Tampa City Council - Budget
Thursday, July 21, 2016
9:00 a.m.
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09:01:37 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Tampa City Council is now called into order.
The chair recognizes Mr. Harry Cohen.
09:02:17 >>HARRY COHEN:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
It's my pleasure to welcome this morning the reverend James
P. Golden, the pastor of the Mount Zion AME Church here in
Tampa, Florida.
Prior to that he was pastor of Wharton Baptist church in
Bradenton.
He was the social action coordinator for Florida and the
Bahamas for the after can Episcopal church.
You will be interested to know that he served two 4-year
terms as a member of the Bradenton City Council and in
September 2007 he was chosen by our own representative Kathy
Castor to deliver the morning invocation to the U.S. House
of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
Good morning, Reverend Golden.
Let's stand and join him for the invocation followed by the
pledge of allegiance.
09:03:05 >> If I might take the honor for just a moment, I am going
to ask everyone to hold hands.
This might not be comfortable, though.
Let us pray.
God omnipotent, omnipresent, we thank you for your mercy
that you have awakened us this morning for another day of
service, to this city, by the mayor, and this City Council.
We thank you for your grace that will empower them to
overcome any challenges they will face today.
We also pray now for our president and all of our fellow
servants in federal, state and local government across the
land; that thy will be done today and everything they see,
everything they utter, everything they hear, everything they
think, and everything they feel.
We also pray for our vigilant Armed Forces as they protect
our interests and send our liberty and secure justice at
home and abroad in selfless sacrifice for our country.
We pray a special prayer for those officers who daily lead
the peace and tranquility of their own neighborhood and
safety of their own home, love and care of their own family,
to assure that all of us can have these things in every
neighborhood, every home, and in every family.
By your mercy, keep them from harm and danger both seen and
unseen, known and unknown, and yet to come.
For we know in your precious sight all lives matter.
God our help in ages past, for 129 years, God of our father,
God who has brought us thus far along the way.
O God our hope for years to come.
Keep this city, this state, and this nation forever in thy
path of goodness and righteousness we pray.
en.
[ Pledge of Allegiance ]
09:06:02 >> Roll call.
09:06:04 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Here.
09:06:06 >>FRANK REDDICK:
Here.
09:06:08 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Here.
09:06:10 >>HARRY COHEN:
Here.
09:06:15 >>GUIDO MANISCALCO:
Here.
09:06:16 >>Here.
We are glad to have our Mayor Bob Buckhorn to make his
budget presentation.
09:06:23 >> Mayor Bob Buckhorn:
If we could bring up the
presentation on the screen.
This is a better screen than when Councilman Miranda and I
were here.
Just for the record, I did not nor did anybody in my staff
copy this speech from anybody else.
(Laughter).
09:06:46 >> We are not doing Orlando's budget is what you are saying,
right are?
09:06:50 >> I hope not.
And if somebody would please tell me if they did.
First of all it's good to see you and thank you for the
opportunity to be here.
This is the one time of year that you allow me to come to
your chambers, and I am thankful for that.
It has been an interesting year.
It's been a productive year.
It's been a year that I think all of you should be proud of
in spite of the economic conditions that we have found
ourselves in over the last five, certainly five years that
most of us everybody together.
If you think back to where we were in 2011 when the majority
of us came to this council and to this administration, it
was a very different place.
It was a very different country.
It was a very different state and certainly was a very
different city.
Unemployment in the City of Tampa was close to 10%.
There were over 4,000 houses in some state of foreclosure.
Our family friends and neighbors were losing their jobs and
people losing their houses.
On day one of 2011 and when I assumed this office we were
$30 million in debt.
It was a pretty bleak scenario.
Thankfully, my predecessor, Mayor Iorio, had left our
reserves very, very healthy.
That enabled us to get through that recession over the last
five years and emerge to where we are now.
We are not out of the woods yet.
In spite of all of the construction and building that is
taking place, we along with other cities in this country are
still struggling to find our footing.
I can tell you -- and you will see this as we move through
this presentation -- that the resources that we have are not
even close to what we had in 2007.
You can imagine that almost ten-year gap and we are still
not at the point where we are recovering in property tax
revenues what we received in 2007.
You will understand the magnitude of the task that we have
embarked on over the last five years and the good work that
all of us have been able to accomplish, still moving the
community forward but doing it with less people and a
significantly less amount of revenue.
All right.
We are going to take you through some of the budget
highlights, the recommended budget overview, some of the
highlights of the capital improvement program, as well as
the enterprise department budget, and then the calendar
moving forward.
I think you will be proud to look at this chart and see some
of the accolades that your city has been awarded over the
last couple of years.
It is an amazing list of things that point out how far we
have come over the last five years and where we are
positioned oat national or International stage.
If you start at the top, one of the most significant
recognitions we got being named as one of the best cities in
the southeast United States by money magazine as well as one
of the top places to move, as well as one of the best cities
for women to open a business in.
As well as one of the best cities for veterans.
That is a pretty significant list of accomplishments and I
know you all are as proud as I am of some of the things that
we have done.
I think I am going to buy some new equipment.
Not on your screens are? I don't know what that was.
09:10:43 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
There you go.
09:10:46 >> There we go.
Okay.
As many of you know, because I talk about it a lot, three of
the last five years Tampa Bay has created more jobs than
anyplace in the State of Florida.
Just last year alone the Tampa Bay metropolitan area created
42,000 new private sector jobs.
These are not government jobs.
These are private sector jobs.
And as we have tried to change Tampa's economic DNA, I think
these numbers are reflecting the growth and some of the
value-added industries that we need to attract intellectual
capital that will allow us to continue.
Just in 2011, employment was at 9.9%.
Right now we are at 4.6%.
That is a significant drop in unemployment in our community
and we see it every day as our friends and neighbors are
employed and able to provide for their families.
The highlights and goals of, creating jobs, protecting our
kids, enhancing our quality of life, improving our
infrastructure, retaining and rewarding our employees,
balancing the budget without using reserves, streamlining
the regulatory permitting process.
And I think by all measures we have succeeded at every one
of those things.
Some of the highlights of that wove accomplished and some of
the focuses certainly involve our kids and our parks and
recreation highlights for this past year.
As you know, as many of you joined me the other day at the
groundbreaking for Julian B. Lane, what we did, they are the
great equalizer in our community.
They are the places where families can gather and children
can be children.
We have achieved a number of national awards in our Parks
and Recreation Department.
One of the programs that I am particularly excited about --
and I think has done as much to stabilize our needs in this
community is the stay and play program.
Stay and play, as you know, like a lot of cities around the
country, who are experiencing significant violence in our
inner city neighborhoods.
We knew we had to do something.
We knew that if we didn't do something that there would be
kids that would be at risk, kids that potentially would be
victims of gun violence, and we weren't willing to tolerate
that.
We made a decision, and we are willing to pay for that, to
embark on a project that I think by all measures has been a
tremendous success.
We refer to it as stay and play.
What we did was open our parks and recreation centers in
some of our tougher neighborhoods until midnight, seven days
a week, through the end of the summer.
Based on the success of that, we have extended that and have
done it in some of those same parks year round.
69,000 kids.
Those parks and recreation centers under the guise of
mentorship and protection of adults, of teachers, of
coaches, they are not in harm's way when they are in our
facilities, and as Councilman Reddick can attest to, those
children that are in our facilities are not out on the
streets.
And if they are not out on the streets, they are not as
likely to be seduced by gangs and succumb to the violence.
I can promise you this.
Even though we can never measure this, that we save lives by
opening up these parks.
There are children today in East Tampa and Sulphur Springs
and West Tampa that are alive today because they were in our
facility and they were not out on the streets and
potentially victims of random gun violence or gang activity.
I have to say "next slide."
All right.
There's going to be a little more on the budget.
(Laughter).
09:15:21 >> It's only practice.
09:15:23 >> Yeah, it's only practice.
Okay, this is a highlight.
Next slide.
All right.
We didn't get rid of the CTTV department.
Next slide.
All right.
This slide points out why it's important, those of a-school
hours and hours when many single parents are having to work,
why it's important that we keep these facilities open.
Next slide.
Our after school program is another thing we introduced.
This was initially started in the State of Florida in
Orlando.
We brought it to Tampa.
This is another opportunity for some of our young people to
engage in activities that are healthy, that are productive,
where they have great leadership, great mentorship.
Next slide.
We made a commitment to the president of the United States
along with some other mayors.
This is from Obama, and that is to end veterans
homelessness.
We signed up and said yes, Mr. President, we are willing to
do what we can to try to end veterans homelessness.
We launched operation reveille in partnership with
Hillsborough County and as a result of operation reveille
our community experienced a 42% decline in veterans
homelessness.
We are not happy until we get to net zero.
We may never get there but we are going to continue to push
to try to get the men and women who served our nation off of
the street and into shelter.
Next slide.
These are some of the highlights from what has occurred from
the economic development.
Since I became the mayor in 2011 we permitted necessarily
$10 billion worth of construction.
Last year, we did 2.47 billion worth of profits, which set a
record for Tampa.
In fiscal year 16 we are projected to end about 2.3 billion,
and revenues in fiscal year 17 are anticipated to be
$7.5 million in revenues.
Those are good numbers.
We said from day one we couldn't cut our way out of the
recession, we had to grow our way out of the recession.
That's why we extreme lined the permitting process.
Heretofore we were not competitive, people did not want to
come Don business with us because the regulatory process was
so burdensome.
We have become the model of how to permit as opposed to the
poster child for bureaucracy and I couldn't be prouder of
our folks in construction services who are doing that.
Next slide.
We have invested over $96 million in some of our urban
neighborhoods.
Some of you participated in it.
We created a master plan that I think will be the blueprint
for Tampa's economic development for the next 25 years.
It's referred to as the InVision program.
Part of that InVision program was identifying the long-term
goals of the community, down to the granular level, and
investing the money accordingly. This wasn't a plan that I
was going to put on the shelf. This is a plan that we were
going to implement.
We are largely completed with than the bulk of that, but it
is important that that framework remain in existence long
after all of us are gone because that gives developers, it
gives investors, it gives neighborhoods an opportunity to
know what their future will look like based on a plan where
over 1800 people participated.
Center city, our urban core, is doing well.
Currently we have over 3,000 residential units that are
either under construction or contemplated to be under
construction over the next 12-18 months.
We invested over -- private capital has invested over $500
million in our downtown hotels and office buildings.
As many of you know, most of the buildings have flipped and
then sold.
That obviously adds value to the property tax revenues and
they are selling at a very, very high price point.
The decision by the University of South Florida after about
two and a half years of lobbying and effort at the state
level is going to move their medical school USF Morsani
institute to downtown Tampa.
I can tell you in no uncertain terms that is the most
significant event that has occurred in our urban core for
decades.
And I anticipate we will have a lasting impact, a
generational impact on the development of downtown.
As a result of that decision, the applications that USF med
school have already increased significantly, and the med cap
scores have risen in terms of the universities applying to
the medical school have been risen significantly.
That decision to move it to the downtown area has increased
the level of application, the quality of the application,
and I can tell you in terms of attracting faculty,
researchers and medical students, that decision is going to
be critical for us moving forward.
Next slide.
These are some of the projects in downtown Tampa that have
been announced or that are underway.
Not all in downtown.
There are some significant investment in Ybor City that we
have broken ground on or cut ribbons on, or we anticipate
moving forward, will be coming out of the ground in the
not-too-distant future.
Next slide.
Riverwalk tower on the site that shall not be named.
It's potentially the most significant new construction
project in downtown Tampa in 20 years.
It's a 52 story tower.
It's mixed use.
It's got 7 stories of parking, 14 stories of office space,
and 31 stories of luxury residential units.
Charlie Miranda has the penthouse reserved.
(Laughter)
Two penthouses?
I can't wait for the coffee shop when that's announced.
The view corridors over the bay will be the best view
corridors in the bay area.
I cannot be more excited.
That is private capital that is being invested largely
because of the investment that we made in the Riverwalk.
I mean, that's exactly an example of whereof public sector
investment at a very minimal amount will encourage private
capital that will be invested in that Riverwalk.
The ground floor of that particular project will be all
retail restaurants which is exactly what we need on the
Riverwalk.
That will be an amazing project for our waterfront being
developed by Larry Feldman and the architect out of
Shanghai.
It's going to be a pretty exciting project.
Next slide, please.
Obviously we are all familiar and City Council has been a
big, big part of it sitting as a CRA, our relationship with
Mr. Vinik, and strategic property partners, as well as
investments by Bill gate's investment fund.
That investment has grown to not just one billion but over
two billion and in more likelihood more on 40 acres in
downtown Tampa.
It obviously includes the USF institute and College of
Medicine, a new hotel, redeveloped plaza.
We'll break construction in conjunction with the city will
start in August of this year.
So we will start to see dirt being moved.
And I can tell you that I am appreciative of the support
that the CRA has given to this and our relationship with Mr.
Vinik.
This will return multi-fold back to the CRA as these
projects come online and start replenishing the CRA with
property tax revenues.
Next slide.
Tampa Heights project.
Most of you were at the announcement of this.
This project has been long overdue.
Council member Miranda and I were on the council when we did
the original development agreement.
It has been a long time coming.
We could not be more excited.
In my estimation that is one of the last best pieces in the
southeast United States in an urban core, on the waterfront.
Some of the best view corridors in downtown Tampa.
As you have seen by the success of Waterworks Park.
Again, an investment that we made as a city has triggered
the redevelopment of Ulele where Mr. Gonzmart is doing
significantly higher revenue projections than what he had
anticipated.
That tells you how successful and what a great destination
that is.
The Heights project will be equally successful.
The Encore project, a project by Tampa Housing Authority
that has taken a violent formerly public housing project,
Central Park Village, and the Encore project is coming out
of the ground as we speak.
That is a model for a Tampa Housing Authority HUD-city
relationship.
For those of you that have been there know its transformed
the lives of people that are living there now and is an
example of how a HUD project should work.
That was a choice neighborhood project.
I will talk about this a little later.
Competing for a choice neighborhood granted again this year,
but we have great partners in Tampa Housing Authority.
Next slide.
This is something that each of you should take great pride
in.
This particular project, four 40 years, six mayors, will
have an impact on the community that is immeasurable.
That is a destination that has opened up the waterfront for
our community and N ways that we hadn't even imagined.
It is bock becoming a gathering point.
It is the linkage between Channelside and the Tampa Heights
area.
It is a conduit for folks to explore our waterfront, to open
up that Hillsborough River, to make people realize -- and I
can't tell you how many conversations that I have listened
to over the last year and a half that that's been opened,
where people will come down on the Riverwalk, even long time
Tampanians who have not been down there in years, where
sidewalks rolled up at 5:00, people who lived here for five
generations, and they walk around looking like a kid in a
candy store.
And you hear them say to themselves, what happened here?
This is an amazing river.
Look, honey, look at the downtown.
Have you ever seen anything like this before?
Where did this come from?
I mean, I hear that conversation all the time.
I mean, Guido is out there every week walking on the
Riverwalk.
It is a destination, and I think transformed the way we feel
about ourselves, the way others look at us, and it will
trigger significant private capital that will more than
compensate for the investment that we made and that the
federal government made with us in the completion of that.
Doyle Carlton segment was completed connecting to the Straz.
Obviously the Straz, as a result of the success of the
Riverwalk, has embarked on a master planning process that
will fully take advantage of that waterfront access for our
Performing Arts Center, predominantly privately funded.
But it is doing exactly what we want it to do which is
activating that waterfront and creating the destination for
people to eat and drink and walk and enjoy the waterfront.
Next slide.
West Tampa redevelopment.
A private and a passion for council member Reddick and for
many of you honor remember as a child growing up in.
Council member Capin and I were talking at the
groundbreaking for Julian B. Lane and her comments to me
about this being long overdue.
We are dead on right.
This is an investment in a community that has not received
the same priority for decades that it deserved.
This is a significant investment and I am deeply
appreciative of all of you that supported this project
knowing full well that it was expensive, knowing full well
that, you know, in these type times these are tough
decisions that we have to make and you stood up and made
them and I am thankful for that.
And I think for the community that surrounds Julian B. Lane
Riverfront Park as well as our entire community, if you can
imagine what Curtis Hixon is to downtown, and that Curtis
Hixon is only five acres, just imagine what will happen in
West Tampa in areas around West Tampa with a 23-acre park,
and given what the plans are for this.
It will be transformative.
It will change West Tampa as we know it.
It is also a critical link to our efforts to redevelop North
Boulevard homes, the yard that we have at Spruce and Rome
that we are moving those vehicles off.
When of this is said and done this will be the largest
redevelopment project the city has ever undertaken in a
neighborhood that deserves it and desperately needs it.
It will be 150 acres.
That will be re-creating an entire section of our city.
We are competing for a choice neighborhood grant but I can
promise you this, whether we are successful or not, and it
is a very, very competitive process, I think we put one of
the best plans into submission that any city could possibly
do it.
It is bigger than most.
It's not just a public housing, it is a public-private
endeavor.
I think we will be competitive, but even if we are not
chosen, we are moving forward.
North Boulevard homes, I think there's 30% of the residents
that are still there.
Demolition will start in the first quarter of 2017.
We are almost complete.
Probably second quarter of 17 to move vehicles off of Rome
Avenue yard which will open up that land for redevelopment.
Those buildings will be demolished.
Our properties will be demolished up there.
So in essence you will have 150 acres of prime property on
the waterfront that will be redeveloped.
The residents of public housing will be allowed to come
back.
We are taking 800 units which currently exists to a total of
2300 units.
It's mixed use.
It's market rate as well as subsidized.
It will be a neighborhood that we are proud of and that
those children that live right now in North Boulevard homes,
that every day that they gone outside of their houses they
are at risk, will have the same quality of life as our kids
do, and they absolutely enjoy it.
So I could not be prouder.
Thank you to all of you that helped make that happen.
Next slide.
Julian B. Lane.
We did that.
All right.
Some of the companies that are excited to be here, we have
had a lot of interest in Tampa.
I would submit to you -- and I'm privy to a lot of these
conversations that for every major corporate relocation out
there, Tampa is on the list.
And we are on the short list.
We were in the top 4 for the GE relocation.
So we have become -- we are not going to get them all, but I
can tell you that we will get our share.
And I couldn't be more excited about that.
Next slide.
Obviously, Google fiber has found us.
We are working through that process right now.
We have been at this for about nine months, creating the
framework for which they can operate.
Our staff has been amazing in terms of facilitating that
process.
Up guys have been supportive.
You have some votes coming up shortly on some of the
agreements and some of the franchise agreements.
Google fiber puts us opt on the map in ways that we can't
even imagine at this point.
The fact they looked it up and Jacksonville are the only two
cities in Florida they were contemplating.
I think we are close to realizing that.
But when it's all said and done the fact that we will be
wired with Google fiber, which is about 100 times faster
than existing networks, really makes us more competitive,
and in that technology space will drive a lot of growth.
Next slide.
Johnson and Johnson, another world class company that is
calling Tampa home.
We continue to track those.
Next slide.
But it's not all about corporate growth.
It's about neighborhood support and quality of life.
We, as you know, have been passionate about taking care of
our neighborhoods, particularly our neighborhoods that need
our intervention the most.
We have really emboldened and empowered code enforcement,
some of the concerns that you have raised over the years.
We have added bodies, which is important.
We have added equipment.
We have been very targeted in terms of the neighborhoods
that we are attacking, if you will.
If you look at some of those numbers up there, I think you
will find them to be pretty astounding.
Jake Slater and Rogero everybody really good about what this
mission is about.
80% of compliance for code enforcement.
All of us nobody what you hear more than anything is code.
All of us know that has an impact on quality of life and
those neighborhoods that have neighbors that are not
cooperating or absentee landlords, we have got to be
aggressive about going after them and cleaning up the areas.
We cross trained solid waste employees.
We added heavy additional equipment to remove debris.
It has been a tremendous success.
2015 -- and I know this is near and dear to Councilman
Reddick's heart -- we cleaned up 906 illegal dumping sites.
We know what that means in a community.
We know what people back up that pickup truck in the alley
or vacant lot and dump out old mattresses or refrigerators,
if it's not dealt with immediately it attracts more and more
and becomes a dump.
I see it every day as I'm driving around.
East Tampa in particular has been challenged by folks who
were dumping.
So we made this a priority.
We anticipate in 2016 that we will do 920 illegal dumping
sites that we have cleaned.
In terms of debris that we remove, in 2015, we did almost
two tons of debris.
Actually, we did a lot more than that.
Yes, 200,000 -- 2,000 tons of debris.
That we picked up on alleys and lots that would have stayed
there had we not been out there doing this.
The other project that we are particularly proud of that we
started in the last five years is neighborhood university.
We had five graduating classes.
We are going to build a network of strong neighborhood
access that will be here long after all of us are gone.
It's to empower the next generation of neighborhood
activists.
We have set up a training program.
It has been wildly successful.
I think if you talk to anybody that has been through that,
they will tell you it's one of the most rewarding civic
things that they have done.
Over 190 civic activities have been through the neighborhood
university.
Next slide.
Nehamiah project, Sulphur Springs, an area absent our
intervention.
I think Sulphur Springs was teetering on the verge of chaos
and collapse, and thanks to a lot of our private sector
partners, some of our religious community, from Idlewild
Baptist, from some of the other churches in the Sulphur
Springs area to the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club and the
children's board, all of whom made this a priority, all of
whom put their own parochial views aside and worked
together.
The Sulphur Springs elementary school is going from a K-6 to
a K through 8 to make sure we can track those kids, keep
them in the same neighborhood.
I think this has been an amazing success story in a
collaborative fashion.
We have a small role in it in terms of some of the code
issues.
All of you out here when we launched the Nehemiah project,
we have already demolished 53 basically abandoned houses and
structures.
11 new homes were constructed.
Phase 2 will continue this year, and we will be adding
additional homes with the project.
Next slide.
Something new and dear to council member Montelione's heart.
And this will be her last budget.
So this is our gift to our friends and neighbors in the New
Tampa area.
In the fiscal year 2017 budget, we will be constructing fire
station number 23.
We had acquired the land previously.
The growth in New Tampa is now starting to emerge again.
During the recession it was virtually nothing.
But we recognize now that with the anticipated entitlements
and the demand for housing up in New Tampa, that we needed
to fulfill that obligation, and so we will be building fire
station number 23.
We also have included in future years planning dollars and
construction dollars for fire station number 24 which will
be done.
We have got design dollars in there which will be done as
the growth couldn't to occur.
But fire station 23 will be built.
Next slide.
Another project that all of you should be very, very proud
of.
Many years in the making. This was a commitment that was
made prior to most of us being here.
Mayor a or owe had faith in the community but it was up to
us to get it done.
This is about an 8.7 million project and I am confident in
saying that it is probably the largest investment in the
celebration of Tampa history of African-Americans,
particularly the African-American community on Central
Avenue in the State of Florida.
But for us, this was personal for me.
I knew many of the people that are highlighted on those
walls, and it's an issue and a park that allows the
community to come together again on that common ground, and
to understand and to learn about the contributions of our
African-American forefathers and community citizens that
helped get us where we are today.
They have never been recognized before in this significant a
fashion.
I am couldn't think of a better way to do it from Steve
Banders Sr. to Mr. Harvey.
It is as Mr. Reddick said, at the groundbreaking, an
opportunity for our kids to learn our history, because if
they don't see it, they don't read it, they don't learn it,
they don't appreciate it.
This gives them the opportunity to appreciate the
contributions of our fellow citizens.
And I couldn't be prouder.
This is a cool place.
And we accommodated the skate bowl.
The skaters after they jumped over me when they broke the
ground have moved from where they hated me to now they think
I'm the coolest mayor in America.
So I'll take it.
I'll take it.
Next slide.
Again we are refocusing our historic buildings just like we
did the old federal courthouse, just like we did the water
works building.
This is something that this council was strongly in favor
of.
It was not without its challenges.
I acknowledge that.
It has been rebuilt in years past.
It wasn't done correctly.
It had been shuttered for a number of years.
But thanks to the advocacy of this council, particularly
council member Reddick, we were able to find the money to be
able to do that.
This is a place where council member Miranda grew up, where
he learned to swim.
Not Olympic caliber, but, you know, those water wings were
okay.
(Laughter).
09:40:42 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
I'm going to be in Rio.
Where are you going to be?
(Laughter).
09:40:48 >>YVONNE CAPIN:
Not the growing up part.
09:40:55 >> This is the place for along of long time Tampanians, and
many of our ball players came out of this park, Charlie
included, a place where children learned how to swim.
I will tell you, though, these historic pools are difficult
projects to do.
We find that out with the pools, Roy Jenkins on Davis
islands, and this is not an inexpensive project, because of
the nature of it, because it's elevated, above ground.
These kind of pools are prone to leaking.
So we are hopeful -- and we took some extra measures to make
sure that it doesn't, and we were willing to pay for that in
terms of high capacity liners and things like that, that
than we hope that to not occur.
But we are going to open that up in August.
So it's going to be a great time for the kids in that
neighborhood to learn how to swim.
Because I can tell you, far communities of color,
particularly our African-American community, the inability
to swim leads to tragic consequences.
And we need these kids to get in that pool to learn how to
swim, because they will be faced with circumstances down the
road that they may not be able to deal with if they don't
have the opportunity to swim.
We have also added to the budget.
And you will see this a little bit further down the road in
terms of personnel.
We are going to staff this pool six days a week year round.
And we are going to do the same thing at Roy Jenkins pool.
There will be staggered hours, but I didn't want these
pools -- made the investment to put heaters in them, and we
are looking at heaters for Roy Jenkins.
I want this pool to be used a lot.
I want these kids to have access to it year round.
I was willing to put that extra money in here and we are
going to put the extra staff to accommodate it so it can be
six days a week year round.
Staff is not cheap, as you know.
Next slide.
Another great project, Cal Ripken, the iron man, who hold
the record in major league baseball for the most consecutive
games played.
We in conjunction thanks to Greg Bayor with his foundation
has built a world-class baseball, softball, athletic field
in Sulphur Springs at Spring Hill park.
If you haven't seen it, you need to go see it.
It truly is a world class facility in a very tough
neighborhood.
If we can keep kids on the athletic field we can keep them
out of trouble.
So this park -- and you can see Cal Ripken right there --
this park really was a partnership that was well worth it.
I appreciate Greg Bayors having a relationship with Cal rip
Kens to bring it here.
It's going to be one of those legacy type projects that I
hope you are all proud of.
Next slide.
Another similar project that we are involved in to some
degree.
I think this will anchor the redevelopment of the West River
area.
This is the Bryan Glazer family, JCC.
It was the armory at one point, another historic structure
that had been abandoned for many, many years.
The J will be a destination for everybody in the community,
not just the members of our Jewish community.
It will be a place where everyone can come.
They are doing an amazing job out there.
It is going to be the anchor on that end and a place where
the community can gather.
They will have swimming pools we are moving our arts program
in partnership with the J.
It will have a brand new arts studio in that facility.
So that will encourage people to take advantage of it.
We are hiring some additional people to staff it.
But I think it's the kind of partnership.
And this building is being built with state funding.
Obviously with local donations from people like the Glazer
family and Mr. Vinik, as well as city dollars and county
dollars.
So it's a true public-private partnership that will take an
old historic building and repurpose it.
Next slide.
Obviously, Bayshore Boulevard, the most beautiful street in
the State of Florida.
I hear more compliments about Bayshore Boulevard than almost
anything we have done.
People love of what we have done on Bayshore Boulevard.
They are proud of that street, and with the enhancement that
we have made, it really has become, I think, even more
attractive than it already was.
The West River trail, eventually we will have a trail on the
west side of the river that will start at the site of the
old Tribune building, which will in short order be
demolished, and there will be 400 units of residential
there.
That trail will start there.
And I hope eventually on Bayshore, but it will start and
move all the way through Plant Park which we own, which we
have finished the construction on thanks to our partner with
the University of Tampa.
We own the east behind Tampa prep.
The trail will continue through Riverfront Park.
We already have the easement and existing trail behind Blake
high school that has been closed off, and then we have the
easements going all the way up to Rick's on the river.
So wash you see here with hopefully an addition of some, you
know, historic, at veterans, will literally start at the
Tribune building all the way up to Rick's on the river
connecting the side of the river now.
So it's pretty exciting.
All right, now for the nitty gritty.
Next slide.
All right.
This is our budget.
This is where the rubber hits the road.
We have a gross budget of over a billion dollars.
Net budget of $905 million.
You can see how the budget is broken out.
There are really two pots of money which all of you know.
It's important as we talk to a larger audience here that
folks understand some of the constraints that we have.
Two pots of money.
One being enterprise fund.
And that's under the direction of Brad Baird, water, sewer,
wait water, self-sufficient based on rates.
Generally, we set that aside.
We can't use a pot of dollars to pay for personnel and
things like that on the general revenue side.
Enterprise funds represent about $351 million.
The general fund which is generally what we talk about here,
generally where we have the most flexibility and ability to
prioritize nonenterprise funds activities.
General funds includes police, fire, parks, all of the
general government activities.
It is personnel heavy
Because of the nature of what these departments do.
And personnel largely drives this budget.
The more bodies you have, the more money it costs you.
Because you are talking about pension contribution, talking
about health care costs.
It is a budget of city government, any government is driven
largely by its people.
So that's the breakout in the general sense of where we are.
Next slide.
This is the general fund expenditures.
And this is largely where we spend most of our time.
As you can see -- and this has diminished really since -- I
started in 1987 and it was largely the same.
Public safety.
These two gentlemen right here, their departments gobble up
65 percent of our general revenue budget.
Now, that's a good thing.
We want our community safe.
We will deploy the manpower necessary to keep it safe.
When someone calls 911, we want this fireman to have the
tools and capabilities and the manning to be able to
respond.
If you don't have a safe community in every sense of the
word, both on the police and fire side, you can't attract
those kinds much companies of that we saw.
Our crime rate in the City of Tampa in the last decade has
dropped over 60%.
I would submit to you that there are not many cities in this
country that can lay claim to a crime reduction like what we
have experienced here in Tampa under the leadership of Steve
Hogue and Jane Castor and now chief Eric Ward.
That is a real accomplishment and something that we should
be proud of and every neighborhood of our city is safer,
particularly some of our tougher neighborhoods thanks to the
work of TPD and their partners Tampa fire and rescue.
Next slide.
Here we go.
This is what it will look -- what it looked like in 2011
when most of us came here.
As you can see, red is bad.
Blue is good.
That's what Sonya told me when I came here.
Red is bad, blue is good.
2011, you can see that the expenditures far surpass the
revenues.
Each year since then, we have been getting closer and closer
to being able to balance the budget, having revenues meet
expenditures.
2015 was the first year that we were able to pull that off.
Again, bear in mind that we came in here with a $30 million
deficit.
Folks -- and I can't overstate this -- all of us
collectively, we will be lucky in this economy to start a
budget process in the eight years that we will be together
not in a deficit position.
We are not out of the woods yet.
2015 is balanced.
16 is balanced.
17 is balanced.
Moving forward, though, I will tell you that we will have
some challenges.
And we are going to talk about that a little bit later.
But those red lines, meeting the blue line, is a very, very
good thing and we have come a long way over the last five
years.
Next slide.
Millage rates.
I was here the last time we raised it.
Charlie, I think you were, too.
It was 1989.
Mayor Freedman at the time raise it to hire more police
officers.
Raised the millage one mill.
We talked about safe streets.
The millage has not been raised in 29 years.
27 years.
Moving forward, we will be challenged to maintain that
record.
But I think you should be proud -- certainly I am -- that
this is a government that has operated within its means, and
moving forward for the last 27 years has maintained that
millage rate at a consistent level.
Now, people will pay more taxes depending on the valuation
of their home but based on our responsibility that has
remained constant.
I think we are one of only three cities in the State of
Florida that has not raised its millage rate over the last
probably five, six years.
Next slide.
This is where we have been struggling.
If you look at 2007, property tax revenues generated
166.2 million.
2011 when we came to office collectively, most of us, that
has dropped to $112 million, the first budget I put together
we were down to $119.4 million.
There were 700 people less than what we were in 2007.
Mayor Iorio had to make some tough decisions in that 2007,
8, 9 years.
We have been doing the same job better than we have ever
done it before with 700 less people and a net loss of over
$230 million.
From 2007 to where we find ourselves today.
That is an accomplishment and a testimony to the people
behind me.
And it speaks volumes about how much smarter we work, how we
deploy technology, how we deploy our resources, but
ultimately it's a compliment to the folks who get up every
day in this department and this city who go to work with
$230 million less dollars doing the same thing, performing
the same job, and doing it better than we have ever done
before.
Fortunately, things are changing.
Part of the challenge is two fold.
One, much of the growth in the tax base and tax rate has
occurred in our CRA.
Downtown in particular.
Which means that increase in revenue is captured in the TIF
and has to remain in the TIF.
All the buildings that you see downtown and all the new
construction, all of our revenue remains in the TIF and
cannot be used for general obligations, general revenue
obligation.
The other part of that challenge is as a result of save our
homes, while all of us enjoyed a tax reduction as a result
of the values of our homes' decline, there is a 3% cap on
the appreciation.
So even though those values are now climbing back up, and in
some cases we are beyond where we were in 2007, the city can
only recapture a maximum of 3% increase per year.
So it takes up a long time to get from those 2007 numbers
back to where we were -- or we probably will be five years
before we get back to where be we were in 2007 largely
because of our inability to recapture that appreciation.
It makes it very, very difficult for cities and counties and
schools who rely on property tax revenue to fund the bulk of
their activity.
Don't forget that chart.
Next slide.
Our two friends here in uniform, most people find this
azing when we tell this story.
We generate $153 million in property taxes.
And they always say when I bring this slide up.
They are looking at their shoes right now.
(Laughter)
$153 million of property tax.
Those two departments alone, just those two departments,
cost us $240 million.
So you can see the balancing act that we have to do to fund
all the other departments and work that we do when these two
agencies eat up a large significant sum of our revenues.
Next slide.
Next slide.
All right.
Fund balance.
A critical part of what we are.
One of the reasons that we are so highly regarded by Wall
Street.
And I can tell you that Sonya lives and breathes fund
balance.
Because she knows how important that is to our financial
security and the industry's opinion of our debt.
Obviously Mayor Iorio left us very healthy.
29% fund balance.
That allowed us to get through those next three brutal
years.
City Council was supportive of that.
Not something that we want to engage in on a yearly basis.
We try to avoid it at all cost.
But there was no option.
We had to do that.
But we never dropped below 24% and the Wall Street rating
agency standard for cities and counties is 20%.
And we always maintain a significant cushion, and as a
result of that, you know, our status is really, really
highly regarded, and debt we issue is snapped up almost
immediately.
Fiscal year 17, we are at 23% fund balance.
Again maintaining well beyond the reserves that we need to
continue.
Next slide.
This is another chart that you should be proud of.
This shows how aggressive we have been at keeping our
personnel increases to a minimum.
Remember what I talked about earlier in terms of what drives
our budget.
It's largely personnel costs.
I knew that as the recession started to recede, typically
what government does is sort of a binge purge, in the good
times they load up on people and in the bad times they end
up laying people off.
I knew that we couldn't do that and I was not going to be
supportive of any of those kinds of efforts.
You have heard me tell you -- and Dennis Rogero will attest
to it -- I am renew every new item, every personnel addition
we make has to get approved by me.
Every travel request has to be approved by me, because I
know that incremental creep is what drives these numbers in
the wrong direction.
So our population has continuously to grow.
But our employees numbers have continuously to remain the
same.
And in 2016, we got that employee number down from 43,774
employees in 2012, we got it down to 4,370.
2017 we are adding some additional bodies largely in
departments that generate the revenue that will refund that,
replace it.
Construction services being a great example.
With more permit activity, more construction demand, we need
people to keep pushing those projects through the pipeline.
Also done an amazing job speeding up that process.
They are overworked and we needed more people.
But the good thing is the more permits we issue, the more
revenue we get.
So I can justify that.
We have added some bodies in parks as well to accommodate
the pool hours.
In enterprise funds we have some people, something near and
dear to chief Ford's heart.
We have added bodies, particularly mechanics, to help move
those vehicles of which we have a lot out of the garages and
back out on the streets.
And we have made some significant changes in our fleet
department.
They were desperately needed and long overdue.
And that department is now like solid waste before has now
been cleaned up and fixed.
Well, it's not fixed yet but going to get it fixed, and we
will be a lot more productive than we have been
historically.
Next slide.
All right.
Another good chart for us in comparison to other cities.
We are the blue on the left.
At this point the number of employees per population.
And you will see that we have less employees per population
than almost any city in the State of Florida, and yet we do,
I think, a better job than most of them.
Our employees per thousand residents is 11.8.
Others are at 15.3, 13.8, 12.8, 12.2.
We are the lowest in the State of Florida.
That is a good thing.
That's how we keep our costs down.
Next slide.
General employees pension.
As all of you know, our pensions as public pensions go are
probably in the top one percent in terms of their stability.
It's the longevity of it.
The commitment that we have made to continue to fund it at
100%.
And when the cities take pension holiday and they don't
fund, their pension obligations based on anticipation of the
marketplace doing well, that's how they get into trouble.
That's one.
Reasons Jacksonville's has plummeted probably 35%.
They have multi-billion dollar liability in their pensions
that I don't know how they are going to get out of but it
was because a lot of mayors didn't do the right thing.
So we do the right things.
We have funded it at 100%.
But marketplace instability last year, as well as revised
mortality rates, things that we don't control, we have to
react to them, and we are obligated to live up to our
contributions, but we don't control the marketplace.
It has resulted in an increase in pension contributions to
both general employees as well as police and fire.
They are funded at 92% for GE.
Next slide.
And 93% for F&P.
I would submit to you there aren't too many pensions in the
country that are as well run, as well funded, and as well
invested in the City of Tampa's and you should be proud of
that.
But they are not inexpensive.
When the market goes south, contributions go up as well as
the contributions in F and P of the employees.
I think they are north -- and Steve may correct me -- of 12%
contributions from their paychecks to their pension.
It is a shared pain shared gain scenario.
That's exactly why this is so successful and why it has done
so well and why we were all in this together.
But you will see again those pension contributions are not
inexpensive.
And we have to allocate for that every year.
Next slide.
All right.
Another burden on us as it is on any government, any
household.
Health care costs.
If you look at the blue line, the blue line is bad, the
green line is good.
These are annual health care costs on a national health care
trend which is the blue line.
As you can see, they are going straight up basically.
And what you see is the City of Tampa's health care trend.
And as you can see, we are far below the national health
care trend.
We are managing our costs better than the national average.
There are a couple of reasons for that, one of which is the
clinics that we established in 2011.
Those two wellness centers receive 60,000 visits for our
employees or their dependents.
That's over 7,000 visitors.
Over 45,000 prescriptions have been filled at those centers.
This gives our employees an opportunity to monitor and
manage their own health by providing them these clinics that
hi think have largely led to us being below the national
average in terms of health care costs.
But both lines are still going up.
We are going to have to have some discussion over the next
year about our health care plan.
We are self-funded.
If we get a few bad cases, which we did this year, cases
that are worth millions of dollars, that has a direct impact
on that line right there.
So we are going to have to have a discussion about our
health care costs, about the prioritization, about the costs
associated with it.
It's going to impact our employees to some degree but we
can't continue to run at that rate.
It's be significant, and we need to pay attention to it.
So there is more to come on that front.
Next slide.
These are the medical trend rates for other jurisdictions
around us.
If you see significant lower numbers in the right hand
column, 3.6, 3.9, in all likelihood that is because they are
dipping into their reserves to pay for health care costs.
As you can see, we are below the national medical trend at
7.4.
Medical trend nationally at 8%.
The ones you see there, for example, city of St. Pete 8%
being the national trend.
The premium increase at 3.6.
They are funding that out of somewhere else.
We are trying to pass the true costs on to the folks that
are absolutely using it.
Next slide.
All right.
These are our capital improvement numbers.
I am not going to go through them all but obviously you can
see it's a lot of money.
We have got a lot of improvements.
A lot of deferred maintenance that we have to have do that
we weren't able to do because of the recession that we are
now trying to catch up on.
There's a lot of things in there from the convention center
to water, weight water, transportation, T and I, solid
waste, that we will be prioritizing this year.
Next slide.
Next slide.
This is the chart that I am particularly proud of.
Look at 2003.
There was 2.6 million invested in our neighborhoods.
And look at where we are now in this budget that I am giving
you.
Julian B. Lane, that is a $69.5 million investment in
projects that affect our neighborhoods in every one of your
districts.
Obviously, 34.5% of it is Riverfront Park, but even if you
take that 35 million-dollar out of it, it's a -- without
JBL, you are at about $34.5 million which is $14 million
more than last year's budget, which when I came in in 2012
we were at 12.4.
We have increased it every year moving forward to make sure
that our neighborhoods get the benefits that they deserve,
that we catch up on deferred maintenance that we do new
projects if we are able to, but that we understand that our
neighborhood are where people live.
And downtown is a neighborhood.
We have other needs out there that we have to accommodate.
But if we don't have the growth we can't Don the things we
need to Don to take care of streets in Sulphur Springs in
East Tampa, North Tampa, and Tampa Heights.
Next slide.
These are some of the investments that we will be making.
Obviously fire station 23.
We have got stormwater issue in here, and that stormwater
number is our commitment to what we hope will be a
successful stormwater initiative that you guys will be
dealing with in the not-too-distant future.
Thanks to your input we have revised that plan, and doing
the very best that we can to minimize the impact on the
people that we represent by using other sources of money, 20
million including CIT dollars.
But I can tell you that absent a successful vote on that
plant there is very little stormwater money in this budget.
We need that vote.
We need you guys to do the right thing on that, because our
ability to fix the stormwater problem, not in its
entirety -- we are never going to fix in the its entirety --
but mitigate significantly the impact.
I know it's not cheap.
I recognize that.
I deal with these numbers every day.
But I also see the impact every day of not doing what we
need to do.
It's going to be a courageous vote on your part.
I understand that.
I understand the pushback that you will get from some.
But I would only ask you to look at the long-term of this
community.
We cannot duck tape and patch our stormwater system with
existing revenues.
We have got to have a dedicated revenue source.
And so I would only ask you to, in the quiet of night, as
you think about that decision and that vote, just think
about the long-term impact of this.
And I am confident that you guys will dough the right thing.
Next slide.
Obviously roads are a big part of it.
People accuse us of having every road in the city torn up.
That's not entirely inaccurate.
(Laughter)
But they desperately needed it.
You know, there was a lot of deferred maintenance that
hadn't occurred on our road network.
Resurfacing, potholes.
we, to the extent that we can afford it, are trying to do
the best that we can to fix it.
I recognize it's an inconvenience.
I am on the road every day, always in the city, and I get
it.
But I also understand, like the stormwater issue, we can't
continue to keep our heads in the sand and pretend it
doesn't exist.
We have got to fix our infrastructure.
Next slide.
Next slide.
These are some of the -- and I will go through these pretty
quickly -- these are some but not all the projects in than
each of the respective -- well, this is stormwater capital
improvement plan.
If council votes to approve this, this is where you are
going to see the improvement.
These are projects that your vote will allow us to do.
They are throughout the city.
Obviously some areas of our community have more challenges
than others.
It allows everybody in this community to bear a small burden
to accomplish this.
You can't do it by individual district.
It has to be a community-wide effort.
And we can't look at this, our neighborhood doesn't have
problems so therefore I shouldn't pay.
This is an issue that affects shall.
We drive through.
Our cars get flooded in it.
It doesn't matter what neighborhood you are in.
You are affected by it and we need to find some way to do
something about it.
Next slide.
What you see in the red that is anticipation of a positive
vote.
What you see in the blue is what will happen if there's not
a positive vote.
We don't have the revenues in that stormwater assessment to
do major improvement.
I'm just telling you right now.
We don't have it.
I don't anticipate us having it.
He would literally will be patching old pipes.
Absent a dedicated revenue source.
Next slide.
These are some of the projects.
I know this is hard to see so I will GOP through this
quickly.
In individual single-member districts.
Next slide.
You will have in your packet these projects identified.
This is not the entirety of it.
Some of the more significant ones.
Next slide.
Next slide.
Next slide.
All right.
Enterprise fund.
We will go through this quickly.
Obviously very stable.
Very well-run.
Great leadership in each of the departments.
A lot of work getting done out here.
Water, weight water, solid waste, parking, parking is
healthy, unlike a number of years ago where it was
hemorrhaging.
Parking has gotten much better moving forward.
Next slide.
Of this is one of the things that I, Sonya, Mike Perry, some
of the folks in the first two or three rows, are really
proud of.
In spite of the worst recession since the great depression,
in spite of the fact that we started this journey together
$30 million in the hole, in spite of the fact that those
unemployment numbers were what they were, and the
devaluation of our property was what it was, your city has
received eight rating upgrades since 2011.
I don't know of a jurisdiction certainly around here,
perhaps in the state, that can lay claim to 8 upgrades of
our credit rating like we can.
We are in good financial position in terms of Wall Street.
They recognize that.
They recognize the leadership of the people you see behind
us.
They recognize that we have made the tough decisions in
order to make sure that we were stable, that we were
financially solid.
Those rating increases, like your own personal credit
rating, means that you can buy more because your credit
rating is better and you are paying less of an interest
rate.
When we go to the markets to float debt, we get that debt at
a lower rate because this slide that you see right here.
That is a very, very complicated but very, very positive
thing for this city.
And you guys should be really, really proud.
Next slide.
So as we wrap this up, these are what we set out to do every
year in terms of the larger parameters and framework for how
this government works.
These are our goals and our missions.
This is how we wrap this up.
Always try to think of these main goals.
We have a number in this budget, as all of you know, we are
in the mid of negotiating with our three bargaining units,
the ATU, local 754, International association of
firefighters, and the PBA.
All of their leadership is here.
They have been great partners with us moving forward.
We started that negotiations as all of you know, when I
first came in, we did a three-year deal because I wanted to
give them the certainty of what the future looked like, and
we gave our employees a deal that in spite of all of those
things that we were dealing with, I think reflective of the
value that we hold them in, and the appreciation for what
they do.
We can never do enough for them.
But we do what we can with the resources that we have.
The number that is in this budget literally is a placeholder
because we will be going through this problem sees for the
next couple weeks with our bargaining units.
It has been open.
I don't hide anything.
And I hope that they will tell you that we start this with
basically -- this is what we have, folks.
I don't have secret account, you don't have to hire a
forensic accountant to be see what we have.
I think it's good for all of us because we get a perspective
briefly for what it's like to sit in my chair and have to
balance all of these competing needs.
Sole we will be negotiating with them over the next couple
of weeks, and come to you as a council.
There will be hurdles.
That's just part of the negotiating process.
I will do for them what I can.
But what I can't do I will tell them.
And I will tell them why I can't do it.
And I can't put us at financial risk moving forward because
that would be fiscally irresponsible.
But I absolutely will do for the men and women that serve us
and serve this community everything that I possibly can
within what I have.
I am now turning this over to you guys.
I have talked way too long.
It has been -- it's a complicated process.
As all of you know, this budget is balanced.
But it wasn't easy getting there.
This has been the toughest budget that we have had over the
last five years in terms of all of the low hanging fruit has
been picked.
I mean, we have dug through every account.
We have eliminated every unfilled position.
We have moved money around.
We have done everything we possibly could to get to this
point.
There is little fat in this budget.
I can tell you moving forward, in spite of the fact that the
economy is doing better, in spite of the fact that the
construction industry is doing better, we will have
challenges.
Whether it's health care costs, whether it's pension
contributions, whether it's the payroll package that we put
together, we are not out of the woods yet.
And I don't want to leave this city three years from now in
a position that whoever follows me and whoever follows a lot
of you will really have to make much tougher decisions than
we have had to make over the last five years.
That is not something that I would prefer to do, and I will
do everything I can to avoid that.
But I can tell you that if you pluck something out of this
budget it's going to affect something else somewhere else.
And so the council has been very supportive of what we have
done for the last five years.
You know, you have made some suggestions or some additions.
But this is an very tightly woven budget.
And moving things are going to affect other things.
There is no fat here, no additional money we parked
somewhere that we can plug in.
So as I turn this over to you, I would urge you to look at
it in the context of that, because we don't have much room.
We really do not have much room.
The budget is balanced.
Depending on the union negotiations.
We may have to come back to you for a budget allocation that
is entirely within the realm of possibilities.
But I would hope that as we move forward that we can
continue with all the great things that we have done.
These are exciting times for our community.
And so as I wrap this up, I would be remiss if I didn't
thank the folks that are sitting right here behind me. This
is a year in the making.
I mean, we start this problem sees after you adopt the
budget on September 31st for the next year. This is a
constant process for our revenue and finance people.
They do amazing work.
The amount of detail that's involved in pulling all of this
together, all the scenarios, and the things that we have to
do to get this done, couldn't happen without our amazing
staff.
What I would like to do first and foremost is recognize our
revenue and finance staff led by the ever-capable Sonya
Little.
Would you all stand up?
[ Applause ]
These people do an amazing job.
They do an amazing job to get us to this point.
I would put them up against any revenue and finance
department in the country.
And I would have no problem telling them that we are the
best.
So thank you to all of you for making this happen.
Then the other part of this equation is all the other folks
that are here today that serve you, serve this community.
We have had a great team in place for five years.
The vast majority of them were here when I got here and have
stayed with me through the duration.
I couldn't do what I do without them.
So with all the rest of the city folks, stand up, take a
bow.
[ Applause ]
That being said, council members, colleagues, the budget is
yours.
Thank you for the indulgence.
I appreciate all that we have accomplished together.
I can tell you this, that when we leave here, this will be a
different city.
And all of you should be proud of what you have done to help
make it that way.
Councilwoman Montelione, good luck to you.
We have enjoyed having you here for five years and the
contributions that you have made.
All the best, and to whoever fills your seat this fall,
let's train them up, right?
10:22:19 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
She still has a few more months, Mr. Mayor.
10:22:21 >> I know.
10:22:22 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Thank you for the budget presentation.
Mr. Miranda had a comment to make.
10:22:25 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Mr. Mayor, thank you for your
presentation.
Thanks to all of your staff.
There's a couple of things today.
There are three new words.
Next slide please. You did very well.
Then there are rumors that I have to dispel.
Every time I turn on the TV or read the newspaper it says
you are going to maybe run for another office and that you
may be appointed to some person if that person gets elected
president.
And then now you just said that you are going to finish your
term the next three years.
Which one is it?
(Laughter)
10:22:59 >> Wow.
10:23:00 >> They are just rumors.
10:23:01 >>CHARLIE MIRANDA:
Those are rumors, Mr. Mayor.
I hate to put you in the hot seat.
I know you have other things -- (Laughter)
10:23:12 >> Whatever it is, Mr. Miranda, it will be huge!
(Laughter)
10:23:19 >> Charlie Miranda:
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
10:23:31 >>MIKE SUAREZ:
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our
special call meeting for the budget.
We are going to take a five-minute recess so that we can
reset for our CRA meeting.
Those folks here for CRA, please be patient.
We will be back in five minutes.
Thank you.
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