Network wherever you listen and join us as we celebrate and connect with our amazing Community Northport now will be released by-weekly Northport stories and living will be monthly a schedule will be available on social media and our [Music]
website hello everyone Devon pulis here Aquatics manager Welcome to My [Music] Crib we have fun here at the crib programs included become a past member play all year long herey 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 let's 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 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 [Music] out check out the main pool kept at a
wonderful 84° all year long I just 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 brne to the duty calls
[Music] I'm Stacy alosio 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 uh those can be found on their [Music] [Music]
website I'm Stacy loio 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 in other states that good afternoon everybody good afternoon everybody today's Wednesday March 12th
2025 it's 2 pm we're in the city Chambers and I call the city commission Workshop meeting to order Commissioners president are commissioner Duval commissioner langden mayor Stokes vice mayor Emerich and commissioner Petro there is a quorum present for the
meeting also present city manager Fletcher interm City attorney Goan city clerk fa board specialist lane fire chief Titus and no one from the police that's the budget we go after
today um Miss Luke would you be kind enough to lead us in the pledge I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God
indivisible andice for all all right City cler public comments yes Mike Adams I am a single father with four children under eight years old I rely on Parks daily within our city my family uses Parks as a place to let kids interact with others and get 60 plus
minutes of activity a day I have used the park restrooms to change diapers use parks to occupy children while I make phone calls to pay bills and have picnics for the kids I am grateful I have somewhere to do so there is always a challenge raising children anyone who had one or more would understand my
children's favorite thing in the world is the playground when it rains and we can't go it becomes chaos at home or in the car I understand the discussion of user fees but simply cannot afford to pay everything deeming it hard to provide a safe happy place for my children we have lived in other cities
where they charge or or state parks but becomes a minimal memory in our life due to accessibility by payment we enjoy parks and depend on them to provide the safe shaded and friendly place that we both require in South Florida thank you Mike Adams
Andrea Danza closing of the Mullen Center I oppose this facility was a lifesaver for our business when our building was destroyed after Hurricane Ian if we didn't have this building available to us to rent our business would have closed and never to reopen I am grateful it was an option for us when we had to
go when we had nowhere to go this type of community building was a place for our youth to go when there was nowhere else to relocate Jessica La I am writing today as a Northport resident who has resided in the area for more than 10 years I had three children go through the school
system and play sports locally they have used Parks and Recreation facilities in every facet of their lives here in Northport I am appalled to see the Commissioners who are supposed to represent us completely neglect us as residents the Mull and Center Gym served and continues to serve the northport's
junior Bobcats cheer team my daughter was part of what would happen if there is no more gymnasium here you are telling me the only athletes you care about are the ones on the fields this group already has to share the gymnasium space with other leagues because there are not enough indoor athletic facilities the Aquatic Center is the
only fun thing for families in Northport I have never understood why it is questioned the staff runs the facility Well and people come from out of the area to visit talk about Economic Development driving people out of their own City because you want to take everything away in person we have Joe
Luke morning everybody uh I have not had the time to follow everything that's going on but I have heard drifts of course throughout the community uh back when the Aquatic Center was being discussed I was on the
board I wanted it to actually go before a vote of the community because aquatic never makes money never I've run them myself I've had two pools underneath me and that is an amenity that goes out to
The Community uh you can try to balance it as much as you can but I don't see any way that it can I always stated uh because it started out over a million dollars in debt and then went to 600 in debt and then to 300 I always said if
you could get it to a negative quarter of a million you are doing great absolutely great but you're never going to be able to balance it unless you're charging the people of the community more money and that takes away I mean
there's a fine balance because it's supposed to be an amenity so you want price it out of the range of the families or not Mullen Center uh again Community Asset uh Community
uses it I haven't looked at your numbers I don't know how much it takes for the oversight and overhead of that building that building's not that old uh then it's utilized can it be used for more programming probably sure could uh you got the pickle ball you got badm you got
volleyball you could create a women's volleyball league you could uh create children's volleyball league during the winter time there's so many programs that could be added to that gymnasium get rid of the equipment room yeah the weight room yeah it's too close to the
other one and you got overhead going into that room that is not necessary so in agreement of that but I wouldn't ask the m center at all give your parks and wreck who Supply the amenities that
these families such as the people of written public comment have stated these families need this in our area camp goes on summer camp goes on over at the m center what do what are these families going to do for all of those families to
try to find child care in this city for the summer where are they going to get it Boys and Girls Clubs not even really existing at this point we need to take compassion upon our families let parks and wreck come up with some
programming to show you that if they're not making the money over there I I don't know whether they are or not but give them the opportunity don't just slice it trying to make the bill look better uh again parks and wck is an
amenity it's not a money maker and that's why you're a city thank you man' good afternoon everyone um I'm Debbie McDow and I here because every department is unique every Department
provides a service which makes Northport the best city after watching the March 3rd Workshop I was compelled to come and advocate for parks and wreck especially after the Beatdown y all gave them yes Community Parks Community ball
fields the Aquatic Center War M Springs community centers Community vents are expensive but it's an amenity however how can you put a price tag on this
amenity they have a positive impact every single one of those places on the overall benefit of the city everybody uses them in some form or fashion regardless of the age the community centers are far more than a gym yes
close this gym use it for more meeting space they provide the meeting spaces they provide classes they provide activities and so much more don't forget both the Morgan and Mullen Center are
daycares for when school is out of a session and that daycare requ Ires no citizen tax dollars zero it is self-sufficient parks and wreck provide gathering places for all of the citizens
and visitors and that is [Music] unquantifiable March 3rd meeting focused on fees for services provided loved hearing how y'all wanted analysis on that but I'm going to be bold and I'm
going to point out in inequity when the focus was only on Parks and wreck there's another department that contributes so much to our city and collects nothing for the services they provide Social
Services what about the leases at the family um Services building they're about 12 $12 a square foot and nowhere near enough to collect for the responsibilities that building
requires and at those costs associated it would be Preposterous for anyone to consider terminating any of the features that are provided by parks and wreck just like it would be Preposterous to terminate the services provided by
social services department or terminate the leases for those nonprofits these are amenities to make up some of these budget shortfalls shift your focused Sarasota County Northport receives
minimal services from the County compared to the taxes that North Porters pay I can give you countless examples you have my phone number I will love to meet with you by [Music] the thank you very
much all right moving on to General business a 25-1 1944 discussion and possible Direction regarding the FIS SCH year 2025 26 budget assumptions projections
and priorities city manager this is your item thank you Mr Mayor we do have a presentation that we're going to walk through with you board in the community but first of all I just wanted to to say a few things regarding where we're at and what we're doing I know we have two new Commissioners and this is your very
first time being introduced to our budget kickoff and it's a lot of information for you to not only hear today but what you'll hear over the next several months as we move towards adopting the budget before the end of the fiscal year in September um as you go through this process uh we encourage
you to you know read and sort of understand all the information that is there and we're here to help you through the process the meetings that you want to have with finance and our team as many as you need in order to get your level of understanding where you're comfortable in making your choices as
you represent your uh respective constituents we're here to help you get there um it is it is it is not easy and this budget in every budget every year is the single most important document that you will approve every single year
um so as we move forward uh we know that we actually have heard from our governor who has given direction to what his staff will do as it relates to local governments and how they are managing their finances and we as a city city of Northport um one of the fastest growing
cities and we've had uh pros and cons with that growth we feel very comfortable in what we've done and what we're doing so that we could be able to explain show and hopefully be a model to lead what cities should be doing as they go through areas of growth as we're going through though whether it boils
down to our taxes which have stayed five years the same as far as the millage rate or whether or whether you're talking about our FTE which are in line with our growth curve we are very comfortable in defending and allowing anyone to look at our numbers so that we can prove that we are being efficient
does that mean that we can not be more efficient no it does not and I think that looking at our discretionary spending this particular year is going to go a long way to hopefully meet the goals that you want to accomplish you're also going to hear in our presentation today regarding the Strategic plan that
you looked at edited and worked on with Doug Thomas from sgr shortly after you were onboarded that's where the commission and the vision and your goals and outcomes are derived from you set the vision through those pillars
and what your priorities are and then we manage the programs and tell you how we're going to get there or in this case in this year we're going to tell you what we're going to do or what we need to do in order to meet that goal given the current climate of the city the
county the state the country whatever whichever one you want to pick they're all looking very shaky right now and if the truth of a recession does happen that's something that we need to think think about we need to talk about um that's not something that we are
throwing out there as a buzzword but it is a reality that people are considering and if it happens I want this city to be prepared just like you want the city to be prepared but we know that we only have so many resources and we know that we have uh a lot of things that we want to get done so we are at the point of
considering what services we would we would be adjusting in order to make um make that number that you want to hit in my mind it's a combination what do you want to do with revenues and how do you want us to examine expenses uh I hope that it's not a situation where we say
no to all of the revenue generating opportunities and say yes to you know expens expense Cuts as well there needs to be a balance there that we can bring back to you so that you can feel comfortable in where this city is going because if we if we damage the growth that we're happening then all of the
future plans that we know that we're counting on are not going to come to fruition and I do believe there's uh a balance in the services we provide I know there was conversation about parks and recs but there is no sacred cow and parks and Rex is not a sacret cow what I
heard last week was I would like for you staff to think differently about how do you improve the cost recovery rate of this city and that's what it boils down to me and that's what you're going to hear us talk about at the end with the information I sent you all yesterday
evening it boils down to cost recovery for parks and recs we know they provide the great quality of life we know that they are a driver of why people want to be here it does not mean that we cannot think of new events and new opportunities to raise revenues and come
back to the table and say how do we get that number down there are no sacred cows so let's just talk about them all doesn't mean we're going to change them all but let's make sure that we talk about them all in the proper context so having said all that I'll get us going with the
presentation um please please there we go all right CM do you want us to hold all questions till the end of the presentation and then go back through no I would rather you just stop me and say
hey let's talk about that for a second um now I would I will say that you know currently and Madam clerk I'm going to give you a copy of the updated presentation that I'm doing today there's a few more slides that were added and one edit that I'll talk about
as well so it's a little bit different for those following at home but we'll make sure that we get it online as soon as we can me where do I point this we going yeah all right um as we
maybe actually the first slide is kind of important can you can you hit the button on the computer while we try to get that working yeah I'm sorry I hit it twice thank you so much so this is a graph that we added in
just a probably a few minutes ago and it showed that it was a it was a survey of the America's most chained cities in a 5-year study from 2018 to 2024 and it was by good migrations relocation resource platform that analyz the city
Trends and of course the city of Northport was on there we were actually listed number 20 out of 191 us metros Nationwide and I know that you've all heard us talk about growth and we've all we all keep saying it whether it's permits whether it's people uh we we
know that we're growing and that cannot be more highlighted by our overall score of 6.82 out of 10 as it relates to people who are coming here so some key highlights from the growth of The Last 5 Years uh 133% growth in population 30%
increase in medium household income uh 11% uh job creation uh growth for new businesses 8% for employment growth and 65% increase in home values these are numbers that every jurisdiction cannot
say and definitely cannot um compare to the city of Northport so when when people talk about the city of Northport when you look at it from a governor standpoint and you talk about the popul population growth that we have the taxes that we provide to the state um you talk
about things that the other things that the state cares about how much debt do you have our debt numbers are very low because we have limited borrowing Authority and you know we know that our our debt even though we're looking to incur some for some major projects we know that the ulc rewrite is going to
offset that and allow Revenue to come into help us and help the city in the next couple years we are in a very good spot to take care of our growth and I we just got to make sure that we maintain ourselves through this what might may be a rough time so that people still want
to come here we don't want to jeopardize the people who want to come here and I want that message sort of be there oh thank you um so here are the actual changes in our fund balance over the last over the
last three years let me see before you work point was over there okay all right let me just keep going until we figure out where to point it um okay so these are our actual changes in Revenue balances over the last few years and when you
look at us beginning in fiscal year 22 we had the general fund Road and drainage District fire rescue District Solid Waste district and the building fund um they were all good fund balances the one that we wanted to make sure that we talked about this year was the road
and drainage District their fund balance based on the actual money we paid out for Hurricane Ian I want to say we had two years or two and a half years to to actually get their fund balance right size and we're we're proud to say that we believe that that's going to be done
on schedule as we did tell you it needed to be once we severely borrowed our fund for Ian for those of you who were not here um during that time period the fact that we had to pay out over $60 million in Hurricane recovery most of which
we've gotten back we had to drain one particular fund so by law you had to create a plan and a pathway so that you could restore that in a two to threee window which is what we've done hurricane having a hurricane Ian right now is not a problem we would do the
same thing with in having another hurricane on top of hurricane Ian in the same season would be a very big problem because we don't have the ability to borrow which goes back to the disaster recovery um referendum question that we're hopefully getting to get passed on
the May 13th ballot um in our special election when you look at the next slide which reflects the um fund balance analysis of 2025 uh jumped ahead a little bit on the road and drainage one but as you can see right there um that
projected fund balance um of negative 801 that's the one that we're working on our general fund of 3.5 million that is lower than we would like but we paid for some things out of there recent Rec ly including the um the design work that we
did on um the police headquarters and some other things that we needed done to keep some projects moving but we know that that number could always be higher and that's in excess of our Reserve let let me be clear we have a 20% Reserve right there of $17.7 million in the
general fund First Column so that is by law by our policy excuse me that you have adopted as a commission to make sure that we are prepared so I want to make sure everyone knows up there that we are prepared and we have the right level of reserves but we could always have
more the next slide will show you that as we create our budget there are some I'm sorry was that a question before yes sorry let me go back to that one that slide just a question so looking at them across the board there's about $15
million in fund balance so prior to in uh it was quite a bit more than that was it not the road and drainage would have been more than that I don't know what it was prior to Ian but it would have been
more than that but it was pretty significant okay commissioner langon right but I think he's talking about like just looking at right roen d it had to have a positive value I just don't know what it was right but yes is answer his question refresh my memory on
reserves where required by the state to hold 10% 20 or is it 20 I thought 20% was the maximum I think 20 is your policy adopted number the state number is lower than that so you you as a board have adopted a number above and beyond
what the state acquires um but just to be clear does the state limit us I think the state requires a minimum of 10% if I remember correctly I'm just going through this because we have some new folks right but does the state also cap
us at 20 % oh we because they don't require us to have a minimum balance they require us to have a balanced budget which is their requirement I doubt they have a cap on how much you can set as a policy as a
commission but I believe this policy has I mean this commission has set their own policy was 20% right okay thank you for that that's all I good okay all right uh the next slide uh talks about some of the assumptions that we have made directly into the
general fund the taxable value the tax taxable value estimated increase of 7 and a half% um that is definitely on the conservative side and we always do that because we don't want to overstate ourselves and then end up in a in a worse position as we move forward through the process last year's number
was 177% and the year before that was 20 some odd per but you can see that the trend of course is as we know the prices are coming back down and normalizing themselves so we should stand up we
should still hopefully end up around 10% hopefully at the very worst um but as we put this together and we get information from you that number will become more accurate and then we'll update you uh accordingly um the the budget Ador revenue is at a
96.5 % collection rate which looks to bring in an additional $2.4 million if we keep the same millage rate uh part of the assumptions as we lead up to it towards the end of this day well I'll be asking you if you want to increase that
number reduce that number keep that number the same it's it's a great conversation to have as we create this budget where you go forward okay commissional go ahead yes city manager that taxable
value estimated increase of 75% is that 75% expected increase of the value of all our All City Properties or is it a
result of some increase of the value and some because we have a lot more houses than we had before or is it a combination of the two yeah I would say
I say I would say a combination of the two is how you get there I believe there is a way we can track new construction in that number that that give that number um a boost so to speak but I'm not sure if I have that we have that number today but yeah she said we'll
have it in May if you want to know what the new construction directly does to our mil thank you I have let me just comment on that the taxable value estimated increase is an estimate of what the county is going
to do with regard to the assessed values as an average okay for our city like you said we experienced 17% last year almost 20 the year before so regard irrespective of this has nothing to do
with revenue from new development this just has to do with the estimation of what we think at this point in time the assessed values going to be if you take you know if it goes up 10% and
revenue from millage rate Revenue goes up 10% we can capture that number and that's what this estimate is all about but it's but it doesn't include additional property tax revenue
and correct me if I'm wrong additional property tax revenue from new development if 3 or 4,000 new properties were built and occupied in other words this is just what the overall
percentage of increase in appreciation would this this is an estimate of the increase in the total taxable value whether it's from your house going up in value or a new house next door it's all together what you're saying so inclusive of the
revenue if 3,000 new homes were built okay and now occupied they are now new taxpaying properties so included in this 7 and a half% is the additional Revenue they're contributing it's a seven
S no way right now it's conservative like you said we don't want to go out and put 177% in now and and not have that come to fruition so right now we're putting in an estimate of 7 and a half% for the total growth of the taxable
value of the city whether it be from new construction or whether it be increases in in individual existing homes and changes from you know save our homes and the homestead exemption is going to
adjust a little bit this year we I believe they approve for to increase by the CPI as well so right now is our 7 and a half% conservative estimate will get a better estimate the end of May right I I feel like what you're saying
is there's a there's a lag in between something being newly constructed and being being able to realize that taxable value right now but the way you look at it whether it was built and wasn't properly taxed I hope I'm saying your
example right last year it would be in the mix this year and then something that was built tomorrow would be in the taxable value for next year yeah I just what I wanted to get clarified was does the brand new Revenue being produced by
all this residential and Commercial development that may have taken place in the last year does that factor into that 7 and a half percent or is that money that's going to be additionally contributed to our budget okay my understanding is always
been again I could be wrong like this estimate of 7 and a half% whether it's 7 and a half 10 15 whatever it is right is the increase in assessed value that the county will will assess in other words
the county will say the the properties have gone up 7 and a half% in value that increase in value creates additional revenue for our city but does that also include
include new development because why would it not yeah right well that could be a separate line item that's what I was trying to get at so you know if we just looked at our property
revenue and said okay just you know estimated up 7 and a half% that's the total revenue we're getting or is there more Revenue to come how how so so the 7 and a half% this one is just is speaking to the tax roll increase so meaning the
taxable value you add all of Northport together is going to go up 7 half% right so what this is talking about just the adval revenue increases so I think you're saying that that those new homes bring other revenues they bring other
positive impacts on Northport no that's not included we're all talking about theum thank you because because when you look at this slide and it and it says these assumptions will bring in an additional 2.4 million and then you look at going a slide or two ahead you see
that we've got cost going up five or six million we say oh my God we're already 3 million behind the egg ball we aren't we aren at yeah there's a whole lot more Revenue that's coming our way so it you know I just didn't want to these slides
to misinterpret that thankk you you answer my question okay okay okay um next slide we are oh I'm sorry we got I'm sorry commissioner P I'm sorry um going back to that road and
drainage slide that negative amount we could get do we have to this have to be made made up make we have to make this up in the budget we have to come up with this money correct or we have until the end of 26 to get
that hold okay but that number commissioner trust me when I say that number has gone down tremendously over the last two years since we actually Ed that as a funding source um and legally we have to make sure that it gets down by the by a certain period of time in that period of time is the end of fiscal
year 26 26 okay okay good good all right um next slide discuss the local M municipalities and counties the effective military per 1,000 it shows that city of North FL is at
6.2 976 as you can see our effective mill rate is number two on this chart next to Charlotte County which has uh 10.4 643 CM could you explain or somebody what's the difference between
what's added in between the raw millor 3.76 67 and the effective 6.29 76 that may be Ben benefit our two new Commissioners what categories you know what brings it up to that 6.3
roughly it's going to be all your adalum and non-ad valorum assessments so for other cities it may include debt for us it includes fire district Solid Waste District uh Road and drainage District uh some of them uh storm water in our
road and drainage for some of the others so anything that's kind of on your tax bill okay does it include County no no okay that I just want to just clarify and I know I'm just asking in case anybody's wondering all right
okay thank you good question all right moving on the next slide talks about the 2024 taxable value in dollars we're nearly at1 billion and as you can see we do very well compared to our competitor
H competitors our um sister cities and counties um we're 18 billion in SAR city city of Sarasota 32 for Charlotte County and 104 approximately for Sarasota
County the next slide discusses the taxable value in dollars for municipalities only um as you can see there's our $10 billion doll as it compares to some of the other cities that were just on the chart for the next slide gives you the per
capita Revenue estimated based on the effective mil rate um you can see our $680 per capital revenue is on the low side and again this is how we try to raise that number up because we want our
per capita for estimate for our mil rate to be higher than it is uh got a couple of questions here uh commissioner Pro did you get your question answer of okay then commissioner Duval yes I just want to
um make sure I have the correct personal understanding if we look at that first slide that shows city of norport um village rate six 6.29 and compare it to the city of
Sarasota at 3.14 it makes it look like you know we're collecting twice as much but if you go to the next slide um you'll see that city of northport's income revenues you know
taxable value is at 9.9 compared to City of Sarasota 18 um and a I've got this straight in my mind I think this is this means that the values of properties in Sarasota are a lot higher
than here so they're getting more money at at a lower millage rate it doesn't mean that we're over taxing our Our People by that millage rate no it definitely does not mean that but um I'm
not sure if we can speak to the millage rate of the city of Sarasota I don't think I ever have asked what it is but um based on their taxable value and how we have half of that on our side it shows a correspondence in those numbers that if we had more taxable value then
we could sort of catch up to the Revenue that they get and hopefully our taxable value will keep increasing based on the growth of the city and how we're investing back in the city thank you yeah I have some questions relative
to that as well um my understanding is that the city of Sarasota contracts with the county for their fire and rescue and police services is that captured in their effective millage rate or or would
that be or did we not capture [Music] that so there wouldn't be any so you could take their actual millage rate would reflect closer to what their effective one is because there would be
no uh fire district fee to add in right so our number the effective mill rate is a little bit higher because we've said let's factor that road and uh Road and drainage fire all of those in as if they were millage so we can do do apples to
apples comparison obviously that that's difficult we're complex organizations but that's the way we like to compare the two so right but I guess what I'm
asking in our effective millage rate it includes what we spend on police and fire and Rescue city of Sarasota does not provide those Safety
Services directly they contract with the sheriff with their police services and with the Cy's fire and District uh Fire and Rescue Services is in 3.1 are those services
that they get from the county part of their effective millage rate or is that separate only if there's an assessment for that is there for the city I just want to make sure we comparing apples and oranges
here could you roll back to that slide please Slide Five yeah there we go you just said they do not contract um with the sheriff they have the own Police Department okay so it's just fire and rescue that they contract okay so same question holds is
so when we do comparisons of expenditures they would be in that that expense paying the county but when we're this comparison is mill rate plus assessments non avalum this is avalum and non avalum and a
comparison of those so because I know from looking at different trim notices that people who live in the city of Saras OTA pay a higher millage rate to
the county than the citizens of Northport do and I'm assuming that's because of their Fire and Rescue Services so again my question is in their effective when we compare
the city of Sarasota to the city of Northport is there effective rate net of what they pay to the county for fire and Rescue or have we pulled that out of their County tax because otherwise we're
not comparing Apples to Apples here you know what I'm saying if I could put it another way the 31436 that is the effective millage rate here for the city of Sarasota does not
include fire that fire rescue which is build to the city of Sarasota taxpayers separately by the county so comparing the 6.3 effective rate Northport to City of Sarasota is an apples to oranges comparison that's what she's trying to
say right if you as your previous assumption was that city of Sarasota residents pay a higher mill rate because of that cause Contracting with the county then in that sense it is included because we take we start with their millage rate that they're charging
citizens and then we add any non-av assessments if they don't have a fire when we don't add it for us we do add it but in your example that would be included in that higher rate of just the the regular is it included in the
3.14 no it's not not because I asked the question earlier is our taxes to the county in Northport included in the 6.3 and you said no so the city of Sarasota taxpayers are paying to the county for
their fire rescue separate and over and above that 31436 that's the point we're trying to make let me give you an example because you can't say that our Police Department is paid for Barm millage because the cost of the police department is higher
than the millage we have other revenues to pay for it so it's in there but the entire costs of the police department and the fire department and the general fund aren't covered by that that's a good point too so I would assume Sarasota's got a line item expense in
their general fund that's payment for to the county for fire services so that would be part of what their regular millage would cover it may not cover it all just like ours does not cover police and fire in the general
fund okay I'm not set oh one other question sorry on slide six taxable value and dollar um do we have a general sense of what the average
assessed value is for each municipality I think it would be interesting to see that because I think there's a general sense of people here in the city that our assessed values have skyrocketed and that that's unique
in terms of our region State and Country and that's not the case so as our assess values have gone up the assessed values in Venice and the City of Sarasota and the county have also gone up so you just
based on what I find this information fascinating because when you think of our population numbers and the size of our city and our taxable value is so low
relative to the other municipalities in the county that that's a stunning number to me a stunning number and people really need to understand that because uh I look at these numbers and I
have to catch my breath that's it I don't think we have their average right um okay I think we're on slide 12 let's get out of uh effective milate
please yes one more there we go all right yes um these are our compar yeah right correct so here are the cities and we talk about our fpes and this slide shows the number of citizens per
employee and in this chart the higher the better because the higher your number is means that the better efficiency that you have based on your population and 122 is the average we're below the average at 98 um but you'll see how that relates back to our growth
in a few more slides but the first thing that people are going to say first thing I would say is if you're looking to make a severe cost reduction in your budget you're going to look at your people how many people do you have are are do do you have too many people and are they uh
either efficient or working the programs as you believe they should and as we think they should um so this chart kind of shows that we are we're below being where we were at where we should be as far as number of employees but it's not a number that we're sitting here saying
oh we've got to get up to 122 that's not what we're saying you look at our population and how we are growing in a in a couple more slides you're going to see that we are in alignment with what our population says um the next
slide shows you a bar graph oh sorry yeah same as the last just in a different format where you can see the growth uh curve from our FTE to higher
FTE in different areas that are comparable to the city of go Bo the next slide is a line graph that shows what I'm what I'm referring to you can look and you can see you see towards the end of the first third you see the
blue blue line which is the total of number of FTE and the green line represents population you can see that during the recession our FTE were a little bit out of line from where our population was and then you can see it
went down and look how long it took for us to get back up to that same level it was about six or seven years after the recession happened to bring those people back and when they brought them back our population grew at the same time and that's how the line of the population
and the FTE came back into alignment together and look at where they are now our our population has exceeded our FTE count which puts it back in alignment to where a better alignment to where it should be I don't think it'll ever be perfect and I don't want to act like it
is but when people say and people need to understand that our FTE count is in alignment with our population and our growth we believe that it is um as we talk about the FTE and what we're going to propose this year we know that Public
Safety needs their FTE police if you may recall we we did not give them their full request last year and we need to help them get right size this year I don't want to put us too far behind that curve most of you were here when the consultant gave us that report that said
we need to add it we needed to add X number of FTE per year last year we didn't do it because of the same situation we're going through now challenging times so we're not going to probably do it fully again this year but we're going to we need to stay close enough to it so that we don't create a
hole for ourselves and that's my goal and while we know police and fire need FTE there are other offices that need FTE as well but based on the Strategic hiring initiative that we're going to put into place as people leave the organization due to attrition or other
reasons we will then scrutinize those positions to see if they need to be rehired or can we reallocate them to other departments that may not get their FTE through this budget we're not going to be able to get everything through this budget so we're G have to be very careful on what we present to you but we're working on it to make sure that we
put you in a position to make the best decision for the situation that we have got a question from commissioner Petro yeah going two slides back can uh one
more that one yes so can you explain the slide uh yes sir we can what if you talk so what these numbers represent is
the number of citizens per employee of that government so for delonas the first one that stands out there's 227 citizens per employee of Delona so you can see us down at 98 um citizens
per employee there in the middle the average of all these compar These are cities that are comparable to us in population size average income price of a home things like that um the average of all of these including us is
122 um citizens per employee and uh I did understand that but I just wanted to make sure the public understands that how did you get these numbers did you call verify these numbers or you went online or how would you how would
you know how many employees Fort Meyers has so unfortunately for the 25 numbers we did have to call we went online and looked to see if we could find them online and then we had to call a few of them because that's so recent that all of the numbers aren't out there we can
pull 24 data from a lot of differents sites coming from Florida uh um my gosh oh um economic and demographic research office of and a number of other locations but 25 we do have to collect
manually and for specifically for the city of Fort Meyers um how many employees did you call them how many employees they have or did you find it online or because I'm asking City Port Meers is very comparable in the
population size to our city as as a matter of fact they're slightly more I believe they over I thought they were a lot more um they about 97,000 so I just want to compare happens to
happens well again those numbers are normalized because you know we're dividing number of citizens right by the number of sure employees the population rate similar to
our population so really wouldn't matter yeah 10078 population and the employees 1,16 we have uh ours is we have we have 9 in this at this time
940 for for us the numbers are very CL which is why our 98 compares to their 91 and how did you get the number of employees from them did you call them or Fort Myers I believe we found that
online it's interesting I'm asking I met two of their Council men Council woman they told me that their size of uh the number of employees is around 7 plus 700 plus yet their population is higher than
ours they may have been quoting general fund employees they may have been not an updated number um but this is from their uh Finance online documents
okay I was just was curious how because I want to compare city of Port Myers to ours because and see if I can find 700 well well if you Google it it says they have approximately a th employees yes and that's just coming straight without
going into any document and that's just of course what it comes GRS to the internet but I think 700 is not the most accurate number for their employees to compare if we're comparing an apple to an Apple of total employees even in 24 they
had 1,094 employees and that's reported to um economic and demographic research and yeah all of their uh act for reporting has has those numberers thank you I don't want to take any more time
but thank thank you I have a question commission Lang um when we use the term citizen do we mean residents or do we mean citizens so if
we have people living in the city of Northport who are here on visas or green cards are they included in that number yeah right if if they have second homes and they're
not their Bieber numbers correct someone who knows I always prefer residents to Citizens but good afternoon uh Elena R director of development services it is based on the US Census
figures in American Community survey okay a little different it's also um we also the State of Florida looks at it based on an average number of household size so that is updated every year we do um work with Bieber every
year on those numbers but it is based um generally on the um average number of people in a household whether it's single family apartment okay so people doubling
up or sponsoring people or none that gets counted if if we have 10 people living in one house it's not going it's not necessarily going to capture that if those people are not reported on a census or
survey so do we acknowledge that some groups are really undercounted in terms of census particularly the last one because of the political context that that sensus possible it's Poss and every jurisdiction faces this right
unreported um residents within the boundaries but um the State of Florida does look at average household sizes and the census looks at that as well right um the numbers are not going to be perfect right um but it is the best it's
the closest we can get right I won't belabor it but I just think it's it's a good point to make that we provide services to a broader audience than a strict definition of citizen that's the
only point I want to make and I'm sure the homeless aren counted in that right no but the the the city uh the police department of social services do get General accounts of the number of the housed individuals inity yeah I'm
I'm aware that I I want to ask quick question about rental apartment complexes how would you go by the unit number or the the census and the state use an average number of uh residents per unit
as an average so they do have calculations that will say um you know certain size Apartments have generally have an average of X number of residents living in those so they do capture all of the people who are living in
apartments as well as a single family home we have few complexes that were built just recently I mean the census is so so we do we do work with the state on uh updating our uh population numbers
every year and we do account for the new construction so we look at single family homes and apartment units that are coed within the previous year and we adjust our population numbers to include those
units we do that annually what about driver's licenses when people get when when they move in they have to change their license so they would be probably is that a more acre number um that we really don't look at that a lot of people who may live here a part of a
year don't have their licenses here they have them somewhere else so we that's why we go by household size we go by actual units on the ground because they may be here five months out of a year and maintain their
driver's license in a different if I may a quick related question to um commissioner Pro do we have a rough idea of our population growth how many are coming from out of state needing a new license versus those
that are moving within state that might help um a little bit there are migration studies that that indicate uh generally I don't have those figures in front of me but that's something that we could look that as far as how many uh percentages coming from
out of state versus instate I know our out of state migration has been significant over the last um three years three to five years yes U-Haul probably knows U-Haul has some good numbers but we we there are those
numbers are out there we could we could definitely thank you I'm good mov it along all right uh next slide we're going to talk about our all funds um as it relates to our um our Union contracts
our City personnel we talk about utilizing 3.5 salary growth for position level of service and Personnel PBA increase of approximately 3 to 6% ask me will receive two and a half% market adjustment and a 2% uh increase based
upon Merit um the I employees receed increases based on a professional development plan and a salary growth of 2 and a half% for a cost of living adjustment for existing levels of service uh as well the cost associated with capital um
projects also includes ongoing Staffing operating cost and maintenance next slide is sort of a summary that shows a few of the bigat drivers commission has question I have a quick question just on on that pre previous
slide our Merit increases I'm assuming they're tied to the overall rating of an employee correct so I guess what I'm driving to if someone and I always have to reverse it in my mind one is five is the best or one is the best five is the
best five is the best okay so if someone's a three do they get a merit if someone's a four do they get 1% if someone's a five do they get 2% like how is it tied to Performance those Merit
increases it does go down I don't know exactly itops to zero percentage assign to it if you're a five four to five you get a percentage if you're three to four you get a percent three follow within those
percentages that's how the percent because I would hope someone rated less than three wouldn't get a merit increase right it's 4% that five range I mention 35% from 3.5 to 4.0 and 3% increase from
radi from a 3 to a 3.5 okay thank you that's help yes okay all right um the general fund changes here that we reference for 2526 is 2 and5 million for merit and
unions calorie increases CPI is just 2.5% toally .2 million health insurance increase of $730,000 and operating cost inflationary increase of $17 million leaving total of $6.2 million I think
this is the slide that the mayor referenced earlier when he talked about the taxable value number of coming off of that and leaving us with a deficit and while the property tax isn't the only Revenue that we have it is the largest one that comes into that fund so
there will have to be adjustments made to allow for the gap or the balance of that expense total to the revenue a question for you in the calculation of the 6.2 million for each of those
categories is there for unfilled positions would the costs including you know here we're talking increases in health insurance these are changes to the general fund are un unfilled positions included
in these numbers yes they are because we would assume that they'll get filled exactly okay good okay that's good to know okay right we'll keep going um the next are the next slides
are just sort of to remind everyone what the Strategic pillars are and just touch on them briefly as we want to make sure that your particular decision making and direction are related to the outcomes
that you want to see from your pillars um as we go through first one talk about Safe Community I think that one's pretty straightforward we know that our Public Safety is in this pillar and makes up um the bulk of it and I I never want to
rank pillars against each other or we don't have to but I would find it very easy to make an argument that if our community does not feel safe our quality of life will be in Jeopardy um they need to feel safe they need to know that services will arrive to them on time uh
based on their needs and I don't think I need to overate how critical that is um as we go to the next pillar and we talk about quality of life we always want to make sure that people have the right sort of activities and amenities to want
to be in our city I think if we we jeopardize that too much then it messes up the growth factor that I I mentioned earlier and making sure that we stay on these lists that we're on and getting the recognition that we get and the accreditations that the Departments that
are um tied to this particular pillar received we want to keep those at the highest level um we talk about Economic Development growth and management as the next pillar and this one has uh been sort of a priority ever since I've been
here for the last three 3 years and knowing that we are going to see the long-term benefits of this growth is just U you're starting to see some of the Pieces come together and it's it's this looks good based on the priority the commission has given and the
resources that you dedicated to this particular pillar it was a lot less when I first got here and you got you as a board have supported Economic Development because that was the vision that you had for the city to grow in the Environmental resiliency and
sustainability pillar uh you also have dedicated resources to that the natural resource provision through the treat fund and your regulations and policies that allow us to capture that revenue and then put it back into the city um that's that's allow Elena R in development services to be very
productive in improving our community and making sure that we focus on economic development but never lose sight of the environment and the wildlife that is a huge characteristic of the North for um next pillar would be
infrastructure and Facilities Integrity um this is one where deferred manance has been a norm for a lot of municipalities we are not different um what we want to focus on now particularly for this one is the
referendum questions that we have that will help us get some of that done and if you think about it from the standpoint of all the infrastructure that we have in the city and how our Public Works team is able to do a lot with what they have the ass for the
citizens has been very minimum over the past recent memory we need to be able to keep up with that so as Revenue grows in this city we have to put it back into our infrastructure we have to make sure that the growth of the city doesn't harm our roads and our buildings and our
abilities our abilities to take care of the needs of our citizens so um that is a very challenging pillar but I think we're dedicated make sure that we don't defer maintenance any more than we have to
um and we go to the next slide and the last slide is good governance um which is uh important so that we we give the best product to the people we want to make sure that they have uh they have the the highest level of service now I
do and would say that you know if we had a new Erp system which I know enterprise resource planning system uh that would make us better but it is really very expensive and I think I told you last year it costs a lot of money and it takes a lot of time so this year most
likely we just need to do some more deeper dive into what it looks like and bringing you back more information as opposed to trying to carve that out and put it into our budget this year I just don't think that we can handle that I don't want it to get lost because I I
want to be the most position and um using technology the best way that we can but I don't I just don't see it in this year's budget to change we we are able to add different modules to the system that we have so we might explore looking into those things so that we can make
ourselves better without sort of creating a whole new system langon yeah just a quick comment I'm very glad to hear you say that city manager I'm a big supporter of Erp systems because they can drive a lot of
efficiencies um but this year given our environment and we're potentially facing um an economic downturn I I agree with you so I'm really glad to hear you say that yes it was it was painful to say but it it is it is the reality of what we're going
through and speaking of efficiencies uh someone just mentioned recently I think it was commissioner Petro we talked about during the city Fe schedule last week deficiencies being examined as well as the fees being examined we do have a
plan to have have a third party sort of look at some of our efficiency I believe and it's natural because our people are so close to what they're doing that we may not see all of the inefficiencies that may be there so bringing someone in
to help us on a um a very scheduled time frame will allow us over hopefully over the course of this next year to answer some of those questions that we can't physically show you ourselves because it's easy for us to say yes we need six people to do this particular task and someone else might come in and say well
you know what here's how you can do it with four you know so I think that we need that and the best way that we as a city staff get your particular confidence is normally through a third party independent who can verify either what we're doing right or WR same way
with the CP study there was a lot in there that they said needed to change and some needed to stay the same and some needed to go away but that's what you need to make sure you need that sort of uh extra eyes and ears on your information so we're going to try to get some of that done back to your point
from last week um final pillar is disaster uh response and Recovery management this one really speaks for itself we really need to refer in the path so that we can all have that extra sense of security that we won't be harmed if we have multiple hurricanes that stretch our
resources um that's always going to be a priority the preservation of life is priority number one and it's the highest level of Duty that we can provide to the city as you look at the next slide which is the adoption of the budget um by
pillar you can see as no surprise that our largest One Is Safe Community use me infrastructure and Facilities because of the cost of it but ones that you def definitely have a direct influence on is safe community and once we make sure
that our people are safe then we can add everything else into our mix and as you can see the different um pillars represent 16% for good governance uh 4.4% uh quality of life uh economic is
1.1 and environmental resiliency is 7.2 before we go past that slide yes sir you know just to you ran us through the percentages but looking at the dollars
we spend Safe Community almost $89 million to keep our city safe probably a farn good investment uh quality of life quality of life does contain parks and wrecks right that's where parks and
res that is 4.4% of our total budget are $12 million um Economic Development 3 million environmental resilience $2
million infrastructure $110 million and good governance $4 55 million just as we look at where we might get the biggest bank for our buck if we're looking to Doge ourselves or
tighten our belts or whatever you might want to call it those are this is a great chart to look at because it shows you where the money sits thank you absolutely um where we are we are the the fiscal year 25 adopted budget by
general fund as you can see State Community represents 63% of that or $54 million uh followed by the good governance uh pillar of $17.6 million of 20% infrastructure is
4% of the general fund and you have economic development at 3% and quality of life of 10% of the general fund which is roughly $8.6 million the next slide will get us to a conversation that we want to pause on
for one moment um if you recall I know you recall because of the board you gave us the assignment to go help figure out how to handle the parking on 41 that the animar Oyster Bar uh I'm not going to say they created because I don't want to
put it all on them but we're very glad to have that restaurant there and so are a lot of other people in this city and you know they're doing great business there but if you look at that entire Corridor on both sides of the road it's been examined for several years on how to make it sort of better so that people
can uh navigate through it more easily um so we are working on that we bring back to you the how you would like to direct us but as we talk about it and we look at some of the information that we receive design is at 60% and we're
talking about 163 parking spots at a cost of just over a little of $2 million now ideally that is not a situation that the city would undertake because if you do it there for this particular area you would be doing it for other areas where
the private business businesses and owners could be taking a more responsibility I've heard it mentioned that you could do paid parking there and put some meters in there you know you could there's some things that you can do to be creative but what I would say is I'm pretty sure you might have some
feedback based on this and maybe an update we just want to make sure that they know that we are willing participant in helping problem solve for an issue that we all share and I think that's what you as a board have done and I think that's what you probably would tell us as the staff to continue to do yeah I think this project too if I
recall there was3 $400,000 that came in Via Grant monies that were redeployed elsewhere so there was a chunk of money at some point devoted to this project which got used somewhere else in the
city I believe it was grant money maybe it was C tax money I thought it was grant money but you know that's just something we need to consider when we look at you know is this a city expense or not a city expense and you know what
we ask potential businesses to partner up with us on but anyway this is certainly of all the areas I know in the city this is one area that needs some serious addressing but as we get further
down the road of information we'll make this a workshop topic and we'll bring it back and you can spend more time on it and more than likely some of those business owners will either contact you before then or come in during that meeting to have some feedback with you as well uh I just know it's a big topic
and I know that everyone sees it and we need to solve together um next slide um funding consideration um so we uh a consultant been contract to evaluate special assessment possibility um the report is
being finalized uh we should have it soon consultant has identified methodologies for a special assessment to businesses that directly benefit from that parking that we talking about on 41 there has to be some sort of method in
order to properly allocate who's responsible for how much as you can imagine that's what they would want if they don't want to pay for more than their business is getting and of course we would all say that's fair so I don't think that there's any surprise right
there but um the annual impacts the owners can let you can can range from 200,000 excuse me $200 for a small business or 35 for 35,000 for a large business there has to be some sort of balance there that I think would be fair
for everyone to be able to live with as we sort of bring that forward forward and that consultant um report is done again that'll help follow us up with a workshop topic and you'll be able to discuss it in further there yeah it may I mean this this takes us very close to
a larger conversation with regard to paid parking and parking issues throughout the city because we're we're going to reach that point where we're going to need to look at and the Technologies out there that are really
interesting and attractive which provides you the opportunity without a lot of infrastructure Improvement to to create paid parking on streets and other areas so it's sooner or later going to be a topic true it
would be new for the city but I think that at some point like you said you're going to have to you're going have to do it because that's just the way that that it is you only have so much space so you got to make sure you do it the right way totally agree with you Mr Mayor um next slide here we have
considerations so on this slide originally my apologies the second bullet mirrored the first bullet and said do you want a military increase and do you want to consider a mil mentally I think your city manager did not want to do a decrease uh but you
know that it has been changed and like I said we'll make sure the Madam clerk has the correct information but these are questions that we need to discussed today um a military increase I'm fairly certain now that is that is a city
manager's increase on the same premise that you've heard me say for the three years that I've been here we've been at the same military rate for five years our city is growing we have costs we have needs I'm always going to advocate for those costs I do believe that we um
um we have a population that would would be more satisfied with a small incremental consistent increase as opposed to staying flat and then jumping it up to a number that causes concern or possibly taking it down and then having
to jump it back up to a number that are concerned that is that is staff's opinion but there are benefits of uh all three to be honest with you whether you increase it leave it the same or you decrease it there's there's pros and cons but you as a board we're looking
for that direction for you to say what would you like for us to include in the budget proposal that we bring back to you in the upcoming months um if you want us to explore what a decrease looks like then we'll give you options for that if you or how much you want it to go down if you want it to increase we'll
bring you those back you want it to stay the same you can do that as well but I think publicly and um during the budget process kickoff it's important that you sort of explore the number of before you jump I I hit my button first and I'd
like to lead with it um excuse me Mr Mayor if I may with all respect I have a lot to say on this topic I would suggest we time ourselves uh as we move into this yeah I mean that's reasonable let's
try to keep it to between five and 10 minutes of you know a commissioner but um I'm not going to take that long I can tell you that um you know I uh I I truly believe we ought to give serious consideration to cutting the property
tax military I've said it before and I'll say it again pfm analysis has shown that we are going to see some appreciation in revenues primarily in
the fiveyear range out and you know that is a few years from now we're also seeing healthy population growth both residentially and commercially and that is contributing to additional
Revenue um that numberers quoted of 7.5 I think are going to be more like 10 12 133% driven to to an extent by by some of this growth I think we're going to see Revenue pickups and I think
that at the same time we're facing some serious challenges um and and they're taking the form of of a a May 13th referendum election and we're asking people to assess themselves for a new police
headquarters we need a solid waste Transfer Station which makes enormous sense and is cost effective we have wastewater treatment plant that's broken that needs fixing we don't have much choice we're asking citizens to
sacrifice and I personally feel that when you look at the amount of money that this city takes in in a strategic and a surgical way we can find $2 to3
million which theoretically could equate to a to a to a nice millage rate reduction and we should be willing to cut and tighten our bill in order to do this and put some money back if we're
asking the average citizen say to pay $150 extra a year for Police Headquarters inclusive of maybe these other two projects let's just pick that number and we can give them back 25 to 30% of that yes net they're paying more
but if you ask them well GE would you rather me keep that $50 or $60 they would say no give it to me and and I think that it's important that as a city I find it hard to look at these numbers on that graph and the amount of
money we spend in each of the pillars and I and it's hard for me to realize that we can't find the money we need um um I have a quick question um what for finance what is the what is the number
of taxpaying properties in the city what is the number of taxpaying properties 35,000 40,000 50,000 you know rough ballpark okay because I mean inum trying
to determine how much to cut the budget to translate it into a 5060 give back to a citizen who has an average property assessed value of $300,000 you know that's the kind of number I think is a healthy number if
it's if there's 35,000 paying properties then you know it it's about 2.1 million and it's about a 5% reduction in the military takes it down from 3.76 67 about 3.65 it's a healthy drop and the
argument that gee would we have to raise it again next year or the year after I say no I wouldn't do it if I thought we couldn't hold the line until revenues and growth catches up with us and and you know I don't see this as a one-year
oh quick giveaway I think that we're asking citizens to make a commitment they're going to have to pay year after year for these projects and so the cut should be flat I mean I like to take this number down and you know I really would love to hear what everybody else
has to say on this commission so at that I'm not going to go on and on but you know that at least sets the tone of where I think we ought to be hello Commissioners commissioner langon thank you mayor um I have very
strong feelings on this subject as well and this city has so many infrastructure and facil needs and other issues I mean we looked at the numbers of you know in terms of
the the tax burden per resident where like the lowest of the county and all the municipalities in the county and personally I think cutting the millage rate in anticipation of future revenues
particularly when Financial experts are signaling an increased potential of a recession is very unwise um we have been firm about not increasing the millage rate and
we've been blessed by rapidly increasing assessed value that sort of we were able to do a lot of right sizing um and and that allowed us to do it but I think we are at the point where we need to take a
hard look at what we're doing and when I talk to people around the city about increasing or decreasing the millit rate what I hear is is a couple things one is you've been talking about our financial
challenges and all the infrastructure needs we have and having to trade off one project for another because we don't have sufficient Revenue to fund them all and now you're cutting the millage rate
were you pulling my leg I don't know who you're talking to number one no well certainly not people in Wallen Park and certainly not people in this Legacy Northport either with respect mayor I think you gave me before yes ma'am thank you um and and I think what people tell
me they want to do is they want to see us manage our expenses they want to see us be efficient I don't don't think anyone wants a service cut in any area including parks that was never my intention in my
earlier conversations but I think what people do want to see is that we're being as efficient as we can be in the delivery of those services so I think at this particular point in time decreasing
the millage rate is unwise um and I think it potentially delivers a message to the community that adds confusion to the conversation if we have so many needs if
if we need to borrow to start satisfying some of those needs why are you cutting the military uh I know commissioner emri but i' would like to respond to that because um you know all the people I talk to in this
city are concerned about the fact that every time they turn around someone's reaching in their pockets for more money whether it's the city whether it's the county whether it's the state whether it's the federal government the bottom line is people's pocket books are hurting it's costing everybody more okay
and when we look at 250 to 300 million dollars that this city collects in tax revenues it is inconceivable to me that we can't can't find two3 million and give it back and when it comes to you
know shouldn't we redeploy it elsewhere we should have been doing that anyway if our prioritizations are off then that's what we should have been doing right along so I believe it's time to help the citizens all this other talk about efficiencies and this and that and all
the rest is all well and good but what's it doing for the average citizen who has to Fork up more money and this year year they will be asked to Fork up more money if we're trying to get these three projects passed I think we ought to sacrifice as
a city government too because if they don't pass we're not asking them should we do these projects we're not asking should we build a police headquarters or should we build a waste you know treatment a solid waste treatment plan or are we going to fix the water
treatment we already made those decisions if these referendums fail we're going to do these projects because we already voted to do them and it's going to cost all us taxpayers more money so if we're asking them to support
these to me it's the perfect time to do something and give back look at the numbers look at that chart look at the money we spend for good governance do you really think that our citizens wouldn't be willing to sacrifice a little good
governance okay or somewhere else in this massive budget I mean I I find it extremely difficult the state sent the message read the tea leaves okay read the tea leaves out there governments are looking at
controlling property taxes reducing them eliminating them why because people are suffering how do we be indifferent to that it's it's inconceivable to me we can't find two3 million do in this but not us staff staff can do it this is
what they're good at they can look at their budget strategically surgically and do it if we just say we're leaving it the same well okay and we're going to see what happens on May 13th vice mayor okay
um I have no issues with um looking at reducing the millage rate but I do not want that to be used as a tool from this dis at this point because it is premature on what's going to happen in the referendum I don't want promises or
statements made saying well if you pass the referendum we're going to roll back the milit rate because we haven't got to the point on what the budget is so that gets discussed in the future keeping the millage rate at the
current expense right now means that down the road we're not going to look at Facebook out there saying we're raising it 35% again and having everybody come down when it was actually only a 133% increase if we take it back somewhere
down the road it will go have to go back up how drastic I have no clue if you keep it steady then you're looking at minor increments down the road but again I'm looking willing to look at those numbers to see when they come in to do a
slight roll back on that but I've already had one-on ones with uh city manager Fletcher and and my perspective was we need to look at our spending out there on well we may not need this equipment this year we may not need
these open positions this year we may not need X Y and Z and cut our belt and tighten our belt at that level bring those numbers back also bring back the numbers on the roll back how much do we need to get to this point and where do
we need to save but I think cutting the budget internally and again I am not on the cutting the parks and wreck bandwagon for the record that is an amenity it is for the city but elsewhere we may not need 10 mowers this year we
may not need five dump trucks and I'm not picking on Chuck sorry but it's we may not need that stuff for another year or two years or get in with Grant programs to see if we can get some of that stuff acquired but for right now let's see where we're at where that
leads us let's see we're taking a little bit away on the millit rate leads us and see what those numbers come out it's like I said we're we're premature right now do we want to look into these things absolutely we want to see all the angles can we make a decision on which
route we're taking not till we have those numbers and not till we have those discussion so that's basically where I'm at that's all I have May Mr langman um I just want to check with the two newer
Commissioners this is my second round either of you want to go first or you just kind of Spectators well I just want to give them the opportunity just quickly I just want to put out there that I agree with
commissioner Emer I mean we with very conservative at um assessment appreciation at 7.5 if it winds up being 15% I doubt that very much then maybe a a small roll back might be doable in in
the context of things but highly unlikely that's going to happen um also we need to keep in mind that if the direction this body gives to staff is to hold expenses
constant 2005 to 2006 given that our city is growing that's actually a cut so we need to keep that in mind as well um as one of the options we might
pick uh I also want to point out that commissioner McDow um I did that again Duval the names are too similar commissioner Duval actually actually had um an interesting idea of where we might cut some expenses you
know the service fee that we place on FPL I don't know what our districts are planning to do this year maybe we can hold the line there or adjust down a little bit there so um I I'm sort of
it's sort of premature to really talk about an increase or a decrease at this point city manager is microphone oh yeah so um the the fee that um commission Deval was
is reducing a revenue that we get as so and if FPL goes up in their price as me and commissioner dual talked about I could see that correlation between the revenue the expense that they're charging going up and our Revenue going down to keep the number somewhat the
same because I think commissioner deval's point was we don't necessarily have to profit on them raising their price up to back to commissioner stoke's point of everyone's hurting in some way and if we can do what we can we can do what we can if there if there's a way to put this screen up now please it I just
wanted to show you from our budget book sort of the millage rate history that's in here over the last 10 years and as you can see it it was reduced from 16 to 17 and then it went back up in 20 and then it was reduced again in 21 to where
it is right now so I mean it it is very possible that if it goes down it's going to come back up at some point in time to make up for that particular movement unless the money from the U OBC does come in and my
mind if you take that approach you are betting on yourselves you're saying that we changed the OC that money is going to come in it's going to help us in some straight form or fashion whatever you decide to put that money to you might use it for infrastructure that you don't need to go out to the people and ask for
um borrowing Authority it may come in the sense of now you have money to complete your Erp and you don't have to worry about that that we we are we are we are really investing in ourselves and our future by that ulc so that is going
to have a benefit to the city at some point in the very near future and and to your point city manager the fact that we're making an investment in that growth and have done an enormous amount of work
and expenditure towards that growth that anticipated Revenue growth um it's for that reason that I wonder why shouldn't we bet on that as well when we turn around and give our citizens a little
bit of relief and I don't necessarily agree that cutting the millage rate means it has to go back up the whole idea of everything we have been trying to do here for the past two commissions
has been to right size and direct this city towards its its rapid growth all the work the ulc rewrite all the efforts to to address infrastructure is all for the purpose of handling what
we anticipate To Be Healthy Growth both residentially and commercially in this city and during these next couple of years when it is of the greatest pressure on our citizens we asking them to step up
now I I just feel as if what is the city government doing to show that it's making that same sacrifice I don't see us making that same sacrifice we have been spending money Here There and Everywhere for the
last handful of years to address this growth coming and and when does the citizens get a break you know we can be more efficient we can save money we can cut cost but if we don't put it back in the citizens Pockets to some degree how is it
benefiting them anyway one One update we have 78 43 434 partel 78 okay pretty good so
number again I'm sorry 7834 so be you know to address that drop I was talking about it's probably closer to $3 million in cuts to do it 3 million $3.5 million out of out of a 250 $270
million budget that's that's what if we passed it back that's what we would be looking for at my second thing was I I heard you you just said that you know what are we doing in order to help them and reduce that number or that impact on
them the last few years I've been here we've left multiple millions of dollars out of our budget that we needed or would have liked into our budget now what does that mean because you still are providing good and great Services all around here without that money yes
that's because we could always do better and we're always trying to do better so the the sentiment is exactly what you just said people people don't see the pain that we've done and dealt with because they're still receiving all this great level of service and now what I'm
saying is that level of service is in the conversation of you have us as a staff you collectively have us as the staff looking at everything now so as we come up on this tight point that we're looking at services are going to be in those conversations we're gonna have to
make some tough choices and and to round out my comments you know absolutely I have watched this city government commissions even before I got on and now making huge
strides in being better at at at being the best stewards of of our citizens tax dollars I don't mean to say we don't I just mean to say that for the average citizen they have nobody's put money back in their pocket nobody not the
federal government the state the county or the city if we can do that that's great and I say I'm not looking to vote this is a workshop what I'd like to see is Staff look at this possibility look at what would be involved you said it
any reductions that are passed back to the citizens are going to come with a cost a cost in Services quality whatever we need to understand that so we can balance it and weigh it that's all I'm
asking for here I'd like to see that I think to Simply adopt the mindset same old same old I I would want to see could we do this I don't know if we can do this yet like vice mayor said you know but certainly I'd like to see where
staff you're the experts I don't want to sit here as commissioner and cherry pick where we're going to cut the budget we have no right to sit here and decide it should be parks and wrecks or or infrastructure or Public Works we don't have that that expertise nor that
knowledge it is not our job it is staff's job to figure it out if we give a Direction look at what it would take to cut three million out of the budget and reduce our millage rate by you know a a three to 5% rate figure it out come
back if it's too painful then commission has to make that tough decision but it's our decision to make but we need to give direction that's all I'm looking for out of this I do not want to dismiss the possibility of doing this because I think we should look at it and I think our citizens
deserve deserve it they deserve us taking a hard look at this that's all Mr Lang I just very quickly um if city manager had gone back further in our millage rate prior to 2008 our millage
rate was 5.1% so just for historical context our residents have been enjoying reduced taxes for 15 years or more now so just a
point commission Petro well just a few things taking into account the current political environment on the state and federal level probably on the county level as well we have to do some sacrifices as
well um and being a new on the commission board coming from a business site you know when there are things that needs to be looked into you not only look into the revenue side
which governments typically do they they find the ways to somehow raise revenues as opposed to cutting the expenses so um I do believe that we do have to look into the efficiency study
or whatever and soon the sooner the better um because I think we can eliminate a lot of if uh dis a lot of ineffective stuff yes and um but to keep expenses at the same level is probably
not the best idea especially when we want to ask the S the residents to approve a lot of expenses to to improve um the borrowing questions
that we're going to present with to them and I think it's it is wise to look into all the options and I agree with the the mayor we have to give back to the citizens to the residents of our city
we I know it's going to be painful but you know being on the diet is not really a pleasant experience a pleasant um procedure I I don't know how to say it but if you've been on a diet
it's really painful to say the least especially if you want but if you if you look if you uh if you looking to to become more attractive and you know there are sacrifices so we
have to sacrifice some things and um you know I'm not a really uh was in favor of cutting anybody's jobs or but we do really have to look at the you know overall picture
and like the mayor said it is the staff's responsibility to look at the figure it out look at the inefficiencies even now before the study and see what we can improve at the city what can we do instead of two inspectors
going to the same job site you know doing two different inspections in the same field send one inspector or whatever um um and I'm I'm not in the development office
but I think there are ways to to make our city to be more efficient and if we want more prosperity for the city we got to get all these three projects done right so we asking the citizen to pitch in what are we giving
them in return if we keep it the pony off that if we keep it high level for us you know the idea being to to give direction because this is a workshop so where there to be a consensus to ask staff to
look into this and take a hard look and see where you might be able to do it you guys are the best at at figuring this out you know it it can come from any one of so many different areas and maybe it
will be too painful maybe it would maybe there's a meeting in the middle somewhere but but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask staff at this point in time to to look into this because you know we're going to be moving forward on
this budget we need to get a feel for this and and you know see you we have I thank you for that discussion I think we have enough to sort of go back and I know what we need to do it I have it in my mind um you might want take more items the
vacant lot and parks and R and then we'll get you out of here maybe a quick break want to stay here till 10 yes you want to take a quick break how do you guys feel take 10 minutes or okay absolutely
oh how you trying to be consider it no absolutely 10 minut break yeah let's stretch our legs 10 minutes be back here at up I got some work to do with yeah hey
[Music] May e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e so the third question or next question
on the slide is talking about the unimproved lot registration program uh director Ray has created a one pager that I've handed out to all of you and we'll make sure the clerk who has it as well gets it into the public record but
it it is uh a page that sort of outlines the benefits and the questions that are still lingering if we want to do this program so uh the first says well what is it it's an annual online registration for unimproved Parcels um it collects current property owner information
requires a 24 emergency contact it includes an annual fee and it provides relief the general fund uh for code enforcement efforts it benefits the general public by removing uh hazardous trees it removes the financial and physical burden of homeowners dealing
with new um nuisance impinging growth and eliminates Reliance on the general fund for unimproved property owners it eliminates violation notices magistrate hearings and leans for covered issues it eliminates the need for absentee Property Owners to secure local
contractors and manage work uh long distance um who could be exempt um conservation property government owned property lots that are already cleared and maintained and other categories that the commission May deem appropriate the
the goal here is currently the lots that need Improvement are being paid for through the services of code enforcement and other vendors now and that is through taxpayer dollars so everyone is sort of contributing to that cause the the goal that we're trying to achieve is
to tie this expense directly back to those who are incurring the expense and those are the the vacant lot owners who should be taking care of their property so it does not impede on another's property um in the past before I was here I I'm
under I if I understand correctly um we were doing the program a little bit differently and then we just absorbed it all and that's what we're doing right now so this is a chance that we brought to you during last budget session to consider that we would like to either
consider it further and bring it back to you with some details of some standard operating procedures of what it would look like during this budget process or just stop this this all together and sort of move in a different direction that's why it's on the list for Budget consideration and we're looking just to
get your feedback on yes or no so to speak uh we got a bunch of people want to talk I was up first so I would say you and I city manager and I had discussions on this in our my one-on-one today and you know if
we were to do this and and I like the idea of it obviously it makes sense in some respects the devil's in the details if we were to charge I'm just going to pick $100 if there's 40,000 Lots out there and a third to a half of them
aren't as maintained as they should be so to speak I mean we're looking at 100 times 40,000 that's $4 million certainly we you know that should be adequate to take care of them my concern as I rais the city manager was would that not
incentivize those folks who take care of their properties to not take care of their properties it cost way more than $100 a year to take care of a property an unimproved lot I mean it can cost $1,000 to drop a tree so why would I if
I have five or 10 Lots why wouldn't I just pay that $100 and say let the city take care of it for me even though I've been paying for it all along now maybe that's our intent if that's our in tent then okay
that's worth thinking about um we would generate enough money to be able to take care of all the unimproved loots in the city it would be a benefit they would look clean they look nice we would take control of but is that philosophically what we want to do here or should we
charge so much to the lot owner that does not take care of his property or her property so that there would be plenty of money there and allow exemptions for anyone who does take care of their
property see I say there was discussion of having exemptions but the truth is why would you even bother why would you want to exempt yourself from something that you could pay a hundred bucks for and have 1,500 or how no God knows how
much savings so it's it's incentivizing good Property Owners to be bad property owners and pass it over to the city to take care of that's what I was up with a little bit now if we feel it's more important for the city to take
care of them all that that's a subject to be discussed maybe that is what we want to do I don't know personally I would rather it be extremely excruciatingly painful on those people who don't take care of their unimproved lots and give exemptions to those folks
who do take care of them and then if somebody falls into disrepair you can have you fall out you get assess it's going to take you three years to earn back to right to get that exemption so there's you know you got to prove you're going to take care of your lot so there's some things we could do but
anyway I'm done commissioner Langdon I I kicked off the conversation run with it thank you mayor I I don't know how many of us up here have the pleasure of having an unimproved lot next to their house I do so let me share my
experiences I live out east um when I first moved here almost 11 years ago there were a lot of unimproved lot and I uh let me share my experiences since I
have an unimproved lot right next to my house and um I live out east and when I moved here 10 years ago there were a lot of unimproved lots um in my immediate neighborhood and I'll share my story
because it's not unique a lot of my neighbors have found themselves in the same situation since I moved in I've spent just about $1,000 trimming back trees that over hung my lawn and I
couldn't grow grass so did I go after the owner of that property to pay for it no I could live with no grass but I spent the money out of my pocket $1,000 in the past year I've improved my
property I put some plantings in um along the a couple years ago along the property line there is so much impinging growth I don't know what those Vines are you pull them up and they have root balls that are this big they're like
alien spawn and we have spent 58 hours because I counted them pulling weeds and digging up um and and so we've gone 15 ft in to
the neighboring property to try to protect my own property from that impinging growth so property owner sue me for cleaning up your property but but now we've noticed there are two trees
one pine tree and one palm tree that have been effectively choked off by those hideous Vines and now I have a dead pine tree that if it falls will hit
my house this is the norm I don't see charging to be any disincentive for anybody taking care of their unimproved lot trust me in my neighborhood no one ever did a thing on their unimproved
Lots except for the people who live next to them so I understand your concern logically that's where I would go to in reality it doesn't happen so someone's got to do it um and and so that's my
story and that's it yes Ray so I can provide a um a little input the vast vast majority of people who already maintain their Lots either live
next door or across the street they they are in that immediate vicinity of the lot that they and they use that lot either for gardening or for recreation or or just because they want it to look nice because they see it every day um
the the the vast vast majority of lots are already not being maintain so those people who and it and I my my gut tells me it would be very very few who would
say well I'm going to quit taking care of my lot because I don't have to now I can just pay $100 those people want to take care of their Lots because they're using it and they're seeing it every day um
this program would enable us to cease having to take uh Code Enforcement cases to a magistrate and putting leans on property for things like dead trees uh it's intended for us to be able
to stop doing that which relieves staff of many many hours of casew work in the office um and instead enabling us to spread that cost across a large number
of lots so that we can afford to take care of those things when we have to go out and take five trees down or nine trees down um next to somebody's single family home and and it is a it is a real
serious issue our Pine uh Forest has been significantly impacted by the Hurricanes that we've had and the stress that those storms have caused have um unfortunately made them very susceptible to disease
and and pests um so it's not something that's getting better it's something that's getting worse and as commissioner langon mentioned we have a serious issue with the the proliferation of invasive plant species that are taking over some
of these areas and choking the trees and causing them to die so um it it impacts not just property safety it's it's going to it will impact our Wildlife our habitat everything else with this tree St with the tree di off thank you uh
vice mayor yeah um I'm all for this program I said it from when we first started doing it because I remember when we cut off doing this a few years back in the problems that it caused um the main
focus here is I look at the current homeowners that are paying 10 20 times the amount of taxes that a single lot owner is paying when it's en cringing on their property what can they do about it well the city has a plan we're going to do it
this way like like we used to you call up complain it gets done the lot owner is charged for it this is definitely a little bit different because it's pool money a lot more easily accessible and like you said we're not dealing leans anymore because sometimes you'll never
recoup that money when you're on leans or you'll wait 20 30 years before any money come in this is already available Capital by doing this the only grumbling that I've heard out there basically is the people that own multiple Lots as an
investment and trying to either develop it X or Y to me this is a cost of doing business you got 15 Lots that's 15 time the amount that you're going to get assessed for those lots I'm sorry but if you have one lot you're paying $100 and
that home owner next to you has peace of mind to where a tree is not going to fall on their head or on their house or anything like that so for me it's it's minor and I'm all for this 100% thank you vice mayor commissioner
Petro thank you Mr Mayor I'm against this program uh like I stated before and that's what makes us good because we're all different we share different opinions and come to the mutual conclusion by the majority uh but nevertheless I want to
make a few comments on this um it's a good program on the paper really good but once the people learn they're never going to maintain anything let alone visit their Lots or because they're going to know the city
will take care of it uh that's one thing second thing I see this program to be overrun by the expenses um we and before before going that way I want to make I want to make this point
let's be honest with us with ourselves a lot of lots a vacant Lots un improved lots are on the other side of 75 what are we doing are we going to maintain those lots no we just it's another tax we're just collecting money
and which might be okay you know CU we're always looking to raise our revenues but um there are majority or vast majority of lots that do not
share real dwellings so it's just Fields so what about those lots the owner might come in and say Hey Nobody's on the left nobody's on the right nobody's behind nobody's on the front why are you charging me are we really
really going to maintain those lots the answer is no we not we're not really doing that uh point that was made about Wildlife Wildlife is wild life I would leave it alone I would not do
anything you know and how much far would would we maintain a as a city we go 20 feet in 10 ft I mean it's all who's going to determine that um
so those questions needs to be answered and the other thing uh impingent growth as commissioner langon brought it up from what I recall and it was said on this Das that um or was answered to us
that the impingent grow growth would not be counted as a service to those owners so just the trees correct no this would this would cover impinging growth as well so Vines and all that stuff
Vines Brazil Vines and Brazilian pepper um the pepper is is the primary uh culprit uh but the vines we are seeing an increase as well and the last point I want to make is um we open up ourselves
as a city to some legal challenges and that might be the question to our uh City attorney in term City attorney if don't maintain one lot and the tree falls on somebody's somebody else's
house the owner is going to sue the the owner of who is sustain who will be sustaining the damages might sue the city saying hey you did not maintain that lot the owner of the vacant lot say
might say I paid my $100 fair share of registration fee now we have a millions of dollars of lawsuit or God forbid it might injure a child or somebody and there are so many things
with this program that might not be really beneficial overall and the last point I want to make is I don't know any any vicinity around our area that has this program so why
are we doing this um why suddenly we want to maintain our Lots I the the vacant Lots so these are my two sents but I'm really concerned about the
legal issues I'm concerned about not being fair to those lots that on the other side of 75 um I'm really concerned about this uh the point that the Mr Mayor
made there's incentive to be for good owners to be negligent owners and honestly I would take advantage myself if I mean it's not morally right but from practical standpoint hey I'm pay I'm paying I'm paying the fee so
have City do it so these are my points for discussion so if anybody want to yeah before I move to next commissioner questions I'd love staff to address some of commissioner Pet's what's concerned so that they don't get lost
somean you did but I I won't address the legal concerns but I will say that we have a legal request in and and um our interim City attorney um has assigned himself that that issue so um our intent was if
we were given uh direction to go ahead and continue moving forward this The Next Step involves significant amount of staff work legal work um and we didn't want to undertake that without knowing
whether we had um a fair chance of this going forward um but those are all questions that we would be looking at through um the next phase if we were to move forward
um this program has been used in other cities uh around the state for many years so um you know those are things that that we would be looking at with the the interance of the attorney um as far as
um whether someone would be um more apt to take advantage of the program as as I said previously I really do believe that is anyone who would it's it's a very small number and we look at
doing the most the best for the most we have a lot of homeowners out there who are um dealing with this every day we we have homeowners and we we have a a list of homeowners right now that want us to
take trees down next to them and we can't we don't have any funding for it um we have people who will not allow their children to sleep in their bedrooms because they are on the side of a house where there is a a huge dead tree
that would fall that could fall and and go into those bedrooms so these are things that are affecting the lives of our current residents and taxpayers now um the B probably the majority of lots that are owned um that are undeveloped
are not owned by local voters local residents so they're not the ones that are really being impacted by this um if we do not have another funding mechanism ISM for these
activities we will be requesting a significant increase in the code enforcement budget from the general fund um we have a a woefully inadequate um code enforcement budget to
maintain the city of the size that we have and as more homes are built in areas and on streets where those homes are surrounded by undeveloped Lots this is becoming an increasing problem it wasn't such a problem when most of the
city was developed in the old portion of Northport where they came in and cleared everything years ago um but as the growth is continuing it is becoming an increasing problem we simply have no budget right now to take trees down we
we we spend all of our budget in about the first four months of the year of the fiscal year so we have no abatement funds if I can um relate to make a couple comments well the Hurricanes they
they took a lot of trees so I see that first four months would as you just said wiped out the savings or whatever because a lot of those were very dangerously leaning over maybe but
um point to that you know families cannot sleep sleep you know if I would if I was concerned about my family I would hire and pay the money because you know it's life and death right I wouldn't I wouldn't put my faith and trust in the city you know I'll do it
myself um but at the same time you know how far do we go in 20t 10 ft the the request we going to have as a city are going to be enormous I I see from practical point of view this is this
program might be over on it it's going to it's going to cost us more than we're going to bring in maybe not I might be mistaken uh point that a majority of lots are owned by Outsiders I know
individual personally he doesn't make much money but his investment strategy is buying Lots so he owns about 20 Lots on the other side of 75 so that's $2,000 a month uh a year for him just you know
you'll turn in and sell those lots you know and lose money I mean this is not a good position for our building Community for Developers for uh people who want to build homes um just like I said are we
are we we have to be honest with ourselves the majority of lots are on the other side um but I just not true no not true well it's not accurate
but I might be mistaken and I I mean I didn't verify it but I'm saying this that this is good on paper but you know we have to wait and see what this will be uh and about the other cities
like I said in our vicinity with the area we live I don't know we you brought up a couple cities there most of those those cities were developed completely so I don't know of any cities
that have this [Music] program so most most of the lots that are undeveloped um that the sort of impact are on this side of 75 they are um generally
between um southford and the Eastern edge of the city um while there are um a few houses north of northeast of 75 there aren't many so
um the calls that we receive keep in mind we're not going to proactively go out and clear Lots or take trees down we do this on a complaint basis those complaints are coming in from people who own single family homes that have the
Lots around them we get about 50 50 calls every week on these types of things um some of them have one tree next to them some of them have we've seen up to nine trees um as far as
homeowners going onto the lot next door and taking the tree down they can do that they can also be prosecuted for trespassing if the um if they meet uh if that that property meets the um trespassing statutes and they can also
be sued uh for damage to property it's not legal for them to go on that property and take that tree down um as far as which trees we take down someone calls us and they complain
uh about a tree next door or multiple trees next door we go out we assess that tree one to determine is it really dead is it really dying is it really a hazardous tree we do have people sometimes who will call on perfectly healthy pine trees that are next door to
them and they just don't like them being there um that is not a dangerous tree that's not a hazardous tree we will not take those down um but when we have trees that are dead and they are within our our births are and and folks are
really good at looking at a tree and being able to determine the angle of it and know if that tree is close enough to a property that it would come down on it somebody calls us on a tree that's on the other side of a lot and it it falls you know tree falls in the forest and
nobody's ever hear it do it really matter if it if tree falls on a lot and it's not going to hit a structure does it really matter so we we look at all of those things we would look at um assessing whether it might fall in the street and block traffic or whether it might hit a a power line or those types
of things as well um so we we do assess each tree to determine whether it should come down or not um as far as the um amount of money that come in for this program versus the amount that we would spend um we've we've run the numbers
we've looked at our historic numbers we've looked at the number of complaints that we get we we looked at historic numbers from this program previously and we are absolutely confident that we would be able to run this um program under under the fees um as far as how
far in we would go for impinging growth uh previously when the city did this program I believe believe it was either 10 or 15t that they went in uh from the side they didn't go all the way around the property they went if there was a home on one side of the property that's where they went in they didn't go to the
other side and go in there too if there's homes on all sides and there's impinging growth on all sides then yes we would but if there's a house on one side of a property and that's where the impinging growth is that's the only side that we cut but it would be a 10 to 15 feet the the benefit of the city doing
that rather than a homeowner doing it we're ALS Al going to be looking for things like goph for tortois buroughs so um we're not going to be burying or or impacting go for tortois burough um so from from an environmental standpoint we
are you know we're we're very conscious of that but we we do feel like um the impinging growth program worked previously that the city had other than the money that's where the issue was if we'd had the
funding we'd probably still be doing it um but the the the program was terminated solely because of the funding can the owner sue the city of if the tree fell on his property
and the the owner of that lot was registered and was paying his fee I'll deferred in the City attorney on that answer well you're not going to like my answer but so this is America you can sue us for anything you like um whether
or not they have a very good case or not is going to depend on on several factors that we wouldn't want to lay out here right now unfortunately but we'll definitely consider that takes only one one
lawsuit it's just I I I foresee that because the owner of the sustainable damage the owner of the house might sue the owner of next door lot and then subsequently will sue the city so that
might be another disadvantage of this program Mr dval you're up first time this was brought up I was totally against it um further discussion of it I changed my
mind um I looking at this sheet here and I tried to look at you know pluses and minuses um under the plus provides relief to general fund for code enforcement
efforts um as Alina mentioned uh our code enforcement we got five officers that's just not enough for this city we need more money for code enforcement this can help with that that's a plus
removing hazardous trees for me this is the biggest plus okay I do not want to read in the newspaper that a child was crushed by a falling tree and we do have I discussed this
with the city manager um I can leave here before I get to my home which is only four miles from here I'm going to go go by dozens of dead trees uh two houses from
mine there are three trees that I keep telling my neighbor they're not on her property but I keep telling her one of these days you're going to get one if not all three of those trees on your house
um it can remove a financial and physical burden of homeowners dealing with impinging nuisance growth this is my problem with this um the problem the program before it was initiated you know
it came down to money because so many people saw this is hey City's going to take care of this and there were so many complaints and so much to do the city staff could not handle it um when it
comes at the time that that last last ordinance came out I owned a lot that was nowhere near my house and I did go
out and I assessed that property and on two sides it was just Another Empty lot on the back side there was somebody's fence back there and I went and cleared that property out how many other citizens actually did that um with the
impinging growth part of it I see a big influx of phone calls to the city come and cut that grass around here and that's going to cost money which will take away from some of the income that comes with
this um and I have one more one more issue and that is I don't know about north of 75 but
you just go east of Toledo Blade and keep going east and there are thousands of lots that have no homes anywhere around them are we going to be charging those people this $100 fee every year when tree falls on their property it's
not hurting any there's no way it's hurting any anybody else um so there you know there's some issues to work on I think on this program but but overall I think there is some know
like I say with with code enforcement with getting rid of the you know dangerous trees and a couple of times um M re I believe you did you know mention dead trees what about a tree that is alive
but it's had an angle that the next time we do get a storm you know during Hurrican in I do have a spare lot next to my house and I had one of my 70 foot Sal tall SL Pines that was
alive and it got ripped out of the ground by The Roots came down on my lot didn't hurt anything uh but that tree was leaning I always watched that tree but there was nothing it could harm so I didn't worry
about it uh that did come down um who's going to make the determination you know and and people will ask the question to say like there's this tree you know it's alive but it's leaning towards my house is a city going to look make that
determination is it a dangerous tree in my estimation something is leaning there yeah the possibility of you know a tree can come down but you know there's varying degrees of the danger um so overall and for this
program but I would like that question answered uh what benefit is this to those thousands of lots that aren't near anything and they're just going to be paying basically more more money each year so I I can address a couple of
those things first the easy one easy uh the the Leaning treats we do look at the angle of those trees um what direction they're leaning in um so if we bearing in mind we don't do any of this proactively all of this would be
complaint-based um but we do look at the angle the height of the tree whether the tree can fall on the house um and if the trees generally our arborists say you know if the tree is leaning it more than say a 30 35% angle then it would be much
more likely to come down in a storm um a tree that's leaning 5% healthy tree yeah it could it yes it could absolutely come down in the hurricane in and that is part of the risk of where we live and
one of the things that we we deal with living in Florida but um from the point of whether it's considered a dangerous tree or hazardous tree um it really depends on the lean and the angle of lean and the height of the tree so we
would we would abs Ely look at each of those um I can tell you as far as the lots that are out there on a street that may not have any houses on it we still have to maintain those streets for um passage for emergency vehicles um some of those streets along price they'll
have power lines during after Hurricane Ian the city spent a significant amount of money clearing streets um trees that hang down from empty lots um didn't matter if it was
southford or if it was a Yorkshire those streets have to be passable because if somebody's out there on an ATV and is injured police and fire have to get back there they have to get to those streets so um the the city does
incur expenses um to clear those streets to make sure that those streets are are maintained in in a passable way and uh this program uh could help with that as well we you you got you're going to have a
lot of questions regarding this program we we really were trying to get the tempature of move forward or cease and I see that if we move forward and bring you back some more answers and maybe some procedures that either ease your concerns or not then that will put you
in a position to make a educated vote in a proper Mee that fair enough to yeah and I don't mean to jump in but I was thinking the same thing and you know the San issues were program has some Merit
two um there's legal issues that need to be more thoroughly addressed for sure thirdly um should this program be designed and structured so
that all unimproved lot owners pay into it without with without regard to those compliant versus non-compliant or should this program heavily penalize the non-compliance and allow for blanket
exemptions for those who comply which would be an incentive for people to continue to take care of their Lots perhaps and make the financial burden so significant on those that don't that it still generates that significant revenue
and and in other words the tax would be but you apply for an exemption like a homestead exemption you you apply for the exemption if you don't have any black marks on your record then you get the exemption if you fall out of favor and let your property go to hell then what happens is you lose the exemption
the next year and it takes you three years to earn the right to get it back or five years or whatever we decide that but those things all like give you a general direction I mean program has enough Merit I think unless we're all disagreeing to like go do some more
diligence on this and see what we can do if we can address the issues everybody you know we all got pros we all got cons cons to this but we'll keep going and bring something back to you very I didn't mean to jump do you anybody else
want to weigh in because I didn't need to well just quickly I mean clearly I'm Pro this program for me it's really driven by dangerous trees and again the lot next to me not that it's so special I think it's representative if you went to see it there are clearly two trees
that are dead because of those Vines so for me if it's a lot without trees and it's overrun with vines we don't touch it I think what really drives it is when there's a dangerous tree and like with
the property next to me if those Vines go unchecked they're already going up the palm trees and pine tree and it's only a matter of time before for those trees get choked off in that kind of situation I think it makes
sense for us to address that invasive growth and and again the intention of this program is not beautification it it's really driven by safety concerns and as long as we keep that in mind and that's the way we
pursue it and that's the way we communicate it for me I think it mitigates you know any legal concerns or or other kind kind of things so so I'm violently um in support of this program my my only comment from an
implementation point of view is rather than requiring people to register put it on everybody and let people apply to be you know why why would anyone register their lot so we could charge them it
just oh yeah yeah it just doesn't quite line up in my mind so staff's got some pretty good direction huh yes yes sir we got it this is perfect thank you y moving on very last item and not in the
PowerPoint but I mentioned it earlier and we really are just uh getting the direction of how to move for thank youa thank uh from the conversation last week regarding the um what I boil it down to the cost
recovery of parks and rs um I sent you a lot of information yesterday and you know I will send back a website on some data so that we could compare ourselves to Industry standard and we've done that too we'll get that back out to you so you can see how we compare it to the IND industry standard at the end of the day
you know we do believe Parks is an efficient department and this is not about the staff make sure I'm clear staff they know how we feel about them we tell them all the time and even if we don't say it publicly we have a great par direct team from top to bottom
leadership and all so we we love our part re te question on the table is can we improve our crops recovery because that's what the issue is is the amount of money that it generates versus the amount of expenses that it takes to run the various programs now if the industry
average is at 20% and we're at 22% and the city cons last week said we should be at 25% what does it take to get 30% or 35% is it possible how could you do it over a fiveyear window or more year window question is would you like us to
explore that and see and bring it back to you during budget process at all that's the question we're asking youday could you repeat that once more else just the end part he's getting tired here's the end part we're at 20
20% is the industry average we currently as a city are at 22% oh okay the consultant said we we need to be at 25% so we're already working that angle right there based on what he told us now do you want to go further do you want to recover more what does 30% look like
what ises 35% look like and how long would it take us to get there gotta I know exactly what you're is thank you yeah uh Mr am vice mayor yeah I got I got no issues with learning that it's once those numbers come in that that
makes a decision going forward but when we had talked about you know cutting services and this that and the other earlier um like I said this is a benefit to the community and it does cost and you know that's the price that I'm willing to pay for you know Solitude out
there for some families like they mentioned camp or being at the parks on the weekend they might may not be able to do anything other than that and that could be their only joy and stuff like that now if we needed to recover more
funds the only thing that I came up with was when we're dealing with like the Aquatic Center or warm m Springs you look in the fee schedule not to increase the citizens partake but the non-residents partake and look at raising that fee because the citizens
are already paying through their taxes they deserve some sort of a discount going into these facilities the other ones are not paying in so get a little bit more from from that side of the fence like raise it up 25 50% I don't know what those numbers
are but you know if warell Springs is charging $10 out there for non-residents maybe it should be 15 I I don't I'm just using that as an example yeah but the citizens stay the same that's their benefit so on those ends and those just those two things you can recoup just
maybe a little bit more to help offset and add to the parks and wreck fund down the road to where they're a little bit coexistent with different types of programs going on because they may be able to put on another benefit throughout the summer when people are down here want to relax you know and
that could cover the cost of that it's it's given back to the citizens and and that's the one way that we really do other than the mowing services and Road drainage and whatever out there which they're saying we're not doing a good job at anyways but we always get told we're doing a great job with parks and
wrecks so we got to keep our our our key numbers going and and keep it good yes sir and and and to be clear we're talking about if you want us to do that we would make a thoughtful exercise of the process you know whether it's new events that would maximize space that we
have that might bring in more Revenue whether it's looking at cost that we're currently charging right now based on Resident or not whether it's adjusting hours here or there or equipment there or here you know it's I don't want to make it sound like we're just going to come and bring something in front of you
that is going to be just well you know we're not going to close all the parks so why did you put this on here you really if it's truly the will of the board to look at it and say we would like this cost recovery which is already above industry average to be more what would that look like we would go do that
bring it back right I would and again I'd rather see it enhanced rather than taken away from so how how can we make it better but still recover those costs by doing so that's where I'm at I'm at that's as simple as I can put understood
I um two things I'd like to say one I I personally am not really in favor looking at uh ways to increase the cost recovery from Parks and rcks quite frankly as we look at the budget overall
as I've said parks and Rex is the second least impact it's 4.4% of the budget um I think that as you figure out how we can cut costs in our city
budget it's up to staff to figure out how where which ways what to do every department will be a little unique and different state will see it different ways whether it's an across the board whether it's surgically going through different things whether it's Personnel
whether it's expenses that is your job it is not our job I don't want to sit here and cherry-pick how and where and way what we need to do is decide and that's my next piece is you know I'm going to make a consensus for whatever
it's worth you can all vote for it or not vote for it uh but it'll be on the record I I want to make a a consensus to reduce to look into reducing the millage rate and what the impacts would
be okay on services and and um you know but but a consensus to look at a millage rate decrease and and have staff come back
and bring that to us um you know I I don't want to leave it just up in the air so I'll be making that consensus after everybody has something to say uh commissioner Langan uh thank you mayor um you know I I agree with the mayor
that I'm a lot more comfortable with giving some general direction on expenses and costs rather than singling out one department but since we have a consultant recommendation to shoot for a
25% cost recovery in Parks I'd be interested in seeing that to put work into 30% I just don't think that's practical in any stretch of the imagination I'm a huge proponent of
figuring out how do we increase the utilization of our Parks assets um I think someone else said it earlier I'm way more interested in what services and programs we can overlay on what we have rather than getting rid of what we have
I'm not a supportive of unless there's a program that's really underutilized and and we shouldn't do it anymore that's a a whole different thing um but I I'd be happy when the time is right to ask for a consensus on at least
looking at the 25% and what would that look like um I would also throw on the table probably bit premature but you opened it up city manager by saying there's no sacred cows it's been 10 or more years since we
looked at Outsourcing um trash solid waste it we might want to look at that again um at at the time I think it was about 10 years ago and and again I'm not recommending this please don't
misunderstand what I'm saying I I just had one of of my bulk pickups that we get for free I love solid ways but there are no sacred cows and we really have to look at everything and some communities
are spending a lot less on solid waste so again it's just kind of looking at is there a savings in that what would we be giving up in terms of quality um of service and again I'm not
recommending that we get rid of solid waste I just think we need to look at it in the same way and I've sort of changed my thinking around we should look at if we reduced the millage rate I mean why
not look at it and what would that look like so that's where I'm at and I'll add one more to you um Madam commissioner regarding sacred cows me and Mr speak the Public Works were talking about how do we get people recycle more yeah and
you know is there an ordinance or a rule that can be passed for recycling I think he's SE an example we weren't sure if it was here in Florida but you know recycling matters and the more we get people to take it seriously the better off we all are even if people don't
understand it of why we're asking them to do it so you know we're we're we're we're trying to think way outside the box here good and I really appreciate that and um cost savings is one thing but there are also such environmental
impacts of not um yeah right so yeah thank you yes understood well these are just general type answers here would I consider a millage rate
increase increase increase or decrease increase I'm I'm hearing you me more me more would I rather see it stay the same
yes considering that we just borrowed from Peter to Paya to get price moving a millage decrease at this time I
just can't see it um make plans for two three four years down the road you know look at things to say yeah you know maybe we could do it but a decrease now with all the things that we have you know that consider
those two water control structures that we just move some funds for um a decrease now I just can't see it um pars and Recreation uh had some public comments and I have
to kind to defend my fellow commissioner Miss Langdon um a lot of the comments and you know things I've seen were directed towards her we are a commission here U and I don't recall her recommending that
we close the Mullen Center uh she did mention something like you know Planet Fitness charges $12 a month um does our fitness end of the Mullen
Center get used enough to basically what I'm saying is we can make adjustments but no no one including Miss langon is suggesting that we cut Parks and Recreations um thank you
yeah okay that's the good now you want the bad well before I get to the bed again I do want to reiterate that I that city manager mentioned that I've talked about uh as FPL rates go up we could get the
same amount of Revenue if we slowly decrease the tax rate that we charge on electric that's a way of kind of helping our citizens uh it makes the city look good and that we're trying to control
cost for the citizens okay well well well now I'll get into the bad City commission we want to lower some cost how about we get off of that pay formula that we have with it's based
on population I brought this up before uh set commissioner pay at a certain level and then adjust it for CPI just like a lot of other people have put that in a charter um and again I want to last
thing I swear um I don't need it City you can stop pay him for it and staff I mentioned this in our last meeting uh look at a program where
staff in each of their departments I don't know how Finance can reduce their costs but people who work in finance might absolutely let the people that work for this city look at ways to possibly cut
some costs in their own departments then give them a share of that savings love it rewardable love it that's it for me vice mayor yeah I agree with commissioner
Deval on quite a few things just just so you know the process on when you brought up the commissioner's salary I've already talked with j roome about this after we had the votes and stuff but talking about it to change it would be
you know we can talk about it now we can talk about it next year but it would not take a v until after the next election so there's time to be able to gather our thoughts and come up with Solutions on what we feel would be proper for that
because right now it's setting Stone until the next election and even further if it is not changed so we we may want to revisit that within the next two years at least well that's
all I was saying on that note okay I mentioned this and talked about it you know couple months ago okay and as you just suggested you know let's keep it in mind well I will be reminding us of that along the way
right that works um that uh I'm looking for consensus I I'll I'll make mine first I know commissioner Lang you have one uh I'd like to direct staff to calculate the impact a $3 million cut in
expenses would have on the millage rate along with the annual savings a property owner would realize based upon a $300,000 assessed value if this cut in expenses were to be passed on to property owners in the form of a millage
rate reduction and provide cost cutting options and impacts necessary to achieve this savings that is the consensus um commissioner Petro vice
mayor yeah I say yes any information's good to know I'm a yes obviously commissioner langon I'm a yes and commissioner w we have a consensus um commissioner
langin I know you have one well I don't know if we really needed on the impinging growth but just to cover with um taking into account the comments today uh I would make um a I always want
to say a um motion but um I would just ask for a vote on instructing staff to move forward with what that program would look like Mr Val yes by mayor's a yes I'm a
yes it's just information he's ass sure so we got four and a if yes so staff has some reasonable Direction what else does anybody else have a consensus is there anything else
staff would like in the way of Direction I think we're good Mr Mayor but again we're the work toop in April we're going to bring you back more information we're going to probably overc communicate everything that we do this particular year just to make sure everyone's on the same page and we'll
please invite the two new Commissioners to have additional meetings with us as a staff about the budget so that we can sort of keep you and your questions uh up to date that might be helpful so just
be prepared and again I just like to reiterate how important it is that here we we pay attention to our Charter responsibilities commission's responsibility is always to provide Direction it's staff's job to
figure out the how that's not the dump the tough job on them but they are the best equipped our staff our department heads these people are superstars you people are great at what you do if
anybody can find a way to make this least painful to figure out the fairest way to find a way to do this without compromising Public Safety without compromising quality of life you guys can do it we can't do it so we ask ask
you to do the best you can bring us back all the options and and and then we can you know digest it all and figure out what's the best direction to go forward as we as we really you know wrap this budget together so thank you all so much for
today and um if there's nothing else to this guess do we have any public comments we do oh boy y Doris gallon I am writing in response to to commissioner langdon's remarks at the March 3rd meeting particularly regarding the proposed cuts
to the Parks and Recreation Department's budget while I understand the need for fiscal responsibility I believe that these Cuts would have a detrimental impact on our community especially when it comes to our youth and the programs that serve them the Molen center camps and after school programs are essential in providing a safe and supportive environment for children these programs
not only promote physical activity and Recreation but also serve as a critical Lifeline for young people offering mentorship and guidance from our dedicated Recreation staff the positive relationships formed between staff and children help Foster a sense of belonging which is key to their emotional and Social Development these
programs are crucial for the preventing youth crime and providing alternative alternatives to risky Behavior by cutting funding to Parks and Recreation we are jeopardizing the future of these important initiatives and potentially increasing the risk of crime and unrest amongst our youth due to the lack of
structured Outlets the absence of these programs would leave many children without the safe spaces and support systems they rely on moreover while Public Safety is important investing in prevention through recreational programs should be a priority by fostering a healthy engaged and connected Community
we can reduce the need for further police intervention I'm concerned that commissioner Lang's remarks about cuts to the Parks and Recreation may be an attempt to justify the need for the proposed $100 million police station rather than addressing the root causes of crime and youth disengagement in our
community protecting our parks and investing in our youth is a long-term investment in the safe safety health and well-being of the entire community Michelle Gore Commissioners I am Michelle Gore this year's event coordinator for the Northport High School Project Graduation I would like to address the discussion at the March
3rd meeting regarding the potential closure of the Mullen Center at this year's event as this year's event coordinator for Project Graduation I spent countless hours searching for a venue that could accommodate 250 students after contacting numerous locations from Venice to Porta I found
that only a few were capable of hosting an event of this size let alone at a reasonable cost the Mullen Center provides a safe accessible and affordable space for our graduation our graduates to celebrate together every dollar saved on venue cost goes directly back to the students in the form of gifts to help them as they transition
into the next stage of their lives Parks and Recreation facilities are not just amenities they are integral to the quality of life that makes Northport a desirable place to live these spaces bring joy Foster community and serve as essential resources for residents of all ages rather than cutting these valued
Services I urge you to explore efficiencies and strategies for growth to balance the budget without diminishing the very things that make Northport a thriving Community thank you for your time and consideration and that is all thank you very much City cler wow bar I am an
ogre evil person you make a good Lightning Run I do don't I well if there is nothing else it is 50:1 and I adjourn this work sh this is all we're going to get