This week Tampa City Council returns for a regular meeting with 81 items on the agenda. Council will be asked to approve transactions ranging from $1,800 for a second test environment for legal software to the issuance of a $70 million bond. Additionally they are being asked to approve and consolidate reimbursement resolutions totaling $235 million. Reimbursement resolutions are the second step; issuing the bond the final step. When this item originally appeared on the agenda I went into more detail on what this reimbursement resolution entails. In short, it’s procedural step. Approving the items in the budget—then their contracts—is where the real decisions are made as to whether to pay for a project with borrowing. Not a reimbursement resolution or the final issuance of the bonds.
Tampa’s Planning Commission Board Seats
Before getting into the contract and land use approvals, council have a few board appointments to approve, including a seat on the planning commission. Coincidentally (or not?), council asked their attorney to write a memo for this week outlining who council have appointed on the commission, their terms, and council’s rights related to the appointments. The planning commission is made up of 10 members, 4 from the county, 4 from Tampa and one each from Temple Terrace and Plant City. One of the members appointed by a past council has resigned and Thursday council will be voting on one of 6 applicants to fill that seat. The other 3 terms run through 2027, though the memo from council attorney outlines the process a council could follow to remove a member.
Consent Agenda
Unless a council member requests an item be pulled from the consent portion of the agenda, these items are voted on without discussion and moved in sections according to their committee.
ShotSpotter
Item 10, ShotSpotter has been controversial the last two times it’s come up for renewal. Last year it failed, until Council member Henderson filed a motion to reconsider and flipped her vote in favor. If you’re unfamiliar with the program I wrote a separate FYI last year, which includes a link to a great piece from Arielle Stevenson at Creative Loafing. This year TPD is asking approval for a 3 year contract at $840,000 to be paid out of the general fund. There is no indication the boundaries have changed, though they are a bit of a mystery. There’s also no data presented with the request, just the same memo the police chief submitted the last 2 years.
Social Action and Arts Funds
Item 15 is the approval of $100,000 for Abe Brown Ministries to provide job training and employment services for returning citizens. Technically this program isn’t included in the social action and arts fund but that fund name is a bit of a misnomer already and there’s been discussion about clearing it up. Working with returning citizens sounds like social action to me.
Item 19 is part of the social action and arts fund. $178,200 for the Florida Orchestra.
I note these 2 items if for no other reason than to demonstrate that we are being asked to spend the same amount of money annually to have listening devices all over predominantly Black and low-income neighborhoods—without any clear data indicating their effectiveness—as we do for the Florida Orchestra and to help returning citizens. I do believe there’s empirical evidence investing in programs that provide job training and employment services for returning citizens reduces recidivism rates and improves the community as a whole. Likewise funding cultural arts programs that work with those same communities is demonstrably effective.
Trump Effect – Federal Grant Change
On January 9, Tampa City Council approved accepting a $1 million grant from the US Department for the Multimodal Infrastructure Financing Opportunities project. The mayor signed the resolution, emailed it to USDOT for countersigning. Not only was it not countersigned, the USDOT rescinded the previous cooperative agreement. They countered with a new grant which requires certified compliance with Presidential Executive Orders:
- 14149 – used by Trump admin to go after CBS. “Freedom of speech”. We already have that enshrined in the Constitution.
- 14151 – “terminate all mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities relating to ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.” This is literally the antithesis of everything this city claims to stand for.
- 14168 – Trump’s “only two sexes” order. Trans rights are human rights.
- 14173 – allows federal contractors to discriminate in hiring, promotion, compensation, and other employment practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. What?
It’s unclear what “certified compliance” means, nor is it clear how long the admin has been aware of this change or if there are more of these exepcted. There have been several questions from council to the admin regarding the status of projects related to “multi-modal” and statements by the federal government. And while technically the grant amount and scope of work remain the same, the terms haven’t. Personally I couldn’t support these terms. In practical terms, this was supposed to be for multi-modal projects. If we can’t mandate accessibility, then it’s not worth doing. In a broader sense, the unconstitutional rantings of a mad king via toothless executive orders have no place in the terms of a grant agreement between a city and the federal government. These are our federal tax dollars coming back into our community. Not charity doled out by the mad king.
It was just last month during the State of the City when the mayor proclaimed Tampa celebrates its diversity. It’s time to defend that statement.
Misc
Item 20 is approving an agreement for public art on the underpasses of 2-75 at Osborne and Hillsborough Ave. I believe the state department of transportation is funding the $639,500 worth of work, the city is facilitating the contract for the artists and we will assume maintenance responsibilities for them.
Item 21 is to “extend the term of the existing interlocal agreement regarding water and wastewater services including defining the service boundaries of City of Tampa and Hillsborough County in unincorporated Hillsborough county” until June 26, 2027. It would be interesting to understand why a long term extension to the agreement hasn’t been reached.
Item 27 is the formal approval by council to fund the $700,000 shortfall for the streetcar for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Item 32 is a request of council to amend a bonus provision agreement for a planned development approved in 2022. Bonus provisions allow for more density and intensity than what the underlying zoning permits. The agreement was for $2,755,729.73 to paid towards Complete Streets capital improvement projects including one for El Prado. The developer that signed that agreement has sold the property and the new developer would rather convert 19 of the 192 proposed units to “affordable” for 30 years. The amended agreement stipulates 10 of the units would be at 80% of AMI, the other 9 at 120% AMI (still not sure how that differs from market rate, but over 30 years it might). It’s interesting that it seems this developer is saying it costs less than $2.8 million to provide 19 units at these AMI rates for 30 years. Or they have a cash flow problem. The bonus agreement stipulates payment before any certificate of occupancy is issued. The question now is, where does the funding for the El Prado project come from? This was approved 3 years ago and I believe that project has started.
Item 42 is about an existing grant agreement for rehabilitation of Tampa Union station, removing roof and deck work from the scope and transferring the use of those funds towards restoration of windows and doors. No indication of why the change or how the roof/decking will be addressed. That was one of the major issues I understood the building needed repaired.
Public Hearings and Proposed Ordinances
Items 57 and 58 are both petition for review hearings and while it’s always difficult to predict pubic participation, these hearings tend to be drawn out. I still contend after the last 3 hour review hearing that led to council pushing a lot of items onto this Thursday’s agenda these review hearings need to be moved. Either to evening land use agendas or a separate monthly special call meeting if they have to be done during the day. The petitioners deserve council’s full attention and the public deserve council’s full attention on the agenda items that follow.
Item 59 is a proposed ordinance to consolidate the 5 different tree funds that were created when the tree code was updated in 2019 into a single fund. The admin’s position is “Separating the tree trust funds limits the ability of the City to Distribute monies. Returning to
a single tree trust fund as originally established will more efficiently and effectively fund tree
mitigation efforts throughout the City.”
Item 60 is a proposed ordinance that would establish a “3 strikes and out” code of conduct for contractors with the city.
Big Ticket Items
Item 62 is the discussion and approval of the aforementioned reimbursement resolution.
Item 63 is the approval of the $70 million bond issuance. As I said, this step is pretty much a formality unless council finds $70 million in the couch cushions of city hall before Thursday. This is just where the rubber hits the road and you sign the credit card receipt after picking up the check at Bern’s.
Item 66 is a $6.9 million design-build contract for the first phase of a stormwater project for Manhattan Ave from Vasconia St. to Obisop St in the Palma Ceia area of South Tampa.
Item 67 is a contract for $6.7 million in asphalt “hot mix” for in-house paving and pot hole repair. Recently during public comment a city Mobility Dept employee accused the department of wasting these materials (in addition to accusations of hostile work environment and racist language). Item 80 is a memo from the city attorney at the request of council on their responsibilities in those situations. “Those allegations were made at a public meeting in the presence of members of the City administration and an investigation is being conducted.” Additionally the memo reiterates the separation of powers in the charter in relation to “the management of City personnel is squarely under the control of the Mayor.”
Staff Reports
Beyond that the remainder of the agenda is staff updates, both in person and written. The ongoing game of cat and mouse between Council member Viera and the admin (“Original motion initiated by Viera-Citro on March 25, 2021”) over a Public Safety Master Plan leads off the list, but the one I’m going to be watching is the “Davis Islands Stormwater Analysis” from the same engineers that presented the stormwater master plan update at the last workshop. The one where the principal engineer said “We cannot solve flooding problems from hurricanes.” Stormwater, in municipal engineering speak, is fresh water. Rain. Mitigating for salt water storm surge from hurricanes isn’t part of the “stormwater” equation.
Hillsborough County Disaster Recovery Grant
This isn’t on the agenda this week, but how the money from this grant gets distributed has been in the past, and will eventually be up for council approval. There are 3 public information sessions scheduled for the city this week.
Also on June 5th is the route study and streetscape concepts presentation for the South Howard Flood Relief project.
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