It's 2:00. And the code Board of Tarpon Springs is now in session. Bobby, would you call the roll, please? Miss Wade, I'm
here. Do you here, Mr. Weeks? Here, Miss Tellier. Here. Mr. Darcy is absent. Excuse, doctor. Mateo here. Mr. Ogle here. Thank
you. If you'll stand, we'll have a invocation and pledge our Heavenly Father. We seek blessings on the task before us. Bless our efforts with clear
insight, our deliberations with wisdom, our work with clarity and accuracy. In our decisions, with impartiality. We pray that our work this afternoon will
find favor in your sight. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for
which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all. And it is the intention of this board to promote, protect, and improve the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of
Tarpon Springs by providing an equitable, effective and inexpensive method of enforcing various codes within the city of Tarpon Springs. Any aggrieved
party may appeal a final administrative order of this board to the Circuit Court. Such appeal shall be filed within 30 days of the execution of the
order to be appealed. Statute. Florida. Statute 286 .0105 requires any party appealing a decision of this board to have a
record of the proceedings to support such an appeal. The procedures of this board are as follows. First, the city presents its witnesses and exhibits, after which the
alleged violator is able to ask the city's witnesses any specific questions regarding their testimony. Secondly, the alleged violator is allowed to
make a presentation and present his or her witnesses and exhibits. Then the city can question the alleged violators. Witnesses. After both rounds of
testimony, both on the part of the city and on the part of the alleged violator, each party is asked to give a closing argument, first by the city and then by the alleged violator.
After those three steps are taken, this board will close the public hearing portion of the case to discuss it and take appropriate action. Before we
begin the public hearing, we'll have all potential witnesses sworn in by the secretary of the board, and I'll remind her, please turn your cell phones
off. Bobby, will you swear them in, please? Are you about to give his whole truth and nothing
but. Do you? We have two items are on our agenda today. We'll start with item number one,
which is. Case 23-80000238. Christine, Weiss and Peter.
Koussa. Then close. 543 East Spruce Street. All right. Good afternoon. My name is Mike Rollison. I'm the code enforcement officer for the Tarpon Springs Police
Department. This case is at 543 East Spruce Street, and it is a homesteaded property. So the background on this case was this was right around the time I
started. It was one of the first cases that I was handed. And then we sort of got kind of lost in the weeds with a lot of the
that six month vacuum where there we were in between officers. So it sort of sat kind of untouched for a while. And then we were finally able to get
in touch with Peter. Around July of last year, and he was communicating with us, started cleaning up the property. Things were moving along. And so we
sort of kind of moved on to other issues. And then it slowly started to fall back. And then we haven't heard from Peter. We haven't had any contact with
him. So we actually started the process over and issued a second notice of violation and a kind of tried to get things moving
again, but we have not heard from him. The property is in a was in a state of just kind of disrepair. Nobody was living there. There was trash, debris,
junk. The trim was sort of dilapidated. And in the backyard there was a tree that was falling down. And that was he actually cleaned up a lot of
that tree and cut the grass and was making progress for us. And in the packet, which I'm going to submit now, there's actually
an addendum. There's photos that I took this morning to show how far it's gone. In the last several months the grass is
extremely overgrown now. There's all sorts of debris. A shopping cart. And it's completely gone
to an unacceptable state. So all of our notices were sent certified mail. I physically posted the house with a notice of violation, not once, but twice, and the notice of hearing
was physically posted at the house. And like I said, we've tried to reach out to him and we have hadn't heard anything. Myself and Corporal Boone have
both worked with him at different times, and neither one of us have been able to get hold of him. So we are here today just looking for a board order
instructing him to clean the property up and bring it back into compliance. And some of those texts and whatnot were submitted for evidence as showing that he was in contact
with us and he was working. And then it just stopped. And that is all I have. It's the property occupied. No, there is nobody.
Not that I've been able to see. There's never been anybody at the house. I've never seen anybody there working. Even when he was communicating with us, work would get done. But I never
saw anybody there. Anybody else have questions? For the record?
No one has come before the board for the other side of this case. Let's go ahead and accept the documents and the evidence. And
we did have documents submitted by the city which are going into evidence. Thank you. Thank you.
Oh. So anybody on the board like to make a motion? I move in case
number 20 3-80000238 to find the respondent, Christine Wise and Peter Chrysothamnus, in violation of the City of Tarpon Springs Code of Ordinances eight
dash 22, eight dash 40 and eight Dash 41 for the property located at 543 East Spruce Street and to assess a fine of $25 per day
beginning on March 5th, 2025 until compliance is achieved, and to order the respondent to contact the Code Enforcement Division to arrange for reinspection of the property to
verify compliance with the board's order. I need a second. Second. Roll call please. Bobby.
Yes, ma'am. Just one moment, please. Mister Ogle. Aye, doctor. Aye. Missus. Tellier.
Yes. Mister weeks. Yes. Mister studio. Aye. Miss Wade. Yes. Second feature. Real quick. Sorry. Do we need to summarize,
then, if nobody's here? No. This notice will be sent to this
homeowner. Case number two is 17 dash 80000594. Catherine, Amy
and Gregory Fiorello. 960 Sunrise Drive. So this is a fine reduction request that is before you today. The. You may
remember, I we submitted an affidavit of compliance in December for this. I was going to say, young lady for this
young woman who this case went back to 2017 where she had some roof damage and it was tarped and she did not have the ability to make repairs. So she was
collecting daily fines. Then we had the hurricanes roll through, which caused additional damage. And she was able to work through the Pinellas County Housing
Development Department, and they ended up getting her roof, which put the property into compliance, which is was in December. I did verify through Pinellas County because their
process is very stringent as far as financial hardship and whatnot, and they have much more capability to confirm financial situations than we do. And I
spoke with Rebecca Crisp, who is the housing specialist who worked with her to get that roof, and she did verify that she had all kinds of financial hardship and issues. And that is
why she got the roof put on the house. And now she is asking for a fine reduction, which the packet is in front of you. And
then I'm submitting the official one here for Bobby. And the we had do have a piece of evidence
also that's being submitted. This city does this case. The city has no objection to a fine reduction. But we also we have
no recommendation as to any amount, just that we do not object to any kind of a reduction. I think the question
then is, are we also waiving the cost, the one 2750 and the ten? So we would like to make a motion about that before you
discuss that as a general practice. When I've seen these cases at other cities, costs are something that we usually don't
waive because those are actual costs of obviously bringing the case forward or dealing with the issues. The only thing in this
situation is you may not recover costs, but you can also give the individual 12 months to pay it. So that might be a consideration for you to look at. The one
thing the city likes to look at when we do these cases is to at least be made whole for the costs that it took to bring this case into compliance. There are
extenuating circumstances in a lot of different cases. This is probably one of them. Because, you know, we just never collect this amount of money, even when
the house, even if the house sells down the road, you're just not going to collect this amount of money because no one's going to buy a house with that kind of lien. So that's the practical
aspect of it for you to consider. And based on Pinellas County approving or funding the new roof and doing their due diligence, we can accept that
this is financial hardship. Correct. Yes. Okay. So and if you'll read on motion ten, they are given 365 days. If you wish
to leave some of that fine amount on there. And that's just to cover some of the costs of
the city. Okay. Yes, sir. This has been going on for 7 or 8 years. So is there
any indication if, when and if we waive the extraordinary $950,000 that this problem is going to go away, or is it just
going to be revisited every six months? Well, the issue was that she didn't have a roof on the house. It was all tarped up due to damage. So I would with there
being a new roof on there, I would feel fairly confident unless we had some catastrophic storm tomorrow. I would assume this roof will do her for several years at the minimum
before we would have to worry about it coming up again, because that was the original violation, was that the roof had a patchwork and tarps, and it
was falling apart. So with it being new, I don't I don't see it being an immediate reoccurring issue. I guess what I'm asking, is there some way
that the city or the county or whoever else is involved can step in to kind of alleviate the problem entirely? Or are we
stuck with this individual piece of property and ownership? Well, she's still the owner. The problem was that there was no roof, which has now been alleviated by the county. They
put a new roof on the property. I can't speak to if there's going to be some other issue from her down the line. I mean, that's kind of impossible for me
to say, but for this case, the roof was the problem. There's now a new roof, and that was provided by Pinellas County. And
I guess in the long run, my opinion is it kind of makes us look silly. If we're sitting here with a piece of paper that says there's $250,000 fine, and we haven't solved the situation
in eight years. Should we just go round and round with this been resolved, though? You know, the black guy for governmental
bureaucracy is. But none of that's before us for today. I'm sorry. None of that issue is before us for today. We just
have to accept this reduction or not, and decide whether to keep the fines on or not. That's kind of our only choices. I understand, you know, we're
going to reduce the number, but I'm just curious if there's any way to alleviate the future problem. What I'm not clear on
is what's the future problem? I you want me to eliminate the. The case was for a roof. I can't guarantee a new roof, you know,
down the road. Anybody like to make a motion? Thank you. Okay,
I moving case number 17, dash 80000594 to find the respondents. Catherine J. Amy and Gregory G. Ferrero did
correct the violations for the property located at address, not at 960 Sunrise Drive, but did
not pay the fine amount of. $249,737.50, and to approve the request for reduction and reduce
the fine amount of $249 $249,737, $249,737.50, two.
$137.50. In order that the respondents pay the reduced fine amount within 365 days of this order, and if not paid, within
365 days of this order, the original fine amount of $249,737.50 will be due. Second.
Roll call please. Bobby. Clarification, please. On the reduction amount. The reduction amount is $137.50. Right. It's
just the affidavit. It's the affidavit of cost and satisfaction fee. That's fine. I was just making sure I got the numbers. Okay. Thank you. Mister
Ogle, I doctor mattera I. Missus Tellier. Yes, Mister weeks. Yes, Mister Perdue, I miss Wade. Yes.
And for those that watch this, this has gone on for years. We're only collecting the costs that the city has paid. And it's less than a dollar a day for her
to come up with. To eliminate a fine of $249,000. So for those that watch this, please note
that we've tried to reflect that. Thank you. Do you have any other cases that we don't know
about? I do not. Anybody on the board have announcements they'd like to make. I have two I would for those that watch this, I
would like to extend the invitation from Irene Jacobs. The city functions very well in large respect, because of folks like these who come here on
their own time, unpaid and volunteer to serve on boards. Our boards really need some more volunteers and we. And please contact Irene Jacobs with the
city if you have even considered being helpful and being a part of the process. There are a number of varieties of boards, a lot of different kinds of
experiences are helpful to the city, and we'd appreciate it if you would do that. And I want to thank my board again for being so good about serving. And then I've mentioned this to several
on the board and checked with the code department. My message is for our new city manager, Mr. Rudd, and for the commissioners. At a recent meeting, you brought
up short term rentals. To many of us, that is the third rail that we don't want to touch, because once we touch that, we have lost the ability to control
that within the city. Per state statute, I would suggest before you bring up such a thing, you speak with us on code board and with our code board officials,
because we are the folks that get the brunt of that. They come. People complain to us about these rentals. It's a problem. They're they're not
well maintained. There are significant disruptions to the neighborhood. So please, before you at the city, consider touching these ordinances, check
with the folks that have to enforce them and with other folks in your city. It's problematic when it gets out of hand. And we have some pretty
tight rules that we're able to keep. And most of us would like that to stay that way unless anybody else has anything. No. I
certainly do. So. Board is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. So many of the cases that come
before us are that touching that that really speak.