##VIDEO ID:a2soVPY9SOE## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e Elementary if you just no no let's just stand over there for now Ethan Carboni children's reading Center Charter School Jensen Whitlock who was student in the month in December heill Crest the there Jamari Williams Hill Crest Academy Aubrey Heber at James a long element Aiden Fels Kelly Smith Elementary Hayden Boyd melon Learning Center pleas Jes Carr melon Learning Center K through 12 Melody Morales most Elementary Trin Baker pan bath Hayden Gil puam Academy of Arts and Sciences hakee low puam Classical Academy from December that's Jose I watch anybody a little bit Warner nail plam Classical Academy scet Mones Little Sprouts Learning Center Jose Vasquez Little Sprouts Learning Center okayi um Kelly Smith Hayden Gil we have low came in Aiden spells okay Kell these are the extras thank you all now we're going to take photos okay e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e commissioner Campbell present commissioner Jones here commissioner boram present commissioner Davis present and mayor carer Pres we have quarum um on to approval of minutes for December 12th 2024 meeting and December 18th 2024 special call meeting do we have a motion motion to approve minutes second a motion is second all in favor I any opposition thank you we're going to move on to public recognition presentations um we have a procl a couple a few proclamations actually and I'll get down our first Proclamation city of Palaca Proclamation whereas the charmat Inc is a distinguished National Civic organization that was founded on June 17th 1951 by gwendelyn Baker Rogers and Frankie drton Thomas with the vision to unite women for the betterment of their communities and whereas today the charmat Inc stands as a nationally recognized organization with chapters across the southeastern United States advancing its mission to empower women and enhanced communities whereas the St John's putam Flagler chapter of the Shams was established in 1974 by Doris h blackshare and a group of dedicated women from these counties and officially installed by national president do president Dr Dr Eva wanton on February 8 1975 and whereas the chapter's commitment to service is evident and its ongoing support for Education Health scholarships Community Development and a significant accumulation of donations of over $1 million to cancer research at the Howard University Cancer Center and whereas the St John's putam flag charmat continue to exemplify the power of Sisterhood and Community inspiring women throughout their dedication and unwavering commitment to make a difference and now therefore I Roberto am of the city of Paca Florida together with the members of the Paca City commission to hereby recognize and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the St John's putner Flaga charmat and extend our deepest congratulations and hotf appreciation to the charmat Inc for their extraordinary service to the community lasting impact on public health and education and continued leadership and fering unity and progress among women and witness I have under semi hand CL the Seal of city of PLA and the excuse me this 9th day of January in the year 2025 city of palka um are there do we have a motion to approve motion to approve second a motion is second all in favor I um CH pres please come up anything you want to say a few words about the CH I would like as we said we're we're getting ready to celebrate our 50th year in the community the um the local chapter we uh sponsor support and finance with uh the bread of life domestic violence the Lee coning house the uh the nursing homes and the schools we do scholarships Etc and we are built to last in this community supporting our community at full thank you [Music] stand our next Proclamation is in honor of abade whereas abade is observed throughout the nation and the world in recognition of the many benefits of trees and whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious top soil by wind and water cut Heating and Cooling costs moderate the temperature clean the air produce lifegiving oxygen and provide habitat for wildlife and whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper wood for our homes fuel for our fires and countless other wood products and whereas trees in our city increase property values enhance the economic Vitality of business areas and beautify our community and whereas trees wherever they have planted are a source of joy and spiritual renewal and where as the city of Paka is prly a Tre City USA now therefore I Roberta M karea mayor of the city of Paka together with the members of the Palaca City commission to hereby Pro Proclaim January 17th 2025 as ABA day in the city of Pac and we urge all citizens to celebrate ABA Day by supporting efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and further I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladen the hot and promote the well-being of this and future Generations do we have a motion to approve motion to motion to approve we have a motion second all in favor I I thank you is there anybody here from the tree committee or for day say a words well we are always um very appreciative of the support of the city for Arbor Day and we do uh partner with the St John's River State College and so um we'll be doing the same thing this year and we appreciate and we'll be reading the uh Proclamation at that event as well so thank you all and the next Proclamation is in honor of Reverend Dr Luther King Jr Martin Luther King Jr excuse me whereas the Reverend Dr montin Luther King Jr devoted his life to advancing equality social justice and opportunity for all and challenged all Americans to participate in the NeverEnding work of building a more perfect union through his teachings which continue to guide and Inspire us and whereas Dr King Advanced the cause of civil rights throughout the South despite the dangers associated with his work locally while taking part in the St Augustine Civil Rights Movement Dr King was arrested on June 11th 1964 on the steps of the Monson Motel restaurant his famous letter from the St Augustine jail to his friend Rabbi Israel Dresner urging him to recruit rabbis to come to St Augustine result in a largest mass arrest of rabbis in America history on June 18th 1964 at the monome motel and where as Dr King once said we have an opportunity to make America a better Nation I may not get there with you but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promis land though we have made great strides since the turbulent era of the Civil Rights Movement Dr King's work in our Journey remain unfinished and whereas we recognize that our nation is yet to reach Dr King's promised land this is not an mission of defeat but a call to action during these challenging times and whereas by making our communities better with increased opportunity for all and by breaking the cycle of poverty and reinvesting in our schools we carry on Dr King's work and unlock our children's potential which is our strongest weapon against Injustice and inequality now therefore I Roberto McAn mayor of the city of Paka Florida together with the members of the Paca City commission proclaimed January 20th 2025 as Dr Martin Luther King Jr Day in commemoration of a civil rights leader who dedicated his life to others and we call upon our citizens to ask ourselves what Dr King believed to be life's most urgent and persistent question what are you doing for others by lifting up our brothers and sisters through dedication and service we honor Dr King's memory and reaffirm our common humanity and when yes there I I'm not going to read that rest um do we have a motion to approve second have a motion a second all in favor I I and so I think everyone know okay I there is something will beog Satur at the CER and you're welcome e good afternoon to the commission mayor it doesn't sound like it testing sorry it's working now it's working now to the commission to the Mayors interim city manager we stand before you today on behalf of our steering committee that we put together um as it relates to the new town Grant uh the grant for historic preservation is $610,000 that was brought in uh from the state as well as additional funds it started out at 390,000 um that were presented to the city um today is just a compilation of what happened with the visioning statement with the visioning plan as well as um some of the things that we've been working on in collaboration in hopes of creating additional partnership with the city um as you can see our mission statement is to educate Inspire and to engage individuals of all backgrounds through exhibitions of educational programs Community engagement and Partnerships in an effort to preserve the past and promote inclusivity next slide we had a visiting session on November 18th uh we had about 50 individual ual who came out we had several we had commissioner Borum commissioner Campbell who came to that session um and it was a a great session they gave us an opportunity for citizens to come in and actually give input uh and so you see in this you see A Philip Randolph as well as um Robert H Jen is in this slide next slide please the session was held inside of the gym these are the areas that we discussed during the course of that session education agricultureal Sports oral history which talks about um how we preserve the history through collaborations where uh Peter Willet has started doing recordings for us um for people uh seniors particularly um to make sure that we memorialize the stories that they have of Paca also government elected officials and historic events next slide and these are some of the results that came from that and this is the input that came from citizens which included names of different individuals it talked about historic events and it also went through and we continued with this input and we're going to continue this collaboration and we're going to do this in various places throughout the city next slide and again this is a picture of how we did it with the potic um to put those in place and to move forward next slide next slide and so the new town Museum and Cultural Center of Palaca is just one of the names that we put out there as a way to look at it most of us know that new town was the red line District created um in downtown Paca that went from Oak to Madison from 8th to 11th and it gives a real distinctive history of what was there it's place that housed many of our great businesses throughout and it gives an identity as to where we are and with the help of U Kenneth Davis uh his creation of the logo and things of that nature it creates a wonderful opportunity what we're hoping for with the city of Paca is for the opport un for us to develop um a holding company no differently than what we're doing with the LMA Art Center um where you've got uh an organization that's able to contract with the city for the purposes of providing these Services uh the intellectual properties is a very critical piece we visited various museums throughout the throughout the area including Gainesville where you know the a Quin Jones Center which is owned by the city but also has a c has a collaboration which works in the same way our hope is that we're able to create a memorandum of understanding uh between uh both the new town steering committee and the city because we understand that in a small community resources are very limited and you don't necessarily have enough staff to be able to fully man a museum on a regular basis uh we would want to get to a point where we're able to sit down uh collectively and write a vision together so that we can have this so that we can budget and we can put things in place through the money that's already been allocated for this and have a community partner who will long-term ensure that the history of Paka is forever preserved and so um that's our ask today I want the members of the committee to stand up who are present me recognized and I'm going to turn the rest of it over to Madame chair Miss Audrey wise who will come forward at this time and de and ask any and deal with any questions good evening we're asking not only this Council but the city of Paca to walk with us how unique is this presentation at this date as Madame mayor you stood and gave a proclamation for Martin Luther King Day how unique is new town is this presentation at this moment in time we're asking you to walk hand in hand with us as we explore the possibility the reality of this small Hubble of a town that has so much h that is just lurking to be called and bought in one spot we want to inspire the youth we want to inspire those who have gone before us and those are still alive those are still alive that want to see history walk in time so we're asking you to see this Vision that we have as an advisory committee that you put forth in April of last year saying we need to be about preserving and restoring ing our culture so we're asking you to buy into this Vision be a part of making this event not an event but a living history for this this community and I feel as though as we bring things forth we will see how much more we have in common than not and I think we will all grow as a community as we unfold these things the history of the tapestry of this small Hubble of a town named Paca so counsel come with us walk with us be about this Vision that we have and we're asking the community to stand with us be with us if you have archives anything that can benefit all of us not a portion of us but all of us because with that we all can see a brighter future for ourselves and our children thank thank you for your time and please come aboard this tram we're moving forward thank you I um I don't have a question per se to directly to uh the preses but I do have uh something that I would like to bring before the diets we did ask that we um assemble this and I know that there was a request for a workshop with regards to I'll talk a little louder as this work um there was a request that uh we have a workshop with regards to what we would like to see out of Jenkins um so I think it's an opportunity y'all be with us we we're we're working through technical difficulties um but there uh there was an ask for a meeting so that we would be able to clearly identify the vision of where we would like to see Jenkin so I would definitely like for this to be conjoined because again um I had the opportunity to join that Workshop that evening and just the energy alone in that facility um it was next to none and being one of the um individuals that was just soaking up some of the information I would love for us to move forward with this in some kind of way shape of form I know official action may not be able to be taken tonight but I would love to see this as a part of the visioning session that we are looking to have for what we would want to see come out of the community center and I'm fine with the name as well thank you um thank you and I think we probably all Concur and that would be the next step to workshop and sit down with you folks and discuss further how to move forward absolutely thank you thank you so not recognition please fire department's life saving Awards Chief sh good evening mayor Commissioners it is my honor as well as Chief tor's honor to have the opportunity to stand before you today to present you with news of such uh performances from the ranks and and our staff um we don't we don't get to very often come with good news such as this point but when we do um we would love to be able to present it not only in front of you but present it to the citizens of Paca and letting them see how well and the wonderful things that are our officers are doing for this presentation today um assistant chief Matt Nukem will be doing uh the honor of acknowledging our officers and chief Taylor will take care of the firefighter good evening mayor and Commissioners on December 13 of 2024 Sergeant beckon Quinton beckon and officer leis gagliardo responded to a residence in the 700 block in North 16th Street to assist an adult male who is experiencing a medical emergency when sergeant beckton and officer gagliardo arrived on scene they found a man unresponsive and to have no pulse after assessing the situation both Sergeant beckon and officer gagliardo started rendering life-saving measures through CPR by administering chest compressions and evaluation after several rounds of alternating CPR positions a pulse was reestablished and pled fire department engine one and putham County Rescue arrived on scene and continued to provide medical attention while rendering medical attention the subject's pulse was lost again and rescue then took over and began CPR and delivered an AED shock fire rescue staff were able to reestablish a pulse and stabilize the man for transport at the end of the shift Sergeant Beed contacted the hospital to check on the man's status in the emergency room staff informed Sergeant beckon the man was in stable condition and was being prepped to be transferred to another hospital for advanced treatment First Responders trained to address to address and handle situations like this and because of Sergeant becton and officer gagle Ardo quick response evaluation and actions a man's life has been saved and this is a memorandum that I wrote to Chief Shaw and I recommended that um Sergeant Von and officer gagliardo received the police departments a life- saving award I've then contacted um Chief Taylor and he has a few things to say as well I'll just add to that it is the selfless acts of our local responders that saved a life on December 13th the training the Swift actions and the selfless courage of our First Responders that morning made all the difference courage to be confident to step up and do what needs to be done that describes the men and women that serve this community every day I'd like to thank the commission for taking the time to recognize the Valor and skill of these employees and on engine one that night we had Captain Kenneth suden engineer Matt house firefighter Cory albach and firefighter Kyle bondra who is here with us tonight thank you e uh Mayors and commissioner we have one more officer that we'd like to recognize tonight um just a excuse me I'm sorry I can't get my glasses um just a few days after um Sergeant beckon and officer gagliardo uh were're able to save that gentleman's life um officer Matthew Dickerson who's present with us tonight on December 17th responded to an apartment complex on husten Avenue to to assist a teen a teenage male who was experiencing a medical emergency when officer Dickerson arrived on scene he found the teenager lying on his back semi unresponsive in a Breezeway of the apartment complex building officer Dickerson evaluated the teenager um and the Teen had fully lost Consciousness and went unresponsive officer Dickerson quickly realized that the dealing that he was dealing with a drug overdose and administered Naran to the teenager within moments the teenager started breathing and regained Consciousness fire rescue staff then arrived on scene and took control of the medical situation and transported this teenager to the hospital again First Responders trained to address and handle situations like this and because of officer Dickerson's quick response evaluation and and actions the teen's life was saved city manager and administrative reports presentation Police Department chief Shaw yes we we'd like to present the uh Police Department chief Shaw again good evening commissioner mayor Commissioners my reasoning for allowing assistant chief to take on the recognition for them is because you guys get to hear my voice now for probably the next 10 minutes uh or so I was told I had three to five minutes but y'all know I like to talk so Amanda can we go to the police presentation please so in our presentation today we're going to go over a couple things and uh we're going to talk about crime stats our crime stats for the third quarter or up to the third quarter our new pilot programs are programs that we are um looking at putting in place our community service for fiscal year 2324 and our building updates after that we'll bring um what we see uh is going to be a prediction a projection for the annual year crime stats as well as um discussing some of the things that we've done over uh the course of several years and to include what we're looking at doing here in the near future or have started already with that being said I'll move on to our our crime stats you go to that third slide for me please um can we make that just a t so so far for the first three quarters which covers the months of January through September right now we are seeing uh Nega 5% decrease in crime stats uh for overall we have certain areas that we highlighted as as far as the reduction which include drug offenses simple assaults and all of the theft categories along with aggravated assaults fraud and motor vehicle thefts our increases are in vandalism motor vehicle parts thefts and intimidation and shoplifting our major increases in the area of shoplifting was a severe concern as we began to travel through the year so we implemented a couple things to put in place we revamped the retail theft program and we met with all of the retail establishments in the 19 uh Highway 19 Corridor uh we identified our top 20 repeat offenders for retail theft but we uh notice was plaguing us uh tremendously in that area and met with the state attorney's office so we could uh try to bring that to a swift end and have some tougher measures for those committing those crimes CRI um we believe that that's going to turn around and it's going to be a heavy impact on top of that we increase visibility uh by use of both officers as well as our PSA uh assistant our new pilot program uh we as we discussed uh with several things we look at things that's happening throughout the year so we look at implementing new pilot programs and one of the new pilot programs we put in is uh we record this was brought to us Us by um our Alpha shift with uh Sergeant U Snider and Lieutenant cassid they both had a officer who came up with an idea he felt that would impact and wanted to do it on a small neighborhood so we identify the neighborhood as a Southside historic district and through the Southside historic dist District we decided to implement this with the problems we were seeing in that area the police department uh has initiated a new pilot program called we record the idea behind the program is to identify residents in the neighborhood who have surveillance cameras and through voluntary cooperation obtain any videos they may have of a crime or a suspect of a crime and that may be uh fled in their area or walking through their area uh that we be able to use in in a course of Investigation once the crime uh or suspicious incident has occur in the neighborhood staff can follow up uh with those members with we record and see the video see if the video is available now this can be done via phone email or in person the homeowner or tenant can then email the video to us at we record and our email address is listed and we record at pacaf fl.gov one of the things we did to initiate this program is we went door too within the neighborhoods and we attended some of the neighborhood meetings so we can get this information out one of the biggest things I find that's uh positive for this is It's Not only that we can receive information to help us solve crimes or or issues that plague the neighborhood we can also send out information to those individuals to let them know what's going on in the neighborhood to be aware of so it's just a different way uh not only building relationships within the community but to get out um and provide information to that community and address issues that's going on in that community so we were pleased that they took the initiative uh identified a different answer thought outside the box and we implemented that uh on a small pilot area and hopes to be able to broaden it throughout the city our next is on the next slide is the overview of our community uh service program can you go to keep moving forward keep going forward yep keep going keep going I I would love to start all keep going one more you that's okay they they won't let me start all over short on time so uh as you can see uh the police department is parti ipate in over 54 community outreach events and some of those events we'll name at the end um we are partaking in anything that we're invited to I will say that uh our officers uh are volunteering uh being very cooperative and are on board with the police department's Community engagement program and I couldn't be more pleased at the things and the uh leaps that we're making um we are making tremendous amount of progress and uh I I I I'm just I'm pleased to see what we have have for the future some of the photos you're going to see if you move on to the next slide you're going to see these officers participating in these programs and these uh programs or the pictures that you're going to see consist of uh pictures from visits to schools such as those two continue um schools visiting the police department um right next one H oh okay again uh the Trunk or Treat event and we're again like I mentioned multiple events that we have for the community um we only had so many slides since this presentation couldn't be that big to be able to present we just wanted to give you a taste of what we have but again a number of different activities that we're doing throughout the community and uh I'll go into a little bit more of that here in a minute um one of the things I I wanted to be able to thank the commission and be able to show the commission the progress on is our building up as you know you provided us the opportunity to get our roof repaired uh with the approval to get our roof repaired allowed us to then begin addressing other issues in the building and uh making the building not only a better place to work but building the morale of our our uh employees that work in the building if you look at the first picture slide back down if you look at the first picture from left to right left is as prior to um with the leaks that we had in the building it was causing a tremendous amount of of damage to the floors so once we got the the building the roof taken care of we was able to update the flooring and the flooring uh has has has done a a remarkable it's a remarkable change and and uplifting not only the look of the building but again the officers if you go to the next page the first two pictures were the main building these next two pictures is our detective division our detective division uh carpet I believe uh has was was in place when we originally got the building and through the course of the years um we just couldn't clean it enough to make it look to where it's presentable for visitors to come in so the opportunity to address the detective division uh was a a huge plus next slide those are the back office for the detective Division and as you can see these are the front offices and the front um uh welcome area for the detective Vision that's just a portion of the things that we were able to do as far as our building upgrades but we were able to address the outside lighting we were addressed our parking lots and we were able to address a number of different issues that we had that was brought before you and we look to be able to finish up hopefully throughout the end of the year with the painting of the main building to um completed as well as our signage as a wrap up uh for our projections for the course of the year for crime stats uh as the end of year comes to a close our projections we're looking at it to be somewhere around AG -2% um we would know that when the information is released by FDLE in March and we'll be able to bring that to you uh we still are happy although we wanted to remain at five or above we are happy that we are still at a reduction of this year um and not at an increase some of the activities I wanted to tell you about and just talk with you about uh things that we've done to make sure these uh reductions in crime are staying in place we can continue to move on and increase them things that we put in place and strategy strategies not only building relationships but reducing crime the in the community uh has come from uh things we did several years ago uh our community service engagement that we presented to you several years back um has been implemented through our talking Tuesday corly Zone meetings uh the Pastoral Alliance Trunk or Treat Community festivals uh are plaa PAL mentoring and plaa pal is a huge uh uh peace for our community platform because it not only addresses uh the community but IT addresses the youth in the community you know we got to start somewhere um providing them with some positive activities and things that uh was brought up uh in our last meeting our enforcement strates consisted of partnering with the schools and uh the putam County Sheriff's Office creating a major major crimes detective uh creating the task force between the putam County Sheriff's Office FDLE and ATF uh bringing in the outside agencies for both state and federal uh joining the Marshall's task force adding new software and Technologies assist with the investigations and flock cameras and I'mma pause for a minute for the flock cameras because I think it's interesting you know uh since we've invested money in the flock cameras you you hear what the flock cameras have been able to produce for you throughout the year uh the flock cameras gave you 627 traffic stops resulting in citations 210 citations 144 for driver license seized uh 53 tag seized 27 arrests made nine stolen cars recovered uh three drug cases and 22 other miscellaneous events that uh are not really identified and listed under that report but of those um importance of it we were able to recover uh a missing person um we were able to recover actually we able to cover three missing persons which was civil alerts um the system identified a hit and run uh crash that we was able to uh track that individual back and and make an arrest on him and have charges on them we were able to uh assisting three shooting cases uh and and identifi suspects and targets and one of the ones were the retreat shooting as you all know that occurred recently uh we were able to identify that subject track that vehicle and make an arrest on that individual as well um we identified a burglary uh a major burglary case we just had recently with um the junior Anglers uh tournament that just occurred uh we were able to get back thousands of dollars of equipment and return it to those individuals and make an arrest on that individual who uh participated in that burglary some things that I felt that that needed to be mentioned because those cameras uh we invested in we said would be a huge part of what we do on our day-to-day um uh adventuring to at least being able to address crime and it's I believe it's it's making a major imp in what we do um what what's new we'll talk about what's new and what we looking doing on the horizon we have cops coffee and conversations as far as Community uh we record as I mentioned earlier and the revamp retail theft program uh we have upcoming meetings with business and Community to be able to talk with them about septe program and and many different ways that uh they may be being impacted and how we can uh help them address their issues um the neighborhood Improvement program partnership with Cultural Arts and Cultural Affairs and uh the rest of department heads on addressing issues in the neighborhoods and uh obtaining as you know the the grants positions for the cop cops positions or from the grant those are all things we're putting in place uh we believe our cops positions once we get them going are is going to magnify our uh community resource and allow us to again continue to as you know in the past build part build relationships in the community to help us um address crime we know that we're not the only ones who can do it we can't do it by ourselves and without the relationships and building the relationships then we will never be able to chip chip away at it it's one bite in an elephant and we are trying to bring as many people to the table to eat this elephant with us so so um it is our goal and we don't want to stop short of just uh a piece of it we want to try to attack it all and it all the help we can get U we're welcome to it and again we are um taking this in many different angles and not saying no to anything and open to hear everything um any approach we can get that we believe uh can help solve what we have going on in our community we are open to partner hear listen and attend meetings forward and and put the action in the works that being said that wraps up uh my presentation and I'm willing to answer any questions that you may have commissioner Davis do you have a question I don't have any questions but I do want to say that we will continue to support your continuous Improvement in making Paca safe looking forward to working towards that thank you commissioner Bor yes I just want to commend them for all the wonderful work that they've done um over the years I mean since at least I've been on commissioning prior to um um every year they continue to um raise the bar for their um service to the community sacrifices and and different things of that nature they they stretch to every uh portion of our community touching people in every way not just going out just to fight crime but doing uh other things as well the um soft things so um I want to just thank these guys for everything they do uh run into the danger when we run from it thank you sir commissioner Jones yes I did a those sentiments I have two questions on the crime stats you just presented there was a category that says uh all other crimes what what what are those are considered to be so as you know and niers and UCR they capture everything that we document so some of those can be um I believe in on previous reports I had for you I listed um actually out exactly what there is such things as um okay such things as as arson and things like that uh things that's not may maybe mentioned on here whether it be Community um I'm sorry uh criminal mischief uh just just it's things like that that are wrapped up that don't have an actual category that they fall in so they want to capture everything that falls in the area so those are listed in other category and their captured in that area so okay so I saw where it was arising those I just want identify them and the second question it's not really a question I um I know we had a town hall meeting um commissioner Campbell and uh it was centered around private property and either dispersement or our limitations just for the information purposes could you give us two minutes and say what our limitations are for dispersement of crowds on a private on private property and and and and what are we doing and what are our limitations so that the public would know would that to be appropriate at no no not at all very appropriate sir so for us um when we have um crowds that form in areas that are private which businesses are open it's a challenge because they have the right to to attend that public um entity uh so what we do is we first have to monitor um and I I'll I'll digress just a little bit and I'll go back to say understanding these crowds may form um in a minutes of time and and we are out in the community addressing issues we're not necessarily just waiting for them to come the only time we we may be ahead of it is if we have received information prior and we make sure we get staff to standby and and make sure we um discouraged any of that activity beforehand um but if a business is open we cannot necessarily go in and basically tell the crowd to leave if they're partaking in that that business what we can do is Monitor and identify if they're conducting illegal activity in within the crowd and if they are we then can disperse it um most of the time if the crowd is of a large nature where we need to address numbers then we call in assistance from other departments such as the county and they'll come in and they'll help us address the crowd um again not to go in our staffing levels because of us other situations but we have to do it in a manner to where we're able to do it safely and and uh not only safe for the officers but safe for the individuals as well so we we have a couple of different issues that we face during those times but once we get those things identified then our officers proceed forward and address the issues when they come up right so because at times the business owners do not want their customers removed at sometime that is correct and I'm glad you mentioned that because um through the help of some of our other business owners we are looking at putting together some meetings so we can address issues with other business not only just the simple um issues that we may have for parking lots or stuff like that but we want to also be able to address issues for uh what we what we consider seped issues where uh it deters crime and and that's what we're looking at going into that's one of the new things when we we've been approached and we are welcoming like I said before any assistance we can get to bring those individuals to the table to be able to uh sit down and talk with them and identify how we can move forward and helping to prevent these things in the future thank you Chief appreciate it you're welcome commission Campbell um I wanted to Echo the sentiments of uh commissioner Davis of course anything that we can do to support you and your endeavors to keep our community safe or make it more safer um we would do but I also want to talk to some of the things that I've witnessed firsthand um being out with p a police department they're talking Tuesdays there were several Tuesdays that I went out and to the various communities and walk with them to hear the concerns of the citizens and you'll be surprised at the feed back or the um support that they have received as as well as the quarterly Zone meeting so I commend you all for being in the presence of the community and knocking on doors um to citizens who normally probably would not get out but still want to have their voices heard so I commend you all on making those efforts here in the city of Pac and again anything that we can do to assist in the safety let us know thank you very much sir thank you thank you for the presentation and I concur with the other comments and certainly we are here to support you and make our community safe for everybody so whatever you need we need to just bring it forward and and work through it and make it happen thank you thank you very much update city manager sech Miss C and I see Mr Hansen is in the audience yes Mr Hansen is here also human resources we'll make this presentation thank you Madame mayor Commissioners um thank you um as you are aware on in October on October 14th um the commission adopted a five-phase approach for us to begin a search for a permanent city manager we um are now in the month of January which are we are entering phase three um so we have received all of the applications that we will receive as effective 12324 and all of the applications you all should have received copies weekly um that were given to you all for your review during that time um we made sure the our new commissioner received all of that information once she was sworn in um so all of that part is doing we're now on phase three to begin the screening process and to begin to do um Zoom interviews um once a list of candidates that um you all desire um Mr Hansen is also here because he was the senior advisor that has been walking through walking with me through this process to get and give me guidance on the approach to take and what to make sure all of our applicants knew so he's here to um explain his process he has been compiling a ranking during his process because he also received all the applications um rankings for your consideration or review and you may have other ideas but he has put it in a ranking that I will make sure that each of the Commissioners get along with your own per um your decisions that you look you desire to have for Zoom interviews so that's where we're at now we're on phase three and we will be in that to the end of January hopefully all if we stay on track all of our Zoom interviews will be done we will have a short list and then we will move to phase four but Mr Hansen is here to describe his process on what he um went through to get us to this point um with our application good evening good evening uh I am Jim Hansen I'm a retired city manager I worked 41 years in business and different cities uh in Florida and Georgia uh and now as a as a retiree I volunteer for the Florida city and county management association as well as the International Association to be a senior advisor eight of us across the state basically we're not paid we volunteer because we try to to to be of some value to the world and hopefully be of some value to councils and and managers uh we do a lot of different things recruitment in the smaller cities and counties is one of them we try not to compete with executive search firms they do a better job than we do um but um at any rate I've worked on numerous cities in the last seven years since I've retired uh and um uh have some some experience with us I was asked by your sta staff for some assistance not to do the whole recruitment like I would for usually a smaller city or county but some assistance in evaluating the resumés uh it's very reasonable that your staff doesn't want to be involved in trying to rank the candidates that may include their future boss I've come across that before normally uh I work with another senior adviser we try to get two of us together because this is such an important decision for each group that we we work with uh I brought in George Forbes and earlier this afternoon we spent um quite a bit of time comparing our notes on all of your candidates and coming up with a um a list of um our evaluation of them uh that is in a memo uh your staff has that uh and I'm sure you will get it very soon uh in the memo we've summarized your 32 candidates into three groups highly qualified candidates of which there are seven qualified candidates of which there are another seven and then all the rest in qualifications we use both the um the items in your position advertisement and profile that was sent out as well as our experience uh in evaluating you know hundreds of these um candidates um and we spent a lot of time doing this I imagine if you've looked at the resumés also you it's easy to get get swamped and um in details so that that is for your consideration um and of course um it's up to you to uh choose who you want to move forward with on your Zoom interviews and all of that um I might a couple of other points I'd make I know everybody's busy tonight I don't want to waste your time but I I would say to you in my experience your choice of of who your next city manager is is probably the most important decision that you can make because if you can get somebody that you can work together with for some years uh and work successfully you will be able to accomplish your goals uh if you get somebody that that you can't work with it's it's often like trying to to tread through um you know water or something like that it just does not work very well so with that in mind uh I make a few suggestions first move quickly many of these candidates are looking for other jobs I know some of them personally are um you want to have First Choice you know your your period is ended you're not getting any new candidates in so the quicker you move the the quicker you're GNA the more likely you're going to be able to to get the top candidates in um second have background checks done uh there is a search guide that I was partially responsible for creating uh that's been published by the fccma and the league of cities jointly uh and it has a description of what you would probably want to do but for those candidates that you're going to zoom interview I'd have your staff to do at least a detailed Google check um of their back experience and everything you can find I've seen councils that were very embarrassed who have said who have gotten fairly far along in a process with candidates that may have something in their background that's very embarrassing it's better that you know some of that right now uh and and cut them off and move ahead for your final Choice obviously you want to do a very detailed background check there are companies that do this for example checking their their credentials for their college checking their criminal background history all that kind of stuff um also in that search guide is not only a description of background checks but a number of companies that we know of that have been successfully doing that for other cities in Florida so you can that just to make it easier for you I'd recommend on your interview process um a fair elaborate process we found this has worked for a number of cities first do a tour of your community once you bring the candidates in for That interview the pretty inperson interview have a tour of your city and have your department heads do that U have them all go together in that there's a couple of reasons one it allows your candidates to be better knowledgeable of what's going on in your city what the what the what the important pieces are the Strategic plan and then when you interview them you can get a better response from them uh in that the other thing that most people wouldn't realize often times your department heads will form some opinions that you may want to hear ultimately of course it's your decision on who to choose to be your next city manager but it's often very important to have input from other groups I know that is important decision is I'd want to hear from as many people as I could uh and oftentimes your department heads can tell if somebody really knows their business in their in their division uh or not and that's good feedback second we recommend that you have a public reception um you have a very interested public here a lot of people would probably want to meet the candidates um it's a good way to have a meet and greet and that's that's a a meeting you would want to probably attend uh again it's it's good public relations for the public uh it it shows the city off well for your candidates uh and maybe more importantly it get gives you the ability to watch how they interact with people because it's not just the resume or just how they talk to you in the interview there's other pieces how well do they get along with the public that's a good way to kind of Judge it for yourself um at any rate um you make your um finally have your interviews make your decision on who you want to hire as a city manager and I would recommend you have um a first choice and a fallback a lot of times you we'll find that U your Top Choice U may want to you may not be able to come to an agreement with them um by the way in our search guide we have made an agreement in word format to make it easy for your City attorney uh to amend um to um but while you're negotiating that uh sometimes you have candidates come in and want more money than was advertised or for some other reason you can't come to an agreement maybe they'll take another job so it's good to have a second candidate to you know so that um whoever you've authorize to negotiate that contract nor your mayor and City attorney would be the two that would work on that uh that you can have a second candidate to fall back with so that's um kind of a quick summary I know you're busy tonight uh but we spend a lot of time and reviewing these candidates and um I hope it's helpful to you again it's a very very important decision and I deeply respect all the elected officials I've worked for over all the years in um in making what is a very complex decision you know not just what's their background but how well are they going to do in your city how well are they going to work with you to get done what you need so but any questions anyone have any questions commission Jones do you go ahead Madam commission commissioner commissioner Davis no questions but I really do want to thank you for your guidance and support of our process so that it can be as thorough as possible thank you very much commission Jones I I do have a a question and it's uh Mr Hanson in the uh in the plan I don't see a plan that you going to speak to any of the the mayor or the the commission to see what type of uh city manager that we're actually looking for um because they will be working directly up under the commission and the mayor so I think that's a piece that may be missing in what you're doing now thank you for what you're doing but I think that's a important piece to also see if it's a good fit so everything else is fine but there's a piece or or tell me if there something that is coming forth but you just failed to mention well my evaluation I did not give give you a detailed description of how I go about it much less the other senior adviser that was involved uh I rated them not only on what was in your job position profile like um U the college education experience and years of experience in progressively responsible positions I also rated them on the experience they've got in the various departments that you might have Public Safety public Works those sorts of things um now um I also rated them in a few other things like the looks of their job history you know they have short tenures um you know have they have they have they not been able to keep to hold a job for more than a couple years at a time uh that's they have similar experience in cities the size of Paca a number of questions like that that I have evaluated as well as my my partner that did it also now other things like uh your strategic plan the best way for you to get that information is to see that it is included in the questions that you would ask your candidates in that interview um and um again I I I always recommend that an elected body have a written set of questions so you ask the same candidates the same questions to each candidate and that you make your own notes for one set for each candidate because I found a lot of times after a long day you've interviewed several people you start scratching your head say what what did that guy say or what did that lady say um but make sure that that touches on some of the issues to you that are most important if you have a strategic uh goal of something that I I haven't pulled out of the plan and and and tried to rate and a lot of that stuff by the way is not in the resumés but if you want specific information on some of those things make sure you ask a question about it and if they give you a peculiar answer ask them a follow-up question you know to get as much as you feel like you need to be comfortable with so there there's a lot of things when I handle the process entirely which we not for your city um then often I would ask the elected officials you know what are your top priorities um you know and what do you value most but a lot of those things you can't get out of um out of a resume you know a lot of a lot of elect officials will talk about integrity and that sort of thing you can't just find in a resume that does somebody have integrity you get a good idea when you background check and look and see what they've done in a detail background check uh you probably want to talk to the Past employers some of the city councils that they work for before and uh asked those very questions so um uh it's a complicated process I just helped you on one thing the evaluation of the resumés you got a lot more work to do but again this is the most important decision you guys are making it's extremely complex so I wish you the best and um and I will say that getting a good city manager will make a dramatic it'll improve your ability to get your desires done as a counsel thank you commissioner Campell have any questions I have nothing thank you thank you Mr Hansen thank you next um party Miss um next we're on to for D final investigative Report Greg Rossman Esquire uh no I'm sorry uh oh I'm sorry update replacement of Iration tower repair of Iration Tower to aration you come on U the reason why this is on the agenda uh Miss Amanda you're able to pull that up for me that YouTube is that we're having a major uh concern with keeping our water notice that the color and the odor of the the water and we went through some period of time when we couldn't straighten that out so I wanted you to have an understanding why that was occurring it was because of the ariation Tower and uh Mr Sean is here but if we just take a moment we'll be quick uh something hopefully let's H that button that's that's an ariation Tower right there that's how it looks uh yeah I know I know but it's still it's given a sample okay so they can at least look and uh I don't know if you have the other one but go ahead and explain all right basically our aration Towers start they take the water from the well we pump to the Iration Tower it goes in through our pipes comes in at the top about 25 fet up and it rains down as it rains down we have media in there um we'll call them Whiffle balls that's what they look like that whiffle ball agitates the water drives it crazy and forces all the gases out of the water those gases r i to to the top the only way they can rise to the top is if we have a blower pushing in ambient air to move those balls but our problem is is our blower has failed catastrophically uh the Impaler blew off it broke the housing so we've been down we do have the parts for it we do have them in the fabrication is starting on Monday so hopefully as of next week we will have a Band-Aid on a cut that needs stitches to be very blatant um blood with you we'll get this up and running it'll get the water so it's not smelling anymore the color we're flushing crazily opening it up letting all that water out color has started to come back the smell is now diminished it'll be completely gone hopefully next Friday knock on wood and we have to start on the next Tower because they're both down they've been down for many many years before I became here cost oh go ahead I'm sorry so the most important thing is that we do have a plan and we are we are repairing it and uh hopefully by the end of say maybe six months both of the towers will be operative absolutely and that's the key any questions Place commissioner Bor yes yes I have a question um he just mentioned that the tow has been down for many many years and I this is my first time learning that the tow has been down for many many years so why I haven't unless I don't know if the rest of the commission know or not but I don't know so why are are they down why have they been down in what is what's the what's the major importance of those Towers being up and do they create um any issues as it relates to anything environmentally health and safety health and safety wise no it's just going to cause your water to have a foul odor to it it's not bad for you you it will not hurt you but it's offleasing we all understand that the tow is being down for so long I wish I could give you a better answer for that all I know is that's what I have found and we are working to make it better I'm not gonna I don't want to speculate on why it happened but I will say we're going to make it better and that's all we can do is move forward with it the followup question to that is also said that you're going to be doing something that's going to do a Band-Aid and you need stitches so help me understand um in terms of the number of downtime you have associated with putting Band-Aids on something uh is it passes useful life I mean where are we with our equipment and in terms of operability our equipment is old it's outdated it's broken down unfortunately I know you don't want to hear that we have fabrication that's being done it's all custom work to get this up and running right away so that people don't have to wait the parts that we need no longer exist these towers these parts are gone they're obsolete so everything we do is a custom job it's take this piece and make it work with this piece so we can get it to run the job to rebuild both of them is quar Million Dollar it's $250,000 total that's all that's all that's all so we've been fighting this for years doing these custom whatevers and we could have just spent $20 something thousand yeah yes sir and therefore we we need to make an emergency motion to to make sure we we we need to make a I'm going to add it ask to add it we need to make a a motion um to to to get that taken care of and we're gonna find the money somewhere yes appreciate that if that's a motion I'll second it okay so we have any other things you wanted to say the commission I do no matter what stated is not going to be as important as getting this matter fixed yes okay and if I may I just want you all to know that this has just come to our attention as we have begun working with uh water treatment more extensively now and so I do want you to know that as soon as it was understood at my level we immediately started spending the funds to get the parts in and now we're doing the plan and that's why I brought it up so that at least at your level you would be aware that hey this is what's going on I'm grateful that you are making this um motion because that was to be my intent but I wanted you to know about it at least but I think also I would like um staff to work with Peter to get some formal communication out to the citizens yes as to why I know this was a matter that was raving over social media a couple of weeks ago and I brought it to the attention of the city manager but I think in times like this we need complete transparency yes and having that we have now in-house our public off U public information officer this is an opportunity for us just to put some kind of caution to let people know that hey it's not an issue we're working towards it it does not affect the quality of your water just so that the citizens are aware of it so I would like to see that in addition happen work with um Peter some kind of publication out to the citizens absolutely thank you yes commissioner Davis yes I have a couple of questions for clarification you mentioned a patch is going in and should be in place by next week yes ma'am you also mentioned that it cost approximately 250k to rebuild them I'm assuming that's totally refurb or whatever that looks like absolutely that's from the bottom up that's fixing everything replacing everything with new parts on both Towers that's so my question is do you understand the lifespan of the rebuilt Towers if so I want to know what will be if it has not already be put in place to ensure continued regular maintenance and ideally to proactively when you're submitting your budget to address these things proactively yes ma'am we have I did not put in the budget last year we had other issues that I felt were more upfront that needed to be taken care of um I did not expect it to go down of course it did it was catastrophic we now have implemented since I took over this last year a preventative maintenance plan yeah much bigger than ever in the water department before so now everything's getting checked constantly every day every other day this shouldn't happen again the lifespan of these towers once we rebuild them with regular maintenance every day once a month everything that needs to be done 20 to 30 years no problem and that's how having to replace any parts on it besides normal cleaning thank you you're very welcome commissioner boram and that's why we ask every I mean I know I push to make sure that we ask the Departments what's going well what's not going well how can we help you um serve the city better and we have not been serving the city better by putting Band-Aids on it when we you you're throwing good money to bad in in bad situation and you know we we we we don't have the tax dollars to kind of continue to push um in the sunk cost that we're we we've been um um exercising over the past few years so I'm not going to be a dead horse we need to make sure that we look at the life cycle of all of these things uh and then if you con constantly having breakdowns and maintenance understand and know the cost benefit analysis and and making sure that we're and weigh it out and and and provide the necessary feedback to the um management as well as the commission we just want to make things right here absolutely right I would like to just clarify one thing um the breakdown on it reason why we're putting a bandaid on is because I don't want to have to make the citizens wait six months to get clean water again I don't I mean that's that's not a problem I appreciate you for doing that but we also got to look at the the end go the long long range we can't continue to keep breaking um fixing things because you could be using that time to be working on something else if we look at doing the for the long long range thing is just to make sure that we have our things running efficiently effectively and reliably absolutely I completely understand and and may I say it's also important to note that Mr Sean you just took over how long ago uh months months months yeah not you know so under our new leadership and so forth we are now digging into circumstances and trying to identify areas like this that we must put Capital Monies to to do do as you have mentioned commissioner and so going forward it is our expectation to keep up with these repairs and to can continually uh increase our capital investment in these items because we cannot afford to have two towers go down at the same time we understand and that is exactly what happened just now understand well we we certainly want to get around to every Department we got to get every department and understand and know what is happening in C commission we don't have that responsibility our responsibility is set policy so and provide the necessary resources the city need it to run and and we do our very best to do that and so we just want to make sure administrative heads and department heads make sure you guys are doing what you need to do in these departments because here again we got some other things that's cropping up we had the lead lead project so we keep having things propping up we need to and and business yes sir I'm doing my best to find anything that we can address appreciate thank you and so you're requesting a motion so we we cannot take action on updates and presentations if you want to make an emergency motion during the the commission segment of the agenda that can be done or you can properly notice it for the sake of public to have input on an regularly scheduled agenda item for the 23rd want to add it for emergency item okay well we get to that get to that point in the agenda thank you thank you thank you thank you 4 D final investigative Report Greg Rossman Esquire Miss cardi uh yes uh following the um guidance of the Commissioners uh I was um directed to continue the investigation on both individuals and and uh this is the investigation um that Mr Greg Rosman completed and we did submit the final report as also requested Mr Rosman is here tonight to expound on the final report that he did Issue good evening good evening sir my name is Greg Rossman and I am an attorney about five hours south of here and 10 degrees warmer than um but I was a prosecutor for 20 years from 1994 to 2014 in brard county and for the last 10 years I work as a legal advisor to police departments and cities and doing investigation such as this but primarily working with police departments with procedure Internal Affairs investigations search warrants things like that um but I was contracted back in I want to say the end of July to begin and I have submitted three documents to you one was an interim report which was submitted September of this of 24 I was asked by Miss cardi to prepare a summary of that report which is a two-page document and that document is dat September 19th and then a final report dated November 27th of 2024 and um maybe I'm being presumptuous but I'm presuming that you all have received and reviewed those reports so miss cardi said that it was your pleasure you wanted me to come up and discuss possibly in person the reports so here I am so mayor I'll be the first one to Break prise um I must admit that I'm a tad bit um concerned at the quality of the investigation um information that was presented to us I don't see any additional information um really from information that I provided to Mr Bale at that time um also in going through the investigation of the report um were there any contact made with individuals from organizations that you mentioned or was everything that you received just solely with you looking up online and all of that kind of stuff so I don't see any back and forth of email Communications that may have happened with people that are involved I don't see any Communications at all so that's one of my overall questions sure so there were I didn't speak to individuals individuals that and pursuant to 112 um the commission of Ethics guidelines that asked not to have their names identified so that's why they're not identified I do reference in the report having spoken to multiple individuals some were present and former uh employees there were individuals that I reached out to that chose not to speak to me the first one being um what you might say is the subject of the of the this investigation sir Griffith um he was reached out to first I'm used to speaking to that person first to give them the opportunity they want to speak to me first before I learn anything else or I gather all my facts present it to them and let them address those facts before I give you a report gave that option well the email and through sell and I received no response to that with regards to excluding Mr Griffith um in the the the categories in which we've asked you to um investigate I'm not sure exactly and again you said that you have they have the ability not to come forth with regards to having their name publicized but I've spoken to several people said that there were no Communications with their different organizations which again is perplexed um me because how can we have a thorough investigation if individuals who hold High ranks within those organizations they're not or they have not they have not been contct um so again that's why I'm one of the ones who made the request that you be pray present so that we can ask you the pressing questions and not put our staff in situations or being able to answer questions that they may not necessarily have the answer to so again I was the one who made that overall request and I thank you for availing yourself but I'll I'll listen to the rest of the commission before I make any other well I'd like to address what what you said there's there's two ways that that was addressed absolutely one is as a consultant at the time it was the city manager Mr Bell was that reached out to me pursuant to orders from the commission Mr Bell gives me at that point my marching orders I discuss with him how I'm going to do how I'd like to do the investigation but I have no subpoena Powers so I cannot speak to anybody who does not want to speak to me Mr Bell and the documents themselves lead me towards people that may have information I reached out to people and some spoke to me some did not that that's there's there's nothing I can do about that I will say it didn't affect I did not believe it affected my ability with possibly the exception of the Third what we call the airport property because there there in in I think In fairness my I think I used the word exoneration found there was no no conflict there because there was no connection there were people that gave information that they thought would show there was a conflict I couldn't verify that so if I can't verify that myself through documentations or other kind of evidence I'm not going to draw a conclusion from it so you'll see in my first report the exhibits I think the report is 11 pages the exhibits are some 20 something pages every single conclusion I make is has a footnote next to it and a document that leads you to how I came to that conclusion I'm hired to gather facts in a method that maybe you find um not worthy and that's that's totally up to you but I'm hired for my expertise to gather facts whatever way that I can again without subpoena powers and try to make a decision based on the facts that I gather one can I make a decision as to what I believe those credible facts are I did that in all three instances secondly what rubric do we look at is it policy is it the commission on ethics floor statute 112 is there a floor statute 838 violation potentially so I was asked to look at policy um procedure and statute I did all of those things and where I could um draw conclusions I did that's my job you don't have to accept or agree with my conclusions absolutely I know yes anybody else have any questions of Mr Rossman I I had the same concerns as commissioner Campbell as to how you conducted this investigation and who you investigated I mean all of this was based on an anonymous complaint um and it is hard to investigate an anonymous complaint without talking to the person or persons that made the complaint um I was an investigator for allegations of abuse and neglect for people with disabilities in Connecticut for many years and that was kind of the starting point if somebody wanted to make an anonymous complaint we couldn't really act on it unless they were willing to step forward so I I understand that that's a challenge um but I I wasn't clear that there were some parties referenced in this report and I wasn't sure that they were interviewed or at any point in time well I was I'm also at a tremendous disadvantage because Mr I was told that Mr Bell and then in his said Miss cardi people everybody here staff or anybody were notified that I was hired and that I was here and that I wanted to speak to anybody wanted to speak to me can't kind of be a soothsayer and say who out there would be those appropriate people those people that I could discern I reached out to and as I said some of them spoke to me some of them did not but anybody who wanted to speak to me I've been available since July and I'm led to believe I'm not here that I was L believe that that was public knowledge and there are public emails between the original City Manor and myself that have my email address in them the um staff members from here that I did not know did reach out to me on both my cell phone and my work phone and emails so anybody that wanted to speak to me somebody feels like they didn't get an opportunity to speak to me I'd speak to them now I mean it's I think it's cost you money I mean when I did the interim report my suggestion at that time was to refer it to the florid Department of Law Enforcement and or the seven circus State Attorney's office which cost you nothing and you authorized that and I in fact did that and I wasn't necessarily referencing interviewing anybody that was in the city a city employer with the city I was talking about other entities that were mentioned in this report but well I'm going to be straightforward did you make contact with regards to the land swap with anyone from the Douglas Law Firm including Mr Charlie or a representative of his Organization no sir he he was not under investigation I can draw no conclusions as to him not under investigation but the investigation included a transaction that could have possibly had the person in question at that time so you've answered my question thank you sure thank you anybody else have any questions okay I there are some public comment cards so I'm going to go to that now and open the floor up may I ask the attorney something you sure may I know that it's been listed um but the pro the way that it's been listed it's under city manager or admin rative reports is it is it proper for the public because I know that we called for Mr um Mr Roseman to be here Mr Ros Mr uh Roseman to be here Rossman to be here but I just want to make sure as we proceed forward that we're proceeding forward in a proper manner and not out of right so no there are not public comments on presentation city manager administrative reports or updates you do have that section on the agenda which immediately follows public comment and those members of the public that want to speak to this issue certainly could at that point um but it the matter would have had to have been um on your regular agenda for public comment to be taken on that item okay thank you so I have a question couple question so Mr Rossman yes sir so you were charged with u Gathering facts as you stated so are you were you here today to tell us what your conclusions were that is not how I took it but I'm I'm happy to discuss them the reports have conclusions within them definitive conclusions as to the interim report which dealt with one transaction the final report looked at this two two remaining transactions so in one of them I found I made a finding that I believe there was a conflict of interest um and that that was not disclosed U I believe I made the finding the same and the third one I could not find and in fact used the term that we would use exonerated that there was no there's no finding of a conflict of interest or anything else in reference to the third property is the airport property okay so um you were directed to forward your findings to State Attorney's Office s District so I spoke to um somebody the state attorney the seventh circuit State Attorney's Office who preferred that since uh when I my suggestion to you was either the state attorney's office the seventh circuit or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and you authorize me to reach out to both so I did that so I spoke to somebody at the at the seven circuit first that person preferred that I get to FDLE and then get back to him after I spoke to FDLE so I did that spoke to a supervisor at FDLE um that person decid wanted me to speak to the seven circuit and tell them that it was going to be with FDLE and I spoke to again two people in Florida dep Department of Law Enforcement as recently as 3:30 this afternoon so the only thing I'm authoriz to say about that is they don't they don't publicly acknowledge an investigation um and they don't want me to say anything further beyond that they don't want say repeat that again they don't publicly acknowledge whether or not they are openly investigating something okay and that's all I'm authorized to say from the Florida law enforcement yes and but my final my final question um to you as an attorney excuse me um as you are an attorney and investigator um you are attorney right yes sir yes sir 30 years um um we mentioned about and I think it's a it was a as I was looking at the minutes of the last um meeting when we addressed this this entire board agreed to have this report to go up to the the commission on ethics okay but in the minutes it does say commissioner Jones I bought it up but the entire board agreed so I want that corrected in minutes um um after looking at that so in your experience something like this if it's dealing with ethics it was the anonymous complainant was the issue seems as it was here going up to the commission of ethics and it's who's to send it there if it's a ethical violation that's alleged because we didn't say it happen we that's why you were hired if it's alleged uh who was to send that up if if you read Florida statute uh 112 I think it's subsection 313 anybody can can file the um complaint with the commission on ethics it does their form does want that form sworn to that person doesn't have to be this specific investigator it has to be somebody who has knowledge that can swear they have knowledge that um less than but around I would I prefer the term probable cause and what I would tell you is the report that I've given you in two of the three instances develops anybody that reads that report develops probable cause upon information and belief it's not the investigator that does that I don't work for the city of PL so um my job is to hire and give you facts upon which you can draw conclusions if you choose you may not all agree on them um but anybody who reads that and believes that based on the conclusions that I have made and the facts supporting those conclusions that there is probable cause to believe that anybody can file that um and and should properly file that with the commission of Ethics so even if you don't have firsthand knowledge which none of us do um it's an again Anonymous allegation we can report that to the commission on ethics without firsthand knowledge I thought one had to have firsthand knowledge mayor I I will tell you this the last seven and a half years I was a homicide prosecutor 6 homicide trials we prosecuted homicides C on circumstantial evidence three or four of them with no eyewitnesses I understand that's you have to gather facts and you gather those facts and you try to make an intelligent decision to say do these facts lead me to a conclusion based on specifically rubrics Reasonable Suspicion probable cause we're talking about in the law enforcement area things like this and that's why I try to use the term probable cause because it's what I'm used to it's what I'm from I think it's the fairest way to do things probable cause doesn't mean anybody's guilty of anything it means that there's further investigation warranted that's all means so um my I was asked to draw my opinions I did so I believe so fairly I'm used to i' I've done a lot of these I'm used to nobody's ever Happ um whether it's the person being investigated not being investigated or um a commission of five or seven there's always some that agree some that disagree um I don't take offense to that I'm a big boy but uh I was asked to do very specific things I did them I believe the best of my ability and I believe in a very honest and straightforward fashion I did draw conclusions um commissioner Jones question and I think those conclusions warrant um somebody drawing their own conclusions as to whether or not ethics violations occur but I made that that specific I did make those findings in two of the three instances commissioner I do have a couple of questions and this may be to the investigator and or the City attorney as I'm listening to this I want to I want to take a deeper dive and make sure I'm understanding that what we're discussing I don't want to say is is adding value or that we are having the right discussion in this form so I'm looking for guidance so I hear a few things number one there were from what I read three transactions well two City transactions and then another um transaction a private transaction based on your recommendation you said there was some conflict of interest in one which was the River City um um River Center transaction actually two what I call the K Aven I hold off on K Avenue because that's not a swap with the City so that's why I'm doing that separately but just hear me out so potential conflict of interest from your conclusion but not for the airport and KR Avenue I want to hold separately because I have a different question for that we asked for an investigation the investigation has occurred you have provided your final report yes yes ma'am we are clarifying your process to get to the final report you're clarifying some things here for us my question and that's why I said this may partially be for our City attorney is there are transactions that have been completed and when I look at the process that occurred to complete those transactions there were several points of approval from various departments the transactions are complete and so I think what I'm trying to understand is are we able to separate the transactions because they're complete nothing's going to change with those completed transactions is that a correct statement as to the River Center land Swap and the airport land swap that is correct that is not the case with Kelly Smith Road what the that's why I want to hold that one separately So to that point and that's what I want on record to understand we're here focusing on an investigation we have a recommendation um the investigator has referred this case to FDLE we will not know from their practice whether or not they will open an investigation so is it reasonable to assume that unless you're further engaged that this is complete from your perspective is that a statement unless we do another engagement is that a true statement yes ma'am thank my perspective yes ma'am thank you the next thing I want to talk about is for the I'm calling it creel Avenue if if are we good with that reference it's technically Kelly Smith Road Kelly Smith Road in terms of the Kelly Smith Road activity again when I look at the full report and the events in sequential date order there were several levels of approvals through that entire process going back a couple of years I want to make sure am I correct in my understanding and this is for our City attorney corre okay in the case of that I just want to make a couple of statements that may be clear but I want to State them I don't want to assume anything because the subject to which we're referencing in this investigation is no longer an employee of this city I think we can agree on that is that correct City attorney the subject is also no longer affiliated with the Kelly Smith that is correct project I do know that the city in a previous meeting directed The City attorney or if I get that correct or the city manager to refer this uh to the commission on ethics okay and that's the conversation we're having now as to how it gets submitted based on firsthand information and and all of some of the questions that have just been asked I'm taking my time to go through this because I clearly want to separate things sometimes when we talk about things as a whole we need to understand the facts and we need to understand the impact benefit or detriment to our city and what is ultimately what ultimately cannot be undone hence my point about River Center yes yes I think the conclusion said there's possibly a conflict of interest the recommendation is to refer refer I just want to make sure I'm stating some facts hopefully for clarity and to hopefully provide us conversation or discussion on how we potentially may move forward in the best interest of the city thank you commissioner Davis may I add something to that about the what what they're calling the Kelly Smith Thro I was given that term from the beginning the Krill I didn't make that up so that's where I came from so I understand what you're saying um very clearly about it being a private transaction the concern as it was brought to me and the facts that I developed were when you talked about the levels of approval inherently there's the problem if you think of it like you're i g hate to say baking a cake but you're Gathering ingredients if one of the ingredients is bad you may still bake a cake but it's not what you were trying to do so if at the time somebody who had was either an assistant city manager or the interim city manager could be the person overseeing those approvals and swaying how they go or how they're going not to say they are I don't work here that's what I was asked to investigate so that's why the conflict of interest in that one was so concerning from an investigative standpoint I don't make the findings you do but that's why I finished the interim report as I did in September because Mr Bell wanted something for I guess the some Commissioners had asked for some kind of report at that point in time so I said I'm only up to the one at that time but that's why though there are those levels of approval if those level of approvals were improperly given improvidently given and possibly from a conflict standpoint I'm not I don't do City attorney work I defer to your City attorney but statute 112 does say that they're voidable that contracts are voidable now that's not for me to say or to to guide you on but you can see that in the statute for yourself whether they apply whether there are instances that make it voidable for you I cannot say and that's for you to determine with advice from your City attorney but statute 112 does have that in there so that if let's use the state instead of pla if a state employee rigged a bid of such and the state got a bad deal on it if that state employee was found to have done so or had that conflict it is avoidable contract and that goes for all municipalities thank you for the clarification you're welcome anybody else have any further questions so we this might come as a surprise but sometimes lawyers disagree with each other um at the last City commission meeting uh the Commissioners did direct the city manager and myself to move forward with filing a complaint um with the commission on ethics based upon the investigative report conducted by Mr Rossman as you know I drafted a memorandum dated January 2nd following my review of the commission on ethics rules uh the Florida Statutes and then also I followed up with contacting general counsel for the commission on ethics um I learned that in this past legislative session 2024 the legislature passed a law that required anyone filing a complaint with the commission on ethics to ha do so in with personal knowledge and they must do so under oath he further ad advised me this would be the general counsel to the commission on ethics um his name is gray schaer he cautioned uh about filing a complaint since it would be in either Miss cardi or my personal Capac capacity so the only agencies that are allowed to actually refer a complaint to the commission on ethics are the office of the governor Florida Department of Law Enforcement the state attorney's office or the US attorney's office anyone else has to do it in their personal capacity and also be subject to personal liability should the complaint found to be frivolous they would be on the hook for the attorney's fees and costs um that were incurred by the the person that was under investigation so you are asking your employees in their personal capacity to file a complaint with the commission on ethics based upon something that we actually have no personal knowledge of um unlike what Mr Rossman said um I do not have personal knowledge I am not comfortable under penalty of perjury moving forward signing an oath saying that I do simply um based upon his investigative report I have put the exact verbiage of this new law that requires personal knowledge um in this memo and it was codified by the commission on ethics in their new form for complaints and it you can also find it in section 112. 3177 Florida Statutes as well as the Florida Administrative Code so the issue is um you provided this direction for us to file this complaint with the commission on ethics and yet the city as an agency cannot so that complaint uh would need to be filed by an individual um Mr Rossman has apparently personal knowledge you can direct him to file a complaint um but it is my advice that your employees here not file a complaint with the commission on ethics because it would be in their personal capacity and subject them to personal liability actually I agree with everything the legal the legal part I I agree and that's really not new that the law that they're they're she talking about codifying I've done these for years that I don't agree with that but the personal knowledge issue is does it does it mean you're the personal investigator I mean a police officer who's a homicide investigator talks to Witnesses shows photo lineups doesn't have personal knowledge he wasn't there when the person was shot and killed but he files an affidavit saying this person shot and killed that human being based on the knowledge he gathered from an investigation and shared with a grand jury and the grand jury does the indictment so what I'm saying is anybody in response to commissioner Jones question somebody can file his question was can somebody file it yes they can can based on if they read the report and they believe the report to be accurate and true that's what they're certifying to the commission on ethics they're gonna say here's this report I have received it I have reviewed it and I believe based on what I read it is accurate and true and that's what they're certifying and individual be personally liable for whoever that individual is whether it's one of us um City attorney city manager if we file that and it was turned out to be a frivolous after further investigation to be a fous charge then we are liable uh whoever we are in that individual case go ahead commissioner but if if it was filed on behalf of you say you can't file it on behalf of the city so you're saying that then that would now go to an individual whoever file it it will be upon them that's what I'm understanding here that that's that is I'm going to defer to your your city attorney's advice because she advised you directly and I'm a consultant and I was not hired as an attorney to give legal advice but I would say yes I don't disagree when she said we disagree I don't disagree with what she just told you the disagreement is whether or not it's the only the person who did the investigation that can do that it's anybody that has knowledge based on what they however have they obtain that knowledge right and so what you provided would be the knowledge that could be filed upon if somebody read it and believed it to be accurate and correct yes and if there was a commissioner that did not believe so they would not want to act on that I will also Echo something that Miss West said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also can do that I don't believe municipality is prevented from doing so because I have worked on these where they have in the past but I'm gonna not here for that but um definitely the FD FD Le can and FD Le does this has been referred to the Florida Department of Law enforc they are aware of it my reports have been shared with them they have the same three documents that you have okay and you you did with the FDLE and then you said this the um code I mean Commission on ethics is the other piece that we're addressing now which we yes sir but I'm saying those things are not mutually exclusive the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can also on their own they can they're if they were if can't say they're investigating but let's say hypothetically they investigate and they find there is a crime they will refer that to the state attorney's office and ultimately the state attorney's office decides whether or not they're going to charge a crime F he does not have the authority if they determine there is not one but they believe there is a conflict of interest they can then turn and give this to the commission on ethics and say we believe there's an ethical violation it doesn't rise to a level the state attorney wants to charge a crime but we think Commission on ethics should look at it and they can they can do that as well commissioner Campell so in the capacity that we sit in today tonight how do we move past this that's a great question and that is what um I was seeking a little bit of guidance on when I provided this um memo on January 2nd because there are only four agencies within the State of Florida that can refer a matter to the commission on ethics and FDLE is one of those agencies my recommendation is that if FDLE in their um capacity of investigating this matter finds that there is a basis for referring this matter to the commission on ethics then so be it and let them handle that since it is an agency that is permissible in terms of referring capacity so essentially we can conclude conclude that it's in the hands of the people that it need the Departments that it need to be in and we just need to be back sit back and be patient to see if there is correct mayor can we move on I have a question that's unless Whoever has knowledge which was provided provide the report and that's and that's what he's also saying so all of those things are on the table so next question commission so uh Mr Rosman Rossman yes sir so Mr Rossman uh just like we mention about law enforcement and uh things go into the state attorney's office or after in order to move a report forward then in those agencies you have to swear and attest that what you're submitting is true and accurate to the best of you not to to make a complaint with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement if you're filing a complaint um I'm saying even law enforcement law enforcement send a send a complaint affidavit to the state attorney's office so they swear to S they swear to it yes sir that's facts to the best of their knowledge to the best of their knowledge yes it doesn't mean they're facts so with this report are you doing the same I'm not I'm I'm not asked in a I'm not here in a capacity where anybody's asking me to swear I'm asking you that now I'm asking you you're submitting that report and so I stand by my report yeah so yes sir every word in it including where I did not find a conflict I mean people want to look and people are one side of the other I go where the evidence leads me to go I don't know the person uh the reason I think I was chosen is because I'm five hours away I don't have a dog in the fight I don't have relatives here I don't have cousins here I don't know anybody here so I have nothing to gain and in fact I TR I want to say tried but I recommended that this conclude back in September at about half of what you spent on it and you asked me to continue going forward um if you look at the the hearing and I appeared by zoom and said the commission that's when I said send it to FDLE and to other state trne office whichever one agrees if they agree at all to take it and then spend no more taxpayer money and and that you and but I worked for you at the time and I was given Direction and an email from his CI to proceed so I did but I stand by everything in the report yes sir so I think that's goes back to what Campbell said we we really just got the same information um those next three months but I'm I'm okay with what you said and what the attorney said but I do know that in investigation once you complete that investigation you testing that you're presenting facts to us and you didn't just you didn't just go and say hey this is what I believe happened it's almost like drag it you know that that show back in the day just the facts and that's what we wanted you I'm old enough to remember that yes sir fact the movie the black and white original version so if if you were doing that you know I I just want to make sure that you go record saying it that's all yes sir yes sir and I'm always well aware I don't make the final decision I just present to you what I'm asked to present and that's that's all I can do thank you um and we can now thank you thank you Mr Rosman we're gonna now move on we're going to move on to public comments I have several cards here I'm going to open the floor to public comments please limit your comments to three minutes be respectful and polite and give the city um or town that you reside in Jennifer Moes good evening I am Jennifer Moz I'm here in Paca um I am the publisher of the Paca Daily News and we have been a part of this community for or since 1885 but I come here tonight as a not as a journalist or a news reporter I've come here tonight as the person who's put in charge of an exceptional group of people and as a member of this community the employees who work at the PDN are dedicated and hardworking and many of them have lived here their entire lives and they love this community some employees have worked for the PDN most of their adult lives and more than one has actually worked there more than 50 years it's a place that we all we call our second home and we are a family my top priority for the employees is their Safety and Security so I am angry and I'm sad and I'm dismayed by what happened on Christmas night and at least one other time since I m I moved here two and a half years ago and I can no longer be silent on Christmas night a horrific incident took place in the parking lot of the PDN which is a privately owned business and property that was closed not open tragically as a result lives were lost prior to that a large Gathering occurred near or around our building on St John's Avenue which ended in the shooting the aftermath of that left our parking lot riddled with trash empty liquor bottles empty food containers broken glass and at least 70 shell casings a bullet went through the window into our building at a location and a time that just six months ago would have seen employees working the human toll of the violence that occurred is immeasurable but there are other consequences as well the emotional and financial tolls are long lasting and far-reaching our employees who have traditionally worked at night are now afraid to come to the building to work after dark our employees no longer feel safe they no longer feel safe when the fire department must wash blood from the doorway the entrance the stairs the side of the building and they still couldn't get it off we then had to use bleach and a power washer pressure washer to remove the rest they no longer feel safe when working in a building that became a place of a shootout on the Main Street in pakka and they no longer feel safe when our delivery van has a bullet hole in it our delivery van sustained $1,200 in damage and the window replacement is over $600 on the day after the event we were forced to close our building and because of that because it remained a crime scene and we lost business that day creating a safe environment must be top priority for all everything else PS in comp in comparison and nothing else can be accomplished without it we want to work together for Solutions it's past time to take action to make our community a safe place to live work and play without safety we have nothing thank you thank you Wayne mlan yeah Wayne mlan P of Florida also an employee at Beck Automotive Sales and Beck Automotive Group so as a member as a community member and a business Community I want to take this opportunity to express my full support for the city commission's ongoing efforts to improve Public Safety particularly in supporting our Law Enforcement Officers the work our police officers do every day is essential to ensuring that our streets are safe and our businesses can continue to operate in an environment where both employees and customer feel secure I believe we must recognize and so does my company and support the vital role that police officers play in keeping our city safe the challenges they face are immense I am grateful for their dedication and commitment to protecting our community by increasing resources for law enforcement and improving in training and fostering strong relationships between officers business owners and residents we can work together to ensure a safer and more resilient City I understand how crucial it is for our local police to have the support and resources they need to respond effectively to crime and public safety issues I stand with the men and women of our police force and offer my full support along with my companies to the city commission to provide them with the tools funding and Community backing necessary to succeed their their mission thank you for your continued focus on public safety and for your support of our Law Enforcement Officers please let us know as business owners and Community leaders what we can do to foster a safe Community I agree with several of the Commissioners when they expressed last week that Public Safety has to be the number one priority of government I look forward to the positive changes these efforts will bring to our community and local businesses in closing I thank each and every one of you for your commitment to the city thank you thank you toar CL tarence Clark how you doing good how are you Mr Clark guess what give can you give us your name andar Clark and your city of residence just for the record commissioner Camp commissioner Jones commissioner bour commissioner Davis I'm a free man everything that was done by the city it's on the city behal you could get guidance from your city manager Miss Carter I did not do nothing wrong y'all gave my business ownership way y'all illegally transferred ownership of my business it took me in Miss cter 15 minutes to get to the B of it we call Florida Sun bid June 26 the day y'all transfer the ownership of my business I still own that business the city still allowed that business to run in my name there no such thing as Gold Rush one never was a gold rush one but that business was still running under my name as I come here and I express myself Time After Time After Time Again I ain't got no problem with the city you say you want to build the city make the city better we can't do it like this man I don't hold no grudge with you well somebody wrong you're wrong I'm off for five years in prison for being a victim fraud that was committed by the city I ain't done nothing wrong ain't nobody try to straighten this problem out I don't roll everybody told them this business was illegal I sh paperwork showing why I still own this business all of it was ignored I ain't done nothing wrong but you treat me like a criminal and I'm the victim of fraud that's committed by the city Miss car tell once she I would like to be put on um emergency item for on the city agenda for this because I ain't done nothing wrong about this and then I asked for a public record rep on your Kelly Smith Road your parel was in the front you got four waterheads in the back of the parel all it's for a public request to see where the permits to see that's done I ain't got him yet so we can sit down now and get the situation straight she can tell you you have me IL legally arrested for what the city did Vicky Juke picky Duke Paca Florida I came before y'all months ago when we were um you were finishing the repaving of St John's Avenue and the downtown section and Mr Bell was here then and I brought up the fact that the brick intersections in the beautiful downtown that had been put in had been scarred by all the black tar and substance that went across those intersections and um Mr Bell made the comment that it would be on the punch list of things that they had to clean up that it would be part of their payment well that is still there that is not cleaned up and um as we work towards the downtown City SC city land landcaping that we're trying to do we're going to put in something nice and then we're going to just let it get torn up why even invest the money in it you know let's look at that and the other thing if you'll walk around those intersections there is information that is sprayed in spray paint on the bricks numbers Dash lines I don't know whether it's been done by the City by whoever was doing piping whoever was doing power whoever was I don't know who painted those numbers on there but there's a reason for them they're at every intersection some kind of guidelines need to be set up that that is protected you don't whatever you use on that needs to be where it can be removed um where it's on the black top you can do a patchwork over stuff that gets sprayed on it but that brick and I guess proper paint stripping that wouldn't affect the St John's river um could be used in that Accord but someone needs to look at that and if we don't have some kind of rules in place already that that those things that you as we are moving forward making that look pretty why make it pretty and then tear it up six months later thank you thank you Kevin sha good evening Kevin shaugh my address is 117 North 2 Street pla Florida 32177 I'm presenting this as part one I'm here to speak about the November report of Mr Rossman behalf of Mr Douglas I publicly request Mr Rossman retract any implication of impropriety by Mr Douglas regarding the River Center land Swap and apologize for the reputational harm that he has already caused his report is factually deficient wrong in its conclusions and defamatory I ask this commission to completely reject the report and the basis for the request is as follows one there was no failure to disclose potential conflicts interest two there was no actual conflict of interest and three the Commissioners were fully aware of the ongoing investigation into Griffith when they made the decision regarding the Riverson Rossman claims that the findings and conclusions are based on an exhaustive review of documents and meeting videos that there's no mention or record of who Rossman spoke to or interviewed did Rossman contact former owner of Port Consolidated Mike Simmons no he did not did Rosman contact the independent appraiser of the properties no he did not did Rossman contact montros the environmental company working on the Port Consolidated property no he did not did Rossman interview any current or former employees no response to our public records requests would indicate that he did did Rossman undertake any effort to identify the anonymous complainant that launched this entire course of action who knows I can represent with certainty that Mr Douglas would have happily provided a statement and factual knowledge prior to the public release of rossman's report but he was never afforded the opportunity how many others could have provided relevant information but were never asked for an investigation into issues of transparency the public has a right to know the sources that led Rossman to LEAP from an inaccurate letterhead all the way to a knowing intent to deceive on the part of Mr Griffith and imputing Mr Douglas in the process the event triggering this investigation was the delivery of an anonymous complaint sent to City commissioners in June of 2024 alleging ethical Behavior by Griffith and specifically pointing to the partnership of Griffith and Douglas in Nextdoor real estate the Commissioners and the new city manager Mr Bell were clearly noticed of the business relationship at that time Mr Bell himself was told by Mr Douglas of his common real estate holdings with Griffith on Bell's first day on the job while some municipalities and Counties have specific policies and procedures to deal with Anonymous complaints which present their own issues of conflict and potential abuse in response to the anonymous complaint here on July 17th Bell requested All City staff to submit a conflict of interest statement but even prior to Bell's emailed requests Griffith provided his statement on July 1st 2024 Rossman reports that quote Mr Griffith had an affirmative duty to disclose to the city this business relationship Mr Douglas Jr had at Minima a goodfaith obligation to reveal the relationship in his dealings with the city Mr Griffith remained on as an assistant City attorney after a city man incredibly Rosman then States Griffith never disclosed this business relationship to Mr Bell the facts are otherwise Lisa miles Lisa miles 117 North 2 Street Paca Florida 32177 um I'm going to be speaking on part two given the the various business interests of previous managers and administrators one might assume there is a procedure in process for reporting and some repository of statements maintained by the city alas the city of palaka personnel rules and regulations cited by Rossman as City policies and procedures contains no such procedure a public records request for any and all written conflict of interest statements submitted by the City personnel pursuant to City policy requirements from 2010 to present resulted in five documents in response to Bell's June 2024 request for the past 15 years no pre-existing example of written conflict of interest statements submitted by City personnel was found or provided from 2010 to present it's highly likely that no written conflict of interest statements exist from prior to 2010 in the future developed procedure such as that used by city of Jacksonville may prove helpful alternative suggestions include number one a sign off on each draft agenda for office holders and employees to identify any relationships of potential conflict of interest number two a specific tab on the city website with every Financial disclosure form and potential conflict of interest statements posted and number three a bulletin board for the fouryear at City Hall so that all office holders and employees can have their potential conflicts of interest on public display if not City Hall where might statements of financial interest and potential conflicts be stored Commissioners are familiar with the form one that is required by the state of Florida for state and municipal office holders and employees the Florida Commission on ethics maintains an online data set of filings Griffith's 2023 filing dated July 1st of 2024 is available online and lists all of his financial interests prior to 2024 the filing instructions directed employees to file their form one with the local supervisor of elections a simple request to the putham County Supervisor of Elections was all it took to obtain a copy of Griffith's 2022 filing dated June 16th 2023 his interest in next restore real estate is clearly listed likewise Griffith's 2021 filing dated August 16th 2022 clearly lists his interest in Nextdoor real estate the existence of these form one documents are significant exculpatory evidence that should at least be discovered and mentioned in a report that concludes there was a lack of cander and an intention to conceal the very relationship indicated in the public records and filings lives and livelihoods are at stake did Griffith openly identify his business interest in the public records of sunbiz yes he did thank you there was no failure to conflict of interest Garrett Lee can we act be mindful and respectful of the time that's given three minutes Garett Lee the address is 117 North 2 Street Palaca Florida 321 77 this is part three of the response to the Rossman report uh in his report Rossman acknowledges that blue crab North is a single member limited liability company uh Charles Douglas is the founding and sole member of the company Rossman then implies wrongdoing by raising questions which she does not investigate for answers what of the 2023 sell for $45,000 a simple call to the purchaser Mike Simmons reveals that the payment was a final payment on a lease with an option to buy contacting former mayor Terell Hill might reveal that discussion regarding the property in 2022 were in the neighborhood of 1.1 1.2 million to move from a presumption to an understanding of the advanced cleanup agreement Rossman could have reviewed the information presented to this commission uh the extensive due diligence documentation provided or call Mr lead Ford the main contact for Mount Rose environmental Rossman also implies improper Behavior then concludes that by its plain terms the land swap doesn't raise red flags Rosman Smoking Gun evidence is the inaccurate letterhead that listed Griffith as the interim city manager at the time blue crab North asked to be placed on the commission agenda which was a month and a half after Bell was sworn in rossman's red flag that is raised in this transaction involves the hidden relationship between Jonathan Griffith and Charles Douglas as this llop was first proposed and began working its way through the process of consideration within the city government hidden as previously shown the relationship was not hidden Rossman never bothered to contact Mr Douglas Griffith had no personal business or financial interest in the proposed swap he took no role in the discussions or development of The Proposal he had no vote in the matter nor did he bind the city to any contracts with blue crab North Rossman lifts no example of actual improper or unethical Behavior if he had found anything that would support those insinuations you can bet he would have put it in his report but that's not what we have instead we have the original allegation by the anonymous source that was operating out in the shadows pointing to public records which are factually correct and then rossman's conclusion that that already long publish Association of business interests on completely different matters is somehow enough of a conflict to create the appearance of impropriety the irony here is that the only appearance of impropriety is actually what Rossman himself has raised by his incendiary statements in his report which has since been published in the local and Regional press there was no actual conflict of interests Rossman alleges the city was operating blindly in this transaction the lack of Candor relating to disclosures by the parties calls into question the transaction a cursory review of the timeline of events in this transaction reveals that Bell was the city manager when the agenda application was submitted Griffith on the other hand resigned before final voting proving the land swap occurred thank you thank you Jeremy Alexander Jeremy Alexander 117 North 2 Street patka part four and the final part Rossman asks were other parties blocked out the simple answer is no no other party responded to the public notice request for proposals Commissioners were met with individually and each commissioner had an open and ample opportunity to contribute their suggestions as to how to improve the proposal for their constituents benefit if Mr Bell or other Commissioners had any question that Griffith's business relationship with Mr Douglas on other unrelated matters had any impact on the River Center land swap they would not have moved forward with the process that resulted in the Commissioners approving the deal the Commissioners were fully aware of the ongoing investigation into Griffith when they made the final decision regarding the River Center contrary to the report Mr Griffith did not intentionally conceal his business interest with Mr Charles Steve Douglas Jr nor was the City operating BL blindly when it approved the land swap on September 12th 2024 the obviously poor quality of the investigation and Report regarding the River Center land swap calls into question the competency and validity of the entire investigation for these reasons I publicly request Mr Ross retract any implication of impropriety from Mr Douglas regarding the River Center land Swap and apologize for the reputational harm that he has already caused I also ask this commission to completely dismiss the report as we as we build on the community dialogue developed over the past few weeks I would respectfully encourage the commission to consider some of the offered solutions to the issue of anonymous complaints and the issue of formal reporting and maintaining statements of potential conflicts of interest let's move past the Discord and distraction as we move forward with Community Centric collaboration finally Commissioners should request a refund while somebody may have gotten our money's worth it certainly wasn't the citizens of patka a postcript suggestion in the future when an office holder employee or private citizen is responding to an agenda item presentation that impunes their character with allegation of wrongdoing the courtesy of equal time to defend one's name and reputation would be appreciated we were initially told that we would have time allotted as an agenda presentation after the draft agenda was published and our item was not listed we were informed just four days prior to the meeting that a decision was made that would be more appropriate for our response to occur through public comment there is a saying that a lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is Lac ing up its Boots the truth should not be further hobbled by the constraints of the limited time allowed in public comment basic VI process would allow a fuller response thank you why do we keep running into this same issue with regards to time we've for the last couple of meetings we have ran into the same issue where citizens have stated that they thought they were going to be on the agenda for one specific thing only to come and find out that it's something completely different I know for a fact for at least the last four meetings we have run and I can call them by name if I need to but why are we continuously running into the same issue we're also in the middle of public comment so I I get it but this is something that we've been addressing for the last couple of meetings so in our um pre- agenda meeting um I actually thought that I could be able to put them on uh as a part of initially I thought that they could be as a public I think I had them near the presentation but once I met with staff and we went through the entire agenda we realized that the only place that they could be placed under would be public comments because it's not like we're seeking uh guidance for direction from the Commissioners it's not regular business and so we then made a decision and I can take that responsibility that um the only logical place that we could put their response would be under public comments and at this time I don't think that we have another area at least I was not informed and they actually under with more time when you look at it with five minutes that you all are saying but as far as with regards to us having to continuously address the same thing with regards to the allocated time of what a citizen think they're going to be allocated versus what they're getting we even ask that if there was to be that decision to be made that it be communicated to the commission prior to getting to a meeting so that we are not caught off guard and we are not looking as if we're not giving the citizens the opportunity to speak to what they need to speak to again I can speak to four at least four to five individuals who have come up here and we've been met with the same thing that they have wanted to come and be presented on an agenda only to get here and they're not and we asked the entire commission asked that we be put a breast of if a citizen that we know have been requested to be on the docket for whatever reason that they do not be a that they if they are not that it's communicated to us so it does not appear as if we made the decision not to give them the allocated a time that they thought they were going to be allowed it I agree I do remember that thank you Constance Daniels and this is going to be another one I don't know good afternoon or evening constant Daniel 610 Bronson Street I am constant Daniels and I'm seeking the appointment as inter interim City Manager on December 12th of 2024 I sought to get on the commission's agenda to no avail due to the cancellation of the meeting I later received an email from Miss Jones the director that the position was not advertised hence unavailable I'm persistent because I believe that I'd be a good fit as interim city manager I meet the qualifications that are listed as city as city manager my education is equal to that of a of a candidate who was Prior in previously interested um I've practiced longer but I have the same education and qualifications I have a ba in political science and a JD in love I've managed seven to eight attorneys for approximately seven years as a managing attorney and I've applied for the city manager position that is currently open to demonstrate my commitment to this position appointing me as interim city manager would give me a Head Start Head Start for the city manager position should I receive the an appointment and or be hired the income that was previously offered to the prior candidate is acceptable to me I ask that the commission entrust me with the position as interim city manager because I believe that I can be instrumental with getting the city past the phase that it's in right now in a positive forward movement on August 24th in a meeting here the current interim city manager Miss cardi indicated that she needed to give the finance department more attention than she' been given it she's the finance director and she does not have a problem being the full-time Finance director because of her position regarding not being having problems being the full-time director she indicates that she would do in respect whatever the Commissioners do and she be in support thereof accordingly because Miss CI would like to be the full-time director I'm here again to seek the appointment as interim city manager I've emailed each commissioner correspondence regarding this matter as as well as my application um for the permanent city manager position thank you for your time Tasha given good evening can you hear me I don't think m is it on or is it the it's on stop my time because I all yeah stop my my check Happy New Year my name is Sara given I live here in pacra I'm got to be quick because I know you guys are time first I want to say thank you commissioner Campbell for the recent Town Hall that we had thank you for giving um what we could you could hear from the CI and also get feedback um this is what I have to say so good evening everyone in your respective places are we doing all that we can to protect our city and its citizens from every aspect of potential harm as it was said at the Town Hall that was held I want to say last week if you see something then say something now with that being said the channel 4 news shared some interesting information on December 21st 2024 in which they stated that they obtain records from a records pertaining to the St John's um land swap you know that building now my question is is this information that the channel 4 news displayed and I would ask you to put the video but I don't think I have enough time but if you all willing your spare time on YouTube pull it up December 21st the channel 4 news shared some I'm assuming maybe I shouldn't assume some facts or some information my question is is this information considered facts or is it hearsay that was obtained by the channel 4 news which was also displayed on December 21st 2024 um if this information was obtained from the city's public records then I believe we're dealing with facts so that's a question that I have um like you said before if we see something and we should say something even though information was given anonymously I believe based on your findings and even before that and even now the city has public records which means at any point of time any one of you and from what I understand you're like the highest in the city as far as being a commissioner and the mayor and I myself as a citizen we all have access to this information so if you need facts or if you need information you have it and I sat here during some of your city commission meetings last year and I witnessed the information that was presented um from your planning department I want to say zoning in regards to the property on uh Kelly Smith Road or Millan whatever you want to call it there are some facts there and we are dealing with some facts so my question is are we turning a blind eye now your attorney your you spoke very well I don't have a degree in law but I have common sense and I would like and I want to hold you all accountable you have the responsibility now that you know what you know whether that came from the unanimous thing or not you have information that's firsthand because it's in your public records finish up please miss given right and I would like to challenge you to dig into your public records and go back as far as you can go and get the facts and bring that to the table because to me what it's looking like you might have a possible fight on your hand now I'm not sure how many Miss missg three minutes misgiving three minutes is up please well you let other people go over go and I got scolded for that well I have another question am I able to ask ask that you no your three minutes are up okay thank well I I did find it pretty interesting that my mic wasn't working tonight but out of all the people not everybody else might work so that's a little suspect if you ask me thank you but nobody wants to know the facts right thank you thank you the facts are there um is there anybody else here for public comment there is one more person but it's on a particular item and we'll get to that um later in the agenda other than that is there anybody else here for public comment on General items seeing no closed public comment comment commission and staff response to any of the items raised at public comment sure just a quick a quick staff response to uh the last public comment um the news for Jack's uh News segment that was run on this was the direct result of a request for the investigative reports that were issued by Mr Rossman because the reports were considered final at that time they were at that time um available for public records request and multiple media sources asked for copies of those reports and that's that's how they got their information thank you commissioner boram um I want to go back to um Mr shal's comment about the the commission was notified of the uh the business relationship um I'm going to say that that was not true in in my opinion I had no idea that there was any uh conflicts of uh conflicts in terms of well no no business relationship in in fact I I was the only one that voted no on the transaction based on what I had learned from the documents that was presented and what I had um seen so I that was my reasoning for not uh moving forward that in addition to uh the the the um state of the building as well as the uh overall benefit to to the city um there's another statement that was made as it relates to uh and I think the city has a policy as it relates to conflicts of interest that anybody who know that they they have a conflict of interest they need to bring that forward to uh management um in writing or or otherwise and so I'm not sure if I knew of any individual who have put forth conflicts of interest and I think it went into effect to have all employees to um August one I think it was August one that Mr Bell um pushed forward to have that done because when we had that I looked up in on the city city um policies to make sure that we have anybody as department heads or whoever have um authoritative um um control to be able to make sure that everybody fill out a conflict of vent form let's see here what El I think there another portion we had U yeah everybody have an obligation to report if there's any conflicts of interest in again we the commission nobody here on the commission put forth no land swaps or no anything else that all came from staff or what have you and the commission was not aware of any of those particular uh things coming forward and so we were all pretty much baffled we did not know and it's on the record anybody else have any comments and responses um as city manager interim interim city manager I'd like to address one or two items uh the first item as it relates to the placement uh on the agenda initially you were to be placed on presentation but going forward um we will make certain that that's done that way but there was a a team Direction and we were we thought that putting it on the public comments was where it should be the other item um as it relates to interim City management and finance directorship uh both of those functions are being addressed uh and directed by myself and I'm still very happy to serve the commit as they desire so I just want to be certain that I address the concern and as it relates to how do you get on the agenda uh one of the requirements as a result of uh I believe commissioner Campbell directive uh we made certain that going forward that individuals come in meet with our city manager or inter room city manager once we have that meeting they present their information that is how they get on the agenda so we do have a process that we are following thank you thank you anybody else have any comments or responses thank you we'll move on then to the consent agenda are there any items to be pulled from the consent agenda C item C yes for f for conversation f f anybody else I'll make a motion that we accept the consent agenda excluding items C and F for discussion we have motion is second all in favor any opposition thank you um on to C adopt resolution 2025 RS 01 ratifying a residential purchase and service agreement with Vector Security Inc for alarm Services Miss we we do need a motion to approve of all the other items on consent we just did we just did okay I'm sorry I thought that was a motion to pull no no um okay do we need a motion to pull though no I made the motion was that he made the motion to approve the rest um anyway C adopt resolution 2025 r01 ratifying a residential purchase and service agreement with Vector Security Inc for alarm Services Miss C yes um City CLK advis that um because the dollar amount uh of the security system that we have now purchased back in September 2024 the original amount was $4 4,957 for the equipment and I think an additional thousand or so um but the concern was that the monthly amount over a period of years would eventually exceed uh 25,000 so that was the concern that I can understand as to why this was placed on the agenda okay so I'm I'm basically just trying to adhere to what has been done here historically uh in my opinion this amount is still much less than the 25,000 that a functioning in the city manager they wanted it to come to okay any qu go ahead commissioner Jones well this to me it's not it's two things you you're still functioning in the um capacity of the finance director so why would the city clerk have to bring it to your attention and I would have uh also question for security cameras I guess and alarms Panic system $225,000 what is you said um $495 that that was the cost of the equipment and installation um and the monthly I don't have that in front of me but umer involved because you know no I didn't see this contract until it was on the agenda so in Ence it really in my opinion this does not qualify to have to be presented to the Commissioners uh but out of courtesy it's presented but I I don't it doesn't go over the dollar amount that can be spent or anything um for our other buildings are we using the same company because we currently have security contract we've only used the vector for this section this city hall building the Police Department fire department and U Jenkins have security contract Chief sh Miss Chief is public works here yes is let me bring for as far as us for us our we don't have the uh actual we're not using the company no sir and we have a different type of security that uh allows us to address our um confidential areas uh we have for um our evidence area I want to say it's um not not that detailed I just want to know that we have this company servicing all of our building no sir and if not I mean what made us do a contract that's different or why AR we umbrella uh the contract so that we have one service provider and we paid them so what what was the theory behind right uh when I came on board there wasn't any security at all for this particular building and in response to just safeguarding this building uh this was the company we had about three or four but this one was able to address the need and therefore they took care of it uh there were other companies I believe that Public Works are using and we are looking at the possibility of look I'm not sure what you want here but we're fine here but yeah but my my question is when we're entering these contracts shouldn't that be a thought that should be a thought umbrella our coverage and maybe it become a discounted rate or what have you but um and then we have problems we could address One-Stop shop um I I think that would been wise even though this contract is already signed now and like you said bringing it here now is a mute point um and so anyway I just want to I want to ask the question because it is here and it shouldn't have been but are we thinking like that are we thinking about covering all our properties under I I would like this yeah so do we have all other buildings on the different uh the needs the directors go and say well hey I like uh ADT or I like safe touch or whatever using Advanced security sir for all other properties Jenkins Boat House they've currently went out of business so we've lost our connection we were trying to connect them all with the same department but vectors new department they got a great system it's more user friendly so we're trying to transfer over So the plan is to put everything under Vector that is correct sir so was would have been a problem to do that like now since we're entering this agreement or you have would that why why aren't we doing that I can answer that question mainly um one of the reasons why we went with Vector under these circumstances because they provide different Services there is no other entity within the city that has the Panic alarm and uh things of that nature that Vector was able to provide so therefore for us vector or for here Vector provided a different service than what we were having on our other companies at the time right so so the needs are different in differentes no but they could Pro Vector could Supply the needs to all of our areas is what I'm saying I don't think that they're not saying that they are going to eventually make it happen I I commissioner mayor all due respect I am making a a suggestion that we moving forward put everything under one company which you have here vector and I'm I'm I'm really asking did you explore that option in the cost that's ass associated with it because sometimes if you do it up front instead of piecing it after the fact we have a better deal so I was trying to find out which I just did so thank you you're welcome and I I concur with commissioner Jones but only if they have the capacity if they got the capacity to do it then yes that's without if they're going to be inefficient and ineffective then we would probably make you know they might have to do it that but if you can get somebody who can do it um under one umbrella contract to provide those Services yet by all means um um so I I'll wait on next time and we totally agree but with all du respect again we are legislators and it's their I think it's the folks job to come to the best conclusion of what best serves the facilities we have and so I trust they will do that he gota come can I clear something up or just have a general statement we are legislators and but we are responsible for all the city dealing with what goes on you see what happened here today it comes back to us all the time so if we're going to legislate that's something that we're legislating this budget and so again I don't think that's uh out of line when we're saying Hey listen have you thought about this and that's all I'm saying Madam mayor so that's not impeding on the way they do day-to-day operation that's actually process improvements exactly what uh the Douglas firm was saying sometimes we are missing the mark and if maybe if we have a inclusion or comment up here it could help move things along and solidify like policy thank you thank you commissioner Bor commission go ahead commiss yeah I I just I just think you know whenever we we have M you out to have the um the freedom to to speak whatever is your issue of concern and I think that's what uh commissioner Jones was doing and I think that's what each commissioner up here should be able to do because you're you you're you're making sure that you are being good stewards of taxpayer dollars and we're responsible for it it lands right here so I totally agree with commissioner Jones in that regard we got to be respectful of each other up here and when somebody speaking just let them let them complete the statement okay are you done so so if I may yes you may and during the process of uh securing uh this particular premise we did actually look at about four or five different companies and this was the company that did best address the concerns we have here and and the utility uh Public Works is correct that as we did that we realized that we do need to look at the other buildings we currently do they're quoting us on the other buildings to switch the vector is Vector current so we are working on search so thank you try to get all thank seeing that is there anybody here for public comment on C hearing seeing none we close public comment do we have a motion to approve motion to approve to approve have a motion a second all in favor I any opposition thank you on to F adopt resolution 2025 r04 authorizing an FY 2024 25 budget transfer and the amount of four 4,232 four 423 39418 from City Shia downtown Street Scapes for the county Leed St John's Avenue reconstruction resurfacing project so I would like to address that uh during the budgeting process uh we lost the key personnel and that was the individual that had more understanding of the breakout of the various projects however they did submit the total amount required and submitting that amount um during budgeting uh the entire amount was was placed in City share downtown Street skates however a portion of it was really for resurfacing and striping so recently when we received um the final payment for that resurfacing we were trying to identify where where's the money where's it placed and it had been placed in City share so what we're now doing is moving it from City share to resurfacing and stripping where it actually belongs the other side of this project is that this is a project that is both Grant funded and City share we just recently received the analysis from the engineer now that we have staff on board and the total amount required to complete the street Scapes is 1.4 million the balance that is in the grant section is 1 mil 32,000 and we still have more than enough to complete we actually have $1,511 th000 so this is um correcting where the amount of funds were placed in the budgeting process uh that key personnel we had three key personnels leave during budgeting the remaining person did make sure that it was placed in budgeting and so that's what you see we're dealing with here okay that that was not my reason why why I asked to pull it the reason I asked pull it was to kind of have a conversation about the quality of work that um St John's have been receiving uh since the pro Inception of the project if you look at 19th and St John's Avenue um that that whole project was peace meal and it's uh I hope we have a retainer on that in terms of we haven't paid the full amount on the job because it's the poor quality of work when you when you first get there 19th in St John's you got a big dip it took a while for them to finish that last piece up and as you go down St John's or you go toward from 19th all the way up to Palm it's poor quality work throughout that whole thing and and and if we're still within the because you look at every intersection the the quality of the work it look like and I know it's going to come apart here in just a second and then the other PE that Miss piece that Miss Miss Duke was talking about the additional quality work at the intersection with the with the brick work we're paying these people the monies and we need the quality of work that the citizens deserve it's a eyesore or quality work and we should not be giving them the the full amount of money until they get this this project right mayor yes go ahead commissioner Davis I would like to call a point of order not to silence anyone but we are here to consider just moving money to correct an entry I'm just not sure that this conversation belongs here I just don't want to go down a rabbit hole and if I'm incorrect I stand corrected well we we I understand that piece of it but the thing what we was talking about St John's and it is also a good I think it was an appropriate time to speak about that because I'm I'm speaking on a a public comment as well as a item that was on there that was going to be on the um on our um consent agenda and I think those are some good point good areas where you can kind of talk a little bit about the various things as it relates so that's why I brought brought that up during that time as a result I have brought up Public Works to explain about how we're going to confirm confirm that that quality work is completed we're talking about for the intersections and the rubber marks on the uh bricks themselves um they did come out themselves a company that we feel responsible DNS they tried to clean it several times several several times we brought in our own people to clean it just recently they blew all the rocks out we're in the process of getting them all reset um we think they did a fairly decent I believe they did a fairly decent job up to this point but yes they should have better job I do know I do know when Mr Bell was here that was uh an issue at that time and he he specifically mentioned those intersections and how they were going to do the correction and the cleaning of the bricks so I think you know before we pay all of that money out and hopefully they gotten they haven't gotten the retainer just we want to make sure that we're giving the citizens what they deserve yes sir of course thank you um with that said is there any more discussion about resolution 2025 I'm going to open up to public comment is there anybody here for public comment on that item saying n close public comment do we have a motion to approve motion to approve second we have a motion to Second all in favor I any opposition thank you on to regular business do we want to take a recess yes we do okay then we can a recess for 10 minutes please and be back in 10 minutes which is exactly 8ish that what it says I can't see Nish nineish I can't see Nish I wish it was eish e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e Jesus nippy in here I think on to regular business discussion Direction interim city manager I'm not sure who wanted this on the agenda go ahead Miss Jones um Madame mayor um Commissioners this is on the agenda um due to um it being moved from the agenda where we didn't have Quorum and then on when we did have another agenda um it was brought in as an emergency item so it was never cleared I um that was attempted to bring it as an emergency item I say but it failed fail um the reason it's back on the agenda after discussion with the liazon when we this process went through um in regards to the counter offer from Mr Hill um I did um communicate with the liaison at that time that there were Commissioners that didn't feel this should have just died like that for it to be back on so I haven't had Direction until this is totally cleared to remove it so the recommendation was if it was the will of the commission to bring the contract in was was not an issue the terms and the salary was the issue so if it was the will of the commission to restart this process um as it pertains to Mr Heel that that's why I was on here or was this going to be the end of it with the will of the commission not just from the processes that was given direction to us prior you say that's your determination is that what you're saying no who who determination that is should go back on on this was put back on because I had other Commissioners and I communicated that to you that did not agree that it should end at the end of that discussion okay so it was back on it and I asked the question of those Commissioners did they want to see it back on the agenda it was yes so we haven't had a full discussion with the commission to say this item is going to be dead allog together removed or the negotiating is going to start over from another process that direction has never been obtained okay what do everybody what anybody have a thought on that given that we have to have some thought as to whether we want to um end this whole discussion in terms of interim city manager we want to continue negotiating I think we negotiated in good faith and it didn't work um I don't know what anybody else's thoughts are that's just mine and I think it's just time to move on to hiring a permanent city manager I think it would be remissed if I don't make a statement and I'll go with the will of commission but at the time where the conversation was brought forth um when you think of negotiation I I do believe that the situation um did not end to me properly um there was not a official contract that was given to Mr Hill um to go off of um so that's the only reason why I was of the proponent to uh bring it back before the commission so that it could in correctly and it has gone so so again I'll be with the pleasure of the commission but I did I I wanted to make sure that I made the statement that I was one of the individuals that stated I don't think that it ended properly I think it was an abrupt stop and it didn't give Mr Hill the opportunity to respond because there was not essentially a full-fledged contract that went to him for consideration just an amount anybody else have any thoughts so what direction would we like to give Miss Jones I'm just GNA make my comment my comment is that we had a report of where we are in the process of hiring a permanent city manager we've been over a hundred days with Miss cardi filling the role of assistant city manager and we have had whatever process we had it is what it is and it ended in no contract agreement at this time regardless as to whether it was ended abruptly from what I read on the staff report I don't consider that a staff recommendation there is no recommendation they're coming to ask the commission what's their pleasure again I'm I want to see us focus on getting a permanent city manager we got we received good guidance from the consultant tonight and I think what we all heard is that we have a lot of work to do in addition I will say that coming on as a new commissioner I had the opportunity to meet the department heads and from what I can see in the conversation I had our staff is working at 110% capacity and I cannot even begin to estimate the resources they have in M's case is not enough to that point I just want to make sure that we consider some to maintain the level of stability that have at this point yes we have a lot of opportunity we have some issues that are being addressed but I'd like to see us focus our energy on getting a permanent city manager anybody else have any comments well I I concur with um commissioner Davis as it relates to where we are right now in the process um we have um done and I do diligence from what we've offered and I think it failed and so again trying to force something in at this point or at this juncture um will be a disservice to the the the the staff it'll be a disservice to um what we're trying to do as it relates to where we're at in the mature process of of finding a permanent city manager again we're at the point where we got the um candidate ready for um interviews and to see discourse and indecision um that's not where we we need to be I would also say I don't think there's any discourse but I hope that we learn from this process and that as we move forward and we begin to get to the point to where we offer candidates the opportunity that we are clear in our actions and moving forth and that we move when we move forth we move forth with a full uh contract and not just numbers so I hope that we've taken from this um there's always a lesson and I believe the lesson is as we proceed forward to move forth with a contract and not just numbers and terms so with that said is the consensus that at this point we're not seeking another inm IM manure that our focus is going to be strictly on on hiring somebody in that role permanently is that the consensus okay thank you so we don't need to have it anymore on the agenda and finally uh our next item is team building in that uh we have followed the directive of our City commissioners uh Even in our staff in our role as workers or leaderships we are having assessments and having uh individuals come and work with our employees so um Miss Jones can you please okay as for the team building um on December me sure get the dates right here on December the 11th um we sent out from Human Resources the three um companies that we had originally um had applied with us when we utilized witson um for our team last team building at Top Golf um the three other companies and the direction was to see if they were still available um we did send out um an update um ay would have sent out an update that all were available for team building exercise in January we may have to push it back a little bit now because of time but they were available what they did what so at this point what they wanted was Direction on what it is that you guys were seeking um to Pro for them to provide so that they could send us updated pricing within their contract because these are like a year old so we're just trying I am just seeking direction to go back to them on whichever one you may or for all of them and see what pricing we get so what is the direction of what you want to see provided doing the team building exercise to add to that um Direction was basic whatever these three different firms are able to provide so we I did look at these and um I I would say that they're all equally qualified and generally we take the approach of you know the three different prices one is 2750 one is 4,800 one is 3,250 uh I I would suggest that we consider since they're all equally qualified uh utilizing that 2750 but right and you said the price though is going to be changed because that was a year ago it is yeah okay commissioner boram first on what what we would want uh at least if I could speak for myself in terms of what what I would want in terms of uh providing I say we provide them with the initial report because there's a lot of information that went into that and I don't know if um that information has been afforded to our new commissioner coming on board the initial the initial team building report yes yes I'll make sure she get okay well we need to get her everything that she needs there's a lot of different documents um she's going to need and make sure that she's caught up caught up on on and I'm going to provide everything I know to um City the clerk or city manager so but she need to be caught up on a lot of lot of different things so that's what I would say that need to go forward with the uh Team Building they need to have that information that we uh had at that session okay commissioner Davis you want so just so that I'm clear you want the team building exercise results to be sent to these organizations well no the whoever whoever we whoever we acquire if we select one they need that information to know where we we were I I believe at least um I'm commission commission Davis yeah I'm making I have questions so maybe my questions can bring some clarification so when I looked at this and I don't know let me be clear so obviously there's some information that directed the commission towards this team building right event because when I read this report that I have here um in the agenda package at I had a few questions one was um you know how are we seeking vendors if we have not provided the scope of work the other thing is um Miss cardi I will say I'm not sure I agree with your statement that they're equally qualified I don't know if they're qualified or not these these uh proposals that we have are from 2023 I believe if my memory serves me correctly and um and they're pretty generic um I just don't think they provide enough guidance again I know I'm coming blind but just from a process uh perspective of determining a an organization to provide team building to address a specific need I'm assuming there's a specific need if we have some reports and um so I think we need to identify that before we even go out to see who can drive it and then my other question is is there a particular reason again based on me not having history of why we're asking private vendors is there an opportunity to go to the Florida League of cities and while they may not do a specific event for just us I don't know is there an opportunity to see if they provide some training class and again I'm coming from A New Perspective so I am looking for correction if needed thank you go ahead commissioner c um I don't think that this needs to be up for discussion until we h a city manager okay one of the things that we did last time I don't wasn't the benefit we brought a city manager on after we had session at Top Golf so I don't believe that this conversation should be had until at least we have a candidate in the position permanently so that they're able to be a part of that session which will give us the opportunity to really fur that what we desire as a commission but again I don't want to see someone sitting in internal capacity take in a team building exercise and they not be I just I want the staff to be established so that as we go forward we know that we're going forth with a solid team and not having to deal with another transition as we had to do the last time we had a team building exercise so yes sir thank you for guidance thank you thank you without any further discussion we'll move on to public hearings oh you had something else while we're in regular while we're in regular business is this where I can do the emergency item here okay well put it down here it's sometime it work and sometime it doesn't get that man a new battery uh sometime it works okay um on to public hearings ordinance 20245 establishing The mlar Cove town home Community planned unit development possible number as we see 10126 130 00110 101 2600 00 0200 60 first reading the resolution ordinance number will suffice okay good thank you thank you thank you I appreciate that I learned from Sunny so I'll just remember now thank you go ahead Mr AG yes good evening mayor Commissioners uh this application is for an approval of a plan unit development known as the M Glory Co Tom house community and consisted about 31 acres in total if you rem uh recall it was recently resumed uh by the city commission given that an u a category of R3 which is residential of multiple units with an overlay UD the applicant intends to develop the property as a plan unit development with 24 48 Town H home dwelling units given a maximum density of eight units per acre this application was reviewed by staff pursu to section 94 233 of our Zing code which establish the standard for which a PUD has to be measured with as it is described the staff report which is part of your packet application is consistent with the standard for approval subject to conditions described in the staff report based on that staff recommends to the city commission approve the request and adopt the ordinance on first read and the applicant is here also to if you have any question to to the applicant and I'm happy to answer any question you might have okay um would the applicant like to come forward and provide any additional information good evening um shelene Estus uh 14785 St Aug Augustine Road St um Jacksonville um I am here for questions you um have heard what laurenzo has um provided and I can provide any other additional feedback if You' like does anybody have any questions Miss EST go ahead commissioner Davis I'm just curious um understanding any major process delays um in the standard process of getting to this development what's your target timeline for development please and thank you I know somebody else up there that asked that question every time I'm up here um we are ready to move forward um so it has been a very long journey to get here and we are very happy to be here but we are absolutely ready to get going so uh immediately uh I mean the development itself will take anywhere between 18 24 months so once we get through our approval then um you can expect that development will mobilize out there and start immediately thank you you're welcome anybody have any other questions okay any possible disclosures of conflict of interest before we get I have none but thank you all right um as to that point though for commissioner Jones just for your edification um we have adopted new policies within the planning department for every single applicant that comes through they do have to disclose not not only their corporate entities but every single manager that's a member of that Corporation fourstar has done that at our request so I I just want you to know that we are taking steps um to address the conflict of issue issues not only that we have also added and reactivated the development Review Committee because that was not functioning properly but now it is so before he comes here the entire uh departments that are involved with velopment are brought into the meeting and the potential developer makes a presentation and then whatever the issues are that we're not aware of each department will state it so we have uh changed the process and improved it at your direction thank you anybody else um we do have somebody here for public comment Mr neelson please give your name and city of residence Gary neelson uh live on 6108 forth Manor West Peta um cesac uh right behind my house is where they plan on building this development and um I'm not speaking just for me I'm speaking for the neighborhood uh they I lost the lottery and I'm here you understand so anyway um we just have a few questions um I know I'm not supposed to put my question questions toward her by Will toward toward anyway good evening to the board members good seeing you Annie up there uh we we'd like to know first of all what is the distance going to be from the back of the development the very back to the property on on U Deerwood actually it's Deerwood subdivision uh they said it has to be like 150 foot that you only talking 50 yards and that was one of the concerns of the people they don't feel like 50 yards is enough uh and and be in the tow houses how high will the fence be would they be and and high how how high will the um the tow houses be we want a fence to see if there was a fence that could be put up where they couldn't look out their window into our backyard because it's going to be that close and uh another question was the retention Pond where would the retention Pond be put and uh you answered one of the questions a while ago about when the project will begin they said 18 to 24 months possibly whatever but these are the concerns that we have in our neighborhood about this coming in I've lived there for almost 26 years uh built my house out there love it out there but uh we have a lot of concerns right now of what's going in thank you Mr agamo maybe you can help with a couple of the responses to that question yes uh if you measure the the wall to wall from what the town houses to the existing residences adjacent to the property is about 40 feet from the wall of the townhouse to the property line and from that property line is another 26 feet to the to the house so it's about 60 65 feet 66 more or less separation and also it's going to have a buffer you know our our code requires to put a buffer between the two uh properties and the retention Pond was the other the retention Pond is to the other side of the of in the opposite side of where the residential development is right now thank you and maybe chin can expand a little bit on that come on just so we have all the facts from Mr neelson and the rest of the neighborhood yes ma'am um so yes the um if we could go back to the site plan that might be helpful um the we designed the site so the pond is on the west side of the north piece um to be adjacent to the pond that's at the apartment complex for that very reason um to buffer again um Lorenzo was correct um there is approximately almost 60 feet between the back of the the building and other residential Community um houses so we have complied with our with the Land Development code to meet that buffer to put the you know fencing up um that that one would work it's okay no no no it's fine um just the site plan itself um you see where the pond is on the apartment complex to the West on that Northern portion um the pond will is located up in that portion as well yeah up in that area right there to the West yeah and I think that was all the questions yes all the way from St John's to 20 I'm sorry that property goes all the way from St John's Avenue to 20 State Road 20 um no sir not all the way um MCL Drive is there and before you even get to Krill or 20 oh that's what oh my bad yes sir glass to ask you that S no worries it's fine thank you yes ma'am okay go ahead my clarification edification when you say buffer yes ma'am does buffer mean space does buffer mean fence that was questioned to answer your question blatantly D all the above there's going to be fencing there's Landscaping there's space um again we are exceeding the Land Development code on that section purposefully because these are very long Lots um because the space is available um so um in the land scaping will be you know in the surrounding area as well as a um the project itself will have fencing around it so okay thank you yes ma'am okay oh I'm sorry our our our buildings do not exceed 35 feet and that's the building maximum height in the city oh the fence is with code six feet it's a six foot F that's that's what code is Sir okay can't we can't have a dialogue going back and forth sorry thank you I thought I answered them all but any other questions for me um I don't think we have any more questions here thank you thank you with that said do we have a motion motion to approve a motion and a second all in favor I any opposition thank you on to B ordinance 20246 resoning 110 South State Road 19 reone from General commercial C1 to intensive commercial C2 Mr agama yes this is a request for the resorting uh of a parel of land on State Room 7 and the corner of uh St John's the request to change from existing zoning of General commercial to intensive commercial the reason for the resoning is that um they want to place an ATM kiosk at that property with the Bank of America Amer and bank and financial institution is not permitted the in the C1 but it is permitted in the C2 and that's the reason for zoning we have reviewed the project before uh it meets all the requirements we check for the zoning uh standard and they meet all the standard for resolving and we recommend approval on first reading thank you um commissioner pcia do you have any additional information you want to share Walton piser 132 Buffalo Bluff Road patka uh co-owner of the property and here to answer any questions that you may have that I can take care of okay does anybody have any questions I know it needs to get done because the ACM is to move or be moved from its current location as a February and as a Bank of America uh Banker that's the only Bank okay do we have a motion to approve second oh didn't open up is there anybody here for public comment excuse mea seeing no close public comment we have a motion to Second all in favor I any opposition thank you thank you uh on a sidebar note um y'all might want to appropriate a little money for your PA system repairs I agree with you second count count give us so commissioner boram this would be your opportunity Bor go ahead okay um I'd like to make a emergency uh add emergency item and that would be to um request that we allow for the water tower to be funded at the set amount I think was 250,000 $250,000 to um repair those second motion second all in favor any opposition thank you thank you commission listen I knew she I knew she was gonna get ready to say something so we accepted it as an emergency right Mo that what you basically say so it can be official not to exceed Madam to add the emergency I can see the look too just soon as I said that okay go ahead make the motion to approve the um water tower repair not to exceed $300,000 thank you second a motion a second all all in favor any opposition thank you all right thank um commissioner comments I just want to say thank you for those that attended um both staff and citizens that took out the time to um attend the town hall I do believe that it was well attended as well as um some things of substance were um brought up that we are going to take in consideration to the citizens I have already started working with the city manager um and we actually have Buy in from individuals who know who doesn't even live in our city um so we want to make sure that as we move forth we are not moving Forth Just Hasty um we want to make sure that we move forth with things that are actually tangible and to takeing consideration um our next steps is to get um to bring chief of police um into the picture as well as some other stakeholders but we are not sitting idle we are moving in the background and we look forward to bringing some type of round two um to the discussion to make citizens aware that we are moving and we're not just sitting idle hosting any other comments from any other commission I just want to thank um to I want to give a thanks to the city manager interim city manager to our HR department for helping me to onboard and making things happen very quickly um I just want to say I really appreciate it and um thank you you're welcome thank you anybody else yeah I just wanna I say thanks to the community for coming out to hear us deliberate I'd like to thank the staff for the wonderful job that they have done not just today but in the past and going into the future also i' like to thank um commissioner Davis for her input here today she it doesn't sound like a a firsttime commissioner she sound like a veteran yes so and so uh I think she's going to be positive force here for for the city so I look forward to continue to work alongside commission Jones anything I'm silent too do we have a motion to adour wait wait wait wait wa wait wait I'm sorry please I can't say nothing okay bye not to go ahead and say what she wants Hank Bryant Hank Bryant bathroom is now being started thank you okay and um the lab project is complete all right and also we yeah that's a good but that's good news