6:00 the date The day is April 3rd 2005 uh city commission meeting 2025 i did it again did it again it's looking a long time yes it is uh please join us for the invocation
uh led by uh Josh Williamson of Central Florida Free Thought Community Church and followed by the pledge uh led by Jamari Harvard thank you good evening we gather tonight
in the spirit of service let us approach our civic duties with compassion guided by clear thinking and a commitment to the common good someone once said "You make a living by what you get you make a life by what you give." Tonight let us remember that progress depends on our
willingness to listen to learn and seek solutions grounded in evidence and understanding the needs of others as we work together may we strive to show our shared humanity in every discussion always uplifting one another and strengthening the community and may we
remember that leadership is about service serving others earning their trust and ensuring that the welfare of every member of Eustace is considered thank you my name is Jamari Harver i'm going to be saying the pledge okay i pledge
allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Jamari
thank you Jos call the order uh Christine is there a quorum and has proper notice been given yes mayor okay thank you tom are there any agenda updates no sir okay uh commissioners uh
approval of minutes for our March 20th 2025 i got it this time move for approval second okay madame Clerk roll call commissioner Holland i commissioner Abbody i vice Mayor Ashcraft i
commissioner Lee hi mayor Hawkins i hold on okay i'm sorry uh we have a presentation uh and it's one that we really uh we enjoy doing uh
we have uh four of our finest from Eustace Elementary School i mean uh Eustace Middle School you guys have all graduated now uh and uh we'd like for them uh to come up they'll be represented by Yuna
Nelson and uh our our our young people they all had the privilege of traveling to uh DC Arlington Virginia and they uh participated in the uh uh the changing
the placing of the reef for the uh Yeah placing got it okay he went around the back door there tom's gone to get him okay thanks uh the placing of the the wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier so uh Yuna would you please come and kind of let us know what
you all did just a couple of minutes remember eye contact with the old man up here um during our trip to Washington we were given the honor to participate in the changing of the reefs honestly the ceremony was awesome
it was held in a beautiful place at the tomb of the unknown soldier it was so properly done and the guards were super sweet and kind they had told us exactly what to do and they were very nice about it it it was and it was doing something that I
never thought that I could do and the others beside me and during the ceremony were following along just as they were told we had to walk down We had to walk down the stairs in in a march and then place one hand on the
wreath and place it on the easel then we walked back the whole and the whole thing was definitely something I could never forget it was truly an honor to do but thank you
[Applause] okay uh commissioners you go down please we'd like to present uh civic pride
award to our recipient yuna would you please come up okay all right hold on a minute it's It's taking a minute to load okay all right uh William
Graham Rhett Woolly and Anthony Ketta Kanzanetta thank you that was close congratulations let's go on the other side
you know we um uh you know a lot a lot of times you know uh at least our generation we say "What is the world coming to?" Um I think you see what the world is coming to you know these are some of our best
and our brightest and we appreciate everything that you did and we appreciate you going to uh uh Arlington and representing the city and the school and your families as well so thank you all
[Applause] right great job thank you so much Yuna great job okay
mayor may I say that so often all we hear are about the the bad things that kids are doing and we just don't get enough and this is good of publicity about the good things that they're doing so I'm really proud of them okay well thank you thank you all for coming
okay next yeah that's good next we'll have a presentation on SE plane infrastructure mr ryan ryan ryan how cool is that huh yes they must have read the agenda and
saw I was up next tough fact for you to follow buddy right that's very cool as a veteran I'm I'm really into that i think that's very cool um hello thank you for having me Mr mayor vice mayor commissioners city manager city attorney um I appreciate
you guys letting me come up here and have a couple minutes to talk about sea planes because that's what every pilot loves right talking about being a pilot i'll make this quick i'll make this brief um but I kind of have a plan and I like to discuss it with you guys should be a little presentation so I dove into
the Eustace downtown master plan um and try to pull some things out kind of make this cohesive and work all right all right excellent my name is Ryan Benagio i live at 501 Jackson Street i've lived there for the last four years
and I've lived in Eustace since seven years ago my mom said move to Eustace so like a good son I did um smart mom so another little bit about me i'm a commercial pilot land and sea um member of the Lake County Eustace Area Chamber
i did it with Hickory Hill and then as soon as I bought the flight school last year I joined uh the chamber as well uh used as code enforcement board member as well since 2022 and then um veteran with over,300 hours of being a crew chief and rescue swimmer with the United States
Navy so that's my flight background and then a lake resident and then just because I have the microphone I'm about to be a father in August so I'm pretty excited about that so that's gonna be the third generation of uh Eustace people u clicking through so I don't want to get preachy on it i just want to cover some basis about CE planes Seplane
bases and how that really could fit or work for the city of Eustace and our citizens so there's a couple types of SE planes there's a float plane which is the yellow one you see there that's the iconic Piper Cub the J3 they've been around since 1947 people like them uh the top right you got a blue and white
plane that's an ANIB it can land and take off from a runway and it can land on water retracts its gear then the red plane used to be manufactured into at the Sea facility which is now the Trident Triton factory okay and then you
have multi-engine varieties you're not going to see those around here very much um there's a couple of seplane bases and I'll get to this quickly but there's like commercial like Lake Hood is the largest sea plane seplane base in the world that's up in Alaska laguardia is a
seplane base they can take you from there to the Bahamas in an ANIB then you have like a public seplane base it varies right um it's ran by the city and it's pretty easy and then you have private which can be for private use like someone's backyard only for that resident or private for public use and
you can open it up um and then again can be anywhere they want private public any type of base um but I bring all this up to talk about adventure tourism and how we can bring this to us so there is more sea planes in the state of Florida than any other state even more than Alaska i
mean we have a ton of them this is it's a 12-month flying season there's nothing but lakes in here south Florida is a little difficult because of airspace restriction so most of the sea planes in Florida are also concentrated here within about a 160 mi radius of Eustace um this if we were to have a seplane
base which now you guys know where I'm going with this it would literally put Eustace on the map and I'll show you what that map looks like um to get ahead of a couple of questions this would not be competitive against Tavaris tavarious has downtown restaurants us has downtown restaurants it adds to it it's something
we can do um this would add to our city's value there's a pent up demand for flight instruction and I'll kind of get into that and the tourism of it this is what the map looks like this is a sectional chart every pilot uses it um and you can see that big blue ring
that's Leburg International um airport and then also has a sea plane base off the side of it above that is a private airport Silver Lake that's open to the public going down you can see Tavaris that's a public airport seplane base and then Mount Dora has one as well um
Eustace you see there's no conflicts with airspace or any issues but we don't have a C plane base marker which doesn't invite people with sea planes to come in and visit they don't know if it's safe they don't know if it's welcoming they don't know the temperature here so why would Eustace want a C plane base
so quickly a C plane base rating most people that have that are already a pilot whether a commercial pilot Delta pilot just private pilot at the minimum they go in for a three-day training course and so two days of training four to six hours of that and then one day of follow-up so when they go to Tavaris to
do this when they go to Winter Haven when they go to Daytona they're there in that city for three days spending time staying in a hotel trying to get this done and they come from all over the country to do it 80% of C plane or flight schools in general are in the state of Florida for a reason i mean
Emry Riddle is the biggest l3 Harris is the next biggest and they're here and then ATP is the fourth biggest all in the central Florida area and it's for a reason um so just besides the training point of it SE plane tours they can be 15 minutes to a full day to an overnighter and as
long as you have that base designation then people can start doing Cplane tours out of that facility where's my clicker go um so why would we want to develop our downtown well we care about our downtown right um the two nearest full um SE plane schools are
Jack Browns and Winter Haven and then Jones Brothers and Tavar is our neighbor i called yesterday they're both three months and four months booked out on getting people a C plane license there's a pent up demand for that they're just waiting i called to see when I could get a sunset cruise with uh Jones Brothers
in three weeks right um to they have a a geo fence called a ver tower this is public information so every plane that flies in and out of to sea place they can capture that uh landing and a takeoff they have 400 per month is their
traffic and that does not include old school J3s like that yellow plane I showed you that's not required to have reporting transponders so it's not even capturing those planes 400 people a month is a lot of planes coming in and out um and then you guys know just three weekends ago they held the SE planes
tunes and barbecue event i mean hundreds and hundreds of people got to go to Tavaris hundreds got to see Tavaris for the first time and get that experience to celebrate Seplanes and have a three-day festival that had to draw somebody from out of town um so this is
what I'm looking at i have a vision um I bring it to the commission i know that we are trying to bring a tour boat out here and I think that's tremendous that's adventure tourism it's a huge draw to Varies has it mount Dora has it and I think we should too i really agree with the commission on that but I also
think that we could probably pull a permit or the permit you guys are going to pull add on to that permit let the sea planes come in too give us a little base it wouldn't cost too much more to add that little bit of infrastructure we would need um this rendering I drew up thanks Chat GBT um
uh it took a little bit more than that but this uh this wouldn't impede anything it wouldn't impede the boats it wouldn't impede the great events we have at George Fest wouldn't impede the boat races the fishing it wouldn't impede any of that stuff it would just be on the
south side of that dock that isn't really getting utilized and it's a great cove for sea plane pilots because that's what they're looking for you're out of the wind line you're away from the waves it's inviting i'm going to skip forward on one other picture and then this is behind the chamber it looks really good
because I removed that dead dying tree with chat GBT and just put that there and all we would need is a little bit of sand and you can beach a sea plane you know something like that Piper Cub on the left let's see
so oh I'll just skip forward to that so I don't waste too much more of your time but I have a request of the city and the commission is to consider having a seplane base for our downtown um it would be huge for our residents and it would let us do three things at once you could do flight instruction which I
would be more than willing to set up a shop uh we could do SE plane tours which I am legally capable to set up shop and do that as well which I would be very interested in doing flight training which is a three-day event two people a day every day you're just going through that tours they're 15 minutes to an hour
they can there's a pent-up demand for that as well um and then also just the tourism just letting other people come in when you think of SE planes think of Harley's think of convertibles on a Sunday drive think of campers because that's what they're doing they're looking for a new destination we just
got to lay out the welcome map and it doesn't take too much for that welcome map it's just putting that um that little C plane designation out there and that would be hiring a consultant i found one his name's Doc Bailey he's done nine in the past two years um just
in the Southeast alone he's very versed in it so I went really quick i hope I didn't get too preachy on it i love talking about planes and being a pilot and I if you guys have any questions like to kind of address those so your So your vision is to have an
instructing training facility is one is a dual purpose i'd like to do two things um and I have a line on both planes i'm waiting for the reason to buy them is to have a C plane for training that's one particular type of plane and then a C plane for tourism like a 206 Cessna
holds six people total so a pilot and five other people and that type of plane you could easily just do a 10 20 minute sunset tour or I could take them to Daytona Beach or Cedar Key or where a lot of people go so that's what I would like to bring to kind of offer something
to our residents how would it benefit the city of Eustace other than bringing people in but do we get any monetary benefit from it i think it would drive a lot for our downtown area it would energize it right with that master plan it gives us something else it adds
something that we don't have that everyone else has it's begging for it um it would when these guys fly in some of these pilots like myself I'll take my wife to Cedar before she was pregnant baby's in August still pumped about that we would go to Cedar Key just to grab a cup of coffee and then fly back boom
there's a whole morning and we enjoyed the downtown we rented a golf cart we explored the area we looked at you know stuff would we like to have a second home here what's Cedar Key about i never would have explo explored that if they didn't have that little anchor that said I could land out there um are we renting
this space to you i would like to rent that space absolutely yeah I would there would be a lease or something like that if that's something they would be inclined yeah i don't expect anything for free right there's no free free lunch and is there a lot of preparation for this to happen um to get the area
prepared and if we're talking about a boat how does all of that work together so the timing of this is just really great right timing is everything uh I know you guys are already trying to set up something for the tour boat facility um I did get to sit down with city staff
thank you Mr corino and talk to the public works director he can see this as just being a little bit of an add-on no more extra permitting no extra time just saying "Hey we're going to build out and to the right for the tour the tour boat let's build a little bit to the left for the SE plane guys um I don't know what
it costs to remove a tree but pennies." Um and then the timeline if we were to hire a professional consultant like someone like Doc Bailey um he does cost some money like about $25,000 but he can get this done in 90 days or less and get us approved through the FAA and you keep
that for life forever and always until the city says they want to shut it down we would have a C plane base which just says welcome to Eustace it's just another place that puts us in um with a demographic of disposable income that want to travel fuel fuel oh fuel what
yes the same thing aren't we going to need fuel there's a C plane we don't need to have fuel if you guys want to op offer that but um most of these planes they're getting their fuel for somewhere else we don't need to have fuel there it'd be advantageous absolutely i mean
boat fuel would be a huge revenue driver um I would not be opposed i would need a dock handler to catch these planes which I'm willing to pay for this would create about five jobs i'd have to hire an extra mechanic to the mechanic I already have for my flight school at Umatillaa um I would hire on three more
instructors guides that would do both things um and I'd have to have a full-time dock handler to catch planes which would also be really nice just like what Davarius has where that you're welcomed in and there's someone to help you with your C plane it's nice did Savaris do it all at once or in parts
like with the fuel and all did they do everything all at once or did it just in I wasn't here for it i just see the results of it you know I got my C plane license two years ago and two years ago I had to wait three months to get my CLA license and just calling yesterday it's still the same and you say Taris their
uh do they have um you know how many they have coming in 400 operations a month is their their average over the last year and that doesn't include planes they can't track just like little amphibs and piper cubs that don't have transponders for the uh the the training
planes would they stay there overnight or you would take them back to a hanger somewhere else it depends on something we could come up with but I do have two hangers in Umatillaa and I could stage them there um what we want is to have
something like that beachfront as well both of these things in this photo um it lets people bring their plane in and if we ever had a hotel or had something else they could stay overnight um you guys the city could collect ramp fees is what it's called for leaving your plane overnight and when you have that you
don't worry about your sea plane sinking it's safe harbor in that area um it would draw a lot more folks i mean they're desperate to do it yeah would you need a building like near it or I would go and probably rent something in downtown um I know a couple of people
and I have a real estate license but um I would I would I would bring you know Hickory Hills a little further down the road but I would I would rent a space in downtown Eustace just to have that right i like it would bring me in it would it would be great so sorry Drew i just want
to do one more followup yes sir so when you go to a place that you've never been before and you're looking at places to to land aren't you going to look for a place that has fuel oh if if you want fuel m Mr vice Mayor
I'm just saying I'm just saying it's not a requirement if we're going to be this close to someone's coming from the out area they see that that has fuel and we we don't then why wouldn't they just go to Tavveraries no it it's a little different than that sir i I hear what you're saying but think about when you hop in your car and you take the
convertible down you're going for a Sunday drive you can get fuel into various you can cruise all the way up to the St john's Rivers and back that your fuel consideration and management is basic pilotage they've already accounted oh I'm going to go hop in Lake Eustace i'm going to go to Lake Weir then I'm going to come back to Lake Eustace and
go to the coffee shop and grab a quick bite to eat and then I'm going to fly to Tvar's for the sunset and then I'll beach my plane for the night you you just factor in the fuel it's no different than driving your vehicle it's a good question um Gary had if you have one of these planes and it's full
how many miles can you fly if I had something like a two 206 you can plan it on two different way ways you can have five hours of endurance at 150 miles an hour so I could get here to north of Charleston um or I could I could reach anywhere in Florida to the panhandle to
the Keys i could get to the Keys in about an hour and 45 minutes in a plane that I'm proposing and bringing all in on one tank one tank easily absolutely so it gets pretty far what's the cost to implement a fuel for implementing fuel
i wouldn't know um I know there's a couple different avenues for it i have a fuel uh truck trailer a trailer that I bought 500 gallons to take it to the C plane where I keep the I have a yellow cub a J3 like that I keep in Umatillaa right now i'd love to see it in Eustace but I have a little fuel tanker I bought
for that it's double insulated and um just a couple thousand dollars i It's just a little bit more to permit it through the proper uh channels talk about the events that you were you touched on in like a rendevous do they would you do that here
would you do uh would you get with these clubs and get uh flyins I guess they call them I don't that's exact so flyins right for those normal the amount of lakes and our weather and our climate um yeah I would I would want to do that
and then talking to the economic developer Mr about you know we would do something um really cool maybe we're we're workshopping it but something like a snowbird sendoff for sea planes really cool adventure thing that would be several days where seplanes would come
in have a gathering they can stay do a big festival that would be really cool and the SE plane pilots they want to do that they want to get together it's like motorcycles but they're out on the lake they're not causing issues like a car show exactly do they do anything like that in Tibberries yeah they do and they
make a ton of money doing it it's great for the city i mean I spent two days um over there at the sea plane watching the air show watching the guys splash in talking to other people um I wasn't able to compete in the competition i had some more flight school business to do but I had three friends that did and it was
really cool the only thing that scares me about it is the proximity to Taris that's not a it's not a competition too um you know right here there's already four SE plane bases you can see on this
map sir there's not a a conflict it's hey I want to go for a cruise give me a destination of a place to land that's what the pilots want and right now what this says is Lake Eustace isn't a safe or good place to land a sea plane i see it as a an opportunity to
um to hop around i can't find a word but I can go to Taris I can go to Eustace I can go and and so you can make little jaunts all along the way i can see it as a fun thing to do uh to have the opportunity to go from one place to the other to the other and that's exactly what SE plane pilots do we kind of hop
you know you can go right in front of the Lake Dora and there's a little beachfront there that you know you can park at that's safe and designated you can go to Tavaris you can go up to Lake Weir you can run the St john's River and you come back again these aren't guys that are oh this SE plane base is here and here they want a destination to go
it's pent up energy they want to take their wife park the plane go check out something new go spend a little money have a quick snack and then come back or with the training which I think is would be a really great partnership with the city and myself is they're going to be here for three days they need to find a place to stay they need to eat three
meals a day pilots are hungry um and then they talked about Eustace and we can get that we can fix that pent-up demand that's just been waiting three months is a long time and pilots aren't patient people our our lakefront is different than Taris's lakefront
oh um and we have talked for years about how are we going to capitalize off of our lakefront this is another way along with the boat from Trident of us capitalizing off of what we do have uh talking to Fred with Trident he talked about putting he's got a barge that they
can put fuel on that could be a double use thing with with uh fuel for boats as well as they're interchangeable they Well you could do both on the same barge okay um so there are things that we could do i think that we ought to just at this point have staff start to
investigate this and we can't investigate it to death though we need something done that boat we I brought over a year ago and we're still waiting to get something done i want to see that boat before I'm at Greenwood okay and
you know that's true you know plans you never know um but I think we're there again like the last meeting I said we're going to make a big mistake if we don't capitalize off of what's opening up on the lakefront that's in front of us um
we have a business owner here that has invested time and money in our city um this is the type person we need to put trust in to try to help us develop what we have i agree i think it sounds exciting i just think fuel needs to be part of the part of the conversation
yeah absolutely planes need fuel i I I'd love to have it there's very easy ways that I could work with the city of Eustace on bringing that in you know by trail or something that's not permanent but if we could do the duel that would be I think that would be perfect i mean I mean you're looking at boats right now on Lake Eustus and not any fuel on Lake
Eust and and we we've got to fix that problem if we really want to be the destination that we want to be you know I after the pre after Ryan's presentation I feel better about it than I did me too when I initially and this is a great location for it Mr mayor
because we're not blocking that million dollar sunset view we're right at the end we're You still got the view and then oh look at that oh there's a sea plane gosh that's cool so would you be able to set I'm sorry I kind of jumped in on you would you be
able to set up a meeting with Was it Mr bailey yep doc Bailey yes sir y I think uh if we could maybe set up a meeting no commitments yet but if we could set up a meeting maybe ask him to put together a proposal on what it would take for him to take us through this process um I I
think that's time well spent uh if that's okay with the city commission you know I do have questions about um the infrastructure that we're going to need because um working with Fred um we've got a um so related to that we've got a
maritime engineer on board um he feels we need certain infrastructure and it doesn't exactly mesh with what Fred is thinking and so we need to sit down and kind of figure that out but maybe Mr bailey can give us some direction on what kind of infrastructure he thinks we
need you know if we need hundreds of feet of additional dock that might be cost prohibitive um but if we can do this without a huge extension of our dock infrastructure then maybe it makes some sense so if it's okay with
commission we'll set something up maybe we'll ask Mr bailey for a proposal on what it would take for him to help us and then we could bring it back to commission i would ask that Fred be involved with conversation especially when it comes to the fuel part of it especially if he has a floating
uh barge that can help us with the fuel agree yeah yeah we can do that one more thing Ryan just to clear we we would get would we get a code that would be useless on the map for a a landing space so we would have like a EU whatever you call it we would we'd have an identifier
that's on there um every seplane base has one a public or to various is FA1 halifax river is F-15 so we can't pick that but what you guys can do is pick the name of it whether it's just something like Lake Eustace Seplane base you guys would be able to pick it or
name it after somebody whatever the commission choose name it after somebody i remember after Tavveraries got theirs there was a reporter on on the news and they said that Tavveris was the newest airport in the country so you get listed
that way i I would be willing to throw a huge C plane splash in to just christen this place and say "Hey look we have this advertise it." Um I I can't even tell you the amount of advertising dollars I would throw behind this you know this would be good for my business
and this be good for the city you know how much money are you talking about that you're going to invest i would be upwards of about $550,000 of capital expenses between the planes and my employees and the maintenance um it would be substantial but I think it
would come back to the city and it it would help um how long do you think um it'll take him if if we decide to to work with the consultant to get us going say 90 days 90 days to work with the FAA which is
that that's this guy has a record for getting it done very quickly and expeditiously that's why he does that um and I could I'll buy the planes tomorrow okay I'm ready where where are we on the boat do we know well so we have an
engineer on board design and engineering we've we've kind of started that process again we need to we Rick and I talked today we probably need to get with Fred because we need to get everybody on the same page um the not to get into details
but um I the discussion was 80 feet of dock and the engineer is asking why do you need 80 feet of dock for a 50-foot boat um and so again I we haven't talked to Fred about this but we need to sit
down and talk to Fred about what our engineer is suggesting versus what his ideal situation is and kind of figure out what do we actually need and I would say we probably need to do the same thing related to seplane infrastructure um what's it going to take what do we
need how do we get it done so so there's a possibility of of us getting to a point where we can start with the C plane prior to us getting Fred up and running i don't they probably will work to together at the
same time concurrently okay um but that but it I guess it depends i mean again if we're talking about driving piles for 80 feet of new dock versus installing some items on our existing
infrastructure that's my thing and so I we'll we'll we'll work with Mr bailey and with Ryan to see what's involved uh I guess if it's a lighter lift then I guess there is a possibility we could be up and running with seplane sooner um there is going to be some work involved
in the boat dock uh because that's going to involve whether it's floating or a fixed dock we've got to drive piles we've got to install infrastructure my and that's what I'm getting to if it takes us forever to get something done and we can get this up and running
sooner why not i don't want to marry the two together yeah no I I think it's a possib I mean the two can work concurrently i guess the two aren't attached at the hip um and so we can work on both and do we know at this point do we know where we want to put
the uh the boat well I we in in talking to Fred we know where Fred wants the boat um and that is uh it's off of this fixed we're talking about installing additional infrastructure off of this
fixed dock uh by the Chamber of Commerce so it would seem that we would work it that together i mean whatever we propose our or build it would fit both use usage
well yes uh but I not not to could you uh you could see it in this picture but could you go to the other this picture i don't want to minimize what's going on here but I don't know how complicated it is to bring those floating seplane baits
what what are those called they're ramps yeah they're just floating ramps so I don't know how complicated i mean to me those look pretty easy to just attach to the end of the dock but I don't know how complicated that is that's what I was going to ask you know at face value that
appears easier to me than building an 80 foot extension to our fixed dock and have we thought about the dock at the other end for the uh the boat well that's too far from downtown you think we when when we met with Fred we did
talk about various locations even temporary locations where could we get you up and running sooner um and it sounded like there wasn't anything on the north end of downtown that was going to work for the boat what's a plane
weigh um some of these planes that that Piper Cub weighs 1,200 lb a 206 weighs 26,000b yeah so to ask the question that Willie was talking about back to that picture you had uh on the on the
sand if somebody put sand for you down there okay you need to get the and you got the consultant to do everything in say 90 days four months whatever six months you could be operational in six months we could absolutely because the way you would load that plane is um turn
it around so that's the way that way you you load the plane the way you're getting ready to taxi out and then take off we could absolutely run that out of um out of that sandy area the only obstacle is that tree and there's already been some mad Mr kino if you can
help me that's been laid down to help with sanding like it's already been there because that was set up as a kayak launch several years ago by the city one tree is removed you could designate as a sea plane base so you'll be a lot quicker than complexity of the others
yeah I think they should work together like and then we can add on to this as this draws in more people but this lets people know that they can come to Eustace by a C plan and I like us having our own identifier for Eustace yes get back our airport we lost i think we we
need to make sure that because it's going to be down at the park that we we have them involved in this so parks and Oh and is that a is this a CRA thing i'm just asking because it is a CRA thing
why park and rep what are you to do with it we as far as CRA yeah we'll figure that out okay great one of the reasons we also Fred was interested in that part of the park really was um they want to
use our local restaurants for catering on that boat oh it is easy access to our restaurant right that's right okay all right well I I I like the idea of and it's good to work together but if we can
get Ryan up sooner uh I think we should because I don't know how long it's going to take us to do the docks and to get all that done okay all right we'll work on that on our side thank you Ryan that's all I
was asking i really appreciate your time thank you very much guys we'll be in touch excellent and and you're allowed to take that tree out that's driving you crazy if you want just here to help the city Mr mayor and and Mama was proud she smiled to the
whole thing as she came in behind you [Laughter] get a permit for removing that tree by the way okay uh next we're moving to audience to be heard uh if there's some if there's
something that you'd like to address the commission about uh uh please come up to the microphone just to our left uh state your name uh you live in the city of Eustace uh and speak clearly anyone i have no cards mayor no
cards okay all right okay moving on uh commissioners now we go to the consent agenda is there anything that anyone would like to have pulled mr mayor I move for approval of the consent agenda second okay
all right madame Clerk Commissioner Holland i commissioner Azotti i vice Mayor Ashcraft i commissioner Lee hi mayor Hawkins i okay who's my turn
oh madam attorney thank you um we have for second reading tonight ordinance number 25607 and08 we had a presentation and first hearing March 20th by Mr richardson do we have anything additional tonight no
okay then we'll start with uh ordinance number 256 an ordinance of the city commission of the city of Eustace Florida voluntarily annexing approximately 2.86 86 acres of real property at Lake County Property Appraisers alternate key numbers 261-2525 generally located on the east
side of of State Road 44 opposite the intersection with Lake Joanna Drive are there any questions for Mr richardson from the commission on this item no do we have any cards Tom i have no cards on anyone in the audience
wishing to speak on ordinance number 256 seeing none we will close public input move approval of ordinance number 25-06 second madame Madam Attorney Madame Clerk
commissioner Holland I commissioner As I Vice Mayor Ashcraft hi Commissioner Lee hi Mayor Hawkins i next is ordinance number 25-07 an ordinance of the city commission of city of Eustace Lake County Florida amending the city of
Eust's comprehensive plan pursuant to Florida statute 163.3187 changing the future land use designation of approximately 2.86 86 acres of recently annexed real property at alternate key number 261-2525 generally located on the east
side of state road 44 opposite the intersection with Lake Joanna Drive from Urban Low and Lake County to mix commercial residential in the city of Eustace are there any questions for Mr richardson from the commission anyone in the audience wishing to speak on ordinance number
25-07 okay seeing none we will close public input mr mayor Mr may I move approval of ordinance number 25-07 second madame clerk commissioner Holland i commissioner Asbat hi vice Mayor Ashcraft hi commissioner Lee hi mayor
Hawkins hi and the last for second reading i'm sorry may I jump in real quickly uh at the last meeting a member of the public asked a question about the mix citywide of commercial uses versus residential uses uh and our comp plan does speak to
that about an ideal mix and goals that we're trying to meet um development services uh put a lot of work into a parcel by parcel analysis of residential versus commercial uses throughout the city and uh what we discovered is that
we are indeed in compliance with the comp plan um and we'll have to continue to monitor that moving forward um but um we about 15% of the MCR is single family residential and the comp plan says that
we're shooting for between 15 and 25% now when projects like the north 19 project come online uh that will shift that percentage a little bit but I wanted to thank development services uh for all their work uh and then I I did
send that to commission and then I did forward that uh to Cindy Newton today for her um information thank you Tom yep thank you thank you all right um ordinance number 25-06 I'm sorry 08 an ordinance of the city
commission of the city of Eustace Lake County Florida assigning the suburban neighborhood design district designation to approximately 2.86 86 acres of recently annexed real property at alternate key numbers 261-2525 generally located on the east side of state road 44 opposite the
intersection with Lake Joanna Drive any questions from the commission for M Mr richardson would anyone in the audience like to speak on ordinance 25-08 okay seeing none I will close public input mr mayor Mr mayor I move for approval of ordinance number 25-08
second madame Clerk Commissioner Holland hi Commissioner Asbody i Vice Mayor Ashcraft I Commissioner Lee i Mayor Hawkins I one more uh all right for first reading we
have ordinance number 25-01 an ordinance of the city commission of the city of Eustace Lake County Florida amending the city's land development regulations as follows one amending section 102-11 subsection B community meeting and two adding
subsections to sub to section 109.4 use regulations table to include definitions and requirements for the following uses retail smoke shop tattoo establishment and massage establishment amending section 109.4 the use
regulations table to add as a conditional use and/or permitted use the following uses self- storage ser storage retail smoke shop tattoo establishment and massage establishment providing for applicable legislative findings providing for cotification
scrier's error severability conflicts and an effective date okay Mr plane do I need to say more questions okay we did hear a presentation i think I did it all i'm just kidding
would you like a presentation [Music] i'm good this is self-explanatory great so no questions from the commission no questions would anyone in the audience like to speak on ordinance number 25-01 okay seeing none we will close
public input mr mayor I move for approval of ordinance number 25-01 second okay Madame Clerk commissioner Holland I commissioner Asbat I vice Mayor Ashcraft
I commissioner Lee I mayor Hawkins i Mike did you work hard on a presentation you feel like you they don't feel slight just your look was pretty cool okay uh now we're coming up to
future agenda items uh and comments uh I'll go first is that all right well it is now since you said you are it's okay um I I think I think what's happening that we all need to realize is these
developers developers are coming in and they're an annexing property and they're going all towards MCR and why is that because we're changing we're changing the densities on
the the single family home i firmly believe either we need to take a break from annancing property or we need to have a really serious disc discussion on MCR you know it's
it's funny you say that for the the last week or so I've been thinking about that Mword um I I I think that we're we need to concentrate on downtown um and and this is me we need to
concentrate on downtown uh we and let everything that's happening that we already have in the pipeline come to fruition and and and if I can just piggy back off of that sir we we we need to
focus on commercial development we need to focus on jobs and businesses um just just to go down the line Crazy Gator is up for sale mhm craft scent bar is moving moving out of town mystic Ice Cream just closed useless Marketplace
only has I believe two vendors left in them we need to concentrate on commercial business and stop all these homes i'm with you so either either we have a moratorum on annexations which I'm totally in favor of or we have a
serious discussion like we did with single family about MCR okay and if I can say a little good I don't know if I did a post i don't know if everyone saw I got I got a really good chance to uh to be invited and go see a Japanese cultural center on the
east on the east side of town uh the owners the owners were very opening and they talked a lot about possibilities that we might consider between um us and Japan and I know the governor has signed
a proclamation stating that as well it's something we we really need to pursue we need to find a way to get more jobs for people in our town and not just not just home after home after home after home well I
that's and okay all right and I'll address it okay emily I'm thinking you guys go ahead okay George I don't have anything mike nothing for future agenda um just wanted to say thank you all for allowing
us to go to Tallahassee and speak on behalf of our citizens last week it was really a good trip um I do want to give an update on that but it is a little too early to give a full update on everything that's going on and spinning in Tallahassee uh probably our next
meeting I can give you a clearer update um partially so far all of our projects that we are looking at have been partially funded um of course it depends on what the governor does um and if there's more money to be found in the Senate side of things so that's a good
thing some of the bills that u would really hurt small cities um they have been drastically changed or pulled um so we are looking good in that area as well but um being able to meet with all of
our representatives in Tallahassee our senators our our representatives to be able to meet with the governor staff uh those were some big things that a lot of cities don't get a chance to do especially the meetings with the governor staff that we were able to pull
off and I want to thank Continental Strategies and Tom for helping us get all that lined up um it probably in my all my years up here was probably one of the best trips to Tallahassee that we had they listened to us and I think um I think we'll get some good things out of
this legislative session that's good you know I'd like to think One of the reasons why it was one of the best is because that's the first one that I went on so yeah thank you Mike absolutely and I
have to agree uh having Continental Strategies um uh to work on our behalf was was amazing you know they got us into doors that uh you know a lot of other cities just kind of looked at as they walked by so I thought that was great and having
Charlotte Jordan out there just wanted to say having Nan up there sitting in the House of Representatives is a big help to us she is maneuvering behind the scenes on our behalf on a daily basis charlotte's handling things here in the
Eustace office for her um but uh that is a big help to the city of Eustace so you know I and I have to say this and and I've said it to people that uh that I've run into since we've been back u Nan is representing us well very well um uh
she's she's gotten up there and she's made a huge name for herself everyone knows Nan Cobb um so I I I think she's she's represent when the speaker of the house says he loves her and he well respects her you're saying something exactly
thank you thank you okay I'm ready okay you ready you're ready okay basically I al I also enjoyed the um legislative meetings and the things that we accomplished as a side note
um Commissioner um Holland and I stayed extra days i spent time with my family but I had heard of this school called Brownsville um private school and uh preparatory school and we went on a tour of that school it was incredible the three-year-olds are printing better than
even the teachers they're reading um we had a dissertation on the planets and the atoms and the this and the that and it was like over our heads and these were like fourth graders and it was just a an incredible experience and we're
hoping to have them come and u maybe visit with us and see what we could do to utilize some of the um curriculum that they use um and again um just meeting with U Nan and and there was an
instance when the school had been funded but not receiving the funds so we met with Nan and she brought in one of the um a representative from Tallahassee and within moments that lady was talking about how much she loves Nan and how how
she was a Democrat and she said we're working together it was just a beautiful thing to see and before you knew it by the next day that lady was helping the school get the funding that they need so the connections are great it isn't just um with our local but she's got
tentacles out there reaching to others and so it was very impressive the second thing I wanted to talk about was our American Bloom you've probably seen that our butterflies have increased and we've got plans for more we have one at Clifford House the parking garage the
dog park library pocket park and um our librarian and Bubba has had his picture taken in front of the butterflies really cute um we have the downtown planters coming now uh we are hoping to get the schools involved that they will paint
paint and do artwork on the planters um we participated in the amazing race and we got so many compliments and and people commenting on the flower gardens just walk through there is amazing we saw little fat bumblebees and the
butterflies all over it was it's accomplishing what we really wanted it to do um so we're planning activities with the school we're also recruiting volunteers if anyone's interested in helping us with this project but the most important thing that I want the commissioners to know is that the evaluators are coming from American
Bloom June the 4th and they'll leave on the 7th um the AIB committee Tom Miranda will all provide tours and meetings with them and the commissioners we're encouraging you to participate and also join us we'll have two lunchons so you'll get more information on it but I
just wanted an update on American Bloom our project that we're doing is really going well and thank you all for your interest and for helping us with it thank you Tom yes uh a couple things uh one uh
we are working with a consultant on an evaluation of the eastern uh utilities and uh the consultant is ready to present uh this is important stuff but um we're having issues in scheduling and
so my question to the commission is um we're going to need about two hours uh to uh have this consultant present and then do question and answer related to Eastern and uh do we want to put that on
a commission agenda where we can pres have them present other under other business at the end of the meeting or do we want to have a separate workshop uh we could do that try to find a date where we could do the workshop or we
could tack a work workshop on after a commission meeting if necessary so I guess my question is uh are you up for about a two-hour presentation as part of a commission meeting or do you want to close a commission meeting and have that
discussion as a workshop after an upcoming commission meeting when do you think that is about I'm sorry so we would be um we had uh initially um we had talked about initially putting
it on the April 17th agenda uh another option would be on the May 1st those are commission meeting dates uh April 17th and May 1st i think if we can make them a little light uh I think we need to to maybe look at doing it afterwards you
know we've got a lot of stuff a lot of workshops a lot of things we've got to to do a lot of things we said we wanted to do and we can't make our schedules work because we all have so much going on can we start i was going to say that as well if we
started at 4 on the 17th and did the two hours prior to the commission meeting uh I don't have an LPA or anything we do we have an for Sangster do we have an LPA on the 17th for Sangster
I think we do so we div that's an annexation um up on County Road 44 we'd have to start maybe at three so we do have an L we could do LPA at 5:30 uh but then we would have to back
up from there um or even if we're 30 minutes late for the commission meeting it would at least get it done right yeah i um the earliest I could be here is 4:30 on the 17th have we moved it to the
first i don't think we have any premeings scheduled for May 1st right now so if we don't have any premeings do we want to do it then at what four yes four o'clock on May 1st
i'm I'm a No I'm not really that i have a doctor's appointment 3:30 go ahead and start okay yeah I have a a doctor's appointment at 3:30 i should But I It would usually by
the time I go in it's about 4 4:15 i would be here about then okay rick do we know their availability on May 1st or do we need to check that okay so we'll check but we'll tenatively schedule it for um 4 pm on May 1st can that
committee get that rearranged okay uh a couple other items um talking about upcoming meetings um we I think uh Commissioner Holland um mentioned that he's traveling for uh
Fourth of July and so uh do we want to cancel uh the um Thursday the 3rd of July um July is a month that has five Thursdays and so we could if we feel that first meeting is necessary we could
shift to the 10th and the 24th or we can just consolidate and have one meeting on July 17th does commission have a preference consolidate do the 17th okay so we will cancel the third and then we'll have one meeting on the 17th okay
george george i'm good 17th of July so the the the 3rd and the 17th are our regularly scheduled commission meetings if it's the will of the commission all we would be doing is cancelling the
third and then maintaining the 17th i missed the beginning part is there is there an option to do the third and not the 17th because I might be out of town well the mayor I'm out you're out yeah and then I'm out on the 17th um
I'm in DC from the 1st to the 6th i'll make it work i'll figure it out 17th 17th okay okay um and then um that will be the only meeting for the month that
would be the only meeting now we are trying to schedule some budget workshops but scheduling that has been difficult so we will uh we'll keep working on it can I ask a question about that what's the latest you guys last time talked about releasing the property appraiser
releases uh your numbers and stuff what's the latest we can have a workshop or the you know when do we have to be done by so we don't we we I talked to Lori about this we don't want to push into August because there's too much
that has to happen to get us ready for the September dates are set by the state and so we have to approve things on certain dates in September uh so we don't want to push workshops too far into August but we can't push them too
early in June either because we don't have the numbers we need and the staff hasn't put together their draft budgets and so the the goal was to have those in July um but there's not much window to go earlier or later what's the So is
there a dead cut date like August 21st or anything like that or we don't really know for sure uh I can we can talk about that later we don't have to do that now so we need to be done by August 1 kind of okay that's what I need to know
because if we're making some plans for the for August we I want to be here so okay by August 1st latest okay uh and then uh my last item um wanted to talk a little bit about scheduling some
time on a future agenda to discuss um the Chamber of Commerce and their physical location uh there is uh a pretty big picture window uh broken at the Chamber of Commerce uh it's going to be about a $1,600 repair between glass
and stucco and I'm inclined to go ahead and make that repair but it begs the question what is the future of that building uh and I think we probably need to have a discussion we probably need to engage the chamber uh and and ask the
commission and and involve the chamber in what's the future of that space so I will work uh one is there any objection to us doing about a $1,600 repair and then two uh any objection to putting something on the agenda to
discuss it what does it look like now the uh the window you say it's a window uh it's a large um large picture window and it's it's taped up with blue tape i think for safety purposes we should probably repair the window
if it falls out and falls on somebody because it is a big window the chamber's going to get sued but we all know who has the deeper pockets will get sued as well yeah I think we need to sounds like a lot to me but Well I think there's some stuckco work
that's going to have to be done during the replacement yeah we have a quote it's 1,100 for the glass but they're saying the glass is embedded in the stucco and so there's going to be some stucco work do we have to do the stuckco work and just put the window in and call it a day i would think we have to do the stucco
work i if if Okay so we have one quote um we could get multiple quotes i George if you have somebody you use that might be able to do it at a better cost we'd be willing to look at that i mean they would have
to have the proper insuranceances and things like that um but uh we're willing to work with someone uh but again it begs the my direction from the pre from previous commission was uh when we asked can we get a structural engineer to
evaluate this building the direction was no because the building's going away uh and I guess we need to have that conversation as to whether that's still the will of the commission uh or if that has changed yeah I think it's a conversation that we we need to have um
because the change is kind of monthtomonth right now i'm just trying to you know will the shoe drop today or will it drop next month so we need to have that conversation yep so I will get with representatives of the chamber and uh we'll get it scheduled at commission
okay i think it's important to remember the history of that building how that building was built and some of those things just keep that in mind maybe and maybe that'd be part of our discussion because
and that's all I have thank you um a couple of things for me uh future oh I'm sorry madam attorney okay i can barely hear you so go ahead anything nothing i don't have anything
tonight i can't hear you i don't want her talking on me okay um Saturday night we're having the u uh sparkling shine for our uh adults with
disability prom so uh if you all have the uh the time just come and and put your head in and u kind of enjoy with the with the rest of community center community center uh 6 o'lock to 9 o'lock
um I think it's the best three hours or 10 or 15 minutes that you'll spend um we've kind of upped it this year where we've got a a popup gown shop uh where they're able to come in and and
pick out gowns and things like that so um uh we're going to crown the king and queen of the prom uh the best dance contest the best dress so uh if you have time just to come and witness um and be
a part of I'm I'm I'm sorry were you done with sparkling no wait a second i just want I forgot uh I wanted to remind everyone about the master plan workshop uh on Saturday at 9:00 a.m uh I expect we'll be going through about lunch we
have two items master plan discussion which will be first and then a discussion about uh Trout Lake Nature Center um and so I forgot to remind everybody about that we start at 9:00 am and I expect we'll go through about lunch okay great we talked about
advertising that or putting that out did that ever happen yeah so I uh I talked to um Jamie and to Al to uh get it out on social media and then also uh try to do some doortodoor
did it go out on social media it's day after tomorrow i guess it goes out tomorrow on social media one day ahead i don't I think we can do better than that i have a question i will not be able to
attend on Saturday but I do have some like shoes and gowns and stuff I would be willing to uh donate is it too late or or if not where if if you can get them down to the community center tomorrow uh 1:30 i think it'd be 1:30 to like
3:30 okay that would be great okay I appreciate it um yeah that that is kind of short notice i have to agree with you on that um we'll we'll we'll it'll get better by
Yeah we'll do what we we have to do um last week We did our legal advertising okay so it did go out in the newspaper okay all right um it just it won't go out on social media until tomorrow okay all right but we like we advertise every public meeting it did get advertised
okay but I think this is more than a public meeting i I think this is what Gary was talking about getting our our our uh community and our downtown and getting the I I see three downtown owners sitting four downtown owners
sitting in here um I don't know if they know about it but I think we want the public to be to know about it i just think we could do a little better than a day
al will you go out tomorrow and make sure that everyone knows about it no it's been advertised there okay and on the public notice for commissioners okay all right okay thanks okay
um last week I I received a phone call from uh one of our constituents and uh she told me about a grandmother that uh that had just gotten custody of her
two grandkids and she was moving into the home with her son and there was absolutely there was no water and they hadn't had water in a while um uh so she went down to the water
department and she met with uh someone there and they put her on a payment plan and not only did they put on a payment plan they bought food for her
not only did they buy food for uh they bought clothes for their for the kids um we've got something special in this uh in this in this city you know with
the people that work for us work with us and you know I I I don't think that we always appreciate them like we should um I was a little hesitant to uh
uh you know to to kind of help for him because I think everyone's trying to take advantage of uh but I got a call the other day that you know the grandmother came in and she paid what needed to be paid so uh but kudos to to the water
department for going above and beyond i appreciate that uh one of the things I'd like to uh talk about is is things that we have in the u uh the the
purchase the acquisition pipeline um I asked I asked Tom for a list of things that have been in there and there's one that's back into uh October and it still hasn't been funded
or Yeah i'd just like to know how we move things along and kind of come up with a system because I think that we we talk about you know how slow we move and that's a black and white
uh picture of how slow we move because we have things that have been sitting in the pipeline since October are you talking about capital asset for for or just for like vehicles yeah like that yeah okay so just regular stuff yeah regular stuff
and I don't know if it's anything that we can and and I know Lori she's working on it but I just like to to see it move faster because we've got departments that
are dependent on things to get done and if we can't get if we can't get three quotes do we work with uh you know that kind of thing uh I I I don't know what the answer is because I
don't sit up there but but I'd like to try and fix that um and the last thing um we all know about the um uh uh the accident that claimed the
lives of three women and uh and with one you know still holding on uh let's keep them in our prayers and there there'll be a prayer picture if you're desire just to come out be a
part of it okay anything else okay all right we stand adjourned