Lizette, how are you today? I'm doing

great, Karen. It so thank you for having me here. It's so good

to see you. So I have learned so much about you doing a little bit of research into you. I mean, I've known you for a while, . But there's, there are so many layers to Lizette Heitz.

Well, it's funny because I still remember, I think the time where we got together for lunch the first time around.

, when we were working in the neighborhood associations. Right? Yeah. And with Kona. And that's how we got to know each other. Exactly. And here we are. You're on Radio St. Pete and I'm on city council. Who would've predicted that?

Exactly. I know. From the Sunshine Center, right?

That's exactly. Here we are

today.

That's exactly right. So one thing I didn't know about you was that you worked as a US attorney for the middle district of Florida. What was that experience like?

It's funny because before I was a prosecutor, a federal prosecutor, I was a state prosecutor here in Pinellas County. So it was an extension of what I was doing as a prosecutor.

I was just doing it at the federal level. , it was a very interesting experience. Obviously it was an honor to work as a US assistant, , attorney. , it's interesting because at the state level. , you think it's political, but then you get into the federal level and it's, it's pretty political, , system.

But, , I really enjoyed my time working in the federal government and learning how to prosecute federal cases. I tried a few cases in federal court and that was, extremely interesting and, . Yeah, , it was definitely a wonderful time that I spent there at the US Attorney's office.

Do you have one case that particularly sticks out to you?

Oh, boy. , there's lots of cases both at the state level and the federal level. At the federal level. I remember I, , tried this case where it was in Pasco County and it was , you know, you have some people that kind of. Consider themselves sovereign citizens and they don't feel like they should be beholden to the laws of the United States or any state.

And this case involved an individual, , like that who, , had. Basically threatened federal officials or even the postmen from coming to the house and, had lots of firearms and to protect anyone who would come to the house. , we prosecuted him under, he was a felon and so he should not have those firearms.

And it was a really interesting case because of that sovereign citizen angle. And I will tell you. There. The FBI had to investigate his family because there were threats that were made online. Wow. , that, that dealt with me. And that was something, , that was new, for me. And scary. , and scary. Oh, absolutely.

Especially you just doing your job. , I never, these cases were never personal. Mm-hmm. , my role obviously was to do the right thing as a prosecutor and protect the citizens of the United States or at the state of Florida, and that's what I would do. And if I couldn't prove a case and it wasn't gonna be brought forward, we had a standard in terms of.

Bringing charges against an individual, and you had to have a good faith basis that you could prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt in court. Otherwise you wouldn't bring a case. So, , to have someone threaten you because you're doing your job mm-hmm. Uh, that is unnerving. But it worked out fine. They, you know, we got the conviction and it was quite interesting case.

And then at the state level. I would say I had a few, big cases. There was one case that I had that was on national TV and I found out it was gonna be on national tv. Oh my gosh. Right before the trial, which is pretty unnerving knowing that it's gonna be film Live and it was on court tv and the case involved teenagers who.

We're arguing, , over a boy, two girls and one girl stabbed the other girl. Oh my gosh. In a fight, which is incredibly tragic. Yeah. And in that case, , it was on court tv and so that was completely unexpected. And I guess because it involved a love triangle and teenagers and just the facts and circumstances surrounding it, made it an interesting case.

It was quite the challenge prosecuting a case like that when it's in the newspapers, because when you're picking out a jury and the Tampa Bay Times the head story, that Sunday before we picked out a jury on Monday, it was front page, it was the case itself. And so that makes it challenging, but. , it was a very interesting case.

, there was stand your ground issues. That was at the beginning where the stand your ground law had come into place. So you have to have a mini trial even before you have the trial. , and that makes, it, makes it interesting in terms of prosecuting a case. But, and of course having, dealing with teenagers, they always make interesting witnesses.

You just have no idea what's gonna happen. And it got a little bit crazy. I'm sure it did. I, at times it got a little bit crazy, , so I was very fortunate. I had a really big case. I was on national tv, and then you get interviewed by Dateline in 2020. And I, every once in a while, . I think the show Snapped comes on and there was, it came out on Snapped.

One of my, one of my assistants contacted me and told me that they were contacting me regarding the case, and she was like, you have to do it. It's snapped. You have to do this show. , so , it's still out there. Some of these episodes on the case, so, yeah. Well that's interesting.

So as the daughter of Cuban exiles Right.

Who came to the United States with the Freedom Flights, are you the first college graduate in your family?

I am. I am. I, my family came in the late 60, 68. My family could not leave Cuba. , as a matter of fact, my grandfather was killed by the communist regime.

Wow.

It, my mom described the environment in Cuba as.

You would find in. Again on the farm. If you read the book, George Orwell Animal Farm, that's how she described her conditions over there. And obviously there's no free speech. You cannot speak against the government. My grandfather, , did not agree with the policies of the Castro regime, and because of that, he paid the ultimate price.

One day my grandmother is at home, they came and knocked on the door. They took him. And two days later, my mom, my grandmother gets a call that, , my grandfather had committed suicide.

Oh no.

Yeah. And. A, as tragic as that is there, he wasn't the only person that happened to. I mean, it's sad to say , that was just something that would occur.

It was the norm. It was the norm. It was the norm. Yeah. And people don't realize that. And, , my grandma, my grandfather was killed and I. Afterwards, , when they had the opportunity to come to the US through the Freedom place, I still, my mom telling me the story. Imagine being in a country like Cuba and knowing all the things that are happening, and they tell you, well, if you wanna leave, , you can get on these planes.

And you're just not sure what's true, what's not true. Oh, sure. And, , they were able to come to the United States through the Freedom Flights, , which. , so for people that don't know what that is, so there were flights that were actually coordinated between the US government and Cuba, and it brought, , hundreds of thousands of Cubans here into the US and they actually ended up in different places.

My mom and my father ended up in Perth and boy New Jersey, from the Freedom Flight, and then eventually made their way to Tampa, which is where I was born. . And I was born in Tampa, Florida at Tampa General Hospital. And so it was a policy back then. They stopped it. I can't remember. It may have lasted late sixties to maybe 71.

. Somewhere around there. And the policy stopped. But that allowed Cubans to, that weren't in agreement with the island in the island to leave, , the Casper regime. And , interestingly enough, , it's, it, people don't realize it was pretty smart mm-hmm. Of that regime to do that because all you do is you get people that disagree with you to leave.

. And it's much easier to control the people that agree with you as and get rid of all the people that don't agree with you. And , he did that at various stages. You, didn't just have it in the Freedom Flights, the Marielle boat left. Happened where a lot of Cubans left, and then what they did is they empty out kind of the prisons, right?

. And mental institutions and let people out and it sent them to Yeah, the us which is horrible because there were a lot of good people that

That came,

yeah. That came through that. But then you had all the of the bad press of, mm-hmm. Of some of the criminals that were actually. On purpose released by the Cassper regime.

Wow. And I think that may have been some of the stuff that's also happening in Venezuela now. Mm-hmm. , with some of the people that are being released, , by the government to different countries. I was just in Peru and they were having issues. Similar to that. , so yeah. So my family came and I was born, , in Tampa, Florida.

Wow. And my mom and my grandmother raised me after my mom and my dad got divorced. I was two years old. Mm-hmm. And my mom ended up in Miami and that's where I was raised and with my mom and my grandmother. And, , I left Miami. The first time I left Miami was to go to law school at University of Florida.

And life somehow brought me back to the Tampa Bay area. I would've never imagined being here 'cause I don't have family here. And it was because of my husband that I ended up in the Tampa Bay area back in after law school. I finished law school in 2004. , took the bar exam. And so what made you choose law?

Funny, I, since I was young, I wanted to be a lawyer and then. I work with lawyers and I thought I didn't wanna be a lawyer, which is not surprising sometimes, , when you do the work and you think, is this really the type of work I want to do? But, , I work with, , lawyers. I had to drop outta school to start working full-time and help my mom.

Mm-hmm. So I went and got my high school diploma at night. I worked. During the day I went to school at night, I even had a job in the weekend. Yeah, , it was a lot of work. And then, so it took me a while to get my bachelor's, but in the meantime I worked with attorneys. I worked at sole practitioner's office, , bigger law firms.

And, , I changed my mind on my degree, like most young people, what am I gonna do? And I got my bachelor's in psychology, then I got an MBA. But I still had that yearning and I remember going through the MBA program, so the MBA came first. The MBA came first. Wow. Yes. And it was during the MBA that I made the decision that I am gonna go to law school because I did not want to regret not getting my law degree.

And it was hard for me because in Miami at the time, there was only a private. University, which was University of Miami, Florida International University, did not have a law program. . And I was paying all this by myself. So my only options really, in terms of going to a state program was University of Florida and Florida State University.

So I knew that if I was gonna go to law school, I would have to basically leave Miami and pay this myself, which is what I ended up doing. And I was 30 years old. Well, good for you. Which is for some people. Yeah. Yeah. I did a complete 180 in my life. Mm-hmm. And, , I ended up, , getting accepted. I actually got accepted both to Florida State and University of Florida.

I chose University of Florida. Those were the only two schools I applied to. . And I, it was the best decision I ever made in my life, going and getting my law degree. And even then I thought, well, with an MBA, I'd probably end up. Doing some type of business. . , work , and working, , doing either commercial litigation or something along those lines.

And in law school you have the last semester of law school, there is a capstone class called trial practice where you basically try a case. And you have a partner and they have a real judge in a real courtroom. And first year law students are the jurors. And you learn how to try a case. And , they assign different cases, , to each, , student in the class.

And I ended up getting the criminal case. Now, I had never worked with criminal attorneys in my life. And we got the criminal case. So at one point you work the case as a prosecutor and you present it as a prosecutor, and then , you try the case as defense attorney. Well, we won the same case as prosecution and the defense.

Oh, wow. And it shows you how important good lawyering is. It was the same set of facts. . And you just trying the same case with, uh, you know, against other attorneys. , and I ended up booking that class and it was the first indication of. I could do litigation, that, that was a forte for me.

Mm-hmm. And when I ended up in the Tampa Bay area, I ended up, , getting a job at the Pinellas County State Attorney's Office. Wow. Yeah. I never imagined that I'd end up being a prosecutor. And , it was the best decision. I enjoyed my years, truly enjoyed my years working as a prosecutor and my. My bosses, there were fantastic mentors.

, they, people don't realize that a lot of attorneys that work in the area, a lot of them actually start, , at the state attorney's office or prosecuting or even being public defenders. . And it's a great way to get experience and try cases. . When you're young, what led you to the city council?

Yeah, another interesting story somewhere else. I never thought that I'd end up so. I was practicing law, my husband and , I had, I have high risk pregnancy and I had stopped practicing. So we made the decision that I would stay home and I, my daughter was, thankfully she was born, no issues there, but I was 43 when I had my daughter.

So I stayed home. And then after being home for about a year or so, you start getting antsy and. I knew that I, my husband also, his work schedule required a lot of traveling. He's also an attorney, so it would be very difficult for me to raise our daughter. We didn't have family in the area, and me go back to private practice or even working at a law firm.

So I started getting involved in the community and the easiest way was through the neighborhood association. I remember when I first moved into the neighborhood. We had an active neighborhood association, and I saw the benefits of having an active neighborhood association in our, in their neighborhood.

Um, meaning we were engaged with the city. We knew the things that were happening, whether you had the time or not. You got the update through the neighborhood association and can get involved. You also saw the benefits of knowing your neighbors and having that community building that comes with a neighborhood association that's so important.

Feeling connected to a neighborhood, so. Our neighborhood association had completely died out. We didn't have any membership, we didn't have a board, so I made it my goal to restart the neighborhood association and that's how it happened. I, that is what led to city Council and it was the perfect, , training ground is the best way that I could describe it for someone, whoever would desire to be on city council, because the reality is.

You are dealing with the same issues that are going, you would deal with as a city council member, , being in the neighborhood association. So I did everything from beginning it, writing the bylaws, , setting up the board to member outreach and , getting our neighborhood association involved again.

And we had like 25% of the neighborhood that was. Dues paying, which is amazing that you were able to do that. . So after I did that and while I was a, , president, as a neighborhood association, so can I

ask you? Yeah, sure. Did. Did you do any projects when you were the president?

Did I do any projects?

Oh, absolutely. Like you

have your neighborhood association did projects. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Can you

speak to maybe one of them? Oh, absolutely. I can, , talk a little bit about what we did. So as the neighborhood association, it was very important to get different parts of the neighborhood engaged and , you have events, for instance.

, that are attractive to families, whether it's an Easter egg hunt or a Christmas event. But then you have other things like the mentor program where you have others that may be retired that want to give back to the community, , in a different way and give their knowledge and. Variance back , and we were working with neighborhood school to bring in mentors and , we got a room full of people to become mentors in that school and help children.

And so we did that. The other big project that I did is getting the neighborhood signs. One of the. Big parts of a neighborhood association is building that neighborhood identity and that pride in your neighborhood. And you can do it in different ways. And what we ended up doing is getting the neighborhood signed.

So I worked with the city on getting the matching grant program, monies and kind of finding the different ways because you can do a matching grant with volunteer hours or with cash. And we did it with. Pretty much, we did some cash, but we did the majority with volunteer hours. So we allowed people to partake in, whether it was alley cleanups, the mentoring program at the school, , the neighborhood events, those all counted as volunteer hours, late cleanups.

So we did a variety of things to engage our community. And then of course, there were the. Uh, matters that related to the city in terms of whether it was neighborhood traffic problems, the bike lanes on MLK, and different things that in that involved the city itself. I was always making sure that our neighborhood was engaged with the information so we can make the best decision, or at least take the best position for our neighborhood and our neighborhood's interests.

.

so I was the neighborhood president, did not think about city council, and then people start asking you, I. Are you gonna run for city council? And now in hindsight, it should be obvious, but that wasn't my goal

and for me, but I think that's when it works for you.

When it's not your goal, right? Like when it happens organically, like all of a sudden you're like, this is something I enjoy doing and I could probably make a bigger difference. If I did this,

that's exactly right. My husband, 'cause I had a conversation with him and , he saw how much I enjoyed giving back to the community and my legal background helped a lot.

I. , it really did help in terms of maneuvering all the issues in our neighborhood. , so it should have been obvious, but to me it wa it wasn't something I was thinking about. I had been raising my daughter, okay, I'm getting involved in the neighborhood association, didn't think anything of it. Next thing you know, hey, what do you think about running for city council?

And. It's not, it wasn't just me at the right time. I think it was me at the right time, at the right place. . You have to check all those boxes. My daughter was already, I had been neighborhood president. I don't know if it was already five years. It was by the time it was done is five years. That's more than enough.

I on my way out, by the way, if you're ever a neighborhood president, you have to have an exit plan. You have to. You have to have someone that takes over because there's only so much you can do, and even if you want to, I think it's always good to bring in new energy and new ideas in, and it's good , for whatever organization, whether it's a neighborhood or any other organization, I think it's important to have, a fresh air come in, but.

, next thing I know, my daughter's gonna be going to school. And I had those conversations with my husband about, , you really aren't joined us. Maybe that's something you should think about. And , they. Reached out to me in terms of, you know, there were consultants that reached out to me in terms of, they had seen the work I had done , in this, in the city.

And by the way, at that point I had got a neighborhood of the year, a president of the year, all those things, all those awards, , related to the neighborhood association because of all the initiatives and all the things I'd done. So I thought it was the right step for me at that point in, in life.

, and one of the things I really liked, I, you know. We live in a very partisan world, and we have been, even when I joined city council, was already partisan. One thing that appealed to me about city Council, it is supposed to be nonpartisan. It doesn't mean that it always nonpartisan, but it is supposed to be nonpartisan.

You're not elected, , as a Democrat or Republican or NPA. You are elected to represent your city. In a nonpartisan fashion. And that was one of the things that appealed to me about it. So yes, I ran for office and I ended up winning. And I do, , and I'll go back to the neighborhood association part and my involvement.

I didn't just run for office, I was ready at that point. It wasn't like, I'm gonna throw my hat in. Or I did things because I was running, no, I had done all this work, so I was really at that point, ready to undertake the challenge of being a city council person, which I think was very helpful.

I knew you at the time, and I have to say that I agree with that.

, I could see the trajectory happening for you. So it just made perfect sense. At some point

You build that base and sometimes when I, and I hear people that are interested and they may. Wanna run for city council from in different parts of the city or whatever it may be.

I always tell 'em, you need to get engaged and start learning , your district. Everyone knew me in my district, like . That was helpful. I understood the issues in my district and I feel like even as a city council member now, I'm even better prepared because I do have a really good understanding of the dynamics in my district , and that was very helpful.

I ran and I've been on city council, and , as prepared as I was. As knowledgeable as I am in terms of navigating government and understanding my role, because you have to all under understand your role.

There are people that will come to me and say, can you do this? No, that's not my role. My, I'm a city council person. That could be the mayor's role. No, that's the Pinellas County schools. I understood the lay of the land, but even with all that, I, it's always a challenge when you're, when you start a new job and there is a learning curve.

And I will say that first year on city Council, of course there's a learning curve. You're working, you're not making the decision by yourself. You're on a panel, , on a council with seven other individuals who are also representing their districts. And you have to find a way to work together and make your case.

But , you wanna make your case , on whatever issue, but you also have to get others to join in and. And , that can be very challenging. And then you also work with administration, which is also a different dynamic by the way. 'cause then you have administration. And one of the things that I think, I know that this is something you may wanna touch upon later in terms of the role of city council is a lot of times.

You could have people question, well, isn't this what you do? And it's like, no, that's not my role, that's administration. Or that's something that falls within the mayor's purview and it's not a city council issue. So I can't direct city council, , I can't direct employees of the city to do things.

The charter prohibits that we work with them and we have good relationships with them, , but there are certain things my, there are limitations in my role. That , it's funny because when you are working in the field or you're an advocate for your neighborhood or you're an advocate on any issue, and you, and I've seen you, Karen, come to city council and advocate on different issues, you are not, you're free to do that.

There as a city council member, you'd be surprised. It's now you're just not focusing on one issue. You're representing your district and you're representing the city. 'cause not only does your district elect you, but then you have to run citywide and everyone. , elects you. So you, , it's just a very different approach when you're on city council on dealing with issues than you, when you're just advocating in the community for whatever's best for your government or for your organization or for whatever issue you want.

. You have more things that you have to worry about, and plus you have legal limitations. You can't just do whatever you want. A lot of times you may think something can happen and then you talk to legal and they explain. No, you, that can't happen because of X, Y, and Z. So , the reality is that being on city council, it there, it's much more constrained, not so, I wasn't surprised about it, but in practice it is interesting going through the process and understanding those constraints and navigating that.

, I found it, , really interesting.

So what I find mind boggling is every time I have been to a city council meeting, I see you all sitting there with these binders. So , if you've just tuned in, I'm speaking with Lizette Heitz, vice Chair of the City Council. Talk to me about the binders. Oh, the

binders.

So , let me just point something out. I know Council Member Monte is no longer on City Council. But I would always post the shops about this, , that his binders were bigger because he would only print on one side of the on the paper, so his binders were twice as size. I think I heard you all mention that once at a city council meeting.

I thought that was very important to note. So the binders, yes they are. If anyone is ever interested in running for office, I will say the amount of reading and preparation that is necessary. , for the meetings, yeah. It's very difficult for people to understand how much , they have to read and be prepared.

And after a while, by the way, it you, once you start learning, then it's not as tedious and you'll understand the issues. 'cause there is a repetition, , the issues repeat themselves yearly if you go through the project process or whatever process. , you'll find that repetition, but still you do have to do reading and you can't just rely on others to, we have professionals that are fantastic with the city.

Obviously all the departments, there's staff by professionals and they present issues to us, but we have a fiduciary duty to do our work. , and I take that seriously and as you saw with the whole historic gas plant deal. I went through all the agreements. That was a ton to give you just a ton of work.

And I didn't just read these agreements. I had to read 'em and understand them like an attorney so I can have discussions with the attorneys. . And be, and at those. Meetings that we have to hash out all these different issues. So it wasn't just, okay, I'm just gonna read this, like you read any book.

. It's really critical thinking and it, they were, it was very difficult material to go through. And I'll tell you and my husband, this was not my husband's early retirement plan. I always joke with about that, even though he's very supportive. But for me to be on city council was not his early retirement plan, but the time that I spent just alone on.

The historic gas plant, the agreements, reviewing all that, whatever. It, there's no way the amount of money that un paid as City Council member will cover that. That was just above and beyond in terms of the work that I would've ever expected to be on city council , to, to be prepared for a deal that big.

. Which is the largest deal in the city's history. And review the materials and try to be ready, because I did feel the burden.

Well, your legal background That's right. Also played a role in that because you understood it in a way. Well, you know, I had a

responsibility because , when, you know, the way I felt it, I had that burden on me because I, I was hired. You know, I was elected as a city council member, not as the attorney for the city. Sure. But you can't forget your role. . I am an attorney.

And that was part of the reason people also elected me, was my knowledge. And, and, and bringing some expertise. And so you do feel that burden of actually going the extra mile and making sure we are doing the right thing on these agreements and bringing out any of the issues, , that you may, that I may see.

So it was . It was just a lot of work and I, I do feel good , in the sense of, you know, was I on the losing end of that vote? Sure. But to me it wasn't whether I was the losing end or the winning end or whatever. To me, the most important thing was you go through the process, you bring out all the issues.

I did what I thought was right. . In terms of having those conversations, because I do think the public needs to. Understand one thing is to say, are you for against the deal? That wasn't , the issue isn't whether you're for against the deal, you really have to understand, what are we agreeing to?

Yeah. What is the deal? What is the deal?

Yes. I couldn't go anywhere during that time without people saying to me, are you gonna get behind this? And then somebody else would say, don't get behind this. Right. So it was like you couldn't really gauge the community because half the people were for it.

Half the people were not for it. And I don't really think any of us. Knew enough about it, right. To really make an informed decision. And we had to depend on people that were on the Community Benefits agreement committee and the people that were sitting on the city council to make the right decision.

And that's exactly right. Yeah. To be able to make an informed decision. We were elected because. Hey, look, in a democracy, people don't have time to be engaged on everything. They just don't. But they elect representatives who should be engaged and should understand things so that way they can make the decisions for them on certain things.

, and so I took that very seriously. , and by the way, , I went to a. The neighborhood association meetings in my district and I would go through the deal and explain to them different facets of it so they understood what it involved, because I thought that was extremely important to me. It wasn't are you for or against?

You have to understand kind of the terms. And by the way, there were people that came and lobbied me. And I would ask them straight up, have you read the term sheet? . Because if you're gonna lobby me for or against it, I know that people are foreign against it and that's fine. But if we're gonna have a sit down conversation .

About this . Then. Please tell me you've at least understand the terms of the deal and then, then you can, then you can attack you. You don't agree with me on this. Okay. We can have a discussion on it, right? . We can have a discussion as to why this is my position on this issue and why you think I'm wrong.

And I think that's extremely important. So that was just, , an example of the work that goes into a, a city council member. That was a very big deal. Not everything that comes before us . Obviously is, , at that level. But you have to be ready to take on really big issues in our city. Sure.

Just like hurricanes happen , and how to handle that. And people are relying on you. Yeah. 'cause you're on

the public services and infrastructure committee Right. Had the crane. Right. Collapse.

Right. We had the crane issue and as you know, you're in downtown, so I'm sure Karen, you and your neighbors were not happy about that issue.

It was a little scary.

It was extremely scary. Yeah. And I will, and I will tell you, I found out two days before it happened.

Right. I think we were all in that, in that same. , information loop where all of a sudden it's like, what's gonna happen?

Right. And, and so I usually have a plan when, you know, I've lived in Florida my whole life.

Hurricanes happen. I tell this to everybody every year. You have hurricane season, six months of the year. . I went through Hurricane Andrew. I'm, I'm well aware of what a hurricane can do, but I usually have a plan. You know, either, either plan A, plan B, even plan C. . And one of those is usually.

You always have to have the get out of dot, get out of town, right? Yes. Depending on what the scenario is. I only did that for Irma, but I always have a plan. And my plan for this hurricane was, believe it or not, stay in downtown. I, I remember when we spoke about that. So I, I mean, what could go wrong?

So I. Right. I'm staying at a hotel where a number one, it's the, you know, higher building requirements, obviously ready for the hurricane. It wasn't in a, in the, in a, in evacuation zone that there is no flood risk. So I felt very confident about where I was at and taking my family there until 48 hours before when I got a call about the cream.

And I can only imagine how everyone else. In downtown felt, oh, let me tell you. Oh,

I'm sure. Yeah. I got several emails about that. More than several, I would say. Yeah. Great. Yeah. People were, people were

scared. Yes. Yeah. They should, they should absolutely have been scared and upset about the whole issue.

And so the worst part was, so I, I find out about this. And then I find out we can do nothing about it. We are, we're, we're, we're trying to do certain things Sure. But at, at the end of the day, yeah. What you really will want to happen, which is some sort of regulation. . It has, we're preempted at the state level and the state has to do something.

Yeah.

And that's frustrating. So for those listeners out there who care about this issue. Lobby your state representatives to do something about the cranes because no matter if you're here in the city of St. Petersburg or any other city, there's, if there's a building going up, there's a crane out there.

And think about even people I remember. They're building a home and you have concrete blocks that are sitting, right? . In the neighborhood. 'cause they're building some home and then a hurricane's coming and you're worried that those are gonna become missiles. . A hurricane situation, you have to worry about all these things.

So you are worried, you live in the neighborhood. You could be worried about concrete blocks just outside of your home.

Imagine a crane. Yes. I will say this much. I've spoken to two developers who are building downtown within the next, I don't know, year or two, I guess both of them. I said, so what kind of C Crane are you gonna use?

And both of them said to me, not one that's gonna collapse. I would hope not. So I think they're thinking about that themselves, whether there's regulation or not, I'd like to hope. , you would hope. And

the reality is that if you are not, if it's not regulated, I mean there is a cost associated with that risk.

And there will be litigation as there, there's litigation right now. Sure. They were lucky that no one got hurt. But now you still have all the damage that the crane costs and the cost associated with that. So. Isn't it better to plan accordingly , and be safer and reduce the risk by using cranes that could withstand high risk, wind speed, or, , locking them down how they're supposed to.

, I'm not an engineer, but there are certain things that can be done, , so yes, the crane issue was a unexpected issue during the storm. .

Let's talk about something more pleasant.

Yes.

The Arts Advisory Committee,

arts Advisory. It's a great group. So I'm on the Arts Advisory Committee and what is nice about it?

So we have different committees that are, , basically the majority of committee members are volunteers in the city. These aren't just city council committees, but these are committees that are pretty much driven by. Community members who care. . And in the Arts Advisory committee, you have a lot of community members who are in the arts and they care about their community and they, .

Devote their time to giving back on the Arts Advisory Committee. And so what they do is they work on, , we have funding that goes to a grant organization. So one of the biggest things that the Arts Advisory Committee does is go through all the applications that we get to make sure that the appropriate organizations that are, that should get it, should get the funding.

So that's pretty much what the Arts Advisory Committee does, and I always find it. I, I love going to the meetings because I learned so much from the community itself. I, you can't be an expert on everything, and that's the hard part about being on city council. . All these different issues are brought to you and, , there's no way you can know more than the people that do this.

, and it, that's how I feel about the arts. . They're gonna know much more about. The arts community that I will any day and their expertise , is so important for the city. So we can guide those monies to the organizations that need it. . And so they work really hard to do that, and I'm very lucky that I'm, I'm part of that committee.

Well I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed having you here today. I'm so happy you finally, finally is our time, is our time coming up? It's come, it's coming. Coming close to an end now. I know, but you'll have to come, come back again. Was quick. You will have to come back again. That was quick because I, I enjoyed so much having you here and we are right around the corner from City Hall, so we're not that far.

Well, whenever, whenever you'd like me to come back, I'd be happy to, Karen. It's always a pleasure.

Well, I've been speaking to Lizette Haitz, the vice chair of our city council. She has really enlightened us a lot about a lot of, , different issues from the historic gas plant.

Deal with the city to the Arts Advisory Committee and the, , public services and infrastructure committee , and her journey to the city council. I appreciate you joining me today.

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure.