The item that will get the most attention, and rightfully so from a price tag standpoint as well as the nature of the work required will be the South Howard Ave Flood Relief Project. It is a complicated issue that is personal to those that have been dealing with fresh water flooding both from the recent hurricanes as well as everyday thunderstorms. It is also a personal issue to those that will be affected by the work necessary to address flooding in the broader floodplain. I’ve tried to breakdown the specifics as well as share some observations and thoughts.
Looking beyond this item, item 2 is tangentially related as it is going to be a report from the County on stormwater as it relates to North Tampa and the flooding that occurred in neighborhoods that are also not in evacuation zones. A reminder that as important as it is to bring relief to the folks around the S. Howard Ave project, there are a lot of neighborhoods that are looking for help.
Item 53 I think is silly, Cigar City banning smoking in parks. A knee jerk reaction to the absurd political ads against legalizing weed manifested in an ordinance looking for a problem to solve.
Item 56 is another head scratcher. Where are we using $3 million a year in temp workers? Council spent hours fighting over a pot of money roughly that size used for grants to non-profits.
Item 60 is something Council member Carlson has been advocating for through the CRA for several years. Restoration of Union Station. This is the build end of a design build contract for $3.3 million.
The last item I’ll mention is item 67. The Charter amendment passed removing any restrictions on unelected employees of the city being required to live in the city. I strongly opposed this and felt we could have resolved the issue without changing the Charter. The mayor felt strongly enough about it that she paid for text messages to go out on Election Day supporting the change. Council members voted against moving municipal elections to even years but they had no problem pushing this Charter Amendment into a Presidential election with 6 state Amendments including weed and abortion.
Council will be making up for lost time due to hurricanes and have a full evening agenda. This week is primarily alcohol permits. View the full agenda which includes a map of locations applying for AB sales.
