Agenda

The primary thing I would like everyone to focus on is that there’s a big agenda with a lot of important items to a lot of people. Everyone should be focused on what Council is actually voting on and approving. Anything else is a staff report. A report. Data, details, numbers. Meant to help inform future votes. The other point I want to emphasize—the fiscal year (FY) runs until September 30, 2024. There is going to be a lot of talk about “next year’s budget” FY25 between now and then. Do not let that distract from the fact that any contract approved between now and then is part of FY24’s budget. Funds that have already been appropriated. Contracts may expire at the end of Q3 of the fiscal year and run through the calendar year, but the funds are coming out of FY24 pots of money. Which is important when looking at item’s 86 and 91.

3 – Citizen Review Board

This will be interesting as the new state law HB 601 was passed and signed. The Admin will be presenting under item 99 their legal opinion on Florida House Bill 601. (Spoiler alert: they think it should be dissolved).

6 – Watering

This appears to be on the consent agenda and is the first time I’m seeing it proposed. (I fully support one day a week watering, I don’t water my yard except from a rain barrel.) Current drought conditions that mostly carried over from last year, we are restricted to one day a week from a regional management standpoint.

Outdoor water efficiency is decreasing as new home construction replaces non-
irrigated homes with expanded St. Augustine lawns and automatic irrigation. As a result, daily demand is increasing beyond Tampa’s ability to self-supply. The current Water Shortage Order demonstrates as much as 8% reduction of daily potable water demand when irrigating customers reduce from a twice per week schedule to a once per week schedule. Staff proposes a permanent once-per-week irrigation schedule.

12 – Shelter Services

This is a contract between Salvation Army and Tampa Police Department to guarantee one, yes one, bed per night for TPD to bring someone to. The cost is $48.16 per night. Setting aside the agreement is through TPD and that we don’t have an internal program for TPD to coordinate with (Salvation Army will only accept clients 7am – 7pm so it’s not an “after hours” thing), one bed a night (with possibility of more if available) means we have more work to do.

14 – ShotSpotter

This item was approved last year only by the fact that TPD secured a grant to pay for it. It appears TPD has secured a grant for half, though I do not see how this “cybersecurity grant” is actually related. Other than the words cyber may convey technology and safety, but this grant is about cloud storage. There are a lot more supporting docs to read through than I remember the last time this was on the agenda. The original contract was for 1 square mile of the city. The last contract was for 4 square miles. There’s a map of the original square mile in the supporting docs but ShotSpotter locations are notoriously secretive. I would fully support Council letting this contract expire June 19 and shutting down the program in the city of Tampa.

27 – Solid Waste Rates

Formal vote to raise rates 60% over the next 5 years. There were discussions about trying to stretch it over a longer period of time but it doesn’t appear there are any alternatives being presented. Details were presented during the workshop on 5-23-24.

Contracts

There are a lot of contracts up for approval on the consent agenda. One thing to point out is that they all have different terms but the one constant is that anything beyond the current fiscal year is noted in the contract “subject to appropriations”. Because, once agin, Council can’t approve spending outside of the current fiscal year. So a contract might be for $1.5 million for 3 years, but they can only approve the first year and $500,000. The paving contracts were for one year. I have questioned the spending in Logistics and Asset management a few times, particularly when we have $2 million dollar contracts (again, for this fiscal year only) for general roofing repairs. At what point does $2 million in repairs become a Capitol Improvement or do we need to address why buildings are in such disrepair. A couple of months ago there were 6 or 7 $1 million dollar contracts for a variety of trade services. Are we really spending $10 million a year on maintenance and repair outside of Capitol Improvements? A year. This isn’t fixing up parks as far as I know.

42 – Rate and Evaluation Consulting Services

One of the hidden costs of all of the bonding. $900,000 contracts for consulting services.

43 – Jackson House Roadway Improvements

I must have missed this project while I was skimming through some of the meetings over the last couple of months. This is through the downtown CRA but requires Council approval for a $1.2 million project related to the Jackson House. No other details are provided.

45 Eric Hayden Director of Technology & Innovation

Mr Hayden has been Manager of Infrastructure Services for the city since 2006. I’ve had the occasion to speak with Mr. Hayden since being appointed interim Director related to some open data. I had a very positive experience and support the nomination and 1 year residency waiver.

50 Giraffe Barn

As landlords for Lowry Park the city has to approve accepting a grant from the State. To build a giraffe barn! Of course they should have their own and not have to duck down into the elephant barn.

51 Cell Tower

There was a time when cell towers were hot topic items. That’s mostly been taken out of local control but with all of the talk about Sulphur Springs lately, worth noting this is a big ugly tower just north of Waters on Nebraska.

63 Tampa Museum of Art Grant

Always a good reminder the city is also the landlord for Tampa Museum of Art. As such, a $1 million grant approval. These are the types of grants that are possible with the investments made by the CRA.

64 Formal Decisions of the Zoning Administrator

Section 27-52(11) of the City of Tampa Code of Ordinances states that on an annual basis, all formal decisions of the Zoning Administrator must be presented to City Council for action by resolution placing said determinations in the public records of the City Clerk. These are the determinations for 2023.

66 Property Acquisition – 4211 West Bay Vista Avenue

Stormwater wants this (currently a home) property for a future stormwater pump station. The city is purchasing it for $450,000.

70 – 73 Mobility Contract Corrections

These are to correct Scrivener’s errors for heavy machinery/equipment purchases already approved. It appears the collective $968,070 of the contracts are being pulled from a different bucket in these changes. Not sure if that’s a Scrivener’s error or not.

74- 77 Setting Public Hearings for Review Petitions

These are setting public hearings for the following items. Council will not be listening to the items Thursday, simply setting the date to hear them. Based on subject and location, none of these will be easy so you can pretty much write off Council for those afternoons from working on anything else.

Two each for August 1st – 74 is a petition for an ADU and 75 is the Port Authority appealing a denial to remove 2 non-hazardous grand trees to store cars coming in off the ships. Hearings will be at 1:30pm.

Two set for August 22nd – 76 was a denial for a parking lot at 1314 West Gray St and 77 is an appeal by a neighbor of a decision by the Variance Review Board for property at 16 Davis Boulevard.

78- 82 Second readings

These are all second readings that passed first reading unanimously.

84 Review Petition West Tampa Design Exception

Applicant had a carport built in 2010. For what ever reason they applied subsequently for a design exception having believed the contractor followed code.

86 91 Paving Contracts

These items are related. Item 86 was carried over from 2 weeks ago, the unspent $8 million from a 2022 paving contract that was half of $17.1 million in contracts approved as part of the same resolution. Item 91 is an extension of the other half of those contracts for $8.7 million. The Admin stated two weeks ago that there was never $8 million set aside for the contract therefore there’s not $8 million unspent on paving. I contend Council can’t write a check they can’t cash. Approving a contract is writing the check. It’s last step of approval. Buy the thing. Do the work. And they can’t write a check without first budgeting the money. Whether it’s a Capitol Improvement Project or a line item in a department’s operations budget. This is not up for debate. It’s the core tenet of the Charter. Therefore there had to be $17.1 million in a fund somewhere identified at the time to pay for the work.

Inexplicably, at least $8 million of approved work was not done—we do not know how much of the $8.7 million contract with the other vendor was done, though Council is being asked to approve another $8.7 million for a total of $17.4 with that vendor. To hear the Admin tell it, this $17.4 million doesn’t need to be identified in the budget since it’s not for a specific project. I contend not only does the $8.7 million have to be identified, the first $8.7 million needs to be accounted for too. And explain how it all relates to the $17 million that has been budgeted since the FY22 contracts were approved.

87 $120 million loan for Waste to Energy Plant

Item 27 was about the rate increase that will be used to secure and pay for this loan. Eventually it will all be turned into 30 year municipal bonds. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

89-90 $20 Million USDOT Grant

This is a federal grant made available through the USDOT “Safe Streets” program. A program made possible by the 2021 Biden Infrastructure plan, I mean, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Specifically it is to be used for

deployment of low-cost, high-impact projects along the City’s high-injury network, including pedestrian mid-block crosswalks, rectangular rapid-flashing beacons, high-visibility crosswalks, and new sidewalks and bicycle lanes;

The city kicks in $2.3 million and the state $2.6. This has been discussed and anticipated for a while. The timing is interesting to me considering all of these paving contracts that aren’t funded by this grant directly.

94 Bayshore Safety

Memos from TPD and Mobility are included with recent traffic data for Bayshore as well as a reminder that Bayshore Blvd is a County road. Anecdotally I have seen more TPD presence on Bayshore when I head towards Picnic Island. Included in the documents from Mobility is the City’s priorities to the County for CIP improvements for county-owned assets in the city limits per our Inter-local agreement. The Platt/Bayshore intersection will be part of the West River Multi-modal project “which will come before Council in the coming months.”

96 Sulphur Springs Pool

What I’ve seen reported on social media we are looking at a cost of $20 million to replace the pool. It’s currently closed. I’m not sure there’s much more that will be presented at this time.

98 Residency Requirements

Recently Council was asked to again approve waivers for residency requirements as outlined in the Charter.

The government of the city shall be conducted by the following named officers and boards: a mayor, a city council, a city clerk, a city attorney, a director of finance [also known as the Chief Financial Officer], an internal auditor, a chief of police, a chief of the fire department, a civil service board, a board of trustees of the city employees retirement fund, a fire fighters and police officers pension board, a variance review board, and such other officers, departments, and/or boards as may be created pursuant to this charter and not inconsistent therewith; and all of said officers and members of boards shall be residents and electors of the city.

That’s the language in the Charter and the question was posed is there a way to reduce the number of staff held under that clause. The only solution it sounds like would be to consolidate departments. The better solution (IMVHO) would be for someone to offer up language in the form of a Charter amendment that more clearly defines “other such officers, departments and/or boards” so that only the senior most decision makers are held to the standard of being a resident of the city.

100 Update on Land Development Code Reform Process

There’s a comprehensive memo outlining the initial steps being taken by the consultants in their discovery phase. There will be a separate website for this project and that sounds like it might be live by July. I hope half as much thought is put into accessibility as branding.

Remaining items on the agenda have been requested to be continued. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a couple of items from this agenda continued as well.