Due to technical limitations beyond my control, I was unable to generate my version of the agenda this week. If working in this record breaking heat dome doesn’t kill me this week, I’ll resolve the issues before next agenda. Please refer to the clerk’s draft agendas for reference.

Council will sit for a regular meeting Thursday morning with an evening agenda focused on land use/alcohol beverage permits. For the morning session, they will be voting on 69 items, ranging from accepting the donation of a 3 year old Black Labrador valued at $12,000 to Tampa Police Dept. to $2,668,090 for a 100′ Mid-Mount Tower Fire Engine for Tampa Fire Rescue to $81,546,855 for Dissolved Air Reactor Rehabilitation at the wastewater plant.

First, tucked into the consent agenda, is hopefully a final resolution for the Jackson House( (item 49). I say hopefully because we’ve been here before. I covered the background in a separate post the last time it came up. The gist is that the surrounding property owner will a cede 10 foot strip of land on either side of the building in exchange for either $1.2 million or vacation of certain rights of
way, including rights of way at the intersection of Twiggs Street and Nebraska Avenue, which
requires FDOT approval. If FDOT doesn’t approve the vacation by August 1, 2027, they get the cash. The funds would come from money appropriated by the CRA for improvements to the Nebraska/Twiggs intersection.

Another of the items that caught my eye, item 32, is $2,500,000 for credit card fee expenses. In the summary sheet, it states “The credit card fees do not get passed on to the customer.” Yet during the budget discussions in 2023 for FY24 this issue came up. There was a presentation and discussion on the topic February 2024 (item 62). My recollection was that the city was going to begin passing those fees on as a result. $2.5 million was the difference between what the admin recommended spending on paving and what council wanted to spend out of the FY24 carry over.

Speaking of that $12 million from FY24 council and the admin had a, let’s call it difference of opinion over, has been resolved. The mayor is moving forward with appropriating those funds as council asked in item 51. This includes the $2 million for housing flood assistance.

Item 66 is one to keep an eye on. It’s setting a public hearing for consideration of suspension of alcoholic beverage permits for failure to properly file necessary paperwork with the city. Plural. I suspect there are more problematic establishments on the list than others, but the law has to be applied evenly. Thus 10 businesses with incomplete documentation and 47 who have not submitted the necessary documentation have until September 4, 2025 or face a potential suspension of their license. Included in the list is the award winning restaurant Big Ray’s Fish Camp owned by the mayor’s partner’s family. Again, these are clerical in nature and can be resolved with filing the specified information outlined in their zoning approval. View the full list of business that will be put on notice. This is just to set that September 4th hearing date. Nothing will be discussed.

Item 70 is one of those spending items I still haven’t figured out how they work. A $16 million request for “job order contracting.” $2 million per contractor. Something the city does every year, but I’ve yet to see how/where the work is done. Why are some contracts approved as they come across the agenda and some “work” is blanket approved without details? An example of how this works would be enlightening. I don’t bring this up to be a contrarian or to cast doubt on this department. $2 million is how much council will bicker over how to spend for social action/arts funding. $16 million builds fire stations. It would just be nice to see where this money fits into the budget in practical terms. Show the public/council where/how last year’s approvals were used.

As to the evening agenda, there is a privately initiated text amendment to the (current) future land use plan that would allow increase in density in the Channelside CRA district for up to a 200% increase above the current maximums. The request would be retroactive to January 1st, 2025. How this ties in to any proposal for the 2045 comprehensive plan update is unclear. Another thing to keep an eye on with this is was a request by Council member Carlson to extend the Central Business District to Channelside Drive. During the last discussion on that request, it appeared someone was pushing to extend that all the way to the port, something he opposes. There has been a struggle between those that want to develop the port area for high end residential and those that want to preserve the port for commerce. A battle above my pay grade but I’m team commercial port, especially considering the investments that have been made to keep the port viable through deeper dredging of the shipping channels. Watch this space.

Additionally, there are 3 alcohol beverage sales applications, one in Ybor, one in West Tampa and one at Cass and Cypress. All three were found inconsistent by staff. Someday Tampa is just going to be high end residential and upscale bars. Unless we’re all cooked in a heat dome and washed out to sea by a hurricane. I kid.

Finally, a reminder council will be holding their first budget workshop next week as a special call meeting on Tuesday August 4, 2025 at 1pm. As with all workshops, there is not a general public comment period; rather members of the public are allowed to speak to each agenda item. As it stands, there are only 2 items on that agenda so far (taken from the clerk’s calendar):

• Staff to identify any large non-profit organizations that need City funding for their grant matching (Hurtak)
• Continued – File No. F25-14353 – Resolution amending and restating Resolution No. 2022-915 and Resolution No. 2014-139 regarding reimbursement of certain costs relating to the acquisition, construction and equipping of various capital improvements within the City.

The second item is related to the reimbursement resolutions council have previously approved the admin would like to consolidate with what was approved in FY25 budget. These are projects that have already been approved and in some cases built. It is only tangentially related to Fiscal Year 2026. It’s more FY23-25. I tried to make some sense of it in May when the item originally appeared on the agenda.

But that’s all that’s on that agenda a week out from one of only 2 workshops scheduled. This is what I mean about not having a plan. It is their workshop. Are they expecting something from the admin? Their hand held? Hopefully there will be motions made this week to fill in that agenda so that the entire focus of the workshop isn’t spent learning what they’ve approved the past 3 years.