##VIDEO ID:YxtrGvQIucs## that also in your GO bags you should have non-p perishable food flat good evening everybody today is Tuesday January 28th 2025 it is 6: p.m. we're in the city Chambers and I call the city commission regular meeting to order Commissioners present are commissioner Duval commissioner Langdon mayor Stokes vice mayor emrich and commissioner Petro there's a quorum present for this meeting also present city manager Fletcher interm City attorney goolan city clerk fa board specialist Lane believe police chief Deputy yeah yeah Chief Garrison and fire chief Titus very good and uh let's see Josh be kind enough to lead us in the ledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy andice for [Music] all I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda so move second I have a motion to approve the agenda by vice mayor seconded by commissioner langon let's vote and that passes 5 to zero City clear public comments Stephanie Gibson in preparation for today's meeting I could not find where the prioritized infrastructure project list has been delivered to the commission public public as requested instead we are seeing a pivot of projects that do not align with the 2024 campaign where the city repeatedly made it very clear that our 63 water control structures were in dire need of and top priority yet the staff proposed projects pivoted elsewhere the voters are left scratching their heads with the change up for example the transfer station project was surprising as it is moving forward without the project details being disclosed and discussed in a public meeting with public input and with commissioner decision by vote it is my understanding from last year that we roughly had the ability to borrow up to $150 million if the voters approve your referendums that will leave us with less than 10 million left to borrow should an emergency occur what will we do for emergencies finally I have repeatedly tried to gain an understanding as to where we stand on hurricane damage in the city how much damage do we incur how much damage is yet to be addressed that is not funded I believe the city is still operating under two emergency orders Ian and Milton will the city use the emergency borrowing authority to mitigate the shortfalls that wasn't covered by insurance or FEMA examples are the Public Works building on biscan station 81 thank you in person I have Robin San Vincente followed by Kevin burus and Josh Smith evening um going to continue a discussion at the last time I addressed the commission which was a while ago um this is more of a chat than a comment uh the subject I want to address is the Mah hatche creek access and the forestry uh reduction of uh fire loading reduction of Forestry and what I determine is the project to increase the uh capacity and flow of the creek or the foundational reasoning for these two projects I also after receiving a significant amount of data from Robin right have noticed that these project overlap the four or three overlaps with the curing of the creek another aspect of this project is that the debris from the creek is going to be placed in staging areas within the forestry project my question is and it's an easy one why is not our natural resources department uh being considered to do environmental surveys of those debris staging areas to make sure there are no protected species or or FAA on those staging sites prior to the operation did a preliminary survey of the first staging area close to uh Price Boulevard in that staging area are two active tortois Burrows two inactive tortois Burrows that have been uh noted in the project but nowhere else do I find any information related to any surveys and I don't mean just the tortoise okay because it's not just about the trees it's not just about tortoise the other aspect of the project is have you seen the equipment they're going to put down through there you think that equipment's going to work in a 14t path okay the clearing radius is tremendous on that equipment now the other aspect is the height of their equipment they are going to impact the canopy both projects are going to have significant impact on the natural environment of City owned Natural Area land thank you thank you sir good evening Commissioners um okay I'm going to talk about a temporary moratorium for you to consider maybe thinking about it I've looked into it and I'm just going to read so I don't get swayed and wander off um but I had brought this up at a couple of the commission meetings uh to address the concerns of the citizens regarding enacting a temporary building moratorium especially in certain areas and in certain circumstances within our INF within our our infrastructure problems quality of life issues moving into habitats that we shouldn't be moving into uh and the major concern is the lack of infrastructure I understand about the Senate Bill 250 and the requirements on that moratorium uh however that applies to 10 counties and that's regarding hurricane damage so we can't do uh anything about that until October 2026 but there are several counties and cities that have already enacted temporary buildings moratoriums for other specific reasons through various types of ordinances such as alcha okoi and St John's County they've done temporary moratoriums uh with the rate of development within our city and the problems that come with it such as overburdened infrastructure loss of natural habitats and the repercussions that go along with all of that and the quality of life issues just to name a few citizens continue to cry out for a Slowdown just a Slowdown down to ask the city to address several zoning issues better strategic planning and so on as it stands now we have to reviewing our city code in ulc I don't see anything within that that even addresses a uh temporary building moratorium with um criteria for that for enacting that I think that it is worth us to consider doing that putting it in in our codes and maybe even taking a Slowdown or a breather to really examine and get a grip on the infrastructure concerns which by the way we're still waiting for a list on the high to low priorities which we don't have um but everybody is crying out for a breather and and I think it's really time for us to get our act together because it just seems like we're just plowing through developments left and right into areas where we shouldn't be going into uh and the strategic planning everything needs to be addressed because it's way out of whack in my opinion uh and just to follow up on Chuck on the myah hatche creek access maintenance plan the turpentine dock which has historical and and archaeological significance within the history of our city is that part of the debris removal is that just going to be taken away or is that going to be considered and and saved so if we could get a confirmation on the turpentine dock that would be great thank thank you thank you Kevin burus Josh Smith and B allander good evening my name is Kevin burus I've been a proud resident of Northport Florida for the last nine years and I would really really like somebody to either explain or look at your permit uh uh Pro procedures uh I wanted to put a 8 by10 prefabricated shed in my backyard so I'm told I have to do everything online so I go online took me two trips back up here because not your terminology in the program isn't a Layman's terminology but then I'm told I got to do a zoning permit for $255 okay fine then I'm told I also need a b a building permit for an additional $120 that that's it's ridiculous that type of pricing I checked with Charlotte County I can do the same job in Charlotte County if I live there $116 their zoning permits 25 I called Venice $200 I called city of Sarasota $200 I'd like to know the justification for over $350 I got to put out to put a pre-fabricated shed on my property I think somebody should look into that and that that's basically why I'm here like I said I haven't had any complaints with the city of Northport since I moved here but this was a shock I can put in a brand new air conditioning system in my house to permit northport's 150 bucks so I mean that sticker shock that was really sticker shot me uh so I basically you know would like to somebody to O Overlook some of this stuff because I don't think that that is Justified you know it's almost a double hit on you you want to do a owning permit fine if it's 5060 70 bucks but 255 and then on top of an additional 120 that gets kind of stiff for somebody who wants to improve their property and their quality of life so thank you very much thank you sir city manager might we be able to have somebody from staff have a chat with this gentleman just to share some information and yes Mr Mayor but we may not be able to validate the other information he received outside of the city of Northport we can only speak into what our practices are what we do course thanks Josh hello everybody Josh Smith citizen of Northport um it's it's been a month you guys are on fire um I uh tried to take a month off hoping maybe you know some common sense would fill the room and everything um I would like to personally apologize to the citizens of Northport um I ran and I feel like all it did was just Galvanize people against everything that we ran for um so you know from Price Boulevard getting talked about in a state of the city speech it's a joke don't talk about it it it's clear we don't have shovel in the ground I mean you know you can't talk about things if it's not moving forward we still don't have traffic signals at too blade and Sumter accidents there every day you know we still don't have any traffic signals in front of the rest of our schools you know it's infrastructure infrastructure infrastructure yet we're building building building building building so I I'm going to be public about it because I'm a busy guy I don't have the time I brought company checks I brought a pocket full of cash I brought credit cards I don't know who these important people are that get all of you riled up to do these weird projects I want you to know I got the cash to be one of those important people let's start getting some things done around here okay I I mean if if I got to be that guy I will I got a yacht I can take you out to bokeh we can spend money we can have a good weekend whatever it takes folks just please start listening to the citizens thank you thank you sir B olander followed by Debbie McDow good evening I am Val olander oh by the way what is your name I am valdi olander uppercase V lower case Al Dy uppercase o lowercase L anddr I am not the Corporation and I am not a criminal I came here in peace I have a dignity god-given rights respected obey you out of office all of you st I'm using language from Florida Constitution you take the O please remove the cup of my back let them sit over here I'm not a criminal what kind of HW do you look at me you know what the H look read the Bible do you have do you five know there is such a thing called maxims of law sometimes called Legal maxims ask you eight or nine legal department employees maxims are brief statements of self evident truth that control our courts our legislature and every consideration of mankind that seeks what is fair and the best for all for example this is from Black Law Dictionary 7 Maxim number one so much is granted at as is written not what Ator told you number two a law is not binding unless it has been promulgated question can you imagine manager can promulgate ordinances read the charter he cannot I received the email from some outfit called Madagascar alert dear Baldi I found this pilot crme in your area an assault has been reported near 49 XX black City Hall bulevard from the local police record crime type assault address 49 XX black City Hall bouevard description intimidation including stalking that's what this guy doing to me and that's what you doing to me it do you know the difference between assault and battery again from black dictionary it becomes settled that though an assault could be committed by physical contact it did not require this a show of force against this against the body is sufficient I am against the dictatorship of manager and I am against the police expansion thank you sir good evening everyone um I'm Debbie McDow resident of Northport this is a perfect meeting to bring me out of hibernation let's talk about Price Boulevard the voters approved $80 million in Bonds in November of 22 but hurricane Ian required a redesign of the for Bridges which took over a year Bonds were issued in September of 2024 for $64 million although no Construction contract had been awarded yet according to the public record documents I received the bid was opened on December 4th according to the bid submitted the total construction cost for the price Boulevard widening project is $86 million plus the usual 10 to 15% contingency that is added to every project making this project close to 100 million I con see there wasn't enough time for the city manager or staff or the commission to have a discussion on how to overcome the shortfall in December I was surprised that there was no discussion related to the price Boulevard on the January 6th Workshop nothing on the January 14th commission meeting nothing on today's agenda meeting no special meeting was called and I see that the February 3rd Workshop has been cancelled I certainly hope that the five of you have already had a conversation with the city manager to understand what the next steps are going to be to get this project moving but don't you think the citizens should be updated too it's been two months since that bid was opened the public deserves full transparency Stellar communication is Paramount on this project I realize it will be a very difficult conversation rip the Band-Aid off get it out in the open be transparent the cost is only going to continue to escalate and don't forget the first Bond payment is around the corner and we don't even have a contract to begin construction please communicate better with your citizenry about Price Boulevard and all of the projects I don't need to remind anyone in this room that the commission and staff are relying on the voters to approve the referendum slated for May thank you thank you uh next up announcements City cler the current vacancies for the following boards and committees include the art Advisory Board auditor selection committee Charter review Advisory Board citizen tax oversight committee Community Economic Development Advisory Board environmental Advisory Board firefighters pension trust fund Board of Trustees Parks and Recreation Advisory Board planning and Zoning Advisory Board and Veterans Park advisory committee Sarasota County advisory Council vacancies include one resident of Northport to serve on the citizen advisory committee and one Parks and Recreation Advisory Board member to serve on the parks advisory and Recreation Council if anyone would like more information please see the city clerk's office thank you ma'am moving along consent agenda um city manager has anything been pulled no Mr Mayor all right uh public comment then I'm looking for a motion I'll make it mayor move to approve the items in the consent agenda as presented second I have a uh motion to approve the consent agenda by vice mayor seconded by commissioner langon if there's nothing else to that let us vote that passes 520 moving on to public hearings petition uh CC dma 24-0 uh this is consideration of petition dma 2493 Echo Arbor Park 2 this is a quasi judicial uh city clerk did you read this petition title and swear in those wishing to give testimony please consideration of petition d-24 093 Echo at Arbor Park 2 can everyone wishing to provide testimony please stand and raise your right hand do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to provide is true and accurate to the best of your knowledge so help you God thank you ma'am uh we got experte Communications uh commissioner Duval Lang uh yes mayor I did have a conversation with Boon about this project and um just sort of a highlevel overview of the project um I also had some questions of Staff in my one onone regarding the funding of the project the role of the county in the project um and um about our commercial expectations for this activity center Mr Petro yes I have I've met with the legal Council of the petitioner um stating factual findings or presentation also had a conversation with the city manager um and also on my agenda briefing thanks mayor yeah on December 11th I had a meeting with u Boon and Associates and the petitioner and basically it wasn't about the project it was about the process proc of getting the project in front of us they were having a few hiccups going forward and going to PAB coming here and didn't really discuss a lot of the particulars of the project so it was a very short meeting right and uh I also on the 11th of December had a meeting um with the the boons and their client uh regarding this project uh background information updated information I also had a brief discussion with one of our County Commissioners uh who uh I believe the county supports this project so I uh I did have a brief conversation with him uh city clerk oh and I obviously I had my one-on-one conversations with the city manager I didn't know that those would be considered as exp parte sorry about that thank you commissioner all right uh city clerk do we have any agreed parties not all right then uh next Up's presentation from the applicant to staff uh 20 minutes once I turn it over to you ready to go okay uh good evening uh chairman and members of the commission uh for the record uh my name is uh Jeffrey Boon I'm attorney with the Boon Law Firm I have been sworn uh and I'm agent for the applicant MH P Arbor Park 2 LLC I'm joined here today by Chris Shear COO of uh the applicant uh Eduardo Teran director of development and Sean Smith development manager um also have Jackson Boon with me today who's a partner in the Boon law firm with me um we have before you today a DMP Amendment technically a dma application for a 66 unit affordable housing development with 7,799 square feet of non-residential Space Incorporated to be located within the future Development Area provided in the Arbor Park DMP which was approved in 2022 uh this application was filed on June 14th this past summer and is subject to the prior ulc regulations uh the Planning and Zoning Advisory board has recommended approval and at this time I'd like to turn the presentation over to the applicant team to walk through the history of the property and the dma proposal gentlemen thank you Jeff here we go so um by way of introduction I'm Chris Shear I'm a COO and I'm a partner with McDow housing Partners uh we are Workforce and attainable housing developers been actively in this business of developing um housing high quality housing for the workforce and for seniors who are often on fixed incomes for about 15 years now done projects across the state um and a couple other states as well you know our mission is pretty simple you know we want to to provide high quality attainable housing options regardless of socioeconomic status um in fact we are uh now complete and are um in the middle of leasing up Arbor Park phase one um which was well received by the city and um want appreciate your staff and everyone's involvement in that project it has been a great success um and one of the things we heard about that project was that we want more attainable housing options for families as well and that's what we're trying to deliver here and so I um really just in summary before I turn it over to Eduardo um I I hope that you guys hear this um this project and the presentation really on the merits of what we're trying to provide and who we're trying to pres and who we're trying to serve it's not just about housing we have resident services and programs our mission is to provide a better quality of life and give people an opportunity to live and reside in the areas where they've been part of the social fabric for a long period of time where they've contributed to the community and um where they're close to their places of employment so Eduardo hello everyone I'm Eduardo tan with mcdal housing partner and today I'm going to start going into the project details and explain to you guys a little further about you know what we're proposing today so location of our project is on 1191 West Price Boulevard um it's a 4.43 acre project in a plan Community Development in the activity center number five the Midway activity center and we are proposing three three story buildings with surface parking as you can see in this areal West Price Boulevard is to the north of our site um south of our site is Phase One of eal Arbor Park 1 as Chris briefly mentioned and to the West we have Citizens Parkway for presentation purposes I've Shi we've shifted uh the site plan 90° so now you will have West Price Boulevard on your right um I am highlighting here in blue what we are proposing as our phase two um maining the three three story developments um that will'll tie in really nicely with our initial phase so what are we proposing again we're proposing through three story part uh story apartments we're proposing 66 total units and we're also bringing uh 7700 7,800 uh commercial space uh square footage um and we are targeting a daycare tenant bringing a much needed daycare to the area now now what amenities are we providing these residents uh we're providing them pool Hardscape debt fitness center uh picnic areas tot lots for their families to enjoy um we are also requesting a waiver request uh to preserve a 4 in 48 in Heritage tree that we have on site and we have staff support for this request now to give you guys idea an idea of the impacts that we're bringing to the community VI our affordable rents um we have one two and three bedroom apartments with the one-bedroom apartments ranging from $493 a month to $1,300 a month uh and three bedrooms from $681 a month to $1,800 a month now here on your right you will see the rental advantage that we are providing to these residents in comparison with the market rents that we're seeing in these areas as you can see they can range from 15 to over 200% in terms of the the rate uh decreases that that we're able to provide uh through our affordable housing projects we have a compliance period for this project for 50 years and it is enforcable via extend extend use agreement which will run with the land um through uh for the 50 years now the main issue that we're here to discuss today is the amount of commercial space that we're providing and that's been the main point that we've been discussing with staff thus far and so again the question here is how much commercial space is enough for this for this development um and what are those limitations for us to bring additional uh commercial space and the biggest hurdle that we have is a commercial income restriction that we cannot Finance this development with low-income housing tax credit if more than 20% of the revenue is coming from non-residential uses therefore severely impacting a larger commercial space if we were to Pro you know a larger commercial space and that's why we cannot provide that additionally I do want to highlight that we also have physical constraints on site where adding more commercial will require increasing of the building Footprints and therefore requiring us to build up more stories or introduce structured parking which create significant cost to the project here's the rendering of of one of the buildings the view is from West Price Boulevard and you can see here in the Center we have our commercial space um that we are proposing the shy of 7800 ft here we have an overall view of of the beautiful buildings that we're bringing to the community and that will again tie in very nicely with the first phase that has been such greatly received by the community here we want to just show quickly show kind of the the floor plans that we are proposing showing that we are bringing great quality product to our um again at at great prices um so what is the timeline for our project we are proposing and we're we're wanting to start our construction as early as April 2025 so by all by all means we are we are close to to that start now we would start pre-leasing a year from now so April 2026 and plan to complete construction by August 2026 and you know we would be leased up by the end of next year um in October and so you know we believe that we are we are almost there in being able to provide this impact to the community now again want to highlight the quality of our design um and the sustainability component so you you guys will see some pictures following up uh from our phase one development um and you'll see the great unit finishes that we are proposing with uh Granite uh solid surface countertop plywood cabinets luxury vinyl Tire tile as well as energy star appliances lowf flow um Plumbing fixtures providing an energy efficient home that is also a comfortable home for our residents in addition to this um and to add on to this we are we are uh going to secure a build uh a national Green Building system certification which is a green green uh building um system that requires and promotes the efficient of the systems within our buildings now what impact are we going to have on the community you guys will ask we are generating over $1 million in tax revenue over the next 10 years we are generating over 82 local jobs and we are having minimal traffic impact with our proposed developments and again we're catering to the 30 60 and 70% area median income demographic you will see here here uh the completed Arbor Park phase one um it has been greatly received by the community as Chris briefly mentioned you know with uh the picture on the left showing you a glimpse of what our uh beautiful Clubhouse looks like and then obviously our um our building on our Residential Building here we just show a little bit more about what our amenities look like you know providing a really nice pool gym fitness area um and and really services that are residents that really help Elevate our our residents lives and here what I was explaining previously you just see uh a snippet of inside of the unit where we're obviously we're highlighting you know the the high-end kitchen kitchen finishes and bathroom finishes and with that um my contact is here anybody that would like to reach out I'm happy to answer any questions thank you very much thank you sir uh thank thank you Eduardo uh Commissioners uh the first thing I want to point out and and as we go through this I I want everybody please uh would be our request not to lose sight of the fact that what we're proposing here is real affordable housing um this is uh 30 60 70% of Ami a lot of affordable housing is at a higher percentage this is 30 60 and 70% Ami and for it's restricted for 50 years so uh please as we go through our presentation don't lose sight of that Commissioners there's really only one issue here this is not a situation where no non-residential is being proposed this is the issue here is whether enough non-residential is being proposed quite simply the applicant and staff are in disagreement over whether the amount of non-residential the 7,800 square ft that we're proposing is that enough um Commissioners we like your staff we get along with them and we know they work hard or well intentioned and try to do what they believe is in the best inance for the city uh but here our client and staff can't agree uh and again the disagreement is not on whether there should be any non-residential but whether there's enough residential and how much can work there staff attempted to require a client to provide 35% of the development as a non-residential which is a policy that they've used but it's not a requirement we think this is very important we're under the old uh ulc which did not have a requirement now your new ulc does have 35% uh but clearly it doesn't work here but we're not we're not bound to that requirement in any event commissioners I'm als I'm also concerned that you could read the staff report review the staff presentation and Come Away with the impression that our client filed an application uh got the comments from the city responded to them and said okay we're done we want to go to PAB that's not what happened here um our client worked with staff for weeks for months but eventually and and and there was some back and forth and compromises but eventually staff and our and our client could not come to an agreement on whether there was enough non-residential being proposed and because uh these folks have a deadline they have to comply with with their tax tax credit and their funding obligations we had to go through the public hearing process again with just one one issue uh that needed to be resolved um please also note that staff is recommending denial where the staff report States um and I commend your staff by the way for being open and honest about this staff report is very clear the application that you have before you uh according to staff is consistent with 10 10 comprehensive plan policies goals and objectives and you and some ulc sections as well but it's inconsistent with five so consistent with 10 inconsistent with five of the goals objectives and policies and Commissioners if I had more time in the the presentation which which I don't we'd be happy to answer questions later um it's our opinion that the application actually complies with the five that the staff finds that it does not um we think it's just a matter of interpretation again I'd be happy to answer questions about that later if you're interested in that so Commissioners excuse me um so we find ourselves before you for a decision on how to resolve the one issue of whether the amount of non-residential being proposed here is enough again please don't lose sight of the fact that what's being proposed here is affordable housing it's real affordable housing 50 year 50 years worth a 50-year restriction of 30 60 and 70% Ami um the the application before you complies in every complies with every requirement in in the in the city's uh code that that it's applicable to and in our view complies with the comp plan in its entirety your staff finds 10 10 policies that it does comply with five that it doesn't we believe believe that it complies with all of them so we believe it's fully consistent with the comprehensive plan fully consistent with the Land Development code we do have the Heritage tree modification the modification we're requesting to save the Heritage tree and it's a large Heritage tree and we would uh respectfully request uh your recommendation of approval and be Happ at the appropriate time be happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you thank you staff good evening Lori Barn assistant development services director uh tonight I'm presenting the EOS sit Arbor Park 2 project on behalf of Carl B the project planner who uh developed the staff report that's before you this evening um unfortunately he was unable to attend the meeting tonight um similarly our other assistant director Gabriel quentis Who's acting as the Planning and Zoning manager is also not able to attend tonight so here I am um I will present to the extent possible I am recovering from an illness so if my voice gives way uh Elena Ray has graciously agreed to step in and uh tag team this presentation if it becomes necessary uh EOS at Arbor Park is an amendment to an approved development master plan um for the original Arbor Park development um the applicant is MHP Arbor Park and the property is located at the northeast corner of Price Boulevard and Citizens Parkway the current project phase two proposes three three-story buildings totaling 66 affordable multi-fam residential units and approximately 7,800 Square ft of commercial space uh this application has been reviewed by the staff development review team um through the pre-application and formal development review process um as indicated by Mr Boon staff did have multiple meetings with the applicant to communicate expectations regarding a mix of uses as required by the activity center goals objectives and policies and the Planned Community Development zoning District uh as you can see here most departments had no objections to the development master plan review however as it's been made clear the Planning and Zoning staff has recommended Denial on the basis of the residential and commercial mix uh the project has a futur Le indued designation of activity center 5 the current zoning map you see on the screen before you is incorrect based on the applicability of the zoning map that was in place at time this application was approved approved this map should represent planned Community Development zoning District uh brief history on Arbor Park phase one the city commission approved this project on January 11th 2022 and that project consisted of residential only 136 units of affordable housing um the development master plan submitted to the city Commission um as part of the agenda packet for that meeting included exhibit B which was the full development master plan set for Arbor Park phase one on several pages of that plan set there was a notation on the 4.43 Acres that's subject to tonight's development petition that indicated the future development on that parcel would be non-residential uh the city Commission on that date in January 2022 how discussions about the future non-residential development on the price and citizen Boulevard Frontage and commissioner white actually inquired about the notation on the plan and asked if this means that there would be another shopping center um neither the city staff or the applicant countered her assertion that this would be future non-residential development or commercial development at the time the city Commission approved this and that's important because the PCD zoning district and the activity center goals objectives and policies call for an intense mix of uses that are functionally and physically integrated in the PCD zoning and in the activity centers so the basis for the city commission originally approving a standalone residential development here was very well likely to be the indicator of future non-residential development on the remainder of the parcel uh again this dma 2493 for Eos at Arbor Park Phase 2 is proposed to include three three-story buildings 66 affordable multifam units and 7800 square fet of commercial space um the multifam equates to 15 dwelling units per acre which is the maximum Den under the activity center and PCD zoning District um notwithstanding the issues with the maximum residential development allocation being used up in Activity Center 5 which we'll talk about a little bit more um the 7800 square fet of commercial space on this property um equates to a floor area ratio of 0.4 the maximum floor area ratio in PCD is .95 uh briefly on the modification request the applicant has requested the allowance for two rows of parking in front of the building on Price Boulevard the purpose is to save a Heritage tree uh staff absolutely supports this modification request uh through the development master plan process uh you'll see your proposed site plan um the existing Arbor Park to the East chice Boulevard and Citizens Parkway uh the three buildings are shown on the site plan um as well as the connectivity to the existing Arbor Park it's our understanding that they will have um agre rements with Arbor Park phase one for use of their amenity facilities staff has reviewed this application for compliance with the city's comprehensive plan and the unified Land Development code uh as to Future land use element goal one um ensuring the character and location of land uses maximize the potential for economic benefit uh staff does not feel that development master plans as submitted um would maximize the economic development potential on this parcel um as stated they are maximizing the residential density on this parcel they are nowhere near maximizing the non-residential allowance on this parcel um this zoning District does allow a building height of 70 ft so there is ample opportunity to increase the non-residential school footage by going up rather than out uh future land use element objective one calls for future development activities to be directed to the Future land use map and encourage the use of innovative land use regulations um and meeting the goals objectives and policies within the comprehensive plan um the comprehensive ensive plan as well as the unified Land Development code calls for a mix of uses in our activity centers and our PCD zoning districts now you U most of you who have been on the commission for some time are well aware of the challenges that the city has had implementing the comprehensive plan policies as they were written and and as they were in effect at time of submittal of this application um due to those allocations being called out in the comprehensive plan in such a manner where there was no specificity as to how those app those regulations should be implemented um several years ago um probably about three years ago when Elena and Ry and I first came to the city it was clear that the city commission was frustrated to see so much Standalone residential development um being developed in our activity centers and we immediately took a look at of it at the regulations and determined that there was not a physical and functional integration of uses being provided for and the interpretation and the application of the regulations by the former staff um City commission even even requested um staff to take a look at what minimums we could require this was prior to the new ulc adop option um which resulted in the staff review of these mixed use or supposed mixed use and developments in PCD um under a microscope to ensure that they were meeting the spirit and intent of the activity center and PCD regulations uh mix of uses mix mixture of employment goods and services and resident iial and residential uses and activity centers wide range of residential unemployment alter alternatives to provide a balanced and healthy tax spase not going to go into too much detail um in regards to this goal the staff report um goes into great detail about fiscally sustainable mix of uses to provide for the long-term economic sustainability of cities um staff planning staff's position is that a 10% commercial to a 15 dwelling unit per acre residential project does not rise to the standards that the city's policies Envision for a intensive mixture of uses that provide for the city's long-term sustainability uh Activity Center 5 we talked about this um policy in general about the allocations of percentage of land uses within Activity Center districts um the residential allocation for Activity Center 5 for high density is is used up there is no high density residential available when Arbor Park phase one came through the planning zoning manager at the time issued an interpretation that this affordable housing should be permissible based on a policy in the comprehensive plan that indicates that residential will not be increased in activity centers unless it is Loft style apartments or similar affordable housing now whether you agree with that interpretation of the former planning inent manager or not um this isn't L style housing it is affordable housing so when we took a look at this phase two application we agreed to stand by the interpretation of the former Planning and Zoning manager as to allowing an increase in residential for affordable housing in the activity centers that does not absolve the applicant from meeting all of the other goals objectives and policies that are applicable to the activity centers in the PCD zoning districts intense mix of uses physically and functionally integrated mix uses maximizing the economic benefit and uh again staff feels that the development as proposed does not meet the standard for um the comprehensive plan policies regarding activity centers uh we we mentioned this policy already in my prior my discussion on a former former slide as far as increasing the residential um again it is an affordable housing project while we have not completed our housing study we're hoping to fund that in 2026 the city has um somewhere in the neighborhood um between 700 and a th000 affordable units um either already developed or in the works and we are hoping again to have the budget fund um a housing study so that we have a better handle on exactly what the city's needs are going to be moving forward into buildout uh the open space shown on the plan does meet the recre recreation and open space comprehensive plan policies uh the proposal does meet objective one of the housing element policy 1.7 of the housing element policy 2.6 of the housing element unified Land Development code 53-13 speaks to the design of the site and the buildings um not necessarily to all the other applicable regulations um so the design is consistent with Section 53103 uh the lots are sized to meet the requirements of 53106 of the ulc and the lck coverage setbacks and maximum Building height are complied with on the development master plan presented as are the buffer areas for Section 53113 this application was advertised and surrounding property owners were noticed as required by the unified Land Development code uh staff does recommend denial of dma 24093 for failing to meet the comprehensive goals objectives and policies regarding activity centers maximizing economic benefit um providing an intense mixture of residential and non-residential uses um and uh failing failing to U provide that physically and functionally integrated mixed use and and a development that will help uh provide for the city's long-term fiscal sustainability thank you thank you m barns it's rebuttal on [Music] applicant good evening uh Jackson Boon agent for the applicant and I have been sworn um first want to just start off I'll address uh Lori did a good job in her present ation she did uh make the statement to you all about the 2022 DMP which was approved and um what has been an item of uh confusion on my end is that the the the staff report and the what was agendas at as the DMP that was approved are different as far as what's shown so Lori did say that the DMP which was approved have multiple pages on there that said said nonresidential future development for the area which we're in front of you today for DM for the dma if I could use the overhead I have the agenda so the agenda here from the meeting which is January 11th 2022 and then the DMP which was agenda which is that is the approved DMP so there's no confusion um on that if uh I could use the overhead please if it's working I'll probably have to zoom in we stop the clock while you're getting it to work there Madam clerk all right thank you f zoom in please and I and bear with me I know zooming in is going to help at least to some extent but it's not going to make it uh very very easy to read so as you all are familiar the agendas are done the same way they are tonight um we have here petition a and then you have the DMP it's agenda as a separate item so the staff report here the staff report contains exhibits that have nonresidential labeled on there for I believe it was exhibit B1 but it is clear what was agenda separately as the DMP that was subject to approval this is the DMP that was approved and you can can look here and this because of the shading here it's going to be really hard to see but this right here all this says is future development and this is one page and then the next page Here There Is No Label that's survey data the next page here there is no label the next page here and I believe this is the only other page that has a label and I apologize for spending this around so quickly this only says future development and then here the last page this says future development so it's clear by the DMP that was approved this is the controlling document There Is No non-residential Label um I've made the statement to staff and other uh Personnel in the city on that point as we had our meetings with staff about hey there's this discrepancy can you can you clarify it for me I did not receive any response so again we like working with staff but on this item it's just no no information other than the document that controls which was approved thank you Jackson and as I've learned over the years just to say it bluntly the DMP that was approved has no restriction so there's no restriction in front of you at all today what the city commission approved is what the city commission approved period whether we're here today or whether we're in the courtroom that's what it is I wanted to respond and I don't have enough time to go through all five of the comp plan policies if I could have the overhead again please Heather um I was hoping you'd leave it on there we go if you'll recall uh Lori showed you this is in your you know the presentation this policy that showed the current percentages and that all of the medium density a residential is used up and then that went over to Future land use uh goal 2.25 um and what's important here is that this policy says that um any change of land use in the activity centers that does not further the financial sustainability of the city shall be prohibited land use changes for more residential use than is already permitted within the activity centers shall be prohibited with the exception with the exception mixed uses again the issue here is how much of a mix we have mixed uses similar mixed uses that provide low income housing you can't see the board but that was our presentation so we actually meet the exception we actually comply with this comp plan policy and the table before it um and um again if I had more time I could go through the other policies that staff has said that we are inconsistent with but um we believe that as far as the other ones go we are consistent uh with with all with all of them um and um lastly uh remember that there is a large amount of undeveloped land in this activity center we're focused on four acres um as if that's the only the only development that's ever going to occur there thank you thank you Mr rebuttal uh Lori Barnes uh assistant director development services I have been sworn um just very briefly on Mr Boon's commentary um Boon Jr's commentary on the development master plan being attached as a separate item on the January 2022 meeting um so I will agree that there was a separate attachment um that was labeled Arbor Park development master plan however in the staff report that was attached to the development master plan exhibit B1 is called out as the development master plan exhibit B1 development master plan in the same packet as the development master plan Mr Boon um spoke to and includes future development non-residential on multiple pages and this is probably not going to cooperate with me very well not easy to see on this areial here potential future development non-residential on this sheet potential non-residential future development so when you think about the city commission and what version of the development master plan they were looking to when they approved this development master plan um in my opinion it was the exhibit attached to the staff report if you look at the meeting minutes for this project um from January you will see that the commission questions took place and it specifically mentions commercial development or the remainder of the parcel and that goes to um the discussion that I mentioned commissioner White having at that January 2022 meeting um as to the specific comprehensive plan policy um that speaks to Loft side apartments and similar mixed use developments that provide affordable housing similar mixed use developments this would be a similar mixed use development perhaps to a loft style apartment Loft style apartments are Redevelopment of industrial buildings and they create those lofts in Upper floors over non-residential development nowhere in that policy is it indicated that the city has no discretion to determine compliance with all of the other comprehensive plan policies regarding intensity and mix of uses that are applicable to this development despite the affordable housing component thank you Miss Barnes city clerk public comments on this item yes we have June marcier followed by Jim magger and Larry Blake were these individuals sworn was was everybody that signed up to provide public comment did you stand and raise your right hand when we sore everybody in if not I did not see them um I just asked did you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to provide is true and accurate to the best of your knowledge so help you that yes thank you Maier you said my name very well by the way um I a resident now at Arbor Park phase one and uh it couldn't come in a better time because I've been homeless for a couple of years and uh it really did benefit many people living there at this time I don't think commercial property being a joined to it would benefit being there's a lot of children across the street at the other Park the other um development and then there's a lot of seniors where we are so I'm very fragile that that would just bring chaos to West price and getting in and out and not being able to walk to Publix if we needed to so um I would like to see as more um low income hous housing thank you thank you good evening everyone my name is Jim Margret um I'm currently a resident at harbors and um it couldn't come out a better time because uh when you say affordable housing here in Florida people laugh in your face and uh I had a hard time getting a place to live based on um my income it's a fixed income and it's it's just not a Florida thing it's it's all over America you know housing is high right across the street of Toledo Blade for the same thing I have now it's almost $2,000 you know if I was to get that I wouldn't have no money to eat on or live on so you know I'm very thankful that I was I got a church member set me up with the address and the phone number to contact the people and I became a resident you know um I heard some things about we might be sharing uh stuff from the other Park which it's okay but I I like to see it more 55 and older keep that separation that's just my opinion but it's a great place to live I treat it like it's my home um technically it is my home so I you know I take everything to heart and soul I keep my eyes out I know that area I lived in Northport for 11 years you know I love Northport you know and I think the gentlemen here are doing a great job you know and and if it wasn't for them people like me and others wouldn't have this opportunity to call another place or home in the times that we live in today so I just want to say thank you for letting me share thank you thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Gary Blake I also live at Harbor I um too was homeless I just moved in December and for these gentlemen to make lowincome facilities for people like me and other ones who want fixed incomes so security and it's a great place and it's like heaven meet people with our age to areas where we have people who can talk to because it's very hard to meet people as seniors so now these don't people want to make a family one that's even better it's hard for even families for two or three kids or more go forward living in housing or apartments like the young man just said I've been into many of these apartments trying to get a in couldn't afford it so this place is great it's like heaven thank you very much appreciate it thank you Debbie McDow and Josh Smith hello again first I want to clear the record I have absolutely no connection to the applicants um no connection no familial business we just have a common name um everybody knows that I like to do research my research shows that since January of 22 until now prior to this dma uh the commission has approved over 2,000 luxury apartments not counting all the luxury apartments at Heron Creek that were approved long long ago during that same time frame the commission has approved 424 affordable housing dwelling units that are income restricted of those 424 housing developments uh dwelling units um 288 are for families 136 are age restricted and income restricted I fully understand we need to have a non-resident component Activity Center 5 has plenty of land and opportunities to fulfill that requirement in tax Bas and jobs I don't see developers busting down the doors to build affordable housing in our city thank you thank you this developer has already had a vested interest in Northport with their development of Arbor Park phase one they agreed to incorporate 9% non-residential within their development the multifam luxury apartments four had zero non-residential zero two had a component of non-residential one of them is in Wellen Park and the other one is at Sumpter and pocatella which is on 11 acres and they're required to build 10 ,000 Square ft of non-residential this is 4 acres and they're building almost 8,000 square F feet of of non-residential please support this project we need affordable housing in this city we need it for our seniors we need it for our families this will be constructed within 2 years you have it on the record how long is it going to take for that that four acres to actually get developed as commercial property a hell of a long time I need yes Jos Smith citizen um I'd like to thank staff for sticking to your guns on this um I'm going to go against you here but uh it's just amazing to see that with that ulc I mean it it's nice to see staff actually stick to the commercial side I mean we literally took a wrecking ball to most of the city neighborhoods around here and it's good to see them sticking to their guns um unfortunately this is one of those areas where it's going to be industrial commercial this is the Zone I mean this is you know and I live right next to it but if you want all these people to work you're going to need some affordable people who can work there um I promise I'm not working at any of those places so if we've got a place that's actually willing to get some Affordable Care in or affordable housing in that way we have people to work the jobs that are going to be in a commercial setting I think it would be an excellent thing um as a side note this is one of those things that I love about the Ponzi scheme that is growth pays for growth this is one of them projects where you guys get to look at the numbers and prove I'm right supposedly it's only going to bring in a million dollars over 10 years I guarantee it's going to cost more infrastructure cost to build this thing than that the impact fees are not going to cover the infrastructure it's going to take please remember as these projects come before you that the growth vers growth is an exponential thing if it takes $100 it takes $200 to cover it in a year we've proven that so you have to continue to grow at an insane rate and the more you grow the more you grow please start paying attention to the whole picture folks and like I said if we can actually get some tax money coming in and we can get some affordable housing instead of that thing sitting grass forever why not too blade is the area where you decided that this is just needs to be the epicenter of the economy let's get some people who want to live here let's get some people who want to work here I'm always hearing that 90% of the people leave this would be a great way to get some people who can actually afford to work in this town we don't have a lot of jobs that pay a lot that's why we leave so let's get some people in here who can actually live here thank you thank you is that it all right moving on to commissioner questions and discussions missioner Langan uh thank you mayor I have a lot of questions so you may want to time me and I'll come back for a second round if others want to speak um I I have some questions of Staff um in our old red staff go where is she right oh right in front in our old ulc we did have some percentage Target for nonresidential development in our activity centers what was that percentage for Activity Center five in the old ulc Activity Center five um 133% professional office 44% commercial 31% industrial okay so that's still in total 88% non-residential do we know where we are at today in our commercial ratio in this activity center see um I can I can tell you that we have I I unfortunately I don't have a combined breakdown for you so 133% of activity center 5 for professional office would be 87.6 Acres there are 69.2 acres remaining 44% commercial is 296.55 Acres remaining 31% industrial would be 28.9 acres and that leaves 159.3max: um our residential our residential allocations for low density medium density and high density are all used and as a matter of fact um the high density is at minus 13.2 Acres so we've already overbuilt according to the old U ulc correct 13.2 Acres was Arbor Park Phase 2 and that was allowed because of the comprehensive plan policy that specifically spoke to L style apartments or or similar mixed use developments providing for affordable housing okay thank you for that I'm going to be a little bit all over the place with my questions and I apologize for that um perhaps the applicant can help me with with the next one can you talk a little bit more about the Federal Grant and also as part of that what is Sarasota County's involvement if any in this project sure um thank you commissioner so this project is funded through a very competitive allocation process of the housing tax credit program which is Federal Credit allocated by the state of Florida through a department called Florida Housing Finance Corporation um these credits are issued to about six developments per year in medium counties out of about 60 applications so highly highly sought after highly touted credits very valuable because they give you enough funding effectively to get these jobs built and built them properly with a high level of quality and they limit the amount of commercial that can be part of those that I understand corly the the constraint is the federal constraint so this program is governor governor under the Internal Revenue code section 42 of the Internal Revenue code and part of the code because they don't want to have these credits go to subsidize a large portion of commercial non-residential they limit you because it's a Housing Development first and foremost um but it can include mixed use components so they limit you to 20% of the revenue that comes in through your commercial leases or through your rental of your of your units the 20% maximum can come from the commercial component before it would violate that provision of the tax code and then Sarah Sarasota County I think was your last question Sarasota County um awarded us a million dooll uh loan through the cdbg ER program which came as a result of Hurricane Ian Sarasota County got a direct allocation they were looking um as part of that allocation their action plan required uh investment in affordable housing and uh we were again selected amongst a um High number of applications for a small Award of funding um but they are Financial Partners of ours okay commissioner if I if I might to fully answer your question I'm just going to ask Mr Sher by the way uh the there were a lot of questions about this 20% at the uh at the PAB meeting and and so um Chris if you if you would uh explain what happens if you exceed 20% of the revenue and uh you know as far as the tax credit and and and the people that have bought how what the the the consequences of that and also also please explain about how you you have you have a m certain minimum number of units you have to build per the tax credit for your financing and if you uh you know and that constraint that plus the 20% locks you in as to how much non-residential so how how all that works together sure so when we when we submit an application to the state for these for these very coveted credits um we stipulate a number of units that we're going to build and as you can imagine we would have a lot of competitors who were um would would not be happy if we went in and said hey we're going to produce 66 units and tried to reduce it down in fact that would result in a lawsuit so we are set at 66 units we could go up we can't go down the 20% what would happen here is we go and we find an investor to buy these credits usually a bank um insurance companies those companies who have large tax liabilities they buy these credits to offset their taxes and so there's some requirements that they have through Federal Regulation the community re Redevelopment uh act that requires Banks to buy these credits so they're the biggest buyer of these but what happens after they make the investment is they need to get a tax opinion that we meet all the requirements of section 42 of the Internal Revenue code and so if we were to demonstrate that we didn't have we couldn't get that opinion rendered because of the amount of commercial space or the amount of Revenue coming from that commercial space we wouldn't be able to close the financing on the transaction if we did close the financing and found out later that that was the case we'd be subject to what's called recapture our credits would be pulled back um and we would have a personal liability Me Myself and and my partner would have a liability to then pay the investor back for the equity that they put into the development okay I get I get the gist of that and Miss lri I apologize you probably need a break but I'll probably need you back here um and tell me when my time is up I'll just keep going commissioner names up there so so the floor if if you could put the schematic again of phase two what the buildings look like and I'll just continue with my questions um as you do that so I think I saw three buildings three stories each I'm assuming the commercial is vertically integrated meaning the first floor is commercial I guess my question for Lori would be if all three floors of those buildings were commercial what percentage would we get to so I'm hearing 10% on one side I'm hearing 35% on the other side it will take me some time to do some math with a view that is going to to um allow me to accurately read the building footprint Square footages for the other two buildings um any kind of gut just a rough gut feel I'm not expecting you to be probably get you somewhere near 30% okay so if all the first floors are commercial so the the building from exuse has got a little bit of a larger footprint um somewhere in the 36,000 I think range and then the other two or 26 so it might be you know between 25 and 30% if they were all vertically integrated mixed use that would be my gut um okay estimate without running the numbers for you okay and so applicant if we took those first floors away how many units can you build in the current footprint and and to include parking to meet the parking requirements for all that non-residential space just those two floors the two upper floors of the three buildings how many units are well assuming we weren't constrained by you know the ability to finance the project and we just went up um we have to that's a related question what are the implications of going up that's that's the problem so the physical constraints of the site we're working with 4.43 Acres right now the biggest cost in construction is concrete in order to build something that has a much larger commercial footprint requires additional parking which means that I'm going to have to build a parking structure and that's when things tip upside down pretty quickly because the cost of building a structured parking deck right now is running me about 30 to $35,000 a space to construct whereas a surface parking space cost about $2,500 for the asphalt and striping so the numbers get turned upside down rendering it financially feasible um as we add more commercial have to add more parking eventually there's a Tipping Point where that does not work um in addition if we go up above three stories we no longer can have a walkup unit we are required then to put in an elevator elevators are costing us about $250,000 per elevator right now so we're working with a limited number of sources of financing that we have and we are you know we have to make the cost work within the sources of funding that we have and so that's where we really as developers what we do on a daily basis is optimize how we can make that perfect mix work and um you in many cases it seems you know in theory easy to to adjust it but you move one lever and 16 other levers move down and and you got to always balance them out so that's sort of the complication um in general and I'm sure there'd be some other spiral effects that we would have to we'd have to deal with if uh we added more commercial okay and I'm sure this is in your proposal but it's just not here so you have one two and three bedroom units what's the square footage of each so they run between 6 and approximately 650 Square fet to a little bit over 1,000 square fet if I can pull up my my um the one bedroom is 650 the TW bedroom is what right here um I did not so one bedroom is $6.99 two bedrooms 9989 and three bedrooms so we have one bedroom 700 Square ft two bedrooms almost a th000 three bedrooms almost 1,200 okay commissioner langon on the square footage issue there was a lot of discussion about this at the PAB meeting trying to find an extra 500 square ft or 1,000 sare ft of non-residential um Mr bench Mr bench you made the presentation told the PAB there were 250 Acres of undeveloped commercial land in Activity Center 5 and that there were 159 Acres of undeveloped industrial land and Activity Center 5 um so I use my calculator because I've suffered from Venice High School math and the square footage of the commercial undeveloped land about square footage a little bit more here a little bit more there 10, 890,000 Square undeveloped square footage of uh commercial in Activity Center 5 for industrial 6 Milli 9264 so that's roughly 17.8 million undeveloped square feet uh of Industrial and Commercial in in Activity Center five my goodness where is that land in Activity Center five um Miss Barn can you confirm we have an area a Ariel uh and Jackson moon agent for the applicant I could use the uh the overhead again thank you heather so if you could zoom out just a little north of Price Boulevard alone is approximately 180 181 acres north of price is a different activity center no no ma'am it's in the same it's in the same Miss Lori can you uh clarify that for us please Gateway is five are Innovation Corridor we're on we've gone back and forth between names and numbers and now I can't identify AC let's just bring it up real quick because you're right we've had a lot of different names and numbers and um we still and again commissioner while while Lori is trying to find this I the figures I gave you were what staff reported to the PAB at the PAB meeting as part the acreage okay you that's where that's where we got the information from with staff yes and I am 99.9% certain that that is and of course and your comp plan the best map it is not there anymore if you go to the the word the zoning map where you can change it Activity Center 5 um does incorporate the land north of Price Boulevard it thank you north of price but not north of Toledo I mean north of um 75 no not north of 75 it stops at um it stops at Panacea and the canal okay thank you for that and and kind of to get to this point as as Jeff moon was speaking on and I know we've talked about 20 22 this takes me back to I think the first presentation I gave in front of city manager Fletcher about a rezoning which you all who were on the commission at a time at that time may remember about a parcel north of Toledo or north of the interstate on too blade on the west side and there's been this conversation with staff about how do we look at property and activity centers that's zoned PCD are we looking at it piece by piece or are we looking at it activity Center ho and understanding the PCD zoning district is geared to create mixed use in the activity centers but are we focusing that specifically on each parcel or are we focusing it on the activity center wide I think it's says in either in the comp plan Andor the ulc to create the functional and integrated uses to create a campus like area to attract major employers and to provide a multitude of uses including residential as a standalone use it's clear residential as a standalone use is allowed in activity centers and allowed in PCD but this this wrestling back and forth of how do we do it um in in this in this aerial alone you can see you know there's the Public's anchored shopping center immediately to our East that has retail that's the only use that doesn't have two different specific uses at least to my knowledge on that site does that mean that's inconsistent with the ulc and it's inconsistent with the comp plan no it's a contributing parcel to the activity center wide we got to this at the end of the PAB hearing um and again you know our our interpretation and it's been the entire time since I've dealt with the ulc and the comp plan the activity centers in PCD are looked at in macro not in micro here we have a parcel that does have a mix of uses but when you're focusing on it in a micro scale sure you would want to maximize both of those uses to the greatest extent possible for you all on on this side of the Das but the code does not require there is no codified percentage requirement in the code remember we're under the old code there is no codified percentage requirement in the comp staff has a policy they have every right to have a policy to guide their decision making but there is no codified percentage requirement in the code um I submit to you we're consistent with the code and we're comp we're cons consistent with the comp plan and we're compliant with the code thank you um Miss Barnes what are the allowed uses um for commercial in this area what kind of businesses would be allowed on that parcel um what would be allowed is for the activity center regulations uh permitted uses so a wide variety of uh commercial uses I mean we're not going to see an industrial complex retail to services to um you might have some light industrial uses but light industrial are contained inside a building you know you're talking maybe small smaller a um Cottage assembly or that kind of thing Cottage business assembly you know not not any large scale type industrial um and moreover um we'd be looking for a mix of uses um the code requires a mix of uses in activity centers so it doesn't have to be residential it can be a mix of commercial office um it doesn't have to mix with residential [Music] necessarily wow if if it I'm just going to swing into comments do do you have some questions or I don't want to be dominating this conversation see any other Commissioners names up there go ahead I do have some comments why don't you go and let me sort of collect my comments here all right um has there ever been any nonresidential interest in developing this particular parcel the last couple years Chris year for the record um we had the property marketed uh for about a year and we only had two letters of intent both from Public Storage users um certainly need a lot more of storage city um thank you um let's see um so basically we've got a project that if we force up the non-residential development you folks lose your tax bennies and makes this project not viable um we certainly need affordable housing um you know I appreciate all the subtleties and the nuances of the presentation and I I do wish to back up a little and commend staff you know this city commission has pushed economic development in this city consistently and it would be distressing had staff actually supported this okay so um I appreciate that staff stood their ground and feels that this should not be approved on the other hand we Commissioners have that luxury we are policy makers we look at what's best for the city and its citizens and looking at this project we have Federal Monies to help build affordable housing we have account that supported this project we have a benefit to what's going to be 66 families Andor individuals who desperately need affordable places to live in our city as the numbers were quoted over 2,000 market rate apartments and you know I mean how much affordable do we have and and we're doing a pretty good job probably better than most municipalities in and around this County but that doesn't mean we should be complacent or not continue to push to to to afford more people the opportunity to stay in Northport this property AB buts price price is going to be widened the reality if this project doesn't get approved of anything else going on that property non-residential it this property will sit for a year from a practical standpoint in my opinion this I've been in that area I've driven those neighborhoods I've looked to me an affordable housing property of this caliber would be a perfect perfect mix and commission has the legal authority to make a decision to approve this and as long as we're following the law as far as I'm concerned I don't believe this project makes or breaks the economic viability of the city million dollars over 10 years is good I'd love to know what a Mini Storage would throw off over a 10year period how much different would it be would it be another million over 10 years I don't know that number but but I I guess to say that you know I venture to say that it wouldn't be so significant that it's going to you know make a significant impact on the economic viability of the Cities so I am totally in support of this I I think this makes sense I appreciate it does not follow the spirit of what commission has directed staff to do and again I commend staff for standing their ground that's what you should do we have to look at what's best for the city and for its citizens and by God we need some more affordable housing so that's it commissioner floor is all yours oh looks like before I'm taking the floor away from you commissioner dual thank you yeah um first of all for for the petitioners along the way in the presentation I I heard I think the words were compliance period 50 years would you explain to me what that means we're going to enter into a land use restriction agreement that runs with the land meaning it is not if there were an action of foreclosure from A lender it would not be wiped out it is there in place and cannot be wiped out uh for a period of 50 years where we're covenanting to um the income and restrictions that we have in place that were presented early in the presentation um over a period of 50 years so I won't be around when that happens but after 50 years we have a few options and um you know it may end up continuing to be affordable housing but it gives us that flexibility thereafter to uh to restructure the the asset all right so so what I'm getting at is will this be affordable housing after a 10-year period 100% okay it'll continue thank you for that um I just have some comments uh Lori I hope when the raises and promotions come due that your name is on top of the list know to be um you know to be battling you know one person here and 1 two three four five uh I commend you you know especially when uh you know you were number three on the list um and I do commend staff for their position on the street that I live in live on there's a sign and it says speed limit 30 miles an hour that is a law and there's no prevarication of that whatsoever okay it's a law well we've been talking about a lot this evening is is a policy there's a difference between a policy and a law obviously the city the way it was you know first Incorporated and you know the way it developed you know it was it was built residential and everybody knows that residential just does not pay the bills as well as commercial and for us to try to get to that commercial 30 35% uh that's a great goal and you know I truly believe the city is going to be working on that but in this case I'm looking at as you've heard some of our public commenters mentioned we're talking about homes for people who have trouble paying the rents in this area and we have had plethora of luxury housing built as a commissioner you know I have to look at what I feel is the benefit for the citizens maximize the benefit for the city and the citizens of the city um to give up this amount of commercial in this one instance is overridden by the fact that it's also a commercial benefit for businesses here to have employees that can afford to live here and also just one more thing uh the PAB did approve this and the commission appoints the PAB members and relies on their input uh I do thank the staff wholeheartedly for their efforts but uh I'm for this project thank you vice mayor yes um like I said I didn't have much knowledge about this project coming in until listening tonight but what really got me and it's it's really a no-brainer but it's the the stories from the residents that live there and and how it changed their lives and made it a hell of a lot better for them to be able to reside within our community that which they enjoy and love to be here with and we have to give that opportunity to anybody out there that's willing to pursue that you know I agree staff's stuck with their guns and I appreciate that but I also agree with the Boon with uh Jackson when we look at these activity centers they should be looked at the macro not the micro because each piece is going to compliment every other piece that's in there and before long you know we've got to have place for everybody we will have commercial lot of vacant land out there if we denied this you just got more vacant land sitting out there going to waste when we could have 66 families living in there and when it comes down to infrastructure and everything like that out there we are limiting infrastructure needs by having a One-Stop shop for sanitation the water lines everything and such so it does cut down on the cost of the the city on having to go out and going into 60 different homes emptying their trash doing sidewalk maintenance this that and the other so to me it's a no-brainer I am for this project I'm also in agreement for the waiver to save the Heritage Oak and uh whenever that time comes I'll gladly make that motion mayor that's all I got vice mayor M mayor Langan as often happens I approach things with a different [Music] perspective and this commission just went through an extremely painful process of resoning this city um and I think all of us and certainly myself personally have spent a lot of time talking with residents of this city of how vitally important developing out our commercial space is to the long-term Financial viability of the city and our percentages are whacked out in terms of how much commercial development we have and how much residential development we have I would not give one minute's consideration to this housing proposal if it weren't affordable and I am struggling to find a reason to say yes to it in light of what we have just gone through as a community to expand our commercial footprint over the past from my humble opinion over the past 20 25 years our government staff and commission have made incremental decisions that have dramatically expanded the residential footprint in our activi centers and for those who aren't aware way back when our activity centers were formed to be a focal point of commercial development and yet and and whether it's law or policy or practice I think it was pretty clear in both our old ulc and I suspect the mr's Boon are more familiar with the old ulc than I am I You' been around a lot longer um but clearly the intention for those activity centers was commercial of all types and yet when you travel around them there are subdivisions of single family homes and single family home neighborhoods throughout our activity centers and I believe we got there by making incremental decisions like this one and being way too willing to give away our commercial footprint for residential footprint now again I I wouldn't even give a minute thought to this proposal if it weren't affordable so here's my dilemma that I'm really hoping someone can help me with I don't know how much affordable housing the city needs our housing study is 12 15 years old I'm kind of looking to Mrs Barnes or misss Barnes for that it's old and it needs to be redone and here's how I look at affordable housing my priority list in this order for who I want to benefit when the city of Northport supports the development of affordable housing in our city is number one current or recent residents who've been pushed out of their homes because they can no longer afford it I want those people front of the line when leasing offices open up for affordable housing my second priority are people who work here and would like to live here but they can't afford it I want those folks to be second in line for those affordable units and third in light of how our city is growing we have I don't know I'm losing count of how many hospitals are coming here um there's going to be a lot of them and they'll bring good paying jobs but they're also going to bring pay levels for people who require affordable housing I have no numbers but I'll tell you what I do know two things this city has been way more committed to building affordable housing here than any other contingent community that I see educate me if my data is off but we've done an okay job doing that the other thing I know because I worked it to the bone with PM Port how do we get those priority people residents who are being displaced workers who can't afford to live here how do we get them to the front of the leasing line legally we can't do it so do I want to give up commercial land for affordable housing that might go to people that don't fit my priority list let the other communities build a affordable housing for their residents that are being displaced for their workers who can't afford to live there I believe the housing should be where the jobs are and when you look at our City's job production with our affordable unit production we're doing really really good we don't we haven't done a good job producing jobs so I'm struggling with this incremental decisionmaking process of the past decades where we've so eagerly given up commercial space for residential I don't know how many affordable units I need all I know is I can't put my folks at the front of the line that's a problem for me so for this project to work for me I'd like to see some meeting in the middle how can we increase the commercial component I don't think we're going to get to 35 and I also appreciate staff holding the line because that's what this commission asked them to do so how do we get there gentlemen and ladies what can we do to enhance the commercial viability of this project without jeopardizing your funding can we get to 15 or 20% can one building go up a floor I'd approve that waiver if we we have to go higher than what's allowed I mean I I guess what I want is for me personally I'm willing to work with you I would like the project here it's all the things I've shared with you that are making this decision really tough for me no I I we hear you and I respect your you know your perspective it's an interesting perspective that I don't have the history within the city to um to really glean on my own so um at this point um there's not much we can do with the amount of commercial we started out with no commercial and um in the working process with staff uh starting at the end of 2023 um we were told that there's the policy to incorporate commercial and we worked really hard to get a site plan that worked that didn't require massive number of variances a multitude of variances as you can see we only have the one with the Tre so we work really hard to get a site plan that fit physically within the Land Development code and the guidelines we also work very hard to develop a product that is still able to be a highquality product that could be supported financially and everything we do at this point to change it is going to cost more money and turn that upside down can we go up with one building so you only have to put elevators in one one building work with us here to see how we might balance this a little better so commissioner um please please remember by the way I really me I'm GNA speak just personally for me I respect what you're trying to do here we had this very perhaps not as passionately but we had this very same discussion at PAB so two things I just would ask you please to keep in mind when you're at asking my client about this and I'm giving him a chance to think about it is number one um they have been working on this it isn't as if they started at you know SE uh 7700 and have only been willing to go up to 70 7800 right so they have been working with staff on this that's number one number two they're limited by the 20% you know the the problem here that you're drilling down on might actually be the Federal tax code that has the 20% limitation third let me ask you this if I can just inject there if I may miror let's try to land This Plane shortly I know I get commissioner I get it if we separate if we do the integration horizontally and separate the commercial into an independent building can you Lop it off can you somehow and maybe the other buildings go up maybe they don't you get the first flu is back what can we do I I don't think there's a there's an opportunity to you know bucate them because it's all under one loan It's all under one allocation of federal credits as we were looking at the numbers leading up to this meeting the 20% already requires us because our rents are so low again affordable housing our rents are capped So 20% of the total revenue is lower So based on the the commercial rates right now in the area we're going to be renting the space for pretty reasonable material discount um compared to the market which is not a problem for us we're okay with that right um but we do have to abide by that law otherwise we're not going to be able to move the project forward the only other thing to that I would love to work more diligently on this and you know we're creative people we try we've been very creative in getting this site plan produced we do have a deadline um to close financing by the end of March otherwise our our credits are subjected and they're at Jeopardy and the project becomes a Jeopardy and obviously we have a big commitment to this project at this point and we have been working with staff for for many many months um I I wish we would have had a conversation sooner and you know that's to no one's fault but um perhaps there was some a little bit of room we could have made something work but at this point amending the site plan adding the additional cost violating having to be cognizant of the potential violation of the federal uh Internal Revenue code requirement I think it's inherently just difficult for us to get there and get all that done when we have to meet this deadline commissioner let me I have one last question is there any way legally we can get Northport residents and Northport workers to the front of the line so what we do we do have to abide by fair housing laws and that's probably where early leasing you were talking exactly so um we have um we have an interest list that we work through before we open it up publicly for uh for Leasing and so we're able to work with our partners a lot of our financial partners similar to other jurisdictions that we've worked with what about the city's housing Partners in the region our social services division here in the city are they part of your that is our marketing strategy 101 that's who we go to first because we want to serve residents of Northport right we don't want people coming in from CER County if we don't need them to and we we know there's enough demand here so we're we'll be very happy to work with you on some strategies there and you know we don't know everybody here in the city that that may be of interest or may have um you know nonprofits that are mission aligned with us as well so we would love to uh take you up on that to have an opportunity they are absolutely and we we can find some ways to make sure we have um residents here on a on a list and interest list before we open it up for the public okay commissioner Petro last but not least mayor I'll be quick thank you for your presentation and the city staff thank you for your presentation as well um I have a question um not that I'm in favor or against this practice do you do backround checks when you do lease when it comes to be open yeah we have to so oh we are long-term owners of these assets meaning we own this for there's a period of 15 years where the credit period is our investor who's buying the credits for is doing the deal with us we're the sponsor we're putting up the financial guarantees they're doing business with us because we have a partnership so there is no way for us to get out of this deal for a minimum of 15 years and in most cases we own it for another 15 years so we are long-term owners this is not a build and sell as a result of that um we are very very cognizant and very uh we we scrutinize our applicants we want the best applicants so no criminal histories outside of minor misdemeanors um certain credit checks background checks are are uh just part of the of the recruit tenant review process um employment history is important when we're dealing with families uh particularly and eviction history so there's a lot of areas and data that we check in registering our tenants before we actually um approve them for occupany and just want to State a couple things this project is not in line with our current principle however it is in line with uh the need for the affordable housing in the city my nephew who is a firefighter he's almost I think he's over 30 years old he cannot move out of his parents' house because he's just he can't afford it and U it's unfortunate that the housing market prices are out of control so I commend that what you're doing and the testimonies worked they always do um the one thing also I want to say that how about lowincome or non for-profit organization as an idea um would would you be able to will you be open to uh consider leasing your offices if there offices um in that regard for that specific Target group non for-profits and I'm asking specifically our Northport Art Center will be homeless soon so um do you guys consider non-for-profits I've I've come in contact to many non-for-profit organizations that cannot afford any office in this area that's a that's a great idea and again we want to work with you guys on that we have not selected a a tenant for the commercial space at this point we had heard in previous meetings that there is a sort of a daycare desert out there and that we had been talking to Salvation Army also nonprofit um about uh a daycare facility we've been talking to Bezos Academy um which is a more of a it's a more of a preschool than a daycare I'd say um but in line with the community um at this point we are certainly open we have you know 8,000 squ feet um we have the ability to bifurcate the space and uh we'd certainly be interested and open to working and helping local organizations who may be looking for a new home uh may need to upgrade their facilities I think that's all well within well within our capacity and and actually it fits with our community and with our mission um one of the things about the commercial space to commissioner langan's point that just kind of occurred to me now is we're unable one of the reasons financially it's so hard add more we're unable to underwrite the revenue coming from the commercial in our financing so I don't I can't borrow against the commercial Revenue because my Comm my lender is a 15-year term and unless I have a lease in place for a minimum of 15 years which is unusual usually it's a 5 to 10 year lease term then they don't give me the credit to borrow against it because if I'm borrowing that against that revenue and that tenant vacates then I'm going to have an issue paying my mortgage so it's really tough to add a lot more commercial space beyond the the tax code requirement um because I'm generally not able to leverage the revenue from that commercial space so at this point um we're looking for the right tenants it's not about you know optimizing our cash flow at the end of the day so we'd be happy to work with with you or anybody you can refer us to as you petitioned us we are specifically personally I petition you to consider non-for-profits locally that are based in the city of Northport because they cannot afford any rent and um and maybe this will not be in your violation of 20% of Revenue that comes from non-residential units because non for-profits pay much less um in rent and I I petition you to consider um non-for-profits locally um and I'm in favor of this project thank you we'll have um we'll have someone from my team reach out to your your office and and we'd love some referrals and that goes for anybody I think we we have most of your contact information so we'll follow up and we would love any uh local referrals on potential tenants it's just the one last thing almost weekly I've been I'm approached by non for-profits asking does the city have anything for us at the lower cost does a city has any have any buildings so just keep that in mind thank you we'll do all right ready for closing arguments staff five minutes Lori Barnes assistant director development services I have Vince sworn um in closing uh as stated in the presentation staff is recommending denial of the EOS at Arbor Park Phase 2 the velopment um I have communicated this to Prior commissions and with two new Commissioners I'll just reiterate that staff's role is to review our development applications for compliance with our comprehensive plan and our Land Development regulations staff does not is not allowed to form an opinion on a project or provide a recommendation based on whether we like hit that is not our role our role is to provide you with our professional opinion as to whether as planners and as certified planners most most of our planners are certified um as to whether this development proposal is compliant with the spirit and intent of the comprehensive plan goals objectives and policies and the unified Land Development code uh step has done that and the commission's role is to determine if based on the staff report the testimony provided by staff and the applicant and the comp competent substantial evidence shows that this development in your opinion is consistent with the intent and spirit of those comprehensive plan policies and the unified Land Development code uh one last thing I would like to um regarding a comment um by Mr Boon about the activity centers being viewed on a macro level versus a micro level section 53-12 of the unified Land Development code speaks to the plan Community Development zoning district and it talks about providing an area for coordinated development of industrial commercial service residential government uses within a park-like setting however it also goes on to state that the PC dis District provides for a variety of uses where project project components and land use relationships are physically and functionally integrated the use of the word project there speaks to these regulations being applied on a project by project basis versus on a macro level for each Activity Center um so I'd like to just I just wanted to um provide that information for your consideration as you make your deliberations um thank you for your time thank you m Sparks applicant uh Commissioners thank you very much for uh for your time and and and listen to everybody here and and ask asking the some really good questions to get to the to get to uh point of making a decision I want to commend Lori I tell as close as we've been to her here she's really sick and she's doing a great job and whoever made the point about it's her one of her and four or five of us um I'd take Lori anytime one one against four or five and we do recognize staff's just doing their job here um uh just just a few just a few points and before I get into them uh commissioner langon I'll say this if you want like to at least my opinion of how Northport got to the situ way it was situation it is now I'd be happy to spend time with you you know I remember in the mid-70s when the Venice High School football team when we'd come back on our bus headed back to Venice High School from playing down south on two lane 40 two lane US 41 would stop at bis Gan we had one guy on the team that lived in the Northport and he he just got his stuff and disappeared into the night walking home wherever his home was so I I remember Northport you know that far back I know you do but what we have here for you tonight Commissioners is is a it's a it's a choice uh affordable housing real affordable housing 50-year commitment think how many kids in over 50 years can live in these apartments where their families can afford it go to elementary school go go to Middle School go to high school in Northport and hopefully go to college or even just go straight into the workforce here locally if they go to college come back come back and and work here think of the opportunity that provides but you do have the other issue that you spent a lot of time tonight talking about which is the commercial so it's a balancing act I would suggest to you that this would be a much tougher choice in my view if this was the last four acres left in Activity Center five that hadn't been developed um there is 17.8 million square fet of undeveloped land in activities Center five um and I think that has to be part of your decision when you're balancing the affordable housing versus the commercial um um the the this I this issue of how do you look at how you mix the uses well remember we're mixing the uses here on this site it's just the question is how much is what we're proposing enough um I won't go into the 20% the IRS rules uh but that is one of the key factors here um I will say this though so some of you all have heard this before and I don't really like to say this about myself but I've been practicing land use law for over 40 years um I'm have the highest rating that a lawyer can have in the State of Florida in my practice area I've been qualified as an expert to give opinion testimony in courts in Florida um I've taught classes at the University of Florida law school on land use law um my my experience my opinion in these 40 years has been that you look at mixed use areas on an areawide basis because that's how development occurs just one example downtown well and park if you looked at it as parcel by parcel then U the Banyon house one of my favorite restaurants in this whole part of Florida That Couldn't exist like that it would have to have some sort of residential on top of it um that's not it's not how you look at mixing uses you look at mixed uses in an area but again we're proposing mixed use here it's just a question of how much how much is enough Commissioners um we have um provided um an adequate amount more than adequate amount of competent substantial evidence to show that the application before you is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan it's consistent with the city's unified Land Development code and uh we would respectfully request your vote of approval thank you thank you sir we have arrived time to close public hearing and I am requesting a motion I'm make mayor thank you sir motion to approve with conditions and applicant requested waiver I move to approve petition number d-24 d93 with condition numbers 2 through eight as identified in section four of the staff report and waiver one as requested by the applicant to provide one lane of travel with parking on both sides in front of build one between the building and West Price Boulevard in an effort to save a Heritage tree and allow a digital additional parking in front of building one and find that based on competent substantial evidence the development master plan and the modifications comply and are consistent with the intent of the unified Land Development code and the comprehensive plan and do not adversely affect the public interest I'll second that all right I have a motion made by vice mayor seconded by missioner Duval motion is to approve with conditions and applicant requested waiver approve petition number dma 2493 with condition numbers 2 through eight as identified in section four the staff report and waiver one as requested by the applicant to provide one lane of travel with parking on both sides in front of building one between the building and West price Boulevard in an effort to save a Heritage tree and allow additional parking in front of building one and find that based on competent substantial evidence development master plan and the modifications comply or consistent with the intent of the unified Land Development code comprehensive plan and do not adversely affect public interest this point there's nothing else to that I think it's time to V and that passes 4 to one uh commissioner Lang reason stated yeah reason stated I I do want to say it hurts my heart to say no but it is just so clear to me what this city needs to do for its future Financial viability that I just couldn't in good faith approve it without some movement on your part to expand the commercial footprint thank you ma'am at this point we've been at it for two and a half hours roughly let's take a 10-minute break back here at batteries radi batteries should all power go out we will be able to broadcast on 97.5 FM anything uh any emergency information so be sure to have your battery powered radio ready and tuned in to 97.5 for [Music] believe that the natural resources department will be an integral part for the city's growth as we want to achieve a more balanced approach of development in the future what we really want to do is see sensible development sustainable development and development that is um in line with what we already have here so we want to preserve as much as we can of the uh natural resources so there is still place for our natural species are are migrating birds and all the other species that live um and survive in our habitat natural systems are a big part of the ways ecosystems function an important part for our community our listed species they stabilize the soil they provide so many different benefits including shade limiting the heat is effect within our city providing habitat providing shelter for these species and just uh also for our aesthetic enjoyments well as an arborist uh a lot of what I do is making sure that development conforms to the tree protection code so one thing we already have in place since April of 2022 is a tree protection code which is quite robust in the city of Northport that was adopted by commission and the city through also a lot of community involvement and so we're very happy to had that tree protection code so what I a lot of what I do is making sure that development either residential or commercial conforms to that code we are such a passionate team we come from varied backgrounds uh I think between us we have over a 100 years of experience and we are everyday raring to go and you know we know our work is cut out here and we're happy to uh take the challenge through the division and Community involvement and leadership in the city we really hope to make great strides and protecting what we have here and finding that balance with development and environmental stewardship I am excited to be a part of this team and I'm really seeking and looking forward to the opportunities for us to be able to make a difference [Music] I started with Charlotte County Utilities as a meter reader in 2004 so that's kind of where I got my foot in the door then once I reached a point my life where things were more stable I decided to leave Charlotte County utilities and I went and got my insance license it was very exciting doing that for a short period of time but after a while I started thinking about the utility it was in my heart at this point I had almost 12 just two months shy of 12 Years in and so I realized during that time my heart was in utilities and so I started looking around again I seen an opening here to be a CND Tech so I applied and I got in typically I get here at 700 in the morning I get my list of you know if I can get to this this is what I need to do and I get in my truck if if I need any supplies parts tools based off of the work I was given that morning I'll pick that up here at our shop and then I head out and um my goal for the day is just to get as much work as that was assigned to me done as possible and sometimes that happens and other times there's a lot of First Response calls that come in my favorite part is the uniqueness it's um not knowing what I'm going to be faced with every day it could be different it's not mundane in any way and it's exciting when you get a call and you're you're on your way and you don't know what it is and you you have the experience and the knowhow and the backing to face whatever it's going to be so I feel very confident in facing these calls and I think that's my favorite [Music] [Music] part hello my name is Devon pulus I'm the aquatics facilities manager with the city of Northport and today we're going to be talking with you guys about our free swim evaluation it's important that we do these swim evaluations so as uh kids are registering for swim programs they get placed in the right class what we're looking at when we're doing the swim evaluation is every swim level has what's called exit skill assessments so what we do is we have your child get in the water and we'll go through a series of different movements can you go under the water uh can you show us your front crawl can you show us back crawl can you show us elementary backstroke Different Strokes within there and what we're doing is we're trying to see where your child test to before becomes a challenge for them at that point once we assess that then we'll let you know and you can go ahead and sign your child up for that appropriate level there it's important that we have these so that way when we're teaching a level one we don't have kids that should be potentially in a level two and a level one class because they're not learning the appropriate skills that they need at that point in time right now uh when we're in full summer operations uh we ask that people come between 8 and 10 to do the swim evaluation just as you can hear the water splashing in the background slides and everything like that but any day of the week that we're open you can come in at any point in time and ask for swim evaluation we always have a certified swim instructor on site that can uh have your child take a swim [Music] [Music] assessment Frank llama Solway manager I am here today with with Mario vend Didi Mario tell people here how long you've been doing this job I've been here 5 years 5 years excellent excellent so Mario tell people what it entails what you do I'm a planner scheduler for the solid waste of the city and um I go around and I I greet the new residents and I educate them on the recycle excellent sounds interesting very good y so Mario what do you find inside the recycling bins that shouldn't be there so let's try to tell the people how to recycle right the most common thing I find Frank is plastic bags okay so the plastic bags are not recyclable I find them just tossed in the container or they bag the recycle with them right and they should this is inside the blue container that's right inside the bluel containers correct and they should be either taken back to the grocery store or tossed in the trash very good do you see a lot of recycling inside the containers of I do bags yes I come across a lot of that okay we don't want to do that so okay so if you have any questions you can always look at our website ww. Northport florida. ov/ Solid [Music] Waste I'm Stacy loio I am the Emergency Management coordinator for the city of Northport and I'm going to be talking about having an evacuation plan it's important to have an evacuation plan ahead of time and it's very important to write it down because that way you can have it somewhere present where everybody in your family can see it and keep it fresh in their minds and you want to also share it with people in your family or your neighbors so that they know what your plans are ahead of time and how to get a hold of you or where to look for you after a disaster for your evacuation plans uh you should have multiple routes to get to the location you're planning to go to Just because traffic-wise traffic on 75 might be good lucked there could be some very good back roads to get to where you're going uh that could get you there more quickly without being stuck in traffic when you're making an evacuation plan we usually tell you four different things you should stay home if you are not in a Zone that's being evacuated and if your home is built to withstand the forecasted storm if you can't stay home uh and you evacuate your next option should be to go to a friend or family's home that is outside of the evacuation area and is structurally sound to withstand the storm third option would be go to a hotel they're much more comfortable than our evacu uation centers fourth option would be to go to one of our evacuation centers county has 12 evacuation centers those all right next up ordinance first reading ordinance number 2025 D show three need a motion to direct city clerk to read by title only so moved I need a second second all right uh c cler a quorum yep we have a quorum so for uh city clerk want to read this by ordinance V oh good point let us vote and that passes four to zero city clerk you're up ordinance number 20253 an ordinance of the city of Northport Florida calling for a referendum question to be placed before the qualified voters of the city of Northport Florida at a special election providing a referendum question determining whether to finance a portion of the new Police Department headquarters project through the issuance by the city of General obligation bonds payable from the proceeds of adalum taxes levied on all taxable property within the city and amount sufficient to pay debt service on such bonds providing for findings providing for filing of the ordinance with the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you man city manager this is your it thank you Mr Mayor City commission provided consensus on January 6 2025 to direct the city manager to move port with seeking voter approval to allow borrowing for the Northport Police Department headquarters in the amount up to 115 million during a regular commission meeting on January 14th 2025 the commission passed the following motion to direct staff to bring back ordinances establishing referendum questions related to borrowing Authority for infrastructure projects and the Northport police headquarters for first reading on January 28 2025 ordinance number 20253 provides the attached proposed referendum question for the May 13 2025 special election we ask that you continue ordinance number 20253 to Second reading on febrary 11 2025 thank you Mr Mayor thank you sir uh commissioner questions and discussion yes commissioner Petro yes mayor um I want to state that I support our police force and the work keeping our community safe I acknowledge the exceptional leadership of our police chief Garrison and deputy chief Morales um first I'm in support of the new centralized police station and uh they need it we owe it to them uh we have to do it not just as a borrowing but as an investment uh but secondly I struggle with the number and I suspect that it might not pass um in the previous discussions uh I stated my concern and asked what can we do to change that number to make that number lower um and uh being a new commissioner and public servant being accountable to my constituents I feel that I need to do more homework and then and I requested a meeting with a project manager and uh the Consultants so I want to learn more about this project and if the number is not changed and if if and and if it fails I'm going to record that I public stated publicly stated that I'm concerned about this number so in addition it's not up to me to decide about the funding of the project it it will be decided by the voters and um I do not want nor I can withhold the process of following a city Charter and ask the public to vote to and we have to ask the public to vote and to fund whatever number we presented to them just want to state that publicly and I'm doing what I can to learn process to lower that number [Music] down thank you commissioner langin I promised I wouldn't speak again but I I do feel compelled um this commission by majority rule approved this project and the amount in my mind that ship has sailed um and there is no doubt in my mind that a new police headquarters was needed years ago so um that's really all I have to say about it I'm I'm supporting um this first reading thank you uh typically I don't word Smith anything but I do have concerns with with a piece of the language in this referendum item is there a way to bring it up on the screen the or the ordinance would be fine actually because it's got the language in there did you ask for the ordinance to be put on the screen yep yes we have that in a piece of paper I have this or I can bring it up in a second on a meeting right I mean we didn't have it loaded to put we did not have it loaded right but that would be better than the overhead all right if you can scroll down you have a line number a little more no keep going I'll find uh hang on I keep going okay whoops yeah all right um in my briefings I mean I'm fine with this except for one word where it says to finance a portion of the police new police headquarters when I read it it immediately made me wonder if Police Headquarters might actually be more than 115 million and I will tell you as long as I sit on this St this Police Headquarters will not cost one penny more than 115 if it gets approved in the first place so I did reach out in to Legal um you know I don't see any reason you know it's in there typically in the event there's some you know POS I mean the original price is 122 we already spent the difference between 115 and 122 price of the building is 115 if you read the language the ballot language for the infrastructure projects there's no mention of a portion it is just the price and we're trying to do everything we can to get our citizens to you know ex you know increase their property taxes to pay for this building and and I don't think it's an unreasonable ask when it when it comes down to protecting the safety of our our citizens and our businesses it is between1 and $20 a month citizens feel this is a righteous ask they're going to vote for it but to put a word like portion in there does nothing but distract from the intent of this ballot question and I unless someone can come up with a good reason why it should be there I would love to see it removed and I'm curious to see what my fellow Commissioners say and again I'm not typically Wordsmith and anything except that just jumped out at me and created enormous discomfort for me so commissioner langner I have no objection to the change than mayor I'm just reading down a little bit further it does state that it does not exceed 115,000 or $115 million my question would be was a portion would be if we had other avenues of monies coming in then we would not borrow the total 115 we would borrow the 110 so I see the flexibility of having the number of portion I don't see it exceeding it because it already States authorized to issue Bonds in one or more series of total aggregate principal amount not to exceed 115 million that's where I see the logic in that so I mean that's going to that's that'll have to go to the legal department over there to we have to borrow $115 million how we pay it back is flexible so if we get Grand monies we get other things we sell assets whatever it might be you can pay that number down I'm sorry I jumped commissioner langen again or if you already oh I'm okay I'm good could you clean that board commissioner Deval yes um mayor Stokes I I agree with you um that wording uh you know when I read that I had the understanding that you know the the cost actually 120 122 when you add in you know the design cost and things I understand that I don't know if the public will understand that because they haven't had all the discussions that we've had um yes you could you could look at that in two different ways and that's uh that's just not fair u i yeah I would also like to see that wording changed thank you sir commissioner Petra a couple things I want to say that uh this police station proposal for to fund a police station is an investment and it will last through 2055 if I'm not mistaken this will serve literally Generations um so we I am in support of that I understand and I'm trying to get more facts about the designed but I wanted to state to the public that this is not per square foot if we there's a multiple components in that number so initially when I looked at the number when I was on the campaign Trail I thought it was the number is for the square of food and um being in the construction industry although I've have not done many commercial projects that number jumped out to me which was $1,500 a square foot which is way too much but uh we have to be very transparent to let the public know that this is not one building there are multiple phases multiple components I should say in this project so when people hear this number they think it's just a building but it's more than just building so just want to state that publicly thank you um I have a question first acting City attorney um you've run this by bond councel does anybody have a problem with deleting that word uh thank you Mr Mayor we and in working with Bond Council to get this ordiance drafted uh the information we were we're working with was trying to make it as as accurate as possible now that word portion uh is not legally required it can be removed if it's what the attempt was to make it as accurate as possible so if I have if there's confirmation that that is not a portion that it is the total amount um the will of the board is to remove it it it can be removed I have the the question I have would be that it does appear in the block as well which would have to be removed if there's enough time um to get that re-advertised properly the clerk so you're saying it does have to be read vertis this wasn't advertised yet in the newspaper so let me look calendar and I'll give you I'll let you know that's my concern that that word also appears in the in the the notice we would need the um new title by tomorrow noon so we can have it to the paper to be posted on Friday if it is if it is accurate that is not that the the the number is not a portion of that it is um the total cost cost that is that is what we're trying to get is accuracy in that statement so if that is accurate then that is f to remove I would say it's accurate mean 115's 115 it's not 120 it's not 150 it's not 200 it's 115 as far as I'm concerned so anyway um there are no other questions here I'm looking for a motion somebody wants to try to make it we have public comment oh I'm sorry public comment I'm sorry yes Robin S vente followed by Josh Smith and Debbie McDow not good evening again uh I just want to say for the Reger that I am in support of the referendum uh but I do have a couple of questions as far as the funding that was on the slide presentation and if I'm looking at the slide presentation as far as project financing I'm looking at the 25 million from ctax 5 and I'm hearing a lot of problems with this from the community and and also I've got a lot of questions as far as what exactly are those particular projects and the the voters had voted on specific C tax 5 projects so how does that how do you just take that away without us knowing what these projects are I think it would behave you to let us know exactly what projects you're going to start moving around to try and find the money to get to this 25 million otherwise the way it is now without us knowing you're going to have a lot of problems even though we we support the police station that this is going to be a thorn so we really need to know what these projects are we need to have them identified with the amounts so we can look at it because we voted again on some of these projects so that would be my only comment on that thank you Josh Smith Northport citizen uh Mr Pro I would commissioner Petro I'd really like to thank you for sticking with a campaign promise you made and that was to protect every penny spent I just watched a commissioner spend a lot of time finding a way to make sure that there was commercial to help the financial side of this city and then $115 million police station I believe this commission's said it is what it is several times in the last meeting we had about this so we can fight and fight and fight to make sure that we stick commercial everywhere and we can make sure that we're doing these things but the difference between the 80 that was discussed and 115 just it is what it is I understand it's only $10 to $20 I understand that uncertain houses are locked in and the price isn't that much and all of this but you're going to ask the CI for this and then it's 115 guaranteed according to Mr Stokes plus 10 to 20% construction allowances I think everybody forgets that that's what's causing our Price Boulevard problem so does that mean if it goes over the police don't get it I mean it's 115 no matter what to the penny that's what I'm hearing you know this is the problem when we put absolutes out there is all of a sudden it drags on and it carries on and you know I mean it just I just hope that someday you guys fight for not spending our money the same as you fight for commercial and the same as you fight for a lot of the other things you fight for luckily I have it I hope the police station gets built I hope they get what they want I can afford it but every single ask like this that turns into it is what it is turns into the state that I fled I fled a state that taxed and taxed and taxed to a state that taxed taxed more I had a regional income tax in one state I lived in I fled that to move here the second you just continue to think that growth will pay for growth and the second you continue to just allow projects to go to their full price all of a sudden I'm probably the last one who can afford to live here I hope so I'll buy up more lots and hide I mean I'm being honest with you guys we got to start watching this money we're in a bad spot that's all I keep hearing is this financial train is running through the tunnel we're in but $115 million is what it is I really hope you guys start looking at financing in a different way thank you again Debbie McDow resident um hold on to your seat everyone hold on to your seat I am in full support of this Northport Police Department's headquarters granted I wish it didn't cost this damn much money and is I'm very disappointed that we didn't put this to the voter referendum in November of 24th we have lost so much momentum during that time frame and now I'm seeing a lot of people that think they've already voted for this PD headquarters and they're already saying no because we voted for it once and we're not listen you guys aren't listening to the voters that's not true this project has never been voted on yet previous commission didn't plan for growth when they built that Police Headquarters and that was 15 years ago they did it on a shoestring budget and we're paying the price today and I am so glad that we are seeing the error of their ways and learned from it and we're not repeating their mistake I do have to ask why are we going to bond and ask the voters for their adalum taxes of $115 million why has no consideration been given to you include in this resolution and include in this referendum a percentage of use of impact fees that are collected for law enforcement you can designate law enforcement impact fees 10% 15% a percentage that way then it's showing these voters that growth is paying for growth that's what impact fees are used for maybe that can be included for second reading but that's for something you guys to consider I don't like special elections especially on something like this it sounds sneaky um but I also recognize that if we wait until November of 24 the cost of this project is going to exponentially escalate um I hope this passes but I see it is a very long road um that's all I've got but wait one more thing real quick please do me a big favor I've listened to your meetings in the past in your workshops and I have heard almost from every single one of you it's only $10 extra a month it's only $15 extra a month it's only $20 an extra a month please that's statement lacks empathy it lacks compassion and it definitely lacks an understanding of what our citizens are going through on a daily basis $10 here $10 there $10 everywhere it adds up really quick people are hurting and if you don't believe me go see how long that line is every Friday morning when they're going to get free food this increase regardless of the amount removes disposable income from families and citizens and a huge dent in their monthly budget right up thank you ma'am um that's all that's all okay uh before I close this public hearing and and request a motion I just want to point out for everybody uh there will be three I believe public town halls with our commission sitting in front of our citizens and be able to add address so many of the questions people have regarding this Police Headquarters and the other three referendum items um you know there is a lot of information that people need in order to make informed decisions and we want them to have that um so you know I don't want to address necessarily some of the public comments but rather I would appeal to citizens to show up at those when the November referendum was turned down for borrowing while granted this Police Headquarters was not included in that referendum citizens spoke and said we want to play a part in the decision making on how you spend our dollars this is the opportunity for the citizens to do this off year elections are not the greatest however we can't wait two years for this it will cost exponentially a fortune so I would appeal to all our citizens out there show up ask your questions find an understanding it does not exist on Facebook come and ask the people who have the answers to these questions you may not agree with the answers but come ask anything and everything you want of us and then make the best decision you can because you have the right to decide whether you're going to spend your dollars on this project with that I'm going to close public hearing request a motion I'll make it thank you commission I move to continue ordinance number 20 25-3 to Second reading on February 11th 2025 what about the language change oh in thank you including um the removal of the words a portion of from the referend language I'll second all right I have a motion to continue ordinance 20253 to Second reading on February 11 2025 excluding the words a portion of um was made by Commissioner of langden seconded by commissioner duol there's nothing else to that let us vote that passed 4 to one with commissioner emrich I just didn't think it needed to be changed there uh moving on see ordinance number 20254 uh I need a motion to direct city clerk to read by title only so moved all right um next V and that passes 5 to zero city clerk please read by title only ordinance number 20 25-4 an ordinance of the city of Northport Florida calling for a referendum question to be placed before the qualified voters of the city of Northport Florida at a special election providing a referendum question determining whether to finance a new solid waste Transfer Station through the issuance by the city of bonds payable from the revenues of the City Solid Waste District providing for findings providing for filing of the ordinance with the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date man city manager your item thank you Mr Mayor dur the regular commission meeting on December 10th 2024 the city commission unanimously passed the following motion to direct staff to include referendum questions related to the borrowing Authority for designated infrastructure projects and borrowing Authority for construction of a new Northport Police Headquarters on a date to be determined this referendum question is scheduled to appear on the May 13 2025 special election presentation included the solid waste Transfer Station showing a funding gap of $12.5 million borrowing up to the requested amount of $14 million allows the city to include the anticipated cost for debt issuance within the request we ask that you continue ordinance number 2025-the sir commissioner questions and discussion Mr Deval I don't like spending taxpayers money unless there's a need and when it comes down to something like this that will pay for itself it's at the top of my list years ago all the school buses that transport our children came to Northport from Sarasota every day transported the children and then went back to Sarasota now they're parked in Northport off of Toledo Blade the reason for that was it made sense and this makes sense we don't need to have all of our Solid Waste trucks picking up up all of our garbage and driving to Sarasota every day when they can be transferred to tractor trailers things can be you know compacted uh this will pay for itself so I I have to say I'm in support of it thank you sir commissioner Petro thank you Mr Mayor um I just wanted to be very transparent and um for public to know what this is about what is this new solid waste Transfer Station I'm in for this project um but I would like a short snap of this project what is that in entails if we can get it so publicly so public would know exactly what that is because we are putting this in front of them to vote okay I see director speaks heading our way good evening Comm commission Chuck speak Public Works director uh so the the idea of a transfer station and as as one of the other Commissioners already mentioned was to keep our trucks within the city of Northport so as our our trash trucks go out they pick up debris or the trash they then they become full they have to make a trip to the landfill every trip to the landfill is two to three hours so daily we make somewhere around 30 trips to the landfill putting the transfer station within town does a few things for us it reduces the wear and tear on our vehicles it reduces the amount of time we spend not collecting trash uh it also will reduce the overall cost and related to that the overtime for our employees when that trip to the landfill can be uh difficult at times and there are s where we get up there and and what is normally a two to three hour trip is much longer so the idea is to build this transfer station uh you would have five five transfer tractor trailers that would load this material from the trucks they would just dump in town a transfer station it would be loaded either compacted or not depends on on the type of station that we build when we do build that station and then it will be hauled out to a different uh landfill for disposal the other thing gives us is the opportunity to go to a landfill that's not uh Sarasota County's landfill and lets us shop around for uh better tipping fees it is really an efficiency at the rate the city is growing right now we should be putting on two drivers and two trucks every year we should have a new driver and truck for every 800 residents we're averaging about 1,700 a year so the cost in that alone uh is well over a million dollars a year increase to our solids District appreciate that director quick question yes sir I me in in the dollar amount how much would we be saving on an annual basis with this new transfer station so approximately doesn't have to be ex that total is again you're going to be spending about a million dollars a year for uh just to keep up with with the growth that we have in the city uh the transfer station what initially our intent is to move those people from the efficiency we get on the routes move those people over to operate the transfer station so it wouldn't be a whole group of net new employees very few as we build that efficiency in so so the the cost savings is is going to be pretty substantial not only the million dollars million plus a year for equipment and staff but the Savings in in your tipping fees uh and your hours spent on the road I don't have that number for you sir I apologize for that but without the Tipping without without the transfer station you're going up a million a year over the next years until the growth of the city stops thank you and it Bears stating that while the referendum question is for the permission to borrow the money to do this it will be paid for not through any property tax increase but rather from existing District fees so am I correct revenue revenue I'm sorry it will be from either savings or from our normal increases to our methodology exactly involve any property tax increase correct and if but we can't borrow the money we can't pay for it at one time because we can't borrow money that's why we're asking permission for it so it's very different both these infastructure projects are very different than the police headquarters which necessitates a revenue increase from the property correct and any increase that would would be needed through the methodology to cover this uh transfer station would be far less than the other option is us to pay UPF front uh we had a consultant look at that if we still wanted to build this thing in three years you would be looking at a 60 $60 increase inre next year and a $70 increase in 27 to get us to where we could actually build a transer station that following year so to not be able to borrow uh really puts a stressor On Solid Waste district and you know I'll take deliberty of saying you know there have been questions as to why uh a couple of asks here aren't for for structures as opposed to this project and um this is one of the very big reasons you know we've availed ourselves to SRQ money for a couple of water structures and there is some budgeted funds for some of those as well um you know you try to get the biggest bang for your buck as to where we spend our money this project makes so much sense in so many ways that you know without having to look at the whole CIP list of projects this one just jumps out as one of the most sensible things to do that's why it was offered up so you know not that we aren't going to do that but you know thank you yes sir um are we how the comments sente Debbie mcdal and joshh Smith I not surprised I appreciate your comment mayor Stokes regarding uh people attending for educational purposes to understand the referendums however not everybody can attend so there needs to be printed material or on your websites for people to look at at their convenience when they can do it I mean not everybody can attend these public meetings and these informational meetings that you have it just doesn't work for them especially the majority of the demographics in this neighborhood it just doesn't work uh I'm in favor of necessary infrastructure improvements and I know we do need a transfer station however again I'm having a problem with the monies because you're asking for up to 14 million yet I'm looking at the presentation slide again and it says the estimated cost is 15 million funding available 2.5 funding Gap is 12.5 then I go to the CIP sheets and I'm looking at the CIP sheets and it's only at a little over 9 million so I'm not understanding again and this is the problem you're going to have we have to understand the money if you want our vote we know we need what we need need but if it doesn't make sense and you can't explain it to us financially for it to make sense you're going to get a no vote because we don't understand so what's the difference in the monies if the CIP sheets are looking at 9 million and you say it's 15 million with a funding Gap at 12.5 I don't see it so that needs to be explained I just don't see it whether I agree with the time is right for this now it's not going to matter if you can't explain the monies that's my comment thank you thank you hi Debbie McDow and I promise this is my last public comment for tonight welcome to your first Tuesday evening meeting with a agenda that's a mile long um I've always supported this transfer station this trash transfer station it's been over seven years that we've been talking about it Frankie and his staff um proved how these transfer stations do save the taxpayers money they proved that they save City resources and they have proven that it keeps the tax assessments low I am however disappointed that this is one of the referendum questions in my opinion this is a very premature ask and here's why the commission has had two discussions on this project this trash transfer station project two one of them was in November of 2021 there was only one commissioner sitting up here at that time two Commissioners sitting up there at that time then the second one was in December of 2022 all right the other thing is the city still needs to purchase one property and it's right smack dab in the middle of that block there is a contract for a Geo synch that was awarded for Designing the project don't know when that happened because I don't remember the commission ever approving a contract for this because I've been watching this project I'll keep doing my research on it but that is for the design it's not even done yet since there's no completed design how can anyone be so sure that $14 million is be enough when this goes out to bid or goes for construction in a few years hello Price Boulevard first public comment I made today the backup materials do not mention one iota of how much this is going to cost the taxpayers every year nothing it does say that the wording in the referendum says Solid Waste revenues but the CIP sheet says ctax now I understand the mayor when he said that hey come to the town halls we we'll explain everything there but the referendum language is the referendum language and it says the referendum language says that they will be using Solid Waste revenues there's no mention of ctax so what's the percentage of ctax that's going to be used what's the percentage of solid waste impact fees that are going to be used and what is the percentage of the assessment and how much is that assessment which by the way is a tax because it's on your tax bill but it is a non-ad valorum tax which is done at the assessments you honestly expect the voters to approve this without giving them all of the pieces to this puzzle thank you Josh Smith citizen um I'm going to speak first as the former Fleet Maintenance manager of Waste Pro Fort Myers we fought a god- aul battle with the City of Cape Coral over a transfer station it blew up it was all over the news it was a nightmare I spent right around 36% of my maintenance budget paying for trucks to drive to a landfill and back this project will pay for itself as a current owner of a Fleet Maintenance company I I thank some of the companies out there that continue to send their trucks out we make a ton of money maintaining them good for them my problem is if we keep doing this thing where we put the cart before the horse we're going to have to change that seal to you know if anybody remembers the Oregon Trail just run that little image backwards how on Earth are you going to ask ask me to borrow the money to build a transfer station when we don't have the Transfer Station built there there's no you know you haven't released a plan there's no here's the project there's no this is exactly what it's going to cost I mean come on guys I've been banging the table up here asking you to help me help you and for some reason we've just put it in reverse harder I I mean let's take a minute let's get these projects lined up let's make sure that everything's in order that way we don't have a price Boulevard again can you imagine in three years if something happens with the funding for this project or it ends up costing 23 and you're still getting laughed at about the next thing please stop and think it through what happens when the next major hurricane hits and we're still playing the game with this transfer state because something gets paused and it floods again I know you guys have hard decisions to make but please let's get the horse in front of the cart and let's get it actually pulling in the right direction this Transportation needs to happen but somehow I feel like we're going to Fumble the ball on this we need to start picking the ball up and running thank you thank you I am uh I'm for a motion I'll make it mayor I move to continue ordinance number 20 25-4 to Second reading on February 11th 2025 I have a motion made by commissioner langen to uh continue ordinance 2025 D for a second reading on February 11th 25 seconded by vice mayor there's nothing else to that but us folk that passes 5 to zero moving on ordinance second reading am I right NOP I'm not where are we there we go thank you nice mayor I need a motion to direct city clerk to read by title only don't move second jump ball spoke that passes 5 to zero city clerk please read the ordinance by title only ordinance number 20 25-5 an ordinance of the city of Northport Florida calling for a referendum question to be placed before the qualified voters of the city of Northport Florida at a special election providing a referendum question determining whether to finance certain Capital Improvements to a wastewater treatment facility through the issuance by the city of bonds payable from from the revenues of the city's Water and Sewer utility system providing for findings providing for filing of the ordinance with the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you ma'am city manager your item thank you Mr Mayor during the regular commission meeting on December 10th 2024 the commission unanimously passed the following motion motion to direct staff to include referendum questions related to the borrowing Authority for designated infrastructure projects and borrowing Authority for construction of a new Northport Police Headquarters on a date to be determined during commission Workshop meeting on January 6 2025 St provided a presentation the presentation included an e pumping station and pipeline project with a funding gap of $15 million during a regular commission meeting on January 14 2025 the city commission passed the following motion to direct staff to bring back ordinances establishing referendum questions related to borrowing Authority for infrastructure projects and the Northport Police Department headquarters for first reading on January 28 2025 allowing the borrowing them up up to $17 million allows the city to include the anticipated cost of debt issuance within within the request staff ask that you continue ordinance number 20255 your second reading on February 11 2025 thank you sir thank you sir commissioner questions and discussion Mr Petra again I would like to ask for a snap picture of this project and what it entails and why are we asking the voters to approve this project if we can have a small presentation hello Susan brace Field's assistant utilities director this project includes in installation of new effluent pumps at our existing wastewater treatment plant off of Northport Avenue and an effluent a new effluent Force main that will pump the effluent flow from the new pump facil pump pumps to our existing deep well we there is currently pumping capacity at the wastewater treatment plant that pumps to the deep well however during high flow events we do not have capacity to pump all of the flow to the Deep Wells um in normal operating conditions our flows do not exceed the existing pump capacity however recently we have seen some very high flow storm events which have exceeded the capacity of our pumps um the our normal affluent is disposed of through reclaim water which we sell for irrigation however during the wet weather flow we do not have a high demand for irrigation water and it is the only way that we can dispose of it is through this deep well to by pumping it to the Deep Wells so there is a as the city grows we also need that capacity for future growth any quick question any Financial savings or projections of how much we would be saving by offsetting this borrowing amount so um we have evaluated the project and various opportunities to change our types of pumps our P pipe sizes we've evaluated several routes and we've selected the most economical method of upgrading the pumps and and locating the pipeline uh commissioner Jason yo Deputy city manager one of the other issues is during one of the hurricane events we took 300,000 gallons of treated reclaimed water and then went over the containment unit which is a no no from a regulatory perspective we expect that we will probably receive some regulat reaction as a result of that 300,000 gallons of treated reclaimed water spill they call it a spill but it's reclaimed water it's the same rean water we put on golf courses so um in order to prevent further regulatory um actions that could result this really needs to be addressed regulatory actions in the form of heavy fines so if you want to see it from a savings from that perspective you going to save us some fine money from the Department of Environmental Protection public comments this I know we definitely need um and actually looking at the presentation slide CIP sheets everything matches perfect on this particular one not on the other one um we stand up here and and it would be nice if we could just get some kind of an acknowledgement that yes we hear you or yes we will consider that because we cannot attend the meetings all the time and you're missing a whole bunch of citizens who can't attend meetings and who need this information and the questions that are being asked uh to you we need the answers so I can only stress to you that in order to get these referendums passed it's a major educational uh situation and the more materials that you can supply us with that could substantiate these referendums so we can get them passed the better it's going to be well we're going to be back addressing the same situation again so that's all I I just need to say I just have to stress for you to please get the information to us it's not just us showing up at the educational uh meetings and seminars that you'll have we need more we need to have it in our hands we need to see it on the website any way that you can get it to us other than us having to attend a meeting which again the majority of the demographics in our city cannot do it thank you thank you that'll close this public hearing and request motion I'll make it mayor um I move to continue ordinance number 20255 to Second reading on February 11th 2025 a motion made by commissioner langen to continue ordinance 20255 second reading on February 11th 2025 seconded by the vice mayor there's nothing else to that let us vote and that passes 5 to Zer moving on to ordinance second reading 202 24- 47 city clerk would you kind enough to read this by title only ordinance number 202 24- 47 an ordinance of the city of Northport Florida amending the code of the city of Northport Florida Chapter 46 Article 2 Section 46-45 regarding exceptions to noise violations providing for findings providing for conflicts providing for severability providing for codification and providing an effective date thank you man city manager your item thank you Mr Mayor the city commission heard the first reading of ordinance number 20 2447 at its regular meeting on December 10th 2024 and continue the ordinance as presented the second reading on today January 28 2025 we recommend the second reading action today of approving ordinance number 20 2447 as present it thank you sir thank you sir commissioner questions and discussion see none public comment then I am closing this public hearing and requesting a motion move to adopt ordinance number 2024 47 as presented second Vice Mayors made a motion to adopt ordinance 202 4-47 as presented seconded by commission Langdon let us vote oops excuse me and that passes 5 to zero moving on to ordinance 24 20 24-48 city clerk ordinance number 202 24-48 an ordinance of the city of Northport Florida calling for a referendum question to be placed before the qualified electors of the city of Northport Florida at the May 13 2025 special election providing a referendum question determining whether to amend the city Charter to authorize the city commission to issue debt to respond to a declared emergency or disaster without prior voter approval providing for a full text of the proposed Charter Amendment providing findings providing for an effective date for the new Charter language if the propos proposed Charter amendment is approved providing for the filing of the ordinance with the Sarasota County Supervisor of election providing for publication of the text of the proposed Charter Amendment providing for filing with the Florida Department of State if the proposed Charter amendment is approved providing for conflicts providing for separability and providing an effective date thank you ma'am city manager thank you Mr Mayor during the city commission regular meeting held on December 10th 2024 the commission continue ordinance number 202 24-48 to Second reading on a date to be determined amending the special election date to May 13 201 25 ordinance number 202 24-48 second reading reflects the change to a Northport special election on May 13 2025 uh second reading action today we ask that you adopt the ordinance number 202 24-48 as presented with amendments and response to commission direction from the commission regular meeting dated on December 10th 2024 thank you thank you sir commissioner questions and discussion oops I have a I have an issue on this one I just want to bring up for my fellow Commissioners um could we pull up the uh the ordinance on this one again on this particular one and I don't mean to play lawyer but but I this is such an important referendum question and I'm hoping to get a bit more specificity in the language of the referendum um and we have 23 available words so the ordinance contains some language that would be real nice I think if it was included if you can scroll down some there you go okay um in C we state in the ordinance itself okay that the the actual ballot language um we're asking for permission to borrow for emergencies or disasters but in the bottom of SE the last sentence to remove the debris from and to repair or reconstruct any public infrastructure or Capital facilities damaged as a direct result of the emergency or disaster I think those words are valuable not a lot of people are are going to read the ordinance but we have 23 available words there are 25 words here I've talked to City attorney and there is room to tweak a couple of words so that that sentence could be included I think Crea a bit more specificity will help our citizens in in making a decision on this one this is a musthave and anything and everything we can do to be as specific as possible I I think it's worth doing but you know I'm open to what my fellow Commissioners think on this one Mission Lang uh thank you Mr Mayor I think the added definition would be helpful to getting this passed certainly I I believe for myself uh my intention and I suspect for all of us is that any borrowing um against this referendum question would conform to that definition so so I'm supportive of including it in the language of the referendum itself any other thoughts um public comments Robin sente oh I'm sorry something to say on this matter just the more specific the language the better for the voters to see it I'm just in support of that too thank you sir thank you mayor Stokes because what you said is exactly what I was going to say because the original declared emergency had a lot of that verbiage in there and then all of a sudden we get this one and to make it narrow it's totally vague wouldn't pass I can tell you right now would not pass so putting that language back in so it's very specific the way it should be it will pass that was my going take that to the bank yeah there was no problem with it before the only problem we had before it was tied to the other referendum not separate and that was the whole problem um so putting that language back in thank you thank you maam that's it right then I am uh y closing the public hearing and requesting a motion I'll make it thank you I move to adopt ordinance number 20 24-48 with the addition of and I'm desperately looking for it city clerk do you have it to add language from section 2.02 c in the referendum question I don't know what the specific language is but I know that's the section yeah I just don't have it in front of me Mr may maybe I can help you maybe if you don't want if you want to word Smith it I'll I'll let you do it but maybe I can help you with some language for that if you don't mind by all means all right so it's your wheelhouse so um in the bond in the actual question for the the I'm sorry the referendum question itself um I would recommend at the very end of that paragraph if you're looking at it removing the last section that says to respond to a declared emergency or disaster deleting those words and uh after without voter approval including if the debt is used to remove debris from repair or reconstruct any public infrastructure or Capital facilities damaged as I direct result of a declared emergency or disaster that gives you the language from the actual Charter Amendment into the bond into the referendum question itself that's what you're looking for that works me city clerk can you read it back so we sure uh I would propose to replace the current I'll just read the whole uh referend question itself so to read Florida law allows local governments to issue certain debt for various government purposes the city Charter requires voter approval before the city issues any debt should the charter be amended allowing the city to issue debt payable from funds other than property taxes without voter approval if the debt is used to remove debris from repair or reconstruct any public infrastructure or Capital facilities damaged as a direct result of a declared e or disaster that's 75 words exactly exactly exactly I do perfect sold sold we're all good with that we ready to vote I'll second if you don't have a second L job that pass is five to zero limping along limping along moving on to G ordinance uh 202 24- 49 um city clerk if You' be kind enough ordinance number 202 24- 49 an ordinance of the city of Northport Florida calling for a referendum question to be placed before the qualified electors of the city of Northport Florida at the May 13 2025 special election providing a referendum question determining whether to amend the city Charter to remove the residency requirements for the city clerk and City attorney positions providing for the full text of the proposed Charter Amendment providing findings providing for an effective date for the new Charter language if the proposed Charter amendment is approved providing for the filing of the ordinance with the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections providing for publication of the text of the proposed Charter Amendment providing for filing with the Florida Department of State if the proposed Charter amendment is approved providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you ma'am believe this is your item city manager thank Mr Mayor the item for the second reading um during the city commission regular meeting held on December 10th 2024 the commission continued the ordinance number 2024 49 to the second reading on a date to be determined amending the special election date to May 13th 2025 ordinance number 2024 49 reflects the change to a Northport special election on that date of May 13 2025 we recommend today's action of adopting ordinance number 2024 49 as presented with the amendments in response to City commission direction from the city commission regular meeting on December 10th 2024 thank you sir thank you sir commissioner questions and discussion seeing none public comment Josh Smith citizen of Northport with all that's going on well you guys blow my mind how you come up with some of this stuff that's important to you could you imagine that this is this is our house you guys make the decisions in this house you're telling me that you're okay with someone not living in your house making your decisions this is the greatest city in the country I know I've haunted it down I found it and two positions that pay more than enough to live in this city somehow they don't have to I mean we're not talking you know we're not talking that you know her lowest staff member has to live in the city I mean these are charter members of this city they sit up there on the dis and for some reason they don't have to be a member of our community I just how do we get here folks help me to understand how this is a decision we make I don't know if I'm stuck on Common Sense Lane I mean I don't get it they are charter members who sit on a dis and the answer is they don't even have to live in our city I don't know folks you're going to to help me on this one it blows my mind this is even a conversation I'm sorry if you can't afford to live in Northport I apologize profusely luckily there might be some affordable housing coming in I just you guys blow my mind sometimes it's it's just shocking to me that this is a conversation we have good luck with it thank you thank you uh that'll close public hearing and request a motion I'll make it move to adopt ordinance number 20 2449 is presented second would uh motion by vice mayor to adopt ordinance 202 24- 49 is presented seconded by commissioner langden let us vote and that passes 5 to zero moving on ordinance number 2025 d01 city clerk if you'd read by title only ordinance number 2025 d01 an ordinance of the city of Northport Florida amending the non-district budget and capital Improvement budget for fiscal year 2024 d225 for the hurricane e and repairs an additional cost to park impact P projects p21 bet circle of Honor p17 Epi environmental Park improvements and p24 LTC Legacy Trail connection to war Mineral Springs in the amount of 3,171 th180 providing for findings providing for posting providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing in an effective date thank you mayam city manager thank you Mr Mayor this is the second reading of the hurricane Ian repairs an additional cost to park impact fee project circle of Honor environmental Park improvements Legacy Trail connection and warming of Springs in the amount of 3.1 m1711 180 we recommend the action of second reading today of adopting ordinance number 2025 t01 thank you sir thank you sir questions and discussion commissioners public comment there is none looking for a motion I move to adopt ordinance number 20251 as presented motion made by commissioner langin to adopt ordinance 2025 d01 is presented seconded by vice mayor there's nothing to that let us vote and that passes 5 to zero moving on ordinance number 2025-the Florida amending the code of the city of Northport Florida section 74151 to designate additional City roadways for the operation of a golf cart providing for findings providing for conflicts providing for severability providing for codification and providing an effective date thank you ma' city manager thank you Mr Mayor at its regular meeting on January 14 2025 the city commission continued its ordinance to Second reading on January 28 2025 as presented we ask that you adopt and approve ordinance number 2025-the questions or discussion on this item make sure nope any public comments that I'm closing the public hearing requested a motion move to adopt ordinance number 2025 d02 is present got a motion by vice mayor to adopt ordinance 202-02 is presented seconded by commissioner Bal let us vote and that passes 5 to Z moving on to resolutions 202- r-10 city clerk if you'd be so kind resolution number 2025 r-10 a resolution of the city of Northport Florida amending City commission policy number 2021 05 related to commission meeting schedules notices and agenda agendas providing for incorporation of recital providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you man this is your item yes on September 24th commission provided direction to amend this policy to define the process for placement of agenda items on an agenda requested by a member of the public and to define a process for placement of items on an agenda requested by a commissioner and denied by by the city manager this policy was amended to state in the event that the city manager denies placement of an item on an upcoming agenda the request will be placed on the next agenda for commission Direction and to add members of the public May submit agenda items for inclusion to each City Commissioner or a or All City commissioners and we request commission adopt the resolution as presented thank you ma'am Commissioners questions discussion on this one no public comments first I want to say thank you for putting in this verbage uh it's really important to the citizens read they have that afforded to them um I just have one comment on the wording on page four item D2 uh because an ordinance must be read during at least two public hearings every effort should be made for the reading of an ordinance to occur during one evening meeting and one day meeting I'm having a problem with the with the way it starts out with the word because and having a problem with the every effort should why do we have that in there don't you have to have at least a meeting during the daytime and one in the evening so what is the every effort let's try and have a meeting in the evening you have to be able to afford the community the choice this is not this is well we're going to make an effort and oh well we can't this time maybe next time we'll try again so I got a problem with uh keeping that in there it should just read an ordinance must be read during at least two public hearings uh you know one in the evening and one in the daytime get rid of the word every effort I mean words matter thank you thank you thank you ma'am closing this public hearing and requesting a motion I'll make it I move to adopt resolution number 25- r-10 as presented got a motion made by commissioner Langdon to adopt resolution 2025 d-10 as presented seconded by I'm so sorry I'm on the wrong one I apologize um it's resolution number 2025 d-11 no it's not it's 10 it's 10 okay 10 you're good oh I'm good okay we get punch you I thought my eye fell okay we are good okay getting a little late in the evening is it commissioner yeah maybe you shouldn't have kept us so long earlier it's you're right hello wait on and that passes 5 to zero then the system's getting tired y all right moving on resolution number 2025 d-11 city clerk resolution number 2025 r-11 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Northport Florida amending City Commission policy number 2020-4 related to the procedures and methods for public comment in City commission meetings and workshops providing for incorporation of recitals providing for conflicts providing for separability and providing an effective date clect this is your item on September 24th commission provided direction to add language stating public comment is limited to one public comment card per agenda item and that voicemail public comment will be played into the record during the first general public comment and we request Commission adop the resolution as presented and any questions Commissioners public comment I just stay up here okay uh thank you again for addressing this uh policy all right so I have a couple of comments item A1 uh see no that was the other one uh it was previous discussed that public comment should or it was recommended and suggested that the public comment should come before your vote prior to a full discussion because right now you have your discussion it's like you're not listening to us we don't even get an acknowledgement like yeah we're going to consider what you say taken under advisement or whatever we're just ignored and you vote and it doesn't matter whatever we said there's like never an acknowledgement thank you for your comment we'll take it under consideration no it just like falls to the Wayside so we're always constantly feeling ignored and that was why I originally recommended to please have it come D before your discussion so whatever the public comment might be given you can at least consider it before you just ignore it and just vote just like what just does happen now you didn't even you didn't even consider we move in the verbiage in the other one and that's totally unnecessary to have every effort should be made to have a meeting in the day in the evening that's totally ridiculous to have that those words in there the second one um on this was the character count we've been asking if you can please increase the character count on the ecomment because 2,000 character counts are not enough we we had maybe suggested 2200 just to give us some time to get our thoughts out not everybody's the same you know that can get their words in 200,000 because even spaces are counted you know the other thing is with the um voice message on a public comment if we're given three minutes to stand before you in person why can't we have the same three minutes on a voice message but nobody can talk that fast to get their thoughts out in 2 minutes and 15 seconds we can't you'll never understand it and we and and we can't re properly relay The Passion of what we need to to tell you through a public comment so I would just again request if you could look at increasing the character count a couple of hundred characters and if you can increase our voice messages to 3 minutes to match the public iners comment that's it thank you thank you thank you ma'am closing the public hearing and requesting a motion helloing I was looking ahead uh where we at 2025 I move to uh adopt resolution number 2025 d-1 as presented do I have a second second a motion made by vice mayor to adopt resolution 2025 d-11 as presented seconded by commissioner Langdon let's vote and that passes 3-2 with Commissioners Duval and P sting anything to that gentlemen I agree with the public commenter comments about you know the difference between you know being able to speak for three minutes and being only limited you know on a phone message you know to two U I'm sorry that I missed that Mr Petro yes I also missed that and I do want to say that I'm for Effective channels of communication between the public and the board I am for listening to the public and would like to have them the same amount of time either by phone or by email and also it's not a bad idea to have public comment before the discussion of the board because that opens up our ears to the public and see what they say and just like Robin mentioned that it's kind of we we do it and then they say it the public say it and we're like okay we don't care so that's why I'm voting no city manager thank you Mr Mayor I'm looking for an email I thought we asked Madame clerk that question earlier this week or very recently and there was a reason why is the way that it is and we were developing it way back in what is this 2020 yeah 2020 it had and I don't remember the exact conversation and I know for the I know for the um e comment they had a um a scenario of what equivalent of characters would equal the three minutes of inperson conversation I don't remember so much about the um voicemail but I do know the character count they did decide that that would be the appropriate character amount to equal the three minutes that a person would have if they were in person thank you I I knew that there was a explanation behind it I just don't know that that's been stated publicly or how much we discussed it or even if we need to revisit it and Mr Mayor I understand that we've gotten a lot of public comment from the individuals in the audience I am asking them if you really want to know why some of the things that do and why you get treated the way you treated please schedule a meeting and come and sit down and talk to us because when you ask about why there the commission not responding it's public comment not public questioning we're there to give you the information you might need behind the scenes so you don't get up here and and end up and leave frustrated our goal is not to frustrate you our goal is to help you understand why we do it we do regardless if you agree with it or not there's there's a clear disconnect between some of our actions and some of your responses I encourage you to reach out to us for a meeting through my office if you would like one thank you sir moving on to General business 25-1 1795 discussion and possible action regarding the appointment of Paul Jackman and Ali akava the environmental Advisory Board um city clerk ref you to introduce this item yes the EAB environmental advisory currently has vacancies for one regular member and two alternate members commission will need to determine who to appoint for each currently Mr Jackman does serve on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board as well Ali AA does not serve on any board at this time thank you ma'am uh Commissioners any questions discussion all right oh Mr W I have a very quick question city clerk who was first into the queue let me look and see I thought behind that is I don't I think we should in these situations go by who applied for the position first um and we previously approved the ability for folks to serve on two advisory boards I now don't think it would be appropriate to penalize someone U for applying for their second Advisory board if if they were first into the queue I would say let's go with the person who was first in the queue to be in the regular position and second as the alternate so that's sort of my thought process on that Ali cavia she submitted submitted her application on December 16th and Paul Jackman submitted his on December 25th I would go with uh Ellie that's all I have Mr dual yes um Mr AKA in his application states that he plans on transferring from the local College he's in now to the University of Florida now if someone's planning on leaving why would I want to put them on a board it's just you know I I I would I would pick Mr Jackman in this case in the other case oh wait a minute never mind I'm I'm ahead of myself but I would just because of the statement that you know he's planning on moving out of town thanks mayor yeah this will be for commissioner all on that application did it say that they were moving or could they be doing online classes at University of Florida and stuff like that so it's it's an open-ended question and I agree with commissioner langden first in the queue and we already have Mr Jackman that's serving on a board I would like to give the opportunity to the IND other individual to serve on a board as well and then Mr Jackman could be the alternate that's the way I look at it because you know you can do college through the internet now and stuff so it's just not Crystal clear to me that's that's my only dilemma I'd like to give them a chance if they move that makes an opening and then they can always move somebody over if they want to um actually I believe Mr aaya is already on a board thought you said no the um I think it it was a Miss Ika but is she on a board already no right yeah she was Paul Jackman is on a board Paul jackaman is on a board oh yeah is not on on any board no again I still you know the there was no delineation whether we planning to take online classes you know it just said he was planning to transfer from one college to to the other um and I took that as I may be leaving town is fine you know I understand your reasoning I just they applied and give them a shot to see where it goes I mean we're looking for volunteers to get on boards I don't really think it's a decision to make to say no just because no get them on a board if they vacate didn't they got an opening on the board and put somebody else in that's the way I look at it all right well well in well in this case um we're talking about the environmental Advisory Board correct and aren't there two what we're looking at are two alternate positions one regular member and one alternate member so if you did appoint one as a regular member and they were to leave the alternate would actually move into that position okay a spirited Conversation Over yes sir well thank you very much public comment well and I'm requesting a motion I'll make it I move to approve the appointment of of Ali AA as a regular member and call Jackman as an alternate member of the environmental Advisory Board to serve a term January 28 2025 through January 27th 2028 all ready to get a motion by commission Langdon to approve the appointment of Ali akava to the uh as a regular member and uh Paul Jackman as an alter alternate member of the environmental Advisory Board to serve term January 28th 25 through January 27th 2028 there's nothing else to that let us vote and that passes 5 to Zer moving on 25-1 1797 discussion and possible action regarding the appointment of Richard gortz Charles wolf and Jessica mcme to the Planning and Zoning Advisory Board city clerk your item the Planning and Zoning Advisory Board currently has vacancies for two alternate positions commission will need to determine who who to appoint as the alternate one and the alternate two Mr gortz was appointed to serve on the community Economic Development Advisory Board under the consent agenda during this meeting and the first application that was received was from Jessica M Mami the second one was from Charles wolf thank you man Mr questions discussion nothing public comment no nope I'm sorry commissioner Dalal yes we do have public comment oh commissioner jaal you're up though sir people move faster than I can here I did read the applications of all three and if you look at the applications of both Mr gortz and Mr Wolf you will see extended background I'm talking law I'm talking you know I'm uh one of them has extended uh degrees uh m m mccamy did not put in a resume uh I I would definitely You Know M Mr gortz and Mr Wolf uh um you know uh extended background serving cities on commissions uh I just there's to me th those those two gentlemen uh there's just no comparison with the application of Miss mccamy vice mayor yeah as I understand that that that's fine that's a good argument the only thing is is that uh Mr gortz was selected and put on a board earlier today in in the consent agenda we passed in what was the board he did so he's already going to be a board member and these are for alternate positions and Miss mcmi was the first one in the queue so I would put her as the first alternate and the other one as the second alternate and only and that's only to be fair to get individuals involved into becoming board board members I hate to see people put in and then you say no and then they just go away and then they have no interest anymore at least give them all a shot I understand understand what that's just my opinion I do understand what you're saying and you know and if it were another board I could I might be able to agree but this is the PAB board I understand and without seeing any kind of a resume and the resumés I saw on the other two Gentlemen even if even if that gentleman was put on a board earlier today okay didn't this commission already say it's okay to be on two boards yes yes I'm sorry seeing seeing no submission of of any kind of background compared to the backgrounds of these two gentlemen I have to go with the two gentlemen and that's just my feeling that's all I I do agree with you I do agree with you up to I have a quick question of city clerk um I know that cjab has specific seats for specific skill sets is PAB the same are we looking for these alternates or the alternates to the feat is it specified what we're looking for no the alternate would if any member of the board any at all any at all were not there the alternate would fill in okay and so we don't have any specific requirements for different seats like we do in cep um I believe they have prep let me look it up real fast then know sometimes a seat is specifically for a resident another seat might be for someone with a particular skill [Music] set it just says no more than two members of the board including alternate members shall be of the same business Trader profession to the greatest extent possible at at least three members shall have experience and expertise in planning zoning land use and related topics I don't currently have the list of what their professions are of the current members though in L of that information I would be inclined to support Comm commissioner jaal's argument that particularly for that board um we do want to have people with experience and expert I I said I agreed yeah I got no problems with it all right that's it Commissioners any public comment that was one of my um comments as far as expertise on this particular board especially um my other comment is and it might not go over too good but here's something to consider on a Planning and Zoning Board since you already have it under the membership requirements that um they not to be uh hold an elective office okay my thinking is we shouldn't have a developer or a builder on this board either now even though there's nine members these developers and the builders know everybody sometimes it only takes one vote to pass something and it could be that developer passing that development that really shouldn't be passed or or recommended so I don't see why we need to have a developer on that because in my mind it's a conflict of interest especially if that developer has some projects within our city then what is that particular person going to vote on he's going to probably vote through any development because he's a builder or he's a developer that's my thinking I think it's a conflict of interest and um it just it doesn't sit right with me to have a builder on this particular board especially if it might just take one vote to approve something and that one vote is a builder and that Builder has a project within our city and he knows another Builder who has another project within our city then it's not an unbiased board in my mind thank you thank you and that's all uh question motion I don't know if I can get the words up U but I'll make it I'll make an effort at it um I move to approve the appointment of Mr gortz and Mr Wolf to serve as an alternate one well appointment of Mr gorz to serve as an alternate one member and Mr Wolf to serve as alternate two two member on the Planning and Zoning Advisory Board from January 28th 2025 through January 27th 20129 all right I have a motion made by commissioner dval to approve the appointment of Mr gortz to serve as an alternate an alternate one member and Mr Wolf to serve as alternate 2 member on the Planning and Zoning Advisory Board January 28th through January 27 29 oh I I wasn't quick enough to do a second for discussion um I just wanted to suggest both Mr gz and Mr Wolf are both highly experienced Mr Wolf had his application in first I'd be inclined if my first in seconder would consider making Mr Wolf alternate one and Mr G's alternate to but we do have a motion on the floor you would have to amend it are you open for so I could you can amend it I I suggest an amendment to the motion um which would Place Charles wolf to serve as alternate one member and Richard bz to serve as alternate two member on the Planning and Zoning Advisory Board serving from January 28th 2025 through January 27th 2029 I'll second that all right so I have an amendment made by Comm Langdon to appoint Charles wolf as alternative one member and Alternate one member and Mr gortz as alternate two member on the Planning and Zoning Advisory board for January 2825 through January 27th 2029 we need to vote first on that Amendment or that yeah yeah and that passes 5 to zero city clerk we do need to vote on the original as am as amended and that passes 5 to zero all right moving on 24-10 38 uh discussion of possible action to approve the 11th Amendment to the construction manage manager at risk contract number 2023-24 Construction Services contract phase two with John F Swift Inc in the amount of 72,0 607 for demolition Services of the utilities administration building this your item city manager thank you Mr Mayor we ask that you approve 11th Amendment to construction manager contract number 2023 17.4 for Construction Services contract Phase 2 is John F Swift Incorporated in the amount of $726 for demolition Services of the utilities Administration Don thank you sir thank you s commission question commission questions and discussion seeing none any public comments all right then I'm looking for a motion move to approve the 11th Amendment to construction manager at RIS at risk contract number 20237 .4 for Construction Services contract Phase 2 with John F Swift Incorporated in the amount of 7 $267 for demolition Services of the utilities administration building all right I got a motion made by vice mayor seconded by commissioner Deval to approve the 11th Amendment to construction manager risk contract 202 3-17 point4 Construction Services contract Phase 2 with John F Swift Inc in the amount of 72607 for demolition Services the utilities administration building let us vote and that passes 5 to zero next up 24- 11149 discussion possible action to approve the sixth amendment the construction manager at risk contract 20237 point1 Construction Services contract phase two with Wharton Smith Inc in the amount of 332,000 217 for rep comps to the senior center city manager it's your item thank you excuse me we ask that you approve the sixth amendment to construction manager at risk contract number 20237 Z1 for Construction Services contract Phase 2 with Warton Smith Incorporated in the amount of all right seeing none any public comments for motion I move to approve the six amendment to construction manager at risk contract number 20237 001 for Construction Services contract Phase 2 with Warton Smith Incorporated in the amount of$ 332,750townhouse approv the sixth amendment to construction manager at RIS contract 2023-the amount of $ 332,750townhouse down a home stretch 24- 11150 discussion of possible action to approve the eth amendment to the construction manager at risk contract 20237 for Construction Services contract Phase 2 with Wharton Smith the amount of 24,6 79 repair services at the Family Service Center building city manager it's your item thank you Mr Mayor staff asked that you approve the eth amendment to the construction manager RIS contract number 2023 d0 uh 17-1 for Construction Services phase two for Warton Smith in the amount of $246 for repair services at the Family Service Center building thank you sh thank you sir Commissioners anything to this one seeing nothing public comment confirm motion I move to approve the eth amendment to construction manager at risk contract number 20237 Z1 for Construction Services contract Phase 2 with Warton Smith Incorporated in the amount of 23- 17.1 Construction Services contract Phase 2 Warton Smith Inc in the amount of 20467 for repair service at the Family Service Center building let's vote that passes 5 to Z next item 24- 11152 discussion and possible action to approve the Fourth Amendment to the construction manager at risk contract number 2023 17.3 for construction service contract phase two with Ajax Building Company LLC in the amount of 3,730 and3 lighting repairs in the open space ass City Hall campus city manager it's your item thank you Mr Mayor as a result of her excuse me um the recommended action that we are asking for tonight is to approve the fourth amendment to construction manager at risk contract number 2023 17.3 for Construction Services contract Phase 2 with Ajax Building Company LLC in the amount of $ 36,7 13 for repairs to the lighting in the Open Spaces of the city hall campus thank you anything to that Commissioners any public comments and I'm looking for a motion move to approve the fourth amendment to construction manager at risk contract number 223-7737 30.3 for repairs to the lighting and the Open Spaces of the city hall campus got a motion made by vice mayor seconded by commissioner Deval to approve the fourth amendment to construction manager risk contract number 20237 point3 for construction service contract Phase 2 with Ajax Building Company LLC in the amount of $360,000 and33 cents for repairs to the lighting in the open space of the city hall campus and we're vote and that passes 5 to Z we have come to final general public comments evening or afternoon or whatever it is right now um I'll to be brief uh my first issue is um I've been a member of many boards and committees over the decades and uh one thing I've noticed lately is there seems to be a lack of timely information getting to many of the boards and committees as it relates to it advising the commission prior to the action of the commission as it relates to uh so uh projects um I'm looking more into it and hopefully we'll discuss it with the city clerk to get greater clarification on that issue but it's something that I believe will be coming uh to the commission um the next thing is that as chairman of the EAB I deeply appreciate the filling of the board okay and as chairman of the veterans circle of Honor committee I deeply appreciate you uh putting the funding in so we can get that ball rolling other than that thank you very much you are deeply respected believe it fin Communications yes January 17 I attended the convocation of government in Sarasota uh I attended the state of the city addressed by our city manager at Sun Coast Tech and last night I attended the team Corp here sir yes sir excellent I yes Mr Mayor I have few thanks um city manager can you update the board on the CIP comprehensive list and when do you plan to present it yes thank you commissioner uh Petro so as we spoke about this last time in public the report was originally due to you as a board at the end of January which is where we are now and we we responded with information that said that the consultant is waiting on our facility condition assessment to be complete to add that information into the comprehensive CIP report that you will receive that report is still about 30 days away from being complete so it is our goal to make sure that you have that report and discuss it publicly most likely in the beginning of March which will be right in alignment with our beginning of our budget conversations and you will see how that report will big factor in into what we put into not only our current CIP but the long-term financial planning of the comprehensive Capital needs of the city thank you and the next I want to ask for a consensus to direct the city manager to update the board on the price widening project need a consensus for me to update the board on the price wiing project publicly how about I just do it without a consensus sir um earlier today you received a memo that I gave to all of you except you um commissioner um Petro because we received it last night and your your agenda briefing was yesterday earlier this evening I sent you a copy of the final signed one from everyone including Finance who was the last Department member that we needed to sign off on it the situation of the one bidder that we had for Price Boulevard caused a problem because the difference between our funding and their need was roughly 10 million uh there was the comment earlier about the project costing $100 million and I don't know what kind of math that was used to get to that number but that number coming from that person was very inaccurate so the vendor did work with us and drop their price $3 million which then cost us to lose a million half dollars from a grant that we were going to receive because the bid amount had been massaged and worked with which was a condition of that Grant so then we as a team went back and decided how can we make up the gap of the shortfall between the project of what was needed and what we had which was roughly about $7 million the C tax amount that we had in one of our projects in 20 2627 was for the utility Expansion Project and we are recommending that we use $7 million from that project in the short term to do Price Boulevard so that we can get it going and moving the date of that that will it will come before you as a board is March 18th for you to make that decision we have been given um word by the contractor that if you approve that on March 18th that they will be able to mobilize and begin the work in the beginning of April the beginning of April would coincide before the actual referendum in May which I believe is something this community needs to see before they get to vote on those new items that we're asking for uh want to read the memo which is a very thorough memo that was created from our public works department and then like I said sign off on finance people will be able to see what has been done between the time that we talked about it last publicly and the time that we're talking about it now um but it just goes the the Gap in communication of what people are speaking about versus what we're actually doing and there needs to be a better connection between that and we need to work on that thank you and uh next thing I I wanted to ask direct the staff to provide a bullet list of all the referendum questions items so we can inform the public is it something possible we can do online website so they will be more informed if you if you remember what we did when we had the reference questions last year we had an entire website dedicated to it the website was dedicated to it after you as a board decided what the final question was and how it was to be stated you just just did that today how in the world can we put something out there online with information without it being complete and voted on it doesn't make any sense just because the timing of what you believe that you need today to vote on something 90 days from now is important does it make it correct you need to let the process play through with what we're doing and how we're doing it and not demand information before it's accurate for you to get so then you'll criticize it when it's inaccurate when you get it in advance it just doesn't make sense that makes sense yes a thank you uh the last thing I want to say um and I missed it when the discussion was about the putting on a referendum the removal of a residency requirement and I just wanted to speak my reasons why I voted to put it up for the voters to do that is we have a perfect example of um a sitting interim attorney in our city and we can save a lot of money by just utilizing our in-house assets and that's the reason I voted for that referendum question to be presented to the public I think it's efficient uh appropriation or use of our funds as a city and that's maybe the public does not understand but that's for me to be clear to the public is that's the the reason I did that because we can utilize what we have in house then hunt for another City attorney and um with this situation for example one person cannot live within the city limits due to the various reasons um logically they would move to the city anyways but uh in some instances family issues or whatever the issues might be some people cannot so those are my reasoning to that vote thank you for your for your time uh thank you Mr Mayor given the hour and the physical condition of our mayor um I I will not share my activities for the past month but I will be submitting a report to city clerk at the end of the month summarizing my activities this month and she can post it on the website so um I'll pass for tonight fa I'm gonna finish strong um I did attend the police fire rescue right out fire rescue open house had the privilege of speaking at thead the hospital Hallelujah first we not let's start that again I attended police and fire National Night Out Fire Rescue open house at the pleasure of speaking at the a behavioral hospital um attended to state of the city address um and convocation of governments and uh also uh was there for to send off for our police uh on the presidential inauguration deployment um I would just make one quick comment the on this referendum as city manager said you know these items need to need a deadline to get on the referendum as this process plays out there will be a plethora of information that'll be made available there are the three town halls that are going to take place I believe that if supporters of this uh these Charter amendments um uh support this there may well be the opportunity to do some direct mailing to households and individuals throughout the city I think that's important but we have to remember the city itself cannot Advocate it can educate Commissioners can advocate so if there are parties out there who support these referendum items and they are willing to step up to provide compelling reasons why these should be supported um that'll happen and there'll be factual information on our City website and like I say we make ourselves available any citizens that want to ask can you know again um we try to do everything we can to make to provide as much information to people out there as possible but there has to be some meeting somewhere some how the reality is and I'll make the quot I don't think more than 10 to 12,000 people going to attend this special election and that is shame on them okay if people come and say to me how could you put such important referendum items out there for the public in an off year I say how can we afford to wait two more years at the exponential increasing costs these are critical items citizens if they want to participate in the process need to do just that so I challenge everyone listen come out ask questions do what you can stay off of social media ask the people who have the information and then make your Intelligent Decisions when you vote that's all we can do one way or the other we need to do this City's business and we will okay as far as the one comment I'm glad commissioner Petro made the comment about the City attorney and the city clerk lur there is no good Godly reason why those two individuals need to live in the city city manager absolutely the other two we need to have the ability to draw from a larger pool of expertise our city may not have the capability there's not been one City attorney or assistant City attorney was ever hired who lived in this city now forcing them to move within six months to the city I mean why if they live close enough to be able to commute to work so I don't see it as an issue and and none of us did when we we posed this this item I think that um you know hey let the citizens make up their mind on this one that's it whack that g mayor no we're not finished we got to see if the city manager City attorney or city clerk have anything to say no Mr Mayor nothing for missing well now it's 10:33 I journ this meeting you hung in there I did I finished strong I could just keep eating that medicine all right nice job --------- ##VIDEO ID:E4xqrtoFszs## inside the containers uh I do good afternoon everybody today's Tuesday January 28th 2025 it's 4 p.m. we're in the city Chambers and I call the fire rescue district meeting to order Commissioners present commissioner Duval commissioner langden mayor Stokes vice mayor emrich commissioner Petro there is a quorum present for the meeting also present city manager Fletcher interm City attorney goolan city clerk fa all right that passes 520 city clerk any public comments yes we have LC BB spe the [Applause] and with that let's move on to the consent agenda uh city manager has anything been pulled no Mr Mayor very good any public comment then I'm requesting a motion I move to approve the consent agenda as presented all right we've got a motion to approve the consent agenda by commissioner Langdon seconded by vice mayor uh there's nothing else to that let's vote that passes five to zero moving on to public hearings um 202-225-2190 - r-60 establishing a schedule and location of the fire rescue District regular meetings for the 2025 calendar year providing for findings providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you ma'am city manager it's your item thank you Mr Mayor this resolution is repealing the prior commission approved meeting schedule for 2025 and replacing it with a revised schedule to move the November district meeting to November 18th 2025 thank you sir sounds good Commissioners any questions discussion or are we good not a one mayor there we go let's vote on this yep that probably would be a good idea vice mayor thanks for having my back you want to make that I'll make it I move to adopt resolution number 2025 r-02 has presented second all right we've got a motion by vice mayor to adopt resolution 2025 D2 is presented seconded by commissioner Langdon and let us vote and that passes five to zero uh any public comments then with that it is 405 and I adjourn this meeting I know what you mean we good all right today's Tuesday January 28th 2025 it's 4:05 p.m. we're in City Chambers and I call the road and drainage district meeting to order uh commissioner's president commissioner Deval commissioner Langan Vice or mayor Stokes vice mayor emrich and commissioner Petro is a quorum present uh also present city manager Fletcher interm City attorney goolan city clerk fa board specialist Lane police chief Garrison and fire chief Titus I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda second got a motion to approve the agenda by vice mayor seconded by commissioner Langan and let's vote and that passes 5 to zero city clerk any public comments yes now we have Miss BB and Miss ponas there we go welcome to the podium good afternoon my name is Elsie BBE I live on wova Avenue I've been a resident for 25 years well it started in uh September 30th 2023 I went to mass and it was raining came out of mass I waited a while drove home down suner un price got onto price pass the um Walmart grocery and there is water in the streets I had a hybrid car well I couldn't get very far drove down southord I had to go in somebody's driveway to get off the road I went into the house they offered me something to eat whatever well I walked home from there at 7:30 the lady called me that the water's all gone well 25 years I never had water in the street I've never had anybody maintenance come and dig the front ditch in the front off the road they never clean that out I also have a drainage ditch in the back they cut the weeds but they never dig it out what happens with the new code the new homes they're all raised up my house is 30 years old what do we do I'm not in the flood zone but I have flood insurance but I don't want to be flooded out so I like to see somebody some maintenance done on the roads we had a little rain the other day the whole Corner was full of water you had to go around so it should re really M maintenance we need maintenance and with the new structure on suner where they elevated put so much fill in I understand the new code it has to be higher we're going to get flooded out we're going to get flooded out and then with price being constructed I'm sure they're going to elevate that we're going to get we need maintenance and I'd like to see that done thank you very much for your time thank you city manager possible to have uh maybe Mr speaks or somebody have a conversation yes sir perfect mayor Merl if you can come up here to speak please Marl ponus and I live across the street from her I'm a new Resident to Northport loving it but I have to float home in my car on the roads we have we were built up higher but there's a ditch they said the sewers were going to come in and water lines um we got the water City Water we're going to get the sewage but they've never said when or how and they I was told I could call and have somebody dig this stuff out make it deeper cuz all the water runs in there so it just fills the road up to close to the house and I did her you'd like to have some maintenance done on that road thank you ma'am thank you all right want the con agenda uh city manager any item pull no Mr Mayor right any public comment and that I'm looking for a motion I'll make it um I move to approve the items in the consent agenda as presented right I've got a motion by commissioner Langdon to approve the consent agenda seconded by vice mayor let's vote I'm so sorry I told you that passes 5 to zero um moving on let's see public hearings uh 20125 d-3 city clerk would you kind enough to read this by title on resolution number 2025 r-03 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Northport Florida as the governing body of the Northport Road and drainage district repealing and replacing resolution number 2024 d-61 establishing a schedule and location of Road and drainage District regular meetings for the 2025 calendar year providing for findings providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you man city manager you're right thank you Mr Mayor this resolution is refilling the Fire Commission approved meeting schedule between 2 and replacing it with a revised schedule to moove the November district meeting to November 18th 2025 thank you sir thank you any public comment any commission questions or discussions seeing none let Vote or let's make a motion okay I move to adopt resolution number 2025 d-03 is presented have a second oh thank you commission uh we've got a motion to adopt resolution 2025 r-15 by vice mayor seconded by commissioner Duval there's nothing else to that let's vote actually that was resolution 2025 R3 was it yes sir clerk do we need to restate that or are we good motion second all right thank you and that passes 5 to zero moving on resolution 2025 D15 city clerk you please read by title only resolution number 2025 r-15 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Northport Florida as the governing body of the Northport Road and drainage District amending the Northport Road and drainage District budg budget for fiscal year 2024 d225 for Hurricane Milton expenses in the amount of 1,1 128,50 providing for findings providing for posting providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you city manager you're item thank you Mr Mayor the Department of Public Work seeks a budget amendment for the fiscal year 2024-25 the road road and drainage District due to expenditures from the hurricane Milton response funding from the budget amendment will keep the district funded through the year to cover the remaining service activities supported budget levels of service for fiscal year 2025 the Federal Emergency Management agency fima uh financial recovery reimbursement is scheduled we estimated at 100% by the amount of 1,128 n75 uh and we believe that with this female reimbursement we ask that you approve this resolution number 2025 R15 thank you sir thank you sir Commissioners questions or discussion see nothing uh close this public hearing request or uh public comments step it up I'm closing this public hearing requesting a motion I move to adopt resolution number 2025 D r-15 is presented second got a motion by vice mayor to adopt resolution 2025 - r-15 is presented seconded by commission Langdon and let's go that passes 520 City cler any general public comment then with that it is 4:15 and I adjourn this meeting down we're good today's Tuesday January 28th it is 4:15 pm we're in City Chambers and I call the solid waste district meeting to order mistress present are commissioner Deval commissioner Langdon mayor Stokes vice mayor emrich commissioner Petro there's a quorum present also present or city manager Fletcher in term City attorney goolan city clerk faou word specialist Lane police chief Garrison and fire chief Titus I am looking for motion to approve the agenda no moved second vice mayor making a motion to approve the agenda seconded by commissioner langon and uh there's nothing to that let that passes 5 to zero city clerk any public comments all right moving on to consent agenda city manager any items been fold no M May any public comment then I'm looking for a motion move to approve the items in the consent agenda as presented we've got a motion by the vice mayor to approve the consent agenda seconded by commissioner D nothing else to that what El vote and that passes 5 to zero public hearings resolution 2025-the Florida as the governing body of the Northport C waste District repealing replacing resolution number 2024 - r- 62 establishing a schedule and the cation of solid waste District regular meetings for the 2025 calendar year providing for findings providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you ma'am city manager your item thank you Mr Mayor this resolution is repealing the prior commission approved meeting schedule 2025 and replacing it with a revised schedule to move the November district meeting to November 18th 2025 thank you sir thank you anything to that Commissioners all right any public comment then I'm closing this hearing requested a motion move to adopt resolution number 2025 d-04 is presented second we got a motion by the vice mayor to adopt resolution 2025 D4 is presented seconded by commissioner Langdon and us vote that passes 5 to zero moving on to resolution 2025 D r-14 city clerk resolution number 2025 r-14 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Northport Florida as the governing body of the Northport Solid Waste District amending the solid waste District budget for fiscal year 2024-25 for Hurricane melon expenses in the amount of $130,000 providing for findings providing for posting providing for conflicts providing for severability and providing an effective date thank you city manager your item thank you Mr Mayor the Department of Public Work seeks a budget amendment for the fiscal year 2024-25 for the solid waste District due to expenditures from the hurricane Milton response funding from the budget amendment will keep the district funded through the year to cover the remaining service activities supported budget levels of service for fiscal year 202 5 the solid R District budget will increase by $130,000 and funded 100% by FEMA reimbursement we ask that you approve resolution number 2025 R14 today as present it thank you thank you sir missioners anything to this item any public comment then I'm closing this public hearing and requested a motion I'll make it go ahead I move to adopt res resolution number 20 25- r-14 as presented there we go right we've got a motion by commissioner langden to adopt resolution 2025 R14 as presented seconded by commissioner Duke Bal next one and that passes 5 to zero city clerk any general public comment then with that it is 420 and I adourn this meeting what a wonderful number