City Council - workshop

Good Monday evening, everybody. Welcome to Tampa City Council. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Miranda? Here. Menescalco? Here. Hurtuck? Here. Young? Here. Vera? Carlson? Here. Clendenin? Here. We have physical form.

Thank you very much. Just a reminder, this is a budget workshop, our final budget workshop, and we have very specific rules for workshops. Mr. Shelby, would you like to surmise the public speaking rule for workshops?

public comment for workshops are limited to the subject of the special call workshops and members of the public may address City Council once for three minutes after the presentations have been made and the sign-up sheet is located outside the chambers and that is it in a nutshell.

Okay, very good. Thank you so much. Reminder everybody, we had moved mobility to this workshop which will include the general fund Police, Fire, Parks and Rec, and Convention Center. So that is on our agenda for tonight. I wanted to, just so that we don't have any confusion, at the dais I distributed two proposed resolutions concerning excess revenue, one concerning pavement, one concerning parks and rec, just so that you know what that is. That came from me, and I guess we can talk about it as we get further into the budget presentation. But just did you know that that's where that came from? And clerk, did Sam give you a copy of that? Okay, very good. Thank you so much. Okay. Without any further ado, let's move on to item number one. Council discuss the recommended FY 27 budget for city of Tampa. I have a motion councilman here to approve the agenda second from Councilman Maniscalco. All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Yes, sir.

Council, good evening. Adam Purcell, Transportation Services Director, City of Tampa. In the spirit of the workshop, I had some conversations with council earlier today and made some additions to the PowerPoint to highlight some other topics that were raised as questions. So there's two pages in there that I'll highlight on the wolf as I work through that presentation. If I could get the presentation put on the screen, I'll go ahead and jump into the discussion. Thanks for giving me some time tonight. I know my opening stormwater act ran a little long last time. I hope to not take four hours of your evening. Next slide. Do you have a clicker there? Oh, sorry. Got it. All right. So I've organized my presentation to talk about three main focus areas. The first is the paving program. The second is the sidewalk program. And the third is the capital improvement program. To set a frame of reference for paving, I looked back over the last three fiscal years and took a look at what we've done from a paving perspective. And on average, annually, we do about 13 paving projects a year. That gets us to almost 60 lane miles of repaving, and typically the cost has been around $14 million. We understand that we're moving into a period of some uncertainty in budgets, so when we developed our work program within mobility, we set a tentative two-year paving plan. You can see the map, it's a little difficult to see on the monitor, but that lays out all of the paving projects that we have planned in the city over the next two years. We base that on pavement condition inventory data that we have. Right now we're working to update that inventory which may update this plan, but right now we've got a two-year plan with 28 paving projects that covers about 141 lane miles and comes in at about $29 million in total cost. So that's the city paving program. We also have some additional funding that's coming in from outside sources, the All Transportation Settlement, provided the city with $21 million. We're working on seven resurfacing projects under that, and those total about 8.2 miles. So that adds to that total that you see on the left. So over the next two years, we're probably looking at closer to about 150 miles of repaving. This is a breakdown of the budget. In FY27, we have an allocation of $5 million for repaving, and we are carrying over about $5.7 million in funding. Some of that is the carryover that was given to us last FY. That will really help us in FY27 to get closer to meeting the need that we have from a funding perspective for paving. We think we can get pretty close to that 50 miles or 55 miles of paving that we're shooting for with the allocation in the budget. I also took a look at sidewalks. So over the past three fiscal years, we've built several segments of sidewalk. In the next FY, we're looking at continuing that work. In 2024, there was a $2 million allocation of sidewalk funds to a citywide sidewalk improvement project. That's three miles of sidewalks that cover the corridors that are listed below that bullet. We're working. We've been through the CCNA process. We've selected a consultant. and we're working through the negotiation of scope for design versus scope for construction and really trying to maximize what we get from a construction perspective on that project. I expect that project will advance in 27 into construction. And then what we're trying to do is prime the project pipeline. So as you move things into construction, we need to move other things into design to kind of to keep that flow of work steady we're moving a sidewalk project on rocky point drive kind of near the rusty pelican redevelopment site so that's going to connect from the rusty pelican all the way up to the multimodal trail on state road 60. we're looking at connecting a sidewalk on north o'brien down to laurel that moves near some of the new development on o'brien and one of the main access routes to the service workers accessing the airport And then we've worked with Councilwoman Young and Councilwoman Hertak and met with the River Grove neighborhood. They have some needs within that neighborhood and we're working to move that sidewalk project into design for River Grove so that it can then be moved into construction likely in the following FY. You can see here at the bottom, the funding balance, August 2026. So we're looking at next year of having about $4 million in sidewalk funds. 2 million of that will be those citywide improvements. And then we're going to draw on the other 2 million to help with the design and then fund the construction of those three projects I identified. From a major capital improvements perspective, um, we're looking at advancing the sulfur Springs K through eight safe rooster schools project. We had a discussion with council a couple months ago about that and received additional funding to support that project. Um, some of those funds are retained in FY 27 with the bulk of them pushed to 29. So that's a point where we're trying to initiate the work and then move it into construction. Likely we wouldn't be able to do design and construction in the same year, so I think that works from a project timeline. We're working on the West River build. That's a major capital project that will be completed in FY27. Unite Ashley Drive, that's where we're reconnecting the street grid at the north end of downtown and reconfiguring some of the interstate ramps. That's to support the Army, Navy site redevelopment and the affordable housing that's going in at the north end of downtown. So that project is a priority in mobility. And then when you look at our funding list, It lists these downtown mobility improvements. That's really a reference to our multimodal fees that we collect currently. So those aren't unique projects. Those are funds that we use to fund smaller enhancements like signal improvements, some sidewalk extensions, some other multimodal improvements. So those funds are there and listed as projects. And one of the things I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna move to the discussion of other major capital projects. So that was a pretty short list of capital work that's going to happen in FY27. And I wanted to talk briefly about some of the other projects that we hear discussed regularly at City Council and let the public and let Council know that those projects are still being advanced as well. So if we can go to the Wolf, I've got a slide up there. So the Pathways to Palmetto project, so that's the Complete Streets project in Palmetto Beach, and then the seawall reconstruction. That project is advancing. We're working to coordinate with the Federal Highway Administration. We're still working to finalize our grant agreement with Federal Highway. We started that communication in January of this year. It's still ongoing. We're still working to finalize our grant agreement. But when we do that, that will result in $22.5 million of federal funding to build those complete streets projects on 22nd and 26th, and then the complete street and seawall improvement on Bermuda Boulevard. We'll need to come up with a $6.6 million local match when we actually receive those federal funds. But right now, that's not shown in the work plan because that's something that we haven't received yet. So it's in the works. MacDill Air Force Base access improvements. So those are the improvements on Interbay. Um, all of that project right now. So we broke it down into three segments. Um, it runs all the way from West shore to Bay shore. Um, and we've broken it down into three segments. I think it's West shore to Manhattan, Manhattan to Dale Mabry, and then Dale Mabry to Bay shore. Uh, all three of those projects are in design right now. We have full funding identified for the construction of segment two. So that's from Manhattan to Dale Mabry. That's gonna happen in 28 and 29. And then segments one and segments three have partial construction funding in 28 through 29. We've got some time to figure out some of those other pieces so that we can continue to advance that full project to construction. I know that Councilman Clendenin near and dear to his heart, the Tampa Streetcar Extension Study. That's a project that's underway. We are right now in the planning and project definition phase. So we had advanced the streetcar project several years ago. Some aspects of that project have been modified. We're working to define those new aspects of the project, start to work a full concept up. um and we plan to present that to fta with one of our first meetings occurring in the next month or two with fta to begin to to discuss re-entry into the fta small starts process project development for that is planned for 27 and 28 so that's uh project development preliminary engineering so that'll be once we're in the fta program We will go ahead and continue to work through that. And we plan to go to final design or design build for that project in 29 to 31. Right now, those first two phases are fully funded. That last phase is the monster in the room that we're trying to figure out how to fund. So streetcar is advancing. It's a project that's underway. That planning and design activity is funded through the next multiple years. I'm sorry, I'm on the wolf, aren't I? And the other slide that we added in, so the Hanna Avenue mobility improvements, those projects are all in design right now. We've broken that larger project into four kind of smaller projects, Hanna Phase 1, Hanna Phase 2. So those are some of our paving and safety improvements. We have an intersection and signal improvement at 30th and Sly, and then there's a 24th Street sidewalk component as part of that project as well. All of those are in design. All of those are funded. The first three we expect to be complete this year, and then the fourth, the 24th Street sidewalk, we expect to be completed next year. We are going to fund those projects through a federally funded LAP agreement, so DOT will help coordinate the funding on that. Right now, we have 5.25 committed from the federal funding source. and we've still got to work on that local match. Again, we've got a couple years to get that in place so that we can bring those projects to construction. And then finally, Unite Ashley. This is a project I touched on it before as part of our capital project. It is receiving funding in FY27. That's where we're reconnecting the grid at the north end of downtown. We expect to take that to design-build in FY27. So fall of 27, we're looking at sending that out for design-build for the construction activity to commence. That project is estimated to cost $22 million. Right now we have the $5.3 million federal grant. We have $8 million committed from the CRA, $2 million from 2016 CIT. And right now we still have a gap of 6.7 million in that project that will need to be closed this time next year to continue to advance it on schedule. I'll go back to the slide show now. I wanted to set some context for the discussion of transportation by touching on the idea that even in the best fiscal year, even in the even in the year of unconstrained, well, not unconstrained budgets, but less constrained budgets, the need for transportation outpaces the resources that we've been able to provide as a city thus far. I know we had it solved with the All for Transportation tax. That was revoked or removed. So just to help to start to quantify the size of the need here, if you look at the paving activity alone, that first bullet, we have about 2,400 lane miles of roadway. So that's 1,200 centerline miles, assuming about one lane in each direction. We've got about 2,400 miles of lanes. If we want to get a 25-year repaving cycle, and that's about the useful life of pavement, we're looking at doing almost 100 miles of pavement a year. Looking at a $300,000 cost for that, we're looking at $29 million a year to meet the paving need. And then when we start to look at the sidewalks need, the moves plan that we have, multimodal master plan, when we start to look at that, it identifies 1,300 miles of sidewalk gaps and then identifies 400 miles of high priority sidewalk gaps. When you start to look at the cost of closing those, somewhere around in 750,000 a mile for a sidewalk, we're approaching $300 million in the total funding need to close the high priority sidewalk gaps in the city. So as we start to advance the discussion of budget, I just want to set kind of a context of the need is immense. We're going to have to be effective in how we approach it. We have more than $50 million in federal funding right now that we've been successful in bringing in that helps supplement the funds that we need to maintain our system. and we'll continue to pursue those federal funds. I know council is looking at additional funding sources like the school speed zone cameras that are really going to help support safety and sidewalk program in the areas of our school. So we're looking where we can for those funds, but in the context of the discussion, the need is immense. And pending that, open for questions.

Thank you very much. Just a question. I didn't see it on this presentation, but what happened to There was a press conference three years ago and there was federal funding that came in so there was a lot of hype about it but I never heard anything about it again. Is that on the books? Was the project deferred? Was funding moved to something? Do you know anything about it or no?

So good evening, Council. Brandon Campbell, Mobility Director. Habana was part of the 2023, 2022 Safe Streets for All grant project or program that is still continuing to advance. It's not a fiscal 27 funding allocation, so it didn't come through in some of Adam's earlier material. And then I don't suppose it came up in discussions earlier today with a few of you, but it is still in there.

Do you have a timeline on when anything will begin or no?

So that's another federal grant that we're working with Federal Highway to finalize the grant agreement. So there are 19 roadway segments that are part of that large grant. We hope to have that grant agreement finalized this year and then work to solicit a consultant or a contractor to do a design build for that project. So right now, I think we have March targeted for the award of the design build.

So it's a bundle. It wasn't just a grant for one road project. It was part of that bigger program.

Okay, thank you very much.

Councilman Carlson, Hortek, Vera, and Brandon. The biggest complaint I get in South Tampa, don't kill the messenger, but the biggest complaint I get is why is the city spending so much on bicycle lanes instead of roads? Can you, for the public, explain what the budget is for bicycle lanes versus how much the roads are being

Right, so sometimes, typically when we go in and install a bicycle lane, it's part of a repaving project. So the cost of marking a bicycle lane is actually incredibly small. I know one point of contention in South Tampa has been El Prado. The cost of retrofitting that, the roadway had poor pavement condition and needed repaved

whether the example right sorry but the example right now is platte street so that's been just a painted lane for a long time now there's protected lane going in so can you give us i don't know how many there are like that but the what the public is saying is whatever the cost of these bike lanes and i know there are people that want bike lanes so i'm not arguing against them but can you just put in context how much the city's spending on road repair versus bike lane

I can get that number for you. I don't have a point of comparison at hand that that shows how many lane miles of protected bike lanes are being constructed versus lane miles of roadway that are being repaved. I can I can bring that to you. I don't have it. OK, thank you.

Yeah, I mean, it's a bit small, but I'm but it would be interesting to see it. Also, I have to keep pushing for new separate people. You know, the roads have been falling apart for 20 years and somebody a long time ago said you have to cut out the trees. I've talked to several experts and uh road experts and the thing is we need to put the bricks back in that's like 15 million dollars i think just for those three streets so i just want to make an argument again to for them um the other thing is what so so if i recall correctly vic vic b day told us years ago that the total deferred maintenance so you're saying 29 million a year somehow i remember a number from a few years ago like 50 million a year but if it's 29 million a year now over 25 years. What's the, the mayor I think is proposing 5 million this year. So that would create a $24 million deficit just in one year, deferred maintenance in one year. Do you all have any idea what the total deferred maintenance is to date on road repair? I think he said it was like $2 billion that was deferred up until that point. Do you know what that total number is now?

So I would have to go back and look at the pavement condition inventory and see what segments of roadway are in poor condition. So to get to a 25-year cycle where we would not have a deferred maintenance, that's going to take kind of a continued effort over a long period of time to go back and retrofit. I don't have a number for deferred maintenance.

And is this $25 million?

then catch up with the deferred maintenance or does deferred maintenance have to be spent on top of this this is just what we need to stay even with the breaks in the roads that happen each year so so this would this would catch us up so this would get us on a program where as we did it it may take 20 years to catch up but or a decade to get the most severely you know poorest pavement condition areas addressed so it's going to take a period of time even with hundreds of millions of dollars to to catch up um we've reduced the the paving program from like a hundred year paving cycle to a 50-year paving cycle and now we need to get to get it to a 25-year paving cycle yeah i know that was another question i was going to ask because i remember it was like 70 or 75 years the last time we talked about

um and and whatever the deferred maintenance has been building over many years so that's not a particular criticism of this information it is this uh administration but i think it's important for the public to know as we're making choices if it's two billion dollars then that then they need to know that's what we need to try to hit as we're trying to move things around my last question is do i read this correctly it says resurfacing for roads is 300 000 per mile but for for sidewalks it's 750 000 per mile that's a that's a planning level estimate

So that'll depend upon the context or the condition of the improvement. So when you go in to repave a road, sometimes it's as simple as just replacing the asphalt on top. You grind three inches, everything else is fine. You put back three inches of asphalt and you're done. Sometimes you go in, you remove the asphalt and you realize that the road base needs improved as well. So there's some fluctuation in that cost. Same thing with sidewalks. Sometimes you go in, it's flat and level, it's really easy to build a sidewalk, there's no obstructions in the roadway. Other times you go back, there's all kinds of obstructions in the roadway that have to be cleared, and then you have to build drainage or rework drainage to support the sidewalk.

those are planning level estimates so that's something we kind of look for a long-range budgeting perspective so on the on the 300 000 though is that anticipating the easy ones and is it or is there an average that includes the more difficult difficult ones all over south tampa

So I would say that that's a mix of everything. So that $300,000 is a mid-range cost. If you take the most complex and the least complex and kind of put it in the middle, that's a fair means of assessment of per mile cost. OK, thank you.

If I could add really quickly to that discussion, typically when we get to failing pavement conditions and it's a full depth reclamation, so not the procedure that Adam described, but you're actually getting down to the base and redoing the compaction of that base, It's about double.

Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman Hurtado.

Thank you. If you could go back to the PowerPoint. And then, again, it would be helpful if we had page numbers. I think it's page five. The transportation focus area sidewalks. Yeah, there you go. So... Rocky Point Drive.

Right.

That came to us as a part of a rezoning where they wanted to put the sidewalk in and they were going to pay for it. Are we paying for this?

So we're paying for design because it traverses multiple parcels with unique ownership. So to have a developer that owns one parcel come in and design a sidewalk on someone else's property, we didn't think that would make for good neighbors. So we came in and undertook the design effort. So we've got 145,000 allocated for the design of the sidewalk. There are some potential wetland setback permit issues that we're going to have to work through because there's some mangroves immediately adjacent sidewalk. But that will come from the impact fees that are generated by the redevelopment of the site. So the construction will be covered by the developer. The design is something the city undertook.

Okay. Because if and if I just remember correctly, they were willing to pay for the whole thing and We've got to really grab those opportunities when we have them. I see your point of needing to pay or needing to do the design ourselves, but that shouldn't come out of impact fees. They were willing to put it in as part of the development itself. And the fact that we weren't able to grab that is just like it's it's it's something that development and growth management we've got to get better at pulling those. I know that didn't have anything to do with you. Going forward to major capital projects, the Sulphur Springs K-8 Safe Routes to Schools. So you're saying that there isn't room, one more, one more, that there isn't space in this budget to fund those sidewalks.

So I would probably defer to budget and finance on that. That was a project where I know we talked about, what, an $810,000 allocation. That funding was moved a little bit in the programming of the funding. I don't know if revenue and finance has anything on that.

Okay. Because I did notice that, I mean, to go to the next one is the MacDill Air Force access improvements. That was, there was $8 million in the CIT for that as early as, you know, earlier this year. And the fact that we no longer have that $8 million in there, It seems like we have a gap and we've got some money in the CIT that we could, if the Air Force Base access improvements aren't ready to go forward, it seems like we could just share that money with the Sulphur Springs K-8 safe routes to school.

But I think the, uh, the funding and FY 27 for McDill, uh, was, was pushed forward in the funding program. So it shifted to 28, 29, um, or a portion of it did. Uh, so I don't believe that that funding is still available in FY 27, but again, I would defer to revenue finance.

then I'm just curious where that money went. Because again, we had $8 million in the CIT for that. So right now it doesn't seem like that's been replaced by anything. So I'm gonna ask for that. But while we're on this page, the downtown mobility improvements, the signal improvements, are absolutely this is something that overall I would love to hear from you about what signal improvements planning you're doing. Because again, today I was on my way down here on Tampa Street and every other stoplight I had to stop at. And it's like, that's not what the plan was. The plan was to be able to travel downtown. I mean, and Brandon can tell you, I was on my way home last Thursday And I got stuck at a light for ten minutes. It was at Hillsborough and Highland, and we're just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. And it was just the strangest thing I call. I had to call Brandon and be like, Hey, we've got a problem. And like, if I hadn't been there, like, I just don't know what would have happened. I mean, like how long that that would have lasted. So I know that we are desperately in need of upgrades of signals so that they can so anomalies like that can be seen by our team at the I forget the name where you call it.

The Traffic Management Center.

The Traffic Management Center, which they do a great job. But obviously, our signals are really in need of replacement, not repair. So could you talk a little bit about that plan? We've heard about paving and sidewalks. But I would say that that's the third most important thing that we really have to focus on if we want to get a handle on the traffic.

Sure. So there are a couple of things involved with the signal system. Of course, one of those being the age of a lot of our infield infrastructure. The boxy signals that you see downtown, those were all installed in 1976, 1977. So they're 50 years old, and they are toward the end of their useful life. We are finding that a signal replacement project costs about $1.2 million. And that's for a mast arm signal that's designed to current wind speed specifications of 150 miles per hour. So for that reason, we have been thoughtful about where are there signals that maybe don't need to be signals anymore. We've removed a few of those over the last several years. Again, most of the signals within the city, about half the signals within the city, are owned by FDOT, so those are not our assets to maintain. But there is a need, again, sort of hitting on that same theme, that outpaces the resources for us to get to those.

so i would just ask is there a way that we could do could you do sort of uh just like you did for paving and sidewalks like this is the need this is how much we get maybe like i know fdot does contribute some per year to that like what does that look like just to give us like an idea because i really do believe that with the traffic that we're seeing that is a huge can be a huge change

and help if if we have those automated systems that can kind of feel yes and i would i would add to that as well we actually have a new traffic engineer that is starting today today today so margaret our smart mobility manager has backfilled some of her staff to help to to to help with several things, including planning for these types of needs. We also have a general engineering consultant for her team that we are in the process of hiring and getting in place. So those plans will be rolling out in the near term. We've had a little bit of a shortage of resources just on the staff side with her team until very recently. And we're looking forward to working with that filled out team to get some Better information exactly speaking to what you are requesting tonight.

Yeah, that would be great. So I'll probably make a request. I'll work with your office to figure out when that's a reasonable request for us to get. Thank you.

Councilman Vieira. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you guys for your presentation and your specificity and counsel for all your comments. I have a couple of questions for the 30th segment to program that right now. I think it's under design. It's going to go from Bogan Villa to Fowler. Where is that construction slated for 2027 or. would have to go back and look i know it's a project that is in design it was in design should soon be completed i'm not sure the year it's programmed for construction i can give you that information okay yeah because that's a very important uh project for my constituents i know that you all did some great initial work on 30th on the first half and i guess this would complete or substantially complete that and that's a very important corridor not just a lot of working class a lot of working families out there but also a street there are first responders using in district 2 for tampa police department as well as station 13. so obviously something that's of critical importance and and um so that's that's good at least that that's in the mix and that that's start a design when i checked it up last it was about 60 through on design and i think for construction for 27 so that's a really good thing In question, what New Tampa resurfacing projects are noted here? I know obviously we just did New Tampa Boulevard, because I'm going to ask about one that I hear a lot about. Is there anything that you're aware of in New Tampa?

Right. So when we look at the condition of the roads in New Tampa, with the infrastructure being newer, we don't have the same need for maintenance. I don't know. I think that we've got New Tampa Boulevard laid out on the map that I showed. But I don't know that we have anything in addition to that in New Tampa.

One thing I'd like for you all to check up on, and I can work. I know, Brandon, are you coming tomorrow to that Easton Park thing? Yes. Cut through, cut through, cut through, right? You poor thing. And thank you, Brandon. You're always wonderful. Is finishing up Tampa Palms Boulevard. A couple of years ago, we did the first half of Tampa Palms Boulevard. Everybody was thankful for it, including the great Wade Boggs, who lives in Tampa Palms, and finishing up. Because the other half is just as bad as the first half. So that is something that I want to put on y'all's radar. We can talk about that offline, and maybe I can make a motion on that later on if you guys, which we work on that. But that's all. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. Thank you. Councilman Moran.

Thank you very much.

In fact, Councilman Carlson, Councilman Hurtad, Councilman Medescalco all touched on things that happened to me the same week. I called the county on Havana, and the first part from Columbus Drive to Tampa Bay Boulevard, is theirs. That's what they told me. They paid it. So I said, what about the rest of it? Oh, that's not ours. I said, let me understand this. You go from Havana to Tampa Bay Boulevard, and you stop, and then you pick it up on the other side of Hill's Gravity, three blocks, that's your area, so the middle is ours? And they told me, yes, it is. So from Tampa Bay Boulevard all the way to the other side, three blocks north of Hill's Gravity, belongs to the city. This section belongs to them. Only about five, six So I realized, and I apologize for calling them. However, then on Mr. Carlson's conversation on that street, I had a call from a lady about two days ago, I think it was, very nice and very roisterous. She was very upset. It took her 30 minutes to go a very short distance and the streets were blockade or something about. So I called you guys and gentlemen at your division told me very nicely that they were putting down the striping for bicycling and they should be finished very shortly and that when they were finished, the roadway would be the same width as it was before they started to try it. Am I correct?

Yes, that's correct. Platte is part of the West river multimodal, uh, uh, project sometimes referred to just as, uh, the West river walk. And we will have, we had two lanes before we'll have two lanes after it's rearranging the cross section of that roadway, but yes. And, uh, Mr, uh, gentlemen now,

on her tax deal on Highlands Avenue, I think it is. I went to the Fraternal Order of Police and I cut a shortcut. I want to go through Highlands and enjoy myself. Well, when I left Highlands and I turned in and I went about halfway, there's a blinking light and the thing went, poof, stopped. And I waited, waited, waited. It wouldn't change. It was only two cars, me and another one next to me. And I was there, I mean, I wasn't complaining, I was enjoying myself, just relaxing. And all of a sudden you bring it up and I tell myself, how coincidental that the three council members talked about something that happened to me the same day. So that's what I'm saying. And it's a coincidence, but it's a fact. So I understand what you're saying about the parking and the blinking and so forth and the light waiting. I waited about two, it looks like two cycles it wouldn't turn and finally it said go. But thank you for what you're doing. I know that you have almost an impossible job because of the density and the backlog that we have. So I appreciate what you're trying to do. Thank you.

Councilwoman Young.

Okay. My two favorite mobility people. Well, one, I want to thank both of you. I've had separate conversations with both of you prior to this meeting. I want to thank you both because you were very, you know, just clarifying some things. I really appreciate that. um for the roadway resurfacing um is there a list and i don't know if i've asked you for this already brandon maybe um a list of those uh resurfacing projects but like broken out by district is that is that somewhere that can be shared i don't know if that's consolidated in one place right now but we certainly can get those to you okay that would be very helpful thank you Also, I had another question in regards to the sidewalk. So for sidewalks that are maybe just like are like cracked or need to be fixed, is that included in this or is that just like a sidewalk maintenance cost? What's that process?

So we do have $700,000 annually that's continued in the budget that we use for sidewalk maintenance that gets us about 20,000 linear feet of grinding. and panel replacement. So where we have trip hazards, where they've been identified, the neighborhoods, we will go out annually and do maintenance work. So that's a separate funding source. The new sidewalks, we don't intermingle those dollars.

And what's the, what's like, you give like an estimated cost. Like if you had to fix, let's say like a cracked sidewalk, like what would be the estimated cost for that?

As far as like a single panel, it can range. So, you know, I would say somewhere, you know, I would look at the sidewalk in Luffy that, you know, that that's a representation of what it costs the city per linear foot to construct some sidewalks. So about $220 a linear foot in some circumstances. Sometimes it's a little bit cheaper, sometimes it's a little bit more expensive, depending on the context.

Okay. Thank you very much. And then my next question, do we know when we will start collecting funds from the speed enforcement cameras?

So I do not. I'm not sure. TPD may speak to that later. I know that they're working to bring the program live. I know we're looking at bringing the ordinance back to you in November to have a discussion of that. I don't believe that program would go live before that, but I'm not sure. I'd have to defer to TPD.

okay and then my other question thank you i know it's not necessarily a fy 27 budget item but thank you for including um pathways to palmetto um i appreciate that for the tampa streetcar extension is this in conjunction with the um with ria the regional infrastructure accelerator

So the regional infrastructure accelerator lets us look at ways to fund our expensive projects. So the streetcar is part of that regional infrastructure accelerator because we need to get creative in how we're going to fund it. So it's listed as one of the top five projects. It's advanced. Brandon and I just reviewed a draft kind of funding assessment from the consultant. We expect to have a draft report ready in September that kind of reviews the Regional Infrastructure Accelerator, lets us know what projects were looked at, kind of where we've moved from a long list to a short list, and then some of the potential funding opportunities to advance those projects.

Okay, yes, I was just at the TPO meeting, and they presented their, the consultant presented their report, so I wanted to know if that was in connection with that. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Okay. Buckle up. So can you go to the screen that says transportation focus area roadway resurfacing? Back up. Can we throw the PowerPoint presentation? There we go. They're back up one more foot forward. This one or the table? No, the one with the table with the dollars. It's all about the dollars. OK, so explain to me how we how we have not spent council budgeted money for paving, how we have not spent five point seven eight eight million dollars on paving that we had budgeted and we expected roads to be paved with that money in FY 26.

So it's been encumbered into the contracts, but we have not written the contracts to support the work.

Then why are you taking credit for FY27 with money that this council allocated for FY26?

So that would be a rollover? It's been encumbered in the contract but not yet spent?

You're taking that as a win and estimated funding available for FY27 as if the administration is coming to this council with more money than they actually have. In reality, they've only allocated $5 million of this budget. The off-road transportation money, the $21 million, was that money that was allocated in FY26 as well?

Um, all for transportation, I believe was allocated in FY 25 or 26.

So once again, this is money that, okay. I ran on it, pave the damn roads budget. So clearly we're not paving the damn roads. I mean, this is money that, I mean, I would give this, this, this y'all a D a D an execution. If this, if this council is giving you guys money and you're failing to spend it, what the heck is going on? I mean, to say that I'm gravely disappointed and look at these figures would be an understatement.

So for FY26, that was our highest year of paving activity. I want to say, I showed an average on the previous slide, and that average takes some more years. I get it.

You know, I've been there side by side with you, being a champion of accomplishments. But again, if this council had provided, we provided the funding for, to do additional, I mean, you and your own admission talked about, was it $29 million a year? Well, if you haven't been able to spend the money we've been giving you, what difference does it make if I gave you $21.9 million if you're not paving the damn streets?

Right. And I think one of the things we run into a little bit as a department is when we receive a lump sum, we have to expand our contract capacity to help sustain it. So that was one of the delays in advancing the work And the last FY was we were transferred in an additional $5 million, and we had to expand some of the contract capacity. So that slowed us down some and likely led to a delay in ramping up the paving. So in FY26, we did do almost 80 miles or around 80 miles of paving in the city. So we increased, but to your point, we did not spend the full allocation. $26 million of unspent money in 26.

That's a lot of damn roads.

So the all for transportation dollars are something that we received and we've worked pretty quickly to program those. I think Hager has a description, she has a table in her presentation that shows the status of those projects, that they're all in design now. So we haven't sat on that dollar allocation.

we've advanced those i don't think i would be as aggrieved if if you didn't present this and like this was with the appearance of misleading like this was additional i think that's what set me off is that this that like this was a win that you're coming to the city of tampa he's coming to city council and you're speaking to the folks that are driving over crappy roads every day in the city of tampa as if we're presenting them with a with so much additional money in paving, when in actuality, we're not. And then you go to the two slides more about the sidewalks. There's still $4 million in sidewalk funding that we haven't spent. How difficult is it to build a damn sidewalk?

we've left that we've left four million dollars on the table in 26. so so that's where i'd reference building the project pipeline i i don't know how much was in the project pipeline um that was ready to go to construction that's something that we're focused on now and we're trying to to push three projects into design so that we can spend those funds so so we're gonna have to talk i mean so we need to talk with again

By charter, we have the responsibility to pass a budget with expectations of these projects. We don't we're not in charge of actually the execution of this. The administration is in the mayor's administration is clearly this is a this is a failure in administration. This council stepped up to the plate, budgeted money to pave streets and to build sidewalks. And then there's been a failure in the administration of the execution of this and for 12 months. So I mean, that that's it's highly problematic to me. And I'll say that, I mean, honestly, I started off with this with the $5 million is not enough to make a meaningful dent. As you said, $29 million a year to be able to make a meaningful dent and be able to pay. $5 million is what the administration has proposed for their maintenance needs. If the general fund is growing and several revenue sources are outperforming FY26 expectations, I want to know why paving funding is being reduced to $5 million for FY27. That does not make sense to me, and maybe that's a question for our CFO. And I will say basically, and I'm going to get very further into this later on in this conversation today, but it appears to me based on hours and hours and hours and hours of research over the last seven to 10 days that we're under-representing revenues in several areas, including property taxes, interest earnings, licensing, and permits. And we are under-representing revenue you're depriving the city council of its ability to do the allocation of budget when we have by charter that responsibility to do that. I have a whole sequence of questions I'm gonna ask when I have more time to do that, but I don't wanna hog the time when we're talking about paving because I think this is more globally about general funding. But it appears to me as though there is excess revenue that has not been budgeted, that the $5 million is not sufficient. As you've admitted that we need $29 million just to keep up with it. It's highly disturbing that we've left all this money on the table in FY 26. And I would like I said, I would give that as a report card as a D in execution. So we can't come. You can't come and say, Hey, we don't have money. You had money and you failed it. You failed to pave the roads. Okay. Council on her time.

Thank you. I actually would like the CFO to come up because this is where I'm curious as to where the CIT funding is going this year. So for example, we talked about the MacDill that had $8 million in it. Where is that money going this year?

i'm and i'm uh dennis reher chief financial officer good evening council and which project is that man um the mcdill uh sorry gotta dig into my

So when we were talking about this stadium, I showed a piece of paper, and maybe Ms. Sharpe will get her hands on it before I get my hands on it. But basically, oh, here it is. CIT projected project list. $8 million for City of Tampa MacDill Air Force Access Improvements, Interbay Boulevard, projected projects for FY27, $8 million. So now there's $8 million, and I'm not really sure where it's going to go. Here, I'm happy to bring it down and put it on the wall.

I'm good.

now I get to see the wheel but you never actually get to do it yourself okay there we go wait I'm sorry did the CFO print this I can't see it No, I'm probably going to say that that's our office. Apologies. The printer isn't so awesome. So the one that's that's hard to see is the Gadsden Park improvement for 1.5 million. So my question is, is this still the projected total?

My man, counsel, my first question is, what was the what's the origin of this product? I don't recognize it.

I think Ms. Kapesky can talk to it.

Yes, so initially there was a product that had been worked through originally that showed the five years and what was embedded within each of the major categories. And so this was going back to probably several weeks. So this was really a format that I provided to start the dialogue across that says it would be great to now understand given that we've solidified The most updated version of the plan, how do these things still, but they are not, the whole purpose of this document was to be updated with what reality really is.

Understood. In that case, my request would be to do just that, circle back with an updated copy of this. I just simply don't know off the top of my head.

Okay, so we don't have any plans for the CIT. You don't know any plans for the CIT, like off the... Okay, so when do you believe I could get an updated version of the project list for the CIT?

We could turn that around very quickly, but let me just clarify. So you'd like this... format, roughly, and what's actually identified for each department and each year in the CIT. Yes. Copy. Okay.

Yeah, and so this was something that we kind of worked out when we were trying to figure out, like, if the raise we're going to get, you know, $20 million from each, but obviously it really sounds like we're not going in that direction, so we would have this money, and if we don't, if we aren't using eight, or rather, I'm sorry, if we're not using $8 million, I mean, I think some of that might be being used for multimodal network and safety or street resurfacing, but it just seems like if anywhere we can find some money for both sidewalks and resurfacing, if we aren't going to spend it in this mobility section, if we aren't spending it on those access improvements this year, it would be great if we could focus more money on paving and sidewalks. Because I totally understand your point. But I also know that we have worked hard to get our paving crews up to speed. I think ideally they want to create a sidewalk team that's similar. I don't know if that's in the plans anymore. This council suggested that.

Yeah.

So I don't know if that's in the plans anymore. But I agree with you. So my point being, if there is money in this mobility portion of the cit it should certainly go towards sidewalks and paving um so that's uh and then so yes yes if uh ms kapesky if i can get a copy uh thank you yeah i i can get uh ms scharf if you could come in and make a copy for mr o'hara that would be great

Is that it? Thank you.

Yes. I really just wanted to talk about the CIT. That's going to be one of my big things. I'm disappointed we aren't going to be able to talk about tonight.

Councilman Carlson and Councilman Moran.

Yeah. We just went on a different you're talking about a different topic. I was following on what you were talking about, Mr. Chair. One of the things is that The administration has a big PR machine. Frankly, I think later on we ought to talk about zeroing out their budget because they work against city council. Not all of them, but some of them do. But there's all these, kind of alluding to what the chair said a little while ago, there's all these announcements about look how much we're doing, it isn't as great, but the public sees their roads failing. And so there needs to be a different kind of honest communication and As this mayor is stepping down, I don't know if there's a way that city council can work with the staff to correct this. Honestly, the perception of the public is this administration is disintegrating in front of them. I'm getting complaints all over the place about the administration not operating correctly. But the one thing that is operating is the PR machine. And the image doesn't match the reality of it. And what we need to do is not set people's expectations that we're doing everything, everything is great, and we're moving forward. We need to make sure we have honest communication with them. And part of that ties into the priorities. Like my colleague, Councilmember Young, asked about splitting up projects per district. The original idea of moves, we were demanding roads eight years ago when I came on board and sidewalks and other things. And the administration at the time said, just wait, wait, wait, we'll work on moves. And then like six years later, they came up with moves. And in the meantime, there was a lot more deferred maintenance. But the idea of moves was that we were supposed to have a plan based on the status of the roads and If there are roads that are falling apart, like New Suburb Beautiful, it's gotta be some of the worst roads I've ever seen in the world. And even if it's 15 million to restore the bricks, we've gotta set that as a priority because it's not acceptable that people's tires are popping all over the place. And so, To me, we need to be able to show, just like with the parks plan that we waited forever for, that there's a need where the engineers have gone through and analyzed the roads and said, this road is a one and this road is a three. So we're going to start with the one and then do the three later. The other thing is you all mentioned, I'll offer a translation briefly, and then the 21 million. I just want to remind everybody, the last time it came up, it failed, but the voters did not vote for it. And I think it's because of a badly run campaign. There have been five badly run campaigns now. It doesn't mean that the public doesn't want transportation, but we've got to change the way we engage the public on that. And that's nothing to do with this staff, by the way. And we just need to engage the public in a different way so that we can figure out funding sources because it's not acceptable that we have billions of dollars in backlog. The other thing, my colleague, the chair, talked about money in different places. This administration also is infamous for slush funds and we need to make sure that there aren't slush funds. We've tried to find them over various years, but they always seem to pop up with a rabbit out of the hat saying, oh, well, here's money that you all didn't know was here. And somehow we need to, again, we need to be honest and transparent with the public. We've been asking, we city council have been asking for transparency for the whole eight years of this administration. Now the public is finally seeing the lack of it. It shouldn't taint the staff. We've got a lot of excellent staff on board. As this administration is going out, we on city council and the staff need to make sure we show transparency, even if the administration doesn't. And that means that we need to make sure that we're not hiding slush funds. Thank you.

Go ahead. And so staff. agrees that we need to convey information more effectively. One of the things I'm working on as the transportation services director with Brandon is to develop a quarterly report. So I know we talked previously about the stormwater quarterly report. We had delayed delivery of that because we're we're working to develop a larger quarterly report that's more comprehensive for the entire department. So that's one of the things we're working on to convey to you to convey to the public in a magazine level publication each quarter. what we've done in the last quarter as a department. So people have an understanding of what we've done, of where we may be falling behind, and that way we can work to set and meet expectations. So just a little bit that we are, as a staff, understand that we need to be as transparent as we can. And that's my goal as a director, is to make sure that the public understands why we make a decision. They may not always agree with our decision, But if they understand why we made it and what our basis was for it, I think we're better off.

Yeah, just when my communication had on, I would not do anything that cost money like that. And I wouldn't go through the communication department because it ends up getting turned into something that it's not. What I would do is... just go meet with the public, go around with us. You know, before Mr. Beatty left, I took him on a drive through South Tampa. I showed him all the different places that people were complaining about, but then nothing really happened. And so people's expectations are raised. What we need to do, ideally you'd go with us and go neighborhood by neighborhood or region by region. When Brandon and Yuan go to the stormwater meetings, not the South Howard one, but the other ones, people are really upset, but they like them and trust them. And I think the same thing with you, Adam. So can I say one more thing? I've had complaints even last week. that staff complained that the mayor's staff criticize them if we compliment staff. And I think that's a really sad situation because there are a lot of great staff members. And if I want to compliment a staff member, I think we should be able to do it without the mayor's staff retaliating against them. And I've reported this to the city attorney. And if a staff member gets yelled at or retaliated or discriminated against by one of the mayor's staff members because we compliment you, which is a terrible situation, come to us, come to the city attorney. It's unacceptable. This mayor's a lame duck. We're not going to allow that bad behavior to happen in the next few months. Thank you.

okay um i have give me a little bit of difference i've got i've got a whole bunch of questions for the cfo and again this is this boils down to the premise that i feel like we're underrepresented revenue and uh mr o'hara you and i had that conversation about this is council's opportunity one time only you know being a fiscal year when we can budget and by underrepresented revenue it deprives us of our charter um entitlement and responsibility to be able to allocate funds, we don't get another bite of this apple. So if you could come up, I'd appreciate it. And it's a long, long list. I don't know if I can get to it in this one question and answer session, but I'll try to. If not, we'll come back, and I'm sure there's going to be some of these answers you're going to have to get back with us on. But these are questions that I have. What is the administration's best estimate today of the total revenue the city will actually receive in FY27, and how does that amount compare to the revenue amount included in the proposed budget? If the administration's own forecast is higher than the amount being budgeted, why is the difference being excluded from the proposed budget rather than being appropriated by council as a part of the FY27 budget? assuming you'll take an IOU on that. Silence will assume IOU. Chair Greg Musil Yes, sir. Chair Greg Musil Is the purpose of this budgeting less than the administration's reasonable revenue forecast to create a cushion of revenues that are not subject to Council's appropriation at the end I'm sorry at the beginning of the fiscal year? Chair Greg Musil I can answer that one now. Chair Greg Musil Go ahead.

Chair Greg Musil Absolutely not. Chair Greg Musil Okay. And what would be the purpose? The purpose, if any, is to err on the conservative side. Again, we practice conservative financial management, and that includes our revenue projections, sir.

Okay, so I had a question that I anticipated that answer, but I'll answer my question after that in just a few minutes. How many millions of dollars does the administration currently expect to collect in FY27 that are not reflected in the proposed budget? Once those revenues are received, who has the authority to determine how those additional revenues are spent?

And once the revenues are received and recognized, in order to appropriate those revenues, we have to have approval from City Council.

But only the administration can initiate that and with only asking. We can't compare, you know, apples and oranges. So the administration has to prepare a budget amendment. And we decide on that based up or down on that budget, I can't look at a spectrum of things and evaluate one project over another. In other words, because council can't initiate mid-cycle budget initiatives. I think it's a rhetorical question. I believe it is, sir, yes. Yeah, okay. Well, that would be my next question is, does the administration have the sole authority to initiate budget amendments? Yes, they do. If the mayor's proposed budget intentionally understates reasonably anticipated revenues, doesn't that have the practical effect of reducing the amount of revenue that is presented to council for appropriations when council exercises its budget authority? And I guess that's kind of a rhetorical question, too, because if it's underrepresented, yes, it does. Would you agree that if revenues are reasonably expected to be received but are intentionally left out of the proposed budget, Council is not being asked to make an appropriation decision concerning those revenues at the beginning of the fiscal year?

I would agree with that. Yeah. I would say that I think the key word in that particular question is intentionally

Right. Well, I mean, and I think we can get to that too about some of what the intentions are because I think some are readily apparent and some are practiced. fiscal year after the 95% is one thing I would say. Correct.

Yes, she gets more in affidavits.

So what is the policy justification? Here we go to 95%. What is the policy justification for budgeting 95% or whatever percentage the administration is actually using of reasonably anticipated revenue rather than budgeting 100% of the best supported revenue forecast and allowing council to decide how that revenue should be appropriated?

The 95% specifically for property tax revenue is the statutory limit.

Only for counties.

Only for counties. Not for municipalities. In that case, I would say we have incorporated that into our policy in the city. And to my knowledge, we have always followed that. If it is just for counties, then, okay.

Yes, statutory is just for counties, not municipalities. At least that's my understanding. I'm not a lawyer, nor am I a legislator. Again, I'd have to defer to a city attorney. Lots of hours of research. Understood. Is that methodology intended to provide the administration with greater flexibility or control over revenues that exceed the amount included in the adopted budget?

Not to my knowledge. And off the top of my head I can say, Our emphasis in the City of Tampa has always been to account for early payment, which achieves a discount and thus lesser property tax revenues.

Chair Greg Musil. Okay. And so I get this, and this gets back to the conservative budgeting hypothesis. I understand that the desire for being conservative, but if the administration's conservative estimate is intentionally below its own best actual revenues, estimate of actual revenues, isn't the consequence of that the difference becomes revenue that is not subject to council's initial appropriation decision? And I think this boils into that conversation you and I had.

Agreed, sir.

Okay. And so why shouldn't council have the opportunity to decide how that money should be allocated when it adopts the budget? Point taken. Point taken. Can the administration provide counsel with the methodology it used to determine the FY27 revenue estimates, including the actual FY26 collections, this will be an IOU, including the actual FY26 collections, the FY26 revised forecast, the administration's current 27 revenue forecast, and the amount ultimately included in the proposed budget for each major revenue source? And I said, if the administration's actual FY27 revenue forecast before applying the city's 95% budget policy shows that the city reasonably expects to collect more revenue than is being presented to council for appropriation, why shouldn't that reasonably anticipated revenue be disclosed to council and considered as part of council's initial budget decisions rather than being left outside the appropriations and potentially made available for the administration allocation later in the fiscal year?

Understood.

Okay. And then can you provide the council with the amount, the 27 revenue that the administration expects to collect but is intentionally excluded from the proposed budget because of the 95% assumption? So what is outstanding of what you require? We can. Okay. So additional requests. I'd like you to provide the 27 revenue forecasting model, not the published budget but the forecasting model that you used. What is the underlying calculations used by revenue and finance?

I apologize, so I don't mean to interrupt you. When you say model, are you confining the question to property tax revenue?

For all revenue, because what I've seen is with utility, I mean, across a couple of revenue streams I'd like to identify. So really, the revenue forecasting model across all lines of revenue. What is the underlying calculations used by Revenue and Finance for each of the major revenue stores? The gross anticipated revenue, the budgeted revenue, what percentage of a haircut you used when you prepared this 27 budget, the reason for the haircut for each line, the historical collection rate, the 26 actual to date number, the 26 projected year end, and the 27 forecast as we previously discussed. I'd also like y'all to provide the historical property tax collection rates from 21 to 26. The certified tax levy minus the statutory uncollectible adjustments versus actual cash collections. So the actual collection percentage, not the budget versus actual. I'd like the administration to provide the original 27 forecasts that you used before application of the city's 95% budget policy. I think we talked about that already. And what did the administration forecast 27 property tax collections would be? So what was the forecast that you anticipated they'd be? The current investment yield and cash balances for our interest income. Why is 27 permit revenue below the 26 projected level? Do you know that? I do not. Okay. What portion of 26 franchise fees are outperforming is recurring? What is the recurring part that's outperforming? Just so we have a complete picture. I'll email a copy to council. The history of year end budget amendments from 21 to 26. So we can see a history of budget amendments from 21 to 26. And again, I want to say if Council were to appropriate expenditures based on the lower estimate, Council doesn't appropriate money for additional paving. We don't get the opportunity to appropriate money for additional paving, parks, or infrastructure. If the revenues subsequently come in higher than the administration, then the greater discretion over these funds subsequent to budget amendments and resolutions obviously go to the administration. As I said earlier in our discussion, I put forth two proposed resolutions for council's consideration, not tonight, because of course we're not taking action. One would be a binding resolution that would be attached to the FY27 budget with triggers for evaluations after first, second, and third quarter to do actual revenue forecasting and actual data versus what had been forecast in this budget and creating a binding agreement between this council and the administration to fund additional money for paving that would be the first resolution that i was i will propose when we have this when we actually have this meeting to be attached to the budget and the second would be for the addition for an additional 20 million after the first 10 to go to parks and recreation so i've included that for you guys to look at that between meetings and again subsequently we can have that further discussion um when we actually get to a budget meeting councilwoman hertech are you uh is that going to be a motion would you like me to well we can't do the motion tonight because the workshop is it'll be when we do when no i'm talking about all of the requests you had um would you like to make that in the form of a motion Uh, well, do you need that in a motion or can you take that as a, I was gonna look at the minutes. Okay.

Please do a unanimous consent or something.

Yeah. I, I would really like a motion because a motion requires dates. Okay. So, okay. Uh, I have, I have specificity and then maybe what you could do is have Sam make a copy of that for all of us for the clerk and I'll give it to you as well. Yeah.

So, and for Ms. Capesco. Okay. Unanimous consent hearing, no dissent. No. Yeah.

I'm okay. So you're going to provide those questions to the chief financial officer.

I'll provide it to the clerk, the chief financial officer, and I will email all seven members of council.

And when I say, I mean, Sam will do that. Sorry, Martin Shelby city council attorney, and it is council's consensus. that these questions will be discussed at the first budget public hearing?

That was my intent, yes.

So then I have a motion.

I think it's acceptable just to do it on the basis of consensus at this point in time. Everybody knows what the expectation is. Mr. O'Hara, do you have any questions or concerns with regard to that?

I do not. Okay, thank you. I'll make sure I get you so you don't have to worry about reviewing those minutes. I'll get you to the notes. Councilwoman Herjit.

um just to go just to piggyback a little bit on what you were saying uh i personally don't want to wait until the first budget workshop i think it's going to be too late um i i would recommend maybe putting another workshop on the agenda and i'm just i mean i hate to do it but i really feel like we need some answers before we have a vote like i can't vote yes or no and get that information directly at the time because as you saw we received some of the data we needed 12 minutes before we sat down tonight, so Just gonna throw that I'll let that I'll let you percolate on that but but really my question would be for the mobility team again of I Do know and I appreciate that it may take some time to get going and plan to do these things but If we were to find

more money for paving this year do we do we think we could pay more than five million dollars worth of paving we will pay more that's i'm sorry i didn't hear that because i'm sorry i don't sell transportation service director so so that if additional funds so we we've had an opportunity to increase our contract capacity we estimate increased contract capacity we've been through that exercise if we have to replicate that to again increase contract capacity we should be able to do it more quickly and we should be able to get that paving done more quickly so so but also knowing that now we have two paving teams are those fully staffed so i don't know right okay yeah so brian rogers is the maintenance and operations director both teams are fully staffed

Does they are fully staffed? Yes. OK. Do we need a third team or is really just because as we talked about, this is a systemic issue. This is not something. And so I hesitate to keep saying we can use contracts, which, again, in the short term. But really, what we're talking about trying to stand up in the next several years, a really robust more than $5 million a year paving program?

Yes, I would say if we're looking at the potential for additional paving teams, We could use additional in-house paving capacity, but I do need to talk a little bit about what that entails, including that our facility right now is pretty packed out. We may actually have to have additional space for the teams and for the equipment. There's quite a bit of ramp up time for adding both. So I would say we could not, I couldn't come here and tell you that if we had the funds for a third crew, that we would be at full production by the end of next fiscal year.

No. And that's but that's why I'm asking. So that's something that if we can get more money and we can get the contracts going a bit smoother, ideally we could do that in the next couple of years.

Yes. Provided there's a sustainable funding source behind it, of course.

Exactly. Exactly. But I mean, you're hearing the will of this council is that we want that to be a thing. How much money can you handle? I mean, that's a really hard and very loaded question, but right now, the administration has only budgeted $5 million, and this council really believes that we need to do more. If we were able to double that and get $10 million, would that be something that you could reasonably accommodate?

I believe we could, um, I will again say, you know, Adam, Adam already mentioned that these projects often take some time for planning and design. And in particular, just coming back to those, uh, seven projects that are funded by that offer transportation money, because those are, you know, discrete efforts that we're all sort of aware of. Uh, we started the design process early this year. That's about a nine to 12 month design process for each of those. Uh, and that's the. smallest cost of all of the actual delivery of the project. So yes, I do believe if we had $10 million, we could put that to good use. We're going to tax our two paving teams regardless. And we have contract capacity to continue pushing forward on some of the projects that are in the pipeline. Adam mentioned we've got sort of a two year right now program that we're working toward. We could probably advance some of those that otherwise would be in fiscal 28.

Okay, and then just one more question. Same thing for sidewalks, only $700,000. What could we reasonably expect to, what kind of money? I mean, and I hate to say like another 700,000, because to me that's just woefully inadequate. If we were able to give you 1.3 million to make it a nice round 2 million, is that something that you would be able to do something with this year?

again you know because sidewalks actually do tend to be fairly complicated designs that often it looks like hey there's just bare ground here but there's a matter of utility relocation and sometimes drainage impacts generally our sidewalk projects take longer than one fiscal year to execute from planning through construction. We could get that going, but with any number, with any amount really, we could get the designs underway.

Because right now you have the 4 million that's coming over from last year that are still, that's been allocated, it's got a space, it's encumbered, but it's not spent yet. So if we were to get you 1.3 to get started on the next round, would that be something we could do?

Yes, it may. Again, we may be standing here next year saying that money is being carried over to fiscal 28 because construction has not yet begun.

Yes, but we've gotten through the design and the other portions. And I think that's really what you're hearing from us is we don't just want to fund what's possible. If you're telling us it's going to take a year to get it done, then let's fund it ahead of time. Let's get it going because only less than $6 million for both of these departments is just unacceptable.

Right. And we're working through the process right now of preparing for the school speed zone camera funds so that if those come to reality for mobility, that the capacity is going to need to be increased through likely consultant services. We have a Vision Zero team. We have in-house planners and engineers that can work with safety but but the volume of work that would come with a 10 million dollar you know allocation that's something that that we're planning now on how to increase the capacity to support that effort yes but we don't want that to replace sidewalk funding we're not we're not going to school lottery this

we're not going to take that money and and that be all we spend on sidewalks um obviously school sidewalks are very important it's something we want to focus on but it shouldn't be at the detriment of other sidewalks as well so i think that we'll want to see the both approach i i don't believe in

the lottery system of funding okay um we are going i've got councilman carlson and council miranda and if there's no other questions after that we're going to take a break there are there is by the way um some nourishment in the back so um so councilman carlson then miranda and um my my understanding correct me if i'm wrong no

not meaning to disparage anybody, but the internal crews, they do the more light repaving, not the deep part, right? Yes, yes.

Full depth reclamation is always contractor driven, and our in-house crews tend to focus mostly on our neighborhood streets program. Again, because the off-road transportation segments are sort of that example right in front of us,

those are a little bit more complicated uh projects and those will likely be out to for for contractor performance and they're funded uh healthily enough that that we can so i just want to make sure and again going back to the pr spin versus what you guys do every day that as we're talking as the pr people are talking about miles and miles and how great the city's doing There are a lot of places like New Suburb Beautiful that have really deep issues, and we need to not skip over those so that we can talk about the miles. And I know that's not your issue, but we need to make sure that we're contracting with folks and doing that. It's great that we're moving fast on the regular repaving. Another thing is... Yeah, I'll just stop. Thank you.

OK.

Thank you. I think you're looking at what you said. You had 96 miles pay for five thousand five million dollars. Is that it?

I'm not sure.

I remember the conversation earlier about an hour ago.

We talked about 96 miles needed to be paved each year for about $29 million. How much? About $29 million.

$29 million. So then if you had 5 into 30, whatever it is, you can do how many miles if you had another $20 million or $10 million? Half of 96 would be 45 added to the 96 or something like that.

right so with with design and construction we're looking at about 300 million or three hundred thousand dollars a lane mile so whatever additional funding that would be so it's about two hundred thousand a mile yeah three hundred thousand a mile okay thank you yep okay any time for you okay it is 6 26. uh we're going to be on break until seven o'clock

Thank you. Okay. Okay. I was listening to all of you. I did. I was just thinking about time. And then, you know, that was the whole point. It was good. It was good. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

um but but yes i was just so i mean because i saw him when i was up there i was looking through it i saw we had this but i didn't i don't know what it is

so

Thank you. Thank you.

Let's see if everything's all right.

Thank you.

I'm making a mistake because they have not had second reading on one of the procedures, which means that they are supposed to take public comments after every item. So if they change the procedure, that's okay. So do you think we'll be able to speak after the meeting?

I'm surprised. I didn't recognize you. Oh, it would be great.

There's not many of us. No, it's fine. Everything, I don't understand. Last time we had to work on this. Last Monday. I know you do.

have not had second reading on the rules and procedures and if that's not how it is that's the case But I wasn't sure on my question, and I at least did not say anything last time because I thought, well, maybe I missed it.

That was the second reason.

Yeah, that's what it translated. procedurally stephanie seems correct

so so Stephanie, is there something specific that you would like to say?

Yeah, the gentleman that was here in front of me.

... ... ... ... um um

you

And I asked the question, nobody addressed it to me. Ask Mike Perry.

Because technically, in the Warwick County, you're supposed to do it. You're doing too much because it's going back into stormwater. But my problem is, why did they take it out of the stormwater? But you emailed them and asked them the question. I certainly did.

what's getting done and what's not getting done. I have a good list of

either one of these.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's why they go to bed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, thank you for your patience. Welcome back to Tampa City Council. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Miranda.

Here.

Maniscalco. Here. Hurtick. Here. Young. Here. Vieira. Carlson. Here. Plannanen. Here. We have physical form.

I would like to entertain a motion from council to hear convention center first. It's a very small presentation. I have a motion from Councilman Maniscalco, second from Councilman Carlson. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Let's talk about the Convention Center.

Good evening, Council. David Ingram, Executive Director of the Tampa Convention Center. Tonight I'm going to give you an overview of the Convention Center's 27 budget. If I could have up the presentation, please. I promise not to go more than five hours.

Why would you disappoint us?

Whatever you need, I can go even longer if you need to. So just want to touch base, as everybody knows, the Convention Center does create revenue for ourselves. They do it in two ways. One, we do a rental for the facility, as well as we do commissions from our partners that do billing for our services on property. The total this year that we're looking for is roughly 15.7 million. That's a 1% increase over last year's of 15.5. Those are our base budgets. The reason why we went conservative, unfortunately, we are no longer hosting AP reading. going forward and that show alone brings about a million dollars in commissions for us. So instead of trying to overshoot and outreach our projections, we went with the standard 1% of getting a somewhat slight increase and still cover our expenditures. So moving into our operating expenses, as you can see, these are our cost centers. The total that we're requesting this year is 15.8 million. That's a slight decrease from both our fiscal year 26 adopted budget as well as our current projection path that we're on of 15.9 million. And last but not least, we'd like to ask for a capital program this year. We're looking at asking for $2.9 million. $1.4 million of that helps us continue our electrical primary distribution replacement. The remaining $1.5 million helps us start replacing our storefront with hurricane rated doors and windows. What we also did is we put in our projected future fiscal requests to complete the projects, knowing that it's gonna be contingent on the year that they're in, if it's approved or not based on finances. So I wanted to give you a high overview. I'm here for any questions if you have any.

Councilman Moran, do you have questions?

No, I just want to say that that convention center has been God sent. I remember when it was there by itself without no convention hotels and the city struggled dearly and through efforts like yourself and others before you and the hotels that came in to marry out with the first and then they spawn others that came in. It is done fantastically. And I'm very proud of what you and your crew have done. Thank you.

Councilman Young, then her check.

No, I just wanted to say I actually was just at the convention center because the Shriners are in town and this is their fifth time that they've been to Tampa. You know they have different groups or you know around you know in different states and one I was talking with one of the organizers and they said you know a lot of people want to host in their city but they don't really have the the space whether it be you know the hotels or space to hold it when i think they have about nine or ten thousand people that are in the city and so they keep coming because we're able to to host them here and they actually really enjoy being um in the convention center so um just you know you all got a lot of praises today thank you appreciate that councilwoman thank you um can you talk to me a little bit about the hurricane rated storefront replacement

Sure. What we did is we did a facility assessment and what came back is the 36 year old storefront that we have, which are basically doors and windows in order to get safer and more protected. They recommended that we ended up replacing those to a more modern grade for hurricane rate.

So those are, so it's not a storefront meaning just how people get into the convention.

Correct. It's actually all our windows and doors throughout the facility. And the way we did it, we were able to structure that so that if we needed to do the first level, we could do the first level. have funding the next couple years. We could do the second level. As you can see, keep going up until we're actually taken care of.

And just what about the overall just hardening of the convention center? I mean, wasn't it the air conditioning system that flooded?

That is correct. We did have our chiller plants.

Can you remind us a little bit about that and what we can do to harden the convention center going forward?

So part of the hardening is changing out the doors and windows. And then for our plant, the one that we are actually working on now is partnering with one of our contractors to bring in the aqua fence similar to TJ. TGH, sorry, drew a blank there. For TGH to actually protect the chiller units and go from there. We can't do the entire capacity, we can't do a tire around the building because ultimately at the end of the day that would be too much. So we're really focusing on our chiller plant, which is down on the first level of the garage, and then some of the storefront, which along Franklin, should we get that far.

Have you considered relocating, I mean I know it's a lot of costs and a lot of drama, but have you considered relocating the chiller?

Part of it is there's twofold. One, we can protect it until we actually get the ability to actually get the funding to do it. It's taking them off the floor and putting them on the ceiling, so that gives that four to five foot ceiling clearance, but having the AquaFence still gives an extra added bonus to make sure that it's hardened.

Okay, yeah, I appreciate that, because I think the AquaFence is useful, but we also have to remember that the AquaFence does not, Prevent water from coming in it displaces it to somewhere else correct And I think we need to keep in mind the places that aren't going to be able to be protected that will get that additional water So just you know thinking about that. Thank you

Well, again, congratulations, another good year for the Convention Center. Good job on what you guys are doing. When would we, and maybe I've missed this, for the CIP for potential and much needed expansion, what year do you think we'll start seeing that show up in a CIP?

for expansion or from replacement because there's two pieces expansion of the convention center for larger space so we just did our presentation to the tdc to give them the report that i gave you guys back in june and then depending on what happens with our friends the rays we'll start moving that direction into whether we have the ability to tap into the tourist development tax or as the next council comes in start prepping them to start moving into an expansion so you think um what 29 29 to put shovels in the ground or to actually talk about expansion

29 for talk about expansion my goal is to actually start talking in the end of 27 beginning of 28. okay again contingent on what happens to november's vote so with that what would be if you if we were talking about that in 27 when would you have shovels in the ground

If wishes were fishes and everything was put right into play, you're probably looking at the beginning of 29.

Can we get that on the sign above the bridge? If wishes were fishes? Yes. That would be a great sign. Thank you very much.

I was just going to bring up the expansion of it because it's what, a 220,000 square foot convention center?

For us, total capacity is 600,000 square feet. The exhibit halls, 200,000. Yeah.

Well, we got to go to about 500,000. We'll be competitive because sooner or later you're going to have competition from somewhere in the west of us and they have beautiful beaches. And we say they are, but they're not. But anyway, it's a wonderful thing, and what you guys do, the courtesy, the professionalism that I've seen there, along with the hotels that are coming in, that's what makes downtown what it is.

Thank you. Councilman Miranda, there is no competition. We are Tampa. There you go. Very good, thank you, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for the report. Okay, so check one off the list. So now we are going to move to police.

Good evening, Council. Brett Owen, Acting Chief of Police. Get our presentation up here. OK, it is coming up. All right. So just a quick overview. Um, currently we are authorized for 1,016 officers. We have 312 professional staff, 144 reserve officers with 28 current vacancies. Just last week, we signed off on the higher of those 28 vacancies today should be filled by the end of the year. Uh, response times. We are still, um, roughly half of what our desired goal is. So required is eight minutes. We're at about four and a quarter minutes to actually receive it to a drive on scene for a priority one. We're just over seven minutes for priority two, and our goal would be 12. And then priority three allows for 60 minutes, and we're just shy at 10 minutes. So we're doing very well on our response times. Calls for service are pretty well flat from last year to this year, down around 700 calls. But our self-initiated calls are up about 16,000. So quite happy with the productivity that our officers are putting out there and the lack of calls for service. Some of the wellness initiatives that we've done this year, we instituted SHARP Performance. That is a mobile application that allows for coaching. The officers can sign up on their own for some guidance that they can get outside of the department. It's a platform that was built for first responders. We also implemented MindBase. That works off of the calls for service, specifically looking at the type of calls that officers go to to kind of let us know if there's somebody that may need some guidance or some kind of review based on the calls that they've handled. And then we have our Drona's First Responder Program. We would like to continue our efforts with that and get that program expanded beyond the two sites that we currently have. We're pretty happy with how that's working so far. As far as the budget goes, we do not have any new FTEs. We're pretty well flat from last year. Overtime budget remained the same, obviously, with the contracts increases and results to about a 4% decrease in what we're actually spending in overtime.

So I have a question. With this evolving technology, what is your projection on discontinuing use of the very costly flight unit and helicopter?

I think that's a two-fold situation. One, we need more of the DFR programs in order to actually cover the city. Another part of that is our fleet aircraft is aging, so we'd certainly like to be able to cycle some of that out. But how quickly we can get this program up and running would largely dictate how quickly we could do that. The other caveat to that is you have to remember, we still respond to wildfire situations with a Bambi bucket. It's going to be quite a while before they get a drum that can carry that kind of weight.

So we're still- Say that again?

The Bambi bucket that carries water for wildfires and things like that. Last year and into this year, again, we have seen the heaviest use of the Bambi bucket that we've had in recent history.

How often does that occur?

Well, this summer it's been a lot. It's been almost weekly. Um, but again, you know, that's dictates, you know, by year by year and what the weather conditions are, it's not really something we can control, but we will need some kind of service for that.

Um, going into it, is that something that would be, we would be looking at the, uh, as a role for our police department versus some other unit. Cause it, again, like you say, the agent equipment, um, I would think we'd want to cycle out of the helicopter usage.

but that would be great when we get to a point where we can, but right now we just don't have the coverage. The current drones that we have only fly about two miles from their existing stations, so we need coverage for the same.

Yeah, I think as we look towards maybe in the next, you know, those of us that may or may not be around, if we look towards the next couple years, if we look at the longer term cycle, how do we get that, what kind of support you need from council to be able to get that capacity with the emerging technologies and be able to, I mean, the helicopter operations are so dang expensive. I am well aware, yes.

We do have Axon coming later this year to do the study to figure out what the next growth set would be.

Okay, good. I'd be happy to, I'd be looking forward to hearing that report and seeing what that ultimate long-range strategic plan is for that. Councilwoman Hurtado.

If you want to be careful of Axon, they're taking over the flock.

Oh.

Yeah. Just saw reports about that today. So we're going to be really cautious about what we do with Axon moving forward.

And you know how friendly I am to that. I know.

I just wanted to let you know. I just heard about it today. But if you haven't had a chance to go visit the helicopter unit and go up in the helicopter, really good. Highly recommend it. It was part of my ride-alongs before I wasn't allowed to do ride-alongs anymore.

Back when I was an air traffic controller, I used to do that kind of stuff all the time. I know. I've spent an adequate amount of time in Sheriff Hill. I'm sure you have.

But if anybody else hasn't, I found it really, really valuable, really interesting. and just the ability for them. I was just going to reiterate what Acting Chief said of the time and the battery.

We didn't fix the ride along thing? Is that status still the same?

I guess. I haven't heard back. Okay. Yeah, I guess I could try one and see what happens. But anyway, I would recommend anybody who hasn't done it to just go and see what they handle because very similarly also went and saw the drone unit and they... They have said that that is the biggest thing. They can't force the battery to be able to do anything, to go faster. And not only do you have two miles, it's only like 20 minutes, isn't it? It's a really short, short...

It's about 32 minutes, but yeah, so it... Technology grows quickly, so I'm sure that the battery life will extend.

And as anyone who tells you who lives in specifically Riverside Heights, that's where I hear from them the most, they know that that helicopter can be up for hours at all times of the morning. Yes, yes. But I always tell people there's a reason for that, and that's the ability to follow and hover and do all that. They just have the ability that others don't. So I'm just going to put a little bit of love toward the helicopter unit.

It's very expensive.

It is very expensive, but right now we don't have anything to replace it. Hey, maybe we can contract with Ukraine. I think I... Didn't have any other questions. Oh, I did. And this might be a question for Dennis and not. So Ms. Kapesky made us, or maybe this is the city of Tampa's budget. Is this from you, Ms. Kapesky? It's a joint task. It's a joint task. OK. So on here on the second page, or the first page, no, page two, it talks about revenue, or rather expenses. and how the expensive for operating the adopted budget of 26 was about $24 million. And the projected is actually 29.5. But here we are going to the recommended again of 23.6. Why are we Why are we going down when very clearly the the adopted was, you know, 6 million less than what we actually spent? So why would we go backward unless we're planning to cut something?

I'm just answering a quick question.

Council was that distributed to you tonight? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, we all have. Does the clerk have a copy? Right.

I don't know if the clerk has a copy.

I can certainly make sure she has one.

He's trying to catch up to where you are.

I think this ties right back into our previous conversations.

Sure. I mean, that's just my question is, if the projected was so much higher, then

Right, and I'm just scanning here to see a couple of things that have come through around. So when I said this was joint, we had had a conversation about some of the variances, and by all means, if I blow this, feel free to jump in. But part of what we saw in the current period was actually talking about some of the cyclical impact of some of the maintenance related to the actual aviation equipment. And so that tends to go up and down. And so part of that is what happened in 26 will not necessarily be repeating every year or in 27.

And then excuse me, because it looks like contract services is what doubled.

right if you're looking at page five contractual services doubled right so this is one of those where there was a lot to unpack in here councilwoman so i know that we wanted to have some of these answers but i would feel better if we don't necessarily i'm going to have to follow up with you i'm just to make sure that i give you the right answer okay

And then my only other question is about the Capitol. I know we've paused. This is page eight. And then if there's a way that we can put this on the Wolf so that the public can see it while we're doing that, that'd be great. So the Capitol, we're pausing, or no, we're not pausing. This is the Howard Avenue Annex. This is going forward, correct?

Correct.

Um, but we're pa are we pausing on these other projects?

What's so the relocation of TPD impound lot has already happened.

Okay.

That building was demolished as a part of the solid waste project.

Yes. Yes.

But it will ultimately end up at the Howard Avenue. It's just currently at our headquarters across the street.

I believe the public safety facilities. I, I believe you both had mentioned that that one for now is I'm going to say parked on the side for a bit in terms of making immediate progress on that. And these other projects, I'll leave this to you.

Because it clearly says on the next page, there is no capital investment plan for the police department at FY27 through 31. And is that mainly a pause because of where we find ourselves with Amendment 3? It is. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. Um, but I will say that's a concern just overall. Uh, so talk to all your friends, all your relatives. This is, this will be the impact of, uh, amendment three.

Thank you. Councilman Carlson. If I remember correctly, the, well, let me back up the, um, the property taxes that are non-cra all go to police and fire and then on top of that we add in 50 or so million additional money but if i remember correctly that the city is saying that in three years of this amendment passes that we could be short 80 million dollars something like that wondering John Potter, we'll know within a couple months, whether it passes or not, and I know that this budget is anticipation of it passing, but what considering that all of that would come out of police and fire and we have to replace it. John Potter, it's is there any kind of scenario thinking that you guys have done for the next couple years to try to figure out where the money would come from how we would backfill that and what we would do.

So we are looking at all of our technologies to see if there's any kind of overlap, something we may be able to eliminate. We are also looking at grant options that are out there, trying to find out where we might be able to get additional monies to carry some of the projects that we wouldn't have to ask the city for money for. OK. Thank you. I'm sure we'll be talking about that.

Certainly. I mean, I think this begs the answer for our previous discussion with the CFO across all lines of businesses of the city is if, in fact, those answers come back that this budget was anticipated that the Amendment 3 were to if that was part of the anticipation of this budget, it begs the question of the authority of council in passing that fiscal year budget. So it's unallocated resources that will be mid-year budget cycle that we will not have as the control over as stated in the charter. But again, not necessarily just for y'all's line of business, but for all. Any other further questions for our men in black?

Can I just add to that? I don't know what we need to do to get control of that. But I'm pretty sure somebody told us in the first meeting, maybe Mr. O'Hara, that it was done with that consideration in mind. And there's going to be a, what was it? But anyway, a big chunk of money that will come back in. Remember we asked the question, well, what projects would you put back in if it comes forward? But what happened, I think it was this past year, is as they came forward with the additional revenues, I don't remember the numbers, but it was something like, hey, guess what? We had 27 million new revenues, and we only spent 24 of it. So you guys have 3 million to decide what to do with. And the question we had was, how come we didn't approve the 24? And maybe we did on an incremental basis, but we need to figure out something. It shouldn't, I don't read the charter that the mayor gets to spend additional funds without our approval or without disclosing to us that it's additional money.

Yeah, there's, well, there's several things on the charter. But one, I think some of what you were just referring to was capital improvement projects that may or may not be put on hold pending the outcome.

No, I was just, I was talking about additional funds.

i mean i i have concern about it all and again that's why i want to make sure that we're covered again council's charter authority um that if we are unintended if the maybe maybe it's unintended consequences of the conservative budget that we are um you know really giving away our fiscal and uh fiduciary responsibility as council councilwoman hertech

Um, and if you, if you didn't get a chance to look at the, uh, reports that, um, CFO, uh, gave us, which were early by the way, cuz they were supposed to be to us by the 27th, um, about all the things that are being deferred. It is, it is, um, good and interesting. And I actually, uh, uh, Ms. Um, and I went through it during our break and we found that, um, It looks like the CIT pretty much every single project from police headquarter elevator upgrade to Burrell Park renovations to Gadsden Park improvements to playground surfacing and repair to Jackson Heights security upgrades to public safety communication to the Air Force access improvement to, you know, public facilities money. All of that has been put on hold for the race. So I'm just that's about $22 million of money. That's and that's just unacceptable to me. Like, I'm not going to wait. I don't I don't I mean, we're just we're not going to take away projects from the public because of a baseball team. And that's going to hurt our public safety. I know it'll have some vehicles, but I'm just

But aren't those deferrals related to the Amendment 3?

No. Amendment 3 would have nothing to do with sales tax. This is the CIT. So if you take the three-page one that's from Dennis about the deferrals, on the last page it's all the CIT deferrals. It's $22 million of deferral. How do we explain that? I mean, I can see the deferral. And again, thank you so much for getting for this to me ahead of time. This is way faster than we expected. But so this kind of goes to the question I asked earlier about what we are actually funding with the CIT. And the only thing we could find that was going to be funded with the CIT excuse me, was $1.5 million for parks, some funds for police and fire vehicles, and the rest in reserve for the raise. Is that correct?

It is partially correct. And if I can provide context, one of the reasons we have held in abeyance the majority of community investment tax projects is not for the discussions with the Rays. Again, it is because of the potential success of Amendment 3, and I'll explain why. If Amendment 3 passes, of course, we anticipate we'll lose a large amount of general fund revenue in a very short period of time and continue to lose a large amount of general fund revenue. We may find that some of the projects initially identified for community investment tax now or some of the funding now needs to go to general fund capital improvement projects because we won't have the general fund anymore. They're interchangeable. You'll have a project that was anticipated to be funded from the general fund and you'll have a project that was anticipated to be funded from the CIT and those priorities may change because we will have less general fund revenue.

But to be clear, we can still only spend CIT funds on parks, mobility, TNI, public safety vehicles, and public safety facilities. Is that correct? Yes. Okay.

did you want something else i mean and i think your document was in response to a motion i made i know it came in just before the meeting and so i scanned it but i appreciate you getting it early but i haven't had a chance to study it because you're you're early but thank you for i think we're it sounds like we're all requesting it early um but but just like you clarified it is in it it's not an anticipation of the raises and anticipation of that the amendment going through, correct? Yes, sir. And I know the administration has a, they're going to be announcing in the next few days where they think the, where they want the any raise money to come from. The other thing though, you say general fund, but can you just confirm for the public? The public thinks every time that property taxes go up or every time they have to pay more than property taxes that the whole budget goes up. But if I remember, property taxes are only about 20% of the budget. like $400 million or so, not including CRA. And the budget for police and fire is like $450 million. And so if the property taxes go down by $80, it's a set aside the whole general fund, it's a huge impact on police and fire. And so that's when we would be scrambling because I seem to recall there's some state law that requires us not to reduce police funding. I don't know if that applies in this situation when they're passing this amendment on us, but could you just talk through that real fast? I think the point is that it has an impact on our budget, but out of 2 billion, 80 million is a smaller amount, but out of 400 million, $80 million is a huge amount.

Yes, sir. I'll try to provide some brief context. Again, as you said, after the transfers are made to the community redevelopment agencies, what we get from property tax revenues is under $400 million. And the combined budgets, and that's what I've got off the top of my head, of police and fire rescue is much, much more than that. I think it's $100 million more than that. So in a nutshell, we can't fund police and fire services with just the revenue we get from property taxes. So you're spot on in terms of the potential revenue losses. It will have a very, very adverse impact on services.

TODD BANDUCCI. Yeah, just to reiterate for anyone who's listening, all your property taxes, if you're not in a CRA, all your property taxes go to police and fire. And it's still not enough just to pay police and fire. So it's not paying for any of the other services. an $80 million impact on police and fire is going to be like 25% or 30%, right? It's a huge impact. CHRIS RODGERS.

Beginning in fiscal year 28, we anticipate about 35 to 40 million loss, advancing from there to about 65 million, and then continuing to escalate in perpetuity. CHRIS RODGERS. Thank you. CHRIS RODGERS.

I guess that's my cue. Good evening, Council. Chief Tripp here, Tampa Fire Rescue. So I didn't submit anything because I was going to be present. So if you all have any questions for me, anything that I can provide, I do have information that I submitted to the mayor. So...

Maybe we can work from Ms. Kapesky's and CFO's.

If you could put that on the wall so we can take a look. Go ahead and jump to the same slide that we were looking at before which was the walk for the expenses. Now I can go back if you want but I'm just trying to kind of get to where we've typically been zoomed in on variances. So in this particular case, actually I'm going to wait. So this is addressing the change in modest between what we had planned for 26 and then up to the 21 for the projection. And one of the things that I learned that has been happening is just across the city in general, there has been a pretty substantial upgrade taking place. So most of that other increase over and above the plan for this year really was part of the replacing of these outdated fiber and lines for which they have several. Now, looking forward and you see the drop, this is a pretty clean story in the sense that, obviously, once we've done the replacement for the fiber optics, it doesn't continue at that level. In addition, you can see and you probably recall that she had been investing in new bunker gear, and that's very expensive. And so over the last, what, year to 18 months or so?

It was the second set of bunker gear that was part of the contract.

Right. So then you see the 1.9 stepping down because, again, we don't need to go into that investment again.

I do have a follow-up question that is not related to the budget but sort of related um okay so it says here on the the next page the capital uh that the CAD system has been fully implemented uh so it has is that now in all of the fire engines and the fire houses and are they using it

yes we're currently working off of the new cad that went into um i guess went live on june 23rd so yay thank you all for approving that um the men and women love it it's so much better we've also seen a definitely change in our response time so that's going to help out as well now it's implemented it's in it's working but we just like ironing out just a couple of uh cranks here and there but for the most part it is up and running so all the stations we're on a new system the old system we've went ahead and said our grace to it and buried it so

So do you think that there will be a time, um, maybe you said it started in June. So maybe in January where you can come and give us sort of an update on the response times and like how that's helped.

Yes, ma'am. So that's my plan. My plan is to get like a six months because right now we're still, you know, making some changes. So just to come back and give you all an update in six months and see how effective this new CAD system is compared to our times, you know, same time last year, last year, just kind of go along with the months and show how it's made a big difference.

Wow, that's wonderful. Ms. Sharpe is listening. She'll write that one down for me unless, Mr. Vieira, unless you would like to. Okay, yeah, so we'll work with your office on that. So we're very excited. And so that's a giant expense that we won't have again.

Yes. No. We'll just have the yearly maintenance that comes with that. Okay, great.

Thank you.

So I have a question.

I'm sorry. I have questions about capital improvement projects, and I'm assuming some anticipated on the CIT. So let's start downtown with Fire Station 1, expansion, renovation, bay additions, relocating administrative staff. Where is that on your CIP schedule?

So actually with downtown Station 1, I've been working with real estate and of course the CRA haven't found any place.

I've been fully supportive of your position about Fire Station 1 expansion and utilizing that resource to meet those needs with the exception of that. Let me make sure I understand. I still am up to date with your position. We have a response time issue on the southern end of Harbor Island for rescue only. Is that correct?

No, I was not aware of that. Harbor Island.

Harbor Island, the southern tip of Harbor Island, maybe outside of the parameters, maybe for rescue?

No, sir. Not to my knowledge. I have two. I added another since all of this has been going on. I've been seeing what we can do for downtown Tampa. So I've added a new rescue car to station one. So right now they have two rescue cars running out of it. Also brought the vehicle that was really not in use in the upper New Tampa. Did you?

I don't remember any kind of conversation about that.

Yeah, but it still it helps out, you know, with downtown Tampa and this aerial truck, too. So, of course, we have a lot of high rises here as opposed to up there as well. And so we have been kind of putting another resource together when manpower permits, you know, and that was part of the budget. I asked for some additional staffing. to put that unit in service for downtown Tampa to help out.

Because I mean I literally had a conversation today with CRA staff about they were talking about property and I go it's my understanding that we don't need property we just need improvements on fire station one.

Well because we couldn't find any property here downtown Tampa you know upgrading station one and trying to add some additional resources and that's what I've been doing in the meantime trying to

know do what i can to make that happen so and i can come back as well and give you some updated numbers with that unit yeah if you if you could highlight the service area for fire station one and the response time to the extremities of that service area i think that'd be great so we can anticipate whatever future needs might be there and make sure that we're all up to date with what the position is you know the current yes sir reality is that'd be great councilwoman

i think the the problem with station one though is that we there are like extreme needs in the station itself uh i mean the last time is there they had replaced some of the the sewage pipes the water pipes but the smell was still pretty bad yes and i have to imagine the mold in the station is not good well that's that's what i was wondering about where we are as a cip yeah fire station one renovations OK, so I just don't I mean, I guess my question is, we would need an evaluation to see if renovation is more cost effective than just building a new one. Yeah, that's that's my concern.

But is there enough dirt on that property to build a new one adjacent to the same dirt?

No, but she has these great portable fire stations that I think you will have to relocate some of those apparatus because the bay doors, I think we have like three, six, nine. What is it? 10 doors, chief Jenkins. I think it's 10 doors that we have. So we'll have to just take some of the equipment that's not being used to add more. And then of course, same thing with the dorm area, just to make it feasible for the amount of people that's in there.

I'd like to see the long-term anticipated needs and what we're going to use for CIT to do whatever we need with Fire Station 1. That would be great. Okay. Any other questions?

Councilman Ferreira. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Chief, for that, and Acting Chief Ohm before that, because I didn't speak on police issues. You know, I think that on Station 1, I'm out of here in 10 weeks, obviously. um but i know right um but just like we really made a focus on 24 and 25 before that for the north tampa area i think it really needs to be the next focus for city council on on station one in downtown i just think that's so i mean because that's something that goes back all the way to the development of channel side and water street and you know we all have our opinions on what should have happened back in the day on that i i i think we should have had something built in there for that area and i think everybody agrees and i'm sure you agree chief and they may not be able to say it whatever um but but yeah obviously that should have happened but i do think we need to focus on that you know this discussion really just highlights that with the tax amendment just how detrimental it's going to be to public safety i know that for police there were some protections there which really aren't they're not protections because I think per capita in inflation adjustment you are going to see major police cuts if this passes that's why you have all the police unions coming out against it a lot of Sheriff associations you saw Sheriff Grady Judd who I don't agree with on most things politically but I really appreciated that he came out against this initiative because I think it's terrible and for fire it's even more compelling because i don't think there were any protections in tallahassee for fire so it's going to be terrible so i think that's important to know i would like to see um if if we could do this um you know tallahassee to allow us to have two separate millage rates one for public safety another one for everything else because you know it would actually fund better all priorities and you could separately fund public safety through a dedicated revenue source and I always think that folks don't mind paying another four or five dollars a month if it means better response times and better treatment for cops and firefighters and all that good stuff but But that's just me. But that's all. Just rambling. Thank you, sir.

I think we have the ability to do that now within the current rules, but you could codify that when you get to Tallahassee, Representative Vera. Okay. Hearing no other questions, shall we move on? Without objection, we're moving on.

That was easy. Thank you. There you go.

Painless. Painless. Chief Tripp is saying, goodness gracious, thank God I'm not Mr. O'Hara. Didn't get that treatment. Okay. What are we up to now? Parks. Parks and recreation. I love that show. Who's here for parks? Mr. Fowler, are you online? Anybody online? Mr. Fowler? There he is. Said it three times and he appeared.

Good evening, Council. Ted Fowler, Parks and Recreation. Director of Parks and Recreation.

Hold on, Ted. Can you either speak closer into the mic or TNI, can you boost up his amplification, please, so we can hear him? If I knew how that worked, I'd give you further direction. Let's do a test.

Can you hear me now?

It's a little bit better. A little bit better. But yeah, if you could speak up louder, that'd be great.

Good evening, Council. Ted Fowler, Director of Parks and Recreation. I have a brief overview very quickly, and then I'll get into the questions you may have. For Parks and Recreation, we have 483 employees.

Ted, it's really, we can't hear you. It's like, I mean, it sounds like it's 100 feet away. All right. Let me see if I can...

I don't know. There you go. There you go. Perfect. Okay. So I have a brief overview very quickly and then I'll get into the questions everybody has. We have 483 employees in the Parks and Recreation Department. This year in FY26, we successfully launched East Tampa Recreation Complex with a full staff. We also had ribbon cuttings at Kid Mason, Dundee Park, Herman Massey, South Cenas Park. We completed phase one of the Musco Lighting Project and in the coming weeks we anticipate a ribbon cutting at the Perry Harvey Band Shell. We also had a lot of success with our team programming during the school year and this summer as well with all the focus on team programming. We enjoyed our highest engagement of teams for our stay and play program during the summer in both enrollment and visits. and for this next fiscal year uh we have been tasked with managing and monitoring the special events budget for the city of tampa so we are very excited with that opportunity to make sure that our special events go as smoothly as possible and with the budget we are given we plan to obviously utilize the operating funds and deliver the highest level of service to all of our communities statewide and with that i'll take any questions anybody else councilwoman hertech

Thank you for that. It says on one of your slides that the capital improvement delivery, Yellow Jackets baseball complex improvements, Gadsden Park improvements, and Burrell Park projects on schedule and on task, but those were some I just read from that are being paused because of the CIT. How are those being funded?

The gaps in park improvements are some of those are from the $775,000 that Council afforded us. However, we're going full ahead and we met with the community on Friday and gas and park and getting their input and what they want with the additional 1.5 because we're optimists and we feel that If the Amendment 3 doesn't pass, we won't be ready to hit the ground running with both Gadsden Park and Burrell. So we're engaging with the community going forward. They understand what Amendment 3 means if it passes. However, we want to be prepared if it doesn't pass to be able to get those projects going as quickly as possible.

Well, I appreciate that. What can you tell us about Burrell Park?

We have engaged with community a little bit, and we do have some of their wants and needs, but before we get deep into that process for any capital spending, we're going to have a couple more meetings with them to sew up what they want we do have an idea what they want i can tell you with confidence that one of the biggest things we got from that neighborhood is that whatever we do at that park they do want a perimeter fence yes not so it looks like not so it looks like a jail however so that it does afford us the opportunity to secure the amenities once we beautify that project

Yes, I have been to at least one of those public meetings. Do you have another public meeting on the books?

We don't. I work with Janelle. It's coming up in the next couple of months before the holidays, but we're going to engage with that community again just to keep the dialogue going and see if anything's changed in the last few months.

Well, that would be wonderful. And please make sure that all of council knows about that meeting update because I definitely would like to attend.

Absolutely. Councilwoman Young.

No, just to piggyback off of what Councilman Hurtig was saying, I'm happy to hear that, you know, that is a project that is still going through because I'm sure, you know, Ted, we get calls about that park a lot. And so to hear that that is moving forward, I think the community is very excited to hear that. I, too, prior to being on council, attended one of those community meetings and um the participation was really um was really great and they had a lot of ideas of what they wanted to see um in that park so i'm just you know thank you for you know for making sure that this is is moving forward absolutely any other questions hearing none okay thank you mr fowler okay thank you what do we have left anything

OK, I'm saying if anyone is saying, you know, OK, OK, if you are here from the public and. Hold on.

This is from. Chief of staff. Be gone.

Internal services, personal investment.

We have a we have a a PowerPoint about personnel investment, and I thought that chief of staff was going to I know he had to leave. Did he had to.

Yeah, he's providing that for your information. He did not intend to make a presentation.

Oh, OK. OK, just great. Thank you.

And Dennis, we missed anything else.

As far as have all of these been put into the public record?

Hagar Kapesky, City Council budget analyst. So going all the way back to the initial workshop, there were some tweaks that I know I needed to correct related to making them ADA compliant. And so none of them have gone in yet, but I want to finish getting those corrected and updated, and then I'll put all three.

Well, these aren't from you.

Oh, I apologize. I thought you.

No, no, no. Yours is.

I'm sorry.

Ours is here, and it's called the General Fund Budget Workshop. We also received individual ones from all of the different departments. Oh, from the departmental presentations. So we have a convention center one, police department one, neighborhood and community affairs, and then this internal services personnel investment. So I just want to make sure that that's available for the public.

mr chairman mr martin shelby city council attorney how is it you re how was it you received those were they all received by council the same way they just handed them to us in the media yeah i think they were here when we got and you and you also pardon oh they are anonymous okay sure i just like i said i just want to make sure so the public knows that they can uh participate alongside council

I apologize. Dennis Rehara, Chief Financial Officer. I apologize. I thought you were referencing Ms. Kopeski's presentation. Mr. Chair, in answer to your question, I believe Council wanted to discuss special events.

If I'm reading this document right for projects in the CIP, are they, is this, being delayed by one year or is it like what is the the forecast on delayed on projects is it is it a general one-year rule or is it each project according to their own depends on the projects that's what i thought okay thanks and we had a long discussion offline on some stuff that okay thank you

Okay, so we are going to, did you have anything else you wanted to present tonight? I do not, sir. Okay, very good. So we've completed the budget workshops. I wanna make sure we clarify this. We're gonna take public comment just on the budget workshop stuff now, is that okay? Yeah. Okay, very good. So this is the public comment on the budget workshop agenda items. Stephanie Poynter, you're first. Start with your name.

I have emailed you the spreadsheet so that you can manipulate the data as well.

Thank you. Start with your name please. Turn it right side out.

I'd like to thank Michael Bishop for putting together this spreadsheet for me because I wouldn't have been able to pull it. Oh, Stephanie Pointer. I would not have been able to pull this information myself. I actually couldn't. I pulled everything that was an unassigned fund balance. And I couldn't figure out how to get it out. But Michael Bishop got it for me. So in this unassigned fund balance, I'm going to talk about transportation because I thought that I was going to talk about that in the beginning. First of all, if you've got all this unassigned fund balance, guess who gets to assign it? If you choose to, you do. Go through this money. It's $98 million. Tell them where you want it spent because they said it's unassigned. Why do we have unassigned funds? You tell me. Okay. So the transportation budget, I went through just transportation for the Interbape, which is South Tampa. Okay. There's $1.5 million in or $1.75 million in those funds for that community. Now, mind you, this is this i want to talk about this for just a second there's a project that was supposed to create two lanes right here when i asked the transportation folks about it last week i was like why is this canceled they're like mcdill wouldn't give us the land wait a minute this land right here all of this land is owned by the city of tampa so what happened i've asked retired general larry martin to find out and i've asked kathy castor to find out because the city was given 340 000 to put those two lanes in and suddenly mcdill doesn't want it makes zero sense so that project i walked it 2000 2022. now we're going to put it back for another year we're going to give it a million dollars next year You got to remember that south of Dandy, west of Dale Mabry, since 2018, our jump, jump, not just annually, just the jump is $9 million in property taxes alone. We still don't have we still don't have a permanent light at Tyson and West Shore, which was mandated that we needed it in 2006. 20 years later, we still don't have it and we bring in the taxes. OK, next. I want to know where that $340,000 went. Where'd it go? I asked Kathy Caster. I handed her a note yesterday at her event. TPD has the same number of FTDs, FTEs this year, but they've got six more professionals. What's a professional? I don't know. um i'm sure i have all kinds of other crap to talk about but i've already forgotten because i get all wound up about the stuff um this is the cit renewal list this is what i gave to mr babby um honestly i cannot for the life of me what i i just continue to wonder where why we keep pigeonholing money in pots that nobody seems to be able to find i'm just saying thank you fran start with your name please

Good evening. Fran Tate. Fran Tate, founder and president of Jackson Heights Neighborhood Association, fourth year member of the East Tampa CRA Community Advisory Committee, recently appointed to public news abatement board, and second year member of Transit Now Tampa Bay. I want to put this under the wolf. Yikes. Am I doing that right?

Yep.

Okay. Can't call in names, but thank you to the council member that mentioned sidewalks at schools. I just recently served as a crossing guard at one of the middle schools. This sidewalk separated. The first year, I witnessed two people fall to the ground. Last year, three children and one parent literally falling, tripping and falling down. Somebody could have broke a bone. I documented it and I went to the AP. It's now repaired. I'm suggesting either the SRO or the main maintenance engineer at the school do an inspection of your sidewalks at your school annually. That way we can get on top of stuff like this because what if somebody had broken a bone, broken their teeth out, what if they had sued? Made a big stink about it in the newspaper. We gotta stay on top of safety issues that we talk about with public safety up front. We gotta stay on top of stuff like this I love my little babies. I love my schools. Okay, secondly, I'm here to advocate for finding a bus route number one for another year. The ask, 1.35 million is already allocated in the budget, but we need more. We need $1.5 million. Why? According to the heart analysis route one along with route to have the largest volume of riders with an increase in weeknight and weekend ridership. For one more year, according to heart, it will take $1,405,000. We'd like to add enough. We'd like for you to add another 95,000 for marketing. One more ask. I'd like to advocate once again for an increase in bus shelters. The first year, in 2021, I advocated and received two bus shelters in my community, North 34th Street, and I was proud and happy of that. Last year, I advocated even more.

Thank you, Fran.

Received 21 bus shelters. We need more bus shelters, please. More bus shelters.

This weather is grueling. Start with your name and you'll have three minutes.

This is John Strachak. I'm here to recommend that the city audit Tampa Electric for the municipal fee that they collect. Because I looked at the budget here. the actual from 2025. And it said about $85 million you guys received from them. But then when I look at their financials, Tico, they said they collected 144 million. So there's a discrepancy. And why is that? I don't know. I called I talked to Mike Perry, very nice guy. And I just talked to CFO and the CFO said that Mike Perry is running it down now. So he's going to try to find out what's going on with that.

That's my only comment. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Next speaker, start with your name. You have three minutes.

Oh, somebody left something.

Hand that to Dennis, because I'm going to ask him a question about that one.

OK. OK. There is no public trust. Oh yeah. My name is Pam Cannella back to the public trust. There is no public trust because we don't know where our money is going. We don't see it going in our neighborhoods. It's definitely not in our stormwater department. Now, what I want to address is the stormwater repairs that are being done or should be done, not being done before paving, because Every time we pave, we continually have to rip up our newly paved roads because of the cave-ins from the stormwater pipes that are breaking, so forth and so on. So my point is, if we did our cleaning and maintenance and inspections first, we would know what would be going on. And on El Prado, we have flooding here, and they're doing the bike lanes. And with this bike lane, thank goodness for that, something good came out of it, They found a pipe. It was a pipe and also the inlet there that caused all that flooding for the decades. That we've had flooding there, this is the problem. But we didn't find it because nobody bothered to check until now. So they had to replace all that. And the reason we didn't have any water going down the drains is because it was full of mud because they were collapsed. That's the problem we're having. That isn't the only problem. There's also El Prado floods or has been flooding because of the construction that's going down, the people that are doing the bike lanes and the paving and all that, they're leaving these little green, they're called, I don't know, they're the bags that are supposed to stop stuff from going into the drains. But they're ending up in the drains, okay? What's not ending up in the drains, is preventing the water from going down the drains. So now we got flooding, okay? Just telling you all this has to do with stormwater. I'll tell you what. There's more to be said because we have all kinds of storm water issues. We don't know where the, we don't have the money cause we're constantly being told there's no money. We need to find the money because that needs to be our first priority. We can't do anything else without that. That's all I got to say. I'm tired.

Michelle, Michelle, start with your name. You have three minutes.

I always feel like I'm, it goes quick. Good evening. My name is Michelle Masha-Tatara. I'm just kind of really listening of the budget and it's sad because Parks and Recreation's got pushed pretty much out of the way and I don't think that picnic island should have been a priority as much as other parks i don't think ballast point that's a frill i mean yes they're they're pure but there's people that rely off parks as a natural resource and no one has ever once looked for six years i've been saying something I'm so grateful that they're going before City Council on the 17th to answer questions. When I ask questions, I got assaulted on Monday. I'm just at a loss of words on what's going on. And if nobody knows, Gene Duncan's husband attacked me. And you know what? I think that I should not have said that, but... It's torn between me thinking I'm not going to get my stuff fixed because I can't say nothing. And it came down to a lot for me to handle. And I don't think, you know, that I have to deal with this on my own. And I should have had a lot of backing up. Now I'm finally getting it and I'm hoping when September 17th comes, they come with a good plan for Tappan Park because that is our natural resource. That's how we get our water in and out. We have been neglected. We've been destroyed for too long and I think that we really need help and I'm hoping and I'm going to start a petition and the petition, I'm going to have a whole bunch of people sign it because it's not fair. that all these other parks are getting funded and this park that is beautiful. We don't even have sidewalks and they got 625,000 for Tico the gas lines. We didn't even get nothing in our area and other places got it. Alloy or something, a park. I'm just saying make it fair for areas because I'm a taxpayer and I don't have no drainage. I think people who have came out there have seen there's no drainage. I have a natural gravity system and it's getting destroyed by the mangroves uprooted. This is getting destroyed. The erosion from the water and the hurricanes makes altering of the water. So when we come on September 17th, I'm praying that we really have something really good.

Thank you, Michelle. Mr. Michelini.

Good evening council first. I want to show you a star with your name Steve Michelinie I'll show you a picture here. This is this evening trying to get into downtown on Platte Street 40 minutes 40 There's something wrong with the sequencing of these lights. I And I don't know what's happening with it, but there's problems with northbound on Howard. There's problems with Armenia. There's a problem with Platte Street. It's a mess. I mean, I call the signal division and tell them, hey, you're backed up for a mile. And they say, oh, well, we'll look into it. The sequencing is off. You heard Brandon tell you that it's going to go back to a two-lane road. Well, you can't get through. There's a difference between capacity and level of service. These streets are now failing. You may have the capacity, but the traffic is not moving. And you need to look into the signal division and sequencing these lights to see what's going on. You've added on-street parking on some of these areas. The on-street parking doesn't meet technical standards. We've told the Transportation Department that. They promised to come back and re-stripe. They haven't done that. You have issues regarding the bicycle lanes that are being installed. And council ought to be able to control when they tell you that they're going to renovate or resurface an area where those bicycle lanes are being installed because they're just creating havoc. And the DOT has removed bicycle lanes from any grant programs from now on. All grants related have been removed. So they've used that excuse on El Prado that they use grant money and Pam just told you that it's also created a different kind of problem. You need to look at the technical standards for transportation. When they're putting in sidewalks and pavement, they should be considering and allowing private development people to put in pervious concrete, pervious asphalt. If you do that, it percolates and it reduces the flooding. You need to ask the question, are there any bonds anticipated being issued for the city to operate under? We've been told the city doesn't have any money and that they may be using bonds. They may be shifting money from other projects, from parks and everywhere else, to help fund, in particular, the South Howard project. change it to change those technical standards you have issues regarding alleys and which ones can be used which ones can't be used and we frequently come up to you and in zoning hearings trying to sort it out and you all shouldn't be placed in that position thank you mr mclean okay that concludes public comment on this part of our agenda we're going to move on to parades well actually you know before we do that um

Yeah, exactly. Dennis, Dennis, Mr. O'Hara, can you come to the podium with that with that sheet? And I know we've already had this conversation in past iterations, but could you explain because I'm sure a lot of people that see this would have the same questions that Stephanie Poynter had. Could you explain the unassigned use of fund balances and the county codes there?

Yes, you've got two components. You've got the unassigned fund balance. Let me address that first. It's the 23%, the typical 23% that we discuss annually in terms of what I will describe as our savings account. Again, very, very important to our financial sustainability, very, very important to the credit rating agencies, et cetera. It is more than a rainy day fund. It is the bedrock of our conservative financial management policy. I'll expand on that just very little. Again, our policy is 20%. Historically, it's been at least 23%. of 24%. During the federal relief years associated with the global pandemic, it was about 27, 28%. In the recommended fiscal year 27 budget, we anticipate about 25%. And again, much of the difference or increase from our typical 23 is associated with holding funding in abeyance while we await the result of amendment three i know there were a lot of percentages in there but this does that answer your question mr councilman carlson

I know I say this every time, but as you said last time, the bond rating agencies now are expecting us to keep 23%. So you mentioned rainy day fund. Right now, the rainy day fund would be 2%, not 25%. Correct. Technically, we could use the 25%. But if we go below 23, our ratings are going to go down and none of us want to do that because it will cost us a lot more in bonds. So really, if there's there's now that there's the expectation because we've been more conservative than the bond rating agencies wanted, we hit 23 and our ratings have gone up in the last few years. So really, our rainy day fund is the 2% if depending on what happens with the amendment. Correct.

Yes, sir, I would describe the 23% as our floor and the increment associated with the 25%, that 2%, agreed.

So if we wanted a real rainy day fund, it would have to be maybe more than the 2%, but maybe we would save that in a different place so the bond rating agencies wouldn't set that as a new floor.

Okay, I have a question. I don't have a calculator to add up all these columns, but if the Excel spreadsheet is correct, it shows $98,174,000, assuming

This, again, this is the first time I'm seeing this document. This appears to incorporate, oh, it appears to incorporate all funds, so it's not just the general fund.

I do see this is also in our enterprise funds as well. So we'd probably have to go through and break out um the enterprise funds from the others so let's stick i'll stick my pen in my question until i do that to see what the actual we'd like more time to review it also okay very good councilman bureau all right thank you mr chairman you know one thing i'd say is we talked a lot about the um the

The tax initiative is that some sort of a tax initiative is going to pass. It may not. I don't think the one we're voting on in November is going to pass if I was a betting person, but something will pass in the future. And it's good for us just to for whoever the next mayor is, whether it's one of our two colleagues up here or somebody else, whatever, just to put ourselves on a on a on a acknowledgement of that you know i mean lifting it up to 250 with an eye on ultimately getting rid of property taxes i i think will be rejected by florida voters but i do think there is an appetite for some sort of property tax relief potentially a hundred thousand dollar deduction i As I've said before, I think that's something that is a reasonable compromise that would have local governments restrain a little bit. And while maybe we don't have to go Calvin Coolidge, somewhere between Calvin Coolidge and FDR, maybe it's Bill Clinton. So maybe we'll have to do that for the next couple of years. And again, something is going to pass in the future just because of the inflation adjustment of the lack of adjustments in that in that exemption for for homeowners. It's something that people have to take a look at. So just my thoughts.

And in my opinion, it's not if, it's when. I agree.

And again, harkening back to our previous conversation, the data we're looking for, and this is because, as Bill Carlson says all the time, we can't talk other than we're up here. Again, the whole point of that conversation was, It's not a matter of, you know, should we have this money in the savings account? What not? It's it's council's fiduciary responsibility of having having 100% access and transparency of revenues and expected expenditures so that we fully understand what the actual dollar figures are. whether one way or another. And then the council makes the decision about whether we're going to allocate those funds or not. So I think I'd make sure that that's clearly what it was intended. Councilman Carlson, do you want to add something?

Yeah, just because our colleague may end up in Tallahassee. All the business groups that I'm a part of in Tallahassee, I've been telling them they need to not use this junk math that the CFO and others are using. I mean, they're going after all these other cities and counties that have very conservative boards, but they're comparing the property tax from a few years ago to the property tax now and saying that that's a waste of money. but but what's happening is the infrastructure has to grow in Florida as as populations grow and if a population grew by a hundred percent your your your infrastructure may have to grow more than that to anticipate the future growth and so they need to not use junk math on this and instead I hope that I hope that reasonable people will start looking at using a scalpel and what they what they need to do is better benchmarking of cities and counties on financial data and and also maybe prohibit certain things like boathouses. I mean, we need to use a scalpel instead of a huge hammer. A huge hammer is just a political tool. What we need to do is make sure that money is being used on the right things. Thank you.

CHRIS JERRAM, OK. Hearing nothing else, let's move on to event and parade budget, item number two. councilman scott and i looked at each other and thought hmm he was rather moderate i i i would say eisenhower though identifies okay we're spiraling we are spiraling go fd okay administration report as to creating an event parade budget who's got that Who from the administration is going to represent that issue?

That'll be Mr. Fowler again.

Ted Fowler. Audio check.

Yeah, go ahead. No, what we were talking about is if just like with the nonprofit fund or arts and social service or whatever we call it, we should have a budget and a fund for parades so that we're so that we know what there's transparency into what services that the city is offering parades and events. And Jamie Adair did his own analysis. I don't know if that one was accurate or not. But it's not trying to be punitive to anybody. It's just trying to provide transparency into what the numbers are because there are huge amounts of in-kind services being offered by the city. And the city should decide what the criteria is for just like we do in making any donation. If it's an in-kind donation, we need to make sure that we're making a sound decision on how and why we would make an in-kind contribution to it. Thank you.

Um, so, um, Mr. Fowler was under the impression that we were done with him. He's off now. His link doesn't work. He advises that he does have a presentation. He will email it to everyone and he'll coordinate with each individual office to give a briefing, but it doesn't preclude us from continuing to talk about that.

Yeah, I just, can I just finish that? Yeah, go ahead. I, I just think that we ought to recommend setting up a fund. Uh, it, it can be an accounting fund, but just so we understand and bring transparency to what these, uh what these costs are per event and we can and somebody can make a conscious decision any event that do we do we provide all in-kind services for every event that comes in the door or do we only provide for certain ones and how much how much is the budget because there's real there's potentially real dollars behind these even if we're asking police to um to take to take off a different day so they can work on gasparilla there's still an opportunity cost in that

Yeah, my only concern is, what's your phrase, Councilman Peer, is the juice worth the squeeze? Is that, because I mean, because you know a lot of our, this is my observation, I may or may not be accurate, but a lot of our staff is, How we do these special events is just another duty that they have on that particular day. Other work duties as assigned and not necessarily an actual definitive extra cost. It's tough. Obviously, we are an event in Parade City. We love our events and we love our parades. I just don't know, is the bureaucracy, is the creating the bureaucracy really worth it? And to what end? I mean, are you gonna be the council person that's gonna say we should not promote or have Gasparilla? I think we have- It's not about Gasparilla. I have a dear friend that was mayor at the time and that didn't work out well for her.

It's not about Gasparilla, it's just providing some criteria for how you would decide. So what happens if something new comes in?

Yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying. It just seems like a bureaucratic nightmare, and it would be problematic. I mean, I hear what you're saying. It just seems like it's, is the Jews worth the squeeze?

I have a question. Would this also, Councilman Carlson, go to the idea of people being concerned that stormwater funds are being spent on the parades and to address that? Does that have any relevancy to that?

Yeah, I think that's where it originally came up. But let's say that I don't want to make up one, especially this late at night. My ancestors were Swedish. So let's say that somebody comes and says, hey, we want to have a big Swedish parade. What criteria do we use? Do we put in $20,000 in pro bono or do we put $250,000 in pro bono? What's the criteria that we use?

Yeah, I think that's kind of a legitimate question to ask. I don't even know what that would be.

When I was working with the city of St. Pete in the mid-'90s, a Russian sculptor came in, and he had a 12-story high iron sculpture of Columbus, and at the bottom was the three ships. The mayor at the time and everyone said no, but can you imagine? The problem is there are ideas like that that come through all the time. Imagine if St. Pete had done that. They would have had to take it down now.

Yeah, I don't know. So, I mean, should we just wait for Mr. Fowler's presentation, have that individual discussion, and then we can carry it? Okay. So, I'm going to put this one to rest. Does anybody in the public wish to speak to this item?

Good evening, Stephanie Pointer. It's not about the money. It is not about the money. It's the fact that they spend five weeks a year for one of the stormwater crews working on other things. We want to have fun. We want to have events. But how did it ever become appropriate to pull people off of stormwater to work a parade? I just don't understand it. And none of this is about money, because Jamie has already done all the homework. And that five weeks is straight from staff. If you'd like, email me. I will send you a copy of where the mayor said, these are lies. And somebody on staff said, we can't disprove this because it's true. That's not my words. That's staff. When somebody pulls public records, then we have all the data. And sometimes I don't have all the data, and sometimes I don't get to the end, because I don't have a secretary, I don't have a legislative aide, I don't have anybody but me, myself, and I, and maybe Carol Ann sometimes. And sometimes I run out of time, because I don't think of things until late. But the bottom line is, Jamie's given you a heck of a lot of information. He had 350 documents that he pulled on this particular item. And he has done the homework. It should be parks and rec, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I don't know anything. I just come down here and hang out all the time. But it's not about the money. It's about them being able to clean storm drains. And every time we get up here and we say, they're cleaned every seven years, I'm going to call. I'm going to get the BS flag out and throw it. Because there's stuff that hasn't been cleaned in years and years and years. And nobody's doing it. So where's it done? Oh, we clean these ponds monthly. Bull! Y'all come on over. I'll just take you to Bobby Hicks Pond. You can see that nothing's been cleaned up around that thing for at least two years. It's a mess. So it's about the manpower doing what they are trained to do and what they are in the budget to do, not about whether or not we should have a party. Because I like parties.

Start with your name.

My name is Pam Cannella. And I agree with everything that Stephanie said. There's at least 56 events and parades. It's about the stormwater crew man hours. Not about the money. It's the man hours that we need in our stormwater department to be cleaning, maintenance and repairs. How many times do I have to say that? It needs cleaning, maintenance and repairs. This is why we have flooding. It's a fact. Show me that it isn't because I've shown to you many pictures where our storm drains have not been cleaned I have yet to see anybody from staff show me that I'm wrong. And it does say on, I'm a little bit tired so you'll have to excuse me, but on that document that James Adair gave you all, it does tell you how many hours I believe that it takes to put up the Gasparilla Parade. Multiply it times 56. That's more than I think five and a half weeks or whatever Stephanie said. It's a lot of manpower that we could be using in our stormwater department. That's it, thank you.

Ms. Tate, start with your name please.

Fran Tate, East Tampa. I agree with everything that Stephanie said. I'm still concerned about the project on Broadway in 56, the million dollar project. That needs to happen. I went down there. I talked to the business owners. They said they didn't know of anybody coming to them and asking about the project. I went down there and I talked to them. Now, if I was talking to the wrong persons, show me the right people to talk to because there's no way.

Remember, this is about event and parade.

But I saw the word stormwater.

Event and parade budget.

All right. Excuse me. Thank you.

Michelle Master Totaro I did actually get an answer about this might not be the greatest answer of why they use stormwater people but i did ask the question and it's due to which i don't agree but i think they can find other people to do it and educate them apparently the pillars that they have to put up could kill people and only stormwater know how to handle the equipment to get these i guess the bleachers But it still doesn't excuse, you know, they can teach other people. They don't need to use stormwater staff. And I think that's where it's all going wrong if they can train other people. Like the flooding. Remember when the flooding happened? They didn't train people with the pump stations to turn them on and off. Half of the people flooded. So now... We need to train other people, get rid of stormwater from doing it, make them go back to where they're supposed to and work where they need to at the very crucial time before hurricane season. And then I think everyone will be happy. Me just saying, don't take the stormwater staff, teach other people. Can they do that? Because that's what George Cox told me, the reason why they take them.

Thank you, Michelle.

Hopefully that's helpful.

Very good. Thank you so much. Okay, that concludes that. Let's talk about RFQs, fire and rescue.

This is my motion, and I believe I already received an answer, but I'm just going to let staff. um speak to it i believe the answer for why it wasn't posted is because we're pausing cip projects due to amendment three but i will allow the chief to good evening again council barber trip to fire rescue as far as um what i've been informed of that this project has just been put on hold until

after the November situation okay so that's that's what I thought but now we have a official answer and thank you so much you're welcome yeah no I mean I yeah I that's just my my to have something like this that's so important it's going to open up station nine for a growing west Tampa that's going to help fleet maintenance for Tampa fire rescue to be put on hold i i could have a bunch of questions on this including for funding sources that we had but i made the mistake of canvassing today for an hour and a half after like doing a deposition and uh and i'm really tired so it is oh no it is hot out there and it just it just sucked the energy out of me so i'll throw the another day so there you go thank you we need to encourage you to canvas more often I know.

I was going to say the majority of it because we just have the supply part of it. Lamb is overseeing the actual, I guess you'd say the assessment and everything. Okay.

Very good. Was there anybody in the public wish to speak to this item? No, we have new business. Well, I mean, I think that we, the councilman woman, her tech suggested that we look at a additional meeting. I think that needs to be discussed.

So I also thought about this during our break. And so on the 27th, we do have a full agenda, but it would enable us to not, we only actually have three staff reports. It is full, but it would enable us to not have to have a whole nother meeting.

I would like to remind folks that the 27th could potentially be a very interesting meeting. I mean, if you guys are ready to buckle up for it, I mean, we could potentially have stormwater.

I'd have to go grab my calendar. Ms. Scharf, if you could bring my phones.

Well, let me ask you this. Is there any appetite to schedule an additional workshop pending prior to the first public hearing?

Which is the 8th of September. The 8th of September.

And if there was one, if we had to schedule something, I would think that it would have to be like the first.

um not the first i'm sorry the 31st that's labor day is that labor day yeah why isn't that on my calendar no labor day is the week after that oh yeah i'm sorry yeah 31st mr chairman councilman uh yes sir thank you i mean i i would i'm of the view that maybe we could do this on the 27th and for that other thing we were talking about we could have a special call meeting um well yeah let's see the stormwater potentially a raised deal yeah um

I have asked staff about that today, and they know nothing about it.

Well, I mean, they have time. It still could be put on our agenda, so we don't know. Councilman Carlson.

No, but have they put just the South Tower project will take up the whole day because there will be hundreds of protesters. Correct.

That's going to be long.

Well, I mean, is there any appetite for adding a meeting on the 31st?

August 31st 9 a.m.

I'm mediating a case that day and I'm mediator I can't what day what day of the week and the fall and when is I'm in Missouri for work for legal practice that day visiting clients now guys I I believe yeah we could do it at 501

It depends on the day of the week, because there are boards that have been noticed for that. We'd have to clear this room.

RICK MACLENNAN JR.: Can you tell what's going on on the 31st or the 1st? No.

The 24th is a week from today.

RICK MACLENNAN JR.: What's our legal requirement for notification?

That's sufficient.

What is the purpose of the meeting and why a whole meeting?

I would suggest that we would either do the reports that Dennis owed us on the questions that we had asked, and I suspect that we would probably need to deal with one of the other two issues that day.

Maybe the 31st is better.

If I may.

Why don't we think about it and we can talk about it at the end on Thursday night. Thursday night. So why doesn't everybody just kind of.

Thursday night would be too late for the 24th.

Thursday night would be the. 20th. The 20th.

darn close i feel more comfortable giving it more time so if there's any appetite for the 24th no we'd do it now if not then we can wait till thursday night let's wait till thursday and if i may we can check with the clerk and everything okay for thursday um i i think i'm mediating two cases that day but if it's evening i can definitely do it and then the 31st i sent a memo out that i'm going to be out for a lot of meeting my mom's turning 78 that day we're gonna have her birthday but i am returning afterwards in anticipation of of uh No, this 31st. Thursday evening. Thursday evening. I'm sorry. I'll go through that.

But I will be back. No, we got that memo. And if the clerk could look at and be prepared to give us advice and counsel at the Thursday evening meeting on the availability of council chambers, that would be great. Maybe just look for that entire 31st for like a week or so. Is there anybody else that has any new business they would like to discuss? No. Hearing none, I have a motion to receive a vote. Councilman Maniscalco, second from. Councilman Randall, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. We're adjourned.