City Council - workshop

Well, it's not every day that I make this little promenade to the podium. But the Plum House project certainly warrants it. So I'm very excited today with my colleagues to give you all an update on the Plum House. So most people look at the Plum House and they see it as a charming historic house. What they may not know is just how much has gone through and how many times this house could have simply disappeared. So this is really a story about survival and about the people who, at different moments of its history, decided it's worth giving it another chance. And that story actually begins befo

Oh, and by the way, that mannequin in the bathtub, her name is Daphne. She's having tea in the bathtub.

I just forgot. I wanted to thank Council Member Menino and Rosemary Paul. Both of them came and helped us clean out that place and I appreciate your help.

Thank you. Yes, I was voluntold that I had to take part in cleaning up. They handed me a mop and some plastic gloves and said go get them. I had an enjoyable time, but just to credit the three or four of you. your passion, your creativity, and obviously your resourcefulness, which we just witnessed. I don't know how you made a dollar stretch as far as you did, but you and your team definitely did. So I found discomfort in three options in losing. that historic gem in our city and the story behind it. And I'm glad we threw you four at it and said go wild and go to town and saved it. So I wish y

I'm obviously sleep-deprived. I forgot to also include two very important people, our managers, Jennifer, who has also been very helpful. And I can't believe I forgot my husband. He was there almost every weekend for months. So sleep-deprived. I apologize for any other omission.

Thank you, Mayor. My only question was reoccurring operating expense. Is that $15,000 in change? Is that a monthly, a yearly? How is that?

not a question just a comment um ford pinellas showed up for a meeting not too long ago and we were surprised to see it looked like a clearwater city council meeting because they were lined out the door to get in fortunately we heard that it was a clearwater item so we got a little nervous but to find out that it was this overlay i just wanted to commend staff on how they approached that and truly went out into the community and fully engaged to help them bring clarity to what the overlay truly was, what it meant, and so they could understand what the changes going forward were. So thank you t

okay so what you're doing basically with this now is you're just blowing off the water into the street that's correct and then it picks up the street drains and then goes to wherever they go like yep stormwater ponds um sometimes it's just into grassy areas it'll percolate back into shallow shallow groundwater i know a lot of the microphone councilman yeah oh i'm sorry A lot of the dead-end streets, we have one on Island Stage. I see you blow that off a lot because it never gets the proper circulation. I think it's a good thing. I think it's to try it and see if it's feasible to recover that w

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the outside-the-box thought process on finding a solution to water conservation and finding ways we can be more efficient with our resources. Also, kudos to the staff for pursuing grant opportunities, which I know staff has really worked hard all over the city on pursuing grants. And every time we're successful with that, we save the taxpayer money. And I know they appreciate that as well, so thank you.

Council Member Menino Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for bringing this forward. Obviously, this pilot program worked, worked for us, worked for staff, worked for the vendor, generated money, which is a beautiful thing for the taxpayers. I don't know the fair or circus apparatus market, but a cleaner and classier one, I I don't know that market, but I'm in favor of it. I kind of agree if we market one of the world's best beaches and that image of it, should we have a circus or fair apparatus highlighting the bulk of what any picture or video would be when they watch Monday Night Football and that'

I agree. I'm not going to repeat everything everybody said, but bigger and better, it's nicer. I've talked to people on the beach, and some people on North Beach don't like it. Some people on South Beach love it. You know, they say they love coming over the bridge and seeing that it lit up. But when they first brought it there, I did take my grandkids there, and it was kind of small. for me and the two grandkids to get in the seats. So something a little better that maybe goes a little higher would be nice. Something that looks a little bit nicer. But I think it's a good thing. I think the hot

Everything that's been said, I agree. I just want a couple comments. I really appreciate the fact that you changed locations to respond to the demand. That's awesome. But if we do go for a bigger, better Ferris wheel, will our ability to change its location be hindered? That's just something to keep in mind, not a deal breaker or anything like that, but something to keep in mind. In terms of the RFN, it is my opinion, you need to write it so that it encourages as many applicants, even from those that we might not expect, and ideas that are a little bit outside the box. So in that way, my direc

That aged well. But seriously, thank you so much. I really appreciate your clarification and it being on record. That was my recollection as well. There was mentioning of it, but I did not see the physical response. So thank you so much for putting that on the record. I appreciate it. Yes, ma'am.

because I thought it was important that we have a dialogue and I gauge what you guys have to think about. But I brought this specifically, this item forward because of what happened in our last few high interest meetings. And because of the concerns that I've heard from my constituents and members of the community since then. People have been lining up for as long as nine hours simply for the opportunity to speak. And there are many people in this community who simply cannot do that, especially outside, right, with the rain, exposed heat, and other weather conditions. They work, they care for

Okay, so let me just understand. I like electronic sign-up, but it's got to be something simple that everybody can do from their phone? Um, I mean, they don't have to have an app or anything, but they could go right on straight to the agenda actually as part of the e-comment process.

So I know we had discussed this before. I can't remember when it's been probably years, but, uh, we talked about, uh, public comment. That gets put online that, uh, we don't read, read that.

So when we were discussing this on our one-on-ones, especially with the city attorney, there are certain things that we, certain ways we have to do this because we can't be pro or we can't be con about something. We can't say, well, we have a bunch of people that are for it, but a couple people, we can't designate that. We just have to let it happen. And I guess that's not only us, but isn't that state law as well? I mean, we can't interfere into knowing what people, one way or another, but we just need to have everybody come as they, whether they're pro or against. My question is this. For th

The day before. But what if people are signing up to speak?

OK. Gotcha. All right. I think that would solve a lot of the issues that we have. I don't want to see anybody standing out in the hot sun like has happened. And it doesn't happen that much. But when it happens, we've got to come up with a better way that we can get people to come and speak either way about the issues.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for putting this as an agenda item. I think we all felt the pain of hearing that residents were sitting outside for over 12 hours and the elements of whether it's sun, rain, lightning, whatever it may be. I didn't like the fact of putting any of our residents, young, old, it doesn't matter, through that. This is a challenge. Any time you have a higher demand than you do supply, we're going to have an issue. No process that we can come up with and put in place is going to create more seats in this building. And our first responders are going to tell us we can f

If we do our research, they do shift into a protocol B. I don't think any of us would be blindsided in knowing that we're going to have a high attendance meeting when we've had a high attendance meeting. I think all of us in this room could have probably identified over the last several months when one of those meetings would occur and weeks in advance without an issue. I think whatever we come up with, we do have to make sure We prioritize safety, fairness, and the integrity of the process, and that's what is most important in it. Whether we put caps on the registration, whether they're check

Are they given like a QR code for registration for when they come to the door and staff checks them?

Okay. Yeah, I'm for finding another system, just again finding something that Doesn't keep people out in the sun for 12 hours. It's fair, has a level of transparency to it, consistency. I think we would all agree is important. I mean, some cities even to make more of a level of fairness, it's not a first come first serve time basis. It's 166 seats that you have. They register for it. And then there's a lottery system that almost randomizes who's speaking. So you avoid pros and cons. You also add a level of transparency, not say I'm questioning your timestamps. But if the public doesn't see a t

My question would be now, since we're talking about it, it sounds like we may go to something. How long will it take to implement this because, you know, should be fairly quick because We've got a lot of important things coming up.

So if we're going to do this, it's really important. And we have to be very redundant to get it out to the public so they understand what they can do. It can't just be something mentioned on the website. I think we need to really put it out there in a bunch of different ways so all different people can pick it up.

Just to clarify. all the signups electronically, will there be a cutoff number or no? Okay, and then will there have, in person will still be an option. Yes. And will they have a reserved amount or no?

I agree with it. Yeah, I agree with you. We've talked about that a handful of months ago, I think, under the last city attorney's office was a discussion. I don't want to change the subject, but I still wanted a little clarity on this new process moving forward. Did you say that there's no cutoff? So like if somebody registers and they're number 500?

So with 160 that we hold, 161 through 500, do they know they're 161 through 500? Or are they just showing up early, not knowing if they're getting in?

I mean, they're still kind of waiting outside to get into the building, but how does, so somebody that's number 400, when do they show up and not know if they're getting in or not? Do they wait in line and then told they didn't register early enough?

Yeah, if I'm number 400, I probably don't need to come sit up front of the library for an hour and a half to get in the door to then be told by staff that scans my ticket and says, oh, sorry, you're number 400. You can't get in. We should have a process that's a little more transparent. We know how many seats we have. When you reach that limit, there should be a cutoff and whether anything after that maybe goes to a waiting list or if people don't check in 10 minutes before the meeting, you go to the waiting list or who's sitting outside. But I think we're still putting ourselves in a place of

But we're not fixing the challenge of having people standing outside for hours. They're still, if they just registered and we're telling them 1,000 people can pre-register, they don't know their number, they don't know if they're speaking or not, it's first come, first serve. That's what we're doing now. How do we fix the system of not having first come, first serve standing outside of the library so they know if they're 160 and they're getting in the building or they're not?

The challenge is we don't We have other agenda items. We don't have a split house 50-50 to say alternate. I mean, some may come speak to the Greenwood overlay district. Some may want to come in and speak to Clearwater Villages. Some are really excited about Carpenter Fields upgrades. How do you keep them out, keep them in, or alternate? I don't know how that works. I'm okay on a ticketing system, but... You're still making them first come, first serve, go stand outside if you want to get in the building and be number one through 160. We're not solving that challenge. And the only way you solve

I think we're overthinking this. Taylor Swift and Garth Brooks figured this out a long time ago. You have X amount of seats in a building, and you only have X amount of seats. And you know that you're getting into the concert or you're not, and you're not sitting out there not knowing. And this isn't a takeaway. You've done a lot of work, and I appreciate it. If your system isn't adequate, then we need to find a system and a ticketing system that probably works better to solve our needs. But I think just to shift to an online system because we feel we need to make a change, we're still making

It might be as simple as calling the software company and finding out if there's something that's to be added or because you're literally just putting a sequence to whoever signs up. And if this software company can't do it, what are our options? So I guess the next couple of days is a recon mission, right? Figuring out what are our options are, but I'm sure they can number it.

Because they update their software all the time, so. Okay. All right.

She's going to go look into it. There's hundreds of ticketing systems out there that you put a cap on it, can't sell or reserve more tickets than you can see, put the rest in an overflow. I think we're really overthinking this, but if that's the direction from the dais.

OK. I mean, it would be nice to have the data and the information and then make the appropriate decision and rule accordingly.

It's a multi-pronged thing. You can do more than one thing at a time. I say yes. Yes.

Now, I do have a question. Okay. Don't you start.

So they can't attach them to the podium or set them on the podium?

I would like to continue with that for the next one.

Well, I didn't really need to get this on the agenda, but here's what I had said earlier. So I'm coming up on the end of my... My career as a councilman in November. And I also serve on the PSTA board. I'm on the planning committee. I'm on the legislative committee. I'm on Ford Pinellas. These are great boards. And one of the things we did this year, Mike serves on with me, because this year we, because of the population, the reorganization of the members. Clearwater gets two members from representing Clearwater. So Mike asked to come on board with me. But when I leave, I thought maybe before

So I'll put it out there. What are your thoughts?

I can tell you this. I'll just add this to the conversation. PST does not have a board meeting in November. And probably, I'm not sure, I haven't looked at Fort Pinellas calendar, but because that's the election time, that becomes, it's just an odd time. I think they just said, well, we'll have it December. And that could be a good time for making a transition for new people.

Thank you, sir. I was waiting. Thank you for bringing that up. I guess if this is something that you're not going to be a part of a discussion going forward, that you should probably be thanked for your many years of service on especially those two important regional boards you didn't just show up and serve i know on psta which is a very important regional board you sit on two subcommittees an executive committee i think as well as a legislative committee and you have your normal advisory board appointment so That's not just one meeting a month. That's three. So somebody filling that regional

It is something that is time consuming. We have the same meetings toward the end of the fiscal year as we do here. We have the budget meetings, so it's a constant running back. I guess you have to take that in consideration if you're thinking about coming on this board. It is a time allotment. I'll just leave it to the council to decide what they want to do. I'm fine with I guess later, after November 3rd, probably in December, I'll come back to the board to get recognized with PSJA and Fort Pinellas and and possibly here, so we can wait until that time.

Oh, one other thing while I'm talking about PSDA. I found this in my notes. Thursday, October the 8th, at Tampa International Airport, PSDA is starting a new 727 bus service. We've been talking about this for a long time, about getting bus from, you know, we do have it on the grouper coming from St. Pete Clearwater Airport to the beach, but this new 727 bus will go from Tampa International to downtown St. Pete. and it'll bring people from the airport back and forth. Eventually we'll get it into Clearwater now that we have a nice new intermodal center. Possibly it'll stop there, but if anybody'