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   Florida League of Cities Annual Conference Wrap Up Discussion

   discussed

   Council members debriefed on the Florida League of Cities Annual Conference, sharing takeaways on park lighting (dark sky options from Duke Energy), yard debris/solid waste management modeled on Bradenton, eco-friendly products like sugar cane straws, grant management for resiliency funding, sea-level rise and flood resilience strategies, smart stormwater systems, and community rating reductions for flood insurance. The discussion was informational with no formal action taken.

   📍Main Street at Main and Grand📍Orange Lake📍Railroad Square📍River Road📍River Walk Park📍Sims Park📍South River Road🏢Babcock Ranch🏢Busch Gardens🏢Channel 8🏢Duke Energy🏢Florida League of Cities🏢Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council👤Debbie👤Dell👤Eric👤Mike👤Pete👤Robert#25% rule#50% rule#Bradenton solid waste model#CDBG process#FEMA grants#Florida League of Cities Annual Conference#Hurricane Ian#Pinellas County and Pasco County flood rule changes#Redevelopment, Flooding, and Climate Adaptation session#community rating reductions for flood insurance#dark sky lighting#resiliency grant (bank property)#sea wall standards (5 feet above sea level)#smart cities / smart stormwater#vulnerability study

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   [00:00:10] Parks and Rec related, which given that we're doing things in the various parks [00:00:18] probably a good thing to have current ideas and information. There [00:00:23] were several that do the sails for shade. Those looked interesting as well. [00:00:34] The Duke Energy was there and that was good as well. [00:00:46] Yeah, I had some time to visit with the Duke Energy folks. Mayor, I found [00:00:52] an interesting... I think we've done a marvelous job with our [00:01:00] lighting of our Sims Park and our downtown area and creating... allow [00:01:10] that to operate at night, you know? [00:01:14] Who's the phone ringing? [00:01:16] So, but as I was saying, they've got quite a variety of lighting options and [00:01:45] some of them are not so... doesn't seem so obvious when you first look. You know, [00:01:52] there's a form of lighting called dark sky. Basically, rather than just [00:01:57] shoot light out everywhere, it focuses it down on pathways or roadways or areas [00:02:03] to be lit and doesn't actually send the light everywhere. And I know that [00:02:08] we've had some comments from time to time from residents about some of our [00:02:15] lighting. I think particularly along River Walk Park, the lights there are so [00:02:21] bright it goes into their houses and so forth. Yeah, and so, you know, it's [00:02:28] something to maybe keep in mind and look at as particularly if there comes a time [00:02:35] to change those out due to, you know, their time and as we put additional ones in. [00:02:42] And if I'm not mistaken, they do that a lot with a significant amount of [00:02:50] they can do with with the lens light, so it doesn't look a lot different than [00:02:53] what we have, but it's just one of those things that, you know, I'd like for us to [00:02:59] when we go, our next projects and lighting and so forth, to kind of take a [00:03:03] take a peek at. Unless we're looking at Railroad Square, that would be an obvious [00:03:09] place to make sure that we're looking at doing those up with that sort of thing. [00:03:17] Well, and also, you know, the project on River Road, I think there's some [00:03:21] lighting associated with that project, another one to look at because there's a [00:03:27] lot of residential houses that's, you know, right up there. The [00:03:32] difference is these lightings, as opposed to street lights, street lights [00:03:36] are higher and they kind of shine down and our lights that we use in the parks [00:03:42] are a little bit lower and they just go out everywhere. They provide a great [00:03:47] amount of light. I think it's a great safety feature, particularly for Sims Park, [00:03:51] but may not necessarily be appropriate for sidewalks and residential areas, so [00:03:58] to speak. [00:04:02] Archie? Yeah, I'll hit some topics and then maybe we can hit one at a time, you know, everybody's [00:04:10] taking time out of their day, longer than it needs to be, but one thing that has [00:04:18] been a common interest here is dealing with the yard debris and, you know, post [00:04:25] storm, it's a huge thing. River Road has a box that's made where the [00:04:32] neighbors can put it into toward the end where it's a little island, and so I [00:04:43] know that I just happened today, Debbie, to have to speak to Robert because my [00:04:48] construction going on, Duke has come in and has advised they need to move the [00:04:54] telephone pole and there's like some modification to the right-of-way that [00:04:59] they're asking for, so I paid Duke for what they have to do, but the spot where [00:05:05] they want to move the pole is in the center of what is now a trash pile for [00:05:11] all my neighbors, which is right in the middle of my front, and there's like a, [00:05:17] you know, there's an island across the way, sort of like occurs at River Road [00:05:22] there, so as I was talking to Robert about that, and I got a good quick [00:05:29] response, so there's nothing I need, but I mentioned to him the circumstance many [00:05:37] folks have. I think we changed the rules now a while ago or made it clear that [00:05:42] if, that you have to put the trash in your yard versus up and down a street [00:05:50] where one neighbor has a larger lot, everybody's been using it, or maybe they [00:05:55] get to... But I know we're still on a mission, I think, to figure out how to [00:06:04] work with some of that stuff, and I think that I had presented, and I know the [00:06:09] staff is looking at the Bradenton model, which had two kinds of pickup. One, [00:06:15] which you've advocated, Mike, which is large trash can or something that you [00:06:20] can put the stuff in, whether you give it to the garbage company to take, which [00:06:25] is done in the county, or whether we had a separate collection for our windrow, [00:06:30] for our composting, which is popular. And that was like the service that was [00:06:35] included, and then the other service is on a per pay, so if you're going to [00:06:43] put stuff out, call them, get it away before it becomes an attractive nuisance [00:06:48] and we find people dumping in it. So I know we're going to be talking about all [00:06:51] those things, but relative to the conference, it seems the folks that [00:06:57] have the most money to attract after-hours conversations are the [00:07:03] garbage haulers, and so they're not doing too bad, apparently. But I think the plan [00:07:13] that you put into place a few years ago to put everybody on notice and how this [00:07:17] is all going to be handled with respect to perhaps the city taking over some of [00:07:22] that billing and doing that, I think that there are opportunities, which lead me to [00:07:28] the guy who was proposing in the exhibit hall the big garbage containers, which I [00:07:36] got a card from him, but they print the name of the city on them or whatever. So [00:07:42] as we move to that other process, it may be the time we upgrade to where it's [00:07:50] available, those things come in and put the garbage in with the arms, or we have [00:07:56] a specific type of a container that can be picked up by us even, or some kind of [00:08:02] process. But I think that there's a lot of stimulation of thought there, [00:08:07] there's a willingness on their part, there's probably some revenue that the [00:08:10] city can help to offset on its billing division by being part of it, and I think [00:08:16] it's going to take some effort. But both companies seem to be very amenable and [00:08:24] probably already are in discussions with you guys. So I think that when we look at [00:08:30] that whole, what do we do with our solid waste, and then just to go back to my own [00:08:38] experiences, my neighbor has got a dump truck of the compost or the dumped half [00:08:47] on my side of where all of this is going to go on for distribution to his garden [00:08:52] in the back, and he noticed that there were some pretty big chunks there. So I'm [00:08:58] not so sure we were running them through twice or if we get overwhelmed sometimes, [00:09:02] but that pile had a lot of large material. So if it's a resource, there's an [00:09:10] expectation probably that it has a certain amount of completion to it, and [00:09:15] yeah, I think that our composting is very popular, and at the same time it has to [00:09:20] kind of find a way to make it efficient for the city. And then on the recycling, I [00:09:27] continue to get different opinions from different folks about recycling, you know, [00:09:31] in Bradenton they gave it up because all of the stuff was sort of filed with [00:09:35] pizza boxes and people not putting the right stuff in there. So that whole [00:09:42] recycling is crazy. Also learned at a table of a product that's coming out of [00:09:52] Lake Okeechobee near where we went, I sat with the folks who were in, I'm going to [00:09:58] say Homestead maybe, that's that on the way over, and they have a new business [00:10:04] that started up that's using sugar cane, the sugar cane business. They're turning [00:10:12] into some kind of a product from that processing into making straws and plates, [00:10:19] and they've got various cities that have taken over that. So there may be some [00:10:26] newer products coming out that are eco-friendly that we keep an eye on. [00:10:34] I wonder if that's the straws Busch Gardens uses, those sugar straws. I wonder if that's how they're made, because they use sugar straws at Busch Gardens. [00:10:40] Dell and the Environmental Committee have proposed this a few times, and they've actually had them at one or two of their events. [00:10:49] Well, I know they've had events with straws that are paper-striped straws. I don't know if they're [00:10:55] using the sugar cane. [00:10:56] Paper, they also have the ones that are made out of like a pasta, and then the sugar ones [00:11:00] are much better. [00:11:01] Yeah, they hold up, right? [00:11:02] You could say it's a bamboo or sugar or something. [00:11:05] But it's a Florida company. [00:11:06] You know if it's sugar because you can taste it. [00:11:08] If I could find out who it is, it would be worth looking at, I guess, in this whole carbon [00:11:16] footprint date and time. That's the one idea. The other idea that, well, one of the conference [00:11:24] sessions was on resiliency, and of course, just as I've been saying too, all the money [00:11:30] that's coming out, not to mention if we were hit by the hurricane, the whole FEMA thing [00:11:36] is big, but I don't think we've got substantial need, particularly considering the other cities. [00:11:44] But the takeaway to me is something I've experienced listening to people on as well. [00:11:53] If you go after the federal money and there's grants, there's all of the required paperwork, [00:11:58] separate audits, and so cities like Crystal River and their staff has made comments to [00:12:05] me and others who really need it, but they'll get a grant and they'll stumble through all [00:12:12] of the requirements and the sending back and the follow-up. [00:12:15] So it was suggested, and there are firms out there that with some luck going after the [00:12:23] grants also find themselves helping to manage them, and that the management of the grants [00:12:29] is oftentimes covered as an expense of the grant itself. [00:12:32] So I think the idea is if we go after grants and when we do them, that it's an opportunity [00:12:40] for us to get professionals in those fields that will help the staff, just considering [00:12:47] the limited resources that a city has in general compared to larger cities or counties. [00:12:53] But we've talked about going after those kinds of funds before. [00:12:57] I think the takeaway to me is let's find those experts in the different fields like you did [00:13:06] in the housing. You brought someone in who walked us through that whole CDBG process. [00:13:11] The resiliency thing is, after this past week, probably even more imperative. [00:13:17] I see one report that Babcock Ranch, which is inland from where this thing hit, [00:13:26] they're a solar community. [00:13:36] I forget how many hundred acres of stuff they've got. [00:13:41] Plus batteries, plus some of the houses have solar as well. [00:13:46] In fact, they've taken refugees from the coast into their elementary school. [00:13:55] In spite of the fact that it doesn't have a generator, because what it does have is solar. [00:14:00] And they did not lose power. [00:14:12] Pete's been after us about the resiliency stuff with Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council [00:14:18] for a couple of years now. [00:14:21] I've looked at the pictures from what happened down there. [00:14:27] That ranch is... [00:14:30] It was horrendous. [00:14:33] Same thing. [00:14:36] The resilience thing, I thought about an approximated coast. [00:14:41] We get large swaths of our city in evacuation zone A. [00:14:48] It tells you what height we are. [00:14:52] I don't know if there's anything we can do to prevent problems there. [00:14:58] Like that ranch, I know it's a few miles away. [00:15:00] inland, right? And it's not subject to surge, so to speak, but obviously, you know, windstorm. [00:15:09] But, you know, I'm thinking about, you know, rising tides and so forth. I'm just, [00:15:21] you know, I don't know where and how that problem can actually be solved. [00:15:29] You know, you talk about billions of dollars. I mean, I don't know, 12 billion, 18 billion [00:15:35] dollars or something to do part of the keys just to get the roadways in so that they could, [00:15:42] you know, withstand storms. And I think it's going to be a multi-generational [00:15:50] issue that takes, and I think it's going to take probably storms like this to, you know, [00:15:57] the rebuild. And nope, maybe Fort Myers Beach doesn't get to be rebuilt. Maybe it's just [00:16:03] become a beach. I don't know. And so, you know, as much as I'd like to say we can fight Mother [00:16:12] Nature, I think what we have to do is fortify our homes, fortify our infrastructure the best we can, [00:16:18] and think along those lines. And then, you know, and the resiliency and so forth, you know, [00:16:24] is maybe throw our monies at, you know, some of our stormwater control and so forth like that. So, [00:16:31] you know, those storms we get two or three times a year don't create problems, you know. [00:16:36] And but when the Cat 3, 4, or 5 hits, you know, all bets are off anyway. [00:16:40] Yeah, I have a, you know, our downtown, I think is, my office is like 12 feet above sea level. If [00:16:47] you have a 15-foot storm surge and waves on top of that, I mean, you're lapping at the rooftops. [00:16:53] Yeah, we would have looked like Fort Myers if it came through here. We would be in the same boat. [00:16:57] You know, we would look the same. That water would come across the gulf all the way through here. I [00:17:02] mean, we have that storm surge. We would look like that. Yeah, if it hit here like it was supposed [00:17:06] to. I mean, those of us living within a couple miles of the coast in frame houses, I mean, [00:17:12] would have been spoilers. I think then that's the challenge. On Thursday, the 13th, I'm [00:17:20] moderating the session, Redevelopment, Flooding, and Climate Adaptation. And so I'll have more to [00:17:27] bring back from that. But one of the things that the Planning Council has done, and we're about [00:17:31] to introduce it, are regulations and policy approaches that the city can take in terms of [00:17:36] helping to at least push back against it. But, you know, I think the problem has been, with the sea [00:17:42] level rise, it's far enough in the future and enough people are like, maybe it will, maybe it [00:17:48] won't. I think that that has tipped now to something's happening. But the fellow that's the [00:17:55] weather reporter for Channel 8 spoke at our last one, and he was very clear to say just [00:18:02] those little changes in the heat, the temperature of the ocean itself, are causing more frequent [00:18:09] heavy storm events. And so it's our normal stormwater that's going to get [00:18:16] processes are going to get hit harder and harder. So rather than, as you say, Mike, solving the huge [00:18:22] problem of the sea level to rise, hardening our own infrastructure, which we have our vulnerability [00:18:28] study to do. But from a residential standpoint, there are design standards that are coming out [00:18:35] that will tell somebody. And if we impose what's being recommended, all in Tampa Bay, all sea walls [00:18:43] are now going to go up to, I think, five feet above sea level on new ones. And all old sea walls [00:18:51] are allowed to stay where they're at, as long as they're in shape, but any renovation. So there is [00:18:58] this move to try to raise up sea walls. But as you say, you can't, what are you going to do with the [00:19:04] parks, the Great Preserve, the open space? So there's a lot of stuff there. But when we [00:19:14] approved the budget for, and we just learned about the city having success with the bank property [00:19:22] there, that grant was a resiliency grant, and it was a matching grant, which we were able to match [00:19:27] with the stormwater funds. And then it's going to become part of your RFP out there to show [00:19:35] how to start designing and building things in a resilient way. What is crazy to me is that you can, [00:19:43] if it weren't for us or that grant, and someone bought that bank building, [00:19:50] they would be able to build there with no stormwater because the building didn't have [00:19:55] any stormwater. And so there has to be a way to sort of collectively get to the right place versus [00:20:07] allowing grandfathered-in places not to work. The 25% rule is a rule with flood, I think, [00:20:17] on terms of rebuilding. But we have the 50% rule that we talk about with other things. [00:20:22] There's going to be some regulations and rules that are going to make it more expensive to build [00:20:27] in those areas if they're passed. Hopefully that'll lower the insurance costs some. [00:20:34] I'm worried about flood insurance, and the house we're building is going to be [00:20:43] the flood line, but still required to have flood insurance. [00:20:47] It'll be expensive. [00:20:48] Yeah. [00:20:48] Because of your proximity to the water, to the river there. [00:20:51] So it's a big issue currently, right now, in terms of affordability. [00:20:58] It's not going to get any better unless we find people in non-flood zones who want to help contribute. [00:21:14] Some communities are taking steps, and I think we've done a pretty good job up to this point [00:21:19] as far as doing the qualifying factors to get community rating reductions on flood insurance. [00:21:29] There's some additional steps. You can get even more of a discount. [00:21:35] But those steps that are required are painful in terms of the cost of construction and the [00:21:48] rules to put in place. And I think Pinellas County has recently made some significant [00:21:56] changes there. I think Pasco County has as well. I don't want to speak, I don't know enough about it, [00:22:05] of what exactly was transpired there, but I think that they've enacted some rules that [00:22:10] might give them a little bit additional discount upcoming. [00:22:14] I don't know if that's something that's been processed or done, so I don't know. [00:22:19] But I think that's an area that we ought to maybe at least explore to look at and do, [00:22:28] maybe there's a little bit we can do to just get that next level. [00:22:32] But for example, to give you an example or an issue, there was a gentleman down on [00:22:41] on South River Road, and I got this from the building, I think one of the building officials [00:22:47] or inspectors, somebody was telling me they went out there looking at, got to put a new roof on, [00:22:52] and did some addition in a new roof. Went back to look at the roof and part of the roof was shingle [00:22:56] and part of the roof was metal. And you couldn't, you know, look in the house, you couldn't see it [00:23:02] because it was back of the front. And the issue was, he was right at the limit that he couldn't [00:23:10] spend any additional money, so he had, he liked to look at the more expensive roof, and he did [00:23:15] that where it's visible, but he ran out of money to go keep under the improvement rule. [00:23:21] And the steel roof would have made it far better than having shingles on half of it. [00:23:29] So anyway, you know, those are the kind of things that, you know, we and our citizens would face. [00:23:36] But, you know, it's one of those things that's kind of painful, and in a long term it would [00:23:43] help. It's just painful right now, you know. Yeah, I'm thinking when we get ready to downsize, we'll [00:23:49] look for a concrete block home on the ridge that runs near where the rec center is, where you're [00:23:57] up high out of the any potential flood zone. And if it doesn't have a roof put on, it's [00:24:07] liable to survive this sort of surge. Boy, all you see in Key West is metal roofs. They don't have any [00:24:15] shingle roofs in Key West. Well, if you, the metal roofs with the appropriate tie downs [00:24:25] are going to go. But if you have 150 mile an hour sustained winds and gusts over that, [00:24:33] realistically all bets are off. I don't know, aren't we rated to like 150 at the rec center? [00:24:41] We are. So if Ian had come ashore here, we might have lost the roof at the rec center. I mean, [00:24:48] that's how serious this storm was when it came blowing through. [00:24:52] It'll come out a little bit more on investigation. Some of the initial photographs that I've seen and [00:24:58] some stories I've heard is that this is a much bigger flood event than it is a wind event. [00:25:07] I had a policyholder down there tell me he had three feet of water in his house, [00:25:14] and he says, but he goes, I got, you know, he goes, I probably got a thousand dollars [00:25:18] damage to my roof, you know. And, but, you know, he's got tens of thousands of dollars [00:25:23] of damage to the interior and its contents. So, and part of that is, you know, people have hated this. [00:25:31] The insurance industry is going out inspecting roofs and getting your roofs fixed and so forth, [00:25:35] and, you know, new code roofs. I think it's probably had an impact, a pretty significant [00:25:42] impact on this, on this particular storm. We'll see how it plays out eventually, how much of it is [00:25:50] is wind versus flood, but it's, you know, and unfortunately those folks down there, [00:25:58] and throughout Florida, have been a little bit less diligent in maintaining proper flood insurance. [00:26:05] The cost just keeps going up, and, you know, it's one of those things that, [00:26:10] you know, we get winds all the time, we don't get floods all the time, but when we do, it is... [00:26:19] And it's not just storm surge, the rain events, I mean, there was no storm surge in Kissimmee, [00:26:25] but yet you, you look at, you know, Kissimmee and other places in central Florida, [00:26:31] where they, you can see the roofs of the cars just under the top of the water. [00:26:40] Well, just the week before the event, we had that big storm in town that was so fast, [00:26:45] and I've got some pictures I can share, but you've all probably seen them, and you've seen the [00:26:51] effect of it, of Main Street at the corner of Main and Grand, and the water was sort of [00:26:57] washing over the sidewalks there. Eric was worried about it coming into his office. [00:27:02] So back to the conference and the takeaways, one of the other entities that was there was [00:27:08] more in the landscaping and the groundskeeping type business, and they have all of these [00:27:15] rain gauge type of operations that save water, you know, if the water falls into it, it shuts off, [00:27:22] it doesn't sprinkle along. They have them that go down into the ground to test the ground, [00:27:29] the moisture in the ground, and on top of that, this company has, [00:27:35] connects to the weather forecasts and sees something coming in in three days that they [00:27:41] know is coming in and doesn't, so it goes back to the whole smart cities thing, whether it's [00:27:48] traffic lighting or water management, or in this case, I think storm water management, so [00:27:55] we have Orange Lake. We didn't need to lower it because we might have wanted to thinking it was [00:28:01] coming, but as it turned out, the water pushed all out, but in having a more intelligent storm water [00:28:11] system, we can use some of our basins to empty out like we do with that one with the weir, [00:28:17] and which we'll be doing with the one on 19, that $800,000, you know, grant we're getting [00:28:23] allows us to empty and capture, but I still believe, Debbie, and I'll remind you of the [00:28:30] conversation I had with one of the engineers back when I was working here, when they lowered [00:28:36] Orange Lake, and I've told you all this before, but all the water is sitting in all the pipes [00:28:42] underneath the city, and it's constantly there, so when they lowered the lake, it went down, and [00:28:47] then all of a sudden it was real slow lowering because it had to evacuate all the water from [00:28:53] underground, and it was like, man, we could have a little pump and pump that water up and over [00:28:59] and out of the system so we have the full capture capacity of it, and the engineer said, [00:29:06] well, you can't count that for your storm water retention off of some rule that probably [00:29:14] applies to people who have a storm water pond, and they don't let them count the pipe, [00:29:19] but when you've got, you know, I don't know how much volume of water that you're storing, [00:29:26] and you've got a situation where you're getting these really hard and fast in one 24-hour period [00:29:32] amounts of water, I think it makes sense to be able to empty out some of that system, and so it [00:29:40] goes back to trying to see if we can bring experts to the table who can help us as a city to [00:29:49] demonstrate that we're in the front end of trying to deal with these events. [00:29:57] Not to, you know, not to say we don't [00:30:00] have that capacity here, but I mean, right now we can have a pump and pump the lake down if we know something bad's coming. [00:30:08] But there could be a future where there's an intelligent stormwater, you know, calculations going on. [00:30:16] One final thing that was there that had to do with this was a guy named Alex Petralak, who was with the – he's out of Tampa. [00:30:27] And he's representing a company that has these dispersal aerators, and they're probably pricey, but they're putting them in ponds [00:30:40] that will supercharge the molecules and it just sort of – super-evaporation out of ponds, which may or may not make any sense. [00:30:53] But there's all this technology, depending on how bad you have it, that people trying to figure out how to get rid of water, [00:31:02] and then we have our agreement with the county. So I'm thinking, how much does that cost versus how much is the county charging us [00:31:09] when they want to charge us for the water going into their pipes? [00:31:13] What sort of – [00:31:15] So it deserves some analysis, I think. [00:31:18] Certainly take a look at it. This may be a question for Robert. [00:31:22] What sort of existing drainage lines do we have from the South River Truist property going down towards the river now? [00:31:33] I can't respond to that question without asking Robert. [00:31:37] That's why I prefaced it the way I did, because I don't know either. [00:31:42] But particularly if we're looking at incorporating a stormwater feature somewhere in that development. [00:31:52] I know we've got a couple connections. I know we've got something a little bit further south, [00:31:59] and then we've got something pretty close to that site, Acorn, and then the other one south. [00:32:06] By the U-Haul that's building across from that. [00:32:09] It might be worth pulling that up and taking a look at it as we get started on trying to get that area redeveloped. [00:32:18] It was interesting during a storm to watch those pipes there, emptying the river there by Sims Park, right? [00:32:28] And with the river as low as it was, the pipes were completely fully exposed. [00:32:32] Matter of fact, another foot or two below that even. [00:32:36] But it was interesting just to watch the water flow out of those pipes. [00:32:40] Even after, you know, we fortunately didn't get a whole lot of rain here. [00:32:45] And for all day, you know, it did come down to more of a trickle, a little more than a trickle maybe. [00:32:56] But it was just kind of interesting. [00:33:01] Water coming from somewhere all the time. [00:33:05] Last night, WEDU had a TV program that I got caught watching, [00:33:10] which was on the coral reefs of the world and their big project that mapped them all out. [00:33:17] And the Gulf of Mexico has lost, since 1977, 90% of our coral reefs. [00:33:26] And so to me, whenever we talk about what we can afford and what we're doing, [00:33:30] not only from a standpoint of public safety, but from a standpoint of the life in the river. [00:33:38] These monster, you know, inputs of fresh water into salt water. [00:33:43] The effects of that are all worth studying. [00:33:46] And I think we're the perfect Petri dish for that of our size. [00:33:50] And that's part of what that grant is to do. [00:33:53] So I think that the process should be, you know, part of something underway there. [00:33:57] It's funny you mentioned Petri dishes because the opening episode of 60 Minutes, [00:34:04] which I think was a week before last, [00:34:08] talked about the folks down in South Florida and the Keys. [00:34:13] It was one of the universities, and I've lost which one it was. [00:34:17] They're actually going and pruning the coral, [00:34:23] bringing it back, and artificially inseminating the eggs, [00:34:28] and growing coral from fertilized coral eggs. [00:34:33] And then at some point taking those and putting them back on the reefs, [00:34:39] trying to regrow it, including looking for the genetic variations [00:34:47] that actually allow the coral to survive in somewhat warmer water [00:34:51] than the average coral species. [00:34:56] I'm sure you can find it online, but it was 60 Minutes. [00:35:00] I think it was Sunday before last. [00:35:01] So very, very interesting. [00:35:05] And it applies because we don't have a whole lot of reefs here, [00:35:10] but they are to our immediate south. [00:35:14] Josh McHart and his Energy Management Center operation, [00:35:19] well, he's the teacher there, or the instructor, [00:35:21] but it's a great resource. [00:35:24] And a lot of students through the school years at all levels have been exposed to it. [00:35:28] So to me, that whole Restore Act boats and them trying to get something going, [00:35:35] and the position the city is in to use that research [00:35:38] and try to give ourselves a bit of a branding that what we're doing is being done [00:35:45] not only for our own property and protection, [00:35:48] but for finding a better way to try to keep the resources healthy. [00:35:53] So I think this, to me, after all of the years I've been in it, [00:35:57] this is one of the most sort of exciting, authentic things [00:36:01] that we always talk about our river, and nature's becoming more critical. [00:36:08] So that, I think, is a move, hopefully, when we talk about Schweppan [00:36:12] and whatever can be done there, [00:36:14] find a way to incorporate our sort of story at that location [00:36:19] and some kind of cultural partnership with the schools and others. [00:36:26] And so that's exciting to me. [00:36:29] The last thing that I have on the note is accounting. [00:36:36] So our CPA firm was at the conference, and I spent a few minutes talking with them. [00:36:41] And then the firm that we picked second, it was our previous firm two times back, [00:36:49] which who I worked with, who were disappointed we didn't pick them. [00:36:55] But I think, for me, the aspect that I liked about the firm we did pick [00:37:05] was the fact that they had some really good database [00:37:08] and some really good opportunities to sort of help us [00:37:10] from giving some management advice, [00:37:15] looking at some of the operations that we have and comparing them [00:37:18] and giving us some sense of the efficiency that they're working on. [00:37:24] And I know those were over additional costs, [00:37:29] but considering they came in in February or whenever they did to do the audit, [00:37:35] January, it was kind of after the new year or right close to it, I think, [00:37:39] that they had really just had to hustle to get the audit done. [00:37:43] And I think that considering we're in this sort of period right now [00:37:49] where we got through the beginning of the year, [00:37:53] to see us take advantage of those resources. [00:37:57] That's why they go to these conferences, to tell us what they can offer. [00:38:01] And I know they mentioned it at the interview, which was an aspect that I liked. [00:38:08] So if that firm is working well with the city, [00:38:12] I would love to see us do a little bit of strategy [00:38:16] on how we're going to survive this unique aspect of our big CRA [00:38:24] with not a whole lot of tax that gets brought back into the general fund. [00:38:29] Thanks a lot. [00:38:32] They do offer stuff beyond just the audit services. [00:38:40] One thing, and it's not directly tied to the conference [00:38:44] other than playground equipment made me think about it. [00:38:49] Saturday night, three of the grands talked us into taking them over [00:38:56] to Sims Park to play on the playground a little bit. [00:39:01] There were four takeaways, three in the playground. [00:39:09] There is a small slide in the playground that is cordoned off. [00:39:14] Apparently there is a support post that has rusted out, [00:39:20] smack in the middle of it. [00:39:26] It's up that needs to be fixed so the slide can be put back into operation. [00:39:35] I'll check on that. [00:39:36] It looks like it's a steel pipe. [00:39:39] It's maybe three to four feet tall and so big around. [00:39:45] But it's rusted out. [00:39:48] Staff, well, yeah, exactly. [00:39:51] And staff has got the slide blocked off so nobody's going to get hurt. [00:39:57] But it doesn't look particularly good. [00:40:00] I'll find out what the status is. [00:40:02] The second item, and I know we've done some repairs on that spongy walking area. [00:40:12] Rubber area, yeah. [00:40:13] Yeah. [00:40:15] It's got wholesale holes and cracks in it at this point. [00:40:19] So we may be looking at doing some temporary repairs, [00:40:26] but ultimately doing a full replacement of that at some point in the not too distant future. [00:40:32] OK. [00:40:33] And last but not least, when the playground is what, six or seven years old now? [00:40:41] About 16. [00:40:44] And my wife had commented when it was brand new [00:40:47] that she didn't think a lot of the plants were going to survive. [00:40:52] They looked pretty, but they were real low and kids, of course, wanted them. [00:40:56] They have. [00:41:00] And so the plants are gone. [00:41:02] But that may be an opportunity as opposed to a problem. [00:41:09] Comment by one of the other parents who was actually there. [00:41:13] It would be real nice to have some more benches inside that playground area [00:41:18] for the parents to sit while their kids are enjoying the playground. [00:41:23] Since we've- [00:41:24] Don't have to pull out any plants to put benches in. [00:41:26] We have totally destroyed the plants in enough areas where the benches could go. [00:41:30] It would just be a matter of programming in additional benches. [00:41:37] Well, the same sponge area that we have there in that little exercise area, [00:41:41] there's got a couple holes in it. [00:41:43] Not bad. [00:41:43] Yeah, there's a couple there. [00:41:44] I noticed just this past weekend. [00:41:46] Yeah, they're getting there. [00:41:47] They're going to be a trip hazard if they don't get fixed. [00:41:49] But more important, the cracking is starting to become widespread enough. [00:41:55] If not this current fiscal year, maybe next. [00:41:59] We probably need to- [00:42:01] I don't remember what that is. [00:42:04] It's fairly expensive. [00:42:06] But if it needs to be done, we're going to program funding to support the renovation. [00:42:12] You may want to program that in. [00:42:14] Our downtown was very active on Saturday night. [00:42:17] There were people everywhere Saturday night. [00:42:19] Our downtown, there were people everywhere Saturday night. [00:42:21] It was packed everywhere. [00:42:24] I guess everybody after the storm just wanted out, but it was very busy. [00:42:28] I was surprised with nothing major going on. [00:42:32] Because we had dinner at the Hacienda Saturday night for my birthday. [00:42:36] I don't know what's going to happen with the Swanson lot after the pizza place opens. [00:42:44] Saturday night, there were no spaces in the Swanson lot. [00:42:48] Right, we had to park food down the street. [00:42:51] In fact, the private parking on our alley was pretty much completely full too. [00:42:59] The park was mobbed. [00:43:02] It wasn't just the playground, it was the whole place. [00:43:05] There were people having a good time. [00:43:07] There were some teenagers over there that were tossing a ball back and forth. [00:43:12] As we were walking out, we heard a pop and turned around and saw smoke. [00:43:17] I'm not the swiftest sometimes at this stuff. [00:43:21] My wife pointed out to me it was blue smoke, which is why everybody started screaming. [00:43:26] Gender reveal party right there in the park. [00:43:31] There were people in the rocking chairs on the Hacienda, [00:43:35] and there were people eating on the patio for the restaurant there. [00:43:42] It was, that whole area was cranking big time. [00:43:48] I'm just showing them the picture I took. [00:43:50] You probably saw that there by one of your favorite eating places there. [00:43:54] Yeah, and that was when that storm hit. [00:43:57] Right. [00:43:58] Yeah, exactly. [00:44:00] So talking about, you mentioned about the plants. [00:44:05] Also brought to mind, going back to the conference, [00:44:08] they had a couple of vendors there talk about landscaping and farmer-friendly plants and so forth. [00:44:12] I think we do a pretty good job of that, [00:44:14] but it was a little test about what's native and what's invasive and so forth. [00:44:20] Kind of pretty interesting. [00:44:23] I was thinking that I know when we go projects and we use some consultants [00:44:30] and engineers help us with our landscaping, right? [00:44:33] I think that they encompass some of that. [00:44:36] But I know that we also, when we have projects go in, [00:44:44] and we require a certain amount of landscape to be put in, [00:44:50] I'm just wondering if we could somehow provide a service to them [00:44:55] or at least tell them, here's who you can contact, [00:44:59] and maybe... [00:45:00] have Florida friendly plants put in that [00:45:03] will have a better chance of making it and maintaining sometimes. [00:45:07] I noticed like the new 711 for example that we have right there on Main Street, [00:45:12] they've lost a lot of their smaller plants right out front. [00:45:16] Now they've pulled up and there's little holes there. [00:45:18] I don't know if they plan to replace them or what, [00:45:20] but we might take a peek at that because it's... [00:45:23] I've got a couple of pictures. [00:45:25] Get them in touch with the IFAS folks that do the Florida friendly landscape. [00:45:32] But maybe the plants have a better chance of that. [00:45:36] I look at there and then the folks right next door, the car lot, [00:45:40] who with our encouragement and our ordinances, [00:45:43] they've landscaped theirs and theirs looks good and seems to be well maintained. [00:45:48] And I sure hope that our folks there at the 711 will maintain theirs as well. [00:45:55] And I would think they may have a warranty on those plants. [00:46:00] We might encourage them to look into that. [00:46:02] We get them replaced. [00:46:04] That's an excellent point. [00:46:05] If you look at what we did in the medians on 19 with the perennial peanuts, [00:46:10] which has just survived really well, [00:46:12] and you look at some of the other areas of US 19 outside of the city [00:46:17] where they went a different direction and stuff just sort of... [00:46:22] You can tell our city limits on the medians just look so much better [00:46:28] than some of the other areas. [00:46:30] I don't know who came up with the idea of those perennial peanuts, [00:46:33] but I'll tell you what, once they finally kicked in and took root, [00:46:39] those have done really well. [00:46:41] They must love cigarette butts. [00:46:44] And exhaust. [00:46:48] They do like cigarette butts. [00:46:51] And going back, our plants and so forth, [00:46:54] I have to compliment city manager for taking steps before the storm comes [00:47:01] to get a contractor out there and get through all our debris pickups [00:47:05] because otherwise it could have been just more debris flying. [00:47:08] I'm going to have enough comes off the trees, [00:47:10] much less having several weeks laying on the ground. [00:47:14] So another reason to promote a way to have that. [00:47:19] And we talked about that from the last conference, [00:47:21] about how the carriers have plans that they picked out all up. [00:47:26] And so I know I'm looking forward to us having our little conversations [00:47:31] about plans to do that. [00:47:36] There's one other thing that I was going to. [00:47:41] What was it? [00:47:44] So I'll just ask this question because I should know a little bit more about it. [00:47:53] I should review our ordinances that govern our short-term rentals in the city. [00:48:02] There's some cities that are trying to control that. [00:48:06] And state statutes kind of overrode those to a certain point. [00:48:10] But it was interesting. [00:48:12] I just found it interesting there was actually a company that what they do [00:48:16] is help cities manage their rental properties in ordinances, reviews, [00:48:24] and all that kind of stuff. [00:48:26] I just thought it was interesting that there was actually a company out there [00:48:30] that would do that. [00:48:33] Prochamps, they help you draft ordinances and help you all the way through it. [00:48:40] I don't think there's necessarily a need to do that. [00:48:44] I just thought that was interesting. [00:48:46] But I know that we're getting more short-term rentals in the city. [00:48:53] I just happened to come across it one way or the other. [00:48:59] Sometimes you don't even know it. [00:49:01] Some houses there is. [00:49:02] I've seen signs for others, but it's just interesting. [00:49:05] A lot more than I thought there were. [00:49:07] So being realistic, I get clients that are looking for houses, [00:49:10] and they're looking for short-term rentals to stay. [00:49:12] In fact, I have somebody staying in one on the river now. [00:49:15] I found her house is under contract. [00:49:17] It takes three weeks to close, so she rented for three weeks there. [00:49:21] And so in my search for my clients to find Airbnbs, [00:49:25] I was surprised to find how many we have in the city that are actually like Airbnbs. [00:49:30] I was shocked. [00:49:32] I had no idea we had that many. [00:49:34] You wouldn't even believe they were. [00:49:35] No, you wouldn't even believe they were. [00:49:37] I think it leads to another question, though, [00:49:40] and that is we can't manage them away under the statutes [00:49:44] unless we had laws in place at a certain time. [00:49:47] And so when you say three weeks, if you were in the bed-and-breakfast business [00:49:52] or if you're in a hotel out on the highway, [00:49:54] it's like you can't stay there unless you have all the amenities to cook or do whatever. [00:50:01] But I think the grandma houses, [00:50:08] it's a bit frustrating sometimes to me that when we sit at this level that we're at, [00:50:14] that some of these discussions take so many circuits to go through [00:50:18] before they get to us by way of recommendation. [00:50:21] And sometimes it's like I'd like to push that back the other direction [00:50:25] and say if Airbnbs are basically allowed anywhere [00:50:31] and if we have the difficulties of the mortgages, [00:50:34] and we've heard the starky discussion about it before, [00:50:39] if you've got a house and you can have an over-the-garage apartment [00:50:43] or you can have a pool thing that you can rent out or make a little extra money, [00:50:47] that it's now becoming the only affordable way maybe for some people, [00:50:51] that the ordinance that we do have, Debbie, [00:50:55] that restricts it to this area is put in place for folks [00:50:59] who really didn't want to see that extend to their area on the river [00:51:03] or because I know some of our board members are living in neighborhoods they don't want to. [00:51:09] So there still are ordinances related to the grandma flats and the rentals. [00:51:16] Don't stop people from doing the short-term rentals, [00:51:20] which is where a lot of the problems come from. [00:51:22] People party in or coming down for spring break and then you have to. [00:51:26] To be honest, I haven't really seen much of that at all. [00:51:29] I have tons of Airbnbs that you would not even know that it was a short-term. [00:51:34] And it's great, but I'm saying in the places that end up at the League of Cities [00:51:38] as a conversation, it's Anna Marie Island, it's Bradenton, [00:51:43] it's places where they're upset because of the—and I'm not saying we have the problem. [00:51:51] What I'm saying is I believe we should expand the use of that [00:51:57] and the ability for us to keep that density and walkability [00:52:00] and support our business community beyond the limits that it's at now. [00:52:05] I really feel like that's how people are introduced to our city. [00:52:08] I think that's how people find out about us. [00:52:09] They rent from an Airbnb and walk around and that's how they figure out what our city's like. [00:52:13] It's also the whole issue with the ADUs or the granny flats, as Pete was describing. [00:52:19] And I know we've got some work being done on that. [00:52:24] On the ordinance? [00:52:26] Yeah. [00:52:27] We're fairly close to being able to present something to the LDRB. [00:52:32] Because if we can get that form-based code where we start looking at it [00:52:42] and encouraging the ADUs, and we've got—not all of the city, [00:52:48] but a good part of the city could do those. [00:52:53] And I think it would help, and it would help some of the low-income housing issues [00:52:58] we've got right now. [00:53:00] Yeah, I mean, correct. [00:53:02] And I wouldn't say it would apply in Briarpatch or areas across the highway that are different. [00:53:13] But the constriction of just the downtown area probably was a good start for it [00:53:19] because it's a good way to start creating that density, [00:53:22] and I understand the reason to try to track that there. [00:53:28] But I think it could go more to the historic, platted downtown city [00:53:35] where we have so many alleys and so many opportunities with larger lots and bigger lots. [00:53:40] And that's part of—yeah. [00:53:42] I mean, we've got—we don't use it as one, but we've got an ADU up over our garage. [00:53:49] One of our next-door neighbors does. [00:53:51] The Julians have one catty-corner to them. [00:53:57] I mean, they're out there now, but the ones that are there I think all predate the zoning codes [00:54:04] that said that you— [00:54:06] I don't know if you could require that. [00:54:08] Of course, once you have them on a property, if you were to say, which has been the argument, [00:54:13] it's good if you're the owner of the home because you'll take care and you'll watch them, [00:54:17] but you didn't want to see the rental companies come in [00:54:20] and just, like, jack the whole place up with this much living space, [00:54:25] although the good standards that you have, the rental rules you have, the inspections [00:54:32] and all of that stuff are at least—you have something in place maybe to protect against that. [00:54:37] But I don't know what the fear has been. [00:54:40] I understand how it started, but from my point, I would like to at least weigh in [00:54:46] and say I think it would be helpful to try to expand that out a little bit bigger. [00:54:53] There are significant parts of the city, and as you said, [00:54:59] particularly the ones that were part of the historic flat with the alleys and other things [00:55:07] would be really easy to add those sort of occupancies relatively affordably, [00:55:19] and as Frank Sturkey pointed out, it becomes a source of revenue for the homeowner. [00:55:29] And they have to pay the tourist tax if it's a short term or if it's a family member [00:55:34] or a kid that can't afford a house that's living and they'd like to give them some privacy. [00:55:40] I know there are those circumstances throughout that are already kind of preexisting, [00:55:47] but just a comment to pass along. I may be a little off topic. [00:55:52] I think it's something we ought to be looking at. [00:55:58] Mayor, going back to the park and so forth, and partly off my prep for the storm, [00:56:04] I also have to commend our parks folks and I guess public works as well, [00:56:09] the cleanup they did around the city the day after the storm. [00:56:12] I mean, it was like, you know, on Friday they got after it, [00:56:16] because by Saturday it was like everything was normal. [00:56:20] But I did run across, this is interesting, I wanted to share with the group. [00:56:27] I was jogging through one of my weekend jogs. [00:56:32] I jogged from the house around Orange Lake and down Grand and back. [00:56:38] And so I go around Orange Lake and all of a sudden I'm around Orange Lake [00:56:41] and there's two people in blue t-shirts with plastic trash bags, [00:56:46] picking up debris off the ground and so forth. [00:56:50] And I go, oh, parks are out. And they go, those are not parks people, right? [00:56:54] So I stopped and turned around and came back and I said, what are you guys doing? [00:57:01] And I said, so anyway, there was a group of 15 or 20, [00:57:06] maybe a little bit more from the chapel church down here, [00:57:11] and this is one of their, they had a t-shirt on that said serve, [00:57:14] and it was one of their community serve days. [00:57:17] And we have groups throughout the whole West Pasco community [00:57:23] doing just public service. [00:57:24] And this group said, hey, there might have been a storm, let's go clean up Sims Park. [00:57:30] And so I've got some pictures of all these big trash bags and stuff they picked up. [00:57:33] Even the city went through and picked it up. [00:57:35] I mean, these guys scurried picking up little pieces like this that you wouldn't, you know, normal. [00:57:40] I was just really surprised. [00:57:42] So I got a couple of pictures of them, I'd like to recognize them maybe on Tuesday. [00:57:46] But the point being there is, and most of them that I talked to there, [00:57:52] I didn't talk to anyone that actually lived in the city. [00:57:55] But they said, yeah, we come down here all the time, we love it. [00:57:57] So just to, it reiterates the community that our park provides, [00:58:05] a central point throughout the community, [00:58:09] and that they took, they enjoy it so much that they took their time and effort [00:58:14] to come down and try to, you know, give back. [00:58:18] So I thought that was just a really interesting thing I wanted to share with you guys. [00:58:21] Thank you. [00:58:24] That is very, very nice. [00:58:34] We probably ought to do this periodically because, you know, not just the conference, [00:58:40] but we've covered a bunch of different things that we can't talk to each other about other than in a... [00:58:50] Thank you for setting it up, and I agree wholeheartedly. [00:58:59] It's school bus times. [00:59:01] Right. [00:59:04] Well, thank you all. [00:59:06] Hopefully that will give you some things to share with staff. [00:59:10] Absolutely. [00:59:12] Some thoughts on where our heads are at this point. [00:59:16] Yes, and I appreciate that. [00:59:18] Just how fortunate we were after all of what we see around us, [00:59:23] this worst of all historic... [00:59:26] You know, Monday night it looks like we might be in the thick of that, [00:59:30] and I just shudder thinking what would we be facing. [00:59:38] I just wish they'd come up with another term besides mandatory evacuation. [00:59:43] I understand the need for urgency, but... [00:59:46] Mandatory. [00:59:47] But, you know, there should be sequentially who's the worst, lowest-lying target areas of our city [00:59:55] that we know we have to get them out versus, like Main Street Landing, for example. [01:00:00] which I still will call it till I die anyway. [01:00:03] But it's not, but it was built [01:00:08] with double insulated hurricane glass, la la. [01:00:11] So it almost seems like if we ever get past [01:00:15] this comment you made of having to leave [01:00:17] and deforest or deoccupy certain areas, [01:00:24] because there is a trend in FEMA and all the payouts [01:00:27] where there's like, well, stop building there, [01:00:30] move people out and the property rights [01:00:33] and everything else come into it. [01:00:34] But if we get to the point where we've got [01:00:37] to entice people into our city, [01:00:39] which does have a, is in a flood zone A, [01:00:44] there needs to, and I'm looking forward [01:00:47] to being part of that advocacy group [01:00:48] that says, you know, when you built it [01:00:50] with all of this stuff, then you may be expensive [01:00:53] and you may still have to pay flood insurance, [01:00:56] but which isn't wind insurance [01:00:57] and you're 13 feet above sea level, [01:01:00] built all the new codes and I have all the windows. [01:01:03] I'm sure there's discounts and it's less expensive [01:01:06] than it is for somebody that's at a lower level. [01:01:08] But at some point we might find [01:01:12] that we can actually hunker down in that. [01:01:15] But the word mandatory just causes us to, [01:01:18] so many people to not pay attention [01:01:21] to being told what to do. [01:01:23] And to me, it's sort of like opens up the door [01:01:27] of, well, I don't have to follow all the rules. [01:01:30] I wish there was another way. [01:01:33] A grading system. [01:01:34] Yeah, or just to say it's mandatory [01:01:37] if you expect to have anybody come, [01:01:40] you know, which is what they say. [01:01:42] But when we had the one back in 2016, 17, [01:01:47] whatever it was, the police were going up [01:01:50] and down the street with the bullhorns. [01:01:53] You know, you must leave, you must leave. [01:01:56] And the house where I'm at was like eight feet [01:02:01] above sea level, so there was no concern there. [01:02:04] Of course, the house next to me had the tree [01:02:06] go through the roof. [01:02:07] But how do you, as a city, target protecting the community? [01:02:16] And then, oh, that hurricane was nothing. [01:02:20] And then the next time, how does it, [01:02:22] I mean what I say, and how does that comport [01:02:27] with what's going on? [01:02:28] I think you made a good point, Pete. [01:02:30] I think it's almost like you have to help [01:02:32] an educational program, people understand [01:02:34] maybe their structure ought to be, [01:02:36] structure ought to have a kind of a rating system. [01:02:38] Can you withstand storm, and when, and what level? [01:02:42] And that's changed over the past. [01:02:46] You know, even a few years ago, [01:02:48] they don't want people leaving. [01:02:49] They go, well, not everybody leave. [01:02:50] You know, if you're in a strong place, [01:02:53] you know, sometimes that might be the better thing, [01:02:54] because it's, you know, we had people, [01:02:58] I had friends on past storm evacuated. [01:03:00] Some of it's where you're gonna go. [01:03:01] South St. Petersburg, they went to Ocala, [01:03:03] a tree fell on the house, almost killed them. [01:03:04] That's what I'm saying, where do you go? [01:03:05] Because you don't know. [01:03:06] You know, you never know, but I think that's part of it. [01:03:09] Like, I wouldn't be fearful of staying up [01:03:13] in second or third floor of Main Street [01:03:15] landing in a certain storm. [01:03:17] That's built for it, whereas my house, [01:03:19] even though it's survived for a century, isn't. [01:03:24] One of the interesting things that we picked up on [01:03:29] and concerned about evacuations, [01:03:32] particularly since Pinellas was calling for evacs [01:03:35] at the same time as we were, all these people were there, [01:03:38] particularly once the bridges closed down [01:03:40] with the winds picking up. [01:03:42] We went out the Ridge Road extension, [01:03:46] which, you know, one of the things that was promoted [01:03:51] for it was that it would help with evacuations. [01:03:54] It was painless to get to the parkway. [01:03:57] We took the parkway all the way to the north end, [01:04:00] which is 44 now, out in, I forget the name of the rural, [01:04:05] but it's just east of Crystal River, [01:04:08] and then shot into Crystal River and up 19, [01:04:13] and then picked up. [01:04:14] I think it's 129. [01:04:16] There's some back roads in there. [01:04:18] So Gainesville. [01:04:19] No, up through Trenton and. [01:04:24] Yeah, 129. [01:04:25] Not down, it's one of the other towns up there, [01:04:28] but straight up to Live Oak, [01:04:31] and we didn't pick up the interstate [01:04:35] until the north side of Live Oak, [01:04:37] and let me tell you, from an evacuation standpoint, [01:04:41] there's nothing wrong with that at all. [01:04:46] It was easy. [01:04:49] It was painless. [01:04:50] 75 turns into a parking lot on a reasonably good day [01:04:54] between the Turnpike and Ocala. [01:04:58] Villages and all that. [01:04:59] Yeah, so avoiding that as a means to get out [01:05:06] worked out for us really, really well. [01:05:09] It was our third choice as far as [01:05:12] where we were going to evacuate to, [01:05:14] but it turned out to work well. [01:05:19] It's just, we just gotta wait. [01:05:22] Everybody's gotta just get rebuilt, [01:05:24] be real to where you go. [01:05:26] You know, all that new construction down on 54 and so forth, [01:05:30] you know, that's where we evacuated to. [01:05:33] We evacuated to State Road 54. [01:05:36] New construction house with hurricane windows [01:05:40] and new code roofs and all that kind of stuff, [01:05:41] and they didn't hear it. [01:05:43] So, but that's, you know, that's good for them there, [01:05:48] but if you live over here and storm surge, [01:05:52] but you just gotta build differently. [01:05:54] I'm thinking, as particularly some of the older stuff [01:05:58] gets redeveloped, and again, [01:05:59] as we start looking to downsize, [01:06:04] once you get up on that ridge [01:06:06] that runs through the eastern part of town, [01:06:10] you're above the floods, [01:06:13] and if the house is built to withstand the wind load, [01:06:19] you're actually in pretty good shape, [01:06:21] and I don't know that that's, [01:06:24] if that's part of that D area. [01:06:25] I still have to look at the maps. [01:06:28] There's an area up there [01:06:28] that's just completely out of any evacuations out there. [01:06:30] We have parts of our city that's not even level E. [01:06:34] And those areas of, you know. [01:06:39] Dobie's funeral home. [01:06:41] Yeah, well. [01:06:42] Don't have to evacuate. [01:06:45] Those are the areas that I think, [01:06:46] I think ultimately are going to do really well, [01:06:51] because someday we will have a storm [01:06:54] that hopefully not the size of Ian, [01:06:56] but that hits here and does some significant damage [01:07:02] in the low-lying areas on the west side of 19th. [01:07:05] Indian Burial Ground keeps all the hurricanes away, [01:07:08] I heard that today, too. [01:07:09] Somebody said that this morning, Indian Burial Ground. [01:07:13] Thank you all again. [01:07:14] Thank you. [01:07:15] Thank you. [01:07:15] We'll see you tomorrow night.

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3. 3Adjournment