Agenda

First item that caught my eye is item 13. A few weeks back I had questions about a contract involving electricians for logistics and asset management. “City wide” services. This one is much smaller, $600,000 split equally between 2 contractors. But if you look at the backup materials, the bids for the RFP were for $860,000 – $1.3 million. One bidder was determined to be unresponsive (middle bid of the 3). I do not follow how then the lowest responsive bidder wasn’t awarded? They were almost half a million less than the other bidder. But then it was reduced and split? What’s the point of the RFP then? I don’t begrudge paying plumbers, just still confused by the process.

I should note that I generally avoid commenting on contracts related to utilities—enterprise funds. We are in the middle of some huge projects related to water—storm, waste and potable, as well as rebuilding the waste-to-energy plant. These are all approved projects with huge price tags. Personally I have to pick my battles and until I wrap my head around stuff like the above, I’m not prepared to question $750,000 for “Citywide Stormwater Gravity Rehabilitation by Cured-In-Place Pipe.” (See item 16 as an example.)

Item 22 is on the consent agenda but was briefly discussed at the CRA meeting. The CRA has a lot of money sitting in the bank related to the various districts and it collects interest. This sweeps those funds back into the CRA budget to the tune of $2.5 million dollars.

We talk about sidewalks and the need for them. We’ve acknowledged the failures of the city to properly enforce requirements for builders to build them or appropriately pay for them. Item 25 on its surface looks like another bad end of the stick. An apartment company on Interbay is giving away a sidewalk easement so we can pay for and build the sidewalks. This is on the consent agenda and I imagine what ever costs related to building the sidewalks in the future will also be on the consent agenda but it would be nice to understand why the company that built/is building the apartments aren’t doing it themselves on their own dime.

Speaking of pouring concrete, one of the efforts undertaken by the Mobility Department is taking more repaving on in-house. Items 35 & 36 are requests for approval to purchase the heavy equipment to put that plan into action. $700,000 for an asphalt paver and $400,000 for backhoe loaders. Personally I support increasing capacity. It’s proving out we can save money by investing in it.

Item 37 mentions street sweeping and I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen a street sweeper in the city of Tampa in forever. Certainly not in my part of the city despite Nebraska Ave. having unprotected bike lanes on both north and southbound traffic. It also mentions Stormwater sediment which I’m sure is the bulk of the work in the contract.

The Juvenile curfew debate is going to take up the bulk of the energy at Council this week. Beyond second reading of the ordinance, item 40, several items on the agenda are related. Item 47 was a request for data supporting the implementation of the curfew. Reading the memo, there really isn’t. Anecdotal at best. I highly recommend reading Arielle Stephenson’s Creative Loafing article on the juvenile curfew debate and some of the alternatives other communities have had more success with. Items 48 & 51 are related as it discusses how to reallocate TPD funds to help with evening and weekend youth activities. Finally, item 49 revisits the ongoing conversation about parking lots in Ybor. Specifically private lots not securing them and allowing people to congregate in them after the bars close.

Speaking of parking, item 41 is yet another appeal of the requirement for new construction in the West Tampa Overlay use alley access for park. This was something the community wanted, went to great effort to get passed, and has generally been supported by City Council in enforcing. Each case is judge on its own merits and occasionally an applicant can demonstrate their alley isn’t accessible. This item could be a time suck but the applicant is entitled to their appeal.

As far as juicy items go, item 42 tops the list. Suspension of sale of alcoholic beverages at 2201 N. Florida Ave. If you’re not familiar with the location, it’s the old refurbished church in Tampa Heights. This is a new establishment, a “cigar bar” as I recall it being called when they came before Council a couple of years ago. There were issues with this establishment from the beginning. I recall their use of a special catering license being called into question and several Council members tensing up acknowledging they’d been there “for a cigar.” The applicant is upset that the city hired an undercover private investigator to go in and buy alcohol and consume it in a part of the property not in the special use permit. You cheated catching us cheating.

Items 50 and 52 relate to issues brought forward again by the VM Ybor neighborhood regarding the concentration of sexual predators housed in the Ybor. The first is about the possibility of adding cameras to that area of the city and the later is about addressing possible code violations at the boarding homes these people live in. When this came back up last year, I noted it wasn’t a new discussion before Council. The core of the problem is we as a society haven’t addressed what to do with these people once they’ve left the prison system. These boarding houses are geographically in one of the few places they are legally allowed to reside under current state law. The city has known about this for a long time but the general impression I’ve gotten from listening to TPD is if you move them out of here, we can’t keep track of them. I sympathize for the neighborhood and maybe this time TPD and the admin have found a solution. But it really isn’t a City Council issue and I don’t think having it on a packed agenda is doing anyone any good.

Originally scheduled for this agenda was the reimbursement resolution for Tampa Fire Rescue CIP projects. I’ve spilled enough pixels on that topic but it was continued. What wasn’t continued was item 52 a request by Council members Viera and Carlson for “Tampa Fire Rescue to report on fire response times and safety deficits, and how to address the same in Channelside, New Tampa, and South of Gandy.” As if this topic hasn’t been breathlessly discussed at City Council over the last 6 months. The reason for the request to continue the reimbursement resolution was because TFR Union wouldn’t be able to attend.

On the topic of Fire stations, item 53 is a motion that dates back to November of 2021. Preserve the fire house, jail, and surrounding property in Port Tampa City. I’ve fallen in love with Port Tampa over the last few years and hope we can find the means to preserve the history of that part of the city. We didn’t annex Port Tampa city until the early 60s.

And in case you need even more talk about fire stations, item 54 is another version of a common discussion about how is the city going to afford to build a new fire station downtown or in Channelside. This one was a spitball about using the Poe Garage. Expect discussion of some elaborate Monopoly move of selling the current police station to the CRA who then build affordable housing with a fire station on the ground floor. The CRA doesn’t own property, the city does, the CRA can contribute funds to buy property so it would be some elaborate money swap using CRA funds to pay for a fire station.

Oh, wait, you thought we were done talking about fire? Item 56 is yet another discussion about implementing a public safety impact fee. Last I remember, it required Council spending money to do a study as required by state law. The attached memo says the city is working with a contractor to start the process. If we eventually implement the fee, I wouldn’t expect it to provide any budget relief until FY26 at the earliest.

Item 57 is a follow up on how we can better facilitate payments to landlords when we are proving financial assistance.

Item 58 is a conversation about bonding. “…the bonding capacity of the City; current bonds outstanding; timeline and cost; bonding potential with enterprise funds; bonding potential with general funds; cash flow impact of new bonding; and further impact and inputs to bond ratings.” There are no backup materials for this agenda item at the time of review. However when I was reviewing the discussions about TFR bonding during the budget hearings, I heard Mr. Rogero tell Council our bonding capacity is 1.3 billion and it the time of his comments, we had roughly half a billion in debt. I suspect that doesn’t include enterprise funds like the Water department but it should be an enlightening conversation. I’d like to reiterate that while I have questions and sometimes no one has an answer—that’s not meant to be a gotcha or to imply anyone is doing anything wrong. My questions are questions to things I’d like to understand. And I’m naive enough to think if someone is able to explain it to me it would help resolve conflicts I see play out. I’ve mentioned before I’d liken it what Chief of Staff Bennett refers to as “not advocating for outcomes, but improving output”. Certainly I have opinions, but an open and transparent process with everyone speaking the same language I believe is key for any successful advocacy. Demystify the budget process so the public has confidence in it. That’s why the millage rate failed. Not about how it was going to be spent. In my very humble opinion. But I digress, this is a packed agenda.

Item 59 Planning Commission and City Planning Staff to provide a report regarding the follow-up actions from the September workshop related to the 2045 Future Land Use update. I could try to summarize this and wouldn’t do it justice. What I will say is this is the culmination of a very long process where there has been ample opportunity for Council and the public to weigh in on any proposed changes. Moving this forward is what everyone has been asking for. I’ll leave with this quote from the YIMBY Tampa endorsement and effort to encourage people to contact Council in support.

It’s already watered down with compromises that were intended to make it politically palatable. It is a moderate proposal, and must not be hijacked by special interests that are not concerned with housing affordability.

YIMBY Tampa

There are some maps in the presentation that show where some proposed small scale density, “missing middle” housing could be added. I started work recently on some related maps. This one shows current zoning city wide. Single family in yellow, Multi-family orange and commercial in red. I didn’t include planned developments in the multi-housing in this version but upon further thought I think it should to be fair. I’ll use this work to put together some interactive maps similar to the ones created by the consultant. Specifically along arterial and feeder roads.

As always, feel free to leave a comment if you feel I’ve misspoken, you want to disagree or share your own perspective.