City Commission - Regular Meeting

Commission of St. Pete Beach to order. It is 6 o'clock p.m. on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. Will you please rise and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much. City Clerk, will you please do a roll call?

Commissioner Marriott? Here. Vice Mayor Robinson? Here. Commissioner Causey?

Here.

Commissioner Maldonado? Here. And Mayor Tate?

Here.

We have a quorum.

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

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to add hyperscale data centers to the discussions.

I'm sorry and I heard that data centers but heightened scale hyperscale hyperscale data centers. Thank you.

Mayor we have a proposed amendment on consent item 3 C based on commission feedback. The city manager if we could just pull that from consent consider it separately.

Okay. Thank you very much. Pull that out. All right. Make sure that there's no other changes before I entertain a motion to prove the agenda. Amanda. Amanda agenda. Sorry.

I'll move to approve the amended agenda.

Second. Please.

Commissioner Marriott. Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson. Yes. Commissioner Cossie. Yes. Commissioner Maldonado. Yes. Mayor Tate.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you. I see there are no presentations. So next we're on to audience comments. Are there any general audience comments?

Amanda San Diego.

Good evening. Would you please state your name and address for us, please?

My name is Amanda Senego. I reside on St. Pete Beach, and I hereby assert my right to the customary use of St. Pete Beach. I know my rights, and I know that under Florida law, no private landowner or local government can revoke my right to the customary use of St. Pete Beach. The public is the largest stakeholder on this beach and the engine behind every commercial investment property doing business here. Our numbers are not constrained. As a resident and frequent public user of St. Pete Beach for more than a decade, I demand that you codify the public right to a free, open, customary use of St. Pete Beach. Thank you.

Thank you.

Vincent Tarmenia.

Hi, Vincent , 3514 Casablanca Avenue. There was a couple of things I was going to speak about tonight. One is about Publix, which I wanted to know about, and what's happening there with Bricksmore and Publix, because we need our supermarket back. That's number one. The second thing was the state. uh passed today went through the state the senate today about these corporations coming in and buying properties and turning them into certain things so it was just passed today through the senate so you might want to look into that because we're having a problem in our area especially with these airbnbs they're not paying the bed tax they're not we and they're doing weekly rentals so this is another problem that's been happening with that and that's all i came about what to say and everything else i spoke about already okay all right thank you thank you sir deborah scheckner

Good evening, Deborah Sheppard of Bocusega Isle Drive. I will have to agree with what Amanda said, so I'd like to put that out there. I've been doing casual surveys over the years of visitors. First year, I probably spoke to about 40. And every year, I just talk to visitors. They like our beach. They like the way it looks. They don't want high buildings. They say that specifically. They say that's why they come here. That's why they don't go to Clearwater Beach. That's why they don't go to other beaches. It's too oppressive for them. My favorite story is an English couple who came here 18 years in a row. And one year she said to me, I'm going to try California. So they went to California and said, we're not ever going any other beach but St. Pete Beach. Well, unfortunately, we're losing some of those travelers. Europeans are not coming here. My fear is I'm going to find another beach to stay at. One of the other issues several tourists brought up are the streetlights. They don't feel safe crossing. They don't feel safe driving. They don't feel like it's a bright shine onto the road. And I have to say, I've heard that several times from many people. We still have not heard from Florida Wildlife about the mothball situation. And I don't know if there's an update on the mothball situation. I would hope that there is. And I think it's very important for us to always be open with the public, transparent with the public. That's how trust is built. And I don't know where we are with the mothballs, if anybody else knows. And honestly, We have a right to walk on the beach. Hotels here, maybe they own how many feet here? The rest of it belongs to the public. And they cannot continue to stop us from walking on our God-given right to walk on the sandy part of our beach. The dry sand, not the wet sand. Thank you.

Thank you.

Phyllis Parker.

This is an inopportune time that my name comes up. Phyllis Parker. I live at 3611 Casablanca Avenue. Now you have a face that goes with the emails I've sent you. I proposed a... I sent you a proposal based on property rights and neighborhood protection and funding for community resilience. It does involve changing the minimum rental slightly lower than it is now, but 14 days and 30 days, basically you attract the same mindset of people. They're people that want to be included in the community. They're not here for parties or vacations. you know, rowdiness. And I know that the city manager thought that there was a legal pathway forward for municipal cost recovery, but I wanted to emphasize that the two core pillars of the proposal I gave go together. If you take away the minimal stay, then people I won't want to rent my home because I'm gonna have to pay to have the right to rent for 30 days. So you'll have less people renting and you need the thousand dollars to bring in income. A million five is a lot of income and it's also a tax savings for all of us residents. So I would just like to implore that you keep an open mind to both sides of that proposal. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Kathy Garchow.

Good evening, commissioners, mayor, city staff. Kathy Garshaw, 3607 Casablanca. So I just wanted to talk briefly about two things. One, community development is just a passion for me to see what we can do with that. And we actually kicked off some 250th discussions. this year, it's a whole year. So I'll just say just because the fourth is happening next week, hooray. And I know the city's got some great plans around that. And so does a lot of our community have individual plans. So just saying, seeing that and love the Corey Avenue Business Association investing. But I wanna put out there that I think had we maybe found a way to collaborate with the community on just planning, we might even be able to do more. So as we think about, and talking with the Parks and Rec's team and Mandy and folks, as we think about the future, how do we maybe think we could integrate some of the community conversations early enough and with the business partners to collaborate so that we could potentially really dress this city up in different ways? So I just wanna put that out there and encourage us to, I know Lisa, you've been a big, and sorry, I should say Commissioner Robinson, you've been a big proponent in building volunteer efforts. And I think we've got some very able-bodied, interested folks in doing that. So if the next round is the holiday season, or we think there's anything else going on, let's please just like lean in on that and feel free to use me as a conduit to building some of that. So that's just one thing. The other thing is, speaking of community, if I can just put this up for a second, it's kind of, it's my phone, but that doesn't really show up very well. Anyways, there's a community listening session happening on Thursday. It's all about flooding. You guys, that's never been my topic, right? But I know that that's just on the hearts and minds of so many. And I know that... Mayor Tate and Commissioner Causey, you ran on resiliency and addressing these challenges that we have. So thank you to the communication staff here at the city. They've made awareness of this. It is happening Thursday. Maybe you all will be talking about it. I didn't see it on the agenda. So I just wanted to highlight that. I know I'm encouraging my neighbors and friends to speak there. I don't know what the impact is of Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and Tampa Bay Coastal Master Plan. I believe it's critical, but I don't know if they have influence. I don't know what they can do for us, but it's happening Thursday. So if the community shows up and wants to speak out, I hope that this is a listening session that maybe all of you will be listening to as well, but I'm also, requesting could this be recorded because i think whoever does show up i hope will have a voice that could help perpetuate what are the needs because we certainly are going to have needs and this is going to need to go up to state and federal levels probably over the coming year thank you thank you dana richardson

Dana Richardson, 5830 Bahama Way South. Hello, Mayor and Commissioners. Just flew in and got dropped off and I have been really busy so it's hard for me to talk about what's going on here because I'm not an attorney. I don't understand a lot of things, but what I do know is that residents and the public have already been proven in the court of law that we have rights to both dry and wet sand. I have come to the beach many times in the last 40 years. My husband's born and raised in Clearwater and used the beach. We all know it. I don't understand, maybe it's some slick attorney from hotels, but why is this sign thing happening now? Is it because the 2018 law that gave them a little something got repealed and now they're trying this way? I ask you to, if there has to be signs or anything that dirties our beach, makes it look terrible, these armed guards, put it up above the CCL line, not west. Don't have the visitors and tourists and the residents have to see it when they're on the beach and enjoying it. It's really concerning. with everything we've gone through that we could literally have a really ugly looking beach. And coming off of the hurricanes, don't we want to get back to enjoying life and have a beautiful beach so tourism will be, well, it was strong this last year, but would we lose it? Do people, I know when you go to Mexico, you see armed guards everywhere and everything's very regimented. I don't think that's what we want for this town. So as a resident of St. Pete Beach, I just want to put it on record here that I am asserting my rights of customary use on St. Pete Beach. I know my rights and I know that under Florida law, no private landowner or local government can take away my right of customary use. And I hope and pray that you all understand and think and everything you do of what consequences that can be because what may be decided today or in the future could take away our customary use rights that we do have. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

There are no more general audience comments.

Okay. Thank you very much. I believe we're on to the consent agenda minus item C. And I believe we've already approved it as such. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I move to approve the amended consent agenda.

I second.

Vice Mayor Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Causey? Yes. Commissioner Maldonado?

Yes.

Commissioner Marriott? Yes. Mayor Tate?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Okay. And now I think it is time to talk about 3C, correct please?

Yeah, I was the one that pulled that and spoke with that. My only concern on this is that if we're going down to three members, that it would need to be either have an opportunity to appeal, because if it's not unanimous, then if it was five members, it could swing either way. So that we do have this now with it rewritten so that it does say that should any requests be denied by the board at a vote of two and support to one oppose when only three board members are present or otherwise eligible to conduct the vote the request shall automatically be scheduled for an appeal hearing at the next regular board meeting with four or more members present and That kind of just hit the target. Thank you

Sorry, I believe this was just passed out to us, so I just need to read it real quick for myself. I don't know if others have any comments, but I'll just acknowledge up front I'm trying to reread it, so.

so while you're reading that uh mr mayor maybe the um city attorney can just clarify um the appeal process we have an appeal process under three point i believe one four and i don't know how this strengthens or changes that could you comment on that

Yep, this actually is for variances from floodplain management regulations, and it would require four members to give a variance to the floodplain regulations. It's not an appeal. So if you don't have four people at a meeting, you can have a meeting. We've had trouble getting quorum of four at the HPB meetings most items are non-controversial and are approved unanimously once in a while there's one that's controversial or divided and this would be the case where if there was two to one to approve and then would automatically go to the next meeting where four people are present so that four out of five could vote to approve a variance. It's a heightened standard for variances to floodplain regulations for our CRS rating from FEMA. They review all our variances from floodplain management regulations. We want to have a very strict standard there. We receive additional points from the CRS rating system, which lowers all of our flood insurance.

So just to clarify, so no change or impact to the variances under 3.14?

3.14 is appeals. Appeals. There's no changes to that section. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

I just want to clarify, I think you said it, but I just want to make sure. I'm just reading it. It says, should any request be denied by the board at a vote of two, denied by a vote of two in support to one opposed. So like denied in support feels, you're saying two are denying it. If two are denying it and one is approving it, then it automatically goes to...

There's another section of our code that says for floodplain management variances, you need a four out of five vote. So just having two would be a denial. So this would automatically go to the next meeting for four, so you can have a potential vote of four. If you only have three, you can't get four. So this would allow it to continue. Most cases are not controversial, and those could be approved.

Understood. And I thought at one point there was some dialogue that there was a particular case, I think it's a floodplain case, but correct me if I'm wrong, where it would remain a four out of five type vote, or in this case, possibly an amended version of that. But there were other cases that weren't floodplain associated with, we were thinking about just three, a simple majority was sufficient. Is that still?

Let me call Brandon up if he's here. Is he not here? Nope. I wasn't at the HPB board meeting, so I'm not sure. If you could tell me again your question. I don't think it affects other non-floodplain. Okay. If that's your question.

That is essentially my question. Yeah. Okay. So only in regards to floodplain, if we only have three people, and theoretically if two are opposed to allowing the variance, and one is, you know, allows it, then it will automatically go to the next session where we have four or more available.

Correct.

Okay. Thank you. That's my question.

So it would not apply to Certificate of Appropriateness or any of those other items? And why would it not?

This is just for floodplain management.

Anything else at historic preservation is a 3-2 vote. So this modification was only to address the supermajority requirement for floodplain regulation items.

But why wouldn't we apply that as well then to any of the other items being that normally there's five people supposed to be there for the board. And if somebody gets denied something based on a two one. If there was five people there that may not have been the outcome.

We can bring that back to you if you'd like for review. But right now we want to try to get this floodplain one addressed because we have applications that are pending and it's important to get this through. If we want to go for other aspects of historic preservation more we certainly can including appeals.

Yeah, we'd like to see it apply across the board for anything else. It would be a vote when there's only three people.

Okay, look, if we approve this, we'll bring that one back next meeting.

Okay, great.

Thank you. Looking for other questions, any motion to approve the amended ordinance item here?

I make a motion to approve the amended resolution number 2026-20. A second.

Commissioner Causey?

Yes.

Commissioner Maldonado? Yes. Commissioner Marriott? Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson? Yes. Mayor Tate?

Yes.

The motion carries.

Okay, thank you. All right, here's the interesting one. I believe we're into ordinances now. City Attorney, will you please read the ordinance?

Ordinance 2026-11, an ordinance of the City of St. Pete Beach, Florida amending the Land Development Code relating to signs by creating subsection 26.14W to prohibit signs, posts, and poles within 50 feet of the mean high or visible water line of the gulf requiring a permit for the installation of signs on the beach, providing for recitals, codification, conflicts, severability, correction of scrivener's errors, construction, publication, and an effective date. I'll introduce the ordinance. If you will, this is the second reading of an ordinance that will codify the emergency ordinance that was adopted on April 28th. So if this ordinance is not approved tonight in some form or fashion, the emergency ordinance will expire Saturday, June 27th. And the signs that you've seen in the agenda packet that are within this 50 feet will no longer be prohibited. So it's important that if you want to maintain this 50 feet sign-free zone along the gulf that we adopt something tonight. There has been some discussions, and I've distributed some staff-approved changes. These were brought to staff's attention by members of the commission. The first was an and instead of or by Commissioner Causey. I think that's a good add. And there was a distinction about whichever is more landward at the time. The mayor had approached us about adding which is greater. Landward clarifies because greater or not greater may be something different than distance. This is expressly distance. And then... After hearing from members of the public, as we did tonight, and others, Lisa Robinson proposed that we have something in the sign ordinance that says, nothing in this sign code shall supersede, negate, or infringe upon Florida's customary use doctrine, so that we're not inadvertently taking away anyone's customary use doctrine rights, and this will preserve it here. It's important to remember that today's ordinance is about a limited area. I think of it basically as post in the beach, a prohibition from a post-free zone from that first 50 feet, which is important for public safety, where people are walking at night, where people are playing Football catch frisbee frolicking and the waves if you will During the day and also sea turtles are nesting in the agenda packet. There are some science journal articles including one that has described a 40 percent reduction in sea turtle nesting where there are posts sticking out on the beach it's important to remember that tonight's meeting is not just about a few signs it's about the proliferation of such signs across the entire beach so you might imagine that only a couple signs may have a less impact but if you had this on every every zoning lot they would have more of an impact the safety public health and the environment With that we've also looked at saying, if you have a sign in this prohibited area, you need to relocate that sign. That sign needs to be relocated outside the prohibited area. And you have to apply for a permit. And when you apply for a permit for a sign on the beach and the beaches to find elsewhere in the code is the area between the dune and the water. that you submit a survey which shows your mean high water line, where the sign will be placed in relation to the rest of the property. That way we can measure not just only from the water, but we can measure from nearby structures or sea walls or anything that might appear on the survey. We're also asking for additional information regarding the deeds, title history, property boundaries, and the locations of the signs so we'll know of any permitted signs where they will be allowed to go. What has been suggested by staff is to have only portable A-frame sandwich board signs on the beach between the 50-foot prohibited area and the dunes. They not be illuminated with lighting. They should be removed at sunset, not replaced till sunrise. Have 300 feet between such signs. and have four signs per zoning lot. So if you have a development that's approved that contains say three or four parcels, that's considered a zoning lot as defined in the code. So you'd be allowed four signs per zoning lot on the beach part. You'd still be allowed other signs elsewhere. There is an exemption for sign stakes poster polls that are official government signs. Um, there were at the direction of the government or placed by a government entity that would cover the Marine turtle permit holders when they stake out the turtle nest. If they happen to be within 50 feet, those could still be placed as well as other government signs. So with that, I think I've distributed those changes earlier. I talked about the and and more landward at any time. And nothing in the sign code shall supersede, negate, or infringe upon Florida's customary use doctrine so that you can have that in front of you as you deliberate and discuss what you would like to see and approve for second reading. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Is there, just ask the city manager, is there any staff report or anything that goes along with this? Okay, any audience comments?

Dominic Isgro.

Good evening, Mayor Tate and Commissioners. My name is Dominic Isgro. I reside at St. Pete Beach and 46th Ave. And I hereby assert my right of customary use on St. Pete Beach. Like Amanda and Deborah and Dana, I know my rights. I know that since the Tonorama case in 74, the Supreme Court of Florida and several courts since have pronounced that no private landowner can revoke my rights. Government can regulate them but cannot revoke them. And we have those rights and we insist on them. I'm requesting certain changes to Ordinance 2026-11. I'll use my time tonight to tell you what I'd like to see and why I think it's necessary. The sign ordinance, frankly, doesn't go far enough. It still allows private landowners to interfere with and obstruct lawful public rights of access, intimidate beachgoers, and fill our beach with signs. The following changes should be made. The restriction on types of signs should include cones. The prohibited signs should be prohibited anywhere C word of the coastal construction control line. We need to move this up. Any offending signs should be removed and should only be allowed to be relocated landward of the CCCL if permitting requirements and other applicable laws are satisfied. Finally, there should be more than one sign per lot, else the beach will become quickly filled with signs. These changes are necessary because private property owners have already attempted to use signage to attack our customary use rights collaterally. In fact, at the community workshop several weeks ago, several of them flat out told you in person that that's what they intend to do. They want to criminally trespass us if we refuse to move off their property when we're sitting on a beach towel as we have for decades. Customary use exists when four things are true. The public has used the beach in question for a long time. The use has been reasonable. It's been free from dispute and without interruption. The law is clear, as I said before, that the property owners can't take this right away from us directly, but they can attack it collaterally and that is exactly what they are doing. They can't change the fact that we've used it since ancient times. They can't change the fact that our use has been reasonable. They can't change the fact that during that entire time Our use has been free from dispute, but you know what they can do and what they're trying to do? They're trying to interrupt us. We are not abandoning our lawful rights to use this speech. Do not allow private owners to interrupt the exercise of our rights or threaten us with criminal prosecution. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I have concerns that you might be putting the cart before the horse with the signage. And believe me, I want that done. I just want to make sure that once we make this change, that customer reuse is protected. I guess that's what I'm worrying about. Before St. Pete Beach even became St. Pete Beach, residents have walked, sat, and enjoyed the dry sand. We all have, with the exception of one neighborhood that, I don't know how, they lost their access at the trade winds. We all have access points. We can go to the beach. Every neighborhood has one. We need to be careful what we define here. So, understand you're gonna be asking for hotels' deeds Do they pay real estate taxes on the dry sand? I don't think so. Not the dry sand that we have walked on forever. I did not know, and I'm glad our attorney brought it up, that 40% fewer turtles nesting due to signs on our beach. Now, the sign that started all of this was egregious. It was uncomfortable. It was threatening, and telling people we can search your bags. Nobody has police powers, nor should anybody up there suggest that they do. I think if a sign is illegal, give them one day to take it down. You take down election signs pretty easily, so why not take those signs down as well? If they want to collect the sign, they can come up to City Hall and get it. What we have here are hotels trying to take over our right to walk on the beach. And going back to tourists, they love to walk on the beach. That's their exercise. They love to look for shells. That's part of their exercise. They call it the bend. And you start taking that away from tourists, I'm going to tell you right now, you won't have any more. The minute you limit the access to this dry sand beach, you're not gonna have tourists come visit. And not all hotels are on beachfront. People come here for the beach, really, that's it. They love it. You start taking away their right to walk, pick up a shell, put down a towel, put down a chair, bring their children to enjoy the sandy beach. They should have to sit in wet water all day long. There's something wrong here. It stinks, and we need to fix it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Robert Cezanne.

Robert Cezanne, 4506 Gulf Boulevard, property owner of the Plaza Beach Hotel on St. Pete Beach. As a resident of 38 years, as an American citizen of this great country, United States of America, and our 250th anniversary of this great nation, this is absolutely unconstitutional. I can assure you of that. So we have the right as property owners to mark up our property and put no trespassing signs, private property signs. You all do it at your own homes. You all do it at your own new businesses. So we also have that right. That beach is our backyard, and we have the right to protect our beach. We are not telling anybody that they cannot walk the beach, as Deborah Schuckner just said. You are allowed to walk the beach. You are allowed to go through the beach. We just don't want you parking on the beach and staying on a private property. You're allowed to pass through freely. The signs we have right now are perfectly... legible, if you can bring that up for me please. Turn it the other way so everybody can see it. Clearly states all the way to the hotels of Private Beach, pass through is allowed, and then 50 feet to the water is also Private Beach. These signs are as clear as can be. It doesn't get any clearer. When we installed these signs about a month ago now, I want you guys to guess how many calls we had to the Sheriff's Department in this last month. Can someone take a guess? Anybody? Zero. Boom, the signs are working. Excuse me. The signs are working, so people now understand. Without signage, people don't understand where the property lines are. Hey, excuse me, be respectful, please. Thank you. People don't understand where the lines are, where the binaries are. Signs are required, so temporary signs don't work, because what if somebody comes on my property at 11 o'clock in the p.m. and starts smoking marijuana on my property? Well, this private sign was removed at sunset. That doesn't work. How am I gonna remove that person at 11 o'clock at night smoking dope on my property and a family resort? Doesn't work. So this ordinance you're trying to pass tonight does not work. I encourage you not to pass this ordinance. If you pass this ordinance, There will be consequences, unfortunately. I don't wanna say there's gonna be a lawsuit, but there most likely will be a lawsuit, and I'm just being honest. So like I said, I don't want that, because that is also my taxpayer dollars, everyone's taxpayer dollars, so I want you guys to consider making permanent signs. It doesn't have to be a sign. We've talked about this. We've had negotiations, and we've talked back and forth. It could be a flamingo. Let's just put a flamingo as a marker. Let's put a... A pelican is a marker. As long as there's a marker so that the sheriff knows where the point is. And I have no problem having it 50 feet from the water. That's like we have it right now. So there's no issue with that whatsoever. But there needs to be a clear marker for the sheriff department to be able to do their job as well. So you have to look at it from everyone's angle, not just the resident's angle, but also from law enforcement's angle. So law enforcement has to be able to enforce the law and they need to be able to understand where the markers are. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alyssa Gagnon.

Good evening, commissioners. I have a lot to cover, so please excuse my pace. I may go a little fast. My name is Alyssa Gagnon. I'm an attorney at Weber, Crabb, and Wien. I was here for the emergency reading of this ordinance. At that emergency reading, I warned this commission that the ordinance as written was unconstitutional. The version before you tonight does not fix those problems, and it makes them worse. This is not a narrow safety regulation. It is an outright speech ban. The ordinance prohibits private citizens and private property owners from placing devices, signs, stakes, posts within 50 feet of the mean high water line or visible water line, whichever is landward, and de facto the whole beach because past the water line only A-frames are allowed. But it expressly allows governmental signs and posts in that same restricted area. That is constitutional issue in plain language. The government gets to speak, but private citizens do not. And the safety justification does not withstand scrutiny. If one pole holding a no trespassing sign is such a serious safety hazard that it must be banned, then so are umbrellas, chairs, tents, cabanas, and every other common beach item that can obstruct access, injure someone in the dark, or become windborne in a storm. The permitting process does not save the ordinance either. It makes it worse. A property owner who wants to post a beach sign must submit a deed, title history, insurance, and a survey for speech, for a sign, to protect their own property. A speech permit must have narrow objective and definite standards and prompt decision. This ordinance does not include that. So let's be honest about what this ordinance is. This is not really about a singular poll holding the sign. This is about the message on the sign. And based on prior commission discussion and comment, it seems like that is also impermissibly about aesthetics because this is an emergency ordinance. But the government cannot violate the First Amendment because it doesn't like how property owners use signs to protect their property or because they don't like how it looks. The ordinance is also vague and overbroad. It uses both the mean high water line and visible water line, whichever is greater or whichever is landward. Those are not the same thing. The mean high water line has legal significance. Visible water line has no legal significance. The city does not have jurisdiction over private property landward of the mean high water line. There's also serious preemption problem. The ordinance is preempted by Florida's trespass statute. Section 81009 recognizes notice must be posted in order to enforce trespass. Section 81010 makes it a first degree misdemeanor to remove those signs, and this is already happening on the beach. So this ordinance puts property owners in an impossible situation. Florida law tells them posted notice matters, but then they can't post that notice to get people off their property. Any individual who owns beachfront property should be concerned, and many will be looking to have this ordinance struck down so they can protect their land and protect their homes. I'm also concerned for municipal workers tasked with enforcing it. As written, they will be sent up and down the beach to remove essentially every private sign they see, even where the sign may be constitutionally protected, all based on an invisible line or a legally irrelevant line. These property owners are not trying to harm the beach. They're trying to protect it. I respectfully urge this commission not to adopt the ordinance as written. Passing this ordinance as written would cause the city to expose themselves to legal challenge. Thank you.

Thank you.

Dana Richardson.

Dana Richardson, 5830 Bahama Way South. Those last two speakers are exactly what I am highly concerned about. How dare somebody try to think that they can supersede a law that was placed for customer use back in 1974. it's already been tried in court and has won we have the rights to dry sand when in the history have we ever seen a bunch of people laying their towels on wet sand when when do you see people doing that maybe a kid it doesn't happen who wants to have that The things they're talking about, as I was at that sign ordinance meeting, it's behavioral issues. That's what the sheriff's department does. That's what some of the beach ordinance is going to do. If somebody's smoking pot, somebody's drunk, if somebody's doing anything that's against the law or a trouble to our city, that's when you call the sheriff. We don't need signs. We've got to change the language on this. I get that we need to do something because then it would revert back to the emergency ordinance. But we need to change it because we need to put it up by the CCL line because we can't tell them what to put on their signs and we know they're going to put no trespassing on their signs. How can they sit there and put signs out And talk about the cart before the horse before we've even discussed our rights as a customary use ordinance here for St. Pete Beach. We've been working on this. This has been something that we've been wanting to do. We've always had to wait for hearing about what Reddington Beach is going to happen. What's the law going to get changed? Well, we're at the point now where we get to put that into an ordinance. We've got that workshop July 23rd to start the ball. And here they want to push these signs so they can make them no trespassing. So that now that's kind of setting a precedent. You are approving signs so that they can say these are my boundaries. That's not good. That's not going to help us. This has been tried in the court of law. We have won. The courts have already made their claim and stated the fact. Thank you.

Thank you.

Melanie Vandergrift.

Hi there, Melanie Vandergrift. I'm representing One Pass A Girl Way, better known as Islands End Resort. We're kind of no man's land down there right now. We are no longer a public beach, but we are a public beach, and people can do whatever they want down there, and the sheriff won't enforce it because we're not allowed to have a sign. They won't enforce our property boundaries. We have people running back and forth all day, every day. causing ruckus, dogs, liability issues. I've been bit from the dog beach personally. We have to be able to enforce our beach and we do not have customer use on our property because the beach did not exist a few years ago. I've worked there for 14 years. The beach did not exist when I started. Therefore, there is no customer use on our beach. We have to enforce the law, enforce our boundaries in order to establish the customer use and keep our property rights. Otherwise we could potentially lose them. And if somebody gets injured on our property, a guest or a tourist, guess what? They're gonna sue the property owner because this is a litigious continent right now. Everyone wants to sue everybody. So my boss is in liability issues if anybody gets hurt. And unless they are registered guests with us, our commercial insurance don't cover us. So he is personally responsible if anything happens. All we want is a sign. You wanna put up an A-frame sign? Okay, our zoning is literally prohibited from A-frame signs. I put up an A-frame sign, code enforcement told me to take it down immediately. So are you going to allow them now? Our office closes at 4.30 in the afternoon. So we're gonna have to take that in or pay somebody to come and take it in at sunset. And then what happens at night? People come all night, every night. They have come up to my boss's house and tried to get into his house at three o'clock in the morning. Is the sheriff gonna be able to enforce it when there's no sign out there at night? That it's not safe. People come out there and start bonfires on the beach. And it takes the sheriff at least 20 to 30 minutes to get out there. So if no one knows that it's private property, how are we even gonna enforce it? We just want our property to be safe. We want our backyard to be safe. This is our backyard. This is the property owner's backyard. It literally, his house overlooks his beach that he has owned for 40 years. All he wants to do is be able to keep it safe and keep himself from being sued. That's all.

Thank you.

I have no more comments on this topic.

OK. City Commission comments? Commissioner Robinson.

I'll go ahead and start. I just start with the sign ordinance in general for its purpose and intent. And its purpose and intent is to preserve and enhance the city as a desirable community in which to live, vacation, do business. a pleasing, visually attractive environment is of the foremost importance. So I have to question whether the proliferation of signs up and down the beach actually meets that. In addition to that phrase, we also have these sign regulations have been prepared with intent of mitigating the impact signs have on traffic, pedestrian safety, enhancing the visual environment of the city. Further, it says maintain and enhance the aesthetic environment and the city's ability to attract sources of economic development and growth. Lessen the visual clutter that may otherwise be caused by proliferation. To curtail the size and number of signs and sign messages to the minimal reasonably necessary. To preserve, conserve, protect, and enhance the aesthetic quality and scenic beauty of all districts of this city. to protect property values by ensuring that sign types as well as the number of signs are in harmony with buildings, neighborhoods, and conforming signs in the area. Promote and enhance the beautification of the city. Compliments the natural surroundings and recognition of the city's reliance on its natural surroundings. I have to question if any of these signs And the more we have of these signs, the more visual clutter we get, the more it's not in harmony, the more it's not even near what we've stated we want here, let alone the safety. I have, I have concerns about that. I know people moved here because of access to the beach, the beauty of the beach. People come here for that and I just see the proliferation of these signs being an issue and I understand the property owners have rights and they are Having issues to deal with I don't think that had to deal with before because of Covid because of growth and other areas that come to our area. But it's in blatant disregard for what the beauty of this area is. And that's a shame. It's a shame that we would have to resort to something to be able to keep our beauty of our beach to stop the proliferation of more and more signs being put out. I have big concerns with that and I have concerns with any of these signs staying. and to an umbrella and a chair or whatever, flying or whatever, those are temporary. What your client is asking for is permanent. Big difference. So I have big concerns on not doing something to stop the proliferation of the designs. It's just visually ugly. It's unsafe. And it is against basically what our sign ordinance says. We can debate how many feet and whether it needs to be adding cones and markers, but it can be measured. Once you get a survey in it can be measured from the building that doesn't move. So it is measurable. I don't know if four signs should be allowed. I mean if you want to assemble the whole beach into one does that mean you get unlimited number of signs. Is that fair to other properties who have less frontage. It's not fair. So I would take that into question. The portable signs are the A-frames. I believe there's clarification that we received because I had a question in regards to that for reading through the code. They are allowed commercial license, commercial properties are allowed one sign. But I read through this and it says that what Brandon replied back was that that was just for frontage in the front, not in the back. So I just don't want to keep adding signs on top of signs on top of signs. And the next thing you know, you know, we look like a third world country. And I don't want St. Pete Beach and I don't think any resident I don't think property owners want to whether your hotel or not to look like that either. You know it's a shame there can't be a way to help the property owners to help their battles with what they're going through. But as I was told, if I bought a house next to a bar, expect music. If I bought a hotel next to a public beach that doesn't have concession stands or bathrooms, doesn't have a concession stand, I might be thinking that people would naturally migrate soon. I have concerns with what we want to do as far as keeping what is out there currently. I mean we have to do something now otherwise this emergency ordinance expires on Saturday and the signs that are currently there remain and they become legal. So this is critical. So I think the debate might need to be about the footage and if there's any other changes.

Thank you. Commissioner Maldonado.

Thank you, Commissioner Robinson, for reemphasizing those things. I think that's important to the discussion because it sets the pace for what it is that we're going to be talking about. I'm also happy to see that the emphasis here and to the residents' concerns is that we are making sure that we don't do anything unintentionally that can affect or impact us in our use doctrine. So two common things that I've heard not only today but also during the previous workshop revolves around two different things and the first being behavioral issues. We heard a couple examples here tonight. The smoking, marijuana bonfires, attempting to break into people's bosses' homes. At a previous commission or community meeting, we talked about drunk and disorderly behavior and things like that. I've also heard about liability concerns and those are very valid concerns, both the behavioral issues and the liabilities and I do think that There are ways to address that. I think that one of the things is that we can and should discuss the coastal construction control line. I think that that is part of the way to address the concerns that have been expressed regarding putting people on notice when they come onto a private property. It's not gonna be a fix-all. I do acknowledge that the sheriff will have a difficult time establishing boundaries when it comes to property lines and private property. But again, if you're talking about behavioral issues, it doesn't matter. I've said this before, whether you're on private property or public property or law enforcement partners have responsibility to act and to respond to that. And to Melanie's frustration, I think that we do have to look at that individually. I think that District 4 down in the south end has unique circumstances which I think that we could go back and look at in addition to what it is that we're trying to do today. to keep both the residents and our tourists safe in a very unique design that's going on down there.

Mr. Sazon, this evening you stated that you have no issue with the sign being 50 feet from the water.

I think that you've seen pictures, we've all received emails with pictures where those signs that you're very proud of that are very well written and articulated are five to 10 feet in the water. So the question then becomes, will you be moving those signs back and forth depending on where the water is, depending on the tide, depending on the time of the day? I don't see that as being a very practical approach for you or your business to move a permanently fixed sign, depending on where that water is. Those are my initial thoughts. I'd like to hear what the rest of the commission has. Then I have a few follow-up comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Causey.

i think that the purpose tonight is purely safety we haven't had the briefing from our attorney on common use and i think everyone knows that we are going to spend a lot of time in the next few weeks as a city thinking about common use and i think everyone should be putting that first on their burner because The beach is our most traditional asset here in our city, so it's very important to get it right. But my concern is someone walking on the beach at night and bumping into a sign, or I think it's true that you can be on your skimboard or playing football in the surf and be seriously injured by running into a solid post. So I think the absolute most important thing is for us to keep a zone clear for safety of people who are walking on the beach. So we all agree that people should be allowed to walk on the beach along the water. So I would suggest that we stick with that simply and say no signs within 50 feet of the water. That's what we're all trying to really do. And it doesn't need any version of legal references. It's just purely for public safety here. And if we could all agree on that tonight, I would be pretty happy. I totally agree with the concept of some of the other Other things that are listed here and I would vote for those but I think the most important thing is safety piece tonight Thank You Commissioner Marriott

Thank you. Thank you. I think the things that my fellow commissioners have said here tonight are all kind of right on target. And I appreciate Commissioner Causey's framing of the issue for us as what we're trying to do here tonight and that we want to solve what could be a safety issue. We certainly don't want to make it worse. i do have a question for the city attorney or the city manager currently with without this ordinance i know that there are signs on the beach currently that are much further back from the water i know that in front of the silver sands condo there's a whole area that's roped off and there are signs that say private property no trespassing and so Where is it on the beach where somebody could put signs on posts today? Because clearly that happens. So is it the Coastal Construction Line?

So currently there's an exemption for what they call warning signs. Anywhere on the property, an unlimited number. Each warning sign of four square feet face area. So that is why they were not able to cite signs on the beach previously. uh for code enforcement because there was an exemption for warning signs um there's a couple problems with with the warning signs one it's possibly not content neutral although warning is a pretty broad uh category it is still requires i think you to read the sign to see if it's a warning so we don't want to rely on unconstitutional There's an exemption there, but would allow and did allow signs to go in without receiving code enforcement. So we adopted the emergency sign ordinance after a few signs were placed at the water line to clearly and expressly prohibit signs within 50 feet. um based on public safety and based on content neutrality so it doesn't matter what words are on the sign for tonight tonight is just a sign ordinance and it's only for a limited area that prohibits signs in that area and would allow four portable A-frame signs upland on the beach 50 feet to the dune. So you would now be allowed four if this is how the ordinance is adopted. But currently, there's an unlimited number of warning signs. Now, a warning sign might say, no trespassing. I'm trying to tonight stay away from content, content neutral. but conceivably you could have an unlimited number of such warning signs on the beach, leading to a proliferation all through the dry sand area between the dune and the water.

So if we pass this ordinance as written, what happens from the dune to 50 feet from the water?

There's two parts of this ordinance. The most important part, I think, is that 50 feet, nothing 50 feet from the water. From 50 feet to the beach, you have to get a permit. And because you have to get a permit, we require a survey so we can show that you're not 50 feet from the water, at least the mean high water line. And we have the mean high water line on the survey. And then it's up to you what would be allowed. Staff is suggesting portable A-frame sandwich board signs. four of them per zoning lot, so you could have two signs and triangulate a property line if that was required, that they be no more than five feet in height, and that is similar to the sandwich board signs elsewhere in the city. um eight square feet in total sign face area so that would be four square feet per side remember there were four square feet of warning sign allowed because the sandwich board a-frames have two sides would be four feet and four feet and they have to be at least 300 feet apart so i have two i i have a a couple of comments um

I think that, so if somebody, if we pass this ordinance and someone wants a permanently affixed sign on their property line, it could be east of the dunes.

Yes, anywhere landward of the beach. The defined beach is elsewhere in the code, but anywhere of the defined beach.

Landward of the beach, they can still have a sign.

Still have as many warning signs as they want.

Okay. The... The 300 feet apart, is that 300 feet from any other sign? Or is that 300 feet from another sign on their own property?

From another beach sign.

So if you have two people trying to mark their property line, they can't do it. One property owner or the other could mark their property line with an A-frame sign, but not both of them.

From any other sign, correct.

OK.

They've got to come in for a permit and show that they're not within 300 feet. That way there's a separation for public safety.

OK. So a separation of 300 feet regardless of whose property it's on. If somebody else has come in first and gotten a permit, the next person who comes in for a permit, their sign has to be 300 feet from the first person's.

The way it's currently written is 300 feet from any other sign.

So I think that we are potentially I take Commissioner Causey's point very seriously that this is about safety and we need to do something here today to solve the problem of there being permanently affixed signs 50 feet from the water. I'm a little bit concerned that what we're doing here is something that's just going to make everybody mad. because the private property owners are going to have signs that that don't necessarily do the job that they that they're intending for them to do um and the public isn't going to like them because there's still signs on the beach and and that's not to say that we shouldn't still do it that this is that this is perhaps our best option of all the options um and so i'm just acknowledging that potentially the best thing we can do here tonight is not the ideal thing that could be done. Not that I know what that is. So I think that I could be fine with it as written. I think that there is absolutely no doubt that customary use is something that we're all going to be talking about going forward. I appreciate the adding in of the clause that Commissioner Robinson suggested where we add in a line that we're not trying to supersede, negate, or infringe upon customary use. I think the best we're going to do here today is going to be to try to do something that gets rid of permanently placed signs within 50 feet of the water. And I think that's the best we're going to, I think that's as good as we're going to get right now. And I don't think that that means that that's the final answer forever. But I do think that today, right now, it might be the best, as good as we're going to get right now.

I want a clarification because it does say per zoning lot.

It says shall be placed at least 300 feet from any other sign and at no time shall exceed four signs per zoning lot. And zoning lot is a development parcel. So some of our development projects have more than one parcel within them underlying them. So you can think of a zoning lot as a development.

Right. No, I'm just trying to make sure.

Or a condominium or a hotel.

You wanna make sure that the 300 feet isn't also per zoning lot, the 300 feet is 300 feet.

Right.

I wanted to make sure it wasn't per zoning lot.

300 is feet for any other sign.

That would be, if it's per zoning lot, then everybody's allowed at least one. If you have less than 300 feet, and if you're over 300 feet, then you're allowed four, is what it says. But I just wanted to make sure Because as the answer was to Karen, no, that's not really correct. It's 300 feet from anybody's sign, meaning your neighbor's, yours, not on your property. Just want clarification on that.

And you could do it either way that you'd like on that. You could say 300 feet from any other sign on that zoning lot or 300 feet from any other sign. If you want to allow 300 feet. from any other sign on that zoning lot, you can do that. You can also change 300 to 200 or 100. And you could also change or leave the number four per zoning lot. Four seemed to triangulate the four corners of the property. So in an interest of allowing some sign for the trespass 8-10-09, you would have the ability to put four signs out. Two on each side of your property line so you could triangulate.

I know I'm still stuck at one Sorry, I'm still stuck at one For that per zoning lot That's for wouldn't accept if there's only 2 sides on that I don't know where the 2 other ones are come to make trying to lay to 4 don't really need to you're talking the beach side so to me be Max 2.

I think it would just be that if there's a zoning lot that's well 100 feet right and then you get then you get 4 right.

But if you're 200 feet you get one.

or less than 300 let me say it just let me correct it less than 300. you're less than 300 and your neighbor already got one you don't get any I think is what that's kind of which yeah that's the problem I have I I have I mean I have concerns about the legality of that but our city attorney thinks you would say um 300 feet from any other sign on the same zoning lot that works you would add the words on the same zoning lot to address that concern

How do we feel about the number?

I'm still at zero.

So I wanna throw in a few thoughts here as well. Listen, I'm sympathetic to you know, the concerns that we've heard with regards to, you know, what I call abuse, public abuse. And I mean, you know, you expect some common decency out of people when they come to the beach, whether they're on a public beach or a private beach to Commissioner Maldonado's, you know, point earlier. And I and I fear that we're taking measures that that kind of erode certainly the historical character of our beach in the name of trying to regulate the abusers who, you know, for some reason lack the common courtesy to be good neighbors on the beach. And so I will tell you I'm not a fan of signs on our beach. I don't want to see something long term that we're just the beach of signs. It's not where I certainly want us to head. And I guess a very I'm pleased that we've overtly stated we're not trying to alter customer use here. That is not our intent. It is in fact our explicitly overt assertion that we are not doing that so that we can then come challenge that later if we need to and move forward. So I like that that's at least in there. I agree with all the sentiments of my fellow commissioners. I fear Frankly that Commissioner Marriott may be right. We may not be able to get the right answer here, but what we've got to do Something but I do I do have a series of questions for you city attorney if you don't mind, please I know you you know pined earlier on what kind of signs are currently now allowed on the beach right And I'll ask just a very direct question this This emergency ordinance expires in the coming week or two?

The 27th of June.

Okay, so three days, four days from now, right? And in lieu of anything we pass this evening, if we do not pass something and we defer, hypothetically, Are the issues that we've historically been pining about over the last month or two about these signs, are they just going to be right back in? Are we basically going to be right back where we started that got us right before the emergency ordinance?

Correct. I think there's a phrase I hear sometimes that says, don't let perfect be the enemy of good. So we might want to do something, and we can always come back and make some changes or adjustments if we need to. And you can adopt something less restrictive. If this turns out to be too restrictive on the area between 50 feet and the dune, you could adopt something less restrictive.

Yeah, personally, I feel like We don't have this right yet, to be frank with you. But I'm worried of the alternative to your point. Don't let great be the enemy of good, I think is what you said.

Perfectly the enemy of good, yeah.

And so I fear not moving forward puts us in an extremely untenable position that is even less popular, I think, frankly, than where we would be if we moved forward with something this evening. Although I don't think that, again, I'll restate it. I am not the beach of science in my head. This is not what I personally chose to come here for. you know I want to keep working I want to find a way to address the concerns that that our private property owners have which is you know ideally they're solved by current you know laws and regulations that exist somewhere else and then we look for the ones that you know the the abuses that aren't covered in other areas is maybe where we try and target this and and essentially give them a means to reinforce their the abusive visitors onto their property. So I don't love where we're headed, I'll be frank with you. I don't love where we're headed this evening, but I'm more fearful that if we don't do this, that we end up in a more untenable situation. Let me see if I got any more questions for you here. Let me see. There was a comment, this is probably my last question for you, city attorney please. There was a comment raised earlier about liability. Somebody without a posted sign gets injured and then there's some liability concerns and I also not only from a private property right but from a city's liability perspective I'm concerned with you know what liability we get into and we've we've had some some notes in here about uh requiring insurance and those kind of things but how is the city protected uh if you can opine on that please and some of these with with this at least temporary orders for this ordinance as we go forward

Yep, and maybe a couple of comments too that relate to that. One, we have a dogs on leash ordinance in a separate part of the code. The dogs must be on leashes anywhere within the municipal boundaries of St. Pete Beach, unless it's in a designated dog park or off leash area. So the area where one of the speakers was talking about is within the city municipal boundary. and dogs are not permitted off leash in that area. So that's someone violating one of the behavioral ordinances we have elsewhere in the code. In terms of liability, if someone were to become injured on a sign within the 50 feet, the liability would be on the landowner. The city is responsible and liable and has insurance for our own city beaches and city parking lots and things. And this ordinance primarily regulates these signs that are in a safety area. For public safety, it's dangerous to have signs of the water line, especially at night, not illuminated. Who would they sue? Someone that's injured, they would sue the private property owner. I think having this prohibition in the city's code helps the city, because we can't be sued for a violation of our codes. So it's safer for us to have a prohibition in this area than not have a prohibition. I think if there's a defense attorney in a personal injury case about an injury and a sign on the beach, they would say, well, signs on the beach are prohibited by the city, so it's not negligence per se. So this actually helps people that are injured. It'd be negligence per se if they crash into a sign that's prohibited. And this sign ordinance is drafted with the intent of preventing such injuries for safety. It actually benefits those that are injured. They don't have as much to prove in a negligence case against a private property owner. And then again, we have immunity for most things that we do. We have insurance as well. I think this helps our liability concerns to have a safety prohibited sign area 50 feet of the water.

Yeah. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. My concern is it's the abusers, I think, that is causing all of this, right? And I'd rather, frankly, regulate the abusers than go to a measure that isn't tenable for most. I'm not quite sure how to get there. I'll say again, I'm not sure where we wanna be, but I fear that not moving forward with something this evening puts us in a worse shape. So that's my initial tone. I will remind my fellow commissioners that as general, our policy is to go around once at 10 minutes per person and then you need a second crack. So happy to just, let's say, let's go back around one more time and gather the feedback. Then if we need something emergency wise, we can do that. But as a generalist, try to go forward with that. And if we can, please. I'm not quite sure, frankly, who was next, so I'll just... Yeah, somewhere down there. Okay.

So second crack. So let me first kind of just address the abuser's concern, Mr. Mayor. We all get the weekly data that comes from the sheriff's report and I can tell you that over the past, I would say year to a year and a half, there's been very few instances that I can recall off the top of my head beyond just warnings regarding alcohol use sleeping on the beach, and mostly it's dogs off leash. So I don't think that we have the rampant problem that some would like to paint, especially with the prohibitions of alcohol on the beach. So I don't think that that's a concern. I do acknowledge and agree with liabilities. However, after hearing Attorney Brooks' argument that not having signs actually favors, if I understood that correctly, It favors the businesses not to have signs because it minimizes liabilities because we're telling you you can't have them. So therefore, I'm fine with one sign if I have to have a sign. I'm really at zero. I'm a no sign guy. But if I have to compromise, I'm going to move over to one sign. Thank you.

Mr. Causey. Well moving on from the first point I made. It brings us to item one on the list here. Portable A-frame sandwich board signs no more than five etc. No illumination and then you have the spacing and bottom line is it requires a permit by the city. And then we get into details of the permit. But the whole thing is precluded by where it says any sign, stake, post, et cetera. So we're not saying you can have signs. We're saying if there is a sign, then we're saying what would be the safest kind of sign. But I'm also not happy looking at these wooden posts that I see marking the cabana areas. They're also in the middle of the sandy beach. and some of the properties those signposts were in the water at the king tides so and that's the cabana service area marking posts that we're talking about once again there's no reason why those can't be a temporary sign and be moved every night so people aren't even tripping over them in the dark and we're trying to keep the beach dark for the wildlife So it just seems like we would want to have these things that people aren't going to trip over or be injured by running into a solid wooden sign on the sandy beach. So that is a safety issue still as far as I'm concerned. I like the idea of no permanent signs on the beach, the sandy beach. So... i'm indifferent on whether we vote on that tonight or not i think it's also safer to say that so i would say yes on no permanent signs on the beach if if we're not saying you should have signs we're not saying signs are a good idea we're only saying no permanent signs we don't want post on the beach And generally, if water gets near one of those posts, it tends to wash out an area near the post. It doesn't seem ideal at all.

Commissioner Marriott.

Thank you. So I just have two other comments. My first one is regarding the, I guess I just want to check with the city attorney that we're on solid ground. If we're saying you can't have any signs within 50 feet of the water for safety purposes, but if a turtle lays a nest we rope it off is that just a is that just a the turtles were willing to sacrifice people's safety for the turtles or or is there some is there some you know is there is there some legal you know, legal grounds for calling it a safety issue for one kind of sign but not another kind of sign. I just don't want to get us into a spot where this is immediately going to get challenged and, you know.

So Austin versus Regan National Advertising, a US Supreme Court case that was decided after Reed versus Gilbert, which was the content neutral case, allows government signs. So these beach turtle nesting signs are issued at the direction of the FWC to the Florida marine turtle permit holder. So because there are government signs there may be other government signs that wind up being posted or placed and we have to We're creating an exemption or allowance just for those government kind of locational signs It might be and it's not specifically for sea turtles, but they're one example of what might qualify. I

Okay and then and then I also just want to want to make sure we don't lose sight of the fact also that you know the that part of the permit process is is to make sure that we're not letting somebody put a sign somewhere that they don't own right so you know the the the concern about how many signs we're going to end up with on the beach and i don't think any of us want a beach full of signs right there's there's places in the world that look like that i don't think any of us want to look like that um but also i think it's worth worth remembering that every Private property owner along the beach doesn't own all the way down to the mean high water line. And so You know for those that don't The sign if any would be much further back because the sign can only be on their property and that's the that's the purpose of the permit required permit application requiring Survey and a deed and and that sort of thing to make sure that that you know, it's it's not that by passing this we're allowing sandwich boards Exactly 50 feet from the water down the entire beach because not everybody owns that far down. So I think we're You know the the worst case scenario that we're picturing Is probably not possible So I did just want to point that out.

I think we're not We're maybe not going quite quite as far down the road of bad decisions as we might think we are Thank You Commissioner Robinson I have a question we said we you know If whatever decision we make we can always revisit it so my question would be I Would it be better to be a little bit more restrictive? Because then we can be more lenient, versus if we're more lenient, then we have nonconforming and grandfathering and all these other things that can happen.

That's true.

So I'm of the mindset that if we're going to look at, and we think we probably might be revisiting this, would being a little bit more restrictive on the footage And perfect example too is the fact that with the actual property survey for some people. So with that.

Are you talking about the square footage or the footage between signs on the zoning lot?

I'm talking the distance, the 50 feet. And then I do want to bring up that we did not put rebar in a couple places. We carried it to, it's in the front on the list of items, sign, stake, post, rebar, but it's missing in the second and third ones.

We can add that there.

Yeah, we've got a little fix to do on that for, I think it's actually three other places. So with that being said about being more restrictive, question is, do we want to consider C word of the coastal construction line?

I'd probably advise against that because it's a less defensible area. It can be much broader. CCCL is really an elevated line of construction standards and we're better off saying 50 feet here.

I'm just figuring if somebody's going to put one and somebody's walking by, how far is it for you to be able to see a sign? With that being said, Looking at 100 feet and lower 50? I just don't want to be under this. We're 40 feet right now with the beach concessions. That's only 10 more feet. I think Commissioner Maldonado showed us what 10 feet really is. Nothing in the scheme of things, right?

I brought it.

So, you know, so we're already using that 40 and now we've got the 50. I just to me thinking that that 50 feet should be a little bit greater than that.

So you're you're 50 feet becoming a 100 feet where a bit basically just saying for safety reasons. We need that extra space. Because of people playing in that area or whatever right.

I don't know that I'm on board with that. I think at some point, if you want to say there's no signs, we should just say there's no signs, like saying you can't.

We want to be careful of saying no signs because freedom of expression in First Amendment. But if I know that signs will be allowed off the beach so that that is a defense there but to say no signs anywhere on the beach would be hard a charter to defend if they have to be a 100 feet back I mean you might as well you know like at some at some point it gets silly you know like.

The signs have to be a hundred feet back let's make them three inches by three inches and they have to have a bush in front of them you know if you're gonna say we don't want there to be signs we should just say we don't want there to be signs instead of making them you know untenable you know it gets it gets silly I think we're gonna end up with common use of that sandy beach coming up soon and

Sticking with what's going to keep people from getting injured right now is the primary focus. So to me that feels like no post fixed into the ground on the beach, period. So that that means the safety zone that it means in the Sandy Beach temporary signs if if sign if people are using signs that we're not saying you signs we're we're just not going to talk about that we're just going to say no permanent signs on the Sandy Beach.

But this one says is that must be a portable a frames and okay, yeah, I mean it's a bit different than the look the terminology of temporary or permanent those are defined elsewhere in the sign code.

I like what we have here.

So I'm sorry, City Attorney, you're saying if there is a sign, it must be a portable sign. If it will be on the beach, is that what you're alluding to with this change?

With the ordinance that's in front of you, from zero to 50 feet, no sign, stake, post, rebar, pole. From 50 feet to the dune, you can have signs, but they must be portable A-frame or sandwich board signs.

Okay. Let me interrupt you, sir, please.

And the difference, the temporary signs are defined in the code as this period of time, say before and after an election. That's how they're defined there. It's different. Portable would be the word versus permanent or placed within the ground.

But I just want to make sure that The city attorney talked about the not somehow impacting or prohibiting freedom of speech. So as it stands right now in the land development code, all legal businesses in St. Pete Beach are allowed one sandwich board sign subject to the dimensional requirements in the LDC. It must be at the entrance to the business and only displayed while the business is open. Street side, I think. Street side, correct? That's street side, yeah. So if we had nothing on the beach, we have the street side, do we cover that requirement?

I think so. The court would look at it. They'd look for a rational basis that it's reasonably tailored to address your concerns. So I think we've reasonably tailored this ordinance to address the public safety environment aesthetic concerns that are out there.

Can I ask you another set of questions for you, city attorney, please? And I'll ask you just very succinctly. Without this ordinance, without what we're hearing today, and assuming the emergency expires in four days, is there any way that we stop those signs from being on the beach under our current existing exception of the emergency? If that goes away, is there any way to stop these signs?

No.

OK. Thank you. Commissioner Marriott city, city manager, city manager, please. Thank you. Mr. Marriott raised an interesting question, which is not every property owns down to the mean high water line. I assume someone down to the dune line and you already can't have signs presumably in the dunes. So I would love to understand and I'm asking what the what the what the work would be to understand what the true impact of how many properties in our city go down to the mean high water line that theoretically would be a concern here because if it turns out that there's six properties i'm not so sure that's still good it's just a lot more comforting to commissioner marriott's point than than every property and so i'm wondering you know what's our what's our effort to really understand and understand what the impact is of those properties that have the right to challenge this particular thing. I guess I'll ask you and city attorney at the same time. If we put this in place and people own down to the dune line anyways and so they likely wouldn't have a legal challenge against 50 feet of the of the of the mean high water line anyways because it's not applicable to them and then how many how many instances of down to the mean high water line are there and i don't know if you know if hand or if you can tell us how we would ascertain that yeah no and i'm not saying for tonight i'm just asking what it would take to get that so that we understood as we try and get this right the next time around that we understand really the impact on our beach to these discussions

We'd have to undertake that analysis. I don't know how many parcels there are on the beach. We could count the parcels. We can't totally rely on the property appraisers, GIS database lines. They've adjusted some of them in their GIS software. So we'd have to do an analysis. There's also... A complication with beachfront land, there's an avulsion, accretion, erosion. There's some additional judicial doctrines. Customary use doctrine is established by the courts and enforced by the judiciary, and people do have those rights no matter what we do. As they have asserted them, those are their rights, and court will enforce those if they can prove them. There are ways that you can actually add, if your property line says to the mean high water line or has to an area and sand has accreted or eroded over time, it can adjust those property boundaries. So it's a very complex analysis. We could do it on a case-by-case basis, but there would be hundreds that we'd have to do title searches for. It would take quite a bit of effort.

I don't know that we need to solve it tonight. I'm more thinking about, I've heard it a few times, I don't know that anybody's in love with what we're about to put in place, but I think the...

I can check with Camden, too. We may have some data from at least partial beach re-nourishments or areas where we're trying to get beach re-nourishment in the past, so I can find out what we have with regard to surveys of property boundaries along the beach. Okay.

I just think that would be helpful going forward, not for this evening, just as a general thought going forward. What is the true impact, Commissioner Marriott's question earlier? Thank you. All right.

One last thing on the cost of the permits the $25 fee. I don't think that that's sufficient to cover the administrative fees that you know the city should reasonably impose not to make money we're not looking to make money we're really just looking to recover document time associated with the enforcement and city's efforts to document this so I do think that that's that's a throwaway with that we need to look at that if we're gonna talk about some kind of sign that we need to address that before we do anything else.

We have signed a permit fee schedule that we can take up, but that would be separate from this. Okay, great, thank you. That's a good point.

All right, well, listen, I've heard a number of proposed amendments, and I'm sure it's not what I'm looking at in front of us. It's typed out, so I'm trying to figure out where we landed.

I heard things such as... Mayor, I think there's one that legal would support and suggest I'm on the same page with, which is to say 300 feet from any other sign on the same zoning lot. That way the neighbor can't block your sign. So I'm in favor of that additional one. Again, shall be placed at least 300 feet from any other sign on the same zoning lot. That's the distance separation between signs. You could do a different number, 100 or 200 or 300, but should be about the same zoning lot.

from here and right now now two neighbors two neighboring properties could put them literally side by side theoretically and then go 300 feet to the next one on the other side of them and that's just now we've got you know i think we're trying to limit science not so i'm with you i'm trying to find a solution i don't love any of this to be frank with you but uh That's why we're here. So I really would like to understand what we think are, I know you just mentioned that one. I don't know that I'm, I think we're taking a second, third, another crack at this in the future either way. So I'm looking for, I think you started to suggest that that might be a more tenable solution between the two of as is or on the same zoning lot. I don't know if the commission has a preference or whether you would recommend us a preference given that.

I like on the same zoning lot I think that was the intent and then the other change would be to add rebar where it's missing so everywhere it says sign state post rebar or poll and that is in three different locations in the beginning each time it mentions sign state post or poll it would say sign state post rebar or poll I'd like to add the word cone to that as well

Is there is there a way let me ask you this rather than enumerating everything that that we have is there a way to see it is or the reverse of that which is you know it must.

You know we're sitting here saying we don't I don't recommend I don't recommend call from a legal perspective. It's much much harder to defend on the public safety issues.

What about marker.

Parker I don't recommend either prohibiting markers markers is a way that they can mark their property line and if it's on flat on the ground stop interfering with anything. You know I'm thinking that it's likely this ordinance may get challenged I want our ordinance to be defensible.

And I'm thinking the lines two and three on exhibit a there where we you've added and on this line two and more landward at any time on line three and with those three changes and the rebar

And then the nothing in the sign code shall supersede negate or infringing on Florida's customer use doctrine being that 3rd change and that's the most critical piece right we I think we've all very clearly we're not trying to overturn customer use of what we're doing we're trying to not fall back on something that's even more untenable than where we're sitting today and I really don't think we are infringing and in any way here because we're not allowing anything yeah.

OK, so it's the and, the more landlord at any time. Those two are bolded. The addition of the rebar where it's missing in the three sections. The item number three on the same zoning lot. And the last but not least, the nothing in this sign code shall supersede, negate, or infringe upon Florida's customary use doctrine. Correct.

Yeah. Did we agree on a number of signs?

Well, you said zero. I would have agreed with that. I went down to one.

The city attorney said no.

I went down to one.

I'm fine with one.

We said we can be restrictive and then, if necessary, adjust. Yeah.

I like that argument. Can you explain your thoughts of how one sign might be used, for example, for a person who wants to manage their beach property?

I wanna emphasize, again, it's content neutral, so even if they wanted to write on there, stop the war. It's not about cons.

Then they could write that on that one sign.

so you feel like we're being too accommodating or too practical saying four is good i think four sets us up for impact whether we're relinquishing or not doing it by having less we're not implying that we're intending to take so it leaves us in a neutral territory with one sign The ground markers that the attorney talked about, I do think that there's ways that properties can be marked in the sand without a sign. Yeah.

If you do go to one, you just need to consider that you would remove the distance amendment because there would be no more than one sign.

Well, it would be 300 from another sign on their property. Then you would need to change it back. It could be from a cabana service or it could be from, you know, a beach concession.

I think you're saying you get one literally on your property.

You get one. The beach concession signs are written in a different section of this. So is that going to change that as well?

So alcohol cabana service areas are required by government. So it's a government sign. There's one with the 40 feet. There's only one in the city right now.

Section.

I think it's only applicable in one area. Section. The dances are the sandwich board within 40 feet for water sports.

We've got the 26 dot 18 dot G and everything underneath it?

There's only one that we know of.

I think we might be twisting ourselves up a little bit over number of signs when that's already controlled by the distance. Because there's, I mean, I was just looking at my map. And I know the distance marker on Google Maps isn't perfect. But there's hardly a beachfront property that's wider than 300 feet. So that is the limit on the number of signs. So I don't think we need to go too crazy trying to say we only want one sign or we only want two signs because if they have to be 300 feet apart, that's self-limiting because of the size of the zoning parcels.

I want to say something about the practicality of the number of signs as it applies to the alcohol service areas. So if we're going to make signage temporary, then if we don't want to change, get into the policies regarding the alcohol service area at this point, Normally, they mark the four boundaries of the designated service area with post in a lot of cases. And if they're going to use a temporary sign, then they would be expecting to put a temporary sign at the four corners of that service area where they're telling their guests, you have to stay in this area. Now, if I could make it the way I would like it, I would just say the cabana itself is the service area in every case. And so you wouldn't need any sign at all. And the alcohol would always stay at the cabana. So that would be the designated area. And I think it would eliminate the signs completely if we did it that way. I would have no objections with getting rid of signs. In this case, unless we're going to get into that specific use for signs that's currently used, then we might need to, that's probably why we have four here.

Yeah, we're trying to stay content neutral here, and those other issues about alcohol service errors will be addressed in the beach behavior ordinance that we have continued for the moment.

will be coming so we're gonna tell the people who are how are we gonna impact the impact of what we're doing right now is what I'm concerned about because I would like us to have an enforceable thing so and you would stay with four right that's what I'm getting at and we can we can change it later but right now with the current policies that we have for Cabana service areas and we either have to buy into changing that now or else keeping how do we designate a service area.

And that's one of the reasons why Stafford recommended four.

Okay.

It's easy to delineate a location. Sometimes you need to delineate a location.

Four at most, never closer than 300 feet apart. That's really what we're trying to convey, I think. I'm thinking of the really large resorts that have room for four. Most will not, right? That's kind of what I'm hearing. Most will at best be allowed one. And then in the really, really large wide resorts, I think we're thinking they could potentially, 1,200 feet, potentially get four in there, right? um i'm a city last question for may well i keep saying that many yet it's not so um do we do we necessarily mean 30 300 feet uh up the coastline versus catty corner towards the street kind of thing and i can get two on there and what do we really mean when we're trying to convey this Because we didn't directionally say 300 feet. And I know it's 300 feet from anything. But theoretically, if I can go catty-corner across my lot and put it at 310 feet, but I'm going towards the street and towards the front, are we still, is this what we're trying to accomplish?

We didn't make a distinction, but you could. You could say 300 feet parallel to the shoreline, if you'd like. I thought it was from. Depending on what you want. Right now it's from any other sign.

Stronger. Towards the street.

It's from any sign, but his point is if the property's 600 deep, they could have one at the front, then they go another one in the middle, then another one at the.

Building.

I don't understand that.

I don't think anybody's concerned about the signs that are 300 feet away from the water.

All right. That's good enough. I've heard enough.

I'm fine with parallel from the water. That would work if you want to do it that way. I don't think we need to keep it from going forward or back.

We see consensus on parallel to the water or no, I don't think so So we have the four we have the word and and more landward at any time and the insertion of rebar and the insertion of 300 feet from any other sign on the same zoning law Then we have nothing in the sign code shall supersede negate or infringe upon Florida's customary use doctrine Sounds like those are the ones that we have general consensus on.

How many feet did you say?

We left at 300 feet. Thank you. So we'd be seeking a motion for that, perhaps.

I'll make a motion to adopt with modifications as just listed by our city attorney, ordinance number 2026-11. Second.

Commissioner Maldonado?

Yes.

Commissioner Marriott? Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Causey? Yes. Mayor Tate?

Yes.

The motion carries.

All right. Thank you. That was not fun. All right, let's see, moving forward, action items. We have one action item on, which is our city manager's annual evaluation. I'm not sure if there's a staff report. I know we received a report. I don't know if there's any, or is it you speaking?

Yeah, I'll just give a quick verbal report. For the public's purposes, if you haven't read the entire packet this evening, my evaluation is included in that packet as a public document. The process included a 360 evaluation that had staff members from all levels in the organization. subset of those asked to participate as well as the mayor and Commission the staff responses are anonymous and the mayor and Commission are not for Florida sunshine law purposes I'm happy to report overall I believe the feedback was very good and I think I'm hearing from the organization that morale is continuing to be good and move towards improvement we've done a lot of uh improvements in operational effectiveness and process improvements and documentation and implementation of Many new systems and policies to help the city run smoother and more efficiently also Appreciate all the feedback from the mayor and Commission And looking forward to taking that feedback and putting it into implementation and reporting back to you on how we are making progress I would just comment that my my takeaways and I hear you loud and clear our Infrastructure is very important This year for this commission and community as well as community engagement continuing to do outreach communicate and engage with our residents and hearing their concerns as well as what they need in their own neighborhoods and and then also just continuing to work with staff on staff development um and and really process improvement and continuous improvement in the organization so i want to say i've appreciated all my time with each of you some it's been longer than others but i'm i feel very honored to be serving this community and and all of you in my position as city manager I did request a second amendment to my contract that you're considering tonight as well. Those provisions include a request for a two-year extension of my term, which would make my total sitting contract be for a period of five years. I'm just now completing the second year of my contract. um the second is just to align future cost of living adjustments with the employees regular cost of living adjustments that are considered and approved or not during the budget process depending on the fiscal state of the city and so i would just be receiving the same as the general employees And then lastly, asking for a limited post-election transition period, which in my words, I'm calling a cooling off period where if any newly elected or appointed person joins this team, that gives me 90 days to work with the new appointed or elected official before any future employment decisions may be made about my serving you. I did hear some feedback from Commissioner Robinson as well as Mayor Tate around some word clarification on section four on the amendment to make a change. And I asked the city attorney to craft the language. essentially would be more clear that this provision would only go into effect if the results of any city election city commission appointment or recall that results in any change in composition of the city commission is what would trigger it so if you all are here um in march which i hope you are um that there this provision would not trigger because there's been no change to to the team And that's the end of my report. I'm happy to answer any questions or take any feedback.

Mr. Marriott.

thank you um so as i guess the only one still on the commission from when we hired francis i want to reiterate that i've said multiple times to people that i'm sure when my time on the commission is done that i will firmly believe that probably the only good thing i really feel like i accomplished is hiring francis because she's done tremendous things for the city and I'm so appreciative of what she's done to the city and the calmness and the processes and the professionalism that we've gained along with her. And I think that something that probably didn't really come out in her evaluation, but I think we all know and I think is important for the public to know is that probably the hardest part of her job is training all of us. and uh and i know when um when i first became a commissioner um you know it's a it's a steep learning curve and there's a lot of things that you don't know about what your job is and how the city works and having worked with a previous city manager versus working with francis when she came on board It is a night and day difference and her ability to coach all of us through the processes and what our job is and how to best represent our constituents and be effective. And she's able to do that really well without steering us any policy direction right she's been able to do that in a in a really professional way so that we all can do our jobs well and and still have the freedom to make the policy decisions we need to make and so I think that that's something that's really important that everybody be cognizant of and so thank you so much I think you're doing a great job and I am I'm completely on board with with your proposed contract changes Mr. Causey.

Yeah, I completely agree with Commissioner Marriott. Even though I've only been here for a few months, I can tell that our city manager is very discerning and she's also capable. And very important for us. She understands customer service. And I have the impression that it's been a work in progress to bring the city to a better place. I think she's been doing that. I see a lot of new people in the city. it takes those new people time to get up to speed so but i think we have the right people here that we can just be truly positively outrageous customer service for our city and so thank you francis i think you're doing a great job on that yep And I'm very pleased that you want to extend your contract. I'm happy with the COLA idea. And it sounds like the post-election 90-day period is good as amended.

Thank you.

Make sure you turn your light off. Didn't want to know if you had any thoughts. It's all good. All good. All is good. Mr. Maldonado, please.

He's still thinking. So first of all, let me start by saying thank you. Thank you for adapting to a new commission. When elected officials are brought into the fold, it's not easy. I know that we often seem that we're putting a lot on your plate and in turn on the city staff's plate, but you've been an impact player. You've been able to, as one of the commissioners said, push back when necessary, but with the strategic intent of the city's needs before any particular district. I applaud you for bringing in talent. We talked about that. I think that you're steering the ship in the right direction. You came in at a very turbulent and challenging time. I think that you've had time to recover as we have and get your balance and get your feet on. I would say that I do like the strategic approach that you've started to instill with this commission when it comes to seeing the city as an enterprise vice individual district. And we need to all start to think like that. I also enjoy your availability. I would say that 24-7. Ms. Robustelli has been available. Unfortunately, a lot of times that comes on weekends and evenings. As a salary employee, it's taken for granted often. I often forget that, so mea culpa. I admit that I send emails at 3 a.m. I don't expect you to answer them. But your sense of urgency within manners that you can control is appreciated. I do understand that St. Pete Beach, even though we're a small municipality and city, that things don't happen at the pace that we would expect. I'm not making excuses, I'm just saying that it's one thing that does cause consternation and frustration. You're able to push and leverage those to the extent you can, but as I started to say, you do push back at times and say it's not a high priority, even though it's important to the district. We have a prioritization system, which I do rely on. And then lastly, I just want to say that it has been a pleasure to work with someone who's not oftentimes challenged by the emotions of things. You remain very strategically neutral, and I do appreciate that. So thank you, and I do agree with your terms and the adjustments.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Robinson.

I wanted to say thank you as well. It's been a pleasure working with you. I appreciate your calmness under storm and non-storm and being just very even keeled on stuff. I know there's some trying times and appreciate your efforts and everything. And thank you for the improvement in the processes. I do feel that that's going much smoother than we have been. So it's nice to see.

again thank you and um i have no problems with thank you to ask so make sure don't don't like step anybody's uh nice time so uh similar to commissioner carlson my time with you has been brief but uh listen i've been i've been very um impressed with the fact that you have a sense of community we're not just a city of residents and a city of businesses and a city of whatever, we're a community. I think he used the term one island once before and I kind of appreciate that. We are a shared community. I've seen an emphasis on teamwork from you as I've worked with you. I think your leadership style, impresses me and aligns with kind of how I think about how I've run businesses in the past. And I will say, I know that it's tough dealing with not only the commission's perspectives, the staff's perspectives, the community's perspectives, and through it all, I've seen you remain calm. It's not always easy. Each of us, I'm sure, has gotten some emails or something that, or some communique that is difficult, and I know when you get involved, I can expect professionalism and calm at all times. And that is impressive and necessary. So thank you for that. I love your thoughts on continuous improvement. We can make, to Commissioner Malinotto's comment, that things may not happen as quickly as PACES, we'd all like. But as we continuously improve, we find opportunities. We saw a little bit of it tonight. I don't think we got where we all wanted to be, but we said, look, we'll get somewhere, take a step. We'll keep working on these things. And so your spirit of continuous improvement is inspirational. And lastly, I just thank you. I thank you for helping me get up to speed. And thank you for your leadership. And as others have conveyed, I echo. I'm happy to approve these pieces.

Thank you so much.

So with that, is there a motion?

What is our official action? Approving the amendment, is that?

Yes, the second amendment to the city manager agreement. That's before you with the change.

I'll make a motion to approve the second amendment to the city manager's employment agreement with the change as was presented tonight. I'll second.

Vice Mayor Marriott, or I'm sorry, Commissioner Marriott? Yes. Vice Mayor Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Cozzi? Yes. Commissioner Maldonado? Yes. Mayor Tate? Yes. The motion carries.

Okay, thank you. Next topic is items for discussion. I believe the only one I heard was hyperscale data centers from Commissioner Maldonado.

Thank you, Mr. Rainer. I would imagine that the mayor is actually an expert in this, given his background. To me, it's a new era. arena something that I've just stepped into but something that I have been following and it's starting to get a lot of attention and I'm getting more and more educated on it daily but I just think that strategically it's something that we should look at even though the possibility that one of these isn't going to land in our backyard overnight uh there certainly is a desire to bring these into municipalities and to basically uh invade our our boundaries so let me let me start by saying uh you know a little bit about what a hyperscale data center is it's a massive highly scalable computing facility designed to support robust cloud services and ai workloads What I'm talking about is typically something that houses over 5,000 servers and occupies more than 10,000 square feet. I did discuss this with our city attorney. What we don't want to do is somehow unintentionally impact the small businesses that rely on small scale data centers to operate. What I would like to do and discuss is the possibility of adopting an ordinance to reject hyperscale data center development in St. Pete Beach. to include its municipal boundaries, which also include water. So there's also an emerging desire to bury these things underwater. It helps with the cooling. So these things, I mean, if you read about them, they require extraordinary amounts of electricity and millions of gallons of water per day for cooling. So it threatens the aquifers, especially during drought conditions, which we're currently under, and it destabilizes local power grids. So in addition to a resolution banning hyperscale data centers in St. Pete Beach and its city's municipality boundaries, I would also like to propose that we create a resolution showing support for legislative action signed by Governor Ron DeSantis specifically Senate Bill 484, an AI data center regulation that protects rate payers, preserves local authority and the environment and local communities from harm caused by hyperscale data centers. Thank you.

I don't know if there's comments or thoughts.

Is there an appetite to adopt such an ordinance, I guess, is the question.

I'm looking at others first, and then I'll opine afterwards. You win the race.

Thank you. So I'm certainly not opposed to that sort of ordinance. It's possible I don't know enough about it to make this statement. It seems like this would be a very unlikely place for anyone to want to put one, starting with the lack of anywhere that's that size, continuing on to the danger of flooding and the susceptibility to storms. So I don't feel like it's likely necessary. to have that kind of an ordinance. So I sure wouldn't want to devote a lot of staff time to something as though it were an emergency when I feel like it's pretty unlikely to happen regardless of any ordinance we might have. But I'm not out there trying to get people to come here and build one either. So whatever.

Thank you. Commissioner Robinson. I kind of second that. I mean, it's unlikely to happen. But in the event, it's not bad to have it out there. I don't perceive it as a high priority on anything with staff. But you never know who's going to come knocking at the door. Although I thought Pinellas County Banned data centers. Was that correct or not?

Or unincorporated. That was unincorporated, yeah.

Only unincorporated. Only unincorporated.

Unincorporated cities are protected currently.

OK, thank you. So yeah, I would be good with that. Again, just not a high priority.

Mr. Causey, sir.

Well, I wonder if a smaller scale data center might be nice. But I'm particularly interested in economic development here, not at the cost of abnormally trading off our water supply or increasing our electric rates. So hyperscale data center, I don't think fits this town very well for the reasons mentioned. But I wouldn't want to rule out or discourage high-tech investment in the area or corporate headquarters moving here or even the idea of a small-scale data center if there were such a thing as that.

In my opinion, I certainly don't want to lose our local control to make these decisions. I think we've found that even in the last month or so, we've been able to quickly enact an emergency ordinance on signs per se, which is more of a clear and present issue, if you will, for me. So when I think about what we focus our time on and what ordinances, and this is a general comment, not specific to hyperscale data centers. It's more general to me. I think about all the things that we could do and might do and contemplate. The question is, more pervasively coming into my head every time I think about something that we're considering, is this a clear and present issue? Is it happening now? Is it in our midst? Is it happening frequently enough that we need to somehow put an ordinance in? And is it not already covered by some other ordinance? And I'm not suggesting that hyperscale dentistry is covered by some other ordinance. I'm more speaking along the lines of any change we enact Should should be something that we are not already covered by under some other ordinance, right? I asked I asked a city attorney earlier, you know Are we already covered by some other ordinance on these signs and is essentially as his answer was no, right? We've got to do something does to stop that right and so for me I'm thinking about Let's make sure it's an issue that is prevalent or persistent or imminent that is not covered by another ordinance that we have and is worthy of our investment. And I'm not suggesting, Commissioner Mullen, I can assure you we probably don't have anything that would per se stop this other than what might be at the county or the state or some other level, but I don't know to the other commissioners' comments that it's worth the investment right now personally.

So I would just say that I hear you and that these are all great discussion points and that's why I wanted to bring it up. It's not a five meter target, it's what we would consider a very strategic hundred meter target. I will tell you that my concern is that because Pinellas County is already protected, most of its unincorporated municipalities, that those interested in building these infrastructures will start to look elsewhere. We do have, parcels of land that can be used in St. Pete Beach and that there is likely going to be at some point a reduction of size and requirements. Think of this as a USB of 20, 25 years ago or your cell phone when it was a computer the size of this building. So it's a very long-term, very strategic thing that I need that I think that we do need to at least consider it my question to The city attorney would be how much of a heavy lift this would be is this something symbolic and in a very short You know ordinance that we declare our intention and a resolution against showing support To the governor for taking the first initial steps. I don't want to put a burden. We just talked about this during the city managers feedback of being the idea fairies coming up with things just because it is something that is starting to hit my algorithms now and I think that it's gonna start to hit yours and anyone listening just as we said, hyper data, data centers, multiple times. So city attorney, if you have just a quick comment, maybe just to wrap up on your position, how much effort and how much of a distraction would this be, sir?

Well, if the consensus is to research it, we would research it and bring something back to you. I can tell you just from preliminary research, there are many kinds of data centers. And some of them cover racks of servers. You might have 500 to 2,000 servers within an area of 5,000 to 20,000 square feet. So your Publix is, say, 50,000 square feet. So in a regular storefront, you could have a data center that has racks of servers. that could fall under the definition and might be actually something we would want to promote or may not want to promote in the city. So we'd have to take a look at that. And then the hyperscale ones, there's midsize data centers that go from 20,000 to 100,000 square feet, where the hyperscale AI campuses can go hundreds of acres. And so many of the interior counties are addressing moratoriums and looking at what kinds of zoning criteria they want to have. Some places want to encourage them and bring them there. Other places want to prohibit and ban them. So we'd have to take a look at all the different ranges of sizes and ranges of opportunities and alternatives for you to look at. So we spend as little or as much time on this as you wanted.

Minimal, minimal effort, but certainly something that we, and I do agree with District Three's position that we don't want to discourage economic development. If one of these were to come to be, I would say let's put it in District Three.

I'm happy to accommodate you, sir, but yeah. I know the perfect place.

Just, again, I do know that there are various sizes and scales. To Attorney Brooks' point, we don't want to have unintended consequences, but I I would like to have at least a look, just some initial information. No hurry to the finish line. We've put it out there. I hope that no one hears this and puts a permit in tomorrow. There is, like I said, some suitable areas that could be converted. But thank you.

Yeah, I think that's what I worry about is we speak it into existence, right? And so now someone's going to come just challenge it. So I'm not opposed to it. I just... Minimal investment, I think, as you alluded to, is maybe prudent, but I wouldn't go too far with it personally. I don't think it's something I would want to look back and go, God, I wish we could have spent that time and money elsewhere.

So the second part of that was a resolution. I think that that might be a quick turn and burn just to acknowledge the governor's work on this as far. I think that it would serve our interest and show support. And that should not be a heavy lifted at all.

So yeah, the process for that would, we would work with our state lobbyists to make sure we're aligned with the bill and the governor, and then bring it to you typically on consent. And these are pretty boilerplate. So that that's an easy one. If it's just a show of support.

I'm not opposed to that unless you're concerned with pushing away business or potential data center in your backyard. I think we could change our minds on that if we needed to So I think that's a possibly want to take that one forward then sounds good sir Okay, that was it was quite interesting. Thank you All right Reports city clerk, please.

I have nothing to report this evening.

Thank you city manager. I

Thank you, Mayor. I just have a quick update on Publix. Staff discussed next steps for the Publix redevelopment with representation for its shopping center owner the week of June 14th as a large commercial development redevelopment on the Dolphin Village property where Publix is located is subject to additional public input and can be subject to additional public hearings than smaller single-use commercial development projects. Regardless of the form the redevelopment takes, a public community meeting hosted by the development applicant is required prior to submission of a site plan to the city. If the redevelopment is the same or less square footage than the former grocery store and the redeveloped building is elevated only high enough to remove its first floor from the floodplain, The project does not require additional public hearings and is permitted to proceed to site and building permitting after the community meeting. The reason this is important is if they decide to build in the same footprint within the height limitations, it would not require a hearing in front of the commission. If the building is proposed to be redeveloped larger in square footage or taller than a minimally compliant elevation would permit a new conditional use permit with public hearing before the city commission would be required. Both forms of the project will require compliance with building, fire, design, parking, and landscaping requirements applicable based on the building and project site. The owner of the shopping center has not committed to next steps or a specific development proposal for the grocery store, and staff will share additional details once we know.

Thank you. That's quite interesting. City Attorney.

I'll take this evening.

Thank you. Commissioner Maldonado.

Yeah, I'd like to thank the Vina Del Mar Island Association for decorating the bridge onto Vina. It looks wonderful. Thank you for your efforts.

Commissioner Causey.

I would like to say that for the next three weeks again I think we need to think about the beach and everyone should focus on that and I have put a blog online that you can find you can always email me and I'll send you a link to it it's just my current thoughts and I'm taking feedback from everyone that wants to communicate with me probably except for you guys on the commission

Absolutely, except for us guys on the commission, right? Yeah Our city clerk would say absolutely with with with exclusion of those of us on the Commission, I'm sure she would say that mm-hmm so

I think we're going the right track with the safety side of things tonight and I want to say that I'm continuing my weekly neighborhood visits and I am changing my schedule. From now on I'm going to try doing the meeting that I go to in each neighborhood on the same day of the week. So in other words I'm going to do the three neighborhoods that I normally visit on Mondays. So you can check again on the website that I have for the exact times, but I'll try to be consistent with that, and I'll be in your park on Mondays. That's all I've got. Commissioner Robinson.

I have my library hours. They are July 8th. It's a Wednesday. I've been trying to do Mondays, but the Monday was not available. So it'll be the first Wednesday from 5 to 5.45 at the library.

And look forward to seeing everybody there. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Marriott.

thank you so I just want to thank the Community Development and the building department I've anecdotally heard from a number of people in my neighborhood that all kinds of parts of the building permitting process seems to be going better for people we've all of a sudden have several houses in District one that are 12 feet off the ground and we have new construction starting on almost every block and more houses have been torn down which is sad to see but also hopeful because it means things are being rebuilt and more people are in the neighborhood and so good things are happening I want to remind everybody that the Sunday market is still happening and even though it's hot if you get there early there's still fantastic things to get and the produce stand is amazing and the beach theater is open and lots of really good things are happening in our community and it's really thriving and it's a beautiful place and we're all happy we live here so um thank you guys for helping make it that way thank you that was very nice um yeah for closing from my perspective listen

These are hard things that we deal with on an ongoing basis. I know there's lots of passion on, I'd say both sides, but there's probably multiple sides to each thing that we actually come across and different perspectives. And I just wanted to thank the entire community. We're trying to solve difficult problems that are real. And these aren't easy discussions. And I know that there's a lot of effort from the commission, the community at large on these topics. So I just want to acknowledge that and say thank you. And the city staff and the city manager and her team, there's a lot of work that goes into these things. So thank you, number one. From a community perspective, I echo Commissioner Marriott's sentiments. I think I see some good community kind of spirit going on. We're getting closer to the Fourth of July celebration, but as was noted earlier, it's not just a Fourth of July thing. Let me see if I can get this right. This is our country's semi-quincentennial, no semi-bicentennial, I'm not quite sure. Semi-quincentennial I think is the right phrase, but I could be wrong. But I've seen decorations going up all over the city. As I drive around, I see them hanging off the Don, I see them hanging off Bovina, I see them hanging up on the poles and entrance to Belle Vista where I live, and I see just lots of really good community engagement. I was just double checking my calendar And we will not be meeting as a commission until after the 4th of July festivities, which is between now and then. I went on record last time that saying I will be sitting in a dunk tank if anybody dislikes my decisions this evening or my input. I hope my fellow commissioners will join me in that spirit as well. was planning to be throwing okay i throw back so it's all good yeah yeah so anyways i just wanted to i i invite everybody to come out and enjoy our festivities not just uh you know for july 4th but ongoing i like the community spirit that i'm seeing a lot of these things and let's keep that going so thank you uh with that uh there being no further business we are adjourned