dear heavenly father we thank you through your abundant grace and mercy you've allowed us to come together as brothers and sisters to conduct this city's business and father even though we may come with different experiences different ideologies and different ideas we all come together for the same purpose to make Acoy a better place we
thank you for our first responders and the bravery they shown as they watch over us and Father we ask that you watch over them each and every shift as they watch over us let them watch as they watch over us you watch over them we so carefully give you the praise the honor and 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 roll call commissioner Kennedy here
commissioner Wilson present mayor Johnson here commissioner Fner here commissioner Oliver here all right we have uh presentations and proclamations we have a 2025 volunteer month proclamation some of the volunteers here
tonight if you have to stand up please stand up there you go that's people serve on our volunteer board just give them a hand all right i'm going to read this and then we'll get through we'll let you come up and get a picture i also understand that later on you'll be
receiving a volunteer board members will be receiving a special gift for your service sometime in the next week or two all right the month of April has been designated nationally as a volunteer month to recognize the hard work dedication and passion of volunteers and service members
throughout our community and whereas the month is an opportunity to celebrate and honor the numerous individuals and groups who invest their time to better the community around them and whereas the city of Okcoy is proud to host eight volunteer advisory boards which promote
and maintain a positive relationship between citizens the commission and the city's respective departments and whereas the city's 50 volunteers contribute their time and diligence to keep these positive connections and whereas all citizens of the city of
Okcoy community benefit from the work of these selfless individuals and whereas the city of Okcoy holds great appreciation for their continued dedication and hard work thou therefore the commission of the city of Ocoy does hereby proclaim the month of April 225
as volunteer month in the city of Ocoy and encourage all officials and residents to extend appreciation to the many volunteers who serve our community witness hereof I have him here to set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Okcoy Florida to be affixed this first
day of April 2025 all right y'all want to come on up and get a picture made all the volunteer people we can stand up in the back here's who's going to be the destin
all right you may have to get How you doing do it all get friendly pat you got to get in the front wheels on all right rosemary i got you perfect [Applause]
anybody else have cameras anybody want all right all right thank you very Thank you very much [Applause] there you go all right we have one
more would you like to read it and this and when you get through this lady will come up and make a couple statements okay all right i haven't read this prior so that's right proclamation of water conservation month whereas water is a
basic and essential need of every living creature and whereas the state of Florida water management district and the city of Akoi are working together to increase awareness about the importance of water conservation and whereas the city of AoE and the state of Florida
have designated April typically a dry month when water demands are most actute Florida's water conservation month to educate citizens about how they can help save Florida's precious water resources and whereas the city of Akoi has always encouraged and supported
water conservation through various education programs and special events and whereas every business industry school and citizen can make a difference when it comes to conserving water and whereas every business industry school
and citizen can help by saving water and thus promote a healthy economy and community and whereas efficient irrigation design programming and maintenance can conserve water the city of Akoi the city of Akoi will encourage
citizens and businesses to elevate their irrigation system to potential efficiency enhancements now therefore the city commission and the city of Akoi Florida does hereby proclaim the month of April 2025 as water conservation month the
city of Akoi is calling upon each citizen and business to help protect our precious resource by practicing water saving measures and becoming more aware of the need to save water for this the 27th year of water conservation month
there will be a special focus on irrigation system evaluations in witness thereof I proclaimed to have set well the mayor has and cause the city of Akoi to be affixed the first day of April 2025 as a proclamation the
water conservation month and I gather we will have Desiree Irwin from St john's Water Management will to come forward and accept the proclamation do you have anything you'd like to say i'm sorry i'm jumping in on that no go ahead you you finish that i'm finishing this mr mayor
commissioners I'm Dear Irwin the water conservation coordinator with St john's River Water Management District and I serve on the AWWA committee that runs this proclamation every year and I came here tonight to congratulate a COE you
are a leader in Central Florida in how you implement conservation you've been doing an excellent job for couple of decades now and the district is really would like to congratulate you for your efforts and hope it continues did I meet
you at the spring conservation event and you spoke so highly of a koi which was yes should I say I I was pleased and I think that we as a city should understand how what wonderful things you had to say about our conservation efforts and you deserve every bit of it thank you should I go yeah go down you
go here we'll stand up in the back you need exercise thank [Applause] you thank you thank you all right commissioner gets back on
finish here all right next will be staff report oh yes Mayor and uh members of the commission i have a couple of items of importance um the first one is is a good um followup to the St john's
proclamation and water conservation um I have some great news um the city last week learned that we had received $2.2 $.2 million in grant funding for water resources and I'll let Jen Bowling
who who I've asked to be here tonight to give you a brief overview about the reclaimed water tell you more about but Jen and her staff and some of our other coordinating departments work together but it's primarily a utilities effort um to to bring in these grants and uh
that's something that I'm working on a grant report because we we have a mandate in place to try to get grants where applicable and where it makes sense and our staff's doing a really good job of it police and fire do that uh but these are very impactful right now for a couple reasons and if you
recall a couple meetings ago I um informed the commission about being officially noticed from Orange County that they intend to raise our wholesale reclaim rates um I think I misspoke at that meeting inadvertently when I I mentioned that we pay 61 cents per
gallon and it should be per thousand gallons so I think I I want to dispel any myth there and I've asked Jen to give us a very very brief update so that we can get some of the facts out there um to to our community and this is a
very fluid no pun intended fluid process um right now and and we have several major initiatives underway to make sure that we try to minimize the impact to our citizens so Jen if you don't mind okay commissioners and mayor first I
want to start off with I am very excited to tell you about two grants that we have received award notice on this week the first grant uh is the alternative water supply grant and we would not be successful without these projects without amazing staff and your support
and also the water management district that grant is for a $1.5 million cost share match 50% and we are going to put that money towards the reclaim water man that we are constructing to bring the interconnect down to the new tank
so we greatly appreciate the partnership with both the St john's and D the second one I think you'll be very pleased to hear about we received a grant from D to assist our customers with connection to the sanitary sewer system the grant does
not cover the capital fees but what it does cover is the bulk of the cost for the construction from the cleanout to connection to their home for the septic tank abandonment and also for restoration in their yard so that grant is about $700,000 we've come up with a budget for
each lot and uh we will be coming back to you with both of those agreements to enter into and that is thanks to DEB that it yep isn't that enough well she she's gonna give you a very quick little presentation all right so now uh just
for your really quick your reclaim water update i know we have a busy night tonight um I'm not going to go through the whole timeline uh as you're aware Orange County staff came and met with utility staff back at the end of November to notify us of a rate increase
the basis of the rate increase is the customer class that they consider us to be in when the city signed the agreement in 2012 we were known as uh interruptible without storage the new classification is they would put us as priority and so the
county has indicated that we must have a backup supply to reclaim to be able to qualify for a lower rate so that is a change in the customer class and everyone has to keep in mind that back when we signed this agreement in 2012 it was a much different situation the
county had a lot of reclaim water they needed to sell it we saw a fantastic opportunity for sustainability in our community an opportunity we've partnered with St john's River Water Management District and a number of grants to do retrofit programs and so the whole basis
of the rate increase again is that definition of the customer base so interruptible without storage when we review the agreement there is no reference to backup supply we have done an online search and also in our records we don't find any
reference where the county has requested that we have a backup supply i've contacted the previous two utilities directors they have both indicated that there have been no discussions of this backup supply i am your current utilities director i have been working on your water supply
planning and permitting from about 2006 i did everything that had to do with St johns and there were no discussions during my time as your consultant before joining the city that we were going to need this backup supply we've had numerous discussions with county staff um the first one being
to request the time to design and construct facilities to meet their needs november of 2024 to October 1st of 2025 is not enough time to come up with cost-effective projects let alone to design and to construct them we did
request that we adjust the level of service where when during an emergency situation when reclaimed water is not available we could go to water conservation measures this would basically mimic your emergency water shortage when the district mandates this for
groundwater we would have some design adjustments we'd still have to meet peak demands there's all that engineering that you're not too interested in but the goal was to try to reduce the infrastructure that would be needed for an emergency water shortage we also requested that we could
use reclaimed water from other supplies our own supply or any other supply that we could um receive in our service area they are dictating that we would have to do backup with groundwater so that goes against our
sustainability policy it goes against what the waterman management districts are implementing we are in the special water caution area called the CFWI it goes against all of those sustainability principles so we brought a high level plan to the county to consider because
it's time and money to design and develop these programs and we were told that we must meet their requirements which would be backup supply with groundwater and also to meet the demands that typically you see now so rather than go into an emergency water shortage
so that really dictates level of service staff will say no it doesn't we can meet our service requirements as we wish however we would have to design to the peak demands so what that essentially means is we're paying about 60 cents per thousand
gallons october 1st as you're aware it goes up to $158 a,000 gallons there is no way that we can meet the criteria for the lower rate at this time and by October 1st so aside from the numerous conversations that we've had with the
county we've initiated a rate study we have um no intentions of trying to triple rates that what we see with the county but we need to do this fiscally responsible but also you know we're responsible to our rate payer um we've reached out to the water management district we've had some discussions
about having to do the backup supply with groundwater and we've initiated some feasibility studies um to come up with other options and that's basically it that's where we're at [Music]
craig any more no I just would say we're going to have a a progressively increasing um amount of presentations on this topic because we're looking at multiple options right now um one thing I did want to say is is we've looked at what a customer Well two things one if
someone is not on the reclaim system then they are not impa impacted at all by this okay the second thing is that right now a power user that maybe uses 20,000 gallons a month irrigating
uh which is is you know I don't know how rare that is but that's a lot of water is still only paying about $30 on their bill and and so we're going to make every effort to try to minimize any rate increase um it's certainly not
going to double commenure it with what Orange County is doing to us you know we would probably try to absorb some of it and still continue to look at the project load that we have because we try to take that money and put it back into the system any money on top of what we
charge I mean uh any the money that we make selling it at a higher rate than we purchase it at goes back into the system so we would try to balance that out and see if we could eat some of that while we're trying for some of these longer term solutions and there's a couple that
we have on the drawing board that might allow us at some point to um have have a rate decrease um if they pan out but we they require studies and you know I made the joke to somebody about this demand uh that the county made um giving us
until October 1st that's that's like the equivalent of asking me to run a marathon by October thirst it's not going to happen might could get to a 5K or 10K but there that would be asking the impossible so um I I wanted to just
reemphasize that we're trying to minimize the impacts to the citizens and uh we will continue to update the commission and community as well and mayor I have one secondary item um and I'm I'm not intentionally trying
to cram the me a long meeting here but these are important i've asked Angel Dela Portilla to give you a very brief update on what's happening with Orange County's redistricting um Angel sits on the redistricting committee for Orange County and this is an important topic
for all of our citizens and um he has a brief update and can answer a few questions good evening uh mayor and commissioners Mr city Manager um as uh Mr tadrick's pointed out I uh am serving on the Orange County uh mid dennial
redistricting committee i was appointed by District 2 Commissioner Christine Moore as a representative for the city of Okoy she's also appointed former mayor Joe Kilshimer from Aapka to represent the the north part of the district so um the reason we we are
going the county is going through a redistricting is that last year the Orange County charter uh had a ballot item to increase asking the voters to increase the county from six to eight and it passed so uh beginning uh in
February the county commission appointed uh 15 members including myself the mayor got three appointees and each of the commissioners got two appointees to serve on this redistricting committee and essentially what we're doing is we're taking the county's uh existing maps of districts we have we currently
have six districts of approximately 250,000 residents and we're adding two so we're going to be reducing each district by 75,000 people district one is actually the largest district district one is just uh it's Winter Garden Horizons West that has grown it's
been the fastest growing district in the county they have 275,000 residents so they will lose District 1 will lose 175,000 so the county set up a um a there's a website you can go on uh Orange County redistricting you can Google Orange County redistricting
that'll take you to the website um and if you uh all this all the information uh will be on this uh website uh the maps as they're being presented uh we've had three meetings so far uh we're having a meeting tomorrow in district in in Apopka in downtown Apopka so um all
all these present all the maps will be shown here residents can watch the meetings or can attend in person uh with weekly meetings for the next uh until September um let me see here sorry um let's see i'm sorry
uh okay mapping software right so this takes you to uh the map so this these are the current districts one through six so we're going to be adding two more districts uh seven and eight uh and all the information will be uploaded uh on
this site if residents are able to maps received the maps as they're submitted they'll be received uh there's actually access to the mapping software uh where you can go on here mapping tools and get set up uh and uh and then set up your your maps
and all that you can communicate with members of the committee and submit your own maps uh and that's pretty much it i will I will add that this is going to have a a tremendous effect on Orange County government when you have uh two additional districts plus there's two
commissioners that are termed out the mayor is termed will be termed down in 2026 and then uh you have one commissioner that's going to be resigning her seat to run for mayor you're going to have six elections so the makeup of the county commission will have nine members the mayor in eight
districts you're going to have uh you're going to have six elections in 2026 so you'll have a whole new board there'll be a new county administrator new county attorney so it'll be a new day in Orange County uh late 2026 so I'm
available to answer any questions but I thank you for the opportunity to speak and I'll present back over the summer with with some maps and all that uh as this goes forward any questions mayor anybody have any questions
sure uh how many residents are in district 2 and how many will we lose district 2 has approximately 250,000 residents uh based on the 2020 census right that's the data that we we have to use the data from the 2020 census so
district two will lose 75,000 residents each district will lose approximately 75 with the exception of district one which will lose about 100,000 okay thank you okay anything else i have a question um what is is it looking like we're trying to keep AOE in one district because you
know we've had it different ways currently Okcoy uh is in district two that's a result of the last uh census uh we were previously uh split where half of Okoy where I live on the south side so that was in district one and then the north side of the city was is in
district two the district the the redistricting committee of 2021 put Ooy all in one district so more than likely we will likely remain in one district whether it's district one or district two which that's still TBD to be determined
anybody else all right thank you all right thank you mayor thank you thank you nothing further i only have one question for the city manager regarding the first item that you mentioned about the um um the water storage and supply yes
according to the um I guess the agreement that that that they presented to us uh to have this done by October 1st were there any um uh thoughts of allowing us to use another city's backup system i'm glad you asked that because
um we have a neighbor who has surplus that they provide to Forest Lake Golf Course and that was the first group that we turned to was the city of Winter Garden and Orange County emphatically informed um Miss Bowling our utilities
director that we couldn't use any other reclaim sources as our backup un uninterruptible backup supply so that's again as Jen stated far better than me they're dictating policy and level service to us um so we have to dig a
groundwater well which goes against the whole point of conservation because reclaim is the everyone's alternative water supply that was written in in the actual contract the actual agreement was that written that we could not do that no um
okay it was not in any agreement that I've seen they just were informed of that and um and Jen is I don't know if Jyn's still here she can answer that better than me but um my understanding currently is that um they just said we
said "Well we have adequate supply from from a neighboring city uh we can use that and then apply a policy uh matrix uh to limit use while your system is down." on and he said "No you you can you can only use a groundwater supply as
a backup." Okay well I thought I thought we were going to bring that up anyway Craig because we went to the meeting the other day so why didn't you bring that up uh because uh that needs to be vetted further um before we bring that to the commission i know but you you brought it
up now so that's what I'm saying so it was why we didn't bring it up while ago because we did meet with Winter Garden and Popka last week talked about that right we did um and the less I know I know we say about that um but it's let's
just get it all out in the open um we are exploring alternatives that could be very beneficial to the city um but we haven't gotten far enough along with the engineering and the discussion but there there are possibilities that we are trying to vet right now with other
cities that might actually allow us to just tell Orange County that they're our backup but um that's not something that I want to portray as such because we are going to have to continue to work with Orange County until we have this thing
completely sorted out what I can tell you is that we have a plan in place to address short medium and long range with this topic in relation to this and we are going to try to minimize the impact to citizens um and uh we will be
bringing lots of information back to the commission um as we get further along into the understanding of how we're going to exactly tackle it and All right all right jen did you want to add
anything to that i apologize i was All right thank you we're going to move on to the public to the public comments Mr moyer good evening dr jim Moyer Ardan Park North uh
elected Orange Soil and Water Conservation District to supervisor i had no idea this was on the agenda tonight but I am here to help in any way i was couple minutes late to the
meeting because I emailed assistency manager uh Mike Rumor and the city manager and the mayor to ask them on next agenda if I could do a presentation about water
what I'm going to quickly mention today has to do with the big picture the global perspective of water now water is life and it's a matter of life and death as you may know the two most populated
countries in the world are India and China 18 and 17% of the world's population respectively india has a problem because 70% of all its water that you could see
is severely polluted china has a problem because they are 17% of the world's population and they only have 6% of fresh water now the the countries that are
advanced when it comes to water and desalination of seawater is the Gulf the rich oil country with Saudi Arabia leading the way the United States has advanced
significantly in the last about 15 years but the problem is it's really only California Arizona Texas and Florida it's really only our four states that are really doing much about it but what
I'd like to express to you if you're familiar at all with Africa subsaharan Africa has 49 countries which is roughly 25% of the world's
population none of those countries have 50% or more accessible clean water and two countries Chad and Central African
Republic 6% 6% of the country's population has access to drinkable water so something needs to be done globally i'm asking
permission in the next agenda if possible to do a local Florida related discussion on order thank you very much for your time and God bless thank you all right u pronounced this right
chris do you want to move chris or how you how you doing i'm very good how are you all right hello everybody uh my name is Chris Benomo i live in the community of Westmeir uh I'm here before you Mayor Johnson esteemed city commissioners
really with just a message of appreciation uh I was unable to attend the February 18th meeting where you guys approved an ordinance to to make changes to our city arbor code uh I did have an opportunity to read about it to watch uh to watch the video i just want to say
thank you from from the bottom of my heart uh the trees are a pretty big issue for me and my community and the efforts that you have made and that of the city are very much appreciated thank you so much thank you very much for coming and saying that thank you thank you
Steven Lewis mr chamber good evening Mayor Johnson and city commission very much appreciate y'all giving me the opportunity for just a couple minutes my name is Steven Lewis and I'm the president and CEO of the West Orange Chamber of Commerce uh I'm
here this evening to say thank you to each of you and your staff for your assistance in helping us to execute our signature event best fest last week at Bill Breeze Park uh the event drew over 60 vendors from across West Orange County including many from right here in
Okoi and over a thousand attendees from across Central Florida and showcased the city's incredible venue and hospitality on a beautiful central Florida evening city Manager Shadri thank you and your staff for your support and assistance in working through the permitting and
logistics process and all that you did to help my staff ensure that the event went off without a hitch the West Orange Chamber of Commerce greatly appreciates and values the long-standing relationship with the city and looks forward to working with each of you and your staff on this event and others as
we continue to work together to advance community collaboration and leadership thank you all very much job well done last week in hosting us here in Okoi thank you appreciate it very much turned out great good weather too appreciate it chamber of Commerce weather yeah
yeah all right this one's um Michael Rogers it's about item three on the consent agenda thank you my name is Michael Rogers and I'm here with an objection to the expansion of automated license plate
readers i don't know when they were added if they were here when I moved to Okoi 3 years ago it was not obvious to me i have an objection in principle it's warrantless mass surveillance this isn't a question about red light cameras which are enforcing a specific law this is a hammer looking for a nail yes these
cameras are in a public place and there's no expectation of privacy but it's invasive and in this case without oversight my concern is that additional cameras could eventually be used for something like a car tax scheme that's being currently enacted in New York in London um Flock is also a private
company this isn't our police department increasing patrols flock doesn't have constitutional limitations that any governmental institution does by hiring Flock cities are attempting to bypass the question of legality ethics and constitutionality practical objection is that Flock has a
profit motive there's no due process or oversight as we already discussed and you have no control over what they do with their data products they can sell it to data brokers they can sell it to other cities and companies that subscribe they can sell it to your car insurance company to raise rates on you and they track you wherever they see you
all with a profit motive uh well they have no oversight we as citizens lack a certain transparency about what's happening in our city in some cases I have to file a public records request to find out why six police vehicles in were in my neighborhood after the acknowledged
incident was over um we also have an issue with urban camping and squatting on undeveloped land around the city and that's not being addressed um I can appreciate the offer that's been made by Orange County Sheriff's Office it's it's generous and I I think we should consider whether we could do something else with those funds if they're willing
um I think we'd personally be better served uh with something like the ability to search incidents on a calls for service log website like what um Orange County and Orlando Police Department already have um thank you for your time and that concludes my remarks
thank you Greg any of the police chiefs here chief Auburn is here and uh we can bring him out if you'd like he's in the back give him Let's give him a second to to get out here good evening Mayors
are we talking about the cameras the license plate readers yes sir well the license plate readers are a part of a uh UIC grant which is a urban area security initiative uh we're we're thankful that Orange County was considerate enough to think of us to to allow us to put these
cameras here these cameras can assist with uh locating your stolen vehicles loss of stolen license plates often time we hear of Amber Alerts where we have a missing senior citizen as well as a missing juvenile so there's no um sharing of information with the
insurance companies that information stays in house we do share amongst other law enforcement agencies if they are looking for any suspect that have uh committed any crimes anywhere because as as long as a vehicle's tag has been entered in the system as stolen or
related to some type of violent crime that vehicle once it passes one of those cameras we will get an alert and we will be able to dispatch our units in that area to try to locate either that vehicle or the people responsible for
committing that crime did you you need you need to come back up to the to the mic ask your question i'm not sorry i'm not going i'll let you ask one question we How long have they
been in use these cameras uh the five that are on consent will be installed in the near future but license plate readers have been in use um since the early 20s
2010 2015 so this is no new tactic or practice that we're using but the cameras are owned and operated by Flock Safety and not by the city of Okoi is is that correct no they are owned by
Orange County because it's part of their grant flock doesn't own them flock sells them to us no Flock does not own them they're just the manufacturers of the cameras okay all right
thank you you're welcome all right thanks Chief you're welcome all right consent agenda i'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda consent agenda go ahead i'm in the
middle what did you say you made a motion i'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda i'll second seconded by Commissioner Wilson all right let's vote sorry motion carries unanimously all
right go down to item um first reading of ordinance item number eight first read of ordinance for 2025 budget amendment chief account an ordinance of the city of Akoi Orange
County Florida relating to the city budget amending the city budget adopted by ordinance 2024 uh-28 for the fiscal year beginning October 1st 2024 and ending September 30th 2025 by providing for increase of appropriations providing
for separability providing an effective date all right this will be coming back what's today april 15th april April the 15th it'll be back for the second reading and if you have any public comments you can make it then all right second reading of ordinance public hearings none public
hearings none regular agenda item number nine approval of seventh amendment to ground lease agreement with Forest Lake Golf Club LLP and authorization to release a request for proposal for a permanent operator
why would we not have done I'm uh before we do that I want to make I want to move somebody up we'll go back because I want to ask you a question about that why we didn't do the temporary one in front of that one so Doug go ahead on number 11 discussion and direction regarding the
2025 neighborhood matching grant programs thank you uh good evening mayor and commissioners i'm Doug Gaines director uh sorry deputy director of parks and leisure services and this evening I'm bringing to you for discussion the neighborhood matching grants program and whether to
accept last year's recipients for this year only this is because we've only received three applications with one pending we normally receive about a minimum of 10 kind of an off year we've sent two press releases posted several times on the city's Facebook page sent
emails directly to the HOAs and created flyers for distribution the original submission due date was March 14th and we only received two applications so we extended the deadline to March 28th after still having only received two applications we
extended it to April 7th and ask you the commission to reach out to your constituents to gauge an interest we did receive a call from an HOA last week asking if they could submit again this year even though they received a grant last year um this is due to the
fact that in October 15 2019 uh commission meeting new criteria was approved by the commission which included the following clause regardless if the neighborhood has has an HOA or not subdivisions may only apply for grant funds every other year
so tonight staff is asking the commission to discuss accepting applications from last year's recipients for this year only yeah go ahead Commissioner Wilson i have a comment these grants are near and dear to my heart they've been going on for years as you know Doug so it's not um
surprising I say something um the concern I have is that if we go allowing them to jump ahead one year is that giving other neighborhoods enough time to respond if we're making this April 7th April 8th to be able to get the
three um they have to get three I think was it three or not is it are we sticking to that where they have to we can push it ahead another week or so so that the any other applications that we get they'll have plenty of time but getting
three estimates is sometimes a little difficult for some of them within that period of time um you know and I know that if we the further we extend it it puts you in a disadvantage because October 1st comes along very fast and if the folks don't have the work done or
they're supposed to have it done and have it all should I say sewn up by the time October I mean September 30th comes along yes before that the HOA submissions are really needed to us by August 22nd but we can push that out a week or so so really it'll be on the HOAs to So how
what's what are you looking to extend it to 30 days are you going that far or is that I'm again I'm just Right now it's April 7th so I would maybe say another week and a half or so just so the HOAs have
enough time we'll be putting a press release out for that yes we will doing what you've done because I know you advertised in the West put a notice in the West Orange Times you've done multiple I don't know what's causing HOAs i've been announcing it periodically i think I've put it out
twice in on my email list it's a strange year we've never had this happen it is i would like to give them at least if we could two additional weeks sure would that be Is that putting you at a disadvantage for Not at all the August
it just means they have to move faster that correct they do it's putting them on a deadline correct okay i don't think anybody else I do um I agree partly um the original date
was March 14th and so I don't know that the date is the problem as I uh but I agree I would agree with extending it to April 14th before the next meeting that's two weeks but what I think is the problem or a problem is the application
itself um I reviewed it i think it's a little ownorous and could be revamped so what I would like to do is uh extend the date if you don't have enough participation if you have enough first time or more than a year ago but uh if
you do if you don't have enough participation open it to people to apply and then let's uh let's revamp this for next year let's take a look at this is it the right amount is it too much and what can we do with the process and the application to make it maybe
maybe maybe most HOAs have staff and can comply with that but especially some of the non-HOAs I think have problems uh fulfilling the the requirement we did revamp it a couple years ago I believe and it was it's really simplified compared to what it was it used to have to go through finance and all kinds of
calculations i believe you me but it's still there yeah again I know it's such a benefit to our residents because again in the long run it beautifies the Koi and that's the whole prompt to me that's one of the benefits of it and whether it's a
community that takes and you know we've opened it up to communities not I know it was previously mostly HOAs but if communities want to get together and update maybe their entrance right and making it a little more accessible to them yeah I don't have a problem changing it but what I'd asked is if if
we can if they put in for it if even if they put in for it last year or whatever we go ahead and approve that when you get it ready in the two weeks then during the budget process we do address this issue to change it during the budget process so that way we can get it
straightened out because it'll be another year before it's time anyway and we always have people that put in for that i mean I'm kind of shocked even with the every other year uh rule we've had a minimum of 10 so let's do that if you you got two weeks to put it out try
to put it on the TV or put it out to somebody yep give them the requirements though but make sure they got to do it but let's let's do that then if it's okay with the commissioners we do it during the budget process and change that process do we need a motion for that i have a
question i'm sorry um when do we when do we announce the opening of the grant what what what's the time frame when do we actually announce that when is that that we announced it when do we put it like on our city's website what's the time frame what's the date
public oh it's March 14th is when we accept but it's a couple months before we put the application online and get people ready for it is that what you're asking so sometime in January yes you you you open up to say "Hey uh you can start applying
for the community grant." Correct program correct so you get two months two and a half months to get everything together by the March 14th deadline yes prior to that um is there any advertisement for that anywhere that we
actually do have a community grant program um the reason I asked that because uh I've been to several HA meetings and I would I would talk about that and they would be kind of perplexed as to we didn't know that existed so is there any uh marketing material or any
way we could market this program throughout the year prior to opening up in January we have flyers in the lobby we have it on the electric electronic bulletin board we put it on our website we put it on Facebook um it was in the West Orange Times sorry
the Orange Observer it was in Vox Populi so it gets a lot of traction it's always been there so it's there but is it there starting January or is there year round it's there year round it talks about our our uh grants application and the grants program it's
all there i do notice on our website we have what's called you have this this this area it's like this landing page which is really large that announce events um I've never seen it there so is there perhaps we can kind of maybe move it up and start advertising this a little bit more on the website it's on
there it's on the spotlights it's rotating with all our events and the neighborhood matching grants is on there perfect okay you click on the link and it'll take you to the application and all the information and I always tell my HOAs that I talk to our residents that if they take the application even now I
mean months before and start working on it they can take previous applications and start the process to kind of get moving and get comfortable with the application i've never had a problem with my I District 2's got a great turnout of folks that usually respond all right here's what we need to do the
lawyer says we need to make a motion does somebody make the motion for that i'll make a motion that we extend the uh grant application till April the 15th allowing neighbor one week oh no I'm sorry two weeks you said two weeks two weeks so
that puts us to That's two weeks well it's two weeks past the date of the April yeah well we extended it to April 7th gotcha okay so motion I'm sorry let me start over um to the 25th of April is that gives us two weeks from
the original am I wrong okay extend the date to April 25th accepting applications for uh neighborhoods or HOAs that even applied in the previous year and put in
there that we're going to address the issue through and we will address the issue for application revamping in the next in the within the next year i'll second motion made by Commissioner Wilson Wilson Wilson and Commissioner
seconded by Commissioner Kennedy any more comments no let's vote i'm going to come to your defense right there mayor when we're up here sometimes we forget the names as you're sitting there it's you get nervous i forget a couple times when I'm sitting there and
been with them nine times well it just it's I've done it and all of a sudden it's like who's I called some people at the at the best fest the other night i called a guy George's name Johnny and I called another one something else brother Russell Erno who I've been friends with for 50 years all right encourage you thanks for
moving me up thank you Douggee thanks Doug all right all right we're gonna go to number nine approval of seventh amendment to ground lease agreement with Forest Lake Golf Court Club LLP and authorization to release a
request for purpose for proposal for a permanent operator city attorney yes mayor commissioners thank you thank you very much [Music] better no maybe your phone is doing
something stand over on that one staff that's better i think I think it must have been stand that one microphone either over like this staff better or maybe the other one since you're uh turn one off i think that works got it uh Kurt Artem with the Fishbach Dominic uh
law firm uh city attorney's office uh before I make my presentation I just have to make a comment i was looking up at the screens and noticed of course it's OCOY's 100y year anniversary and I'm thinking well I graduated from Okcoy
High School and I'm thinking well it wasn't that long ago 50 years ago 1975 which is half the age of the city so I'm impressed with my son i just had to say that it really is sorry about that you're telling us your age Kurt yeah I I
did that but I'm thinking well that can't be that old anyway uh I'd like to give you all a brief summary of where we are uh to consider the seventh amendment um in November 2023 the city commenced a review of the golf course and effluent
disposal and reuse system by ZHA forest Lake the tenant of the course of course later requested the city approve J Hospitality as an asenee or exercise the city's right of first refusal for approximately $7.5
million the city noticed Forest Lake for defaults under the lease and the city commission denied the assignment forest Lake resubmitted its request for city uh uh for the city to approve the J hospitality and uh assignment or again
exercise the city's rights of uh right of first refusal a second time but this time for approximately $7.1 million the city denied the request for assignment at that point the city commission given what was uh what had happened to that date directed that the parties mediate
the matter as each of you know know um and each have been separately briefed independently the city and Forest Lake reached a mediated settlement agreement on February 26 2025 regarding the city's notices of default under the lease since
then the city through your city attorneys the city staff and city consultants and Forest Lakes attorneys and its principles have worked tirelessly to reach a seventh amendment that provides the specific terms and details of the settlement that is in your packet and you should uh been
available to the public and it's been available to the commissioners uh with those details I believe since uh late last week Thursday i would like to briefly go over for everyone's benefit a quick summary of the seventh amendment that's in the
packet if the city commission approves the seventh amendment tonight it will be the agreement will be effective today and the following terms primary terms and conditions will apply we we have uh Forest Lake signature on the uh
agreement that's in your packet so it is available if the commission approves this tonight and the and the mayor signs it it will become effective so if the commission approves this agreement tonight the city will have until May 1 a month 2025 to amend the city budget to
provide for payment to Forest Lake of $4.5 million to be paid as follows $750,000 to be paid on or before May 1 2025 $3,750,000 to be paid on or before November 3
2025 the lease to Forest Lake will terminate on May 1 2025 and the city will take over the golf course and effluent disposal and reuse system through an interim operator on May 1 2025 during the six-month period after May 1
2025 that uh the city is to issue an RFP for a long-term operator to operate the golf course and effluent disposal and reuse system which permanent operator is anticipated to start on or about November 3 2025 6 months after uh the
termination of the lease upon approval of the seventh amendment the city will not be able to terminate the lease based on the defaults that were previously issued by the city you remember we had several defaults that we had given to the to Forest Lake and that's regardless
of whether the lease actually terminates on May 1 or the lease continues if the lease does not terminate on May 1 2025 for whatever reason any new notice of default by the city would be based would have to be based on conditions or
breaches that were materially different than the conditions that exist on the effective date for the next one year that's it if if we don't close this deal on May 1 however after that one-year period that limitation on terminating the lease would no longer apply if the
commission approves this and it amends its budget and we close on May one that should not be an issue if the city approves the seventh amendment tonight and does not amend the city budget between now and May one to provide for the $4.5 million this this
month or does not provide for an LOI letter of intent or a bond acceptable to Forest Lake for the second payment the 3,750,000 by May 1 of this year 2025 this seventh amendment would become null
and void other than the one-year limitation on what constitutes a breach so the city commission would not be bound to amend its budget you can't the city cannot legally contract to amend its budget you'll have to go through that process and if you elect not to
amend the budget then uh or and we don't provide a letter of intent or a bond then this seventh amendment would would terminate if the city does amend the city's budget or provide an LOI or bond by May 1 2025 and the lease does
terminate as anticipated and the city or the city's interim operator takes over the golf course on on May 1 2025 but the city later amends its budget to reduce remove or delay that second payment forest lake could under those
circumstances could sue the city so if the commission approves the Sabbath amendment tonight and you amend the budget between now and May 1 or you come up with a letter of intent we come up with a letter of intent or a bond and we're going forward but after that after
May 1 the lease is terminated they're gone but the city then comes back well we changed our mind we're going to we're going to amend our budget uh to um either um reduce remove or delay the second payment at that
point Forest Lake would be able to sue us they're out they've been p they've been out terminated we will pay them only the $750,000 and they would be likely seeking the 3,750 that's highly unlikely but I just had to these are some of the
technical things we had to put into this seventh amendment and I I I need to explain them to you after the termination date that's after May 1 2025 with the exception of Forest Lakes representations and warranties that they're making to the city and any
noticed claims that the city would make against Forest Lake so if we find some pro some things where Forest Lake has misrepresented or hidden something from the city then in that case the city uh would would not release them from that
but the city other than that would release Forest Lake for all matters through through May 1 that's through the termination date and the city's notice claims if we give them a notice assuming there was something that was misread we would still at that point be capped at a
$375,000 recovery um last point I'd like to make is that after the city makes the second payment the 3,750,000 both parties will be released from each other except to the extent that the city has issued to Forest Lake
any claims if we during that period find that there's been misrepresentations um or matters that have been uh the that they knew about that they did not disclose to us uh then at that point we would be able to keep those those notice
claims in place up to the $375,000 we do have Robert Utsie here and other members of the city's consultant team if this commission has any particular questions uh your city manager has done an unbelievable yman's
job uh to get us here he he and uh Kenazelle and Kenazelle's wife they they have been taking time just an amazing amount of time the city attorneys and the city consultants have been at this solid for two weeks and uh the Forest
Lake lawyers have been at it unfortunately it's it's taken this long we thought we could have it by last Thursday we couldn't get something to you in advance so we got the document uh finalized to rep to to you all uh by then for your consideration so you and
the public would have an opportunity to read it ask any questions and we are here tonight uh all right so before before we go to that I'm going to open the public hearing let anybody in the audience go ahead and talk asked you sure it's not a hearing but it's a meeting and you're certainly welcome to
do that mayor okay any anybody in ordinance have any comments want to ask any questions of going once twice no all right all right i'm going open it to the
commissioners all right commissioner huh no no question no questions anybody down here no questions no questions right all right we need a motion no i'm sorry are you open for questions i asked that twice yesterday i'm sorry i I was
reading something i'm not I'm sorry um I've read over this agreement several times and I'm just not settled on on a lot of things about this agreement for one I I'm I'm I'm
I'm keep going back to uh item number 10 which we're we're not we haven't got there yet interimm operator and it seems that for one we are um to me seem to be putting the c before the horse we seem to be um putting a bandage on something
where we're actually asking for an interimm operator and then we're putting out an RFP as opposed to why not do this the right way and put and ask for a permanent operator upfront as opposed to um let's kick a can down the road put a
bandage on it but what I don't want to see I don't want to see uh us uh approve this first then approve a interimm operator for 6 months and then at the end of 6 months that interimm operator gets put on some
kind of consent agenda and there is no financials here so I'm looking at what was what was provided for the interimm operator and I see no elements of a business plan right now you're asking the city to be the bank want us to bankroll $4.5
million and and then we don't have any financials on the interm determine exactly how much we're making there's no expenses i I I saw the the information that was received in our in our docket here and there was uh revenue that was
shown for 6 months over one year um but there was no expenses to that at all and when I'm looking for what I'm looking for my I'm only talking about the interm right now what I'm looking for is some kind of elements of a business plan to let me know I want to see an executive
summary i would like to see a company summary i would like to see uh ser the service you actually provide for the for the for the public i want to see competitive comparisons i would like to see a market analysis uh marketing segments uh uh target markets markets uh
strategies i would like to see a sales uh uh forecast i would like to see some elements of a basic business plan that tells me that you are going to come in and operate this golf course for on the long term and you are able to do it because I can see from a from a 30,000
foot overview if you want me to bankroll this put myself in in in in the in a position of a bank because earlier today I spoke to an investment banker at uh Bank of America and we talked about this and these are some of the things that they look for to know that you're going
to give me a return on my investment right now all I have is is I have a document that shows me 6 months worth of of revenue and revenue revenue stream i'm not finished and and no expenses to that but no information as to who this
company is and are they truly capable of doing what they say they're going to do and is it going to be in the best interest of the city is it in the best interest of the citizens of Okcoy so you want me to approve this i need to ask you a question Commissioner okay you're on the second issue we're on the first
issue i know but but I know we need to do what you're saying on the second issue i have a hard time approving the first one if I can't if I can't we we we're putting the cart before the horse because again I just don't want to see this happen where we we we we're trying to do this and I still have questions
about the first one as well if we're going to to deal with the first one I still have questions about that as well so we want to deal with that commissioner Wilson wants to talk well I'm not finished we'll finish up okay i'm not finished we're bankrolling this thing here and in in my mind if I was a company that want to come in and and I
want to uh partner with the city what I would actually do from from the RFP I'm I'm looking for $2.25 million to partner with us to also take on the risk there's also another issue here that we talked about $7.5 million worth of violations that I see nowhere in this agreement i
don't see it anywhere here so if you take the $7.5 million worth of violations plus $4.5 million that's $1.7 million that we're talking about right now even though we only mentioned $4.5 i want to know who's going to assume the risk of the $7.5 million because you put
it out there once you put it out there you just can't just make it go away like pixie dust it's real it's real money it's real violations i want to know how this is going to be addressed because right now in this first agreement we're talking about the seventh agreement it has not been addressed we talk about
seven agreements that means that there's been six different amendments to this agreement prior to today between 1993 and 2016 there was six different agreements there was six opportunities to do an an investigation to to do a a uh um inspection on the golf course to
see if we actually did have any violations so we may not be facing 7.5 right about now if we had did our due diligence then but now we're also being forced and and I feel rushed to do something here to bankroll this thing and and it just for me it just doesn't
feel right to me okie do all right Commissioner Wilson i disagree with you at this point the important aspect is number one we're not looking at who's going to take care of it for six months we're taking we're looking to take the golf course back under our control and
at this point how many amendments there are the factor is we need to resolve this tonight get this done then we go on and look at who's ever going to manage the golf course and then go to the RFP right now this is I think you're doing
kind of a knee-jerk reaction the the numbers you're throwing out just don't seem to I don't understand the numbers you're throwing out i think you're making it very getting it very confused i think what we're looking at is the $4.5 million we're looking at an initial
payment of $750,000 by May 1st then ar then the next motion the next issue will be arranging who will run it till November at that point we'll be paying 3.75 million to bring the golf course back
totally under our control with an RFP for a long-term lease am I correct in what I'm assuming i'm looking at our if that but I don't understand the 7.5 that was a previous um offer that's not on the table the t
what we are looking at right now is 4.5 million bring it back under our control and the right now the golf course members of the golf course they're agreeable to this figure they have already worked it all out we had to push them hard uh commissioner and and just
for clarification the interim operator would would operate the golf course from May 1 for 6 months but staff is going to process as quickly as it can RFP for the permanent operator and Forest Lake would
cooperate with the city in helping us find whatever whatever the city and its consultants need to get on board a permanent operator but the idea is to have a permanent operator in place by November 3 am I correct i'm sorry Mr
oliver is confusing to me numbers and I'm what I'm looking at right now is 4.5 million 750,000 3.75 3,750,000 let me get my my zeros in here correct and then it's done we take we
take it over and we will have more control over what's going on yes we actually have control as of May one uh assuming that you follow it you have control because you you can pick your operator your interim operator uh and you'll have a contract with that interim
operator that uh will operate as long as you want them to if you want them shorter than that if you want them to six months you can but the but the what the consultants are recommending and what staff can see happening is that interim operator practically for 6 months with that permanent operator that
will be selected by the city commission after that date so So yes you're you're right there's no additional money to be paid the anyway in May 1st and when we talk about November 1 that's when we're looking at a business plan right now
we're looking at what the and I hate to jump to the next item but we're looking at what the income would be and we'll talk about the 50% 30% all that when we get to the next item right now it's just to clean up the seven the
4.5 million correct thank you anybody else have any comments go ahead um I agree with Commissioner Wilson's comments um the history of this is such that the
cart being put before the horse was done by Forest Lake Golf Course in my opinion um with the bringing us the assignment request from JA Hospitality for $7 million and asking us
if we wanted to exercise our right of first refusal without allowing us the opportunity to conduct our due diligence so uh Commissioner Oliver is correct in that any good financial business person before entering into a permanent
long-term contract like we're discussing would conduct extensive due diligence and we did not have the full cooperation and access to the expenses and the records of Forest Lake Golf Course and so in this instance I actually agree uh
I think staff um and the consultants and experts have brought a viable plan uh that makes the most sense common sense and business sense to uh solve the problem at hand mhm
um which is a mediated settlement um and spend the 6 months with an interim operator gaining the knowledge that we need and crafting the vision that the commission will approve for not
only what the contract with the permanent operator will be but what the future of the golf course and the amenities there what the design will be what the expectations will be what the partnerships will be what the revenue sharing will be etc so Um as it relates
to bringing up item 10 to discuss item nine um I believe that the city and the staff and the consultants have done an excellent job in the way that they've structured uh the interim and um for the record the
I believe the last update that we received the violations were 5.8 million uh that's uh 7 and a half is the is not the num is is an old number so that's the confusion thank you and I and if I'm
not mistaken and maybe um somebody can clarify that but I think some of those are already been worked on and finished i know I heard today that they completed redid the bar took the bar out it's mold or whatever and done all that again mold but everything's been some of those
issues were they had to do and every one of those processes when we first talked about this were told in what we were doing what the things were it was on the papers if you read the papers it tells you and and I know there's what how many how many things are on that contract 500
and something pages oh yeah i mean it don't 25 page agreement and hundreds of pages it don't miss much and none of us voted no on doing this back months ago so in the process of moving ahead if we don't do this then there's another situation going to happen but it's going
to cost more money by going to court yep so I I'm go ahead and finish so that's it i just have one last question for for the attorney that's one question so is the number the number that was first presented to us was was about seven 7 million 7 million then that number I
don't know where it changed and when it changed is it now 5.8 million and so as things were were fixed it went from 7 million to 5 million they sunk $1 something million into uh fixing violations to bring it down to 7 point for 5.8 for the deficiencies i don't
have that number we've got uh Robert UTI here about that but I don't have that number commissioner of modified estimates to cure and some were some it was a it was a mix it wasn't they did not invest a million dollars so they brought it down to about 5.8 million
that's my recollection that's how we going to how are we going to cover that how we going to assume that who's going to assume that risk uh in addition to what we either way it goes no matter how you shell this out we're still putting out 4.5 million in addition to that another 5.8 8 million so it's still
coming out of taxpayer dollars no matter how you shuffle it how you look at it or how you pronounce it how we going to cover that we've already going to go away or I'm I'm going to stop because we got to do this thing i don't Okay we've already brought that up spoke on that
one of the things will be the the profit that comes out of that place will pay it also whoever builds on it to have it will have to pay part of that so it's don't it's it's not going to be that don't believe they went 30 years of running that place in the hole they didn't do that so they were making enough money to pay the expenses and
that's some of the things that come up we'll see it but all right so I I just want to say for the record that I disagree uh it's a matter of opinion that it would cost more to litigate um
it would cost a lot to litigate um yeah and it's possible if we litigated we could lose and if we lost and we had one half million in legal fees and they had $1.5 million in legal fees we might lose
and owe $3 million uh so that's a possibility that we're looking at uh that the experts have evaluated um so to just to clarify that it's not necessarily that it would cost more to litigate um but it might
cost a lot and uh and everyone has an opinion on whether we would win or lose in that and that's what we have to vote on tonight all right we need a motion i'll make the motion to approve the seventh amendment to the ground lease
agreement with Forest Lake Golf Club motion made by Commissioner Fner to approve the seventh uh amendment to the ground lease agreement with Forest Lake Golf Course do I hear a second i'll second seconded by Commissioner
Wilson any more comments let's vote i don't know if we're didn't go it's working there did you hit Yes well everybody revote okay stop it a minute let's get back go back all right
let's vote again something about a hit it's not showing our vote your light my light it's only 80% okay who didn't vote it's not showing it i'm hitting the button one person you hit the button one person mine's lit is yours lit it's lit where does it say all
the name the votes i get all the votes up here it's stuck on 80% i know did somebody Can we reset it again reset clear it clear it out um clear that out over there and we'll vote again lit everybody check make sure it says enable
underneath there all right let's go back where it says yes or no all right or no no or no there we go looks like we go again go back to There it goes there it goes let's go there we go all right
all right commissioner Kennedy voted no all right commissioner uh Wilson yes i voted yes and Commissioner Fner voted yes thank you commissioner Oliver voted no all right now number 10 request for
selection of interim operator for Forest Lake Golf Course May the 1st through November the 2nd good evening mayor commissioners Mr city Manager you may recall that we uh solicited uh for proposals thank you
back in February initially uh from three firms and they submitted uh their qualifications credentials which you've had a chance to review in the past and then we asked for one more proposal uh a few weeks ago and then we uh issued
a final best and final criteria to the same three proposers and what we asked for in order to have the ability to compare apples to apples and to kind of quantify uh the proposals we asked for either a flat
monthly fee as a percentage of revenue or we asked for lump sum dollar amount per month for fee or we asked for some combination of both so what you have in front of you and what's on the screen
uh you see that uh on the top line the the current operator provided us with the actual revenue numbers for 2024 for the months of May through October and we provided that to the proposer so they
would have a point of reference and also above those revenue numbers are the total number of rounds that were played uh in each of those months we also were able to uh develop the expenses that are likely for those six months based on
information we received from the operator as well as some historical benchmarks which gave us a projection a likely projection one that's that's reliable on the likely uh net profit for the golf course for these six months and
I will point out that in October you'll see that that was a a down month and that was when we had the hurricanes uh which is not un unlikely in in that month so we received three proposals
uh the first one on your list is Down to Earth and they proposed a flat $5,000 a month fee plus a 30% uh share of net revenue and based on the
projections they would uh they would earn $9,000 in fee for the first four months and then slightly less in uh September and then at their $5,000 base in October so their total fee would be
$49,64 and Down to Earth operates uh andor has maintenance contracts with many courses in the region uh including Twin Rivers and Wakiva Saddlebrook Mayfair and Legends among
others the next proposer uh Tamarak they operate Stony Brook Stonybrook West they proposed to pay the city $12,500 a month for the six months and then and then take half of
the net profit for their fee so based on these projections Tamarak's fee would be $44,219 for the for the six months the third proposer is Hampton
Golf and they proposed a flat monthly fee of $5,000 a month and they also offered to put 50% of that risk that fee at risk if they did not outperform the budget
projections that are agreed upon between the city and the operator for the six months so their fee uh if they were to outperform the uh budget targets would be
$30,000 total um so if you look at the far right in the yellow highlighted numbers the net to the city with the downto-earth proposal is 189374
the net fee to the city for the Tamarak proposal is 194219 and the net fee to the city net profit to the city from the Hampton golf proposal is $28,438 so we just wanted to provide a
high level analysis of the proposals uh and I believe all three of the proposing firms are here and what I'd like to do is if you have any questions I'd like to call each one up individually so you can ask all the questions you want for each
firm so we can you know get through this expeditiously and answer your questions so we will entertain questions does anybody want to start with any of one of the firms you can uh how how do you want to bring them up you got them in order or you want to just I'll bring them up
whoever wants to ask the first question we'll let that be the first down to earth sir down to earth down to earth down to earth i'm coming up so I would ask all of you to ask any question you have of the down to earth representative while he's up here please
what's your handicap four on a good day okay go ahead i'm sorry all right anybody want to ask questions anything i do okay um we can see the math on the
fees other than the raw fee what do you believe differentiates down to earth from the other two firms have you done a comp on I know we're trying to do apples to apples
uh on experience number of courses etc is there anything that you want to highlight that differentiates your firm yeah we have a a big footprint in this area central Florida is our base um Matland's our home office um we manage
uh five clubs u in this uh central Florida area have had really great success in uh generating extra revenue uh in some cases almost double uh revenue you know since we took the
courses over um we have we have uh equipment that's ready to go tomorrow if needed um we have the corporate infrastructure in place for HR agronomic expertise we
also have uh irrigation and construction divisions within our company so we have that expertise as well and um under our proposal the uh financials of the
operation if we were to be chosen would be completely transparent and give you the opportunity to um see what the operation actually does um so that you can prepare properly
for the next operator how uh how many years have has your firm been managing golf courses like this well um I'm the uh overseer of all that I've been in this area since 1991 thank you
it's my question all right no I'm I'm listening because I don't know anything about golf so I'm I'm going to listen to the question commissioner First do you plan on making any improvements right off the bat uh within the first 6
months of coming in what we always do is strive to increase or improve playing conditions at the course that's the easiest way to market a course in our opinion is to is to make it better and and uh attracts play so um
that's sort of our calling card or hallmark for our company any and and I should say further any improvements that the city would like to see as the owner of the golf course certainly we would be open to and have the expertise to be able to pull it
off okay any more no commissioner uh yes um based on based on the numbers here just looking at the spreadsheet um can you give me an idea of what the expenses
would look like for one month um to to operate a golf course like ours uh in in the current condition that it's in what would the expenses look like yeah these numbers actually match what I would probably suggest
um approaching $200,000 a month so you're saying in one month it to to to to run a golf course the expenses and everything that that is involved in in running this golf course successfully you're saying about $200,000 each month for this golf course
for a golf course like this okay um I'm just looking at these numbers real just looking at them real quick here looking at the net profits here just what we have here on the sheet here would that put us in the negative or no missing something where am I at here may
I help oh okay here we go oh there we go commissioner we know that Forest Lake was making about a 30 okay i'm looking I was looking at the wrong number here so if we're averaging that then um there is a profit margin
here it's a healthy operation i I it would have been easier for me for me to see the expenses along the net profit even if if you didn't give me a complete bud business plan the at very minimum I would love to have seen what the expenses look like versus what the the
breakdown of net profit would certainly that would have helped a lot going forward certainly that would be the next step yeah because the only sheet that I was a that I received was this one here that's the one I received here this one here this is my first time i didn't see this one i only saw this one here this
shows the numbers are the same though the numbers are the same but I would have loved to seen some expenses that's the only question I have all right um Oh I'm sorry one one last question i'm sorry i I almost forgot
28 will you be um um submitting a RFP uh at the end of six months or are you are you are you planning on submitting a proposal for the RFP in November we would hope to be involved beyond the six months yes okay thank you mr kennedy did
you have something else uh no i was just pointing out that the expenses were on this sheet that we got the supplemental all right we did just get next okay anybody else before I have him sit down all right okay it'd be uh tamarind you got two different things on here too
so Yes sir yeah okay that's that's how their proposal was laid out okay all right um hi good evening Rocky Hodgej i'm actually an owner of Tamarack Golf Management i know some of our other uh general golf management companies are
general managers and employees here i'm actually the owner uh make all the decisions every day at Stony Brook West Golf Club um I I did actually I know there was a bunch of questions that uh that may help uh I actually brought some packets uh I don't know if it's uh
allowed uh it's got some expenses some knowledge that maybe some of you guys might uh like to look at uh it doesn't change my proposal in any way but it may help uh in some way or you can take a look at some things i have no problem with the other operators even seeing
them themselves is that Kurt okay yeah there's seven of them um one of one of the things that that's a little bit different uh with with what our proposal is that we are I know Commissioner Oliver mentioned uh bankroll i heard that name that word a
few times tonight and we're obviously going to take that right out for you guys and I think something that's not been talked about tonight is um the initial startup um the city of Akoi will need to open up a bank account and will potentially be in the $75,000 to
$150,000 that will need to go into that bank account and it will potentially stay there for daily operating costs uh the gentleman before me mentioned it's about 200,000 a month in operating costs uh it's a little higher sometimes and we again don't know what Forest Lake has
done we don't know what Forest Lake uh situation is uh we don't know what the equipment looks like we don't know what underneath that ground looks like uh so that could potentially be even higher and put you guys in a really tough uh financial situation uh I'm prepared to
bankroll the whole thing uh city of McCoy has zero risk uh and I'm taking every bit of the risk for 6 months maybe a bad idea for me but what I'm about to do is to put myself in position to show you guys what I'm capable of doing with myself my staff and I and uh we think uh
the decision you make will be a good one and like I said I'm willing to give you guys money every month guarantee we share the profit if I do well we do well um obviously we both share again I have all the skin in the game and you guys have zero to minimal risk and I think
that's what you would all want to agree on all right guys uh yeah could you answer the same question that I asked down to Earth could you just tell us uh how many years you've been doing this how many clubs and what you think other than the financial implications differentiate you
equipment labor sure um I've actually purchased Stony Brook West Golf Club uh in 2022 uh very new operator uh but my experience as an entrepreneur owned multiple business that are still successful still operating um I don't think there's any difference in uh
staffing and and business uh I think you're dealing with people every day customer service uh financial aspects decision- making um and I think with utilizing my staff and myself uh I'll be there every day u there's um obviously
GMs that will be on site with your other operators or your other golf management i'm the owner there um again if I make a wrong decisions you know obviously I'm paying for it myself if some of these GMs make a decision that that doesn't work they can go to another location and
it obviously is not going to hurt them as much i have one other location i'm going to be your 1A 1B group they're 20 25 locations you're going to be number 24 or number 28 i think you'd probably rather be 1 A or 1B with me than
obviously your 28th or 29th again I'll be there every day every morning on site making decisions and obviously greeting customers dealing with staff uh my second question is going to sound flippant but it's not um you just saw me
vote against y prior item I did sir and um and the reason for that is is because uh I want to throw them out and I want to sue them um I understand everybody has a different view and so now uh
that we've decided what we're doing uh I do believe that staff has structured this properly as I said this is the best alternative to what I want um that said a lot of your argument as I hear it
is well you're taking the risk clearly if I was willing to sue them I'm not afraid of the risk sure so what uh and you're taking the upside which is substantial I believe so uh can you give
me some other compelling reason um so I am taking the bigger risk is in the first six months initially yes your initial decision and you guys made that decision um yes very large risk but in this initial 6 months this allows the
city of Akoi to get their feet under the ground for for a lack of terms uh understand the golf industry because now you were a landlord and now all of a sudden to uh tomorrow night May 1st however that looks you guys are going to be an owner of a golf course um the
majority in this room don't know how to run a golf course or don't know the components to the golf course so for 6 months I I'd be willing to say I'm taking the bigger risk because 6 months I'm also putting money out and making sure the city of AOE still receives funding but it also allows you six
months to get to know me allows you six months to go okay hey wow this happened this way we're going to make that difference decision November 3rd so yes you you are taking certainly a risk the city of AoE has that risk but for the next six months because you've already taken a risk tonight you vote it and
you're you're now the risk is yours but over the next six months I'm taking the bigger risk and again it's we're both taking a risk don't don't get me wrong but you know I'm obviously for 6 months you may say "Hey listen thank you for 6 months i've got a lot of money and resources out the door uh and that risk
is over." Uh but again I think uh I I' I'd agree and disagree in certain ways that that you know I'm certainly taking a large risk in this first initial six months after that then you know hopefully I'm still that that provider um and we'll we'll take the risk
together uh for the next future thanks for the answer i have I think it's for Mr rudy what the liquor license I don't know why I was just reading this profit loss statement that you put in and I see the alcohol and beer is that what's the status with that going along with a new
um management it can be transferred it can be yes ma'am okay just Thank you sorry do you consider keeping uh the current staff on board sorry i think the one thing that I do have that probably these other general the golf
management companies don't have is I know probably 80% of the staff already i actually play at Forest Lake in a Sunday league there know all the golfers that go there played there for probably six eight years um and know every probably
everybody in the golf shop everybody in the restaurant side and uh my current superintendent knows probably 90% of the maintenance crew um we've obviously kept uh nobody knows anything about us until these meetings um we've had some people
reach out to us uh you know I'm not one bit worried about keeping the staff i actually like a lot of the staff they have not worked for me but I feel very comfortable and confident that uh we'll we'll uh we'll move forward and and with very little uh hiccups in in regard to
staffing or having to create something the one other plus for us is we're literally 10 minutes so if we have vacations uh you know sicknesses uh a loss of staff which we've had very little over the last 3 years uh we can easily utilize some of our current staff
that can come over and and cover a shift whether that be maintenance even equipment wise we're all 10 minutes away we can have a piece of equipment here in five five minutes uh so I think the staffing I'm very very confident uh that that 95% will probably stay and if they
don't I think we can work with most people but I very feel very confident that they will be staying okay and I take it you plan on responding to the RFP for the 100% sir and like I said that six months that I'm putting in uh I'll show you guys why you'll want to pick me then as well okay
commissioner Oliver the proposal for intern operator when you received that information uh you obviously put together some some um numbers for us to look at the first time from the last meeting uh from the time you actually received uh the information
regarding this interim operator if we would have asked you to uh bring a permanent solution or a long-term solution to the table would you have been be able to provide that for us tonight if we would actually requested that no problem at all you know we we we
have uh the resources to provide you with a full uh package i mean I have a vision already for Forest Lake i mean uh when this started um it wasn't just a six-month plan um so we've already done some work on what we want to do and what
we feel uh is good for 100% the community um the city and and uh obviously the golf course itself so we could provide that very very quickly for you yeah so you would have been able to provide at least three to five years of information uh with in a in a business
plan that would have actually shown us certainly uh where we would be uh yearbyear within three we did uh and and all the other golf management companies as well we provided a packet of 40 pages and I think we were all three of us were were very extensive in how we explain
what we can do um again I I know you've you've discussed the other parts of the program but again for 6 months we we and we don't know i mean I I'll even defend the other golf management companies here we don't know until we get on site or if we had some tangible information we all
could have provided much more information and you know some some feedback on what it would certainly look like you know uh I know Commissioner Kennedy mentioned 30% profit margins uh for Forest Lake but we would not be here tonight if they spent more money and did
what they were supposed to do in that so the 30% is actually very high um I think you know listen I run one now every day and we're more in the 15 to 18% but we spend almost a million dollars a year in in uh our maintenance and that's probably about 350 350,000 more than
what Forest Lake spends so it really depends on who's there how much you care and what your end product will look like um and again for for us yes we could provide that but it's very very difficult and like I said I'll defend the other golf management companies too you almost want to be on site and you
have to walk the the grounds know what's really going on the equipment what you have i mean you could end up with a blowing motor and a greens mower tomorrow for four or five grand and that just happens uh that'll be something the city of AOA will be having to pay for uh with me you won't uh you won't even get
the phone call so according to this I'll take care of it so according to your profit and loss sheet that you that provided for us it shows us at least four months that they're you're projecting a loss losses and and we have like so our biggest months are probably
are December January February March uh April is there as well um is we still have our snowbirds and that's Central Florida Golf uh May and June it starts to go down as you can see um we actually are in the summertime less profitable
than than obviously other months they may have something a little different in what they do but I we don't make much money in those particular four months now again once I get on site here that may change i don't know what what's going to happen i'm looking at more on the you know the more negative side of
it and and and a little more comfort on what potential um again I don't know their equipment we may get there and we may need 20 $30,000 worth worth of of parts repairs i don't know if we're going to have breakdowns first week or two i'll deal with all that stuff would
you agree or disagree that if you had a if you would have provided a bigger picture for say say a whole year that you're saying that the the months that that you that you're making the profits would have possibly uh balanced this out or at least came out with a with a with a uh a profit versus showing us four
months of of uh of losses my location is very similar to Forest Lake and and that's why I'm I'm definitely the the probably the right decision on this one we make almost the exact amount of revenue and our challenges and the things that we do are very similar we even get the same weather patterns if
they get a hurricane we got the same one uh and we're dealing with the same issues um again we with with with that said we we easily uh are probably in about the 15 to 18% so on a $3 million revenue is what Forest Lake is is saying
they do um if they were doing the investment back into the golf course for their greens their fairways their tea boxes their sand bunkers all the things with it and also their restaurant and keeping those up to date they've been about the four to $450,000 a year in profit uh obviously
from December January February March April you're you're getting 80 90,000 in profit then it dwindles off in your May and June and then yes in the summertime uh yeah you because our our months are the exact same i only change probably two or three employees throughout the
winter season where it gets busy but we pay out the same amount of money my maintenance every month is the same it doesn't change other than some projects that we're doing or some upgrades or some developments that we want to change a hole or change some bunkers or change T boxes but um that that monthly state
or monthly expense doesn't change that much but again in in the winter time when we have our snowbirds here we're busy every day obviously the revenue is much much higher so profits are there all right i got one more cut here hampton
okay thanks thank you thank you Mayor Johnson uh Commissioner my name is Travis Norman i'm COO of Hampton Golf and I too am an owner of my firm uh we have 30 34 properties uh in the US and in the Bahamas we have a new property we're working on uh we too are
also owners of five properties so we we understand the complexity of of golf not only management but also ownership um I think you can see our proposal here tonight is pretty aggressive it's in fact it's the lowest management fee I
have in my entire portfolio and it's because we've been around Forest Lake for six years we've been looking at this project ever since we did a project in in Northeast Florida that was similar to your layout to your uh similarity in your uh driving range and we saw it as
an opportunity to come in and assist the city um for us it's about the community and making sure that we not only create a great golf experience but we also create a golf a an experience for non-golfers so all taxpayers support this there's no question and what we
found success with municipalities is finding a way to show taxpayers a benefit for those who don't play golf so our driving range program and we've done drawings and renderings and a bunch of other items and research and due diligence have brought us to this point to get to the um Commissioner Oliver you
mentioned could we give expenses i would never give expenses or put capital my capital partners money behind a project that I didn't understand there's no two golf courses alike they're like snowflakes and so to come in and commit capital dollars and be able to have my
fiduciary obligation to my investors come back it's a hard thing for us to do without understanding this facility so what we're doing is taking a stand of due diligence with you to ensure that we can show you what this operation can do we don't know what it's done in the past i've seen very limited as we mentioned
many times tonight I've seen very limited uh data in terms of what it's done from an expense standpoint what type of agonomic practices have transpired there's a multitude of things that we would look at but we would come through this period with transparency and show you exactly what the potential
of this business has and also commit a financial commitment to the project in the future predicated on this due diligence period and leave you with transparency and financials and a stable uh amenity for your taxpayers all right questions yeah uh thank you
for your answer uh how long have y'all been in business so Hampton Golf now has just celebrated 27 years we manage we have about 3,000 team members how many courses are like in Florida 18 18 whole equivalents so a majority of our
portfolio thank you yes commissioner first do you have uh staff and resources that are close that you can supplement if uh we needed it here yes sir i have three regional managers in the state of Florida and like I said
18 18ole equivalent so I've got plenty of resources plenty of team members um I think the last gentleman mentioned a lot of times when we take over properties and transition them we don't see a lot of attrition we don't see team members in fact we come in show them how we support our team members how we create a
safe work environment for them how we provide the the benefits and the things that we provide and typically they they get excited and flourish and they don't scurry um and it seems in this situation too uh there's not an alternate golf operation close by that would really put you at risk for the team members to flee
the property thank you Commissioner Oliver i just want to make sure I understand um your business model um you want to take this as a a project for six months without
assuming anything as far as um what the expenses would be um based on what they've done in the past you want to start with a with a clean slate and you want to you actually want to farm data as to this is the real expenses and create a portfolio for six months to
come in to determine that okay based on what we did in in six months here are the true expenses from what we saw and this is what it's going to cost to operate the course over the next year or the next two years or three years and then you can determine a a more amicable
um uh net profit margin based on that yes we would take the six months i think the first statement is something to look at we would take risk because you know with a $5,000 fee and then 25 or excuse me 50% or 2500 of that at a performance-based risk meaning I'm going
to put a immediately come in and put a plan together with your team and say "Okay this is what we're going to adhere to." And if we don't perform at that level it's 50% of the management fee the other thing you have to understand is my cost of my executive team is just up the road in Jacksonville here um is way more
than that $2,500 anytime you transition a property the most money you'll ever spend in a trans in a in a management contract and or a lease agreement is in the transition months because I have team members here trans you know hiring team members training them getting their benefits in place getting the golf
course doing all the agonomic testing i mean it's just so much involved in that that six months for us really that rate was to try to get to a point where we could do due diligence together and hopefully have a partnership at the end of six months in the RFP process and have a long-term lease and partnership
okay thank you all right can I ask some questions of Yeah you I'm listening um I'm going to go to him thank you thank you thank you um a
couple points were raised i just want to clarify um I read in the packet that and it wasn't in the condition of the proposal but all three uh agreed to continue the golf cart
lease and to keep all employees to hire all the existing staff that's the differentiator between they all confirmed that they would do that okay and the uh can you address the uh the
point of the working capital requirement that does seem versus the risk and the upside how do you evaluate we are going to have so so we would need to open up an account an operating account you know just to keep operations
going and at the end of the six months when we identify a new operator that operating account would be go back to the city i mean it's it's just a it's a short-term sixmonth Yeah dispersion of of operating capital
and it could possibly be repaid after three months depending on revenue and profit and all those kind of things so that's that's really a it's really a non-issue from the city's perspective okay i have two more uh the condition of
the course or the uh what do we have it was unclear to me as far as uh governing the condition of the course during the six months what is the what is the proposed standard we know it doesn't meet the current standard do we have a
some sort of an interim standard yeah we would have an agreement with whoever is chosen very specific uh agreement on expectations and we would we would be meeting with the operator every month and
reconciling you know the the the requirements and the criteria and you know the first priority is going to be to improve the health of the golf course you know that I mean the next six months are really important for this golf course if we can drastically improve the
health of the golf course which they you know all of them talked about agronomics and all those kind of things that's going to be really important as we seek a long-term operator okay and that's my last question it it occurred to me uh
the way that this is structured whoever the interim operator is is going to have a competitive advantage in the RFP as far as knowledge is there do you have a are is your role in this to create an info share or something the information
that we received during the six months will that be available yes in the RFP we would be very transparent about everything that happens over the next six months it'll be a it'll be a fair playing field for everybody okay that's it all right i I would say that I asked
the city manager one of the things that whatever we do we have somebody from our staff that will go out there periodically during this six-month period to address issues or is not issues but one of the things I was I think we have to have some kind of
eyesight on what goes on for that we we have a plan for that um I agree um in light of the past we want to make sure that we are holding the lease holder um to the highest level standard moving forward and um we will be coming up with
a staff training um program to make sure that we're doing all the things and I've already spoken to the staff um about that and Mr utie as well um so we have a plan for that yes i will also say that um as Commissioner Kennedy made a
comment while ago about the u not voting for that one but reason I voted for it i don't want to go through the court cases and pay I know what we've paid already and I know what will have to pay and dealing with judges just like with him at domain it don't always go good so you
end up paying a lot more money than what it is but the the um I think whoever's there is going to have to start looking at some of the issues that are there which I think they will but I think that golf course is going to be it's a money maker if you look at at the number of
people that come there and play that course I mean you can go up there at any time and you can't get a parking spot i mean it it runs a lot of rounds through it so I think we we'll we're going to get our money back plus whoever gets that contract is going to have to participate with us on some of that too
so no I don't I would have loved to just said "No we're not going to pay you but I don't want to drag it out another five years or seven years and come up with the court saying "Okay you're not getting it." There's tremendous I can't remember exactly any I don't know if the lawyers know and look what's the length
of the lease we give them they give them back in 30 years ago it was a 50-year lease with a 25 year renewal and that's another thing We don't want to do that again either we don't want to we don't want to make a lease like that it's going to have to be a lot different when we do all this stuff well there's a
tremendous upside at this golf course and whatever and by the way this the agreement with the interim operator will be a management agreement not a lease right just to be clear and wherever we land on the lease terms and
requirements there will be accountability every year there will be very specific rules and criteria so that there is a reconciliation every year on the performance of of the lease so all
right we won't have those gaps all right so Greg I guess what we need to do now is decide who we're going to pick out of the three yes the commission u can we can we take a You can call three minute sure break you're the mayor yep thank
you come back all right let's start back my glasses go all right now we need motions for a motion or you can discuss it more
i'll make a motion all right uh I think it's clear all three are qualified and I think um the experts did a good job of getting it down to apples to apples
um so I'm going to go with uh Hampton Golf and uh we'd make a motion to pick Hampton Golf as the interim operator motion made by Commissioner Kennedy for Hampton Golf do I hear a second
all right motion fails for the lack of a second let's have another motion i'd like to make a motion i'm sorry i'd like to make a motion that we um that we consider a down to earth golf motion made
by Commissioner Oliver down the earth do I hear a second i'll second uh Commissioner Kennedy seconds that motion all right i think we've had enough discussions so if we got anybody else you want to
vote for so this is we'll give you the first one here all right let's vote all right motion carries three to two i voted no commissioner Wilson voted no commissioner Kennedy voted yes commissioner Fer voted yes and Commissioner Oliver voted
yes all right that's that's it for that's the other on that sorry sorry guys i um Where we at here that's it comments comments from commissioners
um down to earth what's No where's down to earth at where oh I see it back here okay all righty all right commissioners uh I'm going to go ahead and read this before we start then I can at the end okco April 2025
Oakway Community Market Thursday April the 3rd 5 through 9:00 for uh April 3rd Oakway Lake Shore Center this month's market is focused on science technology engineering art and math and will
include a brick lab experience citizens Public Safety Academy 10-week program runs April the 9th through June the 18th wednesdays from 6:00 p.m through 900 p.m hosted by the fire and police departments for more information
and to register visit oakcoy.org 100year Chick-fil-A 5K and Family Fun Day saturday April the 12th from 7:30 through 12:00 p.m bill Breeze Park restoration is required for the 5K
and kids fun run this event will feature free rides games and activities breakfast with the Easter Bunny saturday April the 19th from 8:30 a.m through 10:30 a.m oaky Lakeshore Center the cost is $12 per person reservations are
required for more information and to reserve your spot contact Parks and Leisure Services Easter Austria saturday April the 19th from 11:30 through 2:00 p.m oakway Lake Shore Center enjoy an egg hunt exciting games
crafts and visit with the Easter Bunny commissioner Oliver you're up oh you said Easter Bunny didn't say Mr oliver i thought you told me Easter Bunny i'm like what you caught me off guard there
um the uh clarono clar kono koi road uh from the 429 all the way to um apaka road is in really really bad repair and it really needs some attention by the county just want to know if we can get
staff to just uh reach out to the county to uh take a look at that and say "Hey um can you guys get on this and and fix it as you're coming off the 429?" um uh and you're heading east uh it is it is terrible it's tore up real bad and um
just want to know if we can get county to look at that absolutely okay i'll follow back up with you on that one thank you um we also mentioned earlier today that there was earlier tonight that there was a um a um a grant for reclaimed water uh we do have several
neighborhoods that just don't have reclaimed water and been screaming for it for a very long time is would that grant allow us to uh put reclaimed water in in maybe one of our older neighborhoods um I can't answer that um that
particular grant is going to um an existing reclaim main project that's going to a new tank that we're constructing at the end of Nicole Avenue and that is to provide um supply to that area of town
um that will possibly offset some money however as far as retrofitting right now we're trying to spend a lot of money on and and studying what the long-term solution to the overall reclaim issue is going to be so I don't want to I can't
say no to that but um we're taking a a very broad look at everything right now in hopes of trying to um have have the right plan and we're going to we're going to be bringing that to you on a regular basis so um to make sure
everybody understands what neighborhoods have reclaimed currently um and what that total demand is what people are paying now and um and then we're going to start getting some of the results of some of our studies right now that'll
show our capital plan that is going to be required because of this new policy from Orange County and then how that can be broken down and what we would recommend that the city absorb in order to keep um the impacts as as minimal as
possible to citizens but that's something we can we can facilitate a meeting between you and utilities to talk more about that right now I would say no today but not know forever gotcha yeah i I do know there's one neighborhood one older neighborhood that
has um there's reclaim line that's less than 100 yards from the neighborhood and they've been without reclaim for over 30 years now so hopefully we can somehow close that gap um last thing I have is uh just my my um my quote that I always
give and it is it and it says the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy that quote was from Martin Luther King Jr but he
attributes that quote to uh James Lane Allen a 20th century novelist that's all I have commissioner Fner I just wanted to thank staff for the graphics on the city bus if you haven't seen it check it out on Facebook it looks great it really
does that's just something that goes unnoticed really mostly um centennial celebrations coming up uh next month in May it'll be uh on a Friday May 9th from 5 to 10 at Bill Breeze Park down here
should be a lot of fun and the Citizens Public Safety Academy April 9th through June 18th it's every Wednesday at 6 to 900 pm check with the police and fire department for specifics you could also
find that uh information on Facebook or on the city uh web page that's all commissioner Wilson yes like to take the opportunity to thank all of our volunteers who serve in our different programs within the city um I started out as a volunteer
Mike Mike's not I started out as a volunteer and I would just like them to thank them for all that they contribute to the community that we live in um it's very important i know we still have a few sitting here and we value your input in the city so thank you so much um I
know a lot of you waiting for Wawa to open and I got an email the other day that I guess it's projected to open May 1st 9:00 in the morning for res for those to come shop i guess purchase gas shop and their grand opening will be at
8 o'clock in the morning that's per their email i don't know if that still stands we'll find out as we go along but that's projecting May 1st which a lot of folks have asked and the other aspect is you know it's legislative time and I we
went I know I went to Tallahassee this past week the mayor was there we didn't see each other I don't think whole time um but legis we went and spoke to legislators at least I did and you know there's a lot of aspects that hit affect us that what they're doing right now
affect us in the community from our our from our um sovereign immunity from utilities community redevelopment agencies which is what has taken the blighted area along Highway 50 they want to make changes our local business tax housing you know live local all that is
being addressed in the legislature and I urge you to you know the Sentinel I know puts out notices regarding some of the things they're doing but I urge you to look at bills call your legislators tell them what you think please don't depend on
just again folks i call I'll call the legislators and tell them what I think but we need support and it's very important that you do that and there are bills that are affecting us and so I just can't help but say a few words for that we have Florida League of Cities
puts on their website key issues that affect cities because we we believe in live local which means let city we are where the rubber hits the road let our cities make our decisions to affect us locally and that's what live local means
sometimes legislators don't really agree with live local they want to make decisions that are affecting us let us make the decisions that affect us and that means your input it's not decisions that we make ourselves it's we're making them with your input and what we feel is
the best for our city so again we try to promote live local and go to Florida League of Cities website and look at some of the items that are affecting us locally and what they are voting on because we elect our representatives we expect them to support us and what's
best for our cities thank you thank you Commissioner one of one of the issues is uh the live local has been um a bill has been enter entered into the house of uh I guess legislators about the live local and add some things that we would not
like so everybody needs to pay attention to that because that's one of the issues everybody in the citizens are talking about now because of the live local houses want to be built over on Clark Road so that yeah that um if I may commissioner Wilson you may want to clarify I think you meant home rule not
live local i'm sorry thank you live local isn't live local isn't Yeah we don't want live sorry let's go back thank you so much you're welcome home rule thank you i guess I get talking I went like that thank you i should have you should have
tapped me another home rule is the correct term that we believe that we should be making decisions for us locally sorry live local is the housing we that's a whole another issue but yeah thank you thank you i appreciate that you're welcome the other thing I want to
thank our staff thank our staff for the best fest i know the chamber puts it on but our staff does a lot of the work and a lot of the setting up to get it ready so they've done a great job the um and the water reclaim folks everybody's not going to have it in the
city so that's you can say they haven't got it yet some of them might not get it cuz it's in the areas where we're having trouble with the water problems anyway and it's not in all the areas i don't have it in my area now you know it's been way over 30 years so it's not going
to be in all the areas of town so and the rate's going to go up so the rate affects only the ones that are on the reclaim war so if you ask somebody asked you just on the regular water bill it won't be affecting them so we appreciate everybody coming out sorry about it
taking a little longer but that worked out we got through so I'll see everybody i thought I already talked to you no he corrected me so that was that was still in my time oh that was I appreciate it i appreciate that you used to say no
comments yeah unfortunately I have one of the night uh first I want to thank Craig and uh the utility director and the staff for preparing the presentation explaining the reclaim water issue i've answered a lot of questions and received a lot of a
lot of questions and there's been a lot of confusion and uh and rightfully so paranoia about what does that mean so uh I thought that was very thorough and I think gave us a clear picture of of what we're dealing with and I thank you for
that um I do want to clarify something i want to explain my vote um I've had a very uh long association with Forest Lake Golf Club um and I was one of the
primary advocates 10 years ago uh almost 8 years ago for the city manager at that time to put Forest Lake on notice of default um we all heard and each of them or some
of them said it's understood it's a it's a given that if Forest Lake had been performing the maintenance that they should be performing their profits wouldn't have been as high and they have taken those profits and we know we can
reverse engineer the deal that they brought to us that they made a million dollars a year approximately over at least the last 5 years and when the representatives from Forest Lake Golf Course were here I asked him that and he
confirmed it and he had also confirmed it privately so it's a very difficult situation for me as many of you know I'm a fiduciary i'm a licensed CPA um the golf course we didn't buy the golf course we already own the golf
course the golf course is and always has been a public asset of the city and so in my opinion which I admit is uh unique based on my position um I feel that not properly maintaining
the golf course and taking those profits is potentially taking money away from the taxpayers and so I have a very hardline view on that i wanted to be very aggressive with that and push for that
to get as much of that money back and not in my words uh reward bad behavior um but it is a difficult business decision as I said uh not everyone is subject uh to the requirements and the
point of view that I have on money and fiduciary matters and I do believe that the city and the experts that Craig brought in put together absolutely the best mediated settlement if you were going to do that um so it's I've gone
back and forth i've talked to staff many times staff knows my position um and it's a very difficult decision but I just felt that I was obligated uh to make the decision and vote the way I did i want to explain it i don't have any
problem with the vote or with the plan for the city and I think they actually have great plans great ideas i think they've done a wonderful job i just personally couldn't bring myself to vote for it and I hope that's clear thank you very much i don't how much time how much time did
I have left before we got that thought the uh I will say that going back talking about the golf course you're not the only one that brought that up i brought it up a long time ago craig can witness it i went into that city manager's office a lot of times complaining about what was going on up
at the golf course it just seemed not to get every never got bothered with it because of what it was but I was there the day they dug the dirt to put that in back 30 years ago that it it was a shame because it's part of our it goes under
our recreation type thing for our uh state state deal that shows we got that land but it's a beautiful place out there mr clipton who was a golf uh designer did a wonderful great job on that golf course and he was a super nice
man and he it just didn't get put back into it after he was out of it so I think it it's a shame because it can be one of the better ones we got around and I want to see things like youth activities out there i want to see well women can go out and take golf lessons
kids can go take golf lessons some of us that do play mine want to go take some too but it it's it's a I think it's a big asset to our city and what money that we're paying out is going to come back tenfold so everybody will see that
in the future good night thank you