Tampa City Council
Thursday, June 5, 2014
9:00 a.m. session
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[Sounding gavel]
09:02:54 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
City Council is called into session.
The chair yields to Mr. Cohen.
09:02:58 >>HARRY COHEN:
The Reverend Vickie R. Walker of Missions
and Outreach from Hyde Park United Methodist Church joins us
this morning for our invocation.
Some of you attended the recent Tampa Police Department
memorial ceremony where the Reverend Walker served as
chaplain, and she gave some very moving remarks on that
evening, and we look forward to hearing from her today with
some equally inspiring words.
Please, let's stand for the prayer and then the pledge of
allegiance.
09:03:29 >> Let us pray.
Dear God, thank you for your many blessings.
Thank you for life itself, for the measure of help we need
to fulfill our calling.
Thank you for the ability to be involved in useful work and
responsibility.
In the scriptures you said that citizens ought to obey the
governing authority, established the very authority to
promote peace and order and justice.
Therefore, I pray for our mayor, for the various levels of
city officials, and in particular for this City Council.
God, graciously grant them wisdom to govern amid conflicting
interests and issues of our time, and sense of the welfare
and true needs of our people, a keen search for justice and
righteousness, confidence in what is good and fitting, the
ability to work together in harmony even when there is
honest disagreement, personal peace in their lives and joy
in their task.
I pray for the agenda before us today.
Please give assurance of what will please you and to live
and work in and around our beloved City of Tampa.
In your holy name I pray.
en.
[ Pledge of Allegiance ]
09:04:49 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Roll call.
09:05:18 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Here.
09:05:21 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Present.
09:05:23 >>MARY MULHERN:
Here.
09:05:24 >>HARRY COHEN:
Here.
09:05:25 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Here.
09:05:26 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Here.
09:05:28 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Here.
Okay. I need a motion for the approval of the agenda and
addendum to today's meeting.
Motion by Mr. Cohen.
Second by Mrs. Montelione.
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Maybe they are here, but the state champion here?
There they are.
I just want to make sure they still recognize they are
champions because we get them that high it's hard to sit
here for that long period of time.
So I know that it's on the council's agenda.
And worry very proud of Robinson high school, with the coach
or coaches or team.
Want to come up and introduce themselves and tell us a
little bit about how you got where you are at and so forth
and so on?
We are so proud of everything you accomplished, especially
inside the classroom, not outside the classroom.
09:06:21 >> We brought three of the four seniors, Caroline, Alea, and
Sabrine.
They went 19-0, won the state title, combined for over 662
to 18.
And the first state title for flag football in Hillsborough
County.
They also have a 3.71 grade point which is the highest in
the state for flag football, with 250 schools.
It's the second year in a row that they have won that.
Caroline was the female athlete of the year for "The Tampa
Tribune in all sports.
Kiley was the flag football player of the year for the
state.
Alea is the prom queen and the valedictorian.
Caroline is attending Virginia.
She's doing -- she's going to Marathon to play volleyball
and Alea to the U.S. Naval Academy.
[ Applause ]
09:07:49 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Let me say this from the best council in
the City of Tampa, in fact the only council in the City of
Tampa, to the greatest flag football team maybe in the
country, 19 and 0 is something that I don't think none of us
have 19 and 0 in anything.
And I can't have a 3.8 grade point average, .9 and .9 and .9
in four years.
But I know it equals 3.6 so somebody do the math.
We are very proud of you.
Robinson has always been an outstanding school.
I remember many years ago when your football team was an
outstanding football team, not the guy with the beard but
the great running back, Washington Redskins, Smith played
there, and it was exciting to see you guys come up to the
level that you had because of the great coaching staff, and
academically, young ladies like the three that you have here
with the grade point average is what makes us most proud of
each and every one of you at Robinson.
Congratulations to you.
And if you would like to take a picture with the council,
all of you come here, the coach, whatever, I think the
council will permit me to do that.
09:09:06 >>HARRY COHEN:
And we have a commendation, too.
09:09:08 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Read that, Mr. Cohen.
You are going to sit right here and read it to them.
I never threw too many fast balls because it would go to the
other side of the fence.
Curve ball.
09:09:23 >>HARRY COHEN:
Why don't I read it while we stand for the
picture?
The Tampa City Council recognizes the outstanding effort and
success of the Robinson high school knights in winning the
State of Florida flag football championship, the first-ever
for a school from Hillsborough County, and by the bay,
according to the newspapers, the first-ever school on the
west coast of Florida.
In defeating the two-time defending state champion Seminole
ridge 7-6.
Robinson achieved success in its third straight trip to the
championship game.
Winning on the football field is not the only championship
for the knights, as was mentioned earlier for the second
year in a row, the girls were recognized as the American
team champions sporting cumulative, unweighted G.P.A. of
3.170, because of excellence in both the classroom and on
the field, Tampa City Council commends the Robinson high
school knights for an outstanding season, in which all team
members and coaches continued success.
[ Applause ]
09:10:29 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Let me just say this.
Winning was easy -- if winning is easy there would never be
a loser.
And I could shake hands with each and every one of you.
09:11:21 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Mr. Chair?
I would like to thank the Robinson high school graduate
that's going to the Naval Academy.
I had the great fortune of meeting her during the time that
we were selecting kids to go to the Naval Academy for Kathy
Castor's office.
Kathy Castor as the Congresswoman selected her, both brains
and beauty, as we like to say, and she will be going to the
Naval Academy.
To me that's a great testament to her work ethic because you
all don't know her resumé.
Let me just tell you something.
It puts us all to shame.
Congratulations.
Thank you for continuing to serve our nation by going to the
Naval Academy.
09:11:59 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Good luck to all of you.
[ Applause ]
Okay.
We go to public comments.
Anyone in the audience care to speak to this council
regarding items on the agenda first and then off the agenda.
Come forward, please.
We have gone Mikeless.
Not this Mike.
That's Mike Suarez.
09:12:33 >> Jerry Frank Hauser, west Hawthorne road, Tampa, Florida.
And I have a couple of comments here on number 9, which is
the proposed PDs.
One of our main concerns is that when a PD goes through City
Council, it seems like it is passed by City Council, and
then disappears.
It does never come back here to be worked on, if there's any
changes.
Seems like they just kind of get the changes changed without
coming back to council to have been approved.
I don't know whether that's the way it works.
But it doesn't seem like it's the way that the neighborhoods
could use the time to discuss it, any of the changes that
were being made to the PDs, if we get them back into City
Council where we would have an open forum to talk.
One of our major concerns is that we don't get to put our C
cents worth in on lots of things.
The alcohol, the other things.
We are getting shut out.
The neighborhoods are getting shut out.
And we need to get back into that, and we need to have some
way of doing it.
Thank you.
09:13:58 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Next, please.
09:14:00 >>> Pete Johnson, 510 Harrison street.
First of all, I want to talk about the bait and bull.
The only thing I can say is from all of the reports that I
have read, the best line that I have ever heard about it
came from Mr. Suarez saying it was screwed up before we got
here.
It was.
From construction services to building department to every
department, it was screwed up.
Okay.
That's all I am going to say about it.
It was a big waste of money.
We talk about code enforcement, and, yes, it's raining.
Every single day it rains, and it still rains.
What I have given you is a couple of quick, easy things.
Particular case on Broad Street where they say they
documented no accumulation problem.
I'm sorry, but this is accumulation.
The discretion of an officer after he sees and knows of
violations should not allow him not to report that.
All violations need to be reported.
This is also an ethical question.
Whether or not it's ethical for him to even do that with
them, whoever it is, to visually see a violation and not
report it.
I see code cases every single day that if they are not
written up properly, they get thrown out and the violation
continues.
The second portion is an address on Nebraska street, with
the same violation as in 2010 and 2012.
The gentleman paid twenty-some thousand dollars because of
the violations, and he goes right back and does it again.
Didn't get a permit for the wall.
Never finished the wall.
It's a safety hazard.
There's rebar sticking up out of the ground.
The concrete block that can fall down and hit a child.
There's no accountability.
This is another address by the same gentleman with code
violations on it.
You are not allowed to have two or three trailers on it.
(Bell sounds)
This is another address.
The same gentleman.
He has been told before, legally, not to do this.
But no one takes him to court.
No affidavit is filed to take this gentleman to court.
Even worse than that, this is a trailer park started in
20 -- fined in 2013 for unhealthy living conditions.
(Bell sounds)
Nothing has happened.
The case has never gone to court.
Why are we going through all this and wasting all this money
if we are not going to get these people to comply?
I'm not saying enforcement anymore.
It's to comply.
Thank you.
09:17:43 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much, sir.
Next, please.
09:17:44 >> First I want to say glory be to God and thank God for
Jesus Christ.
I'm pastor Frank Williams, located on east Scott street,
many complaints but nobody seems to want to resolve them.
Constitutional rights are violated, my church rights have
been violated, my religious rights have been violated,
Biblical rights have been violated, our Constitutional
rights have been violated, and nobody want to stand up for
the church.
I called the city code enforcement.
Now what they told me about that fence around the church?
I need to get a lawyer.
Why do I need to get a lawyer for my rights?
My rights are just as right as yours.
You have your Constitutional rights, don't you?
I should have my Constitutional rights.
Also, I read an article in the Florida sentinel.
It got -- Frank Reddick, and somebody wants to purchase --
he said something about Tampa housing made an offering.
If they made an offer to me I two of take it to our
corporation.
They never sat down.
Frank Reddick never sat dawn and talked with me.
No members of the City Council ever sat down and talked with
me.
And another thing.
You designated the church as a historical landmark.
If you designated the church as a historical landmark why
did they put a fence around it?
Why are they building a high-rise right across the street
from it?
Everything is to be considered as historical when they are
building.
They put a building in the historical district.
The church is a historical landmark.
I need somebody to talk to me one on one I.don't care who it
is.
But I need somebody that knows the Constitutional rights.
And if you don't, I guarantee you, you are going to have to
do something about it.
Representative he Floyd never respond.
Write your government.
He never responds.
Write the mayor.
He never responds.
Nobody never responds.
I guess I'm just some black man.
And the name Pam or owe, I'm out there by myself.
No, I'm not out there by myself.
I'm with Jesus Christ.
I am guaranteed everywhere I go.
Whether you believe in it or not it don't make no difference
but we must understand we are all human beings, and we
should be treated by human beings regardless of what the
color of our skin.
Stop looking at a man by the color of the skin and look at
his character, and trust in God to do the right thing.
If you don't want to do the right thing, why don't you all
step down and get somebody else to do the right thing?
(Bell sounds)
Let me tell you something about the Mexicans and Indians.
They were here before the Europeans came here.
09:21:12 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
09:21:12 >> The Mexicans was --
09:21:16 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
09:21:18 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
You all came here --
09:21:21 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Next, please.
09:21:24 >> There's no microphone?
09:21:33 >> No, you don't need a Mike, sir.
Hello?
Hello?
You don't need a Mike.
09:21:37 >> Okay, this one here.
09:21:42 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
We followed your advice and went up on
technology.
09:21:44 >> Okay.
I'm handing around a little bit of collaboration on this,
because you can only do so much in three minutes.
Mostly, there's some major issue that I want to speak to
that follows on the heels of con em indications last week,
the week before, I think.
But first, some something with respect to that, I talk to
this a lot because of the acting by Russell Crowe, and the
ability of people to change, and bad things not happening.
Now, in the eight years since this movie, nothing has
happened.
So when stuff starts to happen 2060, 2070, and we can't
pinch down because this guy in Siberia and that's where the
answers are.
I have this, too, the housing market is bad.
That's something I know people here are concerned about.
Well, it could be the low quality of life, which has
developed over the past three to four years, a major thing.
Now, there's been poor job prospects for a long time and
that's why I keep going into technology corridor, because
that would improve things, for instance, for people
graduating from USF.
But the noise, the noise is going through the roof -- the
sky.
The vehicles that do not have mufflers, it was 2 to 3% six
months to a year ago, it's about 5% of them now.
It's the hip thing to do, and the hammers have got to come
down.
And that's why I have this list of noise of nodes.
And I also circulated this for the county but it's basically
a city problem.
Okay.
The main thing I have there, you gave a commendation to the
water department, but something has developed, and I worked
in that field to a certain extent but I never heard about
it.
90% of the people that work in that field have not heard
about it.
A lot of these arch conservative right wingers have and I
always thought they were nuts wanting to drink from a bottle
of water or something like that, and that exasperated the
people that work in the industry.
I researched it and researched it and came up with stuff
about a couple or throw months ago, and it's a major thing.
It's a possibility that the public water supplies are a
major disseminate or of Alzheimer's disease.
Now, I know some of you are going to be concerned about
Alzheimer's disease because it's rising.
And one of the reasons it's rising is over above the aging
profile is the use of ALUM in the water supply.
There are nodes of aluminum inside the head where people
with Alzheimer's in autopsies, also they did a study
comparing people using aluminum pots with not using aluminum
pots.
That isn't where it comes from. It comes from ALUM and
there is an alternative that would raise the price of water
ten dollars a month and I think if that was put to
referendum people would want to do it.
09:24:58 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Next, please.
09:25:01 >> Good morning.
Kimberly Overman, park circle in northeast Seminole Heights,
here actually to just speak briefly on item 5, item 9 and
item 10.
Item 5 is relating to the issue of -- I went to the Winter
Park ordinance, and it seems as though they are
overaddressing a problem, most individuals who would like to
have a family birthday party or large event at their home
would be prohibited from having events, if they didn't have
a machine to tell them how much sound they had in their
yard, given that there's a limit of three family members.
If underage drinking is the issue let's address that.
If noise is the issue, over the top after 11:00 let's
address that.
But the language seems to be a little too broad in order to
address the concerns that the residents that brought this
forward to you would like to have addressed.
So I ask your caution in putting sewing like that in place.
Item 9 -- I'm sorry, item 8, I personally had several of my
neighbors' home filled up with stormwater during the rain,
and the consequence of the river rising so fast below the
Hillsborough dam.
Two of those properties have been almost completely
destroyed as a consequence of water coming down and
stormwater not having adequate place to go.
Between Rowlette Park down and the bypass is going to be
critically important, the mechanisms you can put into place
in order to assist homeowners, protective properties would
be very important, the support in that area.
Then lastly on item 10, where you are addressing alternative
guides, design exceptions, my comment really relates to how
neighborhoods are looking to try and work with the planning
department in order to improve relations and to improve the
trust when projects are being developed within our area.
I live in the Seminole Heights area on the Hillsborough
Avenue corridor, which is an area that for economic
development in the next ten years in a significant way.
The people that live on the residential streets in that area
are severely concerned about the FDOT requirements to ignore
the neighborhoods' needs when it comes to development on
that corridor.
So we are looking for ways that we can work actively with
the planning department and City Council in order for the
outcomes that we anticipate down the road.
Thank you for your time.
(Bell sounds).
09:27:48 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Next, please.
09:27:50 >> Good morning.
Kim Hartland, 1001 east 24th Avenue, here as an Ybor
resident to speak on number 6, Cuscaden pool.
I would like to thank you all for keeping the conversation
about the necessary repairs to Cuscaden on the agenda and on
the administration's radar for quite some time.
This is actually the fifth summer season without a pool or
fitness center or community center, or an after-school use
program at Cuscaden park.
I personally have high hopes that the necessary corrective
measures would be closer to reality than they are right now.
I hope that Tampa's rich architectural and cultural heritage
would be a priority and that this landmark and amenities
would be on its way to serving many generations to come.
At a minimum, more than four years into this conversation I
hoped that the structure would be stabilized or mothballed
to ensure that it's still standing when and if funding
becomes available.
But after several years of discussion and many what-if plans
and many delay tactics, unfortunately, that is still not the
case.
We are still just talking.
The administration yesterday saying there is no money, but
this isn't a new problem and it isn't the first time that
allocations have been requested.
So let's be very honest.
Cuscaden pool is a landmark structure, to fit in the
community space, and this neighborhood is not a victim of
limited funding, it's simply not a top priority.
I get that.
And it wasn't a priority when the serious leaks first
appeared more than nine years ago now, just months after a
significant renovation project.
To put things in perspective, $1.5 million, that was the
original estimate for potential repair.
That's less than one tenth of one percent of the budget
council, you all, passed last summer.
It's less than one percent of the CIT budget you passed.
So it isn't that there is no money for capital improvements,
because there is money for Lloyd Jenkins pool there, was
money for Williams pool and there is now money to study and
plan a new future park which is terrific.
But there is no money to stabilize this historic WPA
structure, and clearly plan for its future.
And to be quite honest, that's surprising and remarkably
disappointing.
Our community, and more importantly the entire city,
deserves to have this jewel returned to public use.
The 4,000 kids that use and visit the facility in the summer
just before the pool closed should have access to this great
facility, and all the programming that went with it.
The same way the Davis islands residents will soon benefit
from the repair and restore of the Jenkins facility.
Thank you for keeping this issue alive and on the radar, but
enough is enough.
I strongly encourage you not only to allocate the necessary
funding to stabilize this historic structure in the upcoming
14-15 budget, but to implement an actionable strategy to get
this facility reopened to serve the community in a positive
way, to preserve Tampa's heritage and to celebrate our
city's rich cultural diversity.
No more what-if plans and know more delays.
Thank you.
(Bell sounds).
09:30:56 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Next, please.
09:30:57 >> My name is -- Johnson, galaxy fireworks here on item
number 4 that was pulled from the agenda, and I am asking
for that to be denied if possible.
This store has been allowed to operate the last seven months
without the proper permitting from the city fire marshal's
office.
I don't know what other business in the city would be
allowed to operate without the proper permitting.
The city attorney's office informed us yesterday that they
have been cited for violation of the permits not being
obtained, but that is going to allow them to continue to be
open in violation.
And open illegally.
I'm asking you to please do something about this.
09:31:40 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Let me just raise a question to legal
department.
I think last time we met, we heard the speaker make some
similar comments.
Is it true or not that this company is operating without the
fire marshal signing off on this to prevent --
09:32:06 >>JULIA MANDELL:
City attorney.
As you see from my memorandum, there is a pending code
enforcement action as it relates to the operation without
permits, and as a result of that pending code enforcement
action which is intended to be reviewed and heard and the
violations, the fact that there have been some threats of
judicial action taken against the city by the attorney for
phantom and you also happened to be in this room.
I think it would be more appropriate for me to brief you
individually as opposed to having this conversation in open
council forum.
09:32:38 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Let me ask you, are they operating at this
time?
09:32:41 >>JULIA MANDELL:
I understand they are operating.
09:32:44 >> Well, if there is all of this pending inquiry going on,
why are they allowed to operate?
09:32:52 >>JULIA MANDELL:
Mr. Reddick, given the fact that we are in
several different potential judicial forum, I think it's
more appropriate for me to have that conversation with you
individually as opposed to in open council chambers.
09:33:04 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay.
09:33:07 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mrs. Capin?
09:33:09 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
When did this come to light, the violations,
the pending litigation?
When did this come to light?
09:33:19 >>JULIA MANDELL:
This is an ongoing thing since the
beginning of the year.
09:33:24 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Why weren't we individually informed before
today?
09:33:28 >>JULIA MANDELL:
We don't typically inform you of these
matters.
Again, I would remind you, we have an attorney representing
phantom fireworks in the room right here.
We have several different judicial issues going on with this
case.
There are some complicating factors in it.
And I would request if you would like me to pursue it
individually that would be more appropriate than having this
conversation in open City Council chambers.
09:33:53 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
June 4th this was brought forth May 5.
That's all I have got to say.
09:33:59 >>JULIA MANDELL:
Again, council, I understand what your
point is but we had things come up on the agenda where
there's pending action and I bring you memos.
09:34:09 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mr. Cohen and Mr. Suarez.
09:34:10 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you very much.
We all understand that when there are legal issues pending
that it might be better for you to talk to us in private,
and I'm sure that everyone will welcome that discussion.
We haven't gotten to item number 4 yet.
I think a 90-day continuance, though, seems to me to be very
excessive.
Once we have all heard whatever it is you have to tell us,
then maybe we can make a decision about whether or not to
put it off that long or bring it back here, because that was
the one thing I saw.
90 days is a long, long time.
09:34:50 >>JULIA MANDELL:
The reason I put it at 90 days, this is in
a process which is -- this is not just a general code
enforcement in front of the Code Enforcement Board.
This is within a judicial municipal violation process.
I wanted to have enough time for us to know it was going to
get through that process.
If you want me to come back sooner, I don't have a problem
with that and if it's still pending I will advice you of
that as well.
09:35:14 >>HARRY COHEN:
I think these private conversations need to
take place quickly and then we can make a collective
decision about whether or not to bring it forward sooner, or
to put it off.
09:35:23 >>JULIA MANDELL:
As it remains pending, P, and I think this
is all procedure, while it remains pending, it is a pending
legal matter, in a judicial forum, and under your rules of
procedure it is not appropriate to have these conversations,
again, in front of City Council, if it remains pending
that's going to be the advice that I continue to give.
If you want me to come back in a shorter time frame to
advise you of that I don't have any problem with that.
I will leave that to council and also go ahead and meet with
you individually next week.
09:35:55 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Before I go to Mr. Suarez -- and I hope
you finished -- I would entertain a motion from the council
member when these two fine council members speak regarding a
30-day extension, and the first two weeks of the 30 days for
yourself or your staff to meet with individual council
members one on one.
Mr. Suarez.
09:36:14 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
It was referenced to council rules and I
want to make it clear what they are, remind you that council
should avoid any discussion of matters at a public meeting
where the city is or likely to be a party in litigation
without concurrence of council.
09:36:31 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Mr. Suarez and Ms. Montelione.
09:36:33 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Let me ask you a hypothetical question.
If there is a business operating that is outside of state
statute, what do we usually do in terms of that?
I mean, as an example, if we know that this particular --
this hypothetical is somewhat going against state law, and
it's been brought to our attention -- do we then enforce
that state law based on those conditions?
Or what do we usually do?
09:37:02 >>JULIA MANDELL:
I can answer that hypothetical by
answering --
09:37:05 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
It was a hypothetical so you can answer.
09:37:08 >>JULIA MANDELL:
Depends on the statute, depends on what
the violation is, and also will tell you this particular
statute at issue is a little bit more complicated than what
you would typically see in these kinds of circumstances,
which is again why I asked for this to be continued.
And things come in front of Code Enforcement Board come up
here all the time and I ask for similar matters and now that
I understand City Council would like to be briefed
individually I will go ahead and ask my assistant to set it
up as soon as possible.
09:37:34 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
The question is still not answered on my
hypothetical, which is, there is a state statute that's been
passed, rules have been brought down by the state governing
board, that rules over that particular business.
How do we go about citing them or finding them for a
violation of state statute?
What's the process?
09:37:59 >>JULIA MANDELL:
It depends on the statute because some of
the areas are ones which the Tampa Police Department has
authority over.
Typically, your code enforcement actions don't have
authority over it.
The state attorney's office has authority --
09:38:12 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
If I could interrupt for a second that's the
reason for the question, which is it's not a normal code
enforcement violation, and again -- I know it depends of the
everything depends.
But this is why hypotheticals are not usually useful except
in public forums while we can't talk about particular cases.
So having said all of that, I understand where you are at.
I understand the problems that you have.
But here is the problem.
And I am going to get off the hypothetical for just a
second, is that you can have a violator, then hold back
where the biggest time of the year for the sale of this
particular property is coming up.
So continuance actually helps the violator.
I know that's not your concern.
You are looking only at the legal aspects of it.
But that's the real result of this.
If there is no injunctive action that we can take as a city
for someone to not continue to violate, you know, the law,
or at least come to a decision about it, it makes our
enforcement aspects moot for the future, because they can
keep legislating and we can keep adjudicating until
doomsday.
These what they did in the civil rights movement, and
segregationalists would pass a different law and made
everybody think they were doing something good when in fact
they weren't.
I don't need an answer from you.
I know you are in a very specific type of bind, but that's
the issue that I have, which is, when does city rules in
relation to state law kick in for us to have an enforcement
aspect of it without a corresponding bad actor,
hypothetically, going out there and continuing to violate
the law?
That's the only question I have.
And I understand why you can't answer.
Thank you, chair.
09:39:57 >>HARRY COHEN:
Councilwoman Montelione.
09:40:02 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Mrs. Mandell, though I didn't speak to
you on this matter last night, I did speak to Chief Forward,
and my main concern was the life safety issue.
Just for our knowledge and the general public, can you
answer that part of the question?
Is there a life safety issue related to the inspections and
the volatile nature of the content?
09:40:31 >>JULIA MANDELL:
I will tell you that as of today I have
not been informed by the fire marshal's office that there is
any life safety issue at this particular establishment.
And you are going to have to let me kind of keep going
because the attorney for phantom is sitting in the room
which is why I was a little concerned about having this
conversation.
I can't tell you in the future that there won't be a life
safety issue, and I want to make sure that all rights are
reserved, that if there's a life safety issue we have other
options that could potentially be available.
09:40:58 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
That is my main concern at the moment,
is the safety of the individuals be working in the store,
who visit the store, and who live near the store.
09:41:09 >>JULIA MANDELL:
And as I said, as of this time, I have not
been informed that there is that type of issue.
09:41:16 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Understood.
Mr. Shelby, in the rules of procedure that you reference,
since this is pending litigation, rather than having
individual briefings, could we have a shade meeting?
And then this way everyone can be briefed at once?
09:41:33 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
The statute doesn't provide that because
there isn't anything filed yet.
09:41:36 >>JULIA MANDELL:
It's actually filed but it has to be
something where the city attorney is coming to get direction
as relates to potential settlement or strategy, and it is
not ripe for that at this time which is why I would prefer
to start with individual meetings to discuss that.
That's what the statute clearly provides for, is that it is
the city attorney wanting to come to the body for the
purposes of either asking for settlement authority or
direction on strategy, and it's too early in this matter to
ask for that of City Council.
09:42:06 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
The settlement part doesn't apply but I
thought maybe the strategy portion was.
09:42:10 >>JULIA MANDELL:
We are honestly not there yet.
I had asked for those types of meetings when I have looked
for some kind of strategy.
But at this point we are not there yet.
But I again think, now -- again, when the matter comes up we
don't always know this is something City Council wants to be
briefed on.
Now that I know that I will be making those appointments
with you as soon as possible.
09:42:33 >>HARRY COHEN:
Councilman Reddick.
09:42:36 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I want to make a motion.
I think it's important that we be briefed, because this has
been going on since December from the research I have done
on it.
Personally, it doesn't smell good.
But I am going to make a motion that legal report back to us
on 30 days and within those 30 days that legal meet with
each individual council member to give us a briefing on the
status of the particular issue.
09:43:04 >> Second.
09:43:05 >>HARRY COHEN:
We have a motion from Councilman Reddick,
with two competing seconds from Councilwoman Montelione and
Councilwoman Mulhern.
We will give to the Councilwoman Montelione.
But the motion was for 30 days, without a date certain
attached to it.
I believe that falls within our break.
So could we set it for June 26th with the idea that
after the meetings we can always come back to it in our next
meeting?
Okay.
So we have a motion on the floor for a staff report on June
26th at 9:00 a.m.
Motion by Councilman Reddick.
Seconded by Councilwoman Montelione.
All in favor indicate by saying aye.
Opposed?
Okay.
Mr. Chair, you are back.
09:43:55 >> Michael farmer, East Tampa.
I'm here to talk with you about the 22nd street stop sign.
I was contacted -- I contacted the City of Tampa
transportation department, the D.O.T., because it's a State
Road, and traffic on 22nd street, I notice the stop sign in
the sentinel newspaper backed up traffic at the roundabout
which about a million dollar, it backed it up so the stop
sign stops at the roundabout from working.
Okay?
And I'm just -- Mr. Reddick, Councilwoman Miller, they went
to D.O.T. and had them replace the stop sign after D.O.T.
removed the stop sign so the roundabout could work.
Now, I don't think this is right.
You know, we spent money for road designs and everything to
make this thing work.
And yet him and the rest of them demanded D.O.T. to change
those stop signs back.
I personally don't think that no color, black, white, brown,
et cetera, any race nor any community nor any elected
political official should have the ability to demand or
enforce D.O.T. in matters of State Roadway travel for the
public which is all races and colors.
22nd street is paid by public and federal tax dollars, and
when leaders seek to control D.O.T. to violate the rights of
the public which has nothing to do with the stop sign or
traffic light, those political leaders are in fact sending a
message that the black community to drive in, sooner or
later poem and businesses will help to develop in the black
community because black political leaders have too much
influence over D.O.T. on state roads that lead into or
through our community, and that power that they may have
will adversely affect businesses to do business.
22nd street has historically been a one-way path to 21st
Avenue.
Now, Ms. Read and the rest of them, a guy almost got hit
because there's a stop sign.
I'm telling you right now I got in an accident.
I have -- it's not AP accident of what goes on down there.
I'm just trying to help solve a problem.
So when we spent all of this money for a roundabout, cost a
million dollars, approximately $4 million from Lake Avenue
all the way up to 1st street, a traffic calming device,
a stop sign, another traffic --
(Bell sounds).
09:47:06 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
09:47:06 >> -- should not be.
09:47:09 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Next, please.
09:47:10 >>> My name is Ingrid Smith, 605 north pawn knee Avenue here
to speak on 5, 6, 8 and 10.
Basically, pretty much with Kim.
In regard to 5,
Proceed with caution.
We already have rules in place regarding noise and alcohol.
And it needs to be enforced before creating another layer.
We have neighborhoods that will have where several household
get together, and get hit with a $1,000 fine.
And hopefully Cuscaden park can finally see some care.
And this is the first time that if you are trying to go
northbound, and you were between 275 and Hillsborough River,
you could not pass.
Florida Avenue became totally impassable.
Central Avenue became impassable.
So did Highland and OLA.
You cannot get across.
There's a laundromat.
If you look at the line it's about halfway up their yard on
there.
People are cutting through the neighborhoods, and finally
just waited it out.
So it's the first time we have seen it pop up since the
previous rainy season and I talked to stormwater asking if
they would consider cleaning out the pipes which I have
never seen them do as far as the runoff that goes down to
the river.
But even Nebraska Avenue had some restrictions at Comanche,
at central, Florida, and Highland, you cannot go north or
south unless you are on the interstate.
And the alternative design exception, this is in regard to
notices.
Something happens with the system.
We received notice in our neighborhood after the fact that
the design has been approved, but also it's been brought up
with staff for the wet zoning.
Somehow, got back into the notification, not necessarily
having a hearing, but trying to do something with getting
proper notification to those who are impacted, affected, you
know, where there may be some issues there.
Thank you.
09:50:05 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Anyone else who has not spoken that would care to speak at
this time to this council during this time?
I see no one else.
Okay.
We go to item number 1.
Rebuilding together Tampa Bay.
09:50:21 >> Thank you for the opportunity to be in front of you,
especially council members Capin, thank you for the
invitation --
09:50:32 >> What's your name, sir?
09:50:34 >> I'm sorry.
Jose Garcia, Executive Director, rebuilding together Tampa
Bay.
Sorry.
We have a PowerPoint presentation for you just to make sure
that we don't miss anything and plan to keep on schedule.
We are volunteers rebuilding together to make a positive
impact in the lives of homeowners, the building together has
been created in 2000.
We are going to be our 15th anniversary next year and we
provide rebirth and rehab for homeowners, although also to
provide affordable housing opportunity for first-time home
buyers.
So the three main outcomes of what we do, right now in the
City of Tampa, to create affordable housing through
rehabbing properties, the state owned properties and
building new houses as well as creating job opportunities
for supplies, and that allows us to do great work in our
community.
All right.
So the homeowners that we help, we help families with
children, elderly persons, persons with disability, and our
veterans.
They are come back.
They need to have their house repaired.
We are trying to make it as accessible as possible for them.
All of the work that we do from minor repairs all the way to
new homes, in between, you see all of the bars that tell us
what we do.
Some of them are basically to get homeowners back, invest in
our communities, especially the City of Tampa.
All right?
So these are the neighborhoods that we are working right
now.
In Sulphur Springs, we provide residential rehab, and we are
part of the seven houses out of the eleven in Sulphur
Springs.
We should have three more by the mid July.
In addition to doing rehab around those houses, Tampa
Heights is a big, big neighborhood that we have invested
$900,000 from 2013 to today.
In conjunction with the county, we do Palm River, doing
rehab the last three years.
West Tampa, we have been doing work there especially since
2009 when where we had 22 homes there during the Super Bowl
event, and then St. Petersburg, bar Bartlett park and
Campbell park.
We make impact in neighborhoods.
Once we make that big impact we move to the next one to help
more homeowners.
Sulphur Springs, again, we have 43 homes so far, rehab.
We have ten more to go.
And we are looking to complete seven new houses, and of
course looking to do more in the years to come.
Where we have been making impact, some of them have been new
homes, some of them rebuilt, and some about to be completed.
You can see the impact that we are making right now there.
These are photos of our volunteers there.
This is our new houses where we are part of the Nehemiah
project.
We are lucky to have the mayor attending one of the houses
to see what is happening, and welcome to come back whenever
you have time.
We know you are very busy but you are welcome to stop by.
We have an incredible event.
Thank you very much for council members who were able to
attend with one of the celebrities, the sponsor for this
project.
If you remember, we were part of the rehab of the future
home headquarters for the Tampa Heights.
Preservation on the homes, from where it was to where it is
today, our new home that was in West Tampa, MacFarlane park,
new Homers here, and how we break all of our incomes and
resources from public-private funding through skilled
trades, professionals, takes everybody to make this happen,
especially volunteers, who are very important.
We really care about them and their sponsorship and when
they came to do the work as the association.
Our sponsors from banks to private corporations, all are
there, and we are very grateful to them as well.
Jobs.
We create jobs.
Within the construction industry.
We want to make sure that everybody has the ability to be
part of our project.
We do everything by the code and with permits and we
guarantee the job that it should be.
When we started with the staff in 2006, from 2012 to 2014,
and to project new buildings.
So he would continue growing that agency.
Our volunteers, having a good time with them.
And I think I am running out of time.
(Bell sounds)
More volunteer work.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
09:56:50 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
All I have to say is, you know, if there's
any problems with the building the home, I didn't touch me
with the chainsaw.
[ Laughter ]
09:57:14 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you, Mr. Garcia.
09:57:20 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Appreciate it very much.
Mrs. Capin.
09:57:23 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Tell me a little about your partnership with
the city and the Nehemiah project.
How does that work?
09:57:29 >> You know, we are very grateful to the city and all of you
but especially our partnership with the community and
housing development department.
We started with the working with the rehab project.
We have been receiving CDBG funds since about 2011 and we
have several rehab properties.
Sulphur Springs is one target neighborhood to get started
with from 2009.
Our general contractor, we have a new general contractor
that qualified, certified general contractor.
We used to be certified CDC and he was already doing the
work for the city for the seven houses of Nehemiah project.
So we went back to the city.
To provide the administration component and provide all for
general contractors to make it happen.
And they realized that there was a good partnership, and the
fact that many of our suppliers, the quality and the pricing
that he would need to make this project as affordable as
possible.
So we have increased in many ways the outcome of these
houses.
For example, we have to have information that the house is
more energy efficient for the homeowners.
We are exploring in that way.
09:58:53 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I attended a couple of meetings and I was
invited to Kathy Castor's office about these projects and
these neighborhoods.
And when you spoke, it really hit home as to the partnership
that we needed to have.
So I appreciate you being here, and I appreciate the work
that you are doing.
09:59:13 >> Thank you very much once again for the opportunity for
everyone to work with us.
09:59:19 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
We appreciate it.
We go to requests for public reconsideration of any
legislative matters.
I see none.
We go to staff reports.
And I am going to ask the department to hold number 2 while
I go to number 3, since Mr. Forward has been here all
morning and I want him to get to work with one of the finest
fire departments, rescue in the state, maybe the nation.
Item number 3.
I will hold 2 for one second here.
09:59:49 >> Chief Tom Forward:
City of Tampa's emergency manager
here to speak to the alert Tampa.
09:59:57 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I believe he's waiting for me to ask
questions.
What it is I wanted to have the chief talk to us about this
morning is the process by which the alert Tampa system
works, and how we can getter -- better community with the
citizens in times of not only -- we are in hurricane season
right now, but outside of hurricane season, seeing that
storms are becoming more unpredictable happening in times
that we don't expect them to happen, and they are getting
stronger because of the climate change that's going on.
It's not just us but, you know, two weeks before, I think
the day before we had the storm on May 2nd, which was a
500 year flood event, considered an abnormality, Pensacola
was hit as well.
So it's not just us but all over the state.
And so can you talk to us a little bit about how we inform
our citizens to be safe in those conditions?
10:01:09 >> Thank you, Councilwoman Montelione.
Obviously, our notification system for the City of Tampa is
the alert Tampa program, and with that, that program is --
the City of Tampa and fire chief, that's the system that we
took in here as City of Tampa in order to notify any of our
citizens, any of our community, anybody that has interest in
the City of Tampa, to make them aware of any type of pending
issues that might be an issue of concern that would impact
them, their daily lives, daily travel, from their
communities where they may live, with respect to that.
And to speak specifically to Councilwoman Montelione, very
careful with respect to how we deploy Alert Tampa.
We have to be careful that the information we are going to
communicate has imminent threats and danger to the community
we are going to be dealing with.
Weather systems in Florida are what they are.
We have a very, very different type of pattern of weather
here, and we have to be careful about how we communicate
alerts, vice versa, what the National Weather Service and
our local meteorologists are going to be doing.
That said, when we have an imminent threat of a significant
system that's going to impact our community, you can rest
assured that we are not only following, taking that
information from the National Weather Service, from the
National Hurricane Center, but all the local meteorologists
with respect to be how we are going to communicate that to
the public.
Now, again, my cautionary point is that we will not
communicate everything with respect to a weather system
because when know that those are hit and miss most of the
time.
Alert Tampa, when any department head uses that system to
alert our communities, or alert those persons that have an
interest in the City of Tampa, we want to be certain that
what we are going to communicate to them to those affected
persons, they listen to us and they pay particular attention
to it. If we made an alert to every incident that might be
out there, sooner or later, people are going to stop
listening to us, and they are going to stop listening to
that mass notification system, and it's going to be
insignificant.
How we address people, what we do, again as I said,
significant information that's pretty detailed, that it's
going to have an imminent threat to a community, to a
roadway, you can rest assured that the City of Tampa,
through the mayor's office, will make that happen.
We are going to make that notification alert.
10:03:57 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you, chief.
And, you know, we had a quite lengthy conversation about
this, and my concern, what prompted my concern was with that
storm that occurred on May 2nd was the National Weather
Service had pushed out a flood alert, and that anybody who
has a cell phone probably got that alert because it's
generated by the National Weather Service, if you have a
smart phone you are going to get that alert.
I didn't receive the alert Tampa instructions until about
three hours later.
And that was a concern to me.
However, in our conversation, as we were doing some research
and looking around, I did get a tweet from the City of Tampa
before the National Weather Service sent the flood alert
out.
So it seems to be some inconsistency with the communication
with the public.
Now, personally, you know, I would rather get the
information ahead of time.
So the 10:00 tweet was great, but the 3:00 alert Tampa
notice was way late in the day to have that reach the
public.
So I guess what I am looking for, you know, in the future is
better coordination, alternative ways of communication
rather than just the alert Tampa, using the City of Tampa's
Twitter account, because last time we had you here -- I
don't remember if anybody remembers how long ago it was when
we talked about alert Tampa --
10:05:44 >> 2010.
April.
10:05:46 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you.
It was discussed then that we didn't have a lot of people
signed up or not nearly enough people signed up for alert
Tampa.
But, you know, in my experience with social media, and
people around the world even with social media, is that news
travels fast.
So I can disseminate it.
City of Tampa send out a tweet.
I can send it out, retweet it, and people who aren't even
signed up for the City of Tampa's alerts will get it.
So just looking to maybe move into the 21st century.
10:06:28 >> Chief Forward:
As you communicated earlier, in the
discussion, the tweet, the City of Tampa's tweet did come
out that we were having a system that was going to come
down.
Because the City of Tampa does not house the requisite
technology to track all type of systems and know what they
are going to do, we are always at the mercy of what the
weather system is actually going to do.
We don't know it's going to move into our area, stall.
Obviously if we have a major system that's dropping heavy
water, condensation, we know in the City of Tampa we are
probably going to have some flooding, and there are going to
be certain areas that are going to flood.
So we will be more proactive in those things.
The system that we have will work.
The mayor has a very ambitious campaign in our community to
residents sign up for alert Tampa.
If you have any interest whatsoever in this community, sign
up for that, even if you don't live in Tampa.
You will also get the alert of what's going to happen, how
it will impact this community.
10:07:31 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
My suggestion would be to have another
Twitter account that's an alert Tampa Twitter.
So it's alert Tampa, and you can sign up whether you prefer
to get in the e-mail, or whether you prefer to get it in
social media.
So this way the public has a choice of how they want to
participate in the alert Tampa system.
And it's free.
What's better than?
10:07:53 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Ms. Capin.
10:07:55 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I'm curious about the process, because Chief
Forward, this is your call, correct?
10:08:03 >> Yes, ma'am.
10:08:04 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
When you make this call to the mayor's
office, it goes to the public affairs director?
10:08:10 >> It goes to the --
10:08:12 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
And then how -- what kind of urgency are?
Is there a different kind of urgency that you can give her S
so that is correct she knows to be out right away or three
hours later?
10:08:25 >> No, ma'am, almost invariably, she gets a call from
myself, fire chief, or the police chief, Chief Castor.
She almost -- she gets the information directly from the
department head.
She goes ahead and makes the contact with the dispatch
center, and they go ahead and send that notification out.
10:08:44 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
So it's opposed to be immediate?
10:08:46 >> It's pretty immediate.
Pretty immediate.
Obviously, she's going to make certain that the mayor is
aware of this as well, so that he can -- we make certain
that he is into the communication for continuity, and then
she moves, but it's not a prolonged period of time from the
time it is given to her.
10:09:07 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
So she makes sure that the mayor knows.
And if the mayor is at a luncheon, she still let's them
know?
10:09:12 >> Whether it's a public works session, whether it's a
sewage break, whether it's a road out.
10:09:21 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
That's perfect.
Thank you.
10:09:22 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mr. Suarez?
10:09:23 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Chief, quick question about -- there's a
couple things happening now.
June 1st was the beginning of hurricane season.
Because of my other profession, I'm acutely aware of it.
Over the last five years the National Weather Service has
said we are going to have increased activity of hurricanes.
We have not.
This year, they said they are going to have less activity,
and now I am scared, okay?
[ Laughter ]
The last was almost about ten years, nine years ago, 2005
when we had a significant amount of activity concerning
hurricanes, and things have changed in nine years.
Mrs. Montelione has mentioned about alert Tampa.
Some of the things that we can do, electronically that we
couldn't do before.
The question I have is this.
When you have, in our industry, we have, you know, when it
in the box, when there's a tropical storm in the box, and
for people that don't know that, it is the longitude and
latitude of the direction that's just west of the Tampa Bay
area, and just south or just north.
So what they do is, insurance companies say, you cannot
write property insurance when it's in the box.
And I think that a lot of times, it's overkill.
Now, in the industry, they want to make sure that you don't
do anything because they don't want to have to cover for
losses for new properties.
But I think that we may want to, if this isn't already part
of it, have a process that when a tropical storm is there,
in the box, but is about to become a hurricane, or may stop
being a tropical storm, that we have to maybe identify that.
I know that you as part of the emergency response system are
going to coordinate with the county, the emergency response
centers, you know, be activated, once we are at that point
where we need to get everyone on call.
Is there a way -- and maybe you can put this as a proceed to
alert folks when they are going to be alerted because
there's going to be emergency on the news, there's something
better for a local news station than the naming of a
tropical storm or hurricane, because they will beat the hell
out of that name forever.
But maybe there's a way to also alert, once that happens, to
where to go, if you have to be evacuated.
You know, what those evacuation routes may be, because it
all depends on the direction of the storm, and I know that
you have got to have some kind of scenario before you start
activating it.
And I don't have a time frame in terms of when to do it.
But just be cognizant of that.
I think that we can use alert Tampa a lot more efficiently,
a lot more effectively in terms of what that news is, so
that people do know that maybe it shouldn't be on the roads,
people know that there may be flooding in certain areas.
I think if you live in South Tampa or certain areas of the
city you are going to know flooding.
But there's some poem that forget about it, you know.
And so I would just tell you that maybe just fine a way of
doing that procedure, especially on large tropical storms or
hurricanes so that we can be alerted as soon as possible.
10:12:30 >> We will definitely take that under advisement.
And obviously this year, the national weather system has
given up an additional 12th that they have on hurricane
and tropical storm watch and warning.
So it gives up a few more hours with which to make some
really, really informed decisions and to notify our public
about the significance of the system that's forming as well.
So basically to help them identify their evacuation route is
not an unreasonable request, but we would still strongly
urge all of our citizens in our community, which is why we
put so much emphasis into our hurricane Expo every year to
bring that public in, communicate to them the concerns that
they really need to take upon themselves, to make sure they
have the most safe and efficient they can -- you know, we
put more time, our communities put more time into what they
are going to prepare for the Thanksgiving feast, what gift
they are going to buy for Christmastime, than they do in
putting themselves in preparing for this hurricane, the
storm season.
So we really need to stress that for our community.
Nobody takes better care of them than ourselves.
We are here as a government to respond but they need some
type of preparedness.
10:13:57 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Chief, I think that last statement, no
one can be better prepared than yourself, and here is where
I come in, because I don't receive anything, that's how I
.
I don't have anything in my phone bank.
If I call you call you it's memory I.don't want to say your
phone number because the public will be calling you.
But if you want to see what's happening, all you have to do
is look up, look out, see what the clouds are forming, we
had channel 49, 1919, national weather, the European mold,
U.S. model.
Guess what.
The European model is more correct than the U.S. model for
whatever reason.
Right now you have got that low pressure coming through the
Gulf of Campeche up to Mexico, and one model, that's the
U.S., is to the west side.
Most models from the European says they are going Pensacola
east -- I mean to the west side of that area of Pensacola,
back where it came from.
So if I don't see any activity or I see a person walking
their dog and the dog wants to go back home, there's rain
coming.
I see all of that.
I notice those things.
[ Laughter ]
If I don't see seagulls flying and if I don't see birds
chirping with my windows down, that means there's a storm
coming.
Because they know much more than we know.
And because they have got to survive that way.
When you have all this tax base where you can buy all the
equipment and set yourselves 7%, guess what happens.
The largest day is the day there's a storm coming or the
last day because you want to think about tomorrow, tomorrow,
tomorrow.
Well, tomorrow is here.
If you are in Florida, anywhere in Florida, from mid-may to
the end of November -- and I am a exaggerating on the days,
June 1st, you are going to be prepared for some type of
weather, and you are right.
Government is not your first resource.
The first resource is yourself.
And if I was in Oklahoma, I would be worrying about
tornadoes.
But I'm not.
I would be worried about hurricanes here or tropical or
named storms, whatever comes up.
But we appreciate all the effort that you are doing in your
department is doing, and for those that receive your
information, it's quick.
Maybe it's not as quick as anybody wants it, because we want
it pronto, right now.
And sometimes you sent out information ahead of what you
think is happening, and that information is incorrect.
So my advice is, I would rather get it a little bit later
and be correct than to have an update every five minutes,
because then you really get confused.
But thank you for what you do.
And we are very appreciative.
Council member Cohen.
10:16:46 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's not normally customary for any of us to speak after the
chair, but the comments were so on point and they reminded
me of something you said at the beginning of your
presentation about making a judgment call about what you
should send out an alert about and what you should not.
Not wanting to overdo it with people.
And it occurred to me, you know, when you talk about big
events, hurricanes, major storm events, there are a lot of
different media outlets, and places where people get
information.
But when you are talking about a specific localized event,
particularly a street that is flooding very, very quickly,
those are the events where people are unlikely to get the
information from any other source.
And in terms of the types of calls that my office receives,
and all of our offices receive, it's the events that, you
know, a street is passible one minute, and ten minutes
later, it's so deep in water that the cars can no longer get
through.
I think that the alerts that tell people to avoid those
types of streets are probably the number one best use of our
resources, because they actually can force somebody to turn
right instead of turn left and perhaps not just save their
life but also save their car.
We get a lot of, you know, of feedback from individuals who
are very thankful that no one got hurt, but they have a lot
of property damage as a result of getting caught in an
unanticipated flooding event.
So thank you very, very much for your presentation today,
and hopefully everyone will heed Councilman Miranda's
warning and get prepared themselves for what we know is
coming this summer.
10:18:40 >> We went from the 21st to the 12th.
10:18:50 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it very much.
Okay.
We go to item number 2.
And I apologize to our staff.
I had to get the chief back to work.
10:18:59 >>SHIRLEY FOXX-KNOWLES:
City clerk.
I'm here regarding item number 2, presentation, applicants
requesting position on the enterprise zone development
agency.
We have four vacancies and three incumbents asking to be
reappointed.
I don't know if any of them are here.
10:19:45 >> Good morning.
I'm Randy Smith.
I'm on the staff of Tampa Hillsborough EDC.
I'm director of research there.
I started with the EDC in February of 2010 and shortly
thereafter was appointed to a position on the EDC board.
Quite candidly it's been a learning experience from the
start, but it has also been rewarding to see how the
enterprise zone benefits businesses in our community.
As a Tampa resident of over 30 years, it's been exciting to
witness our area's economic growth, and its transition into
major business market that is now attracting companies such
as Bristol-Myers Squibb and Amazon.
Prior to June, the EDC, most of my professional career was
involved in commercial real estate here in the Tampa area.
During that time I was able to work with professionals as in
the real estate industry including brokers, property owners,
developers, and investors, who have contributed to our
business growth and brought new investment dollars into our
community.
One of my responsibilities at the EDC is providing site
selection assistance to companies looking to relocate or
expand here.
By becoming more knowledgeable about the enterprise zone and
its potential benefits for businesses, I'm better able to
assist companies that might be considering locations within
the enterprise zone.
The enterprise zone program is an important tool in
enhancing our local economy, but in order to make a
significant impact, I believe we must deliver a stronger
message throughout our community and beyond.
If selected to this board, I will use the position to
increase the audience for the enterprise zone and its
benefits.
Now, at the EDC we engage the business community.
We have opportunities to keep them updated on developments
in the enterprise zone, and also to provide feedback to the
board on how the program might be enhanced to better
accomplish its mission.
With this shared knowledge, I believe we will make the
enterprise zone more effective and better communicate its
benefits to businesses in our community.
And those looking to establish operations here.
I look forward to that opportunity.
And I appreciate your consideration.
10:22:07 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it very much, sir.
Next, please.
10:22:09 >> Good morning council members.
My name is lance morally.
I previously have been serving on the enterprise zone
development agency since November of 2012.
A little bit about myself.
I'm originally from Jacksonville, and I matriculated to
Tampa, Florida in August 2009.
I am a local attorney, although I am not the attorney for
the phantom fireworks.
[ Laughter ]
10:22:40 >> You're appointed [ Laughter ]
10:22:41 >> I have been practicing in the area for five years, and am
always looking to be involved with community than in some
form or faction to be a benefit to the community as a whole.
I feel that the enter design zone agencies, after serving on
it since approximately November 2012, I would like to, if
afforded the opportunity, of course, take that chance and
actually become more involved, promote the EDC more so than
just a more sell benefit, for the city as a whole.
I believe Tampa is a city that is filled with potential and
I would like to help maximize that as a member of the
enterprise zone agency.
Thanks so much for your time.
10:23:25 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you, sir.
Anyone else?
There was three applicants for four positions.
So I think you can figure that one out.
10:23:33 >>SHIRLEY FOXX-KNOWLES:
The other applicant is Clinton
Robinson, and we have one vacancy.
10:23:41 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Move approval of the three applicants to the
board.
10:23:47 >> Second.
10:23:48 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mr. Suarez, second by
Mr. Cohen.
Further discussion?
Mr. Suarez, you moved the resolution.
10:23:58 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I move the resolution approving and
ratifying and confirming the appointment of the three to
serve the City of Tampa administration.
10:24:12 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mr. Suarez.
Second by Mr. Cohen.
Further discussion by council members?
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
10:24:19 >>SHIRLEY FOXX-KNOWLES:
Council, we will readvertise for
the other position.
I also want to mention that we have vacancies on the
affordable housing advisory committee, the Architectural
Review Commission, and the equal business opportunity
advisory council.
So we are looking for applicants.
10:24:39 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Let me say this.
I have seen some advertising on channel 15 to apply and I
appreciate it very much.
It's a pleasure to see those things.
You are doing a great job.
10:24:50 >>SHIRLEY FOXX-KNOWLES:
Thank you very much.
10:24:52 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Okay.
Item number 4.
I think that was touched on earlier.
And we were told that they would like to have a 30 day
extension instead of 90.
I think legally -- and I am not trying to play lawyer
here -- but the more we talk here, the harder it may be for
our own staff to represent us on the utmost highest level of
law enforcement.
So I need a motion for 30 days.
10:25:17 >>HARRY COHEN:
We get it.
10:25:21 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item 4 is done.
Item number 5.
10:25:24 >>REBECCA KERT:
Legal department, here on item 5 to respond
to City Council's request that we look for ways to address
open house parties, in particular, Councilman Reddick had
put forward an ordinance from the city of Winter Park.
First of all as defined by state statute an open house
party, at a residence, where there is underage drinking
and/or drug use.
There is a state statute that deals with open house.
We did review that.
Then we looked to the Winter Park ordinance to see what the
Winter Park ordinance added that was not already in the
state statute.
And what we found is the Winter Park ordinance, as well as
my office, had discussions with the police, and the
attorneys for Winter Park, as well as discussion was our own
police department, is that the Winter Park ordinance
provided an opportunity to address -- speak redress from the
property owners rather than just an opportunity to deal with
whoever happened to be leasing or renting the house at the
time.
In our discussion was Winter Park they found that was an
effective tool, even if the -- especially when the landlords
are be a sen see landlords and may not be aware of the
situations in that area.
So we would like -- and we would recommend to you that we do
attempt to create an ordinance to incorporate that element.
The Winter Park ordinance, it doesn't fit, there are some
things that don't work for the systems that we have in
place, but we do think that is a good tool that we can
address to you.
In addition, when we were looking at the Winter Park
ordinance we started to look at some other ordinances across
the city and how they deal with the open house parties and
the situations and the problems that result from that, and
we found some other creative ideas that we have not had an
opportunity to fully vet with the police department, and the
other departments, but we think we would like to have the
opportunity to incorporate those, the Winter Park ordinance
and some of these other ideas that we come across from your
direction to look into this, to bring something back.
And we would ask for a few months to have a chance to draft
that and circulated it and Gitt it comments back.
You can bring it back for first reading oh are workshop,
whatever your pleasure is.
10:27:45 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have an order, Mrs. Montelione, Mr.
Reddick, Mrs. Mulhern.
10:27:49 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Mrs. Kert, could you briefly just
summarize the state statute?
Because I am not familiar with it.
We didn't have a briefing prior to this.
10:28:01 >>REBECCA KERT:
Yes.
In short, the state statute defines an open house party as a
social gathering at a residence and prevents anyone who had
control of a resident from allowing an open house party, so
you can't have a party if you allow underage drinking or
minors using drugs and that is a first or second degree
misdemeanor depending upon circumstances.
10:28:26 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And you said, if I heard you correctly,
that whoever is in control of the property is the
responsible party, if they allow those behaviors?
10:28:38 >>REBECCA KERT:
Understate statute.
10:28:39 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
So how is it that you also said, you
know, just trying to do the best I can here listening, that
the Winter Park ordinance affords the ability to put the
property owner on the hook for whatever happens at that
property?
It sound ton me like the state statute already does that by
saying the party in control.
10:29:06 >>REBECCA KERT:
The state statute criminalizes the behavior
the person in control of the property.
The Winter Park takes a different approach and allows for
some civil liability for a property owner if they directly
or indirectly allow this to happen.
And when you have an absentee property owner, you have
issues with whether or not you can hold them culpable with
whether or not they have notice.
That being said --
10:29:35 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Who is in control under the state
statute?
The property owner can say if they are be a sen see the that
they were not in control.
10:29:44 >> Correct, understood the state statute.
Winter Park provides notice the first time this happens, or
provides notice to the property owner. If the property
owner then continues to allow this behavior to occur, they
have been on notice.
If they continue to allow to the occur, then they can have
some liability.
10:30:00 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And similarly, we are looking at
ordinances that hold the property owner responsible under
our code enforcement issues, the sections of the code, and
we are kind of struggling with that, with rental inspections
and some other things that we have been trying to accomplish
probably for a couple of years now, and haven't been able
to.
So I guess I'm looking at this as mirroring that.
It's another attempt to hold property owners accountable for
what happens on their property, whether it's accumulations,
or noise, or, you know, all of the things that people can do
on their property, property owners, and their
representatives are looking at it as, well, you are
infringing on my property rights, and Florida is a very
strong property rights state.
So I have a little bit of struggle with that aspect of it.
The other issue that I had was that Winter Park population
is 28,924, and the land area is 8.7 miles.
The City of Tampa is population 347,645? 352 now?
These were 2012 numbers.
And has a land area of approximately 170.6 miles.
So there's a little bit of a difference between the
population of Winter Park and the population of the City of
Tampa.
So I think that this might, you know, come in to play a
little more often in Tampa than it would in Winter Park.
So I have concerns about having an ordinance, or having
ideas that are proposed in a teeny tiny little place in the
State of Florida to a major city.
The last issue that I have is, you know, in some
neighborhoods, folks just can't seem to get along, and in
certain instances, there might be neighbors that have a very
low tolerance, or there might be neighbors that just have a
grudge against somebody because they don't like the way they
wear their hair.
And we have people -- that wasn't a reference to you.
[ Laughter ]
They may not like your beard.
10:32:46 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Or my hair is on backwards.
10:32:52 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
It worries me that we might have people
calling for, you know, reasons that they know now they can
get their neighbor in lots of trouble where before it would
just be a police call, they come out and talk and reason
with them and say please don't do this again, your neighbors
are complaining, and work things out.
But now they say, oh, well, you can really get them now
because, you know, they can get warnings and then have to
pay $1,000 under this ordinance.
So I wonder about the misapplication.
10:33:24 >>REBECCA KERT:
We weren't necessarily prepared to listing
the Winter Park ordinance directly.
There are some things like the thousand dollar fine that
would not fit into the system that wove, and the Tampa
Police Department will still be the people that are called,
and still have the same discretion that they have today
under the state statute.
And if it's not working, the City Council doesn't want to
move it forward, you don't have to.
But if you do move it forward and it doesn't work you can
take it back.
The only point I wanted to make, yes, Winter Park is a very
small jurisdiction, and even the larger jurisdictions like
Miami and Orlando we looked to everyone to see whether or
not people have good and creative ideas and some of the
bigger jurisdictions we may look at and realize not
appropriate or not something legally we would support within
the City of Tampa.
But some of the smaller jurisdictions may have problems that
are very similar to certain neighborhoods within the City of
Tampa, and in particular the open house parties tend to be
problems that occur around where there are kids,
universities, which tends to be where the problems occur,
and Winter Park apparently had these situations.
So again, we are not recommending picking up everything from
Winter Park and adopting it as it is.
If you want additional time to look at and see what is good
and what we would recommend putting into our ordinance.
10:34:50 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
And I would just say during public
comment we heard from some of the individuals in the public,
and I echo their concerns as well.
10:34:57 >>REBECCA KERT:
Sure.
Thank you.
10:35:00 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mr. Reddick and Mr. Suarez in, that
order.
10:35:02 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The reason why I requested legal to review that ordinance is
because Hyde Park and part of West Tampa, would he have been
having a lot of these problems.
It's been a nuisance tote police department, and I think my
colleague would change her tune once we present the
evidence.
And here is what I want to present you with evidence of
what's going on.
Take a look at these pictures.
This is happening in the north part of Hyde Park in West
Tampa.
These are pictures of these parties.
Let's show them.
This is what's going on.
Put the next one.
This is what's going on.
Do you want this in your community?
These are house parties.
This is what's going on.
This is what's going on.
And these pictures are taken by administration of the
university of Tampa that's presenting these to us.
These people -- law enforement can vouch for
This. They are being called weekend after weekend dealing
with this issue.
And these people are part of this in Hyde Park and West
Tampa.
This is part of the reason why administration of the City of
Tampa is supporting this and this is the reason why we are
asking that something be done.
So to this council, I don't think you want to live in an
environment where these events are going on 2:00, 3:00 in
the morning.
And I don't think these residents in this area put up with
this at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.
We get constant e-mails for resident in the community.
Administration, they are calling and calling and calling.
They are sending me letters.
We need something to put in place.
And when we had opportunity to look at one that's in Winter
Park -- and that's the reason why I asked legal department
to take a look at it, see what can be done.
I don't care whether you get it from a town of two people or
a town of 50,000.
If we can put something in place that this comes back to
this council that we can assist law enforcement in their
duties, in dealing with this issue, then we deserve to do
this.
Law enforcement deserves to have an opportunity to not be
called out there late at night running these people away.
These people are coming in taxicabs.
They are being driven to these parties in taxicabs, and drop
off.
Then they come back and pick them up.
And --
10:37:48 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
It's Gasparilla, and if they were
driving --
10:37:56 >> We have the fact, okay?
Be.
10:38:00 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Not interrupting but --
10:38:02 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Let me say this.
Anytime that a council member is speaking, it is not about
that subject matter, period.
All right?
But we'll go from there.
Mr. Reddick had the floor.
10:38:14 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And the major is here, also a representative of that area in
law enforcement.
And I hope he will speak to this issue.
Because this is going on, and at this point these people are
tired of it.
And these are senior citizens living in these areas and they
are just tired of it.
And I'm tired of having all these calls coming to my office.
I'm tired of all these e-mails floating into my office.
The reporter from a local newspaper went out and
investigated this one time, knocked on the doors, on TV.
But it's still going on.
And it's time that this come to a stop.
And we can put something in place to say, we need to address
this issue.
I don't care if it's going out to the homeowners.
I don't care if it's going after civil citations.
Something needs to be done.
And chair, I don't know if he would like to speak or not but
he's in West Tampa.
10:39:28 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
If you would like to speak now, please
come forward.
10:39:30 >> Good morning, council.
Captain Rocky Robbins with the Tampa Police Department.
I'm not a major yet.
But I appreciate the vote of confidence.
[ Laughter ]
Yes, we have come in contact with these type of house
parties, especially at 110 and 112 south Willow, large
crowds.
a lot of times have to do with house parties.
If we see teenagers there, we'll call University of Tampa
security.
What we do, we take names of all the students that are
there, and they take that information back to the dean,
Gina, and they will put down whatever restrictions they need
to do on those types of parties.
The last party was around April 20, April 25th.
We have responded out, issued trespassing warning but nobody
arrested.
We try to use discretion on these types of parties.
We know these kids want to have a place to go.
When we were in college, we did some similar stuff.
But this community needs the peace and quiet in their
community.
So when they complain we go in there and address the
problem.
I think this ordinance that we are working on will benefit
us in the long run.
It will put fines on the owners, the landlords, because like
I said, a landlord is 99% of the time, it's rented out or
what have you.
But it would put some type of monetary fine on the landlord,
which will curtail this problem.
And 110 and 112 south Willow Avenue, we haven't had any
problems since.
Councilman Frank Reddick put a letter out to the landlord
telling them they need to stop these types of parties.
I personally spoke to the landlord, also, and since then we
haven't had any more problems at 110 and 112 south Willow.
And that was the big problem there.
10:41:51 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you.
Mr. Suarez and Mr. Cohen in, that order.
10:41:56 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Ms. Kert, could I ask you a couple
questions?
Thank you, captain, soon to be major.
[ Laughter ]
10:42:03 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
News travels real fast around these
walls.
10:42:11 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Mrs. Kert, one of the things that both my
colleagues mentioned -- and this is specific.
You know, Winter Park is home of Rollins college.
My guess is that's part of the reason why this ordinance is
as tough as it is.
It's a pretty, you know, tough is the best way I can put it
without saying something else.
And there's 28 that you people in Winter Park.
But when cool zoo school is there who knows how many people
there are?
There's probably another 5 to 6,000 people.
How many of these house parties become part of it, I don't
know.
In your research did you find anything that Rollins college
is doing in addition to what the city is doing similar to
what U.T. is doing with some of the house parties that were
in the North Hyde Park and West Tampa area?
10:42:55 >>REBECCA KERT:
We did not.
My office spoke to the attorney for Winter Park and a
captain in the Winter Park police department.
10:43:02 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
And I am in support of trying to do
something in terms of stopping these parties, because I do
think that they do get out of control very quickly.
You know, the pictures that Mr. Reddick and his staff put up
there were, you know, egregious examples of out-of-of
control parties in a neighborhood.
I don't think I have ever seen anything like that outside of
Bayshore, and Gasparilla.
So, again, it's one of those things.
Gasparilla, we have ceded the fact those homes along the
Bayshore become party houses, and I think we understand it.
People in that neighborhood understand it.
So that one day of the year, people who are living in that
neighborhood understand the process that they go through,
they move there, they know Gasparilla is there every year.
So it's a little bit of a different circumstance when we
talk about Gasparilla in relation to these house parties.
Now, if we change -- I notice the title of it is noise and
disturbance control.
Is there an associated noise ordinance specific to that,
this particular ordinance in Winter Park?
Or do you know?
10:44:12 >>REBECCA KERT:
Well, we have what was codified, a wand
they did is they took their noise control ordinance, and
they added in that a disturbance so it's noise and
disturbance control.
10:44:24 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
So if you are breaking more than one
ordinance whenever something like this happens, or could be?
10:44:31 >>REBECCA KERT:
You could be, but I will say this,
unamplified human noise is not a violation of the noise code
in the city of Tampa.
10:44:37 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Right.
Winter Park.
For me, I think that may be a way that we can tie in some of
the things we do.
Because obviously the first part of this, if you were having
a very large party, is noise, it's going to be part of that.
The second part is -- and I think that some of the things
that are put on here, I think that an illegal house party
with three or more persons unrelated by blood or marriage in
the resident or adjacent neighborhood, I mean, my father's
birthday was two weeks ago.
I already broke that part of the ordinance.
A lot of people were at the party.
It wasn't a loud party.
At least I don't think it was.
So I think we may want to tone down that aspect of it.
And I think it's obvious because of the size of our city we
have a lot of people that have extended families that show
up, specifically, you know, the neighbors know each other
well enough that they can have these types of parties and I
know that my neighbor sometimes have parties and they use my
driveway for parking and other things and they come to us
before the party happens.
We cannot control what neighbors do among neighbors,
obviously, we have had this issue before.
But do you think that we can write an ordinance that is
somewhat similar but not as extensive in terms of that
particular section of the ordinance?
10:45:53 >>REBECCA KERT:
I think we can.
But I would also call to your attention that in Winter Park
it's not just having a gathering but it's loud and
boisterous, it's the underage drinking and/or drug use by
minors that makes it an illegal house party.
So numbers were having minors at your party imbibing
illegally, your party would have been okay.
10:46:15 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Okay.
I think short of that, you know, the problem that we have,
because we are a much larger city, is that we probably don't
have the kind of resources to go to these very large parties
to find out -- I don't know how large Winter Park's police
department is, or whether or not they were doing undercover
stings on this type of activity.
Again, Winter Park's problems is primarily Rollins college,
only, would be my guess.
Winter Park is a beautiful part of the state, but it does
have a university there, probably the size of university of
Tampa but it's all there in that one area.
So it's a little different than what we have here.
I think that we can probably try and put an ordinance
together that gets a little bit narrower in terms of what
that is.
I'm not sure we necessarily have to have that for part of
the illegal house party portion of it.
But some of the things that tie into what we have already
passed, and then look at some of those other aspect that we
can go forward on.
I would suggest before we put the ordinance together -- it's
going to tab time anyway -- that we have a meeting with the
University of Tampa, and talk about how we can be more
proactive when people are moving in.
Those students be warned immediately as to the conduct.
I know that they talk about conduct all the time when it
comes to these university policies, but to be very
straightforward, maybe even have some seminars, other
things, maybe when they are doing freshman orientation, we
make sure that they know these things are not going to be
tolerated in the city and not tolerated by the university
when it comes to their own personal conduct.
And I think than even being a participate in some of these
parties should probably be looked at from the university
side.
On our side, I think those landlords have to be warned, and
we have to be, I think, very proactive to make sure they
understand we are not going to tolerate this kind of
activity.
I agree with my colleague Mr. Reddick in terms of how tough
it would be to be in a neighborhood in which these kind of
out-of-control parties were being handled.
So Ms. Kert, I think will probably come up with some kind of
motion dealing with this -- we'll probably come up with some
kind of motion and go forward and figure out what the time
frame is going to be.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
10:48:35 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Mr. Cohen.
10:48:35 >>HARRY COHEN:
Most of the sentiments that I was going to
talk about have already been covered.
I did want to just make one statement regarding Gasparilla.
And some of these other one-time events, once a year events
that take place in the city.
My office gets a lot of calls around the St. Patrick's Day
celebration for the Hyde Park Village.
And they happen once a year.
And oftentimes when we are dealing with, you know, everyone
recognizes that we are dealing with a once a year situation.
What makes these type of house parties, I think,
particularly egregious is that they are happening over and
over and over again in the same neighborhood, and that's
where people really become frustrated about our inability to
get things under control.
They can accept something that happens one time for a
limited duration, even if they are not thrilled with it.
But when it something that happens habitually and
constantly, it really raises the rub.
So I think any kind of ordinance, particularly one that is
specifically tailored to underage activity as a trigger
might be a great tool to help us bring some of these things
understood control.
And in that spirit, I would be supportive of the concept.
I would like to see the details in terms of what we are
going to bring back
The other statement, the business of small towns versus
large cities, I do think that when we are trying to compare
apples to apples, trying to find communities in close
proximity to universities and colleges, makes sense.
Recognizing there are differences in the size of the
populations, in the sizes, and maybe even in the
socioeconomic makeup of the population.
There's going to be differences.
But the problem of combating excessive underage drinking in
the vicinity of universities and colleges is not new.
And I'm sure that there are a lot of strategies that have
been employed by towns and cities all over the country that
have given the police, and by extension the neighborhood,
some extra tools to deal with the situation when things get
out of control.
So I haven't heard a motion for what measure might not be
coming back, but I'm assuming that there's going to be a
movement to ask for some sort of a draft ordinance.
And I'll wait to hear what the others have to say.
10:51:09 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Any other council member who has not
spoken care to speak at this time?
I am just going to say this.
Everything that was said here I understand.
And we are not trying to compare ourselves to somebody else
or somebody else with us.
But we are trying to address a problem.
A problem that certainly in this neighborhood or any
neighborhood in the City of Tampa, when you have this amount
of individuals that are, from what I hear, minors, and are
drinking and so forth and so on, I believe it's been
addressed at some point.
I believe Mr. Reddick needs a little credit.
I believe other council members have addressed this,
understand that the owner has been notified.
Maybe prior to this the owner was never notified.
Maybe the owners knew.
Then again maybe the owner of that plot did not know.
Sixty days or so and didn't have any problems.
That's not to mean there won't be a problem at 110 and 112
south Willow.
The owner has been addressed.
Now my question Mace is what happens now if there's another
party?
That owner has been notified.
Is there any legal remedies understood current law
addressing the underage drinking at that property,
addressing the problem that they created for the
neighborhood, and I would like that explained.
10:52:31 >>REBECCA KERT:
Legal department.
We currently don't have any regulations on our books
regarding this.
10:52:37 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Okay.
Then I yield to Mr. Reddick.
10:52:39 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and just to follow
up, and I will make a motion to follow up with Mr. Suarez,
and that is the university has been working very, very
diligently to try to address this problem.
They put a lot of measures into place.
As a matter of fact, they are having a panel discussion, and
I'm a member of that panel, to address a lot of the student
population, and they are addressing this, reaching out to
the community, meeting with be the neighborhood
associations, and they are trying to see how to resolve
this.
So saying that, Mr. Chair, I am going to make a motion that
the legal department report back to this council 60 days
with a draft ordinance, that they feel is legally doable to
meet some of the concerns that were raised here today
pertaining to underage drinking, and the parties going on
there, rental dwellings.
10:53:39 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I understand that.
And during that period of time till that draft ordinance
comes back, to add or delete from that ordinance at that
time.
I have a motion by Mr. Reddick.
Second by Mr. Suarez.
10:53:48 >>HARRY COHEN:
How do you feel about July 31st?
10:53:53 >> The day after July 30 this?
July 31 under staff.
And I want to thank the University of Tampa.
As you know, they are very well represented every time
there's alcohol and areas around the University of Tampa.
So they are aware of it.
They try to work it out.
And all in favor of that motion please signify by saying
aye.
Opposed nay.
Ayes have it unanimously.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
We go -- Mrs. Mulhern?
10:54:28 >>MARY MULHERN:
I wanted to make a motion or a suggestion
if council is willing to, because I just realized since the
meeting started, or I would have made the motion at the
beginning of the meeting.
Item number 9, some of the discussion relates to the
alcoholic beverage, special use permits, and that is already
on the workshop agenda for June 19th.
So I'm wondering if maybe we could continue that, as well as
number 10 to June 19th.
We probably need to make another agenda item for number 10,
because we did receive memo just last night.
I received it.
But it was yesterday with regard to that from Ms. Coyle.
So maybe we could continue both of those if staff and
council is willing to do the workshop on June 19th.
10:55:38 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Okay.
Let me hold that motion until I get to those two items, if
there is any problem with continuing it.
That way we are covered on the agenda procedures.
So I appreciate it.
And I agree with your motion, if it's there.
We are going to solve this problem or that problem at that
time.
So I appreciate it very much, Mrs. Mulhern.
We'll hold that until we get to 9 and 107 and bring it up to
the public.
Item number 6.
10:56:04 >> Dennis Rogero, chief of staff.
Thanks for having me here today.
Thanks for allowing us the time to bring to you on this item
before today.
If I could just highlight.
You have an extensive study in front of you that we have
gone over.
I don't imagine this will be the last time we go over it.
An extensive number of options.
An extensive number of crises.
You know, as you probably read in the media and heard from
our public affairs director, our primary goal is to -- two
primary goals are to maintain the character of the Cuscaden
pool, and to reasonably guarantee that the space will be an
active space no matter what we do with it in the future.
The study we want to share with you was done by a consultant
associated with the Williams park pool in conjunction with
the preservation architect, a good study.
It's not the end of the discussion, of course, nor do I
imagine is it the end of the options.
But there are a number of options again with the number of
line items associated with the costs.
About funding, as you are aware, you were briefed on some of
the challenges we face not only in fiscal you're 15 -- I
think we are all aware of that -- but some of the challenges
we face in the current fiscal year.
Just to remained you we are anticipating in the budget to
use about $7 or $8 million of fund balance.
We don't like to do that.
We may run the risk of using an additional million dollars
in fund balance just in the current fiscal year, separate
and apart from the fiscal year '15 budget we are working on
now.
As I said before, I don't want to come with you -- to you
but things are getting better overall.
You have read reports I'm sure about the anticipated taxable
increases for Hillsborough County.
But the reality is, we are coming off about a half decade of
economic downturn, and with deferred expenses and the needs
in one fiscal year.
I know you all know that but I think it bears saying.
A word about the demolition, the neglect.
Our consultant, our engineers have looked at it.
We are convinced that it's stabilized.
As Mr. Vaughan has said it's not the prettiest thing, but
structurally it's as deteriorated as it's going to get for
the next couple, two, three years.
So just so you know, we are in no danger of further
exacerbated for the next couple of years.
As you know, I can share with you, we do not anticipate
recommending any funding for this project in the fiscal year
15.
10:59:01 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you.
Mrs. Mulhern?
10:59:02 >>MARY MULHERN:
I won't be here for next year's budget, so
I would like to see us find the money in this year's budget.
10:59:15 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Well, you will be here.
Maybe not sitting here but hopefully you will be here.
10:59:20 >>MARY MULHERN:
I won't be voting on the budget.
Probably not.
Who knows?
But I don't anticipate it.
So when I look at these options, really what we have been
hearing from the neighborhood and the public for years,
since the last council, was that they wanted the pool
restored.
And I heard today from one of the neighbors, I didn't
realize this was a WPA project, so it has more historic
value at the pool than I realized.
So I would like us to find the money to renovate the
existing facility, which is the lowest number, and all these
options from the consultants, $1.5 million, and, you know,
if there's support from other council members, I would like
to hear it.
11:00:16 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I studied these documents that were left to
us on that study.
Are you going to be presenting this to us on the overhead or
not?
Well, not me, at this point, I think that first of all, we
do not have enough competition pools.
Competition pools.
Anybody that's lived in a competition pool is probably up
for very good possibilities of a scholarship.
That is very important to our community.
And over here at the Housing Authority pool facility 11,
it's not open to the public?
11:01:05 >> It's my understanding it is not closed.
They are not monitored.
I wouldn't same they are necessarily invited for the public
but they are not monitored than.
We have that on that map because from our perspective it
mitigates that ability to pull users into the pool because
if you live in one of those areas and have a pool at your
disposal you are unlikely to come to the city pool.
It impacts our attendance numbers.
11:01:34 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
The housing -- I never heard of anyone take
their child to the Housing Authority to swim.
I don't know.
I would like to see the number of public that goes to swim
there.
I think that what I heard yesterday was that the mayor is
not ready for the million dollars, but I didn't hear a plan,
I didn't hear -- okay, here you go.
This is not -- so if it's up to us to decide which plan you
want, then my vote is for 3, $10 million, and it's an
investment that is huge for this city.
Can you imagine the people coming from all over the city for
competition swimming?
And then the building before that was the boys and girls
club, we own that, correct?
11:02:27 >> I believe a church is currently --
11:02:33 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
And it's been leased to a church?
Okay.
How long is that lease?
11:02:37 >> I don't know off the top of my head.
We can find that out for you.
11:02:42 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Okay.
I know the church -- my brother-in-law is a pastor there.
Anyway, it's putting Band-Aids for the million -- I hate to
see it crumble to the ground.
And I was told yesterday that pretty much what is there in
three years is probably not going to get p worse because
what is this has been there about two or three years, and
they did not notice.
Is that what I understood yesterday?
11:03:18 >> Yes, ma'am.
The time frames are just that.
And that's the good news.
It's not going to get any worse.
11:03:25 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
The plan should be, we should look so far
into the future.
You are looking at the aerial of this park, and it has been
pretty much neglected as far as the city and the
administration, it's mind boggling that we cannot go beyond
next year.
That we cannot see into the future.
We have how many people moving into this city?
How many people moving into this district?
We know those numbers.
We know them very well.
So we need to really look into the future and how we want to
use this very valuable park, and pool.
And I think that looking at it -- and it sound $10 million
is a lot.
I have seen a lot of money in the city go to a lot of things
that we could do better.
So I would like to see a plan where this is our goal.
Our goal is to get as many kids to swim competitive, to
learn to swim, did you see the numbers on how many people
don't know how to swim?
We don't have -- if they are not at our pools, it's because
we are not doing a good job getting the word out there, and
being able to teach our kids to swim.
That's part of public safety.
We are surrounded by water.
So that's what I have to say.
I vote for scheme 3.
11:05:23 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Mr. Reddick and Mr. Suarez.
11:05:25 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was surprised at the numbers that I heard from one of the
speakers this morning, that spoke about this pool, and 4,000
kids.
That participate at this pool.
And with the program.
What continued to disturb me about this situation is that
the city has not taken no responsibility for putting this
pool in the position it's in today.
It's the city's failure that caused the pool to be in the
shape it's in today, the city administration, and the city
has not taken no responsibility of what took place, where
you spent over $2.5 million to try to correct the problem
and never got corrected.
But nobody want to take the blame.
But I keep hearing these numbers about 10, $15 million
deficit.
Let me ask you something.
You have got your report from the property appraiser's
office?
11:06:35 >> Yes, sir.
11:06:36 >>FRANK REDDICK:
You have gotten that report.
What are they showing.
11:06:39 >> is taxable properties city-wide is just about 5%
anticipated increase, which off the top of my head, 7 or $8
million.
not as close to that.
11:06:55 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Now anywhere from 7 to 8 to $10 million
S.that what you are saying?
11:07:05 >> I'm sorry, say again?
11:07:07 >> So the deficit could be from 7, 8, $10 million projected
deficit?
11:07:12 >> Yes.
11:07:14 >>FRANK REDDICK:
As you stated to me yesterday, it could be
from 10 to 15.
And now we have 7, 8, 9, 10.
11:07:22 >> And I know you know that but I want to reiterate for the
viewing public it continues to be pretty fluid, taxable
properties are not the sole component as we plan ahead.
11:07:34 >>FRANK REDDICK:
As someone stated it's been going over for
five years now that this pool has been closed, and I
understand about the deficit.
But I also understand that those families and those kids who
live on 15th street, 17th Avenue, Columbus drive,
21st Avenue, all the surrounding community, their burden
of taking on the responsibility and the burden of being
denied a city service at a city facility within the City of
Tampa.
I mean, it seems to me the city would be willing to
compromise, even if they had put a splash pad out there in
that area.
Give these types some type of hope.
They have been denied for five years.
Now they are going to be in the 2015 budget.
There's in a guarantee they will be in the 2015 budget, no
guarantee they'll be in the 2016 budget.
So I'm pretty sure if the city is sincere about treating
this part of town the same as you treat other parts of town,
there's room to find even 1.5 million to do what needs to be
done for that pool.
We can't have one segment of the city continue to reap all
the benefits and then hear excuses for another segment of
this community that fund are not available.
It's just not fair.
And I understand about the deficit.
But if you are talking about 4,000 kids for the fifth year
in a row denied an opportunity and you can't even put a
splash pad for these kid to wade in that water to cool off,
and I would comment with my colleagues, Mrs. Capin stated,
unless you live in the Tampa Housing Authority you cannot go
on that property and swim in that pool.
When you list the YMCA, you have to have a membership and
you have to pay for the YMCA and swim.
It costs money.
It even costs money to go to a city-owned pool.
You have to have one of the rec cards.
Just top go to the city pool to swim.
So you list those.
If you get up and I am going to it city pool and jump in
that pool, you can't do that.
You can't go unless you are a resident of Tampa Housing
Authority.
You can't go in the YMCA unless you are a member of the
YMCA.
So listing those areas and those properties is irrelevant.
But my message to the administration, find 1.5 million if
that's what it's going to take.
But I cannot support sitting here and presenting me a budget
saying that you are going to deny these kids another
opportunity.
I won't support it.
And I won't support the budget that's going to deny these
kids that opportunity.
Because they deserve the same equal opportunity just like
any other people in any segment of the community.
And the excuse of the deficit, last year I saw a lot of
things got done, and so the same with this year.
But this is the last thing I am going to say, Mr. Chair.
What disturbs me is to sit down on this council, and we
continue and continue it because you didn't have the
information, and wish you could have given us this report
seven months ago, but you come today, requesting a
continuance on June 5th to tell us -- and I knew it was
going to go in this direction -- that you were going to use
the deficit as your excuse for not wanting a new pool.
And I knew that.
But you could have told us this six months ago.
So I'm disappointed, and now we are in this budget cycle and
now you are playing hokey pokey again because you are saying
because we have got a budget deficit, ain't going to put no
funding, you have in a funding here.
All right.
Then I will keep that in mind when it comes time to vote for
the budget.
Mr. Chair.
11:12:58 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you, Mr. Reddick.
Mr. Suarez and then Mrs. Mulhern.
11:13:00 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Mr. Rogero, I asked some questions yesterday
when we met privately concerning the ongoing expenses for
the pool, if it were open.
Let's say it was open today.
I know we probably have some numbers.
I know you didn't yesterday.
Did you ever get those numbers to Mr. Bayor are "in else?
11:13:24 >> Greg Bayor, parks and recreation director.
Cuscaden for three months at a cost of $118,000 to operate
it, a year-round operation, $455,000.
11:13:37 >> How much? 455?
455,000 for a year, year round, and that's to maintain the
pool, to clean the pool, that's to have life yards on duty,
that's to have all the amenities concerning running that
pool, correct?
11:13:57 >> That's correct.
11:13:59 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
So the operating would be about 455 per
year. Okay.
And if we did it seasonally, it's 118,000?
11:14:06 >> Correct.
11:14:07 >> That's for three months.
Now, the question I have -- and thank you for that, Mr.
Bayor.
I know when I asked you yesterday, we were trying to figure
out, when you have all of these different suggestions, and I
put them as suggestions.
I know there's a lot of different suggestions in here.
We were talking about -- Mrs. Capin mentioned, you know, a
competition pool.
I don't think anything would make Mayor Buckhorn happier
touch a competition pool.
Both his daughters are probably going to be Olympic athletes
in the swimming pool.
Maybe that's the reason he didn't suggest it before.
Anyway, when you are looking at the cost, the capital cost
of refurbishing the pool, about 1.5 million, about three
years ago, we had an aquatics budget, I think it was three
years ago, we had an aquatic budget that looked at about a
half million dollars per year over a five year period, if I
correct.
Is that correct?
11:15:06 >>GREG BAYOR:
Approximately correct.
11:15:08 >> Since with we had that in place in capital dollars
towards pool, I know we have some of those towards parks
pool. Is there an ability to accelerate some dollars to
either do the refurbishment of the pool at the coast that we
have now, with I is 1.5, starting the construction of it
under this budget year, or to do the scenario 1, which is a
little bit cheaper -- and when I say a little cheaper, about
a half million dollars cheaper to do it in terms of
construction costs, is there a way that we can move some
dollars within our aquatics budget to provide that type of
capital?
11:15:44 >>GREG BAYOR:
At this point all I can say we can go back
and look at that, of course, moving funding around.
But I would have to get with the revenue and finance
department to see what they are already projecting in their
efforts to bring you a balanced budget in light of next
year's anticipated shortfall.
11:16:04 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
And the reason I'm asking that, if we put
these splash pad scenarios together, the costs of running
the pool will go away meaning splash pad doesn't have to
have a lifeguard, doesn't have to have the same kind of
maintenance that a pool the size of Cuscaden would be in
order to operate.
You know, there's a lot more to a pool than just filling it
with water and so many aspect of it.
And we found out that in 2005 after it was built, that so
many other problems associated with it -- and, you know, I
don't want to revisit that, because, you know, and when I
said in the newspaper that it had been screwed up, I didn't
mean this council and I didn't mean anybody that cities on
this council now, because you were elected at a time when
the pool was running, and there didn't seem to be any
problem.
Found out the pool had problems in 2009.
So --
11:16:56 >> And I don't mean to cut you off but, Greg, correct me if
I am wrong, but the maintenance costs that he shared with
you are exclusive of any extraordinary repairs like you
referenced.
11:17:07 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Right.
Operating from construction.
I mean, to operate year round is 455 to. Operate
seasonally, say summer, is 118.
So I separate the two numbers also because I know there's
different buckets of dollars that we get that from.
But in terms of our aquatics budget -- and this was a big
issue back in 2012, or 2011-12, when we were first here, and
it became a problem specifically for Williams park pool.
Cuscaden was in discussion at that time.
And I don't think that it was reported well enough from our
side or from the administration side to say that it
wasn't -- you know, Williams park pool wasn't taking up that
whole budget.
There's still money in that budget for aquatics.
And I want to find out what we can do on our capital side
and CIP side to maybe move some dollars to start the
renovation of Williams park -- excuse me, Cuscaden park,
whether it's towards the splash pad option, the option of
refurbishing the pool altogether, or even the suggestion of
Mrs. Capin.
That's a decision we are going to have to make as to be
which direction we are going to go.
But we need to know what those dollars are like.
Because here is the thing.
If we are taking money out of our CIP. The CIP is already
there, we have already planned for it. If there's a
reduction in the CIP we need to know that upfront top
prepare whether or not we can open up Cuscaden.
The opening of Cuscaden and the decision to make on the
operating side is another discussion that's going to have to
be done separate from the capital costs.
And until we know those numbers -- and I know that we are
waiting for a true-up on July 1st from the county, and
they are going to figure out if we are 5% additional dollars
we are getting from property taxes and what that's going to
mean for our entire budget.
So for me I think that we need to really drill down, look at
that CIP budget, and in addition to look at CIT dollars,
and, you know, we were talking about this yesterday, the
difference between CIT projects and our other CIP, we can
probably learn from that if there's any dollars available.
In addition to that and all that, we are going to look at if
we do make a decision to put money into the pool, regardless
of the scheme, what effect is it going to have on other
capital projects that we have already put in our CIP and
what we are going to have to cut.
That's a decision that council has to make.
And, again, I know that the administration has got their
wish list in terms of what they are going to do.
We have to approve the budget.
And I think we all know that and we understand the
responsibility that we have.
So if we have a project that we really want, if Cuscaden
pool, a park pool, is the project we really want, then we
are going to figure out where that pain is going to come
from, because we will be ripping up the Band-Aid, but
there's still going to be a scab there.
So we have to know where those dollars are going to come
from, because there may be a project that's going to be
affected because we decided to go forward with Cuscaden park
pool.
So I would appreciate, and I will make a motion to this
effect, a report back to us on those scenarios, A, the
ounts of money in our CIP that can be moved to go forward
with Cuscaden park, let's say scheme 1.
Because that's the easiest one, is the lowest hanging fruit
a million dollars.
11:20:33 >> Just a point of clarification.
Scheme one is renovating the existing facility --
11:20:38 >> Okay, never mind.
11:20:40 >> It's --
11:20:46 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
The splash pad option without refurbishing
the building that is Cuscaden park itself.
Okay?
Part B to that -- the second part of it is, what dollars are
available in our CIT, because we do have CIT dollars that
maybe we can use to go forward on Cuscaden park.
And the last part of the project is, if there are dollars,
what those dollars are, and what effect it will have on
other capital projects in the city if we go forward with
Cuscaden park.
So, clerk, I hope you have that clear.
Thank you.
Thank you for the second, Mr. Reddick.
11:21:37 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
We have a motion by Mr. Suarez at this
time, second by Mr. Reddick.
I will hold that motion till we finish the discussion.
Mrs. Mulhern and Mrs. Capin in that order.
11:21:47 >>MARY MULHERN:
Thank you.
I would still like to -- I just want to reiterate the
importance of us preserving the architectural history of the
city.
So I don't want to see us -- the cost of this splash pad,
but maybe also ask you to add to your motion, we already
know what the cost of the renovation of the pool.
I thought of that as the intent, and I think it would be
great for us to have an Olympic pool, and maybe this is a
good place, Olympic size pool.
Maybe this is a good place.
Although those are currently soccer field.
I don't know if they are used as soccer field at this point.
But renovating the historic architectural structure and
opening the pool again, which the community wants would
prohibit us from using that in the future budget site for an
Olympic pool.
So that's what I would like to see and that's what I would
like to hopefully get support in our budget, and Councilman
Suarez has asked for specific fund balance estimates,
revenue estimates, we'll have an opportunity to look at the
budget and come up with other places we might find the
money.
But I think that we have been asking for this for years, and
would like to see the administration work with the citizens
and council on this, and get something started in this
year's budget.
And I would also like to say that, you know, when we talk
about all these scenarios, I don't know, maybe you could
tell me this, our Mr. Bayor can, if these were developed in
consultation with the neighborhood, or if they just came
from the engineers, the architects --
11:24:01 >> Not to my knowledge.
11:24:03 >>MARY MULHERN:
So I think the neighborhood should have
input on this going forward.
11:24:06 >> As an aside to that to give you the administration's
perspective and it mirrors somewhat the study we have given
you -- and thank you, Mr. Suarez, for kind of confining that
motion, because it's going to be easier with the finance
department to bring you option ifs you narrow what you are
looking for.
In other words, the flexibility of $1 million versus the
flexibility of $10 million is a big swap and from our
perspective, I think the signal we have gotten is the area
wants a wider amenity, and you see the you array of water
enities that are available from splash bads pads to
competition Olympic size pools.
11:24:54 >>MARY MULHERN:
You did show us that array.
I'm saying what I think the neighborhood wants is the pool
back, and if you can add a splash pad, great.
But they used to have a pool that kids could swim in.
You can't learn to swim in a splash pad.
And I don't think we are going to -- maybe we could start
looking how we are going to fund an Olympic pool.
But what the neighbors have been asking for, what I have
been hearing, is they want that pool reopened.
If there were 4,000 kids using it before, I think there's a
need for it.
11:25:36 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have in this order Ms. Capin, Mr.
Cohen, Mrs. Montelione.
All right.
She yield to Mr. Cohen and Mrs. Montelione at this time.
11:25:48 >>HARRY COHEN:
Some very thoughtful comments so far.
I'm struck by a couple things, listening to this
conversation.
The first is to councilwoman Mulhern's point about the
historic nature of the pool.
There is in a question that this structure is an asset to
the city, and it is something that we absolutely have an
obligation to preserve, and to ultimately reopen, or
reconfigure.
That said, I was relieved during the conversation that I
have with staff yesterday to be informed that it does not
appear at the moment that the historical nature of the
structure is in jeopardy from continued deterioration, at
least not in the immediate term.
I'm hearing a lot of different views on what ought to be
done on this property.
There was one proposal for a full-fledged renovation and
aquatic center with a competitive site for $10 million.
There's the bare minimum for 1.5.
And there's a lot of different things in between.
And as we pointed out, the neighborhood hasn't even been
consulted yet about these particular plans and what they
might prefer.
So it seems to me that before we figure out where we are
going to get the money, we ought to figure out what it is we
are attempting to do, because there is no question that if
everyone wants to move forward with the $10 million plan,
it's never going to come out of one year's budget in order
to do something that expensive.
With that said, I found our budget director's presentation
last week or the week before to be extremely sobering, to be
much more pessimistic than what I was expecting in terms of
the use of an additional million dollars out of the reserve
just to cover this year's budget, and I just want to say,
with regard to the entire city, if we decide that we want to
move forward with some sort of plan for Cuscaden, the money
is going to have to come from somewhere.
And when I hear that our reserve fund might have to be
tapped into again for another year, because our property tax
revenues still aren't where they need to be in order for us
to balance our budget, I'm very, very concerned about that.
And, you know, I am more than happy to work with my
colleagues here to try to find a solution to the pool.
But we are going to have to find a place to take this money
from.
We cannot just throw it into in and say we are going to
borrow it and pay for it tomorrow.
We have got to find the savings.
If we want to fund it we are going to have top go into the
budget and find the money to actually do it.
And I'm happy to engage in that exercise.
And I think we should engage in that exercise.
But the really tough decision that we are going to have to
make this year are what ultimately are we going to
prioritize?
I love pools.
I would love to see this thing be open this summer.
But I can also tell you we have got major stormwater
problems that we are going to talk about in agenda item
number 8.
And, you know, we have been putting off -- you said this to
me yourself when we were in our meeting yesterday, and I
know it's true, as wave gone through these austerity years,
we have been putting off different things that we have torn
do.
We have some streets that flood so badly that cars can get
swept right off the road.
And we are just going to have to be very careful about
balancing all these competing interests.
That said, the first thing we have to do is figure out which
of the options we actually want to pursue on Cuscaden pool.
Because without a definitive decision about what it is we
want to fund, there's no way we can step back and figure out
where we are going to get the money.
I say that because particularly if you go with one of the
higher priced options, there may be ways of doing a piece of
it this year and a piece of it next year and a piece of it
after.
Actually if you go with one of the lower priced options,
that may be the thing that requires it all to be done in
one fell swoop, so I'm in favor of bringing it back with a
staff report as an update but I think there's going to have
to be some very serious engagement with the neighborhood
relatively quickly in order to figure out exactly what it is
that we are trying to fund and when, and then we are going
to have to make the tough call about where that money is
going to come from.
11:30:53 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Are you finished?
Thank you very much.
Even I got moved there a little bit.
All right.
I have got Mrs. Montelione, then Mrs. Capin in that order.
11:31:07 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Ditto what he said.
And he always puts things in perspective.
So I appreciate Mr. Cohen for that very thoughtful response
about the budget because I feel the same way.
We have a lot of things that we have been putting off.
But I'm not going to repeat what Mr. Cohen said.
There's one question that something that came to mind just
this morning that I didn't talk to you about in my briefing,
and maybe you can find out and come back.
But Hillsborough Community College is entertaining
establishing a youth sports complex on a portion of their
campus.
It included the Westshore Alliance and the Hillsborough
County hotel and motel association.
I believe the Tampa Sports Authority, it says in the article
that ran in the Tribune, this was February 28th, I
believe, Michael Sasser's article, said that Tampa Sports
Authority which operates Raymond James stadium would likely
run the complex.
So if we put in an Olympic size pool, and they put in an
Olympic size pool, I think there might be some -- it might
behoove us to find out what their plans are so we don't have
that type of competition after we, you know, go forward and
possibly put that much money into our plans.
11:32:37 >> We'll research it.
11:32:42 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mrs. Capin.
And then I am going to say just a couple of things.
11:32:47 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
(off microphone) I also appreciate the fact
that Councilman Reddick brought up the splash pad, and
splash pads are a great deal of fun for children.
They are huge fun.
But I think that we have to look at it, and also what
Councilman E -- well, everyone actually put in, and, yes, to
look and see what HCC is doing, they are on Dale Mabry
there.
But what we are looking at, we are looking at an up and
coming but depressed area, and the splash pad is probably
the least expensive way, and we have about two or three
years that the structure itself can hold the integrity.
So in those two or three years, our goal should be for one
of these very big projects, because this would do, for that
neighborhood -- and this pool is not only that
neighborhood's pool.
This pool belongs to the City of Tampa.
It belongs to everyone in this city.
To come swim at it there.
So the goal is -- yes, we can have this now, or try to have
this now, so that the neighborhood children -- and anyone
else, because I take my grandson all over the city to splash
pad parks, all over, and he absolutely loves it.
I understand that.
And I think it's a good compromise.
I hope the immediate neighborhood will probably be using it.
But I would probably bring my grandson there, too.
But the goal, this city is growing.
The goal is to look at down the future.
What do we want?
This is Florida.
This is the sunshine state.
You can swim here year round.
Ask anyone that goes to the beaches.
They have record number of tourists over there.
So I think we need to look beyond the immediate -- yes, we
need to address the immediate because it has been -- the can
has been kicked down the road long enough.
And I do believe that looking to those fund within the
moneys that we have allotted now for at least a splash pad
would be a start.
But it shouldn't be the end by any stretch of the
imagination.
We need to really -- and I think the neighborhood -- and I
think the citizens would agree.
It could be a 5, 6, 10-year plan.
But this is the goal, is to have this.
And if we don't have goals, then we are doing -- what we are
doing today is, okay, we can repair the pool.
But we have to have, besides that, where do we want to wind
up?
So with that, what Councilman Suarez, his motion, and
Councilman Reddick's second, I would agree, but I would like
to add a friendly amendment that we study with the
neighborhoods, with the citizens, a bigger plan, a larger
plan for this area, because this would do what magnet
schools do.
It will bring people from all over the city, the county, to
this area.
It's an economic engine.
And it's an investment in the future.
So that's where I think I would like to see this discussion
go, is immediately we have the integrity of the structure
that is going to be okay for two or three years, and we can
do probably a splash pad and the maintenance with the upkeep
that will not be anywhere near what a pool would be, and it
gives us time to maybe put that $400,000 or whatever that
would have been spent in lifeguards and maintaining the pool
toward the next project, and this is our overall plan, and
we are going to do this much in three years, and this much
in four years, and everyone is assuming -- and I know that
Ms. Little is very astute at looking at the future and what
our income for our revenues may be, and they are looking up.
So with that in mind, we can move that -- move forward with
the -- with the goal of making this a destination, and a
start, which it was, and it should stay.
That's all.
I would like to see us move that we continue, but a plan has
to be put together besides a splash pad.
11:38:05 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Let me say.
This I think you have to go back to prior 1935 when the
Cuscaden family gave that away to the city to make that a
park, prior to '35.
That was an orange grove.
And I wasn't there.
Let me say that.
It was a project of WPA.
How long is the life resources of the C.I.T.?
C.I.T. is not forever.
And it draws down on what you borrow.
So you have that animal to look at.
Tough other animal.
When Ms. Little made a presentation of a factual basis of
fact of that department and what they had, it was prior to
the increase of property values.
And at that time, we did discuss the possibility of being
less than $15 million was a realistic one.
But you also have other concerns in the budget where you
have decreases, and the operation of the city.
Yes, a pool is very needed everywhere.
But so is water and street, so is police and fire, so is all
the amenities you have, so is the signalization of the city.
And very few of us can say, when you talk about historical
park, understood this plan, there no more basketball courts,
no more basketball courts, a historical stadium that sat in
the southeast portion next to the Boys and Girls Club was
destroyed, brought down some years back.
So is it really historical to what it was?
I always thought historical meant what it was.
Evidently it doesn't mean that.
Because I have heard no one bring that up.
This is the only park that I know of in the country that has
not one, but two baseball players that will be in the Hall
of Fame that come from that same park.
There are none others that I know of.
There might be but I'm not aware of it.
What's going to happen there?
I'm not against repairing or bringing back something.
But if I am going to bring back something historical, I have
got to bring it back like it was.
I learned how to swim at that park.
When there was no swim lessons available and you put the
left hand on the gutter and you went around with the right
hand and then you went the other way going the other way.
The convenience that wave today in society are much greater
than I had growing up.
I had to walk at 26th to the park to swim.
Also part of the Tampa Housing Authority.
We had automobiles just about everywhere.
Is there an inconvenience for those resident?
Sure there is.
But there's also the park that they can get to within five
minutes of where they live.
No one had a car in that neighborhood that you didn't have
to walk to the park.
And at that time, that was the only pool.
They would come there from all over.
Let me say another thing.
We talk about rec parks and this and that.
You had to pay to get in.
It was 25 cents.
It had enough chlorine in that little wading thing to get up
to the pool that your finger doesn't fall off, that your
toenails wouldn't fall off because they wanted to make sure
the pool was in great condition.
So so many things that I remember in the pool.
And it was the thing you put around your leg, you paid your
25 cents.
Of that number, they gave you that item, put around your
ankle, and that's on the way out.
You had to give it back.
So nothing has really changed.
If you look at the 25-cent charge at that time and you look
at the dollar value today, maybe we were paying more then
than we are today when you look at the value of the dollar.
So we have everything we need.
Is there inconvenience there?
Sure there is.
But if you do the pool, and you forget the rest, are you
telling me kid don't want to play tennis anymore, kids don't
want to play basketball anymore, kids don't want to play
baseball anymore?
That's what I'm hearing.
I want to hear -- I only hear about one thing.
No resident has come here and talked about any other thing
other than the pool.
And that wasn't what was there historically.
there was activity there.
There was city recreation department run.
There was no little league at that time.
And there was tens of thousands of kids that came through
both boys and girls.
They became networking, became doctors, lawyers, engineers,
scientists, and that came out of that portion of the city.
And I am so proud much each and every one of them.
In fact, this coming Wednesday, I believe that one of the
Hall of Famers will be inducted in the Hall of Fame July
27th will be throwing out the first pitch at the Rays
game, only because he made that commitment some time back
when the cardinals played the Rays.
So I'm trying to sell ticket to the game, I guess.
So all these things are there that are historical, but talk
about their historical value of that pool.
And if we do everything that we said we are going to do, are
the people going to walk there?
I don't think so.
There's no parking there.
What are you going to do?
The boys club and girls club, what if they leaf?
It isn't because they wanted to.
There's a need.
There's a void, certainly.
You can only live so much for so long when you borrow money
out of your reserves.
And that's no different than any one of us taxpayers taking
out money out of your savings to meet your daily obligation.
It doesn't work very long.
You will soon be broke and you will soon be looking at some
other means of making your sustainable quality of life.
It is up to us, not only the administration -- and I'm not
talking about this mayor, prior mayors or future mayors --
it's up to all elected officials, if this is what we really
want, to work with the administration and say, you know
what?
Here is what I want you to take out of stormwater.
Here is way want you to take out of water.
Here is what I want you to take out of police department.
Here is what I want you to take out of the fire department
to meet what we want for one pool, because I never heard
anything else discussed.
All I heard is one pool.
Not anything that I mentioned.
So I'm not going to blame it on this current mayor.
Till we tell you what we want cut, sir, the head guy here.
Or the fall guy.
However you want.
But what I am trying to say, this has to be a collaborative
effort from all the elected officials who say, you know
what?
I want this, and here is how I am going to get it.
And then explain it to the general public what you did.
That's my way of thinking.
And I'm not trying to report anything but the facts.
So it's not an easy decision.
And like I said earlier, if it was easy there would be no
losers.
But we run a corporation called the City of Tampa, just like
any other business.
And if we have a lot more problems and a lot of cooperation
than a lot of big corporations because they deliver one
product and they deliver that and make a profit.
We have to live with that profit -- that product, I mean,
without making a profit, and without having a deficit.
So we have a balance system just like a seesaw.
Got to be in the middle.
Can't go one way or the other.
And that's very difficult to do in life.
And I applaud you, the current mayor, past mayors, future
elected officials of this city, because when they sit here,
it ain't the size of the shoe, it's the size of the person
what they want to do and how they want to get it done.
And so far, we are doing all right.
Not perfect.
But we are doing all right.
So I'm going to take that motion made by Mr. Suarez, second
by Mr. Reddick in the absence of Mr. Suarez, Mr. Reddick --
just a second, please -- with the that was made earlier by
Mrs. Capin, Mr. Reddick approves that amendment --
11:47:44 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
The motion was made --
11:47:45 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I understand that, Mrs. Capin, and he's
not here so I can't ask him what he wants.
I have to ask the second one which is Mr. Reddick.
11:47:53 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I just want to make sure.
11:47:56 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Believe me.
Mr. Reddick accept that?
11:48:01 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
It was to move what Mr. Suarez said looking
into the moneys that have been allotted already for aquatic
recreation for looking at a splash pad.
And I think that's what it was.
And I'm pretty sure.
But that will not be the end-all for this park, that we will
look at, with the neighborhoods, with the city, with the
citizens, at a larger goal, and how we can attain that for
this very important park.
11:48:37 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Okay, thank you.
11:48:42 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Thank you.
11:48:43 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
All right.
The motion was made by Mr. Suarez and he's not here, and
legal?
11:48:52 >>MARTIN SHELBY:
By unanimous consent if you make that
endment that will be fine.
It.
11:48:57 >>MARY MULHERN:
I'll ask council before the vote, does
counsel agree with that consent?
I have a motion for unanimous consent by Mr. Cohen, second
by Mrs. Mulhern on this motion in the absence of Mr. Suarez
here.
All in favor of that motion please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
Okay.
We have that consent.
Should have killed it but I didn't.
Just joking with you, Mr. Reddick.
So now, the motion goes back to Mr. Suarez' motion.
Seconded by Mr. Reddick.
ended on the friendly consent by Mrs. Capin and Mr.
Reddick, approved that amendment by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Let me also say, and not today, but I will be making a
motion for us to ask the administration what we want, and
how you are going to get the money.
It's not fair to put it on one elected official.
There are eight elected officials in this city.
I won't do that today.
Okay.
We go to item --
11:50:05 >> Rogero:
If I could offer clarification and somewhat of
rebuttal to a few of the statements.
11:50:11 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
All right, let's hear it.
11:50:12 >> We would, of course, disagree with the statement that the
city has accepted in a responsibility for this pool.
I would remind council the city has invested millions of
dollars and countless man hours in the effort to renovate
this pool.
Now, of course, it hasn't turned out than the way we would
have liked.
But I of course can't let that go unanswered.
We must respectfully disagree on that particular component.
In terms of the timing from the report and the deficit
projection, I think back in January, when the motions by
council was made, I think everybody was looking forward to a
projection that was more important.
We anticipated scenarios wherein we wouldn't be dealing with
a shortfall next year.
Again, anticipated shortfall is less than what it's been in
past years, but as we take into account various factors
associated with models -- and again value is one component.
Revenue and finance department will entertain many taxable
value increased scenarios.
And that's why we give you that 10 to $15 million range.
So again, although the taxable value increase is good news,
it's only a component.
And, finally, I am going to ask the Parks and Recreation
Department to research -- Mr. Bayor would like nothing more
than 4,000.
I'm not sure we have record of 4,000 children attending
this. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I have not seen it.
And we'll research that.
Because I do want to keep it in context as accurate as we
can.
11:51:47 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
11:51:48 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Mr. Chair, due to the time, I am going to
let it slide today.
But you will hear me respond somewhere down the road.
But I am going to let it slide today out of courtesy of the
time.
11:52:04 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you, Mr. Reddick.
I appreciate the courtesy of the time.
It's 11:49 and I would really like to get 7 done before we
break for lunch.
11:52:12 >> Are we going to take the vote?
11:52:21 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Which vote do you want?
11:52:23 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Sorry.
If I may make a suggestion, since it is time, as you point
out, ten to, can we take 11, 12, 13 and 14 contract items?
11:52:35 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Yes.
Item 74 and 78, they are going to request a continuance. If
they can be done before lunch I would really appreciate it.
I have been requested by our staff and the individuals
regarding those two items.
And is the city here on that?
Who is going to make that motion for the public?
I have to have something on the record here to do something
with it.
I have got to open the public hearing on 78 to do that.
And 74.
And let me make a motion to open items 67 through 79.
That will cover me.
Motion by Mr. Cohen.
Second by Mrs. Montelione.
Further discussion?
All in favor? Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Yes, sir.
74.
11:53:25 >>ERNEST MUELLER:
Actually 78.
11:53:27 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
All right. 74.
11:53:28 >>BARBARA LYNCH:
Land development coordination.
I am requesting continuance on second reading due to some
real estate issues that have come up.
To 6-26, 9:30.
11:53:39 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
June 26th.
Motion by Mrs. Mulhern.
Second by Mr. Cohen.
Before I take the vote, anyone in the public object to that
change?
All in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed? The ayes have it unanimously.
We go now.
I was given 78. Yes, sir, 78.
11:53:57 >>ERNEST MUELLER:
Assistant city attorney.
Requesting a continuance of this item to June 26th.
11:54:02 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Anyone in the public have any objection
to this item number 78 to John 26th?
11:54:09 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Move to continue.
11:54:13 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I will not be here on June 26th.
Can we would move this to July 31?
June 26 is getting really packed.
11:54:25 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
It's up to them.
11:54:28 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
July 31.
11:54:34 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I'm wasting time.
11:54:37 >>ERNEST MUELLER:
The reason we are hesitating is
quasi-judicial hearing where there's going to be issues of
witnesses, which is one of the reasons we are continuing
today.
So I can't guarantee that the 31st we are going to have
all the witnesses there.
But we can certainly --
11:54:52 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
You can't guarantee you will have all the
witnesses June 26th either, for that matter.
You will have the one officer that's not here.
What is the guarantee on the 26th the --
11:55:08 >> What's available on June 26th.
11:55:12 >>HARRY COHEN:
My understanding of the issue here is that
we need to have a full council to discuss this matter.
And it's because of the nature of it.
So what I would like to know from council is, could this be
done in an evening meeting?
Does it have to be done at a regular session?
Or could it be scheduled on any time that council is
meeting?
11:55:32 >>ERNEST MUELLER:
I'll suggest this, we figure out if we
can get people here on the 31st.
11:55:40 >>HARRY COHEN:
But the thing about the 31st, that's a
long time away from now.
And this is a fairly -- this should be heard sooner than
later so I am offering you the opportunity to bring it back
to us at some date when we know we are all going to be here.
Presumably the two night meetings that will take place
before July 31st.
11:56:00 >> And after lunch, I can investigate it at that point and
give you a better answer then.
11:56:05 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
We have one the 24th, a night meeting,
July 24, and what else do we have?
11:56:16 >> Also have night meeting on June 26th.
11:56:20 >>HARRY COHEN:
We'll talk about that under new business,
too.
11:56:29 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
So we have a night meeting.
That will be fine.
June 24 we have a night meeting. July 24.
We can call a night meeting, can't we?
11:56:43 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Well --
11:56:44 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Okay.
11:56:45 >>HARRY COHEN:
We have a night meeting June 12th.
(Overlapping conversations.)
11:56:53 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
They are talking about witnesses and we
are talking about days, and we don't even know who the
witnesses are going to be or the days, and it's getting
complicated more than I thought.
So we'll hold this till after lunch and hold 78 till after
lunch and come back with some information once we hear from
Mrs. Mulhern.
11:57:13 >>MARY MULHERN:
It's six minutes till noon but I would like
to move that we stay until 12:30.
11:57:22 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Okay, let me take the motion.
And I will get to your motion in one second.
Let me go to Mrs. Montelione who spoke to me earlier about
items that she wanted to move before lunch.
Mrs. Montelione.
11:57:32 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I would like to move items 11, 12, 13
and 14 under staff reports for approval.
11:57:39 >> Second.
11:57:40 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
11, 12, 13, 14 for staff approval.
I have a motion by Mrs. Montelione on those items.
These are staff reports.
Seconded by Mrs. Mulhern.
Further discussion by this council members?
I see no one.
All in favor of the motion? Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimous.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Montelione.
Mrs. Mulhern.
11:57:59 >>MARY MULHERN:
Yes, I think it looks possible to be
through by 12:30 and not come back, have to take a lunch
break.
That was my motion.
11:58:12 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I need a 30 minute extension.
I have that by Mrs. Mulhern; I have a second by Mr. Cohen.
All in favor of that motion to continue.
All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
I can do the consent agenda even though we have 7 and 8 that
are still looking at me here.
Let me go to consent agenda quickly here.
Public Safety Committee chair, Mr. Frank Reddick.
15 through 27 is what you are asking.
11:58:56 >>FRANK REDDICK:
I move 15 through 27.
11:59:00 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mr. Reddick, second by Mrs.
Mulhern.
Further discussion by council members?
All in favor of the motion? Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Parks, Recreation, Culture Committee chair, Mrs. Mary
Mulhern.
11:59:11 >>MARY MULHERN:
I move items 28 through 33.
11:59:14 >>HARRY COHEN:
Second.
11:59:16 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mrs. Mulhern, second
by Mr. Cohen.
Discussion by council members?
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Public Works Committee, vice chair, Mrs. Mary Mulhern.
11:59:27 >>MARY MULHERN:
I move items 34 through 44.
11:59:33 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mrs. Mulhern.
I have a second by Mr. Cohen.
Further discussion by council members?
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Finance Committee chair, Mr. Harry Cohen.
11:59:45 >> I move 45 through 49.
11:59:48 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mr. Cohen.
Second by Mrs. Mulhern.
All in favor?
Opposed?
The eyes are getting weaker but they pass.
Building, zoning, committee preservation chair committee,
Mrs. Lisa Montelione.
12:00:06 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I move items 50 through 52, 54 through
62, and the substitute resolution for item number 53.
12:00:19 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mrs. Mulhern, (sic) I
have a second by Mrs. Mulhern.
All in favor of that motion? Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously
Transportation committee chair, Yvonne Capin.
12:00:31 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I move 63 and 64.
12:00:33 >> Second.
12:00:34 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mrs. Capin, second by
Mr. Cohen.
All in favor? Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
We go back to item number 7.
Thank you very much, council members.
12:00:42 >>JULIA MANDELL:
City attorney.
I did have an opportunity to brief all of you generally on
the issue of hard-cost liens, and the use of a potential
special assessment district in order to collect those
hard-cost liens which was really the remaining usual you out
of this item.
I have had opportunity to speak with the attorney
representing the Hillsborough County tax collector as well
as my own research and look at what other jurisdictions who
have done this and started to do.
At this time, I really can't recommend giving you
conversations of the, take cuts when I spoke with you, I
can't recommend that we move forward on an ordinance which
creates a special assessment district, but that is not to
say that the city attorney's office is not looking at
alternatives and will continue to monitor these issues, and
we intend top move forward with all of those items in terms
of looking at our code, looking at this ordinance, and I
will continue to monitor it as well as looking at some
internal options that we might have for questions.
So that's really all I have for you today and I am happy to
tap any questions.
12:01:52 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mr. Cohen.
12:01:53 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you very much, madam city attorney.
I think if it would be all right with council, I would like
for you to come back to us in maybe 90 days with a status
update, because this is an idea, it's the one thing that we
have zeroed in on that we might be able to do, to add some
teeth to some of our enforcement efforts, and if there's
anything that comes up that you think we can add, I don't
want this to fall off the radar and not be brought back.
So if everyone is amenable to it, I would just like to make
a motion to bring this back under staff reports on August
28th at 9:00 a.m.
12:02:33 >> Second.
12:02:35 >>JULIA MANDELL:
And I will be attending the Florida
municipal attorneys association meeting prior to that and
hopefully I can start to pic the brains of some other smart
folks that look at these issues as well.
12:02:46 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
A motion by Mr. Cohen, seconded by Mrs.
Capin on a close vote with Mrs. Montelione.
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Item number 8.
12:02:55 >> Irvin Lee:
I wanted to take a few moments here to give
you an update as requested on the May 2nd rain event.
There were three particular issues that were discussed or
asked about.
The flooding that occurred, the impact of that on the north
Tampa area, and our capital program that goes with it.
First of all, on the 2nd, the weather forecasters gave
us a 60% chance of rain in the area.
This was a result of a system that was moving over -- slowly
over west central and southwest Florida.
The rainfall that we received from that system resulted in
what was classified as a 100 year storm.
So essentially there was a one percent chance of that amount
of rainfall occurring in that period of time, in this
particular location.
The area that was ground zero for the bulk of the rainfall
that occurred during that event was in the area around Busch
Gardens and Temple Terrace, what we consider the north Tampa
area.
We had numerous report of flooding there.
The flooding was extensive.
With the volume of rain and the short period of time in
which it occurred, it extended even into areas that we
typically don't see a lot, even up into the USF campus.
What I would like to do is show you some graphics from the
National Weather Service.
The first shows the entire state, central portion of the
state and gives you an idea of the type of event we were
looking at.
You can see Tampa right here in this area.
And you see that area just north and east of where Tampa is,
and the colors associated with what's going on here.
You can see that right across the top there.
This was again very intense amount of rain in a very short
period of time.
To zero in on this just a little bit more, this gives you a
better feel for what it was like actually in that north
Tampa area.
You will notice right here Temple Terrace.
This is -- right below here is South Tampa.
You can see the Tampa peninsula.
But Tampa majority of the impact of this storm, again, in
the north and northeast portion of the city.
The marine gauges estimated anywhere from 6 to 10 inches,
and as specific to the National Weather Service's rainfall
report, they provided this graphic, which the way this is
read is this is the rainfall for the last 48 hours.
So if you look here, you will notice that it talks about
northeast Tampa, in this particular area, from the 1st
to the 3rd, a 48-hour period encompassing that time
frame at 7:00 a.m.
9.17 inches.
Was recorded at this particular gauge.
I don't have the precise location, but this gives you the
summary of what the National Weather Service received in
terms of rainfall from a variety of sources at these
different areas.
And you will notice as I said, the northeast Tampa, Temple
Terrace, you can see the amount of rainfall received.
So again, this was an intense storm, a very unusual storm,
and brought with it significant amounts of rainfall.
As far as the north Tampa area in terms of our flood control
efforts, you may recall that we cut the ribbon on our city's
donut pond pump station which is part of a joint project and
executed with the county, the city's portion was 16 million
of the 27 million.
The performance of this system, we are still analyzing it.
As you can imagine, there's quite a bit of data not only in
terms of the run times on the pumps but the actual amount of
rainfall, the amount of flow, of rain water, that was
actually pumped.
The system design characteristics were for a 25 year storm.
So again, what we had was a one percent likelihood of
occurrence.
We designed for a 4% likelihood of recurrence.
As I said, we are working not only with the county staff but
the folks that designed the system, installed it and the
consultants who provided some of the design support as well.
We need a little more time to work together to evaluate how
the components operated and performed, and we will obviously
make sure that in the event that something like this occurs
again, which we hope will be highly unlikely, but again we
want to be prepared to make sure that we can respond to the
types of accumulation that we seek.
This is just an overhead of the system.
If you are not familiar with this area, essentially what's
happening here is you have got this area up in the county
that is draining down through the city, and 30th street
which is along the right portion of that, water down to the
Hillsborough River.
And you will notice many of the streets in this area down
here, again, demonstrate flooding that had not been seen in
years.
With that, I will be happy to answer any questions or
attempt to address any concerns you might have.
12:09:32 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mrs. Mulhern and Mrs. Montelione.
12:09:34 >>MARY MULHERN:
I just want to suggest that -- I know when
you get your 100 year, your 1% chance figure, where does
that come from?
Who gives that?
Where do you get that statistical analysis, from the
National Weather Service?
12:09:53 >> The National Weather Service.
And historical averages.
12:09:56 >>MARY MULHERN:
The historical averages aren't going to be
right anymore because of climate change, and we need to look
at that, especially in our planning, transportation, you
know, in south Florida, they are already experiencing more
ongoing problems with flooding, and saltwater intrusion in
the roads getting flooded, we need to start doing that.
You know, when we are seeing -- we are going to be seeing
more of this, because it's extreme weather of all kinds
happening all over the world.
So I think we need to maybe think a little beyond the
historical 100 year average.
12:10:46 >> But to build to that standard, that's just a set that we
have, because in the past, where we may have a different
area, or it may have been spread out over the area, where we
have the opportunity to -- in this case, again, it was very
focused in that one particular area.
I think your main point very seriously because, yes, you are
correct, we will incorporate, you know, the changes that we
see, and the standards that exist.
We will incorporate those in our future designs.
But in this particular case, a project that was completed
this past January, the design analysis that's the basis for
that were purely on the historical figures that were
available at that time.
12:11:38 >>MARY MULHERN:
I'm just saying we need to look beyond
that.
12:11:43 >> We will.
12:11:45 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mrs. Montelione.
12:11:46 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I beg come
up's forgiveness before I start because I have got quite a
lot of information that I received from Mr. Rogero and Mr.
Lee and our budget team on this.
I want to start out, if you can get out and put some of
those photographs on the overhead for me.
When Mr. Lee talks about the flooding, this is some of the
flooding.
What happens, this is at the height of the storm.
What you see there in the background behind the fence is one
of -- the stormwater pond that was in the lower portion of
the picture that Mr. Lee had up earlier.
12:12:26 >> Irvin Lee:
Poinsettia.
.
12:12:35 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
That line of bushes you see there,
that's the back wall of Busch Gardens parking lot.
That's a pond that is directly behind the parking lot.
And that's obviously impassable, but trying to pass it, not
a good idea.
What street is that?
It's 99th and -- oh, I can't remember.
East 99th.
That's one of the homes that was there.
That's after the water receded.
So you can see it's beyond the doorway.
So that house did take on water.
This one is Linebaugh.
It's nearly the same corner.
This is one block up.
That's east Linebaugh there.
And that's Busch Gardens parking lot once again.
This is on the way to the project that we talked about, the
donut pond down at the end of that street, 113th, an
apartment complex right there.
Maybe what you can't see readily is there's a car where the
water is past the tires on the car.
Yes, right there.
Thank you.
This is another homeowner.
I was on her property across from the pond.
This is in the area of Elmer and 18th.
This is right off of Busch Boulevard.
About two blocks.
So it's not anywhere near the other area that we were
talking about.
Next.
That's 30th street.
That's the day after.
That is someone who didn't -- because 30th street, the
water was knee deep, couldn't see, couldn't tell where the
road started and stopped and drove into the ditch.
That's the corner of Linebaugh and 30th.
That, I don't remember the address on that.
I drove around so many streets on that day.
It was during the storm I was driving around.
You could see some of the debris floating in the water
there.
That's another storm with water pond.
I believe that might be poinsettia pond.
And you can see, this is -- I'm standing on the homeowner's
property and those are her landscape plants that are on her
corner.
That's about four feet deep.
Next.
Again, that's looking the other direction, the same block.
That's after the water started to recede.
This, on the other hand, is Seminole Heights, provided by
Kimberly Overman to me.
That's just top show the depth of the water that was in
Seminole Heights.
Next.
That's also Seminole Heights.
That's the backyard of the house.
As you can see there's Whitewater there.
That's the river, just beyond there.
12:15:55 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
That's the river coming down?
12:15:57 >> Yes.
FROM THE FLOOR: That's actually stormwater pond.
12:16:01 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
You have to come up to the microphone.
12:16:05 >> Not the river but going to the river.
12:16:08 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Yes.
Next, there is another one, stormwater trying to find the
river.
That's the same house again.
We didn't need to show that.
Is that it?
All right.
So now it gives you some perspective of what I saw when I
was driving around during that storm.
I did go on camera with an investigative reporter, Mr.
Andrews, who was trying to say that it was money that we did
not spend wisely when we put money into that project.
I corrected him, if we didn't put that p much money into the
project the water would be knee deep on Fowler Avenue whip
is what happened in 2005 or 2006.
So that is a good step.
The water was still very, very deep on Fowler Avenue, but it
wasn't quite as bad as knee deep lake it was in 2005.
What concerns me is that we don't have, as Ms. Mulhern
pointed out, we don't have the resources, the funding, to do
what we need to do, because as you said, Mr. Lee, it very,
very, very expensive, and than with climate change, these
storms are going to hit us when we least expect it, they are
going to not come during hurricane season, they are going to
come whenever they descend upon us, it's going to be quick,
we are not going to have a lot of response time to react,
and wave to start planning now.
I mean, this is probably a 10, 20, 30-year look forward into
what we need to do to address the issues of the more severe
storms.
And I have got the public works, stormwater divisions
program review, 13, 14 fiscal year.
I discussed this with the whole team about a month or two
ago, and with Mr. Herr again the other day, and there's only
13 projects here.
I know that there's a possibility of adding a few more,
because of the problems that we continue to have in South
Tampa, and those projects may or may not be added this
fiscal year.
But we need to do more.
We need -- we talked about budget money this morning, about,
you know, the Cuscaden pool, but this is people's lives.
This is people's livelihood and their property.
We had photographs on the news of the San Juan market on
Hillsborough, and other markets.
Those vegetables were floating in the middle of Hillsborough
Avenue.
So this is a matter of protecting our citizens and our
businesses, and our economic liability for the next, you
know, 25 to 30 years.
So what I am asking for is for the budget department and the
stormwater division to get together and do a full assessment
of what fund are going to be needed to address these very,
very expensive projects.
And I'm begging for additional work in the very near future,
in the '15 budget, for relief in some of those other ponds.
Although we did a great job at the donut pond and the duck
pond on the other side of the county line, north of
university square mall, poinsettia pond and all of the other
smaller ponds that were in those pictures have not been
approved in years.
I know one of them is going to get some underground pumping
station put in, instead of the above-ground, but we need
either more ponds, or we need a new technology look at what
is going to be able to alleviate those areas.
I don't know what the answers are.
I am not a stormwater engineer.
But we really do need to have a more comprehensive and
longer outlook for how we are going to deal with it.
12:20:29 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you, Councilman Montelione.
Councilman Capin.
12:20:36 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
(off microphone) I would also like to find
out what grants we are applying for, what grants, you know,
federal, state grants, where are we in those terms?
And if you don't mind, that would be a friendly amendment to
your motion.
12:21:03 >>HARRY COHEN:
There is no motion.
12:21:11 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
I would like to know the grants we are
applying for, both state and federal.
12:21:15 >> We have been very successful in collaborating with the
Southwest Florida Water Management District, county, and as
you know on the duck pond project, DEP, engaged in a variety
of sources that we have been approaching, and we have been
very successful at integrating and leveraging those
additional dollars in our program.
12:21:35 >> Excellent.
And I would like to know what is in the pipeline, if you
will.
Thank you.
12:21:41 >>HARRY COHEN:
Well, thank you first of all, Councilman
Montelione, for bringing this issue up and for those
pictures.
Anyone that's used them can see that is an untenable
situation for us to continue in, in a city of this says.
I also want to thank the public works department, because as
juxtaposition to Councilwoman Montelione's north district, I
represent of course the south district, and there is no
other issue that consumes as much of our time and energy are
as the issue of stormwater and street flooding.
And while it didn't hit South Tampa as heavily as north, it
created some massive issues, particularly on Bayshore
Boulevard, particularly on some of the residential streets
outside of that.
One of the reasons that I have pushed so hard to do things
like the today natural dredging project and for us to
continue to put infrastructure resources into things like
the pump stations that we put in, in the individual street
elioration project, is because this is not just anesthetic
issue.
This is truly a public safety issue.
You can see that there is a real danger of cars being swept
away by this water.
And again, I want to thank the public works department,
because we had a problem a few years ago down on bay vista
and where it around people couldn't drive their cars, and
our public works department did get out there and did do the
work to fix the project.
On Gunby and Bayshore, the area that flooded so badly,
during this last storm, the work is being done right this
minute to ameliorate some of that.
The other issues that some of these neighbors have is, most
of the photographs that Councilwoman Montelione showed were
very bad flooding that over a period of a couple of days
ended up resolving itself and the water receded.
But we have certain neighborhoods whereby the waters did not
recede at all and collect for weeks and weeks at a time,
because breeding ground for mosquitoes.
And we have a number of streets that have been waiting
patiently for some assistance.
And for a rain event, they actually become impassable.
There are three streets in particular in South Tampa where
the residents are really truly almost at a breaking point.
Kensington, Edison and Marjorie.
I know the administration is going to be looking at how we
can assist those streets, and I appreciate that.
And I know that the neighbors that live in those areas
appreciate it.
Finally, before Councilwoman Mulhern has asked to speak, her
point is dead on.
This is going to get worse.
And it's not going to get worse.
I was going to say it's not our fault that it's going to get
worse but it is our fault that it's going to get worse.
It's our collective fault.
It's the problem of human beings burning fossil fuels and
continuing to grow that is causing the extreme weather
events.
And as our infrastructure ages, we have got to stay on top
of continuing to fight against the problem that we all know
climate change is exacerbated.
So with that, Councilwoman Mulhern asked to speak on a
second round.
And if any of my other colleagues would like to, we'll open
the floor to them after she's finished.
12:25:29 >>MARY MULHERN:
Thank you.
I had one question and then I'll make a motion and see if we
can agree on that.
I can't read this, but we know with the northeast portion of
the city, where the heaviest rainfall was during that storm,
right?
So that just happened to be the weather pattern.
Is that consistently -- when you look at the storms we have,
did that area get hit harder because of just normal weather
patterns?
Or it could be any anywhere?
It could have happened in South Tampa where Councilman Cohen
just -- where we are rate by the bay.
So it could have been worse.
If we got 8 inches or 7 inches.
So we need to look at the cost of even bigger because wave
to look at the whole city.
So I am going to suggest that we have a workshop on this,
how we are going to deal with flooding in these extreme
storms.
And with looking at the fact weather pattern changes because
of climate change, and I could, you know, we could have
somebody from SWFWMD and maybe someone from the NOAA to come
in and talk about that, or I could get someone from the
Tampa Bay estuary program who deals with seawater rise, but
they also look at, you know, they look at the bay and
everything, take.
12:27:23 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I'll second that.
12:27:30 >>HARRY COHEN:
The next really date is October 23rd.
12:27:32 >> We aren't going to be able to do anything --
12:27:36 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
It's going to be afternoon hurricane
season.
12:27:39 >>HARRY COHEN:
But it is a long-term issue.
12:27:41 >> I am going to make another one after that.
12:27:46 >>HARRY COHEN:
You seconded it.
12:27:51 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I already seconded it.
And then some of the things that Mrs. Capin brought up as
well.
So during the workshop on the 23rd, SWFWMD and NOAA, the
USF St. Petersburg campus coastal -- I can't remember --
CACHE, whatever, to have them come in because they have been
doing extensive work in this area for quite awhile.
CJ Reynold working with sustainability is working over there
now and she's a great resource.
I would like to also mention some of the things that Mrs.
Capin brought up.
Because while the statement is that we do receive a lot of
grants, and we are greatly, you know, always looking out for
what opportunities are available, I would like to
specifically know how many -- I think that's what Mrs. Capin
was getting to -- how many have we applied for?
And how many are in the pipeline, I think is the verbiage
that she used, right now.
And that way, maybe we can see if we need to expand our
search for grants.
And we do have a grant writer that was hired not long ago.
I would like to know how many she's got in process.
And that would be helpful or if you have a grant writer on
your own staff.
No, you do not.
Okay.
So that would be helpful.
I would also like to include in not just the discussion of
the flooding but the aftermath of the flooding, because some
of the roads in my district, especially in this area, you
drive them, and you think that they are dirt roads, because
the asphalt is so degradated from the flooding that has been
occurring year after year after year that when I drove
around with Mr. Herr right after he was hired in the City of
Tampa with Alex Awad and we looked at all the stormwater
facilities, and going, Look at the streets, look at the
roads, look at the curbs, because it's deteriorating because
of the constant flooding.
And we did on May 27th, two weeks after the rain event,
the ground was so saturated that there was no percolation
happening at all.
So all of the areas that he saw flooded on the second were
flooded again on the 27th.
And we closed some roads and did, you know, that drill all
over again, because it's the frequency of storms that are
happening.
12:30:33 >> The water table raises.
12:30:36 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Right. Okay.
So those are the things individually to add to the workshop.
And as far as budget and finance goes, we really need to
address that portion of it.
And I had talked about looking at what other cities are
doing to keep up with this and found that information that
was provided by our department, that the stormwater fees
that's charged here in the City of Tampa is at the bottom of
the barrel when you look at the stormwater fees all over the
state.
So we are not keeping up with other areas as far as the
revenue we are taking in.
And I have revenues, or sheets from the meeting that I had
with budget and finance and maybe Mrs. Little you can
address the financial portion of it.
124 okay, I have a motion on the floor.
12:31:38 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Take the motion for the workshop and
then hear from Mrs. Little.
12:31:44 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
The motion made by Mrs. Mulhern, seconded
by Mrs. Montelione.
The one that made the motion makes sure that those
individuals are coming on October 23rd.
I put the burden back on the maker of the motion.
12:31:58 >> I'll help.
12:32:00 >>MARY MULHERN:
Oh, yeah.
The people I talked about inviting?
12:32:04 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Right.
12:32:04 >>MARY MULHERN:
Yes, I'll do that.
12:32:07 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
October 23rd at what time?
9:00 in the morning Tampa year 2014.
Motion made by Mrs. Mulhern.
Seconded by Mrs. Montelione.
All in favor of that motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mrs. Little.
12:32:30 >>SONYA LITTLE:
Good afternoon.
Sonya Little, revenue and finance.
I believe the request that was made was for the revenue and
finance department to give an overview of the stormwater
budget.
And if I can just briefly just give you a figure as it
relates to our current fiscal year 2014 budget, as it stands
right now, as councilwoman alluded to, stormwater fees,
roughly $6.2 million is what we are budgeted for, for the
2014 fiscal you're.
Of that amount, 4.9 million, roughly, goes to right-of-way
department, in which paving and street sweeping and so forth
are part of our stormwater system on the operating side.
In addition to the stormwater department we have a budget
obviously for the capital portion.
So the capital portion, which includes transfers from our
utility tax fund, as well as grants and other sources of
revenue for the 15 -- I'm sorry, for the '14 fiscal year, we
are budgeted for $15.5 million to satisfy the capital needs
for the stormwater department, whereas the prior fiscal
year, fiscal year 2013 we were budgeted at 7 .350 million.
12:34:08 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I need a motion to go -- let me tell you.
I have about 12 second hearings.
I have a couple of first hearings.
We are not going to make in the 30 minutes.
12:34:17 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
We are breaking for lunch of a after
this.
12:34:24 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
That's what I wanted to ask, because it's
12:30.
Any other discussion on this item, item number 8?
12:34:32 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I was going to make a motion for Mrs.
Little to come back with Mr. Perry to have -- maybe we can
do it during the workshop as well.
I don't know if you want to do it -- Mrs. Mulhern, to talk
about the financial picture, and what we can do looking at
other options for stormwater and public works funding.
Do you want to do that during the workshop or do that
separate?
The funding peace.
12:35:00 >>MARY MULHERN:
We may just want to have the workshop and
you can be here, but part of what we are going to talk about
might be funding options.
12:35:12 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
So it would take you that long to --
12:35:18 >>MARY MULHERN:
If the department could come back with some
suggestions.
12:35:23 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I'll make the motion to add to the
workshop on October 23rd to look to have budget finance
come back with our grant writer to look at funding options.
12:35:41 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Back to the original motion.
But was that vote taken on the motion?
Okay, so we are going to add that?
Let me make that motion because I want it in the record.
I have a motion by Mrs. Montelione to add to the original
motion that was made by Mrs. Mulhern and Mrs. Montelione.
Seconded this motion by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor of the motion, please indicate by saying -- to
add that further language in the original motion, please
indicate by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimously.
Okay.
We are going to be in recess till 2:00, an hour and a half
or so.
Mrs. Mulhern.
12:36:15 >>MARY MULHERN:
Can I just move for continuance for 9 and
10?
12:36:23 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
When we come back.
We stand in recess till 2:00.
12:36:27 >> (City Council meeting in recess.)
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Tampa City Council
2:00 p.m. session
[Sounding gavel]
02:08:56 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
City Council is called to order.
Roll call.
02:08:58 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Here.
02:08:58 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Here.
02:09:05 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Present.
02:09:08 >>HARRY COHEN:
Here.
02:09:09 >>MARY MULHERN:
Here.
02:09:11 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Here.
We are on 9 and 10.
I believe Mrs. Mulhern will make a motion to that effect.
02:09:15 >>MARY MULHERN:
I make a motion to continue both those
items to June 19th workshop agenda, 9 a.m.
02:09:28 >>HARRY COHEN:
Second.
02:09:32 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
That second was a tie.
I have a motion by Mrs. Mulhern, second by Mr. Suarez on a
close vote with Mr. Cohen.
Anyone in the public care to speak on 9 and 10 on the
continuation to the day of June 19th at 9:00 a.m.?
Seeing none, I'll take the vote.
All in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimously.
Now we go to, I believe, unfinished business.
And no reports.
We go to items being presented for public hearing by City
Council for consent.
Item number 65.
02:10:09 >> Move to set the public hearings.
02:10:17 >> Setting a public hearing for June 26th at 6 p.m. and
July 17th at 10:30 a.m.
All in favor? Opposed? The ayes have it unanimously.
Now we go to public hearings, second reading, proposed
ordinance item number 66.
I think I opened all of these.
I opened 67 through 79 and did not open 66.
Motion by Mrs. Montelione to open 66.
A second by Mr. Cohen to open 66.
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Ordinance for second reading.
Is petitioner here?
02:11:01 >>JULIA MANDELL:
City attorney.
This is an ordinance which would amend our code to allow the
bicycle share shelter, has signage and advertising on them.
This is second reading.
We have discussed it at first reading.
If you have any questions I'm available.
02:11:20 >>HARRY COHEN:
If I remember correctly there were some
provisions that did not allow for the advertising in a
couple of naked.
02:11:29 >> The ordinance only designates those areas where they are
allowed and if they are not within those areas they are not
allowed.
Thank you.
02:11:38 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion to close.
Anyone in the public care to speak on item 66?
I don't see any.
I have a motion to close by Mrs. Montelione, second by Mr.
Cohen.
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Number 66, Mrs. Montelione.
02:11:57 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Microphone.
Here we go.
I move an ordinance being presented for second reading and
dogs, ordinance of the city of Tampa, Florida making
revisions total City of Tampa code ordinances chapter 22,
streets and sidewalks amending article 1, subdivision 4 --
division 3, subdivision 4, benches displaying advertising,
repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict
therewith, providing for severability, providing an
effective date.
02:12:31 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mrs. Montelione.
Second by Mr. Suarez.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
02:12:36 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:12:44 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
We go to item number 67.
02:12:53 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land Development Coordination.
Item 67 and 69 both require certified site plans.
Those plans have been certified and provided to the clerk.
Staff is available for any questions.
02:13:06 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you.
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item number 67?
67?
I see none.
Need a motion to close.
I have a motion by Mr. Reddick, seconded by Mr. Cohen to
close.
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mr. Cohen, would you kindly read the ordinance, please?
02:13:22 >>HARRY COHEN:
I move an ordinance being presented for
second reading and adoption, an ordinance approving a
special use permit S-2 for alcoholic beverage sales, small
venue, consumption on premises only and making lawful the
sale of beverages regardless of alcoholic content, beer wine
and liquor, on that certain lot, plot or tract of land
located at 2223 North Westshore Boulevard, unit B-227,
Tampa, Florida as more particularly described in section 2
than that all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict
are repealed, providing an effective date.
02:13:59 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mr. Cohen, a second by
Mr. Suarez.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
02:14:03 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:14:13 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item number 68.
68.
Is petitioner here?
Anyone in the audience care to speak on number 68?
68?
All right.
Let me do this biff go any further.
These are quasi-judicial hearings.
Anyone who is going to speak on 68 through 79, you have to
get sworn in.
Please raise your hand and get sworn in.
Your other right hand, DiMaio.
(Oath administered by Clerk)
Item 68.
Anyone on 68?
Already took the motion to close.
That was fast.
I correct?
Okay.
Need a motion to close 68.
I have a motion by Mr. Cohen, second by Mrs. Montelione.
All in favor of the motion to close 68 please signify by
saying aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mrs. Mulhern, would you kindly take number 68, please?
02:15:30 >>MARY MULHERN:
I move an ordinance being presented for
second reading and adoption, an ordinance rezoning property
in the general vicinity of 303 and 305 east Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the city of Tampa, Florida and
more particularly described in section 1 from zoning
district classification RS-50 residential single-family, CG,
commercial general, providing an effective date.
02:15:55 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mrs. Mulhern, second
by Mr. Cohen on 68.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
Number 68.
02:16:04 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:16:08 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item number 69. 69.
Is petitioner here?
Do you want to speak? Good.
Anyone in the audience care to speak on number 69 from the
audience?
I have a motion to close by Mr. Reddick.
Seconded by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor of the motion to close?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mr. Reddick, would you kindly take number 69, please?
02:16:34 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Move an ordinance being presented for
second reading and adoption, an ordinance rezoning property
in the general vicinity of 1725 west Kenned Kennedy
Boulevard and 1718 west North "A" street in the city of
Tampa, Florida and more particularly described in section 1
from zoning district classification PD planned development,
office, business professional, to planned development,
office, business, professional and medical, research
facility, laboratory and medical and dental, and/or bank
walk-in, providing an effective date.
02:17:05 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mr. Reddick, second by Mr.
Cohen.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
02:17:10 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:17:20 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item 70.
70.
Is petitioner here on 70?
Do you want to speak?
02:17:34 >> Good afternoon.
My name is Martin Benstick, and the consultant has been
working on this had a dental emergency and couldn't take it
so he asked me to come down and see if there's any
questions.
02:17:48 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Any questions by council members?
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item number 70?
70?
I see no one.
Do you want rebuttal?
[ Laughter ]
I just thought I would ask you.
I have a motion to close by Mr. Cohen.
I have a second by Mr. Reddick.
All in favor of the motion to close by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mrs. Capin, would you take number 70?
02:18:16 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Ordinance being presented for second reading
and adoption, an ordinance rezoning property in the general
vicinity of 3608 west Euclid Avenue in the city of Tampa,
Florida and more particularly described in section 1 from
zoning district classifications RO residential office top RS
50 residential single-family, providing an effective date.
02:18:36 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mrs. Capone.
I have a second by Mr. Suarez.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
02:18:41 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:18:51 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Item number 71.
71.
Anyone in the audience care to speak?
Is petitioner here on 717?
Do you want to speak?
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item 71?
I see no one.
I have a motion to close by Mr. Reddick, seconded by Mrs.
Capin.
Discussion by council members?
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Would you kindly take number 71, please?
02:19:17 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I present an ordinance for second reading
and adoption, an ordinance rezoning property in the general
vicinity of 2807 north 35th street in the city of Tampa,
Florida and more particularly described in section 1 from
zoning district CI to CG providing an effective date.
02:19:34 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mr. Suarez.
I have a second by Mr. Reddick.
Roll call.
Vote and record.
02:19:40 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:19:49 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item number 72.
Is petitioner here?
02:20:02 >>GINA GRIMES:
Hill, Ward, Henderson, 101 East Kennedy and I
have been sworn.
I'm just here in case you have any questions.
02:20:10 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Any questions by council members?
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item 72?
72?
I see no one.
I have a motion to close by Mr. Reddick, second by Mr.
Cohen.
Further discussion by council members?
All in favor of the motion please say aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimous to close.
Mrs. Montelione, would you kindly take number 72, please?
.
02:20:29 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
I move an ordinance for second reading
and adoption, an ordinance rezoning property in the general
vicinity of 4115 east Busch Boulevard in the city of Tampa,
Florida and more particularly described in section 1 from
zoning district classifications PD planned development,
restaurant, to CG, commercial general, providing an
effective date.
02:20:44 >> Second.
02:20:47 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion for passage by Mrs.
Montelione, second by Mr. Cohen.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
02:20:51 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:20:59 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item number 73.
73.
Thank you all very much for attending.
73.
02:21:04 >> Truett Gardner, on behalf of item number 73 and 75 here
to answer any questions you may have.
02:21:13 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
All right.
73 first.
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item number 73?
I have a motion to close by Mr. Reddick.
Second by Mr. Cohen.
All in favor of that motion please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mr. Cohen, would you kindly take number 73, please?
02:21:30 >>HARRY COHEN:
Move an ordinance being presented for second
reading and adoption, an ordinance rezoning property in the
general vicinity of 2406 north Morgan street in the city of
Tampa, Florida and more particularly described in section 1
from zoning district classifications CI commercial intensive
to RS-50, residential single-family, providing an effective
date.
02:21:51 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mr. Cohen, I have a
second by Mr. Suarez.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
02:21:58 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:22:06 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item number 74 was earlier, moved to June
26th if I recall.
We go to item number 75.
02:22:14 >>BARBARA LYNCH:
Land Development Coordination.
I'm here to answer any questions.
02:22:20 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Any questions by council members?
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item number 75?
I see no one.
I need a motion to close.
I have a motion by Mr. Suarez, second by Mrs. Mulhern.
All in favor of the motion to close?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mrs. Mulhern, would you kindly take number 75, please?
02:22:37 >>MARY MULHERN:
I move AP ordinance being presented for
second reading and adoption, an ordinance vacating, closing,
discontinuing, abandoning an alleyway lying east of Tampa
Street, west of Florida Avenue, south of Amelia Avenue, and
north of Frances Avenue in plan of Munro and McIntosh's
addition, a subdivision in the City of Tampa, Hillsborough
County Florida the same being more fully described in
section 1 hereof subject to certain easement reservations,
covenants and conditions and restrictions more particularly
set forth herein providing an effective date.
02:23:09 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
A motion by Mrs. Mulhern, second by Mr.
Suarez.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record.
02:23:14 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:23:21 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you for all of you appearing.
Number 76.
Petitioner?
02:23:29 >>ABBYE FEELEY:
Land development.
Mr. Horner was here this morning concerning the plan
endment.
He may have spoken to you.
He was here for the second reading.
02:23:44 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Thank you very much.
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item 76?
I see no one.
I have a motion toe close by Mr. Reddick, second by Mr.
Cohen.
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mr. Reddick, would you kindly take number 76, please?
02:24:00 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Move an ordinance presented for second
reading and adoption, an ordinance amending the Tampa
comprehensive plan, future land use map, property located in
the general vicinity of north 50th street, east Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Temple Street and east
32nd Avenue, from community mixed use 35, CMU 35,to
community commercial 35, providing for repeal of all
ordinances in conflict, providing for severability,
providing an effective date.
02:24:29 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion for approval by Mr.
Reddick, second by Mr. Cohen.
Roll call vote. Vote and record.
02:24:34 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:24:44 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Item 77, same thing, I believe is
petitioner here?
All right.
Petitioner and I discussed and I saw that he had a problem
in Pasco County to leave, that we would do whatever we could
to facilitate.
That's what we are doing now.
Anyone in the audience care to speak on item number 77?
Better known as the Red Grange? I see no one. I have a
motion to close by Mr. Suarez.
Second by Mrs. Capin.
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mrs. Capin, would you take number 77, please?
02:25:20 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
An ordinance being presented for second reading and
adoption, an ordinance amending the Tampa comprehensive
plan, future land use map for the property located in the
general vicinity of west Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Boulevard, north Armenia Avenue, and north Melton street
from community mixed use 35 CMU 35 and residential 10, R-10,
to community mixed use 35, CMU-35, providing for repeal of
all ordinances in conflict, providing for severability,
providing an effective date.
02:25:56 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mrs. Capin for
passage.
Second by Mr. Suarez.
Roll call vote.
Vote and record on 77.
02:26:02 >>THE CLERK:
Motion carried unanimously.
02:26:11 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
On 78 we would hold it till after lunch
and it is after lunch.
02:26:14 >>REBECCA KERT:
Legal department.
We appreciate council giving us additional time.
We have several witnesses that we plan on calling.
We have one that's indispensable because he was the
eyewitness.
He is a police officer and he has -- I know he's scheduled
for vacation because he moved it for the June 26th.
I am not sure how long he will be gone in July.
At this point if City Council doesn't want to hear it we
would request the 31st.
I think most likely he will be back at that point. If not
we will ask for another continuance.
02:26:49 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
July 31st.
You are talking about the 31st of July?
02:26:53 >>REBECCA KERT:
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
02:26:55 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Any questions by council members,
comments on July 31st?
I guess that's an acceptable date.
That was number 78.
02:27:04 >> (off microphone).
02:27:14 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Second.
02:27:15 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Anyone want to talk about this
continuance?
I see no objections.
I have a motion by Mrs. Mulhern.
Second by Mrs. Capin for 78 to be moved to July 31st,
the year 2014, at what time?
10:30 in the morning.
All in favor of the motion please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimously.
Thank you all very much.
We go to item number 79.
79.
02:27:37 >>BARBARA LYNCH:
Land Development Coordination.
VAC-14-11 is a request by the applicant to vacate an alley
locate, the alley between ADALEE and Braddock street and
runs Decatur to Harding Avenue.
The alley is unimproved and there are some fences, but I
think it was so overgrown but this is the alley east from
Decatur, and here is a photo of the alley, looking west from
Harding.
And this is a picture of the applicant property.
Staff has no objection to this request.
Wastewater easement does need to be reserved for utilities.
02:28:37 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Anyone in the audience care to speak on
item 79?
Petitioner?
02:28:41 >> No.
02:28:46 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Any others? This is first reading or
second reading? First reading.
02:28:49 >> Yes, sir.
02:28:51 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
One more time.
Anyone in the audience care to speak on 79?
I see no one.
I have a motion to close by Mr. Could even, second by Mr.
Reddick.
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Mr. Suarez, would you take number 79?
I want to make sure your name came up.
02:29:09 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I'll take it.
I present an ordinance for first reading consideration, an
ordinance vacating, closing, discontinuing, and abandoning
an alleyway lying north of Braddock street south of ADALEE
street east of Decatur Avenue and west of Harding Avenue in
plan of river Heights -- actually there's a scrivener's
error, I thought, I believe it's Riverside Heights.
Let me double check.
I apologize, but I want to make sure that we don't come.
I guess it says river Heights.
We won't call it Riverside Heights.
So river Heights subdivision, a subdivision in the City of
Tampa, Hillsborough County Florida the same being more fully
described in section 1 hereof subject to certain easement
reservation, covenants, conditions and restrictions more
particularly set forth herein providing an effective date.
02:30:05 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mr. Suarez for first
reading, second by Mr. Reddick on item number 9.
All in favor of that motion please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
The ayes have it unanimously.
02:30:15 >> Held on June 26th 20:
14 at 9:30 a.m.
02:30:24 >>BARBARA LYNCH:
The association is Riverside Heights but
river Heights --
02:30:31 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I noticed it when I looked at the plat.
So thank you.
02:30:44 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Okay, information reports and new
business by council members.
Mr. Suarez.
02:30:47 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you, chair.
The first is some good news.
We talk about baseball championships all the time here.
We did have a baseball championship, we weren't in session
last week, and I would like to have a commendation for the
Jesuit high school 5-A state baseball championships.
They won last week.
We would like a commendation to congratulate their players
and coaches on their great Run.
02:31:16 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mr. Suarez.
I have a second by Mrs. Mulhern.
02:31:20 >>HARRY COHEN:
Give a date?
02:31:22 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
You are going to make that date with
them?
02:31:25 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Yes.
02:31:29 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
All in favor?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
What else, sir?
02:31:33 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
I have one other thing.
Yesterday, the sad news about Mr. Smith passed away, a great
gay.
It's strange.
Bill Poe passed away about three weeks ago.
Gary Smith just passed away.
He was at the funeral and he did not look good.
And I'm sorry to hear that he did pass away.
He's a great guy in terms of learning how government works,
and making government work, which doesn't happen all the
time anymore.
When you see Congress the way they react and the way that
our legislature sometimes reacts, it's good to know that
there were people back from the 70s and 80s that were
able to make our government work, and work in a very
progressive and good manner.
So my thoughts and prayers are out to the family, and I
assume all members of council.
Thank you, chair.
02:32:17 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mrs. Capin?
02:32:19 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
On that note I just want to say my husband,
when he was right out of USF, came to work at model cities
and worked with Al Gary and held him in high esteem.
He was very knowledgeable and understood the process.
So with that, I do have something here.
The nomination by Councilman Reddick for Stephanie L. Tripp,
an assistant professor of communication at the University of
Tampa for a seat at the economic impact of cultural assets
committee.
We need to vote on that.
02:33:02 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mrs. Capin, a second by Mr.
Reddick, on that person being named to that committee.
All in favor? Opposed?
Ayes have it unanimously.
Anything else?
Well, Mr. Reddick, I guess you have nothing to say.
Mr. Reddick, anything else?
02:33:29 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Wait a minute.
I couldn't read the handwriting.
02:33:35 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Just one item, Mr. Chair.
I want to request that Michael Hatchett appear before
council to give us an update on the status on pastor Frank
Williams property.
02:34:00 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
What date?
02:34:01 >>FRANK REDDICK:
June 26th.
02:34:02 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion by Mr. Reddick, a second
by Mrs. Mulhern.
02:34:05 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
Anything else, sir?
Thank you very much.
Mrs. Mulhern?
02:34:11 >>MARY MULHERN:
I have one item.
I would like to request a staff report from land
development, transportation, within the land development.
I would like them to compile an inventory of past approvals
related to parking, including valet use in SoHo, on South
Howard Avenue between Kennedy and Bayshore, in order to
determine the actual practice and changes.
This is a request from the historic Hyde Park neighborhood
association.
02:34:55 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I have a motion --
02:34:56 >> And now from council.
02:34:58 >>HARRY COHEN:
When do you want to do that?
02:35:00 >>MARY MULHERN:
When is our next regular meeting?
02:35:05 >>HARRY COHEN:
June 26th which is a really busy agenda.
The 17th of July.
02:35:10 >>MARY MULHERN:
Well, they have already had a month it.
02:35:17 >>HARRY COHEN:
July 17th?
02:35:18 >>MARY MULHERN:
Yes, July 17th.
Is that the first -- maybe we can go to the next one.
02:35:25 >>MARY MULHERN:
July 31st.
02:35:27 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Motion by Mrs. Mulhern for July 31st
at 10:30 in the morning.
Motion made by Mrs. Mulhern.
Seconded by Mr. Cohen.
All in favor of that motion, please indicate by saying aye.
Opposed nay.
Passed unanimously.
Anything else, Mrs. Mulhern?
02:35:44 >>MARY MULHERN:
No, that's it.
02:35:46 >>HARRY COHEN:
No, sir.
02:35:47 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mr. Cohen, you're very kind to the chair.
Mrs. Montelione.
02:35:50 >>LISA MONTELIONE:
Just one.
The commendation for Tanja Vidovic and the individual
companies who donated materials and supplies for the edible
plantings and street orchard plantings has been cleared to
attend on the 26th.
02:36:13 >> Seconded by Mr. Cohen.
Further discussion by council members?
All in favor of the motion?
Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
In addition else, ma'am?
Okay.
Thank you all very much.
On that note, also, the passing away of a good friend of
mine, sent flowers up in Cincinnati, Don Zimmer, Pete Rose,
and talk about the old game and the passing away was not
only a very knowledgeable guy, but like a straight man, a
great guy to be around with, and we are going to be miss
him.
Okay, I need a motion to receive and file all the documents.
I have a motion by Mrs. Montelione.
Second by Mr. Cohen.
All in favor of that motion? Opposed?
The ayes have it unanimously.
General public comments, any 512 of you left want to speak
to this council at this time, please come forward.
Now we are down to 511.
02:37:04 >> I just want to say --
02:37:10 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Your name?
02:37:10 >> I'm sorry, my name is Davian -- I do want to say I
appreciate you taking the time to honor my alma mater
because they won the state championship.
02:37:20 >> I'm sorry, alma mater?
02:37:24 >> Right.
I want to say I thank you for recognizing my alma mater.
I'm a Jesuit alum.
I appreciate you for recognizing the state championship.
02:37:34 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I went to Jesuit.
Not to attend the school.
I just rode through it.
My son went there.
Well, thank you very much, sir.
Anyone else?
Any other things to come before this council?
We stand adjourned.
(The Council meeting adjourned)
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