good morning we're going to call the meeting to order uh welcome everybody to the April meeting at the outset before I forget I've been admonished to remind everybody for the acoustics to please push the button so that the red light is on when you're speaking uh from the deis
and push it off when you're done speaking um we will start with the invocation uh council member Carol if you could kindly give us the invocation we're thankful for this town and its residents we're grateful for all who work for the betterment of our community
and all who serve on its behalf that those who work here and those who serve here be ever mindful of the town's vision and mission statement grant this council the wisdom to govern amid the conflicting interest and issues of our times the ability to work
together in harmony even when there is honest disagreement the sense of the welfare and true needs of our people personal peace in our lives and joy in our task amen to the stands one nation under God
indivisible liberty and justice for all all right thank you once again welcome everyone a beautiful day in April in Indian River Shores um Madame Clerk can you call the role please mayor Foley here vice Mayor Awater here council
member Carol here council member Alieri here council member Dayne here let the record show all members are present all right fantastic uh item two uh agenda are there any requests from council to reorder delete or add items to the
agenda if there are not uh we will entertain a motion to approve so move okay um there's a motion and a second all in favor any opposed none opposed okay time to move on to presentations
and proclamations uh 3A proclamation is National Safe Voting Week uh the gentleman from Where are the guys with the brass there you are so if you could please move forward um thank you good to see you again
go to the podium please and push the button down right uh before we give the proclamation I want to say good to see you again i saw you all at the uh boat show last week and uh uh you do a great service educating folks and um why don't you
just give a little bit of background as to who you are what you do and how it benefits the community and then we'll give you your proclamation thank you Mr mayor uh I'm Jim Bourne i'm Fella commander of our local Coast Guard Auxiliary this is my FOA vice commander
Tom McCarti we're both very involved in boating safety tom does a lot of the vessel examinations uh he and I both run the public education do voting safety classes which we encourage everyone to come to
um we're highly involved with the local base down in with the Coast Guard down in Fort Pierce and recently setting up communications through all the local agencies police department sheriff's office and
such um I just have something prepared here I'll go over real quick so I won't hold you up because I have a lot of business to attend to in 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal Safe Boating Act into law and the National Safe Boating Council was formed the United States
Coast Guard Auxiliary plays a vital role in National Safe Boating Week which is typically held from May 17th through the 23rd we the auxiliary partner with the Coast Guard to promote safety and to educate the public auxiliary members engage in various activities including boating safety classes and vessel safety
checks we are strong advocates for the wearing of safe life jackets approximately 85% of persons who died from boat accidents were drowning victims without life jackets with that in mind we thank you
for the opportunity to be here with you this morning we'll leave some brochures and flyers the office and feel free to reach out to us if there's any way we can help the uh the folks here in your community and we thank you again all right well we thank you very
much and um you know I note on the the whereas uh we'll get to the important part of the proclamation that u 650 people die per year in boating related accidents and I forget how many of those are preventable but I remember reading it somewhere that uh you know with some
of your safety tips that number can be very dramatically reduced if not eliminated so in our classes we really strive the need to wear life jackets when vessels are underway that's when the majority of the accidents occur and if you're thrown from the boat you can't
reach back into that compartment where it's hidden so can you grab one they don't have to be the cumbersome big orange things anymore you know I even have this one that's color coordinated no I'm not going to pull the book i mean we can
even color coordinate them for those people that are uh fashion conscious uh I didn't want to bring one of those big heavy orange ones today because it makes you look like a cross between Pop and Fresh and the you know the the Goodyear fella and uh so but uh we do
strive for the safety on the boats and if we can be of any assistance to you folks here we'd be happy to uh if you're police officers need training have them get in touch with us and we'll be happy to set that up anybody else in the public that deals with any voting safety issues we'd be happy to help them out with things in fact I'm preparing a
letter to send out to all the police agencies in the county offering free training to all the marine units and any police officers that are active that wish to attend it so we're we're really trying to push this so we don't have accidents here in our county terrific
want to just caveat an add-on here the uh day before National Safe Boating Week begins is May 16th and that is your life jacket to work day there's a there's a website you can upload your pictures to
and actually be eligible for a contest so good luck with that okay well that'll it'll look uh pretty interesting around here on May 16th then so uh thank you very much uh we do have a marine unit as I'm sure you know and I'm sure town manager will take notice
of that and coordinate any um any activities that can be that can be helpful u particularly with even educating people you know through gentle reminders while they are on the uh on the water here if they see anything uh uh unsafe so thank you very
much if the Marine unit takes our course they know what the people are learning and they can see what they should be expecting from the people on the water that's terrific thank you very much for all the work you do to make our community safer so uh the operative language for the proclamation it's a
proclamation of the town of Indian River Shores recognizing May 17 to 23 2025 as National Safe Boating Week so on behalf of the town council of the town of Indian River Shores we hereby support the goals of the safe boating campaign
campaign and proclaim May 17 to 2325 as National Safe Boating Week and the start of the year-round effort to promote safe boating and urge all those who vote to practice safe boating habits and wear a life jacket at all times while boating so thank you very much if
you want to come up and um we'll get a photograph of council for you so you can publish it on your website as you requested thank you very much item 3B another great proclamation to give to a great
organization um we mentioned this last last meeting a little confusion on um when you were coming but it's such an important it's such an important task you do that uh I think it's almost appropriate that we had backto-back meetings where we mentioned the Moonshot
Alliance and the uh the Moonshot community and the and the learning alliance so uh I don't know who wants to come forward but please feel free to come on up give a Mrs penniston was former council member here so you know your way around here pretty well
and please give us an overview of what uh what you're all about and the great work that you do thank you Mayor Foley and in Universe Shores Council members uh approximately 12 years ago um a couple of people Barbara Hammond and Liz
Woody started the learning alliance and the goal was to increase the literacy of children exiting the third grade at the time not only in Indie River Shores but nationally the numbers were woefully low
we were under 50% after years of work we are now at about 65% and hoping to go higher this next year so we very much appreciate this proclamation calling attention to us but the other thing that we've done is show how effective a
private public relationship can be working closely with uh uh Dr moore and the uh Indie River Shore Schools uh we've crafted a relationship that has been so effective that other uh counties
in Florida and even states from as a far away as Virginia have come to look at what we're doing so that's another benefit from the whole thing so thank you for your proclamation thank you for supporting uh the learning alliance and we appreciate your support
you're very welcome um anybody else want to say a few words or Thank you so again thank you Mayor Foley and council members i'm with the learning alliance but I do have two of our um representatives from our moonshot community here so Wilfred Hart and Joe
Kley and just to show you that the learning alliance is the managing partner of this but the Moonshot literacy movement is really a countywide movement as Debbie said we're getting this national attention um and really making great um strides so we're happy
to have um representatives from the business community from the school district family and again we're so grateful for all the support from in Shore so thank you fantastic um I' I've had the pleasure of attending more than one breakfast where you see the the program in action and uh I highly
recommend anybody who is uh at all interested in their community which should be everybody to learn the work that you do and if you can you know talk to someone who's deeply involved in this because literacy and an educated community benefits us all benefits us
all in terms of employment in terms of good solid citizens uh makes us all all better and all stronger u Mr hart welcome good to see you again mr kley good to see you um do you want to say anything or shall we just get to the proclamation or We just want to tell you
thank you for you know we've had the pleasure of working closely with you mayor and Bob you know we've known you two for a few years now and we're just so honored to be in the house of the people thank you well the honor is all ours so
uh we have a proclamation of the town of Indian River Shores Council proclaiming the town of Indian River Shores as a moonshot community and that's the important thing because it takes all of the communities to kind of get behind this so we're we're part of that community and we need to support it so now therefore be it resolved that the
town of Indian River Shores hereby proclaims and designates town of Indian River Shores as a moonshot community we recognize the vital contributions of all stakeholders to our community's literacy efforts and pledge to continue working together to make Indian River County a
model for literacy ensuring that every child has the opportunity to succeed and adopted this 24th day of April 2025 it's a pleasure to do this again so thank you for all your work thank you would you like you want to do a picture for your
Okay sure go for two you're very welcome all right um that's it for the proclamations we have a presentation uh item 3C the presentation of the September 30 2024
financial statements christine Null of um um I'm sorry Christine Null Ron of Car Rigs and Ingram so good to see you again uh we have to stop meeting like this every year we seem to see you so uh
please take it away and uh I know you've done this before so uh we're all ears it's good news though so you have a clean audit opinion um if you want to look at the financials at all mostly be on page 21 so your general fund the fund balance
increased by approximately $1 million if you compared the revenue to last year revenue increased by about 780,000 mostly your property taxes because of increased value and your expenditures were down 271,000 because the Pebble Bay
Estates project finished last year so that was the big chunk of capital outlay your planning and zoning fund became a major fund this year so there's a change in the accounting standards because there's one every year um this one has to primarily do with
presentation so if you're looking at the bottom of that page there's a new line that says adjustments that's not adjusting because of an error you now have to take any time a fund goes from major to non non- major or vice versa the opening fund balance has to be the
same and then you show an adjustment column so it's moving from the one column to the other so that amount is taking the opening fund balance from the planning and zoning fund out of the non- major column and then moving it into its own major column yes
yep so and then if you're looking in the back at the combining schedules the planning and zoning funds there and it has a title title formally non- major so it's all zeros just so that the opening fund balance then sums to if you open last year's statements exactly so it's
trying to help the reader follow the opening fund balance and where it's moving when the funds change between major and non- major um the fund itself increased revenue by 390,000 because you had an increase in your permits and the expenditures increased 60,000 due to
more salaries your ARPA fund um you spent 350,000 as of the end of September leaving 240,000 left to spend this year so all of it had to be obligated by this past December and then you have until
December of 26 to finish that spending and then your non- major funds this year include road and bridge bike path and pedestrian and your law enforcement trust funds revenues were basically cons and your expenditures went down 200,000 again because the Pebble Bay
Estates project was finished and the road and bridge fund had funded part of that project last year um if you wanted to look on page 75 search your budget versus actual you came under budget on all of your major funds so management watched closely to
make sure you stayed within your budgetary um constraints we did not have any findings or areas of recommendation um Heather is very cognizant of making sure she's got checks and reviews of everything that she does and um we went
through with the finance committee but we do a financial condition assessment that the state requires it compares you against other towns of your size and you had a favorable rating which is hard to get and you didn't actually have any ratios that were unfavorable which I've
never seen in 20 years so congratulations you guys are kind of setting the bar for everybody else at your size that's very nice to hear and I um I'm going to paraphrase an old Geico commercial you you made it so easy a lawyer can understand it and I think I
can speak for this side of the uh this side of the uh the podium we have the finance experts on to my left and the legal guys to the right um is there anything uh that comes to mind that you can see to improve the way we do things you have enough access to supplemental
information and everything you need yeah Heather um uploads everything for us she makes it very we've you know worked over the years of here's the items here's what we need um you will have a change next year in your statements for like you'll have to acrew sick leave now
because the standard's changing again so that's something that's coming up um so you'll see the liability increase because even if you don't pay it out when they leave you have to guess how much they're going to pay i don't understand the thought process you'll never see a for-profit company follow
that but that's what they want to do um but no I mean Heather's every time there's some change or some edit she if she's preparing it she makes sure Jim reviews it or her staff prepares it and she reviews it so thank you um thank you Heather uh we we can't thank you enough
for the ease with which you do this and the diligence with which you show and uh getting us all the all the necessary information for us for us to do our job so thank you and thank you to the rest of the staff that has input on that um are there any questions from council starting from right to left
no vice mayor uh the only thing I would say is I I think we have a potential revenue source that we need to think about and that is to uh have Heather work as a consultant to to town down the island that maybe they can get their act
together so that they're not flabbergasted in the future so that might be just uh something for us to think over my dead body she's all ours so uh and and thank you for uh thank you for that comment and
thank you for your hard work and we will see you same time approximately next year so thank you again all right are there any comments item four from the public regarding agenda items we have items on the agenda um
general comments go at the end of the meeting any comments on the agenda if there are none um we have a consent agenda on item five is there a motion to approve the consent agenda second okay
um we need a roll call vote because we have a resolution so if you can call the role mayor Foley I vice Mayor I council member Carroll I council member Alieri I council member Dayne I let the motion
show let the record show the motion pass unanimously thank you all right moving right along uh we're up to the mayor's report so item number one fantastic news uh sector 4 has been finally designated
as officially designated as critically eroded we had um some indications this was going to happen but uh we were cautioned by our uh very um
uh very cautious town manager not to not to let the word out until we got the the actual notification so uh we are after a decade of hard work by many council members uh including people who put an awful lot of time here on the deis u Mr
alteri Vice Mayor Alwater worked extremely hard on this uh past council members the vice former vice mayor uh we worked extremely hard uh staff our legal counsel finally uh section 4 has been designated as critically eroded uh also
like to thank our local representatives who provided assistance um we had um uh some support from Representative Brackett and Senator Senator Gro as we worked our way through what to me seemed to be a fairly easy
thing to um to accomplish until you get into the into the weeds of it and we were the only stretch of sector beaches in our area that was not designated as critically eroded so the practical effects of this are now um we have
access to uh to items that will not just uh repair but improve and hopefully preserve our our shoreline for for decades to come so congratulations to everyone uh for the for the for the good news on this um all right item number
two on my report the cart swap we have a um uh a wonderful administrator Lucy Shite who has put together a terrific plan for our town residents to swap out the carts as we move to piggyback off
the carting and recycling contract with the county um there are some snafoos we recognize that but uh hopefully these things are are getting um are getting resolved uh and you know I can I can just say thank
you to Lucy and um and our our town administration for uh the incredible patience that's going into this particularly in light of the challenges with seasonal residents coming and going when uh the transition needs to be uh changed out um all right now for the
most important thing uh the dress code for our council of course just to remind everybody that uh from the um months of November through April we have our uh recommended dress code as we are now and then we can go with not quite the
Federman look but um you know we can we can dress casually so just want to remind council next time so um with that I have uh nothing else to report is there an item or any matters that council members wish to ask me about
i I would just delight um just to add special kudos on the um critically eroded characterization that we received um and that is regulatory in the state it's very difficult to get from point A to point Z but this h was handled here
by our town manager Jim Harpering with help from others but and the retention of our outside council Holland and Knight uh and between Jim and Holland and Knight and really going to the source um uh in in state and local
government um really really was the charm here so Jim special kudos to you I think and your team at Holland tonight uh for the job we did on that agreed thank you yeah thank you for getting the ball across the goal line so uh um
really do appreciate it and it's good news for us it's nice to have good news uh item seven are there any council member items any items council members wish to bring up vice Mayor Mr carol no okay uh item eight discussion with possible or
probable action uh we have resolution number 25504 it is a a nonadalarum assessment for solid waste uh we can uh actually why don't we let town attorney town manager handle this it's basically a
different mechanism to pay for uh pickup of garbage and recycling mr mayor if I may read it in title and then turn it over to Mr harper this is resolution 25-04 a resolution of the town council of the town of Indian River Shores Florida levying a non-advalorum special assessment for
residential properties lying within the municipal boundaries of the town of Indian River Shores is more particularly described in exhibit A of the town charter to fund solid waste collection and disposal and related charges within the town collecting such pursuant to the uniform method for the levy collection
and enforcement of non-adalorum assessments approving confirming and adopting the non-adalorum assessment role incorporated herein as exhibit B providing that such assessments shall constitute legal valid and binding first leans upon property against which assessments are made until paid
providing for conflict providing for severability providing for scriveners errors and providing for an effective date as this is a resolution there's only one reading required however we are required to have a public hearing uh as part of this passage okay thank you Mr sweeney and uh Mr for
harping you want to just put in layman's terms what this is basically it's a uh a different mechanism to pay so we don't have separate accounts and have to pay directly yes uh thank you Mr mayor Vice Mayor Council uh essentially what
this resolution does is it uh authorizes um all parties to place the billing for solid waste uh recycling is already on the tax bill as part of the landfill fee and yard waste on the tax bill as a non-adorm assessment in this way the residents will not have to deal with uh
any onetoone relationship as far as the billing uh it's uniform and this was part of the overall move um with the town getting in with Indian River County for the franch new franchise agreement and the county is also um preceding in this way for essentially universal
collection so this is the uh legal and procedural mechanism uh to authorize um this particular uh process relative to uh the addition of the non-advalum assessment on the tax bill all right thank you um I I asked for public
comment at the beginning of the meeting but on this item I'll ask for it again is anybody wish to comment on this if there Yes sir if you could kindly come up state your name and general residence and then um
Make your comment please al My name is Alcatel and I live in the shores and I just want to make sure I understand this is only for trash or does it include recycling and how is that going to be handled
the recycling cost is already actually on your tax bill it's actually built into the landfill fee okay so this will be for solid waste uh this will be for solid waste collection perfect thank you
you're welcome u just one clarification though people still if they have large hauling things they still need to establish an account that will be extra you know uh yes uh thank you for noting that uh Mr mayor for any bulk uh collections large items then that's a a
onetoone relationship with uh waste management uh you pursuant to the franchise agreement you that's a scenario where you have to call the waste management and and schedule a pickup for uh for bulk all right thank you uh is there discussion among council
uh Vice Mayor Alwater uh just one question if a uh a resident uh sells their property say six months into the period is there any mechanism for proration on this
well at the time of the sale of the property the the legal obligations for billings would transfer to the new property owner uh and and just to highlight there's no um there's no provision also for cancellation of
services uh temporarily so that's how essentially that transition okay so when you when you had a when you'd have a real estate closing that would be an adjustment on the settlement is that Yes Mr mayor councel um this will be built into your tax bill this will be you
receive one tax bill you receive okay ad balorum based on property value and non adalorum which is not based on your property so you'll receive one tax bill and if you sell just like any other closing it's prrated based on that just on your HUD one correct yeah yes sir
good question anything else all right is there a motion to approve resolution number 25-04 second a roll call vote mayor Foley hi Vice Mayor Outwwater hi Council Member Carroll hi Council Member Alieri i
Council Member Dayne i the record show the motion passes unanimously all right thank you very much moving on to item 8B ordinance number 578 modification to plan residential development uh the track at the river club we had a
quai judicial hearing last month and um why don't you do the legal requirements Mr sweeney and then we can move forward yes sir mr mayor council this is ordinance number 578 an ordinance of the town of Indianor Florida approving a modification to the master development plan for a planned residential district
PRD authorizing a change in the configuration of buildings and lot types in tract UA providing for conformance with the modified master development plan and providing for scriveners errors the repeal of all conflicting ordinances codification and an effective date this is the second reading thank you all
right thank you very much is there any public comment on this item if there is none is there any discussion among council if not is there a motion to approve second roll call vote please mayor Foley I vice
Mayor Howwater I council member Carroll I council member Alieri I council member Dane I the motion passed unanimously terrific thank you item 8 C we now move to the approval
of the financials audited financial statements that were presented um some moments ago is there discussion uh on this item just a brief comment Mr mayor i we all know what a great job Heather
does but in in in in particular with turmoil that's going on in another community i I just want to put on the record that Heather had the draft statements that she provided to me i believe it was
early February i I looked them over given my uh financial uh background in in the bond business i had three minor suggestions just to enhance a couple descriptions it's like clockwork the way
she gets these things done year after year after year there's no nonsense going on or anything else like that so I just my my reason for asking this you know be pulled from the the consent agenda when the agenda was revised just
to to point that that out that uh the way she gets her uh work done is is a tribute to her and u that's all I want to say so thank you it's a sentiment you know I echo and I'm sure everybody up
here echoes as well it's u um you know so easy a lawyer can can do it right so that's pretty good um so thank you for everything you did and thank you for your your kind words Vice Mayor um is there a motion to approve the 2024 audited financial statement so moved
second uh we do not need a roll call on this so all in favor i any opposed okay item 8 D we have a request to reschedule the November 2025 regular town council meeting uh does this come from council
or does it come from staff all right uh yes i'm the Okay Mr i'm the culprit and u uh any day the following week that is to say the week of November 17th
through the 21st uh would work uh and if I might suggest a specific date it would be Thursday the 20th one week after the the the regularly scheduled
uh meeting date but November 20th right uh works for me any objections no just give me a second i turn my I'm sorry you said November 20th that's fine okay
good all right is there a motion to change the calendar of regularly scheduled town council meetings uh setting the November date to November 25 20th November 20 2025 excuse me so move
second all right all in favor i any opposed all right we're good item nine um I know we have some staff mostly out in the field so we're going to be I'm looking around mr mike Cray is out everybody's pretty
much out except the town treasurer uh Mr harping why don't you handle 9 A through C just go tick them off um we'll do Mr mayor we do i'll uh I'll defer on public safety to uh uh Assistant Chief Ryer who's in the back but uh regarding um
the building official uh we're continue to be busy the reports uh reflect that one thing I would note uh we're uh getting very close to uh the final implementation of the software change excuse me which allows the property appraiser to uh get into our system
consistent with all the other uh municipalities here in the county are going to that system to assist with um uh their appraisals and and things like that it's also a better system for us internally so that's uh that's in the process there um on uh code enforcement
uh Inspector Myrrance does a does a really great job um he is communicating with a lot of people out in the field in fact yesterday um he and I and uh Sergeant Parker as well as a couple of folks from the city of Vera Beach were out looking at Fred Turk there were a
couple of items that we were uh we were addressing and uh he happened to notice a very nice um real estate agent putting an open house sign uh out in front of the town and he politely walked over had a nice conversation with her and um and and she was very kind that's a that can
always be a very sensitive issue as we know um so with code enforcement though uh I think that the change as we've noted has has uh has has served the town um has served the town very well um in in public works uh as with really all areas we're uh very focused right now on
making sure we have all of the things either on hand or ordered for hurricane season i realize it's April but um uh in our collective mind it's it's uh it's it's necessary um and then I will of course defer to Heather i wouldn't want to speak on her behalf and uh assistant
chief Ryer sure yeah no I I said A through C so that that does it for you on the anchor we got some uh interesting news about our uh town u well it's not a mascot because it's an inanimate object but our our
town symbol uh so if you could identify that please uh yes um thank you Mr mayor uh the anchor during um uh some construction on the uh pipeline project the anchor had actually been uh knocked over it led us to reevaluate what was out there um and again uh you might
think that all things uh solid waste are Lucy but she took it upon herself uh through discussions uh and managed the entire process i had sent out a a brief on that to council um and it is a 1715 shipwreck anchor uh Mel Fischer museum personnel came down and um and helped us
uh clean it uh recode it and uh and and reset it where it is so we hope that it uh it presents a lot better uh than it than it had thank you very much believe it or not a lot of pride in the anchor so uh thank you very much for that report uh Heather 9D Miss Christmas do
you have anything additional you want to report actually you have a budget amendment that you handed out i actually um on your dis you have the pension report that I was able to get done after the pension board meeting i don't know i think my report was having
issues so it didn't get put into the packet it'll be sent out right after this meeting oh that there it is no we got it yeah we had it we just wanted to make sure that you got that that is our my normal budget analysis the main point that I have is I'm going to need to do some budget amendments next month at in the
May meeting one is for the cemetery project and another is for the approved comprehensive plan they were not in the original budget so those will those budget amen amendments will be shown next month i'll also show a decrease in pension expenditures for the finance
department and the building department because we don't we don't need to contribute as much as I originally projected so those will be the types of changes that'll be on next month's budget amendment um I'm also now currently in budget preparations so that Jim and I are going over all the numbers
right now so we are working on that diligently so that we can present that to you in July and I've been working closely with the public safety department and we will be we are on task right now to start the new ambulance billing company on May 1st
so we are ready to pull the plug on that or start that off and I'm available for any other questions terrific anything for Heather vice Mayor so I'm looking at your your pension report you you had enough
numbers to calculate through the six months of the fiscal year so I'm I'm looking at the you know the big kahuna here which is the police and fire pension fund as ugly as the markets have been to be only down 86 basis points
fiscal year to date doesn't sound that bad to me in terms of But that's as of March 31st yeah right no I I understand i mean right now would you be down 5% who the who the heck uh knows and you know just one other other thing and with
regard to the uh budget analysis that we get and at the risk of being accused of of of piling on but I I really have a point to make is we generally get this every single month with the exception right at the uh start of the new fiscal
year because you're closing out the books and everything i've gone back and look at the city of Vero Beach and I think the last one of these and I I may be wrong i tried to go through their various meetings was back in June 30th of 2023 now look the general fund what goes
on over there is kind of their business but their water and sewer fund which we pay substantial monies into how do they know if they're on budget or not you know there almost one and three/4ers years now where we
haven't seen any budget numbers and since I can only do it uh on this day without being the the public uh meetings law may maybe Mr throughout the area at your next utilities commission meeting you might just want to you know bring up
you know what are they doing to monitor that they're on course in terms of budgets and and and budget variances when no numbers are being reported as far as I can you know unless they're secretly doing it at uh Monty Falls is doing it there with meetings behind
closed doors in council which is an extremely bad practice because then the you know a a uh a city manager that's not doing things well can sort of do a divide and conquer strategy because nobody knows what the other person's
being told but if you can if you feel appropriate to bring it up at your next meeting I guess they're they're only quarterly now right there there are meetings every other month now oh oh okay they're they're every other month so I I would just be curious you know uh
because you know Rob Bolton back in 2022 was estimating that the uh cost of the plant would be approximately 82 million and now we're up somewhere around the 177 range I think and so and so forth he he blames various cost uh factors and
everybody blames COVID at this at this point in time but I'd be curious to see are are are he is he hitting his budget operational budget numbers on a year-over-year uh basis uh I I think that's important because u you know I I
listen to their vice mayor telling me and or telling us and their council meetings what a great job Mr bolton's doing how the hell does she know that there's no numbers so
yeah thank you uh um just to put a finer point on it I'm I'm glad we're us and not them at this stage um um so well we we are we we are in inheriting some of the some of the consequences of that so um I I agree
with all your your requests um my recollection was that the utility commission tried to remove financial matters from their purview which I think is a violation of the ordinance and Mr alieri did a I think magnificent job uh
setting the stage at your first meeting uh to kind of reorient the utilities commission to what it should be since that's really the only outlet we have as non- voting customers of the utility to um as non- voting members of the utility
to uh um uh to to vent and to express ourselves so thank you for your comments Vice Mayor and thank you for the good work Mr alteri um but all all all well all well placed all right item 9E public safety
department how are you today good morning Mr mayor Town Council good morning uh Edward Ryer on behalf of Chief Stone and the Public Safety Department um just to update all on the public safety building renovations the main upstairs bathroom
of the station has been completed looks amazing um and all other areas upstairs down uh downstairs and outside the public safety building the renovations continue there uh and they're progressing towards completion um I don't have an exact date on that but I
believe I'm going to have a meeting today with the uh builders with the contractors uh other than that uh traffic enforcement continues to be a priority since the last meeting i don't know if anyone's noticed we have the speed the digital speed signs out on A1A there's one in the south and one in the
north um for the 35 mph and the 45 m mile an hour zones um that's all I really have is there any questions uh no thank you very much um anything from council starting with No all right all
right well thank you very much uh you did a great job pinch hitting so uh thank you really appreciate all the work you do and uh I know it's uh it's it's challenging too because you have these big car carriers um that you know that kind of blog up the you know the highways and I know that's a challenge
for you guys to handle but you're doing a great job do you think the um you know the digital speed signs are actually um effective and reinforcing to people the the speed limit it seems to be working as far as I can see so as a
matter of fact Mr mayor one afternoon when I was leaving uh 3 3:15 somebody came um down Fred Turk heading east and they were they were moving by the time I got in my vehicle and had rounded the corner going south on A1A um they had
gotten down to that sign at that point it was probably in the 5600 block and when you're above 40 uh I'm sorry I believe it's 60 miles an hour it actually flashes red and blue and that was the first time I had seen it and as
soon as that happened other if you're under 60 it'll just show the speed and it might flash and it says slow down but if you're above 60 it's red and and blue and I saw this person throw out the anchor that the brake lights came on and they and until they were south of the
7-Eleven they continued to go within an acceptable speed limit so I do believe they are helping great thank you very much really appreciate it can I can I ask a question about the the car carriers yes sir my understanding is that the preferred procedure
um so if someone calls town hall calls your office says want my car picked up the preferred procedure is to have the car carrier come into Fred Turk um and then pick up the the automobile there
what what I see mostly happening is that the card carriers pull to the side of A1A sometimes they actually stop in the middle of A1A what is it that we can do to ensure that people are adhering to the preferred procedure seems to me pulling
into Fred Turk is the safest and the most efficient way to do this um and having it on A1A is I think a safety issue among other things is there that we can get people to adhere to that
preferred procedure so you are correct the procedure the preferred one is to pull anywhere on Fred Turk where they can load up there um all of our officers that are on patrol are aware of that um the procedure especially the one in the
middle that's a huge no no um every now and again they'll come upon somebody that is on the shoulder if they're already in the process of loading the car usually my instructions to our officers would have been "Hey just park behind him throw your lights on make sure it's
safe so he gets it on there rather than stopping it cuz now we've got a car on the shoulder now the carrier has to come all the way down here then they have to get the car finish what they're doing at that moment but in the future they need to come to Fred Turk." So we have put it out there uh and what I will do is I'll
put it out there again to our especially now that we're coming out of season um to our officers to have stricter enforcement on that as I recall uh several years ago we had a a procedure where somebody had to get
I may not use the right term a permit or something that they didn't have to pay anything for are we still doing that system we are still out permitting them sir and the reason being because not only do they have that but it that's the time that we explain hey come on out
here and do it here that way we can ensure that we're speaking to all of these companies and letting them know this is the proper procedure thanks again really appreciate it thank you Mr mayor thank you Mr council uh item number 10 the town attorney report
mr sweeney we have probably the most interesting legislative session um in the 15 years I've been following it uh that being said um there are some bills that are working their way that are of interest to us in particular
um HB11 regulating water utilities um we have some unfunded mandates coming down the pike such as probably going to be required to um file and um uh monitor
uh condominium associations that have to you know file their surve study and milestone reports and uh I know accessory dwelling units are fairly uh fairly heavy item uh for us some of the other things that are of area concern
like community uh redevelopment agencies and things like that less of a concern for us but as a municipality but as as an area we are so what can you report and um I know you got a crystal ball because nobody seems to know what's going to happen
thank you Mr mayor Council um well said uh very good introduction so let me just give a brief overview of where we are the session ends next Friday a week from tomorrow on May 2nd that is the last day as I mentioned at our last meeting there was thousands of bills that are filed at
the beginning and it winnows down relatively quickly in the first month and as we get into the second month because session is only 60 days long uh the focus then starts to move towards the budget um the budget is the only thing that is legally required under the Florida Constitution to actually be
passed they do not have to pass any other legislative actions but they have to pass that and it is required to have a 72-hour cooling off period before it's presented to the governor as of this morning there is no consensus between
the two houses on what the tenative budget should be uh there's quite a discrepancy in the nature of billions uh between the two proposals uh mostly focused on tax rebates or reduction in taxes you may have heard some about a sales tax reduction a property tax
abatement those types of things so today tomorrow and Monday uh I would expect that the legislature will be focused on that because they are legally required to have it finalized by Tuesday to be able to have the 72 hours to present it
to the governor as a point of note if they're not done by then uh they would have to do one of two things either call an extension which has to be approved by the Senate at a two/3s majority or call a special session and most importantly
all of this has to be presented and finalized by no later than July 1st because the state works on a July 1st to June 30th budget we of course work on the October 1 to September 30th that's why they give us the lead time but uh we're now approximately you know 60 days
or so from the end of the fiscal year for this year and if it's not passed then bills unfortunately will not get paid at the state level so I give that as context because I expect and continue to see a lot of focus on the budget but of the bills of note um as we sit here
today there's been approximately 18 to 20 bills passed most of which have been declaratory type bills uh we proclaim this day uh national otter day or something of that nature right um but of substance there is one important which
the public safety department is certainly aware of uh there's now requirement that clerks are required to transmit orders uh essentially on involuntary commitment to either the sheriff or the chief of the local law enforcement agency within six hours of
them being issued by a judge uh previously there had been nothing like that so again not that we expect this to come up much but it will be something that I'm certain speaking with Chief Stone we'll make sure we're prepared for in that event they could come out at at midnight theoretically um but of the
bills of substance uh the HB11 which is the utilities regulation bill um subsequent to our last meeting I did author a letter in support of including the language that would limit the transfers back that language had not been in many times with legislation
there are multiple competing bills that bill uh and the author of that bill has drawn back and fallen in support of another bill which as the mayor mentioned HB11 hb11 is generated out of Miami Gardens uh in a situation I shall
say with North Miami Beach north Miami Beach is the utility provider miami Gardens is the recipient and much of the bill is focused on the 25% sir charge that is currently allowed to be charged to outside cities or outside
municipalities from the generating much like our situation we have in the town where we receive utility service from another city and we are subject to a search charge um in that case there is a provision providing that if there are specific what they call facilities
utility facilities typically a water treatment plant or a wastewater treatment plant then the receiving municipality could not be charged the additional 25% but that's very specific um it's definitely keyed to that situation in uh
Miami Gardens yesterday I'm sorry yes yesterday there was a vote on the Senate side get passed it now is required to go back over to the House side to see if they can work it out um but like a lot of things it may go by the wayside
because they have to focus on the budget and they really only have six and a half working days left in this legislative session um so we shall see i shall continue to monitor it and report it back uh otherwise uh the multiple bills addressing potentially accessory
dwelling units or ADUs which would a lot of people refer to them as mother-in-law suites or in-law suites being built on your property uh there was approximately eight competing bills in different versions um the one that's made the most headway uh just moved again from the
Senate to the House what they call messages but again here it is see if you agree with it in our version of it and if they do it would then be passed if not they would have to move through a committee and see if they can get it all in the same language um the final one that we had talked about before was
HB301 sovereign immunity sovereign immunity uh is something that we enjoy as a municipality the current limits are 200,000 for an individual claim 300,000 for a collective claim from a singular incident if it were to pass uh it would
move for to 500,000 for an individual claim a million collectively and that would be for any claims that occurred between October 1 2025 and September 30th 2030 after October 1 2030 it would move up to 600,000 and 1.1 million and
that one also was just transmitted from this time the House to the Senate on Tuesday of this week one last important note on that is there are no more committee meetings allowed so if something hasn't made it through its required committee stops on the way to a
floor vote effectively it's dead um so again the number of the thousands of bills has now winnowed down to less than dozens and we shall see if any of them even gain any more traction but I will be attending the uh local government
seminar today tomorrow and Saturday in Fort Lauderdale with all of my colleagues throughout the state including representatives from Florida League Cities Florida Association of Counties so they are the eyes and ears the front line um and I'll just be able to receive feedback on the I'll be monitoring them closely and most
importantly as soon as we hear anything I'll report it back to this council if there are no questions about that I do want to briefly mention about the form six lawsuit and status but let me question sorry I'm sorry he was behind you there mayor fluoride in the water the
legislation relating to chemical additives by water districts got passed in both the house and the Yes as I understand it yes but again uh the governor also can take his time and as we saw last year he will often has in
the past sat on signing bills there's no time frame for him to have to sign a bill so it can be presented April 1st and he can decide to sign it October 1st um so as I'm aware at this point it has not been signed into law by the governor so again thank you for that and I will
make sure I stay a breast of it if there are no other questions on that just very briefly on the form six as you all know there is a requirement to file financial reporting as elected officials in Florida there are two forms form one and form six form one is the one that has been for many years the basis for
municipal officials to fill out it's a what I consider a lesser form or a more basic form a year and a half ago legislation was passed requiring all of you in this capacity to file a form six much more comprehensive a lawsuit was filed last year in federal court and uh
lead counsel uh was successful on behalf of multiple plaintiffs to receive a temporary restraining order and an injunction um that injunction as we sit here today is still in place i spoke with lead council earlier this week motion and this is his exact note cross
motions for summary judgement were filed by both parties and fully briefed in November of last year uh they are waiting for the judge to either enter a final decision or set the cross motions for hearing so accordingly the preliminary junction is still in place and just as importantly as I was just
mentioning he is unaware of any legislative efforts to address this i do not believe certainly wasn't introduced and nothing's going to be introduced at this point so I expect there will be some resolution over the next couple months on that case as I hear it I will
pass that along i do not expect it will be retroactive an application um again our town clerk is a liaison to help you get those forms from the state to fill them out but again if it changes the injunction goes
away we would receive that but I I highly doubt highly doubt that it would be retroactive he'd have to go back it's all electronic filing now though right and it's all electronic filing yes that's correct so with that that's the status of the form six lawsuit as well um that completes my report unless
there's any other questions nope great job thank you thank you we'll um we'll see what the future brings on uh on these bills so yes sir uh I I believe on legis there's a legislative tracker that and I'm not sure the real time it will tell you which bills have
are eligible that have made it through committee um but I don't even know if they have any more floor votes scheduled for um you know like they do a floor vote day where they just has anything like that been scheduled or they Yes sir Mr mayor so there are three iterations
of of bills uh there's passed which of course those are done have received the for vote on both sides are in the same form those are would be presented to the governor uh there's enrolled and engrossed enrolled means that it's uh essentially done on one side of the
house and uh should be moving to the other side for final engrossed means that it appears to be the same on both sides just haven't received the final package um there is a status and yes there are probably close to a dozen or two dozen that have now been engrossed
but not presented to the governor um otherwise the ones that are either on one side or the other there there's approximately several dozen I would say close to 70 or 80 again many of them are not substantive but yes there is a way to track that however to your point
there are no committee meetings so everything is considered four days four votes from this point on right okay uh thank you uh town manager report you I preempted you with the anchor preservation project but if you have anything further on that u please feel free to comment or just give the balance
of your report um I I do not excuse me have anything additional on that uh just two very brief notes uh one is uh just to uh thank staff and in particular excuse me I apologize um Janice for always getting the meeting get a little emotional when I
talk about how great the staff is um just getting the meeting together and squared away um and of course Mike for running all of our uh IT systems mike Latinsky our IT um our IT director uh in that regard the actual installation and
transition of our uh IT system and broadcast system begins on Monday here uh in the council chambers uh we recognize there's a very tight calendar our vendors are uh aware of that uh so we're hoping to have all that complete by our next council meeting on the 22nd
but that does start on Monday other than that I don't have anything else unless I can uh address anything for council anything for Mr hartbring all right um thank you very much we're going to move now to council committee reports and
non-action items so basically we'll start from Councilman Dne do you have any committee reports no the U League of Cities was to have their meeting um last week and they
canled it so I don't have much to report the reason is is because of the a lot of them are going to are in Tallahassee for the monitoring what's happening in the legislature so next month I should have the full report
thank you Mr alteri the um the utilities commission uh met two weeks ago um once again it was a fairly packed house um having more to do with the um the effort
to have um the commission uh report to the city council um about the issue about water fluoride in the water um it was a very very passionate crowd that
showed up in support of um the position that the city should no longer put fluoride in the water um a motion was made um by one of the members of the commission to have of of the utilities commission to have the city council um
enter consider and and rule in favor of um ceasing to put fluoride in the water that motion did not pass largely because of the pendency of the legislation uh in in Tallahassee
um and then the rest of the meeting was discussed was uh uh dealt with the um water reclamation facility and the cost for that uh we have the what is the I think the penultimate deliverable from
um uh Wharton Smith the um the the construction firm uh and the numbers that are that they submitted are based upon a 90% engineering plan uh but with their understanding about what the
deliverable deliverable would would be uh at 100% The current number is uh the estimate for the there are two projects going on one is the water reclamation facility the other is the storm water
irrigation project solely with respect to the WRF the total estimate is now 177,784,000 um that includes a 10 10.6% 6% contingency and a 4.5%
escalation um in addition to getting very detailed um 90% numbers u from the contingent plan uh they also presented what is essentially the critical path for the construction uh the construction
project is estimated to last 30 months um the uh the plan the the bids have been submitted and reviewed uh I think that package is going to be presented to the city council at their May meeting uh
the critical path again 30 months of construction it is likely to begin this summer so this ship is sailing it's likely that the the city council will approve the the the proposal from uh
from the engineer um uh and I think work according to Rob Bolton work is probably going to start towards the end of summer or the beginning of fall and then last for 30 months um there was there was
uh at the last meeting uh Rob Bolton was there uh there was a very very thorough discussion of the the deliverable from Wharton Smith um uh and very few questions from the field
um the the one question there was one uh constituent um complained about the fact that there would there had not been presented a thorough financial analysis of how um this would affect rates to the
rateayers uh and the so there was discussion about that and how this would evolve to the bottom line and um my memory is that it would lead to an increase in water rates of approximately
$300 a year so um I will say that they they they for the first time I haven't I've been to three of these meetings this meeting was they were prepared uh Rob was there he spoke um for probably
half an hour about uh the the submission uh about the the timetable but for both projects um but uh I think this is it's this is we're at a we're at a a flex point where this is actually going to be
underway probably my guess is it's more likely that real work's going to start in the early fall uh two questions for me uh in in the discussion did um he happen to mention whether or not the the cost estimate prepared and being presented to council
took into account tariffs uh no not really it did it did discuss the grants though you know it's different subject and I should have mentioned this because there you know I had raised a question about whether or not some of the grants that had been made with
respect to the water project would be imperiled by the recent um commotion uh with respect to the the audit um uh his response was that the the greatest percentage of the of the grants were federal grants so that will not be
affected and that because of the way the timing is rolled out they believe that they will have their house in order um at a time when it won't affect this the state grants that they anticipate
receiving well I'll be flabbergasted if this starts u um this summer there were supposed to be shovels in the ground last summer uh there was a report in the press that u in order to meet the timetable that he uh proposed at the
meeting you attended Councilman Alteri he was going to be in a position to go out and I believe get a $40 million just basic loan to start doing preparatory pipeline work was that was there any further amplification about that and does that have to be presented to your
commission council or was that glossed over i I do not recall a granular discussion at the last meeting about that level of financing
okay um thank you very much uh you're doing God's work for us on that utility commission as u the vice mayor did for many years and you know I think I think we are going to adopt a statute of limitations to limit how many years one has to serve on utilities commission for
the cerebral hygiene of our council members yeah I think the viol that's a violation six amendment of the constitution if you're on there too long but uh I I I I have a couple questions i might so uh with regard to the cost estimates the the thing that they've
really been bouncing around on they're really not answering the question maybe you can provide some insight is that cost 90% cost figure that you mentioned does does that include the demolition of the current plant along the lagoon i've
never been able to get a solid answer out of Bolton on that it it my understanding is that it does not include demolition it does not include any regulatory costs associated with for instance environmental at at the
demolition on 17th Street so that's an additional cost it's sort of a phantom cost i have no idea the magnitude of that cost but it's not I think it could be a material number i mean one individual who I know who has has done
plants not utility plants said it could be has guess and I emphasize guess 15 to 20 million range in insult to uh injury and I guess my my second question is the mayor mentioned that they're going to go out for some preliminary finance and get
this thing started because they can't get a bond rating because they don't have audited uh statements if that comes up I I would ask you to consider really pushing them on that in terms of how they're going to do it
they're talking about doing a one-year loan frankly my concern is they go out and just go to a local bank and get it rather than bid it out and I I saw a number in the paper i may be wrong but maybe upwards of 75 million bucks and he threw out a 4% interest number i
couldn't figure out where he got that based on you know my still my former colleagues in the in in the business so I I want to make sure it just doesn't go to some local bank on a uh a sweetheart uh deal because as you point out we're going to be paying through the nose on
this for forever and you know it's the way they I mean I I still to this day I can't figure out why this thing didn't start in 2020 22 because they were working on it goes all the way back to my first term
on council which ran from 16 to 2020 they had they had a consultant report that was talking to $52 million so here here we are now just this thing is just being dragged out and having uh visited the Fort Pierce operation see how
quickly those folks moved around in similar plan i'm just I'm just lost at being the compliment on this thing it's going to cost all of us so much money all right well on that happy note um which I agree with you on unfortunately
I mean there's there's particularly since they take the position that they're not really contractually bound and there's no regulatory regime to set the rates because all they have to do is propose a rate study that you know supports whatever rates they want to sell and there's no practical way to um
to object to that so um and that includes anybody anybody who who gets water from from the uh utility system so um I also had my meetings canled because everybody's up in Tallahassee um trying to figure out what's going on
so um they're probably on their way back as we speak uh do you have anything to report Vice Mayor yeah I had a beach and shurers uh meeting on Monday so this was a continuation of discussion uh about the S Sebastian Inlet District
a memor standing between them and the county in terms of moving sand that their jetties capture i couldn't get any support to put a mechanism in place to just measure whether they're meeting their obligations which they signed the
Florida Department of Environmental Protection uh extremely frustrating so uh uh you know I was I was going to go in front of commission and bring it up again in a public meeting i'm probably not going to go in that uh direction because Joe Earman who I thought was in
my uh camp he he reversed himself it sort of reminds me of you know what we dealt with with uh with Vera Beach where we have a they have an obligation to match rates and Ver Beach says "Well it's on the paper not going to do it." Well Sebastian district's exactly same
thing they have an obligation they don't want to measure it they get around to doing it fine and and uh the people in the committee apparently are going to let them get away with it so So that's the end of that so thank you Councilman
Carol nothing to report all right thank you uh this is the part in time where anybody who's left is there any public comment anybody want to comment anything on your mind going once going twice okay
we are adjourned until May 20th 22nd may 22nd so we will see everyone on May 22nd have a great and safe day thank you everyone