good good morning everyone we're going to call the meeting to order today is Thursday March 13 2025 it is 9:00 a.m. all council members are present including Town manager town clerk Town attorney if you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Al to the flag of
the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you our first item on the agenda is our Charter review commission discussion our
review process Nancy thank you mayor um so this item is coming to you because basically your Charter requires um that every 10 years you take a look at your your Charter um
to see if any updates are needed based on changes in Florida law or based on um policy concerns that um you feel uh should be uh reviewed or or altered um
your Charter is primarily your your constitution of how the town of Fort Meers Beach operates um the language in it if you've had the opportunity to look through it um just like the US Constitution um is very Broad and very
general allowing it to stand uh for at least a 10-year period before you go back and and revise it um before uh your Charter provides the for the creation of a committee um to review the various uh
components of it generally that committee would then come to you and provide you with recommendations um you would review those recommendations on whether or not the charter should be changed um then there's a process that needs to take place concerning adoption of an
ordinance and then ultimately the charter change needs to be placed on the ballot and um the next ballot that would be um available for any possible changes would be the November 3D of
2026 um so the the town clerk has advised and I agree with her that we probably should get started on this process through the um appointment of individuals to serve on um on this committee there are some intermediate
deadlines that that we would have to adhere to as well um and we wanted to bring this item to you today to make you aware of it and to hopefully um get some direction on the formation of this
committee I'm going to defer to our town clerk um who has probably a little bit more historical information about how the last Charter review process uh worked and uh she's worked very hard on
this agenda item as well take name well I wasn't part of the last Charter review so I'll I'm recapping what I maybe remember um but once the committee was formed it also includes um the town attorney was part of it the town clerk
was part of it they met I want to say monthly for a while and then maybe every two weeks as the the deadlines started to approach a little bit you know closer um and they basically took the charter document and
went through word by word line by line and came up with their recommendations so you know and update Council as they got to a a a main point of it how many people were on the committee five plus the attorney the
clerk so basically the well it's Five People You appoint okay yeah it's it's not is it applications or yeah what however you choose us there's no clear Direction in how was it done last time do you remember I don't I was
barely started with the other places I've been it's just you just brought your appointment and made a recommendation in a meeting and then it put on the agenda and it was approved when an application make sense to follow the same for any other committee that we have they to Applications application
for and as Amy mentioned they will go through it line by line um their meetings are subject to the sunshine so you would be able to monitor their their progress um I think historically the last Charter review um committee had
nine meetings um but ultimately whatever recommendations they make would come to you and then should you decide that they Merit a change in your Charter we have to go through the ordinance process so that's two additional public hearings so
you will have input at that level as well as if you want to uh listen in in um on any meetings that the charter review has who were the last members of the committee I'll find out for you just
give me a few moments but of course doesn't it still have it has to go to ballot right referend yes ultimately once the ordinance is passed um if you want to make changes uh we create u a very short question that goes
on the ballot and it has to be very clear as to what what what the ask is to change um and then it's a yes or no vote by the electorate do we have any idea at this point I mean how out of date or how many
things would have to be changed or is there any I mean off the top of our head do we know of like certain things that have to be done um I when I looked at it nothing really jumped out um but I mean this is
the core of the way the town operates so it always does Merit just a kind of a comprehensive overall view a lot of cities have had things in there like land use approvals um height which
really should not be in there um and those things have have come out okay um Wade Vos in our firm um has a niche expertise in this area and he's quite often hired by other jurisdictions as well as counties to provide a charter
review um uh overview you know work with their committee um okay so we have expertise as far as you know possible changes but there's nothing that I saw that immediately caused me
concern um I have I uh just a couple questions just clarifi clarifying questions so there were five people last time and and and forgive me did you say that the Town Clerk and the town attorney were members and part of the five or were the ex
official members they're ex officio they're there they staff to try to guide um the discussion and and the comments that are made okay know these meetings are they like this are they adver you watch them live
that okay I have the members if you're ready yes there was also a council liaison assigned to the Charter review um it was Tom Babcock Miffy Greer Dan Hughes Jay light and Dan Parker
liaison was uh Rex anasa FR us so so I think and Amy correct me if I'm wrong we're looking for direction to go ahead and perhaps initiate the process to uh to solicit interest and then
ultimately bring that back to you for appointments I'm I'm in favor of following the same process we do for the Committees you put out there this is essentially another committee people can put in their application and a short-term committee yeah short-term committee and then the applications come to us we select the five and are you
going to put any criteria on be a resident obvious you have to be a resident yeah I would I would say the same as as the um L LPA and audit committee yeah LPA and audit y since it
is subject to Sunshine just like y all the others yes okay and the goal would be to have hopefully an ordinance pass the changes all the recommendations and the ordinance pass before you go on summer break um so by June of 26 because
August is our deadline to get on the ballot for the November election okay I think it would be preferred to have a full-time resident as well I mean you know sometimes people are residents but they're not necessarily here full-time so so you had said at the beginning um
that the next ballot November 3rd of 26 did you mean 25 26 26 that's our next election so we need to start thinking about this now on the ballot by June getting it moving this June to be on next June okay next June wait the whole the committee we don't know how long the
committee is going to meet for the sooner the better essentially and it's by ordinance so there's a month right there okay so when do you want it when do you want to have the fin what do we want the closing period for people that would
like to be part of the committee it's at the will of the council when you tell me that's when we'll close it we're in we're not in a huge rush right now May 15 yeah I would think if we could get it done before the July yeah the July break
okay to have that would would be give them a year essentially appointment in June right that would give him a year to be able to complete the process yeah so we have a council meeting on May 5th and on May 9th 18th so if we put a deadline in of
May 9th could that give us time to look at everything and then vote on it on May 19th or does it have to be advertised more than that there's no requirement for the for the appointments so if we could i''s say
shoot for the first meeting in June for appointments so that would be June 2nd correct work for me okay okay June so we'll put a deadline in of I still think May 15th okay or 16th it's a
Friday and then that gives two weeks before we actually have the meeting doing for the appointments okay agre with that yeah I think that's great I just another suggestion just so there's no confusion I would suggest that that we put in uh
the notice uh both Amy and Nancy that that we uh since a lot of our talent currently serve on a on a Town advisory committee now and many of those folks are year round that we just make it clear that if you are currently on a Town advisory committee you're not
prohibited from serving at all I I just think because I think we're going to draw some of our best talent from somebody who serves on an advisory committee although if you don't that's fine too I just I don't want to discourage people who serve on advisory committee feeling like I'm already on a committee I probably shouldn't apply I
think we should make sure it's they're very welcome to apply if they're even if they're currently serving on an advisory committee were there any changes last time if memory serves me there was like 13 or there was a lot of changes in the
last election there were or the last time the charter came up I remember when Dan and I were first elected uh on the ballot that cycle was the extension of the terms from three to four years as well as changing the election cycle from the spring to the fall big ones were two
big ones two huge ones yeah and I don't know if those were a result of the charter Review Committee or if those were just done I think those were done on their own weren't they I I think part of the charter review I I'm not sure I think it was an amendment I don't
remember because those were the only two referendums yeah and I I don't think they were part of the charter review Dan I can't remember either yeah so in here it says Charter review U the charter review commission shall be appointed at least 6 months before the next scheduled election and complete its work and present any
recommendations to the council for change no later than 60 days before the election which gives you the time to get but if you got to get it on a ballot I was to say we have an AUST to much time to get on a ballot yeah so that that that right there something's got to change yeah so that gives him 12 months
basically to do the audit review and then in time to get it on the ballot well essentially 10 months because it take some months to go through the approval yeah that's true 10 months mon which is plenty of time and
did you say there was a recommend there they have to have a minimum of so many meetings or no there's no no there's no there's no requirement and again um the language in your Charter right now is is pretty broad still I mean it's not
telling you the qualifications and things like that and the language in your Charter should be broad so that it's lasts a long time that we don't have to go back and change yeah because if it's so specific you never know what's going to come
up and they'd have to have at least one meeting yes got to be a minimum yes no maximum all right anybody else have any input you good Nancy yeah I'm fine any any questions good okay that was easy
enough all right the next item is proposed ordinance payment of fees charges for review prior to issuance of permits so the next two items are two um ordinances that uh were discussed
initially by the LPA they wanted us to um take a look at it and draft an ordinance and typically we we don't draft ordinances other than by direction from you um however because your meeting we would have brought these to you on
the 6 of March but because we rescheduled the meeting you all are meeting on the 13th and the LPA had their meeting on the 11th so we did go ahead and present them to them so that you would have the benefit of their
input right off at the get-go um as you review these these two ordinances um and the first one is um mayor do do you want to just read the proposed title or do you want me to read it so everyone knows what we're talking
about all right good P it is a yeah it's a discussion of a draft ordinance of the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida suggested by the land planning agency to attend amend section 34- 53 of chapter 34 Article 2 division one of the Land Development
code regarding acceptance of payment of fees and charges for review of any application or issuance of a permit including inspections until all fees and charges due to the town including but not limited to expenditures for noticing advertising additional Professional Services outstanding utility bills or
code enforcement fines or leans have been paid and the property is in compliance with all application all applicable Town codes and ordinances unless review of the application is needed for safety purposes or for compliance with the town codes and ordinances providing for severability
codifications scrier errors conflicts of Law and providing an effective date should it be local planning agency or land planning local local so the concern um that the LPA came up with was the fact that they were seeing
applications um when there were known U monies that were owed to the town um and so they they had a discussion and we came back with the proposal uh proposed ordinances ordinance that is very very
Broad and I just wanted to focus on two policy questions that we would need your direction for um the idea of of not having any type of indebtedness to the town um
before you come to the town and ask for something else um the two areas where there's primarily an ask is for a land use approval which I always like to characterize that as um some type of
approval for horizontal development or a building permit and again characterizing that as something for a vertical um development or or construction so if an individual comes
to you and has an indebtedness that they owe to the town do you want to have as kind of a gate uh requiring the payment of any monies that are owed before they're able to get any type of land use approval or
any any type of um building permit through that process that's the first um policy question the next policy question deals with well what kind of indebtedness um because there's a whole
variety that we listed um as far as a parking ticket on one extreme and the Other Extreme would be um a Le um based on code enforcement or based on some kind of uh special exception
that you did that you uh imposed that was not paid so that's kind of the the two policy questions that are um embedded in this particular ordinance and um Nancy yes sir just real quick question and I'm
sure you've thought through this but I just have to ask it I love the concept that we're that's before us I'm just curious do you have any uh due process exposure issues for the town legally if we enact something like
this no I mean other communities do it as a requirement uh when you do a submitt for a particular type of application I do have a little bit of concern regarding building permits my recommendation would be should you want
to do this that you limit it to land use approvals and the reason for that is because land use approvals is the very first door that a developer has to go through through once you get your approvals there then down the road you're going to get your development
order and your building permit so stopping it later in the process doesn't really make sense my other concern would be the fact that the um the building permit process is governed by Florida Statutes and I don't want to run into
any type of preemption issue I have looked I think you could do it but why take the risk if you can accomplish this same thing um by making this requirement at uh earlier in the process I think that makes great sense I
I just want to avoid any any litig whether it's substantial or not I just want to avoid any litigation exposure for the town but again I love the concept yeah and but I think your suggestions are good ones well and I think I mentioned it at the LPA I mean we have templates that we use for our
ordinances and there is a template that has been in circulation from way back in the town and sometimes people use that one and you know it it's legally sufficient and I pass it but sometimes there is a specific whereas Clause whereas all advertising and uh
Consulting payments have been made um you know as part of the the wear ass Clauses so I think the town has actually required it in the past but I don't know that you actually had anything in your code that would have um
authorize that so what about if it has not um what if it has not gone to a lean level but there's code
violations that have been issued um and maybe maybe it's not a land use change correct well if then then you basically just have first of all let me back up and say you have your notice of
violation and there's generally a time period to comply and in the event you do not comply by that time period then you go to the magistrate who generally will give you another period of time to comply and if you don't comply by that
second time period that's when the fines can begin to accr that is a separate process nobody has really asked for for an approval in that example that's a process that works itself out on its
own what about situation where Joe developer has a property under under an LLC and now he's coming with a different LLC for a for a ask well Sarah and I
have talked about she's ready um you knew I was ask some regarding code enforcement leans and fines there are some administrative challenges to that because as you are aware if you have a code enforcement lean it will attach not
only to the property where the violation is but also to any other properties that you own I call it the spider you know it stretches to everything so in the ontake of a um or the submitt
of an application are we going to require a title search on that particular property and every other property that they own and to take it one step further what happens if they are a member of an LLC that owns another
piece of property that does that then also require them to make payment for that other lean on that other property because they are just a member not an owner an outright owner but a
member um and I'll defer to Sarah so uh this is something that that Nancy and I had a discussion about um and then Judith and I had a discussion about and um I'm not sure if this would work fully but one option would be and uh Nancy
brought this up is that they could provide an Affidavit of the do of the properties that they own um you know and along with their application you know I am a full or partial owner and list the other ones we wouldn't be required to do
a property search and we wouldn't be required to do a title search to ensure that this was correct we would assume that they did that and a this is a small town people usually have an idea of what other people may own and if any of this
is incorrect so it wouldn't it would be on them to provide us that information just because the the work to do it would be onerous and in the instance that they did own uh they were a partial owner in a property we would want them to say so
maybe the affidavit would be something along the lines of I am a full or partial owner of property X and we owe no leans property why there are leans or we are in Code Compliance or we would ask that they give us that information
and if they give us that information up front you know sometimes it's a pretty long wait for them to get fully through the process if they need to get all of their information together and go through the process with Town staff and then get to you guys and that would sort of give them the encouragement to
resolve these issues so that when you get that application in front of you you can say well it looks like you're also partial owner of property why and that you were in Code Compliance back in November has this been resolved um it would not be part of the decision making
uh per se but it would be you know it would give you an indication of if they were a good actor and if they were honest in the community um so not part of your decision-making criteria but maybe a good indication of how they act in the community and
um it would encourage them to resolve these issues prior to coming to you I don't know that I'm comfortable with relying on a bad actor's honor yeah it's it's just the idea of doing the actual title search for all the
repeated Bad actors to to tell us the truth they wouldn't be bad actors I I don't know that i' ha to waste more staff time on someone that is not going to lie to you and waste everybody's time anyway well how what would the if we
were to be required to do property searches or title searches what would that entail is that it all reasonable it's not only the financial but it's also a delay um perhaps unnecessarily um so I mean my thought process my
recommendation would be that if you are going to move forward with this that it only be the property that is the subject matter of the application that's in front of you and notand it out wouldn't that be consistent with the lean process then as
well I mean like we had to go through before someone that was a bad actor had other properties on the island that were in the same LLC and it attached to all of their properties that were within that umbrella not just the one so this would be consistent with that process
essentially um I'm I think my recommendation is a little narrower that only if the violation occurred on that property and I do want to point out that there are two exceptions that are embedded in this proposed ordinance the first is if the application is needed to
address a safety concern um and that might be in the case of um a demolition or or something that they have to get that permit because it needs to it needs to come down and the other is for compliance with the code so
they may have a lean or yes a lean for a violation on the code and in order to fix it they need to get a special exception um are you then going to require that payment of that lean before they get the special exception or are
you going to allow the special exception to move forward with the understanding that that lean is still out there and again there is a existing collection process for your code enforcement lead so how does it how does this whole
process work say you're running an illegal parking lot and you want to change the use on one of your rental spaces within your building would would this be part of that that you would have to come into compliance or pay your leans for the illegal parking lot to be
able to say change a was a restaurant to a dentist office or a dentist office that now wants to be a restaurant so the the application that's being requested is not to fix the violation of the illegal parking lot
right the application is to do something else um but it all is on the same property it is on the same property correct so in that situation I think that this would prohibit uh moving forward on that
so what about when they own two different properties and they want to change something on the property that does not have any code violations against everything but again their owned are the
same people by the same people um they could move forward without any payment in that situation based on my recommendation only the subject property that is only the property that is the sub subject of the application that's being
requested and I don't know how much this has happened but I've heard of it happening in the past where someone had bought a property on the residential property on the island didn't know that there were outstanding fines there was no leans but there were outstanding fines with the town and then the new
owner got stuck with all these fines and had to remove structures from their property because that's how they had to come into compliance right how can we can there a way we can address that's kind of a buyer beware wouldn't address any of that it still would be do your own due
diligence well I think it would require the payment of those fines because those fines are an indebtedness to the town at the time but it would be by the new owner correct by the old correct that's
shady well John you're a quiet over there what do you you got to say uh not much so your suggestion Nancy is to not tie it to building permits per se but just to land use because again that's
the beginning of the process and two because building permits are highly regulated by State Statute and we don't want to run a foul of any of that and then so what I had asked would that cover when you're saying land use would
that that would include a special exception if you wanted to change a use yes within that land I'm comfortable with that yeah variances uh rezonings development agreements deviations anything yeah Sarah what am I leaving
out um I think that pretty much covers it yeah those clausi judicial things that we do do you you okay with that yeah yeah k no but we have to go with I mean it's
the better than what it is now yeah let's put it that way I was wondering about the whole permit thing because I know we've had that issue before people are like well that person's in violation they owe hundreds of thousands of the Town hard are they getting a permit for a fence right oh yeah we've all heard
we've all heard those emails yep Jim you okay with it I I like it as as amended by the Town Council I'm sorry the town attorney yeah recommended recommended recommended John good okay so the second policy question that we would like some
direction on um and the LPA had a debate about this um the items that are identified is quite Broad and that was intentional on our part part of a few of the LPA members wanted to um make it
more specific and shorter um but others wanted to keep it Broad and the example is the parking ticket so if I need to have my property rezoned and I owe money on a parking ticket this would require me to pay for
that parking ticket before I can continue through the process I mean I don't see this being a game changer one way or another if you're looking to redevelop your property a $77 parking ticket's probably not going to stop you so having it in there is not going to be well and then
it would be beneficial to the town because then we have a collection yeah situation I think it should be I'm okay with the broadness okay Scott yeah absolutely yes John certainly
there you go okay so I have direction to go ahead and move forward with the ordinance making those changes um this will come back to you um it'll go back to the LPA for additional discussion and recommendation um and then it'll come to you um sitting as Town Council for for a
proposed ordinance two readings and an adoption hearing okay the next ordinance um draft ordinance before you um mayor if you want to go ahead and read it it is a discussion of a draft ordinance at the town of Fort Meers Beach Florida
amending Land Development code section 34236 related to notices suggested by the local planning agency um I think Sarah you were going to handle this one sure um so the idea is uh
that the time that it takes staff um and the complaints that we've heard that people are not receiving our uh mailers um we thought that it may make more sense for this to be handled by applicants um the way this is currently
written that would only apply to applicants doing uh C ppds uh rezonings um the larger cases this wouldn't apply to variances and special exceptions um and that would save staff a lot of time
um that is not currently fully covered right now the fee basically covers the printing and um the actual uh postage for the mailers um other communities do require similar things that the uh
property owner who is requesting the development and has to do notification they have to do it themselves uh then they provide the town with affidavit and a list of the people who receive or who were sent uh the mailers um another thing that has been discussed is the
signage that needs to be put up some communities require large signs you've probably seen it down in col your county um over on in city of Fort Meyers they require larger signs to be printed we wouldn't be requiring that we would just be requiring that they pick up a sign
the signs that we provide they write out the information on it and they put it on the site and then they can provide us with an affidavit that it's been done a picture of it um it would be a fairly simple process um we would ask that special exception and variance Property
Owners do the signage we could do the mailings for them but we would ask that they do the signage themselves unless they're out of town and then they can reach out to us you know if they don't have anybody working for them and they live out of town we don't have a problem handling that but it would take something off of staff's plate that is
currently has been an issue um so we wanted to see what you thought about this if you thought this was a reasonable approach if you had any concerns questions Etc I think it's super reasonable yeah I mean most people have
someone hired anyway whether it be a developer attorney or whatever that could provide the background for all of this and then the affidavit um I mean the people complaining about mail I mean I I just got a Christmas card was
mailed yeah exactly so do we would we be providing them the circumference the 500 foot circumference or is that on them to provide an affidavit to say here's who we mailed to that's on them and they actually don't get that from us as it is we get that from Lee County or we in the past we required them to give us the
list of labels so most of the applicants are still sending us because it is in our code that hasn't been updated so most of them are still going to Lee County getting the gis document and including it in their packet which is the list of all the names so this is
already information that's very easily accessible and if anybody has problems questions they're more than welcome to reach out to us and we will assist them um also there are companies who do this type of work so if you know if if it is kind of a small and small m pop
operation that is doing a CPD and they don't have somebody they can hire somebody to do it is it safe to say that this process update would speed up the process maybe just even a little bit because it's not taking more staff time it wouldn't necessarily speed up the process um there isn't a lot of the
those of us who are working on the staff reports and working on the back and forth with the applicant aren't necessarily doing the printing um but it would save staff time that could be dedicated to other things that new need to get done I thought I heard you I'm sorry I thought I heard you say that sometimes
the applicant would send them out and sometimes staff would send them out help is that correct so so for uh the larger cases the cpds the rezonings um I think it might say dris right now um whe that's not necessarily applicable but um
the larger cases they would send them out but for the smaller cases like the rezonings and not the rezonings the variances and the special exceptions we could do that because we realized that in a lot of instances they don't have anybody hired you know they may be doing it themselves um and it is something
that we could handle we could also still put that on them we just recognize that it may be something that's a little bit out of some people's wheelhouse and it might cause some discomfort or confusion um and we're not trying to add to that we're just trying to take something off
of our plate especially for the larger uh developments that you know we may have to send out a thousand mailers it's it's a lot of time and energy and then we just get a lot of complaints if I may add some context to that U speaking of some of the larger
projects that we had um when you're sending out a thousand cards that's taking staff almost three days away from a project that they could be helping and moving on in the background so to me that's putting it in context it's a very small ask and like Sarah said where I came from it was always on the developer
um it wasn't on the county or municipalities um we're not asking for the moon and the stars we're just asking for a little help in the process makes sense to me what is the what is the line of demarcation here in terms of who has to do take this on now versus who
doesn't have to take it on um so I believe the way it's written um and I didn't write this Judith did so she and I have had a couple conversations um at this point it's the variances and the special exceptions that are not required
to do um their own mailers but they would be required at this point signs are left out of that too but after some discussion she and I think that the signage should be on them also unless they request it to be on us um which we're not we don't have a problem with if they're not in the area and they
can't do it um but we would handle the mailers for the variances and the special exceptions and then if somebody came in with a CPD a rezoning a um RPD uh a development agreement for those
projects they would be be handling the signage and the mailers um but again the signage it's the signs that we have we're not requiring that they hire a sign company get them print it out get somebody to install them it's just our little signs that they write on you know they would just have to come in fill it
out put it out there give us an affidavit so that's right now that's what cpds rpds development agreements dris rezonings so if you're just coming in to ask for a variance for your fence that's what I'm just going to go to yeah just the fence the fence example would
be would give me some pause uh but yes so so the other just just devil's advocate here because I it seems like a good idea uh so you've got a challenge with our Postal Service already and so so you many of these uh uh proposals are
contentious and and so now you you've got a dynamic now where a neutral party is sending out the notifications and suddenly that shifts to the to the applicant uh who obviously has a bias and so if some body doesn't get a postcard even though there's an affidavit signed it just seems like it
potentially puts some additional gasoline on the fire for folks to say you know they never sent me a postcard those bums I mean they're just out the day before yeah yeah they're just they're just out to make money and they they they stuck it to us and never notified us and obviously you do have
the affidavit but if you it just seems like it potentially adds volatility to an already volatile situation I'm just just just what's your thought on that so if that is a concern other communities that I've worked in have required certified mail um that way you
have a record of when it went out you I mean you know if somebody received it you it you get it back if they didn't um so that is one way to do it and I you know I've worked in communities where you have to give them an affidavit and then you have to give them all the slips
so really interesting yeah I just wonder what it does add a layer of difficulty though yeah and cost I'm guessing right yeah wouldn't it make more sense to increase the amount of time they have to send that out so you know a lot of people will wait till that deadline just for that reason in other communities I'm
guessing well and in and in some instances it's difficult to send it out too much before that because we're working back and forth they're trying to get on an agenda date and we can't verify that they can make it on the agenda date until they've gotten us all the documents until we make sure that
it's really ready um so I I would agree except in some instances that's going to push them off to the next meeting or they may send out mailers that uh that aren't accurate and then they have to
resend them if they end up on the next meeting so it it is it is a kind of a tight schedule right now we're sending them out about 10 days in advance and we're being told that people aren't getting them could we make it a certified is preferred but not required well but not everybody's going to
probably do it anyway yeah well I mean it it still goes to uh Mr ader Holt's concern that you know on those contentious cases they might say no we didn't do certified and they didn't have to do certified but then everybody feels like well now you're being really sneaky
you could have done certified to prove that's true so yeah I I don't know that is kind of only way that you can keep them checked is by requiring certified if you were going to go that route because now you're making you know
take that extra step and like of a better term certify that they sent it out to the what what kind of cost are we talking about yeah that was my question I could not tell you um I I can't recall I mean I have I have done the certified mailers like sticking them on the
envelopes and you know for an engineering firm so I I just wonder with the with the like seven or eight I hate to use the word transiency of this island but there's a lot of folks that come and go and don't you know just here part-time and
I wonder if that certified mail thing would alleviate some of the challenges we've had in the past of making sure people at least we make a good attempt to get them the information I'd have to do a little research on certified mail to see how cost of certified mail is $485 I just yep I just looked it up we
that's that's come on the the mail it's like you live on an island you just got whacked by three hurricanes you really think the mail I I mean we all every everyone that lives on this island knows that the mail is not
reliable right so that this excuse that I didn't get I didn't get the flyer come on staff time you know probably equal that amount as well if you think of the hourly rate that six or seven people are working on that to do it's going to that you build the applicant for that obviously so they're going to pay one
way they going pay one way or the other that's interesting well as of now we I don't think we bu for the hours yeah for right now we don't but if we we did that would that's the cost that the town is currently bearing it's fair to bill for that yeah but I but but again I'm sorry I I got I got mixed signals from Scott
and Dan did you think the certified mail was a good idea or a bad idea bad idea I'm sorry Jim no no I don't care I'm just talking that's why we that's why we're here having a we shouldn't there is a cheaper way to send certified mail you head to the post office select certified mail as an option for your
letter and it goes down to 335 yeah well I can just see someone sitting at one of those machines for one two got 499 to go that's not government well for me it's it's if it was solving a problem but because they're sending it
certified isn't going to solve the problem no it's not GNA it's not going to take away I didn't get it you know it's not going to take away the person that wasn't at the mailbox that day even though it was sent certifi no no I I I'm not advocating for it I'm just this is part of this is why we're here we're having a discussion I I I don't and
you're getting a certified letter from a developer and it's like I'm not going to pick that thing up I'm not sign that what's that about or from the town you know what do they want yeah I don't necessarily need certifi a little certified slippery yeah all right it's an undue cost it doesn't solve a problem
I agree that's a big cost send out 500 but I do support this that they do it and taking it up yes the pressure off the staff I do too and I I think that you know in the instance that you know somebody say 10 people come to the
meeting and none of them got the mail or a whole bunch of people didn't get the mail then we might question like did you do this and maybe we don't feel there was adequate I don't know I don't know if that's an issue though Nancy do you know Nancy how this affidavit process works do they just attest that they did
the mailing or does is the post office involved in that affidavit process or do they have to show do they have to demonstrate something the way that I've seen it in other communities is that it's just an affidavit but attached to it um is the list of everybody who they
are attesting that they mailed much like what we do when we put our documents together we list all the address the addresses people well you would be able to verify through postmarks would you I mean if they said we sent it out on this date and someone gets it and it was postmark two days after when they said they sent it pretty easy to prove they
didn't send it on the day they said they were going to send it or they said they sent it I guess it depends on the efficiency of the system too I don't know because I'm not I mean hopefully it would be stamped the day it's it's brought in but I don't know I mean I know we've had
a lot of of issues here on the island so I don't know for sure don't we usually reference the date of the letter versus the date of the stamp yes yeah I guess the good thing is is that if it is a good thing that that the more contentious items receive a lot of
publicity so generally people will be aware they know anyway for other purposes yeah and we are going to the signs will be happening more consistently because we're requiring that the applicant put up the signs so you know that's one way and that they
give us an affidavit showing that they've done that but are we I'm glad you brought that back up I mean how long does it take to put a sign in and if we're not if if we're going to require them to do it the only way we're going to know if they did it is to go to the site to see if it's there anyway well I mean usually the what they do is we
require that they take a picture of the sign and they give us an Affidavit of the that they install the sign but and also think that it's a fast thing to get but with the traffic the way it is if you have to go all the other don't bring that I'm just saying not on the agenda
it it does it does take a lot of Staff time to actually get out there on some occasions you know so well it's easy for about the F part so they would have to take a picture yeah they would have to show us that at least it was up and and they don't have to prove in some communities they have to prove that the
sign remained up right um we're not asking you know and then somebody could come by and vandalize the site and pull out the sign and I've had that happen on cases you know somebody doesn't want the case to go forward they go out there and they pull up the sign every time a sign gets put out and then the case gets
delayed so we're not requiring that um I mean we're basically we're saying we're doing our best effort and the applicant is doing their best effort and we have affidavits and we're trying to get the word out but for especially for special exceptions and variances you know it's
all of the notification right now is a courtesy um and in the instance where they have to do um an ordinance then it has to be in the newspaper and that's the official notification that is required by state law and we've also got tablets recently
that they can notify us that they put it up and our code people can drive out and take a picture of it time stamped and location stamped and everything to verify that they did that so that's not hard to do our people are all over the island and we can just have that step and it doesn't cost anything extra
approv so I'm going to take this moment to point out that um in paragraph B of the proposed language changes um there is another sentence that we added requiring that the signage that's posted be in layman's language so instead of a
multif family dwelling that it's a apartment building and I think that that's a pretty big step towards greater transparency as far as what's really going to to happen on that parcel who's who's who's going to make the determination of what Layman
means f grade I don't know Sarah I mean you would and does that and does that create an argument since we're talking about someone coming in and arguing about something common terminology well so so here's the here would be my answer
currently we're not required to do put it in layman's terms and in the past it's been um applicant is uh applicant for blah blah address is requesting variance from section blah blah blah blah blah of
code and then and but then it says if you have questions about this application please call staff and we get lots of phone calls we get lots of emails so right now I mean we are we have improved that but in the past it was very basic it was just to fit on the
postcard it's not just basic it's unhelpful yeah yeah so to your point this lat term attempt is certainly better than nothing yeah right yeah I don't want to Reit the wheel and and I and I think that um I
mean we would still want them to include staff information so you know the you know if applicants have or if uh you know anybody who receives the notice has questions they can still contact whoever is the staff member working on that case
and again that seven calendar days there's no way to extend that but because of the times of getting them on the meetings I mean seven days doesn't seem especially with the way our Mailing Service sometimes is lag I I think you have discretion in that regard if you
want to make it longer I mean we we could aim for 10 because 10 is what we aim for now I um I would be I would feel more comfortable because if you put it in there you drop it in the Box on Saturday night they're not going to touch it till Monday so you just wasted
two days of the seven but you technically drop it in there on the seven well you're really optimistic about our Postal Service that's pretty impressive well I I just got a Christmas card lastek and some some some offices main office could
be in Atlanta or Tallahassee or somewhere by the time it got got a notice to appear for jury duty two months ago the day before I was supposed to report oh nice AB luckily I didn't have to but thank God did yeah I'd say there's an issue yep there is an
issue everybody okay with the 10 days yeah John certainly yeah like 10 days sure little time never heard me say prison no I'm good you got everything you need
Sarah all right then our last item is the temporary housing discussion m Karen I believe this is you wanted to have this added to it for everybody
brought it up well we have I think it was last year or maybe even 16 months ago we extended the temporary um RVs or trailers whatever
for residential to September of this year of 2025 and saying that you know they either need to be in permitting they need to be able to show
plans they need to be working on building um otherwise they have to move they have to get off their property and there's a lot of questions already coming in on that and I just thought if we can get ahead of this and decide what is going
to be realistic for this year are we moving that end date out are we keep keeping it September of 25 just so people know what to expect and and if we do keep it of 2025 what are those exact parameters that you're
allowed to stay in place or you have to move well I guess let's start with has anybody changed their opinion I think it was unanimous when we said that the three-year Mark of the storm was going to be the deadline I I thought we did that because that was what the state well that was the state and if the state
extends it the state extends there I thought that that was well kind of my thought process was let's go with what the state does so and I haven't heard anything that they're going to extend Senate Bill 250 but it very well and I haven't seen anything in any of
the updates from Tallahasse yet that it said they are going to no extend it there may be different wording somewhere else it's going to be in a different bill but let me ask you this has there been um any any Senate bill that was for specifically Milton instead
of Ian not that I've not that I've I mean just other than the state of emergencies I don't know that they changed anything Nancy would probably know better yeah so um in your packets um sp250 did establish that uh three-year period um
but since that um that part of s sp250 was codified in section 166.370 in your um in your packet what that statute does now what page is it I
have page 43 of 44 yes okay um so what that statute did was basically preempted local governments from uh prohibiting um temporary residential structures uh from remaining in certain
zoning categories um during after a uh An Occurrence of a storm but it was subject to three criterias that there was some type of good faith effort to rebuild or
renovate um including but not limited to applying for a building permit submitting a plan or obtaining a construction loan also that whatever temporary structure was there um or shelter excuse me um be connected to
Water and Electric utilities and without Pres presenting any type of threat to health and human safety and also that the resident live in the temporary structure so it was a codification for of that three-year period um
your ordinance that was adopted the emergency temporary placement permit you all had only had an 18month period with re with re reviews for Renewal correct and and so the state
basically preempted that so now you're at um 36 months there's no prohibition on the part of the state to going beyond the 36 months FEMA has asked that or has
requested directed whatever you want to call it that you not issue any more emergency temporary placement permits however they didn't say anything about extending the ones that you already have in place you did go forward by
resolution and direct the town manager to revoke those permits related to U containers and I believe the town manager has done that but those other permits that are still out there for residential temporary residential
structures there's still permits that appear to be in effect with the authorization to the town manager to extend those now you're your um ordinance does have some um qualifications in there as far as the
extension um it would be if the town manager or design decides if a hardship exists based on evidence that's provided by the permit holder uh that they've exercised all due diligence in obtaining permits either for repair or replacement
and that other criteria might be whether the applicant has had difficulty in completing insurance claims obtaining an architect engineer construction materials um or getting a loan or some some other type of
thing FEMA so again we have three different like types of of regulations we talked about the state statute that is your code FEMA in their last letter um to Andy basically said I want to read
it verb um that having um the question was asked do temporary housing trailers such as recreational vehicles park trailers or similar need to be removed from the special flood Hazard area for the town
to come into compliance with the letter dated 1121 2024 FEMA's response was temporary housing for disaster survivors that has been permitted by the town of Fort Meyers Beach is accept
but in read between the lines disaster survivors right which goes right into their this last thing at the state the resident lives in is the resident living there which would be a survivor in the words of thema or they renting the lot or they renting the lot that that's
that's the breakdown that we're seeing out there right now but the state um statute only applies for the first 36 months which is September of 25 that's fine but once you go past that based on what you just read from FEMA
how are we going to because I will all but guarantee you if they're still here FEMA is going to ask for us to prove that that's a disaster Survivor living in that trailer or they could based on their response I hate to be so cynical but know first the post office and now the
FEMA Dan you're just a ball of Hope today a skeptic of the federal government Dan so in order to um um address I mean we're talking very broadly very general here um I think what we really need to do and and I
defer to the town manager is to get our arms around how many residential permits are out there how many people fall within this category how many people do not fall within this category and address it on a caseby casee basis which is what you have in your
ordinance but and it's also how many residential permits are out there but also who of those residential permits are in the process of building permitting I mean those people are fine it's the ones that are sitting on empty
lots with nothing going on and we don't even know if it's the resident or not the resident we have a a spreadsheet we're working on now for FEMA that should have all that information on it in short order hopefully in the next few days of the resident but again there's
no way you're there's no way the town can tell who's living in that that's correct there's no way short of knocking on the door and asking for their driver's license or seeing if it's you know on our our new software that we're getting to see if somebody's renting it out you know that's a short-term rental
I mean that that that will show as soon as we get that in place but I think the point of this discussion I I want to speak to you but was is there a time frame or we want to say there's just no more trailers on Residential Properties I think that's what this discussion think that would be a
direction to the town manager to not issue any extensions but there are some there I mean there there's 95 there's excuse me currently your code says unless there's hardship um I mean there's 95 properties where people are waiting you know for Fe
get the funds for to lift their properties so I mean that I would call that a hardship but that that's an extend but that's covered in here you know it's the same thing like if you're building but you're not done yet or you've pulled your permits or you're working with your architect you know
you're doing your do you're doing what you're supposed to be doing right so that's that extenuating circumstance hardship whatever but it's again I think personally I think we leave the date and we deal with the exceptions or the
people that have done nothing to come into compliance and and there are a number of empty lots where you have a trailer and no one has been there in in months trailer's there it's hooked up like we requested to electricity and and to sewer but it's just sitting there but
it's just sitting there yeah and it hasn't been used it hasn't been habitated are they coming down on vacation and using it because they have the proper we've all gotten emails that have from from residents that are complaining about that they're setting up a camper they're going back up north for the summer and the winter they're coming down and they're using the
trailer with no intentions exactly building anything on that L I've seen one set up in the last six weeks or so that follows that same logic and there's so many permits that have been issued over the last temporary permits that have been issued some have end dates on them renewal dates some don't I know for
sure two that I've talked to that their permit is open end and it doesn't have an end date so the renewal how do you they don't know when their renewal has to be their their permit doesn't have an end dat how do you reset the clock right how do you we can reach out to the people that were issued attemp use
permit we can run that data we can go down that list we can we can use uh the code Department to go out and and verify that these are sitting on an empty lot trailers whatnot we can deduce all that and break it down and reach out to those people and find out which ones are
open-ended and which ones would have to come for Renewal we could set that we could create the metric I would think Dan that anybody with a temporary use permit and it's open-ended it's not temporary so my point exactly but it says on their temporary use per there's
no end date on no end dat I've seen two of them personally that don't have end I believe you so how do you but but but if you say hey look the end dat's this date they can't say well it was open-ended that's not the definition of temporary I I'm okay with I'm okay with the end date that we've all talked about and agreed
upon I have no issues with that but what happens on that date I don't think it's fair to staff to say they someone could come in and plead their case that you know we're just about to submit our permit to build our house but it's the 28th now and we're not going to be able to submit it for another month you know
we need a little bit more time it's it's to me it puts undo burden on staff because now someone can say you know staff I'm just gonna use Frankie because he's looking at me but Frankie gave me an extension but he didn't give this or I didn't get an extension but he gave that one and I have the same circumstance do we want I mean how many
are left out there that would be good data to have how many are still left out there I mean if we're only talking a few have but this is the policy decision should come but this is why I'm bringing it up in March we are six months ahead
of this get your act together if you're going to be applying get going because the end date is September 30th 2025 right and and you know what's going to happen on the 29th you're GNA have a stampede of people coming in here and saying oh here here here you
go well you know what I've said it many times is the further we get away from that storm the decisions are going to be harder people are not going to like them things are going to have to happen that nobody wants to do but you've had enough time right I mean you've had enough time to try to make some progress now there
are things like you said Scott there's 50 some properties that are waiting for you know are those people even staying on their properties we don't know I think having the data to be able to make that decision would be very helpful here's how many permits we know are out there now it may mean there's some that don't have permits that's a whole code
enforcement thing but now you can look at those are they making which ones have permits in place which ones don't and narrowed down to the ones that we know which is probably not a whole lot that are living in trailers that have absolutely no plans of doing anything
yeah but I guarantee you there are some but then I think as a council you can make that policy decision and say Here's the ones that need to you know need to come in and explain their case or here's the ones that shouldn't be getting another permit it takes it takes the
onus off of one person or two people the staff member that way if they've got problems they come to us VI you I think we're still far enough away from the date where we could even issue a courtesy letter to those properties that we do discern as hey questionable right saying hey what what exactly are your
plans yeah what are your intentions exactly but I I think that gives us enough time to collect all that data and at least come up with a A Plan A and B for you present John I good on all
this are you okay with that Karen we'll we'll get the yeah data back to us so that we can see how many are out there kind of numbers we're talking about yeah I just want you know I don't want the I didn't want this to happen in August that's why I brought it up now we've got
six months people have six months know that this is coming and you know and people have heard I think when we said it a year ago that September is going to to be the deadline even commercial properties have heard it right yeah actually you know on the
commercial side they they like that there's a definite end date so they can make plans it's when stuff's up in the air right you know they just keep rolling with it so I think a lot of times if you do give a deadline it
will cause action to that point when when you brought that up Council brought that up about making sure people understood that this wasn't going to be going on forever uh we only only had one business that was in a temp situation come forward and go through that process
currently in that process close to getting out of there so sometimes it Tak the Kick the Can down the road a few times to well I people are getting tired of the can getting kicked you know it's it's it's
not just trailers it's derc properties it's you know properties that are torn down but now they're not cleaning up their it's it's and it's not just the sterile Boulevard it's the side streets we'll bring this up later but Nancy what do you think I think that um just the direction
that you're giving to the town manager and and staff I I think that's adequate at this time um knowing that we're doing it before before the deadline um I I like the idea of the courtesy notice um but I think the town is in control of
establishing that deadline but for the state statute they only had 18 months and then they would have had to come and ask for the extension so now they had 36 months and now they need to come and ask for an extension based on
the you know the circumstances well in all fairness that that 18 months when we were s when we were sitting at the the we didn't know we didn't know month and a half after a storm we 18 months seemed like a really long time until 13 months later you still can barely see a ster
Boulevard because the sand is on it but so 18 months was kind of just a pick a number because you didn't know now we know 18 months it goes by very fast all right you got so you going to bring it back at a council meeting then or would it be next month's MMP how the
data to bring it back so that we can review the data give direction as to but I think we're all in agreement better John you in agree with the the September 30th deadline regardless of what we what comes out of that yeah sooner the better
yes Karen yes Scott yes okay could we have the data by the April 7th Town council meeting we'll work to get that done yes because I do think I mean me personally I think it should be at a town council meeting it gets a lot more yes
visibility then and it makes it more concrete well you know that'll give an opportunity for people that maybe are in the situation to come up in public comment and give their two cents on something that maybe we didn't think of or a situation that's out there that we maybe didn't think of yep so can I just
have Clarity that this is only for permits that have been issued this is for extensions not for the granting of any new permits is that correct yeah we haven't changed that well we're not right ISU permit we are not issuing any permits so if you do not have a permit
this isn't really going to help you you shouldn't be doing that anyway um but if you do have a permit and you need more time and there's extenuating cir cumstances hardship you can get an extension reasonable you might be able
you might be able to yeah you not you can you might be able correct there's an Avenue right all right got it Andy yes sir all right let's see that was the last one I think that was the last one which is brings us to
uh agenda man management Mr Mayor yes sir before we get to agenda management I just happened to be looking at my town phone and I just got an advisory from the town uh saying a stero Boulevard will be closed from s from Santini Plaza
to 175 Sterling Avenue for the Women's Club St Patrick's Day parade on Saturday this coming Saturday which is great but what I just wanted to wrestle with this thought here then the next sentence is the road will be closed from 7:30 a.m.
to 11:30 a.m. I'm wondering are we literally closing a stero from 11 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. and I because the parade lineup they want the floats there by eight so if folks are just a I mean they wouldn't even be able to get to
Santini Plaza with their floats right I think that would be advisory just went yeah I would think we should double check with lcso they're the ones that are controlling that road being shut off yeah that that's a and and we'd want to change that advisory uh the parade
starts at 10 so I mean having the road closed during the parade certainly makes sense and maybe just a little before but that's a lot of time before the parade starts so I just and is it just closed between those two places well if it's if it's closed between those two places then the whole Estero Boulevard is in
essence shut down right I mean so it's well the Time Square could still be open no that's true but if you're trying to go north to south or south to North you can't get through we can't get through and I think that's that I just I don't even think they would want that I I don't want to speak for the Women's Club but I I can't imagine they'd want
to shut that road down at 7:30 a.m. when when the lineup you're they're supposed to get the floats there by 8 that may be just what they put in their application is hours of operation but that might not be when the road is actually closed lcso would be able to clear that up I would hope that's where we got that
information from lcso I just don't want the poor Sheriff's Office to be there 7:30 thinking they're doing us a favor I highly doubt that they'd want to shut it down at 7:30 no they would want to but they may be they may think they're directed to yeah okay I'm sorry go ahead um no John anything for agenda
management I don't have anything Jim I I I I mentioned this before the meeting but I'll just say it publicly would be great to have F.C and talk about the foot of the Bridge Project we've talked about this a few times and I know it's challenging to get them here um but just give us an
update uh stuck in traffic I'll pursue that on the 21st at the county MPL back on the permit that the times were what Nicole just texted me that's what was on their permit so we'll follow up with LSUS so and get the right information out John uh you'll
follow up with that because you are now in a position of authority with the right are you the are you the chairman of the mo I'm this year's chair could you take a second and explain what the what that means and what the no does it means I run the meetings Jim and I would
cut off debate from you and because I'm so loquacious yeah you give him a soft but I guess my question is the no controls all funding decisions for transportation projects in Lee County Le County correct I'm just trying to toot your horn a little bit a and if
don't mess with my to too because it would be nice to know what the plans are for that roundabout and the moat they're building there not a roundabout but what was a Mr Peanut isn't that what we de about whatever they it look well it looks like a retention fond is all it pickle pickle pickle that's all I've got
Mr all right Karen I'm good I'm good um the only thing I would like to add if if there's another council member that would like to see it I'd like to see a formal plan from staff as to you want to say something we've
we've attacked a sterile Boulevard for lack of better terms uh to come into compliance with unsafe structures steril properties I'd like to see a formal plan from staff to bring to us as to the side streets you know and it's not just houses that are need to come down um
it's properties that are five foot weeds that you know we can go through the code enforcement process I'd like to I'd like to see that process if it hasn't started start and what the plan is to be able to get that implemented because we know how long I can take should someone not want to come into compliance corre and deide
they want to fight the system I'm all for that I'm totally in agreement on that could I I love that idea Mr Mayor but I I would just wonder if we could just add on to that it would be great for folks to particularly in individual neighborhoods to have some kind of a
metric or something online and maybe it is online uh uh Town staff but where they could check on a home uh there's a there's an example on tropical Shores way when we've talked a little bit about this there's a home that has never been
entered since hurricane Ian and it is uh the person was a hoarder and the house is full of stuff and and there it is the it is rat infested Central on Fort Meers Beach the rats are literally terrorizing the neighbors they're eating the the
wires in their cars and trucks uh it's it's the quality of life on tropical Shores way is grim and I just and I just use that as an example I know the town's done a nice job of trying to do everything they can to put pressure on the owner of that property to do something but it would be great if
people could go on a website and say okay the Town attorney's doing a search and it's in that process now ory the search is done but now we've noticed them and they've got X days it would be great to have some kind of a system where people could check on a property
cuz I get a lot of inquiries about hey uh uh there's this property in my neighborhood we' called before and and we got a nice response from the town initially but where does it stand because I know it is it takes a while for you to do the search and and and it just be nice for people to be able to
look up a property and say hey what's the status is it is it currently being is it we uh early on when we started the unsafe building um process the demolitions um we created a spreadsheet which has been turned over to staff um
to to do that monitoring and and moving the uh the pro projects forward our only role right now is getting um title searches if we are given an address to to research so it's really been turned over but it takes you a while to do that
search right the title search does yes what is that timeline at this point oh it depends on the property um I've seen two we turnaround I've seen a month okay and then this information Frankie is is there a way for the public to ever be able to access it we could definitely
work on a way to make it accessible to the public um it's it's public record you know as soon as we we contact those people that they're in violation it becomes a public record yeah so we could easily share that and we can also incorporate U you know we follow the the
is it the the greater Municipal Building Code uh type thing for unkempt properties so you can right you can tie in a lot of those things into that same spreadsheet so people could easily discern hey property at 123 you know Acme Street uh is currently under
violation for the following bing bing bing and the town is pursuing this would they know Aur would they know when they got noticed that if you don't tear it down we're going to tear it down and would they be able to see that timeline as well we can to a point but again you're not accounting for appeals
processes and then we cannot supersede what the building official done that has nothing to do with the date of the notice that is correct correct we could issue that we could have that in there for them because a lot of people will even us and ask a question has this been violated it's been two and a half years has this even gotten a violation on it correct and to be able to see that to
the vice mayor's point I can look up ab 123 ABC Street and see that either nothing's happened with this property which would be a shame I would hope by now we have a list of all the properties on the island that need to be come into compliance but for people to be able to
see that I think would help alleviate some of the neighbors as well as staff time and not having to answer or emails or us forwarding emails to you saying what's going on with this property I I know one of for sure that best I've been able to check has had nothing from the
Town Sent to it at least that I found and every single one of us it's on the busiest intersection of the well currently the busiest intersection on the island that everybody Drives By because they have to every time they leave the island that talk about rats and car still in the garage that hasn't
been touched since the storm I can't find any information from the town as far as violation on that property and I don't know why and that's why I was asking I would like to see a plan why you know necessarily we're past the why what are we going to do to address these properties that haven't been addressed
since the storm s that's all I have Sarah has something oh hey Sarah hi um so I wanted to let you know that we are doing a uh community outreach opportunity this weekend at the library the grand opening uh we're going to be
setting up a table we're going to be located next to the food truck so in the garage and hopefully lots of people will be coming by um we're going to have a few activities and we're also going to be handing out um Flyers with a uh QR code so that people can take a survey
that's going to be available online um once we have the QR code we're also going to give it to Nicole to put online for us we are searching for other opportunities uh for public Outreach events um um uh so we'll hopefully have some more and we also want to have a uh
an event once Town Hall gets open and have sort of a an openhouse opportunity um we have a couple different projects that need public Outreach um some that are associated with grant funding also so uh that's the hope I know it's I know
it's not the use of code red but would it make sense to send information like that out through code red to say if you want to participate in the comp plan discussions I mean not everybody goes to the library not everybody watches these meetings I know that's hard to believe you know and not everybody
watches radio so but everybody gets the code red I've reached out to the the Pio and I've asked her to um put it out through her normal channels we can I've been in other municipalities where we've sent it out things like that out through code red some you know not you don't
want to overuse it but use it for particular things that that can be done and well that brought up another before the storm there was discussions about trying to integrate with the condo associations information because they are before the storm they would have boards some had digital boards that
would say all the things that were going on if we could revisit that some I know we got a lot of email addresses for all them when we created we were having those meetings with condos year ago or whatever the the uh for on the condo front there are these wonderful information boards in the condo lobbies
many of them and they're looking for Content so if the town was to supply something they post it yeah and you brought up another topic speaking of town hall where are we on that well it's blue
it's blue it's blue it's moving along we're working with the um by the way lot lots of compliments on the way you handle the signage on the town yeah the the the white signage for Town Hall Fort Myers that was very Tastefully done got a lot of very positive feedback I'm leaving a couple of decent things to
remember me I I didn't feel like we needed a monument sign that could get damaged in in an accident or vandalized or anything so get it up high get where people could see kind of make the building a billboard great but make it very tasteful I just thought that was a nice touch I see a lot of the condos do the
same thing and that's just a way not to have to get you know we got a sign permit but we didn't want to put one I didn't think it was any advantage to putting a a monument sign out there just defeated the purpose we're working with the uh drainage uh the company um
Andrews to do the storm water on the parking lot we're also now waiting on the the uh permit to finalize the alarm system and that's going to the fire department so that once that's done and he can put all his wiring in the walls go up the drop ceiling goes in I mean
it's a fast process at that point that's pretty much where we are now waiting on that so we keep asking and keep providing information so as soon as we get that they're ready to go and get everything and we can't work on that particular thing until um second and third floors are complete
and ready to go we're we're almost I mean we are just so close if it hadn't been for the the the actual having to get a fire permit which we are doing the right thing uh the building would have been done about four or five weeks ago so that's it's just the process we're Happ to go through at this point it's
out of our control a little bit so we're going through it I think you asked so um what about the I'm assuming there's no fire inspection needed for the parking lot next door that I'm not aware of I don't think so but but I'm not aware of one that is
needed but we'll follow up but where is that as far as the process goes we've got a drawing we're ready to we're ready to bring that to to get permit we're we're going to have to have to get our permits for the fence because it we're required to do all the right the things in commercial properties and so we are right at that point with Frankie and I this week we had big discussions on that
um working on sprinkler systems but we're ready to get that going just as soon as we can get Andrew uh turned on to to doing the drink and once they do that and tie in our property across behia via to get to that there's a catch base in there that goes out to the canal once they get that
finished that that that's a big domino effect that that's going to turn everything loose out of that well since we're on it what about this area where's that RP process at for that should go out this week we want to talk a little bit more about that as as
we get into the week we've got everything ready to go for that we felt like it would be the last week or the the next two week last two weeks in March which would give us you know about a 30-day turnaround but it's such a simple we think a simple process that gives us time to get to to the August
deadline so we feel like we're right there getting that I think Jeff presented I don't know if he did to Bab last meeting or not but but that's he he talked about the time he talked about the timeline and everything he didn't make a formal presentation but he gave an update on it and I think that's going
to be right here at the end not to change any do you want to talk a little bit about C the process you can start and I'll finish if you like oh that was set you right up now she did that that's softball no we've
we've actually been getting some alerts um I think the Florida Liga City sent out an alert as well as the um the Redevelopment um agency that that the Florida League uh staffs there are two bills that are moving forward um and I think there's actually a committee
meeting today on one of them um what it does is basically would eliminate the creation of a CRA after July 1st of 2025 it is a hard deadline at this time
um the concern is is that there had been discussion in the past about possibly creating um a CRA in the town square area um and I think there was additional discussion about the need to get a study done which is a a requirement and a
statutory requirement and um trying to uh get some um feedback and information from the city of Fort Meyers so if you still want to move forward with possibly doing a CRA for Town Square this is the
time to do it in all due haste um the study itself can take quite a long time so even if we Embark in that process um we may not get the study done in time before the July deadline and then
there's it's not just doing the study and accepting it but then there's ordinances and and other documents that need to be um approved and adopted uh subsequent to that so we really do have a time crunch um if you give direction
to go ahead and proceed with all du haste to see if we can get that done um because of the deadline there's most likely going to be a high demand for Consultants that can do this type of study um I did mention this to Sarah as well
and I don't know if you have any input on on the availability of even getting a study done uh so I did have a conversation with uh cordino my group is not set up at this time to handle it that quickly um but I did have a conversation with cordino and they said
if if they can get the go ahead they can start it and they think they can finish it in time but it is a very tight timeline um and there are a couple of meetings that are required so um just figuring out if you want it and then
we'd have to pull the trigger quickly and I just to add to that I've reached out to the mayor of Fort Meers Kevin Anderson we've had a few discussions and he would make his C director available to us to help us in any way uh moving forward as far as questions and other
things that we need to get uh our ducks in a row as the vice mayor likes to say can we explain what a CRA is to those watching at home I guess from being up north we call them Tiff District so it's just a A specialized taxing district in that area
so the whatever you do raise additional in that area stays in that area for redevelopment of that area CRA community redevelopment agency thank you sir which they have to have a board which typically you would serve as the board right could you go one step further and
one step I'm very familiar with Tiff districts up north and how they work could you just make the case for a CRA for Time Square I think that whole Redevelopment for that downtown district I mean that's like uh one of the major arteries to the
town so if you want blood in this case ca cash using it as the blood going through that artery um and to help re Revitalize that area not only through infrastructure future infrastructure and then how the layout or future layout of that area would look that's what you
want you want want that infusion to stay in a particular area so we're not just talking Time Square we're talking the whole downtown district yeah right yep and and and just so people understand it doesn't just capture what what the town of Fort Myers Beach would pay it captures all that tax revenue correct
that would otherwise have gone to the county to to some degree there there's there's portions of that tax that would be sustained here on the island so we would be we would be capturing uh tax revenue that we wouldn't normally capture through the creation of a CRA
just so people can understand what we're talking about yeah you'd be add you'd be capturing additional Revenue not so much the tax but additional Revenue that you could then use specifically for that that other the board has to stay in place that would otherwise have gone to Lee County correct yep just want people to understand what we're talking about
well and the caveat would be that the county has to approve it that is correct I and speaking when we first started talking about this I reached out to the County Commissioners to see how at the time it's ch one of them has changed since then but they wouldn't come out and say yes
but they didn't say no either one of them actually made a suggestion that we look at what the county did with Bonita Springs it wasn't considered a CRA so to speak I don't remember off the top of my head exactly what he called it but maybe we want to take make a call to Bonita
Springs and ask what that is because they he seemed much more favorable to go that route versus a CRA I just would hate to put all the money and time and effort into something where the count is going to tell us no but I also think that mayor Anderson is like offering up his people so that's a
huge endorsement that Lee County is going to stand with us on this I believe so I I think push as hard as yeah when it was presented uh they used Lee County used the model that Fort Meers created
as one to go forward and do so at one time they they venerated it and said hey this is this is what you should build if you're going to do it this is the way to do it so that's kind of why we made the Outreach to Mayor Anderson and he was so gracious in allowing us to uh I mean I I
think we should move forward it's the entire downtown district it goes from Bay to Beach and that whole area and we need help there we really do there was there was some talk about you know why at least some residents
have reached out to me and said why one just one area why not the entire Island right well that's another thought process you would need probably two you need one for MSE correct and that's it's all going to be based on the study and the data that the study relies upon upon
drawing certain conclusions uh the statutory criteria that it's a blighted area that needs that infusion of of money for infrastructure to redevelop it bring it back um I just want to emphasize that it's it's now or never um
because of the hard deadline that the legis ation has in it right now unless of course something happens in the legislature before the end of session before that Bill gets adopted um that would say at least this the town or the city has started the process of creating
a CRA um to to give us a little bit more time because it's really going to be a her heran I can't even say the word yeah task to get it done um I will tell you another jurisdiction that we've that we work with um it's been over a year
already um that they've been in the process of trying to get their CRA going so um so we need to get an an ordinance in place now EXC do we need to get an ordinance in place now you're going to have to cify it somehow you can't just say we're doing it you got to have some
right we have to do that but that's all based on the study so the study is the first step and getting the consultant to do that is you need a resolution to give direction or to get us I it's just Direction I didn't know if
we needed documentation to send to Tallahasse that this we started this process pretty intently I mean we can call them and say yeah they told us to do this but then that's again saying I I didn't know I got my notice about the building legislation is saying the completion of the process meaning understand but we
need to put a stake in the ground that we've started it that we are now intently pursuing this and I have direction from the council through resolution that this needs that directions perhaps um we can work with um Mr book our lobbyist and see if maybe
um the Town Council would want to uh request some type of extension um in the legislation to say that you have to have started the process email started the process before July 1 and then if you finish it afterwards you're still okay
having um that so um I for one think we absolutely need to move forward on this last Stitch effort and we're behind the eightball and sometimes better work is done behind the eightball unless you've seen me play
pool and they call you eightball sh well you so possibly um at your next meeting I can work with the town manager and we can come back with a resolution regarding the legislation that you could you could advocate for or can we can we
have some kind of a subject matter expert testify at this next council meeting if we're going to bring a resolution because it seems like we're just kind of spitballing here I I can reach out and and see if that person would be available even if they can but I mean if we're going to hire this
consultant who I think is already doing our comp plan who I think we've had a lot of challenges with just my personal opinion with uh I I'd want to know a how much such is going to cost B can we get the deadline if we if we bookmark it you know if that's fine I think that's a good concept but if we can't and we're
going to spend all this money on this consultant who seems to take a long time already right uh if we're not going to make it spend that kind of money or is there a different consultant yeah or a different consultant I think that certainly worth looking for I know they're probably popular right now but I just don't think we've had somebody come
and make the case for a CRA I'm not saying a case can't be made but I don't we haven't had somebody come before the council who's a subject matter expert and said here's the case for Fort Myers Beach and here's why this is a great idea I I don't know if you're going to get the the person from Fort Meers to come down here and make a case for Fort
Myers Beach that would have to be a case based on the study that the end results but I think you can get a sub subject matter expert to come here and at least Express why the relevance of going for this at this time in such a a fast manner would be vital to the town I I
think we could get that person to at least say that and explain in detail exactly what the CRA would be capturing or whatever hybrid would be if it wouldn't be a CRA um but at least they could talk so I will reach out to the city of B Springs and I will also reach out to City of for because it sounds
like potentially based upon what the mayor just said there may be a hybrid somewhere here in terms of what B spring where we don't need the consultant where we could keep the county happy and still derive the revenue we need well I think you're going to need for for to to get this moving uh and get a proper District
set up you're going to need the consultant somewhere because they're the only ones that can actually make the case for Fort Meers Beach gotcha so and I think that's in lies the the urgency well I think that it's more or less just what the benefits are of having one here
not make the case for us but they're subject matter expert they do it every day if they could at least get on the video screen say guys this is what this is the benefit for Myers we this is the process we did not make our case but that through making their examples makes our case that would
be help and I'm not sure I'd go that a consultant is necessary if the banana option is something that's viable right away thank you yeah sorry I don't remember what the name of it was butene I'm sure would be able to help you y um just another thing vice mayor we checked
with lcso Riley did 9 to 11:30 is what they need to it probably could be cleared up earlier but 9 to 11:30 is the closure I I would it's going out now yeah okay great thank you anything else move to
adjourn second you want to post