let's make a motion to direct the city manager to bring back a resolution which encompasses an
ordinance, excuse me, which encompasses some of this process. Second. Okay. Is there
any public comment? Appear to lack is 514 Ashland Avenue. As Commissioner PK said, you have
to look at it at a bigger thing. Our rivers and bayous are more. More needing of attention beyond just dredging and
supporting the commercial waterways that we have. I don't agree with the appointment because you're one. You ask for
people to volunteer for things, and there's a lot of people that probably would have an interest in this. And you want some diversity. If you have people in mind you'd like to be on that board. You speak to
them and ask them to apply. But this should be, as any other board that people in the community who would like to participate and put in their opinions and ideas and maybe
counterbalance some others. That's good debate and that's what we should have. As far as as Karen mentioned, you're just saying, okay, city manager, put
a resolution and bring it back. Well, Karen mentioned you need an idea of what is the scope of the committee going to be doing. Is it just going to be looking at whatever is going on in the
boundaries of Tarpon Springs? It shouldn't, because there's two things about our place here. We have water coming in from the Gulf, but we also have
water coming down from Pasco all the way from the Starkey Ranch area. And if you ever really look at a map and pull up and follow the Anclote River
to its headwaters, it's completely almost all of it has been developed except for some sections. So part of what Commissioner Amy just said,
pollution and other factors. Pasco, if you drive out 5456 to get on 75, and you can't, every way you turn, there's new apartments, there's new
buildings. So all that stuff that flushes through there, flushes into the Anclote River comes down. You can ask staff, we have to do water monitoring
of things that we have no control over. So to me, what I'm trying to say is we need to look at as a broader picture. There's a huge opportunity. As
Miss Jenkins had said before, about working with the Coast Guard and other entities to get internships or support our
marine. Industries. Boat repairs, besides just fishing. So there's a whole scope of things that can be looked at and also your inner
governmental agency actions. You need to have people who have maybe some knowledge and experience about those things. So I would highly recommend going forward. But as Karen
said, you need to have a scope, you need to have a guidelines. But people in the community should have an opportunity to participate in this. Thank you.
Any other public comment? Austin? No sir. There are no hands up. Okay, let's come back to the board with we have a motion. If there's no further
comments, roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Cool. Yes, yes. Vice mayor
Eisner. Yes, yes. Okay. The our planning director has requested that we move items number 23 and 24 up in respect to the
people that are here on the on behalf of those items. So let's go. Let's do item number 23, resolution 2025 dash 51 City
Attorney. Would you read that, please? Sure. Resolution number 2025, Dash 51, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs,
Florida, approving application number 25, dash 42, requesting conditional use approval to allow a school of General
Education at 40349 US highway 19 North and the Highway Business Zoning District providing for findings, providing for conditions, and providing for an effective date
thereof. This is a quasi judicial proceeding where the Board of Commissioners acts in a quasi judicial rather than legislative capacity at a quasi judicial hearing. It is not the
board's function to make law, but rather to apply law that has already been established in a quasi judicial hearing. The board is required by law to make findings of fact based upon the evidence presented at
the hearing, and apply those findings of fact to previously established criteria contained in the Court of Ordinance in order to make a legal decision regarding the application before it. The board may only
consider evidence at the hearing. That is, the law considers competent, substantial, and relevant to the issues. If the competent, substantial, and relevant evidence at the hearing demonstrates that the applicant
has met the criteria established in the Court of Ordinance, then the board is required by law to find in favor of the applicant. By the same token, if the competent, substantial and relevant
evidence at the hearing demonstrates that the applicant has failed to meet the criteria established in the Court of Ordinance, then the board is required by law to find against the applicant. Commissioners
also have a duty to disclose any ex parte communications. If none. If no communications at this time, I'll go ahead and
swear in the witnesses. Can any witnesses who are providing their testimony raise their right hand? Do you swear to affirm the truth, affirm that
the testimony you are about to give in this proceeding is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do thank you. Okay, let's have the our presentation by Miss Vincent, please. Thank you.
This is conditional use application 25 Dash 42, A resolution 2025 Dash 51. The
location is on us 1943 49 US 19. The proposed conditional use is for a school of general education for approximately 40
students, grades K through eight. This is the site. This is the mayor's mango extension here. So it's literally on the opposite side of us 19. If you
come out at that intersection, this is an existing. The church already operates out of this location. And so now they're adding a school of general education. If you recall, we
recently amended the Land Development Code to allow this application to be able to go forward as a conditional use. So the entire space with the church is about 7000ft■!S. Theye
looking at five classrooms. They really have no they've gone through all the review criteria. There are no issues with the review criteria. One of the concerns that's been
talked a little bit about is how the circulation and, you know, there are no busses associated with this. This is all private. You know, parents will drop off their the students, they'll come in through this entrance. This is
the circulation pattern back out to us 19. It will be all dropped off of the street or anything like that. I won't go into. I know you got a lot of
agenda items tonight, so I won't go into a lot of detail on the review criteria, except to say that this has been shown to meet all the conditional use criteria. There's no adverse impacts on the city or ability
to provide services on the public health, safety and welfare staff. Recommendation is to approve. There was only one condition added, and that would be a local business tax receipt would have to be
obtained within 12 months. We did public notice. We received no responses on this. The Planning Zoning Board did review it on August 18th and recommended approval by a vote of seven zero. And with that,
I'll be happy to answer any questions. Okay, I'll start off the questions. So if we approve this school at this size, if
they were to expand the school, they would have to come back. Correct. Technically, yes. An expansion of the of the conditional use if they would
expand beyond 40 students at this point. So their student load was going to get higher than that, then? Technically, yes, they would need to come back because right now it it
like you say, it doesn't have any bussing. No, no children are standing there or, or being dropped off. They're in with busses. But if they were to expand the school and that did
happen this, this vote tonight does not approve that. It does not this, this application does not anticipate any bussing at all. This is all private
parents have to bring their children to school. So if if that were going to change to something, a school that was like associated with Pinellas County public schools with busses, yes, that would be a
different a different application that would have to be revisited. I think you answered it. So if they were to expand the school beyond the size it is now, they would have
to come back. Their their application represents 40 students. Okay. You can ask them if they intend to try to exceed that. But in the future, if they came and asked me and I
knew about it and they said, we want to have 100 students, I would say we need to revisit the conditional use just because of its specific to 40, not more than 40 students at this point. Okay. Commissioner
Banther, do you have any questions? No, sir. Commissioner DiDonato. No, sir. Commissioner coleus. Miss Vincent, what about private bussing? If they get private bussing, does that change
things? I mean, the circulation is still going to be the same. They're not going to be able to drop off anybody on us 19. They'll use the same if they had a small bus or van or something like that, you know,
the circulation pattern would be the same. They would come into the parking lot, you know, traverse down to where the school location is to the drop off and pick up this, you know,
no matter how the students are getting there, we're not authorizing somebody to stop a bus on us. 19. Absolutely. I'm just concerned. I'm familiar with the area. It's really an
industrial area to me. The way I look at it, it's a very busy these are comments. So I guess I'll have to ask the applicant some questions. So the church has been there for some time
now. The church. Yes. On a Sunday I assume. Yes. So okay. Thank you, Miss Vincent. Okay. Vice mayor, did the first
question I'm going to ask I I'm okay with the drop off, okay. Because people drop off and they're not there all at the same time. But as everybody in this room knows, where we the
middle school, the high school, it is a nightmare to do pickup. So is there the right amount to go from the drop off point,
back over all the way down to the entrance and out to withstand 40 vehicles? That's not a good answer. I can't tell
you 100%. I mean, they they have every bit of they have ample stacking for parents to come in, drop off and circulate back out. This is a very large
parking lot and circulation route. My question wasn't for drop off. It was for pickup pickup. They have to sit there beforehand. It's going to be the same, same pattern, same
pattern, but different timing. Pick up. Everybody's there waiting for their child. Drop off. People are five minutes here, five minutes there. It's completely different. The drop
off is never as much a complaint as there is. And my concern is 19. So if there are cars that if it doesn't fit,
then on pickup I need an alternate plan on where they put the 40. Sure. This circulation pattern, if you're looking at where, but also can
wrap completely around the back of the building as well. Yeah, the queue is all. Yeah, there's plenty of room to queue on this property. Well, that's the question I'm asking. Can it
withhold, can it hold 40 vehicles. Well there's more than 40 parking spots there. So there's also parking available if necessary. Those 40 parking spots are perpendicular. They
are. So that's not a good example for each two spots is one car. Let me let me do this. You've got a property frontage here of 614ft along here. So
essentially let's say you've got 500, 500ft of drive. Just oops. Excuse me. Just here, 20
foot per car. What's 500 divided by 20? Tire math for me on both sides. I just want to make sure nobody is protruding
out on to 19 and correct. The police chief gets a call that somebody got rear ended. So that's my police were on the review, the technical review
committee. Everybody's looked at it. So I am for everything that this represents except somebody sticking out because for whatever reason, even a car that doesn't start, it shuts
off or whatever. And not having that, that's exactly the reason that I was against the 404 apartments, because they drop off and pick up out on 19. This is not that, but I don't want
any other reason to have vehicles in danger. 19 we get reports from the police chief every month of all of the accidents that happen. I don't want this to be one of them. So
my question again is, do we have that capability to make sure that we have enough room for the 40 cars? I'm going to turn around and look at the chief right now. If you want to
turn around and look at this map behind you, you've got all of this. You can ask the applicant as well. But look at this thing. I would say the queue, which is, you know, where we could stack vehicles on the site. It appears there
would be enough room. Just like Renee said, the 500 foot foot frontage there. It's also equivalent in the back of the building there, so you'd be able to have a queue all on site, which is preferable,
preferable, preferable. And I agree with you 100%. I don't want to see any vehicles sticking out onto US 19 because if they are, there will be an accident. That's exactly what I watched on the PNC board
meeting, and I was talking to the TV. I didn't get an answer. So okay. Okay, let's I'd like
to entertain a motion and then we'll go to public comments and come back to the applicant. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well. Yeah. Let's have the applicant
come forward. My name is executive pastor Chuck Stewart of the gathering. We're at 40349 US 19 North in Tarpon Springs, and I'm prepared to
answer any questions you might have other than the traffic pattern there are in the in the middle of the diagram here, where the red line, the
entrance, there are 89 parking spaces there. Behind it there is an additional 65 spaces to the right of it and the back of
the building. So there's there is ample ample space for cars to queue to drop off their children. And of course, that queue would be monitored by our
teachers. So to answer your question directly, yes, there is enough space for the for the cars to queue themselves. Let me start the questions off of
the applicant. Do you have any plans of expanding this school beyond 40? Well, it's a good lord allows us. We might. Where
would you where would you put those students? They. It would be somewhere in that in our same building we have 7000ft■!Sn there in the, in that in the
church building. It would be in the church if the expansion goes, goes forward. But we don't have any any plans for that right now. Yeah. What are the what are the hours. Hours.
What time, what time the school start 30 to 3, 3830. Yes. 830 to 330 and 330. Okay. Let me
ask, is there a this might be for the chief. Are you is there a pass through to go? South
there, out of that exit? No there's not. Okay. So you can only go you can only go northbound. And so somebody that's coming from the south,
that would be coming up and then coming to the going over to the entrance and dropping their children off and then exiting, how are they going to end up going south? I mean,
this again, like like the vice mayor said, it's like deja vu all over again. But so where where they'll have to go back outright and go up and take a
U-turn on you turning. There's a U-turn right by Chili's. That's the closest. Thank you. MLK, MLK, MLK. So we could have
potentially 40 cars coming, dropping their kids off, coming out, and then all going up there. Well, not all 40 are, I assume are going to be coming from the south, but let's say
half of them, will be sold 20 cars. Do you, chief, do you see that as a problem? 20 cars coming out at the same time, 830 in the morning. Cars are making coming out of businesses
over there all day. Okay. All right, Commissioner Banther. No questions. Thank you, Commissioner DiDonato. No further questions. Commissioner. Yes, sir. As we the big issue
is the size of your your school and your intent, your intentions to grow above 40. Right now this application is 40. But you know in and
Christian religion and school faith, the goal is to expand and expand Christianity. So this idea of just being limited
to 40 students seems like it's not going to hold much, much won't hold long. You will in fact go over above 40 students eventually. Yes. Okay. And so
you're very familiar with this whole actual subdivision that's really all industrial with all types of different industrial commercial work being done.
There's been a whole new building set up that's three different buildings that are all warehouse style facilities. You don't you guys don't see an
issue with possibly around three, 330. The parents are starting to come see, you know, sit there and line up. And they're actually blocking in some of these warehouse or other businesses that are
potentially going to get off between 3 and 430. Now, I don't I mean, there may be some conflicts, obviously, but you know, I think we can manage
that traffic flow. Okay. And how long have you guys been operating as a church there. There five months. But we've been in Tarpon for 13.5 years.
Where were you guys originally located? Right next to Cody's Steakhouse. It's called Seven Young Plaza. We're right on the end cap. Okay, so you guys have
been around in the area, but the school is different. You know, having a Sunday. You understand the difference between having something open on Sunday for religious practices as opposed to what
the commercial district is usually open during the week, the weekdays and Saturday. All right. We do we do other
service. Yeah. Night services as well. Yeah. So you run, you'll have a Sunday service. What other services usually have throughout the week besides holidays? Generally on
Tuesday nights and Friday nights okay. I have no further comments at this time. Thank
you. Mayor Lee. Yeah. Vice mayor, thank you. So. Have you given any thought to all of those vehicles that are parked
there through all those warehouses? You're going to have people sitting there at least 10 to 15 minutes before they pick up their children. Correct? Possibly, yes. Okay.
So you're kind of restricting all of the people that are either parked there or are in any of the warehouses, how the how are they going to back out?
How are they going to back out? Well, no, I understand I understand your question. I'm just trying to perpendicular to the traffic that's sitting there. Correct. So I'm in my
car. I get in my car, one of the people that's waiting for their child is back. Is is blocking me in. Right. Excuse
me, excuse me. We're going to have to pause. Oh, I'm sorry. Commissioner Banther left and he cannot participate in a vote if he's not in. If he hasn't hear all the testimony, I'll
ask a question when he returns. Yeah, so let's just. We can either sit here or anybody else wants to go ahead and take a break until we. If you can just
go ahead and take a break and come on back, that'd be fine. I think I'll take advantage of that. I wish you would have
said something before he got up. I just I know you're right. Up against its quasi judicial. He
knows that. Yeah. He could we could go ahead and just can't
vote. I don't know. Let's go to.
He came. He came. Okay. All the commission's back. So vice Mayor, do you want to can you start over with your question?
Okay. So you have all these vehicles that are parked there during and they would be picked up at 330, which is prime time for people to come up and pick
up whatever the warehouses are there. It's an opportune time for people to pick up their whatever it is these people are in business doing. So if I came
there and I parked and all of a sudden all these cars came and blocked me in, I would get out, well, we're going to change the direction of the egress to the
back of the building which which nobody parks back there. That's just the entrance to the warehouses. Okay. Are there any needs back there? Is there anybody that goes in and out
there? Because I see there is a couple of cars parked there occasionally in the early, early mornings. There's some of the businesses there that have have trucks that they pull out
of their garages and then back there, but that's that's early morning. I do think it's it's better to go around the back than this. That was one of the points that I was hoping you'd
make the change to. I don't know what businesses are there and sometimes the businesses put their, you know, they'll get a boat in and they'll put
it behind there. I don't know what like what businesses there, but people store things behind because they keep the front open. My whole purpose is, is not to stop you at all. My
purpose is to keep kids safe. That's what I've devoted my life to, and I'm sure you as well. I just don't want to hear that anything happens. So I'm
just looking for every which way, shape and form to not have cars out there where that says entrance. That's that's my
whole thing. Even if you have to double up the cars waiting to pick up the youngsters, is there the room to double up
those cars as they're waiting? I believe, I believe it would be tight, but I believe I know, I know, that's what I'm saying. But they just has to be a way,
you know, because kids are kids and they're they forgot their lunch box, their hat, their this, that. And you know, I just know I've watched this too
many times. It doesn't run smoothly unless, you know, over by our middle school, they're parked all over Riverside and there's just an onslaught of kids running in 15 different
directions. And we have, you know, you know, guards there that are controlling it. I just want to make sure and especially as the other commissioner said, you may be
going from 40 to 50 or more. Well, our our maximum is is going to be 50 because we're going to have have restraint of space. So we'll be looking to
plant in other locations as, as we grow with different different age groups. Well, 40 to 50 is going to be our max. What I would say to you is, I
know your head is on the same page with mine. You don't want to have anybody hurt. And that would be my only comment to you, is to really just make sure
that you have enough room, or possibly you could institute staggering pickup so that you don't have if you have that problem, that you just have
people coming, whether it be five minutes apart or ten minutes apart, somebody's coming early or somebody's coming later. So you don't have this issue with what I'm speaking about. That's I just
want to make that as a suggestion. So I appreciate that. I appreciate what you're doing. And we need to keep our kids with religion and something to believe in. So
thank you for what you do. Thank you. Commissioner, you have another question? Yes, sir. We talked about that driving behind the building as another
alternative route. It does technically miss the drop off pickup spot, but I don't think that's too much of a difference in space. My main concern is I need a commitment on the
maximum amount of kids you intend to have, and I can't, you know, I can't allow something 40 up to 50, which is okay. And then three, four years later or even sooner, it
comes to 100 kids because that area is industrial. I'm, I'm, I'm, we're all familiar with it. And if you have 100 cars lined up in and around there, it's going to create an issue around
that three 3430 year time frame, even 3:00, because those businesses, they like to they come in around the same time the kids are going to get dropped off and they're going to close up shop around the
same time, the kids are going to get picked up. So give me a maximum, sir. 40. 50, 40. That's your max? Yep. That's
what our application is for. Okay. All right. Saying 50. Saying 40. You're saying 50. That's no good. No. Well he did mention up to 50. So we'll go
with the 40. Thank you. Okay, mayor, I do have a question for the record. Sure. Though I know I asked you this off the record, but I'll ask you it now. This has been reviewed by TRC police.
Fire everything in the community. Yes. Did did they voice any concerns? Give, give, give any like or like recommendations or anything. You know it was discussed.
There was no no no concerns or you know, expressed. The applicant's been been been compliant about all things traffic and everything like that. And they've indicated, I mean, they're they're obviously
communicating with the owners of the property. They know what the owners are aware of, what's being proposed and the circulation pattern. They also have indicated that, you know,
not everything will be not everybody will be a Q pick up. I mean, parents can certainly park and walk in and pick up their kid and walk back to a parking space. So there's only one with with like, young kids
that I know for a fact. My wife does most of it that, you know, pick up and drop off. He's laughing because his wife, his wife helps us. Is is just hellish. It is no matter, no matter, no matter, no matter
where you go. It's just a bad scene. But I just want to, you know, and I think also the applicant's been been very reasonable and accepting my colleagues compromises. So I just wanted that on the record.
Thank you. Okay. So I would like to entertain a motion, but I, I to agree that that we need in this motion to limit the
size. I think it's important that we do that. And can we how do we want is how do we police it and is it can we limit the
student size? Sure you can. You can definitely limit I mean their application was for 40. So if you want a condition added to the, you know, the conditional use that, you know,
maximum occupancy of the of the school shall not exceed 40 students. You can add that as a condition, you can put an advisory condition that if. If
we start to experience interference with us 19 that the entire conditional use can be revisited. I mean, you, you have that ability to bring it back, you know, put in a
something that would trigger staff, the ability to say, this needs to be revisited. So, Commissioner Coleus, can you make that motion, motion to approve resolution 2025-51 with
no more than 40 students? And if there is an increase to come in front of the board for approval and advisory amendment,
that if there's any parking or delay within the parking lot, that it comes that it be or interference with us 19 or any interference with us 19 that it
come back or be revisited. Yeah. Or remanded back for consideration to come back and be revisited for board consideration. Second. Good.
Okay. Let's go to public comments on this item. Any
public comments? Katie Taylor 657 Haven Place, Tarpon Springs. I'm all pro education and would be great to have the school.
I've heard a lot of about the traffic and how the traffic will flow around there, but the times that we're living in, we're having school shootings, we're having bomb threats,
we're having different like crazy stuff that go on. Has that been addressed on how that would be handled? Where would those kids go? Have those other teachers prepared for an
emergency of such a nature? Do you want to comment on that? The schools will be required by state law to have certain things in place, so I'm sure they're very aware of it. They
can look under chapter state statute 1,002.42 for private schools, and everything is outlined in there. And plus other documents and their legal staff I'm sure is reviewing
those things constantly. Okay. And how would the traffic flow. How would that how would that how would lockdown go? Maybe they can tell I'm not going to be up here discussing how their personal lockdowns are going to
go. Would never do that in a public forum. We could work with them, with our our staff as well, and any suggestions that we can provide to them. We'll do that as well. I was just curious that we do that
for any organization out there, any school business or anybody. Okay, just curious because I know there's a lot of cars and traffic and questions was asked. So very valid question. But
thank you. Thank you. Any other public comments. Hi my name is Elaine Kay and I live at 5305
Peacock Drive in Holladay, three miles from right here, door to door. And I am a retired teacher of math and physical education. I am
currently a hospice chaplain serving in all of Pinellas and Hillsborough County, and sometimes poke on a part time basis as needed. And I want to
speak as an educator and from the heart of a chaplain and say that you heard me last time, you know, when we first came. So I won't give all of that
again. But I just want to talk about the value and the integrity and the ability of our leaders as educators. Three of them have Doctor of Ministry degrees themselves. I personally earned a Doctor of
Ministry degree and walk through graduation at church December 1st of last year. That was a desire of my heart for decades. I just never came up where I could do that. So they
have extreme experience and are so gifted in teaching and empowering people to be all that they can be, all that they can be of value and an asset to
their families, to the communities, you know, to Tarpon Springs. And they they've had these college courses that they've taught in person and online where you can
get an associate's degree, a master's degree, or in my case, a demon. And so now they're extending it for the children, which is really their heart for K through eight. And I appreciate all your suggestions
because everybody's working together. And that's what they're about, is working together as a team. Oh what a team they are and empowering people. And now it will include
all ages from K to wherever. Like I was 76 when I got my degree last year. I know a lady graduation before that a couple years ago, 82 I think it was
pastor Chuck. Right. And so everybody and so thank you, thank you, thank you for helping, you know, work together on this. And so I highly recommend it. And I especially love the exit.
There's an elevation there where you can see the whole of the exit to the parking lot, where you can see the entire highway from almost a mile down the road and every lane, and who's doing what and when. It's
good to pull out and you pull out in what becomes a turn lane. So it's not as congested. There's so many benefits to it. And those are things that are interest to me, because you know what the research says,
when you get older, your reflexes are a little less. And so thank you. Thank you for your support in this. Thank you.
Any further public comments? Austin? There are no hands raised at this time. Okay. Let's come back to the board
and we'll go our commissioner comments. I'll I'll start it off. I I'm I'm okay with voting yes on this as long as with the
conditions that the commissioner is incorporated into his motion. Commissioner Banther I'm definitely in support and I thank this organization for for what
they're they're doing. And I'm in Tarpon Springs, and I appreciate Commissioner Coleus for recommending the cap on students and meeting in the middle there. Thank you. Commissioner Donato. I too
support and can support the conditional use as well. Commissioner. This one was a this one was a tough one for me. But that that building was once a gym before I believe. So it
did have a lot of people moving in and out of it. I'm just concerned with what we know US 19 is, but there is a big buffer building between that, and we've got some conditions that you all are willing to let
us look back in case it does happen. And so I thank you all and thank you for being in the community 13 plus years. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I support what you're doing wholeheartedly. I
wish you the best of luck. I'm just glad that you're on the same page with us. We're just looking for children's safety as you guys are as well. And just try to keep in mind that
if you need to make some sort of change for safety purposes, that's, you know, just that's just something to keep an eye on. You might want to try in the beginning to keep somebody
at that entrance to see that nothing, you know, piles up there. And then if if things are working out well, you go about your business. But I know you're going to do a great job
and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you. No further comments. Roll call please. Yes, Commissioner de Donato. Yes, Commissioner Coolio's. Yes.
Vice mayor Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Thank you. Unanimous. Okay, let's go to item number 24. City attorney, would you please
read the resolution? Sure. Resolution number 2025, dash 52, resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, approving application number 25,
dash 32 and 25, dash 36 requesting conditional use approval and site plan approval to allow a 2385 square foot
formula based restaurant use a at 1175 South Pinellas Avenue, and the Mares Crossing Special Area Plan zoning district providing for findings,
providing for conditions, and providing for an effective date. Again, this is a quasi judicial proceeding where the Board of Commissioners acts in a quasi judicial rather than
legislative capacity at a quasi judicial hearing. It is not the board's function to make law, but rather to apply law that has already been established in a quasi judicial hearing. The board is required by law to make the findings of fact based
upon the evidence presented at the hearing, and apply those findings of fact to previously established criteria contained in the Code of Ordinances, in order to make a legal decision regarding the application
before it, the board may consider evidence in the hearing that the law considers competent, substantial, and relevant to the issues. If the competent, substantial, and relevant issues at the hearing
demonstrates that the applicant has met the criteria established in the Court of Ordinance, and the board is required by law to find in favor of the applicant. By the same token, if the competent, substantial and relevant
evidence at the hearing demonstrates that the applicant has failed to meet the criteria established in the Court of Ordinance, then the board is required by law to find against the applicant. The board is
required to disclose any ex parte communications or conflict of interest. Any witnesses who will provide their testimony, please raise
your right hand. Do you swear to affirm that the testimony that you're about to give in this proceeding is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth? I do thank you. Okay. Thank you. We have the presentation, please. Thank you. This is applications 25 Dash 32 and 25 Dash 36, a conditional
use and site plan approval, all under one resolution 2025 Dash 52. The property locations 1175 South Pinellas Avenue property contains approximately one acre
of land. The proposed use is for a Chipotle restaurant. The. The site is part of this overall special area plan that
is the Mayor's Town Center. There's really only a couple of parcels remaining in this development. One is this site, and there's one also up here, just south of the extension of
Mears Boulevard. The Special Area plan was adopted back in 2008. Time frame. And it it was to facilitate this entire
development, which now includes the Winn-Dixie, the the Dunkin Donuts. And then you've got the what used to be a Corey Apartments. It's now ten x I believe it's been bought. So it
includes you know, all this property. So this is now really kind of the last one the last outparcels that that can be developed here. And that that special area plan set out the
uses that were appropriate. And the special air plan was really trying to promote kind of a mixed use development over time. This is a close up of the site.
This is the Winn-Dixie. These are the apartments directly across. This is Tiki Drive that makes the connection up with the the Winn-Dixie end of the of the development. And then,
you know, off the tiki drive off of you all 19 and into the roundabout. This was the the zoning plan for the special area plan that was adopted back
in 2008. And it's been a minute, a couple of times of things have progressed and changed over over time. That's how the apartments were added in. Some other things were taken out.
They're one of the things that was brought into that special area plan was to try to make sure that that it was internally walkable and mixed
use, and served a mix of uses. And one of the things that we'll talk a little bit about was it included a build to line, which on this property is actually down here, this dashed
red line, as we reviewed this internally because of where the apartments ended up, you know, we felt like it was more important to have that that
frontage, if you will, that build to facing more internally into where the roundabout is. So it was kind of flip flopped when we went through the site
plan review process. So this is the overall site plan. You have. The entrances are internal to the site. There's no direct entrance, you know, coming into
this site from all 19, you have to either go in through the window where the Winn-Dixie is and come to the internal circulation, or come in off of all 19 again through the
roundabout in order to get into the site. The, the the access point on the tiki drive that goes out to us 19, all 19 is a right in, right out, and then
the other access up closer to Winn-Dixie is is a full access. So these are the the drive through pickup, you know, circulates around the back of
the building. The applicant may talk more about this, but for the Chipotle they have a very new their their their pickup system. You can't go in and
drive in and park and place an order. There's no order boards there. You have to place your order on the app, and then you go in and you pick it up. So otherwise you're going to go in
and sit down and order or go into the restaurant. So there's no there's no order boards, there's no speakers, there's no lights. There's nothing like that. That's, you know, being loud out into the, you know, into the surrounding area. So
it's very efficient. So you have very limited actual queue times. We did work with them and they have actually exceeded our landscaping requirements. One of the things that we were
focused on, we reviewed this was the pedestrian access given its location. So there are actually three different pedestrian accesses in to the
site. And we asked them to put in. We wanted to kind of activate this frontage along here. The apartments are over here. They have a second outdoor dining area with some nice landscaping. So that's,
you know, an additional feature that was not originally part of the site plan. This is their kind of their their normal outdoor seating area. So they've added that with bicycle parking and and added this
additional pedestrian access to to improve the site and kind of activate that frontage and just make it more, more appealing. So formula you heard the term
formula based use. We do have a requirement in the land development code that a formula based use is basically if it's a chain, you know, if it's a chain restaurant, a chain
grocery store, whatever it it's, it's considered a formula based use. And so we carved out an area on US 19 where those are permitted by right. Anywhere else you have to go through
this conditional use process. So that's why you're seeing this with the conditional use, along with the site plan and the formula based. It wasn't so that necessary to prohibit them.
It was so that we could take an additional look at the location itself and how it fits into the neighborhood, make modifications to the plan if necessary, to address things
like pedestrian access and a better connectivity. So, and, you know, better facades and things like that. So we reviewed it for that. We think as it's presented that it that
it meets the criteria for the formula based use section of the code. I'm not going to read through all these. Get into discussion, I'll go back to them. But these are the actual things that we reviewed in the
in the condition in the formula based use review. We can come back to that if necessary. And this is like more detailed. I'll talk about this a little
bit. So you know the main entrance, the building orientation is part of that. The main entrance faces internally to the mares crossing to promote the walkability within. You do have direct pedestrian access out to
the main entrances, the pickup lane, you know, goes to the back away from the residential apartments, which is a, you know, a better circulation pattern for for them. We again,
we tried to activate the internal street frontage with the dining, with the second dining area and the extensive landscaping along this frontage. You have good pedestrian
amenities in the area. It's close to the trail. We've included bicycle parking and, you know, marked crosswalks, landscaping and buffering, as I indicated, exceeds our
requirements. All the parking is interior to the site. Nothing is out. You know, by us. 19 the architectural features. The building is a mix of
materials metal, brick and cladding with angled angled roof. They have good transparency on the main frontage, you know, with windows and canopies over the doorways. So those are some of
the design elements that we look for in that condition. Under that formula based use, these are just the elevations of the building itself, with
some renderings to give you an idea of what what the restaurant would look like. The other conditional use review criteria. Again, these are standard review criteria. We
find it's consistent with those conditional use criteria and no adverse effects to property values, environmental historical resources, or the ability of the city to provide
services or impacts on public health, safety and welfare. The site plan does meet all of our Land Development Code requirements, as well as the concurrency management staff
recommends approval. We. There are three conditions of approval. First, two are. One is you know, that's our standard construction plans have to be submitted. The site
plan does expire within six months. And we also called attention to the public art requirement as condition number two. They haven't just decided what they'll do for that, but we wanted to note that it is a
condition of approval. They will have to address that. We we did mail notice. We've received no responses. There's been no comments of the public at any of the meetings. The
Planning and Zoning Board reviewed this on August 18th. They did recommend approval by a vote of seven zero. There was an additional recommendation that has been included in the
conditions of approval on. The resolution was made by the board that bollards or other acceptable protective measures shall be installed along the parking spaces that are adjacent to the outdoor seating
areas. That was, and I'll go back to the site plan. It was just to make sure that you don't get a car ending up in the middle of a of a seating area. So with that, I will stop
and answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Banther, do you have any questions of Miss Vincent? Yes. Yes, Renee. Thank you. Overall, I assume you don't have any concerns about
this, that this application. Correct? We do not. And and they have been compliant at all the requests from the city. They have and no big concerns from the apartment building or the Winn-Dixie Plaza. I assume
we did the mail notice to everybody. We have not received anything good, bad or or or otherwise. All right. Very good. Thank you. Commissioner De
Donato. No further questions. Okay. Commissioner coleus. Miss Vincent, thank you for going over the formula based scenario.
One of the criteria that was was it does it fit horizontally or vertically into the there was a term. My screen just went
blank horizontal mixed use or. Yes here it is. Ability to accommodate mixed uses horizontally or vertically,
internal or no. Ability to accommodate mixed uses either horizontally or vertically on the site. What does that mean?
That again that was looking at, you know. Are you facilitating mixed use. Whether it be so mixed use can either be stacked.
So retail on the ground floor apartments above or it can be side by side. It really doesn't really apply in this particular instance from the overall
standpoint of the special area plan. This is a good use mix to add to this to the to the to the to this area because it's a, you know, a retail or restaurant use that we don't
really have in this in this area, inside the special area plan. Okay. And as I look at it that if you're going south, we're looking on the back end
of the building that's facing north. Is that correct on all 19? If you're going if you're going south. So yeah, let me
let me go back to the elevations. So from this this is the you're going south. You're looking at the north
elevation. Is that what you're saying. So yeah this is the that's the north elevation. And then this is the would be like the 19 elevation. Okay. I'll try to have some
recommendations for the applicant okay. Thank you. Vice mayor, wasn't this the wetlands
before I was put in. Let me go back to the overall. So there
were. Refresh my memory there. I mean this this. It's like this entire site did have wetlands on the site when all
of this was developed or redeveloped back in 2008 through 2000, ten 1112. So yes, there were wetlands on this
site before it was developed into the town center. Well, I would think it was more like 12 2013 now because that was that
was all going on when I first moved down here. There were the the the special area plan was built in phases. So the first
phase that was constructed was the the Winn-Dixie piece. Well, was there was another thing before but that that was there. I'm talking when I carrier was
was built there there there were wetlands that were filled. I'm not sure where you're going or what you're trying to get at. Yes. Well, where I'm going is I'm just curious. I wasn't here when McCurry was built. I had
left the premises so. Well, I was and I do remember there were many people there. They were grabbing fish and trying to throw them over the other side of all 19. So my question
is, is this now okay to build on? Absolutely. Yeah. This is a buildable parcel. It's always been intended to be built on. Okay. There is number seven
that says number six that this will not adversely impact nor exceed the city's capacity to serve with public facilities. But as long as we keep putting
in more and more, we are stressing the water department, which has complained to us that they are now having to desalinate more and more water
as we go down in wells. We have to dig more wells. When do we draw the line that we say enough is enough, that we have enough built out here? When the water department tells me they
can no longer provide services, I've never heard anybody tell me that. And this is zoned for development. So, you know, they will be paying impact fees to
offset that new impact. I mean, it doesn't offset, but that we do collect water and sewer impact fees when the property does develop so well. My
question is not that. It's that they say they can't, but it says when it it doesn't adversely impact. But it all of
these are now adversely impacting because they're adding to the fact that we are now increasing pricing for
people because we have more and more building. So that's not 100% true that criteria. It's been reviewed through a
certificate of concurrency for water and sewer that has been reviewed by the city. You know, I I'm not I'll be candid. I'm
not sure where you're I mean, if you're trying to say we should not be approving any more development, that's a completely different conversation, sir. So, I mean, right now, this is not
impacting adversely impacting their their water service available, their sewer capacity available to serve the property. Well, that was where I was
going. I just don't know when that point is. So I rely on those gentlemen over there to tell me what that is. Okay. I have no further questions. Okay.
So can we hear from do the applicants want to make a statement? Then we can have questions of the applicant. Do you want your presentation, Brian I may just skip that okay.
Rely on your excellent PowerPoint. All right. Let me I'll keep it where it is and okay. Go back to presentation. There you go. Okay. Thank you. Planning Director Vincent, very much appreciate your staff and
the entire city staff for working with us through two trcs going through this very deliberative process and getting us to this point. Mayor, commissioners, thank you again.
Brian. 65 Court Street here. On behalf of the applicant, the developer, Paradise Ventures, I'm joined by Brad Carnes, who represents the developer and will be developing the project. And I'm also joined by Eli
Payne, our civil engineer, who can answer any questions you have about landscaping, traffic and flow, all that, all of those technical things. We have a full presentation that we made to the Planning and Zoning
Board. We did incorporate their recommendations for safety bollards adjacent to the outdoor dining areas, which there are two of them. I we're getting late on in the evening,
so I don't want to give you our full presentation. I kind of want to just address the questions we've heard today so far. So Commissioner Eisner, first, as you know, and as planning Director Vincent said, this is a vacant parcel. It's
completely unutilized parcel. It's the last parcel in the mirrors crossing special area plan. I wasn't here when. Whatever happened with the the mayor's plan happened. But I can tell you for this project,
there are no wetland impacts whatsoever. So whatever wetland impacts happened, you know, 15, ten, 15 years ago, those would have been mitigated by whatever process was required at that time. As we sit here now, there
are no wetlands, there are no wetland impacts. There's nothing to mitigate for the development of this site. This site is ripe for development. And as it relates to, you know, I understand exactly what
you're talking about. You're going to be setting your stormwater rates here after this, after this hearing. And I'm sure there may be some people here that want to address that. This parcel will be adding to your ad valorem
taxes. It will be adding to sales taxes, it will be economically viable, whereas right now it is not. So while I take the capacity to serve the
city's capacity to serve for utilities, as a more technical, do we have the physical volume and capacity? And the answer to that was a resounding yes. And and we did address that. And
staff shaking their head, yes, this will this will not burden or change the abilities of ability, physical ability to provide services to this site. It's also going to be bringing
in additional tax basis and revenue to the city, which is a good thing, of course, and we believe it's compatible and appropriate in terms of its location. So the entire reason
we're here before you, as you know, is because it's a form based restaurant. We don't want form based restaurants in the historic downtown or in the historic Sponge Dock District. It is appropriate for this area
where you have a Winn-Dixie to the north, you have apartments to the west or to the east. You have a shell gas station directly to the south, and then to the south of that we have Advent North Pinellas Hospital.
And I'm sure that the folks that work at that hospital and visit that hospital, and the folks that live in those apartments, are going to utilize the pedestrian oriented nature of this site and the enhanced landscaping on this
site. So in terms of what you will see from alternate 19, I did want to have Mr. Payne or Mr. Carnes address that, because that was a question that Planning and Zoning asked as well. We oriented the
building the way the staff asked us to orient it. It was one of the first comments we had at TRC. We came back for the second TRC. So we designed the building in collaboration
with the staff and with the staff asked us to do. But I really want to give you a better understanding and let them describe visually what you will see on this facade here.
This is the building and then these, this landscape buffering. And then obviously the distance between between all 19 and the property. And obviously traveling south you'll be going
in this direction. So Eli do you want to address that. And we can move that around to the architectural facades too if you want. Hey good evening everybody. Brad Carnes, Paradise Ventures. So as Brad
indicated, we do have a code compliant landscape buffer along the US 19 frontage. So there's going to be a continuous row of hedges, some nice canopy trees. And then I'd
like to toggle to the building elevation. Let me just find it here. There you go. There we go.
So this is the side of the building here with the pickup window that will be abutting 19. So we did incorporate some nice architectural features on this facade. We've got some metal
panels and some thin brick material to kind of break up that expanse of facade, which ties back into the south elevation here. So that's going to be a really nice looking
building. And in terms of the hedges, how high are those 36 to 48in? Okay. So that will be a buffer to whatever the visual is. So the folks that are
driving on all 19, they'll have those hedges, they'll have those shade trees and canopy trees and all that landscaping that will kind of hit their eye first and maybe be the predominant thing that they see.
I don't know if y'all had any other questions. I hope I addressed your questions, Commissioner Banther, do you have any questions of sir? Thank you, Commissioner De Donato, do you have any questions? The applicant.
Commissioner Gulyas. Yes, sir. Why don't you guys try? It's a nice piece of property. You guys have done a lot with the setbacks and requirements you guys have. You know, pretty
much did what? Everything you need to do to be able to just to get this one building. But this is a nice piece of property. You don't see, there could have been any horizontal mixed use to have some other
storefronts available there for more retail restaurant. I mean, it's a pretty big space, and you guys have made a lot of impervious surface around it,
you know? So I just feel like it's not being maximized to its full potential and to the applicant or the retail. The formula based restaurant's
going to be there's going to be great, but possibly another 1 or 2 within that building would have been nice to see. I just feel like that mixed use could have been taken care of more.
Why didn't you guys go horizontally more with the mixed use? I'll let Mr. Kerns answer that because he's, you know, the developer. And so they they understand the highest and best use and the best utilization of the site. I
would point out that the site is is one acre in size. And when you look at these criteria for formula based restaurants, I'm going all over the place. But I will find them, I promise.
Here we go. This is the ability to accommodate mixed uses, either horizontally or vertically on the site. And these are factors that shall be evaluated. So they're guidelines. They're not you have you don't have to check
every single box on this list to approve to approve it. You should you should check the majority of them, of course, because if you're supposed to evaluate approval criteria, even if you don't have to meet all of them, you should meet
most of them, right? And you should meet the spirit of it. So I think what Planning Director Vincent was saying in my words, in her words, was that while this isn't a vertically mixed use, it's not a Chipotle on the bottom and
apartments up the top. It is horizontally mixed use in that you have apartments directly next to it. You have a Winn-Dixie restaurant and you don't have any other fast service restaurants that
service that area, and that this will be a good mix of uses when you consider the uses that were already there. So I think that's what the staff's opinion is. Brad, you want to address the physical limitations of the
site. Sure. So in addition to what Bryan said, the site, you know, it's an acre now, undeveloped. But I'd like to toggle to. I don't know if we have the survey as part of this
or do we have the full set of plans? Yeah, I wanted to point out like along this, you can actually see the contours right there. There's number five, the survey or civil plans, the survey first. So I can show
that there's a significant grade change along the front of the property. Yeah. Yeah I'm definitely aware of that. Yeah. That's why we have the building place where it's at now. So and there's also a significant easement along all 19 that you
can't develop in. Okay. So wanted to point out the grade change. And then there's also an existing drainage easement that borders the west and the north side of the property. So that one acre of developable area was shrunk down to, say,
0.7 acres with, you know, the grade change in the existing easements we had to design around, and then just to adhere to all the other code requirements, the the eight required stacking spaces, parking buffers, setbacks. And
we were left with not not so big of an envelope. Yeah. No, I know limitations are tough. It'd be nice to see two horizontal retails, but let's go to the north facing side of
the building if we could. Just because sure, people coming in and out of town, they're going to see the south, the north and the east facing portions of the
building. I just don't like the way the north end looks. I understand you have to have the back of a restaurant. I you know, but there's got to be ways to tighten that up because
anybody going south on onto 19 is going to see the back of the building more preferably. Can you put a nice Chipotle chain sign up there, or maybe put some of that brown area in the back a little bit more just to
look at more stuff a little bit? We can we can work with the architect to see what enhancements could be made to that side. But just keep in mind, you know, we oriented the entrance towards the roundabout because of the access to the
site is all internal to the Mills Crossing development, the Tiki drive, the border south and the east. So, you know, that's the orientation of that site. And that site is really not going to be that visible.
So we've got significant landscaping there as well. That's got the trees right here. Correct. Yeah. That's right. So there's a significant screening commissioner that I don't, I
don't see, you know, if you have all of these hedges and then all these trees and then these cluster of trees here, I think it would be pretty difficult for someone to get fixated on that. But I
understand what you're saying. Would you like us to add, like a Chipotle sign? I mean, obviously we also have the limitations of the sign code, so I'm not sure that the staff would approve another sign, but if they would, maybe that's
what we would do. Okay, I'm happy you guys pointed out the the landscaping and the trees that helped my situation. If you guys within our code, if you could put a Chipotle light up sign on that north and help
spruce up the back end because a lot of people do will see it, it'd be really appreciated. Thank you. Okay. Vice mayor. Yeah, I have no further questions. I just didn't want
you to think I was attacking you for the water. It was just it was a question I had to ask because we get a lot of these that keep coming up. And I just wanted to make sure when, when
we were going to pull the trigger, I do want to something. When I was standing back there, I remembered when the mayor's town center was approved, there was a development envelope, if
you will, for all of it. And there was a certificate in the at that point in time, essentially, that capacity is reserved now, is it in reality? But it was factored in when the
original Special area plan was approved, that all that would develop and the water and sewer service would be available. So it just takes time for these things to happen. And I
remember that as well. Renee, let me ask you one, one question. If if we have a motion that incorporates staff
recommendations, does that incorporate the the planning and zoning's recommendation? We've already put it in. It's already in there. Okay. So I'd
like to entertain a motion to approve a resolution. 2025 Dash 52 with staff recommendations. So moved second okay. Let's go
to public comments. Are there any public comments on this item? Okay. Austin. Yes, sir.
There is one hand raised. I will let them speak now. Sir,
please state your name and address for the record. Thank you. Peter Lucas, 514 Ashland Avenue. As far as the original plans for this, and Renee can
vouch what I'm going to say because I was on the board when we approved this, that entranceway that it would be fronting that comes in, you know, off in a car. It was
meant to be a retail section where there could be retail stores, but because the property has done some evolutions over the period of time, because originally it was
supposed to be a medical office building and some sort of a. Help place for seniors, but that disappeared. So long story short, as far as this
particular project, this is a perfect project. If you look at their site plan, they're going to have bicycle parking, and if nothing else, being in that location, you're going to have
people coming in off the trail. The other thing I think would be nice is being that is a recognized restaurant of quality and name. You're going
to be drawing people here, and hopefully that will invigorate the Manatee Plaza to get on off their butts and put something in there for us there. But lastly, as far as this
particular project, it seems like they've done a lot to mollify some of the questions staff had. And as far as the view thing, the only thing I
would suggest on what I see is your east elevation and your. Let me go back to that page here. The east and north sides,
instead of just being a blank gray wall, how about putting a mural in some artistic murals? So there is some nice visuals off the side of that blank side,
but otherwise I think this is a welcome addition to Tarpon Springs. I think it will help that area revitalize itself, and it's a step forward. So I appreciate the people who are
bringing this forward because we would like to see this area grow more, and this is a good step forward. Thank you for your time. Austin. Are there
any other remote comments? No, sir. That was the only comment. Okay, let's come back to the board for final commission comments. I'll I'll start off.
I think this this is a perfect project for that space. It's compatible. It's an appropriate business. It fits the special
area plan. I like the fact that it's it's it's a business that attracts young people. And it's healthy, which is which is
great. It's also very convenient for the shoppers and the Winn-Dixie shopping plaza. It's obviously very convenient
for the residents of the apartments, the hospital workers, and and it's also convenient for the those coming
off the trail. So I'm in support of this, Commissioner Banther. Yes. Thank you. I want to thank the developer. We have struggled to get healthy, high end fast food chains here. And
I think it's going to be a this is going to be a great project. I agree with the comments that have that have been said that this hopefully will lift the tides there as far as the old,
the old, the old Winn-Dixie Plaza, and maybe get some more like minded businesses in here. And I wish I had them around when it when I was competing, because that's a lot of protein. You can get there at Chipotle.
So thank you. Appreciate it. Commissioner Donato I can concur. With that said, I can tell you personally, I've had a lot of people discuss this project with me and they all seem to be pretty excited. I do
think it will help that area even more to to develop. So welcome Commissioner Coleus. Yes, I was hoping to see a little bit more horizontal mixed use on that direct property, but I understand the
unique characteristics of it. The applicant has gone above and beyond for the setbacks and other criteria mentioned. We did not amend the motion. Please consider some nice sign, you know, signage on that north
end or some artwork as the ones. As the resident stated, it's part of the public art process too, either way. But welcome to the neighborhood. Thank you.
And Vice Mayor, what is this Chipotle do? Is it hamburgers and hot dogs? Is that what it. Just kidding. I'm I'm full. I'm just kidding with you. I'm happy to have you guys come in.
I think it is a fantastic addition. And I'm still in shock that we got some agreements from the six commissioner, so I'm good with that. All right. So if there's
no further comments, roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Gulyas. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes. Mayor.
Cooley. Yes. Thank you very much. Okay, let's now go back up to ordinance. Yeah. Item number 20. City attorney, will
you read the ordinance, please? Sure. Ordinance number 2025, Dash 11, an ordinance of the city of Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending section 2-13 of the Code of Ordinances of the City
of Tarpon Springs in its entirety, to provide for qualification dates for candidates to the City Commission, and providing for an effective date of this ordinance. Legal advertising
was published in the Tampa Bay Times on August 27th of 2025. Okay, are there any any
commission? Questions on this item? Okay. Let me entertain a motion. Then we'll go to public comment. So moved okay. Any
public comments on this Austin. No sir. There are no hands up okay. Let's come back to the board. If there's no further comment, roll call please.
Commissioner Banther. Yes, Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Coolio's. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Okay. Let's. Item 21, city
attorney, ordinance number 2020 5-16, an ordinance of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending portions of the charter. Chapter 20 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Tarpon Springs. Increasing the
water, sewage, and reclaimed water rates for fiscal year 2026. October 1st through September 30th, 2026 and fiscal
year 2027. October 1st through September 30th, 2027 and fiscal year October 1st, 2027 through September 30th, 2028 and fiscal
year 2029. October 1st, 2020 through September 30th, 2029 and providing for an effective date of this ordinance. The second reading of this will be
held on September 30th of 2025, and it will be published in the Tampa Bay Times on September 17th, 2025. Mr. Kiger, would
you like to come up and discuss the item? Not really, but I'll do it. Thank you. Mayor, members of the board, today we
have before you the ordinance adopting the water and sewer rates rate plan, which we had discussed in detail at the last budget workshop. We did provide some backup documentation, but
also in the lieu of. In the interest of brevity, we did have a if you'd like, we can provide a quick presentation. It's an abbreviated version of what we gave to the board or the board's discretion. We
could proceed directly to question and answer. Okay, Commissioner, do you have any questions? No, sir. Commissioner DiDonato. No, sir. Commissioner Gulyas yes? As we
talk about these rate increases are, in fact, initially tied into this loan that we're taking on to help start some of these capital improvement projects. Correct. Mr. Kiger,
it's an integrated rate plan that includes the debt and the rates and the benefit of of using the debt is it allows us to maintain lower levels of rate increase than would have
been possible otherwise. Okay. But there was a $10 million increase in the the water department for the upcoming fiscal year. Are you speaking
to the next year's annual budget? Yes. Yet we did have a significant increase in capital projects, and that's largely related to getting caught up on some of the legacy projects
that we had had to defer over the last several years, the most important of which being the Wastewater Treatment Plant Electrical Resiliency Project, which is about a $5.7 million
project. In past good years of four, five, $6 million would have been a pretty considerable amount of total capital for a
CIP budget for the utility. But unfortunately, every once in a while you have to do these sort of legacy life cycle projects. And so that one's quite large. And we're also getting caught up on some other pressing needs.
Okay. So this loan that we're taking on, you're we're using $3 million to start doing this water replacement for water, clean water replacement to get clean water over the next ten
years. Over the next two years, 1.5 million each. Right. I'm sorry. Could you please just replacing the old water pipes from the Ro plant? We're starting that now. We're
putting 1.5 million in this year and next year from the loan that the loan is going to two projects, one of which is the funding balance for the
Electrical Resiliency Project, and the other is for the meter replacement project, which will be self funding. There's no the current rate plan. As it stands. We have an option for in the future we can add additional
debt if we if the board would like for water main renewal, but the current plan is to stick to the original schedule, which is to start the main water main renewal projects in 2028. All right. So what that
loan for those two projects you talk about, what is that freed up for money within the water department. The what that enables us to do is to one fully fund the electrical
resiliency project, which we also have a $2.2 million resilient Florida loan. So it's important that we fully fund that project. So we don't I'm sorry, $2.2 million grant from
the Fdep. So that's part of the loan though the that project will be a split of cash funding grant money and $1.6 million of the loan proceeds of the loan
revenues. Okay. So what else have we been able to free up that you're using this money from the loan to do what we've stated? What have you freed up to do capital improvement
projects within the water department? I would say that that's this is a little bit different than what you might have been presented on the on the sewer type or, I'm sorry, on the stormwater type projects,
and that we didn't really view this as a, hey, we're freeing this up and we have this sort of like PayGo plan. What we've done is we've created a new CIP. We're estimated all of our projects. We said, what are our
immediate pressing needs? And they created a financial plan to implement those. All right, I get it. But because of this
loan, you've been able to start all this new stuff again, as well as catch up on old capital improvement projects. And I know this is going to go through anyways. But the point is, the residents need to understand how they're all
being charged for this money over the course of the next ten years. Okay, and so the $2.5 million that's used for this meter replacement, we will, in
fact, be able to make back profit about 100 grand or so a year. Once they're all replaced. We're projecting that this will allow us that the way the the financial plan worked is we're
anticipating that this will recover 2% of revenues each year for the next two years, which is basically 2% of revenues that we don't have to get through rate increases. So the goal is to self-fund, have
that use debt, make a smart investment in the cash register, make sure that the utility is getting paid for all of the services that's being provided. Because we do have a lot of legacy water meters from like even back to the 1980s that
have slowed down over time. And so some people are getting a pretty significant discount on the volume of water that they're consuming. And that's to the detriment of other folks that are paying the full bill
because they have a new water meter. So we're going to make sure that we're capturing all of the revenues for the services that are being provided, and that will enable us to have that enable us to have a lower level of rate
increase and generate a revenue stream for future projects down the road. Okay. And so. Seem to keep missing the ball. You're getting this money from the
loan, the money that you wouldn't use for the loan. What are you doing with it inside the water department? The the money that we're I'm sorry. You're getting 2.5 million for
the sewer replacements. We're obviously using, what, $3 million to start the the clean water renewal process? We got
the wastewater electric plant. What else have we listed on there? That's in the water department. You have the PFAS. What are you using the PFAS money and how much is that? The PFAS money is an award that
will be it's about $4.2 million over time. So the initial first couple of checks that are expected to come over the next, you know, six, nine months are about $2.8 million. And that's
budgeted for about $2.5 million in on site treatment for our existing legacy freshwater wells to restore those to active service. That's about 15% of our water supply that's offline due to regulatory
concerns right now. So let us address that. And then the balance will be going to be combined with impact fees to install one additional new brackish water well at the our well field. Okay. And number
two on your item, it says that there's some professional engineering staff that the utility will acquire approximately 110 million in infrastructure investment over the next ten years. Where do we
plan to get that? From a combination of rate revenues and smart use of debt. So the current plan is to do the
adopted rate increases for the next four years. That will let us build up a revenue stream that will allow us to support a long term, probably more 20 or 30 year bond issue in like the
2029, 2030, 2031 time frame. And that's intended to address the legacy life cycle costs for the what will then be a 50 year old wastewater treatment facility, which will need life
cycle rehabs. Okay. And the goal of this plan is to now provide a profit within your department annually for future investment capital. I mean, it
says it somewhere in here where, you know, it's basically to create a revenue stream. Yeah, we don't make a profit. We're, you know, we're a city enterprise. So I will say the goal is to return the utility
to financial health. So right now we're very much in a years ago we were very much bottoming out. The reserves were running down. We had very little money. We were barely we were projected to miss our fund
balance targets and to also wind up with a negative fund balance by this year through board action two years ago. We've managed to avoid that, and we've stabilized the fund, but we're really very close to the fund balance targets, and
we have very little buffer in reserves to absorb any surprise costs. If Dot came in, required us to move some new water lines, or if there was new regulation or a surprise repair, like for
like a sinkhole from like an old water main or a sewer line. So the goal is to begin rebuilding the, the, the reserves and to use that money over time to address our aging
infrastructure needs and start getting caught up on our capital needs. How come we're not going with the break even number that what was that you presented to us a break even
number of like 4.3 4.5% the the we call that the the magic line. That's that's 4.3. So what that basically does is it it doesn't. That's the inflationary level
of operational cost increases. And so we know that what's been happening in the past is that over time, operational cost increases have been higher than
our inflationary adjustments that have been adopted for the rates. And what happens is you have to pay all the required things. You have to pay for your debt service that you've already absorbed. You have to
pay for your electric bills, you have to pay the operational costs. We don't have a choice but to keep making water and keep providing sewer service, we have to pay our staff. And so once all the operational costs increases are taken off,
if your operational costs increases outpace your adopted rate increases, it begins to cut in the budget available for capital. And the outcome has been that we've had to cut funding for capital and defer
projects out into the future. And so now we're coming back to address that. And so we do require rate increases that are above the operational inflation level in order to build up the revenues to support the capital
program. The capital program that was initially started from this loan. So with that said, we said this average of sewer was going to be about six. That
7.75% is going to be about $6.50 per household. The year one, the the overall average monthly bill will go up right in that neighborhood, right
around $7. So that times 10,000 homes times 12 months is $780,000. Year two is $13 a
month. 13 times 10,000 homes. Times 12 months is 1.56 million. Year three. And if correct me
if I'm wrong, 1950 times 10,000 homes. And this is just water times 12 months is $2.34
million year for. Here's the staggering $126 a month. Our water is going to go up. And that's cool for a lot of us. I mean, you know, we're very
fortunate in our careers, but there's a lot of people where this is not good. $26 times 10,000 times 12 months equals
3.12 million. So from year four on, just from our water rates, the city is going to be collecting over $3 million. Plus you usually have about 4 to 5 million to, you know, use
towards capital improvements at the end of the year after your each year, after your operating and employee salaries. So you're basically making enough
increases from now because of this loan throughout where I haven't even done the math directly, but 3 million for six
years, that's $18 million plus the 2.3 plus the 1.5. I mean, you're sitting about over $20 million. So my question is, are
we doing 20 million worth of improvements this year? Are we are the residents basically financing the sewer pipe replacements and the water pipe
replacements and other future projects in advance, because these are big increases and it's clear that we're not raising taxes, but we are
raising water rates at an exponential amount. And so where is this plan that and there's no guarantee this is good for four years. You could
come back to us with the next year or the year after. Correct. That's not the plan. Currently you this is a public I. Can you
not come back to us and say we need a rate increase? It's not the plan, but can it happen? Yes. Hypothetically, we can return to the to the board for
future rate adjustments. Okay. So what I don't understand and we can list and we have this, you know, document about the well fields and the capacities.
And you know, it wasn't even a year ago where we were at 60% water capacity. Now we're at this super big amount. And then I see all these projects, you
know, over the course of 30 years and in the 2030s or ten years are the are is this what the residents are funding, these lift stations, these
sewer systems, these wastewater treatment plant additions that, you know, the loan help pay for the water distribution pipes, which I don't believe the residents should be. Their
water rates should be increased. That is a minimum of service we need to provide the residents. That's a guarantee we should if we're going to go on this path now of doing capital
improvement in the water department, but yet make the residents pay for it as we go along. They're financing the whole thing, and we're not budgeting. Right. So, you know,
I'm passionate about this because I try to look out to the people who can barely afford paying an extra $26 a month, three, four years from now. There's a lot of individuals. So these rate
increases just in the water rates make back $20 million in this ten year loan. What is that for? Is it 20 million directly in towards the water. Is it are we using some of the
freed up money from the golf course that will start making us money in year 4 or 5 and moving it over? I need some clarity right here. And when you know, when I ask these
questions about the underlying what we're going to pay for for this loan that it freed up, there's just confusion there. And there shouldn't be that there should be itemized lists. The well, the water
distribution pipes, everything. It's all bunched up together. And why we're going to make these increases, knowing the residents are going to pretty
much the residents are about to pay $2,500. It went up from 1000 because that was just the one year spread over ten years. But you do the rest of it. They're paying 2500 to 3000 for
this loan. And and the start capital improvement project. So we can't go down this path further and further. This loan is this this loan, but this philosophy that we're just
going to raise the rates for the individuals, for the households of the people, because we want to do capital improvement projects we can't budget for is wrong, and I don't appreciate it from the
city manager and I don't appreciate it. Staff's job is try to get as much money as they can to operate their budgets. That's their goal. They have to, you know, so it's it's nothing towards Mr. Kiger
or anything or staff that work hard. It's just these rate increases are too much. We're in hard times. That's why I asked what the break even point. There's no telling. He's not
going to come back to us within year 1 or 4 for another rate increase. So that's why I request the break even point and let's see how it goes. But
we start doing 7.75. And in 2 or 3 years he comes back again. I mean, it's just it's not a good look for the community. And no one can seem to answer that. And so I've made my
points. We're going to drastically make the residents pay for all these water improvements, which shouldn't happen. There's about $5 million left over each year to
be able to do something, and I just didn't like how we all handled this. And I don't think the residents really knew about this rate increases. And you know what that really amounted to per household and what that
really equated to total. And the community having to pay for these capital improvement projects we don't raise when we do capital improvement projects each year, we don't raise the millage rate. Why? Because we
do the projects within. Well, I just think we could have planned a little bit more. And no, we're not raising the millage rate, but we are in fact raising those water rates and they're not going down. And
the stormwater is a different issue because that's something that should have been addressed a long time ago. But we'll get to it. So I don't support this 7.75% over four years. I like
to get the board for this 4.3% break even point. That ain't going to it ain't doomsday for us. That's the break even point. They'll come back in a year or
two if he needs to, which he's going to come back anyways. And I rest my case. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you mayor. I can appreciate what you just said.
The issue that you don't not considering is there is something called inflation and you're only speaking about the side of how much more it's
going to cost each home, which we all feel for. But we cannot stop inflation from increasing
the amount that he has to pay for all of those gallons. Okay, so I did want to cover here since we're doing a seven,
seven, five city of Tampa, Hillsborough County, Clearwater all all planning multi year annual rate increases of 9%,
8.9 and 8% respectively. Yesterday I was at Forward Pinellas Workshop. I spoke with the Saint Pete Beach Council. He said to me he got 70 emails
because they're doing a water rate increase and nobody's happy about it. There is just no way possible if everything is going to be going up around
us, that we just have to keep the water rate and lose money. And where do you get that money from? The nobody wants to raise the millage rate. Nobody wants
to raise the water rate. But if prices keep going up and prices to give us new filters in the plant and all of the chemicals that keep coming up, he can't.
Tommy cannot sit there and just say, I'm not going to put that chemical in or now we'll we'll try to get more life out of that filter. Everything is going up. And I just don't
understand, you know, I know where you're going with this. And I've had people speak to me. They go, they just can't afford to be here. I've had that. And I don't know what to say. You
know, you have to either make ends meet where you can pay the bills, or you might have to leave here. There are a lot of people that are leaving that can't afford to be here. We
have a lot of residents that move up to Pasco County. Exactly for that reason, because things are cheaper on certain things, but you know, you're not going to get the service that we have here. So I
just don't understand why you're speaking only about the rate increase. But you're also not speaking about the rate increase they're getting. I mean, it's not like they're
just pocketing more money. Things have come up. The storm brought us to where the electrical system has to be raised by hook or by crook. Or
we could shut down our entire city sewer system for three months. Was it correct? About three months, give or take, that. That's a disaster if it's
five days. So, you know, so we can't have that. All of the things that they utilizing the, the funds for are kind of unexpected and has been left
for a long period of time without us, you know, addressing it, not this board, but other boards in the past have kicked the can down the road. And we have the choice to
do what you want to do, which is try to live within our means, which is also kicking the can down the road. I choose not to kick the can down the road and
try to do the borrowing. Now on a HELOC, a home equity loan and, you know, utilizing it to fix things so that we could don't
have to deal with that for ten years and we get the use of it. While the money is cheaper because each and every year the money is going up at least a
minimum of 2.5%. So you're not figuring in you're figuring in every year how much more we're making from the residents towards the water bill. But you're not figuring in how much
inflation is going to be. You're not figuring in how much it's costing them to give us our water. You know. So there is there is that issue. If you
bring that in, you know, he he cannot manufacture money. All of these projects are expensive. Everything that we've been doing and you know this, you know that every prop, every
project that we do has quadrupled and it's quadrupled for them too. So I'm, you know, I'm I'd like to tell you a part, Tommy, but I can't, you know,
you're doing the right thing. I mean, you know, I know it's not easy for you to be up here and to sit there and try to justify why things are going to be, you know, more money, but it's this
is not just here. This is across the board. This is across the whole United States. Every city in the United States has the same exact problem. Everything is costing more. So,
you know, I don't know what to say. You know, I off the beaten path for a second, you know, I went to this MPO yesterday. They're trying to combine Pasco
County, Hillsborough, Pinellas County and Tampa into one MPO so we could get more money as a whole. But you know what that does? It doesn't give us any
jurisdiction for me to say, hey, where's our cut? That's a bad idea. Yeah. So, you know, it's it's there's there's pluses and minuses to everything. You know, the pluses that he could pay
the bills for giving us clean water. The negative is that the residents unfortunately have to pay the bill. You know, it's it's not easy. So I'll give you
back the floor. I know we're not we're not going back and forth. We're going to city manager wants to say something, then we're going to have a motion. Then we're going to go to public comment. Then we'll
come back and you can retort whatever you want. I just want to to note, we've kind of conflated some issues, you know, had had the the idea of financing never come up if you
had not mentioned, you know, essentially the, the borrowing against the fire station, the home equity loan, the fire station, we still would have done a rate study on water. The results of the rate study would
have said, to get these deferred capital projects done, you need to either raise the rate to what was it, $21 by $21, or if you do a loan, you only
have to raise it by $7. So we were able to lower the increase on borrowing we were going to have to do for water projects anyway. So they're they're not
connected. So even if we had not had a conversation about the fire station and the loan, we'd be asking you to borrow money for these water projects. And just a little bite of this
huge list of projects that are needed to be done so we can keep the rate increase down where it is and start getting some of these deferred. The meters will actually generate revenue, and the the electrical
panels were a necessity. We we almost saw what would happen in Halloween. They're very old equipment. Even if we hadn't had Halloween they they're well past their service life I
believe so so so this issue and same thing we'll talk about with stormwater. Have we never talked about the financing. We would say stormwater rates are either going to go up to $6 by
$6, or they're going to go up. If we borrow, we finance some of these projects will go up by 250. So we actually were to relieve the burden on the residents by financing these
projects and still get the work done. Okay. Let me let's entertain a motion. Of
ordinance 2020 5-16. So moved. Is there a second? Second okay, so let's go to public comments
on this item. My name is Suzanne Ross and I live at 402 Innes and my head is spinning at the moment. By all your discussions and the cost and
the reason I came tonight, because my beef is my water turns orange, my tap water. Every once in a while I get this blast of orange water, and
if you put some in a cup and you let it sit, I have this great amount of sediment in the bottom of the cup. And so I tried to come down here to talk to somebody and I was told, oh
no, all you can do is call. So I got on the phone and I called and the, the guy said, yes, what we, what we can do is we can come flush the line and
then we can give you something that will take all the orange out of your clothes. I can't tell you how many clothes I've ruined through the washing machine, because you never know when it's going to be orange.
So that's my beef. And I understand the city is struggling trying to figure out how they're going to do that. But Tarpon is an old city. You all need to figure out a way,
somehow, some way to pay for fixing the water lines. Sometimes I wonder how safe is the water that I'm drinking when it's got all this orange
goblin goo in it? Thanks. Thank you. Gentlemen, Lori Weaver, 451 East Tarpon Avenue as
Commissioner. Commissioner coleus, I know it's paramount. You're a man for the people. And we we do appreciate that. I
can tell you that. I spend a minimum of $40 a month bringing water into my home because it it's not drinkable. So for me,
when someone says, we'll make the water drinkable and it'll cost you $7 a month, well, I'm ahead of the game. There's
there's also there's also the adverse effect of when we can't drink the water out of our tap, we're buying bottled water. As
a local captain who spends a lot of time on the water, I'm really. It sickens me to see how much plastic is out there. And if it costs $7 a month to
eliminate people buying plastic bottles as often as possible, then I'm all for paying the extra. How you gentlemen work it out. I won't comment on
tonight, but I just want to offset the idea that $7 and $40. You also have people who are buying $1,500 water water
systems for their homes, right? Yeah. So that's that's it. Thank you, thank you. Any other
comments? Austin? Yes, sir. There is one comment. I'll let him speak now. Sir, please
state your name and address for the record. There's no need.
Austin, can you get them? Get him. They are unmuted, sir. They're. I'm waiting on them.
All right. He's stretching. We're going to have to move along. Okay? Come on, Peter,
let's go. We're going to move along. Okay. That ends public comments. We have a motion. Let's come back to the
commission for comments. I'll go ahead and start these. I agree with the the residents that came up and spoke about
the water, you know, spreading this cost is a prudent way of of. Opening with all this whole
loan thing is spreading costs rather than having to try to pay all these things upfront, like the, the vice mayor. And
he did a really good job last week. I've heard nothing but positives about how he explained this whole scenario in a common sense way. But, you
know, again, my whole my whole thought process was when we were having so many capital projects, again, we only have, you know, and I don't want to get into the whole the whole
rest of the city. But we have an exorbitant amount of capital projects to do, especially in the water, which it just has been thrust upon us. It's not
something we wanted. We this and we have no time machine. We can't go back and get prior boards to do the things that maybe they should have done,
like the finance director told us or reminded me of the the 2005 referendum that where I
believe he said there was 18, $18 million approved that was supposed to go towards cleaning up, a lot of which were going to go towards cleaning the pipes. And that was 20 years
ago, would have been a heck of a lot cheaper than it would cost now to do. But we can't keep kicking the can. We have to address these issues, especially after seeing those
pipes. I didn't realize how bad it was. Now I, I saw it from the as a, as a, as a consumer. You know, my office is right down the street corner of
Orange and Ring. And again, we couldn't use the water to make coffee. It was it was just awful. We again are you know, and I explained what happened
with the, the rest of the plumbing. But and then when I saw the pipes, it's like, okay, now I get it. Why that was happening. I didn't see it till the vice mayor recommended that
we see the pipes. So again, I appreciate him doing that. So again, like the city manager says, we either spread this, we either try to pile these costs
and pay for them right up in this year and raise the rates by the water rate by $21, or we spread this and we only have to
raise it by seven, and we're paying a 4% on the loan, the 4% in the inflation rate has been much higher than that. Regardless of what we see, we
know it from all the projects we have, where they're consistently higher and higher and higher. So it's not something we want. None of us want this. And the loan was not
a vanity thing. It was, I believe, a a fiscal, a a solid fiscal decision. And that's kind of where we are.
Commissioner Banther. Yes. Thank you. I just want to say a comment overall. First off, I appreciate Vice Mayor's comments tonight and last week. He and I are on the same page
more often than not these days. So thank you. And I also want to thank PK, though he and I see this item differently, I appreciate his passion and and him being the watchdog for these loans, especially with
the internal auditor, which I thought was a great idea. I just want to caution the board that we don't relitigate this every single chance we get, especially at this hour. People want to get home to their
families tonight and work tomorrow. So there's you know, it comes to the point that it just is what it is. And I appreciate all the opinions up here, but let's just be mindful of time. Thank you.
Commissioner Donato. I would just reiterate that no one really likes, especially sitting up here, likes to raise rates. But if we don't take care of this problem, it's only
gonna get worse. And we've had only two. But I know that there are a lot of other citizens that don't have the quality water that they deserve. It is not the water, it's actually
the pipes. And it's time that we move forward and do this and it's putting it off is only made it worse. It's costing us more because we put it off. So
I think it's time to to move on, Commissioner Gulyas. Yes. I just you guys know how I feel about it. I mean, some individuals compared us to other cities. Dunedin's the
highest one. They are above and beyond and they replace all their water pipes. So is that a significant sign? What's going to happen to us through financing if we go to replace all those water pipes? And then
we should be more compared to cities like Saint Pete is actually having lower rates than us. So I just want to point that out. Lago, as well as Pinellas County, Pinellas
Park and all of Pasco County. But what I also wanted to bring up this is, as it states, 7.75% annual rate increases to
generate revenues needed to address immediate capital needs and also develop a revenue stream to support future 50 year cycle rehab projects. So
all I'm saying is there's a there's a in between and it sits at that 4.5%. It's not the 7.75%. So we need to be mindful
the residents. I think it should be somewhere around 5%. And what you guys need to do if you all decide to go with the 7.75, make sure this doesn't come back and forth in less
than four years. It's set for four years, and it's got to stay as far as the city manager making that example of borrowing the money or not, we would have to charge the
residents $21. You're going to charge them anyways $21 in two years, so you're only saving them from the inevitable. Inevitable for two years. So I just don't understand why we've
made those comments. So I'm all about the break even point. And as far as the resident talking about the sewer, you know, the water system, it's going to take 30 years to replace all
the clean, all the water distribution bikes. You can have clean water. We'll be able to get, what, a half a mile or three quarters of a mile each year. The the current plan is
about 55 miles of pipe over 30 years. So averaging, you know, between a mile and a mile and a half a pipe per year. Okay. So some were some residents said they may never see that water
replacement. Why we decided to borrow money to start two years of a 30 year program or 1215 year programs is beyond me. And we've shown that the rates are
way above and beyond it's plus revenue for the resident that the residents have to pay for through these capital improvement projects. And I think it should sit at that break even point. So those are my points. Thank you, Vice
Mayor. So what? I was going to purchase a stereo. I knew that I had to jump in at one point. I knew tomorrow was always getting better. And so I don't understand why you're saying
that, you know, we shouldn't even do anything. That's that's number one, Mr. Ron. You can
listen to this as you're walking up. It was said Dunedin replaced all their water pipes. What's their debt to ratio? The water you're talking to
financing and Dunedin. What is their debt ratio. Oh they're topping the they're topping everybody out about 13% 13% to 14%. Yeah. So what's that. You
just said 13. Okay. But it's it's more because I remember seeing it. It was close to 14% probably going to go up. I know the answer to the questions I'm asking. So so when you if, if
we were to do a debt ratio 14%, would we be able to do more pipes and get our pipes quicker? I see Tom is shaking his head again. I know the answer to
this question. So you know, it comes down to how much money do you want to take from the residents and get these pipes fixed faster? I think this is a
very conservative way to do this. If you'd like to be at 100% replacement, we could. I know there are many here that can afford it, and there are many people would have to sell
their houses because they can't afford it. But we could, you know, boost that money up very quickly and get all the pipes done real quickly. I want to make a suggestion. I don't want
to. I know I'm not allowed to let people know what they should do, but what I will suggest to you is what I did do. And I have a double filter on
my house. I live at the end of Riverside Drive almost. I have a watch, so everything that is filthy dirty before me gets to me. Okay? And I can tell you I
have crystal clear water coming into my house. I have one filter that takes out the rough stuff, and I have a secondary filter that takes out the finer stuff. That's exactly the way
Tom is, not the way the plant works as well. You have rougher filters and then they just get finer as they go down. That's what you need to do. I'm not telling you to do it. You could
still go buy water and live with your rusty water, but that's at least what I do. And it's satisfactory for me. But it just depends how many pipes
you want to replace and how fast you want to do it. Because honestly, I don't know what was done before, but it wasn't done. It wasn't done quick enough to
get us where we are right now. And and then again, some of these pipes you said there was cast and was there wasn't black pipes used as well? No. The
primary concern for us is old cast iron pipes and galvanized. Galvanized is getting to be about 50 years old. It's really at end of life. And that's that's what causes the majority
of our local concerns. And so we think we've got about, you know, 12, 13 miles of that. And so that's the priority over the next few years is trying to knock that out. And then we've
got some other like, legacy 100 plus year old cast iron pipe that is a little bit more solid but does contribute to the rusty water issues. And that would be the next priority. So a lot of these pipes, they may
be four inch, five inch pipes or even six inch pipes. And they now have an opening of sometimes an inch, inch and a half much less. So I'm being
kind. I know what they look like. They just I mean, it picks up the pressure because it has a lot more resistance. So at my house I get 60 psi and
that's a lot. Okay. But what comes in I think I had the pictures last week to show you my filters within a month and two months are just bright orange, so that's all I got to
say. Thank you. All right, with no further comments, let's go to roll call, please, Mr. Banther. Yes, Commissioner DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner.
Yes. No. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Okay, let's go to item number 22, resolution 2025 dash 58. Do would you like
to read that, please? Sure. Resolution number 2025 Dash 58, a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, providing for the repeal of
resolution 2015. Dash 37, revising the equivalent stormwater unit s rate according to a multiple year schedule, providing for future
board review of such rate schedule and providing for an effective date hereof. Thank you, Mr. Herring. Yeah, I just wanted to go over the the the
little background on the stormwater rates and the work we've been doing on them. The current stormwater rates were approved by resolution 20 1537. In 2015, the resolution
approved ten years worth of rate increases with an increase of $0.50 per year. 2025 is the last year of the approved rate increases. Section 20 Dash 74
of the Code of Ordinances requires the rates be reviewed by the Board of Commissioners. Every three years. The city hired Stantec to perform this year's rate study, and I wanted to just introduce Eric Rao.
He's our the principal with Stantec. We've been working with him for 20 years. I know I'm getting grayer, so I know Eric is getting a little bit grayer, too. And this is Nish
Patel, the consultant with them. So they've been doing a lot of work on both the water and sewer and stormwater ones. Anytime we have questions, we're always calling them, you know, change these scenarios, do all this. So they put in a
lot of time on these rate studies. But just wanted to throw that in there. The proposed rate study provides the city the ability to fund an average of 3.5 million of capital projects in stormwater
fund for the first two years, and for the ten years, an average of 1.4 million of capital projects per fiscal year. It fills three new positions necessary to meet the
DEP reporting requirements. It maintains a fund balance at or above the minimum requirements, and the proposed rates are average of the cities, a little bit below the average of all
the cities within the Pinellas County in the area. Here, resolution 20 2558 is being brought before you to propose a rate increases for the three years, with the rates to be
reevaluated in 2028, as required by the Code of Ordinances that we do a study every three years, and with that, be able to answer any questions. Commissioner Panther, do you have any questions of
staff? No, sir. Commissioner Donato. No, sir. Commissioner coleus. No, not not for Ron. Okay. Commissioner. Vice mayor.
No, sir. Okay. Let's I'd like to go ahead and entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Okay, let's go to public comments.
Any public comments in the auditorium? Any. Austin? Yes, sir. There is one comment. I'll
unmute them now. Please state your name and address for the record. Okay, we're moving on.
Let's come back to the commission for Commission comments. I'll I'll go ahead and start off and again,
similar to the previous item, you know, a rate increase is not something any of us want to do, but it's a necessity. And again, these these stormwater
rates are all again, the loan reduces. The rate now spreads. It gets us to where we can do more of these stormwater
projects which are necessary. You know, I had a a very nice young lady sent me a video of in front of her house of it was
just a rain of about what, about an hour and a half. And and she lives on distant and near Live Oak. And it was her
street was flooded. A truck came right by just it. And the water was. You know that about that deep, you know, she she
can actually see a huge retention pond on the other side of live oak. But the water doesn't go over there, doesn't slope that way. It just sits in
that street there. She's an I that's an ideal spot for stormwater project. Actually, Mr. Robertson showed me the plans on how they could handle
that street. It's one of the streets on the list, and it's again just cost money. But it can be dealt with and get her the drainage and get that whole
street, the drainage it needs. But again, it's cost money. So we have to I think it's imperative that we address the stormwater issues of of our
town. We can't just continue to watch streets flood on normal days. So that's where I stand on that. Commissioner Banther no comments. Commissioner De
Donato, no comments. Commissioner. Cool. Yes, yes. This is another rate increase in which we should have talked about a policy direction to be able to make more funds available for stormwater
projects. And, you know, there's I understand there's there's people who talk about stormwater, but I'm concerned about surge water. Okay. Those
are two different factors. And the stormwater there are thousands of places in the city. I will just go with hundreds that a flash rainstorm comes through. MLK can't handle the
drainage. That's one of the most important areas. There's so many streets leading to all 19 and downtown Tarpon and nearby areas that cannot handle
flash flood, six inches of rain in 30 minutes or less, and they just can't do it. And hopefully some of these projects can do
that. But I'm just hesitant that again, we're we're putting on top of the residents without a clear plan to hopefully take care of everything. If it does,
in fact open up 1.4 million over the next ten years, I'd like to see a list of those projects. They we have them prioritized. We should be able to. And I'm telling you, MLK
from us 19 all the way to Lake Street can't handle 30 minutes of six inches of rain, but the projects listed. Are. You know,
I don't even know what to say about the importance. I really think they were just pushed together to create these stormwater issues. And mayor, for example, the video that the lady sent you about the road is
her road listed within the first 3 to 5 years of those projects? Probably not. No. So we have a lot of and what the mayor's referring to, it might be public works director may be
able to address this little puddles of areas that hold and retain water. They are legally allowed to be that way as long as they could dissipate within a certain amount of time. I
think it's 36 hours. Or is it 72 or what is that, sir? I'm not 100% sure, but I think it's 72. But there is a retention time that's associated with
that. Water can somehow dissipate in 72 hours or less. The city more likely is pushing that off to the side, and they're going to focus on other issues. So I want us to and yes,
we do need to focus on stormwater, but I'm more concerned about sewage, water, my mother's house, it can rain left and right. It's got the best drainage there is. Surge
comes through and nothing stopping that. So I'm not supporting this. Thank you. Vice Mayor. So you are correct
about surge. There is nothing you can do with that. But you're like asking to stop a hurricane. You can't do that. But I will tell you that I've
been since I was a commissioner. I've been speaking to Tom Funcheon about getting it solved around backdrafts. It's always flooded. It's up to his
curb. You can't cross the street when it rains. Well, eventually he did listen and trenched it to go around the
corner down Tarpon Ave to the to the stormwater. And I was just there the other day for First Friday and they couldn't thank me enough. They said, you know, it's no longer flooding.
So there are places and I've had the conversation with Chris. It's it's an onslaught because he's new to give him all of the areas that that need to be done.
But we did walk through I said, this is where we get the calls from, this is where this is. And staff made him a beautiful map that he put up on the wall.
And they're all places that you're right, that we will have to use gravity to downgrade, you know, to to let it flow into off areas. And there, as
we also spoke, there are places that we need to put in either a lift station or an inline pump. These are expensive. You have to run electric to it and that's the only way to solve it.
But you also make we have to make sure. As I spoke to Bob over there, you have to also make sure that all of the outputs have check valves on it
and have or duck bills on it because just duck bills, debris gets stuck in it and then it's of no value. So you have to have a check valve in it, and you have to have enough flow to
open the check valve because some of the check valves have spring loaded. So there's, there's, there's a lot of physics in this in plumbing and
getting us, you know, up to par. I'm very pleased that Chris is handling this. I think he's very knowledgeable in this. I think you're going to be very pleased with seeing an
improvement. But he also needs money to be able to do these projects. So and I'm not going to stop talking to him. That's whether whether people like it
or not I'm talking to him. So, you know, and it's just, you know, getting him up to speed. Once he's up to speed, he's he's going to run with it. So, you know, there are problems
there and there's been stuff that's been left. And again, this is just another thing kicked down the road with this board. Wants to move with it or
not I think we do. So I'm going to support this okay. No further comments. Let's have roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner DiDonato. Yes,
Commissioner. Yes. No. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes, yes. Okay. That concludes all of our business items. Now we're going to go to board and staff
comments. Chief. Update after that last meeting with the resident brought up about left turn arrows at mirrors and alternate 19 and MLK and alternate 19, we did get a
request into the state. They once again and they said it'll be about a 60 to 90 day review, and they'll get back to us on that. Okay, city city manager
no comments. City clerk no comments. Thank you. There you go, Commissioner Banther no comments. Commissioner Donato no additional comments.
Commissioner. Cool. Yes, yes. I just wanted to recognize again the passing of Matt Hodge. That was Commissioner Susan Mitchell, because, son, and we're all
thinking of her and the family and we're deeply sorry about the whole situation. So may his memory be eternal. And we developed, Matt and I a good
friendship over these last five years. And so it's just a tragic loss. Thank you. Vice Mayor. Yeah, I just wanted to
update you. I'm going again to Ford Pinellas tomorrow. They are pushing to combine all these MPOs. And I have to tell
you, I am not in favor of it. They know it. I've spoken about it. They're looking for people that are pro. I just think that we're going to be short changed.
We right now have we went from 14 members to 19 members. We will. If it does combine it'll be 25 members. And we as Pinellas County will have eight,
with two of them being county commissioners, two of them being, you know, something else. We would just pretty much lose our seat. And it's just it's it's to me, it's a disaster.
Then they're talking about making an auxiliary recommendation board to that board. I sit on a recommendation board. It's useless. So you know, all of
this stuff, it makes it easy. It makes it convenient. Hillsborough does not want to do it. Pinellas does want to do it. And Pasco, I have no idea. Tampa Bay doesn't. Anybody
who's building large facilities and has pull doesn't want this Pasco County. I mean they're so rural that they want to build, you know, developments. You
know Saint Pete and Hillsborough. They want to build vertical structures. Completely different. You know we're within we're 95% built out. What we would need our
money for is completely different than all these other places. So unless I hear I mean, at least 2 or 3 years out from this, it's only in the early
discussion right now. But, you know, of course, with Blanton wants me wants us to be positive about this. I am sorry, I am not positive about it. I
have shared that numerous times, and I just I'll keep the board aware of what's going on. You know, we worked so hard to get a apportionment and have a
saying, and now it's going to be made smaller. And I just think this is ridiculous. So, you know, and they sit there and they say they want input
from local local people and they, you know, want to reduce the amount of people. And they're talking about representation from people that have 100,000 residents or
80,000 residents. We're not even close to that. So, you know, we would have virtually no say so. I will keep the board aware of it. I did also
want to bring up I was called by Teresa Kondek about that plaque, and I was going to bring it up, but this gentleman had brought it up. I would like
to bring it up as an agenda item at a future date so that we can. The gentleman is going to pay for everything. It's just, you know, placement and us just saying yes. So and, you
know, it's he was a good officer. He, you know, and it'd be a good place for people to have a little memorial. So that's my comment. That's a
good idea. Okay. So the vice mayor and I spent the morning at Tarpon Middle with two classes. I was very impressed
with the students and their and also the vice mayor. And I think we were a pretty good team. Everybody did a good dog and pony show. I think we entertained them. And and the
vice mayor encouraged a lot of back and forth. One thing I was concerned with was there was in both classes that we spoke,
there was some anti-police sentiment. I don't know where they're getting this from. I'm sure they've had no negative interactions with the police at
in the sixth grade, but they're hearing something from somewhere. And, you know, questions like, you know, what do you do when the police
arrest somebody that didn't do anything wrong, you know, was comments like that. And that disturbed me. So I have spoke
with the chief and the city manager, and I want to reach out to the school to have our police do some kind of a event
with the school, whether it's something in the cafeteria, like, you know, some kind of a police fair or something, so they can interact with our
police and understand that the police are there to help them, not there to hurt them. We don't arrest people for no
reason at all. Everything is. And we tried to we did our best to to convey that to them, but I think it would be helpful for
the kids, you know, not to grow up with those kind of feelings. I don't think it's healthy. Mayor, can I add to that? Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Have you done? Go ahead. One more thing. One
of the things that the mayor's explaining is the fact that they see these, this stuff on social media and people saying comments, and that's what it is. You know, we are very divided
and they're not old enough mentally stability enough to know that there's lying out there. So they just see that people are getting arrested and, and, you know, deported. And
that's what the fear is that they have they don't know this. I remember when I went to a Rotary Youth thing, they were fearful that they were going to get deported even though they
were citizens, you know. So there's there's this, that, that they go through. I know there was a request and the mayor knows they were asking if we had if we were the ones that
are restricting the rainbow in the cross sections and we have no dealings with it. So I gave an explanation. It was the fDOT, you know, and it's just that laws are now just being
instituted and followed. So these are the things that, you know, these kids are very impressionable and they need somebody like yourself or an officer to sit and explain the rights and wrongs, because
there's stuff out there that's just not true. Thank you. Yeah, that is a you know, that just being able to go and paint things in the middle of the
street, the streets are for traffic. We, you know, we don't want unnecessary distractions in the middle of the street. You don't need people reading stuff that's on the street and, and then getting in a, in an
accident. So I think when we explain that to them, they I think they understood. They understood that it wasn't we're not trying to take away their right to express themselves, but it's more that, you know,
streets are for safety and they need to be safe. And that's, you know, Paramount also want just one last thing is I really want to commend the city
manager on his responsiveness. The city has been extremely responsive. You know, when a resident has a concern, you're
getting on it. You're delegating to the proper places to get things done. You know, we I had a resident that had a
the on Grand Boulevard. Their sidewalk was had been taken out as fixing pipes but it was kind of on it. They, they had it
looks like they had completed but they forgot to do that part of it. I saw actually was Chris, I want to commend you. I saw you at a coffee shop and I
relayed the information. I think it was like on Friday. Monday you guys fixed it. I mean, that's what we need to be is we're a responsive city. We're not perfect, but when
something comes up, we take care of it. And I really want to commend the city manager because I know that, you know, it starts with him. And another
thing is one more thing. When the city manager first took office, we kind of cruised around or walked a lot. We did
a lot of walking and we saw a lot of unkept parts of of the town, you know, around the library planters on the on the
trail that had weeds in them and, and a whole assortment of things. Sidewalks were a lot of things are hanging over. You couldn't walk down the sidewalk
and and we revisited that. You've been in what you've had this job about a year, almost almost a year. We revisited that with Chris. We drove
around and looked at all these spots and everywhere that I had an issue with before, it was already taken care of. So the
town looks considerably better. You're doing a great job. That's all I want to say. Thank you very much. Meeting
adjourned at 1007. See you next week.