That's how long it's been. >> How are you? >> Testing. Testing. >> Can you hear me? >> Okay. I got two minutes. >> All right. >> Add that to my calendar.
>> I had an hour free there. >> We don't have >> We don't have everybody. Do we have four? >> Five. >> And what if we have what 15 people are missing?
You're early. 30 seconds, man. Right out of time. Did I make it? >> You have been very bad to sit next to me. >> It's my pleasure. >> You're being punished. Patrick. >> Hello. Testing. Testing. Testing. I can't hear it down here.
>> Too much on my plate. >> Testing. >> Pretty difficult. >> Patrick, can you hear us? You're testing that one. >> Testing. >> Working out technical details. We'll be getting started momentarily. >> They did give us an agenda.
Hey, Steve. You from up here? >> Yes. Long time ago. >> Long time. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I have a question before we start. We take notes. Are you collecting them? >> I'm not collecting. >> Okay. >> They're not work product or anything. I just wanted to make sure.
>> We'll talk about that during the discussion. Actually, >> don't want you taking my scribbles. Patrick, how are we looking? >> I'm seeing a big thumbs up. So, with that, we will call to order this meeting of the City of Oto Charter
Review Committee, uh, being held here at Ovido City Hall on January 14th, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. Can I ask the clerk for a roll call, please? >> AJ Range,
>> present. Barbara Barber present. >> Arian Bryant >> present. >> Kevin Heights >> present. >> Katherine Townson uh here. >> Carl Thornberg >> here. >> Karen Harriet >> here. >> Kegan Ford >> present.
>> Dominic >> here. >> Lou Plinker >> here. >> Nancy Zer >> here. Nicole Martin. >> Rebecca O'Brien. Steven Shake >> here. Victor, I'm sorry.
>> President. >> All right. Fantastic. Thank you. Looks like we have a quorum. >> Members, good evening. My name is Wade Bose. I'm the city attorney for the city of Ovido and I will be your legal adviser and your facilitator for the
charter review process that you're going to be involved in for the next many months. We're going to be discussing the process uh we're going to be following and the work you're going to be doing a little bit later in the meeting here, but I wanted to start off before I go
into a little presentation about the Sunshine Law and Public Records because this is a new body we're starting uh up and we have periodically every 5 years per the charter. Um as an initial matter, I wanted to go ahead and give everyone an opportunity to introduce
themselves. Uh I'm know I gathered from uh seeing a number of you uh chat with each other prior to the meeting that I know uh a number of you know each other and so on. But of course members of the public are going to be watching this as well. And just uh so you all know this is being recorded. It's going to be
streamed. Uh so folks in the public are going to have the opportunity to be able to see this, get to know who you are, if they have any interest in proposing any charter amendments or any tweaks to the charter and what have you. it may be helpful for them to know your background
as well as uh for any of you who don't know each other uh it would be useful uh for you to briefly introduce yourselves. So um I'm actually going to go ahead and start off first with myself uh just to tell you a little bit about my
background particularly with regard to the work we're going to be engaged in here over the next many months. As I said my name is Wade Vos. the Ovito City Attorney. I'm the managing partner of the Vos Law Firm. Our firm is city attorney for 15 cities around the state
and I'm board certified in city, county, and local government law by the Florida Bar. Most relevant to the work you're going to be doing is kind of the very weird specialty work I like to do all over the state. I have had the opportunity to serve as general counsel
for eight different county charter review commissions in five different charter counties throughout the state. Served as general counsel for the Orange County Charter Review Commission in 2011, 2012, in 2015, 2016, and in 232 24
uh three different times. Uh each of those is about a 15 to 18month process. And as you can imagine, very involved because it's very large. Orange County did it twice for Panelis County in 201516 and 23 24 and then once for Bvard
County, Klay County and Elatchua County. In addition to that, uh I have served as uh the attorney and facilitator for a number of charter review committees and charter review processes for cities
throughout the state in Cocoa Beach, Daytona Beach Shores, Banell, Pearson, uh the city of Brooksville, and uh doing this off the top of my head here. Uh and um what's the last? Oh, the city
of Bradon, the city of Bradon over on the west coast actually uh brought me in uh specially to work through about a hundred years of charter issues that they had there that they had never really gone through and and fixed before. So, I mentioned all that just to
let you know this is actually an area of local government law that I personally enjoy and I have a great deal of experience with it and I'm hoping to be able to leverage that experience to help you have a good process and help you get a good result in the discreet amount of
time that you have to uh work through your charter review process. So, with that, I would like to just start on this side and ask everyone not as long as I did. I apologize for that. But uh if I could ask everyone uh in order to just briefly introduce themselves for the
other members and for the public. >> Good evening everyone. I'm AJ Range. uh retired university administrator uh 46 years in higher education uh 26 of which at UCF
and uh married have one son and he's married and has two uh children. Um I'm a Rotarian for over 30 years. um member of Grace Community uh Baptist
Church in Orlando and uh just delighted to be here. >> Amen. >> Thank you. Thanks, sir. >> I'm going to keep it short. I'm Barbara Barber. Uh I worked for the federal government for 24 years and then I ended
up in Ovido and I worked for the city of Ovito for 27 years, 21 as a city clerk. >> Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Arian Bryant. Um I serve as an administrator at UCF. I've been in higher education
for about 25 years specifically in housing and residents life. Uh working at different universities. Um uh I'm a resident of Ovito as you can imagine. I lived in Ovido, moved away and then I missed it and I moved it back. I moved back cuz I missed. Um I have a son. He
lives in DC. Um and that's it. Kevin Hypes, real estate broker and developer. I'm redeveloping the Ovito Mall. Having a lot of fun doing it, too. And um ran for mayor here in Lost. What do you got to say? Uh but I do have some
experience with this. I was a commissioner up in Sanford about 20 years ago. So, and I'm uh happy and proud to be a part of the process. I'm Katherine Townson. We've lived in Ovido for 38 years now. This is the I
think the fifth time I've been on charter review for the city. Dominic's shaking his head, so it must be true. >> Um, retire in my first life. I was a public school teacher, but I retired uh seven years ago from the Simino County
Sheriff's Office. >> Good evening. Uh Carl Thornbrew. I've been a resident since 88 of Ovita. worked at Westinghouse. Also spent some time I was administrative assistant for three different state reps over the
years. I've been retired for about 20 years. I have two sons who put through Ovito High School. >> I'm Karen Harriet. I've lived in Ovito for 25 years. I am a public school teacher with Semino County Public Schools. I teach sixth grade history and
I'm the chairman of the seminal soil and water conservation board. >> Keegan Ford. I uh moved to the Ovito area to come to UCF back in 2003. Um so I've been here quite a while. I'm an engineer with uh Seaman's Energy for the
past 20 years. I have a wife and two kids. My wife was actually born in Ovido. So we've got a long history here. >> Evening everyone. Dominic for Sampier. Uh 30-year resident of the city, served the city for 20 years, last 11 as the
mayor. Just happy to be here. >> My name is Luke Clinker. I'm a doctor of physiootherapy. My wife and I also own a real estate company, Dalia Realy in Ovido. We've been here 20 years. We've put eight children through the Semino
County system of schools here in Ovido. And our youngest will be a senior next year. and just happy to be here. Thank you. >> I'm Nancy Zoler. Been here since 1989. Um done various things in uh corporate
world and retail world through the years. Um but lately I'm volunteering a lot, but mainly at Stinstöm where my twin daughters attended many years ago, where my twin grandchildren are now attending. So full circle. Glad to be
here. Hello, I am Nicole. I am from Ovido as are my parents. I um am a bookkeeper and uh I still working but also
volunteering. So I volunteered on the LDC committee. Um and I volunteer with the Simol County uh master gardener program as well. And happy to be here. Uh Steven Shank uh 36 year resident uh
served on council for 10 years uh with Dominic. Uh served on the LDC committee with Nicole. Uh been on a bunch of committees. Uh and my start pretty much in here was harassing Barbara for the
2002 Charter Review Committee. >> No, no one harasses Barbara. Come on. Well, it was it was har wasn't meant to be harassment, but she's retired now, literally. >> Uh, good evening. My name is Victor Bugatio. Victor is fine. Um, last name
if you can't pronounce, you can. Um, I recently retired this year and this is my first year in Avida and I'm very happy to be be in Avida and in Florida in particular. I've worked uh in the
with major uh document management company providing litigation support to uh law firms, attorneys, courts uh since 1994 um after I came here from Soviet Union
as a refugee and um so I hope my background and overall knowledge will help this process. >> Thank you. Thank you and thank you all. So, our
next item on our agenda, as I mentioned, before we dive into exactly how we're going to do this process, wanted to give you a little bit of background. I'm going to be standing up actually to quickly go through my uh little
PowerPoint presentation here. But let me let me ask you, how many of you all have served on a uh committee either for the city of Ovido or say for the county, some Florida government committee at one time or another?
Okay, fantastic. So, a lot of you have and you've been a city clerk for decades. So, yeah. Uh, I just want to gauge gauge the audience to uh actually guess take this with me. Uh, want to gauge the audience to see what the experience level is we're we're dealing
with. But um, we're going to be just very quickly going through some of these uh, slides here. And um, while I am going to try to be quick, uh, I think the best way for folks to engage with material is to ask questions. So, if a burning question
comes up, you can either ask it then. I may say it's going to be handled another slide or I may say we'll handle it offline a little bit later just so we can keep with the flow. Um, and we'll uh dive on in. We're going to be covering two things that are relevant
to you as a Florida local government advisory board. All right? And that is the government of the sunshine or open meetings law and the public records law. So, first we're going to be covering the sunshine law or the open meetings law.
Sorry, I'm getting used to this. >> This is not the clicker. Yeah, we're going very fast. This is not the clicker I'm normally used to, but we'll we'll make it work. So, what is the sunshine law? The the basic idea, and we're going to drill down on this, is it provides a
right of access to certain types of governmental proceedings. All right, key important point. It applies to both elected and appointed boards. All right? And it applies to boards, talk about this in a minute, whether they are the final decision maker or they're just uh
advisory, just making a recommendation to somebody else. All right. The general rule is that all meetings at which official acts are taken or public business is transacted or discussed have to be open and noticed to the public. We're going to break down a lot of those
words as we go. All right. The sunshine law applies to any meeting. We're going to talk about what a meeting is here in a second. Between two or more members of the same board. This is important. I get this question all the time. Hey, I'm on this board. Can I talk to the person on
this board? All right. The sunshine law does not prohibit in and of itself a conversation between a member of one board and another member of another board. There are other legal reasons why that may or may not be good. Uh but it's really not going to apply
too much to to this board in this instance here. But Sunshine Law applies to any meeting between two or more members of the same board when discussing matters that may foreseeably come before that board. Okay. So what
does this mean? It means when any two of you run into each other in the Publix down over here. All right. You do not have to see each other in the in the aisle and run for fear in the other way. Oh my goodness. You know, you can talk
about the weather. You can talk about the Florida Gator. Okay. You can talk you talk about the Knights. Yeah. >> Why would you do that? >> You can uh you can talk about you can talk about national politics. You can talk about state politics generally.
Okay. the issue gets uh as you get closer and closer to the subject matter that could reasonably come before you. All right, that's where you're getting closer and closer to the issue of where you're going to have a problem with having a discussion about those subject matters between two or more members of
the same board outside of a noticed public meeting. We're talk about all this here. Now, I keep using this word meeting. What do I mean by this? Well, there are what we call good meetings and bad meetings. All right? It's not written that way in the statute, but this is an easy way to
understand it. Everything that constitutes a meeting under the sunshine law, good meetings, city commission meetings, city council meetings or charter review committee meetings or workshops. Okay? Why? Because all of those are going to meet all the
requirements that I'm about to talk about in a sec. And then everything's cool. What are also meetings? Now, we're going into the list of what could be bad meetings. All right? Telephone calls or text messages between two or more members of the same board about a matter
that could foreseeably come before that board. Okay? Why? Because it's not going to be able to satisfy all the rules I'm about to mention in a second. Same thing about emails or other written correspondents back and forth between them. Hey, I think we should do this.
Email back. No, instead I think we should you do this or yes, I agree with you. We should do this. We're getting into trouble there where we're having communication back and forth outside of a notice public meeting or even informal
discussions or deliberations. This is chatting about business, substantive business before, after a meeting or in the parking lot or what have you. All right, these are the things we want to stay away from. Now what are those? I
said these be good meetings, bad meetings. A meeting is a good meeting if it can satisfy these three basic requirements. Meetings of public boards or commissions must be open to the public. Reasonable notice of the meetings must be given and
minutes of the meeting must be taken, promptly recorded and open to public inspection. So when I mentioned here, city council meetings, workshops or charter review committee uh meetings, formal ones, these are good meetings because all
three of these requirements are being handled for you by city staff. All right, so we're good to go in these instances here. As I mentioned here, advisory boards, so boards that aren't even the ones who make final decisions.
And just as a preview, we talk about the process here. You all are going to be working through the charter and coming up with recommendations to the city council as to charter amendments, charter changes to propose to the voters. Okay? But those are
recommendations that it you're not the final decision maker on any of those things from a legal standpoint. All right? Nevertheless, even though this is an advisory board, the Sunshine Law still fully applies to this board. And I can't
tell you, I practice all over the state of Florida, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people say, "Oh, well, that's just an advisory board. The Sunshine Law doesn't apply." I almost fall out of my chair. It's simply not the case. So,
very important point. There's a there's a uh old saying or principle in the law that you can't do indirectly what you're not allowed to do directly. All right. And how does that apply to the sunshine law? The idea is if you've ever heard the buzzword, uh you can't use people,
third parties as a conduit. All right? If you're not allowed to go up to another member of the charter review committee outside of a notice public meeting and uh talk about, hey, we should vote yes on this, we should vote no on this, and so on. Then you also can't go to a mutual buddy and say,
"Hey, go to your buddy, you know, go to the this other member and tell them," I'm going to vote this way, so they should vote this way. Can't use somebody as a go-between to pass notes about matters that could come before the CRC.
So, we're talking about satisfying these requirements for meetings to be open to the public. location has to be accessible to the public, adequate size, and the location can't discriminate or restrict access to the public. Again, the right place to have meetings on CRC
business would be here where staff has put together and we've noticed CRC meetings. One thing to keep in mind in case we do get any members of the public here, it doesn't look like we have any right now. Of course, people are watching or have the ability to watch online. If we do
have folks show up and somebody wants to video record or audio record, all right, it under Florida law, they are entitled to do so. I remember one time many years ago over in Penllis County, I walked into a big county facility and I saw
folks setting up a whole bunch of camera equipment. This is before we had phones like this in our pocket, 4K phones, you could do anything. They were setting up all this advanced uh video equipment. And I asked some of the Penllis County staff, they're like, "Oh, is that like from the AV department or tech
department or what have you said?" So, no, that's a citizen group. Uh, and they were streaming it out many, many years ago with big old style cameras and so on. Somebody comes in and wants to videotape in here, they are allowed to so long as it's non-disruptive. They can't come up in the middle here, get in
your face, and so on. I need to update this uh PowerPoint because I still call it a new section of the Sunshine Law from 2013. It's relatively new compared to the rest of the Sunshine Law. The Sunshaw Law was amended back a number of years ago to
formally add a right to public comment. Okay. So, we are going to have on every one of our agendas uh opportunities for public comment from the public to be able to comment on matters as they come in. What that law requires, it's
actually kind of weak sauce, if you will. All it requires technically is that members of the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on a proposition before a board of com board or commission before they take final action on it. Okay. So, lot of uh
lot of rules here that you really don't need to worry about. But I can tell you that the minimum requirements of the statute, we're not going to be adhering just to the minimum requirements. If if we have members of the public here, I would offer to you, it would be a good idea to hear them out and let them share
their thoughts on on anything and everything they would offer to you concerning any charter amendments. Of course that statute when they were when they put it in they uh did make sure to say that nevertheless we can maintain decorum. If somebody comes in and
becomes disruptive or anything like this we don't have to put up with that. So now why do we follow the sunshine law? Obviously we want to follow the law. There are a number of bad things that can happen though if we don't follow the sunshine law. one,
individually, any members of a board or commission or uh any uh committee, even an advisory committee, if they knowingly violate the sunshine law, then they'll be guilty of a misdemeanor in the second degree. And what I tell folks all the
time, all of the state, is it is all fun and games until you get a call from an investigator from the state attorney's office. And even if it all comes out in the wash, that will ruin your entire month or your entire year. So just stay
far away from that and it's really not worth it. Come and have your conversations here. Everything will be great. Even on unintentional violations, there's a noncriminal infraction penalty of up to uh $500. Another important point, though, is
there's penalties not just for individuals who do it. There can be penalties for the government. Penalty for the government comes from the idea that the sunshine law says that no resolution, rule, regulation, or formal action shall be considered binding
except taken or made at an open meeting. Now, Florida Florida Supreme Court took that little bit in there back in the 70s and ran with it. And what they came up with is the idea that to frustrate any evasive devices,
courts will find that if a sunshine law violation occurred, they can make that action. They can deem that action that was taken following that void abonio. That's Latin for void from the beginning. Wipes it out. All right. Now,
there are magic lawyer ways, as there always are, to clean this up if there were just little technical violations or anything like this, but often times it can create a big mess when there doesn't need to be one. So, best thing is we're
going to have discussions, we have them in here, everything will be great. Any questions on the sunshine law? And I'm glad to answer any other ones later as well, but anything off the top of your head right now? All right, fantastic. We're going to
cover one uh more matter very quickly here and that's the public records law. Now that you all are members of a city of Oto committee, you all are subject to the public records act. That does not
mean that any member of the public can just come read every single one of your personal emails. All right? It also does not mean that if you happen to get an email from a member of the public, this very well could happen. Someone could, you know, ask for your email address and
send you an email and say you need to amend the charter to say X or say why or this thing you're going to be voting on, you need to vote against or do you need to vote for it or what have you. All right, that does not infect your inbox to make it so all of your personal emails now can be seen by the public.
All right. However, that one email that you get or two emails you get or what have you are going to be public records. All right. I'm jumping ahead here, but this is the main question everyone asks me every time every time. Now that I'm on a committee, anyone can read my stuff on my computer. They can read stuff in my
emails. No, it's only matters that relate to your work on the charter review committee. All right. So, we'll get into a little bit of detail here. Um, basically, and this is about, just for your background information, it's about the Sunshine Law as well. Both the
Sunshine Law that we were just talking about and the public records act both actually come out of the Florida Constitution, the Sunshine Amendment that was passed back in the 1970s. Okay? So, what that effectively means is these laws are a little bit special for
a number of reasons and courts treat them very delicately and enforce them very strictly. Um, so first question you would ask when we're talking about and understanding the public records act is what is a public record? All right, this is the
Florida statute definition of a public record. All documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, data processing software. This is the 1970s legislature trying to imagine the future. Okay, they haven't changed this. This is from the
1970s. data processing software or other material regardless of physical form, characteristics, or means of transition made or received pursuant to law or ordinance. Or here's the big one, or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency. Now,
keep in mind on that last word there, agency. It's a very slippery word in the Public Records Act. All right? Because you might say, "Oh, any agency." Well, that's just like real official city stuff. Each one of you, interestingly enough, under the public records act, each
member of a committee, not just the committee itself, each member of every committee is an agency under the very weird definition. All that means, okay, all that means is this is talking about you. And what this means for your work
is that when you receive an email or you send an email having to do with charter review committee work, those emails and not other ones are public records. All right? It's not the end of the world.
It's perfectly fine for you to have a public record or create a public record. Just understand that that means certain obligations are going to kick in at that point. Okay. Now, the Florida Supreme Court took that
statutory definition I mentioned there and fleshed it out a little bit more to give us some interesting stuff to work with. Florida Supreme Court interpreted that definition to encompass all materials re made or received by an agency in connection with official
business which are used to perpetuate, communicate or formalize knowledge. If I don't have the slide in my slide deck here, I'm going to answer your question regardless that you asked before u about notes, but um I can't remember if I By
the way, this is the wildly shortened version of the 4hour class that Yeah, wildly the 4-hour class that city council members throughout the state are required to take every year. They're required to get an hour of the Sunshine
Law, an hour of the public records act, and two hours of chapter 112 ethics. Okay, so this is way cut down from all of that. And so I may or may not have a slide in here to to address something here, but I'm going to uh answer a question that uh member Townsen had
asked uh just uh a minute ago. So, what this means is that all the materials that meet that definition we were just looking at, regardless of whether they're in final form, are open for public inspection unless the legislature has exempted them from
disclosure. This is really important point I tried to beat into people's heads. There is no, this is really embarrassing exemption to the public records act. All right, we had an old saying in University of Florida politics. All right. I was involved in student
politics a little bit uh at the University of Florida in an old saying, don't put anything in writing you don't want on the front page of the alligator. Okay, the alligator is is the student newspaper there. So, be very mindful
when it has to do with work of the charter review committee. Okay? Be very mindful of what you type down and write down. Okay? because someday possibly somebody could come in and say, "I want to see all uh members so and so's emails
concerning CRC business." Okay, cool. There are two of them. Here they are, and there's nothing in there and everything's great. Or you wrote down something that you wish you hadn't or typed down something you wish you hadn't uh in a fit of peak or what have you and
then now somebody's, you know, waving it about. All right. This PowerPoint dates from the time when I still had to explain to people that emails are public records. But I just want to reiterate it. Emails are frankly the main form of public records we end
up having in government nowadays. But emails made or received by public officers or employees in connection with official business are public records subject to disclosure in the absence of a statutory exemption. Um Facebook posts. And this is where you
get into all sorts of messes. Facebook posts, if they meet the statutory definition, could be a public record. All right? Now, not telling you you're banned from Facebook now, although that might be wise for a number of other reasons.
Okay? But what I'm saying is just be mindful of the things you post on Facebook about CRC business. I'm not telling you not to categorically. I'm saying be mindful of what you post there
because if you post it there and then somebody comes asking for a copy of it. All right. Let's say you decide later to take it down because you don't want it up there anymore. Somebody comes asking for it and so on. Then we're going to go
on a little side quest dealing with all of that. So sometimes it's not worth uh you know going down that route. So we were talking about if you have a public record there are certain
obligations. What are those obligations? Every person who has custody of a public record shall permit the record to be inspected and copied by any person desiring to do so at any reasonable time under reasonable conditions and under supervision by the custodian of public
records or the custodians designate. You like all those reasonables there's those slippery lawyer words. that's exactly what they are meant to be is uh slippery because what's a reasonable time and reasonable conditions are going to vary
in the circumstances and we we'll chat I guess we'll chat now because that's the end of the PowerPoint so what is what is reasonable just so you all know um and actually I'll answer uh member towns's question now she had asked me
before I'm going to elaborate to your question a little bit uh asking about notes. This is a question I get all the time. All right, so um let me go back and show you. There we go. This is the
Florida Supreme Court definition. Uh if you recall from a second ago, note what it says at the end. all materials made or received by an agency in connection with official business which are used to perpetuate, communicate or formalize knowledge. All
right. Often times I'll hear from people, well, you know, I wrote this and it was uh I didn't show it to or give it to anybody else, so it's not a public record. All right, here's the issue with that. communicate which is writing
something and then showing it to someone else is only one of the three ways that something can become a public record. There are two other ways could be uh used to perpetuate or used to formalize knowledge as opposed to
communicate knowledge. All right. So why am I going into all this technical stuff here? We're talking about notes. Notes to yourself. All right. And fortunately, the um Florida Attorney General has given a little bit of guidance on how we
deal with notes. All right. So, let me talk about one extreme and the other extreme. One time I had a city uh commissioner in a city who he was um very detail- oriented. That's great. And so when like an RFP would come through
or anything like this, he'd actually sit there and he'd write pages of notes, very, you know, very detail- oriented. It was great. He was very analytical and so on. Pages and pages of notes. And then he like at home before the meeting, you know, so he could come in and and
whatever. And he would ask me, it's like, "Hey, is are those things public record?" I was like, if somebody comes in and asks for it, I'm probably going to end up saying I'm going to review it, but I'm probably going to end up saying that they are public record. So, don't write in the your extensive notes there,
this guy is an idiot or something you wouldn't want you would be embarrassed for someone to read. Okay. Um, so that's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is the uh Florida
attorney general has advised that brief notes to yourself. All right, to jog your memory like for example like you're going to come into a meeting, you're going to you're going to uh remember you're going to talk about three things dash blah blah blah dash
blah blah blah dash bah. All right. So, brief notes to yourself basically as a as a, you know, short-term uh mental tool are not public records. They do not satisi they're not exempt from the public records act because they were
never a public record in the first place. Okay? They don't satisfy this definition. When you get into the middle of those two things, that's where we get into messes. So my advice is anytime you're doing any sort of work in
uh you know on a committee or anything like that even if it's short notes don't write down this guy is an idiot because it's not going to it's unless it's about me that's perfectly fine. You can write that if you want but uh you don't write down anything you don't want anyone else
to see because it's only begging for trouble. But if it's really short notes to yourself you're probably going to be fine. I'll end with one last uh bit on all that really short note that I had to deal with one time and turn over as a public record. I was at city council
meeting. Uh I will not name the city. Um but I was at a city council meeting and they had just had a very contentious vote. All right, extremely contentious vote. And um then right after the vote was over, like attentions were very high. The audience
was packed. Right after that, council member takes a post-it note, writes something on it, and ostentatiously in full view of the public passes a note to another council member.
Okay. >> And now I I mentioned this as a review, by the way. >> This guy's an idiot. >> What's that? Now, I I mentioned this I mentioned this as a review a little bit back to remember the sunshine law we were just talking about here.
Let me ask you, even if you're at a notice public meeting, but you were passing notes back and forth between two members where the public couldn't hear, is that an open meeting at that point? We got a problem there. Okay, so that's but that's just an aside just to get it
back in your head. But so this note got passed to this other council member. Okay. Well, that was right near the end of the meeting. Then meeting got over and then there was a local gadfly who writable time and it is a right to inspect and
copy. It's not He wasn't asking for a copy. He wanted to inspect it. Okay. And here's the issue. It was a note that long and there sat the city clerk and the city attorney right there to be able to right there review it for public
records exemptions, which would be the reason why we either wouldn't show it or have to redact it. All right. And the council member who had passed that note was not happy. They were like, "You you can't give that. you can't let him see
that. And I I had to be the bad guy. I said, "Let me see it." And I looked at it and I immediately showed it to the guy to the this gadfly. And that council member was not happy. Um the note said, "You will regret
that." They had voted differently. Okay. Um so don't put anything in writing you don't want on the front page of the alligator. Okay. So, with that, I'll finish up and tell you that you shouldn't violate the
Public Records Act either because um for some reason they have made violation of the Public Records Act a firstdegree misdemeanor. The Sunshine Law is a second degree misdemeanor. Um so, don't
get anywhere near that at all. And if you get any emails from the public, all right, um, concerning CRC business, all right, your obligations are you have to retain that email and make it available
for inspection and copying. But I have an easy out for you. In fact, the easy out that I'm going to ask and and advise you all to do. If you get any emails from the public about CRC business, we're not talking about from city staff or anything. We're retaining all that stuff. That's easy. But just a member of
the public and so on. Please forward it to Ilon, the city clerk. Then it will be in the city email system. It'll be retained and now it is ours for care and feeding. You don't need to worry about it anymore. Okay. So with that, are
there any questions on the Public Records Act? All right. Fantastic. Thank you all very much. Thank you. >> And we're going to move on to We know how to do that. There we go. We're going to move on to our next step
in our process. So what we have next on our agenda is agenda is that I will give you a brief overview of the charter review process and we're going to do that a little bit interactively.
Let me give you the basics of uh what your duties are and your time constraints are if you will uh pursuant to the resolution that was adopted by the council uh just back in December. Per that resolution and I I may be doing
a little bit of reading here. I apologize. But the committee shall conduct a comprehensive review of the existing charter city charter using input from its members as well as receiving input from citizens of the city. Committee will produce a final
report in which it will recommend proposed revisions and/or amendments to the city charter that the committee believes will allow the city's government to function efficiently, effectively, and in the best interests of the citizens. Particular attention should be paid to providing a document that's both consistent with the city's
current ordinances that will enable the city's governing body and administrators to meet the needs of the citizens. Areas best regulated by ordinance or resolution should not generally be generally considered for inclusion in the city charter. We'll get further into
that. I I have some thoughts and advice to offer to you as we go through the process. you will find that there are a number of matters that for a number of reasons that we'll discuss um have a better place in the city's code of
ordinances or even addressed by uh city council resolution rather than putting it in the city's charter. We'll talk about reasons for that as we we go through things. The committee shall complete its work on or before May 18th.
Oh, we have a typo in here. You just did I just noticed it says 2025 >> 2026 is what it means. Uh and shall present to the city council its recommendations for revisions or amendments to the city charter on or
before June 1st. If the committee determines that after making a diligent effort to complete its work by May 18th that it'll be unable to meet that deadline, then they can ask for a little bit of additional time. uh my hope and
goal and hope it's everyone's hope and goal is uh that we can be done with this process at least by that deadline of May 18th and possibly uh much sooner. Uh, one thing you'll hear me repeat it often as we go through this,
it is uh, so long as as you've taken a thorough look at a charter and and gone through and done a good amount of discussion and thinking, it is no bad thing to come back and say this looks great or this looks good
enough or you there's nothing that rises to the level that we really think we need to take up some ballot space to make a change on the ballot or make a change to the charter. I'm not telling you that is the result you must come to by any stretch, but uh do not feel that
you have to come up with charter amendments just to look like you did a good job. It is a very common occurrence throughout the state that a thorough review occurs. We have a final report that uh outlines the review that was
done, the matters you looked at and so on. and then come to the conclusion that there is nothing that rises to the level that we think uh needs to be put on the ballot at this time. So just keep that in mind.
So that is your uh your general set of duties and goals. It is ultimately pretty broad. Um and so now we come a little bit to the how. All right. And I'm This is where we
get a little bit to an interactive part because I have some advice based on my past experience in doing this. But oftentimes different processes work a little better or a little different in
uh in different jurisdictions and different circumstances. I have found uh in uh a lot of instances that going through section by section in
numerical order, okay, is not always the most effective way to address real needed change in a charter. Okay, that may be what we end up doing if
there are not any screaming acute needs that we think uh you all need to immediately jump on. What we tend to find in a lot of jurisdictions where we're doing a charter review is rather than it being sequential, it is
topical. Okay? And this this is a a a general point I want to um urge you to think about as we work through the charter. Even if we do end up going through in a you know numerical
sequential order and so on, do not spend too much time getting hung ups hung up on the little bits of language or I beg you and I will say this over and over again. Do not get too interested in
going through and rewriting a paragraph to say the exact same thing but just in the way you would would have written it. do not change happy to glad. Okay, it it is uh and and here's why. There there are legal reasons as well as just
practical reasons. The legal reason is every single charter amendment that this committee is going to be recommending to the city council. All right. if it were to go through the whole process and the council looked at it and said, "Yes,
that is uh a charter amendment that should be put before the voters, the council, all they can do, the city council, is put it on the ballot for the voters to vote on." And so when you get into circumstances where you're rewriting
whole paragraphs to not really change anything, but just write it the way you would have written it or what have you. What are you telling what do you tell the voters you're changing? And we'll we're going to talk at great length because this is this is
something I can really nerd out on and it's ballot language. All right. I've written a lot of ballot uh questions, ballot summaries for cities and counties all over the state and it's wildly important to be very clear with the
voters so the voters really understand what are you changing. Okay? And so we want to try to focus on whenever we're looking at changes we do in the charter, how are we going to explain that to the
voters because they're ultimately the ones in our system of government in Florida who get to decide whether or not the charter gets changed with those things. So just keep that in mind whether we go through purely on a topical uh standpoint just hitting
different topics or or big categorical changes to be made or we end up going through number by number. Um keep your eye on on the big picture and what is the legal change to the charter that
we're going to explain to the voters. Okay. So that's just a little bit to to kind of kick us off here. What I wanted to ask is
has anyone had in your um initial peaks at the charter or from extensive past experience uh from uh from anyone either observing or involved? Does anyone have
any proposed charter amendments, proposed charter changes in conceptual form at this time that they want to throw on the table? We're not going to debate it out and hash it out all tonight. But what
what I tend to find valuable is if folks have uh charter change ideas that they think need to get worked through, it's good to throw it on the table and then we can figure out, hey, when would be a
good time to get uh if necessary the appropriate folks from the city to give you all a little bit background, a little bit more background on some things or otherwise to give everyone a little bit of time to get up to speed on that issue. so you can have a fruitful
and productive discussion. So at this point I just wanted to initially ask and this if if you don't say it now it doesn't mean that it's off the table for forever but if you do have uh any charter amendment proposals or
ideas even in nent form I've always found it's better to get it out on the table early. Give a better chance for anyone to to jump on and and make a go of it. uh open it up to the committee. Does anyone have any initial thoughts?
>> I do. >> If you don't mind, I'm going to >> Victor, please. >> Yeah. Section 3.0 uh 3.02 qualifications. >> And actually, I apologize. I may refer to you as Victor uh as we speak because
I I'm going to learn your last name. >> No, no, don't worry. Uh >> eat your mic. >> Oh, >> yeah. very close to the mic so it picks it up. Yeah. No, no problem. It It takes I've been bad about it, too. It takes a lot to get used to. >> Okay. Um section 3.02
qualifications uh subsection A. So um toward the end of the paragraph it says um notice of such hearings shall be published in one or more newspapers of general circulation in the city at least
one week in advance of the hearing. So I guess we may talk about electronic media now as well not just newspaper. >> Say that last part again. We may >> well it says newspapers but now we use electronic media. we use uh you know
probably official website so should it be there as well? >> That's a great question and and by the way as as we go through um different subject matters we get into kind of buzzword language that you'll find in
the Florida statutes. I may just 30 seconds take an aside and and give you all a little bit of background on some of that. Um, so that uh phrase there, newspaper of general circulation, that's that's one of the many special magic words in the
Florida statutes. All right. It h it has a statutory definition. It means to really boil it down, it means a newspaper in a jurisdiction that um uh that that has a a sufficiently large circulation that not just a small
population is seeing it and so on. The Orlando Sentinel is one of them. It's not the only one in Central Florida here, for example. Um it is um it is typical nowadays uh to in addition to notices being put
in the newspaper if a law requires it that it be put on the city website uh and so on. I I would offer to you that's um that could be a good uh thought that um yeah actually this is a this is a good
opportunity to to just mention uh a a general idea. Um as we have ideas you know of of various scales and so on it's it's sometimes good to you know throw it all onto the sheet. Um and uh what
you'll end up hearing me mention uh probably a couple different times as we find things that are, you know, discreet issues and so on, we will probably in the course of our work here end up with what I tend to call a cleanup amendment. Okay? And that might be in its purest
sense a cleanup amendment where you're just correcting grammar or fixing some scrier's error or something like this or something that is um a a a discrete issue like that and so on. You can usually kind of tuck things into that as
well. It would not be I would probably offer to you that alone may may not be what you would want to use up uh a big block of of ballot space for. You know what I'm saying? But in any event, um absolutely we can put that
on the list that um and it it may be more of a general concept uh as well whenever there's a reference to notice uh that might look at you know publishing it by electronic means as well. >> Okay. >> Dominic,
>> thank you. Wade Wade having done this many times as you know Katherine sat on many committees we've appointed many of the folks who are here to committees over the years sitting here so long I've always found
maybe to help start this off is we ask those of you who use this charter each and every day yourself Mr. Cobb Elellion, what do you see as some of the issues to maybe get us all kicked off?
You know, because the the things that we'll all come up with right off the bat is, you know, always terms, terms, limits, this that and the other thing. But, you know, for those who haven't sat on the committee before, that's been put out there what, Katherine, six, seven times
>> and turned down every time. Uh, so those are the things we come up with, but some of the finer points that are in here are some of the things that everyone gets tripped up over when they're sitting on the deis. Like just a silly thing that's
in here. The charter says they must call a roll vote. Well, we never called a roll vote in 20 years unless I was pissed off at the council and then I made them call a roll vote just to put them all on the spot. But, uh, you know, that's silly that it's in the charter.
That should be procedural. That should be something that the council decides how they're going to do it. So, I'd like to, if the committee agrees, kind of just reverse this for a second, go to you, go to Mr. Cobb, go to Eleon, and you tell us what you see in here that
are those little nuances that we may miss and kick off the conversation, and then we can roll from there perhaps. I mean up to the committee of course I'm just throwing that out there. >> I think that would make a lot of sense if that uh makes sense to the uh
committee and uh please understand staff may be uh bringing up some additional matters a as we go through it. Uh staff has had some uh initial conversations about things along these lines. Uh, one matter that that has come up and I'll
give a little bit more background to to uh what member perspierre was just referencing there. There is a requirement. Just tracking it down here. Gileian, do you remember where the
the roll call vote requirement is? >> What was that? >> It's 3.08. >> 3.08. Okay, I'm breaking everything down. >> It's uh 3.0803, I believe.
>> Oh, >> or maybe not. Hold on. I may have gotten that one wrong. >> Ah, it's 086. 3.0806. >> So, yeah. Uh, let's let's take a quick peek at at that uh subsection there.
It's 3.0806. Council members required to vote. And that's that's all well and good that they're required to vote. The um the matter that was being referenced is it reads, "When any ordinance or resolution is to be voted upon at any
council meeting, the clerk shall call the role of the council and each council member present at the council table at the time shall cast either an affirmative or negative vote on the issue or question except as provided by the general laws of the state of Florida. The clerk shall record the individual vote of each in the minutes.
Here here's the very the very >> Wait, I don't mean to interrupt. It may help to explain what a roll vote is. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Yeah, exactly. I'm going to get into to all that. So, um here here's where the little nuance lies. All right. And that
is um having what we call a roll call vote. All right. Instead of having a voice vote. All right. And so a voice vote would just be all those in favor say I. I. All right. Every single member has to vote. Let me let me back up and
and say this under Florida law. All right. Any member of any committee, whether it is the city council or in the um uh or on this charter review committee, has to vote on any matter
that's put before you if you're present at the meeting. All right? There's no voting present. All right? You have to vote yay or nay on an item unless there is or appears to be a possible conflict of interest under a very particular
Florida statute. Okay? And if there ever is a conflict of interest issue, we'll talk about that at that time. It gets very it's kind of very left field for a charter review committee, but uh it can happen every once in a while, but it it's very left field. But the point is
from a procedural matter and that I think that's the key point is that it's that's this is usually considered a matter of process. But this indicates here that every time the city council votes on an ordinance or resolution, they have to have a roll call vote. And
what a roll call vote is is where they literally the clerk has to call out each single name and then they individually have to announce their votes. Okay. I think there is a per there's uh a
general perception among some that that may be from a procedural standpoint perhaps from a a time management standpoint a fair bit cumbersome. Okay. It is not required by Florida law. There
are very discreet instances, very rare instances where Florida law requires a roll call vote and uh and the city clerk and I are very well attuned to when those are and make sure those
happen when that comes up. Um but otherwise you end up in circumstances where where you're taking up a lot of time having those individual votes and as opposed to what can be votes on just regular action where you have a voice
vote and everyone just says yay or nay, it can end up with with a lot of uh issues both with consuming meeting time, but also quite frankly uh folks keeping an eye on how everybody else is voting
is of of necessity. Roll call voting is one at a time as opposed to everybody voting. >> Everyone can start to count. >> Yeah. And conveniently vote one way or the other. >> Exactly. So um and so that is a matter and I I think you'll hear except for for
matters that um we think are just categorically broken. All right? Because remember city staff in particular the city manager and I we work for the city council. All right. So, we make recommendations to the city council too on things, but ultimately you we're not
going to be telling them you need to change this or you need to change that or what have you unless we think something's fundamentally broken. But I think staff has discussed that this is a frequent flyer, if you will, of a of a issue that comes from the charter, is in
the charter that perhaps the charter review committee might take a look at and really just make a tweak and say uh encompass really the whole rest of of the intention of this subsection that
everybody has to vote on every item unless they have a conflict pursuant to state law. and you know potentially make a change just on the piece that says on every single one of these ordinances and resolutions you have to have a roll call vote. So I think that's that is uh an
issue that uh that would be out there. So getting back to well that point was explained very well. I mean, that's that's what most folks don't realize is that when you're calling a roll roll
call vote and you're sitting up there and that vote is going one way or the other, the other two get a pass. You know, they don't they can vote their convenience rather than their conscience. So, that's why that's a little bit of an issue. But, I'd still
like to hear what just a high overview of what Wade you think and staff thinks. I think that would be helpful for everyone in the room. Unless you're not prepared for that tonight. We could do that next meeting. >> Sure. >> Brian, do you want me to hit anything or
>> Sure. Go ahead. >> Can I ask a question first? Because when you when you do this, as Dominic was asking, >> there are some things that are going to be coming up at the state level that could affect the charter, could affect
how the city raises taxes. >> Mhm. So, opinions from those that handle this could be important to help understand and regulate how this may need to be changed
or worded should something come from the state level on different things, say property taxes, leverages, things like that as well. >> Oh, yeah. And that is um
unfortunately it it could become a topic of discussion uh that we we have uh as your charter review process goes on. I've lived through it the last many sessions when uh radical changes have come down during charter review processes and uh new things that had to
get done or thrown right into the middle of the pot right as you're doing it here. So, we are going to be staff is going to be keeping uh a keen eye on that and so if anything comes down that would implicate a a needed or advised charter change, we'll keep you in the
loop on that. So, I'm I'm just going back through my notes here actually just as some uh starting thoughts for you all trying to prioritize where Well, is there anyone else who has any
other ideas besid you know I don't want to start down that path before if somebody else has any other ideas and and use up the time we have right now today. Um if there's anything else that they have that they want to bring up because I
agree with this. I I think staff's input if there's things that are contradictory, there's always little things that come up, they go, "Yeah, you know, we can clean this up, make this better." But if somebody else on the board right now has any other thing that they would like to bring up before we
start down that rabbit hole, so to speak. >> Sure, I do. I've got a couple of things. A general a general question. Um, in the event of the passage of a resolution and that conflicts with the charter, which of the two documents
takes precedence? >> Oh, that's you're asking the easy ones now. Um, yeah, the the charter would uh prevail in the instance of a uh conflict. It Do you have one in mind? Uh, I didn't have the time to fully
research it to make sure that there was a conflict, but I I think there may be um a slight conflict between the resolution that created this committee this most recent time and the actual charter itself in uh I believe it was
how members can be removed. Okay, >> if I remember correctly, the resolution said that the um nominating council member can remove a charter charter committee member. And if I'm not mistaken, the charter says a majority of
the council needs to be needs to vote on that. >> Interesting. Let me take a look at that one. >> Sure. >> Because they may both be right. And I know that may sound weird, but um
city council's governing bodies act through ordinances, resolutions, and actions. Okay? Just votes. All right? And so if the charter generally says uh the council you know does this and then
they in a resolution specify a more particular way something is effectuffectuated in a particular instance then that resolution could be the implementation of that authority. Do you see what I'm saying? So they could both be right. Okay.
>> I know that sounds a little weird but let me take a look at it. >> Okay. So the council member could say, "I'd like it removed and then it's up for a vote essentially kind of thing." >> That's what he's referencing is the default of of how it is in there. But
yeah, I'll I'll take a look at that. I appreciate that. >> Yeah. >> Um and then the other um thing that just going through this charter with honestly fresh eyes. I've never read the charter before I came on here. >> Um >> I had never read it either before I started the city attorney.
So, I I got to the section um speaking about the the duties of the mayor and specifically said it's it's >> there's explicitly said that the mayor is not the administrative head. >> Mhm. >> Um that's the city manager.
>> Uh the thing that I found notable was that city council appoints the city manager, but it's not explicitly stated that a council member cannot be appointed as a city manager. It might be implied as a conflict of interest, but it's not explicitly stated in the
charter that four uh of the five council members cannot uh appoint a fifth council member as the city manager. >> Interesting. I I got a uh I got an answer to that one. Um, what one thing
you'll find is um there there will be when you're looking with with very fresh eyes like that, which is that's great, but I'm going to fill in a piece from state law. Okay. Um we try to and I say we as in local
government attorneys because ultimately at least one of the audiences of a municipal charter is a very small subset of people and that's local government attorneys who read it and implement it. The citizens are also, you know, an audience of it, you know, to understand
all these things. But we do our best to try to not restate all of state law poorly in a, you know, just a couple page document. Um, and so it's a
very interesting thought. We have um among many other things, we have a prohibition in Florida on what's called dual office holding. Okay. So someone could not and you know a as I as I think of it now it's kind of funny because I've actually had to explain this not in
the city I represent but I've had to explain to a folks in the city I didn't represent. Thank God. Um that they couldn't do this because someone tried. Uh you cannot you cannot be both a city council member and a city manager. Both
of them are capital O officers under the Florida Constitution. The Florida Constitution prohibits what's called dual office holding, holding two offices under the Florida Constitution. So, that could not occur. Okay. Um, now what I do
typically see is a prohibition in the charter in municipal charters on um anyone who has been an elected official in a city for a window of time. Okay.
uh that that uh no, this wouldn't be the correct language. I'm just making it up the top of my head. Basically, uh no uh person who's been a a member of the city council can
be uh can be appointed as city manager uh within one year of being on city council. Something to that effect. That is actually a charter provision I've seen in a number of charters. Um, so that that kind of gets to that same
idea, but you you could not under state law get into a situation where the five of them say, "Well, one of you is going to be uh city council member and you're going to be uh the manager." >> So maybe that I'll propose part of the
cleanup amendment. we cite state law in in those sections to make sure >> I I would I would recommend strongly against it because we just have to start citing to all the different parts of state law. >> Do you see what I'm saying? >> Yeah. It'd be a lot of citations but
>> and it would never be complete. >> Yeah. >> I mean I I could sit and try to come up with 30 pages of citations and it will be missing five. So it that's not to say no. I I I'm trying to turn it to to, you know, what a charter amendment, you know, might be in that
same um in that same wheelhouse, if you will. Do you see what I'm saying? >> Right. If it's well covered, then in there, we're we're okay. >> Did you have any any others? >> No, that's it for me.
>> Okay. for now. >> Turning back uh to the the quest we had had a minute ago minute ago. Um my initial look at the charter, I'll be quite frank, uh the things I saw
ultimately were were very minor. um that it it wouldn't get me to to uh it roll out of bed to make it a charter amendment of its own, if you will. Might be a little bit of cleanup
in some places. Um the uh and what what we may end up doing if from a staff perspective we have uh little tweaks that I would really call a cleanup uh amendment. We might start
staff might start putting together a list and we can take input of course from the committee as well as to that list so we can kind of get a roster going of just little cleanup things because really most everything I'm seeing would be uh along those lines. One other thing was actually something
that uh the city clerk and I were discussing before uh and that relates to elections. Um what we find often in municipal charters is they will they will set out uh you know such and such election you know to fill this office or
that office will occur within 60 days or within sometimes you'll say it'll occur within 14 days and and all this. It was written a long time ago before federal and Florida election law became a lot more complicated and you can't do anything in 14 days under Florida
election law. Um, we don't have 14 days in here. It's in the 60 to 90. But the thought between the clerk and I is we did want to double check again with the supervisor of elections office to make sure uh we're managing expectations well here that the numbers we have in the
charter right now are actually accomplishable by the supervisor. Because what we'll hear from the supervisor if they cannot under state law do it is that's nice that your charter says that but we're following state law. So it's better to to get us
sorted in in that respect. So I think from from that standpoint staff can start putting together some cleanups and we can bring that back to you at a subsequent meeting for you all to to take a look at. Brian, did you have anything else you wanted to throw
out initially? The only other uh one that's really been that's come up uh recently, obviously the the roll call vote that was actually mentioned in a city council meeting. Uh the other one was this past election and I think it's occurred a couple other times where we
had a candidate drop out >> and had to uh reopen the uh qualifying period. And then came the the uh concern that if we did get a second candidate,
the what this what happened was the candidate dropped out right before election day. I mean, I think we had maybe a week or two before election day. Uh it would have if we would have gotten another candidate it would have triggered that other part of the charter
that about the 60 and 90 days that we would had to have done which would have pushed we'd be doing an election right now is what we'd be doing and I know that was that was one of the items that was mentioned concern that at least to me was conveyed a concern about that
that how we could possibly reshape those two sections uh because they are different sections of the chart. harder. They are one is one is up. One is actually 3.02b. Um and but you know, so I think that was
the that was the only other one that really um that's been brought to me. So >> wait, could could you possibly or Brian um you know when we get to that I'm sure we're going to talk about that have a couple of what others do. I know you
usually do that and I'm sure you will, but just to make sure. Hey, here's what you know, and if anybody doesn't know, yeah, you just Yeah, I know Keegan said he just looked at the charter. If you've never looked, everybody's charter is completely different. You can go look at every city. And Kevin, when he worked at
San, you know, was he was on Sanford, it's a completely different document, completely different makeup from the way that the council's formed, how mayor, you know, Longwood, they choose their own mayor amongst them. Everybody's different. So just having a little input
on hey how do others kind of look at that thing and give us some ideas. Yeah, and and thank you very much for bringing that up because as we address various issues that is um that is one of the things we intend to be able to share with you uh either first off the top of
of our collective heads uh from experience with other jurisdictions and observation, but uh also if we'd need to dig a little bit deeper, pull some things together and so on uh along those lines. So um to the uh point because
Uh I think we are getting on a little bit here and that I think that's a matter that would that would do well with with you know folks having the opportunity to take a look at it and so on. Um I think we can throw on a subsequent meeting agenda uh if it's uh
okay with the committee uh taking a little bit of look at the charter provisions that the city manager was referencing there. I I would I would offer to you this those uh having lived through it just recently these last couple months I found that provision
surprising to your point as to the way other cities do it. It's uh not not uh in the normal course if you will. >> So um uh I think we'll go ahead and put that on a subsequent agenda potentially the next one to take a look a little bit
more look at at that issue and we can give you a little bit more background on it. Are there any other issues that are are burning in anyone's hearts right now? >> They're going to laugh. Yes, printing paper.
I know Barbara's going to go um listen, I love having paper. This is great. We have a charter right all over it. But I'm like, don't print stuff for me. Don't print if you know I would say if you guys want something printed, print the parts you want to bring in with you
rather than have them >> like print these slides. Don't print slides every time and stuff like that. I'm just a big, >> you know, day. It's going to be >> I I I wanted to make sure >> it's like this on city council so everyone knows.
>> I come on a phone. You know, you got your phone like a little computer phone. Everybody's got a laptop or whatever if they need it or print the little bit at home that you got. you're going to get everything sent to you. But I I appreciate that. I I don't like excess paper either. The um we we printed out a
copy of the charter just so everyone had a paper copy because we're all going to be we're all going to be flipping through it. We're not all going to have our laptops up as we're we're doing it here. So, um but no, thank you for that input. I think we'll we'll try to moderate where we can. Um
my goal for these meetings and uh u hope it would be yours as well. Um if if we get deep into a topic that's that's an important one and for example we have you know staff uh here digging deep into an issue. It ends up being that that
meeting has to take a long time then it takes a long time. But if it doesn't need to take a long time because we're not making much progress or we're not, you know, digging deep on some this is the one time we can do it, then uh my hope and plan is to try to keep these
meetings to somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half. If that works uh for everybody, I think that's a that's a good goal. Um and uh we started at 5:30, we're at 651. Is there anything else
that anyone would like to see on uh our next agenda? >> Please. >> I want to go back to the I'm back I'm backing up. >> The election qualifying. >> Years ago, qualifying was in May.
This is long time ago. Which would possibly prevent some of the last minute issues when qualifying is so close to the election if considering maybe changing when qualifying happens and instead of
it only being a week, maybe a little longer. Um, I've heard through the the Ovito page, uh, a lot of people don't know when the election qualifying is or they don't hear about it soon enough when they get
to August time frame. It's too late. There's not enough time if they do want to run. All right, we'll throw that down on there to look at qualifying dates. >> It may it may help the clerk's office
more than and the supervisor of elections office more than than anything else. And I sorry, it's been a long time. I can't remember why they changed it. >> We had the election in the summer. We >> used to have the elections in the summer.
>> No, the the elections were still >> Well, we used to have we used to have a primary. >> Primary. We used to have a primary. That's right. So we'd have the primary then we we were on the primary. >> So we'd have to we'd hit it in the primary. That's why. >> So once the primary >> we moved everything to November at some
point. >> Yeah. When the primary when we could get off the primary and moved it to November. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> But we used to go in the primary. >> You still had three months if you did it in May till the primary. Right now you >> I don't want to hold elections in the
summer again. Barbara. >> No. No. It could still be a no. Barbara, that was miserable. >> Can be in a different time. >> Hard enough walking around in August. >> Any anything uh anything else burning in anyone's hearts?
I think what we will I think what we will do if it's all right with everyone just so we can feel we've done a thorough job because I I wanted to get topical things out first and we we may deviate from what I'm going to mention because I I think it's most important to
focus on topics and and discreet changes as opposed to just going by number. I think we will uh probably at the next meeting um start at the beginning and go through what what I have found useful is
is um I may just go through and I apologize it be a fair bit of me talking as I go through some bits here but go through uh the different parts of the charter starting at the beginning and basically
uh give you a little summary as to what it really means because a lot of this is lawyer language stuff and break down for you you know this is why it's here like section 1.01 01 city of Ovito, Florida is hereby created and shall have all governmental, corporate, and proprietary powers to enable to conduct municipal
government, perform municipal functions, and render municipal purposes except as otherwise provided by law. That is exactly quoting what's called the Florida home municipal home rules powers act. It's invoking all of the home rule powers that are granted under article 8 of the Florida Constitution for
municipalities. So things like that go through why is that in there? what is it doing and and all of this so you can understand a little bit more and then uh if anything jumps out at you, we can talk about it then uh or just put it on the list to talk about it later and we
can be thorough in that way. Does that sound good? >> Yes. >> Very good. >> All right. >> May I ask one more thing please? Um what if everybody on a committee sent u their sections they want to talk about like a
list of sections for example I have 302 or 5.1 and I have uh 10 sections that I want to talk about >> ahead of time so everybody knows here's the list of what I would like to discuss or AJ would like to discuss.
>> Sure. Um what I would what I would suggest for that is uh as either from a section standpoint or a topical standpoint and so on uh when when you have particular things you want to discuss, email it to me and the city
clerk. All right? And then we will get it on an agenda. It may not be the the agenda that's coming up two days before because we have agenda deadlines and and all of these to make it work, but um just send it to
me and send it to the city clerk. Um and I believe you all have my email address. I sent an email out to all of you uh very early this week, I guess. Um so I thank you very much for bringing that up. I think that's a good idea. Um >> so we know ahead of time.
>> Yeah, absolutely. and and that can get it to us and then we're going to be generating agendas and as as we go through this process it'll be kind of a iterative process where as we're going into the next meeting all right hey this is what we think the agenda is going to look like for the next meeting these are
the types of things we're going to have in here and so on so we'll get the ball rolling and it'll it'll get to go from there >> can I just add uh we'll talk about later uh 4011 and 4013 >> just the contradictions amongst them >> hiring and firing a city manager Four to
hire, three to fire. It's an interesting concept. That's just a >> You can put it on for discussion. >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> So, it's 3 what? >> 4.011 41013. It's the city manager
>> that that came out of >> years of >> I know where that came out of >> years of uh subsection two also has a question mark. So it's one2 one two and three. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Sure. >> Yeah. We we'll dive into that one. That that that's a good one. But the thought process behind it for those who are new to this is that a super majority should be able to hire the city manager
because if you can't come to a super majority consensus on who is going to be uh the CEO of the city, that person really shouldn't be hired because then they're always going to be under the gun. the uh simple majority to fire came
out of the fact of if they're not getting along with three members, well then that's a problem. So that's just how it all came about. But >> hey, I was there. >> Let's throw it out there. I think you were there for that, weren't you? >> You were there for that whole Do we have
to even go through all that? No. >> Look at poor Barbara. Barbara's got a migraine thinking about what happened back in those days. So, as a a final matter, uh by my observation, we don't have any members of the public physically present. Uh we
do have a public comment section we're going to have on on every meeting on this agenda. It's it's down towards the end, so there is any member of the public back there that's I can't see. Uh you're welcome to come and comment. Um but we're probably going to move that
public comment section earlier in the meeting. And um consistent with what I mentioned uh before as um as items kind of uh firm up, if they're getting to the point where you all may be taking action
on saying, "Yep, this is something we're going to recommend to the city council and so on. Probably have it open for individual public comment on those items as those firm up a little bit. So, uh, if there is nothing further, we'll journ
this meeting at 6:59 and we will see you at your next meeting on Wednesday, January 28th at 5:30. Thank you all very much. >> Thank you. >> In terms of