City Commission - Regular Meeting

Got my coconut here. Yeah, yes. They got this.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. How are you? Like to the next person who's going to speak. And then it's time to call in. But it's like this, you know, like a deep fight.

Thank you.

It's like a whole title.

It's only being drafted on the ground for a little while. I'll hear it around here.

I'll hear it around here.

I'll hear it around here.

I'll hear it around here. I'll hear it around here. I'll hear it around here. I'll hear it around here.

How's everybody doing this evening?

Very good.

Good. Getting that rain coming, I think. Yeah. Got that feel in the air.

I rode my bike over, so it's okay. I wore white shoes, so I don't have to do anything. That's so awesome. Oh, good.

When it gets dark.

Yeah, okay. So thank you, everybody, for not joining us this evening. This is an informal conversation. As you're aware, we had some emergency procedures put in about signs on the beach. I think Francis will lay down a little more guidelines than I will lay out right now. But I think we're trying to just limit ourselves to that conversation. You know, not let it expand into other things that may be equally important, but not germane to what we're trying to accomplish this evening. Ultimately, I would ask, you know, we're all neighbors. We all live in the same community. We all got to live with each other. So regardless, and I'll say this about any conversation we ever have, we got to get along. We should get along and we should be good neighborly folks. In general, as I try and think about how I'm solving things, I prefer not to go down some legal path. I'd rather just be good neighbor policy kind of thing. We all live in the same community. I personally intend to live here the rest of my life. So, you know, Let's just try and just be kind to each other. There is no set timeframe. There is no set, you know, you got to have a coconut speak as we were talking about here. We'll let everybody speak, but please be respectful of each other's time and their comments. And let's refrain from arguing, you know, any points back and forth. Ideally, this is just an exchange of ideas and thoughts and how we can find a solution that works for the entire community, hopefully, and lets us move forward. Again, no timeframes. And I would just ask that, again, we just be respectful of each other's times. It's a small enough group. I wonder if we don't go around and just introduce ourselves so that we all know, you know, who's kind of talking or not. Are you amenable to that? If not, please just maybe share your name out to the left here. You know, I'll tell you what. I think everybody knows Francis, right? Our city manager. But I'll let, why don't you start? If you don't mind, please.

Karen Marriott, District 1 Commissioner.

All right.

There's your cube. There's your cube. I would rather sit over here. I think the middle might be a little.

So I guess now I'm on this side. I'm Scott Tate, the mayor. I live in Belle Vista. I've been here five years and I've lived here the rest of my life.

I live in District 3 over on Puta Vista Drive, if you know where that is. And we moved here in 2017.

John Maldonado, District 4. I live on Vino Del Mar near Pasadena.

And I'm Ralph Brooks. I'm the city attorney and born and raised in Michigan. I came down for school, went to University of Miami undergrad, Marine Science, then went to University of Florida for law school. And I've been representing beach communities now for over 30 years, including Bradenton Beach, Monroe County, and the Florida Keys. This city, St. Pete Beach, Treasure Island, a little town called Yankee Town in Levy County. And the Captiva Erosion Prevention District. And I also represent other clients around the state. And I enjoy the beach and fishing and surfing. And I play a little tennis and pickleball. Very cool.

Wow.

Nice.

Lisa Kersman, wife of John Kersman. Fan of St. Pete Beach.

Well, I have to say the same thing. John Kurzman, husband of Lisa. And we've lived here eight years. I've been on the Beach Stewardship Committee for about six of them and been through multiple iterations, as other people in this room have been on previously, but on the Beach Stewardship. And I've been through multiple iterations of panels where the Beach Stewardship and the City Commission had rooms like this where we just talk through detail after detail and a lot of it very related to the topic of tonight.

Thank you.

I'm Cindy Perry. I have been coming to this beach since I was five years old. I remember the Aquaterium. I remember the Wax Museum. I remember the beach for years and years. My grandparents lived here. My parents lived here. I bought my first property here, I think, in 1994. And I've been living here permanently since 2010. and very much appreciate the beach. And I'm also, I belong to St. Petersburg Audubon, and I volunteered steward for the Black Skimmers. So if you want to know anything about birds, I'm the lady.

Any relationship to Trudy?

My name is Laura Canary, and I'm the community development director at the city.

And Sarah, please.

Yeah, my name is Mary Marino, and my husband and I have been owners of the Palm Crest Motel and residents of Bellevue. We've been here, I think we moved here in 1998 and have owned almost the Palm Crest for about three decades. So we've been here for a while. So we raised three kids, got two in college still.

So you know everything about me already. Yeah. Jack Marino. Congress Motel, and Bill is the president.

Yeah, and we love living here, so.

Thank you, sir. Hi, I'm Randy Brown. I've been coming here since the early 1960s. My grandfather was a doctor in the VA and had his office in the Don Cesar. Lived down at 3600 Gulf Boulevard. I currently live at 3820 Gulf Boulevard, San Sierra Condos. I'm vice president on the board, so I'm representing the 102 unit owners of San Sierra. And I love safety beach, been here 10 years. Perfect, thank you. Yes, sir.

Don Stevens, I am also on the Beach Stewardship Committee, husband of Nancy Stevens, dune saver. I am also involved with dune saving. And I'm here just to continue to be involved with one of the number one assets the city has, and it's the beach. How do we protect it and make it even better?

Nancy Stevens. wife to John Stevens. I know. And I, I've only been here for six years, but as soon as I got here and I loved it and I loved it so much, I was like, I wanted to do whatever I could to protect our beaches, which goes to do. So I eat dune savers started in 2024. And so that, you know, All about those native plants. All throughout the whole island. Okay, I'm Dana Richardson. My husband, who's not here, he's a native Floridian born and raised Clearwater. And we did not care for Clearwater Beach. So we moved down here in 2020. I'm one of those damn Yankees transplant from Northern Indiana, enjoying the beaches down here, living here for 40, Gosh, six years. And anyway, so we are an ex lover of trade winds. We wanted to be in the area where all the actions is happening, the bars, the music, and we love trade winds until we moved there. Our access got taken away. Fences were put up. People started getting kicked off the beach. I'd like to see this, whatever you want to call this, stop. Let's get along. Let's come up with a win-win between businesses or hotels on the beach and the residents because we both care, but something's got to change. And that's where I'm at. And thank you very much for this opportunity.

Thank you. Thank you for saying that. My name is Marstan, and we live on the beach. We represent the Votel Arms, so we have about 100 units in there. And ditto on this. We want to preserve this because we should all be. Thank you, Mr. Tate, because we should all be getting along. And it just seems like, you know, if we have these developers and hotels and residents, if we all put signs on our beach, imagine how that would look. We're jogging into them at night. So we're here to preserve and protect. And it's awesome that everyone loves on their property. They kind of need to stay in their own.

That's why we're here. Hi, I'm Vince Sullivan. I live in St. Pete Beach. I literally walk the beach every single morning of my life. Before I moved here, I lived in the Bahamas for 30 years. Grandpa moved here in 62. So you kind of said my feelings, which is you know, when I walk in the morning, sometimes in dark, especially in the winter, you know, I'm not against, if you own the property, you own the property, but putting metal signs out in the middle of where we're walking on the wet sand and sort of same thing. So if we do it every 90 feet or a hundred feet, we have these metal, no parking type signs. It's ugly, but it's also dangerous. And I think, and maybe, We're conflating safety and beauty with land ownership. One's not one or the other. So that's just sort of my concern and thoughts.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it. Good evening. I'm Dominic Isgro, former Army infantry officer and attorney in private practice for the past 10 years. My wife, Amanda, and I have lived on 46th Avenue in St. Pete Beach for the last decade and in Florida for the past three. I'm here to advocate for customary use. I think the city needs to enact an ordinance. This is not a new issue in Florida or in our community. Private beachfront property owners routinely press these boundaries. They have been doing since the mid-70s when the famous Florida Supreme Court case came out about this issue, and it's never going to end. So there's a existing legal right that we as residents and members of the public have to use these public beaches, sovereign lands of the state of Florida, regardless of claims of private property ownership, which pop up perennially from any number of private actors. And it is flat out wrong to impinge upon the public's rights to access to these beaches that we all share and enjoy. It's not just their backyard, it's ours.

Understood. So first and foremost, thank you for your services. and then thank you for your feedback. I will say this to the group, I noticed I've heard Francis writing. So just to be clear with everybody tonight, we're trying to just focus on the sign ordinance and how we make something that is hopefully amenable to the community and ultimately enforceable if we have to. So customer use, I think we're just setting it aside because we think it's a broader, bigger topic. We're just trying to focus on the sign ordinance which we emergency enacted a few weeks back and acknowledged that it would be hard to enforce this. And so we're trying to find, again, some solutions. Again, I would rather not be worrying about enforcement. I'd rather be worried about how do we find something we can all get along with. I just want you to be aware that I don't think this is customer use as much as science. So I just want to kind of be very vocal with you. But thank you for your service.

And there will be a customer use seminar on the 23rd of July.

Sorry, we were just doing introductions, but yes, we will have that coming up.

And so it's not off of our schedule. We're just saying tonight's not me a cold pot. Yeah, thank you, Beth.

Sure. Ellie Keller, District 4. I've been coming here for 40 years. I've lived here now permanently since 2019. I hope to continue to enjoy the beaches. I'll look forward to Arkansas and some of the other beaches.

Thanks, Jeremy.

I'm here representing Island Inn Resort down at One Passagrill Way. I've worked there for 14 years now. I'm representing the owner who's owned it for 40 years. And unfortunately, the sign ordinance comes down to enforceability. You can't enforce liability issues without signs. And that's direct from the sheriff. So that's where we stand on this.

You say that one more time for me.

You can't enforce it. It's private property. The sheriff will not enforce it.

Okay, good.

That is our issue with it. And we are at no man's land because the dog beach is no longer a dog beach and it's chaos. It's anarchy down there.

Robert Sasson, a dog owner at Long Beach Motel, Bayview and Bay Palms. I've been coming to this island for 47 years. I'm actually 47 years old. My grandparents first took me here when I was 10 months old. And then my parents moved down here when I was 10 years old. So I've been here my entire life. Love St. Pete Beach, live it. It is my city. The beaches, I unfortunately don't want to disappoint some people, but it is private. They always have been private. They've been private since I've been growing up. I've been kicked off the trade winds beaches. I've been kicked off the downstairs beaches as a kid. People that are older here that grew up here know that they've always been private. And just we're forcing them now more than we have. We've always enforced them, but people have changed now. So we're forcing them more. I've sat on the comp plan in 2000 to 2015. I've sat on the master plan from 2000 to 2015. Been a liaison and ambassador to the Chamber of Commerce. Helped bring the Sheriff's Department here in 2012. I brought Krispy Kreme here. I brought Dunkin' Donuts here. I brought Starbucks here. I had bent over backwards to this beach and I continued to work for the beach and help his residents and help everybody get along. And that's all we want is trying to get everyone, but everybody needs to understand what the law is and what the borders are. And that's all we're asking for. So hotels are not bad. Hotels are here to help everyone. We do a lot for the community. We donate a lot. We give back to the community. So the hotels aren't bad. We just have to respect everyone's boundaries and everyone's private property. I mean, that's what it comes down to. So we're here to try to find a resolution and try to make that happen.

Thank you, sir. I will acknowledge that I know Francis is going to walk us through some of the details of it. And we've got our city attorney with us as well. So It's not a debate right now, but we will get into a lot of these topics. So thanks, sir. Appreciate it. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Lance Bramming. I've lived here since 1987. I've been in Del Mar. Our family lives here in the Toad Beach Bar. I'm just here to see what's going on. Thanks, sir.

Yes, ma'am. Julie Codicey. I'm wife to Alan Monti. I love you.

Leslie Price. I've lived here since about 2010. My husband is retired military, military brat from MacDill. So once he retired from the military, we came back to where we began in the Tampa area, and of course the beaches. He grew up trying to imagine that he could ever live out here this close to the beach, and he's a bit ecstatic that he's in Tampa. I am active with Sea Turtle Trappers and the Beach Ambassador Program, and Doomsavers. Yeah. and I'm trying to come to all the beach stewardship meetings that I can. We care about the beach, and I understand there are so many conflicting uses and priorities that this is a whole heck of a topic to always try and conquer, and it probably never will be conquered, but hopefully we can get a little bit more peaceful about it.

Yeah, thank you so much, and I'm glad you and your husband found a dream country, so congratulations. Yes, sir.

My name is Christopher Hollins. Uh, boy, 40 years ago, I came down here and went out to the beach and that's it. I've been on the beach, uh, every morning, virtually, uh, doing yoga, uh, meditative arts. And, uh, I'm a civil engineer. I'm a professional engineer for the state of Florida and retired. but I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the lines on a set of plans and a lot of signs and anything that was kind of in the right of way with my prevail for a lot of years. So it'd be interesting to hear.

Thanks, sir. Yes, sir. I've shot and worked on the beaches. Use the beaches, have properties here. I'm a fan of signs. There's signs everywhere. There's so many in this room. When you travel abroad and you go on cruises and you go to the Bahamas or something, hundreds of signs for air braiding and letting you know where you can and can't be. I think there's a huge value in knowing that. And like she said, piggybacking with her about enforcing it. Having businesses, you can't even tow a car unless there's a tow sign there to let people know. So as to what that entails and with these teen takeovers that are happening all over the county now with private property and knowing where it is, it's kind of like letting signs, I think signs are needed. And there's a huge value to enforcing that Rob Cameron, People staying in your lines and as a consumer as well, going to a property just feel a little safer and knowing you're kind of protected by a quote, quote, sign the science more than just assignments. It's kind of educating people what's behind the sign.

Just, yeah. Thank you. Almost have to try to miss anybody, but I think I got it right. And Rob Cameron, This from special Rob's and are you doing a bit late. Just introduce yourself, please.

Oh. Lisa Robinson, Commissioner of District 2. I've worked on this beach for well over 35 years. I grew up on Tribal Island prior to that, so the beach is where my playground and still are. So I've seen as well a lot go on on the beach.

Thank you. All right, so I think Frances, who's going to guide us through, you know, kind of her process, if you will. And then I'll turn it over to you, Frances. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

So first of all, welcome and thank you. It's exciting to see actually some new faces. I haven't been able to interact with some of you in this room, in this forum before. So appreciate you coming out and spending your precious time with us tonight. The goal tonight is for us to walk away with feedback from you all so that we can take that to the city attorney's office and then he will attempt to craft some language for consideration for the commission on a second reading of the sign ordinance. The first reading of that sign ordinance happened the same evening as the emergency sign ordinance. So we have 60 days to take action on a second reading or the emergency ordinance goes away and we start over with any sort of type of process, the legislative process we would want to go through. So like the mayor stated tonight, and this is a little more definition-wise, the purpose is to discuss solutions for safely delineating the boundary between public beach areas and private beachfront property. And if you ask why are we here tonight, we've been having conflicts on the beach between private property owners and public residents, public tourists. And so we began to get complaints from both sides. And so this is what perpetuated us being here as well as signage being placed in and very near the waterline, which the city considered to be a safety concern. And we want to focus tonight on what are some practical and effective ways to mark and communicate private property boundaries while promoting public safety and awareness. So as the mayor stated tonight, if there's some topic comes up, I'm going to put it up here so that you know I heard you. And we'll continue those discussions with the commission and get direction from them on where they would like us to spend our time and energy. But we're not talking about property lines, whether a certain parcel is private, what the lines are, where the construction coastal water line is, where the mean high water line is. None of that kind of technical details. And here you can see we have the updated beach ordinances are going to the city commission on the first reading is going to be June 9th. So that meeting is going to have two different beach ordinances. One is related to behaviors. So when you think behaviors, think alcohol on the public and private beaches, bikes, dogs, all those things. So if you're interested in those topics, I encourage you to come on the 9th.

Yes, sir.

I believe that there's like, it's like how do you, littering, yes, all that type of stuff, glass on the beach, those sort of fires. It's a very, very long ordinance. And then the second piece of that is the wildlife protections. So that's turtle lighting, that's skimmer protections. fireworks is a hot topic so if you're interested in those you're going to have a platform to discuss that and if you're not really familiar with local legislative process the first reading it's the commission's chance to hear the public's reaction to the first draft and then they provide guidance to staff to make any changes based on public feedback and their final decision. And then that's when the second ordinance comes back for a final reading and all the publications and notices go out to the public. All right. So just a little background. The emergency ordinance was passed and it basically modified the city's land development code by adding sections that prohibited all non-governmental signs, posts, poles within 50 feet landward of the mean high water line along the gulf it applied broadly to all sign types regardless of size permanence or construction and there was um allowable exceptions for only um official government signage necessary for the public purpose and we have heard from many residents about some issues concerns and so i'll talk you through some of the ideas staff has already come up with um that we want to talk to you about and hear from you. What's not changing, and I'm trying to control the rumor mill, is you, in areas below the mean high waterline, so generally the wet sands, and customary used dry sand areas that have always been used by the public, and for St. Pete Beach, you can traverse the beach. No one can tell you you can't walk through their beach. You can swim. The water is a constitutional right for you to be bathing, swimming. You can be on your raft, no matter who is behind that water.

Please don't formally bathe.

You can stand, walk and watch the sunset. And you can fish where you're not endangering swimmers. What I think where our conflict is coming is landward on the private beaches, you cannot set up tents, chairs, coolers, or picnic unless you have permission on the property. And so I just don't want you all to leave here and be like, we can't walk the beach anymore because that's not true. So this is...

The weirdest sitting down on the towel can go on this.

Up in that right-hand corner, the public can access the water for swimming, bathing, and rafting if you're in the wet sand area or if you're in the area that's dry sand that's adjacent to that wet sand area that's customary use where it's been always ancient and customary and been used in time and memorial for setting up a towel while you're laying down a towel while you go swimming, you can do that. So that should be on the right-hand corner if we were modifying this.

But the signs are actually in the wet sand.

So we're going to get to that. So we're going to try to fix that. Okay. All right. So just wanted to kind of give you the norm lay of the land. So based on some of the feedback we've received of the problems we're having with the poles that have been installed is some ideas for the second reading of the beach ordinance so far are to amend 50 feet from the mean high water line to from the mean high water line or visible water line, whichever is more landward.

The rationale as to why that new thought has come up?

Yes. So essentially, for enforcement purposes, anyone can see where the water is, and they can have a measuring tape, and they could go measure and see where that sign is. And so that would be easily enforceable if we saw that that was not occurring. The reason it's mean high water line or is because if you have a very, very, very low tide, hypothetically, someone could put the sign 50 feet from the mean high water line and it would technically still be in public property. So that was the reason for that. we're proposing that it's a permit process. So you have to get a sign permit. So you can't just go out and install signs. You would need to come to the city, give your proposal. A survey would be required. So now we are actually, the property owner is giving us the information we need and they would go through the same sign permitting process that happens anywhere else in the city when you want to put a sign out or up. And then the allowable sign type must be removed daily. So this would remove the permanency of the sign. And so those who are walking in the middle of the night, maybe you're less likely to be tripping over objects.

There's some very good concepts here. But one thing that makes me a little nervous, just in terms of intent, is what it sounds like you're intending to do, I'm not sure would be accomplished with a survey. You know, I've spent time in search of vaults. And they don't even keep the surveys. They keep the deeds. because deeds are the actual document that describes. Now, many of us have bought homes. If you had a mortgage, you most likely had to get title insurance. And as part of that, there's also a title search, because even the deed does not describe the easements, such as the deeds that I've seen for some of the hotels that explicitly say there's an exception because the public uses the beach. So that would not be seen in a survey. And it would not necessarily, many easements wouldn't be seen in a deed. So what really should be provided is a title search.

So I can tell you that the survey does show the line and the points exactly. So it's actually done with Florida DEP. And Florida DEP gives you the land coordinates of the markers. So having property on the beach that we're discussing right now. You know, I've seen my survey and I can tell you the survey is pinpoints will tell you exactly where the markers are. So the survey is without a doubt the best.

That is showing you property boundaries. And what we're talking about is use rights. So a property boundary, it's sort of like a red herring to say, well, I've got great certification of my corner marker. If your corner marker is not meaningful due to easements that allow the public to use that area. So that's where a deed or a title search is very important. And in fact, I've seen deeds where when the sale happened to someone's, to a grandfather, we don't want to go, well, when sales have happened, they didn't necessarily mention the riparian rights. It only got put back in 20 years later as a corrective deed. That doesn't make it that they really bought those riparian rights. It could have been split off. So that's why title search is very important.

Yes, ma'am. If you require us to remove a sign daily, that obviously you're leaning towards like an A-frame sign. I'm in a district where A-frames are illegal. Why do that? Because I had an A-frame sign on the beach and code enforcement gave me a lovely phone call.

Right? This is why we're here. Exactly why we're here, right? So we can bend just like everybody else should hopefully be able to bend.

It's a tough district. Yeah.

Talk to your commissioner. Okay.

Yes, my own number is definitely posted.

Yes, ma'am.

You say you have the sign removed daily. Much of the problem occurs for the users. That really is not helping half of the time being used so much in many areas. It's more heavily used at night even than at the end of the day.

Are we suggesting, I'm asking city manager, not telling. We're just listening from a commissioner right now. But I'm asking, are you alluding to sunset instead of daily? Would that help clarify?

I'm going to open the idea. These were just some, so the idea is sunset versus basement.

So maybe to help with that, I did have a conversation with Bruno Falkenstein earlier today, and he was saying that there's folks going out to observe turtles, like at the early hours of 2 or 3 a.m., kind of thing. So maybe what the sheriff's contacts with people would help in determining what hours we're having people.

So talk to the sheriff about.

Get some input. Okay.

Analysis. Sheriff on it.

I'm back. Yeah, this process.

So when you're talking about these signs, we're particularly talking about down in the wet sand by the water line or because to me, there's a big difference. And I think what you're talking about with like 2am issue, I don't think you're talking about the water. There's signs that are clearly on the dry sand where the chairs are. And I don't think that's what we're addressing here at all. And that will be the same regardless, right? Throw you two in the morning, you can throw people off your private property. I think we're, I think right now, we're really talking about this down by the wet sand. It's a completely different issue. And that's where we're talking about the remote signs, et cetera.

I think there's an important delineation to be made though, because over the years, and this is prior to any of these, any of, people here, being on the commission anyway, if anyone, any hotel went out and started putting even orange cones on the beach, and I'm talking orange cones in the dry sand, way up in the dry area, code enforcement would go over them. They'd have a discussion. And ultimately, those cones were removed. You weren't allowed to have signs anywhere on the beach. You especially were not allowed to start marking lines. We didn't want it to look like some other city where every lot had another fence or string or even little cones. And it would be a major change to, you know, I don't know what's happened. You know, first off, there's no response to this A-frame issue. Our ordinances actually talk about signs in different districts, you know, but not the P-Zone. The entire beach is in the P-Zone, the preservation zone. So that's something that we really have to clean up as part of this. Because an A-frame isn't in the boutique district or the large resort district. It's on the sand. It's actually on the preservation zone.

I also like the enforcement that because A-frames are not allowed in my zone, specifically in the ordinance, then they are not allowed in my zone.

But the preservation zone is the sand, which is a separate zone. So we just need to get that covered too. But you're agreeing. that they have told you to stop signs.

We thought it was a great compromise that we would put it out during the day. And then when our office closed at 5 o'clock, which is before sunset, we would move it in as our last duty before we left. We thought this was a compromise. And code enforcement said, take it away or you're going to the magistrate. But you can put in a poll. So we put in a poll.

They told you that? Yes.

How long ago? This was, we've had the pole for like five years now, and we've had to put it back after the hurricane because it went away.

To address the cones, John, the reason the cones are there is for the sheriff to be able to delineate where the private and public beaches are. So that's why the sheriff needs to be able to enforce it, but they can't enforce it if there's no cones or no fence. The other option is to build a fence. That is not the plan. It is an option, but we don't want to go there. So we definitely don't want to go there. But the fence is an option to be able to fence it out, but we don't want to go there. So we're trying to come up with a reasonable idea of what we can do to make it work out there.

I know you mentioned films like Kentucky Road and they're all over the place down the line. I'm pretty sure a sheriff can look at a corner point to a straight line down where your fence is and figure out where a line is.

Well, the property's not straight. They actually don't want to hang there. So the beach is all on an angle a little bit. So that's why they don't want angles coming.

Well, again, there's a corner sign and there's a fence, existing fence on the north side of the property. Pretty easy to stand by and sign and look at the fence.

But you don't know how far it will go out because if you look at the changes that Pinellas made due to the fact that three properties have already submitted where they think their property is, it now looks like a jigsaw puzzle already. Because, for instance, the plaza beach goes all the way out to the beach. But the condos right next to it between it and the county park only goes about halfway out. And then if you look at the undertow, which has also done it, they're at a different depth. So you don't know. So it's not just a matter of following the lines out. It's how far do those lines go out. So we need to make sure we have a blanket footage of some sort.

That is true that there are different lots on this beach have different depths of. Right.

And so it's also important because in the past, I've heard that no one has gotten trespassed from properties. And there's been attempts to trespass people where the sheriff's office even apologized. I didn't hear that it was due to lack of a mark because actually they were told, hey, this is it. But there were many more aspects of this. So to focus on the sign, when I was at the library yesterday, there was a sign that said, you know, parking only for the library use. Now, if I felt that maybe people should park for other reasons, the issue isn't just the fact of how often they have signs. The issue is, why do you think people can only park at the library when they're using the library? As an example, and there is a reason, but in the same way, the question isn't just where the sign goes, but why do you think you can start trespassing people if we have a customer used that didn't allow trespassing. But you can, of course, get rid of them for disorderly persons. Are they drunk? Are they doing something bad behavior-wise? So that's a fundamental question that I think has to be answered as part of a sign, because it's not where you put the sign. It's what you think that sign is intended to accomplish. And I think we really have to, that's the elephant in the room, is whether they're allowed to start trespassing people even if they have that fence or border or deed they've uploaded. I mean, I think it's fundamental to the issue.

Just circling back to where we are and what we're trying to deal with because, I mean, I know for me, I don't question your property. It's all about the wet sand and You know, you said the signs. I mean, it reminds me of that. Five-man electrical band signs. People may not apply. Like, I've never seen signs like parking signs on the beach. I've been to all of your beaches.

I've been to 67 countries around the world.

Right. And they have parking signs on the beach?

They actually run ropes all the way down there with two security guards on each side to stop people from going.

Right. So glad we're not that. But, I'm specifically talking about the sort of parking sign signs. And I think, I don't know if it was you guys, did you guys have like a big bear out thing over the weekend last week? Because that was cool. Okay. They established a property line and I'm looking at it going, that's perfect. But the metal posts, the metal signs and addressing where and like, instead of saying this isn't your property or it is because it gets so difficult with the high water line, The wet sand is sort of the way you're speaking. It's just to make it visible and make that where we're able to walk and the signs can't go below that.

So I think you're just reading that. So it says visible water line. So visible water line. So where we actually have our signs, I'm sure everyone saw our signs. We actually have a sign there. We even have a 50-foot measuring tape on those signs. So if you've actually gone to a sign in the last two days, you'll see the new sign and the 50-foot measuring tape there because we actually own the sand 50 feet. The city told us we can't put a sign in the water, so we moved those. The rebar, first off, just everybody else will know here, was not put in by us. The rebar was put in by the property surveyor. So a surveyor uses rebar. If you ever had a surveyor house, you'll notice there's stakes and rebar in the corners of your property. Those that don't, now you know. So the actual surveyor put the rebar in. We were asked by the city to remove the rebar and put a 4x4 in. And that's what we did. So we put a 4x4. It's fluorescent. It was easy to recognize. Then the emergency meeting happened. So we removed the 4x4. Actually, the 4x4 were stolen. The 4x4 were stolen. We actually were able to move 50 feet back. But they said they didn't want anything within 50 feet. So now we have a sign that is 50 feet from the mean high water line with a tape measure that goes 50 feet. The wet sand is still our sand. unless it's past the 50 feet. So on a low tide, like we've got a couple of low tides for this past week, we're like super low. You actually can go past the 50 feet and you can actually be in that wet sand over there. But just because it's wet sand doesn't mean it's private or public property. It is 50 feet from the mean high water line where you can measure out to where you can see the property.

So I actually learned to attorney about chapter one, seven, seven Florida statutes and what that actually is. Cause that's not true.

But what you're saying versus misreading, I was listening to you. We were talking about the wet sand. We were talking about the visible high tide line, correct? Well, I mean, I'm just, by common sense, hearing what you're saying, which is where the high tide goes, the swash line, and the signs are below that. I'm not disputing what the actual physical ownership might be. We're talking about where these signs should go, talking about safety. Even those poles went right in the way. I'm not sure of this. I walk every morning with my eight-year-old son. I think those poles, the tide took them away. We saw one floating in like five in the morning.

One of them, not both of them. People don't like the poles that'll go down. They start shaking.

I saw one floating. But anyway, so I think kind of back to this is mine for sure, according to my survey, versus, okay, we're talking about where everyone's walking, safety, where the signs and what type of signs can go where, and not necessarily disputing your actual ownership according to a survey, right? And so I took what you said to actually meet the visible water line, the swash line, the wet sand. In relation to where we were. That's what I'm talking about, not in relation to what you're, private property ownership is, but just in relation to the sign.

And the sign can communicate.

Right. And then the other thing is those signs, like, I thought you guys did put that there because I thought that accomplished the same thing a little high up, but like, why? I've never seen metal parking signs and, you know, on beautiful beach. I mean, it's ugly, right?

I think the key question is how can we help the people that have private rights to to protect and do the business that they expect to do. And in the past meetings that we've had in beach stewardship with the city commissions and with past attorneys, we were actually changing the rule that it used to be that the only posts that really got put out there were the posts around the alcohol cabana zone. And in fact, it was decided during the joint meetings that we weren't even going to have a sign on the outside facing out. It wasn't permitted to say, hey, don't enter. That wasn't what it was for. The only signs that were being considered were something on the inside facing in saying, hey, don't leave with your alcohol. And I was actually recommending that we rethink that. So the point was that there wasn't everybody putting signs out and marking properties, and that was not the customary use of this beach. Different beaches may be different. Or Walton Beach had a different history. And even Reddington and other beaches might have different histories. But for the history of this beach, there were no fences, there were no property posts, there were no property lines. Anywhere on the beach, it was one of the beautiful things that attracted us to this beach and many other people.

I just googled private beach signs because you just keep saying things. And there's hundreds of places around the world to say, end of public beach, private property, no trespassing, private boundaries, entering private cabana area, and just simple Google search. So I'm not- Google search, sir.

I'm just saying- Please, monitor time, please.

Thank you. Like a stop sign. But I think the real thing is where it is.

And as opposed to establishing your proper line, which is just to say, put the signs up above the wet sand and the swash line.

That's one of our big problems about that. As a personal injury attorney, he went to Gulf Beaches Elementary, so I've been here my whole life. It's all fun and games, so the Clearwater Beach thing obviously happened this year. I'm supposed to come here this weekend and sing TV, John, if you guys are following me. But I mean, there's a liability thing that you have a way to say, hey, this is private. And I think beautiful signs are just educational. Disney World, private property, no trespassing, right to refuse service. I mean, there's signs everywhere. I love that

I love that you brought that up because the thing that I was clamoring, you know, trying to understand on this beach was why weren't the businesses more concerned about what happens on the beach? Why don't they have lifeguards at every beach to make sure nobody drowns off their beach? Well, the answer is because they don't claim that it's theirs. They actually let it just be. And as long as they still have had this ability to just let it be, but the moment you start putting up a sign, and you put a fence, and you claim territory, you better have that liability insurance, too, that covers the beach. And that's just ugly. Why do we want to move to that? Why don't we just stay the way we have been, where you just sort of, you're on the beach, it's a public thing, I own it, but I'm not controlling it, and leave it alone. Can I ask, if you don't mind, please, if you don't mind, I'd like to understand what's

Maybe the root cause of precipitating the need for the sign in the first place. Is it because I need to know where enforcement is because I'm making this up. I'm not telling you what your rationale is. Is it because we've got people that are being disruptive that are that are drunk in there and and we can't get them off the beach when they're when they're trouble that I'd really like to get them out. But we've got no way of saying, Sheriff, look, this is my beach. Get them off my beach. Right. My private property. Please get them off this private property. Right. If it's something of that effect about enforceability of getting somebody that's being disruptive off of your land, I'd like to understand the root cause, really. It's a root reason why we feel like we need to... I've been to this beach for 40 years. I've lived on it for 40 years, but I grew up in the area, so I've been coming to the beach a long time. And there's never been signs of it down the beach, historically. I'll acknowledge that. But I also understand, as I'll say, it's private property. You should be able to enforce it. You don't want You own a property line. You own down to something now, right? And you need to make sure that it's not a liability on you. You've got to make sure that you can enforce and get somebody off of your property as being disruptive. Again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but what is the rationale for needing to mark your zone so that we can then enforce your zone? Please.

I work down my dog beach. Most of my guests are older. Our business is a sole proprietorship. If one of my guests is on my beach and gets knocked over by a dog, just say hi. They can sue my owner personally because it's a sole proprietor and go after him. Because it was on my property because they are my guests. My insurance only covers registered guests. So if that dog is a guest of my property, I am covered by my insurance. If that is guest, if that dog belongs to Joe Schmoe off the beach. I have been bitten on the beach. I could have sued my boss. And that dog was gone. I couldn't go after the owners. So who do you ask? And my boss could lose everything because somebody tackled him on his, you know, a guest on his beach. And our insurance says, well, wasn't a guest. You know, wasn't a guest at your hotel. We're not covering that. The person's been knocked over.

Yeah. I have a question about where signs go. Is there not a way that you can put signs at the beginning of your property, at access points to your property, that say specifically all the information that if anybody were to go on your beach, that they would see that that's your property?

The problem we had was if it was the sheriff coming up, they'd say, where your property lights are so we can't force it and then walk away the problem is smirking down the problem is not okay on the property the problem is the hallway near the water but how are they getting water i think it would help a lot if the city actually posted something saying that saint pete beach has private and public areas but especially especially at the public but there's nothing said anything about saint pete down in uh on the southern part the

Well, she's referring to and talking to what used to be a former dog beach. Now, the sign that says no longer be at your own risk. So this may be something that I'm sitting after. That'd be my consider is to have very generic signs that talk about liability and users. Basically, coming in and using it at their own risk, whether it's public or private, I think this would help the hotel years. Some of their liability concerns. And then the other thing with drunken disorderly, that applies to public and private property. The sheriff's not going to differentiate whether you're, we have an attorney here, we've got one right next to us, whether you're being drunken disorderly on a private property or a public property. If you're disturbing the peace, you're disturbing the peace. So I think that those concerns can be addressed generically and they should be addressed. I mean, that's our jobs, right? Is to make sure that we provide a safe public and private environment. Yes, sir.

Other group calls that's probably not going to come out tonight, which is NIMBY. Okay. NIMBY, not in my backyard. I had a 45-minute conversation with Mr. Cezanne's brother a couple months back. I asked him, the same exact question we're discussing here, why is it that you guys all of a sudden started doing this? I've lived here for a decade. You've never done it. Want to know the real reason? Kids throwing footballs. People of a certain cultural background playing a certain type of music. People blocking the view. People using the beach.

Regular people using the beach. Our wife comes and sits right in front of our cabanas and blocks our view. We were 10 feet from the water. I have photos of it.

You're over there.

Okay. So you are second of all, we don't want to see, this is Coney Island out in front of our property either. We want to see the Gulf of America. We don't want to see. Yeah. You don't want to see anybody in front of you. Correct.

Yes, sir. My brother explained it all to me, but it isn't about liability. It hasn't been about liability since the 80s. We haven't done that since. We've been kicking people off all the time. Right. So it's really about keeping people from accessing what they consider to be their private property, not because of drunken disorderly, as Commissioner Maldonado correctly points out. That applies anywhere on the scene. This is about not in my backyard. You heard Mr. Zazan say at two commission meetings ago, this is my backyard. Well, it's ours too. No, no, it's not.

No, it is. I want to just answer your question as well. Why are those? We haven't changed. The beaches haven't changed. What happened is people have changed. You look at the older generation. The older generation looks at the younger generation. The younger generation is like, oh, they're so entitled. They want this. They want that. Guess what? The older generation is the exact same way. They feel entitled now as well. You know what screwed everybody up? COVID. Because everybody changed after COVID. We never had these issues prior to COVID. And now two, three years, four years after COVID, people are different. And that's the problem. People just feel entitled that they can just sit on your beach and do whatever they want. They can play their music. They can sit in front of the commandment. And that's a problem. So now we need to start taking action. We've always taken action. But now we're at the next level where we need to start enforcing it. And we can get away with signs. We don't need signs as long as the sheriff can find where our property markers are. So, for instance, if you were to put down buoys, buoys, if you would just put small crab trap buoys at the corners of our properties, the sheriff will know exactly where those buoys flow, and then we don't need signs anymore. We don't want signs. Put a couple of buoys in there so the sheriff can find exactly where the property markers are, and that solves the problem.

Without getting too contentious, I'm going to acknowledge what I'm hearing you say, Mr. Cezanne, is that you would like just the rationale for you is that it's enforceable because we know the mark that you become private property versus not, and you want to just be able to acknowledge For the sheriff to acknowledge, yes, I understand that this now is your private property, and therefore we can enforce. Because what I heard you say is, heretofore, they basically said, I don't know what your property line is, and I can't confirm that they are or are not. I think you're just – I'm trying to just make sure that I understand your rationale. We're trying to find that it's really clear to everybody what is enforceable and what is not, which is, in this case, junk distorted. It doesn't apply, but trespassing and such. would be on private property versus not, correct? And so now I'm trying to find, I know you can't, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to make sure that we don't keep, you know, assuming that we have to worry about a metal sign or something like that. I think we're just trying to, if I'm hearing you right, make sure that I got it with size. If I could magically just walk down the beach and go, that's the finest sign, the finest is... public, then you wouldn't have a concern, but here's the problem is we've got to delineate it, we've got to define it, and you've got to therefore be able to make it enforceable if needed.

Right. We used to have an idea of where the property markers are. We can figure out a way, and it's obviously not going to be post, it may not be a site, but we use water, whatever we have to figure out to make sure the sheriff understands, but then also the residents understand where it is as well, because everybody has to understand where the markers are.

And I think education does that. I kept interrupting you, and I apologize. And I see you back in the back as well. I'm sorry.

You were talking about the music and the footballs and stuff. If I'm charging somebody $350, $400 a night to enjoy my beach, and there's somebody blasting rap music, I'm going to hear them complain every day. I'm going to have them check out early, because they can't have a quiet enjoyment of the beach. And I know that there's going to be children playing. There's going to be things. But if they're erecting 10 by 10 tents on my property and blocking my guest, who's paying hundreds of dollars a night, supporting my business, supporting the county with the med sacks, I can't enforce it.

Well, that's why they have a public area. That's where they should go. Right. Listen, I know there's a hand that keeps popping up in the back.

Yeah.

And then I see you as well, sir. I don't want to see it. Kelly?

No, I'm sorry. Dana? Dana. Okay, hopefully I can remember. Let me just get it out. First of all, this question, has there even been a lawsuit ever that's happened on the beach where the hotel got sued? Second.

Multiple.

Okay, second. Back to this, who owns what? It's a city... That takes care of the beach. It rakes it. It takes care of the truck. The city doesn't rake it anymore?

Let's say not from a storm on our own stock.

So every hotel rakes their own beach? Yes. I contacted somebody like a year ago and they said that they raked it. Okay, that's okay. This is why I'm asking because I get a... Who's the guy that drives the tractor?

You've got to hire a person.

he goes to certain properties that doesn't work for the city yeah he's an independent contractor and then back to your thing on the 10 by 10 tents so even if i'm in a i have a lot of skin cancer but i would like to go to the beach and i will be doing the tent but if i'm in my space that's considered until we deal with the other thing the customer use bit which is not discussed today um Are you saying I should not be able to put up my 10 by 10 tent if I'm in my space because it's still going to block your people's being what I mean our space that's designated as of today. with the current is 50 yards or feet from the high mean water. That's just what a sign. Yeah, that's not a legal property. But we're able to be, we don't have to be just in wet sand.

You don't have to be in the water. You don't have to be in the water. Well, it's not making a double difference.

Like you were saying, we have the right to walk there. We can't walk there.

We cannot put shoes down.

Don't park there.

back to mr upham back in the 50s that screwed us over because he worked a deal with the city to say hey you give us all your streets and avenues that run into the gulf of mexico which was our accesses and we'll give you up on feet but now upland beach is really for day trippers and and so now residents you're telling me i have to go to the public beach or i have to go to up on as a secondary system.

I want everybody to recognize how absolutely absurd it would be to have the thousands of visitors to St. Pete Beach stuck at the public beach access area or enough of them, but nowhere else on the entirety of St. Pete Beach, unless of course you're willing to pay $20 for beach chair for his property and his property and the other 12 that want to do exactly the same thing.

This is absurd. Yes, sir. How do you generate a lot?

Well, everything has a VIP to pay for anything. You go to a hotel, you go to Disney, you pay for a banana. Okay, so two things real quick. So I just sign in because I'm just over here. Media, I know it's going to be sheriffs. There's signs on the ground. Keep access clear. Emergency escape window. Why have your sign on this? Because employee entrance is clearly a keypad. There's a sign right here, but because it's not a beach, it's not an issue. but the last part of it was we put rocks in front of our houses here to stop people from driving up on them and whatever rock color we want whatever decide we want to stop people to show that's our property don't drive your car and park there so if i would stand in front of his house right and she's mentioning the reasoning if i stood in front of his house for 10 minutes just suspicious standing out front of my house so it's it's we just have to remember like property's property whether it's business or it's personal we we he would protect it and lose his mind calling saying there's a guy standing in front of my house just standing here why is it any different because it's a beach so well it is it is it is my doctor father about the case in 1974 they came up with the customer use law right that's a legal thing that applies specifically to the beach not my residential property in your residence

I know you're right, Kendra. I'm going to give you the time.

Yes, ma'am. I would just like to share a little story. I totally appreciate. We've been business owners our whole life. I get what they're saying. I do. The signs, metal signs and walking area, that's a whole different animal. It's ridiculous. It's littering. It's ugly. We can designate, I'm sure, property lines in a way, but not where it affects everyday people of just, I mean, I live on beach, but I want to share a story real quick because I know that we have this issue with the undertow, but those big signs that were on the, on the beach. And so I'm jogging on the beach the other day and I noticed this guy and it was the undertow and there was an elderly couple sitting in the water with their chairs. And I jog up and the guy is telling them they got to move. And I said, Do it now. This is like, we got to play nice. We got to play nice. I live on the beach. It's okay. Like what, you know, we, we just can't be all uptight unless there's an issue. And I understand the liability attorneys, whatever, that's another. But this guy is literally making these people get up out of their chairs, sitting in the water, just enjoying their self. And I actually went to their aid and I pretty much told the guy to leave them alone. and go call the sheriff or two if he needed to. But they are under the understanding that they own clear into the water. And even if they do, something's got to be done to just protect the decency of our community and the beauty of what God has given us all. And it doesn't mean that we need to tolerate the crazy, the rappers, whatever you might not like. It's okay. I understand that. But we're talking decency. Metal signs in the water where everybody is, you know, they're jogging, they're walking and disrupting people that are not making any trouble at all because they have a thing about you sitting on their beach in the water. And by the way, nobody's ever on their beach.

Nobody. I'm also cognizant that we are here trying to give guidance to city staff on how we move forward with some kind of mortgage cycle. I think we've got a lot of opinions going back and forth. Listen, I appreciate it. I really do. I sincerely do. And I'm going to turn to city manager and ask, is there any questions you have of us that might help you? Please, please. I have a lot of trouble separating where the science can go from what was decided by the legislature of Florida regarding customary use.

because customer use very specifically is trying to protect the ability of all Floridians to use the beach so that no one owns straight into the water with buoys in the water. That's just totally against the whole customer use in my totally non-legal opinion, but I think that it's true. So I don't know how we separate that from the customer use. The sign issue should be way far away from interfering with the customer use. If you're going to make a signed ordinance, you have to make sure you steer clear of interfering with anything that is guaranteed by customer use, because that is codified 1987.

Again, I acknowledge, I think we all will acknowledge, at least I'll speak for myself, though, that there are other topics we still have to cover, as I say, and we do have them as customer use, and we've got future settlements on that. And so I think I think for us, again, we started by just saying, we're just trying to understand, because I'll be frank, what we discussed when we talked about this emergency sign ordinance is everything said 50 feet from the mean high water line. And what became clear to us right there in that discussion is that nobody can point to you where the mean high water line is for each property. And so it's not like I can look at it and go, this property's mean high water line is here and the next one is there. And so we just acknowledged that that was not something that was enforceable. And so we'd like to find something that is, that is, but I would, yeah, I said it during the emergency meeting. So I'm already on record, if you will. I don't want to see signs put down on our beach. I don't want to see those kinds of things, but I do acknowledge that, that, that there is private property in this area and people need to be able to protect the private property. Right. And so it's striking a balance that is not, doesn't change the character per se of St. Pete beach and doesn't change the experience of that I know 40 years of walking up and down this beach and not running into sonics per se. But I really do want to understand if city manager, if you need any other, if you want to guide the conversation, because I think we also have ideally a hard stop in 25 minutes.

I just have to add one thing, though, because you just said something that I don't think represents the current ordinances that we have. We currently have an ordinance that says no signs on the beach within 40 feet of the visible high water line. So we don't even have an emergency. We don't need to be doing this. The current ordinance is already say the only, the only signs you can have is an eighth sign for your certain water sports kind of use. It doesn't say you could have a property and that has to be 40 feet from the visible line. Doesn't even get mired in this mean high water line discussion. It already says visible water 40 feet is where you're allowed to put an eighth sign about your sports. So there's no emergency. They already can't do this. So city attorney, is that true? And I've sent a letter with the actual ordinance to the city commissioner.

Is that true? Is that true?

It's kind of like looking at a quarter from two different sides, the heads and the tails. And what the ordinance says is you can put an A-frame sign within 40 feet of the water for your water sports business. It doesn't say that everything else is prohibited. It doesn't say everything else is prohibited. All right, again, I'm sorry.

Madam City Manager, are there questions you have?

I do not have any more questions. This was the topic, so unless we've missed... some feedback on ideas.

Someone I'm hoping you can clarify or take this information that you've got and ultimately come back with a recommendation. Do you have what you need to do that?

Unless there are new ideas that have not been shared.

Then we can continue this. I just want to make sure that we give you the information we need.

I don't want people to leave here that you had your voice and then...

Is there anyone that has an idea about how to delineate a property line without a sign? Let's get those. I mean, this is crazy, but I have kids, right? And they have this thing. I think it's called Pokemon or something. They take their phone and they go like this and they can see creatures. And these creatures are there.

Geolocation. Okay. They're protected. Now, I understand that if one were to plant sea oats, say, on the corner of a property or along, I guarantee what will happen is what sea oats do is as they exist, they collect sand and they do will form.

And then we can't touch it.

jones between yeah so so you would have to do so i i i but it is it is it's a visual it's a natural they're protected um if you if you kept up on say your um fan cleaning like all right keep that little l in the corner keep that little l in the corner you know what i mean

If you kept up with that, then they will not be able to grow.

Well, you have to give permission to plants. You have to give permission to, you know, where and all of that. There's details to be worked out. But planting something, you know, you can plant. That is something that's visual. It's natural. It's soft. It goes from the aesthetic. But what about a forest? What's that? Well, a forest, we don't let that be there.

Well, they're not allowed to be in there. So then you feel like an ass because someone's set up and you're like, can you please move? Or if they see a sign that says, oh, are they going to set up in, in Seahawks? Yes. They will walk right over there. I mean, we also deal with that as well, but it, and again,

It's not 100% perfect, but for the most part, for the most part, we, of course, you get the, you're going to get the problem is we need, we need the dumbest bear to know.

There's also a prickly bear. You can find a prickly bear.

There's Spanish sword. I've gotten this. That's against county regulation. We can't.

So I like your idea, but I like your idea if I don't like the seals, because seals like they're protected, but a palm tree is not protected. I have no problem putting a palm tree, and a palm tree goes to the beach. So if we do a palm, I have no problem doing a line of palm trees all the way down. You've got a nice beautiful look, but a palm tree is all the way down, and that way you can put a line of palm trees all the way down. So yeah, I have no issue with that, so palm trees are great.

Well Jack and his wife have gone down to Siesta Key, and they've been doing this for 10 years. They have a really an obtrusive way, I guess, of displaying.

I'm going to put these on here. I mean, these are very pleasant pictures of how they deal with these kind of problems. I mean, these are all removable. By the way, they actually do this every day. They put them in.

Can you hold it up a little bit, sir?

Some of you guys might not like these, but, you know. They're basically flags. Flag. Flag. Flag. Flag. Flag. Flag. Flag. Very interesting concept.

Any other ideas we haven't heard? Yeah. Where you started, because I think there's still confusion. So what you were talking about was the wet sand in terms of the sign.

The sign would have to be 50 feet from the wet sand.

They can't be in that wet sand. You can't be in that dry sand.

No, you can to do the things I showed you on the prior slide.

Well, but it didn't even include sitting on a towel at that point. And now it will.

If you're in the water and you set your towel down?

No, not in the water.

Can you sit on your towel?

In those 50 feet. Can you have a low chair without an umbrella?

Maybe on some places on the beach, yes.

No, but it's a customary. You can do it anywhere. And that's been the law that's been enforced for time immemorial. So you can't change that now and then argue over the shape of the sign when the fundamentals haven't been addressed. They can sit there and pay in 20 months. That's all. No. I only go for half an hour. There's a resident. 500 of those flags. Maybe 1,000. That would be bad.

Italy does it all the time. I just came back from Italy. That's what they have on their beaches in Italy. I remember the Gulf of the Atlantic for this reason.

I think I could add something that might help. OK. Wait a minute.

So for customary use doctrine, I know we're not really talking about it today, but you're kind of getting bogged down in it a little bit. The owner of private property, even under customary use doctrine, can make any use of the property that is consistent with such public use that is not calculated to interfere with the exercise of the right of the public to enjoy the dry sandy area as a recreational adjunct to the wet sand or foreshore area. if they can show it's ancient, reasonable and peaceful, exercised without interruption, and within certain boundaries, it's obligatory or compulsory they look at, and whether it's not inconsistent with other customs or law, and it's been done by a multitude in this number of persons, historically, over time and memorial. So just because you put a flag up doesn't mean the public can't continue to walk across the area with custom air use. The question is, does that flag interfere with your custom air use? And if it's just a small flag, maybe not. But if it's a giant... Structure something maybe it is, but the two things are the two things are a little bit separate one is delineating. The property line and maybe there are ways to do it less obtrusively than with the metal parking signs that nobody wants to see everywhere, maybe it's just. A movable a frame sign that's moved or taken down at sunset, but keep keep this thing separate because if even if they have a private property. Sign comb post a frame and they call the sheriff and say they're on my private property. that doesn't mean that you are guilty of trespass. If this is an area that's always been used, even though it's privately owned, customary use says you can continue to use it for that customary use. That's why we need an affirmative defense and by removal of our pass ordinance that took that away because we were able to say customary use is a common law thing and does not need an ordinance to enforce. If a property owner is saying, I want you to be arrested for trespass and you the sheriff asks you to leave, and you don't leave, and you're actually trespassed, then in criminal court, your defense is customary use doctrine, and it's based on the case law of Tony Rama. It's not based on an ordinance. We're going to have to prove ourselves.

What is the point of the flag, though, if it's beyond where customary use is allowed, right?

I think what's happening is that, going back to the root cause, why, why, why, Ask it five times and you get to the root cause. I think it's not involving everybody that's going on the beach. I think what originated was calls for trespass for people who were drunk or disordered or violating the rule on no alcohol on the public beach and brought private coolers and tents. And that's what caused maybe the controversy to come up.

Ownership doesn't need to be determined.

Maybe it shouldn't be just sitting in customary use, but if it was drunken disorderly, then there's other laws, but that's also trespass.

It's not the drunken disorderly, the sign is not. The sign is that for the sheriff, and I'm not speaking for the sheriff. I'm going to recap what I think I heard. And I don't want to go on record to say the sheriff said. But what I understand is for the sheriff's department to enforce, they require that the person being told that they are trespassing had been noticed and understood that they were trespassing. And the only way to do that is they first have to have a sign. Somewhere on the property. There has to be somewhere. They're on the private property.

So the flag should only be up to where customer use ends or begins, whatever.

It's a lot of safety to say we don't want anything 50 feet from visible water so people can use, they can traverse, they can... No, now they're only allowed to sit in the water.

This is changing what customer use has been. So even putting a misleading flag out there and then telling people they can't do certain things, you know, the sheriff always has been able to enforce our alcohol laws and all these other laws without determining whose property it's on. They use an address, but it doesn't matter where you do it. You don't need to determine ownership. to do that. And if you're just there sitting on a towel, I mean, I was stopped just for sitting over at one of the hotels, sitting on the towel because it was the first dry sand after swimming. And they came over and started hassling us. That is not the customary use. And the city needs to protect our customary history. They can't do anything that changes it. And once the city allows changes like these flags, which is why they've never had them before, you're changing customary use. And it will make it that much harder to ever protect the public's right to use it. And as far as the team takeovers and things, I was concerned about that, too, because the hotels provide a good service to protect their area. If you have a business, protect your area. I'm with that. And you should always, and I've always told people, don't be an asshole. Don't put your chair next to the chair that's being rented. Don't bring your cooler next to the people that are selling stuff. Go somewhere else. But what's going to happen is that we're changing customer use and they look at what the city has allowed. And that's why we've been so careful to word the wording that we have in the ordinances too.

But it's also important for property owners too. If you have a beautiful piece of St. Pete beach and you want to see the Gulf, you don't want to see 15 tents in front of you that blocks your patrons. from seeing the Gulf on property that you won't.

And let's limit the height of the tents in that area.

Nobody wants to see that tent. Nobody wants to see that. I mean, it's the same as if somebody says, I'm going to come to your beautiful green front yard. I'm going to put up a tent and invite 20 of my friends out there. And we're going to go sit in your front yard.

Thank you. I appreciate the comments. It's actually a great reason to HAB-Jacques Juilland, The clarification that we really need to grab our heads around, which is that delineating where private property is is a completely different question. HAB-Jacques Juilland, From what uses are permitted on that property and by okay I own house on 46 Duke energy has the right to come on my property and service their poll. HAB-Jacques Juilland, My two neighbors next to me have a 10 foot driveway going behind their house on the side street that goes into my backyard I have an easement over there to. both of those in my neighbor's parcels, they can't fence that driveway off because it's my easement. I don't own their property. I have a right to use a specific part of their property for a specific use. That is what customary use is. Let's not get confused. And John is absolutely right to this point. We're conflating two different things. A property owner putting up, there's one issue is whether or not, A private property owner can delineate their private property on the beachfront using one or more signs of whatever type. That's issue number one. Issue number two is whether the public, resident, beachgoer, visitor, tourist, don't care, whoever, has a common law, as Ralph correctly states, right, that has existed since 1974, the Donorama case, the Florida Supreme Court said, if Those criteria are met, ancient, uninterrupted, continued, free from dispute, however they said it in the Supreme Court case, I don't remember verbatim. If those things are true, then the public has the right, it's self-executed. And to your point, Ralph, it's correct that you don't need an ordinance, but the Florida legislature did just last year repeal former Governor Scott's bill that imposed this crazy process to establish customary use And if you look at the Judicial Committee commentary to that repeal, it actually says cities can go back to doing this by ordinance now. If you want to say that this part of your beach is subject to customary use by the public, you can do that by ordinance now. You no longer have to go through that convoluted legal process. That's all that bill did. But be clear, there are two different issues here. One quick question, though, to build on where we were before that. How many signs are we talking here? Regardless of how far from the water they may be, can we put one every five inches? Because I know some people will probably do that.

That's a fair question.

I think going back to what you were saying, what is it that we're trying to prevent? If it's bad behavior, loud music, big tents. I mean, I think we're spending a lot of time on property and I think that we really should be looking at the behaviors because nobody wants to go to the beach and hear it's on boom box. That's so, I mean, I think it's the behavior that is really causing a lot of the problem. Focus on that.

That's kind of where I was heading with the why, right? So I, I agree. I don't think anybody here is trying to change anybody's property ownership or anything like that. It's about, uh, about how, again, I'll, I'll give my personal opinion. I don't speak for the commission, uh, know i just i i uh it's you said it very well i don't know publicly use your term don't be a don't be an ass but uh you know i let's respect each other's space rights right uh you're paying customers that that uh presumably pay a premium to not have somebody sit right in front of them with a 10 foot tent or with a boom box you're being an ass when you do that right and so If only everybody would not be an ass, we'd be fine. I think we wouldn't be having these conversations, right? But I would love to find, personally, I would love to find a solution that is hopefully enforceable, doesn't result in the necessity of changing the look and character of our beach up and down the line, but yet elicits the type of behaviors or enforces the type of behaviors that we are really probably all agreeing that none of us would want, whether it's on the public beach or the private beach, right? So how do we get to a place where we can make people who don't want to behave, behave without changing the character and style of the person? That's kind of in my head what I'm trying to solve. Too many hands went up. I apologize.

Isn't that what we're talking about? Maybe the next meeting you start out by saying to do it beach fires, alcohol, dogs, and decibel, back to that infamous lovely sound ordinance. Because I agree, those loud boom boxes and stuff, that's all can be regulated through sound, decibels, and all the things like we're going to be discussing at the next meeting. It's about behaviors, like Cindy says.

I'm sorry, I realized I saw a bunch of hands. It's been occurring to me that if I walked out with my phone, I'm sure, Mr. Cezanne, you could tell me the geocordinates of the corners of each of your lots, right? And so I could walk out with my phone, put the geocordinates in, and it could say, take two more steps forward, go three steps left. Oh, here it is. You're standing right over it, right? Presumably with a good enough phone or a good enough GPS device, I could find it, right? And that wouldn't necessitate a sign. It wouldn't necessitate anything. It would just say, this is where that property is now enforceable or not, right? And so I don't know that that's a viable technical approach, but all we're really trying to say is there is a point where it is private property versus Otherwise, and therefore enforceable on things. And the sheriff's, the problem that we have is I'm hearing it is the sheriff is saying, I don't know where this starts and ends. And so again, I'm telling you, if we've made the right GPS technology, I could walk out and I could go, look, this is it right here. And then you can clearly, you're in front of her and got it. And I'm looking for a solution that is more that than I need a sign. I need a protected COD, a lot of respect. I just, I just, I want something that's, that's not going to change the look and feel of our cage. And that allows. you know, our businesses to enforce what I don't, well, I would like to think that, I don't want to speak on behalf of businesses on either side, but I would like to think that we're worried about people being assets and not worried about people just enjoying their normal kind of historically 40, 50 years of enjoying the beach that I've known. Again, I'm kind of giving my opinion, but I would love to find a solution that isn't changing the look and character of our street. Again, I would love to see if there's some GPS technology or something like that.

Did you want to give your fellow commissioners any time? We'd love to give them.

I'm sorry that I've monopolized it, so I apologize. Please.

Well, I would say that for the purposes of tonight, what seems like to me the easiest solution to it all is just to say no signs within 50 feet of the wet sand, period. And we don't need to worry about where the mean high water line is. And we're talking about temporary signage, so it's easy enough to be back 50 feet from wherever the water happens to be, regardless of where the mean high water line is. So for purposes of just what we're supposed to be doing tonight, that would be my suggestion. Because the other part of it relative to sheriff enforcement I feel like we need to ask and expect the sheriff to enforce behavior regardless of whether it's private or public property. So I'm not sure we've got to that point yet. So I think that needs to be readdressed. And that still leaves questions like the liability with your boundaries and also protecting your customers if you have a business. their use, but we're not trying to solve that problem.

I'm not going to call on you. This is open forum, so I'm not going to.

Yeah, so, I mean, I think I've heard a couple of things clearly tonight that I think there's definite consensus on, which is that nobody wants signs close to the water. Whatever signage there is needs to be, you know, That back far enough from the water that it's not a certainly not a physical impediment to people moving across the beach. And it would be nice if it's far enough back from the water that it's not a real visual disturbance to people walking up and down the beach, although still delineates, you know, still can delineate the property lines and still can can notify people that the area is is private because I think that's part of the part of the enforcement piece is not just Where is the property line? But if I heard our city manager correctly, part of the enforcement thesis that the person who is quote-unquote trespassing at that point, and I'm not going to get into what part of the beach they're on and, you know, that, but that they need to have been, they need to be able, they need to know. A normal person needs to know that they were trespassing. And so I'm not sure we can get away with no signs at all. think they need to be away from the water i think it would be more palatable to people if the signs were a more aesthetic consistent look in some fashion uh you know i think that i think that would probably be helpful in general if up and down the beach the signs had some sort of aesthetics looks i i mean i i don't know how much money it would cost everybody but if everybody had three nice coconut palms on their property line and had a nice little wooden sign on the coconut palm, that would be amazing, but that's an expensive proposition. And so, and then I think one thing we need to address is how many seats there are for the parcel, right? We don't want a sign every three feet along everybody's property line because that starts to get back into that very non-aesthetic, unfriendly look. And so, and then... For future meetings, Ralph, or certainly for our next meeting, city attorney, I would like to hear your legal opinion on if there's anything we're doing in this ordinance that does affect any kind of customary use claims. And so I think we need to be clear on that, and I think we need the legal opinion of our city attorney for that.

Could I say one thing when you count? I i'm not a department, but if I wanted to go into my yard start putting 10 foot signs all over my yard, maybe i've got some mission that I want to break it wouldn't be it wouldn't be allowed to be so I I don't like it's not like it's just the beaches.

We don't want it right we don't want you know look and enter the mayor's point I think i'm. I'm an internal optimist, so I think that we can all get to a point where we can all get along. I always believe that. And I think that just counting on the sheriff to enforce behavior is tricky because what is appropriate behavior in general for people on the beach might be seen by some people, depending on the the clientele or the demographic of some private properties to be not acceptable. And I think that's putting a lot of pressure on the sheriffs who try really hard to be really good guys and only address things that are really big problems to, you know, send them out to the beach to enforce because, you know, like, well, you know, like don't enforce these guys. Cause I like their music, but these guys are playing shitty music. So kick them off, you know? So I don't think we want to start getting into those kinds of conversations with the sheriff. If I were the sheriff and people were having those kinds of conversations with me, I would say, you know, look, people, I got neighborhoods with real problems. Don't tell me your problems. So, so I think we need to come up with something that's a little bit more consistent than just trying to enforce on behaviors that can be very subjective. So, um, But I think what we've heard here tonight is incredibly helpful towards being able to get something that may be more workable. And I think this is going to be a process. This isn't something that we're going to get right immediately that's going to fix everybody's problem. I think we're looking at progress.

I think you're spot on about the process, but I think what's happening is we've got the process in the wrong order. We're doing signs, which should be last. Signs should be implementing what we're doing. And Reddington is a great example. Reddington has a customer use ordinance that they implemented in 2018. And in it, they expand. They say, but don't put a tent in front of private property. Don't do this. Don't do that. I actually think we shouldn't be doing our customer or our beach ordinance yet. We should start from really what are we trying to accomplish? And if we implement a customer use ordinance and then lay out the bad behaviors, no loud music near the business either. No tent in front of the business. You want to have a little canopy over your chair and a little one that folds up. Okay, but no walls, we have you know we've got to put so I I really think that the process needs to be start from what we're trying to accomplish. And then implement it with things like the ordinance and implement it with things like the signs, but first I think we have to fundamentally get this customer use thing across.

There is a fun. Okay.

Oh no, there's a, there's going to be a seminar, but we have not been directed to take up an ordinance. Yeah. Yeah.

No seminar. Yeah. That's, that's great. Okay. And then also city attorney, I think it would be helpful, um, probably for everybody. If we could get a legal opinion at some point, um, from our city attorney about if there is any effect on a future customary use ordinance based on the fact that the city repealed their previous customary use ordinance, um, when it was involved in settling the lawsuit with a private property owner.

I just wanted to point out while we're getting into that more detailed memo, customary use doctrine exists in Florida law and common law and you don't need an ordinance to use customary use lands or bring it as a defense to trespass. So it's out there and it's the law.

I've got a very important question. So while we're doing all this and thinking about all What happens to the signs that are out there now?

So if something passes on the 9th, on the 10th, it will be for law of the city. And we would have to be able to be enforcing.

Second reading is on June 23rd. 23rd.

Customer use is also another enforceability. The second reading started working there. There was no beach. So we have the customary use of our beach. So if we don't enforce the property lines now, then we are granting customary exit, you know, use. So we have to.

Okay. Thank you, McAuliffe. Yes, sir. To Commissioner Muriel's point, when it comes to working with the great men and women in the Kamala's County Sheriff's Office, I would really caution where we need to take a hard look at what customary use actually entails. I think we kind of miss sometimes the obvious and the word customary means I can't go out in front of Mr. Zahn's hotel and start selling firecrackers and operating a gun range, but I can sit in a chair and sunbathe. In fact, that's in the Florida Supreme Court opinion from 1974. So if a sheriff's deputy is being asked to trespass me because I'm sitting in a chair on private property, which is precisely one of the things that customary use allows me to then that's going to be problematic. And to the city attorney's point, yes, absolutely true. The customary use of self-executing doesn't need an ordinance. The concern on that for me is when people are getting trespassed, I actually would have to go get trespassed, go to court, a certain affirmative defense, and win a court case. And I have a sneaking suspicion that certain private property owners would be trespassing people in masks and making them go do that. That's part of the benefit of having an ordinance is to say they have the right to be here. You can't trespass them. It provides crystal clarity to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office who just knows that there's an ordinance and we're not going to trespass people for sitting in a chair 10 feet from the water.

I want to be clear as well that the sheriff will trespass you. It is private property. We want to inform you first that you aren't private property. I look forward to it. The sign that they're going to inform you, they will then inform you. And if you do not move, they will move you in a slow, original state.

And then we'll decide. I agree with the 50 feet of either the visible water line or the mean high water line, whichever we determine that to be. I like the idea of a movable sign that it needs to chase this. visible water line, then it needs to chase the visible water line. It's something like an A-frame, and we made an exception for that. Whatever, because most of those are plastic, and they float. You're not going to get hurt with metal on those. I like the idea of permanent being required. And a limit to the number, whether that be per feet, because some properties are smaller than others. Normally, I would say from a one corner to the other. But some properties are much larger than others, so that isn't realistic for people to notice where they're at necessarily. The other thing, if we're getting into, which I think this would potentially stop the whole title search deed issue potentially, or if we're going to go that route, I do like being able to determine if we're going to determine exactly where that is. We're not doing visible and we're doing something that's more set like a mean high water line. Somebody else had a resident had sent an email to all of us talking about measuring from the back corners of the building of the property to that mean high water line surveyed, which the property owners would be responsible for providing that. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And then being able to adjust according that way the sheriff's can do the measurement all the corners of the property of the building and not have as a way off the off the sand. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And let's hopefully we can come to terms on that I understand everybody needs to to notify or put notice out for their property, but again safety is number one factor out here and. I agree with the customer use doctrine as well.

So I would say that I prefer passive, not active measures, maybe beacons to just differentiate the property lines that do not use in other places. What's a beacon? A beacon, it's something where it's buried into the ground beneath the visibility. Somebody can walk up with a device and it literally says you're on the spot. And they're cheap. They're handheld devices. The technology is readily available.

So something like those little survey markers you see on the ground?

We call them personal safety PSPs. They're used in water rescue and grass, mountains, whatever. They're 50 bucks or waterproof. They'll last forever.

Like an airtight?

It's big in the back. Actually, that's what it is. It's kind of a VHF. And passive, not active. I'm not a science guy. The other thing to consider, and this is somebody wrote this in to me while we were sitting here. They couldn't make it. They apologized. But they said that at any point, if any public funds have been used during re-nourishment by ACE, there may be considerations for a guarantee for public access and for gratuity. So that's something to add more. It's not, you know, we're not going to dispute it now, but it is a good question to ask that if at any time you've ever had public funds used, then there should be an expectation that you should also have public access.

Finance, I've been in 47 years. I don't want anybody else. I can tell you that there hasn't been in 47 years. And from the Donaldson's art to PCI, there hasn't been.

The Army Corps of Engineers would know for sure. Yeah.

But evolve and also change it. That's why title search is important.

It was not known that the sand in front of you didn't come from Upham or... Upham's a straight line right now because it's all moved.

Not my idea. I'm just passing it on for somebody that can understand. We have never requested the sand or we've got it. Thank you. I will add one comment, though, just from a personal observation. So I did a staycation The weekend before Memorial Day at the beach suites rented a beautiful cabana to the gentleman that walked out his point. That's something that's really nice to do. It was in front of beach chairs, so I'm taking everyone else's view, which is kind of funny. But it wasn't only the signs. It was two physical security guys at the undertow. And that to me was disruptive. That was ruining my day, you know, so. Keep in mind, it's not just science. Having people chased off the beach after one another for putting a towel down. I have pictures and videos to just hear that. Yeah, it was disruptive. It was disruptive. And I'm talking as a customer and as a resident at that point. So that totally made people feel unwelcomed. And I didn't say anything to them, but it's just an observation. Yeah.

The work plays both ways because we actually had armed guards on Memorial Day weekend. The feedback we had was so positive. They said they never felt safer. We actually, yes, some other hotels that walked by saw that we had armed guards and said we were going to stay. That means like a place to hope, isn't it? Because people want to feel safe. This day and age, God forbid, now that it came to play, they don't want to be there. I hope that we know that. We know people buy us out there. We're going to say, why don't we have police? Why don't we have sheriffs? All right. Let's roll back in, please. We need this super helpful and we will do our best to bring you some. Thank you. Number one, thank you, everybody.

I realize there's passion on both sides. I'm like Mr. Marriott and I assume the rest of us We're optimistic that we can find a solution to not be asses to each other. Find something that allows a nice medium ground without changing the character of our beach. That's where I'm hoping to get to. I've heard lots of great ideas today. I appreciate everybody's input. And please tell us where this heads next. I think I've said this, but I'd like to be very brief.

This second reading heads to commission on the 23rd of June. And then next week, June 9th, is the first reading on the other two beach ordinances. So please join us.

And then the customer use discussion.

The other two work on the 23rd. Sorry.

And then the customer use discussion.

We have a seminar.

Thank you.

With our esteemed city attorney who's going to give a presentation on essentially the history of customer use, Florida law, how more applicability to St. Pete Beach Some of the nuances. It's 5 o'clock.

And July 23rd. Thursday, July 23rd at 5 o'clock.

5 to 6.

It'll be more like a legal seminar, what customer use is. We've taken into account some of the things we've heard tonight. We have the beach ordinance coming up. John Gerstle, On June 9 it's possible that we will discuss and possibly add that the city of St Pete beach recognizes the common law doctrine of customary historical use period, and then we can put that in. John Gerstle, To the co one of the troubles of trying to delineate how many feature going to go in and out is it's different as you go up and down the beach what history is and what can be proven, but we do want to make sure that we recognize it.

Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

I appreciate you.