15th of 2025, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting. I'd like to uh call to order then the uh Parks Recreation Advisory Committee meeting. Rise for the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge allegiance 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. Uh, roll call, please.
Member Dykins. Roll call. Member Dykens. I'm sorry. Yes. Sorry. Member Stick. Member Gordon. Here. Chair Wise. Yes. We have a quorum. Thank you. Fantastic. All right. I guess the first uh item on
the agenda is the approval of the agenda. First of all, are there any additions from uh anybody? No, we're good. Okay. I have a motion. Good morning. Good morning. Liz, we're just going to make need a
motion to approve the agenda. Do you have any additions to the agenda by chance? I do not. Okay. Get a motion. Approval. A motion. Second. Okay. Fantastic. Um
any uh any audience comments before we start? Okay. All right. Uh the next is approval of the minutes from the last meeting we had which was May 27th. And uh need a motion from that, please.
I move. Second. Second. Okay. Fantastic. All in favor? All in favor? Thank you. Hi. Okay. All right. And I guess the the next item then is just items for discussion. Uh
the staff report from the 27th meeting. And then we got the posttorm report and work orders. All right. Good morning everybody. Um Jamie, if you could pull up the presentation, please. So, a couple of items that we've taken
away from the last meeting that we held. Um I'm put together a little PowerPoint that we can just go through some of the items. Uh what we're going to cover today are the powers and duties of the advisory committee, the parks and recreation budget, recovery efforts, and the board
moving forward. So the powers and duties were taken straight out of uh MUN code underneath the parks and recreation advisory committee. So I just want to touch base on a couple of things uh that this committee is here to advise on uh the
protection and enhancement and beautifification of city-owned property and rightway through all available means including landscaping and best management practices. the city recreational activities, including marketing strategies, revenue generation, expenditures, and
establishing partnerships with public and private entities to ensure the city's recreational needs are met in the most cost-effective and efficient manner. Various programs offered by the department and methods of improving these programs. Additionally, the recreation advisory committee shall make
recommendations for development of new recreational programs and activities to be offered to the people of the community and the protection and maintenance of the system of parks and recreation facilities throughout the city, including the community center complex, the Dawn Vista, the Warren
Webster, public right ofways, waterways, and anything that um will meet the needs of future residents, businesses, visitors, and tourists. So, our proposed budget, let's talk about that a little bit. Um, we have been meeting with our commission as well
as the budget and finance committee to go over the budgets for all city departments including parks and beaches which is now under the public services department as well as recreation and aquatics which is its own. So, this is a little bit small but this is our revenue
accounts. This has all been discussed with the budget and finance committee as well as presented to commission. Some areas to note are going to be our staffled programs which we are projecting for uh FY26 to be at about
192,000. Our special events taxable which will be our permit fees are about 12,411 for 26. Sport leagues. We're a little bit limited depending on what we do up at Egan. We do have one ball field
available, so we will be able to offer um Southwest Little League a space to play uh at Egan and Hurley. Our basketball leagues will not be taking place in the fall. Our gym is still down. So, some of our pool fees, our pool
admissions, we're looking at about 39,000. the pool staffled um instruction, which is kind of like your swim lessons, that's about 6,000. And then our instructor fees are at about $19,000 projected for FY26.
And you'll notice here our rentals. We have um community center rentals, $50,000. We are utilizing one building for all of our programming needs in the fall. So that's why that's a little bit less this year than it has been in uh previous years.
Were there any questions about any of the revenues? Yes. What are the donations? The donations in the past. Yeah. Prior page it was uh there's a 70,000 and a 30,000. Yeah. I'm 30 is okay. Yeah. 70,000 30,000. Go ahead.
In the past that's been like sponsorships. So uh community sponsorships. So, our community club in the past has donated to our uh our our uh what do you call it? Our um our summer camp program and that was
included in that donations. It's any kind of donations from the community. Okay. Is are so that is still an active group, the community club? Yes, that is to be determined right now. Yes. Did you have a contact there? We did and
we're still working through that. So, we've kept this in the budget for right now until we kind of know moving forward what that group is going to do. Okay. Hey, hey, Mandy. Sure. So, the 2025 budget was a little shy of 32 million, correct?
Yeah. Uh the 2025 budget. Yes. Okay. And we're looks like we're about 25 million almost, you know, halfway through the year. Is that historically what typically you see? I would say so. Um, this includes everything. These are all all revenue
sources, not just the recreation. Okay. Revenue sources. So, I mean, this is everything throughout the city, right? Um, but I would say about halfway through we're probably down because of the storms from the from what we're concerned at from this committee's perspective is a
little bit tracking. Is that we're tracking? Yeah, we track pretty pretty consistent right now of where we're at in the staffled programs. It says right now our a you know our actual is at 42,000. Well, we haven't taken into account all of the summer camp revenue that we've been bringing in. Okay. Just was curious. Thank you.
I have a question. How much do we charge for beach weddings? Beach wedding permits, uh, they vary depending on the size of the wedding and the location. So, I want to say it's anywhere from a $20 per $25 permit fee up to about a $250 permit fee depending
on the size and the locations. Have they ever talked about increasing that? We are doing a fee study right now for all of our fees. So, everything, our memberships, our classes, our uh summer camps, our afterchool programs, our aquatics classes, everything is
undergoing uh the fee study. So, all of these fees are included. We're actually meeting with that company this week, Thursday, to kind of give them some more information so that they can move forward with that project. So, here's a little uh glimpse at the parks maintenance,
what their expenses are projected for 2026, as well as our beach maintenance. These two divisions have now transferred over to public services. So getting into the recreation and aquatics, you'll notice that we are
proposing a decrease in our personnel. That is going to be due to an organizational change. So we're working through that. And then our budget we did reduce in certain areas.
So proposed was 1.7 million in 2025. 1.1 million is proposed for uh 2026. What kind of hit that? So what's the what's the impact of that going to be? The impact any idea? I mean obviously we lost a couple headcount or headcount etc. But
what's the impact to this to the community going to be for Well, right now we are still down a facility. So the gymnasium and the fitness room is down. We are working on getting a fitness room back up and running. Um once we do that, then we'll be able to collect some revenue again from fitness memberships, but right now
our impact is, you know, we're down a fitness room, we're down a gymnasium. That limits our pickle ball capabilities, it limits our basketball league, it limits our afterchool capabilities as far as the location. So, um we don't really foresee much of an
impact outside of that. Uh we have moved our classes down to the Warren Webster for the summer and we have the summer camp program that is utilizing the entire community center. Okay. Just trying to get my my head around maybe everybody else is in terms
of what this reduction in the budget's going to do to the overall quality of the services provided outside of the assuming FEMA is we're still working through all those issues to get the uh Jim on that. Um, we actually do plan on adding a couple of services that we
hadn't had in a while. So, we do plan on bringing back our senior excursions and we do plan on bringing back um some of our lunch and learns, right, that we're doing. So, we haven't really missed a beat as far as our programming at the community center. Still offering all the same classes. We're still
offering the after school. We're still after offering a summer camp program. The only impact is really going to be the fitness room and the pickle ball and the leagues that are within the gymnasium. Okay. Why isn't there a line item for insurance on 2026? I saw um
that's a big I think the insurance is part of that budget that has gone into one big category and it was shifted into probably the finance department because that's you know a primarily it's insurance for the whole buildings for
everything. There was a couple of different ones that a couple of different accounts that that happened to. So some of our IT has been moved over to the IT budget, that kind of thing. Fleet has been moved over to our fleet and facilities budget. So you
won't see those costs reflected in ours. So So the personnel component went over to uh uh was it operation side of the house? the personnel component stayed within our recreation budget, but it's in the
recreation portion of the recreation and aquatics. Okay, does that make sense? So, here is where we're at with aquatics. You'll see pool admissions. We're projecting a little bit less. Um, we are
going to, it's pretty much the same there. We are adding a couple of lifeguards, part-time lifeguards to accommodate the um, the increase that we've seen at the pool. And that's it for the aquatics.
Okay. So, here are our recovery efforts as far as our parks go. So, these are the key recovery milestones. In November, we did reopen the playgrounds at McKenna, Leo, and Vina. Upppam County Beach were also reopened. January, we've
got some mini parks that reopen throughout the city. Uh February, we started working on some of the landscaping at Heran Park. The landscaping replanting begins at parks and facilities in April. And then we were shoring up some of the
mini parks such as Sunset Park which is heavily utilized for fishing area for fishing activities. Um in May as well as complete the tennis court lighting project at Lazarillo Park. Uh June we did some stump grinding and July we've
replaced the buoys out in the waterway as well as we are working towards establishing timelines for building repairs and creating efficiencies within the work order system. So that's kind of where we're at with those. All right. So all of our maintenance reporting I just want to remind
everybody you know uh we are in a we do have a work order system that we use internally because of the shift in responsibilities and the change in personnel moving from one department to another. We are retraining everybody on the internal work order system. So right
now they're receiving their work orders through you know verbal they are getting emails or they'll get text messages of upcoming things that need to be h that need to happen. Um all priority based. We do want to remind the community that
if you do see something in a park or at a facility or in an open space your best bet and your most accurate reporting is going to be through clickfix. So put it through Cclick Fix then a work order will be generated and disseminated to staff.
I think I asked this last time but does everybody familiar with how that works? I mean is there some sort of campaign or when you go to the landing page? I've been on there numerous times on the permitting but I can't remember how people find this. When we originally rolled this program out there was it was heavily pushed.
It's something that we can probably look at reminding and adding to our homepage again of how to go about accessing it. It's it's an app that you'll download on your phone and then once you have it downloaded, it's a real simple process of going in, you snap a picture and then
you select which department you want it to go to. It might be a good idea because with all the stuff the last year it's been kind of chaotic. Chaotic. Yeah. Signage is good, too. So, if you have uh you could have a sign in the restroom or on the pavilion that says if
you absolutely just call or click on see click next. It's really easy. Little QR code to go ahead and automatically load it up. Go to the app on your phone. Won't make it easy for people. It's that simple. And they they do uh it's on the website. I see it when I'm on my Facebook feed for St. Pete Beach emails that I get.
So, they'll they're the website the IT people are constantly saying you see click fix. Yeah. Yeah. However, it's not perfect. So, sometimes they'll u click on something that they've attended to it or
aware of it, acknowledged it, but it may not get fixed and the followup required or the follow-up action that's going to be taken isn't indicated. So, if something is a goes from a quick fix to a long-term replacement or something,
it's not indicated. and that would be helpful. U plus uh the question for us since we're sort of inside the organization is who's in charge? Where does it go? Does it uh
does it show up on uh on the desk of the actual worker who's going to go out and do it, the person assigning them? Does it show up on your desk? Uh do do you get to see the the do you get to track the ones that are under your jurisdiction and watch them go through?
Uh you do. Um so having been in the operations manager position prior to this uh the cclick fix requests come in to the operations manager based on how we've set it up in the system. So if we know if it's a
streets issue, if somebody tags it as streets, it'll go to the operations manager responsible for streets, that person is then responsible for creating the internal work order for the guys in the field to go out and make the repairs. Once that has been verified that the repairs have been made, then
that operations manager should go back in, close it out through cclick fix, which then closes out the entire process. There's a lot of times too that if something gets coded and it isn't a city responsibility, it may be a county responsibility, we'll transfer that cclick fix request over to the county.
They may or may not close it out immediately and then assign their own work order system in there, too. So, it is flawed in some areas, but we're working towards streamlining all of the operations so that it goes that way and that it's accurate reporting. Once the staff and, you know, the frontline staff
have closed out their work order, it automatically closes out that cclick fix. But I love the idea of adding signs and QR codes. That would definitely make it a lot easier in these, you know, public spaces. So, people to notify.
Okay. So, moving forward, um what we are recommending as staff is these continue with these bianual meetings. Um continue continued to meet uh in May and November with the May meetings
primarily focused around budget programs and co-sponsored events. And then with the November meetings to talk about maintenance, amenities, facilities, and the ending FY26 budget. We'll do in this case FY25
budget in November so that we can kind of plan and forecast better for our May meeting of what we want to prioritize and that falls in line with the scope the current scope of this of this uh committee. So
I think that's all I have on my end. Do you all have any questions? I think I think last time I think the reason we're having this meeting today is the last time we all got together was I think I was the only one who was left over from the last regime per se, right?
Was what exactly did the committee does the committee do? because we got here we this here's the budget items and approvals we're looking for donation you know etc etc how do we how has we as a committee become more active in relative to the mission
okay and the vision of the committee so I know Liz you had some I know you kind of brought that up that what are the type of things we could be doing to be more engaged and I don't know if that's a discussion we want to have now or if anybody has
any ideas But um does everybody feel like the two meetings is enough? No. Okay. What? And what would you do on this? What would you want to do on those additional meetings? You know, I think um you know, things that the city um possibly has on the
agenda to improve upon um asking us if we have any opinion of of that. Um I know that Eganfield uh was a big topic. Um, and I think Mandy has maybe an update on that for us today.
Um, the um, and that's a concern that I have because I I live right there, you know, so that's uh, it's a it's pretty bad. You know, that was the FEMA dump site and you know, they're got approvals. I don't want to take the steam out of M Mandy, but uh, I think she's got an update for us on that. So,
that's that's making me happy. um that that park there is uh um highly visible, you know, from even outside people, people that come in and use the boat ramp. Um not so much the tennis court that's there or the basketball poop
that's there, but the the the boats, we get a lot of visitors in there and everybody that I come in there and if I'm out there talking or whatever, they just can't believe that the city is still like that. Um, Treasure Island got theirs all cleaned up months ago. It's
beautiful, you know, where their dump site was by Publix. Um, where ours is still really bad, you know. So, hopefully, uh, that's going to be fixed soon. That's what I have there. Any other comments?
No, they go ahead. Yes, sir. I don't really have um any thoughts. We talked last time about um there's a pending request with FEMA that the city had prepared and was
waiting on responses for for various uh damage perhaps reimbursements and things did. Now, some of those have to do with uh the gymnasium, fitness center, and and places like that, and perhaps even
the uh Passig Grill uh shuffle board building. I don't know what else to call that, but um is that accurate? Are those still pending? What's the status on those? Um I believe that we have received some insurance money from that from that. As far as the FEMA money, um I think we're
still working through the FEMA money portion of that. I'll let Francis Robelli kind of comment on that. Thank you. Um, so where we're at right now is we're we have received some insurance money. That update was provided to the commission I believe the
last meeting where we were showing them the claims that had been made and where we were on those claims. In particular to our facilities, we have received a full reimbursement on all the roof damage for all the the facilities. So
those are uh set to be replaced in the next few weeks. So we are trying to get ahead of we're not going to make it against before hurricane season, but um those should be repaired rather uh expeditiously now. And then we had about
$2.2 million in damage just in all of the facilities combined. So that includes the gym floor, the fac um the weight room, Webster, Warren Webster, all of our city facilities essentially receive some damage. We're still about a
half a million um apart between us and the insurance companies. So just like you all deal with your insurance companies um for homem claims, they're not any easier for commercial claims. So we are working through that and once we close that gap, that's what
we're working towards. then we will move forward with we've already moved forward with some of the repairs. But what I advised staff was don't get too far ahead out of it because whatever we spend is then out of the city coffers and I'm trying to protect our cash flow
and our and our savings to the extent I can for in preparation for this next storm season. So that's where we're at with those two. And since I'm already up here, if you'd give me some grace on commenting on meeting, I I did want to comment that I like having standing
meetings and Mandy and I had talked about, you know, what would be that cadence and what would be the topics you could expect, but with some of our other committee me committees, we're just we're recommending to meet as needed. So when there is an issue of advisory
nature, which I can think of one coming your way soon, is we're doing a rate study on all of the recreation offerings we have in the city. The city does subsidize those recreation fees right now through Avalorum. And so there will
be some policy discussion around, you know, what level of subsidy do you want to provide for swim services and gym services? and um you know do you prioritize youth and and senior programming over you know maybe the
working class that isn't on a fixed income and so those are those are kind of those deep policy community value discussions that we would appreciate your feedback and if you want what I need is some flexibility so as soon as we're ready Mandy would probably be able to give you a couple weeks notice to say
can we please schedule a meeting and get your advice I think I think that's what we're looking forward versus coming and having the reports just this is where we're at is getting in front of that being more proactive and more engaged. We got five individuals here. We're we're down
headcount anyhow. You do have some you know we got some repres representation for each district here and how how can you all take advantage of leveraging us? Absolutely. I it seems to me that we're we're stuck with formal meetings where we sit here and have a formal presentations and can ask questions and
answers, but we're not allowed to have at least that's what I read in all of the the uh information about you can't talk to anyone about anything or you're going to jail. And so it seems to me that and I know that's an exaggeration, but it seems to me that there there must
be some way to uh to be able to participate in or or at least be present for discussions of things like that that are ongoing without having to call a formal meeting. Is there are there other committees or is there any other way that this is handled or is it does
everything has to have to be in a formal meeting? They do. the sunshine laws would preclude us from doing that because you're having a you're going to have a discussion around a recommendation from a seated body in the governance
structure and so it can't happen without the majority of you present in a public forum but we can talk individually with you. Yes, you could meet individually. You can communicate with all of us. So
there's no decision-m going on. There's just sort of a communication going on. That's correct. So if that's something you're seeking, Mandy and I could work on. Well, one you one I want thing I wanted to mention is I hope you're receiving my CM ops weekly. We just changed our distribution format that all
committee members should be receiving it. I'm seeing Okay. So looking at each other, no, I don't believe so. Okay. So I'll correct that because that was my direction. And so that is really a comprehensive update of what what happened in the city that week. It
it's on the website as well. Okay. But we were pushing it out purposefully to seated board members because you're attending meetings and and you might you know you're more probably more interested in the daily activities of what's happening in the city. am
especially then you could raise something if you see an issue that you're interested in that you have advisory oversight you could talk to Mandy and discuss you know is that is that a topic we should call a meeting for and as we're
learning that cadence it's good for you to be giving that feedback on where do you want to be engaged what level and then how are those tracking back up to the commission and and whether or not this um board would like to make a formal recommendation. Perfect.
While she's at the podium, I've got some more questions for you. Okay. For both of you, actually. Um what uh uh what I've been watching, of course, you know, drive by every day and you see what's going on or, you know, go to the pool or whatever. And and uh Rand
Park has been receiving a massive amount of of uh work by several people. And there have been days that I drive by in the morning and there are two or three guys out there working it uh working the plants or trees or sprinkler system or
whatever and uh before the July 4th event uh tremendous amount of new work was done. Two new tall oak trees were planted. A lot of maintenance was done that hadn't been done in two years on uh on other trees. uh the uh it it's
looking good and getting a lot of attention and I suspect it's because the workers can just walk over there and work on it. But uh plus I think they're proud of it and it it is our flagship park and I I I like that. I think that's good. But these are probably also the
same people who are working on and responsible for all of our other parks. I'll call them our our named parks u for the u we have like five or six main parks in in the various districts and
what what I would like to ask you is what can we as a city and you as city staff do to spread that to other parks. And
that could either be through something that's a weekly visit or it could be a focus on this park this week or this month and and bring it up to uh uh the standards of
Horan Park so that all of our parks look good so that the sprinkler systems are working at all of them instead of just one. Uh the grass grows and looks good. We we uh we have the systems. We pay for them. We pay for the water. We pay for the
guys to mow them. And it's not it's not a stretch to say, "Hey, let's just make it look really good." So, what what can you and the city do to make that happen?
Well, I would say um that I think having you know I've talked to Camden about this and I think that the reason that they started with Heran Park is because it is the entryway into the city. So it's one of our major thoroughares. Um so we really wanted to make that park shine. We do most of our special events
out of that park. It is heavily utilized. So that was the priority park. Uh moving forward I think the plan is to go into all of our named parks. So, McKenna, Vina, um, her hurley and Egan,
Lazarillo, you know, all of our name parks, you know, they do they will take the time to go through and repair the irrigation systems. Uh, with that, that does cost some money. So, right now, like I said, they started with Heran, but I think that the plan is to
prioritize the remaining parks to get them done within the next few years to get it up. I'd like to see that plan when it's developed and I think everybody on the committee would like to see follow-ups on it. Uh, additionally, um,
with crews going, Ken said that they're reorganizing so that, uh, instead of just randomly go out and cutting and weeding or working on whatever, that they're going to organize groups to go together to a park. That's a great thing. And there may even be a supervisor there. That's an excellent
opportunity each time they go to do a full look around. It's not hard. I' I've done it. I showed up with pictures for you of things that you may not have been aware of and even the people in charge of fixing it may not be aware of. So,
that's something that I would encourage the um the staff to place as a responsibility. I mean, they they should be proud of their parks and and proud of what they're doing. And perhaps there could be a way of incentivizing uh
encouraging that. I can tell you that um there is a worker who is watching and taking care of a beautiful oak tree at uh is it Lazarillo, the one by the Donses area? Yes, that's Lazarillo. Yeah, at Lazarillo. And it it uh it is a
uh it's a great tree. It's replacing an old tree and someone's watching that and taking care of that. I want to grab him and hand him a Chick-fil-A card or something. I want to say, "Hey, you're doing great and what can we do to to spread this? We appreciate it." Uh so I
don't know if the city engages in in uh things like that, but um that's the kind of thing that I would donate for. say, "Hey, you you get um you're doing a great job and we appreciate it." I mentioned that tree because there there was a an oak tree planted at McKini and
um got no attention at all and promptly died. There was sod placed there and got no attention at all and promptly died. I even watered it some, but I'm not there every day. And so you see things like that and say, "What what can we do?" So I I would
encourage you to think about that. there. Uh I I don't want to go on, but then you can, you know, bring on uh bring up your thoughts, but I I would I would just like to see a way of of planning to do something like that. That's what I think an advisory parks
and recck board can do for you. And is there any way you can put it on the website so it's transparent? like here's the schedule so people know because I can't tell you how many people think we're in charge of the jetty and people are like when are they gonna fix
jetty and what's going on with the cell towers that they're putting on all the parks and I was like I don't think our committee really and they're like well it's parks and wreck you should have something and I think they look at us anything that happens at parks or the wreck centers or areas they come to us
first kind of like go to you first and then you take it to the commission. So I would like to see some help as like who should we call because I just tell them use cclick and they get frustrated and they're like I do it nothing happens. Is there any way we can we can't track
right and you know a few people are like I've done it six times for Cclick and nothing ever happens. So, how can we I mean, they don't expect it happen overnight, but where's the transparency where they can follow where they're like, "Okay, like you said, this month is VINA. So,
everybody, anything you see, we're going to consolidate everything and we're going to clear out all CC click and this whole month we're going to do everything we can to clean up this park." Um, but that's my question is now that you're here, what are we doing about the jetty
and what are we I'm sure you're inundated now with the cell tower situation, right? All of a sudden nobody knew about it and now it's in downtown Pass Girl. So, I don't know where the city stands on that, but just in the last two weeks, I've gotten so many calls about the cell towers in the
parks. What's next? I'm like, I know nothing about these cell towers. Okay, thank you. That was Let me address them one at a time first. Thank you for the feedback because this I think what I'm hearing at least on the surface right now is I at least have two major topics that we could schedule meetings with
you. One is park maintenance and that is a good area because we do have to prioritize for you all to prioritize for us and see what the cost is and see how how it cascades and how quickly we can turn to to make things better. but also be
advocates for for uh staff as they're working through the project. So, I will work to bring back a comprehensive presentation on what is the plan for park maintenance, how is staff prioritizing, and get your feedback. Um, that's really at the operational level.
So, I wouldn't need to take it to commission, but that it's not a bad idea to engage with this team who is going to tell us now you understand why Haran was before Egan or or why the next park might come before Egan because they have
reasons why they're doing things. And so, the more you understand, the more you can advocate to your constituents to say this is why this is happening. Uh, let's talk cell towers. Uh so the cell towers are a very
complex in the sense that it's hard to understand how we arrived here but the state really legislates how cell towers may be installed and local government have essentially been stripped of any local control on on
permitting uh charging for those permits as it's very limited. Uh the telecom comp companies have been very successful in their state lobbying efforts and have essentially I mean I I'll say it again
they've stripped us of local control. So they have by right can come in with very few um guidelines that we can impose. Some are um one that comes to mind is they have to meet a certain height of
the heights of current existing poles. So if the pole's already there and it's within a certain hundreds of feet and it's already a 100 foot pole, they they can install another 100 foot pole.
They're also colllocating. So if the pole is already there, um the telecom companies basically negotiate with Duke Energy is our main um provider of poles right now. Um so they will just colllocate on an existing pole by right.
So they have to come in and do you know an administerial permit with the city. We make sure it meets the the uh basic standards established by the state and it gets installed. So that has created quite a bit of a um discussion
within the community. We have put out some information about them. We've been working with in particular some residents that are impacted more so than others just because of the location to their residents. But essentially the city is complying with state law. That's the simple
answer. Um and should we tell people to contact their state representatives? Yes, they should contact our state representatives. City. Okay. Mhm. That's that's where the power is going to come is to to really contact your state representatives, write them,
and and talk about the impacts to the local. I haven't seen this one yet, but I've I've read about it on a Oh, yeah. social media platform. Um what about camouflaging these things? I mean, there's any way of making sure they're not as, you know, obtrusive or I'll follow up with you on that. I think
we have limited um feedback on how they look as well. Probably certain jurisdictions that try to make it seem like you don't even know they're there, right? versus and we can ask and on some of these installations we did um our state
representative Cheney was involved in talking to the uh the high executives and AT&T to try to see if we could if you know if they would honor our requests. Yeah.
Um we were not successful in some areas. I think they did move one to another area, but generally speaking, they have the right to to do what they have by by by state law.
So, I assume that's for the um Duke Energy, too, their polls because I mean, what an eyesore. What an eyesore. Right from the post office on down, you know, to uh
71st Avenue. It's horrible. I need to follow up on Duke because that's a different uh utility and I don't know off the top of my head the the guidelines. I do know that they have been interested in
undergrounding just in general where they're at right there. Right. It stopped because they ran out of money and at Paca 71st. Yeah. Yeah. is very expensive to underground.
I know. But oh my gosh, it looks so bad. I mean, I think too with the Duke polls, too, you know, we're seeing double poles right now because the old poles are still up. They haven't taken those down yet. So, once the old once the new poles are
energized, then they'll remove the old poles. So, it'll be significantly less. But I mean there's what eight foot wrap cables in a person's yard right now. Yes. Right. Right now. Yes. Around them right now. I mean it's been there for three years. Yes. So I think they're working on
closing that project out because we have had discussions about Christmas decorations and how we were going to figure that out with these old poles and the new poles and when they're getting energized. So I'm hoping that they're getting close to the finish line. I'm hearing November right now. So
yeah. And then Mandy, do you have any update on the jetty? I don't have an update on the jetty other than that they have closed the jetty right now. Um there are still people out there trying to fish, but I don't have an update, but we'll follow back up with Camden on that one. And I can give you the update now on Egan.
I'll let you know um that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, they've completed their review of the soil sampling. Um, and then the for everything over at Egan, the department determined that all debris has been removed and found no evidence of
pollutant release or contamination that will affect the moving on of the process of repairing the irrigation and then installing the bahayad that's going to go out there. Um, so the city's going to move forward with restoring the open space. will go out to bid to get um
quotes on that, but we're looking at repairing it right now with the irrigation repairs and the Bahaya grass and leaving it an open passive field. Is there an expected uh finish time like what they estimate uh it would be done?
Um no, we just know that the bids are gone out. So the deadline for bid submitts is going to be August 27th. So after that, I mean, I would say probably a year or two years depending on how the contract's written and who wins the bid. Oh, really? It could take that long after.
Yeah, it may be less. It just depends on who is awarded the bid. The uh Can we kind of clean up that area? I mean, as far as uh taking a bush hog out there and try and keep that the weeds and things down. I
mean, I've got pictures here that are atrocious. That's something that we'll address with the public services director and see if there couldn't be some kind of temporary remediation until we get this finalized. I'll do that. Anybody else?
I I had one comment since we are the recreation committee, right? Is whoever planned and hired that firm for the fireworks was personally was phenomenal. I mean that that rocked. I mean that was as good as it gets, Mandy. Yeah, they were good. They had that was
a good that was a good company. Avenue and it was just like wow. It kept going. I go you got to be kidding me. I kept thinking it was going to go and then Okay, great. You know, it was good. We had to start it a little early, but I mean it still it went off the rain though, too. Yeah, we missed the rain. It was a good show. So, I'm glad you all enjoyed it.
Thank you very much. All right. What else we got? Anything else? I think so. Do I need to get a motion to adjurnn or we just uh just adjourn? Next meeting. Uh next meeting is uh November. Everybody good with that? Yeah. Okay.
All right. Let's adjourn.