City Council Special Call — October 29, 2026 FINAL
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Alan Clendenin
9:06:25AM Would everybody please rise for the pledge of allegiance? [Pledge of allegiance]
9:06:47AM If you would remain standing for the moment of silence. Moment of silence and Councilwoman Hurtak will say this is breast cancer awareness month. And we thank you for the folks that are the survivors and those that have not. [Moment of silence] thank you. Okay. Good morning. I'm a little sleepy. Some of us were watching a game last night and the night before and stayed up late, well past our normal bedtime. I need to go over agenda review. Oh, roll call. Yes, thank you.
Charlie Miranda
9:07:32AM Here.
Guido Maniscalco
9:07:34AM Here.
Lynn Hurtak
9:07:34AM Here.
Naya Young
9:07:36AM Here. Carlson?
Bill Carlson
9:07:38AM Here.
Alan Clendenin
9:07:39AM Here.
The clerk
9:07:39AM We have a physical quorum.
Alan Clendenin
9:07:41AM Agenda review, we have an addendum. So we have the one item on the special call meeting. We need to add new business to the end of the meeting. Councilman Carlson?
Bill Carlson
9:07:53AM Yeah. We've gotten a lot of questions about Hillsborough College. And yesterday, president atwater presented the latest update on Hillsborough College. I asked him if he would be willing to come by this morning to present that and answer our questions and the community's questions. He's got accreditation going on this morning, but he thinks he can come here At 10. I would like to make a motion to add president atwater as a second item, not part of the community business agreement but separate item to present an update on Hillsborough College and answer our questions related to it.
Alan Clendenin
9:08:29AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
9:08:29AM I thought you wanted this to go quick. I didn't expect we would be here until 10.
Alan Clendenin
9:08:36AM Yeah, well, let's see how that goes. If we're still here At 10.
Bill Carlson
9:08:42AM The reason why I'm suggesting it now is because there is an avalanche of questions about it. I would like to make sure that we and the public have the latest accurate information on it.
Alan Clendenin
9:08:53AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
9:08:54AM If I had known that, I would have prepared the questions I have for him. But I didn't prepare any questions because none of this has anything to do with hcc.
Alan Clendenin
9:09:05AM I'll tell you what, I think it's reasonable because I have questions as well. If he is here -- unless there's any council objection. Are you objecting to him speaking?
Lynn Hurtak
9:09:14AM No.
Alan Clendenin
9:09:15AM Unless there's council objection, Dr. Atwater comes and I see him in the audience, because I have questions as well, I'll recognize him and ask him to come to the podium and speak.
Bill Carlson
9:09:25AM I floated the idea with him a few days ago. Even this morning on the way in, I was talking to his assistant. He's doing accreditation. Just now I got confirmation he thinks he can be here At 10. Last-minute thing.
Alan Clendenin
9:09:40AM If not and he's here, we can have him come before us. We'll have new business added to the end of the agenda --
Bill Carlson
9:09:52AM I made the motion. Should we vote to put it on?
Alan Clendenin
9:09:56AM If you want to vote to put him on, we can. Was there a second? Atwater speaking.
Luis Viera
9:10:04AM I'll second it.
Alan Clendenin
9:10:05AM All in favor aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Thank you. We have the new business and walk-ons at the end of the meeting. We have atwater on the agenda. We'll look at the addendum and make sure people are fine with the addendum. If I could get a motion to approve the agenda, please. Motion from Councilman Maniscalco, second from Councilman Viera. All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
9:10:31AM I just wanted to say that I had to miss My mother's mris to be here. I really appreciate you all really caring about my family. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
9:10:44AM This is the way the agenda will go this morning, I'm going to recognize City staff. They are the ones responsible for negotiating this agreement and then she will hand it off to the rays' organization to answer any questions. At this time, I would like to recognize Rebecca.
Rebecca Johns
9:11:07AM Good morning. Rebecca Johns, Legal Department. A few housekeeping items before we start. The resolution that I submitted in my haste and exhaustion, I put $21,000 instead of $21 million. It's not in the title. So it's okay. I'm submitting a revised resolution correcting the 21 million. Also, at 7:00 this morning, I got a revised agreement from the rays addressing some council members' concerns and a meeting from yesterday that they would like to submit for consideration. I have printed out a red-line for all of you. I'm also going to put each page on the wolf and show what the changes are so the public can see what the changes are, unless anybody has an objection to that.
Alan Clendenin
9:11:56AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
9:11:56AM Yeah, I would ask maybe that my aide or somebody's aide come make copies for the public so they can look at it.
Rebecca Johns
9:12:04AM Sure. Absolutely.
Bill Carlson
9:12:07AM If you are listening, can you come make copies? I don't know how many people are in the audience but everybody should have a copy.
Lynn Hurtak
9:12:15AM I'm going to ask for a ten-minute recess so we can actually read it.
Alan Clendenin
9:12:20AM How about a ten-minute recess after she does the presentation?
Lynn Hurtak
9:12:23AM That's fine. I want to be able to read it. Actually, I'll go for 15, because it's big.
Alan Clendenin
9:12:28AM Let's hear the presentation and then if you still want the recess, then we'll take the recess. I'll do that. I think that's a reasonable request. Ms. Johns, the floor is yours.
Rebecca Johns
9:12:45AM Okay. We are here on the community benefits agreement between Tampa Bay Rays Stadium Company, LLC and the City of Tampa. As you recall, this community benefits agreement came about because of the funding agreement that has been previously approved between the city and the Tampa Bay Rays Stadium Company, LLC. I will refer to them during my presentation as the rays just to make it easier on everybody. The total city benefit coming to the city for community benefits is $21 million. That is -- that's based on a $60 million total community benefit and the city getting 35% of that and the county getting 65% of that. The way this agreement is set up, it's for the first five years. So this agreement outlines what they have to do for the first five years, and they have to provide 20% of the benefits during the first five years. Which is the equivalent of $4.2 million. 70% of that is cash contribution during years one through five, and then for each group thereafter, 50% cash contribution. The term of this agreement will be the same as the term of the county community benefits agreement, which has not been approved yet. So we have included language in here that the term will be the same as the county, and once the county's agreement is approved and the actual term of the agreement is determined, then when we amend this agreement for the first time we're going to include in the amendment the actual term. They will come back -- they will provide an annual report every year of the community benefits that they have provided, and they will come and make that report to council once a year. There is also going to be a community committee that is established to meet twice a year, every benefit year, to talk about the benefits that they are doing and the proposed benefits coming up. As I stated earlier, they will come back before the fifth year in order to get the next group of benefits approved. I want to point out that this agreement includes an exception to the city's cba ordinance. So the cba ordinance allows an exception if a developer is providing alternative -- I can never remember this language -- alternative benefit exist that is of substantially similar value to the benefits required by the cba ordinance. So City Council can approve a cba ordinance. The reason that they requested it in this is because they had already had community meetings. They felt like they had already done the equivalent process of what the cba ordinance would require, and they were providing alternate benefits, which were substantially similar. That's a brief overview, but I will show you page by page. I'm sorry this will be monotonous but I want everybody to see the changes that were made. This is the first page. There have been no changes. This is just the introduction. Again, second page, no changes. This is what starts the definitions. So these are the same as the agreement that was loaded. Third page, same thing. No changes. This includes the exemption language. So the first change is in 3.3, initially they were proposing a 65% cash contribution and now they have raised that to a 70% cash contribution for the first five years. They have also changed some language regarding the workforce. They changed good-faith efforts to best efforts and will require construction manager to also use best efforts to achieve the goal of apprentices enrolled to be 8%. There wasn't a minimum at that time, but now it's 8%. Annual report, this is where they've added that not only will they provide an annual report to the city, but they will come to council once a year, 30 days after they provide it and report to council what they have done. That will enable everyone on council and the public to kind of monitor what's happening and know, keep this up with the status of what's going on. The future project list, this is where they have established a community committee. They stated that the committee will meet twice each benefits year. The first meeting will be held 90 days after this effective date. If you notice, the committee will include a representative from each of the Drew Park community, the West Tampa Heights community, the City of Tampa administration, the rays and one member of City Council. The next page has no changes. The next page also has no changes. And this is the term, the language I was talking about earlier, where it will be the same term as the county community benefits agreement. Again, no changes. We're getting into the miscellaneous provisions that nobody ever cares about, but no changes. And then lastly no changes on this. So that is the body of the agreement. The rays will come up and talk about the actual benefits that would be provided. But does anybody have any questions for me on the actual terms of the agreement?
Alan Clendenin
9:19:24AM Does council have any questions about the terms of the agreement? Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
9:19:27AM Ask a holistic question. There is the expectation we have to do, because of the ordinance we have to do a community benefits agreement. And the way I equate this is this: it's not like the rays are giving us something. We're taking the people's money, putting it in and then we're getting part of it back. If you are buying a car and they say, well, if you're willing to pay 50,000, I'll give you a $10,000 rebate. Instead, you could say why don't you charge me 40,000 instead? It seems to me it would be easier instead of going through all this that if we have the right to change the cba ordinance, why don't we waive it in this case and tell them to give us a discount?
Rebecca Johns
9:20:11AM Well, the funding agreement that was approved required a community benefits agreement because at that time I think it was contemplated that they would go through the ordinance. I don't think the exception was contemplated at that time.
Bill Carlson
9:20:24AM If the county approved, legally we could still get that changed? I did a basic discounted cash flow. 21 million -- talking about the city, not the county -- but if you discounted cash flow over 35 years. For anybody watching, if you win the billion dollars in the lottery, you can get paid a certain amount per year for whatever years or they'll pay you like 400 million today because that's the present value. The idea is if you invested 400 million in 30 years it would be worth that. Depending on discount rate use, somewhere between 10 and 15 million. That's significant because we're talking about bonding the 80 million which we can actually pay 20 million a year for four years. But 10 or 15 million dollar discount in the beginning, then we wouldn't have to bond anything in the first year. It seems like it would be worth the effort to look at that. But legally it is possible do that, right, if everybody agreed?
Rebecca Johns
9:21:19AM You would have to go back and amend the funding agreement in order to revise that community benefits. I would recommend putting the exemption actually in the funding agreement if you were going that way.
Bill Carlson
9:21:28AM I would ask everybody to consider. I know it is kind of a curveball, but there is a lot of stress about this partly because it was given at the last minute, but partly because all the different parts of it. It would be better if the city kept the money and allocate it the way the public wants instead of going through all this. Just the administration part of this on the city and the rays' side is going to cost more than it would to just give us a discount. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
9:21:56AM Anybody else? Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
9:21:57AM Thank you. Thanks a lot. I appreciate everything you have done and speaking to each council member and so forth and so on on this agreement. However, when I look at this thing -- and everything happened so quickly. Supposed to be November 12, we're having it today. It was supposed to be a dark day for council, the fifth week of the month. I understand that now. I made a mistake when I voted for it. I admit it. I think Ms. Hurtak was the only one that voted against it. She was right, and I was wrong. That's number one. Number two, I'm looking at the second page, second whereas down in the list. Now it says 21 million. If my mind is correct, it was 12 million before, am I right or wrong?
Rebecca Johns
9:22:36AM It is a total of 21 million. The first five years is 12 million.
Charlie Miranda
9:22:40AM But that includes what, the freebies or something that they say it's money but it's not money?
Rebecca Johns
9:22:48AM They will be presenting the actual benefits to you shortly.
Charlie Miranda
9:22:52AM Thank you very much. But I agree with council member Carlson. If I'm owed 21 million and I'm paying 80, I should only be responsible for 59 million. Then you go on and bond, get a discount, paying less money on the loan because you're having less amount coming back. So your interest would be the same but the amount would be much less for the taxpayers and that's all I'm saying. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
9:23:21AM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
9:23:22AM I agree with council member Carlson, too, because I've done the math about how much money this will actually be with all the facts that, interest and inflation. So by 2031, the 4.2 million will only be worth 3.48 million. By 2026, it will only be worth 2.8 million in today's dollars. In 2041, it will only be worth 2.39 million. So we're really going to be losing money overall. So I actually think that council member Carlson is on to something. We'll get the most amount of our money if we actually do a reduction in what we give them instead of this community benefits agreement. Because by 2051, this is going to be worth less than half. 1.64 million, including inflation instead of 4.2. And that's just embarrassing.
Rebecca Johns
9:24:18AM I just want to reiterate, we would need to amend the funding agreement. The rays would need to agree to that.
Bill Carlson
9:24:26AM Just to add to that, the present value of that money depends on the discount rate you use. I use the average municipal rate in looking at it. If you use a higher interest rate, the value is lower. If you use lower interest rate, then it's higher. If they came back to us and said the present value of it is 3 million, then we probably would be better off kind of sticking with this. If using an average rate, if present value somewhere between 10 and 15 million, it would be worth reducing it. I think it would save the rays 10 or 15 million just in administrative costs trying to comply with this. What we could do as a City Council and city is we could take that 10 or 15 million and redeploy the community the way the community wants to do it without going through any filters other than listening to the community.
Alan Clendenin
9:25:16AM Does council have any additional questions for staff? Hearing none, do you still feel like you need a break? Now or after the rays?
Lynn Hurtak
9:25:31AM After the rays.
Alan Clendenin
9:25:32AM Okay. Very good. It's been a while. How we do this, we start with our name. It's been a while. Good morning, council. Nicole Travis with urp advisors. I am a consultant to the Tampa Bay Rays. It has been a long time, but it's really good to see you guys again this morning.
Bill Carlson
9:25:59AM Just to clarify your position, you have your own consulting firm now.
9:26:04AM One of your clients is the rays. You are not actually an employee of the rays. People can think that's better or worse. But you have your own consulting firm. You are independent. Yes, urp advisors. I am a consultant to the rays. I'm not an employee of the rays. But I am here to present to you the community benefits agreement that's before you. Thank you to Attorney Rebecca Johns for the amount of work that has went into this. I want to thank this council as well. There have been a lot of conversations about community benefits over the last several months, but really packed into this last several days and this week. I wanted to take this time to walk you through the agreement again. Some of it is repetitive from what Rebecca shared with you. But I also wanted to highlight what has changed based on our conversations with you, based on our conversations with the community, especially in the past. So I'll start by setting the framework, what will be delivered over five years. $60 million, like Rebecca stated, is the total amount of contribution for the community benefits, which includes the portion that goes to the county, 65% goes to the county, 35% goes to the city, and what that means is $4.2 million in the first five years. What we're proposing is delivered five years at a time. Through this process, what we've had -- we heard a clear message on what we need in the neighborhood, what is needed throughout the district. There's been a lot of community conversation with the rays that started months ago. And those conversations really were surrounding what to expect, what's to come with the district. But through those community conversations we've had a lot of concerns that were shared, like to the impacts to the neighborhood, will there be traffic, drainage issues, and existing conditions that those conditions exist right now and some of the neighborhoods' concerns were, are they going to be exacerbated by the development of the park? And so we heard loud and clear that we wanted minimum cash spend, put real dollars on the table and not just value. We heard we wanted to protect the neighborhoods that are closest to the ballpark. The community wanted a seat at the table to identify specifically what those projects are. The draft that was presented to you or provided to you were eight pillars and buckets. Those pillars, they came about because of the community conversations. We were able to take all of those comments and put them into these categories. The community wanted to see to decide specifically what those projects are. One of the other things making jobs measurable as well as the apprenticeships that were a part of that. We also included as a part of the benefits that were provided to you last week, it did say we provided a written report. Since then, we have changed it that we would provide a written report 30 days after that report is provided to you, of course, we'll copy the neighborhoods to make sure they have a copy of that, 30 days after that we would make a presentation to City Council. And so what has changed, this is just the one page that talks about what the changes are. Real dollars. Having a minimum cash spend of this $4.2 million is about 70%. That gives us about almost $3 million, 2.9 something, something, $3 million of minimum cash spend. There was in the first version had dollars allocated to tickets and advisory boards. We took that out. The rays will continue to do those things, continue to support those advisory boards, continue to provide tickets and access to the community but --
Alan Clendenin
9:30:23AM I don't know, is it electronic or whatever that noise that we're hearing, it's very distracting. Those of you -- I fixed it.
9:30:33AM The acoustics of this room, even if you are whispering, it amplifies and becomes distracting. Thank you. Tickets and the advisory boards, but the rays are going to continue to do that and not take that out of the $4.2 million. The other thing, this one is a big change, is really to protect the neighborhoods. So we introduced a new line item that's called the neighborhood impact and connectivity fund for Drew Park and West Tampa Heights. It's right adjacent to the development. This fund in the exhibit, it talks about drainage, using the funds for drainage, traffic calming, connectivity and sidewalks. We heard that loud and clear as a need from the community. So we added this as a project under that category. Again, the community -- we are proposing a Tampa Bay Rays legacy plan committee. We'll meet twice a year. And Rebecca outlined to you the makeup of that committee. For measurable jobs, we put in there a goal of 8% of the construction labor hours on the ballpark itself with registered apprenticeships and report on that publicly. The last thing is, again, the report to council, with annual report and then presenting to council. The one thing not on here that I would like to mention is that the rays committed through their public conversations a website for transparency to be able to show real time what those measurements are, particularly it will show with the apprenticeships and the jobs that are being provided. We can show where the zip codes of people that are being hired and we will have job fairs particularly in the adjacent neighborhoods to make sure that's there. The other thing, not on this slide, that we will do, we heard loud and clear from the neighborhood leaders about the commerce and the commercial industry that's right around Drew Park in West Tampa and creating a vendor program that will allow the businesses in the immediate neighborhood to be able to participate in any of the ballpark and district commercial interests and business opportunities there. So the first five years, the 61% of that is going towards the housing stability and the neighborhoods. We feel that this project -- this has been the largest portion of that, making sure that the neighborhoods are stable and showing how that relates to the overall $4.2 million. $550,000 for job workforce and local businesses, youth and education and literacy, $550,000, included in that $550,000 was the west sports -- support for sports and youth athletics but including the yellow jackets, the West Tampa little league and also the belmont heights little league are listed specifically in there. The West Tampa Heights little league was also another addition, and we added additional funding so the little league can have additional funding for that as well. Mobility and regional access, $250,000, public safety $200,000. And then community, culture, and inclusion. The community culture and inclusion, talked a lot about the advisory boards. But the one area, even though we zeroed out all of them, the one that stayed is the community engagement line item. The community engagement line item put $75,000 specifically to make sure that we have access and reach out to our spanish-speaking population that is in the area to make sure we have the resources to be able to -- make sure that they are included and could participate in the vendor opportunities, job and workforce opportunities, and to really reach out to that. The last thing I would say on this slide before I move on, this is a minimum spend. This does -- this is not a maximum amount. This is a minimum spend. This just breaks it down a little more in detail on what those line items are. Again, the housing and neighborhoods, the anti-displacement in housing, $1.2 million. The change from Al Lopez Park improvements, that was listed as a million dollars. That's down to $625,000. And then the neighborhood impact fund, what I talked to you about, about connectivity, sidewalks, drainage issues, traffic calming, those are the things that we heard loud and clear from the neighborhood that we needed. And then neighborhood investment grants, that is being responsive again, listening to the neighborhoods, also in a previous presentation that you had here at council with neighborhood leaders, the Planning Commission, talking about a larger study for that area. I'll move on from that and not go through that anymore. How you'll hold us, through our yearly reporting. Open books, that transparency, having the website, being able to update that real time. The legacy plan committee, to be able to have a voice and to shape the work that we're doing and the projects that are coming on. The one thing that I'll say just from my public sector experience in how we would utilize these funds, I will acknowledge that this -- it's not enough money. It's never enough money. I think if you wrote your own plan, there are so many needs that have been unmet for so long that there's just not enough money to do that. And so what we will do is work alongside the city, other Planning organizations, F.D.O.T., any funding that is in the work plan, we would leverage funds that exist for programming opportunities in the capital improvement plan and to leverage these funds so they could go even further for the neighborhoods. Lastly, also seeing where there are opportunities to work with our neighborhood leaders in securing state funds to deal particularly with the drainage issues that the neighborhood leaders brought up. That concludes my presentation. I'm available to answer any questions that you may have of me.
9:37:54AM Councilwoman Hurtak and then Maniscalco.
Lynn Hurtak
9:37:56AM I still haven't had my 15 minutes to go over the changes, because I had no idea that appendix a was so drastically changed. This is my back-of-the-napkin math while you have been talking, so I apologize. Because it doesn't really change the fact that if I actually look at this, almost half of the money is not for the district. So I'm not really sure why we have a New Tampa safety investment. New Tampa is nowhere near Drew Park, hcc. Yellow jackets, none of that is in district 6. Housing and anti-displacement, you're allowing East Tampa and Sulphur Springs in here? None of that is in district 6. And, you know, had actually anyone from the rays reached out to me personally, which no one did, apparently they talked to the other council members, but they didn't speak to me. Even though I don't support this deal, the cba is really important. That's why I'm not with my mother today for her mris, I'm here. But no one reached out to me. If you reached out to me, I would have said $2 million is not in this district and that's unconscionable. When I actually add it up, it's only $1.5 million specific to district 6 out of 4.2 million, that's unacceptable.
Alan Clendenin
9:39:30AM Councilman Maniscalco. The only thing I would say is the thought for this was -- it is funds that benefit the entire city. We have heard of the need, the cba meets the needs of the entire city. We wanted to make sure there were specific -- that we deal with the specific impacts to the neighborhood, but the cba is for the entire city. It is benefits to the entire -- to the entire -- to the residents of the City of Tampa. I'll just say that.
Lynn Hurtak
9:40:09AM Well, and I'll respond by saying, you said in your presentation that you actually will have to go to the state to deal with some of this stuff when we could have dealt with it with the money we have here.
9:40:23AM No, but it is a start. The only point to bring up with the state is it will take additional resources. It will take more than the $4.2 million. It will take more than the $21 million of infrastructure, and needs that are in the community. So the thought was it is a start. We'll leverage funds but we'll also use the access that we have to tallahassee to get additional funding for the neighborhood -- the drainage -- I mean, we know that the drainage issues and the flooding and the ditches that are there are unsafe conditions, $4.2 million, $21 million, it's not enough. We're just saying we'll go additionally and get state support.
9:41:04AM Sure. But you got go five days before that support may change, and then you got two months. That's not a lot of time.
Alan Clendenin
9:41:14AM Councilman Maniscalco followed by Councilman Miranda and then Councilman Viera.
Guido Maniscalco
9:41:20AM Okay. I think you put it on one of the past slides. Of the 4.2 million, 2.94 is a guaranteed cash spend.
9:41:28AM Now, I think you put it there, but just for clarification. The rays can't do -- or can't offset that with saying we'll do free tickets. It has to be 2.94 million on projects, in addition they'll do --
9:41:44AM They are not going to circumvent that. Are opportunities for us to -- there's value to certain things that we can't necessarily quantify whether there are dollars or not. In this agreement we explicitly said that there is -- under no circumstances will we have credit for value on tickets or anything like that. It's just a minimum cash contribution.
9:42:13AM Per this agreement, they can't say we have 500 extra tickets --
9:42:18AM -- and we'll hand them out, the face value is xyz, so they can't do that.
9:42:24AM Another thing, in regards to the future project list in 6.1, representatives from the community. I see here West Tampa Heights community, and I see Drew Park, but I did receive calls from folks representing Macfarlane Park. Macfarlane Park borders it directly. Their impact is significant. A lot of the traffic goes through Macfarlane Park. You have the West Tampa chamber, which is the umbrella organization that represents a lot of businesses, but then individual people in their own capacity or the neighborhood association, which is separate of that, they had concerns being that they are in the heart of West Tampa and they are going to feel the brunt of the traffic just like they do for any events and bucs games. So they are used to it. There was a question there about representation. That's it for now and I'll see what other questions. We couldn't add Macfarlane Park to that. Part of the reason for adding an elected official to the committee as well, because you hear the needs of the district and -- you hear the needs of the community. Having an elected official as a representative on that to advocate for, I don't see a reason why we couldn't add Macfarlane Park, but I wouldn't necessarily open it up to additional -- the business community because then you have Westshore alliance. Then it starts to get really big.
9:43:59AM Should this be approved per the Tampa Bay Rays' legacy plan committee, can that -- that section be amended to add more people or add Macfarlane Park or would you have to take off -- the committee was set up to make sure we're inclusive and we're hearing what the needs are. The two meetings that we proposed a year is a minimum. One of those meetings can be included where we advertise it and bring everybody to the table and to be included in the conversations and then the working group, and that working committee, can then prioritize projects and talk about the projects moving forward.
9:44:43AM Okay. Thank you very much.
Alan Clendenin
9:44:45AM Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
9:44:46AM Thank you. Nicole, I think you do a wonderful job when you were here and still doing the same for your client. The same thing that Councilwoman Hurtak had written here. Let me say this, we're not getting paid with anybody else's money but the taxpayers' own money, going back to where it came from. Let's make it clear this is not the rays' money. Money collected from the taxpayers that they are formulating a way of getting something back at some percent, which is very small, which I understand that, and I appreciate what you're doing. However, that being said, there's something that has never been talked about, that Drew Park, West Tampa, all those neighborhood associations, north and south of the center line of Kennedy Boulevard will be felt. Right now, that neighborhood that I represent is in a flux that when you live there for as many games that there are at the football stadium, you can't leave your house an hour and a half to two hours before or after the game. The amount of traffic that's never been talked about is a mental case for those neighbors. Now we're exacerbating the problem. It's true your stadium is only 27,000 seats, am I correct?
9:46:17AM I think it is. So it will be smaller. But still impacted. You talk about concerts, talk about the same thing, venues, shows, so forth, I hope it's all successful. However, the neighbors can't take it anymore. Those neighborhoods are feeling it mentally. They are feeling it with their pocketbook. And if you look at the traffic accidents on every street going east and west, north and south, you will find that there are more accidents on game event days than in a month or three months when there is no games. So we're looking at catastrophic things, not only monetarily, getting paid with your own money. This is not their money. This is the taxpayers' money coming back to them. There is no rays money here because they are broke. That's what I say. Have enough money to buy it but -- pay 1.7 million. That's beside the point. What I'm saying here is that I see what you're doing, and I appreciate it, but why am I getting paid back with my own money? It ain't their money. It is the taxpayers' money. Taxpayers' should say what they do with the money, not the rays. The rays are only a visitor. In my mind, the rays' baseball team is the best in the country. You know why? They have one of the best individuals in the scouting, reporting, and formulation of building a team. They build it all the way around. Defense, speed, ability, home runs, a few home runs by different people. It's the way the game used to be played, not the way it is today. When you look at the milwaukee brewers, they are a mirror of what the rays are. Rays didn't get enough runs. That's all. What I'm saying is, something that Tampa has been known for before baseball was popular, Tampa was popular with baseball. However, it was never about money. Now everything is about money. I don't want money from anybody. But what I'm saying, in this case here, it's very hard for the neighborhoods to swallow something when there is no traffic study done, and at least should be done from cargo road to Armenia and at least from Hillsborough Avenue to Columbus Drive and maybe even further to the south. And then after all this happens, doing another traffic study to see what the neighborhoods are going to suffer not only those three or four mentioned, but there are others. The same thing is going to happen to them. You can't get on the expressway unless behind somebody else -- west side heading south on Armenia, east side heading north somewhere else. It is impossible. And we're creating the same thing. It's not about you. It's about the system that we're applying now to a neighborhood that can't argue. And that's why we're here for. This was put November the 12. Now it's today. Everything is compact. I'd like to know when the application was put in, this has nothing to do with you and I may be gaveled here, to get in line for public hearing for a zoning matter, how many did they jump? But I want to find all that out. It's not about you. You are a genius. And when you left here, I told you, you're doing it for yourself, and I'm happy because you couldn't take all the damn shit we were giving you, okay, in plain english. [ sounding gavel ]
9:49:54AM See, I told you I would get gaveled.
Alan Clendenin
9:49:57AM Follow up that, Councilman Viera.
Luis Viera
9:50:02AM I'll curse but in spanish. Thank you. Councilman Maniscalco, it's funny, we match. That's too funny. I appreciate everybody's comments and thoughts and everything. Ms. Travis, obviously my regard and respect for you. We talked a lot on this. I appreciate your work ethic and your professionalism and you are a super star and you are awesome. God bless you and your family. For me, the community benefits agreement is all about buy-in from the community. That's what it's all about. And talking about -- by the way, I don't think -- I want to be very clear, when I talk about issues like the yellow jackets or public safety in North Tampa, not saying anybody opposes yellow jackets or anybody opens public safety in North Tampa. The issue is whether there ought to be some level of modest deference given throughout all of the City of Tampa that will be in part funding this, taxpayers. And to talk about the yellow jackets and the debt that's owed there. To talk about district 7 and different public safety challenges that are there with very, very, very minor investments, I don't think is unreasonable. In fact, I think it's entirely proper. This is all about buy-in. When it comes to the surrounding Drew Park area, something I want to remind folks on, something I fought for very, very early that we'll be discussing later on is very pivotal infrastructure improvements in and around the stadium that are not in the community benefits agreement, that are going to be part of this. And we'll talk about bringing that back for council to have some jurisdiction, I guess, if you will over that, which is to have fire infrastructure at the stadium site. That's going to benefit directly Drew Park. That's not part of the community benefits agreement, to move district one closer to the stadium so there can be better response times, things like this. So there is a lot of different issues going into this to improve Drew Park and the surrounding area. They are not even part of the community benefits agreement, that, I mean, I worked on very, very hard because those were major issues to get my support for this had to be taken care of. And they are, and we'll be discussing that. So, but again, for me, the community benefits agreement is about community buy-in into this. About community buy-in. It's not about some list of, you know, hey, we're going to give East Tampa this, North Tampa this. No, it's not. It's about things narrowly tailored to the deficits that communities have that go to the stadium, right? And that's what this is. I think it's very reasonable. I think it's touch and go. And I think there's support on council for these endeavors. These are philosophically connected, whether it is the yellow jackets, whether the North Tampa public safety improvements, because if you see this community benefits agreement, something should benefit all of the community to some modest degree, then that philosophy unites all of these endeavors together. That's all, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, ma'am.
Alan Clendenin
9:53:05AM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
9:53:06AM Yeah, I agree that if we have the community benefits agreement, remember, my preference is to get the discounted cash flow and just reduce, let the taxpayer money stay in the city and we'll figure out how to allocate it. If we continue on with this, there are citywide impacts of this. So I think it's justifiable to have programs throughout the city. We also need to pay attention to the area inside. I was talking to West Tampa chamber yesterday and we were brainstorming maybe 50% of it would stay within a certain radius of the ballpark. I agree with council member Hurtak about not being reached out to. I think as we go forward, city person or consultant or rays people, it's really important to talk to all seven of us. We also need to listen to the community. I've been in community meetings with Nicole, so I know she's listening to the community and the rays are also listening to the community. Somebody needs to talk to all seven of us and especially those of us who don't agree, I believe in having a dialogue with folks you don't agree with even though you may continue to not agree, but at least we can maintain a dialogue. Just for the record, to my recollection, nobody ever reached out to me to ask about the community benefits agreement either. It was never part of any discussion. I would rather just get a discount on the amount that we're paying up front and then let the city allocate the taxpayer money. But if we're going to do this, let's make sure, as Nicole, as you said, we're all out in the community listening to the community all the time. It's important to listen to all of us. There's nothing in the community benefits agreement that I asked for because I was never a part of it. But I think in working with groups like the yellow jackets, benefiting the community, it makes sense because it's baseball. However close or far it is, it makes sense for the rays to be involved. That's a group that needed help. The other thing I should mention for the first time, I think at least in decades, West Tampa is really being paid attention to. And there is a coalition of businesses and neighborhoods that have gotten together and they are leading themselves, which I think is really important. It's not a city or county or rays group. They are just leading themselves. And for the first time I've ever seen anywhere in the city, resources from all over the place are coming in. The tpo is participating and three of my colleagues are on the tpo. They already approved a study to be done in the West Tampa area. That's just the beginning. Probably will be more studies and the outline and criteria for that plan was partly based on the input that johnny wong got from the community. The Planning Commission is looking to do some drill-down plans. F.D.O.T. Has already told the neighborhoods the changes they are already Planning to make that were in their long-term plan and about to make in the community. And they are listening for ideas on the future. As Charlie mentioned, Charlie lives right in the middle -- I won't give away his address but lives half a block from the bucs. In areas like Lincoln gardens, culver city and Charlie's neighborhood, little bit farther away, they still have gridlock today from the Raymond James Stadium. Maritza from Drew Park, told us a story she was trying to see her mom in the hospital during a bucs game and she was one minute late getting to her mom because the traffic was directed north and she was trying to go south. And the traffic changes just wouldn't let her do that. By the way, we have the same problem in downtown where the traffic is abnormally being sent north instead of south. There's congestion going on in neighborhoods. This is the existing situation, as Charlie mentioned, not the future situation. Also, the city is involved, Brandon Campbell is involved, from the rays playing at steinbrenner field, we have some data on what to expect in the future, so Brandon is looking at that. Harry cohen and the county have committed to being involved. TSA which works with the city on redirecting traffic, they are deeply involved. So I think a positive is that even if the West Tampa Drew Park area got half of this, there are much, much bigger resources coming to the table to do real Planning, hopefully real branding, and real transportation work in and around this area. The other thing I should mention is that in addition to this 21 million, keep in mind that assuming we approve the CRA agreements, one of the things in the agreement is we're going to take half the Downtown CRA money and put it into a fund for roads and flooding. When that money is available, which I think is in about three years, it's going to be about 20 million a year. 20 million a year is much more than this. It makes this look small. We can redirect that towards roads and flooding anywhere in the city. Also, from the city point of view, there's no money going into the rays' pockets. The money, quote, unquote, going to the rays is going into a cdd. Community development district. That money can only be spent on infrastructure. An example, let's say that they need to widen this, sewage pipeline, let's say only can handle certain capacity and they have to widen it to help, if they do that, ultimately the city will own that pipe. Only improvement. It will be paid -- everything the cdd pays for will be owned ultimately by the city, the county, or the state. None of it owned by the rays. And all that upgrade will improve -- some of that upgrade will improve the region. Some of it will be connected to it. An example, the green box in front of monte Carlo on Bayshore, the pump station for sewage for half of South Tampa. And even though it's right there, it's helping people as far away as South of Gandy. That money that's flowing through the cdd, what we need to make sure of is that, especially Drew Park neighborhood and other neighborhoods are paying attention to where the money is coming from. We need to make sure we have a dialogue with Nicole or whoever the representative of the rays is there. Keep in mind, in a week or two, we on City Council Will be discussing how to spend the school zone speed camera money. That is estimated to be up to $14 million a year. If we're able to allocate it specifically to school zones, that's going to be game changing because even in the first year we can start to really transform safety around schools. The schools in the West Tampa area can also benefit from that. My point is that there is a much larger context. The community benefits agreement is not meant to solve everything. As council member Viera said, it is kind of a consensus document. There are much bigger resources coming to the table for the broader community but in particular for the West Tampa Drew Park area. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
10:00:15AM Thank you. Councilwoman Young.
Naya Young
10:00:27AM Thank you. Councilman Viera, thank you for putting your comments so eloquently. I appreciate that. One thing that I'm not going to apologize for doing is what I was elected to do was to advocate for my district. And the needs that are required, what they need. So having, I think you mentioned the yellow jackets and belmont heights, baseball fields. We're talking about baseball. I'm not going to apologize for saying the city couldn't get it done because this didn't just happen overnight. Those communities have been disenfranchised. So if we have an opportunity to put some money towards it, I'm going to take that opportunity because that's what I was elected to do. I'm not going to apologize for that. You mentioned community buy-in which is very important, because we're talking about tax dollars here. East Tampa and Sulphur Springs are tax dollars that are going into this as well. So I'm not going to apologize for making sure they get into this agreement because this is coming to the City of Tampa, so the entire city needs to somehow have some type of benefits, so I'm not going to apologize for that. Thank you for keeping it in there. Appreciate that. Also, one of the things I've always advocated for, opportunities for youth. Our youth in Sulphur Springs and East Tampa need jobs. So I'm not going to apologize for that. They need apprenticeships, so I'm not going to apologize for that. That's what we're all elected to do. I think that taking out the community ticket, the access program and the -- with the rays, taking that out of the community benefits was right because the rays should be doing that anyway. We don't need to take our community benefit dollars and put it towards that. That's something they should be doing anyway because it's the right thing to do. I think taking that out and allocating the money somewhere else is really important. I heard Councilman Maniscalco, you did mention Macfarlane Park. When I'm looking at the neighborhood impact and connectivity fund, is there a way -- because I know we were at that meeting yesterday, and I know we heard from the community that they don't really want anything -- they love Al Lopez Park. We don't want any change. I do see there is a line item here for Al Lopez Park improvements. Is it possible, maybe we'll hear from the community afterwards, maybe to take some funding from that and move it into the neighborhood impact and connectivity fund and add Macfarlane Park as part of that. Right now it just has the Drew Park and West Tampa, but I also Carver City was also in the meeting we spoke with yesterday. Maybe if that is a possibility of having them to be a part of that impact fund if we're moving monies around. That was just one comment that I had. And then at the meeting, there was a question that was asked about if the rays do anything that is outside of the community benefits, let's say they do a breast cancer walk or a back-to-school bash or giveaway or something like that, would that be included in the community benefits or are those things that the rays can just do and not saying, oh, this is a value of community impact we did for you all? The $4.2 million. However, we probably will show impact on our website on the benefits to the community and show what we're doing. We need to be able to measure it and to show because at the end of the day, there is a story to be told here, not only with the history of the area, but how to do community benefits and also how to make improvements. When you know better, you do better, right? We've had previous community benefits that were not outlined the way that this community benefit was outlined. I will say that one was previously before you was attached to a phasing of a project. The rays committed that they did not want to do that. They wanted the community to know when the benefits would start. That's why the agreement starts in January 1 of 2027, right? So, yes, ma'am, we will capture that in the benefits to the community, but it will not be deducted from the $4.2 million.
10:05:20AM Okay. Got it. Thank you. And then also -- what else was I going to say? That's it for now. Maybe after the break I'll have more questions.
Alan Clendenin
10:05:33AM I'm going to speak and then I have Councilman Maniscalco and Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
10:05:38AM Can I say a procedural thing?
Alan Clendenin
10:05:40AM Sure.
Bill Carlson
10:05:41AM President atwater came in. We thought we would be much farther along by now. I don't know how much time he has. Is there any way to guess what time --
Alan Clendenin
10:05:52AM I would guess, Mr. Atwater, if you could plan on speaking At 10:30. I'm sorry, doctor.
At 10
10:06:01AM 30 you say?
Alan Clendenin
10:06:03AM Yes. That would be 23 minutes. We have people here.
10:06:10AM I understand. But I have at least one councilwoman that would like to prepare her thoughts. Give everybody their due diligence.
10:06:19AM I'll make mine really quick. One, thank you, Councilman Carlson. I really -- I think -- it's interesting navigating a lot of this as council because those of us that are sitting in these seats, we are privy to various different forms of information. We see things -- it's not easily communicated because we don't have ability to really be able to transmit to the entire 420,000 people that live in the City of Tampa about all the moving parts. I was talking to Jamie yesterday from West Tampa about the different things happening. All of the different elements that are coming together in this and all the different pots of money coming from different sources and all the different agencies and groups that are working on parts of this process from transportation enhancement, safety enhancements, to utilities. As you can imagine, this is the biggest project in the history, not just in the City of Tampa, but Hillsborough county. It's something that is big and grand, it requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. Every government agency, everybody that you could possibly think of is fully engaged in this and bringing this to fruition and being able to fit or be able to make the adjustments that's needed to make this successful, because I think it's really important to everybody that this is a successful project. One, obviously, those of you who know, know what my input on this has been. I appreciate the money to the connectivity, the 600,000. That mobility portion, I appreciate you all doing that. I appreciate the fact that you're focusing on the little league, because this is baseball. There's nothing more important than the kids in the community. Between the West Tampa little league, I appreciate you adding that and, of course, including the other two fields. Thank you so much. Also, I want to say I really am very much appreciative of the rays and the city listening to folks and being able to pivot and make these last-minute adjustments as more information becomes available. I think that's really critically important as we move through this big project. Again, thank you, Councilman Carlson, for highlighting. The tpo was fully engaged in this doing traffic studies. TSA fully engaged in this as well. I see that secretary hall, would you mind -- I have a question for you, too, please. Would you mind coming up? Because I think this is important. For those of you that have not heard me say this, one of my biggest concerns with -- one of those things that causes me to lose sleep at night and that is the pedestrian safety. Especially highlighted after the incident in Ybor City with the car leaving the road and going in and killing people. We have a real big issue adjacent to the current infrastructure on dale mabry with the stadium with pedestrians being corralled and cars flying down dale mabry at high speeds, normal speed limits are high speeds. Can you please highlight, one, what the current plans and what fiscal year you're Planning on bringing on board pedestrian overpasses? So there are several improvements. On dale mabry we're putting actually a wide, I would call it a trail, actually shifting it a little bit to the west, kind of off of the road. We are putting in -- and that's in fiscal year '28. So we're in fiscal year '27, so that's next year. We're putting in ped overpass not only across dale mabry but also across Tampa Bay Boulevard. So it's like an l. So that if someone in the parking lot just to the south of raymond James and you're trying to go over toward the rays development or trying to go to raymond James, you could cross on one structure or vice versa. That is going into construction late fiscal year '28, early fiscal year '29. Reason why there is flexibility there, because we are really early in determining where the utilities are. If it's clean, it will be quicker. If not clean, it will take us a little bit longer. Other improvements, Tampa Bay Boulevard, we're putting in a wide sidewalk. MLK we're putting in sidewalks connecting from dale mabry to just of East Air Cargo Road to kind of help with the connection there to all the different parking facilities and everything. Trying to think if I'm missing anything. That's fiscal year '28. I was only referring to pedestrian improvements.
10:10:55AM That actually kind of does, predictability -- in addition, I'll cover all of it. Widen air cargo road. Widening Tampa Bay Boulevard, the segment that currently has been widened which is important. We're making improvements at boy scout and dale mabry, additional turn lanes, adjusting signal timings, having the signals be interconnected with the other signals all the way down to the interstate to help flush traffic. That's all in fiscal year 28 and 29. Putting in a new signal at steinbrenner and dale mabry. That signal actually is going in starting in December. So that one is coming pretty quickly. Am I missing anything? Ped overpass, air cargo, Tampa Bay Boulevard, MLK, steinbrenner intersection, boy scout intersection. Yes, that's it.
10:11:47AM I know this will throw you completely off. Dollars and cents, could you kind of give a rough estimate of how much money F.D.O.T. Is investing in the improvements? Million.
10:12:00AM Very good. I was going to have a private conversation, but might as well do it here. On the pedestrian overpasses, I don't know how much money it would cost, and maybe it's unrealistic, you go to places like vegas on the strip and they have the escalators to move people up and down. If it's at all possible to have escalators on those, that would be -- especially on the east-west portion of it. I think the conversation we're having now are elevators. Going to a similar model that disney uses. Tandem elevator and then a stairwell. That's the conversation we're having right now. But we could look at escalators, too.
10:12:38AM A way to flush people as well so they are not corralled. When you're Planning this project, doing restrictions to keep people from crossing the road outside of that infrastructure. Literally just this past weekend in gatlinburg and they do a good job of corralling people. Putting in some pedestrian fencing in the median. Because right now, ride share, they drop people in the middle of dale mabry and they are crossing everywhere. Putting that in and working with TSA to have designated ride share drop-off right near those pedestrian facilities. Also kind of a new conversation, we've been working with HART on adding some bus bays on Tampa Bay Boulevard as well.
10:13:21AM Outstanding. I appreciate your advocacy through all of this. I thought it was important. Transportation has been something I've been really a big advocate for. I wanted to make sure that was highlighted and people understand the investment coming to the neighborhood to do that enhancement. Both for mobility, flushing people in and out try to prevent some of the stuff Councilman Miranda said about the neighborhood and traffic and also again I think the TSA and tpo were part of that, too, the studies, trying to fix that. Thank you so much. I think that was -- I have one more question. Justin, don't go anywhere. The vendor program you spoke about, Ms. Travis, how is that captured in a document? Under the small business -- I don't have my readers.
10:14:21AM As long as you tell me it's there. Somehow I missed that one. You can take an iou. It is something, specifically I spoke to patrick zalupski and Ken Babby about and they were absolutely unapologetic, like, this is something we will do. We'll hold job fairs, make sure reach out to the commercial area for businesses and make sure they were included. It was under the small business and inclusion piece of this.
10:14:56AM Very good. I have Maniscalco and then I have Councilman Miranda.
Luis Viera
10:15:02AM Point of order for two seconds, if I may.
Alan Clendenin
10:15:04AM State your point of order.
Luis Viera
10:15:06AM Dr. Atwater was going to go At 10:30. We have 15 minutes for recess. Just for information.
Alan Clendenin
10:15:13AM Exactly.
Guido Maniscalco
10:15:19AM Recess after atwater?
Alan Clendenin
10:15:21AM A break and then atwater.
Guido Maniscalco
10:15:24AM Real quick, the reason I scrutinize this project so much, born in West Tampa, live in West Tampa, before district 2, I represented district 6, West Tampa. I was president of Macfarlane Park neighborhood association before I got elected. The last class I took before I finished at hcc on the dale mabry campus. I wrote for the school newspaper. My family came to West Tampa in 1972, West Tampa has given me and my family everything. Tampa for that part. When people go why are you so headstrong on this? Because they are impacted so much. The reason I say all this I'm looking at number 7 of the agreement, shortfall remedies. People want guarantees. There's talks of broken promises, what if, what if this doesn't happen. What I'm looking at in 7.1, delivery -- shall deliver the shortfall within 12 months after that initial period. As applicable. Will not be in default. As long as it continues in good faith and then has 24 months. At the end it says benefits being delivered -- sorry, the foregoing notice and cure period shall not apply to any community benefits being delivered in the form of monetary contributions. Does that mean the $2.94 million in cash that has to be spent as cash.
10:16:49AM That does not apply to the shortfall, slash, remedy, they have to spend it no matter what. They can't get that 12 and 24 month extension because they are acting in good faith.
10:17:00AM They have to spend it no matter what. At the bottom it says strike or lock out of major league baseball. Because that freezes everything, essentially. So no matter what, the money has to be spent of that 2.94 million cash contribution, right? I will tell you that specifically when we were talking about the cure period of 12 and 24 months, a lot of the benefits in here are more programmatic than they are, but this was contemplating if we had to pull permits or needing that extended period of time, we won't need that kind of time to do programmatic cures. You are correct, the $2.9 million is excluded from this.
Alan Clendenin
10:17:42AM I need to get to us a break.
Guido Maniscalco
10:17:43AM The longer we wait to spend money, the less that money is worth, as someone mentioned earlier. Year after year with inflation, the money is worth less. When there are projects like sidewalks and culverts and all sorts of things, it costs more. Sidewalks cost ten years ago to now. The longer we wait, the less our dollar -- the less value we get.
10:18:07AM Thank you very much.
Alan Clendenin
10:18:07AM We are going to break. We will be back At 10:30.
Charlie Miranda
10:18:12AM Ask the secretary one other question.
Alan Clendenin
10:18:13AM Mr. Hall, can you stay until after, so we can ask questions afterwards?
Charlie Miranda
10:18:18AM Just one question.
Alan Clendenin
10:18:21AM I want to give Councilwoman Hurtak an opportunity to do -- let's hold off. Let's break. We have a time certain with Dr. Atwater. We'll be back At 10:30. Secretary, you'll stay with us. Okay. Very good. We're on break. [ sounding gavel ] ten minutes. In your seats At 10:30, please. [Recess] [ sounding gavel ]
10:33:32AM Good afternoon -- or still good morning. It seems like afternoon. I would like to call this meeting of Tampa City Council back to order. Clerk, would you please call the roll?
Charlie Miranda
10:33:40AM Here.
Guido Maniscalco
10:33:41AM Here.
Lynn Hurtak
10:33:42AM Here.
Naya Young
10:33:43AM Here.
Luis Viera
10:33:44AM Here.
Bill Carlson
10:33:45AM Here.
Alan Clendenin
10:33:46AM Here.
The clerk
10:33:47AM You have a physical quorum.
Alan Clendenin
10:33:49AM Per our agenda, I would like to recognize Dr. Atwater.
10:33:58AM Start with your name.
Bill Carlson
10:34:01AM This is not directly part of the community benefits agreement. We just asked him to come because we're getting so many questions about Hillsborough College. He's on a tight time frame because the accreditation people are at his school. He popped out for an hour. He will answer questions and then take off. I'll talk about two aspects of our partnership with the rays. Temporary location move and the idea about when will we rebuild the college.
Alan Clendenin
10:34:29AM Dr. Atwater, would you start with your name, please? Could I get the slides up, please? Thank you. How about the next slide? Let me give you a little history about what you may not understand, a lot of people don't know, the college really is managing about 140 acres that we're involved in, that we manage right there at dale mabry, Martin Luther King, Tampa Bay, and lois. Of that 140 acres, we currently sit on about 15 acres. On that 15 acres, we have about 650,000 square feet of facilities that we use for instruction and instructional support on that site. In that square footage, we serve about 27,000 students at the dale mabry campus every year annually. Next, please. This may give you a little better view of that. I will point out to you that the blue line is the place where we originally planned to do our temporary quarters there, right on the site. It was going to house anywhere from 225 to 250 modules that we were Planning to move into. And it was going to be right there, located right on the site while the construction was going on. I'll also point out to you that if you look at the xs on the buildings, those are the buildings that are being asked to be removed for the stadium site that's coming there. Next, please. Give you a little layout of the whole property, you can see that we are moving now to lois and Tampa Bay on the back side of the property. If any of you had a chance to visit the property, I don't think any -- bill, you may have been to my office -- but we are located right in that area. Just to give you an idea about the development for the college and where the college will be located. How about next, please. I know I'm going sort of fast because I want to give a lot of time for questions, if you don't mind in doing so. Our temporary programs, our temporary programs change -- temporary location has changed from one location to three different locations. One, we will have some mobiles on our site, and they will be housing some of our programs which I'll outline which programs will be there very shortly. We'll also be moving some of our programs to the camls center. I don't have to tell you about the camls center. It is designed for health care training. We are moving five health care training programs into the camls center. We think that's fantastic. It will be a lot better than the facilities that we currently have, believe me. And the other place we'll be going where a majority of our students will be going will be Tampa Bay park over in the -- located right there on the corner of himes and Martin Luther King. How about the next slide. This slide demonstrates to you where the nest will be on the campus on our site at dale mabry. If you see the law enforcement building, you know where the law enforcement and the tax assessment offices are, you can understand where the location of the temporary site at the nest will be. How about the next slide? This outlines the programs that are going there. We will have very little instruction being delivered at that site, but it will be a service component for our students. Services, library, bookstore, trio, the campus president, housekeeping, facilities, duplication, mailbox, fitness center, auditorium, athletics, and our public safety offices. The camls center. I won't read the programs to you again. I know you can see those. Here are the five programs that we are going down to the camls center with. One of the things that a lot of them have in common is imaging, medical imaging, as you can see, and they are ideal, I'm sure most of you probably had a chance to tour the camls center and see what they are doing. They are ideal for these programs to work out of the camls center doing that. The next slide shows you the space that we'll be occupying in the camls center. All the colored areas are the space that will be occupied and we will be sharing some of the gray areas, like on the second floor by the yellow areas, those are two general classrooms. Those classrooms will be shared by us and camls at the same time. The next slide. Tampa Bay park. The high wood property. We will be utilizing four buildings as you can see there in the Tampa Bay park area for our a.s. Program and a.s. Program and some of our health sciences program and our art gallery. It will be going there. It will be going into these permanent buildings. If you go to the next slide, this will give you a better sense of what they are. The horizon, pavilion, parkside and lakeside buildings are what we are going to be utilizing. We'll be utilizing nearly 150,000 square feet of facilities in those buildings. In order to accommodate the parking needs, we are Planning for establishing a shuttle service. I used the expression last night at the board meeting, I'm sure some of you have seen the bull run at USF, the shuttle -- go bulls -- but same concept. We will be using shuttle service because there are only 900 parking spaces designated for us at Tampa Bay park. We need about 2,000. So you'll see that students will be parking on our site, which is about less than a half a mile away. And we'll be running shuttle service to and from on a consistent basis to accommodate their parking needs coming in. That is our plan and the schedule and so forth we haven't developed yet, but it will be frequent. I can only tell you it will be frequent. Next. Just an idea of what we're waiting on. These -- I'm sure some of you may have seen these renderings. These are the renderings on our rebuild that we're going to do for the college. I have to tell you tremendous improvement over our current facilities, and most of you have been there and so forth. But this is just an idea of the rebuild. How about the next slide. To even give you even more about the rebuild and what the campus might look like after we rebuild. What I've given you here is just a draft of our relocation schedule. The nest on the campus will probably be ready hopefully by the beginning of January -- I mean, beginning of December, and we in turn then will immediately start our transition. The same thing with the camls center. We anticipate that the camls center with the renovations and changes needed to accommodate us will be hopefully completed in December and as soon as completion is done, we will start our transition. First heard projected to be completed in February, but I just since learned that they are now targeting around January the 8th for completion. The idea is simply once the spaces are completed and available to us, we will immediately begin our transition. So basically that means, hopefully, hopefully, by end of March that we are somewhere located in these facilities and being ready to offer services. Next slide. The new campus. I want to show you a draft of a tentative schedule and I'm going to highlight two things for you. One, we already start Planning for our new campus build. That is with procurement, program, design, and things like that, with the goal of having the campus rebuilt in 2030. That is the goal we're working from, and that calendar there just give you a lot of idea. Now, things change. I will tell you this, I don't want you to say this is going to be exactly it, because things change that we don't control. I always say anytime you are ordering steel, you don't know what happens sometimes. Building and new construction, I'm sure you all are aware of that. With that, here is a little idea of how the college might use the stadium for our graduation size in '29. I love the welcome class of '29 and we're in the stadium for doing that. With that, I know I was sort of quick. I took a little more time with my board last night. I'll stop and I'll try to answer any questions you have. I have to tell you, things change constantly, and we have to adjust. So that could impact our schedule and timeline on things, but this is a plan that we are working from and the plan that we are moving in to actually establish our temporary location. I'll answer any questions anyone may have about this move or anything about the college, I'll be glad to answer for you. We've been talking about the college -- for the last five days, accreditation team.
10:44:12AM Councilman Carlson followed by Councilwoman Hurtak, followed by Councilman Miranda.
Bill Carlson
10:44:17AM We're getting a lot of different feedback. I know my colleagues have questions, but one of the pieces of feedback is somehow the governor or the rays or you and your board want to destroy this campus. What assurances are there that this campus will continue and that it will be the same or better than it was before? I will talk, if you don't mind, I'll answer the last part first. It will be better. Hey, listen, we spend nearly $10 million a year on deferred maintenance on that campus. We spend about $25 million a year on deferred maintenance college-wide. So the opportunity to actually have brand-new 21st century learning spaces, I mean, I like to say this, generational opportunity for us to do that and to rebuild all at once. Some of you may have seen our new allied health building, the newest building on campus beside the administration building it took us nearly ten years to go through that process to get that built and done, and that building is about 65 or 70 thousand square feet. We're talking 300 to 350,000 square feet that we are rebuilding now. It will be a better environment for learning. I don't know where we got the idea that we were destroying the campus. It is dale mabry campus. We're moving to new locations temporarily, but we are coming back to the dale mabry campus. I don't know where that originated from, but believe me, my board, myself, any of us have never talked about dismantling or moving that campus.
10:46:02AM One of the concerns from students and professors is that this is going to be disruptive. One of the subcomplaints I was getting until yesterday was that people were afraid that students would be in portables. Then yesterday you moved them to an office building. I call it class a. I don't know if it is or not, used to be. You're moving to a modern office building where big companies --
10:46:32AM Built as one of the world's best research and training institutions for -- it's only like 10 or 15 years old. You're going to provide buses for that. Today I'm getting complaints that they are not in portables. People would rather be in portables. Can you talk about the transition and how disruptive it's going to be and how you're going to try to smooth it out? About our administrative team at the college. We've talked about what is the best way for us to manage temporary location for our students. You're right. We heard that too. Go into portable, right next to a big construction project that's going on, how will that -- will that negatively impact our learning? So we began looking about some other alternatives on what we might pursue. I would be glad to tell you, we looked at Westshore mall, for example, because it has a lot of vacant property there. But that didn't work out. Then this came on board, which is literally our neighbor if you want to think about the location. Himes and MLK, I mean, it's right on the back end of ray-jay's parking lot. So the idea of being in that community and serving that community was our goal to stay --
10:47:52AM Could you tell the public who is paying for the lease on the space? Rays. Any type of setup or move or anything like that that we're doing that -- the rays are paying for those. We're paying the operational costs. The reason why because we're going to be operating out of those buildings and we're not going to be operating out of the buildings that are no longer in service. We're paying the operational cost. Thank god they are responsible for all the setup and moves and things like that, and we're going to pay our -- we'll pay our own utility bills. And things like that.
10:48:31AM The biggest question folks have, a lot of other questions I'm sure my colleagues will ask, that we've been asked, the reason why we have you here so we can address those and show that we are serious about protecting Hillsborough College and we want it to be the same or better. Hopefully it will be a lot better. I think there are a lot of synergies. The biggest question, where is the other $150 million coming from? I know the lobbyist for the rays is here. Maybe she wants to weigh in as well. Can you tell us how the legislature works and what confidence you have in getting that additional 150 million? And talked about rebuilding the campus and they actually wanted to do our rebuild money at three different sessions, immediately caused concerns. You have to have some assurance, as much as you can from the state. I've been told several times, the state has never started a major project and not completed it. This is a major project for the state. We've already received our first -- first $50 million from that commitment from the state already. We don't see any reason why we will not receive the next allocation that's coming forward from the state and the third allocation coming forward, which will provide us the resources for rebuild. Remember, we are working on a 2030 deadline, and we can't do that without resources. As much of a guarantee we have, we have that commitment from the state, from both sides of the aisle.
10:50:05AM Can you tell us, are you able to mention names? Talk, but ultimately, we're doing our due diligence along with the rays and lobbying and getting commitments so that commitments -- commitments are sound enough for my board to tell us we can take the chance in order to go through this project.
10:50:27AM The governor is leaving soon. Are there assurances this will continue on past him? Yes, there is. No, I cannot, other than tell you that we have commitments from people who have indicated to us that they are funding this project. I can't, because as I said before, that's all in the future. There is nothing that's been done yet in the legislature, but it is planned to go through the same process the first allocation went through. But there are assurances to us that we feel pretty secure that the State of Florida has never started a project this magnitude and not completed it, per SE.
Alan Clendenin
10:51:16AM Thank you. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:51:19AM I think that's really interesting --
Alan Clendenin
10:51:22AM Real quick. Everybody in the audience, if you would please keep your voices down, we can hear you up here. Even your whispers. You'll have an opportunity to speak and express your opinion during public comment. Right now, let's be respectful of the speaker and the council as they get questions addressed.
Lynn Hurtak
10:51:39AM In five days, the state will change. If you listen to polls, it's going to change drastically. The country is going to be changing in five days. How in the world can you have guarantees from people that aren't even on -- in the legislature yet?
10:51:59AM Because the public clearly doesn't want this. You're right. There are public people who don't want this, but there are a lot of people who want this, including myself. I will just tell you this. I just don't think you can walk away from an opportunity to rebuild a campus that has a need for rebuilding.
10:52:20AM Basically what you're saying is you cannot guarantee.
10:52:23AM That's the question that Councilman Carlson asked that you didn't answer. You are answering for me you have no guarantee. [ sounding gavel ]
Alan Clendenin
10:52:34AM I was going to say. Let's do this. One question and response at a time. Let's not interrupt. Please ask your question, let him speak. And do the same. Do the same for her as well. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
10:52:47AM So, my next question is, how much is rent going to cost for the Tampa Bay park? Million.
10:52:56AM 17 million. Do you have in writing from the rays that they are going to cover the 17 million? That's operational costs. The college is going to cover the 17 million.
10:53:09AM Where is the college going to get $17 million? Through our operation revenue like we do now.
10:53:17AM How much do you spend in operations a year? Get the exact counts for you. We'll be glad to tell you what our operational cost collegewide is. I can tell you what the deferred maintenance cost is. It's 25 million.
10:53:32AM Yeah, that's what you've said before. I was just curious of the cost for the rent. Not only rent, but all utilities. Basically, what are you going to have to pay for this Tampa Bay park? I think the public and especially your constituents, all the people that work on that campus are going to want to know where that money is coming from to make sure it doesn't come out of their salaries and benefits and things like that or the ability to have students. We're not reducing programs. We're going to be able to pay our bills. We do that.
10:54:09AM Thank you. I appreciate that. But I would love to know where you're going to get that money from. The other question I have is who is paying for the shuttle? Because we know that buses cost about a million dollars apiece. Who is going to pay for the shuttle and how much is it going to cost?
10:54:28AM It's councilwoman. I do not have those figures. Basically, we are still in the process of, one, finalizing the lease. Two, finalizing the shuttle service, what type, how often. It all depends on the use. I just gave you a perspective on what we're going to do to eliminate what we call our parking issue. I do not have the costs. Once the costs are established, I'll be glad to share those with you.
10:54:57AM I appreciate that. If you look at a bus route, it costs about $6 million to run a bus route and that doesn't even include the buses. The buses are around 775 to 800 thousand dollars a bus. HART has no extra buses because we've tried that for other routes. So I was just curious where you're going to get all these resources. Service, with transportation service now that transport our athletes to games and other situations we do. I don't have an answer for that. Believe me, we think it's doable.
10:55:33AM Okay. If you do have a contract already, I would love to see that contract. I think all of us would like to see the contract as well.
10:55:44AM If that's what you're Planning on using, it would be great to know what you're paying now. I think both your professors and your students would also like that information. It's no secret.
10:55:56AM Thank you. I appreciate that.
Alan Clendenin
10:55:57AM Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
10:55:58AM Thank you. Mr. President, I've known you a long time and I always say we're cousins because we have same head. I want to say this, the camls is for the public I believe is a building at the end of south Florida, University of South Florida, am I correct?
10:56:15AM That's when they wanted to have the studies done and so forth. Beautiful building set up for exactly what you spoke about. That's number one. Number two, the building that you question, further move, southeast corner of himes and MLK. I believe owned by st. Joseph's hospital. What I'm saying is that I understand those two are positive things you're doing to alleviate the problem. Whether I agree or disagree, doesn't matter. Attendance in baseball, three teams in bottom. 15 at the top and 15 at the bottom. The 15 that are in the top when they travel, attendance goes down. The 15 on the bottom, when they travel, the attendance go up. We're one of the 15 in the bottom. Three teams at the bottom, miami, Tampa, oakland. All the three teams have been in the bottom for years. The average attendance in st. pete for the rays is about 16,000. Yankees stadium a little over 9,000. Vast difference in attendance. About 6,803 persons a game times 81 games. That is a fact. I'm not here to say that it is right or wrong. Those are the facts I read. What we're looking at here is something that is an anomaly because of the cost of doing business. Certainly if this wasn't here, more than likely, you wouldn't have a new college. Your expenditures would be less unless for some reason maintenance wasn't done. The building that we're in is the only building over a hundred years old in downtown Tampa. It was built I think in 1915. Now it's a little older, but we have maintained it kind of pretty nice, so the cost of it is relatively inexpensive year to year. Wait 30 years to do something with it. All these things are needed. I understand what the cost is if you don't do maintenance. However, is all this worth it? If you are asking me, I think it is. For one reason and one reason only, our goal is to provide the best learning environment we can for our students. And I think that by making this transition, we will basically improve that environment almost tenfold on what we are currently utilizing. I'm hoping I'm around to see this but I will tell you the dale mabry campus of my five campus, of our five campuses that we have, I think once this is completed, I think we'll see a spike in enrollment coming there because it will be a lot more attractive and students will have a lot more options for doing that. I don't even want to talk about the partnerships, apprenticeships, or the culinary or the cybersecurity, or the things we're going to be doing by doing that. Yes, answer your question, yes.
10:59:09AM Not to interrupt, culinary, the rays speak like they are going to change the world. Jefferson high school has the same program. Now through the boys club and girls club, our good friends Robinson high school have the same program. We're creating the need. The need is that Tampa ranks number two in the whole country on a daily basis, believe it or not, in hotel occupancy. They come here because they love the city. They come here because of the investment that the city has made in visit Tampa Bay and others. And they have done a fantastic job in bringing conventions after conventions, conventions after convention. In fact, they brought dolly wood here, twice as big as hollywood, big show, twice already in the last 15 years. It's an enormous thing they have done to bring businesses. Culinary used to be extinct in Tampa when I was a busboy at the columbia restaurant in 1954. Now what they have is a need for more specially trained areas, especially in the cooking area and in the prep area and things that you need to have a restaurant or hotel that's accommodating for what the people need. Having the second largest hotel occupancy in the whole country, you need what you just said. However, you're not alone. So the rays are really, when they say that I don't need that. Already have it coming from two schools teaching that. Or even when you are in high school you have an opportunity to go to work. That's what I did at Jefferson high school when they allowed me from dct. Sounds like a bacteria. It's not. Go to school for four hours and then go to work. In fact, I went to h community college, I think graduated in '75, I still remember the top three teachers I had. Dr. Bellow, lori striker, and fingers. Fingers taught me sense of logic -- striker was the one that taught me about politics in a way. Fingers is the one that had computers and you had to learn a lot of other things. I worked my you know what off because I didn't know anything about computers and still don't. I appreciate what I learned at your college. It was a fantastic time in my life that I went through it. Really enjoyed a lot and learned a lot. I want to thank hcc for the degree that I got when I was there. However, when I look at something, looking at this beautiful picture here. It's only built for 27,000 people. You know why? Because now you have different things. You have internet. You can look at any sport game you want any country in the world, pay enough to have whatever you need, the cable or whatever to see that. Before you only had a stadium. Stadium and baseball, 50, 60, 70 thousand. Now they are all going down. It's not that they don't watch it. They watch it in the luxury of the home. Even gamble on baseball. That's the way life is. Casinos are there and they even tell you the odds. It's a different world we live in. Sometimes you can vote for something on this side of the dais and sometimes you can't. I understand the position you are in. I understand who you work for. And I would be doing maybe something different, but maybe something the same. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
11:02:31AM Councilwoman Young.
Naya Young
11:02:35AM Well, the question that I did have was about the transportation. You did answer with the shuttle service. I'm very interested in seeing how that -- you know, as you all continue to work through the plan. I want to thank you for meeting with me because we did meet and you did discuss this with me that you all were looking for alternative plans, something to have the students in an actual building during this time so they are not near construction and can actually have all the materials and things they need. I know you all are still kind of working through this, but wanting to have -- you know, making sure the learning environment and experience, it's going to be changed but not so changed with just being in the modular. I appreciate you taking the time just to kind of walk me through this. But seeing it now with the pictures and even more is even better. My question was definitely around the transportation. With everything being so central at the campus and we know students will have to move, so having that consistent transportation is going to be really important, especially if you are coming downtown. We already deal with parking and things. So my ask would be that you all -- I know you are still working through it but really flesh that out so students are able to get to their classes on time and not such a heavy burden. Said this to the rays numerous times and they have agreed. The college will not be doing any transition until we're able to ensure that we can still serve our students, those 27,000 and more that come to that site. So we're literally saying we can't move out of our building for construction until we have a place we can ensure we'll continue to offer high quality education for doing that. They understand that and have agreed to that. And I think all of us are working in the same direction trying to make this work.
Alan Clendenin
11:04:38AM I see Councilman Carlson and that will be our last question for Dr. Atwater. He's on a tight schedule, so we can get him back to his real job. Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
11:04:49AM Just to try to answer or respond to the universal questions we're getting, we can't ask all the questions, but could you remind us the year you came on board as president? I've been there a little over 15 years. It's easy to remember because I came -- well, 2010 is always easy to remember. Would love to tell you when I was going to be leaving, but I can't.
11:05:12AM Some of the folks that are against it think that this governor is involved in some way in trying to change or destroy Hillsborough College. But you came under another governor, and you were appointed by a different board.
11:05:27AM Some of the board members are new and it was different, but now you have a board that I think has mostly been chosen by this governor.
11:05:38AM As I understand it from reading in the media, dan doyle junior had this idea, gave it to the rays and I guess the rays came to you.
11:05:47AM I don't know if anybody had come to you or your board before, but when they came to you, if you disagreed with this, what power would you have had to say no? what power to say no? this, that is, they are the final decision makers on whether or not we move forward with this from the college perspective. It was my job to give them a recommendation. And I gave them the recommendation to move forward because of the benefits I saw forthcoming. And we had to lay out the benefits. To your first question, councilman, I've not heard anything about the governor has not interceded to me or any of my board members about changing the mission or direction of Hillsborough College. He's only lent his support for the effort that we're doing, but never inferred that we need to close the campus, change the campus, never changing the administration or changing the board. That's all news to me.
11:06:51AM Two town hall meetings with your faculty in the last few weeks. Some of the faculty are e-mailing us. Why do you think some of the faculty still believe that either the state is trying to get rid of this campus or harm Hillsborough College in some way? That actually represent the official voice for our faculty. And they have endorsed this. They have come to me and said this is not a union issue. We understand and so forth. When they do have issues, believe me, they do come to the administration for telling us that. In all organizations, organization our size, yea-sayers and naysayers. And people have their own opinion about what's going to happen and what's not going to happen. I like to say that I think once we complete this project, hopefully five years or so after we complete the project we will see people say they think it was the right thing to do and how much better environment we have that we are working from.
11:07:53AM What is the evolution of the college? As I recall, tell me if I'm wrong, st. pete college moved to be more a four-year university sooner maybe than you all did.
11:08:09AM Sorry, if I got that wrong, set it aside. What is the future of this? Do you think that in 20 years Hillsborough College will be Hillsborough university or something? Will it be more like --
11:08:22AM -- what USF was 30 years ago. What is the future or vision for the college? Standing, growing on the ability what we do best and that's get people jobs. We're not interested in becoming a four-year university. We're not interested in becoming USF or another USF. We have a distinct role we play here in this community. Our economic impact in this community is almost $1.4 billion. We want to build on that economic impact. We do that by training people to get jobs. 85% of the people when they graduate from us stay here, almost 90% of the people who come to us come from this community. So we have a very distinct role. The idea of us offering a baccalaureate degree doesn't mean we're going to be a university. Baccalaureate degrees are offered by several two-year colleges across this country and they have -- I guess st. pete you say, st. pete offer a wider variety of baccalaureates than we do, but they have no intention of not doing the other stuff. If you look at the baccalaureate offering in the two-year colleges in Florida, it represents less than 5% of the enrollment in those two-year colleges. The other 95% are doing the stuff we do. Job training, welders, or training people to be nurses. Training people to get jobs.
11:09:47AM One other question before --
Alan Clendenin
11:09:50AM I was going to say, if you don't mind, he has 11:15 deadline. Councilwoman Hurtak has a quick question.
Bill Carlson
11:09:57AM Can I ask one more? The last one is, we've gotten a fair number of questions about the tennis courts. Tied with that, I don't know if Ms. Johns Wants to answer this, too, the question is what role does the city have in the tennis courts now or in the future? And what role does the city have per the agreement for any of Hillsborough College? I think we can be advocates but I'm not sure we have much of a role in it. We both talked about. I will tell you that our original plan was to do and remove the tennis courts. That plan has been looked at now and seeing what we can do. We have to do two things. We have to decide if we're going to remove the tennis courts. Two, we have to decide if we are going to remove them, we have to have a location that we are actually going to rebuild those tennis courts. And we don't have that yet. But it is being discussed.
Alan Clendenin
11:10:55AM Councilwoman Hurtak and then --
Lynn Hurtak
11:10:57AM One quick question. Now that the rays aren't paying for those portables, they are only doing part of the nest so you're not going to need additional portables. What, if anything, are the rays paying for you additionally now that they aren't going to pay for those portables? We're building our budget now as I speak. When we build a budget, the college as always will have a budget we'll work from and we'll see how we work. I'm sure there will be additional support coming to us just as the college will probably do some additional support because we will want to do some things that probably make the campus feel like a campus, like outside seating area, covers, things along those lines. I don't have that budget but I will be glad to share that budget with you when we get it.
11:11:47AM Thank you. I appreciate it.
Alan Clendenin
11:11:48AM Dr. Atwater, thank you for coming today. Honestly, this role in Hillsborough College and most of the issues we're talking is outside of the purview of this council. But because it's such a high exposure, this deal is the biggest deal ever in the history of Hillsborough county and the City of Tampa. A lot of interest in it. A lot of people obviously from the audience are here. People are tuning in on our online presence. I think you are coming to council today to be forth right and be able to share all that information is very important, even though, again, it's outside of our role and responsibility. But thank you so much for showing up today. And thank you for giving me an opportunity. Truly appreciate it.
11:12:30AM Absolutely appreciate that. That being said, unless there is an objection, we have a lot of people from the public here to speak, I think we should move to public comment. I do want to say -- it's kind of a segue before the public speaks, there is a lot of blurred line of communication between what this council's responsibility is and this deal and a lot of the other things happening. We just talked about Hillsborough College, that had absolutely nothing to do with this City Council. That was the State of Florida, the governor, the rays' organization and obviously the Hillsborough College leadership. It's outside of the purview of this board. There are a lot of things that we talk about, it's nice to be able to share that information, but what we have a responsibility as far as the City Council, we do laws, ordinances, and we sign the contracts that are negotiated on behalf of the city. And outside of that, a lot of the stuff is more informational purposes but not within our ability to influence. So just fyi. Just so that you have that. That being said, I would like to move to public comment. For the first five speakers, if you would line up against the wall to your right, our left, against this wall. We'll call you up one at a time. Those of you not familiar with public comment, when you come to the podium, the microphone is there. You will state your name and the light will come on. When the green light comes on you have three minutes. The yellow light, you have 30 seconds. The red light, even if you are mid sentence, you stop. Your time has expired. If you would, please, if you would line up, first five people who would like to speak against the wall and we'll call you up one at a time. When you come to the podium, please state your name. Who is our lucky first volunteer or victim? Did you guys sign in? Nobody gave me a list. Did everybody sign in? Anybody not sign in? City Council staff, would somebody please bring a list to the dais, please? For these types of meetings we normally don't do that. Fyi, we do the sign-ins for the clerk so they can compare records and document your name and get all of that correctly. But actually, I like using those lists. So we can do that. How do you guys want to do it? We'll do the list. I hear from council we'll do the list. Since you are standing there we'll start with you anyway.
11:15:33AM Go ahead, you have three minutes. I've seen a lot of things come and go that never happen. One of them was mass transit. Another city got it because they had their plans all together. Anyway, to me, this is the most exciting project that's ever put forward for this area. It's going to make not only the City of Tampa much more major city than anybody could imagine. It's something that has never excited me anything like this. I think when it's all completed and when it's up and running, eventually people are going to say, wow a million times. I'm very excited about it. They may not have won the world series this year, but they got the consolation prize by getting the stadium all together. That's really all I have to say.
11:16:55AM Thank you, neil. I appreciate that. Also a reminder, the agenda item, we're only talking about the community benefit agreement today. So when you come up, it's about the cba. Those of you going to speak, I'll call you up one at a time, it's about the cba. That is the agenda for today. It's all good, again, this is a special call meeting. It's a little different. Thank you so much. We decided we'll use the sign-in list. I'll call the first three names. Stephanie poynor followed by pippin gilbert maybe and Jim schneider. Ms. Poynor, looking fabulous. Stephanie poynor. First of all, this meeting should have been held at night because there are people who care about this, who could not be here today because they had to go to work. It makes me terribly uncomfortable to call my friends hypocrites, but I'm going to call you all that. Because there is a system that is supposed to be done for the cba. There are three reasons why, and then the fourth reason says that the exceptions may be granted only when the developer is able to demonstrate satisfactory to the city that alternative benefits exist. Now, here is the thing. Ms. Rebecca -- yes, sorry -- she said that they wanted to get past it because they had already had seven meetings with the public. Well, the problem is that those public meetings were not had to discuss the cba. They were had to discuss the rays in general. So, yeah, we had seven public meetings, but that was up until June. In August when you guys approved this, nothing has been discussed publicly since then. So let's look at a little checklist. Chapter 2, section -- chapter 2, section 2, 854 has not been followed. I want to know where is the complete community benefit impact report. That's not there. The public meetings, they weren't had about the cba. It's supposed to be about the cba. Nonbinding term sheet, where is that? It's not in onbase. The Community Benefits Advisory Council, when was that established? Mr. Robinson is here. We can ask him. Let's see, the negotiation with the cba, did that happen? I don't know anything about that? The second public hearing, didn't happen. The presentation to City Council and staff to provide an information sheet requiring compliance with the cba rules, where is that? It's not in onbase. Nobody handed it out to us today. Nobody showed it to us today. So you have all these rules that are in the code, and this isn't old code. This is from January of 2023. This is what half of you, or more, approved back then. But we're not following it. We are not following it. I really have an issue. We wouldn't have had somebody roll up in here or send at e-mail at 7:00 this morning with a revision. If this was -- you guys called the administration out for this b.s. Kind of crap all the time. You complain if it is not in onbase on Friday. Guess what, the projects list was not in onbase on Friday. Didn't get in there until Monday. Then we get a brand-new one today, which is better, mind you. But the problem is, if you had followed this policy, we wouldn't be doing this half-ass. The only reason why we are here today is because one of you is leaving next week. You want guys want to curve the vote. It's bs and hypocrites if you pass this crap today.
11:20:58AM Thank you. Pippin gilbert, followed by -- no, is no. after public comment. We don't respond to public comment. After public comment, you have an opportunity. Pippin gilbert. Jim schneider. William. Good morning members of the City Council. My name is pippin gilbert. I'm here to ask you to reconsider the demolition of the Hillsborough College campus and tennis center. I brought a packet with me today. I hope you'll take time to read the player testimonials. Behind all you the discussions about stadium, acreage and real development, there are real people whose lives will be affected. One mother wrote how she started playing tennis during the pandemic while dealing with the loss of loved ones and stress of raising her children. Tennis helped her get through difficult time and now her children play at hcc, too. Another player came to america from russia. She described hcc as part of the american dream, a place where people from different backgrounds and income levels can come together. She worries she may have to give up tennis because she can't afford a private club. There are so many more stories like these. We have seniors playing into their 80s, children learning the game, high school teams, nationally successful lady hawks and programs for people with disabilities. Nearly 1200 people use the courts every week. And people are speaking up. We have two petitions, one with more than 600 signatures and another with more than 500. Asking that these courts and this community be protected. This isn't just a tennis center. It's a community that has taken decades to build. What troubles me most is that we seem prepared to tear it all down without seriously considering whether some of the courts could stay. Hillsborough College has approximately 113 acres or more. The proposed stadium footprint is only 21.5 acres. I've included a hybrid concept showing how the stadium, some existing college buildings and tennis and pickleball courts may coexist. I'm not an engineer and I don't know whether every part of the plan would work but I think it deserves a serious look before everything is demolished. Tampa has plenty of places to eat, shop and stay. We don't need to sacrifice valuable public facilities to create more of them. I'm asking you to please work with the rays and Hillsborough College to explore preserving what we can. If the courts must be demolished, replacement tennis and pickleball courts need to be built and opened before hcc closes. Please, no gap in service. They must remain close to Hillsborough College, affordable and accessible to everyone. New stadium should be something that Tampa is proud of, not something that comes at the expense of a community that we can never fully replace. Thank you.
11:23:39AM Thank you, pippin. Appreciate it. Jim schneider, William, laura lawson. Jim schneider. Thank you for the time allotted for me. The first thing I would like to say, this is my first City Council meeting. And I am very impressed with each and every one of you. I think we are in good hands and thank you for your service. I am here representing and advocating for the tens of thousands of tennis players, pickleball players and high school athletes that utilize the HC tennis facility. I'm here to hopefully help you and educate you as to the impact that this project is going to have on our community. Most of us do applaud you for bringing the rays to Tampa. We think this is a good thing. But the overall impact cannot be ignored. It's my understanding -- I hope I'm wrong -- that there are no future plans, concrete plans to replace the HC tennis facility. Councilman Carlson, I believe Dr. Atwater said they are working on it. So that's not to me any concrete plans to replace. As to the impact that the council may have, we would like to invite you and all the members of this group to possibly if hcc doesn't follow through, maybe the city can work on that in addition, in another facility. Some of the impact that represents -- I'm a member of the united states tennis association. Hcc tennis facility is the number one hub for our activities. It represents over 26% of all usta matches in this area. Now, here is a statistic I bet you may not know. The HC tennis facility will host over 50,000 visits to that facility by tennis players, pickleball players, and high school athletes. This is not a small community. And this is not a small impact on the City of Tampa. We simply ask that the City Council work with the appropriate partners being hcc, the rays, and the county to make sure that we replace this very important facility sooner and not later. Please, I beg of you, not to throw us aside. The return on investment of your time and funding in this overall scheme of things would be overwhelming considering the people that are being affected by this. Our group stands with you, and would like to move forward in assisting you with this project. Thank you very much.
11:26:21AM Thank you, Jim. William, followed by laura lawson, roxie lackman. Good morning. I'm William bruning. I'm a resident of the county now for about 40 years. I work downtown for about two-thirds of that. I'm an architect in the area. I gave testimony yesterday or public comment over at hcc at the bot meeting. I agree with some of the remarks that have been circulated on the board This morning about the finance of give us the money today and let all the details follow later. One of the things that has happened to me over my career in construction is what could go wrong. We spend a lot of time gaming the issues and the problems that come from that. One of the things that I think about is in the agreement that was circulated this morning is it doesn't appear that there's some termination agreements but the sole statement was, well, if major league baseball goes on strike, these are suspended. What happens if the baseball team leaves the area? Right now, there are six cities in the United States of America that would love to have this team and could probably produce better attendance records. I heard about that a few minutes ago. So I think the agreement needs to have some sort of consideration from legal standpoint of what happens if the team disappears. And one of the statements that came through this morning is that the team is off the hook for future benefits. I think I heard a few minutes ago that we've already paid via the tax dollars. So we're getting our money back. So they are relieved from that if the team sells or for some reason goes in default, et cetera, et cetera. The other thing that I would propose here is the workforce component of this, I've seen games played. I've had to meet diversity hiring requirements in construction. And I would highly recommend that the 8% be more specific to the main construction of the project, that is the trades, which are what hcc's program is. We're helping trades people, not incidental people, cleaning staff, window washers, all that. This needs to go to plumbers, electricians, steelworkers, people who we're trying to build our community for future job growth here. I'm restricting my comments. You can watch me on tv from yesterday if you so choose. Thank you so much.
11:28:53AM Thank you, William. Laura, followed by roxie and Cynthia shellabarger. Good morning, laura. I'm laura lawson. The overall problem is no matter how you slice it, because this board approved this deal, the college's facilities program has essentially become subordinate to the construction and business timeline of a major league baseball team. I was at the Board of Trustees at Hillsborough College yesterday. More than 20 people spoke. Students poured their hearts out about how much they love the campus, how the campus provides -- they said it's like a real campus. It is a real campus. It has activities and clubs and the opportunities that you get from being in a place where 27,000 people attend at the same time. So these students poured out their hearts about their worries and concerns about what's going to happen to their college experience. Of course, in their cases, they are not going to be there in 2030. They are there right now. Professors also poured out their hearts and talked about how the students use all of the campus and how important it is and how they -- how it's important to have the library in the same place as the classroom and how they don't know what their offices are going to be and how they use their office, and just all of these details.
11:30:27AM If you could try to tie it into the cba. Professors poured out their hearts. They asked the board not to approve an item on the agenda which disposes of school property. But once that item came before that board, there was just coldness and silence behind the dais. It was as if the five members on that Board of Trustees do not see themselves as having any obligation to the students or the faculty they are displacing. They couldn't be bothered even to show compassion or explain their positions. They approved the disposal of college property as if it was nothing to them. So this is why we're coming to you. There is a void of leadership to address the down sides, the true real down sides of this plan. I don't know how they can be fixed. When you say you're demolishing seven buildings, that's a lot of space. And the pictures only got two in it. It's just a picture. So, please, I beg you, use your leverage, use your authority, lead. Help us solve some of these problems. Thank you.
11:31:55AM Thank you, laura. Again, just a reminder, today's public meeting is about the community benefit agreement. And public comment is taken before we vote on this. So this is your opportunity to just talk about the cba, to get your opinion out to City Council so we can consider your thoughts about the cba. Thank you very much. Roxie, good morning. Start with your name please and then Jaime Jones, you are on deck after Cynthia. That's more important than reiterating what we heard yesterday, the students, the professors and the reality of what they are being put through right now. As both a sympathetic neighbor and a taxpayer, I would like to reiterate their request to leave their college alone and ask that you do not approve the community benefits agreement that will help propel this project forward. Like it or not, you are fully complicit in this disaster of a project. The new stadium will bring a wrecking ball to no less than seven permanent academic buildings. Yesterday, as laura said, the Board of Trustees officially signed off on the removal, on their wrecking, with no mention of an exact timeline. These are not empty warehouses. These are vital spaces where thousands of students take their mandatory math, english, and foundational courses every day. But more than that, this is where the daily interactions, intellectual, social, experiential, help turn students into more complex, intelligent, and empathetic humans. And you are approving to tear down these pillars of learning. In fact, Dr. Atwater's destruction of a plan to bus students around Tampa, a la the bull run, to office parks and USF rather than bringing trailers to examine us is further evidence of the bulldozing of the community ties that bind and fiscal irresponsibility. Now, all of this would be acceptable if the objective was to improve and rebuilt the facilities as beautiful new spaces for the benefit of the students. That is not the case. This demo is planned for and on the schedule of a billionaire sports team owner and his local and statewide cronies, which brings us to the rays' proposed 60 million pay-back to cover costs which last I heard are estimated, I don't know, 240 million. This leaves HC with a catastrophic 178 million in unfunded capital deficit that will fall on us as taxpayers, the college, certainly not the rays. Simply put, the community benefits agreement you are entertaining today is a band-aid on a fiscal bullet wound, led by the offer to pay back a measly 4.2 million over the first five years. This is insulting and fairly useless. Accepting this as a solution for a minimum 238 million debt is a total dereliction of your fiduciary duty. I'm very sorry this is happening. What's happening will not contribute to anyone's vision of a communal college life. Student retention will be gravely affected by these disruptions. Their community left in tatters and will a rebuilding ever happen? I'm hearing a lot of empty promises and hopes of unrealizable visions and so are the students. Thank you.
11:35:17AM Thank you, roxie. Cynthia followed by Jaime Jones and honorable linda saul-sena, is she still in the room? She's gone. After that, joe toph. My name is Cynthia shellabarger. This community benefit agreement is a sham. As the community Redevelopment agency board, your core legal mandate is to protect public infrastructure and ensure absolute transparency. But why follow normal rules when stadium developers are lining politicians' pockets with a reported $4.5 million, including members on this very board. Look at the community college Board of Trustees. A key official voting to authorize this campus demolition is -- ayer -- and republican mark clay hollis the III, a vice president at tucker hall. He works directly under Councilman Carlson -- [ sounding gavel ]
11:36:17AM Cynthia, stop for a second. Council rules, you're not allowed to call council members out. Interest. [ sounding gavel ]
11:36:29AM Cynthia, let me speak. You are out of order. You can speak to council as a whole. As I said earlier, it's your opportunity to speak to this council on your opinion on the cba, not to call out council members. You speak to us as a whole because it is your opportunity to talk to us to be able to get your opinion across before we vote on this agreement. You can continue now.
Bill Carlson
11:36:48AM Mr. Chair, it's a point of order because she slandered my colleague and my company twice. My company is a private company.
Alan Clendenin
11:36:58AM Councilman Carlson --
Bill Carlson
11:37:00AM I would like marty to respond to this to end these conversations. Once you're aware that there is no conflict, continue to make allegations about my company or private citizens is slander. I would remind you of that. You are breaking the law and you need to recuse yourself. [ sounding gavel ]
Alan Clendenin
11:37:20AM Hold on one second.
11:37:23AM Cynthia, again, our council rules, you are not allowed to call out council members and you are definitely not -- you've been ruled out of order. You've been warned. Don't do it again. Mr. Shelby, would you like to clarify to the public the rules and reference to Mr. Carlson and I'll restore your time, by the way. Don't worry about your time. Stand by, please.
Bill Carlson
11:37:47AM I would like him to respond to the false allegations.
Martin Shelby
11:37:50AM I would like to be able to respond but not do it during somebody's time when they are standing at the lectern.
Alan Clendenin
11:38:01AM We'll continue with public comment. We'll address the issue subsequent to the discussion. Would you please add 15 seconds to Cynthia's time? You did pause it. Very good. In the microphone -- [ sounding gavel ]
11:38:18AM No.
11:38:22AM Let me state one more time. Our council rules, you are not allowed to call out individual council members -- meeting, how is that not --
11:38:32AM Cynthia, I'm not going to go back and forth. Council rules are you speak to us as a council. It's your opportunity to talk to the board that's going to vote on the issues. Please refrain from individual council member names. Thank you. Here we go. This meeting was meant to be on November 12. You moved it up two weeks so Luis Viera could be here. [ sounding gavel ]
11:38:54AM I'm sorry. You are out of order. I'm going to ask you to take your seat. Thank you.
Luis Viera
11:39:01AM May I say something, Mr. Chair?
Alan Clendenin
11:39:03AM No, no, no. Jaime Jones followed by joe toph, followed by julie magill. Jamie, start with your name, please. I really respect Nicole, like everyone else does. I'm happy that she is who we have been able to discuss our concerns with. But I don't think the rays are listening to her. She loves the phrase, when we know better, we do better, but this agreement isn't better. It is the worst of all the cbas the city has passed in recent years. It just takes one more of you. Please reject and postpone this agreement. Give more time to all of your constituents to provide input. Do not throw local control of this out of the window by exempting the rays from the community benefits program. You don't have to do it. Just don't. Do not allow the rays to take over Al Lopez Park. Strike that entire thing from exhibit a. We don't want a tennis court at Al Lopez Park. If you give them the foot in the door to do it, that'where that S Tennis Court is going to go. Make them find somewhere else to put it. Stop it. Thank you, councilwoman, for hearing us yesterday. Strike the entire line item related to al Lopez and don't give them a path to put tennis courts at Al Lopez Park. Do not accept less than 90% of this agreement being delivered as cash. 70% in the first five years and then 50% thereafter, did you read this? A 35-year timeline to deliver these funds is embarrassing. Stop allowing them to throw nickels at us. Stop. Create a board that has power. Stop giving away local control at every opportunity. Stop and read section 6.1. Put your foot down right now. Thank you.
11:41:07AM Thank you, Jamie. Joe toph, followed by julie magill, followed by surgret doss. I saw Ms. Magill. Is she gone? She left as well. Surgret, followed by Joe Robinson followed by connie burton. Army discharged service connected american veteran. I'm here on the cba as well. The thing missing in this country accountability. Asking to set aside the city's standard community benefits ordinance and accept a custom agreement in its place. The real number for this thing over lifetime is about $60 million. We also know what happens when the cameras disappear. Those promises kind of get ghost as well. We got a saying in the community, a pair of lips will say anything. Hell, I can say I'm superman until I jump off a building and drop at 32 feet per second, right. This city has already disregarded a lot of their commitments. And in the community -- and I saw this today -- you build these nice turf fields where the kids can't use them. You lock them out of the buildings and the establishments that are set aside to help them have somewhere to go. I saw it on the internet, make sure I say something. Tell the people out here all the time, come here and tell the people in their faces what you think about them and let them know where you stand. Don't sit on social media and do nothing. They love it when you don't speak to them. What I do want you to do is three things. Independent monitor for this thing with access to the rays' compliance records and not just a bs staff report, okay. Definitely don't let the team do its own homework or grade its own home work. I need a full annual report on every dollar and every commitment so the people who pay for this thing can read it and without having to do a public records request. I also need a real stated remedy for when these commitments are violated which I already know is going to happen. Promises without a monitor, report or remedy is a simple press release. We get them all too often. I'll tell you what why I don't trust this thing we'll handle it internally, recently a local judge resigned and this guy desantis gets to appoint a new one really soon. This same judge was able to resign without giving the people a reason he resigned. I understand the rules legally as well, but people need to know why the guy resigned. Several adverse rulings against me, and I need to know why he resigned in case I need the rules revisited. The second dca always run cover for a lot of the corrupted judges. I save this without any -- people, these folks are going to forever run around us in circles and they hope all you'll do is scream, shout, and cry on these public social media platforms. Greatest institution of higher learning in the City of Tampa, the university of Thomas Jefferson high school. You all be good.
11:44:26AM Bravo. Thank you. Joe Robinson, followed by Fran Tate and jade Scott. Mr. Robinson, mayor of West Tampa. Member and -- member of the West Tampa CRA chair. I'm also a licensed professional engineer in the State of Florida. I also sit on the Tampa Sports Authority board, and I'm also a member of Tampa City Council cba council for the last two years, at-large member, which means I serve on all CB boards, committees that are set up for community benefit agreement. Let me say this. First of all, let's just get to the facts. That's all I'm talking about are facts. One, this could be an inapplicable project because it is a public construction project. Any public construction project is inapplicable project pursuant to section 2856. We have projects like straz performing arts, Tampa Museum of Art, children's museum, Tampa theatre, Florida Aquarium, all inapplicable projects that never had to have a cba, but some of them do. Furthermore, one of the main things that has to be approved is, yes, the city has to determine that the developer is able to demonstrate satisfaction -- that's if this applies -- benefit exists to substantially similar value to those benefits set forth in 2853. I would advise you to look at your interlocal agreement going down the road because that's where you can recover some things. Furthermore, let me move to this. All of the meetings that were held as listed on page 3, I attended. I attended each one because I was community benefit advisory council. I knew this was coming up. Why didn't it come to us? Because they are asking for exemption, if they are public construction, they could. I went to it. I only missed one. That was at Robinson high school. The rest I attended included May 5. Check your records out. I've been following this from day one. My only concern is that the exemption that cannot really be removed and that is achieving the LEED silver status. LEED silver status, which is in section 2853, required benefits, it says that projects that receive participation greater than 30 million will achieve LEED silver status with consideration for zero ready elements. I think you need to add that they should try to at least achieve LEED silver requirements. I say that because I'm probably the only person in this room that's worked on these community benefits agreements. Rays community benefits agreement and st. pete worked on that. Rome yard community benefit agreement worked on that. JC Newman community benefit agreement worked on that through the ordinance. The gasworx community benefit agreement worked on that. Now the former rays' future home cba may be working on that. With that, I say you got a tough decision, but I don't see anything with this exemption because they probably exempt with none of this because they are public construction project.
11:47:50AM Thank you, Mr. Robinson. Fran Tate, jade Scott, Bishop Michelle b. Patty and Robin Lockett. Good morning, Ms. Tate, start with your name, please. I am Fran Tate. I am the president of the East Tampa Jackson Heights neighborhood association. I organize the crime watch. I sit on East Tampa CRA, community advisory committee. I was the chair, served two years, and now I sit on the committee. This is my fourth year. I support everything that Stephanie poynor said, as well as Jaime Jones who is West Tampa Heights president. I'm a little bit concerned about Dr. Atwater. Now, we are in the midst of election so we don't know who is going to be sitting in the senate or in the house. I don't support the rays. The community of East Tampa, I remember them coming to us to present before they even came to Drew Park, before they even came to Jamie. And they promised jobs. Mr. Bruning, the architect, I support what he said about the workforce. My concern is about the jobs, the workforce, East Tampa. I'm going to always fight for East Tampa. We are the most underserved area of Tampa. I'm going to fight for East Tampa. So if you bring the rays, if you approve this benefits agreement, the jobs, East Tampa, workforce, remember that. Each and every one of you, remember that. Thank you.
11:50:20AM Jade Scott. I think she left. Bishop Michelle b. Patty followed by Robin Lockett. My name is Bishop Michelle b. Patty. First, I would like to congratulate the rays for making it to the playoff, all the way through the playoffs into the world series. I had the pleasure, my husband and I, attending the game during the playoff. But I'm here to stand up because I wasn't going to speak, but when I hear council pitting one community against another, that's concerning, should be concerning to everyone. To call out the yellow jackets, to call out Sulphur Springs, to call out belmont heights. Whether you vote this thing up or down, do not pit one community against another. Whether you know it or not, the tax base do not stop because you are in these property areas. We still pay the same taxes. We still have to adhere to the same thing. So do not single out and let that be the reason that you're not supporting it or you're against it. But the bottom line, if this is going to go through, every I need to be dotted, every t need to be crossed. We need to make sure things are in place that are going to benefit the community, can benefit the taxpayers. Right now, you all are asking us to tax ourselves to death. But what are we getting back from that? So at the end of the day, my concern is that we don't slight communities that has been slighted forever. I was born and raised here in the City of Tampa 1508 north 8th street, 73 years ago. So I think I probably have more invested than anybody in this room because I'm not a transplant, born and raised. I've seen everything that go on from the railroad tracks pulled off of Rome Street to all the traffic coming into the community. We need to give everything a chance. One thing I do know that time bring about change. We either going to be a part of the change or we're going to be left behind. So we have to look at the future because the future is now. I have a granddaughter that's a student at Hillsborough community college out in Brandon. So, yes, we don't want any child to go through any headaches or anything to attain that education. So if everything is in place, we're talking about shuttles. I watch the children as they spoke last night about their concern. So everything need to be taken into consideration as we move forward with this project. Because it's going to impact us. But I've also seen the impact of the dollars that was brought to st. pete, for the restaurant, for everything over there. There was a very financial strong impact. The folks that came down for the game, they stayed in the hotel rooms. They ate food. They did everything. So there is an impact, financial impact to be made here in Hillsborough county. Once again, don't put one community against another. If you don't want to do it, that's what you do. Don't try to cause us any more friction than what we have.
11:53:35AM Thank you. Robin Lockett. To make this deal happen, council had to support it. You needed four votes. Now, once the deal passed, everybody represents everybody, even though single member districts are focused on that, when you vote, you impact everybody. So if you're sitting up there and because it didn't -- you didn't want it, and you didn't ask anything for your community, because it amazes me when I hear that my constituents, but do you speak to all constituents? No, you don't. No, you don't. So to say this, Carver City, anybody talking to Carver City and including Carver City in this with their traffic information and so forth? Would love to know. Yellow jackets. I went out to several meetings. Was involved and so forth. I understand that yellow jackets was displaced from the city West Tampa. They would have been in West Tampa. Just to outline that they are no longer in West Tampa. They would have been in West Tampa had they not been displaced. They are right -- they would have been in West Tampa. So me advocating for the yellow jackets is one thing. Historical -- what makes them different, historical black baseball team. That's what makes them different. Belmont heights, historical black baseball team. I'm glad West Tampa little league is involved in it. But don't again pit one against the other. Sulphur Springs -- correction, Sulphur Springs is the poorest community in the City of Tampa. So you guys can't -- when you are up there and people come out here and they are speaking on one thing and you're with them, do not dump or challenge it to make your case to deduct us from it. I got all votes about the yellow jackets. Don't bring the yellow jackets up to make your case because you are against it. That's not right. One minute you're talking about Sulphur Springs and then you're making a case against it. They are not in district 6. This tax money is money from everywhere. If you are not advocating for your constituents in your area because you are against it, that is a disservice to your constituents. So you should be widening that net to ask more people about what they want in this deal, since this deal is coming.
11:56:45AM Thank you, Ms. Lockett. That concluded the folks that signed in. We have one online speaker. I'm about to probably satisfy what the hand was back there because we normally don't do sign-in sheets. If you are here to speak and did not sign in and would like to speak, please stand up against the wall behind Mr. Doss and his Jefferson dragon shirt. Come on up. Start with your name, sir. I'm not going to stand up here demean, yell, grandstand. I want to share my thoughts. There are combined 124 -- kurt thoreson, Tampa, Florida. There is a combined 124 nfl, nba, nhl and mba teams in north america. Eight of those with a cba, not including the rays if this passes. The Tampa Bay buccaneers often welcomed here. I'm a fan of them. I know many people here are. They often visit the chamber with coo doling out awards for fans, community members. They don't have a cba. They do a lot of philanthropic work but don't have a commitment to it. The lightning who are on these monitors when council is on recess during watch parties, they are supported by everyone here. They don't have a cba either. They are not committed legally and binding to fulfill promises to the community. Three teams engage -- all three teams here, they engage in remarkable philanthropic work but only one would be bound and accountable to fulfill its commitment to the city and county. Not a specific district. The county on their side and the city here. The week after city and county approved the deal with the rays, the rays organization did reach out to the yellow jackets and began supporting them despite displacement and challenges, I know that's part of the cba, they got ahead of the curve. This was approved I think on August 27. They were there the first week of September. The parents welcomed them with open arms. There is that. This is a guarantee of specific local investments and protections in exchange for the public and neighborhood support. To claim that the public doesn't support this is egregiously shortsighted. Many folks that regularly attend the meetings voice their own opinions and are not representative of the public at-large. I've been in meetings here where whatever topic was discussed, maybe pertaining to the rays, the majority was in favor of it then. I guess it really just depends on what community subset or subgroup you're speaking to when you want to convey that no one supports this egregiously false. Fire supports it. Police, housing and hotels, speaking of which, you want to talk about visit Tampa Bay, I don't know if you saw the wisconsinites, pennsylvanians here, they all come here, not sarasota, not fort myers, not naples. A lot of it is due to, yes, Tampa is a beautiful place, love it here, but also because of the attractions we have here, including the pro teams. All these students that are going to be students of the future, I know students dual enrolled. They take classes at hcc. Not the greatest accommodations. I've taken classes there myself. I almost had a class that had to be canceled because a wall collapsed. It is in need of repair and upgrade. Thank you.
12:00:29PM Anybody else? Michael randolph, good morning or good afternoon now. You are our first afternoon speaker. My name is Michael randolph. I'm with the West Tampa CDC. There's been a lot of mention about the West Tampa Heights related to the community benefits deal. Today, I'm here to talk about the larger West Tampa community. The rays stadium deal could be the biggest economic boost West Tampa has seen in generations. It also largest displacement the neighborhood has faced. The outcome depends on whether the deal builds opportunity with the community or pushes community out. Displacement -- West Tampa already faces some of the fastest displacement in the city. Projected displacement rates include anywhere from 14 to 17 percent of the population being removed if nothing is done. West Tampa is the second highest displacement neighborhood in Tampa with East Tampa being the first. District five is the most impacted by displacement. Rent in Tampa has increased from 80 -- has increased 98% between 2014 and 2023. Nearly doubling in one decade. Black households in West Tampa spend approximately 38% of their income on rent. Lots in West Tampa have resold to developers at three times the purchase rate. Without safeguards, the rays stadium accelerates every one of these and West Tampa become the next neighborhood displaced. What a community benefit agreement modeled on the first West Tampa agreement used by the West Tampa Rome yard deal to reduce displacement by creating economic opportunity, higher wages jobs, entrepreneurship, and a pathway to generational wealth is the best path forward. Community benefit agreement is clear. Without a strong community benefit agreement up to 17% of the community could be wiped out. A strong community benefit agreement, this drops down to 7 to 8 percent. To the representative of the rays deal, we are still waiting on a date to meet with you with the West Tampa community as per our request submitted to you. I'm also really concerned that both the West Tampa and the East Tampa is not part of the table since we face the greatest amount of gentrification. Pay attention.
12:03:43PM Thank you, Mr. Randolph. Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, my friend.
12:03:49PM That concludes public comment. I'll entertain a motion to move the resolution. We can move the resolution and then have discussion.
Bill Carlson
12:04:02PM Can I get marty to respond to that public comment?
Alan Clendenin
12:04:06PM You want to do that now or take care of the business -- let's move the resolution, have the discussion and then close that out --
Lynn Hurtak
12:04:16PM I have questions.
Alan Clendenin
12:04:18PM You have questions. How would council like to proceed? One more round of questions.
Luis Viera
12:04:26PM I'm okay with that. I will move the resolution.
Alan Clendenin
12:04:33PM I have a motion from Councilman Viera, a second from -- second from Councilwoman Young. We will now entertain questions. We'll do first round. I think I heard Councilwoman Hurtak ask first. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
12:04:52PM I have a question for Ms. Travis. I think that Michael randolph's question about displacement was really good.
12:05:03PM He was talking about displacement and how a lot of the folks in the central neighborhoods are being displaced. So one thing we haven't talked about is the largest amount of money in this cba. And that is for housing stability and anti-displacement. So one of the things that we do to promote housing stability and displacement is homeowner occupied rehab. Do you know how much we spend on homeowner occupied rehab like per house right now? I don't have the answer. You're talking about for the city's program, I don't have.
12:05:41PM I did the math. The average is $135,000. If we have 1.25 million, we're going to be able to help 9 people in the next five years. Nine people. Drew Park in its CRA spent $4500 in the last two years. They have over a million dollars waiting to be used for homeowner occupied rehab. They are not using it. West Tampa spent over $200,000 in the last two years, they have over $1.5 million in theirs. So the neighborhoods right now that have the CRAs, I'm hoping that -- and so I thought to myself, okay, well, if we can't help by homeowner occupied, maybe we can help by having new buildings with affordable housing in it. CRA grants for housing creation and multifamily for the -- just citywide in CRAs, 9.7 million, 5 million, 5 million, 3.5 million, 4.5 million, and 4 million. Those are what the CRAs put in. So on average, we put in $5.28 million toward a project. So this 1.25 is an absolute drop in the bucket. We're really not going to be able to help too many people at all. So, like, we can't put more money into that? Nicole Travis, for the record. Yes, it's a limited amount of money. $4.2 million, when I did the presentation, I said the needs far outweigh the amount of money that we have to set aside. The idea for not only the housing money but for the public infrastructure money is to align it with additional resources. My suggestion would be this is me putting on a public service hat is to work with the CRAs that already have the money, make sure that we help them amplify what exists and use that money for residents that are within those districts. And use the money that is in the cba for the areas that does not have a CRA to help with housing stability. If you look at exhibit a, the language that's crafted for the displacement and housing stability, I wrote the language general enough so that we can craft exactly what we need. So while we may not be able to do $100,000 rehab for every home, you certainly can do more roof replacements. $20,000 apiece. In the CRAs we've done tree removals, cut back trees. There are different things you can do to help owners stay in their property. The one thing about the West Tampa Heights area -- well, not just West Tampa Heights, but in the area specifically, they don't have as many homeowners as they do renters. It is a big renter population in that area. So the language was again drafted in a way that we could work with the city and nonprofit agencies that have been doing this work for decades to figure out what are the needs, how can we craft the program specifically to help as many people as possible. To your point, $4.2 million, this is a large allocation out of the money that we have.
12:09:16PM Thank you. I appreciate that. I just want to say that our CFO said that it's going to be about 5.5 million that we're going to be paying off for this $80 million because of the cost of interest. So for the next 30 years, we'll be paying $5.5 million off. We could do so much more with affordable housing with $5.5 million a year.
Alan Clendenin
12:09:38PM Thank you. Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
12:09:40PM Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, council member Hurtak, well stated. First time I ever heard about all this was at Jefferson high school. I was just an attendant there. Never spoke, never wanted to get recognized or anything of that nature. That is the first time I heard the rays say about affordable housing. From what I remember and we're talking about months ago, it was my understanding that the affordable housing was going to build on their property. The second time I heard about this was also at Higgins hall, about two months ago or four months, five months after the Jefferson high school. When they were asked the question to the same individual, he said there will be affordable housing but it will not be on our property. It will be away from the property. I want to make sure that I'm correct. Are you aware of that? Being a part -- somehow the rays being involved in housing affordability in the district in the area. I cannot speak to -- let me back up by saying this. It's over a hundred-acre site. The first phase of development does not include any affordable housing in the first phase of development. That does not preclude the developer from deciding later on that if -- if the pro formas work that they can do that on the site, it doesn't preclude them from doing that. It's not a part of phase one development.
12:11:16PM But developer is the owner or developer is the contractor, which one?
12:11:22PM Developer, specific. We're talking about the rays.
12:11:30PM -- developer building -- do that work, yes.
12:11:38PM Right now, we don't know if it's going to be on the premises or away from the premises. In phase one of the development. I know that right now because that's what we're working on. It is a hundred-acre site that is multiphase. It doesn't preclude that there may be an opportunity later on. The other thing that I would say is from the -- the funds could also be used -- you all know that from -- when we have tax credit applications that come forward, they require local government match. Oftentimes, sometimes we don't have -- I said we, the city, don't have the money to do the local government match. The language was written in exhibit a to be able to do a local government match if there was affordable housing development somewhere else in the city limits and we wanted to help the tax credit application. So we are committed, housing affordability is not just a West Tampa, Drew Park site-specific issue. It is an issue across the city. And so we have maintained our flexibility to be able to help in that initiative across the city.
12:12:53PM Mr. Robinson, one thing, they talk about like there is a CRA West Tampa, but West Tampa not in the CRA. Can you say where it ends? I want to make sure it goes in the record. West Tampa CRA is northern boundary is Columbus Drive. East boundary is the Hillsborough River. Southern boundary is Kennedy and the boundary is West Armenia Avenue.
12:13:21PM In other words, half of it is and half of it is not.
12:13:25PM That's it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
12:13:29PM Thank you very much. Councilman Viera, you are next and then Councilwoman Young.
Luis Viera
12:13:33PM Thank you, sir. No, I wanted to speak for one minute, if I may, on what we're voting on. I do have a question for Ms. Johns, something I said outside. I want to briefly go over what this resolution that I move does and some of the really, really good stuff that it does for the community, things that I think we can all really get behind. Yesterday I met with some of the first responder unions. I'll be talking about that, as well as some of the skilled train unions, central labor committee, from the teamsters, ivb and so forth on the apprenticeships. Quarter of a million dollars plus then doing as best as we can to comply with the state law with apprenticeships and the preemption that happened. Doing the best that we can. It is what it is there. The improvements to public safety, including to the new and North Tampa area, really, really big. The yellow jackets and all that Councilwoman Young who is so passionate about that issue and speaks from it with such sincerity and conviction, speak about that. Great thing. Returning Citizens. Something else that Councilwoman Young fought for. Hundred thousand dollars for Returning Citizens. You talk about a community benefit. People leaving the prison system who just want to work hard for their families and put food on the table and do the right thing after serving their time. That's going to serve all the community. That is a heck of a good thing I'll stand up for. The citizens groups. One thing that I do want to cite because there was some confusion early on, on whether or not the transfer, the moving of district one for TPD and then the infrastructure improvements at the stadium that were negotiated and talked with, with Tampa firefighters Local 754, part of the community benefits agreement. They are not. These are a part of construction agreements. So if I may, Mr. Chair, I have a quick question for Ms. Johns, if I may. So with regards to these -- that's why for the public, I asked Ms. Johns to go outside. For purposes of the infrastructure improvements that would include again the moving of TPD district one, which would be a great benefit to this local area, Drew Park area, having TFR infrastructure there for a fire vehicle, something that is huge that the firefighters want and so forth, these are commitments made by the rays. These are commitments that would be solidified to put a ring on it, so to speak, through, what a construction agreement, if you could tell me.
Rebecca Johns
12:15:57PM Rebecca Johns, Legal Department. So those would be implemented through subagreements, whether a construction or infrastructure agreement or some type of services agreement. But those agreements would be negotiated with the Police Department and the Fire Department and then implemented through a separate agreement.
Luis Viera
12:16:15PM Thank you. I appreciate that. For that, because I know we all support that, and this is something that I think our first responders deserve and the communities that they serve there at Drew Park. We're going to see increased traffic and traffic volume and incidents I think need. So what I would like to see is, I don't know, Mr. Chairman, if we're allowed to make motions, if it's tailored to this issue at this meeting today. I'm not going to make motions on 28 commendations, I want to, by the way, but if that's something that we would entertain.
Alan Clendenin
12:16:48PM We're going to have new business.
Luis Viera
12:16:50PM Marvelous. I'll do it at new business. I do want us to have enforceable jurisdiction on this, to be briefed on what enforcement mechanisms we have on this because we believe that this is coming, but we have to make sure have it enforceable. That would be my agenda for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you, Ms. Johns.
Alan Clendenin
12:17:10PM Councilwoman Young.
Naya Young
12:17:13PM Thank you. I know that we are going to move the resolution, but I want to be sure that I have all of my thoughts here. We heard again about al Lopez. Is there -- can we make -- is this opportunity for us to make changes? Can we do that or to say things that we would like to see?
Alan Clendenin
12:17:37PM If it was a scrivener type of thing, I think we could probably accommodate that. What happens is, this is for the public as well, we have -- how the government structure works, the responsibility to negotiate with outside entities falls within the administration under the mayor. They do the negotiations and then they bring it to council for approval for basically an up-or-down vote. What we have before us is the agreement that has been negotiated by the city.
Naya Young
12:18:05PM I would like to add in because we have the neighborhood impact and connectivity fund. I was at this meeting yesterday, we had a representative from Drew Park, West Tampa, Carver City and Macfarlane Park who all experience the traffic, just being in that corridor in general. I see Drew Park and West Tampa, but Councilman Maniscalco mentioned Macfarlane Park and representatives from Carver City at that meeting as well.
Alan Clendenin
12:18:37PM Let me ask a question. Ms. Travis, are you authorized to make amendments for the rays?
12:18:50PM Ms. Johns, are you authorized to make this -- I would consider this kind of like a de minimis scrivener kind of addition. Yesterday, and we talked about Lincoln gardens. We have been in communication. To add it --
12:19:12PM If we were -- again, I think there is that type of verbiage changes de minimis and probably would fall within our ability if we had an agreement. Ms. Travis, I understand for the record that you're authorized to make that change and you're in agreement for the rays organization?
12:19:28PM To add those two neighborhoods into that section?
12:19:31PM Ms. Johns is that acceptable to the city and the administration?
Rebecca Johns
12:19:34PM That is acceptable to the city. I would just ask that you amend the motion to approve the resolution to state that we're adding these items --
Alan Clendenin
12:19:43PM As amended. Okay. I have a motion to add those two neighborhoods to that section from Councilwoman Young. Is there a second? A second from Councilman Carlson. Mr. Shelby.
Martin Shelby
12:19:54PM For the purposes of reciting the two neighborhoods again are.
Alan Clendenin
12:19:57PM Carver City and Macfarlane Park.
Bill Carlson
12:20:01PM We need to add Lincoln gardens just to make sure.
Alan Clendenin
12:20:06PM Carver City, Lincoln gardens and Macfarlane Park.
Martin Shelby
12:20:13PM You can do the motion to amend right now.
Alan Clendenin
12:20:17PM I think that's what we're doing now.
Martin Shelby
12:20:18PM Making the motion to amend it, and then make a motion to approve it.
Alan Clendenin
12:20:25PM I have a motion to amend the resolution to include in exhibit a neighborhood impact and connectivity fund and listing the neighborhoods to add Carver City, Lincoln gardens, and Macfarlane Park.
Naya Young
12:20:40PM Yes.
Alan Clendenin
12:20:41PM I have a motion and second. We're all good with that? All those in favor say aye. Opposed? The ayes have it unanimously. Thank you.
Martin Shelby
12:20:49PM That then amends the motion that's still on the floor.
Alan Clendenin
12:20:53PM Correct.
Naya Young
12:20:56PM I have another one. It's one word. Just one word. For jobs, workforce and local business, youth, the word youth.
Alan Clendenin
12:21:12PM That's kind of vague. Define youth.
Naya Young
12:21:20PM Yeah, like 16 and up. I think you can start working at publix at 15. Is there anywhere we can put that in? I don't know if it's apprenticeship support or -- I don't think -- under the first section under the jobs workforce and local businesses, if you look at the skill, trades, apprenticeship support, at the end of that sentence it says support for Tampa residents and we could say including youth.
12:21:58PM Perfect.
Alan Clendenin
12:21:58PM Does the rays' organization accept that addition?
12:22:02PM Is the city okay with that addition?
Rebecca Johns
12:22:06PM The city is agreeable to that addition.
Alan Clendenin
12:22:10PM I have a motion to change exhibit a, skills, trades, apprenticeship support by adding to the last sentence, Tampa residents including youth. I have a second from Councilman Carlson. All in favor say aye. Opposed? The ayes have it unanimously.
Naya Young
12:22:27PM And then also, you mentioned it already, but the Returning Citizens workforce reentry, I'm very happy that that is in there. Thank you. I think that's going to be great opportunities for people that are returning. Thank you for making sure that was in there.
Alan Clendenin
12:22:45PM Thank you. We have a motion and a second.
Luis Viera
12:22:50PM I have to do this. May I, Mr. Chairman? I have a question. I'm going to explain why I'm doing this. Out of that $200,000 -- and you're like, what's he doing -- that's for TPD, would it be a substantial change to add in one sentence that goes, out of this $20,000 shall --
Alan Clendenin
12:23:11PM 200,000.
Luis Viera
12:23:13PM The $200,000 for TPD, that is there for New Tampa -- again, these are funds that I advocated for. I'll state later why I'm doing this, if this gets a welcome. That $20,000 of this will go to a citywide gun violence prevention and victims of crime assistance. Is that too much?
Alan Clendenin
12:23:36PM I think that's outside.
Luis Viera
12:23:37PM I'll do a separate motion of that and say why later. Withdrawn.
Alan Clendenin
12:23:44PM I have a motion and a second. I'll call for a vote. Roll call, please. On the amended resolution.
Bill Carlson
12:23:54PM Can I make one --
Alan Clendenin
12:23:56PM Okay. Cancel the call for a vote. Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
12:23:59PM I want to say again I'm going to vote yes on this. It's not a perfect document. If we had more time, there are more things I would edit. But I thank Nicole for listening to the community yesterday. Let's not forget at the beginning, huge substantive changes made from listening directly to the West Tampa Drew Park neighborhoods yesterday. So those were directly made based on Nicole, who is the representative of the rays, listening yesterday. Council member Young just added some additional changes to make it better. And other folks had comments before. I just want to remind everybody what I said in the beginning. 21 million over 35 years is less than a million dollars a year. I found that the rays, their lobbyists and others around all the different agencies I mentioned before, the state, the county, other agencies are all being incredibly collaborative, more than I've ever seen, on trying to bring resources to the entire community but in particular to West Tampa, Drew Park. I just wanted to explain why I'm voting yes. The last thing I'll ask is that the major criticism we had from the community was that there was not enough time to review this especially the changes that were made yesterday for this morning. I would ask, we have maybe nine or ten more documents coming, I would ask the administration and the rays, please give it to us more than a week in advance and definitely not at the last minute. Ideally a couple of weeks in advance so the community can weigh in and there will be less conversations if we've listened to the community in advance. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
12:25:36PM Thank you. Clerk, would you please call the roll? Is we are voting on the amended resolution.
Guido Maniscalco
12:25:43PM No.
Lynn Hurtak
12:25:44PM No.
Naya Young
12:25:46PM Yes.
Luis Viera
12:25:47PM Yes.
Bill Carlson
12:25:48PM Yes.
Charlie Miranda
12:25:49PM No.
Alan Clendenin
12:25:51PM Yes.
The clerk
12:25:53PM The motion carried with Maniscalco, Hurtak, and Miranda voting no.
Alan Clendenin
12:25:57PM Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes the on-agenda items. New business. Mr. Shelby. Go ahead.
Martin Shelby
12:26:14PM If we can, in response councilman Carlson's request, I would like the opportunity with council's indulgence to have a brief colloquy with him to resolve the issue that has been brought before council. Mr. Carlson, you are familiar with the concept of voting conflict, is that correct?
Bill Carlson
12:26:35PM Yes.
Martin Shelby
12:26:36PM You have abstained in the past, is that correct?
Bill Carlson
12:26:39PM Yes, from other issues.
Martin Shelby
12:26:41PM From other issues. With regard to the rays' issues, you have participated pursuant to Florida statutes and you did vote.
Bill Carlson
12:26:50PM Yes.
Martin Shelby
12:26:51PM Let me ask, if I can, for those who are not familiar, the voting conflict section, section 112.3143 of Florida statutes. It requires someone, an elected official must abstain from knowingly voting on a measure that would inure to the special private gain or loss of a principal by whom he or she is retained to the special private gain or loss of a relative or to the special private gain or loss of a business associate. That being said, I'm going to direct your attention to the company by whom you are retained. You are a principal of that company, correct?
Bill Carlson
12:27:37PM I'm one of five shareholders.
Martin Shelby
12:27:40PM Okay. It is a public relations firm.
Bill Carlson
12:27:43PM Yes.
Martin Shelby
12:27:45PM Does that business do business with the city?
Bill Carlson
12:27:50PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:27:51PM Does it lobby the city?
Bill Carlson
12:27:52PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:27:54PM Does it do business with Hillsborough College?
Bill Carlson
12:27:57PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:27:59PM Does it lobby Hillsborough College?
Bill Carlson
12:28:01PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:28:05PM Does it lobby?
Bill Carlson
12:28:06PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:28:08PM Does that business do business with the rays, the Tampa Bay Rays?
Bill Carlson
12:28:14PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:28:14PM Does it lobby on behalf of the Tampa Bay Rays?
Bill Carlson
12:28:17PM No. we also don't work with any affiliates of Hillsborough College and we don't work with affiliates of the rays.
Martin Shelby
12:28:22PM Thank you very much. That being said -- [ sounding gavel ]
Bill Carlson
12:28:27PM I also would say, let me ask this question, is it illegal or unethical to take campaign contributions from something that we may be voting on?
Martin Shelby
12:28:40PM Two separate questions.
Bill Carlson
12:28:41PM Organization may be related --
Martin Shelby
12:28:43PM That's two separate questions. What you do is you do raise a very interesting point that I do want to emphasize. That the voting conflict relates to specifically the matter upon which you are voting. And that's what is looked at as to whether a conflict exists at the time of the vote. Not prospectively, not in the past, but the matter before you on the vote. So that being said, your campaign contributions are covered by a totally separate chapter of Florida statutes, 104, 106, whatever the case may be, and campaign contributions do not factor into the Ethics Commission's decisions that are governed by other statutes other than chapter 112. That being said --
Bill Carlson
12:29:32PM I say that because my major opponent has taken -- reported in the media -- $410,000 from the rays and their affiliates. I have taken zero in any form. [ sounding gavel ]
Alan Clendenin
12:29:45PM Cynthia, you are out of order. If you interrupt again, I'll ask you to leave chambers.
Bill Carlson
12:29:51PM There is a pay for play media outlet. My firm works with a lot of nonprofits, and we started a lot of nonprofits. One of them, for example, is cafe con Tampa. They also have not given to any of the nonprofits or companies that I'm aware of that my firm works with. But we've helped start a number of nonprofits. And there is a pay for play media outlet that's tried to smear me related to one of the nonprofits. And none of the nonprofits -- I don't operate the nonprofits. I'm not on the board. But my firm supports many nonprofits. And we're sponsors of and members of many organizations. To my knowledge -- not to my knowledge, but my firm and I and my colleagues are not directly involved in anything related to getting paid for Hillsborough College or the rays, and I'm not in any way taking campaign contributions from any of them. But if I did, it's not unethical, as you just said. I've chosen not to do it. I don't appreciate being accused of doing something that I haven't done.
Martin Shelby
12:30:56PM This being the case, we talked about you as a principal. Let's talk about any relative. Are you aware to your knowledge of any relative would answer that would fit that definition of a voting conflict, that would inure to the special private gain or loss of one of your relatives?
Bill Carlson
12:31:11PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:31:13PM Let's get to business associate. Reference was made to a trustee at Hillsborough community college, are you familiar with that.
Bill Carlson
12:31:20PM Yes.
Martin Shelby
12:31:21PM That trustee I understand is -- well, let me rephrase that. That trustee works for or with the Tampa Bay Rays -- excuse me, withdrawn. That was not meant to be said. Sorry. What I meant to say does not work -- I'm sorry. I was distracted. No. my point is this, please. Let me say it. With regard to that trustee, I want to read to you the definition of what a business associate is. Because contrary to what may have been discussed publicly, the term business associate is specifically defined in the code of ethics, which is what Florida commission on ethics looks to with regard to a voting conflict. I'm going to read you the definition and then ask you some questions. I'm reading from chapter 112, 312 of Florida statutes titled definitions. Sub-4, business associate. Means any person or entity engaged in or carrying on a business enterprise with a public officer, public employee, or candidate as a partner, joint venturer, corporate shareholder where the shares of the corporation are not listed on national or regional stock exchange or co-owner of property. I'm going to direct your attention to the person who serves as trustee at Hillsborough College. With regard to you at tucker hall is that person a partner?
Bill Carlson
12:33:14PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:33:15PM Is that person a joint venturer?
Bill Carlson
12:33:18PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:33:19PM Corporate shareholder where the shares of the corporation are not listed on national or regional stock exchange.
Bill Carlson
12:33:24PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:33:25PM Is that person co-owner of property?
Bill Carlson
12:33:27PM No.
Martin Shelby
12:33:29PM Then under section 112312 for the voting conflict statute, that person is not defined as a business associate. Now, all these facts being said, Councilman Carlson, on previous votes you have asked my opinion as to whether a conflict exists, is that correct?
Bill Carlson
12:33:49PM Yes.
Martin Shelby
12:33:51PM Well, I have offered you the opinion in private and now I have the opportunity to tell you my opinion professionally in public. Let me just put this matter to bed, if I can, please. After my analysis of the facts as I found them to be, as municipal attorney for over 20 years of experience, who has been familiar with chapter 112 for over 30 years, and as a Florida bar board specialist, board certified in city, county, and local government law, and after my consultation with attorneys on the staff of the Florida commission on ethics, it is my professional opinion, Councilman Carlson, that there have been and there are not voting conflicts associated with the matters today, and matters thus far relative to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Bill Carlson
12:34:49PM Or Hillsborough College.
Martin Shelby
12:34:50PM Or Hillsborough College, that is correct.
Alan Clendenin
12:34:53PM Honestly, thank you, Mr. Shelby, for that good work. Not just for a single member of council, but for all of us, I think it's a good reminder for us all what the statute is. I appreciate you doing your home work --
Bill Carlson
12:35:07PM Can I make one more? Just to wrap this up, one of the reasons I ran for office is to bring ethics back to the city because I was unhappy about some of the ethical things that were happening here. When I first joined the city, marty and I went to the commission on ethics and got an opinion on what my firm can and can't do. My fellow shareholders have made huge financial sacrifices over the last eight years because we have preemptively recused ourselves from projects and not taken on clients and even fired clients that we thought may potentially have a conflict. I hold myself and my firm to the highest ethical standards. I appreciate the public asking questions. But if somebody has a question, please ask me. But now we've answered the question and I would appreciate not continuing with this. If anybody in the public wants to have a constructive conversation, dialogue about Hillsborough College and how to protect the faculty and students in the community, I'm happy to have that conversation. I just don't like being slandered. Thank you.
Alan Clendenin
12:36:08PM Councilman Viera.
Luis Viera
12:36:09PM Thank you very much, sir. A couple of things, I took Mr. Shelby outside to express some concerns, which is we need to have universal rules to not put our chairman in a bad position on citation of council members. I'm not going to motion for that, but council members, we need to take care of that because we're going to get in trouble. It's all I'm going to say. There's got to be universal rules on that.
Alan Clendenin
12:36:36PM We have the rule. It has to be universally applied.
Luis Viera
12:36:39PM Yeah, in other words if somebody goes up there and says Luis Viera walks on water, let's go give him a key to the city. I'm not going to object. We put you, sir, in a bad position. I just think we need to do something of that nature, I would say.
Alan Clendenin
12:37:00PM I agree on that. Some of this discussion like we had a couple of weeks ago with the conflict between one person and myself, part of it is because you try to be -- you try to let things go. Then where do you draw the line of being authoritarian versus enforcing rules and having open and honest dialogue. It's difficult. One other thing also we have to be much more diligent about being recognized by the chair before you speak. I've probably been a little too relaxed on that as well because of that open dialogue stuff. Honestly, especially with the really meaty issues, I think we're just going to have to pull it back a little more than we have in the past.
Luis Viera
12:37:46PM Admission on my part because I'm not judging anybody, seven years ago somebody called me out. I said I think Guido was the chair. Objection, you can't -- it was because he was saying something negative. I'm not judging --
Alan Clendenin
12:38:01PM I don't know allow the claps because I don't allow the boos. Same kind of thing. New business, Councilman Carlson, any new business? Councilman Viera, I know you do.
Luis Viera
12:38:10PM I have a couple, if I may. I'm going to make the motion. I don't have the calendar here with me. I apologize. My motion is for the moving of Tampa Police Department district one and the Tampa fire infrastructure that has been promised at the rays stadium site, a briefing by City staff in person on the proper method to memorialize this through an agreement that is binding on the rays. And so, therefore, what are we in? November almost. Let's say how about the third week of January?
Alan Clendenin
12:38:48PM Do we have a date?
Luis Viera
12:38:53PM In-person report. Something in January. If staff needs more time. 21st if I may.
Alan Clendenin
12:39:01PM I have a motion from Councilman Viera. A second from Councilman Maniscalco. I agree. I spoke with nick stocco. I said I would support this as well. Motion, I have a second. All in favor, aye. Opposed? Ayes have it unanimously.
Luis Viera
12:39:14PM And then -- today, I didn't put this with it because I probably thought I was out of line a little bit. Today is the three-year anniversary of murder of harrison boonstoppel. That's why I mentioned that. I'm going to make a motion for, if I may, in the first week of February, Suling, I apologize, I don't have that, we get a briefing on what -- I know we have programs to support victims of crime on things like gun violence and so forth, but a briefing in person from City staff, whoever it may be on existing programs we have to support victims of crime and prevention of gun violence in the City of Tampa. So that's what it is, in-person briefing again.
Alan Clendenin
12:40:01PM February 18. I have a motion from Councilman Viera for in-person report on February 18. Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
12:40:08PM I appreciate what he brought up and understand what he's doing. Hope you can do that in the legislature because that's where it comes from. You have a hard battle. Difficult battle.
Alan Clendenin
12:40:16PM I have a motion from Councilman Viera. Second from Councilman Maniscalco. All those in favor aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Thank you. Anything else?
Luis Viera
12:40:24PM No, sir.
Alan Clendenin
12:40:24PM Councilwoman Young.
Naya Young
12:40:26PM I have one motion. I move to make a motion to present an off-site commendation on November 8, 2026, celebrating the 35th pastoral anniversary of reverend Dr. Bartholomew bank senior of st. John progressive church.
Alan Clendenin
12:40:44PM Motion from Councilwoman Young. Second from Councilman Maniscalco. All in favor, aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. I thought you only had one.
Naya Young
12:40:54PM Also, just today was an interesting day. But necessary and required because that is what we are all elected to do. I've said this before. It's only been a year since I've been here. Yesterday. Yesterday was a year.
Alan Clendenin
12:41:13PM It seems so much longer.
Naya Young
12:41:15PM I know. In that year there is a lot that has happened. But I've said it before I think, you know, as council members, you know, we all do a good job and we all do our due diligence when it comes to these, you know, very serious big matters that we have to take on. But what I will say is that I think one thing that is not necessary or required is disrespect. Unnecessary comments, especially once we go to break or once the cameras stop rolling. We may not all agree on everything that we discuss here, but I do think that one thing we all could and should agree on is mutual respect because at the end of the day, we are all here to do a job and we have to respect each other. With that being said, I will not be disrespected and I'm not going to be bullied by anyone. I've said that, but I need to make it very known. We are here to do a job and we are here to be adults. And we need to do that. Let's make sure we are consistently being respectful of each other no matter what our views on when we are up here to vote. I think that is an important part of this process and it's what will keep us working together so we can make the city better.
Luis Viera
12:42:45PM It was based on hers. I wanted to piggy back. I know what Councilwoman Young was talking about. Afterwards I gave her a photograph of the Obama family and the night when president Obama won the election in November 2008. I said this before, Councilwoman Young, you have my regard. You are a person with a big heart. You are a bleeding heart. To me that is a compliment. One day you will be state Senator Young or congresswoman young, Mayor Young. You have a big heart with a big future. You have all of our respect and you certainly have my respect and regard. You are a good person. I wanted to stand by you for that. God bless you.
Alan Clendenin
12:43:27PM Thank you. Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
12:43:29PM No.
Alan Clendenin
12:43:30PM Councilman Maniscalco.
Guido Maniscalco
12:43:30PM Thank you for your words. I have tremendous respect for you. You brought it up. I was going to wish you a happy anniversary. Came up on facebook memories. I enjoy working with you. I'm glad you are here. I was going to offer a motion to give you a commendation, Luis, since this is your absolute last meeting here. But you had such a send-off the other day that was well deserved. Luis palooza. That's it. Happy early birthday to Charlie Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
12:44:03PM I'll be 26. How about 86? About 166.
Alan Clendenin
12:44:08PM You look great for a hundred.
Charlie Miranda
12:44:10PM So do you, sir. You got there before I did.
Alan Clendenin
12:44:10PM Councilman Miranda.
Charlie Miranda
12:44:17PM I would like to make a motion, if possible. I'll explain in a minute. I would like to make a motion to continue the first reading item of number cm 26-27741, the charter amendment from November 6 regular session to November 19, 2026, regular session and move the second reading of the item from November 19 to December 3. The reason for this, we need more time to discuss all this.
Guido Maniscalco
12:44:42PM I'll second it for discussion. Is this for the language that goes on the ballot from the charter -- when is the deadline of getting it on the ballot?
Martin Shelby
12:44:55PM Mr. Miranda, your motion is to continue an item from what date?
Charlie Miranda
12:45:01PM From November 5 to the 19th for first reading and the second reading would be on December the 3rd instead of November the 19.
Martin Shelby
12:45:09PM Martin Shelby, City Council attorney. With regard to that, I'm going to refer to resolution 2025-1044 where you set forth the timeline. You asked specifically Councilman Maniscalco the final deadline.
Guido Maniscalco
12:45:34PM Does this throw off the timeline?
Martin Shelby
12:45:37PM Conceivably, yes.
Alan Clendenin
12:45:40PM We worked through you this really --
Martin Shelby
12:45:44PM If I can for the purposes of council's edification and reminder, and Mr. Chairman, you are very familiar with the process of creating this ordinance because it was specifically your direction to set forth this timeline, include it in the resolution, have it adopted by council, and then stick as closely and humanly possible to do so. You have up until this point. As I'm reading from it, November 5 is the first reading of the ordinance by City Council. November 19, 2026, second reading and adoption of the ordinance. In this case, by ordinances of City Council. Next bullet point, after the adoption, if that's the case with each of the ordinances, ordinance forwarded to the mayor -- excuse me, ordinance forwarded after the mayor's signature to the Supervisor of Elections for spanish translation and preparation of the March 2027 ballot, so there is a physical step of when the ordinance is adopted, it is presented to the mayor and the mayor has 14 days to respond back to City Council with the reasons for a veto, if any. And then charter requires it for council to reconsider that at the next scheduled City Council regular meeting, not a special call, not a workshop, whatever. So that being the case, and Mr. Chairman, you are very familiar with this because your first question is when is the final deadline for submission of language to the Supervisor of Elections, and that is January 4th of 2027. Now, mind you, your last meeting after you adopt it, it says in your resolution here, December 3rd or December 17 of 2026. Dependent on the date of a potential mayoral veto, reconsideration of the ordinance by City Council requiring a two-thirds vote for override. Now, if you miss for whatever reason the 3rd or the 17th, it's gone because your next regular meeting is after January 4th of 2027. I guess my question would be, this is a one-week motion. It's scheduled to come back next week on the 5th, and Mr. Tinkler is scheduled to appear and present them to council. Here is the issue. If at the first reading you want to make changes, you're only opportunity to make changes is at that meeting and then it would come back then on the second meeting, and that would use up one of your weeks, and that would be it. If there's any -- I just want to bring this to council attention, because if for whatever reason with the potential of mayoral veto, if council does not reconsider -- make it by that date, whatever council has done up until this date will be lost until some future council takes up the issues.
Alan Clendenin
12:49:01PM I'll take a little bit of chair privilege because I was so involved with what Mr. Shelby said in the creation of the schedule. It didn't come from me. Came through, again, direction, we started with craig latimer, Supervisor of Elections, and we worked our way down. We did that through the advice and counsel of multiple entities, including Mr. Shelby's advice and other subject matter experts in this field. Our schedule is relatively tight and as Mr. Shelby Highlighted, it doesn't provide a lot of room. Again, we gave a lot of front end time to get to this point, but now we're in the real mechanics of getting this thing through. So Councilman Viera.
Luis Viera
12:49:42PM Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of thoughts on that. We could, again, if it fits, Mr. Shelby, we could have it on the 5th for a discussion for potential changes. And I'll give two ideas on that, by the way, that I thought about in the meanwhile. One that somebody talked to me about from out of the city. Another one something in a discussion with somebody. But on the 19th, if I'm correct, something that could support this as a rationale, I believe that is the day when my replacement, whoever he or she is, is sworn in. That does give district 7 a bite at the apple so to speak on this, to the extent it's necessary.
Alan Clendenin
12:50:24PM We factored that into the equation that they would have the final vote.
Luis Viera
12:50:29PM Second reading. That's of limited relevancy. I would say so in support of discussion on the 5th, having this for first reading on the 19th, two very brief issues, do we list financial impacts on these charters. I don't know. I don't know what the law is in that regard. Some will cost taxpayers money if we want transparency. Something to think about. Another thing, somebody mentioned this to me and I voted for this, by the way, is for the executive order override, if it's something of a public emergency, designated as such, is there an exception written in? We just went through covid a couple of years ago. Things to think about. I say that because something that could be discussed on the 5th in further support of what Councilman Miranda is saying.
Martin Shelby
12:51:14PM If I can, Mr. Chairman, my recommendation would be then council always has the ability to amend its ordinances. It always has the ability to continue its ordinances with direction to staff. You have it on your calendar right now for the attorney to come back and supposedly in a timely fashion to have those ordinances presented to council. Certainly, you would have the opportunity to decide what you wish. If for whatever reason, I don't want to go into the machinations of it, obviously, a mayoral override requires the support of five council members, not the majority or supermajority of those present. But five votes to survive a mayoral veto. An ordinance that goes to the mayor with less than five votes may or may not, and even if it does -- exactly. What I'm asking council to consider, certainly, you retain full control. What I'm concerned about council, unintended consequence that allows you to lose control of the calendar over which you will have no control.
Alan Clendenin
12:52:22PM I have the same concern.
Charlie Miranda
12:52:25PM I'm not trying to defend myself or anybody else. Mayoral veto, only been one that I know of since 1976. That was on the firefighters pay raise, what year, 74 or 75, and that was vetoed -- the mayor vetoed it and the council overrode the mayor on five votes. And they called the -- that is the only veto. I don't know how many thousands of meetings the council sat in chambers of these things. The probabilities of these happening.
Alan Clendenin
12:53:03PM I think when I recognize Councilwoman Hurtak, she will correct the record.
Lynn Hurtak
12:53:07PM Yeah, she did this the last time we put stuff on the charter. Yeah, she did.
Charlie Miranda
12:53:12PM I'm sorry. I apologize.
Lynn Hurtak
12:53:14PM So four years ago.
Charlie Miranda
12:53:19PM So there's two then that we know of. Maybe there's more.
Alan Clendenin
12:53:22PM Again, I have great concern about changing -- this was really worked on -- there is a lot of time spent on this from a lot of different entities. I have a motion. I have a second, all those in favor -- this is a motion to continue the item.
Guido Maniscalco
12:53:41PM I seconded for discussion.
Luis Viera
12:53:43PM Five words if I may? It is my understanding by voting yes for this that we are still on train for veto. So that's all. That's it.
Martin Shelby
12:53:50PM This is to continue.
Alan Clendenin
12:53:53PM The motion from Councilman Miranda is to continue which, again, kind of goofs up the schedule.
Bill Carlson
12:54:04PM I want to add, I don't know if last time or time before, administration blamed us for rushing things at the end. I'll vote no because I think we need as much time as possible.
Martin Shelby
12:54:13PM Normally, correct me if I'm wrong, madam clerk, a motion to continue at this point removes it from next week's agenda, so the ordinance -- so Mr. Chairman, you have to suspect, cancel the Charter Review Commission attorney to come in.
Alan Clendenin
12:54:35PM There's consequences.
Martin Shelby
12:54:42PM And, by the way, what hasn't been factored into, publication. You might be meeting all the mile posts with regard to the meeting, but you will not meet the mile post with regard to publication. Without publication, then there is --
Charlie Miranda
12:55:02PM How is it impossible for publication?
Martin Shelby
12:55:05PM Ask the clerk.
The clerk
12:55:06PM With your motion, I would ask that you request, if it's rescheduled to December 3rd for the second reading, that publication be taken care of by November 25th -- sorry, November 18 is the latest. November 18.
Charlie Miranda
12:55:34PM November 18.
Alan Clendenin
12:55:35PM We won't have second reading until the 19th.
Charlie Miranda
12:55:39PM You can't do it.
Alan Clendenin
12:55:41PM One of the other complexities, we also have to get it translated to spanish, which is part of the timeline.
Charlie Miranda
12:55:48PM Can I do that. [ laughter ]
Alan Clendenin
12:55:49PM We don't want all the swear words in there.
Bill Carlson
12:55:52PM He said spanish, not West Tampa.
Charlie Miranda
12:55:55PM I withdraw the motion. That way everybody is happy.
Alan Clendenin
12:56:00PM Withdraw from the maker and second. There is no motion on the floor. Anything else, Councilman Miranda?
Charlie Miranda
12:56:10PM No. I want to thank members for making this move, changing this thing from November 12 to today. I found out exactly where I'm at.
Alan Clendenin
12:56:21PM Councilwoman Hurtak.
Lynn Hurtak
12:56:24PM Recognize the chair.
Alan Clendenin
12:56:26PM I have two motions. One, I make a motion to request staff to bring a resolution to City Council on November 5, 2026, pursuant to pending ordinance doctrine to declare the city's intent to adopt amendments to the Tampa Comprehensive Plan land development code and city code related to data centers and direct staff to prepare and submit proposed amendments to City Council. Direct staff to immediately cease accepting, processing land development applications for data centers. Direct staff to prepare an interim development control moratorium ordinance on data centers so that staff can explore and develop comprehensive plan amendments, land development code, and city code language relating to all aspects of regulations of data centers. Schedule a public hearing on the moratorium ordinance for December 3, 2026 at 5:01 p.m. and January 7, 2027, At 10 a.m. and direct the clerk to advertise the public hearings for the moratorium ordinance.
Lynn Hurtak
12:57:26PM I have a motion from Chair Clendenin. A second from Councilman Miranda. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
Alan Clendenin
12:57:33PM Thank you. I'd also like to make a motion to amend the commendations that we already approved for Charter Review Commission members to include our wonderful tonia wilcox and dharsh saravana because of their work.
Lynn Hurtak
12:57:47PM Absolutely. I have a motion from the chair. A second from Councilman Maniscalco. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
Alan Clendenin
12:57:55PM Councilman Carlson.
Bill Carlson
12:57:56PM We kind of said this earlier, but best wishes to council member Hurtak's mom. And thank her for loaning us Councilwoman Hurtak today.
Alan Clendenin
12:58:07PM Before I close it out, I would be remiss to say, again, biggest deal in the history. There are so many staff, Rebecca Johns and so many of City staff part of this process. Our city attorney staff, obviously, the county commission folks as well. There's been a lot of people, whether you agree or disagree, you can't underestimate the amount of effort folks have put in. You may not like the final product, but know that -- I mean, I know Rebecca Johns has been working morning, noon and night on this stuff. And the county commission staff as well. Julia Mandell and those folks, a lot of energy put into this and I want to say thank you to them for the amount of time and energy they spent working on this issue. With that being said, if there's no --
Charlie Miranda
12:58:56PM Like to receive and file the documents.
Alan Clendenin
12:58:57PM Motion to receive and file documents from Councilman Miranda. Second from Councilman Maniscalco. All in favor, aye. Opposed? Ayes have it.
Martin Shelby
12:59:04PM Very briefly discuss a request by the public because it comes up sometimes very often and people need to know that.
The clerk
12:59:12PM Normally, when we receive e-mail correspondence, we only file it into the record when it is a quasi-judicial proceeding. I did receive a request from Mr. Alfonso Lopez requesting that his e-mail be submitted for the record for today's meeting.
Alan Clendenin
12:59:29PM Motion from Councilwoman Hurtak to receive and file the e-mail correspondence. Second from Councilman Maniscalco. All those in favor say aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. Anything else? Motion to receive and file? Motion to receive and file from Councilman Maniscalco. Second from Councilman Miranda. All those in favor aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. We are adjourned. [ 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. CM26-28272
Council to discuss and take action on the Community Benefits Agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays. Memorandum from Rebecca Johns, Senior Assistant City Attorney, transmitting the proposed Community Benefits Agreement and exhibits for said agenda item. (To be R/F)
Supporting Documents:
- MEMO RE RAYS COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENT (CBA) - COUNCIL SPECIAL CALL 10-29-2026.PDF (opens in new tab)
- MEMO RE RAYS COMMUNITY BENEFITS AGREEMENT (CBA) - COUNCIL SPECIAL CALL 10-29-2026.PDF (opens in new tab)
- [V2][RESO RAYS CBA].DOCX (opens in new tab)
- 1-WRITTEN COMMENT - CM26-28272.PDF (opens in new tab)
Addendum 1 item
Other Changes
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1. CM26-28272
Council to discuss and take action on the Community Benefits Agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays. Email from Rebecca Johns, Senior Assistant City Attorney, transmitting the resolution for said agenda item. (To be R/F)(Title of said resolution listed below) Resolution approving a Community Benefits Agreement between City of Tampa, Florida and Tampa Bay Rays Stadium Company, LLC; providing for certain community benefits to be provided to the City of Tampa as required by the development and funding agreement; providing for an exemption from Section 2-853 of the City of Tampa Code of Ordinances (community Benefit Program); authorizing the execution thereof by the Mayor of the City of Tampa and attestation by the City Clerk; providing an effective date.