So, I always get very excited when anybody asks me about my job and where I work and what I do. It's not a secret that I love working for the city of Northport. I worked for Charlotte County and I felt that I needed to do something different and I wanted something more
and I wanted to offer my skills. So I told my friend I'm don't know what to do and I was thinking about my next steps and she said, "Maria, did you think about applying to a job at the city of Northport? They have a different vibe here." And she says, "I'd love it." And I said, "Oh, I didn't think about that."
So, I applied and I started my first position in a planning and zoning in our development services department. I'm partnered with the building department because my my the fees are assessed off of the building permits and it's
strictly for new construction, new development. And uh the first thing I do is to check the spreadsheet to look at the permits and determine which ones need me to estimate their impact fees. And that's where I start with that. Then
I go to numbers that I have to put together and I put together the invoices for our developers. Oftentimes I'll get phone calls to give quotes before their um the development comes through and so developers want to know how much they
can budget for. So sometimes I put through proposed estimates to help them with that. And the bulk of it is is making sure that the fees are in the system as fast as possible. I love the aspree decor that I experience. Just how
everybody team worked together. I uh enjoy knowing that I'm can make a difference for the city and that my position can have a positive impact in for our city. [Music] Oh, you're swimming in the pool. Okay.
[Music] [Music] I'm Stacy Losio. I am the emergency management coordinator for the city of Northport. And we're going to talk about why it's important to have a go kit and what should go inside of it. It's important to have a go bag because if
you wait last minute to pack, there are definitely going to be items that you are going to forget in the scramble to get everything put together. So, it's important to have your documents such as IDs, insurance paperwork, titles for your home and your vehicles and your
boats just so that if your home does flood or your roof blows off, all those documents are with you and they're safe because you don't want to end up losing those and having to try to replace those later on. Also, in your go bag, you should think about what medications you might need to have ahead of time. If
we're under a state of emergency, you are able to refill your prescriptions ahead of time, even if they're not due yet. So, it's important to do that. Also, in your go bags, you should have non-p perishable food, flashlight, batteries, a radio that is battery
powered, and extra 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.
Good morning everybody. Today is Tuesday, June 17, 2025. It's 9:00 a.m. We're in city chambers and I call the city commission workshop meeting to order commissioners present. Commissioner Duval, Mr. Langden, Mayor
Stokes, Vice Mayor Emmer, Commissioner Pro, there's quorum present for the meeting. Also present, city manager Fletcher, police legal advisor Rabbino, Assistant City Clerk Powell, Ward Specialist Lane, I believe Captain
King's back there, Fire Chief Titus. Uh Trish, want to lead us in the pledge of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
for all. All righty. Assistant city clerk. Any public comments? No public comments, sir. All right. Moving on to general business. A2-2392. Discussion possible direction regarding
fiscal year 26. City manager recommended budget. City Manager, your item. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just as an introduction, uh this is a continuation from yesterday's departments and budgets that we reviewed. Uh we thank you for the feedback. We think we got a lot of good
questions and a lot of good direction for us to follow up with you on in between now and the next uh budget workshop which will be in July. Uh I believe that there was a great amount of attention paid to some of the conditions and considerations that not only we
proposed but ones that you raised as well so that we can make sure that we present a balanced budget to the public in the fall. Um as we go through the departments today you're going to see uh and discuss a lot of CIP as well as some of our larger operations department but
we'll kick off with our other half of public safety which is fire and rescue um very shortly. Thank you Mr. Thank you, sir. Great. Any listener questions at this point?
Of a general nature? No. No. Seeing nothing. Any public comments? Again? No public comment, sir. All right. And we're moving on to B25-2380. discussion, possible direction regarding fiscal year 26 fire department
recommended budget. City manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, I am joined this morning by um Chief Titus of our fire department as well as our friends from Stantech to go over a presentation with you. I will go first over through our slides and then we'll turn it over to
them to go through some more information that will help you understand their numbers and their formulas as to where we're going and how we get there with our fire department. Um, as you can see, they have 162 positions and seven new positions are included within their budget. Um, you have to give credit to
Chief Titus for uh helping out as we went through the exercise of identifying, you know, the funding for the positions and him being able to include his positions in his budget. He has a little bit different budget than um police. If you remember, police only
has their own general fund. He has a district fund. he has a different sort of structure that allows him to do things a little bit differently, but also how he can forecast his needs and how we can still make sure that the needs of today and tomorrow are taken care of at the same time. You look at
his performance measures and his goals, all of them on target, including maintaining an average response time of less than seven minutes. um the inspection of 100% of the businesses in the city as well as our cardiac arrest survival rate of 20% uh or higher. Um
these these measures along with the accreditation of the department show to the strength of the leadership of the department as well as the team as they continue to provide one of the most critical functions of our city if not the most. Um the budget summary as you
look at what they've gone through a lot of their expense in fiscal year 25 was capital and when you reduce that you sort of see it come back down the budget come back down into alignment to where you really want it to be. Um without knowing directly what those capital
items are which we may discuss later but um chief I'll let you address that if you need to. Um but their budget has been um very wellmaintained over the course of several years. Um it is a
department that has major equipment needs as it relates to the replacement of either fire truck apparatus or others that allow us to maintain the um the levels that we mentioned earlier.
When you look at what were the impacts of fiscal year 25 and what you funded in the budget, you're going to recognize the six firefighter positions that you gave them that allowed them to make sure that they their next station at Wan Park is covered um just for the two new
commissioners. Uh, fire does do a um good job of hiring the people in advance so when the stations come online that they are already here and they go and they're staffed as opposed to waiting until it gets closer to the actual station opening. That's the model that
we use to make sure that they are um servicing correctly. um the logistics technician. Um this has improved planning and time utilization and created backup support that wasn't there. Um the protective personal
protective equipment replacement. Um this allowed us to get equipment um that is free of forever chemicals linked to cancer. Um, we do know that the health and safety of firefighters has been an issue not just in this city, but probably in this country for a while, and we're glad that we're taking steps
to lower that as much as we can. Um, the thermal imaging cameras replace our aging cameras um that they rely on during heavy smoke conditions. Um, I think that speaks for itself as we're trying to get victims to safety and taken care of to ensure we move forward
as soon as possible. Um the recommended uh fiscal year 26 proposal at eight positions should be seven positions to match the one on the front as well as 16 proposals totaling $1.2 $2 million. The
Okay, let me go back. So, the eighth position there, which me and Chief Titus thought were one that we had pulled forward to 26 25 because we owed them is actually an IT position that is included in their budget proposal as well. Thank you. Finance. Um the impacts of
fiscal year uh 26 unfunded proposals. uh they had four totaling $106,000 uh and three of those were funded in the pull forward of 25 um so that they were taken care of. So there's actually only one that was outstanding for the fire
department. Now we're going to stop here and we're going to turn it over to uh Stantech. um they're going to run through a presentation for you and then you can ask all your questions to your myself and our team as well as um Peter and his
team as well. Just you. Okay. All right. Thank you, city manager. Uh good morning, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Uh my name is Peter Napoli. I work with Stantech Consulting. Uh we've been working with the city and
the fire rescue district uh for some time now. Um I we were initially involved with setting up this uh fire rescue district assessment program back in 2014 and uh since then we've uh annually came back for updates and and
provided the fire rescue district with a long-term uh financial rate plan so that they can um maintain sufficient revenues to cover their expenses. Uh this year is another annual update to that financial uh long-term financial plan for the
district and I've got a brief presentation summarizing the results, the preliminary results of the plan. Um so without further ado, let's get into it. Uh so a little background, uh the fire rescue district is supported by its own revenue mechanism. They have an a
fire assessment program which is added on to the tax bill of property owners within the city of Northport. Um the way it's structured uh is explained on this screen here. We have a two-tier structure. So tier one is a fixed rate.
Uh so every parcel and property owner within the city uh pays that 17182. That's an annual amount. And then tier two is structured so that it's variable and is assessed per $5,000 of uh
structure value on the property. So the more valuable the structure that is being protected from loss from fire district services, the more they pay in fire rescue district assessments. So uh we'll we'll go over some uh examples of
what that is to the average homeowner. So, a little background. Uh, like I said, since 2014, we've been assisting the district and the city. In 2024, these assessment rates were reallocated. Um, so you might, some of you might remember that, uh, it was a big
reallocation. It's necessary after a long period of time. What happened in the district over time and in the city over time was that the revenues that came from the second part were what came from the structure values really exploded over time since the value of
values of homes within the city of Northport significantly rose. So the initial methodology was set up so you recover most of your revenue from the flat charge and 30% of your revenue from that tiered or the the scaling charge.
We had to reallocate in 2024. Currently you're sitting at where you're supposed to be according to the methodology. 70% of your revenue comes from tier one the flat charge. 30% of your revenue comes from tier 2 the structure value charge. So, if we look at an average single
family home in this past year, 2025, based on last year's property data, the average single family home structure value is right around $260,000 according to the county property appraiser, which is 52 EBUs, meaning
each EBU is $5,000 value. And each one of those they'll pay that tier 2 rate. Tier one is the 17182. You pay that once flat per parcel regardless of the size or or type of parcel.
Tier two is that scaling charge $2.78 times 52 because the the average home is $260,000. That's $144. You add them together and the average single family home's total assessment is about $316.38
for this last year. And that's an annual amount. So our recap from last year. Um this is uh some charts from our our forecast and from our our study that we performed for the city and the district last year. Uh
the reallocation was in 2024. So you see those really weird numbers in there where it was a 90% increase in tier one and a 50% decrease in the tier 2 rates to reallocate that. And now you see more regular uh rate increases that were projected forward. The 10% is what was
ultimately adopted in 2025, 10% increase to the rates, and then we're projecting 8% for two years afterwards. That chart there, uh, the bar graph with those blue bars across the 10-year period, that's the fund balance or savings account for
the fire rescue district. And a sustainable plan maintains that blue bar at or above those lines which are the minimum targets that we were um targeting in our financial model. So uh now to go forward with some
updates. Uh this uh the billing units are a big part of updating the fire rescue's plan every year. So, we get the new property appraiser data from Sarasota County, process it, look at all the properties in the city of Northport. How has their structure value changed
from one year to the next? Has has there been vacant properties that have been split up into smaller lots? Has there been single family homes built um where it was previously vacant? And we make sure that their bill is the appropriate
amount based on this methodology. and then we send it off to the tax collector at the end of the year. This first chart here showed last year's projection of the units in tier 2. This new chart shows our updates. We were projecting a
3% increase in the structure value and units associated with it in the city of Northport. What ended up actually happening was a 04% decrease. So, we all know that the housing market has kind of gone stale a little bit within the past
year or two and um sales and transactions have drastically slowed down and there's a cooling effect. So, we were kind of projecting this with the 3% thinking, you know, that's much lower than what the city has seen in the past, but what's actually happening is
structure values and the values that are assessed by the um the property appraiser have mostly held flat um if not decreased even more than that because what that number takes into consideration is that there's new development that happens in the city.
So, that's in that number and there was still a decrease. So that means the existing values uh went down even further than that point4%. On the financial side of our update for the district, we included the uh 2025 amended budget for the fire rescue
district, the 2026 proposed budget as as presented in the budget presentation, and then we what we do is our goal is to do a 10-year forecast. So, we have to include any anything that's um upcoming or planned for the future. So, we have
uh several fire stations that we know that are coming within that 10-year timeline. We have the estimated costs associated with the personnel included with um that are associated with those new fire stations. We have the collective bargaining impacts just on
the existing personnel. Um, annually there's uh there's increases to their salaries and wages and OPED and related benefits each year. And then there's the continued funding for the fire rescue district's renewal and replacement fund.
And then just pointing out that we in our updated forecast this time around, we've we've lowered our our unit or tier 2 growth even further uh in response to what's occurred the past year. So, this this page here shows you our
updated plan, and I know it's a ton to look at, um, especially for the new commissioners because it's the first time you guys are seeing this. So, I'll kind of try to walk you through the important aspects. At the top, uh, two rows there in blue, those are the rate
increases that are active in this current plan. So we have the not to exceed or proposed rate increase for 2026 for the uh fire rescue assessment rates at 10% currently in in the plan
you're seeing now. Then we have eight two years of 8%s uh two years of seven and a half and then five years of seven trying to to slow down those rate increases in the future. on the bottom left hand graph,
that's the savings account or endofear fund balance in the fire rescue district. You see that it's healthy for the first five years of that forecast and then the last five years those rate increases aren't quite enough to keep up with the new personnel costs that are
layered in with the new stations. Um, we tend to try to focus your attention on the first five years because in a 10-year forecast, the last five years, there's a lot of assumptions that are baked in and uh our it's our practice to update this plan annually with the
district. So, um, a lot's going to change between now and 2030. So, um, as long as the first five years don't show any urgency or immediiacy to to change course and and, uh, consider a
significant, uh, uh, adjustment, the rate increases that we're showing here are sufficient to carry the district through 2031 before any any serious issues are presented. Uh again, the timing of those fire stations too could
could be different than how we're projecting it. Um but yeah, the another uh and I don't know if I that's the not to exceed recommendation, the new additions, the Wellen Park station, station three. Um and then I'll show you
this on the next page. Yep. So this chart here, the top chart is last plan. The the bottom chart is this plan. We just put the last plan in there so you to show you how things have changed. Um the values the average values that I spoke to earlier for a
single family home 260,000 when looking at the property appraisers data this year that's decreased to 240,000 based on their assessment of all the the values and for the homes in the city. So because their average value went down,
the average assessment they pay goes down because they're paying tier 2 on less structure value. The average home paid $316 last year under the not to exceed 10% rate increase. The average
home in the orange it's highlighted would pay $335, which is an increase of $20 annually. So, it's not a significant um rate increase to the the average homeowner because they're seeing a savings because
their their structure value is going down. So, it offsets that rate increase that we're um that the district is proposing. If I can just I just wanted to make a clarification as well just so the board knows and the public knows it's watching. Structure value is different
than assessed value. So, when you look at your trim notice, um the average structure value is different than the average assessed value. Structure value is a very legal term. Um you can find your structure value on your tax bill, but you have to go to the back pages and
you have to put certain pieces in there. There are certain things that are added on. So, if you just have a a patio out back with nothing that's covered, it wouldn't necessarily be part of the fire protection. So, that that would be removed. It's this isn't a good legal definition. I'd say sticks and stones is
kind of the the real basic description of it, but that's not completely correct legal. But I just wanted to make that clarification. And I also wanted to point out that our actual 2023 for that that average home was 33514 are not to exceed rate they're
requesting is 335.88. So if you remember some of those decreases when we did the adjustment went down. So we're just getting back to where we were at 23. Yeah, thanks for that clarification, Chief. And uh that's part of our annual process of updating the billing role. We take the property appraisers data. The
property appraiser assigns a value to everything on your property. Whether it's a a screened in enclosure over your pool to your patio to your shed, we look at each thing and say, is this flammable? Is this something that's protected by the fire response in in the
case of a fire? If it is, then that structure value associated with the extra feature or with the main structure is included in the calculations. If it's not something that's flammable or protected by from loss, then it's
excluded um completely like a chain link fence for example. And with that, that's the uh conclusion of the presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions the commission may have. Mr. Mayor, before you begin with questions from the board, I think Chief
Titus would like to just say a few words. Um, so one of the things that uh the city manager brought up was the the the difference in the budget, the large capital items. So we had a lot of project rollovers. Um, so that adds to that and a big piece of that was fire station 81 too, the additional funding
that we put into fire station 81. So when you see that that gap and that increase um it was attributed to that. I also wanted to um make sure and clarify. So the the uh the PPE gear that was a project for last year not to have
chemicals in it. There was legislation announced that when it's commercially available um fire departments have been directed to buy that gear and if they can't buy it then they have to actually give something to their personnel that says you have toxins in your gear. Um we
purchased gear and they withdrew all of it. So we were going through the process. They withdrew it all. The manufacturer brought it back and said there was a problem with it. So, it has not been is not outfitted to our people yet. That is still a project on the books. That's one of the rollovers that that that you saw on there. Um, as soon
as it is commercially available, we're hoping to have a couple of trial sets in the next month or two. Um, and then we'll be buying that. So, I just wanted to make sure to go on record that that was completely accurate. Um, I think that's right. That's good. All
right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Commissioners, questions. I always um Thank you, mayor. I notice that grants are declining. I've sort of seen
that on every budget. Is that just in anticipation of some of the funding conversations that are are or you know grant conversations going on at the state and federal level? Are we anticipating reduced or do we know
something? We're backing off a couple hundred,000 in grants. Sorry. Oh, in the budget summary, it's payment to West Villages. on from the grant side of things, I can tell you no, we continue to apply for the same amount of grants. They have become much much more
competitive. Um, some of the problems is sometimes if you don't have any money, you look better for having grants, but if you don't get the grant and you don't have the money, then you're not properly preparing for your community. So, there's there's a balance there. Okay.
Thank you. Um, what's our current resident count? How many people are we claiming at this point live here? I've heard 95. I've heard 97,000. I think 95 was the last number I saw
that was official from something we could verify. But I think if you add in or if someone were to add in the number of people or sort of how we track people coming in and out of the city, that number might be different. But I think the official number is like 95,000,000. Um, and I guess what I'm trying to get
at is what are we really thinking from a growth perspective? And again, I'm thinking of our strategic financial report that we got earlier this year. Um, we had certain growth assumptions.
What What are we thinking over the next five years? 3%. It had been five and then we had a 3% projection. Is it even going to be that? Um I don't think we have any of that in front of us with today, but we
can get that number to you. That would be great. Um you had mentioned, chief, that our response time is seven minutes. Yes. I know from firsthand account you guys
show up pretty quickly. What's the national average? Um, so there really isn't a national average. I'm sorry to be I'm not trying to be evasive when I answer this. So it's very different when you look at urban versus suburban versus rural. Um, one of the
interesting things about the city is, you know, you can't get here from there, right? Um so strategically um that causes some challenges for us with response times but I would say we fall certainly within uh the national average and have good response times considering
our demographic. So um our our metric that we actually set is 90% of the calls within within seven minutes. So there's there's a good number of those that we we try to dramatically less when we start stretching to that you know seven and eight minute time. You know, that's
when sometimes you'll see us where we look at putting fire stations or putting apparatus sometimes in advance of necessarily call volume, but because of that time limit because there are certain things that, you know, cardiac death in in the event of a cardiac arrest or certain things and the rate at
which a fire grows now is so much different than before. So, we take all that in consideration when we look at that strategic planning on when to place stations, where they should be located. Thank you for that. Um, I noticed that your proposal for tribulators,
$35,000 was not funded. You guys saved the lives of two of my friends this past year. So, I'm particularly sensitive to that. Um, what's the impact of our not funding that this year? So, what we um have
done, and this was an exercise we worked at the city manager's office and with our finance team, but we're finding savings this year. We're purchasing those. There are cables on those monitors that are um they're no longer they're end of life and so we're replacing all those. That's what that cost shows there. So we're purchasing
those this year out of savings in this year's budget. Um which is why that's not fun. Okay. So you found the money. Yes, ma'am. Somewhere else. Okay. And then mannequins for 80 8300.
Um you know I'm a big training person. So what's the impact of that? Can we find the money somewhere else or do we need to worry about that? So we we did not commit money. We're not sure. Uh as we get closer to the end of the year if we have savings, we'll do that. But we're also we're actively pursuing a
couple of grants right now for both the CPR mannequins and for the training mannequin. Do we have any now? Yes. That just sort of beat up. Um we have so CPR mannequins we have some. Um we don't have enough for the locations that we do and to load them all up. It's a significant thing back and forth. So
we'll do sometime and sometimes we have classes going on simultaneously in two locations well and park and here so that's what um those were for we have one uh training mannequin now but it's not as advanced and so we are working on getting this other one but again we're
working on a grant for that and our hope actually is to uh take an older piece apparatus an older ambulance when it goes out of service and actually keep it as a mobile lab and we'll actually put the mannequin in there on a stretcher with stuff and we can bring it around to the stations. That's cool. So, I'm
hearing you say we shouldn't worry about that. You're feeling pretty good that we'll find the money somewhere else. We uh never any promises, but yes, we're working very hard at it and we felt comfortable trying to do that. Yes, ma'am. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. I'm done. Thank you, Commissioner
Commissioner Duval. Mr. Mayor, thank you, Mayor. Hello. First of all, hello, city manager. May I answer Commissioner Lang's question about the population? The last Bieber number we have was from April of 2024 and it was 92 399 and we
had a conservative projection going forward of 4% population growth for the city. Thank you. Uh first of all uh makes me comfortable to hear you've been working with the same
companies as I believe you said 2014. Yes. A continuity. Okay. We haven't had any um any emergence. Not talking about what you do but um haven't had any breakdowns emergencies.
Okay. things are flowing, things are going. Uh the continuity uh gives me a comfortability factor. Um you know, as far as these unfunded
proposals, uh safety first. Uh those are the things I'll be looking, you know, to find the money for. Other than that, carry on. Anybody else? Thank you. Can I Can I I always forget
one of the things that I wanted wanted to talk about again in this presentation. Just like in just about every other presentation yesterday, what we're seeing is property value increases
going down, property assessments going down. This budget is, you know, pretty much made up. The city manager has his recommended budget and I don't think there's going to be all that much that
we can do to change the total trajectory of that. But this is a warning for next year and the year after that, you know, we have to be looking forward to kind of moderate things. That's not a comment on
the fire department. That's a on the city overall. No, I app I appreciate that. And I will say the one nice thing about having that forecast and that ability is we're able to see so if there's a future need that comes up that was unanticipated or if as I said uh as
Peter said every year we go back and we change that based on there were assumptions in that on what growth was and what costs of things were and so you know through co apparatus and and equipment costs went up you know what would be typical 8% a year went up 40% in 18 months and so all of those things
drastically changed our forecast. And so when any of those things change and we plug them in the following year, you'll see that model changes. So some people say, "Well, why did it look this way last year and this way now?" And last year you said you were going to do x% and now it's this. It's because of that. It's it's very dynamic and we have the ability to look out to the future and
see how a decision that we make now impacts the future instead of just looking at how do we just get through this year. So it's been very helpful. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Petra. Thank you, mayor. I like what David Deval, Commissioner
Dval said, we have to moderate things in the future, taking into account that property values will go down if they go down. But, uh, first I want to, um, say thank you and I admire your work, uh, what you do. It's an honor, um, saving,
saving people's lives. I mean, that's I really admire that. U although I have a couple questions. Um I have a problem with the the format of increasing rates every year and um I just feel that it's
do we have any room for negotiation uh 10% increase? Um if you can answer that. Sure. So one of the things I will tell you and uh we do this every year. So typically we go into this year um with all the changes that
have come you know I I would love to be at a a two or three or a 4% moderate rate every year. Um but with what with what growth has done and the things that have happened with uh even after co uh covid with supply chain and increases
I'm sure that you followed there's some legislation um and some lawsuits against some of the vehicle and equipment manufacturers and we're hoping maybe that gives us some relief in the future but some of these changing things that are beyond our control have driven us to where it's very difficult for us to do
that. So, um, when when we present our budget, I promise you I present a pretty lean budget. There's not a lot. If you look at the majority of our budget is personnel, um, we need those personnel to to make those response times and do those things that we talked about. Our
operations budget, it's actually a very small portion in comparison. There's not a lot of wiggle room there. Um, a lot of times, uh, when people look at budgets, they look and they go, "Okay, well, let's let's cut training." Well, we don't train at the level that we do and do those things. then we can't provide
the level of service that that I think this community has come to expect and very proud to say when you look at our statistics and the things that we do um we are at a higher level than significantly higher level than what I would say uh what you might consider to be just an average thing and uh it's one
of the things I preach every day and I appreciate your compliment to me but I will say um I'm just a leader in the group. It's the feet on the street every day that truly are making a difference. my job is to sit here and make sure that you know uh how important it is to get them the resources that they need to do
those things. And so when we go through this uh exercise on what we can or can't do, I appreciate the opportunity to to speak to that. So um we presented in 10% not to exceed when the July numbers come out, we will look at that. We will get with Stantech and we will see is there
any ability to bring that down from 10%. Um again it is a it is a dynamic model. So perhaps we can bring down from 10% and then maybe raise some of those outy years to look but we want to make sure as as uh Mr. Napoli was explaining at
least that 5-year forecast stays good and we try and keep a fund balance reserve for things like I can tell you our future fire station is is not wholly funded out at Toledo Blade. Our future fire stations beyond that. um any of our
CIP projects that were pushed out uh due to Price Boulevard, they were pushed out multiple years, but there wasn't additional funding added to them. We know those costs are going to increase. Those things are going to cost more. There's not tax money that's going to be available most likely. So, where's that going to come from? You know, we just uh
actually yesterday we just approved um finance, thank you, uh approved a transfer um so that we could complete the funding for the fire station 81 project to get that redone. And of course, that was unanticipated. We didn't, you know, we thought we were at a remodel and we ended up at a rebuild. So that was different, but thankfully
through doing, you know, multiple things with help of the city manager office and our finance team, we were able to get that project funded and move it forward. So, um, I would love to tell you, you know, I think we would all like to say everything we'd like to remain flat, but when every the cost for everything that
we do continues to go up, I'm not sure that I could commit to to doing something like that. What I can commit to is I take very seriously the amount of money that our community spends for those services and and we are very diligent in not being wasteful of that money and trying to make every dollar go
as far as it can. And if we have savings at the end of the year, we don't just go and spend it. We make sure that we hold that money back and do those things. So we try and work with the rest of our city team, too. if there's needs towards the end of the year or something unanticipated for another department that we can give up some money in the
general fund or do something else then then try and do that. A little bit of a overview if you can um give it to me. Do we have a recovery rate of calls? Can we recover those cost
to to the maximum? uh for example if somebody calls and needs service ambulance how is that taken into account as a revenue say so our rates are figured we look at the surrounding area I actually just yesterday um got in an
analysis uh and I think it was for most of Florida and I'll share that with our finance team but it it it looks at what our ALS transport or BLS transport ALS emergency BLS emergency also it looks at all of our rates and charges our our vehicle mileage charges to see whether
or not we're at or above within market or anything like that and we are at market for all of those I think except for one our mileage uh rate that we put in for actually is above market by the state but not by the area um and again some of that when we set those rates we
don't get all that money back from you know from Medicare or Medicaid some of those are fixed rates so whatever we bill we get back only a certain amount of money so um there is some legislation in place that uh we could actually have decreased funding um from Medicare,
Medicaid, which would be impactful on the general side of our bud on the general funds side of our budget. So, we're hoping that that doesn't happen, but we do try and maximize uh that return. And I wanted to go over quickly too, I believe it was you yesterday that brought up about the ambulances. I don't
know. I can't remember if it was you or it was Okay. So, you said something about it kind of seemed like double dipping and I I don't know if you remember when we sat in my office when you first came in, we talked about um how we have a split budget between general fund and the district. Ambulances cannot be purchased with
district funds. So, historically, many many years ago, you know, the general fund would buy police cars and ambulances. They just they did that. They were able to do that. It wasn't the city wasn't quite as big and it was it was affordable over time. um that move towards Certex uh taking on
that burden. Certex was used to to buy most of those over time. And then again with uh what has changed with Price Boulevard and some other things um one of the things we requested to do because there wasn't enough CERT tax funding to replace ambulances, we requested to set
up capital acquisition uh fund so that every year we would put money aside from our general fund budget to buy ambulances in the future. So, we've been doing that. Um, one of the things that we did this year in this year's budget to make sure that we uh so that we could fund those personnel for next year, and
that's what city manager was talking, and thank you very much for the kind words, we deferred um that ambulance payment this year, that contribution partially to help balance uh the deficit in the general fund. And the other part of that was to go ahead and fund our
personnel on that general fund side. that still would require that we make up that contribution in the future years. So, um, and you said something about $100,000. I just wanted to clarify with you. So, right now, the ambulance, just the vehicle itself is just under
$400,000. The equipment to go on it is uh a little bit under $200,000. So, you're about $600,000 for an ambulance. And uh so I know that's a a shocking price tag probably to a lot of people, but if I told you about the individual components of what those things cost, it
it's it's pretty significant. So how much do we have savings for the ambulance for your department? I I would I could get that answer for you, but off the top of my head, I don't know. We just started that a few years ago, so I'm not sure how much is in that fund. Do you think we can focus more on the
recovery rates and maybe accounts receivables? So our our um our accounts receable our percentage of uh that of people that pay actually we're on the higher end of percentages when you look at communities of people that
pay as far as delinquency. Um, if we were to increase costs, generally the people that would pay that increased cost are just the people out of the goodness of their hearts that pay it because insurance is going to only cover a portion up to a certain amount. And same with Medicare and Medicaid. So,
it doesn't necessarily you could double what you're charging, but that then you're you're out of out of line with everybody around you, which really, you know, kind of creates an issue or a problem. And uh if somebody were to come in and they wanted to look at say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say we did that and it brought in a little
bit more revenue if somebody were to come in and do an external evaluation they would ask us to justify why are you charging that when nobody around you is charging that so it has to be fair fair market value I'm just curious of how much of a recovery percentage rate of those calls is
realistically it's paid per service if I don't really use it I'm still paying it as a homeowner um to a certain extent But the ones who are using it, right? Their insurance have to pay. So the general fund side portion of it basically pays almost like the fire side
where there's the two tiers. The general fund side what you pay in your taxes kind of covers the availability for service and then people that utilize the service um they're charged a transport fee based upon what their condition was where they got transported to. So you
you have a allocated person or somebody who's following on accounts receivables of those. Absolutely. We have a we have a third party that that does that for us and yes absolutely. Okay. So, one of the things they've actually just done is implemented new AI technology to review uh all of those to find out if there's
any efficiencies that can be found on how things are built and things like that. And so, um yeah, we're we're constantly looking at ways to improve that and see if there's any more money that we we can get from that. It's just so you would understand where I'm coming
from. I'm more of a not raising revenues but managing the cost and if we have expenses or selling the services recovery recover those um fees or services
uh that were paid for um I just you know feel that we should do more managing that I looked at my um Florida tax collector bill um And um I calculated just for
myself how much it would be. Um it's not a lot. It's about $30 $40 a year. Um but it adds up adds up. And how's uh the new or impact fee is allocated to your
budget? I'm sure I'm Can you How's your um how's new residential or commercial units impact fee allocated to your budget? How is it used? Oh, how is it used? So, impact fees have to be used for an
expansion of service. So, it has to be used for something new. So, for a a new fire station, the fire station that would go in at Toledo Blade and I75 in the future, impact fees would be utilized to fund that. Um, if we were to purchase uh a piece of apparatus that
doesn't exist right now for either an expansion of to the fleet for additional coverage, um, you could use that. You can't use it for replacement of of existing apparatus. So, if we put if we had nine frontline ambulances and we were going to go to 10 frontline
ambulances, we could use impact fees for that. If we had nine and one was going out of service and we were repurchasing a new one, can't use impact fees for that. for the money that we put aside and and thank you Diana she just told me we have a million dollars right now in that RNR fund on the EMS side. Okay. So
out of the 10 for vehicles I'm sorry out of the 10% hike uh how much is it allocated for new fire stations or is it not you cannot use those money for new I missed it a there was a little bit of a mentioning oh so the you went way too
quick for me so the that typically we would not really want to use our regular fire assessment rates to to make large capital purchases although I can tell you, you know, we did use uh we did use some of our reserve money so that we can make sure that the fire
station 81 project um was able to be completed. But um some of that money does go into our capital acquisition fund for future fire trucks. Remember that's district side versus general fund side. So yes, there's a portion of that money that's a transfer out and you can see it in your
budget. Um there's a transfer out every year that pays for replacement of fire apparatus, replacement for our um breathing equipment, replacement for extrication equipment, all of the things that that that we purchase that are capital items instead of waiting till
the year that we need them, then trying to figure out where the money is, we try to put that money aside now. So when I started at the deputy chief position, we didn't have any money in the bank and didn't have any plans. So when we needed something, we had to scramble every year and figure out how do we fund it? And it was a giant impact. And we had these,
when you talk about your rates, we had these giant spikes in rates in years that we had to buy a firetruck and do things. Well, we we're limited without going through a vote and a mailing every year. We're limited to a 10% maximum increase of our rates. We didn't plan ahead and do these things. It would have
to be much higher. For example, just bringing our personnel on ahead of time. Instead of hiring 18 people for a station in the year that you need it and now you have 18 people that are untrained, you have to spread throughout the department. Um, we hire them in advance so we get this kind of gentle
climb and slope and it's it's the best best use of money because otherwise you get these giant spikes and when you look over a 10-year period at the end it costs more money if you don't plan ahead and do it slowly. I appreciate your presentation and all
of the Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Vice Mayor, you always do a great presentation every year and you had the prime opportunity to bring out your balloon presentation for Dimmitri. I mean, I know he missed
it, but that's why we do our yearly assessments and everything. um you're always, you know, pinpoint perfect and going forward it's just easy looking at what y'all need because, you know, the citizens need that, you know,
safety wrapped around them. And I hear you guys busy every day, 24/7. So, thank you very much for everything that you all do. And just to ease Commissioner Langden a little bit, if you do need any more of your mannequins, I'm going to
volunteer the mayor's service to go ahead and stand in when needed. So, thank you. I'd be delighted to do so. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you, sir. Yeah, Chief, thank you very much. You guys really run a a tight
ship. You really do. And and I just want to make a comment. You know, with with property values dropping, it has significant impact on the amount of revenue we bring in as a city in
every department, not just our rescue. And yet costs continue to go up. They continue to go up. They will continue to go up. they're not going to drop or mitigate as a result of property
values going down. So, the challenge is going to be how do you make that work? I appreciate the fact that you're looking at this as as as you know a a long-term strategy and and you're
appreciating that those costs are going to increase going to have to be met to maintain public safety and those rate increases are necessary and people may not like them. They may not want to pay for them. But the reality is if it was a
family member of theirs whose life was going to be saved or not saved, I think that they'd be more than happy to pay the extra few dollars. That's really what it comes down to. So, you know, I know this is not an easy thing to do. And uh and it's going to be more challenging because I don't expect to
see property values, you know, significantly rebound and the states chopping away every chance they get as is the federal, excuse me, federal government. So, we're going to see less grant money. We're going to see less revenue coming down from the top. And
it's going to put more and more of a pressure on us as a as a municipality. And and that's going to put a greater burden on our tax if we're using their dollars in the most fiscally responsible way and we're adhering to the priorities that we as a city have set, public
safety, infrastructure, and so on, then, you know, we're doing the best we can for the most. And that's the goal. Um, other than that, I people have asked me and I kind of know the answer, but I'd like to hear it. You know, in Wellen Park, we have a safety building right at
41 Cradle. And yet, we have a station that's being proposed right there at Maninnesota Beach Rotary, which is, I don't know, a few miles, two, three miles tops up the road. So people say, "How do you why would we build another safety building or or a fire station
that close?" Could you speak to that a little? Because I know there's a logic to it, but I think it would help for people to hear it be on the record. Well, first I'll tell them to prepare themselves because they'll be asking the same question when station three in Willing Park goes in. Um, so there's a number of
things to be taken into consideration. So, um, sometimes you build fire stations because you're at a saturation point or you add additional units. So, when your unit hour availability gets so stressed, you you know, it it takes in consideration all of the other things that you do besides just running
emergency calls, the training that we have to do, uh, the all the inventory time, the equipment checks, all that other stuff. So, there's there's a percentage that hits in there. And when you start stressing that percentage, you need to look, do I need a new station in the area or do I need um to add
additional units. The other thing you look at is your response times, which we talked about earlier. And the issue up there is response times. It's it's not always the number of calls being stressed. So, um right now we are hitting um with not even getting to the
furthest points in Wellen Park, we're getting beyond eight minutes. And so that fire station is going to alleviate that eight minute stress to the other areas and the areas of growth that are still coming into Wellland Park. And I
would say in advance of call volume, but our station up there, as you know, we're in a shared facility with Sarasota County. So right now we are working out and we're kind of setting up geo fencing on who's running what calls and we're we're setting it up so that we run our
calls, they run their calls unless it's a critical emergency, cardiac arrest, severe respiratory, a fire or something like that and then it's all bets are off close as unit goes. Um and so we'll continue to do that, but we are we're not hitting some of those time parameters that we need to. It's
actually about six to seven minutes, especially if you get any traffic. You look at Prao Boulevard even run lights and sirens and so and now they're running putting curbing in there too. So if there's two lanes of traffic and people don't have anywhere to go, we can't get past them. So um that's that's
the biggest need and we did that based upon uh the post annexation agreement. we came up with kind of a trigger point for when that station would be built and that was done in cooperation with the developer up there but also with a third party study um who who looked at proper
station locations where they should be what they should be for time travel and that was the location that they selected. So, has some consideration gone in with regard to the annexation of of 3,000 acres that's going to be included into West Villages that's
really going to be up off of Winchester because I assume we're going to service that area. Yes. So the the initial post annexation agreement had this second station as an absolute and it had a third. It contemplated the necessity of a third fire station of which of course
the developer said we they we wouldn't need it and I said I'm about 99% sure that we would. um the uh the annexation of of of that property will guarantee that third station and then I'm not sure whether we'll contemplate a fourth or not, but it will certainly drive the
location of where that third fire station will go and then look at whether or not we can adequately protect that whole area because just like the city and our master plan and things that we have, we will look once that road road network infrastructure is in place at maximum buildout. Where should you know
where should there be stations and how should they be located to service that at maximum noval? And final question I have is just on impact fee study. I noticed we have what was it to like 275,000 in
the 26 budget for I guess fire rescues portion of the overall impact fee study. Am I correct? Do we do like we're doing a are we doing a comprehensive impact fee study right now? I think our portion is less than that. I think that's the
total amount. Not to speak to it. I think that just it shows the uh budget proposal in there, but that's the full amount. Fire rescue district is paying a portion of of that districts and that's what I was trying to wonder. Was that your portion or was that to that's the total number? That's what I thought because I was thinking
how expensive would that study be? When do we anticipate that being deleted? You know, this is where I don't answer. Morning, Mayor. Uh, addition, deputy manager. So, once the funding secured, typically takes six to nine months has
been our our previous one took about that long. Um, one of the things we will be cognizant of trying to maximize opportunity for um, interaction with stakeholders in the community because um, I think some of
the feedback we got from the building community was hey we didn't know anything about this. We involve them but uh maybe maybe there's some different ways we can involve them just so they can be part of the part of the process and it takes time you know getting buy
in or at least getting education of st key stakeholders takes time because I mean the numbers are easy it's the getting the is outreach to the community is is a is a different thing because I mean I know we've developed quite a reputation for being in the pockets of developers but the reality is impact
fees are I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't propagate that narrative, sir? No, I wouldn't propagate it either, but nevertheless, I'm I'm a firm believer that, you know, uh, developers ought to step up and pay their share. And so, I'm I'm anxious to see this get done because
I think with with revenues going in the other direction in so many instances from property values and and million other areas, I think impact fees are going to be s significant. Absolutely. you know, I think to us as a
municipality and and we need those to be, you know, right at the top of where they can be and and you know, if developers want to come in here and they want to develop in our city and they want to grow their businesses or whatever their housing developments and they're going to make lots of money off
of the city's growth, then they need to pay their fair share. You know, that's just the reality of it. So, you know, it's important we make sure we don't lag behind. The city has lagged behind and it's impacting us and that's a huge source of revenue for us for select things we're allowed to use it for. So,
appreciate it. Um, yes, I don't have anything else necessary. Oh, Commissioner Lang. Yeah, just very quick quick. You know, I'm a fan, so I'm not going to go on and on about that, but just to say since I've been a commissioner, you have every year presented a 10-year view of what your
business was going to look like. And I for one really appreciate seeing those big things coming, you know, rather than being sort of surprised on the fly that we need $50 million for something. So, thank you for that. But I just wanted to
address um something that I I heard Commissioner Duval say and that was this is sort of a pivotal year and next year we really need to plan for some potential downturns. I believe we're there now
and there are a number of things that once we we go through we finish with the departmental budgets a number of things I'm concerned about not specific to police but in general that I'm not seeing in the budget and so I'm
concerned how we're going to address them given how tight this budget is. So, so I just wanted to caution Commissioner Duval. Last year was a watch and wave. The chickens have come home to roost this year. Um, and if we wait till next
year, it's going to be two. So, I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, see nothing else. Any public comment? No public comment, sir. Peter, thank you so much and to all your
staff. Do such a great job. Thank you. Thank you very much. Moving on. See 25-2381 discussion possible direction regarding fiscal year 26 utilities department
recommended budget. City manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so our utilities department sort of signals the turn from uh the general fund into some enterprise funds that have rates and assessments that actually pay for most
of their operations. One minute. Um, currently they have 117 positions and five positions are being requested to add to their team. Um as highlighted on this or chart
when you look at the performance measures of the department you'll notice that um three of their goals are on target and based on the very small percentages being off target. Other two I would argue that they are in good shape as well. The the first one of increasing the percentage of evil and
customer 60% is on target. um providing 66% of the Northport water and demand is projected at 68%. um clearing and televised 10% of gravity sewer mains is on target as well as the we talk about the increasing percentage
of new homes constructed on public water services versus on-site well to 65% that number is currently projected to be at 64.5% increasing the percentage of new homes being constructed on wastewater services versus on-site septic to 61 we're
looking at 60.8 eight. Um their operating budget um you will see that the capital is the big variable here in this department mainly because it's sort of uh fluctuates from 200 basically
$300,000 to 58 million to 60 million and now we're projecting it to be 26.6 million. Um when it talks about what did what were the impacts of the actual fiscal year 25 budget on this particular department
there were services um the RO professional services that were included in this year's budget um provided a comprehensive maintenance to the reverse osmosis system um which was important and when you look at the drago's architectural development um this
implementation of a firewall as recommended by the city's IT Um I think that speaks for itself to make sure that we are increasing and staying on top of our cyber security. The SWB diesel tank replacement um was required due to the
age and condition of the tank to ensure the functionality of the Southwest booster station. The proposals that were submitted were five people and 37 other proposals and they were all included in utilities
budget and there were no unfunded proposals for this fiscal year. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much. City manager commissioners. No questions from anybody on utilities. I always
Mr. Langon just for you Pete. Um just two uh thank you for the IT improvements. I've long been concerned about the security of our utilities. Um what are we doing for physical security
and do we need to do more there? We are working more closely with it to evaluate all sorry about that. We're working more closely with IT for both the physical aspects with cameras and and etc. and
also with the programming as well. So there is an evaluation of our security gaps underway. Also also physical for physical physical security. Uh a few years ago we put in a quarter million dollar perimeter system. Uh think of it
as a yeah when we had some uh we had a unfortunately had a homeless gentleman break in twice and made himself a sandwich. That was nice. Um and but as a result of that we spent a significant
amount of money putting into uh the outer perimeter of the of the water. I don't think we did the sewer. Did we do this one? Yes. Okay. We did the water insert. So, uh we upgraded the the detection system uh so that anything of
significant size that crosses that barrier alarms and bells go off. So, that perspective, we're aware that if the outer perimeter, those facilities are breached. I certainly don't want to discuss specifics here. Um, but I just want to
be assured that we have enough money in the budget to keep all of our utility assets secure and protected. Um, and the only last question that I have
uh is about out east. If there's one thing that is going to hamper our ability to take advantage of the commercial growth planned for out east, it's a lack of utilities. Now, I know that our strategy is to work
with the developers out there and to as much as is possible work with them to get the roads improved. I'm sort of working the interchange here. um because they've published the white paper in terms of what they wanted to see the city do the
whole chicken and egg thing but what they want to see the city do um to sort of facilitate the conversations about the interchange um and I'm and I suspect when it comes to utilities we're hoping to implement the same kind
of strategy but what are we doing what are we planning. Are we funding anything from a utilities perspective to support
commercial growth and activities six and 10? So, at you're going to break my heart, aren't you? Um, unfortunately, a large majority of our capital improvement project funds had to be shifted towards the building, towards price, and um
towards the affluent pumping station. So we do have plans. We are evaluating options that both include working with the developer and work with modifications to the current system to utilize the capacity at the current plant to meet some of that need while we
wait for the development. So it is going to be kind of a chicken in the egg type thing while we work forward. Um there is some capacity in the current plant that might meet some of this need in the short term. If I could if I could add to that.
So, we have a legacy sewer plant that has 7 million gallons of capacity. Um, Pan-American Paname U and we only use about two of that 7 million gallons of capacity. So, we have five million gallons at what?
That's a huge cost that's already some cost that the city's already done. And now we're going to build a 30 inch massive 30-inch sewer line down price that basically kind of terminates at to close thereof. So in like the next 5 to
10 years, I see that 30 year that that 30-inch pipe playing a significant role for the growth out east. Long term, we're going to have to build another sewer plant. Um and until we can
kind of um either find the partner or master the alternative financing uh component um then those are those are the kind of the long-term uh challenges or uh obstacles that we face. But I'm
very hopeful. Um, you know, like I said before previously, the city went out and got a 0% SBA loan for the expansion of Sumpter. That wasn't considered debt. Uh, it was validated through the court system. So, I'm I'm hopeful, but there
are other things. Um, the DP has $800 million worth of money they're trying to desperately uh distribute uh at sometimes at frequently at 0% and um the principal forgiveness on that 0% uh up
to 50%. So I'm extremely hopeful. Um and on top of that, we've got lots of folks that want to build sewer plants for us and lease purchases or other mechanisms. So, we have options. It's not the end of the world. We do have options. We just
got to figure out what's best for us. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, do we have any opportunity to exploit and that word has negative connotations and so I don't need it. Leverage. Thank you. Um, to leverage our agreement with Peace River.
I mean, they've dramatically improved their water flow down um Hillsboro, and I'm just wondering, we we tend to think about utility expansion from where we're present and and moving
out east and and I'm sort of thinking we should start out east and and move it west. Is there any opportunity? Yeah, there is there is opportunity upside and downside. Well, the the the
upside is and staff can weigh in, but the upside is is that you've got an entity that already has borrowing capacity and they've already they already have a game plan on on water. The downside for us is we told
them, "Oh, we only need two more two two million gallons more for Wellen Park, but anything new above that, we will pay uh for lack of a better word, a premium because we didn't jump in at the beginning of their expansion of their
capacity. So, listen, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, there is nothing that money can't solve. Um it it just means you're going to pay a little higher price if that's about we we want to go. Um it's probably cheaper, but it
would take more time to secure water resources for a water plant out east. Um and but long term it's probably cheaper than going the Peace River route. If you want it quick and easy and and expensive, you know, probably Peace River is the way to go. Uh but if you
want long-term lowest cost uh then build securing our own water resources and building our own water assets is probably the best way. Right. Couple I know that that is different. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. A couple quick related questions.
um a as we develop out east, would we have a a different utility pricing structure for the property owners out there? So, I mean, we we have an already built and to varying degrees
amortized or depreciated infrastructure out west. As we build out east, clearly the costs of doing that are so significantly higher. Yeah. Is it possible to charge differently out there? You can create legal I guess is
more what you can create zones. It's probably better overall to have a unified um rate structure, but I've seen systems that have bifurcated rates um zone rates. But, um
if you do that, then you're going to have to carve up. Typically, you would have to keep your impact fees only for that zone. And there there their there are strengths and weaknesses. It it is it has long-term consequences that we that may not be fully understood, right?
You know, trying to make sure that you only spend your impact fee in this one utility rate zone when you've got things blowing up over here. Uh it just it can create a lot of constraints to to how you spend your money. Yeah. that may be
more detrimental to the benefit, you know. So, I'll leave it at that. Okay. Um, and my last question, orange hammock. We gave the orange hammock away um ostensibly to protect the water
source out there. Are we not able to tap that? I don't I don't necessarily I mean, what's up with that? I I don't I mean staff can weigh in, but I don't necessarily think that we need it because we have some we have some pretty good water sources
already inside the city limit. I mean already inside the areas there's some waters um on is it Northport is a that we think might be good. We have our own 100 acre property out there
that from I remember some of the testing reports from the water sources are pretty good. I don't necessarily know if we need uh them. Um it is a conservation area. Are we precluded from tapping that? Let's say at some point in the
future we needed there was a study that was recently completed that looked at different opportunities including Orange Hammock and as um deputy city manager mentioned the well field areas that the 100 acres that we have and it was determined based upon that evaluation
that the routes of the land that we already have would be the easiest and most economical way to get additional water capacity. So it dig some wells. Is that what we would do? Yes ma'am. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I think um I don't necessarily know if we would
need that. I mean, yeah. Um and to your answer, whether we could actually get in there, that would remain to be seen. I don't Okay. Thank you. Just know as we go through this, I'm going to keep poking and I mean it it it is so vitally
important to the future of this city that we make out east happen. And the sooner the better. So I'm that's going to be a priority of mine as we go through all of this. And if I may one important note about orange hammock is it does clean and filter water that does
enter into our system at the snow and then makes it way to the water treatment plant. So we are still getting benefit from that area just through groundwater movement. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you commissioner m commissioner Petro. Thank you mayor. Thank you for your
presentation. Uh question on utilities increase rate. Is it 3.1? Yes sir. How you going to allocate and what why you're asking that? That is really just to keep up
with CPI. We do have a rate study going on currently. Um our last rate study did identify that we um definitely are underfunded to keep up with our current infrastructure. So, um, looking at the depreciation rates for what's in the
ground and what's currently functioning, we should have about $10 million aside every year to be able to handle that deferred maintenance. We're at about eight. Um, so this is really just to keep up with the cost of doing business while we do this study. Is it going to
be restricted so you cannot tap into it for general purposes or is it completely dedicated for a designated for the updating of infrastructure? Um it is for operations and for infrastructure. So it is not completely one line. Do you have
any specifics on what's going to be 2026 um using that money for? So when we get into the CPI conversation, we can definitely dive into this more, but really the funding had to be reallocated to meet the requirements of the consent
order and some of and some of the other projects that we have available and to align with operations. So it's not going to be like a slush fund. We would can use whatever and what not. I mean, how do we know as a board that it's going to be dedicated and then it would not be
approached again? Hey, we need this more this year. Let's do amendment. I I mean the idea the any capacity that any extra funding that we had between um the increase in the admin building being
significantly more than anticipated, the increase in Price Boulevard being significantly more than expected and then also the cost of the Fluent pump station that is now a requirement based upon a consent order moving that up in our CIP has really
depleted any buffer that we've had. So without the ability to borrow and spread money over time, we're really in that pay as you go model pushing all of our funds forward just to handle the major projects that absolutely need to happen.
If I'm not mistaken, it was before my time, but we had a good collection of fees that we could utilize on the new building. Um, how much of this are we looking for doing the same thing?
So those the if if I'm correct, those funds for the building have already been moved. This would be this this 3.1% is really just an increase to keep up with operational cost be it chlorine and all of those things as we're moving forward while we're doing a rate study and it's
in line with CPI just to you know we are hearing that electricity is going up 7 to 9%. All of those things just impact each line of the utilities budget. Okay. Thank you,
Commissioner Tal. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Going back to the IT section of the budget, there's an item under it. They have a uh service de
service desk technician and it's in parentheses police department general fund. I think that going back to the city manager uh that means that the police department and the general fund are splitting the cost for
that service desk tech. But it's probably this position, this technician is probably at the police department for it. No, we have out of the house. I'm not sure where the person is located.
An IT gentleman. It is all funded from the general fund. It's in the police department budget, but it reports. But what I'm asking, what I really want to know is, is there an IT technician that basically works with the
police department? They have a number of dedicated just they're dedicated just to the police. Okay. So, all right. Thank you for coming down. Uh now for utilities, do you have you know since utilities a lot of the
facilities are not close to city hall uh how does your IT work or do you depend on your INC technicians to take care of the equipment out there? Previously utilities had a siloed
approach to the IT and security. However, recent changes have led us to believe that we'd be better partnering um more closely with IT. So, going forward, we are looking at modifying some of those positions so that they are uh perhaps funded by utilities and live
with it to ensure that we're reaching those security levels that we're looking for. Okay. Thank you. Um question on the uh so the 3.1% increase will help load the revenue we
need to handle this uh this consent order issue. I mean um are we still working within the not to exceed $17 million budget to fix this plan? We are working multiple different avenues on
this at the same time trying to find the the best route for the city that will potentially provide benefits to other users as well and that would um mitigate the impacts of our budget. But knowing that this is something that the city's name is on and we have to respond to,
we're budgeting the what we anticipate to be the full amount of this project. Um and hopeful again to find creative sources. That's what I wanted to make sure that within this fiscal budget year, we'll have the money to do what we have to do to comply with the EPA.
That is what is requested. Yes, sir. And I know there are some opportunities out there that that may help mitigate that total investment, which would be great if that comes to pass. Um, I won't repeat. I mean, Commissioner
Langden touched on the areas that I was additionally concerned about, which is our expansion along the innovation corridor as well as out east. I mean, that has to happen some way by hooker crook. That I hate to use that expression again.
We do need to find a way to do these things. And uh sorry, you know, I've only been a politician for a few years, so it's tough, but um I'm I'm sure that'll be taken out of context, which is okay with me, too. Um yeah, that's
quite all right. Um and uh where was my thought? the, you know, I know with with some of the challenges we've had in utilities, the the overall water and sewer expansion program in the city, it it, you know, tends to take a backseat a lot of times.
Um, I mean, how much pressure, if if at all, do we experience? I mean, I I know this is mandated. I know that over time this city needs to convert. I mean, are we
setting ourselves up for the pressure to be brought to bear on this city? Because the day could come when this city's given an instruction, look, you got to bite the bullet. You're
not expanding water and sewer like was mandated. And and you know it's easy to with all the challenges that keep coming at us, you know, we address them. We do the best we can. We are so hamstrung by our inability to borrow money. It it is
just beyond anybody's comprehension how devastating it is to not be able to run this city financially the way it's supposed to be run because of the myopic views of many. and and so, you know, I'm concerned about it because it it may not
fall within, you know, the time I'm sitting on this commission, but but there's going to come a day of reckoning and and what, if anything, can we do? I mean, absolutely. Looking to the future, we see that this will become a requirement or we're anticipating that
we have met the current mandates, which was to have a plan in place. Our plan um does span many many years um and is you know not completely actionable with the financing we currently have. Uh we are looking for grants. We have um there was
a grant of 2.3 million that has been allocated. We have a $3 million grant that's hopefully going to be considered by the governor in the next few weeks. Um we'll be continuing to look for opportunities to creatively fund this. However, we do anticipate in the future
um a revisit of from D on on what the mandate is going to look like and we'll need to be prepared for that. In the meantime, we're just trying to find all the funding we can. And I have one final question. You know, as when we increase our rates for water and
sewer, that's what we're doing. We're creating an increase that falls on the backs of those people who pay water and sewer. What about all the people that have well and septic who continue to pollute the city, suck water out of the aquifers, and basically pay nothing
towards the contribution towards upgrading the city's water and sewer systems? H is there anything that the city can do legally, morally,
practically? I'm going to take this one if that's okay. At least at the end of the day, um the best thing you can do is run water and sewer lines and then give them a year's notice that they have to connect and then give them
the path that is financially doable with these large costs. And if you can supplement those costs through getting grants like Charlotte County does, that is the way. That is the path. We've got to get the lines out in front
of the homes and then we've got to figure out a way that is financially doable uh for folks to be able to make connection even if it means we're subsidizing the initial cost uh whether whatever resource that is whether it's
grant money or or appropriation or something else. That's the path because hookup fees and other things help recoup a significant portion of that money. Yeah, that's the path. A quick comment if I may. Um, what some
communities have done is when they put the pipes in the road, everybody on that street or in that area pays a betterment fee. What's called a betterment fee. It is not optional. You pay the fee and then as deputy city
manager was saying, there's some period of time by which they need to hook up. So, it's sort of in two steps. Now, those betterment fees are significant. They're on someone's utility bill. They might
pay it for 20 years, 30 years, or whatever, but that's how a lot of communities proceed. Now, I can only imagine we would have a full room and overflow if we propose that. But the
longer we wait, we won't have a choice. We're going to have to do it. Another way uh when I was a utility director before I came here, we carved the city up into blocks of 2500 lots and then we went out
to the voters and had now this was only for centralized water, but we went out to the voters and said, "Do you want to put an assessment on your property for the next 20 years? in exchange, we're going to bring you fire hydrants and
we're going to bring you centralized water. Um, we had about half of them passed, half of them failed. Uh, but once the majority voted yes in that 2500 um lot block, everyone paid the
assessment whether they made connection or not. Right. Kind of similar. That may be a path. Uh but we need to workshop that and kind of talk about that kind of thing if that's something because there's a lot of stuff involved in it. But it is a path the voters are deciding for themselves whether they want this
resource and the price that comes with it. So right I you know I had a I remember a little old lady at one of our outreach meetings was just crying because she'd been through two or three water heaters.
uh they were out her her tub was severely stained. I think she been through two or three dishwashers because the water was so costic. Uh and we hear stories like that too. In fact, you know, we hear I think we you know even some of our own commissioners have problems with their well from time to
time. So yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the conversation. Appreciate it. Um that's all I had. Um, anybody else? Good job. Public comment. No public comment, sir.
Thank you very much. going to a doctor. [Music] Want to take a break? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
You know, city manager um vice mayor had a had a good suggestion. Um we're going to be moving to public works and then moving right into their CI or their CIP. Um want to take a quick 12m minute break, 10 minute break. Um, let's do
that. Now, we're about an hour and a half in. This way, we can create create a continuity. We don't have to break it up. Otherwise, we're going to be going too long. Split them up. Yeah. Okay. Cuz we're roll right in. That's good with everybody. All right. Let's get back here at it is 10:30. Let's get back here
at 10:40. Smoke them quick. Right. Andy's wearing purple. Can Ricky go right here? Can you come sit right here? man
when I grow up. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh I am going to now uh introduce our public works department. Um they have several divisions that we are going to go through. First being the road and drainage um division which has 107
people. They are asking for two new positions which would be the assistant public works director and a field supervisor to join this team. The solid waste division has currently 54 employees and they're asking for three new employees. uh one would be a
planner, excuse me, two would be planner schedulers and then there would be a solid waste equipment operator as well. The facilities maintenance uh team has 18 positions and not requesting any new positions at this time.
The fleet maintenance has 22 current positions and asking for two new positions. One is administrative service specialist and emergency vehicle technician. When you look at the goals as it relates to department of uh public works, you
will see that uh the first one of completing 85% of drainage work orders received is slightly below target of 85% with a projection of 75%. The other three goals are on target. Um keep keep vehicles and city fleet that are listed as immediate replacement below 20%.
Currently we are at 8.5%. the goal of 90% of work maintenance work orders within 10 days completion. Uh the goal of 90% and we're currently anticipating 90% as well. Um we want to serve at least 800 cars at annual hazard
waste collection events and right now we are currently projected to see over a thousand on that target. When you look at their budget summary, uh what you'll notice is this budget has come back down and sort of like the other heavy capital department of utilities is based on
capital and those capital needs fluctuate from year to year and of course we talked about some of those already and the needs to make sure that our capital is funded and maintained going forward.
What else? Price. Oh pricey. Yes, we all know about that. Come on. Um, okay. So, the impacts of the funding proposals for fiscal year 25, what you're going to see is the uh fleet study um that was uh support operational
efficiency and long-term cost savings by developing an improved vehicle uh replacement strategy and service delivery. Uh project coordinator was added to the team. Um family services facility updates. Um this is supported better service and increased public engagement with family service programs.
provide providing significant facility upgrades. Uh the Morgan Center gym lighting uh definitely needed that and improved the gym's usability and energy efficiency as well as adding two solid waste equipment operators to their
department. Uh for the fiscal year 2026 public works um they are requesting seven positions and six proposals. Their unfunded proposals total $550,000. Um the the impacts of this will be
deferred maintenance will continue to grow, increasing the risk of critical system failures and higher emergency repair costs. Uh essential upgrades and repairs at multiple city facilities will be postponed, reducing the liability and potentially impacting community services. And a lack of dedicated repair
and replacement funds lead the city um below industry standards. and our aging systems left in place past their useful lives may drive up maintenance costs and make sourcing replacement parts more difficult. Um, I will stop right there, Mr. Mayor. Uh, we're happy to answer any questions
about the public works department at this time. Thank you, sir. Commissioners, who's up? What's your names up? Who's up first? Mr. Langden, of course. Um, just a comment.
Deferring maintenance and lacking in RNR budget. We cannot do it. We cannot continue. Aren't you glad it was off? I can still hear you. I I would for the
record, the fact that we're deferring maintenance and not putting money in an RNR budget is unacceptable. We can't keep doing it. So, yes, ma'am. And so from the facility assessment study that we received this
year, we totally agree with you. It's frightening. Yes, it is. And part of what we were just talking about before we came back from break was that our projections in this year and while it is June and we still have a quarter of the year to go, we are confident that that
number is going to sort of come in as we monitor our expenses which will allow us to handle that in next year's budget because you again I mean we all keep saying it you can't keep deferring repair and uh replacement or deferred maintenance. It's catching up to us
right now. But again, so add to the list. We need $550,000 for public works. Wait a minute. Add to the list of go find it right now to that side list to that little side on it. We
have 500 for police and let's put 550 on for public works. Okay. Well, whenever the board decides, we're going to need to talk about where you would like us to sort of target some of the priorities that this million. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I have.
Commissioner Duval. Thank you, Mayor. um act I think believe it was on the the first slide um under goals and okay there's one I think it's uh the goal was like 85% and we're at
75%. Yes, sir. I would love to speak to that. Uh, drainage work orders received, drainage emails received. U
a large percentage of emails and communications that I get from citizens have to do with drainage. Um, the canal is overfilled. The mosquitoes are building up. The grass is got water in it. The mosquitoes are building up.
Um, my driveway is getting cracked, you know, because the water is building up. Um, I understand this is a big city. We got a lot of drainage, you know, miles and miles of, you know, swailes.
The whole thing is my question is, do we have some kind of a longish term plan that we can So, in conjunction with the fact that there's a lot of infrastructure to maintain, we were really pulled off our
infrastructure maintenance game when we responded to Helen and Milton this year. And if you recall, we had to do that in-house because there was such devastation throughout the nation in this area. There really weren't contractors that we could pull in, at least timely, um, that could assist us.
So, we took the road and drainage team off their normal work and they're the ones that went around and picked up all of the debris from those storms. So, that took us about three months off schedule, which really has impacted this. We do work through the um DSI
program that we had talked about which is funded in in the next few years um and it's an ongoing project where we look at one grid per year proactively and we bring that grid um I think we've shown you maps but there's maps out there that show our different grids and
we bring that grid back up to spec for all components of the drainage system. Um, couple things play into that. Not just hurricanes, but also last year we had an extremely wet year. If we remember, we had something like 30 in more rain. When you have that much rain,
it's not a good idea to try to rehabilitate the swale. So, that further puts us back. And also, um, that also drives the number of work orders we get because people are worried about whatever it is that's blocking their driveway pipe or the building that's going on that's sitting in the swale. Um
so there's a lot of different facets that impact that number. Um but again if we you know we do see that we're reducing our drain our work order backlog right now and we are getting on track. It's been a nice dry period. So
we do anticipate getting closer to that but storms and um really weird anomalies with rain will impact that greatly. Thank you. Anybody else? Commissioner Pro. Thank you,
Mayor. Um, just want to thank you for your work and u I'm looking forward for uh transfer station to be funded. I'm a big fan of it. Um, we don't know exactly how yet, but we will soon. Um,
couple questions. So you're asking uh requesting um outlet waste 10% increase correct? Yes sir. Road and drainage 15% increase. Yes sir. How do you justify your ask and
what it is in entails for both of these? Um they well we'll start with solid waste because we are not able to put in place efficiencies from a transfer station. We need to keep
up with the growth. U solid waste is looking at something around 40 houses per week that they're adding to a route. That is unsustainable. This is something like 1,700 houses this year. One route is usually about 800 houses before they
have to go up to the landfill. So once we get to this point where we're stacking on so many houses to one route, we have to bring on additional staff and equipment just to keep up with what's currently happening. This does not even give us the funding needed to start um
to continue anyway building funds for the pay as you go for the transfer station. So So really this impact is by far and large just due to the fact that the city continues to grow. um it's expensive to bring this equipment on and that's where that 10% is going to mostly
be allocated towards uh for road and drainage. We do have the need for additional equipment. We do have the operating expenses, everything that you've heard throughout the last two days from electricity and
fuel and staffing. um those expenses require us to increase and there was a methodology a few years ago that showed this as part of the five-year plan. Um so this is not a new ask. This ask was asked three years ago and we're just
following through with that plan. Excuse me. With the last year's rate increase it was 10% correct solid waste. It was 10% for solid waste. Yes. Does our city do you take into account the cyclical
uh presence of snowbirds or how do you do that or so even if you use our system for only a few months it requires us to have that capacity for you. So, we still need to
be able to uh service that homeowner that's there for a few months or for all year long. And that requires us to have the equipment and staff in place. Um if solid waste, if there's, you know, 5,000 snowbirds, I
think we said five to 6,000 snowbirds. Um that that would not impact solid waste enough where they can be like, "Never mind. I don't I don't need this vehicle. We'll still need that vehicle. We'll still need that staff. Um, and we'll still need to continue on
that growth pattern to handle what's happening within the city. Commissioner, if I could also add, they still have to go by the snowbird's house. Sure. It still takes time and fuel, person, a vehicle. It doesn't uh it doesn't really change anything other than the maybe it
reduces the the load that eventually has to go up to the landfill, but they still have to run the route that whether the because that the snowbirds aren't all concentrated in one area. They're spread. Uh it doesn't really change the time and resources required. And one more note on that, many of those houses
get rented. So we still are generating um garbage from those houses. So in quantitative uh amount how much are we looking to bring in on solid waste 10% increase
one second for residential would equate to about a $1.2 million increase. [Music] And do you have specific allocation categories of that amount or what are those going to be used for? So we have
residential and commercial. Is that is that residential only or that was residential and then we do have a 10% increase on fees for commercial as well. We do unfortunately have a relatively smaller commercial base as we're hearing throughout um and
about $300,000 for the commercial increase about 1.5 Mhm. So how do you see that allocation in specivity? What are you going to be using those money for? Equipment. Equipment. Equipment's very expensive.
um a rear loader or you know some of these pieces of equipment are about $450,000 each. They're expensive and we'll need um two pieces of equipment and two staff just to keep up. That was budgeted separately, wasn't it? That is
within the budget, but the whole budget has to balance out. Okay. um question on um construction traffic road fees and I asked that question in advance. Uh can you and it's a big
amount. It's um $4.6 million. What are those money will be used for construction traffic road fees are to handle the damage that happens from the heavy equipment that drives on the roads. In I think it was
2005, the city realized that with the amount of growth um throughout the city, the roads were really taking a beating. This money gets allocated back towards our road rehab project. So um recently we did all of Highland Ridge neighborhood and Biscane. That's where
that money gets allocated back towards. We did Toledo Blade the year before. Um so those those road rehabilitation projects are where those funds are allocated. Is that designated account or no? No.
Oh, well the the fund itself um is not there there's not a construction traffic road fee that's in a designated account. However, we have designated capital improvement projects. Um they're called the road rehabilitation capital improvement projects and they're
annually we allocate funds towards those. But that's not it, right? This is not That is that is where that money goes. There is not um it so for road drainage we have the 107 fund and we
have 153 for impact fees. There's not a separate fund for like a separate fund line for the construction traffic road fee. It goes into it goes into 107. Yeah, it's a lot of
money. I just don't want next year hear this presentation and say we need this much money to pave the road when we've been allocating this much money for that purpose. So fiscal responsibility. Absolutely. And you'll
see that there's a good amount of money every year put towards road rehabilitation because it is an expensive task. So for 2026, you are projecting to collect almost $5 million. Out of that money, can we use
uh for other purposes or you going to be specifically allocating that money for the road? It is specifically towards road repairs, repavements, um striping, that kind of improvements to the existing road infrastructure. So the
next year if you come and ask for something like pavement project or in two years uh we can go back and see how much money was spent out of that account. Absolutely. For what and whatnot because I don't want to budget it another amount of money for the
repairs or repayment of our roads when we've been allocating this much money and using for something else. Who knows? Every year you'll see that we're taking money from 107 in an amount that is some years more than we're going to get for construction road fee and some years
less, but it it evens out over the years depending upon what projects we can get done during that year. Um, but we're taking the construction traffic road fee money and that is the money that we earmark and allocate towards road rehabilitation. Road rehabilitation is a very expensive project and it's ongoing.
Um, we recently had a study with IMS that showed that our roads were in pretty good condition because we've been able to allocate this funding. However, roads deteriorate, you know, maybe 15 years is their life cycle. Florida weather is a little tricky. So,
sometimes that is compressed. If you um neglect to get that road right in the sweet spot, you're going to be spending a ton more money. So, we're watching those roads. We've had a study of all the roads within our system. we're going through and then reallocating or rep
prioritizing based upon what the findings were from that study and we just keep kind of working through it's it's unfortunately almost like the golden gate bridge once you get done painting you start painting again and that's really how road rehabilitation is and that was my next question so basically you don't spend this money
this money for other purposes besides or are you allowed to spend for others this money is for road rehabil rehabilitation Okay. Commissioner, one thing I'd like to add as well, when we had the road repaving back in uh 2014, we repaved the
wearing surface uh 266 miles of roads in the city. That was a huge chunk. We unless there was um deterioration underneath the levels underneath, we did not do full depth reclamation. So something else you have to keep in mind, we will one day need to do that. The
study she's referring to identifies all that. So as she says, Trisha says, it's very, very expensive. Sure. But the wearing surface is only the top layer. You have the base and you have the subbase underneath. So when we have road failures or we have roads deteriorating
to that level, it's going to be much more expensive. The construction traffic growth fee is a source of revenue funds that goes towards all those things. The repaving, the subbase, the base repairs, and so forth. Very, very expensive.
Sure. And I would do this as needed and not wait till it's drastically needed. No, that's why we have them tested. We have the study, right? Long as we have the funding. And if you look at um your detailed book on page 90, there's 5.4
million allocated for this for this year. Page 90. Yes. Go max. In the GVMax book, I am looking what's what line? uh 4610 and it does say R25 or 26 rather
RR road rehabilitation and it's 5.46 four six basically. So we have allocated that funding towards road road rehabilitation for this year. Okay. It just it's a lot of money coming in every year. I don't want
to mismanage that money and when we going to have to have a deep repair to be done and we have another budget meeting let's say three years and you're going to ask us for $10 million. We've been collecting five million each
year. So I I don't want that to happen. Spending that money, just so you know, like every year we spend that money plus way way more. It's and and know keep in mind the the reason we have this money coming in is
from contractors that build homes, build commercial buildings and so forth that you know may have caused damage to the roadways. So we are bound to spend that money on said repairs and repaves and all that. Okay,
enough of that. Right. But I just wanted to be fiscally responsible because we allocating this money but then we have to spend accordingly or at least within that realm or area of needed areas that
needed to be serviced. Um so any allocation of the um rate increases for the transfer station or the solid waste 10% is really just to
handle current operational growth trucks and staff to meet current needs. Um we work hard to put in efficiencies and save whatever funds we can. That solid waste transfer station is is definitely a very important project for us and we have
been nickel and dimming saving funds while we can as we can. However, we will be looking to do a rate study and methodology in this coming budget year so that we can look at what it will cost the rate payer to really do the pay as
you go and get that money in place so that we can get the solid waste transfer station within the next few years. By doing that, we'll be able to stop adding staff and equipment at this rate and we'll be able to then transfer efficiencies to the solid waste transfer
station and we'll be able to level off our rates. However, because we couldn't borrow for this, we will unfortunately have to in increase those assessments for a period of time so that we can smash the money that's required to build in a pay as you go model. We'll fix
that. We'll be able to do it. But my my my primary concern is we're getting into this mentality to rate increase every year. Um but once we have that transportation, we can probably decrease the rate. We anticipate at least leveling it depending upon what we're
seeing. Now we we do have a lot of outside um stressors factors on us especially fuel and tipping fees. However, if we have a transfer station, we'll be better able to manage a lot of that. So, we do anticipate at least
leveling that off. And uh I'm not being hard on anybody or specifically it's just a overall um approach that we can make and create efficiencies. Uh for example, like if we have a unimproved
lot, you know, we are responsible for the maintaining of that grass and the ditch, right? The swale. Once we get the new construction, we get somebody who's taking care of
that. So that minimizes the amount of time on the city. Then we get impact fee. Then we get a tax revenue. So in essence it has to come out to the like equals
we always say the growth growth growth and we have to but at the same time we're getting more income with growth we're getting more impact fees we're getting less of the service needed for that property um I maintain my own swale
so I'm not calling the city even though But you see what I'm saying? I just want efficiency to be created and have that mentality. And as a board member, as a taxpayer and representative of taxpayers money, I want to have this mentality
within the city that we have to have um more detailed approach how to create efficiencies and not just charge and charge and charge and charge more. Um last year or a couple years ago we had a
uh needed I forget how much but we we did it with a increasing the rate of for utility tax franchise tax. We closed the budget. We never reduced the rate. That rate stayed the same at
10%. Um and by the way this is a good question. FPL is going to be increasing their rates. So technically just for that alone we have to logically speaking increase our rate. I don't know if we're
going to do that or not. But my approach to budget balance process is we have to work on both on every sides on every side of equation not just bringing revenues up and up and up and up even
though the growth is continuing to be but this is my let's face it the inflation rate is only 4% I'm sorry 2.5 um but we're raising more and more outpacing the inflation.
We're putting more and I don't want to say burden but we are increasing rates but what we're doing as a city to offset that. So the a good example a good example would be transit station that would be a
good addition to manage our resources properly and we'll do it. So but I guess um and I don't want to be too hard on
anybody. I'm just on to be as a as a commissioner, I'm responsible for the taxpayers's money, so I want to be as accountable as possible and keep accountability as possible as much as possible. I have a lot to say about
that, but go ahead, city manager. I'm not the mayor. Sorry. I just want to say we're all responsible for the same taxpayer dollar pool, and we all take it very seriously. And I understand this is your first introduction to some of these numbers and how we do business, but
we're not charging people extra money just because we want to build up a pot somewhere with these fees that you say that are keep going up. When the when the price of things that we have to buy goes up, we have to raise our prices for that. And to think that the expenses can
keep going up and don't worry about the revenues that aren't going up. That's not a fair equation for those same taxpayers that we're talking about because they're going to ultimately end up either paying for something more down the line or sacrificing in services right now. When we talk about the
transfer station which just failed on a referendum, we have to raise the assessment in order to make that up. and we're we're reacting to the agenda results and saying that we have to raise it and then in the same sentence we're saying well it needs to flatten out later down the line. We haven't even
gotten to the point of being able to pay for it yet before we know what's going to be the environment that we have before we lower it. When it comes to FPNL they are going through the process now or potentially raising their rates. And it was Commissioner Duval who said if they raise their rates, depending on
what they raise it to, and depending on what we collect and how much we collect, there may be a delta there for us to sort of reduce that rate to offset some of that increase for FPNL. That is the best you can do when there are forces outside of your control that raise
expenses. And that's not to say FPNL doesn't deserve their rate increase. That's not for me to decide. It's just for us to react to. But the the the comment of you know you're responsible for tax resol. We all are responsible for taxpayers dollars and we put a lot
of that thought into the process in front of the budget that you're seeing in front of you. Commissioner Langden. Uh thank you mayor. I'm going to be way more pointed in my comments than city manager was. There's a general sense in the community that we collect a lot of
money and then we have parties or something with it that we mismanage it and it's one big slush fund. I find that personally offensive. That's not how we work. and applying the consumer price index to city work. We
are so heavily skewed toward construction and heavy equipment and those kinds of investments. And correct me if I'm wrong, last time I checked, the annual inflation rate on those things is 8 to 10%. Which is sort of in
line with our fee increases. Um a comment on fiscal responsibility. Fiscal responsibility is not just about cutting costs. You know, we talk a lot
about efficiency and we've tried to do a number of things in this past year that would allow us to do more at a reduced cost. And unfortunately, those failed. So, let's face it, folks. We've got to
pay for it. These things are going to happen. We can't borrow. We're going to pay more. So, tighten your seat belt because we're in for a ride. Um Frankie, don't hate me with these comments, but in solid waste, have we considered
service reductions? And by that I mean, um we pick up um Yeah. So, so our bulk things, we give two free a year. Maybe we should just charge for them. We do um Oh,
conservation. They're collected every single week. I put my barrels out. They're maybe half full. Maybe we do paper once a month and then the other once a month. H Have we looked at any service decreases? Um that would be an
efficiency thing to do in solid waste. What are the savings? Is it worth it? I'd be interested in your thoughts about that. A lot of those things. One of the um and and Frank, you may have some of those numbers, but one of the things that we
need to think about are the unintended consequences of stopping that. So, um as we looked and researched making modifications to either charging for bulk or not doing bulk pickups, uh it became very clear that we'd probably be seeing more dumping, illegal dumping
dumping out east. So, uh, we had talked about even potentially not, um, picking up recycling as often or even not just household trash as often. One of the consequences that we often see when we look at other communities that have done things like that, um, parks, dumpsters,
and all of those all of a sudden become overflowing or there's there's a negative incentive that comes from that. But frankly, I'll be that far. We we never found out how much it would cost in savings or anything like that. We exactly what Trisha said when we talked
about the illegal dumping. That's what would happen here. We couldn't have that. I mean, our thing is to make sure this the city is as clean as possible. Every single day we're in the section, we make sure it's clean. To do that, we talked even about picking up garbage twice, once every two weeks. Once every
two weeks. Once every two weeks. We thought of different things, but we never got to the point where we'd say, "Okay, let's sit down. Let's see how much money we could save." We never got to that point. I mean, I would say when it comes to trash pickup, I mean, a lot of hot communities pick up
twice a week, right? Never mind every other week because of the health risks and and that kind of thing. So, I would never consider backing down on that. But, but I think the recyclables I I don't think people would be inclined to
dump those. Well, what would happen is they just put them in their normal trash and then if they put it in their normal trash, we lose out on the um the savings that we get from having our clean recycling which which we actually received funding for recently. So, um so
that was a concern. However, we do have a request for an upcoming methodology and that's something we can definitely look at and have some research put behind it and see if there are any additional efficiencies from changing our level of service. We do have to be mindful of negative incentives that we
give to people. If we're not picking it up, some people find a way. And I would never consider it for trash. I mean, just walking around my neighborhood on trash day, there's way more overflowing bins when we pick up weekly. I wouldn't
consider that, but maybe with some of the others. Just real quick, by the way, Franklway's manager. Sorry, I shouldn't say that when I got up here, but uh this year we're estimated to spend $46,000 on recycling garbage. We're going to spend
over two million. So, there you go. Mhm. The other thing you have to remember is recycling in the city is mandatory. We work very hard to get to this point. Um if we start scaling back or something like that, they're going to dump in other places. This city when I first
came here had a huge huge illegal dumping problem. It took several years and modifications to get to that point. The other thing with the two free boat pickups uh per year, it kind of helps out. For example, some people don't uh use the program, right? Others that
can't afford to get it picked up, they can donate. We have a donation system that has helped greatly again, keep things off the streets. Yep. Yep. Off the streets. Thank you for that. But we'll continue to look for all efficiencies, especially with the next methodology, right? And again, the
greatest efficiencies that I have seen since I've sat here is the ability to borrow um and um yeah, so that that's just the biggest one. And not having that transfer station out east, that would
have been the biggest efficiency impact the city would have seen in a long time, but it failed. So, here we are. One thing I'd like to mention about that transfer station, it's imperative we get it approved because right now we spend a lot of money. We have we're going taking
everything to Sarasota County landfill. It's very hard on the trucks. Our garbage trucks, any garbage trucks are not meant to go up and down 75 a couple times a day. Huge savings for that. We could we could um dump some of this stuff over at Charlotte County landfill on the other side of the city. So,
there's a lot of benefits and a lot of opportunities for savings. Right. Thank you. Good. Commissioner, I'm good. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Now, Frankie already moved. I was going to ask him the question, so I'll just let Julie answer this. She's got it.
Where is the prime example on where they illegally dump most of the time? Out east. Oh, that's your area. And construction sites. Yes. But that's
that's one of the primaries. But what I really wanted to ask was since we were talking about roads and you had brought up about the 2014 project that was like $80 million to do our roads on a bonding correct and that was only what 267 miles
you said 266 correct by one. Yep. Um how many miles of roads do we have in the city that we maintain? Isn't that like closer to 800? 813ish. That's what I was going to say. So, that was a small portion of the roadways that
we work at. So, budgeting 5 million a year to upkeep on those roadways that get spent every year on that upkeep. Correct. We'll definitely have to rebudget more and more and more. If not, have to go out and seek another road
bond down the road of hundreds of millions of dollars. So by doing the maintenance going forward, yes it is expensive, but that is why we are doing that. I just wanted to make sure that that was stated for Commissioner Paltro thinking that we're saving money to keep
do No, we're spending that money every single year to maintain these roads to the highest efficiency that we can. That's all I wanted to put out there, man. Thank you, Commissioner Duval. Thank you, Mayor. um about reduction of
services. I just never considered anything like that, especially like with our solid waste. That's one area of the city that no matter what section of the city you go to, everybody's happy with it.
Our public works, solid waste division, everybody likes it. But since you brought it up, um, not enough. Has anyone ever considered, and I'm not talking like, uh,
changing the pickup from, you know, once a week to once every two weeks, but has anybody ever looked at like maybe going on an 8 day schedule versus a 7 day schedule? You know, just a I would would stretch it out a little. Has anybody
I'm not saying it would be a good idea. I'm just asking if anybody has ever considered you know I can address that years and years ago and Frankie will attest to that during times when we had no choice because we
just didn't have enough equipment people. We did that. But here's what happens. These men and women are out there working very very hard in extreme weather conditions. And if you start making them go to that cycle, it's just too much. You're going
to start losing people. And we did. They just they just it's just too much. It's too much on one person. So that's the detriment of doing it. We do it now for like holidays and things like that, special occasions, but if it's going to be an every week thing, it's it's too
much on the average person. It's a lot of work. in in the the heat down here. I'm not sure you're talking people working eight days versus working seven days. No, what I meant was maybe a pickup
at a particular residence instead of picking up my solid waste every Friday like they do now. Maybe it's Friday this week and it's Saturday next week. I would never keep commissioner.
We get like 50,000 phone calls. When is my pickup now, but it it would be interesting. I can't keep blue and brown straight. What are you talking about? Thank you, Paul. Commissioner Pro. Thank
you, Mayor. Oh, and I'm I'm not saying anything as far as, you know, representing anybody uh as opinions. Nobody influences me as far as what to say, when to say. Uh but just to
say this is budget process is the only time we can influence the operational process as far as the charter goals. We as a commission board we have no legal authority to give directions to
the staff. Um but in the project process workshops and I can talk a little bit more and we have that mechanism that we can at least address or make a consensus or say whatever we want for the benefit of the
city and that was my purpose. Um, by no means I have skewed opinions of not or reducing services. What I was trying to say is finding efficiencies, finding better solutions. Um and I remember
Commissioner Dval uh maybe two months ago he presented this idea of reward system that if somebody comes up with a great idea of saving money for the city there would be financial reward. Um so maybe you can
look into that that efficiency in itself efficiency. So, whatever we can make it more efficient and more effective. And I'm I'm actually proud to be a resident of
the city of Northport because we're the only one that have we we have that blue and brown. Some of us cannot separate those, but I do. I have my bottle here saved because we're going to have a
recycling bins here. So when I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna recycle this. So I'm trying my best. This probably doesn't count much, but for me it counts. So stuff like this, I just want to make sure that we as a city personnel, we
would be connected. And there's a notion and I don't want to dispel this notion that we as a commission board working contrary to the staff and we want something different. We actually want team and whatever we present does
not represent my own agenda. I just want to be clear on that. I just want to make sure that we want team and we want to work for more efficiencies and by no means I had this idea that we or the city spends money left and right. We
actually are hurting by not being able to borrow. But we can fix that especially with project specific projects. for example, transfer station and I'm looking forward to solve this with certificate participation or whatever
the mechanism we're going to find. Um, so thank you for all your work. Appreciate. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Um, I know it's very hard for anybody to believe, but I actually wasn't going to say anything,
but I feel but I but I actually will because um because I just want to dispel this notion or or or this perception that people have that um
we could be we're not being as efficient as we could be. I suppose everybody can always be better. And and I would hope that nobody either here in these chambers or listening or who will listen later would actually
think that we wouldn't always be trying to be as efficient as we possibly could with our citizens tax dollars. Um, I'm open to anybody who can not complain about things, but actually point to
something specific that we could do that would be more efficient and that would make sense and that would pass mustard in a conversation with subject matter experts. And so I think that you know there is a perception out there that we
are fiscally irresponsible that um you know uh and and and I just I I I do just find that outrageous because in my experience since I've moved to
this city and have watched city government, I have watched an organization who has worked tirelessly to squeeze every dollar out and and and do more with less. And
that is what we do because we have our hands tied behind our backs and a blindfold put on us and we try to address the needs of a of one of the fastest growing cities in America. And it is miraculous that we're able to do
what we do as well as we do it. And so kudos to every department that works so hard to do this. And it is wearism to listen to people who criticize and aren't prepared to actually point to
something that would be more efficient. Everybody wants to be more efficient, but nobody's pointing to what we could do to be more efficient and save those dollars because we do that all the time. So, if there's nothing more to this, I
want to thank you all. Public comment. No public comment, sir. Of course not. Oh, I have one thing. I'm so sorry. Um, I'm I'm looking for a consensus to add $550,000
um to this budget to address the lack of deferred maintenance and a lack of RNR budget. While I wouldn't mind the 550 um the that $50,000 was actually some funds that we found this year. So, it's really 500,000 that has been removed from the
RNR, the proposed RNR. Okay, let me update that to uh 500. Thank you. Saving us. You found it. Good. Good. Um, so that is my consensus that we find $500,000
uh to address deferred maintenance and RNR for this organization. You're keeping that list, right, Commissioner? I am. Right. Have Right here. She's given away a million in two days. Well, she hasn't given it away yet, but she's
got it on a list, right, Mr. Pro? Oh, your question. So, that request of how is it going to be justified or what what exactly is it? Preventive maintenance from what I understand. Mean the need for it? Yes.
Oh, the need for it. Okay. So, if you recall, not too long ago, we had a facil facility condition assessment presentation where we discussed um that we had a consultant come in and evaluate all of our buildings and and really went
through life cycles and conditions um and prioritize them based upon high, medium, low with high being, you know, like fire suppression and things of that nature. Medium might be doors and low was like carpets. and they came up with an overall dollar amount that we're
behind of about $13 million for our buildings just to get them up to where we need them to be. So that some of that funding is in our operational ask going forward. They also stated it is industry best practice to have 2 to 4% of the total value of all your buildings put
away so that you can maintain these buildings going forward. um this deferred maintenance amount in an RNR account would have to build over time to get to the point where we would have that sufficiently funded to that 2 to 4% of our total building values so that
when we um get to that point, we can start utilizing that RNR fund in the operating to kind of level things out. But right now, we're behind on both buckets. the operating to get us up to date and the RNR funds that should be
put aside accumulated so that we can address things going forward of this 500 how much is a CIP so this it would be going into an RNR fund not a direct CIP that would build to basically we need about $6 million to
meet that 2 to 4% now so it just it's it's putting it away into a fund to build to industry standard so that we can start to utilize this without just pulling from operating that we have this this money set aside in a bank account basically like a homeowner would do. Um
you know if you if you buy a house you know that you're going to have to maintain that house. So there's rules of thumbs to put money aside so that you know you know your water heater is only going to last so long. Keep money aside so that when that breaks you have money set aside for it. And that's really what
the RNR is for. we should really allocate a million, right? Because we're so far behind the eightball. I don't think my friends in finance would appreciate me advocating for anything from 500,000. So the 500k stands.
So we have a consensus of request. You're a yes, vice mayor. Uh yeah, I'm a yes on the condition that when you come back in July, you give us what the ramifications are on where
you're taking that money from and what we would be cutting to supplement this 500 grand or prior to that. And as Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. As I said earlier, when we end this day, we're going to need some suggestions from you if you
want to give them where in your pillars or priorities you suggest we look at first for this because the million dollars is not somewhere small. That's going to be spread out. So, we're going to need some input from the board. Well, I would vote for I I would vote for
let's get it from Frankie because he's not wearing he's not wearing the proper color purple today. So he's in the given mode. Yes, sir. Thank you. I'm a yes. I'm a yes. Okay.
All right. Um I did already asked for public comment, I believe. So now we're moving on to uh the E25-2383 discussion possible direction regarding
fiscal year 26 capital improvement program public works department recommended budget city manager your item. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Uh now we go into the capital improvement project or CIP uh list. Um there
Sorry. Uh the 10-year CIP U slide here with a breakdown of by fund. Um as you can see in the mill I mean in the middle it says 58 million unfunded. So this gives you a sort of a snapshot a
round snapshot of how the 10year CIP looks. It's no surprise that road and drainage um district fund is actually uh one of the largest. Um then you have our certex fund. You look at our certex fund. You that's the fund that you all
review annually and I think that you know based on how it was set up and comprised uh the CIP is the main function of that and we use it accordingly. And when I look at the utilities revenue fund, um as they have said earlier today, we know that they
have a large amount of infrastructure needs that are going to make up a lot of our CIP as well. Um those are your three biggest buckets as it relates to their 10-year CIP vision. Um, as we got the information from our consultant
throughout the year, we know that they took a 20-year snapshot, which uh was very helpful to come up to a number of approximately $2.5 billion in need. It was helpful for us to know and recognize the universe of CIP funding that is
going to be necessary for this city. We need to start talking about it now. We start thinking about it now because as we are limited in how we can afford our largecale infrastructure projects, it's going to be more important that the planning is done in advance so that we
minimize the opportunities for um huge spikes or huge variances later down the line. um our CIP overview. Um existing appropriations total approximately $274 million with new projects being
requested of $62 million. You look at the CIP projects uh by fund. We're talking about again the utility revenue fund. We're talking about road and district and you're talking about certax as your leaning your leading areas of where the CIP is going to
resonate. Um there's a lot of different departments that have CIP needs, but I think what they do and how they operate themselves, those particular funds sort of just speak for themselves to the nature of what they do. Um the CIP sir tax proposals, um you look at fire and
rescue has $3.4 million in that category and public works has $3.2 million in that category and then utilities follows up with uh $2.8 million in that category. Um as we begin to go by department and we will start with public
works as the mayor mentioned this is uh by department you can see and recognize that public works and utilities main drivers of CIP by department um they're going to have the most needs based on the the infrastructure that is aging uh
whether it's roads buildings um equipment infrastructure etc. that is going to be the majority of your CIP. Now when we specifically look at public works department their number is approximately 27 million dollar and here
are some of the projects that they will comp be comprised of the road rehabilitation that we mentioned earlier in talking with commissioner Petro um we can tell that that's roughly $6.5 million and we mentioned Price Boulevard
widening phase one was in there as well and that's approximately $4.2 million. Um the public works facility phase two will be $3.4 million. Um the drainage sewer system improvements will be $2.3
million. And uh another large area in public works will be fire station 84 roof replacement of $2.5 million. Um I believe that's the last slide for public works. So we'll now see if you Mr. Mayor have any
questions regarding public works that we can answer on your behalf. Thank you, sir. Commissioners, vice mayor, you're up. Yeah. Um, we had discussed earlier throughout the year and we brought up the proposition of doing the parking
along US 41. Um, and there's nothing listed in the CIP projects for that. So, that CIP is in here. However, the request was to um identify what the cost would be if we were to do it in phases
compared to doing it just one shot for all three parking lots. And we just got those numbers in. So, pretty hot off the presses. Um if we were to do this within three phases, the cost is 2,544.
If we were to do it in just one phase, the cost is 2 million 1111. Um, so the cost to mobilize those additional times increases the project cost. That three-phase does not include potential
changes in cost of labor or materials. That's just based upon current rates. So if we were to spread this over six years, that dollar amount would not be accurate. That's just as today's numbers if we were to do it um in three phases compared to in one phase. And when we
had talked about that, we had also mentioned that this would not fall within um impact fees or room drainage fees. We'd be looking for this to be sir tax. All right. And and another question, as you've gotten the three phases,
are there any fa like let's say phase one, is that more expensive than phase two? Are there different price categories per phase? Yes, there are. Um give me one second. See which one?
So the South Bander to Northport Boulevard, the total for that one is $654,000. The the one that is from Northport Boulevard to Lamonte Terrace is 659. So pretty
similar. And then the most expensive one is the north side. So it was that whole section along the north and it is $1.2 2 million and that go from like Northport Boulevard all the way down past the fish restaurant there. No, it's on the other
side. It's um you remember the the first two are on the south side was Yes. that area that whole area from Northport Boulevard all the way down. Yeah. On on that side of the road. We have two on the south side and one on
the north side proposed. The one is So the two on the south side were about six something each. Yes. Okay. So the one that's causing the biggest problem which is in front of Anamarie Oyster and the moose that's about 650. Yes. Okay.
That's that's that's what I was getting at. Um add it to the list. Well, absolutely. Yep. I'd rather have Barb do it. She's good at giving away money. Uh but yeah, I think this is, you know, we
we discussed this and I think this should be a priority going forward, especially to alleviate, you know, for our citizens and and you know, even if we do use certax or whatever the funding source may be, you got to remember these businesses are the ones that are
generating the certax. So, it's sort of like a return on investment from the city. and and you know, Lord knows we probably got to do repairs in rainy season out there in the swailes and everything and you know when the cars get stuck and I've seen it. Haven't been
involved in it but I've seen it. So that was one of my big things that I did not see and I I'd like to have conversations going forward to see if we can fund that by the end of this budget. Even if we have to go into phases, let's do phase one, move to phase two, and
then, you know, down the road because I don't see a huge impact on the other side. I see the huge impact in front of, you know, the moose and uh Anamarie, and then down there at the other restaurant, Alberos, they're constantly parking in
the swelles and stuff. And I I think as a city, we can do better than that, you know. And as a point of clarification, the project number is R20 MPA and the the north parking lot would be from Northport Boulevard to Espanolia. Espanola?
Yeah, that's going north. Yep. Do you want a consensus on that to add it to the list? Yep. I'd like to put a consensus to add this parking proposal in phases moving
forward. Starting out with phase one being from Espanola to Northport Boulevard. Did you get that? Northport Boulevard and Espanol or city manage. I'm sorry I browned out. So that covers the moose. That's the move side. That's
phase one. Phase one. Commissioner pro. Well, that's not the issue. next conversation. That's not the issue. The issue is does it go on the list to be considered as to where we might find the money. Vice Mayor, I'm a yes. I'm a yes. I'm a
yes. Yes. All right, moving on. Um I don't see anyone else up there in the queue. Anybody else got anything to say on public works CIP? And thank you all very much as well, too. Um I'll go then. Um I notice under
all right public works drainage. So we're looking at water structure 121 million4. Yes. I mean we are you're going automative on that. How we how we doing with the others? We are looking for gates on that one. Um
depending upon the design and and how that would flow with the water. So that is being designed. Um, and we are also looking for grants on all of these projects, on all the water control structures. All right. Well, if we do just this one, I mean, we're we're sort
of loaded the, if I remember correctly, I mean, we've loaded the pipeline a little because we've got some SRQ money, SRQ1 for a couple of them. We have um 120 and 131 are grant funded. We have
157 and 158 out as an application. We have 114 that is fully designed. So, we'd like to put that out for a grant and then 121 would also fall in that pipeline. So, we have a pipeline for a bit that we're trying to move through too with grant funding currently.
Dynamite, right? And um I get public works facilities phase two for facilities maintenance. Um fleets doing nothing this year. uh solid waste. I see we're
impact fee funds. So we're accumulating a little bit million6 theoretically towards the solid waste plant little bit you know I mean it'll help with that service assuming what you know assuming we we find a more creative
way to finance that um whether it's a P3 or whether it's a cops or whatever we may do there um this can that's that's a question I have can impact fee funds for this pay for the like the debt service on.
Let's assume we do a P3. I'm asking a question I know we don't have the answer to yet, but can impact fee monies be used to pay for the debt service
that goes along with building this solid waste transfer station. And I'm being told nobody cannot. Impact fees cannot pay for debt service even if it's for infrastructure. So, but
if we accumulated $14 million worth of impact fees, we could use that money to build it. Yes. Gotcha. But it can't service the debt. Can't be a revolving payment. Ask a related question. Yeah. Can we
split the funding? So, let's say $14 million. We have seven in impact fees. So, now 7 million will be a cops or a P3 revolving so we can split funding. Absolutely. Yes.
Wow. Okay. Um see transportation. Let me just make sure I didn't miss anything. Bear with me bit. All right. Good. That answered all my questions. I'm good. Anybody else?
Public comment? No public comment, sir. All right. again. Want to thank you folks for all you do. Do a great job. Thanks Frankie.
See you next year. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank all the rest of you. Yes. Thank you very much. Um on where are we? 11:46 till 12:30. Let's see. Uh,
next up F25-2384 discussion possible direction regarding the fiscal year 26 CIP parks and recreation department recommended budget. City manager your Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Uh, this is our parks and rec department CIP um budget. Um, some of the projects as I will go through are the Bokeh Chica neighborhood park for $1 million, the Dallas White Park multi-purpose field for $1.1 million, park maintenance
operating building and complex for $500,000, the Lang Park development of $400,000, the replacement playground equipment at Atwater Park, as well as the dog park east of Toledo Blade for $400,000, which
are the main contributors to the 4,25 $5,000 budget request of CIP for parks and reccks. Happy to answer any questions this may have. Thank you, sir. Commissioners, anything to this CIP parks and
recreation budget? Pretty bare bones. Going once, going twice. You had to tell her, didn't you, Commissioner Langon? Uh uh just as a general comment
um I'm I'm a huge believer that we need to maintain what we have and to keep everything that we have in first rate order, but I'm extremely reluctant to fund any new parks or any
enhancements that aren't really required for maintaining a property until our commercial development kicks in. Um, we have a wonderful parks infrastructure.
We have a weak commercial infrastructure to help fund it. So again, I I think I I'm supportive of any capital improvement project that is maintaining our current system, but
anything that's new, this is not the year for new. Um any enhancements to parks that aren't absolutely essential for the maintenance of them, um this is not the year for
them. So that's all I have to say. Anybody else? So I I let me just add I have about $3 million in capital projects that are new
Bokhica and I know we have a design for that already. Dog park out east. Love to have it. We don't need it this year. Environmental park improvements. Oh, that's a zero zero budgeted. Okay.
And then Langley Park development. I I just would hold off on that um to a time when our commercial development starts kicking in. I just want to um bring your attention that the funding for most of the
projects are park impact fees. They cannot be used for any other purpose. Well, I think I've said in other meetings I' I'd like to see us investing in land out east for where we would want to have
parks. I think that would be a reasonable use for those impact fees. Um but my my other comments stand um
oh vice mayor yeah do you have according to the what you've got budgeted do you got anything in the skew that you're currently working on that this money is going to go ahead and take care of and pay for while you're working on something right now I'd hate to yes shut it down and unfund it in the middle of
something yes uh Bokeh Chica Neighborhood Park and Dallas White Park multi-purpose fields Um those are both um I believe GMP they're they're both waiting on the GMP. They're they're fully um designed. Um so in lie of
asking for a budget amendment this summer, we just chose to wait for the budget process to move the additional park impact fees in um for October 1st and then bring that forward on October 14th at that first meeting. And that's
why I asked that because like I said, I don't want to cut something off if we're already working on it and planning for it because I know how you guys work your budget. You'll wait just like you said. You'll wait, make sure it's ready, and then move forward. So, I'm I'm good with what you've got proposed, Harris. Thank
you. Yeah, I also am I mean I know we've got a a master plan coming by the end of this year and fourth quarter sometime late fourth quarter and you know that'll help shed some more light on a a going
forward plan but like vice mayor says you know the these two the big ones are are are in the works and you know I hate to see us stop you know you guys put together a pretty lean and mean budget and and it did not go
unnoticed. So, I'm um I'm good with this one. Mr. Lang, just one final comment. So, where are we at in the planning for the dog park out east? That will be part of
the Italy Avenue uh site plan that is incorporated into the master plan. Master plan. Okay. Because I see a 400,000. It's my district. We can wait. Anything else?
We want to remove something. Should we have a consensus? If you feel so moved, I do. Um, I'm asking for a consensus that we delay the dog park east of Toledo Blade and
save $400,000 in our parks and rec CIP budget for 2026. Have a consensus pro. Yes. Yes, I'm sorry, Vice Mayor. And this is budgeted impact fees,
correct? Is what I said. So, I'm a no. Yeah, I'm I'm a no on this one, too. Obviously a yes. Just about 400,000. Yeah. Yes.
No consensus, but Here we go. Anything else? Thank you folks. Public comment. No public comment, sir.
Thank you guys. Thank you very much. Rolling right along. Two and a half. Two and a half. uh group 12. We got utilities like four. We have four more. But then we got some
general discussion, I think. Yeah. So, how do you want to do? You want to uh what's the general consensus of a group? You You want a break at noon? You want to go till 12:30? Do another one of these.
I'm sorry. Uh yes. You want a break? That was an either or. Take a break. Done for the day. Thank you. That was an either or. I'll say go to lunch. Go to lunch. Let's do that. Let's uh 45
minutes enough. Come back here at uh 12:45. Yes. [Music] [Music] We 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, our our 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 island 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 have 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 100red years of experience and we are every day 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 in 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] [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 in my life where things were more stable, I decided to leave Charlotte County Utilities and I went and got my insurance 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 2 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. and I seen an opening here to be a CN D tech. So, I applied and I
got in. Typically, I get here at 7 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 part. Hello, my name is Devon Pulis. 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 tests to before it 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 evaluations just as you can hear the water splashing in the background, slides, and everything like that. But any day of the week, uh that we're open, you can come in at any point in time and ask for a swim evaluation. We always have a certified swim instructor on site that can uh have your
child take a swim assessment [Music] llama sawways manager. I am here today with Mario Vendetti. Mario, tell people here how long you've been doing this job. I've been here five years. Five years. Excellent. Excellent. So, Mario,
tell people what it entails, what you do. I'm a planner scheduler for 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. Yep. 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? Well, 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. And they should This is inside the blue container. That's right.
Inside the blue lid 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? Uh I do bags. 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.northportf.gov. /solidwaste. [Music] Welcome to the brand new Northport Podcast Network. We're so excited to introduce you to our revamped lineup of shows created to keep you connected,
informed, and inspired about everything happening in our city. That's right. With three unique shows under one network, there's something for everyone. First up is Northport. Now Madison and I will rotate hosting this fast-paced news-driven podcast to bring you the
latest city updates, event previews, and important information all in one quick listen. Think of it as your weekly guide to staying in the know about what's happening in Northport. Next, we have Northport Stories. Laura and I will share heartfelt and inspiring tales from around our community. Stories
that showcase the people, places, and moments that make our city special. And don't worry, Voices of Northport isn't going anywhere. I'll continue bringing you even more personal stories and interviews with residents who shaped our city. And last but not least, Northport Living. Cody and I will also rotate
hosting this show, which is all about tips, events, and lifestyle ideas to help you make the most of life right here in Northport. Whether you're looking for family-friendly activities, ways to get involved, or helpful home and garden tips, Northport Living has you covered. With breaking news,
heartfelt stories, or practical tips, the Northport Podcast Network is your go-to source for all things Northport. Make sure to subscribe to the Northport Podcast Network wherever you listen, and join us as we celebrate and connect with our amazing community. Northport Now
will be released bi-weekly. Northport Stories and Living will be monthly. A schedule will be available on social media and our website.
[Music] Hello everyone, Devon Pulis here, aquatics manager. Welcome to my crib. We have fun here at the crib. Programs included. Become a pass member. Play all
year long. Hey, at the crib, we do have rules. We take all payments here at the crib. Apple Pay, Mastercard, Visa, cash. You pay right here to enjoy the crib. So, enter through the gate. Childproof,
most adult proof shade. What's that? Our newly installed sun shade available for rent all season long. Here at my crib, you don't have to worry about a place to find a seat. We've added more chairs than ever here at the
crib. If you're coming to enjoy the cribs and you got little ones, we got the perfect area for them. Our Pelican playground, newly painted, fresh floor, fresh palm tree. It's looking clean. Looking for a place to work your upper
body? Take a shot at here at our Stingray shuffle. Looking to relax? I got you covered here with our lazy river. Living more on the adventurous side. Check out the slides right behind me. Newly painted. All offer something
individual and unique. Check it out. Check out the main pool kept at a wonderful 84 degrees all year long. I just want you to have a good time. We have safety covered. Lifeguards here,
staff all day, every day when we're open for you to enjoy. Concession is open. Pizza, pretzels, nachos, ice cream. We got it all. My crib is your crib. Looking forward to
seeing you here. Duty calls. [Music] I'm Stacy Losio. 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 gridlocked. 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 evacuation centers. Fourth option would be to go to one of our evacuation centers. Sarasota County has 12 evacuation centers. Those can be found on their website. [Music]
I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency manager for the city of Northport and I'm going to discuss first responders after the storm. So, it may take a while for first responders to get to after the storm and that's due to a variety of reasons. One being we pull first responders off the roads when tropical
storm force winds are sustained for their safety. That is a standard usually across the state and other states that have hurricanes as well. So, we will have a backlog of calls that have come in during the storm that we will prioritize based on urgency and they'll be responding to those as well as the
calls that are currently coming in if they're urgent. Also, the roads might be flooded. There might be debris in the roads. Our tactical first in teams will be going out right away to clear the roads of any hazards so that our vehicles can get through and respond as quickly as possible. Just keep that in
mind when you call after a disaster for assistance. We are coming. You are very important to us. We care about our residents and their safety, but it may just take a while for us to get to you depending on the conditions of the roads. [Music] [Music]
Hello everyone, my name is Mario Van Diddi. I am the planner scheduler for the city of Northport solid waste. I got into this position um first I was a recycle driver for 5 years for the city of Northport and then I became the planner scheduler after taking an
interest in educating the residents on how to recycle properly. In my position, my day-to-day, usually I start out by visiting the new residents that schedule garbage and recycle containers to be delivered and I will go see them and educate them on our solid waste
guidelines. More or less, I'm more focused on the recycle part of it. After that, I will drive around the city and I actually inspect recycle containers manually for contamination. And then I will take calls from drivers if there's any issues with uh repeat
garbage in the recycle and I will go educate those people as well. What I love most about the city of Northport is their residents are from all over the world and I get to learn about the solid waste guidelines where they come from as well as educate them on the city of
Northport's solid waste guidelines and how to recycle properly. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] I decided to become a firefighter. I used to work in uh hospitality and group sales and I had always had friends that were firefighters and I decided one day that I wanted to change my job and serve people. So I went ahead and went through
a EMT and paramedic program, went to fire academy and then I saw Northport were hiring and I really liked what they had on there between their ISO rating and their beliefs and values and everything. So I applied. They gave me
an opportunity. Every day is different, but for the most part we start off the same. We'll uh get our gear onto the apparatus and um make sure everything's operational like our air pack. Then we also check the inventory. Uh make sure
we have all our medical equipment. Um everything's operational. Um that way we can respond to any emergency so we're always stocked and ready to go. I think the best part is that everyone's passionate about their job. So they come to work and they're ready to train and
uh take care of each other and and teach each other. So everyone's sharp and on their agame, so it makes the job fun and I just look forward to coming to work. Yeah. [Music] I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency
management coordinator for the city of Northport. And I'm going to tell you the difference between flood zones and evacuation zones or in Sarasota County we call them evacuation levels. So flood zones were generated by FEMA and they're used to determine the likelihood that
you will flood and they're used to determine if you need flood insurance if you have a mortgage on your home. Now, the evacuation zones are based on storm surge data that comes from the National Hurricane Center and they use topography as well as hurricane vulnerability for
storm surge for the area and we use those to determine who needs to evacuate during a storm. So, it's important to understand that there is a difference. If you're interested in finding out what evacuation zone you are in, which we highly recommend you do, uh you can use your search engine of choice and type in
Sarasota County Know Your Level and that'll take you to the Sarasota County government website. [Music] [Music] Franklas always manager of city of Northport. Uh here today with Mario Vindetti, planner scheduler for the city
of Northport solid waste division. We're going to talk about bulk pickups today. Uh how to schedule bulk pickups, what should go out and what should not go out to the curb, where to place the items in them, what happens if you have more than what's allotted for you for the year for a bulk pickup. So Mario, I know we call
941-24850. Talk to our customer service reps. That's correct. About how to schedule a bulk pickup. How else can we do that? Can also go on our website, northportfl.gov, click on solid waste, and fill out a bulk request form. Excellent. Excellent. So Mario, what about uh if a person
wants to place it out? What should they place out? What's the right thing? What's the wrong thing? Basically, Frank, anything that doesn't fit in the container that's garbage is going to go curbside. We're going to stay off driveways. What's not accepted is tires, chemicals, stuff like that. You can put
yard waste out. That's considered bulk, but just make sure it's separate from the garbage pile. Yard waste is a separate pickup. So, what happens if I use all my bulk pickups, right? Good question. So, you can have more, but you just have to pay. It's going to be 16.50 a cubic yard, and that's length time
width time height divided by 27 is 1 cubic yard. Any questions, of course, let us know. Give us a call. 941-24850 water in a swale that's kind of the ditch by your house is not flooding within a after a storm event. Water
should be in that soil up to 72 hours after the storm. That allows the water to be filtered to get the stuff that came off our roofs and off the road out of the water so that when it reaches the habitat, it no longer has those contaminants in it. It also provides an
opportunity to slow down water so that the water doesn't go so fast that it erodess um the roadways or any other infrastructure. So when you see water in a soil, if it's only been, you know, up to 72 hours since the last rain, that is
not flooding. That is doing its job. [Music] I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency manager for the city of Northport. And today we're going to discuss storm surge and flooding and how both of those affect Northport during the current. So storm surge is when strong sustained
winds are constantly blowing over a long period of time over the Gulf and pushing water up onto shore. So when that happens, there is a lot of flooding along and beach erosion along the beaches and the homes inland. However, the storm surge can also push water up
the river. So it could push storm surge up the Maka River for instance from the Gulf and then the water coming downstream from the river has nowhere to go. that can cause water to back up along the rivers and cause flooding. That along with a lot of rain that comes from these hurricanes can also cause an
increase of water flooding into the rivers and into our water management systems causing flooding as well. Public works does a lot of work before the storm to make sure that our water levels are as low as possible so we can handle additional storm surge and flooding in our water systems. If you want
additional information about that, we have a great video about our water control structures and you can visit the public works [Music] TRX as a full class. TRX boot camp is a new class for me. Although I've been
using TRX for many years uh with personal training that I do or in other style classes that I've done, but an actual focus with just TRX, this is a new class for me. I love the camaraderie. I have to say uh with all the participants I think we have a lot
of fun. First of all, everyone gets to use the bands, the TRX bands of course and being that we have five stations. So when we have overflow or more than five people, part of the people are on the band, the other people are doing floor work and then we'll switch. So everybody gets an opportunity to be in all
stations. Just come in, have fun with it, make it your own. It's not scary. It doesn't have to be intimidating at all. You're using your body weight. You're using the angles that you choose to use on the bands. And it just varies with how you're comfortable and how you're
feeling when you're here. Hello everyone. My name is Devon Pulis. I'm the aquatics manager within our parks and recreation department. We're here today at the Northport Aquatic Center just to talk to everyone about our Float for Life program. We recognize that nationally unintentional drowning is the leading cause of death for
children that are under the age of four. So, we have an awesome program here called Float for Life. Float for Life is a program that we teach that starts with the fundamentals of floating before we actually learn swimming. This program is targeted for those children at ages 6
months to four. And what we want them to do is we want them to get comfortable in the water and if they accidentally fall in the water or find themselves in a trouble situation, they can roll over their back and float. When we launched this program, uh we were the only one in the state that was actually teaching this milestone program. So do want to
give a shout out to our Northport Rotary as well who sponsored this program here at the aquatic center and actually paid for a trainer to come in all the way from Nebraska where this program originates there. We practice and we go through what's called milestones here. So, as soon as the kids progress through the milestones, we can continue moving
on through them. And at the end of it, it's a pretty awesome program when they graduate. It's one of the final things that they do is they jump in fully clothed and they have to turn over, roll over on their back, and actually be able to scream for help at that point in time. It's just an awesome segment
program that leads right into our learn to swim program. So that way we can make sure we're keeping our kids safe in, on, and around the water. They're trying to get [Music]
Oh my gosh, this is going to be great. [Music] [Music] So, I always get very excited when anybody asks me about my job and where I work and what I do. It's not a secret that I love working for the city of
Northport. I worked for Charlotte County and I felt that I needed to do something different and I wanted something more and I wanted to offer my skills. So I said told my friend I'm don't know what to do and I was thinking about my next steps and she said, "Maria, did you think about applying to a job at the
city of Northport? They have a different vibe here." And she says, "I'd love it." And I said, "Oh, I didn't think about that." So, I applied and I started my first position in planning and zoning in our development services department. I'm partnered with the building department
because my my the fees are assessed off of the building permits and it's strictly for new construction, new development. And uh the first thing I do is to check the spreadsheet to look at the permits and determine which ones
need me to estimate their impact fees. And that's where I start with that. Then I go to numbers that I have to put together and I put together the invoices for our developers. Often times I'll get phone calls to give quotes before their
um the development comes through and so developers want to know how much they can budget for. So sometimes I put through proposed estimates to help them with that. And the bulk of it is is making sure that the fees are in the
system as fast as possible. I love the aspree decor that I experience. Just how everybody team worked together. I uh enjoy knowing that I'm can make a difference for the city and that my position can have a positive impact in
for our city. [Music] Oh, you're swimming in the pool. [Music] Everyone [Music] [Music]
I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency management coordinator for the city of Northport. And we're going to talk about why it's important to have a go kit and what should go inside of it. It's important to have a go bag because if you wait last minute to pack, there are definitely going to be items that you are going to forget in the scramble to
get everything put together. So, it's important to have your documents such as IDs, insurance paperwork, titles for your home and your vehicles and your boats just so that if your home does flood or your roof blows up, all those documents are with you and they're safe
because you don't want to end up losing those and having to try to replace those later on. Also, in your go bag, you should think about what medications you might need to have ahead of time. If we're under a state of emergency, you are able to refill your prescriptions ahead of time, even if they're not due
yet. So, it's important to do that. Also, in your go bags, you should have non-p perishable food, flashlight, batteries, a radio that is battery powered and extra 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. [Music] We 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, our our 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 island effect within our city, providing habitat, providing shelter for these species and just uh also for our aesthetic enjoyments. 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 have 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 100red years of experience and we are every day 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 in leadership in
the city. We really hope to make great strides in 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] [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. And then once I reached a point in my life where things were more stable, I decided to leave Charlotte County Utilities and I went and got my insurance 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. and I seen an opening here
to be a CN D tech. So, I applied and I got in. Typically, I get here at 7 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 part. Hello, my name is Devon Pulis. 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 a 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 tests to before it 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 evaluations just as you can hear the water splashing in the background, slides and everything like that. But any day of the week, uh that we're open, you can come in at any point
in time and ask for a swim evaluation. We always have a certified swim instructor on site that can uh have your child take a swim assessment [Music] Franklama sawways manager. I am here today with Mario Vendidi. Mario, tell
people here how long you've been doing this job. I've been here five years. Five years. Excellent. Excellent. So, Mario, tell people what it entails, what you do. I'm a planner scheduler for 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. Yep. 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? Well, 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. And they should This is inside the blue lid container. That's right. Inside the blue lid 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? Uh I
do bags. I come across a lot of that. Okay. You don't want to do that. So, okay. So, if you have any questions, you can always look at our website ww.northportf.gov. GV/Solidwaste. [Music] Welcome to the brand new Northport
Podcast Network. We're so excited to introduce you to our revamped lineup of shows created to keep you connected, informed, and inspired about everything happening in our city. That's right. With three unique shows under one network, there's something for everyone. First up is Northport. Now Madison and I
will rotate hosting this fast-paced news-driven podcast to bring you the latest city updates, event previews, and important information all in one quick listen. Think of it as your weekly guide to staying in the know about what's happening in Northport. Next, we have Northport Stories. Laura
and I will share heartfelt and inspiring tales from around our community. Stories that showcase the people, places, and moments that make our city special. And don't worry, Voices of Northport isn't going anywhere. I'll continue bringing you even more personal stories and interviews with residents who shaped our
city. And last but not least, Northport Living. Cody and I will also rotate hosting this show, which is all about tips, events, and lifestyle ideas to help you make the most of life right here in Northport. Whether you're looking for family-friendly activities, ways to get involved, or helpful home
and garden tips, Northport Living has you covered. With breaking news, heartfelt stories, or practical tips, the Northport Podcast Network is your go-to source for all things Northport. Make sure to subscribe to the Northport Podcast Network wherever you listen and
join us as we celebrate and connect with our amazing community. Northport Now will be released bi-weekly. Northport Stories and Living will be monthly. A schedule will be available on social media and our website.
[Music] Hello everyone, Devon Pulis here, aquatics manager. Welcome to my crib. We have fun here at the crib. Programs
included. Become a pass member. Play all year long. Hey, at the crib. We do have rules. We take all payments here at the crib. Apple Pay, Mastercard, Visa, cash. You pay right here to enjoy the crib. So, enter through the gate. Childproof,
most adult proof. Shade. What's that? Our newly installed sun shade available for rent all season long. Here at my crib, you don't have to worry about a place to find a seat. We've added more chairs than ever here at the
crib. If you're coming to enjoy the cribs and you got little ones, we got the perfect area for them. Our Pelican playground, newly painted, fresh floor, fresh palm tree. It's looking clean. Looking for a place to work your upper
body? Take a shot at here at our Stingray shuffle. Looking to relax? I got you covered here with our lazy river. Living more on the adventurous side. Check out the slides right behind me. Newly painted. All offer something
individual and unique. Check it out. Check out the main pool kept at a wonderful 84 degrees all year long. I just want you to have a good time. We have safety covered. Lifeguards here,
staff all day, every day when we're open for you to enjoy. Concession is open. Pizza, pretzels, nachos, ice cream. We got it all. My crib is your crib. Looking forward to
seeing you here. Duty calls. [Music] I'm Stacy Losio. 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 gridlocked. 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 evacuation centers. Fourth option would be to go to one of our evacuation centers. Sarasota County has 12 evacuation centers. Those can be found on their website. [Music]
I'm Stacy Losio. I'm the emergency manager for the city of Northport and I'm going to discuss first responders after the storm. So, it may take a while for first responders to get to after the storm and that's due to a variety of reasons. One being we pull first responders off the roads when tropical
storm force winds are sustained for their safety. That is a standard usually across the state and other states that have hurricanes as well. So, we will have a backlog of calls that have come in during the storm that we will prioritize based on urgency and they'll be responding to those as well as the
calls that are currently coming in if they're urgent. Also, the roads might be flooded. There might be debris in the roads. Our tactical first in teams will be going out right away to clear the roads of any hazards so that our vehicles can get through and respond as quickly as possible. Just keep that in
mind when you call after a disaster for assistance. We are coming You are very important to us. We care about our residents and their safety, but it may just take a while for us to get to you depending on the conditions of the roads. [Music] Hello everyone, my name is Mario Van
Diddi. I am the planner scheduler for the city of Northport solid waste. I got into this position um first I was a recycle driver for 5 years for the city of Northport and then I became the planner scheduler after taking an interest in educating the residents on
how to recycle properly. In my position my daytoday usually I start out by visiting the new residents that schedule garbage and recycle containers to be delivered. All right, welcome back everybody.
Moving on. We are un we're up to G25-2385 discussion possible direction regarding the fiscal year 2026 CIP utilities department recommended budget city
manager your item. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Uh so this is the $22,450,500 utilities CIP department um uh budget. Um, as you can see, $17 million is allocated for the F1 pumping station and
pipeline. This is one of the agenda items which we had identified as one of the key priorities for the city going forward. I think we're all familiar with the consent order and the need for the project. So, we still are keeping it um
front of mind, but also included in their request is the neighborhood water and wastewater line extensions for $2.5 million. We're happy to answer any questions you have about CIP project for utilities, Mr. Mayor. All righty, commissioners,
get your names up there if you got any questions. Anybody got anything? What' she say? She didn't have anything. No, nothing on this. Come and get one question. Nothing on
the sea of neighborhoods. So, we're still planning uh three and a half million for neighborhood water wastewater line ex expansion. Uh two and a half. Oh, I'm sorry. Two and a half. Yes, I was on the wrong column. That's right. Yes, sir. We
got the 17 in there for the fluent pumping station. Good, good, good, good. Advanced metering. Good. You need to do the meeting. All right. Nobody has anything. Huh? Guys
are good. No questions. Okay. I did. Any public comment? No public comment, sir. Well, thank you. Then we're good. Thank you very much. Your day just got a little shorter, didn't go.
Moving forward. H 25-2386 uh discussion possible direction regarding the fiscal year 2026 CIP fire department recommended budget. City manager. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um the fire and
rescue department CIP budget totals 3.9 million. Um 3.4 of that is for future fire station A in our CIP. And the next highest item is a high water vehicle for $400,000.
Um, happy to answer any questions about fire department CIP you may have. Thank you, sir. Commissioners, Commissioner Pro. Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick question. We do not own high water vehicles in the city.
That is a great question. So, no, the vehicles that we used previously were um brush trucks that we got from forestry that we end up kind of taking out of service as brush vehicles and trying to maintain them for another purpose. We
use them through the floods. um they are very difficult to find parts, but the biggest issue was um they're not built to go into high water. So, infiltration into the axles and into the motor components and everything else um those vehicles were almost immediately out of
service. So, the vehicle that we put in for here, and we've also applied for um a grant, um it's a very similar vehicle to some of our I say newer brush trucks that we get left over from the Department of Defense through the Florida Forest Service. They actually
have what's called a fjording kit built into them. And so, it prevents any water from getting into all of those components that would be damaged. It can go up into 48 in. Actually, I think it's 52 inches of water. I'll have to look. Please don't quote me on that because I'm not I have to check that. Um, but they're built for that purpose. They're
built out in Oklahoma. They take old military trucks, they put in all the fing parts, they redo them, they update all the components, and they ship them out. So, that was my next question about the grant. Does police own any of those vehicles?
High water vehicles? Um, I don't would prefer not to speak on their behalf because I'm not sure that I know the answer. because I I almost positive I saw it somewhere. I don't know where. I just
don't remember where. Yeah, that fire. Yeah. Uh Captain Scott King for Police Department. We have the Bearcat from Linko, which is a high water vehicle as well as a rescue vehicle that can go up to four feet of water. Oh, but that's
the only vehicle that the police department uh utilizes during high water rescues. Once this vehicle is purchased, would you be able to share it with the between the departments or as far as fire? It depends on the different task we would with the amount of area of the
city that actually does have flooding. The use of both vehicles at the same time would be beneficial. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Public works also has a one as well, a Frankenstein one. It's just made up of a lot of different parts. Oh, that's where I saw it probably.
Okay. And I will say oftent times when we have an event of that significance, we're we are still pulling outside resources from the area. So Cap Kick said is correct. They often times are one mission doing something or they're assisting us. So there all those vehicles are in use. It's not as
typically as if one is sitting not doing anything. Thank you. Anything else? Anything else? Commissioners. Thank you. Once, twice, three times. Any public comment? No
public comment, sir. Right. Yeah. I would just zoom in right along. If id known this, we would have waited for lunch. Moving on to I2-2387. Discussion of possible direction
regarding fiscal year 26 CIP police department recommended budget. Oh, please. This could be a long discussion. Okay, there's nothing there. Mr. Mayor, uh please doesn't have a slide because they don't they don't have anything for
26 fc 26. Um that was included in the process. That's all right. We got 400 questions in this. Commissioner and I assume there's nothing on uh nothing on there for the police headquarters because
we have no clue how we're funding it yet. So, it's not on a CIP. It's not a CIP project. What's that? It's not a CIP project, right? just not well. Yeah. Well, as what they said, there's a
project, but it's not funded. Gotcha. So, okay. All right. Any public comments? No public comments, sir. Then moving on to our final CIP, which
is J25-2388. Discussion and possible direction regarding fiscal year 26 CIP. All other recommended budgets. What else there is? So the two slides that we have for you, Mr. Mayor, are for IT and development services. Uh the
first one uh in the all other category for uh it is for $600,000 and that is for the my shell phone system. I Yeah, I believe there should have been a sheet for that in our budget book, but if you need more information on the
details of it, Mr. Brian can provide it as we answer any questions you may have. Yeah. Um I've I've Oh, I Oh, okay. I'll let Commissioner Lang go. Commissioner. Yeah. Um, have we formally surveyed
people yet as whether or not they Is your microphone? Yes. Thank you. Have we formally surveyed people in terms of whether or not they want a phone? An office phone is wasted on me. I'm always on myself. We have not, but we will.
Yeah. Yep. Because in chatting with others, I don't think I'm alone in that. So, there quite a few we can do without. That that was my question was going to be do we even need the system? I I mean I don't know office oriented
people need it. Why everybody uses their cell phones that as far as I know it just I mean I was just curious. So there's there's different there will be different options, right? So, if you're gonna if you're not going to use a desk phone, but still want a number to
be able to take that call on your computer, um you will still need a number. And so, I'm still paying for a line. Um those folks with cell phones that choose to only use their cell phone, I would imagine we will allow that option. But, you know, it involves a $600,000
investment for some people to be able to use it. That's my question. Do we even need it? Why? I mean I you know yeah if some people might like it but why I mean $600,000
is the is the new system um regardless of the number of users still that's will it'll still be the same price regardless of the number of users. No. Then maybe that price will go down, correct? Oh, okay. Okay. So, that's assuming everybody will have a my telephone. Yes.
Okay. So, we will we will absolutely do the analysis, ask the various departments. You know, we need a call center for for emergency operations. So, I can't do without that. There will still be a phone system to some degree. There still are uh customer service operations at
the various departments who need to be able to pick up a phone and and our citizens need to be able to call them. Um but I will with the teams help work to ensure that we are only purchasing absolutely what we need and and getting the right deals on that. That's where I
say thanks Sarah. Um Commissioner Dval, thank you Mayor. Um, what I'm going to be asking you about is, uh, an existing CIP project on page 345.
And there will be information about two of those projects on page 372 and 373. [Music] the project I'm talking about um
budget for 2026 $600,000 for one and that is um 126 NSR and then 128 VIR uh that if you go to the pages 372 and
373 it shows pictures of some of this equipment and basically It's asking for a five-year change out of this equipment. Uh just looking at the picture on page 372 of this project image, this equipment
372, I'd like to know how many failures have been have there been on that equipment in the last five years or the last year. Um the photos are and are those basically multiplexers from what I'm kind of looking at. The
photos are random images from Google. I will not put in a public document photos of our equipment. Oh yeah. Um so like any hardware, it's on a 5-year replacement schedule. Um we
will actively look to see if we can extend the life of that hardware where possible. So if at the end of these five years we can say I need $100,000 for licenses and maintenance instead of a million to buy a new system, we will
push that those monies out and only spend the amount of money we need to continue operation of the equipment. But those photos have nothing to do with what it's actually in our closets. You don't think we can push this out to
like seven years? Debatably. We're going to try. If it fails, you stop working. So, it's not something I'm going to, you know, I'm not gambling on it. There's nothing funded in. So, are we
okay? He says the existing budget uh is $600,000. Are you saying that we're going to spend that money or not spend that money during 2026? It's not funded, is it?
It's not funded. It's not funded. Look on the sheet. There's nothing under 26. Yeah. Page 345. on 371 it says RNR general fund
600,000 it's for switches in 27 and more than likely we will spend that money yes versus the phone system that we're talking about in 26 which happens to be the same amount of money right
so I also take my large projects uh We have a um consulting arm we we work with and I send them our our proposals and the responses we get back from the vendors and they evaluate based on hundreds of those same type proposals
that they receive from different agencies to let us know if we're getting good pricing and we have absolutely adjusted in the past. The majority of the time they say we're spot on. Uh there were a couple times where they said uh for example most folks who are spending this much money get training
for their for their staff and so we've gone back to those vendors and said hey give us some some training at no additional cost and they've said sure. Um so we are actively working uh our projects to get the best price to start
with and then we compare those prices with what other government agencies are receiving to ensure that that's in line with with what we should be paying. Yeah. I just I look at that fiveyear
uh I just wonder you know how much of that equipment is really worn out in in a fiveyear period you know versus like you know cell phones cell phone technology you know they're coming out with new models every year you know so
maybe you know everybody needs a new cell phone every five years but some of this backup equipment you know that just stays in place. Nobody's playing with it every day. It sits there and it does what it needs to do when it's needed. Um, I don't disagree with you. If we
were not a government agency with the type of data we have, I could probably just let it sit there. But because I need maintenance on that equipment to prevent failure, I also need to ensure I'm not going to get hacked. And so, at some point, the equipment loses in an an
industrial life. So, yes, it would still work in its capacity. Um, but there are known uh vulnerabilities with such old equipment and an attackers uh ability to have played with them for
so long to learn how to get in that I'm not going to allow our systems to reside on such old equipment that doesn't have uh maintenance agreements in place. Jenna Duval, may I ask a related question? Yes. Thank you. Um, isn't
there a software implication as well? I don't know if it's as impactful on switches and things, but servers and networks, older technology stops getting supported
by their supporting software. So, there's that. So, if if I can extend a life, we will. Yeah. And if I can only buy what we need for new locations coming on online, you know, the new fire departments, new utilities department, if I can only purchase for those places
where necessary, I will. Um, but there will become a time where either the software is out of date or no longer supported or there have been so many new models of that equipment that the old models aren't supported. So at end of life or or end of support,
I'm not using that equipment anymore. Maintenance issue. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Anything else, Commissioner Pro? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Eric, for
your work. Just a question. So, you're not asking according to this page 345 of the big book budget, you're not asking for $1 million this year. No, it's $600,000. It's only
for the phone system, right? Correct. Now, if it comes to the analysis that it's going to maybe half of the people that needed the the actual office equipment, it would be less than
$600,000 or I mean, ideally, yes. That's that's our kind of worst case scenario. And so, we would hope that it comes in well under that. And is it just the equipment or it's the licensing for that whole year this this goround? It's a
full refresh. So, it's new everything. Based on the number of employees that that need correct. So, we we will for those folks that do need desk phones, we will be coming around with a new phone. Okay. And for that $1 million, what is
the um how old is that system? I just want to make sure that we don't go and then suddenly we need it right away. So that's for the sand virtual replacement, virtual infrastructure replacement. Correct. Um that's kind of the backbone of what all
the systems reside on where all our servers are housed. And so here again, that's one of those products that if it goes down, uh we would obviously switch over to DR, but now we're sitting on one system with no backups. Um if I can
extend the life of it, I certainly will. uh because it's so new as a product, we think we can. Uh but if we cannot when the time comes, you know, we're two, three years out from that, three years out from that. And so if at that time
it's no longer viable to continue with that, we would need that million to buy something new. How old is it now? Two years. Two years. Okay. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing nothing else. Any public comment?
No public comment, sir. All right. So, we have made it through. [Applause] We have one more in this category, Mr. Mayor, which is development services uh
for the all other category. And then I'm not sure how you want to address it. The conversation regarding the direction on the the money for the police and the RNR as well as the
parking that was voted on. All right. Um so go ahead. Go ahead. So development services has a $4 million CIP um amount, Mr. and it is composed of the building department online permitting
for $1 million um the renovation of the um NPD headquarters uh for the building division of $500,000 as well as the environmentally sensitive property acquisition of $2.5 million.
That's the total of all three of those solar $4 million. So we're happy to answer any questions regarding development services questions. commissioners. Mr. Langden, um I don't know if it's so much a question or a comment, but the 2.5
million for the acquisition of environmentally sensitive properties, we talked a little bit about this yesterday. Um, I is that money to buy the random
lot or is the intention of that money to be used strategically to create something? I mean, I think I've been pretty public in the past that I don't believe we should use taxpayer
money to buy property so that developers who shouldn't build there don't. and people who shouldn't buy there don't. Unless you can help me understand why that's a good investment. Yes. Commissioner Langden,
um the the funds that would be utilized to purchase the environmentally sensitive lands come from our tree mitigation fees. the lion share of those mitigation fees are received uh via contractors and developers, not your
average homeowner. Um so those funds are intended for tree planting, for environmental land acquisition, for um habitat restoration and creation. So, we will be bringing to
the commission a list of properties um and we'll be providing you with some information about the ecological value of those properties and making recommendations as to which of the
properties natural resources um thinks should be prioritized for acquisition. and then we'll receive your feedback as to which ones you would like us to focus on to determine if we have willing sellers and to um proceed with
negotiations for purchase. So, we purchase the property. Where will the funding come from to make that purchase appropriate for
its use? I'll I'll share a story with you. Some years ago, I walked through the 60 acres adjacent to Warm Mineral Springs with a couple of environmentalists and uh a representative of Florida Fish and Wildlife. And we were looking for Scrubj
Habitat. Um, and so, uh, the gentleman did identify a large area that we already own that he said he could tell at one time it was a scrubj habitat, but the
property needs to m be maintained because the scrub things, I mean, clearly I'm not an environmentalist. The scrub things grow up and then it's, you know, the scrub jays no longer like it.
So, might it be a better use of money than to buy more properties? Why don't we evaluate restoring that area as a scrubj habitat and evaluate what it would cost? Um, fish and wildlife has money for the restoration
of such properties and then they'll maintain it for a certain number of years, but I forget how many years, but then responsibility for the property transitions to the municipality. And I pressed him twice to see if, you know,
Fish and Wildlife might want to fund the restoration and he said it would be a significant investment. Now, I don't know if 2.5 million is enough, but it it just strikes me that we have this land
that once was scrubj habitat that now is not. Might we look at that, the restoration of that property as a better use of those funds? Okay. We also have uh $50,000 budgeted in the natural
resources um department for um for control of exotic and invasive species on city-owned property. um will work with public works and parks and wreck to implement that program and that will be an ongoing budget request. Um as
to properties that may be acquired by the city in the future for environmental conservation, we've already started having conversations with our nonprofit partners like the Nature Conservancy about their willingness to accept conservation easements on these
properties and to handle that ongoing maintenance responsibility. uh for those properties especially where there are scrub jay gopher tortoises and and um other endangered species. So we we are working toward a
situation where the city's costs in maintaining those properties can be minimized uh through those partnerships. Moreover, some of the properties might be appropriate for parks. And with parks and recreation, if those properties were
transferred to parks and recreation for park for park use, those improvements to the property may be able to be paid for with parks impact fees if they meet the qualification for a park system
improvement. So there's there's many avenues that we can approach this. Um and we um are proposing this environmentally sensitive land acquisition program because we consistently hear from the residents
that they want to see more conservation land. So, you'll see when we bring the properties forward for your for your review and recommendation that we're um doing the best we can to scatter those properties across the city as a whole
rather than focus on one area because we also get a lot of criticism in in that in that area that you know all the parkland is in a certain place or all the conservation land is in a certain place. Well, just a a few things to poke
at. I'm a little suspect of the conservation easement conversation because I heard the president of the group that we've been talking to about that 60 acres adjacent to War Mineral Springs. She was quite clear there's no
money for maintenance. So, I'm going to take her word for it. Not that I don't trust you, Lori, but I'm when she says no, she's in charge of her budget. Um 50K is not gonna scratch the surface of
that property by War Mineral Springs that was once Scrubj Habitat. So, I would just respectfully request that we evaluate that property and have
a conversation as to whether or not it makes more sense to invest in land we already own that is not maintained and and could be and be a very valuable
um conservation area for our scrub jays versus buying more property. property that we don't have the budget to improve or maintain. I mean, just a suggestion if I could, you know, I have a different slant on this 2 and a.5 million because
I'm I'm a strong supporter of this and I promoted it and I asked for it and I won because I don't see it as um picking up a parcel here, there, and everywhere to like protect gopher tortoises or uh or scrub jays or whatever. I see it as a
viable means towards acquiring critical environmentally sensitive property that lends itself to the kind of storm water management projects that would significantly help our citizenry along with myahhatche. I believe we buy tier
one properties. We still have a group to go. There might be a dozen, two dozen more properties between tier one and tier two. I would love to buy up all that property. I'd love to see us build some retention ponds there or find a partner to do it and put some coverts in
there and actually find a way to reduce the flooding of our citizens who live in and around that area. To me, I think that would be an incredible use of this money. And I would consider that environmentally sensitive land. You could build park-like areas around it.
you could create not a celery fields as compared to the celery fields in Sarasota, but something that might be very interesting that would do a multitude of good for our city. That's what I'm talking about because, you
know, um I just think like that's really long overdue. If we think for a minute that we can turn the blind's eye to the flooding in this city, we're sadly mistaken. And on top of all the other challenges we have, um, this is an area where I don't expect we're going to get
a whole lot of help from the county or the state because they get their own hands full with their own areas. So, this to me was a great way to try to direct some money from the tree fund to something that might do a lot of good in
and and it is environmentally sensitive land. It it is. So I mean that was my thinking with all this if I may. If the land acquisition was for a strategic purpose and I think mitigating flooding
I mean that's a great way to solve two problems with one investment. Um but what I heard were properties scattered throughout the city just it doesn't float my boat. So, um, let me ask,
people ask all the time for more conservation land. Holy smokes, we're surrounded by conservation land. Some of it in the city, some of it out of the city. Last time, and you might be able
to answer this, Miss Lori. Um, last time I looked, we about 34% of our land use in the city of Northport was conservation, open space, and parks. Do we know what percent of that 34%
is actually conservation? I mean, we have the forest, we have Orange Hammock, we have all those areas north of the estates. we are surrounded by conservation land. I have to ask how
much more do we need? Okay. So I I don't have the percentage of how much of that is conservation land, but I can say that, you know, this budget proposal was initiated because of the strategic plan policies for
environmental sustainability and resiliency that properties that are in a flood zone would qualify um under the definitions in the ULDC u properties in a flood zone, wetlands can also qualify as environmentally sensitive lands. So
when natural resources brings this list to you, you will see that there will be floodprone areas um that are recommended for purchase. You will see that there will be wetland areas recommended for purchase and the wetland properties can
pair as parks as well. minor improvements can be made without impacting the wetlands and eliminating a situation where a valuable wetland is mitigated for development can help improve our situation when it comes to
flood as well. So, you know, if the city commission approves this budget proposal, we bring those properties to you for your input as to which you'd like to see us pursue. We'll work with parks. We'll work with engineering and storm water to develop those strategies
for use of those properties for the best purpose. Whether it be habitat, whether it be flood mitigation, whether it be the mini celery fields park that Elena Ray speaks about occasionally. Um, so if there's any more questions, I'm happy to
answer them. It was really the idea of marshalling that tree fund so that I mean we know that a significant portion of those dollars is going to support our natural resource department a as it should because there's really nowhere else to find that money. We have certain
dollars allocated for tree plantings for um other habitat enhancement. Um but setting aside this amount of money for what could be a strategic plan will develop that strategic plan collectively. But it's not bad to have
that earmarked for this. So, I mean, I just thought it's a good idea to set it aside and then let staff bring it back and we can all figure it out and decide what might be the best use. And if we all decide like none of that's a good
idea at all. Well, guess what? Now there's $2.5 million that within certain rules where we can redirect. But it certainly would be pretty good idea to come up with a strategic plan to help address storm water management in this
city and and it would have a multitude of benefits from from park-like environments, wetland enhancement, all kinds of benefits that and I'd love to think some, you know, white knight will
come in and help us out with all this, but by God, you know, we're going to have to do what we can to try to do some of this on our own. And with all the new development that goes on, we have rules about how they all have to mitigate storm water, you know, issues. But for
all our low-lying areas, especially in and around the Makahachi, you know, we need a plan and we're going to do a master plan on on on big on storm water management. again. I mean, this will probably be nothing that we all as a
present commission will see come to pass, but if we don't start laying the groundwork for some of this, future commissions won't have the, you know, the steps to to walk to to get some of this stuff done. And it really is going to have to be we got a growing population. There'll be more and more
people affected by storm water issues. Yeah, I I certainly could get behind that. Um, but again in in my mind to buy more land when we have habitat that we're not maintaining. I just sort of my
head spins a little bit when I consider that. Anything else to development services CIP? Thank you very much. Any public comment? No public comment, sir. Wow.
Very good. Now, what else do we have before we do general public comment? Anything else commission wants to talk about here regarding this? I do. Yes. Direction from the board regarding the
money you want us to add back into budget. I think $1.65 65 million. Is that just funding the first phase, madam commissioner? So what it was for 500 for the police for efficiency
investments 500k to public works for RNR and deferred maintenance. And then phase one of the parking um 650k for phase one of the parking
Espanola to Northport Boulevard. So that's 1.65 million. And so for the other two phases, the plan is to we'll figure it out later. Yeah. Say that again. Yeah, that's correct. What? We're
going to do phase phase one. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Yeah. Phase two and three. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. At a later date. Correct. Okay. All right. So, so I guess now is the time for how how do we find that money? Yes. And
since you asked, um, we would Oh, that's right. Change. I'll come back to that. Um, but here are our pillars. um as a reminder, but I think um as I go to slide
30, which has sort of the general fund department where this will uh be comprised of, if there are any suggestions as far as how you would like that done as it relates to the pillars
and your priorities and then we can go sort of dissect it from various places in order to meet that goal so that we stay in alignment with what your vision is on as we go forward.
The $1.6 million is going to hurt. So, if I may, your name's not you. You got the floor. Oh god. I'm going to have to be vice to his mayor next year. It's going to be ugly. um well
sort of cutting where there's no room for cutting. And let me just say I was very impressed by this budget. I really think staff did an outstanding job of really pairing it back to the bone. I
don't see any place to cut. So that leaves us with increasing revenue. We've kept the millage rate the same for five years. We have
talked in the past about how very slowly incrementing um the millage rate can make it a lot easier rather than
waiting a year or two and then we just have so many fires we have to really jam at home. I think we should also consider the revenue side of the conversation and not just the cost
cutting side of the conversation. And to her point, Mr. Mayor, if you were considering a millage rate increase, that amount would be 4.2% to make up for that 1.6 million. What would it bring the mill rate to? It
would increase by.1583 turning it to 3.9250. 2550 25 3.9250. We're at 3.7667. So that's an increase of approximately 4.2 approximately
says 583. Yes. Okay. That's a that is a pregnant conversation. Vice Mayor, yeah, I was leaning on the same lines, but you guys you guys did put a very very lean budget
together, you know, and but I was looking at both aspects of it of this is what you brought this time. bring us back a new set of numbers in July on where you guys see fit,
scrunching it down a little bit more and it could be losing a vehicle here or a piece of equipment there. Whatever buckets that these monies come out of that can be replaced into the same buckets to come up with these monies, you know, be it parks and wreck money or
wherever where we're trying to adjust these funds, right? If there's a little bit to be taken away, let's work on that and then we can look at an adjustment into the military to come up with the shortfall. I'm looking at both sides of the fence, not just
jumping the millage rate. I think there is a little bit more savings in there. Even though y'all are at bare bones, and I'm not trying to pick on you. I talked to you the other day about, you know, six vehicles. Maybe we can do buy with four vehicles this year and do more next
year. That's something that staff needs to look at. I can't judge and say, "Nope, you're only getting four vehicles." Especially if you do need six. This is where staff has to come into and say, "Yeah, we can push that out another year." And and I know it's
tough. I know you've already done it, but this is this is our first chapter. We expect more in chapter two. Sir, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, you'll get it right sooner. You matter of time. I was prepared for you to say that because I know I knew you would go there, but and
you're and you're he's right the way that he says it because we don't like to dive into line items and that's exactly how we have structured our budget. So, I'm glad to hear you say that. My only ask and I can go back in to find the 1.6
um because that's what we can do. I just want to make sure that if the board had any recommendations about the pillars or the programs or the priorities that you set that you either did or did not want to touch that I knew that now before we
went back in for the exercise. Um because I'd hate to go in and cut something that you as a board would say don't do that you know and save us some time. For instance, we know that you've just added some money to public safety.
public safety is six 55% of this. So that takes that entire right side off the equation to go find in the $1.6 million. And as you can see from the low numbers of those particular departments that are left, 1.6 Six is going to even
if we divide it equally, which is not the right way to balance your budget because we are a um priority based budgeting philosophy where we put the money the most money where the most impact is that aligns with your vision and your goals. It's still going to eat
up something in a big way because there's just not a lot there. But to your point, we can do it. I can do it. I just want to make sure that if there's anything on a priority lab priority basis or a vision basis you would like to give me direction on before we do the
exercise. And another thing I would add too is yes, we just gave you a proposal of $1.6 million. We not be a may not be able to get that $1.6 million. Okay. Okay. Well, then you get it. Bring it back. Oh, I can get it with no
military increase and everything. I mean, yeah, we'll hold you to it on the record, but what I'm saying is is there's give and take on both sides. You know, when when you come back with the numbers, we may have to give a little bit back to you as well. This is what we stood on
today. This is what we decided on what we'd like to see. Yes, sir. But it's not a perfect world. We're willing to work with staff. Yes, sir. But I'd like to give staff the opportunity to figure it out for themselves to where they're not we're not hurting them. I completely see
what I'm saying. Oh yes. I completely understand. Um I'm up in the queue. I'm sure everybody wants to weigh in. So anybody wants to ought to get their name up there if they want to be recognized. But um Pete couldn't have said it. I mean vice mayor couldn't have said it much
better than I. Um, you know, if staff brings back where they might be able to find this this million and a half roughly and the consequences of of swapping out, so
to speak, is is is just too honorous. Well, then maybe we can't do these things that are being proposed. But as far as a military, you know, I mean,
the inevitability of property taxes going up, I, you know, certainly from my standpoint, I I just can't imagine a world where that's not going to happen over time. Look at the police headquarters alone, okay? that facility
is going to get built because it is an absolute necessity one way or the other. The only place to pay for that is through property tax increases. Even if somebody else builds it, we're
going to have to pay for it. And the only way to pay for it is with taxpayer dollars. Then look at the federal government, look at the state government.
There is no doubt in my mind that going into next year and the year after we at least for the next couple of years, we're going to see dramatic cuts. They just passed a budget yesterday that cuts a big chunk of money out of the
state budget. It's going to trickle down the impacts of this. Municipalities are going to have less money to work with. It's just that simple. And every one of us will be faced with the challenge. Every each one of our municipalities are going to be
faced with this challenge of do we slash services? Do we compromise public safety? Do we compromise amenities, quality of life so drastically that it will affect everyone's life? It will
affect them in in some cases it will affect whether people live or die if the decision is made to slash those services. So if that's not an acceptable approach, which I I don't really think it is, then what's the only solution?
Generate more revenue at the local level. And so we're looking at a couple of years of incredible uncertainty until we know better what's going to happen here, till we've able to
crystallize how we think is best to proceed on our police headquarters, till we realize the the repercussions of the economy and the state and federal government decisions that are being made. I I don't see how tweaking the
military up at this point is going to do anything except exasperate a a rough situation. It's like trying to put a band-aid on something that's like bleeding out. Um this is not the answer
right now. We may find that I mean a 4.2% 2%. I mean, all that all that increase would do, it would it would take us up to almost 4.0 and all it would do is fund a million and a half dollars worth of projects that we
decided we wanted to add that we couldn't figure out where else to pay for. What does that do to solve all the other challenges that are quite honestly, in my opinion, far more important than this million and
a half worth of projects. Not that they aren't important, but I mean, my god, we got incredible infrastructure challenges which include the PD building. I I just don't see it. I I think this is not a thoughtout process. This is like, you
know, just a a terribly bad move to make at this time. While the concept of incrementally increasing millage rate, that's a good strategy. certainly better than turning a blind's eye to need and then raising it 10% at some point down
the road. I just don't think we're there yet. I don't think we figured it out. I don't think we've we have any idea of the implication of what this PD building is going to cost us and or the implication of decisions being made at the state level are going to mean to us
or the federal level because quite frankly we have inadequate fund balances right now horrendously. So if we don't have FEMA money to look forward to and all of a sudden another 25% isn't going to be reimbursed from FEMA because guess what? There's just not the money there.
Federal government's not pushing that much down to the state and all of a sudden we have to make up the difference. Where the hell are we going to find that money? The answer is to build fund balances way bigger than we have them now. Where are we going to get that money? I've said it before. We don't we don't have a printing press at
the city level. So, we're going to have to reach into the pockets of our taxpayers. And if we go that direction, we sure better have this thought out. And we do not have this thought out in my opinion. So, I am not supportive of messing with this millage rate right
now. I say we hold it flat. A sixth year. We figure out what we need to do. There's too many unknown questions right now. We don't have answers to Mr. Lang. Well, I mean what we're doing here and the millage rate is I mean we could
quadruple the millage rate and it's still not going to build the police headquarters. So, um somehow we have to figure that out and and it's not going to be millage rate increases to to pay for it, pay as you go. What we are doing
is asking staff to look at it, think about it, and bring back a proposal. So, mayor, you're absolutely right. This is not well thought out at this particular point, but we ran a consensus on all
three of these items and we determined that they were well worth considering. So, it might be that the police come back and say, you know what, we can live with 350 and get some productivity
improvements given that we have no headcount increases. Maybe public works might come back and say, "Look, 400,000 we can begin to address some of the deferred maintenance and RNR. Maybe there are a couple of projects
that someone might say, gee, we can push that out another year without upsetting the apple cart and then maybe a piece of it is a very small increment or not to the millage rate. I would love to keep
the millage rate stable, but folks, the taxable value of this city is not sufficient to continue to fund services at the highest level. It's just not.
And so when people say, why is the millage rate increasing? It's because our taxable value is so low. And again, I think I said yesterday or an earlier meeting, the city of Sarasota has more tax
dollars to support their population and they have like a third. We have to service three times the number of people than the city of Sarasota with fewer tax dollars. How do you do that? Preaching to the choir. How do you do that? Preaching to the choir. except this ask
is for a million half dollars to pay for a handful of projects on a sheet of paper that we came up with and I support vice mayor's approach which is let staff go back and figure out what else you can cut out of this budget to replace this these sets of projects and what did I
say mayor I said they might come back with a mixed proposal but with no military I'll never support a military not this year not for this no way shape shape or form. No way.
Vice Mayor. Yeah. Um you say this isn't thought out. We've been thinking about this for a few years now, talking about the millage rate and doing small increments. Okay. Let's just say the millage rate got adjusted now to
the exact amount on what they said million five million six. Okay. For these projects for this year. Okay, we've already adjusted the military. Guess what? Next year that million5 comes back again if not more with gross
growth from new residents. So, we've done the increment on 1.5. Next year it could be two million towards different projects set of projects, right? I'm just saying the small increments. It is a start. We start it this year, we start
it next year, we start at whatever year. So you're trying to tell me that if we increase the millage rate by a million half dollars to pay for these projects this year, next year that million and a half will be sitting there free that we can use for something else. I say BS on
that. I say we'll just spend it. Sorry. Well, that's what budget budget is getting money together to spend on projects. Um, the thing about it is is I'm not saying that the money will be sitting there safely away. No, there's
going to be projects that could be paid for out of it. Let's say phase two of the parking tragedy that we have on US 41 could be next year of $650,000. We're looking in the long range. Do we have to raise it now? No. Did I say I
wanted to do the whole million5 and the military increase? No. I wanted to see them tighten their belts, come down, and maybe we can half and half it. But before long, it's going to have to be done. Whether it's this year, next year, or we just can't keep up. We're going to
tell them to cut it down and go on a diet for the next three years. What service are we giving our citizens in the long run? We've talked about cutting sanitation down to where we're only going to pick up the cardboard once a month. You know, we've talked about cutting out bulk pickups.
That's all services that the citizens get because they're paying their taxes. You know, how how do we make this work for everybody to where we're as much as whole as possible? And like I said, it's up to staff to find us a way to figure
out that we we've suggested what we want. They suggested what they want. This is our first meeting. The next meeting, we'll find out how close we are together. And if the next meeting they say oh the best we could do is a full millage increase then you stand on your
soap box and say no I'm not doing that and I would probably stand right there with you to say can't do it all maybe we can do half I think entertaining a military increase when we have no idea what the implications of what the state's doing
and we've not figured out a path forward for our key infrastructure projects which include the PD. Yes, we're not going to pay for that as you go, but in a way we are. If some P3 partner comes in and builds that for us, or even if we
do a cops deal to pay to build that thing, we're going to have to pay for it on an ongoing basis. Where is those dollars coming from? They're coming from our taxpayers and they're going to come out of the taxpayers's pockets to raise a millage rate now when we don't have an
idea what our ultimate needs are and what our real ultimate priorities are when you look at it on the whole. If we're making a decision on millage rate increase, we better really make sure we're including everything. I don't think a mill rate increase to add these
projects makes any sense at all. I I I I just think it's off the rails. It it it just is. I mean, I'd rather do without this million and a half of projects than raise the military. I think staff
can find part of it, all of it. I don't know. And then we have to look at what they're giving up in order to pay for these projects. What What's the tradeoff? If we decide, oh, we don't, you know, they are suggesting one, two, and three get postponed or deferred and we don't think that's worth it. Fine.
then we compromise this this this list here. Okay. But but to look at the solution to you know increase the millage rate that conversation is a whole different conversation and it's predicated on what what we realistically
think the millage rate is going to have to go to over the next five to seven years. We we have a a a a financial plan that just came out that said in five years we should expect to see some revenue growth begin from development.
If we're going to raise our millage rate, it should all go to making darn sure that that infrastructure is in place so we get the revenue bump we expect in five years. because if we don't do that,
then we're really going to be behind the egg ball. So, I I just think even the conversation of military increase at this point is just it is nothing but pouring gasoline on an or on already smoldering fire. It just, you know,
you'll never get me to support. Not this year. You won't. Not for this. We can go without you. Good. And you and by all means I am one of fire and I appreciate that you all are not rerunning and you don't feel as accountable to the
citizens as I do. But I do and I'm sorry. I think that's crap. Okay. And I'm not afraid to say it. It's a lot of nerve to say we're going to with all the user fees we're raising this year to cover all the costs of services and
we're talking about raising the military to pay for this million and a half on a sheet of paper. Never happened. Not by me. You can vote any way you want. But you're not getting my vote for this. Vice Mayor. No, I was done. And I mean I was good. Dmitri, I'm sorry,
Commissioner Pro. Well, I' I've spoken already, so you go. I'll wait till you're done. Thank you, mayor. I agree with the commissioner Emir on that. Go back. Oh, you can. I'm sorry. I'm trying to
find 1.6 million. That's fine. I agree. You haven't found it yet. I'm working on it. All right. I agree with Commissioner Emer and that you can go back and look. Uh it's painful but it's possible, right? Uh I just think we can
demonstrate in small steps our efforts at least um and can do what we can. Um I also took um two of my tax bills, one for the vacant lot and one for the primary residence. And when
I when I did look at the raises of uh user fees for assessments, um it came out to about I don't know how many housing units we have exactly, but an estimated of 30
30,000 that comes out. So we cut down on 3 million per the direction of the board and you did an excellent job. But by raising these really those fees, we came back and raised again $3 million.
Because if I I multiplied all of my assessments by the number of percentages we increasing and it came out to about 100 bucks and multiply $100 per number of housing units
that came to about $3 million. So we cut $3 million, but then we we raised $3 million. I think we can do better. Um so just want to finish on a positive note that we can do um and we will be able to function um
more efficiently. Comment on Commissioner Lang and Sarasota Sarasota um city and the Sarasota area. They have the the fair market values of those houses are much higher. And so that
that's the point. Well, that's what they get the money from. I mean, look at the CS key alone. The the one unit equals to 15 or 20 units, dwelling units here in city of Northport. I mean, there's no
dispute on that. There's no that's just it's a different animal to compare. I I don't think we should do that. It's apple to oranges. But um I think we will be able to do it and um
as far as as much as it painful it is possible and a good note to finish we'll work on borrowing options for the infrastructure projects as we were as
you were directed and as we got the message from the voters. Right. So that's it from me. Thank you, mayor. And I agree with you about the milk trade, by the way. So, Mr. Mayor, um, for a little bit of clarity, this is how
I would approach it based on, you know, vice mayor's comments, you start from pillars to proposals to programs to people. That's how it goes down. Now pillars of course are what you
set as the vision and I want to make sure I stay in alignment with as I said not doing something that would upset that apple cart and the proposals are what our team added in that said hey this is what we would like to get to sort of advance us and a lot of them
were left out but there are some that were put in. Um so my first question would be is you know our public safety did put in proposals that were granted. Do you not want us to do anything with public safety at all and use the
remaining high of departments or are proposals from the public safety available to for you to consider as well? Would consider everything. Okay. Right. And and quick question if if it affects that department that we're
trying to give them more money on then they might be able to sacrifice something else to get that money was where I was getting at as well. Fantastic. I don't expect to rob from Peter to give to Paul over here, right? But they may be able to tighten up their own belt to get their own extra
resources as well. Fair enough. We we do that in our normal exercises, so that's nothing new to them. They'll not be surprised when they hear that. But I just wanted to make sure that I didn't again I don't want to bring something back in front of you where you say either no or why didn't you ask me that
if you were thinking that on June 17th. That's what I'm trying to make sure that I get right. But thank you, Mr. Mayor. We just want you to solve the problem and be done with it. That's what I do. I'll solve it. Give me a minute. Right. That's what managers do. They manage.
Well, that's the job. As I tell you, not just overseeing, but managing. Go do it. Go fix it. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, bro. Thank you. Anybody else have anything to say? I I I just feel compelled to say to characterize me as someone who does not
care about charges to residents or being efficient or being unwilling to look at cost cutting is very very unfair. Um because I am open to cost cutting but
I understand we're raising district fees. We have to keep in mind that year to year the cost of delivering the same level of service goes up. It's a fact. So if we don't keep pace with that
then at some point we have to cut services and and I think we would all agree there are certain areas in which we would not want to cut those services. So, I just really felt compelled to say that because again, I'll say it,
delivering the exact same level of service, the cost of doing that goes up every year. Fact. Um, we're never going to really know what the state and feds are going to do. And I think it's part
of our challenge as commissioners and leadership in city staff to be able to anticipate as best we can. But I would just caution us if we wait until we know everything
it will be too late. So we have to make some assumptions and we have to move forward and we have to do the best we can do. And then a comment on public works. The two things that concerned all of us
was not not spending money on maintenance that we've been deferring for a long period of time and and not putting money aside for repair and replacement. What are the implications of that? The implications
is next year or in two years or in three years, we're going to have a hot mess of a disaster that we're going to have to react to. So, this is not easy. And I know we all
have the best interests of the city and the residents of this city in our hearts and in our thoughts. I mean, if we raise taxes, we're all going to pay it, too. So, it's not like we we get a pass on it. Maybe it's this year, maybe it's
next year. I'm not in love with raising taxes. If we can do it another way, I mean, maybe we don't address the parking, let people continue, you know, parking on the swale. I mean, I guess we'll have to make that decision at some point in the future.
But to not put money aside for repair and replacement and deferred maintenance is just it's like having uh a a gun with one bullet in it and putting it to your head. It's just a matter of time before
there's going to be some disaster. And then what would the community think of us if we didn't plan ahead and hedge our bets and be ready? We can't borrow. I mean, there are just so many things against us. And we do know what our
capital needs are. And I have a very hard time retaining this number. What is it? 15 billion or some 1.5 billion or I mean would document 2.5 billion. How much? 2.5 billion. 2.5. See, I have a really hard time with all those zeros.
2.5 billion. So, we know what our needs are. And the delta is stunning. Just stunning. So, you know, let's not be mean to each other or accuse each other of not caring
or that's not fair. We We've got to pull it together and we have to consider everything. It's our job to consider everything and to do what's best for the
residents of this city and it's not hiding from our incredible infrastructure needs and capital needs and being afraid to tweak a millage rate because people won't like us. They don't like us now.
So, we've got to do what's right and we have to consider everything. That's all. There are times when what's best for the city and what's best for the citizens don't necessarily jive.
And in in today's time with the cost of everything what it is. The fact that we face all these challenges notwithstanding the fact that we face
all these challenges, we have a a plan for how over time we're able to manage the growth of our city. And we have a plan that's predicated on
infrastructure going in in certain areas, strategic areas of our city that will attract the kind of development, non-residential development that's going to help hopefully allow us to see the light at the end of this dark tunnel. Because,
you know, it's not like we're flying blind here. We have a plan and it's not going to be easy to execute it. But for me, they ask our citizens to raise their pro
well for for us to raise our citizens tax dollars, our our property taxes for anything other than what directly affects the improvement and and the enhancement of that infrastructure necessary for
that growth. That's the only place I see us doing it. And I just think the thought of talking about this now, we have three projects that were just shot down by the citizens.
These were three projects that everyone in the city appreciates we need to do. They're infrastructure related. They're needs, not wants. They made sense. And yet they were voted down. We're now
going to have to figure out how to pay for these. There's no other way to pay for them. Certainly the the two of the three we can find other ways, but the police headquarters is going to be paid through
advorum taxes. The service of that debt is coming from there. How can you turn around and think about raising the property taxes for, you know, a a list of three or four projects here and to
say, well, it's an incremental raising. That's not a strategy. That's not a plan. I mean, our citizens, I think, expect better than that. That is a half-ass way to approach this. the conversation about whether or not
property taxes need to increase are conditioned on a whole lot more than just these couple of projects and to say, "Oh, but by the way, this will help incrementally raise taxes going forward because we all know we need to raise taxes because we have a growing city that has all these needs." Well, you
know what? Maybe we'll go into a deep recession and all of a sudden there won't be the growth and we won't need this money because nobody will be building anything and we'll be sitting on our hands. I don't know. But I got to tell you there's a
lot more thought that goes into it than just hey maybe we should raise the millage rate. Do you realize like how tonedeaf that sounds to people? And so, you know, I know we all care about the same things here and share the vision,
but that is just we're trying to create a community here where people are on the same page and we turn around and in a tonedeaf manner say, well, you know, we have a million half dollars worth of projects here. Let's, you know, we could consider
raising the millage rate for him. That's no reason to raise the millage rate. You want to raise the millage rate? Let's raise it for the right reasons and then let's have a good long discussion about it with community involvement engagement. So you will not convince me of this. I just think it's outrageous to
bring this up at this time in this meeting and discuss this after this city staff has worked hard on a budget to really make ends meet, which I think is incredible. And I think vice mayor's idea of of trying to find some things
that could be swapped out on all four, but if it involves onetenth of 1% of a millage rate increase, you got a hard no for me and I'll never agree to it. And I'll fight it in public opinion. I will
go out and advocate against it and stir the citizens up. This is wrong. Feel free. Commissioner Langden, you're up there. City Manager, I have a question. Um, over the next few months, we're
going to be looking at the referendum questions, those essential projects that we all have agreed are critical that we accomplish. And we're going to be evaluating different ways of funding them. Um, we've talked about the fact
that those other ways of funding them will be more expensive. Um, when will that information come back? Because I I think part of what I hear mayor saying
is that as we figure out the funding for those projects, which we all know are the priorities, um when will we have an idea of how we're funding different things? what will I won't call it debt service
because it won't always be borrowing but there will be payments that have to be made whether it's lease payments or whatever it looks like. Um those are are probably the kinds of
conversations that would be more likely to require a consideration of the millage rate. So will those come through one at a time? I guess what I'm asking is I think it
will be important for those projects for for us to have an idea before we can move forward. What's the most likely funding option? What is the monthly payment or whatever the payment schedule is going to look
like? Um, I I suspect that we wouldn't have enough money to make those payments if we did them all at once. So that's probably the the bigger
issue um that we need to grapple with. So when might we have some idea of that? So the next steps um madam is we will bring in front of you on July the 8th your first chance to discuss the
proposal that was delivered to us and once you make is this for police police um or all of them they all three of them were included in the same okay bucket so you'll have your chance at that moment to give direction if you want us to go
forward with the proposal that we would deliver or if you would like us to go out for an RFP and let everyone sort of um feed on what you set as the as the terms and scope that you're looking for. The unsolicited proposal based on what
they saw us discussing for, you know, the process that we went through with the agenda referendum items. An RFP would give you more control over exactly knowing what you want to be in there once we sort of flush it out and bring it back to you for your approval. And then that would go out and you know
let's say that takes 90 days and you know you look that process while that process is happening then we'll still continue to work with PFM on the cops route. So then we can bring you information about what they both look like simultaneously and then you'll get to a point where you say you know what
we like this this path versus that path and then that's the path we will follow based on your guidance. And I know I use the P3 and cops I just use two financing methods. It might be another method that might work better as well. I don't want to I don't want to limit you, but those are the ones we keep talking about. So,
we sort of have an idea with cops. I think I heard at an earlier meeting that it would sort of be the bond rate plus a point or two. So, I I think we have some information that we could estimate what that would look like on a monthly annual
basis in terms of paying it, right? Um, do we have any indication on our P3 proposals what they might look like? The one that you have that we have received is
expensive. It's I believe it was more than $7 million. Was over $8 million a year. A year. Okay. Just for headquarters. Okay. Yes. So we we I'm looking at Mr. Golden.
We have talked to outside council and there was another person we wanted to talk to who could sort of help us understand the um leveraging of other um resources other than adalorum tax. So that's part of what we need to do before
we get back in front of you in July. Just so just so you know. So, we're trying to make sure that we can get to you in July with as many answers as we can. And I believe when we get to that meeting, we're going to try to have our outside bond council and PFM either here in person or virtually so that you can
ask questions that you may have of them as well. Okay. I I think those are the big issues and I'm certainly not going to spend any more time on the 1.6 million. I think that conversation is really the conversation we need to have.
I'm done. Yes. I swear. See if I can get his blood boiling even more. Question. If we were looking at the one I'm using the 1.5 1.6. You said that was
an increase of 4%. To the military. Is that the correct number? Is that what I heard? 4.20. Yes, sir. Okay. And you just now stated that to do the PD would be 8 million a year if you went through the P3 with the proposal that we had in
our hand. Correct. I'm just I'm just using those numbers that you just gave us. So let's see. That's one, two, three, four, five. That would be an increase to the millage rate of 20%. I remember this bad boy being fold when
we asked for 32%. I don't think I'm going to be here sitting, but you can sit here and see what they say about raising that millage rate one time by 20% rather than doing it a little bit at a time. Just keep
that in mind. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay, city manager, do you need any other direction from us? I do not. No, ma'am. And nor do you want it? You know, I didn't say that. I worked for the board. Anybody else got anything?
We have any other general public comments? No public comments, sir. Then at this time it is 2:9 and I adjourn this workshop.
Well, this