good morning calling our meeting to order at 900 a.m heavenly Father thank you for this time to come to gather to discuss uh the business for the city of Linhaven bestow upon us your wisdom fill our minds with your thoughts our mouth with your words
our heart with your spirit in order that we might be able to discern the needs for the citizens of this city and make decisions that will bless them and honor you in Christ's name we pray amen i pledge allegiance 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 all right public comments here mr rich Walker good
morning um flag is here in our hearts and in our minds pledge to it um I'm not a negative person normally but I I I usually point out what things are wrong um we're up here and you have ahead of us in the
next 30 years in five-year increments the following you have the TND the CRA the overlays the assessment the uh comprehensive plan the sewer plant etc etc all the plans that we have laid down in planning commission under the
comprehensive plan are going to be reviewed every one of them over the years that I've been here have been a failure the TND is a failure the CRA is a borderline failure it hasn't done exactly what and it's going to uh
sunset we have three overlays of course the comprehensive plan does not cover everything and the uh people that are developing our community have uh the right to change the comprehensive plan and write their own
overlays you have three of them 950 acres CRA TND you have the assessment now which is in a five-year plan and if anything happens in this city we can't afford it any
damage estimate that's going to be raised you have the comprehensive plan that has to be overviewed and rewritten you have the sewer plant that is in turmoil right now and has to be enlarged you have a regurgitated master plan that you're going to discuss this
is the second time we've seen this spent years on this thing before it was rejected before it is up again to see this is going to be a 30-year plan with development on the fuel depot you're
going to put aside the 1911 plat which also has never been used you're going to write an overlay for this to adjust the comprehensive plan and right back in square one the same
thing this is a 30-year plan with hotels with 8,000 family units got traffic to study you've got everything to look at and you did not write the
overlay you have not proved it it's 30-year plan 5 years increments and they every time it has to be updated and developed you're going to have to review it and do it again but you got to start thinking about this city you don't have
to think about developing it uncontrollable thank you have a nice day all right thank you Mr jerry Parker good morning Commission jerry Parker Replace
just want to touch on something from previous um statements um one of the things I do want to point out is on the 18th Street that I mentioned like over a half a month and a half ago there's still huge potholes it's getting bigger and bigger
if someone's car goes off and y'all might have a lawsuit so you might want to address that immediately also there's a sinkhole that's being um um done by the city right there near the back end of um Diego's anyway so mayor your behavior of
bullying bloiating and insulting a commissioner is not a good look for the city citizens are tired of your demeanor when you don't like things said you'll inject the race into the conversation also very unbecoming of someone in your
seat in reference to the people running for commission the phrase let's move forward is repeatedly spoken yes let's move forward and get rid of those who ignored the corruption after hurricane Michael that infected this city that
would be the Vicki and Ricky Brigade then maybe the city can get back to the some sort of normaly if you ignored the corruption after Hurricane Michael you don't deserve a seat on this commission the other things I want to touch on is
city hall how much has been paid how much is still owed to the contractor i would like a public records request for a year in audit you can send it to my email y'all have my email james Finch offered to pay for an audit and y'all refused pay for it
outright why temporary certificate of occupancy does the city have an actual certificate of occupancy also are sprinklers installed in the building for fire protection still not answered of where
the 30,000 backpack of cash Remy took to Ford also the 16,800 confiscated in April of 2018 where did that money go to there's not qu there's not answers to that question thank you
right thank you any additional public commentary moving on we have our mayor's report proclamation for fair housing month 2025 whereas the Fair Housing Act enacted on April the 11th 1968 enshrined
in a federal law the goal of eliminating racial segregation and ending housing discrimination in the United States and whereas the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race color religion sex familial status national origin and
disability and commits recipients of federal funding to affirmatively further fair housing in their communities and whereas Linhaven is committed to the mission and intent of Congress to provide fair and equal housing opportunities for all and whereas our social fabric the economy health and
environment are strengthening diverse inclusive communities and whereas more than 50 years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act discrimination persists and many many communities remain segregated and whereas acts of housing discrimination and barriers to equal
housing opportunity are repugnant to a common sense of decency and fairness now therefore I Mayor Nelson and the city commission by virtue of the authority invested in us by the laws of Linhaven and Bay County do hereby proclaim the month of April 2025 as fair housing month uh we have a
representative from the SEAR to come and receive This Next we have proclamation for landscape architecture month whereas landscape architecture is a multifaceted profession that encompasses the analysis design planning management
and stewardship of the natural and built environment playing a crucial role in shaping the spaces where people live work and play creating community master plans walkable neighborhoods multimodule transportation networks green storm water systems and
accessible spaces such as public plazas parks schools residential common areas playgrounds and trails that lead to lifestyle active lifestyles and healthy communities and whereas landscape architects as STEM professionals and
licensed professionals leverage science technology engineering and mathematics knowledge to address the most pressing challenges facing their communities fostering innovation research and leadership in the field also have a responsibility to protect public health
safety and welfare through the thoughtful design analysis management and stewardship of the natural and built environments in Linhaven contributing to the overall well-being of its residents and whereas landscape architects as licensed professionals having consistently demonstrated their
commitment to public health safety and welfare by designing accessible and safe public spaces promoting active lifestyles and fostering resilient and sustainable outdoor environments in Linhaven have also played an integral role in shaping the economic social and
cultural fabric of Linhaven contributing to the creation of vibrant and livable communities that enhance the quality of life for all residents therefore be it resolved that Linhaven citizens recognize and celebrate the vital role of licensed landscape architects in shaping the inviting
healthy equitable safe and resilient public and private outdoor spaces that contribute to the overall well-being of its citizens and the economy acknowledging the impact of addressing climate change and biodiversity through innovative and sustainable design
practices creating resilient and green infrastructure to withstand and respond to severe weather events ultimately preserving the environment and ecological systems while reducing the burden on state and local funds for disaster recovery efforts uh be it further resolved that Linhaven
acknowledges Florida International University and the University of Florida for their accredited landscape architecture programs nurturing and inspiring students to become the next generation of leaders and innovators in landscape architecture within Len Haven uh now therefore be resolved that I
Mayor Nelson in the city commission um do hereby proclaim the month of April 2025 as landscape architecture month and we have a representative here to receive this Right moving on to the reports um I'll
keep mine uh brief just a couple things i've been tracking the um legislative uh agenda and seeing what is impactful to our municipality um we get those alerts from the Florida League of Cities and so I've been
reviewing those and and contacting um those representatives that um would be making decisions in regards to those matters um also we have uh made the next round of the uh state budget for appropriations and so we're um hoping
that we can stay in the budget um throughout the remainder of this session and then receive those funds um in order to help us um support the efforts that we're doing here in regards to our roadways our fire truck and then also
um in view of us working with the county um towards uh moving our wastewater treatment plant um also had a chance to go and celebrate 430 freshman students at Mosley High School who received um
honors for having at least a 3.0 or higher GPA um during the fall semester so that was pretty uh pretty amazing to see 430 students um with 3.0 or higher GPA in their freshman class so that was that was really exciting um our future here in Linhaven is still bright um
certainly raising the next generation of leaders and so really excited about um what they have to come uh also was able to um support some North Bay Haven events um they hosted the district um weightlifting championship for boys and
so was able to attend that and see some of our Linhaven guys move on to the regional round and actually some have now moved on to the state so really excited for the way they're able to uh to represent our city and our community uh Commissioner Peebles
thank you Mayor uh I'm gonna have a coffee meet up at Wild Routt on April 19th at 8:00 a.m if anyone wants to come and talk to me about whatever's on your mind of course you can always reach out before then too but it's fun to sit down have a c cup of coffee and talk face to
face uh I also wanted to thank everyone that came out on I believe it was March 29th for the we got together the community got together and helped beautify the park down in Porter Park it was I think it was a great success um it's always it's always nice to it
always feels awesome to know that you can get together with the community and do some good so that was great so thank you for everyone that came out to that also had the honor of going to the uh Governor DeSantes came down yesterday uh to Panama City Beach and had a press
conference to talk about the voter freedom act and uh that was that was kind of neat to see the governor come down and and talk to some talk talk to the local area about something that will greatly affect our area um and with that um I just want to
thank everyone for what you're doing it's been a great couple months i love the springtime super busy I'm sure with sports and everything but uh sports have been going great all the other activities the the concerts and everything have been awesome so just want to thank staff and everybody else
that made all those things happen keep doing what you're doing thanks Commissioner Po thank you Mayor um not much to report i just want to thank everybody for being here your voices are heard every meeting i appreciate everybody who takes time to
come and attend the meetings in person i appreciate the staff all the city employees um um you know it's been a um it's been a long road with the estie program um um they had a foundation
meeting yesterday there's a policy board meeting on the on the 23rd uh I believe the the estate program is shaping up uh to be um to fall in line for the to possibly be a national estate program in
the coming years which would be a good thing um and um uh I know we have a we have a a TPO meeting uh coming up as well um I look forward to um the outcome of session to know where we're at with
um hopefully appropriation for the for the sewer plant uh for the rate study um have we heard anything about that as far as where we at in appropriation on that right now we're at 480 is where we are for the appropriations we requested
um a million and they they put us at 480 so every request we made got cut by half in regards to going into the budget okay every little bit helps on if we get if we get what we get for for the rate study we could continue on um and we
were supposed to have one-on- ones about about the um consent order correct with the with the city manager so are those going to get scheduled soon yes sir sorry we just had a meeting with them
last week on the water tide and um I can schedule those when you are available to do so you'll send out I'll send out an email yeah i just want to make sure that that we're going to get we're all going to get uh information as it as it comes and I'd like to know as it's happening
before as far as after you know yeah no I I think and if you want uh Mr light foot just give you an update right now i think he did that last week in terms of what um we'll receive in the consent order he can do that right now if you
like foot good morning so uh we did receive and execute our consent order March 6th um we submitted the first uh 10 and 15 day requirements which was the public notice um and then our um in kind project that
we proposed to do which is our lift station SCADA so we gave them a a 30,000 foot overview of the lift station SCADA project they did accept that so we will be working on the formal inind project of the lift station SCADA which we will bring to the commission for approval and
then we will also uh we had a 30-day response we had to do and then we have a 60 and 90day response um that the midyear budget we have put some funding in there for one of our consultants and we will bring that task order once the midyear budget is approved and we will go from
there questions this um the the lift station SCADA what exactly is that so that is a monitoring uh program for our lift station so it goes on the station and it alerts you of high level low-level power
failure uh pump faults etc um and it's the the intent is to prevent uh sewer overflow so if the lift station motors malfunction and the level is rising it will call the the uh lift station personnel and they can respond to reset the pumps or pull the pumps or whatever
the issue is going to replace the light with the with the telephone number the light will still be there just in case but yes it's a more high-tech light it it it alerts the the uh the phone okay all right well I I just I just hope that uh and and uh my fingers are
crossed and I'm saying prayers that we get some appropriation for for a rate the rate study to uh to to go ahead and get the ball rolling on on the uh decommissioning of our sewer plant yes sir my well hopefully we can we this is
this is a con this is the consent order appeasement basically for for what the sewer plant does that that shows that we don't need it where it is right okay all right well with all that said I I do
appreciate you sir and and uh I'm just going to end end my report okay all right and to your question uh thank you Mr lightoot oh another question yes I guess I'm I'm sorry i must have missed something i What's the consent order i
don't understand what we had a consent order from from uh the uh D so from the release from the sewer when the sewer plant uh releases into the bay uh you know it's
a you know Panama City it happens when there's when there's infiltration and so the state comes back and uh you basically get fined basically so and there was a dollar amount attached to it and it was hefty so to to was this from
the state environmental this is from D um when we have a lot of so say for instance the the storms that have happened in the past couple of years and then and then our manholes overflow or some of it's released into the bay we
report everything we do not hold anything back that's the right thing to always um do and then from that consent orders are given and um some of the things they come and do inspections on um and then they give us direction as to
what they want to see cleaned up um how they want to see the plant running uh we fix and repair a lot of those things and then after that after we've done a a lot of the just the preliminary work they come in and uh give us guidelines of
what they want us to continue to do at the sewer plant and then they'll put a fine to it and that fine can also take in the form of an incine which we already had into the budget and if tell me the fine was uhundred and fine was
approximately $170,000 and your inind project has to be 1.5 times the fine so when did we get receive the consent order march 6th march 6 yeah okay thanks
right any other questions right for uh following up on Commissioner uh Pero's statement um in regards to our city of Linhaven appropriations that are now um with the state legislature we requested $1 million for Linhaven paving project $1
million for Linhaven wastewater feasibility rate study and $1 million for a fire department pumper truck or $980,000 for the fire department pumper truck thank you to um Senator Trumbull and Representative Griffiths for
requesting these funds for us they both submitted it to their um committees in those amounts that were requested and now we are as of right now we're in the budget for the line item of 500,000 for our Linhaven paging paving project 500,000 for the feasibility study and
490,000 for the uh the fire truck commissioner Ward I don't have a whole lot um I didn't have a time with the commissioner last month been pretty busy so um I'm going to have one this month on the 12th of April at Slim Chickens at
11:30 so any residents want to come out and talk with me I'd be more than happy to have you and uh that's pretty much all I have i just thank all the city employees for what you do thank you and Commissioner Vander Grift um in response to some of the items that
Mr walker brought up yes we do have a lot to do yes we do have to plan for the future but I just want to also add that there are lots of good things going on in Linhaven too you know we've we've cut
down money that we've owed um we couldn't help that we had a massive category 5 hurricane so recovering from that has been a pretty traumatic but we have cut down what we have owed to the
banks we um and in reference to that we need to remember too that we inherited about 25 million debt already before the hurricane so that's why there was a lot
owed um also you know you have to remember that Linhaven is growing and we're listed by Florida as you know one of the greatest cities to live in uh the police and the fire response times are two to four minutes
um you know lots of we've made a lot of progress in storm water but I also agree that there is a lot to do and um but we can't stick around
just dwelling on the past we have to move forward yes the past is important don't get me wrong um but the future is more important for our children our grandchildren our families the city to
survive so remember Lynhaven is a great place to live work and play thank you city manager did anyone have any questions about the warrantless um the um the
850 the what was that for please the payment to 850 constructions good morning i'm Andre Marsh assistant finance director uh that was for the 1516 17th Street sidewalks it was CRA
okay yes all right thanks that sounds You're welcome refresher thank you now we'll have our uh employee of the quarters as you know we started back implementing employee of the we used to
have employee of the month um but now we do employee of the quarter and then an annual employee um of the year uh that we just celebrated back in in January so our first employee of the quarter
presentation will go to Officer Brennan Rom uh and I'm going to ask uh Chief uh Remy if he'll come up and talk about why uh he was invoked at one of the employees of the quarter just to let you
know we do have two because there was literally a tie between two people it's a It's a great uh thing when you have uh great employees and you can't choose between either one of them good morning um Officer Ron has been
with the agency 4 years and about 3 months ago he responded to an eent call um where a person um tried to take their own life and it was by way and means of utilizing a zip tie and when he arrived
on scene the person was purple not breathing um and certainly didn't even have a heart rate um and he was able to think very quickly i watched this video i'm very proud of the training and how quickly he executed this he was able to
remove the zip tie immediately started CPR did CPR by himself for over 3 minutes with a spouse right there screaming um for help and ultimately due to his efforts the gentleman lived and
is with us today because of the efforts that were done by officer Ron um shortly thereafter each year we select an officer of the year and not only because of this event but other things that he
has done over the past year he was unanimously voted officer of the year by his peers so I want to congratulate him on both he's here with his wife his three-year-old son and his father come
on up Brennan and our second one goes to Don Brothers uh if you remember during the storm uh we also had to continually keep the city running during that time uh finance department we had uh three people out
with the flu that mean that meant that someone had to pick up the slack for AP and also to pay employees upon doing their other job as well if you know AP and payroll those
are jobs within the jobs and Don picked up the slack in both of those areas got city paid got vendors paid also worked on audit and did her own job until those folks came back uh to work and so um I'd
like for Don Brothers to come forward when in the finance department she is the senior accountant for our area and does an outstanding job and thank you to all our staff uh and leadership for for uh voting and
choosing these outstanding employees we will have a workshop on April the 29th please mark your calendars at 5:00 PM in the Walter Kelly chambers and we'll be talking about the
Florida Avenue um and Ohio Avenue corridor improvements that that we met as I've said before with many of the business owners and uh we just want to share what now we have gotten the feedback from those business owners
share it with the public um so that we can move forward you've seen the lights outside uh in the um pond area and around the city that are blue and that many have asked you about asked us about that that is National Child Abuse
Prevention Month and we are doing that in awareness of this month uh Easter egg hunt is this Saturday April the 12th we have over 40,000 eggs and normally we have 4 to 5,000 kids that show up to
this event so we're pretty excited about that um many things have been happening out at Porter Park one of those things is we've been trying to really repair the seaw wall for the past couple of years this time it was a permanent repair we're pretty happy with that it's
complete um in the next 14 10 to 14 days we'll be putting down sod there uh and uh putting in the irrigation that was torn out to com repair that seaw wall system um and uh we're we're glad to say
that we're finished with that and then lastly um the crayfish uh piece of equipment out at Bayou Park u is going some going on with some temporary repairs as well it'll probably
take about 30 to 60 days to repair them we ask people to be patient with us as we monitor um that piece of equipment and replace it at the same identical time uh we want to thank everyone for
all of the help that they've done uh with helping us give away the trees it was just absolutely phenomenal uh our last tree giveaway uh we had over 290 people to attend the tree giveaway
uh which is pretty amazing and then we will be uh recognizing Arbor Day this month as well and that is my report all right thank you city manager uh city attorney report right moving on to our
consent agenda approval of minutes 32525 approval of residential incentive program application 41315 Illinois Avenue approval to authorize the mayor to sign amendment two of the community development block
grant for disaster recovery hometown revitalization project for West 10th Street utility improvements project also known as M000045 and approval to authorize the merit to sign amendment two of the federally funded uh community development block grant disaster
recovery hazard mitigation grant match for the lift station 1 2 3 and four generator project is there a motion for this motion to approve second right motion and second city manager if you call the vote commissioner Warick yes
commissioner Perno yes commissioner Peeles yes commissioner Vandergri yes mayor Nelson yes motion passed moving on to old business this is update and possible approval of the storm water assessment fee u we've uh have discussed
this for the the past several months we've also had Stan Stantech to go back and um do some re-evaluation for us to uh reconfigure some things um we've also asked staff um Stephanie specifically to
um meet with Munis to see what particular fees would be if we were to consider putting it back on the utility bill so we'll be receiving those updates today um and hopefully making a decision so the staff know how we want to move forward um in implementing um our storm
water assessment so at this time we're going to have Stantech to give us a brief update and feedback on uh the stormwater ste stormwater fee structure hello can you hear me yes good morning mayor city manager
commissioners this is Peter Napoli from Stantech i'm going to be giving you guys a brief presentation today um as the mayor was explaining summarizing the updates since we last spoke uh we took some of the the feedback and direction
from the commission both the commission and the financial advisory board and uh went back to reworking the tiers and the scenarios and we have some results here for for you today to consider and and discuss so without further ado I'll end
the presentation um see if you're seeing the right screen or not okay I just go this way i think it'll be easier for me to share this
way okay you guys can see my screen okay yes all right so uh we'll briefly review the revenue requirements part of the scenario here we added an additional scenario to that for your uh consideration then we'll just uh just look at the current fee structure again
and the distribution so we understand why we endeavored down this path and and um and you know the the issues with the existing tier system then we'll look at um the tier structures under the four tiers only now we received direction to
just move forward with four tier options so we have two options for you today to look at um and then we'll look at customer impacts and then we've also incorporated the vacant discussion and then what's not shown here on the agenda is we included a slide uh to discuss the
utility bill versus the property tax bill and the pros and cons of both of those collection methodologies so uh you'll recognize this scenario this is the scenario two from last time around but it's essentially a 50%
increase in the upcoming fiscal year for your storm water assessment um that includes the assumption that 300,000 a year would be allocated from the sir tax funds to support storm water capital
projects major storm water capital projects um and over a 5-year period this achieves sustainable reserves um there are there is a dip in the middle there um due to capital but just looking comprehensively at a five-year outlook
this is a sustainable outlook and a and a um a potential plan for the the the commission to consider we added an additional scenario where after the the major adjustment of 50% in 2026 the
commission considers adopting 3% increases to the storm water assessment rate afterwards to kind of show that there are still inflationary cost increases in each year um that that do affect uh you know the cost side of
operations and capital and the rate would be adjusted annually to try to keep up with that this is a even more sustainable plan where you actually begin to build reserves uh substantial reserves in the storm water account and
uh you could either experience those reserves um and and have a better rainy day fund or you could you know have less reliance on the sales sir tax fund so um it's kind of kind of gives the uh more flexibility and options if you uh
considered this this 5-year rate plan okay so the next slide here shows and summarizes where you're currently at today with your storm water tier structure you have a three- tier structure 50% of the population 50% of
the uh the bills fall within the first tier so you could see that in the gray then the second half essentially of the population is split up between tier 2 and tier three uh that first tier goes all the way up to
2900 uh and then tier 2 is from 2900 to 4,000 and then 4,000 and above is tier three uh our observations looking at this is that tier uh tier one is too large tier one is actually in
incorporating the average which in a in a normal distribution would be in the tier two so our first suggested uh reshuffleling or or or um reallocation of the tiers uh is shown before you here
this is our four tier from last presentation where uh the vast majority of the population will begin to fall within the uh tier 2 so you'll see tier 2 is widened from 1,600 all the way to
4,300 68% of the population falls within that tier 15% would stay in tier 1 7% would fall within tier three and then 10% would fall within tier 4 at the end here picking up this tail this shifts
the uh eru to 2800 to fall within the middle the midpoint of tier 2 um and and there are some big impacts here because there were a lot a lot of this population fell within tier one previously so they're going to be they
would be looking at going from that $91 charge to about a $200 charge so it is a big impact for them that is kind of a result of of of fixing and reallocating these tiers to to show a more normal distribution
um and present a more equitable uh uh rate structure so uh we wanted we were received direction to to look at this and see if there was any any other way to kind of offset the impact um on these tier one
customers and and and kind of shuffle things maybe a little even more even so Kyle and I went through multiple iterations looking at different scenarios where we're still trying to balance where we want a fair methodology that's that's proportional but also meet
the goals of the commission and the advisory board and this next slide here shows what we were able to come up with so essentially instead of adding the fourth tier at the end the tail we split up tier two in the middle so that's kind
of where the new fourth tier is occurring tier one um is now uh a little bit higher $110 but it breaks later so you pick up more parcels in tier one um instead of
that 1,600 break it's a 2,000 break so it breaks at the 2,000 impervious square foot level so it adds in some more parcels into this tier um about 29% of the total population here instead of 15%
and they'll see a smaller impact u going from $91 uh to $110 so about a $20 impact tier two here is about 22% of the population um that's from 2,000 to 2900
it's actually a little bit It's a little bit lower than our previous tier 4 calculation it's a 180 um but these parcels are going to be seeing an increase from that original $91 to 180
so it's a 20 $20 decrease from last scenario so it gives a little bit of a break but this is the meat this is where your natural tier 2 should be occurring tier three is from 3,000 to 4,000 so again it's kind of splitting up
the the previous tier 2 and it's the higherend parcels in there they're going to see um an increase to 258 uh whereas they were previously paying uh 169 and then tier 4 um everything above 4,000
will see an increase to 361 so another way to kind of visualize this and maybe it's better maybe it's worse but I know it's a really busy chart everything in the blue here is the impacts um from the original from the
current tier structure so you'll see that um all these parcels that sit in the lower portion of the impervious area they're seeing that $20 increase they're going from $91 to
$110 um so all the blue is our reworked tier four tier system everything in the gray is the previous presentations four tier system the original one you can see that it's tier 2 had started earlier in
the last one so you could see the gray impacts here so these are all those parcels that used to pay tier one $91 and then boom they're bumped up $107 to the new tier 2 fee this happens later so you can see the blue um that
large blue impact is kind of we tried to push it forward a little bit to that 2,000 break point um and now it's even less of an impact $90 instead of the $107 uh moving forward that tier three it
actually is um about the same impact as the impact from tier one so the tier three is all those parcels that were paying 254 in your current methodology and now they're paying um that well they were
paying 169 in the current methodology and now they're paying 258 and then um and then we actually got rid of this kind of anomaly and and and I remember I think the financial advisory board uh finance advisory board or committee picked up on this there was
actually this situation that was occurring with the original proposal where there were tier three parcels getting bumped down to tier 2 in our new revised um tier structure and they were seeing a break they were getting a $55
decrease uh we were able to resolve that by this new four tier structure so no one's going to see a a decrease especially not these parcels with higher impervious they're actually going to see an overall increase to their bill um
similar more similar to that of what the rest of the uh customer base is seeing so uh with that I'm going to transition to the vacant discussion and kind of move on from the this tier discussion
but I'd be happy to revisit this at the end of the presentation and address any comments or questions from the commission so this next slide here uh kind of summarizes the the current state of affairs with the vacant parcels um your vacant parcels are charged a factor
of 23% for every one square foot of impervious uh to a one square foot of pvious so their overall uh size is is divided by the EBU and then times 23%
and that that's what they end up paying this was lowered from that 29% factor in 2024 um along with our other rate updates in 2024 um also they are capped at 5 acres currently um along with
non-residential because we are increasing overall revenue by 50% they would be seeing a 50% increase as well um and so will all the non-residential customers uh the the cap at 5 acres is approximately
3,900 um this generates about 360,000 in revenue so you can see the kind of split here off to the right in this pie chart uh they make up about 13% of the overall storm water assessment revenue the majority is single family and then the
next largest is that measured um non-residential uh well multifamily um the commission has the discretion to adjust this factor at uh you're charging the vacant parcels so
you we presented some scenarios here where you can reduce this factor in increments of 5% and these are just you know samples for consideration uh with each 5% decrease uh you decrease your revenue from the vacant class by
about 70,000 um and that revenue will have to be shifted to single family and non sing and non-residential uh the shift is about an additional $5 to the average rate um
which is a 3% increase so if you go down by 10% um you're going to see about a 6% additional increase on top of the 50% to the average rate and uh you'll see a decrease in revenue by about 140,000
um to the vacant class um so that's these are just one some options that we wanted to present we can run more scenarios at the commission's request uh for your consideration um but but that's kind of how it works with these storm
water assessments you know you if you you um minimize one class it it has to be the burden is shifted to other classes so it it's always kind of a balancing act there um and then so this is our billing method comparison chart and this is
actually a chart we've used in other storm water presentations before for for um cities and and counties to consider uh what we're seeing across the state is in you know a migration from the utility
bill towards the non-advalorum assessment um and that's just you know that's just what we're seeing uh I don't I'm not taking you know kind of a a favorite or a biased standpoint here but there are there are pros and cons with each um on the utility billing side it's
easier to change the fee because it's it's u there's less you know statutory limitations on the uh the collection method and it is a monthly fee so um it's you know you can kind of con consider that it's a lower impact um
upfront from from people paying however if you're you know if you're paying for your house uh if you have a mortgage you're you're paying that non-advalorum assessment monthly as well because it's getting if you owe any money it's getting taken out of escrow on a monthly
basis so you kind of don't have to pay it all at once um but in most cases utility billing is is monthly and um and on advalorum can be considered annual so and this is kind of a particular you know con for Linhaven is that you know
you you currently don't have it set up for the utility billing you you your billing role is per the property tax role um so there is a cost if you wanted to change and that would be either way you know if you were going from utility billing towards non-advalorm assessment
there'd be a cost there too um but under this situation that there's been an estimate of the cost and I think that you know has to do with their MUN system it's around $47,000 um to switch um additionally they there
will be more administrative burden on the city internally under the utility billing uh uh situation you you will be responsible for more of the update and the maintenance and the upkeep of the
role so staff is estimated that uh an additional staff member would likely be required in order to keep up with that some other cons of utility billing is that there are collection issues since there are it's kind of uh it's less of a
successful method of collection you know with with property tax bills you have the threat of leans and um it's it's almost you know 100% collection where utility billing there we see a lot of um
non non-payment and and write offs um non-active utility customers they're not build um they so and basically anybody that doesn't get a utility bill you know it it'd be more difficult to get them a bill if they're not um active utility
customers and then another thing kind of an operational point here is that uh you'll have to rely on a monthly cash flow from a utility billing standpoint instead of an annual cash flow currently you get you get most of your revenues from the
storm water assessment within um you know the first several months after the tax bills go out and then you have the money up front you have more liquidity you can start projects sooner whereas with the utility billing you're going to get basically one 12th of your revenue
every month and um and there's kind of a delay in that so switching would kind of affect the cash flow at least for the first year and then on the advorm assessment side there's all the a lot of things that were kind of just the opposite on the other side but high
collection rate um lower staff administration because uh you you kind you rely on the county to update a lot with their annual um required updates of the property database um it's updated with the tax role property owners pay
versus renters pay um and then some of the cons is there is a strict timeline public noticing is is um you know can be difficult and uh and then there's also a cost associated with public notice but
it is a minor cost about a dollar a parcel um and then the tax collector cost is that's the what you pay the tax collector for their annual administration of this um and collection of it it's about 2% so about $35,000 a
year so uh the final slide here just wrapping up um we're asking and staff is asking uh commission's direction on on kind of three points here the first point being uh the five-year rate plan so the revenue that you want to achieve
um at a high level for the storm water rate um so you can uh consider um you know anything you can consider anything obviously but the scenarios that we have are the 50% and then nothing for the
rest of the five years and then the 50% and the 3% annual kind of inflationary increases for the remainder uh remaining four years the second point here is the tier structure that you want to consider for charging the single family homes
you can you can go back to that original four tier suggestion that we presented to the commission last time or you could consider the new uh revised four tier rate structure and um that presents the revised customer
impacts and then thirdly the if there are any modifications that the commission desires to the vacant fee um now would be the time to give direction on that so that we can incorporate that into the rate structure updates so if it's a 5% decrease 10% um we'll need to
receive that direction sooner rather than later so that we can incorporate that into the overall rate impacts and give the uh give the commission updated rates for the single family and and non-residential classes so with that that's the conclusion of the presentation we had
for you today but I'd be happy to revisit any of those topics and and answer any questions are there any questions for Stantex's presentation could we go back to the uh the vacant
slide all right thanks so essentially what this is saying let's use the 18% for example if we changed it to 18% then that means the average change for the residential in the tiers
would be 3.1% 3.1% higher than the four tier that was proposed correct okay thanks i just wanted to make sure I I understood that properly
thank you yeah no problem so um I want to make sure I understand this right if you're if I my calculations right if you're in the 2901 to 29.99 impervious area that means your
rate will almost triple right or am I reading that wrong 2901 would be one currently paying $169 um and then 2901 under our revised
would go from 169 to 258 okay so that's an $80 $89 impact it's the same impact um as the parcels going from $91 to um 180
and um one thing this doesn't talk about is non-residential so how does that impact the residential rates if we if those are adjusted so the non-residential rates essentially um are are only impacted by the rate
revenue increase that you're you're considering so if you know they're they're going to since we're not restructuring how they they pay like we're doing with the single family tier they're still going to raise the same amount and then they they'll receive
that 50% increase uh from the rate adjustment so they're going to see a 50% increase across the board so right now they pay $169 for every 3,900 square ft of impervious area right
and so what would that increase to so one second essentially 253 um or 254 so they see a 50% increase um and that's it's there's no change other
than that 50% increase okay and the minimum needed for just operation and maintenance what is that about 1.8 million um let's see yeah that's kind of currently where you're at in 2025 you're
you're correct so in 2025 you're just about covering you're covering operations almost exactly and it's about 1.8 million so moving to this 2 point around 2.7 million is essentially capital driven so that you could start funding the uh important infrastructure
needs around the city yeah do we um how much tax money do we have right now in in SE tax I think we have about it's about 3.5 million yeah 3.5 million do we we already know what we're
using all that for well each year of course you know we collect shore tax of probably about 1.2 million 1.3 million every year and then we do a budget for that and so yes do we have some projects set aside for this budget year and even
in u midyear uh where we're using short tax money absolutely um one of the um the projects appropriation that we asked for if we get the $500,000 then we'll have to match $500,000 which will be a million dollar
out of that okay thanks is there additional questions for Stantech all right um we also know that he did give us some pros and cons in regards to putting it
on the utility bill um and that's some of the information that I received when I met with city manager and staff um on last week as well is there anything city manager that you or staff would like to add to what uh Stantech has mentioned in regards to the utility bill in regards
to the fees or the the the pros or cons for that mhm so um Stephanie and Chris did meet with U Munice um that is our software company as we talked about last week we're talking about another city um
which they don't use Munis and so that would mean that we would definitely have to add a M gel um an implementation and buying that module it's about $47,000 uh kind of unknown from there what else would have to be implemented
there the most difficult part of it and Stephanie and and all of us um discussed that is implementing something where you have different ranges on the utility bill uh and that's one of the reasons you see we would have to add an
additional person um and be able to manage that and as Kiki was on the line with us she's on vacation but that person would have to be high level in their thinking um have a finance background uh in order to sure make
ensure that we're collecting the money and uh we can assure our residents that it is going into the storm water fund fund um and not being mixed in any other funds within itself that's very very important to us and I know to residents
as well um Stephanie did I miss anything else or Chris um you did pretty much cover everything um just to kind of summarize though we previously did collect storm water on the utility bill the difference this time is that we would be restructuring the way we're billing
previously it was one flat fee across the board the change which would justify the cost is restructuring the billing to account for this house has a different impervious surface than this house so they would pay a different rate and
recordkeeping that space um also keeping track of ownership of properties which is something that we don't currently do that's the cost um change that we're looking at um other than that everything has pretty much been covered um also I did want to add that Muna said that if
we did go this route we would have to have a signed quote by the end of April because it would take that long before October to be able to put this in place one question I do have I do remember you mentioned um during our discussion in
regards to bad debt write offs closing accounts and how that could impact the um storm water income correct so currently if somebody doesn't pay the city for their monthly bill we disconnect the water services we would probably have to rewrite the ordinances
to give us some type of teeth to back it up but if somebody doesn't pay um on their vacant property or their inactive water account but they have a house there um we would need to look at possibly putting leans on the property and incorporating code enforcement into
the process okay are there any additional questions for u Stephanie no I appreciate the information it's really good information thank you all right thank you um so uh we we have before us um for
consideration today to possibly approve uh a 5-year plan choosing between one of the two tiers and then also deciding on the vacant parcel fee i would encourage us to choose a 5-year plan um going back looking at um some of the the figures
that we've had to pay over the past few years each time we adjust the plan um there's also a mail out fee that goes with that and that's approximately $8 to $10,000 that we have to send out a notice each time we adjust it so um
that's unless we do it early enough to put it on the the one we get from the county when they send theirs out cuz we can put it on that one for free right you can if you meet their deadlines right and I'm trying to remember what that deadline is changes usually the end
of July um is when the property appraiser requests the information to go on the term notice right the the question is if we change our rate plan then we have to notice them that that the rate plan has been changed both are correct yes yes you have to
notice it yes you may avail yourself if you stay with the uniform method of doing it on the trim notice i'm not sure that the property appraiser would allow you to use his trim notice if you were no longer using his services that's good that we're looking at it now then yes but you're right if we don't do it
in time then yeah and and that and I would I guess in the past with our timeliness we've had to pay the mailing fee uh so that's one thing to consider as we look at a a 5-year adjustment um also every time we go back to Munis to
ask or stand to ask them to adjust something it's a cost so for example when we asked them to rework the tier to four tiers it was a little over $8,000 for them to rework those tiers for us um so I think deciding on one of the tiers and saying "Hey this is what we're
deciding on." And then moving forward with that one would certainly save us in cost in regards to um having to pay out that uh the question I did ask uh Stantech and city manager when I met with them last week is what what what would be our annual cost to Stantech so
it's not a hey we picked a 5-year plan and and we don't pay anything but it was approximately like $10 to $15,000 for them to um do all the work that the um staff member that we're seeing at $80,000 a year would have to do so there still is some cost associated with it um
but certainly if we're looking at you know the financial side of it it'll be 10 to 15 versus the possible 80 um for Stantech to do all the work that we would hire someone to do um so I'm not necessarily saying hey we have to go with Stantech in their tier plan but I'm
just providing the information that I received in meeting with them and asking some different questions of them um and right now we see that it is a process that's working um we are being able to collect our fees you know get those things in um and I think also hearing from our citizens none of us like I
don't think any of us are overjoyed about the increase and the poss you know what that looks like for our community um the feedback I think all of us have probably gotten is is that if we're going to increase people would like to see capital projects being done and that was I think part of the assumption when
we first added this assessment um with the increase was that projects would be you know capital projects would be able to be completed um and as we can see even from this year's budget um from you know state funding um depending on grants is not going to be sufficient for us to really be able to handle our storm
water um because there's everybody you know asking for monies um throughout the state of Florida so I think it'll be good if we could you know maintain and uh create our own capital income so that we can handle some of our projects and continue to follow through on the
promises that we made our citizens that we'll you know aggressively attack the stormwater issue i think we've done a great job of mitigating storm water and flooding issues in Land Haven but um as uh Commissioner Andy Griff mentioned we
still have work to do and so I think it'd be great if we can put a a plan in place um and that our commission be that commission that puts you know to say "Hey we're the buck stop with stops with us and we're you know taking this seriously." Um I know there's been concern about why has it why hasn't it
been handled previously um when I talk with other uh commissioners from previous commissions um they chose to focus on um safety and security um as opposed to storm water at that time which was important um and I think now that we have our safety and security um at a premier level that now we can have
the opportunity to focus on storm water um to help mitigate um you know flooding in our area uh and Commissioner Per always highlights you know where we are and so we're going to always have some issues there's going to always be some challenges that we have but we can do
the best we can to help um fight those challenges and try to ensure that no no home in Linhaven floods and I think that's that should be a priority um is making sure that no home floods um in our city in regards to the two-tier plans um I know we had the original tier
hopefully that second tier looks more like what we've asked for um you know seems like it's it's certainly what the uh financial review committee asked us to consider um and then I guess in regards to the vacant parcel fees how's
everybody feeling about that i know there's some that has been sort of a sticking point for us since we've started this has really been the vacant parcels so um I think now we do have an opportunity and we have real numbers to look at to see you know do we want to um
decrease that from you know I guess in those 5% increments since those are the numbers laid out for us so any thoughts on if we want to keep it at 23% as proposed or if we want to go down to 18 or um 13 any thoughts on that
i think since they have the math laid out for it and we can see the difference I'm in the opinion that we do still need to lower the vacant um I think lowering it by 5% is is more fair than the 23% i
know that there's more people that don't own vacant property than people that do so there's going to be people that will be frustrated with that extra 3.11% or whatever but I think in of course like you said none of us want to see an increase none of us are happy
about this but what we will be happy about is storm water being taken care of once and for all other than the maintenance you know and uh I think it's not it's just the the thought of if you
were to take your house on some pieces of property like on my piece of property specifically if I was to knock down my house and just have a vacant piece of property I then would be paying more storm water fees than if I had a house and that just doesn't logically make
sense to me and so I think that it's and that's one of the things that a lot of people have come up a lot of whenever we've had these workshops is the vacant land thing has been one of the main points that people have brought up i think at a minimum we should do the
5% i can understand the argument not to do more than 5% uh because that'd be a drastic change to the tier system we've been looking at but I think a 5% decrease down to the 18% is a a fair compromise okay so if we decrease 5% we
go up 3.11% on the on the on the four tier scale correct okay now you don't you didn't I just want to piggyback i'm okay with the going down the 5% on the on the vacant land and uh and go it it
would it would create an increase on the four tier but um I kind I I like the the second four tier that they sent us the the the new the new one and um um I prefer that
um that that we do the 50% with the 3% increases for inflation along the way so we rely less on sir tax uh um cuz I don't really think how much does storm water take from sir tax now nothing
right not unless it's it's a project that you've approved through SH tax or we use it for grant money for for grant money i could see I could I I could see that for any project with the city because those are dollars well
spent to get more you know when we're when we're when we're putting money for toward a grant it's to get more is to get three times more money back um so that those are my feelings and the 3%
increase also applies the 3% yearly increase also applies to vacant land yes or no that wasn't I I'm asking a question on that that'll be a stance question are they still here commissioner do you
mind asking that again okay on the vacant land yeah the fir our first commissioner said he wanted to decrease the vacant land by by you know by 5% to the 18% now what and and then in one of the proposals we we said we were going to do
the 50% increase plus plus three plus a plus 3% every year over the 5 years to rely less on sir tax is there any yearly is there any yearly increase proposed to the vacant land any
so all classes would be subject to that rate so that would be across the would they wouldn't stay the same they would experience the same after a year because the rate itself would be going up
and just now how how Would y'all feel about that on the vacant side i don't know can we go back to the vacant slide again please no worries can you guys see yes
so I'm trying to do a comparison on this if you have a vacant lot you're going to be paying the same as a tier 2 for every x amount of square footage of vacant land that you
have up to five acres am I reading that right i I'm just trying to figure out um just trying to figure out how you come up with that number of 186 that's if they have a certain group that's effectively the single family
impact so this is the tier 2 single family bill that we're calculating here 80 55 since for every 5% that you shift out of the vacant revenue towards the
other classes the impact is about 3% so that 180 would actually be a 186 but that wouldn't be the only one that would change they each proportionally increase by about 3% that's just because you're shifting the
revenue away from that vacant class towards those classes so would you I know I'm putting you on the spot here sorry but if you had 0.15 acres would you be able to tell me how much they would have to pay for a vacant lot at those percentages
five times 43 560 my calculation says that 0.15 would be about $117 under the 23% double check yeah okay $11718 so under the current
23% so if you went down by 5% think the math would work out but it would just be 117 times five so it would go to
$112 the 118 to 112 and a 5% change or that.15 size lot so that that lot is I guess like the standard i mean it's better but it's it still doesn't make sense to me i don't know which how you guys look at it
just like Commissioner Peeles is saying you demolish your house you're going to be paying more for a vacant lot than residential and I and I know this is tough balance between trying to make sure the city has enough money for services versus how much residents pay
because this is one of the big things that residents have been talking to me about they're worried um yeah I know we're talking about vacant right now so I'll keep it at that how many
vacant parcels over five acres or over exist do you know what was the question how many vacant parcels are over five acres yes uh there
are I have the the last year's billing roll um so I don't we don't know yet for this yet but about 40 about 40 of them are cap at 5 acres so most of them
are in the average range for a a house so if 0.15 is the average size for a house and the cost would be 117 i don't think that's
outrageous am I missing something it's Multiply that out is or an acre i don't know how many acres that is i can't do math in public 7500
mhm yes 17 okay all right so um so what we have before us now is from from hearing everyone is a 5-year plan with a 50%
uh increase for the revised four tier assessment increasing with about 3% annual increase and the vacant land being at um 18% that that's what I'm hearing right now right so five-year plan of the four
of the revised four tier system with a 50% increase with 3% annual increase and vacant land being at 18% is there a motion for that i'll make the motion um so we could get the so we can
get the notices out in the in the in the tax roll notice all right so there's a motion um is there a second all right not a second that motion dies so what would the commission like to do cuz we have to make a
decision all right now I have a a question first so if we take it off of the vacant land it goes onto the backs of the residential yes and the vacant land has been the
flux um since we've added the assessment i know we've massaged it over the years um cuz at one time there was no cap and so then we we did implement a cap after hearing from some of our vacant land owners um and this probably has been the
best that we've been able to see um in regards to the vacant fee um as opposed to the previous assessments so I know we have to make a decision sometime this is very difficult
yes it is we want to be fair and it was difficult years ago at the first workshop when I got told that i said I said it right there in the workshop the people had vacant land were going to be highly upset about this how can we do this but here we are and we've already
done it so this is a way to to to soften the blow in one respect and spread it out more evenly over the over the residential uh end of things and you know tax ro versus uh versus uh utility
bill it doesn't seem feasible to do the utility bill i agree so we we're we got to stay ahead of this and if we don't make a decision now then it's going to be May and then we're going to miss the the the to piggyback on the tax roll
notice then we're going to pay more to send out notices ourselves so I guess I mean that's why it's good that we're talking about it now as opposed to in May June time frame
so I'm curious um Pat made the motion but Sam you're the one that suggested lowering it 5% i just I made the motion based on everything we're talking about but I also said that you know be cognizant we're doing a 3% increase you
know and I I think that's that that goes along with how things increase yearly anyway we missed the boat two years ago when we put the pause on this thing or 3 years ago when we put the pause on this thing and now we're playing catchup uh
whether you know these things are like blue cheese dressing they they they take their course you know they're are alive culture they got to go they got to grow you know and we stop the growth on it and I hate it because I I you know I
hate that we even have to do it you know but but by stopping the growth on it we stifled the ability to to to fund what we wanted to do so here we are and you know at at the very least we're going to do the 50% increase and how we spread it
out you know we've gone back and forth on that this this this looks like it's as even as it could be across the board um taking it down on on on the vacant land is is a good thing if we take it down if we take it down another 5% it's
less impact but it's still impact on on those vacant land people which which I've known all along is not a good thing it's a thorn in their side cuz they went from paying zero now to paying to paying an you know a a nonadalorium assessment
that they feel like doesn't affect them because they only have pvious land they have they don't have impervious anything but we all know that storm water runs through pvious land too so there's got to be some some impact
for them so if we if if we've got it figured out the best we can so be it you know I thought we did but nobody's second motion so is there anything else we can do yeah well so to answer Commissioner Vander's question
I'm not a fan of the 3% every year i'd rather use the sir tax and my reasoning is I understand the argument and it's a good one that with sir tax dollars that you can use that to match so theoretically that 300,000 could result in 600,000
you're taking away from other grants you're pigeon you're pigeon holing storm water with certax money that's not right correct however it's very clear that storm water is our number one priority so that's the purpose of the sir tax is
to meet our priorities so that I'm I'm a fan of using and the two things we've gotten the two biggest things we've gotten over the past two years is people are upset about paying a storm water fee and they're tired of water coming in their yards so to me
that's what we should be using our sir tax money for is to lower the price that they have to pay and to help towards storm water i think and and I do agree um in regards to the priorities um and I think as we communicate with people as
I've tried to do over the since we've implemented this is that our first priority is to stop flooding in homes um I don't like water being in my yard some of that just depends on where my yard sits right but as long as it's not penetrating my home I'm okay uh no I
don't like walking through the water to get in my truck but I'm thankful that I don't have to walk through my garage to get in my truck through water um so but but I I do agree it is a it is a priority um in regards to the sir tax I think one of the things with certax it seems like it's something that's
evolving in the sense of we're not the ones that dictate how to spend it it depends on what's dictated to us as to how we can spend it so if we do make a plan to say okay we're going to lean on sir tax for this five years um then it's
possible that how sir tax can be spent could be changed then we have to go back and then reevaluate okay well how do we make up for that gap of 300,000 so that's one thing to consider uh Mr like food so if we're looking at storm water in
our roads and yards as our number one priority we need to refocus our priorities certex should not be used for the storm water annually we have a sewer sewer plan issue so if we use $300 to $500,000 a year of syax we're not
accomplishing anything first off we can't use the sir tax money for maintenance and we're not going to do any storm water project for $300 to $500,000 a storm water project is going to be $2 million to $10 million which we need every bit of the sir tax money for so if we
compensate annually this the storm water assessment with tax money we're not going to accomplish anything if we leave water standing in the roadways for a few hours I believe our residents will be fine if they cannot flush their toilets I believe we have a bigger issue so the
certex really needs to be focused on sewer versus compensating annually storm water so this is what I was going to say earlier um we're talking about vacant lots um normally when residents talk to me about storm water normally it leads into
the water utility rates cuz we know we went up quite a bit on that and so I think you know this decision is not just on storm water it's on everything you know it's like I got to pay more here i gota pay more and and we know it's got to go up i mean there's no
nothing has to right in order to um the city to do the the services that they need to do problem is what's the breaking point and I don't want to go to that breaking point and I I this is my opinion i think
this plan's just going up by 50% it's too aggressive and I would like to and and the five-year plan might be the right thing so I think what you're saying with the five-year plans once we agree on that we don't ever have to vote on that again until after 5 years right we would
we would vote on it every year but Stantech does not have to do a another assessment or they don't have to reconfigure the assessment so once we say once we give Stantech direction and say hey guys this is where we would like to go now next year the commission that's if we stay at the same right if
we want to change it then if we want to change it then they'll come back and reconfigure and so usually when they come back and reconfigure everything we're looking at about 40 grand so every year that they need to go back and readjust the plan because they have to pull or their new homes or the impervious surface um so looking about
well 40 is with the mailing without the mailing it'll be about 30 grand each year but with the five-year plan it would be you know uh about 10 to 15 now of course as we know by being commissioners um each year that could change we could come back next year and say no we want to change this but then
that'll put us back into the cycle of spending another 30 grand for them to reconfigure it um and then bringing that back to us because they have to look at look at everything so that's sort of the idea behind the idea of adopting a five-year plan is so that but yet each
year we have to still say yes you know we agree to it but it doesn't have to be mailed out because we'll have that same rate so the only time we would have to piggy back off of the county would be this year and so for the next 5 years we wouldn't have to send out any um mailing
notices or anything like that at all and that and that's the other thing that worries me because eventually we're going to get to a point we're going to have to increase sewer rates again with our situation with our sewer plant yeah hopefully um as we're working
with the county you know that and that plan comes to fruition hopefully it doesn't have to increase as much because we're not looking at that $50 million debt um hopefully so and as we're as we're growing as a city with different homes hopefully that'll allow things to spread out in regards to what you're saying like with the sewer rates that
that allow that to spread out a little bit better um than what we're seeing right now and to Commissioner Perno's point I think the increases have come because we haven't incrementally increased for good reason i mean I know we said hey we don't want to continue to
put burdens on our citizens as we're going through the pandemic and the increase of inflation so I think you know we were certainly sympathetic to the needs of our community by not wanting to burden them but now we you know we've stressed and stretched the city that we have to make some changes
um somewhere with this mayor if I may if I may yes sir you know mayor can I add something here can you hear me the boy's voice changed a lot yes um that's Kiki oh I did hear that she was on the line but I
thought you were talking about from the conversation with Munice is the context I put that in context I put No I've been listening um I just wanted to make sure the commission remembers that the finance review committee has reviewed
all of these documents and it was their intent that a 3% annual in fact they said cola amount um each year for the next four years after this initial increase they supported that they also
supported the uh revised tier structure that was submitted to you today that what came out of the finance review committee uh findings uh they also agreed that the storm water should still
be uh assessed on the property tax bill the other thing I want to make sure that you understand as of today the storm water is in the hole $481,000 in cash today we have basically
no more assessment coming in this year and we still have six more months of the year to maintain the storm water department we need to make aggressive moves here we have waited for years we
have put off increases as you said for for the right reasons at the time the decisions were made at the right reasons at the time but we are indeed paying catchup and it's only going to get worse if we do not address this now mayor if I
may okay i was what I was going to say before Kiki and thank you Kiki for your information we very much appreciate that but we we we just kind of brushed over it as you were speaking mayor the feasibility rate study for the for the
potential to to build a larger area if we move the sewer water sewer sewer plant m it could very well be our saving grace where it shows if we build a larger area we we we might receive more
revenue and then we can get together and lessen the blow on this assessment so really honestly you know um that it could end up being a a good thing for us in the long run so um you know fingers
crossed again but we can meet annually and based on the information we have I mean we've got to get the ball rolling um well I can say that uh I'm big enough to admit that my mind can be changed when new information comes in so
um thank you to Kiki and Chris Lightfoot and and Commissioner Pero for for discussing this i I do think that you've made good arguments on the 3% all right so is there a motion for the 5-year plan of the revised four tier
assessment with a 50% increase with 3% annual increase and vacant property or vacant land being at 18% i'd like to make the motion all right is there a second for that i'll second it all right motion and second um is there any
comments from the public mr walker and then Mr basher i hope you're happy about this Mr walker i hope you're happy about this i have to figure it out we did too i agree with you i also u
enjoyed your statement about uh things that you never count into this um years ago I had to um um I gave my house to to my wife okay to
get away from this stuff i didn't want to get involved in it she's good for numbers i'm thinking about taking I thinking about going back and uh I I changed it with the lawyer and I went back and I took half of it i'm thinking
about going back again because um I thought you guys could handle this but it's not working um there are costs that go involved in this thing we put it on the water bill for 20 years i
paid it on the water bill okay that was misused and Tikki knows it we used to pay it in and it went into the general fund and from the general fund it disappeared and nobody knew where it went now we have been ticky and
everybody has been advised that we do not do transfers now anymore very good i not going to give you any discredit i couldn't believe you in the first time and I really can't believe it again because I think you're going to go back into transfers but I hope that we don't
however you get a 35,000 the mayor pointed out every year you're going to get a $35,000 charge from Santex to review this in last year's was $46,000 that's brought you to this point you get a
$35,000 year tax goes to the tax people they get their administrative charges okay you get a reduction in revenue because of the fact if you pay your tax bill early you get a reduction this was not counted in the first
program it now is counted i understand that okay but you get these costs that are going to be in there that I don't hear you mentioning that's going to be a problem i have no problem with what you did if
it I see what you just did in my predicament you came out with 50% increase we got in contact with Sam and he explained what that would be very good i understand that
however what I look at now is what you're approving is I'm not going to I'm going to get less than a 50% increase i'm going from $93 to $107 that's a
reduction is am I correct that's what I'm going to get for my land okay my land is 0.5 acres half of that is
vacant nothing on it my house is on 0.25 okay i don't care that's a minimal thing i agree right over here with this i don't have any problem am I correct in
saying what you're saying right now for my my bill is $93 and with a 50% increase it would have taken it way up but the way you're talking I will be charged
$107 a year is that correct Sam so just to clarify the 50% increase we're discussing is a 50% increase in our revenue not a 50% increase on on the rate the rework structure is what the
rates go with the four tiers so the 50% increase is not it's increasing your bill 50% it's increasing our revenue by 50% it is increasing my Well I think I think on on your tier you like you said you went down the the tiers are reworked
to four tiers right so I will be reduced down to 100 whatever tier you fall in I don't want to Thank you all right Mr basher I appreciate your positions couple of things i'm going to stumble
through this this was a complicated issue um I'm glad you're not really looking at putting back on the water bills one thing that wasn't discussed with that is we do have some billing that is people that live outside of the city and I don't know that you can actually charge them for storm water on
their water bill so that's another complication that you'll avoid i did have a question about the Stantech annual amount do they what is that charge for on the annual amounts so there are two charges it's their charges is to go back and do the analysis the
data um all of that that they bring to the commission they're two times here usually that runs about um you know $29,000 and then if we have to send out those mailing notices they also bake
that into their charge as well which is about $10 to $12,000 so you add those two together and that's how you get um you know $42,000 or whatever the amount is but if they just did just the data
then it would be it would average um about you know 26 and then every year after say if the commission uh passes this is a 5-year plan then that will be minimum because the only thing they're going to do is update the role from that
point which is about 1012,000 right so that that's what I was asking so they're updating the roles so they're just looking at new houses or inact changed in the roles okay that answers that question um sewer and water Mr warick commented
on that our sewer and water departments may not even be covering themselves today because we passed the increases down and not done them i'm not saying let's increase water and sewer but just beware right now even without a new sewer treatment plant we're looking at problems there of funding those enter
enterprise funds um the 3% inflationary thing we initially when we looked at these slides before the increases were rated were suggested for either 50% or 76% I believe um and this gets us to 50% by using the storm the infrastructure
tax to buy it back down basically to 50% the 3% per year increase hopefully will get us away from that i don't understand fully are is the 3% increase are we going to continue pulling the 300,000 from storm from the infrastructure each
year plus the 3% so one of the things that we'd like to do with that um 3% is to wean ourselves off of the SH tax because that will build our reserve and one of the directions from the commission about a year and a half ago
they wanted reserves and to be in uh the positive and this is how we get there good that answers that question um I'm glad to see the wording change on pvious versus impervious surface on the on the vacant lots it was a little confusing because my lot had no imper impervious
surface but I was paying an assessment fee so that change needed to be done anyway thank you all right thank you additional commentary right there is a um motion on the floor city manager if you'll call the role
commissioner Perno yes commissioner Peebles yes commissioner Vanderg can you repeat the motion a 5-year plan of the revised four tier assessment with a 50% increase with 3% annual increase and vacant land being
at 18% no commissioner Ward no mayor Nelson yes motion pass all right moving on to new business first reading of ordinance 1177 amending the unifying land development code uh section specifically
for parking requirements for um major recreational vehicles and equipment city attorney this has been considered by the planning board it is modeled after the city of Panama City's ordinance it expands the
where on your property you can place a piece of recreational equipment um currently your code allows them in the backyard only this new ordinance would allow one in the front or sideyards subject to some standards
um thank you for um bringing this to us um per our discussion questions for the city attorney or discussion among us the two things I know we already talked about this but this is how I feel about it is they it limits you to just one
recreational vehicle which could be an RV jet ski boat those type of things um like for instance where we live on Dundee there's that one house they got he has two boats one's not a it's not a huge boat but it's goodiz boat he's got
a little boat you know um so I think of situations like that um to me I would rather do one or two things either not put a limitation on it as long as they can park it in the driveway or if we got to put a number on it I would put three
and then vacant lots I would just make that congruent with regular residential household um to say you can't put anything on the vacant lot I mean doesn't make sense to me but that's how I feel all right so before I
ask about that I'm going to get our city manager to read this ordinance by title only ordinance number 1177 an ordinance of the city commission of Land Haven Florida amending the UN unified land development code to modify the parking standards for major recreational
equipment on residential property defining major recreational equipment repealing all ordinance in conflict here with providing severability providing for codification and providing for an effective date thank you uh Commissioner
you mentioned um if you had to put a limit you'll do three is that three on the driveway is that what you're saying right okay um any other discussion or question for I can kind of second that just in a
sense of like if a jet ski is the same as an RV you know a lot of times people have two jet skis on the same trailer and it's still smaller than a boat so I don't know if if we wanted to consider uh what either Commissioner War is
saying or have take jet skis out of that list of major vehicles um also another thing I wanted to point out was I think it's on page 44 if you want to look at it just to make it easier for you uh
under B9 it's talking about uh about commercial purposes yeah shall not permit any major recreational equipment used for commercial purposes not huge I'm not a huge fan of that and here's why we have um I understand the
reasoning but I feel like there should be at least a caveat there or something because we have quite a few members of our community that own food trucks and that's their way of making money so like if you drive around uh Kang Griffin Park
you'll find at least two or three families that own a food truck and it's just sitting in their driveway and it's not messing with anybody food trucks are not that big um some of they can be big but they're not going to be bigger than an RV um and so I don't know if we
wanted to make a caveat specifically for food trucks because we like to be a food truck friendly city i mean we have the food truck um festival every year uh I don't know i get this i understand like we don't want giant pieces of like construction equipment all over people's
yards i get that um I can see that argument at least but I I think that this could seriously hurt people that own uh food trucks i don't know if that would apply to food trucks would it cannot permit any major Well but when
you read the definition of major recreational equipment it says any vehicle vessel trailer or large equipment used primarily for recreational purposes right i don't think that would be food truck would it shall not permit any major recreational equipment used for
commercial purposes what's the difference between a truck and an RV they're both motori it's not used for recreational it's used for business well but like let's say you got what's that over on the beach there's that big giant yellow speedboat you know i think that's
kind of what they're getting at i I don't know yeah that would be a good question for the attorney because if if it doesn't um if I don't see like I guess I just assumed it meant anything that was used for commercial cuz I don't in my mind I don't see something that's recreational
and commercial but you could I guess the commercial side of the recreational would be renting it out as an Airbnb i mean like some people might rent out their RV as Airbnb so again we I am not the author of this language so I can only guess um what they intended i can I
can share my interpretation and I read it to mean for instance if um a business has an RV that it uses for its business and the RV has the business logo on the side of it but it is parked in someone's house that is what I envisioned this to
mean it is a recreational piece of recreational equipment because it is primarily used for recreational but it's being used for commercial purposes because it's owned by the business and it's advertising the business okay so this is like a one of those just catching a one-off essentially is what
it see appears to be doing here so this is my interpretation again I will need to go back if this is important we either need to strike it or modify it or I can go back to the Panama City Attorney to see what problem they were trying to solve and intended by it because I can't answer that specific question yeah and this is just the first
reading anyway so we don't have to like we can do some more research into this i just wanted to give my thoughts on it commissioner Vandigrew I know you have some thoughts yes and they're probably going to be
unpopular i'm going to be the minority here um you know when you live in a city within the city limits there are restrictions um those 300 people that have RVs in their front yard right now should have known what the regulations
were when they purchased those vehicles or those RVs i mean it was very clear you know on the side or in the back um if this is passed there'll be five
times that many in front yards code enforcement now has a hard enough time keeping up with what they have to deal with and now there's going to be you know a thousand more in the front yards is it at a right angle is it
protruding too much is it impeding the sidewalk um like I said I'm probably the minority here so but I I I needed to say that so Commissioner Perno
as it as it is today we we're dealing with 300 300 RVs parked in in in places i mean if we pass this it could be even more um I
mean be be ready and if you want to change the I mean the restriction is to one one in the in in the wording but then that's one for one for every driveway so um you know and I'm I'm
I'm I think we'd like to hear from the people i've heard from a couple folks who have RVs but you know and I'm I mean I'm I'm still way open on this you know i don't I don't really have my mind
around what's the best thing so um and then and I'd like to I'd like and and I don't want to be too restrictive either but because everybody's got liberties and rights to put things in there but but uh you know it's it's we we've got
to set something in in place I guess cuz we got this issue with 300 RVs and 300 people in violation right now right is that is that the number that we have in code enforcement issues yes it's about 300 um to Commissioner Pero's point um I
have had several residents and even coming back on a plane on Sunday night um some residents were on a plane and their biggest concern is um one of the reasons they moved in this neighborhood Lin Haven is because Lin Haven is clean
the quality of life is great here and they just felt like that allowing too many of the this type of equipment into um you know on the driveways on the side wherever it's going to be is we're going
to begin to look very very cluttered and that was that's been what I've heard from most residents is that you know that's one of the reasons they enjoy the quality of life and just ask the one on Sunday night asked me just to say to you
to think about what Glen Haven will look like in 5 years just not now but what it will look like in 5 years all right so any other discussion moving on to agenda item number 14 first
reading of ordinance 1179 amending the unified land development code establishing the Marina Island Overlay District city manager if you read that by title only please yes sir an ordinance of the city of Linhaven Florida amending the ULDC to establish
the Marina Island overlay district comprised of the area shown upon the attached and incorporated as exhibit A to the ordinance specifying permitted land uses minimum ordinance lot setbacks lot sizes and
setback maximum densities height and floor area ratios parking standards and street design elements and standards for accessory structures permitting alcohol sales throughout the district providing for a transfer or density within the
district providing standards for landscaping lighting and signage providing that in the event of a conflict between the provisions of Marina Island overlay and other applicable ordinances the provisions of Marina Marina Island overlay district
shall control authorizing codification repealing ordinances in conflict and providing a perfect an immediately effective date all right thank you um commission do we
have any questions for uh Amanda in regards to this so if saying a big if here this were to get approved what's the next step if this were to get approved basically what this
does is creates a section in the code for certain things that they can do the way they've specified uh they would like to do in the overlay um and then following that if they wanted to then develop something there's also a
development agreement that would have to come to you for approval if those things were approved and they wanted to build something they would have to bring a development order which would be reviewed just like anything else um there are certain things which this
overlay does not apply to cannot and they are things that in the comprehensive plan and any of the state requirements things like storm water environmental protection densities those things are set out in their land use um designations they cannot change those
things the only things that they're asking to change with this overlay are the things that are city controlled such as setbacks um building heights um what the street signs look like the ability to have different types of streets
because right now we have technical standards so if anybody wants to build a road it has to they all look the same they have to meet those technical standards they have to be the same width this would give them permission to have different widths of roads in different places but the development order would still
have to come to us all of the checks and balances would still occur they would still have to be reviewed to make sure they met all the requirements if they don't address something in this overlay that's in thec
it reverts to thec and we just review it according to thec it would come to the planning commission it would come to you just like anything else so so the next step would be a development agreement right yes sir and and we would have to
approve it if if there's anything in this overlay that we already agreed to it's a different It's a different thing i'll let the attorney explain what that is no they're two different they're two different vehicles really so this sets some land development regulations by
which your the approval or disapproval or not of a development order will be subject the development agreement is a creature of statute um that allows the developer to essentially vest some development entitlements and certain uses and certain heights and certain densities so that even if y'all change
your unified land development code um he will still have those rights that you have agreed to in the development agreement but there would be certain things we'd have to agree to that we already agreed to in the overlay map right they will in fact the densities heights um right those statutory
requirements will absolutely match um what the development agreement does a little bit different than the overlay does is it sets some timelines for development for instance it allows the city to say you need to have public facilities you need to do certain things with public infrastructure and here are
the standards that apply to that and then after that that's when they can put in the development order after they do the development agreement the development agreement is not required it is um it is an option it's not required for this process to go forward you could you
could adopt the overlay district and not de adopt the development agreement if you're going to adopt the development agreement there are places where they need to sync okay but they're not identical they do they This is a lot to take in i think this is all new territory for all of us cuz it's I don't
I don't know when's the last time we've done something like this i'm sure it's been a long time so it's it's definitely a learning curve for all of us so currently can I just say currently if they submitted a development order which
they could do they've got the land users and asking to change those they could submit a development order now and we would review it against the ULDC as is just wanted to let you know that so this is so that there are certain things that
instead of looking at the we would look at this new section of the you would approve if you approve it there i mean it has a lot of stuff in it um and I don't want to miss anything and then regret it later you know what I
mean so um like for instance I'm I'm concerned about the industrial park you guys know that i've said it multiple times i I don't know how you guys feel about it but I feel like if we encroach I mean we had that one that um Dr albbe put in for that lowdensity residential
we turned it down because we didn't want to encroach on the industrial park um and you know you guys probably heard me say it a million times it brings in a whole lot more net revenue with um manufacturing um industrial type
businesses and uh my fear is if it does get encroached on that we'll start losing some of those businesses uh it it butts right up to American Industries it does but the the old field depot fine
with that i'm talking actually in the industrial park where they have land and I think that if I read this correctly part of the overlay is in the industrial park so it's stuff like that that I'm like I think we need to kind of pump the brakes and and make sure we look at this
right so city attorney in regards to uh Commissioner Wars comments in regards to pumping the brakes not this is our first reading we have a second reading um if we wanted to look at this for
another month what does that look like from these ordinances perspective would we just table it in the second reading you have a couple of options right now this has been advertised as a public hearing for first reading today and a second reading public hearing and
possible adoption at your April 21st meeting if at that April 21st meeting you're not ready um to adopt it I would recommend that you continue that public hearing until May 13th and the reason I say that is because your development agreement has also been published for
two public hearings as required by statute and that timeline is first reading or first hearing on the development agreement for April 21st and a second public hearing on May 13th so you have sort of an extra two weeks built in to this process currently on
the current published timeline to address these problems if you do have some concerns particularly about the buffering or the compatibility between the um proposed uses and the current industrial existing uses um I'd love to meet with you and we can wordsmith some
language i have been talking with the developer and with others to increase specifically the buffer requirements and while we're not all on the same page yet we are all moving um in a similar direction there yeah i mean if you look
at the diagram it buffer there's there's there's no buffer between the residential and industrial right and even you could say what the land use is that it's you know supposedly mixed use at the at the point where the where it
meets industrial their diagram says residential you know and then um I have other I have other questions but mainly you know and the the um the
only buffer is um I think it's 20 ft yeah and and in previous diagrams I'm I've seen this they've come to us three or four different times before you guys were on the commission i' I've I've sat in on a couple of these and they
literally they they've had a diagram presented to us where they had a burm in between the industrial and and the and and and their you know their development you know and a burm is a a a mound and
it's soundproof and sight proof and you know I mean that kind of stuff needs to be hashed out you know our our industrial businesses have been here 40ome years you know that and you get you get residential next to industrial
you know industrials been here and and operating and all of a sudden the industrial the residential people are there three or four years and oh this is a nuisance you know and we can't you know we we've got to set this in motion where everybody knows what's going on
and plays the rules right and you know good neighbors good fences so what do you guys think about doing a workshop i mean if they're at the point where they're going to turn right around on the heels of the overlay and give us a
development agreement I think we got a lot to talk about mhm i think I think we got to get our guys you know the infrastructure and stuff needs to be studied and everything so yeah I think the public would want to know too okay i think it's a great thing i mean it's a
destination thing it's you know you're talking about another you know a marina where the where you know you're talking about you're talking about places where people want to drive to and hang out and do stuff and I'm all I'm all for it and it it ultimately is going to increase
property value in Linhaven you know but but yeah I think there's a lot more to talk about the other question I had is the second reason is second reading is that a quasi judicial hearing or no so we could talk to like the business
owners in there and that if I wanted to that's correct so this let me let me clarify because you're going to ask me why I'm changing my answer and I'm not um this is a legislative hearing because the scope is so large it's it affects 180 acres approximately so it is
legislative in nature there's no Jennings disclosure that is associated with your action on this when you do get to adoption um the development orders when they come before you will be quasi judicial in their nature so I'll just have to say I did talk with the business
I can I just have to disclose that the answer will be different in the future when you get to the development order stage it the development agreement is before yeah because at that time we only development agreement and this ordinance are legislative in nature so there's no donings disclosure association when we come to the point of development order if I've talked to the the industrial
businesses I just have to disclo I can do it legally I just have to disclose it okay that's what I thought thanks Any other questions for Amanda i do did the Did I misunderstand that if they have a var if we approve
this and they have variances to the developmental code that when that they have to present every single variance to the planning board they don't have a variance this this is basically so right now they have
mixed juice we'll take the industrial thing they actually have mixed use a buting industrial so right now they could submit for a development order and they could put multif family houses single family houses right up against the industrial if they don't address something in the ul in in this overlay
it reverts to the prior to the planning commission meeting they had not said anything about a size of buffer because they know what they're going to do to buffer it but it wasn't in the ordinance the their attorney had said that they were happy with a 20 foot buffer which
is why it got put in the ordinance if they haven't put it in the ordinance we would have reviewed it against our uldc which would require anything up to a 60oot buffer so if they haven't addressed it in this ordinance we're going to review it against the variances
involved in a way the things they want that are different that you might apply for a variance for are in that ordinance they're all in there anything they want to do different from our ULDC is in that ordinance and so we would review their
development order against that ordinance if we found something they hadn't addressed such as buffering between mixed juice and industrial we would have made them do what it said in the ULDC does that make sense
i don't understand how they could say alcohol sales throughout the whole thing either when you have to have the state requires different like you can't sell alcohol outside well they they would still have to adhere to any state licenses i mean anything this is this is
just allowing them um to do the things that are city controlled in thec differently we require everybody has to have a Yeah if they want to sell alcohol they'll have to have a license they still have to do that they still
have to meet the national storm water requirements they still have to meet elevation requirements when it comes to building them they can't just build them without elevating them i mean they're still going to have to meet all the state and national controls
right thank you welcome um and we'll review the calendar um in regards to a workshop no sir so mayor um just listening to to you all and uh Commissioner Wars and you need a workshop just a reminder a couple of
things april 25th 21st we've moved that meeting to 5:30 on Friday April the 18th that is Good Friday and the city is closed so my suggestion would be April 17th to when
you have your premeating to also have either a workshop um so you can you can gather more information from that which would be that Thursday instead of that Friday yeah if we have it on the 17th I won't be able to make it but but but you can
that was just letting you know you can do it anytime yeah you can do it anytime i just want to let you know just letting the rest of you know I won't be able to make it if it's on the 17th would you be able to call in not anytime before then um will we want
to do it prior to to the meeting prior to the meeting so let's look at doing it prior to the meeting um so we're meeting at 5:30 so will there be a CR meeting on the 21st
so yes so that'll be at five all right so does it have does it have to be prior to the second meeting or can we have it after that i mean my thought is that we could have it after but we would have to advertise we would just have to continue the public hearing so we would have to table
it during that meeting or continue it you know during that second meeting in order to have a workshop after that have setback issues that we got to Mhm so let's uh I'll follow up with the city manager throw some some dates and times out see what works and it and it may
have to be after that second meeting so um All right thank you all meeting adjourned