Workshop — September 24, 2026 FINAL
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Alan Clendenin
9:05:51AM Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Tampa City Council workshop. I would like to call this meeting to order. Who has the invocation this morning? Everybody stand for a moment of silence, please. [Moment of silence] Councilman Miranda, would you lead us in the pledge? [Pledge of allegiance]
9:06:35AM Thank you. Clerk, would you please call the roll?
Charlie Miranda
9:06:38AM Here.
Guido Maniscalco
9:06:39AM Here. Young?
Naya Young
9:06:42AM Here.
Luis Viera
9:06:43AM Here.
Bill Carlson
9:06:43AM Here.
Alan Clendenin
9:06:45AM Here.
The clerk
9:06:46AM We have a physical quorum.
Alan Clendenin
9:06:47AM Councilwoman Hurtak is here. She just stepped out for a moment. But she will be back any minute. First up on the agenda, we're going to talk to Ms. Abbye Feeley.
Abbye Feeley
9:07:01AM Good morning, council. Abbye Feeley, administrator for development and economic opportunity. This morning, we're here to talk about the fee study, to workshop the fee study that was completed by raftelis. With us this morning is joe Williams from raftelis, tristen townsend from raftelis, as well as JC Hudgison, our Building Official and -- Chief Building Official and construction services manager. I need a little bit more coffee. Eric Cotton, Development Coordination manager, Dennis Fernandez, our historic preservation manager, and Brandon Campbell, our director of mobility. Since the fee study included all of those areas. I'm going to turn over to joe. Joe is really going to present to you on the study what we did, how we did it, what it showed us. And we do have a recommended fee schedule. As I mentioned to you in previous updates, that schedule includes what we call kind of level setting and practicality of some of those fees. These fees are only recommendations before you today. We're here to start a dialogue, to have a conversation, to talk about what those fees are. Like I said, how they were determined, where we're going with this, what implementation of this would look like over a number of years. In addition to that, we will be having a public meeting on October 21st at hanna city center. We have set up a website on the fee study that has the document out there. We've also set out some correspondence to our advisory groups that our teams meet with on a regular basis as well as all of our accela users in anticipation of sharing this information. We also have Dana Crosby with us today from the city attorney's office if there are any questions in relation to how this relates to senate bill 180 and us increasing the fees. The way we are looking at this is for a March 1st effective date, which would go in with the water and wastewater fee increases that you all have already approved, and it is a multiyear. And I'll let joe go into that a little bit, but for construction services, it's over five years, and for Development Coordination, historic preservation it would be three years. We also have some comparison for you today of how we are in relation to other cities, what's going on, and we'll go from there. I'll turn it over to joe. What we'd like to do is work through the entire presentation and then we are going to work as a team to answer any questions that you may have.
Alan Clendenin
9:09:38AM Before we turn it over, Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
9:09:39AM I just wanted to say, please make sure you send us all those invites so we can put them on our calendars.
Abbye Feeley
9:09:45AM You got it.
Lynn Hurtak
9:09:47AM Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
9:09:47AM Good morning, joe. Start with your name, please. Joe Williams from raftelis. Thank you for having us. It's been great effort working with the city and the various divisions, departments on fully -- trying to fully understand everything that goes into providing these services. So if we can jump into the presentation. Perfect. Take you through the scope a little bit. There is a good amount of slides. I'll try to do this in about 15 to 20 minutes.
9:10:25AM We got it. Good to go. There is a good amount of information, but leave some room for questions, not go --
9:10:35AM Hey, this is your show. That's the idea we have. We definitely want to answer good questions. So, when we first got engaged, we really were focused on the building fees, construction services division, and then talking through with Abbye and others. There was a desire also to look at Development Coordination, the architectural review boards, the city clerk fees for petitions related to a lot of these fees that we would be updating and the mobility right-of-way. There's some administrative related fees in their department that hadn't been updated in many years either. Talk about a lot of these fees even date back to the early 2000s. 2000, 2006 in some cases, construction services was a little bit more recent, but they are still pushing a good eight years or so since really being updated. How did we get here? Construction services, again, back in 2021, they did a major upgrade to their billing software, their permit software. Again, we'll talk a little bit about their existing fee structure. Won't dwell on it too much, but there's thousands of individual rates on their various schedules. Once that was created in the new software, it was really hard to update and manage over time, so we have gone through a major simplification effort, try to make it so it can be updated more efficiently each year going forward. We understand that there's various policy direction over time, again, covid was a huge factor and a lot of this on keeping fees level, not looking at specific increases during a challenging time. That has contributed and changing legislative landscape. The Florida statutes sections related to especially the building fees has been updated tremendously the past five or six years. It's created a lot of additional regulation, timelines, things on JC's department that have required increase in staffing, increases in other costs to administer a similar level of effort and to meet all those requirements. He's had that issue and then the permit activity again, spiked early in the covid years and then it started to normalize again now. Also hurricane activity. There is a natural ebb and flow in the permit activity and sort of on a slight, slight reduction in that area right now. That leads directly to permit revenues. So our approach, again, study approach, we want to look at what is the full cost of administering these departments. When someone comes in for a specific type of permit, what is all the staff effort and necessary overhead costs of operating a department that go into providing these efforts. So that's what we've identified in the study. We've worked with staff on an initial phasing plan. We'll talk about certain fees where we calculated the cost that staff felt was relatively high, and the recommended plan, some of those have been set below the actual costs that we've calculated. Again, there are several factors that go into that. Do have some latitude within your fee setting to set fees below the actual costs. Again, we met in detail on every work flow, every fee with staff on understanding what goes into each one of these things, who is involved, how much time are people spending on average cases, and that's how we've developed the fee study. So, construction services, really what I'll hit on here, this is the building department administering if there's new construction, changes on properties for accessory structures, additions of pools, major construction type things, electrical, plumbing, and this is pretty strictly governed by Florida statutes, especially on the revenue expense side at this point. It's about 100 employees and $22 million annual budget right now. On the left side, you'll see a small, relatively small snapshot of the existing fee schedule.
9:15:34AM Printed by our CFO. We don't want to you try to read all the fees. Again, this is, if you opened up one of the schedules on the city's website, there's probably seven different files that each have five to ten pages of fees that look just like this. It's all tied back to the international business code, construction types, occupancy types and huge range of fees. Again, very hard to administer and update. It took a lot of work and a lot of massaging of the data to get it to where we felt comfortable recommending a new fee structure, but that's what we have on the slide here, residential grouping and commercial grouping. The fees we're showing you are for new construction. There are some discounted rates with a very similar structure for other types of phased buildings or shell buildings or tenant improvements, things that are related, but relatively lower effort for the building department based on all the plan reviews and inspections that go into things. Simplification of the fee structure. Revenue enhancement, I'll touch on this one a little bit. Basically, what's happened is over the past several years, again, with all the additional regulations that have been introduced, the department has grown. So there's been a growing staff to meet all the timelines, the regulations, all those things that go into it. Revenues have stayed about stable, even slight decreases the past few years. Again, this is a department where if nobody pulled a permit, there would be zero dollars coming in. On the utility side, you at least have base charges. People need to use water. It's consistent revenue. Here, they can go from zero to, you know, 20 million in any given year. Now, you're typically operating in the 14 to $16 million range the past several years. As we showed you, JC has a budget of 22 million for this upcoming year. It's been at that level for the past few years or so. So we needed revenue enhancement. When we simplified the fee structure, we made it so that when we set those rates, there was additional revenue that was going to be generated, and then that sort of strung through the process. Then we have each of the individual permit fees which are more fixed fees for services, if you come for a mechanical permit or plumbing permit, simple plumbing, there is a fixed fee for it. Those fees are increasing as well. That's going to generate additional revenue. There's resubmittals, additional plan review fees, things like that. So we're getting additional revenue from a few different areas. So this is -- a couple of different things, there is the enhancement fund and there's the primary operating fund that JC has. This is really a picture of the primary operations fund. You can see it is less than 22 million. The enhancement fund is an additional surcharge added on to the building permit that covers a lot of the technology vehicle related cost of the department. So this is really just the operating fund. And you can see that in 2026, the revenues, which are the line, the green line, are pretty well below the expenses for the department. Again, it's been like that for a couple, few years now, but what we have to say is during covid and kind of that time when activity was higher and before a lot of the new regulations came, the division was operating at a surplus, had accumulated a fairly strong cash reserve position, and the past few years really spent it down. We show that you on the next slide. It's been spent down. We're at the point where the '27 budget, if there were no rate adjustments, is showing we probably would be relying on the General Fund to support the department. So now we have these rate adjustments identified. We're hoping to not be in that situation beginning in 2027. So that's the slide. You can see down below, $5 million in a cash reserve position for a $20 million department. Florida statutes allows you to have a reserve balance up to the average of the prior four years of budgeted expenditures for that department. Again, we could have a balance closer to 15 to 16 million per statutes, but we've spent it down, kept fees low or level over the past several years. So we're kind of just at that point where we need to start moving back in the other direction to be a fully sustaining, special revenue fund. That's one specifically set for the special revenue fund, supposed to operate like a business. Supposed to generate the revenues to cover the cost of operations. That is the general intent. Small list of example fees, again, this is demonstrated to show you there is a wide range of different impacts. In the full report, there are exhibits. There are longer fee tables showing you all the different fees. We want to just show a few examples here. Not going to go into great detail, but there is a range. It's not all 15%. Sometimes it's 30%. Sometimes in rare cases there's some small decreases. Again, that goes into some of the discussions with staff on trying to keep reasonable fees in certain areas, consistency for different types of things. Just a high level example, again, we worked with the departments, detailed reviews, detailed work flows, and this accessory structure will serve two purposes. We summarized it to a pretty high level. Intake and processing. This includes correspondence with applicants along the way. Plan review, inspection time, and then some vehicle usage time. And there are other overhead factors kind of built into there. So this one, we calculated a fee of $480 working with staff. This is one of the fees where it is very homeowner application based where they are going to be getting a shed or another small structure on their property. If we are setting the fee too high, there's some level of concern that people will stop coming for permits. Then it's going to be a more costly effort to pursue after-the-fact permits, trying to get them to pay, comply. It's much better for the department and the city overall to have the permits come up front as they are supposed to, more efficient, better process, so that is considered in not going to the full fee in the situation. And there are a few other fees like that along the way, residential and commercial. So that's kind of a first pass. These are initial recommendations. We're all here looking for feedback and then the community meetings to get additional feedback as well. We have some comparisons. Really the highlight here, you'll see that we are going to be increasing fees for different types of construction activity, but we don't feel like we're going outside of a lot of our neighbors or other areas in the state. A lot of these communities that are on the comparison do have a fee structure that may or may not be in alignment with the most recent Florida house bill 803 updates. They likely will be pursuing updates to their fee schedules as well or may actively be. So we'll say that. There is a lot of changing legislation where building fees are being updated all throughout the state right now. Just a few more examples. If there are any questions on these, we can come back to them.
9:24:38AM We hold the questions until after you are finished. That's really the building fund, construction services division as we call in Tampa. The next one is Development Coordination.
9:24:58AM Do you feel like this is an appropriate place to pause for questions?
9:25:05AM Council have any questions? Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
9:25:07AM Can you go back to the slide that had the really, really small font?
Alan Clendenin
9:25:13AM The Dennis font.
Lynn Hurtak
9:25:15AM The Dennis slide.
Alan Clendenin
9:25:18AM The Dr Font.
Lynn Hurtak
9:25:20AM The thing that concerns me about this is that as the building gets larger, the rate gets smaller. I really don't want to be incentivizing larger residential properties. Commercial, that's fine. But residential, what we're trying to do is build more housing here. Some of that is going to be smaller by nature. Anything that's above 5,000 square feet, they really need to be paying that 33.35. I'm sorry. If you are building a massive home, then you can afford massive, like, fees. I don't have any sympathy for that. If you are in tier one and tier two, those are the places that I want to bring down. That's what we need to incentivize. We need to incentivize smaller homes. For me, I might flip that whole thing. I don't know how we would do that, but really, we want to incentivize more smaller houses. Also, the other thing that comes to mind is affordable housing set-asides. As we're looking at these fee increases, we also really want to look at people who are building affordable housing. By affordable housing, I mean owner occupied. If they are owner occupied, I really believe we need to reduce or eliminate funding or fees for affordable housing that people are going to owner occupy. Now, there still might be a reduction or something for apartment buildings, but really -- and by AMI. If we can't reduce them wholly, something by AMI. But again, I'm talking about ownership for residential. I don't really know -- I mean, I know we probably need to do something for commercial, but home ownership residential, I just had a really good conversation with habitat, and they are looking at ways to build more housing, and this is one of the things they said could tremendously help them. A reduction in impact fees. Because all they do is build owner occupied, and that to me is very important. Thank you. Otherwise, this is very interesting. Also, you skipped through quite a few, like, you were just showing us, if you could go to the last one of the variations of between different cities, this one -- no, one more. Then go back. Go back one more. This concerns me. Our proposed are going to be lower than Hillsborough county already is. And I know that -- but I understand -- so my guess is what we're trying to do is incentivize people building this stuff within the city. Is that the reason that we're sticking kind of lower here?
Joe Williams
9:28:17AM There is a relationship between setting the tiers and the cost recovery. As buildings scale, it doesn't always -- the effort from the department doesn't always scale quite as fast.
Lynn Hurtak
9:28:30AM Okay. That's fine. I was just curious. Because Hillsborough county's is significantly more. I'm curious. Hillsborough county generally is, because it's our true next-door neighbor, I'm interested -- I don't know, was Hillsborough county in all of these comparisons? Okay, it was. But this is the one that just made me stop for pause. I wanted to make sure that was like a rationale because we don't have a lot of commercial, and we do need to keep the commercial that we have and incentivize more. Is that one of the reasons that we're -- and whoever has their phone that is making those jingles, if you could turn that to mute, that would be great.
Abbye Feeley
9:29:14AM Abbye Feeley. When we looked at that with joe and the team, I don't know at this point in the study it was really about cost recovery. What is it taking us to do the work? Then when you look at the other legislation that joe was mentioning, private provider has to be done in certain amount of days, and you have to meet that, or you pay back fees. So it was looking at operationally the review times, the intake, all of that. Not necessarily on paper, how will this impact the development. So every point you're raising is great. I'm tracking, because on affordable housing also, like we offer right now expedited permitting. We offer no connection fee. I always get capacity fee and connection fee messed up. But for water and wastewater. We have other things. We have not by statute been able to waive impact fees.
Lynn Hurtak
9:30:12AM Okay. That is a statute thing.
Abbye Feeley
9:30:14AM Statutory requirement. But my brain is going as you're talking about, how do you get a lura on something? How do you ensure at c.o. There is actually an affordable person in there when they walked in the door? It's kind of like the bonuses we give, too. How do you make sure somebody goes and says, I'm bonusing for LEED, they go out there, the building never was LEED certified but then they got all the bonus density. Some of this I have to continue to work through. I jotted down.
Lynn Hurtak
9:30:40AM I appreciate it. Also, the secondary thing, I would love for someone to talk to Hillsborough county. Like, how are they coming up with these numbers? It doesn't mean we need to do that, that we need to go to these numbers because I do believe being lower for commercial really does incentivize commercial to stay within the city limits. But how are they coming up with those numbers? Just because they are our neighbor.
Abbye Feeley
9:31:03AM Yeah. JC can probably talk, too. He sits on building officials across the state, boap, how other municipalities are looking at that.
Lynn Hurtak
9:31:17AM Those are my first impressions. This is great so far.
Bill Carlson
9:31:23AM First point of order, Mr. Chair. Especially on workshop days, could you please -- nobody has done this yet, could you please enforce the rule that we have to be called on to speak and we don't interrupt each other. Because we're going to have probably more back and forth later. But I want to make sure we do it in an organized way. Just like we can't hear, the public can't hear if we're talking over each other. Just for the public, this is the fees we're paying, not impact fees, right? We're not talking about impact fees.
Abbye Feeley
9:31:54AM Correct.
Bill Carlson
9:31:54AM This is just application. Okay. Just to clarify that. The law says you can have -- you said just to repeat what you said, you can have a certain fund on top of it, a reserve fund on top, but we can't charge -- is there a certain percentage, besides reserve fund, a percentage mark-up that we can charge on top of what the actual cost is. Or we charge the actual cost plus whatever the reserve fund is. You have the ability, if you have cushion from where your current reserve is to where your reserve can be justified, you can set the fees a little higher to fund a reserve and fund future capital replacement needs.
9:32:44AM Ms. Feeley Mentioned an expedited fee. Is that in here? Did I miss That? Could you talk to us about those fees? I forgot what you called a rushed fee or expedited fee, additional fee.
Abbye Feeley
9:32:57AM Abbye Feeley. The legislation from the state requires if you're using private provider that reviews have to be done within ten days. When the private provider submits that, it has to be done within ten days. If it's not within ten days, you start paying back the fee to the applicant at certain percentages for the amount of time it takes longer. Going back to the ftes and how our ftes have increased, part of that is because the state mandates to complete reviews within certain times because we don't want to return fee. We want to keep the department stable.
Bill Carlson
9:33:37AM I know your office gets a lot of complaints because there's so much growth in the area. You've come before us so many times to talk about how you're trying to address that. Right now we're talking about cost recovery with the process you have, and there's a lot of money there. Is there a higher level of service that we could offer if customers have to trade off between speed and cost? So set aside the outside services, is there a way that if somebody needs to do something urgently that they could pay more? Is there an expedited team you could put on that we could charge an extra fee for? Or extra people you could hire that we could do cost recovery on so we could provide these faster. My question to you is, if we provided more resources to provide a better service or faster service, would that help you? And then how would we cost recover that?
Abbye Feeley
9:34:34AM So, right now, as joe mentioned, sometimes the permitting ebbs and flows, right? We do keep two teams on contract and we have gone to using one of those teams for our tenant improvements. If you are coming in to get a tenant improvement, you went across the street to the suntrust, you'll put your office in there now, those, we use an outside team to do those now. Those reviews get done in three days for the building part. They still require life safety review, which is the fire element of this, which life safety does get reviewed as part of the permit process, but they are part of Tampa Fire Rescue and fire marshals office.
Bill Carlson
9:35:14AM Are we recovering any of that cost in here?
Joe Williams
9:35:20AM We do have fire in certain -- commercial --
Bill Carlson
9:35:24AM The budget for fire has been under what it should have been for years. If there is a way to do cost recovery where we could help expedite that. I pass on the complaints to Ms. Feeley, and she always does a great job with her staff of responding to them. A bunch of them are around the fire review. If we could make sure that the team and fire is covered by these costs --
JC Hudgison
9:35:50AM JC Hudgison, Chief Building Official. There are two pieces to your question there. For the expedite, yes. It's in the system to be double the fee to do it in half the time. However, the concern that was just brought up, because we are the one-stop shop, I can expedite the building side but the other pieces, whether it's fire or other pieces, stormwater, Solid Waste. So now it gets a little tricky because we could finish our part but don't technically give you the full review. We don't necessarily promote it as much as we should. There are options. We have a large scale project team that deals with larger projects as we go through. We also had tiered permits. We didn't get into that too much. The building permit, all inclusive, everybody looks at everything. Tier below, your miscellaneous permits. So those don't take as long and we have a project process for that. And then trade permits. Somebody coming in to get a hot water heater, we've expedited those as fast as we can. Those are instant issuance. As soon as the contractor comes in, licensed contractor, wants to replace a water heater at somebody's home, as long as a licensed contractor and pays the fee, issued. At that point it is on the inspection. Some of the things we already sped up about as fast as we can and practical as we can to still make sure we get the reviews.
Bill Carlson
9:37:06AM The thing I would encourage you all to do in working with the consultants, my colleague pointed out that our costs are lower than the county and other cities, what you have on this chart here, it could be that we're just more efficient and that we don't spend as much. But the other thing is that if there are expedited services or ways to improve customer service, I would ask you all -- I know you do this already -- ask you all to take another look at it just to see because real estate is so much of a big part of our economic engine in our area, how can we move some of these faster. I would like to get every day ten compliments on how awesome they think you guys are. When you fix the problem, they think you are awesome. It's an issue that's been with the development community forever. If we could solve that, by raising the rates by 20 cents and have a team that gets these done faster, that would really make a lot of people in the community happy. I wonder, Mr. Perry, could I call on you real fast? If we don't raise the rates, can you tell us who is paying for this? Where the money is coming from to cover the deficit?
Michael Perry
9:38:16AM Michael Perry, deputy chief financial officer. Once the construction services fund goes negative balance, probably have to come from the General Fund.
Bill Carlson
9:38:26AM I know the answer, but for the public, tell where -- who pays that?
Michael Perry
9:38:31AM I'm sorry, sir.
Bill Carlson
9:38:32AM Who pays the General Fund?
Michael Perry
9:38:35AM The General Fund is primarily property taxes and other taxes and other user fees.
Bill Carlson
9:38:40AM I think the point is that what the public would like is for us to be fair. If somebody is using a service, we charge a fair amount for the service. We're not trying to make a profit. We're just trying to charge a fair amount for the service. What the public doesn't want is to subsidize somebody else's services. If we can help keep property taxes low, for example, by making sure we're covering somebody else's cost, if somebody is not using a cost, they would like to not pay for it, not subsidize somebody else's cost. Anyway, thank you.
Alan Clendenin
9:39:10AM Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
9:39:11AM Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Something caught my eye. A little figure that you had for automobile costs. Can you come back with that figure? I know it is a small amount. The reason I'm asking that question, it is a small amount within the larger amount going in or part of. My answer to myself, my question to myself is, which I'm posing to you now is, is that money taken and put into a separate account to repair -- to replace the car? If it is a car charging for, going --
Abbye Feeley
9:39:48AM As joe mentioned and I'll let him jump, in the enhancement fund that is the surcharge on the permits pays for all the technology, cars. You'll see in the years we brought budgets to you, and that spend down of the enhancement fund, that does -- that is the replacement of our cars on a regular schedule. We are not under fleet. We are separate from that. So the inspectors, that all comes out of enhancement fund, and there is a plan for replacement.
Charlie Miranda
9:40:17AM Does it go into a separate account for technology, whatever that you are using that you have to replace. At the time you replace, you already have the cash going in?
Abbye Feeley
9:40:27AM Yes.
Charlie Miranda
9:40:28AM You have that.
Abbye Feeley
9:40:29AM Yes. That is how we have done it. We have replaced all of our vehicles. We've replaced all of our vehicles now, and now we're on a regular schedule for their maintenance and replacement as well as all of our computers. That's all paid for that separate fund.
Charlie Miranda
9:40:45AM Now, that means now forward, or had it in the past.
Abbye Feeley
9:40:50AM We've had it.
Charlie Miranda
9:40:51AM You don't have to go to General Fund or any account to buy a car. You buy it from that fund.
Abbye Feeley
9:40:57AM That is correct. The other thing I wanted to add to that, we've even decreased that cost because we've now gone to virtual inspection. On many of the same-day trade permits, the ac -- I'm sorry, roof, hot water change-out, we have someone dedicated to do virtual inspections on them every 15 minutes to half an hour, they plug out virtual inspections all day. They don't use a car. They don't go out in the field. They are at hanna and they do all of that virtually. We've continued to use technology to try to make improvements and cost savings in those areas.
Charlie Miranda
9:41:29AM One more question. So then in logic what we're doing here is creating something like, we have a water, wastewater, Solid Waste, and parking. You're producing your money to carry --
Abbye Feeley
9:41:41AM Correct. That enhancement, we've been able to have that up until just a -- in the last two years where we started to dip and had to then rely on the General Fund because, and this year, JC actually I think cut close to $2 million from his budget, because of the permit activity and because of the reserve we had for so long. When JC came on in 2020 and I came back to the city in 2020, that reserve was high. That's where we got on the regular schedule for vehicles. We got on the regular schedule for computers. We made those changes and enhancements, got everything and spent down because we're only allowed to carry so much from the state, we have to kind of be within those guidelines as well.
Charlie Miranda
9:42:32AM Thank you. I know you have a difficult position, difficult job. When you lose somebody from that division, very difficult to replace.
Abbye Feeley
9:42:39AM Talent recruitment is challenging, yes.
Alan Clendenin
9:42:44AM Thank you, Ms. Feeley. Question for you. Don't go far. The issue that Councilman Carlson brought up and getting some of the stuff, things we hear. You have the other departments that are not necessarily within your control. Is it possible to sign an interdepartment MOU between the departments so they clearly understand, like with the fire issue, applicant is going through the expedited process that that would bind fire to that as well?
Abbye Feeley
9:43:13AM From what I see, we run into roadblocks sometimes. I would say utilities, and I can tell you, JC, eric and I have recently met with brad, Brandon, yuan, continuing to look at process improvement. How do we ensure things? We talked about integrating the utl back into the bld to make things more seamless. Because you have to get a utility commitment, the utl is a utility commitment, before you go in to get your permit on a lot of new construction. So we continue to look at process improvement. I mean, I don't want to commit -- we can talk to Chief Tripp and we could see, because that falls under the fire marshal's office.
Alan Clendenin
9:43:59AM All those lines of business, if you guys had an interlocal agreement, so you have common language that you all understand that when a system is moving through that process, that everybody is moving through the same process.
Abbye Feeley
9:44:11AM I would tell you, our common processes, all on the second floor at hanna. When something comes in, JC's team walks down to the fire team. We work together. St. joe's was just in. We say, hey, guys, we're working together to get this stuff out the door. What does that look like? Can we make -- you know, it is a mindset because some people are like, well, I'm doing it the way it came in the system. It's like, well, we've got to do what is best for our city and work together. I think normalizing that we could still talk about that, but I do think it's part of capacity. It's part of capacity matter.
Alan Clendenin
9:44:46AM Yeah, because all of the few times -- it's been a hang-up somewhere else. If we were able to figure out, because obviously something there. If we could figure out a process that everybody is speaking the same language. If everything is, you know, gold tagged or something, they know that this is something that is a priority project they have to move through it and get it done, have that expedited service, I think that might be helpful. Councilwoman Hurtak's points on the affordable, thank you for throwing out habitat for humanity. They do such a great job. Being able to fit the fee structure for an organization like habitat for humanity and especially those third parties that have a process of the surety that you talked about, about post-occupancy and all those. I think that really helps. Classification as a provider, I think that would be really, really helpful. Yeah, no, I appreciate the direction you guys are going with those two caveats, if we could fix that with a common procedure that cuts across business lines within the city and being able to incentivize the bottom tier versus incentivizing the top tier. Both points well taken. Councilman Carlson, I see your light is back on.
Bill Carlson
9:46:03AM Could I add in? A minute ago we talked about fire's involvement. If you look at this, it's not an enterprise fund, but if you look at it like a business, you also mentioned stormwater and some of the other departments. Maybe you are doing this already, but we should look at this as a larger service pool. One of the ways to get department cooperation is financial incentives. If, for example, we're not doing any cost recovery at fire and if they could -- if there's, for example, I don't know what the number is, 200,000 or 500,000 a year in cost recovery that we could put into this rate, that's money they could spend on new equipment for firefighters. Same thing with stormwater. If there are several hundred thousand of additional maintenance that they could do because we're doing cost recovery on this, that could be helpful. Then an incentive built in for whoever is the head of the department. Because the more cost recovery they can do, the more services they can provide you. Have to have checks and balances. It would allow them more services so they can improve their numbers and efficiency in their main line of business.
Alan Clendenin
9:47:16AM This may not be something for you all. Maybe for JC or somebody else. The diy projects, and you talk about hot water heaters. Seems funny to me that in 2027 we are even talking about permit fees for hot water heaters since nobody is pulling permits for hot water replacements. We're going to home depot and buying our own water heaters and putting them in. Who is looking at these things in 2027, is this something that we really should be doing?
Abbye Feeley
9:47:51AM I will let the Chief Building Official of the year for the State of Florida answer that question.
JC Hudgison
9:48:00AM So we deal with that a lot. We have our owner permits which allow the owners to do that work. To your point, okay, that owner comes in, does that work themselves. They sell that property in five years. That next owner comes in that owns that property. Water heater bursts. Insurance claims. Call and say, who pulled the permit? Any way to claim and get that money back? For us, any modification to a structure requires a permit. There are certain exemptions under certain sizes, certain flatwork in your yard, things like that. Any modification to a structure should have a permit. We do take out the plan review side. For a hot water heater, we're not reviewing the plans for that. Install IT, staff comes out, plumbing final, gas final. That's it. Ac condenser change-out. No plan review, straight to inspections. Staff just wants to put their eyes on it. Make sure it is done correctly. To your point I understand. But also it's not necessarily the safety of the current owner that's doing the work that may not know how to do it, but for the future owners that will also occupy that structure and make sure it is done correctly.
Alan Clendenin
9:49:04AM I get gas. I do get gas because of the liabilities for gas. Electrical, such a great example of a hot water heater. It literally is putting threads on the thing -- nylon threads and plugging it in. Go ahead, yeah.
Lynn Hurtak
9:49:25AM I think you overestimate. I think our generation might be one of the last that kind of does that stuff themselves. Just going to throw that out there. I think a lot of people now are paying to get it done. I am shocked at the amount of things that people pay for.
Alan Clendenin
9:49:41AM I'm pitching for the folks that go to home depot and lowe's.
Lynn Hurtak
9:49:46AM I agree. I'm saying, I am shocked at the things people won't do themselves.
Alan Clendenin
9:49:50AM I have attic stairwell. The ladder broke and need to replace the stairs, does that require a permit? That is a repair. Ideally, you are repairing the ladder.
9:50:06AM I'm replacing it with a new set of stairs. The same thing, no, you wouldn't need a permit. That's why I said, there are certain exemptions for electrical socket replacement.
9:50:20AM I'm trying to find out what I'm doing against the law and what I'm doing legally.
JC Hudgison
9:50:24AM I can send you the full list. For electrical socket replacement, any individual receptacle, yes, you can go to home depot because you're retying that into the existing system. If you are doing wiring back to the main panel box, now you need a permit.
Alan Clendenin
9:50:40AM I can change out a plug but can't run the home wire.
JC Hudgison
9:50:44AM Replacing ceiling fan, replacing fan, going in the same place, those kind of things you don't need a permit for. There is a list. Ideally once you start to get into the bigger systems -- it is a plug and play. Fairly simple. I'm done. Would you like to disclose any stuff you've done without permits?
Charlie Miranda
9:51:10AM My curiosity, when you're doing these affordable housing, you're charging for the sidewalk. How can it be affordable housing when they have to pay $290 a foot to put the sidewalk in? Then they have to pay the house insurance and the taxes on the house. There is no affordable housing.
Alan Clendenin
9:51:28AM This is not what we're here --
Charlie Miranda
9:51:30AM I know. There is no affordable housing as far as I'm concerned. To what it should be.
Alan Clendenin
9:51:35AM Has nothing to do with baseball.
Charlie Miranda
9:51:37AM I understand. [Inaudible] [ laughter ]
Alan Clendenin
9:51:40AM Okay. Why don't we finish the presentation.
Bill Carlson
9:51:44AM You mentioned a couple of chain stores. The chain stores employ locals and that's great and use subcontractors but we also have a lot of great independent entrepreneurs that we should support. Famous tate is one and a bunch of others. Fun going to a local store and seeing the flexibility they have in delivering things and getting them put in.
Alan Clendenin
9:52:03AM Okay. Continue.
Michael Perry
9:52:07AM Mike Perry. I just want to clarify that projected fiscal year 2026, no General Fund money will be given to the construction service division. I just want to make sure we make that very plain and clear to everybody.
Alan Clendenin
9:52:21AM What about the next year, '27?
Michael Perry
9:52:23AM It's projected. But again, what is happening, JC -- and he's done a good job on the '27 budget. He's reduced his budget. Reduced head count. The budget is fully loaded but he manages during the year to keep his expenses low. So it decreases the impact on the fund balance.
Alan Clendenin
9:52:43AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
9:52:45AM I'm going to be clear. I don't like to hear that he's reducing his head count because just one, but still, like, those are areas where we still had some money -- I know we'll be talking about this in October. This is now on my list of things to talk about. This is a department where we're constantly hearing you need more people. Even if it's just one head count, we can help you with that. I know, I know. This is not a department that needs to be reducing costs.
Abbye Feeley
9:53:19AM I just want to mention --
Alan Clendenin
9:53:21AM Abbye Feeley.
Abbye Feeley
9:53:22AM Sorry, Abbye Feeley. One of our assistant building officials retire after 43 years. He was handling two duties. He was the assistant Building Official and he was the floodplain manager. We took that position, broke it into two. Now a dedicated floodplain manager. Dedicated assistant building -- so we offset these by also process improvements that we're working through with our accreditation which is also running with this as well. We tried to be extremely mindful of that in delivering the service. We've gone from teams that would look at commercial projects, residential projects and tenant improvement. We've broken that all up now. Residential team, commercial team. Told you about tenant improvement. JC continually looks at where can we be fiscally responsible, where can we make the process improvements and go from there as well? It was one fte.
Alan Clendenin
9:54:21AM I've got to expedite this process because I have to get home and change out my hot water heater. Could you finish with the process?
Joe Williams
9:54:28AM Yes, thank you. To reiterate, great discussion. We've had great discussions like this with staff throughout the process. They really know what they are doing. We feel really confident in the time estimates and everything that's gone into developing the fees because they are all really engaged and really knowledgeable. If we could go back to the presentation. Perfect. I'm going to jump to Development Coordination really, the high-level introduction here, these are typically processes happening before the building permit process. These fees have been in place for a long time. Look at my quick cheat sheet here to give you an estimated time frame. 2006. About 20 years at this point. Again, this is eric's department, 29 ftes, almost a $5 million budget. Here we go. A few examples. You can get a feel for the types of things they are doing. The report has the full fee list. Site plan districts, des, design exceptions, probably hear about those all the time. So a lot of different things that they do. This is not a special revenue fund. More of a fund within the general government. So the approach we took was not necessarily forecasting revenues for the department as much, but really diving into every single fee, every single permit or service that they administer that has a fee tied to it and really fully loading and building up those costs with the right overhead that they have in their department, the specific staff that they have employed. If they use any vehicles, not as heavily reliant on inspection activities. Again, wide range of results 20 years later. We're just showing you on this slide, the first phase of a lot of these fees. And a lot of them are reflected as an equal increase over three years. So the example for the site plan district, $2,600 now. $3,600 on the first phase. If you look at the schedule, it would be pretty similar increases for the next couple of years after that on that type of service. We do have a few examples. So a variance, again, this is based on time that it takes staff and the total cost of the department. There may be different processes in other places. There may be different local ordinances, things that require more effort, potentially. So we're still very -- very competitive on the scale of fees that we have for variance, and a PD, which is the larger type of project. Again, you can see we are increasing and we do expect to increase over the next several years as well, above this point, but even if we were at sort of that 5,000, 5500 level, still within range of what others are charging right now. Again, construction services was more of the bigger initial presentation effort because they are a special revenue fund. There's more consideration there on having reserves and having full revenue sufficiency established. These other departments, we put a lot of work and there are a lot of fees that go into them. But for this presentation wanted to highlight a few of the examples and talk to you a little bit about what the departments do. This is Dennis' department. The architectural review and historic preservation. His fees date back to 2001 -- 2000. 2000. Even a little bit longer. Again, these are really those couple of areas throughout the city that have the additional overlay districts, require additional reviews to meet the specific requirements in those districts that are above and beyond the typical building code or other codes that you have. He has seven ftes, about a million dollar annual budget. Again, this dates all the way back 26 years ago, so we have fees that are fairly old, not recovering the cost of providing service right now. If we are doing new construction, first phase is going from that $250 up to about a thousand dollars. These are the calculated costs. These are General Fund division, so, again, there is latitude on where you ultimately set the fees. It's just a trade-off between full cost recovery on the applicants who are submitting and having staff time involved in these versus using other funding sources to offset it. This one, we talked with Dennis about comparisons. There is a lot of variation throughout the state and not quite as many of these to compare to. So we didn't provide comparisons specifically on these. These are going to be based on the actual costs that we've identified with his department. The city clerk has a few fees, petitions for reviews. Really, once we get into this point where the departments have made determinations, given their opinions on things and then it gets challenged, brought back to either the department or the council. Between legal and the division heads, department heads, there is a lot of time that goes into additional research, preparing staff reports, preparing documentation, having meetings, attending council meetings where necessary. Some of these do increase. The cost involved is significant compared to the current fees. Again, just to reiterate that these are general government fees. They do generate general revenues that go into the budget. But these are the costs of what kind of behind those efforts when these different petitions are brought forward. One in particular is the Barrio Latino Commission. If there is a decision made there and it gets petitioned or appealed, currently only a $50 fee associated with that. Really, it's costing the city between legal and department heads, close to $4,000 of time going into that. That is a consideration moving forward. Mobility right-of-way, so this one, again, this was really focused on the administrative costs of administering these different fees. We did have some discussions with the department early on about potentially getting significantly more involved on some of these fee calculations, like if you're closing down a road or a sidewalk for a period of time, are there additional costs related to the inconvenience or the use of those facilities? We didn't end up going there in this study. It's a little bit beyond our scope and expertise for designing those types of fees. So we focused on the administrative related costs. Personnel, benefits, overhead of running the department, any use of vehicles that they have. Again, if there are lane closures or putting a permanent structure in the right-of-way, if you are using a sidewalk. So these are the fee calculations, again, range of impacts. Some appear to be larger changes, but just looking at the list, there's staff time that's involved and staff costs have increased. Best information we have, these are from about 2006 was the last update on these fees, specific parts of the fee structure for mobility. It's been a long time. There have been a lot of changes to the processes, how these are administered. So that's the presentation on the fees. Abbye introduced earlier, I think she'll come up and say it again for everyone's benefit, but there's more meetings to be had, more information that's been posted and available. This is our preliminary recommendation.
Abbye Feeley
10:03:52AM Thanks, joe. Abbye Feeley. This is a hard conversation, right? We haven't updated fees in a long time. The cost of doing business, as you know, retaining good talent, getting people in, we have 3,000 open permits at all time in JC's shop with close to 20 some thousand processed a year. You see the work that eric's team does with bringing you -- they will be here tonight with the rezoning reports, the Variance Review Board, the Barrio Latino Commission, the ARC, the HPC, these are all the boards that are running with the work coming out of construction services and the Development Coordination team which then feeds the economy of the city as new development comes online, new people move into homes. As joe said, what was presented to you today was the recommendations that came out of the study, what it costs to do the work. In addition to some level setting that was done by staff, one of the things, all trade permits stay at $155, even though it showed certain things should go up. Variances, some adjustments were made. We felt it was really important for us to show you where we are compared to other cities and what they are charging. I know a couple of years ago, when the county went up to make their PD $10,000, people were like, oh, my gosh, there will be no more development. But really, making sure that the fees are representative of the work that we're doing. So I think we're not proposing full cost recovery to you today. We're providing you with what came out of the study. We did not bring a fee resolution today. We want to have conversations on this. And how that will go. As I mentioned, when we started, we will have a public meeting at hanna October 21st, I think it's 6 p.m. one of them is 6 p.m. -- it may be 6:30. It's on the fee study page. We continue communication. I know there are people here today who have received our communication on that. We do have the website that is up and running, and what we would like to do is see how we can come back to you with a fee resolution November or December, looking at a March 1st effective date of the fees that are decided on for the first year. Just to recap a little bit about JC's fees would be five-year progression, and that fee schedule was provided in the background materials today. Development Coordination, historic preservation, that is a three-year approximately 15 percent a year on that three year for those adjustments. With that, we are available to answer any additional questions or take additional feedback, direction, here today with you. We appreciate your time and attention this morning.
Alan Clendenin
10:06:46AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:06:48AM Thank you. Can you go back to the PD?
Abbye Feeley
10:06:57AM If I can jump in before you ask your question on that, one thing I found interesting, PD for gasworx and PD for a single-family are treated the same in our system. The amount of work varies greatly when those come in.
Lynn Hurtak
10:07:11AM Well, what I wanted to say is that the cost for a PD, I believe our chair would agree, should be high.
Alan Clendenin
10:07:23AM I have the note right here. [ laughter ]
Lynn Hurtak
10:07:25AM It's good to be higher because we really want to disincentivize PDs. Not right now, but we will once we have our new land development code, the whole goal is disincentivize PDs so people use the base zoning because that's why we're redoing our land development code. That might not be something that we change now and make higher, but this is something I really want to be high to disincentivize PDs once we pass our land development code. Now I don't think we should really mess with it too much. I don't really have a problem with this going up a thousand dollars. I think that is low personally. Again, for what we're trying to do in the city. After the land development code, we should probably keep it more stayed. My big concern, though, if you can go to the review costs, you all knew this was coming. Petition for review, we normally get -- the folks that are petitioning for review tend to be neighbors, tend to be neighborhood associations. These are people that cannot afford $4,000. So I kind of want to look at -- I just don't see going from $271 to $4,000 as being something that's going to be reasonable. I don't know what that number looks like. But when you have that public meeting and when you're putting stuff out, this is one of the specific questions I want you to ask, because oftentimes it's people coming in trying to -- they are concerned about their neighborhood or they are concerned about what's being developed next door. We need to make that reasonable and reachable, even if that's something we have to eat, I'm okay with that.
Alan Clendenin
10:09:18AM That's interesting. The two things I wrote down was PD and petition for review, historic. Those were the two things that I identified as well. I get it. I'm not on the incentivize, disincentivize. This is cost recovery, for actually cost to the city for doing these things. If we're going to be subsidizing, we can choose what we're subsidizing and not subsidizing. The petition for review, because of generally the folks that use that process, it shouldn't be so cost prohibitive that would so penalize the average citizen for positively trying to impact their community. On the PD thing, ditto. I love the euclidean stuff should be easy and low cost. PDs should be more burdensome and difficult to get through and we should recover every bit of the cost plus building into reserves on the PD side of the house. Everything else, I'm fully supportive. Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:10:27AM I think as much as possible with all of these, we should, especially in the public hearing, show what the cost is. You said we're not going for full cost recovery. Except for maybe the folks who are using this, everybody else would not like to subsidize it. If we can show what the actual cost is, that would be helpful to justify why we're doing it because we're not just trying to change rates just to try to get more money. We're trying to actually cover the cost because it's not fair to everybody else to subsidize it.
Alan Clendenin
10:11:05AM It's difficult in the review because of the pomp and circumstance of it all, how many people are involved in that stuff. That's a tough one.
Bill Carlson
10:11:16AM On that point also, is there a cost recovery for the legal fees at all on these? Because if somebody asks for a review, then it's not just the clerk's office that looks at it, Legal Department is looking at it, too. What is the cost of that? That must be really high. Into those fees. There are additional fees if you have to pull in an outside hearing officer type of situation. There is a note on the existing city clerk fee schedule about additional per hour for that type of service. But the 4,000 includes city internal legal, division, department heads.
Abbye Feeley
10:12:07AM And the clerk's office.
Alan Clendenin
10:12:09AM Very good. Any further questions? Hearing none, I'll allow the public to speak. Anybody in the public would like to comment on this? It's only on this particular item. Item number 1. My name is edward briggs here on behalf of Domain Homes. I want to start by saying we're not opposed to the city covering the real cost of service. No one wants construction services or zoning running fees that don't reflect what it actually costs to review or inspect a home as well as retaining and hiring quality staff. That is a fair goal. If some of these costs generally have not been collected properly in the past, we understand that gap needs to close eventually. First, these fees I want to point out to you don't get absorbed anywhere by us. We build exclusively on infill lots in the city, which means almost every home we build already includes a teardown, and almost every lot has mature trees that trigger the city's tree evaluation fees. Once the fees are fully phased in, that's close to $2,000 more per home in construction services fees alone. If that lot sits in Hyde Park, Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights, ybor, historic preservation review can run close to $5,000. None of that gets absorbed by us. It goes straight into the price of the next home somebody in the city is buying. That home is already expensive. The median home sale price in Tampa right now is over $400,000. Every dollar we are talking about tonight -- this morning lands directly on top of that number. Second, the size of some of those increases we saw, the peer city comparison in the presentation and routine building and zoning fees, Tampa proposed rates actually come in below the average of the peer community shown. That's a fair result, and we're glad to see the city did that work. But the comparison didn't cover everything in this study. The fees to appeal to the Barrio Latino Commission, decision to the city clerk is going from $50 to $4,000, an increase of nearly 8,000 percent. And it wasn't part of tonight's benchmark. Several other city clerk -- follow the same pattern, increases ranging from 100% to nearly 1400% in a single step with no phase-in at all. That is not a fee update anymore. That is a penalty on anyone who dares to challenge a decision. Those are the fees we would ask council to look at specifically since they sit outside the comparison we just saw this morning. Finally, the timeline. Based on this morning's presentation, council isn't expected, as we know, to vote on this resolution until late fall, with the fees themselves not taking effect until it looks like next spring. That means there is real time between now and then to get this right. We ask that the time be used specifically on the fees to jump straight to their full amount with no phase-in, the same way the rest of the study was phased in gradually to avoid rate shock. We're asking for a couple of things. Use the months between now and the council vote to look at the largest increases, especially the ones with no phase-in at all. The same gradual treatment the rest of the study received and separate also the fees that are legally required under statute 553 and those are simply now being a policy position so council can weigh each one of its own terms rather than approving this as a single package. Thank you so much for the time.
10:15:32AM Thank you, Mr. Briggs. Fyi, through my automatic pilot mode this morning, I didn't wait for the end of workshop to call public comment. Don't get used to this. This is one-off. Ms. Poynor. You are wrong for changing it because each one of the items this morning is very important. Can I have my time since you are talking over? Thank you. This is only for construction services, $3.1 million loss that you are projecting for '26. Where is it for the other departments? Mr. Perry just stood up here and said, no, we didn't put any money from the General Fund in from construction services, but did we for land development? Here is the thing, I'm going to tell you this. Somebody way the hell high up in this administration has said repeatedly that bob buckhorn used to run around telling everybody he was never going to raise any of these fees. Bob buckhorn bragged about it. Now, our current mayor, I've never heard that she said anything about it. But the bottom line is that I as a citizen should not be paying for the new domain home. I as a citizen should not be paying for whatever construction is going on at gasworx. That should not be coming out of my tax dollars. It should never be that way. I don't care if we make one penny off of any construction services or land development, not one penny should we even make. But we should be breaking even. I have to agree the petition for review is probably too much. The petition for review where they take it to a hearing master first is stupid. It is a waste of money. Nobody should ever do it because it still has to come to council. It's ridiculous. But I will say that there are applicants who actually bring stuff in that they bought a house and the adu was already there and they are doing a petition for review to get themselves back in compliance. I don't think that's ridiculous for them. When I'm looking at some of these interesting little pop-ups and somebody will come here and cry about it. An in-ground swimming pool, you are raising it to a thousand dollars. Well, you know what, when I moved here in 2015 when I put in my pool, it cost $50,000. Now it costs $100,000 to put in a pool. 1% of what it costs to put in that swimming pool is not outrageous. The roof fee is going from 177 to 230 dollars. The powerpoints are coming up here too fast. That is a $12,000 project. I just priced a new roof on my 13-year-old house which is ridiculous. Can have a roof on your house for 30 years. We're back at, it's not unreasonable, but these prices, we should not be paying, the citizens who are sitting in this room, should not be following bob buckhorn's policy of floating development for our city. Thank you.
10:18:35AM I need to know where I can get a roof for $12,000.
Lynn Hurtak
10:18:38AM Yeah, me, too. Steve Michelini. I think there are some issues here regarding cost versus benchmarks. Trying to recover costs but no benchmarks in there to meet in order to facilitate the process. Frequently, you're in the process not for 30 days, not for 60 days, sometimes 90 days, sometimes 120 days. So if you are having to pay resubmission fees which was not addressed in this, those should be commensurate with the amount of time it is taking to get your permit out. I was mistaken, but I thought joe Williams said he was in for full cost recovery. He said that. Not me. I understand the phasing. But we're talking about fees and in some cases, a thousand percent or more than that, that's ridiculous. Your appeal fee should be no more than what the original application fees. Councilwoman, you asked what they should be. They should be the same as what the original application fee is. That will give you a benchmark to work from. The hearing officers are paid for by the applicant, not a expense necessarily to the city. You have to put the money in in order to have an appeal. PDs, I think they skipped over a part. Larger PDs are a base fee plus acreage fee that goes on top of that. A single lot is not the same fee as a large thing like gasworx. The variance, the appeals, I already said that. The euclidean zonings and site plan review, I think generally the fees for the permit side are not that bad. But the processing fees that they have added in here are out of line. They are just way out of line. You need to talk about the salaries. What are the salaries and the cost benefit that's being applied for what you're doing? Their notes and their e-mail says here it's dropped. The demand has dropped, but they are adding 15% as a contingency just because. They need to be able to justify this. One of the other things in here is, it's calculated on current -- it's not going into the current budget. This is not in there. So why is the urgency to have this adopted before the end of the year? Give us some time to look at this stuff and meet. I'm asking specifically for a separate tbba meeting where they can review these fees with the tbba, the actual stakeholders, and not have one meeting on October 21st to review this and bring it back to you in November, which is just a few weeks after that. So would be happy to accommodate that. I just think that the infill development and those costs should be commensurate and the timeline should be set. If you don't make it for two or three submissions, then the refund should be applied the same as they are for -- providers.
Alan Clendenin
10:21:52AM Thank you. Next, please. My name is jessica cox. I'm the executive director with the american fire sprinkler association. I represent the local fire sprinkler contractors. First, I want to credit to the city's permitting team. We genuinely appreciate the permitting process. They do a great job. We talk to other municipalities and say, hey, this is the standard. So we do appreciate the job that the team does here processing permits. We do have some concerns with the increase in fees that we wanted to bring to your attention. We do understand that increases have not happened in a while so we do understand some increases but we feel like they are a little bit aggressive. A couple of the ones that we're specifically looking at are the underground and fire main spikes. Those are going up pretty extensively where storage tank fees are decreasing. So we're not seeing and some of the fire alarm fees are also decreasing. One of our big things is the fast-track permitting. We did put this, and get this in place a few years ago to help ensure that our life safety systems are fixed when there's just a small repair that needs to be made, these fees are significantly increasing. One of the things, with some of the property managers and property owners, immediately fixing these deficiencies, we want to make sure if there are a couple of painted sprinkler heads or a hangar that needs to be fixed, that they are taking the time to get the permit and make that adjustment, making sure that our systems are ready when needed. One other point to this is we've recently seen lowering of life safety standards coming from tallahassee specifically. The permitting fees and costs have become astronomical. Some of the building owners look for workarounds. We've seen this play out in tallahassee with school choice expansion. We're changing occupancy and small private schools are actively pushing to lower or bypassing fire sprinkler requirements entirely because infrastructure costs are too high. So we just want to bring this to your attention. Want to say, again, thank you for the permitting process that the City of Tampa does, but we are against the extreme hikes and ask that you would consider to slowly increase these fees. Thank you for your time.
10:24:38AM Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. My name is Alex guluzian. I am one of the owners of mga homes. We're truly a mom-and-pop shop. It's me and my dad only. We pour our heart and souls into every single house that we build. These fees would hurt us a lot and ultimately we would have to pass them on to our clients. I'm not here to say we don't need to increase the fees or anything like that. I would just say we should give this a lot of time and consideration. We're talking millions of dollars here. So I had a few points I wanted to point out about the report, just some things for you guys to consider. As we all know, these are some pretty substantial increases. One thing that concerned me was the data only went back to 2025. I feel like it's not enough statistics to get an accurate reading. The major assumptions rely on budgets and estimated time, rather than fully disclosed actuals. Having a very hard time tracing where a lot of the 2025 numbers are coming and going from. I spotted one calculation issue. It's not a sleight on the consultants or anything. It's a point of let's really pay attention to this. Revenue seems to be the main driver for setting rates. Again, this is a government operation. I'm also in the camp like zero dollars in and out should be the goal. True up at zero. And I would just like to encourage the consultants to price in the available efficiencies and avoided cost opportunities. I think those should be priced in. I know we have some technology, like accela, but there are other things out there. Honolulu, the entire state of California, seattle just tried it, they are all doing a tech or a.i. Review of at least simple things. California is doing all residential completely with a.i. Honolulu is doing something that would have benefited me, actually. It's a preliminary check. Kind of saves all the time of the initial plan review when you upload. It will tell you what is missing so I don't have to wait, whatever. Those are my six things I wanted to point out. Just my one experience, the building department has always been good and fair, but they are so understaffed, and thing there are ways that we can help them cheaper than just automatically boosting these fees by 41% a year. Thank you for your time.
10:27:34AM Thank you. That concludes public comment. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:27:38AM As far as some of the things, is there a specific e-mail for this? And if there is, if you could tell us what it is and make sure that it's on the website for this.
Abbye Feeley
10:27:53AM It is. That's all been corrected, I believe. It is dgm fee study@tampagov.net. D as in dog. G as in George. M as in mom. F-e-e-s-t-u-d-y@tampagov.net.
Lynn Hurtak
10:28:16AM A lot of folks who commented today should make sure they get those. I saw you writing notes. Tell other people, e-mail, because they really will read those and put those in. After October 21st, whenever you are coming back to us, I think you should bring us back this new information and everything you learn from the e-mails, from the meeting. I think we need another conversation before a vote. That's what I'm going to ask for. Doesn't necessarily need to be a workshop manner. It can be a little quick. Maybe a staff report. Maybe on the day have four staff reports instead of five, something like that. That way we have a little more time. I just don't see us going from this to adoption that quickly. That will be my ask.
Abbye Feeley
10:29:05AM Not a problem.
Alan Clendenin
10:29:06AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:29:07AM Maybe this is for the consultant, but it would be helpful if you could go back to the last time these fees were increased and look at what the subsidy was each year by the General Fund. It's probably a very large number, but it would be helpful to show what the rest of the public, how much the rest of the public subsidized it. I don't know the numbers. Let's say $10 million since 2001. That's a lot of the money that the rest of us subsidized when we didn't need the services. I think it would help to talk about it. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:29:46AM Ms. Feeley, also in the interest of public disclosures, one of the speakers talked about a.i., it would be helpful to take a minute to talk about what we're doing with a.i.
Abbye Feeley
10:30:00AM Sure, and I can ask JC if he wants to come up. We actually just applied for a HUD grant. HUD had a grant out to help affordable housing productivity through the utilization of a.i. Within the permitting system. Unfortunately, we did not receive the grant. I think it went to -- two or three municipalities across the country. But prior to us applying for that grant, we were already in process. We had done an RFI, request for information, on companies that were providing a.i. While there is press about cities using a.i. For full plan review, we are really not aware of that happening. Want to be straight up about that. We do track. We're always tracking. Los angeles was talking about it. Other cities were talking about it. What we're seeing is that it is predominantly happening at that intake phase. Putting stuff in, seeing if they are meeting sufficiency. Do they have energy calcs? Do they have other things? Do they have the Florida product approval that needs to be in the permit? And being able to spit that out pretty quickly to let people know you're missing these things just at the intake portion. So we are working on that. We do have something on the horizon with accela that I would like JC to spend a couple of minutes talking about with you so you know where we are working to integrate that in to make it more seamless for service delivery.
Alan Clendenin
10:31:27AM I think what is important is on an intake phase. Nine times out of ten when we seem to have a permitting issue, it is omissions in that first application, and that delay in the first 30 days that caused the problem. Hopefully this is something that you guys are doing proactively to address that issue.
Abbye Feeley
10:31:47AM I think historically, just to add that a little bit, historically, we've been the checks and balances where people will put in what they think is a permit submission. Missing 12 things. We go back. Then they come in with those 12 things and now they have 20 comments and they want to know, I didn't have any comments the first time. Well, you didn't have a sufficient package. In addition to that, in the past six months, we have put in a sufficiency checklist that is available for people to see using human scale. Here's what you need to come in the door with to be sufficient for a full review under your first review. We also have obligations to review that within a certain time and get that back to them as well. I'll turn it over to JC. We are fully engaged in a.i. And how it can help us better deliver services to the citizens and clients of Tampa.
JC Hudgison
10:32:45AM Chief Building Official. We have a pilot currently working with accela. A.i. Plain check. Literally digitizing that sufficiency checklist that Director Feeley brought up. Therefore to your point, yes, there is a queue. Even if they submit it, we have up to five days to look at it. We look at it in three days or less. Still, to your point that is the delay. Person has to physically look at it and go through it. We're looking to have that be done through the a.i. Some of the a.i. That we've seen the models, they can do a yes-no answer. Ideally to your point, if it has energy code documents, do you have your site plan over a certain square footage, the system can logically figure that out. So we're working with accela to hope to have that as early next year. We're in a pilot with seven other jurisdictions with accela and their digital plan room to be able to upload the plan room documents, then be able to scan it to confirm if it is sufficient to move into plan review. The second part is the tougher part. Just the plans. There's not one set of plans. You go from a hospital. Go to a strip center. Go to apartment complex. So they are all kind of different. The a.i. Systems are still trying to learn how to physically -- we have language models which are great. The words great. But the physical things and being able to do the imagery is where the block is currently right now. A lot of cities are testing it, but they are doing it kind of behind the scenes because they are using a.i. To test it and then checking. Most of the companies we talk to say it will take at least 18 to 24 months to be comfortable enough with the results to say, hey, a.i. Can do it on its own. Right now, we're still using what most of them are calling human-in-the-loop a.i. They'll make the review. Then you still have to have a physical person look at it, go through the checklist. The a.i. Will say, hey, we're fairly comfortable this is a code violation. Some of them will say it may be a judgment call or this one doesn't meet the code. Once again, the staff then, but that would help if you're going through 300 sheets for Planning review and then have the a.i. To at least do the initial scan over for you and then go back in and confirm or deny the results. We're working with accela to integrate both of those through our Planning room. Hope to have that by next summer, next fall, but at least the intake part we hope to have early next year.
Alan Clendenin
10:35:10AM Thank you very much. Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
10:35:11AM Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for everyone who spoke. I believe what you said. However, when we have to make a decision, it's got to be based on the facts that are real. I'm not saying what you said was unreal, but if you have a business and you're creating property that you are building in Hillsborough county or in the City of Tampa, if you go down Adamo Drive or 22nd street or you go down 7th avenue all the way to Hillsborough county, does it cost you more or less to get a permit? That's my question to myself. From what I saw here today, it costs you more in Hillsborough county than it did in Tampa. So you are the same individuals building -- I'm not here to chastise anyone. But you're building the same houses for the same cost, but it costs you more to get a permit there than it does here. Am I right or wrong? I don't know from what I saw. Are we right or are we wrong? Meeting expectations to give you the service that you demand that you want? Not only are we in a pinch, guarantee you that pasco county, Hillsborough county has the same problem we have with staffing. They are very valuable employees just like your employees are. When you have a great electrician working for you or great individual who does the stucco work, and they are gone, they are very difficult to replace because all of them are working. That's the problem we have today. And that division, if somebody leaves here, they got to borrow it, steal somebody, hate to say that word, from some other division who is already trained because they don't have time to train them. They have zero experience. So they have to go out and I think the last two we got were from pasco county, if I remember. I'm not sure of that because I see some people that were new here working in Planning and zoning. So I'm making an assumption on my part. But does it cost more or less to build a house and get your plans built and certified and go and inspect them during the process in Hillsborough county or Tampa? That's the main question we have here because the salaries and the costs are the same. That's all, Mr. Chairman.
Alan Clendenin
10:37:18AM Thank you. If no other discussion, I think you've captured enough information from this council to move forward. We'll put this one to bed for now. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for showing up. For items 2 and 3, I suspect that we can open them up together because I have proposals incorporated in. We can do 2 and 3 together. I have sam printing, as we speak, the recommendations from the Charter Review Commission. Here they are. This is something I did. Mr. Shelby will start -- kick us off with a brief introduction of the timeline, where we started, where we are at. Mr. Shelby, start with your name, please.
Martin Shelby
10:38:25AM Good morning, members of council. Martin Shelby, City Council attorney. The acoustics are much better here.
Alan Clendenin
10:38:48AM Push the document down. Physically push it down. Acoustics, people don't realize they are talking out there. We can hear everything. Even whispers up here.
Martin Shelby
10:39:10AM This does make a difference, actually from where I sit, I'm able to hear the speakers much better as well. Here we are on September 24th for the initial review of the recommendations and proposed amendments to the charter. At the conclusion of this, I have a proposed motion that I'm going to ask somebody to make to bring this back because if you see the next time, according to this timeline is next Thursday, October 1st, City Council Will have a final review of the recommendations and proposed amendments to the charter. You will then approve the charter amendments that you choose to be submitted to the voters and at that time, you will direct the crc legal counsel, who you have retained for this purpose, to draft the ordinance setting the ballot questions and summary language. And at that time, you will set the first reading for the ordinance on November 5 of 2026. At which time on November 5, it comes back for first reading and then the second reading and adoption of the ordinance is on November 19. As you could see, we're moving rather quickly here because the ordinance is then forwarded to the mayor for her signature, and we have a placeholder date of either December 3rd or 17th, dependent on the date of a potential mayoral veto to allow for reconsideration of the ordinance by City Council, which then requires a two-thirds vote if council chooses to override. The drop-dead date that we all have to remain mindful of is January 4 of 2027, because that, according to the Supervisor of Elections, is the final deadline of submission of the ballot language for the March 2, 2027, municipal election.
Alan Clendenin
10:41:11AM That's for them to put it into spanish as well. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:41:14AM Can you leave that up? The last page. So my question is, does the mayor have a deadline for which she can veto?
Martin Shelby
10:41:24AM Yes. I believe it is 15 days.
Lynn Hurtak
10:41:26AM Okay. Making sure. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:41:29AM You all should have good experience with that one.
Lynn Hurtak
10:41:33AM I like to be reminded.
Alan Clendenin
10:41:35AM Any other questions for Mr. Shelby on this process? Process questions. That -- Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:41:43AM I think that is a significant question. Because the last time or one of the times we talked about this --
Lynn Hurtak
10:41:49AM It was tight.
Bill Carlson
10:41:50AM -- the administration slow walked it and at the end blamed us for deciding at the last minute when actually they delayed it for months.
Alan Clendenin
10:42:00AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:42:04AM I'll wait until we get to that part. Sorry.
Alan Clendenin
10:42:07AM Before you, this document is the strike-through items that the Charter Review Commission had recommended. This is what you have before you that is newly printed and off the press. You have another document that is on my letterhead was the list of the questions that we submitted to the Charter Review Commission for their consideration. And then we have a plain black-and-white page, the first one is inspector general. That is a document that I created for your consideration for the items that I felt like were worthy of discussion today, not to say that I know some of these other items may be important for other folks. But these are the ones I felt were structurally worthy of our consideration and discussion today. And that one would take into account the salary issue as well. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:43:01AM How are we organizing this? How are we going to go about this? Are we going to go based on the strike-through?
Alan Clendenin
10:43:09AM Why don't we do three minutes of discussion from each councilperson about where their head is at. This is a workshop. This is an opportunity for us to have -- just general discussion from the beginning? That's fine. We have plenty of time. I want to get out of here by 1:00. We have plenty of time.
Martin Shelby
10:43:28AM Martin Shelby, City Council attorney. Just a reminder, council, that when you crafted this resolution, you allowed this process today to be exactly what the chairman says. That's why next week, there will be no official action necessarily today, maybe some direction, but there will be no -- basically what will come back with is action items for you to present to the legal counsel if you choose to move forward.
Alan Clendenin
10:43:59AM Give us the framework. Why don't we do this? Charlene, set the timer for five, please. I see Councilwoman Hurtak. Do you want to kick us off? Go ahead.
Lynn Hurtak
10:44:10AM I'm looking at the amended sections, the part from -- I don't know if there is a way to put this on the screen for folks to read along. Mr. Shelby, would you be willing to be our vanna white?
Alan Clendenin
10:44:27AM He does not have the hands for it.
Lynn Hurtak
10:44:29AM I would bring more than one. Bring all of these things. The questions I'll let other people deal with. Alan's thing in this. Can you pause my time until he gets up there? Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:44:49AM Bring a legislative aide into this? Can we get a volunteer legislative aide. Sam, if you can't get anybody else to do it, sam, could you come out here and help us, be our vanna white?
Lynn Hurtak
10:45:01AM The public should be able to see what we're talking about. Maybe we can borrow the clerk's copies. Perfect. The most dangerous thing sam Thomas has done is going to costco or whatever he does and gets the big bags of candy. Sam Thomas' best or worst things he's done, I'm a thousand percent with you. Go back. Yeah, there you go.
Alan Clendenin
10:46:21AM Lisa is a much better vanna white.
Lynn Hurtak
10:46:23AM Yes, you have the hands for it. Lisa, can you go to the second page, page 2? And you can start my time again. I'm just going to say I don't know that the rezoning process of a zoning hearing officer has any support with this council. I would be shocked. I don't necessarily think it is a bad idea in the long run. I just don't think that we're quite ready for it. Also, I believe this should be handled during the land development code updates. We're having some conversations about this there. That's just my two cents. If you could go to page 5 -- anybody have an interest in this?
10:47:12AM Okay. Well, there you go. Problem solved.
Alan Clendenin
10:47:15AM [Inaudible]
Lynn Hurtak
10:47:17AM Yeah. Page 5 of 8, the progress of city projects. This is fascinating. This clearly -- I don't think they understand the cost of projects because any funded project in excess of $100,000, that would take us multiple council meetings. And I just don't know if this is a needed thing. We get updates every six months on major projects through the city. I'm asking, for me, just looking at this initially, I just don't --
10:47:59AM I'm fine opening it now. If you want to comment on it now so we can get it done. We might as well.
Martin Shelby
10:48:06AM If you can pause the councilwoman's time. I do want to make a general comment as an overview. The charter is likened to the constitution.
Lynn Hurtak
10:48:14AM Yeah.
Martin Shelby
10:48:15AM Mind you, there are multiple ways for council to communicate, as you know. The charter allows you to pass resolutions and the charter also gives you the legislative authority to enact laws by passing ordinances. There are ways to address, obviously, it's very easy to rescind a resolution or change a resolution or amend a resolution, and it is much more difficult, although not impossible, to do the same for an ordinance, and that requires noticing a public hearing. What I'm saying to you is that when something is in the charter and the voters approve it, the law requires that if anything to do with it from that point forward has to be presented back to the voters at an election through the process.
Alan Clendenin
10:49:07AM [Inaudible]
Lynn Hurtak
10:49:08AM I guess for me, instead of -- you can talk during your time, but do we have like a show of hands if we think this is a good idea? [Conversation off microphones]
Naya Young
10:49:25AM This is something I wanted to talk about. What I had given to my appointee to discuss during the crc.
Lynn Hurtak
10:49:36AM And then I'm going to alan's, just a black and white that says independent inspector general. So I agree wholeheartedly with this, especially the fact that we should not have the mayor, the council, the city Attorney. This independent inspector general idea is great, but it should not be touched. It should be wildly independent. It should have known of us should have fingers on it, except for the day-to-day operation can be addressed by ordinance. The ordinance that the City Council puts together, I think this is a great idea. I know other people want to talk about it, so I'll let them. Going to number three, which is council -- I'm sorry, number four, which is salary. While I understand the chair's desire to settle this once and for all for here, I do believe that we could also do this through ordinance. It depends today if we decide to do that. Again, I can see both sides. My concern is I don't know that this would pass versus if we just do it ourselves, and do this today. That would be my only concern. So those are the first things I want to say. [Off microphones]
Alan Clendenin
10:51:13AM My intent on that was just to have this question asked and answered so no future councils have to be put in this position. Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
10:51:24AM I've just been requested, it is very difficult, especially for the purposes who are doing this by audio and not by the screen, if you could read what it is you are referring to specifically so that you all have it in front of you, the public necessarily might not. Yes, that's true. That might be difficult to read. It's your call. The thing is, for the purposes of the record, maybe be more specific.
Lynn Hurtak
10:51:50AM Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:51:50AM Anything else? Councilwoman Young wanted to speak next. And then Luis Viera.
Naya Young
10:52:01AM The progress of the city projects, so how that came about, remember when we were at a CRA meeting and I think it was you, Councilwoman Hurtak, who had made a motion to have like this progress tracker of the CRA projects. Many times, I get a lot of questions from my constituents. They are like, hey, what happened to this? I thought this was supposed to be happening this year, that year. For example, with Palmetto Beach, with the seawall. I've had some constituents ask what happened to that? Then we go and ask and see where it is. Then it's like, oh, well, this is kind of where it is. But it was more so just to have a more, like accountability and transparency when it comes to projects. Of course, the city -- the project load is different than what's happening in the CRA. But just some kind of accountability measures. We can say this is what's happening with the project. Here is where we are with the project. So it may not be something that is necessarily in the charter if that's not, you know, the council's pleasure. But just something that we can go back to and look at. And there's some accountability when it comes to projects that are happening. Well, what's going on with that? Finally, it's not until someone asks that we realize, oh, we're waiting for the state or, you know. You wouldn't know it unless you ask. So that was kind of where this came from was just trying to have some type of accountability and transparency when it comes to the projects that were doing in our community. So that was kind of where that came from.
Alan Clendenin
10:53:45AM Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
10:53:45AM If council does not want me to chime in on informational things, but this is something that perhaps came up this year when you reviewed the budget, particularly a park in South Tampa that people had concerns about that just appeared at what expense. Your CIP that you passed, the resolution every year is a Planning document. And in an ideal world, you plan things five years out and if all goes well, everything moves up every year and then you add new projects to the end of the five years. Now, what's happened or what can happen is because of changing economics or changing priorities or changing policies of whoever the administrator is, the CIP can change. Sometimes, perhaps with a new administration, next year's CIP may be dramatically perhaps different. However you set it up, the purpose of that is to be able to more accurately track the projects within the C.I.P. So you can find out what happened to something that you may not have been aware of that when you passed the C.I.P. Changed the process.
Naya Young
10:55:02AM What Mr. Shelby said.
Alan Clendenin
10:55:05AM My input on that is, I understand the intent. I don't necessarily believe it is a charter issue. Unless there's somebody that really feels strongly about this, I don't think it should be in the charter. I think we could handle that via a resolution. Did you want to talk on that one?
Luis Viera
10:55:21AM If I may. Is this general speaking time or just on this topic on spending?
Alan Clendenin
10:55:25AM Were you done? Is that all you wanted to say? Again, this is a workshop. We can be more informal.
Luis Viera
10:55:34AM Obviously, the inspector general, I strongly support that. I think that's a great idea. I see my appointee, Mr. Cohn, who is here. Good to see alan. I think this is a great, great, great idea because then you can get a more objective analysis on allegations of ethical violations, corruption, different things like that. And I think there will be vast support in the public on this issue. I salute that. I think that's wonderful.
Lynn Hurtak
10:56:04AM Which version, though?
Luis Viera
10:56:06AM We'll talk about that. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. You're right, councilwoman, that our fingerprints must be on it as little as possible. Yeah, because we don't -- yeah, we don't want any puppet strings to be alleged or to be interpreted in any way. So that will certainly -- by the way, I don't think I'm going to be here to vote on this. I'm just talking in the wind here, right? But for whatever it's worth. With regards to the --
Alan Clendenin
10:56:35AM You'll be here to vote on it.
Lynn Hurtak
10:56:37AM No. November 15.
Martin Shelby
10:56:39AM Certainly going to be here on October --
Luis Viera
10:56:43AM Oh, yeah. But then with regard to the spending issue, I know why this is put in. This says capital projects, but there could be other budget allocations. I think about the special needs internship program that if I didn't obsessively stay on that, it would have never happened. I think I had to run through three years of that before fully operational. The Returning Citizens program. The Office of Returning Citizens, which is now getting up. So there are things that you pass as a council member that it's incumbent on you to push them and keep them on the agenda and front of mind. That being said, there is also a great public interest in making sure that these issues are by virtue of procedure brought up before council, whether it's a capital allotment, whether it's a program and so forth. How you write that in exactly, that's going to be in the details. But I am open to something in the charter that does specify that just for the record. I am open to something. Again, the devil or whatever would be in the details. I'm certainly open because I've seen that happen with my own programs that I've tried to push. Obviously, you have station 24, which is a larger example when we got design funding in '23 and taken three years to do the ground breaking. But that is a bigger thing. I'm not worried about that inasmuch as the smaller programs. So that's it. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:58:06AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:58:09AM Just on these two issues, to the last one, we had the situation station 24, was it 15 million we allocated and found out the next year they just didn't spend it and spent it on something else and didn't tell us when we moved it that we moved it to something else. We also have the example of Tampa union station, which was actually the CRA project, but they decided just not to do it because the city owns it. It's been funded for six or seven years and it took most of that time for them to even start. Same thing with Jackson house. It was a CRA project. They just decided not to tell the Jackson house that we had allocated the money, even though there was a press conference about it that we weren't invited to. I think the problem is not giving updates, because we can ask for updates. All that is doing is kind of embarrassing them. The problem is that we have no authority. We can allocate the money but can't force the administration to do anything. If we have projects that we want to go forward, that the public wants, the public can come here all the time. We can approve whatever we want. We can even approve budgets but they won't do it. If it is an administration that's not collaborative, they just won't do it. In this case, this administration just didn't tell us they didn't do it and refuse to even talk about it. It is a horrible situation. The other thing with the inspector general, I can go through this more later, but we've had multiple, multiple examples where this administration has used City staff, legal staff, communication staff, political staff against City Council members to do investigation of City Council members. I had an editor tell me that a person from staff gave -- or offered an opposition research folder on me. Allegations by staff that they saw one of the mayor's staff going around to staff members during the last election raising money during the day, raising money for my opponent and rallying people to volunteer. I filed multiple complaints with some with HR, some with the chief of staff, some with the mayor's office and some with the Legal Department and no recourse whatsoever. It doesn't matter how bad these folks act, they do things that are definitely unethical and some of them may be illegal, but there's no mechanism to stop them from doing it. When they come after City Council members for political purposes and attack, and then they'll say, oh, well there is no evidence. Reviewed and no evidence. Absolutely evidence. Hard evidence. The problem is not that there is a lack of evidence. The problem is that there's no mechanism to punish them for doing it. So we need an inspector general. There's also conflicts of interest that have never been disclosed. We have a former mayor who is lobbying this mayor. I've talked to at least two or three of his clients who have told me to my face that he's lobbying and the mayor has no record of it. The media writes that he just is not a lobbyist because he hasn't registered as a lobbyist. Well, that's unethical. What do we do about these things? Somebody can lobby the mayor and administration set a meeting on behalf of the clients and just not disclose it and say they are not a lobbyist? In at least one case, the mayor didn't have it on her calendar and the reporter had to dig to find out who was there. There's all kinds of unethical things happening in this administration and the last administration. And there needs to be a third party that can investigate it. The mayor has control over the communication department, the political department and the Legal Department and HR to come after us. And we have no recourse whatsoever to stop them from doing those unethical things, but also to stop them from the unethical things that they are doing on their own. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
11:01:54AM Councilwoman Young.
Naya Young
11:01:57AM I was trying to find the page. To your first comment about talking about projects and the money that is allocated, I think there was a suggestion made -- I cannot find what page -- to have whatever money is allocated to a project, that you have to spend it within that fiscal year on the project.
Guido Maniscalco
11:02:18AM [Inaudible]
Naya Young
11:02:21AM Okay. That's the one. The Clendenin questions. Which number was that? I think I circled it. Number 22?
Guido Maniscalco
11:02:31AM That one and then --
Naya Young
11:02:34AM Yeah, 22. Be required to -- same fiscal year which the budget is approved. I think that is -- even if, again, going back to like the accountability and the transparency, if we allocate something and we find out, oh, we haven't done it yet, now we've allocated this money two, three, four years and hasn't been spent yet on a certain project. Again, it may not be something -- I don't know if it's something that goes in the charter, but some kind of -- something that gives it some teeth to say these are the projects that we want to see. We've allocated this money for it to be done. It needs to be spent within this time frame and needs to get done. So whatever the language is of what that looks like, and whether it's in the charter or not, but something so we're not -- I heard plenty of times, even before I was on the council, like these projects take forever and take forever to happen. What do we do? What can we do so that we can make sure that that doesn't continue to happen down the road?
Alan Clendenin
11:03:36AM We saw that in real-time this year with paving. Allocated all the money for paving. I've actually handwritten a note on there. On that page, got 22, should be held by an ordinance. I think that 15 we should be able to deal with that with an ordinance. Those are the two that were hot-button items for me.
Lynn Hurtak
11:03:55AM What about 16? 16 is a hot button. Lisa, you have that page, if you could put that up? Sorry, you do. You are like way ahead of me. I'm sorry. I apologize.
Alan Clendenin
11:04:10AM That would be required to be a charter amendment.
Lynn Hurtak
11:04:12AM I know. I think that's something that we did ask them to discuss, and that's the biggest one really that was untouched.
Alan Clendenin
11:04:22AM That would have to be a charter amendment for sure.
Lynn Hurtak
11:04:25AM I do believe we should discuss that today as -- I don't know. I feel like we need to go in some type of order.
Alan Clendenin
11:04:32AM We're kind of fleshing it out, throwing it out. This is a broad net and then start focusing as council members have the conversation. I see councilman Miranda's light is on.
Charlie Miranda
11:04:43AM Thank you very much. When you look at the administration, no matter who is there or who is on the council, and you look at what happens, sometimes it happens because there's no other way of doing it, pipes program. The pipes program was years ago. We're spending 35 to $40 million and just repairing pipes every year. Finally, we decided sometime back if we have a pipes program, change all the pipes on the ground, water and wastewater at about $2.9 billion cost. We started collecting the money at $2 a month for water and wastewater. Now it's up to 8 or 9 dollars a month because of costs. We were doing a mile was costing us a million and a half dollars a mile. All of a sudden went to four and a half million dollars a mile because the costs outside, that's what happened. We had to stop it. Who do you blame? The council, the mayor? Who? It wasn't us. Was it them? I don't believe it was. So who was it? The contractor? It stopped and now they are starting it on another area from what I talked to brad on it the other day. We're doing it limited. We've done about 78 or 80 miles of that and 200 miles of one or the other. I forget which. We're making progress. But this progress, you don't have a city that has no buildings or no nothing. You have a city that's already going and doing well and you have to replace what you have at the same time you have all the things going on around you. It is not easy. We do not control costs. The cost is what we have in labor, and we can do something. We started doing some on our own. You look at different costs, what does it cost to start something new? Not here to blame the administration or blame the council, but we can pass all we want. If the cost goes up, who are you going to blame? There are a lot of things here on paper that I read. Yeah, who is going to -- everybody -- and I'm not against what you said earlier about the gentleman or the lady, whoever will be the inspector general, who is going to look at him or her? Is that where we're starting? You have to have confidence in yourself before you have confidence in somebody else. If I got to tell the mayor to go to hell, I don't give a damn who the mayor is. I'll go see him and tell him.
11:07:13AM I never criticize any mayor when I'm on the dais because I'm criticizing my city. That's how I operate. Thank you all very much.
Alan Clendenin
11:07:21AM Thank you. Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
11:07:22AM I think council member Miranda's point is good about who is going to review the IG. I think that the overriding issue, though, is in the first three points on this Clendenin sheet, we're calling it, but it is who has control of the city attorney's office. Right now, we have a city attorney who seems very even with all of us, but we've had city attorneys who don't act in the best interest of City Council.
Alan Clendenin
11:07:54AM Actually the one with the letterhead.
Bill Carlson
11:07:57AM If we have control of the city attorney, if we had the right to fire the city attorney and I think we should have the right to fire the mayor's senior staff, should have fired the communication director and political director already years ago. There's just been too much political chaos in the city. The taxpayers should not be paying for it. People on the outside want to do it, that's fine, but not people being paid. Example in the city attorney's office, 2018 and we found this out by accident in like 2020. 2018, city attorney microphone two paragraph memo saying it's opinion that City Council no longer needs to review or approve settlement agreements. Completely wrong. It was completely against the charter. We found out by accident and we had to fight the city attorney at the time, great person, but we had to fight to make sure that the city attorney followed the charter. The city attorney has no right by charter to change the charter, and that's what happened. The city attorney approved hundreds of settlement agreements without City Council approval, and that should never have happened. Another example, the same city attorney there in 2008 and also in 2019 presumably is the one who didn't put the charter amendments on the ballot. The Charter Review Commission approved them. The City Council approved them before my time, and the city attorney didn't put them on the ballot. Is anybody investigating why that happened? Is that because the mayor at the time ordered it not to happen? Or did somebody just make a mistake? How can a city attorney make a mistake like that? Then more egregious ones, where 2020, 2021, city attorney proven in the media from public records, city attorney spent hours and hours with people who are suing or threatening to sue at least three City Council members. If a mayor is using the city attorney's office as a weapon against City Council or doing things not ethical or illegal, we have the right to fire them. City attorney like we have now who is listening to both sides, then we might not need an IG.
Alan Clendenin
11:10:12AM Okay. Mr. Shelby, as we further in this conversation, if you could start taking notes.
Martin Shelby
11:10:19AM I am very poor at that.
Alan Clendenin
11:10:22AM I expect to you improve your skill level.
Martin Shelby
11:10:26AM I'll do the best, but my suggestion is --
Lynn Hurtak
11:10:30AM We'll tell you what you need to jot down.
Martin Shelby
11:10:34AM By the way, there is really no reason why you can't do it by motion and vote.
Alan Clendenin
11:10:38AM I understand that. Stick with me. If you could capture -- if someone points out something very specific that needs to be captured -- we're not going to talk about this.
Martin Shelby
11:10:55AM I have to think and write at the same time.
Alan Clendenin
11:10:58AM If you would capture, if I have to point to you and say please capture that. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:11:04AM Ms. Scharf is truly the best note taker ever.
Alan Clendenin
11:11:09AM If you want to throw your aide under the bus and ask her to come out here, that would be great.
Martin Shelby
11:11:14AM As opposed to me.
Lynn Hurtak
11:11:16AM Ms. Scharf if you want to come out here or keep the notes yourself in the office, whatever works. Would you like her out here? Ms. Scharf, it's your choice. If you could take notes. I want you to start with this one. We are not doing section 2.15. That being the rezoning process. We've decided no on that. No action on that. If you could go to the next page, please, which is three of 8, the one thing I forgot to mention was the appointment on section 6.03. They basically took out the nomination and went back to confirmation. That's a no-go for me.
Martin Shelby
11:12:01AM I believe also reference in the report that that actually went to the voters that change.
Lynn Hurtak
11:12:05AM It did.
Martin Shelby
11:12:06AM And was approved by the voters.
Lynn Hurtak
11:12:08AM It was approved by the voters.
Martin Shelby
11:12:10AM What the crc is recommending is undo what the voters previously voted on.
Lynn Hurtak
11:12:16AM That's one of the reasons I'm saying no to it. Also, one of the reasons, this is very important, we currently have an interim Chief of Police, and that's illegal.
Alan Clendenin
11:12:26AM Real quick. Sam, would you please make a copy of the documents we're looking at? The one the Charter Review Commission one, the one on my letterhead, and then the suggestions I printed out so we can give that to kelly so as she's making notes, she has an actual copy in front of her. If you need a hard copy, come grab mine and copy it on the machine. Sam, if you could do that, I would appreciate it.
Lynn Hurtak
11:12:54AM I want to bring that one up for a quick vote to see if anybody thinks we should go back to the mayor appointing.
Alan Clendenin
11:13:01AM The voters already voted on it.
Lynn Hurtak
11:13:04AM Does anybody think that is a good idea to go back to the mayor appoints? Show of hands.
Alan Clendenin
11:13:10AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
11:13:11AM I want to add, the City Council, I forgot the year, 2020 or something, we put this on the ballot and the voters voted on it. And now they are trying to change it back. This has already been decided.
Lynn Hurtak
11:13:27AM Ms. Scharf, 6.03 appointment, we're not approving that.
Bill Carlson
11:13:35AM To the point about the police chief also, that was put in there also intentionally because the last administration, I think this administration, too, I can't remember exactly, had people as interim forever. I think one of them was the CFO during the last administration. Was a great person but should have been appointed. I talked to chief owens and Bennett about making the interim chief permanent. He's got to know that whoever wins may pick somebody else, but for the sake of the community, I don't think we should have an interim police chief anyway. I think whoever is police chief should be police chief. They need the authority because public safety is too important.
Lynn Hurtak
11:14:22AM Agreed. That's what I said. I think interim Chief Owen is doing a phenomenal job. I really love him. I think he should have the title. If something were to happen in this city, we need to have someone whose job it is that can't be switched immediately. People need the confidence in the chief. And him being named interim just says that we don't have the confidence. I have the confidence in him and I think all of us do. I don't know why we wouldn't just approve him. I 100% agree with you on that. So far, we have said no to section 2.15 and section 6.03. We're still debating 7.12. Do we want to go through these and just approve, go by section? And then we can go back to others.
Alan Clendenin
11:15:11AM Are we done with general discussion? Nobody wants general discussion, that's fine. That can be our next direction.
Lynn Hurtak
11:15:19AM Section 2.03, the only quick --
Guido Maniscalco
11:15:25AM To require the attendance of the members, meaning that members of City Council have, what, certain days that they are allowed to miss on Meetings? What is that exactly? It says compel and switch to require the attendance of the members. And to enforce the same by fine or penalty if they so elect.
Alan Clendenin
11:15:49AM What is the legal definition between compel and require? Why was that -- any of the members from the Charter Review Commission remember what that discussion was about? What is the difference between compel and require?
Lynn Hurtak
11:16:04AM Can you please put that back up?
Luis Viera
11:16:06AM If I may, Mr. Chair, you said if we could recognize the members, I think three that are here.
Lynn Hurtak
11:16:15AM That would be lovely.
Alan Clendenin
11:16:16AM I see two.
Lynn Hurtak
11:16:17AM I see three, four. Because we have the interim. Come on up.
Alan Clendenin
11:16:24AM You guys want to sit close to us so we can call you up if we have to.
Lynn Hurtak
11:16:34AM Come up and introduce yourselves for a thank you. I came here today because, number one, I wanted to thank all of you for this opportunity to make a mark on the city that we all love so much. I don't know if it's an appropriate time to, unless you have specific questions.
Alan Clendenin
11:16:56AM Yeah, no speeches. Introduction is fine.
Lynn Hurtak
11:17:00AM Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
11:17:01AM Bobby, would you like to introduce yourself? Bobby creighton, charter review advisory commission member. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude for the honor to be able to serve on this commission. It was the privilege of a lifetime in my civic involvement to date. I guess I'm here if you have any questions. With the caveat we did deliberate a lot of this as a group. I would not want to speak on behalf of anyone who isn't present today.
11:17:34AM We understand. We definitely understand.
Lynn Hurtak
11:17:35AM He was my appointee. He was looking at the city charter --
Alan Clendenin
11:17:43AM No speeches.
11:17:47AM No speeches. [ laughter ] go ahead. Alison hewitt, alternate. It was exceptionally energetic discussions. When you think you start a meeting at 6 that will go until 9, that you think you will end early, but we never end early.
11:18:06AM You are already politicians. You get a microphone and you have to give a speech. You know me at the podium, got to make my statement. Want to say thank you for the alternate position. Thank you for allowing us to learn about the charter, and we are here for questions because all of us here definitely participated. Want to say thank you to the other commissioners who are not here because they are working, but thank you to them as well.
11:18:32AM Just so you know, people asked me if they should be here, I said you didn't have to be. This is not an indictment of why other people are not here. Actually asked and said no.
11:18:52AM What is the difference between compel and require? What was the discussion there? From my recollection, feel free to help out if you have details, it was thought that the word compel implied some degree of force such that I suppose there was like a legal standard there for the word compel. Has a little more weight than require did. That's my personal recollection. That was too impactful when you could achieve the same results with require.
Martin Shelby
11:19:42AM Martin Shelby, City Council Attorney. This section in the charter creates the ability to do that, but I will share with you that there is no mechanism in existence now that has enforcing fine or penalty. It says if they so elect. To this point, there is no remedy that's been created by council.
Alan Clendenin
11:20:03AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:20:05AM Nothing to prevent us. Says council members may adopt by such bylaws, regulations and rules of procedure, if we found there is a program, we could fix it with rules of procedure.
Martin Shelby
11:20:14AM Yes, you have the ability.
Alan Clendenin
11:20:17AM I'm not hearing any objection. We accept the language in section 2.03 from the Charter Review Commission. Without objection. Okay.
Lynn Hurtak
11:20:26AM Staff is at the end.
Alan Clendenin
11:20:27AM That is a yes. Accepting language 2.03 from Charter Review Commission. Section 2.04, staff allocated within --
Guido Maniscalco
11:20:41AM Allocate --
Alan Clendenin
11:20:42AM I agree. Any objection to the language? Hearing no objection. We accept the language from the Charter Review Commission in 2.04. 2.08. This is about the readings. Mr. Shelby, would you like to chime in on this one?
Martin Shelby
11:21:03AM I have no comment on this. Mind you, this is pursuant to the requirements of general law, which is open-ended but in chapter 166, which may change. But I have not reviewed this for legality. You have an excellent attorney representing the Charter Review Commission. So I have no comment.
Alan Clendenin
11:21:27AM Hearing no objection, accept the language in 2.08. Any objection? Hearing none. We'll accept the language in 2.08.
Martin Shelby
11:21:39AM Reading regarding, when two -- the amendment would be, pursuant to the requirements of general law when two readings are required, ordinances shall be read only by title on two separate days and it goes on from there. It's regarding the passage of ordinances.
Alan Clendenin
11:21:55AM Cttv, as much as everybody loves looking at my face on tv, if you guys could leave the documents up on the public monitor for people to review while we're having this discussion. You just have to imagine what we look like. Already eliminated 2.15. That was the rezoning process. Rezoning hearing.
Martin Shelby
11:22:17AM Unanimous consent.
Alan Clendenin
11:22:18AM Unanimous consent. Affirmative. So we've got term 6.02. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:22:25AM My guess is that this -- they did mention somewhere in the Charter Review Commission, I believe someone said there were quite a few things that didn't make it in. Councilman Carlson alluded to it earlier. I think this is one of the things inadvertently left in. I'm almost positive we took out anything that had to do with 1979. And all of these dates. I think this was missed. I don't think there's anything wrong with this.
Alan Clendenin
11:22:52AM I agree. I say we accept the language without objection for 6.02.
Lynn Hurtak
11:22:56AM What this is terms. This is the terms of the council members, and it talks about the 1979 municipal election. So it's a little old.
Alan Clendenin
11:23:09AM It's stale. I don't hear any objections. Accept language 6.02 by unanimous consent. One more time, agreed by unanimous consent to not accept the language in 6.03 under appointment. I hear no objections. That's unanimous consent. That is gone. Struck through a resident of the city and is.
Guido Maniscalco
11:23:34AM What does that mean? That they do not have to live in the City of Tampa? Meaning who, an elected, someone running for these positions does not have to live in the City of Tampa? Am I reading it wrong or what? This is 6.05. It says that the officer --
Lynn Hurtak
11:23:52AM Mr. Creighton, you raised your hand.
Guido Maniscalco
11:23:58AM Or they can win and then move in?
Martin Shelby
11:24:01AM Mr. Chairman, I want to clarify for the clerk, when you say by unanimous consent, that's really -- it's not on a motion and vote at this point. You're listening to them at this time. This is preliminary.
Alan Clendenin
11:24:10AM Yes.
Martin Shelby
11:24:12AM Thank you.
Lynn Hurtak
11:24:14AM The oath.
Alan Clendenin
11:24:16AM Struck through a resident of the city and is. The charter amendments that were approved in the last round. I forget the exact details.
11:24:32AM We understand that part. This actually accepts the other language that had been approved and was supposed to be transmitted? So this language doesn't change whether or not an officer has to be a resident of the city. It deals whether or not, when they swear their oath that they are, which is a little confusing.
Guido Maniscalco
11:24:53AM You have to live here in a certain period of time before you qualify and all that. Issues that we were informed about by our attorney in terms of just the cleanup of issues from the last charter review and whether it was dates or what was left in the --
Alan Clendenin
11:25:20AM We understand. Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
11:25:21AM Just to clear up any confusion, because there has been talk about correcting errors that might have been. Did the Charter Review Commission actually work through those to be aware of them? Was made aware of them? And is included now in this process of its recommendations? I just need to know the answer to that. I want to make clear because as you know, the city attorney has prepared a memo with regard to items, and I just want to know if, to your knowledge, they were brought to your attention as a board and you incorporated that in your recommendations. And just to provide clarity, the charter doesn't require certain officers to be residents of the city. For example, the Chief of Police or the CFO. If you read the language in the oath, each officer of the city before entering upon discharge, et cetera, shall swear that the officer is a resident of the city conflicts with language elsewhere in the charter.
Alan Clendenin
11:26:24AM You're right. As I read through the paragraph, I agree. I think we should accept this language. Yes.
Martin Shelby
11:26:28AM Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
11:26:31AM Councilman Carlson. Because we no longer require the department heads. Right, correct.
Lynn Hurtak
11:26:38AM Elected officials have requirements.
Alan Clendenin
11:26:39AM And also entitled to hold. They already have that. [Off microphone]
11:26:51AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
11:26:54AM I was trying to find the exact language. I voted against taking away the residency requirement. I know the majority of you all voted for it. But when it went to the ballot language, the way it was translated, the effect of it is that it asks the public, do you think that City Council and the mayor should be required to be residents of the city? And it was completely misleading. I noticed that by the time it was too late. I went to the city attorney at the time and said this is bias. It shouldn't be allowed. The only remedy I had was to file an individual lawsuit to stop it, which I didn't want to do. But that's another example of how misleading language was interpreted by what the City Council said. Had the correct language been there that the mayor's direct reports this takes away the requirement that the mayor's direct reports have to live in the city it might not have passed. But it passed because the quick reading of it is that it required City Council to --
Alan Clendenin
11:27:52AM We understand. That question has been asked and answered.
Bill Carlson
11:27:54AM Not really, because the public responded to a misleading --
Alan Clendenin
11:28:00AM Yeah, that would still require additional action beyond what we're doing right now.
Bill Carlson
11:28:05AM It would be a great opportunity for the inspector general to go in and find out why that happened. No, seriously. Because it was misleading and done -- you know, at the same time, there is a term when I was on the Charter Review Commission, I tried to get term limits for City Council and the mayor. We were not, the mayor at the time fought us on term limits for the mayor under City Council when I first got in, we did put a charter amendment to require not more than, I think, four terms of City Council. This mayor's pac ran ads saying it was a devious plot by City Council to extend their terms by another 20 years. There's all this misleading chaotic stuff going on out there. Somehow we have to clean this up.
Alan Clendenin
11:28:54AM That's what we're trying to do.
Bill Carlson
11:28:56AM We're at the end of this term and this was passed under false pretenses and should be revoked and put back on the ballot.
Alan Clendenin
11:29:03AM Okay. The next salaries, put a pin in this. This will be part of the other discussion.
Martin Shelby
11:29:08AM What happened with oath? What happened to 6.05?
Alan Clendenin
11:29:11AM Accept the language of 6.05.
Charlie Miranda
11:29:14AM [Off microphone]
Lynn Hurtak
11:29:18AM So I agree with council member Carlson. This isn't something I wanted, and it went through, and I'm not thrilled by it.
Alan Clendenin
11:29:27AM Here is the problem, though, council --
Lynn Hurtak
11:29:30AM I understand what you're saying.
Alan Clendenin
11:29:32AM It's already done.
Lynn Hurtak
11:29:33AM Please don't interrupt. Sorry, but please don't interrupt. I'm just saying if you all want it to go through, that's fine. But I don't. I'm saying no.
Alan Clendenin
11:29:41AM Here is the problem, then you have an inconsistency.
Lynn Hurtak
11:29:44AM Yes. I think we should fix it like council member Carlson said. Again, if we don't have a majority that want to fix it, then that's fine.
Martin Shelby
11:29:54AM Mr. Chairman, what is the fix?
Lynn Hurtak
11:29:57AM The fix is to make sure that the actual language doesn't say City Council and mayor and only speaks to directors, which that was not the language that made it on the ballot. Council member Carlson is correct.
Charlie Miranda
11:30:16AM [Inaudible]
Guido Maniscalco
11:30:18AM Officer had been elected or appointed. We are elected.
Martin Shelby
11:30:21AM Does this need greater scrutiny and maybe have to bring in the city attorney's office who worked on this.
Alan Clendenin
11:30:27AM Yes. Let's do that. I know they are listening. City Attorney Steady, if you would look at the Charter Review Commission proposed language 6.05 for consistency with the charter and what was voted on by the citizens of the City of Tampa and how we can fix that for consistency. Putting a pin in 6.06.
Martin Shelby
11:30:53AM May I ask, Mr. Chairman?
Lynn Hurtak
11:30:55AM I was going to say 6.05, we shouldn't just have the city attorney. We should have the crc attorney look at that as well.
Martin Shelby
11:31:03AM That would probably have to be next week then on that. He's not present and he wasn't invited -- actually --
Lynn Hurtak
11:31:15AM Then never mind.
Martin Shelby
11:31:19AM Irrespective of that, at this point in time per your agreement with Mr. Tinkler, Kenneth tinkler of Carlson fields, he now becomes your attorney for this purpose. He did ask if council wants him to be present. The decision was made, this is a preliminary discussion. Next week he can be invited to be here.
Alan Clendenin
11:31:46AM You all know that Mr. Tinkler, the attorney that we contracted with for the Charter Review Commission, he is still on retainer. He's finished the work with the Charter Review Commission. When we decide what is going to make it to the ballot or not make it to the ballot, he's going to review that product for us. But that's additional work.
Martin Shelby
11:32:07AM He's going to create the product because he's going to do it -- he's going to craft the language and put it in the form of an ordinance for your review.
Alan Clendenin
11:32:14AM Correct. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:32:16AM I don't think we should put a pin in 6.06. Let's just have the discussion. I think that we can do exactly what you said. If you could pull up number 4 on council member Clendenin --
Alan Clendenin
11:32:30AM The independent inspector general one.
Lynn Hurtak
11:32:32AM Yeah. It's like the second-to-last page. Number 4, City Council compensation. Thank you. So I really believed that we can do this by ordinance. There was not an appetite for this at the beginning of our term, but I believe now at the end of our term, when the majority of us, or at least -- not the majority, but three of us are going to be leaving, I think that now is the time to have this conversation. I agree with this particular model of 50% of the mayor's base salary and that was fought for by council member Carlson.
Alan Clendenin
11:33:16AM That's where it came from.
Lynn Hurtak
11:33:17AM Yeah. I think this is perfectly fine. I think we just do an ordinance and get it done.
Alan Clendenin
11:33:22AM I mean --
Lynn Hurtak
11:33:25AM Because if you put compensation in the charter, I think that's too tight.
Alan Clendenin
11:33:31AM Remember, it's only a formula.
Lynn Hurtak
11:33:32AM I understand. A, I believe -- I think it would have a hard time passing. B, I really do think that it's just not -- I think this is an ordinance issue. I do not think that we should be talking about salaries in our charter.
Alan Clendenin
11:33:51AM Do we actually eliminate 6.06 then?
Lynn Hurtak
11:33:56AM No. 6.06 says the salaries of officers of the city may be increased or decreased at any time by the concurrence of the mayor. And majority of no fewer than four votes. This is for staff. This is salaries for staff. When we're talking about salaries for us, I think the ordinance would do just fine. I think we could ask the city attorney's office to come up with an ordinance that says just this. And let's just get it done. Does anybody have opposition to it at this point? I know council member Viera, you had a lot of opposition earlier. But now that you're leaving office and this obviously not be for us. This would not start until the next council.
Alan Clendenin
11:34:38AM Go ahead, Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
11:34:39AM I just want to know, presently, your salary set by resolution, this looks like -- it says it looks like adds or ordinance of the council. But your salaries, as you have adjusted them was done by resolution.
Alan Clendenin
11:34:55AM I agree with Councilwoman Hurtak. If we wanted to do this by, I think ordinance would be better. That would leave the -- the gravitas would be there and it would eliminate the stuff, back and forth you have on this. Councilman Viera and then Councilman Miranda.
Luis Viera
11:35:12AM How much does the mayor presently make?
Lynn Hurtak
11:35:15AM About 200,000. It's like 189, something like that.
Luis Viera
11:35:20AM Look, I could support a salary range in that regard. My big challenge was voting for something and doing it after an election. It was more of a procedural issue. I did think council salary needed to be raised. That was more of a procedural issue. Something in this neighborhood I could support. I don't want to marry myself to this.
Alan Clendenin
11:35:42AM -- next October, beginning of next fiscal year, a year from now.
Lynn Hurtak
11:35:47AM Not only that, the most important reason we're having the discussion, somehow when this was done after the election, when Councilwoman Henderson focused on this, somehow it ends in may. It goes back to 53,000. So we have to solve this. We cannot kick this can down the road any further.
Luis Viera
11:36:12AM I would support even something more than what I would be comfortable with for a position like this to take it out of the hands of council members with a set salary and formula so that it's not politicized. That's the biggest issue for me. That's the biggest thing.
Alan Clendenin
11:36:29AM Mr. Shelby and Councilman Miranda.
Martin Shelby
11:36:32AM Martin Shelby, City Council attorney. It occurred to me I think what council needs to have in front of you is the resolution that now controls because I believe the way it's stated is your salaries do increase. So the mayor's salary today was not --
Alan Clendenin
11:36:50AM Just for the cola, just for the cost-of-living allowance.
Lynn Hurtak
11:36:55AM No, I tied it to ATU.
Alan Clendenin
11:37:00AM ATU cola.
Lynn Hurtak
11:37:01AM But, again, it ends in May.
Alan Clendenin
11:37:05AM That's kind of moot. Because it ends in May.
Charlie Miranda
11:37:10AM Can I only say this, that I believe, I know I didn't and I'm sure the other six members didn't either, none of us went for office thinking of the salary. You ran for office to make the city better than when you had it the day before you got elected. That's what it is all about. Now we're here discussing salary. That's all I'm going to say.
Alan Clendenin
11:37:35AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
11:37:41AM Whether by ordinance, resolution or charter, I think it needs to be a formula so future city councils don't have to vote on it again. I feel -- like council member Hurtak said -- this will affect the next City Council, not us. I'm termed out. It's not going to affect me at all. By the way, the pacs that ran negative ads against me last time, saying I raised my salary. I got elected by 60%. It doesn't matter anyway. I believe in good government. If we were earning 52,000 or something like that before, that's not enough for somebody to survive. It's like 60% AMI or 80% AMI. Our legislative aides are paid more than that. I want City Council members to be honest people who can dedicate their full time and to get the kind of people we need, we should be paying more than a hundred thousand. When I was in college. 100,000 was a huge amount of money because people are earning like 20,000 when they graduated. Kids graduating college are earning 100,000 plus because of inflation. We need honest people. We need people who can afford to pay for tickets to go to events. When I go to an event, I reimburse folks for it so that I don't even have to count it, because it's not a gift, if I'm paying them for it. We need people to make enough money to be able to do that.
Alan Clendenin
11:39:12AM Councilwoman Young.
Naya Young
11:39:15AM To Councilman Viera's point, having something set in stone so it doesn't become politicized I think is important. Oftentimes people ask me, what else do you do? I don't have time to do anything else. You don't have another job? No, this is it. This is my experience, but I think having something so that -- it's like the conversation that you know is important but you really don't want to have to have. So if you have something so that we don't have to, you know, even people know like, man, it would be nice, but they don't want to say that out loud. They don't want to talk about it. Whether by ordinance or resolution so we don't have to continue to have that conversation and doesn't become something where somebody is putting out an ad, oh, they are going to raise their salaries. Just leave it set in stone so we don't have to keep going back to it.
Alan Clendenin
11:40:07AM You know what I want to set in stone, the assertion has been repeated so many times about part-time/full-time. This is not a part-time job. By the way, the definition -- the mayor's position is not a part-time job. Doesn't differentiate itself in the charter. We are working -- Councilwoman Young, you were here when I got here yesterday and you were here when I left yesterday. We know how this goes. Councilman Maniscalco.
Guido Maniscalco
11:40:36AM I'm glad that you brought that up. Regarding the mayor, I once caught a glimpse of her calendar, I don't know how she does it. It's from morning to night. That's one thing. My wife can attest of that comment of a part-time job. I think I sit on seven or eight boards and tried to get on another board, but --
Lynn Hurtak
11:41:00AM I've got a board for you.
Alan Clendenin
11:41:01AM Would you like one of my boards? [ laughter ]
Guido Maniscalco
11:41:05AM I asked and I can't. I'm sorry my wife isn't here. She doesn't come to the meetings. But I get calls at 8 in the morning on a Sunday. When they have your personal cell phone, it's different. You're on call. We get complaints, we get requests. I'm glad because I know what I signed up for and I'm here to serve the community, but it's not part-time. And then the events that we go to and the community events and neighborhood events, the association meetings, it goes on and on. It is a full-time. You can make it part-time but none of us make it part-time because I see how hard everyone works here. I want to clarify that. That's it. Thanks.
Alan Clendenin
11:41:41AM Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
11:41:42AM Well, I guess I have to confess, I have three full-time jobs then. City hall, the racetrack and restaurant when I used to be part owner of cafe pepe. Never tired me out. I'm 86 and still do what the hell I want.
Alan Clendenin
11:41:59AM But you quit the other two jobs?
Charlie Miranda
11:42:01AM No, I did not.
Alan Clendenin
11:42:03AM You retired.
Charlie Miranda
11:42:04AM No, I did not.
Alan Clendenin
11:42:05AM They fired you.
Charlie Miranda
11:42:06AM No, they did not. [ laughter ] you're getting close. You're getting close. I work one day a week starting in November to may. Only because I speak another language.
Alan Clendenin
11:42:19AM I saw Councilman Carlson first and then back to you.
Bill Carlson
11:42:23AM The only thing -- I would rather leave the full-time/part-time thing out. If it's in there, it needs to be not exclusive.
Alan Clendenin
11:42:35AM Yeah. The most inaccurate assertion repeated often enough assumes truth. That's what happens this. People keep repeating, oh, part -- no, it's not. Doesn't say it is a part-time job. It's just a job. It is just a job. No more than when you get hired with any other type of leadership type. If you are a CEO or whatever you are, director of a company, it's a job. It doesn't tell you it is a full-time job or part-time job. You don't punch into a clock. Councilman Carlson, finish your work and then Councilwoman Hurtak and then Councilman Viera.
Bill Carlson
11:43:09AM I could give you lots of examples. I think the best, most ethical governments pay their people well, so there's no incentive to take freebies and cheat. Even if we change it to $100,000, any of the seven of us can earn easily double that in the private sector. It's not that anybody is trying to make money off of it or upgrade their job, any of us could earn more than that.
Alan Clendenin
11:43:39AM Councilwoman Hurtak, and then Councilman Viera.
Lynn Hurtak
11:43:43AM I would like to make a motion to ask staff to come back with an ordinance that uses number four as its base of the document that's on the screen right now. It's called City Council compensation. I would like to direct staff to come back on October 15.
Martin Shelby
11:44:01AM Hold on just a minute.
Alan Clendenin
11:44:05AM I'll get staff a copy.
Martin Shelby
11:44:06AM Actually, this is not staff. This is not the city. When you say staff, you mean --
Lynn Hurtak
11:44:12AM We're doing an ordinance.
Martin Shelby
11:44:14AM Doing a specific ordinance for this.
Lynn Hurtak
11:44:17AM Yes.
Martin Shelby
11:44:18AM Not an ordinance --
Lynn Hurtak
11:44:19AM We're not doing the charter. We're doing this ourselves as an ordinance which is why I want City Legal staff to come back on October 15 ideally, if that's not enough time, that probably isn't enough time. Let's do November 5. I would like City staff to come back on November 5 with this ordinance, proposed ordinance, that follows number 4, and I'm going to throw chair under the bus and have, since this was something that you wrote down, I'll have City staff work with you on getting this done. Is that fair?
Alan Clendenin
11:44:52AM Yes.
Lynn Hurtak
11:44:53AM That's my motion.
Alan Clendenin
11:44:57AM I have a motion and a second. Councilman Viera.
Luis Viera
11:44:59AM Yeah, no. folks were talking about their experiences and everybody is different. For me I've been in office about ten years and done about a hundred town halls. I know that there's people for them stuff like that and going into the community is very, very stressful. For me that's not work, if that makes sense. Like, I do my legal practice. I'm a mediator. I handle cases in everything. I had to go to Missouri for a client a couple of weeks ago. I'm a very involved and active City Council member. Everybody is different. There is a reason why you have a lot of lawyers in public office is because, and that's a benefit of the practice, is that our practice can be amenable to being in office and then managing your caseload. But everybody is different. What this allows people, if I may, Mr. Shelby, what this allows people to do is to -- I lost my train of thought.
Guido Maniscalco
11:45:59AM [Inaudible]
Luis Viera
11:46:00AM Yeah, yeah. This allows somebody who is not in a vocation or a career or they can't manage their caseload, can't manage their work the way other professions can and earn a good salary. That's why I support this. I think this is good. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
11:46:16AM We have legal staff in the room. Come on up.
Justin Vaske
11:46:22AM Justin Vaske, Legal Department. We're talking about salaries. Back in 2024, in September, we passed a salary resolution for City Council. One of the things I heard was that there's like an end date to it of May of next year. In this particular resolution, which marty has a copy and I have a copy for City Council, there's no end date to it.
Alan Clendenin
11:46:47AM Good. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that.
Martin Shelby
11:46:50AM By the way, I don't know whether we have to get you a copy of what they are making reference to that's on the screen.
Alan Clendenin
11:46:57AM I'll make sure sam sends you a copy.
Martin Shelby
11:46:59AM Also, it's being requested to be done by ordinance. Is the first meeting in November sufficient time to be able to come back to allow for it to go through the process?
Justin Vaske
11:47:09AM Well, the deadline for the 15th agenda is next week. It's a little tight.
Martin Shelby
11:47:15AM November 2nd, if you want it to be longer than November 2nd?
Justin Vaske
11:47:21AM November 5 would be more appropriate.
Lynn Hurtak
11:47:24AM My motion was November 5. Thank you, Mr. Vaske, I apologize. That is what I was told. Obviously, something got lost in translation. Thank you for the correction.
Justin Vaske
11:47:36AM No worries.
Alan Clendenin
11:47:37AM I have a motion on the floor and a second. Any further discussion? Councilman Maniscalco.
Guido Maniscalco
11:47:43AM Just to clarify, the salary does not revert back to the 50 something thousand that was prior to this, correct?
Justin Vaske
11:47:50AM Legal Department, no, it does not.
Alan Clendenin
11:47:52AM I have a motion and second. All those in favor say aye. Opposed?
Guido Maniscalco
11:47:57AM Nay.
Charlie Miranda
11:47:58AM Nay.
Guido Maniscalco
11:48:00AM If it would have -- [inaudible]
The clerk
11:48:04AM The motion passes with Maniscalco and Miranda voting no.
Alan Clendenin
11:48:07AM Very good. Thank you. That being said, I think 6.06 we should accept the Charter Review Commission language.
Lynn Hurtak
11:48:15AM Yes.
Alan Clendenin
11:48:16AM Okay. Is there any objection to accept the Charter Review Commission language in 6.06? We're moving on to 7.05, millage.
Lynn Hurtak
11:48:25AM Is Mr. Vaske still in here? I have a question for this for Mr. Vaske, 7.05 with the millage. My concern with this, and you can see it's on the screen, is that the state law number is put in there. I'm concerned about that because state law changes all the time. Would it be better to just leave the word state law? I know it says as may be amended from time to time, but that makes me uncomfortable.
Justin Vaske
11:48:54AM It's been that statute for probably 30 years. I understand what you're saying. My preference would be to leave it alone. Obviously, we can clean it up at some point in another --
Lynn Hurtak
11:49:09AM Can we just put the words in accordance with state law and just leave it at that? I would be more comfortable with that? Would you be more comfortable with that?
Martin Shelby
11:49:19AM May I ask a question of Mr. Vaske?
Lynn Hurtak
11:49:21AM I thought you said you didn't want to keep it.
Justin Vaske
11:49:25AM I would prefer to keep the Florida statute 200-point -- [inaudible]
Lynn Hurtak
11:49:29AM You think this is fine.
Martin Shelby
11:49:32AM Martin Shelby, City Council attorney. What does 200.065 relate to?
Justin Vaske
11:49:37AM Relates to our budget process and everything else.
Martin Shelby
11:49:40AM What about as to the trim notice?
Justin Vaske
11:49:43AM I think it might be in there as well.
Martin Shelby
11:49:45AM What about Dr 420 that has to go to the state?
Justin Vaske
11:49:49AM I don't think it specifically references --
Martin Shelby
11:49:51AM Not referenced by 200.065, I'm concerned. Well, no, it is not a policy, frankly. The question is, is that a legislative function?
Justin Vaske
11:50:03AM That's something I'd have to look into.
Martin Shelby
11:50:06AM That's true. That is a discussion.
Alan Clendenin
11:50:08AM You and I have had that conversation.
Martin Shelby
11:50:10AM Yes, we have. That's why I'm concerned if 200.065 does not mention the truth in millage, then it might be problem. It might be better than if it does have to comply with state law and a municipality has to notify the state per the trim notice requirement of what the maximum millage rate would be, perhaps that is a legislative function. Talk about that at a future date.
Justin Vaske
11:50:33AM Legal Department. I recommend that I get a minute to actually review the statute because I'm getting caught off guard.
Lynn Hurtak
11:50:40AM No, no problem. I was randomly asking.
Alan Clendenin
11:50:43AM Let's stop there for a one second. Because I think what he just brought up is something -- while we're in this process, let's talk about this. As you're reviewing this maybe you could throw this into review. Because of the change in state law of when we have to notify the state of millage, it does not coincide with when we passed our millage for legislative. Do we have a conflict and does that have to be resolved?
Justin Vaske
11:51:12AM I would really have to look into that. I don't know exactly what we submit. Is it just a proposed? I don't know.
Alan Clendenin
11:51:18AM Or bound. Since you were doing that, that's why I wanted to throw that out there, so when you're doing the review, if you could look at that in your review, if so, so if we had to make some modification to be in compliance, I think this would be an appropriate time to look at it.
Justin Vaske
11:51:30AM Okay.
Alan Clendenin
11:51:31AM Okay. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
11:51:36AM We already passed that motion. I would prefer to take the number out. That again is just me, just because. That's going to be my recommendation is that we take the actual statute out because nowhere else do we really use the statutes, and I'm just uncomfortable and worried because we're taking stuff out that talks about 1979. Anyway, that's just me. If nobody else agrees, that's fine. I'll support it.
Alan Clendenin
11:52:06AM Because of legal's recommendation to leave it in, I think I would give them the deference.
Lynn Hurtak
11:52:11AM I motion that we accept that.
Martin Shelby
11:52:13AM I'll have to look into it, too. Because I want to see what 200.065 says.
Alan Clendenin
11:52:20AM Right now, motion to accept language of 7.05 from the Charter Review Commission. Any objection? Hearing no objection, by unanimous consent, yes. We accept that. Now we're going back to the 7.12. Again, I think this should be an ordinance.
Naya Young
11:52:37AM I'm fine with that. When I was looking through the document, so the city of jacksonville does have an ordinance for similar language. As long as there's just some kind of accountability, because I think of myself or us, when you get a dollar, it's in your pocket for, what, maybe a couple of hours, few days. If somebody gave me $15 million, I want to spend it. I want to be sure like if we allocate money for something for a project that we're spending it, that we're being accountable to the community with the projects, letting them know this is where we are, this is what is happening. However that is drafted, whatever the language looks like, I want there to be that accountability and transparency.
Lynn Hurtak
11:53:20AM Would you be willing to write the ordinance and bring it to us then? Work with City staff on it?
Naya Young
11:53:26AM Sure.
Alan Clendenin
11:53:27AM Unless there's any energy around this, that we are not going to accept the language in 7.12 and instead Councilwoman Young is going to write a proposed ordinance and submit it to at a date to be determined.
Naya Young
11:53:39AM Yeah, date to be determined. We kind of have something outlined here from the other document so we can use that.
Alan Clendenin
11:53:47AM Very good. Councilman Viera.
Luis Viera
11:53:48AM I again for the charter review, want to salute them for 7.12 because this, even though it may not necessarily get in there by ordinance, it will. One way or the other. Thank you all for this because this does tackle a very important issue. Again, when you pass something as a council member that is a unique project to something you had envisioned you have to stay on. Otherwise it could evaporate. This is good. Thank you everybody for that with the charter review and council.
Alan Clendenin
11:54:16AM 9.02, personnel. This seems like a no-brainer. Can we accept that language? We'll accept the language for the Charter Review Commission for 9.02. Without objection, hearing no objection, it's unanimous. 10.06.
Guido Maniscalco
11:54:35AM I thought that was two years.
Alan Clendenin
11:54:38AM Yeah, it's one.
Lynn Hurtak
11:54:41AM Actually, I believe the State of Florida just said no city elected official can't be -- I think it's six years now. It's now six years. And that is a state law.
Guido Maniscalco
11:54:53AM [Inaudible]
Lynn Hurtak
11:54:54AM This is kind of null and void because the state --
Alan Clendenin
11:54:57AM Delete that section completely or give that to tinkler to have him review that?
Martin Shelby
11:55:02AM I believe, you know, you're going to coming up soon have a review of your city's ethics code because city ethics code now deals with that. It may have to be the city's ethics code may have to be amended if it's council's pleasure to be consistent with state law.
Alan Clendenin
11:55:17AM Can we assign this to Mr. Tinkler?
Martin Shelby
11:55:20AM Yes.
Lynn Hurtak
11:55:20AM Actually, I think we can simply solve it by saying until one year after the expiration of the term to which they are elected or in accordance with state law.
Martin Shelby
11:55:31AM That's in conflict, which controls?
Alan Clendenin
11:55:35AM Because that is an or.
Martin Shelby
11:55:37AM I don't know how this --
Alan Clendenin
11:55:38AM Let's give this to tinkler.
Martin Shelby
11:55:40AM I'll have to work --
Lynn Hurtak
11:55:42AM Okay, fine. Send it to him.
Alan Clendenin
11:55:44AM 10.06 we'll send this back to Mr. Tinkler for conformance with state law and current policy.
Martin Shelby
11:55:51AM And also perhaps chapter 2 of the city's ethics code.
Alan Clendenin
11:55:54AM Associated policy. 10.07, initiated referendums.
Martin Shelby
11:56:00AM Unanimous consent with regard to that?
Alan Clendenin
11:56:07AM I have no thoughts on this.
Lynn Hurtak
11:56:11AM Me either.
Martin Shelby
11:56:12AM What number is that, sir?
Alan Clendenin
11:56:14AM 10.07, initiative and referendum. What was the thoughts on that, anybody from Charter Review Commission? You all have no thoughts either. It's 10.07, which is the initiative and referendum section. And you guys added a bunch of language. The bulk of the language was, insertion of zoning, comprehensive plan, and then the procedures to be followed for citizens initiatives and referendums will be provided by ordinance in accordance with, quotes the statute.
Martin Shelby
11:56:53AM Goes beyond that, Mr. Chairman. It puts restrictions on the ability.
Lynn Hurtak
11:56:58AM No, I don't want to put restrictions on the ability.
Martin Shelby
11:57:02AM Because you're inserting, I don't believe it's state law that says once passed may be amended more frequently -- the time frame 90 days after a general election.
Alan Clendenin
11:57:12AM Do you remember the conversation surrounding this? I think that came from Mr. Tinkler. He would have the details.
11:57:22AM Let's send this back to tinkler for review and explanation. 10.07, back to tinkler for review and explanation. Yes, sir.
Charlie Miranda
11:57:33AM I think I know the fellow who started this back in 1972, but I'm not sure. But when you look at the city, talking about 10% of the people who it says here who are qualified to vote. In other words -- yeah, registered voters. If you run, what you're saying there, qualified to vote, if you run in a district, do you have to have the same amount of those that run citywide or not?
Lynn Hurtak
11:58:01AM This is just citizen initiative and referendum.
Charlie Miranda
11:58:05AM Pardon me?
Lynn Hurtak
11:58:06AM This is just for citizen initiatives and referendum. This is not about running for office.
Charlie Miranda
11:58:10AM Well, it should be then if it's the same thing, basically. I'll yield.
Lynn Hurtak
11:58:23AM 10.10, charter review, why go to 12 years instead of 8?
Alan Clendenin
11:58:30AM That was the question we just asked and answered, right?
Lynn Hurtak
11:58:34AM No. because this issue, the county does it every five years. And the reason that we went to eight --
Alan Clendenin
11:58:43AM That's what I'm saying. It just went to eight.
Lynn Hurtak
11:58:46AM Yeah, just went to eight -- I mean, went to eight in 2023 when everybody voted on it. I really think this is an asked and answered question. I don't think we should change it until at least another Charter Review Commission. I'm uncomfortable with -- the only thing I don't have a problem with is citizen participation, including dedicated City staff for administrative and support to allow for comprehensive process. But I don't know that that needs to be in the charter. I believe that can be part of the ordinance.
Alan Clendenin
11:59:22AM Yes, I agree. Councilman Viera.
Luis Viera
11:59:24AM Thank you, sir. I tend to agree on the 12 years. But if the members are here had opinions on that, if I may.
Alan Clendenin
11:59:34AM It was just voted on.
Luis Viera
11:59:36AM I know. That's why I'm curious because we just changed it. Maybe they weren't the champions of that. I don't know. Again, I would agree, by the way. A lot of that conversation came from as fast as development in Tampa is changing, that there should be an opportunity to look at what is governing Tampa as you guys are vastly trying to have to review ordinances and rules as it relates to development and changing in the city.
Alan Clendenin
12:00:16PM This actually slows it down.
Lynn Hurtak
12:00:17PM Yeah, this slows down the process.
Alan Clendenin
12:00:20PM If they adopt the change. But it would give you time to see if things are working rather than you having to change while you are trying to monitor and not all of you, but council in general, monitor --
12:00:34PM Since the voters just voted on this, I don't have an appetite for this. Anybody that has an appetite?
Guido Maniscalco
12:00:41PM When this first came up when the Charter Review Commission was established under councilwoman capin in that era, we hadn't had a look at the charter since 1975 or '74. If you look at staying with the eight years, look how much the city has changed in eight years and what has happened. The pandemic in between and everything. I think 12 years is too long and leave it at 8 years. People just voted for this.
Alan Clendenin
12:01:07PM Any appetite? I say we reject the language changes in 10.10. 10.10 is rejected. Article 11, 11.3. Without objection, let's accept the language in 11.03. Now the big one. Let me put it right on the table. I want to reject the language that is in the Charter Review Commission because it's not strong enough.
Lynn Hurtak
12:01:38PM I want to take your language. Lisa, it is the first page of the inspector general one. And then it is the first, the second and third. Let's just leave it on. If you can zoom out a little bit and then that way we can leave it on for the public to look at while we're talking about it. On each page. But I strongly believe -- so for me, someone mentioned earlier who inspects the inspector general. There is a retention committee, and that committee, that is their job. I'm fine. I believe that the inspector general will be judged by the people who are on this board. But I want to take the mayor and the council people off, which I think yours does. The only thing I don't see on here is that your appointment, do you not have -- you don't have an appointment process.
Alan Clendenin
12:02:55PM Yeah, we do.
Lynn Hurtak
12:02:56PM F. Sorry, I didn't see the thing down at the very bottom.
Guido Maniscalco
12:03:06PM Who puts the committee together?
Alan Clendenin
12:03:08PM That's what we --
Lynn Hurtak
12:03:09PM You want to do that through ordinance. My only problem with that is that I like the fact that in the charters that they are very specific about who it should be and members of the judiciary.
Alan Clendenin
12:03:23PM The problem, you look at that and think about the current political circumstances.
Lynn Hurtak
12:03:27PM You're right.
Alan Clendenin
12:03:30PM By the way, we do an ordinance of the selection committee and that still comes back to council for affirmative vote of five.
12:03:42PM Correct. Any further discussion?
Guido Maniscalco
12:03:48PM I support this inspector general position because we have our own Ethics Commission locally. We have a state Ethics Commission, but beyond that, something like this would be truly independent. And like you said, council member Hurtak, leave the mayor and City Council completely out of the process so it's not tainted in any way. And then you have the selection committee, they choose that person. It's unbiased or as unbiased as you can be and take it from there. I appreciate this. Thank you.
Lynn Hurtak
12:04:25PM I have one question that concerns me, though. And this goes back to our same problem that we're having with our CRA right now, is that our CRA still has to abide by the HR -- oh, no, these people wouldn't be -- no, but actually they would be. Because wouldn't we be moving the auditor department under this?
Alan Clendenin
12:04:45PM It's not addressed.
Lynn Hurtak
12:04:46PM I believe that the entire auditing department should be moved under the inspector general. Miami beach does that, and it's a really phenomenal --
Alan Clendenin
12:04:58PM I did not anticipate that.
Martin Shelby
12:04:59PM If I can, Mr. Chairman.
Lynn Hurtak
12:05:03PM Let's see. Hold on. I have it somewhere. I think we should approve this, but I also think that maybe -- let Mr. Tinkler speak on it. Also, maybe, how do we get someone to come and talk to each of us about this?
Alan Clendenin
12:05:33PM Go ahead, Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
12:05:35PM My suggestion at this point in time is if you like the concept, direct him to come back with language that meets the charter that stands the test of time. It allows you through ordinance to be able to create the way you want. Because what I was going to say, if I can, just as this may cause you and the administration to rethink the role of the internal auditor and to whom it reports, it will also cause to you need to rethink the Ethics Commission, which now works through the ethics office, which is now run through the HR department.
Alan Clendenin
12:06:09PM Correct. I think this is going to create a domino effect.
Lynn Hurtak
12:06:12PM Exactly. I make a motion to send this number one independent inspector general to Mr. Tinkler for review, specifically looking at the city of miami beach's inspector general, and how they put the auditing department under that. But also looking at -- again, I would like him to weigh in on it.
Alan Clendenin
12:06:42PM I have a motion and I have a second. I see lights. Carlson and Viera. Haven't heard from Councilman Carlson in a while.
Bill Carlson
12:06:48PM I just wanted to add, if HR, the Ethics Commission and the auditor and the city attorney all report to the mayor, then they all can be weaponized as they have been against City Council. So we have to change that. They should represent the city not the mayor. The mayor needs to have control of administration, but when HR refuses to do an investigation, when something is happening against City Council, our City Council is made aware of something that the mayor's office is doing, then that's wrong. We need to make sure we have some controls. I'll come back to that in a minute. I think it is a good idea to put the Ethics Commission underneath this. And the auditor as well.
Alan Clendenin
12:07:36PM We'll ask Mr. Tinkler to look at that. Councilman Viera and then we need to move on because we have several media issues before we break at one.
Luis Viera
12:07:46PM Under subsection c, taking out the mayor and City Council, correct?
Lynn Hurtak
12:07:50PM No. we're not using this language at all. This language and asking Mr. Tinkler to write better language.
Alan Clendenin
12:07:59PM We're not accepting this language.
Luis Viera
12:08:01PM Good. What I was going to suggest is if we do include membership in your bar associations along with George edgecomb, we include mi gente with the Tampa Hispanic bar.
Alan Clendenin
12:08:15PM That will be addressed in ordinance.
Luis Viera
12:08:17PM I guess I won't be here, but remember mi gente and the Hispanic bar. Provided language and then you're sending Mr. Tinkler your suggestions.
Alan Clendenin
12:08:29PM Yes. With looking into the audit issue. And the Ethics Commission. Audit and ethics. Model.
Lynn Hurtak
12:08:44PM Yes. You know the mayor of miami beach, right?
Alan Clendenin
12:08:48PM I do.
Lynn Hurtak
12:08:49PM When I was thinking about this and looking at miami beach, I knew you did. I thought maybe you might be able to reach out to the mayor and talk to them about how they handle HR.
Alan Clendenin
12:08:58PM If they are at the Florida league of cities conference tomorrow, I will see them tomorrow.
Lynn Hurtak
12:09:03PM That would be great. My concern is the same concern with the CRA is that because it's -- because the staff who worked for the city full-time still have to abide by the HR rules, they are still required to have someone they report to. That's the problem that we're having with our CRA right now. And so how do we make sure that these people are truly independent of HR and of all of that? That's my -- concern that council member Carlson brought up time and time again. Have to fix that with the CRA. I don't know how we solve it with this.
Alan Clendenin
12:09:40PM Mr. Carlson.
Bill Carlson
12:09:41PM I want to add to that for anybody listening. It's not that we think the CRA Staff shouldn't follow HR rules, they absolutely should. But by the agreement that the CRA has with the city, the City staff and the mayor's office should not be running the CRA, but they are, because there is a not so subtle threat that you do what I say or I'll fire you. Only the CRA Board should have the right to fire them. But they can't move forward and do what the CRA Board wants because the mayor's office has their thumb on them. And that's the influence of HR. And I think the HR department is way to politicized as well.
12:10:21PM One of the complaints I filed a few years ago, I copied the city attorney and HR department. Guess who responded to me? The chief of staff. Part of the complaint was about the chief of staff. How is it suddenly the mayor's office knows everything going on within the city on these activities? It shouldn't happen like that. When we or an employee has a complaint against the mayor or her staff, it should be handled privately and not taken up the flagpole like that.
Alan Clendenin
12:10:54PM Let's kill this conversation here. I'm trying to get us out of here in 45 minutes.
Charlie Miranda
12:11:00PM I understand. I've been listening to accusations. Maybe we'll have an investigation of what you just said, sir. Find out who is telling me the truth.
Alan Clendenin
12:11:09PM May have an IG here shortly. This is a little bit your issue. I have a proposal on the mayoral term limits in my packet.
Lynn Hurtak
12:11:20PM That's number two. You're on the right --
Alan Clendenin
12:11:28PM Just make sure -- are we good? Unanimous consent on inspector general? Are we good with unanimous consent on the inspector general? All in favor?
Lynn Hurtak
12:11:43PM Aye.
Alan Clendenin
12:11:43PM We haven't done it yet.
Lynn Hurtak
12:11:44PM I did. I said to send it to Mr. Tinkler. I made a motion.
Alan Clendenin
12:11:49PM Unanimous consent. We have a motion and second. All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Thank you.
12:11:57PM Yes, yes, yes, yes. I kind of adopted this out of some of the conversations that we've had in the past.
Lynn Hurtak
12:12:05PM Yes, agreed. Thousand percent.
Alan Clendenin
12:12:10PM Council member Carlson.
Bill Carlson
12:12:12PM Before somebody writes a front-page story about this, this election -- the vote for this would be at the same time as the mayor's vote and so would not apply to whoever is elected the next time.
Alan Clendenin
12:12:24PM Correct.
Bill Carlson
12:12:25PM It's not something that is punitive toward anybody running right now.
Alan Clendenin
12:12:28PM Correct.
Lynn Hurtak
12:12:33PM Agreed. Send it to tinkler.
Alan Clendenin
12:12:35PM Any objection to sending this to Mr. Tinkler for language? Without objection, unanimous consent, item number 2 we'll send to tinkler. This is a good one. Item number 3. Mr. Shelby, would you like to set this one up? We've had a lot of conversations about this.
Martin Shelby
12:13:00PM Mr. Chairman, I prefer the way you're handling it.
Alan Clendenin
12:13:03PM Very good.
Martin Shelby
12:13:03PM If there's something I need to chime in on.
Lynn Hurtak
12:13:06PM I don't have a problem with this. I want to figure out a way to put in item number 16, that the question that's on the letterhead, it's on the second page. Should Tampa City Council be able to initiate amendments to the city budget during the current fiscal year, I think these two things might come together, overriding of executive orders and initiating amendments to the city budget. I think both of these things are super important to bring some levity back or more balance back. I think that we should be able to override executive orders, but I also think we should be able to initiate budget amendments.
Alan Clendenin
12:13:46PM Mr. Shelby, could you please for the public, could you please explain what happens and what council's remedy is if the mayor signs an executive order that conflicts with something that the City Council has done.
Martin Shelby
12:14:04PM You have a charter crisis. That goes to the questions that you've prepared, and you sent to the Charter Review Commission dated January. 22 questions that you asked. And that's what you're referring to now, I believe. Councilwoman, number 16. I just want to point out, if I can, those are two separate issues and would be dealt with in two separate sections of the budget. One of them of the charter because one of them relates to budget and finances. The other ones relates to the duties --
Lynn Hurtak
12:14:41PM I apologize. I will rescind that. I wanted to make the comment. I think number three overall I have no problem with.
Martin Shelby
12:14:47PM If I can, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, excuse me, but the thing is, I think we've distributed that. You've distributed this again to council.
Alan Clendenin
12:14:55PM Correct.
Martin Shelby
12:14:56PM Because this would be the opportunity for you to discuss anything in here such as you have.
Alan Clendenin
12:15:00PM We're working through it.
Martin Shelby
12:15:02PM That's good.
Lynn Hurtak
12:15:03PM That's why I rescinded my comment for now.
Martin Shelby
12:15:05PM The issue is when you look back specifically to the situation of, let's say, take into account the police review board, what happened was that the City Council initiated the concept of creating a police review board. And it was moving forward in that direction, and the mayor at the time said that -- was opposed to it and I believe was quoted in the paper will not create a kangaroo court. What happened at that time, as the City Council was moving forward, the mayor issued an executive order dealing with the subject and then informed council that had lost authority over the subject and it was now controlled by an executive order. And that created a major issue amongst City Council and the question is, what controls? Is it an executive order? And can the issuance of an executive order preempt your legislative ability to create and pass a law? Or, on the other hand, if it is your authority as all legislative matters are vested in the City Council, if you pass a law that then conflicts with a mayoral executive order, then which controls? Which has precedent. And this goes to what council has been discussing for a long time. There is no mechanism in the charter to be able to resolve that. And what has happened in the past is that the city attorney is requested to opine and relies on one line in the charter that says the city attorney is the legal officer who speaks for the city, and that has been relied upon historically as saying whatever the city attorney opines is what goes, and that's how we resolve it. The question has repeatedly come up, when there is a conflict between the administration and the mayor enacting policy, what is City Council's remedy under its role to be able to address that if there is a conflict.
Alan Clendenin
12:17:22PM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
12:17:24PM Yeah, the first thing I object to is the term strong mayor.
Martin Shelby
12:17:28PM Did I use the term?
Bill Carlson
12:17:30PM No, no. it's here in this writing. Technically, it's correct, except some mayors, especially the last two, look at that as being kind of like dictatorships. That's not the intention of that. The term strong mayor is not in the charter anywhere. If we're going to refer to it, we should call it executive mayor because that's really what strong mayor means. All it means is the mayor doesn't sit on City Council. Mayor runs the organization. I would be okay limiting this to conflicts as defined in the charter. And also the financial conflicts. But three conflicts we run into, one was naming of buildings. A couple of City Council members seven years ago proposed naming buildings and the mayor put together a committee, came back with recommendations. And then passed an executive order. And we said you can't do that. And then the city attorney's office even said, oh, no, the mayor has the right to name buildings. At least I argued, no, you don't. The mayor may be in charge of managing leases and other things, but the mayor can't sign a lease without our approval. Can't paint a building without our approval. And can't do a number of things without our approval. Just because the mayor in theory oversees real estate and manages, doesn't mean the mayor can name something. So we signed an ordinance to codify the executive order. Turns out the city attorney changed it even during that time, which shouldn't have happened. It banned buildings from being named after people who committed civil rights abuses, which this administration then went ahead and did. 2018 I mentioned the city attorney at the time wrote a two paragraph memo saying that City Council, the city attorney's office doesn't have to approve settlement agreements which was completely false, against the charter. And on the one that Mr. Shelby Mentioned, I wasn't here at the time, but the resolution, the conflict is that the city attorney's office hired a former Florida bar president, gwynne young, who came in and weighed in on it. But that was not a pure process, although she is a fantastic person, very honorable person. The mayor's office still had control of the city attorney and that process, so it wasn't an independent review. The point is that if there is a conflict in the charter, we definitely should have the ability to overrun it. If it is a conflict in the money, we should have -- but part of the problem we have, because we don't have control of the city -- can I finish marty? Because we don't have control of the city attorney's office -- because, technically, by the charter, the city attorney reports to us and the mayor. But in practice, the city attorney reports to the mayor. And any Attorney Will tell you that their opinions will depend on who they report to. And so because the city attorney does not directly report to us and because we don't have firing authority, there have been many misinterpretations of the charter in favor of the mayor against the City Council. So those are the kinds of things before we run out of time we need to talk about having the ability to fire the ...
Alan Clendenin
12:20:55PM I want to be cognizant of the time for that very reason.
Lynn Hurtak
12:20:58PM I say that we move forward and send this to Mr. Tinkler. My only other thing that I wanted to say, which, of course, I didn't write down, chemo brain just --
Alan Clendenin
12:21:14PM Delete the first line, Tampa has a strong mayor -- it's fluff.
Lynn Hurtak
12:21:18PM Yeah, this is fluff. I'm just saying, this is what should go. My recommendation is that we send this to Mr. Tinkler. To look at and add. Oh, man. Oh well. Okay. That's my motion.
Alan Clendenin
12:21:36PM I have a motion, second from Councilwoman Young. Is there any objection? Hearing no objection, we'll send that to tinkler for review.
Lynn Hurtak
12:21:53PM We already did City Council compensation. We're done.
Alan Clendenin
12:21:57PM We're done with that part. Still other issues on the questions that we're going to discuss. Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
12:22:09PM Save time, can we cherry pick? I would like to maybe ask Mr. Tinkler to come back with a modification of the charter to give City Council the right with supermajority vote to fire either the city attorney and/or the mayor's direct report.
Bill Carlson
12:22:41PM That is kind of a summary of several of these. The remedy --
Alan Clendenin
12:22:45PM That's number 12.
Bill Carlson
12:22:46PM The remedy to the conflicts.
Lynn Hurtak
12:22:48PM Flip it over. It's number 12.
Bill Carlson
12:22:50PM -- and the idea that the city attorney represents and by charter represents us and the mayor, but has been used as a weapon against City Council is that we should have the power to fire the city attorney by supermajority. The city attorney, the city attorney is easy to understand because by charter, they are our attorney. We have our own attorney, but the city attorney reports to -- or represents the mayor, the City Council, and the department heads and the committee members. Not just the mayor. But in practice, the person is only representing the mayor. If we have the right to fire the person by supermajority, then they are going to listen to us.
Lynn Hurtak
12:23:31PM Correct. I agree.
Charlie Miranda
12:23:33PM I disagree and I'll tell you why. No employee can have two bosses. If we're going to have the right to fire people, who in the hell wants to be city attorney? Who wants to be a department head? I don't understand, if we want a separate government, let's form one. Let's form one where the mayor sits with us. You can't have one party and the other party looking both ways. It's about the public and not about me and what I want. It's about what good are we doing for the citizens that we serve, whether they are right or wrong, that's up to the courts. Take it to court. But I am not one that's going to give the city away by dividing this government. I just won't do it. That's all I've got to say.
Alan Clendenin
12:24:19PM Councilman Maniscalco, did you want to say anything? Councilwoman Young, do you want to say anything on this one?
Lynn Hurtak
12:24:24PM I motion that we send this to tinkler.
Guido Maniscalco
12:24:27PM Second.
Alan Clendenin
12:24:27PM I have a motion and I have a second from Councilman Maniscalco.
Lynn Hurtak
12:24:30PM I'm sorry, send question number 12 to tinkler to bring us language.
Alan Clendenin
12:24:39PM I have a motion from Councilwoman Hurtak, a second from Councilman Maniscalco. All those in favor say aye? Opposed?
Charlie Miranda
12:24:49PM No.
The clerk
12:24:51PM Motion carried with Miranda voting no and Viera being absent at vote.
Alan Clendenin
12:24:58PM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
12:25:00PM If he has more.
Bill Carlson
12:25:01PM I want to add to that and clarify for the public. The city attorney represents the city but also through that represents all these different entities. If a city attorney has a conflict, they ultimately represent the city. Anyway --
Alan Clendenin
12:25:19PM Understand. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
12:25:21PM Item number 7, and I would like -- should the City Council attorney be allowed to hire additional staff and outside attorney subject to budget approval of City Council, so I think it shouldn't just be City Council attorney. It's should the City Council be allowed to hire --
Guido Maniscalco
12:25:40PM [Inaudible]
Lynn Hurtak
12:25:41PM Instead of just City Council attorney, if I take the attorney out, and just say should City Council be allowed to hire additional staff.
Alan Clendenin
12:25:48PM That only works if we do something with 16.
Martin Shelby
12:25:52PM And also --
Lynn Hurtak
12:25:53PM Yes, but that's, again, so that was my secondary one that I wanted to talk about. We can talk about them together. So I think it should be, so the City Council -- the City Council should be allowed to hire additional staff subject to budget approval or to the budget, period.
Martin Shelby
12:26:10PM If I can.
Alan Clendenin
12:26:11PM Hold on. Mr. Shelby.
Lynn Hurtak
12:26:13PM Yeah, please let me finish. Should the City Council be allowed to hire additional staff subject -- and just period. No subject to anything. Just should be allowed to hire. I think we should be allowed to hire additional staff as necessary. That's going to be my thing for tinkler. Going along with number 16, which is on the other side, should Tampa City Council be able to initiate amendments to the city budget during the current fiscal year. I believe that we should be able to do both of those things. So I would like Mr. Tinkler to come together and bring language to that effect.
Alan Clendenin
12:26:43PM Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
12:26:46PM Two separate issues, two separate sections of the charter.
Alan Clendenin
12:26:49PM But one has to happen before the other one can happen.
Martin Shelby
12:26:53PM Well, let me read to you, there is a section related to hiring other staff in your charter. What you have -- you have to be able to give direction. This is what it says, other staff, the city may create, the City Council, and this is in section 2.04 staff. D. Other staff, colon, the City Council may create and fill other staff positions for the purpose of assisting in the performance of its legislative function semicolon, however, comma, such other staff positions must first be approved by an affirmative vote of no fewer than five members of the City Council, semicolon. Funds for such positions must be found in the City Council budget and any additional costs thereof must first be approved by the mayor.
Lynn Hurtak
12:27:40PM Okay, well, then, I apologize that I thought -- I didn't realize that made it through on the last one.
Martin Shelby
12:27:47PM That's been in there for as long as --
Alan Clendenin
12:27:51PM The issue with the mayor.
Lynn Hurtak
12:27:52PM I think we should be able to take the mayor part out.
Alan Clendenin
12:27:54PM But you'd have to get --
Martin Shelby
12:27:58PM Then we have to go.
Lynn Hurtak
12:27:59PM What section was that?
Martin Shelby
12:28:04PM This is 2.04 staff, sub d, other staff.
Lynn Hurtak
12:28:11PM Got it. Thanks. What about 16?
Martin Shelby
12:28:13PM 16, going to talk about --
Alan Clendenin
12:28:16PM Mid cycle budget amendments.
Martin Shelby
12:28:18PM Yes. Here it goes. Let me find IT. Budget changes, 70.7 budget changes. The City Council upon the recommendation of the mayor shall have the power from time to time during the fiscal year after the adoption of the annual budget therefore by resolution to reappropriate to any municipal purpose any funds not needed for the purpose originally appropriated or to appropriate any unappropriated cash surplus to any municipal purpose. This has been around it looks like since the 1970s.
Alan Clendenin
12:28:55PM That's the practice we use. Budget amendments are recommended by the mayor and then they initiate it. That's the process used. We can't initiate one.
Martin Shelby
12:29:04PM Not as that section as presently written.
Lynn Hurtak
12:29:07PM That's what we want to change.
Martin Shelby
12:29:09PM How is it you want to change the language? Or what direction do you want to give Mr. Tinkler with regard to that section?
Lynn Hurtak
12:29:16PM Just saying we want to change it so that City Council can initiate amendments. That's just let him.
Alan Clendenin
12:29:22PM Your direction would be ask Mr. Tinkler to evaluate section 7.07 of the City of Tampa charter to modify, to allow Tampa City Council to make or suggest midterm cycle budget amendments.
Martin Shelby
12:29:39PM Without -- let me just.
Lynn Hurtak
12:29:41PM Without mayoral approval. Initial mayoral approval.
Martin Shelby
12:29:44PM Without initial --
Lynn Hurtak
12:29:47PM Without initial recommendation from the mayor.
Martin Shelby
12:29:51PM Here is a question for council.
Alan Clendenin
12:29:54PM Still could run a veto.
Martin Shelby
12:29:55PM If you quite remember, I don't know whether it is coming in new chapter 27 changes, but the concept of a cycle, that there are only two cycles a year that you could provide amendments to chapter 27, do you recall that? That did not always exist. But what happened during the period of -- I guess after I was here, because I saw it happen, what would happen is that the City Council would be making sometimes at each individual meeting changes to chapter 27. And it became very impossible for that department to be able to keep up with the changes that City Council was requesting. Therefore, it was proposed to City Council to quantify it or limit it to, let's say, the times of the year or perhaps by a supermajority vote, in this case, so you don't have -- because there is a whole process that takes place with regard to financial resolutions and --
Lynn Hurtak
12:30:54PM Mr. Shelby, I think that is a perfectly fine thing, but if that applies to City Council, it should also apply to the mayor.
Martin Shelby
12:31:02PM I'm not taking a position. I'm just sharing with you that I want you to be able to give direction to Mr. Tinkler. So you want to just make it so it doesn't have to be recommended by the mayor.
Alan Clendenin
12:31:13PM Correct. Once again, section 7.07, is that what you read? 7.07, direct Mr. Tinkler to evaluate that, to modify the language that would allow Tampa City Council to make midyear budget amendment recommendations and -- period.
Lynn Hurtak
12:31:38PM I have a motion by Chair Clendenin. I have a second by Councilman Maniscalco.
Martin Shelby
12:31:42PM Question. Is that by simple majority vote or by --
Alan Clendenin
12:31:48PM Well, then, because the mayor could make a veto and it would have to come back to us with an override with a supermajority.
Martin Shelby
12:31:57PM That's what you'd like in there.
Alan Clendenin
12:31:59PM Yes.
Lynn Hurtak
12:31:59PM I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
Alan Clendenin
12:32:05PM Okay. I see a couple of other things. I'm going to take an iou on the debt. I think we could do that via ordinance. Number 15. I believe that when we need to clarify that when we are submitted with a proposal, it should be very clear -- I mean, I understand they have it in a catchall. This could be paid for by blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We see in the past, hanna, fair oaks, a lot of these projects, it's not specific. I think if a project is going to be paid by debt, from the moment that it is brought to the attention of City Council, there should be a line in that proposal that this project is going to be paid for by this type of debt. And the type of debt that it is going to be paid for. If you vote on the affirmative on that, you are -- that we are very clearly, that -- every single proposal is brought forth, that it's not buried into a paragraph that has to be a stand-alone paragraph, highlighting how that is going to be paid for so that -- and it's consistent with every single cost that we vote on. If debt is part of it, it has to be highlighted in a very specific and standardized way. I'm going to work -- this is just for information. I'll take this as an iou to work on this to have a motion for a future council meeting to submit to legal to bring back to us. Just so you know, I'm going to take that as an ordinance. I don't think that's appropriate in the charter because it's one of those items, I think we can deal with this via ordinance and not via charter. We already talked about councilwoman Young's issue. Deal with that via ordinance. 22.
Guido Maniscalco
12:33:55PM [Inaudible]
Alan Clendenin
12:33:56PM Yeah. What else? Anything else that's outstanding that you think we need to deal with with these issues? I think we covered all the highlights.
Bill Carlson
12:34:04PM Marty, do we need to make a motion to approve the ones that we did by unanimous consent?
Martin Shelby
12:34:09PM Yeah, I think --
Alan Clendenin
12:34:11PM No, I think we'll bring those back to the next one.
Lynn Hurtak
12:34:14PM Ms. Scharf Looks like she has questions. Can you come up to the microphone? State your name.
Alan Clendenin
12:34:20PM Ms. Scharf, for the record, I did not volunteer you to do this. Your boss did. Just please confirm what you wanted on section 2.04 as it relates to question number 7.
Lynn Hurtak
12:34:37PM Actually, I need to change that. I rescind question number 7 and instead what it really is, is question 14 on the other side. It should, should City Council be allowed to hire additional staff. It is section 2.04, subsection d.
12:35:05PM We want Mr. Tinkler to add language to --
Alan Clendenin
12:35:14PM That's all about budget amendments.
Lynn Hurtak
12:35:19PM We also want him to remove that the mayor has to approve that.
12:35:27PM Item 14, should City Council be allowed to amend the budget to hire additional staff to carry out their legislative duties, which is under 2.04 subsection d, but taking out the fact that the mayor has to approve such budget changes.
Alan Clendenin
12:35:42PM That passed by unanimous consent.
Lynn Hurtak
12:35:44PM That was unanimous consent. I would like to restate that motion. Actually, I need to amend the motion to not be number 7, but to be number 14.
Alan Clendenin
12:35:58PM Again, what we're doing today is a workshop.
Lynn Hurtak
12:36:01PM Okay. Never --
Alan Clendenin
12:36:03PM We are crafting the information that is going to come back to us at the next meeting for actual definitive votes. This is just getting -- directing tinkler for the work product. So we'll still have another bite at the apple. Is there anything else? Anything we haven't discussed today that people feel compelled to talk about? I think we accomplished an awful lot. Is there anybody in the public that would like to address any of the issues that we've just discussed in this item and that is reference to changes to the charter. 2 and 3. Changes to the charter and proposed budget ordinances we discussed. All the items we've discussed, including proposed ordinance changes. Stephanie poynor. I'm glad that we're not discontinuing the salary increase in may. I 100%, it took four votes before we got to let's raise your salaries. It took three times shooting it down, so it was ridiculous. And I don't want City Council members going back to the urban league and threatening them in order to get into events. So I think you guys should make a living wage doing the job so that clowns don't act like that in public and embarrass the entire city. I probably know better than anyone in the City of Tampa who has never received a paycheck from the City of Tampa, how hard your job is and how little you make per hour doing it. And at no point in time should it be anything. I would 100% support it being tethered to the mayor's salary. Whatever her salary it, whatever his salary it, whoever sits over there at tbob, it should be absolutely tied to that. And we should be paying our elected officials a living salary because you do have to pay to go into things. Do you have to pay to park. If you could pay a park across the street, it's 30 bucks for the day or whatever. I'm proud of you guys. It makes my heart grow two sizes today that we won't have to be threatening the urban league anymore. Thank you. . I wanted to thank you once again for allowing us to participate in this process. From the beginning, I had hoped that we would do something that would help the city meet the moment that we live in. Obviously, there was a lot of push and pull in terms of our deliberations. And that is our system of government. In the end, we passed what we could do by consensus. And I am incredibly proud of what we did in terms of the inspector general. We heard the frustrations from this chamber from time to time. We have heard the public's frustrations with government in general. People are increasingly cynical about government. By having an inspector general, we are adding an independent mechanism to investigate allegations of wrongdoing or corruption whenever they take place. We were very deliberate when we were working on this not to fill in every blank, because we wanted the City Council to create this inspector general in the way that best serves the city. So we did that deliberately. It was about creating a system that has transparency. Councilwoman Young and Councilman Viera, spoke eloquently about the frustration that you all have and the public has had that you set aside money for projects in the city and some projects get built very quickly. Others do not. And the public is quite often left wondering what happened to that issue that we knew we got money for. And it shouldn't be that the City Council has to on an individual basis come back again and again and again to find out what is the status of their project. I'm glad it's going to be done by ordinance or however it is accomplished because people need to have confidence that when they come here and they lobby members of the City Council and money is set aside for projects that are important to their community, that it is done. And if it's not done, that there is an explanation for it. Again, I appreciate the honor of taking part in this process, and I'm hoping this is not the end of my public service, but just the beginning. Thank you very much.
Lynn Hurtak
12:40:57PM Thank you very much. Next speaker. Start with your name and you'll have three minutes. Good afternoon, chair and members of City Council. Before I begin, I want to thank each of you for your service to our city. I'm a Tampa native, former City of Tampa employee and a resident who has followed the Charter Review Commission's work closely over the last few months. Much of my involvement in that process has focused on the establishment of an independent inspector general. In my July public comment, I emphasized to the commission that the decisions they made and those they left for the future would determine whether an IG could fulfill its intended purpose. Today that responsibility comes before you. An IG can exist on paper and still lack the independence, authority, staff, or resources necessary to provide meaningful oversight. Last week, I e-mailed each of you additional information outlining four structural safeguards that I believe are important to creating an effective office of inspector general. Those safeguards included operational independence, meaningful investigative authority, dedicated full-time staffing, and stable funding. Independence matters because an IG may have to investigate the government it oversees. Authority matters because an IG needs access to the information necessary to do its job. Staffing matters because the city as large as Tampa requires dedicated oversight. Funding matters because an oversight office cannot truly be independent without stable resources. None of this assumes wrongdoing. Effective oversight should identify inefficiencies, weaknesses, and systemic problems before they become larger and more expensive for taxpayers. My own experience working for the City of Tampa is what originally led me to start paying attention to these systems. But what I am asking to you consider today is much larger than any individual experience. If Tampa is going to establish an IG, the question should not simply be whether we create the office. The question should be whether we create an office capable of doing the job we are asking to do. As you review the recommendations, I respectfully ask that you preserve the structural safeguards necessary to make that possible and give Tampa voters the opportunity to decide whether they want those protections embedded in their city charter. Thank you.
12:43:56PM Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
12:43:57PM Next. Just a brief suggestion. One of the things that was brought up on every issue was by the members of the commission is what are we trying to address right now? Why are we having this conversation? So I say that to say in your institutional documents, I suggest as the next City Council come up with representatives that they try to select someone who is paying attention to what's happening, active in this process because we had to have several people come in to be able to explain it, because the people you did select did take their responsibility and said what are we addressing now. And it would have been helpful if a lot more of the board actually watched the meetings, participated in meetings to be able to bring some of the things you all have brought up in your conversations. I just ask you consider as you are writing institutional documents and making recommendations for the next board who makes the recommendations, that they consider appointing people who have shown that they are following what the City Council is going through and addressing. Thank you.
12:45:14PM Thank you, Ms. Hewitt. Next. Bobby creighton. Just wanted to step up and once again express my deepest gratitude. Again, it was the privilege of a lifetime to be able to serve on this commission. More than anything, it was just so much fun. I learned more about local government and how it works and other local governments than I ever thought I would have. I'm not great at making speeches. I always showed up with a laptop, binder and notebook to feel prepared. So I feel a little undressed here, with a little sheet of paper. One thing to also consider, there are many different IG models and charters and local governments in Florida. To Ms. Llwewlyn's point, I think she made a great point that funding is also a contingency of independence. Some charters or in some ordinances where IGs exist in local governments, there is a funding minimum. There's different formulas for how to fund it. And that can get pretty intricate and pretty in the weeds from a policy perspective. I think this is definitely one really worth fleshing out within that time period allotted in the charter. I think it's six months or so you have to formulate the ordinance language to really dive in and figure out what would work best for our city. Like I said, there are lots of different models. There is a long discussion to be had about that. Once again, just wanted to come up and express my gratitude and thank you.
12:46:47PM Thank you, bobby. A couple of things. I believe in a fair day's pay for fair day's work as well. You all definitely work more than the 50,000. I would like to see you all create a clear definition for terms like they do at the beginning of state statute. Define the terms. Officer needs to be clearly defined for the voters. I actually am a walking billboard for the need for an IG. Somebody needs to investigate waste, fraud, abuse of power, misuse of office or what have you. A lot of the people have lost their faith in government. Hell, I have. I believe in the system because I'm a veteran. But it's the stewards that have drawn my attention. The stewards that we put in power are not doing what so many of us have asked them to do. But my problem with the way the inspector general and yours was set up is that he couldn't initiate certain actions. Having the inspector general, having a watchdog without teeth is kind of like having a pet. This person can't be beholden to the people who are going to grade him or her as they try to do their job in looking out for the people. Last week, I even remember -- actually, this guy has to pay or he's restricted even when it comes to requesting public records. That means he ain't no different than me. Gave me a bill for $10,000 when I made a request for public records. You're going to tell me that our inspector general would have to pay the same thing or go through the same process that any other citizen would go through to get public records. Another thing that this city needs to do, every time somebody makes a chapter 119 request, that information should be made available to the public. My chapter 119 request came on the heels of me at the end of a legal situation, criminal case, where it should have been turned over to me during my brady discovery, during just regular discovery. I found out about it later on. The city said, well, we had it. We had it when you were being prosecuted but didn't turn it over. But if you want it, we want $10,000 for it and 7,000 e-mails in and of itself insane. The commission, I think it was 6-3 vote that you all said to put this thing on the ballot. Let's put it on the ballot. Let the people choose. And to the people of Tampa, show your asses up. I know, most people probably doing that j thing working. I don't like to use that word too much. They are probably at work. We need to be more participatory, especially young people. We got to get out here and participate in the politics that affect your lives on a daily basis. As always in parting, tomorrow, I'll be at the greatest institution of higher learning in the City of Tampa saying hello to the class of 1996 team and the winningest black coach in the history of Hillsborough county, nelson. Shout-out to the greatest institution of higher learning in the City of Tampa, the university of Thomas Jefferson high school.
12:49:53PM Mr. Doss, Mr. Shelby Has a copy.
Lynn Hurtak
12:50:00PM May I?
Alan Clendenin
12:50:03PM Go ahead.
Lynn Hurtak
12:50:04PM When it comes to that particular inspector general, I would like that Mr. Tinkler receive both a copy of Ms. Llwewlyn and Mr. Creighton's e-mails on this matter because I think they had really good points.
Alan Clendenin
12:50:18PM Without objection. We have one more speaker. Michael randolph.
Martin Shelby
12:50:28PM Follow-up on that. I don't recall seeing them.
Lynn Hurtak
12:50:37PM Ms. Scharf, could you print out Ms. Llwewlyn and Mr. Creighton's e-mails in full and bring them here to put them in the record.
Martin Shelby
12:50:45PM Electronically, too.
Lynn Hurtak
12:50:46PM And for them, you should have them because they went to City Council as a whole.
Alan Clendenin
12:50:53PM Mr. Randolph, thank you for your patience. I apologize for almost missing you after being reminded at least three times.
12:51:02PM We can hear you loud and clear. Tampa is one of the fastest growing --
12:51:06PM Start with your name. Got to have your name. Michael randolph. Tampa is one of the fastest growing and most dynamic cities in Florida. Yet for years our City Council has been compensated -- level of responsibility to the job. Today City Council amendments oversee multibillion dollar budget -- transportation system, public safety, neighborhood development and economic growth. The workload has become full-time in a practical sense, even though the pay does not reflect this. The capacity of government grows with it. City Council is expected to respond to constituents, navigate state and federal regulation and long-term decisions that affect generations. Historically, Tampa's salaries have lagged behind other major cities, making it harder to attract and retain high-quality individuals. When conversation is so low, only people with independent income -- can afford to serve. This amendment's diversity reduces accessibility -- truly wants to serve community. Fair compensation also strengthens ethical governance. When City Council members don't have to rely on outside employment, they can dedicate their full-time attention to city needs with no potential conflict of interest. Well-paid City Council is better positioned to make independent decisions. The cost of increasing salary is small compared to the impact the city has to make for the future with infrastructure investment, public safety, the city needs this. Raising City Council salaries is a strategic investment in public accountability and represents true leadership. Finally, I want to thank the city clerks and the staff for getting me on today. I had some problems. I also recommend they get a salary increase as well. Thank you. [ laughter ]
12:53:32PM I believe our city clerk just seconded that motion. Thank you, Mr. Randolph. Always appreciate your comments. That concludes our regular scheduled business. Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
12:53:48PM I believe I would appreciate two motions.
Alan Clendenin
12:53:51PM I'm working on this. This would be new business.
Martin Shelby
12:53:58PM No. this is part of the same item. Also, before you even get to the request for next week, is to actually -- I don't know if you did it piece meal, but to I guess be able to encapsulate the fact that City Council accepts all of the recommendations that it has made today to be able to pass it on to the attorney.
Lynn Hurtak
12:54:25PM I make a motion that we accept all the recommendations today to pass along it Mr. Tinkler.
Alan Clendenin
12:54:32PM I have a motion and second. All in favor, aye. Opposed?
Lynn Hurtak
12:54:39PM Chair.
Alan Clendenin
12:54:39PM I move a time certain of 1:30 p.m. next week, October 1st for final review and approval of council of charter amendments to be presented to voters and then correct the crc legal counsel at that time to bring back an ordinance for the first reading that places the charter questions on the ballot for March 2, 2027 ballot.
Lynn Hurtak
12:54:56PM Why 1:30?
Martin Shelby
12:54:59PM Martin Shelby. There are no review hearings scheduled for next week, but there may be discussions. This is my next question to you. Is it council's request to have Mr. Tinkler here at that time?
Alan Clendenin
12:55:14PM Yes.
Lynn Hurtak
12:55:16PM Yes. Oh, that's why the time certain. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
Martin Shelby
12:55:23PM Can you also make that a motion please to invite Mr. Tinkler to be here.
Alan Clendenin
12:55:28PM Sam, if you are listening. Please make sure we invite Mr. Tinkler, command his performance next October 1st, 1:30 p.m. don't need a motion for that. Since I've got the microphone -- I'm sorry -- I've had some coordination with the Development Coordination staff. And they are backed up in cases. And they need an extra evening hearing in December. It's happened before because of having fewer evening hearings in November and December because of the holidays so we have a little bit of a backup. I coordinated with them and the clerks, I'm going to make a motion that we add an additional evening meeting on December 3rd at 5:01 p.m. at 315 East Kennedy Boulevard with no more than six cases. They could be rezonings, ab, or comprehensive plan amendments.
Lynn Hurtak
12:56:24PM My recommendation is only if we limit staff reports to four for the day meeting.
Alan Clendenin
12:56:31PM What do we have on there now?
Lynn Hurtak
12:56:34PM Nothing on there now.
Alan Clendenin
12:56:35PM Let's limit staff reports to two.
Lynn Hurtak
12:56:37PM Okay, limit staff reports to two for the December 3rd. Ms. Young or Councilwoman Young, when I joined council, it was right after 2020. We were so backed up, we had to add a second meeting every month. So we did a full regular meeting. And this was like brand-new for me. I was new to council, and so it was awful. We had a full year. It was unbelievable. Anyway -- yeah. I have a motion from Chair Clendenin and a second from council member Maniscalco to add a December 3rd evening meeting, but also limiting staff reports to two. All in favor? Aye. At the day meeting. Any opposed?
Alan Clendenin
12:57:33PM Very good. It passed unanimously. New business? Councilman Carlson? Councilman Viera?
Charlie Miranda
12:57:41PM No, no. ruin your record.
Naya Young
12:57:45PM Social action in arts funding applications last day September 30. For fire prevention week, you have until September 25 to register online at tampa.gov/fire to get your free smoke alarm. And then also just want to thank Adam Purcell with the Mobility department. We were at the Tampa Heights civic association meeting last night, which went very, very well. I just want to thank him but also the Mobility department, everything they are doing with regards to transportation in the City of Tampa.
Alan Clendenin
12:58:17PM They are rocking, and they are going to get us a streetcar here. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
12:58:24PM No.
Alan Clendenin
12:58:24PM Very good. Move to receive and file from Councilman Maniscalco. Second from Councilman Miranda. All in favor, aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. We made it by 1 p.m. [ sounding gavel ] disclaimer: this file represents an unedited version of realtime captioning which should neither be relied upon for complete accuracy nor used as a verbatim transcript. Any person who needs a verbatim transcript of the proceedings may need to hire a court reporter. ▶ meeting video the information contained in these pages represents an unedited version of realtime captioning which should neither be relied upon for complete accuracy nor used as a verbatim transcript. Persons requiring a verbatim transcript may need to hire a court reporter. © - City of Tampa (813) 274-8211
Agenda
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1. CM26-25891
Abbye Feeley, Administrator of Development & Economic Opportunity, Michael Perry, Deputy Chief Financial Officer, and their respective team members to present the findings of the Raftelis Fee Study for Construction Services, Development Coordination, and Historic Preservation, including the study’s full cost recovery analysis; provide a summary of the public input received during the August 18, 2026, community meeting; and facilitate a discussion regarding a balanced, multi-year strategy for Council’s consideration to right-size the City’s fees, including identifying fees appropriate for movement toward cost recover and those that should remain below full cost recovery in recognition of their broader public benefit. (Original motion initiated by Hurtak-Miranda on July 16, 2026) Memorandum from JC Hudgison, Chief Building Official/Construction Services Manager, and Michael D. Perry, Deputy Chief Financial Officer, transmitting a written report and a PowerPoint presentation for said agenda item. (To be R/F)
Supporting Documents:
- MEMO.FEELEY-BAIRD_-_071626_REGULAR_COUNCIL_SESSION_-_FILE_NO._CM26-25341 ATTACHMENT 4.PDF (opens in new tab)
- MEMO.FEELEY-BAIRD - 092426 WORKSHOP COUNCIL SESSION - FILE NO. CM26-25891.PDF (opens in new tab)
- 09242026 BUILDING FEE ANALYSIS ATTACHMENT 2.PDF (opens in new tab)
- 09242026 TAMPA REVENUE ENHANCEMENT MEMO ATTACHMENT 3.PDF (opens in new tab)
- 09242026 TAMPA_DGM_ROW_REPORT-FINAL_07.07.2026 ATTACHMENT 5.PDF (opens in new tab)
- ADA COMPLIANT_09242026 PPT.FEELEY - TAMPA DGM ROW FEE STUDY ATTACHMENT 1.PPTX (opens in new tab)
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2. CM26-27125
Council to discuss the Charter Review Commission. (Original motion initiated by Carlson-Young on September 10, 2026)
Supporting Documents:
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3. CM24-4658
Council to discuss Council salary for the future election cycle beginning May 1, 2027 and what said salary should be tied to; further, that Councilmembers present their ideas during said discussion. (Original motion initiated by Henderson-Viera on April 11, 2024)(Updated motion initiated by Hurtak-Clendenin on June 27, 2024)(Continued from February 27, 2025)(Motion to reschedule from May 22, 2025 to September 25, 2025 initiated by Henderson-Hurtak on March 6, 2025)(Continued from January 29, 2026)