All right, we're going to open the uh July 15th city commission meeting. First thing, we'll have the invocation of Mr. Hart, and we'll have the pledge of allegiance by myself. Please stand. Dear heavenly father, we thank you through your abundant grace and mercy,
you've allowed us to come together to conduct this city's business. And father, even though we come in with different opinions, different views, let us may, even though we may disagree, let us not be disagreeable, to treat each other as brothers and sisters. We thank you for blessing us to live in this beautiful part of your your creation that we call a koi. And help us to lead
not only with wisdom, but with compassion as well. And once again, as always, watch over our first responders. Be with them on every call, on every every shift. Watch over them as we watch over us. We're so careful to give you the praise, the honor, the glory you do. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Commissioner Kennedy
here. Commissioner Wilson here. Mayor Johnson here. Commissioner Fner is absent. Commissioner Oliver. Commissioner Oliver. here. Okay. We have the presentations and proclamations. Legislative season recap
by Florida State House District 45 Representative Leonard Spencer. Let's see. So, um, thank you, uh, for this opportunity, Mayor Johnson, uh, commissioners and city staff. Again, uh,
I come to you this evening to provide a brief recap for the 2025 legislative session. Uh, it was a long one, uh, one of the longest in history, 105 days. But it's always a privilege to have an opportunity to come back and report to
the communities that we serve, especially hearing AOEI. Um, AOEI is continuing to grow with intention, uh, resilience, and purpose. And while every legislative session comes with its share of challenges, I'm pleased to
share that this year, my office was able to secure results for District 45. results that will directly benefit the people and priorities here in AOE. So, I'll start with the most concrete win. Uh my office was able to uh identify 3
million in state funding for our district. A portion of that funding will support critical water infrastructure improvements, helping us prepare for growth while also protecting our natural environment. We also secured 150,000 for
the Central Florida's Mother's Milk Bank. This is the only facility of its kind in the state supporting vulnerable infants and families throughout the region. We know that affordability continues to dominate conversations across Florida. And this year, we were able to continue funding for the Live
Local Act, helping to spur the development of workforce housing near career centers or near job centers because we know that that's a growing need right here in West Orange County. And the state budget also included over two billion in tax relief. Now, this
includes the phase out of the business rent tax, which is something that small businesses have been asking for for over a decade. We also extended sales tax holidays that will bring meaningful savings to working families right here in AOE. Still, we know that broader
affordab affordability issues, particularly around housing and property insurance, continue to remain unsolved. And we want to be clear, these issues are far from being solved and they will remain a focus as we go into the next
legislative session. We also made some strong investments in economic development and job readiness. These are areas that directly impacted KO's local economy. Small businesses are the heartbeat of this city, as are many others here in West Orange County. And I
was proud to support the expansion of state grants and technical assistance for entrepreneurs. These programs will help small business owners, especially those in communities without large economic development offices, access the resources that they will need to grow.
Looking to build a stronger talent pipeline, we pass legislation that will reward high performing apprenticeship programs, which allow and allow students to take part in career training, whether that's in healthcare, infrastructure, or in the skill trades. This will let them
earn academic credit and access to career guidance because these are the types of investments that help fill the workforce gaps that we see here in AOY and across Central Florida. Public safety also was a priority in this year's budget. We included raises for
law enforcement and first responders and we also expanded support for 247 mobile crisis teams. Now, these teams are vital to ensuring residents in mental health crisis receive the help that they need while relieving the pressure on police and fire departments. We maintain steady
investment in clean water and sewer projects, which will support responsible development and environmental protection. These are goals that are especially important to cities like Acoi that are balancing growth and livability. Now looking ahead, we're beginning to see ear early discussions
around property tax policy in Tallahassee. Now some lawmakers are proposing changes to homestead exemption and caps on local millage rates. While the intention is to help own homeowners, we have to be careful and I will continue working to ensure that any
reforms will protect taxpayers without undermining the city's responsibility and ability to invest in essential services like infrastructure, public safety, and economic development. Now, of course, not everything we saw in session aligned with local priorities.
Several new laws would preempt local authority on housing policy, tenant protections, and environmental standards. While we respect the role of the state, as a representative, I do. But I also believe strongly that cities like Koi must maintain and retain the
ability to make decisions that reflect community values. We push back on the unaccountable expansion of private school vouchers. Public dollars continue to flow to private institutions with little oversight, which could undermine the strength of neighborhood public
schools that are serving families right here in AoE. And despite the mounting pressure from homeowners across the state, again, we didn't see the meaningful reform that I would like to see in in the property insurance market. Florida families, especially in this region,
deserve better, and we'll keep fighting for transparency and fairness. In closing, despite these concerns, I think there are some things that we can be proud of. We brought home some targeted investments in the community. We were able to support entrepreneurship.
We did strengthen the workforce pipeline. And we're able to improve the infrastructure that keeps the community of AOE moving forward. As always, you know, I am grateful, mayor and council and staff for your
partnership and for your leadership because this work will continue. And as I as well as the other members of the delegation here in West Orange County look forward to continuing to being to be strong advocates for Koi
right there in the House of Representatives in Tallahassee. And so I thank you for this opportunity. Again, I thank you for your leadership and more importantly, I thank all of you, the citizens of Koi, for your support as we go to Tallahassee and represent you.
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Anybody have any comments they want to make with the present? I'll say something. I'll say something. Just want you to always remember I think on behalf I can't speak for the other commissioners here and the mayor but I think we all
believe in home rule and we hope that you remember that when you're making decisions on behalf of our city. Unfunded mandates are something we don't like. Again, they just put an added tax burden on our residents. So, please remember the word home rule. Indeed, I do.
Well, mayor, thank you all. Mayor, I do would like to say one thing. Go ahead. Um for first of all, uh uh representative, thank you for for coming and giving us that that update. Uh we have representatives uh throughout uh West Orange County that rarely show up here to give us updates on what's going on in the county and in the state. So,
thank you so much for uh coming and providing us with this this u valuable information about the uh the last budget and I know it was a long it was a long haul and a heavy lift, but you guys got it done and uh thank you so much for sharing it with us. Thank you for having me. Thank you very much for being here
tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you all. Representative Leonard Spencer, House District 45. All right, get back to the thing here. AED stations presentation. Fire Chief
Smothers button. Good evening, mayor and commissioners. Good evening, everyone. I'm here tonight to give you an update on a project that we started a little over a year ago. um and getting AED stations put into our
city parks. And um just want to thank a few people here for this uh joint effort. Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners, for your uh direction on this project. Also, thank you Commissioner Kennedy and Commissioner Wilson for donating some of your discretionary funds toward this uh
project. And uh this project couldn't have been done without the help of several departments. this crossed over several department lines to to get this project done. I'd like to thank um um Mark Johnson, Dan Abdo, and Parks and Leisure
Department, Ginger Corass, and the development services department for their assistance and identifying the locations for these stations to be to be installed. Thank you to Richie Valent Valentin, Larry Moore and facilities for their efforts in securely mounting these
stations and ensuring that we had the electrical connections that were required for these uh for this operation. Uh thank you to Deputy Chief Vancamp and EMS Captain uh John Ward for installing the AD AEDs in each station
and is ensuring their entire systems are working properly. And last but not least, I'd like to recognize and thank Martha Lopez Anderson who's here tonight with her husband Andy. And just thank you for your incredible support and your donations that went toward this project,
which I'll share a little bit more in detail as I go through uh the next slides here. So, first of all, thought I'd do a little lesson on what an AED is. And I'll try not to get off uh topic here because I've taught CPR and AED uh for
several years. and um seen these devices work uh both uh professionally on the job and personally off the job. I've used an AED before and seen it save a life. So, I've got a uh a tremendous passion for these items being spread
throughout our city here and I think this is just a great effort that we've put in place uh to go along with all the other AEDs that we have throughout our city. Uh so AEDs oops so AEDs are a portable they stand for automatic um electronic
defibrillation or I'm sorry electronic external defibrillation. It's a portable device um that is used in the case of sudden cardiac arrest. These devices are very easy to use and will verbally instruct
the operator through the process step by step. Once the uh pads are attached to a person that's having a cardiac event, the AED will go by itself and start analyzing that patient's heart rhythm. Um when somebody has a cardiac event, if
they're in two um types, there's two different types of shockable rhythms. If the AED notices that that patient is in one of those shockable rhythms, it will actually tell the user how to safely deliver a shock to that patient.
For every one minute that passes following a sudden sudden cardiac arrest until the delivery of this shock, the patients chances for survival decrease by 10%. Having an AED readily available in our parks helps to ensure the safety a safer
environment for our residents and visitors. So an AED is just part of the chain of survival. And uh if you take a CPR class, AED class, you'll learn about these chains in more detail, but those chains of events are early recognition
and a call for help. Next is early CPR. Third is the early defibrillation and fourth is the post resuscitation care. During the budget process 2324, the city commission authorized the purchase of
authorized us to purchase and install AED towers through several city parks. Due to the generous donations, as I mentioned earlier, from Martha Lopez Anderson and Parent Heartwatch, we were able to actually install four stations
in the city parks. So, we bought four towers. Uh, Miss Lopez Anderson donated the five AEDs that we put in these stations. And then she actually donated a cabinet of her own as well, so that we were able to um cover all five parks.
Yes. Is she in here? Where? Where? She's back here. Martha, stand up. you and your husband here. Don't be bashful. Andy, you do, buddy. And if you guys remember just a couple years ago, we were up here talking about
the first AED station that we put in our city. And Martha donated that complete setup, the tower and the AED, and it's right behind us here by the lake in Bill Breeze Park down by the boat ramp. So, we'll go over a little bit on where these are located. Now, the new ones
that we just put in. So, you can see here in the picture, we've got one at Wellness Park, uh, Liberty Park, Gym Beach, uh, center at the soccer fields, and Freedom Park, and finally, Prairie
Lake, Prairie Lake Park. Now, why do we want to have these at parks? Well, a sudden cardiac event attack doesn't just help happen to elderly. It happens to everyone of all ages, including kids and teenagers. And
in fact, the leading uh leading cause of death in sports athletes is a sudden cardiac event. So that's the thought process there of having these at these parks where the young kids are running around and playing. uh one in 300 kids actually
have an underlying heart rhythm uh uh problem that they don't even know about until it shows its face that sad day with this project complete now the project's fully complete all AED towers and cabinets have been successfully
installed in these designated locations u each of these AED station um each AED each AED is remotely uh monitored fire Department staff will receive a notification if there are any operational issues with the AED such as batteries or the pads are expired. Also,
the AED towers in the cabinet are remotely monitored. Fire department staff will receive a notification when the door is opened if an AED tower or an AED uh unit is removed from one of the towers or the cabinet. These stations will also take a picture of the person
that opened the door and removed the device. These new AEDs will now be included in the fire department's current AED program, which we go out quarterly and do a physical check off on each unit. Uh, and we'll include it into our budgetary process for replacement of
batteries and uh, defibrillation pads that have to be replaced every two years. Currently, these are the ads that we have deployed throughout the city. Here at city hall, we've got three, one on each floor. Public Works has uh a unit
in their Fleet Bay water treatment plant, the Beach Center, Northwater Treatment Plant, Hackne Prairie, South Water Treatment Plant, Maguire, and in their office buildings. Parks and Leisure has them at the Lakeshore Center, Maguire House, Eison Center,
Vignetti Park, Beach Center inside, Central Park, Bulldog Field, and Sornson Field. And then as I just mentioned, the one at Bill Breeze Park that we put down near the boat ramp. Public safety facilities also have them. We have one in our lobby at the fire
station 25. And the police station actually has one in their lobby as well. All fire department staff vehicles have them in their vehicles. So as we're out riding around, if the need occurs, we're able to uh deploy our units. We've have them in all of our command staffs, our
inspector vehicles, and we've trained our administrative staff in CPR and AED as well, so they have those uh in their vehicles when they use them. And that concludes I just want to thank you guys for and and the commission and mayor and everybody for their continued
support. Thank you. I wish you uh would let Martha and Andy come up front. Absolutely. And you get a picture with them, please. Absolutely. And you can have a comment if you'd like to. Martha,
how long did you live in Okcoy? You lived here for So I lived in Okcoy for 25 years. Um, this is Okcoy is where our son Sean was uh born. Uh, it's also sadly where he passed away as well. Um so for the
benefit of all of you uh this is an amazing project and um one that I am extremely proud of and and so much that I want to use it as an example for other places around the country. Um I will be presenting to the National League of
Cities on this project. So I commend our um fire department and our um mayor and city commissioners for um their efforts. So um as chief's mother said, sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of
death in unfortunately our country. Um and uh it happens to seemingly healthy people. You don't have to be sick. You don't have to look sick. It can happen suddenly and unexpectedly. So these life-saving devices, the goal is for all
of us, that means you to take action by doing CPR and using an AED before our EMS arrives. Why? Because that's going to give people a greater chance of survival. We want somebody that's going
to survive with no brain injury. Okay. So, um I mean I am thrilled of this and uh couldn't be more proud of us giving the safe stations and the um AEDs, the automated external defibrillators to the
city. the city that holds a very special place in my heart and as I shared with Commissioner Wilson earlier now my mother as of today is uh will be living in the city of Okcoi. So um yeah so thank you again for the opportunity and
um yeah so remember those life- saving devices that were mentioned look for them and don't ever be afraid to use them. They walk you step by step. Okay? And we are fortunate to live in not only a city but a county that when you call
911 that 911 dispatcher if you don't know how to do CPR or you may not remember or you're just nervous, they will walk you with how to do it. They're going to be your body system until our EMS experts arrive on the scene and can
provide that advanced care. Okay? So, please remember that and don't be afraid to use them. Thank you. All right, come on up front and get your picture made here. We'll stand up behind him. I'm sorry.
[Laughter] Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much. We're going to do more. [Applause] All right, staff reports. Nothing at this time.
All righty. We have um public comments. The public comments that I'll do first is not one that's an item on the agenda. This is just want to talk about something not pertaining to the agenda. Susan Adams.
Also, we have the room out front when you come in and the TV zone out there if you want to sit. You don't have a place to sit down. The room right outside the door here has got a tables and chairs and the TV zone. How much time will I have?
Three minutes. Three minutes. Three minutes. I think we've got this. Okay. Thank you. Um, my name is Susan Adams, 60 West McCormick Road at Pop, Florida, 32703, and I'm speaking as an individual.
Our residence at McCormack Road is part of the the Clarka Rural Settlement, but we are bordered on the east and the south by the city of Okcoi. Our neighbor Dr. Horton was issued a development permit for Winwood development by Ocoey
as a result of annexation in 2019. I understand that the JPA the joint planning agreement involved Horton's agreement to contribute $200,000 toward the installation of a traffic light at East McCormick and Apopka
Vineland Road. This would occur upon completion of the last phase of Winwood. Last week, a family member informed me that on social media, a copy of a letter to Ooey from Brett Blackadar of Orange
County Public Works had been posted in which he acknowledges that although a traffic light was warranted in 2019, a subsequent 2021 traffic study suggested building a roundabout instead.
I'll also take this up with the Orange County Commission. Uh, however, it is through the annexation and permitting agreement with OKOE that Dr. Horton's $200 $200,000 is to be donated for this intersection.
I'm asking that this commission support the return to the original signalized plan instead of a roundabout for the following reasons. First of all, this intersection is a half mile north of Clarkona Okcoi signal and both lights
could be synchronized in order to optimize traffic flow. Number two, this intersection is a half mile east of Orange County's Horseman's Park, which hosts statewide equestrian competitions. Attendees often arrive in
travel trailers which accommodate show horses, tack and feed rooms, living quarters for the family. A roundabout for these travelers would be problematic. And thirdly, Apopka has added 6,000 new
residents since 2020. And many of these commuters choose the Apopka Vinland north south corridor instead of the toll roads 429 and 414. This results in numerous backups during commute times and it creates conditions
where a roundabout uh left turn onto Apopka Vineland or onto McCormack would be not only very difficult but dangerous. So, I'm asking you that uh you support as a commission that you
support placing a roundabout uh excuse me, placing a an intersection instead of the roundabout which was the original plan anyway to put the signalized intersection. So, all right. Thank you. Thank you. Don't go anywhere yet. Craig,
I have no knowledge of red light not going up there. Um Mr. Blackadar just sent us the letter. I got the hard copy in the mail today. Um, our staff is not 100% on board with the roundabout idea and we
were a little disappointed that they flipped it back on us. Um, we I actually met with the county administrator, informed him, we followed up with a letter from the commission urging this light and letting them know the developer has reached out to us that no
one from the county reached out to them to ask for that $200,000. So, you've got a little game of hot potato, for lack of a better term, going on here. Um, we actually, um, discussed our response back to the letter and of
course I'll follow back up with a call to Byron Brooks, the county administrator. But I would highly encourage everyone up there to remind the county that they agreed to this back when that project was completed or was
completing the the approval process and the developers ready to pay the money to the county. So, was that part of the joint planning agreement with OKOE? Okay. The joint planning agreement um does not speak to specific projects. We
did a JPA amendment to incorporate that into the joint planning agreement. Um and if Mike Rumor is out there, I would like for him to come to address it because he was development services director at the time and uh was part of that approval. So, I
don't know where he is currently, but um we can wait just a moment for him to come and give you the the specifics for the approval. Um he's on the way. Well, there's there's still time for uh this isn't budgeted to start until next
year and you know how that goes. I do. And they haven't reached out for the money yet. Right. Thank you. All right, Mike. Yes, Mayor. Yeah. the the agreement with the county at the time of the annexation
for Orange County to not object to the annexation of the property is they they worked out a deal three-fold. Number one, it was uh 50% of the cost of the signal at that time which was estimated at 200,000. The second was to dedicate
30 ft of land along that vast frontage for a trail and the third was to construct the trail. the developer constructed the trail. They dedicated the land. It's just I think with time since the development began, staff leaving at the county, they
just forgot that they had this other item. And so, we're working to get that taken care of. All right. Mayor, can I make a comment about Yeah, just a second. Where did the lady go? She's sitting there. Where she at? She's sitting right there. Ma'am, we can give you Mike Rumor's phone
number. Give her your phone number and your card if you can, please. I do. You also need to go address the county. I will. Yes, ma'am. All right. Thank you. All right. Commissioner coming on on this this particular um
project um it was my understanding when they first started this project, these homes, we were told it was going to be by the county at 50%. When it hit 50% then the light would be actually constructed. Well, they're almost done with this and we have been round and
round with the county about this again playing hot potato with this particular issue and right now that when we actually wanted that light up if if did it at 50% it would have been $250,000 to put a light there. Right now it's over a million dollar and they're only putting
in $200,000 and they want us to be on the hook for the rest of that money. So I think the county help they they should be po posting the lion share of that money. So, if you go to the county, I'll be happy to go to the county with you because they should post a line share of that money for that traffic light, not a
roundabout. That's going to take forever. And I would also contact Christine Moore. She's our county commissioner for that area. I have. Oh, did you talk to her? Uh, not yet.
Yeah, she's You need to get a hold of her, too. We will also. Thank you. All right. Dr. Jim Moore Moyer. Good evening. My name is Dr. Jim Moyer. I'm the
elected orange soil and water conservation district 2 supervisor representative Koe Aopka Eatenville Rosemont Lockheart and Zelwood
last year when I was campaigning in the district too I realized a lot of people didn't really know what so what water conservation district supervisor did or what it was so I made it a point to try
try to do something about that. The city here is was kind enough to allow me to do a presentation in May about understanding soil and water conservation districts. I did a similar presentation
in June in Apakka. On July 1st, I did a presentation in Eatenville. And this Thursday I'll be doing a presentation in Zelwood and I have plans in the future to do one in Rosemont and Lockheart.
I've also gone to countless meetings, met countless people. Now I used to go to the meeting here quite often and I've gained a great amount of appreciation for the efficiency in which you run the
meeting because not all the places running is in a timely manner like you folks do and I appreciate that. Um, so I'm elected to a four-year term, and it's my goal in these four years to make
people know and understand what the Soil and Water Conservation District supervisors do. There's five of us. We meet the second Friday of every month at 3:30
in the BCC, the Orange County BCC chambers. We're here to help primarily the farming community and anyone's soil and water issues. Our job basically
that's mandated in the legislature 582.024 024 says, "We're here to assist, guide, and educate uh land owners,
land occupiers, and the agricultural community on soil and water related issues. So, I'm here to help. If you know anybody who needs help, please reach out to me. I'm I'm blessed to live
in the city of Akoi, which I love, but I've been traveling the whole area and down to uh downtown Orlando all the time. I was at the city uh city of Orlando meeting yesterday. Thank you all for your time. God bless you all.
Thank you, Dr. Moer. [Applause] Chris Atkins. I appreciate um your time, everyone on the commission uh staff and everybody here um for this meeting. Uh my name is
Chris Atkins. I live at 606 Ridgeville Avenue here in Okoi. I've been here a little over 25 years. Same place. Um I had a question. Maybe you guys could help me better understand how um our our charter relates to our city management.
For those who don't know, our city is run by our city manager and their staff. They're like the sausage uh for a better term of the making process. And um the commission and the mayor um go off
recommendations from city management and staff. Uh they don't make very much money. Um it's a basically a volunteer program, the commission and dascese, right? So I was curious because obviously staff and management's not
elected. those who sit on the dascese are elected. What does our charter reference and how specifically do we hold city management accountable? And and I'm in no way, shape or form, Mr. Shadri, I know you're new to this particular position um
pinpointing any particular thing. I've just noticed a pattern through more than a decade since I've been paying attention and I'm curious to how the commission and the mayor through that. Is it through a review process? um is there a regular understanding of the
expectations and the parameters in which we expect our management to operate? Are there outcomes that we expect to get or results? And if we don't get those um how do we h you know how do we approach that? So I guess in layman's terms um h
how do we hold the city managers accountable from the dascese besides just maybe a is there a regular review process? And if you could stop my time during their if they respond, I'd appreciate that. You want to you going to use the rest of your time before we talk? Uh, as long as you're if I'm talking,
I'll keep talking. If you're going to talk, then I just go ahead and finish your Okay, perfect. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the value of that. So, the reason I asked that is because if you go back, like I said, through decades, there's issues that we continue to see. Not only are we highly charged in our millage rate and do we long have fees.
Rosemary showed up at my house sweating many, many years ago and it was the first thing I said to her and as God is my witness. This is a wonderful woman. She's done a lot of things in our community, but that was my main concern. But then I look at things like city hall that was supposed to be completed by
2019, right? We received money and funds in 2017. It's all right here. My sources are right here. It didn't get done. So what happened? It cost us three times the amount of money to get the project done. and we didn't finish it when we said we were. Now, Mr. Shadri wasn't the
city manager at that point in time, but the reason I'm asking the question about how we hold him accountable is we can't continue to allow things like Clark Road to take an extra three years to pick up recycling that cost us money that really doesn't go to recycling to take fees and spend them on things that are like
bonds. They're securing bonds. So, to me, there's only so much the commission and mayor can do, but what they have to do is hold them accountable. So, I would like to know how you guys do that. What's the format and where can I find it? Your time's up now. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time, by the way.
You want to make a comment? I will be happy to make a comment. I don't think this this is not I'm not looking for rebuttals from from you at this point. I'm just going to say what I do. Uh, as I have done for years, I have spoken to the city manager probably more than once a week. That is an evaluation
to me. If they're not do, if a city manager is not doing what they're expected, that's when we would take action. We would take action here. If anyone understands sunshine, which I will go over again, they've all heard it. We don't discuss things unless it's brought up here between the
commissioners. I may ask them how the weather is, how the family is, but that's the extent of it. So when we sit here, I think I'm going to speak for myself that I speak with Mr. Shadrick probably as I spoke with Mr. Frank probably once, twice, three times a week, more than they wanted probably.
But and that's how I evaluate them, how they responded to me and what answers they gave me and the advice they have given me. So I've used that. As for re I'll go into some other areas you mentioned recycling. We've been informed by our recycling hauler that they take
the items back to their plant and recycle. What more do you want? Do you want someone they that's in the contract? There's things that we evaluate here as commissioners that the charter says and we we respond to what
the charter says. I employed, not I, but Mr. Shadrich. Mr. Shadrich employs the city employees. I don't tell employees what to do, but I speak to Mr. Shadrich and find out what's going on in the city weekly. And I think that's an evaluation in itself.
I'm sorry that's you may can agree or disagree but that is an evaluation because if I don't like what he is saying or I disagree with it I have it's my responsibility to bring it back to this deis I value that I I I know you do but collectively you guys should be working
together I'm not looking for rebuttal Chris I understand but I'm not looking for rebuttals thank you I appreciate your time very say that that's my um that's how I evaluate anybody else yeah Um,
could we actually get maybe an answer from uh the city attorney to the question of what is the relationship of the commission to the city? I mean, he has a contract is that he could read it. Can we explain that answer specifically
how that works? The powers of the city manager are set forth in section C-24 of the charter. And the city manager is the chief administrative officer of the cities responsible for administration of
all city affairs for which the city manager is given responsibility under the charter. And then there's an itemization of all those powers and responsibilities. That's your answer among them. Well, this this I could talk
for an hour on this. So, but in summary, that's your answer. That's right. And and so you all set policy and then then the administration is done by by the city manager. That I Well, make a couple comments on that.
You've heard it before, Mr. Atkins because I know you've been up here before and asked that question about the reviews and I can tell you like we've always I've told you for all the years 19 plus years that city manager Frank was here every year at the end of the term I had a talk with him in a review.
We've said that over and over now I guess you just wanted to mention it in front of the people here. But believe me he got a he got reviewed. He worked 20 years here which is unusual for a city manager. So he's done a great job. I'm not going back and saying he hasn't. He's done a wonderful job and city
manager uh Shadric is the same way. I go in his office every week, but at the end of the year when his term at for October, I'll do the same thing I did before. We'll go and have a review of everything we're supposed to do here. We can make things and try to make things out of things, but that's not the way it
works, folks. He gets reviewed and he gets has to do the job or he won't be here either. All right, mayor. Next. Go ahead. Yes. I'm sorry. Um what I think what I think it um Mr. Atkins is is leading to he's he's he's
alluding to the the idea of uh and I could be wrong of something that's structured. Um when I was in the military, we had annual evaluations. They were on paper. Okay. And when I went into the corporate world, there were structured evaluations that we had to determine how well we were doing our
jobs and also where we were falling short so we could do better the next year. dep it was predicated on raises and promotions and everything else. So, so even if we were to to look at a structure like that for our city manager where there's it's put on paper, we all
look at it, review it, we sign off on it, do whatever we have to do with it, and pass it off every year or every two years. It is my belief based on my interaction with with the city manager uh Shadrix is that uh for me, if I had to put it on paper, I think he's doing a
stellar job at this point. I think he would actually pass the uh any review that I had to look at and that's based on the interactions that I have with him and the things that I've been able to get done for my district with him. So now as far as putting it in in a manner that it's going to be structured
annually or or semianually or or or every other year, uh that would be a decision for the city commission to make to come together as a collective to say this is what we want to do. As it stands right now, everyone seems to have an idea of how they're evaluating our our
city manager. um which is contrary to what Mr. Atkins was talking about. But again, I'm a true believer in putting it on paper and and evaluating it on a annual or or or the two years or five years or whatever it may be. But again,
at this point, if I had to do it like that, I repeat again, I believe that he would pass he would pass in flying colors and he's doing a stellar job. And one other quick item just to mention and not to go any further with that that this this building was built because of
the problems with construction. If any of you built new homes or built anything back during the last 5 years, you will understand what the problems were. So it wasn't anybody trying to halt up the building or stop and slow it down. It was the construction. The prices were
higher. We couldn't do anything about that. We were in the middle of building. We had to get it built. So that's why it went longer than what it was supposed to and cost more and co huh in co. Yep. All right. Now let's see. That's all the public com comments till we get
to item 11 and 12. All right. Let's see. All right. Consent agenda. I need a motion. I'll make that motion to approve. Motion made by Commissioner Wilson to approve the consent agenda. So, here a second. I'll second it.
Seconded by Commissioner Oliver. Any more comments? All right. None. Let's vote. All right. Motion uh carries 3 to one. Commissioner Kennedy voted no. All right. Let's go down to the number first
reading of ordinance. First reading of ordinance for 703 Center Street Magazare goes property annexation and reszoning. First reading. Thank you. After he the first reading we have no
public comments. Public comments will be two weeks at the next next meeting. an an ordinance of the city of Akoi, Florida, annexing into the corporate limits of the city of Akoi, Florida certain real property containing approximately 67 acres located at 703
Center Street, south of Center Street and approximately 310 ft east of Orange Avenue pursuant to the application submitted by the property owner finding said annexation be consistent with the Akoi comprehensive plan, the Akoi city code and the joint planning area
agreement providing for and authorizing the update of the official city maps and uh providing direction to the city clerk, providing for severability, prevailing in the event of any inconsistency, and providing for an effective date. And I'll also read the
uh resoning ordinance, an ordinance of the city of Akoi, Florida, changing the zoning classification from Orange County R1 single family dwelling district to city of Akoi R1A single family dwelling district on certain real property containing approximately 67 acres
located at 703 Center Street, south of Center Street, and approximately 310 ft east of Orange Avenue pursuant to the application submitted by the property owner finding such zoning to be consistent with the Akoi comprehensive of plan, providing for and authorizing the revision of the official city zoning
map, prevailing in the event of any inconsistency, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date. All right. What's the date for the sec next meeting for the reading? August 5th. August 5th.
Yes, sir. August the 5th will be the second reading and we'll have public comments. All right. Item number 11, second reading of ordinance, public hearing. Second reading and public hearing of an ordinance for envision 2045 Oakcoy
comprehensive plan large scale planned amendment to replace Okcoyy's comprehensive plan in its entirety. Development service director Whitfield Okay. Yeah, I think she's getting she's getting it ready.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, commission. Um, everyone, so I'm going to make this relatively quick. The parts that we covered in detail at the first transmittal hearing will go by very quickly. Um, so the issue before the commission this evening is whether or not to approve a proposed ordinance to
adopt the envision 2045 AOE comprehensive plan. Um, to replace the comp plan the 2002 version in its entirety and include an opt out provision to opt out of 2045 if needed or if requested at a uh for um project
specific basis to comply with Senate Bill uh 180 and then to transmit the adopted ordinance to the state and regional agencies. So this is very quickly the 2002 comp plan. The statutory requirements we have to adopt it. A plan that has a 10- year and 20-year planning horizon looking at
population projections, a whole series of maps, the five-year capital improvement schedule, and then all those facilities um that the city is responsible for providing to its residents and property owners. So the image on the left is the policy framework which will be adopted. Um the
image on the right is just a data inventory and analysis document which has a a great deal of data in it. Should you want to read it, it's all on the planning website. So the vision statement for the KO comprehensive plan is to ultimately achieve an attractive, vibrant, and economically sustainable community while
while protecting our natural resources. Um I won't read all of this. It is on our website. It there's also a copy in the um in the foyer. Future land use. Um I'm going to go very quickly. These are the elements that are in the comp plan
itself. The future land use which sets the standards for how growth happens over the course of the next 20 years. Um the two um map inserts and then the furthest left image is the future launch map in for the entire city. The housing
element we have six objectives. The recreation and open space elements we have um six objectives. infrastructure element which includes utilities and drainage. Um eight objectives and four objectives. Uh mobility element formally our transportation element there are five
objectives. So key is to create more um ability for our our residents and visitors to move about the city. Conservation element five objectives. Um then these four elements have no changes to them. Just a reorganization and consolidation. Again, all of this is
available on our website and also there are hard copies in the city hall. Um there's also hard copies in the library if you'd like to read through through those. So, the planning and zoning commission um was presented with the envision 20 2045 compressive plan back on April 8th. This city commission had
its first reading public hearing on April 15th as required by statutes. It was transmitted within the allotted 10 days. So, transmitted on April 24th with comments due back um June 9th, which is a 45day review time frame for the agencies, state and regional. Um between
while we're waiting for the agencies to provide comments, we did have a um community outreach meeting on May 28th. Um this is don't have to read all this. This is a summary of all the comments received from that community meeting dealing with questions on parks and recreation, transportation, timing of of
road improvements, signal timings, questions on flooding and flood plane flood prevention. Um how our city interacts with other local governments. Um there was an interest from some residents about expanding the city's central wastewater system. Um looking at
u how we are um you know questions to utilities about banning additives. Um now all these are all the uh basically road improvements. So those are all the comments and questions received at that community meeting which was a two-hour meeting. Um post June 9th we have not
received an ORC which is a objections, recommendations and comments report from the state agencies. So basically that's saying that we have not received any objections or concerns raised by any of the state agency um and regional agencies. Um, just to recap, since we
have a large group that will include the Department of Commerce, the Department of Transportation, the Department of State, Department of Environmental Protection, the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council, um, and there's one more, I forget, our sister agencies, uh, Winter Garden and Orange
County and the Orange County Public Schools. So, um, they did provide some technical comments. Those are bulleted there. Um they asked us to include 2045 onto uh four maps. We added it to a fifth map. Um including the five-year capital improvements plan, which the city
commission adopts annually anyway as part of the the city's budget. Um and then adding policies that uh requires the city to consider the feasibility of providing sanitary sewer to any developments uh of more than 50 units. and then including a policy that the consi the city will look at projects to
achieve um the a nutrient load reduction in our capital improvements planning. Um another inclusion was in response to Senate Bill 180 which went into effect July 1st of this year. So, it l literally just rolled out and it has to
do with the um the the state not allowing local governments to enforce stricter standards post a hurricane and there the specifics of that legislation is in um the the bill and also on our website um in this staff report. Um so,
in order to comply with Senate Bill 180, we had to we considered having an opt out provision. So if you felt that there are any provisions in 2045 that is burdensome or too restrictive then that developer or property owner has the option to opt out of 2045 but you also
sort of lose out on the benefits that 2045 provides such as um higher densities and um so that's that. Some other minor revisions that we made um was we clean up the CRA mixeduse boundary to capture all the enclaves and close off any gaps in the mixeduse
boundary um the middle image in brown that you saw earlier was to better have the lines follow the rideway lines and not cut through I think there were four residential lots that we just wanted to carve out of the mixeduse district and then some u revisions to those three
land use categories low medium medium and high density designations to allow um a a floor area ratio of no greater than 0.1 um if the zoning allowed um and that 0.1 would be limited to neighborhood enriching commercial only.
Um 0.1 translates to basically 10% of a 1acre site. So if you're going to provide res um commercial, if that zoning district allows it, you are allowed up to a 0.1 uh floor area intensity. And then also revising the
future land use designation on um properties that are two acres or greater to require a minimum of 0.15 intensity which is non-residential and then a minimum of six dwelling units per acre just to make sure that we're achieving a mix of of uses. Um staff is recommending
approval of the ordinance or approval that the city commission adopts the ordinance um and to transmit the adopted ordinance to the state. That concludes my presentation. Right. Thank you. Okay. An ordinance of the city of Akoi, Florida, amending the city of Akoi
comprehensive plan as adopted in 1991 as amended to repeal the 2002 Akoi comprehensive plan in its entirety and replace such plan with a new updated comprehensive plan entitled envision 2045 providing for transmitt to reviewing agencies providing for
severability providing for an effective date. And uh mayor, if I could just give a little more explanation of SB 180 and how we're uh dealing with it. SB 180 as as as a notch said uh for one year after
a hurricane, city cannot adopt any provisions in it in its comprehensive plan or land development code that is quote more restrictive or more burdensome than was previously the law in the jurisdiction.
And so the choices then are to do nothing and not adopt the the comprehensive plan which we did not recommend. The way around this uh was to have an opt out provision. So there could be no argument there could be no
argument that envision 25 2045 is more restrictive or more burdensome than what was there before because of the opt out uh uh provision that um we u proposed to put in here and uh the I I I should
point out that we did catch a scrivener's error and the uh option to opt out uh is effective until October 1st, 2027. That's date is provided in in the code. And uh we the scrier's error
was it should have cited the section 28 of chapter 2025-190 of the laws of Florida. So just a a correction there. But I think that with this language added uh that we are in compliance with SP 180. All right. I'm going to open the public
hearing for anybody want to make any comments on item number 11, the second reading of public hearing of ordinance for envision 2045 Oakway comprehensive plan. I got you, Mr. G. I was going to ask other people first. Thank you, sir.
I'm Doug Gomber, 405 Misty Meadow Drive. Mr. Mayor, commission, staff, fellow citizens, I have two comments to make about this. And first off, I'd like to uh compliment staff for saving the city about $250,000 in being able to do this study on their
own because that's what it would have cost to have go out and have somebody else do this because several cities in the county have tried to do this. And I will tell you this because I'm a little bit of a nerd on stuff like this because I've done these things before. the staff has come up with an a pro a program and
a document here that is stellar. This is going to take a co-e into the into the next generation in a in a startling way. I compliment you on what you've done. Staff did a tremendous job with this. And the second thing I want to say is this. Not only are we going to pass
tonight something that's going to lead us in the future, but other counties, other cities in this county have taken a look at this and I'll tell you they are jealous. They have paid tremendous amounts of money to get something that's not even close to this. So, compliment
you, Mr. Shadrich, on your staff. Everybody that was involved with this did a great job, and I urge the committee and the council to pass this with with with honors. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right, that's the only one I had
listed for that. So, I will close the public car and bring it back up to the D. Anybody have any comments on that? I have a question. Okay. Um, can you explain the any limitation
on the opt out clause? It sounds Yes. like it could be somewhat arbitrary and I can't imagine any developer that wouldn't say it's more ownorous. How does that work in reality? Well, the reality is that a developer
can, according to our proposed language here, submit in writing a notorized request to opt out of Envision 2045 to the development services director uh stating that the applicant wishes to proceed under all terms and conditions
of the city's 2002 comprehensive plan as amended and effective on August 1st, 2024. These dates are all set forth in SP 180. That's that's why we we chose them. The the one provision in this uh chapter
2025 bill um states that this SB80 that you can't be more restrictive or more burdensome. It expires on October 1st, 2027. That assumes that we don't have another hurricane come through here and with with Orange County declared an a
disaster area by the federal government. If that were to happen, then that 2027 date could be further down the line. So SB 180 could be rolling depending on the hurricanes that that we have uh in
Orange County. So we have language here that uh if that happens that the option to opt out shall expire on the earliest date allowed by section 252.422 422 uh Florida statutes.
Um I I was born and raised here. I I don't know that I could tell you that I remember there being more than two or three years between hurricanes. So that to me that's ludicrous. Um this I guess where's that guy Spencer? Um Tallahassee
keeps giving. Um what procedure is there to review a request? Does that have to be at a hearing or a quasi the restriction? The the procedure will be administrative in nature and uh we will set forth that procedure
uh in language that we will adopt into the land development code. Thank you. Anybody else have any comments? I'd like to just say something. Go ahead. I think that Thank you, Mr. Gber for the accolades for our city manager and for our staff that have been very involved
in that a notch and all touring and everyone else who's been involved in that. We appreciate you and I think that has a lot to say to what a previous comment was made about reviewing our city manager. This comes from a resident, not from us. So I appreciate that.
That's all me say. Thank you. Thank you. Um nobody else have any comments? I need a motion. Yeah, I have a comment to make. Okay. Um, if anybody watched or followed any of my political career since I've been here in Accord, I ran for office for the first
time in 2015. One of the very f one of the very first items that I had on my platform was the lack of a mission and a vision. When I called the city and I found out that every department had a mission and a vision, the police department, fire department, but the city as a whole with almost 50,000 res
residents, no mission and no vision. I've never worked for any organization that didn't have a mission or a vision. That tells me which direction this city is going in. Tells me which direction that the the organization is going in. You have a clear vision. The Bible says the people without a vision shall
perish. So every election cycle I've always talked about the mission and the vision. So to see this to see this on on put put in paper this plan and I know a little something about this because through the years I've actually met with at least half a dozen companies that do
this and it was upwards from $300,000 $250 to $300,000 or more for some of these companies to to do what we did here. So so I agree with you Jeeoff we save the city a lot of money to do this. So the importance of having a vision and a mission for the city is a foundation.
That means everything we do, how we operate is gets make done on that foundation to build this comprehensive plan now we have a foundation that we can build on. And as you stated before, this is going to take us into a whole another trajectory in our city. And I think it's going to be something we all going to be we can be proud of. And it
starts with this vision and this mission. So, thank you staff for doing what you did. Anybody else? Yeah. Can I reply to that? Yep. Um, so as the as the ordinance says, this comp plan repeals and replaces the
prior comp plan, which implies we had one. Um, and I and since we're patting ourselves on the back, I guess, um, there's a big difference between campaigning and saying, "We lack a
vision, we lack a vision, we lack a vision, and actually putting forward, to uh, Commissioner Wilson's point, items. How do you hold the city manager accountable?" Well, I walked in with a list of 55 things that I wanted done and
I talked to him almost every day and asked where we are on those things. And what I ran on was to update the comp plan. What we haven't had in this city
is specifics and detail and followup and that's the answer. And um it's it's a lot of little pieces. It's the transition from the prior city manager and pushing for Craig to be elevated as
the new city manager. It's the budget process. It's supporting the reforms and discussing those with the city manager and supporting the reforms that he's making department by department by department. The fact that his staff is
receiving accolades is great, but the staff that put this together is not the staff that was here even a year ago when he took over in a lot of places. And so it's many, many moving parts um that come together, but what it
really starts with is you voting, us as elected officials putting forward specifics. if we're elected, this is what we're going to do in specific. Um, update the comp plan, rewrite the land development
code point by point by point. And if you do that and you vote for it, that gives us the authority and the influence with your voice to go sit down with him and say, "Look, this is what people voted
for. A fire station in the north, etc., etc. That's how it works. And I just I just want to point that out because we seem to be having this discussion of of how do you set the vision, how do you set the agenda, and how do you hold people accountable? That's how you do
it. Um, that's what some of us have done and will continue to do. Thank you. All right, everybody gets to pat their back. All right, let's go down to I tell you what we're going to do. We're going to take a fivem minute recess.
Huh? Yeah, we got to vote on it first. Let's vote. You got talking so much I forgot. Don't go to Where do we vote on it? I'll make I'll make No, I Well, I think we have to vote on it first. I'll make that motion to approve. All right. Motion made by Commissioner Wilson to vote on item I'll second
11. Seconded by Commissioner Kennedy. Let's vote. All right. Five minute break. Exactly. Thank you. Here. Here. Here. I got HDMI, right? You ain't joking there.
All right. All right. All right. Please. All right. We're going to start this item number 12. Before I do, I want to say Mr. Mr. Mackel has to leave us. And Mr. M is one of our outstanding citizens
who's on all kind of boards and served on the boards for probably 25 or 30 years. Bill and I know he's an elder gentleman so he's got to go home early because it's his birthday. So I want everybody to say happy birthday. [Applause] Head up. Bill
said he had to go home and go to bed. You said you had to go early. Thank you. All right. Excellent person. All right. All right. We going to start. Come on. Hey,
item number 12, adoption of the amended and restated final resolution pertaining to fire protection assessments for fiscal year 2025 2026. Assistant city manager rumor and I will make comment.
I've got probably 20. Everybody, if you can, everybody gets to talk, but please don't say the same thing everybody else says. Try to make it. If you're gonna say the same thing as somebody else, just say ditto and give us your name and address. But and it's five minutes. All right? If not,
we'll be here a while, which is fine with me. It's not my birthday. All right. Mr. Mike, sir. Thank you, Mayor. Mike Rumor, assistant city manager. Mayor, I have a long presentation. Um, I do have the fire chief will be speaking. Our
consultant, Sandra Newbart, will be speaking after I give my recommendation to kind of follow up. And we will also have via phone, uh, our attorney, uh, Heather and Senosa, if need be. So, I will begin. Thank you, sir.
So, how do we get here? So, we the city currently has a fire service assessment fee in place. Uh, it is based off a fire unit which was based off a study done in 2000 and before 2013. That current rate
is $69.50 per fire unit. In October of 20 of the of 2024, we proceeded with a new fire assessment study. It had been 10 years since the 6950 was in place. April 28th, we received the draft report
which provided a maximum annual rate we could assess per unit at $386.75. May 20th, following the statutory requirements, we adopted the initial assessment resolution setting the fee at $13923.
Then we had a series of actions advertising. We had to notify every property owner uh with a structure uh via a letter. It could not be put that information could not be put on the trim notice. We had to individually notice every property
which was done on June 24th. We set up a call line with FAQ page on the website and uh heard a lot of questions and comments from the citizens and here we are today uh the public hearing to adopt the final assessment resolution.
Um this this fee of 13923 uh is a dedicated fund for fire services, but it does exclude EMT ambulatory service. Let's start with where the city gets the majority of its general government
revenue. Uh police and fire, parks and recreation, city clerk, many of the d much of the duties of the public works department are general fund, finance, those type of departments. Current millillage is 4.95
and that was estimated in the adopted budget to provide the city with general revenue funds of $23,629. This is reflection of the adopted budget showing that line of the advalorum tax which we get from property taxes. The overall revenues expected in the in the
adopted budget was 75,835. There's a little snapshot of other funds. There's a number of funds that go in to make up that. And then we have as a uh this commission adopted a balanced budget. We have expenditures of that amount 75 million.
So let's talk about where the dollar goes of people's property taxes. As you can see, for every dollar of property tax uh that a citizen pays, 39 cents goes to the school board,
27 cents goes to the county, 30 cents goes to the city of Akoi, and then 3% goes to those special districts to fund uh that's St. John's River Water Management District and the soil and water uh that Mr. Moyer spoke of.
In a little bit, I'm going be talking about uh advalorum funds and and also what's in the news lately, what the legislature is trying to do with a study to provide
property tax uh relief. Um perhaps one option is we could find out what the county is doing with our 27 cents. This is a breakdown pie chart showing our revenues by cho by uh percentage. Largest is by property taxes. 43% of our
general fund revenues. Our utility department is considered an enterprise fund. Those are restricted. Our storm water uh activities in the public works that is a a enterprise fund which is restricted restricted. Our solid waste
obviously is restricted and as is the fire service assessment. This is a bar chart showing the uh total revenue that we received from property taxes and the the total amount of expenditures. The the black we created
the information services technology department later on. So that was introduced in 2022. Just want to draw your attention to the purple that is general fund government and under the previous administration which is being changed. The bulk of personnel services,
retirement benefits is held under general government commission you'll be seeing in this upcoming budget workshop that we're removing those cost out into their individual departments to show the true cost of each department. This is a snapshot of how the city's
revenue exp general fund expenditures matches up with city of Apka and city of Winter Garden. Very similar. Okay. Property tax reform. Currently in place is amendment five which was voted on in November 2024
which placed uh that 25,000 homestead exemption. it it it increased it based off the consumer price index. Just for information, as of a check today, uh 2026 is between 2.6 and 3.2% expected
consumer price index for inflation. If you've watched the legislature closely, they did not end on time. They did not have siny die in April because the governor and the legislature wanted to tackle property tax reform. They
ended up creating a deal to end the session. They created a select committee on property tax reform and th that committee meets uh Representative Doug Bankston I believe is a is a local member that's on that committee and that
committee uh as charged by House Speaker Perez gave the committee some marching orders. Let's look first. Let's require they discuss and see if they move this forward. Require all city, counties, and special governors to put a referendum on
their election to uh wave to uh remove property taxes. If that doesn't work, they he said, "What about proposing a $500,000 blanket homestead exemption on homesteaded properties, a million dollars if you're 65 or older, if you've
had a homestead exemption of for more than 30 years, and also items such as uh your property values cannot increase more than 3% a year, looking at moving that 3% over three years." And so his intention, the intention of
that committee is to have a plan and present it the first week of the session coming up in February. Uh Wes uh recently did an article on what the impact is on Orange County. Uh we have put together documents on what that impact would be for the city. Uh
what what they're not discussing with this is what funding they're going to provide us in the back end. If they remove property taxes, they reduce property taxes, what kind of funding are are we looking at? A recent uh amend uh bill that passed in
the Texas legislature was the Homeowner Freedom Act. If Florida was to go the way that Texas did, which sometimes you know that some of these states do those similar, this is the impact that we could see over the next 10 years if they
adopt a bill such as that. Not only do we have the property tax reform, what's happening outlook for public safety. Uh, Governor DeSantis signed a firefighter health and welfare
bill at their state association meeting and in it the bill primarily deals with right now Florida State of Florida firefighters. But it is his in his interest to provide that have the fire marshall start change make that an OSHA
change and create the standard statewide. What this would do would limit firefighters to a 42-hour work week. It would give them 72 hours off, an extra day off. This could mean that every fire department, every fire station would need an additional shift. And he also gave the state firefighters
a 25% raise. You can see here in this little box, presently, Orange County is at impass with the county offering a 255 and five pay increase. And they're at impass.
Ovito is looking to go under the county with their fire services because the costs continue to rise. Winter Garden has proposed a new fire fee and they've they've set the initial rate to cover
100% of their fire cost. The the current fee with a COE at 6950 covers about 17.9% of the fire cost. And with the new fee, it would be up 34% of the fire cost. Just kind of giving some background
setting the table for where we are today. So the fire assessment is an equitable way to provide designated funds for fire service minus EMS costs. It's spread across every person that has
a property, every property that has a building. It's not based off the value of your land and that value of your building. such as I'll show you later on is how Orange County does their fire fee by millillage. This covers so everyone pays those that have uh that don't pay
property taxes, they will pay the fire fee like they pay the solid waste fee and the storm water fee. The methodology we use, our consultants, is defendable in court. You can Google fire service fees and see what's in the news about those. And it's limited to
the actual fire protection, the service provided and the calls. We'll give you a diagram here in a little bit on the type of calls for service that we receive. As stated, the the current is 69.50 for per fire protection unit. It required a
resolution. It is collected on your property tax at the time you pay your property tax. If you when you pay early, you get that discount for paying early. That's discounted off that that rate.
When new buildings are uh approved uh for to go be constructed, not new developments, but the actual building itself, they are assessed a fire fee that covers them from the point they kind of receive their certificate of
occupancy till the the the rate will go on their next tax bill. So, we are collecting that as buildings are being constructed. This is showing you where this fire service fee is located on your tax bill.
So, we had a lot of uh communication with people that received the letter. The letter is not a fine and is not a bill to pay. It's not a payment due type of a bill. It it'll be on your property taxes. This is an analysis of our current fee,
our proposed fee, and then I show you what the county does with a under a millage rate. So, I just had to assume because it's based off value for the county, a home value of $200,000. Uh, the fire unit is shown here on the
left. So, it is the fee times the unit based off the square footage under roof, not living. We had a lot of phone calls for people that have, you know, I don't live in my garage. Well, it's under roof. That is the calculation that is made. We receive that information from
the property appraiser. They sketch out every habitable building on a property and that's the information that's used for this assessment. This is a graph that shows our advalorum receipts versus the cost of our public
safety. And that cost is personnel operations and capital. Then at the bottom, I show you the cost, how the cost has risen for replacement vehicles. We've had a lot of questions about what about fire impact fees? Impact fees can
only go to pay for additions to meet level of service. It cannot replace items. Those are under oper operating cost. Here's another bar chart showing just showing another
aspect. You can see at 2024 that gap between the blue and the top of the green just for public safety that's made up with general funds. This is it's hard to read the numbers, but look at the red. The green is the the the cost for the police and fire
department. That's it's for the and then the red is what our current fire assessment fee brings in with the the this is the current fee and you see with the proposed fee we add another $2 million
that gap between the end of the red and the end of the green that's covered with property tax general funds. I have Chief Tom Smothers here which will join me on this part. This is uh on fire. These are our incident calls. And
Chief, do you kind of want to talk about that a little bit more? Yeah, GR. Each year, of course, our fire incident calls goes up each year. This past year, we were up to 7,600 or more calls. um
fire calls, you know, 2% of our calls, a lot of it is EMS. Um and all the other calls as far as auto accidents, um alarms, um we've got breakdowns that show, um where we're going on each and every call, but uh the price of of
providing service has just uh jumped tremendously over the last six years. All right. And this is our budget here. And you can see a lot of that is the salaries. This is proposed for 26. This has not been reviewed, adopted by the commission, but this is kind of just
showing cost as we go forward. Yes. Um so this is our our budget going forward and um you know trying to keep within the budget has been a challenge. Our operation budget we were able to actually uh do pretty well on that this
year, but our capital budget, you'll see we've got just over a million dollars on that. um that we definitely have to have another fire engine coming into our our fleet. Um and this is some of the reoccurring costs that we have here. And the fire engine's the big one down there
right now. We currently have um five working fire engines. We have four stations. Each station has one engine going out of it. So I have one reserve fire engine right now. That reserve fire engine we bought
in 2007. It's running good, but it's a 2007 model. Um, fire engines typically last 10 years in front as a frontline unit and then they go another five years and as a reserve
before they're run the life of their use there. Uh, currently we have two other engines. one that we got in 2000 or yeah 2016 2017. So they're getting at the end of their uh front run life and time for
them to go to um uh as a reserve backup. However, these two engines are currently frontline frontline engines and they have a lot of problems with them. Uh we have been sinking money in these to keep them up. the cost of doing providing the
service and being able to provide these engines has tremendously went up um during this year. Actually, we've had two of these engines go out of service. So, if you do the math that I did just a minute ago, if I got two engines out of service at the same time, which we had
for at least a month this year, I've got to borrow another engine from a neighboring department. We've borrowed Winter Gardens engine before and then had them call and say, "Hey, our engines are going down. We got to have it back." I do not like doing that. We've had to borrow Orange County's unit. We had an
Orange County unit in our bay from January through April this year as a backup for us to go in and out of because we did not have enough engines to put out there. Engines right now cost about $1.2 million to get an engine like
we have in our our current fleet. The last engine we bought was in 2021. That engine cost $578,000. So you can see, you know, things just 2021 it's went up to $1.2 million. Now
we used to be able to get an engine within the same budget year that we ordered the engine. Now PO to delivery is three and a half years to get it. um our fire marine rescue boat. We we um
use this quite often in the many lakes that are around here. Uh that boat has been in service since 2007. Uh so we really need to start looking at getting that uh upgraded. Our self-contained breathing devices, that's uh air packs that you see on our back, that's our
lifeline when we go in and fight fire. Um they're they're wearing out. I need to spend I need to replace all of them over the next 5 years. We can do it uh piece, you know, a little at a time, a little at a time so that we're not um you know, taking this big a hit all in one year,
but they have to be changed out. They're they're running the end of their course life. And um and radios are the same thing. The radios next to our air pack is our lifeline. Every firefighter when they come off the engine at a fire call has an air pack and a radio. Both those
are their lifeline. And with technology now, the radios that we have, they're not serviceable anymore. So this includes, you know, we have to replace our baseline unit, our baseline radios that are in our cabs of our engines and our rescue units. We have to uh replace
all the handheld radios that they carry on their straps. Again, we can spread this out over time, but it's going to take more money than it used to in in the past. Another item, I know EMS is not part of this, but it is an added expense of um doing business. Uh we've
got a tremendous deal here with all of our ALS equipment. Um but that comes at a cost $313,000 a year. Yeah. Per year. That gives us our our um stretchers, the automatic stretchers. It gives us our life packs. It gives us an opportunity
to stay up with technology at the fiveyear mark. They'll take all of our new life packs that we just got and upgrade us to the new latest one that's coming out here soon. Um, so we'll constantly over the next 10 years we're going to be good when it comes to EMS equipment, but the fire side needs that
help as well. Chief, this is a snapshot of the current AOE uh fire department salaries per uh grouping. And this is a snapshot of our current
police department salaries. So let me catch up on my papers. So how do we match up with uh area cities and that is shown here. I want to
so Aopka, Claremont, Winter Garden, Sanford, St. Cloud and AOE. I want to point out that uh I have the millages here. The Apopka is 4.68, Claremont 5.59, Winter Garden 4.5, Sanford 7.3, St.
Cloud 5.1, City of Akoi 4.95. The average of those would be 5.36. uh you'll say Apopka and Winter Garden are comparable to a COE but they're overall taxable
value a KOI is about 5 billion APKA and Winter Garden are at 7 billion in taxable value and so there's some higher values and if you take that into account while the millillage on some of those about 4/10 off they they they pay about
the same amount overall I'm going to show some of these later on. So, how do we stack up overall full-time employees per 10,00 population for a popular Claremont, Winter Garden, Sanford, St. Cloud? Uh, a KOEI is below the average. We're
actually in the bottom third at 8.7 employees per 10,00. This is broken down by uh the blue is the full-time employees, orange is police, and the grayish black is fire.
And so a COE is at 4.6 2.6 uh police and fire is at 1.5. Just kind of show we are the commissioner being good stewards and in line with area agencies.
And then just breaking it down again. This is fire personnel per population, police personnel. So I'm going to give a recommendation, but I do mayor have our consultant which will provide some other fire assessment fee. She's she's on the PowerPoint below
this. I didn't want to for miss this and say that staff does recommend the amended and restated final assessment resolution to go from 6950 to 13923 for per fire protection unit. Sandra Newborn
will uh come up and provide the additional um update on the fire assessment fee background. And if need be, we do have our attorney. I can make them available by phone sort of like we did uh during that golf. We have the have our picture
up and we'll ring her in. Thank you Sandra. Good evening. Sandy Newbart with um Answer Advisory. What I where did I hit uh page down? Um so I just want to remind everybody
what the purpose and goals of a non-evalor a fire assessment. It's first and foremost to generate revenue for fire. It's provides a diversification so you're not as dependent on your millillage. Um it's accountability because it's restricted funds that can
only be used for fire protection services and there's equity in it. Um with with the millillage rates um and the um the the different um uh things that are out there that they can um get
a deduction in their taxable values. doesn't necessarily somebody's taxable value doesn't necessarily mean that is their fire protection benefit. So we look at what benefit they receive from the availability of the fire protection.
Um what is a nonadvalorum assessment? It's a home rule revenue source. So it's not statutoily driven. It's case law driven. There's two primary components to the case law. The one says the first one says it has to benefit property. The courts have said fire protection
services up to the level of first responder do benefit property, but EMS does not. So that's why the fire protection um assessment does not include the EMS cost. And then it has to be fairly and reasonably aortioned to the property owners. And this is h what
we came in and did. We looked at what's a fair and reasonable way to aortion the fire protection cost. Like Mike explained, you've had this um this same rates um the same methodology in place since 2013
at the $69.50 um per fire protection unit rate that generates about $2.4 million. You exempt government properties and you exempt um what we call institutional taxexempt properties. What that is is is if the
prop if the buildings are of institutional uses, churches and nonprofits, things like that, and the parcel is wholly taxexempt, then you buy that down on their house. The methodology is called the demand
availability aortionment methodology. We uh we look at the hazardous classes. We we use the National Fire Protection Association standards and we assign a hazardous class to every um structure in the in the city. The majority of them
are going to be in class 7. Um those are residential, hotel, um nursing homes, schools, offices. The majority of your properties are in class 7. Then you've got class six, which is churches and government buildings. Class five, which
are restaurants and food processing. Um and um uh class 4 is shopping centers, department stores, um grocery stores, things like that. So then what we do is we assign fire protection units based on
the hazardous class and the building square footage um in a formula that is in that calculates out the fire flow that's necessary for each structure. Then we take and we do a demand component um based on the um the amount
of time that the they're in service on these calls and then the availability. So based on this formula that we um have developed um that's how we um aortion the cost. Um, as Mike said, um, 36% of the amount
that you could potentially fund through the fire assessment is what staff is recommending. That's the $13923 um, per fire protection unit. Um, so 20% of your single family houses in your city are going to be at the tier 2,
which is $25.65 um, for each house. um 45% the bulk of them are in the tier three and they would be paying 27420. Um 26% are in um tier 4 so they would
pay 34275. Um 75% of your mobile homes and your residential condo units are in tier 1. So they would be paying 13710. Um, so your single family houses, 91% of
them are going to be paying between 205 and 342. Um, and it's going to generate about $4.4 million for the city. And I'm here to answer any questions if you have them or I'll sit down and let
everybody else talk. Thank you, mayor. So, I tried to show a snapshot of what what's in the future as we're getting ready for this upcoming budget session uh starting in August. Show you how comparable we are being diligent with our current service
standards for public safety and with full-time employee employee per thousand. And uh would again, if we have a legal issue that our attorney needs to, I'll ring them on the phone. We can hear him on speaker. And uh with that,
I'll turn it over to you, mayor. Agreed. Go ahead. A resolution of the city commission of the city of Akoi, Florida, relating to the provision of fire protection services, facilities, and programs throughout the city of Akoi. Imposing fire protection assessments against
assessed property located within the city of Akoi for the fiscal year beginning October 1st, 2025. Approving the assessment role, providing for collection, providing for effect, separability, conflicts, and providing an effective date.
You through, Mike? Yes, sir. All right, we're going to open the public hearing. We'll start off with the names. I'll call out each name. You have five minutes. And please, nobody comment in front of the audience. Please look. You got five minutes total. They'll they'll
notify you. It'll be up on the board. So, we'll start off. Like I said, if some of you hear the same thing, you feel like you don't want to get up and just give us your name and your address. All right. We'll start off with Mr. Rogers. Michael Rogers.
Who is that? I can't. What is that? Gray. Good evening. Michael Rogers, 2615 Cedar Bluff Lane. I am opposed to the proposed increased special assessment for fire services. I'd like to clarify that I'm not arguing
the question of firefighter pay or department funding. I am questioning financial responsibility. Why the special assessment instead of cutting costs elsewhere? If I understand correctly, you're trying to increase fees collected by $2.5 million by
roughly doubling the rate of a special assessment tax. I'm questioning why the burden should fall on homeowners. The latest budget report boasts about maintaining or lowering the millage rate for the last seven years. This is kind of irrelevant if you're going to increase or impose special assessments
instead. Why isn't some form of homestead exemption considered? If we need more money for the fire department, is there another option to cover these shortfalls? As an example, a five-year I understand it's 5-year capital improvement projects have
increased. Just looking back three years from 65 million for 65 projects projected from 2023 to 93 million for 98 projects in 2024 up to $99 million for
121 projects in 2025. uh to the point and I'm I'm not trying to cherrypick individual projects and say this is irrelevant or that we should not pursue this, but has the city considered other budgetary measures such as slowing the rate of new capital
improvement projects rather than increasing our taxes and why or why not. Thank you. That's we're I'm not going to answer these till the end, sir, because we'd be here really be here late. So, okay, you through now.
Those are my those are my comments and questions. Okay. All right. Thanks, sir. Amelia and Brasso. Great. All right. My name is Amelia Broer. Just a question regarding uh the uh amount that like I'm
getting here for an increase of 274. Uh oh. How do you factor that? Is that like the like by square footage? That's what So she has her letter she received and is asking what the factor is that gave
her a total amount of 27420. She is uh the live the under roof was between 2,000 to 3,99 square ft. Yeah. Uh because what like uh my the
dwelling of the house is like uh it's 1,600 square footage and then over here is the building says 2,000 to 33 300 3,000. So the the uh information that is used is comes is supplied by the property
appraiser for the tax assessor. So they've measured the buildings on your property and the value of your structure is based off partly to that square foot. It's called the square footage under roof, not just heated cool, right? So it's un So even your garage is
under roof. That's that is added in that is part of it's all under roof, not just your living space. Okay. Thank you very much. So if you have a issue with the calculation, check your tax bill with the property appraiser and if they're 50 square feet off
over, you want to get it reduced. But that's where you would make those adjustments to that calculation. Keith Butts. My name is Keith Buts. I live at 3027 All Street here in Ocoin. As of this this month, I've lived in the same house for 50 years.
Fortunately, uh my taxes are really low because of assessed value of my house and been in it so long. I understand that this u we need more money. Um I I see all these u fourstory wooden
apartment buildings going up and I guess their assessment's going to go up from 69 to 139. Okay. Um, I I um uh I don't really have a whole lot to
say because I was uh vocal when we first initiated this back in 2013. And when we voted it in or the city voted it in, it was voted in as zero. We started for quite a while
it was zero. Uh, but I here's one question I've always wondered about. I hear I live down close to the fire station on Lofford and I see hear fire trucks all the time going out to 50
accidents and stuff. If there's accidents, car wrecks, whatever, and they're nonsitizens of Okcoy, probably a lot of them are people passing through. Does the city collect any money for EMTs
uh rolling on those and fire trucks? And it seemed like every And every time there's a call at a nursing home, there's a ambulance and a big fire truck. There's always two. I just Is
that why we have to do that? And do we collect any money uh for like accidents and stuff for for people that don't even live here? You get when you get through, we'll answer. I'm finished. You finished? Yeah.
All right, Chief. I appreciate that you cut it down. Yeah. Yeah. Chief, can you answer his couple questions about collecting fees on Rex? Yes. Yes. Um, if we transport a patient, we build patient. So, we do collect, uh,
fees that route. Do we collect it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then, um, to answer your question, I see that a lot. Um, actually, why do we send so many people out at one time? And
I would say we we operate on a a basis of worst case scenario. Okay. So fire or EMS, we want more people going and send them away if I don't need them
than not send enough and need them and have to wait on them to get there. So that's why you see an engine and a rescue. So information may come in that we only need a rescue, but information going to us is only as good as the information that's being provided to the
911 caller. So we've had several calls where we'll run on somebody that it'll come in as they just have something simple. It should be a rescue call and we get there and they're about to code or have a heart attack. So that's why we
go um with so many. If you was to have a heart attack or a family member had a heart attack, you'd probably rather have six people working on them or five people working on them than just two. And that's why we do it. All right. Yeah.
All right. I can hear I I I'm not trying to be rude, but we got to be quiet because when you're talking in the back, we can hear it up here. Okay. Please. I mean, we need to hear them and then we'll hear you. Okay. Anybody even outside please?
The next one. I'm trying to make it out. Kelly just put Kelly is all they put. Mayor, are we able to group the questions together so that they can ask them at the end? Is that possible? I just asking them. Notless you got time to go through all these. There's a bunch of them and that's why I asked if they're going to
talk about the same stuff do it. All right. How you doing? 407 Kingland Court. Um my thing is I'm going to piggyback on what he began with in the beginning. I think it's accountability. It's not so much we all
need the fire department. We're all happy when they show up. We understand costs have gone up. Uh I just think that the way we've gone about it is a little bit uh poor. Um so accountability is essential. Question was asked, how do you fix that or how do you hold it accountable? You reward competency and
you penalized uh underperformance and excuses. um simply said roadway being built you hit the mark you get a bonus for doing that you don't get a mark you get a penalty for not hitting the time and that's how we stay within budget other government agencies are doing it and I suggest we might start to look to
do some of that ourselves um I don't understand the individual functions but when it comes to vision we we have a vision issue here right uh the study was 10 years old and you know where's the forward thinking aspect Yes, sir.
I don't want to stop you talking, but that's not exactly what goes on, sir. That that I'll let him speak to that. That's not exactly what goes on. That that 25-y year deal is every seven years you address that issue. Every seven years. Let me just real quick for the benefit
of everybody here, um the comprehensive plan sets the growth management vision for the city. Okay? And you do that for a large time horizon. Um, in other words, you know, this one that we did is a 25-y year growth management vision.
So, it basically has a a future landings map and it shows element by element how we have to provide facilities and services to meet the demand on that map. Now, every seven years, we're required and that's a state document. Every local
government in the state has to have a comprehensive plan. Every seven years we have to prepare what's called an evaluation and appraisal report which gives us an opportunity to um make changes to it and propose changes and then we also have an amendment process
when someone wants to change their land use. Okay. Um that's separate from having just an overarching city vision. One of the things that I'm planning in the next year and I'm building that into the proposed budget which will be coming
is is a visioning process with the citizens because you see what we have allocated to spend money on and we want to get more citizen feedback and that's a little bit of a departure from previous regimes. Um Mr. Rumor in his presentation shared a lot of information
from other cities. City Warner Garden, they do an annual community survey and they try to pattern their budget and programming off that. That is something that we intend to do. But that's I don't want to go down too far in the rabbit hole. Sure. With that. Um, but I wanted to clarify for the audience
the the difference between the comp plan and and the other things which are coming. And don't take it the wrong way. It's not a blame game, right? Naming the problem is a problem, right? Solutions. And I'm pitching different ways to approach the same situations. I'm just hearing as as a small business owner, if
I do that, I'm out of business. I can't come back and say, "Hey, everybody pitch in $100 and get me out of out of whatever." Because things change. You know, that's if you don't evolve, you you know, you disappear. That's what happens. Um, so 13 years ago, you know,
the the last budget was done. I'm sure the chief has been in here begging for money for years. Um, for the elderly community, you know, for me, 300 bucks doesn't seem like much, right? It's okay. I'll write the check for 300 bucks. I need fire department. But there's a lot of people here with a fixed income that make less than $1,000
a month on that fixed income. And $300 in a one-time hit is hard for them where through proper budgeting since COVID prices have been going rampant. Inflation, this is nothing new to anybody in the room. So why is it a surprise today that it's a one-time hit for our elderly in here then? This could
have been, you know, $50 for the last five years and the same goal was accomplished. Um, so that is one question that I strongly have. You know, I moved to COE 12 years ago. I once met you before, Mr. Mayor, and I talked about the trash at at the at the high
school graduation. You know, when I moved here, the services were vast and far, and it really felt good. The budgets almost doubled in those 12 years, and I feel like I get a lot less for the tax dollars that I'm paying. Um, and then now I'm getting hit with special assessments. It's not about the fire department. And it's just about as
a group, you know, we got to do better and and and push that vision out. Impact fees, you know, the growth and I get they can only sustain service, but you know, we that new truck should already been there, right? That sustaining
service. I can name 10 developments over the last 10 years that could have easily paid $100,000. I want to piggyback on the other lady. Keep the red light the red light, not the roundabout. But we could have bartered for those new developments a 100,000 200,000 from
these multi-million multi-billion dollar developers that could have easily paid for this truck instead of the citizens here today. Um just a different way of going about it. You got one more minute. Yes sir. I think I made my case and
point. Um, it has nothing to do with the fire department, but you know, costs are steadily going up since co we're all fielding that, you know, and it's it's not fair to certain elements of the community with restricted income to hit us in one year with that. Thank you for your time.
[Applause] The time's not showing up. All right. 610 Gallo David Denmark. There ain't much more to say after what Kelly said. I think we all disagree all agree with what he said. Um I talked to
Rosemary here about uh if we're going to have a vision to expand and and it's going to cost us to expand. Um, we also need to to do a little building here in Akoi instead of the
outskirts of Akoi, which is growing. Um, I've talked to Rosemary and and Edler about code enforcements and roads. I think I talked to him last the mayor last time about the roads. Um, Maguire
is bumper to bumper in the morning and in the afternoon. Blfords bumper to bumper and every morning, the afternoon, every pothole you can hit is there. Everywhere. I'm glad. I appreciate you paving the road in front of the post office. That was excellent. They need to
mark it though. It's not marked. We need some of these roads paved and widened. And don't plant trees under the street lights, please. I don't know where that's coming from. We don't do that anymore. this. Well,
they were the city's growing. I know we need to grow. Uh I agree with everything Kelly said. This is one hit all at one time. And it is hard for all of us. Uh I've lived here almost 40 years, 38 years. And uh I like living here, but
it's the traffic and the expansions and all these places. West Oaks Mall used to be something. We've got we've got strip malls all over the place that aren't being taken care of. They're rented. People rent those rent those spots in
those strip malls. Are they going to be paying any of these assessments because they need to be accountable for letting their parking lots and stuff run down and look like crap. And they do. I've got two names here of the people that
own these parking lots. And one of them just said, "Oh, well, so I'm going to give you these names." And there's other places that are that are rented, the properties owned or managed by other people. I want to know
if they're paying some of this because we're paying all of it. I want them to pay also. And if there's more of them collecting their income, and what are they doing with it if they're not doing, you know, reconstruction or taking care
of this place? Uh, that's about all I got to say. I get upset about it because it makes me mad. your wife coming up now. Miss Dmark. My name is Kim Denmark. I live at 610 Galligo Avenue. Like David said, we've been here almost 40 years. In the last
10 years, I retired, which means we live on a fixed income. And we agree that the fire services and stuff need to be done. And I understand that they haven't been done since 2013. But what I don't understand is instead of hitting us with a 100% increase all at once, if they had
thought about the projection of where they were going and every two years just increase it 20%. Well, then we'd have enough. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. [Applause]
John Wilkerson. Yeah. My name is John Wilson. I'm at 2179 Black Jacko. Um I'm going to make this short actually. Um I you know I've lived here 30 years. I don't remember the last time I've received a letter
about an assessment and I'd like to know when the last is it just because of the amount of the assessment or because this to me it seems like this assessment may be due
to maybe poor planning because in my world you know if if there's something I want I have to budget for it and I do that over a period of time, but we seem to be living in a different world here
than, you know, the real world, which is unfortunate. So, I that was the first thing I want to know when the last time an assessment like this was applied because I I don't I've been here 30 years. I don't remember it ever happening. 13 years ago, sir.
Okay. Well, I don't remember getting a letter or anything, but you know, it may have happened. Yeah. But I would appreciate better planning by, you know, this body here so that we're not because, you know, for me, I can write a check. It's not a
problem. Okay. But I feel just like the others. I feel for these people out here that are on fixed incomes that don't have, you know, it's a big hit for them. And I don't think it's fair. And I I'm sure all of you can, you know, write a
check. That's not a problem. But for many of us in this community, I know that live here, you know, it's a big deal. And so I think it's unfair to ask them to do that. So I would like to see maybe something, you know, assessed over
a period of time rather than a big, you know, lump sun like this. So anyway, that's all I have. Thank you for your time. Thanks, sir. [Applause] Mayor, while the next speaker is coming
up, um I just want to I want I wanted to clarify this is not a one-time assessment. It's a recurring assessment that's been on the roll for 10 years. 13. Well, it was zero for a year.
Yes. All right. So, do I know I know clapping, but please just as we can move along, let's clap at the end for all of you that talk. Okay. I know it's hard not to do that, but it's we're going to listen to the same
stuff. Let's just let them talk and get going through this. Um, yes, sir. First question is, are any of you guys happy? I mean, when I look at them, they're all frowning. They look like they hate their job and and I know you're getting beat up tonight. So,
I like my job. Thank you. Okay. I'm just checking cuz y'all But they said they don't pay you anything, right? Not much. But, but the question, you said we got to grow. Why? I moved to Aoy because I didn't want to live in downtown Orlando.
Why are we putting a building on every square inch of of of dirt out here? I I'm not going to get into this. So, no, no, I want my five minutes, please. I want to tell you what why that is. Where do you live at? I live in the vineyards right off
there used to be woods and grass and stuff, too. Yes. And somebody owned the land. They sold it and they had zoning. I I'm just telling But my question is 70 years. Okay. You know, I'd love to go back to when there was 3,000 people here, but that's not happening.
But why are we putting all the industry in here if if we're I mean, all the industry don't if where we can keep your tax dollar down. Exactly. Then why are we having a meeting to raise the taxes? Because everybody has raised these guys salaries up. This fire department in Orange County raises them. The state
raised the state is raising the firefighters 25%. Hot potato again here. Let me I know. Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, but I'm just saying I moved out here time and I've seen a lot of stuff, sir. Oh, I'm sure you have because I've seen it in the last 10 years grow like crazy.
But why the problem? Why do we have to have a dynasty ball field? I mean, are they going to pay for Yeah. some of this stuff? They going to pay for a four-lane highway to come down the road over there. Yes. Okay. I'm just making sure because I I'm tired of I mean, the four apartment
complex over at Koi High School, there's got to be some some um what do you call them? Restrictions over there. to have a those apartments that close to a high school, that close to a main road. I mean, who approves all these buildings of these apartments? I mean,
we didn't need those. You got cuz you got apartments across the other side of 429 that's not even full yet, right? Somebody said they get a little upset. I get a little upset cuz I am a a disabled veteran on
a fixed income and I watch every dollar that I spend and when you pop me with another 50 bucks a month if if if over the year that's what that my assessment would be. So
I guess my question is why do we have to keep growing? I mean, if especially until we got enough money. I mean, if you want to generate some money and then we can grow. But but it's poor planning is what it is. All right. I know you don't like your job, Mary,
cuz you just I love the job. It doesn't look like it. Well, I don't I'm not here to smile. I'm not a very good smiler. All right. Hey, Manuel Delgado.
Everybody smile up now. Uh, good evening. This is I'm apparently I'm the newbie here. I only lived for 10 11 13 years in Sherwood Circle. So, I'm like the young guy in the in the room. Um, thank you very much for the she for your presentation. We had the issue that
we mainly had with the when we received the letter was a little bit of transparent or clarity on the purpose because once as many of you know once you get a letter saying that your taxes are going to be up for about 15% or some 20% then the shock gets in. This is my
first meeting and because you touched my wallet, I'm here. Of course. That's right. And I have to admit, yeah, I have to admit that. And now I have to go through the website and check all day your minutes and not everybody does that. But that was a great motivation. Um, most of you have already answered
that that we wanted to know, but I have a question and commissioner Shadi probably point us in the right direction. The language in the letter said that this is an increase. This is another alarm from now and future fiscal years. So my question that the real
question I have is how long do you do you estimate that's going to take? Mayor, if I could I I I just want to I want to clarify a few things. Um we would like to lower millillage and we would like to have dedicated funding
from Tallahassee for police and fire. That's our two greatest cost. All right. We are in the time of greatest uncertainty that we've had um in my career as far as what the state is currently doing. They have talked about major property tax reforms which I
happen to agree with. I think it's out of control. property taxes are. Let me give you for example, and I'm I'm kind of surprised that no one's mentioned that little graphic that Mike had in the presentation that had a dollar bill and where every one of your tax dollars goes
39% goes to Orange County Public Schools. 27 39 cents 27 cents on the dollar. You're paying you're almost paying Orange County the same amount in taxes that you're paying the city of Okoi. Now for a frame of reference,
the city of Winter Garden um that amounts to about 35 million. AKA is about 35 million that Orange County gets every year and and it's about 25 from from between 22 and 25 depending on the
year from AOE. That's a hundred million a year. Let's go back 10 years. I I I would want to ask all of you, have you seen, you know, $30 million in improvements in your community? Because you're paying Orange County. The only
thing that we get from Orange County is animal control, Department of Corrections, and mosquito control. Um, I've talked to the city managers of Winter Garden and and Apopka. We could easily contract out animal control and and that. So, we're we're working on the
legislator. And I I I don't I wish Mr. Spencer was still here because they've been discussing this tax reform bill without talking about doing anything to to supplant what they're taking away from local governments, the bulk of which is
used to pay for police and fire. Now, what would be ideal is is if the the state and we've asked them formally, we've we've actually requested through our legislative delegation to consider several things and I have them I'm going
to read them into the record here because the the community needs to to hear this. Thank you. Um, first and foremost, we've asked them to allow full service cities like Okoi, like Winter Garden, um, to be sovereign.
Okay? We have three or four county roads. We would gladly take them over. Um, because they have not seen $30 million worth of improvements over the last 10 years, um, let alone, um, the hundred million they've rough. Well, no,
it's more than that they've collected from Makoi alone. All right. So, that's where we believe the reform needs to happen and we're harping on them. We've asked for a sovereignty legislation. We've also asked for them to help us um get on the same page as far as
collective bargaining. Police is a collectively bargain contract as is the fire department. Okay. We gave healthy raises during the last fire department contract. Last year, city commission had increased the salaries of the police department by
20%. Okay, this was in response to Orange County meanwhile who's playing with a lot of your money and Apopkas and we're all the C's money. They're able to go out and offer these 35% contracts. Okay, when you start looking at the the
smaller cities and the municipalities, um we're constantly competing with Orlando and Orange County. We had no choice in order to continue to recruit um but to up our salaries which is a big hit which we've absorbed and part of this proposed fire fee increase offsets
money that that has to to help pay for that recurring new cost for police. Now the fire contract is up next year. You just saw Mr. rumor present what's on the table currently that they're at impass
or disagreement over between the county fire union and Orange County is a a 35% increase. Okay. So you look at the salaries in the presentation and we are going to have to probably absorb something in that ballpark and and
Governor DeSantis um mentioned um support for the 24 hours on 72 hours off schedule. you know, translating that to a COE, that has to that requires us to hire an entire new shift, 12 firefighters to be able to to staff that
type of schedule. So, these are these are I I wanted to paint some context. We've asked for reform with regard to collective bargaining because it's basically Orange County and Orlando used to be Reed Creek before they got slapped around. Um, but Orange County and
Orlando, they just go up and pay whatever whatever the unions want and then we're all scrambling to try to so we can be competitive and recruit. You know, they need to make us all negotiate at the same time, be on the same page. That would be a huge help. Um, we've asked for some other things to be
considered. Um, you some of you probably were here when we talked about school resource officers. We're only getting reimbursed about 70% of our cost on school resource officers. We've asked the state, hey, if you're going to start reforming property taxes, look at the
county, but require the school board to pay us um reimburse us in full for the the school resource officers. You know, we're putting a paid trained officer in a school. Um that's just the high points. We've asked for about nine
things. Um we're not the only city that's com that's facing this. That's the thing. This is not new to us. We don't enjoy it anymore. So, we look unhappy because we're having to deal with a moving target and we don't know what the legislaturator is going to do.
We can only guess, but they have yet to have the conversation about um what they're going to do to help us replace public safety revenue. That would be the biggest thing. We've also even asked them to consider legislation that would authorize a just a special
millage for public safety and then we can actually back way off what our millillage is. um currently and try to offset that. But there's this is a conversation that's going to be part of a special session in Tallahassee. I would encourage everyone to write your
legislators. A lot of you probably didn't know that, you know, 39 cents on the dollars going to the school board and 27 cents is going to Orange County. But now we know there there's a lot of almost the same
amount we get in revenue from advil alarm taxes in our city is going to Orange County and uh you know I'm not trying to take a shot at the county. We have to work with them but there's some gross inequities out there and I wanted the audience to to be aware of some of
those things. Thank you Mr. Shai. Yes. Thank you for answering there that right away. Thank you ma'am. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. Can I correct Mr. Jones, can I correct something? Uh, city manager, um, the TW, you said 12 people to hire an entire shift. I just want you
to know it'd be 21 people at our current deployment. Yeah. You had the right numbers just backwards. Yeah, that's about that's about $2 million a year. Good evening. Ralph Jones, 105 Reese
Court, Lakeshore Gardens of Koi. So, I'm vehemently opposed to any additional assessments. This is just snake and mirrors here. Uh raising the millillage, but not raising the millillage. You can go and tell people move to Okcoy. Our
millillage is low, but you're going to have a special assessment. It's basically 10% of my um taxes, property taxes. That's a big hit. So, let me give you a little background. I'm a building official, just recently retired, so I am
on fixed income as well. Um, I actually worked for the city of Okcoy from 2004 to 2009. And during that time, sub little subdivisions like Weston Bay, The Vinings, Forestbrook, Windsor
Landing, McCormack Woods, Binmar Estate were all built. Every one of those permits was charged an impact fee for fire services. I don't know where the money went, but there was a lot of money and I don't know where the
accountability went. Um, so I it it just floores me to understand how we've gotten 20 years later and can't pay for fire services when all that money came in. So, originally the fire fee was going to
be for a limited time. Now it's not only a limited time, but it's doubled for in perpetuate. You know, it's uh ridiculous and totally unacceptable. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak.
Thank you. Beth Hart. Hos. Beth Hos. Says Beth. Yeah. Beth. Yeah. Okay. Road. It. That's it. Okay. That's Betty. Okay. So, Betty Haw 3326 Ohio Shores
Road Curry Florida. Um, I'm here opposed apparently. I was here in 2013 when this was first discussed. I mentioned then that it was unfair because you were really at that point just trying to avoid raising the millage rate, which is
what you're doing again now. I knew it. I could prove it. I Everyone knew it. It was supposed to be at zero, which that was ridiculous because you knew we should have known. And I knew that was
just a holding place. A zero is a zero until they put something in front of it on that side of the decimal. Okay, we're there. Okay, so I would like a quick 30 second explanation on the difference between
raising a millage rate and assessing this fire assessment. Could you give us a real quick explanation on that exemption? Yes. 30 seconds. There's exemption.
The the millage rate method would be a guesstimation of the cost and raising the millillage so many tents. Uh one of the two issues with that there's probably more is number one you don't collect 100%. You barely collect 95%.
many of it of below 95% you collect years later once delinquent taxes are done and then the other is is as commissioner Kennedy said it is based off uh the value and all of the exemptions so that's hard to plan out it
is it's it's um not hard but it's difficult to really tie down that you're covering the cost es and with escalating cost and so those two items alone make the fee that you know that you know
um in place so you get 3% we grew uh our value within the past couple years one of the years it was 11% even though you can only be assessed 3% higher but you you blink your eyes you're four years into it and you've had that 3% four times in a row so you don't really know
the fee okay so you have to go through the same authorization process for both is that correct uh the difference in the the letter uh the the in your millillage it is set what they did today on the consent item
is sent a tentative millage that 5.5 is now going to reflect in a um trim notice that will go out to you'll see on that trim where it talks about the city of AOE's proposed millage rate it has all this information about the public hearing and you can attend that
information is required for the fire assessment because we can't put that information with the fire assessment fee, all that information you got in your letter cannot go in the trim. So, we had to do a separate letter. That's why uh when you raise the fee, if you
keep the fee the same, it's just shown each year on the trim that you will get. Um if you lower the fee, it'll just be shown in the trim. But if you increase the fee, you have to notice all the property owners of that. This is probably crazy, but if we're not going to want millage rates, why don't we put
it at zero and just do assessments for every single department? Hello. What's the difference? Only one way we have a hearing where it goes through millillage and this way we have it going through millage and assessments. That's the
issue. It's harder for people to understand if you do assessments in addition to a millillage. If you didn't trash it, trash it all. You'll be happier, I'm sure. Um, all right. So, I said that now. Um, I I do concur with
them about saving money and finding ways to, you know, reduce the costs. I've been in your shoes. I know what it's like. It's not easy. But if you really look hard, you can generally find ways. It seems to me like we have an excessive
increase at this point in time. And I would just ask, have you in your calculations looked at all of the building? Someone alluded to that. Have has all of the building that is going to be done in the
next year been considered in this rate that we're being assessed? That's my last question, I think. Yep. this. So, this is a good segue to kind of go back to one of the questions about the
apartments next to the high school. The land that the city bought in partnership with the school board, we did an extravagant PUB with plans and entitled the property for uses. It just takes time to build. So those apartments that
was the this is back before Sandy Hook and Coline and campuses were open. If you remember Akoi Middle School was an open campus. It wasn't until after those events that they fenced them and they no longer had access.
The Crown Point area that was the village center to that PUD which had two schools or still an elementary school site across the way which hasn't been built yet. And I'm sure when those it gets built behind those houses, those people are going to say, "Why is the school coming up?" It was approved in
early 2000. So when you look at development, yes, it is considered. For instance, 600 single family homes. They're not built in one year when the development's done. They're built over three. You don't know how long it's going to take to build out a development. Look at Prairie Lake on
Clark Road. That PUD had tons of residential and town homes, and they just finished the final town home development out there. 600 homes paid pays $3 and uh $80,000 in impact fees. So yes, those vineyards,
Weston Bay, you know what? They paid for the fire trucks and the imp all the additions for that fire station that went into the retail building. And then we had to move it to the the site when they kicked uh when they leased it out to the uh double wide. And we have a
fire station being built there, which is funded already. And we did get $1 million uh from the state in an appropriation for a fire station where the governor cut a lot of money. So we do take in account the development. We don't know how long it's going to take
to develop out. I can point to you a lot of properties that are vacant that have trees that have they're entitled because they got approvals. They built roads. They did the things they had to do in order to keep that entitlement. built some development and and so you're just
seeing it at this time. So in closing, if we're going to have millage, then assessments should be made for those unusual, unexpected things that come along that you could not have anticipated. That's the point I would like to make.
Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Joe Ba Banner Banner. There you go. Code enforcement. Better.
All right. Well, I'm going to try to keep this really quick because I know you have some other ones. Thank you, city manager, for showing us and giving us a little bit of insight on where that dollar is being spent. By the way, Joe Bander, 505 Spring Lake Circle. Um,
curiosity, the special assessment, does Orange County also get a chunk of that? No. No. Interesting. Okay. Um my point about uh by the way I'm I'm opposed to the
increase anyways but um uh I think um my concern real quick is you know I know that you you started this back in October 2024 and it hasn't even been a year since you know I know you did all the assessing and I don't I don't know
if the uh the residents of Koi really have you know or informed enough or had a chance to digest all this um and Maybe they should have been given the opportunity to maybe vote on it. Uh, which might not be a bad idea, but um,
yeah, thanks. Um, thank you. Anyways, um, special assessments. Um, that's exactly what they are. They're special assess assessments like this, um, the lady before me. Uh, they should be a one-time thing. They shouldn't be an ongoing thing. Um, they should be part of a
budget. it. I understand if they want to get a uh a new firetruck and I I get it. Uh but, you know, we don't know. Is it a is it a Cadillac or a Kia? You know, I I don't know. You know, it's uh seems like there's a big difference between 500,000
and 1.2 million. So, um anyways, uh I'm going to yield back the rest of my time, but thank you for listening. Daniel Pace. Mhm. Daniel Plate 250 Ruer Street. Uh a lot of lot of what I had is already
going to be said, but uh so I'll say ditto on that. uh but uh there are a few things that I wanted to point out that uh in in this letter particularly you know the uh the assessment is just like uh previous gentleman just said uh
ongoing you know and future fiscal years was was the language in the letter here. So, the what I got out of this letter was this is the most that we can charge you this year and we're going to do it every year in perpetuity with no end in sight is is
what I what I read here. Um that stings a bit. Um um the other um things I have on here um was we look at this every every 10 years I guess and we we doubled from 69
to 129 or or thereabouts uh over 10 years. Um should we not be looking at this a little a little more often so that we don't uh we don't get in this situation uh moving forward? Um, you know, we had a fire chief that that that
came up and what I heard, you know, from from what he was saying up here was, "I've got engines that don't run when I get there. I got breathers that don't work. And if I can get into you, I got radios that don't work. I can't talk to anybody, call anybody else, come help
me." Um, that's that's problem. um you know not to mention the pumps and other things involved in you know putting things out right um um so yeah I get the point of the
assessment and I think it's you know it's unfortunately needed um but I think we could do a little bit better and looking at this a little more often um in in my industry I I run a small business and uh you know when when the
expense of using in-house employees becomes preventative uhly expensive. Um those companies uh say okay and I was part of a union CWA for for for many years and you know
at the end of the day they say okay well we we we just we can't afford you no more. We're going to use subcontractors. We're going to bring subcontractors in. They're going to come in. They're going to do your job. They're going to do it, you know, just as good, if not better than you did it when you were here. Um, and I understand we're not sovereign
from Orange County. Um, but they're getting just three cents shy of what city of Oko is getting to do what? Right. Um, and I've been to Orange County to try and get things done, you know, be it filing a permit or uh, you
know, anything at the offices of Orange County. And it I I hope it's a lot easier for you folks and you got some some numbers to people to get things done because it ain't easy for the you know just a job blow to go in there and say I need something done you know it
it's preventative. Um so I hope you guys got a got a shortcut to that. Um but you know is that a possibility? Is that something that we could look look into and say okay Orange County we can't afford to keep up with you. We can't afford to increase the the salaries of
everybody and everything else. We can't afford a $1.2 million engine. Um, you know, that's probably a ladder truck, not not just, you know, a pump truck. I don't know. No, but I hope it is for 1.2. Um, and I don't believe they make a Kia in a fire truck. They don't.
Um, I wish they did. Uh, you know, that might have helped, too. But, uh, I think it's oneoff. Every one of them is a one-off build. Um but uh you know the use of subcontractors as opposed to in-house uh employees is that an option
and you know I I don't see that ever coming to be within maybe my lifetime. Um I I don't know the answer. I I hope you guys do and I hope we can find it. And unfortunately, this is a a necessary
evil to to make sure everybody's safe and gets their fires put out when they when they unfortunately do happen, right? Uh so I yield my time. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Very good, [Applause]
Angela Williams. Good evening, commissioners, and um congratulations on your promotion, sir. Miss Nandra, um my I oppose the assessment, but I understand where you're coming from, but my thing is is that when you were talking about the
Orange County government gets a good percentage of our bill. My question is is that I know that we have our 911 services outsourced to Orange County government and I believe to one of the municipalities around us. Are we having to pay them on top of
our taxes? So, is there something in that agreement to where as citizens we're already paying you a good percentage out of our taxes that instead of us city paying them on top of that, maybe that could come out of our taxes to where that's less money for us. Um, I also think that we need to, like you're
saying, you know, maybe adjust it over the time or even look at budgets and see how we can get our things done instead of one big thing at a time. Have a good night. Thank you, Margarita.
[Applause] McKenzie McKenzie, there you go. I know who you are. Margaret McKenzie, 807 Apricot Drive. Been at that address since October 1987
888. My question um someone mentioned fair and reasonable and to clarify people that live in apartment do they pay are they getting assessed this this
okay they receive the same service I get I call 911 for fire they get fired the same way why aren't people in apartments being assessed in the same way that homeowners why are we the ones fulfilling the Well, the apartment building will be
based off uh will be assessed off its square footage, which will be rather large. And then that p that that I mean individual residents because by let me answer that most of those leases are triple net in in many
ways. So those probably do get passed back into the rent, but we have no way of knowing that. But most landlords I've ever seen try to pass all their costs back into the to the rent. So, um, but there is a cost being paid for the
apartments. Okay. Um, that's assessed on the entire building, the number of square feet. So, they might have deep pockets and be willing to eat that, but most most landlords for a large complex are going to pass that on in a in the form of a an
increase in rents um to their tenants. Okay, ma'am. Back to the fair and reasonable. Um, this fire assessments was was done prior to the purchase of a golf course. Correct. No, it was done after which one was done
in 1994. No, I mean I read an article that this something I think it was this year or last year that you paid $4 something million for the golf course. Yes. Why wasn't that money deducted from
the total that the fire department needed? That money's I'll let the city manager explain it to me, but that's a whole another thing that's going to come back. That money comes back in the lease thing we're doing. We have a lease thing going out the end of uh 1 of October for bids. There's six companies already bidding
for that. Okay. So, that money comes back. So, can that be added to the fire department assessment for the fire assessment bill? No. No. the the golf course is owned by the water and sewer utility. Okay? So,
they're responsible for that. That's an enterprise that's separate from the general fund. Um, so we can't pay fire department costs with water and sewer money. Okay. And vice versa. Well, I don't think we should be paying
that much money for for land that we can't use. Anyhow, that most of my question was asked by other people. So, thank you. Herbert Whitten. Herbert Whitten.
[Applause] Good afternoon, mayor, commissioners, and staff. I'm Herbert Witter, resident of Akoi. fire chief. I'm not in a position to what he said about wanting the funds.
I'm in no way in a position. But what I have question about is why are we the resident hit with that cost? Now with the population explosion that has been going on in Okoi,
there's been a lot of entities that are benefiting financially from the population explosion. Walmart, Publix, hospitals. Why are we the ones and not them being assessed
for these funds? Why is a resident being stressed in this financially stressful time? That's a good question. I'm glad you asked that. Everybody that owns land in Okoi is being assessed, including the
Walmart, including the owners of the West Oaks Mall. Everyone is being assessed, not just residential. Um, and there was there was a nice lady that asked a question earlier about um the difference between millage and
and a fire assessment like this. This is based on fire protection units and assignment of hazard class to the type of structure it is. And everybody that owns a structure has to pay. Um, if you went with the millillage route, it's
based on property value and you end up with people that have higher valued houses subsidizing the fire cost of people that own lower valued houses. It's a difference in that Orange County pays for their fire services by
assessing almost three millillage points as an MSTU which is specifically for fire. Um that would be you would be paying considerably more if you were in unincorporated Orange County than with
this proposed increase. But to answer your question, every property owner that has a structure is being assessed this charge. Our next question is with the population explosion, I listen to the news almost every morning when I'm going to work. The toll
authorities make a lot of money, billions. So why aren't they being assessed for makes a lot of money? Toll's authority. SunPass, EPASS, I listen to they're printing their own money. Why Why aren't they the one paying the
assessment? They make so much money. I paid over7,000 last year for my small business in totals. Actually, you know what? That's a great idea. Um, we should ask the legislature to consider setting aside some of those types of revenues as well. And one of
the things, this will not make me popular, but the tourism development tax, that's another thing that we've mentioned. Now Disney and Universal control the lobby on on that money, but tour we have we're a tourist driven
economy in Central Florida and they have to use our services and we would love to have some of those funds allocated, but mostly we'd like to have some of the county's tax money back um because you're paying for that and there's very
little to show for it. Um but yeah, that's that's a good idea. It it can't happen. It has its own legislative authority. I I wish we could get some of the toll money, though. There's actually three toll roads running through this community or our city.
The 429, the 408, and the turnpike, they make a lot of money. So, why are the resident being stressed instead of them, you know? And they're continually going to be making money, and they're going to raise the fees every every so often. So why don't they absorb most of this or
all of it? The hospitals, Publix, Walmarts, why don't they absorb the cost? That wouldn't be financially burdensome to them. I presume like it's burdensome to us residents. I agree. I heal. And do you go to them to tell them your
opinions? I I have never know. That's what I just I I believe in local voices. You You do what, ma'am? I believe in local voices. I believe that we have a right to go to talk to them when you have a question or concern what they're
doing with their funds. I believe just like going to the council, we should go to those entities and talk to them. I think your voice would be more powerful than mine. No, no, no, no. I think they'll listen to you more later on my opinions on that. I'll talk at the end about that.
Okay. Thank you. I Grady, that's all I got. Grady. Great. What is it? You are your wife. Yes, sir. Hello neighbors. Hello neighbors.
This is government. What? This is government. They're part of government. This is government. Give your hand. Give yourself a round of applause for showing up. No. Give yourself a round of applause for showing up. Thank you everyone.
In the US Army, PCS stands for preventive maintenance checks and services. It's a crucial process where soldiers inspect and maintain their equipment before, during, and after use of it, ensure it proper working order and ready for any mission. This process is vital for maintaining equipment readiness, preventing potential
problems, and escalating. The fire department has done their side. Obviously, listening to you guys, this side of the house hasn't done it. One, fixed income persons tax exempt. We're on fixed incomes. I'm a veteran.
Other veterans have spoken. Other people are on fixed income. It's not fair to us. Two, assessments. Churches. I verified with the young lady that spoke earlier and she mentioned about churches being taxexempt. Anybody that's in a COI point blank that has a building should
not be taxexempt because when the fire department shows up, they're getting the same service as everybody else. Three, I officially oppose and officially deny the passion of legislation until the numbers are redone because again every business not included. So until you guys include
everybody, we collectly do not approve of this. Um, if resources spent correctly, there wouldn't be any backdoor deals. I heard you guys talk about you don't know who's doing this and here and there who's not paying any business that comes here that
wants to build that assessment should be put in there don't care if it's Walmart or a new pop and mom and pop that assessment they're putting building here that should be calculated to we know we need the fire department we know we need you guys we know we need the police department anybody builds they're assessed this thing that you guys don't
know that's poor management of your guys in the military we borrow from other units because broken missing gear not Bad budgeting city planning budget could be handled. Budget going to Orange County. Residents not made aware due to lack of transparency. A lot of people saying they this is
going on. You guys are not telling us what's going on with the money. You're spending money, but you're not telling us what's going on. Special assessment payments could be made by a KO residents by each quarter instead of lump sum. So you guys could break this down where it could be feasible. You keep hearing people including myself saying that we can't
afford a lump sum. You could break this down where you say per quarter this is how much you pay. Assessments rate should be fixed, locked in for logical time frame, not a fixed amount. Several people got up here and say that this shouldn't be next year you got to give us a different amount whether it
goes up or down. It should be locked in. Have the apartments by a Koi High School and a charter school been set for registration for sexual predators? the high school and the charter schools that were built. Do we know how many sexual predators are
living in that area? If not, why not? Police can tell you. Okay, that's my time. Thank you. Thank you. All right, that's that's that's u that's the last of the uh forums. So,
we're going to close that public here and bring it up to the dice. You got you got anything else? Well, just a couple. Mr. Rogers um in his capital budget, he did include all of the capital items from those
enterprise funds like utilities. So, that number is high, but that's not general fund capital budget. And then um and then we we showed items the packs that the the fire chief provided. And and those items are partially or funded
in the current fiscal year. the the commission is budgeting for those things. Those are just small snippet of giving you an idea of the type of things that have to be uh budgeted for. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. All right, Craig. City manager, you've
got do you have anything you want to go over before I start with the commissioners? Uh no, other than to say, you know, if you if you don't propose this increase, then you will have to increase the millillage uh this year um in order to
keep pace with the expenses that we are incurring with the increasing costs of police and fire. All right. I mean, I did want to say one other thing. Um a gentleman earlier made a good comment that can we try to cut
budgets and try to we are doing that. We have a capital improvement program that is not funded in anywhere near its entirety. We have a hund00 million dollars of identified road projects and we have to chip away at them as we go.
We have several million in sidewalk projects. Um, and we we chip away at them. And this year we're proposing, you know, some pretty significant budget cuts because of what's happening in Tallahassee. and there the uncertainty
about the replacement revenue that we use for police and fire. Um so we are we're going to be in a better position to know what the future holds once this special session in Tallahassee um occurs. Um, and the last thing I would
say is this is not, you know, I agree with the other comment that someone made about we should have we should have been building in a a a small percentage increase, you know, having to do this every 10 years. I I agree 100% with
that. Um, unfortunately, you know, we have to deal with it now the way it is, and there's no no point um belaboring that. This is the situation we're in. Um and we plan to start going towards more of a a zerobased budget type budgeting
process in the future. Um which should drastically reduce the budgets um that are proposed and only bring it back to the commission for an amendment of the budget if we absolutely need something versus just you know the blanket line
item budgeting that we we've been traditionally doing. Um, it's it's it's it's a really interesting time, you know, with the legislature and what they're doing. And I believe there's a lot of of things that need to
be cut and looked at. Um, but this the way it's been discussed is as an unfunded mandate. And you know, in other words, here we're going to cut property taxes, which is a big portion of your revenue, but we're not going to give you any tools. And we're pushing back.
Everybody is. Every municipality in the state is pushing back and saying you've got to you've got to put some things in place. Once we know what that's going to be, um we'll be in a better position next year to try to start really honing
in on things. This year it's, you know, it's one or the other. Um as far as keeping pace with the increasing cost of police and fire. No, sir. I just All right. You done, Craig? Yes, sir.
All right, Commissioner Kennedy. Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just want to thank everyone for coming out and sharing your opinions. Um, my comments, just like your comments,
are probably in some way going to be wellreceived by everybody and not and and also not well received by everybody. So, I would ask you for the same courtesy that we gave you to hear me out. Um, I've been here for two years. I just
ran. I'm in District 1. A big part of my platform was budgeting for our priorities. My belief is the role of municipal government is to provide municipal services and only that. Um that's police, fire, and
utilities mostly. Um, we do not have a zerobased budget. And that's something that again I've advocated for and I'm very happy with Craig's leadership because he's going in that direction. I think that will bring
increased transparency and accountability. Um, and so, uh, the gentleman from the vineyards asked, "Are you happy?" No, I'm miserable. Um because the the surprise a gentle a gentleman
said why you know why is this a surprise why is this happening now well it's happening because of Tallahassee it's happening because of amendment five it's happening because people went to the polls and they said yeah I think uh veterans and others should have extra
property exemptions and I think we should reform property taxes those all sound great and without thinking about the consequences on the revenue of the municipalities uh cutting off our blood. Um
some of these it's true some of these are self-induced. There have been errors um we talked about it um when they started the fire fee in 2013 that was a little bit of political slide
of hand. Um, thank you. Not raising it, uh, at least for inflation every year, um, in hindsight was a mistake. The real problem was that we had a surplus and so
there was no reason to re raise it. My opinion is, and to the lady that asked why not do it all with millage, there's some things that are like the government administration, the payroll department for the city, etc. that need to be done by a millillage and with the exemptions
that's okay. But there's a lot of things that are based on usage and that can be based on units. Fire is one of them. If you look at the graph that they brought up, the total fire budget is
13.5 million proposed for 26 and only 4.5 million is through this fire fee. Why? That doesn't make any sense at all. I do agree it should be all or nothing.
My personal opinion, these are restricted funds that are only allowed to be used for fire services, but they flow into the general fund and then the ad valorum pays the surplus to get to 13 million. My view and my opinion that I've
expressed to staff is I would like to see a fire fund and I would like to see the entire fire fee go to the fire fund and I would like to see it be 100% of the cost to the fire department. The answer to the uh lady's question why do
that? We've heard a lot tonight some of the reasons for this are related to collective bargaining. Um, we all were here last couple years and we heard and I agree. It's very difficult. Firefighters need a pay raise. We need
more equipment. We need a new fire station. I ran on the fire station in the north. That's going to be $6 million5 to $6 million. We got a million from five and we got a million from the state now to help pay for that.
When we're in collective bargaining and we're and we're making these decisions to raise salaries, to raise pensions, etc. to give people more time off, there's no transparency for us in well, what's that going to cost me
if if we give firefighters a 20% raise over the next three years, what does that do to me? Does that raise my fire fee from 250 to 300? And am I good with that? and give me an opportunity to
voice my opinion on that specific. So I do believe in creating more segregated funds. I think they will increase transparency and accountability. I think they'll give taxpayers a more direct voice and I and
frankly I think it will enable and encourage uh more fair dealing in the contract negotiations on both sides with the firefighters and with Craig and the city. Um, I think a lot of times
articles I've read, people leaking out uh uh negotiations on the fire department, you know, they say, "Well, we're just asking for this and the city has $150 million. Why can't we have X?" And I think it would I think it
would help all sides and the communication to be more straightforward if we if Craig and everyone was able to say, "Well, you raised you double the fire fee if we did that. Let's, as many of you said, let's phase it in. Let's do it over three years. Let's do it over 5
years. I what I didn't like and it was kind of spit out. Many of you said, "Well, we're trying to keep the millillage the same and double the fire fee." Um, you may remember the consent agenda 3 hours ago.
Um, I voted against. The reason I voted against is item six, which is the proposed tenative millage rate of 5.5. Do not be deceived. This is not a one-time event, and this
is not just about the fire department. We have a fiscal crisis. We are looking at raising the millillage and raising the fire fee. And I think many of you
uh you know, let's be honest, that statutory notice, that letter that was sent out, that was awful. Obviously, you understand, we understand the language in those. You know, people can't just talk. Many of you said, you know, you have a small business. You talk to your
vendors and you look, here's what I've got to have. Here's what you've got to have. Let's work it out. Yeah. You get into government, you get into statutory notices, and that sort of frank communication goes right out the window. Um, we have an issue. We're going to
have to cut the budget. As I said, we're going to have to pay for the vital municipal services that we need. Um, and the vineyards, the vineyards just got repaved. I got $286,000 out of the last fiscal budget for one
neighborhood. The roads pretty much generally speaking, streets are city, roads are county. We pay a lot of money in impact fees especially for these developments and that money goes to the county for the
roads. One of the things which uh I I I tag amendment five. There was also an amendment seven I think which was for a transportation committee of the municipalities to get with the county and get transparency into exactly where
our road and transportation impact fees are simply said when a development comes in the county says you're going to impact the roads in the next two years this amount and they take that money and it goes into a big pool and we never get
any insight no municipality No one gets any insight into Orange County where that money goes. One of the things that I've proposed, I went to the county charter meeting and we got amendment 7 and people are working. I'm on the metro
plan for uh Tri County Transportation. What we'd like is a simple rule with Orange County. If you tell us that there's going to be a million dollar impact within two years because of these giant apartments going in Apakka, spend
that money within two years and don't send it to the Orange County Convention Center. Um, you heard earlier about the red light. There are serious communication problems. There are serious leadership failures.
uh he doesn't want to say it because he has to work with him. Um at Orange County, uh there's a big election coming in Orange County. They're redistricting. They're adding new commissioners. There's going to be a county mayor's
race. And frankly, right now, everybody I talked to, no one can get anything done with Orange County. And we need reform at the county. So, as Rosemary said and others said, go to the county commission meetings and make sure you
vote. We have the lowest voter turnout of anybody. And so, we need you to come. We need you to speak. We need you to go to your county officials, Christine Moore particularly, and we need you to vote. Um, but again,
thank you for sharing your views and your objections. That's pretty much all I have. But I I just want to I just want to emphasize as many of you were speaking many of times I was thinking uh they
don't understand it's worse than they think. Um this is going it the language special assessment I think we're all used to it in our HOAs or our condo is like a the roof has a leak and we need a one-time special assessment.
That's just a term, a state term. This is a recurring fire fee and it's going to be paid every year and probably it needs to be increased every year. And we have a lot of challenges. We have, if you think about it, we have a lot of recreational activities. We
have music fest. We just did a beautiful Fourth of July party, block party. Maybe some of those things are going to be optional for a few years while we tighten our belt. and we're getting ready to start the budget process. We're going to have a long budget process for the September 30th end of year. And um
that's why I wasn't prepared at this time. I know this the staff has to go ahead and propose a tenative millillage, but I wasn't prepared to do that until we had this discussion about the fire. So, um those are my comments. Thank you, Mayor.
Commissioner Wills, there's some things I will agree with Mr. Kennedy on and there's some things I will not agree with Mr. Kennedy on. First of all, on item six that we voted on, there's we have a time frame that we have to report for the trim bill. So 5.50, if this is not approved, let's
just say this is not approved tonight, we need to have the budget amount, budget millage rate set, not set, but announced. So that is the reason that item six is on the agenda tonight. Um, so I think it was very clear. It's
always something that we want to keep the millage rate at. We want to keep I want to keep the military rate where it is. I'm not here to increase it. As for the person who said we don't look like we smile up here, well, do you think we want to smile if we're sitting here looking to put a high fee on your taxes?
Do you think I'm going to sit here and smile? That's very insincere. So, whoever said that, I'm sorry if you think I should smile. I'll just smile for you as I'm sticking it to you. How do you like that? No, that's not the way it goes. Okay? We have to sit here and listen and be attentive.
Maybe smile. Well, I'm glad you got to smile, but I don't I don't find it enjoyable to tell my residents that I have to increase what their tax bill is going to look like. That's not fun to me. Second of all, I'll go back to what I said when
I spoke earlier about home rule. Do you think that when I go and spend a three or four days in Tallahassee away from my family that my one voice counts? No. I need all of your voices. All voices count. And that's something we deal with
Florida League of Cities. It's not just their job to go speak for us. It's our job. And I, you know, we can sit here. I'd love to see a hundred people in here. I'd love to see a hundred people in here every meeting telling me what they like and don't like, but I don't
hear that. So, I need your voices. Voices unite. So, I'll go off my soap box about that because I talk about that periodically. The other thing is, you know, we can talk about the general budget. When we talked about school resource officers,
we had folks writing us and telling us they want school resource officers. It costs money. We're not getting all the money back, but you want those. You want your roads repaved. You want sidewalks. I've had more
discussion with my residents regarding sidewalks and roads. You want those. We have to pay for it. I hate to say it that way. I'm not going to smile when I say it either. Um, we I'm sorry. I wrote some notes and
hopefully I can read my notes. Um, you know, I know we have a lot of apartments. We do. They're going to pay just as we are. Um, and that's going to be passed on to the tenants. We know that. You know that.
Um, I know that I I'm on a fixed income. I know that. Do I like the idea that I have to pay more? But you know what? one call to the fire department will pay my money back if that saves my life or my neighbor's life or my friend's life. You cut me out of a car when someone hits me
with all the traffic we have. Guess what? That one fee I pay is worth it. Well worth it. I don't I I'm sorry I didn't write down what I'm going to be paying. Let's just say I'm paying $250. One call when I'm laying on the floor is
well worth that money. We can complain about it, but when someone says they need they need help because there was an accident, you want to donate. But will you donate to yourself that you're laying on the floor or your father's laying on the floor or
your mother or whatever? Is that well worth that $250, $300? Yes, it is. It's worth it to me. Um I'm sorry. Let me go back and read some of my notes. I know I'm disagreeing, but yet I will dis I will disagree with Mr.
Kennedy as I'm sure I will disagree with the mayor and m um Mr. Oliver. I always get that. Why do I get to the problem when I get to the end? Mr. Oliver, I'm sure we're we're going to disagree and Richard's not here. Um please remember Walmart is
going to pay. Publix is going to pay. Everyone is going to pay. There's a few exceptions, but to make it equitable amongst everyone, we have we may have I'm haven't I'm still thinking and I wait for more
discussion up here, but some folks who may have a $25,000 assessed value, if we go up to 550, their taxes may raise $15. My taxes will go up 90.
So someone's we're gonna pay no matter what. It's gonna have to we're going to have to come to that. I agree that we should have been increasing things on a slow lower percentage rate each year. You know, water is expensive. We haven't gone up in water in years. I hate to
tell you that might be coming down the pike. But should we have done something incre in increments? Yes. We've had some great assessed years, great values where the values of the property have gone up. So guess what? Taxes went up.
But we should have been doing increments. I agree with you 100%. And as for privatizing, I know it was talked about maybe we should make some issues regarding privatize. I'm the old rule. I don't like privatizing. I like when I like when you call the city of Akoi, you
get an answer. I want to compare. When you call your county commissioner, does she or he, I don't know where where we landing here, call you back right away? No. I've got asked weeks later, "Did I get back with you?"
No. My residents can attest that I've probably called them back, except if I'm on vacation. I have called them back within hours, maybe a day, but I have called them back. Do you get the same services from the county that you get from the city? No. Can you walk in here
and get one of us to speak with you? Go down to the county and get the same. You don't. But you're paying the county, aren't you? I'm paying the county just about what I'm paying the city of AOE. And I can get police service like this. But when you're in the county, you're paying an MSTU of almost what? 2.8%.
Sorry, my notes are here. 2.8 mills. Guess what? People who lived in the county have annexed the city. They're getting services that they didn't get when they were in the county. So, I mean, I'm going all over the board here. I'm sorry, but I just want you to know what you're getting from AOE is well
worth it. And one call that fire department to come pull me off the floor if something happens is well worth that $300 I'm going to pay. I don't think I have any more notes that I'll go off on, but um I just want you
to know too, just as your voice is important here, your voice is important in Tallahassee. And it's not just for us because I'm probably one I know the mayor, we spent some time in Tallahassee this year. Do you sometimes feel like it's falling on deaf ears? Yes, I'll say
that out loud. But guess what? When they start coming down with unfunded mandates, who's going to pay you? And who's the one that's got to tell you? You've got to pay us. So that's maybe why I don't look so happy up here all the time. I love doing this. I've been
doing it for 16 years. I love doing what I do, but I do not like telling you that I have to increase any of your taxes. That's not fun. Sorry, I'll go on. I finished my soap
box now. You Thank you, mayor. Yes. You're up. That's true. All right. I always try to take things from more of a simplistic approach and and build from there. It's kind of like the the truck stuck them under the bridge and the
little kid comes along. So, I just let air out the tires. Unfortunately, this situation is not not not such a a simplistic uh situation with a simplistic solution.
I don't like it. I don't like the idea of telling residents that they have to u pay a 100% more than what they paid the year before. I don't like it. I feel like you I have my bill right here. I've been sitting here reading this thing over and over
and over again. That's why we've been talking and looking at the language in this in this this letter that we received and it then it uh it's just not good. And I'm reading this letter and it says that we have to raise 44.4
million just to cover 36% of the total bill. there's another 64% to be covered. So, if you remember the chart that that they showed there, 13 13 point something million dollars, right? At 100% that we're charging right now, you still got
another 64% to cover. It had to be covered at some point. I don't like that. And I'll tell you why I don't like that. Because I'm going to tell you about apples and oranges. And and most people think that, well, apples is apples, oranges are oranges. I'm gonna tell you how apples relate to oranges.
Lady talked about the golf course. She said, "Didn't we spend $4.5 million on the golf course?" And I've got a couple of calls. I talked to a citizen up until like 9:30 one night that brought it to my attention. And I had to think about that while I'm sitting there upset about this letter that I'm reading
to her and she's reading her letter to me and and we're sitting there talking about this and I'm like, "Oh, you know what? We took $4.5 million from our general fund, moved it to our water fund to cover this fee to take over the golf course or have the golf course owners to
pay them out so they can move and we can bring in a permanent operator. She said to me, she said, "You know what? Does the city own the land?" I said, "Yes, we own the land. 300 acres of land. We own that land. We got skin in the game." So she says,"Wh did we become the bank and we got the
the land as opposed to hiring a permanent operator to bring in the $4 million, $4.5 million and partner with us, public private partnership, so we both got skin in the game, right?" I said, "Hm, that's a very interesting point you make because if we
still had that $4.5 million in in our general fund, we wouldn't be having this conversations right now about 100%. we could actually look at look at a step process to bring it to 64% over the next five years. Yeah. So that made me mad.
That made me upset to think about that. I just we just put $4.5 million on out there that we didn't have to. But that's gone. And I can't do anything about that. We can't do anything about that. That's that's that's done. and we're actually bringing in an operator
that's going to partner with the city that we can actually have a better golf course. It's okay. That's the apples and oranges analogy because those apples that we gave away could have actually saved us over here on this side where we wouldn't be having this conversation and figuring out a way that we can cover the other 64% which is another so many
million dollars to get us to 13 million. But we're here and and I understand the importance of of you don't know what you need until you need it. We have a ISO rating. I think ISO1 when
we brought in the fire look when we actually brought the ladder truck in and we put it in service. We have ISO1 rating. That helps us our taxes. Every city that has a fire department with a ISO1 rating, it helps with the the tax implications whether from the county or the municipality. I understand that. I'm
okay with that. I understand the need for the fire trucks. I understand I understand the needs that we have here for our fire and fire safety, fire rescue. Um but one of the things that we and I think I'm going to echo some things that that has
already been said already. The fact that Tallahassee is dictating some things that we have no control over. I wrote down I wrote this down. What is Tallahassee going to do is going to predicate on how we move and how we operate and what and how we
assess our our taxes, our military and all those things. So the question I have is if we raise if if if if we don't pass this tonight, what would our mill rate look like if we have to raise it? What what what would that percentage be?
Um, Commissioner Oliver, um, I, and I want everyone in here to know, I intentionally put the tenative millage where it's at because if you don't, and I told the commission this last year when we raised police salaries by 20%. You either had to increase the fire fee
to create more room in the general fund or you had to go up on the millage. I set it at 5.5. 5.3 5.35 would probably do it, but we don't know what what
that's going to really be on paper. Right now, the 4.95 is not 4.95. There it's going to that the real number is going to be much less than the 4.95 because of amendment five because um there are fewer people paying their
taxes. Um so we have we have less um collection rate the collection rate is is lower um as of right now. Um and then with what Tallahassee is looking at we don't know how that impact is going to be. So um that if we set it at 5.5 it
may be more like 5.1. We don't know. So that's that's the the difficulty in this situation. And you know, I understand no one no one likes um having to deal with an increase like this that we've
proposed, but it was the fairest way we could aortion it across all property owners. And um we have to do that. And you know, I we did paint a picture. This is a recurring thing. The cost of the
fire department and police department. um we we haven't in the last 10 years had the revenue to cover the entire cost of it. Um we've been living and dying by the increase in property values and yes the commission has lowered the
millillage um over a long period of time and that looks great but we make that up when property values go up. Well those are leveling off now. So, um, instead of seeing these 9 10 12% increases in
values every year, it's it's more like 5 6%. And it's really lower than that when you consider the collection rates and you consider the new exemptions that the legislature has put in. We're not really playing. A dollar is not really a dollar. It's more like 65 cents. So, you
know, this is this is something it's it's a one or the other. Um, if the commission decides not to put this fee increase in, then you will have to increase the miller rate and we'll have to guess what um that real number is going to be based on the exemptions and
what we think Tallahassee may do um as far as that goes. And I I did enter into the record so that everyone would know that we are trying to propose things that will help create um revenues for us that we can aortion directly to public
safety. Um but that's subject to a special session that's going to be held in September October and and um we just don't know. So, so the problem is we have increased 100%.
We've proposed a 100% assessment still with a 64% deficit. So, if we delay that and say, you know, let's just do it over so many years, let's say five years. So, 64% here, we're here at 100% and look
what happens. See what happens that we never reach our mark because something's got to happen. As Commissioner Kenny said, it's going to get worse as prices go up and the materials and the things that it takes to run a fire department as it go up, we're chasing we're chasing a number and we still
don't know what Tallahass is going to do with the property taxes. Is it going to be a a cap rate or is it going to percentage rate? We don't know that. How we be how are we going to be affected by that? It's going we're going to have to make some tough decisions. And sitting here from this position right here, it
it it you have to make tough decisions from time to time. I I I feel I feel good. Richard is gone. I mean, I wish I was where Richard was at right now. He's on vacation. I want to be on vacation with Richard. But unfortunately, I'm here and I have to make a decision.
While I understand the need, but I al but I also understand the history of just a few months ago how we lost soap 4.5. I I want to say lost, but it's gone. And it's going to take us 10 years to get it back.
About 10 years to get that money back. But right now here, what we facing, we're facing what we're facing right here, right now. And that is the safety of our citizens by use of a fire assessment. It's a tough decision to make. is tough
on all of us because I don't I don't want to pay this and I know you guys don't want to pay it because some folks on a fixed income and I feel I feel for you on that. We don't make a lot here but we love what we do and I believe that everyone up here wants the best for our citizens
and the best for our city. We don't always agree about how we get there, but we all trying to get to the same place, and that is to make sure that our citizens are protected, they're safe, they're taken care of, and they have a a quality of life that they can be proud
of here in this city. That's all I got real quick about the golf course. the golf course last month after paying expenses with somebody there managing it after paying expenses gave us a check
for $105,000. So figure that up times 12 that 4 and a.5 million it won't take long to pay it back cuz we giving the money back. It's not we're not that's a cityowned property. We're not selling it
to anybody. It makes money. It'll make more money in there. They have and you know too, it runs 60 to 70,000 rounds of goth through that place when we it had to be bought back because the lease was another 40 I don't know 40 or 50 years
with the lease left on them and they were letting it go. They didn't do the management to it. They didn't take care of it. It was not in the best shape it should be in. So just I don't have have we got this this month's tally yet? The
bids are due by first week of August. No, I'm talking about the revenue. Oh, the revenue for the financial statement. I'm supposed to get it Friday. You're going to make a million this year back off the golf course where we wasn't getting anything out of it when these guys had it. So now we are getting
money. Fire truck. I can't hear you. Sound like the fire truck. Yeah. Well, the fire trucks have gone up because if if you I went seven years ago, I think it was where they bought the other one and I thought I think it was where chief was it 700,000 or
something like that? Six. The last one we bought was 600,000. They roll them out of there like fast and furious. The uh I'm going to skip around here. They got the cost to the city for
services for the household is $3,900. The revenue collected per household is $1,300. So, do we raise all your taxes up to cover that cost to have everything you want to have? And
let me tell you something, you cut out the ball fields for these kitties or you cut out the parks for the doggy park and see what the citizens going to be in here. Then they're going to come in here and hate to call it the word, but hell it it that's what's going to happen. You can't cut out the benefits for people.
And what irks me about the county and none of How many of you been to the county office or the county meeting? I know you do, Jim. Two or three, four. We pay them impact fee credits on everything we do. They get impact fee
credits, but we don't get it back. But nobody goes over there. I've wrote them letters. I wrote the county school board a letter one time a couple years ago because we' paid them like in seven or eight years we'd paid them over $20 million in impact fee. You think they've
built a school here in Okoy? No. No. But they take that money. They take that money and go other places with it. But I'm not ra I don't want to raise the millillage. I'm like that gentleman said I want a retirement income. I'm also a
disabled veteran, which that just, you know, if it and I make enough that I can pay the fee, but I've got kids that it's going to be tough on my children. I got five kids that live here. It's going to be tough on them and a couple grandkids that live here. But I have to do what's
right for the city. We cannot It's like talking to the county. We want them to give us Okoy Papa Road where we can fourlane it when this sports facility comes in and pays us. So, we'll raise fix the road because everybody's talking about a popky though. They said
6,000 cars. You're right. Because go to a popka on the other north side of town and look at all the apartments and everything they've built over there. Guess where they come? They come down Oakway Pop Road, McCormack Road, and come down Clark Road, which we built. That was County Road. We built four lanes. And you're talking about the
cost. Clark Road went double from what they count told us it was going to cost us. Yeah, this building costs more. who's not sensible enough to think that the building ain't gonna cost more than what when you start. So that's it. It it it goes that way. But I I'm I'm like
Commissioner Wilson. I'm not for raising the millage. You want to raise the millillage and it's going to start going that way. The u the fire fee can be paid quarterly. When this happened 13 years ago, it told everybody there, file the way you want to pay it. You can pay it
quarterly or you can pay it by the year. It's like it's the the fee goes for G uh garbage and the storm water fee. You can pay it quarterly. Let's see here. We we're in a pickle here because when
everybody raises the rates last here back a few months ago, we raised what 20 something% on the police salaries. We were we were at 42,000 start. Everybody else has gone to 62,000 or something like that. We got together, Winter Garden, Win the Mayor, us and
Apakka. We all were stuck in the middle there. We weren't going to get anybody. We were 15 officers short to cover the citizens in the town. So what do you do? You don't raise the sirens and you don't have employees. You don't get them. They're not coming. Cuz they want the money. And now they're
they're talking about changing firefighter. Nothing against the chief and all that. They're going to give them one day on and three days off is what they're working to get. They're gonna get 72 days off. They're gonna come there and work one day. We we did the uh
we did the uh ambulances that I we were told I was told that that would probably pay for itself. That don't pay for itself, folks. A lot of people don't pay. When they don't pay, we got to pay it. The fire department gets paid, ambulances get paid.
the um and I I'd love to see you get money out of the 408, the 429 and those people. I can guarantee you that won't happen. They're they don't live here in town. They might some of them that work for them might live here in town, but they I'm sure ain't going to pay us, you
know. But the the city has to stay just like picking up garbage. I get I get every day I get calls from somebody about some the sand. Somebody called me about the sand on the side of Silverstar Road. They wanted us to go there and
sweep it off. I mean, the garbage, the the recycling, recycling. We still do recycling, but go around town and see the recycling bins and see what's in them. They're putting construction equipment. They're putting everything besides recycling and then they bring them back.
And so that's how that works. Believe me, every two weeks my wife makes me take the recycling bin out to the front. still. But I I I I've lived here I hear everybody talking about how long they lived here and the different things that
happened. I've lived here 70 years. 70. We had no fire department. We had a volunteer fire department would the guy that was in the drugstore there, the pharmacist would go out and get in the fire truck and drive it when the fire thing went off. We had two police officers in an old Plymouth.
And that was 1960 something when all that was going on. So, we've come a long way. We've tried to keep that tax. It started about set about eight, nine years ago. The taxes we we lowered them down because people were coming in complaining because the taxes were going up and their valuations on their house
were down at the time. Now, all of a sudden, when the prices go back up, it that's what it is. You're getting a valuation in your house cuz they were mad because our taxes weren't going up on on the houses and they were didn't have evaluation in their houses. But and I I feel for people that's in
business for theself, but this is a huge business. And you're talking about 75 million $80 million. It is huge. Just like when a pipe breaks, except the sewer department or or in in the water department. Take a guess how much that costs to fix. So there's a whole lot of
things that go on here. Nobody understands. But we're not trying. I I know it's tough, but $100 a year and I don't know what we're going to do about next year, Craig, but I'm telling you, we're going to have to address that issue before way before it gets here. But
I like I said, I'm I want to keep saying that I'm I'm not for raising the millage. I won't be voting on that at the member. I think there is some things we can cut out of out maybe on on the budget. I don't have a problem doing you can't cut much of our sire because we don't get much. So, it's pretty much nil
and void, you know. But I I appreciate the citizens coming out. I know it's aggravating. We went to a meeting the other night uh in and district 4 u about 7-Eleven going on Clark Road. Nobody wants it. We don't want I don't
really want it either, but by the law, they can build it there. There is laws that restrict. State government has laws that we can't we can't sidestep them or go over them. So they but there's an issue we maybe can
stop some of it because we on the road beside it or something. We don't give them the rightway. So I can just tell you it's they were unhappy happy people too. But like I said I'm I'm I want to do stuff for citizens. I answer the phone all the time. If you know if you call me
you get a phone call. If I'm not answering it, I'm calling you back. That's the way it's supposed to be. We're here and I and I heard this about why I run for office. I run for office because I came here in 1955. My wife and I both got remarried. We I went in the
military and was gone and come home. I got five kids. I I want to be here. I want my kids to live here. I want them to work here. I want them to be able to live here and enjoy being in this place. This is a great city. We can complain about it and do the stuff. This is a
good place to live. And that's why I moved here. What I wanted I wanted to see us get a police department, a fire department. I wanted to see be able to instead of me walking to Winter Garden to play little league when I was 8 years old through the woods, we got it here. We used to have to walk the winter
garden to play little league. So we had to go to Winter Garden to go to grocery store. So that's all changed. And that's some of the things I want to say. Yeah, I'd love to see all these lands out here and not have still have orange groves on them or still have stuff. But I'm also glad to meet people that come here and
live here. It makes a lot of difference in our city, the different people that move here and you get to know there's a lot of great people living in the city of Okoy. We got 50,000 people. Third largest city in Orange County. So if you get a chance, write your county commissioner letter. If that don't work,
go over there and sit in front of them and ask them to because they're getting a lot of the money we don't get out of it. All right. Anything else? Like I said, we need to vote on that now, Craig. Right. All right. You need to read anything else before we
vote. All right. All right. I need a motion. I can't make the motion. Thank God. I'll venture out there. I'm going to make the motion that we approve the fire
fee as stated on our agenda. Motion made by Commissioner Wilson. Do I hear a second? All righty. Motion's eyes. Do I hear a motion? Make a motion.
Nope. get on. I'll make a motion, uh, which is what I want to do. Um, I think we go back to the drawing board with the fire fee and we create a fire
fund through the budget process and we make the fire fee pay for 100% of the fire department and we lower the millillage. Or I or I recognize that motion. Can I ask a question? Um
Craig, what's the total? What's the total for the fire fee if we did this year? What would be that amount come to? It's at $69.50 per fire protection unit. It would double. It would So basically,
we would be generating 4.4 million instead of the 2.2 million. The only other thing I know to do is you could do you could take it out of reserve. You know, I can't professionally recommend taking out. I didn't say you could. I'm just saying that's the only other alternative I know
is or take a percentage of it out and put it put half of that go that cost. Yeah, because you still got to deal with the 64%. You still got to deal with that. It's still going to be that. But you got to get the money somewhere. You're talking about take it all. It don't look like you're gonna vote to
do the the assessment. Yeah. So, no. What I'm saying is take uh so you've got uh 9 million in the general fund and 4.5 million to get to 13 1.5. So what I'm saying is take the 9 million out of
the general fund and make the whole 13.5 million of fire fee. The fire fee would be four times what it's proposed but the millage would go down $9 million and we cut more. That's that because as I said I think that would give more one to one
transparency puts us down to like 4.5% puts us whatever it would be right now we don't have a second okay um just for clarification if you direct me to do that I have to do something with the proposed budget this
year to account for the 20% pay increase that is now a recurring cost for police. So, if if you direct me to come back with a a um a new fire fee that creates a special separate fire fund and we
shift all of that over to that new fee, then I'm going to need to do a new study, bring it back before the commission, but that doesn't solve the current problem. So the only other way I can recommend is is a millage rate
increase to cover it to cover this year. Now what Commissioner Kenny suggested would allow a drastic mill rate decrease next year but we have to deal with the current year at hand. Um
I is 20 20% of the fire department of the police department salaries isn't $9 million. Can you explain that? No, it was a it was roughly a million and a half dollars that we had to take um after we'd gotten through the budget workshops last year.
So if you lowered the millage the adorum from 23 million to 14 million and then you added the 1.5 million back, you could do the millage still at a reduced rate from 4.95. No costs have still gone up. Well, yeah,
you could if you took the fire all out. Okay. But that doesn't solve the current year's crisis. Fire all out. And that's one of the things that I didn't like. And no, not to be critical, but my you know, in your presentation,
you kept having to mention police because there there is this there was this also uh bad word, but co-mingling of raising the fire fee because we increase police salaries. I think that I was confused. Um,
let's just have the fire fee be the fire department and have it go straight to the fire fund. There's been a lot of comments, uh, people say, "Well, the fire fee doesn't even go to the fire department." Well, let's put it in the fire fund. So, I just think it would be much simpler and more transparent. Maybe
we could have a police fund. We have a utility fund. We have a We have enterprise funds. One more fund. That's my opinion and I'm going to ask you a question too. I just want to make sure we that would that would require a new notice to all the property owners to set
the fee to the sick to 362 and then you'd have to then have the the time to uh the the timeline. So you wouldn't be able to get it in in this trim. You're not getting you're not raising the fire fee above the 13923. So then
for this trim cycle for this budget year and then that's that would have to be next year take an interim step and work towards that as he said in the maximum is 13923 just like just like the millage you can go up to it you can go below you can't go above it this is not by a majority
vote you have to renotice everybody again and then we go to a 5.5 millillage rate and then we take money out of reserve so guess what if we have a hurricane this year you want the stuff cleaned up from the front of your house where do you think We got the money from the last time. We took it out of reserves cuz
FEMA takes five plus years to get the money back. So, this puts us in I mean, it's a very difficult situation that we get put into. But you all liked when your stuff was picked up from your yard. What? Didn't you notice everybody? Well, guess what? That money came out of that money came out of this out of the
reserves because FEMA didn't pay us back for five plus years. They don't pay back in and that and that's even if we got it in five years. Did we get it back in five years? I'm sorry. I'm saying that if we take the money out of reserves, didn't we take the money out of reserves to pay for the when we cleaned up from the
hurricane? First bad, right? Because FEMA, how long did it take for FEMA to give it back? Five plus years, if we even got it back yet. Yeah, we've gotten some of it back. Some of it. Not some. So, the thing is you start taking reserves and then you start affecting your I'm not
our rating for bonds. Correct. When you start pulling it does it opens a whole can of worms. I'm not. So, it's all whatever you have all these little situations that can come up, but it affects our rating for bonds. How do we pay for this city hall? By bonds, Greg?
Yes. Yes. So, obligation bonds. So, then you end up with a hurricane this year and guess what? There goes your rating because we took the money out and we wait five years for FEMA to give it back if they give it back. So, you're kind of in a catch situation.
It's there's it's not an easy situation that we're in here. You know, we need to vote for what we've started with. It sounds as if our medicine. It sounds as if as if uh we we're kind of at an impass because again, I'm hearing several solutions. Um but they all kind of lead back to the same same
way. And we're having this discussion here and we're kind of going round and round saying the same thing. I like the idea of of looking at some cuts. I like the idea of going back and let's say let's look at where can we possibly uh trim the fat here on this thing and how can we actually either maintain the
milit rate where it's at lower the milit rate or at least and at at the very least um pull money from somewhere to be able to cover the fire the fire fee the fire assessment fee or the fire fee. I don't think we can do that up here right here right now. I don't think we can figure that that that equation out right
now. That is an equation that that takes some time to sit back with staff to come back and say this is here's some solutions we came up with based on the discussions that we have that would actually cover this that would actually cover this the solution that or the issue that we're having right now and
that is our fire assessment you're talking about uh mixing um uh uh co-mingling and those kind of things. Yeah. I like the idea of keeping the the police department funding with the police department and the fire with the fire. No mixing or co-mingling of those funds. But it just doesn't sound like
we're gonna we're gonna fix this right now. We could be here all night. We might not fix it tonight because if it's a split vote, you're not going to fix it tonight. No, we can't. All right. You guys haven't solution. All right. So,
what about we Sir, you cannot talk from out there. Okay. I'm sorry, sir. Craig. Um, I want Commissioner, can you read your motion again?
Uh, so my motion is to recalculate what the fire fee would be if it solely funded the a separate fire fund and reduce the advalorum by that amount and lower the millage.
The fee is calculated to cover 100%. It's in the It's just that we set that initial notice at 13923. So, we would have to reset it to the maximum rate, but it would have to fall in the guidelines to meet the trim for next year. So, we'd be here next year actually
accomplishing that. Yeah. Your motion. Uh, is there a second? D second. Mr. Oliver, do you have a motion? I I have a motion that we the motion I have is that we take this back and table
it with the count with the with the uh with the staff to look at solutions to maybe um Oh, I'm sorry. No. Is there a way to we voted for vote for tonight and do it for one year and get the citizens to go along with us at least for a year till we can figure out
to come up with how to solve that problem where we don't have to do it continuously and continuously. Give us give us a break with the citizens. Great idea. We do it. We do it one year. One year and then we work on fixing that problem trying somehow another you came come
back make sure you come back and see. And that way we pay we charge you this year and then we work on a way to solve that problem and try to bounce the county out of some of the money to help us with some of the things we do.
You do one year. I I need to get some clarification. I know we just make the motion and you figure it out. I know is not going to turn it down because it it was said that by that we're going to say what it is for a year. We do this. We do this year.
Then you can figure out what has to happen. Press the button. Yeah, it may have to. I I Okay, I'm gonna make a mo I have to hand the gabble off. All right. I make a motion that we we vote on the u the fire assessment for one year and come and
then we work on solving the problem for the rest of the time during this year to come up with the money and the funds we can do that with. some even looking at what Commissioner Gy said in the in the long term what we do but we we're not going to do anything else tonight it looks like because it's going to be a
bust. So if we can go ahead and say we everybody understand we're doing it for the motion for one year and we're gonna figure it out how we going to solve this problem in the next if we have to cut other things out if we start if we I
don't know how it works with the I do know how it works with the golf money it's got to go into that water fund but it's got to come back to us but I think this way it's going to be transferred from the water fund back to the general fund. Yeah, we I don't know yet. That's Let's don't get into that now either. But I think if we do the one year, you know,
it's a year, we'll figure it out and see what we can do to how we come up with some of the money. I know where we can come up with I know where we can come up with $50,000. Okay. Lot on that motion. We have a motion from the mayor. Do we have a second?
I'll second that. We have a second by Commissioner Kennedy. Any further discussion from anyone? I have a question. Okay. Uh, can I hand it again? No, you got to have it. You got um the uh not so we're in my opinion
we're in the same situation with the notice. The notice says that that will be an ongoing fiscal fee. Is that an issue? Every year you set the fee by resolution if you up or to zero or do well if you zero or keep it up to the same it's just put on the trim.
Okay. Okay. If it's more, we have to go through the statutory process of the language that doesn't work because it's not conversational and send a letter to here this here's the fee. It goes to 32,293 properties we got to send a letter to
telling them what that increase would be. Okay. Let's let's Okay. Are we any any further discussion? How long would it take for us to come with some some some solutions? Um that's kind of a hybrid of what what's been proposed. Uh, I like the idea of what
Commissioner or Commissioner Kenny was talking about. I love that idea, but um, again, I don't want to suffer. Commissioner Wilson, you bring up a great point. A hurricane come, we're not going to take the money out of that. We'll figure that out. That's what I'm saying. I just I would like to know how long would it take for
us to come up with uh a proposal back to the commission for next year. Yeah. Are you asking Okay, we're going to clarif I'm just going to go ahead and clarify this. The mayor would the mayor's motion is to set the fire fee at the stated rate for the one year and then we will come within the next year
address this issue. Um is there any were you adding something to that? No, I just I had a question for staff. I just wanted to know based on this motion right here, one year, how long would you think it would take for the staff to come back with a proposal for the following year?
Just trying just trying to get ahead of next year. Commissioner, we going to start that process during the budget process this year. We'll work on that process. That tells me by by by September 30th, we'll have a solution for next year. Well, do you want to put a picture? We will not say September 30th because
we're we're dealing with budgets. Yeah. And that's that's going to put I think this is something and that's my point. By by this time next year, we will address that. Let's vote. Correct. Okay. No further discussion. Vote.
Motion carries. That was my supposed to say that. Oh, I'm sorry. His habit is habit. I have some responsibility. It's habit. Give me that thing back. Listen. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We going to Now all the
commissioners want to spend their five minutes talking or you want to go home? I have. Oh, okay. I have one thing to ask. I have one thing to ask. Um, I'm gonna as I know that we have to ask All right, hold on. Hold on. We have to ask for permission to use a chamber for an event.
I would like to have a community meeting plan for um I know the pickle ball has submitted their have made a submitt. So I would like to plan a community meeting. So I would like to have the chambers for that meeting. This chamber this who likes pickle ball?
I can use they can with your approval. Come to the meeting and vote yes. Procedure you all adopted. They turned it down. It's going to be inside, too. Inside. Everyone. Yep. Good. Good. Yep.
Bang the gabble. I'm done. We're done. To have nothing to done. Let's get out of here. Sh.