[0:07] >> mayor freaney: good morning and welcome to the
[0:09] september 1st, 2026 -- how did it get to be
[0:11] september 1st? City commission workshop.
[0:12] I want to call thepeting to order -- call the meeting to
[0:15] order. And before we start, I'll let
[0:17] jen do this. You're going to have a moment of
[0:18] siwill knows. You're going to do that?
[0:23] okay. And our pledge of allegiance.
[0:25] and I'll go to jen. If we would just stand.
[0:30] >> let us begin this meeting by taking a brief moment of silbs
[0:33] and turning our -- silence and turning our thoughts to the
[0:37] family of former mayor bob hackworth.
[0:44] [moment of silence] amen.
[0:47] [pledge of allegiance] >> mayor freaney: okay, and just
[1:05] to reiterate, our thoughts continue to go out to former
[1:08] mayor bob hackworth's wife gwen and his son bobby and his
[1:13] daughter maddie that chi they d of go a new way and we're with
[1:17] them and I know a celebration of life has been set, so that'll be
[1:21] out there, so okay. We have, we're missing two of
[1:26] our comrades today. And one is out of town on a
[1:33] contract that he had to be at, and then the other one I think
[1:36] is returning from out of the country, so he might be in
[1:41] flight right now so if I could have a motion to excuse vice
[1:46] mayor walker and commissioner dugard.
[1:49] >> so moved. >> I just want the dramatic
[1:52] effect. [laughter]
[1:53] is all. Yeah.
[1:56] second. >> jen, there's actually,
[1:57] there's no motions or action taken I. Well, that's true.
[2:03] >> you don't even need to. >> why isn't there one?
[2:07] >> mayor freaney: I mean, because they have to --
[2:08] >> can we do it on thursday. >> mayor freaney: I guess we can
[2:10] do it on thursday because they have to have the excuse or
[2:13] otherwise they get dinged. Okay, we'll do it thursday.
[2:16] okay, well thanks a lot for that then, and -- yeah.
[2:21] [laughter] and yeah.
[2:23] the joke was on you I think. So yeah.
[2:27] and, and, and we don't have our city manager this morning, but
[2:30] we do have our deputy city manager, jorge quintas, so we'll
[2:34] try to be brutal on him. That's, you know, kind of --
[2:37] that's always our strategy. Okay so we got presentations.
[2:42] library card sign-up month. And commissioner sandbergen is
[2:46] going to, I'm going to turn that over to him for proclamation
[2:49] and -- >> phyllis, can we bring them
[2:52] ?up. >> mayor freaney: got the whole
[2:53] team here today, look at them: she's got the famous dress
[2:56] on too. >> she does.
[2:58] >> you're going to be by yourself then.
[3:00] we'll recognize all of them. I appreciate the opportunity to
[3:04] read today's proclamation. In the rast year the library I
[3:09] knew it was important but it's even becomemore important to me
[3:12] personally. And as a city commissioner, on
[3:16] july 30th, I had a chance to read the end of summer with the
[3:19] dunedin blue jays, and I think it went absolutely incredible.
[3:23] you know, those little kids get to see these pro baseball
[3:27] players and realize august 15th I got to go to the
[3:29] summer reading challenge at td ballpark, and again, to
[3:33] recognize the kids for what they've done and to, you know,
[3:37] give our thumbs up to the library.
[3:39] and then on the 19th of august, kimberly was fortunate
[3:46] you know willing to come on toronto blue jays podcast with
[3:50] me and to talk about what the library means in the
[3:54] relationship with the blue jays and not just baseball on the
[3:57] field and it's exactly what the city needed.
[4:00] and lastly, over the weekend, I got to go read again with the
[4:03] juvenile welfare board. Is that what jwb?
[4:07] and firefighter joel ray and I and kimberly read to the kids.
[4:11] and I appreciate everything that this library and you all do for
[4:15] this community. >> mayor freaney: so before you
[4:16] read -- so is his writing skills getting better with all this or
[4:19] is that helping him? It's getting better?
[4:22] okay. >> I have to say thank you to
[4:24] kimberly because she gives me each page has about 10 words on
[4:31] it. [laughter]
[4:32] so I do, and I do, I appreciate it everything that you do and
[4:35] you know before I read this, I heard a word mentioned down
[4:37] there this weekend that really stuck with me, and I believe it
[4:43] was said by one of your staff members and it was to joe and I.
[4:47] trophist a young lady in -- there was a young lady therein
[4:50] that was asking questions and it was referred to as a spot where
[4:53] she feels safe. And you know that really landed
[4:58] with me. And I say it's bip discussed
[4:59] back there. It really made me feel something
[5:03] is as a city commissioner that the young people of our city can
[5:08] go in there and be safe. So with that being said,
[5:11] whereas, libraries, librarians, and library workers across the
[5:13] country are joining together to celebrate library card sign-up
[5:17] month for the month of september.
[5:19] and whereas, libraries are foundational to education,
[5:23] imagination, and opportunity, offering everything from early
[5:26] literacy programs to digital tools that support life long
[5:30] learning and personal growth. And whereas, libraries welcome
[5:32] all people serving as a community hub that connects
[5:36] individuals across cultures, generations, and experiences.
[5:39] and whereas, libraries contribute to thriving local
[5:42] economies, by equipping job seekers, entrepreneurs,
[5:45] students, and creators with tools and training to succeed
[5:49] and whereas in time of both crisis and calm, there we go,
[5:52] libraries and their staff remain steadfast in supporting and
[5:56] strengthening their communities. And whereas, libraries provide
[5:58] programming for kids, teens, and adults from storytime to book
[6:02] lubz clubs to crafts and entertainment.
[6:04] and whereas a library card offers a front row seat to
[6:07] everything the library offers, from books and technology to
[6:10] life long learning and online resources.
[6:13] and whereas, this month in 1996 marks the opening of the current
[6:18] library building a place that has served a as cornerstone of
[6:21] our community for over 30 years. Now I steven sandbergen and on
[6:29] behalf of the entire silty commission here proclaim
[6:32] september 2026 as library card sign-up month and encourage all
[6:34] residents to sign up for a library card.
[6:38] all yours, thank you. >> thank you.
[6:48] [applause] >> okay, I will say a few words.
[6:50] and I just want to recognize so thankful I have a lot of our
[6:54] staff here. We're going to try and get back
[6:55] in time to open the building, at 9:30.
[6:59] but I want to thank the whole team for being here today you
[7:04] know, the most important thing and about making our library
[7:07] feel safe and welcoming is the people that work at the library.
[7:11] and we are so lucky too because we have friends and we have
[7:15] foundation members and we have advisory members, some of them I
[7:19] tell them we don't pay for overtime for volunteering but
[7:22] thank you for their time so I do want to recognize.
[7:28] we have some of our members is inned audience, and we're so
[7:30] lucky -- in the audience, so we're so lucky to have all of
[7:33] them dedicating their time to the library.
[7:36] so library card sign-up month this is our big month to promote
[7:40] getting a library card and just in case someone hasn't been
[7:46] there in a while library cards do expire every three years, and
[7:49] so if you're overdue for a library card, please stop in and
[7:54] get one. And commissioner gow has his.
[7:58] I was going to card everybody that walked in but we'll leave
[8:00] that for later and when they do get library card, we have these
[8:06] lovely bags, library bags filled with good as so we really want
[8:10] to encourage everyone. This also marks our 30th
[8:14] anniversary in our building and winston churchill has a quote
[8:17] that we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape
[8:22] us. We've a very special library,
[8:24] and we're so thankful for the support from our city and from
[8:28] all our residents that do visit so if you don't have a library
[8:32] card, please stop in and get one.
[8:35] we're so excited to welcome everyone, and thank you for
[8:39] recognizing us today. You all are welcome to read
[8:45] anytime, so we don't always have to put commissioner sandbergen
[8:48] on the spot but thank you again for recognizing us.
[8:53] and again, this is a big anniversary year, our 30th
[8:57] anniversary in our building. It's also the 30th anniversary
[8:59] of our contract with the sheriff's department and we also
[9:01] have a fire station that was built 30 years ago too, so that
[9:06] was a big-year, 1996. We are going to recognize our
[9:11] 30th anniversary on friday, october 2nd, so we're going to
[9:16] have a display of photographs of the building, the demo, and
[9:20] you'll see the blue jays field right next door so we're so
[9:23] excited with them as our partners next door.
[9:27] the trailers that the library was in for about one years
[9:31] really fun for the staff to work in that.
[9:35] and then just some treats for all of our residents that stop
[9:39] by on friday, october 2nd. So thank you for recognizing us,
[9:42] expwr hope to see you all -- and I hope to see you all at the
[9:46] library. >> thank you very much.
[9:47] we love our library so I think we need rapicture.
[9:50] why doesn't everybody come up, so we can take a picture.
[9:52] everybody involved with library. >> staff?
[9:54] >> mayor, while we're doing that, may I.
[9:56] >> mayor freaney: sure. >> phyllis, I'm wondering if
[9:57] this was intended for jennifer not me, I have a sticker that
[10:00] says I like books more than people.
[10:06] [laughter] >> me too.
[10:07] >> mayor freaney: I know quite a few people like that actually.
[10:09] [laughter] >> would you like us all to
[10:11] stand here. >> mayor freaney: yeah come on
[10:15] up here. >> cay, everybody.
[10:21] let's get close. >> yeah, let's get a few people
[10:32] in the front. A few people in the front.
[10:46] let's see. Scoot in a little bit.
[10:48] >> getting cozy on the left. You better do it on the right.
[10:54] >> all right, everyone, ready? Say library.
[11:15] >> okay, thank you. >> thank you.
[11:19] >> mayor freaney: go get that library open.
[11:20] we love you guys though. You did awesome job, and we
[11:23] appreciate all you do. I think that's the year we
[11:40] started ems too, so library, sheriff, and ems we took back
[11:44] ems, so. >> 30 years.
[11:46] >> mayor freaney: 30 years, yeah, that wads a big year.
[11:50] yeah. I think there's a few pictures
[11:52] of me looking a lot younger. [laughter]
[11:56] hopefully not too bad, yeah. All right.
[12:00] well, I'm feeling better now that I know that commissioner
[12:03] sandbergen's getting a lot of good reading skill training,
[12:09] yeah. [laughter]
[12:09] >> you read that proclamation very well.
[12:11] >> mayor freaney: yeah, you read that very well so it's obvious
[12:13] you're. >> well, they've been working
[12:14] with me down there. [laughter]
[12:18] >> you've probably had that for like a month, going over.
[12:24] [laughter] well you know it's kind of funny
[12:26] because I, you know, dare I say, because it's the talk of the
[12:29] news, is dolly parton, and how important she was to literacy
[12:34] but you know let's face it, the more literate our kids are,
[12:37] that's everything. >> I wasn't making that up about
[12:39] this young girl that came in and she was kind of troubled and
[12:43] she, and they said that this is where she feels safe and that
[12:45] really hit home with me. So I'm sorry to have
[12:49] interrupted. >> mayor freaney: no, I think
[12:50] that's so important. And we have great library staff,
[12:53] so. All right, so let's move on to
[12:57] citizen input. Anyone in the audience wish to
[12:58] speak on a topic that is not on the agenda?
[13:04] okay. All right,.
[13:06] [laughter] okay, she's trying to hide too.
[13:08] because she's like -- hey, okay. All right.
[13:12] so we'll move on from that. You don't want to talk about the
[13:15] 30th year of the sheriff office julia or --
[13:20] [laughter] okay.
[13:21] okay we're going to go to something really exciting,
[13:24] right, whit. Which is forward pinellas update
[13:27] on tri-county mpo merger. And we're going to do I guess
[13:32] nicole you want me to go right to whit blanton is here of
[13:37] forward pinellas. And so I'm going to let you take
[13:40] it. Whit.
[13:41] >> all right. >> mayor freaney: thank you for
[13:43] being here. >> thank you so much for having
[13:45] me. Whit blant blanton, executive r
[13:49] of forward pinellas. I appreciate a little time on
[13:51] your agenda today because I'm going to talk about some fairly
[13:53] big items that we're dealing with, both regionally and
[13:56] county-wide. And I think it's important for
[13:58] the city of dunedin to weigh in and let me know what you think
[14:01] and give me some guidance as we move forward.
[14:03] so I do have a powerpoint presentation that I think's set
[14:07] up and I can just quickly go through.
[14:10] there we go. There we go.
[14:14] so we're going to talk about the proposed mergen of our three
[14:18] metropolitan planning organizations that serve the
[14:20] tampa bay area. And I want to say before we
[14:24] start that we're a little bit of an outlier nationally because
[14:28] the norm is that yu have a metropolitan planning
[14:30] organization authorized by congress that serves a single
[14:33] urbanized area. Well we like them so much we
[14:36] have three serving our single urbanized area, and not many
[14:39] places other than a couple do that so in fact atlanta I think
[14:45] has 20 counties in their mpo, and chicago has many and dallas
[14:51] like 15 so we are different. So I think I push down.
[14:55] there we go. So just a little bit about
[14:58] forward pinellas. We are unique organization.
[15:00] we have two legal organizations under us, forward pinellas is a
[15:04] fictitious name, we are the pinellas planning council, which
[15:07] is created by a special act of the florida legislature which
[15:10] handles land use, decision making county-wide.
[15:15] set a framework that all 25 local governments have to fit
[15:18] within. And then we are the metropolitan
[15:20] planning organization designated by federal law and reinforced by
[15:23] state statute. And together we have a single
[15:25] governing board that covers land use and transportation decision
[15:29] making countywide, and that's pretty unique in the state of
[15:32] florida. Nobody has a setup exactly like
[15:34] this us. And it's been 11 years since I
[15:38] was hired to facilitate the merger of this organization and
[15:42] we have evolved a lot. And I think that's an important
[15:45] point to keepind mine as we talk about the merger of the mpo.
[15:49] this is our board we have 19 members, thank you, mayor
[15:52] freaney for serving on this board.
[15:53] we actually are down to 18, commissioner eisnor resigned.
[15:56] so we, we'll need a new tarpon springs appointment and they'll
[16:00] make that in september. So the regional mpo merger is a
[16:06] big deal because the legislature has gotten involved and like
[16:10] everything else in local government the legislature has a
[16:12] preference for how we do things. And one of the things that the
[16:18] legislative intent seems to be is that florida should have
[16:20] fewer mpos in the state of florida.
[16:23] we have 27. Not only does the tampa bay area
[16:26] have this legislative mandate to consider the feasibility of
[16:30] merging, which we, we did in response to 2023 legislation,
[16:34] it's now covering charlotte, lee, and collier counties as
[16:40] well. And there are multicounty mpos
[16:43] in the state of floriday but there are also lot of county
[16:47] based mpos. The motivation for creating a
[16:50] single regional transportation planning organization is that
[16:53] this region is growing, and the organizations that serve the
[16:56] region need to evolve with that growth of the region.
[17:00] for years, we've been requested by the governor of the state of
[17:04] florida going back to 1990 that we should merge.
[17:07] and since that time we've always said well pasco is different,
[17:11] hillsborough is different, pinellas is unique, we have so
[17:15] many differences, it really doesn't make any sense to merge.
[17:17] and we still have a lot of differences in the counties and
[17:21] how we work, but the traveling public cares less and less and
[17:26] as housing becomes less affordable people are moving to
[17:29] pasco county and they're still úworking in our counties.
[17:32] people are moves to the fringes of hillsborough county and
[17:33] they're still working in pinellas county and we are not
[17:36] creating anymore beach. People are still coming here and
[17:39] even though we're adding two miffial people over the --
[17:43] million people over the next 25 years to our region they are
[17:46] still coming for entertainment and fun and all the things that
[17:49] attract people this is really important because transportation
[17:51] is competitive when it comes down to funding.
[17:54] we have formula based funds that are based on population, but the
[17:58] real heavy hitting dollars that can move a region's needle are
[18:02] going to be in the grants that are competitive whether it's
[18:08] and 75% of florida's transportation trust fund which
[18:12] is $15 billion or so, is allocated to what we call the
[18:15] strategic intermodal system. And that's u.s. 19 here in this
[18:19] county, it's the interstate system, and we compete against
[18:22] every region for those dollars. We have to have a really good
[18:24] project, a really good ask and we need to be unified that's a
[18:29] project we want. When we have three mpos
[18:31] serving three counties, sometimes it's hard to be
[18:33] unified saying this is the number one priority or the
[18:35] number two priority. Over the last year, we have
[18:40] hired a -- consultant that has been working with us to guide us
[18:46] through the evolution of the organizations.
[18:47] and we have looked at the culture of each organization.
[18:50] we have looked at how each one operates.
[18:53] the structure, the decision making process, and we've
[18:57] developed a full suite of reports and bylaws and
[19:01] interlocal agreements that will now be presented next week to
[19:05] our board at a workshop and today it's actually being
[19:09] presented at the hillsborough mpo and later this afternoon at
[19:12] the pasco mpo for their consideration.
[19:15] so we get to hear what they talk about first.
[19:18] this is the population based on 2020.
[19:19] and this is important because by federal and state statute, the
[19:25] governing board of the mpo must be apportioned by population.
[19:29] and you can deviate a little bit but you need to be pretty
[19:32] consistent with that population allocation.
[19:34] we are the second largest county in the region, but we are also
[19:37] the slowest growing county in the region, and so over time, we
[19:41] do expect pasco county to get closer to a million and
[19:45] hillsborough is going to be at 2.5 million in the next 25
[19:51] years. So that does affect the
[19:53] allocation of seats. So as we look at the
[19:56] apportionment plan, we have recommended a body that has 25
[19:59] members compared to 19 that we have today in forward pinellas,
[20:04] that would include the port and the airport.
[20:06] port tampa bay and then the tampa international airport as
[20:11] voting members. They are already voting members
[20:13] in hillsborough county, so we wouldn't be taking anything away
[20:16] or adding anything new. It would just be keeping that
[20:19] consistent. And they would not be reflect --
[20:23] represented by elected officials.
[20:24] they would be represented by their ceos.
[20:27] or designee. And then the remaining 23 seats
[20:30] would be allocated by population.
[20:32] the rationale is that those two organizations are regional
[20:35] organizations. If you get your gas at a gas
[20:37] station, it comes through port tamp obey and 44% -- tampa bay,
[20:42] and 44% of the emplainments at the airport have a origination
[20:47] at pinellas county so that's significant.
[20:49] the hillsborough county delegation would have 10
[20:53] representatives comprising tampa, hillsborough county,
[20:57] temple terrace, plant city, the expressway authority.
[21:01] pinellas would have eight representatives.
[21:04] the way that allocation is currently shown is two for the
[21:06] county commission, two for the city of st. Petersburg, and then
[21:08] one seat for every city over 50,000 population, and then one
[21:12] rotating seat for smaller local governments.
[21:15] that does have an implication for dunedin because you have a
[21:18] voting seat today on the forward pinellas mpo board, you would
[21:22] not have an as of right seat on the regional mpo but you may
[21:26] have a voting seat. And then pasco would have --
[21:29] >> can you say that again? But we may have a voting seat?
[21:32] >> you may because you may be one of the smaller rotating
[21:35] cities. >> hmm.
[21:36] >> and there are some other mechanisms that we could look at
[21:38] as well. >> mayor freaney: yeah, but that
[21:39] decision hasn't been totally made.
[21:40] >> it has not been voted on. >> mayor freaney: I just wanted
[21:43] to. >> that's still a tentative
[21:45] decision. >> I don't want my hairs to
[21:46] start popping out. >> staff recommendation.
[21:49] I understand. We have had this conversation.
[21:50] >> mayor freaney: yes, we have. >> and then we would have the
[21:52] transit agencies as nonvoting advisors, today the transit
[21:55] agencies do vote on the mpos. That was a decision we made
[22:00] early on mainly to ensure we stay under the 25 member cap
[22:04] because that is enshrined in florida statute so we can't go
[22:07] over that without changing statutes.
[22:11] so as I mentioned, we have put together this is no longer under
[22:15] development. We have actually completed a
[22:17] draft set of bylaws interlocal agreement, a memrandm of
[22:23] understanding -- memorandum of understanding, a staffing plan,
[22:26] an org chart, and a financial plan for the organization.
[22:29] what's interesting is today we are hosted by the pinellas
[22:33] planning council, that's my other land use agency, and it's
[22:36] important that we think about how the mpo operates and
[22:40] functions because rarely is an mpo a stand alone agency.
[22:43] it does happen, but all the funds coming to an mpo are
[22:48] federal funds. So it's no local funds, it's all
[22:51] federal. But the pinellas planning
[22:53] council is the host agency because I only get the federal
[22:56] funds every quarter and in the meantime I have to pay staff, I
[22:59] have to pay rent, I have to do those things so we need a float
[23:02] and that comes from the millage levy that the pinellas planning
[23:06] council has on county-wide residents.
[23:07] it's not very much but it does provide that float so thalt we
[23:11] can operate, and then the federal funds reimburse the
[23:14] pinellas planning council. The hillsborough mpo is
[23:18] funded -- is hosted by the planning commission, and then
[23:21] pasco is hosted by pasco county government.
[23:24] we are proposing a more independent mpo that would not
[23:28] be hosted by any of the three counties or by any city.
[23:31] the goal would be it would be an independent organization that
[23:36] contracts out certain services like hr, benefits, maybe I.t.
[23:42] and other back office functions, but that the board would be,
[23:48] have oversight over the executive director and the
[23:50] executive director would have oversight of an independent
[23:53] staff and I think that's critically important because
[23:56] there is a little bit of a tug-of-war that has been going
[24:00] on in tampa bay about responsibilities and roles and
[24:02] leadership, and if you have an organization hosted by
[24:05] hillsborough county, is it a merger or is it a takeover?
[24:08] and I think they would think the same thing if it was hosted by
[24:11] pinellas county. So we have kind of settled on
[24:13] let's make an this independent organization.
[24:16] it could be hosted by an independent special district so
[24:20] those are options. The airport is an independent
[24:23] special district. The hillsborough aviation
[24:26] authority. Psta is an independent special
[24:28] district. They could be a host agency.
[24:31] the pinellas planning council could be a host agency so that
[24:34] has not been determined how that would function.
[24:40] so this all tieinize to and I'm going to come back to the mpo
[24:43] merger in a minute. I know you have a lot of
[24:45] questions about it. This ties into the pinellas
[24:50] planning council special act because it is an act of the
[24:51] legislature and when the two organizations were merged it
[24:54] said the mpo for pinellas county shall have the same board as the
[24:57] pinellas planning council. So if we merge the mpos and we
[25:01] dedesignate the pinellas mpo it doesn't exist anymore, and now
[25:05] the pinellas planning council to consider land use cases.
[25:10] so I have been working with the legislative delegation to find a
[25:16] sponsor to amend our special act, and last year, or last
[25:20] time, in 2010 it took five years to accomplish this and I'm
[25:23] hoping to pull this off in one year.
[25:27] so we have been working with a subcommittee of the board that
[25:31] wrapped up its final meeting this week or last week, and has
[25:35] developed a set of recommendations, and those
[25:39] recommendations would address the merger of the mpo and also a
[25:44] few streamlining issuess related to the pinellas planning
[25:47] council. So the ppc sets broad policy
[25:51] framework for land use in pinellas county.
[25:53] its governance as I mentioned is, is the mpo.
[25:57] so what we have come up with is a, an if then statement that
[26:02] says if the mpo is merged, then the pinellas planning council
[26:05] would revert to a 13-member board representing the cities
[26:09] and the county here in pinellas county.
[26:11] it would be one seat for the county commission, one seat for
[26:16] the city of st. Petersburg, d unn -- dunedin would have a
[26:19] voting seat on the board, directly not a rotating seat,
[26:22] and then there would be some rotating seats for the very
[26:26] smaller cities and the beach communities for instance.
[26:28] but a 13-member board. The pinellas planning council
[26:33] provides lot of services and we have provide should here to the
[26:35] city of dunedin. We're actually working with your
[26:39] staff on the downtown master plan update so that's happening
[26:41] now and we provide a lot of techical assistance around the
[26:43] county to help people visualize development changes, whether
[26:47] it's increases in density, or a new parking structure or changes
[26:54] in your transportation network. So what the board has done is
[27:00] also recommended a series of streamlining steps so that the
[27:05] organization evolves with pinellas county and what that
[27:06] means is it used to be that the pinellas planning council was a
[27:11] very regulatory minded organization that if you wanted
[27:14] to do something here in the city of dunedin you had to check with
[27:17] us and pasco and jump through a lot of hurdles and then we might
[27:20] still say you didn't do enough. We have moved away from that
[27:23] over the last 10 years, and have really tried to let cities be
[27:27] cities, and rather than saying no unless you do these five
[27:30] things, we've said how can we help you.
[27:32] and I think that's been a big difference.
[27:35] so we hope to continue that and expect to continue the linkage
[27:40] formally between the pinellas planning council and the
[27:43] regional mpo to address land issues and transportation
[27:47] linkages going forward. We haven't really figured out
[27:49] exactly how that linkage will take shape, but we look at the
[27:53] pinellas planning council potentially being a formal
[27:56] advisory body to the regional mpo on issues affecting pinellas
[27:59] county. And I think that's, I can there
[28:01] is support for doing that regionally.
[28:04] I don't expect you to read all this but just to know that I do
[28:08] is a bill sponsor potentially, and by november, we need to have
[28:13] that language drafted and ready for the legislative delegation
[28:18] to meet. The session meets in march and I
[28:20] would love to be able to pair this with anything moving
[28:23] forward on the regional mpo. Now before I wrap up I do need
[28:27] to say that today at the hillsborough tpo meeting or mpo
[28:34] meeting state representative michael owen is in attendance
[28:36] and he has issued a statement that I read this morning that
[28:39] says he is prepared to file a bill to force the merger if the
[28:43] local entities can't agree on doing that.
[28:46] and he would prefer that the locals make the decision.
[28:49] how that decision is made is there are four principles
[28:53] involved including the governor of the state of florida and that
[28:57] are the three board of county commissioners and the city of
[28:59] tampa is the largest organization l have to say yes
[29:03] to this -- all have to say yes to this merger.
[29:06] the timeline of this is we have our workshop next week where we
[29:09] will be getting feedback. We will take the feedback from
[29:13] the three mpos that happen this week or next week.
[29:16] and then we will have a leadership group of the regional
[29:21] entities on october 2nd. It's called the tma leadership
[29:23] group and we will present the feedback and we will see if
[29:26] there's a desire to make any changes in response to that
[29:31] feedback. Then we will simply present this
[29:33] to the four principals and ask them to take it up whenever they
[29:37] are willing to do so. We're not sure if that'll happen
[29:42] before the march election in the city of tampa or after that, but
[29:45] it'll happen sometime in 2027. When that happens, and if they
[29:52] vote in favor we transmit it to the governor and then the
[29:55] governor either approves or sends it back for more work.
[29:56] if that happens then the governor approves it we have six
[29:59] months by law to stand up the mpo.
[30:01] so we have already created a set of personnel policies.
[30:05] we've created all these things to grease the wheels to make it
[30:08] easy. The bylaws for the mpo have some
[30:11] provisions in there that I think are important to share.
[30:18] so one cerb that I have heard -- concern that I have heard
[30:21] consistently and that the growth and population are in tampa and
[30:23] hillsborough county and they will, there are concerns that
[30:26] they will make a power play to take the money and put it on
[30:30] projects that benefit hillsborough and tampa.
[30:32] I'm here to tell you they can't do that.
[30:35] the florida department of transportation is required to
[30:38] make sure its five-year work program is equitable according
[30:42] to population in each county. So in the course of that
[30:45] five-year period they have to ensure that we get our fair
[30:46] share of dollars for transportation projects, even if
[30:50] the top 10 priority projects are all in tampa.
[30:53] they will skip over one through nine and then they will go to
[30:57] number 11 which is pipellas just to make sure we're equal.
[31:01] in any one year there might be a skew and I will give you an
[31:06] example of that. The forward pinellas board and
[31:08] the pinellas county commission were first to say the number one
[31:12] project in the region is the interchange by the tampa airport
[31:15] where I-275, state road 60, and the veterans expressway all
[31:19] converge. We got letters from around the
[31:20] region. We made it the number one region
[31:23] priority. That project is under
[31:24] construction now at $1.6 billion.
[31:28] that's all in hillsborough county.
[31:29] but that directly benefits pinellas county.
[31:31] so in one year tmight look like they're getting a lot of money
[31:34] but over the next five years we have u.s. 19, we have I-275, we
[31:39] have a lot of other projects that are in the pipeline in the
[31:42] five-year work program serving pinellas county.
[31:45] in addition to that, we've put in some provisions in the
[31:48] interlocal agreement that would require a not only a majority
[31:52] vote of this regional board but a majority of each delegation so
[31:56] that everybody supports it. That would require a state
[32:00] statute change so we know that, we're keeping a running list of
[32:02] where the legislature should be involved.
[32:05] and in addition I've also heard some concerns that, and I should
[32:10] say, that with the apportionment plan that we've settled on with
[32:14] eight pinellas and five pasco, that would give us 13 combined,
[32:18] and that outweighs the 10 or 12 if you count the port and the
[32:24] airport as hillsborough so it does kind of give a little bit
[32:27] of a buffer assuming that tampa and hillsborough vote in
[32:31] lockstep which they really don't.
[32:33] in addition to that, we've created in the bylaws an
[32:38] executive committee that does look like tampa bay water, which
[32:41] is a concern that I've heard from some folks that we need to
[32:45] have equal representation among the three counties, so we have a
[32:49] chair, a vice chair, and a treasurer that would all be from
[32:52] the three different delegations, and is then we've added two or
[32:56] an at-large member from each county, so that would be six and
[32:59] that would be two, two, and two. They would have to be, that
[33:03] would be equal like tampa bay water.
[33:05] one of those at-large or one of those representatives on the
[33:09] executive committee must represent the city of tampa, and
[33:12] another must represent a city in pinellas county.
[33:16] irrespective of size. So that could be dunedin for
[33:19] example on the executive committee.
[33:22] so that 2, 2, and 2 gives I think a balance to those who say
[33:27] we should create a board more like tampa bay water.
[33:30] I'll stop there and see what questions you have.
[33:32] again, the timeline of this is sometime in 2027 to ask for a
[33:37] vote ideally before the legislature starts meeting in
[33:42] march. And then or take it during the
[33:44] session before any bills get passed.
[33:48] and then we would expect the mpo to begin functioning
[33:52] july 1st of 2028 so we have a few more years.
[33:54] nobody's made any decisions about who the executive director
[33:57] would be and I'm certainly not making any assumptions about
[34:01] that. But the org chart does call for
[34:03] an executive director and two deputy executive directors which
[34:07] I think would be a good way to transition into this because I
[34:09] don't know pasco that well, and I'd only know hillsborough a
[34:14] little bit and they don't know pinellas so that would provide a
[34:18] seamless transition. And thank you for your time and
[34:20] opportunity and I'll open up to questions, concerns, comments.
[34:23] >> mayor freaney: okay, questions.
[34:23] I do think you're a logical choice though, just saying.
[34:26] okay. So questions I'll start over
[34:28] here with commissioner gow. >> thank you, mayor.
[34:33] whit, thank you very much for being here.
[34:34] I know I did ask you before the meeting but now that we're on
[34:38] camera I'll ask again. You didn't ride your bike here
[34:42] this morning. >> no, I didn't but I do commute
[34:44] to work pretty regularly so I'll make an effort next time.
[34:48] >> very good. Thank you very much and you
[34:50] always do make an effort. A lot of, a lot of questions,
[34:54] whit. I'm glad to hear that there is a
[34:59] balance between pinellas and pasco versus hillsborough.
[35:04] and you and at the beginning you had mentioned there are several
[35:11] regional mpos. And I understand the concept of
[35:14] a regional mpo in theory and in discussion.
[35:18] but in practice, how well do all those different municipalities
[35:26] or regions representatives, how well do they really work
[35:28] together in those other regional?
[35:30] >> that's a great question. We took a field trip to orlando
[35:33] where they have a three-county mpo and I spent most of my
[35:35] career in orlando, and our board members we brought a bunch ofory
[35:40] board members there from all three mpos and they talked to
[35:44] city, county, elected officials, and I think our delegation was
[35:50] incredibly impressed about how, how much trust and confidence
[35:55] they had that their voices would be heard and are spected in
[35:58] that -- respected in that process and we had people from
[36:00] the city of maitland in the room.
[36:02] maitland is 14,000 people. We had representatives from the
[36:05] city of winter garden, that's 20,000 people.
[36:09] and they felt like they were heard.
[36:10] what orlando has done is they've created a municipal advisory
[36:14] committee that is comprised of the elected officials, it
[36:17] started out being a mayor's advisory committee but they've
[36:19] changed it a little bit. That represents all the local
[36:23] governments, the cities that are not in a voting position on
[36:26] their board. And they elect somebody to serve
[36:29] on that board. We've chose analytal bit
[36:31] different model -- chosen a little bit different model but
[36:33] we have not precluded the notion of a municipal advisory
[36:36] committee. All the cities in pasco county
[36:40] are under 20,000 population, they don't have that many I
[36:42] think they have six, temple terrace and hillsborough county
[36:47] is 20,000 people, plant city is about the size of dunedin.
[36:51] so those you know dynamics are really important to pinellas
[36:54] because we have so many smaller cities so they feel like the
[37:01] works really well. I can't speak for everybody.
[37:03] tallahassee is a multicounty mpo they cover four counties.
[37:06] they just don't have that many cities outside of tallahassee
[37:08] they get really small. But it's important that you have
[37:13] a mechanism for are those to be heard and I think what I've told
[37:16] people generally is that we need an organization that can
[37:19] telescope between these big regional issues and these small
[37:24] granular issues like what you did for skinner boulevard out
[37:26] here. That's not necessarily a
[37:27] regionally significant project even though it's a state road
[37:29] but it's a super significant project to the city of dunedin.
[37:32] and we worked with you very closely on that and very proud
[37:35] of what you were able to accomplish.
[37:38] I don't see that changing. We have in the org chart created
[37:44] I'm trying to remember I think they're county liaison
[37:46] positions. One for each county.
[37:49] and that person whoever is selected would be responsible
[37:52] for working with the local governments and ensuring that we
[37:56] have the pulse of what's going on in each community.
[38:02] >> well said. You must've rehearsed that.
[38:04] very good. >> it's a common question.
[38:09] >> yeah, what is, you got the, I'm showing the list of
[38:14] potential member numbers,. >> I can back up to that in the
[38:18] presentation. >> page 10.
[38:18] right? In the rotating smaller cities I
[38:20] guess that would be where city of dunedin would lie.
[38:27] how is that decision going to be made?
[38:29] who going to make that decision on whether that really is
[38:34] representation or is there a way for dunedin to get a permanent
[38:37] seat? >> well, we are recommending
[38:39] that the pinellas planning council board make that
[38:43] decision. Again, that would be dunedin
[38:46] would have a voting seat on that board.
[38:48] there would only be one seat for the county commission.
[38:51] so the one thing, and I, I know I'm on the record here but I
[38:55] really don't want the pinellas county commission to decide who
[38:58] that one small city seat is. That would be another model, and
[39:02] we have not even considered that.
[39:03] so I think an independent organization representing all 25
[39:07] local governments would be the best venue for that.
[39:11] >> okay. And is this questions only?
[39:14] or. >> mayor freaney: yeah,
[39:15] questions. We'll have comments later.
[39:16] >> okay then I'll save my scawmentoon -- comment on that.
[39:20] you had also mentioned there is going to be an executive
[39:23] committee. And right now discussions are
[39:25] maybe 2, 2, and 2, and that that would be a place for dunedin.
[39:32] where and how and who would we advocate to?
[39:36] what's that process? >> I think you would have to be
[39:39] on the board first, so dunedin would have to have a seat on the
[39:42] board, and then the executive committee would be typically
[39:44] appointed by a vote of the full board.
[39:48] you know, that would be a determination of the next board.
[39:51] I'm not even sure the bylaws are specific enough yet about how
[39:55] the executive committee would be appointed.
[39:59] >> all right. And you had mentioned that also
[40:02] one of the seats is going to be for the port of tampa.
[40:06] can you explain that again to e on why they have a seat.
[40:09] >> right, so the rationale is that port tampa bay and the
[40:14] hillsborough aviation authority or the tampa international
[40:17] airport are already regional entities and they are already
[40:20] voting members of the hillsborough tpo board and they
[40:24] feel very strongly in that role, and they, they have both written
[40:29] letters stating that they need to be on the regional board.
[40:32] and I've understood that hillsborough county feels that
[40:36] that is, that is absolutely essential to have them on the
[40:39] board. They are transportation
[40:43] providers. While port tampa bay doesn't
[40:44] have maybe the same impact that tampa international airport does
[40:47] on the pinellas county, it is still a main conduit for freight
[40:51] and goods distribution in this region.
[40:54] they tend to operate more operationally focused on their
[41:00] port operations. Same with the airport.
[41:02] there is a little bit of a fly in the ointment just to be cand
[41:07] candid with you is we're proposing that the ceos be
[41:11] staff, be the voting members of those entities.
[41:13] and I think you'll find that staff tend to be very regionally
[41:18] minded. They look for what's best for
[41:19] the region and they're not really beholden to politics.
[41:22] but they do have a governing board, and their governing board
[41:26] is comprised of the mayor of tampa, a county commissioner,
[41:32] and then gubernatorial appointees.
[41:33] all of those gubernatorial appointees have to reside in
[41:37] hillsborough county. So I have requested our
[41:39] legislative delegation members to consider if they are truly
[41:42] regional entities and have a seat on the regional mpo board,
[41:47] that let's open up their gubernatorial appointments to
[41:50] people who live in pinellas or pasco county as well or expand
[41:54] their board to include that so those are additional
[41:57] considerations that we're looking at.
[41:59] >> okay, and the tis goes -- and if this goes forward, what is
[42:03] the impact on other smaller committees or boards like the
[42:08] pedestrian advisory committee? >> that's still in flux.
[42:11] we need to work that out. My sense is that our citizens
[42:15] committee, which meets you know at 7:00 on a thursday night, and
[42:19] our bike ped committee, which meets at 8:30 a lot of those
[42:22] folks a arrive by bicycle aren't going to want to go across the
[42:26] bridge and meet at the airport or someplace like that.
[42:30] so I think what we will probably end up doing is having those
[42:34] committees still functioning in each county, and then a subset
[42:37] of the committee members would probably get together twice a
[42:40] year to talk about regional issues related to those modes of
[42:46] transportation or citizen input in the transportation process.
[42:49] but that has not been determined yet the citizens advisory
[42:53] committee when I asked them how they saw themselves in regional
[42:57] mpo, they would prefer to have the ability to meet virtually
[43:00] and vote virtually without having a physical quorum
[43:03] present, and that's another one of those little statutory
[43:05] changes that we would need to make.
[43:07] so we're keeping a running list of that.
[43:10] and there are provisions I believe that affects the water
[43:13] management districts and some of the other multicounty
[43:17] organizations that don't have to have a physical quorum present
[43:20] to adhere to the sunshine law. It's very limited, and so we
[43:24] think a carveout for a newly formed regional organization
[43:27] like that in certain instances would make sense.
[43:37] >> okay. And because I look at the list
[43:41] of cities, counties, and things on the member list, and I don't
[43:47] see a lot of representation as it sticks out.
[43:51] I'm not talking about the individual members that might
[43:55] sit but therefore anybody who thinks of transportation in any
[43:59] other manner but car focused. And I'm, I'd be concerned that
[44:05] in as we go regional, that that car centricity will play a
[44:14] stronger role when I feel, I can only speak for myself, that we
[44:17] should be looking at diversifying our transportation
[44:20] system. So are we losing -- and we as
[44:25] pinellas county, forward pinellas mpo, I think we've done
[44:29] a good job. We can always do better.
[44:32] but we do a good job and I'm afraid we're going to lose that
[44:36] focus going forward. Can you speak to that at all?
[44:39] >> sure. Well I think pinellas county is
[44:40] different in the sense that we don't have a lot of land to
[44:44] continue to build and widen roads.
[44:46] we've done a little bit but not a lot.
[44:49] so yes, we need to be more multimodal in this county just
[44:52] by our geography and our density.
[44:55] I think you'll find that the same concerns that you've
[44:57] expressed have been echoed by the city of tampa.
[45:00] tampa wants to see eight allies on the board, and they look at
[45:05] st. Petersburg, they look at dunedin, they look at largo, as
[45:08] allies and they want to see that representation before they're
[45:10] comfortable with this. They've been pushing, pushing,
[45:15] pushing for investments in transit, bike safety, pedestrian
[45:19] safety, for years in the city of tampa.
[45:22] they've largely been thwarted by hillsborough county and the way
[45:25] their board is comprised over there, so they've actually kind
[45:28] of come around to the regional mpo because they see more
[45:31] alliances being formed than hitting their head up against
[45:34] the wall the way they've been for the las couple of decades.
[45:38] so I think that's something that I'm taking heart in, and I'll
[45:43] even say one of the strongest proponents for the merger is
[45:48] commissioner catherine starkey in pasco county and she is laser
[45:53] focused so is commissioner mariano on getting some kind of
[45:56] rail or passenger rail transportation in the tampa bay
[45:59] region. So I'm not saying that's going
[46:00] to be like a project coming out of the chute but that's
[46:04] something that they are very interested in you're not going
[46:06] to get that done without a concerted regional effort.
[46:13] so I'm, I wouldn't recommend this commissioner if I feel like
[46:18] we were going to give all this progress up and have a an
[46:26] automobile oriented focus but we are pushing against some very
[46:28] significant state and federal head winds in terms of policy,
[46:31] and we need to recognize that and those headwinds change it
[46:35] was you know five years ago we had a very different policy
[46:37] framework than we do today. And I'm confident that
[46:42] eventually things will change and we'll have a little bit more
[46:48] receptive policy framework at the a state and federal level
[46:50] for those kinds of initiatives. I mean, even our county
[46:53] commission changed four or five years ago so it's, it happens
[46:57] with elections. >> yes, it does.
[46:59] it's hard to have a plan when things change every two to four
[47:02] years. >> one other thing I think that
[47:04] gets lost in all this is how the money works.
[47:07] and it's really important to speak with a unified voice and
[47:11] say this is the priority of what we want.
[47:14] orlando years ago when I lived over there advocated for the sun
[47:17] rail commuter rail corridor as the number one priority.
[47:19] it was one of three top priorities.
[47:22] and they got all three done because consistently they went
[47:24] to their federal and state delegation and they had the
[47:29] champions. And they had the priorities.
[47:30] and they were working together. And there was not disharmony.
[47:34] they were in unity. They also had to come up with a
[47:37] lot of local match dollars when you're talking about public
[47:44] transportation especially, the federal government's maybe going
[47:45] to give you half your capital money and the state maybe is
[47:48] going to give you half of the nonfederal share.
[47:50] you still have to come up with 25%.
[47:52] and that was the recipe for the sun runner project in
[47:57] st. Petersburg. And then you're on your own for
[47:58] operating it because you don't get federal assistance or state
[48:01] assistance much for operating. So ritz -- it's different than
[48:06] highways and I think when you think about car centric and
[48:08] highway oriented it's simply because the policy playing field
[48:13] is not level when the state builds a highway, we don't have
[48:16] to worry about maintaining it. The state just takes the money
[48:19] out of the top and maintains it forever.
[48:21] but with a bus, that's you and me and all the taxpayers here
[48:27] locally. >> interesting.
[48:28] interesting. And thank you, whit, and I could
[48:30] go on but I am respectful of my colleagues.
[48:32] I have one last question. >> mayor freaney: okay.
[48:35] >> and that is on the current structure of forward pinellas,
[48:40] how is our mayor doing? [laughter]
[48:43] is she holding her own? >> she is writing the checks.
[48:48] >> signing the checks okay. >> she is on the executive
[48:49] committee as our treasurer so she's doing great.
[48:54] >> all right. Thank you for being here, whit.
[48:56] thank you. >> mayor freaney: questions.
[48:59] commissioner sandbergen. >> did you say the population of
[49:02] pinellas has reduce? Did I catch that?
[49:05] >> I didn't say that. It's holding steady at 960,000
[49:09] we did have a dip reported in the media.
[49:10] I believe that was pretty much hurricane related for people who
[49:13] had to relocate and I think we'll bring that population back
[49:16] because the homes are being rebuilt.
[49:20] >> right. >> but are we going to
[49:22] significantly at population in this county?
[49:24] I don't think there is the apto dramatically increase the
[49:28] density of our county and that's what you would have to do.
[49:31] pockets of density in the u.s. 19 corridor and certain
[49:35] locations make a lot of sense. But it's got to be the right
[49:37] place and we've got to have the infrastructure and there's got
[49:41] to be a local will for that. >> I understand.
[49:42] we talked a lot about transportation.
[49:44] what are some of the other roles of forward pinellas?
[49:48] >> well, y like to think that we are the conscious of the county
[49:51] so we're not beholden to the county commission.
[49:53] we're not beholden to any particular local government.
[49:55] we can be npt thinkers. So we're an independent staff
[49:59] the way I look at it. So we provide land use technical
[50:05] assistance and policy guidance. We ensure consistency among the
[50:09] comprehensive plans and land development regulations with the
[50:13] county-wide plan. And we also provide a lot of
[50:16] guidance on transportation analysis.
[50:18] so for instance, we are studying traffic patterns on clearwater
[50:23] beach. And we have done an extensive
[50:27] traffic analysis with the city of clearwater that might result
[50:31] in changes to the clearwater roundabout on the beach to have
[50:34] a more efficient traffic pattern.
[50:36] they're building a parking gros down there so we're kind of
[50:39] working on the operational details of how that would all
[50:42] work and that's not really -- that was an initiative with the
[50:45] city of clearwater, and unless they apply for federal funds to
[50:48] build something, that doesn't really fall under the mpo.
[50:51] that's just our technical expertise and use of consultants
[50:54] that they're taking advantage of.
[50:56] >> okay. You know so if dunedin were to
[50:58] lose that seat I know we've -- you talked at length about that,
[51:02] would it diminish our role, I mean, would it be significant
[51:05] loss to our city I mean, how would be dunedin be recognized?
[51:11] >> that's a fair question. I'm, you know, I'm 62 years old.
[51:14] I'm not going to be here forever.
[51:17] but my commitment is as long as I'm here, I'm going to work to
[51:20] ensure that we build a culture where we're doing the
[51:26] telescoping of really being there and responsive to the
[51:28] local issues and I think the avenue for that would simply be
[51:32] pick up the phone call or let's have a conversation or work with
[51:36] our liaison that we've identified in the org chart to
[51:40] make sure that we understand those issues and can really work
[51:43] with you on advancing those. That's a commitment we've made,
[51:45] and you know we just awarded some planning funds to kenneth
[51:49] city which is one of our smaller cities in pinellas county.
[51:53] they have never received any funding from the mpo in the
[51:55] history of the mpo and pinellas county since the 1970s.
[51:59] well that's changed and so I think if we can do it for
[52:02] kenneth city, that's kind of the similar kind of example.
[52:04] I think we could do it for 40,000 city here.
[52:08] >> good, kind of what I wanted to hear.
[52:09] that's all I had, mayor. >> mayor freaney: okay, well I
[52:12] don't have any questions since I get to ask mine at forward
[52:15] pinellas, so I'm going to open tup for public input.
[52:17] anybody in the public wish to come forward and speak on this
[52:22] issue? >> mayor, I had a question.
[52:23] >> mayor freaney: oh, sure, go ahead.
[52:27] >> quick question on the rotating for the smaller cities.
[52:29] what's the cycle on that rotation?
[52:31] >> I think we're calling for two-year on that.
[52:35] right now we have a three-year term for our rotation, and
[52:37] that's because it takes a year to find the bathroom.
[52:40] and figure out the acronyms. And then, and then you get up to
[52:44] speed and you're rotated off. But because of the number of
[52:47] cities I think two years is probably where we'll go.
[52:49] that's been a really important question I got from city of
[52:53] plant city. They are really worried that
[52:55] they might get appointed and then it would take them half
[52:59] their term to understand what the issues and get their feet.
[53:02] so they really want to make sure that there's a process for
[53:06] keeping everybody who might be in a rotating seat informed and
[53:08] that's going to be a bigger challenge for pinellas county.
[53:14] >> yeah because doesn't plant city get a seat?
[53:16] doesn't plant city have a seat? >> they would -- they're talking
[53:19] about it today this morning, they would have a rotating seat
[53:22] with temple tear ?oos okay. Okay.
[53:24] >> they only have four cities or three cities.
[53:26] >> right, I know, I mean, we're insane but you know, it is, we
[53:29] are who we are, and we love who we are, but it does make things
[53:34] complicated. Okay, anyone in the audience
[53:37] wish to come forward and speak on this issue?
[53:40] we got nan, mark, and julie as potentials out there.
[53:44] [laughter] okay.
[53:45] I'm going to close public input. I'll go to final comments and
[53:48] I'll start with commissioner sandbergen.
[53:51] >> nothing really to ad, mayor other than you know thank you
[53:53] for your presentation this morning and obviously we have
[53:56] the best interest of dunedin first and foremost from up here
[54:00] and it sounds like that you're looking out for our interests
[54:03] too so I appreciate your presentation this morning.
[54:07] thank you. >> okay, commissioner gow.
[54:08] >> thank you, mayor. Whit, thank you again for being
[54:13] here. It's always wonderful to hear
[54:15] you talk and hear the things that we're doing at forward
[54:18] pinellas. Now is my opportunity to
[54:20] advocate for dunedin having a seat, and the only thing I'll
[54:24] say is we've had a seat since the very beginning and what you
[54:30] get with dunedin and we can sometimes be obnoxiously vocal.
[54:33] we can be. But that because of pride.
[54:39] and but we're active. And we're a guaranteeds active
[54:44] seat. We will participate.
[54:47] and my concern is that we have, there have been some other
[54:55] municipalities that have been in a rotating seat and have said
[54:58] yeah, never mind, skip us this term and I'm not going to go
[55:01] into who those cities are. Some of those cities have taken
[55:03] a recent liking and interest in becoming on the board and I love
[55:08] that. But that's also late in the game
[55:11] given the history of dunedin has so when it comes to somebody
[55:15] with experience, somebody with passion, somebody who's not shy
[55:19] about being an active member on the board, you can't go wrong
[55:23] with dunedin. And so that is my vote for
[55:28] dunedin. Also, I would just make the
[55:32] comment of I'm still not getting port of tampa, and why they have
[55:36] a seat. I don't understand it.
[55:38] especially if it's about the fuel they bring in.
[55:41] so all they that they do they're just a beneficiary for the
[55:46] infrastructure that we build. So we know where their interest
[55:50] lie. I think a better interest might
[55:52] be in the florida bicycle association.
[55:54] or so that way you're able to unify and have a place where
[56:01] bicycles and people who believe in that diversified
[56:04] transportation system can go to to make sure they have a voice.
[56:08] if it's just, it can work with members of each commission but
[56:10] then it's up to those members within that community to
[56:14] understand they've got -- to seek that out and then when that
[56:18] person rotates out, who is it now if they still have one where
[56:22] if you truly have a bicycle association, that's always there
[56:27] you know where there interesterize goig to lie and
[56:29] so as an avid bicyclist, I know where I can always go to and if
[56:34] dunedin gets to be on the board, and somebody on that board is
[56:40] favors bicycling, that's just frufor me -- extra for me.
[56:45] but without that I know I've got a place and the other bicyclists
[56:47] and pedestrians would know they have a place and a voice that
[56:50] will hear them and be heard through them.
[56:53] so that's my advocacy for maybe thinking a little differently
[56:58] than all that. So with that, I'll yield my time
[57:02] and thank you, whit, again for being here.
[57:05] >> thank you. >> mayor freaney: go dunedin.
[57:07] >> mayor freaney: okay, well, I'll kind of reiterate some
[57:09] things I said at forward pinellas.
[57:12] which is you know, I fully believe in well organized merged
[57:16] mpo. I mean, big picture it makes all
[57:18] the sense in the world. It, and the last thing I think
[57:22] we should be is parochial about that because you know I just
[57:27] think we have a lot to gain by, by you know controlling our own
[57:30] destiny by working together for bigger projects so I totally
[57:34] believe in that. And I think that that's
[57:38] paramount to everything here and we need to make that happen.
[57:41] so, so you know, so way in the distance is how our own counties
[57:49] apportionment happens. I don't like the current way
[57:51] it's laid out. Whit knows that.
[57:52] woo ebb had discussion -- we've had discussions behind the
[57:56] scenes. I brought it up at the board
[57:57] meeting. I think I have some support at
[57:59] the board meeting for that. I mean, there's 20 small cities
[58:01] out of our 24 cities in pinellas and, they are just lumped
[58:06] together. So and to me that's not
[58:09] representative. I think there's plenty of
[58:12] representation for unincorporated and for some of
[58:13] the big cities and that's just too many cities all lumped
[58:19] together. And I think specifically in the
[58:22] north county there is some underrepresentation so you know
[58:24] we've, whit and I have had some good conversations, and he's
[58:28] told me hang onto that chip, you know, and to be discussed.
[58:31] I know that even you know I've had discussions with
[58:35] commissioner eggers even on that and he's kind of sees it the way
[58:38] that we do. Dunedin.
[58:43] and not necessarily dunedin just the north county piece.
[58:45] you know? And the benefits even to the
[58:49] pasco you know north county connection kind of thing and you
[58:52] know as I've said even on the board, you know we've got state
[58:56] route 580, we've got alt 19, we've got curlew, we've got
[59:00] honeymoon island, caladesi, most visited park.
[59:04] so I think by basically being the largest city of 20 cities
[59:09] that are kind of thrown together for one seat is not enough.
[59:16] so those are my comments and we've had if -- good
[59:19] conversations and that's yet to be determined and I'm going to
[59:21] keep my finger on that button and keep the pressure on.
[59:23] I know that you know even an alternating seat with pinellas
[59:28] park would be better than what we've got so those are some of
[59:31] my thoughts but overall, whit, you have done an amazing job
[59:34] with this. I do think you're the logical
[59:36] person for me. I've met the other two people
[59:38] and they're very good too. The other directors in hills
[59:43] hillsborough and pasco and they're good, credible people
[59:46] but to me you make the most sense but that won't be my call
[59:50] but I think you guys have done a lot of work here and there's a
[59:54] lot of political moves and sways and but I have a feeling with a
[59:59] little push that is going to be forced on us, that'll get
[1:00:02] everybody off the dime to make it happen and you guys are you
[1:00:06] know you've done a lot of the leg work to make it work so I'm
[1:00:12] supportive, and but we appreciate you being here.
[1:00:14] >> thank you. >> mayor freaney: good update.
[1:00:15] >> thank you very much. >> mayor freaney: everybody
[1:00:18] good? Jorge?
[1:00:19] anything? Okay.
[1:00:19] thank you. >> I'll just say finally my wife
[1:00:23] and daughter both work for libraries.
[1:00:24] I really appreciate the proclamation, and I sent them
[1:00:26] pictures of your pictures. [laughter]
[1:00:29] >> that's great. That's great.
[1:00:30] thank you. Take care.
[1:00:33] sorry you're not biking back home now.
[1:00:36] okay we're going to go to the next item.
[1:00:38] you guys want to take a short break or are you good?
[1:00:40] do you want to keep going? >> I'm going to take a short
[1:00:42] break. >> mayor freaney: okay, let's
[1:01:03] short break. >> mayor freaney: we have
[1:01:04] legislative discussion, reviewing 20 -- reviewing the
[1:01:10] 2026 session. Staff presentation.
[1:01:12] we have nicole and we have laura.
[1:01:17] our lobbyist. And laura, first of all I just
[1:01:19] want to say like you couldn't have kept amendment 3 from
[1:01:23] getting passed and put on the ballot?
[1:01:25] come on now. >> I tried.
[1:01:27] >> mayor freaney: okay. [laughter]
[1:01:28] all right. >> I tried.
[1:01:29] >> I know you did. I know you did.
[1:01:32] >> I pushed -- [off mic] >> mayor freaney: ookay, very
[1:01:35] good. Very good.
[1:01:36] I like it. I like it.
[1:01:38] okay I will go to nicole. >> good morning, mayor,
[1:01:41] commission. City manager, sitting in.
[1:01:45] nicole delfino, strategy and sustainability manager here to
[1:01:49] provide you with a post-legislative update.
[1:01:51] we wanted to go ahead and bring this forward.
[1:01:54] I know I think for the, for most of you, we know where we landed
[1:01:57] with a lot of items, but as we typically do each session we
[1:02:03] wanted to comprehensive provide this and keep record of where
[1:02:06] we're at. Attached to the agenda item as
[1:02:10] well, which you know we can discuss, but is also the bmo
[1:02:15] memo in regards to how the legislation affects our city and
[1:02:20] any operations specifically. We've already been working with
[1:02:23] staff to get that information out to them so that any changes
[1:02:27] that were made at the state level are reviewed and then
[1:02:34] amended as we need to do so for our operations.
[1:02:37] you have also attached the florida league of cities
[1:02:40] comprehensive update if you want to read every single bill, super
[1:02:43] fun. [laughter]
[1:02:44] and also lastly, there is a preemption tracker.
[1:02:49] I know this was discussed previously as far as you know
[1:02:54] what legislation has been passed over the past several years.
[1:02:58] that preempts the city or municipalities from certain
[1:03:03] things. So that has been a document that
[1:03:06] was created by the florida league of cities.
[1:03:08] it is not currently up to date. It just goes up through 2025,
[1:03:12] but as you can imagine, there'll be lot to add and amend to that.
[1:03:16] so once we have an updated preemption document, I'll
[1:03:19] certainly make sure that you all get a copy of it.
[1:03:23] from my perspective, I think we've talked about preemption
[1:03:25] quite a bit. There is probably not a lot that
[1:03:29] isn't filed that isn't preemptive so we'll leave that
[1:03:34] there. I am here today of course with
[1:03:36] laura beamer of the southern group to walk through just the
[1:03:39] what the session looked like. >> do you want to take -- okay.
[1:03:46] great. Fantastic.
[1:03:48] [laughter] as far as what the session
[1:03:49] looked like, this year we always track you know the bills, so we
[1:03:54] had a little over 1800 almost 1900 bills filed.
[1:03:58] this was a unique year in that there were so few bills that
[1:04:03] actually passed through session. Obviously we were you know
[1:04:06] keeping you all informed as we made our way through
[1:04:10] session,trophist a lot of issues that were happening between the
[1:04:13] house and the senate which then created what you see here which
[1:04:17] was only 237 bills passed. So there were a few wins for us
[1:04:20] there with bills that did fail again unusual session to say the
[1:04:31] least. And that we had not only just
[1:04:34] the regular session but then we had additional extensions to the
[1:04:40] session and special sessions to address the budget redistricting
[1:04:43] and then of course as we all know the property tax reform.
[1:04:53] so here we have the budget. As far as what was signed, we
[1:05:03] had $1.6 billion that was vetoed out of the budget.
[1:05:06] the total state budget being $117.63 billion.
[1:05:12] I did want to make particular note that they had, the state
[1:05:18] has $18 billion in reserves that is an increase tromprior year of
[1:05:24] about $15.7 billion and then we have discussed this in ininterny
[1:05:28] as well but there is an expected state budget deficit in the
[1:05:33] future years. So they're doing some similar to
[1:05:35] I think what we're doing as well as far as looking at right
[1:05:39] sizing future year budgets. A lot of what we talk about
[1:05:45] through your priorities are not accomplished through a bill or
[1:05:50] through legislation. They are accomplished through
[1:05:52] the budget so I just wanted to highlight a few of those items
[1:05:55] here not necessarily going to go over every single item that's
[1:05:59] listed. In the budget.
[1:06:01] but you have maintained for your priorities over the last several
[1:06:05] years support of affordable housing, the museum cultural
[1:06:13] historical preservation support, they did receive as far as
[1:06:17] cultural museum programs a little bit less of an
[1:06:20] appropriation over prior years but as we all know, in 2024,
[1:06:23] there was a complete veto of any of that support, so happy to
[1:06:29] have some fukding there. Through the -- funding there.
[1:06:32] through the environmental aspect, there are several
[1:06:34] components there that continue to maintain support.
[1:06:38] the resilient florida program is an increase in funding over
[1:06:42] prior years as well as some of the others.
[1:06:44] there is actually quite a large increase over the florida state
[1:06:50] park system, $63 million over the 34 from 2025.
[1:06:53] and then finally, the tourism economic development visit
[1:06:58] florida maintains funding pretty consistently year over year and
[1:07:01] then we've got the job growth. So just wanted to highlight
[1:07:05] those as far as what was in the budget.
[1:07:08] why don't you take this. [laughter]
[1:07:13] >> so as you know we're in election cycle obviously, so you
[1:07:16] know there are some seats that are up for grabs throughout the
[1:07:18] state but we do know already you know who the legislative
[1:07:21] leadership is going to be for the next few years.
[1:07:24] you know, the outgoing senate president awl britain and
[1:07:29] speaker perez. So -- allbritton and speaker
[1:07:36] perez. Senator jim boid will be the
[1:07:38] senate president, he is from down the road manatee county.
[1:07:40] a great guy. I think it will be a new day in
[1:07:44] tallahassee with these new leaders.
[1:07:46] same garrison from up north of jacksonville, very different
[1:07:50] personalities than our previous leadership and then after that
[1:07:52] we have jennifer canady over in polk county too so somebody, you
[1:07:55] know, pretty close to us and jay tremble from the panhandle and
[1:08:02] microdondo from miami and tom leak from flagler county area.
[1:08:17] >> this session we received three appropriationchise were --
[1:08:20] appropriations which were approved and sign under by the
[1:08:23] governor. Those include $200,000 support
[1:08:25] for high water rescue vehicle for our fire department up with
[1:08:30] $.5 million for -- $3 million o support the marina repair and
[1:08:39] restoration. So all told, pretty banner year
[1:08:42] I would say, thank you, for $4.7 million.
[1:08:49] these are just a few of the bills as I mentioned.
[1:08:53] the florida league of cities summary is attached.
[1:08:55] it goes into a lot of detail. During our advocacy in
[1:09:01] tallahassee, we really talked about really streamlining and
[1:09:05] focusing on you know those things that are most impactful
[1:09:09] and so these are some of those bills that you'll see here.
[1:09:13] of course we've talked about the budget unfortunately property
[1:09:16] tax is on there. We have, we are working with,
[1:09:22] with staff, with leadership in the community and providing
[1:09:26] educational sessions on the property tax impacts.
[1:09:29] so those we have a few more sessions coming up.
[1:09:34] we had some I wouldn't say success with sovereign immunity
[1:09:36] because it did make it through but was vetoed.
[1:09:40] there is some -- however I think in our discussions when we were
[1:09:44] in tallahassee, we did get the bill to you know a decent place
[1:09:48] as far as some increases that were manageable so to speak.
[1:09:55] we've got the dei bill prohibition which I know we
[1:09:59] reviewed in great detail with our attorney as far as the
[1:10:03] impacts that it will have to, that will face because of that
[1:10:09] bill. In addition, we have the
[1:10:15] utility -- utility bill government spending which is
[1:10:17] really just about transparency getting a lot of information on
[1:10:21] our you know made public. We do those things already and
[1:10:26] there was a lot of discussion that went on with this bill as
[1:10:29] far as all of our budget and our audits are already hosted on the
[1:10:34] state's platform. But that's okay.
[1:10:37] we will make the little modifications that we need to
[1:10:39] make as far as what that bill deed.
[1:10:42] we had some building permit and inspection impacts that are
[1:10:46] being reviewed by our community development team.
[1:10:50] and then of course my favorite, our farm bill which really
[1:10:54] impacted biosolids. I learned a lot about biosolids
[1:10:58] this last year. Very fun topic.
[1:11:02] [laughter] and then that really concludes
[1:11:06] just the overview of the session.
[1:11:08] we did talk about you know looking ahead to your priorities
[1:11:14] for next session and I actually spoke with laura about this
[1:11:17] yesterday as well. We're going to put your priority
[1:11:21] discussion on for a future meeting because we would really,
[1:11:25] a, like to have everybody present for that discussion but
[1:11:29] also to have that discussion after the election to see how
[1:11:36] things have changed as your priorities may shift depending
[1:11:39] on what happens there in november.
[1:11:41] so do you all have any questions?
[1:11:46] questions? Commissioner sandbergen.
[1:11:48] >> you know, while we were up there, I guess I don't recall
[1:11:54] ever talking about that high water rescue vehicle or the
[1:11:58] water main replacement. How did those, how did we end up
[1:12:02] with those as victories? >> would you like to?
[1:12:08] >>> well, we did file appropriation requests for all
[1:12:11] of the items on your list, and we just were able to
[1:12:16] successfully work it through the budget process, and then when we
[1:12:19] went to special session, we were able to secure the funding
[1:12:22] fully. >> good.
[1:12:23] jorge, this might be for you. Where exactly is that bayshore
[1:12:26] water main replacement? >> it is along alt 19 not too
[1:12:32] from like palm boulevard intersection.
[1:12:34] >> north of palm or south of palm?
[1:12:36] >> I think it straddles both. >> straddles?
[1:12:40] good. Okay, nan is shaking her head
[1:12:43] no. Nan, can you.
[1:12:47] >> do you want me to tell you? >> yes.
[1:12:48] >> guest speaker. >> nan, if you can just state
[1:12:50] your name and address for the record.
[1:12:54] >> 1990 -- >> nan bennett, 1990 saddle hill
[1:12:58] road north dunedin. It's along alter nat 19.
[1:13:03] it's the last remaining part of unline duct -- pipe we have in
[1:13:08] the water system. That they've been trying to
[1:13:12] replace the entire since the not evens.
[1:13:15] and it's in the brick streets a little bit north of wilson
[1:13:22] going, it's not as far as palm. It's couple thousand feet.
[1:13:26] and it goes into some of the brick streets.
[1:13:27] I can't give you the names of the streets right off the top of
[1:13:29] my head but it's a little further south than palm.
[1:13:33] >> okay. >> thank you.
[1:13:35] >> what I was going to say we can confirm the location with
[1:13:38] our city engineer so you have the exact stretch.
[1:13:40] because I know that was included but I can't reference the
[1:13:44] streets off the top of my head. >> that's all I had, mayor.
[1:13:46] >> mayor freaney: okay, thank you.
[1:13:48] commissioner gow. Questions?
[1:13:51] >>> what was the lawnlic behind the -- logic behind the
[1:13:56] sovereign immunity actually being veto?
[1:13:59] >> well that's a good question. >> not that -- I'm actually a
[1:14:02] little disappointed it was vetoed but I'll talk about that.
[1:14:08] sphroo trying to decide how to phrase this.
[1:14:11] I would suspect that the governor's office wasn't crazy
[1:14:23] about giving -- the child lawyers more more room to sue.
[1:14:33] [laughter] I suspect.
[1:14:34] >> somebody was thinking nicely of local governments.
[1:14:38] that's why I was kind of surprised.
[1:14:41] in my comments, mayor, was because I know the last several
[1:14:44] sessions, they've been trying to increase this limit by millions,
[1:14:50] billions, trillions. The numbers that they were
[1:14:51] asking for were just insane. And I'd look at these and I
[1:14:56] would go, okay, at least it's reasonable.
[1:14:59] if that passes then they'll shut up about it.
[1:15:02] but now that it vetoed, oh it's going to come back and again
[1:15:05] we're going to be back to the millions and trillions.
[1:15:09] and especially with amendment 3. And it just, it to me it just
[1:15:12] didn't make sense that he chose this session to veto that when
[1:15:16] it was a reasonable increase that -- could absorb instead of
[1:15:22] the millions that have been proposed in previous legislative
[1:15:25] sessions. >> and I will say from an
[1:15:28] advocacy standpoint, I mean, we did work very hard when we were
[1:15:32] in tallahassee with you know independently with our group
[1:15:34] with the sun coast league of cities with the florida league
[1:15:37] of cities to get the house and the senate bill to align.
[1:15:41] in regards to sovereign immunity because they were not aligned at
[1:15:44] all where they started. And so it was a little bit more
[1:15:49] of an increase than we had hoped.
[1:15:51] we you know I think from the individual or you know per
[1:15:54] person claim it was a little more manageable than the larger
[1:16:00] you know claim but again, we got the number to a point where we
[1:16:06] felt you know we understood that an increase hadn't happened for
[1:16:09] many years and needed to happen. So I think you know again we're
[1:16:12] just going to have to likely going to have to work the bill
[1:16:15] again. >> I mean you can see that it
[1:16:18] passed almost unanimously. There was only one no vote in
[1:16:20] the house and it was unianimist is unanimous
[1:16:23] in the senate so we were at a place where it was comfortable.
[1:16:27] >> that was the item I championed when I got up there
[1:16:29] and I was very well prepared tanks to city attorney jen
[1:16:35] cowen. You had my notes prepared and I
[1:16:36] walked in with a lot of confidence on that specific item
[1:16:40] and paid off I appreciate your help on that now that we go
[1:16:44] back -- >> you must've met separately
[1:16:47] with the ghrve because he -- governor because he vetoed.
[1:16:54] [laughter] did you have a separate meeting.
[1:16:57] >> on one hand it was very dmies that the ledge slaifn rb -- nice
[1:16:59] that the legislature finally got together on this and with
[1:17:02] reasonable increases especially given we haven't had an increase
[1:17:05] in several years. And if you want to talk about
[1:17:10] compromise and playing nice in the sand box, there's been a
[1:17:13] nice awl vive branch from the municipalities going okay we see
[1:17:16] it. We'll do our part.
[1:17:24] >> as a former risk manager that sees letters from attorneys,
[1:17:33] they will go right to the cap, that's what we're demanding so
[1:17:36] all they're doing is giving attorneys another higher cap to
[1:17:39] shoot for and we're an easy target if we're wrong we're a
[1:17:44] wrong and there is a way for the legislative bill to get money if
[1:17:47] it's wrong and we're egredges. >> not all attorneys necessary.
[1:17:53] so we want to throw them all in one basket.
[1:18:04] >> that >> it could be a lot worse.
[1:18:06] >> man, we'll be begging for this next -- you know, but
[1:18:09] anyway that's my comment so far. >> okay.
[1:18:14] >> mayor freaney: so any other questions though?
[1:18:16] >> no, ma'am. >> mayor freaney: okay, all
[1:18:17] right. I have a few.
[1:18:20] you never ask a question you don't know the answer of I guess
[1:18:22] but I'm going to ask it anyway. So when the state reduced its
[1:18:26] budget how does that compare to prior budget fors them and how,
[1:18:30] what are they doing to reduce their uce their budget?
[1:18:41] >> they haven't reduced their budget yet.
[1:18:43] they are saying they are going through an exercise with all the
[1:18:45] departments, state agencies to look for efficiencies, and then
[1:18:49] you know obviously a previous legislature can you know mandate
[1:18:53] a future legislature to do anything, but if you talk to the
[1:18:59] incoming leadership they have talked to their members it's
[1:19:02] going -- member projects next year you know expect less, those
[1:19:04] types of things. Which they've been saying for
[1:19:07] the past few years knowing that this expected deficit is coming.
[1:19:12] >> so in the areas I know they're not fully funding are
[1:19:15] some of the parks areas. You know?
[1:19:17] which if they take over city parks, I have no reason to think
[1:19:20] that'll go well. So.
[1:19:22] >> right I mean if amendment 3 passes I think it's going to be
[1:19:24] a much different conversation in tallahassee.
[1:19:27] >> right. Okay.
[1:19:28] >> pickleballs in every park. >> yeah, exactly.
[1:19:31] yeah. Anyway, I try not to be smackery
[1:19:34] but it's -- snarky but it's hard not to be.
[1:19:38] >> I'm on my way out. I can be snarky.
[1:19:43] >> mayor freaney: yeah. Jen, well, actually, let me ask
[1:19:45] you this. On the one bill that passed.
[1:19:48] sorry, I lost my sheet here. On local government spending,
[1:19:54] well whoever, what do we have to do that's different than what we
[1:19:56] do now? Because of the local, the local
[1:19:58] government spending house bill 1329.
[1:20:02] like what are we going to do differently?
[1:20:05] 72 >> I think one of the componens
[1:20:08] of it was enabling the budget to be in a searchable format, so I
[1:20:11] think even with our new, the way our budget has been prepared
[1:20:14] with the software that finance is working with now, that allows
[1:20:17] a little bit more of that. But there were some of those
[1:20:21] components that a lot of cities and municipalities they may have
[1:20:23] just posted their budget whether it was a word or a pdf document
[1:20:28] that you're able to do some searchable components new in how
[1:20:33] you can view the budget. So that's one thing that we want
[1:20:36] to make sure we're, you know, the list of items that is, that
[1:20:40] is now in the bill that we have to adhere to, obviously posting
[1:20:43] the budget we have our budget posted on our web site.
[1:20:45] we have several, several years of that.
[1:20:50] so we're already meeting that requirement so there is some
[1:20:53] little details as far as how it's posted and how it can be
[1:20:56] searched and kind of compared that we need to make sure
[1:20:58] we're -- >> is that going to cost us
[1:21:00] money to do it differently even though we pretty much provide
[1:21:03] all that information now? >> yes, potentially.
[1:21:05] and we did talk about that when we were in tallahassee that some
[1:21:09] of these programs that would be required to meet some of the
[1:21:12] requirements of this bill or the items in this bill would require
[1:21:18] municipalities to purchase software or different software.
[1:21:21] I think we're in a little bit f a different position because we
[1:21:25] have a software that manages our budget so we are working through
[1:21:29] those. However, with a municipality
[1:21:31] that doesn't, I think we actually did the math, on the,
[1:21:34] on what the software would cost and it was you know millions and
[1:21:37] millions of dollars across the state that cities would have to
[1:21:41] spend. So at the same time you're
[1:21:42] saying beer more efficient -- be more efficient, spend less, but
[1:21:45] then you're mandating to actually increase, so that was
[1:21:50] interesting component. Jen?
[1:21:50] do you want to add? >>> well the only thing I was
[1:21:53] going to add to that is that I think in 1329 there is also a
[1:21:59] different process that you'll go through next year when you go
[1:22:03] through your budget analysis so it'll be have to be presented
[1:22:08] where there will be fiscal year budget that has a 10% comparison
[1:22:13] or reduction of 10% to compare with the current year so you'll
[1:22:17] be going through like a different analysis than you
[1:22:19] normally do with your budget that was included.
[1:22:22] but with regard to adding additional things onto your web
[1:22:26] site there is a laundry list of them and they have to be kept
[1:22:30] for four, I think it's four years on the site.
[1:22:33] while that in and of itself might be a little bit of labor
[1:22:36] one of the other things that's coming in place is the different
[1:22:40] ada requirements with regard to your web site, so budgetary
[1:22:43] information is kind of notorious for being hard to put in an ada
[1:22:50] format that's you're able to easily see and use unlike word
[1:22:55] documents and things like that so this additional requirement
[1:22:59] coupled with when the ada requirements go into effect
[1:23:03] could produce some additional, may require the city to either
[1:23:08] get additional services or have additional expenses in putting
[1:23:13] the required information on the web site in the legally required
[1:23:17] manner. Does that make sense?
[1:23:19] so it's not directly from this bill but it's this bill coupled
[1:23:22] with what else is coming down. >> okay.
[1:23:26] yeah, I mean, to me it's I believe in full transparency.
[1:23:43] and jen tell me what you learned about the dei pro hibition bill
[1:23:49] and what the impact is on our city.
[1:23:52] >> make sure you talk about scottish culture as well.
[1:24:00] >> right, so let me pull it up so I don't misspeak.
[1:24:03] but basically the dei bill prohibited the city from
[1:24:10] promoting in particular it's cities and counties are not
[1:24:13] allowed to fund, promote, or take any official action which
[1:24:17] includes adoption of ordinances, programs, policies, rules, or
[1:24:22] anything, as it relates to dei defined as diversity, equity,
[1:24:28] and inclusion. When it comes to being an dei
[1:24:38] officer not promoting anything that relates to dei that can
[1:24:44] impact the events that the city has.
[1:24:46] and so one of the things that we've done in working together
[1:24:49] with nicole and the parks staff and everyone is to identify all
[1:24:54] of the events because some of those events you support also
[1:25:00] some of the it could even be groups that you support that
[1:25:06] have like a dei event or dei program, and.
[1:25:11] >> just to be clear, dei icludes scottish culture?
[1:25:15] >> yes. Yes.
[1:25:16] >> I just think that the normal citizen of dunedin doesn't think
[1:25:19] of it like that, and that brings it to life when you're talking
[1:25:23] about you know st. Patrick's day,.
[1:25:27] >> so we're having to go through those events, and just so you
[1:25:30] know I mean every city is now having to go through those
[1:25:33] events. We've also had to include
[1:25:35] language in l of our contracts because -- in all of our
[1:25:38] contracts because it affects your contractors in what their
[1:25:40] policies can be, because of the certifications that your staff
[1:25:45] has to make in, in stating that they're in compliance with these
[1:26:01] requirements. It goes into effect january 1.
[1:26:02] and then there are notably several different exemptions
[1:26:06] that are provided so certain holidays that are designated by
[1:26:09] federal law, certain state holidays, and then there is a
[1:26:12] litany of monuments and celebrations that are identified
[1:26:15] in state statute. So we've kind of gone through
[1:26:17] those because we just want to make sure that the city is in
[1:26:21] compliance with the law. >> but we're allowed to say
[1:26:26] we're inclusive community, is that illegal now?
[1:26:29] I'm just asking. >> this is in effect until
[1:26:32] january 1. >> I'm asking a question.
[1:26:33] are we allowed to say we're an incrusive -- inclusive
[1:26:38] community. >> it's not prohibited per se.
[1:26:39] I mean, I don't know that that's an activity.
[1:26:42] >> yeah, okay, thank you. I'm just, you know, it's a
[1:26:46] sledge hammer in search of a problem.
[1:26:48] but anyway. >> mayor if I may just piggyback
[1:26:51] on that. Within that list, jennifer, are
[1:26:53] there events such as halloween, christmas which could be
[1:27:01] considered dei by some groups and not by others.
[1:27:03] >> so dei is specifically identified as anything that
[1:27:11] could influence competition of employees or that is a special
[1:27:15] benefit or preferential treatment or recognition of
[1:27:20] groups based on race, color, sex, ethnicity, gender identity,
[1:27:24] and sexual orientation, so I say that when you asked about
[1:27:29] scottish heritage, is that an ethnicity, a cultural heritage,
[1:27:36] that would be implicated by this.
[1:27:40] and so with regard to christmas and those other, yes we've had
[1:27:43] to go through each one of those and identify -- some of them are
[1:27:46] identified in state law as holidays that can be celebrated.
[1:27:51] so therefore, they would meet the exemption criteria.
[1:27:56] >> is there anybody or any way that there can be pushback, and
[1:28:00] if we're allowed to celebrate christmas, and halloween, which
[1:28:04] for the record, I'm a proponent of both of those holidays, for
[1:28:12] them to justify why they can celebrate those -- right, if
[1:28:16] they're listing what we can and then what we can't, why can we
[1:28:19] do the things that they say you can't?
[1:28:23] what's different about those holidays and events versus
[1:28:28] highland games. >> sure, those have been
[1:28:30] recognized in state statute. That's the distinction.
[1:28:36] >> ah. Okay.
[1:28:37] so and when I say you all understand this applies
[1:28:42] specifically to each of you as a, as a public official.
[1:28:49] in particular. As well as what the city can do
[1:28:50] as a whole. >> what do you mean by that?
[1:28:59] >> so when you're acting in your official capacity, you are, you
[1:29:04] know, obviously limit -- or will be in january 1 limited by
[1:29:07] compliance with this law and if you are found to have violated
[1:29:13] this law I believe this is the one where you can be, where it's
[1:29:18] considered malfeasance or misfesance of office.
[1:29:21] >> o in other words if you promote as a public official if
[1:29:26] you brumoted activities in opposition to the law, you could
[1:29:29] be found to be in -- malfeeze malfeasance
[1:29:36] or missance. >> as an single elected
[1:29:42] officials. >> correct.
[1:29:43] which could jeopardize your position.
[1:29:44] >> so at some point though we're going to spend a lot of time on
[1:29:49] the specifics of holidays, events, I mean this is very
[1:29:54] broad the way we talked about it right now.
[1:29:56] >> right. So actually like I said, we've
[1:29:59] gone through with regard to the requirements of this law the
[1:30:02] language that needs to be added in for your contractors to do
[1:30:05] their certification for doing business with the cities.
[1:30:07] we've gone through we've identified the events and that
[1:30:14] are sponsored and groups that are sponsored and have talked
[1:30:17] about what could be impacted by that.
[1:30:19] we're looking at the exemptions and we're doing some additional
[1:30:25] research with regard to many of the scottish festivals that a
[1:30:28] memo from my office will be forthcoming on.
[1:30:31] but yes. >> so we won't be put out of
[1:30:35] office if we promote a scottish event?
[1:30:39] based on your research? Which is costing a lot of money
[1:30:41] by the way. But go ahead.
[1:30:45] >> well, at this point in time, you're fine.
[1:30:48] because the law doesn't go into effect until january 1.
[1:30:50] >> right, correct, but after. >> after january 1, I'm, I'm
[1:30:55] working on an opinion as to that.
[1:30:58] as to whether or not -- >> mayor freaney: the fact that
[1:31:01] that is even in question is sad. That's my point.
[1:31:02] that's my point. >> so how about --
[1:31:06] >> do you know when you'll have -- will we have it in
[1:31:07] december, by december. >> oh, yes, you'll is before the
[1:31:11] law is in effect. >> even going so far as if
[1:31:14] someone wanted to rent one of our facilities, do we dig into
[1:31:17] what they are, who they are or what they're there to celebrate?
[1:31:23] >> so we -- so there is a difference I would say and we've
[1:31:27] talked about this a little bit in like promoting activities and
[1:31:32] supporting events. And allowing the public to use
[1:31:34] facilities. So there are certain facilities
[1:31:36] that you have that you would rent to anyone and you don't
[1:31:39] really there is no discriminatory basis on whether
[1:31:42] whether or not you rent to them. You know, if somebody wants to
[1:31:45] you know be in the park, or using maybe tennis courts or
[1:31:51] whatever, I don't believe that you have any kind of requirement
[1:31:54] for that person, and that would not change with this.
[1:31:57] >> okay I'm just picturing someone walking in and saying
[1:32:00] here's my $50 I want to rent the shelter at weaver park, and
[1:32:04] congratulations enjoy it and all of sodden we show up and it's
[1:32:08] I'm not even going to try to imagine what could go on there.
[1:32:14] >> right. And right now and I believe
[1:32:17] parks iergt has this in place or -- either has this in place
[1:32:20] or is working on just in that that there are policies that
[1:32:23] we're not asking you know what you're renting it for, beyond
[1:32:28] understanding and I will say this, with some of your event
[1:32:31] permits, depending on the number of people that are going to be
[1:32:34] at the event there could be other needs like you may need
[1:32:38] additional garbage or you may need security or any of those
[1:32:41] type of items and so for those events, you know it's more
[1:32:45] asking how many are attending more than what is the event.
[1:32:50] really about. >> I think we'll let it go.
[1:32:52] we spend a whole day on this. Thank you, mayor.
[1:32:55] >> mayor freaney: sorry, it's obviously a pet peeve.
[1:32:57] I would assume if any, any place does do a legal challenge on
[1:33:00] this, it would have to be after it goes into effect.
[1:33:05] >> correct. >> I don't know, I guess if ife
[1:33:09] head up the scottish -- we have a, you know, we spend some money
[1:33:13] on welcoming a scottish group into town, what was the group
[1:33:16] that was going to come? The band?
[1:33:20] the soccer people? >> if we met with officials and
[1:33:31] removed them, we're going to -- you know we're going to legally
[1:33:34] challenge this or yeah. >> mayor freaney: thank you, I
[1:33:52] wanted to be a little b issnark -- bit snarky this
[1:33:56] morning. Back to kind of good questions
[1:34:01] here. So is there any thought that if
[1:34:04] amendment -- I'm assuming florida -- I'm going to ask this
[1:34:06] question, florida league too because I'm going to be on their
[1:34:10] finance taxation board. Any thought that in lieu of the
[1:34:15] amendment 3 not passing, that cities and counties might put
[1:34:19] forward some type of more proactive approach to what would
[1:34:23] be some positive thoughts on property tax reform that might
[1:34:27] actually make sense? >> well, there are a few
[1:34:34] components to that. Obviously we have talked about,
[1:34:35] I think everybody in the room is familiar that you know in 2027,
[1:34:38] there is going to be a taxation commission review at the state
[1:34:45] level. It's mandated in our
[1:34:47] constitution every 20 years and that's on the schedule for 2027.
[1:34:50] so I think if amendment 3 does not pass, you're going to have
[1:34:56] in place what was intended to review the finance and taxation
[1:34:58] structure of our state, at that constitutional level.
[1:35:01] and I think that opportunity to actually review it to really
[1:35:05] understand the -- the financial impacts really drill down into
[1:35:10] what cities and counties are going to be significantly
[1:35:12] impacted and how those changes can be made.
[1:35:14] I think we're going to see recommendations come out of
[1:35:17] there. And that's where we would be
[1:35:21] able to have some discussion with our elected officials as
[1:35:31] far as we talk about this one-size-fits-all formula that
[1:35:34] passes which doesn't necessarily work for every community so
[1:35:36] where there are some communities that could potentially absorb
[1:35:38] that sort of increase that's on the table now, there are others
[1:35:42] that will be completely bankrupted.
[1:35:50] there is opportunity for those other discussions, with the sun
[1:35:54] coast league, through the florida league, through the
[1:35:56] commission, but that's kind of,. >> I'll add to that that I think
[1:36:03] you'll see with the new leadership in the house and
[1:36:07] senate and whoever wins in the governor's office there is not
[1:36:09] going to be such a rush to just let's go, let's go redo this
[1:36:15] next session. You know, and there is going to
[1:36:17] be more of a thoughtful discussion on what property tax
[1:36:20] reform should really look like or tax reform in general should
[1:36:22] look like. >> do you see them reapproaching
[1:36:27] the insurance crisis issues? Property insurance,.
[1:36:31] >> I do. I do.
[1:36:32] I can you know there has been the con-- I think you know there
[1:36:36] has been the constant conversation in tallahassee has
[1:36:38] been we need to pass this law and give it time to kind of see
[1:36:41] the effects of it. They passed it what four years
[1:36:44] ago? Six years ago so I think that
[1:36:46] enough time has gone by now where maybe that, that's not
[1:36:50] really holding water anymore. And they'll have to look at it
[1:36:54] again and again I think with new leadership, fresh eyes in the
[1:36:57] leadership positions, I think you'll see that.
[1:37:00] >> that's good. Good.
[1:37:03] and then with wonder too tpo you all could put together maybe a,
[1:37:10] I don't know, top 10, 15, home rule intrusions that have
[1:37:17] occurred. I think that it's just -- thata
[1:37:21] actually makes sense to citizens that they can kind of see it,
[1:37:24] touch it kind of thing. I think of the trees, you know,
[1:37:27] which they did partially fix that.
[1:37:30] but just ones that are really impacting our everyday citizens.
[1:37:33] so they can kind of I just want to be able to have those just
[1:37:37] talking points. Yes.
[1:37:38] >> in addition to that how about also looks like we may need some
[1:37:43] very solid clarification of live local.
[1:37:47] with. >> oh, yeah.
[1:37:48] >> with some projects -- >> there's one.
[1:37:52] [laughter] >> mayor freaney: yeah.
[1:37:52] now we're all going to learn a lot about that.
[1:37:55] get closer to that one. Okay I'm going to open it up for
[1:38:02] public input. Anyone in the audience wish to
[1:38:03] come forward and speak on this issue?
[1:38:06] seeing no one rushing forward, I'll close public input.
[1:38:10] and final comments, starting with commissioner gow.
[1:38:16] >> well done. Thank you for all your hard
[1:38:20] work. And jennifer thank you for your
[1:38:20] hard work as well. And this is no small feat, and
[1:38:23] the amount of time, effort, and dollars it took for you guys to
[1:38:28] put this together. For us and that's just not
[1:38:32] including the everyday on the phones or key boarding to
[1:38:36] everyone so thank you. I just yearn for a -- because so
[1:38:40] much could be done if the state legislature would actually work
[1:38:48] with local municipalities and we could compromise and see a
[1:38:50] single vision -- you know if we really were team florida but for
[1:38:54] the las several years it just seems like we haven't been team
[1:38:59] florida where we know best and you don't know what you're doing
[1:39:02] and we need an adult in the room and sadly most of the time
[1:39:04] inadults in the room are the municipalities not the state.
[1:39:14] so anyway that's kind of of my comments.
[1:39:19] >> mayor freaney: very good comments.
[1:39:20] commissioner sandbergen. >> nothing really to add but
[1:39:23] thanks, you work hard when you're up there, nicole and
[1:39:26] laura you did a good job for us up there.
[1:39:29] I thnk it was very successful and I'm still only my second
[1:39:31] year up there, so maybe you know someone might disagree with that
[1:39:37] but I appreciate all your hard work and I'm ready to do this
[1:39:41] again this year. We'll get our plans together and
[1:39:43] make it happen again. Thank you.
[1:39:48] >> mayor freaney: I'll justing a onto commissioner gow's
[1:39:52] comments. I think they were awesome.
[1:39:53] I was sitting here thinking that like I find myself you know
[1:39:57] being so frustrated with the state, and how, and you kind of
[1:40:02] said it. The disrespect of local.
[1:40:06] we work hard for our communities.
[1:40:07] we work hard. And I think that the disrespect
[1:40:14] is just hard to take and I just think if they would kind of have
[1:40:17] a different mindset and it sounds like you're saying some
[1:40:19] of the leadership coming in is maybe going to have some of that
[1:40:24] and depending on who our governor is, I think that there
[1:40:27] is so much opportunity and I love the team florida.
[1:40:31] I mean for state, local, county, for us to work together because
[1:40:36] I agree like I still am a firm believer best government is
[1:40:40] local we're closest to the people you can grab us at the
[1:40:42] store you can grab us on the dance floor, you can grab us
[1:40:46] anywhere down in the park. And you know and all of us are
[1:40:48] very open and so it's very frustrating and I I understand,
[1:40:54] not all communities are the same.
[1:40:55] and there might be some bad actors.
[1:40:59] but treating them all the same and act like we're all bad
[1:41:01] actors when most of us are not and we're not making a lot of
[1:41:03] money doing this stuff either. We're doing it for love of
[1:41:06] community so it's just tbruserating but -- frustrating
[1:41:11] but I think your comments, jeff, were great because again, you
[1:41:14] know, talking to you know our state people is, you know we're
[1:41:18] people too. We work hard for the our
[1:41:27] communities and we don't deserve to be disrespected.
[1:41:29] we want affordability. We don't want to drive our
[1:41:32] people out of of our communities but we also want a quality of
[1:41:35] life that people come to expect. So I think you just said that
[1:41:40] well and I just think it could be so much better if we've got
[1:41:44] leadership in tallahassee that shows respect for the local work
[1:41:49] that's done and works with us and doesn't see us as an enemy.
[1:41:54] so hopefully that'll happen with the new leadership.
[1:41:56] it sounds like you believe in some of that with the new
[1:41:58] leadership so I like that. Anyway, so thanks for all the
[1:42:02] hard work though, ladies. You guys do an amazing job up
[1:42:10] there. Laura you have done fantastic
[1:42:12] job and you know we don't pay you that much and you work
[1:42:14] really hard for us and it's appreciated.
[1:42:17] so and nicole, you're doing a great job up there.
[1:42:19] so thank you. And yeah.
[1:42:23] and obviously jen I don't want to forget you because you've
[1:42:26] been working your butt off on some of this stuff and
[1:42:30] interpreting what they put to us so it's a lot of work.
[1:42:34] okay we're going to move on. Thank you, everybody.
[1:42:36] okay we're going to go to strategic plan dashboard review.
[1:42:39] this is nicole too, so. >> mayor, if I may, before we
[1:42:48] get started, commissioner sandbergen, clay, was listening
[1:42:51] in and he want to clarify. The water main replacement
[1:42:54] project that you asked about, the limits of that are north of
[1:42:58] san salvador, to north of buena vista drive on alt 19.
[1:43:11] >> mayor freaney: okay. Good morning.
[1:43:13] >> bye, laura. >> I love that cleared room.
[1:43:19] good morning. Mayor commissioner, nicole
[1:43:23] delfino, strategy and sustainability manager here to
[1:43:25] provide an update on the strategic planning dashboard and
[1:43:26] I will just jump right in here. So as you know, the strategic
[1:43:32] plan was developed throughout 2023 and 24 where we determined
[1:43:37] that we had these seven strategic themes that are listed
[1:43:43] here. All of the themes then had
[1:43:47] goals, objectives, and action items under them.
[1:43:49] I'm not going to review every sickle item that -- single item
[1:43:54] that lives under each theme but this is kind of a summary of
[1:43:56] what the goals are within those themes.
[1:43:59] and how the plan was developed. Again, this is the second part
[1:44:02] of it. We couldn't fit everything on
[1:44:04] one slide. But you'll see there a few kind
[1:44:10] of overarching goals the plan itself, the themes and the
[1:44:21] goals, we then wanted to put it on a dashboard so we explored
[1:44:28] our options. We settled on a dashboard called
[1:44:31] clear point. I know you've looked at this a
[1:44:32] little bit before. This is our internal facing
[1:44:36] dashboard and there are a lot of really great tools that the
[1:44:41] dashboard offers as far as reports and summaries.
[1:44:49] there are staff working on the items so 120 or so action items
[1:44:57] and each action item is assigned to a staff member or lead
[1:45:01] employee and they're responsible on a quarterly basis for
[1:45:03] updating that item, providing information, indicating how far
[1:45:10] along the process it's complete and then once it's complete
[1:45:12] marking that item as complete so all of those components of those
[1:45:15] action items are then able to then be filtered in various ways
[1:45:19] and again just to kind of showing a building on how we're
[1:45:24] ultimately getting to the external dashboard because the
[1:45:27] external dashboard really is built with the data that lives
[1:45:32] in this internal dashboard. Again so the first phase of the
[1:45:40] software was to upload the entire strategic plan so that
[1:45:43] was, that was completed first. Then we moved on to uploading
[1:45:49] the cip and bpi initiatives. And so with, within, with having
[1:45:55] that capability of the cip and bpi capital improvement plan and
[1:46:00] business initiatives just for the record.
[1:46:11] >> well it's organized by department and that was the
[1:46:24] first one. >> right, within each city cip
[1:46:29] and bpi they are now tied into this internal dashboard within a
[1:46:34] theme and then a goal and objective within the theme so
[1:46:37] again it allows us to run lot of reports to understand how many
[1:46:40] items are assigned to which theme.
[1:46:42] this is just an overview here. I know it's very small because
[1:46:44] it's a screen shot but this is an overview where you can see
[1:46:49] there in the strategic theme the designation whether it's a
[1:46:52] community amenity, good governance, so and on so forth.
[1:47:01] again this is just another view of how data can be sliced and
[1:47:04] died so to speak. This is just pulling the
[1:47:06] community amenity cip, bpi, and again all of this can be run as
[1:47:11] reports within the system as well.
[1:47:13] and now that we've been using the system for over a year now,
[1:47:18] there is starting to be some good data in there.
[1:47:22] so as we moved on from there, I'm going to skip the screen
[1:47:26] shot, but as we moved on from there, it was really important
[1:47:29] to build up some of that data, get staff comfortable with using
[1:47:34] a new system, in order to then create this external dashboard.
[1:47:38] and so again, all of the data that's being pulled onto the
[1:47:43] external dashboard is coming from this clear point software.
[1:47:49] and so now. >> this is on our web site now.
[1:47:56] >> I actually do want to shift over and show you a kind of a
[1:47:58] live view to so to speak, but just so everybody is aware.
[1:48:04] when I created this presentation, the update to our
[1:48:05] web site hadn't bip completed but I will show -- been
[1:48:07] completed but I will show you where it's at.
[1:48:09] it's exactly when you go to the home page, strategic themes, yu
[1:48:20] can access the dashboard there. It will live in the strategy and
[1:48:23] sustainability page on the web site so there'll be a few
[1:48:26] different ways to find it and access and then of course there
[1:48:29] is direct access if you're wanting to pin it or book mark
[1:48:37] it. Then you can check on it there.
[1:48:39] I'm going to switch gears just for one moment just so you all
[1:48:42] can see where it lives now. So like I mentioned this is
[1:48:47] accheag a live view of the web site.
[1:48:49] it has been updated so there at the top of the ribbon it says
[1:48:52] community dashboard. That's where you can click on it
[1:48:57] to select the dashboard, and it'll take you right there
[1:49:02] within the dashboard itself. This is what it looks like when
[1:49:05] you open it. Here, remember when we talked
[1:49:12] about building the strategic plan.
[1:49:13] we talked about it all goess back to those seven themes.
[1:49:22] you can click on any of the themes here to be able to see
[1:49:25] some of those measures. Of course I do want to preface
[1:49:27] you know we selected some initial measures to kind of push
[1:49:39] out. The local environment, the state
[1:49:40] environment. If there are things that become
[1:49:42] more critical to measure that it allows us the flexibility to
[1:49:46] change the measurements that are being displayed.
[1:49:52] again, these measurements I'll show you example here, I'll
[1:49:55] actually go here to, when you click on this, you're going to
[1:50:06] see four different measures specific to city services.
[1:50:10] we've got some training. We've got fire response.
[1:50:16] street sweeping and you can click on any item.
[1:50:30] I'm used to a touch screen and this is not one.
[1:50:32] so this again, the data is being pulled from the dashboard, so
[1:50:35] the updates are made in the clear point software.
[1:50:43] what it details is the description of the dash board,
[1:50:45] what qlear r we're looking at fnghts -- we're looking, what is
[1:50:49] the goal of tracking this, why is this important to the
[1:50:51] community that we maintain the emergency response time of
[1:50:54] course that's something that's important.
[1:50:56] but you can look through each of these various items that are
[1:51:03] selected to you know see additional details to see what's
[1:51:08] been completed. We've got goals set as far as
[1:51:12] this is the street sweeping measurement.
[1:51:16] goal set as far as how many miles are swept and then what is
[1:51:21] actually achieved. So those being tracked again in
[1:51:24] specific departments. And if there is in this case, in
[1:51:30] quarter 2 we didn't reach our goal but there was an
[1:51:32] explanation for that as far as the truck was being serviced.
[1:51:39] but this is I know we had I think the mayor you had actually
[1:51:42] mentioned in one of our budget sessions wanting to have this
[1:51:46] brought forward. It has been complete for a
[1:51:48] little while. We got a little side tracked
[1:51:51] with special session. But within this again you can
[1:51:57] really select any of the themes to drill down into those items
[1:52:01] that are being measured. I will go to environment here.
[1:52:07] we have natalie is tracking our solar energy production and this
[1:52:11] is looking at, this is a lot of data.
[1:52:13] but this is looking at the energy production that our three
[1:52:19] facilities are making and how it's kind of tracking with
[1:52:22] what's expected and she did that as an average over the last few
[1:52:32] years. To put the targeted information
[1:52:34] in. So do you all have any
[1:52:38] questions. >> questions.
[1:52:39] commissioner sandbergen? >> I guess my only question is
[1:52:42] are we getting this word out to the citizens and the public.
[1:52:47] and if so, how? >> well, this is the
[1:52:51] introduction so I have worked with sue burr ness.
[1:52:57] we will probably do a blog post or story ncluded in the
[1:53:04] newsletter. She can reference it whether its
[1:53:06] in social media, other articles that are written by other
[1:53:10] departments, if they talk about anything that's related to one
[1:53:12] of of our measures we certainly can link that back so we'll have
[1:53:17] that constant reference back to the dashboard.
[1:53:39] >> commissioner gow. >> I have been talking about a
[1:53:43] dashboard I know how long. This will certainly help us,
[1:53:46] it'll help staff, and certainly it'll help the residents.
[1:53:48] and it might be in here and I'm just not seeing it now.
[1:53:52] but I thought it would be nice if we could add I don't know
[1:53:59] where good governance but more really detailed financial stuff.
[1:54:06] so the residents are more aware on how much things cost, why
[1:54:09] we're doing that project, where the money is coming from.
[1:54:12] right? Because it could be it's not
[1:54:14] even dunedin money. They're upset about it but it's
[1:54:18] not dunedin money. It's county, it's state, it's
[1:54:22] federal. The more we can educate, the
[1:54:23] more transparent we can be with our residents, the better
[1:54:26] educated they can be. The better residents they'll be.
[1:54:30] >> yes, and I will say I know you know with sue burrness and
[1:54:35] our communication team, we have transitioned our project pages
[1:54:38] and so a lot of time when residents have questions about
[1:54:42] specific projects, you know, they can go to our web site,
[1:54:47] they can go access project pages,
[1:54:54] and then see a lot of that information.
[1:54:56] a description on the project, the time line, the documents
[1:54:59] associated with, the funding, there's now, with the change in
[1:55:03] the project pages, which was made recently, residents can
[1:55:06] sign up for notifications, when something is updated on that
[1:55:09] project page. They can post questions.
[1:55:16] it's a little more interactive for a resident.
[1:55:22] when people again -- communications team takes
[1:55:27] references, those project pages quite a bit.
[1:55:31] if somebody has a question on it, that's sent to them, so they
[1:55:35] can keep tracking it, we don't have project pages for
[1:55:38] everything we do. However, a lot of our big
[1:55:41] projects we do, impactful projects, those all have
[1:55:45] independent pages that have a lot of that information there.
[1:55:49] >> thank you. That's all I have, mayor.
[1:55:55] >> mayor freaney: if I go to multimodal transit and
[1:56:06] pedestrians/bicyclist, can you explain that to me?
[1:56:07] >> this here? >> yes.
[1:56:11] so through our community development team, they work with
[1:56:15] our sheriff's office and other agencies, as far as tracking
[1:56:22] accidents, incidents. That sort of thing, and so
[1:56:27] unfortunately, in this case our target is obviously zero.
[1:56:33] our target was that there are zero fatalities, incidents when
[1:56:39] it comes to pedestrians, bicyclists and golf carts, in
[1:56:44] the past we've had incidences, and we're tracking and reporting
[1:56:48] them. One of the things that we hope
[1:56:55] occurs. I know we talked about the trail
[1:57:00] crossing in 580, and the things put in place to improve that
[1:57:03] intersection. The hope is, those sorts of
[1:57:06] things reduce incidences that happen in those areas, where
[1:57:10] there's a lot of contact between vehicles and other individuals
[1:57:20] >> mayor freaney: so october 2025 there were one.
[1:57:28] why does it have one, one, one. >> there was one in october and
[1:57:32] one in november is what this is reporting.
[1:57:35] >> mayor freaney: yeah, but if you look at it, on the left
[1:57:42] axle, 00111. >> on the graph?
[1:57:44] >> yeah, I see, I will take a look at that.
[1:57:52] it looks like it's just an error.
[1:57:54] >> you could interpret that to be three in each month.
[1:57:58] which I know -- okay, so -- I mean it's a good start.
[1:58:07] I'm used to the dashboard being like, you look at 10 different
[1:58:14] things when you -- when I was director of pinellas county
[1:58:17] animal services, every mornin I came in and could immediately
[1:58:21] see number of dogs, number of cats, number of citations given
[1:58:32] the day before -- and I don't know what those comparables
[1:58:35] would be with us. It seems like there's a lot more
[1:58:37] information to add. Maybe this is the starting
[1:58:40] categories or it doesn't have -- >> there's a lot to read too
[1:58:44] with people. Versus dashboard to me is
[1:58:56] that -- it says a lot. >> yes, this initial push was to
[1:58:59] get it started. We know that we want to keep
[1:59:02] refining it. As I mentioned, we have a lot of
[1:59:10] action items in the plan itself, we don't wan 9 to overwhelm
[1:59:14] people when they go to the dashboard, you say, there's 120
[1:59:18] measurements and then you get so bogged down, you really end up
[1:59:22] not exploring those. We tried to pick some high
[1:59:25] priority items that we are currently tracking or measuring,
[1:59:29] that we can start to report out, we have worked with with
[1:59:33] departments on things we want to measure, that are important to
[1:59:36] measure, so we know that those departments are having too make
[1:59:39] those changes as far as tracking the information they hadn't been
[1:59:42] tracking in the past. So that's -- it's all been part
[1:59:50] of the process, changing how we've always done things in some
[1:59:54] cases, my favorite. To really kind of understand the
[1:59:57] data and how it tells the story, and how it's really getting us
[2:00:04] to where we want to be. >> mayor, I piggyback?
[2:00:08] >> mayor freaney: yeah. >> it focuses on fatalities and
[2:00:15] that was a bicyclist fatality, right?
[2:00:19] question? >> yes.
[2:00:20] >> and because the headline is pedestrians, bicyclists and golf
[2:00:25] carts that leads to the question of, why -- was this a
[2:00:33] pedestrians, bicyclist, golf cart.
[2:00:34] I don't know if they need to be different colors or -- I don't
[2:00:38] know if that's -- or is it just, it will all be blue and --
[2:00:43] >> we can work on separating that data, and reflecting in the
[2:00:47] graph in a different way. >> I appreciate that we're
[2:00:50] focusing on deaths, that's good. But do we also have a groove for
[2:00:57] just accidents or citations? Because the public just screams
[2:01:01] and hollers about right now, it's e bikes, right?
[2:01:05] at least we'll be able to show the residents, there's been
[2:01:09] three citations given this month, so they know we're
[2:01:12] trying, we're doing something, we're not ignoring the
[2:01:16] situation. >> yeah.
[2:01:17] >> that's why I like the transparency and the outward
[2:01:22] facing so they can at least see. >> the great thing with this
[2:01:26] dashboard, we can add and change however we want to change it.
[2:01:30] we've built it, and we can modify it.
[2:01:33] >> the balance between information and paralysis
[2:01:36] through analysis. >> 00, let's have another graph,
[2:01:39] and it gets out of control, because one resident says, hey,
[2:01:43] what about this? Responding to at least those
[2:01:50] major categories would be good. Sorry, mayor.
[2:01:53] >> mayor freaney: no, that's okay.
[2:01:54] same thing, if I go to amenities and it says membership levels,
[2:01:58] the first thing I thought was golf course membership, because
[2:02:02] it has golf course rounds. No, that's too high to be golf
[2:02:09] course membership. I call them I d cards, I assume
[2:02:14] that's the equivalent of what you're calling membership?
[2:02:17] >> yes, that is the case. >> which is interesting, because
[2:02:23] that seems low to me. 500 something.
[2:02:27] >> and it's tracked on a monthly basis, though.
[2:02:29] >> yeah. >> well, that goes back to, I
[2:02:34] think we should be requiring nonresident the cards for
[2:02:37] outdoor facilities, but that's an argument left to be had,
[2:02:45] because then everybody would be having them.
[2:02:47] yeah, I mean, I -- okay, that's all my questions.
[2:02:50] I'm going to open it up for public input.
[2:02:55] anyone in the audience wish to come forward and speak on this
[2:03:03] issue? And I will open -- close it from
[2:03:05] public input, I don't see anyone.
[2:03:08] final comments, starting with commissioner sandbergen?
[2:03:10] >> I think this is really a dynamic program.
[2:03:13] it's going to be a lot of work to keep it updated.
[2:03:16] and it would be so nice if the public would simply go here to
[2:03:20] find the answer rather than go out on social media or any other
[2:03:26] way to ask what or who or how much.
[2:03:29] this is going to give the answers, it's going to be
[2:03:32] important, keep it up to date and keep it in front of the
[2:03:36] citizens that have those questions, thanks, nicole.
[2:03:39] >> commissioner gow? >> I certainly agree with my
[2:03:42] colleagues comments. This is fabulous, and probably a
[2:03:46] great start. We can go down rabbit holes real
[2:03:50] quickly on this, and you probably used -- I'm not sure
[2:03:53] how you came up with these categories, you may have said
[2:03:56] it, I may have missed it, but I would also reach out to --
[2:04:02] >> mayor freaney: those are our categories, right?
[2:04:04] >> we did, right. >> you created those.
[2:04:08] >> right, we do. >> mayor freaney: I didn't mean
[2:04:09] to jump in. But do you actually reach out to
[2:04:15] the residents? Because it's -- most of them are
[2:04:18] fine, they work well, but you have those keyboard warriors
[2:04:21] that will just absolutely complain about anything.
[2:04:25] and you're never going to get rid of them, if we can at least
[2:04:28] reach out to some of them and say, hey, how can we make this
[2:04:32] better, we'll show good will in an attempt.
[2:04:36] anything that keeps them from just posting the question into
[2:04:42] the atmosphere, all right? Hoping somebody will answer
[2:04:44] them. The answer is here.
[2:04:47] but well done. Thank you, nicole.
[2:04:50] >> mayor freaney: I did love how someone in our community, who we
[2:04:53] all know put something out on social media yesterday and thin
[2:04:57] later in the day actually said, oh, that's why the city shuts
[2:05:01] their comments off. Because you may actually learn
[2:05:04] some things, and people talk facts and they think -- I think
[2:05:09] he gained ed some knowledge fro his post.
[2:05:13] I think teit's a good start. But it's definitely got work.
[2:05:20] and I -- and the biggest thing for me is, what's the most
[2:05:24] important data that somebody wants to see.
[2:05:28] one of my suggestions, if you haven't already done it, I think
[2:05:31] if you have a few citizen focus groups together to see, when I
[2:05:36] go and think about -- including us, because there's stuff that I
[2:05:40] like to see. And I think you're -- hitting on
[2:05:43] some stuff, but it's -- I think some really good focus groups on
[2:05:47] what some of the key data that actually tells the story the
[2:05:52] best. Because my fear is, if you send
[2:05:55] people to something that's just adds more questions, it doesn't
[2:05:58] solve the issues, what are the key data that would actually
[2:06:03] create this kind of a more holistic view of what's going
[2:06:08] on. Focus groups, citizens and the
[2:06:11] question would be awesome. That's my suggestion.
[2:06:13] I know you don't have anything else to do, so there you go.
[2:06:16] >> you're right, I don't. As part of the strategic project
[2:06:20] plan we were planning in 2027 to revisit, it will be at that
[2:06:24] point, a few years old, and we said it's a 3 to 5 year plan,
[2:06:28] we're not looking to make significant changes, again,
[2:06:33] things happen. That may shift some of those
[2:06:36] priorities, we want to revisit not just with the commisson,
[2:06:39] but I have talked with sue burness about doing a community
[2:06:43] forum, it's a perfect opportunity to have them review
[2:06:46] this and give them feedback there as well.
[2:06:48] that's it. >> we started out the venture,
[2:06:51] and it was all about the dashboard at the end.
[2:06:53] got to be good data going in, I realize that you guys are just
[2:06:57] trying to get -- change the culture, make sure we're getting
[2:07:00] good data in, but at the end of the day, it's all about
[2:07:04] dashboards that have the best key indicators.
[2:07:08] and we want to make sure we hit those.
[2:07:11] >> okay. >> okay.
[2:07:14] I think -- anything else for -- I think we're good for this one,
[2:07:18] thank you, nicole. You have a lot of balls in the
[2:07:22] air. We appreciate that.
[2:07:26] any other informational items, jorge?
[2:07:29] we didn't really make you work much?
[2:07:31] >> no, but I'd like to point out the time on the clock, and --
[2:07:39] >> this is the earliest in a while.
[2:07:42] even julie came back. >> mayor freaney: I love it.
[2:07:45] well, we didn't have those two -- we'll blame them for --
[2:07:48] hey, if we had you two here, it would have been going until
[2:07:58] 12:30 for sure. >> mayor freaney: anything else
[2:08:03] for the good of the order. >> I will make a more formal
[2:08:08] comment on thursday, but at least want to mention that
[2:08:11] september is suicide awareness month.
[2:08:14] so please stay one more day. And you are enough.
[2:08:18] >> mayor freaney: love it. Love it.
[2:08:20] I do want to say during our little break.
[2:08:22] I ventured over for the first time in a long time to
[2:08:26] clearwater marine aquarium, and got to see up close and
[2:08:31] personal, hope the dolphin. It was good, they've done some
[2:08:34] great chains over there since I've been there.
[2:08:36] it was great, I highly recommend it.
[2:08:39] and it was pretty cool. And if you got a kid, that's
[2:08:42] even better, because they'll be into it.
[2:08:44] I don't think anything else? Jen, you got anything else?
[2:08:50] michelle? >> first night of citizen's
[2:08:52] academy this evening. >> mayor freaney: oh, yeah.
[2:08:55] we have to be here at what time? >> we begin aat 6:00.
[2:08:59] >> mayor freaney: sounds good, we'll be here, let's adjourn the
[2:09:04] meeting.