This doesn't for city council thing. This is pretty good. Want that help? Yeah, it is handy. I'm more of a buttonup guy. Just like buttons. Oh, I do not like buttons. I like t-shirts. You got to pick the shirt.
That's true. I'll just uh but then it has stuff on it and then then you think, well, this shirt connects you by. For a long time, I had a shirt that I was thinking about that I got from Good. I was thinking about taken by Attakus. Yeah. All right. You guys all ready over
there? Okay. Good evening. Welcome to city council, the city of Ovido. So, it's 5:30. We'll kick off our work session. Um, we can start with public comment. So, if there I don't have any written requests to speak. Is there anybody in the audience wishing to speak
at this time? Hearing none, I will close public comment and we'll move on to the second order of business which is fiscal year 202526 budget April update on capital and personnel requests. Mr. Cobb or Mr.
B. Uh thank you uh deputy mayor, honorable mayor, deputy mayor, members of council. As you know, we've uh somewhat reorganized the the budget process or workflow this year um based upon some of the things that took place last year as well. Well, I think we have
a more abbreviated schedule this year. So, what we thought we would do uh this year in the month of April is provide you uh a listing of the capital personnel requests. So, Kelly, if you can, we can go to the second page.
So, included in the be the agenda memo attachment number two was a detailed listing of each uh individual request. And what that entailed was we we also went through and had a meeting on uh April 16th with the directors where we
all had a chance to review our individual personnel requests, capital items and things of that nature. And what you have in your attachment in your handouts in front of you is you have the prioritization of the uh items that we
came to um to uh to uh to list uh at the end of our meeting. So, it's broken out into four separate sections. You have a section for personnel requests. You have a section for capital improvement projects. You have a section for capital outlay, which is individual item costs
less than 25,000. There is also a section for facilities maintenance. And at the end of our discussion tonight, we also would like to have consent on the use of unassigned fund balance that we talked about in the month of March. So, uh, this is going to be, uh, our
opportunity to have an open discussion, uh, regarding each one of the individual schedules, and you can assist us in helping us make sure that we've placed these things in the right priority. And if you have other items that are um, listed on the schedules that you think are of higher priority, would we would
need to have that input as well. Please bear in mind though as we go through this process, um, this process is not a guarantee of absolute funding. We usually don't know what we have available until we get to the end of the process, but we want to make sure that um that we do have your priorities
included uh at the beginning of the process so that we can make sure that we uh get them assigned as we can. Now, a component I need to explain this right now. A component of the unassigned fund balance is also the $550,000 use of capital for next fiscal
year that we talked about. So we want to preund some of those items if we can. So depending upon where these priorities come up with land tonight, we want to try and preund some of those items and then what we'll do when we go get into the end of the budget process in May or
June or perhaps even July or August, we'll bring everything back to you and we'll show you what we've been able to fund in the current fiscal year to roll forward in the next fiscal year. We'll also show you what we've been able to fund through the budget process. Does that make sense? Okay. Very good. So, um
again, we're we're going to go through these schedules uh individually uh and uh you're free to comment. The directors are here to support any questions that you might possibly have this evening. Uh so, if we can uh let's go to the next slide.
So before we kick off the discussion on the uh personnel request, what we wanted to do is we want to just provide you a brief review of the individual full-time equivalents or FTEES that we've been able to fund by year for the last three fiscal years. Now, we're extremely
careful with funding these items because these are recurring costs. Um capital is not a recurring cost. It's a one-time expenditure to the extent that it comes up every so often. So you'll see in 2223 there's the list of folks that uh we uh
were able to bring on board. You know a significant increase in and in FTEES and which was appropriate because they were desperately needed. Last year we talked about the streets and the sidewalk crew and basically significant component of risk management here at the city. So we
wanted to make sure that we were able to fund that. than last year or this current fiscal year just very light because again we're very concerned about the recurring cost and adding that to the budget. So partial accountant and a full-time systems analyst for it. So
that's a recap of what we've done in the past. Any questions? Okay. Going forward, Kelly, if we can, let's just go ahead and flip over into the listings really quick. So these are the uh items that um the individual directors uh
talked about in our uh meeting that we had on October 16th and each and every single one of us had an opportunity to to vote on what we thought the priorities were. The individual directors gave us their priorities and then we voted based upon their input and
this is how it came out. So any discussion on what where we landed in regard to personnel order? Any changes that you would like to make? If none, we can move on.
Do we have enough money to cover hiring all of these? That's an excellent question, mayor. Thank you for asking that question. Um, we usually don't have know if we have enough money till we get toward the end of the process. However, in the event that we do have
adequate funding, it's very important for us to know what your priorities are. Okay? So, if we know your priorities that when we get to the end of the process, we can then take a look at what we can do. And that same answer applies to all the capital as well. So, on this
is this a reflection of what staff collectively thinks is the most important. So we think that a facilities maintenance tech is more important to hire than firefighter EMTs. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Just making sure I'm understanding correctly. Yeah. And again, you know, that's why we showed
the history of what we were able to add over the last several years. You know, we feel that we've been able to make strides forward in fire. We had hired three full-time equivalents in fire three years ago. Looking at the previous slide, um, and we've also done some
other things. So based upon and we try to hit different departments every year so that not one department gets left undone. So there what we have seen in this past u review uh support from the HR department support from the parks and reccks folks is that there is a
significant need in parks and rec facilities maintenance uh to to get some things done. So this is the way that it that fell out uh at the end of our discussions. Okay. going down and taking a look at capital. Um the next section
if we can Kelly please just you know really quick uh again same process we every director provided an indepth review of the individual items and they provided us their priorities and at the end of the discussions this is where it
landed. This this is the capital items greater than $25,000. So and that's the order that they fell out in. Now, I have to caution us in saying this is that when we get to the end of the process, if a lot of these things that we we're looking at
here depends upon how much money we have left over. So, if we only if we get to the end of the process and we have $100,000 left over, typically what we do is we meet amongst ourselves, Mr. Cobb, and we'll take a look at, okay, what can we do for $100,000? cuz obviously every
single comp piece of the first three items is is in excess of 100,000. So we might go down to the artificial turf uh ch you know city hall chiller so on and so forth just to see how much we can do with the money that we have left over.
Does that make sense? Okay. Is there anything on this list that you would like to reorder or repprioritize for us? plans. Uh, I'm seeing a new master plan consultant for a quarter million dollars, sustainability plan, and
parking lot improvement plan. And I love plans, but what I would rather do is $250,000 worth of recreation improvements based on our highly competent staff's recommendations versus having somebody else come in and think and think and
think and we use the money in that way. And same thing for sustainability. uh we may be able to get some really terrific ideas if we jump in this cycle to get a maybe a UCF professor to have a group of of students uh workshop you our whole
city there there's a lot of brain power and a lot of energy and I think we could get this done and there's only so much we can do that we can budget for so we can have a great plan but if we don't have budget to do the plan perhaps it is better for now to get free plans from
whoever we can and use this money to do some of the the lower hanging fruit. And then same thing for the parking lot improvement plan. That is a lot of money for a a plan, $94,000 to think about improving the parking
lot. Oh, there's also a FCT management plan that may be required under one of our grants. So that which item number is that, mayor? Uh that is 23 on the ranking. Shane Kelly Park. Okay. I don't think we'll get down that low.
Okay. Uh but that's a very good point. Thank you. So, if that is required by one of our grants, we need to make sure that we prioritize that so we don't get in a spot where we have to repay our grant money. Thank you. Anything else? How far do we plan to be able to get on
each one of these? Or I mean, I know we don't know exactly, but do we have some idea? I'm not sure I fully understand your question. Well, I mean, you're saying that so this is the order of things that if we could have everything we wanted, right, we would do them in this order. How far down the list do we
anticipate getting? Or is this, you know, for some of these um the personnel? I know the the projects are many of them are multi-year, right? And there's kind of a plan for how much each year on the personnel though. I mean, uh, are we talking about this is what
we'd like to add over 3 years, 2 years, 5 years, or are you hoping to add, you know, this number of people this next budget year? No, we're not looking to add that many people over this next budget year.
This is that's a very very complicated question to answer but a great question Mr. Uh we're very concerned about this budget year only because we see that government spending is declining and
because we see the government spend declining with the expiration of ARPA so to speak we're expecting our recurring revenues to either level out or decrease slightly. So when we get to the end of
our budget process, maybe sometime in June, May or June, we'll have a better towh hold on what we can do or cannot do. I would expect that, and Kelly, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Cobb, correct me if I'm wrong, but I would
expect that we would have a pretty solid answer on what we can do by the time we get to the end of July. But but again, it's really important for us to understand what your priorities are so that we can make sure that we include them in the budget
process. Does that help you? I I apologize. I cannot give you a precise answer because there just too many variables. A full, you know, we don't have a full picture of it yet. Right. Exactly. We don't know what our um property valuations are going to be yet. Um we budgeted 5% I believe, which we
hope is a little conservative. We hope to get a little bit more than that. Uh but again, you know, we've got fixed increases already built into the budget process this year. 5% for fire, 5% for police, um and other things just that go
up year-over-year, utility expense and things of that nature. So, we'll have a pretty good idea by the time we get um maybe in into June, but definitely into July. That's when we get all our get all our state estimates in. So I I think in a perfect world we would
want to hire all 12 in one year. I think in a perfect world and when the requests were made that was the request the request was for that the 2526 fiscal year. But in the reality there's it's probably not possible. Even if we got a
double-digit uh valuation increase I still don't think we probably have the revenue to do everything. So that's why we annually get together and we hash out the priorities so that when we do figure out we get the when we get the property appraiser notice in June and we start to
see the state monies trickle in in late June and early July then we can start to really put things together. Okay, we can do this, we can do this. And and as with everything, we try to stretch every dollar as far as we can. And uh on the capital side, yes, we may end up rather
than cackling the big things, looking at the little things and doing as many of them as we can uh using the monies that we have. And but usually it's we the property appraiser comes in around June and then the state stuff trickles in late June, early July, and that's when we know know best about what we're going
to be able to do. Okay. Thank you, Mr. So on the the the police and fire uh personnel here um back up. So I know last year you guys did the collective bargaining negotiation. It was before I was on the council. So I don't really
know what goes on in those um to this extent. Were these positions um things that were identified as part of that that we were going to add? No sir, they were not. They were not part of the collective bargaining agreement or process. So would this mean that if we
were to add them, the tax increase that happened last year would not be sufficient? Possibly unless we rearrange some things to cover this. They were not included in the tax increase that we were that we processed
last year. All right. Thank you. I was trying to think of the best way to answer that question. I mean obviously we're going to get a valuation increase this year but again with the valuation increase what are the priorities right? Right. So um as far as current positions
we have not these. How many open do we have right now? I don't know the answer to that. Six. So not a ton. I know we've had years where we've had a lot of openings. Yeah. We don't we don't have that issue right now. Gotcha. which with your great help
that you know a few years ago that's what uh brought us back in in line with uh our needs here at the city. And so that's six that are open and unfrozen because this makes mention of position unfreezing positions. So we have frozen positions as well. Yes. And
how many are those roughly? Two or three? Three. We have three. Three. Okay. Anything else on personnel? Anything else on capital lockers? I I noticed there's about $300,000 worth of locker room
renovations on there. Lockers, not lockers. Lock lockers. Yeah, lockers. Locker room. So, Riverside locker room is number 13. And public safety locker room 20. And I don't I don't know what condition the locker rooms are in, but I I kind of think of that and think, well,
lockers are lockers. And uh I would want to probably not prioritize changing metal lockers. Maybe we could just paint them in place. I mean, maybe there's plumbing involved. And another one that made me wonder if perhaps we need to repipe city hall is
the Oh, where did that go on here? City Hall second floor restroom renovations for $65,000. Number 14. I've been in those bathrooms and the toilets flush, the sinks turn on. I'm I'm not sure why we
would need to prioritize those. And I guess if number 14 is not that high of a rank, but if if they have if there's leaks or issues like that, I would rather look at do we need to repipe city hall? And we may need to cuz it's if
it's never been repiped and it's from 90 what is it 94ish? It's probably is it piped in copper? I don't know. But uh let's get that on the radar. maybe evaluating whether repiping city hall would be appropriate. That's all I got for for
capital. Mr. So, one thing people talk to me about is vehicles. Um, can can you tell me what the policies are about vehicles and how long
we keep them and what we buy and and what reasons? So, we're saying here code enforcement vehicle, you know, an F-150 at $44,000. How long do we keep those? We keep them until the wheels fall off and that's when we replace them. So, we have
10year-old We may have a few. Yes. I don't know what the We had a couple when we looked a couple years ago. We had a lot of really old ones. But a lot though. The reason why code enforcement is asking for a vehic ve vehicle is because they have three staff and only two vehicles,
right? So they're asking for an additional one for their third person. And again, I don't know that we can find that. Yeah. But it's on the list. And could it be like a little Kia? Maybe a four-door is plenty good for a lot of
this stuff. With them, they need the truck because they because they have to pick stuff up and sometimes they have to go off-road. So, they would that the truck would be the best bet for code enforcement, but for um Oh, can you talk a little closer to the mic? I'm sorry.
Yes. uh for for code enforcement, the truck is what they would need because sometime they have to put stuff in the back of the truck and when they pick stuff up off the road. They also uh sometimes have to go off-road and the car would just get stuck. Having been off-road on a code enforcement case
myself one time gotten stuck. Uh the truck is much better uh better equipment for them and their function. Uh but you yes, you're right. In some cases, a sedan is better for some of the more administrative functions. So, but for them, they need something that they can
uh put stuff in the back as well as as go off-road. There was uh the item in there on the shade structures in the packet, it talked about UV, keeping the UV off the uh you know, the areas of the parks. I just wanted to point out that those
don't keep the UV off. I've been sunburned underneath those. So, I don't know if if that's a goal since it's written they we might need a different material there. Are you saying they don't cool things down? Because when it was out out of Veto on the park, it was like a melting
pit of children for like the whole summer. And when they went down, it's like 10 to 20 minutes cooler when they went down. What do you mean? So, they were they were damaged in the hurricane and took a while to put them back up. So when they went back, installed it, cooled it all back down. Makes a huge difference. Oh yeah. And he's saying UV,
not not temperature. Even that it protects the equipment from the UVs. Um, you still Yeah. Well, there might be some it's a long way from 100%. So I mean, if that was if that was one of the goals since it was written in the
packet, um, I just thought I'd bring that up since it was I guess the ginger and me could get sunburned anyways anyway. So I I I think it does still make a difference though. Anything else? Okay, the next Okay, the next section is
capital outlay. Uh so these are items that individually generally speaking are less than $25,000 each. And uh what you'll see is many of these many of these totals here for capital outlay are comprised of several
items not just one. What is Dingo Parks equipment number nine? That is a special piece of equipment. Um I believe it's like a stand behind uh Oh, he's going to explain. Yeah. Yeah.
Because that that sounds fun. Good evening everybody. Um, the dingo piece of equipment is a standing piece of equipment that the park staff would be able to utilize instead of having to borrow a bobcat from public works. This one's more versatile and has a lot of
attachments. So, we would be able to have a solid piece of equipment that can perform a lot of the duties without having to rely on public works or have to go rent uh equipment as well. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jack.
So, I had read here that says 800 portable radios in in the packet. That's a little bit unclear, too. What does the 800 mean? Certainly not buying 800 radios. Meghertz. It's mehz. 800 meghertz. 800 meghertz. Yes. It's the
frequency. Yeah. Um on on the police radios, there was like a $900,000 total project to replace the whole system over three years, something like that. Where was that? I guess it doesn't matter. But um and it said that
we have to do that cuz they're can't get parts to replace them and and that kind of stuff. Do we have uh uh oh, it's right here. Do we have worry about that failing sometime between now and when that can be completed? I would have to
defer to Mr. Coleman. Okay. Are you saying maybe we should work on budgeting to do it faster? Well, I I don't need to cut the whole thing cuz it's an awful lot of money, right? So, there's uh how many officers do we have around 70? Yeah. 75 officers a million
dollars of radios. That's a lot of money for each. This says 630. Am I confused? Push and hold. I don't know till now. Okay, good to go. Yeah, it's like $13,000 a radio, huh?
Well, it says 6:30 down here, but then it says 930 up here. Maybe that's a typo. Maybe Chief can go fill it up. Sorry. We have 75 officers. Uh we need about 77 radios. Uh Motorola is the
800lb gorilla in in Florida. Seminal County uh maintains the towers like the one behind us as far as a radio system which has to be integrated. It is a Motorola system. Everybody's on Motorola. There's not a there's not a department that I'm aware of in Central
Florida that's not on Motorola. Um Motorola gave us the prices. We didn't you know it is what it is kind of thing as far as what they dictate the price. They're the ones. So, as far as failing, what they have told us, they generally give us about a three-year window uh
that they quit making parts, but they will continue to support usually a year out. Simmel County has its own shop that is certified Motorola, and they have told us that there should be good for 2 to 3 years out with parts already on
place, uh taking them from old radios, things of that nature, and continue on. But they wouldn't go further than that. Okay. So, that's our our best estimates. So, we're kind of taking it to the basically as far as we can. Okay. So, we we utilize Simol County for maintenance.
Correct. There's they have their own radio shop and they program them. Anything goes wrong with them, we take them there and they fix them. Uh we pay a small monthly uh maintenance fee to maintain them. Okay. So, we don't have a single point of failure. Like if the repeater here goes down, then everybody
goes down then. Yeah. Right. It's not just county would be able to help us with that. If the tower itself goes down, Seminal County, everybody in Seminal County can't use it. It's not just us. Yeah. We're all on a radio, same radio system. And you talk to the same tower. Correct. Like I can talk to
the fire department, I can talk to Semol County, any agency in Seminal County. So, uh, and they maintain all of that, all all programming, all infrastructure, all from from start to finish. So, you're only talking about the ones that are in use. You're not
talking about the infrastructure of the system. This is this is strictly the portable radios on there. Uh they've they've transitioned to more of a cellular type of radio. Um it's a newer Well, it's the newest system out, but uh what they've told us is that this one
should dead spots should be a lot less. Uh usually when you go into like the mall, radios don't always work cuz it doesn't penetrate. These will convert to a cellular system and and work that way from what I understand. I'm not a radio guy, but that's what I understand. Um,
and so is that 900,000 or 930 or 630? It says both things, unless So on that one, we have 300,000 budgeted in the current year. And that was before the chief had gotten the estimate on what it would take to replace them. So there's 300,000
in the current year. We would need the additional 600 to complete to get to the 900. Okay. Okay. So, 2425 had 300 in it. Okay. And it that doesn't show on prior years is why I was didn't see that. Okay.
Any more on that one? I got to bring up the swan boats real quick. Um I I would be interested in knowing how many people use them. Um, I have been hoping to for about 8 years, but at no point when I am
there interested in using them are they even available for use. So, I'm not sure why we would replace them. So, the Swan Boats are a little over 10 years old now. Um, we're we are performing minor repairs on a year-to-year basis. Um,
looking at the uh the revenue, I can't give you the number of participants, but the total revenue, uh, two years ago, we brought in about $4,700. Last year, approximately $6,700 of revenue. Year to date, we're at 4,700. Just a little over itself in a couple days. It's paying for itself.
That's fine then. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Chief. Anything else? Wait, we still have to pay somebody to run the booth. That's true. Somebody has to open the booth and I think that's why they're not available that much. So,
keep up the limited hours. I guess you got to make it make sense. Okay. If we could move to the next section then last section I believe is facilities maintenance and this is the priorities
for uh facilities maintenance. Which parking lot is referenced as as number eight? Is that just all of them in general kind of? It says in in here city hall campus public safety and the gymnasium page. Although if you could it says
microsurfacing will reduce the price. Can you kind of explain what that is? So we put in for a full mill replacement at these facilities. Um we're getting ready to actually go to bid for a few other locations um this fiscal year. Um we unfortunately could not include these
with that bidding process right now. So we push that into our capital request for next year. Uh microservicing was a an option provided by our consultant um following FDOT specs as a um for those facilities that don't need a full like asphalt repair. Um, it provides a thin
layer on top of your asphalt that would give you the great feel. Plus, you get durability possibly 5 years or so or more. Right. Thank you. Okay. Anything else? Okay, if we can, we'll move on to the last uh slide, Kelly, of the
slideshow. Thank you. So, last two slides actually. I'm sorry. So at the end of March, we talked to each of us about uh using unassigned fund balance for three specific things. We wanted to pay off the existing
general fund debt uh which is 2.2 million. Uh if we were able to pay off the existing general fund debt, that would free up about $675,000 a year in cash flow. In addition, we talked about construction of the new police station
annex, taking 2.2 million out of fund balance to support uh the construction process. And the last thing we talked about was taking $550,000 out of fund balance to support uh capital outlay and equipment, CIP
capital outlay and equipment. And again, that $550,000 would be used to jumpstart the capital process for the next fiscal year. We would budget for it this fiscal year and treat it like a carry forward into the next fiscal year.
So, we would need consensus to bring this forward to you. Uh if we do once we get consensus, we will bring it uh forward to you in the form of a budget uh adjustment. uh perhaps uh second meeting in May, first meeting in June.
So what are your thoughts? I always like paying off debt, especially if we could stay above our our threshold that you still have enough for hurricanes. So you talked about paying off the debt. I think you came to us about a month or so ago and saying one of the ideas was pay off the debt
that would give us probably the ability not to raise the millillage when we put the bonds in for the public safety building. Correct. for a 30-year issue. For the 30-year one, if we I'm very intrigued by that. Yeah.
You're a smart man. It was a group effort. Thank you. Uh but if we were to do these three items, thank you, Kelly. If we were to do these three items, basically, this is where we would land. You know, our policy calls for us to have a 15% reserve, I think,
which we we've all learned by now is not adequate. uh we have to make sure that we have enough reserve um basically to support the uh recovery efforts for hurricanes and any type of econ economic calamity that comes our
way. So we're starting off with uh projected unassigned fund balance of 19.8 uh million. Uh and again each component general fund debt police station annex uh the reserve would bring us down to
about 14.8 million. Now when I explained this to us in March I explained that I would like our reserve to basically fall within a range between 15 million and $20 million. This gets us
very close to the bottom of that range. And if you'll recall, uh, when we approved the midyear budget adjustments, we put about $820,000, I think. Was that the number? $820,000 back into the reserve. So, just based upon these numbers right now,
we're probably going to land around 156 unless we have a loss this year, which is highly possible because of the consumption-based revenues. We just don't know how they're going to behave at this point. But even so, that puts us well ahead of the
uh city policy of 15%, the GFOA best practices of 16.67% and it positions us very favorable favorably in the event that we have a climate event and again some sort of an economic event and we just want to be very careful with that based upon our history here and what's
happened in the past. So if we have your consensus, we would like to bring these items back to you in the form of an approval. um as soon as we can. Yes, Alan. Uh yeah, and this is this is what
we talked about in the last meeting. I mean, these these numbers are I didn't have them memorized, but these are No, that's okay. Yeah. Okay. Yes, sir. That's correct. The same ones. Okay. I mean, so we're paying off um those two bonds, right? And that's an equivalent millillage for borrowing what we want to
borrow for the police station based on a 30-year debt. based on a 30 year be careful with that. Those bonds would have been paid off sooner than that. The ones that we were paying off, right? So if we had just kept going
cuz cuz those didn't have 30 years remaining on them, right? Which bonds? The ones we're paying off here? The ones were paying off. Yeah. No, they wouldn't have been paid off any sooner than this. I mean, they have they each have no what he's asking is how many years do they have left? Three to four. Yeah, it's like three or four years. Gotcha. So in
3 or 4 years, we would have been clear of those. Correct. And now we're going to extend that same mill rate out 30. So it's not it's not like we're getting the uh police station bond for free. We're
still going to we're just keeping the rate the same as it would be now and for the next three years, but after that otherwise the the um you know the the bond millage would have gone down. Well, these two debts are not tied to
millage. They're they're not general obligation bonds. They're they're not ones that show up on the Ovito bonds on the property. Correct. That's only for a veto in the park. See, what makes these Yeah. What makes these bonds different is that they're not um general
obligation bonds. They're not paid for out of adorum taxes. They're paid for out of general revenues. Thank you. I wasn't understanding where you're going with that. So, I appreciate your careful thought there. So, yeah, these are paid out of of general revenues. And because they're paid out of general revenues,
basically that limits the general fund's ability to be able to do things. It takes away financial resources from the general fund. As your advisor, as your finance director, I would never ever ever recommend debt service attached to
the general revenues of of the general fund. We've seen we've seen the the challenges with that. We've seen the impacts of that both with capital, vehicles, personnel, uh, and things of that nature. It it just robs, again, not to sound
repetitive, but it just robs the general fund of the of the needed resources to provide the services to the public. So, yeah. Great. So, it's better than I thought. Yes, sir. Thank you for your patience, Mayor. Good. Yep. Uh, you have
consensus. Okay, Mr. Kyle, that's all I have tonight in regard to this discussion unless there's some other items you'd like you'd like. I don't think there is. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you, councel. All right, we will move on to item number three, which is the Ovito Arts
and Entertainment District. Mr. Cobb. Uh, thank you, Mayor Deputy Mayor. Uh if you remember uh we've been working with our uh state representatives uh to create an arts and entertainment district that's uh primarily on Oto on
the park. Uh we did learn that the house had approved the uh local bill that has been working its way through and Mr. Kelly wanted to come and give you an update on on the arts and entertainment district. So I'll turn it over to him. Thank you, Mr. Cobb. Good evening,
mayor, deputy mayor, city council. Uh, as uh Mr. Cobb uh alluded, uh we're here this evening to talk about uh the next step after the state uh has completed uh passage, if they complete compa passage of uh the Oto Arts and Entertainment uh
district. Uh what will come before city council after that happens? uh should that happen and should council uh decide to um uh pass or proceed with the ordinance. Um as Mr. Cob said, uh the House passed the bill 108 to zero. Uh so there was
widespread support there and uh tonight we're going to go over some of the uh specifics of a proposed ordinance uh that would regulate on the city side uh what would take place uh to make that district become a reality. Um well,
tonight we'll seek council's uh direction on the boundaries, uh consumption timing, uh official cup and logo, uh as well as um uh other registration and other regulations in
with respect to how and when uh folks are allowed to do that. Uh so again the purpose of the district is um to provide a sort of equal opportunity uh for uh participation in local economy in Novito on the park in the arts entertainment
district and uh it all came about uh as we were established or sorry um approached by an establishment in the area that would like to to see something like that happen. Um so uh what we have here is uh the
current makeup of uh a proposed boundary uh on the city side. And if you'll recall, we've shown uh several maps throughout the process and it's gotten started out big and uh as we've uh engaged community stakeholders uh we've
uh shrank every time it seems like down to uh sort of the area uh that we uh would would know to be the uh primary ovito on the park area. Uh this was based on the Ovito in the park development agreement. So, uh, the
reason that it extends up right now to this area is this commercial track there and potential development might occur in that area in the future. Uh, what you'll see at the bottom here is the all the establishments uh, and it looks like it got shifted a little bit. um in the
district that have uh licenses currently that uh may be able to accept the uh Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco um license for off-remise uh open consumption. Uh so there are several uh
primarily in this area. Uh so what we would uh first like to discuss is uh council uh if you would like uh to proceed would you like to see the uh area in which it's allowable
uh altered in any way shrank uh continue to shrink into more of the uh OVO and the park center lake park area and not include the commercial tract up uh above. So that would be my first question to pose to you all. I'd like to shrink it a little bit and
have it coincide, but I don't know how are we are we able to easily shift it now now that the state has approved the bigger map. We can expand it at a later date. What what the state's map uh the state bill does is all all it does is uh
lets us make a map. No, it it allows the state to issue licenses to vendors that already have gotcha. alcoholic beverage consumption licenses. So, it doesn't regulate any consumption of alcoholic
beverages. The state doesn't regulate open containers. Uh it it only regulates uh drink drunk driving and uh open containers within vehicles. So, it's up to the city uh in our local or in our
code of ordinances to regulate open consumption of alcoholic beverages. Yeah. Can you say that first part again? The bill the bill just provides the license. The Bureau of Alcohol uh Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco
provides licenses to establishments to serve alcohol. They either serve for on on premise consumption uh or they serve for off- premise consumption. And the difference is if you serve for off-remise consumption, it's sealed and you take it home. You're not allowed to exit with an open container.
Okay. So the the state law that just passed passed the house. Yes. Allows the businesses of past the house allows the businesses to get some new kind of license, but I'm not hearing what that is. It allows for off- premise consumption. Offremise consumption
consumption of open. Yes. Open container. Off premise of open container. So in order to participate in this, each of these would have to get a license separately from the city of Oto. Correct. And the state is the one that issues it. And and the way the bill is
structured now says the state shall issue. So anyone with a current license is issued that license. Okay. So they'll automatically have it. They won't have to pay an additional fee. Correct. And now the question is how does the city want to regulate that consumption should
folks be allowed to under city regulations exit the u with open container. So, um, so that shall issue license that they have, if the city does nothing, then they can't really utilize it because they're licensed for it, but the city doesn't allow people to walk out with an open container. Uh, yes,
council member, that's correct. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. So, I got a question on this and that it was it was brought up by one of the establishments in the area. Do you know if if someone bought a
liquor? Let's say you got a vodka soda from from the pub and then you went down and you went to Crazy Cork. Are they allowed to bring that alcohol into a place that only has a wine license? As my understanding is the
license that the state will issue will only allow you to exit the premises with that open container. I don't believe it will allow you to enter. So, a person like Crazy Cork would have to regulate to make sure that that person does not come
in with a liquor drink. I mean, most most establishments don't let you bring you bring an outside drink. So, that that's kind of uh Council Member Bford is the purpose one of the many purposes of a standardized uh cup that we'll get to talk about later so that it's easily
recognizable. So if they see someone come in, they don't have to stand at the door and say, "You're not allowed to bring that in." They just, if you see someone with that cup come in and they have a beverage in it, say, "Would you please either not come in or would you please dispose of that beverage?"
Mr. Hall, do you know is that something if you have do you know anything about like the licenses? If if you only have a beer for a license for beer and wine, are you allowed? Is it a violation if if under this ordinance they carried it in? I I I don't know. I haven't seen
read legislation all the way through, but I don't think it addresses that. I think that would be a local It just addresses just address that you can walk out. Correct. Yes. That would then be a local issue that we would have to address within our entertainment district. Yeah. Cuz I wasn't even aware that that that was even an issue and
then that was brought up and I was like, I don't know. The legislature had thought about that either to be honest with you. They like to do big things and you fill it in. Yeah. Let us figure out the rest. That would be us. That would be up to us to fill in. Um thank you Mr. And also, you know, as these are becoming more and more
popular, these types of um licenses are being issued across the state. Um we we've talked with of several of our partners. Gainesville um was one of them. And uh their primary concerns was not this this was the first of that type
of concern that we heard from another uh partner, but I can certainly look at it look into it before we bring the ordinance to you and we can also discuss it with the Bureau of Alcohol. They have a local office uh here in Orlando um that we have spoken with them on several occasions. We be happy to reach out to
them. All right. So to your question of do we like the map or do we want to change the map? Um what what is it currently when we have events that serve alcohol in Ovito on the park? What can you do currently with
a an open container that you bought there? You can only go within the event the event space. It's limited to just the invent and usually how far up does that go like yeah what do you to the end of typically they're contained within the
park right and then center lake lane in front of the park if you think about if we have let's say [Music] um barking brew uh we close off uh Mr. Kelly, if you could just point right over east of the
east of the cultural center. Well, we close off right there at uh at City Plaza. We close off at Center Lake and then we close off up here. So, you'll be able that you would be able to utilize the drink within that within that area along Center Lake Lane, but also within
the park because that's considered the event area. But outside of it, then no, you would not. So, as soon as you got over across the street into an apartment area, that's now no longer you're outside the event. You're outside and
and what the staff has to do for either the staff or a partner nonprofit that's putting on the event, they have to go to the alcoholic a bureau of alcoholic beverages in tobago and and receive a license to put that event on as well. You're saying now? Yes. So, so
currently, so there's there is there's special event license. The ATF gets a a special license. Yeah. Right. Uh alcoholic beverages and tobacco ABT. That's not the ATF. No. Okay. And this is Okay. It's a state agency, not the federal agency. Yes. State license. Okay. So, you get a state license and
it's and it's in that well-defined contained area. Yes. Presumably there's a map that gets drawn and given to that as part of their application. Yes. Okay. And so what this would do is would extend um in a significant way where you
could walk around with open containers. Correct. That include people's residences. Yes. On the days of of an event. Yes. They could go to the event, have a drink, and they could then take the drink back home with them. Yeah. And that would include um drinks that you
bought at the event from the city now could also go into this whole area, right? could come to the could I would think provided again it meets it meets the regulations in the code of ordinances and it's in the correct license. Okay. So that would mean the city would have to sell it in the
special cup with the logo if in order to if the city so desired to if the city desired to but if they did not then it would have to stay um within the event space. So, we're just talking about you go and get from one of those yellow dots. Those could walk around the other ones.
And and again, the purpose is when we have all these, we had I don't know how many people came to the 100th anniversary this past weekend, but it was a it was a lot. Gargantuan number we'll say. Um it's to allow our businesses uh to be able to have a
little more participation when all of those people come to visit. And uh just for an example, folks could go to the food factory this weekend and get a beverage, but they could not exit and come even with the event being right out in front of the food factory cuz this
that event extended all the way up Citywalk Lane. Um so folks still could not even though it was within the event space, the food facto's license does not allow for offer sale. Now I have a question on timing. Do we have to allow this all the time if we do this? And and
that's that's actually coming up here on the next slide. All right. I'll let you get there cuz I did talk to some businesses about that as well too. But you're looking for direction on the the size right now. Uh yes, definitely. I also think we should shrink it down. Um our intent is to capture the businesses
there, not necessarily ones, turn it turn it into a uh what the you know, news likes to glorify as a college party town area. Um, so I don't know what you guys are interested in doing as far as the original tent of what we're looking to do here. Carve out
the residential. Yeah. And the apartments. Okay. So, but then I guess you couldn't take it back to where you live, which is kind of a sad thing perhaps. Like if you've had too much, but you can't bring yourself to dump it out. Well, then maybe you should not bring it home still. Maybe you should
Yeah, maybe you still should not bring it home. Yeah. Um, so we do have uh at least one business currently that is in and since we have mixed use, it makes it very difficult to carve out the multif family residential. All of
that has mixed use on the bottom. Every every business in this building um would be and there's also commercial here that I don't know would ever if they would ever someday have a wine bar, but we could cut off the top, right? If if I could if I can make the suggestion,
Patrick, if you could go up to the go up to the top of the parking lot. Top of the parking lot here. Now, head head west. Come down around the the and go up around the edge of the park and then connect there. That's that was what you would say is a veto in the park proper.
Mhm. And that would be a probably good compact area to start with. And is that back top left corner that's not really mixed use? That's just an apartment building here. Yeah. Yeah. We carve that out, too. Is it on a separate parcel though? If it's not on a separate
parcel, we may not be able to carve that out. That's true, too. And that's also It depends on once we get down into the nitty-gritty of that box kind of makes a lot more sense as far as we get all the businesses, but we still keep it contained for that. Mr. Cop Council, I
do have one question. Uh, as far as I mean, we we we discussed here, but this parcel is still vacant in zone commercial. It's possible. Possible. Um, should we include this in any way or let's revisit it later. Yeah. How hard
is it to change? Was it So, yeah, cuz it's it's our doing. This the map doesn't go to the state. Seems like we could just change this whenever, right? If somebody were to put an establishment in there or as part of the reasoning or whatever, they could come and ask for it.
Hypothetically, we may want to extend it all the way across Ovido Boulevard. like we may have a festival someday in the future. All all this we can think about down the road. The a festival could be completely shifted out of the park and then you know lots of things could happen.
So I think we're good with going across the parking lot and down and over and making a box. I think that's what it sounds like. Okay, good. I I'd kind of like to keep it out of the parking lot and get to that as well. That that's coming up. Yeah, but doesn't seem like any good can come from that.
We do a food truck festival in there. I did, you know, we did um I did put a slide in here for that coming up which we can uh I don't remember that slide. So um so we also talk about uh consumption timing and and scaling it down. Thank
you very much for the direction on the on the map. Uh so we also talk about timing. Uh I've I've talked to some of the vendor uh sorry the establishments in the area. Uh some are gung-ho, some are not. so as to sort of find a happy
median um and do what we intend to do which is create that um uh participation that economic participation uh for our uh establishments in the park. Um my recommendation is to uh start with a
pilot program, keep it small and to only allow it during sign city signature events, sponsored events or events organized by the city to take place within the district. So, so on that I think that's perfect
because I did talk to a couple of those business owners last or on Saturday at the at the 100th and they did not like if it was all the time because they want people to stay in their establishments and spend money there which makes sense but they were on board with what I said
was our original purpose and hopefully I didn't miss misspeak was having the ability to have their business tapped into during events. So, I think this is a great starting point. Personally, I like I like the limited timing. Yeah, I would I would want to keep it this
way. Okay. You know, only during events. Thank you, council. Uh so now we also talked about um having a an official cup and it being identifiable, something that everyone uh that when especially uh Chiefs Coleman, Chief Coleman's folks know uh that
that's the cup when they're out during events and if they see someone walking off, they know that what's in that cup would chances are be an alcoholic beverage. Uh so that it is recognizable. Uh so what we uh put in the code of ordinances in the draft uh draft
ordinance is a 16 ounce because that's a typical beverage. Um uh what they call a stadium cup which is a reusable plastic cup. So at least folks would not if it was a cheap flimsy plastic cup they would be more likely to throw it away and not save it. At least if we give the
we require it to be a little more substantial folks are more likely to take it home. I know I have a mountain of budget tree cups in my home uh from all the events that my uh family attend. So uh it the intention with that is to to keep trash to a minimum to keep make
it nice enough to where someone would be more likely to take it home. Now can it be reused and then you take it to the parking lot, you put your own thing in and you walk into the event and you're happy golucky? I know that would not be the intent, but is there anything that would make
that like that would that did occur and um I will talk about some of the prohibitions later on. Okay. And parking prohibit the parking lot prohibition is addressed in the code of ordinances in the draft ordinance. Uh that would be uh
prohibiting it in that city parking lot and um we'll get to that momentarily. So, you just carry your unopened beer inside the zone and then you pour it into your cup. And if someone were to go to that much trouble, they're probably
doing it now. Yeah, they're already doing it. All right. And then then could we put uh the little frozen things that everybody had at the centennial? Does the frozen thing go into the cup and that still counts or do you have to like get it out of the cup? by there's
there's so many details of this. Again, if someone is going to that much trouble, uh they're probably going to do it regardless of city. It's just the speed. Like so Legacy Liquors, you know what I'm talking about. They this they have this these slushies, but they have them pre pulled
from the machine, right, to go. So premixed. Yeah. So they're they're too frozen to get out. So you would like take it and later. You would basically, as far as the slushies, you would it would be almost like buying an icy from 7-Eleven. You'd go and you'd fill your cup with the slushie, purchase it, and
then you could walk out. So, you bring your cup as a refill cup or something. Yes, you could. As long, if it's, if as long as they're pouring slushy cuz reducing waste is always a priority. Yeah. If it's the logo cup. Yes. Okay. Yeah. You can reuse the logo cup cuz people are doing that all the time for
as long as their slushies have been here. They're like Yeah. They're everywhere. And so we would we would like to uh uh the cup to have a logo on it for the entertainment district and everything is on the table as far as uh changes go. And we would also uh allow the
establishment to put their own logo on it so that they can feel included and have a form of advertisement on the cup um so that they are going to the the trouble of purchasing and participating in the program. Um which the city would not provide the cup. would provide the
specifications for the cup and the logo artwork uh as as they're registered and they would be responsible for getting the cup on their own. So we could end up with as many different cups as there are vendors who
would want to participate as long as the council is solely responsible for any regulations as far as the cup comes. So, if we can make it as broad or as specific as that seems like a really
complicated law enforcement thing if we allow everybody to have different cups and I get how that would be a really hard thing to get everybody to agree on a color. Well, we can the council would have the ability to specif Yeah, you
could reg it has to be a color changing blue cup. Can we detail? So, here's a mockup of a cup with a logo on it. I made it as nondescript as possible so that we could generate some conversation and possibly
some uh suggestion on uh said cup and logo. Uh so, this is a what would be termed as as a stadium cup 16 ounces plastic reusable very similar to again uh what vendors already provide uh at the uh at Oto and the Park events, but
it's on alcohol. Um so this again the specifications would be given to the establishments that would like to participate and they would be responsible for buying it. Um if council has any suggestions or any consensus on logo
or color of cup uh we'd be happy to uh take that into account. I'd let the artboard I'd let the art board pick out. That's fair. That's a great idea. I'm on board with that. They need something to do and and color changing. I hope it's color changing.
Those are fun. That can get difficult more difficult to purchase than say a solid color because it cost or I I just think um or do they stop changing color eventually? We'll let the art board figure all that out. Let the artboard figure it out. So
So uh so I'm clear on on consensus here. Uh we would seek recommendation on logo, color and color changingness requirements for the businesses who want to participate from requirements for the businesses. Okay. Yep.
Thank you very much. That's a big help. And here's the the logo again that uh we would happily And can we also notify I mean it doesn't look like there's a ton of businesses. Can we email them out and say they're going to be discussing that at the art boards when those meetings come up so they can
chime in too? Okay. Thank you. And if if you're looking for I think this is a logo placeholder but just Okay. So so the art board does not see the logo and think that we have a special affinity for it. Make sure they know that we are excited about whatever they come up
with. Yep. Okay. Yes. Moving on. Uh so uh these are some of our the limitations that are built into the draft ordinances. Uh I call it the rule of twos. Uh no establishment shall sell uh more than two beverages to one person
and no person shall carry more than two beverages. I know I often uh have to buy one for a spouse or something like that. And that's as far as we go with that consideration. um seek council has input on any of
this. That's fine. Good. Seems right. Uh we also have some more limit limitations as far as just to formalize no glass bottles or anything other than the provided stadium cup with the logo. Um unless there are a couple of unlesses
here unless it's provided by a city spender uh city or city vendor sponsored within a city signature event. uh as we were drafting thought of Oktoberfest uh the uh stein steines I believe they call them the big uh sometimes those are
glass so we would want to create an allowance for something that would go out into but again that would not be able to um exit the premises of the city special
event uh by license. And then we also wanted to include uh sidewalk cafes as designated because that those do um correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Cob, under the code warning system, those can have in city right away uh alcoholic
beverages served by the establishment, but it would be considered on premise because of the sidewalk consumption part of it. But we don't want to create a uh justosition there and code that it's not allowed in one section and allowed in another
section. And then uh possession and consumption of any open open alcoholic beverages within a city-owned parking lot is prohibited. Um that is obviously the one parking lot that we uh have there on the east side of the cultural
center. And uh but now that it has been brought up that we have food truck events there, we may want to include an allowance for uh during event timing. So I'm happy to discuss and hear any recommendations city council has on that. I would say on that one, when it's
operating as a food truck, it's really not a parking lot. It's an event space. I mean, they all I guess I was talking about like the food truck events where they're just lining the place. No one's parking in there other than the food trucks. Does that still count? That's event space during the when they when we have the food truck extravaganza when
they have like 20 to 30 food trucks and they're all there in that parking lot. No one else is parking there. Right. So, I would I would think that doesn't really count as a parking lot during that event. It's it would be the event space. It's the event space. But as long as that tracks, I don't think we need to
change this. So, well, it's labeled as a city parking lot. I think it would be wise to specify. Yeah, just add a little oneliner in there. Add the detail. Parking lot is prohibited unless the parking lot is used as event space,
right? Something like that. It would be it would be similar to what he's got up on the other paragraph. You know, that just a little disclaimer for that. Add a little oneliner. I know we use it at least once a year. Sponsor event, that type of thing. Okay. But if we're on board and if it's uses event space, that's okay. But that's a good liner
there. Yes. Okay. Any further questions on these? No. Thank you. Uh and then also uh we would like uh to officially register establishments within the district and so that we know who is participating and uh who is not. Uh and
that process will be up to the city manager designate to uh formalize under a policy and and with that uh that's my presentation. I'm happy to answer any further questions. Okay. So So on the food trucks, you're saying the food
trucks are in uh that particular parking lot, the northeast parking lot. We do have Y um right. Yeah. This area. That's not So if if that would count as one of these um city events uh whatever signature event or sponsored event
sponsored. Yeah. Uh if that's only up there now that's a long way from the establishments we're trying to target. It might not be if that's all mixed use as that stuff comes in. There might be some places that open up in there. Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess that's
where cuz if that is being used as an event place, then all the parking lots of all these businesses are going to be where people park. So, they may come and get Well, I guess it might defeat the purpose, but they might get food at these places, then walk to the food truck with their drink or at least get a drink cuz they feel like, well, I should do something to help this business
because I'm going to go eat over there. So, I'm I I like the idea of add the oneliner. Okay. Are you okay with that? Uh, yeah. Yeah. I think you have direction. You have anything else? Just trying to make sure I understand what
uh I have nothing else tonight. Council, any further questions? Think we're good. We'll continue to proceed and um we if we will go to the public arts board and then bring further uh bring that information back to you for further direction. Thank you so much. Excellent.
Thank you. We will move on to item number four which is the North Lockwood Boulevard County Road 426 roadway improvements related to the new proposed traffic signal. Okay, Mr. Cobb, when you are ready. Uh thank you, Deputy Mayor. As
Mr. Wyatt and Mr. Gang come forward, uh we got a request from Simino County. If you remember back, we uh amended our third generation sales tax uh project list to include the design uh pay signal at the intersection of County Road 49,
County Road 426 and Lockwood Boulevard. Uh we also uh constructed a right turn, a northbound to to eastbound right turn lane on Lockwood Boulevard. Uh the arrangement at the time was that the city would fund the design, the county would fund the construction of the
signal. Uh we've been approached by the county requesting assistance with the construction and so Mr. Wyatt and Mr. Gane are here to uh present the request from the county. Stand by. I got to say first out right out the gate they're switching bait. So
they got us to go all the way here and now they want us to pay for it too. Well, uh, this is kind of getting ahead in what I was going to talk about, but what what happened was, um, we started design after council approved it in January of
2024. And hang on one second. I like how we have on camera how secure our computers are. This is good. We are secure. And of course, my item that I need is not loading. So,
hang on a second. If you need I can do it. It should have come right up. Well, I've got it saved. There we go. There you go. Um, so council, if you remember in January 2024, or actually going back to
2022, Semino County had approached us that they had conducted a warrant study for the county for county road 426 Lockwood intersection. Uh, so traffic signal was warranted and then they in order to accelerate construction, they approached
us and asked if the city would uh procure the design. So, fast forward to January 2024, um, as I previously mentioned, and we brought it to council. Council approved, uh, for us to initiate design. Um, we initiated design, uh,
design was near enough complete by the end of 2024 to hand it over to the county for them to go and procure the signal itself. So, that includes the mast arms, signal heads, and everything associated with that. Their budget for the project was
$650,000 for everything. So they got a price and it came back at $580,000. So the issue that is before us tonight and why we're bringing this to you as a heads up for future is if you look at the design there, you'll see sections highlighted in blue
and red. Um these are what we would call intersection improvements outside of the actual signal design. And so if you think about what what why they've approached us is they have this what I'll call a balance of $70,000 in their budget. So the 650US
580 and it's not enough to what we estimate to procure those those improvements which is basically a lot of curbing. There's a like a won't call it a true midblock crossing but a pedestrian safe zone to cross and some other striping improvements. Our
estimate is at $130,000 for those improvements. Now, what the county has proposed is for the city to procure those those improvements through a reimbursement agreement where whereby we would pay for basically what's on the Lockwood side, it would pay for what's on the Stone
Street side. If you look at that breakdown, it's about a we're about $100,000 for the city, $30,000 for the county. I think there might be some more items that could go towards the county's way in that. So, I I wanted to just kind of bring that to you and let you know that that's that's kind of what we're looking at. What still has to happen is
we'd still have to go and bid those improvements and come back to council at a later date to actually award that bid. And what would what you'd have happen is basically those what I'll call intersection improvements, those operational improvements would occur basically at the same time the signal is being
constructed. And so, that's what I wanted to do was come before United just kind of give you an idea of what what they're asking for. And also they would have to bring a I'd have I'd also be bringing you a reimbursement agreement at a future date as well. I try and bring them both at the same time. So just to put this in simple terms, they
are still paying for it, but they do not want to pay for the additional improvements that are not 100% but are curb improvements. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. That is correct. They are going to pay for the actual inter the actual signal improvements which was the $580,000. Now, what I would propose and what I
would recommend is we ask them for the balance of their budget minus any contingency they might need for the signal design. Mhm. If that makes sense. So, ask them for this full 650. Correct. And then we would pay any additional over for the curve improvements for
that. Yes, ma'am. They they might add 38 or so. I'm sorry. Uh 38 or roughly. Well, the only thing is if you think about you know how we we add contingencies a lot to our projects just in case. Well, they've got 580 set aside from their vendor, uh, what they call
their push button contracts. So, they've got basically a a contract ready to go. They al they already have a purchase order for this. It's set and they already ordered it and to try and get ahead on the lead times for the mass arms. So, if you think that they might need
some of some of that additional $70,000 um for anything that might come up that they don't know about, so whatever that balance is, I would suggest that we get written into an agreement that they pay that balance in contribution to these improvements. That's what I'm thinking. I think that sounds great. Sounds good.
As good as it gets. There you go. That's it. Unless they want to give us more. No, I'm sure they'll say that's their limit. They can't That seems fair. So, I just wanted to let you know how it was and what they were what they're asking. So, you said they're already ordered.
So, they've already ordered them. What's the What's the timeline on? They did not share that with me. However, I would tell you that they got this So, they got this in uh late 2024. So, you figured Decemberish. Um they put them on order. They probably been on order for 3 months
probably by now. So, it can take anywhere from 12 months to I'm sorry, 12 weeks to 6 months. Mhm. So they should be, you know, at least halfway there. Do they still believe it's warranted even after the turn lane was act? Yes, ma'am.
Okay. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Thank All right. For item number five, we brought this back um since we only had four of us. So, I'm going to suggest that we table that for now and push it on to the next agenda when we're all here again if that's okay with the rest
of you guys. Yes. Good. Okay. So, I will be skipping item number five will be tabled for now and we'll move on to item number six, which is the Independence Day celebration update. Could uh just one question, Deputy Mayor, do you want me to bring it back at another work session
or would you like me to try to put it on to May 5th or as a discussion item? I mean, how quickly would you like How packed is the May 5th agenda? It's not bad. Is that fine with you guys? I'd rather see on a workshop, but doesn't matter. We're going to discuss it. Let's
Let's put it on the next work session. Okay. Next work. I don't think we're brush on that one. No, sooner the better. When is our next work session? Uh the day after Memorial Day. I don't know the date. It's a Tuesday.
A lot of people move starting in they start to look for different leases in May and June. I think it would be helpful for us to address this earlier rather than later. Um because it could it could actually impact as kids are leaving their apartments cuz school has ended
uh and they're I don't mind throwing it on the May 5th. That's fine. Okay. May 5th. If I can't get May 5th, I'll do it on May 19th. That's fine. Is that okay? See where you put it. Cool. All right. Item number six, Mr. Cop or Mr. Belden. Uh, thank you, Deputy Mayor. Yes, Mr.
Beldon is here uh to uh give you an overview of this year's Independence Day uh celebration. If you remember back when we were working on the budget last year, one of the things council wanted us to do was to bring back the uh the
festival part of it in addition to the fireworks. We've only been doing fireworks last few years. Uh also council consensus was that we would do it on the Saturday uh first Saturday in July. And so Mr. Bel wanted to bring you just an update on where we are and what
we're working on and uh we are especially with the festival because it's a little different than what we used to do in the past and as well as as an update on our ability to get ownership uh approvals for the uh for the fireworks. So I'll turn it over to him. And before you start, I I got to
say I have nonstop got gotten great feedback on this hundth. Your team did an amazing job. I went to pick up my kids today. Awesome compliments, my family, friends, business owners. So, hats off to your team for really putting on a great event. Thank you very much.
So, I'm sure you guys got really good feedback at well as well. It's been awesome. I got stopped at the grocery store. Somebody raing about it. Well, we'd like to thank you all your support for this event as well. And uh kudos to Miss Terry Martini for her efforts. Um a lot of time was spent. Um some tears um
a lot of sweat, hard work from her planning the event for actually for 7 months actually. And um a shorter time we rearranged some of our events such as a golf tournament. And um I'm happy to share with you that our cost recovery was very successful. We were actually just over the 50% mark for this event.
Wow. um which is quite of a quite a fee for for such a short time period with the amount of money and vendors we're working with and valing sponsors for not just that event but all of our events too and raising that amount amount of revenue for a one-time event that really um thoroughly embraced the community and
you could see a lot of happy faces in the community that day and um we were just proud to be a part of that and hopefully you were too. Oh yeah, you did a great job. I mean, the kids and the families love those uh those carnival games and, you know, it was it was spread out enough that I think we nobody
was on top of one another. Um the entertainment you brought in um was you guys did a great job, you know, so appreciate it. Hopefully hopefully as a council we didn't give you guys too hard of a time. It was well thought out and everything worked out well and the
biggest thing was the community thoroughly enjoyed it and I think that they came together. We offered some a few pieces that were different such as the a lot of the history of Alito um with you know with the cultural center. Um I got a lot of kudos with that. That was something that was really unique and they could see a different aspects that
people don't even have that history of you know. So it's a component that we thought was unique and we're looking forward to the next hundred years. So so with that um let's go on to the next event here that we're starting to plan um which is the Independence Day celebration. And um as you recall last
August we uh um gained consensus to go forth with the fireworks at the mall. Um as provided we were able to obtain the four parcel approvals. Um to this date we've received three out of the four. Uh we should be receiving the fourth one this week which will give us our marching orders to continue with the
planning process. And uh currently um actually at that time as well, we indicated to you that we could potentially do the event um as much as up to $69,000 through a budget amendment. Um and I did share with you the uh the stats in the in the memo is
currently we're at about $54,000 on our budget. That amount's going to be absorbed. We're not going to have to take a budget amendment back to council for approval to increase the you know the funds for this event. Um so the way the the event is planned, we you know the firing zone for the fireworks will still be in Dillards in
the normal spot. Um the event will actually be taking place inside the mall this year. Um we've already currently worked with the mall. Um we'll be pro providing a stage in the food court area. We'll be um there'll be a band performing. Vendors will be allowed to set up all throughout the mall.
Different locations. Um our biggest um speaking with Ms. Martini is we don't want to create competition. And so any vendors coming into the event, we're just going to try not to pair vendors competing with current stores offering business. Okay? We'll offer nonprofits
again, other businesses. There'll be entertainers walking through the mall, you know, face painters, the, you know, more so for the kids. And then at a certain point, we'll be inviting all the participants from inside well ahead of time to work their way outside to enjoy the firework display. And then we might actually
offer a few components on the outside as well for those people that line up to get their spots like normal. So, and I know we've been talking for a couple years about the idea of bringing it in the mall. So, that's that's pretty cool. We're doing that. We've been rained out a few times and it's nice and I mean it provides a cooling spot too for those
for the residents. They can enjoy that atmosphere, shop, but now that we you know I mean you saw it at the 100th anniversary, we actually brought the event towards some of the local small businesses. Um we're we're actually hitting that mark as well for this event. you know, I mean, those stores are they're coming and going all the time, and this is one chance to connect
on their levels. We actually teamed up with one of the the local establishments. Um, they do arts and crafts, and now we we can partner with those businesses, and they could actually do signups with the community leading up to the event. So, that way they can actually, you know, walk into their store and actually have these
sessions already lined up for free and they can interact with the, you know, with their customers as well. So, that's kind of where we're at. um you know just with the thought of um you know this past event we wanted to just make sure uh we still have consensus to continue with the plan as budgeted as planned and if um if there's any questions I'll be more than happy to answer them and this
year it would be that Saturday the 5th right this year's the 5th um next year per council direction I mean this is ahead of the game in the next year's budget uh July 4th would be on a Saturday and council's direction was we would actually hold it on the 4th and at this point we're on target for that same day as well Saturday the 4th for for the
following year great you guys have already talked to the uh the fireworks people. Yep. We actually were meeting with them um this week to not only finalize this year's event, but also work on next year's as well. Now, next year is the 250th year anniversary for the country. So, we're going to be planning a a nice little event for the
community. And they can do us on the 4th, even though it's a Saturday. I spoke with the vendor on on Saturday night. We're good to go so far as of now. Yes. Any questions? No. Thanks. Good. I know one thing that's been said before is that the fireworks go off after the mall
closes. So, and that's usually about 9, right? So, is the mall going to stay uh open for bathrooms or something like that? We are going to promote the use of the bathrooms inside the mall by the food court. We we'll probably bring some
additional portlets for the exterior. Okay. Just in case. You never know if people are just sitting their cars waiting for that that that firing time, but we typically um uh release that at 9:00 the fireworks. I don't know if the stores will readjust their hours or not. We we can recommend it. I don't I'm not sure if they're willing to do that
though, but put the mall walkway the hallways will be open until that time. We're actually going to give them like a 30 minute buffer. Probably start walking at 8:30 from inside to get their way outside. They can so they can get the viewing area. Okay. So, so it sounds like it's good for this year. Uh main Yeah, we're good
to go. your team starting to look at when we get to that one point where the mall won't let us out there where we can go. Yeah, we're well ahead of the game right now. I think we're still good. Um I think we're good right now. Yeah, we'll have the last partial this, you know, this year for um actually this week for this year. Um we'll start working on approvals for next year
already just to see if we can get ahead of the game. Maybe they'll give us a year approval. I'm not sure if they're building against year approval, but at the end we'll have it in writing. I think we did a pretty good test run at a different site like this weekend. So, uh there's some options. Yeah, you guys did great.
A couple a couple people have have mentioned at that at the fireworks thing happening there, they say, "Why don't we just do Fourth of July here?" So, something to consider, but for the 250th anniversary of the country, um maybe
bigger is better. I don't know. I think we'll we'll end up there eventually anyways developing. Yeah. Yeah. What What is the turnout difference between fireworks on the 4th and like what we have capacity for at the on the park? Well, pretty much what you saw on
Saturday was I think you're pretty much equivalent to Yeah. Yeah. That was our largest event we've ever held on Saturday. You've never seen that many people there before. No, that was in the past 10 years. So, and the fireworks you saw there, that is I mean without pushing it into the
the the pond, you have issues in both locations, but you're pretty much at the height of what you saw there. Yeah. Um plus we we also I mean we're in the current we're currently in the burn band. Um those level fireworks were approved to still fight during that. So, if we um were in a burn ban in the
future in the summer, you would have other issues, but there's different issues with the smoke. If you go in the pond, that smoke's going to work its way into the apartment. But I think you're talking capacity for people and cars. I think there's a lot more cars at Yeah. Fourth of July. It's It's pretty much the whole mall. Yeah. But people stay by
their cars. I'm not very good at judging crowd size. Yeah. It's I I would say that the the last year's crowd at the mall was equivalent to what we saw on Saturday. I think just spread out more because right one of the neat
things about at the mall is that we can get up higher in the sky and so you don't have to be you can be on the other side of the mall and still see it. There's people that park at Target and can still see it. There's people that I' I've heard about people parking on the other side of Mitchell Hammock or Redbug
parking on that other side of Redbug at a crossing and being able to see the fireworks. Uh there's people that park um I heard people parked at the cancer center and walked up on the bridge and watched from the bridge because we can
we have what is a 6 in shell or something like that. We can get really high up in the sky. Uh the so but you're right the initial viewing area there on the side of Dillards I would but when when you take into account all those other different areas you've probably
got about what we had on Saturday. So okay any other questions? I think we're good. Okay. All right. Thank you all. I appreciate it. Mr. Cobb, did you have any other items? That is all I have. Deputy mayor. Thank you. All right.
Anybody else? Um on the water grant program that was presented this last time um what would be the next step on that was is there sometimes I'm unclear on what is being asked in the meetings were were we supposed to provide feedback on that or
is that something so as that was it was a presented ceremonial item it was a presentation so if if council wants to do feedback or direction or something like that it would have to be brought back session or something like that. I would like it to be a discussion item. Uh so because there were a bunch of you
know students involved I it ended up in presentations but I think a discussion at a work session or you know where wherever would be I think that would be a helpful thing. So I mean that would be a future work session item we can put that on. But to
your point there was no uh further official steps yeah made yet. Right. Okay. I mean, I knew we weren't looking for a home. I appreciate the ask, though, because that eventually I was going to be like, "Hey, we can we get this on an agenda somewhere." And I don't know that we we uh talked about changing the rules of how we operated.
That has not happened yet. I'm working on that right now. Okay. I think we did push to get consensus on that to add to things, but that has not happened yet. So, I I've Yeah, we're working on those changes right now. I actually had to go back and listen and watch the video. I've watched it twice to make sure. You
got to let me know when it swaps so I can move things the right way. But yeah, for yeah, for right now, if we can put that on a future uh work session, I think that's the right direction. I believe right now we may we'll probably have it on May 19th. Okay, there you go. All right. Anything else? that I will
end this work.