--------- ities. The date is Thursday, uh, May 15, 2025. The time is 4:00. Uh, Christine, is there a quorum and proper notice we can give? Yes, mayor. Thank you, Tom. Yes. Uh, so uh Rick, Eric, we'll start off a little bit to discuss
why we're here and then we will turn it over quickly to our uh consultants to uh go over uh some detailed information that you have uh before you. Thank you. I heard you loud and clear on the quick part.
So I I won't sit here and hold court. I'll let them do that. Um so yeah, we're here for for Eastern. Um just kind of not going back and reinventing the wheel to just a broad brush. Back in January of last year, um we we presented utility
wise, we presented just the challenges we were having with expansion both in town and out of town. what our master plans are showing, where are we going in town, we were set really well, but out of town we needed some answers. What are
we going to do? How do we want to approach it versus just build a line for each project? So, with that, some questions arose. Are we upside down? And something that Greg and I in the operation side hadn't really heard
before, but that was out. Where are we? So with that we did some work. Our finance department had Raphelis on board doing the rate studies. So they were they were doing a rate study test or a rate study for us
um to adjust our our water reserve laws. And at that point we asked them can you give us an analysis of costs, expenditures, revenues, where are we at? What's the separation? They kind of looked at it from more of a
like a financial rate study point of view and and these guys can get into a little more detail on it, but one of the biggest challenges that we saw and and how they approached it. We have a lot of
shared costs. The engineering department are we working for Eastern and we're working in town. we're doing everything and and we're out of that 40 fund. Um fund transfers fund transfers come out of both. How do we handle that and and
what's the approach as we're moving forward? And we we need wanted a quick answer. So we needed to do kind of a quick dirty analysis. And we figured the best way let's look at those shared costs and divide that off of the flows. So if 10% of the flows are out at
Easter, let's take 10% of those costs and that's associated with the work out there. When we start looking at options that creates some problems um but as we went through and we took that Rafelis
Ray Paris came in and we presented and yeah we were looking from that analysis we're upside down and what do we do? And at that point we're like guys do we sell do we look at running it as a separate utility. What are our options that are
out there? Way over my ability. Um so we reached out to US Water. They came highly recommended. Um and we reached out to them and we met and I would say staff put in hundreds of manh hours with
them um or at least gathering data for them. They met with engineering. They met with operations, with utility operations, with finance, city manager department, customer service. Went looked at our developers agreements. Um,
rewrite all the master plans. Just really educated themselves very deeply as to how we operate, what are the challenges that we have, what are the entitlements that we have out, what's our excess capacities. really kind of
broke down how we run as a utility. And with that, we asked them to kind of provide recommendations for three options. And and I'm kind of just really glossing this, but the three options, one to continue to operate our
utilities, not us, and and continue to operate Eastern as we are now. Uh number two, to explore a public to private transaction. And then three, public to public transaction. And at the point as
I'm getting started, I didn't realize the nuances, the differences between public to private, public to public, and they're actually huge in how you would value the system. So, these guys are the experts. We really, it's been a huge learning curve for everybody that sat in
on the meetings. They've really helped us. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over um to Chris and he can introduce the team and get everything started. Thanks. So, we're just going to move right to the introductions. And actually, I'll I'll pause there. So, I'll introduce
myself and then let the other two gentlemen here with me uh introduce themselves and we'll give a little background on US Water. So, my name is Chris Caleb. I'm vice president of operations and maintenance with US Water. I've been with US Water since the company's inception. Uh it's founded in 2003. Prior to that, I've had the opportunity to work with Gary, the
president, founder of the company, with other companies uh prior to us establishing US Water. So, we've all been doing this over 20 years. um have a lot of experience and I'm going to kind of get into the client base and why that is relevant to the discussion here today. But before we get there, we'll let these guys introduce themselves. So,
uh Troy Randell, we'll let him go first and give a little bit on his background as well. Good afternoon. Um yeah, my name is Troy Rendell. I'm the vice president of investor on utilities with US Water. Um I started from college. I started with the public service commission in Tallahassee. I worked
there for 20 years. Then I went and worked for Aqua Utilities Florida when they were in the state. Um did some great cases with the Public Service Commission with Aqua. When they left the state, I went up to Aqua, North Carolina for a couple years and then I started
with US Water in 2014. Um, so since I've been at at US Water, we've purchased close to 23 utilities throughout the state of Florida as well as one we had one in Georgia which was sold and then we have one in Oklahoma.
So I have um you know extensive background in rate making with um public service commission legislature. Um that's really it. Good afternoon everybody. Gary Germer. I'm the president and CEO of US Water.
Uh my primary background is in contract operations and construction of utility systems, but you know, I found myself over the last 20 years concentrating extensively on transactional work. So I think what's most pertinent for the board today and commission today is our
experience in transacting utilities. So, I've been involved in most of the transactions that have occurred in Florida that have ranged from, you know, government to government transactions, private to government transactions, uh, and, you know, back from government to
private transactions. So, I've probably been involved in about $1.2 billion in transactions in Florida. Um, just as a level set, so you know, kind of the board, everybody knows where we're coming from. When we were
contacted about the project, I wanted to make sure that, you know, if there was any conflict to interest, it was disclosed, right? So Troy says he manages the regulated systems through affiliated companies. We own a number of regulated systems and we had said early on that if that if you decided to devest
your system, we would not be a buyer. That way that whatever we tell you today is completely unbiased. We also had a conflict waiver uh signed by the city to say, "Hey, if you transact from a government to government, it goes to the FQA, then we can't represent you
either." Um, so just so you kind of know, we've worked all sides of the of the transactions for um you know, for utility acquisitions. So, I'll stop there. Again, my my background is is
extensive in operations and maintenance um and construction. So it makes it very easy for us to do this kind of analysis because we understand when you pull this out of your system, what is the effect on your existing customers. So I think that's what makes our analysis powerful
and very helpful for the city. So Chris, thanks K. I appreciate uh that disclosure because that was going to be one of my first questions. So thank you. Yeah, it it's something we got out ahead of early on in the process because FGA does represent a significant book of business for the company. So, as the
vice president of operation maintenance, we, you know, part of the background history is a further to Gary's point. So, a lot of the utilities we look at is whether we're acquiring it or we're on a selling side of it. We're going to go through some of those. We we often have to figure out what it's going to cost to operate that utility. And that was something we're able to do kind of segregates the look and approach we took different than the Rafelis approach.
We'll kind of highlight the difference and why you have a different conclusion looking at the same set of results or the same basis of information. So, a little background on US water for those of you who are likely not familiar with this. So we are primary primarily an engineering operation and maintenance
firm. So our core discipline is operations and maintenance utilities. Our engineering division sits off as support of that. And then we've got Troy's business line that kind of manages the owned utilities that are owned by similar and related parties throughout the state of Florida. We're going to focus mostly on Florida. So in the state we operate a little over 1100
facilities, water and wastewater. Many of them are very small, some are very large municipal utilities. But given that book of business of that, we have pretty much every utility ownership representative that we operate a utility for, be it a private owner, a corporation that's an owner at a, you know, mobile home community or
retirement community has their own utilities or cities and governments, counties. One of our first clients from, you know, the company inceptions still to this day is a department of corrections. So, we work for the state of Florida as well. So, pretty much any utility owner, we we operate, we work with, we've done maintenance, construction, all anything in the
utility business. That's really our core business in the state. Um, we're also a licensed general underground electrical contractor. So, construction projects, pretty much every facet in utilities we've been exposed to and we've worked on over the last 20 years in the state of Florida. All right. So, a lot of what we
get turned into and turned on is due diligence. Uh, our largest client, the FGA, which we mentioned, right? They are a special purpose government that buys and acquires troubled utilities and they're meant to hold those utilities for some period of time. And at that opportunity, there may be a time for that host government where that utility
sits, be it a city or county, to acquire the utility back from the FGUA. So when we get to a table of our acquisitional and transactional experience, there's a couple I'll highlight that we are part of the FGA acquiring those utilities from a private developer. FGA held those for, you know, one case 10 15 years and then they sold it back to a county. And
so we were on the buying side of the table and then we're on the selling side of the table for the same utility. So, it's that experience that gives us a well-rounded kind of perspective on what you guys are contemplating doing here at the Eastern Systems. So, really, it part of that process is just a desktop
analysis, which we did. I know uh Rick kind of covered some of what we've already done. We've got a lot of experience, like I said, on both sides of the transactions. Troy's unique lens of having worked at the public service commission, having helped them develop some of the rules that are, you know, part of how rate is performed on the private side, utility ownership at the
PSC is very important. Um, we often work with Roth Talis, right? We we'd be remiss if I didn't mention this. So, Roth talis, we're not, you know, questioning the study they did. They just did a study with a different kind of approach than what we took and so they had different results than we got. Looked at the same set of data, but we often are working alongside
Roth Ellis side by side. So, want to make sure that we're not opposing any opinion they came to. We just took a different approach to get there. Um, and really just the rest of the stuff about the the debt and all the decline. We're going to skip some of this stuff and the essence of time. I know you guys probably want to get through more
discussion items. This is a table of just a sampling of Florida utility acquisitions and transactions we've been part of. We color coded the table. So the the kind of golden or yellow color is a private to public transaction. The the green is a public to public. So in
the case of McDell Air Force Base, the federal government essentially sold that utility. It was acquired by the FGUA. We're the exclusive uh operation management provider. So just as a side note for FGA, anything that's FGA is Florida Government Utility Authority, we are the exclusive operations and maintenance provider for them for the entire state of Florida. Any utility FGA
owns, we are the provider of own for that. Um the blues are private to private. A lot of those ones Troy mentioned where you know some of those came from a larger aqua transaction where some of the aqua utilities that were owned in the state of Florida, some of those were sold to private. The bulk of those were sold to the FGUA and then
there were some stragglers for, you know, political reasons that they they ended up being a private private transaction. And then you've got some that are further down the Golden Gate and the Lindric that are towards the bottom of the sheet. Those are ones that the F2A previously owned for a number of years and they sold them back to Kier County in the case of Golden Gate and to
Pasco County in the case of the Lindric system. So again, on both of those, we're on both sides of the table at at different points in the process of ownership. So really this table is just here to demonstrate we've got an extensive amount of experience that's really unbiased and it's on either the buyer or the seller side. Right? We
wanted to take a moment on the next slide and kind of talk about how we got different models. As Rick pointed out, Rafelis took a a proportionate look. And so just at a highest level proportionately we can do some things with you know the number of bills we print and mail out that's proportionate to the amount of customers in the Eastern territory. It may not be
proportionate based on the flows to the eastern, but certainly a piece of engineering salary that supports the utilities, well, that may not be proportionate. That that expense is going to remain whether the eastern utility base exists or not, right? You're not going to cut positions from city. So that those staff positions don't really go away. So some of the
proportionate look is not how we would have approached it. So we took a pragmatic approach. What would it take as a standalone business line to run this utility? What cost could be cut if this were to be divested? And so that's the exercise we took. And we're not going to get too far into the weeds on that today. We're just going to kind of
stick at a higher level summary for us. But kind of rolls into what we did the next slide here. So we're on page eight now. The um again we looked at operational data. We looked at things that we could segregate based on the eastern utility operations. Things are simple like chemicals, right? We know the amount of chemicals used on the
eastern side. We can isolate those costs. Those are simple. Shared services and shared staff or water man breaks and leaks and metering and those are shared and that's where it's not so clear, right? So that's where we had to take more of a pragmatic approach. what could be cut, what would remain. And so that's essentially how we got to our um our
summary. The I mean really that's it. So we'll skip to the OM budget. So this is a little bit into the weeds. Uh and we were able to isolate the revenues, right? So finance had the the revenue by the eastern utilities already segregated. So we're able to segregate
and completely isolate the revenue that's proportionate to the Eastern utilities only. That's what's shown on this table. So, it's $940,000. Then, we're able to do the expense, and the expense is 657,000 that we attributed to the Eastern utility
that would go away had the Eastern utility been divested. Right? So, that's that's just as clear as we could make it. Right? I think the next slide, and I do move at a fairly fast clip, so feel free to pause, ask questions, or we'll circle back at the end with whatever questions you guys have. uh there was a
discussion at city staff when we met with them on there was some concern of the 25% search charge for outside city customers. So we isolated that and that's what we're showing on slide 11. So just the utility rate revenue I think the overall utility revenue is somewhere in 24 $28 million but just from the rate
revenue is $14 million right of that 14 million 948 is the eastern same as the previous slide right so of that 948 the 25% search charge if that were to be challenged and for whatever reason were to go away we don't think that's the case in your your situation it would only represent
$237,000 which is 1.64% 64% of your rate revenue. It's really not material when you look at it that way. Again, we don't think that you would lose that. Certainly, I know there's been a lot of discussion about it recently. The legislative session has closed. It's not up for debate this year anymore. I don't
think it would apply to the city in this case, and we can talk about that further if you guys like after we get through the presentation. Next slide is the the staffing reduction. Right. So, if the Eastern Utility were to be divested, what staff positions will be reduced? And so, we went through this at length and really through this and with there's
no names to it, right? It was a single operator. We essentially identified a single FTE that could be eliminated through the divesture of the Eastern utility system. The rest of the positions would remain. Now, whatever staff was being offset by the Eastern customer base would have to get picked up by the remaining city customers,
right? So, those costs don't go away. Those costs just get reallocated to a smaller customer base, but we wouldn't eliminate those staff positions from the city staff. All right? Same with the general fund transfer. It's the same light, right? There's there's two fund transfers that exist. One is to the general fund, one is to the RNR fund to support the
utilities. The general fund transfer, you know, would likely remain, right? I mean, there basically the city have three options. You reduce the transfer and you have to adjust and rebalance the city budget. It's already balanced with the transfer contemplated in there. So likely that 2.3 million would just be reallocated across the city customers that would remain with the utility and
you would have that stranded cost just have to be reallocated back out. Right? So it's just a rate increase to the city customers that were going to be remaining. All right. All right. So then we get to the three options. And so what we wanted to do is we tried to lay it out simply and as you
know as clear and concise as we could for kind of the pros and cons. So we kind of laid out advantages, disadvantages. I imagine this is where we may have some discussion. If you guys want to kind of go through these, I can hit them at a higher level. Um certainly not trying to rush through this, but trying to get to the meat of I think what you guys are wanting to hear about
from the day. So yep. If you guys want to divest, you guys want to go through and just kind of digest this. I don't know how long you've had to to read this. We've um you know, we took quite some time to work with city staff and develop these. So, we're very familiar with them. So, we can pause here if you guys want to review them or let's just let's just go
through it. Okay. Um, so obviously retaining the eastern utility system that that's ultimately what if you skip ahead in the presentation or you talk to staff, I mean that's what our recommendation to the city is. It's it's for many reasons. Um, and and we can just kind of hit through some of the highlights, but it gives the city the
ability to have control over the service level of standard they get to their customers to the eastern customers. It retains all of your revenues, all of your, you know, future impact fees, your current capital plan, all that stays relevant. whatever shared staffing
exists, all that remains. It it's a balanced budget that just stays there. It ensures, you know, kind of a long-term public ownership. It it protects, I guess, the the ability for the city to have better planning, right? You guys can plan out for the eastern development. That's where the significant growth we identified is in the eastern utility
system. So, typically cities, they would like to see growth. They want to have, you know, economy grow. This all helps that. Preserves all the economies of scale that exist with your staffing, right? There's nothing that would change there. You have administrative managerial costs that get shared across a larger customer base. So that that economy of scale is just it's a benefit
for all customers in city outside city retains all the synergies and the capital needs have already been developed and then and Troy really is one that did the heavy lift on the developer service agreements but everything that's already agreed to and contemplated developer service agreements remains intact right to divest it and break it apart may not be
so clear with what developers have contributed what they're owed in return for that contribution from previous developer service agreements. So it it's the cleanest way, but it also and you'll see in the kind of the summary piece because of the growth that's already been contemplated and looked at in the Easter that is where the growth comes from. It's a self-supporting function.
It's going to help the overall health of the utility, the overall synergy and cost for service is going to stay relatively stable. Right. The next option is the Oh, we can. Yeah. Sorry. So disadvantage.
Um, so back up one slide. Oh, yeah. So there's no additional capital need from the city, right? Everything that's already contemplated in the capital plan is funded from both customer bases. The elimination of one of those customer bases may require capital infusion from other city revenue streams or sources to fund the capital improvements necessary
for the utility. Um, there's some complexities in in the way that the city currently has their reclaimed water discharge. So your wastewater plant generates reclaimed water. A lot of the reclaimed water goes to the eastern utility service territory. So the city customers, city
utility system is relying on the eastern cit system for that synergy. If there was a divesture, there would there would need to be an agreement drafted from the city to whoever the the owner of the eastern utility would be that they would still receive that reclaimed water because that was going to have to
happen. There could be an opportunity for the city to try to either recover some pumping cost to pump that water out there. there may be a charge on the other side also. So there there's an unknown revenue imbalance that gets created. It also creates a difficulty in how do we discharge of our reclaimed water that the city generates. Right now it's it works because that synergy
exists. The segregation of that could cause additional problems. Uh the city's going to have to have continued capital improvements, maintenance, and compliance. They're going to have to do that with a smaller customer base. So it's going to put more cost on the city customers isolated, right? So it could result in increased
cost of service for the city customers. uh potential rate increase to fund unidentified upgrades. Again, it's going to be a cost the utility has to incur is now going to be burdened on a smaller customer base, right? I mean, that's just the reality of cutting the eastern system out. And then we got the ongoing
operational risks. As you get a smaller utility, it it becomes somewhat of an island. So, right now, you have a bigger utility, you have a larger employee base to help support it. It's beneficial to overall customers. Certainly the elimination of any of those synergies are going to be a negative consequence and cost to the city customers that
we're making. So the next option sell to a private investor. So this would be an investor that would be likely regulated by the public service commission. This is where choice expertise kicks in. Um see the advantage of that is the city would get a check right from somebody whoever buys the system. They're going
to write a big check to the city. We put a value of 1 to 5 million and there's a reason for that range and we can let Troy you know fine on that but there's several considerations that a private investor has to make when they go and ask for public service commission to set rates. So the the first thing you see under CIA it's contribution and aid of
construction. So if a developer builds something and they donate it well the person who received that donation doesn't have an investment in it. They're not allowed to earn a a rate of return on that asset value because they have no investment made into it. And I'll let Troy correct me if I got that wrong. Yeah, sure. You want to run through
these? I guess I can say, isn't isn't that what happened with that system? Exactly. That's the problem. Exactly. Oh, okay. It's hard for a private investor to pay for. Yeah. So, as we said earlier, we we did we did a deep dive. We typically do
deep dives on this type of transaction. We looked at one a couple years ago up in North Florida. So, we have to look at um basically what developer agreements are out there. So, the eastern section Eastern utility unless it's has been paid for by developers through developer
agreements. So if you go if it goes to a private um that as Chris said that would reduce what's what the value is out there and you know theoretically there could be little to no value out there based on the CIC because if they pay for it all they're not going to get any
recovery. So that's a that's a disadvantage to a private buyer who might buy it. Now would that would a private company go as deep as we are or you know what's the value because they have to come up with what is the value of the utility to go before the public
service commission. The other thing that's on here is the fair market value. There's there's a new statute passed um I think it was a couple years ago. Um it has not been used yet. The public service commission went through rule making. There's a rule on it and basically they have a listing of
appraisers and you have to do um like the buyer picks an appraiser, the seller picks an appraiser. Um I think there might be one more and then they come up with evaluations. And so it's it's pretty specific. Um they come up with a valuation that would probably be best
for this one if you sold to a private company because it's going to generate more um value for that for that private company that's buying it. um at the public service commission to set rates on, but that rule has not been used yet. Um like I said, it just recently
passed. So it also transfers all the operational financial regulatory risk to the buyer. So those go away for the city and the buyer would pick up on that. The private investor may have more more um access to capital. So for future
expansions, future replacements, then the city would simplifies the operation of the utility system remaining. Um there's sufficient capital capacity with the city for the for the existing customers. Uh and then the public
service commission provides protection for the customers as well as an office of public council which is a separate office that that reports to the legislature. Um so although it would general fund. Chris had talked about the
general fund already. Um there's a loss of public control of your rates and service levels because what if you sold to a private the city has no no say so no jurisdiction in that area. Um there could be public perception issues going
from a city to a private company. Um and you lose your influence on the growth in that in that section in that uh in the eastern service area. Um as Chris said earlier that there's also the the B reclaim and the fluent disposal. You'd
have to come up with a agreement with whoever purchased it. Um and that adds an additional layer of that disposal. All right. So we'll get to the last one. Let you guys have some questions here. So the next would be a public to public transaction. Some of
these are going to be similar. Um so again the advantage of the city gets a check, right? they would get some some dust. They're going to get some valuation put on the utility that will receive that cash contribution. So we we have two two numbers on here. They're very large range in between those two numbers. So the 1.4 million it would be
based on an income based approach. And I'm not going to try to get in the weeds on some of these, but depending on who the buyer is, they may look at what the rates provide, what the rate support revenue less the debt service on the utility, and that would generate a value. The next one would be a marketbased and so the 13.6 6 is based
on the number of ERC's for water and wastewater and the similarly situated transactions that occurred in the state of Florida and that that puts a value on what each of those ERC's is worth to another investor that could generate upwards of 13.6. So as the city 13.6 million sounds
great, but as a Eastern utility customer it's terrible because somebody has to pay for that 13.6 million and that's going to come on the backs of those rates, right? So it's a it's a give and take. So um it could be right maybe you guys don't transact to somebody unknown. The city could elect to create a utility district a special district that serves
the eastern utility customer base. It could be governed by this board right here. Right? So we have other utilities we are aware of and familiar with and do work within the state of Florida that are no longer owned by a city or a county but they've been divested and created a special utility district to provide utility service to that customer
base. So that's an option that exists. Um and that's the next bullet right through board representation. and you maintain some level of control. Often we'll see if it's a special district just for Eustace and doesn't involve any other political jurisdictions. You guys could elect to have the board, you know, city commissioners regulate that board
as well. So there's there's other options here. Um you could eliminate rate inequities by doing that, right? You could get rid of your 25% search charge. Everybody would pay one rate if you went something with a one of those options could be a special district. It would eliminate the 25% search charge, but everybody's rate would be adjusted
incrementally to cover that. It would again simplify the operation of the utility system if if you guys just have just the city remaining and another public entity were to acquire the utility. Same as the private, you guys are just going to be within city limits. You have just the city utility. But the same complication exists on the reclaimed water, right? You still have
to have some way to get rid of that reclaimed water. Um, you know, public to public, there's no profit motivation. So again, a private investor buys it, they have an investment, they want to get a return on that investment. Public to public, that goes away. Nobody's looking to make any profit on it. So some of the disadvantages, all right, again, it's
kind of what I touched on early on on the slide is the maximum purchase could result and would likely result in a significant rate impact to the eastern customers because whatever investment the city gets, somebody has to pay for that. It still generates a $530,000 shortfall. The existing city customers will have to pick up and pay. uh the
city could potentially depending on the the structure of that public purchaser lose control over the entity purchaser could still impact could you know implement other rate increases beyond the city's control depending on again the jurisdiction and who has governance over whatever the public entity is that would be the
purchaser and the transition could involve you know interlocal agreements and add a lot of administrative complexity be it the regland water discharge be it the creation of a special district especially if it was a district that involved other political jurisdiction such as a county or neighboring city Right? There could be other complexities get added. Same
bullet again repeated on the bulk reclaimed water and the effluent disposal and again the the reliance on that third party for disposal. So the next one is is kind of a just a a comparison of rates and we wanted to show what a 5,000galon residential water and sewer
bill would look like. And so what we've got is we've we've got some neighboring utilities. So you see it starts kind of the low end is city of Leburg outside the city city of Eustace inside city. So that's the city your rates minus the 25% search charge for inside city customers
then to varies then your outside customer base Mount Dora and then you have the FGUA the FGUA that the utilities that are in Lake County and immediate area are part of the Aqua utility transactions that the FGA acquired from a previous private investor. So those rates are higher
where the FGA had to buy those. They had debt on those. But that's the consequence of when you have a private company and they sell it and you know Troy or Gary they can talk more about why those rates are what they are but it's it was kind of a stranded utility. They've got very high rates but this will give you an idea of what the base would be. So if somebody
were to acquire this from outside we just wanted to show you where your rates are today. Um we don't know what they could be depending on who the purchaser may be should you decide you still want to explore divesting the utility. What what sorry. Yeah. What's the difference between the bands? Band one band. The bottom is water. The top is wastewater.
The the colors. No, it says band one. Oh, rate bands. You want Yeah. I'm I'm just curious. Yeah. Yeah. So, I did a couple rate cases at the Pulk Service Commission when I worked for Aqua Utilities Florida. And what the utility wanted to do was go to uniform rates and
and I support uniform rates and now the commission supports it, but they they had to go there in steps. So the first case in I think 2008 they they looked at subsidy levels and they tried to keep the subsidy levels as low as possible. So they they came up with bands. I can't
remember how many because I think they went from like 16 down to I think 10. Next rate case in 2010 they took those bands and made um less of them so that they were getting towards uniform rate. So that was left over from Aqua um when
Mua purchased it. But you they have different rate bands depending on where you live. Okay. All right. Thank you. Let me add let me add something for just clarity for you for the commission. So this is an important slide because there's actually more into it than than
what we're talking about and that is when you look at divesting to a private company, right? And when you see the FGA lake systems here, those private companies, they're uh motivation is to invest, right?
That's how they they get a return for their shareholders. They invest capital uh and they do improvements to the system and they get a regulatory return on that because they're a monopoly. It's highly regulated, but they're very motivated to invest capital.
So when the F2A acquired the lake system, a lot of that had been done. And the reason why the end the F2A acquired all of the aqua systems is because the rates had gotten so high across the state of Florida that uh you know it it reached a ceiling and kind of a a
political climate where uh it became very difficult for Aqua to get more rates. There was an awful lot of complaints. It went all the way to Tallahassee. That's where I you know we got involved. actually Troy came to work for us right after that that transaction. Um so there's a tendency to
invest. So when FGOA purchased the system uh you know they purchased it for the investment that was in it plus some and that's why these rates are so high. So if you look across the board like regulated systems you'll find that generally speaking their rates are
higher. Now there's more than a reason of just that they're hired because of investment that they want to make in the system. When sorry when you say investment what I mean they want to build plant they want to build pipes. They want to be able to invest money. They want to have more customers. No no
no they might want to have more customers but how they make money is they invest money and they get a return on that capital. So if they if they took your wastewater plant and said we want to uh build a new wastewater plant and because we think we need it, there's
requirements in the rules about, you know, whether or not it's a prudent investment and whether or not it's used and useful. There's many uh things to come to play, but generally for them to make a dollar for their shareholders, they have to invest money. So if they have operations cost, those are
recovered in rates. So if your uh you know operations costs go up it gets passed through but there's no profit for the shareholders at that point. The only profit for the shareholders of the companies that are privately regulated is through investment. Okay. So to try
to kind of tie this together for you guys, when you look at the big picture of things and you look at your uh alternatives that you have, you know, in front of you, the the issue that you have is that ultimately these things are going to
result in higher rates to the customers. Right now these customers that are in your territory are receiving a lot of city benefit. The city's receiving some benefit from the economy of scales as well, but the customers receiving considerable benefit. Yeah, that's I mean that's the that's the challenge for
for us is they are receiving benefits without paying city taxes. I I I I get it. So that's that that's where that's where that's where a lot of us I think stand on that. Um so but I understand and you understand the loss
of economy scales if you pull it out general funds things that are very very simple. you take out the general fund, are you going to really reduce that to blow a hole in the general budget? Right? So, it's not an easy and and I think that's what maybe you know Rick was alluding to. It's a quite a complic complicated challenge, but the way we
looked at it was extraordinarily simple. What happens in reality if it goes away? That's really what we looked at. If this goes away, what happens to the financials of the city's utility and the city's general fund? Okay. There are other ways maybe
get uh Mr. Vice Mayor to where you're trying to get to, which is that maybe they should pay more than the 25% because that 25% sir charge isn't really sufficient to cover the city subsidy that's going on. We're not allowed to charge higher than 25%. Well, there are alternatives to that we could talk
about, right? So, there are alternatives to look at, you know, we we we've worked for the city of Riviera Beach, right? See Riviera Beach essentially divested their entire utility to a service district. they still control the utility but the the rates can be second independently. So there are ways around
it. You have to be very careful sometimes even the 25% search charge uh can be challenged whether or not it goes through legislation or not. We were involved in this transaction for the city of Dunellan where the FGA bought the city of Dunellum system and the reason that that the city of Dunellan
sold or one of the driving reasons was the 25% search charge was struck down by court in their case. It's very narrow ruling from the courts, but it basically said you guys can't charge that 25% search charge because that standalone
system called Rainbow Springs, if you look at look it up, that standalone system, Rainbow Springs, didn't really receive a benefit from the city because they had their own water wastewater utility out there when it was purchased. So, they had to reverse that. Of course, they had debt service, bond covenants,
and all those kind of things. city rates were already high that created such a problem they divested that to the to the FGA. That's how that happened. So it can happen in your case. It's just the opposite. It's just the opposite. The 25% search charge doesn't
cover proportionately. That's what your rate consultant is saying to you. Proportionately your cost. That's really what it comes down to. But back back, you know, kind of back to this slide and you know, the kind of numbers you see here, you know, I've been involved in every FGA transaction.
Like I say, more than a billion dollars a transaction. It ultimately comes down to what is the right blend that you know what what are you going to it's basically you draw your cash out of your system, you sell it. What is the impact on rates? It's always a negotiation
factor. The difference between the public transaction and a private transaction is that a private transaction results in a very regulated return and a public transaction can in a
way be a negotiated transaction on the ultimate rate that the user pays. If you were to sell to a public entity like the FGA or some other entity that was created, that is the that that you know that is really what it's all about. What
is that rate impact going to be? You want to get money for your system. How can the people afford it? So all I've been involved in all of these, they all come down to that. So that's why there's such a big range. It's very very kind of simple. It it it results in a in a in a
rate that that you know you have to have affordable. I can let you go back to this Chris. Go ahead and finish. I got I got a lot. Sure. So just like in any transaction um that involves government, we
typically do a public interest test. What is in the public interest? Ultimately, as government, we're you know servants of the public, right? So we we took a at the end of you know our analysis was what is in the public interest. you know, you you you
have residents in the city that you're representing, but because you're providing utility service, you're also representing those other folks, right? They are your constituents, even though they may not vote in the city. Okay? So, you know, I think that that
that is a consideration that that you as a board should keep in mind that you know, what are we doing? Is it in the public interest? financial stabil stability and rateayer protection. We've we've talked about that at some level of detail already about how important it is and you know
you know the uh you know the kind of the what's been charged with this body as far as protection of you know utility rates and and folks right operational efficiency and expertise evaluation of the the acquires
technical and managerial capabilities to operate the system. You guys are very capable obviously of operating a utility system. You have professional staff. You have a good track record. You have reasonably competitive rates. There's no question that you guys as a owner of utilities are very capable of continuing
to operate this utility. Definitely in infrastructure investment. You guys have your capital plan, right? you have professional staff that have negotiated uh relief in developer agreements that that push costs to the developer and not
to the city. Right? Most of your improvements and the way that these things have been listed out, the developers are paying a lot of this, not the city. So for future development, as time goes on, those investments that are made by developers will actually bring
down your capital cost per connection. So you're you're you're you're handling it correctly. I mean, we've seen cities that are not sophisticated and are not handling it correctly and it ends up being that the city customers pay for the growth of the developers. It's just the opposite here. By reviewing their developer agreements, we can see that
the city is handling handling those developer negotiations in the best interest of the utility. I say not always the case, unfortunately. Regulatory compliance and oversight, you guys have a very good compliance track record. I'm trying to
say there's not a lot of drivers there for you guys to digest is what I'm saying. Um, community engagement and transparency. That's self-evident. We're we're here, right? We're all here in the public. Anybody can come do what and and
be involved in the dialogue. long-term stability and uh resilience. C certainly it's it's it's all interest um for the utility systems to operate you know in a sustainable manner
in a manner that uh meets requirements. So, you know, certainly you guys that that's a factor, right? It's it's not just a um they're not just out there on an island trying to figure out how to do that on themselves. Now, again, if this was to transact to a company to a a
government like the FGA, they would meet all these factors as well, right? You guys made it, they would meet it. I'm just struggling to see the driver at this point of why you would divest it. Mhm. Well, I believe I believe it was because
of the former study saying that we were So, we've gone from a $800,000 shortfall to to revenue. I mean, you got to understand the uh Yeah, that's why we wanted to be sensitive and be careful, right? That
the proportion local is not necessarily wrong or incorrect. It was just a different way to look at the same situation. What we're looking at it is what would the actual dollar impact, not proportionate impact. So just a deeper dive. Exactly. Right. So at the the end of the
first year where currently we'd have a surplus of almost $300,000 and it and it goes up incrementally. It does. I mean and there's you know this is based on the historical growth rates you guys have seen on the planned growth in the Eastern utility system that's already identified by ST and already
developer service agreement. So that's right. You guys are getting the correct takeway. Okay. But but but it it's but did I hear you say that the only way we're probably going to be able to keep cost out from down there is to take on more customers? Not necessarily. But the
customer the growth is is beneficial and the growth has already been I think agreed to a developer service agreement. So what development's coming? Not yet. Okay. There are developments there are developments in the county that have been approved that will have to go on
development. Yeah, we did look at those. So that the the utility that's been constructed and build is there to serve the the customer base. There's I know another development in the future, but I think that may not be fully I don't remember it's called. It's a little south east of the others. Um so you guys have already got I think the big
takeaway on this slide. So we really wanted to just kind of give a financial kind of summary of it. But the balance budget already exists and it relies on the eastern customers remaining for the city right the synergy you talked about earlier that's imperative to stay the for the city budget to remain as it exists today losing that is going to disrupt it and either general fund
transfers you know staffing otherwise there is a surplus created on the eastern operations the way the utility is sits and based on the growth we see and the growth that's identified in other agreements it certainly puts you in a strong financial position um significant growth potential I think I don't think it's fair to say the city is
completely built out but I I think we would all agree that largely the growth for the utility is going to be in the eastern service area, not in the city service area. Right? The capital improvements that have been identified by staff in both utilities are fully funded. The eastern service area helps that through developer contributions,
but all the capital that's required gets picked up and covered. So there's no unfunded capital expenses that exist or have been identified by staff at this point. Right? So it's it's a again it's a well balanced budget. we get to retain the synergies and efficiencies between the city and the eastern utility systems. Right? I I don't want to beat
that over the head, so we'll stop there. And then the revenue growth does outpace the expense growth based on the growth that's been projected and identified in the agreements. And then it's really just a conclusion slide. I think you know we can pause here. This this pretty much we've hit on
all these topics already, right? Again, we we maintain a lower cost of service to the customers, preserve the synergies, we maintain the control over growth to the extent possible, protect the general fund transfers. All right? We preserve our local accountability and service standards. If it goes to a different
owner, you guys lose that control. And strategic use of grants and funding, right? you guys have opportunity to pursue certain funding options and grant opportunities that could be you know a loan through state revolving fund SRF which I think the city's exercised that before in the past some pieces of that
may be eligible for principal forgiveness where essentially turns part of that loan into a grant program right so there's other advantages the city inherently maintains it if it goes to a private investor those are lost so again economic development is a big part of that right you guys want to grow the city so that really gets us to kind of
the question slide and we're happy to jump around and through the deck The city's not out there though. The city is not out there where the where the eastern plane is. The city limits is not out there. It's not. But if it's you guys could use SRF funds for some of those improvements, right?
And the the thing with me is even though we're not out there, it's still useless. That's right. Yeah. They're used as customers, right? You guys send them their bills, they're used as customers. Yeah. So, that concludes the presentation we put together. We're happy to kind of have a a two-way dialogue now and discussion with you
guys to whatever topics you want to hit on or or ask questions on. I know there's a lot of information we covered in a short amount of time, but yeah, any other um any other option would raise the cost to customers. Correct.
for the eastern for the eastern I guess what option would that any any other option uh if we sold it. Oh, for sure. Uh yeah. Yeah. Uh I'll give you an example where let's let's
assume um even in those cases we would have to look at it be very very close. But if you were to uh say okay the FAA we want you guys take this system, right? The last systems that they've taken from cities um you know mutually
agree. They they don't they don't come here and try to buy your system. They you have to go and approach has to go to the board. It's a process um you know that is a governmental process and this system was decided to be divested at that point by the city
for whatever reason. You don't you just don't want you don't you know they're not part of the city whatever the reason is. then this they would go in and try to calculate what that would be. It would really really come down to how much the city of Eustace uh is willing
to withstand uh as far as rate increases on those systems and what the FGA is willing to allow for those customers outside the city limits which would directly affect how much the city of Houston has be paid for their system. That's what it's going to come down to.
The loss of operating synergies doesn't help, right? there's some operating synergies um for for us for sure because we operate systems in Lake County and systems for the FGA. So maybe that could be mitigated to some extent u but because you're so intertwined with the
city there probably still be some loss of of efficiencies within that system and especially on the managerial side because the FGA has a separate management approach a separate management company which is now absorbed in the city staff. So certainly the cost
for those customers for operations, maintenance, management would go up and then the delta between what that cost goes up and what the ultimate rate would be would be monetized to the city and you would have a purchase price based on
that. Okay. And and of course under every scenario we would have to negotiate the reclaimed order. Correct. That's correct. So that's money that we would have to pay to someone else.
Possibly you could you could carve out that and say you you know we you're going to take care of our reclaimed water for some you know period of time for 30 years and that's all part of the consideration. I mean, there's there's lots of different ways to do that as far as, you know, you guys are the seller.
And again, when you're dealing with maybe like the FGA, who's a state buyer, um, negotiations tend to be very transparent because you're you got two public entities, right? Versus a, you know, a private seller. So, yeah, you guys could work uh through that.
Again, if the city decided that they wanted to divest this system and you wanted to talk to the FGA, we would have to we would have to represent the FGA. Um, so I mean I I think it'd be if you
if you have any of that kind of thought, uh, it'd be better to contact the FGA and let the FGA come and talk to you if you if you thought that was something an alternative that you would like to pursue or at least pursue. Good. I one to respond to your question mayor uh the
original question does uh the sale of the system result in higher rates? I want to point out that it results in higher rates for both outofcity customers and incity customers. And the reason for that is the transfer to the general fund is in part being subsidized
by the eastern customers. And if we want to maintain that transfer at 2.3 million, somebody has to pay to maintain that 2.3 million. And so we're outside customer rates would go up because of the transaction and the amount that
someone is paying Eustace for that system but in city rates go up as well because of that general fund transfer right so you would end up with some proceeds and you know let's say you sold the system and you got $5 million but I'm just picking a number okay and you
invested that in an account at 4% interest that could be an offset to something like that right so you still get a proceed check um that would go likely into the utility system. It could offset a future capital need or something like that. So, there is some
benefit depending on what the purchase price resulted in, but it's going to be eroded over time because your operating cost is going to you got about a $530,000 shortfall. Okay. Um, one of the things I do want to hear about is the district
because state legislature. I know we were able to fight them back this year. It's coming back next year and we all know that. So, with a district, we're able to go outside and and change our rates a little bit differently. Can
you explain that a little bit more? Yeah, I mean, there's a number of districts that have been established throughout the state. Um you know it is a depending on how you establish the district you are able to you know essentially divest your utility all your
utility into a district and by doing that you can um have a fair purchase price to the district and then the city can pull that revenue that purchase price back in to do whatever they would like to do. want to build a new city hall or, you know, build a park or
whatever you want to do. That revenue becomes unrestricted into the general fund. Some people call it a cash grab, but I mean that's essentially what you're doing is you're selling your system to another government entity that in in this case maybe you guys create it. I think if you looked at a good
model or your city attorney wanted to look at a model, they could look at the city of Riviera Beach. That would be a a typical But does the public service commission um need an argument that we need to do that for uh a particular reason
economic? No. So the public service commission only regulates private entities. So if you were to create a district where for example the FGA which is a agency of the state um they're they're not regulated by the public service commission. So they're not
they're not controlled by all of those kind of they're really controlled by the the governing board depending on how you uh set up a district. But we but we don't have to we don't have established a need that we need to to have this district. I I think you know your your need is
you're divesting your city's utility system to a district and it's the city's, you know, intention to do so. You know, I I don't see that. I really like that idea. I'm with I'm with you, Michael. Yeah. We that 25%'s going away.
Yeah. Whether it's next year or the year after that, we need to protect ourselves and our residents and get ahead of it is what I predict. And and and and was your company around 20 years ago? We were. Yes. Well, once again, it would have been nice to had all this data when we
were thinking about taking that thing over then. Um Pete, um you know, data is important. Um, and you know, this this honestly should have been done when we were contemplating the city taking that over years ago. This this kind of this kind of data is is
invaluable to have for making decisions like that. And for the life of me, I have no idea why we don't do things like that before we make decisions um on something like that. I I think it's hard to extract the data to, you know, bring
it to a board because you're talking about multiple disciplines here, right? You're talking about people who understand the public service world, the ownership world. There could be there could be projections. There could be projections and based on, you know, what the future might hold for, you know,
growth and and and a and um and some good some good data to make, you know, to make a really informed, you know, educated decision. Yeah. I I I appreciate the deep dive. Yeah, I do. I mean, really, it's invaluable. Yeah.
If you if you'd like to get some contact would be happy to send you like it's it's an existing client of US Waters, the city of Rivia Beach special district and we would send you their kind of government document if you want to see what that looks like. We're happy to do so. I think I think I mean there's
there's a handful of Yeah, I mean I think uh we could give by way of reference. Yeah, I mean for me it's uh I mean we obviously need to keep the system, but I mean I I agree totally with uh with Michael that we really need to look maybe at a district
We're happy to get you some information. Yeah, I like I like that idea. You know, I I'd love to know what the um you know, what the the downfall to that is for Riviera Beach.
I will make the introduction. You can talk to the city manager and mayor and you can can see they've had it for quite some time and they were able to pull cash out of it and move it into the city for general fund purposes. My my initial reaction is we should
explore it. one thing that it might get complicated through the relationship between the two entities meaning it would still be city of Eustace employees operating the eastern system and we would probably
have to have agreements between if again what's the name it's let's just call it the eastern utility system and the city of Eustace we would have to have I would think agreements that the city of Eustace employees continue to operate that eastern system on a contractual
basis or something like that. And so I don't I don't think it's impossible to overcome. It just there probably would need to be some agreements back and forth and exactly the relationships and how it works. So the way that the city of Riviera Beach created their special
district is they transferred all of their assets, not just assets that are with without or outside the city. The total amount of assets went into a district. That's right. Oh, the city. Yes. because again that that values the system you know I don't remember how
much they were able to extract out of the system and still have reasonable rate you know for the for the area but it allowed them to essentially take all of their customers all of their assets move them into a special district the city has a contract to run the special district and the special district board
is the city so they're not operating two utility systems they're operating a city and then a separate utility a common rate as else. Okay. Yeah. Because you know once you know once again you know we we want to take care of those
customers out there but um you know that gives us that gives us an independent control over controlling some of the rates out there to defer our cost because I mean I mean I know they're they're county residents but
they're not used as residents by by city limit. So I mean I I really think that's something we need to look at. I I think the governing principle of whatever you're looking at, right, is that the rates have to be fair and equitable. You know, as a city or
private company, you know, the statute exists. Revenue, you know, rates have to be fair and equitable to all. Right now, you when you look at your rates, as Raph Talis did, you're a little upside down in providing a subsidy to those customers. as as you know we've enumerated here if you if you take those
customers away it blows a big hole in your budget the other way as well right so you know on the surface the simplest thing would be to make sure that those customers just pay proportionally right you know and I and I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt it I one one other um
line I wish you had was what would be the revenue if they were city residents just we just take 25% off Delta 9. Delta 9. I think it's four, right? No, if if all those customers out there were city residents. Yeah. How would that affect
the 25% search charge? You have to look at the offsetting tax, right? I know, but that's a bigger look than what we Okay. No, it just it just it's just curious. Yeah. So, another thing to consider, let's I'm a numbers guy. I understand what you're asking. So am I. So am I. I'm a numbers guy. Yeah. So, um, another thing to consider, and you
see this more more in South Florida than than other parts of the states, are what are called pilots, pay in the loop taxes. Okay? So, if you were creating a p a district like Rivier Beach, they may assess a pilot to that district, which essentially says, here's the the value
of the assets in the district, and because you're a government entity, you do you do not pay taxes on these property, property taxes or tangible taxes. Therefore, in lie of that, we the city are going to assess you a pilot and that pilot gets built into rates. So,
there's there's a lot of permutations here. We we didn't get into every little Yeah, there there's more options than we even know about there. Just for this discussion. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So there's a lot of cities that have done a lot of different things, cities and counties and and then you know there
there are ways to um essentially drive money into the re into the general fund through the utility, right? Your utility doesn't pay taxes. If everybody in the city was that your utility customers were your city customers and you didn't have anything else, it wouldn't matter. You'd be pulling from one pocket to
another. You would have a payment of taxes that would raise rates on everybody. But when you start to service outside of your city becomes more complicated, which is why we're all here today, right? Right. And um Yeah, that that's good good information. Yeah. And and my bringing that up was not to go
out and raise our prices up. Well, I just want us to be ahead of the game so that we're not hurt if the legislature comes back and does something that that says we can't do it. Yeah. Well, and and for me, it's it's not I think all of us
can agree it's not about us trying to do revenue. It's trying to control our cost out there and and and it's probably, you know, it's not fair that the inside city residents maybe subsidize some of the um but it's about controlling costs.
It's not about making money. Yeah. Yeah. But I so one question, Riviera Beach, do they have both incity and out of city customers as part of that system? And the reason I'm asking is if we're going to create one
system that equalizes rates, does that mean incity customers rates are going to go up to in effect subsidize those out of city customers? If we're equalizing rates across the system, it would have to. Well, but but I think um Michael and
just I'm just thinking in your head. I think we're thinking this because if the 25% goes away, how do we how do we keep cost down out there? Yeah. I don't think it's we're, you know, we're trying to, you know, we're trying to establish a different rate out there only because if
the 25% that we allowed to charge now goes away, then what do we do? So, so the baseline is going to be I think the same, right? the baseline out there. So, let's let's look at it from a practical perspective. You have a 25%
search charge. That search charge on a proportional basis isn't quite covering your cost. Okay? If you were to combine a uniform rate, it means the people that are outside of the city, remember the proportionality of your customers, you know, you got a very small amount of customers outside the city in
comparison, right? Mhm. So all being equal, their rates would go up a little bit and the city rates would go down a little bit in order to to to rightsize that. You'd have one rate. You wouldn't have a search charge because they wouldn't be city customers. They would just be a district's customer, right?
And but that's the if the 25% went away, you would take it away. Right. Okay. Yeah. You would take it away and it would just stand alone. It's the purpose of or the state takes it away is what I'm think Yeah. Well, the state doesn't take it away. The district still governs themselves, but the but the city and any
district or any utility, all rates have to be fair and equitable. That's the statute, right? Okay. The PSC is a little more, you know, granular about that, but I mean, if you were a government, you have to follow the statutes of fair and equitable. Okay, I'm good.
um I'm kind of the new guy around here, but a thought comes to my mind and I think it's come to all their mind, but maybe for some reason that they don't want to bring that up, but I I'd like to know if you know or at some point we need to know what that rate could end up
costing the non city residents out there as and then we would use that number and I think that's what you were thinking about to compare as to what uh It would cost them out of their pocket if they annexed into the city. And I don't think they came. They're too
far away. Yeah. Well, we we had that discussion, didn't we? And they they didn't want to. Or am I thinking the wrong place? You're thinking I'm thinking red tail stuff. This is not part of that. They're too far out. They're too far out. This has nothing to do with this. Okay, then. He's a new guy. That's why That's why I
get the Me, too. That's why I get the big bucks. You know, I I'm good. You know, I think that it's something that we we we need to look into. I think we need to get the information and take a deeper dive on. Exly. I agree.
Okay. Uh Tom, you have a direction. Yeah. Uh so we will we will explore uh it sounds like what you're saying is explore the creation of a utility district. Yeah. Is that what you think? I didn't
say that. Yeah. I think I think we should explore. Yeah. I think we should explore. Yeah. Get the information and then we we come back and make another of the possibilities. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. But so what
Well, so part of the previous discussion was that um we had a deficit. We were worried that in town was subsidizing out of town and um let's get an idea on the the value. You know, we considered doing
an appraisal. I don't think we need to do an appraisal because we've gotten we we got an idea of the value. I I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what I'm hearing is you are in you're based on this information, you are not interested in divesting the system, but
we want to explore it. So, at this point, we're going to look at keeping the system and operating business as usual with uh we will honor our development agreements and bring what customers we can on through development
agreement. Again, operating as is versus uh exploring the creation of a utility district, I think, is what I'm hearing. Okay. Yeah, you're right. But I'm I'm I'm going to say it one more time. One more time. I thought we were under under the agreement that we weren't going to
we weren't going to entertain development agreements if they weren't being annexed in the city just so we don't have to go through that. I think the direction the direction staff received because we were on hold right related to development agreements. I
mean I not not the ones that were pending but any further ones we so I I will tell you that uh we have two pending development agreement. So we have an agreement with Sarrento Pines. Uh that is the group that is developing
right now on 437 and then bought our spray field and is looking to do a future phase. They have an approved development agreement and they are working through the count or have worked through the county for land use approvals. That's approved and moving forward. We have two pending agreements.
One with a project called White Rose and that is on uh County Road 44 or State Road 44. Um and then the Sun well it was previously Sunara. Uh but that is the project on what used to be uh uh state
road 46 um and 437. We are working with both of those groups. We had put those on hold initially but then the commission when we presented we decided there was no downside to negotiating development
agreements or utility agreements and so we are negotiating those two pending agreements. I will tell you that with those two projects, we are getting pretty close to capacity out at the eastern plant as far as sewer
and so we would not be entertaining much in the way of new development agreements because of capacity. Rick, am I pretty close there? Yeah, I think that's what you told us before. What we have the wastewater capacity now for those two.
That will take us to about 95% per we can expand but again that's okay. What what what about our what about our in city uh plan? Well in city we have capacity we
just and are we going to we going to do that as well? We we're going to take on new developments close close to city limits but not not be city residents.
We can serve from there with I know you're missing the point. The comm the commission is not hearing me. I guess what I would say I think I'm hearing your question. If we're serving anybody from the main plant, they are close enough to city limits where we would
have annexation. I would say if they're not contiguous, there is possibility of contiguity. Okay. What about that maybe proposed um project up in Grand Island? I think we would we would require them to do an annexation agreement. How would
they get annexed? They're not close enough to to the city limits to be annexed from there. They're they would not be contiguous and annexed immediately. Yeah. But we would require an agreement saying when you are contiguous, you'll annex. We just we just completed a $13 million
expansion of the main plant and that's for a variety of reasons. It's to make sure we can handle what uh our agreement with you, Matilda. It's to uh do any future expansion at Florida Foods uh but also to handle any growth in and around
uh the city and the current city limits. So, we have capacity at the main plant. Okay. So, uh I think what you're hearing is we we want to keep it and we want to
explore the district option. Uh we will we will have to work out details of any uh consulting help. Um but we have been very pleased with uh our uh help uh
that we're getting from these folks, US Water. Um, and so we'll have to bring anything back to you that exceeds purchasing limits. But o overall, are you pleased with what you've gotten and are you okay uh continuing to use US
water? Yes. Okay. I think it helped us see things more clearly. I agree. And are are we looking to um figure out if we keep it, how do we stop the um deficit?
So I I think what we found is there's there is no deficit. Um bec and it it's to to summarize when Rafelis looked at at our
system they just divided things up based on usage. So in other words let's say Eastern is 20% of our usage. They just cut 20 ex 20% of our expenses and and said, uh, here's all of the expenses you're getting rid of. And what we've
determined is we are not getting rid of the expenses that that flow analysis showed. And so we we are not operating at a deficit. That's this one. That's correct. We are not operating at a deficit. We are actually operating at a
surplus. And it's the opposite. the eastern customers are to some extent subsidizing the in town customers. Yeah. And oversimplifying, but let's say 20% of Rick's salary was attributed to Eastern.
We're not firing Rick. So, we don't actually lose 20% of Rick's salary if we were to sell Eastern. We the in town customers have to absorb that 20%. Got it. And so what Rafelis showed us was not they did what we asked them to do
which was a quick and dirty analysis but it didn't take into account all the nuances of operating our system. Okay. If I add one piece that's permissible as you guys move forward. One of the things, you know, we talked
about this district, but another uh way to look at it, right? Uh would be if you created special districts for specific developers or customers so that on day one the city residents could benefit
from selling water to those districts. So that you would not, you know, you know, over time it should it's going to get better, not worse. But let's say you have a developer that comes in and they want to develop 2,000 homes. They're probably not going to be able to annex to the city because they're too far
away. There's nothing preventing from from having some kind of special utility district there that has an agreement with the city of use just to provide wholesale services to that district and you're able to recover all your cost irrespective of the 25% because like wholesale products really you know are
not regulated like that. So there are other kind of business ways to work around that because then you would have a direct benefit to the city customers as it gets built. Okay. Okay. So just there's lots of different ways of doing it. I I say we instruct city staff to
work with us water to handle to handle this whole thing and bring it back to go with it without a doubt. Now I I I I do we with the developers that we have out there now developers agreements if we move forward do do we
have to change the language in the agreements at that point we we we could we could look at that as kind of a legal question whether or not there's assignability to a special change it now I'm thinking about like a a new development that you just we were
just contemplating Hey, you know, should we service this development? Is it going to make it worse for our city residents? Are there's going to be more of a subsidy or continued subsidy going on? Why why would we do that? There might be other workarounds from a, you know, kind of a commercial structure to prevent
that and maybe actually advantage the city. But based on what Rick told us, we have we have two agreements kind of kind of out there and that'll get us to what about 90% Uh yeah, actually as far as waste, it's
going to be about 95 by the time this Okay. But don't don't you have to do an expansion once you're at a certain maximum? When you get to 80%, we need to provide plans to D or show them where we're at with our expansion for all the permits
that come in. And and I think initially you you weren't real keen on adding to the capacity, but this at least until we figured out what we want to do. When when we did the expansion, it was it was a large expansion. We went from a
300,000galon a day plant to a million. And we did that because at that time Lake County had approached us about doing the ISBA. That's what it was. And we needed to be in position for those projects. And it was their idea at that point before everything kind of went
south. The the plant that was built for us at 300,000 gallon a day was a problem plant. It was very poor operationally. We were never going to get to 300,000 gallons a day. It was cost us an arm and a leg. There were environmental
concerns. It was leaking. We needed to get rid of that. Plus, if we were going to enter into the ISBA and pick up the Srento CRA, we had to capacity. So that's that's where that came. Um and just as clarification
because I heard some questions altogether we have five developer agreements out there for Eastern. Um you know Sarrento is near complete you know with the golf course Heathrow which Red Tail we refer to it as Heathrow. It's
how it was permitted. That was near complete. There's a little bit of buildup. the the two Sarrento Pines projects, one is probably about 70% complete, one's yet to start. We do have developer agreements there.
So if we did a new district, they without modifying those, which I would I would propose, we would we would you the last suggestion, the new developments coming in, but the two that are out
there and have already been pinned by by commission, those we have basically legal bonding contracts. Okay. Everything else at this point's just been drafted. So everything's grandfathered in at this point. I that would be my suggestion which makesense we would talk moving forward but I think
that's the cleanest legally that's going to be the cleanest but again that's that's made that was my question yeah that was my question how were we going to if things changed in how we structured things how
would we approach the ones that Rick was talking about so those would stay remain where they are now but anything new would be under the new guidelines. Well, if you So, I think you asked a question about um moving forward with new
agreements and so I guess there are two paths forward. One would be with the utility agreements we've traditionally done and have done with other developers and then the suggestion that we potentially look at project specific special districts and wholesale
agreements. That would be a very different agreement than what we've done in the past and that would be applicable to two developments that we have pending. And so we I guess we need to figure out how we want to approach uh these two two pending developments where we
have no agreements yet. Does that does that make sense? So, if I could clarify for you guys, I mean, from a business approach, you have plants that are not built out yet, and you're able to collect funds, you know, that are essentially a stranded asset. You're going to get capacity funds and you're going to get
user rates based on those. So, you want to use those, right? Because that's going to help the city. When it comes to new investment, that's when we're talking about, you know, how do you negotiate new developer agreements? a new a developer comes in and they want to add 2,000 units, but
you don't have any more capacity left. It's been used up. You've taken the benefit of that. City residents have taken the benefit of that. A new developer comes in. You look at growth, paying for growth, and there's two perspectives there, I guess, that or
considerations. They have to build the plan. They're going to have to fund the plan. They're going to have to give you the plan. So from a capital standpoint, the city residents don't have to back revenue bonds to build the plant, for example, right? And that's very
customary. Okay? So you tell the developer, "We're not going to impact our city residents. We're not going to go out and borrow money. You're going to build this plant. We'll take it." Right? That's only part of it. So once the plant's built, doesn't have any customers yet. They turn it over to you.
Now you're in trouble because you got to operate the plant. you don't have any revenue to operate the plant. So there's two buckets of money, capital money, O andM money, right? Another customary practice that started recently is looking at ways for developers to deficit fund the operator
operating shortfall for some period of time until there's sufficient customers absorbed in the system in order for the facility to stand on its own. Okay. So how you negotiate your developer agreement is very important to protect the city going forward. Okay.
So just segregate it. Okay. Great. Okay. Uh anything else? Tom. Okay. I think that's it. Ajourn. Part: 2
the city of Eustace city commission meeting. The date is May 15, 2025. The time is 6 pm. Uh please join us uh for the prayer led by Theodore. Yes, sir. What was your last
name? Andrews. Theodore Andrews. Uh and the pledge uh led by uh Miss Elena Boswood. Amen. Giving all honor to God, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, commissioners,
Pastor Hawkins, my brothers and sisters of Eustace. Let us pray. Most gracious heavenly father, we come to you right now in the name of Jesus to say thank you. Thank you for this night. Thank you for this moment. Thank you for this occasion. We thank you, heavenly father, for all that you've done for us and for
all that you yet have planned to do for us. We thank you for the leaders that are here tonight, heavenly father. and we just ask that you guide their hearts, their minds, their spirits to do what's pleasing in your sight. We thank you for all the hearts and minds that are here on tonight. We thank you for everything that's going to be done, everything
that's going to be said. And we ask that it be pleasing and acceptable in your sight. This we ask in the mighty name of Jesus Christ we pray. And we thank you, Lord. Amen. Amen. Uh I have to run down and and stand next to
It's okay. Can I go? I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Okay. Uh, call order. Christine, is there a quorum and proper notice been given?
Yes, mayor. Okay. Tom, any agenda updates? No, sir. Okay. Commissioner's approval of minutes for our April 17th, 2025 city commission meeting, our May 1st, 2025 city commission workshop
sunshine law meeting, and our May 1st city commission meeting. Move approval. Second Christine, Vice Mayor Ashcraft, I. Commissioner Holland, I. Commissioner Lee, I. Commissioner Asbody. I, Mayor Hawkins, I
Okay, you can exercise that. I know. All right. Excuse me. I have a lot of stuff going on right here. Uh before we get started with the
presentation of proclamation to pastor Hawkins, come on up. I want to thank you for coming and leading us in the pledge. We really appreciate everything that you do. Excellent job. And we have a certificate for sister who
uh who really kind of pushed you to do it. So [Applause] like me, I moved here in 20 no in
1999 and the first church that I heard about I moved here uh was the same. And um fast forward uh to 2020 uh someone convinced me to run for city
commission. And unfortunately I listened to him and I started putting up yellow signs all over the city. Willie Hawkins, you know, vote for me. And
um I started getting calls. Uh are you you Re Hawkins? No, because I cussed too much. Uh but what but what I did was I called
picked up the phone and I called R Hawkins. I said, "Hey, I just want you to know that people think that I'm you running for city commission." And the words he said to me
was, "Do what you got to do to get elected five years ago." And I appreciated that. He supported me from the first day that uh that he met. So I
really appreciate that. Um 47 years 46 46 and a half. There ain't nothing I'm going to do for 47
years. Uh but the city of us uh would like to present a proclamation to you to thank you for your years of service. So please come [Applause]
up. You can you can lean on me on each other. You may have to uh city of Houston proclamation whereas Dr. William Hawkins Jr. has faithfully served as the pastor of the 70 missionary Baptist Church of
EUS for over 46 years making him the longest serving pastor in the church's distinguished history and whereas under his leadership Baptist Church has grown spiritually, financially and physically
remain a beacon of hope, faith and service in the Eucharist community since his founding in 1880 and whereas Pastor Hawkins led significant property acquisitions including multiple homes, a city block,
a two-story apartment building allowing for expansion of church facilities, a basketball court, and additional parking for to better serve the conservation. And whereas under his leadership, the church building at the corner of Bay
Street and Woodward Avenue was designated a historical landmark on February 17th, 2000. cement cementing its place in the rich history of Houston. And whereas Pastor Hawkins championed academic excellence
by establishing the academic achievers banquet which honored minority students as well school and provided Rosco P Golden scholarships to graduating seniors for two decades. And whereas his
vision and guidance led to the construction of a new church edifice dedicated in January 2016 ensuring a lasting place of worship for future generations. And whereas his ministry
extended beyond the pulpit serving the broader faith community through leadership roles in the Bethany District Association and the Florida General Baptist Convention and mentoring future church leaders including Minister Rudolph who
became the first minister ordained in the church's history. And whereas Pastor Hawkins has been recognized with numerous awards including the NAACP HP James Ministerial Award, the Men of Distinction Award, and honors
from the city of Houston, Lake Sumpter Community College, and local organizations for his outstanding contributions to faith and community. And whereas his unwavering commitment to serving God, his congregation and the
dedicated service and profound impact of Dr. William Hawkins Jr. ensuring that his remarkable contributions are remembered for generations to come. Now therefore I Willie Hawkins
see you reading this. I, Willie Hawkins, mayor of the city of Houston, Florida, do hereby proclaim April 15th, 2025 as Dr. William Hawkins in honor of his lifelong
commitment to faith, leadership, and service. I encourage all residents to join in celebrating his remarkable career and lasting contributions to our community. I here to set my hand called by the seal of the city of Houston to be
a fixed 27th day of March. Congratulations [Applause]
in my seat. Okay, you got it. Okay. to my brother Mayor Hawkins, to all of the city commissioners, and to the greatest
church, this side, the other side of the Mississippi, the Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church. I'm a crybaby, y'all. I want to thank my wife. First of all, for standing by my
side, my daughter surprised me. She's here. Will you just wave at my daughter? And we just want to thank the city of Eusters for this honor. Amen. All I can say is what my mother would
tell me when we were children. She said, "Billy, you don't have to do everything, but if anybody do something for you," she said, "Boy, I want you to
have sense enough to say thank you. Yes, I want to thank the city of Eustus for this honor and I will remember this as long as I live. Older gentleman told me long time
ago, and forgive me, I was coming out the barroom on Broadway in Amen. in Okeella, Florida. He said, "Boy, you going to live to be 94 years
old." I told him, I said, "Well, I'm shooting for 100." But I just want to thank everybody for this honor. I will be thankful for this the remainder
of my life. God bless you and God keep you is my prayer. Amen.
[Applause] Now, now um we know that every head you know uh a
wise woman told me this uh a head can't oper operate without a good neck. And um you know today the proclamation was for you but we wanted to make sure that your partner in this
was recognized and acknowledged as well. So flowers Yeah, we're ready. Come on. [Applause] Thank you so much for the 47 years. I'm just going to round up. Future leaders, future assistants of
America. We'll give everyone a a moment to to clear out. Hey, next up next up we'll have the uh future business leaders of America. How's it going? Hello and good evening. Good evening.
My name is Go ahead. Is it on Christine? Pull it up. Here you go. Okay. Thank you. Okay. My name is Aaron Cross. I am the outgoing president of the US High School FBA chapter. On behalf of our chapter, we would like to extend our
heartfelt thank you for your continued support both financially and encouraging our organization. We would like to thank you for the resources that you provided for us that allowed us to thrive throughout these years. Once again, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Hello, my name is Kelly Young and I'm currently the outgoing secretary for USUS FBA. And like Erin was saying, we are so thankful for your guys' support
because not only has that allowed us to grow our network and skills through competitions, but has also allowed us to give back to our community and we will continue doing so. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Sonia White. I am the advisor for ours high school
FBLA. On behalf of our local chapter, we would like to recognize the we would like to present to the mayor and the US city commissioners and the city of EUs the gold star partner award presented to
Mayor Willie Hawkins and US city commissioners for your support and dedication to us high school FBLA Sonia White advisor Debbie Seir district director 2024 425. From the bottom of our hearts, we
really appreciate you and the entire community for everything that they've done and we are so excited. Aaron and Kelly are both seniors and they will be graduating this year in 8 days. Aaron will be going to Florida&M University
and Kelly will be going to University of Florida. And we have our other officers. We have Michael, we have Annabelle, and we have Savannah. And Annabelle will be going to UF, and she's been in FBLA for four years. So, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. [Applause] You got to go down anyway. So, come down. Oh, we all going? Yeah. Come on down. I don't want it to be the Willy show. And then you guys take one step forward
and angle your chest toward me. You guys can come up your chest. Congratul [Applause] Good luck.
Next, we are going to do another proclamation. The mayor's asked me to do this one for him. Al, you want to come up? We got out there also. Not dressed like that. The [Laughter]
kids development is a team sport and economic development is very important to our community and to this region. So, and I I know with all the changes that have been made lat lately with our partnership with UCF, we're excited about where economic development goes
next with the city of Eustace. The mayor asked me to do this proclamation tonight. Read it for him. It says, "This is a proclamation of the city of Eustace. Know ye whereas economic development is essential to the long-term vitality, character, and uh resilience of the city of Eustace. And
whereas communities thrive when they foster a diverse economy, support local businesses, and create spaces to attract talent and investment. And whereas economic development week week is recognized by the internal or
international economic development council celebrates the efforts of public private partnerships and work to collaborate the growth, opportunity, enhancement, quality of life. And whereas the city of Eustace is committed to strengthen its economy through
strategic initiatives and enhance infrastructure, support entrepreneurship and encourage vitality people centered places. And whereas Eustace continues to focus on job creation, business retention and sub stability, growth, and
honors the city's identity and preparing for the future prosperity. And whereas this week offers a time to recognize the value throughout planning uh econom economic encouragement and incentives shaping our dynamic local economy. Now
therefore, I, Willie Hawkins, mayor of the city of Eustace, Florida, do hereby proclaim May 11th through May 14, 2025 is economic development week in the city of Eustus and encourage the residences, businesses, community leaders, leaders
to celebrate and support collaborate work and building a strong uh inclusive and work forward economy. I therefore here do and set my hand as caused the seal of the city of Eustace to be affixed on this 27th day of March
2024. Thank [Applause] you so your chest. [Applause]
That's it, gentlemen. [Music] Okay. Is this on? Okay. Uh, last but not least, uh, definitely not least, in 1962, President Kennedy signed
a proclamation designating May 15th as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week in which it falls as National Police Week. This week, May 11th through 17th, 2025, is the designated National Police
Week, where we remember, honor law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. Uh, I think it's important that um, you know, we acknowledge uh, you know, our law enforcement
uh, when things are going really good. um not so much when we get pulled over. Uh but I think it's important that this serves as a reminder that uh uh
they got us in the event uh in the event of disaster. They run to and not from. And please remember them. Uh say a special prayer for all of them uh tonight. and uh let's keep them in
our prayers throughout the year. So, Chief, thank you. Thank you. Okay, I think that's it. We have one more presentation. Okay. In honor of economic development week, I'd like to introduce Brian from
the UCF incubator to do a brief presentation for us. Thank you for coming. A tall one here. Thank you for that. Uh I am, for those of you I haven't met yet, I am Brian Bedrich. I'm the site manager for the
UCF business incubator for Lake County and based here uh just down the street here in Eustace. And uh I took this role in the middle of January this year. So coming up on four months. It's kind of like my first 100 days kind of update
for you. Um I think you've got the some of the data notes there in front of you. So I'll just walk through them. Um just as a overview, the business incubator supports a variety of different kinds of businesses which I'll
get into by providing a variety of different services. Um and when I came on board in January, there was one from last year with Tom's in the room I think here. Um, three more came in with me
and, uh, we've had two join in the last four months, uh, with three more that are in process. Um, and they are, uh, representing all of the different kinds of businesses we rep that we support.
So, uh, we really have three different tracks. One of them is the traction program, and that's more for businesses that are just starting out. They've got a prototype. They've got maybe an initial product that they're beginning to sell, but we help them um get those
connections to make their, you know, make their first sales, get those connections to the first customers, uh help them uh grow, help them refine uh refine that product so that they can succeed. The second program we have is called growth. that's more for more
established businesses that uh there we help them refine their strategy a little bit often help them find funding uh and then the goal there is to help them scale uh and get you know even larger and then the third program is called
soft landing which is geared for international companies that want to establish a presence in the US and specifically uh in central Florida. Um, and so, um, just of the companies that I mentioned, we have each of those, one is
a software company that provides medical information, uh, on a QR code that emergency responders can quickly get that information that they normally don't have. That's an example of that traction program. We have a growth company, which is an AI based company
that streamlines medical billing. they are growing fast and about to go out and raise some funding. And then we have an international company uh coming in from the Czech Republic in a few months that's uh signed up for this soft landing program. So we'll help them
establish that presence here. Um just a refresher some of those things I mentioned the services we do provide they include executive coaching. We have a mentorship program with about 150 mentors throughout the metro area. Uh we have press release services and
financial reviews and a a first customer program which is getting introductions to those first uh target ideally targeted customers. And so since I came on in January, I have
been doing some outreach. One, just to say I'm here, introducing myself, going around of pretty much a road show, just going into lots of different events, lot of different chamber meetings, that sort of thing to let people know about the program,
but also to clarify some a little bit of misperceptions. So I explained those three programs and what I found is a lot of people didn't really fully understand it. So I've been trying to make sure people understand the full breadth of what we're doing.
And the big part of that also has been collaboration with this economic development ecosystem that we had a proclamation for. You're going to hear a bit more about even uh even more next. Um, what I spent a lot of time doing is
making sure figuring out how UCF should fit into this. Um, and what I mean by that specifically is that there was some duplication of effort. So, we've been collaborating a lot with lead SBDC
economic development folks and trying to figure out how do we all these players how do we make this work effectively together. um that has led to a bit of an adjustment into the training and education programs that we're providing.
So that is part of the program is we put on workshops, we do other educational uh activities to support the business community. Last year the focus was on what was called a business boot camp which was more for idea stage
businesses. What we're seeing is that segment's pretty well covered by the rest of the economic development support system. So this year we're going to focus more on some of the more established businesses by doing things like we have a HR summit
coming up in June, a cyber security summit coming up in July. Trying to do something like that every month or so um in partnership with lead with the other economic development partners. Um, and then we're also going to revive this program called Excellence and
Entrepreneurship. Uh, a longer program. It's kind of a certificate-based, but that's just a bit of an overview of the educational stuff we're going to do. Um, you've got some data there in front of you. I won't go through all the numbers, but more so what I I just kind of talk
through the process as I'm out there on the road show talking to everybody. I am uh you know lots of businesses are coming up to me of and I want to first of all welcome everybody to talk you know to come and approach us all so that
even if the UCF incubator doesn't help them I'll route them to the right person that is the best support within the area. Um, and then what we're doing is we're ultimately looking for companies that have innovative and scalable
products that are really the ideal fit for that. Uh, we have a series of vetting and interviews that uh lead us to where I started. We've got the two new that companies that have come on, the three additional companies that are
in uh the process of coming on board or being evaluated. And then lastly, just to give an idea of some of the accomplishments of these businesses, uh we had uh Intelligence Factory and Scan
ID 365 were both selected as part of the plug-andplay smart cities cohort uh which was very selective process. I think only less than a dozen companies from hundreds of applicants. Uh,upaya
Health has just recently received $150,000 of additional funding which is going to help them, you know, kickstart and grow their operations. One of the new companies is called Smart Tracker. They just won a big contract with the city of St. Louis. And one of the big
reasons they've joined and what they want us to help them with is they're based in Claremont, but other business is in Michigan and Missouri. they want to get going here in Florida. And then lastly, I mentioned the international company that's going to be coming on
board uh that we'll be helping them with just uh kind of helping them navigate the waters uh as they come into the country. Great. So that's uh pretty much the overview. What I would say is thank you all very much for financial and other support of the program. If any of
you want to know more or come down to the incubator offices or meet any of these clients, you're always welcome. Just let me know and we'll set it up. Right. Thank you. We appreciate Brian. That the nine that you're off to signing up, that'll be the largest ever done in
Lake County in a UCF or in any incubator program. Is that in Lake County? Absolutely. Not any. The original one in Research Park is the biggest. Yeah, that one we're not going to catch, but we've had quite a few UCF incubators try to kick off out here and in West Orange and
Apakka. And what you've done in in really four months is remarkable. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And it's a lot of support just with uh all of the different partners that you're going to hear about. So, I think it's really coming together to, you know, not be an island, which makes it a lot easier.
Okay. And that's probably part of the big success. Absolutely. Collaborating together. 100%. And and in relation to all the activity that's happening at the UCF incubator, I'd like to introduce Pam Rivas to talk a little bit about the activity at Mega Workplace. Yeah. Thank
you. Thank you, Ryan. I have a little slideshow, too, so that'll get out. But before I start, I wanted to say thank you, Mayor Hawkins. Thank you, Commissioner Tom, Mr. Corino, and especially Al. We could not do this
without your support, without your encouragement, and I am very grateful for Al and how he's got our back and the communication that we have with them. It's definitely not an island. We are all in this together. So, it's pretty pretty exciting. I think it's very exciting actually. It's very exciting.
By the way, my name is Pam Rivas. I'm the CE COO of Mega Workplace. I'm also the chairperson on the chamber um the lake uses chamber and I sit on the board of directors for lake 100 and board of directors for lead so everything is got economic development attached to it and
so um this is a quote that I found that I truly truly believe we support local businesses we're supporting our friends our neighbors and our families and without economic development or with economic development you're changing everything every life touched, schools
are touched, atmospheres are touched. It's a community effort. Um, this is a support ecosystem that's at Mega Workplace. UCF incubator is an intricate part of what's going on there. Um when
we first um started looking at what we wanted to do in this building, we knew we wanted to make it a hub for economic development, but a hub for businesses so that they could go a one-stop shop where they could go and get the help that they needed no matter what level they were
at. And um it was a little tiny seed of an idea. And it's amazing how it's grown. And that support ecosystem that's been created there has been made it so easy for the businesses in Eustace and
outside Eustace in North Lake County to come in and you know so they can go into um UCF business incubation program and maybe they're not a client there who just so easily can send them over to John at SBDC or they are growing and now
they need some sites to look at and what should I do where should I go and then they touch with lead and 1 million cups. You know, I've got an idea. Where can I throw it? You know, throw it out there and get some good feedback. And then now we're really building our um ecosystem with the schools. Um I'm exceptionally
um proud of what we've been doing right now with um Lake Tech and that's right in our own backyard. Um so that's pretty exciting. And again, we can't do it without the city of Eustace and without um the chamber involvement. Um we've
also added Nan Cobb. She's over there and she's been a incredible resource for our business climate. Um, that's just a little blurb. When we first started out, you know, we thought, okay, you know, this is going to be a nice little hub. What we found
out though is people love coming to the visit to the building because they like going downtown to coffee afterwards. They like going over and getting something to eat. you'll see him hanging out in um the Eustace Marketplace or 113 Coffee or So, it's really been a vibrant
addition to our downtown community. Um that I put in there for Commissioner Lee to show her how beautiful the hanging baskets are. We need to get more of those, but that was a beautiful picture of our downtown. And what we've also found is
that USUs really sits at the geographical heart of Florida. And um we've had companies and will be on the next slide that have found it a very friendly place to be because of its location and how easy and accessible it
is to outline areas. Um, and of course, you've all heard me talk extensively about the hub zone. It is so crucial and so vital to our economy in building our environment and we're going to tap into that even more with some more support.
Um we've got a really great businessfriendly economic hub going on and what a beautiful view that we have of the lake that's um priceless that um people can come and get the support and then go to a beautiful downtown and see
a beautiful view. Um so this is our vibrant hub for community and business growth. It's not only the support system, it's got our tenants in there who are very supportive as well. These tenants like one of our new additions, Guardian Global, he is um he helps
businesses get government contracts. He is going to be such an incredible addition to helping our business community. Um 1 million cups and it touches 238 people a month. It's been it's just
blows my mind how um successful that has been. And we've had Florida High-Tech Quarter. the first time that Florida High-Tech Corridor has been in Lake County and it was at Mega Workplace. They touched 27 counties is what they covered, but they've never had anything
in Lake County until they came in to do the um brew and pitch, which was a real fun experience. Um I'm exceptionally proud of Lake Professionals and there's a little picture there to show what they've done in one year of offering support to our young professionals and
and growth fast track. Um, I mean, you can read it all. It's just been it's been an exciting year and a half. Um, and then we're going to grow. It's going to go further. It's going to go into the South Park and it's going to be um because we're running out of space. It's
been so successful. And there is one of our commissioners who has been without him couldn't be it wouldn't be successful. And I just really appreciate all the faith and support that we get. And
that's a great quote. If you want to be the 1%, you must do what the other 99% won't do. And that's so true. Um, Marie is going to do a little thing about the chamber because without the chamber, we wouldn't we wouldn't um be able to
really touch the vibrant um businesses that are in our community. And Marie has done an exceptional job. Whoa. Okay. Well, I'm too short. There you go. um the mission statement the past year
and and the vision statement for 2025 uh I believe we live it every day and um we want these businesses to thrive the ones that are here uh we want to attract new businesses and I in my uh study of
the history of the city of Eustace I have delved very very deeply uh into archives lives, etc., and found that the reasons that they still come, they come today to use this, it's the placement
within within the state of Florida. It's um the the the rail system that was here, the waterway system that was here, and they got to Jacksonville and and most of them were like, well, there's got to be something else. And then they heard about this Central Florida area.
So, the history has been very interesting, but it's a throwback. Every everything we're trying to do now and accomplish now goes back to the 1800s uh at the city's [Music]
inception. I look at our membership. I came in in 23 and 24. Total membership was 229. 25 year to date is 322. January new members 11, February new
members seven, March 5, and last April 11. And we are just we're just cooking there at the chamber. Um breakfast, our breakfast tip typically average um a hundred and you can see by the figures
there. Of course, February is our George Fest, so that's the biggie. But for 120 in May, that's unheard of. Um, actually, I would compare us to the rest of the chambers in Lake County. Uh, in June,
we're going to have our June breakfast and it's going to be about updates about what's going on economically, how how we can play a part in that. Uh, and then we'll have a survey also coming out at at the June breakfast and see how we're
doing. Um and then our business expo is Yes. And and so in addition to the numbers and increasing our relationships, our business relationships, uh we are working on a new website which we really needed. Um
Pinpoint Studios is doing that. Matthew Guy and Gold to launch is June. And we're very excited about it because it's it's clean. It looks clean. It's it's uses our our uh logo the way it should be used. Survey again, we'll put that
out. We need to get the uh feedback from our members and uh it should be coming out here by the 21st and then we'll finish up on uh June 4th at our breakfast. Uh strategic plan. Who who would think that we would
need a strategic plan? But we do. um so we can offer what we need to offer to our business community and our community at large. So we have a strategic plan that we're working on and that will be completed in a couple months. Five-year
plan. Business expo is again the 20th and 21st uh in June at the uh new WG Sports Center. We're excited about it. We hope you all are excited about it. It is open to the public. So, as soon as we get our vendors in place, our businesses
in place, then we will go ahead and start the push, um, it's going to be very interactive. We will have classes. We will also have, um, Advent Health on site and they'll be doing some screenings there also. Uh, so you can sign up and we have a lot of our
business community teaching the classes. Home and Garden Expo in September the 19th and 20th and 21st. It's a three-day. We're going to step out on a limb and try something new here also. Um, you don't know until you try.
Uh, and that will be at the fairgrounds, the new event center at our fairgrounds. Um, contact us for more information. And I do want to say that um, part of our focus and our strategic plan is also education, an educational component for
businesses and for our students. and they were here tonight and um two of them, Kelly and Aaron, were our community service award winners for the youth category for the last two years. So, we're putting our money where our
mouth is and we are nurturing these students. We're supporting them. We also have the business incubation program. We've donated money uh to that program and they are very very appreciative and our students are going to come and help us at the business expo. So they're
going to get real world experience. Um other than that, do you want to Oh, and and I have to say got to go somewhere with Willie the other day. No, we didn't go to Orlando.
Um, I was invited to go down and see a new business and um, it's a I got to say it. Yeah. Florida Paints. And we got to see their whole manufacturing operation, commercial paints, and and they're going
to put a retail store in Eustace. And I went down and met the um, CEO of that organization. And we had a great day. Again, we got to see a little bit of Winter Garden, which I had seen before, but um it was good. It was good to go
down there, get a feel for where they were 10 years ago and where they are now. So, um it's just economic development is always always on our mind. So, thank you. Thank you for that
opportunity. Thank you all for participating with us and um supporting and we all have the same goal. It's economic development to make this city and this community and our business community the best it can be. So thank you. May I say something? Would
you guys I did not see leg on there and and so we need to connect. It was on there. Oh, was it? Yeah. We work with Dr. Bird very closely. Okay. And so, um, I emphasize Lake Tech just because of some of the programs that they're now creating for some of the businesses, but
we work very closely with Lake Sumpter. Thank you for that. And I do want to say we've hosted the incubator edu program and um the FBL students and so we work really closely with the Lake County schools as well. That's the education system is very important to our
intricate. I also have a contact with Beacon College. You might want to that would be wonderful. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, I don't know if if the rest of the commission is feeling what I'm feeling. You know, is this this whole economic vibe I I think
something's starting to take. Something's starting to catch. Uh and I appreciate all the partners uh involved. So, um Okay, next we're moving on to um Do we have anyone else? That was the last one. Appointments. Appointments.
Next, we're moving on to appointments. Tom. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, I'll be brief. Uh, I wanted to, uh, apologize to the commission, uh, to the code board, uh, to the individual seeking appointment
and reappoint. Uh, this has taken a little while to get on the agenda. Um, and we have some terms that need to be filled. And so my apology is uh this has taken a little while, but we have a process in place uh to track uh
appointments, reappoints. Uh we have a a system for advertising positions. And so our goal is to be more timely with this. Uh, I want to thank um Ryan Bonaglio, Karen Sartell, and Bradley Shelley for
their service. And I want to thank you thank them for being willing to continue to serve. Um, I and Stephanie Carter, thank you for serving, although you're not up for reappoint tonight. Um, and then I also uh I want to thank uh George
As, Carol Kurst, and Bill Gay uh for being willing to serve. Um, and then I also want to thank Niel Allen Parks, Patricia Jensen, and Christine Cruz uh, for their interest in uh, serving. Uh, so um, that's all I have. Um, I'd be
happy to answer any questions about um, kind of the context of where we're heading with this. I I think we're good. Okay. Good. Okay. All right. Uh, first up and we will go one by one. uh for
reappointment uh Ryan Bag. Yeah, Ryan Bagrio uh term expiring uh 531 2027. I move for reappoint. Seconded.
Okay. All right. Christine, Vice Mayor Ashcraft. I. Commissioner Holland. I. Commissioner Lee. Hi. Commissioner Abbody. Hi. Mayor Hawkins. I okay for member Karen Sartell
uh reappointment uh term expiring October 31st, 2027. Move for reappoint. Seconded. Roll call. Vice Mayor Ashcraftoft. Hi. Commissioner Holland. I. Commissioner Lee. I. Commissioner Asody. I. Mayor
Hawkins. I. And for reappoint uh Bradley P. Shelly. Term expiring March 31st, 2028. Move for reappoint. Seconded. Roll call. Vice Mayor Ashcraft. I. Commissioner Holland. I. Commissioner
Lee. Hi. Commissioner Asbody. I. Mayor Hawkins. I. Okay. Now we're up for the filling the vacancy uh left by the election of Georgia's body to use city commission
seat 4. Uh we have three applicants. Uh Nye Allen Parks, Patricia Jensen, Christine Cruz. A term expiring uh January 1st, 2028. I nominate Ny
Allen Parks. Second. Anyone else? Okay. We allowed to make a motion to nominate someone else or we have to vote on this one first. I guess we we will vote on it first. Well, I based on our rules of order, you have a motion and you have a second. I think
you have to take action on that one way or the other. Is that correct, Sasha? That's correct. Yes. Okay. Uh, roll call. Vice Mayor Ashcraft. Nay. Commissioner Holland. Hi. Commissioner Lee. I. Commissioner Ozbody. Hi. Mayor
Hawkins. Hi. Mayor, if I may, related to the second um or I'm sorry, the first alternate position, I just want to point out that this uh first alternate position uh is through August 4th of 2025 and based on
our new tracking and advertising system. I just want you to know that we are asking that you appoint someone tonight, but we will start advertising almost immediately uh to fill this seat for the August uh reappoint. Uh if that if that
makes sense. So you will be um you will be appointing someone through August, but we will almost immediately start the process to get the term filled again come August. I hope that makes sense. That makes sense. Okay. uh filling the position. We have two
uh two applicants uh Patricia Jensen and Christine Cruz for appointment to the vacancy uh due to resignation of Carol Kirst expiration uh 84
2025. Can I get a nomination? We have two positions up. Correct. Yeah. Nominate them both for the alternate. We just will need to clarify who is uh for the term ending or ending in August and who was for the term ending November
3rd. So we have to what were their names again? We have Christine Cruz. Christine Cruz Christine Cruz and Patricia J. So, we I'm lost. We're nominating for the for the term to end. We're
nominating for the the first one, the one expiring in August. I nominate Christine Cruz for that position. I'd second. Okay. Roll call. Vice Mayor Ashcraft. I Commissioner Holland I
Commissioner Lee I Commissioner Asbody I Mayor Hawkins I and finally for the uh vacancy uh left by the resignation of Bill Gay. I
Patricia Jensen second. Okay. Roll call. Vice Mayor Ashcraft. Hi. Commissioner Holland. Hi. Commissioner Lee. Hi. Commissioner Asbody. Hi. Mayor Hawkins. Hi. Okay. Uh, when does her term end? That
term ends November 3rd of 25. So, uh, just a few more months after the other, um, term ends. Okay. Mayor, three of us have served on that code enforcement board. We understand how hard that job can be. Yes, it is. Um, a and how vital that job is. Thank you all for your
willingness to serve on it. Um, and please stay engaged with us and with the community. Uh, we want use to look the best that it can be. Patricia, I hear that you are just at every meeting at that code enforcement board. And from me, I want to say thank you for being
there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, next up is the uh consent agenda. Is there anything anyone wants to pull? I move approval of the consent agenda. Second. Okay. Roll call.
Vice Mayor Ashcraft. I. Commissioner Holland. Hi. Commissioner Lee. Hi. Commissioner Asbody. I. Mayor Hawkins. Hi. Okay. Next up is audience to be heard. Uh Tom, do you have any cards? I do. Uh
Cindy Newton, I think. Oh, there she is. She switched sides. Seat. Yeah. Reverend Hawkins had that other side taken up. Yeah. Thank you. opportunity to speak. Cindy
Newton unincorporated Eustus and I just wanted to put this in the public record. Uh thank you first of all for postponing the annexation and land use change uh for uh Alt Key
10970 and the adjacent parcel that are across the street from Trout Lake. Um it was inquired whether or not there was an open case for the uh county to be
looking at the property and there is a co-inforces case open that's been open since April 1st and it's uh regarding a development without the development order. So, I made a copy of it for you so if
you want to track it as you're going through this process so you'll know where they're at in the process. So, thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, S. That is it as far as cards. Okay. Is there anyone else that uh would like to
address the commission? Okay. Hearing none, uh we'll move on. Sashi. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Tonight we have resolution number 25-24, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Eustace Lake
County, Florida, approving the recording of water, wastewater, storm water, irrigation, reclaimed water, andor residential garbage service leans, repealing all resolutions or parts of resolutions in conflict here with, and providing for an effective date. Miss Carr and Miss Jenkins. Hi. Uh, good
evening. Um, as you may recall, about a month ago, we had discussions about uh re-implementing assessing leans on properties, owner properties where the owner was delinquent and paying their utility bills. And the list that is attached is those properties that we are
requesting leans be put on for non-payment. Uh, there is one exception to that list that one person has since paid and Nicole will give you the account number. It's account number 20881. Hold up. Do we have the list? I
don't have the list. It was in our package. Attached to the computer package. Oh, the computer. I can share you a copy if you want to look at it. Okay. No. Okay. Good. And that's we're just requesting approval to move forth with filing those
lings. Okay. Any questions from the commission? Would anyone in the audience like to speak on resolution number 25-24? Seeing none, I'm going to close public input. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, I move approval of resolution number 25-24.
Second. Okay. Uh, roll call. Vice Mayor Ashcraft. I. Commissioner Holland. Hi. Commissioner Lee. I. Commissioner As I. Mayor Hawkins. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay.
You go ahead. Okay. Oh, I don't want to I don't want to take it from what? All right. Um, under other business, we have the discussion of backyard chickens. And I've prepared a presentation to um kind of go over
the main points of what an ordinance would encompass as well as um some of the items that we saw in the backyard chicken training that UF conducted. You saw where it was a a live session um that we
did a few weeks ago with uh Commissioner OSD Tom uh Mike Lane and had another member Eric Martin was there and we had chicken um as well and I did serve some chicken
fingers in the honor of that. So, um, tried to make a nice presentation here, um, to kind of encompass everything. And if there's anything that I miss, uh, Commissioner OST, please feel free to stop me at any point. Hopefully, I've covered everything. So, this is the
residential backyard chickens program. Some of the customary program requirements. Now these would only be uh allowed for personal consumption and use. Um you cannot as part of prohibited actions. You cannot sell the chickens, their
eggs, feathers or any of their manure. You cannot breed chickens. On-site slaughtering of the chickens would be prohibited. Meaning you cannot use them for meat. And using them or training them for purposes of fighting for amusement, sport or financial gain would also be prohibited.
There can be restrictions placed on whether you would like um incubation and hatching of eggs to be permitted and if so what process that would look like since uh we did learn through our training that it is difficult to tell the sex of the of the chickling. Um
right I guess until week 22 I think it was somewhere between week 20 to 24 is when you can kind of tell. Um then uh if there are any roosters in there, they would have to be given away or donated somewhere that would accept them. We would not uh since only hens would be
allowed, then that particular um rooster would have to find another home. Um so that is a possibility. It is interesting for purposes of um kind of involving the children in that process and um helping them understand the science behind it
and all of that. But of course, there's an attachment component and it'll might be hard to get rid of one of the chickens that can can't stay per our ordinance. Now, this would only be for residential single family. Missing all the side I mean the
not side effects. What is it? It's not side effects. All the effects. Residential single family. So this would be prohibited in apartments, condos, duplex, triplex, town homes, multif family properties, mobile um or manufactured homes and community gardens
and vacant lots. The lots have to be fenced in to keep the uh chickens within the property owners uh property lines. The HOA or deed restrictions will supersede even if it's allowed by the
city. They can be prohibited by the HOA or in private deed district restrictions. So the applicant is the one that's going to bear responsibility to make sure that the HOA or property covenants will allow it before proceeding with the application. In other words, we're not going to police that. That is completely
on the applicant um should they choose to move forward to ensure that they're complying. Now there's a per permit number and type restrictions. So like I said earlier only hands would be permitted. No roosters uh are allowed
and that's of course to prevent noise ordinance among other things. The max uh max number of chickens that are allowed are generally between four to six that I've seen basically in municipalities where there are residential um areas that they allow backyard chicken
programs. Um so that's pretty much the number that we see. Some municipalities have a minimum requirement. Winter Garden, for example, has a requirement that at least three um chickens be housed. I think it's um for emotional
support of the chickens so that they're not by themselves and maybe it'll help produce more eggs. I don't know. I'm not an expert, but I feel like they get lonely. Paid for this training. I I'm $5. Don't don't spoil it. That's
clear. Y'all pay for it yourselves. Um so a minimum is a consideration, but of course uh there's a maximum there. And some municipalities also exclude other poultry or fowls such as ducks, geese, turkeys, pigeons, etc.
Now, in order to obtain a permit, and this would be an accessory use uh permit, some municipalities limit the number of permits that are issued to participate in their programs. Um, others don't. So, for example, Winter Garden has 25 um that can be issued at
any one time and then until that expires or or they're turned in, it's just 25 that are allowed. Orlando has 100. So, it it really depends on the municipality. as an accessory use permit, the charges uh for that would range between 25 to
75. And since it's an accessory use, a conditional use permits um would not be required. So that $800 fee that we have on our conditional use would not be part of this. The permits would not be transferable. However, they may be
surrendered by um someone that has been issued a permit. Some municipalities do require annual renewals and part of that might include um in order for you to renew for you to have a yearly inspection. Tenants must obtain consent
from the property owner in order to participate. And this they'll have to show proof of that consent um through an affidavit from the property owner or having the property owner join the application u for the permit. And it would be essentially one permit per
person per lot. Additional requirements would uh the application would be notorized and that's to confirm that the applicant understands compliance with the ordinance is required. Um, they would be providing consent to the city's personnel's uh to
the city personnel's right of entry upon the subject property, including their the rear yard, the backyard, in order to inspect and/or investigate any code enforcement complaints. And um failure to allow them to get on property could be a basis for revocation of the
permit. Agree. um the applicant would have to agree to the penalties for non-compliance and hold the city harmless from matters relating to or concerning this permit. So, it's it's completely on um the person that has the permit to make sure that they're complying and um we would not be
responsible for anything uh resulting from that even if we issue the permit. Um, they would have to provide a blueprint drawing of their backyard, show the coupe location and size, the materials of the coupe, and the number of
chickens as part of their application. Some municipalities inspect the coupe before or after setup. Um, and another consideration would be that the applicant have no open code violations
in order to even apply to participate in the program. Now the chicken coops and run because uh you have to provide space for both. Um there are some limitations with dimensions. The restrictions center around size and height and more so it's
to avoid uh the requirement of a building permit since we're looking at a residential chickens. Uh they're trying to not increase the cost of of having the chickens um on site. So generally 100 square ft of 10 by 10 would keep you
within the requirements of not having to have a building permit in order to place a coupe and um height restriction of 6 ft. You want to allow sufficient spacing based on the number of chickens. So um one of the things that we learned
in that training was uh you need to account for enough space. You don't really want to have overcrowding. Um so that does cause stress on the chicken and um we're looking at a minimum of four square
feet per chicken um in the coupe and a minimum of five square feet in the run. Now Winter Garden has for example three uh square feet as a minimum but this is what the course
recommended. Now, the placement of the chicken coupe and run, it's really going to focus on setback requirements. These are different uh based on the municipality. They're either measured from property lines or from adjacent structures. And
the range for setbacks are 5T to 25 ft. They all must be located in the backyard. um cannot be visible from the street, cannot be located in front or sideyards, and they should be screened from neighboring property with opaque
fence and/or landscape screen so as not to disrupt the view of the neighbors. Now, the design must provide for a vent a covered and ventilated coupe. So with Florida sun, we want to make sure they get
enough um reprieve from that. The it there has to be a fenced pen or enclosure. They have to keep be kept um really enclosed at all times and particularly at night. So we want to ensure that the coupe is predator proof.
So there will not be um any chicken wire element to that because that is not predator proof. This is a training that is offered by the University of Florida Extension Office and this training would have to be completed. Um there are different
courses. There's urban chickens, basics and poultry and a variety of others um that may be completed. Now we would have an approved list of those courses. Um they are offered online and in person.
The costs range from $5 to $15. And some of these are on demand, so you can see the course at any time. Others are live sessions which allow for Q&A. And um that's the one we did. Now, some municipalities have partnered with UF uh for this and they've created customized
courses for their municipalities. So, um, you'll often see that they'll require like the Semino County course and they're all on the website and the certificate of completion in the applicant's name must be provided um, at the time of even submitting the
application. And this is good because it allows there's a lot to learn um, and uh, I I did not know anything really about certainly keeping chickens. Um, and it we found that for for the cost, it was $5 course. I mean, it was
very very very instru um instructive. So, I think it's worth it and it'll help someone that may be on the fence as to whether they want to do it or not decide if this is really something they want to take on. Um, and if so, how to best care for the the chickens that they have.
Now, of course, we want to lead by example and um, as you can see, Mr. Karina has obtained a certificate of completion for urban chicken training. Okay. We have a graduate from Chicken
University. Urban chicken. Okay. Now, some additional considerations. Of course, there's pets, right? So, cats or dogs that um may injure or kill a chicken that happens to wander onto their home would not be considered just for that reason a
dangerous or aggressive animal. Um, deceased chickens must be disposed of within 24 hours of expiring. If you abandon your chickens, that may be considered animal abuse. Corrective action may be required if public health emergency affecting chickens is declared. So, if there's aven flu, West
Nile virus, which we've seen, or some other form that is communicated, um, the property owner, well, actually, the the per the permit holder would have to be ready to act should that be necessary. It's a good idea to just like we have our community meetings
for a lot of our uh developments and um even if if it would be a conditional use, it would be recommended. But certainly talk to your neighbors, especially if they're close by um just to see if they might have any concerns and it it might make it easier uh just if you wanted to transition into owning
chickens than um having them on on board. And you must obtain um some requirements are that at once you've been granted a permit, you have to get the chickens within a certain amount of time. I I've I've saw generally 6 months. That allows them enough time to
get the coupe and get everything placed if they have to go through inspections, etc. But they don't want you holding on to a permit indefinitely that you're not going to use and then depriving someone who is really ready to do it um from getting one, assuming there are
limitations. Now nuisance um there are concerns of course when it comes to nuisance uh with chickens but it is the obligation of the permit holder to eliminate or
significantly reduce this. They cannot cause noise or order nuisance. Um for that we there was a recommendation of offground feeding to prevent maggots and smell nuisance. The containers for feed um they should be rodent and pest proof.
Manure cannot collect should not be allowed to collect um inside the coupe. So they have to be cleaned regularly um for the chicken's sake and everyone else's sake. Um so prompt disposal will be required unless you're choosing to
compost the chicken manure. And if that's permitted then uh you can do so in an enclosed bin only. Now, I did see this pretty consistently. Most municipalities require that the composting of the manure be at least 20 feet away from the property
line. Chickens shall not be permitted to trespass onto neighboring properties. So, um, we learned that chickens fly and they have to have their feathers cut every so often to avoid, um,
them trespassing onto other property or flying away. Um, so you want to know how to manicure the feathers, I guess. Um, and that's something that you'll learn about in the course, the advanced course, I should
say, not the basic course. Um, and of course they must be secured within the coupe or fenced enclosure. Most municipalities do not allow roaming, but those that do require supervision while the chickens are
allowed to roam. How do you do that? A leash. Well, no. Just essentially you have to physically be there during the time um that they're being allowed to roam just to avoid I think the roaming is is in a fenced area uh in the in the winter garden in
Mount Dora. So, we would incorporate that that it would be in a fenced area but outside of the coupe is what is what it is, right? It's within but within so the lots all the lots should have to be fenced. So, it would be within their backyard, but there has to be a person
there in the event that something happens. And then once they're done roaming, then they get put back in the coupe, which is usually a short period for the cleaning process. Right now, some of the penalties for non-compliance, of course, code enforcement lean. This code
enforcement would be responding to any complaints and um the lean would be placed against the violator and the property owner which is why we would need uh if they're not the property owner, we would need uh consent from the actual owner for that purpose. Fines um
of up to about $500 um can be assessed against the violator. the permit can be revoked and of course injunctive relief which is can be pursued by court uh methods in order to avoid their continued
non-compliance. Oh, that's it. Did I cover everything there? Oh, I did want to say that one of the um when we talked about the number of chickens um the what I have in my notes is that u
commissioner Abadi said under an acre, a max of five and anything above an acre would be a max of 10. Yeah, we talked about a couple different scenarios. zero to.5 acres, five or less
and half an acre uh up up to 10, but we can adjust that depending on what everybody wants to do. Okay, if I can add just a couple quick notes as you know this is a little bit entertaining, but uh there's a lot of there's a lot of truth to the scenario
that I I wanted to share with you guys. You know, this all came as as people began to come forward, probably due to the price of of eggs and brought this issue back up. A couple interesting things you need to know that every municipality in Lake County and in
Orange County and in other uh counties, which I didn't personally explore, um have a backyard chicken program. And uh I contacted uh uh Mount Dora and I contacted Winter Garden through one of their retired commissioners and to date
and through their whole process they have had zero complaints. What is in this that's interesting is we are an agricultural uh city and an agricultural county and there is a great educational aspect to this even though talking about the guidelines is a bit entertaining.
Um, so I I know one of our commissioners, Ashcraft's daughter participated in in different things uh along that a side. Our former uh commissioner granddaughter just won a prize for that. So it is part of our past. Uh I was pretty impressed that
there were zero complaints. We followed the guidelines that the adjacent municipalities um Winter Garden and Mount Door I think were the primary ones have followed. I also found it interesting that downtown New York in Manhattan has a backyard chicken program. Now, I thought that was that
was uh entertaining. We do have an ability, correct me if I'm wrong, to have chickens in the city. The problem is you have to apply for it, an exception for it, and it's $800. And that's a lot to put on kids who want to try to do that or people who want to uh want to do that. So, it is very well uh
regulated. It is self-regulated. Um it is low impact on staff. Uh it is educational. That video uh class that we took was quite educational uh on that. So um that's where we're at. You know, there's a Facebook page now out. I think
Christine Cruz uh uh oversees it and there's quite a bit of great discussions about it that are on the educational side uh as well. So we're the only city left that hasn't done anything with it. So that was part of the driving force to
take the uh the strain away of the $800 and come back with some other program. You know, it's it's say that New York has u you know has a program. Uh I was in Miami last week and in the heart of
Miami, chickens running around. That concerns me. You know, Miami has a strong Latin culture. Sorry. Go ahead. No, Tom. Well, I I'm I'm sorry. Uh I I just wanted to lay out uh
Commissioner Asody has already done this a little bit, but I wanted to lay out current process. So, we consider uh backyard chickens a a accessory agricultural use. Uh if someone wants to have backyard chickens, it's a
conditional use process. Uh they would apply for that. The current cost for a conditional use is $800. and that we we've looked at that in the past. That's because there are advertising requirements. It's because there are there's a lot of staff time
that goes into various conditional uses outside of just backyard chickens. Um and so that's how we establish that that cost. Um staff reviews the application and then it comes to commission so that
um and again not just for backyard chickens but any conditional use comes to the city commission so that you can review conditional use permits on a case-byase basis. So again our current process um someone wants backyard chickens they apply for a conditional
use and it comes to city commission for analysis. That's the current process. uh the um we've talked about the $800 and uh it's not excessive for other types of conditional uses, but maybe it is
excessive for consideration of backyard chickens. And so if one thing the commission wants to do is consider um a a different calling it something else uh and making it so that it's something
other than $800. That's an option. Uh and then what the commission has to decide is do you want to review these on a case-byase basis? Uh what's being proposed is certainly more streamlined and efficient. Uh but the con the
commission does not have any say on individual permits and so uh that's our current process and we'll need some direction on where you'd like to go. Yeah. No, go ahead. If I may, it would be done by ordinance. So the program
itself would be enacted through an ordinance. It would list all the requirements. It'll indicate the cost of the accessory use specifically for backyard chickens. And that would the ordinance process puts the public on notice. So that would not require the conditional use um notice requirement. And this would go through really
development services. Um once a determination is made on the specifics of the program, then the development services director would have the authority to issue the permit based on review of of the blueprints and conformity with all the requirements um
of the application and the ordinance and then that permit is issued. It would just be tracked by staff and and that would be it. any any uh complaints would go to code enforcement and it's essentially going to be like any other code enforcement concern. The one thing
we left out was the that if you live in a HOA then the HOA's regulations if they have which many do that might not allow that would would uh would stand. No, I covered that. She covered it that superseded. Yeah. you know, I uh when it
came before us before uh you know, I I I was supportive because I was like, why why don't we do something different? Um my concern is um not the chickens, it's the people
that have the chickens. Uh so that that's my concern. Why the people? I am. Well, the people are the ones that are supposed to make sure that everything's right. And you know, people just be people and
I think we face that too, Mr. Mayor, when we deal with dogs and and and cats in our neighborhoods. We've got It's the same gentleman. Exactly. Yeah. I'm not happy with that either. So, and yeah, I've been interested in this since the time that gentleman came with the chicken with the diaper on. It's been
going on ever since then, uh, over and over and over again. But and and it's okay I mean to discuss this but I do have some concerns and I do have some some questions. Um we're talking about code enforcement. We're talking about staff time. Are we going to hire chicken
chaser? You know someone who's you know is going to go in and make these people accountable because I agree with you. It's it's not the concept of the chickens but inevitably you're going to have those who will think it's a really cute thing to do and then all of a sudden there's no taking care of. So, I
went and I did some research and I found all this stuff on on why and why not and concerns about having um and making sure that people um are aware of these things and that they make sure that they take
care of it to protect the neighborhoods, to protect other people. Um it talked about rodents, raccoons, snakes, all of those. And and I think the the video showed that, you know, you'd have to have a cage or something that's
appropriate for it. Also, I saw that dander and dust created by the birds are allergens and they can cause reactions in people. So, I'm thinking about someone with a small yard. I think about my backyard and if someone had a chicken
coupe in next door, it would impact my yard. It would impact my living my me I feel that it would. And so I think if people going to do this, it should have um a yard that can accommodate this that's not dominated by the the chicken
coupe and close to neighbors and all. So I have a concern about that. And one thing I found very interesting was that mosquitoes bite chickens and and carry around the germs and diseases. And that's something we have to be careful about. It talked about poor ventilation
in the coupe and and uh and it has an ammonia that builds up because of chicken droppings and it can irritate the chicken's respiratory system and and people. And uh it talked about the spread of parasites and the risk of disease transmission. Um and the other
one I find is egg binding in chickens. That means that the chicken can't pass the eggs so it gets stuck in there. And I so I have all these concerns. Um, and it talked about chickens that are freeranging um, eating dangerous plants. And so I
had a lot of concerns about this and I would I would really caution us that we um, encourage people if they're going to do this or if we do allow them to do it that these things are taken into consideration. They're real concerns and and I I definitely feel strongly about
it. I thank you. You know, and those those are all really good points, but you could also say the same thing about pets with those, right? All of them. Hair, allergies, dogouses. Yeah. But they're not they're basically confined like into their homes. And and
it's not to me that's comparing apples and oranges when you're talking about chickens compared to someone having a dog or a cat. Cats, they do wander. But I do have concerns. And I'm not I'm not saying that people shouldn't be responsible, but then we have staff who
has to constantly that's something else added to their plate as to um them keeping track of of people with the chickens and and um living up to to the things that they have to do. So that's my concern in in um it may be decided to
do that, but I do hope that these things are taken into consideration. I felt that I should share it. You know, a good point. I'm I'm undecided, but devil's advocate. We're building our downtown. We're trying to come into our
own. We're building our downtown and chickens run through downtown. I mean, what kind of look is that? Um I And people don't think that they have to take chickens to veterinarians to be cared for with the medicine. Sorry, not
to be Mr. rebuttal, but you could say the same thing about dogs. Dogs would be running downtown, too. I mean, it's it's just an animal control issue. Dogs dogs can, you know, they can run downtown. That's just animal control issue. I I just don't think
that it's the same when you have, you know, a lot of people in our community calling us, you know, backwards and useless and all this stuff. I mean, Door has them. would be backwards if we don't have them. But we're not Mount Dora. We're
used to We're talking about every municipality. Mount Dora is the hardest the hardest city to get anything done in and they have them. I mean, you know, for me, I'm I'm okay with them. I There's definitely got to be a limit. We have to set a limit. We can't say that everyone in the city can have them.
We're I don't know what that number looks like. I don't know if it's 100, 200, if it's based on population size. Did you have any any any chance to get that that kind of data? and and also the size of the yard, you know, the No, that's in there. That that's a requirement. That would be a
requirement, a setback, a distance away from the fencing. Uh, all that was in it was in her presentation that we would have in the ordinance and that would be a setback that there is in addition a setback that we went through with Mike Lane for your home. So, in addition to
that, you have that setback. Are we comfortable with a a test program? Well, thank you. One of the things I was going to say is uh some of these programs started off as a test program. It was a on a temporary
basis. They wanted to see how it would work, what kind of compliance would take place, and then after a certain amount of time, if things went well, they made it a permanent program. Um the cities that have done it, they escaped me, but I know it's happened. And it's usually a period of about two years um that they
kind of monitor to see how how things are going. Now, of course, that does impact the participants of the program. They would have to know ahead of time and and understand that if the program is shut down because of excessive complaints or anything like that, they're going to be incurring the cost
of having to rehhouse the chickens and remove the coups. But that would be something that they would know up front and they are voluntarily agreeing to do at the time that they join the program. Now, as far as the setbacks and the amount, that was really on a case- by case basis, whether we wanted to start
if there was a test program, if you wanted to have a certain amount of permits to to be considered first of all, and then the the size of the yard and the setbacks is also something that would have to be considered. Most municipalities um air on the side of
having larger backyards. Um so, you're looking at setbacks from property lines and structures. So the coupe would have to be for example behind the house. The the lowest is 5T. Most of them are
looking for um about 20 is what I saw. Some have seven and a half from the property lines. and um the placement of the coupe itself. If you know, if it's a smaller yard, then you're also going to be looking at maybe
placing it kind of closer to the back of the house so you have that room from the back uh from the rear setback um to the placement of the coupe or have a smaller coupe. That's the other the other option. But I mean, that's very flexible. It's really I mean, you know,
anyone that has a smaller backyard would maybe not be able to participate if those restrictions are there. Um, and it's just it's really now if you have a larger backyard, anything exceeding the the recommended 10x10 6T would require a building permit because that structure
would need to to pass the code. So, um, it's it's really very discretionary in that sense. May I? So other than the cost prohibitive nature of the conditional use permit, does
anyone I I know it would involve staff time and commission time to review these on a case-byase basis, but other than the cost prohibitive nature of the conditional use, is our current process not not working or is it just the cost
that we think is preventing people from doing it? And the reason I'm asking is we can try I think we're going to overregulate so that we can address every possible contingency and I don't know if we can draw up the regulations
to address every possible contingency and so is reviewing it on a case-byase basis the best way to go. You know I I I think that we are trying to build our city. Um, I don't
think, this is just me, I don't think we have time to get in the weeds on that. U, I I think we have more important things that we need to worry about. And and I and I agree, but you know what?
Let's let's just let's just address the elephant in the room. I know there's chickens inside city limits right now. So, quite a few. Yeah. And quite a few. So, if this is a way to to regulate them and and make it safe for all
parties involved, I do agree with you. We probably should have a test a test on this. I don't know how long that looks like and then after that, if it seems to be okay, then we can take we can take we can take we can take another look at it. But
um I think when they came before us before we we said that the $800 was excessive. Yes. And and I still stand by that. I think that's excessive that but that's you figured all that $800 by the staff time
and you had things apply. How did you react? Yeah. I so we we do conditional uses for many things and when you look at conditional uses in general they involve advertising staff time and that is uh appropriate um for conditional
use. Well, hey, listen. So, what would it take for um to do this chicken thing? Would it take less time? And would you assign a cost to it according to the time that it takes just for this particular? So, I think Sasha did some
research and found that uh municipalities charge what between$25 and $75. I think could I ask could I ask Mike Lane a question since he's here already? Hey, Mike. Sorry, M. Would would will this permit process be part of the new
program that you're rolling out, which I applaud you for? We haven't we we haven't talked to our our go folks about an additional permit. Oh, no. But I mean, it's not something that that can be added to that quickly. Well, I mean
Well, I mean, while you're here, um you know, thank you for getting that program ready for the building department and their permitting. I I know for years, uh people have said, "Why are you guys still doing papers?" and thank you for finally getting that done. When when's it roll out? Well, we're actually in a
couple of weeks, we're rolling out the first module for the building department. And I Let's get back to I can just say thanks for So, can we can I'm I'm I'm thanking Mike for doing a good thing. Yeah, but I'm saying is it going to be with Mike? Is
it going to be with code enforcement? Who's I I would say the the application would come in through development services. Sasha, did you have a slide about what other municipalities charge? Did I see 25 to 75? We did and we discussed that
out there and and somehow we came up according to my notes with $50. I didn't come up with that. I I hate to put you on the spot. I think it might have been you or or maybe it was from the compar. So, yeah, there's a range from 25 to 75 is what I've seen. 75 being on the
higher end. Um, one of the things that I wanted to bring up and I was just trying to get some touch base with Mike on this, but generally conditional use permits um, can be recorded and I mean they can bind
that particular property. We want to have the flexibility with these permits because they can easily be revoked versus having to go through the process of dealing with a creating, you know, an official record and public records with the court as to what can happen on this particular lot. So, going the route of
of permit issuance through development services um if that's a chosen department would make more sense because we're looking at an individual who's going to be responsible while they're occupying a certain home. And that would also allow, you know, tenants, for
example, if they have it, if if if the property owner is comfortable with that particular tenant having chickens, but then that tenant leaves, they may not want the next occupant to also have that right. So, we don't want to bind property owners with a use that it
really should be isolated to a person in a situation. No, it makes sense. No, I mean we I mean we can sit and debate this whole all all night and I' I'd rather not be honest with you, but um I think for me it um we go forward, but we do a test program. Um Mike, test program
opens the door. I say uh we've got a process in place. We lower our fee. Um I'm like you. It's not the chickens that bothered me. It's the people that own the chickens. And we wouldn't have a code. We wouldn't need a code
enforcement group if people did the right thing. How many um uh how many if we did a test? How many? I'd go with that minimum if we had to do a test the three three. So, I'm sorry if
I may. I think the majority of the requirements are pretty much universal. The the more specific ones are going to be Yes. if it's going to be temporary. Generally, I've seen it for about two years. And um
the essentially the setbacks and whe whether there's going to be um a certain number of permits issued or if it's going to just be open, right? I' I'd like to So, what do you think?
I say we've got a process in place. Lower the fee. Let's go with it that way. Then we have three. If if Okay. Are you saying do use for every every everyone? I'd rather do that than because there are certain neighborhoods here in town the way they're laid out.
There are parts of East Eustus that are laid out totally different than the rest of this city because of the way the property lines were done years ago. You're going to have people you have people on top of each other. And I'm like Emily, some of those yards are so
small, you know. Well, and I hear you and those are good points, but with a conditional use, don't you have to advertise for that? You have to advertise to the neighbors. I think that I think the neighbors need to be informed of what's going on. And
we want to review every permit that comes in. It's up to you all, but as far as the Commissioner Holland, just so you know, there is a provision in there for set from the sides and there will be smaller properties. Chickens, you've been hollering about them for a long time.
Let's just move on because we can sit here all night long and discuss this and it's not going to change the way I feel. I I've been dealing with this since 2009. I understand. And and I I still don't think it's a good We're trying to pump a
lot of money into our downtown corridor. There are sections of Eustace that will be fine for chickens. There are sections of Eustace that are absolutely a non-starter for me for for chickens. And I think we can define those if that's what you want to get to, but that's just
another layer of it. Um, but I think you bring up some good some good points. I think they're addressed in there. I kind of like uh what where I see some of the other people, some of the other commissioners going. I think maybe a short uh test period uh a regulated
amount with all those and maybe Sasha just draw up and duplicate mostly an ordinance with the setbacks with the requirements. I think I think three is I think three is a little low. I'd probably like to see five and uh if you
want to raise the permit fee. I'm I'm fine with that and put it out there in a test for 24 months and uh make them sign an affidavit understanding that the test program ends there and we'll see. We'll see where it goes. Winter Garden did that and uh they just took it permanent
now. Okay. All right, Emily. Well, I feel that um I'd rather not see it and I am concerned about the image we're trying to create and the new um the new useless look and I I don't think
that that adds to it. Um if you have to do a test program, I would not do it for more than a I would do it for one year. three chickens and um again I'm concerned about who's going to monitor all this and staff time all
of that. So um and I I when you have a a a yard the size of yours, George, is excellent for that. You know, you could do that, but I do have concerns about what we're doing with these small yards and the look to our city. So
Okay. All right. Okay. Um, I think that we have a consensus to I'm not sure we do. No, not consensus. What do we have? Mike is a test. Mike's
conditional use. Conditional use. I'm new new new program and test. Okay, George. New you new new program test. Five chickens, 24 months, 50 to 75, 25 to 75, whatever you want with setbacks,
with requirements and uh with requirement for a class to be taken also. Oh yeah, absolutely. Probably the way it is would lower the cost. You would lower it or raise it? Oh, you mean lower the 800? 800. Yeah, that's the name. Okay. I'm at uh I'm I'm new
program uh $300. One year. Oh, no. Two years. Two years test period. One year test period. $150. Listen, we're putting we're putting these fees on families, on kids, on
education. There's a big educational element here. I don't think anybody has 150. That's but it's up to the majority. I guess this is this is uh we're limiting it to how many I'm at
three. I mean I meant um how many um permits permits? Um three. Oh, she means how many um how many city people can pull a permit citywide apply? I said three. What was garden? 25. 25. No, I say I say
um we do maybe 15 or 20 and that's it. And for small test group small test I I'll go with you on that. All right. 25. 25. Why don't I just make it 25? How about we just make it 15? Oh, okay. All right, Tom. 15. I say 25. I
say 25. I say I'm the mayor and it's 15. Well, I mean, we're going to have to try to pull all of this together and bring you something that you can come to consensus. I'm I'm good with 15. Yeah. A minimum of three. Yeah. The public
doesn't speak on this, do they? No. No. No. I think we've spoken enough. Yeah, definitely. Okay. So, the majority is 15 permits. Mhm. 15. And I'm at two years. They have to do test period for two years. I'll go with temporary program.
You good with that? I don't care. Okay, Gary. Two years. Okay, George, you said how many chickens? Five. Three. Three. That's a lonely family. That's all right. Well, that's okay. The always housing supervision. Mr. Mayor, I am
going to have to go. My hip is hurting really bad. Um, so if you'll excuse me, I know you've got a sister city thing coming up to talk about. Um, and I'm good with whatever we need to go through. All right. Okay. Okay. So, you're good with Yeah. Okay. All right,
Tom. You know what we we want, right? We will try to pull something together. All right. Okay. All right. Let's Let's get on cuz we've been in here longer than I thought we would be. Uh, next up is Sister Cities discussion. U, so hold on a minute. Uh, is there
anything that that you want to bring up before you leave? Uh, just good luck to the Lady Panthers tonight. Okay. They're playing now. They're playing now. Congratulations to the high school graduates. Okay. All right. Thanks. Okay. All right. I'm sorry, Tom.
Yeah. Uh, so um, former commissioner uh, Christine Cruz provided some information November uh, about uh, relationship, a potential relationship with Japan. Uh, Commissioner, Vice Mayor Ashcraft asked
that I uh, provide that information. So you uh receive that information in your packet and uh happy to listen to any discussion. I like the idea um all the things that I
read about it. The only only concern I had was actually looking at the um the the cost of it, the um the the cons I guess about it. So that was the only concern I had. And I don't I think we could do all that we do without going
through the sister city um um going through all that and and the cost and the time and the staff and all of that. But I think that we should we could still partner with them. Well, this, you know, this this actually has started
with former commissioner Cruz's help um sitting down many times with the um with the owners of the uh at the Japanese Arts and Cultural Center, which is just outside the Eustace. Uh they have some really strong um contacts and
relations with uh with the uh country of Japan. Um, and they've asked us if we would consider consider doing a sister city with with a city over in Japan. So, that's where this is. I mean, when we're talking economic development, um, we are
in economic development week. I believe this to be another avenue to consider, you know, bringing in more economic development to the to the city. So, you know, it's open for it's open for discussion. Um, I don't know what I what are the costs involved in trying to get
it done. I don't think it's as as much as uh as we think and I believe I believe there's state money out there that might be able to help us um get this done. If Mr. Mayor, if you wouldn't mind, Christine Cruz could give us more insight on this. Okay.
Um anything else with you? Yeah, I I would it's it tells us on on um page eight of eight that we got um the things that have got. So my thing is that I think we should part part partner. I think we should include them in things activities that we have and do things
with them together without actually going through that sister city process and costing more the time. All the things that's listed on here made me concerned. Okay. Okay, George. So I guess what what you're saying, Emily, is that we could do it but not be
part of their program. not not commit to the sister city, but we could do all the other things with them and and partner with them, include them in our activities, include them in things that we do, include them in things in the city. We could very much work together without the sister city commitment, the time, the cost, and all the things that
they said it would be a con to me. Uh, how much how much Oh, I'm sorry, George. Go ahead. Yeah. Um I guess I don't know enough about the whole program to say that to to to comment on that but I did see the part that it can be expensive
but there is an economic upside to it. There is a changing you know trend. Uh I think it's educational again and everything like that. So I think it's worth looking more into it whether we have to make a decision right this minute or not. Uh
just be more informed about it. But uh I I I like it. I think what What I'd like to do is talk to a city that's a sister city and see see how it it all works. Yeah.
Because it involves travel between the two, the cost and everything. But I and even just getting them involved right now and doing things with them until we know them better and get activities going and what what we can do. I mean in
the meantime uh we are the library has been doing a lot of programming calligraphy and swords and uh I think they have an upcoming program about traveling to Japan. Uh so certainly we can do the cultural cultural exchange
uh and uh work with them to do new and interesting things uh and at the same time explore the the formal sister cities program and like I said and I don't know a lot about the program either. Um, a lot of what I learned is from is from the owners of the Japanese
Arts and Cultural Center, but making making a formal making like an a formal um sister city um gives it more weight to businesses and you know um people from the Japan that might be
willing to come over here and look um bringing you know economic development jobs. So, you know, making it formal gives it just a little bit more more weight that we're serious about trying to trying to foster economic development outside outside of the city with with
another country. But, uh, like I said, um, I I and growing that relationship even with the school in the schools and things like that makes us stronger. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with you. Makes us stronger that way and we get really involved. Yeah. Education used to be very very much a part of this. But it
all can it can all it all can help us um foster that economic development that we're all trying to get going in in the city which I think we're I think we're we're getting there. Makes sense. Yeah. I I just think that we could do all that first before we get jump right into being a sister city and kind of grow it.
Yeah. I think you're right. We can we can do that. But I I I would like to talk to to someone from another city and see how it does how it works. We can do some research. Okay. All
right. Um All right. I'm fine. I I I think there is a lot of of good experience that comes when we join. If that's what we decide to do, if we want to look at it more,
I'm fine too with that. But there is a lot of benefits that come coming with collaborating with these people and and abroad and being already in a blanket that's existing. America and Bloom is a perfect example. We could do it without it. We don't need them, but we do because we're learning and they've done
a great job of helping uh Emily really push us into a new into a new era. So, I think it's definitely worth exploring. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think everyone up here is like, yeah, let's look and we're going to include them in American Bloom because of the what they can bring to it also. There you go. Yeah. So, but I
think we want to I personally want to talk to someone to see Yeah. I mean, I'd like to Let's move forward, understand some of the hard costs, and Okay. try to make it happen. Yes. Got it. Yep. Okay. All right. Uh, now on to future agenda
items. Um, Emily, are we going to get a grant writer? Where are we on that? Yeah. So, we are um we're we're working on a little bit of a reorganization. Uh, moving the position to a different department. uh looking
through the job description, getting it uh we have to get it point factored to see where it falls as far as uh pay. But yes, the answer is yes, but we're we're looking to make some changes. Okay. Thank you. And that's all I have. Okay.
Uh George, we're uh we're winding out now with our uh final comments. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. So, um I I just wanted to let everybody know I I took a real deep tour
at at uh Lake Tech this week, and I know I hear you guys talk about how great it is, but it it didn't it didn't get absorbed in me till I went there and actually saw it and what they're probably maybe this is extreme, but
they're probably one of our strongest economic development uh tool that sits they are somewhat um underutilized. So, uh there's some great things that that I know UCF and uh the um workplace, the mega
workplace along with uh the Chamber of Commerce is working on some great stuff that's about to to blow us up into a good direction. Um and uh I thought that that was just a great I encourage everybody to uh to to see that. Um
during the one of the the last meeting there was a mention I think it came uh from Commissioner Ashgraph about the Trident Boat uh deal. So uh I was coming back from there uh from uh Mission End yesterday and uh Pam and I stopped at
Trident Boats and uh we saw the city of Eustus allocated boat. It's sitting there covered in dust and everything. We talked with Fred a little bit and uh they're holding a boat for us, but I don't know how long they're going to hold it for. They've got over a half a
million dollars sitting in a boat. So, I encourage us to to bring that file to the top of uh of the list. Also, I know we have two I think it was my understanding was two proposals for a dock and perhaps we were looking for a third. Um, when I went out there not too
long time ago with uh with uh Michael Holland and everybody, the uh there was no dock there. They moved into a new place. They have since put a a dock in and the dock is was installed in three weeks. So, if we need some
resources for a third or whatnot, I I would ask that we that we look at that. I think it was creative custom docs or you can reach out to Fred. But um I'm a little concerned that that uh some other municipalities are reaching out to them and saying we'll take the vote. Um so uh
if I can do anything to help push it along the way, uh I'll be willing to to dedicate some time to that uh if if uh the city manager gives me some direction on that. Uh but we we got to get that going put in place and uh and uh the uh
seplane thing should fit right in with it. Uh, so if I can do something to help, if if it's okay, I'll try to get um Ryan and Fred together and help uh Tom if he wants on the on the dock get the third one to you guys
and and let's get this rolling. Um I think we can uh I've got a new saying. I think we can chew tobacco and ride a horse at the same time. It ain't the same. So um the boat is ready. It's there. It's beautiful. I got some pictures if anybody wants to see it. Uh, how can I
help? You know, I think that Yeah, I I agree, George. I think we we need to So, where where are we at? So, we met with Mr. Paglio today. Um, I I'll be honest. Um
the when the commission asked us to move forward with seplane infrastructure, it did slow up the process because we can't go out and do a boat dock without understanding the sea plane infrastructure. And so we are working on
both. Um we did meet with Fred probably about two weeks ago um to clarify the the width and the length uh of what he needs. Um, but I mean the answer is we're moving forward. Um, Rick has some
u solutions that we'll have to bring back to city commission as to um how to move the project forward. There's different there's um design bid build versus design build. Uh different
processes um kind of involve different purchasing procedures and then different design and engineering. um we can we can move try to move forward more quickly, but we need uh to get you comfortable with the costs
involved um to move forward with the uh design build process. Um I I mean I don't want to scare anybody, but um we're talking like one to$1.2 million at this point for boat and sea plane
infrastructure. Um, and so, uh, we need to get commission comfortable with that price tag if we're going to move forward with a design build. So, sorry, what was what was the price we were given for just the the boat dock? It wasn't anywhere near that. The the square
footage is more than we originally anticipated. The price prices have gone up since we got that original quote. I think originally we were talking 250 to 300,000. That's that's the number I remember. Just adding a sea plane
increases the cost that much. Not not the sea plane, just just the boat infrastructure has gone up because of the price per square foot. Um we we are doing more square footage than we originally intended and that price per
square foot has gone up uh since then. Did we because I know there was you were trying to figure out which square footage was correct the width. Yeah. So, we met with we met with Fred to clarify exactly what he needs because
we we had a consultant saying, "I don't think you need that length and that width." But in meeting when we met with Fred, he said, "Yes, indeed, we do need that length and that width." And so, when we priced out that square footage at current prices, it the the cost had
gone up significantly. I have a question. So do either one of those um two businesses are what's their input and how does it operate? Do we get anything back from what their their businesses are? How how does all that work? It depends on if we enter into
franchise agreements. The franchise agreement would would speak to um the um the arrangement with the vendor. Um, so, um, I I think we are probably responsible for most of the
infrastructure because it's our public infrastructure. We've talked about things like, you know, Fred has talked about a storage area and a kiosk specifically for his stuff. Uh, and we've talked to him that maybe that's at his cost as opposed to the public's
cost, but public docks would be our responsibility. So, uh, those are all things that we'll need to work through, but it's a good investment that will last forever, right? Well, it's a good investment and it also I mean the the the master plan says we need to activate the waterfront and this activates the
waterfront. Um, the what we need to come to terms with is the cost to do that. on the uh on the the facility. I forgot to tell you guys when when we met and then uh there was a meeting I think between uh Pam and the Chamber of Commerce and the idea came up. We haven't pres they
haven't presented. I think they were going to meet with Ryan and Fred was that they would give them an office in the chamber building to manage their operation uh immediately and that'll get them up and going and then as as we develop the downtown and the waterfront
we might adjust that and they'll that'll have no impact and then it won't cost us anything. So, if I think Marie was good with that and and uh she suggested that um but and that'll be part of the conversation about the future of that
building. Okay. All right. Okay. So, we need do we need a third quote or are both your quotes in the millions? Uh we we haven't done multiple quotes. I mean it was got one. Well, it
was an order of magnitude initially and now we have to go out and design it uh and engineer it. So, there are no there are no prices yet other than we we had an engineer give us an engineers estimate on what the price per square
foot was going to be. We haven't bid out construction because we don't have design documents to bid out at this point. Do we have the money to do it? We have the money to engineer it. Uh the question will be do we have the money to build it? Yeah. No, I think we can we can meet with
somebody and get a rough idea. Is that possible? I wonder of where where we're going in cost based on square footage. Um we I mean we need to get it designed and engineered and then once it's designed and engineered, we get the specs to
contractors and they will tell us what it's going to cost to build. Okay. All right. If again that's that's a design bid build process versus design. Okay. Design build. All right. Yeah, I think Miranda's working on that, right?
Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. All right, Gary. Okay. Um I'm going to go through these really quick. Um we we talked about cameras for the park. Um where are we at on that? Yeah, so I have an update for you.
Um we're um we are making progress on camera installation. We've done uh PD. Uh they're in the process of going up at the park. Uh I think we've done Carver. Um and so uh they are in the process of
going up. We will um that is one of the things that we can have a shade meeting uh is related to security. We've talked to Sasha. Sasha wants some clarification on exactly what we'll be presenting. Okay. Uh, but I think we'd like to have a shade meeting with commission to talk
about security. Okay. All right. Thanks, um, Mike. All right. Thank you for the online permitting and that's coming coming soon. Thank you for that. Um, of course, the girls softball's playing right now at 7. Um, not sure what the score is. I thought we'd be out by then.
Me, too. Um uh there was there is a free shy free comedy show going on at the uh Bay Street Theater started at 7:30. Uh once again was wishing we could have got there. Um and as as Michael said, you know, uh
next week is Eustace High graduation, my daughter included. You know, we got a lot of students. Huh? This week after what? Graduation. It's the 24th. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Week after. Yes. Um, you know, all these students are going to be uh headed to college or trade.
Hopefully, you know, they get they get some great education to come back to Eustace. Um, I don't know if anyone follows American Idol, but um Thundertorm Ortiz, which was here in Eustace for George Fest, I believe, was in one of the top finals. He's in the
finals, isn't he? I believe so. So, you know, I want to give a shout out to Miranda and her team for always seeming seeming to find some really quality talent for all our all our events. Um, and lastly, you know, u Memorial Day is coming coming up end of the month. Um, I
know it's to kick off the summer, uh, but let's not forget what Memorial Day really means. Um it's it's it's it's to honor those that gave that gave everything that they had to keep us free. So let's uh let's honor those
let's honor those that have done that uh one day over the weekend. And sir, I am done. Uh Tom. Yeah. So briefly um uh sent you an email about uh the uh fluidation
process. Um the uh there is a new state law eliminating uh adding fluoride to water. Uh we will of course comply with state law which means we will stop putting fluoride in water uh by July 1st
or when supplies run out whichever comes first. So if supplies run out before July 1st that will be the end of the process. If we still have uh fluoride on hand it will end on July 1. So, we will be compliant with state law. Um,
Commissioner Ashcraft did mention uh new software in development services in the building department. Uh, that soft, we've already transition to that new software in the fire department. Uh, it's working well for them. Uh, we are working to get the word out to
contractors, homebuilders association, the public. Um, and it's kind of dualfold. uh we're looking to improve customer service externally, but we're also looking to improve our process internally. And so I think this software will do that for us. Um cameras, we are
making progress. We'll talk a little bit about having a shade meeting uh to show you what's going on with the cameras. And then uh I am planning to take some time off at the end of next week. Uh Miranda will be here and um acting as
city manager in my absence. And that's all I have. Okay, great. Okay, Sasha, nothing for me. You chickened out. Got it. That was an excellent presentation. [Laughter]
Um, yesterday we had our spirit award and um I just want to thank all of the uh uh the city employees that showed up. It was standing room only. Uh, you know, great job to HR for putting it together
and great job to, uh, you know, everyone that walked away with an award. Um, you know, I think we hit a home run, uh, with our employees. So, I thank you all for everything that you do for the city.
Um, I'm with Gary, graduation in a couple of weeks. U, congratulations to, uh, all of our seniors. Um, and congratulations to your son graduating from college from Stson. Yes. Yes. That was a quick Yeah,
I don't know where the time went. So, um, that is it for me. All right. Ajourn.