Weekly Agenda Review

April 3, 2025

4/3/2025

  1. Commendation- TPD officer of the month
  2. Commendation- ATU employee of the month
  3. Commendation- Tampa Water Department for Water Conservation Month
  4. Approval of appointments of the VRB board members. While I don’t have an issue with either of the members who have applied. I feel that the neighborhood/Civic Representative SHOULD have experience as a COT Neighborhood. Mr. Frey has been on his neighborhood board for years, which makes total sense for his seat. But I don’t see that Mr. Murphy has that experience. I am not speaking to Mr. Murphy’s personal situation but to the concept that two of the position on the VRB SAY Neighborhood/Civic Representative. I believe that those two positions, when vacant should be advertised TO THE NEIGHBORHOODS—via Tampa Kind or whatever processes to communicate with Neighborhood leaders. I have spoken to several staff members about the lack of process for board appointments—they are difficult to find and not all in one place to make them easy to share. I’d like to see this process addressed in the future.
  5. Approval of appointment of Timothy Jones to the ARC for 3 years. See above comments about ability to volunteer for these boards.
  6. 6 Police Responder- Supervisor vehicles for $52k for total of $312k for TPD.
  7. Purchase, set up and training for 2 VR training pods for TPD for $550k. Paid for by grants for de-escalation grants.
  8. Renewal of contract with Nelson’s tree farm w/ 2.7% CPI increase for special events at parks and other city owned properties for $287k
  9. $1.5 million for parks furnishings, playground equipment and surfacing. This was a 3 year contract for $4.5 million with a BUNCH of vendors, but there is no way of telling what was spent where and what is projected to be repaired/replaced/provided as part of the continuation of this contract? I’d offer that I had coffee with someone recently that said their child had rust all over them from playing at Ballast Point Park? Big picture is, where are the funds being utilized to improve our parks? I’d think if the city has spent $3 million with these companies and they are want to continue to contract, they’d be tickled to tell folks what they have completed to date? Not just the paperwork they submitted to win the bid!
  10. Special Permit- Tampa Caribbean Festival & Parade
  11. Purchase 3 Sidewinders loaders for $1.2 million for Solid Waste
  12. $110k for a new HVAC at the Howard Curren AWTP Administration building. You have to have AC! No doubt about that!
  13. Purchase a forklift for Solid waste for $209k.
  14. Contract renewal for Cured in place pipe with Innerliner solutions LLC for $768k without price increase for stormwater gravity rehabilitiation
  15. Purchase 2 Vac-Con Sweer Cleaner trucks for wastewater dept for $583k for total of $1.165 million.
  16. $650k for the Morris Bridge VFD Pumps Replacement project for the water department.
  17. A contract with Implementation Services for Customer Relationship Software for the COT. It doesn’t say which department, nor the cost? It must be free, I guess it might be fore T&I because they signed off on the 1 pager? WAIT…page 11 of 72 says $2million but $1.9million each year from FY24-27- but T&I will provide $727k for the use from the Utilities services?
  18. $17k for Excel access for the HR department from SplashBI Cloud.
  19. $45k to Brown Law for legal advice and Project management of United States of America v. City of Tampa, Case No. 8:23-cv-02934 which was a suit brought by a COT employee for not being allowed to go on Parental Leave. To read more click here. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-m-d-flo-tam-div/116323657.html
  20. Grant of sidewalk easement at 307 W West St for installation of Sidewalk by COT
  21. Grant of sidewalk easement at for 5300 W Cypress St for installation of sidewalk by COT
  22. East Tampa CRA purchase 2209 E Lake Ave for $415k with closing costs of $10k.
  23. East Tampa CRA purchase 3620 N 23rd St for $210k + $10 for closing costs.
  24. Easement to People’s Gas for 1010 N Macinnes Place
  25. Approval for Trileaf Corp for 2921 E MLK blvd for environmental assessment.
  26. Renewal of lease for 2302 W Cherry St for parking for All Bay Contractors Air conditioning and heating for $4000 a year? WTH? They are paying $333 per month since 2020, I bet you that they have increased their prices for the folks the provide services for since 2020. Renewals are NOT free, we’ve had to pay staff annually to renew this agreement. A 3% CPI to cover those costs would bring rent to $386.03 for FY25. We give these graces to our vendors, why are we not covering our Costs. I, for one don’t feel compelled to help an HVAC contractor with my tax dollars to keep their costs down…when they aren’t passing on the savings to their clients within the COT.
  27. CBA (Community Benefits Agreement) for Gas Worx.
  28. Grant agreement between the COT and the State of FL for restoration for Union Station. It doesn’t say how much.
  29. Purchase John Deere Wheel loader for mobility department for $265k.
  30. 2nd Reading for 9220, 9222 and 9224 North Hyaleah Road
  31. 2nd Reading for 2520 West Beach St
  32. Vacation of 206 W Columbus Dr. in Tampa Heights. Remove vacant lot from the historic district.
  33. Administrative update
  34. Here we go again…the Ashley Drive project, BIG MONEY spending in one area of the COT without any consideration for the fact that this IS within the CRA…. We’re doing major work and counting on CRA funds without the CRA having voted on it? Has it been before the CAC? Do we actually have the $5.3 million. This project was SUPPOSED to be $10, now it is $22 million, which could do a HELL of a lot for transportation in our city EVERYWHERE…just devoting another $4.7 million from the general fund + FUTURE DEBT, and more in the amount of $3.9 million. So, another $8.6 million to be spent downtown in a CRA that is NOT contributing to the general fund?? This ALL should come from the CRA! They are the only ones who benefit! Don’t tell me that it allows for more housing, we still haven’t gotten started on RomeYard, which should be cancelled for lack of performance IMHO.
  35. The purchase of Liquid Cationic Polymer fro $7 million for the wastewater department
  36. Well, it looks like were getting $21.1 million from All for Transportation funds. It looks like they have 7 projects allocated for these funds already. I’ll post the list.
  37. See item #36
  38. 5 minute road repair quarterly update from mobility department. I assume that it will include the funds from 36-37 combine with item 43 for future?? It seems they are doing the same thing there??
  39. Monthly report on Stormwater system, pumping stations, ditches, pipes, ponds and inlets.
  40. 6 months PIPES program update- The Powerpoint for this presentation is already uploaded. I like that it shows the projected cost and how much is allocated. It would be nice to know if we are under, over or on budget?
  41. Ybor Parking lot update. You’d think that it would have been taken care of by now? I mean it isn’t like they have to build something? SMH
  42. Abbye Feely to give Land Development Code update
  43. Quarterly Sidewalk update. The paving projects are also on the ON BASE documents as well. See number 38
  44. Staff to present on the exit interview process for the COT HR department. Wow! The Memo attached SAYS NOTHING. Impressive. I haven’t seen someone say nothing like that in a memo in a minute. I am really not understanding why there is not any interest from the COT in protecting OUR TAX DOLLARS from lawsuits like the one in item 19 which is STRAIGHT up an HR issue.
  45. Update on CAD for TFR, this memo says they provided the documents. But the documents aren’t in ON BASE?? I hope TCC has them?
  46. Staff to provide a written report about hiring a contractor to determine the NEED for a light on Franklin st that NONE of the folks on Harbor Island want but the COT seems to be hell bent on shoving it down their throats. NOTHING in ON BASE… Go figure.
  47. Mobility report on Cross walk at Tampa Palms and Bruce B Downs for safety. Continued
  48. Staff to report how much hurricane relief funding remains. IDK how they can present this as they only started taking applications a week ago? I am curious how many applications they received.
    Why are so many documents missing from ON BASE this week?