hey hey hey setting up for the [Music] Look at that go huh look at me go you already got it ready and everything they should really have this meeting in the chambers i guess there's not enough
there's not in Well the chambers goes like this and this is they they're oneonone here so we wouldn't be able to put them all in the chambers unless they sat in the audience and that's unfair maybe they could uh you know take
turns feeling important on the bias all right accomplishing achieved 10 I don't know where anybody I just threw them all out there so park your butt wherever you want just park your butt and you can move wherever you want not going to be here
she's up yeah she told me and I'm not sure about Tiffany T but there anyway so how you been good how about yourself good get in contact with Miss Margaret
[Music] good afternoon everyone good afternoon for the new appointee oh uh we're wait I was waiting for an email back from email miss Margaret you'll never get it
she's seven years old she sent me an email she did that's amazing in itself sure but she But she did get an invite so she doesn't check her email at night better make a phone she doesn't
calling is the only way you got to get her honestly okay together yeah yeah does she have a business in town i know she doesn't live in she's on different organizations and
stuff and I did get a chance to see the um it worked it wasn't hot so my husband had to show me how to move it and whatever anyway I saw it good okay i'm all caught up thank
you you're welcome well it took us three times to get it to work right i guess apparently huh well what you sent me the first one I didn't get they didn't come in but the second one you did but I couldn't get it to get hot i didn't know how to do that so he had deliberately showed me um yeah Ala um Algra too Miss
Algra was she sent me an email today saying that she couldn't get in um to see the the agenda and I was like well that's weird i just kind of look at her email and I go well that's weird you know then I was able to do it this but it was just that that one thing i didn't
know how to move it but I no issues with the day or anything oh good good just like I don't know why all of a sudden I can't I don't know i don't know ma'am and how's your month been pretty good good um I have my daughter
and my granddaughters here vis visiting me nice easter no they came in yesterday they couldn't get it here be here for Easter but they're here for the whole week so Oh
it's just good to be around family i understand that my niece came in yesterday too she lives in Tennessee but South Tennessee she came in yesterday so it was [Music]
Hi did you get my email i did and I got Thank you i got to look at it then my computer froze if I couldn't print anything out but that's fine no I printed everything for you oh thank you so I think my computer is fixing crash that's why I have a backup laptop ready to go but anyway Apple TV
nope gateway gateway laptop gateway they still make those yeah they're good too they last forever i got a used one in '05 and it lasted me about 15 years and then it was still going with they couldn't add any more
member to it you can sit wherever you want i just put them out there i don't remember anybody you and Mr hill were all easy so everybody else is kind i want to sit by somebody else
well thank you i love you too and who else would you pick to sit by that would give you such a good time as I do i don't know depends on whether it's happy hour or not that was a little worn thank you i hope so i try to be Thank
you i'm used to you are used to 100 pounds later just say my goodness it's a small one yes about more for me
we both like palm trees this is just the contest for the city of St augustine's charter what' you say don't read it i know don't It feels like It feels like Monday
well isn't it Monday no I'm stupid oh you're wrong this is Monday where be money this week you didn't get the memo wednesday we had a nice win in court oh we did what did we lose he won $46,000
whoa Charlie that's from the county was that from the county the stuff they charged did you want to go in i know i bet they're mad at us oh from the county why why was it there was a little disagreement on how
much could be how are you well why was the county involved in it um before they hold Oh oh okay oh oh okay i was going to say we didn't find everybody on time
that was you know that that case has been forever in a day and that was the first time I ever met him in person he Yeah he been in my real nice fell except maybe not when you were against him in court i don't know 46
[Music] you came here she was going hey hey move seats i have no idea anybody can sit wherever he's like
listen I was going to sit that close to Norwood either i had to blame i really don't blame you that's why he always sat in the corner at commission meet and I sort of him so I was okay sometimes gives you more companionship doesn't it fellowship funing
we won't be here but an hour a day an How are you do you know what time is it 5:30 and I want to go to it but I don't know what time it is i think it's no earlier than 5:00 i believe it's 5:30 do you remember what time this brewing
meeting is the second that was advertised for the national register information yeah I don't remember i think I don't think it's any earlier than 5 i think it's 6 thank you i was just going to say that I think it was like six i was going to go back here and look at my computer but then it froze up and so I just shut
it down and I didn't throw it out the window though did you save I didn't want to break the window did Did you get a chance to save everything to your floppy disc oh yeah i got I got I got a backup thing that I always You know a little backup thing you add to it yeah I got everything saved you got the the hard plastic ones or the
little I think it's a secret or something it's a big one like that and it's got it that's what I use when I got this oh real copy it by hand b run Bun you have to put in
DOS Microsoft it wasn't even Microsoft it was DOSs I've heard of DOSS my former my former and late friend majored in that at Joe's college in 19687 I think when he majored in computer programming but I didn't know what it was then I don't know what it is
now hey I even typed in Morris code thank you for I know what that is I just don't know how to use Let's go ahead and get started all right you're the boss speak we got eight oops i mean seven all right folks i'm
not all right we're going to go ahead and call this meeting to order this is our April 22nd 2025 uh CR our charter review committee meeting at this time we're going to go ahead
and let's go and have our roll call 12 Hill here me Davis Dong present jackson Mr james Wood yes miss Ryan
say oh sorry okay miss Audrey Rise presently am I saying that wrong and Margaret Ellington who was not here
Margaret Ellington is she No she's not here she's the one of the new ones she's an older Okay and Tiffany is she still on she's still She's still on she know she was For the record we've got seven members present okay has everyone had an
opportunity to look at the minutes from the March 24th meeting [Music] second there's a motion to approve nor Mr norwood there is a second by M wise is there any discussion
additions corrections seeing none all in favor say I i opposed motion carries unanimously moving on to report gas authority followup you were just going to do a brief for
the ones that last time so so we had a few people that were not here last time i think everybody in the room today is was here the last meeting yes yes so except Well Miss Wise got a followup she came just for the record let the record show that
Miss Wise and Miss Jackson uh they both came in at 6 o'clock there was a mixup with the time that the meeting started um the agenda said 6 but the notice said 4 um so we noticed them at 6 that they
were not here and so they they arrived timely they got here about 5:59 um just as we were letting know so um so we kind of debriefed them on everything that took place we went over the gas authorities section in the
charter uh there were no changes to the section and we had the executive director here as well um we had some significant discussion about some of the aspects of the chart of of the gas authority and how the finances are broken down and um and then we
basically u move forward from that standpoint without much more being taken i think the minutes capture um those pieces of it and um I don't think anyone had any other questions at that point were there any other follow-ups that anybody had as related to what we did
last meeting not to what we did last meeting chair but to your presentation to the city commission on the update the charter review commission was watching it online thank you i think it reflected exactly what we've been doing here appreciate it yes thank you appreciate
it i think it was well received just switching into switching modes a little bit as we follow up on this item um I think it was well received by the commission um we got some they had some questions a little bit of input as it related to uh specifically uh city
attorneys reporting duties things of that nature some of the stuff is in your packet um as to what some of their recommendations or concerns are but I think overall it was just an opportunity for for us to be able to show them how much labor we and thought has gone into
where we are uh and the fact that this committee I think has done I think you guys have done an awesome job as it relates to hashing out issues and now we're kind we're at the the the bread and butter of it where we're we're putting pen to paper and then being able
to put a product out that comes back i think one of the things that the commission didn't understand initially was the timeline and the fact that some of the things that we're talking about implementing by way of um referendum we're still a year out before it ever
becomes a reality as to where we are um council assisted me with the uh with the presentation she had a a pretty strong PowerPoint um which allowed us to be able to have some you know some depictions of the stuff that was going on miss West you got anything else well
you did a great job this is the second time that she's not said anything it's It's hard it's rare it's a rare find a lawyer that ain't talking I guess so but yeah I was I was glad with I was glad to hear their responses to
some of the stuff that was there but it also I think was an education piece to be able to to put some more information before the commission so that's where we are um moving into our next item of business would be our regular business and the city attorney's memo i'll turn
it over to you Miss West sure so um if you take a look at the memo and this was January of last year we've gone through pretty much all the sections um at this point except we are now under
miscellaneous and in this memo I sought to just kind of uh identify and flag some things that you may want to consider in putting into your charter and in addition I have provided each of
you with a copy of just the table of contents for the city of St augustine charter so you can see that some charters are and you've probably done your own homework and have observed this for yourself in looking at other city charters throughout the state but some
are very brief um and preuncterally like ours you know as you know the bulk of ours pertains to the legal description of our jurisdictional boundaries um but the actual term itself there's not a lot there even though we spend a lot of time
on it um by contrast if you look at the city of St august the students charter the table of contents alone is really significant and goes into a lot of detail um I'll defer to the the chair on this but it's been my impression that
you've been very judicious in terms of what you think is important enough to rise to the level to put in your charter versus things that can be done by ordinance which is quite a bit and I I think that's a a wise and prudent move
um it gives some flexibility to the commission but it also makes clear what the priorities are in terms of things that you you want to make sure are in your charter and not subject to easy change but along those lines the first
thing is proposing an amendment to the charter that would authorize the formation of a charter review commission that would meet on a regular basis um this is something that the city of St
beach does they meet every 10 years and that way not such a long period of time will lapse before someone decides to take this up again um the second one and these you might want to consider talking about these two together is proposing an
amendment to the charter that would um authorize a citizen initiative process um this is similar to the uh ability for citizens in the state of Florida to amend the Florida Constitution through a ballot initiative process if their
legislators are not being receptive to what the residents of Corner want they can propose a ballot initiative and it has to have 60% of the vote to make it onto the Florida Constitution but it it's a mechanism to uh get something on
the the Constitution if your legislators not are not being responsive that's an option that you also may want to consider um so those are two things that you can start to digest and then we can work our way through this this is by no
means meant to be a comprehensive list of things to discuss if there are other things that you have noted in other cities that you think are a good idea that we should perhaps consider this is the the time and the process um to go ahead and propose those those good ideas
so please don't consider this a comprehensive list has everyone had an opportunity u to review the memo and do you or have any thoughts or comments as it relates to where we are
in this memo or do you want to kind of take it out piece by piece piece by piece So one one should be a a symbol right i mean considering it hasn't been done since 1970 or something yeah i I think
that's probably about the time that Miss Kitchen got elected um so and Norwood was right about that same time so but but in in all reality what year what year were you elected 05
so you're 25 years in you never had those you never you never had any any amendments to the I read other than just the the change in the residence requirement the res I don't know that didn't come but
but I don't think the I think we actually did change we made an ordinance we changed the uh the election cycle but that was done statewide um and and and so so yeah I
think I mean I'm I'm all for 10 years being at least a 10-year period being uh for a charter review committee uh anybody have anybody else have any thoughts on that i would think that we would like that for the present commission to actually select their uh
their individuals they want on that committee though 10 years from now we're going to do it every 10 years they're going to do it every 10 years wouldn't it be uh prudent to You're talking about the current commission 10
years from now not the current the the current commission as it sits on that how do they know we're going to be alive 10 years from now that's what I'm saying it should not they should I'm not saying that this committee will meet 10 years from now i'm saying that we should allow
the comm that present commission not commission today that present commission at the time okay in the future okay thank you of the review to choose because you know the city of black has a habit of of um continuing committees
uh five years apart and five years you didn't know you're on the committee any longer and that kind of thing so uh we don't want to fall in that trap well you're talking about the the future commission 10 years from now choosing a future committee 10 years i have no problem with that just want to clarify what you were saying i just want to make
sure we were not expected to be continued on time but was that done by the council or was that done the council did an application also and they chose they chose the same process i think some were some were
commissioner appointments and then there were some recommendations from staff as well five commission appointments some staff recommendation and Lee and I applied ourselves there were some at large i could be wrong i I'm not aware of staff recommendations no I don't think they No because when Jonathan Griffith
and he asked me they couldn't they couldn't find people so I wanted to be on the library board instead i ended up here so we're glad you're here we're glad you're here it's a lot more
action than the library face is on the library board if you're Elwood County be different and we're committed on a board so you can still be on board but I think I think in addition I think there were each commissioner got two
people that they nominated and then there were some other applications that were in place yeah it wasn't the most intuitive process but I think that was the intent well at the end of the day they did well right with the with the committee they put together
great um we put in language that we let them decide in 10 years how they want to right and I think that was the I think that's the I think that was the thought process anyway going into it u not to have a standing committee um but that's going to be I think that's easy you know they didn't choose it in 10 years we
won't worry about it hopefully no more than a two-year term probably so that they don't get stuck in forever Wouldn't at the beginning didn't Jamie Watts say it was they were in their third or fourth year i'm not quoting Jamie Watts that's You spoke to us about
how to do a charter yeah um how long have you guys been together doesn't it take It's been a year here so you have another year so we figure two years that's not bad it'll be another year
before yeah this memo is January 24th yeah so we're good so um so that's that's a pretty easy one for us so um quick question
i'll read the language from the city of St augustine Beaches on this particular issue see if you want to make any changes it reads "The charter may be amended as provided by general law commencing with the first regular meeting following September 1st 2013 and
every 10 years thereafter the city commission shall appoint a special committee of seven qualified electors to the city of the city to review the city charter and make recommendations to the city commission as to the amendments here too nothing herein is intended to
preclude the city commission from proposing amendments to this charter at other times or to preclude the city commission from appointing such a special committee at earlier intervals do you want to stick with that language notably the seven or do you want it
broader larger like this committee i want it broader we we we've got a committee of 12 with one alert and I think speaking for myself and not speaking for you folks but observing you folks I think we doing a darn good job and I think we need more than seven that would mean the commissioner would have five of them and one would be a fly by
night so to speak we need more i think we've done a good job yeah tenant a gives each commissioner two appointments everybody okay with that how many 10 i guess appointment for
commissioner probably will spill that out without the language nothing herein is intended to preclude the city commission from proposing amendments do you want the city commission to also have the ability to propose their own amendments to the charter what do they
do Neil under our charter I can't remember there there's no historical or a basis to then I wouldn't go with St augustine i'd leave it well they still have the ability to do so now even because there's it's because it's silent as to what's in place um and I think
that doesn't keep uh because quite honestly only thing we're doing is making the recommendations to the commission and then they're going to make their own they're going to make their own decision anyway so I I don't think one stops the other so that's leave it as it is well we can have this
i want we have more discussion because what's happening is we're literally a recommending board and then the commission is going to vote up or down which pieces of what we provide in our summary that they want to bring forward anyway so they have the ultimate say so
as it relates to everything in place so right now if the commission wanted to make changes to the charter would that have to go through referendum as well yes yes yes and the only thing that I haven't seen go that didn't go through referendum that was changed in the charter and I
still don't know how it happened was residency residences done by ordinance i was on the commission and I don't know how it got changed i know one time it was one thing and then the next thing it was something else but when did this happen it changed twice and it wasn't referendum memory
so then this current language doesn't change that ability for the commissioners so go into article one just go to the middle that's all um just language
abolishing previous charters that's all that's all customary language do you I don't really think we want to go through all that no I was on um article five citizen initiative let's go through that piece next do we want to allow citizen
initiatives to be to have an opportunity um I don't think that's necessary and I've read the discussion about the state i think the state's about to get rid of that or make it more difficult i don't see where that's if I as a citizen that think the charge needs to be amended I'm going to go to my city commission and
talk to them about it i don't see Well and if I do get a petition taken to the city commission then the city commission still has to agree whether or not they're going to do it then it still has to do referendum so to me it's just a waste of time well no well actually if you do a citizens initiative then you you're just required to have a certain
you have required to have a certain number of signatures in order to get it on the ballot yeah okay i think that's a good thing that Yeah you'll have time limits and all those things so you and you have to get 10% of the registered voters which would be we have about 7,000 in the city of blackness you'd have to have 700 signatures on the
petition okay general idea is that it's check balance yeah yeah through through the I think that is a good check and balance we should look at you well okay I enterain a
motion do we need to do an MOT for one as well or just or for each individual numbered item let's um did we do one by let's just do it by one i think we're fine um let's just get a motion for the
for the citizen initiative for now through the chair I would like to make a motion that we leave the language in place that would give the citizens the opportunity to exercise their right to um the change within local government right to read this well the
language doesn't exist right now but this is this is what I'm saying language should be added i'll take that as a motion to adopt the language right there's a motion on floor and a second to adopt language for citizen initiative um any further discussion on
this motion seeing none all in favor say I i oppose one name motion carries financial impact statement and inclusion of a financial impact statement on the
bot on the ballot would allow for voters to consider the estimated increase or decrease in any revenues cost to the local government resulting from the appropriate amendment any thoughts on that and and that proposed amendment that refers to
number two any any proposed amendment to the charter yeah I think that would be a good thing just for context the legislature passed a couple years ago the requirement is that for every ordinance that we pass we have to do a
business impact statement show how it may negatively affect businesses um so this is in keeping with that if you're going to require it for an ordinance should you require it for a charter amendment it sounds like you need to you have to
have it for the ordinance you guys never It's not legally required is not legally required but for the ordinance you have to have it for a business an impact to business but not an impact to residential well that's discriminatory but anyway it is
also I'm not a huge fan from an administrative standpoint i wouldn't I think it's just a bunch again a bunch of extra work but whatever the committee wants they'll go with so I'll listen to commentary on it at this point any other commentary doesn't the supervisor elections already include that on the
ballots of things for not for all I don't think and this would just wrap up the whole include this parts at least that pertains to say the collaborative not necessarily just for voting yeah because these would be for off off election construction because it'll
impact the city in most cases you don't see like even with some of the property tax stuff you don't you're limited on what you get as far as what the impacts are and it's going to be subjected based upon who's doing the math so basically it's useless sometimes yes sometimes no only because
it it depends on how easily you can calculate what the impacts are um whether or not it's the truth that's what everything right exactly so there's the so there's the the commentary I think that's there is you
know what you know what the basis is so that's the pleasure of the of the committee tomato can't be talking over there what's your thought i like to listen to y'all and then normally somebody says what I'm thinking or if they don't speak up
um I don't see it as being pertinent my opinion because again having worked in government before it all depends on who's preparing the numbers and calculations
and yeah sure do we know if any other city or municipality has adopted this this type of language in their trust research i think silence is standing still at this moment yeah i still think though
that wouldn't it wouldn't it be good to include that so you have a little more transparency it's only transparent you know it's a truth and they can they can finagle the figures and you don't know that's exactly what it is and a financial statement for every I mean Yeah but
that's with everything that's with everything well that's true and and I think it's a useless waste of time a lot of times a lot of times it says well the city doesn't have money for this or the city doesn't have money for that and then you know someone gets a huge salary
and a lot of people are questioning how is that possible where's that money coming from i think the more you can show what you do with the money the better it is as a city well that's true from the standpoint of a budget you're absolutely correct this is talking about the financial impact of a charter amendment and the charter amendment
doesn't necessarily affect the salary so you go and find out what you're talking about it's a it's an example i mean and how many voters actually read the ballot before they vote i don't know of any of them except maybe me and I rarely do mr let me just give an example of what kind
of amendment would require a financial impact so look at um let's just say we had an amendment that did away with property tax since that's a pretty com that's a topic of discussion this session so if you had an amendment that did away with property tax then you
could have something that says u as a result of this amendment passing if they had a citizen initiative that says let's do away with above taxes then as a result of this amendment passing you can show that this city will know will lose x amount of dollars in the general fund
as a result of not collecting any abort taxes in the current military well but but that's crucial then i mean to show that I think but on the flip side when it it would also need to show exactly how much non- tax money that's going to be put on you that you can't
get out of the city the city all government has to have tax money you give your tax money everybody's saying kumbaya hold hands then you're going to get fees which have no cap on them and then you have no recourse we're not arguing but we're not no but I mean we're talking about transparency means to say both things but the example I
don't think the example was meant for us to debate whether the validity of the issue was more so for me to show something that may may have a monetary impact that that you can calculate freely um yes sir so is
this as as it's presented in the memo is it only referring to impact relating to the the budget for the city correct correct okay i'd like to make a motion if I go like a motion to adopt the
verbage as it sits in the middle motion on the board there second there's a second there were not discussion on the motion any discussion at this time ste go ahead chair i I incur and
the ability to see whether our impact here is to give the citizens the opportunity to see negative positive whatever you want to say the
opportunity to have a voice or to see and I think it would behoove us whether it's exercised or not put in language that can give them the opportunity to know how the funding or the monies or
the financials is there whether they read it or not the opportunity that they have it before me to partake of is an opportunity that we're giving the citizens and I think that's a positive so that's my two cent okay any further
discussion i just I just believe that you should understand the financial impact and just because and everything that that will probably be recommended to go to a referendum may not have a financial impact but we need
to know that because we do but I think the challenge is because it's a citizen referendum so citizenry says we want to do this we're relying on the city to provide the data right to either support or negate that not knowing how the city
or the representatives of the city that are capturing that data whether they support it or not there can always be a you see what I'm saying like a scale yes but there's a opportunity for a Q&A you know because when you present that as
well it gives us an opportunity to ask those question how did you how did you derive at those numbers and that kind of thing it's just a challenge well I mean so to take the the tax relief off
the table because that's not something local to do right right so so it's putting in a giant water slide riverfront park citizen initiative 10% i got 800 signatures
what's the financial impact that's what we're talking about understood thank you or building 10 schools or building 10 schools yeah exactly wouldn't that be county yeah you just as an example
so um yeah that's where we are any additional um any additional discussion on this questions call so so just to be clear so that financial impact statement will be then included right that's what the that's what the motion's
for right that's the motion okay good so questions call all in favor say I i opposed i think I agree with you so passes by majority vote two days by city own parks waterfront
property or downtown property to only occur via referendum well there's the first part is the waterfront park's not going to be sold because it's has a reverber on it so I don't see it passing being sold by referendum at all
republic sold there is a reverber clause on the downtown riverfront but it's only where the old jail used to be from where the extension of St john's Avenue to the bridge it doesn't go all the way down to the boat house marine is the only portion of it i would think this is a good idea because the city owns parks and city own property we own that
property the city is us the citizens who live in the city of Palacta pay taxes in the city of Pala so I think we very well should have a say on what they do with our public own parks so I think this would be a very good thing any other comments is this includes
parks waterfront property or downtown property no other property just help me understand the reverber huh can you help me understand the reverber so like on the piece of property that where the jail was that this that the city received that was donated to the city if
the city no in that deed it says basically the city no longer uses that as a park that know where the parking lot is right next to the bridge that little piece and and all that was the county jail at one point we had the jail with the best view in America so um if that if the city no
longer if the city ceases to use that property as a park it reverts back to the donor's family it reverts back right so yeah the which family I see from it was a donor i think it was family that Yeah there's two things on there one of them was a Ronnie Clark family for an
ement along the riverfront and then the other was for the actual jail property which goes back to Putnham County right so those two claws so the reverter just basically says that once you no longer use that property for the intended purpose of the donation then the property goes back to the original owner so let me ask you something about that
switch that happened not that long ago right the switch for this it's not on the agenda no no but I have a question about that so that that piece of property on the week street where the the gas uh you swap Yeah the swap switch
is that not a good word swap what anyway then if we would vote on this would that have that would have to go through a referendum it wouldn't just happen right right but then we need to specify that was not a sale period in any way of the
de specify if they get rid of the city in it but you need to specify then if they get rid of city property anytime there's an exchange of money it's a sale even if it's even money it wasn't well the value it absolutely was a sale borrow an exchange kind of like the Indians but it wasn't it was it was an
exchange of the property that was a then what we need to say and I'm not going to oppose this we need to say allow for the sale or other dispos dispersion how do you say disposition of city property because you you can argue whether it was a sale you go to court and have a judge decide that I can argue both sides
however but I think we need to specify so in the future if the city decides to swap something with somebody say that's what I'm saying let's word it to where we know we have a say in Yes ma'am um this only states parks
water property in downtown why can it not say for any property that's owned by It can but the I think one of the issues you're going to have is now you're going to keep the city from doing business normal business without having to go
through a referendum process which is going to take sometimes maybe over a year okay i I wanted to know the the significance of excluding it that's why just so you know that the city owns approximately 200 pieces of property
some of them are really small like rights of way and easements um and so we also have uh vacant property that we have for sale for affordable housing if we had to go through a referendum for each of those transactions it would really be cumbersome okay going back to
the reverter I just want to flag this um because this was one of the issues that came up um early when I started was there was a push uh for Ravine Garden State Park the 81 acres that's along the water there's a reverter clause there as
well that it comes back to the city if it's not being used for park recreational purposes there was a push for the city to exercise that reverber clause because there were development interests in that 81 acres so that never really goes away with waterfront
property so that's something you you may want to take into consideration as you Thank you thank you i would add to what Audrey said and she's on the right track um the I would specify for the sale of city owned downtown or airport property
because the airport is again that's that's like the city hall it's it's city-owned property it's citizenowned property the parcels that the city attorney was referring to a lot of those were gotten through foreclosures or maybe somebody deed to the city they're little teeny tracks that don't mean anything to anybody so I think probably
if we say for the for the sale or dispersion of city owned property uh city-owned parks waterfront property or downtown property or airport property to only occur via referendum because we also had a swap at the airport which nobody got a smid over right so the
desirable important Yeah we swapped the property the airport nobody said a word we swapped it downtown discussion so we need I think we need to add the airport in there also but take away off what Audrey said any other comments or concerns as it relates
and and this specific list came from the commissioner meeting or this was something that you're recommending uh this was something that I saw in the Lakeworth charter i will say that the language in the Lakeworth charter does um call also for uh a lease less than 20
years and the commission shall pass a resolution calling for a referendum election or shall place the matter on the next scheduled ballot to lie to the next ballot date is less than one year um so that provides an opportunity for it to happen in a more timely fashion
versus waiting until November 2026 for example but the these were issues that again these were kind of a brainstorm and things for this committee to consider any other comments i like what the city attorney said about the lease for 20
years because our current uh at the city dock that property is leased basil in a couple of years by a couple of years and the city the citizens have no input on it so I think based on that alone with the city leasing property it may be something that citizens might want to also maybe have some input on or have
that added to it well I I I'll say this um I think that this becomes a bit cumbersome in operation of city business although I wholeheartedly have not been a fan of
the way in which acquisition or disposition of property has taken place in the last couple of years i I I do believe that Florida statutes sets out the standards by which you have to follow and the process by which you
follow to get rid of excess property to dispose of of city-owned property as well and I I I understand the spirit of this considering all the stuff for lack of any other term that has transpired and
um a lot of the conspiracy theory stuff that's out there um and questionable decisions that have been put in place but I don't necessar I I think this may be a bit too restrictive when it comes to the opportunity for the city to to
conduct business and do certain things i think more than anything uh we probably all need to be more vocal when we have objections or concerns as it relates to uh disposition or acquisition of property by our municipal government
but I don't necessarily think the referendum I just think the timeline for how long it takes to get a referendum passed or even educating our people you know and I think Putnham County has probably taken on the chin as a whole over the last couple of years as it
relates to uh you know whether it's schools or jails or public works facilities or whatever it may be overall we've we've we've had some questionable pieces to the puzzle that have been in all entities all governmental entities but I don't necessarily know if the
charter referendum process is the most expedient process that's going to give us the most efficiency it'll give us some control definitely but I don't know if it'll give us the ability to do what we need to do because I mean it all sounds great until you don't get until the majority of the people vote
something down that could change the city you know and that's that's the part that I worry about well shouldn't it change it then if the majority wants it i mean yes we are never up plus can you not speed up this referendum business no you don't speed
it up it ain't like it ain't like driving a car it ain't ordinary it's uh you know the referendum process is what it is and you got strict deadlines that you have to meet in order to get things on the ballot and you got cost associated with getting them on the ballot yeah but I think for really
important um pieces of property like a riverfront we should have a say in it i can tell you uh going a year down the line on the sale of a piece of property um most most people who really want it are going to probably go somewhere else to get it so that's where you are
chairman that's the whole point we don't want our city property our city parks our public spaces gotten rid of and if the citizens overwhelmingly vote to let it get rid of then fine but I think that's the whole point of this unless this violates or goes against the state statute and I know that city ordinance
by and large cannot go against the state statute then I think this is a good thing only on the city like the public the parks the waterfront property that is a city park downtown property that's like city hall and then of course adding the airport that is public property that
belongs to the citizens our tax money bought it our tax money maintains it we certainly should have a say on whether or not the city sells it to anybody and who they sell it to so I think this is vital again unless it conflicts with the state if the state statute says we can't do it then Lakew Worth must be messed up
because it comes out of their charter so I think we need to go for it i agree who's we the committee they agree that's who we is mr sure i' I'd like to table this until maybe we can look at the copy of the Lake Worth charter and get a
little more information okay any any concerns we'll do we'll take that as a motion is there a second second any discussion all in favor say I i oppos motion carries 15 more minutes
define the duties of the city clerk miss a you want to take this isn't lined in our charter i can't remember so sorry folks I'm still trying to figure it out myself so y'all have added I I'll take this one
the clerk's duties aren't defined and the clerk's duties continuously change based upon who's the leadership and that's so kind of put it in perspective when Alan Bush was city manager the clerk was his executive
assistant when Terry Suggs was city manager or when Mike Zimborg was here the clerk was not their executive assistant their executive assistant was the person who in essence was the assistant clerk at
that time and then Zimborg actually had I think Jonathan started out as his executive assistant by by title and he was not the assistant clerk um when Terry Sex was here you had the assistant clerk who was who was actually over records keeping who was the executive
assistant so now and and so depending on who's in place what their belief is that's where you are the closest thing to a description of the job duties for the clerk um in totality are coming came
during the when we did the salary survey and they started pushing out different pieces to the puzzle but it's not a clear adoption and you would think that having a charter officer in place that there would be more description there
anything else you want to add to that no I I mean it it is um it is set forth from the charter that the clerk is one of the few positions that can be terminated by the city manager only with the majority vote of the city commission
so that elevates it a little bit in terms of um its stature it it is defined in a lot of the other charters that I have reviewed um for whatever it's worth I personally do think some clarity on
the role would be helpful um you do have clerk school that there are certificates karen can probably speak a lot more eloquently on what she has to go through to become certified clerk um but having that uh line blurred on executive
assistant I I think is probably not the best use of resources however if our budget goes down I can see acting in a pinch but uh I I think the lack of clarity has not served us particularly
well mr chairman could we perhaps table this like we did the previous one and get some get the get some charter quotes from other cities as to how they've defined the duty of the city clerk so that we can see what their definitions are and maybe work from that and I'm going to lean on you a little
bit on this one oh yeah what do you mean and that's your motion that's my I move I make that a motion to table to table it and get get the wording from other city charters as to the duties and obligations of their city clerks and
then maybe from that we can come up with something that's workable for us motion recorded a second any further discuss discussion uh I know that you were a city clerk in uh city right what's the difference in
the duties now that you have now in Crescent City um in Crescent City the employees are only 24 so So it's a smaller a smaller city so
the clerk took on a lot more than they do than it does here however here the hats that I wear here are a lot stronger than they are in Crescent City so like I wore a hat like
um I did code enforcement I did um um planning and zoning you know I wore those hats with the special master shirt all that i wore all those hats for historic preservation as I do here however I don't do planning and zoning
and um all of that so it's it's a little bit different but the qualifications should still be the same all the way through the state of Florida right i guess in my reason for asking that question I wanted us to understand that the dynamics are going to be different for each city you know we can look at
charters we can look at what's you know how they actually define the uh responsibilities and all of but depending upon where you at that's why I made my motion saying and then we can tweak it to fit our situation because we're not other cities never want to be
but we can work it into what we need yes ma'am regardless of what we come back with the qualifications to be a city clerk should be high on that list and then work out their duties and I do understand the different administrations D and I can
understand the confusion with it but I feel as though if the top qualifications of how you have to be certified all those things have to be in place and then tweak it to the degree that needs to be I get that um there's three there's three certifications right now
for to be a city clerk three different certifications wow so when you think about it it's it does take time so when you're like you have to go through the stages but you have to be a in a job but
to get your first one and then the next two actually come in place that you so so I I also think hold I also think that we have to be careful because some of this is HR exactly and and so and the
other thing we have to understand is that the roles of the clerk are different in different places because and just going back to using the Crescent City PLA analysis i do a lot of work in Hawthorne as well and they got seven
employees clerks in most small communities either operate as additional executives administrators or they operate as glorified as as glorified secretaries and depending on what level of leadership you got where and when you
get into a place like and it's interesting when you get to a place like Palaca where you got 140 employees it takes on their different roles and responsibilities and the one thing that we were trying to do here was to make the clerk's department not be a one person department because there's so
many things you have to do because one person can't do it all now you got an assistant but because you don't have define roles you have an assistant who's you have an assistant who's limited in capacities and so you got a charter officer who doesn't have the same
controls as other charter officers when it comes to departments so you're and just so we all know your charter officers are your chief of police your fire chief your city attorney your clerk and they have they take on different
they have different levels of control in each piece and I think that's what happens so if you look back at this thing when this charter was written I'm sure the clerk's roles were far different than they are today and it was probably more of an administrative assistant type role where that person
was just basically keeping records and now you're you've got the the clerk's position has has elevated into a much more distinctive position which takes on so many other responsibilities because of reporting requirements because of all
these other things and and so that's the thing I think we have to be careful of because when we get into you know putting in the qualifications into the charter what happens when the qualifications change by statute um you you got to go back and change it again
um but those are things that I think we just have to be more conscious of so so but there but I I agree that you know we may need to look at some the universal examples of what the general what the general what the general duties of the
clerk are but you're still going to be able to adopt the others by job description and you want to make sure that whatever you do you got a tie in that says that you can do that as well so chair my question to you should we be
getting information from HR also regarding the job description we can get that i mean we can So we can get all that too we just have to pass we have staff provide that to us by email okay um so that as we start to get the other information brought in and you let's get
about five examples of of what the clerk's role is in the chart yeah that Crescent City um just in 2024 just changed their chart to 24 22 um it might have been 22 but they had changed the
role of the clerk because the clerk was just an administrative assistant and so they had to change because the city manager was not a city manager he was actually the city clerk so it they changed it they had to change it to say city manager city clerk so the
entitlement does the Florida statute set any requirements for a city manager in general if the lack of real estate agents are controlled by the Florida statutes as to what qualifications they have to have does the board of statutes control the general qualifications of a
city clerk [Music] maybe we get maybe we can get that when we get we discuss it or another meeting that's my piece for discussion any more discussion on this piece questions call all in favor say I at the
table i I oppose motion carries unanimously this is a good stopping point for us here i agree um make a note that we stopped at item five [Music]
um next meeting we seem to be normally our numbers on the meeting just just because scheduled or a little drop um drops on because we're
it's a heck of time with graduation all the other stuff going on activities with kids um so what do you guys want to come back for our next meeting are you going to finish this up
i hope is that we finish up later i I I don't want to drag it out i don't know if from a time frame i'm good next month if everybody you guys want to do you want to try to do another meeting in a few weeks or you want to wait until 30 days i would say 30 days next month i
have no problem next month in 30 days around the 20th that's one for 30 to see about the other six i'm available you don't have a job don't be careful because I don't know what's on the calendar exactly i would
enjoy that seems to have worked well for us thus far i mean nothing against picking a date specifically on record right now but I just don't pick the that range of time so because I know some people have they're going to some people may have kids who are getting ready for graduation or they got to go to college
graduations or whatever it may be and it's the end of the school year coming up so I don't want to be mindful of those things as well um so I I just want to understand as we start pushing the doodle out are we looking at the early do we want to look at early May late May
or middle early May is Mother's Day i would say middle rather 20 that's perfect it's before graduation it's after other stuff graduation May 19th well it'll be over on the 20th you got to go early cons
so let's middle college graduates before what when what are you pulling when are you leaving to go probably around the 14th 15th so everybody correct me something before before then before
the before the So let's look at let's when you shoot your doodle out this time let's look at before the 14th and after the 20th okay right you'll be back after 20 when will you be back Tom i don't know i got to check it
he'll go because it's it's cool it's going to be warm now be better weather than Florida i don't know anybody else have a scheduling conflict just don't forget historic preservation board i know that's all the city meetings as
well as loot grab and first week first week of May is gonna be bad for the end of the end of that first week when you say memorial weekend 27th the 26th this
year to me and please not the week for me for Mother's Day week because my son is coming and Mother's Day is the 11th y So you're actually looking at the dates between the 14th and the 20th right
no no because he can't make that before the 14th well we're going to block off it before the 14th we're going to block off those things what about the second week in June what's wrong with that let's push it out a couple weeks so what before the first week in May how about
the 27th of May preservation let's push out push out a doodle with that first range which is the early part of the month the and then and then the end of the month and then let's see what we come up with okay all right make a
motion to second all in favor say I I So why just question why was it a short meeting today why not finish this