Good evening. I'm going to call this meeting of Tuesday, November 4th, 2025 to order. If you will stand with me, mayor's going to lead us in a prayer and the pledge. Please bow with me. Lord, thank you once again for the wonderful city that we live in, placing us here just all
gathered together. We ask that you watch over council and help them make sound and right decisions. We ask that you watch over our citizens and our northern friends that are on their way down. We hope they have safe travels and make it here and spend their money. Excuse me. Sorry. Um we also ask you that you uh
lay your protective hands over our first responders and guide them and help them keep our city safe. We ask that all we do we do in your name Jesus Christ. Amen. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right. Can you call the role, please? Bishop here. here. Avery here. Here. Stewart
here. All right. If there's anyone in the in the audience who has something they'd like to speak about tonight that is not an agenda item, uh if you could fill out one of these public comment forms and give it to Miss Renee up here. We'll get to public comment later in the meeting. Uh mayor's report. Uh just a few things following. I missed
it, but I heard it was great. Saw a bunch of pictures. Congratulations to Neil uh for you and the chamber putting that on. Um they do have a November 15th the next before our next meeting is the gobble wobble coming up. So another event downtown and if you see our Christmas lights are starting to go up
already on the circle. Um so thanks to Spiegel and Jeremy for doing what they're doing. Um it's going to be pretty awesome this year. I think Jeremy's got a lot of good things to do. Um let's see. We got a little bit crumped on an item
that we had but this is public information officer week. Um the county read a proclamation uh and for all the PIOS in the county and Hannah was honored at that. So we have her own proclamation. So Hannah, would you come up here please?
For those of you that don't know Hannah Tucker, she is our public information officer. recognize publicunication fosters transparency, trust and engagement officers relations. and has elevated the city's presunation.
by the city of whereas the city council and rescriber 242 in all That's all I have, sir. Okay. Um, council members, comments, Mr. Carl, no report. Okay,
no, Mr. Bishop. Um, I don't have anything to report, but I do have a an idea. I'd like to bounce off everybody and see see what everybody else's temperature would be. Um, you know, as our town is growing, we see a
new commercial building go up and undoubtedly it's a a new discount retail store with a yellow sign and we always get the comment, great, that's just what we need. So, or a car wash or a storage warehouse or whatever it is. And I
wanted to see what everybody's feeling was about writing a new ordinance that may or may not be able to regulate the number of feet, distance, miles, whatever in between these businesses that eat up all of our prime real estate and in my
opinion don't contribute a whole lot to the community. We have similar ordinances that regulate things like group homes and sure Bob could give us some other examples, but it wouldn't be something unprecedented.
Just explore the option. Would we be allowed to do that if it more restrictive? It it's certainly something that we can look into. I haven't I have not seen that done, but it doesn't mean we can't do it. But I think the thought was if
there wasn't an appetite to have such ordinance, then we wouldn't go through the effort spend some researching it. I guess I'm I'm generally of the opinion to let the free market do its thing on that. Um, I mean I don't then we wouldn't have the zoning and
permitting and Sure. Um, I I probably wouldn't be super in favor of it, but curious what council they do it with billboards.
You can only have a billboard so many feet of each other. So, um, I understand market thing, but I kind of agree with you. We're getting a lot of storage units
other places you're talking about. I wouldn't mind looking into it. I guess Bobby would have to do that. I think you have somebody that wants to talk in the audience. Oh, it's all her.
Lacy has a fresh haircut. Well, I notic that when you walk incognito, let it grow back out. Confuse you again later. Jeff Carlson, for the record, it's not I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the idea of restricting those. But I love hearing conversations
about comp plan and long-term planning. This is exactly the kind of conversation I should have built around comp plan. especially when we do so many comp plan amendments that I think aren't compatible with comp plan. So you all really thinking about doing something like this next time you
look at that as a review think about comp plan. Thank you. Good point. I'd be in favor of looking into it. I just want to know what the feasibility too would be with the or less restrictive with everything else that we've been looking at. So it's a good point. So we have a
consensus. I would just need more information. Okay, that's all. I just wanted to see if there's any interest before Okay. All right. Good deal. I throw my idea out. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. That's it. All right.
Uh, mayor brought it up, too, but this it's nice to see the Christmas on the circle get lit up or getting in the process. Uh, I just want to point out and just want to say thanks to to public works, too. I don't know if anybody's notices the new mulch around downtown. Um, I think one of the best things about
downtown is you don't really notice a problem until there is one. And I haven't seen any problems. So, I think just that alone is worth recognizing and say thank you to public works for doing an outstanding job. Um, new playground too at at down at the pier down at Rotary Park, too. So, I just want to say
thank you for the crew that did that. Uh, some of the guys on public works who were contributing to the the mulch and the upgrades and the improvements and maintenance. I'm sorry if I don't have anybody, but Sean and Caleb, Miguel, Mark, Tony, and Daniel. You guys are doing a killer job. Very thankful for
for what they're doing. So, just want to point them out and give them credit where credit's due. Only thing I want to say is again a shout out to the chamber and everybody who participated in the Halloween event. Um, Friday, I was down there with my my son, his first um Halloween
trick-or-treated, and uh had a blast. There were an unbelievable number of people down there. Um, fire department and police department handed out candy which he thought was great. He got to sit in a fire truck. It was amazing. Um and then a shout out to public works for
cleaning it all up um so fast for Artfest the very next day that I imagine the number of candy rappers was monumental. Um so it was a great event and thank you to all all who participated. Uh we're going to move on now to the consent agenda. Are there any questions or comments from council on
the consent agenda? Okay. Anything from the audience on the consent agenda? All right, I will entertain a motion. I make a motion that we set the consent agenda with with item change the amendment on summary the summary
amendment on 8F the attachment. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Can you call the RO please? Yes. Yes. Avery. Yes. Yes. Stewart. Yes. All right. There is no old business. We're going to move on to new
business. Item number 10A, 75th anniversary of the first Seabaring race, Mr. Ford AOP. Moving right along, aren't we? Saw myself way down here at the bottom. But, uh, thank you very much for allowing us
to speak to you tonight. I wrote some remarks, but I think I'm just going to talk from my heart. I'm a Seabbring native. My family's been here since the first migration. Uh, our family's been involved Sebring
race. More importantly, a lot of people in town have been part of this race over the years. Uh we have I'm very pleased to bring uh my guest Eldridge Pard who was with with Chief Legair Smoke. He and
and Smoke were the fire team for the very first Super Race in 1950. And Eldridge stand up and take a bow. He's 96 years old. El Eldridge is and and smoke will be the grand marshalss for the event that we're
planning for New Year's Eve of this coming December. Um I've gotten ahead of myself. I was going to introduce Eldidge Glass, but I looked at him sitting over there. I said, I better get in before it's too late.
[Laughter] In 1950 on New Year's Eve, Sebring hosted its first automobile race. And those of you that don't know it, in the world of motorsports, that was a historic occasion. That was the first
international sports car race or endurance racing in the in North America. and a position Seabbring to be second only to the 24 hours of lemons at France in significance
and in the 1953 race here for the 12 hours it was the very first race of the world sports car championship went on to host the first US Grand Prix for Formula 1 cars here in 1959 but uh it's that race in 1950 that we're
focusing on on December nomber 31st of this year, the 75th anniversary of that very first race. We hope to uh recognize what we call the legacy families, the families that have stories to tell and
memorabilia to share going back to that early the early years of SE. We'll have a tent at Circle Park um for the legacy members to share their stories and their information about the race. We'll have a small parade with a
firet truck with our grand marshals riding along. We'll have the winning car from the 1950 race will be here following the the uh firet truck in a short parade around the circle. We hope we we're still trying to figure out the logistics of that. U we'll have a car
show. Rich Tillison over here in the corner is chairing our car show. We'll have uh vendors. John Graham's handling our vendors. We're going to have a children's car race. Uh JC Shupe is sharing that with the help of of Hannah. Where are you Hannah? Thank you so much.
Um got a lot of activities uh for families on that day. It should be exciting. But uh it's really an opportunity for Sebrin to celebrate a moment a moment in town in time when Sebring became internationally famous.
There was a time in the 50s and 60s when Sebran attracted the top racing teams and drivers from all over the world and they were followed by celebrities, politicians, royalty, astronauts, anybody who was anybody wanted to come
to Sever and be a part of this event. And today times have changed and a lot of those war years as we call them have passed. And so a lot of people in town today don't relate to what happened here 75
years ago, but it puts Sebran on the map and over the years it's had a tremendous impact on our economy. But more importantly, I like to say Sebran is a small town with a great big reputation. We have a reputation. It's international. You go to Europe, you go
to Asia, you you're wearing a Sebring hat. People recognize you. They pat you on the back. They want to say hello. They want to talk. But uh I've experienced that. I know firsthand what I'm talking about. And I invite all of you to come downtown
on December 31st 1 to6 and join us for the 75th anniversary of the f very first race. I've got a couple of handouts. Anybody in the audience who care for one, I've given each of you a copy of the handout with the lapel pen. That's our little 75th anniversary lapel pen.
And uh for a quarter, I'll give you They've got 75 laps. It's a way to start the story, to tell the story. 75 years of automobile racing in SE. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope to see you on New Year's Eve. And I want to thank
you so much for the cooperation of the city. Every department that has met with us on this event has been wholeheartedly on board and very supportive. Scott, mayor, all of you, I want to thank you for your support. Thank you for
any uh questions or comments from council. Anything from the audience? This is actually the 75th running of the 12 hours of Sebrings in 2027. So there'll be another celebration for the 12-h hour race, but this is really the
inaugural race that started racing and Ford and his family were here and Anna Tucker's part of the Sebring clan. So, so there's some pretty much with her mother over there, but there's some pretty good depth. And Elder Pard, he's like he said, it wasn't iced tea when
they were drinking there, was it out there? So, it's got quite a few stories you can tell about that event. But, but it's uh it's going to be a really neat event and it's it's uh New Year's Eve is on a Wednesday, I believe. Uh it'll be during the day and then there'll be fireworks
at night. So, it's going to be be a good celebration, something we really need to engage in. So, right about uh when I was in Germany, Europe, uh here in in Florida, somebody say, "Where are you from?" You say,
"Sebring." I said, "Where's that?" In Germany, somebody say, "Where are you from?" I say, "Seebring." "Oh, you're from Sebring." You know, it is kind of strange that that far away they they know about severing, but a lot of people even in our own state don't know either.
But it's a fun thing. I'll make a motion uh make a motion we approve the event as presented including a waiver of fees condition upon providing a certificate of liability insurance in amount to 1 million and
listening to sebring as an additional insurer at least 10 days prior to the event. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Okay, can you call roll please? Bishop, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Thank you very much.
We're going to move on now to item number 10B, an update uh of the Boys and Girls Club, Miss Re. Good evening, honorable members of the city council. Mayor Shu, my name is Janice Rick. I'm chief
executive officer of the Boys and Girls Club of Highlands County. On behalf of the club, I Our heartfelt thanks for your continued support of our Sebring club. Established in 1997, this the Boys and Girls Club in Sebring is
our flagship club here in Highlands County. Your partnership has been instrumental in helping us provide safe, nurturing, and empowering environments for our youth. The club takes very seriously the challenge and the charge that the city gave to us to be stewards of that fine recreation building on East
Center Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It is our flagship location and we're very very proud to be able to have that and grateful for the support from the city council. I've provided um some notes ahead of time for each one of you. So, if you'll allow me just to kind
of go through some bullet points. There's not a quiz at the end. So, uh you can have a chance to just see a little bit of what's been going on in the club for this past year. This is a great opportunity for me to be able to stop in once a year and just give you a
little update, let you know that u the state of the club is good. We have uh 66 kids registered here in our Sebring location. Most of them are kindergarten through fifth graders and they're having a blast. They really are. Things are
going well. We are well supported with grants and other funding in addition to that which comes from the city of Sebrank. If you'll take a look at your notes, as as you can see, we continue to maintain three areas of focus every day after
school and during the summer, academics, good character and citizenship, which is our enrichment program, and healthy lifestyles. When we talk about enrichment, it's a very broad category. It's everything from arts and crafts to say no to drugs. But that allows us to
be able to inculcate good character and citizenship characteristics with our kids. One thing that I usually ask you about when I come along is to talk about things that are going well. Some of the great things that we have that we can
celebrate this year. U we have a new walkway. Thanks the city of Sebring. The entryway is much safer and the folks from from the uh construction department of the city did a great job. If you'll recall prior to that it was some wobbly
little walkway stones and it's now walkway that's ramped up and it goes into the building. So, it's not only safe for walking in, but it provides handicap access as well. Signs, signs everywhere. Signs. There was a song about that many, many years
ago. We have a wonderful new boulder sign that we've installed at the corner of East Center Street and Martin Luther King. The boulder sign design is one that we hope will also impart to the kids that as a as a rock, we are here to
stay and we are a place where the kids can know that they are always safe to be able to come to the club that it is a place they can rely on. The other signs we have, we've got a new one on East Center Street. You'll see some pictures in the packet perhaps of that so you can
see it. And right now, if you drive along Sebring Parkway, look on up to that chain link fence and we're putting new sign there right inside of it. They call that footing cups. And I know you've seen them in many different locations. Lots of schools have them. But it's time for us to be able to have
people when they're sitting at that traffic light on Sebring Parkway to look up there and know exactly what's up that hill. That beautiful building is a Boys and Girls Club. In this in the intervening months since I've spoken to you before, we've had a major refurbishing of the floors.
They're as old as the building, but we're keeping that lenolium looking shiny, doing the best that we very, very can. As we look forward, there are certain areas of improvements, and I always want to update the council any help that you could give us to be able to make sure that we maintain the
building in its absolute tiptop shape as much as possible. Over years, we've had assistance from United Way for painting. We've installed new kitchen. We've been able to put in study countertops in the So, there's a number of really good
projects that have advanced us. Uh, but we're also now looking at the outside of the building. And if you drive by, you may notice that our our playground right now is is taped off. It we've gotten to the point where its age
is catching up to it. It just can't seem to handle the energy that the little kids have anymore. So, we're looking at replacing the play gym that's in the front yard. In the backyard, the tennis and basketball
courts sadly have seen better days. There's some photographs that I made sure that you would have so that it's a little bit of a show and tell. Kind of hard to describe something that's falling apart without a little picture to show you, but the tennis courts no longer have quite that shiny green look
anymore. If you look closely, like an archaeologist studying ancient history, you would know that it was a tennis court at one time, but it's hard to be able to see it right now. The basketball court adjacent to it has a little bit of erosion in the back corner. In fact, so
much so that some of my littlest ones sit on the edge with their feet dangling off the side as they kick their kick their way into the sand. So, it's a little bit of a work that we need to be able to do that. It's actually going to probably take a lot of work to to be
honest, but I'm looking at advising the city as we go down the way, putting a little bit of this into your thought process if you would so that we can make sure that we're able to maintain the facility in every possible way to make it absolutely the best place for our
kids to be. I know that we're looking today at potentially uh talking about uh considerations for recreational facilities upgrades and I would ask that perhaps that might be a consideration down the line as you're doing those upgrades to think about the boys and
girls club as well as we look to the future. The club, as I said, is doing very well right now. Very grateful for the wonderful support that comes from the city of Sebr. There's so much that we would not be able to do without your kind assistance, without your support,
and just knowing that we have the the the voice and the vote and the support of the city council behind us means everything. We do a program at the Boys and Girls Club where the kids have a chance to walk down to our city center where they visit. We call that history
and culture day and it's important because we want the kids who live in Seabreak to understand what a great town they live in and I want them to be able to appreciate so much of that. One of the the events that we do is to take the kids out to the Sebring regional
airport. There's an aviation discovery day every February that the 99s and the women aviators and the and the Sebring regional airport participates in. another opportunity for the kids to understand exactly what the great resources they have here in town.
That's my update for you. As I said, many of the notes are already in your packet. You will see photographs there of the projects that I'm speaking about. The plium upgrade, the uh I've got notes on this, too. play gym
upgrade which is a primarily a safety enhancement for us as well as the backdrop of the background and the the black top area. Um we've got the new concrete walkway
and much of the uh and the bathrooms as well. If you will see that they're they're they're functional but they might be in need of a little bit of an upgrade. It's probably time. What I've given you in the packet is a photograph
of what we have now, but also a concept of some new ways that different organizations are starting to revamp their their facilities. And so I want to share that with you just as an idea. Sometimes it's nice to say what could possibly be and those are some
photographs that you can be able to take a look at for that. We are uh also thankful to the city council for u our help with uh city manager network. We've upgraded our lighting
uh lawn maintenance. It continues to keep the place looking very nice and u we also uh are staying up and with all of our utilities that we are able to grant to us with our with our wonderful support grant. Um, in the past, I've spoken to you
about an exterior pavilion or a backyard porch that stays on the on the list of a request for assistance as time goes on. It's still hot as can be back there for that west facing front that that looks out over the SE
middle school. So, that would be something else that we would like some help with, as well as garden fencing to be able to protect the the community garden that we started. Sounds like a lot of a wish list, but I want to make sure that the council understands that we're very very
grateful. And um I'm also very grateful that I've got the support of the neighborhood. Uh the people in uh that surround the Boys and Girls Club are wonderful supporters backing us up in everything we do.
Keeping that that wonderful u protective bubble around the club to make sure that the kids are always safe. They're encouraged to be there and it supports the mission of of the city as well as the boys. I appreciate it very much. I'm very grateful and I'm here to ask answer any
questions that you may have. Thank you. I've got a couple of questions. Um, do you have ideas on budget for any of these projects that you're looking to do? We're doing a number of different file folders and and uh looking into it. Uh,
the the blacktop area can be as simple as the resurfacing or it's a rebuild. So, there's a wide range. Sure. I've spoken to a company that does both. The range for that goes anywhere from
5,000 $20,000. It's It's not a small endeavor, but it's it's something that we probably need to take a look at doing, it's not just so much that the kids are sitting there, you know, with their legs
dangling down off the end of it as the sand wears away underneath. It's some of the ones who decide it's fun to run and jump and dive into the sand. So, we do have to consider a lot of safety issues with the kids on that. playgrounds. We've kept this one going
as long as we can. Uh I know I understand that there there could be a lot of discounts even available through uh recreation supply companies and we will be able to investigate into the pricing for that as well. Okay. And are these listed in the packet that you gave us in order of importance
to you or Okay. All right. Yes. The a couple years ago it was the the what I call country was of a high priority, but that's before the black circle.
So, rep prioritize. Any other questions or comments from council? Thank you for the update. Thank you so much. Yes, absolutely.
Yes, sir. Come on up. Um, as you know, my name is Bill Shannon, the founder, president of organization, and I I really like your approach and that you went about giving the
information and I really really for you guys epic her at the location. Um, but can I take the band-aid off and then be real about this situation? Can I take it
off? You guys don't look at me a little terrible. I want to take the band-aids off this situation. That boys and girls club been like that for years. I've been passing by for quite some time
and I decided to come in and get acquainted with her, get acquainted with some people uh that seems to go there a lot more than I do and have uh situations and
circumstance that they speak about on the needs. But what I see right has a need and priority as a need as our kids get ready tomorrow afternoon to go in that building. It's actually I would have a yellow tape
around the whole thing. It's it's the information that she gave is great. Everything that you guys have did is awesome. But right now it's not only security issues.
There's some safety issues that is is that is a hazard a very hazard. She spoke about the the basketball court and the tennis court. The pictures don't serve the purpose. If
you can actually see, come and see. You guys will have any your kids, any relatives or anything just to walk on the surface of that and they still have kids coming in the afternoon possibly with one employee
maybe two I guess that's out there trying to look at about 30ome kids in the area in which at any time it could be some type of condition that can be
major to these life trip follow. It's it's it's it's I think that's the first priority. If we can if we can come together, I want to come together with her with my health organization. I we don't have I normally
go out my pocket and thanks God to David. I love you so much. You know, thank God to David Idel and city council for helping me on my ideals uh in Washington Heights area. But if we take a band-aid off this and we take a look
at the whole situation, you can go you can go from the tracks and you can go anywhere in the other locations and look at the recreation
areas. And then you'll come back over in this area. You'll see it look like it's a third world a third world country. Not only in the recreation area, I don't want to talk about bring anything else. Not only in the boys and girls club, but
the whole area of Washington Heights. I sort of gave it a name. It's the Washington Heights Correction Facility. Serious. Seriously, because that's what it is. is facilitating in four areas of
convicts. Uh no place for the young kids to wake up in the morning. Um walking to school, coming back from school and going to a facility like this. Thank God for the facility and the other
facilities that we have like the Mary Tony I guess the playgrounds and the ones up on I guess up by the school board they're pretty decent but right now I wish I can get all of you guys I spoke to you one time earlier
I think what you guys have to do actually instead of talking to some people who you think they got the vital ideas and experiences about Washington Heights area. I think you guys got to get get down and do some more homework.
Part of the homework is is that it's going to take you guys if I can get you guys to come over one lunch and I can walk you from Center Street and we can start to Lemon Avenue and I can walk walk you
just one block and you guys want nobody in your family to live in that area. You wouldn't even trust your kids or your grandk kidss to be in that area. It's it's unfitting.
The situation is terrible. And I spoke and I spoke to a lot of people and I'm not political and I can tell you I'm independent and I'm about God. That's why I'm independent. I spoke to a lot of people and I take my head
off to the president. I wish we could get uh the National Guard to come over in that area for six months. Seriously. So, Mr. Shannon, I hear what you're saying. Yes. But
right to the point, I know it. But I know you got time. I just this might be my last time where I get a chance to where I can speak this way. But actually, she gave you all the information, but if you guys think about anything, please think about getting the
court both of those courts done. And actually, you could do it with $15,000. It don't have to be I'm talking about for each court. All depends on what grade and how far you want to go. But the courts is important. those kids go
out every day still playing on on those courts and it's a habit waiting to happen. Okay, I'm sorry for coming up and bringing all this in, but it was just in my heart and I thank you guys and I appreciate you guys very much. Okay,
thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Is there any other public comment on this agenda item? Okay. Thank you very much. All right, we've got a little bit of a reshuffleling on the next one. We're going to move items D and E up and then
circle back to item C. So, we're going to go to item number 10 D next. And before you start speaking, Mr. Lidell, I'm going to open this up. This is a public hearing. Come on up. Good evening, Mayor Council. I'm David
Liddell, the chair of this evening CRA. We're here tonight to request disposition of two properties that the CRA owns. One is the Nances property that's located up over on North Ridgewood Drive. The other is the old most recently antique building, otherwise known as Bank of America
Barnett Bank on South Ridgewood Drive. Uh the CRA went through a disposition process where we advertised and received proposals, several for both of those properties. Uh we formed a selection committee who went through, reviewed, held interviews and narrowed it down to
two uh candidates. One for the ances property which is Ken Leblanc. The second is Marty Wall with Mon Construction for the South Brickwood property. Kim Leblanc is the one who is responsible for the Lake Plaster Journal Plaza and he has a similar project in
mind for up there. It will be unique to Sebring. It will not be a mirror image. Uh but it will offer retail and hospitality, food, uh beverages, restaurant type uh environment. Uh he describes it as a destination location that will complement the circle. The
Marmmer construction property would be the Marmor Construction's uh administrative offices on the second floor and the first floor would house the Sebring Hall of Fame Museum and Sebring Historical Society. Uh Marty Wall has described his project as being
a a tool for him to use as recruitment for not only new business but also for employees and it would be a showpiece into the gateway of the downtown area. So we are at this point in our disposition process coming to you all for the approval to dispose of the
property for less than fair market value and then we will move on forward with talking with them and negotiating what assistance if any they might need from the CRA and what that will look like. Uh I have met with Mr. Wall one time and I will meet with Mr. Leblanc for the first
time tomorrow. So we're very early in those stages. Okay. So, this is a public hearing, so we're going to um open it up to public comments and questions first. Now, this item 10D is specifically for 139 North Ridgewood Drive, the previous ances
hotel property. Are there any questions or comments from the public on this item? All right, seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing and now um open it up for questions or for comments from council. I just have one question. I know we've
spoken before. Um I know you don't have the the full agreement in here. You have an idea of the financial incentive that the CRA is going to going to do. Is that accurate? So I know that we're we're got two properties going on.
So we'll just talk about the Leblanc one first. So just for background purposes on Thursday I was on a conference call with uh myself Marty Wall the CRA attorney and Marty's attorney and in that discussion it was brought up that
the disposition the incentive programs that we're allowed to offer have to be specific to items that are approved CRA projects or uh expenses excuse me rather that this and it's because both of these
properties, we've got one other property that we disposed of and transferred ownership of, but that was very cut and dry. It was nothing that went along. It was a disposition and that was it. These two properties, since we don't own them, it's a little more complicated as to
what we can contribute and what we can't. So to answer your question about the ances property, the dollar number we were talking about was approximately $300,000. I want to caveat that by saying I don't know if we can pay $300,000 for the
expenses that he will be incurring for the project. So that is still up in the air, but that was the initial ask. Okay. So I would say that's probably your top number and we have to see if there are allowable expenses that will fit into that number and that could change whether or not this project will even
work. Okay. All right. I don't think I have any other questions. I think this one was a great idea and I would be excited. All right. Well, and I do have one thing, too. And Dave and I talked to I'm not I'm unbelievably excited about this
project. I can't wait for Ken to do this. I'm in like plast. The only concern I have, and maybe I'm the only one with this concern, I feel like it might be a little bit premature personally on the disposition right now approving it now with with some of the questions unanswered right
now. I'm looking, I understand that every deal that the CRA has done in the past has been a little bit different from one another, but I I would personally just feel good about or a lot lot better about tableabling it until we have more clear on it what those exact numbers are. Um, and I think that we
could wait a little bit longer to get more clarity on on what those are. This is the same for 139 and uh the Bank of America building too. That's my only concern. U just I want to know exactly what we're getting into from the CRA and and the city side of things.
Well, for clarity, the city is only getting into the disposition. Correct. But in the past, we we have approved different things based on different agreements too. like macartos. It was the council was approve approving the lease agreement and the disposition too. Was no technically you were approving
the disposition. The uh lease agreement was between the CRA and the tenant. He is proposing holding off approving on the disposition until there's greater clarity on the overall scope of the of the project. Understand?
So again, then this has nothing to do with with Ken with the project. Again, can't wait. I'm very excited for this. I want to see this happen. And I appreciate everything that the CRA is doing, what you guys have been doing. I just want to make sure that we're c we're we're doing all of our due diligence here. Not just disposing of
the property, but knowing what the end goal is, too. So, we're not getting into any circumstances that we unforeseen circumstances that we already disposed of it and we don't have a say. Well, to that regard, every one of our dispositions, I would say, I think that's an accurate statement, had the
incentive agreement, if you will, has changed after council has approved the disposition because the disposition only lies with y'all. The incentive lies with the CRA. So, if you I mean, we could give that information, but the problem is it could change and it won't come
back to you and be discussed in another council meeting. And you and I've discussed this. was just I think that incentive too. I mean it could be a massive amount. It could be capped at 300,000 based on what what you need, what you can and can't do um with bigger project, it's going to be a
bigger price tag, too. Correct. So, and I understand that too and I don't want to necessarily stop the the process or the negotiations, but I feel like whenever we just say we're disposing of it right now and not having any more say on that, too. Ultimately, council, the way I look at it, too, and
you all might think different, but if we're approving the disposition of a property, we're approving the project as whole with the incentive program, too. I would just feel better about knowing what the incentive is before we dispose of the property. So, I certainly understand your thoughts
and and in general, I agree except that what what David just said is accurate. You know, I think we've approved of properties in the past with a a set incentive package and it changes and it's because it, you know, it can doesn't have to come back to us,
right? Elevator, roofs, you know, um additional work and none of that requires our approval or did you know extensions, timelines, all of those things can can and are done outside of our cur. So, I get what
you're you're saying there and and I would agree if it was binding, but because it's not I'm I'm guess personally comfortable moving forward without them. That would just be my opinion because we could, you know, he could come back with agreement says no incentive. You know, it's got to be done
in two years and at their very next meeting they can change it. And I think if we're voting for CRA members that we trust and we like the framework of the idea, I'm personally comfortable moving forward. I be interested in the rest of your thoughts.
I'm with you, Josh. Okay, you're shaking your head. Is that I am I agree with you. I would like to know more about money. You said maybe 300,000 maybe more.
kind of and I realize we're just disposition but but sounds like an open window up to the board's do you know how long would it would this be the next CRA meeting that you would have a better idea of what the incentive
agreement would be even at as a baseline that we know it might may or may not go over a certain cap. No, I mean what the part of the process we're in right now is to move forward with that negotiation and that can take, you know, that takes as long as it takes. I mean, you know,
there's attorneys that are involved. Um, I mean, we try to start with the framework, you know, between us and the, you know, planned use person, but then there's an agreement and it goes back and forth. And that's, you know, kind of where we're at. I mean it can things get argued over whether it's sometimes it's
money usually not most of the times it's just terms of the agreement and what the milestones are how the language in the contract reads that kind of thing you know whether they have to have the property sooner rather than later because they need to encumber it could be any number of things um given the
fact that our first formal meeting is going to be with Ken tomorrow um I would say this probably won't get ready for our board until January at the earliest Um, Marty Walls. I mean,
that's I don't know if we'll be ready by December or not. You just clarify something for me, David. This is approving the disposition of the property, but it's not you're not transferring, excuse me, the property until you have an agreement. Correct.
Correct. So, this is not saying tomorrow you dispose of the property. Correct. And then you hope then you hope Ken or Marty comes in and says this is what we want. So so you'll pretty much have a plan in place and if the plan doesn't fit what the board wants and you're not going to dispose of the
property. Correct. That's correct. So um all of our agreements have a set different milestones that are in there. One of the first ones is if they don't start construction by a certain date, then we have the option of taking the property back. No harm no foul. Uh that
would be before any kind of encumbrance was put on the property. Um if that's what they they plan to do. Um and then the milestones after that would kick in as well once they've started construction to all the way to a sea. So before they get the property, you'll have a plan laid up.
Absolutely. He can't go in there and put in a like a horse farm or something. He's got he's got to fit. Okay. I just want to make sure that's clear that we're approving the disposition of that property to those individuals, but you're not going to do it until you have
a full agreement. That's absolutely correct. So, um, the way that we've been instructed that the statute reads, um, we have to get approval for the disposition and council's role is to, uh, determine whether the use of the property that
we're wanting to dispose of it for, which is what I've described, is in the best use of the city. And once that box is checked, then we can continue to move forward with negotiation. Once we have the negotiations completed, there'll be a signed agreement like we've had for all of our other buildings. Uh same fashion, same, you know, most of it's
probably the same language, uh but just customized to those individual projects. Thank you, sir. Questions or comments? So, is the same same agreement too with the five-year lease or is this one different? Could you
these two I do not I I know for certain that uh the Bank of America building will be a transfer of ownership prior to the five years. I believe the NES will be as well because I think that he's going to be getting financing.
But you still have some sort of clawback mechanism up to a CO. Correct. Yeah, there's a monetary penalty that will be implied should they not complete the project and we would still be a second on the mortgage as well. Okay. But we give up if they encumber the
property, they can't get lending. So, we have to be willing to take the second seat, but we put a monetary penalty in there for that. I just I have a hard time knowing that the the first conversations with with Ken were going to be tomorrow, but tonight we're approving conceptual of
the and disposing the property. That's the way I understand is we're giving them permission to enter to an agreement. That's correct. And if there's no agreement that's reached, then we would still retain the property. And if you went back out to another RFP
down the road, you'd be back here, right? It's not This is not a one time. You can do what you want from here on out. That's right. And the name Cesy would be a great example because I think this is my third time being here for this one. Right.
Okay. perform you can give extension. Absolutely. Yes. Ford has the authority to uh to move the milestones if they need to to change them and that's done on a case- by case basis. It's something that uh we found keeps kind of the
conversation going. Uh it keeps that developer in contact with us and up to date and every time we've done it there's been a reason. U one of the things that we have done in the more recent past is change that to extension
cost that person $500 and that covers our legal expenses for changing it to stuff like that. So we don't lose any money on by making those extensions and there is a little bit be albe it small but for some of these folks it's a you know sign I mean significant would be is
too much of a word but it's reason not to want to come back to us correct and it's an inconvenience to others but it keeps us from having to put the bill questions. I move to approve the disposition of the
CRA own property at I already did. You did at 139 North Ridgewood Drive to Kin Leblanc as presented. I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Bishop, yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. We're going to now move on to item number 10E. Going to open this public hearing. This is another CRA property disposition for 231 South
Ridgewood Drive. So, this one will be the old Bank of America building. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, this one is for uh Marmer Construction. He'll house his uh administrative offices on the second floor and Hall of Fame Race Museum and
Sebring Historical Society on the first floor. Okay. The the self storage facilities. It's we were going to do a Dollar General, but uh because this is a public hearing. Once again, I'm going to ask if there are any questions or comments from the
audience on this disposition. Right. You guys are not very inquisitive tonight. I'm going to close that public hearing and um open it up to council comments or questions. So again, same old story, same same thing. Do you have an idea on
on the incentive? Yes. So um again going back to the conversation we had with the attorneys, we're working on that part right now to make sure that it will fit. Um historically, particularly in projects of this size,
uh CRAAS have come asked to come in and fill the gap. It's kind of the term they use. And that gap is typically somewhere in a 20% type range. Uh Marmer has estimated his budget to be approximately $6 million, but he has not finalized it
yet. So I believe that would be a high number that he's starting with. Uh the we talked specifically about the downstairs for the museum component and he believes that he can do the demolition abatement and construction of
that for in the neighborhood of about $1.2 million. Uh the ask right now would come in somewhere right in that 20% range. So we're between and we're not done yet, but I believe we will be somewhere between a 1.2 and a$ 1.4 4
million ask once we get there. Uh the things that we are working on now is what is this final budget going to look like and then what are the what are those expenses going to include and are we able to participate in them. Uh the facade is one that we can participate in
and that is one of that is a fairly large expense uh for the overall project and something that the CRA feels pretty strongly about is important. So, we would want to, you know, be able to do something with that. It also gives us the opportunity to have a say in what it's going to look like. We do have
design review and stuff like that to go through, but we want to be able to have that conversation with what we're looking for. Some of the preliminary drawings that he's shown us, um, it changes that building dramatically. So, I I'll say as a comment, I initially
had some heartburn on this one. one when when the CRA purchased it and then with the idea of incentives on top of that. Um I feel better about that with the concept that it would facilitate the Hall of Fame Museum being in there for a
long-term lease um at essentially no rent. Correct. Right. That's the idea, the framework of of what you're proposing. Yes. Um I feel a lot better about it from that standpoint. Still big number. big number you guys have had to deal with.
But I it's probably the only way to get that museum in there is what I'm imagining. This will be our largest project that we've done. Uh and I would also say it's probably next to getting the circle to where it is today would be right up there as far
as importance. I mean, uh everybody knows that we spent $1.3 million with HGTV. Uh this is the gateway into Sebring and no it's not just for uh an office building for a private citizen. This is more this is a tourist
attraction that will help to uh kind of incentivize visitors to stay a little bit longer in the downtown area. One of the goals that we've been trying to work on is we have we have visitors now who are coming in more than we've had in the past. How do we keep them there for more than just lunch? We offer more stuff so
that they are there for lunch and make sure that we can include dinner so that our restaurant tourists downtown can get kind of a double landing on that one. We feel that having something on the scale of the race museum and the historical society in there to tell the
story of what Sebring is, what it was, and where it came from uh will help to do that. Questions or comments? And I agree with you Josh too. I mean, it's it's it's a large number. It's the biggest project that you've done. And I think just saying yes to a massive
project like project like this says no to a lot more projects. But I feel like you're getting pretty close to I mean not many more buildings to to running out. So large other end of town. We want we want to work on the power plant.
That's not gateway to SA. You have two gateways to Sab. I know. I know. I'm just kidding. We're not talking about the power at the other end of town. And we're getting there. I move to approve the disposition of the
CRA owned property at 231 South Bridgewood Drive to Farmer Construction as presented. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Can you call the RO, please? Bishop, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Stewart,
yes. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. All right, we are going to now circle back to item number 10 C, sports recreation facilities evaluation and recommendations. We expect this to be just as chipper as it was six hours ago.
Oh, you're excited to hear it again, I move this. Hi everyone, Casey Hart, touring director for Highland County for the record. Um, I was as as the meeting was going on, you guys teed this up so well for us. Um, from Mayor Troop's comments about the economic impact of our
visitors to Miss Janice talking about helping the local kids to u Mr. Hawk talking about sports and and the history that Sebring has. So, um, appreciate everyone teeing everything up for us. Um, Scott, do you have is it the presentation?
You know what? Let me Yeah, let me It's okay. I can start talking while you're doing that. So, um, we're going to talk a little bit about sports tourism. Um, Josh, sorry that you have to listen to this. Josh is a a really great member of our TC board, so we really value his input and feedback. So,
you already know all of this. Um, a lot of people ask why sports tourism is such a buzzword. You know, we have art and culture, we have leisure travel, we have golf, we have all these things. Um, sports tourism specifically, when you look at tournaments or scheduled events, it can be very intentional. So the
market for that, especially in Florida, is very tough. Um, a lot of people want those events. So of course, we're tourism development. We're not talking about bringing events here in January through March, right? Our hotels are full, our restaurants are full. We're talking about how do we bring events here in June? How do we bring events
here in August or September? Um, so that's what the presentation's going to be about. Um, in Scott's bring this up. I'm just going to keep talking from memory. So in 2024 2025 the beginning of our fiscal year last October um we
actually did circle back to 2023. So we did a recreation study looking at what tourists want and then what locals want as well. We had a lot of feedback from people obviously you know they want the bowling alleys and they want the stuff with private private investment. Um but we also saw we want a lot of things for
families. We want better facilities for families. We want things to do with kids. Um so that got us to start looking at our local facilities. What could use an upgrade? What existing facilities do we have that could use an upgrade? Um on the county side, we're looking at the Highlands County Sports Complex, which
is the one over by the high school. Uh we're working down the path with that. We got a grant to purchase 43 more acres there to put more fields there. Um and then we're also going down the path of looking at an indoor facility, which would be about 100,000 square foot indoor facility. Um we have someone who
has given us a letter of intent to donate some land for that. Um so um so with that so just a reminder of what the TDC does. Thank you Scott for that. Um the TDC obviously we uh are a county department. We do not function
with general revenue. We function with tourist development tax. So, what that means is anyone who stays in a hotel, an Airbnb, or a short-term rental for less than six months is mandated to pay us 5% tax on that stay. So, with that, we use
a lot of researchbased um information. Um Jason is here. He's our he's our numbers guy. He does a lot of research on how we spend the money. And that research can be data or it can be market analysis or different things like that. Um and when we did our strategic plan in 2019, a lot of the feedback that we got
is that we raise a lot of great here in Highlands County, but they move away and they don't stay. Uh they don't come back. So, how can we combat that and and make things make this a better place for people to live, improve the quality of life, so the kids want to come back? And then also, we allocate resources to
develop the to enhance the quality of life, to reduce seasonal employment. That's one thing that we heard a lot of restaurants and hotels have that issue. Um and then to create a place for families to raise their children. And so, uh that was a picture of cross event.
So, the tourism benefits for locals, I get a lot of people say that's great, but what does this do for me? So, you see a lot of economic benefits and impact from tourist. Um, we have about 5,000 jobs in the county that are directly related to tourism. Um, tax revenue for public services. Um, and
then also the TDC has what we call our third penny or our asset development fund where people can come and uh ask us for money uh for assets that we look to enhance. We also have an event grant program where we fund events to come here. So a lot of the events that Allan
brings are funded by our event grant program. So I mentioned this earlier, sports tourism is a very powerful grower of economic development. I tell the story um in June of this year I went to Umatillaa, Florida. Um not somewhere I
would go just to choose to go to Umatillaa um in June. Um but my son was playing in a travel ball tournament. So there I was in Umatella, Florida, um spending money at their restaurants and their hotels and everything else. Um so sports tourism does that. It's not just
the game, but it's also everything that comes with the game and the team traveling and different things. Um you see families um going in different places. Allan will tell you a lot of statistics on uh female events because when girls travel, they bring more money than when just the boys like all pack
into a room for a basketball tournament. Um and then for small destinations, it's a way to actually develop community pride. And we just saw that recently in Lake Placid where we plugged an event in there kind of at the last minute. There was a lacrosse camp that wanted to come to the sports complex. Our sports
complex was already booked. We moved it down to Lake Placid. Kind of an unexpected surprise for them and they loved it. The the whole all the elected officials came out. They were thanking the lacrosse people for being there and it's developed a sense of pride where they had us come down this afternoon and do a presentation for them.
So, I won't go through all this, but again, um the year- round visitation, again, we're looking at how do we get people here specifically probably I would say May through October are our key months that we're looking for. Uh we don't want to bring more people in in March. We know everything's full. Um we
see a lot of dual benefits with infrastructure. The infusion of money into the infrastructure. Not only does it bring the tourist events here when we have nice facilities, but it also creates really nice amenities for the people who live here as well. Um I won't again for the sake of time because it's the third time doing the
presentation today. I'm not going to read you guys. Um I mentioned the 2023 uh recreation study. These are just some sample responses that we got. Click on the next slide. So this so from the 2023 uh we do a lot of studies but then so after the studies
we're like okay now what? So couple things that came from the 2023 study is that a lot of people didn't know we had so many playgrounds. surprised like we as locals kind of thought everyone knew where the playgrounds were but when you search something you search Avon Park playgrounds only the Avon park
playgrounds come up or if you search Sebring it's only Sebring so it wasn't capturing Lake Plaza and it wasn't capturing Sun and Lake Spring Lake those kind of things so that was a really simple fix we worked with the county PIO and now we have one page that has all the playgrounds and obviously there's a QR code um the other thing we saw is
that um how do we make these existing facilities better that was one thing that people asked for better facilities so Last fiscal year, um, the TDC developed a strategic planning grant for facilities to apply for. Um, so in January, both the city of Sebring and
the town of Lake Placid submitted grant applications asking for the TDC to help offset the cost of doing a strategic plan for facilities. Um, Avon Park did not submit an application. So when we took it to TDC, Josh was there. Um the
TC felt that in order to capture everything and be the most comprehensive study for the county, we should include the city of Bayon Park and we should also include things like the fairgrounds that obviously did not submit a grant either. So what happened was instead of TDC offsetting the cost, TDC paid the
entire $65,000 for the study so that we could include everything all of these facilities within the county. Um the presentation was given to TDC on May 1st and a full report a written report which you can find on the TDC's website was provided on.
So a lot of people like why why is tourism involved like we have these community assets? I don't really understand. Um so the orange column is part of our statute. We're governed by a state statute and a county ordinance. So it does say in the statute that if we fund things like a facility, it has to
show one of its main drivers tourism. So in the strategic planning grant component that we did, we specifically were looking for facilities that already had some form of tourism. So Max Long already had uh Dixie youth baseball tournaments, fairgrounds already had
cornhole. Um so what we're looking for is how do we enhance these facilities and make them even better. Um I mentioned our third penny asset. Um those are things that we've been working on for things like the sports complex, things like the indoor facility that are county projects. Um but it
it beg the question of what else what else could we do with that third penny and then we did the study um looking for opportunities for other facilities and then the next step this will really be up to the owners of those facilities um like the fairgrounds we've helped connect them uh with a grant company
where they've applied for a $400,000 grant and they've used data from our study to apply for that grant. So it just kind of depends on the owner of each property what they want to do. So there were three study consultants and you can see um they came from all over the country. Uh pedalup group in
Arizona, Synergy which is Jason Budgery in Charlotte and Airstream ventures. Many of you know Allan he's based out of Jacksonville. He is driving home tonight so I talk about um the Hallelu Group is really the first sports tourism company we started
working with back in 2020. um they do a sports tourism index and that was how we first entered into the space of doing an audit. So we wanted to know how are we set up compared to other destinations to host sports tourism events. What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses, opportunities and threats? Obviously
there's, you know, a weakness like we don't have an airport. There's really probably not much we can do about that. But some of the other things, what can we do? How can we combat that? Um at the time we didn't have anybody marketing Highlands County as a sports tourism destination. So part of that initial audit was we linked up with Airstream
Ventures and and they pretty much function as our sports commission. Next slide. Synergy Sports. Um that's Jason and he'll talk in just a little bit. Um he is the data and the creative financing guy behind everything um really helps us understand how we can
make some of these projects that we maybe think of just a vision that they could become a reality um through some of his financing. and he provides consultation from the very beginning to the end of the project as well. And then Allan, most everybody knows Allen. He's been around for a while. Um
he actually is the one that plugs the events in. So when you see lacrosse, when you see moto surf, when you see pro waterross, Spartan race, um golf events, that's Allen going out recruiting the events and bringing them to Highlands County. So the basically the overview of the
study findings was yes, there is opportunity in Highlands County to improve our sports tourism position. Um, number two, this could be done by a very uh strategic uh strategy on how we do that, which is a lot of the first step is how do we develop these facilities to
be better facilities. And then three, um, we really heard from community leaders that expressed an interest in and a desire for better facilities as well for the community. So, this was a study process. um really recommend the existing facilities that
could be better venues. Um determine the level of renovations necessary, what what needs to be done to make that a reality. Um estimate the renovation or development cost. Assess the level of economic impact, direct spending, TDT tax, hotel tax, um all the things. And
then advise TDC on fund usage for current and upcoming projects. So it started uh we made a list of 37 venues um that went back to the sports tourism index that we felt like needed to be evaluated and looked at for their sports tourism value. Um, and then next
slide, they paired it down to the top 12. Uh, in March, they came and did an on-site visit. And then they paired it down even further to the top five to do the deep dive, to do renderings, to do the economic analysis. And that's kind of where we led where we landed with the
May 1 presentation. So, for the sake of this meeting, we'll just focus on Max Long. Um, you guys don't have to hear about all the different other venues. Um, and I will probably Hey everyone, Alan Verlander uh with Airstream Ventures. So, uh as Casey
said, we looked at uh Max Long uh we looked at five facilities, but Max Long being in the city of Sebrand and realized that the bones of all of Max Long are really, really good. Uh the footprint is very good. Um we started calling around to a bunch of different uh event rights holders. We work with
about 90 across the country um and just said the ones that would apply said if we were to do something like this would you bring your event to crank and they all I'm not going to say all but 98% of them publicly said absolutely if you
could build something like that. So basically um at max you have um eight fields um there you could make eight 200 fence fields. Our recommendation would be to turf all of it, not just the infield, but the entire thing. You see a
lot of uh baseball fields now. Um even though that clay look is still turf, portable mounds, all those kinds of things because they're making it multi-purpose. And so, but you could fit eight softball fields there. Well, now
we've got uh five at the county complex. We we bring about 14 travel softball events here a year. Not sure if anybody knows that, but there's a lot. But they're capped out at 30 teams because of only five fields. You do something like this. Now, we become a hub for
softball in not only the state of Florida, but the South because people want to come to Florida, but they don't want to go to Orlando. They don't want to go to Tampa, they don't want to go to Atlanta, they don't because you're faced with a lot of traffic. Um, and the hotel costs are are double what they are here
normally. And so, um, we would upgrade all of that. You could also have five 300 foot foot fence baseball fields, which then you could do some really good baseball travel baseball events as well. Obviously, new netting, new scoreboard,
but make it a first class facility. Um, I do want to give uh kudos to, you know, the current people that are managing. Maxon's come a long way since I've been here for five years. Um, but it's still not to the point where we can host major travel events. The nice thing about this
as well as if you make it all turf now becomes a multi-purpose field. So, you can play lacrosse on there, you can play soccer on there. YMCA could continue to do things. You could paint lines on there. U, there's water-based chalk based paint that dissipates on the first rain. So, you could do a lot of
different things. It becomes multi-purpose. Um, so again, we've talked to a lot of these uh people that we've worked with. This is just a snippet of those. They all would like to bring bigger events here. We just don't have the capacity for them right now.
So this is this is the current footprint. So what we would be doing, you can see the different uh ball fields. We would take the current soccer field um that is there and turn that into parking. We understand that parking is a um major need there. That's
probably an understatement. Um but is a is a major need there. And so um with making these current fields multi-purpose, you can play soccer on these fields. Um so from the YMCA standpoint, they're not going to lose what they have. And Demetri and his team
do a great job with that. And so you you actually enhance what uh you have there now. And Jason is our numbers guy, so I'm going to turn that part over to him. Good to see all y'all. Jason Budri with Synergy Sports. So, um, our part of this
right after we looked at the design, how, you know, what what tournament organizers and folks were looking for, um, you know, then we were able to create an operating model based off of that. And then backwards math, number of teams per field. Like Alan said, with
the county complex, you're limited to we usually use six six teams per field to to look at capacity for a tournament. So five fields, the most you can get is 30 teams. Now, if you're adding another eight out here, you can have standalone tournaments, but then you can also
combine resources and have 13 fields between the two. Uh and so we were able to calculate some of the tax impact, some of the economic impact, the direct spending by visitors from outside the region. Um and then that trickled down
to what the the county sales tax revenue numbers were uh and then what the TDC revenue numbers were for u hotel tax. And so of all of the you know five deep dives that we did and then you know working working up to the total number
of facilities we looked at Renovating Max Long is is probably the most impactful project within the county at this point. Um because it's got such good bones. We're not, you know, throwing a hand grenade in it and
blowing it up. It's just making what's out there better. And so by creating an environment where these national tournament organizers are willing to come right now, you're increasing your annual visitor count by another 90,000.
uh increasing your hotel room night stays by another 70,000 nights. Uh you can program this type of facility 40 45 weekends per year. Uh and so when you add that to what economic impacts already happening, uh it's a it's very
impactful. Uh and so we were able to calculate all of this as well as those other four deep dives. slides. So, um, as we're doing this, again, I mentioned obviously TDC, we want more money, right? So, we can invest back in our community. Um, but
there's a lot of community benefits that go along with a project like this. Um, obviously we talked about parking and the fields become rentable. And what I mean by that is, and and Josh knows, so as a sports complex, what we've done is the community use fee is one price the
tourism use fee is a different price. It's a higher price because they're coming to TDC and they're asking for event grants. We're giving them an event grant which helps offset their facility fee. So essentially TDC is paying their field rental. I'm not to say they don't care what they pay, but they're not as
they're not as scared off by a higher number. Um so we've found that that model works really well at the sports complex. So again, when you have these more rentable fields, it could be that the city want charge a higher amount for an outside tournament to come in versus
what they charge community. I don't even know if you charge me, but anyway, I'm using that as a model. Um the also the other thing that we've talked about, um we have a group what we call our maxon stakeholder group, which is YMCA, Sebring baseball, and the city. Scott's been a part of that. Um and I know traffic especially on Hammock Road has
been an issue. Um what Jason explains is that part of their development process would be a traffic study. Um, so those are some of the things that we would look at as well. Um, the other thing with Maxong, it's an ideal central family oriented location. It's close to the hotels. I know a lot of people said,
"Why can't you just do this as a sports complex?" And we could, but we're never going to have a hotel near the sports complex. I mean, it's near train tracks, so I don't know if anybody wants to stay in a hotel next to the train tracks. Um, but we're already near the hotels. And a lot of people when they do these travel
tournaments, they want to be close to I mentioned the um stakeholder meetings. So Jason, I don't know if you want to come back up. This is a comparative analysis that Jason was talking about of all the venues um reviewed in the study. Um so when we originally presented uh
the renovation of Max Long Yes. Yes. To CDC. We had a cost estimate um of around8 million10 million. We went back to a couple of vendors and and GC's
and got a a quote a true quote and it came back at 9.5. Um and that was for all turf fields, right? And so there is a different option. The city look at this and they said they only wanted grass in the outfield and turf on the infield. Um but as you can
see and we don't have to go through every number uh you know given the the pros and cons cost and benefit the relatively lower cost of max long compared to some of the others and the benefit that is derived from it again
tells us Allen from the event side and me from the economic and financial side that it's a really again it's impactful it's a really good good project. A couple of the things that we looked at to kind of explain some of these,
especially the the projected annual cost, and this gets a little bit ahead in the story, but um Casey has adopted my saying that uh cities and counties do a lot of great things. Managing the event side of these sports
complexes is not one, right? And so having not just Allen and Airstream to bring in events uh but to uh to put in a daily operator for the the sports complex for Max Long uh is probably
something to consider. Um and we can get into that if y'all want, but if in turning Max Long from more of a community w facility to a sports tourism facility, there's a much bigger strain on resources. U and so by having an
outside operator, that operator typically will quote unquote own the employees. And so you have 8, 10, 12, 15, 20 more employees coming on city payroll, benefits, retirement, that sort of thing. Uh, the management company
will handle daily operations, coordinating with the YMCA, coordinating with the local travel or the local youth leagues and then coordinating with Allen to to bring in the tournaments and events, handling all the logistics, security, parking, gate, and and whatnot
that comes with travel. And so that's what the management cost is. It's it's generally about 8 to 10% of the gross revenue. The other number on there is uh what we call a lease cost. And that kind of gets into the I
think the next slide if I remember right. Um yeah. So, and and we don't have to go back, but with an 8 to10 million cost, right? Then the thing the question that typically comes up is, well, okay, how are we going to make, right? And so, whether
it's a big city or a small town or somewhere in between um you know, the the city may have $10 million that they want to put it, but they probably don't. Uh and so there are four major ways or four main ways that these projects are
typically funded. Historically, issuing bonds at the municipal level is one. Um, sometimes it's a tough cell for a sports asset versus a school or a park. U, it has to go through referendum and voting
process. So, it's long. It takes a lot more money, a lot more resources, and typically cities don't want to use up their bond capacity if they don't have to. But, it is an option. Uh, capital improvement budget, same thing. Uh,
Usually those funds don't materialize. Other things take priority. Uh privately developed, privately funded uh is is starting to fall out of favor. The cost of capital is very high and generally it
it's it excludes the public. And so the analogy I give or the example is, you know, if I was a private developer and you guys put out out an RFP and said, "Hey, we're looking for a developer to renovate Maxwell." And I said, "Well, yeah, sign me up." You say, "I'll tell you what. I'll give you we'll we'll
donate the land to you. You make the improvements. You own it. You operate it. And we want to use it for youth baseball." Okay. Right. But if I'm a private company and you know Josh wants to just come out and hit balls with his
kid, if I can rent that to Mayor Shoot for $50, I'm going to do that every time, right? And so the public tends to be excluded from these completely private for free and then even if I wasn't
gonna, you know, rent it to somebody, I still may not want Josh on there because he's going to wear out my baseball. And so that model typically doesn't work with recreation and sports at community level. And so there is a a public
private partnership model uh that we've used with other groups in the past, other communities. Uh we don't have a dog in the fight, but it's a pathway that a lot of communities are are starting to use and it essentially takes the form of a a municipal lease. And so
we can talk about that more if if this concept is something that that the city's interested in looking at. But uh private the private side still comes in, they bring capital. It's at a fairly low rate u very similar to the city's bond
rate. Uh they bring the capital in to fund the development of the project and turn it into a lease back to the city. And so operated by an external operator. Uh any profits go back to the city. Uh any shortfalls is the responsibility of
the city. Uh and so it is uh it's no different than uh a lot of cities are familiar with this concept with public works sometimes with ambulances, fire trucks where they lease them instead of buy. Uh there's no prepayment. And so
it's it's just another avenue that you can look at where the city's not out a lot of capital at the beginning or throughout the process. And ideally operating revenues will cover operating expenses plus the cost uh which was
referenced on that that previous slide that was the lease cost. Um and so you know in an ideal world we could renovate Max long for 9 and a half$10 million. Uh the city come out of pocket very little uh to to provide capital. The private
side could come in and bring that capital operating revenue spending by tourism spending by these event organizers and effectively pay that lease cost and pay those operating expenses for the city. local youth still
have a place to play Monday through Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when it's not being used by local youth leagues for for games is being uh programmed for tournaments through through air. That's the general concept of of how this work. I can answer
specific questions. That's what I just said. That's more of what I just said. Um, and so where we are now, we're essentially at the orange box. And so, you know, we we had this same presentation earlier and then we had it this morning for the
county for all of their specifically our assets. Uh, the next steps in the process, you know, if if you guys said, "Yep, we want to look at this." Uh, we have a a pathway of of how this works, but we would get into pre-construction.
Uh, that's the only other place where uh the city any capital expense. Typically, a capital expense is about 5% of the projected project cost is pre-construction. Uh that is reimburseable to the city
once the funding comes through uh on the financing agreement from one of these private side partners. And so it ends up being a float of of capital or float of cash for about six months. Uh that pre-construction period ends. We do a traffic study. We do all the engineing
Well, we don't. We have general contractors that that we can uh call in to do this. Uh once pre-construction is done, uh the funding gets deployed, construction starts. For something like Max Long is probably a 12-month project. And so when you take uh pre-construction
in into account, it's probably 18 months start to finish. The way that Max Long is laid out, um we wouldn't have to take the entire complex offline. Um we can cycle through. Uh so while they're still
using some fields, some fields are being renovated and then we just move around clockwise or counterclockwise. So um the city doesn't lose all of their fields at one time. Uh and then you know 18 months later everything's ready. That gives
Allen 18 months of runway to go out and secure some of these events. A lot of these tournament organizers and Al speak to this. they're already contracted with other facilities for a year, two years, three years in advance. So, this gives us some some runway to say, "Hey, once
you're done with this contract out here, we'd love for you to come over to see it." Uh, so that's the nuts and bolts of that. Uh, the municipality continues to lead the project. We've got a bunch of partners
and, you know, other firms that we work with that handle everything from the construction operations. Uh we stay on obviously as a trusted advisor and a consultant to the city to help guide you guys through this process. Uh and then we plug in the pieces where we need to.
One of the nice things about this public private process is that these are are developed as private projects and so it's not the municipality putting everything out to RFP and the procurement process. And so these projects can be built a lot less
expensively, a lot more efficiently, and a lot faster than if the municipality was trying to undertake itself. Um, you guys can read through these probably in your packet. These are just FAQs that we've come across that have been asked of us over the past several
years of doing this type of thing. Um, the biggest one that usually comes up is on that that first page about appropriations. And so, uh, the these leases are structured, it takes into account non-appropriations.
And so the as a city council, uh, whatever that lease expense is does have to be appropriated annually. Um, and that's what classifies this as a lease rather than capital, right? So it's not looked on as similar to a bond. It is
looked on as a one-year lease with 29. Um the operator is responsible for daily operations, repairs, maintenance, staffing. Uh and then who owns the facility? The bank owns it, right? Kind of like when you mortgage your house. So
the bank owns it till you make the last payment and then everything is titled over to So these are a couple other projects. Helen and I are working on together that are following the same process, the same framework. A big project in Texas, uh,
Flagler County, Paul Coast is doing a very, very big project. They're at about 130 $150 million. Uh, they're putting all their eggs in the soccer field. Uh, they have a stadium and then facility. Uh the next
three in Georgia, Arkansas and Texas are uh in Texas and Palestine that's very similar to Maxon. They're renovating seven fields out there but it's again it's almost exactly the same. In Charlotte where I live, there's an
indoor sports complex with uh three soccer. Uh so this is uh some of the funing. if you wanted to start to talk about this a little bit. Um, but the lease payment, management fee, the total um, like I
said, pre-development costs aren't aren't any more than 10%. Typically, they hover around 5%. They're reimbursed. Uh, you know, we can look at fully turfing the facility. We can look at kind of the next step.
And so with that, we can, you know, I'll answer any questions. Yeah, just because it was, can we go back to that last slide real quick? The estimated annual management fee, that's 450. I thought one of the slides said 150.
Yeah. Wait, is it? Okay. So, we'll start with questions, comments from council, then we'll open it up public. So, Go ahead. Write stuff down.
Talk numbers. What What have you been seeing for the return on investment for a lot of these that you've been working with? Is there a ballpark? So, not to take this the wrong way. It doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter because the
city's paying an interest payment basically. Mhm. So, as long as you don't lose money, you're good. Ideally, you would want to make money, but this isn't a private equity deal, right? This isn't a private investor group or private equity group saying,
"Well, here's $10 million. We want 18% ROI, right? This is a group that's coming in offering to finance a project with the city's backing, right? So there's safety and security in the f from a financing
side and that annual lease payment includes the return to the private side in it right and that return is three or 4%. So I guess I'm just looking at it too of I mean the city's paying what between five and
600,000 to fund max long every year we go with this route too then what's the liability shifting or the city's not coming up cost anymore even if the first couple years doesn't have that return that we're there is a shortfall that we would we would take but it's probably going to be I would imagine
net posit net posit for sure and we had the same conversation with like last this afternoon right they're spending 350 $400,000 on the sports complex out there. If they renovated it, that would almost fully
cover what their lease expense is. And all of the daily management, the daily upkeep is is transferred over to the opera. So, you talked about maybe 40 weekends a year for programming for a tourism side.
what sort of typical facility uh fee rental do you think this this would net at the end of that? So when we did our modeling and and we try to be conservative on our modeling on the P&L side. We didn't include the P&L on here but I can get it to you. We
modeled it based on current rental rates plus a a very small premium because you're getting a premium facility, right? Turf and eight fields. turf and eight fields and new LED lights and whatever, right? So, if the current rental rate is
$30 an hour, we didn't model it at 300 just to make the numbers work, right? So, we would model it at $50, right? And if you still want $30, then we've got the county complex that's got dirt fields. So, going back to what Casey said, with
all these events coming in, they get grants. You you hear them all the time. And so a lot of those grants um the the event rights order would come in and ask for a grant for the rental that would go back to that. So we we took a snippet uh and the average across the board in the
state of Florida and smaller communities, not what you have in Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, whatever, but comparable communities uh very similar to what we have at the sports complex here. So, if you rent a um if you rent, you know, all of the fields, the entire sports complex for the
weekend, you're going to pay about 10 grand. Um if you're an outside event, if you're a local, you pay about a third of that. So, um in in essence, the TDC helps funds that that um as well. So, you can look over the span of, you know,
3540 weekends a year, you're starting to get to that half million uh number. That's not including the the thing that that Jason a lot of these facilities have naming rights to them. So you could call it the
um XYZ max long uh field. Each field could have a naming rights partner. So a lot of these complex around the country are also raising uh annual funds uh for naming rights of certain things. That all goes to help pay for that u annual.
You just you mentioned if you're from out of town it's set amount of dollars and if you're from in town it's a different amount. Would that are you speaking about Sebring youth baseball when you say in town like how would they be affected here or however that is set up. So I mean you
could set it up to where you know again the community owns it and the and the operator is working with the community to set that funding mechanism. So I think what we would do is you'd have to back your way into the key is how do we make the 720 really how it' be nice how
do you make 800 so you're you're pocketing some right but how do you make that 720 you back your way into that based on fees and everything like that and then you have to determine can you get there which we believe you can just with tourism stuff to where then do you
want because you have this unbelievable facility now what do you want to do with local and that's really a local decision that's not a decision for us to make. So, we would set effectively the local use days and fees and make that agreement with the operator so they know
these are the parameters you're working. Exactly. Right. Okay. There's always there's always two levers and I think I've explained this to TDC, right? There's there's a community use lever and there's a a sports tourism revenue level and they move in opposite directions, right? So, you as a city could say, "Hey, you know what? We're
going to spend this $9.5 million and we don't want any turns." Okay. Well, community use all the way up and revenue all the way down. Or you can do the opposite and say we don't want any community use, we want all tournaments and all revenue. And that goes in the other direction and then you got a lot
of mad people in town. And so the balance is somewhere in between. And so based on the financial modeling, we can tweak that model to say a little bit more here, a little bit less here to make the numbers work and to give enough community access.
What's the what's the life expect expectancy of of the turf? So, the best turf that's out there is a is a a product called Pivot Turf. It carries a 15year warranty, I believe, with a life expectancy of closer to 20
years. So, you would go through one full replacement cycle, but that's built into the P&L. And the ongoing maintenance of the turf is included in that correct figure. Yes. Okay. Um,
so there is a misconception you turf a field all your maintenance goes away. You don't have to do that's not true. You still got to broom it. You got to sweep it. But it's nothing compared to what you're doing now. And the increased playability on turf
versus dirt, right? The reason these tournaments get rained out or tournament organizers don't want to come if you have dirt fields because there's a chance it could get rained out. with turf, anybody that has travel, you know, it could rain at at 9 in the
morning and they're playing at 11. So you have this almost guaranteed playability fields that increases that number of weekends from 25 26 28 to 35 40 because it's it's better for these tournament
organizers. Have you found um sports tourism to be recession resistant? resistant. It's co resistant. I mean during co um those of you that have young kids, I
know with my I mean still going everywhere um you know took off for about a couple months trying to figure out what happened and then our state especially got right back in it. Okay. I guess that if we're looking at a 30-year life cycle of this, I just
wonder is there macroeconomic trends that we should be aware of or not? I'm assuming that with kids, with youth sports, it's less especially outdoor stuff. Um, indoor may be a tinge more of a risk because it's indoor, but with outdoor stuff,
everybody wants to be outdoors, right? So, you know, I think as we as we presented this to Lake earlier and then to the county this morning, I think Gosh, the cons the the risk that there is
is if we're back up here a year from now recommending the same thing or three years from now, some another community will do. They will put together um an alter nice facility, right? You
don't have to have the most fields to be the best. You have to have the best fields. And that's what max, right? It's not You know, near where I live is Lake Point outside of Atlanta, right? They've got 35 diamonds or something
up in Ohio Sports Complex. That's never going to be up. But to have alter fields, have great amenities, have good lights and wide concourses, safety net, all the things. Um that's where the
opportunity is. And you know again if we're here in two or three years recommending the same thing another smaller community will feed the punch and then you starting the the 9.5 number includes netting
lights concession everything. Do you have any idea how much just a turf replacement is? Uh about $300,000 for the the whole facility once it's done like in that 15 year mark. Right.
So if it's 300 now, it'll be 750. But typically we model at least 10% of uh 10% of revenue will go back into kind of a repair and replacement account. And
so again, ideally by the time you get to that 10, 12, 15 year mark, you're not going to replace all the turf at one time. You're going to start work. And so it's not going to be billion dollar
350,000 year. Got it. Different recommendations, right? Because each of those communities, right? You guys have a different the county and Lake Sports Complex is a
different set of assets, right? So for the county in the county, the concept is to purchase additional land behind the county sports complex and then develop
flat fields and add a couple more diamonds, right? So you can You can collaborate, right? You can do your own thing. Alan gave this great analogy earlier, right? You can now have
seven fields over there, eight fields at max, and four fields at at Lake June. They can each do their own things, but then you can come together where you need to and put the eight, nine, and 10 year olds over here and the 11 and 12
year olds here and older kids over here. Now, the the big organizers are really really interesting when you have you know a total inventory of 15 18 fields. Now the only downside and I haven't said
this all day. The only downside is we don't have currently enough hotel rooms to service and quality hotel rooms to service these massive events that Jason just described. you you go to four different
complexes and do all this, but by the time all of these get built, developers see what's going on. Those kinds of things happen. But when we have the Spartan race here, you know, and they bring 13,000 people into the area, people are staying all over the place.
Airbnbs are full, hotels are full. When we bring the big lacrosse event in, everything's full, people are staying in. So that's the only downside right right now. Currently, we don't have enough hotels to what Jason just described. We have plenty of hotels to service this,
but um when we're talking about 30 fields in different pockets right now, that's our that's our downside. But just max loan, what would be the the number of people impacting Sebring at event? I think there was a slider like it was
like 90,000 90,000 per year, right? But any one event, do you have any Well, you can do the backwards math, right? So we use a benchmark number of six six teams
per field. Okay. Per tournament, right? So with eight fields, 48 teams, 12 to 15 players on a team, two, right? You know, you
stay on average three days, two nights. You throw in some weekl long tournaments in the summertime and you can you can see how that exponentially starts to go up even when you don't include the county sports complex or buildings. Right. Right.
So on an operator model um you mentioned part of the reason is you know municipalities and governments suck at marketing and you know you said that it's well it's true. It's a different it's a different uh mission, right? Um is an operator typically incentivized on
their pay package to bring in their own events? Like is it is it like a commission structure? I mean, I'm just asking is that typical within with an operator. Yes. Um yes, is the short answer. But
I'll caveat that with you know it's all part of the operating, right? Because if you constrain operator by saying we want x number of weekends for youth. You're going to cap what their potential is. But typically they're going to operate
on a eight to six to 8% 10% of gross revenue is their management fee. But a lot of times they're incentivized uh if they generate profit above their uh projections, right? And so if they say, "Hey, you guys are going to profit
by $100,000 and you make $500,000 without any loss of community use time," then there's probably some trigger in there that they get 25%. Cool. Okay.
You like paying bonuses to them. That would be great. Any other questions? One more comment that I'll wait till everyone else speaks for a public. Okay, we'll open it up to a public hearing or to public comments. Go ahead.
Yep. Come on up. And reminder to please uh state your name for the record. Stakeholder Jim Black, historic Harter Hall Hotel and formerly Golf Resort.
What a Thank Fred Tucker and Maxon staff for really kicking things up in the past couple of years and Jason Allen and Casey for a wonderful presentation.
I see only one fly in the ointment and that has to do with the parking lot. As you know, my son and wife won their second historic uh prize in St. Pete uh
recently. They spent roughly $100 a square foot for abatement of drainage by having to go with underground vaults. We already
know that there is a bad drainage problem. Max law golf course flooding of the neighborhoods and the water goes to the two lakes. I'm wondering if this has been a
consideration. Yeah, I'll take that. So, I appreciate the question. I think good. Um, I think that is certainly a a concern. What we were tasked with with this part of the study is to show the different
municipalities where their opportunities lie with enhancing sports tourism, right? And so conceptually if city council is in support of this idea then I think to your point we go to the next step and we have a process for
doing that of what does that environmental survey look like? What does a you know a water retention plan look like? What does drainage look like? We weren't tasked with doing that to this level at this point, but I completely agree.
Those types of things in general would be studied as part of this pre-construction period and next phase of due diligence. Other public comments Hey, good evening everyone council. Thanks for seeing me. For the record,
Chris Hutchkins, res. Thank you for your presentation. I'm excited about what happens. Um, I have a a personal um concern around this project.
May or may not be aware that there is a disc golf course at the max Uh the image there showed a parking lot basically going over parking and we recognize that you know disc golf is not anywhere near as huge as baseball
but it is a growing sport. Baseball has has been relatively flat as far as growth where disc golf is growing 12% year over year in particular in the youth sector. It can be a wonderful
investment in the community and we are about to have our 10y year anniversary on January 25th next year of this and I believe it has cost the city nothing
and it has not generated any injuries problems. utilization of the park itself has deterred undesirable activities. Um, so I believe disc golf has a place
in the community and I'd like to see some consideration for that disc golf. Um, and then I have I have one question in particular about the project. Uh, you
mentioned that if we don't do this project Do you know if there is a community that is in this general region that is already such a a tremendous investment? a little bit daunting
to think that another facility could pop up. So, I think that's something we really need to look at. That's all I have for now. Thank you. Thank you, Jason and Allen. I imagine again this is
just a broad conceptual plan. We wanted to incorporate disc off that probably would be a way to do that once we get into the weeds. Yeah, we explained this to Lake the rendering the site plan that we showed is very it's beyond
do you mind coming up to the mic for the recording? Sorry. Um as as we explained to Lake Placid, the site plan the the rendering that we showed is is beyond 30,000 foot. I mean it's 50,000 foot. So, it's not going to show things that we may
ultimately include, especially after talking to the community, talking to the YMCA. Um, you know, things like, you know, it didn't show the lights, but there's going to be lights there. It didn't show a playground, but there will be playgrounds. It didn't, so it didn't show a lot of those things. A lot of the
other things that u from a community amenity standpoint are things like walking trails and, you know, uh, what we're talking fitness stations and different appropriate playgrounds in different spaces. Some communities have put in um splash pads or spray parks,
right, for when it's hot out. Um shade structures over top of the bleachers. You're not going to get that level of detail, right? We just wanted to kind of throw spaghetti at the wall and say broad rush. This is kind of what we're, you know, any other questions or comments from the
public office? Yeah. Sean youth baseball. I don't know if they have any input or the YMCA. If you do, I Dan, you have I know your associate doesn't have much speaking ability there, but
you have no nothing to add. Okay. Anything else from council? Question. Good evening everyone. For the record, Dimmit in CEO of the YMCA. Uh Casey and
I and Allan, we've uh been discussing about this project for the past two months. I want to say more or less. I think there's a big big um profit making this kind of course uh
complex over there. definitely could bring the level of what we're trying to do for the city in in the sports. Of course, like Alan said, it's like this is just the start. So, it's for for us technically the way it is right now, it
looks pretty good as long as it doesn't affect again what the YMCA is all about, which is helping the communities. And again, one of the biggest things that we have in our communities is sports. Right now, the YMCA technically hosts soccer, uh, um, flag football and basketball.
Soccer is the biggest one. We have around 600 kids every season and we have around now I added another season. So now we have third three seasons of soccer. So definitely the way the project is as long as it includes everything regarding everything that the YMCA provides to the community is is
good with us. Awesome. Thank you. Anyone else? Anything from council? Yeah, just one last comment. I don't know if this is premature. I mean, I love the idea conceptually, too. Um, the only thing I would ask or I'm more
curious about, too, is just the the relationship that we would have with the county. Um, I mean, I wouldn't want to see us necessarily compete if they have an interest in in the facility um by the high school and if we're going to do the a similar concept, too. So, I don't know wherever their interest is. Now, it's
worth a meeting or a workshop to to see the potential relationship and dynamic of if the city does it or the county does it and the best way that we can put our resources together, figure out what what's best for the county and the city as a whole. You want to make sure we're not cannibalizing each other. Exactly.
Okay. What um I mean, where do we go from here? Yeah, that's a good question. What are you expecting from us? Yeah. So, basically u we see these as a comp We don't think they're going to cannibalize. We're not going to have to make a decision whether to use one or the other. I think
they complement each other and allow us to host bigger events. At the county sports complex, we're talking more just about flat fields. So, not ball fields or anything like that. So, um it would be more primarily soccer, lacrossees, um
max long. Um, you could do a lot of those, but they would enhance each other to allow uh bigger events to come to the the city and the county. So, what would be our our next steps if we were interested in moving forward?
Yeah. So, like again, like we explained to late class, I think um you know, this isn't a voting item or anything, but uh you know, you guys certainly talk amongst yourselves. We've got I can send some stuff through Casey to whoever the
right person is, but uh we'll want to do a deeper dive before we get into true preconstruction. There's some uh you know, financial CFO type of questions. there will be some legal questions before we get into, you know, bringing
bulldozers, stuff like that. So, there's a little bit more of a um, you know, data analytic piece that will be more detailed that we could bring back to to council um, and can outline the pathway. You know, at this point, you guys are
going to need to vote on something. At this point, you're going to need to vote on something if that works for you. So, the 5,000 study got us this. So we're at 50,000 fee and then we need to drill down. So um we had a level of
interest like class today as well. Um so that I'm not sure what that looks like to current to continue engaging Jason services as a consultant. Um if TDC pays for all that or if the municipality is cautious over TC I'm not not sure what that would look like but I think right
you just need you just need our direction if we want to go. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I when we need to give some kind of direction we see, oh yeah, it looks great and then 12 months later it's stale, right? So if we like it, what what is the next
step? So I'll say I like it right now. We're already we spend a lot of money on that complex, right? And it does serve the community. That's the whole point. If we can spend even if we don't break even, if we spend less money or the same money and we have a significantly better flex,
that's a win. I'm I'm in favor. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a neat concept. I think probably what would help and help and I know it would help this guy next to me, but Jason, you said you have like a proform. This kind of explains the
financial side of it to where you can say we're going to do this lease for 720 and you're going to get maybe a profit, but if you don't, what are you what's going to happen? But I think you've got it kind of mapped out already. We talked before. Yes. that if you could provide that to city council also I think it'll kind of
give a better pathway it's a you know it's a great concept but to really grasp what it's going to cost and that's what we're going with now with you know max along with the golf course with several other items it's how do we do it and then when Dannis gets away with get does
away with adorum tax then we have a bigger issue so we need bigger tournaments so but if you can provide you know kind of your general performance that you had that you know shows expenses and kind of and I I don't know how deep it goes but outline how that the management process
is involved in that you know you got that angle I think that would help everybody number of tournaments and okay how much for parking and how much for game fees all okay it might warrant a zoom call and walk
through the whole worksheet but yeah yeah if we can provide we can and then you know arrange another call is the consensus. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Only other thing is yes just
Allan Casey I mean this has been in the works a long time. I know all the work the time and effort you put into it. Thank you. Thank you a lot. Thanks a lot. Yeah appreciate that. Okay we are going to move on to item number
10 F gear up. Mayor, council, staff, good evening, chief. For the record, I'd first foremost like to thank you for putting me immediately after the professional marketing team to present the multi-million dollar concept. Nothing like lowering the bar
for you this evening. You have item 10, a review of the current pay plan for the police department. As you're obviously familiar, the city of C passed the 4% cola this year, which was a very gracious gesture in the world of CPIs and the actual cost split that we had.
Unfortunately for us, our closest competitor, the Highlands County Sheriff's Office, passed a 10% raise in their step plan and all their associated personnel. Um, that has created quite the disparity between our starting pay and force associated steps in our pay
plan, respectively. It's about $3,385 per year to start at 6.51%. We have a number of options available. First and foremost, we can do nothing. I fear if we do nothing obviously is that we suffer considerable challenges with
recruiting, certainly with retention moving forward. Um, with that, I've asked finance to come up with some options. They are included in the AIS that's been provided at looking at perhaps meeting in the middle. Um,
increasing starting pay to 54,000, 545, and a close step at 55,000. The associated costs for each one of those are there. And the cost difference our starting pay and the sheriff's office's current starting pay would be there as
well. Um, an associated thought with this is this year in the budget development process, we also did a decompressed raise for the lieutenants and police commander because the police steps have increased. Um, this does not take that into consideration. However, with the vacancies we currently have, I
think I can absorb that with no problem if council decides to do something and not have an increased cost to what's been presented for it. We'll answer any questions you may have and certainly hope you have some thoughts and insight. Carla, just a question on this
attachment A as far as such salary differences with the sergeants. You have zero for F FRS. Is that because you're paying him $48,000 a year and he's got that's part of his retirement or it's just an associated benefit. Yes. Um
the my immediate thought is that all of the people Our sergeants are in the defined benefit pension plan, not in FRS. But I would have to rely on Jared for exact clarification with tax. Okay. But the $400,000 thing did sound good.
That's for one guy. Yes. So you're looking at me. You ready for me to start? So whenever Carl he he called to get my opinion on this just like I'm sure he did everybody else and it's my
understanding that the the sheriff's department move was in response to a neighboring county's move and they did not match that the our county did not match theirs and I kind of had the the thought that
maybe we should not match the county and what I don't want to happen is us getting this continuing bidding bidding war to where we we just we don't have the budget to compete with the sheriff's department and we get to a point where we say heck
we might as well just close our police department and go with the sheriff's department like Fon Park did. That's what I don't want to see happen. I don't either. I I do think there's balance somewhere, right? We have to be competitive because if we try to keep up with them, they're I mean they're gonna
Yeah. They're going to put us out of business. So was your concept to not to not do raise at all? No, no, no, no. The the lower I think that's an appropriate middle ground. I mean, we have to we got
to be close. Right. Right. Forund or you know hundred and something dollars a month, right? Which one are you talking about? 54,000 to Lowe's at a cost of 150,000. Yeah,
I'm I'm okay with that. I don't I see your point and I agree. I don't think we're ever something dramatically changes in our favor in budgeting going to be able to compete with a much larger department. Right. So, what you're saying is this is really Jud's fault. It all flows down.
I didn't even name the county. I just thought of neighbor and council. That's a position I made. So I I will share that that jurisdictions throughout the state are getting creative and that is that if they don't increase starting pay they offer an incredible hiring bonus or sign on bonus and that was a combination of what happened to our
north uh for 49 deputies. They increase their starting salary for all personnel and they offered a $20,000 hire. But this is one of the fastest growing counties in the whole country. Right. Plus one of the biggest counties. Correct. Well it was partly in response to a
surge in hiring from immigration and nationalization. The payment still $50,000. Okay. I mean, I'm I'm on board with How do you feel about that, Carl? You know, I obviously my wish would be
that we're as close as possible. Um I do agree there has to be some degree of compromise. There could be some degree of compromise where we get close enough if there is such a thing. As I shared, I believe, with each of you, if somebody's willing to the department over roughly $100 a month or $115 a month. There's
more to it than that. Now, I will say in some instances there is more to it than that. There's a $5,000 hiring bonus that goes with it. So, the first year out of the gate, there is a a much greater cost difference for them. Um, the sheriff's office has recently leveled the playing field. They will now bring our officers
in at their step 10. Previously, they limited it to step six. So, they are enticing officers to go to their agency. I have one in background with them right now. It's a nineyear corporal been with us for nine years. He has applied this one background with him and I recently
lost one to full county for that $20,000 hiring bonus. Um, truthfully, I think what's good enough will truly come down to each officer that might be looking to go or chasing money. The portability of FRS has certainly created a problem for us. But I if I had a a first choice,
obviously it would be 55,000. If I had a second, it would be 545. That's what my third choice would be. And and I I do want you to know we understand I've worked with Sergeant Lo, the union representative for our agency. I've worked with staff. We absolutely
understand the costs associated with this. The difficulty coming back to you after we just completed the budget and say, "Hey, we want more money." I think this is certainly a need ask, not a want, and we don't take I do agree with with you all. I don't
like it. I don't like it how it's feel like a zero sum game that we're all competing against each other and neighbor up north is competing to the guys on the coast and it's harder for us. But I feel like the to doing nothing is not the right answer. We want to make sure that best we can know that that you
and the team are appreciated and valued. And I would wish if we could just have a limited dollars to to compete at that high level. It's just not there. questions or comments from I I would anything from the public on this one
a motion I in the middle. I move to approve the U implementation of the new starting salary of $54,500. I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second
call, please. Yes, sir. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Stewart. Yes. Thanks, sir. So much. All right, moving on to item number 13A. city manager project for
good evening council. Uh before I get your um we had sorry. So um before I get your guidance on the RFP for the green municipal golf course, does anybody have any questions on any
other bullet points? Uh what's our timeline on RFP for the women's club? So, so the women's club RFP might be I've gotten some inquiries about whether
or not or maybe some not inquiries, but some requests that, you know, we finish the municipal golf course before we get into. Okay. So, after Yeah, I have a list
because some of the applicants that might apply for the RFP for women's club might also okay be applying for the RFP for the municipal golf course. Okay.
Okay. So, um, uh, Jamie, uh, along with Bob Swain, Fred, Penny have been working diligently on the RFP for the municipal golf course. Um, it is very near to being ready for publish publishing, but
I'm looking for guidance from council on whether or not you want it as a lease sale, lease sale. So we put it out as a, you know, either or or lease and sale.
So obviously doing that opens it up to probably more applications if you go do both. So lease and sale or lease and or sale. My opinion, I feel very strongly it
should be a lease longterm lease only because I think that's the only way for us to development of it. According to Bob, if it's a sale, no matter what we do after 21 years, it could be developed into something totally outside our control.
I agree. I agree with you both and I think just go with the original intent that it stays ownership within the city. So, I would not be in favor for anything other than lease. I think either or only because it good
value, good on it. We could look at a sale. So, I'd go with either or two open up if you're going to do an RP open up to everybody. I don't think we sell
uh property that belongs to the citizens of CR. I we hear a lot of comments and a lot of them are county people, not city people. And I just don't think we should sell a piece of property that belongs to the citizens.
You want to keep a losing asset for the rest of your life. You want to keep a losing asset for the rest of your cut off somebody that may cause it to be a losing. It may not be a losing asset later. I don't I view it's 135 acres that ever
we ever or the city you know I might be here for that long right but um it's an asset that we will never be able to replace and the price to replace that for 123 acres if we're going to try to buy that
somewhere else if it even exists for that kind of acreage right now within the city So I I hold the opinion to allow both options. If whatever the applicant wants
to include in their proposal, that's up to them and that will help us decide who we who we move forward with. I guess I guess I will I won't vote for anything that's a sale if it comes down to that. I won't either. I think you give an
option though out there to see what's out there. ought to be somebody may come in with a hell of a deal. So, what I'm hearing is we open it up fully and you'll make your decision later. I mean, I disagree. I mean, I I just
feel really strongly. This is probably the one of the most strong things I felt about being on council is not letting this piece of property go. I agree. Like, I unequivocally I don't care if someone offered us 1000 bucks to sell. I agree. No, it's going to offer that, but you
get the point. I'm getting you could develop max and make more money. Okay. Well, Scott, direction is lease proposal. Maybe we'll put in there's a preference for lease. How about that? If there's no chance you're selling it,
don't advertise it for a sale. Well, you have three you have three council members right now who are saying that they will not vote for a sale. It does feel like a waste of time to be put in the RP that you can enter in. As I said, I mean, opinions can change, but
you'll never know what what's out there unless you ask and that would include asking for vote. You didn't vote. Well, let's vote. Well, you need a motion. Probably should get a motion. I'll
entertain a motion. Make a motion that we put the RFP out as a lease. I'll second that. Motion a second. Oh, sorry. That's okay. Because this is a motion, we need to allow for public comment. Sorry. Any
public comment on this motion? Okay. Bishop, no. Yes. Avery, yes. No. Stewart, yes. Okay.
Thank you. All right. Last but not least, item number 14A. So move. Where you at? I actually vote on it today. So, I'll second it. All right. We have a motion in a second.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. As soon as we're completely it could be published as early as position. I heard your position at the last meeting. Yes, sir.
This this meeting is adjourned but we can talk later.