that's a small world i'm telling you never thought I'd ever meet anybody else that work there work there all right y'all ready five o'clock go ahead and start okay okay we call the meeting to order at Oh there she is
white those sheets here miss Kathy should lead the pledge of that shirt look at that there she is no doubt voting and also she sits right in front of the flag too all right call the mean to order at 5:00
and we're going to stand for the invitation pledge all right lord we come before you today with gratitude for the opportunity to serve our community we ask for your wisdom and guidance as we gather to discuss the matters before us grant us clarity in
our deliberations patience in our discussions and unity in our decisions let our words be thoughtful our actions be just and our hearts be open to collaboration bless this meeting Lord and be present in our work may we always strive to serve with humility wisdom and the spirit of unity in Jesus name we
pray amen ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all
okay all right thank you all and uh we'd like to welcome our new uh new appointed board member Rob Hamilton um if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and uh boy and congratulations on uh we we're glad to have you so thank
you so I um I own the the gym in town the one that's called the gym uh right right behind the gun store uh I've been in Defunia for the last almost five years now uh when when COVID hit I came down here because my kids were down here and just fell in
love with the place i was living in DC at the time and do not like big city living at all uh so this was a nice switch and just kind of fell in love with the place and stayed here awesome well glad to have you and glad to have you board all right um well uh I guess
we'll move on to approval of the minutes everybody's had a chance to review the minutes do we have any comments or changes anybody want to make a motion if not motion to approve second motion and
second okay uh any discussion not all in favor say I all oppose say nay motion carries 40 okay uh financial report josh good evening chairman commissioners
members of the public uh nothing notable to report here other than you will see the transaction for the sale at 111 and 129 did hit the journal record there but since our last meeting nothing really not notable to report other than that transaction what was that total amount for the
record it is just under 60,000 it was 59 something when we pulled it up here all these sheets while you're looking that up it was nice to see a little article written about it so u and if you haven't had a chance to go by and see the tear down of
the lighted homes you need to go by there and see it it looks so much better so Is that 59589 it is thank you yeah all right and that's in the uh the count titled uh cell of land
59580 ending in 0000 so we're keeping that in where are we going to are we going to just we're going to keep that in the blighted property parcel acquisition uh bucket is that how we're going to do that or Well it's up to the board how they want to allocate that revenue um it was not budgeted obviously
so that money can either stay in that account or it can be moved uh at your leisure um whenever that may be i will need to get with the city finance staff to to see if you know that will require a a formal budget amendment because it did exceed the projected revenues that
we approved with the budget so I can I can get back to you and report at our next meeting with that yeah but we have the leeway to put it in any bucket we want to right you do it just may require an actual budget amendment to do that because of the amount yeah if you could find that out I think that would be good
be glad to all right great okay uh any other comments or uh concerns on the budget uh the financial financials uh and if not I'll entertain a motion motion motion second second okay any
discussion not all in favor say I i i all oppose say nay motion carries 40 all right thank you for that uh the next item here the growth and development assistance grant tracking sheet as you'll note we've had 14 awards so far this fiscal
year that comes to a total of just under 65,000 which represents roughly an 84% increase where we were this time last year so seen a lot of interest um we were able to uh award and and actually install the roof on the incomebased
grant applicant that we received over off of 88 North 20th Street so we're finalizing the uh building permit now and and hopefully we'll get that contractor paid uh in full and and move on to the next one but I will say that you know I'm I'm proud to see where we are with the amount of of interest and
certainly the increase uh year-over-year great okay any questions all right if not let's move on all right so under old business number one update on 111 and 129 North Sixth
Street parcels we we kind of already discussed this but um the county did uh effectively demolish those structures and level the site we're scheduled to go before the special magistrate uh on April the 17th to have the fine be
reduced to the $2,500 that the city manager and I agree to once we pay that then that will clear the code lean and and provide clear title to the county so that was definitely a project that I think highlights our ability to leverage our tiff dollars partner with both the
city and the county to make an improvement that will be long lasting and address blight uh as you see in that picture there so I'm very proud that we were able to get that done it certainly took a little bit longer than I anticipated but that's unfortunately how it goes sometimes so well it was a real
scary situation and uh and I think the countyy's probably pretty happy that we facilitated this and and no issues you know that that's always uh the concern that you have when you start getting into demolition and things of that nature so no real no real issues and
they were able to get in there and get out pretty quickly so great so the county takes it subject to the city's lean yeah with the understanding or the condition that we would remove that lean correct all right so u moving on to item two update on joint workshop with the city
council parking study uh due to some absences from the council we actually had to move that uh workshop from today to April 23rd given the upcoming budget season and some of the other topics that we've discussed we're going to schedule that workshop for 3M to give us two
hours to have that joint uh workshop um so if there are no conflicts with this board I believe uh the city has already confirmed that that is okay with the council um so we would like to to schedule that for April the 23rd at 3:00
p.m which is before our CRA meeting at 5:00 p.m that day and we're going to do it at the community center to give us all space to sit together you said it was uh 3 3 p.m all right yeah let's really put it in there
great okay all right moving on to item three update on the Veterans Memorial so I did meet with the engineering consultant today uh he dropped off some of the surveys that they have uh completed we went out to the original site that was in our
redevelopment plan to get a better idea of of what that site is uh he seemed to uh think that hopefully by the end of this month first part of May we we'll be in a phase where we can have some conceptual drawings where we'll then
schedule the public workshops to go over them with the public through uh two public workshops and then kind of go from there um but it was it was a great meeting uh we had a lot of good conversation and certainly looking forward to to getting those concept drawings
great all right new business all right so the first item we have here is request direction on proposal from Touchstone Architecture for 27 Crescent Drive if you recall at our last meeting there were some discussions about uh Mr bradley Touchton's interest in providing
uh some inind contributions through his expertise as an architect we did meet on site on February the 28th he looked at the the location looked at the building and basically what he came up with was a proposal uh to offer for a fee his
services that he believes would be in our best interest on moving forward with occupancy of that building as you'll note in that proposal there are a series of phases um at this point they all exceed the um in some they they exceed
the the threshold that the city has under the city's procurement policy that would require us to go out for formal bid um so really in front of you is a few options the first option would be uh to reject this uh the second option would be to uh task me with bringing
back uh a mechanism to go out for bid a third option would be to maybe look at some of these on an alocart basis uh and get quotes for you know some of this work if you didn't want to do all of it but essentially what he conveyed to me was it would be beneficial uh to start
from scratch with what we have u massage that with some concept plans to see what you know those improvements could end up being and then get into the actual um permit documents and things of that nature that would go out for bid uh to to make the improvements uh so he's he's
quantified those and in total it equals $26,250 so certainly up to uh this board on how you want to proceed with that but that is what he has provided uh to me yeah what was uh Clay's not here so what
what were his uh what was his view on this did he did you discuss he did not um you know just following our bylaws and the city's procurement policies i mean that's that's really all that you know I believe yeah I know he's available by phone i talked to him so I
mean if if anybody has any question I think I mean I think I I think um you know we we can talk about it but it might be better to go out for u procurement i mean it seems like you know it might be touching a little bit you know probably need to go out for
procurement on it but reflect in kind like he is this a discounted fee like yeah yeah that that's that's what he's willing to do it for um recognizing that you know he's kind of helping not only the CRA out but also the Cultural Arts Alliance out and
they've said they they're not in a position to contribute to that right cultural arts that that's correct yeah so they can they can't help with they have not indicated any any ability to to do that i mean I can certainly go back now that we have this proposal and see um you know if if they would in any
capacity but that there hasn't been any interest thus far to do that i think their interest is if we get the building to call it a vanilla box more like a you know a shell that they could go into they would do out the rest like
they discussed with us you were on the board they were discussing they these guys were so they you know they they said you know you get it to a stage where we can use it and we would come in and finish out the inside stuff and you know it's basically it's u it's the
community benefit of of it do you see an a community benefit for the CA having a real serious presence in downtown Definiac and they're they got a lot of things they want to offer a lot of things for art cultural things for kids
for you know and so u so anyway but with that like the does this scope kind of exceed that if they're just wanting a shell like the plans for a shell would be 26,000 yeah and and and the reason for that as I understand you know there are a lot of improvements that would have to be made to that building and
really getting to the bare bones of the building is where he thinks we need to start uh and and move from the ground up um you know I think based on his price here it's not really surprising um considering the age of the building and
some of those other things you know the the additions that have been made the kitchen and that little storage area in the back is probably beyond its life uh so you know tearing back some of that getting to the root of of the building is is kind of what his proposal is i I
did talk to him and and explain to him how we have to go about procuring services and goods like this and and he did express interest in you know putting in a bid if we go through that process so um he he's very much in interested in doing that and recognizes you know that
we have to follow the city's procurement policies and and all that so I would think it definitely needs to go through a bidding process and not just this is the first guy that approached it here you go sure and we're for sure too
that this they want to move in i mean that that would be definitely yeah they they very much want to um you know they they are limited in their ability just abilities to spend the dollars on things like this because they need to have some to make the improvements as I understand
it to suit their occupancy wherever they end up uh and so you know getting to a level of general occupancy I think is something they would like us to do and like us to fund uh recognizing that you know that's kind of a cost for any tenant um you know whether it's them or
someone else you know we we would probably need to to bring that that building up to some level of of of current code so Bradley is uh is Michelle Touchstone's husband and that's why you know he would you know the idea was for
him given a bid he might could get it lower than the norm just because his wife's involved with the CA that's that's kind of the background of Bradley you know but I think it's just time we really just do a procurement on this
that's my opinion well if if the board would like you can certainly you know direct me to do that i'll bring it back at our April meeting um I'll get with Clay and decide whether we want to do this as an RFP an RFQ or perhaps an invitation to bid um and but I I'll have that put together and I'll
I'll bring it back at our next meeting in April if that's the desire of this board for me to do sound good to everybody we just make a motion i don't think so yeah you can just give me direction to do this what and y'all probably talked about this ad what's the
goal once they move in just rent free or is it rent like C I mean they're they're talking about rentree so it would be us spending money and the view of this board would have to be that we would see a benefit for the
community for them to come in yeah you know I mean that's I'm assuming you already had meetings where they came in and said "This is what we're going to offer the community." Yeah they wrote a they had a whole like you can maybe you can share that yeah for sure um they had like you know there's a lot of stuff they're going to
do after the fact and um you know I think the enhancements are pretty impressive so but you make Okay great all right moving on to item number two request direction on RFQ25-01-c John V awesome amphitheater
design so we did go out for bid uh we received one bid from DAG Architects uh they are actually here tonight in front of you is their bid so at this particular point uh because they are the only applicant um just need some
direction on whether you want to uh task me with negotiating terms and conditions and a contract with them if you want to go back out for bid uh or how you would like to proceed with this i did read over their their bid and they do appear to meet all of the qualifications of the
bid okay great would you want to um start with Dag and I see Okonnell I see they're on here too i think Yeah sure if you want to bring them up the podium they're here I believe are prepared to answer any questions you may have i'm Charlie Clary i'm uh founding
principal with DAG Architects and um here to uh really kind of listen to the discussion of the RFP for this project we um if you've had a chance to review our proposal package we have quite a bit of experience in working with
amphitheaters parks and projects of this type and um have had some experience in working in the Nefac Springs area as well uh with me is um Hannah is who who actually lives here in Definiac or in
the Definiac area and has been working with us for a little while now and I think we were going to have uh Neil Okonnell as a consultant with us on on the civil aspects for the project and
structural but um kind of here to kind of answer any questions to see how you might want to proceed uh be glad to sit down with you Josh and and just kind of talk through kind of break break out um like fees the
different phases of the work and we can take it as a phased approach or a lump sum and then break down uh phases within that lump sum as we go okay okay well I know your work i know you uh
I know your partner um and I think I mean I I really don't have any questions at this point but I would I would open up to the board if anybody has any questions for um Charlie and I think this is great i'm excited you guys bid you guys do great work um great project
we we would really be excited to work with you on that awesome so there no questions from board members i would say if you guys are comfortable maybe um get Josh to give Josh some direction to try
to get something that he could put before us would be coming up and that that would be that'd be great what we're looking for so yeah any public anybody in the public have any any Okay great good sounds good
thank you so much thank you your last name clary c L A R Y thank you sir yes sir and I'll catch up with you okay later thank you Todd Bervon for the record I do want to
just state that I'm here um in in my private capacity and not any sort of official capacity um wanted to understand what would be the process for collecting input on the amphitheater design both from the public as well as the city council good point yeah so uh
as part of this RFQ scope we put in a number of public workshops for concept drawings uh that would go before the public and then come back to the council for their review and obviously approval uh on you know the city side same thing with the 30 60 90 100% milestones when
we get into actual design development okay thank you thank you in this project there there'd be some chance for some TDC assistance down the road right they got money they've been collecting money north of the bay and they need to spend
it on something and I think what better than this yeah but um you know I think you know they've it was a little complicated i think Josh tried to get them involved in the feasibility study and they kind of
gave a little runaround so um I I think we probably it would be good to ask but we probably need to take the first step you know well if if the board would would be so inclined just you know a motion to task
me to begin negotiations with uh DAG architects in response to this RFQ so move second second all right second um any discussion any public comment okay all in favor say I i all oppose say nay
motion carries four all right okay thank you much all right the next item I have here is a request direction on incomebased grant programs u specifically the area median income when you all approved that incomebased grant program for both the roofing and tree removal we kind of took a stab at it for
lack of a better word we looked at the county's AMI which is you know considerably higher I think because of uh the amount of of income in the southern part of this county we tried to match it with what the census data shows for the city of Defunia as far as median income we came up with this 50% amount i
can tell you I've had uh at least two applicants that do not meet that 50% uh unfortunately um so I've I've asked um you know here to kind of look at that uh Mr mr rob Hamilton put together some
data for us here that's in this packet for you all to consider but basically what I I think may may work best my recommendation is to move up to either the 60 or the 70% range of the AMI to cast a wider net i have a uh a single
mother of two who lives on a home over off of South 19th Street that has a tarp on her roof and has been on there for some time rob and I actually went out and looked at it together uh she makes just a little little above where uh that amount is at the 50% she's a county
employee um single income so you know I think we would probably get more attraction um if if we were able to do that and and and help more people um at the back of that is a chart that I actually found i reached out to Florida Housing Corporation to kind of get some
guidance from them because you know this AMI stuff is is all over the place and all these numbers that Florida Housing Corporation puts uh on these charts comes directly from uh the the federal HUD program and there are all kind of multipliers and ceilings and floors that
go into these calculations so in other words if you were to take that median income amount of 96,700 and multiply that by the percentages those numbers aren't anywhere close and and so what I understand and it's very little but a family of four is kind of the base
calculation at 100% so if you take 96,700 uh and you multiply that by half then you would get somewhere in that range of the the four uh household member unit there what you'll find though is that
that is actually um a little bit shy of that number so can't really explain the math but what uh I am recommending if if we if we do anything I would recommend that we use this particular chart here for the multifamily rental programs
we've been using the uh ship program chart that doesn't have all of the uh percentage categories so this goes from 20 to 140% so it makes a little bit easier um so wait go back up or down whatever whichever you were just showing
other other areas Tallahassee and all that you were just Are you doing this oh okay never um the thing you just showed with other areas yeah right here
so Panama City is at 80% LS is 80 Pensacola is 80 or Walton's 80 so most of most of the ones that I looked up are at 80% which is still considered low income 80% and less of the AMI is still considered low income so that's when I
pulled up those numbers those are all the ones anywhere close to us that were using 80% and then the other part that that was important for me as a veteran um if you look at like a veteran that's on disability you know they're their pay
with you know if they have a spouse and a couple kids is going to put them out of the range of getting help through our programs for their income just off their disability income that doesn't count if they have another job or we want to teachers as wide a net as we can so yeah I think so i mean 60
going to get us where we need to be well I would like to think that you know I will say too that we have a limited amount of funds in the budget for this um so it it's it's a massaging effect I think um moving around here and there
these numbers are going to uh change on April the 1 i suspect they'll go up um so you know my recommendation would be let's let's move it to 60% uh and and see if that accomplishes the goal and if not we can always I can bring it back to you we we
can move up another 10% um does that accomplish the two you were talking about it should yes yeah yep um so you know I think um that's a good second stab at it we'll call it um and then you know we've got some flexibility and we
have it in a chart now that articulates that for everyone to fully understand and it's something that's published annually and adjusted annually instead of just putting an amount in the guidelines and then having to go back and change the amount we just reference this chart or the percentage of this AMI
as part of this chart okay all right um someone want to make a motion i'm make a motion that we move it to 60% second we got a We got a motion we got a second uh any discussion any public
comment related to this okay if not um all in favor say I i i all oppose say nay motion carries 40 to move this AMI to 60% thank you the next item I have here is
request to approve recommended changes to the residential site cleanup grant so as you may recall this is our grant for the dump trailer that we offer to folks within our CRA area as an incon contribution grant where they allowed the free use of the dump trailer and
then disposal uh unfortunately there's some carryover language from our other cash incentive grants in this grant program guideline that prohibits the use of that trailer for the sale of the property actually had an applicant reach out to me who has a property uh that
that he is trying to sell over on the west side of the town and would like to use the trailer to clean it up to get it ready for sale on the market and unfortunately I was unable to award that because of the the guidelines or the language in the guidelines so basically what I'm recommending is that that that
portion uh be removed um because in my view if we get the property cleaned up and we incentivize that to the use of our trailer it's going to go back on the market hopefully at a higher rate than it is now and it's a win-win for everybody and then there's also some
other carryover language from our other um site and building improvement grant that that I have um redlinined there as deletions um that I'm recommending uh changing as well but this is just for the residential site cleanup grant
so you so what's the reason to say no proof that all taxes are paid on property you're just your your goal would be just to if they owe taxes that you still get to do the cleanup but I mean like is there something that's going to change mechanism that they if
they owe a bunch of back taxes i mean you just don't want your money you know you want to make sure that you know people are they're not just abusing the program that's right yeah yeah so so we have that you know as a requirement uh along with you know utilities being
current mostly because there's money changing hands you know with the cash incentive i think as I understood it early on if we did not prohibit some of this then they could then effectively take that money and pay off their code
fines or then pay off their um unpaid utility bills and I think that was getting into an area of of I don't know if it was unlawful but it was not an area that I think our attorney felt comfortable with on the uh dump trailer it's irrelevant because
we're not giving them any money we're just simply giving them the free use of the trailer this is simply the dump trailer this is simply the dump trailer this is us you know the expense obviously there is an expense with staff and things of that nature but we're not writing them a check like we are our cash incentive grants and we've had a
lot of of interest in this program where you have a property that is in the estate of some deceased person back taxes you have a new u air potential heir that comes along wants to clean up Aunt Smith's house would like to use the
trailer but because of all those other things you know it makes it very difficult for us to be able to do that so I'm simply trying to make it easier for people to take advantage of the trailer to clean up these properties strictly for the trailer that's right and to bring them back into compliance hopefully or better bring them into
compliance put them on the market and and get them out there uh and get them redeveloped yep so sounds good okay uh any questions any comments on this this is only related to the dump trailer nothing
else no no money no checks going out any public comments all right uh does someone want to make a motion to make these changes i'll make a motion to approve changes strictly for the dump trailer okay second all right we got a motion and a
second any discussion not all in favor say I i all oppose say nay motion carries 4 all right thank you for that uh the next item I have here is a request to approve invoice 449846 for the parking study uh this is an invoice
uh that I received from Fishbach which is the consultant we've hired for the parking study in the amount of $11,59325 this brings that total invoiced amount up to 90,000 this particular invoice is to cover uh the time that he was here to
do all of the presentation so he is um currently working on putting together a bulletized list and finalizing the matrix of recommendations and the plan that will be part of our agenda on the 23rd workshop how much does this leave
this would leave 10% that's correct yep so 46 3730 okay any questions um does anyone want to make a motion to approve this motion to approve
second motion and a second any discussion any any public comment related to this okay not then I'll call a vote uh all in favor say I i i all oppose say nay motion carries 40
all right thank you for that the next item I have here is a request to approve invoice 1-253304 for the historic design standards project uh this is the first invoice from them in the amount of $10,98327 which represents 19.5% of the
outstanding amount due this invoice is for the on-site kickoff meeting that they had the last week in January and for some inventory work that they've done so far so far so far on this project are they communicating with you how's that everything good they they've
provided me somewhat of a rough outline they're actually planning to be here again in June with more public workshops and appearances at both this board and then the city council uh with those kind of draft rough draft outline um plans
okay and that's to for the city to have that at their disposal to update codes or something or I don't think I'm familiar with this one yep so this is uh this is to establish some design standards for the historic districts uh the three distinct ones that we have so the Dorsy district the
existing historic district uh and then the the downtown district uh put it in a comprehensive book that will provide some better understanding as to the what when where and how of why historic design centers are important in a graphical way so
the guide book basically y okay um so any other someone want to make a motion motion to approve second okay we got a motion and a second any other discussion any public comment on this okay if not
then uh call a vote all in favor say I i all oppose say nay motion carries for us all right the next item I have here is a request to approve the public officials insurance renewal as you may recall when we started out we we didn't have our own
separate policies you tasked me with with getting quotes we ended up going through a lengthy process of getting those uh and found that uh Florida Municipal Insurance Trust their quote was in the $20,000 range we ended up getting a policy
through uh the uh what is it called here public officials something or another um that was substantially less so that uh policy professional governmental underwriters um that policy is set to uh renew on
April the 1 of this year in your packet is that renewal it is roughly what $70 and $71 more than it was last year uh at a total of $4,956 this is our errors and omissions
uh for the board where is it i don't see it either is it in here it's right here it's uh Ryan Turner specialty oh oh it was on the side it was on the side it was on the side i did reach out back out to Florida Municipal Insurance Trust and they did indicate to me that they're still in
that 22,000 range for that policy and we're not a we're not under any umbrella of the city i guess what's that we're not under any umbrella we're not because we are separate it was decided that we had to have our separate policies so this will be the third year that we've
had this uh particular policy through for this group okay does anybody not want to have you know Okay uh is there a motion to approve this motion to approve second okay we got a motion and a second any discussion any public comments okay all
in favor say I i all oppose say nay okay motion carries 40 all right thanks for that next item I have here as we've probably been aware and have conversations about this there are two bills out there in the House and the Senate uh this legislative session uh
that would effectively limit our abilities to continue after both July 1st and October 1st of this year if the bills passed unchanged in your packet uh is a letter that I have crafted uh with opposition to those that I'm requesting
we send over to both the bill sponsors and then to the house and the senate separately um in your packet is also the bill text and the amendment that was made at the committee meeting uh back earlier this month there really hasn't been any change to the bill text other
than uh clarification on what a new project is essentially what this bill would do is not allow new CRAAS to be created after July 1st this year all CRAAS that are currently in existence would either sunset by September 30th
2045 or whatever their current sunset date is for us that would be September 30th of 2033 we will not be able to issue any new debt after October the 1st of this year nor would we be allowed to start any new
projects after October 1st of this year um so who knows if this bill will in fact change again i I did watch both committee meetings they narrowly passed there were a few amendments that were
made one of those did pass which was the clarification uh for the new projects in the discussion that uh ensued over this there were some questions and answers that you know didn't really sit well uh with some of the members of the
committee and I think the general consensus that I got from that was they wanted to pass it to move it on for further discussion it still has at least a committee member to or committee meeting to go through before it makes it back to the House uh and the Senate for a vote but that's where we are this
letter basically just you know kind of highlights what we're here to do and how this would affect us negatively so have you spoken with our legislators uh I have not no I think you need to speak with them and send them a letter
okay i I'll be glad to do that directly related to how this could be deletarious to everything we're doing here so Yep yep i haven't spoken to any of them i wanted to get direction from you all before I did that but I'll be glad to do that i'll be glad to send
them this letter or any other letter you would like as well um and hopefully they'll they'll respond i can tell you the Florida Redevelopment Association's lobbyist and team is very much involved and engaged uh with the state legislature this year um they've had
great conversations as I understand they've made some progress in helping them better understand the consequence of this bill or consequences um so we'll see but I think the more letters and phone calls we can make the better
hopefully so what does it mean issuing debt the the some CRAAS take out loans or Well yeah i mean that's something that we may want to do at some point you know with a project like this amphitheater project you know and I mean if you're hampered you can't do that
it's really affects you and the problem is some of these cities they make a boatload of money and they have concerts and they have all these other crazy things they do and they'll million-dollar concert they bring in somebody and it affects PE you know
small communities like this which this is a great program for this community so Um we're getting caught up in the crossfire but you know hopefully they'll remove it for cities or areas under a certain
amount because they're really just going after the big guys i don't know why they're coming after you know everything well I I can tell you the uh the House bill sponsor um there was a question asked at the committee meeting you know what is it that didn't happen in the
2019 legislation that that they passed um that you know we're trying to to to correct in this and basically the the bill sponsor said "Well we didn't end CRAAS in." So I mean that that's his response and that's his I think motive
is just to do away with them um so you know it we are where we are and I think the the terminology here uh the or the definition of new project and I'll read it out for the board and everyone here to to to hear the term new project means any project for which there is no
appropriation in the community redevelopment ay's budget for the fiscal year ending on September 30th 2025 or for which the community redevelopment agency has not retained appropriated funds pursuant to 163 387 7 for the fiscal year ending on September 30 2025
so basically uh what this means is if we don't have it in our budget and this bill passes we can't do it but we need to think be proactive in the event it looks like anything like this is going to pass that we get everything that we think
would be good in our budget so we at least have some kind of insulation for this because because if you don't what we just limit it to limit it to what we've already agreed to do yeah i mean you're stuck with a pot until it
runs out or 20 45 happens i mean I mean it would kill us it took a long time to get the money built up and now all of a sudden you got some money coming in and then like we're gonna take it away you know so but anyway so I'm just looking for direction if if you're okay with this later I'll be glad to
send it um I' I'd say you know make sure uh anything you know I'd personalize it for our legislators to make sure that you know and I would give them both a call you need me to help you with that and I'm happy to you don't have the numbers I'm
happy to help call so Okay yeah be glad to so are you okay with the the letter language okay is everybody okay with it okay all right well I'll um I'll be glad to do that and if I guess you could make a formal motion for that okay motion to
have you send the letter and talk to the legislature second okay any other discussion any public comment yeah um would it would it be helpful to get the city to send a letter as well and maybe the county or I think it would
be good to get everybody involved i don't know what about uh the county wants to send a letter because they're there's they don't like the fact that they're taking some of their but we only affect what's in the city anyway so I think it would it definitely would help
to have a city uh or if if the city council you know if you so desired I know you're here in your personal capacity but I am talking to you council uh you know uh to to do something that would help you know
any any everything you know any stop we can pull you know out try to try to help i know my wife was in Tallahassee with the Chamber of Commerce um last or just last night but she said it got brought up to her and she had no idea what it was but when she started reading about
she's gonna she wanted to talk to Megan and see if they can even draft something to help support it yeah awesome so I'll I'll make sure she follows through with that all right since I got called out I'd like to make a card you're the only one here capacity yeah
well I I do want to say that uh I have a little bit of a different viewpoint on this um I think that this bill uh represents an erosion of home rule um and and the constant uh grab by the state legislature to say we know better
in Tallahassee than the local people that are sitting around this DAS do and and and it's happening not only we see that at a CRA level but we see that at a county level and we see that at a at a municipal level as well so as you're talking to people and and as in
explaining why this is important it's not just important that it it effectively eliminates the CRA but it's also once again another erosion of our home rule i think that's a great point you bring up and I think that needs to be put in the letter that that you know
because I mean a few years ago they were trying to get rid of home rule because of helium balloons it was some crazy thing they were mad about and and they tried to end but effectively end home rule so everything was just managed by the state which is crazy well and in the last part of this I kind of conclude the
letter and I'll read it it says the Phoenix Springs CRA board of commissioners firm believe that local government should retain the ability to determine the most effective strategies for redevelopment and growth kind of hitting on that point that you know it should be the cities and and this board's you know responsibility to determine the effectiveness or lack
thereof um so I think I would beef it up and say home rule you know you know attack on home rule some something however you want to word it but some put something in there about home rule make it more direct yeah more direct everybody's okay with that yes
definitely all right we got a motion a second now we we got to vote um do we need to amend since we we need to amend that that's okay you're good okay all right all in favor say I i all oppose say nay okay motion carries we're
all right the only other thing that I have which is not on the agenda but I do want to point it out i received an email that was forwarded to me from the city regarding a parcel of land that Miss Shirley Yates owns over off of Fair View
Avenue it's.14 acres unfortunately this parcel does not have any access um from Fair View it also is undeveloped it's wooded and it has some pretty significant change in
elevation um I'll reach out to you all individually uh over the next few weeks to gain interest on whether or not you want me to bring that back um but that is something that I have received you know it's it's a partial that she acquired or her husband had
acquired through a tax deed sale and I think she just is tired of paying property taxes on it reached out to the city to see if they had any interest in using it for drainage and so that's how it got to me but um I'll I'll be reaching out to you all to kind of go over the details of that we'll go from there great that's all I have thank you
thank you um okay any uh board member comments like to welcome Rob and looking forward to working with you hey uh you have a request to be on the agenda is that okay
um citizen comments all right uh Mackenzie Brown citizen i just wanted to say thank you for keeping up with legislative things there's uh what was it number 991 thank you for knowing about all of
the 990 so that you could see the one that was really important and would really affect our our town thank you thank you i too would like to express my thanks i'm speaking on behalf of Forward
Defunia we established a uh small group called the H Pigs uh historic preservation interest group made up of representatives from all of the uh groups in town that had an interest in
historic preservation we developed a model uh ordinance for the city the the code review and land use committee to consider uh to strengthen our current um
ordinance and we were on the path to develop some um design guidelines however we discovered that it was beyond us and Josh came to the meetings and helped to decide that maybe this board
could fund some consultants for that and I want to thank you very very much it'll get us farther ahead than we ever dreamed thank you for saying that we appreciate it all right any other comments one last thing I forgot we we have a workshop
coming up on April the 10th at 5:00 PM at Takahala Brotherhood it's titled estate planning and how to deal with probate or something along those lines so we have uh Dennis Pratt the attorney law here downtown is going to be the speaker there and certainly looking forward to
everyone attending that and learning about the pitfalls of not having proper estate planning and how to deal with properties where you you haven't so um glad that he was able to kind of extend that offer to us and looking forward to that what time is it 5:00 PM i think
that would be good for people to understand too about the probate process because there's so many heirs that I can own a property and it's a tangle web and it's nobody's really incentivized to do anything a lot of times and um and so
more knowledge we can have to try to get those things jar loose just like these properties over there by the admin you know that was kind of the same thing stuck in a secret trust Is it going to be where where is it going to be chicago talk brotherhood
okay also uh I was at Renaissance Bank today and they have a program if you're in a CRA district or their CRA may be different than what we do but it's basically our math if you're in the Funia you can get a heliloc with them for much more than you could at another bank
for 4.99 for a year and then prime minus one for the remaining nine years so that's better than any product out there and it's basically the Funia is their only option to get borrowers so I don't know if that's something you can just keep in your pocket when talking to people that's great that's huge to know
because they need the CRA credits which is a different CRA than you're talking was a community reinvestment act federal all right no other comments we're going to end this meeting before an hour um
okay call this meeting uh with a with a motion all right 552 thank you excellent lot of business in one hour