Six months ago I recommitted to posting a preview post every week and have kept that commitment. In order to make it, I needed to set some guardrails for myself as far as time. So I skipped over going into workshops for the most part. Doing so allowed me to build some tools and finally get the site moved and polished. I can’t commit to previewing/reviewing every workshop (or reviewing every regular meeting for that matter) but this week’s agenda had some items that I thought were worthy of sharing and discussion. I believe it was a good encapsulation of how this Council as a body operates and, in my opinion, lose the forest for the trees far too often. It also previewed the coming budget discussions at end of summer. Reminder, we are 7 months into the fiscal year (FY25), the Mayor will present her budget mid July with a planned budget adoption in September. Not to be confused with the discussion in item 4 which is carry over from FY24.
Coastal High Hazard Area
Item 1, the presentation about how many people will live outside of the Coastal High Hazard Area (CHHA) in the future turned out to have been upon request of Council member Carlson. It was a report from last year someone thought Council should be aware of. It did highlight the competing perspectives of the Planning Commission and the city when it comes to the CHHA and density. Evacuation from the lower South Tampa peninsula was also brought up, and while CHHA relates to flooding, it’s worth remembering that Old Port Tampa is a fuel port. There are fuel depots to truck gasoline 24/7 out of that port. There is a fuel line that runs from the port to MacDill AFB. Not every emergency evacuation scenario for South Tampa involves flooding.
Approved caterers and city facilities
Item 2 I made my opinion clear in the preview, and nothing has changed. If anything, I think it was more petty than I even initially thought. Beyond catering at the River Center at Julian B Lane, the discussion around this item did turn to other facilities and trying to make them more available to community groups, especially neighborhood civic associations at no cost. An example given was Old Seminole Heights Civic Association would have to pay $300 to have a meeting at the Seminole Garden Club. Instead they meet at the library. We build beautiful new parks. We haven’t been as good at taking care of them and the budget for parks and recreation maintenance hasn’t been a priority for decades. Critics (and supporters) talk about the price tag for the River Center. $12 million. Seems like a deal when we see some of the price tags for projects these days. ($26 million dollar fire stations anyone?) But there are operational costs for a building like that. Clearly the rental facility was part of that equation. If we reduce it to a public space anyone can book and use at minimal cost, that’s a decision someone can make, but it better come with a plan on how to still pay for the utilities and maintenance.
Sulphur Springs
Speaking of parks and facility maintenance, item 3 was the discussion around Sulphur Springs and the pool. As I noted in the preview, the pool will not be open again this summer. The Admin talked a lot about what they were attempting to do this summer to provide opportunities for the kids in Sulphur Springs (Council member Viera noted that 7 in 10 children in Sulphur Springs live below the poverty line). The current excuse is that the issue first is the seawall at the Spring. But there doesn’t seem to be any actual engineers report. Allegedly they’ve had some “consultants” take a look. Now there are open discussions about not being able to fix the pool and relocating it to another part of town. Meanwhile there’s $2.1 million set aside for the pool but we are going to try and “find” money to expand a splash pad at a nearby park. Again, we are really good at building new parks, we just suck at taking care of them.
Appropriated but unspent funds, FY24
Item 4 has been part of an ongoing discussion initiated by Council member Hurtak as to what was budgeted in FY24 but not spent. I don’t recall this conversation between the Admin and Council in recent years. From my observations, those funds would get slipped into projects throughout the year. I recall one $9 million consent agenda item last year. But with the help of Council’s budget analyst, Council member Hurtak worked with the Finance Department to identify what wasn’t spent. At the end of the day, to maintain a 23% reserve fund, that number came to $25.8 million. However, we dipped into our separate emergency hurricane funds to the tune of $14 million for the most recent hurricanes, so replenishing that really leaves $11.8 million from FY24 that hasn’t been spent. That was the core of the discussion for this item. Nothing formal can be approved at a workshop, but the general consensus/straw vote on how to spend the funds broke down to $1.8 for grants to help those still affected by flooding (adding to existing Homeowner Disaster Assistance Program), $5 million for additional paving, $2 million for the sidewalk fund, and $3 million to storm water, primarily for equipment and preventative maintenance prior to hurricane season.
Social Action and Arts Funding
The final item discussed was the Social Action and Arts Funding portion of the budget. Technically there is $5 million budgeted through that bucket of money, but $2.1 million of that is to city own facilities. The Zoo, Aquarium, etc. The remaining $2.9 million is what’s being discussed. I repeat, $2.9 million of a $1.8 billion budget. The general fund, which this is a part of is $652,882,055 for FY25. I can appreciate wanting to take some of the politics out of the decisions on who gets how much funding or wanting to see a particular local group get some help. But having multiple workshops and spending hours discussing these funds seems excessive when again, Council is always trying to come up with new rules to keep meetings short or look for ways to “find more time.” If they gave every $2.9 million dollar contract the same amount of attention they give to the SAAF, they would have to meet 5 days a week 8 hours a day plus night meetings for land use. Hopefully, this was productive and in the fall they might be able to give more consideration to the other 99% of the budget.
