 uh... yesterday folks is copely girders scott copely's a candidate for the city council uh... running in district one uh... copely is focusing on affordable housing infrastructure to meet the growing population of the city water management environment reducing uh... floods inside of the neighborhoods and copely comes from uh... long family history of uh... basically building up saint petersburg florida there's no doubt about that copely welcome the t f n n now thank you for having me excited to be here some time with you and there is no doubt man and you know the bottom line is that you know there's no prejudice here but i can tell you folks okay his family's done a lot of work here uh... they have they have i mean i i i don't know your father i know robb okay and i and met him a long time ago and this is so it's happened with saint petersburg folk just so you know okay there's people like uh... his uncle and his father okay that have worked for a long period of time to bring saint petersburg to the level they're at right now you know copely i saw this happen in boston it does take thirty years okay but we're here now you're running for city council so tell the folks why they should vote for you now i appreciate it and uh... frankly it made me tear up a little bit just thinking about my dad my uncle and frankly all of my family that uh... you know it's port port their heart out to the city they love you know all the way going back to uh... my grandfather being one of the founding members of uh... delia little league is that right? that is so cool man because i'm telling you you know and again folks okay i know what the difference is because i grew up in boston i've been in saint petersburg for twenty five years and i know how much it takes but they have done an amazing job and and i am so happy that they finally got to see it you know what i mean? yeah i've been super blessed to have family on both sides you know i i i grew up with all of them around me uh... that just uh... have a care and a passion for uh... their neighbor in treating them like family and this is an opportunity to do that city-wide and that's really why i got excited to do it you know i feel like uh... over the last uh... couple of years there has just been this uh... divisiveness that somehow has gotten into our culture a little bit here in saint pete where uh... i think we can all agree that we live in an amazing place and and it's grown up in front of our eyes you know if you if you came from boston my college roommate was from brain tree just outside of boston and so i've been up there quite a bit and so you know that didn't happen overnight and and we've been able to be a part of this generation that's been able to watch saint pete grow up and and don't give me wrong there's a long history and long but uh... rip some really great things of saint pete history and then there's some things that uh... you wish you could go back and shake the head at uh... of some of the people that made the decision but we're here now and we're in such a good place and really it was just the opportunity for me to say listen i love this place i want my four-year-old daughter of my two-year-old son to live here and raise their family one day and we should really just can try to continue to grow smart because of this little big-town feel we have this this small business entrepreneurial uh... shell that we we've grown and i want to keep it that way and this is the opportunity to do that and i just think uh... because of you know what being able to learn from my family members before me my financial background as a financial advisor my capacity to be able to serve because of being a small business owner uh... and and the knowledge that i've been able to gain of our city and how it works uh... it was just time and uh... i'm super excited to go to work for city that i tell people on time i owe a lot more to that i've been able to get back so far and this is just an opportunity to try to catch up on some of that equity well the cool thing is that you were learning right at the you have supper table at breakfast table so yeah there's no there's no doubt about that okay so let's get down to it right let's get down i mean i know everyone is talking about the affordable housing and listen we need it there's no doubt about that but i got to talk to you first cuz you're not your uncle's in charge of all the neighborhoods right he's done an amazing job everyone's trying to do the best they can okay the real question is though uh... you know we have a lot of young kids that are acting up in general uh... and so let's start there let's start safety inside saint p what are we going to do first and foremost uh... let me just let me just say uh... we're going to continue to support our police officers and they're going to be the number one item on the budget every year uh... we're going to continue to invest in them to make sure that we continue now i don't know if you know this but you know we have the only police force in the Tampa Bay area that matches the diversity of our city right now that i listen to it we had a great force there's no doubt yeah when it's because of that intentionality of making them a priority that we're able to continue to do that so first and foremost we've got to continue to support our officers continue to recruit and develop our officers better than anybody else that's not going to change right after that i think to get to the root of the problem while supporting our our best in-class police officers we need to and i think this is where one of the one of the ways that i can go to work on day one because of knowing how to work with budgets and things like that find dollars outside of our police budget to make sure that we're investing in our youth we're continuing to invest in our rec centers in our public private partnerships uh... on the board member on the board member of the police athletic league uh... that gives kids an opportunity to have positive experiences with police officers making sure they know they've got opportunities uh... before they go and make a poor decision i think that's where we can get to the root of the problem but first and foremost we've got to continue to win uh... like i said invest in our best in class uh... police force giving them the support they've got our backs they've got to know we've got theirs uh... but then making sure that we're investing in our kids in our families and that's an and it's not an or you don't have to do one or the other you can do both and that's what i want to do yes now this is really cool talk to me about the aspect of water management flooding this is happening you know in the whole country of course to talk to me about your your ideas about water management infrastructure yes so uh... i don't i most people probably don't know that because they're not uh... you know trying to dig into the the weeds like i am these days but you know just last week uh... the city council approved the lift station that's gonna make sure that are are two biggest plan for connected so when when and if there is a capacity problem that got for that we had a hurricane and we needed capacity because right now we do not we've got about a normal day today is about forty million gallons of of water we've got the capacity for a hundred so we're doing a good job but to make sure that we're able to service entire city we just approved the lift station and the main to go from northwest to southwest uh... so we continue we can trade-off now we can move water from one place or another if short acres is having uh... uh... higher uh... moon tide uh... we can move that so we need to continue to on the plan that we've got so far right two billion dollars two point four billion dollars over the next ten years right we gotta make sure we finish that plan the second is is we've got to continue to work uh... you know on our coastlines making work will make sure we're making smart decisions uh... but really you know and it's it's kind of a boring answer we've just got to make sure that we stick to the plan we fund the plan to make sure are water resources master plan to make sure that work catching up for the frankly twenty thirty forty years of uh... unfortunately it's neglect uh... that this kind of administration the last five or six years has caught up to we've got to make sure we're getting there now how old are you i'm thirty eight years old thirty eight good we need some good young blood folks it's votegirdis dot com and girdis is g-e-r-d-e-s copla you have a great one safe one we appreciate it look forward having you back on again i'd love to do it thank you stay right there folks to come right back