[Music] hello everyone my name is Mario Van Diddi i am the planner scheduler for the city of Northport solid waste i got into this position um first I was a recycle driver for 5 years for the city of Northport and then I became the planner
scheduler after taking an interest in educating the residents on how to recycle properly in my position my day-to-day usually I start out by visiting the new residents that schedule garbage and recycle containers to be delivered and I will go see them and
educate them on our solid waste guidelines more or less I'm more focused on the recycle part of it after that I will drive around the city and I actually inspect recycle containers manually for contamination and then I will take calls
from drivers if there's any issues with uh repeat garbage in the recycle and I will go educate those people as well what I love most about the city of Northport is their residents are from all over the world and I get to learn about the solid waste guidelines where
they come from as well as educate them on the city of Northport's solid waste guidelines and how to recycle properly [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] [Music] i decided to become a firefighter i used to work in uh hospitality and group sales and I had always had friends that were firefighters and I decided one day
that I wanted to change my job and serve people so I went ahead and went through a EMT and paramedic program went to fire academy and then I saw Northport were hiring and I really liked what they had
on their between their ISO rating and their beliefs and values and everything so I applied they gave me an opportunity every day is different but for the most part we start off the same we'll uh get our gear onto the apparatus and um make
sure everything's operational like our air pack then we also check the inventory uh make sure we have all our medical equipment um everything's operational um that way we can respond to any emergency the world good morning everybody today is Monday
April 7th 2025 actually it's 10:00 a.m we're in the city chambers and I call the city commission workshop meeting to order commissioners Presenter Commissioners Dval Commissioners Langden Mayor Stokes Vice Mayor Emerich Commissioner Pro there's a quorum present for the meeting also present
city manager Fletcher interimm city attorney Golan Assistant City Clerk Pal Word Specialist Slain and Fire Chief Titus and Police Chief Garrison uh let us see amen
julia want to lead us in the pledge please to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all do we have any public comments assistant cler no sir no oh I thought he said yes sir oh you said no no public comment sir oh thank you i thought you said yes too yeah um
moving on presentations uh 25-2067 uh presentation regarding Price Boulevard widening city manager your item to introduce thank you Mr mayor uh this item is a presentation that will be done by our deputy public works director Miss Trisha Whisner
good morning trisha Wisner deputy director of public works with me I have Anthony Freriedman the city engineer to provide update on this very important project that we're very excited to get started so this is the Price Boulevard widening project
update this project will provide much needed improvements to about 2.8 miles of Price Boulevard between Toledo Blade and Sumpter Boulevards so it will go from two lanes to four lanes with a continuous turn lane in the center the traffic signals will be improved and
synchronized we're going to reconfigure the intersection turn lanes for enhanced flow and safety there will be a new turn signal or traffic signal placed at where is it um at Citizens Parkway
for Fire Station 84 this project will include 10- foot wide concrete multi-use paths on both sides of the roadway and instead of having the roadside swailes we'll have an underground carbon gutter system for the storm water this will take about
17,000 tons of asphalt 195 drainage inlets and we'll have about 248 new street lights added into this section here's an overview of what the cross-section of the road would look like on the lefth hand side it's the signalized intersections and on the
right hand side it is the remainder of the the roadway as you see for the signalized intersections there is that median there for safety now this team is extremely excited to be bringing this project to the construction stage however we know
that we stand on the shoulders of so many people that have worked on this throughout the years um so thank you a lot of dead bodies so thank you to this commission and previous commissions and to all the city staff that over the years had continued to move this project forward on the less
of which is now assistant city manager prior deputy or prior director of public works Julie Balia so as we look through this this project is long and has a lot of history but there's two underlying themes that
you'll see as we work through this one population growth changed the scope and changed some of the timeline but funding funding was always part of the conversation as to what this project was going to look like and when this project would get to this stage so in 2009 there
was a study completed that said "Hey Northport you need to start looking at widening price." And at that point we were looking at three lanes population continued to increase looked at it again and said "Maybe we should go to four lanes." So in 2014 direction was given to go ahead with design for four
lanes over the next multiple years there were many meetings with the commission and with the public to provide input as to what this important thoroughare would look like and in 2019 we received 90% plans at that time the commission provided approval for us to go forward
and acquire all the storm water parcels that were needed for this road work during this time the city continuously looked for grant opportunities and funding that would be available for this project noting that there was a significant funding gap from the pay as
you go model to being able to bring this project to fruition and in 2021 100% plans were received however the project was put on hold due to lack of funding as the city continued to look for opportunities it became apparent that we
were going to need funding via borrowing so in May of 22 the city commission approved an ordinance calling for a referendum question to be placed on the next general election which was in November while we were waiting for the election Hurricane Ian came by and
showed us some weaknesses within Price Boulevard this picture on the right is at Blue Ridge Waterway crossing that shows that price definitely um sustained major damage from that waterway we're very happy that on
November 8th the referendum passed and the first thing we did was bring back to commission an amendment to the engineers agreement so that we could re-engineer those crossings based upon the lessons learned from Hurricane Ian as the re-engineering was going we
kept this project moving forward with um getting a construction engineering and inspection firm on this is AECOM that was approved in February of 2024 this team is going to be the boots on the ground to inspect the work and the quality of the labor and the materials
that are in to make sure it is at the specifications put in that scope they'll be sending things off to labs to be tested and really making sure that we're holding that line in September of 24 after review of 100%
plans by FDOT and many other eyes we were able to put out RFB 2024-28 for a contractor to bid on this project for us in October of 23 or October of 24
rather the city closed on bonds for this now the bonds were issued at a very nice rate of 3.3 and this we get a lot of questions on this why didn't the city borrow the full $80 million here well the referendum called for this $80
million to be paid back by sir tax the finance department and the bond council and the finance advisor looked and said "You don't have $80 million to be able to pay back." So this is a great example of the city borrowing within its
means then on December 4th we received one bid from Watson Civil and on March 18th thank you to this commission that agreement was approved and we are now entering into the stages of actual construction for Price Boulevard
anthony thank you Trisha um so as Trish just mentioned uh we have a executed contract with the contractor Watson Civil um our construction is estimated to be complete in fall 2027 and cost just under $80 million
uh we held a pre-construction meeting last week um on April 2nd and included representatives from the contractor Watson Civil Riot um several utilities the school district USPS and multiple city departments we
recognize that throughout this job there's going to be a great need for collaboration with these groups so this was the first step to get everybody in the room with the contractor um just get everybody on the same page um we anticipate an issuance of a notice to proceed on May 19th this was the date
that the contractor requested to give them some time to get their uh locates done get their equipment staged and their crews ready as well as have the utilities relocated for this job um the contractor provides 883 days from notice
to proceed to substantial completion and then another 30 days for punch list items um bringing the total contract length to 913 days um the anticipated first push of construction is to go from west to east um but it's important to
note that the entire road will be a construction area at all times uh they're not going to be completing like a finished product west to east it's just going to be the first step and then they're going to be continuing construction from there um the traffic management plan is to
keep the roadway open in both directions at all times however there may be occasional closures and detours needed when work at the waterway crossings is being completed which is going to be one of the first things that's done so right off the bat there the hardest challenge
with transportation is going to happen but we anticipate that will get easier after the bridges are complete um the project like I said is going to begin with the relocation of the underground utilities and that's one of the reasons for uh the notice to proceed
on May 19th there's going to be work that's done prior to that it's just going to be done by the private utilities relocating their um facilities and the work schedule is anticipated to be from 7 am to 5:30m uh at touching upon the
coordination we've met with the US postal service to discuss the plan for mail service um so as part of the project everybody along Price will have their mailboxes removed um the plan is to we have identified three uh sites to
establish temporary mailboxes so all of the residents will receive a key which they can use to access their temporary mailbox and there'll be partial lockers there as well for packages um the solid waste plan is to stay on the same days it'll just move earlier to avoid any conflicts with
construction so we'll hope to have pickups happening before construction starts for the day uh for the school buses um we've spoken to the Sarasota County School Transportation Department and they are evaluating uh
minimizing traffic on price so if there's any stops along Price they still will need to send buses down there to make their pickups and drop offs however the the buses that don't actually need to stop they're going to look to routing on alternate routes to um reduce the
amount of traffic on price there's a gopher tortoise and wildlife survey scheduled for today um which will also be used for construction um as part of the project while we're working within the city's
own right ofway there will be a need to go on to private property to make uh grading adjustments and tie the driveway into the new road um which required temporary construction easements at this time we have about 60% of these men 60
to 70% um and we're hoping that as construction starts and continues uh some of the hesitant land owners will be more willing to sign off on their easement otherwise there may be a need for some minor field adjustments like
adding yard drains or hopefully not but possibly handrails things like that to accommodate not being able to go onto the private property um and then we've established a couple of sites for outreach for um residents
if they have any questions uh there's a project website northfl.gov/price um an email box dedicated to this project as well as a phone hotline dedicated to this project so um it's been a pretty good outlet for getting
people's questions answered and with that if uh the commission has any questions we're here thank you very much finally finally i know there are some people out there who don't believe this will ever
happen until they finally see construction going on out there so it's like long long overdue um looks like everybody has I'm up first i I just have a couple question real quick questions um when will we hear back from the
school board as far as the scheduling for um the buses for any changes that may occur because we're talking about construction to begin what roughly on around the 18th yeah I don't think it's really something we're going to hear back i think we just notified them and
they're aware of our work zone and they're going to make adjustments in the coming year right so they'll be notifying citizens if there's going to be anything that's going to be different than what has been happening yes and it really shouldn't affect their pickup
because um if there's if the stop is on price they're still going to use it it's just really their way to get say they're picking up Audi's to go to the high school they'll just try to use Tropic here or some other route to get there very cool
um I saw that the hours are what seven or roughly 7 to 5 is that Monday through Friday any weekend work going to go on any Saturdays or Sundays uh it's possible uh they have to give us notification before they do that because
we need to make sure that we have inspectors present um they did indicate that it might be of something that they're interested in and which we would be like we would likely like to accommodate that because we're trying to expedite the work as much as possible
and just curious what was there any thought given and and what reasons might there have been to or not to like do a lot or some of this work it overnight which would take some of the pressure off of the daytime traffic given that
the road is lined in residences were trying to reduce noise disturbance at night that's what I figured i mean there's a lot of people living on that street so all right thanks that's all I had uh it's Mayor
Yeah I I love the update on this um you had mentioned that you've already contact USPS with their routes but what about like FedEx Amazon all those because that could create a huge problem with Amazon shoppers everybody uses them
i use them but if they're parking on the roadway to deliver packages you're going to have some clustering throughout the whole day yeah that is something that we've thought about um unfortunately there's not really a way to dictate how they make
their delivery um right now they kind of just stop in the road and make their delivery anyway that's probably what's going to happen yeah but can't we just say no parking in the roadway can't they pull up into the driveway to make their deliveries and stuff like that i mean
just to keep the congestion off of price you know that becomes the homeowner's responsibility on getting the packages but we got to keep that road open let's say there's four deliveries all in a row as you know you're just going to create a nightmare out there not you but I'm
just saying that that situation would create a nightmare for anybody trying to get by especially if this lane's going and we're just eat you know it's going to be a tough situation and it's something that you might want to look into prior to allowing that going out
there i'm just saying you know that that may be one of the biggest boooos that we're going to face especially when we're getting ready to go into construction that everybody's excited for but let's not make it a mess in the process absolutely we've been looking at all options with that and the
communication that can go to the private entities um it's difficult to make it a no parking because being able to enforce that as quickly as it is um but we are looking at all opportunities for communication on that yeah and the other one that I had when you talked about the
solid waste doing it in the early hours and this is just same thing are they going to be done on price by like 7 a.m yes we've been working with the solid waste team they're going to be looking to do that Tuesday and Friday pickup
early in the morning probably starting around 6 o'clock and just getting out of the way as quickly as possible i mean that that would be a great suggestion i mean just to get them out of there we're not messing with it anymore yes they need their garbage picked up but if we're if we can be out of there before
construction starts again then we're not part of that jammed up problem you know with the city and our assets yes and actually you guys recently approved a noise ordinance exemption process that we put in place really for this process um so we're looking to modify their
pickup time get them out of the way so construction can start and I think that's all I had i just wanted to say thank you very much for the timeline and everything that's gone through this because you get naysayers out there that think they know
everything but this is the actual facts on what took place on where we started and how we got here so thank you very much very nice that's all I have thank you uh Mr wang thank you Mr mayor this is indeed a happy day
just a couple of questions i noticed um that the notice to proceed on May 19 we really want to see a lot of upheaval before May 13th so is it our utilities team that will be digging things up i
mean I'm hoping that there is digging up of stuff before the 13th correct there are private utilities that will be moving their underground utilities you'll be seeing directional boring um it won't be you know huge openings but
you'll see equipment out there um we also have been working with Watson Civil they know that we desperately need to get vehicles out there and show some um activity even before the notice to proceed so they'll have they'll begin mobilizing some equipment as well right right thank you for that um I take
Hillsboro Boulevard almost every day and as I know you're aware the Peace River pipes have been going in for the past year now that's only one lane in each direction well that's sort of what Price
is now right i really liked how they did things i don't know how familiar you are but they had those electronic boards announcing road closures and that kind of thing ahead of time they had the funky little arms you know the red
lights with the arm but you know it flowed really well and that was a massive project so if you haven't looked at that I think it just might be interesting to look at that because they did a good job um so thank you for that
7 to 5:30 i just one other question the temporary construction easements i find it troubling that we have to work around people who didn't give us
access are there other options to that i mean what might that look like it will look it could potentially be less of a smooth transition than we would like if they do not provide us access so we've had staff
go doortodoor and try to explain this we've um we're making another push to reach out to those residents we've seen in other projects where when work starts the homeowner kind of wakes up a little bit and realizes this might be in their best interest so we're really hoping to
gain additional compliance and and voluntary um signing of the temporary construction easements the con contractor is aware of this they've worked in this situations before and are you know will be working to um provide
the best possible result even if we didn't get the temporary construction easement but again any opportunity that we have to engage with those residents and talk with them we're really trying to put that point out there that their best possible scenario is to allow us to
go on their side of the property for a little bit to make this smooth transition so if they don't give us permission what will their property look like it will be a case by case scenario but it may be a little disjointed with the the um the grading of the driveway
or where um drainage has to go and Anthony even mentioned potentially even a handrail if we can't get the the slope to be appropriate um and there's the potential for someone to fall or something we would need to um provide
those guidance or those protections wow i just I find that stunning that we would have to do that oh I mean I'm I'm not criticizing
you guys at all i It's not your fault but it's just the Wow well and and there's nothing I mean I hate to use the word eminent domain but there's nothing comparable that gives us permission it's
just what about the sidewalk wouldn't that disrupt the grade and and perhaps even the location of the sidewalks that we're putting in no the sidewalk is all within the city owned right away so it would be really at the edge of the city owned rightway and the the parcel um we
are avoiding um any monetary exchange for this um that has been one option that other municipalities have used in the past but we've been doing a good job getting voluntary compliance and really this isn't a standard situation for you know
a monetary item right okay thank you for that but excellent job i'm so happy that this project was I'm I'm just so looking forward to seeing dirt it'll be very
exciting to see dirt talking about her thank you very much i appreciate it thank you Mr dval yes first of all I'd like to say you know thank you to
everybody you know this project's gone on so long that there's you know people that are not alive anymore that contributed to this project so thank you to staff for everything um one thought that came up to me was you know we've
We've finalized the funding for this but let's suppose that during construction we have a hurricane and it causes damage to some of the you know construction equipment you know some of the unfinished roadways or whatever are we
going planning to keep track of the possibility of getting any other grants sometime during construction you know that might you know kind of pay us back for a little bit of what we're paying for this i mean it's just just a
thought of you know what we could you know look at you know just keep our eyes open you know if something does you know occur that's that's just a thought you guys can look at it if you want um my
other uh thought about this was I noticed that there's going to be 248 street lights over 2.8 miles that comes out to 248
stop lightss over 14,784 ft otherwise one stoplight every 59.61 ft now when you consider that our lots are 80 feet wide that means you could have
two street lights if they're not alternated one side of the street and then the other but you could have two stop lights on or not stop lights I keep saying that two street lights on one 80 foot wide property now on my street I
own two lots so I have 160 ft and there is a street light right at the end of my property on one end then just past it on the other so that's like 160 ft um number
one at 60 ft every street light um is that excess going to be excessive on our FPL bill number okay I'm cheap uh number
two if we have a street light every 60 feet and you know right in front of someone's property are street lights in front of a house going to be a little bit little bit too bright so to speak uh my wife and I go out whenever the space
station comes over and we like to see the space station and the street lights you know they kind of blind it out uh but is there what's the situation on where those will all be so they will be distributed on both sides of the street they'll also be kept to the lot corners
as much as possible so it's not like somebody will have a street light right in front of their house um it also the the plan was just to meet minimum green book criteria so the number of lights is not more than what we need it's what's needed per green book um and there will
also be glare screens provided that prevent excess light from entering the residence is going to be kept onto the board itself okay thank you and then if I can go back to the grants we're always looking for grants um most grants require that you
submit prior to project even starting however you know we work very closely with our grant team and this project does have a $ 1.5 million grant from FDOT included in it and the lights will be LED so they're a little bit more energy efficient so not
as much of an impact on the FPL bill i guess it's better than a car through the front of your house having a little bit of light right as a as a point of clarity that's what I wanted to ask what's the I mean what's the
criteria on where lights go well not where lights go but how they're spaced i mean who makes those kinds of decisions like do do you guys just sit around in a conference room somewhere and say "Gee I think we should have you know so many
lights or how how does this get done?" Just so people who might be listening don't think like we just you know have stock money invested in the lighting companies right no so there's average luminances that are required based on you know the design standards that are
out there um and it it goes as deep as to like the roadway material so darker roads absorb more light so you need more lights to illuminate them um but really it's just the spacing that's necessary to achieve that average luminance at the
road so there's actually a method to the madness yes delightful thank you very much anybody else right thank you thank you thank you very much moving on
moving on let me see any public comments no public comment all right then we'll move on to B 25-2068 presentation regarding Sarasota County Hurricane Ian resilience SRQ voluntary property buyout program city
manager you're it thank you Mr mayor this item is being presented by grant division manager Valerie Malinowski she's back right now trying to sneak out
i knew she was in trouble for me this morning yeah whenever you're ready i drink a lot of water in the morning all right okay good morning uh Valerie Melagowski uh grants division manager and uh this morning I have a little presentation for you regarding the uh
Hurricane Ian resilient SRQ voluntary buyout program um as you know Sarasota County received a little over 200 million from the community development block grant disaster recovery fund through the US Housing and Urban Development as a
result of Hurricane Ian sarasota County calls these grant funds resilient SRQ after gathering project ideas from those affected by the storm the county board allocated 6.4 million towards the voluntary buyout program
the voluntary buyout program is being used to buy properties with structures that were impacted by Hurricane Ian and floodprone areas the grant cannot be used to purchase vacant land the grant pays for fair market value and the goal
is to reduce risk and improve community resilience to be eligible a homeowner must have owned the home at the time of Hurricane Ian the home must also be in a designated disaster area or repetitive flood property with two or more
insurance claims the designated disaster area in Northport is along the Makahhatche Creek corridor the city must keep the acquired properties forever as open space recreational land or flood plane management the community development block grants
um always must have impacts to low to moderate income persons or demonstrate urgent need which is also income limited homes that are in low to moderate income census tracks of 51% or more
automatically qualify for the grant the developed homes within the Makah Hatchee Creek tier properties are w within the 51% LMI or low to moderate income again if this program is used the acquired properties must be used for
open space we can't keep the building or build another one once we own it uh it's very limited future use is allowed a little bit about the um process timeline um the city is the applicant
for this program on behalf of homeowners the application period uh closes on April 30th after that date Sarasota County Commission will make their final funding decisions we've had a total of five property owners express interest in
the program four of them are within or close to the Makahhatche Creek corridor and in a flood zone if the cert city um purchases privately owned lot with a single family home assessed at $246,400 with a $50,000 homestead
exemption it would result in a loss of approximately $739.85 in adorum taxes additionally the city would lose special assessments an average of about $300 for fire district
30250 for solid waste and approximately 25316 for road and drainage and $46 for road and drainage capital improvements this would result in a total impact of approximately $1641 in last adum taxes and special
assessments next steps homeowners had the opportunity to complete the special interest survey that went to Sarasota County in return the county notified us of the interested applicants i've contacted the interested applicants and
heard back from three of the five city staff will meet this afternoon to review the properties to make sure that the acquisition aligns with city properties and then staff will begin working on the applications after applications are submitted county staff
will review and present to county commission the anticipated county commission date is April 4th after agreements are executed with Sarasota County Northport will begin the ex acquisition process with homeowners
sarasota County reimbures the city for property demo and relocation assistance and land becomes open space um before we get to the questions um as I mentioned we had a total of five property owners express interest in the
program four of them are within or close to the Miami Hatche Creek corridor and in a flood zone one is ineligible because the home is a rental and not a primary residence that homeowner is applying to the Elevate Florida program
which allows secondary home applications and that program will run very similarly to this one the state's accepting applications through April 11th and um if there's any homes that are within Northport the state will come back to us
and let let city staff know um there's one property that's located in the area between South Cranberry Boulevard and Chamberlain Boulevard and that is not in a flood zone so um that one would not be
eligible um I put out on everybody's uh area there on the dis a map and so um on that map um the top page uh should be the creek parcels it should say creek parcels and I I have to apologize for
the print quality me and the printer were fighting this morning i lost the battle a little bit and so my the color is really not great but um if you look at the Creek Parcels um property um on the northern um you know
towards the top left of the page there's a little red outline uh there right outside of the green space area and that's Banana that's the Banana property banana streets the name of it and that homeowner is eligible and they're
interested so they're in the uh tiered properties just below that um there's a little um black outline one and that one is on Sensation Street that property owner is also eligible and interested so
those are our two for sure property owners that are tier 2 owners that are interested just below that um outlined in blue is Casanova that is in a flood zone but it is not one of the Makahhatche tiered parcels that is also
one of the homeowners that I've reached out to um that I haven't heard back from yet so I I tried making contact with them and I have not heard back from them yet um finally on that same map there's a green outline that one is on Snowbird
that one is a tier 2 property but he is the homeowner that um does not live there full-time it's a secondary he rents that parcel out and he's applied to Elevate Florida um on the second map there um that one is Cart Right Light Cart Right
Lane and that area it's highlighted in pink there in the top left um that area is between South Cranberry and South Chamberlain Boulevards um the parcel's not in a flood zone there so I you know one of the the
criteria is to have repetitive flood losses like more than one flood insurance claim and um I have also not been able to reach that homeowner yet speak to them in person so um I don't know that that property is
going to be eligible so but that's the summary of the program and um I'll take any questions thank you very much um I got really just a couple
um it's amazing only five four actually property owners and are these tier ones or tier two they're tier twos the ones those three that are right along the creek there those are I remember commission voted a year or two back we
voted not to pursue the acquisition of tier twos at at that time am I correct i remember that yeah I think so so um you know
um All right in total how how many properties are there left in tier one and tier 2 if we know that that that are yet potentially could be could be purchased if we had the money and and if
the property owners had the inclination to sell we know that number okay trisha was our deputy director at the last report it was three in tier one and
13 in tier 2 interesting all right all right i mean you know the obviously what would be great I'm preaching probably to the choir here but to be able to acquire all those tier one and tier twos over a period of years
would be nice because it would lend itself to the ability to put a couple of you know moderatesized retaining ponds in potentially with some coverts that would help really mitigate flood problems and help capture water which
would add to our portable and reclaimed water needs i mean there's just like a whole lot of benefit to being able to get our hands on these properties so perhaps at some point we might want to revisit our approach to tier 2 but that's subject for another day I suppose
thank you very much uh Vice Mayor yeah I just need some clarification you had stated a couple dates in this thing that where the deadline was I believe it was April 30th correct yes but then you went on to say that when the county was going to assess
these situations you said April 4th oh June 5th oh that would be June 5th the deadline is April 30th and then they would make their recommendations june in June yes sorry i was kind of saying well how can they decide before they've been applied so sorry that's all I wanted to
get clarified thank you you're welcome that's all I had Mr langon thank you Mayor um I apologize city manager i know we discussed this but I can't remember the answer um I'm aware that FEMA buys
properties that will buy back properties from property owners for habitual flooding situations um have have we pursued FEMA or are our properties eligible for FEMA
i think we had kind of thought that they were ineligible but I don't remember beyond that so anybody with a repetitive loss more than two flood insurance claims um the Elevate Florida is FEMA funds okay okay so um that's being
funded through another section of FEMA um on a dayto-day FEMA um acquisition is um the flood mitigation assistance is the name of the grant and we've never here pursued it um the city actually applies
on behalf of the homeowner there's a 25% match on that that the homeowner has to pay they have to foot the 25% match and I think that probably scares some people away that they don't want to do that um but this Elevate Florida is the same
it's also a 25% match but that is FEMA funds so you know it's just being passed through the state and I'm not that familiar with that program is it they buy out property owners so they put them on fields yes all of that it does all of
that and that application period uh closes on April 11th that's this Friday have we communicate outside of the property owners who expressed an interest that we're engaged in have we done any outreach to the other property
owners that are along that creek i do know that um some letters were sent out to the two that are very interested in the program because they were bless you those were um ones that had expressed interest in the past like I believe they were the two that after Hurricane Ian
contacted the city and um were interested in selling their parcels um and I do know that communications uh has been helping us push out the message okay and the county um I checked with them also because we also had some concerns that maybe the message wasn't
getting reached to the right audience and um Sarasota County also did their own u media campaign on it good because I'd really like to squeeze as much juice out of these programs as we can um I have not been supportive of using
taxpayer money to buy these parcels along the creek so um whatever we can do to facilitate resident engagement in this program I think would be terrific and I think that's that's it
for me thank you thank you Commissioner Commissioner Dval thank you Mayor um when I first looked at some of this information you know the first thing that struck me was you know the
application date is coming very quickly um and you know considering you know there's really not that many properties that are available for this and I I just hope that we're
uh reaching out as with as much effort as we can to get in touch with these people uh you know and some people are just going to say "No you know I have my house and I want to stay there and you know I can't blame them for that."
Um the the cost of demolition would be included in this yes that's reimburseable cost yes undeveloped properties not available no it has to have a flood loss has to be lost my only other my only other comment
with this is um that uh recently I know we tal you know we were talking about parks and recreation and there was a little factoid that you know we have a goal of trying to have you know some kind of park amenity within a half mile
of each residence um you know if we do have some of these available you know maybe they could be something like a passive park um you know even if it's just you know a park bench or something or maybe some playground equipment but I I just think
this is an opportunity here also thank you very much for your work Petro uh yes um Commissioner Deval uh echoed some of my
questions question on the dates when was this open is it approaching rather quickly it was opened on March 5th so in the grant world we don't usually don't get a long time um to be honest with you it's not uncommon to have two weeks
three weeks four weeks to apply for a grant um March 5th was when Sarasota County um initially launched this program are they trying to get rid of the money or what's the so short of a window yeah um I don't know the answer
to that but um it's over a month you know that we've had but um so Sarasota County was collecting the information um from the home homeowners and I just received that information last Tuesday that's why I wasn't able to you know
modify the PowerPoint or get the maps to in advance because I just received all the interested homeowners last week on Tuesday so the county had an open on March 5th um until the end of March for them to submit through Sarasota County
and interest and then on Tuesday I received the parcels and then I started making phone calls and emails and you know all those lovely things to try to get a hold of everybody so So and I if I'm understanding this correctly the
city's engagement in soliciting or advertisement cannot be started prior those dates or that date right yeah yeah march 5th would have been the earliest and um I don't I know the county started doing some outreach right away and then
Jerome and I talked about outreach like a little bit later and did some you know with through communications but um since there's not that many properties are we utilizing any other methods of solid
solicitation besides sending a letter maybe going to doortodoor I mean there's not that many properties at Yeah that well first we would need to know if they were repetitive loss like to who to target um how would you find
out that another thing well that's the thing i don't know you the home you're relying on homeowners and then another thing is yeah you need to have homeowners that are interested like one of the uh parcels that I'm going to be working
with they even had their own hesitancy of doing this program because if they sell this parcel in their property then they have to go buy something else right market's not great right whenever it comes to interest rates and those types of things and they bought whenever
interest rate was lower and he asked "If I don't like the fair market value or I can't find a home to buy if I sell this one to the county can I back out?" Right so you can't make people apply to this
um they have to be willing to sell the pro property basically and if they don't want to sell they don't want to move you can't make them do that okay voluntary it's Yeah exactly fair market bail that leads to this question uh does that
include the extent of damage i mean if the house is damaged significantly the fair market value would be much less including the damage so if they didn't fix the damages it's going to be less you know that's that's what it is so there's a roof is gone the house is not
going to be worth much right okay and I take that 6.46 million that's countywide right countywide correct yes so that includes all of Sarasota County and how did they do we know how do they
come up to that number or I I remember that the county commission met and they um had a big spreadsheet on it because we watched some of it um and they they
put these funds in different buckets so they like they have the infrastructure fund which is paying for some of our water control structures and things and then um they had a homeowner improvement project where they actually helped reimburse some low to moderate income
households for damages that they had instead of buying it out and then um the buyout program and then there was also the nonprofit so there's a whole bunch of different buckets and the county took that 200 million and just divided it across buckets but one thing to note um
you have to be low to moderate income for this program or be in a low to moderate in census tract not all the city is in a low to moderate income census tract and low to moderate income even for urgent need is is at
120% of the median income which is $90,000 for two people so if you make more than that you don't qualify for this program either or if you're not in a census track like if you're in Wellland Park that is not a low-inccome census tract right
um so there's qualifying criteria for this program that not everybody's going to qualify for too and do we plan to make a second attempt on those the ones that been silent or did not reply to yes definitely i was actually going to wait until this
afternoon whenever the um internal city staff took a look at it because like the one property on on Cartright it's not in flood zone you know like I don't know how staff feels about acquiring a parcel in between Chamberlain and uh Cranberry
you know it's not in the Makah Hatche Creek corridor um I was going to wait until after that meeting today to reach out to them a second time and one that was the rental Yes the the guideline that is set up by the county right uh
the one that's the rental um he's been referred to the state program which is Elevate Florida because they allow second homes for that program that's it for me thank you okay you're welcome commissioner Petro if you would like to learn more about how the county
made their decision as to how to allocate the 200 million believe if you go to their their website there's there should be a decent amount of information i haven't looked recently but um usually they do a pretty good job like we do a pretty good job of putting that
information up there and making it available to citizenry who is interested in how they parcel out that or what decisions they made and how they made them there's also a number of county commission meetings that took place regarding this which you could probably watch back which will also give you a
feel for how they decided how much goes into what buckets because they do like we do you know they figure it out anybody have anything else on this item thank you very much thank you
appreciate it do we have uh any public comments no public comment sir right any general public comments no public comment sir my goodness we have anything else we might want to do today no jeez that's a
surprise it is 10:54 and I adjourn this meeting