Special City Council Meeting

>> Welcome to the city of St. Petersburg City Council meeting and your elected officials our mayor Ken well. District one Council chair. Hopefully Curtis. District 2 Brendan Barber. Is to 3 Mike Harding district 4 Council vice chair, Liz said Hannah with district 5 never take Sanders. District 6 jihad in districts, 7 warri Givens junior. And district day Richie Floyd. >> Team 2025 City Council meeting. We begin with the roll call please Harding and with us. Sanders your school here Givens here or it us air. There ok thank you if we could please stand for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance. Please join me in bow your heads. Good and gracious got. Thank you for another beautiful Thu.. I woke up this morning grateful. To be in a beautiful city with beautiful people. And continuing to see the city shine. I want to thank you for my colleagues on this tie, us for their continuous work both locally nationally for their tireless effort to continue to make St. Petersburg a special place. Thank you to the administration. All the employees of the city, including our first responders who work on a day-to-day basis night after night to continue to make this city. One that every resident can be proud of. Thank you to each of the residence. Thank you for continuing to trust us to trust the city. For a place for you to live work. Play raise families create jobs. Thank you, good Lord for all of the blessings you continue to bust so on all of us here at the city of St. Petersburg we asked for your continued blessing in your name Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag. A United States of America and to avoid which is a chance and one nation I got indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you please be seated. >> Okay we're going to go in to we've got an agenda in front of us with adds and deletes all entertain a motion for approval. I can't we have a motion a second scene is no other council members wishing to speak or could you please open the machine for boating. I don't think any of us have voted yet. Vice chair definitely hasn't. Council members please enter your votes seeing is all present council members voted clerk please stallion announce the vote CHAIRMAN To approve agenda passes unanimous okay, thank you so much we're going to go into open form clerk could you please read the rules you MR. Just city Council does not subscribe to the public quasi-judicial items this on the agenda please sign up with the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak Nissan Open form seat on a city residents owns the property business owners in the city. Or their employees MAY speak all issues discussed on the open for must be limited to issues related to the city of St. Petersburg government. If you're speaking to an item on the agenda you MAY only speak once you know before when the item comes up on the agenda in order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address Council each individual be given 3 minutes to speak after which the market from will be muted. If you wish to address to the council to the zoom meeting you must use the raise hand feature been in the zoom app or interest are not on your phone at the time the agenda item is address when is your time to turn to speak to be a new to usps to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments or when you reached a 3 minute time limit you will be muted. We all raise hands will be lowered after each agenda item regardless of the method of participation news, normal rules apply, including the 3 minute time limit on comments the requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of the court reply public comment is disrupted by violations of the rules of the court and the cheers authorized to accept public comment by alternate means including by email only and we do have to speak. 2 speakers, MISTER Chair, Matt Weiner in Andy Oliver please go to the podium state your name and address for the record you have 2 minutes to address the council. >> Members good afternoon. My name is Matt Weidner at 12 oh one even I'll drive. I'm here to talk again about this water issue. I read Rauch over and over again that committee of the whole meeting. It was not responsive to what the issues are. I understand the press of your business when the stuff is thrown at you and you're trying to digest what people are presenting to you maybe don't have the opportunity to die than to go back and watch this thing 5 or 6 times and to look at the data and to come up with a real questions. But please go back and look at it. Here's the adjustment statistics. 6 1000 accounts were adjusted since SEPTEMBER 3,000 were private property. 3,000 were over read adjustments. Y r 6 1000 accounts being adjusted. And that indicates to you that there is a very real problem. But there was exactly 0 explanation for why there are 6 1000 accounts that are being adjusted. Now the private party ones probably mean that the citizen went out and spent $3040500 to get a plumber or leakage a stir when there's clearly not a leak on their side. Councilmember Harding you came the closest to what was the explanation that meeting would you say you said there was a quote glitch in the matrix the glitch in the matrix that resulted in citizens with hundreds or thousands or 10's of thousands of dollars allegedly owed to the city. Mike are you comfortable with what your dad happened. A $1000 bill you said your water expert are you comfortable yet with the explanation, your dad's water was all turned off there was no leak and yet he got a $1000 bill we still have no explanation. Over reeds. 4,004 thousand of them in NOVEMBER. And no explanation. Here's another data, 1638 in NOVEMBER. 0 explanation, you know, I've been fielding all kinds of emails and calls everything else and have encouraged him to email you folks. But the guy who can't feed his kid because the city pulled out hundreds of dollars in his account. He didn't have 20,000 gallons coming out of him. What about the woman you've now sent a letter seen you're going to lean the property priest. For 10's of thousands of gallons when mom is sitting in a nursing home. She did not have 4, 5 swimming pools dumped into her house of usage. And then just a really read it immediately. Repairs itself. She had no plumber out there. She had no explanation for 10's of thousands of gallons that allegedly were used at this single family house in snow while our neighbor Mike. There's no explanation for this and you guys get just lit up hire counsel and I'm sure you have the ability to hire your own lawyers in see charter. You guys need to start doing that please thank you. >> Andy Oliver pastor downed alien I'm at this church since receiving our police departments, new ice policy yesterday I spent the day consulting leading immigration attorneys and the conclusion is clear this policy is unconstitutional. Let's start with the facts. This directive instructs Petersburg officers to contact ice when they encounter someone with an administrative warrant. A warrant that let me be clear is not a judicial warrant. There's a fundamental difference here a judicial warrant is issued by a judge based on probable cause and gives law enforcement legal authority to arrest or detain someone. Ministry of a warrant like the 700,000 ice warrants just dumped into in see I see it issued by a federal agency not a judge. It does not establish probable cause and of a crime that does not give local law enforcement the power to detain or arrest anyone due process is not optional it is not a suggestion. It is the law and under the law you cannot detain someone based on an administrative warrant alone. Now let me say this to the reporter in the room can get the headline right. Know your rights if St. Petersburg police detained you without probable cause ask am i free to go and then walk away. And if anyone is unlawfully detained under this policy. I will personally ensure that they have top legal counsel and that the city pays for violating their rights. Now let's talk about the 700,000 names ice just dumped into that system if I had a green card and this administration didn't like without saying at this podium or preaching my pulpit, what I'd be on this list. What I'd be detained or a traffic stop for a crime of speaking out against fascism this isn't some distant threat or hyperbole this is happening now to real people just look at Mahmoud Khalil who was placed on a so-called deportation lists simply for practicing free speech, this policy doesn't just flirt with white supremacy and fascism it bends the knee to it. So I'm going to do with this policy deserve this policy is unconstitutional white-supremacist fascist trash and anyone who lets the stand is complicit period. So I ask you are we going to uphold the law or are we going to bow to the and the authority area and regime because history will remember our answer. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go ahead and close open form. And just but just before we go report item I almost repeat myself from this morning. I just want to thank my colleagues for their flexibility in adding the special meeting. You know the way I thought about this was I I don't I don't think I have any scooters in district one, but if I did have scooters in district one I want to have this conversation and I would want it. As a special meeting that way they just work there. At some point and so I appreciate the flexibility and will move in to this report item and I think we have a more here. Evan we'll turn it over to you. Thank you chair, 5 oh yeah, I'm sorry go ahead. Good morning City Council I just want to. Piggyback on that and say that the administration greatly supports City Council Swift's ability in being here and a lot of you have been traveling. It was very short notice, we don't like to do this on short Thank you so much for accommodating us today. The reason we did ask for this meeting is frankly we got caught in between on doing a short-term extension on the scooters downtown we were pursuing looking at an administrative extension as we looked into it more we realize we absolutely need City Council approval. There was not an opportunity to get on a council agenda before tomorrow when the scooter agreement expires we were faced with the possibility of having to pull all the scooters off the street tomorrow, we felt like that was not something that we wanted to do. Before at least a discussion with City Council. So thank you so much for accommodating us today and I'll turn it over to Mister Morita over a few of the details for you. Thank you. All right good morning chair and members of City Council. Thank you for taking up this matter today. We're seeking City Council approval of a short-term extension to the exit to share agreement, but they all right so that we can finish a competitive request for proposal process within the council materials will find a next explanatory memo, a draft agreement and a resolution for consideration. The rfp committee has been working do diligently with the procurement department. Beginning late last year with a goal of making a recommendation of the word for a multi-year agreement. However it's the diligence and thoughtfulness resulting in the need for multiple rounds of requests for clarification that is prevented the committee from already making a final decision in time to bring the council recommendation for award before the expiration of this current term. As as the administrator mentioned the city's procurement code allows an administrative extension of the existing contracts for up to 6 months so allow the city to finalize this negotiation of a replacement contract. Under the same terms and conditions as an agreement already in place however in this particular case it's been decided that the most appropriate action is to request City Council approval of a 90 day extension so we can finish the process. Returning to Council with the recommendation of war is conditioned upon being able to Signet successfully negotiate an agreement that allows for long-term continuation of shared scooters that's in the best interest of the city. Assuming we were successful in and identifying an operator or operators that are well suited to providing shared scooters on a long-term basis. We will also provide a more substantial report that outlines the benefits and some tradeoffs that are associated with scooters so the council can make an informed decision about the provision of scooters on an ongoing basis to enhance mobility options for residents and visitors. Well keeping this report concise I do want to point out that shares could share it scooters have been very popular in St. Petersburg just a statistic on that for a fact is that since we launched this program in late 2020. There've been more than 1200 thousand trips taken on shared scooters ridership varies by the day where there might only be 200 ships on a Mon., but then you get to that weekend. And there's a big event and we've seen up to over 3,800 scooter trips taken on a single day. So clearly the programs were utilized and we appreciate Council's consideration in approving the second Amendment. So that's good or share MAY continue while we finalize our process thank you and happy to answer any questions. Thank you council member driskell. Thank you and thank you for bringing this 2 s I think that some. Communication with us and before this would have been appreciated. I do understand that the administration can do short-term extensions. I was just wondering. Why this which I mean it just says due to the unique nature of the services. Why did this go from being something that can be done administratively to something that City Council needs to approve. I'm happy to answer that so it's a couple things one we look partly at what precedent has been set for this particular agreement, what approvals his City Council granted before the initial agreement came to you the First Amendment came to you with an extension. So in our opinion once that process starts any additional extension would need to come back to City Council that's part of it, there's also this agreement is somewhat unique in that it builds in a license of property into the agreement as well so it was a combination of factors that led us to that conclusion. All right, thank you. This is an issue that of you know effects. Probably more than more than any other. But it is something that is of interest to City Council and our city as a whole and so I would strongly recommend that in the future and we'd have more of them for more participation with City Council in discussing what's happening with her and scooter share program. As well as if there's something that's coming up with the events years. Anything like that we spent a lot of time working together to get this right. The numbers that you shared with us today show that we did it right. I want to keep working together. Make sure that that success continues. So I look forward to hearing and more about this as you move forward, especially with the rfp is that is that was so that went out in DECEMBER. I believe so we've had 4 meetings we probably will need anticipate one more. But you really you never know what's going to happen in a in a meeting there's multiple people on there and we have to reach consensus and. It's unfortunate that it took longer, but it's only taken longer because we're trying to do a good job, myself and other members of the committee and I hope the council appreciates that. You know even though there's an extension option in the current agreement they're not going to always go to that as a default that City Council right. A lot of stick continues for 3 years so we've decided we want to do the work make the hard decision to issue an rp instead and the best interest of the city so if we would just made a decision in the first meeting then we wouldn't be here today, but we want to do a good job. Yes and I appreciate that so much and it's something we can always count on you for. So thank you for that. I see this isn't a necessary move. We don't want to have. All of this Gators pulled from our streets and go without until we get a new until we have a new contract in place. So I'm I'm glad that we're moving forward that it's just for 90 days right. So I'm I'm in agreement with this no move approval, second. Thank you chair, thank you councilmember gathered. Thank you Quickly just. Jessica shared which was. You know making sure that City Council is part of these conversations, I'm glad that you brought this here today. And because we live in the sunshine. I wanted to share my one-on-one yesterday phone call with Evan, some of the conversation that we had actually resulted in a and b I that he and I worked on together that I'll be bringing to the next City Council meeting so it's already been sent to the clerk and it'll be a referral to h o ut to actually bring the results of the rfp and the decision for the operator and all of that committee first. So we can have a robust committee decision just like we had when we first brought scooters to the city of Saint Pete and then therefore hopefully be able to move that forward the City Council in a much more collaborative and expedited approach so just want to let everybody know that that will be on your agenda for Mar. 28. Thank you. >> Okay seeing is no other council members wishing to speak we have a motion and second. Clerk could you please open machine for voting. Council members please enter your votes. Seeing is all present council members a vote a clerk could you please tell you about the MR. CHAIRMAN to approve agenda item c-one passes unanimously. The council member and was being absent. Okay. >> All right, we are going to move into our second open form we have any speakers clerk. Okay we'll close open forum and councilmembers any announcements. >> My only announcement would be that a Saint Patty's fest this weekend. In Williams Park, I know it's a a big celebration and then I think they're going to have an another celebration on Mon.. Closing down 3rd Street. And so as a part Irish looking forward to celebrating not as heavy as other people will, but I just want to make that very clear to everybody ok. >> But otherwise again