City Council Meeting

>> Welcome, everyone to the February 21st, 2023 regular city Council meeting for the city of Gulfport, Florida. Invocation tonight is given by Councilman Michael Fridovich, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join us in rising. Good evening, everyone. Give me a second. I'm just going to read a few books and explain what I'm doing here. Slaughterhouse five, kite Runner. Bear with me here. Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Sonia Sotomayor, Women who broke the rules series. Sorry, I can't read tonight. Beloved, by Toni Morrison. Of mice and men, and the last couple ones, handmaid's tale, the kite Runner and the -- of Nanking. These are all books that are either banned in Florida at the moment or under investigation to be banned in Florida. Two that are not banned in Florida are one of my favorites, Fahrenheit 451. If anyone knows what it is about, it is burning books around the country, it is banned, which makes no sense. Anyway, these are all the books that are either banned in Florida or under investigation. >> Thank you. >> By the way, this is the whole package. >> I pledge allegiance To the flag Of the United States of America And to the republic For which it stands One nation Under God Indivisible With liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please, city clerk. >> Councilmember Fridovich, Councilmember Thanos, Vice Mayor Brown, Councilmember Ray, Mayor Henderson, City manager O'Reilly, City attorney Salzman, City clerk present. >> We have a couple of presentations this evening. Our first one is from Kaiser University regarding the Gulfport senior center accessibility study they have done. We have Dr. Megan Myers here and Dr. Diana Guest. Welcome. Thank you for being here. And to all the students who are here as well, thank you very much. The floor is yours. Good evening, everyone. First I want to say, thank you for allowing us to have this opportunity to talk about the recommendations we have for Gulfport senior center. We will introduce ourselves first. My name is Roel. >> I'm Leslie. >> Hello, I'm Rashni. >> Hi, I'm Jessica. >> And Ivana. >> Hi, welcome, everybody. >> Thank you. Let's get started. So, right here we have the role of occupational therapy. This model, the PEO model is basically describing the relationship between the person, environment, and occupation. So, the reason why we have this here is because it is such a dynamic model. As humans and individuals, we are dynamic. We are constantly changing. So that means our functions are always changing. That means having the adequate adaptations is very important when we get to a certain stage. As occupational therapists, we help assess a person's ability to engage in occupations and identify the barriers that might prevent them from performing their desired activities. oday we will talk about how to improve the environment and areas of focus to make the senior center as safe and accessible as possible. As we did this project, we were able to talk to several different people that are associated with it, so we were able to interview a lot of the members of the senior center, which was wonderful. We got to interview some of the staff members. One of them was Mr. Walter Pauly, who just said that he helped run the senior center and took care of the well-being of the members. We also did a zoom interview with Amy, who is from the engineering firm. She did let us know, so we could do our project a little bit better, that the new building will be completely A.D.A. compliant. They will have automatic sensor doors. The elevators are going to be big enough for stretchers, and they will have adaptations for people with low vision and they will have contrasting. The majority of activity rooms and dining room will be on the first floor. >> Something about the Gulfport senior center, to be a member of this senior center, the member has to be at least 50 years of age. They currently have about 3000 members from different cultures and backgrounds. What we found fascinating is that they serve between four and 600 members each weekday. Most of the members are retired but some of them are still working or they are volunteers as well. As mentioned, many members come from different backgrounds and cultures but also from different economic and educational levels. Some of them have different physical and psychological diagnoses, such as low vision, musculoskeletal issues, memory deficits, et cetera, which causes them difficulty engaging in some activities and occupations. Gulfport senior center is a humble community and they treat each member equally with care and respect. This center is more than just a place where they can go. It's a place where they can find friends, engage in different activities, find new roles and simply be part of community. One of the members described this place quoting, a place where we can live our life. After communicating with a few members, we learned that average day starts with coffee and snacks in the main lobby where there is a calendar with activities, exercise classes, games, wellness information. Those activities are run by about 120 volunteers that they currently have. Despite how delighted members are to participate in those activities, there are some obstacles they had mentioned to us. For example, those wheelchair-bound or in scooters, some of them found difficulty navigating the center because of the problem with space. Those with visual deficits, they have trouble engaging in some activities or just simply navigating around the place because of the inadequate lighting. Some of the members who are living further away, they have difficulty finding transportation to the place and back, and we will talk about this in a moment. As Roel mentioned, we are excited, as occupational therapists, to help and give our input to Gulfport senior center to help them become a better, more accessible place for all members regardless of their physical and psychological abilities. The first area we are going to talk about in the senior center is the main lobby, front entrance and activity room. When the facility was first built, it was built 40 years ago and the Americans with disabilities act was not put into place for the correct regulations. With the new building we have a opportunity to put all of that into place. Within this main area, in the main lobby, there is limited space to move around like Ivana was saying. As soon as you walk in, there are a couple of non-skid mats, so that poses a risk for people in wheelchairs, difficulty lifting up their feet. That can pose a fall risk for them. The congestion with the tables and chairs, furniture, coffee area, snack area and bookshelves, when we were there we did notice that it does get very congested when everybody comes into the doorway. With the nonskid mats and people using wheelchairs and walkers, we need more space in that area. And then the activity room is next. It is a multipurpose room for activities, games, and meetings. There is a large table in there with only a narrow pathway. More than one person cannot walk through at a time if they have wheelchairs, walkers, and things like that. There is a double door entrance but it is not being used because there is a popcorn machine in front of it. Again, that poses a risk when you have a bunch of people coming in for an activity. It does add more congestion. The occupations that are considered within this whole facility is maintaining their physical activity, their engaging in social interaction, leisure activities, volunteer participation and social and emotional health. The occupations are things that people need to do, want to do and are expected to do. As they are ambulating around the community and senior center, we do need to make a safe so that everyone doesn't fall. I will be discussing the activity room, dining room, and media room. After assessing the activity room, we found that this room would benefit from --. >> I'm going to get you a water. Take your time. It happens to everybody. >> Thank you. The activity room would benefit from more lighting. There is some natural lighting that comes to the doors and windows, but it is not sufficient enough for the seniors to participate in the activities in this area. Regarding the stairs, even just throughout the facility, not just the stairs going into the activity room, applying yellow strips of tape or paint on each step will show better definition of the steps. Stairways require contrast on the stairs as well as good lighting to reduce the risk of falling. A visual contrast on stairs prepare individuals for a change in floor surfaces and give them a better visual of each step. The hallways are narrow and hard for the seniors in wheelchairs to navigate around tables as Jessica mentioned earlier. Widening these pathways will allow for better mobility throughout the building as well as reducing traffic within the halls. Automatic doors would benefit the seniors by providing easy entry and exit as well as navigating through the center. There was no adequate clock, which was hard to read. They would benefit from a clock that displays larger numbers so they will be able to manage their time and get to the next activity on time. The next room is the dining room. Universal chairs in the dining room would benefit the seniors by providing a comfortable, ergonomic seating, and allowing for proper posture and arm rest when transferring in and out of those chairs. The acoustics were not controlled in this room, which can cause distraction and the spacing is compact, which is unsafe for navigation and mobility. A larger area for the dining room will definitely enhance their participation in a safe manner. It was observed that the tables would benefit from a universal design, as they were not adaptive or adjustable in height, so clients with higher wheelchairs would not bump their knees into the tables. There is also no access to adaptive utensils for clients who have limited ability of gripping nor were there adaptations to dining sets so clients may have the ability to scoop their food without making a mess. The next room I'm going to talk about is the media room. It needs enhanced lighting as well in the hallways. In the current building there is a hallway between the activity room and media room, which did not have sufficient lighting as well. So, when transferring from room to room, the lighting change is drastic, so this transition from light to dark may impair vision creating glare for seniors and can become a fall risk for safety. The media room also requires manual setup and breakdown of tables between each activity. This limits time allotted for activities where this area would benefit from a predesignated area with tables already set up for a tabletop activity. Once the tables were set up, the space was compact, limiting functional mobility for those in a wheelchair and further inhibiting navigation for individuals utilizing a mobility device or those who were visually impacted. I'm going to talk about the art room. The art room really didn't have any natural lighting. The desks were arranged in a way that it would be a little bit difficult for a wheelchair to access it. There was storage cabinets in the back of the room and they were the same colors as the walls so it was kind of hard to see. And there was no labels on the cabinets, so not knowing what is in each cabinet. Some modifications we would make would be to have desks that can move up or down if you want to sit with a wheelchair or stand for better lighting and people with vision deficits, magnifying lights on the desks, contrasting colors for the storage cabinets and big lettering for the storage labels. Next is the bathrooms. The bathrooms was a big deal. In the bathrooms now there was only one grab bar and I had the pleasure of actually interviewing and going around with one of the members who is actually in a wheelchair and it was very difficult for her to transfer. She was in her 90s and she loves the senior center. She goes almost every day. But it was very difficult for her to transfer because she only had that one grab bar. When she gets done and wheels over to the sink, it was hard for her to reach the soap dispenser. It was far away and in a weird place and then it was hard for her to manage pushing the dispenser. The paper towels were behind her so it was a big conglomerate of safety issues. What we thought, and even though the engineer said everything is going to be A.D.A., but we can enhance it more by making the toilet seat a little bit higher, putting grab bars on both sides, soap dispenser next to the faucets and have them hands-free, and then the paper towels right in front of the sink. A lot of times when the paper towels are behind, people drip water on the floor so it is a safety issue for slippery floor, so nonskid floor is something we would suggest also. With the single stall bathrooms, the doors were very heavy, so maybe pushbutton doors for people that can't pull, especially if they are in a wheelchair. Okay, so, now for the context for the outdoor and fitness center. We have limiting factors, supporting factors and improvements. For the limiting factors, we mentioned uneven sidewalks. Make sure sidewalks are leveled out and there's not any big cracks. Armless chairs, making sure we have chairs with lateral support so it is easier to stand and safety to prevent falls. Uneven pavement and blacktop, making sure it is all flat with minimal cracks. Steep inclines on the ramp upon entry, making sure we have universal design and having that all in there. Tight parking spaces, overgrown landscape and loose gravel, keeping an eye on all of that and insufficient handicap parking spaces and the engineer did say that they are working on having more parking spaces, so, that is good news. For supporting factors we want to make sure everyone has easy access to each environment, whether outdoor or fitness center, a good supportive team and equal opportunities for all. Kind of added onto the supporting team, I had a chance to interview one of the volunteers there. He's a cardio drum instruct and he is very big into fitness and he said that the sense of community that Gulfport brings to people is the reason why people are attracted to this place. That made me realize how special this place is to people and that gives us even more of a reason to do what we are doing here today. For improvements, more handicap spaces, sitting with lateral support, shaded areas for the outdoors. Obviously we want to have sunscreen and everything, but sometime the glare gets rough and automatic doors we have said that a few times to make sure we have access to every environment and so seated exercise options. Maybe you guys are familiar with a arm bike so there is an arm bike with the leg combo where you can just wheel up with the wheelchair or put a chair with lateral support so maybe someone that still wants to participate in physical activity, physical exercise that would be an excellent option to have and I think I've seen one where they have the feet in the fitness center. But the good thing about the fitness center that is very beneficial is that it's powered by an air pressure system and it's pretty easy to use. It's just plus or minus. So it did simplify the controls I was like I give them an a plus for having that. That was nice to see that and smoothing out the pavement as I was saying. Ok. So for more recommendations for outdoor and fitness center activities, we didn't see there was gardening outdoors and I did put an example of a raised flower bed where someone with a walker and like mountain corner there is a person with a wheelchair it's accessible for everyone and you can have seating and everything there and this is going to promote more of that social participation, you are doing thing with your friends. It can be family, too. And just basically promoting that engagement of occupation. And audio book club this was a good one for anyone that has vision impairment or visual loss so they can still hear and they can still give each other's opinions like what book they are reading and I thought of having different themes and having a choice between maybe three different books so everyone is contributing and so then it's not like all we are only choosing one genre. Make it fun. Valentine's day you can put a love story. Or St. Patrick's day you can do history like that. And that will get them more engaged and just they could tell a lot of stories too. I feel like an audio book club would be very good. Medication management and health literacy is important to have it here and medication maybe they don't know how to read the instructions on the label or maybe they need to be educate on using a pill box. Having courses like that on health literacy can be important to become more rind and -- Independent and self sufficient in their medication. For mindfulness medication, yoga, tai chi, whether it's seated or standing, just making sure we have the lateral support when they are seated and make sure everyone is safe when they are doing it and it can help promote the body awareness, balance, so then it helps them decrease their risk of falls. Ok. >> The system technology and devices we were looking into for environmental modifications, would be video monitoring, health monitoring is a good one, too. We can use like heart monitoring during activities to monitor the members' heart rates during certain activities as well as electronic sensors, door monitors, pressure mats and wearable sensors. And then -- >> So for the safe transportation for individuals that are wheelchair bound, just making sure they have a tie restraint system. Most transportation systems do. Just making sure that everyone is strapped in so they have the peace of mind where they don't feel like they are rolling even though the chair is locked there could be a bump where they feel making sure they are secure, safe and even have modifications where you can do this on cargo vans, too. In case they don't have the transportation available at the time. But yep, making sure that they have the adequate space for pretty much every width, lengthth and depth of a wheelchair. >> These recommendations were based off of what we observed when we were visiting the senior center. Along with evidence-based research. So the basic principles of occupational therapy is occupation, health and well-being. With individuals aging in place, adults experience changes physically socially and psychologically throughout the years. A survey was conducted on older adults in the community with chronic illnesses and disabilities who viewed themselves as aging successfully still. Some viewed psychosocial factors were important as they aged and others viewed self acceptance engagement with life and self growth as they aged. Findings showed that engaging in physical activity results in positive health outcomes while physical inactivity results in higher rates of mortality and decreased levels of function. Older adults can engage in well-being through physical activities social interaction and leisure activities. A holistic approach is supported in occupational therapy to promote well-being and prevention of illness, falls and injury. The stated that falls are the leading cause of older adults going to the emergency department due to injuries and hip fractures. With the new senior center being built it is essential to have a preventative approach to falls such as a environmental modifications. The three leading causes of falls in older adults were found in a study for ignoring fall risks, feeling fear and insecurity, and feelings of limitations of one's body. Older men and women admitted to various feelings of loss of function and previous falls. Discussion groups were held each week with the category of recognizing one's fall risk, taking precautions and facing various feelings with subcategories as well. Older adults viewed the discussion groups and self management plans positively adding the groups during the senior center is some of the activities will be beneficial. >> And for the end, we left some additional interesting suggestions. After interviewing some seniors we concluded more physical activity will be beneficial for the new center. And we were asked to help find some fun interactive activities to promote physical engagement and after doing research we came across this device. This device can be used at the floor level for standing activities or at the tabletop for those who cannot stand or wheelchair bound. It's designed to target all ages and has 150 activities incorporating standing balance, weight shifting, functional reach, just creativity and engaging in social participation. And also along this magic surface another new way of engaging in physical activities are with games, exert games are computer games using commercial consoles such as wi or connect console controlled by whole body movement like swinging of a golf club or tennis or zumba and computer games they offer different feedback and they can be adapt -- They can adapt training intensity. They can also work on strength, balance, muscle activity, cognition et cetera. And I know we're talking about senior center and electronics such games and there's research done on elderly participation in exert games and studies showed that after a participant's engaged in exert games they increased interest and positive views in using electronics as a form of physical and social participation. >> Thank you. [Applause] >> Thank you all very much. Rachel is there anything you would like to add? Thank you for the work and time you put into it. >> A lot of time and detail I appreciate everything you guys did that was interesting. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for your time, too. >> Very nice. All right. Our next presentation is from the Tampa Bay regional planning council we will discuss hurricane flooding. Sean could not be here please introduce yourself to everyone. >> Good evening, mayor and that is a hard act to follow. Great job. I'm ren crawl the deputy executive director for the Tampa Bay regional planning council and thank you for having us to present. This is my colleague, ashley mott we are going to tag team. Ashley is our gis manager at the regional planning council. And our presentation I will do a quick overview of the council. I know some of you are very familiar with what we do. But I will do a quick overview and tonight we'll focus on emergency management and our resiliency program. And we have two brief videos to include and hope that we can answer any questions that you might have. >> Thanks we appreciate you being here. >> Thank you so much. >> I'm going to tell you our mission statement. I should have it memorized by now. But been with the council since 1998 but I still have to read it so serve our citizens and member governments by providing a forum to foster communication, coordination and collaboration in identifying and addressing needs regionally. In a nutshell what we do at region am planning council we try to help our local governments work together across jurisdictional lines to help each of our communities be better for it. We've been around for 61 years this year. We had a big celebration last year. One of our as I mentioned we are convener for the region and we like to help our local governments work together on those different initiatives. We promote leadership and environmental stewardship and, of course, emergency management and resiliency planning. This is who we serve. We have six counties we serve. 21 municipalities, we have 13 gubernatorial appointees and three exowe fish yo members on our board and that is f D.O.T. Florida dep and the southwest Florida water management district. Gulfport has been well represented by councilman Michael Fridovich and I was researching how many years he has been on the council and I was like, wow. He has been on the council since 2014. And has played a significant role through the years and has represented Gulfport very, very well and we thank you all for being a member. Councilman Michael Fridovich sits on the executive budget committee I like to call our workhorse committee of the couple. Also the regional cooperative alliance 501c3 arm of the council that allows us to go for funding for from private entities so we can do great projects like the reach project that we just completed. And councilman frid vich also was present at our signing ceremony in 2018 when we formed the Tampa Bay regional resiliency coalition. And this is a coalition of member governments and now we have 33 member governments. And over 90 private sector partners and we're the 16th in the nation to ever do this. So Tampa Bay is in the forefront now in resiliency planning. Other areas I'm just going to tell you quickly, we work in economic development, helping local governments can economic analyses. Developing different programs for economic growth development. We worked on the cares act projects for several local governments. Now for resources and the environment. We started the agency on bay management it's gosh over 30 years old now. And this is a group of environmental professionals, scientists, local elected officials, who work on try ing to keep our beautiful bay healthy. Transportation and land use, we are the management team for the Courtney Campbell scenic highway. Also we work on several different regional transportation issues with our local transportation mpo's and various organizations. Resiliency. This is risen to the top at the council and resiliency certainly touches base with all of the different areas that we work in. We would like to thank Councilwoman Thanos for serving on our resill yenty steering committee. This committee has the important role of organizing for the wrap which I will tell you about in a few minutes. And then also we are doing our annual summit that will be coming up in may. But tonight we're going to talk about emergency preparedness and that is one of the things that you had asked us to speak on. The regional planning council has been in the forefront of emergency planning for many, many years. We were the very first I think in 1985 to do a hurricane guide. No one in the country had done one before. So we like to say that we were the first. And our guides are the best. But we also supply maps for our local governments for evacuation zones and things. And I would like to turn it over to Ashley who is going to talk a little bit about the role gis and visualization has in play and we'll call [inaudible] >> Before you show the video, I know it's hard for the people who sit here some of you in the back to see this. So please get up and move and so that you can see things because it's impressive. >> Hi everyone. Again I'm Ashley and I appreciate your time. So what I want to present to you all today is knowing your zones. First I want to show you how evacuation zones are determined. How storm surge maps and evacuation zone maps are different. And also give you some important reminders about the hurricane season and I want to show you the know your zone application that Pinellas county has produced. So how are evacuation zones created? This is simplified version but we start out with national hurricane center models and those models incorporate your bays, river and shoreline configurations. They also take into account historical hurricane data and projected hurricane tracks. At tbrpc we use gis mapping to incorporate those numerical models with the latest elevation data and Pinellas county uses the storm surge data we give them and they incorporate vulnerabilities into the storm surge mapping and that is what gives you the evacuation zones. So in this next slide I wanted to show you side-by-side that the storm surge map the tbrpc creates is identical to what the evacuation zones for Gulfport look like. And this might be different like if you had a barrier island for instance. But you might be able to pick out small areas very close to the waterfront that are orange in the storm surge map as opposed to red in the evacuation zones so they figure, hey if you are surrounded by red, that dot that might be somebody who just built up and the elevation data is showing that that person's higher but still I mean even if they are built up and next to the water, probably good idea to evacuate. So I hope that kind of helps to show you the differences there. But you can see I dropped in it is a little difficult to see at this regulation lose but the black lines are your five foot interval contours and you can see the zones somewhat align with those changes. Of course, if you walk uphill, you will be safer from storm surge. And these are important reminders that I just wanted to layout for the council. So your storm surge evacuation zone s are different than your FEMA flood zones. And it's really important for the community to understand the difference between those zones. So I dropped a link to Pinellas county they have a good explanation for the layman to look at and to understand those differences. Also important for the community to understand that there's two different types of evacuation orders. One which is just recommended for very vulnerable structures like mobile homes. And then there is a mandatory evacuation that the Pinellas county would supply to your community members and that's when storm surge is very the probability is high. And is actually illegal for you to stay in your home under a mandatory evacuation order. Sometimes community members don't understand that 9-1-1 is not coming in that circumstance. So homes outside of the evacuation zones still might be vulnerable to hurricane damage. So you live in a 1920s bungalow and you have original windows you would be vulnerable to wind. And then just wanted to drive home the point that storm surge evacuation zones are managed by Pinellas county emergency management and I provided contacts there if you want to reach out to them, I told them I was going to be with y'all tonight and they said if you have questions about really how they get into the nitty-gritty of the evasion zones you are welcome to reach out to rene or Joe. This is rp Pinellas county's know your zone application how community members can determine where their zones are so this is the authority they active source for the zones. And as I said, these guys are prime that you guys were interested in this topic and they are very willing to field any questions that you may have. I think that is a duplicate slide. I will pass it back. [inaudible] >> I will stro hurricane Phoenix real quick. >> I think it requires a little introduction because I don't want to scare everybody in the room. Hurricane Phoenix is a simulation. And we did this about 12 years ago, the first time. And technology has changed so much and gotten so much better that we decided it was time for an update. And with hurricane Phoenix, the new redo which we call hurricane Phoenix 2.0 we also built in a component for emergency first responders to learn how to do things better during the storm events and after the events. There are modules built in that local governments can use to train their folks that are involved in emergency management. So this is done based on science and experts in the area of hurricane preparedness. And this is project Phoenix. >> Has been a noticeable shift in the forecast track. Fratters say this storm would be one of the strongest ever to hit the Tampa Bay region. Phoenix is now a category five hurricane it is a historic storm and unfortunately making a B-line right now for our area. [???] >> And we have category one hurricane Phoenix south of Jamaica. It's expected to make landfall in the yucatan peninsula as a category two storm but we are keeping a close eye on the system. >> There has been a noticeable shift in the forecast track from the nhc overnight which now brings Phoenix into our viewing area, possibly as a strong hurricane now is the time to begin this preparations, folks. We have breaking news this morning if you are just joining us. The national hurricane center has upgraded our entire viewing area to a hurricane warning as hurricane Phoenix is projected to make landfall as a major hurricane sometime tomorrow. Mandatory evacuations are in effect for all coastal regions. Forecasters say this storm would be one of the strongest ever to hit the Tampa Bay region. >> We cannot stress enough how crucial it is you finish your storm preparations tonight. Conditions will deteriorate rapidly tomorrow morning and evacuation route also become impassable. Please do not take this lightly and heed all evacuation orders. >> Folks this is unfortunately the worst case scenario unfolding for the Tampa Bay area. Phoenix is a category five hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 160-miles-per-hour. The wind gusts up to 200-miles-per-hour. This is catastrophic it is a historic storm and unfortunately making a B-line right now for our area. We have a live look at north Tampa and Polk street. I believe this is near [inaudible] And the storm surge has completely inundated downtown. Law enforcement is reporting that all brings have been cutoff by storm surge. We are looking up to 20 feet of storm surge in spots. >> We tracked on the third floor of the Tampa general hospital parking garage and the storm surge is up to the second floor of the hospital. >> St. Petersburg is an island right now. >> A viewer from Brooksville is reporting roofs being torn off of businesses this is a important reminder this is not just a coastal storm. We are seeing significant wind damage well inland. >> Oh, my goodness. >> The damage this morning is unimaginable. The beaches are essentially gone. >> The Howard Franklin bridge is completely destroyed. I've never seen anything like this. >> Officials are scrambling to clean up debris from local airports in order for supplies to be flown in. We are getting reports from residents trapped by downed trees. >> There's not a single business that we've driven by that doesn't have significant damage. >> Tampa general hospital told us they are unable to receive any patients after the hospital suffered significant damage from wind and storm surge. The level of destruction here is inzincable it will be a long road to recovery for the Tampa Bay area. >> There's always silence in the room. I happen to attend back in 2010 when we did the first one and there was at the Tampa convention center and it was a room full of emergency management professionals and these are some kind of salt of the earth tough folks. And they were all chitchatting away until the video started and then stopped and there was like nothing but some not nice words. >> That is what we worry about. >> So this is available on our website. And it's great to show for different community organizations. So folks kind of it drives home the point of how dangerous our storms could possibly be. Thank you. And I mentioned this to you that the summit is coming up may 3-5 at the Hilton clearwater beach and it's the 29 annual future of the region awards. We invite Gulfport please to enter your great projects. We need to talk about wrap real quick. >> Before you do that can we show the pictures from Fort Myers beach? >> While are you doing that, every hurricane season I tell our residents I advise them go to tyron and find a friend don't evacuate because you are not going to get out of the peninsula. Go to tyron and that is the area of the map that you showed that didn't have a color on it because it's high ground and if it is not a huge one that say safe place make a friend in tyron. [Laughter] >> Do you want to elaborate? >> I went to Fort Myers beach two weeks ago that was four months after the hurricane and these are just some pictures I took so you can see what is still going on. And empty spaces or places where they've cleared the debris but there's lots of piles of debris. We want to go back to Tampa. There we go. That's great. All right before I leave you this evening, I would like to talk to you a little bit about the regional resiliency action plan. As much as the devastation of project Phoenix there are things we can do to help our communities and be prepared for those kinds of things. And I have brought each of you a copy of the regional resiliency action plan. We're very proud of this document this was from the collaboration of all the members of the coalition. And this is a for lack of a better word it's like another tool for your toolboxes as local elected officials that you can look at different ways that maybe your community would like to adopt some different policies that help your community to become more resilient. And this is a one stop kind of shopping that you can pick and choose areas that work best for your community. And take on some of those initiatives. At the council we adopted this back in November. And we have forwarded this to our local governments in the region and we're asking for you to consider adopting it in your communities. So if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me and I'm going to try real quick to show you the last video. There we go. I'm just going to close that out. And then this is a quick couple-minute video on the regional action plan. [???] Ed Tampa Bay region is sought after by families, businesses and global organizations as one of the most fruitful places to live, work and enjoy the very best that life has to offer. It accounts for nearly 20% of Florida's gross domestic product and is the 17th largest economy in the U.S. And it's four million plus residents makeup a quarter of the state's population. But uncontrollable forces of change do not play favorites. Beyond protecting our environment, jobs, tourism and property, laying unshakeable ground work for our best possible future is key to staying the course. We understand that in order to rebound from disaster, we must enable our most environmentable community members to overcome the expected and unexpected challenges we'll face in the future. The Tampa Bay regional planning council was formed to bring key governments together to harness our collective strength. Through collaboration, we redefined preparation from something done to avoid the worst for something done in anticipation of the best. Our shared focus energized the formation of the Tampa Bay regional resiliency coalition in 2018. These change makers set forth to create the 18th such program in the nation. The Tampa Bay regional resiliency coalition. The coalition has grown to include 32 member governments in seven counties to insure our region isn't just protected but nurtured to thrive. The first-of-its-kind in the Tampa Bay region. This resiliency plan is an actionable scalable framework with ways to implement resiliency measures for each community's unique values and contributions to our region. Key to the plan's success was the holistic collaboration used to develop the plan across partner governments, leaders and experts. This resiliency plan offers new way s to work together as well as a menu of best practices that can be implemented with measurable outcomes. Additionally, the plan outlines high level goals objectives and actionable instructions for local implementation and regional collaboration. And with 11 priority actions we have the potential to be our most resilient. >> We live in a beautiful part of not only the country but in the world. But living here takes great responsibility we need to take care of our region and protecting folks against flooding is critical. The priorities that we have structured in the resiliency plan are going to be beneficial for new growth coming in and it will help the infrastructure we have in place, so that when a storm event comes in we can recover from it quicker. >> The reason I think those 11 priorities can make a huge difference throughout our county is because it provides very specific roadmap. And in order to get where you want to be, it's important that you have directions of how to get there. >> This is an all hands on deck issue and it's not going to just be the local governments that do this work. We're going to need the collaboration of our business community and our nonprofit partners to make sure that when we're looking how we grow that we're doing it collaboratively. And if we are not thinking bigger about how we build how we rebuild and how we develop going forward in the face of climate change, we become an unviable community for hundreds of thousands of people. We know that we can't stop storms from coming. But we knee that we can have better policies in place to help people evacuate. And also have better building codes in place so that there's somewhere for them to come back to after the storm. >> We start having a dialogue between all these diverse communities, means that we're going to come up with all kinds of strategies that other communities can use to fit their particular needs. We will see a tremendous impact on our quality of life. We will see it in our environment, we will see it in our air quality and flood relief. The list goes on and on. By focusing on things that acknowledge climate change we are actually going to save money in the long-term. It is money spent now that will reap a lot of benefit later. >> The main problem is congestion we have to work together to come up with solutions because we have major issues. All elected officials in the state of Florida has a responsibility to make sure that safety is their number one issue. If we do our jobs right, in 10, 15 or 20 years, the majority of our citizens will be prepared for whatever is thrown at us. We'll do a better job. So that we can start preparing and getting back on our feet faster. >> The change is going to have to happen. We have to focus on our resilience as a community from a lot of aspects from housing affordability, to resilience to events like hurricanes or rising sea level. To traffic and the transportation and changing models of transportation that are coming whether we're ready for it or not. So we need to prepare for that to strengthen our community as a whole. >> The time for action is now. It can't really wait any longer we've got elected leadership throughout the region that is ready to go and I could not be more thrilled at the process peculiar of -- Prospect of what we're going to accomplish in the future. >> A resilient future for communities large and small requires action. The plan is extensive and comprehensive. But starting the journey to greater resiliency for our Tampa Bay region is simple. First, read the plan. You will learn the actionable ways to insure future viability for our community. Then get involved with the Tampa Bay regional resiliency coalition. Through continued collaboration, we will prepare our region to thrive. Together, we create the Tampa Bay region's best future for generations to come. >> That one ends on a much better note, don't you think? We're very proud of this and proud to have Gulfport be a part of the council for all these years. Many, many years. And on a personal note this community is near and dear to my heart I'm neighbors up the road and you will find the crawl family here eating once a week somewhere. In our daughter's wedding reception was in the casino and we had a blast and the community was so wonderful that evening that it was almost like the whole town of Gulfport was at their wedding. Thank you all and if you have any questions? >> Go ahead. >>. >> First of all, Wren, thank you and Ashley thank you. I want to point out quickly every time we have a new chairperson at the Tampa Bay regional council they come up with a pet project and Janet long came up with this about five six years ago? And this was what started the resiliency situation and like others other pet projects in the past, this one has had legs. It's taken off into what we have today. We have to thank Janet for bringing that forward. Thank you very much. >> I had a question one of the things I was most wanting to know in Fort Myers beach when they evacuated how many zones did they evacuate and was that enough? >> I will try to answer this question. The entirety of Fort Myers beach island is in zone a so they were mandated to evacuate. But aside from that I'm not sure of the other zones because you're really in Fort Myers beach it's one zone. >> I know. In Fort Myers. We evacuated I think through c. And I went to a little further than that but 10 blocks from my house that is one of the main things I wanted to find out is going 10 blocks far enough? Did they in Fort Myers did they evacuate b, c, d and was that enough? And. >> I don't know the answer to that question off the top of my head but I will get it to you. I'm sure that is discoverable. But it was interesting to look at Gulfport's topography as pretty. >> We have Morelle vaccination than they do in Fort Myers. >> I could see why that seems you know strange like how can I walk 10 blocks and it's different. But you have the elevation on your side here. >> It is a lot better. But that was one of my main things that I wanted to know because it's one thing to have flood zones, but when you evacuate, you know you want to know you're going far enough. And I know that it can always change. I've heard about stories where people go to Orlando and it changes and the storm hits in Orlando. There's only so much you can do but especially to know in this case, when they evacuated if whatever zone they went back to and did they have like significant flooding past that. >> I will get you that answer. >> Thank you. >> I had one brief question. Just for everybody's knowledge how often do they update the flood map and the evacuation maps? >> I know Pinellas county is working on updating their flood maps for this year. It's not on an annual basis but I think that after Ian everybody wants updated maps and to double-check our work. We are part of state-wide program rpc that updates the storm surge typically every five years but that is being pushed up now because not only because of Ian but because of the population changes that the state has because that definitely will lend itself to a different evacuation scenario the more people the more traffic. >> All right. Council anyone else? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Folks this brings us to open public comment tonight. This so you know when we get to the discussion item for rv's if that is what you are here for we will have public comment specific sli for that item. This is for anything not on the agenda. I go with a show of hands. You will have three minutes and we'll go ahead and roll. Anyone for open public comment. Yes, Ma'am in the back. >> Wren do you have that book for me? >> I have one. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Hello. Thank you guys so much. I'm Melissa Humboldt the president of the Gulfport merchants chamber, I wanted to say thank you to Councilmembers Christine brown and Michael Fridovich for being a part of our City Council debate that we had from the gmc. Also to Michael and April for showing up to our mixer at the beginning of the month. It was important and we appreciate that. I came here to give you an update what the gmc is doing. Right now we are focusing on membership renewals and this year is exciting because we're offers a lot of new benefits to members. We've created a program to support the local businesses in our community. The biggest one, not really they are all big, the most pertinent one is we are starting a morning meeting series. For members only. Just every other month to provide that one-on-one hands on support for our members. The first one is going to be on March 16th at 9:30 in the courtyard. I know it's early for Gulfportians but coffee will be provided and we're letting this meeting be open to everyone. Everyone who wants to meet the board members or know the benefits is invited to the meeting. That's mostly what I wanted to share with you today. Also we are pink flamingo tickets are on sale we are highlighting the garden district ward four. There's fantastic homes you can get your tickets on-line or at the beach bizarre. >> Thank you very much. >> When is the home tour? >> March 4. >> All right. Thank you. >> Have a great day. >> And I'd like to say thank you for the presentation tonight as well as the presentation a couple weeks ago by Linda Cheney. I think both presentations were extremely educational and helpful for us the residents. And then I just wanted to make a point on two things. When I attended the debate recently and we had the cummings and the -- Incumbents and the folks running for council one question they were asked was what are the two ordinances that you would like most to see enforced in Gulfport. And there were multitude of answers but the two consistent responses to that why short-term rentals, and to loose dogs and dogs on the beach. When it comes to short-term rentals I know we're trying to make some progress I think it was around October when it was decided to hire a new code enforcement. But it's now February and I'm wondering if we've made any progress and wondering if we the residents know yet what we're supposed to do to report to shutdown some of these short-term rentals. I know across the street from me, Thursday through this morning, I actually had a camper camping in a yard along with three other trucks for the four or five-day weekend. And I don't like that. So that's one thing. The second thing goes back to the whole loose dogs dogs ons beach. I'm proud to live in Gulfport where our police department care enough to track down the owners to our dogs that are lost and find the lost dogs owners that is great I'm proud of that. But then there is a real disconnect because why are these people not being fined when it's repeat offenders which we see it own Facebook all the time, the same people over and over. Here our police do things to help the irresponsible dog owners or pet owners and some cases, but then when the pets bite another pet or those pets bite people, then we're told well, the city can't do anything about that that is a county issue. So I'm having problems with understanding why we don't have enforcement. I looked the week of February 12-18th, ordinance violations there were three citations written. I don't know that they were for pets. >> E dogs. But three written the victims of some of the loose dogs should be able to get help from the city as well as how good our police are to the lost pets and owners. Do you see the conflict? Doesn't work. Thank you. >> Thank you. Who else for open public comment? Mr. Freed? >> How is everybody doing tonight? Good? Rhinos and dinos doing ok. >> Long time no see. >> I took a look at my taxes and my property taxes and I paid 1459.15 of which 721.94 of it is for education and juvenile issues. And I sort of was thinking about this whole like band gay, don't say gay in high school and ban books in high school. And don't educate our queer folk our queer young people. And half of my taxes go toward this education process. And being queer myself I kind of feel like that this is taxation without representation. And I don't know why Ron De Santis, fascist De Santis has a boner against queer people. Let me explain to Ron that queer people have existed throughout all cultures and history. When Ron De Santis' bones turn to dust, there will be queer people on the planet. Organized queer people and I have a message for Ron: And the message is this: Your family aunts, uncles nephews nieces, children and grandchildren they are going to be queer people that come from the fruits of your loins. And there will be an organized queer community when they decide to come out. I want my money back. I'm not paying ok this tax dollars ok without representation. That's how the American revolution started taxation without representation. If fascists De Santis wants a fight on his hands he's got one. >> All right. Who is next for public comment? Everybody, this might fix up well so if you are within eight inches to a feet of that mic it helps with the popping of the p's and that good stuff. Who is next? Yes, sir. >> I'm Tommy biksler I live on 59th street south in the town shores. I'm here to representing the lion's club. I would like the let everybody know the pancake breakfast raised $15 hundred for the southern each guide dog association we had 130 people there. But my next thought is I need to let you know we're having a dance on March 25th. You know we don't raise this money for ourselves. We raise it for other people. And tonight's presentation by the young people in college really ties into this. We started this dance last year, the first time was to raise scholarship money for boca high school. So we was able to raise $4,000. There was four students applied and they each got 100 so they are on their way to college and hopefully they will be here doing a presentation or being in a position they are in looking out for older people in the community with their what was their title? Physical therapists. >> Occupational therapists. >> There is a lot of occupations that can make good money in but we if we don't support them it will be hard for them to get into college and pay their fees. The 25th I'm not telling it to the council I'm telling it to everybody here, that we're looking for donations. The dance is fantastic as far as fun people had a great time. We have a death by chocolate bar and sandwiches and silent auction. >> It is a 70s dance. >> It's on the calendar for Gulfport casino. But it's not out in the community but we've got it on Facebook. Tell your friends and if anybody here has a generous heart and would like to give money or something we can silent auction off, ray gives us a nice piece of artwork that brought $500 last year. If anybody can see fit in their business or that to help us out, we sure would appreciate it. And I'm sure the students this year the seniors would really appreciate it. And hopefully we're going to have a good generation of people to keep looking out for the older people in our community. So thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else for open public comment? All right. Seeing no one. City Manager? >> Yes, mayor I have a few items this evening. First of all, director of the Pinellas county animal control will be coming before you on March 7 to do a presentation. In regards to different aspects what is applicable for animal control in the county and the city. Second item in regards to it was December that we decided where we would go with the short-term rental council gave direction we have staff in positioned and we are in the process of training on the software. Mr. Mather and community development are working on that. We will be bringing you a report to what the processes and that once we have those in place. I anticipate that will be the first or second meeting in March. Along those lines, just a couple items just wanted to let you know that first of all that we've made our state appropriation request to senator and also representative Cheney and this year we've submitted the expanded funding for sanitary sewer lateral priority two repairs and also some major improves to 58th street. We have had base problems with it so we've asked them there is a big focus at the state legislature level to talk about transportation. So we've submitted a project to redo 58th street because of issues related to the base of it. We've also been advised that and notified that Congresswoman Luna will be accepting earmark requests this year in the past her party has not. Subsequently this year that she will be accepting them so we will be drafting a project and we obviously number one right now would be the senior center. Due to the fact that we have $1.5 million in planning federal money so we can move along in that line. We've also good news that we have is that we have been notified we've received a resiliency planning grant of $80,000 from the state from the Florida resiliency program that the Governor signed into basically that is through the Florida department of environmental protection and it is a to the resilient Florida program. So we will be doing a citywide comprehensive vulnerability and resiliency study to come back to you. Which is now required for any monies that we apply for you have to have that study in place. So we will be moving forward with that once we get the documentation from the state. >> Fantastic. >> And that's all I have. One other item. I have is that the city attorney is in receipt of a counteroffer from the bog da city quality club and I will be forwarding it to you tomorrow and along with the one presented to them, I would like to discuss that with you individually when you have the opportunity. But I will be sending it to you tomorrow. We'll be made a public record produced both the city's proposed and their's. So you can provide me guidance at a later date. >> All right. Sounds good. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'm excited I had that done here to ask you about the resiliency grant because we have been waiting. So they do the grantor do they have a company that goes the grant? Or do we have to choose somebody? >> We will pick one of our engineering firms to do that we have and from that we then get reimbursed after we pay it. >> Thank you. >> Just up to $80,000? >> Yes, sir. >> Great. City attorney's report? >> No report, mayor. >> City clerk's report. >> Nothing tonight, mayor. >> This brings us to the consent agenda and then we will take a break. 5a consider approval of the minutes of February 7, 20235b, resolution 2023 owe 9 authorizing the City Manager to enter into a contract with Smith events Inc. for the replacement of Marinna fencing, 5c2023-10 demanding fees for the department of leaser services of code of ordinances and providing for a fee schedule of the 2023 children's summer recreation program. >> I make a motion on the consent agenda. >> Second. >> All if necessary signify by saying aye. Carries unanimously. With that, we're going to take a short recess 10 minutes and we'll meet back here at 7:30 and we'll finish up the meeting and follow that up with the cra meeting. test test test test test test. Test test test test test. Test test test test. >> So we are at agenda item 6 which is ordinances and beginning with ordinance 6a, number 2023-02. >> Ordinance 202302 ordinance authorizing the City Manager to inter into a lease agreement with the Gulfport little league Inc. providing ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict to the extent of conflict provide fog severability and an effective date. >>. >> A motion first? Motion we accept ordinance 2023-02. >> Second. >> Mayor, this ordinance speaks for itself. As you know our position on supportive Gulfport little league. Unless you have specific questions. They meet our criteria and they've provided us the backup information and we're supportive of trevor president Mallory and his group effort. . >> Fantastic we're happy to have him. >> Please. Representing. >> How are you doing? Bruce. Sponsor coordinator for the little league I wanted to say thank you and ask that Trevor is on this way here stuck in traffic in Sarasota. I wanted to tell you we are so thankful for the support that the town has given us, the town businesses have given us. And the quality of the work that is done by the town staff in maintaining the field. It's helped a lot this year is a very interesting year, because the southwest league of the little league organization locally is temporarily not operating this season. So we are now up to 82 kids. And that's really great. We've got a reputation for really good coaching. Last year, our teams advanced so much during the season people were wondering what are they doing? So we're doing a great job. And I a