Last week’s Council meeting was one of the few times you’ll find 7 people sitting at the Dias for 10 hours and them not really doing much of the talking.
I generally avoid discussing public comment but this week it took center stage as there were multiple issues being addressed by the public. Some issues Council have control over, some they don’t or to varying degrees. However last week there were 4 major themes addressed by the public that lasted over 2 hours.
At the top of the list of things Council did have control over was the second reading of the youth curfew ordinance. After a town hall earlier in the week, it was a forgone conclusion this was not going to go forward. Council pulled the item from the agenda offering the people who had come to speak on it at the public hearing to speak during public comment. Certainly their opposition and comments were tamed by the removal, but there were still voices that wanted to be heard.
This year the city will be undertaking a flood relief project in the Hyde Park area of town. We’re wrapping up a similar project in Seminole Heights (though if you ask my neighbors down 12th St in SE Seminole Heights it’s anything but wrapped up). The truth of the matter is that it was poorly executed above ground. I certainly hope below ground was better. So concern is warranted but in my very humble opinion hijacking a procedural agenda item that is as some in the administration like to call “other people’s money”, a FDOT grant of $10 million to pay for the flood relief project is not how I would recommend showing concern.
In 2020 Tampa City Council passed resolution 2020-568. It’s difficult to find so I’ve posted a verbatim copy. After reading the Appendix f of the Planning Commission Nondiscrimination Equity Plan I very much could see how a reconciliation commission could help bring the discussion into the open and work towards implementing suggestions to bring more equity to the Comprehensive Plan. I think it’s important to note that while some in the public have discussed reparations this resolution was intentionally worded and uses reconciliation. I think it’s important to recognize those are two distinct concepts not to dismiss either. What the mechanisms are for the Council or Mayor to formally create a commission I do not know. I wrote some additional thoughts on this Thursday after listening to most of the speakers. After I posted this, I saw this article at The Washington Post discussing hurdles in the conversations on reparations. Conversations at the state and federal level.
Finally there have been an increasingly growing number of speakers addressing the death and violence in Gaza. Asking Council to pass a resolution calling for a cease fire. Tampa wouldn’t be the first municipality to do so. The United Auto Workers have called for one.
A question I had related to the agenda led me to the State statute governing city ordinances and I found the legal definition for both ordinances and resolutions which is probably a good time for everyone to have a refresher:
(a) “Ordinance” means an official legislative action of a governing body, which action is a regulation of a general and permanent nature and enforceable as a local law.
(b) “Resolution” means an expression of a governing body concerning matters of administration, an expression of a temporary character, or a provision for the disposition of a particular item of the administrative business of the governing body.
The other half of Council’s day was spent on a hearing to revoke the sale of alcohol for an establishment in Tampa Heights. I want to apologize for characterizing it as “juicy” in my preview. I had no idea what had transpired between the business and some of the neighbors since the license was issued and I would never want to diminish someone’s experience. Lesson learned. Fundamentally this is a business that had a parcel of land that is zoned Residential-Multi-24 and was excluded from the alcohol use on the site plan. The larger portion of the parcel is zoned Commercial Intensive & “wet zoned.” At some point since the approval by Council for the Special Use Permit the business built a patio/outdoor seating area and began selling alcohol. The Administration brought forth a recommendation of suspension for 30 days, Council listened to everyone, and amended the suspension to 7 days starting on February 12, 2024.
Beyond that Council rewrote the agenda to kick off the morning continuing several items. What didn’t get continued in the morning was continued after the aforementioned hours long hearing save for some discussion about the Hyde Park flooding relief items and a local historic landmark designation. The $280,000 from the TPD budget being used for extending the hours for programs for youth was touched on and part of the continuing conversation about young adults in Tampa beyond a curfew.
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