City Commission - Regular Meeting

The City Commission of St. Pete Beach together. It is 6 o'clock p.m. on August 25th, 2026. Will you please join us and rise for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. City Clerk, will you please call roll call?

Thank you. Are there any proposed changes to the agenda?

I have some questions on consent items. Okay. Just for clarification purposes, items B and C. And then A. Correction for J. Correction on J.

Okay. Thank you. I'd like to add an item to discussions. Sure. Mothballs on the beach.

We have a motion to approve the agenda as amended.

I'll move to approve the agenda as amended.

Okay, thank you very much. Moving on to our presentations. First presentation, microtransit services, consideration of contract amount or discontinuation.

So normally we see a staff recommendation. Do we have a staff recommendation?

Mandy, thank you. And you said U-Pass would be free. You mean it would be no cost to residents. It's not free. We would be paying for it still.

I'll just talk to PSTA for a moment here. So can we clarify in my mind what Route 90 is?

The ending of Route 90 in St. Pete Beach or on that route that we're going to cut?

Okay. And then... In general, I had a general comment. I'm living right there and past the place of County Park all the time. And it's very common to see two Sunrunners parked there for a period of time. And occasionally there will be a third Sunrunner that can't fit into the county park and it's parked on Gulf Boulevard. So that's blocking the bike lane and one of the lanes on Gulf Boulevard while they're waiting for one of the other two to leave. So I guess my general question would be, is there a waiting time that they have programmed into the route at the county park? Because our county pa

Yeah, I'm just posing some questions since Brad's here. And I think that's something I would like to understand.

Yeah, I understand how schedules can get off on something like that. But does that have to be the end of the route? Is there a way that we could make the service to St. Pete Beach stop there and then leave so that there's not a bus just parked at that place? And that would probably stop that whole problem.

So there's only two stops on that whole route?

Oh, recovery time. OK. So we couldn't change the recovery time to a different spot.

Yeah, I think that would be a key improvement. So I guess that answers that question. And then that's it for me for now then. I've got a few more, but I'm going to. Commissioner Robinson.

I have a question. What was the ridership or what is the ridership for the 90? The Route 90.

What is the ridership though on that? I'd have to look up exactly what the ridership was on it. Just trying to compare that to what the trolley is.

Is it 10,000? Is it 40,000? I mean, much less is a very nebulous term. So I'm just trying to get a handle on what much less it would be.

For June, the Route 90 was 785. Okay, thank you.

So you're cutting that just due to cost and ridership?

yes okay thank you so uh sorry just to make sure i level set my head so uh route 90 the decision to to discontinue that is effectively done right you're not asking our opinion on that if i'm understanding correctly that's a decision that's been made route 90 will cease

So last year we paid 220 with route 90 and with route 90 right okay um take some notes here so i can keep this straight in 2026 we paid 220 000 uh including route 90. correct okay uh and presumably next year would the the baked in number for 2027 assumes that 90 is not going to be there correct right and the 2027 number is 242. okay uh okay uh all right uh so i'd have to just be up front with you i'm hearing 42 000 more for a drop off of 90 right 220 was there was the cost last year did i hear that right 220 for last year includes 90 includes drop 90. Including Route 90.

Yes. OK. So I'm just making sure I hear it again. More money, Route 90 gone. Am I mistaken on that? You are correct on that. OK. Assuming Route 90 goes away, what does that leave us with PSTA buses in the city that will remain? I think we've still got the trolley, and then we've got another one that comes on the north side. What remains? Let me just ask you that. Current bus service in St. Pete Beach today versus what might change if Route 90 is eliminated?

Okay. Sunrunner to County Beach. So I'm drawing a map in my head. I wish I had a map that would kind of tell me, show me the routes, right? So I've got a trolley coming down from Clearwater to 75th and Gulf. Sunrunner, I know it ends at County Beach. Where does it come through? Does it come across 75th, I assume, and comes down to County Beach?

So between County Park and up 75th. Okay. And then... before we've got a route 90 which comes across the bayway and back up to the same county beach that may go away uh pending decisions going soon okay um and then the 220 the 220 000 that we paid in 2026 that included route 90 did that also include the the psta access i guess the the handicap piece was that baked into the 220 or was that an additional charge on top of the 220 for 2026. Well, that was included in the 220. It is included.

Okay. Okay. All right. I'm just kind of mentally just drawing this out. So we've got most of our theoretically, if route 90 goes away, we've got most of Ireland covered north of County Park. But everything south is now unserved from PSTA's perspective. If I just mentally map that out right.

Well, let me ask, were there any stops to the south? Or was it really being served, I guess I would say?

Well, was it stopping there? It just goes to the county park, and then they were making their way from there to the...

So it's really the 34th Street people that are not being served at this point? Right.

Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Brad. I did have a question. I wanted to clarify a couple things about the PSTA access program. And so the access program is it's both dedicated or shared ride handicap vans. Is that correct for people in wheelchairs and that sort of thing?

Okay. And people have to apply to the PSTA. You guys have a program where they apply, they get verified, they get approved, and then they can use that program. And is that program, and I may have this incorrect, are people only eligible for that program if they're a certain X number of miles away from a bus stop or not? Or it would be for all of St. Pete Beach. If we pay for the service, it's for anyone in St. Pete Beach, whether there's someone in Paso Grille. It doesn't matter if there's not a bus stop close to there. They still have access to that program.

OK. Anywhere. OK, perfect. Thank you. And then I think a minute ago you said, I thought you said a number of riders from St. Pete Beach who participate in the access program? Or was I misunderstanding a number that you said?

Okay, so 3,800 one-way trips out of St. Pete Beach.

The fiscal, so October 1st through, you said the end of July, June 30th.

Nine months. And can you clarify where the, if they started in St. Pete Beach, what are the limits of where they're headed to under that program? I mean, how is their, what is their destination?

Yeah, it's grocery stores, shopping, doctor appointments, whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Is the call still on now? I missed that. What was the cost on that for just the PSTA access and mobility on demand?

Brad, so is any of that subsidized? I know that it's not covered through our ad valorem or anything like that. Tourism development tax, city, county projects that we're not aware of with the access.

And then rider fares, of course, are on top of that, right? Right. We pay a chunk, but the riders are still paying a fare.

Oh, okay. I'll go ahead and ask a question then. So thank you. I appreciate it. So just trying to get an idea of cost per ride. I'm seeing that, so the 7,000 number we were using, is that, what is the timeline on the 7,000 for the Suncoast Trolley number that we were talking about, ridership? Was that per...

70,000, okay, yeah, 70,000, that's right. And that is for per, is that what timeline was that number for?

So $7,000 a month or $70,000 for 10 months.

on the Sunrunner. No, the number we're looking at is the 70,000 for the trolley. Yes. But still the number of boardings. Oh, okay. The number of boardings in St. Pete Beach, correct? Not total ridership of the entire trolley system.

But it's only, actually, it's only 15% of that number, as I understood the way it was stated.

No 15 that number is 15 percent of the total trolley ridership.

OK. Now. Yeah. OK. That makes sense to me now. OK. Have you all ever, could you tell us the numbers that you guys calculate on cost per ride for the Sunrunner and the Suncoast trolley?

they're part of that service. And so I guess your $7 number takes into account that's your cost to run the service. Is that right? So our cost would be how much we pay and then how many riders come or leave our city. And so we would divide out what we pay into like what we think our ridership is that actually goes to the county park or to the stop for the Suncoast trolley.

Yeah, I think, Commissioner Causey, what we need, I think two things. One is that we don't pay for the Sunrunner. So in St. Pete Beach, we're not paying anything for the Sunrunner. So there's no contract cost that we pay for the Sunrunner. We don't pay into the PSTA system on our property tax bill. I believe it's us, Treasure Island and South Pasadena that opted out of the PSTA system. Everywhere else in the county, they have a line item on their property tax bill with a specific millage that goes towards PSTA. And we don't. And we don't pay for the Sunrunner in St. Pete Beach. Okay. So we hav

So to separate out cost for a ride, we're really just talking about the Suncoast trolley. We're talking about the trolley and the access. And the access. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. All right. I just want to do some more math here.

I only have a tiny head start because I've only been there for a little while they do on the PSTA website for for anybody that's interested in these numbers they do publish monthly ridership data per route and Including the cost to run the route what the cost is what the dollar amount is per writer what the dollar amount is per writer after you take into account what the the fare that the writer pays and then also what the dollar amount per writer per route is. once you factor in any um dollar amounts that a city like us contracts with psta or federal funding or all the various things so it is

So since the now the Sunrunner coming here doesn't give us the beach the access services it's the Suncoast trolley contract that allows us to have those services is that the way I'm understanding that.

In the past right the our contract for St. Pete Beach contract with PSTA includes whatever bus routes there are plus the psta access program yes yes and if we had been the way it's been if we had zero contract with the psta if if st pete beach completely opted out and said we don't want anything to do with it we're not paying you any money would anybody in st pete beach still be eligible for pst the psta access program um that would be up to the psa board i would think not yeah okay

There may be a federal regulation that you provide the PST access program to people who are some distance from a bus stop. Right. So for people who are three-quarters of a mile from every Sunrunner stop might still have access.

But the rest of the residents would not. Right. Okay.

Can I ask a quick question of Mandy please? I notice this is titled Michael Transit and we're talking very much about the PSTA and I know you kind of touched in on freebie. So I just want to make sure I understand what you're asking for from us this evening is to retain the service at some level of funding that theoretically includes PSTA and freebie because you've tied them into this conversation or some micro transit because you've tied them into this conversation together.

At what service level, is that a level of funding or?

giving them annual free rides for the year yes and we would four thousand dollars and then they've offered after a year we would look at the data and we would renegotiate based on utilization and inflation okay um okay um i think i might have so so the 242 for 2027 is trolley and access And then I might've missed it. There's another 200,000 option to bring the trolley down even further South theoretically to County park.

Okay. And another option is this new pass where we would pay 4,000 for 200 lucky souls to be able to ride for a year. Uh, lottery. Right. Right. Okay. Um, okay. think at least now have a better picture of it thank you and so your questions are uh psta yes or no and at what cost any additional micro transit which i'm almost because the alternative to microtransit might be this u-pass so maybe i should lump the u-pass over into microtransit and possibly also there's two hundred thousand dollars the trolley to go a little bit further might be the alternative to a microtransit i know it's not micr

I understand what you're saying. I'm trying to figure out is this a decision you want us to make tonight and then later you will come with the five options in the more detail and we'll be able to make a decision or you're saying?

All right. And very specifically freebie in this case, which No, no, no. Okay.

Understood. Okay. So this is program but not budgeted?

Understood. That is a microtransit decision. Separately, you want us to make a PSTA decision? Okay. Got it. Okay. Okay. Apologize for... That's okay. Took a little while for your words to get over to my head, so I got it now. Thank you. All right. I'm sorry. I know there's some questions. Commissioner Marriott, please.

Yeah, thank you. I don't really have any questions. I have a few thoughts. So because I think that's where we need to go is what direction are we going to go? So I think first we need to keep in mind a little bit of what the history is and how we got here, right? And so some number of years ago we were paying more money for our PSTA contract and the trolley went all the way to Paso Grille. And largely it seemed at the time that the people in Paso Grille were very unhappy with buses being in Paso Grille at all. And so at that time, St. Pete Beach went to the PSTA and said, we don't want buses i

We don't want anything. We don't want any buses. We don't want any trolleys. I think at the time, it was big buses going to Paso Gril. Maybe they were calling it a trolley. I think it was a Central Avenue trolley, but it didn't look like a trolley. It was a big bus. And so the people in Paso Gril said, we do not want the bus in Paso Gril. And they got out their pitchforks and said, get the buses out of Paso Gril. So the city commission at the time did that. um and uh and at that time decided that the money that they were saving by not paying psta for buses to go to passa grill they would use t

Well, yeah, I'll go ahead because I wanted to, that was well put, Commissioner Marriott. So as far as the PSTA service goes, I'm wondering, since we're trying to look for cuts in our budget right now, what if we gave them a limit of a half of that, or say 100,000, and asked for what level of service could be provided to us at 100,000? Instead of the two hundred and forty two thousand and that way we would perhaps decrease or maybe we wouldn't decrease our ridership and Then we would also retain the access service. So we would basically be saying what can you? What service can we get for half t

I'm not, my limited, granted, my limited knowledge of the PSTA system would be that it, perhaps anything is possible, but it may also be difficult. You know, if you're looking at, if you think about a bus route and you go, it comes down this street and it stops at these three places and it goes back and forth this many times, there's a cost to that. And if they're trying to allocate their cost what it costs to run the bus in the city and have us pay for that i don't know how you cut that in half unless you decrease the number of decreasing times yeah decrease the number of times it comes into

What it's worth, I took one of those numbers earlier, the ridership was nine months and the other ridership was 10 months, so I just equaled them out to an annual ridership. We get about 84,000 on the trolley and about 5,000 on the access, just using those numbers and putting about 12 months worth of service. So you think 30,000 riders, I'm sorry, 90,000 total riders between trolley and access at $220,000 was our cost last year, ended up about $2.44 per ride. projected at 242 this year which is next year's assuming the ridership stays the same that's two hundred sixty eight dollars two dollars

Well, okay. Well, I think my recommendation then would be to see what level of service we could get for $100,000 from the PSTA. And that would also include the access that we have now. I don't think we've talked about microtransit enough, really, to make a statement on that. I know I get letters from people that say they use it all the time and they want to keep it, but I also have letters from people who think that we should cut it from our budget. And I think Commissioner Marriott's points about alternatives that don't cost anything, it's hard to see how we would subsidize something that is,

I would second everything Commissioner Marriott said but I would also preface it with the fact that we're not in a financially good situation in the city. If we were we may not even be having this discussion. But after the hurricanes after what our storm system our sewers are at what we're looking at right now talking about increasing potentially increasing ad valorem adding the rate hikes onto everything and then still having those assessments on our tax bills. It's a hard one to kind of swallow when it's monies that could be used better elsewhere within the city. So as far as for me for the

So I'm gonna ride Commissioner Robinson's wave and talk about the budget, the fact that we're at a financial cliff and trying to figure out where we can shed wasteful spending. I don't believe in subsidizing what we would consider commuter services. I do think it's important to consider the paratransit, the access services to make sure that we're not hurting our most vulnerable populations. And then also just a comment on the U-pass. You said 200 passes. I believe we have 1,000 persons currently enrolled in freebie. About 1,200 what we haven't been able to surmise from the data is how many of

Yes, sorry, thank you for indulging me one more time. I had one other quick comment that I forgot to mention before, which is that when the Tradewinds and the Serrata conditional use permits were approved, part of those developments, if they ever are allowed to go forward, that they would be paying in you know I believe the number would be two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year for five years between the two of them for the first five years towards transit and so you know if we get to the point where those projects are going forward that two hundred and twenty five thousand dollar

I don't believe we ever got ridership numbers from our current micro transit. I know we ultimately said it's $15 to $17 per person, so we must have some sense of ridership. You just mentioned 1,200 registered.

Okay, so you've already done that math. 550 that we pay minus the three dollars per and we end up losing The cost of the city is about 17 for about 17 purchase in the net end of all that right versus Again, I did some early math earlier on that I know that they're not equivalent but the math on the on the bus was two dollars and 45 cents something in that range versus 17 per ride. I think that you pass is an interesting alternative i think uh you know maybe some of these uh for our for our paratransits i think the psta access is is also an interesting alternative um and as other commissioners

Okay. Yeah, I think, can we please take those comments?

Yes sir, go ahead please. A quick question. While we have Brad here, I had mentioned the possibility of working to try to have only one bus at a time in the county park. And so if we end up with the service, then I understood you were gonna look into that. So I think that would be great. And as I've said, I've seen the bus two in this lot very often. And a third one on the street sometimes waiting to get into the lot. And then what I wanted to reemphasize is that I've also seen the drivers stop northbound at the coffee shops. And so that blocks one of the two lanes on Gulf Boulevard. So there'

Sam, my question. Mandy, the last time we discussed this, I had requested that staff hold or informally coordinate with some of the hotels, the larger hotels, to see if they were willing, as Commissioner Marriott just reminded me about, if they'd be willing to subsidize it if the city did not. Was that done?

I will say that Tradewinds, I know Tradewinds and perhaps the Serato, but the Tradewinds has their own contract with PSTA where Tradewinds employees get one of those U-pass bus passes as do all of the Tradewinds guests. So though Tradewinds isn't contributing to the city's micromobility program, they are contributing to a way for their employees and guests to get around without having to rent a car.

Okay, city manager, do you have what you need? Good, just wanna make sure, okay. Thank you very much, I appreciate you, and lively, interesting discussion. Thank you everybody for your feedback, we appreciate you. I know there's a lot of, I will say this, we get lots of emails on this, I know there's a lot of passion on both sides, so thank you for everybody for your passion and your feedback. I think right now we're just trying to figure out what we can do with budget constraints and other things that we're dealing with, so thank you all.

I think it's where we're headed next, right? Yes. So please call general audience comments, please.

Okay, that's it, thank you. Thank you. Yes, city manager, I would just personally comment. I mean, if we got our, everybody's trying to get back from these hurricanes and obviously if they got mischaracterized inappropriately, I would love us to see if that's truly happening. If I could ask please, would you and your team just kind of look and see if they've been mischaracterized? Let's make sure that they're characterized appropriately. because we don't want to punish people for just trying to get back on their feet, you know, post-storm, so. And I'll scratch that off my list for our next mee

Thanks, sir. Thank you, sir. I'm gonna tell you about my chiropractor.

Keep going, sir. Please continue. Thank you.

Understood. I did. Thank you. City Manager, can you please make sure that we have staff look into this? Do we have we have contact information, I'd like to make sure that he has, please, if he could either get your information for questions, please. And, and I would like you please to help make sure that we follow through on this is as appropriate as we can.

Okay. Thank you so much. Always good feedback. Thank you, everybody. Over to the agenda. Just a reminder, we polled B, C, and J for separate discussion. Minus those, do we have a motion on the remaining items minus B, C, and J?

Motion to approve the consent items or accept them as presented minus B, C, and J items.

Okay. I'll vote to take an order. Let's go with consent 4B. Authorize the city manager to exercise the first extension as outlined in the contract to renew the parklet agreement with Chill Restaurant. I believe, Commissioner Robinson, you pulled it.

I just had two questions. I didn't see the insurance certificate in there, so I wanted to make sure we did have an insurance certificate because it's not in the packet.

Okay, and then payments made to date, are we current on all of the payments? I think it's basically the $1,500 a month.

Right. I just wanted to make sure we got the $50,000 that the taxpayers paid to build that parklet back. And that's really my big concern.

Interest free. So to date, it's $52,994.43.

And there was a little architectural stuff in there, too.

So no, that's good. It's great that we're discussing that. OK. Thank you.

And that was all I had for that. Thank you.

I'll make a motion to authorize the city manager to exercise the first extension as outlined in the contract to renew the parklet agreement with Chill Restaurant. I'll second.

Okay, thank you. Next item, 4C, Consent 4C. Authorize the city manager to execute the holiday decoration services agreement with Christmas Designers Florida slash Holiday Outdoor Decor at a cost of $76,621 for December 2026 holiday decorations.

I just have one question. What is the different, I mean, how many different poles I'm just looking at the huge discrepancy between pole trim and tree wraps on Passagrill on Gulfway and Passagrill Way for 22 blocks. There's 167 as a quantity. And then pole mounts on Gulf Boulevard from Quarry to the Bayway, which is many more blocks than 22, at 68.

So, well, it's two different types. I mean, there's just a different quantity amount. It just seems a little odd for what we've got here. I mean, are we talking, Both sides of the street, so we're talking what, 44 blocks? If I say from first to 22nd. From first to 22nd. And then we have golf and we have pass a girl away, right? So we're talking basically, right? And then, but still that's a huge discrepancy in the number.

Every year it's been like that. I just find it... Does it look more Christmas-y than the rest of us? I wouldn't say that it looks more Christmas-y than the rest, but I would say that there's a reason they get more than Gulf Boulevard.

I think it's because they have all the palm trees. Yeah, they do line the palm trees. I think there's more poles to decorate in that chunk than there is. Or I mean, I you know, maybe there's not more polls overall. But, you know, we've got a lot of polls on everywhere.

We are getting rid of a few of them on the undergrounding.

Just wanted to know what the difference was.

I almost feel like we should have some continuity when you go from the bottom of the city to the north end of the city on that road. I would almost try to make it all look the same.

So a couple questions and also points of clarification. They're not Christmas-y, they're non-secular. That's to address the zombies next door and stuff that keep bringing that up. Holidays. They're holiday decorations, right, by design. And we're never gonna get right. Last year we got beat up because we did dolphins and maritime themes. This year I'm hearing complaints about garland. Folks are very concerned about the garland and the wraps are garland and they're in the area where most folks are complaining about that. So my question, first of all, is because it's on county roads, why isn't t

i liked last year's decorations i i will just i thought they were a nice change up from everything that we've done so i hope you didn't take a lot of heat on that we took some well you took it well to the to the to the um you know uh state on road and i think that's an interesting take on it right that's obviously entire Gulf Boulevard, all of that is state owned stuff. Interesting to see what they do. I would ask, how do we compare with other beaches? Is that just every beach suffering with the state has us doing the work? Or is there something unique about St. Pete Beach? I would just ask yo

We should have asked that at the roadshows.

We should have. We got tomorrow's roadshow left to maybe get a little feedback.

This is our last year on this contract and we can revisit and discuss subsidies and all that fun stuff next year theoretically.

But the 75,000 number is, how did we come up with that number?

So we told them what we wanted and they said this is how much it'll cost?

So now Garland. is doesn't really require lights, I presume.

I think we are beyond the line of not go. My point was I just want people to know that this is a thing that the city has done, that we are highly supportive of. It does come at a cost, but we're struggling. So I agree with the mayor's comment We need to look at other funding sources. And that we'll have to reconsider it next year. I'm fine. I just wanted to throw that grenade out there and see what

I will say this late in the season I'm sure that they've got many municipalities that they deal with so I don't think we're gonna get a lot of changes it's it's either go or no go and I would personally have the mindset of go because I don't want to see a no decoration year I will say if our contracts up before next Christmas we've got opportunities to talk about you know what type of lighting which polls subsidies And and I also just while we're at the dialog, I've had some comments about kind of the plastic use inside of those things as well, in addition to some of the other comments. And an

Thank you. Very impressive. Thank you very much. Other audience comments, please. Thank you so much. That was quite interesting. And so since we don't have a staff report, we don't have any questions or comments unless there's commissioner comments. Okay, is there a motion?

I make the motion to adopt ordinance 2026-16.

Okay, thank you. We're on to ordinance item 5B, first reading ordinance 2026-17, reclaim water fees. City attorney, please.

Okay. Thank you. I understand there's no report. So audience comments? Okay. Any Commissioner questions of the City Manager? Anybody else? All right. Is there a motion then?

I'll make a motion to adopt Ordinance 2026-17, Reclaimed Water Fees.

Okay. Next we're on to items for discussion. And I believe the only one that I captured was mothballs on the beach for Commissioner Maldonado.

Yeah, so first and foremost, let me just say that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. I won't get into the specifics. But the city after or upon hearing that mothballs were placed behind some hotels without a very strong statement, we said that there was zero tolerance that we would do everything with accountable. So my Not question, but necessarily my input to the commission would be that we get ahead of that, that we work through our attorneys with the state attorney's office, that we ensure that as victims, the city being a victim, that we present our position to the state attorney an

And I wonder if business licenses would fit into that concept.

I would I would agree with you on holding them to as we've said, hold them to the highest level that we can if that includes pulling a liquor license and anything on the beach, you know, we're just so lucky that a small child didn't eat one of those.

Cabana service, whatever that is. So that would be one.

Listen, I agree. I would love to hear some legal opinion. some of the accused in this situation, at least one of the accused is also in other issues with us, so I'm careful how far we have open dialogues given that there's other open cases, as I understand it, legal cases in these situations unaffiliated with mothballs on the beach, right? So, but that said, as victims i think i think we should make sure that we understand what our rights attorney of the state's office so i would ask that we that we just itemize what are our options here and what do we have on the table that we could use as as

I love it. Rather than this forum, can we ask that we just maybe itemize something that we could just bring back and distribute to at least the commissioner, wherever it needs to go, that says, here's our potential avenues of remediation given this situation. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I don't have any other items for discussion, so I think we have our commission reports. Our city clerk, I'll start with you, please.

Yeah, so again to the folks that attended our workshop on the budget, well attended. Thank you so much to the staff, the mayor, everyone for setting that up. A lot of great dialogue and certainly some very informative presentations. The answers there are hard questions. I got an email just to talk about some hurricane recovery grants for storm-related expenses or debts. Apparently, the government gave Pinellas County $813 million worth of grants that are still out there for folks that are still trying to recover so um if you haven't received that go to recover.pinalis.gov to get information an

I do have a few items I wanted to discuss. I have received reports of three damaged seawalls in District 3, but I don't really have a way to see these things. Is there a process in place, I'm wondering, where the city can check on the status of the seawall? And also, I would say that a couple of them were severe enough to where the soil is disappearing into the canal. And so I think this is a notice for the people who have these seawalls, but also for the city to possibly look into these. And I'll move on to publics.

Can I ask real quick just on that? Are you talking public or private seawalls?

Private seawalls. Thank you. Yeah, that's a good clarification. Private seawalls. So if I, for example, were to use C-Click Fix, I don't really know that there's, I can't tell from the street whether this is the case or not. So it seems like there would be a process for this. So Publix, I keep getting questions about Publix and what I feel like is this is one of the biggest problems that we have in our city, a perceived pain point. And I don't feel like we are keeping everyone up to date enough on, I almost feel like we need to have a Publix report every single commission meeting. So I'm sure

Just a reminder that tomorrow night is the District 2. And anybody else who wants to come, if you missed one, come on to the Budget Roadshow at the library, 5.30 to 7 PM tomorrow night. Also, I do my library hours typically first Monday. But first Monday next month being Labor Day, it will be the second Monday of the month, so the 14th of September from 5 to 5.45 at the library as well.

Thank you. I just want to congratulate the Helm on reopening in their new space in District 1. I know everybody is super excited about their bigger space and longer hours, and so if you haven't been, go have dinner at the Helm. It's fantastic. And that's it.

Thank you. Impromptu, I would say we have many, many great restaurants, the Helm being one of them, and congratulations to the Helm family. I see a lot of, this is impromptu, so I apologize. I see a lot of social aspects of what great things make St. Pete Beach wonderful and our great restaurants and small businesses, not only shopping and the theater and all kind of things. So please support our businesses as you can. We love him and we appreciate him. Back onto what I did actually have on my agenda here. Thank you to all the residents and also to the city staff and my fellow commissioners wh