##VIDEO ID:eSibB8MeCo0## e to e e Sun Al first me two talk is C do ofers on term any you can talk to staff at any time about board business but you cannot ask staff what other board members are saying or ask ask staff to lay a message to another board member just because you can't use an intermediary to get around the Sunshine Law the Sunshine Law is strict so always reach out to staff with your questions um but no do not use staff as a go between I just ask a question certainly in reference to that if there's a document that needs to be distributed to all of the board members from a goes to STA and then staff distribu of that whatever the information May so that's a one-way communication and and that is fine but you receive one of those from another board member you cannot respond to anything in that communication now I will say I was hesitate to talk about this because it's a slippery slope more so with with larger cities and large counties um I've seen multiple position papers if you will go out uh and as long as the second position paper does not respond to the first position paper in any way technically that's in compliance with the Sunshine Law it's kind of frowned upon by the attorneys like myself cuz you're you're getting close to you know if you accidentally say unlike my colleague in in in their paper from yesterday I disagree whoops no you're going too far so but yes uh go through staff uh if there's any one-way communication that has to go out to the other board members it should never be in response to one of their uh Communications related to an upcoming business event business item uh I mentioned earlier so I'm not really going to go over this but this is some of those exceptions to the Sunshine Law in general uh generally most of these will rarely if ever apply to the community redevelopment agency um but litigation collective bargaining um fact finding committees who make no uh who have no Authority other than fact finding uh security systems um some solicitation proc processes uh are are limited exceptions so notice the you know the meetings have to be open to the public excuse me publicly noticed open to the public and minutes have to be taken are those three requirements so let's talk about notice for a minute uh notice must be reasonable and then this is just for your edification staff generally will handle all of the notice uh aspects for this board um generally the notice should say the time place and subject matter that's generally why we have an agenda it shows that business that's expected to be taken up at a meeting um notice is it's aspirational that notice be provided at least seven days prior to a meeting um special meetings no less than 24 hours and preferably at least 72 hours prior to the to the meeting uh and by all means this is more for staff than the board members you know use press releases email and faxes to spread notice of a meeting uh there's nothing wrong with that the minutes uh again staff function is the minutes but so so you guys understand all meetings require uh recorded minutes including workshops um but when I say recorded I don't mean tape recorder it's not rec um as long as we as it's a best practice that we use tape recorders in other recording devices but under floor law uh anyone taken down minutes is is you know barebone notes of what happened in the meeting is sufficient under the Sunshine Law as minutes are intended as a brief summary of the meeting uh verbatim transcript is not required um minutes must be in written format and as I just said audio recordings are are optional so they don't there's no rules on how or laws on how detailed the minutes have to be or that they have to be verbatim or or or there has to be a video or audio recording um just minutes have to be taken uh not actually originally in the sunshine law but a law that was passed about 12 years ago ago I want to talk about again I'm trying to give you guys you know big picture related topics as well not just the literal text of the Sunshine Law um there is a right of public participation in in Florida um as of 2013 I think was the year this bill was passed and the public has a right to speak item uh before the board takes official action um again I I'm more technical with with these bullet points that is probably necessary uh sometimes more so at city council where there's two public hearings um or or city council where something may come up and they take public comments and then it it comes back up it doesn't always have to occur at the same meeting but there has to be uh the opportunity for public participation uh that doesn't prevent you or any other board from maintaining standards of of conduct and decorum doesn't mean someone could come up here and say all five of you are useless um there a lot of local governments have gadflies and then they're it's it's alternatively hilarious and cringeworthy when you see some of these people in action um after I've been here about eight months now and I haven't seen any that bad here so that's knock on the wood um Jacksonville Beach avoid some of the characters I've seen in other locals when I've worked elsewhere in the state so we can't you know someone can't use um vulgar words at you you know that that could be prohibited so public participation doesn't give them the right to say whatever they want we can have stands of Conduct in De cour may I interrupt for just a second to confirm something sure so I have been here for 12 years and I've had multiple chairs um who do things a little differently from each other so is there a practice that their current next chair will um maybe utilize that when it comes to public speaking do you recommend that you do this public speaking cards or the questioning cards before the whole meeting starts or do you suggest that you bring up the topic or the chair brings up the topic and then talks brings people up who talking about that at that time like is there a specific standard of accepting that public comment so what I've noticed to be the custom here at least more so with city council which I'm involved is accepting meeting cards ahead of the meeting um but nonetheless still pointed out during the agenda item you know you if you watch City Council meetings mayor hofman frequently says that's all the speaker cards I have but would anyone else like to comment on this item uh I think that's that's a good approach to take um having the cards ahead of time helps the meeting run smoothly but we should never if someone wants to come up and didn't fill out a speaker card I think you should always allow them time to come up provided they haven't already spoke haven't already spoken don't give them you know they get three minutes or however many minutes doesn't mean they could come back up for an additional bite at the Apple but you know the conversation on an agenda item could go off on a different direction than they were anticipating so they didn't initially fill out a speaker card now they want to speak so I think collecting the cards ahead of time uh helps the meeting run orderly but always allow additional public comment if someone uh asked during the item but do the do the public speaking cards for each item not all in the front before you start the whole because we've had a one where they would collect all the cards in the beginning then they say you know this person wants to talk about this agenda this person wants to talk about this agenda and they would do all of them before we even started our meeting and then we've had others where it's like we're going to talk about this now and these are the speak cards I have is there a right or wrong I don't think there there's a right or wrong I think it's at the discretion of the chair um you guys can always discuss it at a public meeting not outside a public meeting um at any time in the future and and give you know feedback to the chair on how you guys would like it to run but as long as they're collected and the people are off given the opportunity there's no actual structure that's required correct okay I'll just take Mr chairman can I add something to that comment just to kind of clarify um the Reas I think at least recently with at least the last chair and even towards the latter half of the previous chair it was done the way it was was to mimic that of what city council does so that's why courtesy the floor came prior you know we uh start the meeting we do a roll call for minutes and then we immediately have courtesy the floor um that was to like the mimic what council does and then for us it was unique because I can't honestly recollect many scenarios where someone wanted to necessar address one specific item it was just kind of more in generic addressing the board um but at that moment I think what we would follow like council is if somebody had a specific agenda item they wanted to address at that moment you know we would give the opportunity to come up then or they could wait until their agenda item but we always try to mirror what city council does a few months ago we had a speaker come forward and present his point of VI and then proceed to try to elicit response and initiate a discussion that would be a nice work for and you and our chairman um effectively shut that down I thought that was handled very well do it handled well that should been hand I think so I think great that's perfectly okay and that that is common place they have a right to participate as the last slide said they don't have a right to get their questions answered on the spot it it's helpful when someone has questions to direct them that you know reach out to staff moving forward we don't want you to think well it's too late we're not you know no one's going to talk to you but for the orderly transaction of business um It's Perfectly permissible to not answer questions during public comments I thought that was hand beautifully I think it's important to tou on that for everybody here that was a unique event and you and the chairman hand it and worked out is's great but I think that really should be a model for the future you made your comments thank you very much we're not here to have discussion or debate thank you discussion or debate with the public you all should discuss and debate the item before you vote on it got that I know I was but thanks a lot super duper because that could have turned into a real situation thank no problem so my last slide is about penalties and sanctions uh so unintentional violations are non-criminal but a knowing violation uh can be a second deegree misdemeanor uh punishable by a fine of more than not more than $500 and a jail term of not more than 60 days we could also be removed from office let me let me leave you with a story from I believe it was 2020 um and so I am going to say the name of the city because this is a this is a true story um in Indian County there's a city called Sebastian Florida about 3 four hours down 995 um so they had three new city council members elected on a board of five city council members uh I believe end of 2019 uh they wanted to affect radical change radical is probably not the right word they wanted to affect change um especially with the covid pandemic that unexpectedly came up um things were moving too slow for them they wanted to fire the city manager the City attorney and the city clerk um they decided to uh without publicly noticing it uh in a locked City Hall they held a meeting they claimed they held a meeting and they voted to fire the city manager fire the City attorney and fire the city clerk someone recorded the meeting on their phone and the last thing you hear as they as they are seem to be quickly Jour is the police are arriving outside uh I think it was might maybe live streamed on on Facebook or something like that but it was not a publicly noticed meeting uh it was not open to the public I don't know if they took minutes or not but the the first two steps were violated it was intentional you know that if they had handled things the right way maybe they could have U accomplished the actions they wanted to in that meeting but the the none of the actions were valid they were void uh I believe one of the three um pled no contest and did not get a criminal sentence uh the second one wound up being sentenced to 60 days in jail and the third one who from reading it seemed like may have been kind of the quote unquote ring leader ring leader did get sentenced to six months in jail um for violating the Sunshine Law so while these things don't happen every day uh they they can be criminal and in your most egregious situations but I I'm not saying don't violate the law egregiously I'm telling you don't violate the law at all with with that I hope that was a good overview got into a little bit of nuances I know you've all as far as I know you guys have all been on the board for a while I could be wrong on that but so you know I know you know the concept in general but hopefully this was still helpful I'll gladly answer any questions if you have it yes sir I just have one question If and I don't know if this board has done this before but in other boards when have orientation will go out to a venue or a site so if this board decided to have a meet offsite say the boardwalk about activation or something like that can the Sunshine Law accommodate that so that's a tricky situation there's generally a way to do it I would if something like that comes up I'm going to be like Taylor we need to talk a few weeks ahead of time uh we need to make sure you know that there's the public can attend in some fashion um we want to make sure that the other requirements of the Sunshine Law are are complied with you know what what we probably can't do is a minius tour of of the city because even if we publicly notice it and we take minutes not you know even if there's four extra seats what if 30 members of the public wanted to attend we're not allowing the public to to participate in that whereas if you're going to a boardwalk I think if if if we provide specific enough notice as to where this meeting is going to be uh that the public can attend and and minutes can be taken it it can be accomplished but let's let's not do that last minute if you guys you know get a sense of an example like yours of something that that you guys want to happen um you know give Taylor advanced notice and I'll work with her to to see if we can you know get to Yes um and and in doing that the concern will be making sure we can comply with the Sun just another observation um based on how strict the Sunshine Law is it really is I guess apparent that the time for us to have good discussions are either at our meetings or workshops that if there are projects that we want to talk about we want to talk about brainstorming or creative ideas related to those project it really needs to be discussed in these meetings so that um we can put all of the thoughts on the table and hopefully you know move forward in a certain direction based on staff recommendations and things to that extent but we need to have that open conversation here before it goes anywhere else yes the one the one thing I'll say is by all means in on an individual basis talk to staff to for f more factual stuff so that you know you're come you know don't wait until the meeting to come up to speed factually because you know hey we have to discuss it at the meeting anyway so I'll just learn what's going on then I know that's not your your question really but you know still utilize staff on a one-onone basis remember don't ask about what other board members thinker have said uh but then yes at the meetings this this is your shot um you know sometimes if if you watch a lot of these meetings in general sense across the state you'll hear some really Elementary questions being asked and it's it's I've actually heard elected officials say because they they almost felt like geez probably sound dumb they're like look the reason I'm asking this question is this is my only chance to talk to my colleagues so I want to make sure I understand the position completely and I'm not misinterpreting anything and and you know they no no question is a dumb question to begin with but but you know ask anything and everything amongst your colleagues in a public meeting to make sure you understand or you want to get your input out say your input but yes this this time is valuable and you know sometimes agenda items will take a while to to flush out and but unfortunately it has to be done not unfortunately the reality is um it has to be done in a public meeting I have a little different question for you um if there is there any um leeway or ability for someone who U may not be able to attend a meeting say that you have Forum but then they reviewed the stuff and they provide the information to staff staff cannot share those um opinions or talking points to the board during a public meeting or can they they can they they can read uh you will not have a vote uh because you're not there uh there there are in exceptional circumstances someone may be able to attend remotely um a lot of Hoops to jump through I I even have to research if if city council would authorize it I'm not sure um but if there's a quorum I'm going beyond the scope of your question but let me just add this if there's a quorum already present in the room a board member can attend remotely but there has to be according to uh Florida attorney general opinions extraordinary circumstances not just well you know I I'm on vacation but I wanted to to chime in yeah like when um like for instance when I had Co for instance you know I read the stuff wanted to kind of give my opinion and what have you but I wasn't sure if I could have that read or not because you know yes I wasn't here but I also was contagious so I'm just wondering for future if someone here gets ill or they're in the hospital or death in family or something if they since we don't have we can't do it if whoever's here 2025 on can still give an opinion that could be read it can be read yes and you just can't you know yeah no no back and forth dialog and I've done that in the past I think at several meetings if you go back and listen um I know for a fact like when David has had to miss unexpectedly at the last minute he will contact me only me doesn't copy board members and say hey I can't come this is a big item this is kind of my thoughts and then at the meeting once we started the meeting and if being a public recorded meeting then I share is sentiment or whoever that's yes they cannot yeah so he the intent of Staff sharing that is not to I can't vote for Megan or David or whomever but you at least the board member knows everybody's thoughts and comments in a public open meeting and it doesn't consider you a conduit at that point for that specific reason no cuz you're reading that at the at the public meeting any other questions look like we have any other questions thank you all well thank you all if I didn't have a city council meeting tonight I would stick around to see the rest of the presentations but I apologize I need to um like the agenda tonight I need to prepare um even more so if I don't see you all and I probably won't have a very happy holiday season look forward to continue to work with you all thank you you thank you and full disclosure David and I did sit down and look at this last week I knew he might not be able to stick around but I did sit down and look at it so if I get something wrong I'm going to blame him you want remix with that we will move to the second item on our agenda on the yes sir I will um and so with that uh we're going to dive in this is stuff that has been kind of pulled together from like I said the City attorney and myself um and then from a lot of my course workor uh and getting my Redevelopment administrator certification so this is uh from several other Redevelopment agencies from the F City attorney uh it you know we kind of thought it was a good time while we had a little bit of a slow season nothing's ever slow anymore but to just kind of do a refresher course this is definitely not 101 this is a little A step above that I'm going to try not to bore you with all the little details but this is just kind of reminding everyone because when it's things that we're not in every single day and I recognize that all of you have lives and careers and things to do outside of this as a volunteer board you're not constantly looking at chapter 163 like I probably look at it three times a day for one reason or another um so again we'll kind of dive into this the agenda for this presentation is really a lot of when where why um we're going to talk about why we even have Redevelopment agencies what they are um kind of what ours is structured like you can structure them differently how we got here um how we can and cannot redevelop because there are very strict clear guidelines on what you can and cannot do I we'll talk a little bit about increment Revenue because often times at public meetings you know you're he you know you're going to have to raise my taxes you're going have to raise my taxes and um that's valid concern I if I like I said was not living in this every day I would probably have the same concerns but when you learn what increment revenue is you realize that's not the case um valuing the increment Revenue spending it the plan and then reporting um I will say on reporting we're going to do a really high level today and then I believe it's scheduled tentatively right now for March or April we're going to do a really in-depth Workshop meeting only so it'll be a full two-hour workshop on the new reporting requirements that have to be in place by the board um by end of calendar year 2025 so with that being said uh why do we do this uh so chapter 163 the state statute uh basically it is to get rid of Slum and blight areas that is the most basic General way you can put it the reason the areas exist is because there became a need in the State of Florida back in 1969 where they realized we need to do something to be able to redevelop areas that otherwise we falling into states of disrepair um the state defin on black very clear statute again I won't read word for word um but it has some unique um defining I guess things that you know you think some and black you just think okay it's it's not pretty it's this is not just about Aesthetics it talks about crime disease anything that's going to create economic and social liabilities anything that's going to put a burden on the district um juvenile delinquency and then one that's really unique is an area that's consuming excessive use of police fire hospitalization and services that are not sufficient to a good quality of life um community redevelopment again is in all of these uh references section of the statute so again in your spare time or if you you know need to put yourself to sleep at night I encourage you to go and start reading chapter 163 there's a lot in there um but again it needs the undertakings activities and projects in the Community Development Area for the following so again um these are all things that constitute Redevelopment um eliminating and preventing that slum light that we just talked about and again it talks about the crime um affordable housing and again these are things that you can do this does not mean it has to be done but we'll touch on that more later um again slum clearance any type of rehab revitalization um conservation of the community reel Redevelopment area um and then also the anything to prepare a plan or to get that District ready so any of the stud any planning any staff anything you need to do to be able to create a Redevelopment agency um it is defined in chapter 163 356 part one defines what a community redevelopment agency is that definition is really long so I was not going to put it on here to read um but again it talks about the finding a necessity and then essentially um the power to function within the municipality um if and when the governing body by resolution concurred that the Redevelopment plan or plans are needed so again all the way back for us in 1987 they decided that this was necessary another thing to remember we are a dependent special district so we have independent Special Districts and we have dependent Special Districts so we are dependent and we meet one of there's four criteria um ours that we meet is all members of the governing body are appointed so or of this board are appointed so we rely on the city council everyone on this board is appointed by the governing body um and then the district also has say District this board has a budget that requires approval through affirmative Vote or can be vetoed by the governing body so those two criteria are why we are a dependent special district um board members are again all appointed uh per the statute you can have five to nine members you can you have foure terms and members cannot be compensated the governing body can be your does not have to be but it absolutely can um and the cras can have multiple districts and in fact some like Tampa has several cras and they have different advisory boards for every District so they have a whole lot um and then the each district has to have a separate trust fund a separate plan separate accounting separate uses you have to keep all of your funding separate this is really um a big summary of kind of how we got here starting all the way back in 69 when they the Florida Redevelopment Act passed um um a couple of things to touch on is it was not until 77 that tax financing came about um and then also the elected body that same year was allowed to be a c board I did some research to try to figure out how those two correlated but I couldn't find enough in the Attorney General's website but I'm sure there's a correlation on allowing councils and commissions and also allowing for tip spending um and then in the 80s the Supreme Court they got a lot of cases on Citizens Business own owners residents you name it essentially suing cities and basically cling that increment Revenue was not a thing again it's always held up that incr increment revenue is not an additional tax is what it is increment Revenue um a couple of things added is the BL definition uh the big one in 2006 and this is actually a link to the kilo case um this has to do with imminent domain this has kind of always been a really uh big red flag but specifically Florida passed a law 6 due to this kilo case from up North that if anybody wanted to exercise imminent domain there had to be 10e waiting period before transferring land taken by imminent domain and prohibited the use of imminent domain for any private commercial development so what they were afraid of is that council's commission C me would use imminent domain take property and then turn around and give it to a developer yes sir just real briefly before we go on looking your three slides um this started before I got here in the80s my impression is that the initial [Music] C streeted and Lindor company took them out as theyed I was very familiar with the proper they basically close to my beach and they were all taken out on that basis that's when the big was they were taken out foury old appraisals no comps everybody people over that's how they all got done including theot looked at and then the C Char it's increasing chest to heavy heavy signicant infrastru so that to my mind different s of shifts been through along these rules you're lay out so that's my paint unique timeline huh um and kind of on that Kil I I want to yeah um I am not an attorney so I had to get my interpretation from help with the attorney because when you sit down and try and read this I'm like what I I don't understand but I do want to point out um the kilo case itself was in New London and it actually um affirmed the city's right to seize private land as part of Economic Development plans so with the intent of cities to take property and then allow developers to come in and develop it the aftermath that 47 States strengthened their imminent domain laws and 12 amended their state constitutions to prohibit The Taking of private property for economic development purposes so you know sometimes they'll kind of conversations about this property this and if you hear people kind of like don't start talking about that you know it's just anytime you start talking about private property and wanting to develop it it I think people flash back to this' 06 big debacle um again the 2019 right before I got here but I am very well aware of this they changed some uh language on what series can and cannot spend money on and then this year we have been tasked with additional reporting and like I said we will dive very deep into that in the so how do we do this what can we do um C May and again big kind of flashing words here you may not must much like our plans just because it's in it does not mean it has to be done we can do things listed here um so you you can mortgage we can provide insurance we can solicit solicit excuse me rfps rfqs we can invest Reserve funds you can borrow money um planning for rep and Rehab and plan enforcement of State local um land use uh again a lot of what's on this page and I kind of coupled this all on this page we with the exception of the RFP and RFQ we typically don't do this because of how we're structured with our city council so um a good example is Del Beach they're pretty they're separate from their commission so this kind of stuff when you see projects they're doing they're probably the one mortgaging and pledging or encumbering these funds selling the property insuring everything structured completely different than our city council structured us so just because these things can be done undertaken these are not the way our city council set up this year and again these are again just straight out of the statute goes back to some of that Contracting um the acquiring and disposing a property at fair value we learned a whole lot about that with our auction process in South End um streets utilities Parts playgrounds mment we can do the installation of again we've had a lot of experience with our streets infrastructure utilities and playgrounds um planning surveying that's another one uh we do a lot of that because we have a lot of projects that are pretty big pretty substantial so it's going to take a lot of planning efforts so these are typically the type of things that you'll see us doing often and then that last one is developing and implementing our policing Innovation which is how we have our wonderful tap program so these are the big no NOS don't do it we will get in a lot of trouble uh imminent domain very first one we cannot use that as a function of development we cannot build public buildings so if City Hall wanted to be redone we cannot do that uh the only exceptions are like arcade storage building for example because that is a police building as a part of our policing Innovation so that is very clearly defined by a statute uh the other unique exception there's always this weird gray area uh if there was a public building that we needed that was by each taxing Authority so if the city decided we needed to build some new public billing they went to our taxing Authority which is Du County city of Jacksonville and they came to an agreement and said yes you can do X Y and Z we would have to enter into an agreement and then the funds could then be allowed in theory to be used on a public building um but that is something that at least in my research since I've been here and I've researched all of our other local agreements that is not something that we have ever tried to bind off and I just I can't imag that would something that Administration would ever encourage Community Center initially done because that was with C funding yes it has a convention or Community Center so that back half of the building that is uh open for public use the public can rent it out they can utilize it in the statute it defines um it's not considered a public building if it has a public benefit a community center meeting room meeting space conference space and that portion of the building was considered by definition a community center meeting space and so the the other portion that's used by city it's completely allowable it's theyed that themselves the other parts no um no the CRA can fund it because a certain percentage of that building was for that public use for that Community Center so there are offices in there but it was completely Allowed by the statute at that time now since then in 2019 those Reigns did tighten in on statute but in 200 or pre 2019 because that back part is considered a community center you could then build necessary offices there to support that Community Center and the parks department is the one who runs and operates the community center than I know it does get a little weird and wonky with some of that um and I actually had the very same question very early when I started when I started reading the statute like wait this doesn't make sense but it was a completely black and white allowable expense um and again we've all heard about the CIP if it's on Council it's got to come off for three years before we can touch it um and we can also not offset just general government expenses that are unrelated to what we're supposed to do in our plan all right so we do not spend taxes we spend increment Revenue um a case I encourage everyone look up again spare time the 1980 Miami Beach C versus the State of Florida uh this held up basically that um increment revenue is an allowable expense and it is not a tax on citizens it is not just a standard um tax was you know an obligation of the community and then in 2006 there was another case and it reaffirmed that 1980 decision and upheld that increment revenue is different than General taxes and this is a super simple they use this all the time at F what incr revenue is it shows your base year revenue is that uh part A in the black the kind of green color is the B so every year that your uh assess value is going to go up that taxable revenue is going to go up so your revenue is going to go up and then that right there is where your budget comes from so it's yeah it's pretty black and white they do on this one show our C's and C Revenue but I that is far above my head to get into that is at the finance department I will leave that to them and appreciate the work that they do on all of that so what can we spend that income revenue on um positions such as myself our administrative and overhead expenses um again talk we say planning all the time but any of our planning surveying things that we need to do that are part of the plan we can purchase real property in the districts we can do what we need to do um to clear prep or relocate that is one that we also have never done that is a very gray area in the statute and it seems like every time they update 163 the rains come in Tighter and Tighter on relocating relocation of occupants um again not one we've ever touched U repay borrowed funds any expenses related to any bonds we may have which we do not you can develop low to moderate income housing our policing Innovation and then our Capital expenditures that are spelled out in our CIP every year so I referen you know the plan in that last slide these are things that are going to be in the Redevelopment plan we know I I didn't go too in depth on this because we literally just updated our plan and it is well within what our statute requires us to have but you've got to have a description of your area what the uses are going to be a neighborhood impact if you've got a distinct housing project planned um you've got to show your public funded projects which is where our CIP comes into play as an attachment to our plan every year and we update it again we don't do relocation services but if we did those would need to be spelled out in our plan um and then you know back to housing that's again not something that we um plan out as detailed as this would allow us to if we ever wanted to our statement of project costs which are estimates again those were those lovely charts that we had that kind of listed out the projects and initiatives we wanted to undertake in our estimated budget uh and then just any projects that we want to undertake we've got to have it in the plan um and again just because it's in there it doesn't mean we have to do it it's just there but if it is not there we cannot do it so that's why you kind of typically see things that even if it's just kind of pie Andy you know dream at this time it's going to usually be in the plan because at some point we may be in a place to act this um and this should have been at the beginning so forgive me this one somehow Ed up at the back but this goes along with that SL and um the statute really goes in intense on defining blight I will not bore you in reading all of these but again I think it surprises people like I said when you hear someon Light you just think of dilapidated buildings or an ugly Street um a lot of this has to do with faulty lot layouts um inadequate roads um building density patterns you know unsanitary and unsam conditions High rates of crime um fire and emerc calls than anywhere else in town um this really looks at a much bigger picture than just an ugly building on a street corner so that's why I kind of always put this in there because I think it surprises people when they read what like actually is and then these are again I'll send these links out these are links to things that we kind of look at you know this the are basic one to the F website the bottom one takes you to the generic section of the F website and then that middle one we kind of put um I've been in situations where folks don't understand even the legislative process and kind of what session looks like and how what they're doing at the state level can kind of trickle down how it affects us and so I added that from um Florida Leal City's website as well and so you know the end of the presentation point like I said it was a very high level kind of quick refresher course um I think this is stuff you know you may not know it by heart but it's something I think we've all heard and read um especially those of us that have attended conferences but I happy to answer questions and if I do not have an answer I will gladly take them to our City attorney I've got the dumb questions the first dumb question I'm assuming and I don't know if this ever happened in the past but I'm assuming since we're if we voted for something it goes to council they can supersede that correct so they have the ultimate Authority um there's another one the slides number six I can't think what was to go back and look I guess that was D question obvious this will make sure I'm no valid question because it's not it is not that way everywhere so you know yes we have this whole chapter of the statute that defines what we can and can't do um but it does allow for flexibility on how the governing body structures that CRA so there are some places that that's not the case and C stand on their own and they function on their own um there are some where the governing body is the C so that's that was a second question give me that what would that is there an example you can give me of that where it's the council actually the C as well yeah yeah I mean so trying to think I think actually not Orlando yes sir big Jacksonville has more CR over the last year yes um one and they're they're a unique one because of how large their council is how large Jacksonville's Council kind of the council is the c or sub of the council they have no sep C boards they have the airport that they just closed out and but their whole Council cannot be because they've got what 19 something that on their council is that right so we're almost Ser like committees right and sockson really because of the DIA so they have their whole separate entity under the downtown investment Authority and that it separate topic yeah they they get real it's way over my head um but some places like you see it a lot in Florida um especially in smaller communities in Central Florida where you'll have a five person commission or a council um zepher Hills that's what I was trying to think city of Zep Hills they're booming right now they've got a lot going on but their five member commission is also their city council and Dale Hamilton their director um talked with her several times and she literally will go to our CRA meeting gets in front of the CRA talk to the commission they you know talk they do their meeting they adjourn that meeting and then they literally switch she said they switch chairs they move places and then they start their new meeting as the commission um some places just prefer it that way thank you along lines mentioning one of theed by also our bylaws which are you know something that the city council has approved c as well as city council have approved we made some recent changes to that add alteres positions and so forth but that is some of our governing criteria yes um but to be clear if and this is not happened to us if something in chapter 163 changed and any part of our bylaws were against what that state statute says then that part of the bylaws is n Andoid our bylaws don't supersede statute statute's always going to Trump everything c yeah they do one thing that kind of came to mind is you were documents the gra and so forth I think would be very helpful if you updated our C website on the city page because coulde is out there's information that 2016 and like that you know public would be very helpful for them to I think this is and this is going to seem very very convenient but Heather can attest as my witness we have I have already had one meeting we have another meeting with our Communications manager uh we literally sat down for what an hour and sat pulled it up on the screen and scrolled the website and pointed out okay this is wrong this needs to shift um they are amending our contract with our folks that handle our website and so we wanted some more vibrant um elements to ours very similar to if you go to the police department section there's got a lot more pictures it's got the scrolling banners it's a lot more vibrant um but that's a different package apparently with our vendor I don't know anyway they're amending that literally as we speak and we are working with them to make ours better and make the information current and not so complicated because I do agree it's very challenging and that's not fair to the public I appreciate looking at that already the other thing that I think might be helpful maybe it's just me but we get the latest docents for the as well as the South District I know you presented to us some changes for the downt Recently and we saw I'm um no that was the final it couldn't have gone to council if it wasn't the final it just wasn't it didn't have bright colors but the document that was approved at that meeting that that is the downtown plan um and that's within what the city council and then city council approved it would be helpful for me I any be joining the board in 2025 I have good starting point are there any other comments questions from the board I'm not going to lie I was a little scared I kept looking to make sure she didn't look like was think like do you want to go to law school have you thought about that I wasili like familiar with laot of sunshine law but like some of these cases um I'm familiar with some eminent domain but even some of these cases they get pretty crazy I took a whole legal class at the conference this year and it was very interesting I mean I scratched the surface on these cases but the amount of cases that have come out of kind of both into the Spectrum cres trying to push it and not really following what was allowed and then that led to the 2019 tightening of the range and then also communities who and this goes back to making sure our website is current and following Sunshine having open meetings the public understands what we do citizens and business owners turning around in suing cities and or cras because they think that somehow they're doing something wrong with income of Revenue it's very interesting never going to be totally to bed it's just going to keep coming up and coming up you see a lot in South Florida oh yeah and then you always leave the workshop and in true like legal Workshop right it's like well it depends you know and there's no like set okay this is done we have one attorney one Redevelopment attorney and then you ask another and then you ask another they're the worst everyone interprets things so uniquely um so it's always fun at conferences because the panel is usually made up of gosh I think this year there was five or six attorneys and it was actually really U entertaining hope none of them are listening but it was very entertaining to kind of watch somebody give an opinion and then another one kind of look and no no no no no no I don't agree with that and then another one trying to well but hold on it was it there was a lot to learn yeah great uh one thing before I forget Mr chair if I may I made a note um at the city city attorneys presid a about where was it it had oh our meetings um the talking about giving the public right of public participation I did want to clarify that the reason Council has briefings and we have workshops and there is not public comment is because as def find in the statute it says at which the board takes official action so in any meeting where we're taking action the public has to be allowed the right to speak because Council briefings and C workshops and Joint workshops we're not taking any action that is why there's no public comment I'm sure everyone's kind of aware but I did want to I made a little note to touch on that and that is a good opportunity that's why when we have big things like we had all the lake and Plaza workshops back when we were doing sunshine Park we did all the playground workshops um passive all those things that's why we tend to have those workshops so you guys can have that opportunity in a public meeting to have necessary conversations before then the next meeting when it will be anticipated that action is taken I also just want to make sure that all of the board members were aware there was a on your table in reference to the upcoming meetings the C as as couns for your information beginning of the year and I will send digital versions just while it was on my mind and it was on my whiteboard I wanted to put something in writing wacky and out of order um I will I send updated calendar invites and remind everyone of what we have going on because I know this time of year is great but a little crazy when you say um so normally like the 27th is our the fourth Monday so that would typically be our regular meeting but that is not our regular meeting in January that is our joint workshop with city council so that will not be a regular meeting no action will be taken um it is also later than usual to accommodate everyone's schedules and at third cve ball uh it's not here it's in the community center Parks creation that the CR is so graciously provided the city with um because they are doing more Renovations in here something that's right we are getting all the new a equipment finally and so that'll take place at parks um but again I promise I will send calendar invites and about 10 days out start reminding everyone and then the 15th of January which is a Wednesday and that is typically we would have a workshop uh we do have some faag applications that have come in that do need to be reviewed and voted on so our typical Workshop of January is actually going to be our regular January meeting uh we typically do that when we have to move around just because we schedule our workshops and regular meetings with the clerk's office literally a year out so all of our tenative dates are already held so that's why we kind of move things around helpful yeah I know I'm sorry I know I just kind of word vomited a lot of stuff at you guys I promise I will put it all digital and send calendar invites and remind everybody yep just uh this is for tailor for the workshops is a public notice for the workshops and they can attend if they want to attend absolutely yes so our workshops have never been private I can't imagine they ever will be um just because there's no action taken we just don't have public comment and then as far as notice that's being posted on the website is what's then being notice yep and the clerk's office hand all of our noticing we all use the same platform internally so every Department that has so we've got PE Planning Commission Port adjustment Council C pinion um all of our boards we all use the same platform and then the notice is automatically published there thank you if there are no further comments or questions um I want to take a moment and just thank everybody for a wonderful 2024 been an interesting year I think for all of us and 2025 is not going to be any different but uh I want to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas very happy holidays and a wonderful New Year and look forward to seeing you all back here the first of the year thank you with thatting us thank you thank you sir