wait five minutes we're gonna wait five minutes for uh member Williams she's running late and then we'll get started so five minutes we'll be back we'll call the CRA POPKA community
meeting to order um we will get right into the meeting let's see we need approval of minutes from November 6 2024 any changes additions so moved got a motion by member Draco second second by member Smith all those
in favor i opposed motion carries unanimously all right public comment public comment first okay all right well we can go ahead and back from the public we should speak about nobody okay
uh Mr chairman uh do we have an invocation and a pledge we'll do that at just the regular council okay all right thank you yes okay all right well I guess we got the team is going to put the put the proposal out there and that's what Mayor
I I think it's appropriate probably after the team probably present then they probably have some public comment after that sure yeah i agree so So we got Bobby Radley and Blanch i guess it's the tag team so y'all come on up we'll get started with
uh with the direction for the CRA good evening i'm Bobby How the planning manager also the interim executive development or community develop executive interim executive director for the CRA tongue twister
all right can you hear me that good okay all right okay okay so we're here this evening to discuss House Bill 991 and Senate Bill 1242 these bills have been filed in the state legislature what these bills proposed to do is to limit
the powers of CRAAS if this bill becomes law CRAAS will no longer be able to initiate new projects after October 1st 2025 based on this a list of projects that has been proposed would be need to be budgeted prior to October 1st 2025 in the event this bill becomes law earlier
this afternoon uh we had sent out an amended version of the bill uh apparently that has been on pause in the legislature so that the original bill that was included in your packet is the one going forward based on this there's a list of projects that are proposed uh
to kind of close out the CRA if this bill does become law uh the first one would be completion of the downtown Apaka Trail to Alabama Avenue uh the trail is under construction currently but this would be the finalization of the trail an additional would be the Central Avenue portion of the trail the
Apocket Trail city Hall Park uh which the previous director I believe had proposed before the CRA uh little pocket park outside of city hall here finalization of that action Sports Park upgrades that's the uh pump track skate
park and pump track there'd be upgrades to that lonzo Williams Park amenity upgrades Edwards Field amenity upgrades signal and pedestrian upgrades at fifth fifth and central avenue property acquisition expansion of Lonzo Williams Park this is property that's owned by
Quest uh Foundation expansion of Kit Nelson Park there's a property that the city has uh sent a letter to the owner uh we've not received any information back to date from that owner inquiring if they would be interested in selling the property for the expansion of Kitland Nelson Park gas lamps on Fifth
Street and then the 8th Street uh plat the pocket park with the uh 082 acre and the four lots so I'll kind of go through some of the projects here that's the overview this is the trail map as you can see the purple on the map is the completion over to Alabama and the blue
is on Central Avenue this is the outside area where the pocket park would be uh the city hall park pocket park next to the baked goods shop uh it' be a proposal for some benches and seating area out there this is the uh slide for the
upgrade to the acta action sports park also known as pump track uh it would include ADA parking spaces sidewalk a pavilion uh some water fountains and Mr williams can kind of touch on some of those upgrades a little bit more in detail
this is at Alonzo Williams Park they rebuild the basketball courts uh include a new 20 by 28 pavilion there as well uh and help beautify that park and it's a very nice park this is possible acquisition for future Alonzo Williams
Park expansion that you see in the orange uh it's property that the city has approached Quest about uh sent a letter to them to inquire if there's any interest in selling the property to the city this is for the uh Edwards field upgrades renovated open field with
improved irrigation uh some basketball courts some pickle ball courts and then the potential property acquisition that I had referenced earlier which is this piece right here uh we've approached the property owner with a letter we've not received anything to date from the
property owner this is the signage and pavement marking plan for the crosswalk and and um the pedestrian upgrades and signalization upgrades at Fifth and Park right outside here uh it is kind of a hairy uh walk if you try and walk across that street
there are no crosswalks there um this would include a signalization where you press a button walk and then there's um mast arms that would be proposed for signalization there at the intersection and then this is the area of the A Street Replat this is the
property in question here this was brought up at the last CRA meeting in February the community workshop um but it was asked to be brought forward tonight for a up or down vote on that one as well and that's the plat so with that this is more or less a discussion
to gauge any input from the CRA board as projects they would like to see going forward and we will solicit any uh discussion and input and provide direction to staff to go forward all right we'll start down there how about that member yeah yeah thank you
uh chair uh in uh in reading the bill the initial bill that was given to us uh what I don't see in the bill is if some of these projects are appropriated considering that it may
take longer than September 30th 2025 to complete is there any indication from the state that the CRA can remain in existence well we have we're just happen to have the FR attorney of record so he can answer
why don't we do that first if we got any any questions about the the actual legislation the reason we're here um obviously Cliff Shepard represents everybody in Tallahassee on CRAAS when it comes to CRAAS yes sir um so the answer is uh very unclear um the bill
that I sent you the amendment that I sent you which I had gotten on the 14th as today's the 16th uh was what I was told was going to go before committee yesterday and as you can well you probably don't know the mayor knows because I was able to tell him just before the meeting it got pulled
temporarily um and there's a general disagreement amongst the House and the Senate as to what bill they want to see or what amendments they want to see i would say to you that for today's purposes you should plan as if you're
not going to get to go any more past this year because that's the most conservative view i think that at the end of the day they will find a way to allow CRAAS to continue to exist but with some some tighter reigns what those reigns will look like could be anything
from penalizing those CRAAS many of whom are in South Florida who continue to violate the rules spending they act like those rules don't exist and they treat CRAAS like personal piggy banks and this is how we get to this position so that's problem number one that's been suggested by the FRA as a solution another one has
been to tighten with very clear definition with no wiggle room what you can and can't spend money on i spend an inordinate amount of time explaining to people no you can't spend money on marketing yes that is prohibited you can't do it and they still don't believe
me because common sensically they think if we've got a CRA wouldn't we want to promote it yeah but this is not about the common sense this is about what the law says you can and can't do we've proposed penalizing the CRAAS for example that continue to violate the
rules including an up to the potential for having their ability to be a CRA taken away all at once so instead of being like a third grader where the teacher punishes the whole class for one kid talking you just punish the people who were actually talking in class don't know if any of those things are going to
get traction um but the amendment that you have seen but we has is has been paused would essentially allow CRAAS to continue to operate the way they are today with one major exception all CRAAS would come to an end on in 2045 no
matter when their their deadline is if it's you know past that it would they would end then the only exception being if they had ongoing debt obligations to be funded through CRA revenues they can't interfere with those bond covenants but short of that for example
if our CRA ended in 2050 it would not it would end in 2045 ours happens to end earlier but that's the way it would work um they what they proposed the amendment for those that don't know is they proposed that a new project meaning one
that's put in existence and funded after this year could be done if it was fully paid off by the termination date of the CRA or 2045 which as ever is earlier and so that one we could live with I think
generally speaking but then they pulled it so I I don't know where we're headed so right now if you're planning I think this list is great because you cannot move fast enough to keep up with the changing mind of the legislature so if you could get these projects underway
sooner rather than later that's what I would do all right so that so that begs the other question as uh you know counselor some of these projects uh run into problems requires change orders
um time delays those types of things so the other question would become given whatever the termination date is of the CRA would the CRA be able to fund cost overruns budget adjustments
um changes in scopes of services because as everybody knows you run into a problem in the field and it requires an engineer to redo something so that requires a change in scope of services so do you foresee if the CRA remained in existence
that the we would be able capable of making those changes uh the answer is you would be capable of making those changes but it would be coming out of the obligations of the general fund because you would no longer have tiff coming in meaning you wouldn't get those rebates from the county that we now
spend on these things so yes it's possible uh the more conservative approach if that's what you're interested in is to make sure that you build in a significant contingency in the budget so you have the ability to deal with those overruns from tiff and within the time frame of your CRA but
yes there wouldn't be a situation in which you've got a contractor out there the job's not complete and you can't pay him because you can you just have to ship the obligation to the city's general fund so that needs to be in your kind of calculus of what you're approving I did notice in the bill
though that as far as the debt service is concerned the legislature allowed the CRA to remain in existence i believe that was the terminology uh in order to pay off the debt correct um you know but it begs the question is
I mean if if if the debt is already if the debt's already obligated unless the CRA is required to meet in order to approve the debt service payment which I kind of doubt um I kind of have trouble understanding why the legislature would allow the CRA to remain in existence
relative to debt service but not for projects because it's a constitutional prohibition against interfering with bond covenants it's the same problem if you want to use a more recent historical example of what happened when the legislature in its wisdom thought they could pull the rug out from under Disney and Disney had over a billion dollars in
bond commitments it's unconstitutional and in the case of Disney they had specific legislation that said they would never do that so they had to go back and rewrite it so they could not they and would not interfere with the ability of of Disney to pay its bond debt that's the reason would you make
the assumption that if the CRA were to terminate we would still be required to conduct an annual audit uh that would be up to them but that's still in the statute so unless it comes out the answer is yes okay member Nesla so I was reviewing a lot of the projects
that we've done what we're looking at uh potentially doing moving forward do we What's our end date for the CRA as it currently stands or our termination date is it 2037 years from last year yeah we we have a a sort of a three-year
lease if you will from the county who's looking to see results to continue us further if if we had asked for 10 they gave us three i think if they give us to our maximum it's like 20 35 so with are they allowed to should this go
into effect allowed to extend us then yes they they're allowed to extend this because the cuto off would be 2045 okay so they're allowed to extend it because in here the bill removes a current law option for a local government to vote to
extend a subordinate CR's expiration date yeah we we did we did that but we we're in a in a charter county so it's got to be approved by the county okay so that's not okay understood on that front then so as a long all of our projects are done by 2035 effectively
we don't run into an issue yes of having general fund and if we are allowed to keep on funding projects after October of this year that's the big you know be all endall if they pull that out when replace it with something like what I've discussed penalties for actual offenders as opposed to everybody who's doing it
right uh clarifying what you can and can't spend money on those kinds of things then we should be okay our issue has been not doing more projects not doing the wrong projects understood So basically they they need to be
earmarked and the funding allocated by October 1st effectively under the current worst case yes okay so if that's the case then and let's say some of these projects don't come to fruition like some of these land acquisition pick
any one of them if they don't come to fruition for one reason or another that allocated funds can we move that then to another project like reallocated to a project that's already on our list this year right okay not after this year and not after October if again depending on
if the worst case scenario comes that that planned only if it happens like if we found out we let's say I'm pulling one off the list where I don't know anything about the Edwards Field amenity upgrades we decide well we can't do that one and we still we're in September okay we want to move it to the Fifth Street
Gas Lamps we're still in this year we still are in this year's budget we make a budget amendment it's in our plan we're golden but if it's October two under the worst case no we can't move any money at all then no so we just lose it you return it to the county sure
okay so so we need to be very specific on the budgeting for the project and ensure that we can actually accomplish that project as well and that it's a Yes correct that's a good way shorthand way of saying it yes and and and the reason we put these projects together we want
wanted to make sure that we could meet them like we we've got the plan the planning for some of the rest of the trail but we can't if we can't get past the planning then it doesn't No and and the ultimate issue here uh I I know county ears are here and I simply would
say nobody wants to turn money back to the county if you can help but you may have to if we can't if the bill goes through in its worst case and we haven't allocated the money to spend on projects okay okay those are all the questions I have for you thank you so much members
sp for instance the facade assistance grant program we have in place and there's money that's allocated for those particular projects so does that money have to be spent by October 1st as well or can it still be You're talking about a facade grant yes it has to have been
applied for in this year buded for in this year and be ready to be spent on a project it doesn't have to be finished the project doesn't have to be finished if it's initiated but like if someone comes in in November wanting to apply under the worst case scenario which is what we're currently looking at there is
no more plan there's nothing to apply for so because there would be a new project so the money that we currently have have budgeted can remain but they need to apply to use those funds prior to and we have to say yes it can't be just well we
filed an application it has to be an approved project for which we have budgeted funds in this year prior to October 1st of 2025 all right and do we have the ability to add programs to this list absolutely as long as you can get
it done and get them budgeted this year all right i mean and by this year I mean this fiscal year okay okay member Velasquez okay so I saw this list but I don't see a dollar amount for any of these that are on the list stuff
under the sit it's on there on the engine go back go back get out of there wait a minute oh here it is i'm sorry oh my god i can't see these things so the question is can we add more to
this and we have obviously have the public that's going to come up and give us some uh suggestions of where they think some of the dollars should be spent we can continue to add to this list as long as you can get it funded
from what you have okay so where do we determine if we add to this list then we have to readjust how we're allocating the funds that would require your meetings and
budget amendments okay yeah what we're trying to do is get a a baseline to start with we want to and and we've asked the staff to come out with at least as much as we've got to spend we can add more to it realizing we we can adjust downward or we could I mean quite
honestly if you want to go to general funds you want to come down bl I mean but we just want to make you know like the properties if we can't get them purchased um by then then or or a contract then we've got that money would
either go back to the county or we have to spend on other projects so yeah we're just trying to give everybody we were just come up with options you know when Bobby and and uh Radley and I and and blanch that out we're just trying to come up with projects that we could get
done in the in the appropriate time so that we you know we can spend it um and and not lose it so so the CRA budget is the 4,47129 if you want to exceed that amount then you're going to have to come
up with a transfer from the general fund because that those are the only funds that are in this budget we have to have maintain a balanced budget so you're saying the projects that are listed consumes all of the budget and plus
addition right now so that's why we need to prioritize yes so the list that you have before you it exceeds that 4,47129 so if we add to it then that means we need to either eliminate something
that's already there or take funds from a general budget right now correct and the reason why I asked is because number seven the signal and pedestrian upgrades for fifth and central mhm okay all right okay i thought he said
park earlier in both both yes should be a city hall park number three but and just just give you everybody i I was talking about the signal one right well okay and just to kind of give you a reference point on
how we've gotten to where we are so take number seven signal and pedestrian upgrades fifth and central well we want to do one at um the um we've got this this should have been um should have been a parked but what we
wanted to do was do also a signal and pedestrian upgrade at Fifth and Central but because we can't get it planned and get it an RFP and get it um under contract I couldn't we couldn't put that on there i mean that would make
perfect sense because you know we get the the the the housing complex built on the west side of Central it made perfect sense to have both um pedestrian crossings one at park and one at central but we can't we could plan it but we
can't we can't build it can't get a contract to build it between now and then so we what we what between Blanch and Radley and Bobby and I what we try to do is back into a into the dates that we could actually perform to get you know make sure that we met that that
that those deadlines and so a lot of these projects where you're having to plan and then build or or or or get a you know a contract we we can't do it fast enough not enough time yeah so that so it does really kind of hamstr you know and that you know as soon as we
found out this bill was going you know we started meeting we bet three or four times the the three of us four of us just to try to figure out you know and and listen this is we just came up this was our best you know ideas and and we definitely are not uh I don't think any
of us are married to any of them but we just want to make sure that we've got proposals down here that we can we can exceed that number and that that's and then If we need to adjust downward that will be easier than We can't adjust upward because October 1 is gone and and
if if listen I'll be the first to to let you know if I get any firm ideas about what's going to happen because it changes literally daily i get updates from our lobbyist FRA's lobbyist you know daily i got one on the way here which is to tell me that the bill the amendment that I had sent out to you
guys had been postponed and that essentially the House is on one page the Senate's on another page and we're not sure where they'll actually end up so if it changes and I'm I'm cautiously optimistic that will change in a way that will make this less of a fire sale
but I am also of the opinion that regardless because that's just for this session who knows what'll happen next session if you like these projects or some of these projects the sooner you get them funded and get them built get them started on building the more likely you are to be safe so it's kind of a
good opportunity to do the Chinese fire drill or whatever they call it when you run around the car at a stoplight and and make the thing happen you know uh because this if this is the impetus we needed oh okay so be it and the reason why I asked is because we
definitely well I feel we need that one at Fifth and Central as well but you're saying it's impossible to get it done we could plan it we could probably get I think we figured out we could do the planning which if we want to do the planning and then hope next year that the CRA doesn't go away then yes we can
do the planning we just So let me just I think it's really important that we move forward with assuming that the bill is going to pass correct with the most conservative so with that being said I think it's important that we kind of focus on the what's proposed and what the change is going to be so I guess because I don't think I don't have any
questions for you attorney i kind of understand the bill so um we're going to start discussing yeah yeah then we'll go back okay uh member Williams I know you got here just a little late uh we um obviously our city attorney will talk you know he represents FRA and so I don't know if you have any attorney
questions about the bill itself but then we'll we'll roll right into the projects and then um and then questions or or you know concerns and and then we'll uh then we'll open up to the public okay good okay you bet you all right so
um I guess probably it'd be Bradley and Bobby as far as the projects i want to come up and then we can Why don't we just go down the list we also have the county commissioner here right she has a presentation also oh okay
okay so um why don't we just go down the list um start with number one the uh what is Before we take a deep dive in those the proposal is to remove a lot of
things as well so wayfinding signage um building code assistance program facade renovation assistance program building permit refund assistance program all of those are being removed correct yes some
of these things are already obligated at the top they've already been encumbered we're looking at more or less that purple and green colors on it so like the 85,000 for the um community police sure
yeah some of that yeah just keep that in mind some of So that would keep correct but those other ones so the the building permit refund assistance program that's being removed uh the residential fee assistance program so stuff that would assist to keep development going
yeah and help homeowners right and business owners right that's why I was telling them to go through it and then of course I have some things I want to propose yes this is a list that we come up with but I mean like we were talking about earlier this is really just kind of up for discussion so whatever you
guys want to put in here it's really your meeting okay and I just want to say as we go through this I you know obviously the impact we want to do as much bring these dollars as far as we can but at the same time CRA is to benefit our community as well also want to make sure we're not removing that from the residents access to these funds
either so um please go ahead then yeah that was the question I asked before all right go ahead which question about were we going to take away the facade grant program the grant system program if it was already
budgeted well it's it's not the money is there but if they don't if somebody doesn't apply for it then it goes away so that's that's the problem is you can't have a pot of money so I guess we'll just go straight into it then so I guess without you guys doing your presentation so one
of the things that is alarming to me is the re the residential renovation assistance program has been around since 2017 and through my research we have only given out $1,000 to that program and speaking with staff we have done no
community outreach and to say the least we have failed our residents in that regard so I see in here that we only allocated $10,000 initially in the f budget for 2025 um and then we took the $10,000 away just now so I'm proposing that we increase that amount from
$10,000 to $250,000 and that we do right by the residents and make sure that we are utilizing these funds what it's used for we have not since 2017 gave the community an opportunity to participate um if you look at some of these properties they need new roofs there's a
lot of of structural issues going on these properties um a lot of these properties need to be renovated and we have not done anything to assist the residents um so I think it's important that when we are planning this that we make sure that the 459 residents that has been identified in the CRA area that
we do right by them we make it right and make sure we at least allocate $250,000 to these residents so that way they can participate in the program in addition to that the program outlines $1,000 um as we know um you really can't renovate anything with $1,000 um not really sure
how we came up with that number back in 2017 um but we know that we probably need to do some modifications to that program um I think there's a lot of residents here that can utilize that program there's a lot of senior citizens homes that um a lot of them don't have any um access to ramps that they get in
their home so I think it's very very important that looking at this budget that we find $250,000 at the minimum that we put into this program and I'm pretty sure that we can fund this program um there are a lot of residents already now to sign up for this program but I think it's important that's one of
the things that I want to make sure that we do is make sure that we do right by the citizens now because since 2017 we failed our residents which specific program is that this is the residential renovation assistance program assistance program okay it's been around since 2017 now Bobby tell us what that what that
entails for the residential side let me grab my Just so everybody Okay so what that entails it's for single family and multifamily renovations may include SEPTED review which is crime prevention through
environmental design paint lighting windows doors energy efficient gutters house numbers etc and the max that allows is $1,000 and that's what it does and to be clear that's the program that we put together in the city right that's
something that we put together that was our program was part of the CRA okay uh-huh and that and we can't amend that program is is that accurate it was budgeted from last year's budget yeah so I mean if you want to [Laughter] Yeah as I understand it you could take
one of the projects that's listed and then cut that one and add more to this one if you so wish okay so it's so there wouldn't be any issues with amending that the program correct yeah as long you can make amend your budget and move money that was allocated from one plan to another plan as long as
you do it timely under the current worst case scenario i understand that um I'm saying the current program that we have in place now we can amend that program yeah you could have the limits if that's what you're asking yes okay thank you and we just need to make sure then that that residents get they just have to have
their application in and approved prior to October one application in and approved before October one under worst case scenario that would way they they could get we could use the money and it would have been budgeted and we'd have an approved project and it'd be going forward and
more importantly we need to update the program to not only increase the thousands but also increase the scope of things that they can residents can actually have completed and that would be the pleasure of the board too it cliff are there any restrictions on the
the reason we talk about facade grants is because the general uh purpose for these grants is to make the appearance of whatever it is whether it's uh buildings that are run down where businesses used to be if you think about Winter Garden what it is today versus what it was you know 20 years ago uh or
whatever so it's more attractive for people to come and walk the streets and patronize the business so forth so it's not really about necessarily fixing up houses unless those houses are in an area where people will walk down the streets and pass them by and so forth
but h having that been said um where I know the line is drawn is like people have asked well we need new HVAC that sorry that's an interior improvement so could I see stretching it to say well this house is in this area and it's a it also attracts business and it needs a
new roof maybe um but but once you go to inside like I I've in Fort Myers they wanted to approve um a cooking hood inside a building that needed one but no that's an interior improvement so again the idea is to make it where people
going in that area will a feel safe community policing b feel like it's well lit so you can have lighting and wide sidewalks better streets parking and so forth drainage uh and and it looks inviting that's kind of the the general idea of facade grants there are other
kinds of grants too um I don't know that you have them but other cities have grants to uh uh if they want to do affordable housing you know they have grants that they will put out for that i don't know that you all have that or have the time well this one's a little bit different the one that um uh member Anderson is referencing is not the
facade one it's a um kind of a a renovation it's a more general assistance program so it's not specific to facades and it's my understanding too that kind of the basis of a CRA the success level of it is increased property values correct is is the base
level of a successful so I would pretty confidently state that an air conditioner a hood and a property does increase property values which then does create increase taxable values i I wouldn't be there right there with you
and hold it in hands as the legislature shot us both they have very strong ideas about how the money is supposed to be spent and if it's not in the statute they don't want you spending it which is why we're in the position we're in now uh it's 163 370 and 1633 387 both of
those 387 sets forth nine areas where you can spend money and the last one is anything required to utilize the powers given to a CRA under 163 370 and there's a bunch of those but they're also very specific For example you can use money
from a from TIFF to uh clear uh a property that's going to be used to be built by a commercial to do something you want to so you can actually do the site clearing for them or provide money for them for site clearing you can use money for I've already mentioned
community policing affordable housing is on the list facade grants or basically ways to to get properties that are in code enforcement issues fixed so to the point of of Commissioner Anderson or member Anderson if if what we're talking about is code violations there's a
potential way to use the money to to or any of those things where because it says I think it says forced or required or or voluntary compliance with code something like that is the language so but you have to be able to point to something specific in the statute to justify the expenditure and this is
important because every year somebody asked me are we still going to be audited yes and every year the auditor has to certify compliance of the CRA with 163370 and 163 387 and they can't certify it if you're spending money
outside what the statute requires you to spend it on so the statute is vague because it's it it has some parts that are very specific and some parts that have a little room for wiggle room that are being brutally taken advantage of in certain parts of
our state okay which is why we we are having this issue with the legislature so I think it's important when we're actually updating this and extending it that we just consult with you to make sure that we're putting things in that comply with the statute yes okay thank you
member Williams you got Does anybody have I mean what the members thoughts in regards to the the $250,000 did anybody from what area were you taking the $250,000 from market question let's see
I mean I have no problem with that i think that's a great idea that we're going to use the money to allow the residents to benefit from it uh I was just wondering where you took it from and then since we have to have it approved by October 1st then we need to
have a cut off date uh for those residents so that if they have not applied for and it's been spent that then we still have time to spend it someplace else absolutely yeah so we'll definitely have to have a you know but
the problem is when you get down to September we're going to be up against you know the wall that I think we just execute we put it in place we execute it give them two weeks to get it in and then we from there we Okay i'm pretty sure if we tell the residents that they're able to get a new roof they can get their house painted i'm pretty sure
they'll be lined up at city hall for it okay um and you know because the thing is like the property Alonzo Williams the Quest property uh which I have I've had one conversation with uh the folks at Quest he was receptive uh we haven't had
any response from Kitland Nelson that that corner lot and there's also the the the property I guess it's in probate now that's next to our parking lot on Washington that um had a real real estate sign on i know Bobb's reached out
to them and and we haven't heard back but that would be another as far as just property purchases would be something we could you know we but it might not happen so we might have more than my thought is we just put the the
250 in there and just be out of whack how much are we out of whack Blanch okay so okay so what's the total amount of funds that we need to allocate like what's that gross pool of funds and then we can go
through and and start let me give you examples so we have Edwards the the Edwardsville pickle ball court that's 150,000 we have $35,000 for fencing s and beautifification of of the park so there are money go right there right yeah but
the current budget is the 4 million471029 the list totals 4,869039 so so 4.471 is what needs to be Yeah to maintain a balanced budget what what's left over right now that needs to be allocated out of that 4.4 what is not
been assigned to something we've already we already signed it's on the It's on the budget it's they have it there it's listed none of this is a sign though these are just I'm saying what No it's all assigned they allocated because stuff has been removed from those programs that you're discussing but if you look to the left on the green they
reallocate the funds they already done it do you want to know what's been committed out of the 4,ion471 correct okay so everything that is not shaded like the 85,000 for the police
community police 6,000 for the CRA audit um 951 for the FRA the 27325 for that program FRA those little small amounts the 175 and the 995 and the 5909 so the things
that are in the green highlight and those are the ones you need to look at but we've removed $400,000 worth of other from the other programs from the other program that Commissioner Anderson you were referencing we removed was that not 300 10,000 from that one program so
that was removed and there's no money in that fund right now is what this is saying yes which I don't want that's so that's what I want to make sure is let's what's that total number how so how many what does everything in the green add up to is it that 2.4 million that's on the
bottom of that or is that just the trail itself that's just the trail that's just a breakdown of the trail in the various phases and stuff like that um I'd have to total that up and get that for you i definitely can't do it off the top of my head okay so I was just my my point of
asking that is it makes it easier to instead of okay well what are we going to remove it from let's just start with our total funds that are available to allocate and then start slowly going down and saying okay 250 for that program great done let's move on and and hit the next program because none of those programs are being funded at this
point and that's my concerns I don't want to miss any of those just a quick question so does the presentation outline everything and the amounts and what's available and what's not and what's been moved and what hasn't because I think it would be at least helpful for me to make sure we're all on
same page for them staff report yeah but I didn't know in the presentation are you I don't know if we if we would be more efficient to listen to the presentation and then have the discussion or No I think it's I think it's it was just efficient to do it that because the presentation is kind of what
they came up with i think it's important that we that with in mind this is something that we want to do so when looking at the presentation we can decide then what we want to remove from the presentation so I thought it would be important for us to talk about the you know so I think it was more just making sure I understood the order of everything so and I'm just jotting down
numbers as you talk about it okay okay so we see where we are members of the council I want to just quickly say to you I don't have the addresses for you ma'am or you on the end i apologize for that but I did email to the council whose addresses I do have a memo that
sets forth uh a why you can't spend money on marketing and special events but it does specifically and this is why I sent it to you tell you what you can spend money on so you have as a reference I don't know if you're able to get your emails up there but if you want to see all the things you can spend money on it's in the memo I just sent
you and I'm sure Mrs bone who I copied can get a copy to the members that I don't have their email address for you just sent it to us okay here it is perfect thank you so we got to get How do we Susan can you see here where can we print
um can we get the members um either can you email it now to to member Williams and and member Drago or so they can take a look at it well with this new information too and so that we can digest it
properly and have resident input that digests this as well should we set up another meeting next week or early part of next week to really take an even deeper dive into this to make sure that number one we're staying within the law and number two it's actually benefiting all of our residents
because I don't want to make just rash decisions now if it's if we're going to have to adjust it anyways well I think we're going to probably have to make an adjustment anyway when we get you know like the property sales or whatever you know there's some things in there that we we're not sure that
we're going to be able to accomplish so I think Which ones do you not think you're going to be able to accomplish well the property sale i mean I don't know Mr chairman yeah sure uh I think uh in order to hopefully make an intelligent decision I don't think we
have all the facts so here's what's missing what's missing is a comparison of what the current budget is and all the line items associated with it and a dollar figure and a suggested
budget relative to the criteria that the attorney laid out is that whatever new projects you budget between now and September 30th has to be completed by September 30th
so it shouldn't be hard for the mayor the chair the staff the finance director to get together come up with those two documents and I think from there that that's I think from there we can uh make a more
intelligent decision the public will get to see uh projects that are more focused relative to the time frame in which it has to be completed uh and then if for some reason the state doesn't pass the
bill well then we live for another year and we deal with it during the new budget cycle right well that's the the new project listed in in green but some of those projects can't be completed by September 30th 2020 that's all we wanted
that's the projects that we all came up with the four of us thought those were all other than property sales everything on that in the green list we we can accomplish before the end of or have it under contract before the end of the fiscal year well if I hear the attorney
right under contract is one criteria getting it finished is a different criteria yeah and you don't have to have it finished but you do have to have it approved and budgeted for in this fiscal year so if it starts construction in November that's not a problem or even December or beyond but we have to be
under contract with a contractor if it's a bigger project or if it's a grant for example a facade grant we have to approve the application and budgeted the money before uh October 1st again if the bill in its current form which is the
worst case scenario passes all right so what I heard you also say that if it can't be completed and the state says it has to be terminated then does the funds in the CRA have to be transferred to the general fund in order to pay the obligation no the funds in the CRA never
get transferred to the general fund they get transferred back to the county who then can redistribute a portion of them back to the city that's the catch 22 we get in our tiff not only our money but we get a portion a 95% of a portion of the funds that would otherwise go to the
county to spend in other parts of the county that's the advantage of a CRA so you get dollars you wouldn't ordinarily get but those dollars are restricted on what they can be spent and that's what the memo tells you in terms of where you can spend them they're designed for essentially bricks and mortar kinds of improvements in the redevelopment area
so things like storm water drainage street lighting community poling affordable housing um and other things that are spelled out here there's a fairly long list clearing foundations acquiring property that you want to uh have redeveloped you can spend money to acquire the property you can't use
eminent domain but if someone will sell you a piece of property that you want in the redevelopment area because you want it to turn into some sort of a other project then you can use your money to buy that so those and those are just some there's it's a fairly long list but it's also very specific
so I want to say it's as clear as mud um and that is why people abuse it yes uh okay but I still think the issue is this uh Rob Peter to pay Paul in the budget relative I'm going to take so much out of here to cover this i think I
would hope for the edification of the board and the public that document should show us where this money is going to be reassigned in order to come up with a budget of 4,471029 um and and my understanding is that
that's the total amount of revenue that is anticipated for this fiscal year relative to the expenses assigned to the revenue now if that's accurate then that new list should show that expenditure of
4,471029 without going to the general fund and borrowing money or securing a loan or whatever i don't think that's a good idea financially to do that um the only problem I have is the projects and
a time frame in which to get it completed that's the only problem I see in this scenario given the assumption that that house bill would I mean that bill the house bill and the senate bill would pass and I think we have to take that
into consideration relative to the projects we assign and the time frame ass and a time frame associated with it i guess my my thought is uh back to member Anderson is if if we want to do
we need um Cliff do we need to up under the residential um renovation renovation do we need to change our the policy to reflect I mean because we're never gonna get there with the the thousand dollar well it sounds
like two things need to happen number one you would need to change the terms of your grant program to increase the limit and perhaps what it can be spent on i don't I've never read it so I don't know what it allows you to spend money on and make sure it complies with Florida law but then the other thing is
you need a budget of transfer as opposed you're not increasing or decreasing but you're moving so you need a trans essentially I think it blanch can tell you but I think it's like a transfer minute so you say we're going to decrease this column and add to this column by whatever the amount kind of what we're doing with other projects now
so is that something we can at least start that process tonight to make sure this that specific part is funded well I I would assume all you need to do is instruct staff that's what you want to do because that the more time we have for that especially for residents to get applications in the better and to market it as well to make sure they know about it so So Bobby why don't you come back
up and talk the the uh the residential improvement what is that is i know it's it's $1,000 what um member Anderson what do you want to you talking about so I So I'm thinking just based off in a
attorney so what are some of the other things that you've seen that the statute the law would allow us to utilize um roof i think we can add a roof to the roofing to there as well i think it should Well it it going back to the memo I found the one that I was talking about and it said either a something like a a
forced or a mandatory or a voluntary program of building rehabilitation that's a fairly broad one many of them are very specific so what does that mean well it's been interpreted in other places when you say rehabilitation to mean code enforcement
so you got broken windows you can bring them up to code by fixing the windows i assume that a a roof that leaks would be a problem potentially so maybe that's an issue um in one of the cities where they do this they contract with and I not say we have time to do this but they
contract with as a contractor Habitat for Humanity Habitat for Humanity identifies these places businesses andor homes that are in the CRA that have code violations they make a plan to fix the violations they come up with a budget to fix them and then they come back to the
CRA to pay the bill for them as our the CRA's contractor so that's one way it's done um basically it it depends on the manpower that you have as a city to oversee these things because it's not just as simple as we got a grant we're
going to give away money because somebody's got to watch it somebody's got to see okay it was it spent on the roof was it spent on this what typically happens and this is where you get crazy in in in grant programs in different circumstances you have the party out
there who doesn't have the money to get the stuff done but the way grants are supposed to work is you do the work and get reimbursed if they had the money to do the work we that would you know it's kind of a catch 22 but that's the way grants typically work you do the work you bring the receipts therefore we can
see the work and then here you get the money what you're talking about is we want to give them the money to do the work which means you now have to have somebody to monitor that the work is actually done so it's a handful so I I know we kind of talked about the Rattley you want to come up we kind of talked
about kind of what this looks like because that's something that we in my um agenda review we were just kind of put brainstorming some stuff what are some of the things we thought we could outsource a contractor to kind of come in and kind of help facilitate this um well we do in the council meeting coming forward is a general contractor
solicitation bid and award possibly that's something we could explore uh utilizing those contractors for uh something like that um but we'd have to explore that more with with Cliff definitely to make sure both sides uh it's an appropriate use of that of that
uh contract so so I do remember when we were helping some of the uh businesses along 441 that there was a requirement that they had to bring three quotes is is that still a requirement
is that a requirement for the residential renovation assistance program it's requirement for all the programs yeah because um when we did the extension the CRA redevelopment extension and you have a listing here of
your CRA assistance programs the residential renovation assistant program works in conjunction with owners and volunteer groups to support exterior renovation of existing single family
homes owner occupied covers supplies such as paint paint brushes rollers handles cork tarpons painters painters tape house lights rain
gutters house numbers energy efficient replacement windows and doors etc and that's where member Anderson is saying you had up to $1,000 we want to be able to amend that to a higher amount right
she wants the budget there's no match but that resident still has to bring three quotes that's the way the programs work you guys could change that if you want um $1,000 i think it goes 2017 so obviously the cost of materials and
stuff has gone up exponentially since 2017 so $1,000 is a low sum to budget uh it's discretion of the I mean I'm thinking we'd at least need to increase that to 10,000 if not a little bit more and 15 just nothing is affordable right now so but can we change the three
quotes yeah we wrote the policy so we can change it that's our policy that's that's that's an internal this we've got to do okay so we can go to 10 that's one thing that we have to address hey you implement the policies I follow them because the problem is the three quotes
everybody there's you'll get plenty of contractors out there to get you some quotes that's Yeah one of the things I would ask is is that and Commissioner Velasquez you and I talked about this is I need your help to promote this program uh through your various social media platforms and your community networks
and stuff because you have a lot more access to people than I do and it would help out a lot well definitely but I think with the increase in these I mean that's going to change people's attractiveness to this and that's the point is let's use these funds they're there so let's let's make sure they're actually impacting our residents the way
they should be okay so we're looking at 10 we can move it to 10 um now the one thing we don't have on there is roofs and Cliff you're kind of wishy-washy on roofs just read it to you
and you'll see why there is arguably room for this and given that if we are thinking the worst case scenario might as well go for it uh but what it says is this is under this is under 163370 and it's uh sub five carrying out plans for
a program of voluntary or compulsory repair and rehabilitation of buildings and other improvements in accordance with the community redevelopment plan obviously the rules always have to be in the plan and the budget and then the district so we already know those rules the one thing that caused me pause is
the word buildings as opposed to residences however I'm willing to go with the fact that a residence is a building and they someone may argue with me in the state legislature which is why they have these battles all the time but but again the the the thinking of it was
they're thinking about generally business areas but yes I've seen this used as it is being used in other places for residential repair particularly where code enforcement is involved and that's the section I was talking about and if you've gotten the memo now you can see there's a whole bunch of other sections but they're very specific that
one has a little wiggle room some have a lot less wiggle room well if we're going to include roofs in that too then what I mean roof windows and that that's what I'm saying well windows I think are part of that as well windows are part of at least it was on our Well windows are part of a facade arguably so yes so I mean that I
let's let's get it up to 20,000 i mean that at the very least because again a roof alone is going to be 10 grand if not substantial amount more windows I've been getting quotes on you know I mean again same thing 15 to 20 grand so what are you guys thinking on that i
mean because that let's say 20,000 i think it's a good number and again it's going to that's going to attract residents attention to come in to apply and it's going to go a long way as well okay and it's up to so they were able to Okay it's it's still the 5050 match is
that No that's for Well that's that's remember that's our policy so we can change that policy to no match because that's the policy we came up with it has no match because there's no match on there there is no match on the one yeah there's no match okay yeah that one I don't believe there is a match on some
of the others do have a match some of these for the businesses downtown i think it's like 25% some of them are like that but if there's no match but we still require the three quotes and if that's the thing you all want to do away with then that's fine we can Are we sure we want to make it 100% match i mean I'd
like to have just a little skin in the game i mean well it's their their skin in the game is they're paying property taxes they're it's their primary residence so a lot of them don't even it's they're on a fixed income so and this is going to help increase insurance costs as well i mean this is this goes a long way way so I don't think a lot of
these residents I think if they actually had the the extra money I think they probably would have already done it by now so I think the issue is that they didn't have the money to do it so I don't think I don't agree with the match at all they've already invested it into the property they purchased the property already or inherit the property so they've already invested already so I
think the match is when they purchased the property already so So what I think we should do is one quote we need to have somebody on staff obviously is it would it be you that would be running with kind of the management of this as of right now until we higher economic value so that's perfect and then uh up to $20,000 of
improvements um with no required match is what I would recommend we We got to have more than one quote if we're going to spend that kind of money we got We can't just We got to have Listen if you can't get three quotes we got free money well I don't Maybe let's do two two okay
i'm okay with two but Yeah okay two quotes you do two quotes okay two quotes is fine so that way you they're being competitive and making them be competitive so I believe in you know being competitive making sure that they're able to get more done for that 20,000 so I'm definitely quote okay all right so we got that and then hold on m
Sherman has do you have a comment on that picking up the right number is this 20,000 20,000 20,000 no no 20,000 per applic,000 within that pool okay so we're still at the 250 yes ma'am for the residential renovation
assistance program and is the cost to is Bobby just managing or there was some discussion about someone else managing so if I think they're going to get with if that's the case that would potentially be a cost that would come from that program or from another part of the
budget how would that be funded oh I'm sorry i was just trying to determine whether or not um the management of that like there's the management of the application piece then there's the management of the performance of whatever the the work is that's been um supplied by the grant so
is Bobby is the idea that staff manages both of those or that there was there was some mention I think of maybe a contractor managing a piece of it and if so where does that cost come from so just trying to understand as a whole how it would work and what it would look
like before we have contractors to award contracts to have has to work on
city property so I don't know that right now I think how the program has worked in the past i mean it would be great if we could I mean use the contractors we have on I mean because obviously if they want to stay you know they want to work with the
city having them Well I think actually I think also this is a great opportunity for some of the um business owners that currently um have businesses here to take advantage of this opportunity too as well so I think we probably shouldn't just stick to that list we should open
it up to allow them to other businesses to also participate absolutely yeah yeah whatever we can do to refine this process make it as efficient as possible I think is the key here so that residents can apply get approved and get the work starting especially with rainy season coming up and things of that
nature getting roofs replaced windows replaced it it it hits on so many levels it's going to reduce um electric bills it's going to reduce uh insurance costs it's going to increase property values it it hits on so many levels so So I'm thinking that just we put in a 20 probably about another $25,000 in that
budget so from the 250 to the 275 we add $25,000 for a contractor to kind of oversee this manage to manage it but I think the 250 definitely should go to the residents and we shouldn't take out of that and then we'll do a review of the contractors that we're approving tonight
if that if we're able to implement or use them correct yeah we have to look at the scope and the terms of the contract and see if it's limited to city- owned property okay and then from there should that not be what's that next process how do we navigate forward well then if it's not you know if they can then if you
award the contracts we'll get the contracts in place that means we can use them but I also think we should give the homeowners an option on who they want to utilize as well and don't I meant more so specific to just over the management side of it not the actual construction side of it just making sure that are
like internally that everything they're checking the boxes for us and I think they would have to do permits and everything and go through various inspections and stuff like that to make sure they have the code anyway right okay that was one of my other questions i don't recall permit fees and whatnot
are those automatically waved or how is that part of the cost or I think it's a different program no but usually when when a contractor is doing a roof they actually implement that in their cost of permitting so that's up to the contractor when they bid out the roof that's in the scope i guess it depends
on what like you know depends on what someone's doing I guess kind of yeah yeah but they'll put that in their cost usually yeah so I wouldn't worry about Yeah okay all right why don't we go to the public and then we'll come back and see if we can't close this thing out i know Commissioner Moore is here to she's
got her own little um boy we have Dr moyer here as well another leg to the fish i don't know if he wants to say anything for this okay thank you for being here tonight thank you you want to do a public yeah
good evening council uh that the conversation went a little bit different direction from my presentation so I'm going to add a little bit i think they want to Did you open up public comment first before or you her first cuz she I think he was trying to say Okay so you're you're you're he wants her to go first okay okay okay
um I I just wanted to remind you that this money comes from the Orange County taxpayers from the monies that are usually gone to general county funds mosquito control jail all those kinds of
housing programs and so the legislature passed this at least 30 years ago to help increase the property values and the health of an area and so um I agree with what your attorney said that it's streetscapes and roadway improvements
because that benefits the general the entire public and will lead to the entire area to do a better job in terms of their health safety and welfare building renovations new building construction we talked about this flood control initiatives water and sew
improvements parking lots and garages uh Winter Garden used their money for a garage they needed to get that to to have capacity uh for their farmers markets and other vendors and um business owners um neighborhood parks was certainly in their sidewalks uh
street tree plantings so that's another example of those types of expenses on the next slide um just in case for some of the people are here I just put in here so you could see the area it was determined in 1990 that this area was
blighted the legislature allowed this legislation to take money from the county to help the city to improve the condition in that very particular area um you talked about this a minute ago on the next slide um you actually were
talking about that hiring a contractor um but you'll see my my recommendations are are more on a business perspective to bring businesses and jobs downtown and so you could take that same concept you had and apply it on a business level
so we can improve all of downtown not just the residential section so that's an idea I had that all of these things when I talked to uh Gray Robinson the other day they weren't as worried about the lobbyist wait the lobbyist wasn't as
worried about your balance coming out just getting the projects in the list in case the legislation passes but of course we'll know in a couple of weeks the session is almost over so I was not contending with anything you've suggested or anything i was giving you
some additional ideas um demolition of blighted buildings uh on Forest Avenue with that wonderful skate park there's some buildings there that look like they could come down and you've all been talking about a street and so demolition is certainly of something that you could
use your SAR funds for on the next slide uh I know there's a lot of interest uh from your main street group and others to get festivals going and that street needed resurfacing and I was hopeful that you had a continuing contract with the paving company could have that done
by October 1st that was an idea I had for you on Station Street hopefully that would be something you could uh deal with at the last second if the legislation passed and you could go very quickly um I also heard mayor about the the crosswalk improvements but I have
some good news for you uh we did research Alex by the way Alex my aid is here his last day is going to Ashley Moody tomorrow so we can all say goodbye to Alex's la last time with me this evening and so if you need anything from Ashley Moody's office at least we know
we all have a friend uh anyway um Mayor the because Park Avenue is a functionally classified road the county could pay on Park Avenue to certainly just paint the crosswalk but if we wanted to go with a raised crosswalk that would be potentially something the
county could pay for but then the lighting uh features and your ADA ADA sidewalks could come out of the CRA and I would think as the mayor said you could do those fairly quickly um it was also suggested to me uh by some of your
creatives that if we want to have more festivals uh it's a real problem on Station Street that there's not street lights that one I have to say dealing with Duke Energy I'm not sure we could get that done by October but I think it's a good idea if it could be functionally uh completed in
time this is a more aspirational uh that I threw in providing parking area for events and markets because I know that uh we didn't get P Street going until that parking lot was improved and it's just an idea because I've seen other CRAAS in the area that
have used their money for structured parking so I was advocating just throwing a bunch of things in your budget in case it passes and not worrying about it all adding up at this point uh safety equipment this was a real simple one uh been real proponent
of the trail if you've noticed the county put over a million a quarter into your trail uh through town and then the bridge renovations which you'll all be receiving a formal invitation on May 31st to the bridge reopening event in
the morning and so uh you'll find I've been out on the trail every Sunday morning and it would be nice to see some law enforcement out there i was just a s suggestion of potentially I hopefully Cliff will think that would be allowed um some ebikes for those officers that
you are designating to watch your CRA and the West Orange Trail um like the mayor I had my wish list of buying property that's on Station Street um and I have visited numerous main streets all
over the country and CRAAS all over the state gone to multiple uh summer conferences and uh this one that I gave you from Havana havana is north of Tallahassee and they used to grow a lot of shade tobacco and shade tobacco was not being grown anymore and they
repurposed a lot of their older buildings um into uh shopping flea market type of facilities that have now attracted a lot of tourists and people to their downtown it's really helped them to renovate havana is a town of
1500 and they were able to renovate their downtown with some of these tactics um now I'm really proud of what you're doing on Station Street with the apartments and the plaza there's not much you can do on that one side that
abuts the railroad track and one thing that I have seen up in Michigan that Strong Towns promotes quite a bit and all their material is quick build chalet or they're basically sheds but they have power and uh air conditioning and and
I'm sure most of you are about ready to go visit the new halls on fifth and if you've been in there like I have um Elluke has got all these new high quality rated chefs with different types of food but the way she built it out is
small to bring them from their other locations this is the same idea to get people downtown to shop everybody says we need shopping and dining down there we've got the the food coming this would be a quick easy way that I think you could get it going before October by buying
these uh prefab sheds or chalets um mayor I agree with all of your ideas for the skate park i have been over there in fact 10 to 8 the other night there were 25 kids still out there it is a big hit and so anything we can do
quickly at the skate park because it is attracting families and wonderful people all over that trail system and so anything we could do there was another thing I thought you might be able to get done quickly uh now something that could be done incredibly quickly and I talked
to the owner this morning this is the old consumer veneer lumber area of town and the owner is Dante Sandrroni talked to him today he said he would paint his building and if we could use some CRA dollars and get one of the groups to
paint a mural on the back now we're also um incentivizing people to come up that trail and and a little more tourism and getting more people into town if you all remember the trail is what revitalized Winter Garden and we have a trail too and I believe we can do the same thing
uh this one I'm not sure would be allowed um but it was just an idea was um some historical markers it's a traditional tactic um it's not particularly quick but if you can get your your language turned in and approved and send the check off before
October 1st that would be something you all could consider um my last I think it's my last Yes uh string lighting was suggested to me by your Main Street group because they want to have more late night festivals and that would
certainly be something we could do quickly um to meet that deadline i hope that that doesn't happen i know the county does not want that bill to pass we're not behind it we're not lobbying for it in any uh way i've spoken to
Byron Brooks um the chief administrator for Mayor Demings and if it does happen I will be there lobbying to try to see if maybe we could set up our own internal program because the county does have a vested interest and your downtown
succeeding all the other CRA succeeding and so we're not in support of this legislation but if it does pass I would look forward to working with you to see if we can continue something similar if it passes And I look forward to um if you're having another meeting to discuss
some of my ideas or whatever the citizens have just to add to the list so that at least we have a point of getting all that money spent before October 1st should the legislation be successful and thank you for your time you all right anybody
else speak come on down reverend Jimmy Howard I thank uh Sister Anderson for her presentation for trying to help at our side as I look at all what you presented
tonight the only thing that's benefiting us of all the money you spending is only up there at the Alonzo William Park no other money coming on our side i look at the back the walk trail you stopped it
at at Michael Gladen all you had to do was come down to 10th Street and that would upgraded 10th Street and look at the buildings that you are trying to
refurbish and give money to but we got our Masonic Hall which a historic building in this community we got Beth Freeill Baptist Church on park they're our souls
so the money that you are allocating for some of the resident we need money for those type of buildings to try to upgrade those in our area we need lighting in our area it's a lot that we
need in our area i know we behind the eightball now because we didn't have any input on what you doing now none of us in our area knew that this money was being spent for what you spending at there i even look at the money you
spending up there to the park up behind the high school if we had half of that in our community we would be much better off than we are now and and and it's just a shame the way the city is spending money across
the track but leaving us out and so again I thank uh Commissioner Anderson and Basquez for what they're trying to do for our side leroy B Helen again uh I
echo Reverend Howard i command uh Commissioner Anderson for the la for the first time in the last eight months that myself and Professor Hall have stood up
behind this place here that we have heard today that the citizen was her head and I appreciate that uh mayor you mentioned
yourself the CFO and someone else that made up that list with the Lorenzo William P the statute the statute of the CRA
163 that the attorney alluded to but 163 part Three it lays out how the CRA come about and how it is funded how the money come from the
taxpayers and it's set how the CRA is set up that you guys are the advisory board and along with the advisory board these decisions are made by the H advisory board along with
two two members of the community correct and you just sat there and you said that three of you guys on the not the advisory board but you the CFO and someone else and the community were even
involved in it this is where we have the shortfall between the community and the advisory board the community need to be into these decisions we just had a
presentation did we have a presentation or did we have a campaign presentation we haven't heard a wish list from this community yet we have kids that over on this
side they can't afford the high cost of spectrum when your administration came in you're taking down the Wi-Fi cra can be spent on Wi-Fi where a kid can walk outside their door and sit down
and do their homework but then again I'm hopeful that if the CRA do not sunset I hope it be more keen
to the community because for blackness I understand that business need help also we help put in air conditioners with CRA money which wasn't supposed to happen now you got businesses that for
profit they're selling goods they're making money they can put in to Commissioner Anderson point you have peoples over here on fixed income they can't afford to do things
but if you in business making money you should be busy enough savvy enough to save money to upgrade your goodness and to this propagate thing over here about I just seen in the
presentation about the food where you bring in different type of stuff i think it was last meeting when the lady come in and said she going to bring in different vendors no that's for them to make money if the city gonna make money when
a festival come out people need to be paying a fee to the city so the city can in return pay officers to go out and police up and not take money from the
citizen thank you anybody else i'm Clint Stanley i ain't never think I'd say I agree with you 100% Mr leroy Bell but looking at the um $250,000 budget right correct and we
have up to $20,000 that's only what helped maybe 22 citizens out of 459 in the area if I'm correct I'm thinking why won't you up that budget and just the well as you put
the skate park in that side of town can we do something for the youth in this side of town to give us access to bring about a difference and a change to give the kids of this community and the people of this community to do something but looking at that
$250,000 that's not enough money so I'm looking at where basically a increase in that budget because you're only going to help 22 23 bit people if they if you award up to $20,000 if I'm correct that's maybe 22
people out of 400 and something people in this area in the South Park area so why not an increase to that thank you thank you system please
can't put that back to the first page show all the stuff that one yes sylvester Hall 391 Rolling Hills Lane um it's sad how we think about our
residents it's sad how we think about people especially the poor people if we going to have one apku we only as strong as the weakest link when people come through a pacco what do they see
it represents all of us not just those people it represent all of us i have stood here many of times talking about our responsibility as a
community alonzo William Park i'm surprised to see it up there because I got to be close to a year now we talked about when we have events the vendors don't have water and they don't have electrical
hookup i brought it up y'all tease me yeah we we we'll look into that well just like we just been looking i see former commissioner Kyle Becker here he had a nice idea downtown area we voted on it we approved it we
approved the funding for it what happened to it it just disappeared right so I gave you all a picture and when I always ask you need to know that whatever decision you're making you need to know how it affecting
your community this is a business owner mr henry he's a business owner and you look at his barber shop where people supposed to park you just ran a trail right through it
and I say to the people downtown do they want to be treated that way they up here arguing about this the the the finer things in life here he is a business owner and you just destroy his whole business that
way so is anybody going to advise him legally what is his obligation i mean what what is his recourse because because clearly if you had have went out and saw that I don't think we would have well I take that back you shouldn't have recommended that go
through there without getting sitting down with him and figure out how we going to work this out what was going to be good with him but nobody cared he's just a little small business guy nobody care about him and that's the problem we don't get out and we don't
look at the decisions that we're making how it's going to affect people we don't do that and that's a shame so I would like to see at Lonzo William Park the same setup we have on the north side right right over there
where I'm at i like to see the same hookup for vendors the electrical the water like to see that same laid out parking spots you know for for them to park in there i want to see it just like we have and another thing we need to
address is the parking at Alonzo Williams and real parking spots where if you park a big old deuce in a quarter it ain't hanging out in the road and see myself Leroy and others all we just complaining about is just doing what's
right and sometimes like Mr nester Commissioner Nester you get demonized for speaking up and saying "Hey this is wrong." you get demonized but it don't bother me because my existence is my kids and my
grandkids and their kids and their grandkids what country what city what state what country I'm leaving to them so if they go anywhere in the United States we should all have these core values as citizens of
the United States we should all have the basic simple core values and that's morals integrity principles character we should all have that and when we conducting business that's what
we should do so I would like to see some of those things uh not only just talked about but made a reality and I will do everything in my power to hold each and every one of you accountable and I'm not no ways tied i'm
just beginning to be honest thank you anybody else no we're you only get once mario Hicks um I've heard you all today talk about the plans for the
community and I would like to thank Commissioner Anderson for saying and letting the residents know that they're important and what they want really matters after listening to and seeing
the proposal I believe that there should be $1 million allocated for those 459 homes that are in the CRA area since 2017 to now I've heard that only
$1,000 went to a resident so that means that a lot of these funds have been going to business owners to developers but not the residents i believe it would be in the best interest of this
commission to increase that budget to at least $1 million so that there's a vast majority of those 459 residents able to take advantage of this program so that property values can
be increased and those people that necessarily need it the most have that availability developers don't need impact fees wave and thousands of dollars the residents that are on fixed
incomes and property owners that have may inherited their properties and they really really need these funds should be able to get them we need to reconsider some of these plans and programs that
set forth here today and I just want to say thank you for hearing some of the residents this evening and Commissioner Anderson identifying what needs to be done in the community for the residents because this
is a need the funds are here we've taken a lot of time and funds previous years to do all of these other things we are in a time constraint on how fast we need to spend this money and I think it would
best see fit for it to go directly to the residents in the CR district and I believe it would be wellreceived and the residents would be grateful for you all
support in that initiative thank you hey any anybody else okay well let's bring it back in and I'm just looking down the list um member Anderson what if we just took out the Edwards Field
um what was how many um upgrades which is 300 and 5,000 yeah and just so increase it to 300,000 and Sure okay
so increase it so that 3 30 305 305 okay so take out what so we're going to take out the Edwards Field it's uh fencing and um beautifification siding and beautifification yeah so take
that out and then put that into the to the uh residential the difference between the 305 and the 275 or what are you saying no no no we'll we'll just eliminate that one the 305 and then we'll we'll we'll add back
the uh residential improvement for the 305 yes okay but if we we had said well mayor you had said that the land acquisitions are are low probability of happening that's 480,000 why don't we add that to it if that's not going to happen if well we can
always come back I did did we speak with quest is quest for the 400,000 because I really want to purchase that because that is directly behind the lens park and that'll be a great place to put a pool for that community so I definitely think we definitely try to purchase that that's something I really want to see happen yeah I I'm I'm trying but if it's
low probability that's Is it low probability or are they open to it have we They're open to it okay so I think we've got a member of the board is here tonight i could uh speak to that who is there who's a member of the board the quest boards
yes yeah my understanding so Kyle Becker uh Winter Springs I I'm the chair the board of the chairman of the board for Quest um there's three parcels that Quest owns over off there's the parcel that the adult training center is located on
today just south of there there's a parcel I'm not sure what the the size is maybe a acre and a half and then there's a parcel to the west which is a larger parcel i know that the administration has been in contact with the CEO of Quest but the board has not had any conversation regarding these properties
uh there's been certainly no vote to surplus the property so uh at best we would just have to say that the board is considering it uh but we've had no conversation on the topic so have the board have discussed liquidating any prop any of those properties at any
given time no so it's never been conversation and this is your first time hearing this today uh to this degree yes to this degree but you have heard it so I talked to our CEO who indicated that the administration had reached out to him in his office and had talked about
potentially acquiring property to my knowledge it was only the property south of the adult training center that's currently there not to the piece of the property to the left because I don't think that would be on the table for us to consider so this property that we're that so I
don't know I don't know if you have the ability to have it on the map but there's we got a map yeah the the piece of property that abuts Hawthorne on the west side so there's two parcels at play there in that L-shaped shading there's a
so just call it the strip that's in the orange to the south of that building that you see the treed area that's going to be one parcel that was the parcel that I thought was in question and then you've got that large partial to the left which would uh span the the
entirety of Hawthorne from fourth down to fifth so I I don't know where the 400k came from i mean the property to the south of us I think has market value the last time I looked at the property appraiser site of about 158k um I couldn't tell you what the lefthand property
is um but knowing that if the land were to sell and we would have to sell at the appraised value that the city uh got because you can't go above that um I know that there's been other other people that have approached Quest about those parcels of land that you know if
we're talking money to progress our mission for Quest and I don't know if you're familiar with Quest but Quest we help people of all ages with developmental disabilities uh that adult training center is just one of many assets that we have to to serve our clients one of which is Camp Thunderbird
over off of Welch Road um we've got our headquarters down in in Orlando we're building Quest Kids Academy a $9 million facility down on on 50 right now um so this is just one of many assets and we have several group homes around Apopka that serve uh people that have total
dependency need on the care that Quest provides um so every dollar and and I'll tell you that 95% of the funding that Quest gets is from the state um and so every dollar that we that we use we are very purposeful on how we use that money
so to say that we would be limited in terms of knowing that governments can only take what their appraised value is and can't go above that to market rate it it it has to be a part of the conversation um and but like I said we have we have our next board meeting next
Thursday and this will certainly be a topic of conversation um but I just I didn't want to come up here and say that we have talked about it because we just haven't i'm not trying to so in your do you feel that you guys will have an appetite to actually entertain an offer on this property
i can't speak for my board okay that would be like me going to any appetite you guys have probably talked about I mean you kind of understand what the vision and mission what you guys are looking to do so the and not to conflate topics here but the reason why I'm here tonight is just to make sure that
there's a there's a piece of um agenda item on your consent agenda for your city council meeting that directly impacts one of these pieces of property because there was um code enforcement fines that were assessed um the issues were taken care of there was I think
miscommunication between the two parties but long story short um Quest staff worked with staff to come up to an agreeable um uh settlement for that code enforcement it's on your consent agenda this evening i just wanted to make sure
that that passed because that's all been approved uh but that would impact that southern piece of property so uh moving forward so should the city present uh send email an offer over so you guys can discuss in regards to this property yeah John I mean we had our executive
committee meeting today right before I came here so John and I are aligned that and John Gil is the CEO of Quest we're aligned that we're going to be talking about this on the next city or the next um Quest board meeting which is next Thursday the 24th how often do you board meet uh we meet every other month every
other month so it's important that we present an offer for you guys to discuss at the board meeting well I think first and foremost top of the mind conversation i mean if you all have it by the by next Thursday I mean even better um but I think the top of mind conversation like you would in any other piece of property in the city is
determine long-term do we have a strategy for that um you know we we are on a growth a growth hypothesis for our our services we we serve about 5 to 600 individuals now we want to serve you know 2,00 to 2500 so you know you can
only do that if you have ample space in which to do so um so whether or not we don't have a uh firm capital improvement plan relative to this property we don't have strategic plan relative to these pieces of parcels but that's not to say that we won't long term and so the
conversation that we have to have next Thursday is whether or not we deem these as true surplus that's it so I guess and we would need to get an appraisal on a CRA property correct uh attorney Sheepard oh well yeah you have your own purchasing policy but you also have if
you're going to dispose of property or we talk about acquisition or disposal acquisition that would be per your purchasing policy so yes okay so that obviously would take time especially on the commercial side it takes a little bit more time and then there needs to be funds allocated for that um obviously so
I don't think we can get that done by next week but you guys would have that conversation and we can discuss I guess present something for your your following meeting uh from there and that's not to say that you know obviously if we have a meeting and and there's an appetite from the board to deem this as surplus that's not to say
that we have to wait until two months from then sure um we can react to whatever offer is on the table i just I just wanted to make it known that I didn't want this to go too far and you realize that our board has not even formally discussed this topic yet okay
and that's very helpful too to understand how we kind of game plan forward so and that gives us time as well to if we need to reallocate these funds if for some reason your group is not interested in in disposition then we can reallocate these funds to something else i
I want to clarify Commissioner Esta when we did your purch purchasing policy we specifically excluded property in the CRA because it has its own disposition process so whatever you follow whether it's get an appraisal or not get an appraisal that that's something but this
is specific to acquisition not disposition yeah but it's still not a part of your purchasing policy which says for property outside and I was more so asking what does the Florida statute state about CRAAS and acquisitions within those you're good okay understood okay thank you Vice Mayor former Vice
Mayor I appreciate it thank you okay so the 400,000 is what you want to leave in no right now we're taking 305 out we're we're eliminating that Edwards Field improvements and we're going to
have a new under the uh residential yes I got that part but if we're taking away the Caitlyn on Nelson Park as well we're I was just going to leave it at that that gets us to where we were trying to get to but but if we need to specifically said that was low like low
probability let me tell you where I'm at right now with the with the amount available 4,471 taking out the obligated funds you that leaves about 4.3 um million taking out the 305
um 275 at first that's about 4.1 left i'm considering that you might want to take out the trail you want to continue the trail about 2.4 and that leaves about 1.6 so if you look at about 1.6 for
projects other than the 305 the trail at 2.4 for and things that are already obligated so can we let me ask you this because residents obviously have shown that they don't feel that they have been involved in this process at all
um and now they're just being educated on what some projects may be so what let's can we do another meeting next week get more input from Sure from residents and then Sure really drill down on what the residents want and how
they best can benefit yes yeah okay yeah all right i I will say this because I uh Mr bell is correct in the fact that the advisory board was not included in a lot of these conversations a lot this is why we're having these conversations right
now um with the allocation of making this list because this list was really presented to us we we're not it's not an advisory board we just this is an ad hoc you know we just you know obviously we have the CRA director we've got our
parks and wreck which is a lot of the funding and and obviously finance director so it wasn't it it just we had to come up with something to to bring I mean we could start it from zero and right well that's that was the whole point of getting the four people together to come up with something and
obviously that's that was a starting point so but why don't we just set the meeting um how does next Wednesday at at like six o'clock does that work for everybody and let's And does it work for the residents that care i don't know what day is that 23rd 23rd what What if
we do because there's a lot of residents that um go to their parishes or churches on Wednesday nights could we do a Tuesday or Thursday well we know we have Well you know I think the our is it the flag football team or Yeah the
softball team is going to be receiving a Tuesday tuesday they're going to be receiving award through the Orange County School Board meeting so I know a lot of us want to go and we have student awards on Thursday can we do Monday so that's high school high school senior night senior
night and um so when's the 24th is the cornest awards dinner and best 23rd 23rd 6 o'clock does that work okay so we'll have a uh we'll follow up uh we've got kind of the marching orders
bobby and Bradley and Blanch we're good okay so we'll be back here at six o'clock and with that we'll close out the uh the CRA meeting anything else for the cause and then we'll we'll get take five minutes and then we'll be right back for city council sorry about that
folks