City Council - public_hearing

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't remember 30 reading the second public hearing statement. This is a second public hearing for the city of Tampa, Florida fix for year 2027 budget the proposed millage rate is six point two Oh seven six bills, which is two point three. Oh Percent more than the rollback millage rate of six point. Oh six eight Oh Mills property tax funds are used to support the general fund operating budget and the Community Redevelopment Agency fund of the city of Tampa of the city. The general fund includes such departments as fire rescue, police, human resources, parks, and recr

How much money will it take for agenda item six?

It says identify funds for task one and two, but how much was that?

I want more than five minutes. If we have six items and we're talking at once.

So it's one in two together is all we need, right? That's that was that was that was like those are estimates too. So it was like 1.2. So 12.

Thank you. Second question. Is for Mr. O'Hara. Yes, ma'am. So what you're saying is that that $35 million, is that what's being held in the unfunded I'm sorry, unassigned fund balance, 35.6?

Okay, so what about the 22.1 from the CIT?

Got it. And, okay, so I'm going to dive in. So the way to solve this one, Chair, this is your... This is the addendum. If you want to make sure that we put the money where we want it to go, you need to find that line item and just say the first $10 million will go to line item 59423. That would be the way I would solve it.

Because then you know it actually goes to the paving line item. I'm just saying if that's if you're concerned about it, that's what I would do. That's that's my personal.

So stormwater maintenance, well, I have a bunch of things to say, but I will go with some of the things that I want to talk about. I have some stuff to talk about with Sulphur Springs, but I'll wait until Councilwoman Young speaks. But I did want to let you know, Councilwoman, that we already approved $985,000 towards sidewalk improvements in Sulphur Springs back in June, and that was to connect schools. So we already allocated that and made sure it was part of the 27 budget. I have the motion here, and I'm just going to go ahead and pass that. And Brandon's getting up. So does that mean that

No, this was a motion that I made. Right.

No, I just, my motion wasn't specifically for sidewalks. It was just towards the neighborhood action plan. Yeah. Towards the neighborhood action plan. But that was one of the, um, areas that was identified when I did have the conversation. Yes.

So you wanted to do more sidewalks? Not so. I had a conversation with Abby and Lauren And these were the three, out of the Sulphur Springs Neighborhood Action Plan, these were three of the areas that were identified as where money could go towards to continue to put money towards Sulphur Springs, but towards the Neighborhood Action Plan. So if I'm hearing you correctly, Brandon, sorry, I didn't mean to, did you put her, did you put her time back?

So what I'm hearing is there's already money allocated towards sidewalks.

Okay. So my record or my ask for you would be because we have this money, one of the things that the community wants is to fix that manatee bridge. Yes. And so I think that we should take the 750, add 750 more to it because they're projecting that it's going to be 1.5 million and do that.

But I found the money for it, and I don't have the time left, so. Or you gave me two more minutes, then I'll tell you where I found the money. If you put Miss, if Miss Sharp could come out. Or Ms. Kapesky could pull something for me. If you want to, could you put up the capital improvement? Yeah, deferral. The CIT deferral specifically. So first of all, I'm going to recommend that we put all the CIT projects back in.

I can't see it, so let me know if it's, yeah. No, you go the other way. You went the wrong way. Okay, there we are. So here's the thing. The $8 million for the McDill access, can you point to the McDill access? That $8 million, they have told us they can't do that this year because they just aren't ready to do that program. So my recommendation would be to add, I was going to do $1.5 million, but if we already have $750 for sidewalks, then if we add $750,000 to Parks and Rec, we can move that money there and find the one and a half million to fix the bridge. And the reason that's important to

That's a subject for discussion. But even if we don't put it all back, moving $750 million from this $8 million, which we can't do this year, even if we wanted to, that is what Mr. O'Hara has said, correct? That this is not ready. Okay, Mr. Campbell?

Just for clarity, if that's something that you... Well, we could fund that and do the bridge. Like, I don't see... I mean, I... Because the way I had it, I was moving the $100... I was moving $1.5 million from that $8 million to do the Sulphur Springs Bridge. So, I don't... We wouldn't have to touch that money.

No, no, no, no, no. I was going to take $750 from the sidewalks, but we don't have to. Because if Hager puts that... If you put that other page back on... We have $8 million right now that needs to, that can be moved and we can move one and a half million for Sulphur Springs. Here, I'll, and I have, can I ask one more question on this? So Mr. O'Hara, I'm gonna come down.

No worries. So mine here shows if we put this $1.5 million in there, we add the 1.3 for the TPD headquarters because it needs the elevators fixed. And then these other projects that we promised people, that Burrell Park has to happen. There's just no ifs, ands, or buts. We've promised people the Gadsden Park improvements. But down here, I was told that this has already been solved.

OK. And so because no construction, so we've dealt with that. So all we're dealing with, and even if all of this stuff is done, that only equates to $6.3 million. We still would have money left to do the prep work for the COT, for the McDill. So anyway, I just wanted you all to take a look at that and see. That's kind of what I'm thinking for the CIT.

McDill Access. Are you going to report any of the $8 million in FY27?

detailed inquiries um i had i made a request last meeting on the so-called special needs internship and wanting to make sure where this was in the budget the amount that it was drawn mr mcgregor and i spoke about that um earlier today i think it was but I wanted to inquire in that regard including making sure that if Amendment 3 does pass that doesn't matter at all to the city budget but it matters a hell of a lot to the people that benefit from it so I don't know if you needed to look for that or it's contained as part correct me if I'm wrong it's uh here And I know it is in the social arts.

Why don't we fund this? special needs, one in workforce development, because that's what it is. Because when you put it in the nonprofit sector, it makes it fragile. That's the first to go in a budget wash, right? How do we do that? I mean, because, yeah.

So I motion to put $76,000 from the social network.

Let's fund that of the extra out of, um,

My recommendation is that some of the money we're holding in advance.

Councilman Vera and councilman Carlson have a question on that. Can I just add one, one thing to what he was, I think.

Mr. O'Hara, if you can help us figure out how to put it as a line item that it will be like in concrete so that I think his concern is that whoever's on council next, they can see it and they'll protect it, that it won't be just buried under something else. Thank you.

workforce yes sir very good thank you sir and then very quick i just for purposes of the public i want to make sure that by passing this tonight the k bar ranch park which is about eight million dollars i think it is that puts it in the cip for next fiscal year correct for if i'm not mistaken fiscal year 28 which would be next which is that yes the year after the year we're talking about okay thank you mr o'hara appreciate you thank you mr chair councilwoman young

Okay, so one, I want to thank you and Chief Bennett for meeting with me last week. Yes, ma'am. So I was going through the budget deferrals list that you gave to me, and I see here under workforce, the Rising Explorers Program, the Summer Youth Internship Program is not funded in 27, nor is the temp intern program as well.

So how, and I was listening to Councilman Vieira, how will we, it doesn't look like we're wanting to, we're funding any youth programs under workforce.

Because we have, so there's the, we have the community engagement allocation of funds for 100 summer youth leadership program, that's not in 2027. The rising sports program for high school students, that's not in 2027. And then also the temp intern program, that's not in 2027 either. Correct.

I'm just, I'm just noting that And then also we have the teen programming operating budget. That's not in there either. Oh, I see.

So are these items, should this be included in our running list? Yep.

I'll second it. Absolutely. Because I brought up the exact same thing, so I'll second it.

the Rising Explorers Summer Youth Internship Program and then the, let me see, 100 Summer Youth Leadership Program.

$175,000 for Rising Explorers and then $85,248 for Summer Youth Leadership.

Ms. Kapesky just gave me, she knows what I was talking about. Okay. Now, so that, I just, I needed to point that out because that is, that everyone knows I'm a huge passion for youth, so I think it's important that we have both programs to be funded for our summer youth. So to Sulphur Springs, Brandon and Abby, could you come and explain to me what we were talking about with the sidewalks? So I heard allocated already, we have the $985,000 for sidewalks, and then when we had our meeting Abby, we were talking about safe routes to places. Street safety was one of the items that we identified. An

Okay. And then where this is coming from, I think Darlene gave everyone a copy, but I had a meeting with Ms. Feely and Lauren about Sulphur Springs, talking about different projects to allocate funding towards the Sulphur Springs Neighborhood Action Plan. And these were the three items, the three kind of buckets that we identified, and it was the street safety, housing stability, and public realm. I don't know, Ms. Capesta, do you have your copy with you?

Yes, thank you. So these were kind of the three buckets that were identified, and this came out of, the Sulphur Springs Neighborhood Action Plan. So we have the minimums to the max for each area. I wanted to bring it to council to kind of get, see what route you all think, because I was thinking at least doing the minimums for each area, because that coupled with the improvements that are happening with the parks, I think it would be really good investment in the area in different buckets. So if that is, you know, if the council feels that, you know, is a good area to go, I would want to do th

First of all, for spring and it'll go towards Mr. Pesky.

Is that just for this year or is that over time?

I have a secondary question to that. But what if what if the person who purchases the property starts to rent it out?

Yeah, I think that would just be interesting to know just overall for all the housing. They're really struggling to get actual homeownership in that neighborhood.

Well, I'm going to go back to basically what I recommended for Councilman Vieira. I believe this is workforce training. I don't believe this is social action arts funding. So I mean, I'm actually having Kelly right now look for how much they've gotten in the past. And they may not get the full amount, but I really believe that's workforce training. I do not believe it's a social action and arts thing. So we talked about this before about really trying to move some of the workforce. some of this training stuff to workforce. And I, I mean, again, it may not be at the full amount, but I really be

uh every year that I've been on Council we've justified those two organizations by talking about Workforce and I'm also in favor of moving things into the departments these two however were taken out just before I got a council for political reasons by the last administration and I think to protect them they ought to be in in this fund so that City Council has a line of sight to them otherwise depending on what happens after May they could be completely cut out again just for vindictive reasons

Workforce development. Yeah, instead of putting them in workforce, leave them in social action arts. Because the idea of moving certain things to economic development and the other departments is that if they're justifiable, they should permanently be in those. And I agree the same thing here. However, these two were targeted because the last administration didn't like them for whatever reason, which I think is not a good reason to just

angrily cut them out and so i think it should be in a place that could be protected by future city council councilman vieira thank you very much mr chair yeah i mean we could look at potentially putting a little bit of what they get in that fund whatever i mean i but i i obviously do support them but i'm glad councilman escalco that you brought this up because there is an application process and there's not much that we can do today um based on that so for the folks here i i you know i know we're all very supportive of y'all uh very much so and i and i've committed to support you guys um and e

arts leaders from St. Pete in Brooklyn. We went to Brooklyn Public TV. Just Brooklyn has a six million, this is nine years ago, they had a six million dollar budget. And they primarily use it to incubate new shows, YouTube shows. and TV shows that then get picked up and syndicated. And we have to think of it as workforce training, but also as an incubator. Every kid now wants to be an online star, and they can make money at it. And so we can't just look at it as an expense. And we certainly shouldn't look at it as an arm of the communication department.

Okay, so I have a couple of questions. I don't know about you, but I've been inundated with information about Swan Park. I don't know if you all have been as well. I've had a briefing. Yeah, we're getting briefings about it, but basically they want to leapfrog all these other parks that have been waiting. And so I wanted to put that on people's horizon and just to know that we have a bunch of parks that we did fund through our 20 extra funding of 2025. So we have a whole list of parks, and I don't think Kelly's here, so I'll run down and show you what we have already funded. We funded about 4.

Okay. So as far as the East Tampa Rec Center goes, we have a bunch of money still left in that. Do we plan on using all of it? Right now there's a $2.6 million open balance. I'm sorry, 2.6? Yeah. 2.6?

So my question is, if there is money left in the East Tampa Rec Center, I noticed that on the deferrals is some East Tampa Rec Center programming. Can we move that money into programming? Or is that solely for construction?

Oh, that's right. Some of that's bonded.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. I just thought I'd ask. And the other one that I wanted to bring up was stormwater funding. We... We have underfunded this year's stormwater by $3 million, and that's maintenance. And Mr. O'Hara showed it, and I'm trying to see if I can find.

Yeah, I mean, it was part of what you showed for, And that's what made me think of it.

It's page three or page four. Yeah, right there. So you see the $7 million that was requested and the recommended budget was four. Now, I did have Ms. Scharf dig into this after I saw this total, and it's actually only about a million. Their request was for more, but if we put a million dollars more into the... stormwater services that would lead our maintenance back up to where it needs to be from last year i'm just throwing that out there from 26. from 26 and i think that what we have seen is that it's working stormwater maintenance is working and i don't think we should stop that okay that'

Because remember, we fund some with general fund every year.

Thank you, Chairman. In fact, there's another problem. Not a problem. Something has to be addressed in the Wellswood area. Yeah, they have a great ball field. In fact, I looked at that with Councilmember Hurtak. Had her number 2966. That was the line item for the West Tampa Park, which is a little league and stuff of that area on that side of the area. However, Mendenhall Drive, there's a church about the size of this office right here now, not quite this big. And I've toured it once, I've toured it twice with Mr. Fowler and others, and some of the neighbors that live there, and they want some

I'm going to make sure Wellsport's not left out. Got it.

Going back to the $4.4 million that council allocated from surplus funding for parks and recreation, there's about, I think it was about $85,000 for Jackson Heights. I'm looking in the deferrals list and I see the acoustic panels for the Jackson Heights Gymnasium and then the perimeter fence for Jackson Heights artificial turf field. Are these two items separate from the $85,000 in improvements we were already allocating for Jackson Heights?

Okay. That was my question. I just wanted to be sure.

Next speaker, please start with your name.

You can go ahead and put it right on the... Oh, just the audio, okay.

Thank you very much. And I just want to remind people in the audience that the acoustics in this room are very, very good. So if you are talking, we can hear you. So if you have a conversation that you need to have, please take it outside. Thank you. Next speaker.

Oh, okay, good to know. Thank you very much. Okay, next speaker, you have three minutes. Please start with your name.

Yes, I just have one motion because I was asked by Mr. Perry to clarify my motion from last time. So this is my motion about the Hart Route 1. In addition to the $1.35 million allocated for increased frequency for Route 1 for the 2027 calendar year, I move to include an additional $55,000 to cover the full cost of the increased frequency and an additional $95,000 to HART for marketing of Route 1 and other high-frequency HART routes. That would bring the total funding to $1.5 million.

I will be voting for it, but City of Tampa is no longer the transit business. We got rid back in the 70s when they took it over and then Heartline came. That's Heartline's problem. I'm willing to facilitate and help, but I won't be doing it in the future.

And then I did want to bring up the special workshop that Mr. O'Hara recommended. I looked at the calendar, and if we wanted to do it before October 15th, the 5th and the 6th is a Monday and a Tuesday, and the 12th and the 13th are Mondays and Tuesdays. So, Ms. Scharf, if you could bring me my personal phones.

Yeah, I'll let people look at it. But the dates that I found that were open are the 5th and 6th, which is Monday and Tuesday, and the 12th and 13th, which is the Monday and Tuesday of the next week, if we wanted to do it before the 15th. And I'm sorry, Ms. Lucas-Harris, I did not ask you, and I should have, to see if the – but this literally came to me last minute.

Yeah, but I wanted to bring it up now so that if any of those dates don't work, that maybe our aides can work behind the scenes.

And if I may, that was 76, not 86, I believe.

Yeah, I do have a clarifying question. I thought that Councilwoman Young asked for 1.5 to include the sidewalk as well. And I'm going to get over to the CIT in a minute.

So my clarifying question is that's also in We need to put the stuff back in from the CIT itself

Well, I mean, the CIT is only just a few things, and they're mostly parks projects. I can't imagine we wouldn't want to fund parks.

No, I just asked why. Well, but that park wasn't on a list of things that are coming forward.

But I'm going to bat for all the parks, too. But what I'm saying with Swan is that we had other parks waiting, and we're absolutely not going to push that park ahead of the other parks that have been worked on for years. No, not yet. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify that. That's why I asked the questions. I wanted to make sure it didn't come from this year's funding.

It's parks funding. It's $1.3 million for upgrades for the Tampa Police Department. And those are their elevators. She has it right here. There's no way. I mean, I know that we're trying to do stuff with Big Blue. But A, we can't afford it. So B, we have to fix their elevators. So what I wanted to add was the $1.5 million for the bridge, which Ms. Kapesky put on the other sheet. But what we're doing is we're adding back in the TPD police department, the parks and rec, and that's it. Because the TNI for public safety was already added back. Oh, I'm sorry. TPD requested that the project be cance

Oh, okay. Well, then never mind. That 1.3 goes away and that basically funds the bridge.

The public facilities we have no option of. That's the Lightning, that's the Bucks, that's the Yankees. We have to pay that.

But question, which addendum that has $20 million in it?

I was going to say I'd prefer to have the actual line item, but I'll say yes.

No, I thought either $100,000 or $150,000 each was what I would want.

Yeah, but I mean, I think $100,000 each then is, I mean, for what they do.

I think you better be conservative because what's coming, we don't know.

Is there a way, Ms. Kapesky, that you could send that to the printer and I can have Kelly bring it out for the clerk so that she has a physical copy? Okay. Can you make it two separate? Yeah. Oh, perfect.

And then I would like to re-motion to re-approve the general fund allocation because now we just added $1.2 million to that.

Yes, because Ms. Kapuski didn't have $1.2 million on the general fund list.

MS. The reason I wanted to do that was simply for the Clerk, but okay.

So I do. I would be more comfortable if I rescinded my first motion and redid the motion to have it all together because I think that would be easier for them.

I don't want to. I don't want to pause our. Yeah.

living an ad valorem tax at the rate of six and two thousand seventy six ten thousands or six point two oh seven six mills upon all real and personal taxable property in the city of Tampa for the fiscal year 2027 authorizing the mayor and the city clerk to certify such billing providing an effective date okay is that is that all he has to you don't have to read the rest of it now read the rest I think entirety You have to read the whole thing. To resolve by City Council of the City of Tampa, Florida. To be resolved by the City Council of the City of Tampa, Florida. Section 1, that an ad valore

Item number 10, motion to adopt the 2027 millage rate. moved to adopt the proposed millage rate of 6.2076 mills, which is 2.30% more than the rollback millage rate of 6.0680 mills for property tax funds, which are used to support the general fund operating budget and the community redevelopment aging funds of the city of Tampa. Thank you.

Yeah, that week is bad for me. The next week is better. Can we do a day meeting?

I'm like, you only have one friend. I have two events. If it's in the evening, I have two events that evening.

Well, we can do the day. I don't see why not. The day of what? The 13th, 9 o'clock in the morning? Yeah. Oh, perfect. So then, yeah. I'm good that time. We could do 9 a.m.

Darlene, could you come up here, please? But it doesn't have to be a turnaround. we just want to we just want to have the ideas put together it won't be necessarily done by the 15th it will just be done before we approve the we can set more well before you approve the one i'm sorry let's let's let's make a motion to uh set that special call workshop on the 13th that we can always cancel or move oh i'm sorry councilwoman young

Oh, are you going to the art thing? No. I mean, it's two miles away.

Oh, it's set. Right, right, right, right. OK, so my my group is at 9 a.m. What is this for the art? It's a Center for Economic Development. They're having a community art initiative.

And man, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mr. Councilman. I apologize. I, I scheduled this myself. Uh, so Sebastian, if you're hearing, it's not, it's nothing with you, my friend. Um, on the 13th, I have it apparently an 11 a.m. To 1 p.m. Higgins hall at St. Lawrence.

I don't know why I did that. Let's put that proper.

So we could do it after that. We could do, like, 1230. Okay.

I had two mediations. There's something called CCNA meetings.

How about the 9th or the 9 a.m. on the 12th and just get it done?

I can do that. I had two mediations that canceled.

If anybody's going to do the green spine, it's at 10.30. But if we don't, it's okay. Life will move on without us at the ribbon cutting.

Ms. Sharp, please add that to our calendar. Okay.

Are you saying that on the record? I did.

I'll say, if I may, a happy birthday to my nephew, Michael, who turns 21 today.

Welcome. Happy birthday. He's a lovely young man.

Happy birthday to Michael. And a very happy birthday to David Coverdale of Whitesnake, who I know also shares Michael's birthday. I checked it up one day, and I always remember that. I don't know why.

Happy birthday, Kai. Oh, I have something. My sister passed her in class. Her what? How exciting!

I don't today. Congratulations to Ari. That's wonderful.

I was actually talking to my nurses about how people end up where they end up. And a lot of the nurses in the cancer ward came from ER. Oh, wow. Just like the stress. So they come there for less stress.

Interesting. I thought it was interesting. One of my cousins is a NICU nurse, and she just loves it. That is just her jam.

You find your space, so that's awesome. She was studying. She studied very, very, very hard. Apparently, it's like a test where it tests your knowledge. Depending on the concept, if you're getting them tonight, it'll add questions or not. She had the least amount of questions, so that means she did a really good job. My sister.

It took everything in me not to get one of those guava pastries this morning at the Stevedore.

That's all I had. It was so hard. The pastries look...

Oh, look, we have somebody cleaning up the chambers.

Stephanie, you left your phone plugged in. I know Justin.

So we have, what, actually 30 more days until my last meeting.

Can we talk about that process, how that's going to work?

I'll have more time to practice law for a couple months, no matter what happens. I was laughing. They did an article in Creative Loafing on my office. And I did a two-hour interview there. And I used a word. I'm reading the article, but I've never used it in a full article before. So I'm just laughing. You'll see.

Oh, no, I'm a Democrat. They're going to give me a bathroom there.

But the elevators work. That's the good news. In three weeks, Weezer's coming to Tampa. Can I motion to give them a city council commendation? I've never been a Smashing Pumpkins guy.

Agenda item number 8, I move an ordinance being presented for second reading and adoption. An ordinance adopting the budget of the City of Tampa for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026 and ending September 30, 2027, providing for the levy as provided by law provided by law of a tax on all taxable property in the city of Tampa and fixing the millage within the city, making appropriations in accordance with the provisions of said budget, authorizing and directing the mayor and city clerk as the proper authorities of the City of Tampa to certify the property appraiser of Hillsborough County

Do you have to receive the roll call for this?