Last week’s meeting was a quick one with Council being out before lunch but I wanted to document a few things.

For the items I flagged last week, two of the rezoning items I mentioned, the one in Ridgewood Park and the one in Tampa Heights at Florida and Columbus were both continued until Jan 23, 2025 due to the absence of Council member Carlson and changes in votes on both items. They tied 3-3 which by Council rule is immediately continued until next regular meeting. Carlson voted no on both items at their first reading but others changed their votes so nothing is written in stone.

The issue of the audit for Bridge and pump station was also discussed. Mr. Bhide downplayed the audit, noting he had requested it in 2023. There will be a broader discussion of what is needed to improve the stormwater pumping stations at a future meeting so this issue isn’t going away. He did say that we are looking at $8-9 million in costs and 2 years to upgrade and improve the stations. Why this wasn’t part of a master plan and already in the works would be my first question. Needless to say, flooding and stormwater infrastructure is slated to come back before Council and isn’t going away. The TB Times published a story on Friday Audit: Tampa’s stormwater pumps haven’t been maintained adequately.

There was some discussion about funding for the West River Build Project (West Riverwalk) and since it’s coming back up again on the CRA agenda, I wrote a separate explainer for it.

The discussion of sidewalks and in lieu fees was punted to a future date.

The topic of Summer Youth Employment program in East Tampa was danced around, with Council Chair Maniscalco suggesting the city would double the size of the city wide program from 36 to 72. But I reiterate, this is a program open city wide. The original request was that the kids in East Tampa that participated in a CRA funded program were given the same opportunities as the kids that were in the Mayor’s Youth program. I’m still not sure anyone is on the same page for this issue.

Body cams and armed volunteer police officers was not discussed.