--------- good evening and welcome to the board of commissioners budget workshop meeting number two Today is Wednesday April 16th 2025 and it is 400 p.m City clerk would you call the role please Mayor Brooks here Vice Mayor Kerr here Commissioner
Tagalini here Commissioner McGee here Commissioner Gabbay here All are present We have no public in attendance so there will be no public comment We will move on to the first item discussion which is the fiscal year 2026 budget workshop
number two presentation Thank you Mayor Commission I'm Robin Gomez the city manager I'm going to turn it over to Andrew Laughlin our city treasurer finance director in a moment As the mayor stated this is our second budget workshop for the fiscal year 2026
uh budget And we're going to provide you an overview of some of our historical revenues expenditures go over the capital plan some personnel costs by department and then go over the timeline Um all that information is in the agenda
I do have uh we will provide the packet that's on the website is has two items that are not part of the discussion today So we will um advise
those two items are what I mentioned in April So the one item in the capital component of your packet uh we do not have a capital item for the snack shack and there is no capital item for parking So I mentioned that at the April meeting [Music]
the images up on the screens will will reflect the correct document It will not have those two items Your packet and the packet online do have those two items But we will after the meeting correct and add the packet that should be the
one is the one that we will be discussing with you this afternoon So I'll turn it over to Andrew Perfect Thanks Robin So in workshop one we just went over some just preliminary
uh thoughts on our our capital improvement plan now that we have our fiscal year 2024 audit uh behind us So that was uh recently issued at the end of March So we're good there So I wanted to then take that time now that we have
final numbers for fiscal year 2024 uh provide you with a three three-year historical just so you can see some trending information by fund for revenues and expenses in each of the city's governmental and enterprise funds From there I want to build then what our
reserve looks like How much do we have in fund balance and net position available to be spent some of that being you know maybe restricted or committed for certain things but available fund balance net position in each of those funds uh as of be uh be projected for
the beginning of fiscal year 2026 which would be October 1st 2025 We know what it is as of 9:30 2024 through audited figures I then also ran numbers on what we've spent yearto date and what we've earned in revenues year-to- date
at a fund level and then say if if the year ended 6 months March 31st what would our reserves look like um as this date and so we're going to go through we'll go through that exercise so we'll start showing you the the three-year historical information and then uh walk
through what those reserves look like um so you can you know have that picture painted for you as we then walk through our 5-year capital improvement plan So starting with three-year historical revenue and expenses looking at governmental funds So you see here
these are all of our governmental funds We got the general fund and then um bu the rest is all uh special revenue funds and one debt service fund So building fund local options sales tax Archer Bald Park fund impact fee fund and the gas
tax fund And then our loans uh debt service fund uh which is for the 2013 uh debt that's still outstanding for the construction of this um city center facility Um that the debt service fund is collects money via transfers from the
general fund and pays out those debt service principal and interest payments So here you can just see on trending the uh general fund revenues and expenses um by fiscal year Um you can see some um uh
increases in general funds So we've uh we had the American Rescue Plan Act um those revenues recorded uh recognized in the general fund So we see some increases in general fund revenues um
trending up in 2024 But again some of that is one time given the uh that ARPA money won't recur We also have property tax increases over time as well um that also attributes to that three-year
increase Then we've got um building fund that obviously fluctuates by um you know level of building permit special assessment revenue local option sales tax fund that's just based on our discretionary sales sir tax that penny for panelis So that's where those swings
can come Um and then the uh archabald park fund that's typically pretty consistent That's the parking revenue specifically for the Archabald Park meters but we did have a one-time um bump for the uh beach growing
reourishment project where we have state uh grant funding for that So we did recognize um about $722,000 of uh intergovernmental revenue in that fund for that And now impact fee fund we're now
reporting that separately as its own fund starting in 2024 So those revenues were recorded as part of the general fund in 2023 and 2022 Um now it's recorded separately in its
own fund the impact fee fund in 2024 U then you've got the gas tax fund debt service fund to round it out Um then on the expenditure side you can see the um expenditure activity as well uh for each of these funds comparison to revenues Kind of the big jump there is
again expenditures on the Archabald Park fund side and those expenditures are going to be largely capital outlay driven We've got our recurring um expenditures um for culture and recreation uh for
608,000 out of that 2.3 million but it's 1.7 million was our uh um primarily the uh beach growing restoration project Um that's a uh ongoing capital improvement
project So that's three-year history revenue and expenses on our governmental funds Then we also have our enterprise funds So our enterprise funds consist of the sanitation fund storm water fund marina fund and parking fund Parking fund is a newer fund You can see zero
balances all the way throughout in fiscal year 2022 because that fund was created as of the beginning of fiscal year 2023 So you can see a little bit of comparative uh information 2023 2024 on the parking fund and you get a good three-year trending on the uh other
three funds You can see some increasing uh revenues on the sanitation fund We've made uh some uh rate increases uh for sanitation that you all have um brought to you all through the uh fees and collection manual updates through via
ordinance So you've been a part of that Um uh then you've got your operating on on the uh storm water fund from those the storm water fees And then the marina fund has been pretty consistent uh somewhat consistent
year-over-year um from fuel uh fuel resell slip rentals um store sales propane etc And then we've got operating expenses for each fund Um you can see then when we get to um then also on the
nonoperating side you see a lot of bigger negative numbers in storm water and so that's the interest expense on the debt service that's outstanding for the storm water that was the big $19 million uh debt issuance in the storm water fund whereas the other funds
sanitation marina parking does not have any external debt obligations and then your net change we can see a large negative net change mainly on storm water because really our storm water fees aren't sufficient to cover our costs You've got you don't
have high operating costs on storm water per se Storm water personnel and operating in 2024 was only about uh close a little less than 600,000 But you have almost a million dollars of depreciation in storm water because we've got a lot of infrastructure you
know 20 30 40 year infrastructure projects that are depreciating So that that's because that depreciation expense for enterprise funds is a part of operating and that's why your your operating figures for storm water are higher um because you had all these uh
now completed some completed um infrastructure drainage improvement projects that are being depreciated over years Um but overall very healthy certainly on this on the sanitation fund Remember we were barely break even and even had some small losses in 2019 2021
So we've made um better steps forward for sanitation which is good because we'll have uh you know truck vehicle needs Um we did have a um you can see in 2024 we had a negative uh
140,000 I believe that was a loss on the disposal of the particular sanitation truck and that's when we got them the the lease Can't remember what the truck's name is but that's why we had 20 323 23
32 I'm I'm close But anyways it was a a disposal of a of a truck and that's why we had a bigger non-operating expense number in the sanitation fund Usually that's a positive number of just in uh interest income in that fund but those are was a one one-time hit due to the um
the disposal of that truck after only about two or three years Um but so good we have positive trends in uh change in net position sanitation fund to be able to afford to to purchase those new trucks and that depreciation expense
will grow in sanitation as we have those needs And then parking fund you can see big you know a large net change in that in parking fund net position Um so over time that's been accumulated for the potential construction of a parking
garage Um but until those any plans are finalized those those that uh reserve buildup is is continuing to build in the parking fund and we can decide collectively the commission you know o over time how those reserves will be spent out through a parking garage or
maybe other capital needs of the city because there's those those funds are not restricted in any capacity within the parking fund This is just segregating showing the results of our park parking operation which obviously our revenues significantly exceed
expenses Before they were uh part a part of the general fund Now they're its own fund but they don't have to necessarily stay in that fund If there's other um project initiatives that we have outside of that we could transfer money out of the parking fund It's not not restricted
in any sense And then just the next page is your three-year historical overview on enterprise fund capital outlay activity Just so you can kind of see what that looks like It was a down year for the sanitation fund uh for capital but you'll see in in you know years forward
in our capital improvement plan that it'll we'll have kind of those peaks and valleys on what what the uh vehicle replacement plan looks like for sanitation storm water Again that's just based on the the timing of the projects um you know availability of of vendors
from engineers construction contractors as well as our own uh city personnel time to to um carry forward these uh and and follow through on these uh existing storm water drainage improvement projects but we had a bigger buildup of
of expenditure activity in 2024 as you can see And then not much on on capital needs really on marina and parking marina I think we had um some seaw wall um buildup that might have started in 2024 but just some minor things from you
know building a fence to you know parking u sensor or other equipment needs um as needed in the marina and parking fund So then that takes us to our fund reserve analysis So my estimated end of year 2025 So we start at that first
number That's available fund balance for governmental funds and available net position for enterprise funds And that's that number is a good number That's not me estimating anything That's coming right off of our audited financial statements that'll be presented to you at the next workshop um by James Moren
Company And that's right here this this booklet here So then but then the unknown is how 2025 is going to end up So all I did is said well let's just take actual inflows and actual outflows uh as of um current year-to- date fiscal year
2025 If you want to see the detail of those inflows and outflows that's included in your packet in your uh financial overview presentation through April uh uh of 2025 that's upcoming in the next workshop But those numbers come right from there That's actual what
we've incurred both revenues and expenses to date And then that number then brings us to our projected available reserves So that's where we're looking at But of you know that's there's obviously six months of of the year uh left on the general fund side there was
a much bigger buildup in in revenue collections through property taxes because most of our property tax advalorum revenue comes in in the November time uh uh October November December time frame So uh property owners take advantage of that 4% uh
discount Um so that that revenue activity will trail off but that's why we do see kind of a a big uh increase in um difference in inflows versus outflows on the general fund side And then the same thing with enterprise funds Did the same thing just so you can
see where we're at at 9:304 and then potentially where we'll be at by the end of this next fiscal year for each of those funds Then the last on the on the financial overview just the last page just to give you an idea of kind of where we stand on our debt So we
have uh three debt issuances outstanding So one is on the governmental activity side I mentioned that's the the construction of the city center project which was city hall rec center fire station and some other park amenities That's that debt uh is
um those debt service payments are being recorded by the debt service um um fund um and that's being funded by general fund transfers into that fund to then make those debt service payments The original issuance was 4 almost 4.8
million Our current outstanding balance 3.6 6 million and we're making payments you know roughly of close to about $300,000 annually It'll mature in 2044 Interest rate right now decent 3 to
3 and 1.5% Then our next one is the uh series 2009 debt So that's to finance those uh roadway storm water drainage improvement projects That's for that uh 15 million
uh that was issued Uh we have now outstanding balance of uh about 12.7 million And then the other piece of storm water debt was a 2015 issuance um that we then later um refunded
uh to reap the cost savings and the lower interest rates You can see we we struck at the right time there We got an interest rate of 1.73% on that refunded debt and that outstanding balance is about almost 2.8 million So all in all we're about you
know hitting around 15 million of outstanding debt in the storm water fund and more or less about a million dollars a year that we pay in debt service for those existing obligations Let me pause there if you have any questions on anything financial
overview or if not we can just we can delve right into uh kind of continuation on where we left off on the last workshop on on our capital improvement initiatives I have a question
um you were able to refinance that to 1.73 on um that that last one there With the with the talk about using a grant writing um program I don't know if there's any
refi opportunities within a grant writing I I just don't know It's it's worth a question because if we can get the the others uh lowered to that 1.73 or close to it
It might be worth a discussion So I know that I know they submit to state and federal and I just don't well for you saying for potentially refunding our TW So I've been in discussion with our uh in fact just it's timely you mentioned
that just as of last week um on potentially refunding the series 2013 debt um and just pulling up his correspondence Um we could if if we try to strike soon we could have potential
um estimated annual cash flow savings about $20,000 a year through 204 through 2043 I think we said what that um yeah year of maturity is 2044 So that's potential And what we could do is issue a bank RFP
and just to see what comes back in terms of rates for a potential bank loan refinancing of this these 2013 bonds Um and because those bonds are now callable So we can do that Um and so I'm exploring that currently with RFA to see
if that makes sense You know if we have a crystal ball you know do we think maybe six months from now interest rates are going to take a nose dive and we just need to wait I mean if I had that answer you know I would I'd be able to make the best decision But unfortunately we don't know what rates are going to do
We do know there is savings available You know total net present value savings right now could be 259,000 Um you know which actual cash flow savings about 20 grand per year You take the net NPV of that you're looking at
about $260,000 of savings if we if we struck Now I think it's worth worth the consideration to put out the RFP and get get some responses see what our best rate structure could be and then I can bring that to you all and say you want to pull the trigger or do you know more
than I do in the in the bond market and think that you know a year from now it's going to be a lot better or but right now those bonds are callable We could we could I mean it's worth a discussion Okay I mean I don't know what the feds are saying what their projections are or if they're even announcing any
projections but we know we can save a considerable amount of money It's worth it's worth the exercise Yeah I'll I'll give the go ahead at least issue the uh the RFP to um get some responses and see what banks are willing
to lend to us to for that um three you know 3.6 million and uh see what comes out of it But right now yeah we we wouldn't have certainly wouldn't have that opportunity on those 2020
refunding bonds That's a great rate now And then I don't think those um the series 19 debt um we could get a a better deal on that now but we're constantly monitoring that Okay Yeah I mean that's here I guess you're calling it the series 19 is the is the 12
million742 that I I don't know is is that callable now I mean is that eligible I believe that was a a a bank loan I I would need to see what those repayment uh terms are
um but also at 3.07% you know 7% I think I think that interest rate is a little lower than Yeah I mean we're paying in the 2013 So it's it's great but um if there's better I don't know what a cost actually when you pull the trigger There's always a cost involved Yeah
there'll be cost of issuance that's that needs to factor in So you know there's a there's a cost to it but then in the lower rate you know you're rece you're achieving those The the ballpark figure was hey we might be able to save 20 grand a year Yeah Okay It just seems
crazy out there right now with the with the federal government what they're willing to do I mean you're looking at the opportunity for the no interest loan So I hope that's going well Still still working through that Yes we have some more information to you all that's
forthcoming But um certainly yeah we'd like no no interest but we also like low interest So we'll see what we can do Um issuing an RFP for from banks Thank you Andrew Okay Anything
else If not we can dig right into the the kind of proposed capital improvement plan So we have a little more information than what was uh that what you went over in the March meeting I would by no means say that this is absolutely final We're still kind of
going through some internal deliberation Um but this is a pretty good depiction of what we feel we might be wanting to spend over the next five years on a fund and department level So I'll kind of pause and we can just kind of see if you all and how you if you want to have
discussions on any of these individually or by a department level Um as you can see a lot of these are just kind of equipment replacements Some some are larger um multi-year projects Um but we'll maybe just take and we got are you
know department heads available to address questions you have on any of these particular items that you see in this list So I'll stop and say any any questions you all have on on this two-page list that you see here
I don't recall a discussion on the basketball court enclosure I know um what a year or so ago maybe I think we did we we've been looking for funding um and for example for visit
visit St P Clearwater opened up some capital construction funding that we're looking to so it takes a little bit longer when they open that funding but we're now at the point where we're looking excuse me in fiscal fiscal year
26 to actually have some well some plans throughout later this year or within the next few months from our engineer and then engineer architect and then have some meetings to go over what that might look like And then obviously what the C
but we estimated about a million in combination for the basketball court enclosure and a concession stand that would also have bathrooms and kind of make the facility um just better uh used in terms of about the the single
concern that we receive or comments are related to not enough bathrooms particularly when we have big crowds out there and being better able to utilize space out there by enclosing the basketball court to have court you know more classes out there as opposed to here in our city center and once the rec
center should reopen within the next few weeks But um we'll certainly have more discussions but we're looking to have this next year at least to start the construction in 26 and hopefully completed and in fiscal 26 but hopefully completed um toward the end of calendar
year 26 And Jay if you have anything else to I think that kind of I remember the discussion would have been like a year ago Yep Last time we discussed it So it's Yeah So now we're showing the funding Yeah I'm still in the very early
design and coming up with ideas of what it might look like Great Thank you So I was curious about the um restroom facility over at Madira Beach Fundamental Mhm Because the school flooded and with the portables there where are you at in a
design or idea So this is preliminary I I haven't even gotten them to agree on it but Okay So we we've we've been doing youth athletics there for years uh before me So 10 I've been here for 10 so add however much time before that Uh one
of the biggest challenges there is we've we've used the portaotty a single portaotty for 10 years for programs with three to 400 kids in it And um with the damage to everything that happened one benefit that came out of that is they actually ran plumbing to put a portable
on the field for restrooms now Now so that presents us the opportunity that the sanitation sewer that what we the connection that we would need is run So this is an opportunity for us to potentially and I I was looking at something similar I know Megan is working on something else
and something similar to what we have at Patriot Park They have these prefab restrooms that drops in but again it's one of those things that we have to evaluate whether it's okay in that flood zone And you know there's a lot of other stuff So that that's just a kind of a bookmark I'm hoping to have an answer before we get to the final iteration of
the budget an answer you mean from the school as to whether or not they would Yeah I'd like to be much further along but if I'd like to make sure that they don't go try to bury that thing and close it out before it can be used Um I looked at the prefab buildings with Megan and they're really kind of cool I
mean super simple um cost effective but built well That would be a really neat idea Absolutely I would like to uh discuss real quick uh the uh cost in fiscal year 26 the $150,000
to replace city hall veranda and the stairs and the reasons why is because it is not slip resistant and there is grout coming up on the
stairs Is there any way we can not replace that And um very good question I think we've looked at various options and try and do it's been and I think and Megan can
add a little bit difficult for just to make repairs uh we feel the building is 10 years old or almost 11 and felt really the replacement would be the best scenario going forward So we've had multiple contractors come
out and take a look and if you look out there um I guess if you're just walking you don't really pay too much attention but as you look once the grout stops starts popping out of tile it's really difficult to just repair There's also a
bunch of hollow places underneath um those tiles The tiles are discontinued So um in talks with the city manager's office we've just thought that a replacement of that rather than a repair because it's going to be ongoing is
going to be more cost effective in the long run And that's going to be around $150,000 Correct Okay Thank you Megan Is there any structural changes Is it or is it just the tile and the creek
routing and the adhesion underneath And we aren't really sure what's underneath that tile to be totally honest with you So once the tile gets demoed I can't answer that right now until the work starts happening But if you look at the stairs the tile is already popping off
the stairs We've already repaired that one time I get that I just didn't know if you knew of any corrosion issues that would need be nip grind Yeah I can't answer that until until the tile starts getting popped off Yeah we're not
sure Okay thank you You're welcome So when you're thinking about doing it Megan are you thinking about going back with tile or are you thinking about one of those epoxy like floored product Yes the plan would be to demo what's out there Um I'm not sure if anybody's been
here during a rain event We have a lot of puddling So it would be to level that and then to go back with an epoxy coating much like we've been placing in the bathrooms That has It's been really great Yeah that looks really nice too And it's very easy to clean and it's
slip resistant Very nice Thank you You're welcome Any additional questions Just wanted to add the on page two of the list and I think I shared with um all of you are regarding
the line the majority of our capital project is in the storm water fund and again the road projects that are listed Um again we're looking to get those completed We're it's a rather ambitious list to try to get those um started this
year completed uh in fiscal 26 Some will likely go into fiscal 20 Well some are budgeted over multi-year but um you'll see that that's really the majority of our capital project is are these street milling and replacing and curbing and
drainage etc And that's that's where we need grant works to come through for us That's what Yes Thank you Any other questions on capital If not uh we'll move on to the last section of the workshop This was uh
requested just to see not necessarily future requests We're working through that currently but just what's the current landscape of our uh of our personnel within the citywide So what we did what I did is put together just a personnel listing by
FTE So you can see uh and that's at each department level with title and then the FTE So the FTE is one that's personally dedicated If it's 0.5 then they're 50% uh dedicated to one department and maybe 25 or 50% to another So that just that
this next section just gives you a listing of our of all uh employees by title and the headcount um for each specific department And then next just kind of gives you an overview of
salaries taxes and benefits totals by department uh currently for uh fiscal year 25 And that even includes vacant positions um not necessarily just all uh and this is for the entire year
So projection out of both existing employees plus vacant positions what those salaries and um F FRS contributions 41A contributions workers comp etc uh for the fiscal year
So this is just moreformational just to kind of gear you up for this is what we have currently in 2025 And then we'll go through in future workshops what our uh personnel budget with both vacant field
positions will look like new positions change positions remove positions etc U for 2026 Any questions on any of this information And just to add to Andrew's comments some of the positions
particularly for on page two of this listing for example for Archabald we don't have an Archabald department but that's those are the positions that are funded out of the Archabald fund Uh and they do cross department So the wreck
leader 3 is in the recreation department um grounds maintenance supervisor I think that's Jay's position and then the senior grounds maintenance and grounds maintenance are in public works So they do cover th those two
departments under building the total that begins with certified permit technician 1.00 Uh the building is these are the positions that are funded out of the building fund So you'll see engineer.5 under building That engineer
position is also listed on the previous page in the community development listing as engineer 050 So that position is funded under community development by the general
fund and then 50 at 50% and then the other 50% is funded out of the or paid for out of the building fund So community development department which encompasses our long range planning zoning uh business tax receipts our
building our building you know building permitting building code compliance I'm sure missing a couple of components of it but it it's funded out of both the general fund and the building fund So that's why you see the positions broken out Uh the community development
director for example 75 is funded out of the general fund under community development and then approximately one quarter or 25% of that entire cost for our community development director is funded out of the building fund So the building fund
pays for the costs for the city for the personnel equipment etc to specifically enforce the Florida building code Um so we have personnel in multiple departments that are well particularly between uh the for example the positions
I mentioned that part of their work is enforcing the Florida building code and other part of it is not just regular planning land use zoning uh looking at plan developments at folks looking to you know purchase a property and turn it
it's one business they want to turn it into something else So it involves more than just enforcing the building code So Florida statutes are fairly specific on what certain monies can be used for And so collecting permit fees are to be used for enforcing um everything associated
with the Florida Building Code The the other ones are kind of self-explanatory on page two Uh as you get into sanitation those positions are simply working for residential commercial collection of our of our
trash refues storm water for maintaining the storm water utility But there you see also a fraction of the senior administrative assistant and the public works director in public works that spend a part of what their job entails
is funded by the storm water fund or covered by it And then lastly marina and parking are 100% funded by those two funds and those are the marina is its own department and parking the parking
area is actually in the finance department But just to give you some explanation as Andrew said why there are part partial uh positions it's some of it has a lot of it has to do with the funding mechanism for those positions
and the type of work that they perform and the total currently 82.5 Um as Andrew stated we will bring you back in May um what this would look like for fiscal 26 but I don't think it's going to be significantly um
different We're not going to be adding um if if any positions I think possibly in fire Um we currently have vacancy and and in fire because we're the new station in Readington North Readington
Beach should be completed um hopefully in fiscal 26 and it would open requiring some additional but personnel Um but we'll go through all of that as the year progresses Um but we're not looking to add any positions in any other um area
of the city but we will bring all of that to you Um obviously the increases from one year to the next and personnel are attributed to increase in in salaries and wages um
we have not um brought that to you but I have had discussions uh with each one of you regarding what that might look like and we'll bring you some scenarios for uh for the May budget workshop which will be on the 28th of May Um tenatively
as I shared we're looking at uh really a personnel or a salary increase other for all positions other than those that fall under the IAFF or the collective bargaining agreement for uh the members of the fire union Um their salaries are
set as part of that three-year collective bargaining agreement that was approved last year But for the rest citywide potentially looking at preliminarily based on conversations that we will have going forward as to what those salary increases would look
like then they would be in the range of around approximately a 5% salary increase again preliminary what I think we I would would end up proposing as part of the budget for next year but certainly we will uh again preliminary
no decisions have been made nothing's been voted on but what to look for for next fiscal year the current fiscal year the prior fiscal year of the budget incorporated as the commission adopted a 6% um across the board salary increase
again excluding fire um also ex Um I have to say this because otherwise people saying that I'm doing it for a different reason but I'm not included in that as well as all of you know I have a separate um employment agreement um that gets reviewed Um but so whatever the
across the board wage increase is applicable to all positions um excluding that Um I don't and haven't gotten into great depth as to what our uh medical premiums um would look for increases but
this year we exper I think it was about a 9% 8 or 9% increase over the prior year I think tenatively we've we're looking at something close to that number Um nothing excessive yet but it's still kind of early as to what that
might look like Um uh and really those are kind of the two bigger items that we tend to make up the majority of the increase from one year to another other than adding positions or the contrary which
would be a reduction um in budgeted positions I'm not recommending that we look to do that that we do reduce any positions as Andrew presented our our financial standing in the city is has
been and continues to be fairly good We've discussed multiple times up here or I've kind of mentioned and you all of you have chimed in regarding the impacts of the storms and we appear to be the impacts appear to be less than certainly
what I had anticipated but I was anticipating much higher That's just my nature having been an auditor for over 20 years that I'm thinking it's going to be thinking it's going to be worse than what it might be initially But it appears the the tax refunds have been
less than I think what originally expected We don't have a total yet as to what those have been but looking property by property they have been fairly nominal Um I've probably looked at about 50 of them and they're in the
an average range of about 8% of the total property tax that was paid So if somebody paid $1,000 in property taxes that refund on average was less than $100 which is the total uh property tax
rate not just the city of MadiRaa beaches hours represents about 17% of the total uh tax or the total property tax or millage rate So that's not what you know if our impact may be a couple
hundred,000 max we don't we'll bring when we have that we will share that but it doesn't appear to be very much and then going the we'll know more obviously when the tax rule is released at the end of May preliminary tax rule at the end of next
month but also for next year the fact so far we have 125 approved uh demolition permits And again back in October honestly thinking that would m that would have been much higher Um we're six months since six months plus since the
storms but realistically thinking that would be much much higher So when properties are assessed by the appraiser come January 1 of 2026 the impact of that again shouldn't should will be likely less than again
what originally anticipated So means our revenue loss regarding property tax which is our largest single revenue source uh should not be what should be less than what originally expected Um so again overall financially appears to be
in a in a very positive financial you saw our reserves where they are Um so but certainly much more information forthcoming questions Did you have any sorry did you have anything else No just the last section
is just the you know the remainder kind of schedule of the workshops So we'll focus a little more on personnel for 2026 and the next workshop uh try to have more updates if any to the capital improvement plan and then by that June workshop we'll try to put a
more complete picture to include operating expenditures and revenue estimates for each fund and department by that June workshop and then from there it's really just going through any changes in our estimations in July and August
I had two questions on the personnel listing Robin could we have a um list where it combines all of these different groups and puts them into the departments that they're in like how many recreation what
they what their titles are how many there are Um public works to include sanitation and um and throughout the city Yes Yeah we have that in the it's in the current year's budget but we'll add it to this And then my other question is
when you're talking about the salary inclus increase increase excuse me of a flat 5% That's not based on performance or anything It's just across the board 5% everybody gets the trophy Yes I mean what about those that deserve
more than 5% We can certainly I mean I I mean I don't know but I would think that we might have some employees that will get the wage study and might be disproportionate on what they're being paid or just are above and beyond
and do more than what their job description is maybe I don't know But just saying 5% everybody gets 5% doesn't seem quite fair to me So you're talking about merit pay Well yeah Yeah I mean is there merit pay or
just merit Well he you just called it a 5% raise You he didn't define it whether it was No I I mean I think I would support looking at that for then we have to decide who's going to evaluate who's going to because do we
do employee evaluations every year Yes I think that would be I I think that there's probably employees who really deserve it I think we should have that as a topic for a workshop I 100% agree I think we we did discuss that at one point I don't I think it was kind of just discussed
and dropped Yeah I mean I don't know I just I and I feel like Robin would be in a position to understand that and that surely the department heads right Yeah We could Yeah And really the five was kind of there should be a range I would think maybe maybe between three
to three to 7% for best and worst right you may look at it as departments you know 5% for that department and then allocate it and give us a justification whatever that is but however it'd be interesting conversation I think to have for the staff
and then just I want to make a remark to what Robin said about the adorum taxes I think we're going to be less than we're going to be in a neighborhood of maybe four or 5% hit by the time you take all the properties that were not impacted by
the storm the condos and whatnot And then the 8 to 10 to 12% refund that that were actually provided on the structures I think it's going to wash out just a guess at about
a 5% hit but then that's going to recover over that in my opinion after the properties are rebuilt So and with the impact fees So unless they're we'll talk about that in the
next meeting Do we have anything further Nothing from us Then it is 4:48 and we are adjourned Part: 2
yeah I would just leave one on each one uh good evening and welcome to the board of commissioners regular workshop meeting today is Wednesday April the 16th 2025 and it is 6 pm city clerk would you call the role please mayor
Brooks here vice Mayor Kerr here commissioner Tagalini here commissioner McGee here commissioner Gabbay here all are present public comment public participation is encouraged if you are addressing the commission step to the
podium and state your name and address for the record and the organization or group you represent please limit your comment to five minutes and do not include any topic on the agenda public comment on agenda items will be allowed when they come up if you would like
someone at the city to follow up on a comment or question made at the meeting you may fill out a comment card with the contact information and give it to the city manager comment cards are available at the back table in the commission chambers completing a comment card is
not mandatory do we have any public comment with no public comment first item on the agenda is board of commissioners board of commissioners policy handbook city manager thank you mayor i
think prior discussions about the board of commissioners policy handbook uh within the first 90 days after uh taking office after an election we typically the commission mayor and commission
review the handbook for any changes at that the first workshop or the April the March workshop excuse me mayor brought up about adding to the manual a process that's been in place to
allow for any public comment to be addressed addressed at the end of the meeting uh my or the disc our your discussion and what is most likely the appropriate place would be to add that to your order of business for BOC
um meetings or the I'm sorry for the regular meetings so I guess we could whatever we would call that um after or prior to the adjournment or possibly either before number 14 reports
correspondence or after adjournment and I'm on page 23 of the packet by the way um I was thinking I I don't really have a I'm indifferent to where it goes i just it had come up that we should make it official and have it this is talking
about when someone comes up to the podium and during public comment and they have public comment items and we've been discussing those before we adjourn the meeting so that we can decide or discuss we could discuss the item and we have um in some cases we've we've
discussed adding those items to upcoming agendas my intent when I asked you all if you were okay with doing that was that so many residents come to meetings and make statements and it never goes anywhere and by us adding that formally
to our order of business it would make sure that we it doesn't get missed and that residents know that if they come and have a public comment we will address that public comment before we adjourn for the day i'd like to see us have it not only on our order of
business for the regular meetings but also for it for it to appear on our workshop meetings just so that it is a consistent Yeah mayor i I agree with that i think it's a great idea we could call it uh maybe something like uh public comment
discussion or questions i think that sounds fantastic just and and then that like we might not need to ask any questions or have any discussions but I can think of at least two times uh a resident has asked a question or made a comment one I thought was false
and I didn't have the opportunity to address it uh but most times it's just uh you know there's no there's no issues but lot sometimes I'd like to have that opportunity to address what the resident said i think that this is warrants to
say we should all be mindful when a resident is standing at the podium it is not proper for us to get into a conversation with them it's easy to and it's not being dismissive or
disrespectful of the resident but when we engage in a back and forth conversation when someone comes up to make a statement you've done it for one if you don't do it for all you're playing favorites nor is it a question and answer period correct but I I do if
they ask a question we have the opportunity to discuss it at the end and answer it yes yes and if we need to further analyze maybe we can defer it to the following meeting correct correct that that was the whole point was to be able to uh what um Commissioner Tagalini
said to be able to discuss it if it was a a question that we wanted to discuss but then to be able to put it on the next agenda if which would be a workshop and be able to have in-depth conversation and research on whatever the topic was from the resident we don't
get that many residents that come and when they come it would be it's nice to hear them i think I'd love to see that added well sorry oh we can add that we'll see where exactly to put it but toward the
end of the certainly before the adjournment part good thank you do we have any public comment next on the agenda is key to the city
and awards policy and procedure before we move on real quick oh yes on page 20 just a clerical just a clerical um at the top of the page n item three and four are one statement
20 okay okay typo in my opinion oh yeah in the absence of designation the board of commissioner shall be clear for the record it's not item three do you see that Robin yes yep correct three in the
absence of designation the board of commissioner shall be clear for the record on page 13 of 20 page 20 in your packet 13 of 20 for the handbook so it should just be three and then five
should be four and six numbering good catch anything else next on the agenda is key to the city and awards policy and procedure city manager so mayor and commission as again
discussed prior whether you want your direction for a resolution or how you would like to address the issuance of a key when at such time the city would the commission would like to issue a key to the city and the purposes
you do have in the packet some examples of what other cities do and kind of open for your discussion and suggestions do we have any public comment commissioners comments
i think in the last meeting Tom brought up some good ideas um as far as variety of options to recognize people that contribute to this wonderful town um certainly key to the city would be on top of the game and there are other
options that we can use for lesser impactful contributions of the citizens so um I think that's a wonderful idea i have a question okay um so we're looking at um some you know
city of Cocoa Beach uh as an example where on page 30 uh number C2 key to the city the city commission will consider a complete qualifying request for a key to the city during a public meeting and determine
awarding the key now would that request come from a commissioner or resident or either it doesn't matter where it comes from i think the intent was that uh attorney Tras provided us several different cities right and it was for us to look
at it and decide what we wanted to do for our city so that would be Well I like the comment but I just needed I don't know i think a resident would have to come to a commissioner and the commissioner would have to bring it to
the board for consideration and I truly think that um you would have to have as I spoke of before reasons why in writing this is this is why we would like to present the key to the city to John Doe
now would that also be uh a resident vote or a commission vote i think that ultimately whatever we determine the commission is going to decide who gets the key it's setting up parameters of how you determine who
qualifies because I mean in in my thoughts if you're going to give the key to someone it shouldn't just be to give a key away right they they should have done something for the city they should there should be something above and beyond
to That would be my thought it's typically what how other cities handle giving keys correct okay again if I might I'm sorry to the same to that I spoke of earlier if you go to the next
page 30 well page 33 city of Dorado anyone seeking a key to the city so that would you know these are things to consider when we write a policy do we actually want people to seek a key i I don't think so i think it
should be you know my my mother taught me you never sing your own graces you have someone else correct sing them for you so but we could also take like the top three or maybe top three finalists and have the residents of Madera Beach
vote for that in that kind of situation again I'm sorry oh no i just think it you know if any anyone of the five of us and it could be inspired by a resident right would bring it to the commission and present it the re here's the reasons
why and then we could have that as a follow-up uh discussion on that i I like that idea very much um I looked through all the the samples that we got and one thing couple things kind of kept going to the top uh only individuals who have
contributed significantly to the city through cultural historic educational community service humanitarian or business efforts should be qualified keys to the city are an honor these are different from different cities the ones that we got keys to the city are an honor bestowed by the city upon
distinguished persons and honored guests symbolizes outstanding civic contributions to the recipients key to the city most prestigious award may be given selectively to honor a person with extraordinary significant accomplishments and contributions to any
of the following history economic or social cultural fabric of the city uh uh significant contributions to the military service to persons who have performed acts heroism these are just things that all kind of these are different cities right um key to the
city is an honor on ceremony just gr council to distinguish individuals or special guests typically to recognize exceptional civic con contributions so what I see is uh there it's got to be significant i don't know that we're going to have every year okay who are we
going to give the key to maybe not right maybe this is something that only happens once in a while and I I don't feel like I'm not comfortable giving a prestigious award to uh who someone who benefited the city in the course of
doing their job like for instance Tom Tras is a great city attorney and he may do something that uh gets the city a big benefit like win a suit lawsuit or something like that but that's that's what we pay him to do right and it it could be huge i'm looking for someone
outside of their normal job description who uh did something for for the city uh but there's other there were other alternatives to that we could have a proclamation which I think we do sometimes uh there's the we could have a board of commissioners or city manager
award uh we could have a business award um so here's the one I think that would be good for some certificates of recognition and appreciation those individuals or organizations who have performed some act of or completed some task or effort on behalf of the city or
residents of the city uh some something like that so uh I feel like that's those are my feelings about it i'd like to see it not necessarily something that comes up every year it happens when it happens and we it it shouldn't be someone who is
doing something in the course of their job i also saw the city coin which I thought was pretty cool i liked the city coin what I like I liked the city coin and I think that when we went through the hurricanes there were individuals in this city that went above and beyond i mean there were people who saved other
people's lives residents on Madira Beach I mean on district one they after it was all over they created their own sand dudes and planted couple thousand seats yeah I think it would be um it would be
a well time well spent to come up with a really good key to the city definition and something that gives us the ability to recognize residents like the coin or something along those
lines to recognize a resident that goes because I think a resident is different than what the intent for the key to the city is the different type but something that honors residents and it like you said it's not all the time but when that when that comes about recognize them
for what they've done for the city or for the residents they've done it for each other if um if this key is prestigious then it also needs to be well designed it needs to be a good good size not a small
little key it should probably be maybe 8 in I I think on a nice board of some sort it needs to be really well designed and well thought of um so that that's one item I wanted to put out there and then the second one I you know yeah
we're talking about prestigious and so forth and so on but don't make it too too difficult so that nobody will ever get a key so let's not be too difficult to to give the key to some people that are worthy of it and if we give two or
three a year to people that are probably 80% there I would say let's do it i mean you know at the end of the day you're making somebody feel good you're acknowledging people that are doing a wonderful job and more people would want to do it so I wouldn't make it too too
difficult where it's beyond achieving so my question next is that leads my next question who is go who will write out a draft of these suggestions criteria and and such a thing is that for one of us to do or is that Mr
gomez's job or somebody in the maybe human resources we I mean could we give suggestions and then have them go off of that we we we've got the policy for the city of Baltimore as a starting point um maybe what we want to do is is to start off
with one of the cities um and give direction to wherever you think is appropriate i'd be happy to draft it um based upon whatever direction you give us and then have the city manager uh city clerk take a look at it before it comes back to you and and then we'd have
to decide uh do we vote on it and it what's the is a 3-2 vote be enough to pass it if I mean would we have to all pass it no so this would be it would be adopted by resolution okay so it' be a majority vote on the resolution
um but yeah and then obviously you can change the policy at the next meeting if you want to because it was only adopted by resolution you can change it anytime you want all the way throughout the year whatever got it thank you but my suggestion is adopt the policy by resolution i like that
sounds good sounds sounds good but you need some direction from us i think that Tom needs a little bit i saw him taking notes yeah do you feel like you've gotten enough direction from us Tom to present something to us um I've got some direction i don't know if we've
got enough um so from what I what I've heard so far is is that um the commission um favors proclamations the key to the city with some boundaries um certificates of recognition and
appreciation and possibly a city coin those are the ones that I've heard so far what I haven't really heard is a city commission city manager award a business of the quarter award um board member milestone awards um I
haven't heard any of that yet so I assume that I would not include those we don't want to make it too complicated i don't want to make it complicated but um I mean after the storm we talked about highlighting businesses in the city and I don't know if this is the
appropriate place or I think it would be fantastic to set up a system and start recognizing businesses within our community we have over 200 businesses in Madira Beach and especially now when
businesses are coming back and trying to come back I think this might be a good place to to do that but um perhaps you quarterly put out a survey and have the businesses vote on
that i think that I mean I definitely don't think the five of us should be choosing it but more of a community would that be appropriate in this or would that be better let me tell you how some of the other cities do it they go to their business community whether it's a chamber of commerce um maybe it's the
Rotary Club or maybe it's somebody else in the city that would make a recommendation um and if you give that entity direction to do it on a annual basis or bianual or quarterly or whatever it is um and for
example in old it's the chamber of commerce and what they do is they provide a biography of the particular business and what they have done for the benefit of the city um recently
um and then what they do is they have a plaque and they bring the business in they give the business the plaque and um recognize them and give them the opportunity to speak about their business on a very brief basis u
pictures are taken and um then they get recognized in the newspaper because they got this nice award so that's how Oldar does it yeah I like whatever maybe I think quarterly will kind of get to be just too much quarterly would be too much maybe twice a year once a year
i think just to add a little bit to the things that other cities are doing like I mentioned to each of you we were planning and we've deferred it to October to have with the citizens academy but kind of your discussion is along those lines to bring and begin implementing some of the programs that
like a business of the quarter even citizen of the year certain things like that that would fall under the discussion we we mean just make it business recognition award and not nail it down to a specific time frame that doesn't
mean you can't do it on a monthly quarterly annual or bannual basis but if I take out the quarterly that does for example you can just do it whenever you feel it's appropriate okay okay
anything additional well I think as uh Tom has stated Chamber of Commerce needs to weigh quite a bit on these uh awards related to businesses okay how do you see this coming back to you in a form of a resolution with the policy attached to
it or do you want me to prepare the policy and bring it back for the next regular workshop for discussion purposes i I just want to know what my role is in bringing it back to you what would you prefer i'd love to see a draft of the
resolution and the criteria but we you know would be we would discuss it and and come to consensus on that i'd like to see a draft of what you think you got you've gleaned from our conversation okay i'm seeing a lot of heads that sounds
good to me i would agree so I'll get it done here in short order and then we'll put it on the next workshop meeting sounds great that's awesome thank you y next on the agenda is city manager personnel policy and procedures manual
from the prior meeting looking to make some adjustments to the recently adopted or have a discussion for any other adjustments to the personnel policy rules and procedures
manual and I think one change was related to the time frame for professional development employee uh reimbursement for classes i I had some thoughts oh do we need to
go to do we have any public comment hi my name is Joe i'm going to play with the city as most of you guys know um I just applied to go back to school to get my masters in urban planning uh so I did a little bit of research on other
municipalities policies and what we've had previously um I don't know if I can give out handouts but I'll just summarize it and then if you guys want the handouts I can give it um but we've had our policy since 1995 for 100%
reimbursement um and one year of remaining after you get the degree uh it's changed a little bit since then at one point it depended on the grade you got but you've always been able to get 100% reimbursement and stay one year after and then a few other
municipalities the city clerk's office helps me get together some other municipalities and I just put them all together i didn't try to pick ones that were more in favor of the employee or anything like that i just put them all together in the chart uh city of Largo
has 100% for a seer better and does not have a time limit uh Belair Readington Beach and Seminal uh they mentioned tuition reimbursement in their handbook but I couldn't find specifics st pete Beach it depends on your grade if you
get a A it's 100% and uh one year after Treasure Island is 100% for a C or better and one year after and Indian Shores is 18 months after but doesn't mention what grade you need to get a
100% reimbursement uh city of Smar is based on your grade an A is 100% reimbursement and you stay two years after uh so I just thought it would be helpful if the commission had that information when you discuss the policy
change thank you thank you am I able to am I able to get Yeah just give it to Do we have any additional public comment good luck on your masters also commissioners comments uh I I'm glad
that he he brought he brought that up i mean I assumed that when we reversed it was 100% for a course passed yes passed uh uh but just another option is one year of obligation for every academic
year that an employee receives tuition reimbursement so if if for instance we would benefit from them even taking a course for one semester uh and so we should reimburse them for that but for every year or segment
thereof it's a year of obligation so that would be uh easy to figure out 100 and assuming they pass the class right uh I I don't know about putting a letter grade requirement but I
like half pass the pass a one-year obligation for every academic year that an employee receives tuition reimbursement i think that the previous was that they had to pass the class but it didn't specify A or B or C that you just had to
pass right well the city of Largo is C or better um I believe we've talked about this before and as a matter of fact we talked about a C or better and u I agree
with the C or better i don't I think that uh anything below is not worthy of being uh paid for so I I think if Robin correct me if I'm wrong but we passed the 100%
reimbursement we passed that with you had to pass with the C or better the discussion today is how long are we going to require an employee to work for us after we pay for their education right i assumed that was 100% right past
class I was referring to yeah uh just to make sure years of obligation so So that was mine that that's a little more uh it requires a little bit more than a year for a degree well because then that would mean you could we if that would be
a lot for I think fouryear degree uh even though a master might be just a two-year degree and then we get one year out of all that so I that's why I was trying to attach uh a year of obligation for per year or
fraction thereof right but then if they just took a course that was beneficial right they'd still get reimbursed for that at least they could they could still get reimbursement without finishing the degree but I think we discussed Yeah we discussed that also in the last meeting and that was that if
someone was taking a certification that would immediately benefit the city so if they were taking a class that just go and doing a three-day class or or a two-month class or something like that the city would get immediate um benefit benefit from it so there wouldn't be a
requirement for them to work but going for going to college is a completely different story it's a greater expense for the city and you want the buy in from the person who's going to get the education right so how do you how do you determine that
okay so if you're working full-time and you're going to school part-time and you have 12 credits per semester um you pass them you get reimbursed immediately the next semester you take
another 12 credits um when's the clock start and when's it end as far as let's say we don't get a degree but we were working on a degree and stopped you get you have 60
credits and they've all been reimbursed by the city are they at that point required when's the clock start for them to have a requirement for to work for the city for an additional year the last time they were reimbursed it's the
minute they receive the degree isn't it well I thought it would be during when they received a reimbursement what if they don't get a degree they're working i think the the time period would begin when they receive the reimbursement right so if you So every time they receive a
reimbursement the clock starts that's one way to that's how trying to provide some clarity to it so I'm working on a degree and con you know I I have to take this semester off because of for whatever reason family
reasons but then I want to go back in the fall and continue to do it and the city has been reimbursing me all along the way every time that there's a check cut for reimbursement that's when the clock starts extends it at that point
extends it to one year period one year two year whatever it is yes and I think the last time we discussed this it may have been more than a year i don't recall what the fund what that funding was but on ongoing throughout as they're
taking the classes they're we're getting benefit from them taking the classes so is your question so I go to school and I'm going to get a bachelor's degree for a full-time student it would take four years for me because I'm
working full-time and I'm going to go to school essentially part-time it's going to take me six years so does my which would be considered a four-year degree so if you did a year for year would that mean that at the end of my six years when I obtained my four-year degree I then owed
the city four years of time no no i think it's whatever the time frame is set at so if we if you the decision is one two or three years i know some cities that do it two years you just are required at at the last
time of receiving your reimbursement you must stay with the city for at least two years right which would mean at the end of my six years I would re receive my last reimbursement so if four years is my number that for my four years would start when I received my final
reimbursement that's what I'm saying so that's what No I'm I'm saying the clock keeps ticking so um May of 2024 I've I've earned 60
credits um you you keep trying to get get your full degree but maybe I just stop i just I'm never going to get this bachelor's degree i've been reimbursed for 60 credits the clock
starts for whatever time period let's say it's a year at the last time I got a check so a year from that period I can work somewhere else or I can reimburse the city for the funds that they reimburse me or
but the but my question is does the clock start at the last reimbursement or the first let me just jump in and just read the sentence yeah it says reimbursement may also be conditioned upon the employees agreeing to reimburse
the city for tuition paid should the employee receive subsequent grants or scholarships covering all or part of the city tuition payment resign prior to a set period of time after the course is taken or be terminated for cause i'm not
seeing in that one year or two-year program that you're talking about basically it's before you take the program you know you're going to get reimbursed you come to an agreement with the city as to how you're going to be reimbursed and what happens if um if you
don't stay based upon whatever time period is set so that's that's really all we're deciding is the time period i don't think you need to decide any time period um I mean right now there isn't one right now there isn't one but the I think the
what I mean is time period of obligation is that correct right that the employee if the the employee must stay employed after receiving reimbursement for x number of years months or years that's what's unclear to me how many yeah well that's what I think we're deciding i've
worked at cities where it was two to three years um and if you if the employee separated prior to that time period it was a reimbursement based on the number of months if they left they got the reimbursement you're required to
stay three years they stayed 12 months instead of the 36 months then they owed for 24 month but I mean you could however you would like to proceed is so the the provision also says approval of any specific reimbursement
request is at the sole discretion of the human resources staff who must weigh all relevant facts and policies in granting or denying any request so it looks to me like the human resources staff is making that decision as to
um how much time you have to stay after you've completed the course that's arbitrary right and so the problem that I had with that was you're going to let one person in the city decide for three different people maybe I like Rey better than I like um Mr taglerini or better
than I like Eddie and so and so I'm going to I'm going to tell Eddie you can get an education stay for six months you're good rey I really like you i'm going to let you you only need a month and Mr taglerini yeah not so much you got to
stay three years i mean that's not a fair that's not a fair equitable way to let a single individual make that type of decision in my opinion which is why I brought this as an issue we've got to put a we got to put a year on it just Exactly whatever not sure if I'm if I'm
contradicting what what it's already what it already says when I say this my suggestion would be very specific one year for every year which I think is reasonable but what is a year a year 30
credits well um well any for a year or or segment thereof so if you took if you took 12 credits one semester but not the second semester well that's a year because we're immer reimbursing you for 12 hours and then you owe us an a
year all of this language is not necessarily tied to a specific time frame it's all tied to courses and not semesters or degrees says "Reimbursement shall be limited to
courses which are required as part of an overall academic program leading to a degree related to the employees current city position." So it's all related to courses and not necessarily an entire program to or to a degree correct there
there is a design uh you have two different paragraphs in your uh policy one for non-deree courses or seminars and one for degree programs there's two separate paragraphs but it's all related to courses taken it seems to me versus
an actual completed program right and when I say segment of a year I mean a completed section a completed semester right 12 or six hours whatever the courses value is completed passing
grade not to throw another wrench in it but I do know you know there's opportunities that are given if you get your masters that we will increase your compensation as a reward but you have to
maintain employment with the city for a certain period of time is is I understood that as being available i don't know if that is in what Mr mr tras is reading that's been contract that's been based off of employment
agreements I believe individually in the past and then what Mr did read all what you just read there's no period of time clarified correct but it is a there is a
penalty that's stated it would be the agreement that would be um with the employee because it talks about employee agreeing to reimburse so you go you go to human resources and you say that I want to um enroll myself in this degree
program and I'm looking for reimbursement then there would be an agreement with the city specifically human resources staff as to what that time period would be so shouldn't there see be a section in there that if you
want to pursue a a degree in a field that you go to human resources and and put together a uh an agreement is that in there it doesn't talk about an actual written
agreement it just says the employee agreeing it would be best obviously the lawyers would want something in have an employee agree yeah and human resources department would have certain standards that they go by
on putting that together approved by the city manager or not yeah there's there is a paragraph that talks about that paragraph nine where reimbursement requests are made under this policy exceed available funds as they have been budgeted and allocated across city organization and the human resources
staff subject to the approval of city manager may set priorities such as electing to offer only partial reimbursement to requesters reimbursement on a first come first- serve manner or in such other manner as deemed needed to ensure a fair and
balanced ability for all employees to obtain the benefit so it looks like you know it's requiring standards and priorities to be established by the human resources department but again it doesn't nail down a specific time frame as it
should or some standards or is this something that should be pushed back um to the civics civil service do you want to give direction for the Civil Service Commission to take a look at that issue again uh you know I wasn't
there when they reviewed it the first couple of times so I'm not sure they've already taken a position on this don't assume that since they approved it as it is they they took a position and recommended an 80% reimbursement
okay they they re and and and I disagreed with them on that because If you have an employee my thought on it was if you have an employee who's wanting to further their education for the benefit of the city they're going to
do that outside of working for the city so that is giving a lot of their time and I was in favor of 100% tuition reimbursement you could tie that to grades if you
wanted to i I wouldn't because where some um students excel in some classes and they don't excel in others but they're equally as intelligent or equally as right they just maybe not excel in that but my comments and my
thoughts were if you're going to spend the money that it costs to get a master's degree the money that it get cost to get a bachelor's degree I just didn't feel like a year was enough for somebody to commit to the city so you
come to the city you have zero education we pay for your four-year degree and you only have to stay here for a year and you can walk down the road somewhere else i'm not a fan of that you come here you have a bachelor's degree you want to get a master's degree we'll pay for the master's degree
but I want more than a year out of you i'm sorry that's just my opinion i'm not saying that it has to be four years that's why I keep saying year per year i like that but I think that you need to have some more investment and if an employee is going to say "I'm not
willing to give the city two years," then I don't want to pay for your education that's just how I feel you could be committed to us year year for year and with the penalties already in place for not completing or ch or
leaving I mean sorry leaving the job early so it would be cumulative yes yeah so if you if you're reimbursed in three consecutive calendar or three consecutive yeah calendar years then you must stay employed for three years after
so Commissioner Taglerini are you thinking the the year based on the year or on the term of study or on the actual time it takes because I I like your idea of year-over-year but I would want to
base that off of the what the year not not off how long it's going to take them because they're not going to go full-time so if if the master's program or the bachelor's program or whatever however many years it would take if you were a full-time student then that's what you'd owe us at the end of earning
it because a bachelor's program could take someone six years and I although I would like to hope that they would stay here for 6 years or 10 years or 12 years or 20 years I don't know that I would be willing to try to make somebody commit
to 6 years but four years if that's what you're saying I could buy for that yeah I think I I would support that yeah yeah i thought that's what you meant when you said it originally i would I would tie I know in the private sector just personal experience
not me but um the person that I'm thinking of went and got their master's degree full ride private company but it was a three-year
commitment so they were able to do it in four years to get their masters um that doesn't mean it couldn't take longer i'd like a finite you know we're
going to reimburse you for a master's degree this is how many years let's just say this is how many years it's going to be a bachelor's degree maybe it's the same amount of years but it's a finite period of time and then if it's just courses towards a
degree I would think it would be something less you know what if you just stop some people may have a reason to to stop and not get the full degree or they may just get an AA or
um I I believe in that case we would have reimbursement them for the year or years that they completed right they would be obligated to work for that number of years and if they didn't we have a penalty in place for reimbursing i get I'm just not following the year for year because it may you a may only
take 12 credits per semester because you're working full-time well that's a full load well is this a contractual agreement how do you figure that out this be So I think that would that be a contractual
agreement so what we're talking about is making it part of the policy right so once it's part of the policy you don't need to get the employees agreement it's part of the policy no they can be terminated at any time also correct after they get their degree say for
instance they come out of with a bachelor's degree and they're terrible so they can be uh terminated at any time right they would have been terrible before the bachelor's degree well there's a lot of people that graduate with a bachelor's degree with the help of Dr goo Google and they come
out and don't know anything so I'm saying yeah you you would still be able to terminate the employee right um and if you you want your policy to say basically if the employees terminated u within for example if you're requiring them to um stay two years for an AA
degree or a master's degree or whatever and you fire them after the first year they need to reimburse you back for the other year you know something like that if that's right okay so um year to year and then um like I agree
with uh Commissioner Tagalini you said year to year right correct and then based on performance after that therefore you know if you're great and the right I just assume that anybody could be uh let go for poor quality of
of work when I we're not obligated to keep them just because they're in a threeyear two-year obl obligatory period that's why I asked if it was a contractual agreement right right no it's in our policy it'll be in our policy that's right well I have a
question yes let's say there's an employee that we have let's say he is a technician goes to co he goes to college and we pay his tuition four years later or he gets a four-year degree he becomes let's say an engineer what if we don't have a job as an engineer for that
person we've already filled that job there's someone else that already has that job so this person is getting his education but we don't have that position available to be filled
then I would tell you they'd have to stay in the role that they're in for the duration of what they owe the city for the education we paid for and if that position came open then they would be able to promote yeah i don't want to come across as heartless but I think
this is just way too complicated there just too many dimensions to it i don't know i Why would we pay for for an engineering degree if we never know we're not going to need an engineer correct so the the have to be preapproved that is right they have to be pre-approved and you have to be going
to school for a job to work in the city which you would be promising them will have in four years after they get their education i don't think any city does that i know they don't i mean I'm And that's not what we're advocating either no and just to for one minute um
Attorney Felder one of the things that he brought up as a topic on the years was to just set years right so if you go for an AA degree you have to work for the city this many years if you go for a bachelor's degree you have to work for the city this many
years if you go for a master's degree you have to work for the city this many years so that it's you're you're defining those are the only three degrees that we're going to pay for that are going to be years of school that someone's going to go for you're either getting an AA degree a bachelor's degree
or you're getting a um master's degree when when they get their bachelor's degree they need to graduate to a higher level of position not necessarily not not necessarily they may they may just be getting the education to get the education now would that
would that comes back to my conversation earlier everybody gets a trophy so everybody's going to get the same raise or are we giving merit-based raises and that's where you would get a raise because you've gone to school you've obtained a a bachelor's degree or a
master's degree now you merit more money you you have a higher level of education you're able to bring more to your position joe is wanting to go to school to get his masters because of the position he's in at the city it will
elevate him yes he's a wonderful young man no doubt i'm not talking about doubt so if we used him as an example he's going to go to school he's going to get a master's degree and he'll still be able to work for the city in an elevated position he'll go from what a planner
one to a planner two or a planner three or something yeah i mean based on budget based on budget and where he's at but it's not a guarantee correct he could have to stay in the position he's in for six months or eight months until we have
that elevated position available but and it's not a condition of obtaining the degree we're not agreeing nor telling an employee if you go to school we will then promote you that does not happen right if we've done that as a condition
of employment and as a separate a an actual agreement between the city and an employee but in terms of the policy it's allowing employees to obtain a degree to better themselves and their future but we want to protect the city's investment
once they receive the reimbursement whether that's for one two three or four years and typically I've been in cities where it's been either two or three years that's it so after you receive the reimbursement if you leave prior to two years then you will reimburse the city a
portion of what the city paid you which is fair so do you want to just give me for each one of those degrees the years number of years and we'll work on a change to this policy one two and three
so master's degree one year mast's three three I think three years three years bachelor's two okay aa one make sense so upon receiving reimbursement when they're going after each one of those
degrees that's the corresponding time period should they leave prior to that they would pay back the city that reimbursement bachelor's degree takes longer than a master's degree Masters is usually two bachelor's is four well keep in mind
that I don't believe we have any employee going to school full time that would be very difficult to work um I know that for examp they they get a reimbursement should they leave within two years after that then they would repay back the city
so so just for clarity we are now talking about reimbursing for a degree not for not for credit hours no not for courses no we're reimbursing for a degree correct would you be okay with one two three
does that sound reasonable and maybe one two two maybe one two two i mean yeah one two two it is what it is what do you think i I don't know i I mean there's so many dimensions to to to this and I and I
hear you let's say this person gets a degree after whatever years then that person really deserves to be in the position that they have achieved they have worked when that employee makes the
decision to take our money yes and go somewhere else no no no no no when they say "I want to go to school and I'm going to take your money and you're going to pay for my education." You owe us something you owe the residents of this city something and
if it means that when you graduate with that degree that you work here for two years in a position that is beneath where you believe that person should be they're going to know that they're going to know when they get their education paid for that they're making a
commitment to the residents of this city that they're going to work for the city for two years the intent behind my thoughts is that we we're we're spending a lot of time talking about something that shouldn't
even matter because you would you would hope that any employee who worked here had the intent of staying for many years and growing with the city and would understand the need for the role that they're growing their education in but
to make a two-year commitment I wouldn't do it for anything less yeah i mean two years is is nothing is nothing when you think of the amount of the tuition that's going to be paid on their behalf yeah and I'm not sure how much credit hours cost is these days 100
years ago it was like a hundred bucks an hour credit hour if if a course is three credit hours well they're all usually three credits so I think one class is probably I mean just think like at a St petersburg College probably $500 for one three credit class maybe a little bit
more usf or state university it's going to be more um so so if you're trying to get your um master's degree let's say 24 hours 24 Well master's degrees are usually 30 credits 30 credits that you
know 60 credits let's say no it's two years two years no it's 15 yeah it's 60 credits i can't remember how many I took years ago is it 36 36 credits for a masters all right
let's say just 30 just for the fake of sake of multiplying so 30 times 500 right 30 hours times 5,000 so that's 15,000 we would be giving towards his
master's degree i guess that's not a lot of money these days i don't know i'm still in favor of to you know the oblig obligation and and full tuition reimbursement just to promote higher
education in our workforce and and that is the purpose of paying for tuition is to is to promote those to go back to school and get a higher education be the best they can be for the city and I
stated once once they achieved that I mean if if if I'm if I get a master's degree that was regardless if I'm working at a position that's less than what a master's degree would be on
the open market I think two years is is sufficient to recover and hopefully in that two years be able to promote that person to to to retain them And if you if it's not important to retain them they're going to go out on the open
market and find out what they can get you can't blame them correct all right so do we agree i think one two and two one two two two for masters two for bachelors and one for associates
associates okay we'll prepare that thank you next on the agenda is Judge John's past dredging update so mayor and commission just to give you the updates of where we are with the
dredging there's communication between our consultant APTIM the and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and also the US Army Corps of Engineering working for to obtain those
permits to begin the dredging and communication we received or the I'm sorry the consultant received communication on April 7th and April 11th and still looking still reviewing information and getting reviews
completed from their partners uh specifically for the US Army Corps uh they're waiting to receive comments from their resource agencies and the US Department of Environmental Protection waiting to receive reviewing uh best management
practices and related reports i have James here with James with Aptum uh and James if you have any other updates to provide but both applications have been as
uh in process or awaiting additional information thank you um both sapp James is our I'm sorry engineer who is working on the project i'm the director of Athens coastal ports marine program um as the city manager mentioned both
applications are in uh they have been for a while army Corps of Engineers has determined that the application is complete to the point that they're able to go to the resource agencies for consultation now so they're in consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fishery Service which is a requirement
for them to issue their permit um and on the D side um we've gone back and forth on a few they have requested uh on the last one uh suggested that there would be mitigation required for foraging animals particularly dolphins as well as foraging birds we disagreed with that uh
we've provided information back to them why we do not believe mitigation is required for this project and that's currently what they're evaluating and that's where we stand right now do we have any public comment commissioners questions
i have a question so you are working with D to um basically hopefully obtain their permit and you disagree with some comments that they have made so you just responded to them and you said you
disagree and this is why yeah we provide we provide our professional opinion as to why we do not think that there's an impact to the foraging habitat specifically to dolphins and uh so if they disagree with your disagreement what would happen then um ultimately they can issue a permit and require
mitigation um it it is our opinion to try and work through that process now um mitigation would require additional cost additional time um and and uh typically on the DP side they're open to this conversation um this is not an abnormal conversation that we would have with
them um and um um as an example on a permit that we're just doing for the county on the countywide project uh they had requested some mitigation or some monitoring that we felt was not necessary and and they ultimately agreed with us on that just this week so this is not an abnormal process on the D side
um and I think we can probably come to an agreement relatively quickly with the D uh in terms of a permit um the core one is the the one that's going to likely take longer and historically is the the bigger issue in my opinion we're against the deadline we're against time
and um we really just cannot afford to extend any more time with going back and forth um if you need to set up meetings with them whether it's Zoom call or in person or whatever we need to obtain these permits pretty quickly because if
we don't build by the end of this year we may lose our contract with the state understood there's just no room to u spare right understood and and like I said I feel like we're in a good position with DP um that one uh I think
we'll we'll will come to conclusion uh relatively quickly they've had it for about a month now our best practices and mitigation comments um so we're expecting something relatively soon from them uh the Army Corps in their consultation is the one that that's a little bit more difficult and it's also the one that's harder to control as a
federal regulatory process with federal federal regulatory agencies um and it's one that we've had had historical problems with on on multiple programs throughout the state um so that's the one where we continue to focus on um in terms of pushing and making sure we're staying on top of our communication with
our permit um processor with the Army Corps of Engineers out of their Tampa office thank you Eddie no comments no questions thank you so it's just just the two signoffs we're waiting correct we need the two two
official permits and then once we do that we can go to to construction bidding um we do have to put together bid plans and specifications which is covered under the contract that is a a a fairly rapid process we can go through um we don't do it now because there can be special conditions that come out of
the permits that impact the plans and specifications so that would be a duplicative effort if if that happens but um we have draft specifications and our plans we already have the permit plans in place so it' be a modification of the permit plan so once we get the two authorizations we can wrap up the
plans and specifications very quickly put a bid package together for the city to then advertise okay and there's a actually policies reading the highlights here there's policies on followup certain you have on your calendar yep they they say
come back to us in three weeks you on that 21st day you're making a phone call we do yep very very much so and and and to comment on some of that from beforehand you know they're very clear about the three weeks and the four weeks and and anything in between ends up slowing things down it'll start a new
three-week clock which we don't want to do so we do wait till the end of that three minute four week process and then we we we jump back in on that conversation and you and you keep documentation on all that correct perfect thank you so um would there be a
benefit i mean our elected officials would like to step in and help with the Army Corps of Engineer permit do you have any issue with that i don't have a I don't have an issue with it in in in our experience um it hasn't improved the situation um I'm I'm not advocating for
or against it um this as as I indicated unfortunately is a common issue and and quite often Congress and senators get involved um but often it doesn't change the army regulatory process the problem we have is that so you say that the bid
the bid planning or the bid package will happen quickly what does quickly mean to you because that definition for different people means different things we can get the bid package done in under a month we get done quicker depending on if if no special conditions come out of the permits it's a matter of turning
over our permit plans into the actual construction plans which is a matter of days um the only caveat that I haven't talked to city manager about is if we have to incorporate any special specifications that come from uh public works or engineering here in the city um
that if we have to include them by reference that takes a little bit more time uh we can start that conversation now while we're in the final permitting stages uh but uh I would say two weeks to four weeks tops to get the uh specifications turned around and we can do some pre-coordination with the city
to make sure that those specifications and your procurement department is prepared in a group and are ready to sign off on our documents so I want to tell you my frustration yes ma'am um because I have asked a lot of questions and I've been extremely frustrated and when you go back and look at the
timeline of when this project was awarded and you look at the um timeline from when you were awarded the project to today and the inbetweens and some of the correspondence that went back and forth for someone who's not a
professional reading some of the questions that came back many of those questions seemed to be questions that should have been included in a package that went to the Army Corps especially after having a
pre-bid meeting i've been to pre-bid meetings i know what that is um or pre-permit meeting I'm sorry to you should have had a better in my opinion it seemed like a better understanding of what they were looking for it's what you do for a living this is what you do
every day we're two and a half years in we are on a deadline that if we don't have this project completed by December 31st we lose the funding that's a really big deal it's a big deal for more reasons than just not dredging the pass we have a elected official who fought
for three years to get us this appropriation to pay for this and we've sat back and just let you do your job and not ask the questions and then when the questions started getting asked it looks like because we weren't following up nobody was really following up on
your end in a in an urgent time-sensitive manner so if you tell us today we're going into the end of April that we're still waiting on Army Corps d is going to be no problem you're going to get that we're still waiting on Army Corps don't know how long that's going
to take because of how they are and once they approve it it's going to take you a minimum of 1 month to get the package ready to go out to bid it's going to take us a minimum of 45 days to bid the project because we have processes that
the city has to go through to do bidding and then we're in hurricane season there's no path that we're not in hurricane season when we go to bid and then so then you're in hurricane season and I mean what if you don't get the
permit if we don't push harder or at some angle if we don't have that permit and get this project done that's a whole conversation i don't even want to be the person on the receiving end of having i don't want to be sitting in a position where we're sitting currently that
appropriations aren't being pushed forward for this city because we couldn't get this project completed understanding that the Army Corps is is difficult i'm looking for you to say
this is how we're better and what we're doing to move the process along right for I completely understand everything you have to say um I recognize it's taken some time um the the the the best approach for the core is is constant
timely communication uh we are at a point now where the core has the answers that they needed um that was that's not an easy process u and it's not always easy to anticipate what they're asking or what they're going to ask for uh as an example on the
D side we were not anticip we've never had a question about um dolphin foraging habitat for something for a project like this that's a new one for us um I don't even know how we would mitigate for that to be honest so um that's just an example but now that they have you know
accepted the application as complete to the point that they can go to consultation uh the point now becomes for us to to to to every couple of weeks to get with a permit processor um document the communications ask for updates on consultation ask for previews
on anything coming out of consultation that could potentially accelerate our ability to to to accelerate the plans and specifications if we can anticipate if there are any issues coming out of National Marine Fishery Service or US Fish and Wildlife Service we can get a head start on those and what we can do
is work directly with the permit processor to get that information the permit processor we're working with is the same one we worked with recently on the large scale uh beach nourishment project that the countyy's ready to undertake they actually put that out to bid today um so we do have a relationship with that individual um and
and we actually employed the same process there of of of I don't want to call it harassment but it's it's a level of of it's what it needs to be yep and and and that's what we will do moving forward with this so how many areas of consultation are they doing do you know
they do too us Fish and Wildlife Service and that covers the the the upland um um habitat and animals and that's they're going to be most most likely concerned about birds um and then the National Marine Fishery Service and those those are the ones that are under the water if
you will and they'll look at the dolphins and and um sea turtles we've already got confirmation from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation that they're okay with the sea turtle issue they brought up that issue throughout the process where we're able to convince them that and provide monitoring data
that there have never been sea turtle nests on that spit and that there will be monitoring continued monitoring that goes on now to to make sure that there are no sea turtle impacts so so that issue from the state side has been put to bed um so it's really those two organizations u those two federal
organizations fish and wildlife and US fish and uh national marine fisheries so I'd like to see you start working as proactively with the city manager as you can to get us in a position to be able to move quicker yeah once we have the permit or once we have the approval so
that we can get our side out to bid have the drawings and all of that whatever that is that you need to um communicate with him so that we're in a better position to move faster okay what what what I can commit to do um I will commit our organization to have draft plans and
specs written by the end of May for count for for for city review u with the caveat that they are draft if the core then comes back and requires edits to that based off of the consultations you we'll take that added effort on to that that way we have a draft in place so because wouldn't it be easier to edit it
than to start from scratch not always um it depends on what we have to incorporate from the from the city standpoint point um and and if they if it addresss multiple connected specifications if you will sometimes the specifications can be quite complicated
the counties are very complicated um and it it depends on on what it impacts so um same with the drawings if the drawings if they come back with mitigation requirements those all then have to be designed and incorporated as brand new specifications so um um
regardless we will do a draft set okay i think that would be helpful yeah mayor if I may yes u we don't necessarily have to have the permits in order to send the plans out to bid as long as we're comfortable with the plans being 90%
completed and the specs 90% so at least we can get some feedback and once they give us the prop the cost estimates let's say three different companies hopefully by then we'll receive comments back from Army Corps or
FD or whatever and then we can reissue those changes to these three different companies yeah you don't want to get too far ahead on the bid process but to your point and again I'll use the county as an example what we can do is as we get at least verbal confirmation from the
regulatory agencies of what the conditions may be um we can go ahead and finalize the plans and specs well the I'm sorry to cut you off but but the urgency I'm sure you you see it in the mayor's voice the the urgency is there
and we need to utilize every day every minute to to achieve a goal so whatever it takes to cut the time shorter we need to comply with that and I and I agree and I urgent it is my only concern about
advertising a bid that doesn't have regulatory at least a verbal understanding what the regulatory conditions are is that you're going to get contractors um who will either not bid or overbid that project to mitigate their risk it's not their business to have a permit it's it's your business
it's our business to have a permit so they just need to bid on the plan that you give them the plan requires that it contains the permit required specifications understood give them the specs and give them the plans we have to know what the permit specs are and and so the argument
I'm I'm trying to make here is that what we've done with the county is we have put it out to bid without the permits as as you've indicated however we've had indication from the D we have the core permit we have indications from the D permit of what that spec what the what
the specific conditions are going to be so that we can incorporate them as soon as we get a verbal indication as to what those specific conditions are we can complete the bid package and get that on the street that's the fastest I route I guess far ahead in other words we're
we're not as far as as far into the game as I thought we were we probably just recently submitted the plans right uh they've had plans for a while the the the problem is in identifying the spec specific specific conditions that are going to be required for the protection
of marine and upland resources for environmental resources um the D has thrown a curveball by saying that they wanted mitigation for dolphin foraging habitat and bird foraging habitat we have now gone back with what we believe is a solid argument as to why that
should not be required um the core has not provided us that yet because they've now gone to consultation with their resource agency because they've answered all their own questions so the next thing we would need in order to do what you're suggesting is some
feedback from the federal resource agencies as to what specific conditions they're considering then we can incorporate those into the specifications we either risk putting in specific conditions that aren't required which will drive up your bid and maybe scare away some biders or not including
specific conditions that we then have to do a bid change on that is going to also drive up the risk not having not knowing the judgers will know not having the specific conditions identified or at least at least identified if not stipulated will allow them to take the
opportunity to manage their risk by doing a timeline and a and cost adjustment so when did they go in when did it go in for consultation uh it went into consultation at the beginning of um let me check my notes real quick you know I believe I'm trying to look at my
notes and I actually I believe it was the April 11th or April 7th communication we received back from them was that they have got it in cons consultation so let me ask you this based on your professional opinion knowing that the Army Corps is
unpredictable if they went into consultation on April 7th what would you estimate how long it would take them to consult with the two bodies that they need to consult with i don't have a good answer for you mayor
only because we have we have an instance with the county where it took less than two months up to a situation K County we have right now but it's been three years and we have not gotten any progress through them so so that that's the type of range that the Army Corps is operating in here in the state of Florida right now what we're going to
try and do is we're going to apply what we've done with the county and the pressure we've done and and and frankly the relationships we have with the consulting agencies here in this division which is which is a good relationship we have um and the fact that it is a smaller scale project to what they're normally consulting on to
try and and really to use the phrase harass it and push this through there should not be significant specific mit uh specific conditions or mitigations required um the biggest problem is is staffing and workload on their side um so we're trying to get it escalated
above other projects as well okay thank you for coming tonight sure i'm I'm happy to come at any time i I am local not well i've asked for you to come to every meeting robin must not be passing that question along i believe my colleague Nikki's been here at least once um but but I am
local and as long as I'm in town I'm happy to come to the meetings i mean I I would I would like it if we could get an update weekly even if to Robin even if it is you know you have nothing to say because I get asked every week by more than one person for an update on John's
Pass the media calls local residents call business owners call and so it it's frustrating to me like I said earlier it's really frustrating to see the the progress and and I understand how the Army Corps is um but I guess if if I was
being totally transparent it would have been nice to have this same sense of urgency in the beginning and not have to wait till the end and I understand I I will say the first speed bump we had that that we tried to push and did not have success was with the FDOT and
that's also another common problem because we had to get a permit from them before the other regulatory agencies would even evaluate the permit right um and and um we pushed that hard knowing that that was a historic speed bump and some other projects we've been involved in and and even though it took a long
time um um it wasn't for a lack of trying and in fact it was a little faster than what we've done in other projects and I think actually the the city helped with that some so um I'm not trying to make excuses no um and I will commit to you weekly updates we'll we'll provide Robin with an email weekly
update at the end of each week we will draft plans and specifications based off on our understanding of the specific conditions as they are now we'll coordinate with Robin and the city so that they can uh make sure that our specs match their specs or that any of those potential speed bumps we tend to
have when we're working with the public works department or procurement department for a municipality are hashed out beforehand and then we'll keep pushing on the Army Corps to make sure that consultation is going as fast as we as as we possibly can thank you very much you're welcome any more questions
thank you thank you very much thank you thanks next on the agenda is the city external financial audit been mayor and commission as has been shared with you our external financial audit firm James Moore company is here
Zack Shallor to give a presentation on our annual external financial audit Zack all right good evening Zach Shalifor partner James Morren Company uh going back to the tuition reimbursement I was going to say well what if you say if it's an accounting degree you get double
the reimbursement um you know I might be a little biased uh you and I will know you know fortunately you don't need to do that because your finance and accounting team is doing a good job so um but you know that was kind of like in mind I'm like you know let's just go all in on accounting uh but in all
seriousness we are here to review the annual audit for the fiscal year ended September 30th uh 2024 i have a PowerPoint here on the screen as in in prior years to keep it pretty high level but more than glad as always to answer any questions as I'm going feel free to
jump in or of course uh at the end but I will again try to keep it pretty high level uh to move through it here as quickly as we can uh as you can see on the uh slide there uh we have a copy of the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting that
the city received for last year's uh financial statements the city does prepare what's called an ACTUER or an annual comprehensive financial report uh that document includes a lot more than the minimum of what's required by the state it gets submitted every year to the the GFOA the Government Finance
Officers Association uh for evaluation and if it meets the criteria of that really enhanced level of reporting that certificate uh is then awarded we would expect that to be awarded again for this year's uh 2024 uh financial statements
uh these are management's financial statements there's five reports uh that we issued this year the first is the audit report on the financial statements we did issue an unmodified opinion uh that's the best that we can issue and effectively says that the numbers can be relied upon uh one different one this
year is we did have a state single audit related to some of your D funding uh when you go over the threshold we have to perform effectively a mini compliance focused audit over your major grant programs uh we did that work this year
had no uh items or findings from a compliance perspective to report and I did note there on the federal side uh the ARPA funds were noted as spent recognized in the current year based on the the treasury's rules we performed what's called an alternative compliance
engagement uh did issue a clean report there effectively affirmatively saying that those funds uh were handled appropriately in terms of that full award amount in compliance with the rules of the treasury uh the third report is on internal control and compliance while we are not this is not
an internal control audit there's separate audits focused on that we do consider your internal controls over key financial processes you know accounts payable payroll as well as just really getting the numbers right to produce these financial statements uh we also
consider compliance as it relates to any material debt other grant budgetary compliance issues uh any findings per se that come up on those in those areas could be reported here uh there were no findings reported so a clean report on
this front and then the last two reports are kind of a catchall requirement from the Florida Auditor General uh the fourth one there that management letter uh is mostly centered on financial condition if there's any red flags uh that we note based on you know the
state's emergency guidelines and otherwise we would have to basically notify uh the state no modifications to that um area and then if there's any just other comments recommendations observations you know not in that deficiency category but areas um you know that we communicate with your team
we can note those here uh did have just you know one looking at just grant expenditure um you know recognition and accounting um as far as how to you know clean that up a little bit um better from the year- end reconciliation process uh but that was the only item
noted last year uh we had one similar in that category comment that was noted to be addressed in the current year and then the last report we did note the city to be in compliance with state statutes over investment activity and investment policies uh so on the next
slide I have a historical four-year look at your fund balance in the general fund as of course your primary operating fund of the city uh and what we're going to look at is those bottom two buckets your assigned and unassigned fund balances codes really represent what are your
available unrestricted reserves uh as of year end um so on the next slide what I always do is take those bottom two numbers uh and combine that relative to what was spent in the budget to say let's get this kind of in perspective uh I will note on the percentage there that
number that we had plugged in there was based only on the unassigned number there is also the assigned fund balance based on what was in your fiscal year 25 budget so when we include those numbers do the calculation that you'll see the
12 million by the the 15 it's about 78% so a little bit over um nine months by that measurement down just slightly about 6% from the prior year that fluctuation pretty normal as you know everything's never exactly the same year-over-year your revenues and
expenditures may go up or down to kind of change your uh that number that you're dividing by or into um so very consistent uh and the minimum recommendation from the GFOA which I always emphasize is a bare minimum recommendation uh is two months and they
always say you know consider other factors such as the size of the entity susceptibility to natural disasters hurricanes that's always the big one that we talk about as reasons for that to make sense um being some degree higher and of course you know this is as of September 30th uh 2024 so we you know
we don't have the latest numbers in terms of the impact but when you look at the storms in FEMA you know as I know everyone has seen you know it takes a while to get those dollars back even though when we have a storm you know we hopefully get the majority of that back but it could be um you know well over
multiple years for that to finally happen so having that cushion helps get through uh without having to really you know stress about let's go borrow money at a high interest rate or otherwise while we while we play the waiting game uh on the next slide uh we have your business type funds here we look at your
unrestricted net position my focus is always just kind of you know year-over-year are things moving in the right direction are there any sustained you know negative trends that could say hey are these rates where they need to be uh all of those funds uh pretty stable moving in kind of an inflationary
uh positive direction so no concerns from that standpoint and then on the final slide here just kind of a catchall for us uh your other governmental funds your special revenue funds where you you know generally track most of your restricted dollars to have the accountability and
transparency over the use of those funds about a $ 8.3 million balance at year end uh and I will note just from an audit testing perspective we do spend a lot of time looking at the money that goes out of those funds to say "Okay were those spent in accordance uh with
the rules or restrictions that those dollars are subject to." And then every year uh pretty much every government presentation I touch on the net pension liability uh in total it's almost a $5 million number that does show up in your statement of net position uh that's really more of just a theoretical
allocation based on the state plan as a whole i always do just like to say now you won't have to cut a check for that full amount the city's obligation is every month based on your payroll you're making those required contributions to the state based on the uh percentages that they set forth and that has uh been
done on a consistent basis uh so those are the highlights again want to try to keep it high level and quick but more than glad to dive into any questions and thank you all again for the chance to be here do we have any public comment
commissioners I have a question on page 104 about the overpayment of grant expenditures it doesn't really say what those expenditures were for i didn't know i remember hearing about overpaying a vendor um even though
checks and balances were in place it appears it was um found the error was found and and corrections are being made over time but you do you recall Andrew or what that what that was about so the
in our beach groins project and paying the vendor we did not the calculation that came from the pay app included it seems like they were not including or including additional uh what would be the term
kind of cumulative from one pay app to the other they did not take out what had previously been paid so we ended up paying more than what was due at the time that was caught i don't know the time frame after or by the next one or
two payups and then subsequently just it's been credited and it's where it needs to be now so it's recovered with Yeah so we we just paid early excuse me basically yeah essentially we paid early and now we when it was caught we simply
said "Hey we you've already been paid you will now receive a credit until it's zeroed out." The over Okay i just um I never seen that before in in your audit before thank you for the explanation um so in general we're still
moving forward uh in in a good in a good way even with the um environmental issues that we've had and the loss of revenue from tourism over that period of time we're still
still moving in a positive direction yep very good thank you comments no comments thank you very much yeah thanks all have a good night next on the agenda is community development the MadiRaa Beach master
plan update mayor and Commission our consultant for our master plan Kimley Horn is here i think Hannah and Company i'm sorry Madison madison yep not sure who's navigating this
here we go and have no fear um don't let the um front page fool you this is the correct presentation we presented to the planning commission last week and we made no changes to the PowerPoint so um it's just in oversight so this is the
correct presentation for this meeting um want to thank you all for having us here tonight we're really here just to give you an update on what's been going on with the project i know a lot of you have been involved with the community engagement so um some of this might not be new to you but want to let you know
what we've heard so far through this process in this phase of the engagement go over the draft goals and objectives that we've identified for the master plan and then talk about what we have left in the project and what's next go to next slide please
and where we're at with the project we're still pretty much on track to schedule or to finish um with um end of spring early summer time frame so we plan on unveiling the final master plan at our final community workshop which
we're anticipating to be early June mid June time frame so we're really excited about that so we're really wrapping up a lot of things right now we're in the implementation phase where we're working with city staff and we're going to be working with other stakeholders which
includes the regional and local agencies such as FDOT Ford Penllis um Penllis County PSTA to ensure that the recommendations in this plan are supported by them because some of those may require future partnerships and in funding so want to make sure that
they're on board and that those can be implemented next slide and just a reminder um the purpose of the master plan it really is a long-term vision for the city we're going to have recommendations that could be completed in 5 years 10 years 20
years so it is going to have a range um in the responsibilities and in timeline um are subjective as well and the engagement we've had so far want to go back up so we've held two community workshops which were pretty well attended and I
think the feedback we received during those was um pretty fantastic it's really rare that we get community members who want to sit and dis have productive discussions and really talk about these things and bounce ideas off of each other and really listen so that's really encouraging for us to see
and we know that what we're hearing really is you know supported by the community and we can then translate that into our recommendations and goals and we've also been attending a lot of pop-up events we've had a range of events that we've gone to which has been good because we've gotten different
feedback from different ages demographics depending on who's at the event so we've heard a lot of um unique things depending on where we've gone a few weeks ago we were at um the seafood festival so we heard a lot of comments about parking which is probably no
surprise for an event like that because it was very well attended very difficult to find um parking because everyone wanted to go so each time we we hear something new and right now um we do have our second online survey going which um we actually
have over 300 responses right now which is pretty impressive um because it just launched a couple weeks ago um so I think the city's been getting the word out um email list serves have been utilized to get the word out i think I've seen a few of your names on the responses as well so we do know that we
are getting responses from um residents who live in MadiRaa Beach just based on the um zip code that they provide when they fill out the survey so we are confident that we're getting you know feedback not just from people outside the city but inside the city as well so
we definitely encourage you to keep spreading the word about the online survey it'll be live for another month or so um just to make sure we get um all feedback necessary and every time we go to these pop-up events or the community workshops we always ask people what
their vision is for Madiraa Beach you can see here it is a range of things that we kind of unveiled those with the goals and objectives and that's really what formed those is what we've heard from the community engagement and we were
able to group what we were hearing into those six focus categories and these are um the six focus areas and I'm going to go through each of these tonight i'm going to read the goal statement and then we have some of the
recommendations and objectives within those goals um I'll kind of just hit the high notes and if you have specific questions regarding any of them we have our full um master spreadsheet here that has everything and we have been working with the city we had a meeting the other
day with other city departments where we've gone line by line to make sure you know does this make sense is this something we can realistically achieve within the city what are some challenges or barriers so um we're already working through that implementation so that we
know what's in this plan is achievable and we'll start with mobility um the goal statement is to create a safe and convenient transportation network that prioritizes all users including pedestrians cyclists motorists
and public transit users and really what we've been hearing from the community and you know what we've seen based on data is there really is a need for better facilities for all modes of transportation not just vehicles um we've heard a lot from community members
the desire for um safer bike lanes um people are you know really hesitant to bike down Gulf Boulevard with the condition that it's in right now um more trails more wider sidewalks so people feel more comfortable more crossings on the busier roadways so people can cross
safely and you know parking is a big one too we've heard a lot about parking there seems to be a lot of support um for more public parking or a parking garage in certain areas where there's a lot of activity can go to the next
one and for new development or redevelopment our goal is uh to support sustainable growth that balances community identity with economic vitality by directing growth towards the city's activity centers while
maintaining neighborhood character and what we've heard really is you know people aren't afraid of development or redevelopment they just want it to look good they want quality development that is happening within the city that matches the historic character and
culture of this city and that's really important because you all are going to redevelop and you want it to look as best as you can so that's really what we've been hearing from the community it's what we heard from the planning commission last week as
well and go to the next slide and the next focus area is economic and business development the goal is to foster a thriving local economy that supports small business development and encourages a diversity of entrepreneurial activities that meet
the daily needs of year-round residents while providing memorable experiences for visitors and some of these objectives really include you know drawing to the local businesses the entrepreneurs who you
know maybe grew up in Midar Beach or live in Midar Beach and want to open a business here so how can we do that how can we incentivize that and also support them to do those things in the city and also what we've been looking at is you know target employment industries you
know what industries do you want in your city that you know relate to like marine uses or that match the character of the city so that will be um things we'll be identifying in the plan to attract those types of
businesses and for sustainability and resiliency the goal is to promote stewardship of coastal resources and invest in adaptive infrastructure to mitigate flood risk and support long-term community resilience and the the common theme with these uh
recommendations and objectives is for the city to be more resilient after storm events or hurricane events and that could include investment into public infrastructure so the city can get back on its feet more quickly and also the way you move forward with you
know building design or um public spaces what you're choosing to use to make the city more resilient and more sustainable the next focus area for parks recreation and public spaces the goal is to optimize the use and accessibility of
existing public spaces and recreational amenities to better serve the needs of current and future residents and visitors and what we've heard from the community is they all really love the events that you have going on the city you know people can't get enough they
want more and I think you all do a really really good job of that so it's hard to identify what more you could do but there's always opportunities as you know time evolves things change new new things come out so you can continue to host events and look for opportunities
to host more that you are dedicated or um curated to your audience your residents and your visitors and the last uh focus area is beautifification and placemaking the goal is to encourage creative planning
design and programming of public and private spaces to increase cultural and social vibrancy and reinforce Madier Beach's identity is a small fishing village that has evolved into a must- vvisit coastal destination and this somewhat overlaps with the previous one
where you know you have all these events that really speak to the character of the city and there's other ways you can establish that it can be through landscaping design wayfinding public art which you all are are doing a really good job of you all unveiled a mural
what a couple weeks ago um that gets people excited and those are things that the community can do it's not just up to the city i think you all have really good partnerships with other groups like the trash pirates and um is it the trash turtles the um children's organization
so I think those are really powerful um partnerships that you already have that can move the city forward and help achieve some of these goals specifically in this category too and what's next for this plan is we're hosting the online survey right
now which is our final push to understand if we're missing anything with the recommendations or the objectives in this plan and we'll be uh having those meetings with the other agencies the stakeholders um to ensure
that the recommendations that we're making that require their partnership they're on board with so that's kind of what we're working on right now and once we have that finalized we will host our final community workshop where we'll unveil you know what is the final of of
the plan um to the community and really get their their last feedback and really get them excited for this because like I said it's not all up to the city to achieve these things there's plenty of things that the community members can do and I think they want to do based on what we've been hearing you know we
don't want this plan to sit on a shelf we want people to get excited and there to be momentum where they see things happening and there's things that they can do and be a part of and with that I'll open it to any questions um any comments you might have at this time do we have any public
comment commissioners comments i just had a a quick comment and as everyone here is aware um the community involvement was a great success it brought a lot of people out with some great ideas you guys did a wonderful job
i had a great time myself and uh sitting at the table you know with other fellow residents and uh everyone getting together to share their ideas and their goals you guys really brought that out and the people that live here are
awesome residents and uh great job thank you presentation was very nice very general so you know there's really nothing right now specific to to discuss um the goals and objectives are out there and uh
we're there with you the only concern I would have if I may is you know if if you consider parking garage in John's Pass you know I mean do you do
you do you build more parking so more people less people can come or do you there has to be a nice balance or do you have less parking and then more people there's more room for more people
so um John's Pass is a is a jewel to this community and uh the the characteristics of it is really right now it's well seasoned and people go there for what it is so um I love everything you said
hopefully you know your your concept and vision for John's Pass would that you know would take us to the next step in a nice way yeah absolutely there's definitely a balance and we do have identified in the plan for there to be a
city-wide parking strategy conducted so you can understand what is the right balance for that area comments thank you for being proactive with community in input and thank you for the wide range of uh topics from
community spaces to environmental health of the of the island to transportation bike i I like the wide range of focuses that we've had i took the uh survey looks good thank you very much
uh thank you for presenting tonight um I have a couple of questions um one has to do with John's Pass Village and the character of John's Pass Village i think um we just went through a series of ordinances and redevelopment um uh
objectives and part of that in my opinion is abstract uh as far as the character of the village and I'm hopeful that you can meet with staff if you haven't already and help define that
and put some real uh concrete um examples of barriers um need to word smith that a bit but I think you know where I'm going so that when we do have redevelopment in
John's pass that it's defined it's not arbitrary um so and as a as a as a third party that would also help coming coming from Kimley Horn so hopefully you're working
on that and if you're not please do yeah it's it's on our radar and and we've had discussions with the city and this actually came up at the planning commission last week is I think there is an expressed interest for architectural guidelines so it is a little bit more clear but to what level um we would we
need to figure that out so it's it's on our radar okay thank you and then um the uh second is on the your your vision and not your vision but the community's vision that you've been receiving
feedback um for the marina and what the community really feels like the marina can be uh what they want it to be um and hopefully you've met with city manager on what restrictions we may have and
um the who we may reach out to to uh ease some of those restrictions as needed um but it would go uh I think it would go a long way coming again from a third party that's a
professional in in your industry and and maybe have a letter prepared with with the help of the city manager and the feedback you've been getting to to back up any requests that we may have um for
that uh area i think it's a jewel um just as John's is a a tool to the city i think the marina is but I think the marina can be so much more yeah and we've been working with I forget his name with Krabby um so he's been
involved in our meetings so um he has seen these recommendations and we work through any concerns he might have do we have a guideline or um an an idea when you may be presenting uh your draft i'll say um the draft we should have a draft
prepared uh I would think early June so if that is um something you all would like to see we can certainly send that your way i'm not sure what the procedure would be on that but yeah we could show you the the draft early June that's when we're anticipating
great um I'm excited thank you for all your work yeah thank you i'm super excited when I first um started well when I first started volunteering with the city it was with the budget committee and then I got appointed to the planning commission and
was introduced to the Dwani plan was the very first document I was given and it was printed it was and it was quite an interesting read and it was interesting to me that the city spent at that time way back then an enormous amount of
money and then it just sat there it didn't get adopted it didn't go anywhere i and I don't know what the process was back then i don't know if there was a lot of interaction with the community it didn't seem like the information that I received there was but what I did like
about the plan was that it gave a vision for the city not necessarily a vision that when I looked at it I thought could have ever been implemented it didn't seem realistic to me in reading it however um when we started down this road with you all to me it's exciting
because things like the architectural at John's Pass is super important to me um the architectural for this area of the city is equally as important although it's already the developments have been approved there's still more that could
be developed in this area so I think that I have a passion for John's Pass to make sure that when something does get developed down there and there are going to be things developed there's actually a number of properties down there that are prime for development and I agree
with com with Vice Mayor Kerr i would very much like to see some defined architectural information in the plan to give us something to take out and use as a guide when we're developing and
implement that um I think that if we don't get busy with doing something like that we're going to end up with buildings that are not going to match the character for what we really want the community to be and become um so I'm excited to see what you come up with in
regards to that and I also uh we all know parking is an issue in the city and I mean from up here I think our next step is to do a feasibility study in the city to see where the parking is really
needed at and then go from there will the study give us any information like that yeah it can it can range um for whatever you want you can understand what areas are busier what areas aren't even what times of day um they're busy
so you can form a whole strategy around that that that will be interesting to know i mean I feel like we need more parking down at this end of the city and could bus people to that end of the city instead of putting parking down at that end of the city and building some sort
of monstrosity that's going to block someone's view or or do something like that where down here we could tuck something and build a nice building that would give repurpose a building build it up put some parking and then uh I know that for the John's Pass Seafood
Festival it was very convenient i got a lot of comments from residents who parked at the school or here at city hall and were trolled down to the pass and back um and we do that well so I'm
excited to see it for you guys to get done so I would like to see the preliminary for sure mayor if I may absolutely i'd like to share just an idea and it's way out there way way out there it's a vision so it's
so uh years ago I'm going to say 25 years ago closer to maybe 25 30 years ago we prepared a site plan for the Wendixie Shopping Center and I'm just wondering if we can work
with the ownership of the property of the Windixie Shopping Center and I don't really know who they are right now but work as a public private development where we can put parking spaces parking garage there and elevate their you
know I know retail generally they don't like to see it elevated but maybe add some extra dirt just to you know and then you have to flood proof um but I'm just wondering if we approach the ownership and see if there's any possibilities for private public
development there they can benefit and we can benefit from the property just a thought yeah I agree i wasn't going to name names i was like that would be I'll throw you a bigger one we own the library
and it flooded during the hurricane the best use for that building would be to get it up in the air and get parking underneath it so that we don't lose any more books ever again so we could move the we could move the library to the windixie no we move the library upstairs
well the garage the windixie oh no but I mean we have a lot of possibilities when you start thinking about um development and and uh private development going on in the city and part of that and I've said this to Jenny
you know when a developer comes in and wants to do something in the city it's her job to figure out how to how to make or how to work with the developer and in the best interest of the city yeah both
everybody has to everybody that's I mean that's a big job Jenny has and her department but that is that's where we get the opportunity as a city to work for work in projects that can be beneficial for the community for the
residents for the city for everyone and for the developer whomever it is that's wanting to do something whether they wanted to build up the windixie or or what have Thank you thank you thank you next on the agenda is impact fees
i think this came from the commission to have a impact fees discussion um I think as you're aware we collect we've been collecting now for a couple years impact fees the schedule of the rates are in the agenda item we are
over 250,000 that have been collected so far and we have had multiple discussions at workshops and meetings and had our consultant uh provide some input um so we created the ordinance to levy the
fees on both residential and commercial um developments there have been discussions about making some alterations changing the ordinance um so I think I'll turn it back and we also we also collect county impact fees as well
for transportation impact yes so that's in your packet as well so we get to keep 50% of that and the county is actually doing a study right now uh we haven't seen the draft but that should be we should get it next week or so any time
now uh we're waiting to see that so the county's impact fee will change i'm not sure what that'll look like um but we'll definitely share that with you as well i'm sure I'm the one that asked for it to be come back to the workshop because
we brought it up many times and it keeps be keeps if it's not continually brought up it's just something we talk about and it gets pushed to the side um especially since the hurricane and whatnot now I
know out of the five of us some of us uh like the impact fees the way they're set some of us don't um just to read the first sentence here on the background impact fees are a one-time charge imposed by local governments on new
development we're we're built out there is no new development there's redevelopment to fund infrastructure and capital improvements necessitated by growth now where I come from in Maryland in a rural area
um developments residential developments were quite common it was a rural area they needed new schools for a county that was um without a lot of funding and um that
was a ne necessity either that or you you raise the rate on everyone but it was an impact new development bringing in new families it was an impact to the community um and the the county commissioners at that point had started
an impact fee and it it was passed and that that that made sense um people didn't like it but it it made sense now what we're doing here and I mean the mayor and I go way
back on this with being in the planning commission and and we both uh um voted at the planning commission at the time to bring it to the board and the board approved it at the time but in my opinion it was under false pretense
because uh Gary Murphy and uh Linda um told me directly multiple times that we could not just have impact fees on commercial now I know I'm repeating
myself but some people may not have heard my rant before um well after what been eight nine months ago we had Mr murphy here and he he admitted that was not the case he did say that
multiple times and that was that was the way it was presented um but that it could be written so that it was for commercial so when you're adding beds just like in a rural environment you're adding uh
developments you're adding an impact to the city um that would that would necessitate more cost to the to the area to the local government
um but I but what we're doing here with residential if you have a three-bedroom three bath home and you rebuild it to FEMA standards and you happen to add an
office or or add a pantry or or add a laundry room actually in air conditioned space or add uh air conditioned stairs to the elevated space you could easily get up to a thousand
square foot more than what you had still having a three-bedroom three bath home that when your family comes to visit they have a place to sleep your friends come to visit it's it's comfortable and that's what you're you're used to you haven't
impacted the the uh community at all in my opinion um you've maybe improved what you had you have a maybe you have a a nice island instead of having a a small kitchen you have
a increased space that you're going to enjoy um currently if that that $1,000 uh I mean that thousand square feet what's that turn into a check for $8,000
roughly to the city just for the ability to increase your lot if you're able to rebuild roughly and that's going to th000 I have the spreadsheet pulled up okay uh th00and square feet calculates into
$8,390 okay so it's the few that are benefiting the many and I don't think that they're impacting the community so if we don't
want to come back and and talk about this any longer I'm one of five votes um now you've added an additional twist much which my architect has talked to me about for years that the Penllis County
also has an impact fee um now thank you for bringing that to our attention i'm not sure how it works i'm not sure if it's exact if it's the same it's an additional it's an additional cost and you can see page 362 of the packet
um that starts with the general fee schedule so this is what it is now like I said the county has been going over and amending will be amending their impact fees but
this is additional similar to ours is an additional square footage that's what it's based on so Robin's pulling that up it was 360 page 362 is where it starts at the very
bottom of there so if you're adding on to your house 0 to500 square feet they'll pay $1,356 so generally we will see the single family that's usually
what we see when we're collecting impact fees we don't have as many commercial projects it's usually single family projects um so it typically it'll range from that 0 to500 square feet sometimes it'll be the 1501
to 2,499 square ft so typically we're collecting like that 1,356 or
1,679 i think we may have done one commercial project uh with the impact fees but typically we don't see too many new commercial additional square feet that's air conditioned or additional square feet
similar to what we have it's additional square square feet of like air conditioned air condition space yeah okay so similar to ours so if you have a thousand square foot home say no garage
uh thousand square foot home you're elevating it and then you're adding on a 100 now you're at 1,100 then the impact the county's impact fee you'll charge that zero to500
because you're adding 100 square feet they have that just per unit um that 1,356 so with that,000 square foot we have the we're getting close to that
$10,000 when you add the county fee plus the city fee all for having more square footage than what you had prior yes so theirs is based on square footage as well but there's this kind of blocked
as you can see 0 to,500 and then you go to the next category 1501 to 204.99 and then it goes over but it's based on the additional square footage or if it's a completely new build but usually what we
see out here is you're taking a house elevating it and adding on some square footage right would you say that most every property that does elevate adds square footage
um if they're completely tearing down and rebuilding yes but now what we're seeing a lot of is people taking your existing home and just taking the exact home and just elevating it so a lot of the permits that we're seeing now that's
what we see right but that garage was not air conditioned prior typically another 450 ft if they have a garage yes not everybody has a garage well I'm just thinking but yes if they have a
garage in my mind's eye Crystal Island back in the you know 140th and back there yeah so if you have a garage then typically they'll be enclosing that well elevating it enclosing it and then turning that into into
air conditioned livable space yeah so that would be an additional 450 minus I say half of that 250 over the 110% so
another two grand for the city and another 1300 so I don't know i just think it's wrong because it's not it's not impacting anyone it's not impacting any more fire it's not impacting any more
parks it's not impacting any more police but that's just me if if the board would like to go forward and possibly change the the impact fee and how we calculate it maybe it would
be square footage on commercial but um by unit with residential um and vacation rentals that might be a solution to go forward to capture that not just square footage but actual
people personally I think it should be beds or baths or beds or bath i mean if you're adding more bedrooms or you're adding more bathrooms then I mean if there has to be an impact fee then you would assume you're adding more
people into that but I can only go by my personal experience and experience of my my neighbors i know they're lifting their home and they're going to have additional square footage and they're going to pay the fee or whatever and at the end of the day it's not going to
stop anyone from building that's not that's not my point and you know um these homes are costing people 500 to a million or million two to rebuild i mean if you're you're you
would be foolish to not rebuild something that is um a maximum value for your property um when you're spending I mean you're spending $150,000 before you even get to the
first wall of livable space so um people are going to pay it it's just whether it's in my mind's eye whether it's justifiable um if someone's going to build a hotel which none of the hotels that are
under not even under permit but under approval like out next to the marina or is it the beach maker none of them are going to pay impact fees because they were pre-approved prior to 2021 the only one that I can think of offhand is one
that hasn't even been fully proposed and that would be in John's Pass Village um if a hotel is built in that area um but I don't know what your exact percentage is but
the all the money that's been raised has been on the backs of our residents and I'm just opposed to a few residents paying for the improvements of the city but
I've said my my piece many times We don't want to bring this up anymore that's fine if everyone I I appreciate your argument about and I and what Jenny said interests me i'd love I'd actually like to hear a proposal to go by units so if you have a
three bedroomedroom house and you're elevating it and you're building a three-bedroom house three bedroom two bath I mean that I'm not in construction that logically means you're having the same number of people there uh and I'd love I
would think it would be good to see how that would impact uh the difference between uh raising money or charging impact fees and and I'm just referring to residential right so uh units rather than square foot i I
would like to see the con comparison between you uh charging impact fees for units versus square foot on a residential property i think a majority of our impact fees is single family to single family so it
would be quite low now if there was a study or the board wanted to change the impact fees we would have to get an outside consultant so that would be that would be a fee that the city would have to to pay to change it if that's
something that the board would want to if I might I'm sorry jerry Murphy was supposed to bring us a quote months and months and months ago and he's he's he's he's against it i would imagine that's why he hasn't brought it back but we
we've asked for that quote many times he he gave us a quote but then the hurricane Hela hit and that kind of got pushed on the back burner um we could reach out to him and get an updated one i know that the first I was going through earlier today um the first time
this was done and doing the whole comprehensive study the city paid 90,000 total wasn't that a grant though um I believe it was paid for by a grant i'm not sure i think that was between
the time that I was that was here is when he's That's just my Andrew do you know okay i'm not sure if that was done grant i also agree with Commissioner or I'm
sorry Vice Mayor um in a way that that um residents before the hurricane and as they are rebuilding as you had said a lot of them are actually just taking this the same size and
building up um I believe uh this is just residential that they there shouldn't be an impact fee for them and then the people that are coming
in buy in correct um it's if you're expanding if you're elevating and expanding your house we would charge on the expansion of the house not the same square footage that's how it's written right now right it's important to
remember that it's just on the heated square footage so all that space downstairs we're not counting that it is that's not livable space yeah correct so like if someone elevated a house that's 1,000 square feet that had no garage potentially that it'd be zero i I
guess they they'd have to pay the county counties then still or No they zero to I guess they're not I guess they're adding nothing then but so I mean I guess the only thing you I guess if you enclose a garage then I guess that's what you'd be
paying when you elevate that but even still that's still a big discount like we're not we're not counting all that existing square footage even if you demolished your existing house and built a new house would we still be subtracting off that previous heated square footage and only charging on the
to try to help homeowners and give them a a discount because because we set set this up in a way to incentivize and get credits elevating your house or building a new house with with and not
having to pay the full amount if you had a blank lot with nothing on it for you and then you're building something entirely new where you'd be paying the full amount right i just hate um that kind that amount of money
especially the 0 to500 square foot home uh for residents before the hurricane you know that are are going to be here for a very long time that's county though that that 0 to 15 that right there that's county money
that's not ours that's right we only get to keep half of that half of the counties half 50% of that right exactly 55th yeah um but the people that are coming in after the hurricane buying
these properties up and a lot of them are flipping them you know and they should have a higher impact fee that's what I that's what I think and that's how we can recoup some of that money um charge the the residents that that
are going to be here a long time uh that are just trying to rebuild zero and try to um increase the the impact fee for the people that are coming in out of state buying the house fixing it up and
then flipping it you know um I'm just looking out for the longtime residents that's basically what I'm trying to get to i don't know if there's a way that the impact fees could could collect that or put that into the study because it's a
it's a long-term study on what's the impact of development basically right redevelopment um I think that that is better suited for kind of like what we've done with the permit fees and also
keep in mind I know these are two separate funds but the permit fees were also um reduced from 2% to 1% so we do have a reduction there the impact fees are still still in play um and those
have not had any reductions since post storm um so both the counties and and ours are all right thank you thank you um impact fees i'm sorry obviously it should be based on the
use and um if it's residential I've always understood that impact fees are based on dwelling units doesn't matter the size of the unit so you know whatever if you build one unit if it's 1,000 2,000 3,000
whatever it should have just one impact fee that's for residential for commercial um you know every use is different whether it's retail whether it's restaurant it all really has to do with the traffic that it generates and
also the infrastructure that it impacts whether it's water it's sewer and sometimes parkland fees so um if a property is commercial and it's
torn down and um you want to build a different use you certainly should get credit for what was there before so if you had retail and now you'd like to do restaurant you calculate the square
footage impact fees based on what it would have be for retail and then subtracted for what it would be for restaurant so the difference is what the developer would be paying so um I'm in favor
of residential be based on dwelling units and um retail restaurant would be based on you know whatever it is that we have per thousand square foot typically is charged or per
seats so um that is what I would recommend so the question that Vice Mayor Kerr or his his comment and we do disagree and that's okay um when the study was done so the conversation's not
about commercial because the commercials the commercial is the commercial and nobody has an issue with the commercial um and except the commercial people that are building commercial i'm sure they'd love to not pay that uh Jenny that 50%
of the county's impact fee that we get what fund does that go into for us um it's its own separate fund and can be spent how spent how um on our CIP transport anything that's transportation related that's in the capital that's
what I thought so the impact fee when we did the impact fee study we paid $90,000 it took a long time to get that study complete and there was a lot of conversation um the planning commission had robust conversation it came to the
city commission and it got voted on it got passed and it's there i support it because the intent of the impact fee is you only pay an impact fee if you increase the square footage of your home and Vice Mayor Kerr is correct in that
if you have a 2500 foot house 2,000 of it is heated 500 is a garage and you lift it you're going to pay impact fees on the 500 square feet of the house if you turn it into heated space if you
make it a porch then there's no impact to the community and you don't pay impact fees i'm not opposed to the conversation of whether or not we could change the
impact fees to incorporate to be based off of bedrooms and bathrooms i don't know that you can do that because I remember when the study was done there were a lot of specifics that had to be adhered to in
the study what I'm not for is spending money to do a study on something else to tell us that we should not collect an impact fee on somebody who's getting a bigger house
most in in our community right now we have over 120 homes that have been leveled or are being leveled to the ground the impact to the community
tearing those houses down is great there are dump trucks that are driving up and down our streets there are going to be um there's going to be equipment construction trucks construction companies in the communities in the neighborhoods that's the impact on the
community so for the impact fee that we're collecting we can use that to repair the parks to enhance the parks to make the community a better nicer place for the community to be when we collect permit
fees so when you build something you're paying an impact fee and a permit fee the impact fees we can spend it any way we want virtually in the city and recreational excuse me in a recreational way we have three so we have culture and wreck yep so that's parks uh we have
mobility transportation roadways sidewalks and then we have public safety so it's very we're very able to spend that money very diversely throughout the community to improve the community how it is impacted by all of this construction going on so to me there is
an impact when you tear your house down or you build your house up there is an impact on the community we're collecting that money that money can be spent however how virtually however we want to improve the community in in whatever way
is needed and we know from the study from Kimley Horn so far that a lot of our community would like to see more parks more beautifification that type of thing so it's a good use of our dollars when you get the permit fees of which we
reduce the permit fees from 2% to 1% to save the community money and in my mind when we when we sat up here and that was the recommendation and we talked through reducing those fees we were taking away 1% of permit fees we kept the impact
fees and there's a balance that goes there when we get permit fees we are only allowed to spend that money in the building department you can't take the million dollars that's sitting in the building fund and go out and pave a road
with it you can't go build a park with it it has to be used for the building department so that's why the building department has electric vehicles which by the way costs less money than a gas vehicle would have cost us e not just
initially but long term their money has to be spent there so when you talk about doing cost savings or something for the community in my opinion the the conversation is better served in that we reduced from 2% to 1%
that's a big savings for someone building a house across the board if you're if you're getting permits you're paying $50 plus 1% of the value of the job that's it used to be $50 plus 2% of
the value of the job 1% reduction is a big deal so that's just my opinion i don't know what it would cost to do the study i'm not in favor of it but I like you Vice Mayor am only one person sitting up here and we have no idea the cost or the timeline and I would imagine
that the cost is high and the timeline is long and by the time we get the cost if we all voted to do it and then we got the study the hurricane repairs are done and those houses have been
permitted and that we're not talking about somebody rebuilding from a permit or from a hurricane may it make more sense to when we eventually have to update our comprehensive plan again by 2029 where we could revisit this and then roll it
into the cost when we have to hire a consultant to help update it because that that would make more sense if we're going to spend spend the money that when we're updating the comprehensive plan to include looking that so do it all as one amendment and not have have to but
that's a few years out um because we we recently updated I don't remember the timeline but I do remember that it's there is an ongoing cost for to have someone I'm assuming Jerry
Murphy come in and redo all the cost calculations which took quite a bit of time don't know what that expense is um for mobility for parks and recreation for the different buckets
um because it needs to be justified to the state what the impact is now I do so that's one item i don't know when that's coming coming up if this was in 2021 is it every 10 years is it every five years is it going to happen next year regardless if we if we still have the
impact fees here um regarding the comment about trucks if I build a 2,000 foot home to replace my 2,000t home or I place a uh or build a 3,000 foot home it's I'm still there's still going to be
concrete trucks running up and down the road and um we I don't see that as a justification because I've got a bigger house that oh I had six trips instead of three trips but if you do that's fine
um most people that are rebuilding now or elevating now I'd say 99% of them they didn't plan to do that this year that's why we decided to give them a one-year
uh opportunity not to have permit fees um this was forced upon everyone if they had the ability to rebuild or lift they're still here they didn't have the ability to do that they may have had to sell um so I don't I'm not going I can't
go for the argument right now we had the we had the funds in the building department we had that discussion i I remember having it on oneonone that this was something that we could do we could wave the permit fees for a year
and be in a a good position because we had the funding in the building department we had reserves that would that would carry us through without question so in my mind I don't put the impact fees and the and the permit
fee pause um on the same level again I'm I mean it's just like property taxes or sales tax or whatever i feel that
the if a if you're adding beds to the community whether that's in a typically in a commercial or condo unit if you build something that's going to add a thousand dwellings to um to Hoo's point if you're adding then
you're adding traffic and you're adding different things and I see that as an impact fee um the last item would be and correct me if I'm wrong but I I remember when we were going
through in the planning uh commission on this task we had the choice to go down the path of square footage or beds and bath and honestly the
way I felt just starting with working with city government um I hadn't had time to think through all these things i'm taking the recommendations of uh Director Porttowal
and Jerry Murphy and it's it's Jerry's opinion and he'll tell you that if you have bigger homes they're going to be rented that it's going to be retail it's going to be VBO regardless of what
our restrictions are in our in our residential areas you know the six month or the three month time frames are going to be you're going to get larger masses of people you're going to get more people that are going to cram
into the three-bedroom home it's not just going to be husband and wife that have children that visit um so I don't agree with him with that as long as the commission were to stand firm with and I don't think
anybody wants to reduce um rental periods with in any of the residential departments i don't even think that's on the table it's never been discussed as far as I know so I I just think it should be you know
if we have parks to to to pay for everyone should pay for them it shouldn't be just on the on the few that are developing their property to their comfort
level but again I'm one one voice so um if we don't want to do it that's that's fine but if we do want to do it I want to get it on the books to to get it done basically thank
you could we analyze the way Penolis County works as far as impact fees um and just um and look at that now I do understand also our mayor's
um um position as far as you know having to to bring in revenue to the city for other uses um I mean I understand both sides the fence but um I've always understood
in the past 40 some odd years that I've done work impact fees based on number of dwelling units if you know if it's a hotel based on rooms if it's retail based on thousand square feet this and that so I've always understood that uh
you know impact fees been based on number of dwelling units however I hate to lose the revenue that we are you know are accustomed to collecting because we can use that in a way that it can
serve the entire residents so um I'm I'm open for further discussions so just to clarify Jenny to change our impact fees we have to do a new study i
want everybody here to understand it's not a matter of us just researching internally we have to pay an outside consultant to do a study to be able to change the impact fees correct yes that's correct and it would be a comprehensive plan amendment which has
to be reviewed by the county and state and it's a much bigger deal than just going well let's change it to the way that the county does it or or let's change it to bathrooms and bedrooms i'm not saying that we're not going to do that but it's a it's not as simple as
just making it us voting to change something and when I mentioned oh it could potentially be based on unit i've never personally done this study it would have to be coming from a consultant just as an idea that possibly
that that so when Jerry gave the price because I think that we should respect Vice Mayor Kerr's request how much was it and could it be based I mean could you find out how much the study is get an update on that and would he do the
study based on um I I think it would be it would be warranted to have how much is the study based on unit dwelling and how long would it take and what would be the process for the city so that we
understand it's going to cost $10 it's going to take 10 months just to get the study and then it'll take us six months to do what we have to do on our end to vote on it right and if we had that information then I think we could either
vote yes or no to do it okay and then hopefully by that time we'll also get an update from the county's impact fees so we can kind of roll that together of showing that um we don't know what it'll look like right now so hopefully we
should have a draft by hopefully they'll give us 75% there you go wish to not No not yet first she because we don't have to we don't have to go out to bid to use him correctly because he's
already a approved contractor for us no we'd have to go out to bid so even if he gives us a price you changed the uh process so we do have to issue a bid can you can you find out when we need to
have him or someone back in to update the numbers is that a 10ear span or is it a five we can look at that as well i don't know that please thank you thank you next on anything
more next on the agenda is Penllis County local mitigation strategy all right and we briefly talked about this last workshop as well so we have the local mitigation strategy the LMS um
and that's a multi-jurisdictional mandated plan that identifies hazards in Penllis County um goes through strategies to eliminate risks maintains eligibility for multiple
grants and it's also a requirement with the community rating system which is through the NFIP so the LMS is undergoing an update and we have to update it every five years and there's a summary of changes
on page 399 through 400 of the packet uh so this update was completed and reviewed by the state and now it is on to every single municipality that's a part of the LMS so
with this it's just telling you that there's an update um for the LMS and we are planning to bring that resolution next BOC regular meeting do we have any public
comment commissioners comments what's the downside of not being part of this we have we have to have a local mitigation strategy um there's really no downside we've we've been a part of it um for as long as I know and our last
update was 2020 makes us eligible for a lot of grants and so we're always updating every year on how are we getting the word out for for any hazards um and then as well
as what are the projects that we're doing to mitigate flooding it's really So there's some requirements that we just have to update and then so those the projects that we update in this plan every year it's just something
that we do internally i sit down with Megan and chief go over what projects they are doing what do they see um in the CIP that's eligible for these and then from putting those projects including those in the LMS every year
then that makes those projects could be eligible for other grants great thank you comments it's pretty straightforward
guys can handle it all right thanks next on the agenda is amendment to the Kimley Horn agreement for the master plan all right and we are planning to bring this to next BOC regular meeting as well
uh we would like to amend the agreement with Kimley Horn to add in any additional consulting services that come from and result from the master plan so one of the things that we've been talking about is amending the parking
standards in our code so that if we amend our current agreement with the master plan that would allow us to do additional things like having Kimley Horn come in and amend our land development regulations based off of the
master plan and the outcomes of that do we have any public comment commissioners questions i support Kimley Horn i mean I've had consultations about um elevating Madur Beach basically in
the uh underground and utilities it's been some time ago before we actually um they were awarded the master plan uh consult the consult for that um I I support it um I don't know that
the funding needs to come from the impact fees it should come from the general fund or whatever but that's besides the point we can figure that out later comments so we're amending our
contract right with Emily Horn because we are requesting additional services do can I ask a question do we have like I know you've gone out for engineering services and on a blanket and you're the
the rates for different types of services uh for certain period of time five years three years whatever it is and you're able to go out to those engineers consulting firms and hire them to do
work without going out for an RFP for each additional project is that what we're we're talking about here no this would be additional just for things that are with the master plan so things
that would come from the master plan um we do also have another RFQ that I think it might be out now Friday um for additional services for urban design and engineering so I've
been working with Megan on on that one that's a separate RFQ but this is just amending we're looking to amend the contract that we already have for the master plan i guess to Commissioner Dagay's point we don't know what we're amending to how much what's hard to
approve something you don't know you can't buy a car without knowing how much it is this is just to allow additional scopes of services to be created and those scopes of services would have to be approved with an associated fee to those scopes of services if it's in the
budget you know it's going to proceed one direction if it's not in the budget you know it's going to proceed another direction but the bottom line is is that you're going to see it again valuewise this is just to amend the contract to allow other scopes of services to be
farmed out to Kimley Horn and back to your question about uh I think you were um about other firms you remember that the consultants competitive negotiation act requires us when we're hiring engineers or architects or landscape
architects to go through a certain process and then that once we go through that certain process we can can we enter into what's called a continuing contract for three years or five years or whatever and allows us not have to go out to bid because you've got a
qualified firm but you can bring different scopes of services to that firm in this particular case it doesn't require the CCNA process to come into play because it doesn't involve engineers it doesn't involve architects
it doesn't include landscape architects so it's outside of the scope of that so then the question becomes is well can you amend contracts yes and that's what we're doing it's just two little provisions in the contract the contract the way it currently reads is all geared
towards master plan and so we can't we can't bring these scopes of services under the current agreement way it currently reads because it only talks about master plan so this would allow us to add those other scopes of services which again you'll have input on that
makes sense okay thank you the scope the scope and services up to date I guess was limited to a certain scope certain scope so they're
they're specifically asking to amend it to include amendments to the land development regulations comprehensive plan and apply goals and strategies for the master plan so they're they're
they're asking to revise it for specific will be any further amendments in the future i don't foresee any with this contract i don't foresee anything else um with this contract
amending this would be more for we want an amendment for the land development regulations kimley Horn could then assist us with that based on what comes from the master plan would it be fair to say that it will it
will also help them to expand on what they're doing for the things that we've talked about here today yes and implement it as well okay at the end of the day do we know what we're getting for the fees that we're paying in other
words do we have that picture clear in our minds that we're gonna basically get what we are are thinking we're going to get and it's going to be useful for this town i think that's what Mr tras was saying that there'll be a second bite at
seeing that we just want an agreement on there'll be scope of work yeah scope of design and fees associated with that and deliverables that type of thing yes this is just giving them the the right or the to be able to go forward the approval to
go forward with requesting that from them and then being able to bring it to us and but I just you know I hate to have to go keep amending things and not knowing where the end picture is that will come back at a later date we
don't know what the end date end item is as of right now and we will bring that back before proceeding with what that will be this allows us to get to that step right yeah I understand good next on the agenda is post
hurricane update recovery rebuild permitting FEMA and FDM all right we can go to page 405 in the packet pages down um here are the numbers
from April the 9th when we posted the agenda we also have Barbara Scott up here to help who is our office manager for for the building department building and community development um so since that
update we are now at total applications has gone up to 2464 uh total permits to be reviewed from 421 to 429 um permits under current
review was 259 is now 227 permits waiting on information from the applicant it was 162 now is 202 and permits issued is up to
2,34 473 of those being commercial 1,561 being residential so we are making progress on that uh we also had a meeting with FEMA is
it this week or last week this week it's blended together um that meeting went extremely well um they have no concerns for our community and they told us that we shouldn't be seeing them again so
that is all very positive um and that meeting was for kind of the the statistics and the data that Miss Silver just went over it's the regulatory uh side the regulatory compliance that
uh obviously all of our properties but and our permitting poststorm review processes with FEMA and the Florida and well mainly with FEMA because that's the staff that we met with um as opposed to
regarding reimbursements or individual assistance assistance or any of the other FEMA programs so just to expand on Jenny's comments thanks Robin um also internally we are putting together the
next step which is what we've talked about code enforcement um this is this will be a difficult step um trying to see who who hasn't pulled permits or who pulled demo permits who hasn't pulled uh
remodel permits so going through that list um we already have a list of about 300 200 to 300 properties uh we have not sent out any letters yet but we are drafting up a code enforcement courtesy
letter um we want to do this as gradual as possible give people time but also we have to start the code enforcement process so we are planning to start that in late May early June um but we want to make sure that we have everything in
line and that we are ready to go when we start that code enforcement process when does the window close i I'm sure you gave us a date and I've forgotten it um for someone to get a post
uh permit and have a inspection without without any fees without fines um currently it's for a year and we'll be going over the fee manual as well then I think there's one other item before we
go over that right but and code violation code violation yeah we'll talk about that too right now it's after the fact is times five the permit's zero so then it's zero um that's something that you
could change that we could we'll discuss um if you would like to change that when we talk about the fee manual when we get to the fee and collection manuals all of that is part of that discussion um so with that if you're listening
please get your permits get your demo permit get your permits um because we will be starting that code enforcement process and we are still also doing open hours um that may change just the timeline and how many days a week we're
doing that so we will be discussing that with Robin and getting those open hour times out to the public like we have been doing they're updated in real time on our website um so if you want to know
hey are we doing them Thursday or Friday they're updated daily the the open hour times and also just some other quick um um FEMA and Florida Division of Emergency Management the Elevate Florida program
had its final day where property owners could apply that was April the 11th as of I think that day and the data's no that's not the well I think it's sim there were no other additions
but in our here in Madiraa Beach we had 189 properties apply to the elevate Florida program um from the dashboard that FDEM has online 118 applied for
structure elevation 68 for mitigation reconstruction three for wind mitigation um how that will proceed it's still proceeding but uh it's going to be very intriguing to see how and the timelines
and the process related to that as we receive information we will post information on any anything that the public may need to know fdem to our knowledge is notifying all the applicants um going forward of any
changes timelines uh requirements etc that's what's been uh made information made public uh other I we have received some inquiries on in reference to whether properties have
been substantially damaged or not related to the FEMA program for the increased cost of compliance or the IC which can provide um unless I've misread up to about
$30,000 with assistance for demolition um according to multiple property owners ers they do need some sort of letter from um the city we are what what's been requested our staff is reviewing providing um occasionally it's not right
there and then real time but as soon as possible to get property owners moving with whatever process they may be at in time whether with FEMA or FDEM uh however back the elevate Florida program and programs through FDEM are going
directly through them not through the city of Madira Beach or really not through any city related to um elevating or or demoing and rebuilding a new house so again as we receive any updates we will post them through all of our
information through our media and uh we will just keep doing that as we proceed do we have any public comment any additional questions i don't have any
questions thank you very much Jenny barbara thank you Barb and Barb thank you thank you for coming tonight and we'll stay up here until we talk about the fees okay next on the agenda is finance fiscal year 2025 financial
overview presentation through March 2025 thank you so same same format as before we're giving you this kind of monthly update year-to- date actuals over a three-year time horizon just so you can see the impact of of the uh the storms
on any particular revenue sources so just running down the list we've got our graphs on advorum taxes where collections stand there October through March um and then non-exchange revenues
interestingly we're seeing you know the greater impact in 2025 on franchise fees utility service taxes we can see a dip there in the in the gray that's the 2025 uh compared to 24 and 23
um whereas others like the CST communication service tax state shared revenues um even our local option use fuel taxes um not much of a decline there and then the next one the building
and planning revenues we can see some um you know the big decrease in 2025 so we know why there um but impact fees business tax receipts not significantly affected and then fees for services
October through March um uh nothing significant and um our fire EMS contractual that's on fixed monthly and then we can see where we're at on sanitation and storm water over that uh
three-year timeline as well as recreation and marina fees and then parking related revenues yes we're down but it's not tremendous so we're pushing million
dollars uh in 2025 in parking uh revenue compared to about 1.4 1.5 um in 23 1.4 and 24 and then the next uh tables just kind of
show the numbers there for each of those revenue types uh March October through March for these revenues in this first table and then October through February since those are monthly collections and depending on timing of collection uh pushed it back a month to ensure we had
all those collections and we're making an apples to apples comparison October through February for each of those three years and then the next one is just our where we add budget versus actual for expenses so remember in our budget
workshop we use these figures on the revenues and expenses to populate actual year-to- date to to kind of forecast reserves at the end of the fiscal year um and so here's where we're at on a department by department basis
and then the next slide uh page go just goes into our hurricane related expenses where we're at now on Helen versus Milton milton just around the same as what it was last month we have seen a bump in um Helen related
expenses um and then we've got our largest uh vendors for Helen so we've had some that were not in the list now now have made the list the largest one by far is is the uh DRC emergency services and then Tetratech is the
inspection services DRC debris removal so those those costs continue to um to climb and you can see some others in the list there as well and then Milton that stayed pretty much the same as last month nothing new to report there so can
I ask a question on that sure so serve pro is still not on Milton expenses have we not paid them so serve pros on Helen since that was Helen the Helen serve pro is for downstairs
there should be a serve pro cost on Milton for the rec center correct yes yeah yeah we'll take a Yeah it was 70 uh yes just about 70ome thousand I think
or Yeah we'll make sure and add it to that list and And would um the cost for the repairs we're doing in the rec center also go to be under
Milton i don't think we've paid everything so it's not going to hit there till you write the check correct right correct this is up for I would think we'd already written the check for Serpro but maybe not maybe that's why it's not No for for Surf Pro I know we have to do
the initial work but the act the repair getting it back together i don't think we've paid that yet but we'll make sure we add those items yeah I'm just showing um let's see okay I must have missed it yeah I do
see our our project grant transaction detail we do have Hurricane Milton for 75,668 so that uh I believe I missed putting that in our in our top list though but we do have the data in the system so we got the 135K for Helen and
the 75K for Milton from Serve Pro and then last one more question sorry I'm sorry so what defines a largest vendor so what's going to make what's going to make somebody come on to
the expenses incurred as a largest vendor so I'm I'm asking just so that I understand when I'm looking um over like when you is it that the land and infrastructure so some of those things
are on the list some of those things aren't how are you defining who makes that list and who doesn't just by volume of of payments that we're making to the vendors so that's in a descending order um so then we've got a number of
vendors that are less than you know 7 $6,000 that I just didn't include in the list oh okay okay so then like the um when you get over to when we get over into the next pages where the
Archabald shower just I'm just pulling one out there's asphalt damage $494,680 will eventually that amount get thrown into that or will you keep it separate as long as it's coded that the the
payment would get coded in the system to hurricane Haleem then that flags it to go in we have a projects and grants module that I pull those all those all those grant project grant related transactions out sort by vendor see the top ones and that would
we haven't Okay so that that's why it's not there that's that's what I'm trying to make sure my brain is understanding what I'm looking at well okay the damage the last documents the damage assessment are really departments where work if we
have the estimated or actual those have been filled in to those cells whereas what Andrew was just going over is what has actually been paid through our accounts payable in a clarion right through the software well I was only asking because it says completed but
that makes total sense if it's not paid rolled over to that yet okay that helps me understand when I read it so thank you and that's actually a good one to um because I believe we recording all
of it as damaged um and so to to repair it we what would be the and Megan I think you can describe it better but so there were multiple components of the parking lot at Archerald that were damaged um
from cuts scrapes uh curbs drainage areas um so how do you repair it the the best and to catch all of it is to mill and resurface the entire lot so and restripe it all the
striping was gone most of the striping was gone i think most of the parking blocks were gone so it'll be interesting from my thought process was it 100% damaged uh the answer is probably no however how do you
repair do you only repair spot repair right the answer is no because then you still have you have all these spotted connections etc i don't Megan if that makes sense but funny you mentioned that i actually just talked to FEMA about that i think that might have been yesterday and they were asking me if we
were claiming 100% of the parking lot at Archabald and my answer was well I'm not really sure how we wouldn't because every five feet there was some type of damage whether it was from the surge or from the flood or from the cleanup every
portion of that parking lot was pretty much damaged along with the walls missing parking stops um just a tremendous amount of damage so in other words would we cut out or would our contractor cut out parts and leave the
ones that appear to not have any damage and the answer is no it I think you become you're going to run into more problems by doing that you have to fix it all to fix it correctly right correct that makes total sense any other questions on expenses
otherwise the last piece is just on the the status of the uh damage assessment so running through that anything highlighted yellow would have been updated from last month's presentation so any questions you have on that we can walk through it otherwise that would
conclude the presentation the only question I have really is the bathroom replacement at Tommen City Stewart Park um have we can would we be allowed to do something that's more permanent
instead of a um prefab it depends on where that Bzone begins so we will need a new survey showing where the flood zones are because that that zone
changes around where that bathroom is so we cannot do a permanent in the V zone but we could look at doing something more permanent if it's the coastal A so who does that survey that's actually included in with the the whole um trans
systems proposal that we've already approved that's in the works okay so maybe how long will we have that we are waiting for the wave runup analysis so it's all working i just got an update on that a couple days ago and I think we actually have that in part of my updates
as well okay we'll I'll wait do we have any public comment oh no you can I was gonna just bring up a few of the items that are on here and I know some of these are in a separate item but since the entire list is in
front of us the and I think it's listed under facilities or Andrew if you can or I don't think it's in facilities but the our information or the small
structure in at the village I think that's listed under public works Megan it it is and it shows that it's complete it's in it's actually listed in John's Pass Village but I believe it's listed as um public works and I don't recall
where that is but it should be highlighted in yellow it's a chamber building flooded chamber building or the former chamber build building so we have um removed and put the building essentially or Megan if you can so we
have demoed the drywall we have replace the drywall and as of today the drywall has been mudded i don't know if that's the correct terminology it sounds wrong um and then we are painting on Friday so we
will be complete with the interior remodel and call for a final inspection bar so our then proceeding with the getting the facility ready what we as a discussion what we would like to propose
is to return that building back to city usage um for our various departments mainly for parking staff to work in and out of it community development staff related to business tax compliance when we need to do that and other items that
would need a community development building planning type component out of there and return it to that usage versus leasing it as the city had been the lease expired the lease term was for a set amount of time that time period
ended but because neither side had altered any of the structure of the lease it just continued so what I'd like to recommend is that we just rever the building would revert back to city usage and I would support that yeah I
would support that uh I would also support like u even the commissioners i mean if there's more room or leftover that we could actually have an area separate cube you you know it's very tiny have you ever been in it it's
like this big this one it's like that big to be exact it's 8 foot by It's very small but I'm just saying that the commissioners would be able to have a place right here in the building where they could also communicate with uh
fellow you know city employees so that I'm just throwing that out there the other no we could I mean you could welcome to use any of the facilities obviously at any time the other component I'm sorry but all of a sudden the electronics not working very well i
have a blurry laptop screen the other component u and we'll we'll get to actually Steuart Park is a separate item in Archabald lot is a separate um area but the since the our leies are here at
Archabald Park the snack shack which we have listed under facilities but no dollar amount yet but just to give an uh Archabald property repairs we own the structure So there are now two structures that are
well three technically the bathroom building that's completed that was a project prior to the storms now it's complete the pavilion that had some rep well the pavilion didn't really have major repairs but minor and the picnic tables that were in there I think we
lost one and etc but no significant expenditures the snack the building then the concession air building is we have had our engineer Penoni review it they provided us an an update of what it would take to put it back together um
our insurance company has also sent an engineering firm they reviewed it we are waiting to receive their report um the structure did we did receive a larger a um higher value for the structure the
property appraiser had it at aboutund 198,000 or 180ome,000 now it's at 500,000 for the value of the structure sorry I was looking for that document
so we will be putting the structure back together once we receive the information that we're awaiting from both Penoni and then our our insurance company their engineer our insurance company notified us that that all of the repairs that we
need to make will be covered by our insurance policy um so once we get to that point um then all of you received an email from our leis with information related to
their process to put the structure back together um as well as some work that they have done pursuant to the agreement that has been in existence since 200 2019 I believe um and had subsequent
renewals that agreement is set to expire in July of 2026 um we will bring back to you a a proposal but really to have if you have any discussion at this point of what you
would like to see going forward with the structure um whether again their current agreement expires in July they've requested an additional agreement is what's been communicated um that's I believe a
possibility legal can opine as to whether that would be allowed or not another a separate agreement or to go into issue an RFP for a concessionaire that we would likely do toward the end of this year because the agreement
expires in July of 2026 do we have any public comment mark with United Park Services alan Kahana with United Park Services didn't know if you guys had any questions for us at all about anything no and so
before we uh move on to the questions y'all may not know Mark and I have uh the Bamboo which uh we took over about 15 years ago actually uh bought it out of bankruptcy foreclosure and uh we have uh four
residential properties here in MadiRaa Beach uh love being a member of the community working with staff here has been a great pleasure and so we uh did substantial rehabilitation of the
building in uh what year 2013 and so we attached within a package that we uh emailed out uh copies of plans and specifications just to give you an idea of how much work we really did there so
it was pretty much when in mind's eye gut job to sticks 100% new plumbing 100% new mechanical 100% new electrical new flooring etc and so you know obviously based on making that kind of investment
we were hoping that we could amortize that over the entire period that uh that we had contracted for and so today we're here to ask that the commission consider making our contract whole i'm just going
to say it as simply as that make sure that we get the full term of our contract once the building is uh put back in condition to where we can occupy it again but we have a second request also which is a month- for-month
replacement for the period that we missed and a part of the rationale to that is that Mark and I have kept our key employees on staff we obviously continued to have some expenses there insurance utilities and went there did
cleanup obviously had substantial losses when we were there also so again we're hoping that y'all consider giving us again a month-month replacement as an extension of our contract on top of making our contract whole
i everything he just said is I I agree with and we um did multiple cleanups there when and I think we took out like 8,000 pounds of sand which was just a ton tons of sand and um I mean we had met with Robin about six times you know
going back and forth and discussing what we may or may not be able to do there and we're just hoping that we can go on and uh open back up and rebuild it so close or better than it was i have do we have they're the only audience
we're in so the just so I understand that the their contract is up in 26 is that right yes july through July of 2026 so a year from this July okay can you can you give me more details about what you mean by making the contract whole
well the months we lost we'd like that to be Oh okay so the month per month is related to the it's a it's a storm date yeah so we we've been closed for about eight months now so you'd like to add eight months onto the contract whatever day it opens again whatever that is okay
and then what Allan was saying was that we'd like to say maybe for every month we lost we'd get an extra month to help recoup some of the losses because basically right now it's like um opening a new restaurant i mean there's a few tables left in there a few stainless steel counters starting from scratch but
everything else was trashed and all the product so if if you lost eight months you you're asking for eight 16 months that's correct in addition right exactly okay just just want to understand what we're talking about thank you Attorney Tras do
we have um guidelines and provisions that we have to follow when it comes to extending a contract beyond So the contract itself is what we need to be looking at yes i didn't know they were going to be here tonight i I would have read it um it's fairly lengthy when
it was negotiated originally um and so it may provide for example this particular situation and we need to follow that lease as it's currently written um I'd also caution you that you have a provision in your charter that
says that you cannot enter into leases for example that are longer than 10-year period of time without going to a referendum so I don't know the timing of this i'm concerned uh that if it was originally
entered into in 2013 whether or not that that provision of the charter has been violated um I need to take a look at that so um that that is also a concern but now that I know that this is on the radar i did have um some communication
with the city manager within the last couple months about this um but I didn't realize that they were going to be here tonight so I didn't read it so we need to read that and um you know on once the building is complete obviously you know we'll know
how to proceed but at this point I don't have an answer to the question well I don't feel comfortable having a back and forth conversation because this goes to what I was speaking of earlier in the meeting that this is not appropriate i understand that they're the only people here but we're not going to do this
every time somebody comes and get into a back and forth conversation especially since it was not an agenda item okay it's only coming up in discussion because we're going through the um damage assessment
sorry I thought it was an agenda item i wouldn't have No I'm I'm and I'm not I'm not I'm just I'm just saying I don't want to I think we need a lot more information to understand what we can and can't do as a commission and I definitely would like to hear more about the details of the contract before we even discuss this so if we could have
that an update so that we understand where we are on that and then I'd I'd like well that's if we could have more understanding on that that would be helpful
i I would like to thank them for their patience to wait so long really thank you oh yeah right thanks a lot you got to stay for the rest of the meeting now i never realized these meetings went so late and we're not done yet i didn't see that neither did I anyway thank you all
for letting us come before you thank you thank you so but but we're going to discuss this at the end of this meeting right as far as No this is if you want to discuss this this is the time to discuss it we just can't get into a back and forth conversation with them okay so
so I guess the discussion would be with our next public hearing we were we're going to I guess Tom will read the contract and will advise us of what I plan on giving you some input by email okay by email
okay so whether or not the city manager wants to put something on the agenda for discussion purposes I'll leave that up to him but I'm going to read the lease and I'm going to address the issues that were of concern tonight and I will provide that to you by email probably okay thank you we can have the item back
at at a future workshop to go thank you thank you thank you coming next on the agenda is fees and collection manual we have uh mayor and commission two
areas uh for that we're requesting changes uh in an ordinance that will come back to you at the next um I'm sorry at the next regular meeting on May the 14th uh one is related to parking and then the other
related to our community development department and a variety of fees first for parking uh we realized when we made changes last year when we increased the hourly rate we omitted one section in
our fees and collections procedures manual uh that identify and the parking fees are under finance um in the manual but we omitted one section for the daily rate
uh the manual lists $72 per day and it should be $96 per day so that's the at this point the only change in parking for community development there
are a number of changes and I going to turn this over to Silver to go over and kind of provide some more detail on the fee changes proposed fee changes so it starts at page 440 of the packet
um I took this to the whole community development department which includes building department so we are updating a lot of the fees as you saw um we do have a few changes from this and I have
a copy um okay so I'll just start at the beginning of ours and go through them uh and just stop me if you have any questions so the first thing on page 440
um a is removing that additional fees uh really for the cost of ads mailing postings so removing that all the fees would be included which are included with like your zoning variances your special
exception uses that would include that the scheduling advertising um in that so it's removing that from a um and then going on to the special magistrate hearings we wanted that to match the
Florida building code definitions uh for residential so changing that to up to three units to one and two family dwellings and town houses so it's consistent between planning and Florida building code
definitions and then amending that five which is page 441 clarifying that the after the fact variance and special exception use is two times the variance or special exception fee
fee currently it just has that 3,600 fee but then you see that variances have different uh fees if it's commercial versus residential just make note that's
not free it's fee shall be two times the variance or special exception use fee don't that free thank you thanks Tom and then alcoholic beverage permit
application fee increasing that from 800 to 1,000 that includes mailing research uh review and public hearing for all of our alcohol beverage applications we require a site plan reviewing the
parking um it's a very extensive process as well as the public hearing so increasing that from 800 to a thousand and then further on in that page you can see the site plan and redevelopment
process it's page 441 uh the minor site plan review increasing that from 300 to 500 that would be any of the new one to four units for residential and temporary
lodging um anything that's 200 square ft of commercial or an increase of six parking spaces and then just cleaning up the intermediate site plan review a major site plan review
process same fee and then five which is on page 442 just clarifying the non-conforming structure encroachment extension and additions and where that is in the code
it really wasn't clear so just clarifying that what that is and then in G the preliminary plan meetings um up to 250 we
also took out there's another section in here that discussed pre-permit plan review fees and those were 250,500 up to two up to 500 um so
removing that as well as another section that discussed uh flood plane meetings and putting that all in one section um which was G and those meetings would be if you have a new home uh if a new
development coming in and scheduling a meeting typically that'll be myself a planner Marcy engineer or Al is an engineer and then the building official so if you put all of those people together in one room just the hourly
rate it's over 250 so we thought that that was that was um good we'll also have open permit hours i know we did open open permit hours or open hours of just zoning questions so we plan to continue
that even after all post disaster just so people can come in and ask questions no charges for that and we had that pre-storm on Wednesdays prior right yes and we plan to continue that so that is
what G is and then also adding in if there's any formal letter that developer or whoever is requesting that meeting wants prepared that that would be an additional feed similar to your zoning verification letter just making that
that clear in there and then an L that's plan development cleaning that up uh we increase that fee from actually we didn't because it we had a preliminary plan and standards
review and then a first plan and standards review and that was really inconsistent with what how our code is written uh we don't really do a preliminary plan review uh we review it as soon as the fee is paid and it is
submitted to us so removing that um initial one 1,500 and just going straight to the first plan and standards review and then making making it clear that any subsequent revision is at 500
that's how it's written it's just cleaning it up and on the next page 441 oh oops no 443 uh let's see this should have been
stricken through i don't know how it got underlined but everything from O to Q was all a strike through i think from my version giving it over to who prepared this something changed but that all was um
supposed to be a strike through and then going to the next page 444 including the outdoor cafes on public side sidewalk request we have this in the code we don't have a fee so including that is the
175 and then removing the sign murals and banners uh we have a sign code we have sign permits so it is conflicting and then here I may um turn it over to
Barb yeah all right uh for uh building permit fee schedule um we this was in our in in the in the fee schedule but really wasn't implemented uh once we switched to MGO
uh and and it was confusing and also inconvenient for you know someone coming in for a small you know window or door permit and it's like hey you need to give us a deposit and so we've we did away with that and just wanted um have
where we have if you We have a project value of over $30,000 so you know a big swimming pool a house a big commercial property that to cover you know our review costs and everything like that
that we um are asking for a deposit at 25% of the total permit fees of that project that deposit ensures that you know there's going to be follow through with the with the permit and also that's collected and is applied to the final
balance so we're not asking people to pay anything extra it's just to cover u plan review because we have had cases where we spend a lot of um resources doing plan review and then the
permit is abandoned and not paid for so this is ensures on big projects where we're doing plan review that you know we recoup some you know cost of that effort so for and just changing it to a flat thing anything over $30,000 also the
credit card fees for those small small projects were just really hard to track took a lot of staff time tracking those fees and um yeah especially uh when now that all payments are done through MGO online anytime someone has to submit a
payment they have to pay a credit card you know fee and so you would be charging there are people who you know and rightfully so it's their money but will be upset about paying an additional $3 credit card fee and uh it's also for
on from finance department you know you're getting this part of the payment for the permit on this batch and then the remaining per you know permit payment on another batch and reconciling those and and everything like that so is
is available is what that AC electronic payment debit yeah like all all that's all payments are through are through MGO i'm saying MGO accepts AC payment as I
think so yeah um you need to add back in those words or more they're stricken out so it needs to be $30,000 or more okay okay um we decided to instead of having like the dates of the Florida building code just
change that verbiage to current water building code so we don't have to change that every time um the updates for residential and commercial dwelling are in another part of this thing um the
express permit we're taking out that fee because it's it's misleading um we don't really issue permits same day you know uh and so that was confusing to people we do if there doesn't involve plan
review you can get a window or roof permit in 10 minutes you know um but that was confusing to people uh the valuation fee as you know that we changed it to 1% uh this is the you know
we have the verbiage about hurricane and that fees that we're waving them until September 26th um we did pull together the amount of permit fees that we have waved since September 27th and I can share that information with you now if
you like or um Robin has that information if he wants to give it to you at a later time but um then we also included in there you see the last sentence that just allowing that the board of commissioners could
vote to temporarily temporarily wave those fees so it's something that you could do immediately based on what happened you know with Helen in Milton change the word once to one in
that sentence okay are you once to one okay um the other an update on the what the ordinance is on number four right uh we're removing that uh like
Jenny had said the pre um section five on page 445 the pre-permit plan review and re-examination of plans that's been combined into those other fees we had a lot of redundant fees and so we combined
them to make them clear them up a little bit um letters of determination uh we decided to do away with that fee uh because it'll be part of the uh because technically according to this we should be all the substantial damage
determination letters that we've issued we should be charging people for them and that just is not right uh so we're doing away with that with that fee uh ch the next change change or use or
occupancy uh bumping that up to $100 um because that would involve a lot of review uh on the planning department community development yeah that that could depends on the scope of review um
to be honest we haven't had anyone come in to ask that but we could foresee if somebody did that could take a lot of research but it really depends on what that would be um what type of change of
use or occupancy um so we could see that taking up a lot of staff time or it could be something um simple that we wouldn't you know could just be as simple as an email um so we haven't had anyone use that fee but we decided to
keep that in there for now uh making an adjustment in the demolition uh fees uh right now it's $100 um plus the $50 base fee base base fee so a permit fee is $150 uh raising that structures over
5,000 to 500 um uh moving of structure that's not a fee we really utilize so doing away with that um J so the paper that was passed
out amends that J J for the private provider okay fees um yeah so we can be in compliance with current Florida building code uh we're changing the um if we if someone submits uh a private
provider packet like they're going to do their own uh inspection services that we are going to reduce the total permit fees by 10% uh not to exceed $10,000 i have a question yes do we have to have the not to exceed by $10,000 is that a
requirement for Florida Building Code we just have to have a reduced fees if it's a private provider we have to have and not to exceed and here's why I'm asking because if a developer is if somebody's going to build a
development and they come to the city and want to use a private provider the state code says that we have to pro allow that right but if we were going to be the provider
and those permit fees were going to earn the city a million dollars why would we want to reduce it to 10,000 am I reading it wrong so it would be like the reduction of 10% or up to
10,000 so we would So we'll only reduce it 10,000 is the max okay i knew I was red if there's another way to word it we can different way that's I'm just looking at it and my I'm thinking 10,000 $10,000 is all we're going to get i
don't No no no we would reduce it by 10 by 10% but we would not give them more than a $10,000 credit okay cool yeah that's why we wanted to put the cap on it because you could have some big commercial um that would Yes want have
and still require because pathetic i was reading it the same way you Yeah okay good good i'm But we can we can change the wording yes because and and you know my my thing was it's kind of interesting because uh I talked
about this earlier today um and with our previous building inspector he had always said to me "Well it doesn't matter whether they get a private provider or not they still have to pay us." So it didn't make sense to me why would you want a private provider and I
can see where someone would a very large development that's coming in would be overwhelming to our staff absolutely and a a good private provider would be beneficial not only for our staff but also for the person building the
development but at the same time I don't want us to lose out on the financial side of it because we're still going to have a investment in our staff and the time even though it wouldn't be the you know you know what I mean yeah yeah jenny and I came up with this number by
you know talking about the average amount of time that you know an inspector does you you know hourly how many hours spent on inspecting and came up with this fair figure okay might want to separate it into two
statements maybe that make it more clarify it a little easier we could do that we can kind of reward it but have the same content is it confus yes um red tag fee the the
same just change the verbiage uh replacement of the placard card uh we don't do you know paper placards anymore uh they print their own so we're doing away with that fee uh special consultation with the building official all those um pre-planned meetings are
rolled into that one section uh same thing with the FEMA flood plane um building code health life and safety we increased that um meeting to an inspection to 150 that's like your
courtesy walkthrough yeah uh and the O was redundant so we combined those two um after hours inspections we have leaving that on there even though we don't really do that but left it on there just in case particularly with the
new with the beach maker going in there may come a time where we it's going to be such a big project we may have to have an inspector do an after hours thing um tagged properties uh those are red yellow and stop work orders uh
increasing that to $100 just to give a stop work order some more uh incentive I guess uh temporary power pole we don't really need that tent permit and tree removal those are fees that aren't um
applicable anymore you uh as well testing boring and abandonment application just added that on there and then again the bottom changing the or ordinance to the proper
number um removed the each additional boring same site didn't really need that after the fact permit fees I think we were talking about this earlier um we're not really charging after the p
after the fact permit fees right now because permit fees are at zero so that is open for discussion um I just to give you a you know brief number I mean on demo permit fees that includes full full
demo and interior remodels we've waved $147,378 in permit fees just for demo fees uh for all the other permits um that includes you know the remodels roofs fences and everything like that we
have waved um this is seep from the end of September to today uh 419,4626 so a total combined you know permit fees that we've waved demo and non-demo 566,78426 so and so we also have the cost to the
city on top of what's been waved um from now well from September 26 to now um also kind of just rough estimating um about
110,000 just based on how much review time staff time how much that costs the city as well um as well as the DBPR cost right uh the DBPR which is those are the
um the DBPR uh and DCA fees are fees that we have to pay to the state regardless and you know they're not waving their fees so um we estimated we about $10,22942 that is out of that total is
fees that we have to pay to the um to the state even though we have not collected those fees right now uh and we've done since the end of September 2,39 inspections so we've had inspectors out
doing those inspections okay so we don't have any public here for comment and I don't usually like to go first but on this one I would like to if you don't mind and it's because I want to share a story with you that gave me some perspective I did not have prior
to the meeting i had a resident reach out to me um and wanted to come meet with me at city hall and have a conversation about permits and when we all voted to wave permits hindsight's always 2020 and I
think there are lessons that we're all going to take away from the hurricane things that we could have done different or should have changed or what have you but one of the things that um was said to me in the meeting that day was that they were angry
they had watched the meeting where Marcy and I had both talked about "Please come in and get your permits for the people who hadn't who had done the work come get your permits there's no punishment." And they said and I'm not I'm not going
to be exact in their words but the gist of what was said to me is "We did everything the right way why are they getting off scot-free?" and they shared with me they own a apartment built a small apartment
building they're not developers they're not people who live over in Tampa and own multiple properties here in Madiraa they are homesteaded here in MadiRaa in a condo they own a small apartment complex building they lost over $200,000
in revenue because they did it the right way and the people on their street rebuilt their duplexes and their homes and they moved in with no permits and they did it the right way and they did not get their permit to do their rebuild
until February so now they're dealing with a contractor who's overloaded who doesn't have the time to finish their project because we also told them that they couldn't do the work themselves
because it's a commercial property and the husband is a licensed contractor in another state could have gotten a license here in Florida and because we didn't know we told them that he could not do his own work because he owned it
and it would be a conflict of interest which wasn't a factual statement he could have gotten it and done it on his own however the complaint the part that got me was when I sat and listened to
them and the emotion that they had in this is what they do they acknowledge they make money when they're renting you know there there was no misconception on that they weren't trying to act like they don't make money when they make
money but they're not making any money because they did the right thing and we're not doing anything to the people who didn't and I felt pretty bad that we didn't think about that i didn't think
about that all I was thinking about after the storm was how can we help people and the only the the small amount of help that we could give a resident was no charge for their permits and we paid the we've paid the $10,000 to the
state and we knew that the cost was going to be staff and all of this was going to cost us but it was the right thing to do for the community now we're at a point where all the people in the community who are doing the right thing have done it and now we have the people
in the community who went in and repaired their homes they won't come in and pull a permit they won't do the right thing by FEMA which is going to hurt all of us in the community not just the city it's going to hurt the other residents and I think it's time that we
draw a line in the sand and say you either come in and pull your permit by this day or file for your permit by this day or you'll go into code non-con compliance and there'll be a
fine and there'll be penalties and the permits won't be free because it isn't right that so many people in our city and they come in i mean there's people still
coming in that did the right thing and it was painful and it was costly to them even if they lived in their if even if it was just their own residential home the people that waited and did it the right
way and they had to live someplace else you're living someplace else right i mean that had to be someplace else displaced and the cost is but you're doing the right way right and so I
really think that in doing this because we have to vote on this I think that we need to put something in it that says here's the date and you have to come in and submit your
after the fact permit and if you don't here's what's going to I just I mean we've if we're months and months down the road we're getting ready to go into hurricane season and there has to be some incentive to push people to do the right thing or be punished
period it's and when and when you sit with people who did it's it's it's painful to be fair we we waved fees we didn't say to anyone you don't have to get a permit he told everybody they had to get a permit right what I'm saying is you
mentioned that there were duplexes on their block where they were doing their work without permits we didn't authorize that but I'm I'm I'm a I'm in favor of putting a deadline because my neighborhood is filled with Yeah they So here's the problem that they did so the
the people and there are people all over the city who did work without a permit right they just didn't get caught because when someone's doing work without a permit you have to catch them doing the work and if you can't catch them doing
the work then you can't redtag them you can't that I mean that's what I was told when I did my ride along with code enforcement was that if they didn't see them putting the garage in the bathroom if they didn't or putting the bathroom in the garage didn't leave the door open
where they could see it going on they couldn't do a stop work order on it because you can think they're doing something but you can't prove it and then you see the houses that they're working in the nighttime there's nobody driving around at nighttime you know they've got their windows blacked out
you can't see that they're in there putting the sheetrock up i just think that we we said we would overlook it we did overlook it and people still aren't coming in to get the permits and so at some point for city staff because
they're going to have to do a lot of work to write the letters to go out and do all of this work we don't we need a provision that says there's going to be fines that is how I feel right thing to do
can I can I address that yep our code already provides for the fines that $250 a day for every day that the property remains in non-compliance so all those cases that we're going to bring to the special magistrate once he enters the order he'll establish a date of compliance and um once he established
the compliance if they don't come into compliance by that date and it will be a reasonable period of time whether it's 30 60 90 days or whatever then the final will begin to run that he associates that with and I will tell you that on complete tearouts that that we have seen
there is electric change plumbing change those are life safety issues and so when we hear about life safety issues we're always asking for the higher end uh of of the of the um penalty or the fine and so we'll be looking for those fees those
fines at $250 a day so it doesn't take very long for people to understand how it's really affecting them um so we we do have that in place what what would probably be best in the to address that here in the
in the manual is is to say um you know if you're not in compliance by this particular date then then these u fees will come back into play and I'm not you know we can work on the language but but as for the fine that we we
already have a provision in our code that deals with the fine that would pick it right up yeah absolutely then we just need to pick a date that people need to be in compliance and have that as part to go into this fee schedule for us to vote on ju just like you have a provision there now that says that the
fees are waved beginning September 26 2024 for a year you could take that language out and say that that fee will no longer be waved as of this particular date and so they would have to pay it so that's really where it should be done
is in that in that place where you given them a year so could you say the code enforcement will begin on a given date and anyone that's not that hasn't pulled permit is subject to you don't
need this in your fee manual that's just a policy direction you're going to give to staff we're already issuing courtesy letters which is not required by the law by the way um so the only thing required by the law is a notice of violation which is the second or third step in the
process but city has always done a courtesy notice or courtesy letter saying if you don't do this by this time then we're going to bring it to special magistrate which in which the notice of violation is actually issued so um but we've got all sorts of them that are in
the pipeline right now so the when we did the per no permits for one year if we do what you're saying we would be stopping that year and the reason we did a whole year was because
um so someone gets their demo permit they complete their demo they haven't done any work on their home because they're working on doing a lift or trying to decide if they're going to tear down those people are
compliant because they they haven't done any work we want them to still be able to have zero permits because that was the commitment we made when we made the vote so if I live in a house and my house flooded and I can't I haven't decided yet because I'm working with my
architect whether I want to tear down and rebuild or lift up i have until September of this year to make that decision and file my permit and still get my free permits so I wouldn't want to take that away from somebody who
hasn't done anything non-compliant and still give them the benefit because they're following the rules okay so we would just add a statement into that paragraph then that it would address that okay for those who have failed to get a permit
um and have completed some work that would otherwise require a permit their fee permit fee is not waved okay that that would be that would work that would work and that would go to the five times the fee and then
so okay that would work and maybe that would inspire people to motivated and if it doesn't then I mean we can't go back and change it now after that conversation if I could but we don't want to delay code enforcement
either right but as you state I mean so whatever the reason whether you're with your architect you're trying to get financing a bit pulled together or I want to punish multiple reasons it takes time yeah so that's we also put in there clarification
because what we're getting a lot of now are people who swooped in and bought the house and were not the owner during the hurricane and then are wanting to get you know a their permit fees ways waved and it's like no your permit fees are
not so that was my two cents do you have any comments great discussion comments so is that enough information to be able to have that added when it comes back to us to vote on absolutely and we can get
going with that absolutely then next on the agenda is public works court of honor update did that yep yeah that's what we just did good evening everyone hi feel like I
should just sit over there i've got quite a few topics coming up but stand because I'm getting a little sleepy so what I have before you is just an update on the Court of Honor so as you see I posted the timeline um which shows that we had a mandatory
pre-bin meeting yesterday uh we had a great attendance i think there was 11 different companies that showed up so as you can see uh we will have all addendums posted on April 22nd we are um waiting for a couple clarifications from
the engineer um but really don't foresee any major issues with having to extend the um bid due dates and I'm here for any questions you may have
i can't wait to see it thank you when are when are RFQS you're saying addendums posted the 22nd of April have you the pre-bid meeting was that the ending of the I said RFQS
request for RFIs request for information that might questions about the the bid and whatnot it just I'm just looking addendums posted on the 22nd and only two days later you're opening the this isn't a large it's not a large project we've
answered most of the questions already um you don't see that as a problem i don't and we didn't have any issues with that yesterday if for some reason we have to push that back a couple or couple days it I don't foresee it being an issue okay
and with that the time frame can change on any given project depending on the cost of the project how long it has to be opened and all of those things comments thank you Megan next on the agenda is
Bokeh SGA Street in project update 41625 with this project I do have the mandatory pre-bid tomorrow um so I am also hoping for a very large turnout we will visit each site um go over the
project details i've already received a couple questions nothing um that we don't typically get and we will post and open within the time frame listed on the timeline do you uh foresee a problem with the
park at the end of 135th that has that county water leak will that area is going to have to be excavated anyways so because the county has neglected to fix their water leak for the past So will the contractor have
to you know account for that i'm just curious we have a on any bid that we do we have a 10% contingency so if for some reason there is a cost associated with that we can also go back to the county and request for reimbursement
um I'm not really sure exactly what the issue is with that water leak but it has been reported at a minimum of five times and that's just from myself okay i just wanted I was just curious about that i'm glad we have a timeline this is great thank you
comments next on the agenda is Archabald Parking Lot and 142nd beach access repair i think we've pretty much covered this item but as you all have seen the parking lot is still a work in progress um we still have items that we are
working on um most recently we decided to add some concrete and then stamp it it's really pretty i don't know if anybody has seen it yet there are a few turtles dolphins um you may see other items change like that just for a maintenance
issues we're kind of seeing the travel path of the visitors changing and trying to keep the maintenance to a minimum over there we are also once everything is completed we've lost um probably 10 palm trees over there right now that I
can think of um several other landscaping items so we're going to look to plant some native drought tolerant salt tolerant plants to just give a little bit more sprucing up once we get everything completed the new restrooms
are amazing we get nothing but compliments on those so they look great they are beautiful i'm very proud of that project how are the lights on the parking lot were they upgraded we're working on those um I just spoke to the electrician about those yesterday there
are the issue with those lights is they're turtle friendly so um supply is a little challenging on things so we're waiting for parts so there's I think 10 of the lights that are still out but the
rest of them are working all the electrical itself has been repaired or reran and also waterproofed but it's just those fixtures that are in there that have not been replaced yet and then the fixtures themselves I'm waiting for
approval on a purchase order to get those repainted because they were sand blasted from the hurricane so I think the proposal came in around 10,000 we're going to keep them white i wanted to be a little fancy with it but we're not going to do that are they aluminum
they are a mixture of multiple different materials they've got some pot metal on them some aluminum so they're going to be it's going to be a rough rough project that's why the cost is 10,000 but I actually received a few different quotes that
ranged from the minimum of 10,000 all the way up to 33,000 so substantial difference in that cost but substantially lower than replacing those light fixtures which were installed in 2012 I believe when
the park was revamped hopefully that was all on the FEMA list oh absolutely everything that is storm related is on the list and everything that is a cost is as Andrew had mentioned the project is listed as Helen so everything can be
fold from the finance for that when FEMA when FEMA came um I just happened to be with Megan that day she was driving me around to see some damage and I went with her for the FEMA i did not spend the entire day with her but I spent
until lunchtime and I was done with them but um she they started at Kitty Stewart Park and then went to Archabald and literally measured and walked and talked about every curb every piece of asphalt
every all of everything the irrigation the it was the light they were very thorough in making their list of things that would are on our list for reimbursement they were here for an inspection it was quite interesting it was quite the day it was it was
interesting would FEMA also pay for consult consultant fees i am not sure on that yeah consulting fees for for instance uh Kitty Park Kitty well right anything to repair to
put back is part of the schedule to included to be reimbursed so as just to go off of that so every time we create any type of form on a Clarion you can associate a project
number to that and you can associate project Helen or project Milton everything storm related whether it's consultants or whether it is miscellaneous items that are related to the hurricane are are coded for that project so the finance department can
easily pull those those it's all expenditures related to the work to repair great okay next on the agenda is Tom and Kitty Stewart Park repair update we are I just received updates from uh
Rub Claren who is the marine consultant for the wave runup analysis and he said that they he had to provide more documentation of course so um that is in the process right now but everything else is moving along i have received the
plan set from um our building department along with the original builders of the park so the intent once we receive everything for the wave runup analysis we have the detail on the the new seaw wall is to build a park back to its
original condition same materials the only difference is to hopefully have a more permanent structure for a restroom which I'm I'm pretty hopeful that that's going to happen um so unfortunately everything right now is a wait for that
once we receive that it'll be to the bidding process the bidding process is typically four months um that's going to be a pretty extensive project so that one will have to stay out for 45 days is there air conditioning in the Archerald
bathrooms no sir and I know air conditioning has been a huge issue with the bath temporary or the portable bathrooms correct yes because that was not made for so if we did have a permanent structure perhaps we could have natural ventilation and no air
conditioning absolutely we do we do not install air conditioning in in public restrooms it creates a hangout location we want people to do their business and and continue with their day about ventilation the only reason why John's
Pass Village has air conditioning is because it's been there for a very long time um but that that if I could change it I would remember all the conversations about the sand and the salt water and the it was always a
this will be much like the the restroom facilities we have metal roofs concrete structures very simple very easy to maintain and almost bulletproof patriot Park's a good example yes so Patriot Park the the restroom that's there that
building was prefab it came in built they just set it down so that's what she's looking at and has sent to the planning department to see whether or not we could do something like that at Kitty Stewart Park right it's pretty I mean I think it would be
fantastic elevate it it wouldn't We would not elevate it we are hoping to not have to elevate it we would flood it um but if it's a concrete structure Patriot Park those restrooms had five feet of water in there you would never
know yeah they're and they're they're not I mean they're they have flood vents um you just rinse them rinse them down you have to treat the the walls the concrete with anything spray them with bleach i'm saying you don't have to treat them the salt water
doesn't affect the concrete or They're not raw concrete they're all painted um and then you would have to dry floodp proof much Archabald bathrooms they're elevated a little bit but still that I
think it's maybe five or six feet is is dry floodproofed which you can't you can't tell unless you were watching the construction of the project and then we have a floodproof barrier that would go on it the the the janitorial closet almost
garage space if you will is not floodproofed drive floodproofed it just has um vents so prior to an event you have staff goes over and puts barriers up that is part
of our new hurricane preparation i hate to say that word yes preparation checklist to do as long as it's ready by end of September oh it's ready the flood panels are already in the structure all we simply have to do is
take them down and put them on so it'll take 10 minutes great perfect um I have a question um so this park at some point was was permitted based on a PUD that
has been expired correct it's actually development agreement it wasn't You're right i'm sorry planned development it was just a a development agreement that expired i see
so uh so the design is based on that development agreement design the design building right now is based on the original the original plan of that park yes okay and then as a part of that development agreement I guess
there's an ingress for the Caddies tom what do you mean there's an ingress for the Caddies are you talking about the parking lot itself or the the parking lot the ability for patrons to drive through the parking lot at Steuart to enter the Catty's property yeah
that's the what we had talked about at the last meeting relative to allowing the fencing to be moved a little bit which the agreement has already been signed by the way i'm not sure if the fencing has been moved today so yeah but the access is there for the
catties right in other words they can come in and turn yes okay thank you next on the agenda is the ITB25-05 area 3 roadway and drainage improvement
project hey again hello so this is part of the roadway project that we have been talking about for quite some time um I forgot to mention in this memorandum that this project does have an FDOT grant for
$549,400 I believe um we are a bit behind with that project this project because of the extent of the review process so we had originally estimated this
project to come in around 6.5 million total and then with the reimbursements from Penelis County but as you can see the lowest responsible responsive vendor was 7.1 million 7,155,45744
but as you can see we received three bids all from contractors that are very well known in this area i'll have a great they were pre-qualified for the project one is Keystone whom we love to work with and has done several projects
within the city um and has a great rapport with the residents they were substantially higher so Harbor Cons Harbor Contracting um previously finished a job with Bair we've reached out to Bair they had
nothing but great things to say about Harbor Contracting so what I am bringing before you today is to proceed with the contract approval with Harbor Contracting to get this roadway project
started as soon as possible so that we can get area three drainage better asphalt in a better condition um and move on to our next roadway project
comments yes move forward sounds good what does the elevation look like on these roadways are they going to be elevated we are We can't elevate roadways as we've talked about previously until homes start being
elevated that was never part of this project um this project has been in the works for I want to say three years if not maybe a little bit longer um so that was not part of the original design so we're not replacing any
We are replacing storm drains we are upsizing storm drains we are replacing storm drains not the drains but the all the piping underneath all the storm water piping underneath the roads is being all the storm drains are being replaced yes okay and
upsized because most are anywhere from 10 inch to 12 inch so we're going to 15 inch and in some places 18 okay when I when I definition drain I think of the drain the drain on the top
of the road that curb the culvert versus the piping but that that was my the inlet the inlet yes the inlet is part of the system so where the system that So you have different types of inlets I guess so you can have like a vault
system on an inlet you can have just a regular inlet i think these are all the FDOT D inlets i would have to look at the plans but really increasing the size of the inlets doesn't make as big of a difference as increasing the size of the
pipes so that you can increase the flow i I understand i'm just um I'm not sure you were understanding my question i don't think so but it's it's fine you you've answered it okay um it was just a clarification um so
it's I think we're good thank you you're welcome great job great job move forward definitely thank you would the sanitary sewer in that area be
PVC or is it be vitrified clay pipe do you know so the city doesn't own the sanitary the water or the reclaimed water so in areas where the county has identified where it is ductal iron pipe they are replacing it and I'm not
exactly sure what the material type is i'd have to recall it on the on the So they replace it prior to constructing the roadway it's part of the project so there is another agenda item not the next one the one after that to talk about the joint participation agreement
right thank you you're welcome okay next on the agenda is the interlocal agreement for storm debris management site utilization not that I want to bring up that word again but um this is as we found out during hurricane Helen um having a
agreement prior to the event is very important um we were struggling at the last moment to have to sign with or find a location with Penllis Park and luckily they were kind enough to house us until our debris
pile became too large so I have reached out to Largo and they have created this interlocal agreement for us which I believe is for a fiveyear term bring my notes five years yes thank you so this
is for a five-year term um and we will not have to worry um I think in the agreement it says for every event we'll have to pay the city of Largo $500 that's a minimal amount to have to worry about for that
great we're reserving it and saving the location we don't have to pay anything right correct we do not pay anything until the event hopefully not for a long time okay next on the agenda is the joint
participation agreement with Penllis County for area 3 roadway and drainage improvement project this is my last item i'm so sorry to bombard you all tonight so with this item as we spoke about area three so anytime we do a roadway project
um we contact the county and coordinate with the county to replace any utilities that are aging within our project the last thing we want to see is we have a brand new beautiful road and they come in and they have a water leak or a sewer leak and they cut up our beautiful new
asphalt um so we have coordinated with them for the replacement of this various water lines sanitary lines and I don't recall if there's reclaimed water in this but it is listed in the event they are working on a curb
line and they come across a reclaimed line that may need to be repaired there's a line item for it so the county has agreed to do a maximum reimbursement of $1,430,000 um and with this the finance
department tracks with the pay apps and then invoices the county so we initially pay and the county reimbures us any comments sounds good sounds good comments would a a designer an engineer be involved
in in basically making sure that the pipes are in the same slope and everything or the contractor just automatically replaces it as is so on any project the county has an inspector
we also have a engineer which I forgot to mention in the previous one we will still receive a proposal from the engineering firm for the construction engineering services i just haven't received that yet but they will also then be there inspecting and doing those
line item checks to ensure that the proper linear footage and whatever the case may be is built per the specs megan thank you very much i have a question for attorney Tras sure if you
await one moment um consent agenda all of these items that we've just discussed that were under public works we all agreed on them could all of these items go on the consent agenda absolutely so I would like to recommend that when we
vote on these items under public works that they all go on the consent agenda and we don't go line by line on each one there's nothing controversial here and I think that it not that I'm looking to not go home at 10:30 but I think that
this is a good example of where we could use our time wisely and not go Oh so that would be for item only for items E F and G just the last three items are the only three of Excuse me are those the only things that
were voting those are the only three that require you to vote the item E is a contract with Harbor Contracting LLC for the project item F is the agreement for
the debris management site and item G is the is the JP the joint project agreement so if we could have those on the consent agenda that way we don't have to go through those three items again to discuss them and it'll be in
it'll be in the beginning of the meeting right as well and they can be at the beginning of the meeting and just let me remind you that just because they're on the consent agenda doesn't mean necessarily mean you can't pull them so the mayor would start looking for a motion to approve a consent agenda items
one through five unless someone wants to pull one of the agenda items if you want to pull it then you would approve the other four that had in my example that there was no need for discussion on okay so just because it's on the consent agenda doesn't mean that you you cannot
discuss them correct correct so to to just further go into that then um I wouldn't want the fees and collection manual because we made too many changes on that so we'd want to look at that and talk that's an ordinance so that requires a public so can we go to the
Kimley Horn agreement could be on the consent agenda yes yeah uh and I mean I'm just thinking that anything that was tonight that we did not make changes to that we were all in agreement
on why don't we put those on our consent agenda and keep the and if someone between now and then decides that they want to discuss it we can pull it but let's put those on the consent agenda they're not controversial in any manner in my opinion and keep the things that
we made changes to for discussion it's a better use of staff's time for one so it's only four items if you agree the amendment to the Kimley Horn
agreement and then the three public works items items E F and G okay yes those four items on consent and just a I think a suggestion and Tom you can chime in as well for any future workshops at the time that we
conclude the item mayor you're I think you're more than um what would be not legally but more able to say could we place this on um consent agenda and then if anyone
objects or says then we will okay we just have never used it before we have since I've been on the commission we've we've never used the consent agenda and I just see it as a great use of our time for things that are not controversial thank you i really appreciate that so if
there's nothing anything further we resolved it in the wrong place but we did talk about the uh the Archabald uh restaurant Arch Ball Park restaurant that we're just waiting to know the details of that contract before we have
any discussions about it right okay i just just because normally I guess this is where we would have talked about it well no we would have talked about it while while they were here but not No I think Yeah yeah the item to discuss public comment is at a regular meeting
um I mean well I guess it could be at a workshop should be at both we didn't have any public comment at the beginning of the meeting right so anything further it is 10:28 we are adjourned