Please take a matter of We're going to call this city council meeting to order. This is Monday, May the 12th, 2025. and we'll ask Council M Congress to leave us an invitation and I pledge allegiance.
Father, we thank you for this day and all your many blessings. Lord, we thank you for allowing us to come together, Father, to do your will and the will of the people. Pray to Lord that you will grant us wisdom and clarity as we go through the agenda tonight. Let us come to to you, Lord, with humble hearts.
Pray that you'll just lead us through this day. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Has everybody had time to dry out? Whoa. I tell you, when we catch up on rain, we know how to do it around here. All right, we're going to start off. Uh, we'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as written.
So moved. Second. All right. Any questions? Just a just a note, mayor. Go ahead. Council Harris and I met about some of the minutes. I've spoken. He's going to make some changes from Scrier's era changes. So if everyone's good with that, that's what we'll do. Okay. Any particular meeting? Uh, the budget
workshop minutes from April 28, 2025. Okay. Everybody good with that? Yes, sir. Yes. Okay. All right. We'll go to the regular agenda. I think there was a motion in second. I never did get a motion. Sorry.
You guys are in too big a hurry. All right. So, we did get a motion to say, right? Okay. And uh we're starting with Amy tonight. Is that right? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I. Eyes carried. Thank you very much. Now, we'll go to the regular agenda. I believe
there was one elimination there. Yes, Mayor. If we could, we will pull off or remove item. Make sure I'm getting it right here. 3D1 that is 2025 SDO1 uh 26 and Van
Beern subdivision approval of the final plan. We could remove that item. That's it. That's it. Motion to approve with changes. Second. We have a motion to second. Any questions? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I I eyes
carried. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Coby. We'll go with the 3C1. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, opportunity Florida is here to give the council presentation and then for ask for consideration resolution 20250. Uh, Councilman Harrison serves on
the board and then Mr. Baker with opportunity for us here to provide that. So, I'll let Mr. Harrison provide any comments he may have before Mr. Baker begins. Well, just like to welcome you here. Um, this is good for our our council and and the public to hear uh what you all bring and I'm excited. I
hope everybody else will be too. Calm calm down. We're just excited to get out and not get wet getting in here. Yeah. Thank you. Would you like me to cover the the resolution first or I think we'll just go through the presentation and I can't council's aware of what the resolution's
in support of. So, when you're done, we'll we'll explain that real quick. council should be aware of the benefits of the resolution being an ino. So, so basically, opportunity Florida, first of all, thank you for being members. Uh we're happy to have you as members this year. Uh we look forward to being more
engaged with you. Uh I have been over and been to the airport with Mr. Parson and met Andre out there and Kobe took us around and and have viewed the airport after you got that July 1st grant last year. So, it's exciting that being a certified site out there. And that's one
of the things Opportunity Florida does is we work with our 10 rural counties and member communities to help them build that inventory of sites and assets that they have, whether it be empty buildings that they can repurpose and turn into places that they can use for
uh create jobs and capital investment in the community. Um, we're a technical and marketing support organization. We're funded in a private private public partnership. Part of our funding is a state grant because we are a designated
rural of area rural area of opportunity organization. So, we help these 10 rural counties in Northwest Florida with their technical and marketing. Uh when we talk about technical, there'll be things like we'll be called in by uh Mr. Townsen or
Mr. uh Harrison may call us in and say, "Can you come over and meet? We've got want to run some ideas by you. We may want some input on on grant possibilities where we can go look for grants and things of that nature." Uh I've been doing this a little while. Uh
probably about as long as Mayor Campbell's been mayor. Uh it's been a little while, but uh one of the other things we do is we encourage education from our elected officials. We love to have you come to certain events and we'll provide scholarships to the mayor
Campbell uh normally will come to the rural summit. It'll be in November and you know your thousand membership will easily be eaten up by one person going to that event because we reimburse you that money back on scholarship. Okay. Uh
it it's an education where you'll get educated a lot about what's going on in in rural economic development in Florida. You'll hear about things going on, uh what the plans may be. Uh last last November, we were at the World Equestrian Center in Ocala. We'll be
back there again this coming uh November. Uh last year, we heard from incoming Senate President Ben Albrittain. Uh he's talked about a rural renaissance bill, certain things he wants to get through. Uh we go bed to bed at night and we sit down and put our
head down. pray that some people in Tallahassee will get along and get that through for us because there's a lot of benefits for us. That rural renaissance bill, uh, a lot of what you see in there came from Opportunity Florida, North
Florida Economic Development Partnership, and the Florida Heartland Group. Those are the three rare rural areas of opportunity located in Florida and they're designated by the governor to be those lead organizations. Um when we talk about
technical support, you may be doing a grant and may need some background data. Uh I'll give you example. You may need to know how many electrical engineers live within a 45minut drive time of a site on the map where you want to build a building.
We have that ability to get that data for you in a very quick manner because we subscribe to a database that you don't have to pay money for to subscribe to also. So we do that for our 10 counties and our in our communities also in those 10 counties. We do it for the
school boards. We do it for other organizations that support you and your mission in free in uh Defunia Springs and things you want to accomplish. uh we'll do it for the hospitals and things of that nature. When we do marketing, we do marketing in
conjunction with your county, Uriah Matthews and Lo Poston and Florida's great northwest. And you all are probably aware of that organization. Um but we we do marketing conjunction with them. Uh we have found out what's good for DeFuniac Springs and
what's good for Walton County is also good for Okaloosa is also good for Holmes County because people will leave Holmes County and Okaloosa County and drive into DeFuniac and Walton County to go to work. Okay, they may live people
may live in other counties but drive in here and vice versa. So, we work together to try and get jobs in the region. Um, is there any other questions I can answer? Because I mean, I could stand
here and talk for 30 minutes about Opportunity Florida, but I just want to give you background on, you know, some of the things we do. Again, when we when we market with the or other organizations, we'll go on marketing trips and see site selection
consultants. will participate uh as well as uh Uriah Matthews will participate and show your sites when he's talking about Walton County to incoming site consultants who will come visit and we typically will have them one trip in the
spring and one trip in October where they will come in and do an inbound visit. Okay. So, we get the opportunity to not have to spend the money to travel to see them because we do that opportunity Florida and Florida's great
northwest does that on behalf of you because of budgetary restrictions. Um, is there any questions I can I was going to ask you on your notices and and any type of invitations. Uh, could you make sure
this whole council is on your Yes, sir. uh contact list? Yes, sir. I have I have a distribution list as board meeting invites list and I have a board member list and then I have the invite list that will bring you up on what is going
on in addition to our board meetings. We'll put out pertinent things that come to light that we think you should know about. Uh example is is legislation in Tallahassee or things going on in Tallahassee which we think you should know about. Uh we'll get them out to
you. We have a newsletter that comes out once a month. Sherry Gilmore is with me today. Uh she does our newsletter. She is she is part employee of Opportunity Florida and she's part employee of Florida Commerce. She's a rural liaison
between our organizations's members and partners into Florida Commerce. So, if you have an issue of something going on that's going sideways and you need somebody to get into Florida Commerce
to rattle the doors or something, she's our person uh to do that, right? Um Richard Williams sends his regrets. He went to the wrong place for lunch today. And uh he he went to the wrong place for lunch today and and about halfway
through the afternoon he got in his truck to go home. And Richard, some of you know Richard. Richard lives 45 minutes away. There were two stops before he got to his house. So he was just he was not feeling well and we said we said, "Richard, don't worry. We got this. We've been doing this for a
while." But we'll be sure and tell him what you said. Absolutely. Well, I wanted I wanted to go in the minutes. He'll get even with me. He will. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I will, you know, again, uh,
Kobe has my email. Uh, Council Member Harrison has my email. I think Mayor, I think you're on my invite list also. We'll get we'll make sure that we add you all to the list, but if you have any questions that come up, you can either go to them, they can come to me, or you
can come directly to me. Any any questions from council? What kind of workshops do you all offer that those scholarships for? We typically are I I'll give you an example. We typically are doing workshops. They're not necessarily
scholarships to workshops. Uh there'll be a scenario where we do the rural summit and let's say you want some members or you want the whole council to go to the rural summit. That's a reimbursement scholarship. 90% reimbursement. We do the Florida Power and Light Northwest Florida economic
symposium which is usually February early March time frame. That's another that's another place where you may want to go and you may want to have your staff go or something of that. Again, that's a scholarship. We budget $30,000
a year for our member scholarships. You know, we typically council member do workshops inside of our board meetings on a limited basis. And I say a limited basis of because our meetings are typically an hour and 15 minutes. So we
want number one our meetings to be educational. Number two they need to take action. If we're not being educating you and we're not taking action, there's no reason to meet. Same scenario you have. If you don't have any action to take, there's no reason for you to meet. And I know that that's why
you don't meet four times a month, you know. Uh but we typically will do example is example we have is uh we did a workshop last August and we incorporated a panel of three different grant managers to cover three different
grants in Florida commerce. We brought them in to do a question and answer for all of all of our economic developers and all the people that attended the meeting. The rest the other side of that was we brought in a company called uh Century
Completes and y'all probably know Century Completes because they're building houses here in DeFuniac Springs. And the intriguing part is I came over and visited their houses. Got to know the people, got to find out how they price their houses, how they build them, and said, "You know, I got I got
nine other counties that need houses like this. when you finish over there, let's bring you someplace else in nine nine other counties. So, workshops like that where the members that we have, the other counties could hear about them and how they do that. So, we typically are doing it
there, but again, we have those conferences that will be put on by other people and uh like Florida Power and Light or the Florida Real Rural Economic Development Association. So, those are the ones we encourage you. We also encourage you,
there may be other places you may go that you may need a scholarship. Um, we had we had little old Liberty County, the tiniest county in the state, didn't have anybody on their staff that knew how to write a grant. So, they asked us
could they do a scholarship for a webinar so two staff people could could get training to write a grant. We said absolutely. So, they went out and they they had people watch the webinar. They paid for it. They sent us the invoice. They sent us certificates. We stroked
the check and sent the money back. If you're educated, you're going to do better job. You're going to create jobs. You're going to create capital investment in your community. And that's what that's what we're here about. Awesome. All right. So, we what do we need to do
with the resolution? Mr. Mayor, go ahead. Do I'd like to make a motion to adopt resolution 2025-07 in support of opportunity Florida. Second. All right. I have a motion second. Any other questions?
All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I. Carrie. Thank you so much, Roy. Thank you, sir. Appreciate council members. Thanks, sir. I will be talking to you, partner here. Please do probably in the next 24 hours. Okay.
24. Okay. We're going to go to um 3C2. Uh Kobe. Thank you, Mayor. Um Josh Irvin, the executive director of the CRA is here for this item. He asked that we move it up because of the consultant
being present and I I agreed. So Josh, if you would please come up and introduce it to us. Good evening, mayor, council, members of the public. Josh Irvin, Ervin, the Funiac Springs CRA. So in front of you tonight is the final report for the parking study that has been underway
since really about August of last year. had a lot of public engagement, numerous workshops and in this final report you will see all the findings and also some recommendations. So our request tonight is to simply ask you to accept this document uh with the revision to uh the
parking committee and the the leadership there. We did kind of generalize that. The consultant included some language in there to kind of give us some flexibility removing Main Street specifically uh in that. Um so the consultant is available by phone. Uh he is back up in Michigan. Uh but if there
are any questions, he'll be glad to join uh via teleconference. Okay, Mr. Mayor. Go ahead. Uh motion to receive parking study. Second. I have a motion. Second. Any questions? Go ahead. To receive it.
Receive it. Accept it would be the technical term. You're not adopting it. You're not approving it, but you're accepting it, which is the equivalent of receipt. He's presenting it to you and the city accepts that that document has been provided. Okay. I will change my
motion to accept. Amended. Second. And this is the study we paid uh or the taxpayers paid $40,000 for. Is this the one we're talking about? The CRA did. Yes, sir. Okay. Anyone else? Any question? All in favor
say I. I. I. I I I carry. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. All right. Kobe's out. So, we are uh uh we're going to We're on the council member appointments for committees and appointments. You want me to try to cover that one while
he's out? Mayor. Yeah. I I'll go ahead and start off by letting them know I had uh the person I was wanting to appoint on the planning board uh had not had a chance to get back with me. So, it'll be next meeting, our next meeting, whenever that is. I will have that one in ready
for you. Mr. Mayor, same thing with my CRA appointment. I've had a couple more show some interest so by next month. All right. Those two of us will be giving you our appointments next. So, the mayor's planning appointment will be next month and Councilman Scor
will be next month. Mr. T. So, we're talking about committees. Um, is this a good time to jump in and make a suggestion? Well, let's get through the any appointments and then you can follow up with that. Okay. So, uh, mayor, last, um, last time we
had two, we had three boards left that we called and talked to to them about. Um, the Emerald Coun Emerald Coast Council on Aging would like a representative from the city and then the Walton County Health Department for the Walton County Community Health Improvement Plan Committee would like a
representative as well. So, we could appoint two individuals to those. The Walton County Correctional Institute Committee, we will not be considering that one anymore. So, those are two that if if the council wishes to serve, we need someone to serve on. I do believe
the health department did, Department of Health, it didn't necessarily have to be a council member or mayor. Uh, so if there was staff member that would be uh more appropriate, that's that's good,
too. But certainly we want to go to the council first. How often does the health improvement plan committee meet? I believe it was once a month. They do, but I don't know if anyone's ever I'm not sure they held them every
month, but that would be at the very most of the month. Then they have annual meeting, which is usually their monthly meeting. We can we can hold on that if what else? Just those two coast council
on Aging and then the Council on Aging and that's that's this group right here down the street. Yes, sir. You want How often do they meet? Mayor, do you know? I really don't. Uh I think
quarterly. Yeah, I've heard very little out of them. So I I don't think it's a monthly meeting, but anybody here know if the council on aging meets are you back there? Would it be appropriate for Susan Balo to sit on the
council of aging for us? How often does the Emerald Coast Council on Aging meet? Oh, I thought you already knew. Okay, we'll just assume monthly. hold on as well. We we will need to verify with their bylaws whether or not they'll accept an employee of the city
would be one of the questions. We certainly have some discretion and appointing persons if they give us that discretion to what their bylaws would say. As the Emerald Coast Council on Aging will not directly be overseeing the operations of the senior center, I don't believe it will be an inherent
conflict. We also want to make sure there are no partnership engagements that could cause a problem with her being the director of that as well as on there. So, let us get with them and we'll find that out. Okay. All right. You want to pick it all up next month? Yeah. Bring it back. And then Clay, if
possible, if we do want staff to do it, would it be more appropriate for me to be appointed to these things and have a designate from there? It would be. Yeah, I think we'd have a much better option of doing the city manager or his designate to allow him to make those appointments if we are eligible to do so. And we can do that through a
resolution. All right. You want to move on, Cubby? Yes, sir. We can bring that back. All right. We're going to go to uh Is this where we Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. All right. So, um, going back in recent history, um, we
were all at a CRA workshop not long ago, and we were all really excited about the possibility of really bringing our alleyway into the 21st century. Um, and then everybody was all of a sudden an
engineer and wanted to weigh in and well, we need to do this and we need to do that. And nobody was qualified to say that we have a engineer firm now that's fixing to go to work for us. and I'm very excited about putting this project
on the top of their list uh along with um Twin Lakes Drive that's I believe scheduled to be um paved but we don't know about the underground sewer pipes yet if you know we don't want to pave the road and then have to turn around
and dig it up. We need engineers on that. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is I see a similarity between everybody thinking they're an engineer expert and now uh everybody thinks they're an an airport expert. And
none of us have worked in the aviation field. Uh so what I what I'd like to suggest and everybody to wrap their head around is uh we used to have an airport advisory board. uh they didn't have any teeth. It was kind of like the uh Walton
County Planning Commission. It was an advisory board. They make suggestions and uh the DAS can either accept or refuse their suggestions. But if we got people who spent their life their life in the aviation field
either as uh maintenance or airport support or pilots uh people who uh know the um FAA rules backwards and forwards because they've lived it military and civilian. if we could bring that back
and get some people who are subject experts to help it, give us some advice and help us do some things. Um, I think that that board would be really good. Uh, we could uh we we've
got some valuable resources here in town as far as our citizens go. uh civilian and military. I think we should cash in on that and take advantage of that
resource. Um and it's a voluntary advisory board. Um we could I understand we've got um the Miracle of Flight coming back. Is
that what it's called? Marvel. Marvel. Marvel of Flight. That's coming back. they would be a big help there. And I'm asking us to see if we could bring an airport advisory committee stacked with
experts. And I'm just going to make up an example of what an expert might be. Let's just say, for example, the um the person over the airport in Dest. Let's say we gave him a call.
They're not our competition. They're maxed out. They don't have any hangers left. I would love for Definiac Springs to be the next Destin and have that problem. And the things, one of the things I'd like to ask him is is if you
had to do this over and build a better airport, what would you do? Those are the kind of people we need on the board. And this Bracken guy uh that has spoke to us before and I believe you talked to him at length, mayor. I have. His job is
going around and setting up and building aviation maintenance schools for colleges. Uh he's done that over at Northwest Florida and several other places. And he's a local asset. And the first thing that popped into my mind was
is we just approved three hangers on the triumph money. And before we start doing designing, maybe we should see, you know, if we're going to really staff this and really go do it, right?
Wouldn't it be nice if we had an aviation maintenance school there? And that's bringing that will bring in a lot of jobs and stuff. So would the I guess what I'm trying to ask is would the dis consider forming an airport advisory
board staffed with experts and which none of us are. I think u you know trying to be open don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. Uh, you
know, we did have one or two on the advisory board that were really professional. Um, but we had some who were um whenever we would talk about doing
anything commercial, uh, we'd get these complaints about that's going to make too much noise, too much this, too much that. And I was being a little bit concerned cuz is this going to be a little two-seater country club? How about a two-seater plane
country club? In other words, there was some resistance about growth. I see what you're saying, Mayor, but they're an advisory board and nothing gets approved or disapproved unless it goes through us. Well, Mr. Let me interject there. You are correct in being an advisory
board. One of the challenges we did have with the last time and we'd have to be very very careful how we structure this time was that advisory board then went outside of their role in many occasions and members would directly call the FAA,
DOT, state representatives and otherwise to express their personal opinions and say the council's not listening to us. And the council in turn was then met with well why aren't you listening to your airport advisory board? The council's point was well there an advisory board and the board didn't even
vote the way this one person wanted. The mayor's nodding your remembers a specific issue where we had one member be the one loan descent on that board say well the council wouldn't listen. They wouldn't listen. I know what I'm talking about and really hung us up on what was about three and a half million
of state money we were trying to get. So what so what that tells me counselor is we need to really do a better job at selecting the people on this Air Force on this airport advisory board. And if I bring two or
three names to the table and y'all got better qualified people, hey, I'm going to support the better qualified people. If you bring better people to the board as a suggestion, I'll go that route. I'm just looking for the best people. Is the
goal, Councilman Cosen, to receive actual recommendations for this board or to have this board function as a working group that could help vet issues and engage in fact finding for the city because what you described initially in
terms of being reaching out to other airports such as Dest talking about those kind of things is a factf finding mission as opposed to an advisory board that would be tasked. So I think the question will be what are you hoping to set them up as? Because those are two different structures and that would
depend on what we do. One is subject to sunshine, one is not. Go ahead. Uh what did we have before? Wasn't it was it was an advisory board and do we set the criteria like if we
did go to reinstate one can we set our own criteria on what it is we're looking for to overcome these challenges that were historically absolut absolutely the council decides what boards it creates and what roles
and they give them so I was asking Mr. because certainly if what you're looking for is a factf finding board or a board to provide assistance, it's possibly better to have a working group because one of the other challenges we do have with advisory boards, especially when they're all out there in the same field,
is they are sunshine restricted. They are not able to talk to one another. Yeah. What is the uh what is the tree board advisory or advisory? Okay. So, and they're not under sunshine. They are under sunshine.
Yes, sir. Really? Yeah. Any board that makes recommendations to the city council or functions with a delegation of authority, which are what advisory boards do, are subject to sunshine. Okay. Well, I would I would say we don't want them under sunshine. Well, I don't
think that's our option. Well, no, no, it is your option. Absolutely. You can. So what you would do if you do not want this entity to function under sunshine, the idea would be let the city manager and the airport team work on putting
together a citizens group that's not an advisory group as much as it is a working group. They engage in factf finding. The mayor knows we've done this with our prior some of our special events before we went to a full special events committee. Um we had various
levels of this where they can engage They aren't direct appointees. They're not making recommendations of the city. They hold no official color of title or authority. But it allows a group of invested citizens who want to be stakeholders to work with the city in a
you know slightly less formal fashion but allow us a lot more flexibility to get the information we need. Would they come and report to us? Certainly they could provide factf finding information and do investigatory work of that nature. Another word that I would like
to attach to this committee is a think tank. When we're trying to figure out how to resolve problems with the airport, what should be our priorities, we could use these people as a as a think tank, the people who's been been
there their whole life. So, and having staff pick them out. Um, we've been here all our life and we know who the aviation experts are. And if we have somebody that we think might be problematic, we we
just we're not going to make the same mistake twice is what I'm saying. Mayor, go ahead, Clay. the people that challenged that and was calling like for example the FAA and put the city at risk for losing something. What was the
sanctions against that? Because if they were under sunshine, couldn't they of course sunshine just means they can't talk to each other. The sanction the B that this council imposed was the disbanding of that board. Um I will also
note that while we don't have an airport director right now and I'm confident Mr. C Mr. towns here knows who the boss is, that being the five of you. Um, that became a problem with airport director was the airport director believed at certain times and we had this through not just one but multiple directors that
they didn't have to follow the council's direction or the city manager's direction if their airport advisory board told them this is what they want to do that was their job and they went against directions given by city managers prior to Mr. Townson on more than one occasion. Well, then we need to
establish parameters. So, are you making a motion? You didn't refer to our president manager, did you? Not our president. I was like, did something scaring me a little bit? Okay. So, I said Mr. Townson knows who works for what I currently
don't have a director. Mr. Lewis is operations man and I'm not worried about him confusing the role of an airport council and city council. Okay. I think he knows the difference. So I I was on the council for for a lot of the the situations that uh counselor is describing and and it was a it was a
difficult time. I will also say that um I had individual individuals from that advisory committee come to me and confide into me their own concerns. And I I'm going to try to leave it as vague as possible, but let's just say that it
was not a healthy advisory committee. Okay? Um and and a lot of what the the mayor was saying uh was was also true. Um it it really ended up becoming a a bad situation for the council. I will also add that um as as an advisory
council and and this was something that the council was going through at the time and it it was very open and transparent to the public. Mayor, you can you can uh recall this as well. We were having very open conversations about all of our committees providing
regular reporting to us on on their progress. That's when um Dr. Mcnite and I were working through the charter committee and working through the charter. That committee refused to give us regular updates. But when it came time to actually vote to disband them,
all of a sudden they were up here berating us in front of the public. But yet they weren't living up to their their part of the promises. And this wasn't just one. I get you. So, I have a lot of hesitation about reestablishing something that in the
very recent past I've been through that was not good and not healthy for the city because at the end of the day, I trust Andre, I trust Kobe, and I trust the five of us to make good and appropriate decisions for the for the uh for the airport out there. I think that
this council has consistently voted even in pre previous iterations to support the airport, to expand the airport, to grow the airport. So, I'm I'm struggling with what the actual mission that we're trying to accomplish by bringing in
another layer of bureaucracy in into the fold when it comes to the airport. Well, I think we're trying to eliminate bureaucracy by eliminating the um the sunshine factor. And there has been a lot of things in the not too distant
past that was really ugly in our city. And the airport advisory was not the only thing that went ugly, but we learned from it and we're doing better now. You learn
from your mistakes. That's right. We don't want to repeat those mistakes. So what we do is we have a hand in picking the best people we can. We vet them. We give them boundaries. This is what we want you to
do. We want you to be our think tank. We want you to help us do this because you've been in this all your life and get their input. What What are What are we needing them to think about? Otherwise, it makes it appear as though we're pushing a
personal agenda and don't want professional input. It could it could appear that way instead of taking advantage of professional resources. That's all that's
Mr. Okay. I I have to I have to say this. You know, we've been cruising along here. You started this conversation saying that we were pretending to be engineers on the alley project. That's not what we were doing.
We're not engineers. We know that. That's why we sit a whole afternoon interviewing five engineering firms. I get that. And hire two for this city. Not because we're not the experts and we we we understand that. So you lose me right at the beginning when you
criticize this council before you ask for something, before you give us ideas on something. So I would encourage you, Mr. Cosen, to be civil, not accusatory of this council, of anyone that helps
this council, any of our employees. We are trying to do the best we can. We're trying to move in a in a positive direction. We do not need negativity. We don't need things thrown out in the in the open saying things have been a miss in the past. You made no specifics about
that. But we take that to heart. I take that to heart. I don't know who you're talking about. So please be careful with what what you say, please. We want to work with you. I want to work with you. Vice versa, but I won't be criticized. Okay. For something. So from for my
education, what did I say that was critical? Well, you said we were pret we're we were engineers on the alleyway. We're engineers on the airport. We've never pretended to be engineers, but we have discussed things. That's what we are elected to do.
And Mr. Mayor, I would add to that that the public rely requires us to rely on these experts that we call in to provide us this advice in this council. And that's what we have always done. It's always been based on the advice of legal. It's always been based on the
advice of engineering. It's always been ba based on device of studies and facts and that's what our job is. That's what we have to rely on. No one up here is saying that they're an expert in any field, but you have to be objective to look at the facts that are presented before you make the best decision
possible. I agree with many of the comments that have been made. And um well I don't know what you know it'd be up to Toby and his team u to work with a working group u and of course if that's
something they want to organize that's certainly something that can be done but u I'll add to that I have I have full confidence in our staff to to go out after we speak during these council meetings and to collect all the information that we've asked to bring
back to us and they're running dayto-day. They're doing an excellent job. So, I I've got faith in Kobe and Andre and the crew that we've got going. Mr. Mayor, go ahead. I I have confidence in our staff and Kobe as well. I do
think it would be beneficial to perhaps have an advisory board. I have some of the aviation professionals come to me to educate me and I can't sit here and automatically like quickly debate Todd
saying you know there's an airport in Alabama that uh whatever that discussion was at the last time that we had this presentation and you know afterwards the av the aviators came to me and said look what
what wasn't said was they have a tower like a controlled airspace where we don't you know we were trying to debate what I was trying to understand what the differences were of of these fields that you were saying well this field has this and this field has that I think it would
be beneficial for me who does not have the expertise in aviation when I'm making decisions and if it is an advisory board I mean I would welcome that because you know those pilots who do that for a living um I could better understand cuz I want
to see the airport succeed. I want to see it to be the best that it could be for our city. I mean, it it is an asset. Um, you know, but that there are some concerns. There's concerns with the runway potentially even when we fix the hump. still not going to necessarily
maybe bring in and I I would I would appreciate, you know, uh the aviator experts to to know and for me to be able to ask those questions well before we meet and make our decisions because, you know, we're spending a lot of money out
there. Okay. So, let me um say this if I may, mayor. Go ahead. Okay. I'm not the polished speaker that you are, Glenn, or that you are, Todd, or
Josh. Y'all are polished speakers. The fact that I'm trying to insult people or something like that is nowhere on my radar. If it came across that way, it was misinterpreted. I want the best for the
city. I want the best minds pointing us in the best direction. I want professionals aiding us. That's what I want. And if that offended anybody. It's my
presentation. This is me. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to step on anybody's toes. I just want good professional input. And as far as the aviation world
goes, I'm not one. I don't know if it is. Well, that was my point, Mayor. I wasn't trying to put anybody down by saying they weren't an expert in the field, but you know, the truth of the matter is we're not. And when it comes to doing something right,
I'll take all the experts I can that want to jump in and help. Well, I mean, this is something we can engage in in further discussion. Kind of snuck in on us tonight a little bit, you know, because we were talking about
committees, but we had not even considered this. So, I think it's something that ought to be considered. Um, I was just trying to let you know the problems we had in the past, right, were and I was saying that we had we we've we've had problems in the past.
This isn't the first time we've come across a problem, but we learn from it. We fix it. We make it better and we go forward. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying about this airport advisory committee. Yeah. If it didn't work out, then there's reasons it didn't work out then.
Give them boundaries, give them instructions, tell them what we want. and get some expert input. That's it. My suggestion would be let these minds sort of think on it, hash it out, see if we need to come back with a plan that we
will vote. Yes, sir. That good? Yes, sir. Okay, we'll move move on and uh not to forget about it. All right, Kobe, we're where? Uh, mayor, we're on 3C4. All right, we're on four. Okay. Yep.
That's uh whether or not to try to hold the council meeting on the day. Yes, sir. So, city the city's closed Memorial Day. Yeah. Um so, it's up to the council if we want to reschedule or cancel it. Um I would recommend that we cancel a meeting. I think we've got enough on here today to
get us through in terms of contracts on a number of things we've been doing. Um so, I'd recommend we cancel it. And then if we do that, I want to I'd like to talk about a budget workshop on the 9th. So at 3:00 before our first meeting in June, if everyone's works for everybody, I'd like to look at that so we can have
another one. Motion to cancel meeting on the Memorial Day. Second. Yeah. Schedule the workshop. Yes, sir. Discussion. Okay. You want to get a second? He did. Okay. You second it for the workshop as well. Yes, sir. I'm going to second on
it. Um I don't have a problem with that because I wanted to have it canceled, too. But here's my concern. June 1st is the notice that we've got to put into the property appraiser. My concern is
that CRA 95% versus what we were trying to accomplish the discussion the last I believe that's 84 not 61. 61 they give us their like one line, right? But last year when I brought this up, we ran out of time and couldn't do it. And that's
what I don't because we were in the middle of our budget process. We do not have to do it by June 1. That is not an issue. Okay. Clay, then could you tell us what is the last possible date this council could vote to make that 95% something different if they choose? If
they so choose. Danielle, do you have our expected budget hearing dates available at this time? August 4th is when you turn in the forms to the property appraiser. At that time, I put what percentage on the tip form. So, it has to be done before. Yeah. So that so by then but uh we would have to be 90
days prior to the actual adoption of the budget since we've not set those dates. We don't know exactly what that is but that's going to fall in the month of June. last year, if I might add, Clay, you specifically told me that, if I
recall properly, that it was too late because the county had to be notified and they'd have to change all of their uh items if we did do that. So, I'm just trying to better understand, are we going to run out of time? You you were already in the middle of your budget
process when we started that. You were in the middle of the budget hearings when this came up. We didn't take this up during our budget workshops. Excuse me. You didn't bring this up in the middle of the budget workshops. You brought it up during the middle of the budget process. We weren't in the summer months. We were already well into the
fall in the construction of our budget when that came up. And I just don't want to run into that again. That's all I'm trying to accomplish is I do not want the discussion to be, oh, we got to postpone it again for another year, the whole discussion, uh, because we ran out
of time. So, I'm just looking for I'm good with the budget workshop at the 1st of June. I mean, June 9th, if y'all talk about this at June 9th, and that's what y'all decide to do, we're well within the time we've got to do anything. You adopt it at your council meeting right after the fact. If you do that or at the
last meeting in June, what you can't do decision in June and we won't run out of time. That's all I need to to reiterate, you can make your decision all the way up until August 4th. Thank you. That's what I needed to know. June 1st is simply
when we get notice. Okay. We got a motion in a second. Yes. All right. Any other comments? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I. Eyes. Carry. Thank you very much.
All right, Kobe. We're going to go to the C5. Thank you, mayor. This is the uh construction contract for the 280B Water and Sewer Utilities. Um this is a contract with Southeast Site Underground LLC. They were the low bidder. Uh they
were awarded the bid by the council and so we're bringing back that contract. Uh the contract is in the amount of $997,000 $997,736.98. You all recall the city has a $500,000 grant to this project. We have received both in writing and
verbally from the developers of Eagles Crossing in and in particular Veterans Lodge that they would pay for the difference in this uh within the understanding above and beyond the 500,000 if a change order was to arise. So um we're looking for approval of the
contract. The substantial completion is within 120 days of notice to proceed with a completion date of 150 days. There are provisions for liquidated damages for both substantial completion and completion of remaining work. And so, mayor, we're looking for approval of
that contract. Um, of note, unless Mr. Atinson advised otherwise, I would wait to sign the contract until the funds are received from the developer no later than the 16th of May. Great. Motion to approve contingent upon receipt of the remaining funds from the developer.
Second. I have a motion and second. Um, yeah, go ahead. Um, Kobe, were you able to get that missing checklist that was not attached to that? I was the I've been looking for I've been looking through it through this and the bid doctors have not located yet. Clay, I was asking Kobe
earlier today for substantial completion. I was looking I just didn't want the city ever to be without that liquidated damages clause for what was happening for the others. But uh the checklist to measure what substantial completion is that I'm I wanted to see
that like what the substantial completion equal how do we get that before we I wanted it before I voted so I could kind of better understand and then I would ask do I think at this point in time um the only thing you can do is table the contract until you get
it if that's what you want but is that going to hold something up Kobe at the discretion of the council the bids expire on May 16th which is this Friday. So, what you could do is accept the bid um and request the city count request city
manager to direct the awarded bidder to provide a substantial completion document as part of their their um bid package so it can be incorporated into the final contract and we'll bring the contract back in the June 9th meeting. Would you be willing to amend your first
and second? Sure. Amen. A second. They're not going to move. I suppose you any other questions or comments. We'll just have to hold off on that. Anyone want? Yeah. All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I.
Carrie. Thank you very much. Kobe. We'll go to 36. 3C6. Thank you, Mayor. This is uh for RFQ 20241PD. This was the land development code update. bid. Again, the council
awarded that bid to Kimley Horn and so this is the contract with Kimley Horn to perform the update to the city's land development code uh for a total contract amount of $97,500. So, we're asking for approval of the contract. Legal did provide um
some changes be made and they did make those changes. Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion second. Any questions, comments from anyone? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I I.
Eyes carry. Thank you very much. And then we'll go to 3C7. Here. This is RFQ 202503PW wastewater effluent force main replacement project design engineering and CI. This is design of the effluent
line. Uh you all recall the city received a $300,000 grant from Northwest Florida Water Management District for this project. and then we will be supplementing it with capacity and impact fees uh to the amount of $230,000. That's the rough estimate once this consultant's brought on board and
the contract would have the the actual costs laid out in it spelled out. Um and so we received five bids for this. I'm going to read those off who they were This one stacked up. Respondents were Anchor CI, CHP,
North Florida Professional Services, Okcono and Associates, and Three Notch Group. Um, attached to this is all of the bids received along with a tracker at the end showing uh what documents were or were not received in accordance with the specifications of the
bid. And you will see that u Anker CI CPH and North Florida Professional Services did not provide a conflict of interest statement uh with the bid. I spoke to Mr. Atinson and he can provide some further guidance on that if we need to. I verified that with the city clerk. So that meant that
two firms uh Okconum and Associates and Three Notch Group provided all the necessary documentation including the conflict of interest form. I reviewed both bids uh rank them and I recommend to the city council that the project be awarded the three notch group for the effluent line design at CI.
So moved. Second. I have a motion second. questions, comments. Anyone? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I. All right. I ask here. We will work to bring back a contract hopefully on
the first meeting in June for that. Thank you, sir. All right. 3 C8. We have the RFQ for the engineering contract. Yes, mayor. So eight and nine are the contracts or the engineering firms that city council selected for continuing services. So we
can start with with eight first again RFQ 202501PW and this is a contract with Ankor Consulting Engineering and Inspection Incorporated to approve. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any questions? Just go ahead.
How soon can we put them to work? Well, as soon as the contracts are uh signed, I'll have uh meetings with each firm. We'll talk about everything and then it'll just depend on projects that come up. Uh task orders will be given as those are assigned. Will the council
have uh any say so over the priorities? Well, our priorities go off of the CIP, major funding list, any other projects identified in the budget that need to be done. If the project is greater than my spin authority, so if there's a task order that's greater than my spin authority, then they have to be approved
by the city council. Uh any projects from that to $7.5 million could be awarded to a firm, one of the two firms that I recommend to the council that you all would have to approve. Thank you. Any other questions,
comments? Anyone? All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I. Eyes carry. Thank you very much. We'll go to the next uh RFQ with three notch. Yes sir. So again RFQ
202501PW. This is a contract engineering services with three notch group incorporated. Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion and second. Any questions comments from anyone? All in favor say
I. I. I. I. I. I. Carrie. Thank you very much. All right. Um, so we don't need to worry about D1, correct? Yes, ma'am. And the uh the
D2 is that uh Mr. Walls handling that or you going to handle it? I can take it. I think Mr. Walls is coming. But so uh the code review and land use committee recommended to the council that a mortorium be put into effect for signage in the city. Um and so with three exceptions, I'll let Mr. can speak to
legality of some of that or what can be done. So, the intent of the code committee, unfortunately, I was in a mediation that went to well after midnight that night um and was not able to attend. But, as I understand, having spoken to Councilman
Beerbomb, reviewed the agenda item. The intention here was to basically put a pause on new sign approvals until such time as land development code could be updated while giving certain exceptions. And while that's usually a very good tool when we're working through a very
quick process, uh the concern that I want to bring to the council and the reason that I can't that I'm going to have to suggest that we look at holding either holding off on doing this this month um or perhaps making this a much more open
and possibly less of a moratory altogether is Senate Bill 180 that is been transmitted to the governor. I don't even know if the governor has it yet. Um, while that is primarily an emergency management bill, it is a very broadly written bill that deals with a
number of issues that were directly related to hurricane events in the state of Florida. Due to the breadth of the bill, the way it's written, it effectively covers all 67 counties and every municipality in the state of Florida given the storms we had last year. One of the things that bill does
while we certainly have several things we have to look at fortunately I don't think we have any restrictions in our comp plan or land development code we have made in the last year or since August one of 2024 which is the effective date because this bill is
retroactive that limit the right to develop um we would be imposing a moratorum and this bill specifically says that any local government is prohibited within one year of any of these identified storm events from
imposing any moratoria on construction, reconstruction, or other development activity in its area. If we are deemed to violate it, a citizen can provide us notice that we are in violation of that statute. And if so, we have so many days to withdraw it or we're subject to
sanctions, fines, and otherwise. And the bill's express intent is to declare all such acts, including ordinances adopted, void abeneia. That means void on their face. So if our goal is to actually keep
somebody from doing this, I don't know that we're not better off waiting to see if the governor signs this bill as presented or not. because if he signs it, we've effectively violated the bill day one because it applies to any action from August 1 of
2024 all the way forward and it applies all the way through 2028. Um, I don't candidly think when you look at what the legislation was intended to do, what we're talking about here tonight is captured there, but I will say that has been transmitted to
the governor. We know it has come out of the legislature. Um, it's been something that a lot of local governments are monitoring and the simple reality is the plain wording applies to us whether we are doing this about hurricanes or not.
So, Mr. Atinson, would the appropriate action be to refer it back to committee until such time we we determine whether or not the governor is going to I would just say we continue until we know whether or not Senate Bill 180 is assigned by the governor and therefore if it applies to this or not. Motion to
continue. Second. We have a motion second. Uh questions or comments? And I will note that was part of a briefing I received um addressing this with both the Federal Art Association of Counties and the League of Cities um this morning
was part of what that review was. And the general position has been stay away from these at all possible. You're not going to have protection if you beat the clock. Gotcha. Apologize for the late notice but we are all working with a legislator
legislator sure that has gone into the overtime period. Anyone else any comment question? Mr. Mayor, go ahead. This is it. It's a little disheartening to to hear uh that this has come out, but I I
want to take a moment to remind our citizens of of local control. This is a classic example of Tallahassee reaching down and telling local municipalities and local governments that they know best from from Tallahassee instead of
the local bodies that were elected to lead locally. Uh so pay attention to what your state legislators are doing. Encourage them not to erode local control and home rule. I
agree. All right. Anyone else? I think I might make a huge start. Give me a second. Cup of peanuts. All in favor say I. I. I. I. I. I.
I. Thank you very much. U. All right. Uh, Mr. Wallace. I guess we're going to go to 4 A1. Yeah. This is uh 2025 SSA04. This is Jonathan Nash request to amend the zoning
map. And bear with me here because there's a lot of uh different zoning districts going on here. But these requesting a reszoning from an R1 single family residential, an agricultural
district, and C1 commercial to a C2. and it's uh approximately 3.9 acres. And this is the property. If you look at the map, it's directly south of the Beef Brady's
complex. Um and I think their their intent is to mainly use the the frontage on 331. It's kind of a flag shaped parcel. Has a little tail on it. Um but this would allow them
to develop that property um as a commercial use. So what I am asking for is to approve the first reading of the ordinance. Motion to approve last of the last residential home that was in there.
There is a home on the property. A couple uh accessory buildings. Yeah. Although I believe all the way down at I believe that the home is vacant. Um because it's part of an estate. Yeah.
So motion to approve. Second. All right. I have a motion in a second. Uh questions or comments? Anyone? This is the old Hodge property. Yeah. Correct. All in favor say I. I. I.
I. I. I carried. Thank you very much. Okay. So, this is an ordinance number to be determined. It's an ordinance adopting a zoning map amendment of the city of the Phoenix Springs Land Development Code, changing the zoning designation, repealing all ordinances in conflict
here, providing for severability and conflicts, providing for codification, and providing for an effective date. All right. On 482, your land use Yes, sir. This here's a little more
little less complicated. We're going from a medium density residential to a commercial. Well, you've got that motion to approve in a second. Any questions? Comment from anyone. All in favor say I. I. I. I. I.
I. Eyes carry. Thank you very much. Okay. So, this is an ordinance number to be determined. It's an ordinance adopting a small-scale land use map amendment of the city of DeFuniac Springs comprehensive plan changing land use
classifications repealing all ordinances in conflict herewith providing for severability and conflicts providing for codification and providing for an effective date. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. You need to hang
around for this next one or no? I I'm going to hang around for it. Yes. Okay. This is a request to be on the agendi. Um Kobe, you want to handle that? Mr. Careski's here to ask have a request of the council.
Good evening everyone. Um I'm John Carleski, Mayor Kobe. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. So I'm uh my name is John Carleski. I'm with Bestcom Builders, general contractor out of Okaloosa County. I'm here to talk about that beautiful landmark, Village
Springs down the road. Um, I've been working with Kobe and um, Chris since about August of last year to figure out how to get this project back up running and um, finished. Um, I know, you know,
Billy from PMBB Community Bank, he asked me to see if anything could be done with it. Um, and you know, I think it has a great potential to be a beautiful property. Um, initially, you know, they were looking at maybe just, you know,
foreclosing on the property and seeing what they could salvage out of. But once I found out that the state had invested a couple million into workforce housing, um, I wanted to continue down the path and work with them to see that that
project was completed since they had already invested so much money into it. So, you know, th this was initially supposed to be a 50-unit workforce housing uh development which targets median income workers that, you know, it
keeps the rents low and the state funds some of the the money to go towards that. So, you know, I've been working with the state um been working through with the city processes what they want to get things done and finalized.
uh making some small civil updates to the roads. There's currently 10 buildings and uh 39 units that were constructed. Three of the buildings got washed away because it's on the terrain. So, you know, the plan was to continue
forward with the 39 building or the 39 units that are sitting there and meeting with the city. They said, "Okay, we obviously it's not practical to knock down everything and restart from scratch, but we can make updates to the roads and infrastructure that wasn't
already uh done." So, uh that's what we're working through now. and you know for the city you know I'm here as the contractor trying to put all the different agencies and stuff together and you know but really it's
it's a beneficial project for the city because of the the state impacts the workforce housing. Um right now it's owned by a nonprofit so they're just you know a little agency. They don't have overhead. the the initial developer
uh you know walked away from the project and he's no longer part of anything. So there was really no one to help get this thing going again. That's when I helped and stepped in. Um the you know this project is going to
bring some additional tax revenue to the city because now we're reducing it from 50 down to 39. Um it won't qualify for the tax exemption. So, I just keep that in the back of your head that you guys will be getting some tax revenue from
that. Um, you know, I'm sure you guys know about the history. there was stop work orders, miscommunication with city staff and I know a lot about the history and uh you know stuff that was going back and I'm not here to rehash that but I
what I would like to do is you know be very vocal and here and present and keep the city moving forward with you know help however I can keep the processes moving forward. Um, Kobe probably has an email from me every single day and I'm
probably on autodee, but I know you guys have a lot going on and there's a lot of things that you're worried about and you know the problem is the sites have developed so every time it rains there's a storm half you know a portion of it gets washed away and um that's why the
urgency is here. So, we're, you know, we're complying with what the the city wants, the engineers making it, uh, you know, safe, and they had some updates, you know, from the original development order in 2018,
uh, getting some of the safety stuff updated for the roads, for the fire trucks. Um, and, you know, I'm here to kind of work as a local contractor and see this project going forward. Uh, one of the the biggest problems I think and
it's been a problem for a while, uh, you know, is that lift station number three. And I've talked to many pump manufacturers, many pump contractors, lift station, they all know that that is lift station has been on its last leg.
Currently, the bypass isn't working. Um, I think they have a submersible thrown in there with a extension cord. So that thing literally can go out and I think it actually services this building too. Um it can go out at any moment and I
know it's kind of overflowed before and stuff but that's going to be the the biggest challenge and I know the original vacation order you know made it basically said hey we're going to vacate this right away. the developer needs to
upgrade that uh current lift station to accommodate the additional units. Uh Duncan Stewart was pretty smart guy with Jacob's engineering who oversees that. Um he had since left but there's a lot of data that was collected from him uh
regarding that lift station and uh basically th this project only adds about less than 10% to the total capacity to that lift station. Um, and probably even le a little bit less now with the reduced unit count.
The problem is there there's no way to upgrade that lift station because if we even touch it, it's, you know, going to break and something's going to happen. So, talking it took a little while to coordinate with Jacobs and stuff, but the city pretty much said that they would like a new lift station, which is
what we're, you know, trying to do. But, you know, the problem is, you know, who's going to pay for what. So, that's what I would like to start out um and start the process because that could take a while because basically the site
can't really be any further developed because the sewer line runs right down where the roads need to go. So, you know, even though typically a construction, the infrastructure would be complete before you start building this one. the lift station actually has
to be up and running so that we can get rid of that old sewer line and then put the new sewer line in and then finish the road. So that's why it's a real urgency to get this uh approval on the list station and the engineering plans
and you know we don't have exact hard numbers and you may not ever have hard numbers because when they can start construction there's always contingencies but you know talking to several different people that do this. We have about we have an engineer
drawing that we've been working on uh that we started and um you know we know the cost is going to be probably around 350 to 400,000 for that lift station. Now you know the the owners and the developers have already
paid about 160,000 in impact fees to the city in 2018. um we're also covering the engineering for the lift station that you know just we did that to keep the process moving forward that's going to be around 45,000
or so. Um so you know plus the cost of that sewer line that's going from Orange Avenue down um that was an old terracotta pipe which was pretty much broken and need to
replace. it was leaking everywhere and you know so the total investment for the developer at this point is somewhere around like 300,000 with impact fees. Um so what I would like to do is you know
ask the city you know whatever process if there's a cost sharing agreement that we can start with while we're working to get those hard numbers and think about a number. I know in the original proposal with the pump upgrades, they were
looking at anywhere from like 80 to $150,000 um to do that. So, I mean, I don't think that'd be a problem. And with, you know, with that additional contribution of $150,000, we're already about twothirds
into the way of that, you know, that pump station cost. So, it was 400,000. It's already, you know, the developers contributed about 350,000 and, you know, we're
only adding 10% to the capacity. So, we want to make this a great deal for the the city, too. Get a get a good way to get the city an infrastructure upgrade, which needs to be done regardless if the development goes forward.
Um, and you know, the state is closely monitoring this and all the communications and I don't I want them I don't want to leave a black eye for the the state and the funding on the city either and risk any additional funding
coming forward this way. So, what's what what is your ask to the city right now? What I'd like to do as we're working on getting hard numbers, you know, because we're going to get hard numbers and then, you know, whatever the
next process is is for, you know, we'd like to do a cost sharing agreement for the new list station since it's kind of a different scope than for the original vacation order and whatever process that would need to happen. if we could start
that now while we're working on the hard numbers and you know what your guys's thought is about this if you know the percentages or what your overall thought is on this because like I said regardless if the development is done or
not that lift station has to be upgraded but we want to make it you know a good deal on the state's funding part of it through the the home you know the home funship loan So that's what I would be asking the
council now is to look at that number. You know the what do you think what do you think the if if we had to do a new list station I'm starting over I guess what do you think that number would end up being talking with everyone that's you
know obviously we're getting the firm numbers but around 400,000 and that with engineering that's another 50,000 so we're we're covering the the engineering cost right now and I actually am personally and I don't
really have any you know dog in this fight but to help the state so I could potentially lose out on that but the um that 400,000 is kind of the number that I was given for a new lift station and that's in the we had we hired an
engineer to go look at that lift station and he did a technical proposal which I put into that package and he you know he agrees with the price talking some of the the recently awarded contracties on lift stations, pump in process, and some
of the contractors that work on those, you know, they could give a general number. And, you know, so what I like to say is, okay, going forward, you know, do you guys want to do the cost sharing agreement? What process would that take uh to go
forward? And like I said, that's what, you know, we would need to do now. If you guys have any questions for me or on the progress of the Yeah, little bit of
background. Um, I inherited this this project back in uh March of 2021 when I started here. I don't know that anybody was on this council other than
the mayor and maybe Mr. Beerbomb was here when this was approved. Um the city made many concessions and Mr. Atinson can talk about this.
um vacate 16th Street, provide easements, provide for the construction of a new sewer line, and provide for an upgrade to the lift
station. And none of that has been done yet. And I I understand the issue he has with the the new sewer line that has been put in allegedly. We have no evidence of that. Mhm. Uh we've never
gotten any paperwork from Utility Solutions stating that that line was actually installed. Um it's so it's been up in the air. I understand the clay pipe is still operating and we've had
issues with that. Um, I don't know that the if the new sewer line is in and they can camera it. I don't know why that can't be hooked up to the existing lift
station so they can perform their work. There is a stop work order. I think each of you has a copy of that. What that stop work order says is you cannot work on the buildings. You need to stabilize your site, get your
retention pond in compliance with the new permit that you have for from Northwest Florida and continue to stabilize the site.
Um, and I feel like the original agreement that the council voted on, um, that's in the minutes of that meeting was that they were going to upgrade it. And for me to sit here and say,
well, okay, now we need the cost share. They should have done the research upfront. to know exactly what they were getting themselves into. Um, and that's that's no fault of uh the
gentleman who's here this evening, but you know, we didn't have any idea. The city council agreed to concessions. They agreed to concessions and we've got to find some middle ground here.
But bottom line is that lift station needs to be upgraded. And the bottom line is they would never have gotten the do without their concessions and our concessions.
So, and really since that stop work order was issued back in what is that Mr. Harrison? You've got it there in front of you. July 7, 21. Yeah. Um, and I'll stay in Greg. This is July. This was in 2018. It was in the original
development order was issued. It was set to expire April 3rd, 2019, which been just before Councilman Bear Bomb got elected, which would have been six months of the issuance, and then they received an extension thereafter was a document. I was Well, but I've been here for the whole debacle.
Yeah. I I I do want to add that I was shown photos by the city manager back in, you know, 2020 2021. I don't remember the exact date of a PVC pipe that was cut in half and laid over the
top of the terracotta pipe so that it looked like it was repaired and then thrown back thrown back in the hole. And then our crews, our hardworking crews here in Deuniac discovered the faux repair. Um that to me that's just one of
many many issues with this site. This site is the the gift that keeps on giving from the city. And as as Mr. Wallace said very early on, although I wasn't here for the original approval, there was a lot of concessions made back then. But from from day one of this
project running into issues, we have consistently as a city said, "Upgrade the lift station. Upgrade the lift station. Your pond's overflowing. It's getting into the wetlands. That's causing us to receive letters from D." The city has bore that. And yet
nothing's happened. So, I I'm not in a very giving mood when when we have been the ones to bear the brunt of this for almost six years now and nothing nothing's happened. And let's be very clear, we adopted a resolution. I say
we, I understand that nobody on this council voted on that in 2018, but you are the city. You're the lineal descent of those city councils and it is your resolution today 2018-20 in which it was expressly stated
that we were abandoning 16 16th Street on the following conditions. The developer agrees to replace the terracotta sewer line from West Orange Avenue to the existing lift station. Mr. Wallace, has that been completed to our satisfaction? Not that we're aware of. So that's one.
Two, the developer agrees to upgrade the existing lift station on South 16th Street to ensure that it will accommodate the additional 50 units. We know that hasn't happened. I mean, I'm going to ask Chris that. I think it should be obvious from what is being said here today. The developer will grant the city a 20- foot easement for
utilities and ingress and egress along the abandoned rideways. That was an ongoing problem for well over four years because we couldn't even get to the back side of the site to deal with the issues D wanted us to when we were going to go out there and try to re remediate some of the silt because it was such an
environmental concern. Um and then obviously you now have a separate stop work order that was issued that you can read through what was required and even in that stop work order it was spec it was specified to coordinate with Jacobs regarding the
replacement of the lift station council. All I'd say is I understand he says he's paid money. I want to be clear as he notes in his written document to the city he's paid
158,538 in development impact fees. I want to go back and point out that the original DO received said he would pay all tap and impact fees and we held off on collecting the remainder of those tap fees. let him pay the impact
fees because they wouldn't be ready to connect and they wanted to wait and do the taps later after they got done upgrading the lines because there's no need to go set meters if we didn't have the lines in. We understood all that. But so to be clear, he's now had since
July of 2021, and I'm not referring to this order. I'm actually referring to your capacity fee ordinance. He got 60 months interest free refinancing effectively of that old tap fee rate where next July as long as he puts his taps in by next July he's vested at that
old tap rate which is a very low number. If he doesn't do that it steps up to our new capacity fee number which at 50 units probably going to be 300,000. Yeah. Probably at least another 300,000 he's going to have to pay on top. that he's got a basically guaranteed vested break as long as this
project stays in active DO status. So I will say to the council, it is your call. I'd like to make an additional Yeah. Excuse me, sir. I'm not finished speaking. Okay. What I would say to this council is this council has gone through an
extensive process to try to bring this project to life. I know the mayor and I have met with I don't know three different development groups uh housing corporation
bank Mr. Townson has I can't speak to how many city managers I'd guess the number is in excess of four and what I would tell the council is a certain point in time when we make agreements to help developments in the way we do either we make these agreements and
we hold them accountable or we don't because they've done what they're supposed to do in 2018 or 2019 let's just give them all of 2020 because of co or 2021 when they committed major environmental harm to a whed in
this city. I want to ask Mr. Wallace to go on the record here from this stop work order. Has that storm water retention pond been rebuilt to Northwest Florida management specifications and has it been maintained to that level? No, sir.
They have a permit to build it to those specs, but it has not been that was in 2021. So, we're almost four years in. Have they paved the parking lots to stabilize that section of site to prevent that? No, sir.
Have they done any erosion stabilization to secure the wetlands? Um, since they went to the magistrate, they installed
additional silk fencing along the way to help control the erosion. Up until that moment, they had not provided sufficient silt fencing. And I want to be clear, he gave you silt fencing, but I think we all know that's not a per. Yes, council.
Can I ask I I'm confused. So I want to understand the gentleman that's speaking to us tonight. When did he acquire this project? I understand what's now going on since 2018 to current. But will you update me on that because that might clear up a lot of my questions I've been
writing down to say I have the same question. Yeah, that's why I want to ask. Um, when you talk about he when he's talking about he there was an original developer GHD that went through all the troubles
back and forth with the site and you know the last stop work order he pretty much walked away. That was in 2021. So I when did you do it? When did you start? When did you get permission from the state and the bank and the I don't
have I I'm coming in to try to fix all these problems. I have no vested interest other than right now working for free since August of last year trying to work through these issues. Are you working with though a developer
that's that's going to do this? The property is a nonprofit corporation that has virtually zero staff. They have zero money. So the the guy that was the troublemaker, Brian Smith with GHD
Contracting, he was in charge of the development, the contracting. He's the one that walked away. Correct. He's the one that has all And he walked away when? After this last stop work order in 21. Yes. Okay.
Yeah. So he hasn't been involved. So I'm the only applicable parties right now is the the nonprofit who owns the property who you know he they don't do development. They're they just you know they work with the state and then the
bank uh the local bank here PMV Bank and then the Florida Housing Finance Commission. So, I'm coming in as the contractor trying to help finish it and what you know work through these issues with the city. Now, I've been involved
since August. I've sent over 300 emails between Jacobs, Kobe, Chris, all the engineering forms to try to get answers. And I can print them out for you guys if you want. I trust what you're saying. I cannot get answers back what you're doing. I'd like to see that. I'd like to
see I'll print them out and bring them the next. But if you just give us a little bit more time because I'd like to hear some more from what has to offer and our council. The reason this stuff can't get finished though is because we need answers on things like the lift station, the stop work order. We've
we've submitted revised civil engineering plans to the council. So, I need to understand, yeah, I'm just the bigger picture of what's here where we are today. I'm here trying to fix it, working with the city.
I don't have any of the problems from the past. I didn't create any of them. And I'm actually invested in working through these, but I can't solve a lot of the problems because I'm waiting on the city. And if you want to have more depth in conversation, we can have that.
But Mr. Wallace, is the stop work order liftable upon completion of the terms stated therein? That would be that's the intent of the stop work order. Is that not how every stop work order we issue? you comply with the with what are the conditions in
that stop work order and then we can lift that and it is a very limited stop work order in terms of you can do anything on the site except continue building these
homes. Um and what I would say is Mr. Smith did not walk away from this project in July of 21. He remained on this project
until I'm going to say sometime in 2023. And to comply with that stop work order, all they did was continue to push the sand and the silt that had
rolled downhill back uphill. So, let me play hypothe and that's all they did. Let me play hypothetical for a minute. If we say no, we're not interested in a cost share plan, what occurs then?
Well, I think the there there's two issues at hand here. Okay. That that's something the council can consider the cost share. I don't think that's something that anybody should consider until we have a solid number that we have never been
provided with. Um but there's some larger issues from just based on what I just heard. There's much bigger but the city has worked. I know he states he sent 300 emails to all of us. Either Kobe,
myself, Alex with Deubberry, Kyle with Jacobs have responded to every one of those emails and asked for information that is not being provided. It is not
the city's responsibility to develop a plan for replacing the lift station. We'll provide guidance and we will provide we've provided here's the current capacity.
Here's what needs to be done. But I don't like the insinuation that the city has been uh unresponsive to their emails when we have been over backwards to try to make this thing happen. And I've spent more
time on this than I would like. I know that Mr. Townsen has spent more time on this than he would like. Well, if I'm not mistaken, I attended a code enforcement when it was before the magistrate on this very project. So, yes, and there is a code. There's a code
lane. There is a uh that part I didn't there is the magistrate did levy a fine but it has not been to this day we have not charged them $1 in fines
we're not trying to foreclose them it's been levied it's out there and I want to add this councilwoman I I take again I can't speak I I'm not one of the people who's gotten those emails But and this gentleman was not here in 2021, but I want to go
back February and March 2021. Brian Smith brought in a law firm because we were treating him so bad in his opinion. They postured up. We're going to litigate. We're going to do all these things. So we worked with them and we said, "Look, you spending your money
litigating isn't solving the problems DP has. Get the silt out of the bond. Let's do some of these things." And we worked together. And in June, there's a scenario that we provided a lift to the first of
two stop work orders. I want you to be clear. This is the second stop work order in tandem. I'm not going to say there haven't been more, but this is the second of two. and a lift was made of the first stop park orderer. Chris was here at that
time and there was a meeting in June preceding this letter and unfortunately after three weeks on July 7th on the day of this letter we issued this stop work order. I I want to read
from Mr. Wallace's email to Mr. Smith, the city manager, Northwest Florida Water Management District, the building department of Walton County, Stuart Duncan of Jacobs, our public works department, our engineer at Deubberry, uh Mr. Gan at PMBB Community Bank is the
financeier. Um I was ultimately copied into it when it was forwarded when stop workers forwarded to me as the mayor. And what it says is attached to stop work order for the village springs project since our meeting on June 16th. No noticeable progress has been made,
including identifying an engineer to help with the redesign of the detention pond. This stop work order only applies to structures, and we encourage you to continue with the site work, which will ultimately resolve these issues and lifting of the order. I proceeded to advise their attorney the following day
when it was handed to me that we want to let you know they have been in non-compliance with agreed upon restart and has refused to address critical issues including the roadway storm water retention/detension pond the li and the lift station. Those were priority
requirements to be addressed upon lifting of the last stop work order. But unfortunately, the only progress at all is on further vertical construction of the buildings. Accordingly, a new stop work order has been issued. They offered
to do all of this, but as part of that first stop work orders, as Mr. Walsh recall, hey, if we we'll get to work on that, but you got to let us keep building on these buildings. So, that was what we did the first time. We gave them the break they asked for to keep going vertical and
they didn't bother to do one thing with the site. Uh basically we didn't get a lawsuit, right? Oh, we're going to sue you. We're going to sue you. Once again, it's all been posture. And I want to be very clear that's not what I don't know
this, John, but I want to be clear with this council. We are effectively seven years removed from the start of this project. It's a project this city has done everything they can to accommodate. And I will say that if we are about to
get into a cost share agreement, I don't know where that money comes from, but if the ask is to spend that 158,000 of impact fees towards that, that's not how that process works. They've got a chance to get in with a lot of breaks. I can't
recommend it to the council. I can tell you that if we're going to do this, um, we might as well get ready the next time a developer does this in the city and D and Northwest Florida Water Management District come and say, "We're about to start levying fines if you don't get involved in this." Because that's what we're confronted with, right, Mr.
Wallace? They came to us in March, we slap a stop work order down, they get an attorney, and we all try to work together. We asked them to do one thing, though, that I want to call to this attention before I make my final comment there.
We ask them to take the lead. Don't threaten us with Oliviation. You want to spend your time and money and all the effort on attorneys and everything else. Take the lead with Northwest Florida Weber Management D and solve the problem to their satisfaction because we're the ones who get in trouble here. So, please
go solve it to their satisfaction. And what we found out after July after they said they've been doing this, they haven't. I can say they hadn't done anything because I don't truly know that. But
I'll tell you this. We found out that Jacobs had been communicating with D. Mr. Wallace had been commun communicating with D. Mr. Thompson had been communicating with D. I've communicated with D and general counsel and water management
district. And we kept telling them everything that we were doing and this developer was doing and D was acting on the city's reliance. And it turns out in all likelihood GHD Construction Services, Inc. had never made any
affirmative representations to do anything with D. So at a certain point in time, I'm going to tell you tell the city, thumb our nose at D and water management district to watch how far we're going to get with these guys in the future. And I'm not so sure if we
let them start working right now on anything out there and lift this stop work order that we're not going to have a very angry Northwest Florida Water Management District and DP because they were very ready to come slap a consent order on the city in 2021 that was forstalled and stopped cold because we
said we're done. If you want to challenge and stop work, we're not going to let you. You we gave you a good faith chance and all you did was work towards profit. work toward a chance of making money in some of these things. And I understand it's a not for profit, but I think everybody
should be clear. This is a very favorable financing system that's in place. And while we want the project, we do not want it at the cost of our environment. The city is the position this council's taken. I stand by the council's position to enforce the stop work order. And I would tell the
council, uh, if you choose to start giving away what prior councils have done with nothing in exchange or consideration, we need to have a very good position to do that or we're going to be in hot water with the state. I've been working with, like I said, I'm
trying to clean up the mess that Brian left and I don't know why the hostility is towards me. I'm trying to get this project because if it honestly I don't think if I'm putting the effort into it, anyone else is going to and there it's just going to sit there and deteriorate
and foreclosures and it's not going to become a a development. Um I put a lot of work. Um I'm a reputable contractor, military veteran. I've done projects for the bank before they asked me personally. Um so I'm not sure of the
hostility towards me. Every one of those items on that stop worker I've been working through. Um, even though I have no vested interest in it other than to get this project going through the Northwest Florida management, the an engineer was hired and paid for by the
bank. They've already had a plan, a permit issued. When we submit that to the city, they wanted it to go through Deubberry. Um, I don't know why it wasn't done before. I, like I said, that was in the past. So, anything from
basically August of last year, um I'm working through these stop work orders. You know, I have all of them addressed and I'm waiting for the city's response on everything that I have done. So, we have civil engineers plans do uh
Dubberry's had them for a month and a half. They said they're going to have comments last week and now they're attaching this lift station. The the problem with the lift station is I think maybe they didn't do their due diligence. I'm not sure, but that lift
station was an issue. Um they really can't complete the rest of the site work. I know the stop work order says you can continue to work on the site, but the site work can't be completed until something's done about the lift station because the sewer line runs
directly underneath where the road's going to go. So that's why this uh issue is a list station. Now I I don't know what the original intent is. I don't know if anyone does. That's why I'm here to discuss and try to fix it about the
upgrading going through past emails. It did look like um the upgrading of the list station was possible, but I I have all the past emails going back and forth through Dur Stunken and it was they were working.
going to stay on the project if if let's say we vote tonight based on what we've heard no we're not interested are you going to still keep pursuing oh if you're not interested in the cost share agreement what's going to happen
if we tell you tonight no are you going to abandon this project as well or will you like I said to replace it or there there one I can tell you there's no developer making a bunch of money off this because I'm direct directly involved in the process. Millions of
dollars has been invested. A lot of money has been lost. Now, it's just recovery. I'm interested because I I have a good reputation with the state for some affordable housing projects and I'm trying to help them out. They've reached out to many of their developers
and no one wants to touch this, right? Um, so what you know with the viability, you know, the other thing is there's a local bank that has heavily invested in this and it's because of one guy, Brian Smith, who, you know, wasn't taking
anything seriously and caused all these issues. But I've gone through each one of those items of the stop order. As of today, I'm waiting on the city to either respond with approvals, and I'm not trying to make Kobe or anyone look bad. I know he's busy. I'm not taking it that
way and I'm not taking it that you're here pointing fingers, but I would like to see a solution as well. I mean, I'm not asking to understand. Yeah, I'm not asking the lift to stop work, but I'm asking that we need to have an actual plan, which has never been done before.
This lift station could have been upgraded. It would have cost anywhere from $60 to $100,000 um back in 2019, 2020. And Brian was, you know, half-heartedly working through that. I could see the emails and the chains of
he wasn't getting real clear guidance between Jacobs and what need to be done. I re heard that before and that never came anywhere. I re-engaged personally and Kobe can attest to this. I've been I've been asking him and I was just
informed in March. We I was working through a plan to upgrade this the station, but they and you know it's in this technical memorandum. There's three options. There's upgrade, new, or do nothing and it's going to fail and has
to be upgraded anyways. You're the city is going to have to up upgrade that lift station regardless. If I'm involved, if the state's involved, if if I walk away from it and it collapses and everyone gets a black eye, which I don't want to
see to happen, that thing is on imminent failure. So, the city is going to have to do something about it anyways. You can talk to the experts at Jacob say no. So, what I'm proposing here, we're not trying to be cheap. We're actually trying to go above and beyond. I've
already asked the state to do this and they've agreed with the funding because we're putting in about 70% of the cost of the lift station although we only that development only takes 10% of the load of the lift station. So So if we
did I understand you if if it cost $400,000 you're putting up 70%. Yeah. With the engineering and the he's trying to count impact fees and everything else. Yeah. I don't want that. I I want if if that state if the lift station equipment cost
$400,000, that's the only piece I'm focused on right now. A brand new one, $400,000. Yeah. So, yes, that's what I need to start the discussions with the city. If they're like, "No, we're not paying a question. If we're not paying for anything, then they're have to go back
to the state and say, well, they're not." And then they could say, "No, we don't we don't fund that." So, I don't I don't so much have a have a question as as a statement. You stated a part of it just a second ago that there seems to be this idea that we're gonna give him
credit for all of the stuff that's been done in the past and by the previous guy, right? Correct. Okay. He's counting at a minimum he's counting the $160,000 impact fee as part of this credit towards this cost sharing agreement of $400,000. At the end of the day, that's not our concern. We have on
the screen right there in front of us. I agree with that statement. We have right there in front of us on the screen where in 2018 they agreed to update the list station. Period. Full stop. And it's it's not on this council that it wasn't actioned in 2018 when it was $100,000
and now it's $400,000. That's not for the the council to bear. And and I also have an issue with this idea that the council is somehow being uh cold-hearted or derelictked in in their responsibilities by you know saying no
to this because it's it you know there's this nonprofit involved and there's this housing and all that's between the bank and the state that has nothing to do with this council. This council agreed that the previous council's agreed, the previous council supported it. As Clay
has already previously outlined, we've been over backwards to try to accommodate them. And instead, we get slapped with, as Clay outlined earlier, potential consent orders. I I was here for that. I know what was being said behind behind closed doors about if y'all don't get this fixed, you're going to have a consent order. I know about
that. I was here. I saw the pictures of where they faked repairs just to try to keep things moving. So I really have heartburn with this idea that you know all this previous stuff gets counted but then you know toward towards cautionary.
No to me if it's $400,000 they need to spend $400,000. That's what the 2018 agreement says. Period. Let me ask a question. U if these guys walk away guys that's interested here right now. Uh and and we
don't have any other potential interest. What do we do? We just going to wait and let them shove all that down at some point. That's what's going to eventually happen. Yes, sir, mayor. And then that's what's going to occur eventually. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking because I don't know. I'm
trying to see any attraction there for an investor. Were there not any performance bonds put up for this? Yeah, there was. But because uh the original contractor had a performance bond and the state obviously with the highest vested interest in getting it completed,
they you know hired their lawyers to see it through and there was issues with it and for whatever reason the performance bond will not finish. Um the performance bond was deficient on its face and likely was never real and we let the
state pursue that issue. Yeah. So under a potential problem area. So that's not a remedy for Yeah, it's not a remedy for anybody. I can tell you being familiar with it, it's and the state going through many developers, you know, if if it's not
completed as the home project, there's a land use restriction agreement on the the land uh for the funding. So it it would go through some long foreclosure process and you know whatever pennies on the dollar a develop a new developer may
come in and try to develop for profit apartments but in that area and stuff. I'm not sure what liability would be. What if it's condemned? Well, I'm you know I'm looking out the our city future
um either one of two things. you know, we we either going to work out a deal or we going to watch it get uh completely uh cleared out be all and so I think that's our options here. Mayor, in mid 2024 before John, Mr. Carleski came on,
Billy Gan, the president of PMBB Bank came and met with me prior to meeting with all of us. And at the time, I shared the same sentiment with him. Either tear it down or fix finish it. Um and the bank had not made uh any movement on the property until they ever see that magistrate hearing, proceed the
violation, then they came in and correct the violation. Now they've been up. So ultimately, if if Vescon steps away from the project, it's still on the bank's responsibility. The bank's the one holding the bag. They're the one that's going to have to maintain the property and they don't want to pay for it anymore. I'm just I'm not saying that's nothing to do with us, right? That's not our responsibility. Um but that's
ultimately where it goes back to is the bank. Um and speaking to Mr. again, uh, the bank has second priority on the property to the state. They would they would have sold it off years ago had they been able to. So, at the end of the day, if they don't have a contractor to do the work, it goes back to the bank and the bank's responsible for the
property as itself because they they have a mortgage on the property. Can I say a couple things? Sure. Number one to uh I believe Mr. Beerbal made this point. I was out there on site watching
our public works guys kneedeep in sewage because of the failure of the uh clay pipe sewage line. No fault of this gentleman here. Um but we repaired it at our expense.
The go ahead Jacobs provided the developer Mr. Smith with an estimate for what it would cost to provide a new lift station. So that was done back
in 22. I'm going to guess probably somewhere around there about 8 months after stock order, excuse me. And the issue with Deubberry is no fault of their own. They were given a set of
plans that were insufficient and they gave them a high level. You need to correct these things. These they resubmitted those plans. None of the comments, it appears, were
addressed, and we're waiting on comments back from Deubberry, but there's not going to be a whole lot of specifics in it because they have not included the items that we needed in there. Um, I'd like to add this development
order was issued back in presumably 2018. Um, it is null and void now. Technically, they don't have a development order. They are good for 12 months. When that order
expires, work stops. And we've allowed them to continue up until 21 to operate under that original development order. And maybe there was an extension done. I'm not sure. I was not here then.
Um, but there are things that need to be done and Chief Sheffield could could come up here and tell you a myriad of reasons why he has a problem, but we never
received a set of comments on that set of plans that was approved in in 2018. it it was never reviewed by engineering. It was never um the process
was not followed correctly. They should have never been allowed to start construction on the buildings until all of the site work was done because of the public infrastructure that was being put
in. And we are now left with this issue. but they are not um resolving the issues that we've identified that will help Chief Sheffield get a fire truck out of there
that will allow him to have access to point. Mr. Mayor, don't allow them to interrupt. I I can assure you that based on my conversations, the comments that were given to them were not addressed in the
resubmitt and are still insufficient, which is not uncommon. We may review a set of plans three, sometimes four times. Um, but these are low. We've asked
them, there are a few things we need to do. Create fire department access. Make sure you correct the deficiencies. Show us a set of plans that that has a retention pond, which we never got to review. They had it permitted through Northwest Florida
Water Management, not this gentleman here, um, without the city ever reviewing their drainage calcs. And I'm assuming since the state approved it, that everything is on the up and up uh with
that uh retention fund. But to say that that the city is not responding, that Deubberry is not doing their job, I take a lot of umbrage with those statements. Okay. So what and I I got to defend our let you speak just
a minute. What is the request here? What is the request right here? And well, in this agenda item that would be up to this gentleman here. The action request is removal of stop work order and approval of lift station pump
upgrades on 16th Street per vacation order. That's the actual language that was spilled out on this agenda form by Mr. Carlo before there's a vote. Go ahead. Um, this is going to be a very basic question, but I M when Mr. Wallace
got up to speak. His first sentence was about sewage. And I'm curious to know there's nobody living there. That's never been occupied. So where did the sewage come from? What am I missing? It all
there are people upstream from that lift station who uh it runs down that clay pipe that was originally 16, the one that the developer that got the order was supposed to replace. Correct. Okay. Thank you. So, it wasn't it wasn't
created by onsite, but you're still getting that that upstream sewage that's running down to that lift station. And that's still problematic to this day. Not that I'm aware of. No, the city corrected it. Um, and we we've not had
Okay. any additional spills. Okay. Thank you. We could just since the city corrected that issue. Yep. Okay. make your final comments till we get back. Okay. Yeah. And not I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to blame anyone here. The
comments that were submitted back, they were submitted by an engineer, Jamie Eubanks. I'm sure you guys know the name. He's not he's been doing work here many years. when we when I initially met with um Kobe and him, you know, we said to make
this project viable. Obviously, we can't tear down the buildings and restart because then it would be we'd have to all the funding and stuff, it wouldn't work out. So, we said, "Yeah, definitely open to making infrastructure changes or whatever,
road, fire access." And that's what they said. They're looking for the minimal changes of the undeveloped stuff. So, we've done that. They specifically asked for grade changes, which we resubmitted, and a wider turn radius, which that's been
submitted to Deubberry. They've had it for a month and a half. We're waiting for comments back. Um, we were told we'd have them last week and now they're waiting on this lift station to give comments. So, uh, you know, the problem is, you know,
we're I can't solve the problems if I can't get the responses back. I've submitted everything that we've asked for by certified engineer to Deubberry or waiting. Now, Dubberry is tying the lift because since March of this year,
they said they didn't want an upgrade to the lift station. They wanted a brand new lift station because of the age of it. I mean, we could easily go in there and upgrade the pumps, but your your bypass is not working right now. It's broken, which that has the the consent
order from D was partly because from what I understand, I wasn't here, but reading and talking with Northwest Florida Water Management, um it's because the lift station is overflowing because the pumps are failing. You have no monitoring on it right now because your monitoring
services are out for rebid and you have one submersible pump that's operating list station with no bypass. So you can talk to Jacobs. That was along with the um the original developer. He had silk go into the wetlands. That's all been
addressed and there's a plan for that. Obviously everything has to be approved and finalized before that can be worked on because there's no one the original contractor is not here to do that. And I would just Well, so I mean you you but
you you the one that had this put on the agenda. Yes. Okay. And I mean it sound like to me that you lacking a tremendous amount of information. What what information? Well, you're saying you hadn't heard back and you're still wondering and Yeah. I'm waiting to
hear back from the city engineer on the civil plans we've submitted to lift the stop work order, you know, to progress to lift the stop work order because initially we were told the development order was null and void. What is Yeah. Then we were told we could do site work
um but not work on the building. So I don't even know if you know we've I've been talking to Chris everything he says we try to get it forwarded. We submitted those plans a month and a half to Deubberry with the changes on the roadway for the fire department. So yeah, we are waiting on the comments
back. But for a fact that I know that uh the lift state my request is to start the conversation for a a a cost sharing agreement. I don't have the amount. That's for up to the city to determine. And I didn't say that
that should credit. I was just you know remind the city what the and the people who paid are really the state agency and the banks because the developers long gone. So they are the ones that have the vested interest in it and then whatever
gets approved and finalized I will be responsible party going forward once we have all the approvals from the city. So my ask for the city is to, you know, because it I', like I said, I've been coordinating weekly almost since August
of 24 trying to get answers and I know things are a little bit slow. So to help, you know, have a greater focus on this project to get since he keeps telling us this, why don't we do this? Why don't we have give us a list of exactly what questions he believes the city's not answered since back in
August? Because we can tell him exactly what he's not done since August. She hasn't done anything on this. I I don't have approval to do anything. Mr. Walls could have gotten out there and fixed the pond. No, because they the civil engineer wants to review the storm water
plans. But I can't do any to our civil engineer. What's that? When were those submitted to our I told you a month and a half ago. They have not been That's the whole point. Hey, he keeps saying he submitted things. He hasn't submitted the the plans have not been submitted. The plans
have been submitted. The storm water and all the documentation that goes along with storm water pond. Thank you. Has not been Yes, that has been approved through DB. This this is the problem that I can
bring you guys that all that storm water data has been submitted by our engineer to Dubberry. They have it and all Why don't Why don't you give Mr. council list of what he says hasn't been completed by the end of this week. By Friday of this week, we'll put this on the June 9th agenda. We'll bring it back
up for consideration. If he's got a bunch of stuff that truly has been outstanding for the city for Yeah, I make that motion. I second. I have a motion. Second. He doesn't. Any questions,
comments from anyone? All in favor say I. I want the project to work, but with all these outstanding issues, I need to get those resolved and those questions answered. So, right now, I'm going to vote. What was the motion?
Yeah. To postpone it until the June 9th meeting. Yes. All right. All right. Nay. Nay. All right. I ask carry. All right. So by the end of the this week, right, we won't by this Friday, you can get a list of
everything he needs from us. Yep. And I can go through my files and and provide as much documentation as I can prior to that June 9th meeting. So yeah, we we just will you give us your phone number, please, or Yes. Okay. Thank you. All
right. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. We will go to citizen comments this time. If you have a comment you want to make, uh, you got three minutes and, uh, just give us your name if you represent an organization as well. Hey, Tim Carson
with Liberty Partners, 1211 South Second Street. Just wanted to give y'all a quick update on the legislative session. This is when we typically come in and give you an overview or a post session wrap-up. Uh, unfortunately, as you may be aware, they didn't finish their job on May the 2nd. Uh, they still have yet
to pass the state budget. Uh there's a there about $4 billion uh difference between the House and the Senate proposed spending plans that they're going to have to reconcile. That is uh you know as soon as they're able to sit down and and have a you know a civil conversation right now which is has yet to be seen. A lot of things have been
said. Um the memos that were released by the House and Senate on Friday uh sort of blaming each other for not having an agreed upon spending plan, but did want to give you a quick update on your appropriations project request this year. As you may recall, uh the city
submitted a request for $1 million for the effluent line as that was their top priority. Currently, the House has $500,000 uh on their side of the budget and the Senate has a million has the full million dollars. Um the House for the most part has funded 50% of the of
the of the requested amount on a lot of these projects. So hopefully when they do sit down and begin working on that budget after they've received allocations, they'll reconcile that difference and we'll be able to uh get that to the governor's desk, a million dollars for the effluent line. Another quick update, as you recall, Congressman
Dunn had submitted that same request last year. Uh may see a theme here. They weren't able to pass a budget either. They're working on reconciliation now, but uh with moving forward for fiscal year 26, it looks like that request will be in the mix again uh this year. So
hopefully we'll be able to pull both of those back uh for the city for $2 million to go towards that project. We know that it's been identified as your top priority. We want to see it funded. So another quick note, uh I know that y'all received correspondence um about a
month ago from the governor's office on his executive order with regards to the Doge efforts uh for government efficiency. I know y'all working on on the compliance with that request. Jennifer had a conversation with the governor's legislative affairs director today um kind of getting a feel for you
know what they're looking for and stuff across the state and uh if anyone wants more information on that please you know reach out to reach out to us and uh we'll ensure that you know the city's um you know able to you know comply with everything there. Um but I like I said
we're we're still in session. This is like when we would normally come and bring you an update and tell you everything that's passed and failed and the status of your appropriations request, but today's day 70 of uh when you know when they were supposed to have gotten their all their work done in 60 days and uh like I said, we don't know
when they're going to get done now. So, um just let us know what y'all need. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tim. Anyone else? All right, we'll close the floor for comments. Uh we'll go to
um Clay G. No, sir. Okay. All right. We'll go to Mr. Cosen with 8A1 mayor. They're working agenda. Yes, sir. That was Let's go to city manager then. Yes. 8A1 is Councilman Conurs. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Um, in in accordance with the uh contract that we have with Kobe last year when we uh appointed him the full-time city manager, we're supposed to provide him with an evaluation uh no later than July this year. And I
just wanted to see where we're at on the process with that as far as getting the evaluation out to us so that we can get that back to him. Kobe, this is something Kobe wants. he wants the feedback from us to see if um our satisfaction with the job that he's
doing and providing to our citizens and that's really important to him. So, it's something that I wanted to bring to the council and to um kind of see where we're at and how soon we can get the ball rolling on this. What about the typical forums? Have we changed that
up any? Yeah. So today I for we forwarded a Google drive to everyone that has um prior city manager evaluation. I got summarized the template which was used by the council at that time and then I put in there four examples from professional organizations that the council can
choose from. So you know it's just the contract we need to agree upon what the form what that is and the process for which we're going to go about doing it. Um so all of you do have that in a file to look at. Um, so if you want to go with the prior, that's fine. And, and this is something that I wasn't asking
for like a specific decision on which one we want to do tonight. It's just to bring it to our attention so that we could look at that, maybe bring it back at the June June 9th meeting, I think, and then that way we can at least come up with the process then. Okay, that's all I got. Thank you, Mr.
Mayor. Great. All right. Do you know we need to vote on that? No, no, no. I think that's one where everybody's got the documents now. Let's take a look at everything. come back June 9th grade and discuss it. Perfect. All right. Good with that, Kobe. Absolutely. All right.
What else? 8B1. Councilman C. All right. Mr. Co. Okay. Can we Yeah, they got your video, sir. Um, let's start off with uh Okay.
Not that, Michael. That's going to be I'd like to start off with uh 11. This one right here. What's this name in the back? Well, Michael doesn't have those pictures, so I just printed them out for the council. Thanks, sir. Yes, sir.
We don't have the pictures on the lake. Circulate to the public, please. Pass them out. Just go and pass them out. We don't have the pictures on the lake. That's what he's passing out now. Council pass. Right. But
you meant displayed on the TV, right? I did everything I was instructed to do to put it on the monitor. And if that's doesn't work, I'd like to know what I need to do next time to make it right. I'll forward Michael the word document
as well with all the pictures on the screen. Let's make sure that gets uploaded in the agenda definitely next time so anybody can look at it and then it'll be part of that packet. All right then. Okay. So, um, if
everybody would turn your attention to the top picture here on this piece of paper, here's the backstory on that. Um before we knew that Lakefest was going to be
um cancelled due to weather, but after the triathlon was cancelled, Taylor Laughing House came to me and he said, "I'm going to be in South Carolina next week. Can you get the swim buoys out of the lake so it
won't be in the way of Lakefest?" So I said, "Fine, no problem." So, I called a friend of mine that had a boat and I said, "Can we run out there and get these swim buoys?" And he said, "Sure, no problem."
So, I went to uh pull up the anchor, which was a wheel housing that you mount the wheel on and it goes over the brakes. And that is some heavy steel that was holding them down. And I pulled
it up and the first thing the guy that owns the boat started saying is, "Don't put it in the boat. Don't put it in the boat." Because it was it was almost unrecognizable as to what the metal was due to a very heavy axle grease type
sediment on it. So, after I had run washed it in and out of the water, and you could look and see that oil spill under where I'm washing it, uh washing off the the thick petroleum
substance and I'm like, where's all this grease coming from? Um, so we got that buoy taken care of and I thought, well, maybe it's just a a spot
problem, an isolated incident. And we went 200 m to the second buoy to pull it up. And it was the same scenario. And I was like, "Okay, so we've got the bottom of our
lake full of a petroleum sludge sediment." Um, usually in a healthy lake, there's vegetation. There's no vegetation. Why is vegetation important? Because it produces oxygen, which helps
the ecosystem. And the person that was helping me, who I'm not going to call his name because I didn't ask his permission, he said, "This is uh one of the reasons why I don't eat fish out of this lake." And then I got to thinking about
the um the untreated storm water runoff from our streets that's being piped directly into what was the swim area. And um I checked with Kobe's help the water
purification tables and the water's good. The water came back with good results, but um I'm concerned about the sediment and I'm concerned about the untreated storm water runoff.
So, um, I'm going to give you information that may not be in the right order, but, um, I told Kobe, I said, "This problem didn't start
yesterday. This problem started before long before you were even born." Kobe, I believe you. So, if we have a problem and our lake is
not healthy and we're we're doing damage to it, I was like, "Okay, how do we fix this?" So, I had a meeting with Kobe on this and I'm thinking, well, we need to get D with the state involved and at the
federal level, which they have a field office over in Pensacola, I was going to contact thinking we need some cleanup money. Maybe we can get some grants for cleanup money and do something to keep from piping
uh the water off of our streets into the lake which is causing the sludge. Now, I'm not an environmental engineer, but we do have engineers uh on board now. And they I remember sitting here hearing the same thing
y'all said that we can um they may not have the exact type of engineers that we need on their staff, but they've got contacts with every type of engineer specialy we could ask for.
So, um, the point of this, of showing you this is not to point fingers, but to find a solution and hopefully find some grant money to clean up and help our lake. Uh,
because it is the flagship of our historic community. Um, so that same day I had made some calls and got permission to uh
dismantle the roped swim area. And when I was dismantling it, I found out that it was uh just infested with fish hooks and monofilament
line. And as I was walking on the bottom, I could feel I was barefooted and I could feel uh what felt like large chunks of rock or something. And I reached down and picked one of them up and it was asphalt. I picked another one up. It was a brick. I picked another one
up. It was a chunk of concrete. And all this was in the swim area. And this is where we've been letting the children, you know, get in the water. So, I got all the rope up on the um
bank and with the help of some people in this photo and if our staff would like to try and reach out to uh the state and federal
D agencies to see if there's any cleanup grant money available. That's what I that's what I'm like would like to look at. And a problem that we've got in Walton County that indirectly affects us is that there's been a legal battle for
a long time that I'm sure Clay's more familiar with than I am about putting untreated uh storm water uh street storm water into the bay. And I have I have heard debates go back and forth on how
it's um degenerated the bay and I see that this could happen here and I'm trying to get in front of it. Um after I washed my hand as good as I could possibly wash it uh on the back page here, I still couldn't get the grease
off. So, and then just coincidentally this morning, um, a constituent called and she said, um, up until this morning, it's starting
to reside on 11th Street right there at the water uh the water plant just south of the railroad.
tracks. Um, picture right here was a stopped up uh storm water sewage. Uh, I mean, not sewage, storm water from the street. And that's what was causing the flooding.
And if I'm not mistaken, this is the same water off the streets that's being piped into our lake. It doesn't go through the sewage treatment center. It goes straight into our lake. Uh, and is the um is the video
available? Yeah, those videos. Okay. Okay. So, the the water has recided, but when I called uh I I I wanted wanted to make sure I didn't ambush any staff. I called Kobe and told him about it, and he said, "Yes, we've
got a piece of equipment designed to clean out our storm water sewage." Uh but uh there's a problem with it and it'll be back online. Is that correct, Toby? Is that what you said? Correct. I met with public works about three three four weeks ago about storm drainage or
jeter, which is a piece of utility equipment, right, was down and being repaired and that's what transportation uses to jet out storm drains. So, the city's doing as much as they can. They're having a little um equipment problem right now. But my concern is now that
we're now that we know the harm we're doing to our lake, what are we going to do about it? And unless I'm open to suggestions. Um, but the best idea I've got is to see if we can get some cleanup
grant money from state and federal sources. Let me tell you my experience with D. uh which is pretty positive. Uh we had uh of course you know for years I've been trying to get the the levels of the
lake down cuz most people here don't have a clue how high that lake was for years and uh but anyway it's been down for the last six years five years six years. Anyway, uh so I was over at DP
uh back in probably 2020, might have been 2019, I'm not sure, but anyway, uh we were talking about something totally different. And I said, tell them about our lake, you know, and I said um you know, how that we have such high
water levels and uh what we could do about it. And uh they they sent us to a whole different office that deals with storm water and and run off into lakes, bays, all that kind of thing. But anyway, um and I was, you know, trying
to get money for a drain, a permanent drain. And they said, "I don't know if we can help you with that, but we could really help you with capturing that storm water." But the only problem was with the storm water because I was trying to get the lake levels down was
that they would u and it sound like they would finance 100%. But they would capture the water coming off the streets and all those pipes probably a third or half the way down in the lake yard and tie them
together and run them to a onsite treating facility in other words and then they would spray it back out you know I thought well that's not going to help the level of the lake you going to put it right back in there it'll just be clean water but the thing
was they did have uh a remedy remedy for the, you know, street water and um didn't didn't remedy the levels of the lake, but it would remedy the contaminants that are coming off the street. And uh well, I'm not going to
try and be a hypocrite and pretend to be a environmental engineer, but it just seems like a little bit of common sense possibly that all this petroleum sludge has got something to do
with the flow that used to come into the lake that gave it more volume of water. And I'm concerned that maybe um this sludge is stopping up a lot of the flow that's coming into the lake. So, but I don't know. But with your second
situation right there, uh the uh and the council's heard me talk about this before is that uh we have a lot of residents that blow all their leaves off in our streets. They do it on Circle Drive. They do it all over Circle Drive.
and it goes down into our storm water and it clogs them up. Our guys are having to go in there and clean them out. It's a mess. I think that we need to put some kind of fine or something. You can't I mean you catch
people blowing a truckload of leaves into the Circle Drive and first time it rain it's going right for that drain. It's going to go off down there and it's not like that one. Those grains down there will take big chunks. The ones you see on the circle, you can put big stuff
down in there. But, you know, we need to prohibit anyone from blowing their debris into the street. Okay? You know, and and and that's that's a good idea, but what do we do? What do we do now?
What do we do as far as uh stopping the environmental damage to our lake? Mr. and and and I'm not I'm not an expert and uh Todd if you jump in I'd like to hear some ideas. So I'm not I'm not
opposed to having the the sediment tested. I I want to be clear as someone that lives on on a lake. I've I've waited off into into a lake that you you get stuff on there that the famous saying goes Ajax won't even scrub off. I
I've been in I've been in ponds. I've been in lakes that are that are that way. That that's being I guess a Florida boy, I've been there, done that. I'm all for getting the sediment tested. I don't know that it is actual petroleum based substance. And here's
why. At the request of a citizen, we started testing the lake water not just for bacteria, but for petroleums and heavy metals. And from what I've been told by the city manager, we have continued to test
those. And on average, it's about five times a year. And that is at an expense of over $1,000 a test to test for those. Common sense would tell me that if we were having a severe runoff problem, then we would see it in those
tests being tested five times a year. then every one of those tests to my knowledge has come back with no no bad results. I don't know what the the exact technical term is, but again, I'm all for testing the sediment
and seeing if we have something. The other thing that I'll add to add some color to this information is I find it interesting that you were talking about walking in uh the swimming area and finding asphalt chunks and and that sort of thing. I was told several years ago
when we were discussing the lake and the grass that grows in it and that sort of thing that there is actually a old um asphalt-based track that was apparently from when the lake used to actually have
an a lower level that ran around way lower than what where where it is now. Way lower than the existing concrete. So, it could be that some of that is still in the lake hanging out. That's what I was told by by someone. Okay. There was I walked and run on it, rode
my bicycle on it, but it wasn't that, you know, it's gone now because it was not that far down as we see now. I know it's probably 15 feet below the Okay. But it's still covered. It's But it's covered up under under the the water currently is is what I'm kind of getting
at. No, it wouldn't be under the water now. that was above the I think it's deteriorated or may maybe the city scooped it up many years ago and that may be some fragments he's seeing but it was not it wasn't down that far in the water. Okay. Okay. Well, I I I still I
still stand by I'm I'm all in favor of having it tested. I'm I'm not necessarily in favor of saying, you know, hey, we've got a contaminated lake and you know, nothing's living in it because there's grass living in it. We have we have issues. I I can show you. I see the grass growing around the shore
and that the lake that I live on is the same way that there will be plants in aquatic life that will will grow in about the first three feet of water and after that they won't grow unless it's lily pads. Um, so I, you know, I've had on my lake,
I've had large, I call it like sludge icebergs that show up, you know, when when people are, are churning up the lake and stuff that that is it stinks. It's nasty. Like it looks very similar to what what the picture is on your hand. So, I'm all for testing. I I I
just want to reiterate that we're already testing it so that we would have some inkling of there being something wrong when we're testing it for this stuff five times a year for the last what we started that back in uh 24. Okay. So we we've had at least a solid
year of testing we were testing for petroleum heavy metals plus the bacteria testing that we're required to do anyway on the surface or do they go deeper? Do you know Kyle? Are you aware of what the company does? The company we use um
is uh Future Labs in Milton and last year we did conduct around five or six cons I mean pretty extensive petroleum metals I mean the the whole works um and as far as the
results everything came back undetected um it didn't meet the threshold of a detectable limit um so I think what she was asking was where did you get those samples uh just right off the shore just
per the samples um we we go off onto the docks and we take a jug a certified jug we pour you know throw it out as far as we can get it and pull it back in and try to get the best yeah so it's going to all be surface water okay and I'm
unsure if there's if the lab here that we use can do soil um testing. It's more of a aquatic testing facility. Um, why don't we do this? Let's I'm sitting here. We've got a result. You can stay
up there. Okay. Because you may Sorry, Kyle. So we've got on our website we obviously post Future Labs um provides the information regarding the bacteria testing and then Pace Analytic Services
LLC out of Orman Beach provided the petroleum and metals testing. Yes. Why don't we do this if it's acceptable to you Councilman Cosen? Why don't we have Kyle reach out to Pace Analytical Services? Um, get them to provide us the
information about the issues of the test. Describe have him describe what you've shown here. Maybe even send them the photos and say, "Can we give you a subsoil or a soilbased sample? Can we have you look at this again? Um, maybe
we pull up some of this muck and have that sentence. see if they can always see if they can do it and ask if that should happen to have some type of contaminant or some type of pollution to it. Why don't we at least see why
wouldn't that come up in your test and explain it? Because if we've been paying for these tests, my my concern is with you, yes, obviously the lake has a problem, we need to know it. But my bigger concern at least threshold is we've been paying for this testing and they keep saying pass pass pass. Why is
that the case? either it truly is passing and what's observed is not a problem or our testing is not giving us a good indication of what's going on. So would you be acceptable in getting that information and bringing you an update? I think I think the problem is where the samples are coming from. It sounds to me
like it's pretty much surface samples and the problem is is heavy. It's let's tell us that how they can analyze that. Right. So, and if necessary, um, you scuba dived that lake, haven't you? I got scuba gear. Not
that lake. Well, let's let Pace tell us since we've been paying them to do this. Let's give them their project number identified and say, "What do you need to do to test what he is concerned about, what our council is concerned about, and see what information they tell us." If
it's additional testing, that's great. I can tell you right now, if we go to D, my concern, Councilman, is they're going to say, "What's your positive test?" and we're going to hand them this test and they're going to say, "It's a pass." And if we say, "Well, we think it's surface water." They're going to say, "Well, where's your soil sample? Where's your
deep water?" Let's go ahead and get it and let's figure it out. If they tell us it's not a problem, then we know it's not a problem, but okay, we can analyze it. But we got the company we've already paid. I'm curious if they're gonna say, "No, we haven't been doing a good enough job for you." Okay, Mr. Bone. So, I
actually that that was that was my note was that I I really wanted to make sure because we kind of saw this with the city hall property of we we pay for some testing and then all of a sudden we hand it to D and D says that's not to our standards. We can't really accept it. So, if we're going to pay to have the
testing done, I do want to make sure that it's to whatever D or federal standards we need to meet. it needs to come off the bottom at depth in the middle the samples whatever the case may be. I'm just saying that the testing needs to be done in accordance
accordance with whatever they're going to accept. So that that was my number one thought. Number two was I kind of wanted to real quick circle back to what the mayor had brought up. Um, Councilman Crystal had brought up some of these exact same concerns years ago about the
the drainage directly on Circle Drive being being dumped into the lake. And at that time, we had a couple of different meetings in which we discussed some options on that. And and I want to be clear what what the mayor brought up that D
proposed would radically alter the landscape of our lakeyard because they're going to go in, they're going to they're going to trench a bunch of stuff up. They're going to dig a bunch of stuff up and then they'll put in these, as Councilman Valley explained back then, these bio swells that will will basically take and filter the water out
so that by the time it actually gets down to the lake, it's naturally been processed by all these various plants and flora to to actually not contain any of the the harmful material. But again, we're walking down a road that could dramatically change the landscape of our
lakeyard by by doing this. So I just just we need to be going into this very very carefully and eyes wide open about it. Okay. So um so that we just don't say yeah we're going to work on it. Um
what is the next step? What what kind of action? I'm Yeah, exactly. I'm going to get up with Pace Analytical make sure that they are able to actually do soil samples. I'm sure they are. It's just that's a little bit out of my field. Um, so I'm going to get the information that y'all
are requesting as soon as possible. And if y'all need a diver to get it at depth off the bottom, that would that would be a whole different discussion. Yeah, you might have to have a real bath after that. Get down. All right, co. Thanks.
Uh, any comments? Uh, yes, May. Real quick. As Tim mentioned, uh, we have responded to the Florida Doge. You all seen my email, my response. I've been in contact with the individual. uh they've extended that deadline. They're aware of the situation with the city uh which I'm going like I told him is not uncommon
most small communities. We have to have the time to get to him. He was very receptive to that. So we'll work on gathering that information. Um second, if you haven't seen it by now, the city, we've revamped the website. So Jesse Decker, assuming you gather really hard on that and uh help put that together.
So we appreciate them doing that. And you'll see over the next couple months, it'll continue to be updated to kind of consolidate, clean it up, make it easier for people to navigate. Uh third, Lakefest has been rescheduled to uh the Memorial Day weekend the Friday and Saturday before. Um so keep that on your
calendar. And then lastly, we did meet with the contractor for the library working through that. Hope to have a contract back the 1 of June to get that project started. So thank you, mayor. Thank you. Happy Memorial Day, everybody. Dan, are we are we at legislative
request now? No, you're it. Comments. Final comment. Is this where I can ask some questions? You can make comments. We can't take action on them. Okay. Um, right before this meeting started, I
had a constituent call me about the um the tennis court lights. Um the city staff has been kind enough to be talking to him on the phone and his latest concern was uh that he found
out that uh the city does own the poles out there. That's right. And that the city has already bought the LED lights. No. So, uh we have we've worked with FPL there. FPL has a program to repair to
replace lighting for parks and such. So, we have paid or done the invoice for the PO for $600. FPO will come and remove all of the existing lighting for $600, $50 an apparatus. The poles are ours. Um, they will then come in and put new LED on all the poles. And that's at a
cost of about $160 per month to the city for the leasing of those lights. Um, so as we go through that, we'll see hopefully we'll we'll monitor and see we should get a cost savings between those old fluorescent lights and new LEDs. That should offset the new monthly cost of the lights. And then from there, we'll move on to different parks if it's
beneficial to the city. Those lights aren't in the city's possession right now. They are. They are. So, all we're waiting to do is uh install them. Well, we're waiting for FPL. FPL will do all the work. They'll remove them and they'll put the new ones up. Okay. It's part of the program. Do they have has
the city submitted a work order? Yeah, we So, we got an invoice from FPL on the tune of $600. We've approved the purchase order that's been transmitted. when that one's we're on FPL's or lork list now. So, it'll be up to them when they come out, take them down and
replace them. Okay. So, um this this is a learning opportunity and I'm not throwing any stones or anything at Jacobs, but uh have they had our uh and unless I've got some bad information, has Jacobs had our contract since
um like 2001? How long have they had this contract with the city? It's been about two decades or so. CH 2M Hill. Okay. Has that contract uh since the 20 plus years
that they've had the contract has have we put it out for bid? Not did we uh in 2023, but prior to that it was bid on. Okay. So, where's the headquarters for Jacobs?
Houston, Texas. Okay. So, and we pay them about a million dollars a year. Uh, this year's contract is $880,000 even if I'm not mistaken. Okay. So, the majority of that money goes to Texas. I couldn't tell you. I would assume the employees
are local, so they are. Yeah. Okay. Um, have we got people I actually know the answer to this question, but we've got local people, local business people right here in the Phoenix Springs who
have the same qualifications uh that Jacobs has to meet our needs with this. Um, would we be interested in putting this out for bid to see if we could accomplish two things? Uh number one, um
that's contrary to the council's prior direction that the city figure out a method to staff it inter to staff it internally. So you'll need to bring that is contrary to the council's prior direction to Mr. Townson and the prior city managers to
determine a method of staffing the sewer plant and sewer system internally rather than bidding the contract. In 2023, we renewed for a six-year term if I'm correct. So, we're on year two five-year term. We're on year two of a 5-year term. And we don't want to get
into the discussions. We know there's a potential breach issue that needs to be dealt with, but ultimately the discussion of that centered around the council wanting the city to take these services in house. Okay. And can that be done before the
six-year contract is up? Those are issues we're working through based on the prior concerns we have about the system and the maintenance thereof of components. Did you put the famous Clay Atkinson clause in there that says that this that this predates all of that? There has to be a material breach
because they provide substantial financial service to the city as part of this. Okay. So, this will not go out for bid. Can't right now unless it's breached, but it would also require council action to change that for a different bid. There's no bid on this contract until it's up. Now, once it's
up, yes, it absolutely would have to go out for bid. Okay. All right. Uh, next subject. Um, I wish there was a way I could do this without asking this question in a public meeting.
But unfortunately, the way the sunshine law is is sometimes you have to ask uncomfortable questions. Um because we're forbidden to just pick up the phone and say, "Um, Glenn, this is what I heard. Did
you say this?" You know, I can't do that. So, um, I've gotten some feedback from the public after our last meeting when I went on the record for saying that I did, uh, I was being blamed for wanting
to get rid of our fire department and our police department and I went on the record saying, "No, that is not me. That's not Danny Coen." So, I really I really don't like asking
this question, but Todd, now your name's up. Are you doing anything to try and terminate the Definiac Springs Fire Department and facilitate turning it over to the county? No, sir. You're not?
No, sir. Thank you. I did I I really didn't want to ask that question, but thank you. And for right now, that's all I've got. Thank you very much, Mr. Burbone.
So, as part of my duties on the EDA, I wanted to give an update on the um the EDA meeting from this month. So, uh, we heard from Uriah about the, um, his visit to Florida Commerce and in that
meeting, he was meeting with some other staff from Orlando, and they were talking about available sites and and the like. And Uriah was engaging with them about what what are those potential sites look like so that we can we can have some of those up here. And when they named off some of the stats, lo and
behold, the stats that they named off 100,000 square foot of building, you know, clearance of 28 feet within internal into the building, etc. Um, we actually have some of those sites available in Walton County. So, Uriah was able to actually talk to Florida Commerce and say, "Hey, we have some of
that those sites available. They're right down here in our Moscad Industrial Park." And he was able to communicate that. So I think that that was a potential lead that is turning into a potential lead there. So he shared that that you know we're we're every day
we're kind of chipping away at at at those type of activities. Um Uriah shared some activities around a co-op in another part of the state that is doing a local um almost like farm to the t farm to table type of a agricultural
co-op. Obviously with um the north end of the county being very heavily uh agricultural based uh that that was of interest to a lot of people. So he shared a little bit about that. Um, we also he also demoed a um a chat
GPTbased uh development guide for uh the EDA to kind of look at um that allows you he's basically uploaded all of the Walton County LDC code into a special chat GPT session and then you can basically go in
and start to ask it questions and um he you know is kind of pitching it as a a way to kind of help with some of the the questions that are fielded on a regular basis. you know, my house in South Walton is zoned uh residential conservation. What can I do with it? You know, or what, you know, what can be
built around me, you know, um and he demoed how it can answer those type of questions so that, you know, that could help the county and and their responses. Um and then, uh we also had a discussion around just the current, um EDA lands that we have, um within our quote
unquote inventory and options around those for whether we want to sell or lease. Um and so we um he is going to kind of endeavor to put some advertisement out there to kind of let people know that those lands are available. Um and then we would at a later date, you know, just look at
whether we want to lease them long term or whether we want to actually sell them off. Um in the past we've sold them off and then obviously immediately thereafter sometimes they get flipped for, you know, a certain price and then then they finally get developed, you know, two or three times after they're
changed hands. So, you know, we we kind of briefly discussed, you know, selling versus leasing and what what are those what does that look like for us long term. So, uh that's kind of the the EDA meeting in in a in summary. And that's all I have. Mr. Mayor, thank you. I'm
good. You're good. All right. Well, I'm good. So, y'all ready to go? Call this man.