Council sat as the CRA Board Thursday morning with a couple of major items on their agenda. Top most from an economic standpoint was the decision to approve $10 million of West Tampa CRA district funds for the West River BUILD project. There was a brief discussion about the outstanding projects that have been approved by the CAC of West Tampa that are not funded and the limited budget of the district, but the 5 members who voted to approve the overall project on Council weren’t going to turn down $10 million to offset that decision. Second on the list was the discussion of finding a new CRA Director. The names of 5 candidates were shared, which included current interim Director McCray. However it wasn’t clear how the Board is going to interview all of the candidates or narrow it down. There was some discussion of a public element after that. It would be nice to think the CRA Board won’t have to deal with hiring a new Director anytime in the near future, but based on the last 3 years, it might be in their best interest to start documenting and working on a SOP so they don’t look like amateurs the next time they need to do this. They either want independence from the Admin and staff on this issue or they don’t. Finally there was a presentation and discussion about the 30% of each district’s budget set a side for the issue of housing. Particularly when it comes to downtown and Channelside. For now Council approved of the new metrics and systems proposed to better track and spend those funds, but I believe will be revisited during this year’s budget discussion.

On the evening side, I didn’t highlight any land use cases, it wasn’t until after I posted the preview did the item related to a proposed development hit my radar. Council denied the application, TB Times had a good wrap up on the issues related to the river and wetlands.