City Council - Regular Meeting

from lunch I hope everybody is well fed and rested it is 1 30 p.m. and Tampa City Council is called to order clerk would you please call the roll Miranda Maniscalco her tech here young here Vieira Carlson and Clinton here thank you gonna get a motion to open the 1 30 public hearings I have motion councilman ran a second from councilman Maniscalco all those in favor say aye aye opposed ayes have it we're on to item number 43

Good afternoon. I don't know, Mr. Chair, if you would like to swear in.

Oh, that is true. Thank you for the reminder. If you are here to speak to items 43 or 44, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn in by our clerk. So that's basically all the public hearings if you're here. Stand, raise your right hand. I suspect most everybody in the room should be standing and raising the right hand. Thank you very much. And thank you, madam, for reminding me.

Again, my name is Kamaria Pettis-Mackle. I'm from the city attorney's office. I'm here for agenda item number 43, which is a review hearing for the application of SU-12633 for the property located at 2406 East Annie Street. The petitioner for this matter is Solomon Joseph. And the request to staff was regarding the ability to have a congregate living facility. Staff denied the request for a congregate living facility on April 15, 2026, on the basis that it did not meet the special criteria that's outlined in 27-156. Staff will go over. the more details about why they denied the request. City Council, I've provided a packet to you that includes a copy of Code Section 27-61, which is the review criteria used to conduct this review hearing. I've also provided the rules of procedure for City Council to use in order to conduct this hearing, and I've also provided a sample motion to use at the conclusion of this matter. As outlined in Code Section 27-61, Subsection J3, this is a de novo review hearing, which means that City Council can accept new evidence. At the conclusion, you are essentially sitting in the shoes of the zoning administrator and will consider the factors that the zoning administrator used in order to make the final decision regarding this matter. So staff will again give you the overview. As Laura Marley is present, she'll give you the overview of staff's decision. And at the conclusion of this hearing, City Council can take two actions regarding this matter. City Council can affirm the decision of the zoning administrator and deny the special use application, or City Council can overturn the decision of the zoning administrator and therefore allow the congregate living facility That used to be used at 2406 East Annie Street. I'm available if you have any questions, but I'll turn it over to Ms. Marley for the explanation of why this application was denied.

Does Council have any questions about the procedures of the hearing? Hearing none. Thank you, Ms. Marley.

Good afternoon. Laura Marley, Development Coordination. Application is SU-1-2633. Petitioner is Solomon Joseph for Sunshine Serenity Homes. The property owner is Solomon Joseph and Marin Joseph. Property address is 2406 East Annie Street. The zoning is R-60. Future land use is R-10. The special use request is for the establishment of a congregate living facility small. and here is the aerial of the property the property is outlined in red this is just a definition of the congregate living facility we do not require you to go through special use if it's six or under six or more you need to go through a special use The applicant met all of the code requirements except for A, which is no such use shall be established within 1,200 feet of another professional facility. And there is one facility actually, you can see that the property 2406 is here, 2405 is across the street. And here is the ACA, which shows that there are two facilities. One is Sunshine for three people, and one is the 2405, which is across the street for six people. The one across the street had their state license in 2025 and the current one just got their license in June 2026. So we say established is the person who got their state license first. That's why we had to deny the special use request. This is the proposed site plan and any questions?

Does Council have any questions? Hearing none, does that conclude staff's presentation? Yes, sir. Okay, very good. And there's an appellant here, the applicant for this? Come to the front. Start with your name, please.

I'm Shania Matthews. I'm co-owner of Sunshine Serenity Homes LLC.

I'm Solomon Joseph. I'm one of the owners of the Sunshine Serenity Homes.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Council Chair and members of the City Council. My name is Shania Matthews, and I'm one of the owners of Sunshine Serenity Homes LLC. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present our petition for review regarding our proposed congregate living facility located at 2406 East Annie Street. Today I respectfully ask the council to consider the unique circumstances surrounding this application and grant our petition. Purpose of today's request. The purpose of today's request is straightforward. First, I'm asking the approval of our petition of review. Second, I want to demonstrate that we relied in good faith on official city guidance when beginning this project. And third, I want to show the significant efforts and investments we made to comply with every requirement requested by the city. Who we are. Sunshine Serenity Homes was established to provide safe community-based housing for individuals served through the Florida Agency of Persons with Disabilities or APD. This facility is designed for six or fewer residents and will operate as a residential home within the community. Our goal is to provide a safe, supportive, and professionally managed environment for individuals who deserve the opportunity to live in a community setting while receiving the care they need. Ownership and clinical expertise. One of the unique aspects of our project is the experience of the ownership team. Sunshine Serenity Homes is owned and operated by four registered nurses. Together, we have more than 20 years of combined experiences in critical care, acute care, patient safety, medication management, and complex medical care. Two of the owners currently work within the Veterans Affairs healthcare system as registered nurses. One of the owner works at Tampa General Hospital as registered nurse. One owner serves as nursing professor at Hillsborough Community College and University of South Florida. This is not an absentee-owned investment property. It is a healthcare-driven project developed by professionals who are personally committed to serving vulnerable individuals in our community. Timeline of events. The timeline is one of the most important aspects of this case. On May 12, 2025, we received zoning confirmation from the city. At that time, we were informed that there were no similar facilities within the required separation distance. Based upon that determination, we moved forward with the project in good faith. We entered into lease agreements, began the permitting process, and complied with every requirement that was placed before us. How the conflict arose. After our process had already begun, another nearby facility applied for zoning approval. on or about June 10, 2025, which we came to know way later in the process. As a result, a separation distance issue later developed. The key point is that this conflict did not exist when we initially received zoning confirmation and relied on city's guidance. The circumstances changed after we had already committed significant resources to the project. Compliance efforts. Throughout this process, we followed every instruction provided by the city. We completed extensive life safety improvements. We installed a fire sprinkler system. We completed the change of use process. We obtained required approvals and complied with permitting requirements. At every stage, our goal was to meet and exceed the city's expectations. Financial investment. As part of these compliance efforts, we made substantial investments. Approximately $35,000 was spent on the fire sprinkler system. More than $10,000 was spent on city fees, permits, and related expenses. In addition, we have maintained lease obligations of approximately $2,500 per month for past 15 months for a vacated home. our total investment now exceeds eighty thousand dollars these investments were made because we relied on the city's initial determination and continued following city guidance throughout the process why this outcome is inequitable we understand and respect the purpose of city's ordinance however we respectfully believe that applying it under these unique circumstances creates an inequitable result. We acted first. We relied on official city guidance. We invested substantial resources. We completed every requirement requested by the city. Yet the circumstances that created the current conflict arose only after our process had already begun. I'm simply asking the council to consider those facts and the good faith efforts made throughout this process. Community benefits. We promise this facility will provide meaningful benefits to the community. It will support vulnerable residents who need safe and stable housing. It will maintain the residential character of the neighborhood. There will be no commercial activities and minimal impact on traffic. Most importantly, it will provide quality housing and support services for individuals who deserve to live safely within this community. Our mission. Sunshine Serenity Homes has a mission. Our mission is to serve APD clients, including those who may benefit from additional medical and nursing oversight. As registered nurses, we have seen firsthand the challenges faced by individuals who require support while maintaining their independence. Our goal is to create a safe, supportive, and professionally to manage in an environment where residents can thrive. We believe our healthcare experience uniquely positions us to achieve that mission. Request to council. Council Members and Chair, I am not asking for special treatment. I am asking for fair consideration based on the unique timeline of events. I respectfully request that the Council recognize our reliance on the City's initial determination, our substantial investments, our compliance efforts, and the community benefits this home will provide. For those reasons, I respectfully ask that you grant our petition for review. Thank you for your time, your consideration, and your service to the City of Tampa.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Hurtado.

Do you own this property?

Yes.

Okay. I'm the owner of the property.

It's leased to the LLC, from the LLC.

Oh, lease, okay, that's what I was trying to understand, why you put $35,000 into something that you don't own. I just had to ask that, okay. So, then I have a question for staff.

And don't go far, because I have a question for staff after you're done.

And I apologize because I was paying attention to your presentation, but I cannot remember the date that you said the other applicate. It was in, I think, the single digits of May.

Yeah, the license for the one across the street was September 1st, 2025.

September 1st, 2025. And their license was May 12th, 2025.

And their license from the state is June 1st, 2026. Okay. These are the dates from the state license. I think the dates that you're talking about is the CRT letters from the city. Okay. So can you say again June what? June 1st, 2026 was when Sunshine, this application, got their state license. Okay. And September 1st, 2025 is the one across the street got their state license. Okay.

And then June 10th is when they applied. June 10th is when the nearby facility applied for their CRT certification letter. So CRT. So is there a reason that you didn't tell that group that there was one within 1,000 feet?

At the time, that information wasn't given to us or provided to us. It would have been after because this letter was June 10th. This one was May 10th, but they got their license September 1st.

Yes, but the question here is, they applied in May and you did the due diligence and there was no one surrounding it. The other person applied in June and you did the due diligence and didn't note the one that applied in May.

Correct, because people do apply and they ask if this use can be allowed and we say yes. At this time of this letter, there's nothing in 1,000 feet. So at the time they both applied, nothing was in 1,000 feet that had the state license.

Okay, so it seems that then that other house got started. Are people living there?

Is that already a... We just know that they have their state license and that's where we have it as established. Established means they have their state license is how we have used the term established. So how would they have gotten their state license without an actual property? address you don't you have to have an address you have to have a property to get a state license then I'm not really sure how this city law can work if I mean

That doesn't make any sense because if you have, I mean, this is the perfect scenario of you have your license and you could be spending six months preparing and then someone could open one right next door five days before.

Right. Typically what happens is people get their CRT letters saying you can do this use and then they go to the state. So it's usually done very quickly. So unfortunately, in this case, they got the letter and then they didn't go straight to the state. They waited past a year to go to the state. So that's typically how it works. You get your approval from the jurisdiction and then you go to get your state license.

OK. I'm still a little confused here, because I just really believe that there should be a better.

I think I've got it, but it's a hearing, so I can't provide testimony.

Okay, I just, no, I'm, okay. Thank you, and it sounds sort of like you would like to respond as well. If you just come up, state your name again, and then I'll, you're welcome to provide some more information. And don't go too far, because I think he had a question for you.

Thank you, ma'am. My name is Solomon. I'm one of the owners, I'm the property owner. So actually the issue was, you know, we applied first for the zoning. We got the zoning from the city of Tampa. There was no facility nearby that 1200 feet surrounding. So the property across the street was on sale. Someone bought that property. After that, after 28 days, they went to City of Tampa, applied for a zoning for a group home. So they got the same zoning letter from the City of Tampa stating that there is no property. So we got zoning, they got zoning. So we approached the City of Tampa for the six or fewer residents, what are the requirements to start this home. So they said we need to have a fire marshal has to come to our property and check the safety of the property. So we asked for a fire marshal to come. When the fire marshal came to our property, they said we need fire sprinkler to be installed. So we contacted a couple of fire sprinkler company and we got caught and we installed all those. So when we called the fire marshal for the final inspection, the fire marshal asked us the change of use paper. So we said, we don't have that, so we applied to the city of Tampa, the change of use, especially, we applied three different applications. I went personally multiple times to the city of Tampa, more than 20 times. I went there and asked every staff who's available that day whether we need a sprinkler. So when we contact the state, state said they don't need a fire sprinkler. That's how this conflict started. So the city gave me a paper stating that you need a fire sprinkler. So we followed the city of Tampa's compliance. We installed it. The fire marshal came and inspected it. And he said, we did everything good. The only thing the city has to say, it's OK to go. So when we came, contacted the state, said, hey, we installed these things. We are good to go. Then the state said, oh, another facility applied after 28 days of your application. They got license because city never asked them any of these requirements. Because that facility got license eight months ago. They never started still. They don't have a sprinkler. Nothing asked from the city. We spent almost $30,000 for the sprinkler. multiple floor plans, you know, we asked ACA to come, CMC to come, state to come, they all came and inspected our property. And they said, we are okay to go, but this variance in this 1,200 feet issue arised. So they said, as a council, you know, we did due diligence to get this license. Somehow the other property got this license without any of the city of Tampa's requirement, state provide the license. Thank you.

Thank you. So staff for clarification, could you please walk through the process, an applicant that was looking for this type of facility, what they would, what, how they would approach the city, what the city would do with that application, what certificates or approvals they would issue and how that is a variance from what we're hearing in this.

Okay. Basically most people would apply for a certification letter. basically stating that the property can be used for the certain use. Once they get that property, they would go to the state, get their state license, and then...

Okay, let's stop there for just a second. So did the applicant came to the city in May, whatever was the date?

May 12th, 2020. May 12th.

And did they receive a certification letter?

Yes.

Okay, so they got a certification letter. Now what happens?

Um, then they apply to the state. Um, they also do need to do building permits, depend how many residents they have. Um, six or under, um, people in the facility. Um, you don't need to do a special use. So if they were doing like seven or more, they need to do a special use. So. It's like they have to be working kind of at the same time with the state and us. They do need to do building permits because it needs to be determined how many people they're going to have in the residence, the residential facility. If it's more than six, they do need a sprinkle. They need to do a change of use. It needs to beat all of that. So that's typically how that works. But first of all, they get their license from the state typically before they start all of the construction.

So the, if the applicant and may was given a certificate, why would we issue another certificate?

Um, this is a certification.

Okay.

Explain maybe what that certification letter, um, basically what these letters are for. It's just confirming the zoning. It's confirming the zoning. And sometimes people ask if a certain use can be, um, allowed in that zoning district. So it's just a letter that says, um, this is your zoning. This is if you ask for a use, like they did ask for use. Yes, you can do this use. Um, it's valid typically for a year, unless something changes with the property. So may 12th, 2025. twenty four twenty six which is on these people this is their certification uh... june tenth twenty twenty five is twenty four five this is the one across the street okay so that certification is not

is not permission granted. It's just saying that this is eligible for this use. So it's the city's not blessing this and are not giving permission for this. It's just saying, yes, this building is eligible at this time for this use because the others have not occupied or taken possession of that. Okay. I understand. Thank you. Um, While you're there, could you explain why, what is in the public interest of restricting this use to, you know, one use within 1,200 feet?

That's just a code requirement. I couldn't answer that fully. It's just what's in our code. It says 1,200 feet. I think it's, if I'm going to tell you my belief, it's because... Well, you owe me a testimony.

You don't have to. Okay. I didn't know if you had something else. For legal staff... Somebody from legal? Is this precedent setting? If we were to grant this today, would this be precedent setting?

Kamaria Pettis-Mackle from the legal department. You're only addressing the application that's before you.

Okay. I just wanted it for the record. Very good. Okay. Councilman Miranda.

Although the cases are different, the council has waived this in the past. On Havana, just north of Tampa Bay, about 80 yards to the right, there was one.

Be careful about that, providing testimony. And I quit.

But it's a very complex issue. You've got two individuals with two licenses. Are you both open or one open? You're open?

We are ready to open, so when we leave, we need to... Yeah, the microphone's embedded in the... Oh, sorry, sir. We are ready to open. So only the issue is the variance of the zoning. Once we get the zoning, we are ready to open.

So you have two that are not open?

The other one is not open yet because they got the license eight months ago. So we thought that's running. So when the state told us, we said, there is no facility. There's only house. that house is closed and no one living in the house for last eight months, so. Thank you, thank you.

Councilman Carlson.

Ms. Pettis-Mackle, could I please ask you to get up again? You heard the comments by the city representative and the applicant about, they were talking about the process and the order of things. Does legal have any overview of that or advice based on that sequence of events?

Maria Pettis-Mackle from the legal department, I do not. The staff explained the process, and that's for staff to explain. I don't have a legal opinion about that. That's just the process, how they process the application.

The question that Council Member Hurtak was asking about, also about the order of things, is there any advice there? And somebody has an application, but then somebody else comes in and gets it faster. There's no legal advice regarding that.

no uh staff explained the parameters of the certification letter and i would just ask for you to rely on that okay thank you thank you so much any other questions okay hearing none public comment anybody in the public wish to speak to this item anybody in the public wish to speak to this item hearing none can i get a uh does staff have anything else to add Oh, you wish to speak? Come on up. Come on up. If you'd start with your name, please.

Good afternoon. My name is Wilma Moore.

Hi, Wilma.

Hi. I'm just listening to see if you are considering granting two homes on Annie Street. It sounds like you're considering maybe waiving because of the dilemma these people are facing.

That would be, if the council was to approve that, that would be the consequences of this, yes.

Okay. I oppose there being two of these group homes that close to this residential neighborhood. One would be enough. There would be enough traffic, deliveries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We don't need two in our neighborhood.

Okay. Thank you very much. And is there anybody else in the public who wish to speak to this item?

Is it before I close? Yes, sir. Okay, go ahead. Yes, sir. For Mr. Shelby, I wanted to disclose, I mean, I just say this in abundance of caution. My oldest brother obviously lives in a group home. I wanted to disclose that for people with intellectual disabilities. It poses not just a conflict, obviously, in terms of identity of institutions, but in terms of my sentiments, I just want to disclose that to the public and get your opinion that I may proceed to vote on this, correct?

Well, let me ask you with regard to this issue before you today, do you have any direct financial interest for your benefit or for your laws? No. That being said, can you be fair and impartial in this matter, or do you believe that you are somehow biased that would prevent you from rendering a fair and impartial verdict?

Yes, sir.

you can thank you then i don't see a conflict thank you just thank you okay hearing no other public comment does staff have anything to add okay i have a motion close to council maniscalco second from second councilwoman her tech all those are there say aye aye okay i need a motion everybody want to discuss it okay motion please

I'll make a motion. May I make a motion?

Please, sir.

Thank you very much. I make a motion to overturn the zoning administrator's denial. I move to overturn the zoning administrator's denial of SU1-26-33 for the property located at 2406 East Annie Street because the petitioner provided competent and substantial evidence to waive the specific criteria that no such use shall be established within 1 200 feet of another such use or of a professional residential facility as provided in section 27-132 go to the city of tampa code of ordinances for the following reasons i think based on the evidence or the evidence what the petitioner put in their very thorough uh PowerPoint presentation um you know regarding not just regarding the good faith efforts but you know relying on the city guidance I mean I think they they felt like or they did uh just followed the guidelines and instructions of the city and um

that's it thank you i have a motion for councilman moscow i have a second councilman vera i'll just i'll add that i'm going to support this motion although i am very empathetic with the concerns about the density of development in the area i just feel like the the number of residents is relatively low and that it probably the my anticipated impact would be de minimis So a different situation, I may have reached a different conclusion, but it seems like it's a relatively small facility. But yeah, for those of you that are applying for things, make sure you follow through with staff and make sure you follow your applications all the way through. Okay, anybody else? Okay, I have a motion and I have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, ayes have it.

Motion carried unanimously.

Thank you. Congratulations. Okay. Now for the fun stuff. Did anybody bring samples?

Item 44.

Good afternoon council, Susan Johnsonville as legal department. Um, item number 44, excuse me, is, um, a series of hearings pursuant to section 27, three 18 of the city of Tampa code for city council's consideration of suspension of alcoholic beverage permits for each of establishments listed in exhibit a to a resolution. I believe staff is passing out some documents for council's, um, convenience during this hearing. And the hearings are for failure of the establishments to comply with the requirements of Section 27319 of the code. So these hearings all relate to a classification of alcoholic beverage permit that we call special restaurant or R permits, and they are permits that are processed as administrative alcoholic beverage permits subject to certain criteria. They limit the hours of operation. They limit the amount of outdoor amplified sound, the location where alcoholic beverages can take place, and also... They have to coincide with a specific type of alcoholic beverage permit from the state that's currently called a special food service classification. So it allows somebody to operate a restaurant without having a quota license from the state. So it's in conjunction with sales of food. So per the city code, a property owner or holder of an AB permit of a business with this type of AB permit is required to keep and maintain books on their property and records on the premises that accurately identify each daily food and alcoholic beverage sale that takes place from the property. Those records have to reflect the gross sale of food and the gross sale of alcohol, and they must reflect that the combined gross sales of the business are not less than 51% attributable to food. So the majority of your sales have to come from food and not alcohol. Also pursuant to Section 27.318, those businesses must submit a signed statement to Development and Growth Management that has to be submitted on or before January 31st of each calendar year, and it must reflect that the gross sales of food and alcohol are consistent with the percentages that are required under the code. So noncompliance with any part of Section 27.318 319 shall be deemed a violation of that section and subject the establishments to the provisions of section 27 318 so 27 318 council may recall is the provision or the section in the code that allows council to consider suspension of alcoholic beverages based on a laundry list of possible violations and 27 318 c1m Um, includes specifically a violation of any part of section 27, three 19. So that would include the record reporting requirements. And so that's the purpose of these hearings. There were, um, approximately 50 establishments that as of January 31st had not submitted the required reporting. And so, um, we submitted, um, or, or sent notices of intent to suspend. Council previously on May 7th, 2026 established or set this date, June 18th, 2026, as hearing dates for these suspension hearings. It's required that council conduct public hearing prior to considering suspension of an alcoholic beverage permit. And so we did send out notices of intent to suspend and notices of this hearing on May 14th or 15th of 2026. And I will now turn it over to LaShawn Dock, who's going to report on the establishments that were included in your original exhibit and their compliance status today, as well as recommendations from staff. And I'm available throughout the hearings if council has any questions.

So are we going to divide this and just deal with the 26 locations in compliance first and then deal with the non-compliance second? Correct. We're going to, yes.

Yes, there are a number of locations that, after further investigation, staff determined either no longer sell alcohol or are closed. And so we're going to first ask council to remove those or cancel those hearings, and then there will be the big group that has achieved full compliance, and then the group that's partially in compliance, and then another group that is not in compliance at all.

Okay, very good. Got it. Thank you for dividing the question. Thank you.

And thank you so much, Council LaShawn Dock Development Coordination. I have not been sworn.

Please stand and raise your right hand. By the way, if anybody else has come in that plans on speaking in this issue, stand and raise your right hand and be sworn in by our clerk. But if they're going to speak on this issue. If you're here and you're here for the alcohol hearings and you haven't been sworn in, stand, raise your right hand.

I do.

And thank you again. Thank you again, Chairman and Council LaShawn Dock Development Coordination. I would like to just mention for the benefit of the public, the establishments which are required to report must submit by January 31st their annual report in addition to their commercial insurance audit. If those documents are submitted prior to January 31st, there is no fee to submit those documents. Once you reach January 31st, beyond that, you are considered late. So any establishment that submits their documentation after that date, there is a late fee. That late fee is based upon the occurrence, so there's a $100 late fee for the first time that you're late, and beyond that there's $500 late fee for each subsequent occurrence. And when we send out the documentation, I just want to put up quickly for the public's viewing and for city council. These are the documents that we submit. So the one that's on the left, that's number one. That is our reminder that we send. We say it's time to report, submit the documentation. Here's how you would submit. The document on the right is our annual reporting form just to show for the public's view. The next, document number three that's identified, we receive a lot of questions about the commercial insurance audit. So what we've done is we created frequently asked questions and that's something that we provide and it just kinda, gives any of the business owners and operators some guidance as to what it's for, how you would obtain your audit information, and how to submit it. And then number four is our late communication that we send out. So for locations that are late reporting, we send out that communication. And then I think what we're going to do is this is a good time to pause for question.

I just had one question. Can you go back to the to the number one one that you send? Did you say that you you how does someone know to submit that? Do they do you send an email? Do you do they just that's just part of what they do.

Yes, LaShawn Dock Development Coordination. We send out an email. We used to send a hard copy postcard, but we send the email just due to the cost. And they have a designation. So with your alcoholic beverage sales, if you have an R designation, this is the old wet zoning designations, the four COPR, two COPR. That's the requirement to report, or if you're a restaurant, or if you're a special restaurant, or a condition.

So I just wanted to make sure, because my question was, you do send stuff out. We do, as a reminder, yes.

Councilman Rendon and Councilman Maniscalco, would you please turn off your microphones? Thank you. Okay, go ahead.

Okay.

See, look at that. You guys are coming just a lot.

And I believe what we were going to do, there are seven locations. Um, what I did was I provided for you a copy of the PowerPoint slides and also a copy of the spreadsheet on the spreadsheet. Um, I kept the original spreadsheet that was utilized when this case was first scheduled for hearing. And I just modified it wherever there's a red X that's a location that either does not sell alcohol and they are not required to report. So there are seven of those locations, and I believe by the direction it is to remove these first.

Okay, can I get a motion to remove those?

Do you need me to read the names and the addresses? The business name and the address, if you would, please.

Okay.

Go for it.

So it's the ones with the X's through them, right? Correct. Lechonera, Latina, Tampa, Fritz Eduardo. Whoops, that's the business owner name. Sorry. The business name is Lechonera, Latina, Tampa, 1420 West Waters Avenue, unit 106. West Shore Bar and Grill, LLC. I'm sorry, wow, I'm getting on the wrong column. The Penthouse Club at West Shore Bar and Grill, 1001 Northwest Shore Boulevard, Pizza Hut, 19010 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, Unit 19062. Pizza Hut, 4011 East Bush Boulevard. La Eden Cafe, 506 North Tampa Street, Rio, Izakaya, 5232 Bridge Street, Little Tina Cafe, 700 Harbor Post Drive, Unit 710. And that's it. That's it. I motion to remove the... Remove those?

What do you need, LaShawn?

Yes. We would cancel the hearing. We move to cancel the hearing.

Move to cancel the hearing of those aforementioned businesses. Wow.

It's an afternoon. It's a rough morning. We have a motion from Councilwoman Hurtek, a second from Councilman Maniscalco that went to Japan one time and cannot pronounce that word. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. I know you did it well.

Okay, and thank you so much, Councilor Schaundock, development coordination. So the next phase of the hearing, as has been mentioned, there are a total of 50 locations on the list for reporting late. So the categories are, there are a total of 26 which were in compliance after the January 31st deadline. And then there's a total of 24 remaining locations which are non-compliant as of last week, as of June 11th. So we'll go to the 26th first. And those are the ones I've highlighted on the spreadsheet in green. So for those 26 locations which have come into compliance at the January 31st, staff recommends a two-part motion. One, that we find the location in violation. And two, that no suspension of their alcoholic beverage sales permit.

And there hasn't been any additional, just the ones in green, that's all we have?

Correct. Okay. I have these locations here. So one, the public can see it visually. And we can go through each one, one by one.

Do we need to do that?

Can we do it as a group?

Can we just do it as a group?

Let's see. I think we're going to get legal advice here.

Susan Johnson-Velez.

Seems pretty clear.

I mean, I think if that's going to be part of, this should be part of the record if you're going to do it as a group, just so that there's clarity about what's happening with this.

Can we just do this group and submit this document into the record?

Can we just read them all? Yeah, we can just read them all. It's not that hard.

Yeah, I'll do it. Okay. Okay. Okay, Councilman Maniscalco.

all right so there's a there's a two-part motion here for these 26 items that are in green so let's read them one time and then read the second all right so the motion for all 26 is going to be that i find these 26 locations in violation and the second part of the motion is but that no suspension of their alcoholic beverage sales permit take place is that fine that'll be two votes we'll have two votes when we do that so you want two votes for that i'll have one vote for the first violation And you want me to read the name and address of each one?

Correct, please.

The first one is Jerk Island, Jerk Hut Island Grill, 1241 East Fowler Avenue. Second is Cappy's, Tampa Palms LLC, 16019 Tampa Palms Boulevard. Tijuana Flats, 1617 West Platte Street, 1st and 2nd Floor. La Settima, 1724 North Nebraska Avenue. Urban Cantina, 200 East Madison Street, Thai Island, 210 East Davis Boulevard. Ahi Sai, 2101 East Fowler Avenue, Whiskey Cake Kitchen and Bar, 2223 Northwest Shore Boulevard, number 207B. California Pizza Kitchen, 2223 Northwest Shore Boulevard, M189. The Brother, Trattoria, 2402 South McDill Avenue. La Maisie, Hot Spot and Barbecue, 2501 East Fowler Avenue. Biblo's Cafe, 2832 South McDill Avenue. La Giralda, Tampa, 1003 West Hillsboro Avenue. Renzo's, 3644 West Kennedy Boulevard. Kerr's Wing House Bar and Grill, 3712 West Columbus Drive. Del Frisco's Grill, number 8715, 4010 Boy Scout Boulevard. Number 4100, Torrey Bar, 442 West Kennedy Boulevard, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, 4914 South McDill Avenue, Blaze Pizza Store, number 1357, 5114 East Fowler Avenue, Big Ray's Fish Camp, 6116 Interbay Boulevard, Urban Air Park, 6250 Commerce Palms Drive, Restaurante La Hacienda and Bakery Corp, 7532 North Armenia, Suite A, Cali Restaurant and Bakery, Incorporated, 2302 West Columbus Drive, Acropolis Greek Taverna, 3023 West Kennedy Boulevard, Nicos Arepas Grill 8303, North Armenia Avenue and Hanaki Inc., 3437 West Kennedy Boulevard.

Thank you. I have a motion from Councilman Maniscalco, a second from Councilman Miranda. Yes, ma'am.

This is a public hearing, so I would ask you if there's anybody in the public that wants to speak on any of these. I don't believe there

We anticipate there won't be. So we are finding these businesses to be out of compliance, but we are not recommending suspension. Is that correct? That's correct, right?

Sorry, they're in full compliance, but they were in violation for not having filed by the January 31st, 2026 deadline, but imposing no suspension on their alcoholic beverage.

Councilman Hurtado, do they still have fines to pay?

They do have a late fee. Well, no, no, no. I'm sorry.

They don't have anything remaining now. They say they're all going to work and just wanted to make sure. That's correct.

I saw a hand. Did you wish to speak to this with those provisions?

There's nothing to.

Come to the podium and start with your name, please.

Yes, Sanjay Patel. I don't see my business name on that 26, and I talked to Leo at the development office, and he told me that I sent in all my stuff. The issue with my account is that my... What's your business name? Due Cugini, LLC, as Via Italia, wood-fired pizza and bar.

Yeah, you'll be next.

Yes.

Very good. Anybody else? Hearing none, out more? Okay. Come to the podium and start with your name, please.

My name is Cholada. My last name is Malingam. I already paid the late fees two to three weeks ago and then I already submitted the form. I didn't see my name on that.

Say the name of your business.

ELRA, E-L-R-A-A-H, L-L-C. You'll be in the next group. Thank you. No.

Oh, they're not? Oh, I think so.

What's the name? I got D-B-A Ruen Thai, R-O-U-E-N-T-H-A-I restaurant. R-O-U-E-N? Yes, ma'am.

Oh, Ruen Thai. Yes, correct. Love your restaurant. Great restaurant.

Thank you. You're next.

Yeah. Ruen Thai on Gandy Boulevard. Yes. Good stuff. Good food. Okay.

Okay.

So we just need the motion. Now we're good. Nobody else, right? We're all good.

Do we have to close the hearing?

We're still going on.

No, we're still continuing.

Okay, I have a motion and I have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Okay, so if you were in that hearing, you're done. Okay, so if you were one of those names, you're done.

I know.

I have to please sit down here. I've got you.

Nothing else needed. Thank you. Thank you.

I was about to say something, but I was not able to raise my hand. Thank you, guys.

Have a good afternoon.

Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye. Yes.

There are just so many.

It's hard to get to them all.

I know.

I go to the same one three times.

Me too. And I just, we never get out. I have like a list of places I want to go to. Yeah. There's so many.

I'm trying.

I can't.

Okay. Second batch.

Okay. So the next set that we have is LaShawn Dock Development Coordination. And the next categories of noncompliance I've broken out into these categories. So there are 10 establishments which have submitted their annual report and paid the late fee. So they still owe us the commercial insurance audit. There are three locations which have submitted their annual report and their commercial insurance audit, but they have not paid the late fee. There's one location which has paid the late fee and not submitted the documents, the annual report or the commercial insurance audit. And then there are 10 locations which have not submitted any documentation or paid a late fee. So we can go in this order, if it is okay with council, and we can start with the 10. This kind of keeps it clear. We are recommending, let me put this list up. So these are the 10 locations which have submitted their annual report. They've paid their late fee. They owe the commercial insurance audit to be submitted. And staff's recommendation is to allow until July 9th, which is three weeks from today, to come into compliance. If not in compliance by July 9th, the recommendation is to impose a five-day suspension of their alcoholic beverage license starting July 10th.

Okay, July 10th.

And what I've placed for you and for the public on the camera is the 10 locations.

So I'm going to call each one of these businesses individually and see if they are here and have them come up and see if they can agree to those terms.

Yes. And I will leave this up. Okay.

Okay. Is there a representative from Loli's Lola's Mexican Loli's Mexican cravings, 1824 Northwest shore Boulevard. Is anybody here from that establishment? Not here. Okay. Montserrat restaurant bar and grill on Hillsborough Avenue. Please come forward. Okay, I'm going to say this once for him and then you guys make sure you hear this because I'm going to ask you the same question. Are you okay with staff saying we're going to give you until July 9th to come into compliance? Otherwise, your alcohol will be suspended on July 10th.

Yes, my name is David Sombrines. Yes, I'm And with that, but I already submit the commercial insurance audit. So I don't know for what reason. I don't know if I'm going to find out why they haven't received it yet, but I did already with my insurance.

I'm sure staff will assist you in that as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Chili's Mexican Restaurant on Columbus Drive. Anybody here from Chili's? I guess I should have had him say it. Can you state your name and tell me are you okay with the staff's requirement to get you in compliance by July 9th?

Yes, my name is Juan Carlos Macias.

Okay. And you're going to submit your, uh, you have till July 9th to submit your commercial insurance audit.

Okay.

Okay. July 9th. If you do not submit it, your alcohol will be suspended on July 10th. They understand that.

Okay. Yes.

Okay. Very good. Okay. Next is, uh, another Lola's Mexican craving on Gandy Boulevard. Is anybody from that establishment hearing none ruined time? Come on up. Can you state your name and could you, are you okay with making sure that you're gonna submit your commercial insurance audit by July 9th? Otherwise you'll be suspended on July 10th.

Yes, sir.

And say your name, please.

My name is .

Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Okay, Havana 86. Same question, start with your name and say if you are fine with that.

My name is Enrique Perez. Yes, I agree with him.

Okay, thank you so much. Via Italia. State your name and whether you agree with that.

Sanjay Patel, yes, that's fine.

Thank you very much. Lifetime on Harbor Island. Whoever is in charge, just say your name and if you agree. Steve Date, yes. Thank you very much. Vino E. Pasta on Gandy Boulevard. Which I need to try y'all's restaurant.

I've only heard really good things.

My name is Louis and I agree to the terms.

Thank you very much. Say your name please and if you agree.

But I did e-mail it back in March of 26 to Maria. I had spoken to her on the phone. She told me what I needed to do and I sent it to her. I do have a copy with me.

Staff will work with you. Okay, thank you. Very good. Thank you so much. Okay, that is it. Can I get a motion, please?

We'll deal with those after. So I'll read the names and then the times. So Montserrat Restaurant Bar and Grill, 2311 West Hillsborough Avenue, Chile's Mexican Restaurant, 3247 West Columbus Drive, Ruin Thai, 3324 West Gandy Boulevard, Havana 86, 3434 West Columbus Drive, number 101 and 102, Via Italia, 6844 Hunter's Village Road. 8644. 8644, thank you. Hunter's Village Road, Lifetime, 900 South Harbor Island Boulevard, Vino y Pasta, 3603 West Gandy Boulevard and Taqueria Mi Mexico, 4205 North Armenia Avenue, Unit 4215. And I motion to allow these businesses to come... uh to come in compliance by july 9th if not in compliance by july 9th i am to impose a five-day suspension of alcoholic beverage license starting on july 10th 2026 at 1201 am and ending on july 14th at 11 59 pm um lowly's mexican craving numbers one and three i didn't hear them well they weren't here we're gonna

hand deal with them after okay i have a motion from councilwoman her tech a second councilman miranda all those in favor say aye aye opposed eyes have it and then what would you like us to do with the lowly mexican if your name was listed on that you're done for the day yep but if you have questions about the applications please consult staff not during the hearings What do you need, sir? Yeah, you're set. Thank you.

You had a question.

Sanjay Patel. So just clarification because I've heard different things. So my commercial insurance from January 31st through January 31st, my carrier doesn't start an audit until late February, which means I don't have – You'll have to deal with that with staff.

It's not during the hearing, so you'll have to communicate with staff.

But then I'm not in compliance according to this ordinance because I'm not submitting a vote.

You have until July 9th to figure it out. No, I'm talking moving forward. Yeah, you have to work with staff. Okay.

Okay.

Okay. And this is put that out.

What would you like for the one in us to do with Logan? Sorry. I have marked it. Leshawn dog development coordination. I apologize. Those two locations I have circled as absent, but we are going through the remainder of the locations and our last locations that we will review are the ones that haven't submitted anything at all.

So maybe should we go ahead and read this for the suspension now for the five days for in their absence?

Yeah, I just didn't. I wanted to be able to bifurcate them just in case.

Okay. Because I think staff's recommendation would be the same. Yes.

But the other people agreed to it on camera and under oath. Yes, I understand. So Loli's Mexican Cravings at 1824 Northwest Shore Boulevard and 3324 West Gandy Boulevard, Unit three. allowing them until July 9th, 2026 to come into compliance and if not in compliance by July 9th, impose a five-day suspension of alcohol beverage license starting on July 10th, 2026 at 12.01 a.m. and ending July 14th at 11.59 p.m.

I have a motion from Councilwoman Hurtek and second from Councilman Moran. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Next.

Okay, and the next category that we have, Council, is... These are three locations, and these locations submitted their annual report and their commercial insurance audit. They are required to submit the late fee. They have not submitted the late fee. And the recommendation from staff is to allow until July 9th to come into compliance, and if not in compliance by July 9th, to impose a five-day suspension of their AB license starting July 10th.

Are any of the owners of these three establishments here? Come on forward. State your name, the name of your establishment and are you OK with that? Those conditions?

Nausea fees per table 22. We paid the late fee.

You already paid?

Yes, I have the receipt.

OK, very good. Then you'll be in compliance. You can work with staff on that. OK, thank you. Very good. OK. Anybody else? Nope. Hearing none. Councilwoman Hurtado.

Do we want to do the one who said she paid separately?

I believe, yes, we probably should since she is here and she did state that. The recommendation would be the same.

Does anybody want to do these? Yeah, all you need is that it has to be at July 10th at 12.01 a.m. and ending on July 14th at 11.59 p.m. Yeah, because it's a five-day. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Okay, July 14th at 11.59?

Yeah.

Yeah, p.m.

Okay, go for it.

Okay. All right. So I make a motion to allow Table 22 located 4924 East Bush Boulevard, Unit G. But wait, this motion was for... To come into compliance. Okay, to come into compliance. To come into compliance, they have until July 9th. If not in compliance by July 9th, to impose a five-day suspension of the AB license starting on July 10th, 2026, 12.01 a.m., ending July 14th, 11.59 p.m.

I have a motion from Councilwoman Hurteck. Councilwoman Young is second. Councilwoman Hurteck. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it.

okay okay next okay Okay, I'm just a name for some motion motion for me. Okay, and I have a motion to for walk in cheese look at 4101 South mcdill Avenue and leases garden grill LLC located 4502 West Hillsboro Avenue. They have until July 9th to come into compliance and if not in compliance by July 9 to impose a 5 day suspension. of the AB license starting on July 10, 2026 at 12.01 a.m. and ending July 14th at 11.59 p.m.

I have a motion, Councilwoman Young, a second, Councilwoman Hurtek. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Next.

Okay, our next category, Council LaShawn Dock Development Coordination, is one location is paid the late fee. They have not submitted their annual report or the commercial insurance audit. And staff recommends to allow until July 9th to come into compliance. If not in compliance by July 9th to impose a five day suspension of their AB license starting on July 10th.

Is there anybody here from Minerva? Also my favorite Indian restaurant in the Tampa Bay area. Not for the faint of heart because it's very spicy. It's extraordinary good, extraordinarily good.

So my name is Venkat Reddy Venamula. So I run the Indian Restaurant, Minerva Indian Restaurant.

So you understand the conditions that you have to submit your annual report and your commercial audit? Yes.

Annual report is I send like some reason I send you Leo, but after that, no, I send to the ABC records. You can work all that out with staff.

I just want to make sure you understand the conditions. Yes, I got it. Very good. Thank you so much. And here we go. Councilwoman Young, would you like to read this one?

Okay, I move for Minerva Indian Restaurant located at 19050 Bruce B. Downs Boulevard to have until July 9th to come into compliance, and if not in compliance by July 19th to impose a 5th. July 9th. if not in compliance by July 9th, to impose a five-day suspension of the AB license starting on July 10th, 2026, 12.01 a.m., ending July 14th, 11.59 p.m.

I have a motion from Councilwoman Young, second from? Second. Councilwoman Hurtek, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Next.

Sean Dock, Development Coordination, and the next set of locations council are the locations which have not submitted their annual report or the commercial insurance audit and they have not paid the late fee. So on the camera is those, these are the 10 locations. What staff is recommending for these locations is that we allow until July 9th to come into compliance. If not in compliance by July 9th, to impose a 15-day suspension of their alcoholic beverage license starting July 10th. And I'm gonna put the list back up just for reference, but that's the staff's recommendation, just because these locations have not submitted any aspect of the requirement.

Okay, very good. Okay, if your name is on this list, could you please stand up against the wall over here to y'all's right, our left, and then one at a time, identify yourself by your name and then your business, and understand that the conditions that staff just read that you have till July 9th, to come in compliance. If you are not in compliance by submitting your annual report, your commercial insurance audit, and paying your late fee, your license will be, AB license will be suspended for 15 days. So say your name, your business, and are you in?

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Jacqueline Rodriguez, and I'm coming here on behalf of Don Pancho Tacos and Cerveza. On Friday, we submitted the annual report along with the applications that needed to be submitted and along with the POS systems to prove that it was 8416, the percentages. We have two COP, beer and wine. We are not an SRX or a special business. We have not had an alcohol audit, and they tell us because it's just beer and wine. So that's the only thing we're missing. We did submit the $100 fee, and I have the receipt for it too. Like I said, I emailed it to Sony on Friday, but I did bring a copy just in case.

Okay, and you can work through that with staff.

So how do we resolve the audit? Because we haven't had any.

You'll have to deal with that with staff. I just want to make sure that you understand the conditions. The conditions are you have until July 9th to come in compliance. If you're not in compliance on July 10th, your license would be suspended for 15 days. And I just want to make sure you understood that. Okay, very good. Thank you so much. Next, please, just say your name and your business. How are you all doing?

Albert Captavilla with La Teresita. And this was something that my brother used to handle, and he passed in September.

I'm sorry.

So we got everything.

I'll show it to them. So, again, I apologize. I'm sorry. But everything is set. We paid the fee.

The only thing that I'm not sure of is the audit, but I think it's also done. But I already heard that we got till the 9th.

Yes, very good. Thank you so much. And so you understand that? Very good. Thank you so much. Thank you. We all love La Teresita. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, please.

Hi, my name is Biting Du. I'm representing for Izakaya Tori and I understand the process.

Okay, very good. Thank you so much. Next please.

My name is Luz Mercedez. My name business is Placita Bar and Grill.

Okay, and you understand that you have until the 9th, July 9th, to come in compliance?

Yes, sir. And if not in compliance on July 9th, the AB license will be suspended for 15 days. Yes, sir. And if you have any questions, you can see staff. Thank you. Okay, very good. Next, please.

Ms. Hi, my name is and I'm the representative for two business. The first one is and the second one is . So we sent all the document to the email, I mean, eight days ago, and I bring all the copies here and we understand like we need to pay the late fee.

Mr. Very good. Thank you so much. Ms. Thank you. Mr. And if any clarification, staff will help you out. Next, please.

Hello, my name is Sylvia Lopez. I'm here with my mom. She don't speak too much English. Her name is Florencia del Valle. We're here for...

Which business?

La Mexicana Restaurant. The last one.

Okay, very good. And does she understand that she has until July 9th to come in compliance at submitting an annual report, commercial insurance audit, and to pay the late fee?

Yes.

Okay, she understands that. Okay, and if any further questions, you can work with staff on it. Okay, thank you. Very good. Thank you so much. okay is anybody here from sissio collie sissio collie adriana's mexican bar and grill mel's hot dogs nope okay very good okay hearing that councilman hertech you want to take take this

i'm going to butcher some names but we'll give it a go i don't know you better than i have them in maniscalco so good with the pronunciations if you want here you can take i it's the ones that have check marks so on the next page okay so this is a motion to allow the following locations until july 9th

to come into compliance. If not in compliance by July 9th, to impose a 15-day suspension of AB license starting on July 10th, 2026, which would then expire July 20th, starting at 12.01 AM and then expiring at July july 24th 11 59 pm for these following restaurants uh koizy endless hibachi and sushi eatery one seven zero one two palm point drive it's a kaya tori 310 south dale mavery highway number 160. restaurant 3248 west columbus drive La Casona, 5709 North Armenia Avenue, Don Pancho, 6803 North Armenia Avenue, Placita Bar and Grill, 7700 North Florida Avenue, and La Mexicana Restaurant, 902 South 22nd Street. Second.

Okay, very good. I have a motion from Councilman Maniscalco, a second from Councilwoman Hurtek. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it.

I'll do the three that aren't. CCO Cali Del Mabry 201 South Del Mabry Highway Unit 217. Adriana's Mexican Bar and Grill 3974 West Hillsboro Avenue. Mel's Hot Dogs 4136 East Bush Boulevard. We allow until July 9th. For these businesses to come into compliance if not in compliance by July 9th, 2026 Impose a 15-day suspension of alcohol beverage license starting on July 10th 2026 at 12 o 1 a.m. And ending on July 24th at 1159 p.m So I have a motion councilwoman her tech second councilman of Scott all those in favor say aye Opposed ayes have it and that concludes our locations

Thank you so much, council. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Very good. Okay. Yeah. Mr. Steady.

Yes.

Marty Cologne.

Chairman, member of city council, Scott Steady, city attorney. I'm here to talk about the property next to Marty Cologne. Just briefly, I was watching the public comment this morning and A couple people mentioned private property rights. That's part of it, but really the issue is our limited authority, and I'm saying the city, that our code really doesn't address how we would deal with potential remains of bodies on property. And the fact is that this property, the development, has the correct zoning and is complied with our land development regulations, and therefore the city, in my opinion, and the staff, was obligated to issue the permit. Now, there is a state statute that has jurisdiction. And so I'd like to just briefly, so you're informed about the state statute, But it's limited. By the way, the title is Offenses Concerning Dead Bodies and Graves. That's pretty gruesome. But anyway, any person who knows or has reason to know that an unmarked human burial is being unlawfully disturbed, destroyed, defaced, et cetera, calls the local police department. The police department confirms that. Then they call the medical examiner. then they deal with it. In the meantime, everything shuts down at that point. But that really is the limited jurisdiction, and that's a state requirement that if during the construction of these projects a remain is found, they have to stop, call the police department. The police department then calls the medical examiner. When we issued the permit, which I was involved in at the beginning of the year, we put in the permit, our permit, Condition of approval, the property contained within BLD 26, et cetera, abuts a cemetery. Through the approval of this permit, the applicant acknowledges that if human remains are discovered during any site work, excavation or construction activity on said property, the applicant is required to notify the city of Tampa building official and is subject to compliance with section 87205, which I just read. which requires immediate cessation of in and all activity on the property. So there really is limited legislation or regulations dealing with this issue. And the city right now, we don't have any regulations. We don't have anything in our land development code that addresses this issue.

Is there anything that we can do? Can we pass legislation? Can they pass legislation? Is there anything that you can do to prevent this? Can we eminent domain? Can we purchase the property?

I did talk to their attorney and based on the prices of West Tampa these days, they're not cheap. They're looking for over a million dollars for this property. But I don't see how, I don't see them in a domain. I mean, this would have to be a market purchase, assuming they would sell it. But right now, from my perspective, and by the way, the legislature keeps hemming us in all the time, local government. There's a provision that says once we issue a permit, which we've done, we can only change the permit that's currently unless there's a fire safety code or building code issue. Now that it's issued, there's very little we can do. Now, on the other side, when you say what we can do, I don't see how we can do, frankly, anything relative to the development of this property. When I talked to Morris Massey, who just recently retired, at the end of last year you know looking at can we do something prospectively in the future but you know senate bill 180 risk is restricting us right now from some doing things proactively so relative let me not confuse the issue relative to this development i don't know what our options are other than purchase it but i'm not saying they will sell it but it's well over a million dollars councilwoman hertech

what happened between 21 2021 and 2025 because in 2021 they denied it because of a possible burial site what changed between 2021 and 2025. i'm not aware of what's changed i don't i don't know the basis for the dial 2 in 2021 who who denied it the city yes it came to city council a couple of times well

Denied what? At this point, there's a zoning in place and they came in to get a permit pursuant to our land development code. So I don't know the situation in 2021. I don't know if it was a rezoning. I do know in talking that there was a request to have a Jewish cemetery here. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Right, but that was a request.

That wasn't 2021 though. I was here for that.

Yeah, because I was there for that too and I wasn't here for that. Right, right. So I'm not aware of what's changed in 21. I'm very comfortable saying at this point, We've issued a permit, and we correctly so issued the permit. So I don't know what happened in 2021, Councilman. TODD BANDUCCI.

Councilman Carlson. Yeah, I don't know how long ago, a few years ago, I made a motion, and I think my colleagues accepted to have the staff do a report to see if the city could set up a fund to do ground penetrating radar and maybe buy property. The mayor's office ignored it, blew it off, so they didn't do it. But is there any, in code enforcement anywhere, is there any ability to do ground penetrating radar to try to determine from a third party point of view if there's anything, any people under there?

No, I don't. Blame me, I'm telling you there's nothing we can do. I mean, I can't blame me. I mean, I'm, that's my opinion counts.

Yeah. I wish I, because this is a recurring thing that's coming up and I'm disappointed that the mayor decided to reject it because I think finding whether there are, uh, you know, people buried in certain places is an important thing. And if, if a private organization does it, uh, the public doesn't believe it. Um, and, and, and even still it's important to know where, where they are and trying to do some research on that. So maybe we need to find, through the CRA or something, we need to find a third organization to do it.

The other thing is I understand that when the current owner bought it, it was well publicized.

He was trying to buy it to protect it from development. And then he tried to put like a crematorium or some kind of facility there. And my understanding is the city rejected that also. They rejected his ability to use it as a... But I don't know the reason for that, Councilman.

I mean, again, I'll come back to... I want to answer your question, but right now they're looking to build homes, pursue with the zoning, and they comply with their land development.

The other thing is, since I've been on, we had Zion, we had Memorial. The only reason that the mayor and her administration moved on any of these is because city council and the public pushed them to do it. I wish they would take these cemeteries seriously and do something with it. I'm not talking to you because you're new, but I think the basic fair thing to do would be to buy the property from the person at market value. And I think we ought to engage in that right away. Unfortunately, unless it's under the CRA, I don't think that we as city council can force the administration to do that. But the mayor should do what's right and try to protect whoever is buried underneath there. The second thing, though, is I understand that the person who owns it would like to build some facilities there. And so if he doesn't want to sell it, then the city should buy some property nearby that's acceptable to him and swap it. This is what happens when you get a hostage negotiator to negotiate things like baseball and cemeteries is that we don't think beyond the basic uh you know barter negotiations and deception we we we don't think about other opportunities on what to do the the the situation here is the public does not want anything built on top of potentially their their relatives who are buried there and unless we can prove otherwise um we we really need to find a solution to this and it's and it's not fair to the public to have the public come up and fight for this over and over again it's not fair to city council to have us constantly do this so i would just i'm not talking to you because you're an honest broker in this But I would ask the chief of staff and the mayor's office, please take cemeteries and the ancestors of citizens of Tampa seriously and find a solution to this. Thank you.

Councilman Miranda.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know you weren't privy to all this in the beginning, and I'm not at all here saying that you do or don't, because I know you don't. You weren't here. I've heard rumors that there's some type of movement to try to get something done with the owner, and what you say just woke me up a little bit more than I was awake already, and I don't sleep too much, but what I'm saying is when you dig for a home, what are they gonna put, two houses there? I think three or four. All you dig is the foundation. You don't dig the center. So the preponderance of the property is never going to be realized if there's anyone buried there or not, because all you did is the footers. When you dig all the footers, you put your cement in, and after that, you put your plumbing in, you put your... and the plumbing ain't going to go but a foot and a half, two feet in, and that's it. And then you put your cement floors, and you built up from there. So the preponderance of the problem, I see it, is that if there is something there and they're going to build three houses, they'll never find it percent-wise because the majority of the property that's going to be dug is very small compared to the size of the property.

But what's interesting, I was talking to Marty before the meeting, and he asked, the fact is, if they don't, there's no law that says they have to do something. I mean, unless you disturb it under the law I just talked about, if there's some remains that are buried there, they can remain there. So even if – understand, if there's remains there, which from my understanding, the groundbreaking radar that was submitted for the Jewish cemetery, which I believe has been provided that you can get in public, is not definitive. So I don't want to get into it. I think the women that were here would say it was. I think the issue is probably not. But just so you know, right now there's no state law that unless you're disturbing buried remains, they stay there. So if you develop a piece of property and there's somebody buried in that backyard, they can stay there. I don't think it's funny. I'm just saying you kind of think, well, is that right? But there's no state law that I'm aware of or local law that says that that can't happen. It's only if you're disturbing it, is the state law. But one thing I do want to point out, just because I forgot, there is a strip of land between what they're going to develop and the current cemetery that is used, and the Parks Department is buying that strip. And that's where, apparently, there's clear evidence of some buried remains. So at least relative to a couple of buried remains, the parks department is buying that strip. We have a contract. The rest of it, frankly, is debatable whether there's any remains on the property that's going to be developed.

We currently have a contract on that.

Yes.

Okay.

Councilman Maniscalco, then Vera, then her tech.

Councilman Miranda brought up an interesting point about when you build a house, how deep you run, right? You know, it's a foot and a half. So typically a burial, you think six feet, but it's, three feet you can hit if there is a burial vault you'll hit that so it's doesn't have to be so deep number one but a house is different from what i'm about to say so my understanding is and the gentleman that knows the story was here earlier when they built across the street uh you know the one tampa city center when they were excavating or preparing the foundation for the fort brook parking garage they did discover burials from the late 1800s and i believe they had to completely stop the project The gentleman knows the story further. If they are to find any remains as they're pouring the foundation for the house or preparing to pour it, I don't know how deep those possible burials are. Would they have to, by state law, stop?

Yes. Okay. That's what I was reading. Because now they're going to be disturbing a grave. Right. Once you find it and you disturb it, the state law requires you to call the police. The police then calls the medical examiner. and they come out and deal with it. But that's state law. And frankly, and I've talked to a lot of the concerned people. They don't like my answer, but I try to tell them. And they've said, well, they're not going to follow the state law. Can we have someone from the city? And I said, it's not up to me, but I can't imagine the city is going to start sending people out to make sure they follow the law when they, I mean, there's not enough resources for that. I mean, I didn't say yes or no, but I said, that's just not, that's not possible. I can't imagine.

So would it be possible to get permission from the property owner to do ground penetrating radar? I don't know if this was, this question was asked cause I stepped out for five minutes, but do some ground penetrating survey to see if there's anything there before they do any further work. Do we have any recourse with that?

No. we do without the permission of the property without the permission and i can't imagine they give it we i'll ask staff to ask them i'll talk to their attorney i mean it's mark bentley i know him i can ask him it's it's but can i interrupt you go ahead there was one done for the jewish yes and it's debate it i'm going to tell you you know one group says there's evidence of there but Others, including city staff, which are not experts, and I looked at it too, it's not definitive. It's not like it's clear that there's buried bodies there. So if anything, to me that helps to feel a little more comfortable that there isn't there. But I'm now giving you my...

personal opinion not has the city discussed anything regarding i was mentioned a land swap or anything nothing no i mean we have a very bad reputation of issues with cemeteries you know from zion to memorial to you know of what we know because there's potentially there could be potentially more i mean there's really nothing that we can do i mean these are possibly you know people's relatives you know there's could be children there could be any you know we don't know what's buried there and then there's also the story about columbus drive and how it was not a through street and the property across the street you know they've called it dead man's field or something like that you know i mean that that was not a divided uh, street, I don't know how long ago, but if you look at the, the plotted mats, I believe the road stopped at, it wasn't even called McDill. It's called Lisbon. I think it stopped there because the cemetery crossed what is now Columbus drive.

I, I believe. Well, I, I feel like the, the lady's been calling me, got frustrated. You're gonna get frustrated with me too. No, I don't believe we have any authority. We don't have anything in our land development regulations. We have no state law. There's just nothing there to ask them or demand them to do anything other than to follow the law that's on the books, that if they disturb one while they're in the construction, they have to notify the police, notify the medical examiner, and stop what they're doing. Otherwise, there's nothing there. And we've scoured it to look for any hook. Now, we can talk about going forward. I know everyone's frustrated. Um, and I, you know, I think we all are sympathetic, but that's not good enough for a lot of people. So what can we do? My sympathy isn't gonna help anybody.

Can we make a motion say to encourage the administration to engage in conversation with the property owner about working something out you mentioned you know as land values are it could be a million dollars for those parcels or a land swap or you know as with zion some things were able to happen regarding you know property owners that under the land swap whatever happened with with at least one to do something. I mean, it's not just us as a city council today. Since I was a kid, you know, I'm talking 35 years ago, 40 years ago, I think the Tampa Tribune was doing articles about how neglected the cemetery was going back to the Sandy Friedman mayoral era about folks in West Tampa complaining about that cemetery and the lack of maintenance. Now, it was owned by a variety of individuals, and that's a longer story. But it's like it's like Marty Cologne. It's a never ending story of

grief for the community well again i'll just reiterate one thing i think is important is that there's a strip that i think my understanding there's clear evidence of buried remains if all goes as planned the city is going to buy that so what's identified with remains and there's a strip of land that's being purchased by the city so should that go through does the city do a disinterment

do they put a marker because there's no markers there that we assume, but there's nothing saying that there are people there. Do we say like in Oaklawn up the street, there's wide areas of land that you go, Oh, it must be, you know, there's no burials here, but it's like victims of yellow fever, I believe is, or yeah, yellow Spanish flu was, I think it was yellow fever, but there there's mass burial. I believe at Oaklawn, what do we do? So if we are to acquire that and everything goes through, do we put a marker, you know, remembering the,

the unknowns or i don't know the answer to that councilman okay i mean i i just checked yesterday because i wanted to make sure that the purchase appears to be going forward okay then we'll wait and see on that but there was like a title issue and i said how bad is it don't worry about it let's you know i'm trying to help guys i'm not trying to be the and i know i know there's council persons that want to speak that have not spoken yet i just want to

we're kind of beating a dead horse so if we could try to like reign it into exactly what this issue is before us on this agenda item and not pontificate about other stuff that'd be great i've got councilman vieira next yes sir mr chair thank you very much and mr and attorney steady thank you as always for your your professionalism your demeanor you when every time you're up there i just see somebody who's

telling it the way it is and just the way it is. And I appreciate it. So the reason I made this motion is because I always say that in politics, I don't write checks that are going to bounce to folks. And I know that we all believe that, especially on this issue, because we're all getting emails and calls and everything on that on an issue that we're all sympathetic to. That's very emotional. and so having you up here telling us in terms of what we can and can't do i think is is something that's very very important you know one thing we could do is perhaps i'm just thinking outside of the box uh doing a correspondence to the property through the attorney mr bentley uh on on further um ground penetrating radar uh work on it as well as potentially if there is construction on the site having updates every month two months what have you of course they're not compelled to do so but if they're they they certainly could do so so that's certainly something that i could support perhaps we could do a joint letter with the county commission i would think all the county commission wants to support this as well so again just thinking outside of the box but i did this because again um you know we trust you as our attorney as our city attorney i i trust you a lot i think you're a good person and a great attorney

and so i think that's important to note so uh just my thoughts and some things we can do uh potentially for this i can make a motion who else everybody could whatever thank you councilwoman young um so you were stating earlier that by state law um if you know during construction there you know are you know bodies that are discovered then they have to immediately stop um but you're saying that Staff, we cannot have staff out there.

I'm sorry. I'm interrupting you. I didn't say they can't. I can't commit staff to be out there during COVID. I suggested that was not something I think the city does to send people out to make sure that private entities comply with the law. So that was my discussion with the cemetery people. I mean, it's not me to commit to the city one way or the other. But anyway, I'm interrupting.

Well, because that's the piece that kind of, you know, like, yes, that's the state law. But if there's no one there to watch or see, then how do we even know? Like, if they decide, oh, well, there's no one here to see us, so we don't have to report anything, then

then what well number one i agree with you but i just would say think of the ramifications we're expecting people we we grant permits all the time we don't other than inspect occasionally for a house there's all sorts of things there's all sorts of laws that the city doesn't go out state laws and make sure that they comply and have the have the manpower to go out and view it so i'm This is not a legal position. I mean, this is just a practical one that I'm pointing out to the ladies that called me and said, can the city send people out and monitor construction of five houses over six months? And I said, I can't commit the city, but I have a hard time saying that the city's going to start sending personnel to oversee private development. Councilwoman, I mean, that's not my decision. Yeah, no, I understand. I was trying to be forthright with them to say, you know, I don't think that's possible.

Yeah, no, I understand that. It's just, it's, when you see, you know, of course, as Councilman Maniscalco was talking about, you know, just the history, and then you see, so, you know, a lot of the evidence and things that, you know, I'm sure we've all received emails about, and so it's kind of a little... you know disheartening to feel like we we really can't do anything um i you know i like the idea um that councilman vera had if that i don't even know if that's a possibility just something because it kind of feels like i mean we just kind of sitting there and then i don't know it's just i don't know it just feels kind of upsetting that we just we literally can't do anything

There's a lot of things we can't do. I mean, I was just going to say, you know, there's similar issues. If it was contaminated, because they mentioned, hey, there could be contamination or some buried debris. By the way, that's DEP. I used to do that work. If there's debris there, that's not the city. That's the EPC. If there's wetlands, EPC, swift mud. If it's an eagle, it's Department of Natural Resources. I mean, there's a lot of things related to development that the city doesn't have authority over. We don't have jurisdiction. This isn't the only issue. I mean, there are similarities, like I just said. We don't ask for phase one, phase two to approve development to say it's not contaminated. That's something that they have to comply with state law, and we don't go out and monitor it. Again, when I first started hearing about this, I was very, you know, I felt bad as well, but I got to, you know, I don't have a choice. Okay, Councilwoman Hurtek.

I'm just going to, yes, there is something we can do, and you told us what we can do. We can buy it. So I'm going to make a motion to have staff come back with a written report on July 16th on the cost and the steps to purchase the property connected to the Martí Colón Cemetery. Second. And additionally, to look at a land swap. And that's I appreciate Councilmember Carlson for mentioning it earlier. We talked about it in my office. Let's just let's just find out. And the reason I did a written report is because we don't have enough room on a staff report for that day. But if we want to go further with that, we can we can make another motion that day. Does is that work for you? Do you want to add anything to it?

That's great. Perfect. Thank you for including both those. But just to clarify, you said You said we talked about it in your office, and I didn't talk about it.

I was going to provide that clarification. Kelly and I talked about this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

So we don't get any sunshine going.

Thank you. I do appreciate that. No, Kelly and I talked about this. So yes, does everyone agree that's a good first step?

I think we better. Does anyone know if the administration is not trying to do this now?

Well, we'll find out on July 16th.

We'll find out the price is going to double.

Well, but you know what? That's the consequence of us not buying it when we had the opportunity in 2021.

We haven't even asked if they ever looked and talked to them. I'm not pro-administration, but I'm telling you, before I make a deal or try to make a deal and raise the price, I'm going to ask them, are you working on this?

Yes or no? And this goes back before this administration. Yeah.

Okay, we have a motion for Councilwoman Herjitak, a second for Councilman Maniscalco. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Council, can I get a, is there anybody that would dissent since Mr. Steady is here? He is on our agenda for item number 44, not 44. Can we go to 51 because we want a full council for that. Anybody need like three minutes to, a little physiological break? Okay, well let's just take a pause and wait for Councilwoman Hartech to come back. She just asked, since she asked for it. What are you gonna do with the public safety, Councilman Rivera?

sure we're waiting yet for the purpose of time so for item 48 48 thank you very much so we were so if you guys recall i had originally done i i wanted either an executive order with an ordinance an ordinance whatever it may be on making public safety master plans mandated uh by virtue of of of applicable city law and so we've reached an agreement on executive order language and mr brody is going to be working on an ordinance implementing that and making sure that if there's ever any change of any kind to that order which will be binding i've spoken mr steady about that the city council would get requisite notice therefore based upon our apparent agreement on this i'm going to make a motion if i may to on august 27th have city legal come forward with an ordinance um

implementing the uh notice provisions with a resolution in ordinance on the public safety master plan okay so we're gonna can i get a motion to remove item 48 from this agenda that's yes sir okay motion to remove item 48 second councilman maniscal call is a favor say aye aye opposed eyes have it and you want to do that now or you'll wait to do business for you might as well may i do it now sure okay so does anybody object by doing it now okay go ahead update you already made it right yes sir did you get it suing did you get Okay, very good. So I have a motion from Councilman Vieira, second from? Second. Councilman Maniscalco. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Thank you. Okay, that one's dispensed of that. Okay. And... Anything else that's easy peasy? No, probably not. That's the elder.

Public record fees. That's probably a little bit more of a discussion, I think.

Okay, so we're going to go right into item number 51. We dispensed of 48. I made a motion.

Okay.

Where did the city council attorney go? Marty Shelby, you cannot get away that easy.

He probably here he comes. I thought we were going to have to send out the mountain.

Yeah. I say, you know, we, we, we put an ankle monitor on him. Okay. Item number 51. Get your head together.

Yeah, she came back.

No, she's there. She came back and you were gone. She came back and you disappeared.

Water is just as good. I didn't say that. I said that.

I have taken, I have taken two Tylenol and four.

Do you think it's like something in the, it may be, it may be hate speech.

That's appropriate intro.

Today's supposed to be, well, you know, can I have some deference?

I actually wrote something at lunch. Do you mind?

Before we begin?

I wrote something at lunch. Today is just another day. My entire life, starting as a very young boy, I've heard words like pansy, queer, and faggot. I don't have the words to fully express the emotions these words carry. I don't feel sorry for myself. I've grown accustomed to hearing them. What makes me sad is knowing that young people in the 2026 are still hearing the same hateful, hurtful words. It's one thing to hear them shouted from a passing car or from strangers who see me and my partner holding hands. It's another thing entirely to hear them screamed at my face in a government meeting or in my workplace. What's worse is looking into the audience and seeing people that I work with, people that I'm friendly with, nodding in agreement with the speaker. You can't be for civil rights for all unless it truly means all.

Thank you. Go ahead. Members of the council, Mr. Chairman, thank you. Martin Shelby, city council attorney.

Scott Steady, city attorney.

I'm very honored that the two of us are standing here together. For now. I said to him, he, he adds gravitas to this process. Um, but Mr. Chairman, thank you for that introduction. It's a fitting introduction. Um, because quite frankly, we're here and we want to explain why we're here and how we got here. But the answer short answer is we're here to help. We're here to help you address the issues that are confronting this council. And how did we get here? We were asked by city council. Motion was made as to what we can do to address these things. A motion or a concern was that the CRA, was the CRA governed by the ordinance that city council recently passed for indemnification for legal expenses? Was that extended to the CRA? Well, what happened was the legal department came back to the city council with an amendment to that ordinance that provided that protection for legal indemnification to the CRA members. So what that did was your questions and your concerns began a discussion. And it's a very unusual discussion for me because I have never had the opportunity to work this closely with the city attorney's office, with the city attorney himself, with the CRA attorney, and I have to give credit to Cliff Shepherd. What you have in front of you are recommendations based on an analysis of what our situation is. And quite frankly, what we are here to do is we are here to offer recommendations to give you the opportunity to give the city, the city attorney tools to be able to address your concerns in a way to conduct public business. So what I'm going to say to you at the outset, Mr. Steddy and I are not here to discuss policy. We're here to discuss law. And we heard a lot of public comment about the First Amendment. We heard a lot of public comment about public meetings. I'd like to give council a bit of a necessary overview. And it's not only for your benefit, it's also for the benefit of the public. Because they have to know and understand the situation that you are in and the situation that you are facing. So I'm going to just go through this rather quickly. I want to make sure this makes it for closed captioning, does it? Can everybody see that? Or shall I zoom in more? Now, if you or any member of the public is not familiar with the term limited public forum, then you do not know First Amendment law as it relates to governmental meetings. Have we ever heard the term limited public forum before? Probably not, not in common parlance. And I will say this, who does know it? First Amendment lawyers know it. Who else knows it? Local government attorneys know it. And I will tell you that the recommendations that you have in front of you are the combined efforts by my count of no less than seven attorneys. These are not my words. This was really a collaborative effort to be able to address this. Mr. Steady and I had teams meeting, maybe more than one, I don't recall, but with Cliff Shepherd. And I could tell you the attorneys who have worked on this to put it together for council, members of Mr. Steady's office, excellent attorneys who individually have decades of experience in local government. So what is a limited public forum? A limited public forum is a meeting the government opens for public speech, but only on specific topics or for certain speakers. Now I'll probably get to this later, but did you see the words that says a meeting the government opens for public speech? There's a misconception with the Sunshine Law. The Sunshine Law does not require every meeting of a government board to accept public comment. Does the public know that? Well, it knows it now. So, what's a common example of a limited public forum? Public comment at city council meetings limited to city-related matters. I take a drink because my next statement goes to the heart of the matter. It's the crucial concept that I'm asking you to understand and accept. Clear rules of decorum help establish the meeting. It helps establish the meeting as a limited public forum. This allows the Council It allows the council to enforce viewpoint neutral and reasonable rules to keep the discussion focused and orderly. In other words, clear rules of decorum give you the tools that the courts give you to allow the council to enforce viewpoint neutral And we could talk that further, and reasonable rules to keep the discussion focused and orderly. Now, the limited public forum, there's a key difference from what is a traditional or designated public forum. Now, a traditional public forum is what people mostly think as the First Amendment, that's standing outside in Lykes Park. And that is like an open mic. And that is the government holds anybody who wants to restrict that to strict scrutiny. A designated public forum you're familiar with when we had the political convention in Tampa and we had to establish a free speech zone. That the courts recognize as a designated public forum. So what is the benefit to a government board such as yourself of making sure your meetings comply with what a limited public forum is? because it gives you more authority to restrict topics and more authority to maintain decorum. Whereas a traditional adept comes strict limits on council control. What's the bottom line? Well-written rules of decorum protect orderly meetings while respecting First Amendment rights. So let's talk about the public's right to speak at a meeting. I passed out to you a copy of Florida Statute Section 2860114. That is a state statute that was adopted in 2013. Now, interestingly, up until that point, it was not codified as what the obligations of the local government were. or what the law provided to the public. Surprisingly, much to Tampa's credit, Tampa provided these provisions to the public almost 10 years before the state required it for every other jurisdiction. So what does public law require? Excuse me, the Florida statutes. The public has a statutory right to a reasonable opportunity to be heard on propositions the city council is considering. Issues. Now, interestingly, the statute says this opportunity can occur during the decision-making process, but not necessarily on the day of final vote. It is a reasonable opportunity to be heard. Now, the city of Tampa historically does best practices. and best practices is to ensure that that provision is complied with you make sure you take public comment before the final vote that way nobody would be able to raise the issue they didn't have the opportunity at a previous time that's what the law provides the public now i haven't heard anything yet about off agenda items yet but we'll get to that but what the law provides to city council The city council can set reasonable time limits, procedures, and rules for public comment, but the state statute does not prevent the council from maintaining orderly conduct and proper decorum. And most importantly, public comment is subject to council's adopted rules and policies. The bottom line, the state statutes guarantee an opportunity to speak while allowing the council to run efficient, orderly, and respectful meetings. So the challenge, counsel, and the recommendations that surround our appearance here today are based on this. If city council wishes to receive the protections that the courts give you, you have to make sure that you are clearly recognized as a limited public forum. to do anything else opens the door to a court saying that you are not entitled to the protections that you would have if you conducted yourself consistent with what is a limited public forum. So we present these to you. And the important distinction we might as well talk about what concerns people the most is public comment. The court recognizes the purpose of your meeting is to conduct city business, city-related business. But once you open the door to anybody who can speak to anything, even before you take care of public business, that may raise questions as to whether your intention, whether it's your intention to conduct your business to be recognized by the courts as a limited public forum. And I will share with you this. We do this with all good intention. We are not here to shut anybody down. But I will tell you that we are here to say that we are at an inflection point. We're at a decision point. We've surveyed where we are, and I will tell you that this jurisdiction is governed by the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. We are within the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. We're governed by that jurisdiction. And the First Amendment law is evolving, and we've gotten to the point where this subject required us to revisit what our rules are and to revisit how this city conducts its meeting so we can be consistent with what the law requires of us to be able to give you the protections and to give the city taxpayers the protections and to give the city council individual protections in the event of a challenge. So I understand what the public's position is and I will share with you, I respect that, but I will tell you that I've had the opportunity to work with some really good lawyers who've made really significant contributions in research, in suggestions, in crafting the language. And I think what you have before you, and we could talk about the issues of the public comment, but what the public comment does is this, as it's proposed, it takes the public business on agenda items first. and then it goes into the public business. And when the public business is done, then the public who you want to have the opportunity to talk about off-agenda items, they can do that. Every, most every other jurisdiction limits the time for public comment. There's a benefit to having it at the end of the meeting, and I'll share why I think that's the case, and you may disagree, and we can discuss it. Let's take the county commission for instance. They give you what, 45 minutes to talk, right? What happens when 45 minutes is up and somebody came downtown and is sitting at county center? Tell me if I'm wrong, but sorry, we're done. We have to move on to public business. You have to come back at the end of the day if they allow them to do that. Is that the case?

I don't know if they allow that.

Well, I don't even know if we do that. That's true, I don't even know. With this method, You ensure that you take care of public business, and people don't have to come downtown to be told, I'm sorry, your time is up, that other people came before you. The alternative, though, is to do what most other governmental bodies do, is what they do is they set a certain amount of time, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and then stop. Does the court say that it's a reasonable opportunity to be heard? The courts have said, yes, that is. Does it meet with what you wish? No. You like to give people the opportunity. But let me share with you this concern. The way the meeting is now structured. Oh, by the way, I should also point out that the use of cards or the use of other ways to set up a process meets all the court requirements. As a matter of fact, the way you process this, the formality of the process creates the appearance that you are conducting a limited public forum. So I guess my point is that it's important for council to formalize the process. And what these amendments do is they clarify What we already know is that this is a public, a limited public forum, but we want the public to be absolutely aware of this because we want the courts to be absolutely aware of this so that they can grant you the protection that being in a limited public forum gives you with regard to how you conduct your meetings. And I'm sure there's more I want to say, but just the last point. I'm very conscious. of the public's concern. But in looking at the law, particularly the 11th Circuit, it has become, the law has evolved. And I can provide you the case law if you're interested in reading, but the law has evolved. And the courts have to make a determination. Are you conducting a limited public forum or are you conducting an open forum, an open mic? What's it gonna be? Here's my concern, council, and forgive me for phrasing it this way, but it comes to mind. If the city council's position differs from what the law requires, in a court of law, the city will have a hard time defending it. That's why we respectfully ask you to consider this, and we're open for any questions, but let me, before you do that, thank you for giving me this opportunity. Mr. Steddy, would you like to say?

Well, I don't need to repeat what Marty did. He did a good job. We worked together on it, and like I said, we brought in Cliff Shepard, who brought in a lot of comments. I think there's a lot of changes, but I think the reality is it's the public comment at the beginning. What's the nature of public comment? Is it on the agenda or is it open? It's ultimately your decision, but we're here to advise you. That's our job. And whether you like to hear it or not, right, Marty? I mean, that's the bottom line.

Well, the point of the matter is, after analysis, I think all parties involved on the legal end agree that we've come to a decision point, that action is required, one way or the other. If you have concerns, we'll address them.

Okay, thank you. Councilwoman Hurtek, Vieira.

The 11th Circuit, from my understanding, is a very pro-First Amendment circuit. Are they not?

I don't know how to characterize it. I can tell you how I characterize their decisions. They've certainly, their analysis... in the mcdonough versus garcia case which is a i believe a late twenty twenty four case they did an excellent analysis of first amendment they take it very seriously there were two substantive cases at that time as a matter of fact that case really set forth what the tests were and the requirements were for limited public forum anyway i'll just say that my family is a little familiar with that but my question is

what I'm what I'm concerned about is that yes we have people come and speak on items on the agenda but then we also have someone who comes because they have a problem with I don't know, sewage backup in their yard and they don't know how to fix it. It's technically a city related matter. Would those people be allowed to still speak at the beginning because it's a city related matter?

The answer is the way it's presently presented to you. The answer to that is no. What happens is that in this particular proposal, this recommendation, is on agenda items are covered first under agenda public comment.

Yes, I understand that. But what I'm asking is, is there a way to do on agenda items and city related items?

Can I say, the problem is if you say city related, I get it if they came up and didn't use that as a First Amendment form. Because if you're basically saying they still come up and say whatever they want, then we're- No.

OK, I mean, I wouldn't know what I'm saying is that we often have people that that I'll say a lot of them are older or have, you know, barriers in some way that they'll come and say, I need help with this. And oftentimes that's when one of our aides will come out and grab their information or chief of staff is usually sitting there and he'll grab their information and be able to help them.

Here's the, that's a very good point, and I understand the importance of doing that. There are other avenues to do it. First of all, obviously, there's a customer service center, and which may or may not be responsive to them, I don't know. But obviously, you are the most accessible body, the most accessible human being to your constituents. And I respect that, and I hold that very high, in very high regard. And I want to protect that opportunity as well. But the other thing is, that's one person's problem. And it may be an issue that might be of greater concern to everybody. But each of you individually have the opportunity to go into your districts We heard somebody wanting to have evening meetings. You have your opportunity to go into your districts and hold evening meetings, town halls. And those can be open mics if that's what you want. And you could bring back what you learned to city council and do that in the form of a motion under new business and get to the heart of the matter. But here's the thing. This process, as it is presently set up, and we saw it pretty much today, allows an unlimited number of people for an unlimited time to talk about off agenda items until you get, before you get to the first piece of public business. Now as long as that happens, that's problematic because if you allow as many people who show up at any given day to talk about you don't know what and you allow them to go on because they took the time to show up, what that says potentially to a court is well then maybe this is more of a traditional public forum. It's not a limited public forum, so you're not entitled to those protections.

But that's what I'm trying to understand. And then I'll let other people have questions. But I'm trying to understand the difference between agenda items and city related items to me they're one in the same it's you're asking this council when we had people come to us after their homes were flooded and ask us to do something and and and that was that was traumatic that was And I just don't know how we tell those people you have to wait till the end of a meeting because it truly is city business. The fact that our stormwater system needed improvement was a incredibly important city issue at the time. And so this is what I'm trying to understand as how we make sure that we take those issues, which are important, and then we did talk about them during our day. Even if it was a new or old business, it's still part of our day that we would not have discussed if we had not heard from the public in that forum. And that is my concern.

I understand. I recognize it and I don't think Marty has to take all the issues. Here's the reality. As soon as we get away from conducting the business, and it's not just the city business, it's the business of the meeting. What's the business items on the meeting? As soon as you start opening up, there's a risk. That's the reality, Councilwoman. Ultimately, it's your decision and I think there's a We recognize it if you want to open it up, but as soon as you go beyond comments on the agenda, and you start saying people come up and talk, then they're going to push the envelope, and then you're going to get closer to not doing the business of government. So it's a catch-22. I mean, there's not always a good answer. So to me, the answer is you either put it in the box that I know is difficult for you, but you start going to that next level, then where do you draw the line? And I will just say this, and I think we've talked about it, and you feel differently, but I worked in jurisdictions all around Tampa Bay and the state, and most jurisdictions have limited their public comment to the agenda in order to keep that limited government form. That's just a reality. It's maybe not your choice, but that's. So my answer is you open it up beyond that, then it's a slippery slope.

And if I can just follow up, the people who do want to bring this to your attention do not lose the opportunity. What happens is the preference is given to those people who are speaking, who came on agenda items, people who have to be here because they need approvals from city council, people who have engaged experts or attorneys who are paying them to be here. And the other alternative is, and I don't know whether city council even wants to consider that because the alternative is to allow a certain set period of time for public comment, limited at first to only people speaking on agenda items and then open the floor to non-agenda items until the time is up and then that's their opportunity to have speaking because the alternative is to ask them to come back, I think is unfair at the end of the day. But if you set it towards the end of the day, People will still, I think, it would be council's decision and council's preference to still allow public comment by telephone. People can still phone in at the end of the day to bring things to your attention. Likewise, there's also emails. You get group emails addressed to tampacitycouncil at tampagov.net, and you all get copies of it. Your legislative aides work very hard and do an excellent job responding to constituents. But the question that I... we were facing is what tools can we give the city attorney to better protect the city, this board, and each of you individually.

Okay, let me go.

Let me go on more council persons before you show me for the councilman Vera. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and good points brought up by councilman her attack and I can. You know, talk and I'll get to that later, I guess, but, you know, I'm actually, let's put it this way. Some of the things that happened today with the immoral, hateful, bigoted. Ignorant stuff that we heard at Tampa city council today. Um, it was. How shall I say this? It was relevant, obviously relevant to today's topic. And the chairman's words, I just, God bless you. That's all I'm going to say, Chairman Clendenin. So a bunch of different issues here to talk about, which is number one, access to the public. We're a Tampa City Council where we like to be accessible to the public. I've been in office for about nine and a half years. I've done about 100 town halls in my time. For me, it's council town halls, which often can become open mics, by the way, and sometimes never had anything gone off rails, but whatever. That's always a good thing. So I think that's something that we all meet, that we all agree on. The basic issue, though, is without order and some level of regulation, we're gonna be in chaos and whoever sits in that chair as chairman or chairwoman, we're gonna be putting them in the line of legal fire. And we're gonna be asking our chairperson without the requisite regulation, without the requisite guardrails to take on legal decisions without proper regulatory guidance could potentially expose them and who the hell wants to be chair when you got that over your head okay i say that from experience you know why because i canceled the cra meeting once because of an issue that that came up so we don't want that and if we don't want that then let's put in some level of regulation on things things that are reasonable right um and again is any plan that we adopt is it going to have drawbacks sure but i think if we look at something that has a 10 to 1 but positive to negative we can talk about the one but let's also talk about the 10. so you know i i'm going to support some level of change i know the chairman has been working on this and and and i'll i'll be frank i want to support him you know why because it's easy for us to sit back here like this Well, all that BS is happening out there, and this fellow's got to run those meetings. And I just sit back here, and I don't make the decisions on what's happening. And I'm going to go, I'm not going to vote for any sort of rules or anything to bring order and regulation to this, and I'm just going to sit here. Okay? I'm not going to do that. i'm going to vote for something that empowers our chairperson and whoever comes after that to be able to make decisions with guidance and a level of protection that if this thing if anything ever goes into litigation we can have some protection protection not just in terms of indemnification and defense from the city But protection, which is the chairperson can say, I followed the regulations. We had regulations that are meant to put the business of the meeting first. I followed that. That's what I did. You can hang your hat on that. We're trying to pass something that a chairperson can hang their hat on. So for me, that's what it comes down to, which is putting something that is foreseeable, something that folks can rely on whenever they run these meetings. If we don't pass something, then we're going to take the people who run the meetings and go have at it. It's the Wild West. And any person that comes in and tries to disrupt the meeting, like happened here today a couple of times, including with that weirdo who came in with the camera or whatever, right? There's nothing that's going to assist our chairperson in getting things back on track. So again, we got to support some sort of serious change here today. And I appreciate the work that you all have done and the work that our chairman has done on this. This is the right thing to do.

Thank you. Just to correct a little bit, the irony is while I'm kind of a rule kind of guy, this wasn't necessarily provoked by me. This was provoked by the motion that you made. It's my understanding, but you made about the hate speech. And so, and I was not a part of this. It was all just the attorneys. This was not, so while I'll take credit or blame, glad to take credit or blame, it really wasn't. But yeah, so this was the circumstance of events of council is my understanding of what's transpired and some of the issues that are still pending. Councilman Miranda, Councilman Maniscalco, then Councilman Young.

Thank you. The word limited means a lot. Limited public forum. Then you go to the meeting. a meeting the government opens for public speech only on specific topics or certain speakers. That's really limited. I don't understand the word limited public forums in the meaning of a meeting the government opens for public speech but only on specific topics or specific speakers. I'm a little understanding that a limited now is really limited when you put the second part, the meaning of limited public forum. It really means the agenda, counsel. Well, it's right there in black and white.

No, I know, but it really means the agenda on the topics that are, it really means that.

Of course it's the agenda, but what does it mean? Who are you going to let speak? What are you going to call public forum? What are you going to call public speech on only limited topics? A public servant is a public servant. They can come here and talk to me about, they got a problem, they don't know the number, they don't know how to call, they come here, they see a council member, the seven of us, or one of whatever, and you speak to them. It makes no difference what district they live or what part of the city they live. We try to handle it for everyone. So I don't understand what we're really discussing. Public comment and city council being limited to city-related matters. I got used for it. Everything that they come here for, in their mind, is city-related matters.

That's all I want to say. If I can, the question comes to if a suit is brought against the city or against the city council or whoever, what is the court analysis going to be? And the goal is to be able to take care of the public business first. The people who you're talking about get priority over those people who are on the agenda, who are here for a public hearing in order to get a, the way it's structured presently unless you put a time limit on it or unless you move them to a different point of the meeting when you've already done the public business.

Let me say this, we start at nine every meeting and usually by four o'clock we're out. So the seven hours to kill somebody, With all the public hearings and non-public hearings that we hear, we still cannot afford. So tell me where we're failing.

You're not failing. You're not failing. The courts are evolving First Amendment law to create certain requirements for a board to follow in order to be recognized under the law by the courts for First Amendment protection as a limited public forum. And what that does is that gives you more authority to restrict topics if you need to, and to particularly maintain decorum. And that's some of, that's one of the issues that were faced that, uh, giving the chair, the tools to be able to conduct the meeting and giving the legal department and the city of Tampa, the tools to be able to protect the city, um, and to protect the taxpayer and to protect the ability for this city council to conduct public business. I appreciate what you're saying.

I think we've talked about it. Ultimately, it is the City Council's position. If you want to keep status quo, there's risks. I'm not saying there's risks or terrible risk, but I'm not trying to be good cop, bad cop here. I agree with everything that's being said, but at the same time, it's ultimately the City Council's position on how you want to proceed. This is our recommendation.

If the one issue that City Council feels very strongly about, which is the order of business and not moving public comment to the end, There's still a whole bunch of stuff that a lot of good attorneys put a lot of work product together and research to come up with changing and adding language to rule five, the rules of decorum, to bring clarity and greater certainty to the fact that this board is conducting public business at a limited public forum. So if that's council's decision, I don't know what the consensus is, but if that is the one sticking point, there's a lot of protections in here. And I don't want the city council to feel that has to throw the baby out with the bath water. If you want to strip out that provision of putting public comment at the end, that is an option. Although I don't think after our research, that would be necessarily best practice. Um, the other thing to do would be to, to limit the time as other boards do, but I don't see an inclination or a benefit to doing that with the city council, as well as I know you.

Thank you very much. This was a suggestion that I thought of. We start the meeting, we have ceremonial, right? We take public comment on items on the agenda, meaning the consent agenda, uh, anything that's not set for a public hearing, or if it's a staff report item, because In the times that I was chair, people would ask me, are we going to get to the consent agenda before lunch? Right? So we take public comment for items that are on the consent agenda and any staff reports, minus the public hearings. We take up those items. We get the consent agenda out of the way. The staff reports, clearly we wait till the end. Then we allow the county, you said 45 minutes or 30 minutes. We allow maybe like 30 minutes for general public comment after the consent agenda. We do that. Uh, and then, you know, if it's time to break for lunch or we go into the 10, 10 30 public hearings, whatever, we take it from there and then we figure it out. My concern is like councilman Miranda has mentioned and others. Um, you know, people come here for different things. They don't know who to call, whatever. And the first thing they think of, oh, I'm going to go to city hall. Right. I don't feel that it's right for someone to, you know, they take off of work or they may be disabled or they have to pay for parking all, all day because they don't know when the end of the meeting is going to be today. The meeting is going to end after four o'clock. Um, sometimes we finish, we come back from lunch. Sometimes we don't even take lunch, but that's my concern is I don't want people to have to wait to the end of the meeting or may not be able to get off of work. You know, I mean, if someone has to wait and say, uh, you know, city council on average finishes between three and four o'clock at their job, are they going to be able to say, I'm going to leave at two 30 to go park downtown because they might finish that, but I'll be back before five o'clock. my point is would it be possible to do what i said we start the meeting we go to ceremonial we open public comment for items that are on the consent agenda things are on the agenda staff reports we take those items up so the consent agenda folks that are waiting that are paid here whatever they can go we do a limited 30-minute general public comment and then we continue on the agenda i don't think it It throws off the agenda. I think it allows people the opportunity to speak without having to wait all day. Because again, I mean, I have to be somewhere in two minutes, two minutes. But I typically don't make any other plan, it's city related. I don't make any other plans on Thursday because I don't know what kind of day it's gonna be. I tell my wife, I'll see you when I see you. So anyways, is what I'm saying making sense? I mean, I think it's, my concern is putting that general public comment to the end. But, again, limiting it to that 30-minute period where it's reasonable.

I don't want to argue against city council members. But, by the way, then that 30 minutes could mirror what you heard today. Just accept it. I mean, I understand. But that's the issue.

The other thing that people have told me to remain mindful of, and I've heard from a lot of the land use bar, I've heard from applicants is they have to sit through these things. And if it's chaos or it's somebody who's disruptive to the proceeding, not only is this room filled still with people waiting to be heard and having their cases heard, but it's also still heard by members of the public at home. And that's also reflected in the rules that we recognize the fact that there's just more than the people in this room who are the audience of these meetings. And if somebody is out of order or disruptive, then if it's done at the end of the day, the advantage is all those people who have to be here for public business have had their stuff done and they're gone. And that means the room is less full. Is that a disadvantage to some people who want to come at the end? Yes. They can still phone in. They can still e-mail. I understand if council wants to do that, and that's council's prerogative. We're just here to provide recommendations.

I've always said – Let me move on to – because you're kind of repeating yourself. Yeah, yeah. I just want to say that – Councilwoman Young, and then we can get some more.

Okay. So I – agree and you know have some share some of the same sentiments with other council members also you know understanding and want to thank you all for the research that you did because i know that a lot of people worked on this um so i think that I know there are a lot of my constituents, I'm speaking specifically for District 5, that have some concerns with this. They've either called, emailed, or just talked about when I'm out in the community. And I'm sensitive to that. I think to Councilman Maniscalco's point, not knowing when the meeting is going to end I think that then that has also come up in some of the conversations with community that I've had they don't know You know when to come so when would they necessarily be able to speak? And then on the at the same time You know recognizing that we are here, you know to conduct city business, you know to the best of our ability and and do it efficiently and respectfully. Just in my time here, I have definitely witnessed some things. I have two high school interns that are working with me this summer, and fortunately, they were not here this morning to kind of witness some of the things that we heard today during public comment. Um, but there was, um, at least one that I know a high school student that was in the audience that was here and had to witness that. So I say all that, you know, kind of being, you know, understanding that we are here to do, you know, to conduct, you know, city business, um, but also being sensitive, you know, and also, you know, being sensitive to the fact of those that come and maybe you know, maybe don't know any other way to get in contact with their, you know, their council person. And this is the only way. And I mean, I know in my time here, there have been people that have come specifically to council meetings and we learn about things that are happening with them at the meeting. And, you know, either myself or legislative aid is able to get in contact with them right then and there. So I'm a little, I'm really torn with this and I'd really see both sides to it. So that's just kind of my comments that I want to put in and wherever it goes from there.

Councilman Carlson.

Um, I, I think that this has to be left to the next council. I, I don't like or agree with many of the comments that have been made, especially today. Um, uh, but the, the trying to design rules around one or two people that you don't agree with can prohibit lots of people from, from not just use exercising the first amendment, but telling us what's going on. Um, the, uh, uh, And an example, a few years ago when the mayor asked for the Hanna Avenue project to be approved, it was a week later that someone in public comment when Hanna Avenue was not on the agenda came and said that the mayor had decided not to put it up for a competitive bid. And that ended up being a huge scandal. But had we not allowed that person to speak, we wouldn't have known that that had happened. And then we saw a whole track record of those things happening. And there's a lot of concerning things that the public knows. Pam Cannella comes and talks about the lack of maintenance in Stormwater. And then the mayor sends a letter saying, no, we don't have a lack of maintenance, but we know there is because Pam tracks it and has all the detailed evidence of it. And if we didn't allow her to speak, then what would that do? Also, everywhere I go, the biggest complaint I get, I get people who are angry and I get people who are crying saying the mayor doesn't respond. We've got a lot of great people in this city who respond, administrators and others who respond really quickly. But almost everybody I run into says the mayor and her office just don't respond. They don't respond at all. And people don't know what to do. And we sometimes, most of the time have to tell them what you're asking for is not by charter, is not under city council, it's up to the mayor and the mayor doesn't respond. And so their only outlet is to come and tell us And if they say it on camera, suddenly the chief of staff steps up and does something about it. And that's not the way the city should work, which is why I'm saying we need to wait till the next city council, because it might not be necessary. after the election but now I think it is because there's so many issues you know alleged fraud all kinds of things going on with this administration that need to be discussed and and the public has a right to talk about it the other thing is if you if you say that they can only talk about something on the agenda The gentleman sitting behind you will mention something on the agenda and then he'll say something else. And so how do you edit in mid-sentence? How do you edit somebody? I don't think that that really works. I think it's better to allow the public to come and speak. The other thing is that we had a gentleman this morning, as an example, arrive in a heart uh disability van and as he said he has to book that a night before and um for people in wheelchairs uh people who aren't that mobile it's a real inconvenience to come down here people who can't afford to pay nine dollars or whatever for parking it's a real inconvenience and so i think we need to have some predictability and being able to do it To some extent, it's a great thing that we are the most open forum for folks. Unfortunately, we have people complaining about the legislature and the White House and other things coming here. And I wish many times we could edit it because it takes a lot of time. But for the one chance that somebody will come tell us that the mayor decided not to put up Hannah Avenue for a bid and we wasted maybe tens of millions of dollars because of that, it's worth it. Thank you.

So everybody's spoken except for me so far, so I'm going to speak. Again, I wasn't the one that initiated this. Obviously, I'm the chair, so I end up having to be put in the position of having to monitor and be able to enforce these things. A couple of observations in listening to my fellow councilperson speak. How many people are we talking about? There's 420,000 people that live in the city of Tampa that pay taxes here and pay for this meeting. How many people do you think, I mean, liberally, how many people do you think we're talking about that we're inconveniencing by asking them to come at the end of the meeting? I would say, I mean, maximum, under crazy ideals, probably 15. 15 people are causing the problem. So I mean, 420,000 people, and we're talking about 15. But you also have to think, about the business of the city of Tampa. We have 1030 public hearings. We have 130 public hearings. And I know some people in a system will say, oh, these are, you know, paid this, paid that. Well, not always. You know, these are citizens that are coming and getting their, you know, they're trying to get their house done or the citizens that are, you know, are coming to, you know, talk about variances or whatnot. So, I mean, these are also citizens that are being inconvenienced by our lack of really smart business controls of really maintaining a sense of public good and public purpose about the business of the city of Tampa. I look around at other bodies and And even what we're proposing is still very, very open. And I mean, really a very, uh, an opportunity that no other bodies give. I mean, you look at school boards and you look at every other other venue and at least that I'm familiar and I'm familiar with a lot of them all over the country. Nobody does this. And so even, even with, if we make these small amendments, of having people defer because right now again somebody's waiting for a 10 30 public hearing sometimes we don't hear those until after lunch i mean so what is the difference and you know what the difference is those that's really costing people some real money i mean some of those people are here on billable hours and they're and and they're actually for business of the city of tampa not to come here and call me a i mean this is this is what you're going to condemn this to What you're saying right now, but what you're saying is, you know what? We want people to come to City Council and say anything you want to your fellow persons that are sitting here. Where does it end? Where does it end? I mean, that's the thing. Where does it end? I mean, you've got to be able to draw a line somewhere. And Councilman Carson referenced the next council. We still have a long time in front of us. This road is still a long time in front of us. There we go. I mean, there we go. Again, this is about the business of the city of Tampa. We have to do business first and we're still given what they've come up with me. And again, I didn't come up with this. They presented it to me. They're still saying we can bring these people in and we'll still give them that total open forum to be able to come before us and have that. And by the way, reference the people that come about business. We have full-time aides. We have 40-hour week aides. We are all 24-7 people. I think everybody has my telephone number. They all have our business email addresses. They have the city council email. They have the customer service line they talk about. There are so many ways to get in touch with us. Even if they came to us before a meeting, They could flag us all down and we could talk to them and hook them up with an aide or just like we did today, talk to staff about things. We obviously, we don't necessarily resolve things. We depend upon staff for these things. So, I mean, there's tons of opportunities to wire people in. There's tons of opportunities to communicate with us. It does not have to be, as an example today, a guy that is a YouTube star and he exploits city and counties and and school boards around the country with our excuse me sir this is not your opportunity to speak you may have a seat and listen or you can leave the chamber um there's we have a guy that goes around the country and exploits exploits these public meetings for monetizing it by being on TikTok Why should he have preference over somebody who's here looking to be able to build his house or be able to renovate his house or restore his house from a hurricane or anything else? Why should he have preference and why should those people's lives be inconvenience for him? I think Councilman Vieira was next, and then Councilwoman Hurtak, and then I think Sestal Cox.

I'm back on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So a couple of things. That first, whenever it comes to crises, and Councilwoman Hurtak wisely noted Helene and Milton, if something like this passes and we're in discussions, et cetera, on that, you know, The administrative update, for example, if something like that happened, I would do a memo asking that the agenda reflect the administrative update will include this particular issue. If a large crisis like that, for example, that's just an idea. Is that a one shoe fits all solution? Absolutely not. But just an idea out there. But again, for me, this is a big issue. The central issue, I think how we should see this, which is are we going to have a set of rules that a chairwoman or a chairman can rely on? and running a meeting and keeping order because if the meeting doesn't run well we look at the chairman or chairwoman and go what's up okay and and how and and where they're not going to be led astray where they're not going to be led through to a pathway that takes them to a lawsuit where again if if the chairperson has to restore order to a meeting that they will have enforceable set of rules that are open and obvious that they can rely on in running the meeting that's what it is you know there are different issues Councilman Maniscalco talked about doing things immediately after public comment we can talk about that in terms of non-agenda related items but again the central issue is this whoever's chair are we going to empower them with rules and regulations that allow them to run a meeting without exposing themselves legally and the city because that's what's going to happen with the way we're going right now there are a lot of good issues that are being brought up we can take care of that and we will because i think we all have good hearts and we want to listen to people and so forth but we've got to have something in place because what happened today it's just the beginning it's just the beginning councilman hartag

and that's sort of the problem though I mean someone mentioned the fact that what happens when someone comes and speaks on item 51 for two sentences and then goes off into something else but that's what I mean and then they're like oh I'm sorry and then they go back to 51 for two more sentences and they go back and forth so I think When talking about the city's business, to kind of feed on what Council Member Maniscalco talked about, which I think is a good idea, one of the things we don't do is put a hard and fast rule on when commendations end. Commendations should go from 9 to 9.30. End it then. Three commendations is probably too much. I'll just be honest. By the time we got done today, it was already 9.50. It just, that's the way these go. We don't even start our meetings in a timely manner because commendations are supposed to take five to 10 minutes, but when we have our officers of the quarter or officers of the month, those at least take 20 minutes by the time people are giving gifts and that sort of thing, which is totally fine, but we need to expect that and then we need to time for it and then we need to be done. So if we have days where we know we're going to have officers of the month or something like that, then we can't have other commendations. We can't have presentations. Those might be later in the meeting because that's one of the main things that are stopping city business from starting at 10 o'clock. It just is. So I would recommend changing second hearing start times to 11. Because we get through those. There's very rarely do we not like zoom through a second reading. So why can't we start those at 11? That gives people a more time certain time to come in and then kind of go along with what Councilman Maniscalco said, where we could take public comment only on agenda items, get that consent agenda done, then open it up to city related matters public comment. In a 30 minute period. And I don't have a problem with that. I think something like that could work because if we talk about city related business, what happened this morning was not city related business. And I think we could very clearly call people out for that by saying, you're not talking about city related business. And again, these are just some ideas of throwing out, because I think what ultimately is going to have to happen is you're going to have to go listen to these comments, come back to us each individually. I'm sorry, that's just the way we work in the sunshine. And come forward. The one thing I didn't hear you talk about today, you mentioned other changes. I don't know if you have that up to show. And if not, I would really prefer that that be something that wasn't just given to us and talked about, but put up so we could talk about.

Martin Shelby, City Council Attorney, thank you. And I want to thank you for all your comments. They've been very helpful. I want you to know that we don't stand here lightly. I know that. And I've always said that these are not my rules. These are not the administration's rules. These are your rules. And ultimately, you have to take ownership and make them your own. But I appreciate these are great suggestions.

But that's part of our problem as a council. We allow things to continue past time. So if we put a time certain for commendations, we put a time certain for comments that are city related, but not while like open. public comment, and then if we felt the need to have open public comment, we could leave it at the end. But then I think that just is going to encourage people to stick around and push the envelope. So I absolutely see ways that we can move things around. I think this is a really good conversation.

I appreciate it, Councilwoman. I thank you very much. And I should also point out, Council, that in your packet that's in on base you have the resolution then you have a clean version that's attachment a and attachment B is the underline and strikethrough version and if you go through that you will see specifically the changes that were made in attachment B as a matter of fact I caught a few typos with regard to the lettering or numbering of the items and I have a substitute for it I guess that can wait. If you're going to be coming back, we can workshop this if you wish. We can come back or meet with you individually. Of course, we can't predict what you're going to do. This for me, I want you to know, has been very helpful that we've had this public discussion because I think the public also needs to know about what a limited public forum is. This is not one line in the Constitution, in the Bill of Rights. that over the course of years, from the Supreme Court all the way down to the 11th Circuit, the First Amendment law has evolved, and it puts us in a position where we as attorneys felt that it was incumbent upon us to be able to present this to you in a way that would be able to give the city attorney and the legal department the tools to be able to assist what it is you want to accomplish.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is that someone in public comment today did talk about the difference between each meeting, and I do think that is confusing. So as we're talking about this, to do something similar for the CRA, are we... That's part of the intent.

That's why Cliff Shepherd is intimately...

But what I'm saying is whatever we decide for council, we should mirror That's the intent.

It's going to be the same.

But the only thing that's going to be different is the workshop. And what I think people find confusing is that we use cards for regular meetings, but we do not use them for workshops, and we do not use them for CRA. So if we're going to keep this card system, which I will still say I dislike, then it should be for everything.

Q Marty to address workshops.

Yeah.

Workshops. are very unusual in the city of Tampa as we do something that I can't even name other jurisdictions that allow public comment at workshop. It is informational and it is between staff and the city council or the city commission for the exchange of information and for talking about public policy and directions to move forward. It's very unusual, but I will tell you that, and if you've known me long enough and well enough, you know that I take the Sunshine Law and public access very seriously. That's why it's very difficult for me to be in this position to even discuss this. But workshops, it's going to be very hard for people to realize that you do not take general public comment at the workshop. During the pandemic, it started appearing on the agenda because of the pandemic. and it caused confusion. The way we conducted public business in the pandemic to have continuous operation of government, we made a lot of accommodations for people. And it's very hard to pull back from that. But now what we have is we have case law saying that we have an obligation, if not a duty, to be able to conduct ourselves in a fashion that lets the public and the court know that this is not the same as Lykes Park. is a governmental meeting for the purpose of the people's business, the public business, as a limited public forum.

So yes, I'm very... Yeah, it's interesting, workshops, because my experience with other government bodies is that, I mean, sometimes workshops are off-site, they're not on camera, they're not anything, and there's no... I mean, literally, it's just council's opportunity to discuss things and not... And that's it. Councilman Carlson.

Yeah. I agree with putting limitations on the accommodations. One of the things that takes a lot of time is the giving of the gifts. And I know that everybody wants to do that. But I wish that we could get the comms team to do it downstairs or something. And they could still add it in a video in some way so people can get credit for it. But that takes a huge amount of time. the recommendation by council member Hurtek about 11 a.m. I think is a good one. I was gonna suggest we could move all the land use stuff to 1.30, but either way we need to move it because we never hit, we almost never hit 10.30. But you're kind of saying this already, but I think we need a time in, August maybe that you can come back but in the meantime you ought to talk to each of us individually and and have listened to this feedback because if we had to vote on it today I would vote no if there's a modified version that seems to work I obviously we need some better rules but as it is right now I can't support it thank you

hear you loud and clear i mean by the way so in the meantime if you could look at the other rules i think there's a lot that people would agree with so maybe it wasn't clear that we have a strike through so i know that the hot button is the public comment but there's all i think there's a lot of changes that you will agree with no you know no guarantee but i'm pretty sure you So we'll definitely follow up. I'm sorry.

What I would recommend is bringing those forward one at a time so we can vote on them. I mean, I'm sorry, but that's just kind of the way we tend to work better, by seeing it visually and saying, yes, this is cool. Like, I'm just... like this by and large this council just is very visual and we we're better when you're trying to herd cats to try hurting them one line at a time or a section maybe that's what i mean like but just being able to put it to talk about it i got it because if if you bring us a document with all of these changes then then each of us has one different change or we may just all approve it but truly going section by section is just a better way for us to accomplish that

we have we have the line i know but just the public too just okay if you disagree i just yeah i mean i honestly i i would if we're if which i think is gravely a grave mistake i think we there should be a couple of different options here either we limit public comment in the beginning a time limit like you know 30 or 45 minutes in the beginning or we set let's say we set an off-agenda item time certain, like say 1.30 p.m. every day we take off-agenda items so then people know if they're going to take a bus or take a, they know that 1.30 show up for off-agenda items, they can show up in the morning for on-agenda items. But at 1.30 p.m. we're going to talk about off-agenda items and then we can have a time certain for that. Or, you know, I think we need to, we have, and I think the attorneys, they've kind of beat around it, but in my conversations, We need to tighten stuff up for protection, period. And I think the time is now. So I think we need to adopt the rules that they've presented. Now, if you do not have the appetite to do what they suggested to bifurcate the public comment from on-agenda items to meet Sunshine regulations in the morning for on-agenda items in the business and do it to the end, then let's say we limit it to 45 minutes. Is there an appetite for that?

I think what councilman Maniscalco said makes sense and I don't I don't think there's not an appetite for bifurcating but I think it's just the amount of when and that's why I think we still all need a little bit more well let's talk it out but but he's not here and I don't want to like I think we need a full council

We want to read something and read it and talk about passing it now. Let's take it all. Take it next week. Give us a week at least to look at it and digest it and understand what the hell is going on, and then you can vote on it.

Well, we've had it for how long? I mean, we've had this for months, at least a month and a half. This is the first time I see this. It was submitted quite some time ago. Is there an appetite for limiting public comment to 45 minutes in the morning?

Yes, Councilman Vera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So my big thing is, to the attorneys, my question is, would limiting public comment get to... The main thing I'm looking at is protection for whoever's running these meetings.

Well, that's all these other rules that we've got.

Yes, yes. But would that... If that if so, Mr. Chairman, are you referring to limiting public comment in instead of the bifurcated?

I'm just saying this is what I'm trying to just move the needle forward. So how many seven attorneys have worked on this? The public comment is just a piece of it. So I would suggest we move forward with the rules because this is a legal protection for this Council. This should ring hard for Councilman Carlson because he loves that stuff. There's a legal protection for Council and the City of Tampa. So move forward with the amended rules and then so okay i'm not normally do this i'm going to make a motion i make a motion that we move forward we move forward with the rules as proposed by the city attorney and the city council attorney without making the without making changes to public comment and then we talk about public comment after this motion and if i may i'll second that again because i you're running these meetings sir and i want to respect your position on that among other things so i'll second it

um okay so i have a motion from uh chairman clendenin a second from councilman vieira councilwoman young i i really feel like we should have a full council to decide that well this is just about the rules not the public comment part but but even he just he chose to get up and leave Okay, Councilmember, oh, I'm sorry, do you have more? No. Councilmember Carlson.

Yeah, I don't know whether I'd be for or against, but I'm not going to vote yes today. I'm not going to vote yes today because I want it to be in the context of everything else.

I'm the same way. I'm not for or against it, but I've got to understand. I want to read it, digest it, and understand it because you've got so many words that mean the same thing here that, you know, what is it? Are we public servants or not?

Okay, so what I'm hearing is that we won't have enough to pass that would that be something that we would consider talking about So I withdraw my next week at the workshop session Okay, but what I'm saying is would that be a I mean, we have a long workshop session, but I'm telling you now, the tree stuff, I've whittled it down. I'm good. But if we want to have this discussion more, giving us a week to read that.

So I motion to continue this item to the workshop next week.

Second. So I have a motion from Chair Clendenin. I have a second from Councilman Vieira.

Councilmember Carlson. Yeah, just... My criteria for moving anything forward will be if Marty has had a chance to talk to each of us and get our feedback besides the general feedback here. And so if that isn't able to be accomplished by next Thursday, then I wouldn't be able to vote for anything at that point either, but we'll see what happens.

Mr. Shelby, would you be available to reach out to each of us between now and then?

If you answer my phone calls, yes.

Okay. Chair Clendenin.

I just want to emphasize is when you are talking to our city attorney and our council attorney, they're providing legal advice. If you choose to not take their legal advice, it's at your own peril. So when things happen, including myself as chair, I'm making decisions representing council that I have to have support from... the attorney, the city attorney and council attorney on, they've come to us and said, we have to do this so that they can have our back on certain things. And so when you're all having that conversation over the next week, please query them on our liabilities.

Yes, and I think that is why I recommended moving it to next week and not after break, so that it's still fresh in our minds. Because I think we all agree that something has to occur. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel like we all believe that that is the case, that we want to protect the chair of whatever and that we want to have the right things. But we clearly still have some questions. So I have a motion from chair. Oh, I'm so very sorry. Council Member Carlson.

I just want to add one thing. You know, in my day job, I'm not a lawyer, but I work on a lot of legal issues. And 98% of the time, to steal a line from one of my colleagues, it's not black and white, it's gray. And almost always, if I hear a lawyer say, oh, you can only do it this way, if I ask this question and this question, they give me a different answer. the way i look at working with it it's just like your doctor i mean there's not there's not a single answer to everything and and and this is why i get frustrated about the charter issues about who the who the city attorney answers to because the answer if you report to the mayor is different than if you report not for scott maybe but um but we we need to we need to push and ask questions it's not that it has to be this way or this way you can read the case law yes and there are certain maybe stiffer parameters, but it doesn't mean we can't come up with a more creative solution. So that's what, that's the conversation I want to have.

Chair Clendenin.

Always remember though, and y'all should know from the past council, not this council, the past council events that occurred during that council, that if you do not conform with attorney advice, you do not have the full protection of the city. You always take the advice in the end, but what happens- But I'm saying, if your attorney tells you to do something and you choose to go against attorney advice, just like if you're in the hospital and you check out without doctor's consent, you waive some of your rights. So we just have to remember that if you go against attorney advice,

you have liabilities i want to be clear that's not what i'm not saying go gets advice i'm talking about having a conversation with them it's a we're the clients it's a two-way street

And I believe that's what we're all saying is that we want to be able to do that. We just have more questions. Yes, so did you all?

If I can just say, unless you want to say it first. I agree. We need to have more discussions. We came in and we'll start where we begin. We're not here to discuss policy with you. We're here to discuss law with you. And now you know the parameters of what we're trying to accomplish. And I want to thank you, because from this Council, working together, I've heard you provide us with tremendous suggestions that were not contemplated, and we will look into them, I assure you.

The only other thing I want to say that I think is really important to this before I call the vote is we have rules and we need to follow them. And right now we don't. And so I think a lot of that's true. I think the idea from Council Member Carlson about maybe moving the gifts to downstairs during the like, there are definitely different things we could do to make sure that we start public comment at 930 instead of at 1005. And that's and again, that's not you right now. Our rules only say the first thing on our rules is 10 o'clock. But if we had something before then, then we're moving the needle forward. And I think this brings a lot of that to focus.

So I think what's applicable now is when I try to enforce rules 100 percent of the time, you overrule me. Well, and... Every time I try to enforce a rule, 100% of the time, you guys, you're bleeding hearts, jump in and you overrule me.

Correct, but that's... But you know what we do? we make a motion and we vote on it and i will tell you prior councils we didn't do that so we are moving forward it's it's it's it's better every time but we are moving forward anyway so we have motion on the floor to move this to next uh week's um workshop And please make sure you talk to your favorite city council attorney and city attorney to make sure you get your questions answered and suggestions put in. Yes, yes.

I don't have time to drive to St. Pete.

Oh, okay.

Um, so it's not in St. Pete, so that's good.

Yeah, exactly. Uh, so I have a motion from chair Clinton in a second from councilman Vieira all in favor. Aye. Any opposed? I'm sorry.

Just to make a note that the draft agenda for next week has already gone out since we're closed tomorrow, but we can make sure we put on a final agenda.

Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Let's turn it back over. I'll take care of number 50. Does this conclude our item?

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Council.

Okay, we are up to, last but not least, item number 50. Well, last one before new business, and I have a stupid amount of new business. Can I just... Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Council Member Carlson, this is your motion.

This is... I want to thank Mr. Brody for all the long research he did and suggestions, but... If somebody wants to go through and ask a lot of questions, please do that. But otherwise, can you just tell us what your next step is? Do we vote to bring this back for approval? Do we approve it today? What's the next step?

Carl Brody, legal. And I just wanted to have Jennifer Dietz. She is the manager over archives and records, and she leads the public records team. So I wanted her to come up just so you guys could meet her because They do a lot of work over there. And I want you guys just to know she's here. Yes, this form is kind of what we talked about, Councilman. And the next step would be for, if you could bless it, yes, that would be good. And then it would be officially part of our public records policy. And the process that we would follow is that each member to go through the fee waiver process would complete this. The purpose is to show that there is a public purpose behind the waiver request. That's the most important thing we wanted, is to not distinguish you from the public in terms of everybody else in from the public, they have to pay these fees. Where city council has legitimate government purpose in the request, we believe that the fee waiver is appropriate. And by filling this out, it gives us bright-line objective standards to follow. And we wanted to take all the discretion out on our side because we don't want to be making that kind of decision. We want it to be bright-line, and that's why we set out the form the way it is, fill out the form, We'll review it. If it falls within the standards that are there, then the fee waiver will apply, and we'll move forward with addressing the public records request.

Do you have the form to show us?

Oh, I'm sorry. The form...

It was attached in...

Sorry, Jennifer. No, I just didn't know. It was attached in the...

And I forgot to say, there are situations where city council members might need to make public records requests. And what this does is it makes the request public so the public can see it. It becomes a record itself. And then sometimes there are costs related to it. Since we're in the business of running the city, at least I felt that we should be able to get access to the information around the city. And so Mr. Brody and his team have done a great job of defining what the reasons are that we might be able to do with no charge.

Okay. And for the public, this is the form that would be completed. And it's pretty straightforward. We just have the council member provides their information, whether there's a council business reference, whether it's for a workshop, whether it's for a motion or a resolution. and or whether it's from a committee assignment. We'd review it based on those hard bright line standards, approve if we don't feel it satisfies those, then we can come back to you and just let you know and we'll coordinate from there.

Okay, so Council Member Carlson, what are your next steps for us?

So I make a motion to accept the recommended form and process.

So I have a motion from Council Member Carlson, a second from Council Member Miranda. Anybody? So all in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you, thank you. Great, thank you. And those will be included as part of our official City of Tampa public records policy.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for your work on this.

Thanks. Thank you.

Okay, folks, it is time for new business. Let's see. Councilmember Miranda, do you have any new business? No business. Councilmember Young.

I don't think so.

You don't have any of your... You know, today's been a wild day.

Today's been a wild day. I think... I need to go check.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. So council member Vieira.

Yes, Madam Chair. I have a motion. It's funny. I read online these nice two young women, Abigail and Annabelle Smith, who live in Forest Hills. It's really interesting. They are twins. They graduated from Gaither this year. They're both valedictorians, and they both have an 8.24 GPA. Wow. Like, on the money. On the money. So I wanted to, if I may, give them a Tampa City Council commendation. I'll do it off-site. And that's my...

Okay, so I have a motion from Councilman Vieira, and is it two commendations or one? Yes, ma'am, two. Okay, good. So I have a motion from Councilman Vieira. I have a second from Councilman Miranda. All those in favor?

Aye. And I have a schedule issue. I have to move. I need to check up. I'll do this next week. That's it. Thank you, ma'am. Councilman Carlson.

Yeah, just a couple of things for the thought or discussion later. There are a lot of people, especially on council days, that drop people off in the little parking area there. And at some point, I'll talk to staff about it, but you all may have some ideas. You can talk to staff as well. I think we need some way to reduce the congestion, especially entering and exiting. Working on it. working already yeah i'll i'm gonna in fact i'm gonna talk about some stuff right there a little bit yeah i um anyway the other thing i want to say is that i found the um the direct mail pieces that the tampa rays sent out reprehensible i called the ceo on sunday to state that and there's nothing that is overtly negative in it and his response was how could it be negative And the polls, not the race polls, but other polls show maybe 60% of people are against it. My office was flooded with emails and calls of people who were upset. And I don't think that's the right way to do advocacy. If you want to get somebody to vote yes on something, you don't send out a direct mail piece that causes them to get lots of hate mail. Um, the other thing is that there's obviously an element of politics involved in this. Um, you all may know that they're using the consultants that not only are working on a mayoral campaigns, uh, mayoral campaign at this point, but they also, uh, worked on prior mayoral campaigns and they worked on the negative campaigns against me, her tack and goods in the last round. And, um, If you're paying people who have another agenda besides getting their raise approved, you're not gonna be successful because running negative ads against the people that you want to, or getting people to say negative things about the people you want to vote for you, it doesn't work. I was coaching at a group of 100 activists last week or the week before, and I was one of several speakers, and I said, imagine, forget the topic, let's imagine that you're on city council, and I get up as a member of public, and I raise my voice, which I'm not gonna do now, and I said, you're a bunch of idiots, you're a bunch of stupid idiots, and if you vote no, I'm gonna make sure you get out of office. Now, how many of you wanna vote yes? and not a single one of them raise their hands and if this is not intentional if the rays are not intentionally paying to play politics with us and enhance somebody's other political agenda they need to back down and if if i were them i would fire the people involved and hire people that that are ethical and want to carry their agenda forward thank you thank you okay councilman hertech

Thank you. I told you I would have something about the sidewalks. So the sidewalks for the sidewalks for Sulphur Springs. So Ms. Sharpe put this on the screen and this is what you have in front of you. The orange segments are the primary walking corridors and the black lines are the lines that that are gaps that we need to fill for the primary walking corridor. Then the yellow are the neighborhood walking corridor. And so I also highlighted the green section, which would be Bird Street, which is a very big street that a lot of people walk. So if you look at the next page, it's the cost for actually doing that work. So what I would like to do is When I talked to the mobility staff, they updated the table and they were sure that to be sure that they could build a project, they wanted to do a more conservative estimate. So just doing what's underlined on that map would be for the black lines would cost three hundred and forty six thousand dollars and fifty cents and if we include the bird street at six hundred and thirty nine thousand dollars six hundred and seventy or six hundred and seventy five the total cost would be nine hundred eighty five thousand dollars uh and seven hundred twenty five so i move that city council allocate an additional nine hundred and eighty $6,000 in FY27 to the Mobility Department for the construction of new sidewalks in Sulphur Springs specifically to fill the gaps identified along the primary school routes and the Bird Street route as detailed in the staff report for Council Motion 26-23298. Second. Question.

We have unbudgeted revenue that will be generated by these red light cameras that were

Yes, but that's not gonna be starting. I know council member Carlson motioned that that money would be used. If we can use that money, awesome. I don't care where the administration finds it. My goal is for the, this is FY27. So this is the budget we're not getting until July 30th. So we can talk about it then, but we made a motion. Ms. Hinsdale came and talked to us this morning about it. We have been talking about Sulphur Springs.

I mean, I agree with that. I mean, in fact, you know me on sidewalks, I ran on sidewalks.

prioritizing those is how do these fit on the other priorities as as this well this is the prioritization to get to the school so if you see the school is in the middle ms scharf can you point to where the elementary school is in the middle i see it the elementary school is in the middle and then the middle school is up in that right in that corner up

Yeah, I understand where that is too.

Okay.

I'm good with it. I just want to make sure that we're not like, we're not, if there's a greater need somewhere else that we're not bonding.

Not in Sulphur Springs. And we specifically talked about the fact that we want to focus on Sulphur Springs. And this is a tangible way to help those school children get to school.

Yeah, this was actually, I mean, I think this was, this sidewalk gap in 20... gosh when when did i do that school board run because i actually during the school board run when i talked about the sidewalk app 2016 yeah so it's been that long 10 years so so that's my first motion and um uh i have all of these written down ceiling can i just make a quick comment

Yes, go ahead. I think it's a great idea. It's in line with, I think all of us have a priority for sidewalks and making school access safe. And so it is in line with that. But also it's a neighborhood that, as you just said, we all agree is a neighborhood that's been left behind, has no funding source. And so it gives us a chance to do something tangible in that neighborhood. So thank you for bringing it forward.

Councilwoman Young.

I just want to thank you as well. And one of the things we always talk about is being, you know, how to be a collaborative council. And I think it takes all of us. So as the district representative, it's nice to be like, yes, the council agrees on this. And this is something we want to see in Sulphur Springs. So I'm very happy to for this move forward.

Okay. We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Go next.

Okay. I've got a couple. Speaking to Councilman Vieira's issue earlier where I had to step out because I just had to get water for a headache, I happened a couple weeks ago to last week to be thinking, gosh, you know what we haven't heard about lately?

Fleet and supply.

So I decided to ask. I called Chief Tripp, and guess what? They decided to put the RFP on hold last week. So I know, I know, I don't know what it was that made me decide to ask, but I did. And so my motion is to first ask council to waive the rules for July 19th. and i'm sorry 16th and move that staff appear on july 16th to explain why the advertisement for the rfq for tfr's fleet and supply was not posted on june 14th as planned i have a motion councilman her check second councilman beer all those in favor say aye aye opposed it shouldn't take very long but i do not think it's a written report worthy i think we all need to hear why okay um that's interesting maybe that's a good answer yes i'm i hope so uh so next the following workshop agenda item is scheduled for september 24th but i will be at the vacant to vibrant conference in pittsburgh at that on that date so i'd like to reschedule it to um october 22nd 2026 that's the council discuss the creation of a bike pedestrian advisory committee and multimodal and pedestrian safety on roads parks and trails

I have a motion from Councilman Hertzog, second from Councilman Vieira. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

And the good news is that the law is on the governor's desk to be signed about e-bikes. So really by then we should have some ability to talk more about it. And I just apologize, but I didn't want to miss the conversation.

People have no idea the impact that e-bikes are going to have on mobility. Yes.

That will be my last council meeting.

Oh, wow! Okay, well, we'll have to celebrate. So, and then, to go along, okay, I've got two longer ones.

This might be my last one. Yeah, I know. I'm ready to go. Bye-bye.

So next week, we have a conversation about trees. And apparently in the motions, some of the language was confusing. So I am gonna re-clarify and restate this motion so that we can have it come forward to us next week. So I move to approve the following changes of resolution number 2024-866, the City's Natural Resources Committee. two additional city council positions to be added and that each position will be a neighborhood representative slash tree advocate slash environmental non-profit member further that the mayoral appointees stay certified arborist developer builder engineer professional scientist landscape architect and real estate professional Initially, all of the terms will be for one year. Then, in subsequent years, the mayor will have two one-year terms, two two-year terms, and two three-year terms. And council members will split between two one-year terms, three two-year terms, and two three-year terms.

One, two, three. We know that.

The reason we're doing this is because we didn't want to give so they're going to come forward next week and they want us to have three to four year appointees and we can't do that we're not going to be here we already did this motion we already approved this motion i yeah i i had i had i had conversation with staff too about this because i've got greatly concerned about the terms i i think that you should have a term that expires with you and then the next council person that's what i just said but but but then they then they just ride with the council person okay so the next council and the next year well how about this i'm i'm going to i'm going to you know what fine i initially all of the terms will be for one year that's that's the end of our term and then in subsequent years the mayor will have um terms that are for their uh for the mayor and council members will have terms um because they're their appointments they can always change them out if they need to but yeah and council so in subsequent years the mayor and city council and council members will uh designate replacements designate appointees how's that

That's fine. And I think this also will fall into that motion we made last month or last week about them coming up with standardized rules for these committees.

Well, I'm not there yet. The Natural Resources Committee will have a minimum of six meetings in its first year and a minimum of four meetings per year in subsequent years. That is the motion. I have it all written down.

That's a lot, too, for minimums. They can have as many.

They have a lot of meeting. They have a lot of work they need to accomplish. And they have a lot of rules. They have a lot of stuff they need to set forth initially. That is why we're requesting six and then four.

But even four is a lot in perpetuity.

You know what? They can change the resolution if need be.

Okay. Okay. I have a motion from Councilwoman Hurtek. Is there a second? Second. Second from Councilman Miranda. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

And the mention is that you are working on standard rules that were governed boards and committees overall. Okay, next. I apologize. I would like to make a motion that the three motions made by Clendenin and Miranda and the one motion made by me on April 23rd at the workshop under file number CM26-21547 relating to noise be consolidated into one motion as follows. And this was written by one of our legal staff. that city staff be requested to prevent present suggestions for proposed enforceable rule changes to the noise ordinance and to address current state of the law as it relates to noise from vehicle exhaust systems and mufflers. including an analysis of collier county's programs and suggestions for both proactive and reactive strategies addressing noise to include current enforcement status and potential enforcement plans or initiatives by tpd for addressing noise throughout the city and that staff return on the september 24th workshop rather than the june 25th workshop i have a motion councilwoman hurt check a second councilman brandon council miranda

The other thing is the pickleball. Maybe we can include it in here. It's a problem. That's part of noise. I want to make sure that that's divided somehow.

I have a motion. I have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Thank you for doing that, by the way.

Yes. And then I would like to present. I'm doing a commendation. I would like to present a commendation to the family of Dave Coleman, a well-known community activist who passed recently from a long battle with cancer, off-site during his memorial service on July 6, 2026 at 2 p.m. at Seminole Heights United Methodist Church.

I have a motion of Councilwoman Heretic. I have a second from Councilman Randolph. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, ayes have it.

And I told you all I would tell you what's coming up with the workshop agenda with the NRAC. And I talked about that today. We do have a, we did something that asked for the staff to come back for a rule about type one and type two trees. We're gonna talk about mitigation fee increases. We're gonna talk about amending the Tremendous Program to include front yards. And we are going to talk about those appointments that I mentioned.

Can you just tell them to put in an ordinance, just plant the damn trees?

We'll discuss next week.

Yeah, just plant the damn trees. Councilman Moran, do you have any new business? Oh, I already got one. Okay, Councilwoman Young, you wanted to go back?

Yes. Okay, so I had the, so two events that I wanted to highlight. I went to the city of Tampa today, Juneteenth celebration, and I actually got to meet and sit next to the gentleman who actually designed the Juneteenth flag. His name is Mr. Benjamin Haidt. He's a very funny guy and really, really nice. He was adamant about, you know, we want to take pictures. And he's like, well, I need to go around and talk to all the vendors and talk to people. And the ceremony, it was absolutely beautiful. I mean, it was really, really nice. So I wanted to highlight that amazing event. I also had an opportunity to go to, there was the prime time turf takeover, which was an event to kind of curb the teen takeovers. So they had like seven on seven flag football. So there was a girls team and they won I think the grand prize for them was like $250. And then they had a lot of the boys teams and the grand prize was I think $1,000 and then second place was like $500. But it was amazing. It was so much fun, got to be out there on the field watching all of the teens out there. There was also Painting for Peace inside. It was at the NFL, Jackson Heights NFL Youth Center. They had the Painting for Peace inside. There was a Madden tournament inside as well where there was also, they had a grand prize for that as well. But it was awesome. This food, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office had their ice cream truck out there and music. And so it was a really, really awesome event with Parks and Rec, Safe and Sound, 813 Stop the Violence. I think Hillsborough County Public Schools had some, was on the board for that as well. And a bunch of other, TPD I think. So a bunch of people coming together. And it was a really, really awesome event. And they're looking forward to having more of them. But it was so nice to see all of the teens out there really having fun. There were no issues at all. And it was a really, really great time. I had fun. I was very tired. I had to get home to about 11 o'clock, but it was a really great time. So I just wanted to highlight that just, you know, as we're moving forward, you know, we talk about summertime and the teen takeovers, and these are just some of the things that, you know, community is coming together to do. So I wanted to highlight that. And then also I did hear, Councilman Carlson, you were talking about, you know, with the raise in. I've been getting some calls to our office about a mailer that went out, and I would just encourage everyone, specifically for me to go back to that meeting that we had. and listen to what I said. I wanted to be sure that I was very direct in what I said. And so if anyone that has any questions about that or where I stand and what I believe in, please go back and watch that meeting. And then if afterwards you have questions or still to contact us. I said what I need to say, and I am the only person that speaks for me. I don't need anyone else to speak for me. So just to put that out there, but that is all I have.

Okay, good. Mine is just a couple, just to make sure you guys have all the information that I have. I've been working, as you know, one of the things that... security and safety of ourselves and also mostly staff. It's been gravely on my mind since I came to city council and realizing that we have so many vulnerabilities here. In light of that, myself and Sam, we've been working on some accommodations for our staff for evening meetings specifically of getting some garage space over at Tampa PD for our staff to be able to park in the bottom floor there and also a couple spots on Franklin Street so they don't have to walk to Fort Brooke at night. I mean, the council, we're right here, so we're good, but it's caused me concern, so I wanted to make sure we're doing that. We're working on that as we speak. We should have that result here shortly. The administration has been very good. Chief Barak has been good. And Chief Bennett, I've been working with both of them, and I want to thank them for working with me on that.

Is that also for other evening meetings like the Barrio Latino and the Variance Review Board?

I will leave that up to them. My responsibility is to our staff and our legislative age. And I don't want to sound like a misogynist, but I'm greatly concerned for the women. Because I watched one of our female staffers walk by themselves. I saw it, and I thought, that's not good. you know that's not good i mean you know you know so i just i felt like we needed to do something so it's not specifically gender specific but um you know again so and it's not it's not gonna have unlimited spots we'll have enough spots to and it's not just our legislative aids it's also for city staff you know the attorneys and and whatnot that if they don't you know they can be there as well can i just add i know you probably agree with this but

Tampa is a very safe city right now, and so there's nothing overtly to make anybody think that it might be unsafe. No, but it's just that one off. But you never know what, it's a crazy world out there. You never know what will happen.

And we sometimes, you know, we know we've been here until 2 o'clock in the morning, even 11 o'clock at night. And unfortunately, you know, there's going to be a time in the not too distant future you walk down there and it's going to look like Water Street because these parking lots will get developed and there's going to be activity and all, and activity brings safety. I hope it'll look like Tampa. Yeah. Okay, there you go. So I agree but you know right now it's it's kind of dead and deserted and I think it needs to be We need to do something The other thing is City Hall renovations, you know, y'all saw that that we had the surveys done You saw those boxes that were everywhere. So that's that's happening and we are working on doing some design and FY 27 and then starting maybe construction late and then into 28 and It'll be expansion of city council chambers is the concept at this point. So like shifting this way and expanding, I think I can't remember what the percentage was, but it was a significant expansion of city council chambers as far as being able to accommodate more people. so that we can have better open access for the public. Well, the concept right now, and again, subject to change without notice, but just so that you guys know what I know, is the clerk will end up going downstairs, more public-facing downstairs, and we'll basically have this entire floor. I think I've already said this at one meeting. The first floor for us is out because of the height of the ceilings. Because of these TVs and other things, we need the ceiling height and also the bathrooms. They don't have to come to the bathrooms. And of course, cost and all of that. So the best way to do this is to and we're also a part of this driving force isn't just council comfort or even public comfort. It is security. So a lot of things we're working on is just to make it a more secure environment so that we can ensure the safety and security of all the employees that work here, not just members of city council. I'm great. I'm concerned about the safety and security of everybody except for the attorney. I had to get the attorney shot in there. Marty knows I'm kidding.

Yes, go ahead. There was something I wanted to, I thought about something and I just wanted to remark on it with some of the public comment with this Mentesnot guy, that freaking weirdo with a camera, whoever the hell that guy was, right? When you're in public office, there's a lot of times where we have our private lives, we have our families, we have the lives that we lead, our own personal journey, and when you run for office, when you get in office, you always take that risk that that personal life and that personal journey becomes part of the public's interest. It's never happened to me, but to see that today, and Chairman, to see folks speak about you, to see that freaking weirdo speak about the mayor that way, It's just a reminder of the exposure that people have on things that mean a lot to them on their personal journey. and just parts of their lives that are so meaningful and it means so much and they get belittled like that. It's just ugly and again, sad.

I think you also have to realize, and I've said this before, and I don't know if y'all pay attention to what's happening around the country for the last 10 years. Public officials are vulnerable. I mean, members of city council all over the country get attacked or shot and killed. I mean, it happens more frequently than people want to admit. When you're out there in public, you are a target. Everybody needs to be very cognizant of their surroundings. I'm also working with the administration to ensure that when we get out, that one of our security is in the parking lot watching us as we leave, monitoring the parking lot, making sure there's not activity out there. So there's a lot of things that are happening behind the scenes about trying to ensure our safety and security. So I appreciate Junior for always being there. He's been really, really good to work with and very responsive in any kind of concerns. And I would say he's really gone to bat on those. Oh, we talked about the parking lot thing. And Junior's part of this as well. of making this parking lot more secure. There's some ideas of gating it. So we'd have like transponders, the gates would open as we came, approached it and have it one way. So the parking lot would be one way. We did try to figure out a way of, because we have a problem with drop-offs and deliveries and can't seem to resolve that issue right now, but we're still talking about it.