 I guess today folks is Lissette Hanowitz. Lissette is a candidate for the St. Petersburg City Council. She moved to St. Petersburg, Florida in 2006 and fell in love with it, as we all do when we get here. It's a beautiful thing. She worked in the office of state attorney, state attorney of the 6th Judicial Circuit for the United States Attorney's Office, also for the Middle District of Florida. She started her own practice in 2014 and she is the president of the Crescent Lake neighborhood association and she's been involved with many of the communities, the neighborhoods inside of St. Pete for quite some time. Lissette, welcome to TFNN. Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. It's a beautiful thing. Well, we appreciate all the work you've done out there and I know that you're in a battle out here as all you politicians are in a battle. You get two weeks coming up. Oh, it's a battle, yeah. That's right. That's a beautiful thing. So tell us why we should vote for you. Well, I will tell you, I never even imagined running for office, but it is something that life brought me to. I got involved in the neighborhood association back in 2016. I had a high risk pregnancy and we decided that I'd stay home. I'm a former state and federal prosecutor as an attorney. I will tell you that I saw how my legal skills could help the community in our neighborhood. I built the organization, the neighborhood organization from the ground up. We have over 25% of our neighborhood involved. That's over 500 households and through that I've assisted people on issues, whether it's transportation, safety issues. We engaged the community to support our zoned elementary school, woodland elementary, getting mentors in and building a learning garden. I've been part of the council neighborhood association. So I just want to continue the work that I've already been doing in the community on city council. Yeah, and you've definitely built, you know, I can tell you from, I build a lot of houses in different communities in the Crescent Lake. What happens, folks, is that Crescent Lake has always been a very strong neighborhood, but you really made it a beautiful neighborhood at porch parties. Come on down to St. Pete, folks. It's a beautiful thing. So let me ask you, what do you think of the challenges right now for St. Petersburg? You know, right now, I'll tell you, I was born and raised in Florida. I was born in Tampa, raised in Miami, and life brought me back to the Tampa Bay Area in 2004, been in St. Pete's in 2006. And I'll tell you, St. Pete's growing. I mean, it's clear. It's been growing for a while. That's that's a challenge it's going to have. Like any growing city, you have the growing pains. How do you keep, how do you keep, you know, what makes our city cool and what brought us here in your first place, you know, while it grows. Clearly, we have the infrastructure issues also. And then of course, because of all this growth and everything, we have affordable housing issues. So I think those are the challenges we have right now. And, you know, what has happened folks across the country is that single family housing, you know, everyone has talked about affordable housing forever. I mean, my whole lifetime, that's all I've heard and nothing ever gets done about it. And one of the big challenges for all communities is that everyone says they want it, but not in my backyard. That's that's kind of the mantra right across the whole country. So what has happened is that in certain communities, they're saying, okay, no more single families, doesn't have to be single family houses, you could put duplexes, you could put triplexes, you could put quads. And right now, actually last Thursday night, I was listening to that council meeting. And at the council meeting, they were pushing forward that that 90% of the city of St. Petersburg just may have new zoning. And what do you think about that? Well, I will tell you right now, the city's going through the vision 2050 process, which it's a planning process that is going to end up making changes to our comprehensive plan and then turn our land development regulations. Yes. And what that does is it's going to, they're going to look at the city and see where there can be zoning changes to increase density and zoning in certain areas. I don't know if specifically it's going to happen citywide and there's going to be up zoning everywhere. I think what's going to happen is through the public engagement process, you're going to start having a better vision of where and how you can do it. And I will tell you, I hate the word yimby and nimby and all that because once you start with names, it shuts people down. So if you go to a neighborhood and you tell them, well, you guys are just a bunch of nimbies and not hear what the issues are, it's a problem. And you have to engage communities to figure out what is the concern? Is it parking? Is it gentrification? Is it density? And why? And have those conversations. Because I've, at least I've learned as a neighborhood president listening and engaging people and having a conversation, you'd be surprised where you get to. What you meant in terms of difficulty and the not in my backyard mentality, I will tell you some of the most established neighborhoods in our city have a variety of housing. They have a variety of housing. But the fact of the matter is, is that when these regulations basically come out to the community, and it was one of these that, yeah, let's say I have an ADU, which is a garage apartment folks, okay? And I'm in a certain part of the city and there is plenty of people that even though if I had one, I'd say, no, I don't want anyone else to have one. So I mean, I listen, you have challenges. All these city councilors have challenges. There's no doubt. I'm just bringing it up because that's what you're going to be walking into if you happen to win your seat inside the city council. I trust me. I've walked into it here as a neighborhood president. I will tell you that we had issues in our neighborhood when they built modern homes and, you know, people and this is back in 2015. Yeah, that was it. I know exactly what you're talking about. Okay. And people were up in arms. But I will tell you this though, Tom, when as soon as you ask people, you know, okay, well, do you want to go ahead and change it to a local landmark district? You know, if you want to take away their rights, that means you want, you want to also change your own. Oh, well, no, no, no, no, no. People don't want to do that. They want to live with their name. People want to limit what the neighbors do, but they don't necessarily, if we would have had a vote of the neighborhood where it's like, okay, well, we're going to limit this throughout the neighborhood. You'd be surprised how much people like their property rights. So, you know, it is interesting. They always want to tell someone else what to do. But a lot of times they don't apply to themselves with the zoning issues. I will tell you, you're right. I mean, accessory dwelling units are definitely an option that we don't have throughout the city because the zoning doesn't allow it throughout the city. And that's a good option to have for affordable housing and not only helps the person that lives in the accessory dwelling unit. And it can conform, by the way, a lot of times people are concerned about the character of the neighborhood. You can make them conform to the character of the neighborhood, but you can have the accessory dwelling unit, what allows for a single person or a college student or even a small family to live there. And then it also helps the homeowner, right? Because they, they collect rent. So, you know, and just like the middle housing, your duplexes and triplexes, I've seen some new ones that they have designed where you would not know, right? It's a duplex automatic. Yeah. There's no doubt. Well, listen, I wish you the best. I love how you think, and that must be the attorney because, because, because no, it's really cool what you said. I mean, the aspect just bringing it back to anyone, not in general, that, hey, listen, you know, okay, well, do you want other restrictions on it? You know, that's right. Well, listen, you have a great one, safe one. We wish you luck and we'd like to have you back. Thank you so much, Tom. Take care. Okay. Have a great one. Have a safe one. Stay right there, folks. Come right back.