Order the regular session of the Tarpon Springs Board of Commissioners. Tuesday, August 12th at 6:30 p.m. Roll call please. Commissioner. Here. Vice
mayor. Eisner. Here. Commissioner. Coleus here. Commissioner DiDonato. Here. Commissioner. Banther here. Tonight we're going to have our
reflection by Major Ted Morris from the Salvation Army. And then immediately followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Our
father, we thank you for the country in which we live and for the city in which we live here, where business is conducted in a public event such as this. God, we thank you for those who've
been elected to and selected for their positions here, our mayor, our members of our commission, city attorneys, city manager,
first responders, fire and rescue, those who run toward the danger rather than away from it. Father, we thank you for this place here in which we meet the citizens who meet here and are
involved in this this deliberation. May the deliberations and discussions that take place this evening be pleasing in your sight, for it's in your holy and your precious
name we pray. 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 all. Are before we
go to public comment, let me first welcome our our fire chief and now acting city manager for tonight. I had to get a double
take. When he walked in the room. I hadn't ever seen him without his uniform on, so. And then we have Assistant Chief
Mathis tonight. So I guess it's like preseason. Preseason. Wow. All right, all right, so now
let's go to public comments on on items that are not going to be on the regular agenda
tonight. So please. Tom McClure, 906 West Bayshore Drive. I just like to thank the commission and everybody that was involved with the approval of our marine unit.
I was super busy this summer, so I wasn't able to attend any of that. Just some things that I think I should bring to light. I'm a 100 ton captain. I make my
living on the water. Along with selling real estate here, I spent a lot of time all over the state of Florida on the water. Some things I've seen and some other places. That's kind of
what I want to mention tonight. I couldn't find any published data on this, but I'm almost positive that Tarpon Springs has more coastline than any other city in Pinellas County. Could
fact check me on that, but I'd be willing to bet. So I think it's super important that we do have Marine Unit. I, you know, again, commend you guys for approving that. One thing I want
to bring to light is we have six high and dry marinas on our river. That's an incredible amount of boat traffic that it puts on our river, along with a
very high volume kind of DIY trailer storage facility. Within those marinas, there's a couple of boat rental companies, and
kind of what's taking place is just a round number at, let's say, if there's 20 slips in a Marina and they have 20 rental boats, they're hip tying boats
to where 20 slips and turns into 40 or 60 and so on and so forth. So our our river is really overrun with boat traffic. And I think that having a marine unit
is really going to help with that. I don't know if there's any kind of codes or however you word them to where boat rentals might be restricted to X amount
of boats per Marina or facility that's in place, I think that could help this kind of Segways into kind of the health of our river, as everybody knows in the
city, probably everybody in this room knows the river is where Tarpon started downtown, of course, too. But a working waterfront is what Tarpon
Springs was and still is. I know there's some things going on with the stormwater infrastructure in town right now. There's a lot happening with that. So I'm really not going to speak on that much
because I know there are things already in place for that. More so talking about the north side of the river has really started
to kind of dive into a heavy marine industrial lot of businesses up there, a lot of grinding, a lot of sanding, a lot of chemicals that are going in our water that are probably being overlooked. It's easy to
overlook you just drive by and you assume that everything's business as usual. But every time a boat sanded, you have lead paint going onto the ground leaches right into our river. It's very apparent. I mean, you
can look, over the course of my life, I've seen the river go way down from what it used to be. There's no more seagrass in the river or hardly any oyster beds left. The marine life certainly
isn't there like it used to be. So I feel like with a marine unit, if we could kind of have some sort of environmental protection codes put into place for businesses and everybody
acting on the river, I think that would be really beneficial for us. One of the things that I also thought about, that I'd like the city to consider and
maybe look into, is around the state. One second, one second. We have a three minute limit. Are the commission okay with letting him proceed? I think it's very useful information for
everybody. All right. Sorry if I please go ahead. No, I think that what I was going to say is a lot of places that I go around the state of Florida, they have
marine sanctuary zones. It doesn't necessarily mean you can't go in there. It just means you can't do certain things in there. For instance, I was in the keys last week working. I was fishing with the family I
had on the boat and we got pulled over. Didn't realize what we were doing. I got on the boat. Officer was very, very polite, told me, hey, download this app while you're in the keys in Monroe County. This is,
you know, county specific that shows these marine sanctuaries. And when you click on the sanctuaries, it kind of tells you what you're allowed to do in there, what's permitted, what's not permitted, etcetera, etcetera. I thought that was
super useful. And if anybody's been on the boat out here on the weekend, it is a total free for all in our river and on our coastline. I don't know if the marine unit has any kind of
jurisdiction on our coastline. I don't really know. I think that would be beneficial, though, to be able to patrol on our coastline in these marine
sanctuary zones. Some of them are closed entirely to fishing. No jet skis, some are paddleboards and kayaks only, or trolling motors. Or you're
pulling your boat with a pole. Whatever you may do. I know down south at Honeymoon Island and those are both state parks. They have no motor combustion zones behind those islands, and it
significantly reduces boat traffic. Marine life cannot thrive with the amount of boat traffic that's currently happening out here. It just it can't happen. And I know we have
certain areas that are closed off to manatees. There's manatees all over our river. There's they're not just in the bayous. They're everywhere. I'll be the first to say I hit one last year in the river. And a
totally, you know, open plain area. It happened. So I think if the commission and the city would just consider, you know, looking into a little further, having some of these marine
sanctuary zones and having some things put into place that are going to protect our river and our waterways and our fisheries for generations to come. I mean, the thought of my son not being
able to see what I've seen in my life makes me sick to my stomach. So I just wanted to bring that to light. And thank you guys. Thank you very much.
Any further public comments? Good evening Anita. Protest 91 Bayshore. I want to thank the city, the fire department and the police department yesterday.
Out with signs drive slow. Children walking to school. Excellent, excellent to protect our children walking. Didn't see very many walking, but it's a good thing we had them. I want
to bring to your attention, which you already know. With the high tides and the rain and the flooding, as you go around the bayou, by the church, on the
bayou and land in court, the water is up in the road. It's eroding away. The dirt the right of way there. Trees are going to
fall in. We need to get with the county commissioners. That is most of it's county. We need to save those roads because in another 2 or 3 years, if we don't do anything, people are
going to have a hard time driving around there to get to their homes. Mr. Alderman, a lot of you don't may not have known him, but those of us who have
lived here, Alderman Appliance for years and years and years, Commissioner DiDonato knows and so does Commissioner Banther used to always go down county, and they were waiting for the
city to come with talking with them. It's a dangerous situation for the people who have their homes there and the people who drive to the high school, the elementary school and to our
beaches. We need to look at that. We have so many problems on the water line, but this is going to become a very serious one for people who want to drive
on those roads. Thank you, thank you. Next. Katie Taylor, 657 Haven Place, Tarpon Springs. Good evening gentlemen. I wanted
to mention that Rose Cemetery Association on August 23rd is having a community cleanup. Although it's a it's owned by the community, it's still part of the city. And I think
Commissioner Coolio's for stopping in at our last, last cleanup. So we'd like to ask if any of you gentlemen have any openings on August 23rd. You can come out and show your faces and help us out. We would greatly
appreciate it. Thank you, thank you. Anyone else? Good evening. Mayor, commissioners. City
staff. Robert Rockline, 755 North Lake Boulevard, Tarpon Springs. First, let me start out by saying happy birthday to the mayor. I wish you many more years, and I wish you many more
years in the service of the city because you've proven, you know, you put the, the, the rubber on the road, so to speak. So it's greatly appreciated. Thank you. I'm here to reiterate again, the
fact that there are likely hundreds of grants out there. I know I sent some of you an email when Forward Pinellas sent me an email about the grant process
being available, and they have a staff for assistance to various departments and stuff. I didn't expect to hear back from you. I know you got a zillion things on your plate, but the money is out
there. If it doesn't come to us, it's going to go to somebody else. So we're not picking pockets or robbing banks or anything like that. And I know it takes a lot of work and a lot of articulation and time for
somebody on the staff, but little old me, I hate to admit, 20 years ago now, I once got a $10 million grant myself. A county legislator and U.S. Congressman to apply to two
needed roadway projects. Where I lived on Long Island. It was a little bit of work. We fed them the facts. We nagged them, you know, to death about the need. We took them on a car tour and
that we did what needed to be done. So it if I can do it. I know that educated and trained people can. And in the same fact, for grants. I know I mentioned once before for the
police department the use of drones as extra eyes and ears. And once again, the gentleman brought up about patrolling the waterways, which have a vast amount of coastline here. And
one boat is just like one cop in a city. You can't be everywhere at the same time, but grants for drones and other things like that, I know for a fact are out there. So please ask, yell,
scream, write, email, whatever you need to do because let it come here. And that's less of a burden on our taxpayers when it comes from state and federal sources. I know there's been a
lot of chatter lately about, you know, financing and bonding and loans and stuff, but let's get whatever we can from the other sources before others do. Thanks
again. Thank you Robert. Anyone else? Okay. Let's go to our let's go to the consent agenda.
Item number one. Award of fluent acute water and chronic toxicity testing. Number two, increase security equipment system
services. Number three, Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Justice assistant grant agreement number four, approve amendment to Pinellas County
Community Block Development grant Subaward agreement. Number five award purchase of computer aided dispatch system. Automated
report Management system. Number six approval to increase single source purchase of golf shop resale merchandise. Number
seven. Trick or treat bash 2025. Seven B Tarpon Springs Recreation Department Back to School Bash and Eco Fest number
eight attorney fees. Eunice Salzman, number nine Motorola radio equipment and maintenance. Number ten Award holiday
lighting display and number 11, Tarpon Springs Public Library construction grant agreement amendment. Would any commissioner wish to pull any of these items? I have a question
on one. Do I need to pull it to do that? Sure. Which one is number ten? No. Sorry. Yes, ten. I want to say one thing. That last year was the best light display of my life here, and I'm
looking forward to it again. And Commissioner Coleus has brought up several times about the cross on the bayou. Is that included in this, or are we still waiting on that? You know, I believe
we're still waiting on that. I'll have to double check for you. I would think we could build something, right? I mean, we have I'm not being facetious. Like, I'm serious. Like, you know, if we're waiting on
something, I'll let Commissioner Lee lead on that. But I think we should have something we should build. If we don't, if we're not going to have it back in time or like or like whatever it is, I'm
sure we can, we can, we can, we can we can fabricate something. Thank you. Okay. Hold on. We have it. It's done, it's done. Done. See? Look at that. Thank
you, thank you. Bob. All right. If there is. Nobody wants to pull anything. If there's no further discussion, let's have roll call, please. We need a
motion. The motion? Motion. I'm sorry. A motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. Okay, now roll call. Mr. Panther. Yes, Mr. Donato? Yes,
Commissioner. Yes. Yes, vice mayor. Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Okay, let's go to business items. I failed to let you know that two items have been pulled
tonight. Number 14, code enforcement lien reduction request, case 19. And also number 18, rezoning request for
to rezone property from PD. Okay. So let's go to item number 12. Employee health insurance renewal. That will be Tabitha
Tabitha Atkins and our insurance consultant Sean Fleming. Okay. Perfect. Well thank you mayor. Commissioners, it's hard to believe it's that time of year
again to talk about insurance, health insurance renewals, but have some pretty good news tonight. So I'm going to take you through just a couple of things that we normally do. Give you a little state of the market
and then actually talk about this year and the renewal. So I always like to start with this slide really to give us a benchmark, sort of a landscape of what are we seeing in the
market every year we cite a Price Waterhouse Coopers. They do a big survey on what they expect medical trend, which are
fancy word for medical inflation to be. And for 2025 they expect that that number is going to ultimately end up at about 8%.
You see that graph going back to 2007. We were averaging about 12%. Things dropped down. And then really the last four years we've seen kind of a steady
uptick in medical prices. The one thing I always note with that is Florida typically is about 3% higher than the rest of the state. That's because of our Medicare population, our
demographics. So I always like to start with that as our reference point. What are we seeing market wise? Industry costs have continued to increase
since Covid. Obviously with Covid we had a little bit of a care shortage. You know, people weren't going to the hospital. They delayed a lot of tests. Maybe that they should have
done. So. One of the areas that that's led to is more cancer claims right now, and we've got a little bit of a double whammy in the cancer space. The first thing is we have higher
frequency. And a lot of that they believe is backlog, because people put off tests for a couple of years. But then the other side of that is we've got a lot higher medication costs.
There's a lot more chemo meds that you can actually take at home now instead of being in the hospital, which is positive. And from a effectiveness point of view, we're seeing great
results. But those medications come with a big price tag. And then for anybody that's turned on the TV lately, whether you've watched a golf tournament, the news, a football game, you've
probably seen an ad for what we call the GLP one medications. So that's your go V Ozempic Manjaro any of those that you've heard the catchy little jingle for?
And those were medications that were designed originally really to treat diabetes to help people control their A1C level. They had this added benefit or this
side effect of they led to weight loss. Now your medical plan does not cover medications just for weight loss. But obviously a lot of individuals, if they do have diabetes,
they're looking to get some of these meds and also get the added benefit. And what we're seeing is those cost on average about $1,000 a month. So
industry wide costs are really shooting up quite a bit because of medications and those two areas. This just a background slide who all the current
carriers are. We're going to focus predominantly on the top two items today the medical. So your medical coverage is with the Florida municipal Insurance
Trust, who uses UnitedHealthCare as the network and the plan administrator. And then through that, as many of you know, the Florida municipal Insurance
Trust has provided you access to an on site clinic so employees can go to that clinic and receive free health care. Then we have what we call the
ancillary lines of coverage your dental, your vision, life and disability. So I always like to give high level the left column.
If you go in the United Network, this is what the employees have as far as cost share. So a single employee has a $250
deductible. A family would be double that. They could spend up to 500. And then the out of pocket max, which is what I really think. You know, people look at more now just as costs
have gone up. That's if you get that bad diagnosis and you have a hospital stay or a surgery, that's the most you're going to spend during the year. So that's
$2,500 for a single, 5000 for a family. And then you see some of the other associated costs going down based on where you have
that care. So what we look at I talked a little bit industry wide about what we're seeing, but what we look at every year is the city's actual claims
costs. So you pay the Florida municipal Insurance Trust a premium, and then every time somebody goes hospital doctor pharmacy, they pay a claim out
of the blue. And this graph is the medical claims running through the medical plan. And you will see that this year the
city had a pretty significant spike. Last two years you averaged, you know, a little bit over $1,000. Over those two years you're up to 1302 this
year. So before anybody gets too panicked, I do have some good news about that at the end. So nobody get too worried yet. So what the health insurance
companies look at or the fight in this case is what percentage of claims are paid out. What is the percentage of claims that are paid out versus the premium
you collect. So 91% of every of the dollars that they collect in premium are ultimately paid out in claims. So as we go on, this
is the bad news before I give you the good news. So as you saw, medical claims have increased about 38.4%. Pharmacy
costs now represent 30% of that spend. So $0.30 on every dollar spent on medical care is in the pharmacy now. Not the hospital,
not the doctor. So why did I say there was good news? I know I've been stringing you along a little bit, but the good news, bad news is over this past year,
the city has had seven catastrophic claimants, so they've exceeded $100,000 in plan spend. So they had a catastrophic kind of one off
type situation. That's why you saw that 38.4% increase. However, three of those claimants are no longer on the plan, so they won't have ongoing
claims. And three of the claims are no longer ongoing. So this wasn't necessarily one of yours. But I'll give you an example of why that would occur. Like if somebody had if we had a
premature baby, it can be a very expensive claim, but it doesn't continue on. It's kind of a one time hit. And then we talked about the last bullet there. So
when we take a look at everything, we look at the clinic, we look at your claims experience. We do a projection with our actuaries. That
projection called for about an 8.3% increase. When we take a look at all that because of a couple things, because of the lease being up on the clinic
this year, because of some of the anomalies, with the fact that the bulk of your claims increase was due to either claims that are no longer on the
plan, or claims that are no longer ongoing. We did release an RFP this year. We ended up this little history. Your last
medical RFP was 2020, then 22. We did life, disability and supplemental. So in 25, we released a proposal for medical,
dental and vision. We received four medical proposals. I give you a little note there. The last time you got five, Humana was one of the five. They no longer offer group insurance. So
you got a very good response from the market. So where did those come in? Now is where I get to tell you the good part. The good news, the proposals
kind of varied. You had Aetna to 7.8% increase. Cigna basically 2.5% increase Florida Blue at a
5.1% reduction. And then your incumbent f m I t came in at a 5% reduction. So. Overall this year I'd say on average we've
seen 12 to 15% increases for groups your size. So obviously seeing a negative five. I'm pretty excited about because I don't get to get much good news
these days. So on that, let me before I skip kind of ahead. The Florida blue plan was essentially the same. There were a few very minor enhancements on
the plan. The Florida municipal Insurance Trust. The plan stays the same, however, which I'm going to talk about in a second. That does include removing the
on site clinic. So I'll talk about why with that one second. And our recommendation of noteworthy of that. If you went to Florida Blue, that also would
not include the on site clinic. So just to set the kind of stage there. So last year when we were in front of you, we did tell you that going into this year we
were going to do a bid. We were going to look at the clinic, whether it was still the most cost effective way for the city to both serve the employers and also help kind of protect the
bottom line. So in that RFP, we did ask for options both with and without the clinic. Why did we do that and why ultimately is
it looking to remove that? This is your rolling 13 month unique patients that have visited the health center. So if you look at
last couple months here, you'll see that some of these months you only had 15 individuals going into the health center. So
as Fmit looked at things, as we looked at things, the clinic was designed to ultimately save money by removing those costs out of the medical plan. That's
hard to do. Only getting 15 to 20 visits a month. So F might ultimately elected to remove that. We did get some costs
whether or not the city wanted to pursue continuing that on on their own. It would be a cost of about $360,000 a year, excluding
the lease. And looking at it, we just don't feel financially it makes sense for the city to invest that money. We think there's better ways, you know, that better options that could
be considered. We want to look at that for the future, whether that's partnering with multiple cities, looking at virtual or on site options, ways to integrate
more occupational care into that. So ultimately to kind of close up and answer any questions here, looking at the
very negligible spread between Florida blue and F, might, you know, point 1% recommendation is to renew with FMI t keeping the
schedule of benefits the same that represents, you know, a $282,000 savings to the city. If you were to change, you know,
every employee has to go out and get new authorizations for treatments that they may have had previously authorized, authorized. That includes medications. Everybody's going
to lose out what they've spent on their deductibles, year to date and all those things. So for a point 1% difference, we don't ultimately feel that it's
worth that. So ultimately that's recommendation to renew with f I t. And that includes no proposed changes to the what the employees pay out of their paycheck for the plan. And with
that, this is just a summary of all the other lines of coverage are 0% increases. So we've got one reduction and no increases
across the board. So I will stop rambling now and open it up to any questions you all have. Okay. Let's let's have commissioner questions first.
And let me start off, I think you, as I was jotting as you were speaking, I was jotting down questions and every one of the questions you ended up answering for me. So I appreciate your diligent work,
and it's great that we could for once have a small increase, a decrease in costs, and still provide excellent coverage for the employees. Commissioner
Banther yes, thank you. Thank you for this, for this presentation and your work. I was on the board a decade or so ago when this clinic was proposed, and at the time, Advent Hospital offered an
alternative. The politics at the time did not allow for it. Right. And, you know, I know we were sharing this clinic with Oldsmar at least at one time. We were correct. And it was over in
Palm Harbor right there. Okay. So, Deputy City Manager, if you could please notate for the for Charles if he can reach out to
advent, no one is there. I think an admin that was there when this was done. But I'm happy to meet with Charles on that and make any connections with the new CEO. I know the mayor can as
well, but they they proposed at the time pretty much the same exact thing, except they would have to bill insurance, but it would be free to the city employee. It's right here in
Tarpon Springs. I always argued, why do we have to have to have a clinic in a different city? Because we had to share it with Oldsmar. So I don't know if that's still on the table if we can do it. But I remember that
being proposed in this hospital was very adamant to offer that. So if we're losing the clinic, I would like to see if advent can offer something free to our employees. I have no issue with them billing the employees
insurance, but at least it would be a benefit to our to our employees, and not as far for them to take off work and get seen. So thank you. Just a note
that the president of the North Pinellas Advent Health asked if he could speak to me. So good to bring that up. So thank you, Commissioner De Donato. I was
going to bring that up myself because I've talked to the officials more than once. I have not talked to the new administrator, but they were bummed they didn't get considered properly the first
time and I'm sure they would be interested this time. I asked last year for us to look at the clinic scenario, because I didn't think it was really totally doing what we thought it
was going to do when it was brought in, and it would be nice to try to approach advent to see if they would partner with us once again, similar to what they
offered before Commissioner Coleus. I'm just thankful that we didn't have an increase with the Fmit. I think it's one of the greatest things we have for the employees here in the in the
city, something that they really cherish, you know, working here. And as Commissioner Banther said, if we can tie some type of partnership with Advent Health being right down the street, it
only makes sense. So happy to see that we're saving some money. So thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you. Mayor, is it really a
5% reduction, or is it the fact that we are removing the clinic that is lowering it? So ultimately, I understand where
you're going in that regard. Ultimately that those costs were built into fmit and fights kind of deal when they when they launched, this was we're going
to give you one premium that covers all of this. So from, you know, on the back end where flights costs were versus what
they were charging with the premium, don't we don't 100% know, I guess in that what I would say if so, if you take the
cost to do it on your own and difference that out from 280,000, there's about $100,000 spread. So overall, I think
you're in still a relatively similar spot. You know how they got to their math and what led to them, you know, getting to that. How much was the clinic
versus looking at your claims? I can't speak for them on that. So I don't want to, you know, go down that road of kind of saying, oh, it was all because of them pulling out this or
that. What I would say is, when you look at the utilization. The amount that was built in for the clinic was probably higher than it should have been. Now, if
that clinic was filled every spot, maybe we'd be having a little bit different story. So being what you just said, I
could see that we have a reduction for this year. But I mean, it's plain and simple that if we were not going, if the employees were not going to a clinic and they were being
treated at a hospital next year, we could be possibly getting higher fees because the hospital doesn't bill. What the clinic
is. Is that correct? So if I think this will maybe answer that question, if you look at this chart and I just go back to this and we look at, you know, 12, this is 13 months, but we
look at the number of appointments and we look at what those would cost as primary care appointments in the market, whether it's the hospital,
whether it's somebody's own PCP, any of those things. And you look at the relatively low number of visits. Those those
going back into the medical plan are not going to erode $282,000. Will they cut into that? Yes.
Your average PCP visit right now without complications is maybe 120 to $160 a visit. So, you know, we look at the number of
visits you had and we kind of extrapolate that you're not, in my opinion, going to get an increase because you got rid of the health center. Would it, you
know, will a little bit of your increase be because those possibly came back into the plan? Yes, but not enough to erode the savings that you're getting because there's not
enough visits out there to, to make up 282,000 by far. So I don't want you to take this the wrong way. I I'm more so not a clinic person, and I agree with
my past commissioners as far as trying to at least test the water and remove the clinic and see how it works out, but it is
a thought that the clinic is cheaper, and it could be something that causes us an issue down the road. I don't want to knock the clinic, but
sometimes when you're going to a clinic versus going to a hospital, they find things in the hospital that the clinic doesn't find as well. So these are just factors that I think through. I try to think through
all of the ifs, ands and buts when you give this presentation and I do appreciate it, it's a valuable thing to make the decision. But it's still somewhat a it's a low value roll
of the dice. But I think we should do it. So thank you. And from a just to that point, not to belabor, but you know, looking at other options going
forward, we will be very, very cognizant around cost of care if I say it that way. Right. So we know that, you know, sometimes the saying the bigger the
building, the bigger the bill, right? So we want to any alternative that we're looking at currently to the clinic, we want to make sure that, however, that structure protects the
city, to make sure that they're getting the most cost advantageous approach. I have one more question, and I'm not saying this as a singling out of a person, but could we possibly
I don't know if you do this, but the people that we're using the clinic, is it possible to see how it equates not to name names, but I mean, just to do an evaluation in this next year of
how much it would cost the hospitals? I don't think I know it's a sticky subject. I don't think we would have that actual type of data from the clinic, but we could still do some
general hypotheses based on here, you know, average costs in the market. We could still do that without looking at anybody's actual usage or data.
Thank you. Are there any public comments on this item? Austin, do you have any? There are no online comments. Okay, so let's
come back to the board. Can I have a motion to approve? Item business item 12 employee health insurance renewal. So moved. Do
I have a second okay. Are there any further comments on this roll call please? Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes.
Vice mayor Eisner. Yes, yes. Thank you very much. Okay. Business item number 13. Discussion and direction. Litigation. Attorney services,
our procurement service director, Janina Lewis. Mayor. Commissioners. Good evening. Janina Lewis, procurement services director. So this evening, this item before you is
coming from the staff. As you know, a few years ago, we went out for a couple of different attorneys throughout the city. One of them was the attorney for
litigation. At the time. What we did was we decided to separate the city attorney and the litigation piece because we had a lot of ongoing items. So we
wanted a separation of duties for someone who was more along the lines of versed in the litigation pieces, not just
concentrating on city municipal matters. This contract was for two years, with one renewal, and currently in January of 2026, it will expire. We're on the last
renewal now. So what I'm bringing to you now is preparation. The options of either going forward and going out for a new litigation
attorney, or possibly letting this contract expire and being absorbed into the city Attorney's services, which currently does have litigation within its scope. And with that,
I'll turn it over to any questions. I'm going to let the city attorney opine on this item. Commissioners, just so you know, when I first started, there was some litigation. It's
pretty much gone. We don't really litigate too much. It would have to really be something where the board wanted us to pursue something or do that. So we're not we have our
insurance company that covers most of our litigation, and I've had very little to do. It. I would if you're asking for my recommendation, I would just put
it in with the city attorney and just have them do both. That's what I'm normally used to doing anyway. And I have the litigation background, so that that would just be my recommendation. If the board
wants to pursue that, I would just let it expire in January. Okay, okay. Do we have any questions of Miss Lewis or the city attorney, Commissioner
Banther? No, sir. Commissioner DiDonato. No, sir. Commissioner coleus, I'm extremely happy to support Attorney Saltzman and doing that. Thank you, Vice
Mayor. I would leave it to expire. Okay. Are there any public comments on this item?
Austin, there are no online comments. Okay. I'd like to entertain a motion. What is? I don't think you need a motion, mayor. I think you just let it
expire. A direction to expire, if that's automatically, is that the consensus of the board to let it expire? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay.
Let's go to item number 15. Code enforcement lien reduction request. And Mr. Saltzman. This
is a as the board has before them, the memorandum that was prepared regarding this particular code lien, the amount
that's being proposed is $500, which would cover the city's costs. And this, excuse me, in this case, as the board's aware,
a lot of times what happens is that these code fines just continue on until somebody takes a look at it, meaning we have the lien in place and they don't
notice it until somebody's going to buy the property or something else happens. In this case, we have compliance. So the and that
was in June of 2023. So the applicant has the ability to come before the board and ask for a reduction. And code
enforcement has no opposition to this proposal. Okay. With the with the property owner I'd like to say anything. Yes, sir. I'm actually not the property owner.
It's owned by a trust. Mrs. Nadia, she's 74. She's the one who owns the trust. She took possession of the property June 2nd, 2023. The fine was then
against the all property owners in the next month, in July. So when she did become aware of this about a month later, she immediately submitted the paperwork she was supposed to
submit. We have, I think it got approved 2 or 3 months later after that, and then we had. Let me get this correct. This is my
first time doing something of this nature. In case you guys were unaware. Good. Fine. Yes.
Not code enforcement. It was. I have his email here. Yeah. The inspector. Keith. Keith. Madea. The inspector. He approved it in
September. Said there was nothing wrong, which was the whole time. The whole case. So. Yeah. I don't really understand
why Miss Nadia is being charged this. Like I said, when we took possession of the property, there were no liens, no fines, no judgments, no nothing. It was
clean. Then she got this, got put on her that next month. And she wasn't even the property owner when all these things took place. So. That's just point one. And then immediately she
did she took responsibility for it, submitted the paperwork three months later, got approved, and literally within the next month, your inspector was able to come by, confirm
that everything was okay, as it always had been, so that she's okay. And to add injury to insult, this is where's this
property located on? What's that street? West Bay shore, Bay Shore drive. You guys know how damaged that area got by the last hurricanes that came through and stuff? So Miss Nadia is basically sitting with a
property that has a giant, massive amount of money that's owed on it. It's a property she was hoping to make some money on, hoping to get rid of now insurance and everything else. She's having trouble with it, so
she's in a bad situation and I'm hoping that could be remedied today. Thank you. Are there any questions of either the our city attorney or the representative
of the trust Commissioner? Banther? No, sir. I'm in. I'm in support of the of the proposal. Commissioner Donato I would say the same, sir. Commissioner
coleus I support the offer and Vice Mayor, I support the offer. But I have a question regarding this whole thing. Just because whenever we get these
reductions, it. And don't get me wrong, I mean, I'm in favor of it, but we're also at the same time removing code enforcements.
You know, their, their their authorization jurisdiction. So I would just say to you that I think our, our code enforcement Board has a good understanding of, of what the outcomes are,
what they're looking for. Now, we do have a new board. So I'm really telling you about the last board. They had an understanding that we were shooting for compliance. And
that was our main goal on on all these things. And just to kind of clarify the issue that was brought up, I believe that the lien was actually recorded July
25th, 2023, a transfer probably occurred, but that's because the affidavit of noncompliance came in. And when the affidavit of non compliance comes in, that's when the clerk's office would
first take any action on a lien. So they wouldn't do that until the affidavit of non compliance has been filed. And then the question of compliance that we
had was February 27th 27th 2024. But I think other people are. Y'all's record says it was February 2024. But I have the we're good. Okay. I just wanted
you to have that information. But I agree with you that some of these we bring timing wise, we can bring it back to the code enforcement board, which is what we do. But in certain
circumstances they come back before you. The reason I bring this up, attorney, is that when I see something that says $45,000, either one of two things, either it should have
never been $45,000 in the first place, or, you know, to bring a 45,000 down to $500, you know,
and anybody would then keep not keep compliance for a number of years, because they know that we've set precedents to reduce a
45,000 or 160,000. I just see telephone numbers and they all come down to something that's beyond telephone number. Well, and Vice Mayor, what I would say to you that I tell everybody
these numbers on whatever municipality I deal with are fictitious because they're just numbers. The only number that matters is what you get, right? We just want to make sure that
the city is made whole and at least made whole. And then that there is compliance and the rest is up to this board to decide what was curious, what hard cost
we did, or what city the city suffered because of us from, seems to be a clerical error. Were you asking a question? Yeah, it was about $423 or 400.
I read it, that's okay. It all came up, added up to right around 500. Believe me, I'm not I'm not disputing your $500. That's that's not the thing. The thing is, I think maybe we
should and at some point make a workshop to maybe control the code violation amounts because I'm seeing, you know, we had a deferred one, and that one was
even more outlandish than the other one. So I'm just trying to not mention that vice mayor, because we were talking about that issue. A lot of times I've seen municipalities look at what
the property value is and never have the lien go above that, because you're never going to get that. But the truth is, let's just assume you have a $300,000 lien on a $300,000
property. No one's going to buy that unless they can, you know, have it reduced. In this case, the person who caused the violation was not the person who's paying right now. But the
other thing is, we also had a case just recently where we negotiated and agreed to a price. The person then didn't pay us, and then the people that bought it also didn't pay us and
we got nothing out of it. So what? Depends on what happens, right? Is it a foreclosure? Is it? Yeah. I mean, we get foreclosed out of liens unless there's excess funds. Okay. I'm
good. Okay. Are there any public comments on this item? Austin, there are no online comments. Okay. I'd like to come back to the board for a motion. So
moved. Second, okay. If there's no further discussion. Roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Commissioner. Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes, vice
mayor. Eisner. Yes, yes. Thank you, gentlemen, for your time. Thank you. Okay. Item number 16, discussion and direction for
Elevate Florida acquisition and demolition projects. We're going to go to. PJ and Megan first and
then we'll come back I guess. Do you want to start with them okay. Thank you. Hi, PJ, Harbor Grant project specialist Megan Ryan emergency management coordinator and floodplain
administrator. Chief, do you want me to go ahead and explain? Okay. Staff was recently notified by the Florida Department of Emergency
Management that we had a request from residents, a resident who was basically approved by FDA to
have an acquisition project. Up on the screen. Okay. And they needed our acceptance. They need the city's approval to whether or not we want to do this. What
it comes down to is it's part of the Elevate Florida program, which I had brought before the board a few months ago, and it was in response to Hurricanes Debbie, Helene and Milton, and
they had 12,000 applicants across the state. 3000 of those were from Pinellas County, and 88 of those were from Tarpon Springs. Only nine of those
applicants were accepted. Of those 88, and one of those is an acquisition project. And now it comes down to we have to decide
as a city, do we want to take over this property? FDM would buy it from the resident and give it to the city with no cost to the city. But the city does
need to maintain the property as an open space in perpetuity. You cannot do anything with that property at all. It has to just remain as an open space. And right now, what we're looking for staff is looking for
guidance on how to respond back to FDM about these properties. We do anticipate that this is probably one of four that are coming down the road, whether it be from this year, from last
year with the Helene and Milton, or if, God forbid, we get a hurricane this year and they have to activate Elevate Florida again, there's going to be more coming down the road. So we're just looking for guidance at
this point as far as how to respond back to FDM. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Acting City Manager do you want to. So we've
we've looked at this. The city manager and staff has looked at this issue and what we want to do. The city manager has indicated he's not interested in acquiring this piece of property
or others that come about, because we'll have pockets of lots throughout the city, possibly that we'll have to maintain from this point forward. We'd rather think that
the properties be sold to individuals that can either remodel the home that's on there, demolish the home, and rebuild up, and that way we can keep the tax base moving along.
But at this time, the staff would recommend not acquiring the property. Okay. So let's let's have questions. Let me start off. So just so it's clear
we had this conversation this this morning. If we participate in this program then we get this property. It can never be built
on. Correct? Correct. It can never be. It has to be maintained as an open space, just grass in perpetuity, right? In perpetuity. And so this and
this, this is located on MLK, kind of right on the fringe of the fruit bowl area. I don't know exactly where it is. I have the address. Okay. So yeah. So
it's located right on the fringe of the fruit bowl area. So do you anticipate if we did this, that there's more that would be done in the fruit bowl area as well? That's a possibility. We
don't have all the addresses yet of what has been approved the other nine. So but we anticipate those could be acquisition properties that they're going to want us to take. So in theory,
if all were nine were wanted to be turned over to the city, we'd have nine lots we'd have to maintain from now on without any homes on them. So we'd have empty lots, empty lots between the neighbor in that
neighborhood. Okay. Which could never be forever, never to be built on. And we would maintain them into perpetuity, correct? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Banther. No
questions. Thank you, Commissioner DiDonato. That seems like a no brainer to me. I don't have any questions. Yeah. Commissioner Coolio's. Oh, when we say open space, you mean just
complete grass. We can't put a playground. We can't put. They can. They said a park, but they want it. No, nothing on it. It's just like an open space park.
No. Just grass. I think we need first to. We need to get more information. We need to look at some of these properties and go from there. Let me ask you this,
ma'am. These individuals, they're going to receive the money. Then we get Ahold of the property. Are they receiving a bigger amount from that? I actually looked this up right
before I came to the meeting. The property owner will receive up to 75% of the fair market value pre disaster. So whatever that was valued at before any of the hurricanes hit, that's what
they would receive. FDM would pay them, FDM will demolish it and then the city takes it over okay. And so if we decide to you
know this isn't a program we want to get into, then these properties or these property owners basically just go to the free market and sell the property as is. Could be a lot
less than that. 75,000, you know, 75%. Guys I always talked about when we're we need to look more into this. This is a perfect opportunity as we're 95%
built out to be able doesn't mean we have to get every property, but it'd be nice to see what these properties are. Little pockets of open space in between some neighborhoods actually could be a decent idea.
Especially it's going to help out displace some, you know, someone who's been displaced at a pretty decent, fair market value. I'd at least like to be able to see some of those properties as far as maintaining the properties. Well, let's just
add it to the list and, you know, go from there. But some little pocket spaces in town may not be a bad idea for this community. We just need to see what they are. And it's also going to help out residents of
generational who have been here, who are just going to get priced out by some sharks on their properties that they can't redevelop. So really, we need to try to look out for the best interest of the residents too,
as well as creating more green space, open space, which might be an opportunity, but we just need to look into this a little bit more per property. If we have to make that decision per property or, you know, we're all
into the program, I think that's the right decision for the residents who have been affected and for the overall well-being of the comp plan that talks about little park spaces and all that to which we seem to ignore.
So I'm open to still looking into all this and see what properties are here right now, and helps out everyone. Thank you vice Mayor, is there a time
frame on when this decision from this board has to be made, or from the resident, the homeowner? They did not give me a deadline, but I can follow up tomorrow and ask them when the
absolute hard deadline would be. I say this because as much as I hear what Commissioner Koolhaas says, it's important. Yes, but
at the same time, we're losing our tax base and we may have just pockets that just make the neighborhood. It would devalue the rest of the neighborhood.
Nobody wants to have an empty space next to their area. So if it was multiple spaces next to where, where it would look like we've gotten back some green
space, I would consider it more than what we have on Tarpon Avenue, where there's just one here or one there. So I'm not I'm not saying I'm in favor of
it, and I'm not saying I'm not in favor of it. More facts have to come out. I don't know what the resale value is versus the
75%. Because that's also a big factor. If it's close, it probably is beneficial for the resident to sell it because otherwise it definitely hurts
the city where we have to maintain it forever and it becomes usually a place to dump mattresses and everything else
to people don't want. I've seen this too many times. It's not. Not something I want to have, just empty spaces in the city. Unless there is something that we can get out of it. The fact
that we can't build on it or do a park or something, I just, I don't agree with that. Is that negotiable? No. Okay. I didn't
think it was. I just figured I'd ask. So we if we open this up for this particular property, it opens the door for multiple
properties. And then we have blank spaces everywhere. And unless there's some semblance of order that is utilized by the city, I don't see, just ask
another question. We allow to plant a tree on it. They didn't specify that. I can clarify that we can't even get shade from it. It's like there's just I don't
see the pluses for this, except it might be a little bit of a financial plus for the resident, but how much? I don't know,
because if they do sell it at even a somewhat of a loss, they can make it back in tax reductions for themselves. And
then somebody would be able to buy the land and build something on it that is flood resistant. And we would still have a neighborhood, and it wouldn't devalue everyone else, because I
think if we start doing this, we're going to have people coming in and going, what did you do? So I'm, I'm right now I'm, I'm not going to vote for this, but I would if you can get
any more information on it, I would love to have that. Absolutely. It should also be noted that even if we agree to do this, I'm still has to go above them to FEMA, and FEMA has
to have the ultimate say so in this. So even if we all are in agreement, FEMA may come back and say, we're not doing this. So let me give you some info. When I went through Hurricane
Irene and Sandy and they had what they called New York Rising, and people were originally given $100,000 to raise a property. Then it was
200,000. But houses are not designed unless, let me rephrase that. Houses should be designed to have staircases not to be raised up, and then decide where
you're going to put a staircase. It makes the house. It devalues the house. So they were raising houses and actually destroying the whole look of the house by having to have staircases that
look like who did it and ran. So, you know, you have to be very careful with, you know, FEMA's out for FEMA and they're not out to help Tarpon Springs,
but we have to live in Tarpon Springs. And I don't want to destroy a neighborhood to make FEMA happy. Okay. So do you feel like you got enough questions to
go back and do some more homework? Yes. I can definitely follow up tomorrow with our contact, and I can let you know. Yeah, I'll let the city manager all right with her doing her
homework. And Rhonda. Yeah, I just want to be able to see if we can do a very, you know, property by property in this program because there might be some unique ones. So your
property by property, your direction is what the commissioner just said. Is there a time is there a time limit.
What can we do with the property as far as being able to plant trees or even, you know, recreational equipment or anything of that nature? And what were some of the other
questions? I just wanted to make sure that we absolutely have no control over what we do with it. If, if down the road we could like a boat ramp or something like that, they've made it. If
in fact, they even specified that every three years they're going to come in and do a monitoring on the property to make sure we've abided by what they said, really aren't giving us anything. No, it's supposed
to be to mitigate flooding in the area. So which is a big deal. So we need to look at everything. I think you've got some direction and so does
everybody are with us moving along okay. Thank you. Let's go to ordinances and resolutions
number 17. And that go to you. City Attorney Resolution 20 2548 a resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, supporting the grant application
of the Public Services Department to the Resilient Florida program for the Wastewater Treatment electrical
Resiliency Project. And. PJ. PJ Harbor Grant Project Specialist. This resolution is just to show support for our application for Resilient Florida. It's the same
project we submitted last year that we had believed was going to get funded because it ranked very high with Fdep. Unfortunately, the state budget
did not allow for the 200 million that we originally thought that we were going to get for this program. They only gave us 150 million, and we're right at the cutoff. So DEP is
waiting to get clarification from the state as far as how much they're willing to give and whether or not we make that cut, basically, to kind of hedge our bet, we're going to resubmit the
exact same application from last year and hopefully it scores as high, if not higher, because last year we didn't have Helene and Milton pictures and data and
that sort of thing. It's for the wastewater treatment plant, electrical upgrades. The wastewater treatment plant did have flooding for some of those, and I've included pictures in
that application. So we're just trying to make it as high scored as possible. And part of that is to get a resolution from the board to show the support for this application. Okay. Thank
you. Are there any questions of staff I just have. Is this sort of tied into the wastewater treatment plant electrical
situation? So yes. Oh, what is the cost of the grant that we may be able to do you think I'm trying to remember what it was. It actually went up since we're resubmitting it because from the
time that we applied last year to this year, I think this year the application is going to be a little over 5 million and it's a 1 to 1 match. So the city would be responsible for approximately 2.5 million, and then the grant
would be for 2.5 million. All right. Well that sounds good. What do you think we'll hear back from them on that? I can tell you, I didn't hear about last year's application until July 1st when the budget came
out, so. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions of staff? Okay. Any public comment?
Austin, there are no online comments. Okay. Let's come back. I'd like to entertain a motion. So moved. Second. Okay. If there's no further discussion,
roll call please. Mr. Yes, Mr. DiDonato? Yes, Commissioner. Yes, yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. Yes. Mayor. Kuleana. Yes. Okay. The last item. Ordinances
resolution number 19. City attorney. Mayor. If it's okay, I'll read ordinance 2025 ten, then read the quasi judicial
procedure. Renee, do you want them to take them together? Everything. Yeah. We can do one presentation and then just vote separately on the. Okay. So if,
if, if that's okay, we'll do 2025 ten first 2025 ten. An ordinance of the city of Tarpon Springs, Florida, annexing 0.77 acres, more or less of real
property located along the west side of North Pinellas Avenue, approximately 65ft north of the Anclote Road intersection and including Fairview Subdivision
block 11. Lots four, five, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Application 2516 providing for findings and providing for an effective date.
That's ordinance 2025 ten read by title only. It's. This was published on July 2nd, 2025 and August 13th, 2025. Second
reading would be on August 26th, 2025. And this is a quasi judicial proceeding with a Board of Commissioners acts in a quasi judicial rather than a
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 Code of Ordinances, in
order to make a legal decision regarding the application before it. The board can only consider evidence at this hearing that 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 Code of Ordinances, 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 Code of
Ordinances, then the board is required by law to find against the applicant. Do any of the commissioners have any ex parte
communications to disclose? No. And then we just need to swear in the witnesses. Are there any anyone who wishes to be a witness? I mean to speak on this
item. Please stand up and raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm your testimony before the Board of Commissioners is the truth so help you? I do. Thank
you. Thank you. Okay, so do. Questions or suggestions. Okay. Let's do commissioner. Questions of staff. I already do a
presentation. Okay. I'm sorry. Presentation first I'm jumping ahead. So I'm going to do one presentation that will cover all three ordinances. So this application 25 Dash 16 is an
annexation application for property on North Pinellas Avenue in the vicinity of North Pinellas and Anclote Road. I'll show you a map in a moment. 2.77 acres. If we do annex it, and
then the associated future Land Use Map Change Ordinance 2020 5-8 would change the land use from the county designation of Residential Office General to
the city designation of office, and then similarly, the Rezoning Ordinance 2020 5-09 would assign
the zoning of residential office in in the city. The property. The only building on the property is a detached garage,
so this is the location on northwest corner Anclote Road and Pinellas Avenue. The applicant, Mr. Slater, owns this property to the north, and has
recently purchased this property. He purchased it in its current condition with the garage on it. The garage will be the main point of discussion for this application. Just a little
bit different. Aerial photograph looking at the site. The city's future land use map for the area. Again, just looking at the
surrounding properties across the other side of 19 are generally commercial land use. This would be an office consistent with its current
Pinellas County designation. This is a countywide map, so there would not be a change to the countywide map, but just again showing showing the overall consistency throughout the area with the designations.
And then similarly, the city zoning map. The current map current is General office under Pinellas County. You do have Mr. Slater's property. To the north is residential office, and this
would be the same. So if you're looking at the survey, you see the yellow outline is the boundary of the property being annexed. This is a one story
detached garage that was built by the previous owner. It was done without the benefit of permits. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. You have
five criteria that you must review. Really the four are. The number four is the really the pertinent case for this evening. The annexation is consistent
with the code. Otherwise doesn't create an enclave. It's not a type A enclave. And we do not. We can have the we have the ability to serve the property with utilities. And it's
consistent with the with our land use and zoning as it would be annexed. And so number four, this is a recent review criteria. And I just want to read what it what it says
verbatim out of the code, just so that you understand that the purpose of this, one of the review criteria that you have to review is the history or status of any Pinellas County code enforcement actions or violations that may cause an
undue burden on the city. Such actions include, but are not limited to, unpermitted construction, FEMA violations, nonconforming uses, and illegal
or prohibited uses. So that's really the fly in the ointment tonight, so to speak. Pinellas County did have a code enforcement case on this
property. The when the applicant purchased the property, they paid all he paid all the fines, the liens that were associated with that, that, you know, the
case is not resolved. A new permit has ever been issued on it. So it's still problematic. But after Mr. Slater, you know, paid all the fines and
everything, he got a release of lien. But currently there's no there's no principal use on the property which is required to have a garage. There's no
building permit that's ever been issued. And as if, if it is annexed in it would not meet the minimum side setback in the city's zoning district. It would
also not meet it in Pinellas County if they if they tried to permit it in the county. I'm sure Mr. Slater will talk about this a little bit, but really,
he's back kind of between a rock and a hard place, frankly. He you can solve the principal use by the property being annexed in the city. Then he can combine those two properties with his.
Okay, that takes away that problem. A variance would probably be required and an after the fact building permit. So that's the path to cure everything. If he's annexed into
the city. The question that the board needs to decide is, is that placing if we annex it in with that path that has to go forward, is that an undue burden
on the city? We took a very strict interpretation of the of the review criteria, because that was a very new criteria that was just recently put in in the last two years, I think. So
from that standpoint, our recommendation was to deny. But we also recognize that there is a path forward here. So I'm placing that burden of decision
on on the board this evening. There really again, I'm not going to skip over the review criteria for the land use and the zoning. It is consistent. This is located in the
transitional areas identified in the comprehensive plan. So we recognize this is a bit of a changing area that will probably be future planning efforts to address that quarter. Obviously, it would be good if the property
is under our control from that standpoint for future planning efforts, because we can have a say on what happens to, you know, down the road. So, as I said, our initial
recommendation, just based on the criteria, was to deny we did advertise this and provide a public notice. We've had absolutely no response at all.
Planning and Zoning Board did review this. They had a very robust discussion. Ultimately, they did recommend approval, but with two members dissenting. And
there was the motion did in include a condition. I'm going to read it. For the record, you can't condition an annexation ordinance, but we can give you the assurance that we will
follow through with this if you if you go down this path. So the condition was once the property is legally under the city's jurisdiction that both code enforcement, the building department and the board of
adjustment paths are set in stone for the applicant slash owner to follow for a path of total compliance of the property under the city's codes, rules and regulations, if applicable. So that was the Planning and
Zoning Board's recommendation to the city if we go down this path. So with that, I'll stop and answer any questions you might have. Do we have any questions of staff? Commissioner
Banther? No, thank you, Commissioner De Donato. Not at this time. No. Commissioner Gulyas. Yes. What's the benefit of changing the land use from
the basically similar office? Whenever you annex a property in, we have to we have to do an ordinance that that changes the land use and zoning designations
from their county designations to the appropriate city designation. So it's a procedural thing that we have to do. So with the with his ability
to want to work with staff. Do do you think it's, you know, something that staff and all of us can feel comfortable with moving forward? There's you
know, all you know, I will say yes. And I'm sure Mr. Slater wants to speak to that as well. You know, I candidly say that during the Planning and Zoning Board hearing, you know, his
first preference would be to not have to get a building permit and deal with all this. But that's just not reality. You're going to I think I think he accepts that he's going to have to do that. So with that
understanding, he's improved the properties that he's, you know, purchased there. He's cleaned things up. You know, he's been a good influence on the quarter so far. So I give a lot of weight
to that. All right. Thank you Miss Vincent I'll have a question or two for the applicant. Vice mayor. Thank you. Mayor, if we don't pass the
annexation, is there a need for the other two ordinances? No, sir. I didn't think so. Just needed you to clarify that. So.
With this annexation. Even while this is going on, the annexation code enforcement from Pinellas County could come and put
another violation on there. They could write. So this is a very sticky question, so I'll ask it anyway. This is quasi judicial.
So I have to present on the evidence that's provided before me. But I've also read the rest of the. Presentation. And so why
would we want to take on Pinellas County's headache. That that's a I, I that is a decision that that is the whole crux of
the decision in this instance. I know that in this instance I, you know. The future of the quarter in the city having
control over the property is from a development and redevelopment perspective, because that's what we're dealing with. It's good for the city to have control over it. So
wouldn't it be wiser? And I'm asking your advice as an expert. And you did a great presentation, by the way, because you really did you you covered the all all of the
criteria. Wouldn't it be better for Mr. Slattery to solve his issue and get a permit through the Pinellas County and then
present to us a legal building? So that's the that's the problem. He he really unless he's going to tear the structure down and whether that's a fair
requirement for something that he didn't create he would that that's the only way that he can make hay with Pinellas County, if you will. He's going to have to tear the structure down,
because just like our code, unless they're going to come up with some sort of a variance that I'm not aware of, you cannot have a an accessory structure without a primary
structure, and he cannot combine the two properties into one so that he can count on his primary structure. His current property as the primary, because they're in different jurisdictions.
Isn't there a problem with setback as well? There's a there's a problem setback with the county as well, if that's probably solvable. Well, solvable just by variance. By
variance. But we could get through this whole thing and him not get a variance. That's a possibility. And he is aware that that's a possibility. And in that, yeah, he understands that there's a possibility if
you approve the annexation that he could still have to tear down the building if he doesn't get a variance. See, I realize that he didn't create the problem, but
he bought into the problem. And that's an issue as well. Okay. I mean, I have your questions. You know, I have no further questions for you. Mr. Slater,
would you like to say a few things? Yeah, I can you're going to have to speak a little louder, because I'm really hard of hearing. No. Would you like to speak now? Yes. Yes, as as
you've seen, we own the property north of that. And we weren't forced to annex in, but we annexed in those two pieces of property. We're a longtime family in Tarpon Springs area.
Kids went to Tarpon Springs High. I just graduated one granddaughter from Tarpon Springs High who lives with us, and the other one who lives with us is Tarpon Springs High in the
arts program there. And she's been in the arts program middle school, too. But we're a local family. My son graduated from
Tarpon Springs High and business people in the area. We own Sunrise Elevator Company, which we sold a couple of years ago,
and so we're we're local people, local people. And I'm just, you know, I had a little bit of money and I just started buying the property and, and acquiring more and more property, hoping
my family would move on to that property. I want to make a family compound, basically. And my wife and I were simple people. We're not flashy or
nothing like that. And I told my kids, you know, later on, if you all decide to do something, you get permits to build houses or whatever you want to do or whatever tarpon allow you to do,
then you can do it. They like tarpon. They want to move back to tarpon. So I got my one son living in the other house. He got divorced and he needed a place to go. And I said, well, I
got an empty house move in there. So he's living right next door to me and it's good for us. We're getting up in years. But the whole intent is, as you've seen in some of those pictures,
you know, before the storm came through, we had a bunch of trailers in the back and, and the storm came through and the water got into the trailers and ruined everything that was in
the trailers. We had all that hauled off. And then and then this property became available. The owner of it approached me on
it, and I guess he needed to be cashed out or something. So we were able to do that. My wife, she told me, she said, you're going to go buy that property. I need that garage. And I was like, you know, it's not
permitted. You know, it's not a permitted structure. We're going to have difficulty with it. County is going to make us tear it down. Well, when we closed on the property, the county took all the lanes off of it and
everything. And I went down and talked to them and they said, we have no action on it right now unless there's really a complaint. We're just going to leave it and ignore it. They're getting taxes on it, or they value that structure at $50,000
or whatever the tax is on that, I don't know. But in taking my property and you're going to end up with the extra taxes, I know there's an expense there. I understand everything's got an
expense, but it fits with your plan. And when you're coming into tarpon, you know you don't want to. Maybe you do. I don't know, you don't want a big office building there or
something like that. You want to have control over what goes there, you know? And to me, I'm thinking that's that's a good thing. I know right now it's residential. I know residential
office. You want more housing units to house people. You know, things such as that. And I gather that from the last lady was trying to give you a piece
of property that you can't do nothing with, which is worthless. That's going to be an overhead cost forever. But this one here is really good. I tried getting the property that you
can see to the left of it there. That's all wooded up over there on the left. But I can't get Ahold of those people. But my
whole thing is, is that the garage is a foot and three quarters out on one corner and a foot and a half out on one corner being, you know, out of
the setback. And it's a beautiful garage built well. And I'd like to go with the variance and see if they'll give me that so I don't have to redesign the
garage. My other plan is I'll take two feet off of the whole darn thing, and now it's within the setback and pull a permit on it and everything. But what I
have to do before that is I got to annex it, and then I got to go, and I got a homestead it to my other property because it's an outlying structure. Right. And that what y'all been telling
me. So and that's the reason why I couldn't do it with the county, because the county won't allow it right now. They're not bothering me, but still, down
the road, they could come and bother me. And I'm using it right now as storage. All that stuff is in the back that I didn't get rid of. It's in that
garage now. Whatever the city comes along to look at and say, you got to do this, you got to do that. We got to have an engineer look at it. Whatever. I'll pay for it. Okay? I'm not
asking you guys to pay anything, so thank you very much. Let's. Is there any questions of the applicant, Commissioner Banther? No questions. Thank you, Commissioner De Donato. He's answered my questions,
Commissioner. Yes, sir. This seems to be around this whole detached garage situation, which, you know, I don't mind the setbacks, but could you see yourself in the possible future? You know, with this family
compound, which I commend you on, you know, trying to keep your family all together? Possibly that detached building may have to come down to build
one of the nicer homes for your family or, you know, one of your children, children. But yeah, I've got my daughter that's going to be moving down. I got my son that lives next door to me. I got two grandkids,
actually, three grandkids that live with me, two of them we've raised for 11 years, one that moved in after he graduated from high school, that lived with us there. And. You know, they're
going to build something there. They're going to do something later on. I don't know if it's going to be duplexes or apartments or what they're going to do, but being a businessman,
I always say, if you build something, unless you want to be living on your own little property somewhere, unless you build something, build something, build a few other units with it, you know, like you see some of the stuff going
on in Tarpon where they're building multiple units. You can live in one, rent the three out, or if you want to sell them, divide them and sell them. I don't know, we're too old to do
that. We're not into that right now. But I told them, I said, hey, I'm going to give it to you. You know, they all got it. You decide what you want to do with it. Do you have any more questions? Yeah. You know, in
order to maximize that property, that detached garage may not even be there in the future. If they go and build it, we'll have to tear it down if they do something on there. Thank you. My daughter likes the front
piece right there, right now. She good, sir. Thank you. Right. They're already. They're already saying what they want of it when you need a place to stay. Vice mayor, he's got a compound. If
you want to know if I need a place to stay, you got to ask that woman back there. So. So you kind of pulled on my heart strings with your story. And
truthfully, when I built my house in 2013, you were the company that put my elevator in. So thank you very much. It's good. It's still working like a charm, but I can't make my
judgments on that. This is quasi judicial. If this structure is causing so much issues, have you a put in a request to find out
what it would cost you to a take it down and to do what you really need to do? I mean, I know you don't want to do it, but it would solve a whole lot
of problems. B you could also have to deal with getting possibly I don't know if we as a permit department would come in even though you're not in our
area, to inform you of what's necessary to become. To be able to get a permit. Well, I would, I would go for an as built is what I'm talking about getting
an as built. Yeah. We've discussed you know the path and you know with the building department and they they're aware of this. And so we've got
a path to get there. So but your path is from your end of the application fees and whatnot. What what about the costs to
rectify it to make it tarpon ready to make it what to make it Tarpon approved. I mean, they're going to have to apply for a building permit. And after the
fact building permit, they're going to have to provide, you know, site construction, engineering reports and things to verify that it was built in accordance with the code. And then if it wasn't, he's going to
have bigger fish to fry. So thank you. That's what I want to hear you say. So have you done that evaluation of whether it's worthwhile to put in money into
something that you may have to take down anyway, versus building new? I don't know what your structure is. I don't know if it's a tin box or it's, you know, lumber. I don't really
know. That's well, to replace that structure, you'd probably looking at close to $50,000. I can get an engineer to come in for about $1,800 and give me an
as built prince for it, and then all I got to do is I got to make all the changes that need to be changed in it. So the city's happy. They're going to want to see it. What changes need to be
made. And between that, if all the changes are made up to their standard, then it passes. It's for the city. We're we have to pull a building permit which
covers the city's part of it is what it cost is to tarpon. It's not a losing situation. It's a gain you're going to gain taxes on, you know, on three quarters of an acre of land. Plus you're
going to gain taxes on a structure on that piece of land, like right now, it's being the land is being taxed at, I think
right around 48, 49 or 50,000, and the building's being taxed at 50,000. Okay. The building there, you lose $50,000 worth of
tax revenue if it's gone. So I don't see where it's a negative for the city. And it fits your growth plans and what you want in that area. I mean, that's a
that's a tourist district right there. You may down the line say, hey, we want a hotel there. So we're going to change the zoning again. So because you
don't want one on the sponge docks I've seen that. Oh that's not good. Would it be nice to have one right there where somebody can come out of a hotel and go down there and spend money? Hold on a second. If it's
in the right spot on the sponge docks, maybe. So don't get him going. Please. Please. My question is, you did spend a lot, and I'm not going to count your money, but you're looking to make a major investment. And
I'm going to ask you the question, is $50,000 to build a new structure that would that be that detrimental? So if I, if I
tore the structure down and it went through all the process of permitting, you know, design and everything else and rebuild the structure, I'd be over. I'd be
over $50,000. Okay. Like I said, the engineering and I had back surgery three weeks ago, so I'm sorry, but the engineering and
everything, I'd say about $1,800 to construction to add the things that need to be in there and open up things so the engineer can look at it and recovering the stuff. I'd say
maybe somewhere around 8 to $10,000. So it doesn't make sense to tear down a $50,000 building, which is going to cost you a couple grand to tear it down anyways, you know, so it
makes sense to leave it there financially. And like I say, when I, when I homesteaded in to everything that's there now, there's no problem with that
structure being there. Once it's homesteaded. But I got to annex into Tarpon first because you can't annex property in two different jurisdictions. I mean,
you can't homestead property in two different jurisdictions. I'm sorry. I know that where I have a difficulty is I do have a background in contracting. And I will just tell you, I've seen
stuff permitted versus not permitted. And, you know, it makes me overly concerned that it's not even. I would hate to
see. I don't want to put a annex into something that's going to be a thorn in the side of Tarpon Springs, for whatever reason. As much as I'd love to, you know, help you out on that, I just
think things have to be especially structure wise. If I was the one that had to approve this, and then something happened down the road with a
wind event or something. I wouldn't be doing my job. The individuals that built the structure. Okay, there are
contracting company. They built the structure for this person. The individual was not it wasn't a business at the time, but now
they are a business and they're going to do the work on it. That needs to be done. I've had them work on my property already, you understand. So I got I got people that could do the work
and they'll do it reasonably. And if it if all fails, then I know I got to tear it down, but these are the people that built it illegally the first place.
No, the individual that let's let's say. Carpenter who's been in, you know, the framing business for a long time, who finally got into being a
contractor contractor working for his buddy, who he worked for at the time, built the structure. Okay. And. When he
built it, he he built it the way he would build it. Because I asked him, I said, how are we going to how is this all going to work out? Is everything built to code? And he says, I guarantee you it's all built to
code. It's strapped and everything. I built it to code. He said. The trusses. The trusses are the code. Everything's to code. So what?
Did it fail on the permit inspection in the first place? I can't hear you, sir. What? Did it fail on the permit inspection in the first place? There is no permit. There is no permit.
There is no permit on it. I have no further questions on this. There is no permit on it. But this gentleman's building structures here in Tarpon, he's building them in Clearwater. He's doing all kinds of
construction work. Thank you sir. And he's passing code and getting, you know, inspections and everything on them and getting codes on them. So. Thank you. Why don't you have a seat?
I can tell you're in distress a little bit. Thank you. Please do that. Are there any public
comments on this item? Okay. Austin, there are no online comments. So let's come back to the board for a motion, please.
We're doing a motion to the first ordinance. Yes. Yes. Motion to approve ordinance 2025-08. No ten. No ten. Thank
you. Motion to approve ordinance 2025 dash ten. Okay. Do we have a second? Are there any further discussions on this? Okay. Roll call please. Commissioner
Banther. Yes. De Donato. Yes, Commissioner. Yes. Yes. Vice mayor. Eisner. No. Mayor. Yes.
Second reading is August 26th. We have the. Do you want me to read the future land use map? Yeah. Okay. Yes, we did, I can I
ask the city attorney some? Yeah. This is quasi judicial, right? Yes. Could we have a reason of why it was findings of facts. That was an affirmative
vote. We have the reason why why, why? This was an affirmative vote. What do you mean? We. Well, in your statement, when it starts off,
it says that we have to do some findings of fact, right? The findings of fact are presented in the it's not the findings of fact that the what the board votes on. I mean, if you want to
go back and forth of finding on fact, they presented everything they've agreed that they're going to work with staff. I mean, we're talking about a couple setbacks on a small building. I mean, guys, have we not passed some some serious,
you know, applications with setbacks of themselves? Let's just have a little, you know, let's give the guy a break. We see, I don't you know, I've seen some stuff we shouldn't have done, but we did it for whatever
reason. 100%. Please, let's just move forward and help out. Findings are contained in the ordinance. So there are findings that you just approved by voting
on it. Okay. Do you want to go to 25? Oh, okay. 2020 508 An ordinance of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida, amending the future land use map for 0.77
acres, more or less of real property, located along the west side of North Pinellas Avenue, approximately 65ft north of the Anclote Road intersection and
including Fairview Subdivision block 11. Lots four, five, 18, 19, 20, and 21. Application 2516 from Pinellas County Residential
Office, General slash G category to City of Tarpon Springs office O category providing for findings and providing for an effective date that is ordinance
2020 508, read by title only on first reading. It was published July 2nd, 2025. August 13th, 2025. Second reading would be
August 26th, 2025. Okay, and that presentation has already been made? Yes. So are there any questions of staff on this on
this ordinance? Okay. Are there any public comments on this ordinance? Austin. There are no online comments. Okay. Can I
have a motion on ordinance 2025? Dash zero eight so moved. A second second. Are there if there's are there any further
discussion on the motion okay. Roll call please. Mr. Panther. Yes, Mr. DiDonato. Yes, Commissioner Coolio's. Yes. Vice
mayor Eisner. Yes, mayor. Yes. Ordinance 2020 5-09. Ordinance 2020 509. An ordinance of the City of Tarpon Springs, Florida,
amending the official zoning atlas for 0.77 acres, more or less of real property located along the west side of North Pinellas Avenue, approximately
65ft north of the Anclote Road intersection and including Fairview Subdivision block 11. Lots four, five, 18, 19, 20, and
21. Application 2516 from Pinellas County Geo General Professional Office to City of Tarpon Springs, r o residential office providing for findings
and providing an effective date that is ordinance 2020 509, read by title only on first reading. Second reading is August 26th,
2025, and it was published on July 2nd, 2025 and August 13th, 2020. Okay, so this presentation has already been made. Is there any questions of staff, any
questions of the applicant, any public comments? Austin there are no online comments. Okay. Can I have a motion to approve
ordinance 2020 509. So moved second, okay. If there's no further discussion. Roll call please. Commissioner. Yes, Mr. Donato? Yes, Commissioner. Yes.
Yes. Vice mayor Eisner. Yes. Kuleana. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. And for your patience. And your family is lucky to have a mother and a
father like you, and grandparents like you that care so much about your children. So I want to commend you for that. Thank you. Okay. That was our
last agenda item. Let's go to board and staff comments. Assistant chief thank you. Mayor. Just just general comment of you know, storm season is
heating up. Just make sure families are prepared. That's it. Thank you. City attorney. No comment sir. Acting city manager
no comments. City clerk I have no cameras. Thank you, Commissioner Banther. Yes. Thank you. I want to thank Mr. Mr. Giuliani's for coming. Not
Giuliani's sorry Tommy. Loris. Mr. There's too many Greek names up here. I'm trying to do my best. I'm I'm Irish Catholic, so pardon me, Tommy, for coming up here tonight. He asked to do
this. I did not ask him to do it. You know, he has taught me a lot about the waterways, of which I know very little. And he was the one last year that put the bug in my ear about the
marine unit for the budget. And I think that's just I think it's a common sense thing. I think what he said goes to show we really do need to relaunch and revamp the Marine Commerce
Committee soon. I think it's this is very important. He has already told me he's willing to serve, so I'll make sure he gets an application. And I think we
should be very intentional of the people we put on this board as it relates to their background and their expertise. Like, I would not be qualified. So someone people that have specific knowledge of the
waterways and what not. Because this is very important to Tarpon Springs and it's very important to our future dredge dredge efforts. Thank you. Commissioner
De Donato. I would piggyback on that. We need to get started, I think with that, revamping that committee and get them back on board and functioning, I wonder
too, but I assume they would do it. But we need to make sure to. Chief. I won't say baby chief like our mayor, but that we are
looking at making sure that we've got what we need to do, the enforcement we need to do. So. That's the only additional thing that I would say there,
Commissioner, and I certainly want to congratulate our, our esteemed mayor for being another year older. Yeah. All right.
Commissioner, assistant chief wanted to say something first. I did want to say the bid for the boat closed last week, and then we're going to be moving forward with Janina and that aspect of going ahead and getting that
purchased. And then also Bob Robertson. It's funny, him and I actually met earlier this week to talk about waterways, postage, signage and stuff like that to kind of preempt a lot of
the stuff that we've talked about today. So we are moving forward in that, and we're trying to get ahead of things before they become issues. But I would like to sit with Mr. Klaus
and whatever committee that you have to, to give us a little bit of it's been. Here. Mayor DiDonato, Mayor Giuliani's I don't know when the last time we had a police boat. So it's
something that we're we're, I would say new at. So we're we're getting our ducks in a row with our neighboring cities and partners to make sure that we get our citizens the right responses that they need. Good.
Commissioner Gulyas, yes, that's a great idea for the marine commerce, but it does have to be a mixture of people from the sea and as well as the economy for the community as well. So it's
that's something I'll look into. I you guys all know very well been very vocal about what's, what's happening, what our budget right now. And I just want us to get a lot of this information out forward. So that
way we can have a healthy discussion with education from the public and what's going on. I didn't appreciate our third budget being canceled. I thought there was a lot left to be
desired. And what we're looking for with this, you know, historical note we could possibly take on. You all know my position and wanting to keep the residents involved in this
situation because this is a big deal. Biggest one since 2006. And so I plan on having bringing a good agenda item with lots of
material. And, you know, I would ask that this commission comes prepared to articulate. And the best thing that we can do is get it all out there. And that way we can all take a stand on it.
As I've tried to get people to, you know, take a position on it once and for all, and that way we can. Hopefully make these residents decide on this
decision for the for the community, because it's a big one. And like I simply said, I don't feel comfortable moving forward, spending that type of money without their voter approval. And I have every
reason to be believe that being on this board for the last three and a half years, what I see gives me all the backing and the position and wanting to let the
residents decide. So I just want to let that know two weeks, it's going to be a healthy discussion and everyone be ready. Vice mayor thank you mayor. So if you
want us to articulate it depends what you put in the backup that you'd like us to look up. So because we can't really talk about it between us. So the more you put in there, the more I
will look up and I'll be happy to respond. I just think I have a difference of opinion on this one from you, but in a way, I'm
also in agreement because I'm in agreement that, and I don't mind discussing this right now, that we may not need the whole 19 all
at once, but we need to remedy certain major projects. We have phase one of Spring Bayou, we don't have phase two, and there are other projects in town.
That's why I kept saying, I don't want to go ahead with this unless we know what we're spending the money on. I don't always want to spend all of our
money to pay off a fire station when we can space that out over a number of years, but anyway, that's we'll be I'll be happy to discuss that with you. And I think we can come to some sort
of good agreement. I am going Thursday to this year. The Florida League of Cities is in Orlando, so I'm not going to make it an overnight stay like I
would if I have to go to the East Coast. So I'm just going to be going there for the day and mostly to gain information from the exhibitionists, exhibitionists, the exhibition.
Conference that I might have to be there. Commissioner. It was a Freudian slip. Thank you. Do you want me to? Man, honey, that's
not what I meant. But I'm sure there are exhibitionists there as well. But I'm trying to I want, I want to do is get as much information as I can, bring it back to the board and see
what we can do. I know you know, I am for the Marine Committee that was presented to us by Carrie Root. And truthfully, last time I was there, we were
presented with actually a inexpensive or free waste removal for the Marina. And we don't have one. It's probably the only Marina I know that doesn't have, you know, has
overnight stay and we don't have a facility to remove the waste off of boats. So I'm going to look into that again. And whatever I can bring back information wise, I will be
happy to do a presentation presentation when I'm done. Like I said, it will not cost the city much money. It will be just a one day trip there and back,
and that's pretty much it. Okay, so let me clear something up on this third workshop that we had or was on the I saw on the
agenda last week before the city manager left to go out of town. I saw a an item on the calendar that said third Budget Workshop
and it said if necessary. So I called the city manager and I asked, are we having. And I knew it was the day before he was ready to leave. And I think you had already left. Okay. So you were already gone. So the vice
mayor was already gone. So I asked, are we having first of all, I don't put anything on. I put none of these workshops on the agenda. I'm no different than you guys. I just show up
when I see it there on the schedule that it's strictly put on there by the city attorney. So when I saw it on there, I called him up and said, do we have one? I just need to know
because I didn't know whether to check, accept or decline on something. That said, if necessary, do we have a meeting? He said, no, we do not have a meeting. I'm leaving tomorrow. The vice mayor is gone. We're not having a meeting. I said,
well, I think then you probably should take that item down because it's confusing, because I think it looks like there's a meeting. And he said, okay, I'm going to take it down. And that, that was that. So it was
innocuous. It was that's that's the whole rest of the story. So I want to say thank you to all the people that wished me a
happy birthday. You know, as you get to a certain age, you know, I used to get to a I was at an age where I didn't want to acknowledge how old I was. You know, if somebody asked me, oh,
I'm going to be I'm 49, I'm gonna be 50. I don't want to tell anybody I'm 50. I don't want to tell anybody. I'm 60. But now, like, I'm 71 and I like it because what happens is, you know, I do this running stuff
and, and the group gets smaller and smaller. So like I'm going up to do the, the Marine Corps Marathon. There's 33,000 people in it and only 64 are in my age
group. So I only have to beat like a small amount of people to actually play. So that gets exciting. So I'm excited to, because now I get to move into this new age group and, and
eventually if I stay on my feet, I'll through attrition I will be like really successful, you know? So not that I'm fast, just I just outlast everybody else.
So anyways, well, thank you guys and I look forward to our spirited meeting next week or next in two weeks to go to this conference with Mike. Now I'm no
interested. So anyways, thank you guys. And Thursday Commissioner. What's that? That's my gym day. I'm sorry. Okay. Anyways, meeting adjourned
824. Good morning everyone. Some very poor up there. I'd like to. All right. Yes. That's it. The
two of you. That's pretty quick meeting. Go home to your own house. Go dip in your pool. I'm sweating so bad. There you go. Now it's out the way. What's up?
Just gotta watch the lady for it. In my life, my wife made a great. Yeah. Thank you, thank you. Funny story about this man.
No. Yes. Linda, did you have a nice trip? Did you enjoy seeing
the kids? Yeah.