City Commission - Regular Meeting

to order. Today is Tuesday, February 26, 2026. It is 6 p.m. Let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I bet you can see right above my head. Yes. All right. Is there are there any changes to the agenda as proposed? May I need to call in a role first? Please call roll. Vice Mayor Marriott here. Commissioner Robinson here. Commissioner Rizniki

here. Commissioner Maldonado here. and Mayor Catrill here. We have a quorum. All right. Are there any amendments to the agenda? I have one to an item of discussion of public private seaw wall partnership.

Okay.

Are there any other amendments? Um, I'll add an item as well. Um, it has to do with um kind of a SOP for uh permitting to discuss. Okay. Is there a motion to the adopt the agenda as amended? I make a motion to adopt the agenda as amended. Second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. And Mayor Petilla, yes. The motion carries.

Thank you. Next, we move on to presentations. Uh, Mike Twitty. Oh, there he is. Perfect timing, Mr. Twitty. Perfect timing. Welcome. So, our first presentation is by our Penelis County property appraiser, Mr. Mike Twitty. Thank you, sir, for coming out this evening.

Sorry. Sorry if I gave anybody a scare. Um, but thank you for teeing this up and thank you for for having me in. Uh, really just wanted to run through some, you know, everybody's been still out here on the barrier islands in particular trying to find ways to recover and we've got a lot of resources on our website. We've been still helping people through that process and we have a couple of new things. So, I wanted to make sure that we could uh share those with you. So you can see there's a lot of red arrows pointing different places. So those are some of the many places on our website where you can um find some of those resources and and information. We also have a lot of information on our uh YouTube channel as well where we've gone over and done kind of after the storm um answers and things like that. Lots of FAQs. We have two different sections. Um, a storm related FAQ section that if they go in there, it'll pretty much answer probably 98% of the potential questions they might have most of the time. We do obviously have some anomalies that we run into. Um, but it addresses, you know, everything from from use of the of the FEMA letters to our new u building value reconsideration process. um how the calamity provision works that allows people to effectively repair or rebuild their homes and keep the protection of their Save Our Homes cap so they don't get treated as new construction which is a huge savings for people. We're going to get into a little more detail on that. Um and then obviously on preserving your homestead if you're having to say demolish and rebuild a home, you want to make sure you keep that homestead intact through that process and we'll touch on that some more. And then of course we have other FAQs which are general ones on um a variety of topics.

So January 1 we get a lot of questions about you know as we went from 2024 coming out of out of the um the storms that we had how we were going to value for January 1 of 2025. And that would you know always think of January one as our snapshot at the property appraisers office. That's always our effective data value. Even though we don't we can't roll our values out on January 1, we that's just the point in time that we're looking at data up until. So, we're usually looking at the data in the prior year. Um that really is the driver for where we're going to settle on our January 1 numbers. We'll usually put some additional weight on fourth quarter sale information because you're getting closer to the January 1 and there's some time trending that occurs there. That's all part of the the uh rules of the road that we have to follow in working with department of revenue. So that January one is critical. So I'm going to show you in a minute. Let's see. Um well, we back up. So So if you um on that January one, you know, we ran into a lot of pro a lot of properties that were essentially abandoned, but we might not know that that at the time. So we were trying to keep our communication up with the public. So we'd understand, you know, are you planning to return repair and return to the home? Are you struggling with a substantial damage determination situation? Are you planning to, you know, rebuild the home or or voluntarily elevate and to, you know, above base flood elevation and then you would be qualified for the calamity provision. all those different scenarios, you know, we were facing, which led to us um putting out this storm damage survey, which I think was a precursor for um for y'all reaching out. I think that's part of the reason Lisa reached out to me. So, I appreciate

that. So, this was really to help get a get a good snapshot image for us as of the January one for 2026. So it's we tried to make it super simple. Um this hasn't you know we don't made sure not to put the word permit in it because this is just we're just trying to understand condition at this point in time so we know which direction people are planning to to take their property because then it helps us guide them um if they're if they want to take advantage of the calamity provision. We want to make sure they keep their homestead in place if if it was a homesteaded property. That's going to give them the best bang for the buck because they can rebuild up to 130% of the original square footage. If they're a non-homestead, it's 110%. We we'll we'll show that here in a second. So, um we asked those, you know, few simple questions. This survey was sent out by mail to properties that we believed had storm suffered storm damage and then we also posted it online. So, we've had lots of people just jump online and take the survey real quick with us. The other thing that it really helped is it helps us because we had to write down so many structures that were damaged. So when we went from January 1 of 2024 to 2025, a lot of those structures had had water and had not been repaired yet. And so we we put extra depreciation on a lot of those structures and really brought those structure values down. Well, the the downside of that is it brought down the the structure values on their FEMA letters. So, we had a lot of people calling us saying, "Wait, I you know, yes, I had damage, but I don't want my FEMA letter that low." Said, "Well, you know, it's okay. Use your 24 letter. Don't use the 25. You need to use the the pre-torrm letter and then if you need to, you can reach out to us and we can do that re reconsideration process, which is that building value

reconsideration. So, this is important for those that have now, you know, got their got their structures put back together. They're they've returned to, you know, pre-torrm condition. We want to make sure we're able to restore that depreciate get remove that depreciation, restore that value back. It's not going to affect their taxes because they're still under their their cap, but that way we can get that value back into their structure in the event of, you know, something else happening. They they've got that some assurance there that they've got that value back. Um, so one of the things we did to help in that process too is traditionally we've had that FEMA letter on the site as just a one on oneot deal. And I said, you know, we're going to have a problem. We need to we need to continue to keep that 24 letter on until people get put back together because we need to be able to access that. So that's the way it's designed. And if we need to add future years as as we go forward, we'll we'll figure that out. But people can access the 24 and 25 on there if they need to. The 26 letters won't be out until we we hit about uh the the middle of July. Those will post to the website. So then they'll have updated structure numbers for January 1 of 2026. And if if they do go if anyone goes on there to look, it gives you guidance on when to use the 24 versus the 25 depending on your scenario. So the building value reconsideration, that was a process that we we devised to to help people. Um, we knew that, um, once once people were were damaged, there, you know, in the volume of homes that had water in them, there weren't enough real estate appraisers in our market to service that. And I I recognized that being in the private sector for for many decades as an

appraiser. So, I knew it was going to be a problem. So, I I tasked our crew with let's come up with a way where we can see if we can come up with a process that's that's manageable, but that can help a lot of people get back on their feet quicker and not have to go outside and engage a private appraiser because they're going to be overloaded anyway. There's going to be plenty of work. So, that was the process we came up with. It allowed us them them us to um work with them. They presented um pre-torm documentation might be contractors invoices, photographs, those types of thing. The photos were the re where the real gold was for us. we really needed pre-torrm photos that we could, you know, justify were were before the storm and we could look at those and because we we don't see through walls as it is now, we're we're making our um inspections from the outside predominantly and looking at at photos online and MLS photos, things like that when we're um updating some of those quality and condition calls. This gave us that window in into the interiors that allowed us to make some adjustments um and sometimes adjust their effective age. And then that that worked for you know probably 80 to 85% of the properties we reviewed had some form of upward movement in their structure value and that helped you know over a thousand people be able to get get back in just through that process. Um, another thing that we ran into, I was on a bunch of roundt calls with some of the u with all the building officials during some of the posttorm recovery and we started running into issues where a lot of homeowners held their property in a trust and they were trying to pull owner builder permits because the contractors were all backed up and they might not have had a lot of water in and they might have been pretty handy themselves and they thought they could, you

cut a little drywall and replace their baseboards and that type of thing. They didn't have water up over their outlets and they weren't able to do that. And then they started getting some bad advice like we'll just change your deed and that was not good legal advice. So, we um I started running this up the flag pole with them and we vetted it and I said, you know, we're already vetting um people that file for homestead. And if you you look down the checklist of the requirements to be able to pull an owner builder permit, we we're able to to verify a lot of that in-house ourselves and take that burden off the building departments. So that we put that out there to all the building officials and at first we thought we were going to get a bunch of push back and they all started latching on and said, "Yeah, that's great. That works for us." So that's helped a bunch of people get back in their homes as well, too. So moving on to the calamity provision. So we've touched on this several times already. it's come up, but uh state law changed on June 26 of last year that before both homestead and non-h homestead fell into that non-homestead column there, the 110 um and if your home was under 1500 square foot, you could always go to 110% or 100 or 1500 square feet, whichever was greater for them. and they had a three-year window from the January 1 post storm to pull a permit to start the rebuilding process. That law was changed for homesteaders. It was increased now to 130% and up and or 2,000 square feet, whichever is greater. So, so more runway for people there. Um, obviously there's a big expense in rebuilding. Just the the foundation and elevation portion of a structure these days is a a huge

financial commitment. So th those were some of the the tweaks the legislature made um in order to give people a little more grace there um which I think were good ones. and they have a 5-year window now for homesteaders from January 1 post storm. The most important thing is if you were a homesteader when you were impacted, please do not remove your homestead. You know, you can go buy another house and live in it. That's fine, but don't homestead it. Um, just leave your homestead where it is. We we try to help people through that process. We pick up on demo permits, things like that. That triggers a letter that we send out um to the homeowner telling them um you know, please keep your homestead intact if you intend for this to be your homestead going forward and give them the the appropriate guidance. But that's probably the biggest takeaway there is if you are taking that down and planning to move somewhere else temporarily, just don't move your homestead. And to help in that process, we just rolled out. This just stood up last week. Um it was referenced in that survey that it was coming soon, but we have a new online tool. Um a lot of people have used our tax estimator for when they're buying a new property, so they can see what what their um their tax liability might look like as a new homeowner because of that save our homes cap reset for for so many. But we want I wanted to put a tool out there that would give people allow them to run scenarios so they can work with their builder and they can play with the square footage. So they can put in their living square footage, they can put in their porches and they can put in the the area um below base flood elevation at grade and it's got all the parameters built into the back end. It knows whether they were a homesteader or non-homesteader. U now the one anomaly

is if they just bought the property. um in 24 before the storm and if they change the status then they really need to call our office because the the tool can only do so much and that that's a little anomaly there. It I will say it is designed for single family only that has one structure on a parcel. If it's a multi-building structure, they really need to call our office and and it's baked into it. It'll they'll get a splash page that'll come up. Uh let's see. that looks like so that will say um you know this tool is not suitable for the following reasons and it may be that there's multiple structures. It it might not be a single family residential property. Um and then it um and then it's got the the issue with the ownership change. So those can be reasons why it's not working quite right for them and they can just call our office and we can walk through the calculation with them at our office. So portability after the storm for so for those and and unfortunately we do have many that you know are are leaving our communities. Um and some of it's a time of life thing and and you know many don't want to reinvest and you know it's a big huge commitment and some are moving closer to to other family and you know there's a lot of there's every scenario under the sun right we've we've we've all lived it. Um, but for those that are staying within the state of Florida, they do have a three-year window to port any of that Save Our Homes benefit from one property to their next homestead. So, and it's calculated a little different. They get a little more grace than they would uh normally if you sell a property, you get three years from the January before that sale.

That's because it it runs on a calendar year, not from the date you sold the property. So, you have to go back to the January one. You do a three-year calc and as long as you've you've acquired your next homestead before that that third January one, you can qualify. This the clock doesn't start till the January one after the storm. So, you get a full three years after the storm if you were impacted. So, gives them a little more grace there. And this is kind of outside of my lane, but I just want to remind remind people that that the the program that the the county set up, the people's first hurricane recovery program, there are five different assistance um programs that they can help citizens with. And it applies to all jurisdictions except the city of St. Petersburg. And that's because they have their own programs there and they received a different um pot of funding. And I was just reading that there is still there is still funding available in in those programs. So you know I I think I saw there was was it 20 maybe it was 3600 applicants something something like that. Um there I think there's still a lot of bandwidth there within the program. So, and and the income limitation is generally um up to 120% of area median income per household. So, encourage people to check that out. Um yeah, there's kind of the breakdown on on people that have applied through the various programs. So, you've got a couple here, couple hundred that have applied here on St. Pete Beach. Um, these are just a couple of

otherformational items for for your citizens. Uh, we do educational series through the property appraisers office. We're we're pretty much doing them on a every other month basis now. We used to do them religiously monthly, but we've gotten we've put so much material out there over the last several years on our YouTube channel that it started almost flooding the zone too much. So, we started to space them out a little bit. And we're always looking for new new topics and things that we can interject. So, if anybody has suggestions, we're happy to tackle those. But, there's just an a sampling of some of the different um programs we've done in the past. And then we've got um e newswsletters and we're on social media and things like that. So, you know, please engage with us there or follow us if we can be of help. We try to we try to put it timely information out there that's relevant to to what's happening now. It might be related to exemptions deadlines, but it might be, you know, storm recovery information, things like that, too. And the thing I'll leave you with, this is not from our office, but we promote this probably more than they do, which because we get more opportunities to, and this is through the clerk of the court's office, and they have a property fraud alert service that is free. Um, you've probably heard many advertised on the radio or on television. Well, this one you can you can take about a minute and go to that propertyfraudal alert.com and go to the panelis um dropdown and enter your name and you will get a an email with the link to the o booking page of any documents that go through the clerk's recording system so you can check it out and make sure it's okay. It's great to even use during the recovery process because notices of commencement get recorded, satisfactions

of mortgage, new mortgages, you know, and and if you've got friends or family members that you're watching out for, especially our our seniors, you know, our parents, grandparents, um important to to keep an eye on them and this is a great way to do it because they're typically the most vulnerable because they have the most equity in their in their properties. So, encourage you to take advantage of that of that service. I I use it myself and it's it's been a great help. Um, and that's all I've got for slides for you tonight, but happy to answer any any questions anybody may have. Commissioners, thank you, Mr. Twitty. Sure.

Yes. Thank you very very much. Appreciate it on behalf of the full commission and and the community as well for coming out to speak with us. Absolutely. Um, do you know if they have the clerk has one for contractors? We need that. Um, we've had we had quite a few um instances with um issues with with that. So, I'll follow up with the clerk and see if they have anything because I Yeah, I don't another good tool. Um, I have a few questions. Um, acceptable documents and photos for BVR. I've had a few people tell me, you know, they lost virtually everything, you know, and older couples, too, you know, photos, all that. Not much in the digital realm that they had.

Um, is there any suggestions or advice you'd give to those folks on what they can do? Um,

some of them we've they've been able to, you know, we've been able to go in and dig out like out of old MLS photos, you know, old online listing stuff, some of that. But but even recently, um, a lot of the MLS photos, they've started to make those go away where you're only seeing after the sale, you're you're only getting one shot and it's usually an exterior. Um, we we do have a little better window into that than just straight on online public, but uh, sometimes it can be difficult. I we tell them, you know, you know, really think hard. you know, do you have pictures where your grandkids were at your house for celebrating their birthday party, you know, and they're you're hanging out in the kitchen, you know, we we try to really go the extra mile on that, but we got to have we have to have something.

Okay. So, a suggestion would be ask your family members what they have if they have anything. Right. Exactly. Because they they might not have it, but their their children might have it when they were over at their house. And y'all are happy to accept that as as stuff. Okay. you don't mind if there's a Christmas tree in there or you know a birthday cake you know that's okay and you know we'll they want to blur out faces or any of that that's fine too so

okay great good to know because I have had a few people and primarily u older population of that so again we're looking at um that um and then um for the calamity provision it's residential only how does that deal with anything is there any commercial on that and or um you know you have that fine line on I guess some communities duplexes residential triplexes not I mean where is the line on that that

yes so so your commercial is going to fall under your non-h homestead um and so are you know your rental type properties so your duplex triplex unless you had so if you say you have a duplex let's use that as as an example and you own it and you're homesteaded on one side. Okay. So, it'll get the 130%. And then the one you rent will get the 110. Okay. Worst case situation is a commercial property would get um 110. Correct.

Okay. Um good to know. And again, that's the three-year, which is nice to see that. And it's also really nice to see that up for the homestead to the 130. Appreciate that. That was nice. Um then, um going to the FEMA letter. um effective date wise. Um if you were affected with a 2004 storm, then you're you fall into 2004. If you didn't do repairs, let's say, and a the 2005 storm hits, where does your valuation fall? Does it fall still before the 2004 or does it fall under the 2000 where you're currently at?

Right. And if you haven't done repairs, I'm asking this question pointedly because as you know, there's probably a lot of people in communities that haven't done anything as of yet and we are coming up to another storm season. So, I just want to put that out there to be perfectly clear under where they would fall in case there was another storm and where they're they're at. And in my opinion, it would be the 2024 because that reflects the pre-storm value. Um, you know, the the 2025 is going to have been written down for the structure damage. So, you don't want to use that. Okay. Um, and I know there we've had to talk to some building departments about that because they wanted to always grab the most recent one.

That was part of the reason we stood that up and put very explicit uh kind of um rules of the road on it as far as how we interpret that, you know, the use of that. So it would be fair to say that say the initial damage based on the initial damage storm damage it would be that year of that would apply. Yes. Okay. Good to know. Thank you. That's a big relief. Um and um I think that's all I have for now. I I greatly appreciate Thank you for coming out. I don't know if you'll will you take questions from our audience as well. Sure. There are some. Okay. Sure. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Maldonado.

Yeah. Again, uh thank you uh Mr. Twitty for coming out. I just wanted to pass along praise and appreciation for the responses from your staff immediately following the uh hurricanes. There was a lot of confusion regarding the values devaluing and in some cases people buying homes and it actually being appraised much higher, but they were they were incredible, very responsive. I was looking for the name of the employee. I I'll email you with that, but thank you so much for that, sir.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I I I'd be remiss if I didn't give give my staff a lot of great kudos as well because they they had to endure a lot. It's been a lot of uh a lot of extra hours and and a and some of them were directly impacted as well and they continued to work through that process while they were res, you know, repairing and trying to put their lives back together, too. So, um I I would give them a lot of credit. Thank you, Commissioner Resniki. Thank you. Um, thank you, Mr. Twitty, for for coming here and and presenting this information to our community. I did have a couple of questions. Sure.

Um, because I'm not quite sure if it would if this um matters or not, but pre-torrm value, I know you're saying by 24 of the year of 24, but for how about for those who had pre-torm um before that? Um people in this city for example and in certain neighborhoods specifically the Donsor sub subdivision had two prior storms to Helen Eta and Adalia. Are those considered because they were significant?

Right. Yes. We um we had to deal with some of the Idalia damage as well. Um you know I ran into that before we before we ever came up with the BVR process. It was one of the precursors to us developing that was dealing with some idelia damaged people because that was 23. Then here we were into the summer of 24 and coming up towards Helen. They had already fully repaired their homes and then Helen came along and and hit them. Um and they had we had written their structure down to you know minimal numbers. So it wasn't enough for them to recover. And that's when we started the BVR process. So it really first started with Idelia. That was kind of our test case. And and um and those property owners again, they were able they had they showed us the the work that was going on. They had they had documentation of the the photos going along the way and then what it looked like when it was, you know, done or almost done, you know, so we knew that they had made that investment back in there. So we were able to use that.

Okay. So it is there then, right? Correct. Yes. Um, and then the other question, and I had to pull up the picture because um, a resident shared this with me and several, this is just one I have a picture of. There was a letter sent out from um, Penelis County Property Appraiser, your your office, to um, residents that live here on St. Pete Beach. Um, the subject is request for storm damage property condition status. And so my question is, why are some homes here on St. Pete Beach receiving this letter and not all? Um, and what is the purpose of of this letter?

Yeah. So, I showed that one slide of it earlier. So, it had a a couple of purposes. We wanted to try and get because we can't see through walls. We don't know if if you know, some people have cut their walls. Um, we don't know if they've made that repair. Unfortunately, not everybody pulls a permit. So, we we don't always know everything that's that's gone on. And so we are making that request allowing them to to self-report if if they so desire. We we had additional depreciation on those structures, those particular ones. Those are ones that we we had in our information that had taken some some sort of water. And then that was allowing us if they were put back together to remove that extra depreciation and retort restoring their structure value which would then help them on their FEMA letter as well. So, it it had a couple of purposes for us to try and get that good snapshot on January 1. And we knew there really wasn't any other way to get that in mass than to to do conduct a survey like that.

And and then why why some and not the whole city? Because the the city our city also sent out letters similar to those. And this one has a March 1st deadline. So, I'm just not understanding why. Like I didn't receive one, you know, yet I had damage in my home. So, I'm not sure why I didn't and someone did. Um, well, I will have to check with my staff, but my understanding was that was based on the data set that we had at that time that went out. So, or maybe we it also had you already communicated with our office about your property using this letter? No,

no, not using the letter but in any other way cuz some people we already knew information on a lot of other properties that had had already repaired. Had you already repaired your home? Um, as of today, yes. But when this letter So yes, but I my communication has been through the city of St. Pete Beach, not through Penllis County. Right. But we anything we' picked permits up on, things like that, we remove those from the list. Okay. So if a permit had been already obtained, right, then you might have not sent the letter to someone in that sense. Okay, thank you. Very similar to what we're doing. Sorry.

Okay. Um, do we have any audience comments on this particular issue? John Kursman. Mr. If you don't mind, we'll just take all the comments and then they can ask those questions and if you want to come back afterwards and fine. Actually, it's a it's this is not about He's He's coming. He's coming back. John. Okay. Could you zoom down? You'll please state your name and address for the record.

You screen. Yeah. But first, I want to make sure they can scream down right to the screen, not the keyboard because I want them to see the screen. Thank you very much. My name is John Kursman. Behind the way, St. Pete Peach. Thank you. So, thank you, Mr. Twitty for your great uh presentation and your great website. So the website shows that beachfront properties, this is what this is about, uh pay for the wasteland and and marsh and sand dunes at one low rate and then the hotel and motel at another rate and not for the sandy beach at all. And when I spoke to you at a meeting that we were at together, you actually mentioned that these properties are taxed as beachfront. Um already skipped a slide. Um, and then you could see in the green area or the red area that is typically on the website website as well. Uh, the tax assessor does not consider a specific portion of Sandy Beach is owned by the the high water line. He just considers it a beachfront owner or the department does. Um, okay. Here's another example. Another property. Same situation, but then they're starting to put signs up. Now, this one's been removed partially perhaps, but these, you know, are untaxed areas of the beach. even if they may be on someone's deed. Now, we're seeing like as of this week, 4x4 posts being inserted of the water with holes that look like they're ready for the ropes when you continue on. And if you look carefully at the one in the distance, uh they're even passed on the outside of the weed line from high tide. Um and we have a lot of institutions that are claiming this is a private beach, this is private property. Uh if you're coming here, you either rent our stuff or go sit in front of the condos. Um and and in Fort Walton, you know, we have got the situation of lock blockades of ghost chairs and strategies there because I've been following the Fort Walton situation. Uh but now here in St. Pete Beach, uh we're seeing the same thing where we've getting these the hotel will have the regular chairs over

in one spot and the alcohol zone and then another area. Uh lots of lots of these things, lots of things out on the beach. Uh even roped in areas for zip lines. They're advertised as assets. Um, you know, things to, you know, big areas of the beach marked off for for the for the water park. Um, but they're charging $15 per chair or $45 for two chairs in an umbrella. And the city charges in their business tax receipts only about $200 per property per year. So, this just seems like a big dichotomy. Uh, and then the deeds for these properties say that, you know, they they have an exception that says public use is expected. Um, and and yet we need to think about the property owners of the inland properties because they went and bought their condos where it said there was eight eight miles of Gulf beaches and 26 miles on the Gulf and from from Passigil to St. up to to UPAM were were public. And we've had city meetings where people have said the beach is public will always be public. Um yet we've had times when they say the sheriff is going to start, you know, enforcing the other things. So here's my questions to you. Um how do we avoid taxation with the representation? What do we do? What could be an way to effectively do this so that we could you know make sure everybody's treated fairly and it doesn't mean property tax, you know, a lot about this world. Thank you.

Thank you. You want to take this one? It's good. Get you an easy one right off the bat. Yeah, this one um this one we could we could spend a lot of time in a courtroom over, right? Um and a lot of time has been spent in courtrooms trying to fared a lot of those things out. So, um we we've been trying to work on projects. You know, our beaches are really challenging. Um we've got we've got erosion control lines in some areas, some areas we don't. Some areas have accepted re nourishment. Some have not and are are fighting the fact that their erosion control line in their jurisdiction um never really became effective because we never accepted nourishment. We've got legal descriptions that read out to mean high water, others that don't that just read to a rear platted boundary. Um, and I I totally understand the the gentleman's issues and concerns, and it's it's one of mine as well, but it is certainly not an easily solved puzzle. Um there's a lot of moving parts and you almost have to take a case by case um approach to each one and I certainly can't go out and start counting um beach shares and we don't have the um the manpower resources to uh to do that that type of a of an effort. you know, we're looking at mass appraisal type things and and we're trying to get as accurate as we can for the purposes, but the majority of the value of these parcels is sitting back where the density lies. And that's where that's where the real driver of of value is as opposed, you know, obviously they're beachfront properties. So, that's baked into the fact that these parcels are where they they're at. So those some of those ancillary amenities

that stuff gets captured back up in the ancillary revenues um when we're doing income approaches on these hotel properties and things like that. So it's it's not that it's just disappearing or um you know obviously there's always that that discussion about customary use um and where that where that line is along the beachfront. that's that's outside of my um scope of expertise and um but I'm certainly happy to you know if anybody wants to to come in and look at any of that stuff or have more questions certainly happy to do whatever we can within our lane. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. I have no further public comments. Okay.

Well, Mr. Twitty, it's looks like you're off the hook. I wanted to thank you very much for coming out tonight. Thank you for Commissioner Robinson for setting this up today. Um just thank you for all that you've done for us in the county uh and especially the last couple of years. So to have our gratitude for that. Thank you so much. And your website's phenomenal. I mean it's easy to get around. I appreciate that. And I did did do one of the educational seminars and and had to do it as a actually ended up instead of doing it live, I ended up doing it as as a uh taped. We watched it for you. I know. I I I I shouldn't admit what happened, but my my operating software is so old on my one personal laptop, I couldn't get on it. You could go to the So, yeah,

good. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. We try to pack a lot in those presentations. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right. Next, we have a presentation by the Dunesavers or for the Dune Savers. Good evening, mayor, commissioners. Mandy Edmonds, resident services director. I'm here tonight to introduce Nancy Stevens from the Dunesavers group. Um Nancy and the Dunes Savers are a wonderful group of community volunteers who have been working very hard in our dunes to try to get everything back into tiptop shape. All the vegetation, they've been putting in a lot of hours and they have done a lot of really good things for us. So NY's here tonight to kind of give a recap of 2025 and what we can look forward to in 2026. So Nancy,

good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Sorry. Well, thank you everyone. Sorry, just Okay. Um um we're we we are so glad um we were invited to present today our 2025 Dunesavers annual review and vision presentation. This is our chance to reflect on the incredible work we've done together in 2025 and to share our goals and plans for 2026. whether uh sorry you've um sorry a second

Nancy you want to take a second it's not a big deal um whether you've volunteered um donated or partnered with us or simply supported our mission from afar thank you uh your attention shows your commitment to protecting our native coastal dunes and we're excited to walk you through the progress we've made and the direction we're heading. Okay. Okay. This

Oh, this little guy. Okay. Just the Okay. All right. All right. At Dune Savers, our mission is simple but powerful. To preserve and protect coastal dune ecosystems. These dunes are more than just sand. their living systems that support wildlife, protect infrastructure, and define the character of our beaches. We work closely with the city of St. Pete Beach to ensure our efforts align with the environmental guidelines and community needs. Our trained leaders identify invasive species, volunteers remove them by hand, and help restore native plant communities. We meet twice a week for an hour at a time, proving that small commiti consistent efforts can create meaningful change. We do this work because dunes are essential to the health and safety of our coastline. Native plants like sea oats, sea grapes, and dune sunflower hold sand in place, preventing erosion and protecting nearby homes and infrastructure. These dunes also support wildlife from nesting sea turtles to shoreirds to pollinators. After the storms Helina Milton, we've seen firsthand how resilient tunes can be when they're healthy. Protecting dunes means protecting our community, our wildlife, and the natural beauty that makes St. Pete Beach so special. 2025 was a year of meaningful progress. We saw comebacks in comebacks in plant life, wildlife, and dune structure. All thanks to the dedication of our volunteers and partners and mother nature. This year wasn't just about numbers. It was also about momentum. We strengthened relationships, expanded our reach, and saw the dunes respond

positively to our efforts. There's a nice before and after of some Brazilian pepper tree completely removed. And then you can see the sea grapes behind there coming out. Um, it's inspiring to see what a community can accomplish when we work together. Our volunteers are the heart of Dune Savers. In 2025, they contributed over 835 hours directly in the dunes, pulling invasives, planting natives, clearing storm debris, and caring for the landscape. Another 155 hours were spent behind the scenes organizing events, tracking progress, scouting next work work sites, and coordinating communication. We had 55 individual volunteers this year, each bringing their own passion and energy. Their dedication is what makes this work possible, and we're deeply grateful for every one of them. See a few familiar faces up there. Okay. Okay. Okay. Invasive species are one of the biggest threats to our dune health. This year we removed 546 totters. Um those are the large trash cans on wheels. About 7,000 cubic feet of invasive plants and trash. We tackled major invasive trees like Brazilian pepper trees, lead trees, and carrotwoods. Removing not just the canopy but the roots to prevent regrowth. We also removed a long list of smaller invasives that spread quickly and choke out native plants. Every invasive removed creates space for native species to thrive and for dunes to rebuild naturally. Our work spanned the public and private beaches across the island. We focused on

Pasigril, County Beach, Uppam Beach, and the Donsesar property beaches, areas that needed significant restoration. In total, we completed a full pass on approximately 14 acres, removing invasives and trash, and preparing the dunes for native plantings. This is a major milestone for volunteer-driven effort, and it sets the stage for even more progress in 2026. Thanks to generous donations, we planted over 500 native plants this year. Each species was carefully selected for its ecological role and placed where it naturally thrives. These plants stabilize, stand, support wildlife, and help dunes rebuild after storms. Seeing these plants take root and flourish is one of the most rewarding parts of our work. After the storms of 2024, we saw encouraging signs of recovery. Native plants like sea oats and sea grapes returned. Wildlife reappeared and dunes began reforming naturally. The removal of post hurricane vehicle traffic from dune areas made a significant difference. We even saw tide pools appear and close a sign of natural dune dynamics. And perhaps most exciting some tur we had record turtle nests this year. These are all indicators of a healthy recovering ecosystem. Our partnerships to strengthened in 2025. The city of St. Pete Beach continued to be an essential partner providing guidance, permits, supplies, and support. The Donsesar Hotel donated the removal of more than 50 Brazilian pepper trees, a huge contribution to the dune health. We also worked with beachfront homeowners and neighbors to share best practices and educate about native plants on their private beach. meeting and talking with neighbors, residents,

and visitors to the island, too. These collaborations amplify the impact and build a stronger community. As we look to 2026, our mission remains the same, protect and restore. We'll continue removing invasives, planting natives, and maintaining healthy dune systems. We're committed to keeping access paths clear and preventing new paths from forming. Our goal is to create a notably native dune ecosystem, one that reflects the natural beauty and biodiversity of Florida's coastline. Our 2026 plan is ambitious but achievable. We'll continue largescale invasive removal, including the roots of 50 Brazilian pepper trees. We aim to complete a full pass across the entire island for the areas we were able to access. As donations come in, we'll obtain and plant more native species in the right places. Currently, we currently we have open donations for the 23rd Avenue public beach access and for plantings at three private property dunes. We'll maintain public access paths to protect emerging plants and wildlife. And we hope to expand our efforts citywide, creating a comprehensive invasive removal plan. Even if you can't join workdays, there are many ways to help. Staying on designated paths and walkovers protects emerging plants and prevents erosion. Picking up trash, even one extra piece, makes a difference. Reporting invasive plants and trees, helps us respond quickly. And please don't toss h house plants or clippings into the dunes. They will become invasive. Learning about native plants and donating to support our work are also powerful ways to contribute. We remain committed to maintaining a

healthy and native dune ecosystem. Our dunes make St. Pete Beach a special place, a place worth protecting. Thank you to everyone who supported us this year and thank you to the city for making this work possible. Camden and Camden's team, especially Chad and Deaf like to point to thank them. We're excited for what 2026 will bring and hope you'll continue to be part of this journey. Together we protect what we love. Thank you for your time, your support, and your commitment to protecting our coastal dunes. If you'd like to get involved, we are listed on City of St. Pete Beach's website, or you can visit dunesavers.org. We're happy to answer any questions you may have. Your curiosity and engagement help strengthen our mission and our community. Okay, so on that any questions?

Nancy, thanks for coming out tonight. Thank you for the work that you do. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Maldado. Just thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. And if you want to join them, they are out every Friday and I'm sorry, every Monday. Monday and Friday 7:30 to 8:30 or more. Yes. And you would be shocked to see how much they can how much they can do in just one hour when they have a group of, you know, 10, 15, 20 people. Um, as you saw, I mean, like, you know, 7,000. That's a that's a lot. So, thank you so much for everything you do. All right. Next, we have a presentation on the permit process update.

Good evening, mayor and commissioners. Laura Canary, community development director. This evening, myself and Candace Galloway, the innovation and technology director, are going to tag team the presentation. I'm going to start by going over what we've already accomplished and completed and um since our January update, and then I'm going to hand it over to Candace to go into the 91 days to June 1st road map. and then she'll kick it back over to me to talk about next steps. So, beginning with what we've completed to date, um we've conducted the volunteer exit interviews with the members that volunteered with community development. Those were extremely helpful and we really got some really good information and saw some trends and so we've used that information to basically inform our process enhancements. We also have repurposed that survey and kind of repackaged it to go out to our internal stakeholders. So in the community development department as well as those other disciplinary areas that touch the permit process so that again we can just start to synthesize and identify trends and then continuously improve for the establishing the standards for communication that has been rolled into the community development customer service standards. So those are in place and being implemented for servicing same day permits. Um, so this is a little bit of a tricky one because pre-storm we were actually you know uh already issuing what we would consider um you know same day or express permits. Obviously the storms changed that and so where we're at now there are a number of types of permits that we are able to we'll say um do in an express um format. But um as far as what we realized that we haven't really been able to do up until this point is we haven't really broadcasted that, you know, out on our communication channels of that you can come in now and get this express permit. So with the changes that we're making to the website, we're going to be adding that information. But just for the benefit of um this evening,

those types of permits include water heaters, panel upgrades, electric meters, and certain mechanical equal change outs. So again, um we say express because sometimes if you come in a little bit later, it may be that next day, but that is something that we are already doing. And again, we'll have that information through the um website revamping. Looking at the single point of responsibility, that was where um as applications come in, we're assigning a permit tech to those applications. And so that's been in place since the second week of January. I think that it's been very successful. Um heard some positive feedback. people like having just a single point of contact. Um, and again, we um are continuously just looking at and hearing feedback from the permit techs as well. Um, you know, regarding turnaround and stuff, there's things that, you know, we may think work, but when you're actually the one doing it, such as, okay, we're requesting a survey and they didn't give it to us in a few days. Well, it maybe makes sense to give them a few more days, you know, before following up. So, we're just continuously going back and tweaking based on their feedback, but it seems to be working very well. for the appointments with the building official and deputy building official. Those are available now. And if anyone needs to make those appointments, you can call the number on the screen or email permits at st pee beach.org. As far as the extended evening hours, those have been in place since January 21st on Wednesdays until 5:30. Um we haven't had great traction to date. So we've had about seven people, we've had seven that have came in after hours. We're going to continue to just monitor that. And then of course based on where we what we've seen is that it tends to maybe be happening a little bit after the window of the three o'clock to four o'clock. So again, we're really just trying to serve the community and be as responsive as we can to what their needs are. So we're going to continue to monitor that and then in our March update when we come back kind of come back and tell you here's what we saw and here's what we think you know moving forward and then

you know so you guys can provide us further direction on that. When we think think about what's been in progress, started but not completed. Uh the consolidated reviews were something that really kind of um we needed to do a deeper dive into that. This was regarding right now when you have a review that requires multiple departments to look at it. You what a consolidated review is saying is that wait until all of those comments are compiled and then send it over to the applicant in you know one review. Um the one reason that we found in the feedback of why um some in particular a few contractors that we've spoken to do not like that method method is that sometimes you can be sitting on comments and they want to get started on those comments. And so what we've done is started to make some internal changes. Um they're kind of minor but they actually make a big difference. So, for example, previously we had if something was approved that meant it the review was completed and so that could sometimes give the um the wrong impression if you maybe are an owner builder and not as familiar with the process that you're approved and completed and it's a done deal. So, what we've done is changed so it says planning review complete, fire review complete. Again, just it's a simple thing, but it's helping again to just be able to kind of um again without doing a consolidated review and holding things up or delaying it, making it very a little bit more clear of where they're at in the process. And then for clear and predictable timetables. So, this has been a little bit of a tricky one, frankly, because there really is no, you know, one-sizefits-all, especially when we're talking about different types of permits. So what we are intending to do in response to this is number one as part of the website changes that we have we're putting the statutory requirements front and center and that's the 30-day review and then 10day review for a re-review. So because ultimately that's

what we need to adhere to. That's number one. Number two is that we have these project um checklists that we've put in place. And so we think that that's, you know, helpful hopefully to the applicant to give you a much better indication of the timeline associated with that. For example, it will tell you that you need a survey for this. So you can anticipate that that's going to take a little bit more time. So, we feel that with having these checklists that more appropriately identify the steps along the way in tandem with also the metrics that we're going to be reporting on and the metrics moving forward and working with Candace and her team, our goal is really to just get the metrics in a transparent way where it's being pulled and not manipulated in any way. So, instead of saying what the anticipated estimated time for a permit review is, we just want to tell you what the time has been. So, so for example, on average it's taking x amount of days for a demo permit, on average x amount for an elevation permit. And so we feel that the combination of those three things will hopefully paint a much clearer picture. At the same time, by all means, anyone is always available to reach out, whether it's pre-ermit, during the permit process, um, to just get an idea. Hey, this is what I'm looking to do. I'm gonna need to demo, but then I know there's going to be a little delay before I am going to rebuild. And so we can help. And again, it's not a one-sizefits-all, but we're do we'll do our best to give them an anticipated timeline for their specific project, but we're reluctant to start putting out timelines because it really is different and unique for each project. Now, I'm going to hand it over to Candace to talk about the 91 days to June 1st Road.

Evening everyone, Candace Galloway, managing the technology function for the city. Um this slide was here last time. So just kind of as a refresher um these were some of the items that we had committed to and were discussing with you all in terms of our roadmap for working alongside the permitting department um to help facilitate process improvement. And so really um the bulk of what we've been working on um for for quite some time um there's a lot of detail here is laying out what I'm calling an operational blueprint or set of blueprints set of plans for uh how we work um what those processes look like the permitting service map which is a major component of the operating blueprint. Um, that's really what where we're spending a lot of time mapping out the endto-end process of the current state of of how permits move through the department and the functions and uh and how we actually get them from submittal to completion. Um, and so there's a fair amount of of work going into that. Um, secondary to that and and and complimentary is a painoint register. So we've uh compiled and identified, you know, a number of pain points um internal, external. We're using a lot of the feedback that's coming out of the interviews. We're going to use feedback coming from contractors and and so on to help us kind of callull this list and define what is important to focus on because this list is frankly uh fairly long. Um you can see there's some themes identified to date. There's a lot of manual process. I think we all know that. So the staff is having to drive things through the system versus the system, you know, moving things based on triggers or automated uh workflow. So there's there's going to need to be a fair amount of work put into that. Um intake is one of the largest bottlenecks we have. So I think we've talked about the fact that we don't really have an intake process. You know, I work does not provide for that. So that's really an out of system process that we're going to have to develop andor bring in some technology to facilitate, but there's going to need to be some focus

in that area. Um communication can be fragmented and reactive. Again, there's not a lot of automation and triggers happening within the system so that the staff has something to go on. So, they're calling through that information manually. You know, they're auditing manually. And so, there's there's a fair amount of work to kind of sift through the details that are there. Um, lack of automation. We've already talked about that one. Um, and notification and follow-up. So, these are some of the themes. We'll be able to go into more detail. I think we have an update coming to you next month and more granularity or we can dive into some of these, but I wanted to raise the themes uh that we're capturing in this painpoint register. Another artifact that's part of that operating blueprint is a permit matrix. So, it's our uh focus to outline all of the permit types um and all of the requirements for those permit types and the checklists and all the package and details that are associated with each permit type and start to define that kind of catalog of information. And it'll be useful for, you know, looking at new systems and services, but it'll also be useful for the effort that Laura and team are going through right now to advance the information on the website and provide more clarity and and so on. Um so, that's something that's pretty critical to that. And then eventually, you know, we want to get to the point where we're looking for more of an optimized process, right? What is the future state of this service need to look like for the city? Um, what are our goals that we're trying to achieve to improve efficiency and, you know, uh, reporting out and getting people's, you know, permit in people's hands quicker? So, we're going to be laying out a future state service map to go along with our current state. Um, and and th this kind of package of of what, like I said, what I'm calling operational blueprints are going to really help us drive when we go out to market and look at these AI tools. So, we were asked to start looking at, you know, other tools and capabilities that are out there to help facilitate the process. Right now, we have three three platforms identified to date. Um, and we're going to be scheduling those targeted demos soon. But what's going to help us is all of this documentation and all this work that we're putting into, you know, outlining our process and how we work and where we have the pain points. Without this information, it's kind of

hard to tell vendors and talk to them about where we really need to to focus our attention and what's really going to move the needle for us when we look at new new technology. So, um it's very imperative we have this put together. It's pretty tedious. the teams have been very patient with me and my team to put it together and I think it's going to provide um dividends a lot of value to us as we go through this process going forward and as you can see there if we don't document the process we can't really you know measure performance if we can't measure we can't improve so that that's going to be our focus um with everything that we're putting together and just briefly um trying to look at more of an a process maturity uh you know we're kind of in between level one level two right now you know a lot of things um are still manual a lot of things are being driven by email updates um versus systematic triggers and so on. We're using tools outside of the system to help us, which we'd like to try to get away from as much of that as we can. Um and and we're looking to in the near term gain some improvements by getting some standardized intake processing in place, put a little bit of automation and some workflow to help facilitate the movement of these permits through the system. So, it helps take some of the burden off of the staff as we as we uh improve. And then put some performance oversight. I think Laura just mentioned we're working on some metrics to come back to you all in a collective fashion and present those out on a regular basis um which will help us and then obviously an optimized would be the the final level of maturity where we're looking to have a lot more self-service enabling you know contractors to do more for themselves uh builder and owner to do more for themselves. So there's going to be a lot of focus on putting our efforts around more enablement in the community and then enablement to the teams as far as what we're able to put out. And that's that's it for me. Thank you. And I know I tell Candace this a few, but it she's just been instrumental in this entire process and the documentation and her Gant charts are a little overwhelming, but it's going to I think at the end of the day, this is going to not only give us, you know, technology-wise, but just overall

process improvement wise, such a much of a better outcome. So, next steps, um, we're going to continue working with Candace and the team. We're also going to continue, we're facilitating those what we're calling the internal cross-disciplinary working group meetings. And then, um, at the next meeting, the building official will be back to present on seaw walls and just kind of what we've experienced. As we know, the seaw wall, the code was changed on September 9th, 2024, and then we had a little event shortly after. So, um, he's going to be coming back to talk to you all about that and get some direction. And then we're going to be providing another update similar to this, but more in depth and going into more detail in March and June. We are also hosting a building and permitting open house on Thursday, March 26th. It'll be from 8 to 6 PM. Anyone is invited. Um, it, you know, if you have any questions pertaining to hurricane repairs or permitting, please come out. no matter what stage you are at in the process. We're even going to have um inspectors there if you need someone to schedule, we'll call it a pre pre-sight inspection where they actually come out to your property and look at the situation and help you decide which direction to go in. That's the goal. It's hopefully going to be like a one-stop shop that day. Um so hopefully we'll have a good turnout. Um with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Laura. Commissioner May.

Thanks, Laura. Um, I appreciate the update and uh it's good to see all the work that's going into this. I know the the whole community appreciates it and is really going to appreciate it once we're really optimized also. So, um I do have uh I do have a couple questions for you. Um you did mention that there are appointments available with the building inspector and the deputy building or the building official and the deputy building official. Is there a a a type of project or certain situations that you have found are most um most important for people to have those those meetings with the building official? Or or are there um scenarios in which you would say, gosh, this is this is one where it would be really helpful for you to go ahead and you know, maybe schedule a meeting with the building official before you before you do anything. Um, I'd have to I'd have to go back and ask the building official directly, but in in my experience and from what I've heard from um the more complex probably the more likely and the the better to get in and get in early if if you're even just contemplating or especially say for example for a new build. Um, I mean that's a complex project and we haven't had the magnitude of new builds that we've had in the community and and you know it seems like you know a lot of things are surfacing as far as um even what contractors are looking at and builders are looking at. So I think that even having like we'll call it like a pre pre-development meeting where you come in and just even you know maybe share plans or talk to them about your plans up here you know um that's absolutely appropriate. So it doesn't matter the stage of the project or the and and also even something you know that's maybe not as complex but maybe it's just maybe you haven't gotten the answer or different answers and it just needs to you know you'd feel more comfortable talking directly to the building official or deputy building official we you know have that available so please take advantage of it.

All right perfect thanks and then um my next one is is really just a comment. You know, you were mentioning how it's difficult to to give a an exact timeline because the projects are all such different levels of complexity and and everyone has kind of its own individual story. So, it's hard to lay out a a specific timeline of how long it's going to take to get a permit. Um, and and I was thinking that, you know, something that may be helpful down the road because I I'm I'm positive that right now you don't need another manual process to update, but down the road, um, if we could keep in mind that, you know, something that could be very helpful both to contractors and and homeowners would be that if when you log into the permit portal, there's a really clear way to see where you are in the process. And I think that's one of the things that's really frustrating to people right now is that they just log into the permit portal and they see a little tag up in the top that says in review and it just always says in review and and and no one's sure what that means. Um, you know, because there's so many steps of the review. And so if there was a a checklist or a little bar graph that, you know, went from red to green as you got closer to to being approved where you knew that like, okay, I've I've had my my fire review. I've had my planning review. I've, you know, this is, okay, this is where I'm hung up, you know, and and and these are the steps that are going to be after that so that people have, you know, because then somebody could look at that list and be able to kind of visualize for themselves how long is it taken to get where I am? I can anticipate how long this is going to take instead of it just being kind of the black hole of in review.

Absolutely. Yes. Thanks, Commissioner Robinson.

I was as well going to mention that because it kind of falls under that consolidated review and also under that permit matrix as far as being able to have that list of required reviews. And again, I like the idea of a a a bar graph or or even a check mark check box done not you know uh one way or another at least somebody can follow that or it's just it doesn't apply you know that too um you know the three columns of you know if it doesn't apply to that particular u permit um the other thing I had was um phone calls the human touch. Um, and especially a phone call before a denial. Um, I find that that would be extremely helpful and I would ask that that be considered to be SOP. Um, also I questions uh where we at on mobile permitting. Are we going to be able to to incorporate that future?

Hopefully eventually. Yeah, hopefully eventually. Still on the optimiz as one of our tools. Are you referring to Are you referring to being able to go out and after if there were something to happen again? Yes.

Oh, okay. So, sorry. Right. So, we have made a little progress as far as um as part of our substantial damage administrative procedures plan and what we intend to do like forbid you know in that immediate aftermath of the event. We have ordered what we're calling uh permit placards that basically um we would deploy our damage assessment team and they would go out immediately and just place the placard issue your permit essentially and it would basically allow um a couple things. Number one, it would give staff that tracking me mechanism. So already because we'd have we have 4Runner now. So that would go into 4ERunner and then it would be documented and the property owner would already have their first steps along, you know, they would already have their first steps in place to to start the demo and the repairs.

Is that similar to what South Pasadena did? I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah. I mean, they went and physically put um notices on on each building. I imagine it's probably similar. Yeah. I think that we've seen some other communities with something sim somewhere. But the idea was to have something number one that could weather the you know the the weather to have something that would be up there permanently especially if people weren't there because if they're you know evacuating they're not going to be there. So that it would give something visually for the property owners to see and then they would already be documented in our system. They they had a red green so you could tell from the street when you drove by. Yeah. Ours is red too. Um also it's

feedback that the core technology is there and already available right so we have the mobile printing if we have to print you know permanent placards and things in the field we've got the mobile laptops we have tablets for runners Laura mentioned you know so there's a number of things the foundational technology is all there I think it's a matter of kind of you know putting together the process and ensuring that you know we've got some you know test and learn um cycles underneath us to to deploy that out but all the technology Okay. Um, and then, um, as far as photos, I mean, I I've been a few situations talking to residents that it just appears that with the with the permit application, a photo or two might help to what they're describing or what they're uh, you know, it's starting to boil down to how you write your permit, how you how you, you know, what you actually say on the permit um, for your submitt and how you say it. Um, so maybe a photo of what your intentions are might help. Just a suggestion.

I'm sorry. Do you mean what the intentions are of the applicant?

There's Yes, for the applicant. Correct. And then um have uh are we considering on this you know permit process as far as I'm still my head's still in in hurricane mode. So forgive me because I don't think it'll get off of that ever. Um and um considering we're coming up we'll be coming up on that again would be anything that we've considered on after the fact permits or where we're at or is this the placard idea similar to that

or is it I think part of the purpose is actually to hopefully prevent the need for the after the-act permit because at that point we would actually have the permit and in talking to the building official nothing would hold to it. You'd be able to close that. You could withdraw it. You could go ahead and amend it accordingly to fit fit your project. But, um, I think part of that was in essence to help eliminate the number of after the-act permits. Great. Thank you, Commissioner Nikki.

Thank you. Um just to uh concur with both um Commissioner Marriott and Robinson on the the information when you go on to permitting um and you look at just it's in review and and the only reason I emphasize it again is because I think it's a common thread maybe for all of us sitting here when we get someone calling us asking for assistance with something because they don't know where they're at. But if it did say more um than just in review whether actually not just the the colors but um pending or uh waiting for a contractor to submit X. A lot of times the homeowner doesn't even know that it's their own contractor that hasn't submitted something to the city and then you know they're in essence blaming the city but don't even realize this it's their own contractor that hasn't sent the information. So, I think, you know, in talking with the city manager, whenever I get those requests um from residents, then we find out it's something they themselves didn't even know about. But if it was a little bit more clear of what was missing, then it could help not just the homeowner, but um even maybe all of us because I think we all kind of reach out to you to find out what's the status or what's going on and it might help alleviate a lot of that. So, and then just the last thing was um in in because uh storm season will be here before you know it and and I know we all agree that we hope um we don't see anything um ever right in this area, but um to be um prepared um it would be nice to know what the residents would need to expect um if there was a storm and we were in the in the midst of recovery or after. what are the steps that they can take? Like what are the things they can do? Like does our website all of a sudden change to another um uh platform per se or or a

face that says, "Okay, step one, this is what you can do, you know, um step three or you know, things that you can do without having to come over here in a panic but know what they can complete. Um while also balancing um permits that are active already. you know, there's people who are doing work and I know it happened even, you know, during this storm that were in the process of building their home or or whatever it is and um they are in essence doing both. Maybe recovery, maybe continuing building, but things are on hold. So, how does the city better prepare to balance both things um if if heaven forbid that were to ever happen again? Sorry, I'm smiling because we're at the point with the website phase where, you know, we've gotten to a point where we're looking at a lot of that information. Obviously, in the aftermath of the storm, it was kind of like another FAQ, another, oh, this changed. And so, there's a lot, but what we talked about and what we're working with Mark on is, okay, how can we maybe hide some of that information, not get rid of it, but then be able to very quickly be able to put it back up, you know, in a timely manner because it you you might say, "Oh, it's not relevant." But really, it still is. and even today to some. So, we've been kind of teeter tottering with that. So, yes, very good point and something that we're considering especially right now as we're making these website changes and which ones we need to maybe again just hide for the moment but still have in a manner that we can p republish very easily.

Correct. Thank you, Laura and Candace. Thank you so much. Appreciate everything you do. Next, we have general audience comments. I have no general audience comments. Thank you. Then we have the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move that we approve the consent agenda. I second. City clerk, if you'll please do a roll call. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Resniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott. Yes. And Mayor Patulla. Yes.

The motion carries. Thank you.

Next we have ordinances. First one is 5A. Final reading of ordinance 2025-24. Oh, my button's not pushing on. Can I borrow this one? An ordinance of the city of St. P Beach, Florida, providing for amendments to the code of ordinances. Chapter 131, wireless communications towers and antennas. And chapter 132, communication facilities and the public rights of way, renaming chapter 132 to communication facilities and the city rights of way, providing for codification, conflict, severability, correction of scriveners errors, construction, publication, and an effective date. before you have for the second reading the um original I call it um wireless ordinance for your consideration. Uh later this evening we'll have the proposals come before you for the uh first reading of a second ordinance that would further amend this ordinance if it passes. So I think in your packet you have a copy of the proposed ordinance for second reading. You have the experts report. Um, you have exhibit A with the strikethroughs. Um, I think we've been through this uh quite a bit. Um, so I think we're ready uh to go to uh to public comment and then take any questions.

Okay. Do we have public comments? Lauren Monz.

If you will please state your name and address for the record.

Hi. Um, Lauren from Pasigril. At what point do we stop laying down for greedy people running greedy corporations? Do all of our rights need to be taken from us before our city stands up and says no more because it might be too late by then. Every week I hear of a new bill, a new amendment that telecom is lobbying for. Currently in Tallahassee, even this morning, they are fighting hard to strip local communities from having any input in wireless infrastructure. They don't want setbacks. They don't want separation between towers. They don't want us to have public notice before a tower is being built. They don't want us to have public meetings. They don't want to pull electrical permits after a tower is built. They don't want the city to have bonds in protection of the financial stability of the city. This is absolute outrage. We need to stop the bleeding and we need to stop tonight and on March 9th. When you took the seat as a commissioner, you took an oath to protect the US Constitution and the Florida Constitution. It is your fiduciary duty to protect the residents interests. Therefore, I urge you to vote yes on both items tonight and on March 9th with our language that protects the residents and our city. The current language on setback and separation merely mimics the state statute and gives us no protection.

We are asking for a 30-foot minimum setback from our property lines with an option for a variance. If residents have to get a variance for any changes, if developers have to get a variance for any changes, why doesn't telecom? We are also asking for 500 ft separation between towers. These are reasonable demands. Why is AT&T fighting us so hard on this? If they were team players, they would not have an issue with 30 feet. And by the way, what are these small cell towers for anyway? Why are they going right in front of our homes? Every single person that I've talked to, even policy makers, they can't say for sure what these small cell towers are actually for. We can all speculate. I've heard five to 10 different reasons for them. But if we don't actually know the purpose of these small cells, why are we allowing them in front of our homes? And if we're not benefiting from them, again, why are we allowing them? Because I can guarantee you that the risks far outweigh the benefits. Anyway, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Ronald Vigno. If you please state your name and the address for the record.

Yeah. Hi, my name is Ronald Vin from Pasagril. Um, you know, I love living in this country. This is United States of America and it feels good. I'm a I'm actually Canadian, but I am a legal immigrant in US and I'm I feel very privileged that I can have a voice and that's what I'm going to do tonight. Um there's amazing living in the US is amazing. Allowed me to be much more free than I was in Canada. But nevertheless, you know, we cannot take our freedom for granted. Uh Canada has gone down the drain and speak up speaking up like I'm doing tonight could get me in jail in Canada. So this is a great country. Let's be let's express ourselves. So I'm reaching out to all other people that are listening tonight that lives in St. Pete Beach um to speak up their mind as well. Um you know most of everything is good but my concerns are a few things like for instance the water is mostly poison. There's a lot of chemical in it but I can go around it. I can I bought a filter for my house and I I take care of it. Uh the food is pretty much poison all around but I I source my food from local farm that I trust. Uh the medical system is a machine to kill people. I stay away from big fararma. I'm good. Now the two things I cannot stay away from is the 5G towers and the gamt trail. And uh I think you know we all need to speak up speak up. You know, we live in a country where we the people exist and we decide and you guys are all very smart people and I'm grateful for that. You're very awake and uh you understand the risk. Um so we need to go strong about that and I know there could be some risk of lawsuits and all kind of

things like this but our lives matter. the life of our children matters and u it's important we we all do something about it and and and I'm very grateful you're actually very involved in this so let's go to the end of this let's stop you know those those 5G hours with some reasonable you know uh concessions you know we're not I'm not against technology but why are we not doing fiber optic you know what are the other options you know so we don't stop technology Y, but we we make sure was we're was safe throughout the process. And the chemtrail never talk about it publicly, but uh this is something real. It's polluting our air. It's taking the sun away from us. And thank God we live in Florida. We have a lot of it, but it would be great if we had even more of it. And vitamin D is essential for life. We're like a plant. We need it. So, I just I just had to say these things. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being brave and fighting for our lives. Have a good evening.

Thank you. Jim Jim D. Martino. If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Good evening. Uh my name is Jim D. Martino. I am a resident of Pastor Grove and I'm here to read a letter on behalf of Scott McCulla who could not be here tonight and it's a brief letter. I'll read it. It says, "I am Scott W. Scott McCulla, a telecommunications attorney. The residents engaged to help them with this ordinance revision. I wish to briefly address item five- orb and specifically residents proposed design guidelines wording separation slash setbacks. The staff has proposed different terms that we believe do not adequately resolve aesthetic safety or adverse property impacts from facilities in right of way. The first is in 132-16 design standards subsection B2. The staff wording only requires that the facility be placed between the property line and the edge of the shoulder. This would allow facilities to be placed on structures right on top of private property. Sometimes the upper parts such as antennas or support arms will overhang private property. Residents ask that you add in a 30-foot setback from the abuing property line. There are three simple reasons. The first priority is safety. If a pole falls or the equipment on top comes free, it will fall onto the abuing property and lead to personal injury or property damage. Second, people just don't want these things so close.

They're ugly. No one wants something like this right next to where you live. Finally, some designs put antennas on support arms that go out three feet or more. The pole is on the lot line and the antenna will overhang people's property and deprive them of the use of that space. And uh then he goes on to say Florida statute 337.41 401 parentheses D parentheses 11 parentheses B allow an authority to deny an application for public safety purposes. D11F also allows objective design standards allowed under 337-41 that in turn authorizes design standards relating to location and context. Here the location is unsafe and the context is wrong especially in the situation where some of the overhang will be projecting over the property line.

Thank you sir. Okay. Kelly Lee McFreder. Well for the last speaker if you could turn in that written comment to the clerk. Could you turn it into the clerk so it's part of the record? Could you turn in your written record to the clerk at the table over there? You are important. They want all your information. You're important. Thank Thank you. Well, they're going to read it.

Hi there, Kelly Lee McFreder, 3612 East Maritana Drive. I'm going to start a little bit differently. Mayor, you would have had a donation, but I had to do $3,500 to give the report for Mr. for Ralph Brooks to make sure that you were protected with 5G on the on the EF report that St. Petersburg does not need anymore. We have 32 telecom poles. We don't need anything more. That we're very, very good. And what I've also done, I'm going to talk a little bit differently tonight. I've been speaking at our neighborhood meetings, other meetings, and what I appreciate I've told everyone possibly can know. Can you move your microphone so we can hear you? Because I'm short. No, it's because he was so much taller than him.

Let me start over. Okay. Anyway, real quick, I have told everyone, I want y'all back in office. I want everyone to vote for you. That's what I've been talking about because you finally got us. You're hearing me. And at the last meeting, mayor, when you said, you know what? Let's break this into two parts. We're going to pass one. We're going to listen to you in the second one. Lisa, appreciate you so much. Karen, everyone's listening. Betty, John, thank you for listening to us. I have never felt so important or listened to. Maybe it's not important to me, but it's important to you or you or me, vice versa. But I appreciate the fact that you heard the people. That is something to be said. And I was very upset at the last meeting when they said we have a deal. No, you all said we listen to you. You're going to have our votes. You're listening to us. When I spoke last week and I said over 850 billion per year is what telecom wants off of putting these towers right in. They're going to jam everything up. They're going to say, "You have to buy my equipment." And what I'm upset about is the fact that telecom came in right after the hurricane. Some of us weren't even here. Activated and pass during July 4th. Not a good scene. People were gone, came home to towers um more than many of us did. And so I really want to say we do want the 30-foot setback. We want to be safe. No one wants them on their inner coastal waterway. No one wants them in their inland homes. We were here at 32 towers. That's a lot. And we don't need anymore. And Ralph, I really need you more than anybody to protect us. I really, really do. They're hearing us. We need you to hear. But the fact that we do need 500 ft between the towers. We don't want them in the neighborhoods. There's other places to put them. We're looking for a variance if they have to be. They can be on top of street lights, on top of hotels, commercial areas. We're asking you to look at our neighborhoods, our our parks. We're

looking at our churches. We're looking at our schools. We really want you need you. You've heard us. And I want every single one of you in office always because you've been hearing us. And thank you so much. This has been it's not a sexy topic by any means. And we really and people are aware of it. It's all over the cities. And we're finding that telecom is making more statues, more changes to our within the leagues of cities that they want to control. We need you. Thank you. Thank you. Jack Rice, please state your name and address for the record.

Jack Rice, 3612 East Maritana. So, I had two things. I came said the same thing before from an insurance standpoint. No different than if you had a gated community that was high crime. No different than if you're in a flood zone. They're going to come to you and they're going to say, "Is there a 3G tower next to your house?" And if there is, you're going to get your price increased because of what they said before in the letter. If it falls on your property, you got property damage, you got personal injury, whatever else. I do want to say on a side note that they did move the tower from our house and we were scared because I I have medical issues and when they cut that tower down, it landed on our property. It destroyed our pavers. It destroyed our seaw wall and they will not account for it all and they won't pay for it. Then they came back out and tried to fix some things. They destroyed our our our sprinkler system. These people don't care about you or me. what concessions you did. Thank you very much. We moved the tower away from my house. So, I I just I can't believe we're sitting here talking about this. It's so disturbing that these medical issues that the old property for the Bush state, it's sitting right in front of that property where that house is going to be. It's be looking inside that guy's window or that that couple's window. When they build that house, it's sitting right there. They try to disguise it. There's no disguise in these things. Anyway, insurance is going to go up and we got a problem. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Vincent Torminia. Please state your name and address for the record.

Vincent Tormenia, 3514 Kazablanca Avenue, St. Pete Beach. with these cell towers. First of all, I have a family member that works for the company and they are too close to each other. They're interacting because I didn't know what the hell was going on with my phone, my TV, everything. And they are interacting with each other because they could see it where they are actually and it is not good healthwise otherwise I and I believe that once they put them all in it's going to be a monopoly and they're going to scramble everything else that you have. You have T-Mobile, you have Verizon. They're gonna scramble everything that you're gonna have to use them. That's what's gonna exactly happen. So my deal is vote to stop it and get them the hell out of here. I'm serious because otherwise people should just put a chain around them and just rip them out of the ground. That's how I feel about it. Thank you. And when we Oh, one more thing. When we had Sprint originally, the tower never interfered the way it's interfering now. Your calls drop, your TV goes off, everything, everything. Your computer goes down. Have you noticed all that stuff happening? Because they're all interacting with each other and it's stopping it. And if they continue, it's going to stop everything. and you're going to be sucked into just them. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Matt Mucci. First, please state your name and address for the record.

Matt Mucci representing AT&T. Uh, first I just want to say when I stand here now, I am standing here in support of the ordinance on second reading. So there was talk about an agreement being made or a deal. Uh what I will say to the mayor actually brought that up last time was no deal. I will say it was agreed upon language. And so the language in ordinance one on second rating has the full support of AT&T. And we thank Ralph and Francis for working with us to uh listen to our side and and coming together and really having an open and honest conversation. So just want to say that. So if we're sticking with the reading second reading ordinance, we're in full support. And if you need me to come back to speak to the ordinance on first reading, I can do that as well. Commissioner, to answer your question, there's been talk about number of small sales throughout St. Pete Beach. I've heard 32. I've heard 35. I've heard 36. I can tell you that in the fourth quarter of 2025, AT&T was uh had a had a build of five tower or excuse me and I let me just say towers. Everybody keeps saying towers. These aren't towers. Micro is towers. That's 180 ft and higher. These are existing utility poles that we are putting our infrastructure on. So in 2025 late we did five antennas builds. Uh, one that was moved from that gentleman's home is in the process of being moved to Gulf Boulevard. Um, prior to that, I am aware of two in near Donsar and potentially two more. So, I would say no more than 10 AT&T small cell facilities are in St. Pete Beach at this time. Um, so I hope that clarifies and this is small cells. This is not rooftop antennas. So, just want to make that clear and I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

I have no further public comment.

Thank you, commissioners. On the first item, comments, thoughts, questions, a motion? Commissioner Robinson. Um, I did want to bring out that I did speak to Ralph to make sure that we had a defend um to be defended in um hold harmless agreement or in the insurance clause. We have insurance uh provisions. They're on the ordinance page 37. Um and then also for the small cell 85 to 86. And then we have hold harmless and defense um provisions where the provider would hold the city harmless and pay for the defense and support uh defense in any cases. Um that's on page 38 u and 40 and then page 87 of the proposed ordinances. We have those covered. We also have certificates um that would um provide money uh construction bonds and removal bonds and relo removal plans. So all these that you brought up have been addressed in the first ordinance for the second reading.

Thank you. I just wanted to make sure everybody was aware. Thank you. One question, Commissioner Rzniki. Um just a question for clarification on because I saw this after reading this a couple of times because it's very lengthy on packet page 281 or page two of the ordinance um it's about one two three four five six bullet down it's not numbers just okay it to conserve and enhance the unique natural beauty replace you know and so forth but it

the appearance of the Donsar hotel the pink palace bokea bay aquatic preserve up Beach, St. Pete Beach Community Center, Pasro Historic District, and Beach, Beach Theater, and the City of St. Pete Beach. My question is why don't we add an other why are these buildings or locations being identified and not all others? Those are not the only local historic designated um you know for the library for example, the Suntan Vista, you know there's other locations in our city and and there's nothing written there to kind of um talk about what other ones currently exist or what other ones can possibly exist in the future if we were to locally designate something else if that's what those are there for because it's a kind of a mixture between beaches and things that are historic. So, it was um again I just wanted it to be clarified.

If you have others that you would like to add to this section, you certainly could. Again, if it's if it's for historic, I'm not quite sure what it's for because Upam Beach Park is there. Um and so is um these were just selected as representative. They could say including but not limited to or if you'd like to come back again with a bigger list. Just included but not limited to because again the list could change I would you know through time you know we could add something else and you know Mary Pier right like something else can come up um that's significant for the community appearance of resources including but not limited to yes let's make that our first uh recommended change with the motion.

Thank you. Commissioner Maldado.

Yeah. Well, so first of all, I'd like to thank the um folks that have spoken today, not only for their continued um championing of this, but involving me early from day one and really just leading this grassroots efforts uh in particular, Lauren Mones and uh Cali Lee for just really just being stoned supporters and Kelly Lee in particular for having that report done at or expense. I mean, that's going above and beyond, uh, what any constituent should do. And Dr. Chamberlain's report was very thorough and quite frankly, um, something that was critically needed to allow this person, I can't speak for the commission, but to allow me to understand just how saturated St. Pete Beach is with these uh, devices. So, I just wanted to get that uh, out first and foremost. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion. Uh I'll make a motion to adopt with the modifications discussed today. Ordinance 2025-24. Second. The clerk, if you'll please do a roll call. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Commissioner Robinson, yes. And Mayor Catilla, yes. The motion carries.

Next, we have item 5B, first reading of ordinance 2026-03. Let me read the title. First reading of ordinance 20263, an ordinance of the city of St. Pete Beach, Florida, providing for amendments to the code of ordinances, chapter 132, communication facilities in the city rights of way, section 132-16, design standards providing for codification, conflict, severability, correction of scriveners errors, construction, publication, and effective date. This is a proposal by the citizens group to add in distances to the wireless ordinance. Um the chapter 131 and uh 132. This would um affect chapter 132-16 design standards for those small wireless facilities and city- owned rightways. These particular facilities are subject to the state preeemptions that are in section 337.41. Um the first uh proposal would be to have a minimum setback of at least 30 feet. Um and you'll see that in the exhibit A track changes 30 feet from because we've had several different 30 fts. Um setbacks from the property line shall be based on sight specific aesthetic and public safety concerns. In order to protect public safety, there shall be a minimum setback of at least 30 feet from any private property line for the pole or other supporting structure on which the proposed facilities are to be

located as measured from the closest point of the facility to the property line. The purpose of this setback is to prevent damage to private property in the event of structure failure and to mitigate adverse visual effects to adjacent property owners. The setback requirement is a separate from the spacing requirements in section 13216812 which we'll read next. Applicants may request a variance pursuant to the requirements of section 98-126 at sequence. So to explain this a little bit um we started out with 30 feet from the property line. We said if we did that, there wasn't sufficient space in the usable rightway and the facility would have to go in the middle of the street. So there simply wasn't space.

Um, sorry, I thought we had changed it to 30 feet from the structure. Just to just to clarify, it was 30 feet from the right of way, not from the structure, right? This has changed. The initial the initial proposal was 30 feet from the the initial proposal was 30 feet from the real private real property line. Then it changed 30 feet to a structure and now they proposed I guess changing it back to 30 feet from their real property line. The latest proposal that I received a few days ago um end of last week changes it back to the property line.

Actually there was never a the word structure included property. So it actually structure. Do you want to wait till the public comment and then we'll have to be able to the podium?

Yeah, we have to be able to hear everybody otherwise it's not recorded. So we'll let the city attorney finish and then we will have public comments again and then we can go into detail on those items. So it was 30 feet from a property line, but if you go 30 feet from the property line into the city rightway where these are being placed, the city right ofway is 30 ft wide. So it effectively would prohibit the towers within the city right ofway. Um there's there simply is a physical impossibility you couldn't fit one in there because there's 12 to 18 feet of usable right away from the pavement to the property line. Um so the wireless providers objected to that and said it was a physical impossibility and was a de facto prohibition of putting small wireless in the city right away which 337 says you have you can't prohibit them. um by de facto uh requirements. So I thought we had this changed to 30 feet from the structure

u which would then allow sufficient space to put the wireless facility within the usable portion of the rightway because we also have 25 ft um front setbacks for most residential districts. Um now it's gone back to 30 feet from the real property line and the latest submittal. Um I guess the public comment will come up and they'll explain why they've done that or why don't why they don't think that's a problem. And then the second section um is to add in 500 ft minimum separation distances um from the location of new groundmounted small wireless facilities from other groundmounted small wireless facilities in the public rightway. says, "Registrants are encouraged to locate new groundmounted small wireless facilities with spacings of at least 500 ft from other groundmounted small wireless facilities in the public rightway. So, in speaking with um Brandon, um most of our facilities come in without any ground mounted equipment. Um, so this doesn't really address most of the poles and most of the wireless facilities, new poles, collocation poles. This is addressing ground mounted equipment. It doesn't seem to be actually an issue with what we have so far in St. Pete Beach. Um the statute 337 is uh the issue whether we can adopt actual distances by number. Um it says the city under subsection 4 the city may not limit the placement by minimum separation distance of small wireless facilities. utility poles on which small

wireless facilities are or will be colllocated or at other atgrade communication facilities. So like for example the second one is 500 ft from atgrade groundmounted small wireless facilities in the public rightway. It would seem that that would violate the prohibition may not limit the placement by minimum separation distances. Um so what we've done is prepare a staff alternative version of both these sections. Um we've left the 30 ft and the 500 ft. We've also added in the words whenever possible and technically feasible. And then instead of requiring a variance um we have put in from the statute the negotiation clause that says the city may request and the wireless provider applicant may negotiate an alternative location. So that's different than a variance because a variance requires a public hearing. Now 337.41 401 says no public meetings can be required. So I guess what the citizens attorney is saying is that a public hearing is not the same thing as a public meeting. But our public hearings by the board of adjustment are conducted in the public at a public meeting. So I don't feel super comfortable with that distinction. Um, the other argument is that the place the commas that are in 33741 make it confusing and make it ambiguous and therefore it's an invalid state

preeemption because it's ambiguous. Um, but when you read the read the section, it's it's relatively clear, but yes, there are some probably grammatical errors that in the sentence the way that's written. When you read it, the excerpts are in your package. Again, the city may not limit the placement, comma, by minimum separation distances, comma, of small wireless facilities, comma, utility poles on which small wireless facilities are or will be colllocated, comma, or other atgrade communication facilities. So, it looks like just from a pure English grammar perspective, there's too many commas there. Um, but I think a judge would look at that and try to determine whether it was still clear, express, and understandable or not. Um, so for the 500 foot one, again, if we are going to adopt some numerical criteria, which I don't recommend, but if you do, we'd ask that the language be say at least 500 ft whenever possible, a technically feasible alternative locations and then include again the negotiation section from the statute that allows us to request an alternative location that would be further than 500 ft and negotiate with the applicant And if but if that can't be reached um then we would not be able to prohibit the location um because of the state preeemption. Now, the state preeemption does say um subject to paragraph R um and that says reasonable spacing requirements concerning the location of ground mounted component of a small wireless facility which does not exceed 15 ft from the associated support structure. So we are allowed to say I think we have in our ordinance that um

you have to have your ground mounted equipment within 15 ft of the support structure which the statute allows. Um and then I was cited in the letter from the citizens attorney that was read into the record 11B um says an authority which is a city can deny an application if it under B material interferes with sightelines or clear zones for transportation comma pedestrians for public safety purposes. So, if we're going to um do a setback of 30 feet, I'd recommend you do it from the buildings or structures and not from the real property lines because then you could argue there's a public safety feature in requiring 30-foot separation from an adjoining home. so that if the support structure were to fall, um, you would have a safer distance and it may it would it would give you a bit more of a fall zone. It may still interact with a house depending on how far the house is built, but 30 feet from the structure and depending on how tall the pole is. Some of them can be up to 50 feet tall. Um, so it may not totally prevent it, but it might capture some of it. So, this is a um more difficult ordinance under the state preeemption, but we're certainly willing to consider it, take p public comment, take council consideration. Um I think um if you have questions, I can address address those later. Um the statute does say if someone does sue and they win, then you have to pay the attorney's fees for the other side. um we have an insurance that covers up to a certain amount but not beyond that amount and it may not cover an award of

attorneys visa on the other side it would cover more of our defense. So, we had talked about in our 101 meetings about the 500 foot and that is I' I've spoken with you and questions from other commissioners too, but I haven't spoken to two of you at the same time. I haven't told you we're having this conversation now, which is why I'm bringing up what I said to you, which is just trying to answer questions as they come up.

No. So the the question I had was and I'm hoping you have an answer for us today is there seems to be a very you know commas aside you know but pretty you know judges can look at it and say scriveners errors and move on I think or high likelihood um on the 500 ft but it doesn't say anything about density right so you could have instead of having five instead of not having one every 500 feet my question to the city attorney was well what if we say no more than whatever x number is per square mile right so that let's say we take a bill vista is a great neighborhood right so you've got that big chunk right there it's a couple square miles and let's say that instead of every 500 feet you just wouldn't have more than 10 or five per square mile so no more than 10 for the total neighborhood would that be more defensible. Would that give us in essence what we're looking for without stepping on the state preeemption?

That's something we could look into. You have the expert report in your packet and the AT&T representative is here today, so they might be able to to address that as well. One of the things we're prohibited from really doing is requiring coverage maps, and they'll explain uh that when they get up. Um the expert reports um that's in your packet states that it's with these particular um small wireless facilities they're looking at they can cover a certain radius um between 800 and 2,000 ft. Um some operating on the high band spectrum need only only have a radius of 200 to 600 feet. Um, and most of these facilities operate ideally on line of sight conditions. So, it's every neighborhood is a little bit different. I think if we look at the built environment and then we look at the wireless um waves that are going around, the two don't always match up so well. So it's very difficult to uh to use a criteria that's used in planning like density um for wireless towers because they depend on what's in the way of the line of sight and other obstacles. But if we did a count is this per carrier or we talking total? That's another huge one. I mean, we should be talking total and not per carrier here.

If we're going to talk a number, I think 337 um has some serious limitations on on limiting a total number. I could take a look at that between now and second reading and we can talk to the uh both sides. We want to go that different direction. There is a specific section on collocation in the packet on page 283 page four that talks about scenarios where they're stacking each other. And that's why I did, you know, full disclosure ask uh Matt, you know, specifically to his company how many they had because it's a skew here. We're dealing with Can you give him back

representatives from someone who Mr. Maldonado, you need your mic? Oh, sorry. There you go. My mic had been hijacked.

Thanks, Francis. So yeah, that's as Commissioner Robinson uh pointed out, one of the concerns that I have is that, you know, when we're talking about stakeholders here that we have met and discussed things individually with not only our attorney, but uh in my case, you know, I've reached out to a lobbyist uh from another competitor to see what their skin in the game was, and there was none. That's why they're not opposed to it. So when we sit here and we say that we've been exclusively dealing with, you know, Matt's company and and I don't like using specific companies uh at these meetings. So we're getting one side and I did speak to the city manager about this like what outreach have we had with the other providers and what is their uh take on this and my understanding is that they're not pushing back on it. We have received uh one letter um from Verizon and they object to the the vagueness um but the vagueness is kind of a in reaction to the state preeemptions that prohibit prohibit us from being specific. So instead of having 30 feet and 500 feet and the ordinance we adopted tonight we have you know reasonable um more vague criteria. So, are they asking us?

They haven't. The Verizon has said the ordinance is void for vagueness, that it's too vague under constitutional arguments, but they have not argued that the ordinance we adopted earlier tonight is preempted by 337.41, and they haven't chimed in on the citizens proposal. Thank you, Attorney Brooks. Okay. City clerk, do we have any audience comments? Lauren Mones.

Yeah, I I just wish my lawyer was here because this is they're so so confusing. Um, if you'll please state your name and address.

Oh, Lauren from Pastor Girl. Also, it's it's just very it's it's difficult for me because when my attorney and Ralph speak one-on-one, there seems to be agreement and then we get here and it's like it's like there's disagreement now like and I can't I don't have the expertise to explain all of this. I know but like to actually explain this is very difficult for me given my knowledge which is a lot but still it's it's all so nuanced but anyway I don't know if I want to waste my time with the structure word but we never really changed it. It was always 30 feet from the property line. It just it's a term of art according to Scott McCulla using the word structures. That's the only reason. But um I I don't know what to say. I mean, we have insurance that covers most of it. I told you guys I pay 32,000 to the city of St. Pete Beach, just that alone. You know, I pay 52,000 total in property taxes. You can use my money. You can use Kelly Lee's money. This is what we pay in for. This is life or death. This is not do we want to build a big hotel. This is my life that you're taking into consideration. This is your life. This is our children. This is our wildlife. This is our these are our beaches. I mean, what are we doing? A line of sight with a small cell at Hurly Park. There's nobody there. There's a monastery school. There's the beach. Who needs a small cell tower at Hurley PE at Hurly Park when it's a line of sight issue? I don't understand. And like, and if you go to anywhere from St. Pete Beach to downtown. There's no small cell towers and there's no macro towers. So, what are you doing at the beach?

What are you doing in our town? Why are you putting them everywhere? This is what we know. We want to know this, Matt. I want to know what these are for. I want transparency. You know, like we have enough and like the nuance doesn't really need to be discussed. I don't think in my opinion because we've had enough. You know, we want 30 feet set back from the property line and if it puts it in the middle of the street then apply for a variance, you know, that's it. Like it's it's just um it's what everybody needs to do except for telecom. Why are we favoring them? I know the state statute is very restrictive. I understand that. And also we can push it to the boundaries that we're able to. And I'm asking you guys to really consider that pushing it to the boundaries that we're able to because if we don't do that tonight, all of our rights are going to be stripped away completely. And that's not the world I want to live in.

Thank you, Ron Vigno. If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Yeah, Ronald Vinino Pasril. So, yeah, let's just keep it the way it was. There's a foul play here and this is not good. I mean, this is simple. We keep coming back and over and over about redefining everything. There was an agreement with the lawyer made and Ralph seems to be okay with it. Now Ralph is not okay because of the insurance. I mean this is a lot of life you know who cares about the insurance who cares about the money you know if I if you choose to to live choose to live you know there's no price on on killing people this is murder. So we have to understand what it's really about. It's about killing us and removing our our rights to live a healthy life. So it's simple. The decision is to fight this and if we do fight it, other cities will join in and it will become statewide and eventually it will become national like the whole country will follow and we're going to be the example that started the whole the whole uh movement. So let's be proud of of standing up and you guys understand it. I know you all understand it very well. So Ralph, let's move forward with what was agreed on before. Thank you. Jim D. Martino.

Okay. Uh, Kelly Lee McFreder.

Okay.

Okay. Hi there, Kelly Lee Mc Frederick, 3612 East Maritana Drive. Um to keep it very simple what we were saying before we've had the word structure in there and structure was as Lauren was saying we've defined it we've talked about it we're talking right away from the property line and unfortunately structure was a vague term but it was from the property line it started with it was my tower the equipment was 20 the the big tower that's put up and the equipment was 24 feet from my property line and so we're looking at I believe it was a 60oot tower within 24 ft of the property line, 10 ft from my docks that would have gone either way. Has it fall, catch on fire, what it was going to do. That was a 30 ft of the right away of the property line. That's very clear. If you're talking 30t from a structure, that would have been basically in my front yard. So, that's a huge difference. And a lot of this was out to when I said last week I talked about I knocked on doors on Maritana. There is no one B vista, Maritana, Vina Delmare that wants us on their property line on the inter coastal. We're also talking the health of we're talking the health of the manate anything that's in the water. I just love the man the manatees come underneath my dock. I love them. Um but anyway, so what what we're looking at is from the right away of the property line. That's to be very very clear with that. We want to make sure that the neighborhoods are protected, that we make sure the schools are protected, the churches, people that are of of a vulnerable state, which would be an older population, a younger population in our neighborhood. That's really what we're looking for is the value. My husband talked about insurance, the aesthetics. Nobody comes to this beach and says, "I want to find big towers on my inter coastal waterway or on my beaches." That's not what we're here for. And Lauren and I have been doing this for a long time. in the amount of phone calls that we get from across the country across Florida that say tell us about your telecom how can you help us but by the way you now have telecom we don't want to come and visit

um people are very very em sensitive we have found that something again I never knew about something that's not sexy and it's not fun and the amount of people that are and we're hurting our own tourist industry and part of this is yes our neighborhoods yes our beach why we're here we're all I believe probably everyone in the room or whoever it really believes in our environment and the water. We're here to protect the sea turtles. I'm part of the dune savers. Love all that. We just this what we do. And so we're really looking for you all to protect us and very much Ralph. We we will be there. We need you all to stand strong. This will be protected. You guys will be the first people, not you guys, you all. We all will be the very first p people to have this the first beaches, the first community. And so we certainly feel strong, but 30 feet in the rightway is what we're looking for. Thank you. Thank you.

Jack Rice.

If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Rice 3612 East Maritana. So the tower, whatever you call it, micro is next to the old arguer state is 5 ft of the property line. It's not 30, it's 5T. And it's sitting right there. And she already said from our house, the street that goes by Maritana right away is about 2 ft. Then from 3 ft to the seaw wall is ours. That tower, that pole would have fallen onto our house. Unless if it was 30 ft, they couldn't have put it there to begin with. That it's it's easy. It's easy math. So, it would have gone into our dock or our house. We need 30 ft no matter what. And I feel bad for the people that have already had one. They're like I I'd drive down the street and look at that thing and it's going to be sitting right in front of the guy's front window property site or sight of line of sight to our house. It would have looked straight into our bedroom and that's a problem. So again, it should be 30 ft.

Thank you, sir. Matt Mucci.

All right, commissioners, questions, comments, discussion. Okay, I'll I'll take a stab at it since um we've got folks still reading their notes. Okay, so it the first thing I want to say is that it's not easy. I think that people have tried to oversimplicate this. Uh at least my constant meetings, my emails that I'm getting from constituents and in my own independent research has caused me to pause as many of the comments earlier said and how do we thread the needle? Okay, because we know that there are things that expressively prohibit us from preempted right of way. At the same time, realistically, at least in my district in Pasigril, as I tried to mention last time, it's impossible to put a 30- foot set back. Okay. One of the uh persons that just spoke mentioned that. So, I do believe that we need to establish distances that won't be challenged easily. Now, how we do this, this is something that we're going to have to come up with collectively. But I'd also like to go back to some of the comments that Matt Mucci uh read on behalf of uh attorney Scott Mcola when he talked about 132-16 the design standard specifically D11 andB talking about sight line pedestrians and public safety. I think that we really need to underscore that and capture that uh in the language and and the mayor was alluding to something that could possibly be something that we can leverage without uh constricting oursel and that's per capacity. You you use the word density I believe that is something that's innovative. I think that no one has even mentioned that up until this meeting.

And again to the public, uh I struggled in reading some of your emails because of Florida sunshine laws. I cannot read emails from other commissioners and things like that, especially when it comes to polling. And I made it very clear to people that please present that to me individually, talk to me about it, talk to your commissioners, get your voice heard. And and we have heard it. you know, we received numerous uh emails. Um, and I will say the first one or two, I thought we had a bunch of lawyers in pass because they were talking about legal challenges and things, but by the time I saw the 11th, that was cut and paste. I realized it was a well-crafted email probably with legal counsel. So, that added to the complexity of this. How do we come up with separation distances without violating Florida statutes that we know would immediately be challenged? At the same time, I previously mentioned to uh Mr. Matt Mucci that we're not looking for a fight. We're looking for a partnership with the ISP providers. Okay? We know that we have way too much here. You know, my district in particular, I think, has 60 maybe 70% of the uh towers, and I use that term very loosely. compared to the rest of St. Pete Beach. So the question is why? Okay, so I did ask city staff to give me some answers to why and to answer Ron Ron Vignet's question. Fiber is not an opt fiber optic is not an option in this case. You know, we do have some fiber optic that's been run throughout the city and that will not help us. The other thing that it's a capacity issue, not a coverage issue. So, we ask ourselves, why are we getting so much? And I do like some of the language that's proposed in this first reading. I'm happy with the safety standards that talk about radon testing,

RF emission levels, the fact that um residents can take actions as well. We're not preempting or taking anything away from the residents. I like that. Those are some of the things that I do like in here. Um, I like the recommendation that staff made about where technically feasible and that there's a negotiation process. I think that that's critical that we keep that. As far as home rule, home rule doesn't allow us to go against state legislation, as much as I would love to say that it does and that we can assert that, that is one of the challenges that this commission is struggling with, not only with this issue, but with Senate Bill 180 and other things. uh that prohibit us from doing certain things. The real property rights shall not be uh taken away from people. Okay, that's the bottom line. You know, you mentioned specific cases where owners are getting ready to build multi-million dollar homes and they're going to be pretty surprised when they arrive here and find that this tower has been placed uh immediately in front of their house. And I guarantee that we're going to hear about that uh as soon as that becomes uh knowledgeable to them. So I do want to work with this commission in coming up with something that has teeth. I think that without distances and separations that it's toothless and that it's just a uh ordinance for the sake of gesture. It will not start a movement. It will not impact uh legislation in other cities. But I think that uh this is halfbaked. Just based on what I've heard today, I think that we're not ready, at least in my humble opinion, to move forward with anything. I think that we need to incorporate some of the language that uh we're struggling with, you know, and I will say that at least what I read and what I've consistently kept is that 30 ft setbacks from private property lines

were ineffective because there's not enough space. It did change from 30 ft from front of structure to what we're now saying uh real property. So that needs to be ironed out. That needs to be 100% clear on what we're talking about because there has been changes, Ron. And is this false?

So again, this is my interpretation. I'm not speaking for the lawyer. I'm not speaking for any commissioner. I'd love to hear how they interpret things. But then I would also like to underscore that attorney Brooks has been having these meetings on behalf of the commission. He's not the final person that's decides or says what's going to come out of this. He gives us expert advice based on his judgment, training, and experience, but this is the only form where we can discuss it and give our input. We've all had individual meetings. I think I've had probably 15 meetings with the city manager on this very complicated topic. And that's why I'm I'm not insensed, but I think that it's important to underscore that this is not a simple easy solution. And if it was, we would have resolved this with the first reading of the previous ordinance. Uh but we realize that we had to bifrocate it so that that first ordinance does not get challenged legally and that we have some slip room with this one. All that to say that this these are my comments. I'd love to hear what my fellow commissioners have to say.

Let me read what the citizens had proposed before we got this changed.

Attorney Brooks, can you use the microphone, please? you read what the citizens attorney Scott had proposed before the change that came in Thursday the date that we published the agenda before that um they originally had setbacks from property lines shall be based on sight specific aesthetic and concerns but for the purposes of structural safety there shall be a minimum setback of at least 30 feet from any existing developed structure or structure for which a site plan or permit has been submitted and deemed complete as measured from the closest point of the structure which is the minimum distance necessary as determined by the city to satisfy structural safety or aesthetic concerns that are to be protected by the setback. Applicants may request a variance per requirements of 98-126. So before it was structure before it started real property line you know the comments from the industry was that that's an effective prohibition because there isn't 30 ft and even the speaker said you couldn't put it 30 feet from the property line it be on the dock. So, um, the structure one I felt a little bit more comfortable with because it would have allowed placement in the usable portion of the rideway. Um, but 30 feet from a structure and then it changed back to real property line just as the agenda was being published after our after our last discussion. I thought the change was just going to be to add public safety concerns to add those words. Um, and I had the the attorney hadn't brought up with me that we're going back to real property line. Um, but that's what showed up in the in the proposal that came back.

And I'm fine with both. It's just a matter of clearing uh clearing the air that it's I've seen both. And that's why I think it's important to iron that piece out, right? That so that we're all on the same sheet. Are we talking about one or the other? And then now it sounds like there may be a third consideration to come back to. You said what was the last line that you said?

Um, well, it started off 30 ft from the property line and we found that that wouldn't be workable because it would be in the middle of the street or in the middle of the water. Um, so we went 30 feet from a structure and I felt a little bit more comfortable with that because it wouldn't be an effective prohibition of use of the rightway, still be able to put it in the effective um usable rightway and in most cases be 30 ft from a house in most neighborhoods, maybe not in passive grill, which might might still cause a problem there. And then they were proposing a variance, but the problem I see with the variance is that I equate a public hearing with a public meeting. and I think they're very similar, not the same. So, I asked for the negotiated period of time to negotiate alternative locations that the statute does allow us to do. Now, in the first ordinance that you adopted tonight, um the language is on page 80 83. um for the 500 ft

and page 81 for the 30 ft. Um and the 30 ft um you know isn't addressed there. We just say communication facilities must be placed between the property line and the curb line of all streets and not and must not be within the roadway recovery or road shoulder area. So, it's requiring them to go into that usable portion of the rideway. Um and the second one, the 500 feet, uh where they want to put in 500 feet, we adopted a criteria tonight earlier, um that says reg registrants are encouraged to locate new groundmounted small wireless facilities with technically feasible alternative locations from other groundmounted small wireless facilities in the public rightway. Such groundmounted small wireless facilities shall be installed in a location that meets the locationational requirements to ensure pursuant to Florida statutes 337417G and H the placement of the proposed ground equipment and comm communications facilities does not interfere with safe operation of traffic control equipment. Material interfere with sight lines or clear zones for transportation, pedestrians or public safety purposes. material interfere with the compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act or similar federal or state standards regarding pedestrian access or movement. Material failed to comply with 2718 edition of the Florida DOT utility accommodation manual. Failed to comply with applicable codes or fail to comply with objective design standards authorized under 337.417R. So we had that put in that's that's adopted now. So we have that at least.

So the question now is do we want to um pursue um some additional language to that? They'd like to see 500 ft between ground mounted equipment. But then again also remember we don't really have ground mounted equipment that have been installed in St. Pete Beach. Most of it's all on poles. The 500 ft isn't a separation between poles. It's only the ground mounted that's being proposed.

Yeah, I understand. So, are you saying it should be poles instead of ground mounted? I'm I'm not proposing this is a citizen's proposal, but the citizens are proposing 500 feet between ground mounted equipment. The statute says we shall not have minimum separation diffices between ground mounted equipment or poles. Commissioner Robinson,

I I guess the question too is is the Well, there's a lot of questions here, but I I will uh restate what what uh Commissioner Maldonado said. This is not easy. Don't think that this is an easy one only because of of our hands being tied from a state level. So there's some point you got to kind of take that in consideration for for just what the ramifications of that are. But the bigger picture is, you know, health, safety, and welfare of the community and of people. I mean, that's the bigger picture, and that's where I find myself falling back to each time. Um, I feel like the citizens have put us on notice as a city. You know, I don't want to fall into the the DuPont Teflon or the 3M Flint water situation where we find out 20 30 years from now this is actually bad for us. And the reason everybody's doing it is because everybody's cutting the cord. And guess what? All these telecoms companies are becoming monopolies. you know, direct AT&T owns Direct TV. Ver uh Verizon owns FiOS, you've got AT&T and Lumen. Um so you do you do have that where they're covering not only the wireless but the wired as well. Um you know I'm looking at as I mentioned the last time with the Cband frequency they're looking at at you know getting satellite space as well. So, um it's it's I think there definitely needs to be guard rails on this um for for again health and safety as well as property values. Uh folks I've talked to that are

actually in the operation of satellite vehicles that do uh transmit C-band and KU band. They don't want to live near pole. They don't want to live near a tower. Not only the eyesore, but the potential future um health risks that are unknown. Now, I'm not going to say it's going to cause cancer. I'm not going to say anything like that, but I'm going to say that we don't know what the potential health risks are. And there's studies on both sides. And and I believe, you know, um large corporations like like I believe big big pharma, you know, um I I just have to take it for for face value for for who writes what reports and there does need to be some safeguards on this for the health and safety of our community. I mean, I' I'd feel more comfortable even if you said small wireless facilities shall not be placed directly in front of residents residential structures whenever possible. Doesn't have a distance in it, not a separation, but it's saying don't put it in front of a house. I don't know. I don't think that satisfies the citizens because the their attorney told me they wanted numbers. They wanted minimum separation distances which is clearly prohibited

unless you argue that the commas are not correct. Well, because it could be between homes. I mean, if it's what's in front of a structure small Yeah. I mean, this would say sign, you know, like the perimeter, the the radius or, you know, I guess we would we would be trying to write something to address the comments from some of the public that a tower was put directly in front of my home. Um, if there's a house and a driveway and a driveway and a house maybe between the two driveways, maybe that's not directly in front of a residential structure, but still there.

Can you also do the lesser of or the greater of, you know, when we're talking about some of this stuff? Point of order. Mayor, if we could please um sir, please let us have the discussion. You had the opportunity to speak, right? So, no decision has been made. So, how about we let us work through the process. This is what we do every single every other Tuesday, right? We we have to talk about it now. We don't have any opportunity any other time. And so, you may have had a million conversations with everybody else. We've never talked to each other about it. So, we have to do that now and you have to give us the opportunity to do so. At the end of the day, we want to be able to make the right decision for you, sir.

Yep. So, I guess there's, you know, other ways of wording this, but to be so I don't want you to be so tied to particular uh number or word. Let's try to talk about what are we trying to accomplish? What's your objective? Then we could try to draft language that would address your objective. I I would think the first thing is keeping them out of people's yards, right? Or or immediately in front of their homes or or with within that realm. Um that would be to me the first thing because the further they are away the the less um emission you have or less subject you are. The other thing is the the density or intensity, not intensity, but the the density of how many there are, but I think there could be some help with historic designation. I'm going to throw that out there. Um, I think that could help quite a bit. So between an area being historically designated or homes being historically designated because I would like to see a push on that in general in the community as well for that. And then also uh shalls and mays. Is it possible to change out the you know may negotiate to a shall negotiate

or shall to may that's you can work with those two words. Yeah. Yeah. One means they mean different

Mr. Marriott.

Thank you. Um, so clearly this is a challenging subject and I think everybody in the room ultimately wants the same thing, right? We want to be protected as much as we can. We want as much control over our own city as we can have. Um, it's also very clear to me that that we are very preempted by state statute and we are very preempted by federal guidelines and the momentum at the federal level and at the state level seems to be to take more of that control from us, not to give more of it back. I think that the the language that the staff has provided for this ordinance is a is a pretty darn good stab at it. I think if we're going to do something, I don't think that's a bad way to go. Um, you know, part of part of our job here is also to be stewards of the taxpayers's dollars, right? Because every single person in this city pays property tax. Every property owner pays property tax and the decisions we make guide how that money gets spent. And I am not comfortable making a decision that is going to cause us to spend every single person in this city's tax dollars towards defending a lawsuit that it's pretty clear we will not win. And so whatever ordinance we pass, if it were to be challenged, I would not be in favor of spending any of the city's money to defend it. Um and and and I'm not certain how much of the taxpayers dollars we should be spending in in continued hours of staff time to try to carefully thread this needle for

something that's not going to do what we hope it is going to do from the point of of added protections. And also or or will be immediately challenged, still won't give us the protections we want and will get us involved in a lawsuit. So, you know, I think I think we need to be we need to be cognizant of of the ultimate consequences of the decisions we make. And I think we need to be cognizant of the the consequences of where we direct staff time and what the tradeoffs are when that time comes away from other projects that, you know, we've all sat in priority planning session meetings to determine what we think the city should be doing with its time. And and I think this is I and I'm not saying that this wasn't a good exercise and that that that the the the ordinance that we passed tonight didn't give us more protections and I think continuing to try to get more protections is a good thing. Um, but I am not one for signing up for a fight that we are bound to lose and we are not a city that's in a position to take the lead on trying to create some bigger movement to fight this fight. Um, I I I don't think I don't think we're in a position to do that. Thank you. I definitely want to, you know, protect the residents, right? So, and and I appreciate what everybody's saying and I know there's a lot of hard work going into this and and the people who are sitting in the audience that have um been leading the charge um for change. Um but we are stewards of of of the

whole city. So, just what I'm trying to figure out between building and property lane, right? 30 feet from building or structure and um and and a what's the average distance? Does anybody know the average distance of a home to the rightway typically in our in our city? I know it's different everywhere, but I think of some places um just in the Donsar or or Pass the Grill. Actually, Pas, I think I still see a lot of sidewalks, but there's some places that don't have sidewalks, some that do have sidewalks, and just the current building of how people are building to the max, right? We're building to the max of a property, so we're pretty close to property lines. Um, it seems to be the way that things are going. Um, so with that, I'm saying that because is 30 ft to me, 30 ft from the building sounds like it's a good thing if you're looking at what the typical homes are, right? If they're they're building to the max in width and they're building to the max in depth, then the radius from any corner of those buildings would still overlap, you know, the buildings next to each other, right? So in that case that in my mind it's it's seeming to be that the higher percentage of homes in without knowing the percentage of homes in the city would be covered in not having any type of facility in front of their home just because of the way the city is built right now or being built. So that's just if if we knew the average it would help. You know, I know there might be some outliers out there maybe. Um, again, just driving around town and seeing the homes in all our different districts seems like most of them are are being built that way. Um, definitely want to add the health,

visual, and aesthetics. um having that alternative staff um since we can't have the meeting or the hearing, but an alternative staff um approval, if you want to use that word. I don't know what the correct word to use um to get us out of out of litigation. Um and the 500 ft. Um if if it's I I get the density but I'm still kind of seeing that as separation but maybe the word itself would separate us from well separation a distance right so they say you cannot say the amount yeah statute says you can't say it has to be this far from another one but this way if it's

how many in an area one per square mile or 10 per square mile which might effectively be somewhere less than 500 ft is that allowed If I mean if that needs more research or you know definitely that would probably even be better. I'm just looking at a plane as a plain reading of the language. It says you shall not designate x number of feet between of them. I said well we're not designating I mean if you want to put two of them two feet apart put 10 of them in the same you know one square foot and then there's nothing else per square mile fine you know zero separation five feet separation whatever it is but effectively you'll it'll ultimately will do a very similar thing.

Absolutely. So I I agree with that. What I'm saying is I want to I think this is a dive we have to take into that we haven't talked about like just to make sure that it applies but I think that that that's a good idea to do it that way. if not the um the 500 separation and just to clarify because in in the one-on-one meetings that we have okay I think I was um we talked about what happens after right this goes to the attorney general and I don't know if everyone had this discussion either or or if the audience is aware of it but um you know um Ralph or city attorney could you explain that so that we all understand what happens after you know I think we you we talked about waiting for 30 days and so forth. So, what we did with the first ordinance, um, we wait till you get through first reading so that we know what's being presented a little bit better and then once we send it up to the Department of Legal Affairs, which is part of the forward attorney general's office, James Udmire, they uh have it and they publish it and then telecom sees it. Um, and then it that delays the effective date of an ordinance for 30 days from the date it's received by Department of Legal Affairs. So before I send one, I want to see figure out which version we're sending or what what we're sending. Um,

so it could be sent so that we don't face right, you know, undo scrutiny for something we're not really doing. Okay. I'm checking to see um with the density issue whether 33741 allows us to limit the number of towers that are put up in a city or per square mile. I've got to review that a little bit more closely. I might.

Neil, thank you. Um so I'm not ready to concede. I hear what uh care I mean commissioner Marriott is saying uh and that yes we do have to be good stewards of government funds and resources. I think enough has been committed to getting us this far. I just think that we need to iron out a couple things. Now I will say to the folks that are tempted to uh to address this directly that we have I have to when I'm sitting up here remove the emotions from this and then I need to separate fact from fiction. because I'm getting a lot I'm getting a lot of input and a lot of it is opinions and I have dedicated hours and hours and hours to research this to make sure that I not only represent my constituents but that I am keeping in mind that I do not want to get into a situation that is uh Mount Everest like in terms of challenging things that we know we cannot do. So, what I'm asking for, what I'm imploring uh our attorney and my fellow commissioners is to come up with ideas that will get us to the objective. The objective being to pass an ordinance that protects us. I think we have all agreed on that. That uh addresses public safety and that sets a standard that yes, maybe others can follow. That may come, it may not. I'm only solely focused on St. Pete Beach right now

and our people and it's not district four, it's district one through four and it's also our visitors. Okay, so that's the other thing that economic development can be impacted by these things. We know that. Okay. And so folks have gotten up here and they've told us that not only does it impact property insurance values and things like that. It's also unattractive when you come to a park and your kids are playing under this thing. So it's part of the u the construct that we have to look at. I do I do have something that I would like to throw out there and that's uh what with the collective agreement of this commission is to reach out to our secretary of health. Write a letter and say here's the situation that we're fighting. We would love your support on this and get our lobbyist engaged in DC as well as Tallahassee because we do know that something changed yesterday that there's been recent changes. uh they latched on to a vehicle to essentially move forward on some 5G things, but I want DC support on this. We're a small town, but we have lobbyists. We pay for them. Uh we've done it in the past. The mayor has written a letter. It was signed by some of the commissioners, and I'm all for something like that if we can get national level attention. It will also help other cities to start to think of how we can do this. Um, but keeping in mind that this is a fight that has to be fought, but we need to know what we're getting into. This is, you know, monumental for for a city this size to even have something of this type of discussion. Larger cities haven't even entertained it. They haven't talked about it in Florida. Other states, yes, absolutely. And Scott Mcola, to his testament and experience, is one of the most experienced people in this field. So I do take his input and I value it

and I think that we need to incorporate some of that and I would like to see the document that was presented uh earlier on his half by Jim. So that's part of the calculus that I think that we need to incorporate. So thank you. Does anyone have a proposal? Because I see we're all talking and agreeing or not agreeing or we're not actually making any headway. Yeah. And so unless somebody else comment,

no, no, we have other people, but I'm just simply saying it's like we can we've done this now for several months. We've had these conversations outside, inside. We've talked with our city staff. We've talked with the constituents and at some point we need to make a decision, right? And somebody needs to make a proposal says, "Here's what I think this ordinance should look like." So just for everybody else in the audience so that you know how the process works, this is a first reading. So whatever gets voted on tonight, whether it passes or not, if it doesn't pass, then there's no second reading. If it passes, if there is a proposal and it passes, there is going to be time to make changes to that final language. Right? If it does not pass today, and we've received a lot of emails from many of you that says don't approve number two. Well, if we approve nothing, then there will be not be a second reading. So there is a chance and sometimes it does happen as it happened with the first option right with the first part where we talked about it multiple times pass the first version so then we can pass a modified second version. Okay. So, just keep that in mind. Just because a version passes tonight, if one does, I don't know. We'll see if somebody makes a proposal. If there's a vote, there can always be changes and refinements and fine-tuning made to it in the next two weeks or whenever the second reading is, if there's a first reading that passes. Commissioner Marielle.

Um, yeah, I wanted to um to say that I absolutely agree with Commissioner Maldonado. I am completely in support of anything that we can do to leverage the voice we have as a city and as a community at a state level and a national level. And like you said, we have lobbyists that we pay a lot of money to. This is a great thing for them to work on. I am very much in favor of of you know us expressing our opinions for how we you know how we would like things to change. I think we should, you know, try to band together with some other communities to amplify our voices to to work on this issue. Um, and I think that's all very important. As for for what we should do right now, I would very much be in favor of um uh of of and I'm I'm happy to make a motion if if nobody wants to say anything else, but if Commissioner Rzniki wants to speak up first, that's fine. But I I would say that our path forward is to um is to vote on whether or not we pass the the staff's recommended language um on first reading and then we can see if we have you know see if we think we have any other options in the meantime.

Thank you. And just to clarify that what what what's recommended from staff because I did ask I did want to be able to draw the motion of the 30t from a building health visual aesthetics um staff alternative and the language I don't know what language to use for um I know we're saying density I don't know if that's the word but whatever um you know the city attorney could well we can do more research on that right more research on that part and we could leave density out of it for now and that could come back. Yeah,

correct. And then I just wanted to add because um there is legislative work happening. So I don't want people to think that it's not, but we do need the support of this commission. There was a meeting with the Florida League of Cities um the um Matt Singer, he's a legislative advocate and um John and I he's got a res nickname. I don't want to I don't know how to say it. Starts with an M, but he's an attorney and policy expert. and this has gone to Tallahassee before and it was shot down. Okay. So, the Florida League of Cities did try to ban several municipalities to get this done. So, it's not that no one has attempted, no one's been successful. So I would say that I would urge after this that this commission say yes, let's get our lobbyists to do this because I did try doing this when I went up to lobby in Tallahassee, but it wasn't it was me on my own kind of thing. It wasn't what we all agreed on. So if we could all agree on it because things are happening now, we can get our lobbyists to help and work even with the Florida League of Cities and other municipalities that might not be so aware as we are right now, but but they have been in the past so we can reignite that fire and get something done. So that's that's all I'll say. But um yeah, um if do you want me to draw the motion? I don't know. Unless someone else wants to say something else. Just one more thing just to point out what we did adopt already on a positive note. Um it says the city strongly discourages placement in residential districts when a small fireless wireless facility is proposed to be installed within a residential district. The city shall as part of its time frame extension requests ask the provider to relocate the facility to a non-residential district. So we have that in there.

It's a start.

So I would say three things. One, Lauren, I don't need to get on my soap box about preeemption. I've done it plenty of times from here. It is something that is a real threat to the state of Florida, to most of our municipalities, something we've had conversation with at the state and the county level. It's happening and it's happening more and more. It's happening all the time and we we keep it's like fighting an uphill battle. Which brings me to my second point. We do these things not because they're easy, but because they are hard, which is why we're sitting here having these conversations for so long, for two hours now on this subject for the fourth or fifth time on top of the 14 meetings Commission Mal and all of us have had. We do this because it is hard because it does require a lot of resource, brain power, staff, and I'm not above spending the staff time because this was brought to us from our residents, which is exactly how it should be in a representative government. We represent you. You brought this to us. If other people cared about it and they weren't on the other side, then they should be here and speaking on on the opposition side. They are not here. They are the only ones here consistently time after time after time. And so to me that either says nobody else cares about these issue or everyone else is in agreement with them. Therefore there's important for us to address. And the third thing is if this thing has no teeth then it's pointless. Now that doesn't mean we don't have to thread the needle and figure out how we make it have teeth but it's got to have teeth. And so I would be willing to go along in a first reading to get us past the first reading but I am not willing to go to a second reading and it have no teeth. To me, that is a pointless ordinance that serves no purpose for anybody. And why have it? We spent months after the hurricanes going through all of our ordinances and resolutions and eliminating one after the other. There were impediments, that were useless, that served no more no purpose, that hadn't been cleaned up in

years. We don't need one more that doesn't serve a purpose. And so, I I'm I'm willing to get it. If there's a motion for somebody to propose something, I probably would go along with it tonight. But if it doesn't have the safeguards you're talking about or other safeguards that we can come up with that actually have some genuine teeth behind them that provide for the public safety of our residents, then why are we even doing this? So if somebody has a motion, I think it is time for us to We do have a motion on the floor from I thought Marriott made a motion. said she was going to

Oh, I said I said I would. Yeah. So, I will I will make a motion um to adopt ordinance 2026-03 on first reading with would that be the A or the staff staff staff staff language with staff language and I second city clerk commissioner Maldonado. Yes. Vice Mayor Marriott. Yes. Commissioner Robinson. Yes. Commissioner Rizniki. Yes. Mayor Petrilla. Yes. The motion carries. Thank you.

Next we have item 5C. First reading of ordinance 2026-02. An ordinance of the city of St. PPH Florida amending appendix A of the city's code of ordinances related to parking fees removing parking fees from appendix A providing the parking fees shall be established and amended by resolution of the city commission providing for codification conflict severability scriveners construction publication and an effective date.

Good evening mayor commissioners Adam employer assistant city manager. So as you know we've uh been working on a parking action plan for the last several months uh based on some consultant recommendations. So, it's a certainly a multi-ter process and certainly a long-term process to kind of get all the recommendations in line and to get the parking program to where it where it really should be um today. So, this is one of the first early steps in that. So, basically the uh ordinance that you have in front of you tonight um our parking fees are currently approved by ordinance. They're in an appendix of our fee study um which requires two uh readings and and a public hearing. um based on the ability to be a little bit more flexible with some of these important fees that that we need to update on a regular basis and kind of both up and down, right? So, they could go up and we we could need to adjust them down. So, in in in the um trying to make that happen, we're looking to do this as a resolution as opposed to the ordinance. So, this first reading of this ordinance would basically pull those parking fees out of the appendix and we'd be able to update them by resolution. Um, so what that does is it still uh maintains the legal compliance. It approves the administrative flexibility of those fees and and and makes us be able to adjust them a little quicker because once you all approve it, we still have to go through the technology of of implementing all those. So it does take a little bit of time. Um, it still uh provides you with the authority. It' still be brought before you for public input prior to approval and it basically aligns with best practices uh across other municipalities. So, um, just so you all know, basically this is, like I said, the first step. The next steps that you'll see is, uh, we've already brought, uh, some fee options to the, uh, budget and, uh, finance review board. So, we've been kind of fine-tuning those based on some of their recommendations. We plan to bring a similar presentation to you all at your next meeting for you to provide us for the input. Once we do the second reading of this ordinance, then we'd bring a resolution back to you that has those updated fees based on uh your recommendations to us after we present them to you. And with that, I'll be

happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Adam. Commissioner Maldov, just want to clarify there are no fiscal impacts associated with the adoption uh ordinance. No, sir. No, no fiscal impacts to what you're doing tonight. Thank you. City clerk, are there any audience comments? There are no audience comments. Okay. I am in support of this. This will allow us to be more flexible and move a little bit more efficiently and expeditiously. So unless there's further discussion, I make a motion to approve ordinance 2026-02. Second. City clerk. Vice Mayor Marriott. Yes. Commissioner Robinson.

Yes. Commissioner is Nikki. Yes. Commissioner Maldonado. Yes. May Petrilla. Yes. Motion carries. Next, we have act action item 6A, acceptance of the capital projects privatization tool. Devin, you're up.

Good evening, mayor and commission. First of all, thank you for letting me um participate with you all virtually if you can hear. I'm a little bit under the weather and certainly not something that I wanted to share with you all. Um so before you this evening um presenting a capital improvement projects prioritization tool. I'm Devon Schmidt. I'm the finance director. Um, so this tool uh has been taken through our finance budget review committee. Um, what we're looking to accomplish with our new matrix is following a government finance officers association aligned decision support tool when we're looking at any of our capital projects. It provides us a consistent way for the city of St. Pete Beach to score, compare, and rank any of our capital improvement projects using a criteria that is both objective as well as repeatable. Um the matrix also ensures that our capital investments are aligning with the city's strategic roadmap that the commission um had put forward um with staff's input as well as the community priorities. and it really helps us manage our risks, support our resiliency efforts, and meet regulatory obligations and make the best use of our limited financial resources. So, by applying this same framework across all of our projects, uh this tool really creates an opportunity for consistency as well as transparency um for our capital projects budget process. So um what we're looking at with how the tool was um how it's used. So first and foremost that uh the city establishes relative importance by assigning weights and totaling um those each up to 100. Uh some of the afteraction feedback that I heard through the budget process um from both the commission and the finance budget review committee was an ability to um have a a defined matrix of how

we're scoring our capital projects. Um the beauty of having the weights um be flexible is that in a given year if the commission decides after recovery that maybe resiliency is isn't as important. we can shift as staff and provide a different opportunity for each one of those uh projects to run through a different criteria there. So when we're taking kind of a deeper dive into what the actual criteria used um uh so we'd be looking at some different categories and that first one we have there is health and safety which falls under our reliable infrastructure. This is really looking at taking um some immediate life safety risks where we're asking does this project reduce the chance of injury, loss of life or an emergency access failure. So something like seaw walls, roads, emergency routes. Um it it scores high regardless of any aesthetics or timing. Second, there is regulatory or mandate. So this captures what we must do if we have a law that's either state or federal. um if there's an audit finding or interlocal obligations that aren't optional. Um this uh also creates a a high uh waiting for that criteria. Looking at our asset condition and risk. Um this is also within our reliable infrastructure. Um this is really considering what is our failure risk. So not just the age of the infrastructure, but we're looking at the likelihood and the consequences of failure. So the intent would be to protect what we already own and avoid any expensive emergency by addressing high-risisk assets before they break. Uh moving down to community prosperity, this is measuring um quality of life and any sort of community benefit. So this is more um any increases to access, livability, any neighborhood impacts. These projects matter, but they're intentionally weighted below safety

compliance and asset protection to ensure that we're building a stable foundation and repairing um some of our assets that um are in that kind of recovery or resiliency phase. um looking at recovery and resiliency. This is a focus on flood mitigation, um coastal resilience, and these projects that really reduce the disaster impacts or speed up a recovery are going to score higher as well because they're protecting our long-term service continuity, especially um as a coastal community. Um economic and smart growth. Uh this is really an emphasis um about wellplanned growth. again um that is underscored compared to our other criteria around health, safety and regulatory and asset. And then our next um items that I have here, I would consider these more of supporting factors. So these really fall up under our operational excellence. Um so when we're looking at life cycle and operations and maintenance, this is considering is there cost savings if we replace the asset versus um continuing to do a break fix. Do we have funding leverage or restrictions? Do we have opportunities where we have grants that we need to um uh complete the project so that we're not at risk of losing that grant. Project readiness. um this is an area where um if the project is shovel ready um we'd rather uh go ahead and and move on that project quickly and then bundling and coordination. So, this is looking at uh taking any coordinated efforts where we're able to align our utilities or streets projects um just to reduce disruption and cost um to our citizens and um have a reduction in cost there when we're looking at mobilization and things of that nature. So, those are um the criteria, the description, and then some of the scoring guidance um as

we that we looked at as we were formulating this matrix. So with having a weight assigned to each one of these categories, it um puts the importance for uh each factor. Um as I discussed previously, what we're looking at and what we're really treating this prioritization as is more of a philosophy and not just a math exercise for us to consider projects. So the weights are intentionally put around safety, any legal obligations, asset protection and and resiliency projects first. Um, which uh gives us the opportunity to um make sure that we stay compliant, protect what we own, and prepare for any future risks that the city might see. You'll see in the column where we have those recommended weights. the finance budget review committee did recommend that we increase increase health and safety regulatory mandate as well as bundling and coordination um for consideration this evening. So what we'd be asking for from commission at this point um is if is acceptance that we can utilize this uh capital projects prioritization in our fiscal year 2027 budget. And with that I can um pause and answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, Deon. Questions, comments?

Commissioner Robinson,

this does have a funded versus unfunded aspect to it. Correct. I mean, I see what is it the um funding aspect here under the uh criteria used in the matrix. So when we're looking at um any of the funding um what this is looking at is if we've secured any external funding. So greater than 50% would put us at a five there. Um if we have not ex secured or if it's that that takes us down to a four if it's less than 50% or if we have the opportunity where it kind of falls in that likely or unlikely and it's going to be funded by city funds. um that would take the ranking to a lower position for the project.

Okay. I just I just wanted to be clear on that because there seems to be there's a lot of statements being made out there um in regards to our revenue and and our CIP projects and whether there you know I I think there's a misconception of what is out there that what we have that's funded and not funded from our revenue sources. So I I'm very concerned about that. I mean there's uh you know statements being said that our revenue repeats itself the same revenue repeats itself yearly. So I just want to be clear on that that you know our revenue does fluctuate and some is carryover from previous years and some and and some is not. Um, and we do have a large responsibility here for CIP projects that are coming up to get us back to where we need to be. I just want to make sure that it's clear out there to the public on what's funded and what's not funded and where we stand on that in the community versus our revenue. I think there's a big misconception out there and there's statements being made and assumptions that are being made that are not correct. So having this tool and if it's going to say whether it's funded, unfunded or what the possibility is, I think that definitely would help. Yeah. So what this tool does is it doesn't establish that anything's funded. What it does is so we have two essentially planning tools we're using. This is the one that helps us rank the projects and gives us the criteria to put them in levels of importance. And then there's the capital improvement plan that establishes all the things we need to do. But the only funding that's available or identified in the capital improvement plan is the current fiscal year. So, as you stated, commissioner,

that's current funding that we've secured, um, allocations from Avalorum, gas tax grants, and then the outy years are not funded other than recurring um, panelis, penny for panelis money that we know is projected. So, those are like ongoing grants, but anything else has not been allocated yet. So that's when you see the deficits in the out years that we have to identify the funding once we do the budget and this matrix is going to help us say okay once we've covered all the operations of the city for example there's $2 million left and then we're going to look at this prioritization list based on these policy decisions and we're going to come in and say we think you should put $2 million towards this project because it's rated the highest. We do not have all the funding from regular revenue to fund the entire capital improvement program as it sits right now.

Thank you. If that makes sense. Okay. Commissioner Maldo.

Yeah. Thank you uh both. So I I see this is is really just it's a strategic road map. Correct. And it helps us to align our desires, our wishes and our needs with current realities, not only fiscal but then also reactive to resiliency and things like that. So I do think that this is important. More importantly, it helps us to map our regulatory obligations which is critical. We don't want to come out of compliance with that. So I think that this is a great tool. I um I think that this is going to help us keep our eye on on the ball and keep moving forward. I like that the commission still is is using this as a tool, right? It's not the final say so. So, it's u it's great. Yeah. Thank you. Applause you for it. So,

Commissioner Marriott. Um yeah, thanks Devin. I appreciate this. I think this is a good step towards making decisions. Um I think you know for the last year or so we've been working really hard at making um decisions based on some some amount of data and logic. um which I think is is very helpful. Um and I think uh um the you know on that that funding category and why that's weighted relatively low is because that that's for things that like we already have received grants for. Correct. Like it it's not it it's it it gives weight to things that that there's already extra money available for or outside money available for.

Yeah. We start to prioritize if we have matching funds, right? We don't want to lose free money. Exactly. Exactly. Right. And so and so that uh you know giving giving some weight to that I think is important because we don't want to miss out on on those opportunities. Um and uh um and so you know we're we're we're I I I don't want somebody to look at that and go, "Wait a minute. Funding is weighted at five. That seems weird. Why are we not taking into account whether or not we have the money to pay for something?" But that's not at all what this means. this is correct purely do we have matching funds is there some opportunity for extra funds let's take that into account when we're prioritizing things

correct and so I think I think this is a uh I think this is an excellent start like so many of the things that we've done in the last year I think we'll know a lot more about it after we after we do it once and then we'll know how how a year from now we'll know really well if it worked or not so thank you city clerk are there any audience comments there are public comments.

I was just going to say I agree. I never I always forget there just that I I do think this is a great tool and um you know like any any tools that we get like um Commissioner Marriott said um you got to give it you you got to give it a year's time to see if it's working and maybe even some more um or because you might just have to tweak it a little bit. It's not like get rid of it. Um, so I think it's a good start to help us prioritize for for our budget. So, thank you. So, I would motion to accept the proposed capital projects prioritization tool for the fiscal year 2027 budget. Second, city clerk. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Risniki, yes.

Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Mayor Petrilla, yes. The motion carries. Thank you. Next we have items for discussion. Commissioner Resniki Seaw Wolves. Okay. I wrote down my thoughts because after a long meeting I for I would forget. So I'll just pass my thoughts to you all. Just I'll I'll read it but you could have it. Um I think I didn't give you three. I might pass it around. My thoughts. My thoughts. But it it's really it's a it's work. Pardon? You have an extra for the city clerk? Um yes. It's going around that way. The extra one.

Mhm. Sorry. I should have passed it the other way. Sorry Britney. Um this is um from years. This is not just a thought overnight thought but it's years of work um specifically with the Dodisar neighborhood because of the uniqueness. So this is a a public private seaw wall partnership discussion item that I wanted to bring up because of the unique opportunity um to improve coastal resiliency um in the city rightway. Okay. It's the only neighborhood or subdivision in the city of St. Pete Beach that has an adjacent rightway to privatelyowned seaw wall. And and it's significant to talk about this because of the uniqueness. The impact that a private property owner has on the deterioration of a seaw wall is based off of everybody in the city using it. Okay? And just think about that for a little bit because nobody in their backyard who has a seaw wall has waste management trucks coming in and out um by their seaw wall has um when we had um the unfortunate use of uh garbage removal after a storm um it wasn't just garbage trucks thing. Now they actually put out uh stabilizers, you know, that they they take out these big rods and stabilize the truck and they press down on the ground. Well, guess where they're pressing? Right next to people's seaw walls. So, the impact of deterioration is higher on seaw walls in this neighborhood because of the use of the rideway. So, what um we had a meeting about I would say two weeks ago, I can't remember now. Had so many meetings, but we had a meeting and it was noticed to all Seaw Wall property owners in um the Donsar neighborhood. So, we met um the city

presented with us. We're trying to get up um get some options for um funding um to to pay for seaw walls and part of it that is rightway because not only do private seaw wall owners own on those seaw walls, but so does the city out of the outfalls, uh the boat ramp, there's just a lot of city assets just on on this road. So what I am requesting is um from the commission some support to bring this to an action item um for um for our next meeting because it's it's not something that needs to be completely drawn out. I've had discussions uh with the city um our city manager, our our public service director have been involved in these resiliency groups that we've been having with uh the Donsesar subdivision. Um but what we were one of the things that we were thinking about is to evaluate the fiscal feasibility of waving or reducing permit fees. Um and just think about it was it's not that significant versus saying split 50/50 with the city. There is there is a great impact on seaw wall owners um in the Donsesar. So, we want to look at the feasibility, bring it back to the commission, have some discussion on it. Um, I'm going to reach out to other municipalities hopefully with the assistance of our city manager um that have similar situations. If you've driven through St. Petersburg by Snell Isle um over know there's over I think 8,000 miles of city owned St. Petersburg has city- owned seaw walls and a lot of them very similar to the Donsesar where there is private seaw wall owners with their docks across the street. street. I don't know if any of you ever walked through nor eastern, you know, in that neighborhood, same thing. The prop the property owners have their docks across the street and on the

street if you go up Indian towards Indian Shores after you pass North Readington Beach, same thing. Somehow DOT must have had some kind of private public partnership with those seaw wall owners because they also have their dock um on the inter coastal side, right? So there are other municipalities that are in the same situation because I'm sure it's a because of that shared rideway. It's a 50 foot rideaway by the way. I know we heard some people who live in the dumb just on the telecommunications, but it's 50 feet from one side of their property. There's two legal descriptions by the way in the Donses. So we own two legal descriptions. One's across the street and one is where our home sits. So it's a 50 foot rideaway. Um and some of it is questionable as to where that rightway lands, which could be in the water. So without the partnership with the city and having this discussion, this community keeps standing in a in a holding block um literally um because we can't move forward and it's and if we don't have this discussion, there's no way to protect um I think it was over 8,000 linear square foot of seaw wall in the Donsesar neighborhood. So your proposal is to wave permit fees for seaw walls in that neighborhood.

Correct. If we can get a commitment from the seaw wall owner and it's kind of like a time frame and we haven't got into the detail but kind of like a time frame kind of like what we did for the hurricane. If you do this within x amount of time you would be part of this group that can get this waiver. So this resiliency basically. So for the city attorney, does do we have the ability to say this neighborhood is exempt? I think probably now just by neighborhood by by the fact that the seaw wall is on joining the city right away. So as long as we wouldn't be for private purpose only that we're spending money. We're just waving the fees. Okay. As an option.

Again, I want to bring it for discussion like an action item. So there would be further discussion, but the city could then work on these issues and hopefully talk to other locations similar. I think giving the homeowners an incentive and then coupling that with a, let's say, call them by the end of this year or something like that. Um, and then as long as we can legally, you know, segregate those properties and say yes, we can do it. Yeah, I would be in favor for that. Thank you. Yeah, I agree. I like the bundling idea, too. If there's a way at all to bundle everything, whether that be with other, you know, a contractor to be able to do that. Yes.

Do with the city work as well as so they get a larger contracted um the larger contract in general

where they've actually had um so at that meeting two weeks ago um we were trying to do a bond is what what we were trying to do, but a bond is going to be very difficult for our whole community. you you basically 100% vote buy in in our city, you know, that's not going to happen. So, but the community, the owners were saying, "Let's go look for uh prior property." So, we already have one contractor. So, to um Commissioner Robinson's um point, yes, we do have one that's already going around trying to uh bid out the project. So, the more the bigger the project, the reduced cost. We also have an advantage that um it's on right away. Okay? you don't have to access the seaw wall through someone's backyard. So, yeah, there's there's a lot of opportunity for reduced cost and then again the opportunity to reduce it more if we could have maybe the the permit as a as a potential waiver.

I think talk to those folks saying, can you handle that? We can handle that. We'll we'll bring we already have an um item coming back on the seaw wall seaw wall ordinance. So, I will piggy back off that item and bring the data back for you. One comment. I don't think you want to bundle with the city's contractor because they're usually overpriced. It was almost four times the price. So, you know, yes, been there, done that. Yeah. Thank you. I I support that. Thank you. Sounds like we have consensus. Thank you,

Commissioner Robinson. I I I think I might have hit on this um during our talks on um I think you did permit process, which was the SOP for making a phone call before we go through denial. I mean, we've lost the art of a phone call.

Pick up the phone, make the call, find out, just make the call. And I would just like to see that being SOP for for the permit process. We we're we're losing touch that we're in a age where everybody just prefers to uh send an email and um not really be clear on their email whereas one phone call can answer about six questions that are going to come from this one email you just sent. So I I would like to to see that. To be clear, your proposal is that the building and permit department call somebody

before denial. Before not in every instance, just in the instances where there's going to be a denial, just give them a courtesy call, walk through the denial. Boom. And then is there an opportunity then before it gets denied for them to make adjustments to their permit? I kind of feel like that's Can we take that back and see how it's fitting into our mapping because we have two teams essentially working and I just want to make sure that they can efficiently move that information back and forth.

Okay. It just seems that there's not a lot of clarification on why items have been denied. Yep. I've I've seen it. Yes, I Yeah. And that's I'm hoping can solve that problem. Do we have agreement? All right. Excellent. Next, we have staff report. City clerk. As a reminder, the next commission meeting will be held on a Monday, Monday, March 9th, due to the municipal election being held on Tuesday, March 10th. City clerk, would you mind sharing with us the locations of those districts one and two will have their election held here in chambers. Uh, districts three and four will be held at Warren Webster.

Thank you. The time because people are confused. Polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. City manager, nothing to report. City attorney, nothing this evening. Thank you. You've already had enough. District 4. My next community me meeting will now be on the 16th due to a conflict with the um commission meeting and in preparation for the election. So 16 March. I'll send out some reminders. Thank you. District three. District two. Oh, I'm sorry. Nothing to report. District one. Nothing to report. Thank you everyone. We are adjourned. All right.