So I thought this was going to be a long day for Council. I knew the discussion about Ybor was going to be a major item, but the other two items I thought would be in depth were either Bayshore on a winter low tide deep or continued.
But I, as Council did in their commendation to Gregory Spearman, think it’s worth celebrating his years of dedication to the city of Tampa. I believe I heard over 20 years. Mr. Spearman worked in Purchasing if I’m not mistaken. While being critical of some of the policies we still have in place in that area, I deeply respect the commitment and professionalism it takes to navigate multiple administrations, councils, economic catastrophes and a pandemic. The reaction from the staff that worked for and with him really tells the story though.
Not to disrespect the Officer of the Month but for brevity I wasn’t going to make it a habit of noting commendations. One thing I just noticed is that if I’m not mistaken, and I may have even noted it somewhere, the ATU (“rank and file City of Tampa Government Employees”) used to be quarterly but TPD and Fire Rescue were monthly. On this week’s agenda it notes “ATU employee of the month.” However it was continued until February so I guess we’ll see if there’s one in January.
The discussion about Ybor was prefaced with a lot of folks at public comment who either hadn’t gotten the memo about the plan or misinterpreted a teen curfew with an Ybor curfew. Either way, Chief Bercaw presented the numbers again from the increased presence over Thanksgiving and reiterated some details about arrests that have been made in relation to the high profile violent crimes in Ybor. I won’t belabor the point beyond that. I said they won’t talk about the guns, but I have to apologize to Chief Bercaw. He answers clearly the problem is the easy accessibility of guns. He reiterated the problem with people leaving their unlocked cars with the keys in them with unsecured firearms.
The one stat he cited that jumped out at me. This year Tampa Police Department have apprehended 1600 guns. 200 were previously stolen from unlocked vehicles. 1600 guns. That is one gun for every 250 people in Tampa.
Council is moving forward with the recommendation from TPD and the admin to adopt a state statute for teen curfews. I absolutely get the concern with profiling, but it’s a state statute that targets 16 and under used widely across the state including Orlando and Miami.
The item which I predicted sparks—item 95—related to bonding and capacity, was continued until January 25, 2024.
Which leaves us with Tampa Fire Rescue. The agenda items were robust. All cued up for a big presentation and robust discussion followed by the aforementioned discussion about bonding.
Instead, we got some extremely weird shrug from the Fire Chief and Council member Viera declaring a huge agreement had been reached to fund the next 5 years of Capital Improvement Projects through a bond. It passed unanimously and is scheduled to return to Council on January 11, 2024. See above for irony. I wrote a lot more on this Friday.
And if Land Use is your thing, there was a really good presentation put together by Stephen Benson for item 97 related to “aisle style” developments. His presentation also covers the “courtyard” style including comparisons to Orlando’s code and ours. It sounded like there are some ideas in there he wants to flesh out with stakeholders, including the public, and return with some recommendations. To me this is part of a broader conversation about “missing middle” housing. I’d point no further than what Austin City Council just did.
Consent Agenda
Unsurprisingly none of the consent agenda items I highlighted were discussed. However, two that had similar themes—single bid contracts and supporting local businesses were pulled from the consent agenda. As a result, a motion was made under new business to have staff report “for a discussion on requiring a minimum of 3 bids in Purchasing.”
I personally contacted Council on two of the consent agenda items. The $2.5 million electrical contract and the paving audit. On the electrical contract, I was happy to hear there is other work that is subbed out to local businesses, some of them minority owned. Hopefully with the changes that are being implemented and future discussions there will be fewer and better documented situations where there’s only one qualified bidder.
The paving, I asked specifically about the ADA compliance and quote from the article about budget constraints. I received a boilerplate response about general declining revenue from gas tax and general budget constraints on Transportation and mobility in a growing city. I was also told the city is investing in more capacity to the paving department (which I guess its good there was an audit done) to reduce costs over 30 years.
But those are things I’m interested in. There were 99 items on the agenda. My goal with all of this is to encourage my neighbors to let your council member know you support something. Or if you disagree with a proposal. Or just ask questions. I recently discovered this site for the city to submit “service requests”. Why it’s not on tampa.gov is a rant for another day. TampaConnect – Submit a Service Request. If you scroll beyond the suggested requests there is sections for all of the departments and areas of the city government. I’m pretty sure we paid a few million dollars for this CRM so we should use it. Of course you can also email the full city council tampacitycouncil@tampagov.net
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