workshop meeting order this uh March 18th 2025 at the government center town of Lake Placid uh everybody please rise we'll just have a quick prayer to our gracious heavenly father we thank you for another glorious day in
paradise better known as Lake Placid Florida please bless this council that the information they received tonight will give them better insight on what we need to do for our great town please bless our troops and first
first responders around the world who are protecting our freedom and in your name we pray amen amen to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all clerk please call the role mayor Holbrook here council member Hayes here council member Warley here council
member Charles here council member Everheart here okay okay the reason we're here is to talk about town fees and establishing a Lake Placid fee schedule thank you mayor so in the packet we've there's a
lot of different information i did bring in um some other articles that are on your your desk area with additional quotes just so you have that when you leave and you're mundling this over before our next council meeting so you
have some of that documentation there so we're in the process of looking at the recreational fees because in 2017 the recreational park fees in the town were reduced um a comparison of the resolutions from 2012 and 2017 will
reveal the specific changes that took place but the reduction primarily affected park fees and it resulted in a decrease to a fee of $50 for park usage um so presently according to the old reservation form the rental fee varies
from 0 to 50 along with a $150 deposit so some of this information is already outlined i don't know if you had time to look at the packet a lot of the um information that is in here was also presented at the budget workshops that
were previously held so moving into the government center the government cent's policies related to rental fees regulations and pricings have evolved over time and it's resulted in a lack of clear definitions and it leaves room for subjective pricing um
what I mean by that is that previously there were no set amounts and so whenever it ended up in our town clerk's hands there wasn't anything really established you could charge anywhere between 0 to $50 but there was no methodology there was no mechanism on
how are we getting this do we have a fee structure and that's ultimately what has brought this forward is for some consistency so that we know what to what to charge um and then also to give you a true picture of what the cost is for us to be able to use this room we most
recently received a request from a nonprofit who uses the um the government center room and they have asked us to even set up the room and so we don't have design we don't have designated staff for that um they're required to do
all the setup and tear down themselves but now we're being asked to do that and this particular group has not been charged they do not risk so they're basically getting it for zero fee in addition we are asking that we
develop the fee schedule for council consideration but um we would also like to be able to revise a few of our town codes to allow for some fee revisions to be made by resolution and we've seen this done in some other municipalities
this approach enables all of the town fees to be consolidated into one location except for the utilities and the sanitation rates and fees they would remain specified in the town code and then in the existing town code some areas adopt fees by resolution
while others have the fees embedded directly within the code typically municipalities and counties adopt the fee schedules by resolution which is often reviewed in the changes take place during the annual budget development and that's ultimately our
goal is we would like to be able to do this every year review it when we come into budget so that it can truly fall into the picture then we have I we just have some of the attachments that are in here that go through our user fees talks about um the
code for the recreational fees i did want to point out for reservations now this is just for um I'll say for the town clerk to be able to do the government center reservations and then also for the parks and recreation for that to be done only for
the reservations that's just for the processing for the staff to do that from Oh I need to pull that up let me find that let me show it to you eva you said we had this in a tab right the log that the most recent log that Oh
that's in the P drive i'm sorry it's okay it's okay i just want to know so I can I would like to I want to be able to show them what we've been working on pc sorry I should have grabbed my glasses there's the wall the reservation
Councilwoman Worley over here throw me your glasses thank you so on the reservation log Eva if you can remember when did we you did it beginning at the beginning of the year correct i started this one this this year because we're just now starting to Oh here we go this way with the new
software laser fish we're starting a logging process so I went ahead and logged everything that has been reserved since the beginning of this year um this is just things for us it's evolving to
what columns we want but gives you an overview of the number of reservations thus far thank you Eva so she put this together and it'll tell you over on the column G it says what facility so it gives you an
idea and to date we have 43 it's really 43 reservations because there's one slot up here just so I can explain it um and at that total you will Oh there it is sorry it is
$775 is what we have collected so far since January for the two to just process staff only for these reservations is $1,679.15 so when you calculate what we've already collected we're negative
already $94 and that is only for the staff to take and obtain the paperwork to go through and make sure the list of everything that's required is on there and and just to note that a couple of those have not been paid yet because you
have the Gladium Festival that we just got so it gets logged and that typically comes to the council for fee waver so there's a couple items that aren't paid yet but if they were paid that would be but they still have to go through the process uh
right of waving the fees and things of that nature because it'll come up before can you go over that again those numbers that you just said that it's costing staff how much which is is that on this No no it's not it's not on here okay that's why I'm like I'm not seeing what
you're talking about no so if to for the clerk and then also for Harry to process the paperwork and then go through everything that has to be done it's $1,679.15 if you take their How many hours i mean what are we It depends and it depends on what the reservation is
for right it it could but it's still the same paperwork has to be completed and filled out and then after you complete the paperwork it takes about 30 minutes for EVA to do the process so that's the average the average 30 minutes to do the process from the beginning of receiving it to processing it getting it on the
calendar getting it approved going through the whole process so it's about a half hour per reservation that's that's give and take that's an average because I have some that take longer like the Cladium Festival has much pieces to it it has to go to different
places so right so that would be that would vary if somebody just wants to use the room for a meeting a garden club wants to use it for a meeting or you want to rent out a whole park or you you know have a lot of activity i would think it would vary the process is still the same it still has to be received has
to be uploaded has to be put onto the calendar and put the notations and that the proper other staff has to be notified so I I at one point had the steps to give you detail but
[Music] like I say it's the microphone so you're telling me if somebody just wants to use the community room for a meeting it takes you 30 minutes to process that it's approximately I gave you an overall it's approximately 30
minutes if you take different I'm just averaging yeah yeah yeah i'm I'm Okay so yes it can take maybe 20 minutes but it's not going to take five minutes it's going to take at least 20 minutes 25 minutes for a short one because I still have to receive it they come from email
either they're emailed in or they're dropped off that's fine you don't have to i'm I'm just asking yeah for because I I think where I'm going to end up in this workshop is different things should have different prices somebody who just wants to use the community room for a
meeting is one thing somebody who wants to rent it for a shower and use the kitchen and use the other things sure that's going to be more work that's going to be more clean up somebody who wants staff to set up that's another charge right so I think that you you you
you get kind of into an alocart of what people want to use what and for that's just my opening comments and and I could just add for myself because I do the processing so I can tell if we start doing all cart and
having to pick and choose and having it's not going to lessen the process because now because at some point yeah at some point I see it another check mark on the application Right you're going to use the kitchen
yep you need us to set it up yep but process different again so for the community room um specifically for weekends and usually it's it's weekends he calls them prior
like a week or two prior to the event so he has to know when his events are coming that's done by we notify him by the uh the town calendar he gets an email i have it set up to remind staff when these events are happening um he
calls them he sets an appointment people come in he shows them the AV equipment he gives them the passcode to the code to get into the building so he that's his portion of the rental process the others are like do when they do a
pavilion a put up has to be put up when those are reserved allan Kefir takes care of the Steuart Park pavilion in Stewart Park and the main park um so if there's garbage or sanitation or any of that that's who takes care of that police chief takes care of setting up
any police services we have event signs that the police chief now does um so those are just some of the things that get broken out uh road closures if there are big events so that's just to name a few but For Harry that's his portion of this
building is is having the people come in calling him making an appointment and coming in for the coordination just for the government center and because the the word is out that we do not really charge
we are being bombarded now greatly with requests because you there's if you look at the in the package you'll see that there are most places that even charge nonprofits there's not a zero amount for nonprofits there there's only a zero
amount for government and some of these there's not there's nothing there for 501c3 i know that was one of the comments that had been made before but now again what's happening is that the town of Lake Placid has become an event
center for free for 2558 taxpayers that we have what's the bombardment right now looking for is it for just meeting space or event because
again I'm going to keep saying meeting versus event versus park usage is kind of like three different things right so baby showers and that's I said weddings and all that that's an event that's an event should be should be a rental clearly should be a rental that's
for y'all to talk about i'm like I'm backing up because that's for y'all to talk about we're going to try to get these where it rounds out some that's some of the things we're working on and also for audio just so everybody knows okay so we'll keep moving and again like um Eva said that
is only for the rentals right now we were going to try to go backwards but it's it's a little difficult to do that without a lot of uh documentation eva was doing a lot of the documentation prior and if you scroll over 501c3 because we're now making sure we're
getting that see where it says paid nonprofit employee government so you can look the ones that say paid and you can see which ones are nonprofit or government entities that whether it's the county or some of our other uh
co-government agencies so kind of broken out there so we can track it better this is helpful can you send at least I'd like a copy of it later yes i think it's a good it's a good schedule just got that completed sure thank you
let me get rid of this one i did have a correction here on this section from the introduction thank you Councilwoman Charles you asked about this question on the operating budget for parks she asked if this amount was
correct it's at 597,945 and I asked Rachel before we were headed over here so Rachel do you want to comment on that would you mind please 428 somewhere yeah I looked at it and the total parks is
1,80,443 but if you take out the capital then it come to 352,000 yeah you have to take out the pickle ball court you can't have 700,000 what's the It's like 216 for the parks and 186 for Lake June points lake June
Park something like that did you say the total was the total the total that should be in there instead of 597 352 389 thank you do you see that the rest of the council you see that where we're talking about
yes ma'am so we'll correct that but wanted to point that out we wish it was that high i know she said "Are you sure about this?" Thank you do we need to look through the resolution do you do I'm navigating but
I want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to ask any questions or to look at anything i have um some comments on the ordinance wording whenever Where is that
i don't think we have We don't have an ordinance yeah we we don't have that yet in here i was going to say I don't think we have an example but you do have some you have some verbiage you'd like for us to use councilwoman um the uh the ordinance which is be in your packet where is that page four I
think starts page five um just I don't know if you want to that's I don't want to divert the meeting from rates to ordinance re restructuring but okay maybe we we can
get together okay so we have the two resolutions that are here and then we also have some examples of fees that are being charged at other locations that we put in the packet this was one of them this was for Avon Park so it just
gives you some of the information so that you can see and compare what other municipalities are doing what's happening around us excuse me councilwoman Charles I think you make a good comment on you know being able to put some of this in here with like the
extra hours for setup the day before and things of that nature but um the additional hours I think is good for us to look at on the over three because we know that we have some of them that are wanting to get the room now on Friday some of the things that we're h that we're experiencing just so that you
understand is if we have a really large group in there of 100 120 people it is so loud during working hours so um just some of the things for you to think about because I Eva has helped to fill me in um and she said that part of the
discussions that took place about the building was that we wanted to be able to have a community space for people to use and that was kind of the original intent with that just saying to let you know that if it happens on a Friday it's it's very crazy depending on what's
happening a lot of times we have to shut our doors to keep things closed because it is very loud so during working hours so we have them come in and they are able to set up if they come on a Friday and come in the back door but it comes with other other issues if I could just because they'll prop the door open so
now we're thinking about well what's coming in i don't know if you know why they keep all the doors locked in the back or closed in the back is because they've had snakes come in the building so those are some of the funnier things but the bigger things are that now we have AC that is we're acing outside um
the door being propped open caused it to be broken before when we had got a quote for it was $1,000 so those are just some of the things that they're there but we're still we're managing the property and the assets that we have so these are some of the examples for you to see that
we did do our due diligence and so some of these are listed in here others that are not listed in here is that um I did look at uh Hardy County at the Pioneer Park Picnic Shelter they charge just for the picnic shelter and it's literally
just a shelter outside with a little table um a picnic table for $50 um and it's plus tax if they wanted to rent the pavilion a pavilion is $250 plus tax with $150 refundable deposit so just
some you know give you ideas of what things are costing around here can you go back to the comment that you made if somebody rents it on Saturday and they want to come in on Friday to set up do we charge them for Friday even because
that's like two-day rental so if if it's a paying somebody's going to be paying yes we do charge them for the extra day but oftent times it is the nonprofits that are coming the day before we have the ROC's their ball from the high school which is great they just call me
today can we have it Friday but it's an event it's an event not a meeting right so they don't get charged it's an event see and you're going to hear me my feeling is there's different pricing there's event pricing clearly right that's because that's full utilization
of the room the carpet you get you get 150 people or whatever you know then yes the kitchen the ice maker the counters the cleanup so an event nobody can go out and rent a hall for under a hundred bucks for any type of a party so clearly
event needs to have the proper pricing so that we're not losing money i I'm not certain I support that the government center should be an event venue right because what's our goal to make money or to have our facilities available for
taxpayers or others whole different question but I think events is one thing i think park utilization is another and then meeting space gets to be you know call it a different one and just for pricing because I'm just sharing my
every day dealing with it so we just had a reservation for Steuart Park for the entire park it's $50 yeah for clearly for a deal for a 60th birthday party for 50 people to take the entire park because we charge $50 for the entire
Steuart Park so that's just a just things to bring to your attention that it's very easy and that's what's happening now too is you know if you look around our surrounding areas we are
really not charging and comparable with our surrounding uh area at all so just to point that out i do think too the because when you said um events opposed to to meetings the
only thing that I would say that runs in is and I I don't want to say organizations because then I feel like if they're listening then it's going to be like we're picking so I don't want to say that but we have some organizations or entities that have monthly or quarterly meetings but it's not just a meeting it's going to be called a
meeting but it's going to be a fullon decorating event with food usage of you know all of the technology the kitchen it's an event then yeah and some of the things even down to when we started digging through this is think about the
usage of the restroom when you have a hundred people in there and they're using the restroom now they're flushing not only that but we they brought in the cases of toilet paper the other day we're not even charging for toilet paper yeah I saw that i mean so it's just and it's just to say that make them bring
their own but we shouldn't be fooled by the purpose and the amenities in the facility they want to use they can call it a wedding meeting if they want but we know you know this is an event and I
think so I know you've got nonprofits that use it but I also know that there's two if not three HOAs right lake June Point Oak Island Wat's Edge once a year or four is there a fourth one eagle
Eagle Ridge Eagle Eagle something but they're not a town are they in the town limits eagle Ridge right so so but three large ones are in the town limits they once a year use it for their HOA meeting
no kitchen no even even the sound stuff does not um anyways we couldn't get the it to work out anyways it so to me those are taxpaying residents that once a year wants to use a meeting room and has
always had the old town hall all the time use the meeting room and now they're going to get charged $100 really so so if the goal is to have people go elsewhere because they'll probably find that they'll probably find one of the um buildings in town that
they would love so that's where I'm saying is certain nonp that residents nonprofits and and I'm going to call it subdivisions that minimally use it for meetings now if any of those three want
to have their Christmas party there and you know we're going to use the kitchen we're going to have it catered in and all that that's a event it's not a meeting okay i just wanted to say too um I don't remember but just to I'm very cautious about trying to compete with the
businesses okay i don't think we should be trying to compete and baking lower prices than some of the other venues that depend on those those spaces i had called the holiday in and I should have written it down but um the number of people that can be at our facility is
larger than theirs and it's the first one on the list so just so you know um you know that's the only one I could think of to call i don't know if the which is you know not a business but they are in business the Alves Club you
know all our other people in town that maybe can make some nonprofit revenue by leasing out their rooms we shouldn't be competing with them we should let them do their That was just That's just my opinion the other thing was Can I make a comment to that Councilwoman Worley only
because as we're going through this process we're hearing from people um and that was one of the concerns because um someone said well you know there's a a meeting space at um Beo Brady's so now that takes away from town from someone
who's doing business in the town the other one too which I had no idea until I went down and have been looking at plants and doing everything for CRA and Ibanz has a beautiful event area that I had no idea about um and and he said you
know you keep have he said it and said we could ask him that we take away from their business because we offer it at no charge so we're also hurting our business owners is the the feedback that they're saying to us so just to comment
on that I did want to point out one thing his is an event right that's what I'm That's You're going to hear me over and over event meetings park three different type of venues that should have different type of fees
meeting space um on the this page here and again I provided these to Eva so she will put them in but it's the venues page that um Councilwoman Worley is speaking on on the last if you turn it over the very last portion um and this
is only because these comments come up to us so I want to give that caveat um but the Lake Placid Women's Club has an upcoming event here at our site that they are charging $50 a person to get in for but yet when you call and
ask they no longer hold events at their location because the cost of insurance is too much so instead they're coming here they're getting it they're having a huge event and how much did we charge Eva we can't do that we just We just can't
do that but they're if they're having an event and especially if they're charging vendors which they are for this event and we don't charge them this is just not good business correct absolutely not good business well and I do I do think you when you
look at the cost I mean we got this building with Pristine we I mean but the equipment I was trying to remember and I didn't have time to look it up the age of the building the age of the equipment but all of that equipment we have is aging and we're going to have to replace
it if we want the same quality so um it's very important i have not seen very many people even if they're just using the room they use um they do set up some refreshments but most of these people do use the kitchen even when they have funerals here whenever they have
anything they use the kitchen well it's wonderful and you got to go in there and you got to wash some dishes up and stuff like that so and then the other thing I wanted to um revisit which we did we did it one time and we were told that we could not charge different rates for
recreation because it was state funded so if the state funded we we were told at the time if the state funded it we couldn't differentiate between the state people in the town and the state people out of the town but
um the library charges out of out of area out of Highlands County they charge them a fee and these um districts that have I'm I'm almost positive they had to use state money and I'm not allowed to
go to them i'd have to pay a fee if I wasn't even allowed to go them so I'd like to revisit because I think it's a great idea if we can even if it's a small amount give our taxpayers a little bit of benefit if they even are going to be charged maybe just a small benefit
and then you got to worry about well is somebody from the town going to sponsor the whole thing and then they say "Oh they get the So I don't know." But I just wanted to bring up maybe we should just in general find out if we could charge because I know the library does
it i know the county is doing it and I'm not so sure that that's still applicable can I I'll clarify on that one just um because we are proposing for a town resident versus a non-town resident um so that they get a discount i don't know
about the other because anywhere I've seen even if um anyways I'll I'll look on that other that other topic but for the sake of this we did put on here where you can see where there's town resident and non-resident because we do we want to recognize those who live
within our town limits but that was CDBG money and I think Miss Cooper you remember that don't you about the fees structure ructure no I don't know those Sun and Lakes and the different benefit districts are offering
different rates and I think even Bishop Park so I mean that may be very outdated information okay well and I think that's great i am all for doing that let's give our people a little bit of something something you know so I'm glad that's changed now it's actually two in here
just so you can see it yes that's correct councilwoman Charles in um the V right under the venues there's facility rentals that are listed there for you to see and Bishop Park is in there all of the other ones and it and they they do they charge there's no government um government rate is no fee private
education civic religious nonprofit rental rate it says well this is Venus let me make sure I got the right one hl Bishop is a $100 damage deposit that's refundable 99 capac 99 people
capacity 0 to 50 people is a charge of $100 51 plus is $130 plus tax plus $20 an hour plus tax if used between 6:00 p.m and 10 p.m so they even have additional rates and fees if it's going
to be after hours so one of the things that may not be clear on these benchmarking reports is a lot of these organizations not the organization the entities charge insurance so Placid
Lakes Community Center we can rent if you're a member it's if you live out there a resident it's zero but you have to provide event insurance even if it's a meeting which is typically
$300 if you don't not an homeowner you rent it for $100 i looked into this just for meetings right that if we um for our subdivision so the kicker for a lot of people and Charlotte you hit on it Eva
you hit on it is we're attractive because they don't have to pay it by insurance but that then puts a risk back on us as an entity for allowing free rental for people to come in and we did have a couple times where people got
injured i think it was well even during the uh election a lady tripped and you know so we do have if you will questions again to me is on town liability and how do you protect that that's something that we're at risk
and if other entities which all of them are requiring insurance so that will detour a lot of people yeah and so that also as we get narrowing down these rules so we do ask for
insurance from festival some venues um some of our nonprofits will give us a uh because we have we can get they can get it through our PRM or they can get it on their own clarity needs to happen and at what
point do we require all events so those are some of the questions we want to get answered from y'all is to set some hard standards for us to say okay we ask for insurance for all events or is there a caveat of what events we want them for
um so is it birthday party at Steuart Park you know are we going to ask for insurance for that so just to start narrowing down what what type of venue qualifies that we need the insurance would be the first question would there be would there be any downside of
requiring insurance from everybody and and it's the cost issue like council member Charles said so somebody that wants to have a birthday party for their 2-year-old down at the park are we going to ask them to do insurance typically
not so but some of your larger venue you know events that are going to have a lot of folks so what is our threshold for that requirement and for not for profit um it's it's just been and that's been the whole thing is trying to get the
standard set how much are we going to charge where we can clearly say this is what it is it's been very obscured in the past the 0 to 50 and some people some profits and at one point you know we started getting a lot of churches in
here and we were charging the the fee and then the discussion had been don't charge any not for profits so we need guidance on to start narrowing this down um because it is cost effectively uh
you're not looking to make money but you're we're not even we're not even breaking either we're not even we're going in the hole we're going into the negative we're going into the negative so so well okay just to throw it out there for discussion my inclination would be to charge insure to require insurance of everyone every event
meeting whatever over a certain threshold and whether they're profit or nonprofit because the risk is there even if you are a nonprofit so I was going to add to that that depending on where they get it from I've seen it anywhere between 150 to 300 at
the lowest um I know this because when I got married I had to purchase it but also in other events that they required especially whenever um there's alcohol involved that seems to be another area where when there's alcohol involved and they require for you to
have event right and you go back to this birthday party that birthday party brings in bounce house or other types of things that's back to liability on us if somebody's injured so it's hard to just say I'm going to run to pavilion for birthday party when a birthday party can
get pretty broad on what it is you had just said the word we would charge them for insurance and I don't think you meant it it we would require I meant to say we would require them to have insurance with us as um on the policy as an additional insured i would even it
would be it would be helpful and you did a tremendous job of this benchmarking by calling every entity within 3,000 miles I think that offer this so thank you for doing that we all did it it was a team effort but I think on some of them and I wouldn't do them all is just touch base
to see do they require insurance like Bishop Park somebody rents it over there for a birthday part so it's like going back to some of the ones that are compatible to what we're trying to do and ask them what's their policy because it's it's a rental fee it's a deposit
which is very important we learned that recently right and it's insurance so those are kind of the three things to protect the town from not losing money allowing our facilities to be used but at the same time protecting us
overall like saying with the insurance the town they can get their own insurance or they can get it through um tulip which is PRM so that they're kind of are covering so they say we'll offer insurance to whom you may to you know so
that it won't be a burden on the town should something happen but in some cases there are going to be instance where they're not going to be sureable with a small group you know where they sitting here a p having a picnic they're not going to show them so I don't know how they're going to find insurance on all the levels
well I'm I'm looking at it like if it's if it is a small event let's say less than 25 people and someone gets hurt are they not going to come after us just because it was a
small event no they're still going to come after us so I'm thinking that any event needs insurance regardless of how many people now when they go to purchase the insurance the insurance is probably going to be less if there are less
number of people at the event versus how many people there are going to be at the event you know if 25 versus 125 the insurance rate would probably be less but um I still think to protect the town we should require insurance and that we
be included as also insured on that policy now I know for instance Rotary Rotary International has a blanket insurance liability policy for us so when we Rotary do an event all we have
to do is is pull up that policy write the event in there and and it's it's good so if you have other you know things like Rotary which is a nonprofit but they may have a a national service that they already have this
viability in place and it's doesn't cost anything to to to get it but then there's other places I'm sure there are places that will sell this they can Google it and find places that will sell them a an insurance policy for any kind of event now I understand meetings that
would be different and I agree with Councilman Charles that the meeting and an event are different but I do think we need to define both of those and a meeting is defined as ABCD and an event is defined as ABCD because otherwise you're going to get this nanny n about
no but it's a meeting but no but it's an event and you know I I really think we have to define those two things and of course you know activity at the park you know softball game or whatever i think that's kind of self-explanatory but I think meeting versus event really needs
to be um it needs to be defined i I want to add to what she's saying because Rachel I think these are important points on even going back to our current insurance policy and if we're in the business of renting out space and call
it whether it's nominal or making money what impact on our current policy does that have because now rather than a government center conducting business we're an event center so so that gets to be is there any risk with us renting our
properties out is kind of one question for our current policies and then second if there isn't is there an option just on what you said that the birthday party people or whatever can then here's our policy they can do something to become a
writer on it that doesn't negatively impact us in any way that was what I was thinking you were just kind of alluding to that yeah they can go get their own or through our PRM they can do something yeah the town insurance would never include another person on the town
insurance okay so it's only going to cover the town 100% so the the individual the group say "Well we want our own policy to cover this event because they're not going to allow us to have the event if we don't have it." But like I was saying in certain instance they won't for him so they going to have
to probably come back and say "Well it just we just doing this and they said he won't cover us." So what happens in those situations a denial of coverage or how does that work yeah and I think that does get back to what though we were just saying is okay if you can check in
with some of the local Highland County entities you know call it Bishop Park for that or whoever's renting space because I would imagine that one depending on the event they're charging they're requiring insurance but two if they don't then it's got to be covered
fine under the PRM because they've got the PRM insurance also i was going to say can I interrupt yes please um page 42 in your packet is going to be page five of the Highlands County
rental their schedule of fees and amounts and there's a rental in there and on page five the last item is 18 that says proof of liability insurance proof of insurance is required for every event insurance may be obtained by contacting a local insurance
agency or through the Highlands County Board of County Commissioners risk management coordinator at with the phone number and the county does not receive a commission from policies obtained and does our current insurance policy cover us when we host events like this
yes yes yes it does thank you so So is this including this is everything for Highlands County i'm going back to Yes ma'am so 840 where it says Highland County building rental use rules yes that it's all of Highlands County and part of the reason why we put
this in here is because um when I came on and Eva first started talking to me about this this project she's very excited very passionate about it because she's been working on it but she had said that she would like to um suggest that we adopt something like this so
then it's ex explanatory for us it does we don't have to go through this process then then every year at the beginning of budget we'll sit down and we'll look at things and then you can make the adjustments but this is our goal and so we were using this a little bit of our guide and since we adopt a lot of the county's rules regulations we figured it
was best to pull from them anyways so thank you Eva agree so that is in here and that'll hopefully help to give you some framework as you're bundling this over before next month i think that's going to reduce a lot of requests
no more free rentals right no no it might be free but here's what you have to provide so it's cost prohibitive for the organization are you thinking homeowners associations as well i think whatever we make is consistent for insurance is consistent i agree i agree
so the fees was where I was saying homeowners and nonprofits and that that was the fees but you know again it gets back to the fees deposits and insurance those are kind of the things that need to be covered somehow
now insurance totally support that so for instance in um don't like it but support it yeah but in in Lake June Point for instance do they have or do you have a insurance policy that that
would cover that so we have an insurance policy but it's for our within our gates within our grounds it's not the writer on that one i we wouldn't we'll find another place to have meetings event insurance is is really
inexpensive it is very inexpensive it's not really expensive so eventually I tell you I called the lady who coordinates Placid Lakes Community Center to ask her because where we're struggling now is where we have our three times a year board meetings we
only need a space for 12 people right so I called them and basically and it's a special district so she said that if you're a homeowner it's no cost but you have to provide insurance and she said it's typically up to $300
so to me Yeah but that's on that's on the high end well that that's what she was saying the feedback from other people was i just take everybody to dinner we'll go to beef Bradies
go and talk um my daughter is an insurance agent i'll I'll call her and get some information ask her how much a three hour see see if if they have event insurance and what their rates would be for different scenarios
yeah I'll do that you good to keep going okay i don't want to interrupt we're having good dialogue um and then of course it goes on with more examples of what's being charged but some of the things that we really wanted to hone in on some is so this is
the police department reoccurring event costs the caladium festival it breaks down how many officers the hours the the amount for that the total cost when you're looking at these I would
encourage you to take and look at the cost for the police department and then also look at the cost for the public works for the event for each event because um for the just the caladium festival you see here for the police department at $7,260 and then you go over here and you
see what we're also for the colladium festival 2,856 and this is not to pick on the colladium festival because I think what the chamber does for us and the is phenomenal so I do not I'm just putting it out there to make sure you have facts
um but you can see that then you're adding those two amounts in addition to all of the chart the the work that Eva is putting into it as well we gave you some of those reservation amounts and so by the time you look at it we're over
$10,000 sometimes more so each of these events though requires a request to town council and I don't recall if in the
past we've listed these other costs except for the police costs right because the Allen's costs were eyeopening to me with the right you know the facilities right the restrooms the garbage cleanup and things like that so I don't know that we've ever put into
perspective Ive what is the total cost of a event these recurrent events and then we need to make sure that when those are submitted and we have a better breakdown of what the costs and then
when we have the waved or not because you get in so is everyone you've listed here are these all waved including they're all waved correct except for typically these are all waved
Um yeah typically these are all waved and we come back and I think the the purpose was to bring bring it to what the costs were really to bring because these events have been waved for many many years i think the thought process
is to adopt something that says these are the events that are standing determined that are going to be waved going forward and you know how you do that I don't know but or do you want them to because historically all these
events come and they get waved can can we grandfather them in at no fee or do we want to listen to them every year and decide the question on a year-to-year basis yet I'm just asking a question staff recommendation was for you to look
at this and if it's been happening to adopt it it's good customer service as well because everyone who's doing this are doing it every year over and over again it's the same process and that was some of the confusion when I came on board and then the chamber is like why
are you requesting these things we've never been asked this before and I'm just well because I'm following the rules i'm trying to do it by the rules and then they were just used to just coming in really quick getting it signed so so um taking this a step further um
please don't throw things at me but there's this thing coming up from the Merchants Association the Placid Knights and they're going to close the street and that's going to create garbage and um etc etc and they're want wanting to
do it every Thursday every third Thursday or whatever but once a month so these other things are annual events this thing coming up is once a month if if we authorize this at no charge that's going to cost us a fortune
and I think current currently Ken Anderson has said they're not going to do the road closures yet unless it starts becoming a larger event so right now it's within the private but eventually it could be so the determination how to how to move forward
with different events that come up yeah but I I've been working with them and they the road closures off the table now hartzell even did this a few years ago where he would do it in his parking lot and basically that's and I'm not sure if they're going to use the other parking
lot but the road will not be closed but I told them they needed and they did they had Mark come over just even if you're not closing a road we're gonna have more people in town they the police department needs just to get a heads up what's going on for public safety so
they did that though the flyer says Placid Nights on Interlake East Interl Boulevard Lake Placid it's somewhere else there's a flyer that says in Hartell's parking lot i got this
today yeah yeah there's there's a couple flyers posted hold on a minute i got unintentionally just a minute no that doesn't say that just says West Your Lake there's another flyer that I saw on Facebook that said Hartzel's parking
lot okay i gave up Facebook for Lent so I haven't seen that i'm behaving it gets sent to me um I don't care i'm still behaving i just have a question on these on which one of the list of the the
events we're talking about grandfathered in aren't some of these fundraisers correct like the 5Ks right those are all fundraisers yes and I just want to pull and fundraisers
they make money so te technically we're donating to that fundraising cost by waving all fees that gets to be tricky i I mean I I think one concern about grandfathering in traditional fundraisers is then how do you start
telling no to the next 5K that wants to come in or a bicycle rodeo or something that comes in how do you say well you're already doing it for them not for us so to me fundraisers are a little different than
the fireworks the caladium the arts you know the Fourth of July the parade those are town in a sense sponsored events that maybe somebody else is doing and the same thing with even Sarah with the Halloween it's like a great event to give back to the kids and that but when
it's a fundraiser I think we should talk about that a little different because that means we are contributing to the nonprofit i I agree i understand and I agree with your point however the smoke 5K he's one of the founders of the town
okay that to me that's in my mind I'm always going to vote that that gets no fees green Dragon is our high school that gets no fees that's how I'm going to vote it okay pancake 5K i'm not sure what that is okay i don't know what it is i'm just not sure about that it's a
good example right but Smoke Yeah exactly i might not vote for Pancake but I would always vote for Smoke uh like I said they the Smoke family have been the found some of the founding fathers of this town and I would never sit up here and vote for them to pay fees ever so
and I think this Smoke 5K is a combo with their funday too right because that's the other nice thing that they do as a family fun day at the end of the 5K so saying it's a 5K is maybe misleading because maybe their fundraising they put
all back into the family day the family fun day well they put it all back into the community anyway in some way um whether it's that particular day or not i'm sure that they raised more money than than the fun day event pardon me
the funday events are going to cost i I can't say for sure but I think some of it might go to Habitat it i I there I think there are a lot of of things that they contribute that to what is the Pancake 5K i don't know what that is who does that i think that's a not profit i
want to say it's the e-learning center but I'm I'm not I think it's the e-learning center it's It's down from me i think it's the Christian school that was down there that did that they rent from the college they had that it was Wasn't it like something a learning
consortium whatever that's called recent oh yeah yeah it's a recent event that's not But I mean I would have them just every year like they are now just bring it in we approve it we discuss it if a new one comes in we'll take a look at it we'll
discuss it but then that way we're public we're transparent we've got the costs so people know what the costs are that we're incurring as a town that are being waved are you saying though that um the caladium festival the the Christmas
parade the July fireworks um the arts and crafts festival or fair they come in every year they come in as a consent order today yes they do and discontinue it yes what I like about this list is what I
had said that you know people go "What's the town doing for us?" Here it is this is what we're doing you here it is all itemized but how much money the town the 2500 people of our town are donating to events that's what we're doing and and
people don't recognize that and I think that this is a good good thing to do so they can have it in one place and they can see it all what we approve i I don't know i guess I'm just um I just want to make sure as sure as I
ever can and that very little but um that those events the cladium festival arts and crafts Christmas parade July 4th and um whatever else I didn't say those are going to always be okay
regardless of who's sitting in these chairs because we can't count on who's sitting in these chairs in the future and how they may vote in the future and I think that these are events that make our town and this is what we do for the citizens of our town and I think we need
to put this in an ordinance or resolution or whatever we're going to come up with saying that these events are not subject to fees period and that way we don't have to worry who got elected and who's sitting in these seats
because we know that these events because they they benefit our town they benefit the residents of our town that they're in regardless of who's sitting here can I make a comment to that just because we we're having the conversations too the same maybe a
little different but you are the decision makers but we're we're having some of the same conversations and um when Eva and I were talking about this um and now my mind just went like this oh they're standing there standing items darn it i just lost my train of
thought well you can put it on a consent agenda but we all know that we have the opportunity to pull things from a consent agenda if it's in a resolution it's a whole lot harder to change right and now I it came back to me is because
we don't have necessarily the town a visitor center the chamber is our visitor center and that's what they're here for they that's part of their purview and their partnership with us so when we were having the conversations we said they basically work as our our town
activities and events that we have going on so that was one of the comments that we had as far and they do the you know the Cladium Festival we're the Cladium Capital so those would be any like you said that are given for us just so you know some of the conversation we've had
and and I don't think that the chamber um or the JC's that do the fireworks etc that they should be concerned every year or I'll say worried with quotes um every year that geez what are we going to do
if the council doesn't approve us because they you know they don't know maybe who the council is comprised of at this point so I don't think we should give them any worry that those events should be a given and for the July 4th
fireworks I I have organized firework events and they go for a minimum of 30,000 and up i mean that's a low end because of what fireworks cost and everything else so them doing that for us and being able to keep our people our
residents here is a big deal and I think with the for the fireworks too i think in the budget we also set aside for the JC's for the fireworks for some minimal minimal like what yeah 5,000 1500 to say that we still we do give a
little bit to that um I wanted to make a comment uh just because we're talking with the staff about it and Allan had pointed out that for his items that he listed out here this does not the cost breakdown does not um for each event is just a rough
estimate it does not factor in pre-event site preparations it doesn't factor in post-event inspection and cleanup doesn't factor in any of the fuel costs doesn't um any of the park rental fees or special requests any of those things that come through those costs are not
included so you're still just not you're not getting a full picture of of what the fee would be so I just wanted to make that comment well some of it is cost of doing business too correct yes yes ma'am so that is that's what I have right now
we in your proposal here for the facility rental and other fees we can go through these individually if you would like um some of the things that you're going to see is that for planning some of the services that we could uh charge for Dana's services for planning we've
incorporated that on here you'll also see in the county's packet there are th those fees are there um and what they charge how they handle that that's also incorporated we can recoup some of our amounts that way
what does that have to do with what help me understand what does Dana's um position have to do with this oh because um we charge for the planning services for any of the planning fees planning planning yes for new
development permits permits everything like that oh okay okay yes ma'am those fees are in our ordinance right um so the presentation would be that eventually uh so we adopt the you guys adopt the uh fees for the recreation and
the parks but some of our fees are embedded in our ordinances and what we're uh Charlotte's proposing we're proposing is to extract those fees out of ordinance and make one resolute like the county has one
fees schedule that's done by resolution that you can adopt the resolution yearly and review those fees right now in order to do that some of those fees are an ordinance and to do that you have to completely redo an ordinance first reading second reading and all of that
the reason we're excluding utilities and sanitation is because there's different advertising for those that are required to rate for rate changes so that's state statute but the other can be incorporated one resolution one adoption
process um so you have more flexibility as a council to look at it at budget time and evaluate where you are so and sanitation right so it's we have to keep sanitation no that's what I'm saying and
right water wastewater and sanitation have to be kept separate right because of rate studies and that right yes the rest all the other fees that kind of are embedded um we're proposing doing one ordinance that's going to extract them all at one time and state by resolution
and then that way you'll have the ability to just change them by resolution so the the schedule that you have on business fees trying to find that page real quick that that it would be helpful to me what's the current because that's
there's it says what the proposed is so is there a way that you can lay down are all of them going up are they carryover or what so right now the business tax receipts is that what you're asking it there's a schedule in here that says business licenses business So so
Rachel's going to Okay you're taking that one oh come did I jump ahead no no you're okay can I just I was going to make a few comments to these and then let Rachel take that part be uh before you do I'm going to have to scoot out of here okay so I'm gonna turn it over to Deborah and let you finish out the last
half hour or so okay okay is your mic working thank you Mayor thank you Mayor thank you Mayor um in the handouts that I put I just wanted to point out there's one
for CNC plumbing when you look at this I didn't highlight it but you'll see that [Music] there and then there's also the kitchen um the water heater and the kitchen is outlined just so you can
see what that amount is and then there is another one that says supply and install one new Titan N64 tankless water heater there's those two so it's item number two and item number four on the CNC plumbing that would be for the community room these
are amounts because when we discussed it before you wanted us to bring back amounts for you to actually see so I just wanted to point that out then the next item in that packet are for it requires two AC units and so we received it's a
10 ton and it's actually a three and a half ton i think um in my introduction it said 4 ton so there's a correction there as well so that you can see if we had to replace either of the units for the community room that's how much it would be then you also have the proposal
for Griffin's carpet if we had to replace carpet and it gave different options for you to look at um granite versus for micica countertops and then we just wanted to be able to provide you with the recreation user fees that had been
collected at Lake June Park whenever you're looking at the Lake June Park fees and I'm going to pass this one to you now Miss Rachel so right now every business tax regardless of what type of business that you have or closer into the mic
regardless of what kind of business you have or what type of business that you're operating it's all $35 so I did look around at other um agencies and they're charging by whatever business that you're doing what
what your operation is so they they charging by that so it's sort of like it's just fair to do what everybody else is doing so is that when you said you checked around that's Sebring Avon Park or outside of Highlands County outside
everywhere what does Sebring and and Avon Park do did you see when they park and administratively what's that going to do to you if all of a sudden because I looked at that I'm like what the heck it's like you're gonna have to figure out what business you're going to charge them a different amount so is that going
to be more administrative work for you than some flat fee and maybe 35 is too low right how long has it been 35 well in the in ADG you can put what service based on the rate and so it'll be the same billing it won't be any different
billing than what it normally is so it only thing will change is the rate by whatever operation that the business has so it won't be any difference the process it takes is still the same it would be the same what what page is that in the
packet i remember looking at that and like it says page 128 128 the last 128 yeah yeah so it's it starts earlier 120 119 119 just right after that 119 is the lead end
so it's alphabetically depending on what type of business you have is the yeah I don't have all the documentation if you have a golf course it's $75 Councilwoman Hayes but if you have a roller skating rink it's
only 55 it's always more expensive liability insurance i can tell you some of the other businesses um it's not in this packet but some of the the business types like say Fson like you have mom and pop on
Inner Lake they pay $35 publix pay $35 um all of them pay the same price and so when you call Publix and you ask like Tina can tell you about what they said about Publix like that's all I I've cut that check today because I looked on
their Publix some of some um municipalities charge Publix $4,500 for a business tax so I mean to to them it sound like an error on our end so here's here's an example that is going to
cause negative feedback right be because again $35 across the board for everybody today but now all of a sudden HVAC which would be Miller Air Conditioning right goes up to $110 so how do you explain to
them a 300% increase i think that's where it's like I don't disagree we may not be charging enough but to go from something minimal to a
300% seems to be a little extreme so whether it's a couple years you have to get to the level that you want or you increase the 35 to 50 across the board or something i don't have the perfect answer but looking at this schedule on
some of our current businesses that pay 35 and now we're going to tell them you're going to double it or triple it it's hard to explain what What does the fee cover how do you come up with a number like this on page
20 it's a cover sheet no no flip back on page 119 it kind of covers what the businesses actually receive for the business tax receipts no it's actually big on your piece of paper um
yeah I got Oh the business tax it it kind of goes into a lot of things even with the business tax it goes into planning it goes into a lot of parts of the of the agency even to the um the utility building because you can do commercial versus residential residential shouldn't
be paying the same as a commercial business for business tax receipt um but currently they are so it's not fair to the residential that they paying the same i think it's more administratively
what does it cover right and it's just the cost to doing business we get it it's just the fee you have to pay every year but for us administratively it's nothing additional actually it's it's it's the job of collecting it
but to to your question so it's not like we've got these I mean do we we don't have any additional expenses to monitor businesses except to build them and collect it so right now
it won't create any additional work when you said administrative it won't create any additional work but it's not really even creating a salary for the person who actually doing this so it kind of helps out paying that salary of that person um and making sure that this the
some of the money can go back into the businesses um to help them so there's other services just like the police department the police department go by every business um they pick 10 random and they go and they check the business making sure that
nobody is peeking in the windows is everything is good and they put a business card in that door to let them know that hey we came by everything is good and so when you walk to your business you see a card in your door you know somebody been by there that night um and even the hospital they go to the
hospital and make sure everything is calm here um so that's another service that the business get um just for paying their business tax receipt devil's advocate over here um we're getting away from putting the card in the door uh because a thief looks at the
card in the door and they say "Oh they already been by they're not coming back." So it's done sometimes electronically or sent an email or something to that effect but the AC agencies across the state are getting away from putting a card in the door a thing on the door because they know
they've already been there so they know that they're they're good for the night alleged you know I've always been against the business tax and I see the county is going to do it i'm just like a losing whatever but you know I'm going to get charged now 75 and um financial
institutions are going to stay at 35 i would think a bank would bench be more trouble than my little real estate office i'm just saying I don't I never have seen the rhyme or reason for that of any of these fees and how you just pick out like a gun dealer he's 75 and
I'm a real estate it kind of lets you know the mindset of people just to make a joke about it yeah i can't understand the rationale between some are 35 some are 55 some are 110 what is the
rationale so for the 35 is pretty much like your your mom and pops right so you have the local business that you know that the money is not only you know made in the area it stays in the area and then the higher you go up to like the corporate like Publix or what have you
so there get to be a little higher to pay for coming in and you're getting business but you're not really keeping the money in the area but the prices is not set in stone so it's one of those thing that you know that's why it's here put out there for you guys to to kind of make
recommendations um so I'm here to hear anything you want so even if you say I don't want it I wanted to go away i just surrender that too i just surrender totally i I give up what but but again do you recall the last
time i mean how long has it been 35 forever okay so that right there warrants an increase i'm not supportive of this range by entity etc and again it's kind
of hard for me to say the air conditioning company was 35 and now you're 110 that's kind of hard to explain why is that when the dentist is 55 right so each each of these gets to be a comparative that Yeah and as far as
like okay comparing two similar um okay hardware store is 55 and a florist is 35 they're both local they're both small wait why it's only a $20 difference but why i had some more the more
documentation to put in here just showing you what everybody else is doing but it's not in this pack yet i'm not even mom and pop so could we um would you get that information together and share it with them so that they can be able to have
all of that to make a good decision what or can you streamline it so there are only two three four amounts categories okay what if what if we just added all of them what if we added all of the
different ones and just divided it or came up with the same amount for everybody i mean we could take the total of all of these and saying well this is what other people think is you know what they need to collect and then um take these total fees and then come up with a
figure the same for everybody because I mean Publix is paying 110 I'm paying 75 i just I don't know they're not a mom and pop right by the way so but I'm just saying maybe I don't know will you all agree with that like as long as we're getting more money to pay because we we
do not cover the expenses for the business tax at all so that would give us an if we're going to do this cover more of the expenses but still not try to do this just condense everything
i think make it simple 50 bucks 60 bucks whatever again I keep looking at some of these the pesticide company has just doubled it's going to be hard for us to explain to all of our local business people why we approved how do we justify
such an increase and that's where I'm struggling how do we justify a 100 a 200 a 300% increase and and you're I would also be interested in what does C bring in Avon Park right specifically those are kind
of our benchmarking um and I have do I have that and they're different all across the board so is nobody just a one fee no yeah so we've had the one fee we've probably spoiled ourselves clearly we need to address it
i don't know that we need 150 you know business entity descriptions to do that it would make it easy on you guys too how do we issue a a paper license that
they post in their business or how do how we do that and does anybody come along and check those licenses i do every time I get my nails done who who check you who who checks those licenses
code enforcement supposed to be checking or the police department go by then they check make sure if that's a new business that they need to be operating with the proper permits to do so okay but if it's a new business how do
we know they've paid every year um every year they get a build they get automatic build and so every year they get a new sticker i'm sorry every year they get a new sticker yes and who checks the new sticker you you would have a a list to
see who didn't pay up we kind of check the the activity in house so if you know you got a active water account and this person never moved they never transferred service and they're still active in your system then you send out the invoice and they pay the invoice and
it so they kind of and then you're going to get some that you don't hear from or what have you then you check on them and then you realize that oh they went out of business what have you they moved they left the state or what have you then you're inactive and who checks on those you do no um you do tina does okay
it's part of the accounts receivable here's a here's a thought um how about Nobody's here how about the fire department checking this when they do their annual fire inspection that just becomes a checklist on their fire inspection and if they
find one that's not current then they report it to the town and we don't have to do it is Is that part of their checklist we can make it part of No but is not part of it today do they do an annual inspection of every business
they do an annual inspection of every business i'm pretty sure the fire department does not the fireplace does not come and check they don't and to be open that would be a can of worms in the historic district um what are you saying Deborah what are you saying i'm saying
you were you saying that the fire the the fire people come by and check every year no they do not and before when we had something going on the historic districts is unique area but um if you are want to do that
then I don't know i'm just saying you're opening we do not have inspire inspections i mean I probably would think that the restaurants do certain businesses would have to um probably Publix and some of the bigger stores
have to be checked um I said you may not but a lot of businesses do and um like you may not because you're a real estate office attorney's offices don't have it i I'm not sure about dental facilities
but other retail retail um facilities all have to have a fire inspection and because we were we were going to hook up some things from the sheriff's office onto those fire inspections but that's maybe a possibility we could at least
get the amount down but how many I'm just curious how many people are operating in our town right now even at $35 that haven't haven't up haven't paid that fee how many um you know real
estate agents uh you maybe they're operating out of their home or whatever they would still have to pay that fee we do go wrap on the door and see if the the thing is posted no we don't do that so we do have code enforcement so she will kind of get code enforcement in involved in it and they
will kind of like hey you know you need to do whatever but um the last couple of months we've been kind of without a code enforcement so um but that's coming back into play through the police department that's another one and that was going to be my comment because on the bottom of
this you know I call it a license right uh the business tax does say signed by code enforcid code enforcement and I mean I think what the process is and what it should be is you send out the invoice they don't pay through your
accounts receivable followup then it's it's a quick pass due if they don't pay then you just basically tell code enforcement here's the list go yeah find them I mean That's kind of how the simple process should work that to me that would make sense as well but I'm
I'm just wanting to be sure that that does indeed happen because I can just see a lot of things that are listed on here that would very easily fall through the cracks at $35 or $110 either way they're going to fall through the cracks if we don't have something like she just
said um after the second or third billing that it goes to code enforcement they follow up they go wrap on the door and say "Let me see your sticker." because the revenue from business tax is maybe like 15 $16,000 a year so it really doesn't pay a full salary so it's one of those thing that kind of fall in
duties with a person that has other duties to do as well but um between the account receivable and code enforcement and just staying on top of the new business and it also include with billing too because billing kind of triggers some of that stuff as far as like hey you got a new account do they
have a business act especially with a grant opening a newspaper and just say we don't even have this business so it sort of kind of triggers as force code enforcement to look into and let me if so where I I was gonna say so where are we in our thinking of 35 is not enough
clearly so just so we can kind of facilitate what we may think because this is a workshop what is the right level so that when we come back to the town council we don't spend hours hashing this over again i mean you said 15,000 a year is what the revenue is so
even if you doubled it right you're under 30 right um I mean 35 that has not changed forever is clearly low so I would say we could go to 55 across the board for now and let
people understand that it would be re-evaluated in another year and see if it should be re-evaluated based on the type of business so for instance you brought up golf course versus roller
rink if you're going to do a security check of a golf course you've got a lot a long perimeter depending on you know the style of the course it's going to take a lot longer to look at that facility on a security check than it is to go buy a
roller rink so um you know those type of things might be considered in the future but for for right now just the fact that we're looking at it um I think when we get into session I would be supportive of a $55 i mean we can't do emotions here or anything but that's that's kind
of where my head is at i'm I'm with you too i think that's the first start is it hasn't changed forever here's the fee after valuation and in two years we're going to continue to look at it compared to what other cities are doing yeah and one thing they didn't we
haven't really brought all the detail for the business tax our responsibility to make these pieces people are licensed like I'm supposed to be licensed i'm supposed to renew my license it's very hard you have to go to Sunbiz you have to make sure my corporation is active
it's a lot of work it's a lot of detail if you're going to do it right yeah and even then it's hard because like my license could expire during the year and if I didn't renew it but it's hard to keep track of that so now I think what we're doing is every year instead just getting them in and billing them
checking to make sure on Sunbiz that they've paid their corporate fees and that they're active instead of inactive it's it's a lot of work you're absolutely right Deborah every year they check the business and making sure that if you got us going some bids if it
active or inactive make sure that it it is legit right so we was thinking about every year to also include a new application with the the invoice so that if something change or what have you then it's up to the business to to disclose that if nothing changed you
don't have to submit another application but at least they get an application to make those changes so that we wouldn't have to find them so yeah that sounds like a good idea do do you charge late fees if they don't pay on time yes okay good is that is that high enough and then I think it can
go up to $250 to magistrate if you don't pay it so and it never went to magistrate maybe once i think only one person ever did that but um it can go up to 250 it's not paid i was trying to look because I think
you're the 50 to 55 is a hot number um I can't get it to pull up for some reason in here but I'm almost positive that that's exactly what Bowling Green charges and Bowling Green is much smaller than Lake Plaza 50 or 55 55 i'm pretty I'm pretty sure it's either 50 or 55 well and also on this benchmarking
list the low end is 55 the high end is 110 twice that this again it's unfortunate we're at 35 so you can't just jump right to 110 but yet you can jump to the 55 with in couple years we're going to re-evaluate it and
continue to look at all of our fees and I think that's probably some of the verbiage we start having is that we're re re-evaluating all of our fees there's not been things that have been changed in years i mean I don't know we but and so it keeps it coming back you know
something that I was just thinking about is you know how we do re we evaluate the utility rates and then they will come and say maybe break it out and this is what we gauge it to be able to bring it up just something to put out there that that may be something that we could look at down the road with okay well we've
evaluated it we're going to start this year with this plan but now moving forward so then we set the stage for any of the other fees that Rachel may come forward with as we continue to build so just a thought that we could maybe do that And it'll take all of this out over the next few years where we maybe don't
have to come back and look at it so much with this portion just an idea and I told the mayor that I would make sure we were out of here by seven so he had said to make sure I gave a 30 minute notice at 6:30 so it's 6:33 that's the main thing is we want to make
sure that I mean I know we've given you a whole lot to look at but if you have any questions we want to make sure we can answer the question will come back the day of our meeting we're talking about this putting
it because it's subject to change that I did originally say that and then after I guess the last discussion we had I stopped saying that and charging them based on not for profits at 0 to50 deal so I've been charging not for profit
zero and trying to get at least deposits from the not for profits but to get some guidance in the April meeting what type of fees for the parks and for that and for the I know we talked about separating out
Councilwoman Charles said separating out events versus u does that count for not for profofits too if it's an event for a nonforprofit i think in our in our recommended schedule we showed
$50 for not for profofits as a fee for renting the room or you know so we gave you some nonprofits and then an in town out rate are you comfortable with that are the range is okay i guess to get some guidance because if we're if
Charlotte's going to bring it back to to y'all for council in April we'd have to get some guidance on what type of fees are you looking at at this point so we can bring it back well if if you've done all the investigation and compared what other people are
charging and use that to put in here I'm good i do too i think that um I know um Charlotte's been helping but Eva really did a lot a lot of research on this and she knows she loves the town but she also understands we're tiny so I
think I would trust Eva with the rates myself yeah and I think can we make it very simple that a meeting is defined as a group of people that are that come
together with like no additional setup how is the room usually configured just in rounds with tables so what what we have been doing because we are limited staff you have those so when this first came about and Danny's no longer with us
but um when he was here and we started first started the building we were accommodating we were setting up we were breaking down we did not have the time one person to be able to do that as we got busier even now even if you're going
to charge to have the room set up we're still not staffed up enough to have that on a regular basis are groups that some of them that come in Yeah that come in um so we just going forward we just said
you know like I worked at the economic development commission anytime we had an event that we we put on and we went to different venues one was at Sun Lakes we set up we broke down we cleaned up so we came that's how it's been moving forward to this point whoever leaves cleans up
leave it the way you left when you know you set up and the next group came in they set it up the way they wanted to set it up okay so we would say then that a meeting is a a group of people that come in set the facility up to their
specifications and leave it the way they found it and if they need a microphone it's x amount of dollars if they need audio visual it's x amount of dollars if they need the kitchen it's x amount of dollars it's an event in in addition um
now is that for now that might be a point if they use a K if they need the kitchen it becomes an event it's not a Yeah I think that's a good point now what if they bring in donuts okay just put it on and they put it on a table that's no big deal or is that an event i
don't That's That's okay that's a meeting yeah okay that's still That's still a meeting but if it's kitchen If they're catering if it's kitchen it's event um if it's catered it's
event food or any I would say uh food decorations other than cookies you know other than something small yeah food versus refreshments yeah it's going to be refreshments
you had said something about hund and some people for a meeting seriously those are government though isn't it those are organizations that will use the facility so we have we you know we're just going to say one group that comes in on a monthly basis um and
great group but they decorate it's their monthly consider their monthly meeting where they decorate and they have food and and that's an event they may call it a meeting that's an event if they're decorating and catering and call so they
call it what they want but what we're going to call it is an event so we're going to try to define so if we if we define an event as someone that uses the kitchen or has catered food or beverage
um decorations as I'm getting there has microphone AV decorations a meeting microphone AV again extra charges but and they can have refreshments the refreshments are cookies or donuts and some light
beverage but an event includes kitchen catered food uh decorations and again microphone AV and everyone is responsible for their own setup and their own tear down and
maybe we can come up with a standard tearown what does the room look like when everybody goes into it because I know when we were there with our Rotary banquet we were attempting to put it back the way we found it and we weren't sure how they found it because different people took it down than put it up so
and that's that's why we tell people you know you set it up the way you want and when you leave you leave and then the next group sets it up the way they want yeah but then you're but then you're you're you're putting what someone else did on the next person i would rather say okay the the standard set for the
room is that all the rounds are leaned up against the wall and all the tables are stacked up in the corner whatever that may be so when you use the room you take it you put down what you want when you're done with the room you stack the rounds up by the wall and you put the stack up the chairs and that once you
have done that then you are deemed to have left the room the way you found it and anything that we come with after that then we charge them back based on their deposit or based on what they owe whether did we have to get staff in for a full day and completely clean the carpet or was it was it good and they
get their full deposit back am I on the right track so you want us to bring back verbiage that will define the between the two yes don't you think we need to do that i actually I found one while we were sitting here so that's why I'm like and I like I think it's good but we'll bring back some do we charge cleaning
for events i mean I would put a cleaning fee on there and have because they're they're responsible to clean when they leave no no but I mean this is just But we still have to clean is what you're saying we still have to clean we still clean but if they leave we had one wedding the wedding was done here they
left it a disaster we kept their deposit we have but in addition to that I mean great job they come in they clean up they vacuum because we've we've supplied a vacuum back there so we have groups that do a great job of cleaning up after
they're but yes there's still upkeep jose every couple of months goes in with the the um carpet cleaner and does a fullfledged carpet cleaning and he does the floor washing so yes every there's all cleanup but most of the groups do a
pretty good job and we've kept deposits when they have not we had one group come in we told them specifically you do not put uh holes in the walls you not put push pins into the walls um they thought if they put it in the same holes that
were there before it was okay and so we kept the deposit so we try to keep that room as pristine for the for the citizens and keep it up um and make sure that people don't you know but overall
people mostly are respectful i know I know we vacuumed the vacuum was there and we used it we vacuumed and made sure that everything was done correctly but um I and I think part of part of like this is general cleaning is part of doing cost of doing business i
understand that but then there is a line there is a line so um Eva on this chart and I agree I appreciate all the work you've done so you know any of these comments are just trying to be helpful not be critical
um my concern would be when the nonprofits are paying a lot less than a town resident who pays property taxes so I would think that those to me it was those would be combined a non-resident
so originally I did do originally when this first came before you they were combined and the last meeting then there there seemed to be this I don't know at that meeting we weren't happy about the
nonprofits being within that resident not profit column so we decided to go ahead and split them out maybe give them a lower rate so I mean we I originally had them in the same colum as as charging the not profits the same
cost as an inound res that was the original column well we know what's going to happen is any club that has one in town resident is going to register for that club and we I don't think there's anything we can do about that yeah those are going to be
instances that that happens um you know overall but that's okay that still gives that town resident an opportunity to do something good for for his or her club so that's that's good very easily combine that and say I mean if you're good with taking out the and combining
that town resident not forprofit column um and do we want so $150 I mean we're still well below the surrounding area when we say 150 and the um uh out of
town out of town being 200 we're still well under what the surrounding areas are doing And do we want to determine meeting is that a different price you know um because I think if you're saying the community
room we could say the $150 for in town resident is for an event the event includes the kitchen and includes everything if it's a meeting it does not include the kitchen maybe set a different price for that and and none of
them include microphone or AV right that's always extra there was a breakout at one point i know one of the clubs originally when Phil set up we have one club that's paying AV equipment paying not not paying for the room that's why I said the consistency is so $25 was set
for AV equipment well right if they if they use our microphone and our AV equipment there is a fee and depending on what they use what the fee is and we just make up a chart for that but if we charge that fee and and they decide not to do it not to use it but they want to
bring in their own microphone that's fine let them do that they want to bring their own screen and their own little projector then fine you can do that but if you use ours if it pulls down from the screen and there's some places uh because in Florida Crime Prevention we're all over the state let me tell you
if you if you roll that screen down in error you're charged bingo you know so that's I mean if you want to bring your own stuff in that's fine but so we can include that as a separate charge for that yep separate charge and so just
determining whether you want to combine the not profit and town in town residents and separate fee for the $25 maybe we'll we'll set up in the April meeting yeah I we want to have a different fee for just a meeting so was
this the event fee or is this the event fee and we do another chart if it's just a meeting because a meeting could have 100 people with no food i still I still think I still think a meeting even if it's a hundred people can be a smaller charge and and whatever
the consistent charge is for meeting if it's 30 or if it's a hundred they just have more chairs to put back but that's their problem you know so would the would the $50 range be your I'm trying to get for a meeting for for just a meeting for a meeting i would think $50
for a meeting would be good it's kind of consistent the egg center up there is saying 40 yeah kind of $50 where it now says not for profits we changed that for meetings and then in
town rates for the community room and all the other ones not for profit so I understand if we're looking at community room government center current fees 50 bucks current deposits 150 we're saying we're going to do 50 for not
forprofit and town residents so the same I mean I would like to see the same for those two organizations want to charge $50 well that's what I'm reading your chart here so the chart says $50 for for profit and it says 100
for residents we're going to make that 50 is the other way right there that one right there yeah so right now I have profits $50 yep and then I have in town I have in town rate out of town rate for regular events i'd leave the out of town
rate the way it is but I'd take the town resident and make it at that not for-p profofit organization rate in the same column town rate 50 and not for profit $50 yes your in town terminology means
town resident on this chart right yes when I say in town that means that means res yeah it's almost like those two columns get combined together that's Yes and it's all and it's only $50 or $25 or whatever it
says do we want to make that $50 for a resident and not for profit well for an event right what what I' what I'd like to say is that's what I would support because we can't really say what we're going to do here but that's what I would support we're just getting consensus
no I would also that's what the egg center's charging $40 um looking at some of the others now that's for you said so there's there's an event who I'm thinking meeting my head I'm thinking
yeah forit okay just for a meeting for an in town resident and not for profit we're saying $50 yes I support that for an event we're saying 15 for an in town
resident and 200 for an out of town for an event yeah yeah i think that that would be something I could support so the event fees would be pretty much what is in the proposed fees for town
resident right now so town res that would be an event fee and then out of town event fee and then the column that says not for profit right now that would be for meetings for not forprofit and and residents right
I just want to re label them now you still need one more um you still need one no you still need one more column because what you have you do not have proposed meeting fees for
non-residents so I thought that's clarification because I thought the uh proposed meeting fees would be that combination $50 would be for in town so out of town we don't have I got you we don't have an
out of town yes a non-resident meeting column okay so we have to make a non-resident meeting column and I don't know what that number should be but I'm sure you folks will come up with a number okay but yeah we need that and
you keep it consistent with everyone else that they don't charge the other government entities to use that room for meetings only i would not charge other government a agencies for meetings but I would charge them for events i would not
charge us if we go up there for No and some of those government like we host and allow the elections we allow Yeah the elections office the elections we hold the early voting here we don't charge them we do the we work
partner with the homestead exemption they take the room for a couple days so people can come in the local area those HRTPO we have nine minutes and as we discussed earlier you know take a look at your best guess without being too extreme
because we've got to present but in two years we can come back and we should look at this also so it's one of those that let's not go from 50 to 200 without trying to explain how we even did that versus you know 50 to 150 but a couple years we'll be looking at all of this
again as we get more experience and as we move forward to get to that one fee schedule and get all that extract ordinances and one thing then that's can be something yearly part of our budget that you can look at so we can instead of going into the each
individual and do each individual ordinance absolutely i found where we can do one ordinance extract from all those different and bring it all and and when would it be appropriate and when would it be appropriate to go over the
ordinance because the some of the wording is needs to be uh uh the ordinance I we'll take a look at that that's that ordinance I think has been around i know that the uh user fees which the user fees for $20 that's for
the um ball fields so that hasn't I mean not that I'm I'm not even touching that but that hasn't been changed I think since the inception so and and I'm not looking at the fees but well for example it says um the the play fields now does that mean the ball
fields does that mean the soccer field and there's something in here about anybody uses the park well if what a bunch of kids come down and they want to play on the soccer field I've heard that they were kicked out in the
past and and the other question is if somebody comes and they just on the weekend use the big pavilion just like Yep a family right yep they use the big pavilion so now unless somebody's already reserved it right
that's fine so the the benefit of reserving it it's yours whether somebody just came in and used it correct and the same thing if somebody family got together wanted to do a scrub baseball game went out on the field it's fine that's what it's there for and then if the golf people have it reserved
that's kind of how it's been yeah and there's some grammatical typos and whatever and there's no mention of pickle ball court usage yeah it definitely needs some updating yes so it's been Let's build them first
yes they will come i just Yeah i just want to clarify that we're going to have now in this in this chart that's on the on the screen now we're going to have four columns we're going to have not forprofit and town resident
meeting we're going to have not forprofit and town resident event we're going to have forprofit and non-resident meeting and then forprofit and non-resident event and on the side in addition that
those are just the fees then the add-ons are microphone and AV and kitchen and those would be the same whether you are having a meeting or an event okay if you
choose to have those items then then that's what it costs okay cool thank you or just for display rather than it go across the top then it's your coming down the government center event government center meeting so then yeah
you bring it down in the rows versus across the top yeah that's what I'm saying but it clearly right needs to be so that people know look at we're looking at this as two event different events for different pricing right yep okay ladies we're almost to 7
o'clock anything else that any comments I'm good thank you have fun in Japan thank you yes enjoy your Japan trip have a great time I'll see you at the next meeting all Okay um well it's not quite seven
are we done okay i'm going to adjourn the meeting at 6:56 p.m way to go ajourn thank you